Russian and Eurasian Studies

Russian and Eurasian Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Russia and Eurasia about their new books.

Erica L. Fraser, "Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2019)

March 17, 2024

Military Masculinity and Postwar Recovery in the Soviet Union

Erica L. Fraser
Hosted by Polina Popova

Catastrophic wartime casualties and postwar discomfort with the successes of women who had served in combat roles combined to shatter prewar ideals …

Alina Nychyk, "Ukraine Vis-à-Vis Russia and the EU: Misperceptions of Foreign Challenges in Times of War, 2014-2015" (Ibidem Press, 2023)

March 16, 2024

Ukraine Vis-à-Vis Russia and the EU

Alina Nychyk
Hosted by John Vsetecka

Ukraine Vis-à-Vis Russia and the EU: Misperceptions of Foreign Challenges in Times of War, 2014-2015 (Ibidem Press, 2023) investigates the making of U…

Legal Cultures in the Russian Empire

March 13, 2024

Legal Cultures in the Russian Empire

Nancy Kollmann and Paolo Sartori
Hosted by Erika Monahan

Law. How does the state form and use it? How do people use and shape it? How does law shape culture? How does the practice of law change over time in …

Dariusz Tołczyk, "Blissful Blindness: Soviet Crimes under Western Eyes" (Indiana UP, 2023)

March 8, 2024

Blissful Blindness

Dariusz Tołczyk
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

The most heinous Soviet crimes - the Red Terror, brutal collectivization, the Great Famine, the Gulag, Stalin's Great Terror, mass deportations, and o…

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, "Empire of Refugees: North Caucasian Muslims and the Late Ottoman State" (Stanford UP, 2024)

March 6, 2024

Empire of Refugees

Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky
Hosted by Aruuke Uran Kyzy

Between the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement of Muslim refugees…

Leona Toker, "Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontexual Reading" (Indiana UP, 2019)

March 6, 2024

Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps

Leona Toker
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Devoted to the ways in which Holocaust literature and Gulag literature provide contexts for each other, Leona Toker's Gulag Literature and the Literat…

Ilmari Käihkö, "'Slava Ukraini!': Strategy and the Spirit of Ukrainian Resistance 2014–2023" (Helsinki UP, 2023)

March 5, 2024

“Slava Ukraini!”

Ilmari Käihkö

In wake of the Maiden Revolution of 2013-14, the pro-Russian government of Ukraine under Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in place of a regime seeking…

Michael Kimmage, "Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability" (Oxford UP, 2024)

February 23, 2024

Collisions

Michael Kimmage
Hosted by Tim Jones

One war, three collisions: Russia with Ukraine, Europe, and the US. On the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Michael Kimmage analyses the…

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, "Post-Imperial Possibilities: Eurasia, Eurafrica, Afroasia" (Princeton UP, 2023)

February 18, 2024

Post-Imperial Possibilities

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper
Hosted by Erika Monahan

How can territory and peoples be organized? After the dissolution of empires, was the nation-state the only way to unite people politically, culturall…

Rachel Applebaum, "Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia" (Cornell UP, 2019)

February 16, 2024

Empire of Friends

Rachel Applebaum
Hosted by Jill Massino

The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends: Soviet Pow…

Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)

February 8, 2024

Into Siberia

Gregory Wallance
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades bef…

Putin's Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia

February 7, 2024

Putin's Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia

Paul Starobin
Hosted by Paul Starobin

Since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, some one million Russians have fled the country and gone into exile. Motivated by opposition to …

Serhiy Bilenky, "Laboratory of Modernity: Ukraine Between Empire and Nation, 1772-1914" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2023)

February 5, 2024

Laboratory of Modernity

Serhiy Bilenky

When the powers of Europe were at their prime, present-day Ukraine was divided between the Austrian and Russian empires, each imposing different polit…

Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, "The Will to Predict: Orchestrating the Future Through Science" (Cornell UP, 2023)

February 4, 2024

The Will to Predict

Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

Can we predict the future? In The Will to Predict: Orchestrating the Future Through Science (Cornell UP, 2023), Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, an Associate Profe…

Bedross Der Matossian, "The Armenian Social Democrat Hnchakian Party: Politics, Ideology and Transnational History" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

February 3, 2024

The Armenian Social Democrat Hnchakian Party

Bedross Der Matossian
Hosted by Roberto Mazza

Bedross Der Matossian's The Armenian Social Democrat Hnchakian Party: Politics, Ideology and Transnational History (Bloomsbury, 2023), based on new re…

Curtis Fox, "Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition and Conventional Military Conflict" (30 Press Publishing, 2023)

January 30, 2024

Hybrid Warfare

Curtis Fox

The on-going war in Ukraine continues to highlight the distinct differences between how Russia operates large-scale military operations from the usual…

Anton Weiss-Wendt, "On the Margins: Essays on the History of Jews in Estonia" (CEU Press, 2017)

January 29, 2024

On the Margins

Anton Weiss-Wendt
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Estonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish hi…

Anna Reid, "A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution" (Basic Books, 2024)

January 29, 2024

A Nasty Little War

Anna Reid
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In A Nasty Little War: The Western Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (Basic Books, 2024), award-winning reporter Anna Reid tells the extraordina…

Calder Walton, "Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West" (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

January 28, 2024

Spies

Calder Walton
Hosted by Charles Coutinho

Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West (Simon & Schuster, 2024) is the history of the secret war that Russia and the West have been wa…

Simon Shuster, "The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky" (William Morrow, 2024)

January 20, 2024

The Showman

Simon Shuster
Hosted by Tim Jones

Since Simon Shuster's November 2023 Time cover story ("Nobody believes in our victory like I do - Nobody"), anyone with an interest in the war in Ukra…