Reimagining Soviet Georgia

• Episode 61: Far-Right Nationalism, Memory Politics and Ukraine with Per Rudling

  On today’s episode we explore the role of the historical Ukrainian far-right, specifically the Nazi-collaborationist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, in the development of post-Soviet Ukraine’s national memory regime. In particular we address a paradox - how did these far right political formations and their historical narratives, despite limited and regionally specific popularity, assume disproportionate influence on Ukraine’s post-Soviet national-memory regime since 1991? What role did the far right nationalist diaspora play? And how do the Russia-Ukraine War as well as the broader normalization of ethno-nationalism in politics and academia reinforce far right memory politics?Our guest today is historian Per Rudling. As a basis for discussion we read his recent article“Repatriating An Edifying Past: The Diaspora Ukrainian Authoritarian Right and Power Over Memory, 1991–2021”Article description:The recent history of the Ukrainian authoritarian far right is one of paradoxes. If one looks at the polls, it has performed poorly; its modest successes have been regional and short-lived. On the other hand, it has been highly successful in terms of shaping memory politics in the country. It has had a disproportional influence on history writing, having invested significant efforts into building an effective structure in the field of memory management. Radical nationalists have also come to staff senior positions as deans and vice chancellors at Ukraine’s top universities, the ministry of education, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP), and the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service (HDA SBU). The hard right has gained a disproportionate influence on “soft issues” of identity and the shaping of “national memory” – not only by running the governmental memory institutes, but also by hands-on drafting of memory laws outlawing “disrespect” for the OUN, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and other historical far-right groups. This study seeks to trace and contextualize the repatriation of the ethnonationalist hard right from emigration and its role in shaping an infrastructure of memory production – in particular, under presidents Yushchenko (2005–2010) and Poroshenko (2014–2019).Per Rudling is associate professor of History at Lund University and author of Tarnished Heroes: The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in the Memory Politics of Post-Soviet Ukraine (2024) and The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism 1906-1931 (2014)

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• Episode 60: Soviet Development Assistance to Ghana, Guinea and Mali 1955-1968 with Alessandro Iandolo

  During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union began a new era of political engagement with the global south. One feature was development assistance. The Soviet Union embodied, offered and inspired an alternative approach to development, industrialization and modernization across the global south. Countries such as Ghana, Guinea and Mali in the 1950s-60s were governed by nationalists, not Marxists or Communists, and were newly independent from European imperial-colonial control.Soviet specialists assessed the difficult conditions of these post-colonial countries as opening a path for “non-capitalist” development: state led modernization. As opposed to a Western promoted primacy of markets and individuals, “non-capitalist” development would ensure sovereignty and economic growth by shielding against French or British neo-colonial exploitation, improving living standards, empowering the state and strengthening political ties with the socialist world.To discuss all this and more, we welcome historian Alessandro Iandolo, author of the book Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea and Mali 1955-1968Book description:In Arrested Development, Alessandro Iandolo examines the USSR’s role in West Africa during the 1950s and 1960s as an aid donor, trade partner, and political model for newly independent Ghana, Guinea, and Mali.With a strong economy in the 1950s, the USSR expanded its global outreach, supporting economic development in post-colonial Africa and Asia. Many nations saw the Soviet model as a path to political and economic independence. Drawing on extensive Russian and West African archival research, Iandolo explores Soviet ideas, sponsored projects, and their lasting impact.Soviet specialists worked alongside West African colleagues to design ambitious development plans, build infrastructure, establish collective farms, survey mineral resources, and manage banking and trade. These collaborations—and the tensions they created—shed light on how Soviet and West African visions of development intersected. Arrested Development positions the USSR as a key player in twentieth-century economic history, reshaping global approaches to modernization.Alessandro Iandolo is Lecturer in Soviet and Post-Soviet History at University College London.The episode art is a 1960 poster from the Georgian SSR by Giorgi Pirtskhalava that reads: კოლონიზატორებო გაეთრიეთ! - Colonizers, get out!

