Cerise lecture by Dimitry Kochenov (The CEU Democracy Institute)
Aim of the lecture is the critical analysis of the amendments to the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation, which entered into force on 4 July 2020.
The aim of the lecture is the critical analysis of the amendments to the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation, which entered into force on 4 July 2020. The talk will focus on the amendments having implications for the dialogue between international courts and tribunals and the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The lecture will demonstrate that the amendments in question are not at all revolutionary and codify the established practice of the Russian Constitutional Court / draw on federal legislation. The amendments allow for non-execution of the decisions of international courts and tribunals which are found by the Russian Constitutional Court to be in conflict with the national Constitution, thus qualifying the operation of the monist approach to international law in the Russian constitutional system. The approach taken by the Russian Federation will be considered in the global context of the rising scepticism vis-à-vis the decisions of international courts and their transformative potential. A detailed note published by ILM and co-written with Prof. Paul Kalinichenko (Kutafin University, Moscow), which the lecture is loosely based on, can be found through this link.
Lecture by Dilyara Suleymanova (ZHAW, Zurich), Discussant Prof. Dr. Pieter Troch
Migrants from former Yugoslavia constitute one of the most numerous and significant diasporic communities in Western-European countries, including Switzerland. The label ‘Yugo’ is a widely used term (in the media and the everyday language) to refer to migrants from former Yugoslavia and their descendants. Being underpinned by derogatory connotations and orientalising discourses that construct the ‘Balkans’ as the European ‘inner Orient’, this label is used in a variety of contexts as a tool of othering. In this presentation, I will look into the ways this identity label (as well as the related term ‘Balkanese’) is reappropriated and used by the diasporic youth – children and grandchildren of migrants who were born or grew up in Switzerland. I will in particular demonstrate and discuss the ways in which this label is re-appropriated by the diasporic youth to construct a common identity which transcends potential intra-ethnic conflict lines and tensions. At the same time, it is used to strategically to differentiate oneself from the majority Swiss society, to delineate and self-exoticise diasporic youth identity and lifestyle.
Cerise Lecture by Galina Timchenko (CEO of Meduza independent news agency)
On the 26th of October 2021, Galina Timchenko, CEO of the Meduza independent news agency, will be delivering a lecture on the state of affairs in the media background in Russia, explaining how the restrictions on independent journalists imposed by the Russian government can affect the development of journalism in the country.
She will portray the evolution of the political landscape in Russia and introduce some novel concepts as the ‘new iron curtain’, ‘sleeping laws’ and ‘foreign agents’ which appear quintessential for a media business in Russia. A particular emphasis will be put on the idea of the new reality constructed by the official government-run media implying the creation of the ‘enemy face’ of the Western world.
She will also dwell on possible outcomes of such restrictions for the media and IT businesses under siege, and will suggest three ways of survival for the media labeled as ‘foreign agents’. Apart from that, the consequences that the repression of the media may produce on the society and journalism in the country, as well as possible scenarios of resistance to it will be touched upon. The question whether independent media have a future in Russia remains the most controversial issue.
Russia remains a key player in international affairs during the COVID-19 outbreak. When the COVID-19 crisis erupted, Russia took several decisive steps to safeguard its sovereignty and increase its soft power capabilities: closing its border to China and developing its own Sputnik-V vaccine for use throughout the world. Over the course of the pandemic, Russia’s preparedness also ran into several difficulties: low levels of domestic interest in vaccination, questions over Sputnik’s effectiveness and production capabilities and concern that the state was more interested in using vaccines as a tool of international diplomacy over domestic needs. COVID-19 thereby serves as a critical issue to assess broader political and societal factors in Russia and its relation to the international system. What exactly is Russia’s role in the world? Does international/regional prestige outweigh domestic demands? How should we envisage the Russian domestic realm, the economic situation, and the means that are employed by the Kremlin to address challenges at home and abroad? This summer school aims at exploring and explaining these questions with a specific focus on the effect that the COVID-19 crisis has had on Russia’s political and societal life over the past year
Application
We encourage students from 2nd and 3rd-year Bachelor’s, Master’s programme and starting PhD students to apply. Each applicant is asked to fill in an application form to provide personal information regarding education and research interests. Furthermore, we ask each potential participant to write a motivation letter of maximum 500 words. Participants are expected to be fluent in English. Accepted UGent students can participate free of charge. Non-UGent need to pay a fee of 70 euros. The deadline of application is June 27, 2021. Interested students can apply here.
