The Slavic Connexion

Connexions
  • 4.9 (39)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

An international chat show on the politics, history, current events, and peoples of the Slavic world, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin's Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Clements Center for National Security. Whether you're a Slavophile, a foreign affairs junkie, or simply a curious mind, The Slavic Connexion offers insightful, accessible, and even fun discussions on the sprawling region in the context of our hyperconnected world. "It's not typical Texas..."

  1. 08/21/2025

    Harry Potter and Putin’s Russia: Fantasy, Fandom, and Politics with Eliot Borenstein

    What happens when Harry Potter arrives in Russia just as Vladimir Putin rises to power? Cullan and Lera speak with returning guest Dr. Eliot Borenstein (NYU), author of the new book The Politics of Fantasy: Magic, Children’s Literature, and Fandom in Putin’s Russia, to unpack how Western fantasy franchises, particularly Harry Potter, were translated, adapted, and politicized in Russia. From Orthodox denunciations of wizardry and bizarre propaganda flops like Kids vs. Wizards, to the homegrown parody heroine Tanya Grotter, Dr. Borenstein explores the strange cultural afterlife of global fantasy in post-Soviet Russia. We also dive into the politics of art and artists, the ethics of fandom in the age of J.K. Rowling, and how pop culture shapes—and distorts—Russian views of themselves and the West. We hope you enjoy! Producer's Note: This episode was recorded via Zoom on August 8, 2025. ABOUT THE GUEST Eliot Borenstein is Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies and Vice Chancellor and Vice Provost for Global Programs at New York University, where he oversees NYU’s global sites and study away programs. He is the author of Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929 (2001 AATSEEL book prize), Overkill: Sex and Violence in Contemporary Russian Popular Culture (2008 AWSS book prize), Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (2020 Wayne S. Vucinich book prize and 2020 AATSEEL book prize), Pussy Riot: Speaking Punk to Power (Bloomsbury, 2020), Meanwhile, in Russia…: Russian Internet Memes and Viral Video (Bloomsbury, 2022), Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World Inside Your Head (Cornell, 2023),  Soviet-Self-Hatred: The Secret Identities of Postsocialism (Cornell, 2023), and HBO’s The Leftovers: Mourning and Melancholy on Premium Cable (Lexington Books, 2023).  More information can be found on his website: https://www.eliotborenstein.net

    58 min

  2. 04/19/2025

    Remembering the Forgotten: Eastern Europe’s Migrant Experience

    On this episode, Cullan speaks with sociology professor Lisa Wisniewski of Goodwin University about her new book exploring the lived experiences of Slavic Americans and the cultural, political, and emotional landscapes they navigate as immigrants. Drawing from personal narratives and interdisciplinary research, Dr. Wisniewski unpacks how migration shapes identity, memory, and belonging in both Eastern and Western contexts. This was a compelling and important conversation on diaspora, displacement, and the buried stories that are part of our recent past which connect us across borders and across generations. Thanks for listening! Read more about Dr. Wisniewski's work: https://www.goodwin.edu/enews/navigating-american-education-as-eastern-european-immigrant/ About the Guest Dr. Lisa Wisniewski is a professor of Sociology at Goodwin University. Lisa completed her Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) focused on Educational Leadership from the University of Hartford in 2017. Her research has focused on immigrant students, first-generation college students, and effective teaching practices using Universal Design for Learning. Dr. Wisniewski presents regionally, nationally, and internationally. Most recently she served as the State Chair for the Connecticut American Council on Education Women’s Network. Her work in the community focused on the immigrant experience has led to invitations to the White House and the Polish Consulate of New York City. As an advocate for college access for first-generation students, she has worked with several groups and organizations throughout Connecticut to support students navigate the college process. Lisa created and hosts a lecture series called Community Conversations that began the conversation on the war in Ukraine and presents lectures on immigration, citizenship, democracy, social issues, and globalization that has garnered a national and international audience. In addition, she serves as the host of Goodwin Teaches: Universal Design for Learning Stories in Higher Education podcast.

