CREECA Lecture Series Podcast

Anna Nemzer and Ilia Venyavkin presented on their work with the Russian Independent Media Archive Project on Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: In this joint presentation, journalist Anna Nemzer and historian Ilia Venyavkin will discuss the work of the Russian Independent Media Archive — an initiative of PEN America and Bard College...

Pavel Golubev gave a lecture on, “Queer(ing) Art of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Emigration, 1890s—1940s” on Thursday, March 7, 2024 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: The Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia invites you to a lecture about the queer imagery in the art of Russia, and its colonies from the late Imperial period to the earl...

Epp Annus gave a lecture on, “Do you suffer from urbanitis? Gender, cybernetics, and environmental concerns in the 1970s Estonian SSR” on Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: On the cover of Aimée Beekman’s novel Valikuvõimalus (The Possibility of Choice, 1978) stands the figure of a naked woman with a calculator in place of her wo...

Tamara Trojanowska gave a lecture on “Cryptotheology, Psychobiography: Transgression in Polish 20th-Century Theatre” on Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: Tamara Trojanowska will present on her current research, which focuses on the intersections of 20th and 21st-century drama and theatre with history and religious thought, highli...

Natalia Kovyliaeva (Ph. D Candidate, University of Tartu) gave a lecture on "Between Horror and Hope: Feminist Anti-War Resistance and Opportunities for Mobilization in and Outside of Putin’s Russia" on Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the lecture: Since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, the Rus...

Ann Komaromi (Professor in the Centre for Comparative Literature and Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto) presented on her book, “Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society,” on Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the lecture: Komaromi will talk about the research associated with her book Soviet Samizdat: Imagini...

Erik R. Scott (Associate Professor of History, University of Kansas) gave a lecture on "Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World" on Thursday, November 2, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the lecture: Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world’s attention during the Cold War. Their stories were given se...

Matthew Kendall (Assistant Professor in the Department of Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago) will give a lecture on “Revolutions per Minute: Sonic Inscription, Soviet Writing, and Mikhail Romm’s Oral Stories” on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the lecture: In 1921, the poet Aleksandr Blok bemoaned the s...

Debra Javeline (Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame) will present on her book, After Violence: Russia’s Beslan School Massacre and the Peace that Followed (Oxford University Press, 2023). Free and open to the public. About the lecture: Starting on September 1, 2004, and ending 53 hours later, Russia experienced its most appalling act of terror...

Historian Adrienne Edgar (Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara) will present on her recent book, Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples: Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia (Cornell University Press, 2022). Free and open to the public. About the lecture: In marked contrast to its Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union celebrated mixed marriages amo...

Lecture with Grigory Vaypan. Grigory traces the root causes of Russia’s war against Ukraine to the failure of the post-Soviet transitional justice project in the early 1990s. When the Soviet totalitarian regime collapsed, very little was done to confront its past crimes. Impunity for Soviet-era atrocities set the ground for persecution and abuse of power to reproduce themselves in contemporary Rus...

Lecture with Professor Kenneth J. Yin. First migrating from northwest China to Russian Central Asia after the suppression of the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) under the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, the Dungan people boast a rich oral tradition, which served as an important breeding ground for the development of Dungan written literature in the Soviet period. This presentation discusses the findings of an...

This presentation will focus on the migration of Kazakhs, Uyghurs, Russians and some other ethnic groups from Xinjiang province of China to Soviet Kazakhstan in the 1950-60s. Discussion of the migration based on analysis of the Soviet archival materials as well as oral histories of migrants will be put into the context of the Great Game paradigm, that is a struggle of great powers for domination i...

The talk focuses on the socio-economic consequences of the war and the factors contributing to the resilience of the Ukrainian people. Russia’s war against Ukraine has been ongoing for many years, and despite the challenges, the Ukrainian people have shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. The talk will highlight the factors that have contributed to the resilience. These include a st...

The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia’s church and society in the long eighteenth century. Though the Orthodox Church was often assumed to have been hostile toward outside influence, Ivanov’s recent book argues that the institution in fact embraced many Western ideas, thereby undergoing what some observers...

What happens when women’s political quotas are implemented in non-democracies? Valeria Umanets focuses on understanding the political and social meaning and manipulation of gender in the Soviet Union, which held informal women’s political quotas for almost 75 years. Specifically, this talk focuses on the political engagement of women in the Soviet legislative bodies and local councils and their co...

The great puzzle of Russia-West relations throughout the three post-Cold War decades has been the apparent reluctance of the Kremlin to reap significant and evident benefits from collaboration with the United States and its allies. At many junctures, Moscow consistently chose confrontation over reassurance of its western counterparts and other key players. The costs of such behavior would almost i...

Finland was the first country in Europe to allow for suffrage for both men and women and the first in the world where women were elected to national legislative office. Using turn of the 20th century Finland as an example, Professor Tripp will demonstrate how war and the end of empire are linked to the expansion of women's citizenship. (The lecture was co-sponsored by UW-Madison Center for Europea...

The literature of the war against Ukraine testified to the profound changes that took place in the nature of Ukrainian artistic expression: from the loss of the very ability to speak, through the development of a new poetics of the voice and body, through literalism as the restoration of the connection between the word and reality and the rejection of metaphor in favor of metonymy – to the formati...

Russia's war against Ukraine has brought about a radical restructuring of the Russian political economy, placing transformative ideology and outright coercion firmly at the heart of power. Despite this, the war and its consequences have produced remarkably little resistance. This discussion delves beyond the dynamics of coercion and ideology, to investigate how the war has interacted with Russians...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has its roots in the events of 2013–2014. Russia cynically termed the seditionist conflict in Crimea and Eastern Donbas a ‘civil war’ in order to claim non-involvement. This flies in the face of evidence, but the authors argue that the social science literature on civil wars can be used help understand why no political solution was found between 2015 and 202...

How can the Russian economy, moving from one crisis to another one, avoid significant hikes in unemployment? How does human capital evolve when workers’ wages peak so early and then decline so steeply? How does a country so rich in human capital exhibit such low productivity? Vladimir Gimpelson suggests some explanations and proposes how examining them can help in understanding past, present and f...

Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine reverberates beyond Ukraine in a major way. The international order and law are blatantly violated. Energy corridors have been affected and food supply chains have been disrupted around the world. The very notion of the international community and its ability to react to aggression is being tested. Volodymyr Dubovyk discusses how Russia's war in Ukraine puts th...

Humans have harnessed and selectively bred livestock in Kazakhstan for over 5,000 years. This lecture discusses the history and current practices of pastoralism in Kazakhstan, exploring the contemporary interaction shared among people, animals, and ecosystems and the advantages of incorporating ancient lifeways among those who herd livestock in Kazakhstan today. Other topics include the necessity...

Emerged from several courses taught by UW-Madison faculty this semester focusing on Ukraine, the panel addresses questions submitted by the students in these courses relating to the histories and cultures in the region, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. - SPEAKERS: Oksana Stoychuk (German, Nordic, and Slavic+), Sara Karpukhin (German, Nordic, and Slavic+), and Yoshiko M. Herrera (Political Scie...