The Imagined Interregnum, Colloquium at the Slavonic Library, 5-6 August 2013

Call for Papers:
The Imagined Interregnum. Disintegration and Re-Establishment of Russian Academic Networks in 1917–1924. Colloquium at the Slavonic Library.

5-6 August 2013, National Library of Finland, Helsinki, Finland.

Organised by the research group The Imagined Interregnum (Kirsti Ekonen, Jussi-Pekka Hakkarainen, Janina Kruglikova, Evgeni Petrov) in co-operation with the Slavonic Library at the National Library of Finland and the Society of Finnish Slavists.

Call for Papers - deadline extended to 24/01/2013

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Politically turbulent years of the Great War, revolutions of 1917 and the civil war redrew not only the Russian borders, but reshaped also its academic life. It isolated Russian scholarly societies from the international academic debate and during the first post-revolutionary years, the academic contacts with the Western colleagues were broken or were arranged in sporadic ways only. The isolation was intensified by the rise of Bolshevik rule and by the commercial blockade of Western countries. At the same time, the ideas of new Russian state and its academic organisations were discussed and presented by the scholars exiled from Russia.

This period of political turmoil and academic stagnation can be considered also as Imagined Interregnum, as a period of when one started to precede and prepare something more sustainable when it comes to the re-organisation of the Russian state, regardless of the ruling powers.

The Imagined Interregnum, a colloquium at the Slavonic Library, will investigate the ideas and ideologies, which were raised within the Russian academic world in Russia and abroad during the Imagined Interregnum, ie. the years followed by the Russian revolutions till mid-1920s. We invite proposals which range broadly across  

• The scientific cooperation within the academia, in Russia and in abroad.
• The political visions and utopian endeavors of future Russia.
• Economic and humanitarian initiatives between western states and Soviet Russia 
• Reorganisaton of cultural and scientific relations

The keynote speakers of the colloquium are Dr. Evgeni Petrov (State University, St. Petersburg) and Dr. Lukáš Babka (Slavonic Library, Prague). Dr. Petrov, an expert of the Russian historians in diaspora, will discuss broadly the impact of the Russian scholars onto the Western scientific societies during the Imagined Interregnum. Dr. Babka's keynote lecture will focus on the Russian Historical Archive Abroad (RZIA) and its role for the the Russian emigration heritage in various fields of research.

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Two-day colloquium will be held at the premises of National Library of Finland (Unioninkatu 36). Participation is free. Regrettably, the organisers are unable to provide financial assistance for travel and accommodation.

If you would like to present a paper (max. 20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion), please send an abstract (max.  500 words) including a suitable title and  information about your affiliation and academic degree by 24 January 2013 to imagined.interregnum@gmail.com. Decisions concerning the abstracts will be communicated no later than 15 February 2013.

We are planning a publication on the topic of the colloquium. The selection of the articles will be made after the event.

CFP posters for downloading and printing in A3 and A4 sizes.