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Kevin Platt explores the meaning of Russian “Near Abroad” in the case of Latvia
Neither national nor diasporic, never displaced but out of place nevertheless, Russian culture occupies distinctive and complex positions in Latvia.
“There is Nothing Outside the Beast”: A Conversation with Kevin Rothrock
Тhe imagined reader should be someone who doesn’t care about what you're trying to tell them. So the flavor of what you’re writing should have a little something that holds...
Twenty-Seven Questions for Stephen F. Cohen from Russia’s Leading Opposition Newspaper
People who know me personally or my writings know that I never judge or lecture Russia, but these three inter-related features are objective, not my subjective opinion: the excessive concentration...
The Passing of Stephen F. Cohen
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our friend and colleague, Stephen F. Cohen.
Boris Groys – “The Cold War Between the Medium and the Message: Western Abstract Art vs. Socialist Realism.”
The powers of the post-WWII period began to politicize the struggle between realism and avant-garde modernism. The West, Groys argued, believed that socialist realism was just another version of fascist...
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part III
Orbita’s activities are a concerted effort to deploy Russian language culture on the Latvian scene without reasserting the language of the occupier or reconstructing the official cultural geography of the Soviet era.
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part I
After 1991, Russians in the non-Russian republics, regardless of their stance toward Soviet power or its sudden vanishing, lost their privileged status of being “at home” everywhere in the USSR.
Excerpt from "Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders," Part II
The physical disposition of the books in the crowded space of the Russkaia biblioteka in Riga, Latvia corresponds to the relative relevance of its holdings for readers.
What Was Postsocialism, and What Comes Next? (Russia's Alien Nations)
“Post-Soviet” is, initially, meaningless, but so was “Soviet”
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
A Look Back: The Long Year 2012
The year 2012 saw an unprecedented explosion of dialogue between the public and the regime in Putin’s Russia, a place that, up until then, seemed like one ruled by stagnation...
Getting One Thing Straight: “Postmodernists” Are Not the Problem
Discussions of Trump and Putin as “Postmodern politicians” come in many different forms and degrees of sophistication. My own modest contribution is intended only to dispel a bit of confusion...
Digital Slavists, Unite?
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...
Diaspora? What’s in It for the Russian Field?
It was a fascinating start to the Jordan Center’s Diasporas series which was held jointly with Glicksman Ireland House at NYU on 31 January – 1 February 2013.
An excerpt from Alexandra Petrova's "Appendix" (2016)
I felt even worse about my appendix. Over and over, they’d told me: “Don’t swallow fruit pits, and make sure to shell sunflower seeds before sticking them in your mouth,...
All the Russias: A Transnational Approach
A new approach underpins "Transnational Russian Studies," edited by Andy Byford, Connor Doak, and Stephen Hutchings, just published by Liverpool University Press. Our book opens up the map of Russian...
America's New Cold War With Russia
With the full support of a feckless policy elite and an uncritical media establishment, Washington is slipping, if not plunging, into a new cold war with Moscow.
How Obama can avert another Cold War
Why is another Cold War possible two decades after the Soviet Union ended?
Syria: The Alternative to War
By claiming for weeks that “doing nothing” is the only alternative to a “limited” military response to the Assad regime’s reported use of chemical weapons in Syria—plainly stated, an illegal...
Distorting Russia: How the US Media Misrepresent Sochi, Putin, and Ukraine
American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.