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Tsar Nicholas Putin: Continuity or Coincidence?
On a cold December morning in the capital city a crowd gathered to protest Russia’s new ruler. Slogans and cheers sounded through the winter air as the people awaited the...
Castrates, the Specter of Pugachev, and Religious Persecution under Tsar Nicholas I
In 1843, the tsar and his senior advisers were greatly alarmed by reports from researchers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs who had been investigating religious minorities. According to these...
Reimagining Imperial Russia in “Russia: My History” Parks
"Russia My History" and other, similar history parks are a remarkable testament to the state of historical memory in Russia today. These expensive and intricately crafted productions make clear the...
The Dialectical Images of Russian History
When university students are first introduced to the discipline of history, it is often as a practice of grand narratives – the surveying and engineering of broad explanatory models about...
Meet the Empire: The Epic Journey of Grand Prince Alexander Nikolaevich in 1837: A Colloquium Discussion With Paul Werth
A colloquium talk on how the Russian Empire subtly stepped into the modern age in the year 1837.
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...
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...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part III
In the end, he was released as partially insane, for it was noted that he considered himself an incarnation of the Buddha and believed that he desperately needed money to...
From the Paris Committee to “Polish Carbonarism”: Conspiracy Mythology and the Political Imagination in Russia in the Age of Revolution
The idea of conspiracy by secret societies became a pivotal official myth in the Russian Empire from the 1770s on, shaping governmental discourse, diplomatic relations, ideology, and security policy.
Civil Society in 19th-Century Russia
Susan Smith-Peter discusses the shaping of Russian provincial identity amidst the Great Reforms.
Destruction, Reconstruction, Belief: The 1837 Fire at the Winter Palace and its Aftermaths (A Paper in Verse)
‘Twas evening in St Petersburg
The days were very short
It happened in December
At the dwelling of the court.
The tsar was at the theater
When the news was brought to him
“The palace has gone up in flames!”
The news was very grim!
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...
Why Putin’s Oil Maneuvers Will Keep Russia in the Middle East
You Want Romanovs With That?
There has long been a reluctance to accept that the Bolsheviks could, in fact, wipe out the entire imperial family and for the next seventy-five years not feel bad about...
Commercializing 1917: The Russian Revolution in Finnish Popular Songs
The Russian Revolution of 1917 left a deep imprint on popular culture across and beyond the collapsing empire. Popular songs, circulated in printed form, were among the first media to...
Digital, Political, Prescient: New Directions in Russian Press History
Since the collapse of the Soviet regime three decades ago, the Russian press has experienced a revival that transformed it into an important forum for political discussion and debate in...
Gender Dynamics in the Russian Imperial Army during the First World War
Flagging commitment to masculinist patriotism, alongside resurgent patriarchal peasant ideals, may have accelerated mass desertion from the Russian Imperial Army in the First World War and hastened the revolutions of...
Project 1917: A Revolutionary Year Reimagined through Social Media
In today’s Russia, where government propaganda consistently denies society’s inherent complexity, Project 1917 offers a space that supports civil discourse and challenges official narratives. Only when history belongs to the...
Upcoming Columbia Event
In Search of Empire: the 400th Anniversary of the House of Romanov February 14th-16th 2013 Co-sponsored by the Bakhmeteff Archive, the Harriman Institute, the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia...
Sending Our Gay Students to Russia
What do we say to our LGBT students who are thinking about studying in the Russian Federation?