In the 1970s, a new genre of samizdat emerged in the Soviet Union: the dissident conduct manual, covering situations ranging from interrogations to apartment searches to interviews with psychiatrists. They spoke not to the age-old question "What is to be done?," but the existential "How should you conduct yourself?" What did self-respect require? Did interrogation rooms and psychiatric wards demand a distinct code of behaviour, a moral state of exception- or did they merely reproduce everyday Soviet reality in a heightened form?
Full Details
Friday, September 27
How to Conduct Yourself: Dissident Advice Manuals in Late Soviet Society
Time:
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Presenter:
Benjamin Nathans
Location:
Baker/Porter Hall 246A
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies along with Carnegie Mellon Department of History