Monthly Archives: January 2012
Open-Access and the General Public
I have written here and elsewhere on the reasons I decided to launch the Russian History Blog. One reason is a commitment to open access scholarship–to make the products of our scholarly research freely available to the general public. Most … Continue reading
On the (Mis)application of Russian History to an Analysis of the Protests
Many of you no doubt know of the work of MIT’s Elizabeth Wood. She has turned her attention in recent years from Russian revolutionary gender politics and early Soviet propaganda trials to the cult of Putin in contemporary Russia. Wood … Continue reading
Aleshka the Baptist
This short blog is just to share what was – for me at least! - a fascinating intersection of different research interests. A number of years ago, when I was researching my PhD on the impact of de-Stalinisation, I worked with … Continue reading
Northern spaces
Last year around this time, one of my colleagues was asked to be a special commenter on a showing of a documentary on campus. The film, Passage, focuses on a 19th century failed search for the Northwest Passage (the Franklin … Continue reading
Hot-Tub Diplomacy and Star Wars
I’ve been reviewing documents from the Hoover Archives in connection with my latest project (http://russianhistoryblog.org/2011/10/transnational-history-and-space-flight/). The ones I’ve posted here, with brief commentary and historical context, concern an organization of astronauts and cosmonauts called the Association of Space Explorers, which … Continue reading
A guard’s perspective: Dovlatov’s Zona
After a slightly longer blogging ‘vacation’ than I had intended, I used some of the Christmas break to catch up on the posts I missed. Like many others, I particularly enjoyed the Gulag Boss discussion. It motivated me to start … Continue reading
Imagining the Petersburg-Moscow Road in the Late 18th Century
How do you imagine what a road was, historically? Quite often, histories of transport describe histories of surfaces: the evolution of building techniques, say, from wooden planks to macadamized stone to modern asphalt or concrete. Alternatively, roads are presented as … Continue reading