Programme
The summer school will take place from July 12 till July 16, 2021 in an online format. Students will participate in seven interactive classes, covering a wide range of topics addressed by leading experts to examine the impact of COVID-19 on Russia, whilst gaining a better understanding of Russian politics and society in general. Participants are encouraged to be active in order to create a stimulating and interactive learning environment. In this light, participating students are asked at the start of the summer school to choose a topic relating to the overall focus of the summer school, which they will present at the final day of the summer school in cooperation with other students to a panel of experts. A detailed overview of the programme can be found on the second page of the brochure.
Online Panel Discussion by M.D. Asmik Asatryan, M.D. Irina Levchenko, Prof. Dr. Susanna Kharit, Prof. Dr. Geert Leroux-Roels
At a time when vaccination campaigns within the EU are reaching full steam after EMA’s endorsement of the vaccines by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, there is a remarkable silence about the Russian Sputnik vaccine.
Yet, Sputnik-V was the first vaccine to be officially announced in the battle against the coronavirus and it was presented with much bravado by the Russian authorities. Reports about steps being skipped in test phases of the Russian vaccine and its purpose as a geopolitical tool aroused suspicion in the West. Today, still, the general public very much perceives Sputnik-V as second tier despite the proven high effectivity of the vaccine.
But how much do we actually know about the vaccine?
How does Sputnik-V work in practice, and how does it compare to Western vaccines?
Could a better understanding of the Russian vaccine lead us to new insights that are important for the further development of the other vaccines?
Can the Russian vaccine realistically complement the European vaccination strategy?
What does the Russian vaccination strategy look like, and what can we learn from it?
To answer these underexamined questions, the Russia Platform is organising a high-level panel discussion with Russian experts Asmik Asatryan, Irina Levchenko & Susanna Kharit and specialists from Ghent University / Ghent University Hospital (UZ Ghent) Elizaveta Padalko, Geert Leroux-Roels & Hans Nauwynck.
Speakers:
M.D. Asmik Asatryan works as physician/immunologist at the Saint Petersburg State Hospital Nr. 88 and is specialized in infectious diseases, vaccinations and the organisation of health care.
M.D. Irina Levchenko is deputy chief supervising physician at the Saint Petersburg State Hospital nr. 88. She is an expert in paediatrics and the organisation of healthcare, including vaccinations both in children and adults.
Prof. Dr. Susanna Kharit works at the Department of Infectious Diseases in Children of the Saint Petersburg Pediatric Medical University. She is also Chief Freelance Specialist for Vaccine Prevention of Children of the Health Committee of St. Petersburg, a member of the Independent Expert Expert Council on Vaccine Prevention of the Russian Federation and member of the Euro-Asian Society for Infectious Diseases.
Prof. Dr. Geert Leroux-Roels is the founder of the Center for Vaccinology (CEVAC) and is associated with both Ghent University and Ghent University Hospital (UZ Ghent). He has conducted numerous studies about vaccinations, resides in various advisory boards and is an established name in international scientific societies.
Moderators:
Prof. Dr. Elizaveta Padalko is Head Clinical Biology at the Ghent University Hospital while also being active as lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Ghent University. Her work focuses in particular on the evaluation of diagnostic methods in infectious serology and molecular diagnostics.
Prof. Dr. Hans Nauwynck holds the position of Head of the Laboratory For Virology of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Ghent University. He specialises in research into viral diseases in animals and advocates for more intensive research into bacteria and viruses in animals and humans.
The paper provides a brief outline of the politics of ‘decommunisation’ undertaken by different mnemonic actors in Ukraine since the end of 1980s. ‘Decommunisation’ is the process of dismantling the legacies of the communist state establishments, culture, and psychology in the post-communist space. Special attention will be paid to the final ‘decommunisation’ effort in 2015 – 2021, after special ‘decommunisation’ laws were passed by the Ukrainian Parliament. The presentation will analyse interests and roles of political actors, societal responses and political outcomes of ‘decommunisation’.
