The Eurasian Knot

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The Eurasian Knot The Eurasian Knot treats your ears to stories about Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. But it doesn’t have to be. Eurasia will never appear the same.

To many, Russia, and the wider Eurasia, is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. The SRB Podcast dispels the stereotypes and myths about the region with lively and informative interviews on Eurasia’s complex past, present, and future. New episodes drop weekly with an eclectic mix of topics from punk rock to Putin, and everything in-between. Subscribe on your favorite podcasts app, grab your headphones, hit play, and tune in.

09/09/2025

Our guest this week is Jon Waterlow, Edinburgh-based author, historian, and fellow podcast host of Voices In The Dark. A multidisciplinary scholar, we focus this week on Soviet humor as seen through "It's Only a Joke, Comrade!"
jonwaterlow.com/only-a-joke-comrade

08/09/2025

What power do jokes have in authoritarian societies? Are they a criticism of the powers that be, a way to cope with the absurdity of everyday life, or merely self-delusional exercises in political agency?
Revisit our 2018 episode where we take on these questions in conversation with Jon Waterlow on his book, "Only A Joke, Comrade!"
patreon.com/posts/soviet-jokes-138424149

TODAY!Join the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies- REEES in conversation w...
08/09/2025

TODAY!
Join the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies- REEES in conversation with last week's EKP guest, Daniil Leiderman, for a discussion on gaming in the late Soviet era!
ucis.pitt.edu/creees/events/lets-play-perestroika

07/09/2025

Before this week's episode, revisit our conversation with longtime guest Brian Milakovsky to learn more about the intersection of Russia's destruction of Ukraine, historic European deforestation, and how national identity is found through the environment.
patreon.com/posts/deforestation-of-137412305

Calling all and indie video game fans- this week's episode is for you! Join us with guest Daniil Leiderman as we analy...
05/09/2025

Calling all and indie video game fans- this week's episode is for you!
Join us with guest Daniil Leiderman as we analyze the role of counterculture gaming from within an Eastern European lens.
patreon.com/posts/video-games-of-137950125

Enjoyed this week's episode? 👾If you live in the Pittsburgh area, make sure to check out next Monday's live lecture by o...
04/09/2025

Enjoyed this week's episode? 👾
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, make sure to check out next Monday's live lecture by our guest, Daniil Leiderman, as he discusses the "Perestroika" cultural revolution and it's impact on gaming.
ucis.pitt.edu/creees/events/lets-play-perestroika

Daniil Leiderman is an art historian who taught at Texas A&M University before joining University of Pittsburgh as an As...
04/09/2025

Daniil Leiderman is an art historian who taught at Texas A&M University before joining University of Pittsburgh as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2025. As a scholar, Daniil’s research focuses on underground and protest art in culture and video games.
patreon.com/posts/video-games-of-137950125

03/09/2025

Games have a long history. Several are centuries old. But a new crop of games has emerged over the last century. Elaborate board games, role playing games, and of course, video games. Today, video games are one of the most consumed forms of media entertainment. They inspire communities, live-action role playing, movies and other media. All of these have fostered new identities and ethics. And Eastern Europe has played an outsized role in this culture.
Enter Daniil Leiderman, the new Slavicist at the University of Pittsburgh. He says that games are a portal to a whole bunch of issues–identity, moral responsibility, agency, and cultural critique. The Eurasian Knot greeted Daniil with a conversation about gaming and Eastern Europe. How do games give players agency in crafting alternative histories? What role do Soviet and post-Soviet landscapes play? And what are the wider effects do games have on our lives outside the magic circle?
patreon.com/posts/video-games-of-137950125

26/08/2025

This week we check-in with frequent EK guest Brian Milakovsky to learn about the destruction of forests in Ukraine. How has the war accelerated the destruction of eastern Ukraine’s ecology, and what does this mean for the future?
patreon.com/posts/deforestation-of-137412305

25/08/2025

To commemorate the late J. Arch Getty, check out last week's remastered interview with James Harris on his book, "The Great Fear." An insightful look at common Soviet anxieties of invasion, uprising, and dissent, Harris weaves these themes in with the greater uses of violence within the regime.
patreon.com/posts/from-great-fear-136845045

21/08/2025

PLEASE SHARE!

This semester a Pitt undergraduate student and I are working on a podcast series called "Thresholds: Eastern European Immigration to the United States." Description of the project is below. We are planning to package this series for instructors to use in classrooms.
The project will include several 15 min, non-narrated, personal stories of immigration from EE/Former USSR to the United States.
We're looking for people who are willing to share their immigration experience to the United States.

Can you put us in contact with anyone? Please DM me.

We prefer to not feature immigrants who came to the US for grad school or an academic job. We'd rather feature "civilians." But we're not opposed either.

Here's the project description.

Thresholds: Eastern European Immigration to the United States
Over the last century, tens of millions of people quit Eastern Europe for the United States. The push-pull factors were many—war, poverty, instability, persecution at home and opportunity, refuge, and liberty abroad. But manna didn’t simply fall from the sky in America, however. Immigrants from Eastern Europe confronted many of the same challenges migrants do everywhere—exploitation, hardship, and discrimination.

Thresholds will grapple with these histories through a series of interviews with scholars and immigrants’ personal profiles. What pushed them to leave? What did they discover when they arrived? How did they change and be changed by American society? What opportunities and challenges did they face to become “American”? And what can we learn about immigration today?

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