Autumn 2020: "Us and They: Sweden and Russia Through the Ages"
"Us and They: Sweden and Russia Through the Ages" ("Vi och de: Sverige och Ryssland genom tiderna") is a module in the first semester in the Master's Programme in the Russian Language in International Relations (only offered in Swedish). Five guest lectures, open to everyone interested, are part of the module. The lectures are given as distance learning.
Maria Engström, Senior Lecturer in Russian at the Department of Modern Languages, is coordinator for the course and she is also the contact person for the guest lectures.
Elisabeth Löfstrand: ”Sverige och Ryssland. De tidiga kontakterna”
- Guest lecture 1, 19 October 2020, 14:00–16:00
- Zoom-link for the lecture
- The lecture is given in Swedish
Elisabeth Löfstrand is an Associate Professor of Slavic languages at Stockholm University.
Ulla Birgegård: ”Kampen om Östersjön: svensk-ryska relationer under 16- och 1700-talen”
- Guest lecture 2, 26 October 2020, 13:00–15:00
- Zoom-link for the lecture
- The lecture is given in Swedish
Ulla Birgegård is a Professor Emerita of Russian at Uppsala university.
Irina Seits: ”Swedish St. Petersburg”
- Guest lecture 3, 2 November 2020, 13:00–15:00
- Zoom-link for the lecture
The lecture “Swedish St. Petersburg” addresses several episodes from ‘St. Petersburg period’ of Russian history (1703-1918) that reveal complexity of relations between Russia and Sweden. Those narratives that I refer to are about the cultural and business relations between our countries and some personal relationships between important figures of political and cultural life of the time that help understand the nature of the contemporary relationships between Sweden and Russia. Besides, we will turn to the story of St. Petersburg as of the first European city of Russia, and on which urban development Sweden and Swedes had had an important impact.
Coming originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Irina Seits is historian and art historian. She holds PhD in Aesthetics from Södertörn University and works at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn. Her current project is devoted to the neglected Swedish Architectural heritage in St. Petersburg.
Per Enerud: ”Ryska revolutionen i svensk diplomatisk rapportering 1917–1919”
- Guest lecture 4, 9 November 2020, 13:00–15:00
- Zoom-link for the lecture
- The lecture is given in Swedish
Ryska revolutionen hör till de revolutioner som inte bara berört inrikes förhållanden i landet, utan i praktiken förändrat hela vår värld i grunden. I Ett fruktansvärdt skräckvälde råder i Ryssland har Anna Pavlenko och Per Enerud sammanställt det svenska utrikesdepartementets rapportering från det första telegrammet om ohörsamhet mot tsaren i mars 1917 till det sista om de sovjetryska diplomaternas återvändande i februari 1919. I denna unika framställning får vi följa hur de svenska diplomaterna tvingas hantera situationen och vad som uppfattas som viktigt i dåets nu. Vi ser kunskapen om revolutionens processer växa, missförstånden, de falska förhoppningarna och de cyniska beräkningarna. Här och där kan politiska ambitioner anas om ett Sverige som inte är en perifer liten stat i utkanten av världen. Denna samling dokument skildrar knappt två år av revolutionens faser och fasor, som de uppfattades på plats. Av ögonvittnen till historien.
Irina Seits: “Sweden and the USSR: Socialist Urbanism and People’s Diplomacy”
- Guest lecture 5, 16 November 2020, 13:00–15:00
- Zoom-link for the lecture
In this lecture we will take a closer look at several episodes of official contacts between Sweden and Russia during the Soviet Period and speak about informal connections and relations between the countries. I will approach these contacts primarily from the humanitarian and cultural perspectives that developed into a distinguishingly soft line of a cultural diplomacy between the countries, which contrasted the political course of the Cold War that dominated international relations within the region at that time.
Another theme of the lecture will introduce Sweden and Russia of the twentieth century to a discussion on the common ways to materialize the idea of the Folkhemmet as a shared home for all people through and by the means of architecture. We will reflect on the common means of articulation and construction of the welfare states’ ideology and the politics of the everyday in the Swedish and Soviet cities’ that developed under a strong influence of modernism since the early twentieth century, and that resulted in our contemporary homes and cities’ infrastructures that still share many similar traits.