    51 min

  3. 03/03/2025

    Tower of Mud and Straw: War and Propaganda Through the Lens of Sci-Fi

    In this episode, we sit down with Russian-born author Yaroslav Barsukov, whose life and work are deeply intertwined with the political upheavals of modern Russia. Growing up in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, Barsukov witnessed firsthand the rise of Vladimir Putin before immigrating to Vienna in 2005. From there, he observed as Russia's trajectory culminated in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. We discuss Barsukov’s personal experiences with Russian propaganda, his insights into the manipulation of truth, and how his experience-informed writing tends to forecast dystopian reality in eerily accurate ways. About the Guest Yaroslav Barsukov, an author with a unique background in physics and software engineering, has emerged as a distinctive voice in the realm of speculative fiction. Born in Cold War-era Moscow and educated at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and Austria's Vienna University of Technology, Barsukov initially pursued a career in software engineering. His entry into the literary world was serendipitous, stemming from his involvement in game development where he translated a companion tale to a game's mythology. This experience marked the beginning of his journey as a writer, and he started crafting short stories in English around 2014. Barsukov's work is celebrated for its innovative blend of fantasy and science fiction elements, diverging from the traditional hard-science SF model. His acclaimed novella "Tower of Mud and Straw" was shortlisted for the Nebula Award and received a Kirkus Star, demonstrating his prowess in weaving narratives that explore the human condition through a speculative lens. His stories, characterized by high-fantasy filigree and physics reminiscent of alchemy, have appeared in renowned publications such as Galaxy's Edge, Nature: Futures, and StarShipSofa. Barsukov's literary influences span from Russian maestros like Leo Tolstoy to American science fiction authors, shaping his unique storytelling style that transcends genre boundaries. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 28, 2024 via Zoom. If you have questions, comments, or would like to be a guest on the show, please email slavx@connexions.ai and we will be in touch! PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Michelle Daniel Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig Associate Producer: Basil Fedun Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Background music by Ben Geraci, Denys Brodovskyi, Alex Productions. Closing Theme by Charlie Harper. Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel www.msdaniel.com #Russia #Ukraine #Putin #Disinformation #SpeculativeFiction #Propaganda #YaroslavBarsukov #TheSlavicConnexion

    42 min

  4. 01/07/2025

    Degrees of Freedom: Women Under Serfdom in Russia

    What was life like for Russian women under serfdom? In this episode, Cullan talks with the expert on this subject, Dr. Tracy Dennison, a historian and professor at Caltech. Based on her talk by the same name, Tracy explores how societal structures shaped and limited women's choices, opportunities, and constraints under different ruling families. Thanks for listening, and Happy 2025! About the Guest Tracy Dennison studies institutions and their effects on long-term growth and development. She is especially interested in the roots of economic divergence between east and west Europe, and uses serfdom as a lens through which to examine institutional change over time. Dennison is interested in how specific societies worked in the past – how societal rules and norms affected human behavior and how and why this varied over space and time. Dennison's research to date has focused on these questions at the micro level, using local sources to investigate the ways that pre-modern entities like states, landlords, communities, and households influenced the economic, social, and demographic behavior of people in their everyday lives. In particular, she has studied estate policies and practices in imperial Russia, and the way that quasi-formal legal systems established by some wealthy landlords made it possible for their serfs to conduct property and credit transactions despite their ambiguous legal status. This was the subject of her 2011 book, The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom (Cambridge University Press), in which she argued that these micro-level practices had significant implications for the longer-term economic development of Russia. In her current project, Dennison is investigating these questions from a top-down perspective rather than the bottom-up approach taken previously. Comparing the abolition of serfdom in Prussia and in Russia, this research explores larger questions of political economy and state capacity and their implications for institutions and institutional change. How did the institutional structure of serfdom in central Europe differ from that in Russia and how did these differences matter to the process and outcomes of reform in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Dennison has also published on institutions and demographic behavior, comparative systems of serfdom, and on the importance of history and historical context in social science research. She is a regular contributor to Broadstreet Blog, an interdisciplinary forum which aims to bring research in historical political economy to a wider audience. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in November 11, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. If you have questions, comments, or would like to be a guest on the show, please email slavx@connexions.ai and we will be in touch! PRODUCTION CREDITS Host/Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig Associate Producer: Basil Fedun Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Background music by Denys Brodovskyi, Alex Productions. Closing Theme by Charlie Harper Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel www.msdaniel.com

