Peter Blitstein will present “Now We Know? Soviet Espionage in the U.S. in the Early Cold War” at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, at the Waupaca Area Public Library.
Hosted by Winchester Academy, the program is free and open to the public.
Blitstein will discuss what historians have learned about Soviet espionage in the U.S. since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He will focus on several sensational and politically sensitive cases.
Blitstein is associate professor and chairman of the Department of History at Lawrence University. He has been a faculty member there since 2001.
A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Blitstein received a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in Russian. He received his master’s degree in political science and his doctorate in history at the University of California, Berkeley.
In addition to teaching, Blitstein is director of the Senior Experience Program and chairs the Faculty Committee on University Governance.
Blitstein’s areas of expertise are 20th century European political and social history and the history of nationalism. His research focuses on the relationship between the Soviet state and the non-Russian nationalities during the Stalin period. He has presented papers at universities in the United States, Germany and Russia and has published numerous articles on Soviet policies toward its ethnic nationalities.
He is currently working on a book “Stalin’s Nations: Soviet Nationality Policy between Planning and Primordialism, 1936-1953.” Blitstein lived in Moscow from 1995 to 1996 and has been a frequent visitor to Russia since then.
David Hathaway of Waupaca is the sponsor of Blitstein’s program.
The next free Winchester Academy program, scheduled for March 4, features Catherine Tatge, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her topic is filmmaking and the work of Lawrence University students with four Holocaust survivors.