Virtual: ‘Morality, Youth, and Nationalism in Soviet Ukraine during Khrushchev’s Thaw’

Join The Carolina Seminar: Russia and Its Empires, East and West on May 6 at 6:30 p.m. for a research presentation by Andrei Tcaceno. Andrei Tcacenco received his doctorate in history from the University of California Santa Cruz in September 2020. Andrei is currently a visiting assistant professor of history and Russian studies at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. His research interests include daily life in the Soviet Union, the histories of deviancy, crime, and nationalism under Late Socialism, as well as the history of postsocialism.

Andrei’s paper will focus on rethinking the so-called “Thaw” period in Soviet Ukraine. By looking at newly declassified KGB documents on nationalism and crime among Ukrainian youth, the paper explores how Ukraine’s proximity to NATO states, and the omnipresence of nationalism, and the perceived growth of drunkenness and crime undermined the ostensibly liberal concept of the “Thaw” in Soviet Ukraine in the late 1950s and early 1960s. With a specific focus on deviancy and crime among Soviet youth, well-studied historical processes, such as the Thaw, took on different meanings outside of Soviet Russia.

This seminar is co-sponsored by the Carolina Seminar Program, the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of History, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies. Please note that the participants will give an overview of their projects, but will not read a formal paper. Instead, papers or book chapters will be circulated ahead of time to those who are interested in attending and participating in the discussion. Please contact Dr. Eren Tasar for more information (etasar@email.unc.edu).