New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies

Ronald Suny’s recent biography of the young Stalin, Stalin: Passage to Revolution (Princeton UP, 2020) covers “Soso” Jughashvili’s life up to the 1917 Revolution. Suny provides a wealth of detail as to the young Stalin’s life, and he embeds that life story in the broader story of Bolshevism. The Stalin that emerges from Suny’s portrait was skilled at navigating Party in-fighting an effective at speaking both to workers and to intellectuals. This biography does much make sense of the later Stalin, the perpetrator of the Purges. 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

In her book, The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries (Oxford University Press, 2018), Erica Marat provides an answer to a very important question: “What does it take to reform a post-Soviet police force?” Marat looks as specific case studies – in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan – in order to identify and analyze instances where public mobilization challenged the conduct of police offers and their use of violence. In her analysis, she considers the legacies of Soviet policing, but also identifies important factors that led to policing’s reform. The book is valuable reading for those following contemporary issues in Central Asia and the post-Soviet space, as well those interested broadly in the problems of police violence and the challenge of police reform.Nicholas Seay is a PhD Student at The Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Starting after the Second World War and taking the story through to the Brezhnev era, Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk's Substate Dictatorship Networks, Loyalty, and Institutional Change in the Soviet Union (Yale University Press, 2020) charts the strategies of Soviet regional leaders, paying particular attention to the forging and evolution of local trust networks.Beginning with the late Stalinist period, Gorlizki and Khlevniuk describe and evaluates the relatively successful mechanisms Stalin used to keep regional networks and bosses (usually Obkom First Secretaries) in check while simultaneously devolving power to the regional governments. When Khrushchev came to power, following Stalin’s death, he removed many of these mechanisms which included oversight bodies such as the Party Control Commission and delegations from the Central Committee in an effort to reform the bureaucracy. This led to an unprecedented level of bureaucratic fraud, perpetrated primarily through family circle trust networks of regional bureaucrats who covered up each other’s malfeasance. The culmination of this trend was the Riazan scandal when the Obkom First Secretary engaged in a number of shady practices such as buying meat from markets in other regions, counting slaughtered animals twice and straight up fabrication to meet the massively unrealistic quotas Khrushchev had set as part of his Seven Year Plan. The resulting scandal undermined Khrushchev’s political capital and contributed to his downfall. Brezhnev took a different tact to managing regional governments by reducing the insane pressures to fulfill quotas they had faced under Stalin and Khurshchev and ending the rotational scheme Stalin had put in to place to try to make sure regional bosses could not develop their own nepotistic networks. Listen in to learn about how authoritarian regimes delegated power and how successful or unsuccessful these methods were and how they fundamentally shaped Soviet history.Samantha Lomb is an Assistant Professor at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia. Her research focuses on daily life, local politics and political participation in the Stalinist 1930s. Her book, Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the Draft 1936 Constitution, is now available online. Her research can be viewed here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

