The Eurasian Knot

Islam, Repression, and Memory

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Elmira Muratova and Michael Kemper on Islam in the Soviet and Post-Soviet contexts.The post Islam, Repression, and Memory appeared first on Th...

Useable Pasts? Shamans, Spirituality and Resistance

13 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer on the evolution of indigeneity and religion across the Soviet and post-Soviet divide.The post Useable Pasts? Shaman...

Theology after Gulag

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Katya Tolstaya on theology, belief, and the remaning spiritual scars after Gulag.The post Theology after Gulag appeared first on The Eurasian K...

Christianity in China

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Fenggang Yang and Kung Lap Yan on Christianity, worship, and religious persecution in China.The post Christianity in China appeared first on T...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: Anna Kovalova

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Anna Kovalova, Pitt's new Visiting Assistant Professor in Slavic Languages and Literatures, on her work on early Russian cinema.The post REEES ...

Catholicism in Poland

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Geneviève Zubrzycki and Jose Casanova on the place of the Catholic Church in Polish politics and national identity.The post Catholicism in Po...

Secret Police Archives as Depositories of Faith

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Anca Sincan and Tatiana Vagramenko discuss the how secret police files document religious belief and worship in communist Romania and Ukraine....

Lived Religion in Ukraine

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Catherine Wanner on lived religion in Ukraine, belief, belonging and community, and the impact of the war on religion.The post Lived Religion i...

The Nivkhi of Sakhalin

17 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Bruce Grant revisits his book, In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas, on the Nivkhi of Sakhalin, their Soviet experience, a...

Queer Under Communism

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s Pride month! Misha Appeltova, Irina Roldugina, and Kate Davison join us to talk about their research on gender, sexuality and queer under state...

Red Whaling

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Soviet Union was a latecomer to the whaling industry. But after a bumbling start, by the 1960s, Soviet whalers were slaughtering over 20,000 whale...

Harbin

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Mark Gamsa on Harbin: A Cross-Cultural BiographyThe post Harbin appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Conquering Nature in Sakhalin and the Arctic

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Paul Josephson and Sharyl Corrado on conquering nature, settlement, and Russian expansion in the Arctic and Sakhalin.The post Conquering Natur...

The Far East

15 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ed Pulford and Soren Urbansky on the cross-cultural and diverse past and present of the Russian Far East.The post The Far East appeared first on The E...

A Gift for Stalin, Part Two: The Accursed Share

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It all started with a letter to Stalin in 1935. And when a Kremlin clerk opened it, there was a piece of shit inside.Was the turd an insult? A way of ...

A Gift for Stalin, Part One: Dear Comrade Stalin

31 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s Sunday, October 13, 1935, and someone, we don’t know who mails a letter from the outskirts of Moscow. It’s addressed: “Kremlin. To Comrad...

Trailer: A Gift for Stalin

20 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s Sunday, October 13, 1935, and someone, we don’t know, who mails a letter. It’s addressed: “Kremlin. To Comrade Stalin.”Now, there was n...

Ep 5 Teddy Meets The Soviet People

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

American tourists expected few chances to meet Soviet people. You’d only see what Soviet officials wanted to show you. Touring the USSR, many assume...

Ep 4: Teddy Talks about Race

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Teddy had few “official” meetings in the USSR. A factory here. A collective farm there. Maybe a school or two. And there was one question Teddy’...

Ep 3 Teddy Goes Shopping

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Like many Americans, Teddy judged the USSR through a consumer lens. What could Soviets buy? How much? And what was up with those long lines and shorta...

Ep 2 Teddy Meets The KGB

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Teddy assumed the KGB would monitor his travels around the Soviet Union. In Kiev, Teddy discovers that someone went through his luggage. And half-cent...

Ep 1: Teddy Greets the USSR

29 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Teddy Roe took an extraordinary trip to the USSR in 1968. For three months, he travelled from one end of the USSR to the other. Most Americans at the ...

Mental Health in Wartime Ukraine

16 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Drs. Carmen Andreescu and Alex Dombrovski on their work on mental health in Ukraine though the Global Initiative on Psychiatry - USA.The post ...

