Victory Day: Ethnographies of Post-Soviet Commemoration

How do people in different countries and cities celebrate the Soviet victory in the Second World War? And what is the role of Soviet war memorials in these celebrations? 

On 9 May 2013, a team of sociologists, historians, and anthropologists simultaneously observed the celebrations, and interviewed participants, in a wide range of locations in the former Soviet Union and beyond, from Berlin to Grozny and from Sofia to Saint Petersburg and Sortavala. In the inaugural session of the new PoSoCoMeS seminar series, members of the team will discuss their observations in conversation with Karen Petrone, Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and author of Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (2000), and The Great War in Russian Memory (2011).

The discussion is based on the Russian-language book Pamiatnik i prazdnik: etnografiia Dnia Pobedy (Monument and Celebration: Ethnographies of Victory Day), published in late 2020, that documents the project.

This event will take place in English.

Participants:

Karen Petrone, Professor of History, University of Kentucky

Mischa Gabowitsch, senior researcher, Einstein Forum, Potsdam, editor of the book

Olga Davydova-Minguet, Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland

François-Xavier Nérard, Associate Professor of Contemporary History, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris

Lien vers l’enregistrement du séminaire : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR1IaEtL8p8