News & Events 2004-2005
Students Attend Lecture by Lafayette College Professor
In early March, a group of Blair students attended a lecture by Joshua A. Sanborn, a professor of history at Lafayette College. In attendance were Rollie Peterkin ’06, Kiley Austin-Young ’06, Kat Brandwood ’05, Sarah Jerome ’05, Tim Bacon ’06 and Lauren Stival ’05, along with Blair history teacher Dr. Marty Miller.
According to Dr. Miller, Sanborn argued that a perfect storm of modernity (mass mobilization, industrial militarization, imperial competition, etc.) decided the fate of Russia and affected a fair portion of the 20th century (Bolshevik Revolution, the rise of fascism, etc.). All this was unleashed by Russia’s entrance into WWI. Massive dislocation, ethnic cleansing – indeed genocide – starvation, famine and other horrors were visited upon Eastern European peoples. An estimated 12 million of the population would ultimately lose their lives by 1922.
Sanborn holds a Ph.D. in Russian history from the University of Chicago, where he wrote his dissertation on “Drafting the Nation: Military Conscription and the Formation of a Modern Polity in Tsarist and Soviet Russia.”
In October 2004 he spoke about “The Current Russia” as part of Blair’s Society of Skeptics lecture series.
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