If You Do Not Change Your Behaviour: Managing Threats to State Security in Lithuania under Soviet Rule (Joint with Eugenia Nazrullaeva)
In the Soviet Union from the late 1950s to the 1980s, the KGB applied a form of low-intensity preventive policing, called profilaktika, to incipient threats to state security. Citizens found to be engaging in everyday political misdemeanors were invited to discuss their behaviour and to receive a warning. Such warnings were thought to be effective in stopping the citizen at risk of committing more serious state crimes from going further. This represented a complete contrast to the Stalin years, when prevention took the form of imprisonment or killing. The practice became the front line of the Soviet police state. Using a novel documentary dataset from Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, we study the profile of the private citizens who became subjects of interest to the KGB. We also investigate the philosophy, historical origins, and operational focuses of profilaktika.
Date: 9 February 2021, 17:00 (Tuesday, 4th week, Hilary 2021)
Venue: Held on Zoom
Speaker: Mark Harrison (University of Warwick)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Economic and Social History Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Melis Clark