The Eurasian Knot

Nationalists are not born. They are made. But how? That journey is far trickier. Fabian Baumann’s award-winning book, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism, traces how one family in 19th-century Ukraine split into opposing branches–one embracing Ukrainian nationalism and the other Russian imperial nationalism. Shulgin/Shulhin family story shows how national identities form through the microcosms of family, private spaces, intellectual circles, and intentional choices rather than predetermined ethnicity. The Eurasian Knot asked Baumann to take us through the Shulgin/Shulhin family, their efforts to craft opposing nationalist identities, and how exile after the Russian Revolution led both branches to craft nationalist narratives of their experiences. The Shulgin/Shulhin story may be a century old. But their journey into Ukrainian and Russian nationalism has inescapable implications for us today. https://lnkd.in/g7dg_guF

OUT NOW! 📽️ Head over to Patreon to check out this extra-special episode, as we had the opportunity to interview the director of the 2024 film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s 'Master and Margarita,' Michael Lockshin! 🌟 https://lnkd.in/eiF9c_74

Coming up next! ⏭️ Join us as we cover the University of Pittsburgh's Eurasian Environments Speaker Series! We are so lucky to be able to interview each and every one of these incredible scholars, so make sure to sign up for the events using the QR code, and stay tuned as each event will be released as a podcast through The Eurasian Knot! https://lnkd.in/efekHp6J

Meet this week’s guest! 🌟 Bryan Gigantino is an author and historian of Soviet and post-Soviet Georgia, the South Caucasus, and Eurasia. His work has been published in Jacobin, LeftEast, and Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. He is also the co-creator and co-host of the podcast “Reimagining Soviet Georgia,’ which examines and recontextualizes Georgian history for a wider, international perspective. Welcome to the Eurasian Knot, Bryan! https://lnkd.in/eUxesEzh

Georgia recently held parliamentary elections. The ruling party Georgian Dream eked out a majority, adding to its over decade long rule. The elections, however, were not without controversy. The opposition has claimed vote rigging, its supporters hit the streets, and some Western governments have cried foul. Georgia now is in crisis. What is the context for this political crisis? How does it relate to Georgia’s post-Soviet transformation, economic liberalism, and the current geopolitical conjecture? Is Georgia gravitating toward the EU or Russia? Or is trying to avoid Ukraine’s fate by maintaining a balance between both? To get some insight, the Eurasian Knot turned to Bryan Gigantino, the host of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia. He recently published an article, “In Georgia, a National Election Is a Geopolitical Struggle” in Jacobin that put these complex issues that are shaping Georgia’s social, political, and economic fate. https://lnkd.in/eUxesEzh

Meet this week's guest!⭐ Benjamin Nathans is a professor of Soviet, Russian, and European Jewish History at University of Pennsylvania and is the acclaimed author of Princeton University Press's “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement,” which tackles the legacy and intimate history of the USSR’s courageous dissenters. His prize-winning work focuses on Judaism in both Imperial Russia and greater Europe, and has served as the foundation for a renowned academic and curatorial career. Check out his book through the link below!⬇️ https://lnkd.in/ey7qCZhn

Soviet dissidents have long been objects of fascination. Who were they? What made them dissent? What did they believe? And what did they endure at the hands of a repressive Soviet state? We now have a clearer picture thanks to Benjamin Nathans’ new book, "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement." Soviet dissidents, or as they preferred to be called "rights defenders," navigated a complicated choreography between the movement, the police, and its supporters abroad. Their approach was a strategy of "civil obedience," that is pressuring the Soviet government to follow its own laws. Though amounting to around a thousand active participants, their influence grew, especially as they were lionized in the Western media. In this conversation with the Eurasian Knot, Nathans recounts this history, highlighting the often-overlooked role of women, dissidents’ complex relationship with Soviet society, and what their experience can teach us today.

Kabardino-Balkaria is a small republic within Russia's North Caucasus region. It’s an ethnically diverse area, home to Kabardians (a Circassian Muslim people), Balkars (a Turkic Muslim group), Russians, among others. The republic also has an incredibly fraught history—Tsarist conquest, the decimation of the local population in the 19th century, the Soviet-era ethnic deportations, and the ethnic and religious politics of today. Yet, unlike other parts of the North Caucasus, Kabardino-Balkaria has maintained relatively stability. Why? What about its long history that has prevented interethnic and religious strife? How did Russian colonization shape it? To get a better sense of this complex, and rather little-known history, the Eurasian Knot spoke to Ian Lanzillotti to paint us a picture of Kabardino-Balkaria over the long durée, and what it means to the region. https://lnkd.in/ewVwpgpG

In the 1960s, Soviet intellectuals began creating do-it-yourself museums to preserve national folk cultures. They scoured village attics, abandoned churches, and rural homes to gather artifacts. In a recent article in the Russian Review, Erin Hutchinson tells the story of three of them–the Russian writer Vladimir Soloukhin’s efforts to collect religious icons, the Ukrainian artist Ivan Honchar’s mission to hunt down folk art, and the Gagauz poet Dmitri Kara Coban’s efforts to preserve Gagauz artifacts in Moldova. All three were dissatisfied with how the Soviet state represented their national cultures in official museums, viewing them as ideologically distorted or incomplete. Why did and how did they do this? What was the point and larger meaning of their DIY museums? And what was their fate? To get answers, the Eurasian Knot spoke to Erin Hutchinson to discuss her prize-winning article, “Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period” in the January 2023 issue of the Russian Review. https://lnkd.in/eVjR_vxj

UPCOMING GUEST ALERT 🚨 Erin Hutchinson is ASEES and Levin Article Prize winning author, and professor of Soviet history at University of Colorado Boulder. She authored “Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period" for The Russian Review, and researches the dichotomies of lived experiences and representations of regional identity through Soviet culture. Come listen to us discuss her research this Monday!