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The Second Great Patriotic War? Sacred Memory and Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine
The cult of the Great Victory was transformed into the war cult of the Russian invasion.
Russian Liberals and the Kremlin: Racism and Colonialism as Common Ground, Part II
Despite their conflicting interests and ideologies, every political affiliation across post-Soviet Europe blamed Russian war crimes on the Asian “other.”
Russian Liberals and the Kremlin: Racism and Colonialism as Common Ground, Part I
Russian liberals present themselves as “civilized Europeans” who would like to fix the “backward Asianness” of Russia. By drawing such Orientalist distinctions, these figures justify the existing colonial economic relationship.
Civic Poetry and the Decembrist Revolt: Pushkin, Virtue Signaling, and Liberal Vibes
Pushkin’s political verse helped shape a subgenre of civic poetry and was subsequently interpreted in the context of this broader corpus and its increasingly radical opposition to the state.
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.
For Victory in Freedom: Why Ukrainian Resilience to Russian Aggression Endures, Part I
The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are determined not only to remove Russia from their land, but also to become a thriving democracy, honoring and avenging their significant collective losses and sacrifices.
“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...
Rereading Akunin: A Conversation with Eliot Borenstein
Fandorin is just not a joiner. And specifically, if there’s one principle to which he’s committed above all others, it’s this notion of “personal human dignity” and the individual's prerogative...
The Devil Is No Match for Procedural Liberalism (Pelagia and the White Bulldog (Conclusion))
The rule of law is boring, but necessary
Heads, Lost and Found (Pelagia and the White Bulldog 8)
For a “tasteful” novel about a nun, Pelagia and the White Bulldog has a surprising predilection for dismemberment
Provincial Purity vs. Capital Crimes (Pelgaia and the White Bulldog 7)
Capitals destroy the soul.
All Dogs Go to Heaven (Pelagia and the White Bulldog 5)
Perhaps we’re all in some mirror universe episode of Scooby Doo, and Pelagia is Velma?
The More I See of Men, the More I Love My Dog (Pelagia and the White Bulldog 4)
R.I.P. Zakusai. You’ll be missed. Well, only by Marya Afanasyevna, but still.
Fandorin Meets Dracula (WQ 13)
There is precious little bloodsucking in Akunin’s oeuvre, which I’ve long considered a serious flaw.
The Case of the Multiple Fandorins (WQ 12)
Fandorin has now had enough brushes with death to start his own beauty salon.