Working on the CUPOLA Project gave me the opportunity to truly explore Soviet intellectual history and its applications. In the first place, I have learned a great deal and discovered significant aspects of the Soviet worldview which I had given little thought before. Although I was aware of Soviet Russian nationalism as a phenomenon of the late 1940s, through this work I discovered the extent of its impact on Soviet politics.
The civilizational approach as a Russian response to the pressure of Western assimilation provides me with a major new insight into the dynamics of Russian identity, and the multipolar model of “multiple modernities,” which I encountered while undertaking this research, is an approach I am interested to learn more about as perhaps a more convivial alternative. In my previous research positions and in my own work I have engaged with political, social, and cultural history, but this project has given me a practical understanding of what it is to study intellectual history, and what can be derived from reading the theoretical writings of historical actors.
Thanks to the project I have developed a great new interest in the larger picture of the patriotic spirit of late Stalinism. I became intrigued by the question of what emerges if the post-war patriotic campaigns in the USSR are studied as a single phenomenon, not a series of isolated upheavals in different disciplines. Based on this foundation I am interested to examine how these campaigns might collectively constitute a larger project of nation-building which can inform us about Stalinism, and Russian nationalism today. This has given me pause to reconsider the topic of my PhD: I have discovered another topic in which I am greatly interested, and which I intend to explore much further going forward.
While living in Helsinki, I was able to take advantage of the Stalinist periodicals in the collections of the Slavonic Library at the National Library of Finland. Previously unable to access those not yet digitized onto East View, exploring this library allowed me to develop some formal understanding of the nature of these sources and how I might use them, and to examine materials I may use in my graduate work. In conversation with other colleagues at the Institute I also learned of a variety of online resources, including the Prozhito Centre at the European University at St. Petersburg, and Integrum.
The Slavonic Library shall remain an as-yet unparalleled resource when I am planning research for my future graduate studies, and I may indeed return to Finland to make use of its materials. As a result of the project, and of this opportunity to work with scholars of the Soviet Union with whom I could freely discuss the things I was studying, I have also significantly expanded my academic reading list, which shall remain an invaluable tool during my doctoral work.
I look forward to remaining in contact with the members of the research group, and as work on the CUPOLA Project progresses, I would like to keep up to date with the project’s seminars and its research outcomes, and to work with my colleagues again as I become a more experienced academic. I hope that I may one day serve as a link between the University of Helsinki and whichever institution becomes my home in the global network of universities.