The SCRSS organises a regular programme of lectures,
film shows, exhibitions, seminars and other events at its premises
in London. The Society is also involved in educational and commemorative
events associated with the Soviet War Memorial in London. Events
are open to both SCRSS members and non-members, unless otherwise
stated.
Venue and Tickets
In 2022 we plan a mix of online and in-person
events, bookable via Eventbrite. Standard ticket prices for talks
are £3.00 (SCRSS members) and £5.00 (non-members).
All other events or classes are priced as indicated. We continue
our library openings for members every Tuesday, as well as the
first Saturday of the month from February 2022.
2022 Events Diary
January 2022
Tuesday 11 January 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 18 January 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 25 January 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Thursday 27 January 2022, 11.00
Holocaust Memorial Day, Act of Remembrance at the Soviet War Memorial,
London
Holocaust Memorial Day marks the date of the liberation of the
Auschwitz concentration and extermination camps by the Soviet
Red Army on 27 January 1945. The Soviet War Memorial Trust (SWMT)
is organising a joint ceremony in co-operation with Southwark
Council. Participants should gather in front of the main entrance
to the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ by 10.45.
From there they will process to the nearby Memorial. Those interested
are welcome to come along on the day. However, if you intend to
lay a wreath, or to bring the standard of your organisation, please
email the SWMT on sovietwarmemorialtrust@gmail.com
as soon as possible and before the day. Wreaths may be laid at
either the Soviet War Memorial or Southwark Council's Holocaust
Memorial Tree (adjacent to the Soviet War Memorial) or both. The
ceremony is expected to last roughly 30 minutes. Please note that
for this ceremony there will be no temporary seating at the Memorial.
Given the numbers visiting the Imperial War Museum (IWM) on this
day, we advise using public transport if at all possible. Following
the ceremony, participants may wish to visit the new Holocaust
galleries inside the IWM.
The Soviet War Memorial
was unveiled in 1999 on the initiative of the SCRSS and the Society
has been supporting the work of the SWMT since its foundation.
The SWMT organises three main ceremonies at the Memorial each
year to mark Holocaust Memorial Day (January); Victory Day (9
May) and Remembrance Sunday (November).
From Thursday 27 January 2022 for
10 weeks, 18.00 - 20.00
Zoom Online Evening Class: Russian Language for Intermediate Level
Rolling 10-week Zoom evening class, taught by Christine Barnard,
former lecturer in Russian at Westminster University. The group
is friendly, quite informal and strictly non-competitive. One
hour conversation practice, one hour reading (preparation advised).
The current book is 'Shapka' by Vladimir Voinovich (available
online). Fee for 10 weeks: £40.00 (SCRSS members only).
Current availability for 1-2 new members to join the class - for
more information, email Christine Barnard direct on rtstrans1@gmail.com.
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February 2022
Tuesday 1 February 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Saturday 5 February 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 8 February 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 15 February 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 15 February 2022, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Andrew Jameson on Navigating Russian
Conversations - The Devices We Use to Manage Conversations
Andrew Jameson continues his series of online talks on the Russian
language. We don't notice the devices we use to manage our own
English conversations, we use them automatically. But they are
there, in English and in Russian. Andrew will look at ways of
communicating more effectively in Russian, using the devices that
Russians use, rather than using sentences awkwardly created on
English models. This will include hesitation phenomena, filler
sequences, interrupting, enquiring, self-correcting and much more.
If time, Andrew will cover some of the common contractions used
in everyday speech. A handout will be available to attendees,
so that you don't lose this most important knowledge.
Booking: The talk will be held using the Zoom
online conferencing tool. Please book in advance via Eventbrite.
Normal ticket prices apply. To view the event online, you'll also need to have set up a free
account with Eventbrite, using the same email address you use
to book the event. If you don't have an Eventbrite account yet,
you can set it up before or after booking this event. Once booked,
you'll receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite about the
events, and reminders with the link at two days, two hours and
ten minutes before the event starts.
After studying Russian and radio technology at the Joint Service
Language School, Andrew Jameson first worked in signals intelligence
in Berlin. After Oxford, he taught Russian at Essex University,
while also working as a sound recordist in Russia for the Nuffield-funded
Russian Language Project, collecting samples of different styles
of Russian and creating a sound archive of Russian recordings.
He later taught Russian at Portsmouth Polytechnic and Lancaster
University. Now retired, he works as a professional translator
and gives regular talks on the history of the Russian language
for the SCRSS.
