The lecture will probe a thesis in comparative imperial history: Whether deep historical similarities help explain why Germany and Russia became totalitarian regimes, unleashing unprecedented violence upon the planet. Both countries shared an unusual history: the attempt to make nation state and empire coincide. Arguably, efforts to turn a variety of peoples – Czechs were supposed to be Germans and Ukrainians Russians for instance — into unified nations created explosive energies, but also challenges to legitimacy in a time of supposed national self-determination.
John Connelly will be the speaker. He is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He studied Russian and East European Studies at the University of Michigan, and International Relations at Georgetown University, and received his PhD in History from Harvard University. He is the author of From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe (Princeton University Press, 2020), From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews (Harvard University Press, 2012), and Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
In English. RSVP by filling out the form below.
