Dr. Irina Morozova on the Soviet ‘peripheral’ response to neo-liberal economic models

In the 1980s, the discussions on the economic self-sufficiency of the Soviet Republics went in parallel to the well-known ‘Uzbek cotton affair’ in the USSR, which produced popular notions of the malfunctioning socialist planned economy on the one hand, and the ‘cultural corruption’ of Central Asia, on the other. This talk presents a detailed analysis of the role of republican and local elites in the process which has too often been understood as the launching and fostering of economic reforms by the central authorities in Moscow.

Based on archival data and interviews recorded in Central Asian capitals and provinces, the research draws a nuanced picture of centre-periphery communication in the late USSR and shows how Perestroika policies affected the disastrous social effects of neo-liberal economic developments in post-Soviet Central Asia.

Dr. Irina Morozova is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies and the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, University of Regensburg.
She is an historian, currently specialising in the social and economic history of Central and Inner Asia in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In 2010-2014 she ran the international research project “The History of Perestroika in Central Asia” sponsored by Volkswagen Foundation at the Seminar for Central Asian Studies, Humboldt-Universtät zu Berlin.

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Zeit und Ort:

Mittwoch, 4. Mai 2016 um 18.00 Uhr

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Invalidenstraße 118, Raum 507 (5. OG)

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