New Books in Russian and Eurasian Studies Podcast
1) Douglas Greene, "In Stalin's Shadow: Trotsky and the Legacy of the Moscow Trials" (Resistance Books, 2025)
Most people on the contemporary left see Stalin as an unfortunate stain on the history of the global left, a part of the historical process that we’d be better avoiding in our attempts to build toward...Show More
2) Bruce Berglund, "The Moscow Playbook: How Russia Used, Abused, and Transformed Sports in the Hunt for Power" (Triumph Books, 2026)
An eye-opening account of how Russia's leaders have used sports as a political tool to solidify their global power "Victories in sport do more to cement the nation than a hundred political slogans." ...Show More
3) Prit Buttar, "To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42" (Osprey, 2023)
The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russia's "window to the West" and usher in Russia's pl...Show More
4) Filip Kovacevic, "KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
KGB Literati: Spy Fiction and State Security in the Soviet Union (University of Toronto Press, 2025) offers a first-ever glimpse into the mysterious and long-ignored world and work of Soviet spies- an...Show More
5) Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi, "Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production" (CEU Press, 2025)
In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Lucy Jeffery and Anna Váradi to talk about their edited volume, Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production...Show More
6) Anna Zhelnina, "Private Life, Public Action: How Housing Politics Mobilized Citizens in Moscow" (Temple UP, 2025)
Renovation, an urban renewal plan in Moscow that was announced in the spring of 2017, proposed to demolish thousands of socialist-era apartment buildings. In a country where it is rare under an author...Show More
7) Anna Shadrina, "The Babushka Phenomenon: Older Women and the Political Sociology of Ageing in Russia" (UCL Press, 2025)
The Babushka Phenomenon: Older Women and the Political Sociology of Ageing in Russia (UCL Press, 2025) by Dr. Anna Shadrina examines the social production of ageing in post-Soviet Russia, highlighting...Show More
8) Jochen Hellbeck, "World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews" (Penguin Group, 2025)
In the West, World War II is commonly understood as the Allies’ struggle against Nazism. Often elided, if not simply forgotten, is the Soviet Union’s crucial role in that fight. With this book, acclai...Show More
9) Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Videotape" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Over the span of a single decade, VHS technology changed the relationship between privacy and entertainment, pried open the closed societies behind the Iron Curtain, and then sank back into oblivion. ...Show More
10) Dustin Condren, "An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film" (Cornell UP, 2024)
An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the unfinished cinematic projects developed and abandoned by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein between 1927 ...Show More