Doctoral student Allen-Mercier Zoé

Soviet Mechanisms of Maintaining Social Order in Times of Shifting Diplomacy: The Example of Karelia During the Helsinki Process

Tieteellinen tutkimus / siihen pohjautuva työ | Nelivuotinen

This study will focus on the Soviet state’s attempts at inducing social order in the 1970s and early 1980s among the population of the Karelian republic in a context where Soviet values were challenged by international agreements likely to foster the introduction of Western social ideas such as human rights throughout the Soviet Union. Beyond looking at the repression of dissension itself, it will consist in analyzing how the state would prevent the expression of dissension in the first place and ward off Western influence and the impact of contemporary opposition groups among the society. The case of Karelia will hopefully shed light on general trends in the Soviet Union’s peripheral areas pertaining to social control.