This lecture summarizes the argument of a forthcoming book (Suhrkamp, Princeton University Press) that Stalin's crimes of the 1930s should be considered genocide. This requires a review of historical/legal concepts of genocide and of the mass killing of the period itself.
Norman Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East
European Studies: a professor of history; core faculty member of FSI's Forum on
Contemporary Europe; and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is an expert on
modern East European, Balkan, and Russian history. His current research focuses
on the history of genocide in the 20th century and on postwar Soviet policy in
Europe. He is author of the critically acclaimed volumes: The Russians in
Germany: The History of the Soviet Zone of Germany, 1945-1949 (Harvard
1995) and Fires
of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in 20th Century Europe (Harvard 2001). Most
recently, he has co-edited books on Yugoslavia and its
Historians (Stanford 2003), Soviet Politics in Austria, 1945-1955:
Documents from the Russian Archives (in German and Russian, Austrian
Academy of Sciences, 2006), and The Lost Transcripts of the
Politburo (Yale 2008).
Naimark is a senior fellow by courtesy of the Hoover Institution and Burke
Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford. He also was
chair of Stanford's Department of History and programs in International
Relations and International Policy Studies. He has served on the editorial
boards of a series of leading professional journals, including: The American
Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, Slavic Review,
and East
European Politics and Societies. He served as President of the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1997) and as chairman of the
Joint Committee on Eastern Europe of the American Council of Learned Societies
and Social Science Research Council (1992-1997).
Before joining the Stanford faculty, Naimark was a professor of history a
Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He
also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at
Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit
of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for
outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from
Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.
This event marks the Stanford inauguration of the
series developed with the Forum on Contemporary Europe at FSI, in partnership with Suhrkamp Verlag.
The series is also supported by the Division of Humanities and Sciences,the Stanford Humanities Center, Department of
Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, and the German Stanford Club.