I am a cultural historian of the Soviet Union. My major projects to date include a history of youth cultures in Soviet Russia in the 1920s, a history of Soviet tourism at home and abroad after Stalin, and two edited volumes, one on tourism in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, and the other on the “Socialist Sixties” in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Cuba.

I am currently working on two related projects. The first is a book on the history of the Soviet Sixties, jointly researched and written with Diane Koenker of the University of Illinois. To date, histories of the Sixties have been dominated by the perspectives and experiences of the United States and, more recently, of Western Europe. This book examines the 1960s from the perspective of the Soviet Union, the communist Second World. The project asks what the 1960s looked like from within a Communist system. How might we conceptualize the era from a perspective other than the Secret Speech, Sputnik, and the Cuban missile crisis? My co-investigator on the project is Professor Diane Koenker of the University of Illinois. We have identified six key areas of investigation: Celebrity/Fandom, Cuba, Food, Weekends/Leisure, Weddings, and Shopping.

My second project is a cultural history of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Cuba in the 1960s. I am interested in the place of Cuba in the cultural (visual, literary, cinemagraphic, touristic) imagination of the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the movement of Soviet and Cuban citizens between the USSR and Cuba as tourists, delegates, and students. The project sits at the intersection of a number of topics, including the history of a post-Stalin Soviet Union, the history of Soviet encounters with the decolonizing Third World, and the history of the Global Sixties.

Research Interests

• Soviet Union
• Tourism
• Cultural exchange and global encounter
• Global Sixties
• Cuba
• Youth

Books

A.E. Gorsuch, D. Koenker eds. The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

A.E. Gorsuch. All This Is Your World: Soviet Tourism at Home and Abroad After Stalin. : Oxford University Press, 2011.

A.E. Gorsuch, D. Koenker eds. Turizm: the Russian and East European tourist under capitalism and socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

A.E. Gorsuch. Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, and Delinquents. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Articles/Book Chapters

A. E. Gorsuch, “Bolshevism Debated, 1921-1932”, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Russia History, S. Dixon Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

A. E. Gorsuch, “‘Cuba, My Love,’ The Romance of Revolutionary Cuba in the Soviet Sixties”, The American Historical Review, vol. 120, no. 2, 2015.

A. E. Gorsuch and Koenker, D. P., ““The Socialist 1960s in Global Perspective””, in The Socialist Sixties: Crossing Borders in the Second World, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2013.

A. E. Gorsuch, “From Iron Curtain to Silver Screen: Imagining the West in the Khrushchev Era”, in Imagining the West , G. Péteri Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.

A. E. Gorsuch, ““Выступление на международной сцене: советские туристы хрущевской эпохи на капиталистическом” [“Performing on the International Stage: Soviet Tourism to Western Europe”]”, Антропологический форум [Antropologicheskii forum/Forum for Anthropology and Culture], vol. 13, 2010.

A. E. Gorsuch, “The Dance Class or the Working Class: The Soviet Modern Girl”, in The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, A. Eve Weinbaum, Thomas, L. M., Ramamurthy, P., Poiger, U. G., Dong, M. Yue, and Barlow, T. E. Chapel Hill: Duke University Press, 2008.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Women’s Autobiographical Narratives: Soviet Presentations of Self”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, vol. 2, pp. 835-847, 2008.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Time Travelers: Soviet Tourism to Eastern Europe”, in Turizm: The Russian and East European Tourist under Capitalism and Socialism, A. E. Gorsuch and Koenker, D. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

A. E. Gorsuch, “‘There’s No Place like Home’: Soviet Tourism in Late Stalinism”, Slavic Review, vol. 62, pp. 760-785, 2003.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Smashing Chairs at the Local Club: Discipline, Disorder and Soviet Youth”, in Sowjetjugend 1917-1941. Generation zwischen Revolution und Resignation, C. Kuhr-Korolev, Plaggenborg, S., and Wellman, M. Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2001.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Moscow Chic: Silk Stockings and Soviet Youth”, in The Human Tradition in Modern Russia, W. Husband Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 2000.

A. E. Gorsuch, “NEP Be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and the Culture of Civil War”, Russian Review, vol. 56, pp. 564-580, 1997.

A. E. Gorsuch, ““A Woman is Not a Man”: The Culture of Gender and Generation in Soviet Russia, 1921-1928”, Slavic Review, vol. 55, pp. 636-660, 1996.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Flappers and Foxtrotters: Soviet Youth in the “Roaring Twenties””, The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, 1994.

A. E. Gorsuch, “Soviet Youth and the Politics of Popular Culture during NEP”, Social History, vol. 17, pp. 189-201, 1992.