Call for Papers
The Asian Arc of the Russian Revolution: Setting the East Ablaze?
16-17 November 2017, Singapore

Universite Sorbonne Paris Cite and the National University of Singapore are pleased to announce
a two-day conference on the trajectory of the Russian Revolution in Asia, broadly defined toinclude the Asian territories of the Russian Empire as well as Northeast, South and Southeast
Asia. Scholars working in all relevant disciplines, including history, political science, Russian andAsian studies, economics, cultural studies, sociology and anthropology are invited to submit
proposals for fifteen- to twenty-minute papers or panels addressing this theme. The conference willinclude academic panels, a historiographical roundtable, and keynote speeches by leading
scholars in the field of Russo-Asian history.
Four years before the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin wrote in Pravda that an alliance of Asian
workers with the proletariat of “all civilised countries” would liberate the peoples of Europe andAsia: “No force on earth on prevent its victory.” When the Bolsheviks claimed power in November
1917, however, the impact on the Russian empire’s Asian periphery and on other Asian territories
was more ambiguous. The Bolsheviks grappled with the legacies of a multi-ethnic, multiconfessional empire; to its Asian populations, the soviet project could be liberating or an extensionof Great Russian imperialism. Further afield on the Asian continent, the soviets’ rhetoric of global
revolution was both an incitement and a threat, especially in a region marked by imperial conflictand growing nationalism. As the arc of revolution spread ever wider, it was filtered through multiple
lenses: Religious, ethnic, imperial, national, colonial.
This conference explores how the Russian empire’s Asian populations and Russia’s Asianneighbours perceived, responded to, refashioned and re-appropriated the Revolution of 1917. How
was the Revolution transformed as it reached Asia, and what impact did it have? How did Asian
populations interpret and recast the events of 1917? In so doing, the conference aims to expand
on existing research into the Revolution by integrating it with the growing fields of global andtransnational history, frontier studies, and Asian studies. Potential topics include, but are not limited
to, the following:- The impact on diasporic communities and ethnic and religious minorities- Responses in Asian territories, both within the Russian imperial polity and across the Asiancontinent- Revolutionaries: transnational networks and revolutionary geography- The legacy of the Russian Revolution in Asian regions and countries- Visualising the Revolution: the impact on visual cultures and the literary world
Interested participants should submit a 300-word abstract and a CV to Dr Yuexin Rachel Lin(spplyr@nus.edu.sg) by 15 June 2017. Notifications of acceptance will be made by early July.
Those accepted are expected to submit a paper on their proposed topic to the conference
organisers by 20 October 2017. Papers will be pre-circulated among all attendees to facilitate
substantive discussion during the conference and give sufficient time for commentators. The joint
conference committee hopes to select some papers for publication. Subsidies for travel —including airfare — and subsistence will be available for participants selected to present papers atthe conference.