This talk will focus on a half-forgotten episode from the history of Soviet linguistics. In 1950, at the end of the discussion about Marxism in linguistics, Stalin made the puzzling claim that the Russian national language is based on the so-called ‘Kursko-Orlovskij’ dialect. Outlining the historical context of these years (the end of the dominance of Marr’s New Theory of Language, or “Japhetidology”), the lecture will try to uncover possible origins of this statement.
Brigitte Le Normand (Assistant Professor, Universiteit Maastricht)
Among Eastern Europe’s postwar socialist states, Yugoslavia was unique in allowing its citizens to seek work abroad in Western Europe’s liberal democracies. Brigitte Le Normand will present her book, which charts the evolution of the relationship between Yugoslavia and its labour migrants who left to work in Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. It examines how migrants were perceived by policy-makers and social scientists and how they were portrayed in popular culture, including radio, newspapers, and cinema.
Created to nurture ties with migrants and their children, state cultural, educational, and informational programs were a way of continuing to govern across international borders. These programs relied heavily on the promotion of the idea of homeland. Le Normand examines the many ways in which migrants responded to these efforts and how they perceived their own relationship to the homeland, based on their migration experiences. Citizens without Borders shows how, in their efforts to win over migrant workers, the different levels of government – federal, republic, and local – promoted sometimes widely divergent notions of belonging, grounded in different concepts of “home.”
Petar Strunje (doctoral fellow, Università IUAV di Venezia/University of Zagreb)
Shortly after the 4th Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573), the changing political and economic circumstances led the Venetian Republic to institute a specialized system of trade with the Ottoman Empire following bilateral negotiations. This was backed with a series of infrastructural investments such as road and port building and the construction of customs offices, lazarettos (quarantine facilities) and the fondachi – warehouses, trade houses (bourse) and housing facilities all in one. All Muslims arriving on Venetian territories were constrained to stay in a fondaco. While being places of financial and social control, these buildings were also equipped with religious spaces, sanitary facilities, furniture and internal organization according to the Turkish custom. We will take a look at these specific solutions in the Venetian building tradition, reconstructing the debate and the translation process that led to their formation while highlighting the actors who were responsible for mediation between the commissioners (the Venetian Republic) and the users (Muslim traders) in this Mediterranean game of exchange.
Is Rusland een natie of een imperium? De vraagt doorkruist elke analyse van het nationale zelfbeeld van Rusland en is niet eenduidig te beantwoorden. De spanning tussen de beide vormen van zelfdefinitie plaatst Rusland enigszins apart in het proces van de vorming van de Europese nationale staten.
Ook voor de ontwikkeling van de muziek heeft de vraag zijn belang. Het nationalisme in de negentiende-eeuwse muziek werd gestuurd door het politieke proces van de vorming van de Europese nationale staten. In dat proces waren twee tegengestelde dynamieken van kracht. Aan de ene kant was er het streven naar politieke unificatie. Volkeren of taalgroepen die voordien geen staatkundige eenheid hadden gekend streefden naar een overkoepelende nationale staat, gebaseerd op het principe van een gemeenschappelijke taal en cultuur. Dit proces was werkzaam in de Duitse eenmaking en in het Italiaanse Risorgimento. Aan de andere kant leidde nationalisme tot een proces van desintegratie. De traditionele veelvolkerenstaten – het Ottomaanse en Habsburgse – vielen uit elkaar onder druk van de nationale verzuchtingen van de deelvolkeren. Beide processen hadden hun invloed op de geschiedenis van de muziek.
Voor Rusland was de situatie complexer. Het moderne nationalisme in Europese zin bestond er naast de dynamiek van het multi-etnische imperium. Voor de studie van de muziek betekent dit dat de beide processen en doelstellingen elkaar doorkruisten. In de moderne historiografie van de Russische muziek groeit de aandacht voor de definitie van beide dynamieken, die op een heel eigen wijze uitmondden in de Stalinistische muzikale politiek. Onder de slogan “nationaal in vorm, socialistisch in inhoud” legde Stalin het Russische muzikale nationalisme van de negentiende eeuw op als norm voor de nationale culturen van het multi-etnische Sovjetrijk. De paradoxale overlapping tussen nationalisme en imperialisme was een cruciale factor in de muziekpolitiek van de Sovjet-Unie.
De lezing is gratis, maar inschrijven is wel verplicht.
