<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1961210427&amp;color=%2364443c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Guest:&lt;/strong&gt; Bryan Gigantino, co-host of the podcast &lt;a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reimagining-soviet-georgia/id1555761205"&gt;Reimagining Soviet Georgia&lt;/a&gt;, on the context and causes for the current political crisis in Georgia.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org/2024/11/18/georgia-in-crisis/"&gt;Georgia in Crisis&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org"&gt;The Eurasian Knot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Guest: Bryan Gigantino, co-host of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia, on the context and causes for the current political crisis in Georgia.

﻿ 
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 co-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. 
Guest: 
Bryan Gigantino is a historian and researcher focused on Georgia, the South Caucasus, and Eurasia in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. He is the co-creator of the podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reimagining-soviet-georgia/id1555761205">Reimagining Soviet Georgia</a> and his writing has appeared in Jacobin, LeftEast, and Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. He is a lecturer at Georgian-American University in Tbilisi, Georgia and is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. He recently published “<a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/10/georgia-elections-geopolitics-gd-eu">In Georgia, a National Election Is a Geopolitical Struggle</a>” in Jacobin.

Georgia in Crisis

<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1955498211&amp;color=%2364443c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Guest:&lt;/strong&gt; Benjamin Nathans on &lt;a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691117034/to-the-success-of-our-hopeless-cause?srsltid=AfmBOoo5H1v7SL62Y_ftZqzmj5gjhT2Tq_xJGSA8wNM06T_zj5Nl7vgX"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt;To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt; published by Princeton University Press.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org/2024/11/11/the-world-of-soviet-dissidents/"&gt;The World of Soviet Dissidents&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org"&gt;The Eurasian Knot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Guest: Benjamin Nathans on To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement published by Princeton University Press.

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 &#8220;rights defenders,&#8221; navigated a complicated choreography between the movement, the police, and its supporters abroad. Their approach was a strategy of &#8220;civil obedience,&#8221; 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. 
Guest: 
Benjamin Nathans is the Alan Charles Kors Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of the multiple award-winning book, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. His latest book is <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691117034/to-the-success-of-our-hopeless-cause?srsltid=AfmBOoo5H1v7SL62Y_ftZqzmj5gjhT2Tq_xJGSA8wNM06T_zj5Nl7vgX">To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement</a> published by Princeton University Press. 
Send us your sounds! <a href="https://euraknot.org/contact/">https://euraknot.org/contact/</a>  
Patreon: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/euraknot">https://www.patreon.com/euraknot</a>  
Knotty News: <a href="https://eurasianknot.substack.com/">https://eurasianknot.substack.com/</a> 
Website: <a href="https://euraknot.org/">https://euraknot.org/</a>

The World of Soviet Dissidents

<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1949443539&amp;color=%2364443c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guest:&lt;/strong&gt; Ian Lanzillotti guides through the history of Kabardino-Balkaria in his book &lt;a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/land-community-and-the-state-in-the-caucasus-9781350137448/"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt;Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt; published by Bloomsbury.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org/2024/11/04/a-deep-dive-into-kabardino-balkaria/"&gt;A Deep Dive into Kabardino-Balkaria&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org"&gt;The Eurasian Knot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Guest: Ian Lanzillotti guides through the history of Kabardino-Balkaria in his book Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus published by Bloomsbury.

﻿ 
Kabardino-Balkaria is a small republic within Russia&#8217;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. 
Guest: 
Ian Lanzillotti is Assistant Professor of History at Washington &amp; Jefferson College, where he teaches courses on the history of modern Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. He’s the author of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/land-community-and-the-state-in-the-caucasus-9781350137448/">Land, Community, and the State in the Caucasus</a> published by Bloomsbury.

