Sean's Russia Blog

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 Cold War. And pointing to it was a strike at America’s Achilles heel. Soviet media devoted a lot of time to the Civil Rights Movement. And Teddy arrived in the USSR just when Martin Luther King was assassinated. So, just what was this Soviet concern for American Blacks? Was it merely a whataboutism, a way to deflect American criticism of Soviet life? Or was there something more to it? The post Ep 4: Teddy Talks about Race appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Ilya Budraitskis on Russia's war in Ukraine, fascism, and his essay collection, Dissidents among Dissidents. Ideology, politics and The Left in Post-Soviet Russia published by Verso. The post A Dissident Among Dissidents appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Gulnaz Sharafutdinova on The Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity published by Oxford University Press. The post Russia in the Red Mirror appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Brian Milakovsky on everyday life in the Donbas and the effort to evacuate civilians. The post Life and Death in the Donbas appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Adeeb Khalid on Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present published by Princeton University Press. The post Central Asia Past and Present appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Alexei Yurchak on perestroika, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the experiences of the last Soviet generation. The post Everything Was Forever Until appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Coming May 30! Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police surveillance, consumerism, race, and everyday life through his extraordinary three-month trip to the Soviet Union in 1968. The post Trailer 2: Teddy Goes to the USSR appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Jeffrey Hass on The Human Condition under Siege in the Blockade of Leningrad, 1941-1944 published by Oxford University Press. The post Suffering and Survival in Leningrad appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Coming May 30! Teddy Goes to the USSR, a new six-part podcast series follows one such American, Teddy Roe, to shine light on Soviet tourism, police surveillance, consumerism, race, and everyday life through his extraordinary three-month trip to the Soviet Union in 1968. The post Trailer: Teddy Goes to the USSR appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Vladislav Zubok on Collapse: The End of the Soviet Union published by Yale University Press. The post The Collapse of the Soviet Union appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Nanci Adler on Memorial, Stalinist repression, and Russia's incomplete transitional justice. The post Stalinism, Memorial, and Perestroika appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Isaac Scarborough on perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet system in Tajikistan. The post Perestroika in the Periphery: Tajikistan appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Brigid O'Keeffe on Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia published by Bloomsbury. The post Esperanto in Revolutionary Russia appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Mie Nakachi on Replacing the Dead: The Politics of Reproduction in the Postwar Soviet Union published by Oxford University Press. The post Soviet Pronatalism appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Courtney Doucette on letter writing, Nina Andreeva, and perestroika "from below." The post Letters to Perestroika appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Geoffrey Roberts on Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books published by Yale University Press. The post Stalin and His Books appeared first on SRB Podcast.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday, February 23, 2022, the morning before Russia invaded Ukraine.   Guests: Michael Kimmage, Marlene Laruelle, and Fyodor Lukyanov on the ongoing geopolitical crisis between Russia, Ukraine and the West. The post Russia, Ukraine, and the West appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Stephen Crowley on Putin’s Labor Dilemma: Russian Politics between Stability and Stagnation published by Cornell University Press. The post Russia’s Labor Dilemma appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Tom Junes on Poland in the 1980s and its legacies. The post Ditching Communism in Poland appeared first on SRB Podcast.

Guest: Catriona Kelly on Soviet Art House: Lenfilm Studio under Brezhnev published by Oxford University Press. The post The Lenfilm Art House appeared first on SRB Podcast.