Area Studies Showcase Lecture Series: Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom

Faith Hillis
Thursday, December 3
2PM EST | 1PM CST | 11AM PST

Register here: https://uchicago.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qVCY_KzrTjKgn87pUe60Ig

Speaker:
Associate Professor of Russian History and the College, The University of Chicago

In the last fifty years of the tsarist regime, large and boisterous settlements of Russian exiles emerged across the
European continent. Called “Russian colonies” by their residents, these communities hosted the leaders of virtually
every revolutionary party and produced most of the illegal literature that circulated in late imperial Russia.
Safe havens for radical activity, the colonies were also revolutionary experiments in their own right, providing
residents an opportunity to translate their utopian dreams of liberty, fraternity, and equality into reality through their
quotidian activities. Hillis’ book is the first comprehensive account of the Russian revolutionary movement abroad,
providing a novel reassessment of the Russian revolution.

This lecture series is a collaborative effort to showcase an area studies specialist from each center focusing on the Russian, East European, and Central Asian world region. The series is sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University; the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley; the Russian, East European & Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin; the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University; the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh; the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin - Madison; the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at The University of Chicago; and the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at The Ohio State University.

Each center will host their own lecture via their personal social media channels. Please contact the host center for any necessary accommodations. To view the full list of lectures in the series click here. If you miss a lecture, it will be available online afterwards through the host center.