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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 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...
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...
Zvyagintsev’s "Leviathan" and Debates on Authority, Agency and Authenticity
We argue that the film effectively generated political debates because it left viewers to grapple with a series of ambiguous positions, which merit attention at a moment when most observers...
Yuz Aleshkovsky’s “Song about Stalin”
Many took Aleshkovsky's song to be a folk composition, but no ordinary criminal — not even a gang of them — could have produced so elaborate a political satire. Aleshkovsky...
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...
Vasilisa Visits America: The Rise of Slavic Folklore- Inspired Young Adult Literature in the U.S.
Recently, Russia — or, at least, an imaginary version thereof — has become a standby among writers of American young adult and popular literature.
Russia’s War on Ukrainian Farms
The Russian military is deliberately targeting key farming-related assets and facilities with the aim of inflicting short- and long-term harm. Moreover, by blockading the Black and Azov seas, Russia controls...
What Trump and Putin want from their historic summit
As his 1972 summit with Mao Zedong approached, President Nixon prepped by considering three simple questions: What did China want? What did the United States want? What did they both...
Comics of the New Europe
On March 11, Jordan Center’s Professor of Russian Eliot Borenstein (New York University) hosted José Alaniz (University of Washington), Martha Kuhlman (Bryant University), and Biz Nijdam (University of British Columbia)...