History in the making can be messy. As a tale told years later by historians, it is usually a clean narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and a mostly logical and foreordained end. Much of that messiness gets lost. Not in Jonathan Schneer's new book, The Lockhart Plot: Love Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin's Russia (Oxford UP, 2020). Schneer's recounts the story of a young British diplomat, Bruce Lockhart, sent to Soviet Russia soon after the October Revolution in 1917. Initially seeking some sort of accommodation with the Bolsheviks, Lockhart ends up plotting to overthrow the regime. The plot--set for September 1918--fails for all sorts of reasons, not least of which the plotters were outsmarted at every turn by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the newly formed Cheka. The plot and its failure are a minor footnote of history. The book's great value is its description of the chaos in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Western intelligence efforts, the political geography of early Soviet Russia, and the personal lives of many of the leading characters. Lockhart's leading lady at the time of the plot, Moura von Benckendorff, is her own "force of history." For her, the Lockhart plot would end up being only one of many exciting moments of a long and dramatic life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia (Cornell UP, 2020) is a social and cultural history of material objects and spaces during the late socialist era. It traces the biographies of Soviet things, examining how the material world of the late Soviet period influenced Soviet people's gender roles, habitual choices, social trajectories, and imaginary aspirations. Instead of seeing political structures and discursive frameworks as the only mechanisms for shaping Soviet citizens, Alexey Golubev explores how Soviet people used objects and spaces to substantiate their individual and collective selves. In doing so, Golubev rediscovers what helped Soviet citizens make sense of their selves and the world around them, ranging from space rockets and model aircraft to heritage buildings, and from home gyms to the hallways and basements of post-Stalinist housing. Through these various materialist fascinations, The Things of Life considers the ways in which many Soviet people subverted the efforts of the Communist regime to transform them into a rationally organized, disciplined, and easily controllable community.Golubev argues that late Soviet materiality had an immense impact on the organization of the Soviet historical and spatial imagination. His approach also makes clear the ways in which the Soviet self was an integral part of the global experience of modernity rather than simply an outcome of Communist propaganda. Through its focus on materiality and personhood, The Things of Life expands our understanding of what made Soviet people and society "Soviet."Alexey Golubev is a scholar of Russian history with a focus on social and cultural history of the twentieth century. He has a Cand.Sc. (kandidatskaya) degree from the Petrozavodsk University (2006) and a Ph.D. degree from the University of British Columbia (2016). Since 2017 he has worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of History, University of Houston.Steven Seegel is Professor of History at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The articles presented in Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict: The Case of Ukraine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) aim to explore the current political and administrative challenges that Ukraine is facing.The volume draws particular attention to the issues that have been escalated and intensified since the inception of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. From a diversity of perspectives, the contributors explore the nature of the current challenges, as well as possible ways for dealing with them. One of the central points and issues that the volume highlights is regional diversity. As the editors and contributors make it clear, diversity can be used as an advantage and a disadvantage on both political and legal levels: the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia illustrates a number of ways in which regional diversity can be manipulated and misused. The volume emphasizes that Ukraine is a multiethnic country which has always hosted a diversity of ethnic groups, with a number of linguistic traditions: this factor should be presented as one of the aspects for managing the consequences of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, in which ethnic issues have been extensively manipulated by the Russian authorities. One of the largest contributions of the volume lies in the terminological clarification, with an emphasis on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, including the Crimea annexation, which produces an effective legal platform for the integration of Ukrainian issues into the European and global contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine (University of Toronto Press, 2020) tells the unique story of a generation of artists, feminists, and queer activists who emerged in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. With a focus on new media, Zychowicz demonstrates how contemporary artist collectives in Ukraine have contested Soviet and Western connotations of feminism to draw attention to a range of human rights issues with global impact.In the book, Zychowicz summarizes and engages with more recent critical scholarship on the role of digital media and virtual environments in concepts of the public sphere. Mapping out several key changes in newly independent Ukraine, she traces the discursive links between distinct eras, marked by mass gatherings on Kyiv's main square, in order to investigate the deeper shifts driving feminist protest and politics today.Dr. Jessica Zychowicz was recently a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine (2017-18) and is currently based at the University of Alberta. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and been hosted in residencies and invited talks at Uppsala University Institute for Russian and East European Studies in Sweden; the University of St. Andrews in Edinburgh; NYU Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, among others. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and holds a degree from UC Berkeley.Steven Seegel is Professor of History at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In a century marked by totalitarian regimes, genocide, mass migrations, and shifting borders, the concept of memory in Eastern Europe is often synonymous with notions of trauma. In Ukraine, memory mechanisms were disrupted by political systems seeking to repress and control the past in order to form new national identities supportive of their own agendas. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, memory in Ukraine was released, creating alternate visions of the past, new national heroes, and new victims. This release of memories led to new conflicts and "memory wars."How does the past exist in contemporary Ukraine? The works collected in The Burden of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine (Indiana UP, 2020), edited by Anna Wylegała and Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper, focus on commemorative practices, the politics of history, and the way memory influences Ukrainian politics, identity, and culture. The works explore contemporary memory culture in Ukraine and the ways in which it is being researched and understood. Drawing on work from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and political scientists, the collection represents a truly interdisciplinary approach. Taken together, the groundbreaking scholarship collected in The Burden of the Past provides insight into how memories can be warped and abused, and how this abuse can have lasting effects on a country seeking to create a hopeful future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania: Drugs, HIV, and Citizenship in Ukraine (Cornell UP, 2019) considers whether substance use disorders are everywhere the same and whether our responses to drug use presuppose what kind of people those who use drugs really are. Jennifer J. Carroll's ethnography is a story about public health and international efforts to quell the spread of HIV. Carroll focuses on Ukraine where the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs is higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and unpacks the arguments and myths surrounding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in Ukraine. What she presents in Narkomania forces us to question drug policy, its uses, and its effects on "normal" citizens.Carroll uses her findings to explore what people who use drugs can teach us about the contemporary societies emerging in post-Soviet space. With examples of how MAT has been politicized, how drug use has been tied to ideas of "good" citizenship, and how vigilantism towards people who use drugs has occurred, Narkomania details the cultural and historical backstory of the situation in Ukraine. Carroll reveals how global efforts supporting MAT in Ukraine allow the ideas surrounding MAT, drug use, and HIV to resonate more broadly into international politics and echo into the heart of the Ukrainian public.Dr. Jennifer J. Carroll is a medical anthropologist, research scientist, and subject matter expert on substance use and public health interventions to prevent overdose. She earned her PhD in cultural anthropology and her MPH in epidemiology at the University of Washington. She currently holds appointments as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Elon University in Elon, North Carolina and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.Steven Seegel is Professor of History at the University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II Through Objects (Cornell University Press) uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon Schechter attends to a diverse array of things―from spoons to tanks―to show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the provisioning of material goods separated soldiers from civilians.Through a fascinating examination of leaflets, proclamations, newspapers, manuals, letters to and from the front, diaries, and interviews, The Stuff of Soldiers reveals how the use of everyday items made it possible to wage war. The dazzling range of documents showcases ethnic diversity, women's particular problems at the front, and vivid descriptions of violence and looting.Each chapter features a series of related objects: weapons, uniforms, rations, and even the knick-knacks in a soldier's rucksack. These objects narrate the experience of people at war, illuminating the changes taking place in Soviet society over the course of the most destructive conflict in recorded history. Schechter argues that spoons, shovels, belts, and watches held as much meaning to the waging of war as guns and tanks. In The Stuff of Soldiers, he describes the transformative potential of material things to create a modern culture, citizen, and soldier during World War II.Brandon Schechter is currently a faculty fellow at NYU-Shanghai. Before that he served as the Elihu Rose Scholar in Modern Military History at NYU, and a post doctoral fellow at the Davis Center for the Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard.Steven Seegel is Professor of History, University of Northern Coloradod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies