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The Long Hangover - Putin’s Russia and the Ghosts of the Past
Shaun Walker discussed his new book, which examines the Kremlin’s use of Russian and Soviet history to reinforce Putin’s regime.
Notes from the Manosphere, Part I
“I am a sick man...I am a wicked man,” says the Underground Man, the anti-hero of Dostoevsky’s 1864 novel. Narrated by a disillusioned man who fails to fit into societal...
Notes from the Manosphere, Part II
The "age of rage," a term dating to the 2010s, when the online culture wars began, is in full flower today. Reading Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" from our contemporary vantage...
Interview with Sean Guillory, Part II
"I think we who either produce or engage with academic work need to seriously reconsider what we do, why we do it, and whom we do it for. I remember...
In Memory of Stephen Cohen
Earlier this year, our friend and colleague Stephen Cohen passed away. His contributions to the field of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies will be felt for years to come....
UFOs after the USSR (Russia's Alien Nations)
It doesn’t hurt that the alien visitor happens to look like he would be equally at home in either his spaceship or on the cover of Tiger Beat.
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part II
Sergey Gandlevsky has written that his very first childhood poem, written on the occasion of the transfer to another school of the “beautiful, stern” little girl he had a crush...
Frozen in Time
I have lived more than eight decades, and in many countries, so friends occasionally phone and ask, “Have you ever experienced anything like this?” Yes, I answer.
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...
Mother, Wife, and Activist? Opportunities and Obstacles to Women’s Civic Engagement in Russia
Women-led activism deserves a thoughtful examination in the contemporary Russian context, particularly because current debates continue to explicitly tie women to traditional gender roles.
Excerpt From Colleen Lucey's "Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia," Part I
The Great Reforms, initiated by Tsar Alexander II in the aftermath of Russia’s crushing defeat in the Crimean War (1853–56), brought significant changes to the country’s social and legal institutions...
Sith Lords of the World, Unite! (Russia's Alien Nations)
The very last people who can determine what is universal bout such stories is the Anglo-Saxon audience.
The Silence of American Hawks About Kiev’s Atrocities
Among the crucial questions rarely discussed in the US political-media establishment: What is the role of the “neo-fascist” factor in Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” ideology and military operations?
“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.
Faces of Fear: An Investigation of Horror Cinema Guided by Leonid Lipavsky (Part I)
There’s something too light and easy about the way blood abandons its home and becomes a self-sufficient, warmish puddle—which may be living or not. Slowly leaving its captivity, it begins...
Russian Christmas Comes But Once a Year
In the United States, the Christmas season is winding down — or concluded depending on whom you speak to. The “most wonderful time of the year” typically ends after the...
Tolstoy the Peasant: A "Myth" Revisited
To what extent was the "myth" of Leo Tolstoy-as-peasant purveyed by Ilya Repin merely that—a myth? Was it, in fact, not a myth at all? Tolstoy was no peasant, for...
The Yogis of the Arbat
In August 1918, Andrei Bely wrote a short story called “The Yogi.” I recall this fact when, one early morning exactly one hundred years later, I find myself outside a...
Reconstructing Stalingrad: The Struggle to Rebuild and Redefine the "Hero City" After 1943, Part II
On Tuesday, June 15, 1943, the front page of "Stalingradskaia pravda" ran a letter to the editor, penned by a group of nineteen women led by a one A. M....
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...