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Linor Goralik: "She Said, He Said"
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...
Linor Goralik: Excerpts from "Biblical Zoo"
The rabbit conveys to you that you can’t even imagine how and what he pees and poops—but soon you will.
"Everyone Reads the Text That's in Their Own Head": An Interview with Linor Goralik
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,...
Wheel of Misfortune: Game Shows and Show Trials after Crimea
What does a Russian game show have to do with a Ukrainian prisoner?
Change is coming to All The Russias
I am stepping away from most of my editorial duties for the blog
The Snowball Effect: An Immigrant Story
When I tell my story of immigration, which story do I tell?
Reinventing the Soviet Past: Actor Pavel Derevyanko's "Positive Heroes"
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...
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,...
Call for Submissions
We 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...
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...
Early-Soviet Travelogues and Socialist Views of Race and Class in America
Mayakovsky, Kisch, and Il'f and Petrov's travelogues present the vulnerability of America's lower classes as deeply interconnected with racial discrimination, necessarily leading to advocacy for socialism as a viable alternative...
Interdisciplinary humanities workshop addresses aspects of neoliberalism
We are still in a neoliberal society.
Energy Aesthetics: Force, Flow, and En-tropy in Russian Culture
Literature, visual arts, popular science brought together Russian scholars in fields ranging from visual arts to literature to anthropology. The aim of the interdisciplinary symposium was to examine “energy as...
Russia greets the end of the world
For those of you not already consumed by fire in the molten pits or, worse, living without wi-fi, there are no more shopping days left before the Mayan Apocalypse.
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...
Interview with Sean Guillory, Part I
"The sorry state of public discourse around Russia has led me to try to provide the most eclectic range of topics on my podcast. The idea is to show my...
Lenin Lives: An Exhibition at the Van Every Gallery, Davidson College
Artists and politicians alike recognized the symbolic significance of Lenin’s public image.
Hacking, Heckling, and Conspiracy: Interview with Julia Ioffe
What you need is something we don’t have yet in the case of the election, and might never have, which is somebody from the inside saying, “Here’s how we did...
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...