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Sergei Parkhomenko and the Protest Movement in Russia
“What can Russians do to express themselves? Be political.” Raising and answering this crucial question, Sergei Parkhomenko spoke this past Monday at the Jordan Center about the recent protest movement...
Sergei Antonov presents a history of counterfeiting in Imperial Russia
On February 5, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Sergei Antonov for a colloquium on “Criminal Capitalism in Imperial Russia: Counterfeiters, Merchants, and Gendarmes.”...
Sergei Eisenstein and Immersion in Nature
On October 23, 2020, the Jordan Center hosted Joan Neuberger, Professor of History at The University of Texas at Austin, for a talk on Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein’s...
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...
Sergei Guriev's data analysis looks at the post-Soviet transition
The “transition happiness gap” is finally closed after 25 years.
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...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part I
In this article, I’d like to turn away from heated debates over Esenin’s alleged “killers,” or unprofessional falsifiers of literary history, toward an apparently calmer place. I will focus on...
Review: "I Want a Baby and Other Plays" by Sergei Tretyakov, Translated by Robert Leach and Stephen Holland
This new collection of plays by Sergei Tretyakov, translated by Robert Leach and Stephen Holland, attempts to solidify Tretyakov’s role in the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde Canon. In his introduction, Leach...
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part I
In contemporary Russian literary life, Gandlevsky’s stature as a poet is indisputably great; he is less well known as a prose writer, although his novels and essays have been critically...
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...
Fall Reading Series: Sergei Gandlevsky's "Illegible," Part III
Krivorotov tried to cause a jealous scene, but Anya would have none of it. “I have one jailer, my aunt, and that’s enough,” the young woman said to him. “If...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part II
On October 9th, 1927, already after the tragic death of Duncan herself, and again in the Sunday supplement to Hearst’s newspapers, there appeared yet another article, undoubtedly from the same...
Kvas Patriotism in Russia: Cultural Problems, Cultural Myths
Professor Brintlinger's argument is developed along three ideas: Russian ideas about food become heightened during times of war and conflict; specific foods embody meaning beyond their sustenance value, to include...
Belarus, Russia and the Crimean Issue: The Alliance Without Recognition
Since Russia's annexation of Crimea, Belarus, which shares more than a thousand kilometers of border with Ukraine, has maintained an ambiguous position vis-a-vis Crimea's official status. This ambivalence relates to...
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.
“In Search of the Present Tense”: Soviet Factography and Collectivism
Sergei Tretyakov, perhaps the most prominent figure in the Soviet factographic movement, was the main hero during Devin Fore’s talk at the Jordan Center on Friday, April 5. Visiting from...
Shaving Eisenstein in Manhattan
An old-fashioned shave, with a razor that in Russian they call “dangerous”; an uncannily private scene performed under an open sky, 800 feet over the sidewalks of the greatest city...
Cold Snap (Part II): Russian Film after Leviathan
An auteurist orientation, therefore, is neither good nor bad, but it is certainly mismatched to an industry—especially during periods of robust growth—in which so-called “spectators’ cinema” [zritel'skoe kino] is in...
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.
Penile Servitude and the Police State
Sunday before last, on the drizzly police holiday, Petersburg performance artist Petr Pavlensky (b. 1984) sat stark naked in Moscow's sacred center and nailed his scrotum to the cold cobblestones...