A Deep Dive into Kabardino-Balkaria

<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1943998327&amp;color=%2364443c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Guest:&lt;/strong&gt; Erin Hutchinson on her award-winning article, “&lt;a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12396"&gt;Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period&lt;/a&gt;” in the January 2023 issue of the &lt;em&gt;Russian Review&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org/2024/10/28/soviet-diy-folk-museums/"&gt;Soviet DIY Folk Museums&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org"&gt;The Eurasian Knot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Guest: Erin Hutchinson on her award-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.

﻿﻿ 
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, “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12396">Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period</a>” in the January 2023 issue of the Russian Review. 
Guest: 
Erin Hutchinson is an Assistant Professor at the Department of History, University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on the cultural and political history of the Soviet Union, with a particular focus on the topics of nationality and empire. Her book project, Writing the Nation after Stalin explores the development of nationalism in Soviet culture after the death of Stalin. She recently won the Eve Levin Prize for the best article for “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12396">Gathering the Nation in the Village: Intellectuals and the Cultural Politics of Nationality in the Late Soviet Period</a>” in the January 2023 issue of the Russian Review. 
Send us your sounds! <a title="https://euraknot.org/contact/" href="https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Feuraknot.org%2Fcontact%2F&amp;token=8e2861-1-1730134222757" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener ugc">euraknot.org/contact/</a> 
Patreon: <a title="https://www.patreon.com/euraknot" href="https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.patreon.com%2Feuraknot&amp;token=dab98a-1-1730134222757" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener ugc">www.patreon.com/euraknot</a> 
Knotty News: <a title="https://eurasianknot.substack.com/" href="https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Feurasianknot.substack.com%2F&amp;token=3b9106-1-1730134222757" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener ugc">eurasianknot.substack.com/</a> 
Website: <a title="https://euraknot.org/" href="https://gate.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Feuraknot.org%2F&amp;token=a69684-1-1730134222757" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener ugc">euraknot.org/</a>

Soviet DIY Folk Museums

<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1938959282&amp;color=%2364443c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" frameborder="no" scrolling="no"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Guest:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt;Maurice Casey on the “lost world” of international communism in his book, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="https://footnotepress.com/books/hotel-lux/"&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt;Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: 400;"&gt; published by Footnote Press.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org/2024/10/21/intimate-lives-of-international-communism/"&gt;Intimate Lives of International Communism&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a href="https://euraknot.org"&gt;The Eurasian Knot&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Guest: Maurice Casey on the “lost world” of international communism in his book, Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals published by Footnote Press.

﻿ 
In the 1920s and 1930s, hundreds of mid-level office workers served in the Communist International, or Comintern. And while we know a lot about famous communists, historians have mostly overlooked the personal experiences of these minor radicals. A good place to begin uncovering those lives is to look into Hotel Lux, the dormitory for foreign communists in Moscow. Because it is in the Lux, Maurine Casey says, where you can better understand the motivations, social networks and intimate relationships of Comintern staff. What did they think of living in Soviet Russia? How did their experiences change between the 1920s and 1930s? And how did their personal dramas dovetail with their political beliefs? And why are their stories so important anyway? To learn more, the Eurasian Knot spoke to Maurice Casey about this “lost world” of international communism in his book, <a href="https://footnotepress.com/books/hotel-lux/">Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals</a> published by Footnote Press. 
Guest: 
Maurice J. Casey is a Research Fellow in History at Queen&#8217;s University Belfast. He is the author of H<a href="https://footnotepress.com/books/hotel-lux/">otel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism&#8217;s Forgotten Radicals</a> published by Footnote Press. It is available now in bookstores and online as an ebook and audiobook.

Intimate Lives of International Communism

To many, Russia, and the wider Eurasia, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But it doesn’t have to be. The Eurasian Knot dispels the stereotypes and myths about the region with lively and informative interviews on Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. New episodes drop weekly with an eclectic mix of topics from punk rock to Putin, and everything in-between. Subscribe on your favorite podcasts app, grab your headphones, hit play, and tune in. Eurasia will never appear the same.

The Eurasian Knot

Details

Recent Episodes