CAUCASUS INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL (CISS)

8th – 12th July, 2013

The deadline for application is Monday, May 20th, 2013.

http://events.unitn.it/en/ciss2013

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, the region of Southern Caucasus has experienced a difficult transition towards constitutional rule of law and democracy, as dramatically represented by the occurrence of armed conflicts.

Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia committed themselves to liberal democratic principles and became members of the Council of Europe, but the results of their transition processes are still uneven. The strengthening of democratic institutions is challenged by many issues, including the permanence of de facto independent states as well as the presence of one million displaced people as results of the wars of the early 1990s.

Understanding the Caucasus today is of crucial interest to students of democratic transition, conflict transformation, international law and minorities’ rights. Students of international relations can approach an area around which gravitate the interests of the EU as well as of regional powers such as Russia, Turkey and Iran. Students of Caucasian studies have the opportunity to discuss their research with world leading regional experts.

The Caucasus International Summer School constitutes a unique opportunity for approaching, with high level international scholars from various disciplines, what makes the South Caucasus a priority in contemporary international studies. Not the least, the summer school takes place in the relaxed atmosphere of the Italian Alps surrounded by amazing mountain landscapes.

The Faculty is composed of leading scholars in Caucasian studies with high level scientific achievements and a wide personal experience on the field. The Faculty is invited to offer assistance to to participants’ research projects.

Leyla Alieva – president of the Center for National and International Studies (CNIS), Baku, Azerbaijan
Helge Blakkisrud – head of the Department of Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Oslo
Thomas de Waal – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC
Aldo Ferrari – University of Venice and Vice-President of ASIAC
Sabine Freizer – director of the Europe Programme, International Crisis Group, Istanbul
Richard Giragosian – director Regional Studies Center (RSC) Yerevan, Armenia
Mikayel Hovhannisyan – Eurasia Partnership Foundation, Yerevan, Armenia
Marina Muskhelishvili – Center for Social Sciences (CSS), Tbilisi, Georgia
Ghia Nodia – director of the International School of Caucasus Studies at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
Natalie Sabanadze – Office of the Legal Advisor, OSCE/HCNM
Jonathan Wheatley – Zentrum für Demokratie, Aarau

Secretariat
Via Verdi 53 – 38122 Trento (Italy)
Fax 0461 281874
e-mail: ciss@unitn.it

Cold War International History Project “e-Dossiers” present new and important accessions to the CWIHP Digital Archive. New documents are added to the Digital Archive and introduced by leading scholars of Cold War history, who provide background and context for this new archival evidence. The views expressed in these introductions are the authors’ own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Cold War International History Project. The e-Dossier series is made possible by generous support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation.

e-Dossier No. 39 – Poland and Romania: The Loyal Republic and the Maverick
By Adam Burakowski

This is a selection of the most interesting documents produced by the Embassy of the Polish People’s Republic in Bucharest from 1968 to 1977. The first date is a watershed, as in 1968, due to the developments in Czechoslovakia and the position of the Romanian leadership on the events, the Embassy greatly intensified its activity and began to prepare more detailed reports. The year 1977, on the other side, is important because of the internal collapse in Romania, exacerbated by a giant earthquake in Bucharest, the emergence of an organized democratic opposition and the mass strikes of miners in the Jiu Valley.

e-Dossier No. 38 – Romania Security Policy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
By Larry Watts
CWIHP is pleased to announce the release of ten new documents translated into English for the first time. Larry L. Watts introduces the documents and explains how the Cuban Missile Crisis was critical in reorienting Romanian foreign and security policies in a manner that caused significant shifts in the nature of the Cold War regionally and globally.

e-Dossier No. 37 – KGB/Stasi Cooperation
Walter Süß and Douglas Selvage
CWIHP is pleased to announce the addition of 9 new document to its online Digital Archive. Released in cooperation with the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records, the new translations feature meetings between the highest levels of the Stasi and the KGB.

Marcello Garzaniti

Gli slavi. Storia, culture e lingue dalle origini ai nostri giorni

Il volume presenta la storia culturale degli slavi, evidenziando sia le forze centrifughe che hanno portato alla formazione del più cospicuo numero di popoli che un’etnia europea abbia prodotto, sia gli sviluppi culturali del mondo slavo nei suoi diversi orientamenti verso l’Occidente latino e l’Oriente bizantino. Dopo una breve illustrazione della realtà contemporanea, si descrivono le comuni origini, seguendo le vicende degli slavi attraverso quel secolare processo di acculturazione che li ha elevati fra i protagonisti della storia degli ultimi due secoli. Il testo, arricchito da una serie di approfondimenti a cura di studiosi di diverse aree e competenze, offre una sintesi destinata a quanti studiano l’Europa orientale, e più in generale a quanti vogliono conoscere il mondo slavo e le sue culture e lingue soprattutto nelle loro radici medievali e moderne.

