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Anti-Hegemonic Code-Switching: The Case of Odesa Poet Boris Khersonskii, Part II
Immediately after Euromaidan, Khersonskii began to reflect on his own precarious position as a Russophone patriot of Ukraine who had published his poetry primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Socrates in Russia, Part II
In May 2022, while wrapping up edits on my contribution to Socrates in Russia amidst a stream of dreadful news from the Ukrainian front, I learned that the eighteenth-century estate...
Excerpt from Anne Lounsbery's "Life is Elsewhere," Part II
This week, All the Russias is delighted to feature excerpts from Anne Lounsbery's "Life Is Elsewhere: Symbolic Geography in the Russian Provinces, 1800–1917," just out from Cornell Press. The below...
Excerpt from Brandon Schechter's “The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects"
This book tells the story of that dramatic change—from a desperate, retreating band to a victorious army—as experienced by soldiers. The years 1941–1945 replayed in real life a universal tale...
Soviet Miners’ Strikes, Thirty Years Later: What Miners Demanded in 1989 and 1991, Part II
By describing the benefits the mine accrued thanks to its specialists and white-collar employees, the "Izvestiia" article points to the intellectual nature of work performed by those striking miners called...
Minor Writers and the Major Leagues, Part II
Another reason to study minor writers is that they help us to understand historical eras. They are part of the thick description of a given time. For the major-centric among...
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...
Excerpt from "Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time," Part II
Neither monument building as a practice nor the desire for perpetuating memory were limited to official culture and its “true believers.” Rather, the value of being remembered was shared, and...
Excerpt from "Sex Work in Contemporary Russia: A Cultural Perspective," Part II
The sex industry in Russia is multiethnic, with scholars estimating a significant number of female migrants (from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia) working as sex workers, especially in...
Excerpt from Joanna Stingray's "Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground," Part II
One of my favorite Pop Mechanics concerts at the Rock Club wasn’t one in which I sang, but one where I saw Sergey produce performance art at its fullest.
New-Generation Warfare and the Fringe Right: How Russian Interference Impacts Right-Wing Extremism in the US, Part II
It is difficult to say whether anyone, Russia included, could purposely engineer another QAnon movement. However, QAnon is a masterclass in manipulating an audience by playing to its expectations and...
Winter Reading Series: Emil Draitser's "Farewell, Mama Odessa," Part II
When the Bolshoi Ballet came to town, Si and Zev printed their own playbills and, at the theater entrance, handed them to the theatergoers. Below the ballet cast of "Sleeping...
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part II
The physical disposition of the books in the crowded space of the Russkaia biblioteka in Riga, Latvia corresponds to the relative relevance of its holdings for readers.
How the World Came to Use the Metric System, Part II
The metric system didn’t become international because it was more rational than other systems; it became international because some Russian academicians and their colleagues from Europe and the Americas made...
Excerpt from Łukasz Stanek's "Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War," Part II
The controversies around socialist labor point to what might be the main dilemma of this book: the relationship between the studied architectures and the project of socialism. This relationship was...
Starvation and Survival on the Soviet Home Front during World War II
To combat starvation and the shortages, the Soviet state undertook a massive campaign to develop culinary experimentation through foraging and research. Although state sponsored, the effort was largely pioneered from...
Economic Sanctions on Russia and their Effects, Part II
In recent years, Russia’s economic performance has not been stellar. But how much of this disappointing economic performance can be attributed to sanctions?
The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects
Soldiers are constructing whatever they can: Oil cans become stoves, artillery shells become kerosene lamps, overcoat fabric becomes wicks. Government officials regularly checked these trench “cities” for proper ventilation, light,...
Workers Against the Workers’ State, Part II
"Dear Comrades!" won a special jury prize at the Venice film festival in September 2020. A one-hour promotional video follows Konchalovsky and Vysotskaya as they cavort through luxury locations in...
For Victory in Freedom: Why Ukrainian Resilience to Russian Aggression Endures, Part II
The increasing toll of the war has not dampened Ukrainians’ support for freedom. The suffering has engendered a clearer understanding of the importance of continued fighting by building a sense of shared sacrifice and raising the value of freedom.