The Eurasian Knot

The Eurasian Knot
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To many, Russia, and the wider Eurasia, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But it doesn’t have to be. The Eurasian Knot dispels the stereotypes and myths about the region with lively and informative interviews on Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. New episodes drop weekly with an eclectic mix of topics from punk rock to Putin, and everything in-between. Subscribe on your favorite podcasts app, grab your headphones, hit play, and tune in. Eurasia will never appear the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. The Georgian August 1924 Uprising

    1H AGO

    The Georgian August 1924 Uprising

    In August 1924, a group of rebels organized by the anti-Bolshevik Committee for the Independence of Georgia and led by the Georgian Social Democratic Party, rose up against Soviet forces in the mining town of Chiatura. The Bolshevik reaction was swift and harsh. The fear of another "Kronstadt” still haunted the Bolsheviks, especially since their control over Georgia was tenuous. The uprising failed. Thousands were killed. Its ringleaders either fled into exile or were executed by the Georgian Cheka, then led by Levrenti Beria. The uprising was the culmination of Georgian opposition to Bolshevik rule after the fall of the Menshevik-led Republic in 1921. This small but significant story about Georgian resistance and a social-democratic alternative to Bolshevism has remained in obscurity. That is, until Eric Lee came along. Eric is a passionate partisan for Georgia. Not just for the place and its people. But for the promise that early Republic and its Menshevik leaders represented for the history of social democracy. What were the roots of this uprising? What was Bolshevik rule in Georgia? And how does the Social Democratic Republic and the August Uprising fit into today’s memory politics in Georgia? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Lee to get a fuller story behind this almost forgotten moment in the history of Georgian resistance to Russian rule. Guest: Eric Lee is an author, journalist and historian. He’s the author of several books. The most recent is The August Uprising, 1924: The Georgian Anti-Soviet Revolt and the Birth of Democratic Socialism published by McFarland Publishers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    50 min
  2. The Edge of Sports

    APR 20

    The Edge of Sports

    Spoiler alert. This episode has nothing to do with the Eurasian Knot’s usual fare. Dave Zirin was speaking at the University of Pittsburgh. Zirin is one of the few sports journalists on the political left. I’ve been a long-time fan. I’m also a sports fan, especially basketball. So, when I was offered an interview, I grabbed my digital recorder. And Dave, though exhausted, was gracious enough to talk. The result is a wide ranging discussion of key issues in the sports world–politics, labor, race, gambling, transgender athletes, this summer’s World Cup in the shadow of Trump’s ICE, and Dave’s forthcoming biography of Howard Zinn. Give it a listen even if you aren’t into sports. As Dave emphasizes, sports cannot be separated from the political, social, and economic issues of our times.  Guest: Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation, the author of eleven books on the politics of sports and host of The Edge of Sports podcast. His most recent book is The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World published by New Press. His next book, The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, will be published in August 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    47 min
  3. Russian and American Internal Colonization

    APR 14

    Russian and American Internal Colonization

    About eight years ago, I interviewed Steven Sabol about his book, The Touch of Civilization. It was the first book I was aware of that compared the US’ and Russia’s efforts to civilize its colonized people, specifically the Sioux and Kazakhs. Here were two continental empires with two vastly different political systems that spread across a vast landmass to encounter, subjugate, remove, or outright kill indigenous populations along the way. Longtime listeners know that the overlapping trajectories of the United States and Russia have been of particular interest to the Eurasian Knot. How did a republic and an autocracy approach its indigenous subjects? How did Sioux and Kazakhs resist and accommodate colonization? And what does it all say about the American and Russian imperialism at the heart of each’s historical DNA? Given current events, we figured it was a good time to revisit our conversation with Steven. Guest: Steven Sabol is a Professor of History at North Carolina University in Charlotte. He’s the author of “The Touch of Civilization” Comparing American and Russian Internal Colonization published by University Press of Colorado. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    54 min
  4. Everyday Politics in Russia

    APR 6

    Everyday Politics in Russia

    What do Russians really think? The question is old and elusive. It is also somewhat of a tell–to pose it is to suggest there’s a coherent answer, and more so, that Russians’ collective opinions matter. For the most part, scholars have turned to history, media, opinion polls, and assumptions to untie this knot. Jeremy Morris is no different in this regard, except that he approaches his subjects with ethnography–long, multi-year conversations of residents of provincial Russia to gauge their engagement with politics locally and nationally. A kind of political biography that records the ebbs and flows of Russian provincial life. How have Russians responded to their government’s invasion of Ukraine? How do they regard the past, present, and possible future of Russia? What issues concern and motivate them to political action? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Jeremy about his new book, Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance to get an on-the-ground view of Russian political life. Guest: Jeremy Morris is Professor of Global Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark. He’s the author of Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance published by Bloomsbury Academic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    59 min
  5. Ukraine's Euromaidan

    MAR 23

    Ukraine's Euromaidan

    In the winter of 2013-14, protests erupted in Kyiv, Ukraine. Their goal was to oppose President Viktor Yanukovich’s rejection of the EU Association Agreement. Many protesters saw the Agreement as a meaningful step for Ukraine to enter the European orbit. And the protests might have fizzled. But the massacre of over 120 people by police snipers on 20 February, 2014, inspired hundreds of thousands more to enter the streets, seize government buildings, and occupy city centers. The protests quickly spread throughout Ukraine. The Euromaidan proved a historical turning point. The Yanukovich regime fell, Russia seized Crimea, and pro-Russian forces seized Donbas city centers. What were the short and long term causes of this revolution? Was it a revolution? What were its participants' aspirations? And how did the euphoric desire for a democratic, European Ukraine devolve into a mad spiral short of civil war? Longtime friend of the pod, William Risch was in Kyiv in those initial days. Now he’s combined his experiences with research to produce a new critical history of the Euromaidan. The Eurasian Knot spoke to Bill about the maidan, the chaos of those days, and its legacies in Ukraine and the region at large. Guest: William Jay Risch is Professor of History at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia. He’s the author of The Ukrainian West: Culture and the Fate of Empire in Soviet Lviv. His new book is Ukraine's Euromaidan: From Revolutionary Euphoria to the Madness of War published by Bloomsbury Academic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 3m
  6. KGB Same-Sex Honey Traps

    MAR 16

    KGB Same-Sex Honey Traps

    One of the most salacious and storied methods of KGB spycraft during the Cold War was the honey trap. Agents would get an informant to seduce a target, usually a Westerner deemed important. Then use that encounter as blackmail. We’re all aware of this thanks to movies and television. What we know nothing about are same-sex honey traps. The KGB’s use of homosexual men to seduce other men, whether said men were gay or not. Officials, academics, businessmen and other power positions were targets. How do we know about these operations? Well, because of the intrepid research of historian Irina Roldugina. Roldugina got access to KGB files related to same-sex operations and found more information in, of all things, declassified US government documents related to the Kennedy Assassination. How did these operations work? Who did the KGB tap for same-sex seduction? What do these documents tell us? And what did the KGB think of homosexuality in general? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Irina about her recent article, “The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus” published in the Fall 2025 issue of Journal of Cold War Studies.  Guest: Irina Roldugina is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol. She’s the author of several articles on queer history in the Soviet Union. Her most recent is “The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus” published in the Fall 2025 issue of Journal of Cold War Studies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    43 min
  7. The Bolshevik Rank and File

    MAR 9

    The Bolshevik Rank and File

    In 1917, the Bolshevik Party had roughly 24,000 members. A decade later, it boasted about 1.2 million. Recruitment came in waves and so did the purges. Still, Party members were found at the top and bottom of the system. In the Kremlin and in the factories. The Party rank and file were vital to the establishment of the Soviet system, its day-to-day functioning, and the human material for campaigns whether they be for literary, industrialization, collectivization or terror. But who were these people? How engaged were they in politics? Were they a constituency for Party leaders to appeal to or was the rank and file mere material to be mobilized and directed without its own agency? There are few studies looking at the Party at the shop floor and its place in shaping Soviet socialism. Yiannis Kokosalakis’ book Building Socialism does just that. The Eurasian Knot spoke to Kokosalakis to learn more about the role of the Bolshevik rank and file in the early Soviet system. Guest: Yiannis Kokosalakis is a visiting researcher at Bielefeld University. He’s the author of Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921-1941 published by Cambridge University Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    57 min
  8. Stalin's Last Days

    MAR 5

    Stalin's Last Days

    Joseph Stalin died today, March 5, seventy-three years ago. So, I thought it would be a good idea to dig out, re-edit and remaster, the interview I did with Joshua Rubenstein back in 2018 about the dictator’s final days. What did Stalin focus on in the final years of his life? How did Soviet leadership react to his death? Soviet society? And internationally? Let’s revisit what Rubenstein had to tell us from his book, The Last Days of Stalin. Guest: Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He’s the author of several books on Soviet history. His most recent is The Last Days of Stalin published by Yale University Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    36 min
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4.8
out of 5
190 Ratings

About

To many, Russia, and the wider Eurasia, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. But it doesn’t have to be. The Eurasian Knot dispels the stereotypes and myths about the region with lively and informative interviews on Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. New episodes drop weekly with an eclectic mix of topics from punk rock to Putin, and everything in-between. Subscribe on your favorite podcasts app, grab your headphones, hit play, and tune in. Eurasia will never appear the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    The Eurasian Knot
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2026
  • Episodes
    359
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    Copyright © The Eurasian Knot 2023
  • Show Website
    The Eurasian Knot

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