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The Great Symbolic War, or Why Felix Dzerzhinsky is Back
The return of the past in Putin’s Russia resembles a mass-scale historical reenactment. The revived Dzerzhinsky again looks to the West—toward Poland and the Baltics—while the gentlemen who proclaimed themselves...
Mr. Xi Goes to Moscow: Much Ado About Nothing?
A more nuanced appraisal of Russia’s relationship with China tells us a great deal about both how Russian elites define their country’s core interests and possible trajectories for Russian foreign...
“Happy Birthday, Mr. Putin!”: celebrating political masculinity in Russia
A key element of Vladimir Putin’s legitimation strategy has been the cultivation of a macho image.
The Leviathan and the Gutter: Gefter.ru interviews NYU's Mikhail Iampolski (Part I)
There’s no law, Putin is absolutely impotent, he can’t do anything. That’s it. All that’s left is to sit there, like a medieval serf, and hope to God that you...
The Leviathan and the Gutter: Gefter.ru interviews NYU's Mikhail Iampolski (Part II)
It’s all very sad, I think. The capacity for thought has already disappeared, and now dignity is gradually being snuffed out, but I don’t see any solutions. People still depend...
In "Mr. Jones," Stalin’s Man-Made Famine Offers Lessons for the Present
What can the Holodomor teach us today about the importance of journalistic integrity and the dangers of historical revisionism?
Prison or War? Why Paperpaper.ru Readers Are Choosing to Stay in Russia, and What They Plan to Do Next
On the third day of mobilization in Russia, Paperpaper.ru’s investigative unit surveyed our readers to find out if they're trying to avoid being drafted, asking about their perceptions of the...
Marks and Angles: An Immigrant Story
You can tell from our left arms.
Alternate Histories: An Immigrant Story
I’m writing this essay rather than hoisting a Kalashnikov for a simple reason: my parents’ determination to leave the Soviet Union.
Emotional Accessibility: Illustrations and Editorial Cartoons in Late Imperial Russia’s "Kopeck Press"
In the years before the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was home to a thriving penny press. Journalists, publishers, and ambitious entrepreneurs in towns and cities across...
Levada Center Attacked for Doing Research with American Scholars
Social science will suffer as a result.
The Paralympic Games’ Cinderella Story: Ukraine
It is critical that the disability rights movement in Ukraine find ways to ride the Paralympic wave of success.
Excerpt from Emil Draitser's "In the Jaws of the Crocodile: A Soviet Memoir," Part III
What else do I have in my briefcase?
Egnate Ninoshvili and the Remapping of Georgian Cultural History. A View from the Streets of Post-Soviet Tbilisi
There is something suspiciously inconspicuous about how Ninoshvili’s bust fits into its surroundings, remaining unremarkable in an otherwise hyper-central spot on the main street in Georgia's capital.