Eastern European violence and military research

Bildinfo

The last Soviet troops cross the border into the Soviet Union after leaving Afghanistan, October 1, 1989. Photo: A. Solomonov, RIA Novosti archive, image #58833, CC BY-SA 3.0

Under the direction of Jan Claas Behrends, the department has been working on war and violence in Eastern Europe from the First World War to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine since 2014. Studies on illegitimate military violence, occupation and war crimes form one focus. The regional focus is on Poland, the USSR, Ukraine and Russia.

Projektverbünde

DFG Research Group Military Cultures of Violence - Illegitimate Military Violence from the Early Modern Period to World War II

Research Group Military Cultures of Violence at the Potsdam University 
Project manager at the ZZF: Prof. Jan C. Behrends
Evgen Zinger and Jonas Baake are working on two dissertation projects at the ZZF.
The research group investigates in which ways and to what extent specific military cultures of violence developed in the regular armies of the European great powers from the early modern period to the end of the Second World War.

Projekte

Hendrik Doesburg

Furrows of Empire

PhD project
This project is part of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukraine Studies (KIU). 
Supervisor of this project: Prof. Dr. Jan C. Behrends
The project examines the entangled history of Dutch and German colonial ambitions in Ukraine over the 20th Century from a comparative perspective.

Jonas Baake

The emergence of the Polish army: national self-assertion and military force (1914-1926)

PhD project
This project focuses on the emergence and development of the Polish army from the beginning of the First World War to the May Putsch in 1926. The study concentrates on the culture of military violence that the Polish army developed against the backdrop of the First World War, the collapse of the empires and the formation of the Polish state.

Alyona Bidenko

Russian Soldiers in the Russo-Ukrainian War: Life Histories, Deployment, Repercussions

PhD project

The project investigates the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine by examining individual violent actors during their deployment and the environments that produced them.

Evgen Zinger

Violent men between the First World War, the Revolution and the Second World War (1905-1945): Cossack military violence under different regimes

PhD Project
The project is dedicated to the study of illegitimate military violence by Cossack units in the period between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the end of the Second World War. 

Jan C. Behrends

Violence and Civility

Research project

Violence after Stalinism is the theme of this research project. Using the dichotomy of violence and civility, it seeks to develop a better understanding of the transformation of Russian society from the late Brezhnev era into the present.