Search
In-Person Program Calendar
Browse By Day
Browse By Time
Browse By Person
Browse By Category
Browse By Session Type
Browse By Affiliate Organization
Browse by Featured Sessions
Browse Spotlight on Central Asian Studies
Drop-in Help Desk
Search Tips
Sponsors
About ASEEES
Code of Conduct Policy
Personal Schedule
Change Preferences / Time Zone
Sign In
Session Submission Type: Roundtable
This roundtable will present the agenda of a new research project on everyday life in Soviet Estonia, funded by the Estonian Research Council. Despite extensive scholarship on Estonia’s Soviet past, the lived experiences of its inhabitants—including non-Estonian minorities—remain underexplored. This project reassesses everyday practices in an illiberal society during the “stabilized” Soviet years (1960s–1970s), examining individual and collective agency in the contact zones of labor, education, culture, and leisure, with particular attention to ethnicity, generation, and gender.
Roundtable participants will discuss their initial findings and key research challenges. Topics include the principle of “Communist morality” as a guideline for Soviet Estonian citizens (Karsten Brüggemann), individual agency in the collective of the Kirov kolkhoz (Airi Uuna), political education in the local Estonian and Russian-language schools (Timur Guzairov), and the identity landscape of the first post-Stalinist generation of Soviet Estonian university students (Kristo Nurmis). William Risch will make some critical observations and start the discussion with the audience.