The Davis Center at Harvard University

In 2014, British photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Ukrainian journalist Alisa Sopova were both in Ukraine, questioning how to represent the ongoing conflict. When they met, they developed a creative collaboration that allowed them to do just that.

Historian Timothy Nunan takes us to Cold War Afghanistan—where Soviet and European rivalry played out not through tanks and guns, but through opposing ideas about international development and humanitarian aid.

Decades after the theories of Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko were discredited, his name is back on the tongues of some Russian scientists. Historian of science Loren Graham explores Lysenko’s political legacy and the extent to which new developments in microbiology validate his controversial claims.

Stalin’s death in March 1953 took the world by surprise. In the United States, the Eisenhower administration was on edge at the prospect of an armed confrontation with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, a campaign against Soviet Jewry prompted speculation and bewilderment from observers around the world. Stalin’s passing marked a major turning point, but did it lead to lasting change? In this episode of...

How has the iconic image of standing in line shaped Russian identity? Literary scholar Jillian Porter examines how the queue has wound its way through narratives of revolution and continues to find expression in Russian political, social, and cultural life today.

From the Harlem Renaissance to Black Lives Matter to Pussy Riot, literary scholar Jennifer Wilson discusses intersections between critical race theory and Russian studies.

Is the Internet in Russia a tool of totalitarianism or of freedom? Investigative reporters Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan—authors of The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries—say perhaps it is both.

Lives as well as words can be lost in translation. Three years after the Boston Marathon bombings, Masha Gessen, author of The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy, discusses identity, immigration, and her own experience navigating translation and censorship in Russia and America.

What happens to the oil flowing across international borders as political relationships get chilly? What does the future hold for Russia and Turkey? Davis Center Director Rawi Abdelal, the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, discusses how state and commercial interests shape Russia’s current place on the world stage.