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Dependency or Interdependency? Arguments Against Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline
While concerns about the Nord Stream 2 project lessening Ukraine’s leverage with Russia are justified, anxieties about growing German and European reliance on Russia may be overblown.
Trade, Trust, and De Facto State Conflicts: Abkhazia’s International Economic Engagement
Abkhazia’s economic interactions with Russia, with Georgia proper, and with the EU demonstrate that the interrelation between trade and trust is more complex than often assumed. Trade does not necessarily...
Destruction or Hope? Past or Present? Postmodern Unity in Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1
For the majority of listeners, Andrei Tarkovsky's film "Stalker" (1979) is not the first cinematic association that comes to mind when they experience Alfred Schnittke’s "Concerto Grosso no.1" (1977). (The...
Civil Society Perspectives on Repression of Human Rights Defenders in the Commonwealth of Independent States
In recent years, commitments to democracy and human rights have waxed and waned in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Gender Trouble in The Double: Masculinity in Dostoevsky’s Novella and Ayoade’s Film
Right from the outset, Ayoade’s film establishes the presence of a masculine hierarchy.
Snowden in Moscow: The Interview
"I’ve been recognized every now and then. It’s always in computer stores. It’s something like brain associations, because I’ll be in the grocery store and nobody will recognize me. Even...
Redemption of Sold or Purchased Land in Muscovy during the Reign of Ivan IV (1533-1584) and the Russian Attitude toward Rule of Law
How Muscovites understood the right of redemption (re-acquisition) of sold land or land donated to monasteries shows that, under Ivan the Terrible, statutory law and case law did not always coincide.
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
Destruction, Reconstruction, Belief: The 1837 Fire at the Winter Palace and its Aftermaths (A Paper in Verse)
‘Twas evening in St Petersburg
The days were very short
It happened in December
At the dwelling of the court.
The tsar was at the theater
When the news was brought to him
“The palace has gone up in flames!”
The news was very grim!
Ideas That Plague Us: Reading “Crime and Punishment” as a Pandemic Narrative, Part I
The motif of illness runs through Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and accompanies key developments and themes—so much so that the novel can be read as a pandemic or plague narrative.
Identity Politics and the Reality of Pandemic-Era Russia: A Clash in the Making
From the beginning of the pandemic, the Russian government instituted very tight control over all information related to the spread of the coronavirus in Russia. It highlighted Russia’s lower mortality...
Ideas That Plague Us: Reading “Crime and Punishment” as a Pandemic Narrative, Part II
It is ironic that Raskolnikov justifies selecting the old woman as his victim because she is economically unproductive and sick. Raskolnikov is himself perpetually ill, does not work, and relies on charity from the women in his life.
December 1989: An Immigrant Story
One could find bards at every immigrant gathering singing The Tales of What Could Go Wrong At the Interview.
Condemned to Stagnation? Comparing Rebel Governance Models in the Secessionist Regions in Moldova and Ukraine
Parastates or de facto states feature as an overlooked phenomenon in international affairs. A recent study identified thirty-four of them in existence after the Second World War. Their surprising long-term...
Deciphering Stalin, the man and tyrant: Stephen Kotkin discusses the second volume of his series, "Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941"
The shaping of Communist ideology in the midst of 20th-century geopolitics informed Stalin's domestic policies as well as the Soviet Union's role on the world stage.
Demographic Messaging in Russian Television Films After 2008: “I Am Happy” (2010) and “The Millionaire” (2012)
On 15 August 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order reinstating the Mother-Heroine medal. The original award, conferred in USSR between 1944 and 1991, rewarded mothers of ten or more living children with a medal and various privileges
"Neuzheli tak i nado, tak i budem zhitʹ?" Roman Neumoev and Egor Letov’s Divergent Notions of Death
Death cannot deliver us from the human condition because it *is* the human condition; the highest knowledge is simply knowledge of unending suffering.
Russia is Attacking Western Liberal Democracies
Russia is engaging in an orchestrated, strategic campaign whose purpose is to erode liberal democracy in Europe and the United States.
Notre Dame de Russian Social Media Bullsh*t
Ksenia Sobchak has revealed her true colors.
“The Best Defense against Russian Possessiveness”: Ukraine in Polish Underground Publications, 1976-1989
“There is no independent Poland without independent Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania” remains the basis of Poland’s Eastern policy.