Book reviews and summaries of important lectures.
The author of a new paper on Sino-Russian relations has written that the fallout from the Ukraine crisis threatens to make that relationship “even more lopsided than before”. Vostok Cable’s Josh Black explores the current state of play, and asks whether the deepening financial ties between the two countries mask an ideological divergence. As part … Continue reading
The Needle and the Kazakh New Wave in the context of late Soviet cinema To follow up on the film and music event dedicated to the legendary Soviet musician Viktor Tsoi and his band Kino, Inese Strupule from Obskura discusses The Needle (1988), Tsoi’s rock persona, the Kazakh New Wave, and their place in the … Continue reading
Stephen Kotkin appeared at the London School of Economics to discuss the first volume of his trilogy on Stalin. Josh Black reviews the event. Princeton academic Stephen Kotkin is most famous for his deep dive into the Stalin-era industrial town Magnitorsk. Yet for his latest project, the historian has taken on Uncle Joe himself. The … Continue reading
John B. Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule, (July 2014: second, revised and expanded edition) Book review by Paul Hansbury One of the least credible claims made following the downing of Flight MH17 originated with separatist leader Igor Girkin, a.k.a. Strelkov. On 18 … Continue reading
On March 17, shortly after signing an agreement to add the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian Federation, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered an address to members of the Duma, Federal Council, other leading government officials and influential residents of Crimea. Harvard student Kimberly St Julian describes the speech as steeped in history (as Putin understands … Continue reading
Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and ex-NATO Secretary General Javier Solana painted a pessimistic picture of Ukraine’s future in Oxford University’s Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre’s Elliott Lecture. Josh Black was at St Antony’s College to hear their take on the events of the past few months. As Ukrainians in the Crimean peninsula voted – … Continue reading
The European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) is celebrating its tenth anniversary of taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights. To celebrate, it held a panel discussion at Pushkin House on a new law in Russia that requires NGOs to register as ‘foreign agents’ if they receive funding from outside of the country. … Continue reading
On Friday 4 October 2013, RAW in War hosted the seventh annual Anna Politkovskaya Award. Josh Black reports on a moving ceremony. Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated outside of her Moscow apartment on 7 October 2006. The journalist who did most to uncover the horrors of the Second Chechen War, she was a hero to many … Continue reading
Vostok Cable editor, Josh Black, reviews How The Beatles Rocked the Kremlin. The untold story of a noisy revolution. By: Leslie Woodhead. Publisher: Bloomsbury, New York, 2013. What began as the peak of youthful idealism collapsed under unprecedented cynicism, long before outsiders expected. Whether it was external influences, the corrupting influence of money, or sheer … Continue reading
Originally posted on Hungarian Spectrum:
A few days ago I promised to write something about a short essay by János Kornai, the famous Hungarian economist, on his encounter with Marxism. The essay, entitled “Marx egy kelet-európai értelmiségi szemével” (Marx through the eyes of an Eastern European intellectual), appeared in a volume of Kornai’s collected essays, Gondolatok…
Vostok Cable 