RUSSIALINK: “’20 Days in Mariupol’ Brings First Oscar Home to Ukraine” – Moscow Times

File Photo of Reel of Film

(Moscow Times – March 11, 2024) Ukraine won its first Oscar for best documentary with “20 Days in Mariupol,” directed by Mstyslav Chernov, on Sunday night in Los Angeles. The film chronicles the harrowing Russian siege of Mariupol, a once beautiful port city, by the only journalists still on the ground, Chernov and the photographer/journalist Evgeniy Maloletka. At the Academy […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Kremlin propagandists attack director of new ‘Master and Margarita’ film captivating Russians” – The Telegraph (UK)

File Photo of Reel of Film

“Adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s anti-totalitarian Soviet novel wins rave reviews but pro-Russia activists want Michael Lockshin probed” “A new film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s anti-totalitarian Soviet novel Master and Margarita is winning rave reviews in Russia but irritating the Kremlin and its supporters. Colleagues of Michael Lockshin, the American-Russian director of the Russian-language film, have … accused Kremlin trolls of […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “National Security Expert Fiona Hill Says Russia ‘Will Always Matter’ at HKS Event” – The Harvard Crimson

Redacted File Photo of Fiona Hill, adapted form image at seanmaloney.house.gov

“…Hosted by Russia Matters — a project at the HKS Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs that publishes analysis on U.S.-Russia relations — [an] event [featuring Fiona Hill ] was moderated by former HKS Dean Graham T. Allison ’62 and former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula J. Dobriansky. Hill, the former senior director on Russia and […]

» Read more

Russia’s Ruthless Renaissance

Kremlin and River

(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University; Evgeniya Pyatovskaya, PhD candidate, Department of Communication Studies, University of South Florida – Feb. 1, 2024) Two years into the war with Ukraine, today’s Russia can best be understood through the lens of a slogan that once appeared in a Solovki special prison, part […]

» Read more

Zelensky Signs Decree on Russian Territories ‘Historically Inhabited’ by Ukrainians

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

(Moscow Times – Jan. 22, 2024) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday signed a decree calling for the preservation of Ukrainian national identity in Russia. The decree, announced to coincide with Ukraine’s Day of Unity on Jan. 22, states that “Russia has systematically destroyed national identity and oppressed Ukrainians in the lands historically inhabited by them,” namely the “modern Krasnodar, […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “What To Read To Understand Russia” – The Atlantic/ Anastasia Edel

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

” …[A]uthors such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky still rule the canon of Russian literature. But … Anastasia Edel, … author of Russia: Putin’s Playground: Empire, Revolution, and the New Tsar, … suggests … readers who want to comprehend Putin’s Russia look to Chevengur, an epic account of the Russian Revolution, written in 1929 by … Soviet writer Andrey Platonov. His […]

» Read more

VIDEO & EVENT: “Book Launch: The Arts of War: Ukrainian Artists Confront Russia”

Adaptation of Marketing Image for New Book, The Arts of War: Ukrainian Artists Confront Russia Year One

Kennan Institute: Stories in Blair A. Ruble’s “The Arts of War” highlight ways in which Ukrainians have long explored the meaning of their country and culture through the arts; and the manner in which the arts and their creators have empowered Ukrainians to confront the Russian invaders [….]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “It’s no joke: how Russian comedians try to stay relevant in wartime” – Reuters

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“… Comigration [is] … a small collective of comedians … [who] have left Russia since Putin’s [2022] invasion of Ukraine … and now ply their trade in Georgia. The contrast in their material is striking [compared with comedians still back in Russia]. According to one …, Ilya Ovechkin, any reference to Putin in a joke boosts laughs by 70%. In […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “As War Rages On, a Museum of Russian Art Stands Up for Ukraine” – New York Times

Artist's Conception of Woman Draped with Ukrainian Flag and Flowers, with Ukrainian Sites in Background, adapted from image at usembassy.gov

