Saturday, February 8, 20252:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Wende Museum
The Center for European and Russian Studies, in cosponsorship with The Wende Museum, invites you to a lecture by Jared McBride on how late Soviet trials of Nazi collaborators shaped Cold War narratives and showcased Soviet legal and moral claims. This lecture is open to all and will take place at The Wende Museum on Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 2 pm (PST) with registration requested.
About the Talk
Beginning in the late 1950s and lasting until the end of the Soviet Union, the KGB and Soviet prosecutors carried out hundreds of investigations of individuals they accused of committing crimes during the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union. Many of these prosecutions resulted in public trials that evoked the Stalinist “show trials” of the 1930s, where verdicts were foregone conclusions, and the trials served as both a didactic and repressive mechanism for Soviet society.
Though these two eras of public trials share overlaps, the late Soviet trials differed in important ways: both in the scope of the investigative process and the veracity of the underlying crimes being investigated. Also significant is the fact that the trials, while important for domestic messaging, served a crucial weapon on the moral front of the Cold War. This talk explores the wide-ranging efforts, cultural, political, and legal, of the Soviet state to use the trials as space bolster narratives about the Nazi occupation and demonstrate a legal and moral superiority over the West when it came to the prosecution of Nazi war crimes.
About the Speaker
Jared McBride is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at UCLA who specializes in Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe in the 20th century with a focus on nationalist movements, mass violence, interethnic conflict, and war crimes prosecution. His research has been supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright-Hays Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, among others, and he has published in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Journal of Genocide Research, Kritika, and Slavic Review. Presently, he is completing a book manuscript concerning interethnic violence and local perpetrators in Nazi-occupied western Ukraine.
Venue and Parking
The Wende Museum
10808 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90230
Directions
The Wende Museum is located in Culver City’s arts and culture corridor near the intersection of Culver Blvd. and Overland Ave, which is served by Culver City bus lines 3 and 7. To reach the Museum via bicycle from the Culver City stop on the Metro E (Expo) Line, or for more detailed public transit directions if you are transferring from the L.A. Metro system, use Google Maps.
Parking
Free parking is available in the city lots adjacent to the museum. EV charging stations are available nearby at the Veterans Memorial Building (4117 Overland Blvd.) and Senior Center (4095 Overland Blvd.).
Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Wende Museum