Conference: Late Trials of Perpetrators in the Soviet Union

Late Trials of Perpetrators in the Soviet Union: Between Propaganda, Rule of Law, And Memory.

Department of History and Cultures (DiSCI),

University of Bologna, Italy.

October 24 – 26, 2024.

Organizers: Vanessa Voisin and David Alan Rich.

PROGRAM

Day 1, Thursday 24 Oct., Aula Gambi, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte (1st floor)

13.15 – 13.45   Welcome and Introduction

Vanessa Voisin, Università di Bologna / CERCEC-EHESS Paris

David Alan Rich, Catholic University of America, Washington DC

13.45 – 17.00   Session A

• Yoram Gorlizki, University of Manchester: ‘Socialist legality’ after Stalin: ‘law and order’ and the tension between the justice agencies and the police authorities, 1956-1959.
• Vanessa Voisin: Trials of Soviet perpetrators after the 1955 amnesty: accountability revisited, publicity increased.

Moderator: David Rich

17.30 – 19.00, Aula Capitani, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte, ground floor

Book presentation (Teams accessible: QUI)– Emilia Koustova [with Alain Blum], Déportés pour l’éternité. Survivre à l’exil stalinien, 1939-1991 (Paris : EHESS-INED, 2024). Organized with Toni Rovatti (Università di Bologna), for ‘900 Storie’ (Istituto Parri Bologna), Moderator: Elena Pirazzoli (Istituto Parri) [in Italian]

Day 2, Friday 25 Oct., Aula Gambi, Piazza San Giovanni in Monte, 2 (1st floor)

09.00 – 13.00   Session B (break ca. 11.00)

• Dmytro Myeshkov, Nordost-Institut Lüneburg / Universität Hamburg: Atrocities by and prosecutions of Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz members in Transnistria, post-1955
• Jasmin Söhner, Research Center for History and Culture of Germans in Russia, Universität Heidelberg: ZSt Ludwigsburg and Soviet cooperation on German war crimes evidence, 1960-1980
• Irina Rebrova, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung / Technische Universität Berlin: The story of the mass killing of 214 children with disabilities in Yeysk in 1942 in the trials in the USSR and East Germany in the 1960s.

Moderator: Irina Makhalova, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

13.00 – 14.00: Lunch break

14.00 – 18.30   Session C (break: ca. 16.00)

• Roman Podkur, Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. / Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions of the Soviet Period, Kyiv: The Nationalist Turn of Post-Amnesty Persecutions: The Trial in Chervonoarmiisk (1959) [in Russian].
• Olena Lysenko, Institute of History, NAN-Ukraine: ‘Generations’ of investigations and prosecutions: the case of Chernihiv [in Russian]
• Irina Tcherneva, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) Paris: Trial use of documentary films on war crimes in Soviet Latvia, 1961-1971
• Jared McBride, University of California, Los Angeles: Domestic and international messaging: the 1979-80 Dufanets trial in Volyn

Moderator: Anton Weiss-Wendt, Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies, Oslo; Antonella Salomoni, Università di Bologna (to be confirmed)

Day 3, Saturday 26 Oct., Aula 1, Piazza Scaravilli, via Zamboni (ground floor)

09.30 – 13.00   Session D

• Emilia Koustova, Université de Strasbourg /CERCEC-EHESS Paris: The postwar Lithuanian Sentencing Review Commission: de-Stalinization, case quantification, and the logic of sentence reversal.
• David Alan Rich: Inflection point in post-1955 karateli trials: the Trawniki cases, 1960s
• Eric Le Bourhis, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) Paris: Trials of Soviet perpetrators after the 1955 amnesty in the Latvian SSR.

Moderator: Anton Weiss-Wendt

13.15 Concluding remarks and next steps: Vanessa Voisin and David Alan Rich