For many people, the agony of the Russian Revolution and the breakthroughs of the Soviet MIR space station are distant events, far removed in space and time. But not for the students in UW-Platteville’s Modern Russia class.
On April 10, students in Dr. Andrey Ivanov’s History 4120 course stepped outside the classroom for a day-long field trip to the Wisconsin Historical Society, followed by the Annual Petrovich Lecture in Madison.
The first highlight of the trip was the Wisconsin Historical Society’s unique collection on the Russian Revolution of 1917, which includes documents handwritten by Lenin and Trotsky. Most of these materials come from the collection of Alexander Gumberg, a naturalized U.S. citizen who traveled to Petrograd in 1917 to witness, photograph and collect items related to the unfolding revolution. Gumberg’s close ties to figures such as Philip La Follette and Joseph E. Davies—a Watertown, Wisconsin native who later served as the U.S. ambassador to Stalin’s Soviet Union—help explain how this remarkable archive ended up in Madison.
“The students learned about the distant history of 1917 by interacting with tangible primary sources and material artifacts, which is the best way to experience the past without inventing a time machine,” said Dr. Andrey Ivanov, associate professor of history at UW-Platteville. “They were also able to interact with our state’s best professionals in archival preservation at the Historical Society. I am especially grateful to archivist Emily Noffke, whose engaging expertise transformed the object study room into a haven of scholarship and discovery.”
The day concluded with a lecture organized by the UW-Madison Department of History and funded by the Mortenson-Petrovich Endowment in Russian History. The lecture was delivered by Michael Gordin, Dean at Princeton University and one of the nation’s leading scholars on Soviet science. Titled “After Soviet Science: Between Globalization and Autarky, 1986–2022,” the talk explored the evolution of Soviet and post-Soviet scientific endeavors in the wake of the Challenger disaster and the development of the MIR (and later International) Space Station.
Through this immersive experience, students gained a richer understanding of Russian history, both on the ground during the 1917 revolution and in orbit decades later.