I completed a Ph.D. at Cambridge in Development Economics and Politics, with my dissertation focusing on Russian ethnic and religious minorities and the effect of historical memory on policy-making. My wider research interests include the political and economic transformation of the CIS countries with a special reference to the energy sector and I am particularly drawn to tensions surrounding Islam in post-Soviet space.
Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, ed. Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner,... more Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, ed. Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn and Luke Yarbrough, Berkeley: University of California Press (2020), 156-159
The Encyclopedia of Empire, Vol II, eds. John M. MacKenzie, Nigel Dalzier, Nicholas Doumanis and Michael W. Charney, New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
The Encyclopedia of Empire, Vol II, eds. John M. MacKenzie, Nigel Dalzier, Nicholas Doumanis and Michael W. Charney, New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, ed. Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner,... more Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook, ed. Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn and Luke Yarbrough, Berkeley: University of California Press (2020), 156-159
The Encyclopedia of Empire, Vol II, eds. John M. MacKenzie, Nigel Dalzier, Nicholas Doumanis and Michael W. Charney, New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
The Encyclopedia of Empire, Vol II, eds. John M. MacKenzie, Nigel Dalzier, Nicholas Doumanis and Michael W. Charney, New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
15 June 2022, 2022 '‘The future is certain, it’s the past that keeps changing’: The transformatio... more 15 June 2022, 2022 '‘The future is certain, it’s the past that keeps changing’: The transformation of Soviet propaganda during WWII' History of War Seminar Series, All Souls College, Oxford Universty, UK
Even though swiftness does seldom stem to mind when thinking of the Eastern Front during WWII, which saw a virtually unprecedented bloodshed and destruction over the course of almost four years, it did bring quite fast change in the realm of Soviet propaganda. Although after more than a decade and a half of internationalism and downplaying everything Russian, the second part of the 1930s saw Russian history’s rise in importance, it was only in 1941 that Moscow switched gears. Stalin himself set the tone when, on November 7, 1941, commemorating the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution he gave one of his rare public speeches. With most of the troops parading on the Red Square being sent, after their march, to the front merely 19 miles from the capital, Stalin recalled the images of some of the greatest Russian rulers and generals, ‘Aleksandr Nevsky, Dimitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dimitry Pozharsky, Aleksandr Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov’ who should ‘inspire you in this war’. The war was waged to defend not the ‘Soviet state’ but the ‘Russian motherland’, the military heroes of old Russia and the Orthodox saints were reinstated and put forward as examples for the military. Pan-Slavism, deemed outdated and outright dangerous during the preceding two decades was suddenly rehabilitated, and the ideological resistance against the German invasion was organized not exclusively around proletarian internationalism and Russian nationalism but also under the umbrella of Slavic resistance to German aggression. By 1945 the transformation, at least on the level of propaganda, was almost complete: Russia was portrayed as not only being one of the components of an internationalist country but in essence the very heart of it, which led the world to victory over Nazism.
While throughout the 20th century wars did often prompt propaganda machines to rapidly change their stance, no change was greater than that exemplified by the Soviet Union during what later quite tellingly came to be known as the Great Patriotic War. The paper aims to shed light on the roots and evolution of Soviet propaganda during the war while dealing with issues related to the paradoxes and problems stemming from its relative ideological flexibility.
March 17, 2022 'The paradigm of the new international order’s challenges. Perspectives of securit... more March 17, 2022 'The paradigm of the new international order’s challenges. Perspectives of security’, International Center for Geopolitical Forecasting "East-West" and Association of Political Studies of the city of Nur-Sultan, Nur-sultan, Kazakhstan
May 21, 2021 Cambridge Central Asia Forum in collaboration with the Centre of
Development Studies... more May 21, 2021 Cambridge Central Asia Forum in collaboration with the Centre of Development Studies and GCRF COMPASS Project, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK
November 26, 2016, Cambridge University International Research Seminar, Magdalene College, Cambr... more November 26, 2016, Cambridge University International Research Seminar, Magdalene College, Cambridge University
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Papers by Gerald Mako
Even though swiftness does seldom stem to mind when thinking of the Eastern Front during WWII, which saw a virtually unprecedented bloodshed and destruction over the course of almost four years, it did bring quite fast change in the realm of Soviet propaganda. Although after more than a decade and a half of internationalism and downplaying everything Russian, the second part of the 1930s saw Russian history’s rise in importance, it was only in 1941 that Moscow switched gears. Stalin himself set the tone when, on November 7, 1941, commemorating the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution he gave one of his rare public speeches. With most of the troops parading on the Red Square being sent, after their march, to the front merely 19 miles from the capital, Stalin recalled the images of some of the greatest Russian rulers and generals, ‘Aleksandr Nevsky, Dimitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dimitry Pozharsky, Aleksandr Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov’ who should ‘inspire you in this war’. The war was waged to defend not the ‘Soviet state’ but the ‘Russian motherland’, the military heroes of old Russia and the Orthodox saints were reinstated and put forward as examples for the military. Pan-Slavism, deemed outdated and outright dangerous during the preceding two decades was suddenly rehabilitated, and the ideological resistance against the German invasion was organized not exclusively around proletarian internationalism and Russian nationalism but also under the umbrella of Slavic resistance to German aggression. By 1945 the transformation, at least on the level of propaganda, was almost complete: Russia was portrayed as not only being one of the components of an internationalist country but in essence the very heart of it, which led the world to victory over Nazism.
While throughout the 20th century wars did often prompt propaganda machines to rapidly change their stance, no change was greater than that exemplified by the Soviet Union during what later quite tellingly came to be known as the Great Patriotic War. The paper aims to shed light on the roots and evolution of Soviet propaganda during the war while dealing with issues related to the paradoxes and problems stemming from its relative ideological flexibility.
Development Studies and GCRF COMPASS Project, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK