Featured
Women’s Gymnastics and the Cold War: How Soviet Smiles Won Over the West
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union produced a true world star: Olga Korbut, a young gymnast from Belarus who gained fame as the first smiling Soviet athlete.
Revolution vs. Pedagogy: Arkady Gaidar and the Making of Soviet Children’s Literature
Gaidar’s revolutionary anti-pedagogy aimed at releasing the uncontrollable energy of childhood and yet turned out to be a surprisingly successful mediator between this energy and order, myth and social reality.
Excerpt from Joanna Stingray's "Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground," Part II
One of my favorite Pop Mechanics concerts at the Rock Club wasn’t one in which I sang, but one where I saw Sergey produce performance art at its fullest.
Hip-Hop Lifestyle Branding and Russian Ethno-Nationalism: The Case of Timati
On Vladimir Putin’s sixty-third birthday, Russian rapper and businessman Timur Yunusov — better known by his stage name, “Timati” — released a music video featuring the hook “My best friend...
Why Does Central Asia Matter?
Topics in Central Asian regional politics, and in particular assessments of the present and future of the relevant states, are often the focus of international fora and conferences. However, examining...
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...
Film Review: Sarik Andreasian's "Guardians" (2016)
With "Guardians," cinemas saw a Russian superhero team at last. Most of them wished they could unsee it.
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.
What Was Postsocialism, and What Comes Next? (Russia's Alien Nations)
“Post-Soviet” is, initially, meaningless, but so was “Soviet”
Ukraine’s Post-Soviet Legion? Foreign Fighters from the Former Soviet Union in Ukraine
Foreign fighters hailing from the former Soviet Union are more numerous, and better incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces, than ever before. Their language skills, experience of post-Soviet armed conflicts, and...
Falshfasad: Disavowed Infrastructure and Everyday Mate-realism in Wild Capitalist Moscow
On September 17, 2021, the Jordan Center hosted Michał Murawski for the talk “Falshfasad: Disavowed Infrastructure and Everyday Mate-realism in Wild Capitalist Moscow.” Murawski is a Lecturer in Critical Area...