Communism And After: 1991-2021

A Conversation with Two Scholars Who Witnessed And Took Part in Russia’s Transition From Soviet Rule

Tuesday, 12 October, 7:00-8:30PM (Helsinki/Moscow), 6:00-7:30PM (Berlin), 5:00-6:30PM (London), 12noon-1:30PM (New York), on ZOOM

 This year we are marking the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the three presidents of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine came together in December 1991 and signed the Belovezha Accords, they not only formally ended a drawn-out process of demise with the dissolution of the world’s oldest socialist state, but also started a process of reconfiguring the regional and global order. The multiple and complex legacies of this watershed moment are there with us to this day and will be explored in a series of BASEES Talks this autumn.

In the first event, Prof Mark Harrison (University of Warwick) will be in conversations with Prof Vladimir Mau, Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and Prof Vladimir Gel’man, Professor at the European University at St.Petersburg and at the University of Helsinki, inviting them to reflect on their participation in the political and economic transition of the 1990s. The discussion will be introduced by Prof Judith Pallot (Vice President of BASEES, University of Oxford / University of Helsinki) 

(Source: Union -Yes: 28 Years of Great Deception; https://iohotnik. ru/novosti/104327-lyudi-vyskazalis-za-sohranenie-sssr.html)

Vladimir Mau is Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA); Doctor of Economics; Professor; PhD in Applied Economics from Pierre Mendès-France University (France); Honored Economist of the Russian Federation. From 1991, Vladimir Mau participated in the development and implementation of economic reforms in Russia acting as an advisor to the Russian Prime Minister in 1992-1993. In 1997-2002, he headed the Working Center for Economic Reforms of the Russian Government. Areas of research and expertise include economic theory and theory of economic reforms, history of economic thought and national economy, constitutional economics. Vladimir Mau is an author of 39 monographs, books and textbooks that have been published in Russia and the UK, and over 800 articles available in Russian, English, French, German and Italian.

Vladimir Gel’man is Professor at the European University at St.Petersburg and at the University of Helsinki. He is the author and/or editor of more than 20 books on Russian and post-Soviet politics and governance, including Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015) and Authoritarian Modernization in Russia: Ideas, Institutions, and Policies (Routledge, 2017). He also the author of numerous scholarly articles, published in Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies, International Political Science Review, Post-Soviet Affairs, and other leading journals. He was an activist of the Russian democratic movement in Leningrad (1989-1996) and a member of the Central Election Commission with an advisory vote from the Yabloko movement (1995).

Mark Harrison is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a research fellow of CEPR. His last book was The Soviet Economy and the Approach of War, 1937-1939 (Palgrave, 2018, with Davies, Khlevniuk, and Wheatcroft). His next book is Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism (Stanford, in preparation).

The event will be Introduced by Professor Judith Pallot, BASEES Vice President who is currently leading the European Research Council funded project ‘Gulag Echoes’ at the at the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki.