Soviet Internationalism at Home and Abroad

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel investigates the relationship between domestic and foreign forms of Soviet internationalism. In particular, it examines the influence that Soviet foreign relations had on the USSR’s domestic policy in the postwar period, especially in the non-Russian republics. Masha Kirasirova considers the impact of Soviet hydroelectrical projects in Egypt on hydroelectrical research and development in Uzbekistan. Siobhan Hearne examines the role the Soviet Red Cross played in healthcare in the USSR, and how its foreign mission was promoted to Soviet audiences. Rachel Applebaum focuses on how the Soviet government’s campaigns to promote Russian abroad, as a “world language” shaped efforts to push Russian fluency among non-native speakers at home, particularly in Latvia and Estonia.

Sub Unit

• History: 1945-1990

Chair

• Erin Hutchinson, U of Colorado at Boulder

Papers

• Soviet Hydrology between the Uzbek SSR and Egypt: From Marxist Political Economy to Scientific Geo-Engineering - Masha Kirasirova, New York U Abu Dhabi (UAE)

• Humanitarians Without Borders: The Soviet Red Cross and the Making of an International Community. - Siobhan Hearne, U of Manchester (UK)

• 'The Planet Is Speaking Russian': Russian Language Politics Abroad and at Home in the Brezhnev Years - Rachel Applebaum, Tufts U

Discussant

• Anna Whittington, U of Michigan