New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies

Charters Wynn's book The Moderate Bolshevik: Mikhail Tomsky from the Factory to the Kremlin, 1880-1936 (Brill, 2022) is an English-language biography of Mikhail Tomsky. It reveals Tomsky's central role in all the key developments in early Soviet history, including the stormy debates over the role of unions in the self-proclaimed workers’ state. Charters Wynn’s compelling account illuminates how the charismatic Tomsky rose from an impoverished working-class background and years of tsarist prison and Siberian exile to become both a Politburo member and the head of the trade unions, where he helped shape Soviet domestic and foreign policy along generally moderate lines throughout the 1920s. His failed attempt to block Stalin’s catastrophic adoption of forced collectivization of agriculture would tragically make Tomsky a prime target in the Great Purges. Listen in!Samantha Lomb is a lecturer at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The collapse of the Soviet Union forced Russia to engage in a process of nation building. This involved a reassessment of the past, both historical and cultural, and how it should be remembered. The publication of previously barely known underground and émigré literary works presented an opportunity to reappraise "official" Soviet literature and re-evaluate twentieth-century Russian literature as a whole. Katharine Hodgson and Alexandra Smith's book Canonicity, Twentieth-Century Poetry and Russian National Identity After 1991 (Peter Lang, 2020) explores changes to the poetry canon – an instrument for maintaining individual and collective memory – to show how cultural memory has informed the evolution of post-Soviet Russian identity. It examines how concerns over identity are shaping the canon, and in which directions, and analyses the interrelationship between national identity (whether ethnic, imperial, or civic) and attempts to revise the canon. Canonicity, Twentieth-Century Poetry and Russian National Identity After 1991 situates the discussion of national identity within the cultural field and in the context of canon formation as a complex expression of aesthetic, political, and institutional factors. It encompasses a period of far-reaching upheaval in Russia and reveals the tension between a desire for change and a longing for stability that was expressed by attempts to reshape the literary canon and, by doing so, to create a new twentieth-century past and the foundations of a new identity for the nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Victoria A. Malko's book The Ukrainian Intelligentsia and Genocide: The Struggle for History, Language, and Culture in the 1920s and 1930s (Lexington Books, 2021) focuses on the first group targeted in the genocide known as the Holodomor: Ukrainian intelligentsia, the "brain of the nation," using the words of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and enshrined it in international law. The study's author examines complex and devastating effects of the Holodomor on Ukrainian society during the 1920-1930s. Members of intelligentsia had individual and professional responsibilities. They resisted, but eventually they were forced to serve the Soviet regime. Ukrainian intelligentsia were virtually wiped out, most of its writers and a third of its teachers. The remaining cadres faced a choice without a choice if they wanted to survive. The author analyzes how and why this process occurred and what role intellectuals, especially teachers, played in shaping, contesting, and inculcating history. Crucially, the author challenges Western perceptions of the all-Union famine that was allegedly caused by ad hoc collectivization policies, highlighting the intentional nature of the famine as a tool of genocide, persecution, and prosecution of the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia, clergy, and grain growers. The author demonstrates the continuity between Stalinist and neo-Stalinist attempts to prevent the crystallization of the nation and subvert Ukraine from within by non-lethal and lethal means.Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a PhD candidate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and each of China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet today’s global atmosphere of menace or crisis just as often has to do with history as it does with contemporary disagreements. All states of course seek ‘usable pasts’ which may or may not be in conflict with one another, but as Katie Stallard shows in Dancing on Bones, leaders in each of Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang have of late gone to particularly great lengths to shape historical narratives which justify their grip on power.Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and research in each of these three critically important countries, Stallard mixes analysis of political and historical events with first-hand interviews and reportage to offer a vivid sense of how history is put to ever-changing uses and why this matters. Accessibly written and richly referenced, Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea (Oxford UP, 2022),sheds compelling light on often-under-considered connections between three countries which share much beyond their status as perceived ‘revisionist’ powers.Ed Pulford is a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on friendships and histories between the Chinese, Korean and Russian worlds, and indigeneity in northeast Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The Soviet Republic once held tremendous sway over the politics of Central Asia as the grand hegemon of the region. But now, in the post-Soviet world, geopolitics in this region is influenced by other powers, including the European Union (EU), and Central Asia’s own tilt towards China. In this changed environment, is the EU adjusting its policies to foster strong democracies in the region free from authoritarian influences, both foreign and domestic? Will these changes be enough to ensure regional stability and human security and focus on good governance and development?In the second episode of our new themed series Migration, Dr. André W.M. Gerrits, professor of International Studies and Global Politics at Leiden University, talks about the changing political players in the Central Asian region and its implications and way forward for the EU and Russia, in the context of his work “Central Asia Under Brussels’ and Moscow’s Eyes”, published by Brill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Dr. Charles Halperin's latest work on Ivan the Terrible analyzes Ivan's image in post-Soviet Russian memory. Halperin addresses a wide variety of sources: textbooks, popular histories, conspiracy theories, and scholarly works, as well as both films and books about films. What emerges from analyses of these sources, is the reality that Ivan is often an empty vessel into which Russians of all kinds can pour their prior commitments. Halperin's previous work demonstrates the complexity of Ivan and the difficulties inherent in attempting to say anything for certain about this mysterious monarch. Ivan the Terrible in Russian Historical Memory Since 1991 (Academic Studies Press, 2021) demonstrates that the Russian historiography of Ivan IV is equally as complex and difficult to generalize about. Russians have sanctified Ivan, demonized him, and nearly every possible position between these two poles can find its exponents.Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union for eighteen years, a term of leadership second only in length to that of Stalin. He presided over the Brezhnev Doctrine, which accelerated the Cold War, and led the Soviet Union through catastrophic foreign policy decisions such as the invasion of Afghanistan. To many in the West, he is responsible for the stagnation (and to some even collapse) of the Soviet Union. But much of this history has been based on the only two English-language biographies (both published before Brezhnev's death and without access to archival sources) and Brezhnev's own astonishingly untrue memoirs – written for propaganda purposes.Newly translated from German, Susanne Schattenberg's magisterial book, Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman, published by ‎I.B. Tauris (2021), systematically dismantles the stereotypical and one-dimensional view of Brezhnev as the stagnating Stalinist by drawing on a wealth of archival research and documents not previously studied in English. The Brezhnev that emerges is a complex one, from his early apolitical years, when he dreamed of becoming an actor, through his swift and surprising rise through the Party ranks. From his hitherto misunderstood role in Khrushchev's ousting and appointment as his successor, to his somewhat pro-Western foreign policy aims, deft consolidation and management of power, and ultimate descent into addiction and untimely death. For Professor Schattenberg, this is the story of a flawed and ineffectual idealist - for the West, this biography makes a convincing case that Brezhnev should be reappraised as one of the most interesting and important political figures of the twentieth century.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022), Dr. Susanne A. Wengle shows how agrotechnology served—and undermined—Soviet and Russian political projects. “The book emphasises a tight connection between political change, technological change in food systems, and the transformation of everyday lives - a connection that we can grasp and understand through the lens of technopolitics.”Like all facets of daily life, the food that Russian farms produced and citizens ate—or, in some years, didn’t eat—underwent radical shifts in the century between the Bolshevik Revolution and Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The modernization of agriculture during this time is usually understood in terms of advances in farming methods. Dr. Susanne A. Wengle’s important interdisciplinary history of Russia’s agriculture and food systems, however, documents a far more complex story of the interactions between political policies, daily cultural practices, and technological improvements.“A central augment of this book is that politics and technologies together drive a change in food systems and that we should think of food systems as technopolitical regimes. Technopolitics refers to the support of and reliance on agricultural technologies - from tractors to CRISPR techniques - in policy regimes that seek to realise particular political goals and utopias. A technopolitical regime is forged by privileged agents of change and the technologies they employ to grow crops and raise animals.”Examining governance, production, consumption, nature, and the ensuing vulnerabilities of the agrifood system, Dr. Wengle reveals the intended and unintended consequences of Russian agricultural policies since 1917. Ultimately, Black Earth, White Bread calls attention to Russian technopolitics and how macro systems of government impact life on a daily, quotidian level. “Food systems can be a lens to track interactions between domains of life that are too often seen as discrete and disconnected, such as rural production and urban consumption. They can also tell us about the interactions between human realms and the nonhuman realms of crops, livestock, climate and soil conditions.”This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The Russian war in Ukraine has placed India in a difficult situation: how to retain the historically good relationship with Russia, without jeopardizing the increasingly important strategic partnership with the USA? In this episode, Kenneth Bo Nielsen is joined by Ravinder Kaur, Henrik Chetan Aspengren and Sunniva Engh to analyze the diplomatic tightrope that India has had to walk over the war in Ukraine, and draw out the implications of India handling of its Ukrainian Dilemma for the country’s position in the world, and for global geopolitics more broadly.Sunniva Engh is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Oslo.Henrik Chetan Aspengren is a Research Fellow at the Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.Ravinder Kaur is an Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies and directs the Centre of Global South Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen.Kenneth Bo Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the dept. of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo and one of the leaders of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies.The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dkTranscripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

This groundbreaking book examines the role of rulers with nomadic roots in transforming the great societies of Eurasia, especially from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. Distinguished historian Pamela Kyle Crossley, drawing on the long history of nomadic confrontation with Eurasia’s densely populated civilizations, argues that the distinctive changes we associate with modernity were founded on vernacular literature and arts, rising literacy, mercantile and financial economies, religious dissidence, independent learning, and self-legitimating rulership. Crossley finds that political traditions of Central Asia insulated rulers from established religious authority and promoted the objectification of cultural identities marked by language and faith, which created a mutual encouragement of cultural and political change. As religious and social hierarchies weakened, political centralization and militarization advanced. But in the spheres of religion and philosophy, iconoclasm enjoyed a new life.The changes cumulatively defined a threshold of the modern world, beyond which lay early nationalism, imperialism, and the novel divisions of Eurasia into “East” and “West.” Synthesizing new interpretive approaches and grand themes of world history from 1000 to 1500, Crossley reveals the unique importance of Turkic and Mongol regimes in shaping Eurasia’s economic, technological, and political evolution toward our modern world.Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) is an expansive work of global history that implies a paradigm shift in the way we conceptualise not only the nomadic peripheries of sedentary societies, but those very sedentary societies themselves. An eye-opening read for those interested in the premodern history of the Eurasian continent. Lance Pursey is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Aberdeen where they work on the history and archaeology of the Liao dynasty. They are interested in questions of identity, and the complexities of working with different kinds of sources textually and materially. They can be reached at lance.pursey@abdn.ac.uk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies