Professor Darchiashvili will examine the history of Polish and Georgian nationalism to elucidate the parallels and differences between them.  He argues that both these national movements, despite the specifics of each case, can only be understood in the context of an imperial metropole and periphery.

National Movements in Russia and the USSR: Georgian-Polish Parallels and Peculiarities

The presentation addresses school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) as a violation of human rights and a form of gender discrimination with harmful effects on physical, psychological, and educational well-being. This work focuses on exploring gender-responsive pedagogy in schools and kindergartens within the Kakheti region of Georgia. We will delve into empirical data collected on the gender awareness of teachers, parents, and school/pre-school principals. Specifically, we will examine gender-sensitive aspects of various teaching components, including curriculums, lesson planning and delivery, the learning environment, games and materials, as well as the language used by teachers and principals, and student assessment practices. The study is supported by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation's Fundamental Research State Grants.

School Related Gender-Based Violence: Case of Kakheti Region Schools and Kindergartens

Irina Busygina will present the key arguments from her recently published Non-Democratic Federalism and Decentralization: A Post-Soviet Perspective (Routledge, 2023), co-authored with Mikhail Filippov. The book builds on many years of research on center-regional relations in Russia and also opens up comparative perspectives through case studies on centralization/decentralization in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The conversation will address the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on center-regional relations in Russia. To what extent are center-regional relations part of the resilience of the authoritarian system in Russia and what could be potential tipping points in these relations? What is the role of the regions in the war? Are there any signs of erosion of Russia’s center-regional model?

Russia's Center-Regional Relations in Time of War: Are There Any Signs of Model Erosion?

Over a million Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Turkmens, and other Central Asian Muslims became refugees in Afghanistan, Iran, and China's Xinjiang region between the 1910s and the 1930s. This talk will explore major developments that led to mass displacement, including the Central Asian revolt of 1916, civil war in 1917–23, Soviet reforms in the 1920s, and the Kazakh famine of 1930–33, while paying particular attention to settler colonial violence and the loss of Muslim sovereignties in Central Asia.
 
This talk is one of the keynotes at the Davis Center's Graduate Student Conference on Central Asia.

Muslim Emigration From Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Central Asia

In our first episode, Dr. O'Neill goes to the Harvard Map Collection with high-school student Lily Grodzins to investigate a map of Crimea produced in 1855 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. What they find is a map bigger than most kitchen tables, riddled with misinformation, and full of everything from mountains to mud volcanos. Who made the map? And where do the British fit in? Join us to find out!

The MapMaker: Episode 1 - Crimea as Queen Victoria Saw It

Lily and Kelly dig into what it was like to live in Crimea as a subject of the Russian Empire. They explore power-relations, the survival of local practices, imperial ideology, and yes, the art of map-listening.

The MapMaker: Episode 2 - The Art of Map-Listening

Lily and Kelly discuss an enterprising official of the East India Company and how he turned a dusty old Russian military map into a game-changing weapon for the British Army.

The MapMaker: Episode 3 - The Antidote to Misinformation

Graduate student Valerie Browne shares her research into the history of Crimean place names. She explains how Stalin attempted to remake the map after World War II and how Wikipedia allowed her to reconstruct the stories of lost, forgotten, and renamed villages.

The MapMaker: Episode 4 - Shakespeare versus Stalin: Why Place Names Matter

REECA alumna Jackie Erlon-Baurjan talks with Kelly about water: about how it was conceptualized and managed on the Kazakh steppe in the 19th century, and about how it (or the lack of it) shaped her own family's traditions near the Altai Mountains.

The MapMaker: Episode 5 - Water, Memory, and the Steppe

Dr. Kelly O'Neill recounts the convoluted events of the so-called Watermelon Rebellion, a little-known episode in Russian imperial history full of intrigue, deception, espionage, personal animosities, and… watermelons.

The MapMaker: Episode 6 - The Day Watermelons Almost Toppled the Russian Empire

The Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University seeks to foster comprehensive understanding and multidisciplinary study of Russia and the countries of Eurasia. Founded in 1948 as the Russian Research Center, the Davis Center sponsors a master's program, seminars and conferences, targeted research, fellowships, undergraduate and graduate student support, and an outreach program. The center's more than 300 affiliates come from Harvard University, the greater Boston area, and around the world.

National Movements in Russia and the USSR: Georgian-Polish Parallels and Peculiarities

Davis Center

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