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Russian and Eurasian Studies
Russian and Eurasian Studies March 20, 2023

Picturing the Page

Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin

Megan Swift

Hosted by Polina Popova
Based on sources from rare book libraries in Russia and around the world, Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (U Toronto Press, 2020) offers …

Russian and Eurasian Studies

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

Diplomatic History March 14, 2023

Euromissiles

The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO

Susan Colbourn

Hosted by Grant Golub
In Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (Cornell UP, 2022), Susan Colbourn tells the story of the height of nuclear crisis and the remarkable waning of the fear …
Ukrainian Studies March 12, 2023

Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet

A Family Story of Exile and Return

Megan Buskey

Hosted by John Vsetecka
Today I talked to Megan Buskey about her book Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet: A Family Story of Exile and Return (Ibidem-Verlag, 2023). When Megan Buskey’s grandmother Anna dies in Cleveland in …
Political Science March 7, 2023

Dictatorship and Information

Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China

Martin K. Dimitrov

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Fear pervades dictatorial regimes. Citizens fear leaders, the regime's agents fear superiors, and leaders fear the masses. The ubiquity of fear in such regimes gives rise to the "dictator's dilemma," …
Jewish Studies March 7, 2023

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You

A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42

Kiril Feferman

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both …
Russian and Eurasian Studies March 6, 2023

Mixing Medicines

The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia

Clare Griffin

Hosted by Erika Monahan
Clare Griffin's book Mixing Medicines: The Global Drug Trade and Early Modern Russia (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022) introduces the reader to the dynamic and complex world of early modern Russian medical drugs, from …
Ukrainian Studies March 2, 2023

Everyday War

The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine

Greta Lynn Uehling

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Everyday War: The Conflict Over Donbas, Ukraine (Cornell UP, 2023) provides an accessible lens through which to understand what noncombatant civilians go through in a country at war.  What goes …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 28, 2023

Soviet Hippies and German “Other ‘68ers”

A Conversation about Youth Non-Conformity and Protest

Juliane Fürst and Anna von der Goltz

Hosted by Stephen Bittner
On first glance, Soviet hippies would seem to have little in common with right-wing student protestors in West Germany in 1968. Yet as Juliane Fürst and Anna von der Goltz …
Jewish Studies February 24, 2023

Tevye's Ottoman Daughter

Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews at the End of Empire

Sarah M. Zaides

Hosted by Makena Mezistrano
In existing scholarship on Jewish subjects of the Russian Empire, there were three typical fates available to Russia's Jews on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution: they could remain in the …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 21, 2023

Rethinking the End of the Russian and Habsburg Empires

A Discussion with Joshua Sanborn and Dominique Kirchner Reill

Joshua Sanborn and Dominique Kirchner Reill

Hosted by Stephen Bittner
Historians often think of World War I and the period surrounding it as the acme of nationalism in European politics. In two very different books, Joshua Sanborn and Dominique Kirchner …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 18, 2023

Russia's Regional Museums

Representing and Misrepresenting Knowledge about Nature, History and Society

Sofia Gavrilova

Hosted by Diana Dukhanova
Sofia Gavrilova's Russia's Regional Museums: Representing and Misrepresenting Knowledge about Nature, History and Society (Routledge, 2022) presents the results of extensive research into the very interesting phenomenon of local museums—kraevedschskyi …
Ukrainian Studies February 17, 2023

Today is a Different War

Lyudmyla Khersonska

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Today is a Different War (Arrowsmith Press, 2023) is Lyudmyla Khersonska's striking portrayal of life from inside war-torn Ukraine. Masterfully translated into English by Olga Livshin, Andrew Janco, Maya Chhabra, and …
Nomads, Past and Present February 13, 2023

Jangar: The Heroic Epic of the Kalmyk Nomads

An interview with Dr. Saga Bougdaeva

Saga Bougdaeva

Hosted by Maggie Freeman
Saga Bougdaeva is the translator of the first English version of Jangar (University of California Press, 2023), the heroic epic of the Kalmyk nomads. The Kalmyks are the Western Mongols …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 10, 2023

Muppets in Moscow

The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia

Natasha Lance Rogoff

Hosted by Anthony Kao
It’s the early 1990s, and the USSR is no more. An intrepid young American TV producer has been given a seemingly foolhardy task: bringing the beloved children’s show Sesame Street to …
East Asian Studies February 10, 2023

Knowing Manchuria

Environments, the Senses, and Natural Knowledge on an Asian Borderland

Ruth Rogaski

Hosted by Ed Pulford
Among all the world’s most storied and legend-filled regions, the place known to some over time as ‘Manchuria’ has had an especially wide range of ideas projected onto it. Everyone …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 6, 2023

Stalin's Library

A Dictator and His Books

Geoffrey Roberts

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
In this engaging life of the twentieth century’s most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 5, 2023

Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades!

Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture

Tim Harte

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Dr. Tim Harte's Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades!: Sports, Art, and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture (U Wisconsin Press, 2020) looks at sport as artistic subject matter, in …
Military History February 4, 2023

Kursk 1943

Hitler's Bitter Harvest

Anthony Tucker-Jones

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz
The year 1943 was a pivotal one on the Eastern Front during World War II. The Axis had suffered a catastrophic defeat at the battle of Stalingrad earlier in the …
Scholarly Communication February 2, 2023

Monumental Names

Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow

Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow (Routledge, 2022) asks us to consider: what stands behind the propensity to remember victims of mass atrocities by their personal …
Ukrainian Studies January 28, 2023

Wild Music

Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine

Maria Sonevytsky

Hosted by John Vsetecka
In Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine (Wesleyan UP, 2019), Maria Sonevytsky tracks vernacular Ukrainian discourses of “wildness” as they manifested in popular music during a volatile decade of …