“Since the invasion in 2022, the Minneapolis institution has faced immense pressure. It has responded by curating bold antiwar exhibitions.” “Overlooking … one of the main arteries … weav[ing] through [Minneapolis] is a tower painted in yellow and blue for the Ukrainian flag. It belongs to the Museum of Russian Art. Museum staff … painted the flag … just days […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “1.5 Years Into War, Clubs, Festivals and Nightlife Offer an Escape for Russians” – Moscow Times

Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

(Moscow Times – Anastasia Tenisheva – Oct. 21, 2023) MOSCOW — Loud music, people dancing and faces covered with glitter — today, parties in Russia’s capital look like parties anywhere. “As long as there is an opportunity to enjoy life, then you need to do it,” Daria, a Russian in her 20s, told The Moscow Times at a techno music […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Dispatches from Ukraine that show the big picture” – Financial Times

File Photo of Reel of Film

“Filmmakers are going beyond the news-bite to document the wider impact of the war in a variety of ways” “… Ukraine announced that its candidate for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film would be a documentary. Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol presents a harrowing chronicle of the Russian siege of the coastal city from within. This gritty […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin, Pushkin and the decline of the Russian empire” – Financial Times

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin file image, adapted from image at loc.gov

“Behind Ukraine’s rejection of Russia’s revered poet is a much bigger story of imperial decay.” “… For Ukrainians … engaged in an existential struggle for their independence against Russia’s war of recolonisation, Pushkin is a symbol of the Russian imperialism that has long denied Ukraine’s right to a separate national existence. Pushkin was a great poet, but also a poet […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russian opera star sues the Met for alleged ousting over Ukraine war” – Washington Post

File Photos of Law Books and Gavel, adapted from image at fjc.gov

“Russian soprano Anna Netrebko … sued the Metropolitan Opera and its general manager Friday, alleging discrimination when the company dropped her after Russia invaded Ukraine. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, includes claims of national origin discrimination, breach of contract and defamation. Netrebko [seeks] at least $360,000 in damages, citing lost […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukrainians are breaking their ties with the Russian language” – Washington Post

Maidan Square in Kiev, Ukraine

“One of … Putin’s central — and false — justifications for invading Ukraine, that he was defending Russian-speaking people, has backfired …. [A]cross Ukraine, people started bringing … Russian literature to local recycling stations …. Street names have been changed to honor Ukrainian heroes instead of Russian writers. Russian dishes … have been relabeled on restaurant menus. Radio stations stopped […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘Wonder Confronts Certainty’ Review: Lessons From Russian Literature” – WSJ

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

“The writings of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and others are littered with clues for understanding the 21st-century world.” “Books of cultural criticism seldom shed a piercing light on headline events. However, readers of ‘Wonder Confronts Certainty,’ Gary Saul Morson’s masterly panorama of classic Russian literature and its hinterland of ideas, will find their understanding of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s recent botched rebellion against […]

» Read more

The Russian Idea Revisited

File Photo of Red Square, Kremlin, Environs, adapted from image at state.gov

(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – William E. Pomeranz – June 6, 2023) William Pomeranz is the Director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, Some years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, President Boris Yeltsin initiated a national search for a new Russian idea. The past was too raw and controversial, however, to reach any consensus on or reconciliation as to what […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “‘Almost Nothing Had Changed’: Anti-War Russians Risk First Trips Home Since Invasion” – Moscow Times

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Moscow Times – Kirill Ponomarev – May 28, 2023) When animation artist Varvara returned to Russia earlier this year for the first time since fleeing abroad after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the main emotion she felt was surprise. Not by how much had changed in her homeland after over a year of war — but by how little. […]

» Read more

Russia in Review, May 5-12, 2023: 7 Things to Know

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org) Moscow blaming West at every turn: Vladimir Putin attacked the West on May 9, claiming that Russia’s future depended on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, as he attended a slimmed-down military parade to mark victory over Nazi Germany in WWII, MT reports. “A real war has once again been unleashed against our motherland,” he […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “How Putin’s war destroyed a golden age of Russian culture” – Financial Times

