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“The National Atlas of Russia” (2004-2008) and the Spatial Ideology of the Putin-Era Russian State
The process of territorialization, the development of independent geographical knowledge, and spatial identity are inseparable parts of constructing a modern nation-state.
New Languages of Hostility and Resistance: Politicizing Russophone Poetry, Part II
Poetry written in Russian today, even if it makes no mention of the war, finds itself within the magnetic field of horrifying historical events.
New Languages of Hostility and Resistance: Politicizing Russophone Poetry, Part I
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the amount of Russian-language poetry online has skyrocketed. Some poems express support for the war. Others resist not only Russian aggression itself, but also the Kremlin propaganda worldview, which defines the “good” as whatever benefits the regime.
Why did many people in 1917 think that Lenin was an anarchist?
In 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were widely cast as “anarchists.” Why? With what consequences?
Waste and Post-Soviet Transition in the Fiction of Liudmila Petrushevskaia
Images of waste in late Soviet and post-Soviet culture can function as important symbolic markers of Soviet and post-Soviet society in the process of its sociocultural transition.
The Joint Delegation as an Attempt to Settle the Sino-Soviet Border After 1991
With ethnic tensions on the rise and union republics seeking independence, the Gorbachev government found itself searching for solutions to thorny problems within Sino-Soviet border relations.
“C’mon, Turn Swan Lake on!”: The Belarusian Protests of 2020 and Memories of the 1990s
In the 2020 Belarusian demonstrations, references to perestroika and the 1990s abounded. In our recently published article, we showed that recalling the civic activism of 1989-1991 allowed a symbolic return to recent political upheavals in the sense of “picking up where we left off.”
“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.
Sociology of Corruption: Patterns of Illegal Association in Hungary
Since 2010, Orbán’s government has induced a radical transformation of grand corruption patterns in Hungary: a shift from oligarchic or economic state capture toward political state capture, in which complex corrupt networks are professionally designed and managed by the very top of the political elite.
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part III
Orbita’s activities are a concerted effort to deploy Russian language culture on the Latvian scene without reasserting the language of the occupier or reconstructing the official cultural geography of the Soviet era.
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.
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part I
After 1991, Russians in the non-Russian republics, regardless of their stance toward Soviet power or its sudden vanishing, lost their privileged status of being “at home” everywhere in the USSR.
Orthodox activists as counter-publics in pre-war Russia
When Orthodox people in Russia go public, they often do it as though they belonged to a subaltern minority.
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.
How Oil Producers Promote Renewable Energy: Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan Compared
Why do some oil-producing countries choose to deploy renewable energy sources at a faster rate and more extensively than others?
Russia and China: Strategic Comrades in Challenging the Existing World Order
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian and Chinese positioning vis-à-vis the West has only become more antagonistic.
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.
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.