Reimagining Soviet Georgia

Reimagining Soviet Georgia

Reimagining Soviet Georgia is a Tbilisi based history initiative focused on the Soviet Union, Georgia & the South Caucasus, socialism & post-socialism.

  1. Episode 69: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War with Ivan Katchanovski

    2 DAYS AGO

    Episode 69: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War with Ivan Katchanovski

    On today's podcast we welcome Ivan Katchanovski to discuss his most recent book The Russia-Ukraine War and its Origins: From the Maidan to the Ukraine War (2025) . Ivan Katchanovski specializes in researching comparative politics, conflicts, political communication, and policy in Ukraine, the US, and Canada. He teaches at the School of Political Studies and the Conflict Studies and Human Rights Program at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He previously held academic positions at Harvard University, the State University of New York at Potsdam, the University of Toronto, and the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. Open access to the book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-98724-3 Book description: This open access book examines the Russia-Ukraine war and its origins. Based on analysis of a large number of primary and secondary sources, it provides a systematic analysis of this crucial war, its nature, outcome, possibility of peaceful settlement, violence against civilians, and origins. The book examines the role of such factors as the NATO accession of Ukraine, Russian imperialism, democracy, genocide, and the far-right in the start of the war and traces the conflict escalation ladder, which culminated in this war, to preceding violent conflicts in Ukraine, in particular, the Euromaidan, the Maidan massacre, the Russian annexation of Crimea, and the war in Donbas. The Russia-Ukraine war is the most significant armed conflict of the 21st century in the entire world and in Europe since World War Two in terms of countries involved, casualties inflicted, and actual and potential impact in the world. This book analyzes the involvement of different conflict parties, such as the Ukrainian, Russian, and Western governments, Donbas separatists, and the far right, in this crucial war and in the Euromaidan, the Maidan massacre, the Russian annexation of Crimea, and the war in Donbas, and the nature of these conflicts. This book also examines support for pro-Western/pro-nationalist and pro-Russian/pro-communist political parties and presidential candidates and attitudes towards separatism and joining the European Union, NATO, and the union with Russia in regions of Ukraine in parliamentary and presidential elections and surveys since the Euromaidan.

    1hr 30min
  2. Episode 67: Palestine, Communism and the National Question 1920-1955 with Mohamad Kadan

    13 APR

    Episode 67: Palestine, Communism and the National Question 1920-1955 with Mohamad Kadan

    On today’s episode, historian Mohamad Kadan takes us on a deep dive into the emergence of Marxism and Communist politics in Palestine in the early 20th century and immediately following the Nakba - the mass ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians in 1948 during the establishment of the state of Israel.Mohamad explores how questions of Palestinian anti-colonial struggle and self-determination, class, Marxist internationalism, nationalism, Zionism and imperialism shaped articulations of Marxism and on the ground Communist political organizing in Palestine.Mohamad Kadan is a PhD student in History at Rice University, focusing on global histories of Palestinians, the communist movement, and settler colonialism.His writing can be found here:https://rice.academia.edu/MohamadKadanFor more reading on Communism in Palestine:https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/328-the-palestine-communist-party-1919-1948 https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/hls.2010.0103 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43997993Episode image:Palestinians raise their arms during an outdoor rally in Abou Ghosh in 1936, likely to vote to endorse the general strike that would become the longest in modern history. (PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

    1hr 48min
  3. Episode 66: Youth and Bolshevik Power in Georgia with Giorgi Beridze

    23 MAR

    Episode 66: Youth and Bolshevik Power in Georgia with Giorgi Beridze

    On today’s episode we explore the emergence and development of Bolshevism in Georgia, from the Russian Empire-wide revolutionary moments of 1905 and 1917, through the era of Menshevik rule in the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921), to the establishment and first decade of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic 1921-1931.In the discussion, we examine the local roots of Bolshevism in Georgia in the years prior to Sovietization in 1921, as well as the role of youth and youth organizations in pre-Soviet revolutionary processes and mobilizations as well as in early Soviet state and nation building in the Georgian SSR.Our guest is Giorgi BeridzeGiorgi Beridze is a Doctor of Political Science and an invited lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. His doctoral research examined labour policy-making and the role of business elites in Georgia, with particular attention to transformations in policymaking following the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2014.His research interests include the history of the Marxist movement in Georgia, labour history, labour rights, Europeanization theory, biopolitics, and security studies. From 2023 to 2024, he served as Head of the Department for the Study of the Archives of the Democratic Republic and the Recent History of Georgia at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Library. During this period, his research focused on the history of Social Democracy and the Marxist movement in Georgia before, during, and after the Russian Revolution.His work has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals, including Europe-Asia Studies, TalTech Journal of European Studies, and Revolutionary Russia. He is also the co-author of several books published in Georgian by Tbilisi State University Press, including works on the First Democratic Republic of Georgia, the history of the Marxist movement in Georgia, and the history of youth protest movements at Tbilisi State University.

