deportees in the USSR

Во вторник, 19 мая, в 18:00 по адресу: ул. Мясницкая, 9/11, ауд. 424, в рамках Международного научного семинара Департамента социологии состоится выступление профессора Алена Блума (Центр франко-российских исследований в Москве, Национальный институт демографических исследований и Высшая школа социальных наук, Париж)

Рабочий язык семинара – английский. Приглашаются все желающие.

Заказать пропуск можно по адресу: lashurova@hse.ru.

Dear colleagues,

On May 19, 6 p.m. at the Department of Sociology (Myasnitskaya 9/11, room 424) Alain Blum (Centre d’études franco-russe de Moscou, INED and EHESS in Paris) will give a talk at the International Research Seminar in Sociology.

Working language of the seminar is English. All are welcome to attend!
Alain Blum

“Forgotten stories of deportees in the USSR - The multiple lives of a single individual”

When state institutions ascribe characteristics to individuals, it often determines a person’s destiny. This relation holds especially true when such characteristics orientate state policy. This relationship has been widely studied, as have the social determinants of Stalinist deportations.

We know relatively little about the mid- and long term effects of state-ascribed identities over an individual’s life course. This presentation addresses the tensions between the various life narratives which are written or told at different times in the life of a single individual and how these tensions orientate his/her life. Indeed, its purpose is to compare the different life narratives of a single individual, deported from the Western territories of the USSR between 1939 and 1941 or 1944 and 1952, collected and recorded in different ways, and kept in the records of the deportees (order of arrest and deportation, interrogations of deportees or of witnesses at the time of arrest or later, petitions and claims, reports written by NKVD officials or prosecutors, but also, for some individuals, oral life narrative collected by ourselves). Such comparisons inform us about the relation between biography and social statuses of individuals, in the context of sharp changes, violence and political upheavals.

We will determine whether and how these narratives support or contradict each other. We will examine how some narratives are put on hold and later forgotten, while others are highlighted. We will show how social identities of a single individual are formulated in very different ways through these stories, emphasizing network identities, identities in practice, acquired or inherited identities, among others. The various facets of an individual and the various segments of his/her life are used or forgotten, depending on the period, and on the individual telling the narratives.