Call for Proposals—“Demonstrations”: Rituals of Political Belonging, Support, and Dissent in Eurasia from the Medieval Period to 2000
An interdisciplinary conference, sponsored by Kritika and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley, will be held at UC Berkeley on 25–26 September 2026.
Marking the 200th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising, Kritika and the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at UC Berkeley are sponsoring a conference on “Demonstrations” in the medieval East Slavic states, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. This initiative builds on recent scholarship on the rituals and practices that populations have used to express not only dissent from, but also solidarity with the polities, powerholders, and institutions that preside over them. Kritika editors seek to highlight a classic question about the relationship between rulers and the ruled and a far more contentious question about how historians measure popular opinion. What can ceremonies such as rituals of popular acclaim at tsars’ coronations, funeral processions for Soviet political leaders, and May Day parades tell us about the degree of support among ordinary people for the regimes that have ruled them? What sense of political belonging might such ceremonies have created between participants? By contrast, how much can rural uprisings and urban riots, student marches, and strikes tell us about popular opposition to ruling regimes? For whom did the dissidents on Pushkin Square or participants in the Jeltoqsan protests speak? In what ways may acts of opposition be regarded as rituals, and what forms of political belonging have they fostered? How have national and ethnic differences facilitated or complicated these rituals and the sense of belonging they may have produced? What types of belonging might be expressed or fostered by satirical marches, such as “monstrations”?
Contributions might focus on but are not limited to the following themes:
• Mass gatherings as statements of belonging
• Support for and identification with political regimes at local, national, and imperial levels and rituals of support
• Popular demonstrations as sites of violence against marginalized groups (e.g., pogroms) and/or between demonstrators themselves
• Popular reception and participation in ceremonies of popular acclaim
• The relationship between educated dissidents and the broader public
• Rituals of dissent, orchestrated from above or below
• Political minorities and public dissent
• Mass gatherings as events that generate new solidarities between participants
• Opposition and consent in border zones
We are especially keen to include scholars from the former Soviet Union. All papers will be circulated beforehand; select articles will be published in a conference volume and/or a special issue of Kritika. All papers must be submitted in English.
We invite interested participants to apply to the conference by submitting a brief paper abstract (250–300 words) along with a short CV (maximum two pages), combined in a single PDF.
UC Berkeley can cover travel costs and lodging for some participants. However, funds are extremely limited. We envision a hybrid format (Zoom and in-person) to reduce costs. Participants with institutional funding will be asked to draw on that funding if they prefer to attend in-person. Please indicate in your abstract whether you will need financial support from Berkeley, if accepted.
Please submit a PDF of your abstract and short CV to Kritika’s Special Projects Editor, Stephen Bittner (bittner@sonoma.edu) by 1 March 2026.