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Misbehaving under socialism : non-conformity at universities in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic of the thaw period (1953-1968)
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Florence : European University Institute, 2025
EUI; HEC; PhD Thesis
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VALODZIN, Uladzimir, Misbehaving under socialism : non-conformity at universities in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic of the thaw period (1953-1968), Florence : European University Institute, 2025, EUI, HEC, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/78253
Abstract
This thesis examines the potential for protest among university students and faculty, under the Communist Party regime in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. Universities are crucial locations for highlighting intellectual non-conformity, as they both produced the new intelligentsia and provided jobs for many members of the already existing intelligentsia. During the Thaw (1953-1968), the number of university students grew at a fast pace. During that period, universities or, more correctly, higher education establishments in Belarus were places of intellectual ferment, of debates, and of experiments with destalinisation. Accordingly, from the vantage point of ideology and ideological control, the party authorities perceived universities as a critically important place. In their turn, faculty members and students often discussed issues of academic autonomy and professional (as opposed to ideological) evaluation of a quality of academic production. Although usually not intending to contest the domination of the communist party in the political life of the country, these persons de facto contested the domination of the party in academic life. Learning more about various forms of nonconformity helps us understand the motivations that triggered members of a relatively privileged group to manifest their dissent. Higher education opened the way to better-paid and less labour-intensive work, and to wider perspectives for social advancement, so that on the one hand students had incentives to integrate into the social order better (and certainly their professors were already well-integrated). But on the other hand, students and faculty had enough time and opportunities to indulge in intellectual debates and create their own cultural products.
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Defence date: 21 March 2025
Examining Board: Prof. Alexander Etkind (Central European University; European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Pieter Judson (European University Institute); Prof. Juliane Fürst (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam); Prof. Simon Lewis (Bremen University)
Examining Board: Prof. Alexander Etkind (Central European University; European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Pieter Judson (European University Institute); Prof. Juliane Fürst (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam); Prof. Simon Lewis (Bremen University)
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Chapter 1.1 'Late Stalinism and student non-conformity during it, the importance of its legacy for the later period' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as chapter 'Adzin pravincyjny horad i dzvie kryminalnyja spravy : pradmova' (2020) in the book ''Biazrodny kasmapalit' Kim Chadziejeŭ dy inšyja : Pierasled inšadumcaŭ za savieckim časam : zbornik dakumientaŭ'.
Chapter 3.1.1 'My thoughts of damnation are addressed to you, swallower... (“Tabie, žyvahłot, maje dumki-praklony…”) Branisłaŭ Ržeŭski’s affair' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Branisłaŭ Ržeŭski i jaho pratest suprać rusifikacyi' (2020) in the journal 'Harodnia annual'.
Chapter 4.3 'Who can and who cannot produce and read samizdat: followers of Kim Chadeev and friends of Ėduard Gorjačij' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Nonkanformnasć u Minsku časoŭ adlihi : sprava Kima Chadziejeva i Eduarda Haračaha (1962)' (2023) in the journal 'Biełaruski histaryčny ahliad'.
Chapter 3.1.1 'My thoughts of damnation are addressed to you, swallower... (“Tabie, žyvahłot, maje dumki-praklony…”) Branisłaŭ Ržeŭski’s affair' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Branisłaŭ Ržeŭski i jaho pratest suprać rusifikacyi' (2020) in the journal 'Harodnia annual'.
Chapter 4.3 'Who can and who cannot produce and read samizdat: followers of Kim Chadeev and friends of Ėduard Gorjačij' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Nonkanformnasć u Minsku časoŭ adlihi : sprava Kima Chadziejeva i Eduarda Haračaha (1962)' (2023) in the journal 'Biełaruski histaryčny ahliad'.