Semantics, not anti-Semitism, may be behind Putin’s gaffe.
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Maya VinokourWe welcome your short pitches and/or completed drafts of 500-1200 words on any topic relating to Russian, East European, and Eurasian politics and culture. Please see our submission guidelines for more details!
Continue reading...Orgasmic Communism?
Venelin Ganev
Russian Meddling and Fake News, Conclusion: Some Recommendations
Vasily Gatov
Russian Meddling and Fake News, Part Four: The Curse of Glory
Vasily Gatov
Russian Meddling and Fake News, Part Three: The Counter-Counter-Counterintelligence State
Vasily Gatov
Unlike the USSR, Russia is not a treasure trove of intelligence talent (which is needed to produce powerful active measures), nor does it espouse an ideology that distinguishes friends from foes (another crucial component)
Continue reading...Russian Meddling and Fake News, Part Two: Fearless Hybrid Defense
Vasily Gatov
Putin walks down the lines of computers staffed with guys in uniform and directs them personally: “Hurt Hillary more! Spur racial discord further! Support Trump!”
Continue reading...Russian Meddling and Fake News, Part One: Sell Me More Diapers and Napkins, Please
Vasily Gatov
“Russian affairs” have became a hot topic taken up by writers who lack the proper expertise or necessary restraint
Continue reading...Boys Just Want to Have Fun: Just How Queer are the “Satisfaction” Videos?
Eliot Borenstein
The Satisfaction supporters are definitely fighting for something, but it is not LGBT rights
Continue reading...Necrorealism: Turning Bare Life into Art (Part II)
David Bering-Porter
Necrorealism’s mediation does to life what photography does to the sign; like milk, it turns, but in it there is also a process of homogenization or a general equivalence that starts to take place in this zone of indetermination.
Continue reading...Necrorealism: Turning Bare Life into Art (Part I)
David Bering-Porter
The peculiar style of life, art, and action practiced by the necrorealists in their early appearances was part of a larger tradition in late Soviet culture that exhibited a mode of excessive irony.
Continue reading...Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Hacker: Russia and the U.S. Economic Espionage Act
Miranda Lupion and Cornell Overfield
An improved Economic Espionage Act would address not only the jurisdiction of hacks, but also the definition of hacking.
Continue reading...“Everyone Reads the Text That’s in Their Own Head”: An Interview with Linor Goralik
Olga Breininger
I’ve really lucked out in that I really consider myself to be a private individual, I don’t feel the need to look for a relationship to the Russian literary canon, in any real sense. I just don’t have that emotional sense of continuity inside, that emotional thread that would say “Here I am!” and tie me to my place in the Russian canon. For better or worse.
Continue reading...An excerpt from Alexandra Petrova’s “Appendix” (2016)
Maya Vinokour
I felt even worse about my appendix. Over and over, they’d told me: “Don’t swallow fruit pits, and make sure to shell sunflower seeds before sticking them in your mouth, otherwise your appendix’ll get inflamed.”
Continue reading...Linor Goralik: Excerpts from “Biblical Zoo”
Maya Vinokour
The rabbit conveys to you that you can’t even imagine how and what he pees and poops—but soon you will.
Continue reading...Reinventing the Soviet Past: Actor Pavel Derevyanko’s “Positive Heroes”
Amanda Lerner
In the series “Dark Side of the Moon” (2011-) and in the film “Salyut-7” (2017), historical and biographical truth take a backseat to the aesthetic and ideological needs of the present. What matters more are the hero’s personal values: Derevyanko, in both the film and the TV series, plays a man who understands Soviet values, puts country and duty above personal desires, and does not waver in the face of the impossible.
Continue reading...Linor Goralik: “She Said, He Said”
Maya Vinokour
Like, here, I had this parrot, and you know, they live a long time. Well, he died, like, he was sitting on my shoulder and all of a sudden I thought he’d flown off, but then I felt his claws on my back—he’d fallen backwards. Well, I even, you know, I even cried. He lived a long time. So I couldn’t throw him out, I put him in a plastic box and buried him at my dacha.
Continue reading...Exhibition Review: Five Elements of War
Rachel Angelica Engle
Daria Marchenko and David Green’s “Five Elements of War,” currently on view at the Ukrainian Institute of America, consists of five politically-charged pieces featuring bold coloring and bullet casings from battlefronts in the Donbass region and Kiev’s Maidan.
Continue reading...Another Face of Soviet Nostalgia: Daniil Kharms
Natasha Kadlec
Taken to the limit, nostalgia for Kharms permits the union of seemingly incompatible elements — according to its logic, there is no contradiction in, say, enjoying the author’s dark comedy while simultaneously admiring Stalin’s managerial prowess.
Continue reading...Rethinking Putin: A Talk by Professor Stephen Cohen
Stephen F. Cohen
In this brief talk, originally delivered on 2 December 2017 aboard “The Nation”‘s annual cruise, Professor Cohen tries to revise popular perceptions of Vladimir Putin as a leader by putting him in historical and contemporary context.
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