Wednesday, December 2, 20154:30 PM - 6:00 PM
10383 Bunche Hall
Stalin and his politburo usually agreed on major policies. That is not to say they were total yes-men; they were themselves powerful men who defended their institutional interests. But for all their exalted positions, it was dangerous for them to disagree with Stalin. Yet on one issue in the postwar period, it looks as if they did. That issue was anti-Semitism, in particular, Stalin's encouragement of it after World War II. They did not disagree openly, because of the danger, but did so covertly in a manner that Stalin understood as disagreement, leaving few traces except for the big footprint of what they did was Stalin was gone. The talk will address 3 main questions: why popular anti-Semitism became obtrusive in the 1940s; why state/party policy took an anti-Semitic turn; and why the post-Stalin leadership – Stalin’s team without Stalin – immediately tried to repudiate the anti-Semitic turn after his death.
About the speaker: Sheila Fitzpatrick is Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of History at the University of Chicago and Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney. She is probably the most influential scholar working on the social history of the Stalin period; challenging the Totalitarian model, she argued that society mattered and was a proper subject for study in its own right, separate from high level regime studies. She is the author of numerous articles, edited collections, and books, including Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921-1932, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, Stalin's Peasants, and "Tear off the Masks! Identity and Imposture in 20th Century Russia.
Cost : Free and open to the public.
Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Department of History