Reexamining Russia’s history as colonizers
In this edition, universities across the world are reevaluating the basis of Russian studies and how the field is studied, examined and taught.
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THE STORY
A study room at the University of Florida named after Karl Marx was renamed. A Harvard scholar encouraged universities, including his own, to sever financial ties with Russia. A Dartmouth student petitioned to rename the Russian Department to the “Eastern European Studies Department.” In Europe, Milano-Bicocca University briefly canceled a course about Fyodor Dostoevsky.
If some of these actions seem a little clumsy, the broader point is that the war in Ukraine has triggered a serious reflection within Western universities about how they have been teaching Russian studies. Academics wonder whether their field, largely founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, put too great an emphasis on Soviet and post-Soviet Russia and too little on the countries over which Russia imposed both physical and cultural control. In February, Lydia Tomkiw reported on this reckoning for Coda Story, a piece I highly recommend you read.