Hiroaki Kuromiya

The emergence of an openly anti-capitalist and atheist government in the largest country in the world radically changed the map of the globe. Europe and Asia were immediately and directly affected by the new Communist state. European-Soviet relations have been studied extensively. I propose to add a different dimension to the study - a Eurasian perspective. Just as the United States is an Atlantic and Pacific power, the Soviet Union was both a European and Asian, or Eurasian, state. Up to World War II Japan, a Soviet neighbour, worked closely with Poland and the Baltic States as well as emigres groups from the Soviet Union (especially the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia but also Soviet Ukraine) to subvert the Soviet threat. Events in Mongolia, the first Soviet satellite state, China, Afghanistan, Persia/Iran, Turkey and elsewhere on the Eurasian continent affected European affairs in subtle yet substantive ways. What does this perspective add to the current state of knowledge of the history of Europe? This is what I shall be exploring at the Institute.