NB Russian Studies (2024)

24/05/2022

How to Start a Successful Academic Podcast: A Discussion with Sean Guillory

20/05/2022

Olga Bertelsen’s timely book, IN the LABYRINTH of THE KGB: Ukraine’s Intelligentsia in the 1960s-1970s (Rowman & Littlefield), focuses on the generation of the sixties and seventies in Kharkiv, Soviet Ukraine—a milieu of writers who lived through the Thaw and the processes of de-Stalinization and re-Stalinization. Special attention is paid to KGB “active measures” against what came to be known as the dissident milieu, and the interaction of Ukrainians, Jews, and Russians in the movement, their personal friendships, formal and informal interactions, and how they dealt with repression and arrests. Her book demonstrates that the KGB unintentionally facilitated the transnational and intercultural links among the multi-ethnic community of writers and their mutual enrichment. Post-Khrushchev Kharkiv is analyzed as a political space and a place of state violence aimed at combating Ukrainian nationalism and Zionism, two major targets in the 1960s–1970s. Bertelsen shows that, in the face of intense KGB operations, Kharkivite writers and intellectuals attempted to survive in the state’s “labyrinth” with their integrity, creativity, and human relationships intact. Learn how as she joins us on the podcast ⤵️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/olga-bertelsen-in-the-labyrinth-of-the-kgb-ukraines-intelligentsia-in-the-1960s-1970s-rowman-and-littlefield-2022

$Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet tod...$

06/05/2022

Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet today’s global atmosphere of menace or crisis just as often has to do with history as it does with contemporary disagreements.

Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and research in each of these three critically important countries, DANCING on BONES: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea (Oxford University Press), sheds compelling light on often-under-considered connections between three countries that share much beyond their status as perceived ‘revisionist’ powers. Katie Stallard discusses the book on the podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/dancing-on-bones

29/04/2022

Charles Halperin's latest work on Ivan the Terrible analyzes Ivan's image in post-Soviet Russian memory. Halperin addresses a wide variety of sources: textbooks, popular histories, conspiracy theories, and scholarly works, as well as both films and books about films. What emerges from analyses of these sources is the reality that Ivan is often an empty vessel into which Russians of all kinds can pour their prior commitments. Halperin's previous work demonstrates the complexity of Ivan and the difficulties inherent in attempting to say anything for certain about this mysterious monarch. Learn more about IVAN the TERRIBLE in RUSSIAN HISTORICAL MEMORY SINCE 1991 (Academic Studies Press) as Halperin joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/ivan-the-terrible-in-russian-historical-memory-since-1991

18/04/2022

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years, a term of leadership second only in length to that of Stalin. He presided over the Brezhnev Doctrine, which accelerated the Cold War, and led the Soviet Union through catastrophic foreign policy decisions such as the invasion of Afghanistan. To many in the West, he is responsible for the stagnation (and to some even collapse) of the Soviet Union.

Newly translated from German, Susanne Schattenberg's BREZHNEV: The Making of a Statesman (I.B. Tauris) systematically dismantles the stereotypical and one-dimensional view of Brezhnev as the stagnating Stalinist by drawing on a wealth of archival research and documents not previously studied in English. Learn more on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/brezhnev

15/04/2022

Like all facets of daily life, the food that Russian farms produced and citizens ate—or, in some years, didn’t eat—underwent radical shifts in the century between the Bolshevik Revolution and Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The modernization of agriculture during this time is usually understood in terms of advances in farming methods. Listen in as Susanne A. Wengle discusses BLACK EARTH, WHITE BREAD: A Techno-Political History of Russian Agriculture and Food (University of Wisconsin Press), her interdisciplinary history of Russia’s agriculture and food systems that documents a far more complex story of the interactions between political policies, daily cultural practices, and technological improvements. PODCAST LINK 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/black-earth-white-bread

09/04/2022

Listen in as we talk to Togzhan Kassenova, author of ATOMIC STEPPE: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press), a new book that tells the untold true story of how Kazakhstan said "no" to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's 4th largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons--or try to become a Central Asian North Korea? This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. PODCAST LINK 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/atomic-steppe

04/04/2022

GROWING OUT OF COMMUNISM: Russian Literature for Children and Teens, 1991-2017 (Literature and Cultural Studies) explores the rise of a new body of literature for children and teens following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent transformation of the publishing industry. Lanoux, Herold, and Bukhina first consider the Soviet foundations of the new literature, then chart the influx of translated literature into Russia in the 1990s. In tracing the development of new literature that reflects the lived experiences of contemporary children and teens, the book examines changes to literary institutions, dominant genres, and archetypal heroes. Tune into the latest episode of the Grinnell College Authors & Artists podcast ↙️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/growing-out-of-communism

04/04/2022

WITCHCRAFT in RUSSIA and UKRAINE, 1000-1900 (Northern Illinois University Press) weaves scholarly commentary with never-before-published primary source materials translated from Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. These sources include the earliest references to witchcraft and sorcery, secular and religious laws regarding witchcraft and possession, full trial transcripts, and a wealth of magical spells, presenting a rich panorama of daily life and reveal the extraordinary power of magical words. Learn more about this new resource on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/witchcraft-in-russia-and-ukraine-1000-1900-1

28/03/2022

STALINISM AT WAR: The Soviet Union in World War II (Bloomsbury Academic ) tells the epic story of the Soviet Union in World War Two.

