Activist Artemy Troitsky gave a recent lecture at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Bridging together the fields of history, visual arts, and journalism, the attached lecture is an excellent example of the kind of contemporary…
Offered this year for the first time, Societies and the World 52: The Phoenix & The Firebird is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding Russia and its place in the contemporary global climate. Taught by a member of the Slavic Languages and…
After Harvard Economics Professor Shleifer reached a settlement with the US. Government because of his illegal stock-buying activities in post-Soviet Russia, President Summers was accused of extreme favoritism towards his well-known friend. In…
Sputnik was a decisive event that initiated the Space Race. On one hand, it furthered divides between East and West, and helped kick off an arms race that led to thousands of nuclear warheads being deployed. On the other, the era of technical…
Our Lady of Kazan is a Russian icon that was found in the burnt ruins of the city of Kazan in 1579. Mary, the mother of God in Christian tradition, appeared three times to a small child, providing instructions on where to look for the icon. Over the…
Construction on Moscow’s Cathedral of the Dormition began in 1326, the same year that the metropolitanate of Kiev and All Rus’ made its way to Moscow ("History of the Cathedral"). The relics of Metropolitan Peter, one of the metropolitans canonized…
Vladimir I, born in 956, was a grand prince of Kiev, and was to become Kievan Rus’ first Christian ruler (“Vladimir I”). Vladimir was great-grandson to St. Olga, a princess considered to be one of the first converts to Christianity in Russia. Before…
The Cap of Monomakh occupies a place of legend in Russian culture. Supposedly a gift from a Byzantine emperor, or basileus, to Vladimir I, the cap signifies Russia’s shared heritage with Byzantium and with Kievan Rus’. However, the basileus who is…
The covers of American labor magazine paint a vivid picture of an evolving the leftist perspective on the Soviet Union. The 1919 cover of a pamphlet by Abner Woodruff depicts a single worker, symbolizing the mass of the proletariat, looming over a…
The Bolshoi Theater, one of the most storied and dramatic artistic sites in modern Russian history, encapsulates several different aspects of Russian history and culture. Founded by Catherine the Great in 1776 to help promote the ballet and the arts…