The Eurasian Knot

Guest: Sasha Senderovich on How the Soviet Jew Was Made published by Harvard University Press. The post Making the Soviet Jew appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Erik Scott on defection, the Cold War, and the regulation of borders and movement in a globalizing world. The post Defection and the Cold War appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roma Shatrov is the founder of the Silent Cape Nature Park in Sakhalin. Irina Grudova is Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of Sakhalin. Roma is obsessed with Ainu history and culture and has dedicated the Silent Cape to revitalizing their tradition. Irina is a local Ainu activist and is skeptical of such outsiders looking to exploit her heritage. Yet Roma and Irina instantly hit it off and formed a...

Guest: Ilya Vinitsky on the persistence of fakes, forgeries, and frauds in Russian literary culture. The post Fakes, Forgeries, and Frauds appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Rafael Khachaturian and Richard Antaramian on Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. The post The Cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Elmira Muratova and Michael Kemper on Islam in the Soviet and Post-Soviet contexts. The post Islam, Repression, and Memory appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer on the evolution of indigeneity and religion across the Soviet and post-Soviet divide. The post Useable Pasts? Shamans, Spirituality and Resistance appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Katya Tolstaya on theology, belief, and the remaning spiritual scars after Gulag. The post Theology after Gulag appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Fenggang Yang and Kung Lap Yan on Christianity, worship, and religious persecution in China. The post Christianity in China appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Anna Kovalova, Pitt's new Visiting Assistant Professor in Slavic Languages and Literatures, on her work on early Russian cinema. The post REEES Faculty Spotlight: Anna Kovalova appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Geneviève Zubrzycki and Jose Casanova on the place of the Catholic Church in Polish politics and national identity. The post Catholicism in Poland appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Anca Sincan and Tatiana Vagramenko discuss the how secret police files document religious belief and worship in communist Romania and Ukraine. The post Secret Police Archives as Depositories of Faith appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Catherine Wanner on lived religion in Ukraine, belief, belonging and community, and the impact of the war on religion. The post Lived Religion in Ukraine appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Bruce Grant revisits his book, In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas , on the Nivkhi of Sakhalin, their Soviet experience, and the complexities of indigeneity. The post The Nivkhi of Sakhalin appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s Pride month! Misha Appeltova, Irina Roldugina, and Kate Davison join us to talk about their research on gender, sexuality and queer under state socialism. The post Queer Under Communism appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Soviet Union was a latecomer to the whaling industry. But after a bumbling start, by the 1960s, Soviet whalers were slaughtering over 20,000 whales a year. The decimation of the world’s whales in the 20 th century, a genocide in which the Soviets played no small part, has had catastrophic results on the world’s ocean environments. Ryan Tucker Jones tells us about the Soviet whaling industry, t...

Guest: Mark Gamsa on Harbin: A Cross-Cultural Biography The post Harbin appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guests: Paul Josephson and Sharyl Corrado on conquering nature, settlement, and Russian expansion in the Arctic and Sakhalin. The post Conquering Nature in Sakhalin and the Arctic appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ed Pulford and Soren Urbansky on the cross-cultural and diverse past and present of the Russian Far East. The post The Far East appeared first on The Eurasian Knot . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It all started with a letter to Stalin in 1935. And when a Kremlin clerk opened it, there was a piece of shit inside. Was the turd an insult? A way of saying to Stalin, “You’re a shit. Here’s some shit”? Perhaps. But I ended Part One of a Gift for Stalin on a different note: that the turd addressed to Stalin was no slight at all. It was, in fact, a gift. A little brown present for Comrade Stalin....

It’s Sunday, October 13, 1935, and someone, we don’t know who mails a letter from the outskirts of Moscow. It’s addressed: “Kremlin. To Comrade Stalin.” It arrives a few days later. And when Comrade Sentaretskya, one of the secretaries sorting Stalin’s mail, got to this letter, she had no reason to worry . . . . that is until she opened it. The post A Gift for Stalin, Part One: Dear Comrade Stalin...

It’s Sunday, October 13, 1935, and someone, we don’t know, who mails a letter. It’s addressed: “Kremlin. To Comrade Stalin.” Now, there was nothing odd about people writing Stalin. They wrote to him a lot. So, when Comrade Sentaretskaya, one of the secretaries sorting Stalin’s mail, got to this letter, she had no reason to worry . . . . that is until she opened it. Just what was in this letter? Fi...

American tourists expected few chances to meet Soviet people. You’d only see what Soviet officials wanted to show you. Touring the USSR, many assumed, was nothing more than a front row seat at a big show. And real Soviet life was hidden under layers upon layers of propaganda. So, if you wanted to see the truth of Soviet life—avoid officials and seek out “regular people.” Teddy wanted to seek out “...

Teddy had few “official” meetings in the USSR. A factory here. A collective farm there. Maybe a school or two. And there was one question Teddy’s hosts always asked: “Why are you still lynching Blacks?” American racism was a global issue during the Cold War. And pointing to it was a strike at America’s Achilles heel. Soviet media devoted a lot of time to the Civil Rights Movement. And Teddy arrive...

Like many Americans, Teddy judged the USSR through a consumer lens. What could Soviets buy? How much? And what was up with those long lines and shortages? Teddy wasn’t very impressed. Yet, the “standard of living race” was a front in the Cold War like any other. And Soviet communism was losing. But things were never so simple. By the late 1960s, Soviet people were consuming more than ever. They we...