Episodes
Oct. 13, 2023
Useable Pasts? Shamans, Spirituality and Resistance
Guest: Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer on the evolution of indigeneity and religion across the Soviet and post-Soviet divide.
Oct. 6, 2023
Theology after Gulag
Guest: Katya Tolstaya on theology, belief, and the remaning spiritual scars after Gulag.
Sept. 22, 2023
Christianity in China
Guests: Fenggang Yang and Kung Lap Yan on Christianity, worship, and religious persecution in China.
Sept. 15, 2023
REEES Faculty Spotlight: Anna Kovalova
Guest: Anna Kovalova, Pitt's new Visiting Assistant Professor in Slavic Languages and Literatures, on her work on early Russian cinema.
Sept. 8, 2023
Catholicism in Poland
Guests: Geneviève Zubrzycki and Jose Casanova on the place of the Catholic Church in Polish politics and national identity.
Aug. 18, 2023
Secret Police Archives as Depositories of Faith
Guests: Anca Sincan and Tatiana Vagramenko discuss the how secret police files document religious belief and worship in communist Romania and Ukraine.
Aug. 4, 2023
Lived Religion in Ukraine
Guest: Catherine Wanner on lived religion in Ukraine, belief, belonging and community, and the impact of the war on religion.
July 17, 2023
The Nivkhi of Sakhalin
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.
June 29, 2023
Queer Under Communism
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.
June 8, 2023
Red Whaling
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 20th century,
April 21, 2023
Conquering Nature in Sakhalin and the Arctic
Guests: Paul Josephson and Sharyl Corrado on conquering nature, settlement, and Russian expansion in the Arctic and Sakhalin.
April 15, 2023
The Far East
Ed Pulford and Soren Urbansky on the cross-cultural and diverse past and present of the Russian Far East.
April 10, 2023
A Gift for Stalin, Part Two: The Accursed Share
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. -
March 31, 2023
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 from the outskirts of Moscow. It’s addressed: “Kremlin. To Comrade Stalin.” It arrives a few days later. And when Comrade Sentaretskya,
March 20, 2023
Trailer: A Gift for 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,
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 6 Cold War Colored Glasses
Teddy Goes to the USSR explored American tourism, KGB surveillance, consumerism, race, and daily life through Teddy Roe’s trip to the USSR. And many of Teddy’s observations were inevitably informed by the Cold War and American tropes. So,
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 5 Teddy Meets The Soviet People
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 up...
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 4: Teddy Talks about Race
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 Col...
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 3 Teddy Goes Shopping
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 ...
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 2 Teddy Meets The KGB
Teddy assumed the KGB would monitor his travels around the Soviet Union. In Kiev, Teddy discovers that someone went through his luggage. And half-century later he learns his suspicions were correct. The KGB wrote a report on him,
Dec. 29, 2022
Ep 1: Teddy Greets the USSR
Teddy Roe took an extraordinary trip to the USSR in 1968. For three months, he travelled from one end of the USSR to the other. Most Americans at the time believed the USSR was their greatest enemy. Teddy was among tens of thousands who toured the Sovi...
Dec. 16, 2022
Mental Health in Wartime Ukraine
Guests: Drs. Carmen Andreescu and Alex Dombrovski on their work on mental health in Ukraine though the Global Initiative on Psychiatry - USA.
Dec. 2, 2022
Kyivan Rus’
Guest: Christian Raffensperger on the place of Kyivan Rus' in the wider European medieval world.