Tuesday 22 February 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card. Other visitors by appointment only.
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March 2022
Tuesday 1 March 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Saturday 5 March 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 8 March 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 15 March 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 15 March 2022, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Andrew Jameson on Tall Tales about Russian
Etymologies
Andrew Jameson continues his series of online talks on the Russian
Language. Many and mysterious are the ways in which languages
allocate or create names. Andrew has given one session on names
already - about the names of people. This time Andrew will look
at a selection of common names of everyday things, some living
and some not. You'll be very surprised at the adventures words
get up to. They come from strange places, they swap around and
eventually settle down, like, for example an elephant becoming
a camel. Seriously?
Booking: via Eventbrite.
Normal ticket prices apply. To view the event online,
you'll also need to have set up a free account with Eventbrite,
using the same email address you use to book the event. If you
don't have an Eventbrite account yet, you can set it up before
or after booking this event. Once booked, you'll receive a confirmation
email from Eventbrite about the events, and reminders with the
link at two days, two hours and ten minutes before the event starts.
After studying Russian and radio technology at the Joint Service
Language School, Andrew Jameson first worked in signals intelligence
in Berlin. After Oxford, he taught Russian at Essex University,
while also working as a sound recordist in Russia for the Nuffield-funded
Russian Language Project, collecting samples of different styles
of Russian and creating a sound archive of Russian recordings.
He later taught Russian at Portsmouth Polytechnic and Lancaster
University. Now retired, he works as a professional translator
and gives regular talks on the history of the Russian language
for the SCRSS.
Tuesday 22 March 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 29 March 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
April 2022
Saturday 2 April 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 5 April 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 12 April 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 12 April 2022, 19.00
Zoom Online Lecture: Colin Turbett on Soviets in Space
Author Colin Turbett talks about his new book Soviets in
Space: The People of the USSR and the Race to the Moon, published
by Pen & Sword in November 2021. The book describes the period
in the 1950s and 1960s when the USSR was leading the space race.
This was a time when it really seemed that Soviet achievements
were showing the way to new worlds - literally and metaphorically.
Soviets in Space is not a technical history, but a social
one. It offers background, an insight into the lives of Soviet
people in that era, and stories about the cosmonauts. As well
as detailing the efforts to take socialism into space, one chapter
discusses the unique attempts to build heaven on earth through
the toil of ordinary citizens - the Virgin Lands Campaign of the
1950s and the Baikal-Amur Railway project of the 1970s.
Booking: via Eventbrite.
Normal ticket prices apply. To view the event online,
you'll also need to have set up a free account with Eventbrite,
using the same email address you use to book the event. If you
don't have an Eventbrite account yet, you can set it up before
or after booking this event. Once booked, you'll receive a confirmation
email from Eventbrite about the events, and reminders with the
link at two days, two hours and ten minutes before the event starts.
Colin Turbett is a social work writer and campaigner, based in
Scotland, who has long been fascinated by the USSR's social history.
He is the author of Red Star at War: Victory at All Cost (2020)
and The Anglo-Soviet Alliance: Comrades & Allies During
WW2 (2021), both published by Pen & Sword Books.
Tuesday 19 April 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
From Thursday 21 April 2022 for
10 weeks, 18.00 - 20.00
Zoom Online Evening Class: Russian Language for Intermediate Level
Rolling 10-week Zoom evening class, taught by Christine Barnard,
former lecturer in Russian at Westminster University. The group
is friendly, quite informal and strictly non-competitive. One
hour conversation practice, one hour reading (preparation advised).
The current book is 'Shapka' by Vladimir Voinovich (available
online). Fee for 10 weeks: £40.00 (SCRSS members only).
Current availability for 1-2 new members to join the class - for
more information, email Christine Barnard direct on rtstrans1@gmail.com.
Tuesday 26 April 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 26 April 2022, 19.00
Lecture: Matthias Neumann on Peace and Friendship: Overcoming
the Cold War in the Artek Pioneer Camp
NB: This event takes place in person at the SCRSS centre
in Brixton.
The famous Pioneer camp 'Artek' was used by the Soviet Union
to showcase socialism to upcoming generations. It was an iconic
space where each summer up to 5,000 children from over 60 nations
met to promote transnational cooperation and Soviet-led world
peace. The talk reconstructs the experience of American children
who visited the famous Soviet Pioneer camp 'Artek'. It examines
how the participants' encounters challenged and shaped perceptions
of East and West, and how their action fed into the upsurgence
of citizen diplomacy that played a crucial role in ending the
Cold War.
