Staff, students and alumni of CREES plus some specially invited guests gathered at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park for the annual conference of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) in June 2014.
Among the notable participants were distinguished historian, Catherine Merridale (who studied for her PhD at CREES), who talked about her prize winning book, Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin, and former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia (1988-1992), Rodric Braithwaite who spoke about the history of intervention in Afghanistan.
The on-going events in Ukraine were at the centre of most discussions including a panel of CREES staff (Julian Cooper, Rilka Dragneva-Lewers, Deema Kaneff, Kataryna Wolczuk and Galina Yemelianova) who shared their different perspectives of recent developments. The impact of the conflict on Russian domestic politics was discussed on a panel by three former doctoral students of CREES who are now leading experts in the field: Richard Sakwa (Kent), Edwin Bacon (Birkbeck College, London) and Luke March (Edinburgh).
The conference also featured panels on the break-up of the Soviet Union, the military dimension of Russia, corruption and the role of internal and external framing of developments in the Caucasus.
Tim Haughton the Director of CREES who organized the conference commented, 'this year's Annual Conference demonstrated once again the vibrancy of debate and discussion in CREES and the perceptive insights of staff, students and alumni on the big issues of the day'.