Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

Russian Linguistic Policy In The Post-Soviet World, Payton G. Deichler

The Dialogue

This paper examines the role of the Russian language as an instrument of soft power in the post-Soviet space, arguing that its geopolitical influence extends beyond demographic prevalence to the institutional frameworks through which it is promoted and mediated. Rather than functioning solely as a neutral medium of communication, Russian operates as an infrastructural component of influence that shapes access to media ecosystems, educational systems, and professional mobility across former Soviet republics. Drawing on the concept of a “Monopoly of Interpretation,” this study proposes that the centralized, state-linked promotion of Russian enables the consolidation of political narratives within shared linguistic …

Religious And Cultural Dimension Of The "Ringing Cedars Of Russia" Movement In The Context Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Lukyanenko, Vitaly Dmytrenko, Vita Dmytrenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to a comprehensive religious analysis of the neo-religious movement “The Ringing Cedars of Russia,” based on the works of Vladimir Megre and the image of the prophetess Anastasia. The study covers the ideological and doctrinal foundations of the movement, its socio-cultural practices, the functioning of tribal settlements, as well as mechanisms of influence on individual and collective consciousness. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of “Vedrussia”, the sacralization of “Russian space” and the mythologization of Russia’s calling to revive the “primitive civilization of harmony.” The analysis shows that the movement, while declaring ecological and humanistic …

Medical Minds, Literary Voices: The Intersection Of Healing And Storytelling In Russian Literature, Emily Doris Gervais

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

This project examines the intersection of medicine and literature through the works of Russian physicians who became influential authors. Focusing on Anton Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island, Vikenty Veresaev’s Memoirs of a Physician, and Mikhail Bulgakov’s A Young Doctor’s Notebook, this research highlights how their medical experiences shaped both their personal narratives and broader societal criticism. By analyzing the variation of both implicit, individual-centered stories and systemic, sociopolitical commentaries, the project reveals how these authors brought a unique clinical perspective to Russian literature. Their attention to detail, moral and ethical concerns, and use of medical language enriched their writings, imbuing their prose …

Maxim Gorky’S Illusionary Reformation Of Human Nature And The Rise Of The Soviet Citizen: Socialist Realism As A Constructive Force In Mother, Alysia Gayle Meyer

Honors Projects

This paper examines the origins and evolution of the Socialist Realism movement headed by Maxim Gorky, as a defining ideological and artistic framework of the Stalin era. Emerging in response to the experimental avant-garde movements of Revolutionary Russia, Socialist Realism sought to construct the ideal Soviet Reality, reimaging society and its citizens through the lens of collectivism, labor, and ideological purity. Central to this exploration is Gorky’s first major Socialist Realist novel, Mother, which serves as a blueprint for depicting the ideal Soviet citizen. By analyzing the motivations behind this movement and its portrayal of utopian ideals, this study reveals …

No Unified Ableukhov: Orientalism And Imperialism In Andrei Bely's Petersburg., Tuesday Shaw

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This project brings into dialogue the 1913 Russian novel Petersburg by Andrei Bely and postcolonial approaches to literature, primarily those developed by Edward Said in Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1994). Petersburg was the product of an artistic movement, Symbolism, that idealized breaking apart boundaries between artforms. Said’s notion of Orientalism, in contrast, is based on the idea that there is an essential division between “East” and “West.” While there might appear to be a tension in applying a theory premised on division to a work that apparently wants to dissolve all boundaries, attention to Petersburg’s depiction of …

Khrushchevka: A Historical And Economic Analysis Of Russian Housing, Privatization, And Urban Renewal In Putin’S Russia, Victoria A. Faulkner

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The Moscow Urban Renewal Initiative (Инициатива обновления городов Москвы, 2017-) is the joint project of President Vladimir Putin (1999-2008, 2012-) and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin (2010-) to remove dilapidated housing structures in Moscow. Since 2017, the programme has already displaced about 20,000 Muscovites, with plans to displace 1.5 million more by its completion goal of 2032. These displacements have revealed significant economic deficiencies in the post-Soviet market economy of the Russian Federation. Delays in the programme due to the COVID-19 pandemic have only escalated issues further – as has the War on Ukraine. Understanding the importance of the Moscow Urban …

