Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Zhores Medvedev

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Pietro A. Shakarian

The thirteenth installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features prominent Russian biologist and writer Dr. Zhores Medvedev.

In this exhaustive interview, Dr. Medvedev discusses his life and career. It encompasses his scientific research, his youth in 1920s-1930s Leningrad, his father’s arrest during Stalin’s Terror in the 1930s, his military service in the Red Army during World War II, his dissent, and the dissent of his twin brother Roy Medvedev. He also recounts how he met his wife, Margarita, to whom he has been married for 66 years. In addition, this interview includes lengthy discussions of Dr. Medvedev’s relationship with his birthplace Georgia, his experience of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, the Gorbachev years, contemporary Russia, and US-Russian relations today.

Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Pietro A. Shakarian

The twelfth installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features Volodymyr Ishchenko, Senior Lecturer at the Sociology Department at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute in Kiev, Ukraine.

In this interview, Dr. Ishchenko discusses Ukrainian politics. Topics include the privatization in Ukraine in the 1990s, the Orange Revolution, the Maidan, Crimea, the rise of the far-right, the fortunes of the Ukrainian Communist Party, the state of the Ukrainian left in general, the state of the Ukrainian economy, and the prospects for socialist democracy in Ukraine, Russia, and the former USSR.

Dr. Ishchenko is also the Deputy Director at the Center for Social and Labor Research in Ukraine and an editor at the Commons Journal and the magazine September.

Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Vladimir Pozner

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Pietro A. Shakarian

The eleventh installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features celebrated journalist Vladimir Pozner.

In this wide-ranging interview, Mr. Pozner discusses his life and career. It encompasses discussions of Mr. Pozner’s parents’ activities in the French Resistance in World War II, the Pozner family’s emigration to the USSR, the Khrushchev Thaw, the reaction of Soviet society to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, space bridges between American and Soviet societies, the Yeltsin years, the current state of US-Russian relations, and Russian society today.

This interview also includes lengthy discussions of Mr. Pozner’s prolific journalistic career of over 50 years, including his work presenting the “Soviet side” of the story on Ted Koppel’s Nightline and other programs, his partnership with Phil Donahue, his television career in contemporary Russia, and depictions of Russia in the American press today.

Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Ellendea Proffer Teasley

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Pietro A. Shakarian

The tenth installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features Dr. Ellendea Proffer Teasley, author, translator, publisher of Russian literature, and co-founder of Ardis Publishers. She holds a PhD in Russian literature from Indiana University.

In this podcast, Dr. Proffer Teasley discusses her new book Brodsky Among Us (Academic Studies Press, 2017). The book was a bestseller in Russia and was just published in its original English language edition in April. She also discusses her late husband Carl Proffer, the founding of Ardis Publishers, the origin of the Ardis name, and her personal experiences with Russian literary giants Joseph Brodsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Elena Bulgakova, and Lily Brik, among others.

Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Paul Robinson

Posted on June 10, 2017 by Pietro A. Shakarian

The ninth installment of the Reconsidering Russia podcast series features Dr. Paul Robinson, professor of Russian and military history at the University of Ottawa.

In this podcast, Dr. Robinson discusses US-Russian relations, Canadian-Russian relations, Boris Johnson, Aleksei Navalny, Russian conservatism, Russian Eurasianism, Russian Orientalism, avant-garde Soviet science fiction, and the origin of the name of his blog Irrussianality.

Dr. Robinson holds a DPhil in history from the University of Oxford and an MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Toronto.

Russia Betrayed?: Voices of the Opposition: A Documentary Film

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Pietro A. Shakarian

Here is a must-see prophetic film, especially in light on the continuing crisis in Ukraine.

Produced by Rosemarie Reed on the eve of the 1996 Russian presidential election, it is entitled Russia Betrayed?: Voices of the Opposition. The film includes interviews between Russian scholar Stephen F. Cohen and oppositionists Aleksandr Lebed, Aleksandr Rutskoi, Grigory Yavlinsky, and Gennady Zyuganov. Most interesting are the portions of the film that touch upon Russian foreign policy, Russian-American relations, and NATO expansion.

Watch the entire film in four parts below, presented with permission of the filmmaker:

Conversations with Gorbachev: A Documentary Film

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Pietro A. Shakarian

In light of the recent Ukraine crisis, there has been a renewed interest in the events surrounding the final years of the Soviet Union. This 1994 documentary, Conversations with Gorbachev, by Rosemarie Reed helps shed light on those events, from the first-hand perspective of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, interviewed by Professor of Russian and Soviet Studies at NYU and Princeton Dr. Stephen F. Cohen.

It also includes Gorbachev’s insights on reintegration in the post-Soviet space and his support for the basic concept for a Eurasian Customs Union of former Soviet republics. When Dr. Cohen asks him “what do you think will be the reaction in the United States if any kind of new ‘larger Russia’ union, confederation, association begins to emerge?”, Gorbachev responds “But why? But why? But why is it that Washington ought to decide what relations there should be between the former republics of the Soviet Union?”