Our wonderful guest is Dr. Sarah Phillips, director of the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Phillips walks us through her remarkable anthropological career in the Slavic world from her beginnings in the 90s with studying the effects of Chernobyl to her many social activism projects in Ukraine, taking us to her present fascination with the culture that developed in the USSR around Kurt Vonnegut's writings and translated works. We hope you enjoy, and as al...
Apr 21, 2021•37 min
On this episode, Professor Nana Osei-Opare from Fordham University joins Lera and Cullan to talk about the history of Ghana's independence from Great Britain and the way in which this country in West Africa looked to the Soviet Union to build itself as an "industrialized, socialist" post-colonialist state. Many black thinkers across the world saw the USSR as a space of equality and freedom and as a way to envision how a multi-racial multinational society could come together. This is a fascinatin...
Apr 12, 2021•35 min
In this episode, Matt speaks with Dr. Oksana Lutshyshyna, acclaimed fiction author and beloved professor at UT Austin, about her most recent book Ivan and Feba (Іван і Феба), as well as about her earlier work Love Life (Любовне життя), humor in her writing, her inspirations, and the state of American and Ukrainian politics and literature. A few weeks ago, Dr. Lutshyshyna won Ukraine's highest state prize for the arts, the Shevchenko National Prize for Literature, for her latest book Ivan and Feb...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr 1 min
In honor of Women's History Month, we have a special episode featuring American Studies professor Dr. Julia Mickenberg who joins us to talk about her spectacular book "American Girls in Red Russia" which explores the intimate lives of American women who traveled to the USSR chasing the "Soviet Dream." We hope you enjoy! ABOUT THE GUEST Julia L. Mickenberg grew up in Connecticut, about 90 miles from New York City. She holds an A.B. degree in American Civilization from Brown University and a Ph.D....
Mar 17, 2021•52 min
On this special episode, we have renowned expert on far right youth movements, Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss who joins us courtesy of UT's ISPRII (the Initiative for the Study of Politico-Religious Ideation and Influence). ISPRII guest host Eliza talks with Dr. Miller-Idriss about her research and latest book, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right . This is a fascinating episode on a very critical topic for the international community, and we hope you enjoy! To learn more about ISPRII, visi...
Mar 07, 2021•44 min
In this episode, Matt is joined by Dr. Kathryn Stoner of Stanford University to talk about her new book, Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. The book pushes back at some misconceptions about Russia’s place in the international system while offering a new perspective on how the West should approach Russia. Matt and Dr. Stoner discuss how the book informs ongoing policy challenges related to recent news coming out of Russia. ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Kathryn E. Stoner is the...
Feb 18, 2021•36 min
Once again, Dr. Mark Galeotti joins Matt to discuss yesterday's sentencing of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and what it means for Russia's short and long term future. Is this the end of the first installment of Navalny’s battle with the Kremlin, which peaked with his poisoning at the hands of the FSB in August 2020? Mark lays out Navalny’s possible next steps, and how the ongoing standoff in neighboring Belarus figures into these events. They also discussed Mark’s latest book, releas...
Feb 04, 2021•48 min
From St. Petersburg, Angelina Davydova, Environmental journalist and head of the German Russian Office of Environmental Information, graciously joins us to give us the surprising facts on environmental activism, protests, and reforms in Russia. She talks about the very real effects of climate change in that part of the world, including the fires in Siberia, the record high temperatures, and the meteorological phenomena in Vladivostok. This was an eye-opening but uplifting conversation in many wa...
Jan 28, 2021•50 min
Samantha chats with Dr. Dimitar Bechev on the geopolitics of the Balkans and the stratagems of Russia in the region. Dr. Bechev also discusses Russia's relationship with Turkey and Turkey's ties with the US and how these affect the countries nested in the Balkans which have fallen out of US foreign policy priority since the George W. Bush administration. ABOUT THE GUEST Dimitar Bechev is the director of the European Policy Institute, a think-tank based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Previously, he held res...
Jan 11, 2021•28 min
Амар мэндээ or hello and Happy New Year! Dr. Kathryn Graber of Indiana University Bloomington joins the show to talk about her research on the Buryat language and minority-language media in Russia’s Buryat territories, a multilingual region of eastern Siberia on the Mongolian border. Her fifteen years of research in this area is the foundation of her new book, Mixed Messages: Mediating Native Belonging in Asian Russia. Enjoy! Ехэ баярлаа! ABOUT THE GUEST Kathryn Graber, PhD, is a linguist, socio...