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

“Inside the pain, purges and persecution that have decimated the country’s once-flourishing theatre scene” “… Hours after Russia’s invasion … [Moscow’s experimental] Meyerhold Centre … became the first theatre to protest. … [A]ctors, directors, ballet dancers and conductors followed suit. … [A]bout 2,000 Russian cultural workers … signed an open letter … opposing the war. Some went into the streets […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘By ignoring the Ukrainian identity of the painters, the Musée d’Orsay is made into an instrument of Russian propaganda” – Le Monde

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“There are numerous examples of French museums that have participated in the propagation of Russian imperialist narratives through art, according to the academic Olena Havrylchyk, who calls for ‘the decolonization of Ukrainian art.” “On February 10, 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City recognized Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ilya Repin as Ukrainian painters, whereas they were previously presented […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Dispatch From Kyiv: Ballet in a Time of War” – The Nation/ Carol Schaeffer

File Photo of Ukraine National Opera House in Kyiv, adapted from image at cia.gov

“While Ukraine’s capital has mostly returned to normal, reminders of the brutal fighting are everywhere.” “We sat in red velvet seats under the Kyiv opera house’s soaring dome … with baroque flourishes of black and gold … wait[ing] for a ballet adaptation of one of Ukraine’s most celebrated literary works …. [On] the eve of the first anniversary of the […]

» Read more

Golstein’s Ode To Haxthausen

Kremlin and River

Subject: Golstein’s ode to Haxthausen Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2023 From: Parthe, Kathleen <kparthe@ur.rochester.edu> Professor Golstein’s new attack on negative views of Russia (in the March 9 JRL) uses Baron von Haxthausen as his latest prop. Haxthausen went to Russia with the goal of studying communal institutions, and found them in abundance in the pre-emancipation countryside. From that, Haxthausen generalized […]

» Read more

Sean Penn’s Zelensky Doc Substitutes Bromance for Storytelling

File Photo of Reel of Film

(Moscow Times – Tom Masters – March 1, 2023) Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufmann’s long-awaited documentary about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which recently premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, is proof that even with the best luck and access imaginable, an extraordinary journalistic opportunity can easily be missed. Double Oscar-winning actor-turned-activist Penn and his crew were in Kyiv filming the […]

» Read more

Documentary on Jailed Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny Nominated for Oscar

File Photo of Alexei Navalny Marching on Street with Others in Background; adapted from image at commons.wikimedia.org with credit to Evgeny Feldman, subject to Creative Commons license; original image at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FEV_1795_(cropped1).jpg, with license information at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en and creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

(Moscow Times – Jan. 26, 2023) The U.S.-produced fly-on-the-wall documentary “Navalny,” which followed the now-jailed Russian anti-corruption campaigner and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny during the aftermath of a poisoning attempt in 2020, was nominated for an Academy Award on Tuesday. The film, directed by Daniel Roher, shows Navalny during his recuperation in Berlin from poisoning with nerve agent Novichok and […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Cracking open ‘The Nutcracker’s’ dark Russian past; Behind the holiday classic lies an unsavory history that may change the way you think about it” – Washington Post

File Photo of Ballerina and Male Ballet Dancer in The Nutcracker. adapted from image at defense.gov, with credit U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Chris Harper

“… The fruits of a violent imperial system lie behind the work’s bright, bouncy ‘Chinese’ dance … and its slow, seductive ‘Arabian’ scene…. At ‘The Nutcracker’s’ premiere … [in] 1892, in St. Petersburg, the ballet paid homage to the czar and his empire …. If you look at some of the forces giving rise to it, and that still live […]

» Read more

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Towards Decolonizing Eastern European and Eurasian Art and Material Culture: From the 1800s to the present [deadline Nov. 1, 2022]

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

Subject: [seelangs-l] CFP: Towards Decolonizing Eastern European and Eurasian Art and Material Culture: From the 1800s to the present Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2022 From: Hanna Chuchvaha <hanna.chuchvaha@ucalgary.ca> Call for Proposals (deadline November 1, 2022): Towards Decolonizing Eastern European and Eurasian Art and Material Culture: From the 1800s to the present Proposed edited volume by Hanna Chuchvaha (University of Calgary) […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “How history caught up with my Russian academic friends” – Financial Times

