Featured
Colloquium Series: “Bashkiria’s Imperial World,” a discussion with Charles Steinwedel
Charles Steinwedel Associate Professor of History at Northeastern Illinois University-Chicago joined the Jordan Center to discuss his soon to be completed book, Threads of Empire: Making the Russian Empire in...
The Bashkir Vanishes?
How Bashkirs endure the intense Russian nationalism characteristic of the last decade remains to be seen.
Governing Religion, Mobilizing Faith: Conference Recap
The Jordan Center's first all-day conference of the fall on Friday October 18th: "Governing Religion, Mobilizing Faith"
Gothic Doubling and The Double, Gothically
Dostoevsky was well aware of the power of the gothic.
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.
Film Review: Sarik Andreasian's "Guardians" (2016)
With "Guardians," cinemas saw a Russian superhero team at last. Most of them wished they could unsee it.
Teymur Ateşli: A Traitor-Hero for the Cold-War Era
For an ethnically Turkish man from the Soviet Union, fighting with the Nazis was no betrayal.
Minds and Bodies in the World, or: Learning to Love Dostoevsky
I'm not one of those American Slavists who came to the study of Russian literature by way of Dostoevsky. For a long time, I wasn’t even particularly interested—I’m afraid that...
Tracing the Georgian Ruling Party’s De-Europeanization
With 70-80% of Georgians supporting Euro-Atlantic integration, the ruling party avoids openly rejecting this path. Instead, it promises domestic audiences EU membership under the slogan “Toward Europe with Dignity.”
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...
Cold War Again: Who’s Responsible?
The East-West confrontation over Ukraine, which led to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea but long predated it, is potentially the worst international crisis in more than fifty years—and the most fateful....
Smoked Out
Yes my friends, it's finally here, a federal law prohibiting smoking indoors
Play Based on Venedikt Erofeev's "Moskva-Petushki" Debuts at the East Village Playhouse
Like Erofeev's Venya, our own contemporaries seem to suffer from strong disillusionment with authority — an unsurprising outcome in the face of the degradation of discourse, institutions, and stable employment....
An interview with Donna Orwin on her new book, "Simply Tolstoy"
We heard that Donna Orwin had just published a new book called "Simply Tolstoy" and had to find out all about it.
Getting One Thing Straight: “Postmodernists” Are Not the Problem
Discussions of Trump and Putin as “Postmodern politicians” come in many different forms and degrees of sophistication. My own modest contribution is intended only to dispel a bit of confusion...
Lady's Choice (Turkish Gambit 6)
Fandorin sounds less like Akunin and more like Yuliya Latynina
Istanbul, Not Constantinople (Turkish Gambit 12)
The Turkish Gambit was first published in 1998, the year before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The Russian Cinderella Tale as a Mother-Daughter Romance
Ask anyone familiar with “Cinderella” what the story is all about, and they will likely say that it is about a beautiful orphaned girl’s marriage to a prince—in spite of...
Excerpt from Emil Draitser's "In the Jaws of the Crocodile: A Soviet Memoir," Part I
“So, young man,” the KGB major says, stretching his hand toward my briefcase, “let’s see what you’ve tried to smuggle into the embassy of a foreign power.”
Guns for Lenin: A New Jersey Love Story
A family stands in a field. The woman has flowers in her hair and a revolver in her hand. The man stands proudly with a rifle beside him, while their...