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Transport Mobility in Eastern Europe: Political Designs and Lived Experiences (mid XIX – XX Century)

Publication date 31.10.2024

The course invites to explore East-European History of mid XIX – late XX cent. through the concept of mobility, which encompasses movement of people, goods and ideas. Students will deal with a corpus of texts on social history of transportation, as well as with a rich array of visual materials. Of special interest will be cases, specific to the region, for example cultures of Christian and Muslim pilgrimage, Socialist rallies, trolleybus infrastructures or “destalinization” of metro stations. Cases of imported western technologies will provide ground for interregional comparisons, not only in aspects of introduction of transport system, but also in aspects of their exploitation and disintegration. The course is built on a premise that mobilities are products of social construction and, at the same time, they form long-term structures. Although Ukrainian historical mobilities will lay in the focus of the course, its geography will cover a broad territory between Berlin, Riga, Turku, Moscow, Bucharest and Tbilisi. Knowledge of East-European languages will be of benefit, but is not required.

Introduction to the Course

Why should one study Mobility History of Eastern Europe?

Approaches to History of Mobility: 

Social Life of Things, Social Construction of Technologies, Mental Production of Space and Mobility Turn. Historiography of Transport Mobility History
Key concepts defined: mobility justice, mobility patterns, culture of mobility, gendered mobility, technological design, lived experience of transport design, production of space. Trends in the field of Mobility Studies from 1970s until today: from the history of innovation introduction to the history of technological use and decay.

Course overview, expectations, highlights.

Getting to know each other, sharing interests.

The New Mobilities Paradigm

Roads and Roadlessness in Russian Empire

Transport Hubs of XIX Century: the Cases of Odesa and Kyiv

Railway Passengers: Their Spaces and Experiences

Roads and Roadlessness in the Soviet Union

Private Transport in Socialist States

Maintainance and Repair as a Mobility Culture

Gendered Mobilities in Eastern Europe

Post-war Balkan Infrastructures and Nationbuilding

Post-Socialism and Transport

Conclusions

Further Readings

 

Bekasova, Alexandra. «The Making of Passengers in the Russian Empire: Coach-Transport Companies, Guidebooks, and National Identity in Russia, 1820-1860». В Russia in Motion. Cultures of Human Mobility since 1850, 199–218. Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2012.   

Belge, Boris. «(Dis-)Connected. Railway, Steamships and Trade in the Port of Odessa 1865-1888». Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies 5 (2020): 49-69.  

Bryant, Chad, Arthur Burns, and Paul Readman, eds. Walking Histories, 1800-1914. 1st ed. 2016 edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Crouch, Martin. «Problems of Soviet Urban Transport». Soviet Studies 31, вип. 2 (1979): 231–56.

Cvetkovski, Roland. ‘Russlands Wegelosigkeit. Semiotiken Einer Abwesenheit’. In Mastering Russian Spaces, 91–108, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110446647-006.

Cybriwsky, Roman Adrian. Along Ukraine’s River: A Social and Environmental History of the Dnipro. Illustrated edition. Budapest ; New York: Central European University Press, 2018.

David-Fox, Michael, Kenyon Zimmer, Vladislav Martinovič Zubok, Patryk Babiracki, and Patryk Babiracki. ‘Cold War Crossings: International Travel and Exchange across the Soviet Bloc, 1940s-1960s’. The Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures 45. College Station: published for the University of Texas at Arlington by Texas A&M University Press, 2014.

Gestwa, Klaus. ‘Die Stalinschen Grossbauten des Kommunismus: sowjetische Technik- und Umweltgeschichte, 1948-1967’. Ordnungssysteme Bd. 30. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2010.

Golubev, Alexey. The Things of Life: : Materiality in Late Soviet Russia. Cornell Scholarship Online. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501752902.

Golubev, Alexey. The Things of Life: : Materiality in Late Soviet Russia. Cornell Scholarship Online. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501752902.

Greene, Robert H. ‘Bodies in Motion: Steam-Powered Pilgrimages in Late Imperial Russia*’. Russian History 39, no. 1–2 (1 January 2012): 247–68. https://doi.org/10.1163/187633112X627148.