Kyivan Rus’

02 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Christian Raffensperger on the place of Kyivan Rus' in the wider European medieval world.The post Kyivan Rus’ appeared first on The Eurasian ...

The Day of the Baptism of Rus

18 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Sean Griffin on his prize winning article “Revolution, Raskol, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The 1,020th Anniversary of the Day of the Baptism of Ru...

Between Memory and History in Ukraine

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Victoria Smolkina and Georgyi Kasianov on the complexities of memory, history, and politics in narrating Ukrainian history.The post Between Me...

The Soviet Rock Scene

04 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Artemy Troitsky reflecting on his life in the Soviet and Russian rock scenes.The post The Soviet Rock Scene appeared first on The Eurasian Knot...

Working Through Stalinism

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Polly Jones and Zuzanna Bogumil on memory, politics, and trauma of Stalinism.The post Working Through Stalinism appeared first on The Eurasian...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: Zoltan Kelemen

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

REEES faculty profile on Zoltan Zelemen about his research on neo-medievalism in international relations, law, and democracy.The post REEES Faculty Sp...

The Economic War

27 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Ben Aris and Ilya Matveev on the Russian economy during wartime.The post The Economic War appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Hosted on Acast...

Mixed Marriages in the USSR

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Adrienne Edgar on Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples:  Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia published by Cornell University Press.Th...

Remembering Anne Garrels

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Rebroadcast of my 2016 interview with the recently departed Anne Garrels, author of Putin’s Country: A Journey into the Real Russia.The post Reme...

Soviet Aid to West Africa

06 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Alessandro Iandolo and Natalia Telepneva on Soviet engagement with West Africa during the Cold War.The post Soviet Aid to West Africa appeared...

Rebroadcast: The Life and Times of Mikhail Gorbachev

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: William Taubman on Gorbachev: His Life and Times.The post Rebroadcast: The Life and Times of Mikhail Gorbachev appeared first on The Eurasian ...

Soviet WWII Mythologies

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Jonathan Brunstedt on The Soviet Myth of World War II: Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR published by Cambridge University ...

Queer Spaces in Imperial St. Petersburg

02 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Olga Petri on Places of Tenderness and Heat: The Queer Milieu of Fin-de-Siècle St. Petersburg published by Cornell University Press.The post ...

Clientelism in Soviet Abkhazia

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Timothy Blauvelt on Clientelism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba published by Routledge.The post Cliente...

Limonov and the National Bolsheviks

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Fabrizio Fenghi on It Will Be Fun and Terrifying: Nationalism and Protest in Post-Soviet Russia published by University of Wisconsin Press.The ...

Russian Orthodox Converts in Appalachia

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Sarah Riccardi-Swartz on Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia published by Fordham University P...

A Dissident Among Dissidents

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Ilya Budraitskis on Russia's war in Ukraine, fascism, and his essay collection, Dissidents among Dissidents. Ideology, politics and The Left in...

Russia in the Red Mirror

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Gulnaz Sharafutdinova on The Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity published by Oxford University Press.The post R...

Life and Death in the Donbas

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Brian Milakovsky on everyday life in the Donbas and the effort to evacuate civilians.The post Life and Death in the Donbas appeared first on Th...

Central Asia Past and Present

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Adeeb Khalid on Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present published by Princeton University Press.The post Centra...

Everything Was Forever Until

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Alexei Yurchak on perestroika, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the experiences of the last Soviet generation.The post Everything Was Fore...

Trailer 2: Teddy Goes to the USSR

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Coming May 30!Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police sur...

Suffering and Survival in Leningrad

10 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Jeffrey Hass on The Human Condition under Siege in the Blockade of Leningrad, 1941-1944 published by Oxford University Press.The post Suffering...

Trailer: Teddy Goes to the USSR

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Coming May 30! Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police su...

The Collapse of the Soviet Union

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Vladislav Zubok on Collapse: The End of the Soviet Union published by Yale University Press.The post The Collapse of the Soviet Union appeared ...

Stalinism, Memorial, and Perestroika

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Nanci Adler on Memorial, Stalinist repression, and Russia's incomplete transitional justice.The post Stalinism, Memorial, and Perestroika appea...

