Kamila Smagulova MA

PhD candidate

E-mail: [email protected]

Area(s) of interest: Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Global History, Political History

Cohort/Start PhD: 2024-2025

 Nevada-Semey anti-nuclear movement: placing the Soviet Union into the framework of global colonialism 

Overarching project: Peace movements and decolonization
Leiden University
supervisor(s): Carolien Stolte, Isaac Scarborough
Project start date and expected end date: 01/09/2024- 01/09/2028

My research project is focused on late Soviet 1980s anti-nuclear movements in Kazakhstan. After fifty years of nuclear tests in Semey Polygon conducted by the Soviet Union, civil society mobilized into the Nevada-Semey anti-nuclear movement which led to the decrease and latter ban on the nuclear testing. Nevada-Semey was initially formed as an international movement that would advocate for global anti-nuclearism and international solidarity. The largest grassroots environmental movement in the Soviet Union strived to join the global peace movement. In this project I look at how this dynamic can help to look at the Soviet Union through the prism of global anti-nuclearism and colonialism.