CBEES Advanced Seminar with Julia Malitska, Post-Doctoral Researcher at CBEES.

Abstract

Unlike British, American and Central European vegetarian movements which arose during the 19th century, organized vegetarianism did not emerge in the Russian empire until the turn of the century.

By the 1910s, a network of vegetarian circles flourished across the empire. In the first part of my talk, I will briefly present a case study of dietary reform and vegetarianism in Odessa, shedding light on an unknown page of the history of the city and the Black Sea Region. I focus on the evolution and implementation of grassroot vegetarian activism in the city of Odessa by focusing on its institutionalization and infrastructure, as well as on ideas, practices and activists.

The press, together with a postal service and other means of communication, came to influence the public sphere of the late Russian empire. The second part of the presentation will discuss how the Vegetarian Review, the monthly periodical founded in Chișinău and published in Kiev from 1909–1915, and the emerging vegetarian activism in the Russian empire, enabled, re-affirmed and empowered each other. By bridging the fields of periodical studies with the history of social activism in Eastern Europe, the role of the advocacy journal in promoting the reform agenda and the potential for a shared identity formation and collective action around print media will be revealed.

Bio Note:

In 2017 Julia Malitska defended her doctoral dissertation under the title “Negotiating Imperial Rule: Colonists and Marriage in the Nineteenth-Century Black Sea Steppe,” which examined how the state-orchestrated marriage regime directed towards German colonists and the practices of different parties involved in it reflected, assured and negotiated Russian imperial politics in the Black Sea region during the 19th century. Since then, she has been employed as a senior lecturer at the Department of History and Contemporary Studies and taught a number of courses on different levels in the subject of history, as well as supervised students in their academic essay writing.

From September 2019, Julia has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies. She currently conduct research on the genealogy of diet reform activism across the Russian empire. “ Diet Reform and Vegetarian Activism in the Russian Empire: Ideas, Practices, Identities and Legacies, 1860s–1920s,” focuses on the production and dissemination of ideas, practices, and ideologies of vegetarianism in time and space, among different activists and contexts. My current interests include the history of science and nutrition, as well as biopolitics in East Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Zoom

Join the seminar online via Zoom here Länk till annan webbplats, öppnas i nytt fönster..
Meeting ID: 659 6809 6114
Passcode: 152400