Living By The Sword: Religiosity And The Terrorist Subculture Of Russian Revolutionaries, 1904-1910, Gregory I. Mcevoy

Dissertations and Theses

The Marxist dictum of “religion is the opiate of the masses” has led to a prevailing assumption in scholarship that the socialist movements of the early twentieth century have been inherently atheistic. Religion is often associated as a remnant of old, antiquated society and incompatible with the claimed modernity of socialist progress. This assumption has led to overlooking the religiosity within certain radical movements and revolutionary culture at large. Scholarship on the political underground in Tsarist Russia has, thus far, perpetuated this impression. While it is the true that the Bolsheviks and Leninist Social Democrats rejected religion as obscurantist and …

You Want Me To Do What? But I Can’T Read That... Cataloging Soviet Russia Space Exploration Books, Katherine Loving, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Ekaterina Kitova

Faculty Articles & Research

The Al Harris Library received a donation of the archive of retired astronaut General Thomas P. Stafford. The continually growing collection includes over 200 boxes containing NASA reports, professional and personal pictures, videos, and more. Part of the collection is the approximately 700 books used for research by Stafford and his co-author Michael Cassutt to write the memoir We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race (2002). Half of these books are a collection of Soviet-era Russia (USSR) space program books and periodicals written in Russian. Michael Cassutt has characterized the books as the most comprehensive collection about the …

Digital Dissidence: Russian Foreign Agents And The Media Of Opposition, Matthew Mangold

Russian Language Journal

Over the last ten years the Russian state has veered steadily toward authoritarianism, passing new socially repressive laws and harnessing television and radio to state propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine and the west. At the same time, platforms like Vimeo and Youtube have made uploading, sharing, and viewing digital content in high-quality formats more accessible to author-producers and viewers globally. These social changes have been followed by a movement of independent, fact-grounded digital storytelling built on documentary forms and deft investigative reporting that reveals the Russian state’s negligence, corruption, and efforts at social control. This article addresses the digital environment …

The Intersection Of Foreign Influence And Democratization: A Case Study Of Eurasian Powers Influence On Belarus’ Democratic Movement Since 2020, Dalton Xavier Maggs

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2020, the world took notice of Belarus’ dictator, Alexander Lukashenko’s brutal repression of the Belarusian people, demonstrating their wish to topple his hybrid authoritarian regime to make way for a liberated and democratic Belarus. While that wish has yet to be achieved, the question of “How do the regional powers of Eurasia influence the internal democratization struggle of Belarus?” has been vital to understanding geopolitics over the past three years. Through analysis of government reports, statements, and interviews with experts in the Eurasian region, I showcase the foreign policies of the U.S., EU, Russia, and China relating to Belarus. …

Minority Language Education In Russia: An Example Of Social And Cultural Reproduction And Correspondence Theories, Nadezhda Braun

Russian Language Journal

Russia is an incredibly diverse country, both linguistically and ethnically. However, Russia is often presented, and presents itself, as a monolith. Russia’s approach to minority language teaching further perpetuates this monolithic view by creating a hierarchical language structure with Russian at the top. This hierarchy is created through societal pressure, language requirements in the Russian education system, and the minimization of minority language instruction, in direct contrast to best practices for language instruction. Chuvash in Chuvashia and Nenets, Khanty, and Selkup in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug serve as examples of this linguistic hierarchy. This paper uses social and cultural reproduction …

Baba Yaga: An Ecofeminist Analysis Of The Witch Of The Woods, Maya Lozinsky

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I will argue that Baba Yaga’s prevalence in Russia’s culture and media provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into the junctures between the climate crisis and gender inequality in Russia. Despite the persistent gender inequities present in current Russian society, ecofeminist frameworks and ideologies are already deeply embedded in Russian culture. Women, as a group, have always been politically active in Russia, from resisting the introduction of Christianity in the 9th century, to the feminist resistance group Pussy Riot founded in 2011. I will examine Baba Yaga’s history, her role in the Russian folktale, and her …

