Stanford Lectures on Ukraine presents:
"From Ruins to Reconstruction: Urban Identity in Soviet Sevastopol after World War II"
Karl Qualls, Associate Prof of History, Dickinson College
Thursday, March 12th at 5:15pm
Hartley Conference Center, Mitchell Building
Co-sponsored by the Program on Urban Studies
Watching the news lately one cannot help but notice the tension between
Russia and Ukraine. The media fixates on natural gas deliveries and
payments, but the problem is far greater. Prior to the latest gas row, Kiev
and Moscow argued over the fate of the strategic city of Sevastopol, which
is located about 430 miles from Kiev and 800 miles from Moscow on the Black
Sea. Sevastopol is a main point of contention not only because it is home to
naval fleets of both countries, but also because this ethnically Russian
city is today part of independent Ukraine. Karl Qualls argues that
Sevastopol's unique history, and particularly the Russification of it during
the post-WW II decades, situated it firmly in the Russian national
historical imagination. From architecture and city planning to wartime
reporting and Cold War era travel guides, Soviet and Russian officials
created a collective memory of Sevastopol as a city that has always served
as a protector of the Russian state. In the present struggles with Ukraine
over sovereignty, gas, and NATO expansion, Sevastopol again is thrust into
the fray.
Karl Qualls is an Associate Professor and Chair of History at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Russian and East European History from Georgetown University, where he began studying Soviet urban reconstruction under the direction of Richard Stites. He has received research grants from the J. Paul Getty Research Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Library of Congress, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, among others. His publications have focused primarily on state-society relations in the reconstruction of Sevastopol immediately after World War II. His urban studies approach crosses the boundaries of political, cultural, and social history with a particular emphasis on local initiative. Working at a small liberal arts college allows Prof. Qualls to pursue several teaching interests beyond urban and Russian history, including comparative dictatorships; Holocaust; Historical Methods; Philosophical, Literary and Technological Utopias; and more. His book From Ruins to Reconstruction: Identity and Urban Rebirth in Soviet Sevastopol after World War II will appear with Cornell University Press in the fall.