Carocci editore

International Research Conference in Russia

St. Petersburg (Russia),  May 30-31, 2013

Program

This international research conference builds off of the Faculty’s prior success hosting an international conference in October 2010 dedicated to the study of late Stalinism and the epoch of N.S. Khrushchev and it hopes to continue its scientific dialogue with historians from different countries who also study Russia’s contemporary history.
The creation and development of the Russian state remain questions of great importance even as they have been studied in many ways by Russian historians and their foreign colleagues.
The year 2013 should attract the attention of historians for it was 100 years ago that a period of relatively stable growth ended and the First World War and Bolshevik Revolution brought a new era of development for Russia.

The conference’s Organizing Committee invites you to take part in the discussion of questions that remain hotly debated especially as the Russian Federation continues to experience developments connected to the ongoing formation of a new form of statehood.
During the conference’s proceedings, the Organizing Committee hopes to examine problems as Russia’s revolutions and wars of the 20th and 21st Centuries, the transformations of the political system, the economy, and society, the problems building a nation-state and the collapse of states and finally the issues involving culture including relationships between the intelligentsia, the authorities, and the people.

This conference has already received support from the St. Petersburg City Government’s Committee for External Ties as well as the B.N. Yeltsin Presidential Library.

The language of the conference is Russian.

How to participate to the Conference

The scholars selected to present at the conference may elect to have the Organizing Committee translate their presentations from their language of choice to Russian in the months prior to the conference’s taking place. The articles off of which these presentations are based may also be translated into Russian if they are selected for publication in a conference compendium to appear at a later date.

The Organizing Committee plans to take upon itself the costs of two-nights lodging plus breakfast for those scholars selected to participate in the conference.

If you are interested in participating, please send a short e-mail in English or Russian explaining your presentation topic by January 1st, 2013 to Dr. Ludmila K. Riabova, (e-mail: lryabovaspb@gmail.com).
Organizer and Partners

St. Petersburg State University’s Faculty of History

Information & contacts

Dr. Martin J. Blackwell
Associate Professor of History
Dept. of History and Anthropology

address: Gainesville State / U. System of Georgia, 3820 Mundy Mill Rd., Oakwood, Georgia 30566

Evgeny Sergeev

The Great Game, 1856–1907. Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia

“The Great Game, 1856–1907″ presents a new view of the British-Russian competition for dominance in Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century. Evgeny Sergeev offers a complex and novel point of view by synthesizing official collections of documents, parliamentary papers, political pamphlets, memoirs, contemporary journalism, and guidebooks from unpublished and less studied primary sources in Russian, British, Indian, Georgian, Uzbek, and Turkmen archives. His efforts amplify our knowledge of Russia by considering the important influences of local Asian powers.

Ultimately, this book disputes the characterization of the Great Game as a proto–Cold War between East and West. By relating it to other regional actors, Sergeev creates a more accurate view of the game’s impact on later wars and on the shape of post–World War I Asia.

Evgeny Sergeev is a professor of history and head of the Twentieth Century: Socio-Political and Economic Problems Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of World History. He is author of Russian Military Intelligence in the War with Japan, 1904-05: Secret Operations on Land and at Sea.

Woodrow Wilson Center Press with Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013

“La questione dell’influenza dell’invasione tatara sulla vita politica, culturale, civile della Russia è sempre stata uno dei maggiori problemi, un autentico rompicapo negli studi storici e politici sulla Russia. Sul tema c’è sempre stata tuttavia scarsità di opere scientifiche che fossero capaci di fare i conti con documenti di differente provenienza. Troppo disperse, infatti, sono le fonti e per molti episodi e periodi sono sempre state anche scarse e frammentarie.”

Grekov, Boris D.

L’orda d’oro. Le conquiste militari dei Mongoli, l’invasione della Russia, la grande minaccia all’Europa Occidentale.