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

“From post-Soviet freedoms to resurgent autocracy: a historian reflects on the plight of Russia’s beleaguered intelligentsia.” “… When I think of the situation of my friends in Russia, of the future they have been denied by Putin’s war, I feel shame, frustration, anger and most of all sadness on their behalf. They all, I’m sure, abhor this war — even […]

» Read more

VIDEO: JRL NEWSWATCH: “How is that Kremlin bank account looking?” – Fox

Diverse Paper Currency, Coins, Line Graph

“Imported items including i-phones are still available.” “… ‘We’ve had some figures for the first half of 2022 released …’ Peter Mironenko of ‘The Bell’ tells Fox …. ‘… On the one hand … in the second quarter[] GDP fell around 4% and in the third quarter we will have about 7%. This is recession. But the scale is much […]

» Read more

Vladimir Padunov (1947-2022)

Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

Subject: [seelangs-l] Vladimir Padunov (1947-2022) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2022 From: Russell Valentino <russellv@indiana.edu> To: seelangs-l@list.indiana.edu Vladimir (Volodia) Padunov was born on 4 June 1947 in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Aschaffenburg (Germany). His mother (a Ukrainian farm worker) and his father (a Russian chemistry instructor and soldier) met in the DP system when the slave-labor camps and PoW […]

» Read more

Russians in Small Towns Far from Moscow Live in Another World, Visitor from the Capital Says

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 14, 2022) Russians who live in major cities and those who live in villages receive a great deal of attention. Together, they form the overwhelming majority of the population. But those who live in smaller cities and towns seldom get much attention, Sergey Nechayev says. But if one visits one of […]

» Read more

JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukraine to restrict Russian books, music in latest cultural break from Moscow” – Reuters

Verkhovna Rada File Photo

“Ukraine’s parliament on Sunday [approved] two laws … [enjoying wide legislative support that would impose] severe restrictions on Russian books and music …. One law will forbid the printing of books by Russian citizens [who held Russian citizenship after the 1991 Soviet collapse], unless they renounce their Russian passport and take Ukrainian citizenship. … It will also ban the commercial […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “Pushkin House 10th Annual Book Prize Shortlists Ten Books” – Moscow Times

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London in late September. (Moscow Times – June 6, 2022) Every year the Pushkin House in London awards a prize for the best non-fiction book about or from the Russian-speaking world published in English. In past years they have winnowed down the dozens if not hundreds of contenders to a short […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “New Year Highlights in Russian Theater” – Moscow Times

Mayakovsky Theater file photo, adapted from creative commons image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vladimir_OKC

A year of bold new plays and bold new performances of old favorites. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jan. 7, 2022) Moscow’s theaters have taken a hit over the past two years in the wake of changing Covid-19 restrictions, but the main theaters have survived, and a ‘new normal’ is being established. It seems only fitting in the Chinese year […]

» Read more

Time Horizons of Russians Short and Bases for More Optimism in Short Supply, Volkov Says

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Dec. 29, 2021) For six reasons, Russians do not have a long time horizon when it comes to planning, Denis Volkov of the Levada Center says on the basis of his conversations with participants of focus groups. And while their optimism about the future has risen over the past year, few are […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “New Year Museum Highlights: Our picks for the must-see big shows of the year” – Moscow Times

Hermitage Museum

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yulia Savikovskaya – Jan. 4, 2022) Yulia Savikovskaya reports on the arts and is writing a book on the anthropology of music. The major museums of Moscow and St. Petersburg have what looks to be an amazing year planned – so much so that it might take some skill in time management to see everything. […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “‘The Sounds of Science’ Where Composers and Scientists Meet; What is the music of a vaccine or a carbon-cleansing forest?” – Moscow Times

File Image of Musical Instruments and Sheet Music, adapted from image at nih.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Galina Stolyarova – Dec. 19, 2021) A group of Russian composers and sound designers were so inspired by the recent achievements of Russian science that they created the musical and visual “music” of scientific processes. Called “The Sounds of Science,” the music was made by the Moscow-based audio production studio Monoleak, a group of composers […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “Notable Deaths in Russia in 2021; Coronavirus continued to take many lives in Russia in 2021” – Moscow Times

