Join the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies as we celebrate Black History Month with a lecture from historian Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon on Feb. 26, 11-12PM (held via Zoom: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/85409825173)
“No Jim Crow on the Trains of the Soviet Union”: African-Americans in Stalin’s Soviet Union
Scores of African Americans moved to the Soviet Union to better their economic standing and improve their quality of life. The experiences of these individuals shed light on how the juxtaposition of the Soviet attempt to mold a new society and the region’s relative inexperience with black people offered African American visitors a unique opportunity to explore modes of black identity. What did it mean to be black in a land that, according to official doctrine, had no racism or white supremacy? In this lecture, Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon explores these questions and offers new insights on Soviet engagement with African Americans.
About the Speaker:
Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is a first-year doctoral student in the history department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her doctoral research examines the intersections between African American and African experiences in the Soviet Union and Soviet understandings of race and nationality.
For more information contact Prof. Colleen Lucey: luceyc@arizona.edu
