CREECA Lecture Series Podcast

"Since 1989 – Poland’s Democratic Experience" with Donald Pienkos, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: In 1989, Poland, thanks primarily to the efforts of the Solidarity movement, emerged from 44 years of Soviet domination to establish a new system of representative democratic government. Given its people’s extremely difficult situation at that time, coupled with Poland’s failed experience with democratic governance in the years after its national rebirth in 1918, few observers were hopeful about the chances for democratic governance after 1989. Why they were proven wrong, how Polish democracy has developed over the past three decades, and what we can learn from Poland’s experience – both from its successes and its challenges – are covered in this talk. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Donald Pienkos is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He has published extensively on Poland’s politics and was a founder of UW-Milwaukee’s programs in Russian and East European Studies and Polish Studies. In the 1990s he worked for Poland’s admission into NATO. A past president and national director in a number of academic bodies and organizations focused on Poland, including the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America and the Polish American Congress, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of Service from the President of Poland in 2010. He holds his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin (1971).

"Guns to Butter: Economic Perceptions and Policy Preferences in Russia" with Maria Snegovaya, Visiting Scholar at George Washington University and a postdoctoral scholar at the PPE program at Virginia Tech. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: Scholars on “rally ’round the flag” often argue that by invoking the danger of external threats in times of economic hardship, leaders can rally the public around the government in a way that would otherwise be impossible. Alternative streams of the literature suggest that a darkening economic reality (“butter”) may weaken the impact of patriotic euphoria (“guns”). Snegovaya conducted an experimental survey to measure changes in foreign policy preferences among respondents exposed to negative economic priors in Russia. In line with the earlier findings on this topic, this analysis shows that participants who encounter negative economic primes report significantly less support for assertive foreign policy narratives. In this lecture, Snegovaya will demonstrate how continuing economic strain may limit the Kremlin’s ability to divert public attention from internal problems through the use of assertive rhetoric. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Maria Snegovaya (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University and a postdoctoral scholar at the PPE program at Virginia Tech. She is a comparative politics, international relations, and statistical methods specialist. The key focus of her research is democratic backsliding in Eastern Europe, as well as Russia’s domestic and foreign policy. Her research results and analysis have appeared in policy and peer-reviewed journals, including West European Politics, Journal of Democracy, and Post-Soviet Affairs. Her research has been referenced in publications such as the New York Times, the Economist, and Foreign Policy. She is frequently invited to give talks at U.S. universities and think tanks.

"On Civilization’s Edge: A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World" with Kathyrn Ciancia, Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. LECTURE DESCRIPTION:As a resurgent Poland emerged at the end of World War I, an eclectic group of Polish border guards, state officials, military settlers, teachers, academics, urban planners, and health workers descended upon an eastern borderland province that was home to Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. Its aim was not simply to shore up state power in a place where Poles constituted a minority, but also to launch an ambitious civilizing mission that would transform a poor Russian imperial backwater into a region that was at once modern and Polish. By tracing how these men and women recast imperial hierarchies of civilization—in which Poles themselves were often viewed as uncivilized—within the borders of their nation-state, Kathryn Ciancia offers a new story of Polish nationalism that is both locally grounded and global in scope. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Kathryn Ciancia is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has taught since 2013. She holds a BA from Oxford University, an MA from University College-London, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her first book, On Civilization’s Edge: A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World, has just been published by Oxford University Press. She is now at work on a new book about the role of Poland’s global consular network in policing the boundaries of citizenship between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Cold War.

“Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: Revisiting the International Military Tribunal on its 75th Anniversary” with Francine Hirsch, University of Wisconsin – Madison. Please note that this CREECA Lecture was given as part of the Area Studies Lecture Series presented by the 2018-2021 U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies grant recipients for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

