A Talk By Vladislav Zubok: The Idea Of Russia. The Life And Works Of Dmitry Likhachev

A Talk By Vladislav Zubok: The Idea Of Russia. The Life And Works Of Dmitry Likhachev

Dmitry Likhachev ( 1906-1999) is one of the main national ideologues of contemporary Russia. His life spanned the century from Tsarist rule to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of contemporary Russia. Born in St. Petersburg, Likhachev was arrested shortly after completing his university education, charged with counter-revolutionary ideas and imprisoned for four years in the Gulag. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became a public intellectual, engaged in the preservation of legacy and revival of cultural life of his country. One of his main missions was to combat Russian xenophobia and aggressive nationalism and to overcome cultural alienation between Russia and Europe. Likhachev’s vision of Russia continues, after his death, to be an important alternative to illiberal and anti-Western nationalist ideologies that became widespread in Russia in recent years.

Vladislav Zubok’s book “The Idea of Russia” is the first scholarly biography of Dmitry Likhachev .The book was published in 2017 by I. B. Tauris and in Russian translation in St. Petersburg. In his talk, Prof. Zubok will speak about the main themes of his book and their relevance to the current affairs in Russia.

Vladislav M. Zubok, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Born and educated in Moscow, in 1993-2012 he worked and taught in the United States. His books include A Failed Empire: the Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia (Belknap Press, 2009), and The Idea of Russia. The Life and Work of Dmitry of Likhachev (I.B.Tauris, 2017). Currently finishes a book about the Soviet collapse.