Perestroika in the Periphery: Tajikistan

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Isaac Scarborough on perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet system in Tajikistan.The post Perestroika in the Periphery: Tajikistan appeared...

Esperanto in Revolutionary Russia

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Brigid O'Keeffe on Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia published by Bloomsbury.The post Esperanto in Revolution...

Soviet Pronatalism

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Mie Nakachi on Replacing the Dead: The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union published by Oxford University Press.The post Sovie...

Letters to Perestroika

15 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Courtney Doucette on letter writing, Nina Andreeva, and perestroika "from below."The post Letters to Perestroika appeared first on The Eurasian...

Stalin and His Books

06 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Geoffrey Roberts on Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books published by Yale University Press.The post Stalin and His Books appeared firs...

Russia, Ukraine, and the West

25 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, the morning before Russia invaded Ukraine. Guests: Michael Kimmage, Marlene Laruelle, a...

Russia’s Labor Dilemma

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Crowley on Putin’s Labor Dilemma: Russian Politics between Stability and Stagnation published by Cornell University Press.The post Russia’...

Ditching Communism in Poland

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Tom Junes on Poland in the 1980s and its legacies.The post Ditching Communism in Poland appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Hosted on Acast. S...

The Lenfilm Art House

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Catriona Kelly on Soviet Art House: Lenfilm Studio under Brezhnev published by Oxford University Press.The post The Lenfilm Art House appeared...

The Things of Late Soviet Life

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Alexey Golubev on The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia published by Cornell University Press.The post The Things of Late Sovi...

Soviet Flower Power

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Juliane Furst on Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in the Soviet Hippieland and Beyond published by Oxford University Press.The post Soviet Flow...

Russia Upside Down

29 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: The Americans creator Joe Weisberg on Russia Upside Down: An Exit Strategy from the Second Cold War published by Public Affairs.The post Russia...

The Return of the Romanovs

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Russell Martin on the recent wedding of George Romanov and Victoria Romanovna Bettarini.The post The Return of the Romanovs appeared first on T...

Cold War from the Margins

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Theodora Dragostinova on The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene, was published by Cornell Universi...

The Vampires of A. K. Tolstoy

08 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Irina Erman on her article “Nation and Vampiric Narration in Aleksey Tolstoy’s “The Family of the Vourdalak” published in the January 2...

Cuban-Soviet Scientific Exchanges

01 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Clare Ibarra on scientific exchange between Cuba and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.The post Cuban-Soviet Scientific Exchanges appeared f...

African Students in the USSR

24 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Constantin Katsakioris on the experience of African students in the USSR during the Cold War.The post African Students in the USSR appeared fir...

Unpacking Alexey Navalny

17 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble on Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future? published by Hurst Publishers.The post Unpack...

Revisiting the Russian Military

12 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Michael Kofman and Dmitry Gorenburg give an update on the Russian military.The post Revisiting the Russian Military appeared first on The Eura...

Russian Conquest of Central Asia

03 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Alexander Morrison on The Russian Conquest of Central Asia published by Cambridge University Press.The post Russian Conquest of Central Asia ap...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: Ana Sekulic

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

REEES faculty profile on Ana Sekulic and her work on Catholic-Muslim relations in Bosnia under the Ottoman empire.The post REEES Faculty Spotlight: An...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: Attila Kenyeres

18 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

REEES faculty profile of Attila Kenyeres on his research into media manipulation and "fake news."The post REEES Faculty Spotlight: Attila Kenyeres app...

Russian Revolutionaries in Exile

06 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Faith Hillis on Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Exiles and the Quest for Freedom, 1830–1930 published by Oxford University Press.The post Ru...

The Weak Strongman

30 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Timothy Frye on Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia published by Princeton University Press.The post The Weak Strongman app...

Weddings and Power in Early Modern Russia

23 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Russell Martin on The Tsar's Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia's Rulers, 1495–1745 published by Cornell University Press...

Wine and Cheese: Komsomol Etiquette and Emily Post

16 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

SRB interns Amelia Parlier and Felix Helbing dive into the weird world of advice columns. Two unlikely parings on the block—Komsomol decorum and the...

