Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Black October: The Migration Of Black Americans To The Soviet Union In The Interwar Period, Alice Volfson

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

Through an in-depth look at first-person accounts, primary documents, and archival research, this project broadens the scope of information available about the interwar migration of Black Americans to the Soviet Union for agricultural, industrial, and artistic initiatives which helped advance the Socialist Project. These men and women had different motivations for their emigration stemming from racial solidarity with various Soviet peoples, economic reasonings, and safety from American racism. This paper hopes to bring to life the stories of those whose legacies have been lost to history by uncovering their lives under communism, their achievements and recognitions, and that of their …

Out Of Odesa: Yefim Ladyzhensky And The "Odesa Text" Of Jewish-Soviet Culture, Beatrice Voorhees

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

This honors thesis analyzes the artwork of Odesan Jewish painter Yefim Ladyzhensky by incorporating information from his unpublished essay collection to contextualize selections from his body of artwork. Ladyzhensky was born in 1911 in Odesa, Russian Empire, and died in 1982 in Israel. He began his artistic career as a set designer, and branched into easel painting in the 1960s, later emigrating to Jerusalem. My project focuses on two major painting series of his, Odessa of My Youth, a collection of over two hundred paintings of childhood scenes, and Red Cavalry, based on Isaac Babel’s short story cycle of the …

Fostering Communist Elites: Cold War Czechoslovakia's Foreign Student Program, Emily Hackett

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

During the Cold War, educational policy became a strategic and consequential avenue of soft power. Countries on both sides of the East-West divide developed travel and study exchanges to cultivate relationships with other countries, and to prepare future generations for work in an increasingly internationalized world. Despite supporting a fear of foreigners and isolating people from travel outside of the Communist bloc, the Soviet Union sponsored select students from other countries to study in its institutions of higher education.

This thesis aims to provide insight into the structure and events of the Czechoslovak foreign student program with the Soviet Union …

Museum Representations Of Contested Spaces: The Kuril Islands, Emily Sandall

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a boom of museums focused on the Ainu cultural subject has emerged in both Russia and Japan. By conceptualizing museums as nonneutral and culturally embedded productions which attempt to convey knowledge of foreign spaces to home spaces, this thesis will analyze the ways in which various museum institutions in Russia and Japan, as well as those produced by Ainu activist groups, choose to tell certain stories about the disputed Kuril Island territories and the Ainu people, and to map those stories within the broader colonial framework of the Kuril Islands dispute and indigenous …

Skeletons In The Soviet Closet: The Last Tsar And His Family In The Early Soviet Era, 1918-1937, Olivia Chap

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Competing For The Motherland: Sports Spectacle And Nationalism During The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Tara Law

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

The Russian state guided the extended narration of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games, and hence the reproduction of the Russian nation in the months preceding the spectacle. The Sochi Olympics proffered a vision of Russian national identity before a global mass audience, but also to the Russian nation itself. The Olympics courted the gaze of the Russian national audience, drawing its attention to the accomplishments of individual Russians. The image of Russia constructed during the Games was of a robust, modern nation guided by a strong state under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. Combining athletic and artistic elements, …

Gender In The Everyday Life Of The Russian Home, Jyoti Arvey

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

Despite significant shifts in Russia’s social and political spheres since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, traditional gender norms within the domestic sphere have remained generally constant to the present day. The home is a crucial site of gender identity construction due to its importance in Russian culture as a space that has long functioned as a refuge from public life and official discourse. Based on ethnographic interviews with twenty residents of Ufa about their daily practices in the domestic sphere, this study aims to illuminate the domestic social structures within the Russian home in order to achieve …