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Romanian Secret Police Archives and the Women of the Religious Underground
In the process of surveilling church leadership, clergy, and church elders, the Secret Police unwittingly uncovered the new roles that women took on in religious life during a time when...
"Neuzheli tak i nado, tak i budem zhitʹ?" Roman Neumoev and Egor Letov’s Divergent Notions of Death
Death cannot deliver us from the human condition because it *is* the human condition; the highest knowledge is simply knowledge of unending suffering.
Between Sustainability and Development in Romania
Romanians have become increasingly aware of their environmental difficulties. Today, news of deforestation represents a regular part of the Romanian news cycle and is a hobbyhorse in the House of...
Micromanaging Russia's Elections
The message from the Kremlin is clear: Challenge the regime at your own risk
‘I will be back in the autumn’ – a Romanian in the UK (An Immigrant Story)
I was back in the autumn. But it was fourteen years later.
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...
Anticommunism, Neoliberalism, and the Rerunning of Socialist Era Films on Romanian Television
Anticommunist discourse has long since ceased to advance the democratization of society by means of depoliticization and “decommunization.” Instead, it has become a discourse that protects the privileges of the...
A Poll Tax on Patience: Disenfranchising Romanian Citizens Abroad
r. Ponta and his government won a small victory by disenfranchising one of the people who would have voted against him.
Ethical Questions in Researching the Religious Underground in Romania's Secret Police Archives, Part I
In their effort to curtail the clandestine practice of religion, the secret police produced a thorough database of names, places, biographies, activities, and networks. It created one of the most...
Ethical Questions in Researching the Religious Underground in Romania's Secret Police Archives, Part II
Several immediately identifiable problems arose in our talks: the problem of questioning the authority of the canonical historical narrative of the church elders based on documents that were created by...
The Sudden Death of the Romantic (Akunin WQ 5)
As Chekhov taught us, if a whalebone corset appears in Chapter One, it’s bound to get stabbed in Chapter Five.
The Russian Cinderella Tale as a Mother-Daughter Romance
Ask anyone familiar with “Cinderella” what the story is all about, and they will likely say that it is about a beautiful orphaned girl’s marriage to a prince—in spite of...
Caught in a Bad Romance: What America Means to Russia
Russia has become the latest focus for the naive question we never get tired of asking: “Why do they hate us so much?”
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...
How (Not) to Talk About Roma
Kicking off a week of what proved to be atypically prodigious journalistic commentary on what is commonly referred to as the “plight of the Roma (or Gypsies)” or “the Roma...
Notes from the Bathroom
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory may not be as good at riding horses topless, swimming in Siberian lakes, and flying with cranes, but his ability to bend logical reasoning almost...
Lenin Lives: An Exhibition at the Van Every Gallery, Davidson College
Artists and politicians alike recognized the symbolic significance of Lenin’s public image.
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 Rise and Fall of a Stalinist Russian Orthodox Monk
The rise and fall of the priest-monk Father Sergii (Nikolai Vasil’evich Romanov), who was sentenced in November 2021 to 42 months imprisonment for vigilantism and other crimes, illustrates Russia’s struggle...
Iosif Vissarionovich Changes Profession
Under Stalin, a successful rehabilitation of Ivan the Terrible was required to be Romantic, implying an optimistic interpretation of history and of Stalin’s political achievements. Where the Party mandated Romance,...