"Toxic Crimes Project: Legal Activism Against Environmental Destruction in the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine" with Dr. Freek van der Vet, Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: War often destroys the environment – either directly when armies poison foliage as a military strategy or indirectly, when toxins leak from bombed industrial sites. In the “Toxic Crimes Project,” we examine how rights advocates—lawyers, experts, and activists—protect the environment from wartime environmental destruction, how they promote the idea that the environment has legally enforceable rights, and how they expand international legal mechanisms (at the ICC and ILC) to protect the environment during war. In this lecture, Van der Vet presents case studies from the project. Based on several pilot-interviews with lawyers and NGO activists, the lecture examines legal activism against environmental destruction during the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine is one of Europe’s most heavily industrialized areas. Before the conflict broke out, the region already coped with heavy pollution from its industry and coal sector. Some of these heavy industry sites have been unstable or fraught with safety issues. Many of these industrial sites in the Donbas region are located in the immediate vicinity of the front line of the conflict. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has damaged many of these sites, for instance the Zasyadko coal mine and the Lysychyansk oil refinery, polluting the air and contaminating water supplies, and, as a result, damaging human health and ecosystems for years to come. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Dr. Freek van der Vet is a University Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki Finland. Van der Vet’s research interests include international litigation at human rights courts, legal mobilization under authoritarianism, and environmental destruction during war. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) of “Toxic Crimes Project: Legal Activism against Wartime Environmental Destruction” (funded by Kone Foundation and Academy of Finland); a research group investigating how lawyers and experts seek accountability for wartime environmental destruction. In his previous projects, he worked on legal mobilization against disinformation and trolling in Russia, the legal defense of treason suspects and NGOs in Russia, and litigation at the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of victims from the Chechen conflicts. He is a member and co-founder of ActInCourts (Activists in International Courts; funded by SSHRC, Canada), a network of scholars and human rights practitioners working on regional human rights courts. His academic work has appeared in Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Europe-Asia Studies, The International Journal of Human Rights, Social & Legal Studies, Human Rights Review, Review of Central and East European Law, among others. He completed visiting fellowships at the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark).

This podcast is a recording of the CESSI Virtual Alumni Panel which took place on October 24. Featured Alumni were Kiiyha Gray, Katka Showers-Curtis, Stu McLaughlin, and Matt Brown. The first part of the panel is a brief introduction to CESSI while the second part is a Q&A with our panelists.

"Perestroika's Dark Side: Nationalism, Racism and Crisis on Moscow Streets at the End of the Soviet Union" with Jeff Sahadeo, Professor at Carleton University. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: Migration from the Soviet South (Caucasus and Central Asia) to the capital, Moscow, dramatically increased in the 1980s. Newcomers sought to take advantage of top-quality education, professional opportunities and to trade as economic conditions in their homelands grew more challenging. Street traders from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere, whose fruit and flowers fetched much higher prices than they might at home, came to symbolize a changing Soviet Union for Moscow’s residents. Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to bring openness (glasnost) and economic restructuring (perestroika) to the USSR brought initial enthusiasm to Soviet citizens, who hoped for increased social mobility and economic opportunity. As reforms faltered, however, as prices rose and shortages appeared in the planned economy, the goods and services provided by these Soviet southerners became at once more important and more resented by Moscow’s Slavic majority. Nationalist and racist ideas, percolating under the surface alongside increased south-north movement, burst into the open in the late 1980s and changed life plans of many of these southern migrants. Based on oral histories of the time, this presentation reveals connections between mobility, nationalism and racism in Moscow and across the USSR. By 1990, when hope for progress ebbed, the Soviet maxim of the Friendship of the Peoples evaporated and migrants no longer considered Moscow “their” capital. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Jeff Sahadeo is a Professor at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Department of Political Science. His presentation is drawn from his recent book, Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow (Cornell University Press, 2019). Professor Sahadeo is also the author of Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865-1923 and the co-editor of Everyday Life in Central Asia, Past and Present. His current research examines the intersection between nature and society through a study of rivers in tsarist and Soviet Georgia

"A Small State on the Global Scene: Bulgaria’s ‘Developing World’ in the 1970s" with Theodora Dragostinova, Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: In the 1970s, officials and intellectuals in communist Bulgaria launched an ambitious program of international cultural outreach. Paris, Vienna, London, Munich, and New York City all hosted spectacular exhibitions of Bulgarian ancient treasures and medieval icons, but Bulgarian cultural ambassadors also sponsored concerts, film showings, and book readings in regional centers and rural areas throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Focusing on Bulgarian cultural events in India, Mexico, and Nigeria, this talk highlights the role of culture in a small state’s foreign policy choices. By interrogating the unique notions of development that emerged out of these encounters, it explores the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the later years of the Cold War. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Theodora Dragostinova is an Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. Her work focuses on nationalism, migration, global history, and Cold War culture. She is the author of Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks in Bulgaria, 1900-1949 (Cornell UP, 2011) and the co-editor of Beyond Mosque, Church, and State: Alternative Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans (CEU Press, 2016). Her newest book, The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press in 2021.

