On June 19th-20th, the European University at St. Petersburg and the St. Petersburg Institute of  History, Russian Academy of Sciences hosted an international conference titled “Issues in Reforming Russia at the Turn of the 19th-20th Centuries: On the 100th Year Anniversary of Sergei Witte’s Death” with support from Goznak.

On June 5, Oleg Vyugin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MDM bank, gave a lecture in the EUSP’s Conference Hall. The idea for the lecture came about from observing how various countries promote their own economic interests: why some achieve their proclaimed goals while others do not, pointing out that there is no single answer to this question.

From May 24th until May 31st, the first summer school titled “Islam in Russia: Muslim Education, Ideological Trends and Contemporary Texts”. Summer school events were organized jointly by Kazan Federal University and the TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia (European University at St. Petersburg).

On May 18th, as part of an open seminar, the Department of History hosted a lecture by Georgii Kasyanov. Kasyanov is a professor of history at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, head of the Department of Modern History at the Institute of History of Ukraine at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, and president of the International Association for the Humanities.

From May 17th until  May 19th the Spring School of Technology Brokers took place at the Raivola Hotel. It was organized by the EUSP Professorship in Public Administration, St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO) and Russian Venture Company (RVC  ). Participants included 50 representatives of universities and academic institutions from 11 Russian regions. Competitive selection was based on a project description for commercializing technology, or a letter of motivation. During three days participants learned about various aspects of the work that technology brokers perform.

From May 12th until May 15th, the European University at St. Petersburg hold a series of lectures titled “Central Asia in Focus,” organized jointly by the TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia and the BP Professorship in Migration Studies.

From May 12th until May 15th, the European University at St. Petersburg hold a series of lectures titled “Central Asia in Focus,” organized jointly by the TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia and the BP Professorship in Migration Studies.

On May 7th-8th an international conference titled “The Golden Horde in a Global Perspective: Imperial Strategies” took place in the library at Leiden University (the Netherlands). It was organized by professor Gabrielle van den Berg (Leiden University), Marie Favereau (Oxford University) and the TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia (European University at St. Petersburg).

On April 16th and 17th, EUSP hosted an international conference organized by the Gender Studies Program with support from the EUSP’s Committee on Academic Planning.

On April 15th, Michele Rivkin-Fish (Professor of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) gave a lecture as part of an interdisciplinary seminar hosted by the EUSP’s Gender Studies Program and the Department of Political Science and Sociology.

On April 10th, the European University at St. Petersburg held a conference dedicated to the development of graduate-level education in Russia. The conference was organized jointly with the Vladimir Potanin Foundation and the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg.

On April 6th, Irina Prokhorova, Head of Editorial Board of the journal Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie [New Literary Observer] presented in EUSP an issue that was released a year ago under the name “Antropologiia diaspory: kul’turnie mekhanizmy konstruirovaniia identichnosti [The Anthropology of Diaspora: Cultural Mechanisms of Constructing Identity].”

From March 26th until March 28th, the EUSP’s Department of Anthropology hosted the fourth annual conference “Anthropology, Folkloristics, Sociolinguistics”.

On March 19th, the regular meeting of the Eastern Seminar, organized by the TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia took place. Niccolo Pianciola, an adjunct professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, delivered a lecture. 

From March 30th  until April 1st , the European University hosted the fourth Workshop on Risk, Insurance and Finance, which is held every year by the Department of Economics. This year, the organizing committee invited professors from the University of Trieste, in Italy. Each professor gave several lectures: Ermanno Pitacco spoke about insurance and risk management, and Anna Rita Bacinello spoke about finance.

On March 26th, Michael Burawoy visited EUSP. He is a professor of sociology at UC Berkeley and served as president of the International Sociological Association (2010-2014). His lecture was held with support from UBS Professorship.

On March 13th, the European University hosted an open forum devoted to the topic of migration and urban development, with support from the Consulate General of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg and the Netherlands Institute in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg and Amsterdam were given special attention as “open” cities, whose populations have a high proportion of migrants.  

On March 5th, Sanna Turoma, a senior research fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki, visited EUSP. Professor Turoma gave a talk on the ‘spatial turn’ in Russian studies. In the history of the social sciences there have been three paradigmatic shifts: linguistic, cultural, and, finally, spatial. What possibilities will this spatial turn open up in the studies of Russia and the Soviet Union?

On February, 27th the European University hosted a presentation by Bart Goldhoorn, which took place as part of the third conference of the “Second World Urbanity” project. Like the project itself, Goldhoorn’s presentation was an attempt to understand the experience of “socialist urbanism,” the mass urban development of the Soviet period, and much more.

On February 18th, as part of the Department of Art History’s Visual Studies program (with support from the Coca-Cola Company), Eva Berar gave a lecture from a series titled “Forming the Image of the ‘Big City’ at the Turn of the 19th-20th Centuries. St. Petersburg-Europe.” Professor Berar is a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), in France. The lecture series will focus on how cities were imagined, portrayed and built in Russia and Western Europe.