Covid-19 Coronavirus file photo, adapted from image at cdc.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 28, 2021) Cultural figures Andrei Myagkov Andrei Myagkov, an actor most famous for his role of Zhenya Lukashin in the 1975 New Year’s hit, “Irony of Fate,” directed by Eldar Rozanov, died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 82 at his home in Moscow. He worked in the Sovremennik and Moscow […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “Moscow Begins its ‘Journey to Christmas'” – Moscow Times

Street fairs, ice skating, curling, and lots and lots of Christmas trees. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Dec. 13, 2021) Despite concerns about coronavirus, the Moscow city government decided to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with its annual festival. Called “The Journey to Christmas,” the festival began this past weekend and will go until Jan. 9. Russia celebrates Christmas […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “In Russia’s South, the Remains of a Greek City Hint at Cosmopolitan Past” – Moscow Times

Image Taken From Space of Black Sea Region, Krasnodar and Environs, adapted from image at nasa.gov

Situated outside the small village of Sennoy, Phanagoria, now one of Russia’s best-resourced and highest-profile digs, shines a light … on the region’s long-lost Ancient Greek heritage […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “A Flurry of Prosecutions for Racy Photos Reflects Russia’s Intensifying Embrace of ‘Traditional Values’” – Moscow Times

File Photo of Pussy Riot Members in Courtroom Enclosure, With Man Showing Papers to One While Female Guard Looks On

At least four cases have been launched in recent weeks against young people … posting sexually suggestive content on social media near places of worship […]

» Read more

Many Russians Prefer Village Life to Urban Because They Fear Change, Novikova Says

File Photo of Car on Road in Siberian Town

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 31, 2021) Because so many Russians have left villages to move to the cities, it is often overlooked that many Russians choose to remain in villages and many who have moved into urban areas nonetheless view village life as preferrable in a variety of ways to the one they find themselves […]

» Read more

Russians ‘Long Not for the USSR but for a Normal Life Not Dominated by Machines and Money,’ Khotinenko Says

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 28, 2021) Many think that Russians long for the Soviet system as a whole, Vladimir Khotinenko says; but in fact, they are longing for a normal life, one in which human beings rather than money and machines are in control, as all too many of them are convinced is the case […]

» Read more

AUDIO JRL NEWSWATCH: “The Dacha Is Russia’s Summer Cure For Urban Life” – NPR

Siberian River, Forest, Mountain

“In the Russian imagination, the dacha occupies a near mythical place. Once the reserve of the landed nobility, the summer house gained popularity with urban professionals in the late 19th century; in the Soviet era the dacha became available to everyone, from writers to factory workers. Nowadays, a dacha can be anything from a two-room shack to an oligarch’s imitation […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “The 2021 Russian National Bestseller Award Goes to Alexander Pelevin; His winning novel “Pokrov-17″ is a dystopian mystery” – Moscow Times

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

… The new Russian literary reality, as seen through the National Bestseller lens, is a world of drug addicts, volunteers, online messengers, and Russia’s trademark never-ending search of justice […]

» Read more

Russia Closes In on Eurovision Trophy With Manizha’s Qualifier

File Image of Musical Instruments and Sheet Music, adapted from image at nih.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 19, 2021) Russia is one step closer to bringing home its second ever Eurovision song contest trophy after Tajik-born singer-songwriter Manizha Sangin qualified for the finals late Tuesday. Manizha’s feminist anthem “Russian Woman” was among the 10 semi-final qualifiers, which also included Ukrainian folk-dance act Go_A, who have secured their place in this weekend’s […]

» Read more

RUSSIALINK: “Pavel Durov Revealed – Almost – in New Documentary” – Moscow Times

File Image of Laptop Computer, Tables and Mobile Device, adapted from image at energy.gov

Durov … found[ed] … social networking platform VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, and later Telegram, the encrypted messaging app […]

» Read more
1 2 3 13