The Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Michigan presents a lecture by Anne Applebaum on September 20. Applebaum is a historian and foreign policy columnist for The Washington Post, with expertise on the history of communist and post-communist Europe. She will deliver the lecture “The Ukrainian Famine: What We Know Now—And Why It Matters” at 5:30 PM at Weiser Hall. During the talk, Applebaum will discuss her book Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine and demonstrate how the Soviet policies of the 1930s foreshadowed current threats to the political order throughout post-communist Europe.

Anne Applebaum is a senior fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and a professor of practice at the London School of Economics, where she runs ARENA, a research project on disinformation and 21st-century propaganda. She is the author of several books, including Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and her writing has also won the Cundill, Nonino, and Lionel Gelber prizes, among many others. Applebaum is a former member of the Washington Post editorial board, a former deputy editor of the Spectator magazine, and a former Warsaw correspondent of The Economist. She writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications.

“We’re thrilled to have Anne Applebaum launch our year-long 60th anniversary celebration,” CREES director Geneviève Zubrzycki says. “Her deep knowledge of the region and its history, as well as her public engagement reflect core pillars of CREES’s mission.” With its origins in the Cold War driven by the need to better understand the Soviet Union, CREES remains an important hub on campus for those who study the languages, cultures, politics, and societies of these formerly communist countries—some of which have been members of the European Union and NATO for more than a decade. Over the coming year, the center will present a series of signature anniversary events by prominent scholars, artists, and public figures that will feature Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies. The series will conclude in April, 2020 with a panel of former CREES faculty directors discussing current trends and issues in the field. For the full schedule and other details of the history and ongoing activities of CREES, please visit ii.umich.edu/crees/about-us/60th-anniversary.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Ukrainian Famine: What We Know Now—And Why It Matters
Friday, September 20, 2019
5:30-7:00 PM
1010 Weiser Hall, 500 Church St., Ann Arbor

Contact: Mary Elizabeth Malinkin / T: 734.764.0351 / E: crees@umich.edu

The University of Michigan Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) is dedicated to advancing and disseminating interdisciplinary knowledge about the peoples, nations, and cultures of Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, past and present. Through its own academic programs and its support of area-focused training and scholarship across U-M’s schools and colleges, CREES helps meet the nation’s ongoing need for experts with deep contextual knowledge who are proficient in the region’s languages. CREES is an affiliate of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia and constituent unit of the International Institute. For more information, visit ii.umich.edu/crees.

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