Wednesday, December 28, 2011

More on my forthcoming publication

It will be a while before it is published. But, the recent journal article I had accepted for publication a few days ago does two things that one almost never sees in peer reviewed academic journal articles. First, it argues that Soviet policies towards the Russian-Germans and other deported peoples by Stalin constituted acts of racial discrimination. Almost all living US academics associated with the study of Soviet nationality policies vehemently deny that there were ever any racism involved in the deportation of whole peoples defined by their birth. Second, it specifically criticizes the strongest supporters of the idea that there was never any racism in the USSR, Francine Hirsch and Amir Weiner. Hirsch is probably the most publicly praised professor of Soviet history dealing with nationality issues currently alive. So getting a journal article that disagreed with her position through  peer review was not easy. Her opinion, although so obviously wrong that no non-academic would ever accept it, is regarded as Holy Writ by many in the academy. But, I finally did get a dissenting journal article through the gate keepers that control the academic peer review process. I will have more information about the publication when it comes out in print.

1 comment:

sotospeak said...

That's good news. I also think there was a racist aspect to the forced deportation of Soviet Poles, Russian Germans, Chechens, Kalmyks, Finnish Karelians, etc. However, I do not think racism was at the center, it was only an aspect. Looking forward to the journal article.