CRRC, ARISC and American Councils are proud to present the 2nd talk of the Spring 2017 Works-in-Progress series, by Andreas Röhr from European University Viadrina on “The participation of the Georgian SSR in the ‘Project of the century’, the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM)”.
This talk will discuss the construction of the new settlement Niya along the BAM. The main focus lies on the construction assembly train “GruzstrojBAM“ of the Georgian Socialist Soviet Republic, which built most of the settlement and the railway station in Niya / Irkutsk oblast‘ from 1975 to 1982. The construction assembly train can be described as an intermediary actor between the local communities and the political rulers. A coherent description of the construction of the settlement (connecting archive sources with “Oral History”) shows how the Soviet political rulers (the Komsomol, the Communist Party) tried to exercise control over decision-making processes and how the local actors influenced the construction of both the settlement and the BAM in a way that differs from the political doctrine of the Soviets, and it also sheds light on the nationality policy of this period.
Andreas Röhr is writing his PhD about “A ‘Georgian’ settlement at the New Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM): The construction of Niya (-Gruzinskaya), 1975-1982” at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences. He has university degrees in European Studies, Cultural Pedagogics and Social Work / Social Pedagogics and is dealing with Culture, History and Society in Central and Eastern Europe (and Siberia) for many years.
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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the new office of CRRC at Chkhikvadze St. 1. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.
The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.
Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to m.sikharulidze@crrccenters.org.
