Sean's Russia Blog

Who are those “experts” who sit in Washington DC and come up with policy toward China and Russia? You know, those academics, journalists, and think-tankers who generate the knowledge US officials rely on? David McCourt’s new book, The End of Engagement, takes a stab by examining American foreign policy expertise on China and Russia since 1989. His main focus is on the divide within the Russia and China watching community. For Russia, it’s between "Russia we havers" versus "Russia we wanters,” and for China, the "engagement" against the "strategic competition" partisans. Curious to hear more, The Eurasian Knot spoke to McCourt to get a social profile of these expert communities, including how personal cliques, academic cred, and resumes influence how we understand Russia and China.Guest:David McCourt is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. His new book is The End of Engagement: America's China and Russia Experts and U.S. Strategy Since 1989 published by Oxford Univer

Nationalists are not born. They are made. But how? That journey is far trickier. Fabian Baumann’s award-winning book, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism, traces how one family in 19th-century Ukraine split into opposing branches–one embracing Ukrainian nationalism and the other Russian imperial nationalism. Shulgin/Shulhin family story shows how national identities form through the microcosms of family, private spaces, intellectual circles, and intentional choices rather than predetermined ethnicity. The Eurasian Knot asked Baumann to take us through the Shulgin/Shulhin family, their efforts to craft opposing nationalist identities, and how exile after the Russian Revolution led both branches to craft nationalist narratives of their experiences. The Shulgin/Shulhin story may be a century old. But their journey into Ukrainian and Russian nationalism has inescapable implications for us today.Guest:Fabian Baumann is a research associate at Heidelberg University working on the

In 2020, Russian-American filmmaker Michael Lockshin and his co-writer, Roman Kantor, were offered an impossible task: to adapt Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita for the big screen. It was a daunting task to rewrite such a beloved novel, with its complicated and overlapping narratives. Lockshin and Kantor hoped to succeed where others failed. After a period of touch-and-go, the film was released in Russia in January 2024 to critical and viewer acclaim. It also received fierce scorn, particularly from Russian state propagandists. To date, the film remains unreleased internationally due to complex rights issues following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. How has Lockshin dealt with all this personally and professionally? What does he make of the controversy surrounding the movie essentially cosplaying its plot. Lockshin recently visited Pittsburgh to screen the film. The Eurasian Knot jumped at the opportunity to interview him about it and its fallout.Guest:Michael Lockshin grew up in Russia an

Guest: Bryan Gigantino, co-host of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia, on the context and causes for the current political crisis in Georgia.The post Georgia in Crisis appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Soviet dissidents have long been objects of fascination. Who were they? What made them dissent? What did they believe? And what did they endure at the hands of a repressive Soviet state? We now have a clearer picture thanks to Benjamin Nathans’ new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Soviet dissidents, or as they preferred to be called “rights defenders,” navigated a complicated choreography between the movement, the police, and its supporters abroad. Their approach was a strategy of “civil obedience,” that is pressuring the Soviet government to follow its own laws. Though amounting to around a thousand active participants, their influence grew, especially as they were lionized in the Western media. In this conversation with the Eurasian Knot, Nathans recounts this history, highlighting the often-overlooked role of women, dissidents’ complex relationship with Soviet society, and what their experience can teach us today.Guest:Benjamin Nathans i

Guest: Ian Lanzillotti guides through the history of Kabardino-Balkaria in his book Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus published by Bloomsbury.The post A Deep Dive into Kabardino-Balkaria appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.The post Soviet DIY Folk Museums appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.The post Intimate Lives of International Communism appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Tyler Kirk on After the Gulag: A History of Memory in Russia's Far North published by Indiana University Press.The post Gulag Memory in Russia’s Far North appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Pavel Khazanov on The Russia That We Have Lost: Pre-Soviet Past as Anti-Soviet Discourse published by the University of Wisconsin Press.The post The Russia That Was Lost appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.The post Free Marc Fogel! appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.The post A New History of Northern Eurasia appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Andrea Bohlman on the curious history of the sound postcard in People's Republic of Poland.The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 3 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Valeria Umanets on women in municipal governance in the Soviet Union and under Putin.The post Women in Russian Politics appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Daniel Mikecz on Civil Movements in an Illiberal Regime: Political Activism in Hungary published by Central European University Press.The post Illiberalism and Civil Society in Hungary appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Matthew Kendall on his article “Room for Noise in Soviet Sound Recording” in the Winter 2023 issue of the Slavic Review.The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 2 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Gabrielle Cornish on the sound of Lenin's voice and other sounds of socialism.The post The Sound of Socialism, Part 1 appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Masha Kirasirova on The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union's Anticolonial Empire published by Oxford University Press.The post The Eastern International appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guest: Sergey Radchenko on To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power published by Cambridge University Press.The post The Soviet Bid to Run the World appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.The post The Rise and Fall of Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared first on The Eurasian Knot. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.