Jan 06, 2021•35 min
In this episode, Matt and Tom talked to Nina Jankowicz of the Wilson Center about her new book, How to Lose the Information War, and how it serves as a useful primer for understanding the disinformation challenges facing the US today, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 election. To read some of Nina's work, click the links below and do be sure to follow her on Twitter @wiczipedia . Thank you for listening! https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessedamiani/2020/07/23/to-win-the-information-war-we-...
Dec 09, 2020•40 min
On this special episode, Zack speaks with English journalist Matthew Luxmoore. Matthew is the Moscow Correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Politico, and elsewhere. Zach and Matthew discuss a wide-range of issues, from the Russian Far East to the current state of the Russian opposition movement, to environmental concerns and other current affairs of the day. We hope you enjoy! ABOUT OUR GUEST Matthew Luxmoore is a Mosco...
Dec 01, 2020•33 min
In this episode, Matt talks with Dr. Sarah Young of University College London about her upcoming book "Writing Resistance: Revolutionary Memoirs of Shlissel’burg Prison, 1884-1906" and the genre of carceral literature. Where do Russian literary titans like Dostoevsky and Shalamov fit in and how are they perceived in the Russian imagination? Dr. Young also speaks about the uses and importance of spatially mapping historic and literary events and why she undertook such mapping projects in the cour...
Nov 24, 2020•33 min
On this fun episode, Dr. Eliot Borenstein from NYU joins us to talk about his research on memes and meme culture in Russia as well as his freshly-released book on Pussy Riot (available from Bloomsbury). This was a great time all around, and even if you don't consume memes or like them very much, this is still an enjoyable discussion. Thanks for joining us! ABOUT THE GUEST: Eliot Borenstein is a Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, Collegiate Professor at New York University, and Senior Acade...
Nov 16, 2020•42 min
From the Foreign Policy Research Institute comes a fantastic, dispassionate resource on Russia's intervention into Syria. Here to speak with us about the book and the process of compiling this insightful tome written by both American and Russian experts is Associate professor of Eurasian Studies at the US Army War College Robert E. Hamilton. Enjoy! Please do check out and download the book here: https://www.fpri.org/research/eurasia/russias-war-in-syria-assessing-russian-military-capabilities-an...
Nov 09, 2020•45 min
On this whirlwind episode, Tom visits with London-based journalist and risk research analyst Alex Kokcharov on an impressive array of events and current conflicts across the CIS region. This is hardly a boring episode and we don't sit on one topic for too long, so if you're looking for a quick, but in-depth Eurasia fix (while we in the US patiently, calmly wait on those election results), look no further! And as always, thanks for listening. NOTE: This episode was recorded on October 12th, 2020 ...
Nov 04, 2020•35 min
Dr. Jasmin Mujanović, a political scientist focused on democratization and social movements in the Western Balkans and a host of the podcast "Sarajevo Calling", joins Samantha and Cullan for an in-depth discussion on the state of democracy in the region in 2020. This is a great walkthrough of the elite maneuvering and politics in the Western Balkans and which nuclear powers hold sway and influence in the region. We hope you enjoy! ABOUT THE GUEST Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist and ana...
Oct 25, 2020•52 min
The New Yorker's Moscow correspondent, Joshua Yaffa, joins us from Moscow in fact to talk about the conditions in Russia during the pandemic, his latest book Between Two Fires , and the oft-debated Russian interference in US elections. Additionally, Yuri Levada's work and coining of the term "Wily Man" figures prominently into this discussion having played a role in Yaffa's attempt to understand the characters he sought to portray in his book. This is a fascinating conversation, and we hope you ...
Oct 19, 2020•35 min
On this episode, we discuss the ongoing political crisis in Kyrgyzstan, resulting from the disputed October 4th elections, with Nazgul Kulova, a resident of Bishkek (the capital of Kyrgyzstan) and a policy analyst in the mining sector. As a former government official at the State Agency for Mineral Resources, she has worked with various international organizations and is thus a valuable inside resource. Nazgul talks with Matt about Kyrgyzstan's tumultuous political history, the motivations for c...
Oct 17, 2020•41 min
We're back to Belarus with this episode, but this time we take an in-depth look at the still-thrumming situation from the dictator's perspective with one of the foremost experts on the region, Dr. David Marples. Dr. Marples talks about the potential end of the dictator while rounding out the context for the current revolution, allowing us to see just how and why Alexander Lukashenko came into power. Follow Dr. Marples on Twitter @drmarples. ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. David R. Marples is a former Presid...