Russian And Ukrainian: Like Two Drops Of Water, Elizabeth Edwards

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Ukraine and Russia, both in the international spotlight, have similar national languages that are often misrepresented as being entirely mutually intelligible. While both languages do, in fact, have the same lineage, Ukraine has, over time, developed linguistic independence in a distinct language separate from Russian. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has renewed public interest in both the Ukrainian and Russian languages, but there are still stark differences, both socio-politically and linguistically, which are not widely known or appreciated. A brief, historical description of a few lexical, phonological, and orthographic differences between the two languages can illustrate the importance of …

Russia's Agenda For Ukraine: An Examination Of Putin's Media Propaganda Narratives, Gillian Grace Littleton

Honors Theses

This thesis explores Russian discourse about Ukraine as reflected in Russian popular media since 2014’s Euromaidan Revolution. The thesis provides an overview of Russia’s historic denial of Ukrainian statehood and it argues: Russian historians and politicians have seen Ukraine as a “little-brother” nation to Russia, with a shared Slavic heritage, and that any attempts by Ukrainians to separate themselves from Russia are Western influence movements. The thesis examines three types of mass media in order to demonstrate the interaction between history, politics and popular culture. Chapter 1 explores the public speeches of key Russian political figures including Vladimir Putin himself, …

Patriotism, Polarization And War: The Consequences Of Divergent Meanings Of Patriotism In Russia And The United States, Jackson Galstad

Political Science Theses and Capstones

From the knee taken by Colin Kaepernick in America, to the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the views and attitudes that lie behind these actions revolve around the concepts of patriotism and nationalism. With two of the world’s superpowers wrestling with conflict in their ideas of what these terms mean, I examine the meaning of these ideas within both countries. I do this after reviewing existing literature and analyzing the International Social Survey Programme: National Identity data (ISSP). The ISSP is an international social science consortium that has been conducting surveys since 1984. I find important differences in patriotism, …

I Return My Ticket, Caroline Caldwell

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

This project serves to open up an accessible way to introduce people to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Questions around human nature and the problem of evil are enduring and I have found more peace in the works of Dostoevsky than anywhere else. I know, however, that Russian literature and long novels in general are incredibly intimidating, so I chose to follow in the footsteps of Dave Malloy and his work Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 to create an approachable and engaging avenue to consume Dostoevsky in a more palatable fashion. Knowledge of other cultures …

From Concert To Confrontation : The Ideational Motives Of Russia's Wars With Georgia (2008) And Ukraine (2014), Inguna Miller

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the ideational background of Russian foreign policy, with a particular focus on ideas relevant to Russia’s conflicts with Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Two broad approaches to Russian foreign policy – nationalism and pragmatism – present distinct views on Russia’s international role. Nationalism incorporates strong anti-Western and neo-imperialistic ideas with emphasis on Russia’s unique international mission and advocates a confrontational stance. Pragmatism conceptualizes Russia as a great world power but proposes a concert-based foreign policy that avoids a direct military confrontation. Both schools of thought are prevalent in Russia’s foreign policy discourse, and their ideas …

"Russian Overseas Flagship" И Языковая Ситуация В Казахстане, Элеонора Д. Сулейменова

Russian Language Journal

The image of Kazakhstan as a multilingual country is associated with the metonymic identification of its constituent ethnic groups and 117 local languages. The dynamics of the linguistic situation (1970-2019) indicate a strong tendency towards linguistic homogeneity. Ethnic groups at demographic risk, divorced from their historic homelands, are immersed in a rapid shift towards the Russian language. The demonstrated vitality of the languages of individual ethnic groups is related to the specifics of their respective proficiencies in Kazakh and Russian. Evidence of the emergence of a regional variant of the Russian language is cited and carefully reviewed, but found to …

Issues Of Modernity In Russian And U.S. Southern Discourse: Literary And Cinematic Crosscurrents, Zachary John Killebrew

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation traces formulations of modernity, national and regional identity, and economy in the literature and film of Russia and the U.S. South from serfdom to the Second World War. Studying serf and slave narratives, Russian Realist and Southern Renaissance novels such as The Brothers Karamazov (1879), Demons (1872), The Sound and the Fury (1929), Tobacco Road (1932), and Wise Blood (1952), and American and Soviet films such as Volga, Volga (1938) and Cabin in the Sky (1943), this examination locates within Russo-Southern discourses a shared interest in striking out against Western or Northern epistemologies to assert a “peripheral” modernity …

Retro-Future In Post-Soviet Dystopia, Sergey Toymentsev

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Retro-Future in Post-Soviet Dystopia” Sergey Toymentsev explores the vision of retrospective future in such Russian novels as Tatiana Tolstaya’s The Slynx, Vladimir Sorokin’s Day of the Oprichnik, Olga Slavnikova’s 2017, and Dmitry Bykov’s Zhd. Unlike Zamyatin’s and Platonov’s anti-Soviet satires, post-Soviet dystopias do not respond to any utopian narrative, but project the historical and ideological reality of Russia’s violent (predominantly Soviet) past into the future. Such a traumatic reenactment of the Soviet past in the dystopian future testifies to the rise of authoritarianism in contemporary Russia as well as its incomplete collective memory …

Introduction. Dialogues With Shklovsky: The Duvakin Interviews 1967-1968., Slav N. Gratchev, Irina Evdokimova

Modern Languages Faculty Research

Dialogues with Shklovsky: The Duvakin Interviews 1967–1968 reflects the spirit of times—when the most dramatic events of the twentieth century were happening in Russia and the USSR. The first English translation of the 1967–1968 interviews with the founder of the Formalist School of literary theory, Viktor Shklovsky, this volume offers a slice of Russian micro-history that relies on the living voice of that history. Through the transcription of a six-hour phono-document, the readers will hear the voice of a real participant in events that for the longest time in the USSR were forbidden to be discussed or written about.

Don Quixote In Russia In The 1920s-1930s: The Problem Of Perception And Interpretation, Slav N. Gratchev

Modern Languages Faculty Research

This study logically continues my previous examination of the perception of Don Quixote in Russia throughout the early twentieth century and how this perception changed over time. In this new article, which will be the third in a sequence of five, I will again use a number of materials inaccessible to English-speaking scholars to demonstrate how the perception of Don Quixote by Russian intelligentsia shifted from being skeptical to complete admiration and even glorification of the hero. Don Quixote was increasingly compared with Prometheus, the most powerful and most romanticized personage of Greek methodology. Indeed, “. . . начав юмористический …

Blood, Water And Mars: Soviet Science And The Alchemy For A New Man, Sophie Y. Andarovna

All Master's Theses

The themes of blood, water and Mars in Soviet science and technology show the strong utopian and even religious foundations of Soviet society, which invariably centered around forging a new environment and, in so doing, a new variety of human to inhabit it. In the minds and experiments of some of the radical men behind Russia’s Revolution, blood was to create a more advanced, biologically “equal” humanity capable of potential immortality, while water was harnessed with the millenarian aim of transforming the Soviet Union’s vast landscape into fields of bountiful fertility, as well as cities of efficient industry. Mars represents …

Russian Heritage Language Speakers In The U.S.: A Profile, Olga Kagan

Russian Language Journal

Brecht and Ingold (2002) advocate systematic efforts to develop heritage language (HL) pedagogy to remedy U.S. language deficits: “…because of [heritage language learners’(HLLs’)] existing language and cultural knowledge, they may require substantially less instructional time than other learners to develop these skills. This is especially true for speakers of the less commonly taught languages” (p. 1).

