The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives (2026), the latest book by Dr David Leupold (University of Rijeka) produced during his time as research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, tells the fascinating story of cities built around promises of the future that, to this day, have not been fulfilled.

In a book talk followed by a discussion moderated by Prof Dr Stefan Kirmse we will turn back the clock and take a fresh look at what was perhaps the twentieth century’s most controversial urban experiment: the socialist city. But not in Moscow, East Berlin, or Kyiv. Far from the political centers, our attention shifts instead to the Soviet Union’s southern, highly multiethnic regions: the Kyrgyz city of Bishkek in Central Asia and the Armenian city of Yerevan in the South Caucasus.

Over the course of the evening, we will follow Esperanto-speaking internationalists from Czechoslovakia into the Central Asian steppe, where they built a self-governing internationalist city from the ground up. We will encounter Armenian futurists such as Mikayel Mazmanyan and learn about their efforts to reconcile modernist architecture with the country’s Islamic and Persian heritage. We will also meet Aaron Brudnyy, a Kyrgyzstani philosopher who set out to transform a scientific research town on the outskirts of Moscow into the Soviet Union’s first ecologically sustainable “Ecopolis.”

David Leupold holds a doctoral degree in Political Science and currently works as research fellow in the ERC-project REVENANT – Revivals of Empire (led by Dr Jeremy Walton at the University of Rijeka). His research focuses on ongoing contestations of the past, or “memory wars,” across a vast post-imperial shatter zone stretching from Southeastern Europe & Türkiye to the Caucasus & Central Asia. His first book, Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish Memory (2020), written during his time at the University of Michigan, was awarded the Book Award of the North American Central Eurasian Studies Society.

Monday, 26 October 2026
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Kirchweg 33, 14129 Berlin