Starting with Soviet involvement in the war in Asia and ending with a bloody counter-insurgency in the borderlands of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics, the Soviet Union's war was both considerably longer and more all-encompassing than is sometimes appreciated. Here, acclaimed scholar Mark Edele explores the complex experiences of both ordinary and extraordinary citizens – Russians and Koreans, Ukrainians and Jews, Lithuanians and Georgians, men and women, loyal Stalinists and critics of his regime – to reveal how the Soviet Union and leadership of a ruthless dictator propelled Allied victory over Germany and Japan. He joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/stalinism-at-war

28/03/2022

DEBATES on STALINISM (Manchester University Press) considers some of the major debates about Stalinism during and after the Cold War. Was ‘Stalinism’ a system in its own right, or just one stage in the overall development of Soviet society? Was it an aberration from Leninism, or the logical conclusion of Marxism? Was its violence an expression of revenge of the Russian past, or the result of a revolutionary mindset? Delve deeper as Mark Adele joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/debates-on-stalinism

23/02/2022

First introduced in 1932, the Soviet passport took on an exceptional range of functions, extending not just to the regulation of movement and control of migration but also to the constitution of subjectivity and of social hierarchies based on place of residence, family background, and ethnic origin. While the basic role of the Soviet passport was to certify a person’s identity, it assumed a far greater significance in Soviet life, with wide-ranging social, economic and geographical consequences. Passport ownership became the signifier of an acceptable social existence, and the passport itself became part of the life experience and self-perception of those who possessed it.

Learn more about the role of passports in Soviet and pre-Soviet society as translator Stephen Dalziel discusses THE SOVIET PASSPORT: The History, Nature and Uses of the Internal Passport in the USSR (Polity) on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-soviet-passport

18/02/2022

In ELECTIONS, PROTESTS, and AUTHORITARIAN REGIME STABILITY: Russia 2008–2020 (Cambridge University Press), Regina Smyth reveals how much electoral competition matters to the Putin regime and how competition leaves Russia more vulnerable to opposition challenges than is perceived in the West. Using original data and analysis, Smyth demonstrates how even weak political opposition can force autocratic incumbents to rethink strategy and find compromises in order to win elections. Smyth challenges conventional notions about Putin's regime, highlighting the vast resources the Kremlin expends to maintain a permanent campaign to construct regime-friendly majorities. PODCAST LINK ⬇️

https://newbooksnetwork.com/elections-protest-and-authoritarian-regime-stability

04/02/2022

World War II, known in Russia today as The Great Patriotic War, was a defining moment for the 24-year-old Soviet State. If the Revolutions of 1917 created the USSR, it was the hard-won victory over the N***s in The Great Patriotic War that turned it into a Great Power. The cost of that victory remains breath-taking today: 27 million men and women lost their lives, major cities were destroyed, and millions were left displaced. No family escaped the collective trauma, which is still felt today.

In examining the sites of memory, the essays in THE MEMORY of the SECOND WORLD WAR in SOVIET- and POST-SOVIET RUSSIA (Routledge History, Heritage Studies and Archaeology) offer a comprehensive look at the developing deployment of war memory, particularly by the current Russian leadership. Learn more on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-memory-of-the-second-world-war-in-soviet-and-post-soviet-russia

30/12/2021

FIREBIRD and the FOX: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks (Cambridge University Press) by Jeffrey Brooks offers a summa of his lifetime study of Russian culture. In doing so, Brooks provides a needed corrective to the prior standard work, now over 50 years old. FIREBIRD and the FOX chronicles a century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it. Brooks joins Daniel Peris on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-firebird-and-the-fox

30/12/2021

The transfer of power is something every must state attend to (and preferably by peaceful means). Remarkably, this fundamental aspect of statecraft was governed by custom rather than law into the 18th century in Russia. In SUCCESSION to the THRONE in EARLY MODERN RUSSIA: The Transfer of Power 1450-1725 (Cambridge University Press), Paul Bushkovitch traces the history of how tsars came to the Russian throne. Deploying decades of erudition and archival sleuthing, Bushkovitch offers a thought-provoking front row view on the evolution of determining the heir and succession politics in early modern Russia. Learn more on the podcast ↙

https://newbooksnetwork.com/succession-to-the-throne-in-early-modern-russia

17/12/2021

Although now largely forgotten outside Russia, Boris Savinkov was famous, and notorious, both at home and abroad during his lifetime, which spans the end of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet Union. A complex and conflicted individual, he was a paradoxically moral revolutionary terrorist, a scandalous novelist, a friend of epoch-defining artists like Modigliani and Diego Rivera, a government minister, a tireless fighter against Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and an advisor to Churchill.