Kazakevych, Gennadii. ‘Memory Factories: Professional Photography in Kyiv, 1850-1918’. Text and Image: Essential Problems in Art History, 1 January 2020, 82–101. https://doi.org/10.17721/2519-4801.2020.1.06.

Khairullina, Elvira, і Luis Santos y Ganges. «Tram, Trolleybus and Bus Services in Eastern-European Socialist Urban Planning: Case Studies of Magdeburg, Ostrava and Oryol (1950s and 1960s)». The Journal of Transport History 42, вип. 1 (Червень 2021): 26–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022526620931834.

Martynyuk, Olha. «Threatening Mobility: Cycling during World War II from a Ukrainian Perspective». The Journal of Transport History, 23, Лютий 2023, 00225266231156113. https://doi.org/10.1177/00225266231156113. 

Mom, Gijs. «Roads without Rails: European Highway-Network Building and the Desire for Long-Range Motorized Mobility». Technology and Culture 46, вип. 4 (2005): 745–72.  

Moraglio, Massimo. «Seeking a (New) Ontology for Transport History». The Journal of Transport History 38, вип. 1 (01, Червень 2017): 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022526617709168.  

Möser, Kurt. Geschichte des Autos. Frankfurt/Main ; New York: Campus-Verl., 2002.

Pozharliev, Lyubomir. «Collectivity vs. Connectivity: Highway Peripheralization in Former Yugoslavia (1940s–1980s)». The Journal of Transport History 37, вип. 2 (01, Грудень 2016): 194–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022526616667134.

Pozharliev, Lyubomir. «State Goals and Private Interests in the Development of Transport Infrastructure in the Russian Black Sea Region in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century». Journal of Balkan and Black Sea Studies, Issue. 3 (2020): 71–96.  

Randolph, John. ‘The Singing Coachman or, The Road and Russia’s Ethnographic Invention in Early Modern Times’. Journal of Early Modern History 11, no. 1–2 (2007): 33–61. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006507780385044.

Randolph, John. Russia in Motion: Cultures of Human Mobility since 1850. Studies of World Migrations. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012.

Rees, E. A. Stalinism and Soviet Rail Transport, 1928–41. 1st ed. 1995 edition. New York, Secaucus: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.

Schechter, Brandon M. The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects. Cornell University Press, 2019.

Schenk, F.B. Russlands Fahrt in Die Moderne: Mobilität Und Sozialer Raum Im Eisenbahnzeitalter. Geschichte (Franz Steiner Verlag). F. Steiner, 2014. https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=7nDeoAEACAAJ.

Sheller, Mimi. Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. 1st edition. London ; Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2018.

Siefert, Marsha. History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): Transnational Techno-Diplomacy from the Telegraph to the Internet. History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701.

Siegelbaum, Lewis H. Cars for Comrades: The Life of the Soviet Automobile. 1 edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Siegelbaum, Lewis H., ed. The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc. 1 edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Solovieva, Olga. ‘Not Tourists, but Pilgrims: Defining and Defending Modern Pilgrimage in a Late Imperial Russian Periodical’. Religions 13, no. 8 (August 2022): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13080672.

Weck, Nadja. Eisenbahn und Stadtentwicklung in Zentraleuropa: am Beispiel der Stadt Lemberg. 1st edition. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020.

Wezel, Katja. ‘The Most Successful Trading Hub in Late Imperial Russia: Using Historical GIS to Map Riga as a Global Port City’. Zeitschrift Für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 70, no. 3 (2021): 389-. https://doi.org/10.25627/202170311017.

Worobec, Christine. «The Long Road to Kiev: Nineteenth-Century Orthodox Pilgrimages». Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, вип. 30/31 (2015 2014): 1–22.

Боднар, Галина. Львів: щоденне життя міста очима переселенців із сіл (50-80-ті роки ХХ ст.) : монографія. Видавничий центр ЛНУ імені Івана Франка, 2010.

Быстрова, Ирина. Ленд-лиз для СССР: экономика, техника, люди (1941–1945). Kuchkovo pole, 2019.   

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Машкевич, Стефан. Історія Київського міського транспорту. Кінець XIX – початок XXI ст. Київ: Варто. Accessed 21 December 2022. https://varto.kiev.ua/shop/books/istoriia-kiyivskogo-miskogo-transportu-kinets-xix-pochatok-xxi-st-stefan-mashkevich/.

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