Booking: Please book in advance via Eventbrite.
Normal ticket prices apply.
Matthias Neumann is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University
of East Anglia, UK. He has published widely on the history of
childhood and youth in revolutionary Russia, including a monograph
on The Communist Youth League and the Transformation of the
Soviet Union, 1917-1932 (Routledge 2011). His current research
examines exchange programmes that enabled American children to
visit the Soviet Union and the role of children in citizen diplomacy
during the Cold War. The manuscript entitled American Peace
Child: Bridging the Cold War Divide in a Soviet Youth Camp
is under contract with University of Toronto Press.
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May 2022
Tuesday 3 May 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Saturday 7 May 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 10 May 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Wednesday 11 May 2022, 19:00
Lecture: Dr David Lane on Russia: 30 Years of Transformation
NB: This event takes place in person at the SCRSS centre
in Brixton.
The talk will review the progress of transition in Russia over
the past thirty years and pose the question of what might follow.
The unintended consequences of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika
led, in 1992, to the dismemberment of the USSR into fifteen independent
states. Concurrently, communist ideology was renounced and Soviet
institutions were dismantled. The new leadership in the Russian
Federation under Boris Yeltsin had choices between ways to make
the transition to a post-communist political and economic order.
What ensued was 'chaotic capitalism' and a failed state. International
politics have played a major role in defining the course and nature
of the transformation. Consequently, President Putin has instituted
a form of 'electoral collectivist authoritarianism'. While Gorbachev
and Yeltsin were positively regarded by the Western powers, Putin's
policies have led to confrontation and to a new Cold War. Dr Lane
concludes the talk by outlining three possible future scenarios.
Booking: Book in advance via Eventbrite or tickets available on the door.
Normal ticket prices apply.
Dr David Lane was educated at Birmingham and Oxford Universities.
Currently, he is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and
an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge.
He is a also a Vice-President of the SCRSS. He has written extensively
on the USSR and post-socialism, Marxism and socialism, industrial
societies and the world economy, elites and classes. Publications
include: Changing Regional Alliances for China and the West
(With G. Zhu) (2018); The Eurasian Project in Global
Perspective (2016); (with V. Samokhvalov) The Eurasian
Project and Europe (2015); Elites and Identity in the
Transformation of State Socialism (2014); The Capitalist
Transformation of State Socialism (2014). Recent articles
have been published in Critical Sociology, The Third
World Quarterly, International Critical Thought and
Mir Rossii.
Tuesday 17 May 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Saturday 21 May 2022, 11.00
Event: SCRSS Annual General Meeting
The event takes place in person at the SCRSS centre. SCRSS
members only.
Saturday 21 May 2022, 14.00
Lecture: Christine Lindey on Representation of Workers in
Soviet Art
CANCELLED. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Tuesday 24 May 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 31 May 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
June 2022
Saturday 4 June 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 7 June 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 14 June 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 21 June 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Cancelled due to rail
strike
Tuesday 28 June 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
July 2022
Saturday 2 July 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 5 July 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 12 July 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 19 July 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 26 July 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
August 2022
Tuesday 2 August 2022, 11.00 -
16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Saturday 6 August 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 9 August 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 16 August 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 23 August 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 30 August 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
September 2022
Saturday 3 September 2022, 11.00
- 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 6 September 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 13 September 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 20 September 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Tuesday 27 September 2022, 11.00 - 16.00
Event: SCRSS Library Opening
Library opening for SCRSS members - other visitors strictly
by appointment only. Access the library collections and borrow
books from the Literature and Quick Loan sections. Surplus book
stock is also usually available for a small donation. Members
may attend without prior notification - please bring your membership
card.
Back to top
October 2022
Thursday 13 October 2022, 19.00
Lecture: Dr David Lane on 100 Years Since the Founding of
the USSR
Annual joint SCRSS / Marx Memorial Library (MML) event.
Hybrid event: either attend in person at the
Marx Memorial Library premises at 37a Clerkenwell
Green, London EC1R 0DU, or online.
