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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...
Fake Putin, Real Pussy Riot, Fake Obama, Real Diplomacy
Watching Fake Putin go around being a charming bully is funny (as they say, because it's true.) Watching the US President ignore gay rights protesters in the face of a...
Gender Trouble in The Double: Masculinity in Dostoevsky’s Novella and Ayoade’s Film
Right from the outset, Ayoade’s film establishes the presence of a masculine hierarchy.
Assistant Secretary Rose discusses arms control in US-Russia relations
On April 29, 2015, the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed the Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Frank A. Rose, for an...
“The Americans Are (Not) Coming”: Rescue and Self-Defense in the Cold War
A cautionary tale from the Cold War might remind us that narratives of rescue, which promise to overturn repressive regimes and bring freedom and democracy in other nations, can be...
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...
Diplomatic and Undiplomatic Language, or Just say "Ы"!
Lately, it has not only been the vowels that have been hard to stomach in Russia.
Ukraine’s ‘far east’: on the effects and genealogy of Ukrainian Galician reductionism
In the context of the current war, faith in the idea of national ‘purity’ often comes couched in rationalist terms, positing no known cure for the Soviet hangover in the...
Cold Snap (Part I): Russian Film after Leviathan
This essay provides context for roughly thirty-five current and upcoming Russian films, loosely clustered around four topics: directors; debuts; economic health; and dominant industry trends.
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...
Russians React (to Trump's election)
“Just looking at their outward appearances, both are extremely unattractive.”
Inferiority Complex: Why the New Film Adaptation of Lady Macbeth is Too Subtle for its Own Good
Oh great, I thought, as she suffocated the little boy, now we’re getting to my favorite bit.
"Go Back to Your Homeland If You Want to Live": Russian Policy Toward HIV-Positive Central Asians
This post features a runner-up entry in "All the Russias'" inaugural Graduate Student Essay Competition.
Destruction or Hope? Past or Present? Postmodern Unity in Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1
For the majority of listeners, Andrei Tarkovsky's film "Stalker" (1979) is not the first cinematic association that comes to mind when they experience Alfred Schnittke’s "Concerto Grosso no.1" (1977). (The...
The Future is Feudal (Unstuck in Time)
The medieval future, far from being always dystopian, might not even be that bad.
Are Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn Kindred Souls?
The similarities readers have already uncovered between Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn's respective world-views pave the way toward further scholarship that would analyze the nineteenth-century author's continuing legacy in the work of...
Sergei Lavrov’s Canard of a “Jewish Hitler” and the (Un)logic of Antisemitism
Old habits die hard. One especially pernicious “habit” that has resurfaced during the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the claim that Adolf Hitler, the man who led the attempted annihilation...
Countering "byt" with "bytie": Ludmila Ulitskaya’s Balm for Motherhood
Written in 1995, Ludmila Ulitskaya’s "Medea and Her Children" merges "byt" and "bytie" by portraying the spiritual satisfaction found in the everyday.
Excerpt from "Sex Work in Contemporary Russia: A Cultural Perspective," Part I
The character of the female sex worker has recurred pervasively across time, space, and genre, repeatedly used by writers, filmmakers, artists, intellectuals, and politicians to explore anxieties about the disruptive...
Mark Konecny shares unexpected history of Russian art in America
On Sept. 18, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Mark Konecny, Associate Director and Curator of the archives and library of the Institute of...