Undergraduate Journal in Eastern European, Eurasian and Slavic Studies at UC Berkeley
editor's blog
Between East and West: The Origins and Revival of "Eurasianism" in Russia
Patrick Duan, Duke University
Russia bears a long history of insisting on an identity distinct from and in opposition to "the West." Beginning with the conversion of Kievan Rus' to Orthodox Christianity in 988 CE, Russian theology adopted a messianic-national narrative that bestowed upon the nation "an exceptional fate" separate from that of the Catholic-Latin Occident. Later, when Peter the Great famously imposed Westernizing reforms on the nation, the people responded with...
Lena and Iura: Two Adolescent Diarists' Conceptualizations of Gender and Age During the Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944)
Melinda Whalen, University of Washington, Seattle
During the Siege of Leningrad, the blokadniki (people of the blockade) suffered tremendously over 900 days, fighting to survive without ample food, electricity, or water. Encircled by German troops, Leningrad was cut off from the rest of the USSR for most of the war; the blokadniki often referred to their city as "the ring" or "the island." The deeply traumatic experiences of extreme isolation, deprivation, and death redefined Leningrad's cultural landscape...
Path to Salvation: Feminine Emulation of the Theotokos
Bridget Curtis, Notre Dame
When Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov preaches, ?all is like an ocean, all flows and is contiguous, and if you touch it in one place it will reverberate at the other end of the world,? the Elder stresses the endless power of agape, or active love: heartily and unceasingly loving one?s sinful neighbor, bringing death to the old, isolated self, and rebirth of a new self in communion with God and man (Dostoevsky 414). Teaching his fellow monks, Elder Zosima...
