The Eurasian Knot The Eurasian Knot



Communist Albania is often portrayed as a backwater, paranoid state with an eccentric dictator, Enver Hoxha. Basically, it was a joke, signified by the 750,000 bunkers littering the country. Of course, everyday life in Albania didn’t fit the stereotypes. Like many communist regimes, the Albanian Communist Party carried out a massive modernization campaign, a process that turned small agricultural communities into sites of industrial production. This is the story of Artan Hoxha’s microhistory Sugarland. The transformation of swampy Maliq into a major hub of sugar production. How did sugar transform the people of Maliq? And how did modernization in Albania intersect with that of postwar Europe? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Artan Hoxha about the impact of sugar on ordinary rural Albanian lives.

Guest:

Artan Hoxha is a historian of Southeastern Europe with a strong thematic interest in social and cultural transformations during the 20th century. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a researcher at the Institute of History in Tirana, Albania. He’s the author of Sugarland: The Transformation of the Countryside in Communist Albania published by Central European University Press.



A lot of interesting people pass through the University of Pittsburgh. And though I can’t catch them all, there are a few that I won’t to let go. The infamous Russian poet Dmitrii Bykov is one. Bykov visited Pittsburgh recently, and I didn’t hesitate to finagle a way to pull him into the studio. In this wide ranging conversation, Bykov spoke about the War in Ukraine, the role of art in politics, satire, his poisoning in 2019, protest, love and family. Bykov was quite an enjoyable guest–interesting, witty, and a good sense of humor. Be sure to check out this dive into the mind of Dmitrii Bykov.

Guest:

Dmitry Bykov is many things at once–a journalist, biographer, public intellectual, novelist, media personality, professor of literature, and poet. Bykov is the author of some 90 books, including five biographies, 12 novels, and 20 collections of poetry. He’s famous for “Citizen Poet” a series of YouTube videos where he satirizes Russian social and political realities through verse.

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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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