Seeds, Suites and Soviets: The Voices behind History

How can we gain new insights into Soviet history through the story of one building? What are the legacies of ordinary people caught up in historical events, where personal experiences of sacrifice, survival and hope intersect with politics and ideology? This discussion brings together Dr Maurice J. Casey and Simon Parkin, two authors whose recent books consider these questions from different – though interlinked – vantage points: one a Leningrad seed bank and the other a luxury hotel in Moscow.

Maurice Casey is a historian based at Queen’s University Belfast and the author of Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals. His book is the first English-language history of Moscow’s Hotel Lux, the nexus of international communism, and traces the lives of the radical activists who lived there and the trajectory of their dreams from hope to tragedy. Simon Parkin, contributing writer at The New Yorker, is the author of The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: A True Story of Science and Sacrifice in a City under Siege: a new history of the scientists working at the world’s first Seed Bank in Leningrad during the Nazi siege, and an examination of the politicisation of science under Stalin.

As well as re-examining familiar eras of history through new eyes, Maurice and Simon will discuss their process of researching Russian and Soviet histories in the current geopolitical context, accessing archives, and rediscovering long-lost documents and sources.

The conversation will be moderated by writer and journalist Julia Wheeler.

Host or Publisher Pushkin House