Episodes
Nov. 11, 2024
The World of Soviet Dissidents
Guest: Benjamin Nathans on To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement published by Princeton University Press.
Nov. 4, 2024
A Deep Dive into Kabardino-Balkaria
Guest: Ian Lanzillotti guides through the history of Kabardino-Balkaria in his book Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus published by Bloomsbury.
Oct. 28, 2024
Soviet DIY Folk Museums
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.
Oct. 21, 2024
Intimate Lives of International Communism
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.
Oct. 14, 2024
Gulag Memory in Russia’s Far North
Guest: Tyler Kirk on After the Gulag: A History of Memory in Russia's Far North published by Indiana University Press.
Oct. 7, 2024
The Russia That Was Lost
Guest: Pavel Khazanov on The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Sept. 30, 2024
Free Marc Fogel!
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.
Sept. 23, 2024
A New History of Northern Eurasia
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.
Sept. 9, 2024
The Sound of Socialism, Part 3
Guest: Andrea Bohlman on the curious history of the sound postcard in People's Republic of Poland.
Sept. 3, 2024
Women in Russian Politics
Guest: Valeria Umanets on women in municipal governance in the Soviet Union and under Putin.
Aug. 26, 2024
Illiberalism and Civil Society in Hungary
Guest: Daniel Mikecz on Civil Movements in an Illiberal Regime: Political Activism in Hungary published by Central European University Press.
Aug. 19, 2024
The Sound of Socialism, Part 2
Guest: Matthew Kendall on his article “Room for Noise in Soviet Sound Recording” in the Winter 2023 issue of the Slavic Review.
Aug. 12, 2024
The Sound of Socialism, Part 1
Guest: Gabrielle Cornish on the sound of Lenin's voice and other sounds of socialism.
Aug. 5, 2024
The Eastern International
Guest: Masha Kirasirova on The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union's Anticolonial Empire published by Oxford University Press.
July 29, 2024
The Soviet Bid to Run the World
Guest: Sergey Radchenko on To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power published by Cambridge University Press.
July 1, 2024
The Rise and Fall of Yevgeny Prigozhin
Guests: Anna Arutunyan and Mark Galeotti on their new book Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin, and the New Fight for the Future of Russia published by Penguin.
June 24, 2024
Russians in Latvia
Guest: Kevin Platt on Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians Between World Orders published by Cornell University Press.
June 17, 2024
Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip
Guest: Lisa Kirschenbaum on Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip published by Cambridge University Press.
June 10, 2024
Soviet Afghan War and Islam
Guest: Vassily Klimentov on A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam published by Cornell University Press.
June 3, 2024
Populist Elitism in Russia and the US
Guest: Alexandar Mikhailovic on the unlikely convergence of the American and Russian far-right.
May 20, 2024
Soviet Industrial Ecology
Guest: Elena Kochetkova on wood, forests and industrial ecology in the Soviet Union.
May 13, 2024
Everyday War in Donbas
Guest: Greta Uehling on the ethics of care in Everyday War: The Conflict over Donbas, Ukraine published by Cornell University Press.
May 6, 2024
Sugarland
Guest: Artan Hoxha on his new book, Sugarland: The Transformation of the Countryside in Communist Albania published by Central European University Press.
April 29, 2024
Citizen Poet
Guest: Russian poet Dmitrii Bykov on the War in Ukraine, the role of art in politics, satire, his poisoning in 2019, protest, love and family.