Upcoming Conference: “On the Periphery of Collapsing Empire: National Minorities and the 1917 Revolution”

October 13, 2017

The Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nazarbayev University, is happy to announce that they will be hosting a conference marking the 100-year anniversary of the February and October Revolutions of 1917, entitled “On the Periphery of Collapsing Empire: National Minorities and the 1917 Revolution”. The conference aims to move beyond the boundaries of the nationalist historiographies of Post-Soviet States and to devote attention to questions that have thus far been undeservedly ignored, such as the cooperation of autonomous governments of the various regions of the empire, governmental projects and ideological discourses, national and religious movements and their participants during the transitional periods of the Revolution and Civil War on the ‘national periphery’. Particular attention will be devoted to the questions of everyday violence and moral responsibility for transgressions, problems of collective memory, national myths, and the legacy of events a century old. Participants in the conference will discuss the history of revolutionary events on the Kazakh steppe, in the Volga-Ural region, the Caucasus, Siberia, and the Russian Far East. The political responses of Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Buddhists to the political crisis will also receive substantial attention.

Scholars from Kazakhstan’s leading research institutes and universities will take part in the conference, alongside academics from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and St Petersburg, Institute of Russian History of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Heidelburg University, the University of Oxford, Harvard University, and others.

The keynote lectures will be given by Professor Zhuldyzbek Abylkhozhin of the Choqan Valikhanov Institute for History and Anthropology, Professor Jeremy Smith of the University of Eastern Finland, Professor Svetlana Koval’skaia of Lev Gumilyov Eurasian National University, and Professor Niccolo Pianciola of Lingnan University (Hong Kong).

This conference was organised in cooperation with the Lev Gumilyov Eurasian National University, and Evney Buketov Karaganda State University.

The opening reception, and all panels, will take place in the Senate Hall in Block C1 of Nazarbayev University (53 Kabanbay Batyr Avenue, Astana).

If you would like to attend the conference, please email to nikolay@tsyrempilov@gmail.com by November 2. It is essential to register ahead of time, as access to the campus is only possible with a pass. Please see the attached file for the conference programme. We will be glad to see you!