Russia

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• 3/7/2021
  

  The Return of Human Rights on the American Agenda?

  by Richard Moe

  One of Jimmy Carter's legacies, albeit erratically observed, has been the assertion of human rights as a foreign policy priority. After four years of ignoring the issue, will the US under Joe Biden reclaim leadership in high-stakes relationships with Russia and Saudi Arabia? 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/21/2020
  

  Ukraine Seeks UN Cultural Status for Beloved Borscht. A Culinary Spat with Russia Could be Brewing

  The latest battle between Russia and Ukraine is over which nation can claim the beet soup as its emblematic food. So far, no shots have been fired. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  9/22/2020
  

  Desiring Machines

  In 1993, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, consensual same-sex relationships were decriminalized in Russia as the economy underwent a wrenching transition away from central planning. Documentarian William E. Jones documents this moment by splicing together the non-sexual scenes from gay pornography shot in the former Soviet bloc. 

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• SOURCE: Reuters
  9/19/2020
  

  Russian Police Detain History Professor After Protest

  Russian professor Valery Solovei was arrested by Russian police at a march in Moscow to protest the arrest of a Russian mayor on murder charges that dissidents believe are politically motivated.

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• SOURCE: Heather Cox Richardson
  6/28/2020
  

  Letters From An American: June 27, 2020

  by Heather Cox Richardson

  A series of stories from the Trump administration over the weekend don't add up.   

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• SOURCE: Informed Comment
  6/28/2020
  

  Trump Likely did Throw US Troops in Afghanistan under the Bus, but Why would the Russians have Targeted Them?

  by Juan Cole

  In Washington, a leak like this makes you ask questions. Who leaked the information and why?

• 
• 6/30/2020
  

  Pawns of History: The Poetics of Russian Revolutionary Politics

  by Tim Brinkhof

  The repression of political dissent in Czarist Russia led many future revolutionaries to literature as a gateway to political thought; their poetic idealism may have made them both effective and dangerous.

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• SOURCE: Moscow Times
  5/22/2020
  

  Concerns Raised for Detained Gulag Historian Yury Dmitriyev

  U.K. calls for early release after court rejects lawyers’ argument Dmitriyev is at risk of the coronavirus in Karelian detention center.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  5/8/2020
  

  Russia Was Ready to Celebrate a Glorious Past. The Present Intervened.

  As the coronavirus began its inexorable march across the country’s 11 time zones, it robbed the capital of lives, and also its chance to come together over a shared victory.

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• SOURCE: Radio Free Europe
  5/7/2020
  

  Russian Court Upholds Decision To Extend Detention Of Prominent Gulag Historian

  Yury Dmitriyev's supporters have said charges were brought against him because of his research into a side of history that complicates the Kremlin's glorification of the Soviet past.

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• SOURCE: The Art Newspaper
  5/4/2020
  

  Cache Of Russian Avant-Garde Works Surfaces In Regional Museum's Basement

  A leading Russian avant-garde expert says he has identified dozens of works by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova languishing in an obscure history museum in the Kirov region.

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• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  4/29/2020
  

  As Putin Seeks to Reinvent History, Russia-Czech Relations Hit a New Low

  The dispute over a statue of a Soviet Army officer in Prague reflects Russian efforts to claim a heroic role in defeating fascism, eastern European nationalism, and contemporary power dynamics in the region. 

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/27/2020
  

  He Found One of Stalin’s Mass Graves. Now He’s in Jail.

  Yuri Dmitriev's family believes he has been jailed on false pedophelia charges because his findings challenge a sanitized version of history favored by Russian nationalists.

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  4/21/2020
  

  Republican-Led Senate Panel Confirms That Russia Backed Trump in 2016

  The intelligence committee refutes the president’s unfounded claims by giving an Obama-era report its seal of approval.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  U.S. Will Give Terrorist Label to White Supremacist Group for First Time

  The designation of the Russian Imperial Movement reflects growing concerns among U.S. officials about violent white supremacists with transnational links.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  3/6/2020
  

  As Bernie Sanders Pushed for Closer Ties, Soviet Union Spotted Opportunity

  Previously unseen documents from a Soviet archive show how hard Mr. Sanders worked to find a sister city in Russia when he was a mayor in the 1980s. Moscow saw a chance for propaganda.

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• 2/9/20
  

  How Religious History Helps Us Understand Russia's War Against Ukrainian Independence

  by Khrystyna Karelska and Andreas Umland

  In recent months, the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian multidimensional military, political, economic and cultural conflict has made international news. What is less well known beyond Eastern Europe is the important religious aspect of Moscow’s “hybrid war” against Ukrainian national independence.

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• 1/19/20
  

  Poles Apart: Putin, Poland and the Nazi-Soviet Pact

  by Geoffrey Roberts

  As the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, two of that war’s main victims – Poland and Russia – are once again embroiled in a highly emotional dispute about its origins. At the heart of the matter is the perennial controversy about the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/5/20
  

  Putin’s Big Historical Lie

  by Anne Applebaum

  In a series of comments in late December, the Russian president appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the Second World War.

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• 11/24/19
  

  Russian Victories in the Post-Cold War Era

  by Albert M. Camarillo

  Putin’s Russia is winning battles to destabilize the U.S. that former USSR leaders such as Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev had tried but failed.