Universität Wien

070170 SE Seminar - The USSR and the Mediterranean (2018S)

6.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 7 - Geschichte
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Thursday 08.03. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 15.03. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 22.03. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 12.04. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 19.04. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 26.04. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 03.05. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 17.05. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 24.05. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 07.06. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 14.06. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 21.06. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27
  • Thursday 28.06. 11:00 - 12:30 Seminarraum des Instituts für Osteuropäische Geschichte UniCampus Hof 3 2Q-EG-27

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

An overwhelming land power after World War II, the Soviet Union is rarely associated with the Mediterranean Sea. Nonetheless, the USSR was increasingly present across several Balkan countries, in the Western Mediterranean and the Near East during the Cold War. The Russian military base in Tartus, Syria, for example, dates back to this era. Soviet foreign policy encountered the decolonizing world in the Mediterranean, and often sought to persuade the area's non-aligned or socialist countries to act in its favor. Across the Mediterranean is one of the trajectories where the Soviet Union coined its relationship to the third world. Near the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's final President Mikhail Gorbachev also invoked the Mediterranean Sea in his arms control initiatives and utilized the area in his imagery for peace making. This research seminar will, on the basis of archival documents, shed some light on this episode of Soviet foreign policy and the wider global politics of the Cold War.
It is the aim of this research seminar to enable participants (a) to get a better understanding of Soviet foreign policy in the Cold War, international relations dynamics, and (b) to develop their research practice on the basis of archival documents in various languages (German, English, French, and Italian).

Assessment and permitted materials

Requirements: assigned reading, oral presentation, seminar essay, participation in discussion.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Requirements: assigned reading, oral presentation, seminar essay, participation in discussion.

Examination topics

Reading list

Viebke Bachmann, „Tel Aviv 1948 – Nationale Interessen und sowjetischer ‚Antiimperialismus‘“, in Andreas Hilger, Die Sowjetunion und die Dritte Welt, Munich: Oldenbourg 2009, 19–39.
Richard Crampton, The Balkans since 1945, Hoboken: Taylor and Francis 2014.
Karen Dawisha, “The Dynamics of Soviet-Egyptian Relations,” in Soviet Foreign Policy towards Egypt, London: Palgrave, 1979, 1–71.
John Lewis Gaddis: “Chapter 2: Deathboats and Lifeboats,” in The Cold War: A New History, London: Penguin Books, 2006.
Mark Kramer, “Power, Politics, and the Long Duration of the Cold War,” in Silvio Pons/Federico Romero eds., Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War, Abingdon: Frank Cass 2005, 21–38;
Jesse Walter Lewis, The Strategic Balance in the Mediterranean, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Inst. for Public Policy Research 1976 (FB Rechtsw Freihand 5.OG IBZ.10615 );
Guia Migani, “La politique globale méditerranéenne de la CEE,” in Antonio Varsori/Guia Migani, eds., Europe in the International Arena during the 1970s, Bruxelles: Peter Lang 2011, 193–210.
Ennio Di Nolfo, “The Cold War and the Transformation of the Mediterranean, 1960–1975,” in Melvyn P. Leffler/Odd Arne Westad eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, Cambridge: UP 2010, 238–257.
Svetozar Rajak, “The Cold War in the Balkans, 1945–1956,” in Melvyn P. Leffler/Odd Arne Westad eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 1, Cambridge: UP 2010, 198–220.
Alvin Z. Rubinstein, „Die Sowjetunion und das östliche Mittelmeer,“ in Osteuropa 1979:9, 693–708.
Odd Arne Westad, “Chapter 3: Europe’s Asymmetries,” in The Cold War: A World History, New York: Basic Books 2017, 71–98.

Association in the course directory

PM4: Zeitgeschichte, Osteuropäische Geschichte, Globalgeschichte
Diplom UF: Osteuropäische Geschichte, Politikgeschichte
MA Globalgeschichte: Vertiefung 1

Last modified: Th 29.10.2020 00:17