    28 min

  5. 12/02/2024

    Unlocking Change: Meet the Prague Civil Society Centre

    On this episode, host Cullan chats with Siarhei of the Prague Civil Society Centre to discuss the transformative work of the organization and the power of the connections they build across Europe and Central Asia. If you've been tuning in for a while, you probably noticed that some of our most recent episodes were also recorded in Prague, during the Centre's Unlock 2024 conference. Unlock is a civic summit showcasing the latest trends at the nexus of activism, media and technology in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The call for applications and proposals for Unlock 2025 is now open, through December 29, 2024. https://www.praguecivilsociety.org/events/open-call-unlock-2025?lang=en Thanks for listening! PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in September 26, 2024 in Prague, Czechia. If you have questions, comments, or would like to be a guest on the show, please email slavx@connexions.ai and we will be in touch! PRODUCTION CREDITS Host/Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig Associate Producer: Basil Fedun Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Background music by Denys Brodovskyi, Alex Productions. Closing Theme by Charlie Harper Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel www.msdaniel.com

    31 min

  6. 10/06/2024

    The German Perspective: NATO, Ukraine, and Russian Information Operations

    On this episode, Basil speaks with Lieutenant Colonel Martin Wroblewski, PhD, a seasoned officer in the German Army with deep insights into the intricacies of European security dynamics. They delve into the German role in NATO and in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, as well as Russian information operations as they pertain to Germany. LTC Wroblewski shares his expertise on the importance of developing interoperability within NATO forces, the strategic partnership between America and Germany, the critical role of information operations in modern warfare, and strategies for enhancing resiliency in the face of evolving threats particularly in the cyber domain. Thanks for listening! ABOUT THE GUEST LTC Dr. Martin Wroblewski is a native of Germany and a graduate of the University of Bonn, Germany. LTC Wroblewski joined the German Army as an active duty officer in 2016. He graduated from Infantry School in Hammelburg, German Army Officer School in Dresden and the German PSYOP Officer Qualification and Advanced Course in Mayen. Additionally, he attended various courses on Human Intelligence, Behavior Analysis, Advanced Target Audience Analysis as well as several PSYOP- and INFOOP-related trainings at the NATO School in Oberammergau. During his service at the Bundeswehr Operations Communication Center in Mayen, he served as an Information Environment Analyst and as the Sub-Unit Leader Target Audience Analysis of a Psyop Company. In 2019/2020 LTC Wroblewski was deployed with the 6th German Contingent to Enhanced Forward Presence in Rukla, Lithuania. There he held the position of Chief Information Operations. After returning from deployment his duty focus was on the refinement of TAA processes, eFP-related instructor duties, and product development in regards to hybrid threats with a regional emphasis on eastern Europe. In June 2021 he successfully completed the PSYOP Qualification Course at USAJFKSWCS. Starting in September 2021 he serves as an XO with the 6th Psychological Operations Battalion (Airborne) in Fort Liberty (previously Fort Bragg), NC. LTC Wroblewski holds a Master of Arts in Medieval and Modern History, Constitutional, Social and Economic History as well as Modern English Language and Literature from the University of Bonn, Germany. In 2016 he graduated from the PhD program at the University of Bonn in History after an extensive research project with the German Foreign Ministry. Before his career as an active duty officer, LTC Dr. Wroblewski had several years of experience as a private school teacher and public relations consultant. His military awards and decorations include the German and Lithuanian Deployment Medal, the German PSYOP Badge in bronze as well as other medals and awards. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in September 2024. If you have questions, comments, or would like to be a guest on the show, please email slavx@connexions.ai and we will be in touch! PRODUCTION CREDITS Host/Assistant Producer: Basil Fedun Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig (@cullanwithana) Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Main Theme by Charlie Harper and additional background music by Beat Mekanik, Alex Productions, Dirk Dehler, Joey Hendrixx Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel | slavx.org | connexions.ai Visit the Texas Podcast Network for more great podcasts.

