On April 21st, 2017, please join us for a talk featuring Constantin Katsakioris from the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies on "The Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow: Higher Education for a Soviet-Third World Alliance." This event is part of the Occasional series, sponsored by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and co-sponsored by the NYU Africa House.
This paper will retrace the history of the Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University (UDN) from its creation in 1960 to the demise of the USSR, when “Patrice Lumumba” disappeared as well, and “UDN” was rechristened “RUDN” or Russian Peoples’ Friendship University. It will address the following questions: Which was the rationale behind the creation of Lumumba University? How did it function as an institution? Who were its students and which was their training in the USSR? More importantly, which were the international views and reactions and how did they affect the University? Or, why things at the University changed over time? My overall aim will be to assess Lumumba University both as an education institution and, particularly, as an experiment in international cultural policy, whose proclaimed goal was to practice affirmative action in support of Third World nations and whose ultimate aim was to foster a Soviet-Third World alliance.
Constantin Katsakioris is postdoctoral researcher at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies in Germany and research associate at the Center for Russian, Caucasian, and Central European Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales in Paris. His papers have appeared or are forthcoming in books and reviews, among which Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, the Journal of Modern European History, Cahiers du Monde russe, Cahiers d’études africaines.
This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Africa House.
