Bozat, Derya Marie Anne Catherine (21 June 2024). Learning and Living Behind the (Cracking) Iron Curtain: Students from Nigeria in the Collapsing Soviet Union (Unpublished). In: Sandbjerg Summer School in Global History. Aarhus University, Sandbjerg. 19 to 22 June 2024.
Between 1960 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, more than 43,500 students from Sub-Saharan Africa graduated from Soviet universities. Nigerians comprised approximately 12 percent of this total. This educational “charm offensive,” involving all-inclusive scholarships, played a vital role in Soviet internationalism and cultural diplomacy. The main objective was to establish a socialist and Soviet-friendly intelligentsia in postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa. However, when the USSR collapsed, the last generation of Nigerian scholarship holders in the Soviet Union was in place. They witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the failed coup and the first elected president of Russia. Having started their studies in the Soviet Union, at the end of 1991 the Nigerians found themselves in a new country. Transitioning from the historical context to the focal point of this paper, the collapse of the Soviet Union left the last generation of Nigerian scholarship holders in a unique position, prompting an exploration into their experiences and perspectives during this transformative period. For the Sandbjerg Summer School in Global History, I will analyze the perspectives of Nigerian students who studied in the Soviet Union and witnessed the emergence of the post-Soviet nations on the ground. The questions regarding their experiences, the influence of the events as Soviet scholarship holders, and how they coped with them will be addressed. To capture the personal experiences of former Nigerian students, I use conducted oral history interviews and utilized photographs from their private archives. Furthermore, newspaper articles from Nigeria will shed light on the reception back home. This comparative micro-level approach will provide new insights into the fall of the Iron Curtain from the perspective of Nigerians and its global effects.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Speech) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History > Modern and Contemporary History > Modern, Contemporary and Eastern European History 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of History and Archaeology > Institute of History |
UniBE Contributor: |
Bozat, Derya Marie Anne Catherine |
Subjects: |
900 History 900 History > 940 History of Europe 900 History > 960 History of Africa |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Derya Marie Anne Catherine Bozat |
Date Deposited: |
16 Aug 2024 12:46 |
Last Modified: |
16 Aug 2024 12:46 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Soviet Union, Nigeria, Oral History, African Educational Migration during the Cold War, East-South Relations during the Cold War |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/199783 |
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