44 Lenin Avenue

A researcher's journey to Siberia

Category: Knowledge mobilization

Year in Review: 2019

31 December 2019 / / 0 Comments

In terms of academic accomplishments and milestones, 2019 was an exciting year, including for the “44 Lenin Avenue” project. Here are some of the highlights:

  • My book, Stalin’s Gulag at War, came out in December 2018, but has a 2019 imprint, and I think of it as my first, big career-related news of the year. There have been a few reviews on Goodreads, and likely academic reviews will be coming soon. Like any first-book academic, I’m nervous to see what people have to say about it! It was fun to see it in the “wild,” so to speak, at Chapters in Halifax (picture below).

 

  • The publication of the book led to podcast discussions with the SRB Podcast and the “On War and Society” podcast. I just found out that the SRB interview was one of the ten most popular of 2019. There were so many great interviews on SRB in 2019, so I’m especially honoured that so many people chose to listen to me.

 

  • I gave public lectures or conference presentations on my research (either Gulag or the “44 Lenin Ave” project) at the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic, and Disarmament Studies in Waterloo, Ontario; at the Stokes Colloquium Series at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and at the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Convention in San Francisco, California.

 

  • I earned tenure, promotion to associate professor, and a sabbatical for the 2019-2020 academic year! The sabbatical has given me the time to delve more deeply into research for this project (and to resurrect this blog).

 

  • I won a Visiting Scholar position at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, which I’ll take up in May 2020. This award is specifically for research and dissemination of the “44 Lenin Ave” project. I will be delivering four lectures over the course of the month.

 

 

 

  • An anthology chapter, for a multi-volume Cultural History of Slavery, was officially accepted, and should come out in 2020 or 2021. In this chapter, I explore comparative forced labour systems from 1900-45, and it is amazing how pervasive the use of forced labour remained during this period, despite the abolition of serfdom and slavery. All major political and socio-economic systems of the period resorted to forced labour in various forms.

 

  • In terms of contributing to the academy, more broadly speaking, 2019 has also been an interesting year: I was part of a team developing a proposal for a new MA at Thompson Rivers University, which was an eye-opening experience, and I also served as a program reviewer for an undergraduate history program, which was (perhaps surprisingly) a lot of fun!

All in all, 2019 was a very good year, professionally, and I’m very much looking forward to 2020. Thanks for reading this blog!

Stokes Seminar at Dalhousie University

5 September 2019 / / 0 Comments

As I begin the academic year of my sabbatical, I will be presenting on my research at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S.

I completed my undergraduate degree in History and Russian Studies at Dalhousie in the year 2000, so it’s exciting to be presenting at the department (even if it has physically moved from some beautiful Victorian houses into a large, but cramped, academic building).

I’m particularly delighted to be part of the Stokes Seminar. The late Lawrence Stokes was one of favourite professors while at Dalhousie. I took German and Holocaust history courses with him, and was especially fond of the tangential stories he would tell related to certain historical figures and events.

The presentation is titled, “A Murder Most Siberian: The ‘Bad House,’ Crime, and Punishment in 1909 Tomsk.” It will build on my research around the murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii as I get closer (fingers crossed) to submitting this aspect of the project for publication. One of the main areas I’m trying to explore in the project, as a whole, is the importance of place/space… rather than a backdrop to the events, the place of the events (in this case the building at 44 Lenin Avenue) is of crucial importance. Was the “Bad House (нехороший дом),” as the building came to be known, destined for “bad” events?

Insight! “44 Lenin Avenue” receives its second SSHRC Grant

22 July 2019 / / 0 Comments

Sometimes academic life can be a long slog, with little validation for our efforts except, perhaps, from those (rare) students who take the time and effort to let their professors know how much they enjoyed a particular course. Tenure and promotion, of course, are key times for reflection and assessment, and, if successful, reveal both internal (institutional) and external (expert reviewers) approval of a particular professor’s research, teaching, and service accomplishments.

We shouldn’t, perhaps, need institutional or external validation to feel satisfaction in our work. Yet, it’s part of the job. So, I must say that I’m very pleased to announce that my “44 Lenin Avenue” project has received another major external grant, this time a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Grant, valued at $55,000 over three years. Given that Insight Grant applications first need institutional approval, and then are judged at SSHRC by a panel of accomplished scholars (multiple disciplines) and external reviewers (experts on the specific subject), this grant not only gives me the opportunity to complete my research on the project and to hire multiple student researchers, but it represents a validation of the project as a whole, and my work on it to date.