Rebroadcast: Smoking Under the Tsars

12 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Tricia Starks on Smoking under the Tsars: A History of Tobacco in Imperial Russia published by Cornell University Press.The post Rebroadcast: ...

Money and Prosperity in the USSR

02 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Kristy Ironside on A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union published by Harvard University Press.The post Mon...

Cold War Correspondents

25 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dina Fainberg on Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines published by John Hopkins University Press.The ...

Tolyatti’s Avtograd District

19 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Guido Sechi on Tolyatti: Exploring Post-Soviet Spaces, co-authored with Michele Cera is published by the Velvet Cell and VAC Foundation.The po...

Masculinity in the Long Soviet Sixties

13 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Marko Dumančić on Men out of Focus: The Soviet Masculinity Crisis in the Long Sixties published by the University of Toronto Press.The post ...

The US-Russia Rivalry

04 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Andrei Tsygankov on the ongoing US-Russia rivalry.The post The US-Russia Rivalry appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Hosted on Acast. See acas...

The US-Russia-China Triangle

28 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Thomas Graham on the new "Cold War," the United States, Russia, and China.The post The US-Russia-China Triangle appeared first on The Eurasian ...

Gulag Criminal Subculture

14 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Mark Vincent on Criminal Subculture in the Gulag: Prisoner Society in the Stalinist Labour Camps published by Bloomsbury.The post Gulag Crimina...

Prostitution in Late Imperial Russia

07 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Siobhán Hearne on Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia published by Oxford University Press.The post Pr...

Blind Activism in the Cold War

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Cristina Galmarini on international blind activism from the communist bloc during the Cold War.The post Blind Activism in the Cold War appeared...

Environmental Activism in Russia

23 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Konstantin Fokin and Angelina Davydova on environmental activism in Russia.The post Environmental Activism in Russia appeared first on The Eur...

Gogol’s Town of N

16 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Anne Lounsbery on Life Is Elsewhere: Symbolic Geography in the Russian Provinces, 1800–1917 published by Cornell University Press.The post G...

Trash in (post-)Communist Eastern Europe

09 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Elana Resnick and Viktor Pal on waste, recycling, reuse, and race in (post-)Communist Eastern Europe.The post Trash in (post-)Communist Easter...

Navalny and Next

27 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Ilya Budraitskis, Svetlana Erpyleva, and Greg Yudin on Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition, and the prospects of political pluralism in Rus...

Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the USSR

19 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Karl Qualls on Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-51 published by the University of Toro...

Zoos and Animals in Eastern Europe and Russia

13 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Tracy McDonald and Marianna Szczygielska on zoos, non-humans, and Animal Studies in Eastern Europe and RussiaThe post Zoos and Animals in East...

Welcome to Chechnya

05 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: David France on his film Welcome To Chechnya.The post Welcome to Chechnya appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...

Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine

26 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Valerie Kivelson and Christine Worobec on witches, magic, spells in their new sourcebook Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000–1900 publish...

From Soso to Stalin

12 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Ronald Suny on Stalin: Passage to Revolution published by Princeton University Press.The post From Soso to Stalin appeared first on The Eurasia...

Watering the Soviet Lands

05 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guests: Maya Peterson and Christopher Ward on water and the environment in the Soviet Union.The post Watering the Soviet Lands appeared first on The E...

The Texel Uprising

29 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Eric Lee on Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler’s Revenge – April-May 1945 published by Greenhill Books.The post The Tex...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: James Pickett

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Faculty Spotlight on the University of Pittsburgh’s historian of Russia and Central Asia--James Pickett.The post REEES Faculty Spotlight: James Pick...

REEES Faculty Spotlight: Iknur Lider

21 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Faculty Spotlight on the University of Pittsburgh's Turkish instructor Iknur Lider.The post REEES Faculty Spotlight: Iknur Lider appeared first on The...

The Soviet-Third World Cultural Nexus

15 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Rossen Djagalov on From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature and Cinema between the Second and the Third Worlds published by McGill...

Dmytro Dontsov and Ukrainian Nationalism

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Guest: Trevor Erlacher on Ukrainian Nationalism in the Age of Extremes: An Intellectual Biography of Dmytro Dontsov published by Harvard University Pr...