Ex-Soviet Russian Emergency Narratives: Cheers and Tears of the Painful Transformation

Target audience

Legal scholars with multidisciplinary (history, political science) background of all level are welcome. It is not required to be an expert in the Soviet law or the Russian legal studies, or legal history of emergency.

Organizing and scientific committee

Botakoz Kazbek

Prof. Dr. Cosmin Cercel

Abstract

Legal and political scholarship has largely overlooked the constitutional and legal mechanisms related to emergencies in Russia. My proposed Specialist Course addresses this gap. By bringing together an international community at Ghent University, this course will facilitate sharing findings through lectures and quality discussion through Q&A sessions. Thus legal scientific scholars and scholars practitioners will help to increase understanding regarding how Russia’s constitutional system, forged through periodic turbulence, generates new emergencies. 

Objectives

The main objective of the Specialist Course is to share research findings with the UGent graduate students. The course will help to delve into the extra-constitutional behaviour of Russian state bodies during emergencies, shedding light on their role—especially given the escalating global tensions. Then, by analysing the period from 1980 to 1990s it will explore potential path-dependent patterns. Constitutional law scholars have yet to pinpoint the precise factors shaping Russia’s constitutional and legal culture across different eras. Thus, through this learning activity, the listeners will learn about legal institutions that emerged after the collapse of the USSR and which survived despite the radical political, economic and ideological changes. The secondary objective of the course is to unite international experts under the UGent roof for learning through sharing and further networking.

Dates and venue

11-13 September 2024

Faculteitsraadzaal, lokaal 7.1 and lokaal 8.1, Campus Aula

Programme

11 September 2024

Venue: Faculteitsraadzaal, Campus Aula (Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Gent)

Moderator: Botakoz Kazbek

09h30-09h35

Welcome speech

Prof Dirk Heirbaut (Director of the Institute of legal history, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent)

Prof Cosmin Cercel (Associate professor, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent)

09h35-10h35

Lecture: Rethinking emergency from a legal historical perspective: contexts, actors, practices, 1914-2020

Prof Cosmin Cercel, Associate professor, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent

10h35-10h50 Coffee break
10h50-11h50

Presentation: Post-Soviet practice of emergency - historical overview

Botakoz Kazbek, PhD student, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent

11h50-12h50

Lecture: title to be confirmed

Prof. Bill Bowring, Birkbeck College, University of London

12h50-14h00 Lunch
14h00-15h00

Lecture: Soviet Constitutions and State Assemblies between the Revolution and Perestroika

Prof. Ivan Sablin, Heidelberg University

15h00-16h00

Lecture: The Soviet state law

Botakoz Kazbek, PhD student, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent

12 September 2024

Venue: Lokaal 7.1 Pleitlokaal, Campus Aula (Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Gent)

09h00-10h00

Lecture: title to be confirmed

The speaker’s name will be confirmed later

09h00-10h00

Lecture: Theory of Legal Survivals: Explaining the Continuity of Legal Forms following Transitions, Transformations and Revolutions

 

Dr. habil. Rafał Mańko, Democracy Institute/Rule of Law Working Group, Central European University

11h00-11h15

Coffee break

11h15-12h15

Lecture: title to be confirmed

Prof. Vladimir Solonari, University of Central Florida

12h15-13h30

Lunch

13h30-14h30

Lecture: State Law and Political System of the Russian Federation: Too Soviet for Being Post-Soviet?

Dr. Alina Cherviatsova, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow, Human Rights Center, Ghent University

14h30-15h30

Lecture: title to be confirmed

Dr. Jose Gustavo Prieto Munoz, FWO Senior Fellow, Department of European, Public and International Law, Ghent University

15h30-16h30

Lecture: Soviet Occupation of Romania 1944-1958

Mihai-Claudiu Dragomirescu, PhD student, Faculty of law and criminology, Ghent University

13 September 2024

Venue: Lokaal 8.1 Multimedialokaal, Campus Aula (Universiteitstraat 4, 9000 Gent)

09h00-10h00

Lecture: title to be confirmed

The speaker’s name will be confirmed later, UAntwerp

10h00-11h00

Lecture: Debunking the myth of “Great Russian Culture”: Is it always Russian?

Dr. Alina Cherviatsova, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow, Human Rights Center, Ghent University

11h00-11h15

Coffee break

11h15-12h15

Lecture: title to be confirmed

The speaker’s name will be confirmed later, UAntwerp

12h15-13h30

Lunch

13h30-14h30

Lecture: title to be confirmed

The speaker’s name will be confirmed later, KU Leuven

14h30-15h30

Presentation: title to be confirmed

Botakoz Kazbek, PhD student, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent

15h30-16h30

Concluding remarks of the Specialist course

Prof Cosmin Cercel, Associate professor, Faculty of law and criminology, UGent

Registration

Registration fee

Free of charge for Doctoral School members.

Number of participants

Maximum 50

Language

English

Evaluation method

Active participation during Q&A sessions and presentations

After successful participation, the Doctoral School Office will add this course to your curriculum of the Doctoral Training Programme in Oasis. Please note that this can take up to one to two months after completion of the course.