contributors

Articles by Stephan Collishaw

1. But we refused to be scared to silence Swedish designers’ Cold War visit to ICSID ‘75 Moscow

   This text gives a glimpse of a hitherto unknown design discourse during the Cold War – from both sides of the Iron Curtain – by exploring the 1975 Congress of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID), held in Moscow. Sweden sent a big delegation to Russia. More than forty of the small country’s top designers and influencers participated, which was more than twice as many as usual to these international design congresses. Thanks to reactions published about the events in journals on design in Sweden and in the Soviet Union, archival material, and the author’s own interviews with the delegates from Sweden who participated in Moscow, as well as one-off exclusive backstage witnesses from the local staff of the host organization during the ongoing congress, Moscow 1975 is experienced through the eyes of contemporary witnesses. The essay gives new insights into the world congress in design and illustrates the international atmosphere during the Cold War.

2. Feminist translocalities. Decolonial and anti-racist feminisms in Russia and beyond

   This article describes the current developments of feminist discourses and activism in Russia, as well as in the former USSR in general, towards inclusion of more intersectional perspectives: antiracist, disabled and trans*/non-binary. It reviews the contemporary feminist movement in Russia, provides some examples of intersectional projects and focuses on Feminist Translocalities – a project based jointly in the former USSR and Germany, as part of which an exhibition about intersectionality in the histories of these countries travelled across Russia. Describing this and other activities within the Feminist Translocalities project and focusing on anti-racism as a vector of the development of the feminist movement in Russia, the article shows that it is shifting towards more attention to other discriminations, thus also encouraging a similar trend in the broader society.

3. Life in Kharkiv A researcher’s diary during full-scale war

   Diary from Kharkiv on impressions of the first two months of a full-scale war unleashed by Moscow.

4. Evacuation from Mariupol during the Russian invasion. A brief diary of a witness

   During the last eight years we have become used to living near the line of fire and the feeling of danger has been lowered: but everything changed the early morning on February 24, 2022. That day the first Russian rockets destroyed Mariupol’s anti-aircraft weapons and next day we observed civilian casualties in the eastern part of the city.

5. My soul was somewhere between Kyiv and Sumy …

   I decided to go to Sumy to support my parents and bought a train ticket. But the train was cancelled due to a Russian attack. So this was my destiny — to stay in Kyiv!

6. The post-communist legacy in the shadow of the Empire

   Professor Andrzej Leder, psychoanalyst and professor of philosophy, in a conversation with Aleksandra Reczuch about the history and social transformations in the region, the threat of Russia, and the historical memory embodied in buildings, symbols, commemorations, and family albums.

7. Manuscripts do not burn. What about unwritten manuscripts?

   According to the databases of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation and of Ministry of Culture and Information Politics in Ukraine, there were 389 crimes against cultural heritage on June 10, 2022. In the conditions of an ongoing war, it is impossible to be certain of any further damage; this general insecurity and vulnerability adds to general losses. In many towns in Ukraine people made efforts to secure their monuments, covering them physically and digitalizing them in databases.

8. The dilemma of memory laws To restore the dignity of victims without feeding into ultra-nationalism

   In most post-communist countries after the breakdown of the USSR, memory legislation often aimed at constructing an identity of suffering under Nazism and the totalitarian Soviet regime, which relativized itself according to a cosmopolitan understanding of victimhood centered on the Holocaust memory. Regulations of memory, in this sense, were considered an indicator of democratic transition and an entry ticket to the European Union.

9. Space nostalgia: the future that is only possible in the past

   I would like to offer this remnant of a futuristic halo of the Soviet space program as a possible way to comprehend why April 12 never managed to become a full-fledged fantasy world of what Boym terms “restorative nostalgia” like May 9th, and to see which alternative ways to understand nostalgia it may open up.

10. Belarus’ relations with Ukraine and the 2022 Russian invasion Historical ties, society, and realpolitik

    Before the war, Ukraine was the main trade partner of Belarus, after Russia. Imports of Belarusian goods to Ukraine in 2021 are estimated at 5.4 billion US dollars. Therefore, Belarus has a great economic interest in stopping the war.

11. « Older posts

    Newer posts »