    57 min
  4. Episode 65: Poverty Alleviation and Socialist Construction in China with Tings Chak

    9 MAR

    Episode 65: Poverty Alleviation and Socialist Construction in China with Tings Chak

    This weeks discussion thematically compliments and follows on our previous episode on Marxism and China (episode 64 - give it a listen!).Sitting down with Tings Chak, we examine China’s radical transformations from 1949 until today by centering a few questions: how was the mass alleviation of poverty accomplished in China? Is it an ongoing process? What does “socialist construction” have to do with it? Is China socialist? What kinds of contradictions has Chinese economic development faced? And how has China’s rapid and radical improvement in living standards shaped it’s place in the world? And what does this all mean for the global south in 2026?Tings Chak is the Asia co-coordinator and art director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. She is an editor of Wenhua Zongheng: A Journal of Chinese Contemporary Thought and is currently pursuing her doctorate at Tsinghua University in Beijing.Find Tings on social media at:X: @t_ings @tri_continentalinstagram: @tingschak @thetricontinentalSome links: Poverty alleviation: https://thetricontinental.org/studies-1-socialist-construction/ Chinese Revolution historical overview: https://mronline.org/2024/10/01/seventy-five-years-of-the-chinese-revolution/ Wenhua Zongheng latest on Trump: https://thetricontinental.org/wenhua-zongheng-2025-2-trump-2-0-global-order/ Go To Yan’an: Culture and National Liberation: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-yanan-forum/

    1hr 4min
  5. Episode 64: Marxism & China with Josef Gregory Mahoney

    21 FEB

    Episode 64: Marxism & China with Josef Gregory Mahoney

    On today’s episode we have a wide reaching, in depth and fascinating discussion on Chinese Marxism. We examine Marxism’s historical emergence in China and it’s adaptation to Chinese conditions - both as an idea guiding the Communist Party of China that culminated in the 1949 Chinese revolution as well as post-1949 state craft and socialist development in China. We also pay special attention to the influences of the Russian Revolution and Soviet Union on Chinese Marxism and socialism, as well as the critical differences and tensions between them from the 1920s, through Soviet collapse in 1991, to how the Soviet experience is understood in China today. Our guest is Professor of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University Dr. Josef Gregory Mahoney. Dr. Mahoney also serves as a Concurrent Professor of Marxism and Senior Research Fellow with Jiangsu’s top think tank—the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics —based at Southeast University in Nanjing. He teaches seminars on Marxism at ECNU, and his research methods emphasize dialectical and historical materialism, including his recent work on China’s rise as an advanced technological society undergoing rapid green transformations. He holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and B.A. from George Washington University; as well as an M.PA. and M.S.P.H. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to his doctoral studies he was a public health officer with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC/ATSDR).

    2h 9m
  6. Episode 63: Border Delimitation in the Early Soviet Union with Stephan Rindlisbacher

    23/12/2025

    Episode 63: Border Delimitation in the Early Soviet Union with Stephan Rindlisbacher

    On today’s episode we discuss internal border delimitation in the early Soviet Union. Our discussion covers a wide geography - from Central Asia to the South Caucasus to the Ukrainian-Russia borderlands. How did internal borders get delimited after the establishment of Soviet power in the 1920s and 30s? What role did borders play in nation building? And how do economic factors shape the border delimitation process? Our guest today is Stephan Rindlisbacher author of the book Borders in Red: Managing Diversity in the Early Soviet Union https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501780585/borders-in-red/ Stephan Rindlisbacher (European University Viadrina Frankfurt, Oder) is a researcher specializing in Eurasian history. In his ongoing projects, he focuses on the early Soviet state’s national policies and their regional implementation. This includes Ukraine, the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

