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Sergei Parkhomenko and the Protest Movement in Russia
“What can Russians do to express themselves? Be political.” Raising and answering this crucial question, Sergei Parkhomenko spoke this past Monday at the Jordan Center about the recent protest movement...
Sergei Antonov presents a history of counterfeiting in Imperial Russia
On February 5, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Sergei Antonov for a colloquium on “Criminal Capitalism in Imperial Russia: Counterfeiters, Merchants, and Gendarmes.”...
Sergei Eisenstein and Immersion in Nature
On October 23, 2020, the Jordan Center hosted Joan Neuberger, Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin, for a talk on Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein’s...
Sergei Lavrov’s Canard of a “Jewish Hitler” and the (Un)logic of Antisemitism
Old habits die hard. One especially pernicious “habit” that has resurfaced during the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the claim that Adolf Hitler, the man who led the attempted annihilation...
Sergei Guriev's data analysis looks at the post-Soviet transition
The “transition happiness gap” is finally closed after 25 years.
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part III
In the end, he was released as partially insane, for it was noted that he considered himself an incarnation of the Buddha and believed that he desperately needed money to...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part I
In this article, I’d like to turn away from heated debates over Esenin’s alleged “killers,” or unprofessional falsifiers of literary history, toward an apparently calmer place. I will focus on...
Review: "I Want a Baby and Other Plays" by Sergei Tretyakov, Translated by Robert Leach and Stephen Holland
This new collection of plays by Sergei Tretyakov, translated by Robert Leach and Stephen Holland, attempts to solidify Tretyakov’s role in the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde Canon. In his introduction, Leach...
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part I
In contemporary Russian literary life, Gandlevsky’s stature as a poet is indisputably great; he is less well known as a prose writer, although his novels and essays have been critically...
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part II
Sergey Gandlevsky has written that his very first childhood poem, written on the occasion of the transfer to another school of the “beautiful, stern” little girl he had a crush...
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part III
Krivorotov tried to cause a jealous scene, but Anya would have none of it. “I have one jailer, my aunt, and that’s enough,” the young woman said to him. “If...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part II
On October 9th, 1927, already after the tragic death of Duncan herself, and again in the Sunday supplement to Hearst’s newspapers, there appeared yet another article, undoubtedly from the same...
Russians are protesting! Why? A Monkey Cage Symposium
Do the protests that took place across 99 cities in Russia on Sunday signify that meaningful change in Russian politics is likely?
Putin’s Y2024 Problem
There is no doubt that Putin has a succession plan – but he has not yet revealed what it is. During his June 2018 call-in program, Putin said in response...
Kvas Patriotism in Russia: Cultural Problems, Cultural Myths
Professor Brintlinger's argument is developed along three ideas: Russian ideas about food become heightened during times of war and conflict; specific foods embody meaning beyond their sustenance value, to include...
Gubernatorial Tenure, Turnover, and Succession in Russia
There are striking differences in how long regional executives remain in office in different multilevel autocracies. For example, China has a compulsory retirement rule for provincial heads at the age...
Cold Snap (Part I): Russian Film after Leviathan
This essay provides context for roughly thirty-five current and upcoming Russian films, loosely clustered around four topics: directors; debuts; economic health; and dominant industry trends.
The Ukraine War and the Putin Succession
Putin is 69 years old. There has been much speculation about the state of his health. All we know for sure is that he will die at some point: that...
The State and the Human Body in Putin’s Russia: The Biopolitics of Authoritarian Revanche, Part I
The Kremlin’s uses of biopolitics aim to “normalize” segments of society, change national discourses, test and discipline elites, increase birth rates and worker productivity, and, essentially, construct the ideal individual,...
The State and the Human Body in Putin’s Russia: The Biopolitics of Authoritarian Revanche, Part II
Russia's biopolitical normalization occurs in the interstitial space between the popular sentiment of an uprooted society beset by failed transitions and halted globalization, retrograde, neo-patriarchal responses, and the deliberate strategy...