About this day
For A-level and IB students
Our popular and exciting study day will appeal to all students studying 20th-century Russian history, with a focus on the period 1894 – 1964. This unmissable event is suitable for A-level and IB students as well as enthusiastic year 11 students preparing for the Edexcel, AQA and OCR specifications. World-class historians will present stimulating and relevant talks which are sure to inspire, inform and entertain. Topics will cover the end of Romanov rule and the Revolutions to communist government under Lenin through to the Stalin and Khrushchev eras.
The day will include a lunchtime examination session providing first-hand guidance and insights to help boost students’ confidence and grades. Useful handouts containing key information on the topics covered, suggested further reading and examination advice will be provided and there will be plenty of opportunity for questions throughout the day.
“Remarkable breadth of quality content – at least one of our pupils named each speaker as their favourite. We’ve never had this before at similar events.”
— Teacher, Autumn 2024 —
Programme & speakers
Nicholas II and the collapse of the Romanov Dynasty Simon Dixon, UCL
By 1900, Russia was the only surviving autocracy in Europe. This fact and the personality of the last Romanov tsar, Nicholas II, made the empire difficult to govern. Convinced that his authority was directly sanctioned by God, and inspired by a nationalist vision of Russian history, Nicholas proved tragically incapable of marrying the modern world with the traditions he struggled to defend. His dynasty was felled by war, when he took command of his troops, and by the February Revolution that forced his abdication.
About Professor Simon Dixon
Simon Dixon is Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History at UCL. He is the author of Catherine the Great (Profile Books, 2009) and has written widely about the interplay between politics and religion at the end of the old regime. In 2017, he gave the Royal Historical Society’s Prothero Lecture on the restoration of the Patriarchate in Moscow in 1917. Between 2015 and 2019 he was Chairman of the Literary Committee for the Russian Booker Prize.
The end of the Romanov Empire: new perspectives on the Russian revolutions Sarah Badcock, University of Nottingham
This topic will explore the roles of different national and ethnic groups in the revolutionary period, and the relative significance of different revolutionary actors, with particular emphasis on perspectives from different parts of the Empire.
About Professor Sarah Badcock
Sarah Badcock is Professor of Modern History at the University of Nottingham, specialising in late Imperial and early Soviet Russian history, Russia’s revolutions, crime and punishment in late Imperial Russia and exile in Russia. She was consultant and presenter for the Channel Five documentary The Russian Revolution in Colour.
Lenin's Russia and the Dream of Revolution Robert Service, University of Oxford
This talk will focus on how the communists, from October 1917, expected to transform Russia. To what extent did they fail to understand the internal and external difficulties they would face? Did they even expect there to be a full-scale civil war? What were their thoughts about the Great War and Europe? Was dictatorship baked into their planning? How did they manage to win the civil war and survive peace in 1921-22? Big questions about which historians have never agreed.
About Professor Robert Service
Robert Service is Emeritus Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford. His research interests cover Russian history from the late 19th century, with a focus on the period from the October Revolution to Stalin’s death. He has published widely, including biographies of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky.
Was Stalin a Revolutionary? Christopher Read, University of Warwick
Professor Read will examine the question of what motivated Stalin in his transformation of the USSR. The nature of the political, economic, social and cultural revolutions will be considered. The international context will also be taken into account as a key element.
About Professor Christopher Read
Christopher Read is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Warwick, specialising in twentieth century Russian history. He has published widely and his most recent book is The Russian intelligentsia: from the monastery to the Mir space station.
How Khrushchev dismantled Stalinism...and how he didn't Polly Jones, University of Oxford
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Khrushchev swung repeatedly between attacking and defending Stalin and Stalinism. In addition to analysing these shifts in memory politics, and the reasons behind them, this lecture will also consider broader continuities and changes between Stalinism and the post-Stalinist Soviet project, and how Soviet citizens responded to the twists and turns of de-Stalinization.
About Professor Polly Jones
Polly Jones is Professor in Russian at University College, Oxford. She is the author and editor of several books on Soviet cultural history and politics, including Revolution Rekindled: The Writers and Readers of Late Soviet Biography and Myth, Memory, Trauma: Rethinking the Stalinist Past in the Soviet Union, 1953-70. Professor Jones appears regularly on radio and TV to talk about Russian culture and history, and was consultant to Armando Iannucci’s film ‘The Death of Stalin’.