Hajo Raupach
Vita
03/2026 Completion of doctoral dissertation: “The Envy of Others. Experimental Reforms of the Soviet Planned Economy (1958–1991)”
Since 01/2021 Research associate at the Chair for the History of Eastern Europe and East-Central Europe, Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg
2019–2020 Studies in International Relations at MGIMO Moscow
2017–2020 Master’s degree in History at Humboldt University Berlin. Master’s thesis: “Built without Mortar and Light in Construction. The Academy of Architecture and the Building of the Khrushchyovka”
2017–2020 Student research assistant at the Chair for the History of Eastern Europe, Humboldt University Berlin
2016–2017 Instructor in the project tutorial “Thinking Society with Foucault” at Humboldt University Berlin
2016–2017 Student research assistant in the research coordination of the Leibniz Centre for Modern Orient (ZMO)
2013–2017 Bachelor’s degree in History and Social Sciences (B.A.) at Humboldt University Berlin
Research
Current Research Projects
Postdoc Project: Dmitri Mendeleev, Viktor Ragozin and the Caucasian Pipeline Question, 1863–1905
Text to follow shortly.
Article Project: Worn-Out New Builds. The Chertanovo Severnoye Microrayon as a Khrushchyovka for the Year 2000
At the latest after the Thaw years and the ever-rising consumer standards, the Soviet Union entered the age of mass consumption. This gave rise to specific problems for public morale. On the one hand, material gains and ever-expanding consumer options were promised; on the other, private economic initiative was to be kept as limited as possible so as not to lose direct political control over the population. Attempts were made to resolve this contradiction by embedding the new consumer opportunities in an ideological framework wherever possible. No less than the future of the Soviet regime depended on the success of this endeavour. Housing construction was the area where the increased needs of the population could most readily be met and which, through its formative influence on everyday life, was of particular importance for shaping public attitudes. The 1971 General Plan set the course for a revival of the large-scale housing programmes of the 1950s and 1960s. The new residential district Chertanovo Severnoye also included a model housing estate intended to become a guiding example of the new way of life. The article traces the process by which this new housing programme came into being, and in particular its material representation in Moscow.
Edition Project: The Saint among Bibliographers — The Forgotten Legacy of Fritz Theodor Epstein
Fritz Theodor Epstein (1898–1979) was a historian of Eastern Europe, a professor at various German and American universities, a foreign policy analyst, and an early expert on international relations. Largely forgotten today, his life is nonetheless paradigmatic in many respects: as a scholar of Jewish origin whose biography reflects the fates of the “Age of Extremes”; as a thinker of a global order who, as early as the 1930s, advocated for integrating the new Soviet state into the international community; and as a representative of global history avant la lettre, who never explained historical phenomena in isolation but always in their transnational contexts. Epstein is also — characteristically for the 20th century — a figure who suffered injustice. The Nazi seizure of power marked the beginning of years of flight and economic insecurity for him and his family. Even after the Second World War, the émigré never managed to re-establish himself in his home country of Germany. His habilitation thesis, completed in 1932, was never published, and despite landmark contributions to the history of foreign relations reaching well beyond Eastern European history, Epstein never secured a permanent position at a German university before his retirement. The project aims to publish and edit Epstein’s habilitation thesis in collaboration with the Hoover Institution Library.
Completed Research Projects
Doctoral Project: “The Envy of Others. Experimental Reforms of the Soviet Planned Economy (1958–1991)”
Publication pending.
In my dissertation I analyse various experimental attempts to reform the Soviet planned economy from below. The Soviet system of economic management is widely regarded — not least in light of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 — as growth-inhibiting and inefficient. Various attempts by successive Soviet governments to reform this system, introduced under the dictator Stalin, ended in failure. While these central reform efforts have already been extensively studied by historical scholarship, my work focuses on local initiatives that succeeded in achieving high labour productivity and efficiency within the planned economy. Drawing on three case studies in the Russian, Georgian, and Kazakh Soviet Republics, I examine how these experiments came about in the first place and how they managed to address the efficiency problems of the planned economy.
