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Excerpt from Jeffrey Brooks' "The Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks"
During the century of Russian genius roughly from 1850 to Stalin’s death a panorama of extraordinary cultural richness unfolded, with layer upon layer of innovation in the arts. Visual artists...
The David Brooks I Miss; or, What Passes for Commentary about Russia
Again and again I found myself taking sides in our ongoing debate: is David Brooks thoroughly awful or only somewhat awful?
Digital, Political, Prescient: New Directions in Russian Press History
Since the collapse of the Soviet regime three decades ago, the Russian press has experienced a revival that transformed it into an important forum for political discussion and debate in...
The Incels and the Injured: Dostoevsky Against Toxic Masculinities
No shortage of contemporary horrors were prophesied by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works: The Brothers Karamazov presages totalitarianism; Demons—terrorism; Diary of a Writer, the author’s ongoing, raw, dialogic polemic—Twitter. Although the author’s...
In "Mr. Jones," Stalin’s Man-Made Famine Offers Lessons for the Present
What can the Holodomor teach us today about the importance of journalistic integrity and the dangers of historical revisionism?
The Tank Driver of Mordor (Russia's Alien Nations)
Meet the Jeffrey Epstein of Middle Earth
Together, Russia and America Make the Worst Film of the Century
Branded, the recent film written and directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Aleksandr Dulerain, is a shining example for the much-ballyhooed "reset" of Russian-American relations. Bradshaw and Duleriin have proven that...
Strongmen, Regular Guys, and Killer Bunnies
If you can remember picking up a copy of the Washington Post on the morning of August 30th, 1979 you may recall the shock of reading a front-page headline announcing...
Why the international community shouldn’t ignore the Crimean Tatars
Early in 2014 the Russian annexation of Crimea caused international uproar. Subsequently, things went quiet. Today, the media are paying attention again, as they reveal how local Russian authorities are...
In Defense of Russia’s Holocaust on Ice
Has “Springtime for Hitler” finally met its match?
Messy Things Betwixt and Between
"Because I have practiced law, I have seen what can potentially hobble a lawyer: namely, her insistence that things be tidy and fall within set parameters of unyielding doctrines. In...
Twitterature in the Dostoevsky Classroom
My adventure with Twitterature began three years ago, when I began to work with the North American Dostoevsky Society as their social media curator. I began a twitter account for...
Frozen in Time
I have lived more than eight decades, and in many countries, so friends occasionally phone and ask, “Have you ever experienced anything like this?” Yes, I answer.
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...
“From Another Shore”: Zoom in Russian Literary Studies
Online technologies are, of course, a wonderful tool, but they do not solve the fundamental problems still discernible in our ways of conducting research on literature and culture in Russia...