Il Khanato dell’Orda d’Oro (conosciuto anche come “Khanato Kipchak”) fu un regno turco-mongolo fiorito in Russia nei secoli XIII-XVI, fondato da Batu Khan, un nipote di Gengis Khan. Fu uno dei quattro khanati in cui venne diviso l’Impero Mongolo dopo la morte di Gengis Khan. Batu cominciò ben presto ad espandere i territori da lui controllati e nel 1236 conquistò la Bulgaria del Volga. Dopo questa prima vittoria ebbe inizio, nel 1237, l’invasione della Russia. I Mongoli conquistarono rapidamente il controllo delle steppe. Tutti i principati russi vennero conquistati, eccetto Novgorod, governata da Alexander Nevsky. Nel 1241 due armate principali al comando di Batu Khan e Subutai invasero l’Ungheria e la Polonia. I Mongoli si scontrarono con le forze polacche guidate da Enrico II il Pio Duca di Slesia nella Battaglia di Legnica: Enrico fu ucciso e appena due giorni dopo le armate del sud sconfissero gli Ungheresi nella Battaglia di Mohi, arrivando a minacciare addirittura Vienna. L’Orda d’Oro ha rappresentato soprattutto la più temuta organizzazione militare della storia medievale, capace di un’epansione senza precedenti. Un grande incubo per l’Europa cristiana, una compagine sconfìtta solamente dalla propria progressiva disarticolazione interna. Il testo del grande storico russo Boris Dmitrievic Grekov è un’opera molto completa e ricca, imprescindibile per chi vuole ricostruire l’affascinante saga di questi guerrieri mongoli.

Res Gestae

Paul Bushkovitch

Breve storia della Russia. Dalle origini a Putin

Breve storia della Russia ricostruisce non solo la storia politica ma anche gli sviluppi nel campo della letteratura, dell’arte e della scienza della Russia; ritrae cosí protagonisti di grandezza assoluta – Tolstoj, Cechov e Mendeleev, per esempio – nei loro contesti storici e istituzionali. Benché la Rivoluzione del 1917, il successivo sistema sovietico e la guerra fredda siano stati momenti cruciali della storia russa e mondiale, merito specifico dell’autore è di presentare anche le epoche precedenti in tutta la loro complessità e ricchezza storica e culturale.

Accessibile a studenti, turisti e al pubblico in generale, questo libro offre un’ampia panoramica della storia della Russia dal IX secolo a oggi. Paul Bushkovitch sottolinea i fondamentali mutamenti di prospettiva nella comprensione della realtà russa che hanno avuto luogo con il crollo dell’Unione Sovietica del 1991. Da allora le enormi quantità di materiale documentale venuto alla luce, relativo alla storia dell’epoca sovietica, hanno consentito di elaborare nuove concezioni storico-critiche dello stesso passato della Russia pre-rivoluzionaria.

Giulio Einaudi Editore

La rubrica Sfogliando la Russia, Periodico di segnalazione delle novità editoriali russe a cura di Daniela Barsocchi, è consultabile online sul nostro sito.

Sfogliando la Russia è un progetto nato da circa un anno per volontà di Daniela Barsocchi (Coordinatrice nazionale delle associazioni Italia- Russia) di diffondere la letteratura russa, ancora oggi poco seguita in Italia, nonostante un progressivo aumento delle traduzioni letterarie.

Collaborano al periodico professori di Lingua e Letteratura Russa, di Scienze Politiche, storici e traduttori.

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Flensburg, Germany
August 19 – 29, 2013
Application deadline: May 15, 2013

The combination of the border region studies and minority rights’ studies on the example of the Danish-German border region model makes the NMBR summer school unique and interesting for the wide range of young scholars and practitioners. Participants have chance to attend the lectures delivered by ECMI researchers and international guest scholars from various European countries as well as local and international practitioners with high expertise in the area.
Please visit the summer school website to review the draft programme: http://www.nmbr.de/courses/2013/
How to apply to the Summer School
Eligibility

MA Students, PhD Candidates, junior scholars and practitioners, media representatives and NGO workers interested or working in the related area.

Application Procedure

Please submit the online application form (with the letter of statement and the CV attached) here: http://www.nmbr.de/application/application/

Enrollment Procedure

After the deadline the successful applicants will be granted the admission. Upon the admission the participants are expected to transfer the study fee of 400EUR and fill in the registration form
here: http://www.nmbr.de/application/registration/

Organizer

European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)

Information & contacts

The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) conducts practice and policy-oriented research, provides information and documentation, and offers advisory services concerning minority-majority relations in Europe. It serves European governments and regional intergovernmental organizations as well as nondominant groups throughout. The Centre co-operates with the academic community, the media and the general public through the timely provision of information and analysis. ECMI HQ, based in Flensburg, Germany, conducts the research whcile the regional offices in Kosovo and Caucasus conduct the field projects in the area of ethnic minority issues. ECMI Flensburg organizes the conferences, workshops, seminars and the annual summer school as part of it’s training activity.

The summer school contact person:
Ms. Tamari Bulia
Summer School Senior Coordinator.

email: bulia@ecmi.de
Tel.: 0049 4611 41490