    21 min

  7. 09/29/2024

    "Bad Romance": Sex, Spies, and Lies from the Cold War

    On this episode, Josh Sanborn joins Lera and Sergio to talk about his latest cultural research on spies and spy fiction from the Cold War, and the fascinating interplay between the Intelligence Community and the fiction world. In his forthcoming book project Bad Romance, Josh unpacks famed novels such as From Russia with Love and Soviet films and how the portrayal of espionage and covert action differs between the West and the USSR. Thanks for listening! About the Guest Joshua Sanborn is professor of history at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire (Oxford University Press, 2014), Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003), and the co-author of Gender, Sex, and the Shaping of Modern Europe, 3rd revised and expanded edition (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is currently working on a new project on scientists, spies, and the narratives created about them in the Cold War.  He teaches a variety of courses on the history of Russia and Eastern Europe, including surveys of Russian history and seminars on the global history of 1968, the Cold War, and on human rights. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in Chicago at the 2022 ASEEES Convention. If you have any questions, email us at slavx@connexions.ai. PRODUCTION CREDITS Hosts: Lera Toropin, Sergio Glajar Assistant Producer: Katherine Birch Assistant Producer: Basil Fedun Assistant EP: Misha Simanovskyy (@MSimanovskyy) Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig (@cullanwithana) Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Production Assistant: Faith VanVleet Supervising Producer: Nicholas Pierce SlavX Editorial Director: Sam Parrish Main Closing Theme by Charlie Harper and additional background music by Alex Productions, Audiorezout); sound bites from "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love" Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel | www.msdaniel.com | https://connexions.ai

    29 min

  8. 09/15/2024

    Stable Division: Belarus & the Continued Battle for Democracy

    "When we think about the War in Ukraine, we should think about Belarus as well," says Ryhor Astapenia, founder and research director of the Centre for New Ideas, a Minsk-based non-partisan civil society organization promoting democratic reforms in Belarus. On this episode, Ryhor shares with us about the importance of Belarus in the European security theater, the role of independent media in promoting democracy among Belarussians, and Aleksandr Lukashenko's support for Putin's agenda and the Russian wartime economy. Thanks for listening. PRODUCER'S NOTE: This episode was recorded in Prague, Czechia at the Unlock 2024 summit presented by the Prague Civil Society Centre. Visit ⁠⁠https://unlockprague.com⁠⁠ for more information. PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Nicholas Pierce Assistant Producer: Katherine Birch Assistant Producer: Basil Fedun Assistant EP: Misha Simanovskyy (@MSimanovskyy) Associate Producer: Cullan Bendig (@cullanwithana) Associate Producer: Sergio Glajar Production Assistant: Faith VanVleet Supervising Producer: Nicholas Pierce SlavX Editorial Director: Sam Parrish Main Closing Theme by Charlie Harper and additional background music by Alex Productions, Beat Mekanik, Audiorezout) Executive Producer & Creator: Michelle Daniel (@M_S_Daniel) www.msdaniel.com | https://connexions.ai

    20 min
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4.9
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About

An international chat show on the politics, history, current events, and peoples of the Slavic world, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin's Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and Clements Center for National Security. Whether you're a Slavophile, a foreign affairs junkie, or simply a curious mind, The Slavic Connexion offers insightful, accessible, and even fun discussions on the sprawling region in the context of our hyperconnected world. "It's not typical Texas..."

Information

  • Creator
    Connexions
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2025
  • Episodes
    215
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Connexions
  • Show Website
    The Slavic Connexion