The research office at Thompson Rivers University issued a brief article on the Insight Grant and Insight Development Grant winners, and you can also find a full list of Insight Grant recipients on SSHRC’s website. It is an honour to be included among so many great researchers and projects. For help with the application itself, I’d especially like to thank Anita Sharma at the TRU research office, and Tina Block, a great history colleague at TRU. And, of course, I’m very grateful to SSHRC and the reviewers of my application.

A couple of other very brief research notes:

  1. I’ve started my position as Visiting Researcher at the Department of History, Dalhousie University… the first stop on my sabbatical. While here, I’ll be researching and writing on the “44 Lenin Avenue” project. I will also have the opportunity to present on this project at the history department’s Stokes’ Seminar Series in September. I majored in history and Russian studies at King’s/Dalhousie, so this was where it all began.
  2. I also received my official acceptance as Visiting Scholar at L’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. I’ll be there in May 2020, and will deliver a series of lectures on the “44 Lenin Avenue” project, and will also be able to conduct research in a community that includes many of France’s top experts on Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Podcasts: Stalin’s Gulag at War

21 May 2019 / / 0 Comments

Not directly related to the 44 Lenin Avenue project, but just another brief research update:

So far, I’ve taken part in two podcasts related to my book, Stalin’s Gulag at War (UTP, 2019).

  1. Sean Guillory of the SRB Podcast interviewed me in February. I’ve known Sean since we were both doing our doctoral research in Moscow in 2005, and it was a pleasure to be a part of his podcast, which has become the go-to resource for information about new books in Russian/Soviet/Post-Soviet history, politics, and culture. In any case, you can find my interview, and a partial transcript of the interview, here. A couple of relatively recent favorites of mine include Sarah Cameron on the famine in Kazakhstan, and Julia Mickenberg on ‘American Girls in Red Russia.’
  2. When I was in Waterloo in January, Eric Storey of the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic, and Disarmament Studies (LCMSDS) interviewed me for the “On War & Society” podcast. The interview came out in early April, and you can listen, here. I’m very grateful to LCMSDS for bringing me to Ontario to speak about my book. My public talk was very well attended, with around 70 people in the audience.

Resurrecting this Blog!

15 May 2019 / / 0 Comments

So, it has been a while…

I was very active on this blog for the first year or so of the 44 Lenin Avenue project, but as it came time to complete the finishing touches on my book, as well as getting bogged down by various other aspects of my job, I have not had much time to devote to this project (or to the blog), over the last year. That is about to change, for two exciting reasons!

  1. My book was finally published. You can purchase Stalin’s Gulag at War directly from University of Toronto Press (the paperback is only 22.95 CAD on the UTP website!), or most large booksellers that sell on line. If anyone is reading this from Kamloops, copies are also available at the TRU Bookstore!
  2. I’ve earned tenure, promotion, and a research sabbatical, all starting July 1! The sabbatical is specifically designed for this project. Some of the planning is ongoing, but it will take me to Halifax, Paris, Oxford, and Russia for research and writing, so be ready for some updates! I’m particularly excited to have been awarded funding to spend one month at the EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) in Paris, where I’ll be lecturing both on the Gulag and on the 44 Lenin Avenue project.

I found my initial posts especially helpful for working through preliminary ideas, or for discussing interesting nuggets of information, and I intend to use this blog as a type of research journal (albeit a public one). Any feedback over the coming year, especially, would be greatly appreciated.

Research progress

4 July 2018 / / 0 Comments

It has been awhile since I’ve posted, here. Just a quick update, and perhaps I’ll make some of these items into larger posts:

  • My first publication based on the 44 Lenin Avenue project came out in January: Wilson T. Bell, “Tomsk regional identity and the legacy of the Gulag and Stalinist repression,” in Edith Clowes, Gisela Erbsloh, and Ani Kokobobo, eds., Russia’s Regional Identities: The Power of the Provinces. Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 2018. I’m particularly excited about this publication because it combines my new research (“44 Lenin Avenue”) with my older research on the Gulag in Western Siberia, and it is also my first publication dealing with contemporary Russia.

 

  • Speaking of my older research, my book, Stalin’s Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War, is scheduled to come out this fall with the University of Toronto Press. All that is left is basically the indexing and the double/triple-checking of the proofs. If you pre-order the book, you can receive a large discount: the paperback version is only $19.95 at the moment! UTP has been a pleasure to work with, so far. I already have one speaking engagement lined up to discuss my book: a talk at Wilfred Laurier University’s Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies on Jan. 9, 2019. Details to follow, but you can also check their website for updates.

 

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