On 15 March, the Gorbachev Foundation held a conference “Gorbachev’s generation: Men and women of the sixties in Russia’s life”, organised by the Gorbachev Foundation, Memorial International Society, Moscow Branch of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the G.V.Plekhanov Foundation and the “Social Democrats Alliance” All-Russia Social Movement.
The term “men and women of the sixties”, which appeared through the rethinking of historical and cultural associations linked to the Russian 19th Century, seemingly ties the Russian “movement of the sixties” of the 20th Century to a certain decade and is an established concept. However, in historical perspective the influence of the generation of the sixties proved to be much deeper and long-lasting.
 
Both the internationally acclaimed ideology of Perestroika and the concept of “new thinking” are directly linked to the ideas and values of the generation that was shaped by the experiences of the Great Patriotic War, the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the “thaw” period.
 
There are still debates about the role the men and women of the sixties played in the Russian history of the second half of the 20th Century and as to whether their ideas and values are still relevant in today’s Russia.
 
The conference consisted of two sessions: “Men and women of the sixties – the first and the last generation of “Soviet people” and “Men and women of the sixtiesand others: Halfway to freedom”.
 
Mikhail Gorbachev was among the participants in the Conference.
 
Speakers at the Conference included historians and economists, philosophers and social scientists, active politicians and human rights activists, including R.S.Grinberg (Director of the Institute of Economics, the Russian Academy of Sciences), W.Eichwede (Bremen University's Research Center for Eastern Europe, Germany), V.M.Mezhuev (Philosophy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Yu.N.Afanasiev, A.V.Buzgalin (Moscow State University), L.M.Alexeyeva (the Moscow Helsinki Group), S.A.Kovalev (the Sakharov Centre),  T.I.Zaslavskaya (Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences), G.A.Yavlinsky (politician), Ye.G.Yasin (Higher School of Economics  State University), V.L.Sheinis (the Institute for the World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences), A.Yu.Daniel (the Memorial), V.N.Kuvaldin (Moscow School of Economics, Moscow State University), N.B.Ivanova (Znamya magazine), P.A.Fedosov (Institute for Research Information on Social Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences), L.O.Telen (Radio Liberty), and others.
 
The conference was hosted by Olga Zdravomyslova, Executive Director of the Gorbachev Foundation.
 
Webcast of the conference will be available at  www.a-z.ru