TO BREAK RUSSIA'S CHAINS: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks (Pegasus Books) reads like a spellbinding thriller. Vladimir Alexandrov’s biography of Boris Savinkov not only sheds light on one of the most fascinating figures in Russian history, but also prompts speculation about how the history of Russia may have played out differently if the former terrorist turned government minister had achieved his goals. The biographer joins us on the podcast 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/to-break-russias-chains

17/12/2021

In DISSIDENT HISTORIES in the SOVIET UNION: From De-Stalinization to Perestroika (Bloomsbury Academic), Barbara Martin traces the careers of four prominent figures: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research into these four authors, Martin provides a new account of dissident history writing in the Soviet Union from the post-Stalin Thaw through to the Brezhnev era and Perestroika. Give the author's NBN interview a listen 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/dissident-histories-in-the-soviet-union

16/12/2021

Hoping to unite all of humankind and revolutionize the world, Ludwik Zamenhof launched a new international language called Esperanto from late imperial Russia in 1887. Ordinary men and women in Russia and all over the world soon transformed Esperanto into a global movement. ESPERANTO and LANGUAGES of INTERNATIONALISM in REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA (Bloomsbury Academic) traces the history and legacy of this effort: from Esperanto's roots in the social turmoil of the pre-revolutionary Pale of Settlement; to its links to socialist internationalism and Comintern bids for world revolution; and, finally, to the demise of the Soviet Esperanto movement in the increasingly xenophobic Stalinist 1930s. Brigid O'Keeffe's fills us in ↙

https://newbooksnetwork.com/esperanto-and-languages-of-internationalism-in-revolutionary-russia

16/12/2021

NIKOLAI CHERNYSHEVSKII and AYN RAND: Russian Nihilism Travels to America (Lexington Books) argues that the core commitments of the nihilist movement of the 1860's made their way to 20th century America via the thought of Ayn Rand. While mid-19th-century Russian nihilism has generally been seen as part of a radical tradition that culminated in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Aaron Weinacht argues that nihilism's intellectual trajectory was in fact quite different. Analysis of such sources as Nikolai Chernyshevskii's WHAT IS TO BE DONE? (1863) and Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED (1957), archival research in Rand's papers, and broad attention to late-19th century Russian intellectual history all lead the author to conclude that nihilism's legacy is deeply implicated in one of America's most widely-read philosophers of capitalism and libertarian freedom. Learn more on the podcast ↙

https://newbooksnetwork.com/nikolai-chernyshevskii-and-ayn-rand

15/12/2021

PLACE and NATURE: Essays in Russian Environmental History (White Horse Press) is a collection of essays on environmental history spanning primarily the 19th and 20th centuries. Covering a wide range of thematic topics (water history, migration history and environmentalism) and geographic locations, this book provides new perspectives on the intersection between humans and the environments that surround them. This is largely achieved through the researchers’ experiences traveling extensively through the areas they study, seeing them as living places, interviewing inhabitants and marveling at the beauty and harshness of the environment they study. Join us as we talk with Nicolas Breyfogle, David Moon and Alexandra Bekasova about their journeys and research, how the two intertwined and how that granted them new perspectives on the Russian and Soviet environment 👇

https://newbooksnetwork.com/place-and-nature-essays-in-russian-history-white-horse-press-2021

03/05/2021

This is the most marvelous read! Janet Hartley's new history of the allows us to look at in a whole new way! ⁠
Professor Hartley examines the role of the river in Russia’s development as a political and economic power, but also the river’s enormous impact on Russian culture and national identity. Though the structure of the book is chronological, Hartley brings in the major events of Russian history as convenient mile markers, but it is the compelling narrative of social history which pulls us into the slipstream of the book.⁠
⁠
Enjoy my interview with Professor Hartley via the above👆🏻⁠
⁠
⁠ — view on Instagram https://instagr.am/p/COaPi8Trpjb/

NB Russian Studies

24/05/2022

20/05/2022

06/05/2022

29/04/2022

18/04/2022

15/04/2022

09/04/2022

04/04/2022

04/04/2022

28/03/2022

28/03/2022

23/02/2022

18/02/2022

04/02/2022

30/12/2021

30/12/2021

17/12/2021

17/12/2021

16/12/2021

16/12/2021

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03/05/2021

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