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Everyday Life in the "Soviet West": Individual and Collective Agency in the Estonian SSSR

Thu, November 20, 1:00 to 2:45pm EST (1:00 to 2:45pm EST), -

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

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.

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