The Eurasian Knot

Debates about climate change and what to do about it occur a perilous political climate. It’s a problem that requires international cooperation. But elected politicians increasingly deny climate change, break global agreements, turn inward, and embrace authoritarianism. It’s a situation that both Eve Darian-Smith and Boris Schneider know well. Darian-Smith has written about the right-wing politica...

In 1916, the German anthropologist Rudolf Pöch and musicologist Robert Lach set out to the Eger prisoner of war camp with a unique research agenda: to record the language and folk songs of Georgian prisoners from the Russian Empire. The recording equipment was clunky and its recordings scratchy and faint. Nevertheless, Pöch and Lach were doing some innovative recordings, not just in terms of their...

Neoliberalism has so many meanings that some say it has no meaning. Nailing down a consensus is also hampered by the fact that no one calls themselves a “neoliberal.” There’s even calls to abandon the term altogether since it’s become more a slur than doctrine needing analysis. Enter Max Trecker. He took the debate over neoliberalism as an opportunity to investigate its intellectual origins in the...

In 1941, as Nazi forces laid siege to Leningrad, a group of Soviet botanists faced an unthinkable choice: eat their life’s work, a rare seed bank, or starve to death. This is the dilemma at the heart of Simon Parkin’s story about the world's first seed bank and its dedicated botanists. At the heart of this tale is Nikolai Vavilov, a brilliant botanist who traveled five continents collecting specim...

Vladimir Kozlov’s new book Shramy (Scars) explores street battles between anti-fascists and neo-Nazi skinheads in Moscow during the late 2000s. Kozlov is no stranger to these subcultures. He’s long been involved in Russian punk. And though he never participated in these street battles himself, his failed attempt to make a documentary about Antifa for Russian television gave him an inside look at t...

Who speaks for whom within the Romani rights movement today? This is the question that drives Adriana Helbig’s investigation into the relationship between development aid and Romani musicians in her book, Resounding Poverty . Her findings are crucial as are provocative: NGOs unintentionally perpetuate narratives of Romani life that continue to marginalize the poorest among them. And while aid is c...

The 2024 UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) ended in late November in Baku. Two weeks of intense climate negotiations unveiled deep divides—particularly between the Global North and South over climate finance and contentious debates on the right wording of transitioning away from fossil fuels. In this episode Angelina Davydova and Boris Schneider dissect the outcomes of the conference, offering...

Who are those “experts” who sit in Washington DC and come up with policy toward China and Russia? You know, those academics, journalists, and think-tankers who generate the knowledge US officials rely on? David McCourt’s new book, The End of Engagement , takes a stab by examining American foreign policy expertise on China and Russia since 1989. His main focus is on the divide within the Russia and...

Nationalists are not born. They are made. But how? That journey is far trickier. Fabian Baumann’s award-winning book, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism , traces how one family in 19th-century Ukraine split into opposing branches–one embracing Ukrainian nationalism and the other Russian imperial nationalism. Shulgin/Shulhin family story shows how national identi...

In 2020, Russian-American filmmaker Michael Lockshin and his co-writer, Roman Kantor, were offered an impossible task: to adapt Mikhail Bulgakov’s  Master and Margarita  for the big screen. It was a daunting task to rewrite such a beloved novel, with its complicated and overlapping narratives. Lockshin and Kantor hoped to succeed where others failed. After a period of touch-and-go, the f...

Guest: Bryan Gigantino, co-host of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia , on the context and causes for the current political crisis in Georgia. The post Georgia in Crisis appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Soviet dissidents have long been objects of fascination. Who were they? What made them dissent? What did they believe? And what did they endure at the hands of a repressive Soviet state? We now have a clearer picture thanks to Benjamin Nathans’ new book,  To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement . Soviet dissidents, or as they preferred to be calle...

Guest: Ian Lanzillotti guides through the history of Kabardino-Balkaria in his book Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus published by Bloomsbury. The post A Deep Dive into Kabardino-Balkaria appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Erin Hutchinson on her award-winning article, “ Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period ” in the January 2023 issue of the Russian Review . The post Soviet DIY Folk Museums appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Maurice Casey on the “lost world” of international communism in his book, Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals published by Footnote Press. The post Intimate Lives of International Communism appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Tyler Kirk on After the Gulag: A History of Memory in Russia's Far North published by Indiana University Press. The post Gulag Memory in Russia’s Far North appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Pavel Khazanov on The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse published by the University of Wisconsin Press. The post The Russia That Was Lost appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Ambassador Eric Rubin on the efforts to free Marc Fogel, an American serving 14 years in the Russian prison for possessing 17 g of medical marijuana. The post Free Marc Fogel! appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Marina Mogilner and Ilya Gerasimov on their new textbook, A New Imperial History of Northern Eurasia, 600–1700: From Russian to Global History published by Bloomsbury. The post A New History of Northern Eurasia appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Andrea Bohlman on the curious history of the sound postcard in People's Republic of Poland. The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 3 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Valeria Umanets on women in municipal governance in the Soviet Union and under Putin. The post Women in Russian Politics appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Daniel Mikecz on Civil Movements in an Illiberal Regime: Political Activism in Hungary published by Central European University Press. The post Illiberalism and Civil Society in Hungary appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Matthew Kendall on his article “ Room for Noise in Soviet Sound Recording ” in the Winter 2023 issue of the Slavic Review . The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 2 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Gabrielle Cornish on the sound of Lenin's voice and other sounds of socialism. The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 1 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Masha Kirasirova on The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union's Anticolonial Empire published by Oxford University Press. The post The Eastern International appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.