Oct 11, 2020•48 min
Dr. Susan Crate returns to the show to share her 1990 journey to Tuva, the geographic center of Asia. At this time, Tuva had only recently opened up to foreign travelers and the oblast (region) experienced heavy upheaval across the domains of the former Soviet Union. This moment also proved to be a turning point for the revitalization of lost or hidden cultural traditions, and many Tuvans openly displayed their heritage, wearing their garments and exhibiting their practices. Dr. Crate spent time...
Oct 06, 2020•33 min
Admittedly, this is not a very Slavic episode, but we would like to balance the scales a little bit and discuss the existential crisis America is facing as well as we approach the 2020 presidential election. A New York Times article a few days ago said that though the United States makes up only 4% of the world's population, our Covid deaths account for 20% of the global totals. We're no math geniuses, but it looks like the U.S. has become Corona Country. So, what happened? Maybe you're wonderin...
Oct 03, 2020•38 min
On this episode, former BBC journalist Leonid Ragozin joins Tom from Latvia to discuss the perception of Russia in the West, the origins of Western xenophobia towards Russia, his view of Vladimir Putin in 2000, and his experience working as an independent journalist on the investigations of high profile figures murdered in Ukraine. We hope you enjoy! ABOUT THE GUEST Leonid is a Russian journalist who worked for 12 years with the BBC in Moscow. He is a widely acknowledged expert on the ongoing cr...
Sep 29, 2020•36 min
In this episode, Matt discussed with Dr. Maria Snegovaya the leading issues of the day in the Slavic region. Namely, the aftermath of Russia's recent regional elections, the Kremlin's response to Alexei Navalny's poisoning, and the ongoing spectre of Russian intervention in Belarus's post-election crisis. Connect with Dr. Snegovaya on Twitter: @MSnegovaya UPDATE (9-30-2020) View Dr. Snegovaya's research with CEPA here: https://cepa.org/russian-youth-and-civic-engagement/?fbclid=IwAR19gUFfqtpS4xk...
Sep 24, 2020•48 min
Bulgaria, Belarus, books—oh my! In this exciting episode hosted by Matt and newbie host Katherine, Assistant Professor Kiril Avramov the University of Texas at Austin sits down to discuss his new book, “Russia’s Hidden Armies,” the recent detainment of Russian mercenaries in Belarus, and the anti-corruption protests currently raging within Bulgaria. Tune in for an episode filled to the brim with shocking details over Post-Communist Bulgaria and secret armies! For more on the Wagner mercenaries, ...
Sep 20, 2020•53 min
Tom and Matt have the great opportunity to speak with Libyan national Mohamed Abufalgha and expert on the conflict that has been going on for several years now in this oil-rich, war-torn country. Mohamed helps us unpack the Russian-Libyan connection and exactly how many countries have their fingers--and fighters--in Libya. We hope you enjoy! For some basic information about the conflict in Libya, here are some great resources including Mohamed's own site in which he blogs about the conflict. We ...
Sep 12, 2020•37 min
The Balkan Circle is a weekly seminar (during the academic year) which features lectures, presentations, exhibits, or open interactive dialogues that focus on any (and all) aspects of historical, political, economic, social and cultural phenomena in the (so-called) Balkans. The seminar is free and open to the public and will be held every Friday from 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm online. Visit https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/slavic/events/balkan-circle.php for more information. ABOUT THE BALKAN CIRCLE SPEC...
Sep 07, 2020•34 min
Our guest today is Dr. Tomasz Samojlik, an environmental historian and researcher at the Mammal Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Białowieża. His research focuses on Poland's Białowieża Primeval Forest, one of the last remaining primeval forests in Europe. In addition to his research, Dr. Samojlik spoke with us about his work popularising science and scientific knowledge using books, comics and graphic novels for children. In his own words, "My aim is to instill the curiosi...
Sep 05, 2020•42 min
On this episode, Tom speaks with UT's own Professor Sparrow about his 2015 book on legendary multi-administration US National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft who sadly passed away recently on August 6th, 2020. This is a great conversation, remembering the unassuming but brilliant strategist who was so integral during the late Cold War period. Hope you enjoy! ABOUT THE GUEST Dr. Sparrow is the author of The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security, a biography of the former ...
Aug 29, 2020•53 min
In this episode, Matt spoke with Dr. Mark Galeotti about the pressing issues of the day in Eurasia: the suspected poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the ongoing protests in the far-eastern city of Khabarovsk, and the Kremlin's view on the post-election crisis in Belarus. Using his keen understanding of the Kremlin's decision-making process, Dr. Galeotti, creator of the blog and podcast "In Moscow's Shadow", provides a number of timely insights for our listeners. We eagerly aw...
Aug 24, 2020•42 min
