The Trouble with Reentry
Reentry of space junk in the 1970s forced First Nations communities into a reckoning with Cold War geopolitics and a burgeoning envirotechnical disaster.
Twin Curtains: Oz and the USSR
Aleksandr Volkov’s The Wizard of the Emerald City reimagined L. Frank Baum’s classic, imbuing the story with a love of labor for readers in the Eastern bloc.
Tramping Across the USSR (On One Leg)
Historian Sheila Fitzpatrick explores the limits of the Stalinist system through the biography of a marginal figure, one Anastasia Emelianovna Egorova.
Eurasianism: A Primer
Anti-Western and pro-expansionist, Eurasianists believed every country had a right to its own existence...as part of the Russian civilization.
A Messy Divorce: The Sino-Soviet Split
The ideological disagreements between two nations shattered the idea of monolithic communism and re-arranged the chessboard of the Cold War.
Getting Pickled With Joseph Stalin
The Soviet dictator was notorious for hosting drinking parties where vodka loosened the inhibitions of associates and got them to reveal their secrets.
Black in the USSR
Soviet artworks that featured Black Americans tended to trade in stereotypes. The paintings of Alexsandr Deineka were an exception.
Workers of the World, Take PTO!
Vacations in the Soviet Union were hardly idylls spent with one’s dearest. Everything about them—from whom you traveled with to what you ate—was state determined.
The Red Sting: Conmen in the USSR
The Soviets loved a good confidence game, as was made evident by the popularity of the fictional character of Ostap Bender after Russian Revolution.
The USSR’s “Invisible Cuisine”
Unofficial cookbooks—handwritten recipes passed from kitchen to kitchen—provided their owners with social and cultural capital within the Soviet system.