Recent Episodes
Soviet Modernity
Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941Crossing Borders: Modernity, Ideology, and Culture in Russia an...
Terror and Democracy in the Soviet Union
Wendy Goldman has researched and written about the Soviet Union for almost 40 years. And her topics have been wide ranging– women, feminism, revolution, labor, political violence, war and survival. But if there is one through...
Withering Water in Central Asia and East Africa
Water is life. A cliché and undeniable reality. So, what happens when climate change imperils water access? This episode, the second in our Eurasian Environments series, features a discussion with Sarah Cameron and Enda Wangu...
Climate Change and Authoritarianism
Debates about climate change and what to do about it occur a perilous political climate. It’s a problem that requires international cooperation. But elected politicians increasingly deny climate change, break global agreement...
Recording Georgians in WWI POW Camps
In 1916, the German anthropologist Rudolf Pöch and musicologist Robert Lach set out to the Eger prisoner of war camp with a unique research agenda: to record the language and folk songs of Georgian prisoners from the Russian ...
Intellectual Roots of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism has so many meanings that some say it has no meaning. Nailing down a consensus is also hampered by the fact that no one calls themselves a “neoliberal.” There’s even calls to abandon the term altogether since it...
Saving Seeds During the Siege of Leningrad
In 1941, as Nazi forces laid siege to Leningrad, a group of Soviet botanists faced an unthinkable choice: eat their life’s work, a rare seed bank, or starve to death. This is the dilemma at the heart of Simon Parkin’s story a...
Russian Antifa vs Neo-Nazis
Vladimir Kozlov’s new book Shramy (Scars) explores street battles between anti-fascists and neo-Nazi skinheads in Moscow during the late 2000s. Kozlov is no stranger to these subcultures. He’s long been involved in Russian pu...
Romani Music and NGOs
Who speaks for whom within the Romani rights movement today? This is the question that drives Adriana Helbig’s investigation into the relationship between development aid and Romani musicians in her book, Resounding Poverty ....
Introducing: The Eurasian Climate Brief
The 2024 UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) ended in late November in Baku. Two weeks of intense climate negotiations unveiled deep divides—particularly between the Global North and South over climate finance and contentiou...
The Russia and China Brain Trusts
Who are those “experts” who sit in Washington DC and come up with policy toward China and Russia? You know, those academics, journalists, and think-tankers who generate the knowledge US officials rely on? David McCourt’s new ...
A Tale of Two Nationalisms
Nationalists are not born. They are made. But how? That journey is far trickier. Fabian Baumann’s award-winning book, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism , traces how one family in 19th-cent...
About the Hosts
Sean Guillory
Host and Producer
Sean Guillory is the founder and host of the Eurasian Knot. He's a historian of Russia/Soviet Union and a podcaster. But has since embraced the art of audio narrative. Sean works in the University of Pittsburgh's Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center where he holds the undistinguished title of Digital Scholarship Curator. He's a Los Angeleno at heart and misses three things about the City of Angels: the Lakers, In-N-Out Burger, and the weather. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for reasons he's still trying to figure out.
Rusana Novikov
Co-Host
Rusana Novikova is the co-host of The Eurasian Knot. She is currently completing her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from UC Berkeley. She writes about the intersections of environmental change, colonial history, and land development in Siberia and the Russian Far East. She also experiments with sensory ethnography, using the power of film and sound to immerse audiences in the lived experiences of her interlocutors. Listen to Ainu Fever, her first audio documentary.