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• Episode 59: The Soviet Red Cross, Socialist Humanitarianism and India with Severyan Dyakonov

  In the 1950s, the Soviet Red Cross gained positions in the governing bodies of the International League of the Red Cross, supported by newly established Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in the decolonizing world. Seeking to shape public opinion abroad, it established medical and research facilities in Algeria, Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Cambodia. The Soviet Red Cross also had a presence in India, where Soviet doctors practiced medicine, published research in Indian journals, and trained future Indian doctors. Notably, most Soviet doctors were women, an unprecedented phenomenon in the 1950s. The USSR sought to redefine humanitarianism, shifting it from a Western concept of philanthropy to socialist development aid, effectively equating humanitarianism with socialism.On today’s episode we discuss the ins and outs of the Soviet Red Cross, its mission in India between 1953-1964, and the relationship between socialist humanitarianism and medicine in the Cold War with Severyan Dyakonov.Check out Severyan’s article - “Resilience, Perseverance, and Sense of Diplomacy:” The Soviet Red Cross in India, 1954–1963https://www.academia.edu/130335796/The_Soviet_Red_Cross_in_India_1954_1963_DYAKONOVSeveryanSeveryan Dyakonov is a historian specializing in Soviet foreign policy and socialist internationalism in the decolonizing world. His research explores the influence of socialist ideology on development programs in Asia and Africa, and its long-term legacies—many of which remain underacknowledged due to Cold War-era narratives. He is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada), currently investigating the international activities of the Soviet Red Cross and also serves as an Associate at the Center for Digital Humanities at the Geneva Graduate Institute, contributing to the mapping and digitization of Red Cross–related archival materials.

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• Episode 58: Socialist Feminism in Post-WW2 East Central Europe with Adela Hîncu

  We sit down with Adela Hîncu, historian and editor of the volume Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century (2024) to discuss feminist thought in post World War 2 socialist East Central Europe.Book description:A compendium of one hundred sources, preceded by a short author’s bio and an introduction, this volume offers an English language selection of the most representative texts on feminism and women’s rights from East Central Europe between the end of the Second World War and the early 1990s. While communist era is the primary focus, the interwar years and the post-1989 transition period also receive attention. All texts are new translations from the original.The book is organised around themes instead of countries; the similarities and differences between nations are nevertheless pointed out. The editors consider women not only in their local context, but also in conjunction with other systems of thought—including shared agendas with socialism, liberalism, nationalism, and even eugenics.The choice of texts seeks to demonstrate how feminism as political thought was shaped and organised in the region. They vary in type and format from political treatises, philosophy to literary works, even films and the visual arts, with the necessary inclusion of the personal and the private. Women’s political rights, right to education, their role in nation-building, women, and war (and especially women and peace) are part of the anthology, alongside the gendered division of labour, violence against women, the body, and reproduction.https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789633864548/texts-and-contexts-from-the-history-of-feminism-and-womens-rightsopen access pdf: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/98220/9789633864548.pdfAdela Hîncu is an intellectual historian who focuses on the history of social sciences, Marxist social theory, and women’s political thought in Romania and East Central Europe after the Second World War. Currently a Marie Curie fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana, she researches the transnational history of social expertize from Eastern Europe from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

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• Episode 57: A Global History of Greek Communism with Nikos Marantzidis

  On today’s episode we discuss how international and regional communist parties and actors influenced the political development of the Greek Communist Party between 1918-1956, with a special focus on the Soviet Union and the Balkans. Our guest Nikos Marantzidis published his book Under Stalin’s Shadow: A Global History of Greek Communism in 2023.Book description:Under Stalin's Shadow examines the history of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) from 1918 to 1956, showing how closely national Communism was related to international developments. The history of the KKE reveals the role of Moscow in the various Communist parties of Southeastern Europe, as Nikos Marantzidis shows that Communism's international institutions (Moscow Center, Comintern, Balkan Communist Federation, Cominform, and sister parties in the Balkans) were not merely external factors influencing orientation and policy choices.Based on research from published and unpublished archival documents located in Greece, Russia, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Balkan countries, Under Stalin's Shadow traces the KKE movement's interactions with fraternal parties in neighboring states and with their acknowledged supreme mentors in Stalin's Soviet Russia. Marantzidis reveals how, because the boundaries between the national and international in the Communist world were not clearly drawn, international institutions, geopolitical soviet interests, and sister parties' strategies shaped in fundamental ways the KKE's leadership, its character and decision making as a party, and the way of life of its followers over the years.Nikos Marantzidis is Professor of Political Science in the Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies Department at the University of Macedonia and Visiting Professor at Charles University in Prague. He has published extensively on Greek and European Communism and Greek civil war history

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