Russian is one of those less commonly taught languages in the U.S. that is critically important for national security and the global economy. Since the early 1970s, when a large wave of Russian-speaking immigrants began to settle in the U.S., American universities have had …

Piloting A Dynamic Assessment Model: Russian Nominal Morphology As A Building Block For L2 Listening Development, Rimma Ableeva, Olga Thomason

Russian Language Journal

Second language (L2) Russian research identifies listening comprehension as the least developed language ability among university students and points to the importance of listening instruction in Russian programs (e.g., Rifkin 2005; Comer 2012a; Isurin 2013). For example, Rifkin (2005, 11) states that students typically exhibit an “intermediate-low level of L2 listening proficiency” after completion of a 4-year Russian program. According to Isurin (2013, 39), the survey conducted among L2 Russian learners and instructors acknowledged “listening comprehension as the most problematic area in students’ language proficiency in general.” Comer (2012a) attributes poor listening ability to insufficient teaching materials and activities as …

Lexical Profile Of L2 Russian Textbooks, Ekaterina Talalakina, Tony Brown, Mikhail Kamrotov

Russian Language Journal

Traditionally, the link between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension has been examined through the prism of lexical thresholds and vocabulary coverage (Milton 2009). Lexical thresholds represent the most frequent words in a language (i.e., lemmas, or dictionary forms of a word) and usually come in increments of 1,000. In relation to the Russian National Corpus, knowledge of the 1,000 most frequent lemmas allows for comprehension of 60% of a text’s vocabulary, 2,000 lemmas – 69%, and 10,000 – 85% (Lyashevskaya and Sharoff 2009, v). These figures support an earlier estimation by Brown (1996, 2), who claimed (without elaborating on what …

Russian Information Operations In The Soviet Strategic Framework, Kyle I. Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to illuminate how information operations supports Russia’s strategy for creating power for the state. Using classic military theory and Soviet strategy as the lens, the paper examines information operations in the context of the nature of war. The examination includes historical and contemporary Russian publications on warfare, as well as information operations case studies from Eastern Europe, Georgia and Crimea. Russia’s operations are found to be consistent with a strategy of attrition. The opponent's society is the primary target of information operations. The emphasis on information operations within contemporary Russian concepts of modern war indicate that the …

Cultural Differences In Russian And American Magazine Advertising: A Pragmatic Approach, Emily Furner

Russian Language Journal

Though some may think that TRANSLATION and LOCALIZATION are two words that represent the same function, many scholars make a distinction between the two terms, and some even add a third term, GLOBALIZATION, into the mix. Translator and localization specialist Bert Esselink (1998) perhaps best defined the distinctions in these terms: Globalization […] is typically used in a sales and marketing context, i.e., it is the process by which a company breaks free of the home markets to pursue business opportunities wherever their customers may be located. Translation is the process of converting written or displayed text or spoken words …

Review: Russian Science Fiction Literature And Cinema: A Critical Reader, Alla A. Smyslova, Alexandra Portice

Russian Language Journal

Anindita Banerjee’s critical reader provides excellent insight into the development of science fiction literature and cinema in Russia from the early nineteenth century all the way to the mid-2000s. The book features four sections, each of them comprising four articles by different authors, and an introduction from the editor. The latter provides a brief but brilliant overview of Russian nauchnaia fantastika, or “scientific fantasy,” positioning it within the context of literary, social, and scientific life in the USSR, as well as outlining the existing scholarship on the topic. From the very beginning, when the genre first emerged at the turn …

Margarita As Supernatural Woman: Bulgakov's Subversion Of The Superfluous Man In The Master And Margarita, Jana Marie Domanico

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The paper explores the shifting definitions of the superfluous man through Russian history through the 19th century up until the Soviet era. The paper then examines Mikhail Bulgakov's subversion of the character trope in The Master and Margarita through his creation of Margarita, the supernatural woman. The author critiques Bulgakov's character Margarita through a feminist lens and then proceeds to examine work from Russian female writers who are historically undervalued. By comparing The Master and Margarita to the work of Teffi and Tatyana Tolstaya, the author hopes to reveal that in their use of Russian folklore and magical realism, the …