‘Allied Occupiers?’ – Research on the Groups of Soviet Army Troops in Eastern and East-Central Europe
International workshop, 23-24 April 2026, Max Weber Forum, Helsinki
Application deadline: 10 November 2025
Organizer: Matthias Uhl (MWNO, Helsinki)
Working Languages: German & English

Soviet War Memorial Parade, Tiergarten, Berlin, 1980s © Torfaen Corvine via Wikimedia Commons
The objective of the workshop is to initiate an international research project on the stationing of Soviet troops in Eastern and East-Central Europe following the conclusion of the Second World War, with a view to securing their own sphere of influence. The primary objective of the project is to systematically determine the locations of Soviet Army units during the Cold War in the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR, Austria, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and the three Baltic states. However, the stationing of Soviet units in the Caucasus and Transcaucasus will also be recorded. The investigation will also encompass short-term stationing after the conclusion of the Second World War, for instance in Norway and Finland. The data collected in this manner will be collated for the first time in a database, with the option of geographical analysis, and thus made available for research. Concurrently, the relevant data sets will be augmented with sources from a diverse array of collections, with the objective of mitigating the repercussions of protracted Soviet and Russian confidentiality rules in this domain.
It is anticipated that, based on the information collected, a history of the Soviet Union’s military occupation of Eastern Europe during the Cold War will also be written which will encompass both spatial and modern military history. This will facilitate the identification of focal points and changes in the Soviet Union’s priorities in securing its influence in Eastern Europe.
A third field of research will examine the effects of the withdrawal of troops from Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet army on social and political developments in the countries where they were previously stationed, as well as in the former European CIS states. There is a particular need for research in this area, as the collapse of the Soviet army encouraged armed national conflicts between the newly emerging states, violent internal conflicts between different national groups, the further development of organized crime, arms trafficking, etc.
The full CfP can be found here.
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Maike Lehmann (September 29, 2025). ‘Allied Occupiers?’ – Research on the Groups of Soviet Army Troops in Eastern and East-Central Europe. Max Weber Network Eastern Europe. Retrieved November 8, 2025 from https://mwseasteurope.hypotheses.org/7206

