Mimi Berlin

Wednesdays, March 3 - April 7   10:00 am - 12:00 noon   6 sessions
King’s Chapel Parish House, 64 Beacon Street

For almost three quarters of a century – for some the hoped-for utopia, for others the very embodiment of evil – the USSR developed, expanded, transformed Russian society, industrialized its labor force, created new instruments of governance, produced a culture sometimes vibrant, often stagnant and sterile, fought a bitter and terrible war without stint and emerged an empire and a superpower. This seminar will look at these developments, endeavor to explain the decline and dissolution of the empire, and evaluate the legacy, positive and negative, of the revolution that shocked the world in 1917.

Mimi Haskell Berlin holds a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. and Ph.D from Harvard/Radcliffe. An historian specializing in Russian and European history, she has taught at Wellesley College, Harvard College, Radcliffe Seminars, Harvard Extension School, the University of Puget Sound and Semester at Sea. This is her second BHS seminar.