    1hr 5min
  7. Episode 62: Afghanistan, Anti-Imperial Modernity and the Soviet Union with Adam Alimi

    04/12/2025

    Episode 62: Afghanistan, Anti-Imperial Modernity and the Soviet Union with Adam Alimi

    On today's episode we discuss Afghan communism and the consequences of the 1978 Saur Revolution in the context of a longer story of Afghan anti-imperial modernity and Soviet-Afghan relations.How and why was the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan different from interventions by other powers in the country? How do analyses of the 1979 Soviet invasion that center the “empire” framework limit our understanding of the history of Afghan anti-imperial modernity, Soviet-Afghan relations and Afghanistan’s place in the world?Our guest is Adam Alimi and we use his article ”Beyond Empire: Why the Soviet invasion (and withdrawal) of Afghanistan was different” as the basis for the conversation.Article summary and link:The Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 set off the usual literatures of failure in studies on Afghanistan. These accounts – graveyard of empires, tribalism, Islam – helped temper the hubris of US foreign policy in its so-called ‘longest war’. Naturally, unforgiving Afghanistan was doomed to remain in the Stone Age, as the British and Soviets had discovered before. Still, the Soviet comparison as an account of the broader failure in Afghanistan is wanting. By drawing on newer global histories of Afghanistan, the periodization of modernity-failure is recast in more interesting ways. Specifically, this article advances the argument that the Soviet connection in Afghanistan, understood here in the long term and not just as the invasion in 1979, cohered with the winds of modernity and anti-imperialism animating the region in the twentieth century. Markers of Afghan modernity, such as late modernization (state-building), political economy (rural social property relations), and revolution (communism), are explored. The US occupation after 2001 is also used as a point of comparison to refocus the history of Afghanistan beyond empire.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19436149.2025.2499294Adam Alimi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at York University, Toronto Canada. His research focuses on Marxist theories of development in the Global South.

    1hr 10min
  8. Episode 61: Far-Right Nationalism, Memory Politics and Ukraine with Per Rudling

    13/11/2025

    Episode 61: Far-Right Nationalism, Memory Politics and Ukraine with Per Rudling

    On today’s episode we explore the role of the historical Ukrainian far-right, specifically the Nazi-collaborationist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, in the development of post-Soviet Ukraine’s national memory regime. In particular we address a paradox - how did these far right political formations and their historical narratives, despite limited and regionally specific popularity, assume disproportionate influence on Ukraine’s post-Soviet national-memory regime since 1991? What role did the far right nationalist diaspora play? And how do the Russia-Ukraine War as well as the broader normalization of ethno-nationalism in politics and academia reinforce far right memory politics?Our guest today is historian Per Rudling. As a basis for discussion we read his recent article “Repatriating An Edifying Past: The Diaspora Ukrainian Authoritarian Right and Power Over Memory, 1991–2021” Article description: The recent history of the Ukrainian authoritarian far right is one of paradoxes. If one looks at the polls, it has performed poorly; its modest successes have been regional and short-lived. On the other hand, it has been highly successful in terms of shaping memory politics in the country. It has had a disproportional influence on history writing, having invested significant efforts into building an effective structure in the field of memory management. Radical nationalists have also come to staff senior positions as deans and vice chancellors at Ukraine’s top universities, the ministry of education, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP), and the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service (HDA SBU). The hard right has gained a disproportionate influence on “soft issues” of identity and the shaping of “national memory” – not only by running the governmental memory institutes, but also by hands-on drafting of memory laws outlawing “disrespect” for the OUN, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and other historical far-right groups. This study seeks to trace and contextualize the repatriation of the ethnonationalist hard right from emigration and its role in shaping an infrastructure of memory production – in particular, under presidents Yushchenko (2005–2010) and Poroshenko (2014–2019).Per Rudling is associate professor of History at Lund University and author of Tarnished Heroes: The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in the Memory Politics of Post-Soviet Ukraine (2024) and The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism 1906-1931 (2014)

    1hr 29min
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About

Reimagining Soviet Georgia is a Tbilisi based history initiative focused on the Soviet Union, Georgia & the South Caucasus, socialism & post-socialism.

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  • Creator
    Reimagining Soviet Georgia
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Reimagining Soviet Georgia
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    Reimagining Soviet Georgia

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