The Eurasian Knot The Eurasian Knot

Baku is an oil town. In the early 20th century, it attracted workers, foreign investors, criminals, and revolutionaries. Some key Bolsheviks cut their revolutionary teeth in Baku, Stalin among them. And after the Revolution, Soviet control of the South Caucasus came with a special prize: oil. In the 1920s, Baku oil was integral to Bolshevik control and state building. And to get that oil industry back up and churning, Moscow had to walk a fine line between national interests, local elites, and fragile institutions. How did the Bolsheviks understand and harness Baku’s black gold? How did political aspirations and economic realities shape Bolshevik policy? The Eurasian Knot sat down with Sara Brinegar to discuss her book Power and the Politics of Oil in the Soviet South Caucasus to find out.

Guest:

Sara Brinegar is an independent scholar based in the Washington, DC area. She was previously Digital Pedagogy Fellow and Freelance Researcher at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. She’s the author of The Power and Politics of Oil in the Soviet South Caucasus: Periphery Unbound, 1920-29 published by Bloomsbury.

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What did “socialist property” mean in the Soviet Union? It’s a vexing question. “Property” in the capitalist sense did not exist. Individual Soviet citizens could not buy or sell, invest or profit from property. At the same time, “socialist property” came with use access. A person didn’t own their apartment but could use and even transfer its use to family. Use rights could also pertain to the commons of socialist property–that is the practice gleaning excess material for individual or collective use. Legitimate and illicit use of property was infused with Soviet ethics and moral economy. There were no inalienable property rights–a notion that continues to haunt Russia today. The Eurasian Knot sat down with Xenia Cherkaev to talk about her book, Gleaning for Communism, to get a better sense of property, its relationship to Soviet household and national economies, and its ethical and legal legacies today.

Guest:

Xenia Cherkaev is a visiting scholar at the Humboldt University of Berlin. She writes about non-market modernity, present-day Russia, Soviet socialist property law, and the problem of Russia’s legally “ownerless” dogs. She’s the author of Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice published by Cornell University Press.

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In 1908, a powerful explosion roared above the remote Tunguska territory in Siberia, Russia. The blast leveled an area the size of London and powerful enough to decimate Manhattan. What caused it? An asteroid, aliens, some kind of secret experiment? The force of the blast vaporized all evidence. What became known as the “Tunguska Event” became a mystery, inspiring thousands to travel to the region, investigate and speculate. So what was the Tunguska Event and what lore, theories, conspiracies, and communities emerged from it? And, what are the disaster’s environmental legacies? The Eurasian Knot sat down with Andy Bruno to talk about his latest book uncovering the Tunguska mystery.

Guest:

Andy Bruno works as Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Northern Illinois University. A specialist in the environmental history of the Soviet Union, he is the author of two books, The Nature of Soviet Power: An Arctic Environmental History and Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and its Environmental Legacy published by Cambridge University Press.

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When Natasha Lance Rogoff arrived in Russia in 1993, she was faced with a particular challenge. This wasn’t her first trip to the former USSR. She had produced documentaries on rock music and youth culture, Perestroika, Russian nationalism and the capitalist transition, to name a few. But now her job was to adapt the American children’s program Sesame Street for a Russian audience. And to do so when chaos swirled all around her: crime, assassination, political and economic instability, and uncertainty. But how to reach Russian children? How to translate some of Sesame Street’s beloved characters, themes, and methods into Ulitsa Sezam? Especially since the USSR had a long, recognized tradition of children’s programming? The Eurasian Knot sat down with Natasha Lance Rogoff to learn about her experience told in her memoir, Muppets in Moscow:  The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia.

Guest:

Natasha Lance Rogoff is an award-winning television producer, filmmaker, and journalist who has produced and directed news and documentaries for NBC, ABC and PBS. She was the executive producer and director of Sesame Street in Russia (Ulitsa Sezam) and the producer of Sesame Street in Mexico (Plaza Sesamo) from 1993-1996. She is also the author of the bestselling book, Muppets In Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia published by Rowman & Littlefield.

If you order Muppets in Moscow directly from the publisher, you can get 30% off with the promo code RLFANDF30.

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In 1942, as the Red Army pushed the Wehrmacht out of the USSR, the Soviet government established the “Extraordinary State Commission.” Under the Commission’s direction, Soviet officials, aided by an estimated 7 million locals, documented incidents of war crimes, property damage, and the names of victims and survivor testimonies of Nazi atrocities. Compiled reports served as evidentiary material in the Nuremberg trials. The Commission’s documentary record is one of the largest depositories of material about the Holocaust. Yet, these materials have only been accessible to researchers since 1991. What do these files contain? What kinds of testimonies did people give? And how do the Commission’s findings shed light on the Soviet attitude toward the Holocaust. The Eurasian Knot sat down with Paula Chan to pull back the many layers to the Holocaust in the Soviet Union.

Guest:

Paula Chan is a postdoctoral research fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. Her current book manuscript, “Eyes on the Ground: Soviet Investigations of the Nazi Occupation,” examines the Extraordinary State Commission established by Stalin’s government in 1942 to gather documentation of Nazi war crimes.

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Karl Schlogel writes a different style of history of the Soviet Union. He makes no attempt at a grand narrative. Nor does he try to reconcile the USSR’s many contradictions. He eschews high politics, big events, and social and economic processes. Instead, he paints history as fragments. And many of them have to do with the minutiae of Soviet everyday life: shopping lines, perfume, wrapping paper, badges, staircases, buildings, and parks. In many ways, Schlogel is an anthropologist and archaeologist–a keen observer of what most of us take for granted and dedicated to excavating these objects to show their particular Sovietness and the world they left behind. Schlogel recently visited Pittsburgh, prompting the Eurasian Knot to pull him into the studio to talk about his recent and final book on the USSR: Soviet Century: An Archeology of a Lost World.

Guest:

Karl Schlögel is professor emeritus of Eastern European history at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder and a noted journalist. The English translations of his books include Moscow 1937, The Scent of Empires: Chanel No. 5 and Red Moscow, and Ukraine: A Nation on the Borderland. His most recent book is The Soviet Century: Archaeology of a Lost World published by University of Princeton Press.

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