Sean's Russia Blog

Guest: Anindita Banerjee on the nuclear in Soviet and Post-Soviet Science Fiction. The post Atoms and Aliens in Eurasian Science Fiction appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Johannes Due Enstad on Soviet Russians under Nazi Occupation: Fragile Loyalties in World War II published by Cambridge University Press. The post Russians Under Nazi Occupation appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Magdalena Stawkowski on the rural Kazakh communities in the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. The post The Radioactive Mutants of Semipalatinsk appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Andrew Sloin on The Jewish Revolution in Belorussia: Economy, Race, and Bolshevik Power published by Indiana University Press. The post The Jewish Revolution in Belarus appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Sonja Schmid on Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry published by MIT Press. The post The Soviet Nuclear Industry appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Eleonor Gilburd on To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture published by Harvard University Press.   The post The Soviet Lives of Western Culture appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Lana Parshina on The Death of Hitler: The Final Word published by Da Capo Press. The post Investigating Hitler’s Remains appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Caress Schenk on Why Control Immigration? Strategic Uses of Migration Management in Russia published by University of Toronto Press. The post The Politics of Immigration in Russia appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Jeff Sahadeo on Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow published by Cornell University Press. The post Central Asian Migrants in the USSR appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Alissa Klots on domestic service and aging in the USSR. The post Domestic Service in the USSR appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Edyta Bojanowska on A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada published by Harvard University Press. The post A Russian Voyage of Empires appeared first on SRB Podcast.

For the past few weeks, protests for fair elections in upcoming municipal polls have become weekly in Moscow and St. Petersburg as thousands have defied authorities to attend unsanctioned rallies. The police crackdown has been particularly harsh in Moscow. Protests on July 27 and August 3 resulted in over 2000 detentions. Images of police in riot gear wrestling citizens to the ground and beating peaceful protesters were reminiscent of the mass protests against election fraud in 2011-2012. Members of the Russian Socialist Movement, a small Marxist, anti-Stalinist organization active in the Russian left, have been participants in local electoral campaigns and in the protests. Two RSM activists, Valeria Kovelishina and Ilya Budraitskis talk about the Russian Socialist Movement, their electoral work, the protests for democracy in Russia and what they might mean for the future. The post Russian Socialists in the Struggle for Democracy appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Roundtable discussion marking the 30th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Participants include Timothy Garton Ash, Bridget Kendall, and Jens Reich. The post Witnessing the Collapse of Communism appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Around Moscow, there’s a whole industry of so-called “black creditors” — microfinance institutions (or MFOs) that swindle and seize debtors’ homes. Ivan Golunov’s investigation for Meduza has discovered that almost 500 apartments have been seized from their owners over the past five years without so much as a court order. In fact, this scheme involves more than simply “squeezing” people from their homes. It is possibly part of a wider, international money-laundering system. Here’s Meduza special correspondent Ivan Golunov on the ins and outs of this industry. The post The Evictors appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Manduhai Buyandelger’s keynote address “Self-Polishing and Electoral Selves: Elections and the New Economies of Democratization in Postsocialist Mongolia” given at the 2019 Annual Soyuz Symposium. The post Gender and Electoral Self-Polishing in Mongolia appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Tobie Mathew on Greetings From The Barricades: Revolutionary Postcards in Imperial Russia published by Four Corners Books. The post Russian Revolutionary Postcards appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Joan Neuberger on This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia published by Cornell University Press. The post Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Rósa Magnúsdóttir on Enemy Number One: The United States of America in Soviet Ideology and Propaganda, 1945-1959 published by Oxford University Press. The post Soviet Anti-Americanism appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: David Brandenberger on Stalin's Master Narrative: A Critical Edition of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course published by Yale University Press. The post Stalin’s Short Course appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Anna Krakus on the stories Polish police files tell us. The post The Stories Polish Secret Police Files Tell Us appeared first on SRB Podcast.