"Putin's Constitutional Amendments - 2020" with Ekaterina Mishina, Independent Legal Scholar. LECTURE DESCRIPTION: At his 2020 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed substantial amendments to the Russian constitution. The proposed referendum would allow Putin to serve as the President until 2036, give the Russian Constitutional Court the power to nullify international tribunals' decisions, and make gay marriage unconstitutional. In July, the referendum was passed by a– contested– national popular vote. This talk will address the 2020 amendments to the Russian Constitution, the procedure of approval, and explain how these changes affect all branches of power and further strengthen the President's role. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Ekaterina Mishina is an independent legal scholar. She received a B.A. and M.A. in Jurisprudence from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, graduating in with the highest honours in 1987. Dr. Mishina holds a Ph.D. in Jurisprudence from the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1992). Selected positions held: Principal Advisor to the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of the RF (1995 – 1997) Deputy Director, Legal Advisor ( “Legal Culture” project of the Russian Foundation of Legal Reforms (1997 -1999), head of the Legal Department of “MOSTELECOM” JSC (1999-2002), advisor to the Chairman of the Foundation for Development of Parliamentarism in Russia ( 2002-2005), Deputy Director of the Institute of Legal Studies, the National Research University –Higher School of Economics (2005 – 2011). Associate Professor, Department of Constitutional law, Faculty of Law of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics (2005 – 2014). Visiting Professor at the Law School (2012-2013) and the Department of Political Science (2014 – 2016) of the University of Michigan. Image credits: Putin’s 2020 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly [“File:2020 Putin Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly (12).jpg” by kremlin.ru is licensed under CC BY 4.0]

“The Fall of Europe’s Last Dictator” with Yuliya Brel of the Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research at the University of Delaware LECTURE DESCRIPTION: Belarusian citizens elected their first president in 1994. Within the next 26 years, A. Lukashenko ran for the presidency five more times. With the exception of the first presidential election, the outcomes of all other consecutive elections were invariably disputed by the opposition and deemed undemocratic and rigged by the European community and the USA. Since 2006, presidential elections have been routinely followed by opposition rallies and protests as well as subsequent crackdowns on the protests and mass arrests of the protesters by the riot police. Every time, after the suppression of the protests, the situation would normalize, and Lukashenko would continue ruling the country without much threat to his personal power. However, the situation that arose in Belarus right before and after the latest presidential election of August 9, 2020, turned out to be completely unique. The scale and duration of mass protests against the rigged election (Lukashenko announced himself the winner with over 80% of votes for the sixth time) have been unprecedented. At the same time, the scale of repressions on the part of the state, and the brutality, cruelty, and downright sadism of the riot police have been unprecedented, too. This presentation analyzes how and why the first democratically elected Belarusian president became a dictator. It also offers a tentative explanation of changes that took place in Belarusian society and led to the current confrontation between Lukashenko and the people of Belarus. The presentation concludes with possible implications of the confrontation for the future of Belarus. SPEAKER DESCRIPTION: Yuliya Brel is an assistant policy scientist at the Center for Applied Demography and Survey Research at the University of Delaware. She holds Master’s and PhD degrees in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware, and a Master’s degree in linguistics from Minsk State Linguistic University in Belarus. Her research interests concentrate on the problems of transition from authoritarianism to democracy in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and the former Soviet republics, and on why some of them fail to democratize. She also studies, modern dictatorships, democratic governance, and the role of civil society in the process of transition to democracy and its subsequent consolidation. Additionally, her research focuses on the modern nation-building in post-communist states and on whether the strength/weakness of national consciousness, alongside other factors, played a role in the divergent outcomes of the process of democratization in CEE countries. Finally, she inquires into social policy, for example, language policy and how it may affect minority language speaking communities, or utilities and housing sector policy and the reasons for its ill success in some authoritarian states.