Daria Dyakonova

PhD student in History
Université de Montréal

Award-winning publication: Tomber amoureux de la république soviétique et diffuser cet amour dans le monde entier : les jeunes communistes canadiens et l'URSS dans les années 1920

Published in: Le Manuscrit

Daria Dyakonova's research helps elucidate the inner workings of the international communist movement of the 1920s. Building on new archival documents, her paper challenges the argument that Canadian communists acquiescently followed Soviet directives. Her work serves to provide a clearer picture of communism and, by the same token, of current movements claiming to be left leaning and fosters the consideration of communist projects by the governments of Québec and Canada. In addition, by shedding light on the interactions between leftist groups in Canada and the former Soviet Union and thus demystifying the past—and Russia's past in particular—the article could potentially encourage Canadian-Russian dialogue.