David Lane discusses the trajectory of the Soviet state in three
overlapping periods: its formation between 1917 and 1936, the
epoch of modernisation and development from 1922 to 1986, and
a final period of dismantlement from 1985 to 1991. This deserves
attention because it was the first socialist state based on federative
institutions claiming fraternal relations between geographically
clustered nationalities, and a hegemonic Party building communism
on the basis of a state plan and public property. The lecture
outlines the success and shortcomings of the federative state
system under centralised economic planning. It is contended that
the dismantling of the Soviet Union was facilitated but not caused
by the federative system, and was precipitated by the rise of
political and economic elites who believed that a move to markets
and private initiative would not only solve the problems of economic
decline but would also further their own class interests.
Booking: Book in advance via the MML on Eventbrite.Tickets:
£5.00 waged, £3.00 unwaged (either attending in person
or online).
David Lane is currently a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences,
an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a visiting
Professor at Peking University and a Vice-President of the SCRSS.
He has written extensively on socialism and post-socialism, capitalism
and industrial societies, the world economy, elites and classes.
Recent publications include: Changing Regional Alliances for
China and the West (With G. Zhu) (2018), The Eurasian
Project in Global Perspective (2016), and The Capitalist
Transformation of State Socialism (2014) with a revised Russian
edition published in 2022. His current work, Capitalism and
its Rivals, will be published in 2023.
Tuesday 25 October 2022, 19.00
Lecture: Dr Tara Wilson on Shostakovich and Armenia
NB: This event takes place in person at the SCRSS centre in
Brixton. It is jointly organised by the SCRSS and DSCH Journal.
The composer Dmitri Shostakovich made a number of visits to Armenia
during the 1960s, staying not only in the capital city of Yerevan
but also in the Soviet Composers' Resort in Dilijan, in the Tavush
Province in Northern Armenia, where he was resident on several
occasions. He attended musical premieres and made official engagements
during these visits, including being present at the Armenian premiere
(and first Russian language version) of Stravinsky's Oedipus
Rex. Shostakovich was also a regular guest at the home of
the renowned Armenian artist Martiros Sarian (1880-1972), and
was the subject of what is now an internationally acclaimed Sarian
artwork, painted in 1963. Of particular note is the friendship
and correspondence between Shostakovich and Sarian's son, Ghazaros
(Russian: Lazar) Sarian (1920-98); Ghazaros had been Shostakovich's
composition student at the Moscow Conservatoire in the 1940s.
Writing in an easily recognisable Soviet-Armenian idiom, his style
bears traces of Shostakovich's influence, and there are also a
number of parallels between Shostakovich's later works and the
more mature output of this Armenian composer.
Using a range of first and secondary sources, many of which are
privately owned by the M. Sarian House-Museum in Yerevan, in her
lecture Dr Wilson will seek to build a picture of Shostakovich's
association with Armenia. In addition, following the 2020 centenary
of Ghazaros Sarian's birth, it seeks to examine the influence
of Shostakovich upon his compositional development.
Booking: Book in advance via Eventbrite
(booking opens 4 August) or tickets available on the door. Normal
ticket prices apply.
Dr Tara Wilson is a British musicologist, who completed her PhD
on Russian minimalist music at the Centre for Russian Music, Goldsmiths,
University of London in 2015. Her research specialisms include
Russian and post-Soviet music, minimalist music, as well as theory
and analysis, notably in relation to post-structuralist methods
and music semiotics. She is the author of several publications
in the UK, Europe and Russia.
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November 2022
Tuesday 15 November 2022, 19.00
Lecture: Professor Geoffrey Roberts on Stalin's Library
NB: This event takes place in person at the SCRSS centre in
Brixton.
Professor Roberts discusses his new book Stalin's Library:
A Dictator and His Books, published by Yale University Press
in February 2022. The book is primarily an intellectual portrait
of Stalin through the prism of his personal library. It covers
the books he collected, how he read them, his life as a reader,
and analyses what this tells us about the workings of Stalin's
mind and the impact of his reading on his dictatorship.
Booking: Book in advance via Eventbrite (link
to follow) or tickets available on the door. Normal ticket
prices apply.
Geoffrey Roberts is Emeritus Professor of History at University
College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is an
internationally recognised expert on Stalin, Soviet foreign policy
and the history of the Cold War. His other publications include
Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov, Stalin's
Wars: From World War to Cold War 1939-1953, and Churchill
and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms During the Second World War
(co-authored with Martin Folly and Oleg Rzheshevsky).
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December 2022
Events to be confirmed
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