HIS 226 - Repression & Liberation in the Soviet Union: Minorities and the Soviet Project

This course looks at the promises, failures, hopes and disappointments of the Soviet project through the lens of minority groups. What appeal did the communist ideology have to marginalized populations, both in the Soviet Union and across international borders? How did minority groups help to shape Soviet policy, propaganda, and international outreach? What responses did minority groups have, upon realizing that the Soviet Union was not the bastion of minority rights that they had expected? How were minorities mobilized by both the East and the West in the Cold War? This class explores these questions, which are central to understanding the Soviet project, the Cold War, and the rise of socialism and leftist values among educated minorities around the world. It focuses on groups like Jews, Central Eurasians, American black intellectuals, linguistic minorities, and Muslims and their hopes, beliefs, and disappointments in the Soviet project, as well as historiographic debates around repression and agency of minority groups in the USSR.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Center for Interdisciplinary Studies major requirement.  
Satisfies Russian Studies minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought Ways of Knowing requirement.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.