Dear President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev,
I quit.
Continue reading...The Eye of Sauron over Moscow, or, Revenge of the Orcs
Eliot Borenstein
Snowden in Moscow: The Interview
Katrina vanden Heuvel & Stephen F. Cohen
“I’ve been recognized every now and then. It’s always in computer stores. It’s something like brain associations, because I’ll be in the grocery store and nobody will recognize me. Even in my glasses, looking exactly like my picture, nobody will recognize me. But I could be totally clean-shaven, hat on, looking nothing like myself in a computer store, and they’re like, “Snowden?!””
Continue reading...Putin’s Birthday: What to Get for the Man Who’s Grabbed Everything?
Veronica Davidov
“In an amazing fashion, the events of ancient tales of the mythological hero, Heracles, can be adapted to here and now, when the three-headed Cerberus evokes USA, when the defeat of the Stymphalian birds is putting the stop to aerial bombing in Syria, and the cleaning of the Augean stables is the fight against corruption.”
Continue reading...Ukraine’s ‘far east’: on the effects and genealogy of Ukrainian Galician reductionism
Andriy Portnov
In the context of the current war, faith in the idea of national ‘purity’ often comes couched in rationalist terms, positing no known cure for the Soviet hangover in the Donbas, and, in any case, no time to look for one.
Continue reading...Dangerous Liaisons: Ukraine and Western Slavists
Rossen Djagalov
Russia and Ukraine: Stupidity, Cynicism, or Both?
Eliot Borenstein
Like most of the people who bother to read this blog, I’m finding it difficult to think about anything besides the looming war between Russia and Ukraine.
Continue reading...Nadya Tolokno: Pussy Riot’s Fashion Icon or Fashion Victim?
Eliot Borenstein
It’s not easy being punk. It’s even harder to keep believing in punk (or, by extension, anarchism, activism, and the like). For a style of life and art that seems hell-bent on offending, punk lays down a surprising number of unwritten rules. The first commandment: Thou shalt not sell out.
Continue reading...The Spy Who…oh, never mind.
Eliot Borenstein
When Ryan Fogle, Third Secretary at the American Embassy in Moscow, was arrested for attempting to recruit a Russian security-services officer, the world sat up and took notice. Then it snickered and sat down again.
Continue reading...Spies Like U.S.: “The Americans” and the Americans
Eliot Borenstein
On the face of things, “The Americans” should be pressing all sorts of buttons in the American psyche: crypto-communists! danger in the suburbs! our neighbors hate our freedoms! Moreover, since the Soviet agents and our main point-of-view characters, the show is implicitly asking us to root for the KGB. Why isn’t Fox News all over this?
Continue reading...News about the Blog, or The Least Creative Post I’ve Ever Written
Eliot Borenstein
A purely administrative update today, to let you know about some new and developing options for communication.
Continue reading...Digital Slavists, Unite?
Marijeta Bozovic
Marijeta Bozovic is an Assistant Professor of Russian & Eurasian Studies at Colgate University.
Dear colleagues and comrades,
This blog-post grows from a group discussion that began over Facebook, and includes input from Eliot Borenstein, Serguei Oushakine, Kevin Platt, Katie Holt, Bella Grigoryan, Maksim Hanukai, Rossen Djagalov, Jesse Labov, and Roman Utkin.
Continue reading...