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Ukrainian Studies
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones September 24, 2023

The Future of Ukraine

A Discussion with Christopher Miller

Christopher Miller

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already changed the world. Why did it happen? Who is winning? How will it end? Christopher Miller is the author of The War Came to …

Ukrainian Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Ukraine about their new books

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Russian and Eurasian Studies September 23, 2023

Monuments for Posterity

Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time

Antony Kalashnikov

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-building. From the 1930's through the Great Patriotic War, architectural monuments such as …
Russian and Eurasian Studies September 16, 2023

Word Play

Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature

Ainsley Morse

Hosted by Polina Popova
Ainsley Morse's book Word Play: Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature (Northwestern UP, 2021) traces the history of the relationship between experimental aesthetics and Soviet children’s books, a relationship that persisted over …
America and Beyond with Paul Starobin September 13, 2023

The Shadow War between America and Russia

A Discussion with George S. Beebe

George S. Beebe

Hosted by Paul Starobin
Listen:
Western analysts and media often assess the prospect that Moscow might use nuclear weapons as the war in Ukraine grinds on, possibly to a flailing Russia’s disadvantage. George Beebe, though …
Russian and Eurasian Studies September 9, 2023

Red Leviathan

The Secret History of Soviet Whaling

Ryan Tucker Jones

Hosted by Erika Monahan
The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many whale species to near extinction by …
Military History August 17, 2023

Putin's War on Ukraine

Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution

Samuel Ramani

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
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Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. For Vladimir Putin, this was a legacy-defining mission--to restore Russia's sphere of influence …
History Ex Silo August 14, 2023

Toward a More Expansive View of Medieval Europe

Kyivan Rus and Norman Salerno in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

Christian Raffensperger and Joanna Drell

Hosted by Stephen Bittner
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Focusing on gender relations, family formation, and marriage patterns in areas peripheral to the England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, Christian Raffensperger and Joanna Drell argue for a more …
European Politics August 13, 2023

Russia's War Against Ukraine

The Whole Story

Mark Edele

Hosted by Tim Jones
"That Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically so radically since 1991 is partially due to their position vis-à-vis the imploded empire they emerged from," writes Mark Edele in Russia's War …
Military History August 11, 2023

Goodbye, Eastern Europe

An Intimate History of a Divided Land

Jacob Mikanowski

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
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Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics …
Ukrainian Studies August 11, 2023

Ukraine's Many Faces

Land, People, and Culture Revisited

Olena Palko and Manuel Férez Gil

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
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Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex developments in Ukraine's history, national identity …
Anthropology August 10, 2023

Gleaning for Communism

The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice

Xenia A. Cherkaev

Hosted by Robin Steiner
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Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice (Cornell UP, 2023) is a historical ethnography of the property regime upon which Soviet legal scholars legislated a large …
Ukrainian Studies August 9, 2023

Dnipro

An Entangled History of a European City

Andrii Portnov

Hosted by John Vsetecka
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Andrii Portnov's Dnipro: An Entangled History of a European City (Academic Studies Press, 2022) is the first English-language synthesis of the history of Dnipro (until 2016 Dnipropetrovsk, until 1926 Katerynoslav) locates …
Russian and Eurasian Studies August 6, 2023

Building Socialism

The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921–1941

Yiannis Kokosalakis

Hosted by Samantha Lomb
By placing the party grassroots at the centre of its focus, Yiannis Kokosalakis' book Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921–1941 (Cambridge UP, 2023) presents …
Military History August 4, 2023

The War Came To Us

Life and Death in Ukraine

Christopher Miller

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
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When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his latest and most overt attempt to brutally conquer …
Military History August 1, 2023

The War on the Eastern Front

The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History

Alexander Hill

Hosted by Richard Northrop
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In The War on the Eastern Front: The Soviet Union, 1941-1945 - A Photographic History (Pen & Sword Military, 2021), Professor Alexander Hill has collected photographs from the brutal conflict on …
Nomads, Past and Present July 29, 2023

Archaeology and Nomadism in the Russian Empire

An interview with Ismael Biyashev

Ismael Biyashev

Hosted by Maggie Freeman
In the second half of the 19th century, both professional and amateur archaeologists, surveyors, and explorers of the “periphery” of the Russian Empire became increasingly interested in the perceived ancient …
Genocide Studies July 19, 2023

Intimate Violence

Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence that occurred across hundreds of predominantly …
Russian and Eurasian Studies July 14, 2023

Memory Makers

The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia

Jade McGlynn

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Listen:
Why aren't ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin's own historical propaganda narratives, Russia's invasion of Ukraine makes complete sense. From its World War II …
Ukrainian Studies July 11, 2023

Ivan and Phoebe

Translated by Nina Murray

Oksana Lutsysyna

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Listen:
Ivan and Phoebe (Deep Vellum, 2023) spotlights the uproarious generation that led the Ukrainian independence movement of 1990; from subjugation to revolution to post-Soviet rule, it investigates the difficulties and absurdities …
Military History July 11, 2023

The Russo-Ukrainian War

The Return of History

Serhii Plokhy

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
Listen:
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war--and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable …