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2352. Russian-Turkish Relations: Past & Present
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- As Istanbul hosts Russian and Ukrainian negotiators for peace talks to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, and Turkey balances between Ukraine and Russia, Russian-Turkish relations may be entering a new phase. Relations between the two states have grown increasingly fraught in recent years, as the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia’s role in Syria and the Middle East come up against Turkey’s growing influence in the region. Panelists will discuss relations between Russia and Turkey by analyzing the historical legacies of the Russian and Ottoman empires, and by situating current policies in the broader context of Turkish and Russian relations with NATO, Europe, and the U.S.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Turkey
2353. How Did Left-Wing Print Culture Experiment with Capitalism?
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- While many avant-garde periodicals enthusiastically embraced various aspects of the booming post-WWI economy and technology of the core countries, their imagined readership remained the proletariat or “the masses.” Although the predominantly left-wing avant-garde outlets were overflowing with articles exploring the perspectives opened up by Fordism, Taylorism, standardization, and rationalization, not only did their intended working-class readership experience the everyday regime of “scientific management,” but many of them, especially Hungarian organized workers in the industrial centers of the East Coast, actively fought it. Adopting the approaches of periodical studies, book history, and the cultural history of social life, this presentation has a twofold ambition. First, to understand what kind of political economy was envisioned by the avant-garde journals of the 1920s, especially concerning their interpretation of the distinguishing characteristics of the capitalist economic order. Second, to explore how working-class readers—either trade unionist social democrats or revolutionary communists—understood, re-created, or performed some of the techniques promoted by avant-garde journals: using tactics like speaking choirs, “living journals,” political collages, and workers’ photography to critique that same economic reality of post-WWI capitalism. Through the study of hitherto largely unexplored primary sources, including avant-garde periodicals and leaflets, editorial material, secret police accounts, Comintern documents, and annotated pages of avant-garde and labor movement publications, this lecture investigates how the avant-garde radical imagination about capitalism resonated in the larger ecosystem of workers’ culture. It also explores the significant role of centers like New York City—a global hub of avant-garde periodicals, the heart of surging Fordist capitalism, and a battlefield for multi-ethnic organized workers, including a large number of Hungarian immigrants—played in the formation of a Hungarian-language counter-hegemonic public sphere.
- Topic:
- Media, Work Culture, Leftist Politics, and Identity
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Hungary, North America, and United States of America
2354. The Parallels of Russian Bellicosity in the Balkans in the Example of Ukraine
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- Just last month, the Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina issued issued a startling threat to the Bosnian government’s aspirations to join NATO. “Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to decide whether to be a member of NATO, but Moscow reserves the right to respond to such an opportunity,” he said. Russia warned Bosnia and Herzegovina that it could be the Kremlin's next target following Ukraine. This is not the first time Russia has threatened Bosnia. The parallels to Russia’s threats to Ukraine are unerringly uncanny. Bosnia’s significance to Western powers and to Russia stems from the same fact: The country is located squarely at the intersection of NATO and Russian influence. The West recognizes some of the potential Bosnia could have if it were brought into the NATO bloc, but seems not to understand the ramifications of the country slipping into Kremlin-induced disarray. For its part, Russia is just being consistent: Just as it unsuccessfully attempted to prevent Montenegro and North Macedonia from joining NATO, so too is it trying to halt Bosnian aspirations toward the same goal. Bosnia and threatened Balkan states North Macedonia and Montenegro remain fragile to Russian manipulation of its proxies in all of these countries and in the Balkan neighborhood.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Hegemony
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
2355. Eyes that Lead: The History of Guide Dogs for the Blind in East Central Europe and Beyond
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- The lecture explores a hitherto overlooked episode in the history of the human-animal relations: the establishment of professional guide dog training after the First World War, which had its origins in Central Europe. Under this scheme, dogs became helpers, and, furthermore, equal partners to disabled soldiers and soon thereafter also to blind civilians. The lecture shows how the resultant cooperation between guide dogs and their owners placed the human–animal bond on a new footing. It also reveals how an idea initiated by veterans of the German and Austro-Hungarian army spread across the world and what adjustments were necessary to make the scheme suitable for different economic, cultural and social settings. In a broader context the lecture seeks to call attention to the potentials of the burgeoning fields of animal studies and disability histories for the study of East Central Europe.
- Topic:
- Culture, Disability, and Animals
- Political Geography:
- Europe
2356. Byzantium as Seen by the White Russians in Constantinople
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- or the broad public in pre-revolutionary Russia, Byzantium belonged to religious discourse; it also became a battle cry for Russian imperialism. And, by an irony of history, it was that long-coveted Byzantium that greeted the White Russians as they, orphaned refugees, disembarked in Constantinople following their defeat in the Civil War. What sentiments did the Byzantine monuments inspire in them? It appears that their attitudes were more nuanced than pure nostalgia or dismissal. Sergey A. Ivanov is a member of the British Academy. He has published more than 200 scholarly works on Byzantine culture and the relations between Byzantium and the Slavs. Among his monographs are Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (Oxford, 2006), “Pearls Before Swine:” Missionary Work in Byzantium (Paris, 2015) and "Византийская культура и агиография" (Moscow, 2020, Byzantine Culture and Hagiography). His guidebook "В поисках Константинополя" was first published in Russian in 2011, went through three editions and was translated into Bulgarian and Turkish. It was published in English as In Search of Constantinople. A Guidebook Through Byzantine Istanbul and Its Surroundings in March 2022.
- Topic:
- Culture, Urban, Cities, and Monuments
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Turkey, and Istanbul
2357. A Conversation with Polish Basketball Legend Kent Washington
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- Join the East Central European Center at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University for a conversation with Kent Washington, the first African-American and first American to play professional basketball in Cold War Eastern Europe. Recruited into the top Polish league in 1979, Washington went on to play five seasons in the Solidarity-era communist country. His story told for the first time in his new memoir, Kentomania: A Black Basketball Virtuoso in Communist Poland, is unprecedented, weaving together professionalism, race, and politics in powerful and daring ways. Washington will appear in conversation with Columbia University Lecturer in Polish Christopher Caes.
- Topic:
- Cold War, Communism, Race, and Sports
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Poland
2358. Russia’s War on Ukraine: A New Phase
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered a new phase. The Kremlin’s initial plan to seize Kyiv with a lightning strike failed due to spirited defense by the Ukrainian military. In response, Russia has concentrated forces in the Donbas, and to a lesser extent southern Ukraine. Fighting remains fierce in these areas and experts disagree about the trajectory of the conflict. Some argue that Ukraine’s superior morale and greater international support will be decisive, while others point to Russia’s sheer advantage in numbers. Our panel of experts will discuss the implications of this new phase of the war. Can Ukraine gain back territory lost in recent weeks? Have Russia’s war aims changed? Should the US and NATO change course? Is it time for all sides to seek a negotiated settlement?
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, War, Military Strategy, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
2359. Journalism During Wartime: A Conversation with The Kyiv Independent
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- The Kyiv Independent is a leading English-language media source based in Ukraine. Olga Rudenko (Chief Editor, Kyiv Independent) and Daryna Shevchenko (CEO, Kyiv Independent) will talk about the Kyiv Independent’s work in Ukraine and about the challenges of reporting in a country that is at war. Lili Bivings (Contributing Editor, Kyiv Independent) will then lead a discussion with the two presenters which will be followed by a Q & A with the audience moderated by Mark Andryczyk (Harriman Institute). This event is cosponsored by Razom for Ukraine.
- Topic:
- War, Media, Journalism, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
2360. "Sugihara Chiune and the Soviet Union: New Documents, New Perspectives" by David Wolff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2022
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- The Harriman Institute
- Abstract:
- In 1940 with Europe already at war, Japanese diplomat-spy Sugihara Chiune (often called the "Japanese Schindler") ignored direct orders from Foreign Minister Matsuoka and issued over 2000 Japanese transit visas to Jews stranded in Lithuania after the invasion of Poland. But these visas would have been worthless without Soviet transit visas to cross from Kaunas/Kovno to Vladivostok. Why did Stalin approve this transit, supervised by Molotov, Mikoyan and Beria? How did nearly 4000 Jews travel on 2000 visas? Documents from Soviet and Japanese archives collected, edited and published by Japan's Slavic-Eurasian Research Center and the Holocaust Research Center in Moscow provide answers to these questions and more. Sugihara remains the only Japanese citizen designated a Righteous among the Gentiles by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
- Topic:
- Genocide, Migration, Holocaust, and Humanitarian Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Europe, and Asia