Featured
"I heard screams and thought it was important to record" Alexandra Kaluzhskikh, a Young Woman Who Secretly Recorded Audio of Officers Beating Her at a Moscow Police Station, Tells Her Story
A viral audio recording from March 6 — a day that saw both anti-war protests break out across Russia and the arrests of 4,400 people — documented the cruel beating...
An excerpt from Alexandra Petrova's "Appendix" (2016)
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,...
The Possessed Man
Diderot, Rousseau, and all the rest-eau.
How the Female Russian Nihilist Became a Tenacious Archetype
A sensational story about a Russian nihilist bomb plot gripped the imagination of the French reading public for a week in the autumn of 1906. The biggest mass-circulation newspapers published...
‘I will be back in the autumn’ – a Romanian in the UK (An Immigrant Story)
I was back in the autumn. But it was fourteen years later.
Theater Review: Jonathan Leaf's "Pushkin," Now Playing at New York's Sheen Center
When I saw the Sheen Center's new Pushkin play (which runs until August 25), I came aware of both the reverence I should have felt were I Russian and the...
The Final Years of Autocracy: a discussion with Frank Wcislo
Thursday morning March 6th the Jordan Center welcomed Frank Wcislo, Professor of History and Dean of the Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt University. Director Yanni Kotsonis introduced Wcislo’s work in as...
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
From "Tsar Ducks" to Kashchei the Deathless: Anti-Corruption Symbols in Russia Today
In January 2021, Russian anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny returned to Russia with his wife after years of personal and political attacks. Navalny’s subsequent arrest and detention provoked international protests, including...
New and Enduring Forms of Feminist Activism in Contemporary Russia
From the NGO-ized civil society environment that existed in the 1990s and early 2000s, a new pattern of informal activism has developed, often assisted by the use of social media...
“Russian New York: The New Review”: Free Creativity, Free Thought!
On Monday, April 15, the Jordan Center hosted a movie night featuring the documentary “Russian New York: The New Review,” as part of the celebration of Russian-American History Month in...
Crime and Punishment in Today's Russia
Almost 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, crime and policy responses to it are critical to understanding the political dynamics of the region.
Alexis in America: The Grand Tour of a Russian Grand Duke, 1871-1872
The story of the Grand Duke’s trip is more than just a tale of forbidden love, political intrigue and colorful characters. It also touches upon important developments and events in...
Running from the Reds: An Immigrant Story
This was my heritage: cultured, formerly wealthy Russians trying to make it in New York.
Rasputin's Penis: The Documentary (Part I)
All we could confirm was this: in the late 1990s, a man named Michael Augustine purchased a storage locker that turned out to be belong to Marie Rasputin — Rasputin’s...
Balanchine’s Neoclassical Serenade and the Washington Ballet’s New Signature Style
The Washington Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s Serenade this past weekend at the Kennedy Center was a watershed moment for the company. The program heralded the emergence of a Washington...
How the Self-Made Man is Made (Akunin WQ 1)
Erast Fandorin gets bitten by a radioactive raznochinets and is granted super-raznochinets abilities.
Soviet Bullsh*t and New Russian Spell-Casting (Russia's Alien Nations)
Green is not just the color of the crocodile, it is the color of the money that he conjures out of thin air.
Pelagia Descending into the Underworld (Pelagia and the White Bulldog 9)
Pelagia impersonates herself
The Khachaturyan Sisters and Russia’s History of Fighting Terror at Home
The case of the Khachaturyan sisters reads like one of Liudmila Petrushevskaya’s darkest tales. On August 2, 2018, Maria (age 17), Angelina (18), and Krestina (19) were arrested on charges...