A particular focus of my work is the question of how innovations arose in the collectivist society of the Soviet Union and what obstacles emerged in their practical implementation. The case studies reveal that every innovator in the Soviet Union was confronted with the problem of envy. In an economic context, envy leads to sabotage, which in turn raises the price of innovative behaviour for those involved. The initiators of the economic experiments found different ways out of this dilemma. Above all, ways had to be found to allow as many people as possible to share in the gains of the innovations, in order to avoid feelings of envy and their associated negative consequences. When the initiators of the experiments succeeded in building a network of mutual favours (blat) around their innovations, they succeeded. This micro-historical study thus demonstrates that even in the authoritarianly governed Soviet Union with its cumbersome planned economy, successful reforms from below were possible.
Research Interests
History of science in the Soviet Union
Economic history
Architectural history
History of cybernetics
Forms of apocalypse
Publications
Academic Publications
Edited Volumes
Jörn Happel, Melanie Hussinger, Hajo Raupach (eds.), Expeditions in the Long Nineteenth Century. Discovering, Surveying, and Ordering (New York 2024).
Louis M. Berger, Hajo Raupach, Alexander Schnickmann (eds.), Leben am Ende der Zeiten. Wissen, Praktiken und Zeitvorstellungen der Apokalypse [Living at the End of Times. Knowledge, Practices, and Concepts of Time in the Apocalypse] (Frankfurt am Main 2021).
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Hajo Raupach, “Mit Beton aus der Krise. Die Akademie für Architektur und der Bau der Chruščevka” [Out of the Crisis with Concrete. The Academy of Architecture and the Building of the Khrushchyovka], in Julia Engelschalt et al., Wissenskrisen – Krisenwissen. Zum Umgang mit Krisenzuständen in und durch Wissenschaft und Technik [Knowledge Crises – Crisis Knowledge] (Bielefeld 2023), pp. 197–227.
Reviews
Hajo Raupach, review of: Mijnssen, Ivo: Russia’s Hero Cities. From Postwar Ruins to Soviet Heroarchy. Bloomington, IN 2021. In: JGO Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 72, July 2024, no. 1.
Hajo Raupach, review of: Malaia, Kateryna: Taking the Soviet Union Apart Room by Room. Domestic Architecture before and after 1991. Ithaca, NY 2023. In: H-Soz-Kult, 10.06.2024.
Hajo Raupach, review of: Geisler, Saskia: Finnische Bauprojekte in der Sowjetunion. Politik, Wirtschaft, Arbeitsalltag (1972–1990) [Finnish Construction Projects in the Soviet Union. Politics, Economy, Working Life]. Stuttgart 2021. In: H-Soz-Kult, 09.02.2024.
Other Publications
Melanie Hussinger / Hajo Raupach, “Herbst der Erinnerung. Partizipatives Gedenken an den Grossen Terror im heutigen Russland” [Autumn of Remembrance. Participatory Commemoration of the Great Terror in Contemporary Russia], in Frictions: Europe, America and Global Transformations (08.12.2022), doi: 10.15457/frictions/0023.
Teaching
Courses
Introductory Seminars (Proseminar)
Empire of Nations. The History of the Soviet Union through the Nation-Building of its Republics (Helmut Schmidt University, Autumn Trimester 2024)
Introduction to the History of Knowledge and the Environment (Helmut Schmidt University, Autumn Trimester 2024)
Introduction to the Modern History of Russia (Helmut Schmidt University, Autumn Trimester 2021)
Field Trips
The Tragedy of Central Europe? Field Trip through the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary (Helmut Schmidt University, Spring Trimester 2024)
The Occupied Nation? The Soviet Legacy in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia (Helmut Schmidt University, Spring Trimester 2023)
Seminars (Übungen)
Architecture, Urban Planning and Housing Construction from Lenin to Putin (Helmut Schmidt University, Winter Trimester 2024)
ISA Seminars
Eastern Europe. Spaces, History, Cultures (Helmut Schmidt University, Spring Trimester 2021)
From Secession to Nation. Upheaval in the Caucasus (Helmut Schmidt University, Autumn Trimester 2022)
The Red Empire. Ideology, Dissidence and Propaganda in Soviet Film (Helmut Schmidt University, Winter Trimester 2023)
Letzte Änderung: 8. June 2026