On September 3rd 2013, President Serzh Sargsyan announced that Armenia would abandon its proposed Association Agreement with the European Union after years of negotiations. In place of this agreement, Armenia would pursue full membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Although this abrupt decision came as a surprise to Armenian political actors and many western observers, this development was the product of years of political maneuvering by Moscow towards Armenia as part of the creation of an alternative model of regional integration within the former Soviet Union. Considering that the European Union and Russia held relative parity with one another as trading partners of Armenia and both Brussels and Moscow held close diplomatic ties with Yerevan this begs the question: what specifically allowed Russia to pry Armenia away from its path of European Integration and secure Yerevan’s membership in the EAEU? In exploring Sargsyan’s decision, this paper will investigate the elements differentiating Russia and Europe’s trading relationship with Armenia, differences between Brussels’ and Moscow’s ability to act as an energy provider to Armenia, and Moscow’s role as a guarantor of security to Yerevan.

2018 was a pivotal year with regards to the politics of Russian rap. Late in the year, many artists, especially rappers, had their shows cancelled throughout Russia, receiving accusations from government officials ranging from spreading drug propaganda to using obscene language. This move by Russian authorities to repress the rap scene forced a confrontation with rappers that culminated in the arrest of rapper Husky in Krasnodar. His detention spurred many rappers into action against the Russian government, as they organized a benefit concert for him that Aleksei Navalny attended. This intense negative reaction caused the Russian government to change its strategy, as it tried to adjust Russian rap to fit its narratives about mainstream Russian culture and reject the subversive elements of the art form like drug-related and political language. This paper seeks to understand the political side of Russian rap from the perspective of both rappers and the government. To accomplish this, the paper contains two analytical sections. The first section analyzes the policies and motivations of the Russian government by using primary source material from different actors including Vladimir Putin and other officials. It argues that the concert cancellations were not a part of the Kremlin’s strategy and that Putin’s personal intervention signaled the extent to which the government was worried about distancing itself from the policy of cancellation. The second section will gauge the political trends in the Russian rap community of the time, using textual analysis of rap lyrics to paint a picture of the political messaging of influential pro- and anti-Kremlin rappers surrounding the crackdown on rap. This section will serve as a counterpart to the first, using the artistic expression of rappers to illustrate their political philosophies, including their views on the nature of the Russian state, their opinions of the behavior and polemics of powerful figures in Russian politics, and their takes on controversial social problems about which the Russian government is concerned. This second section argues that political rappers employ a rich fabric of references and allusions to powerful political actors in order to praise or criticize them and that Russian rappers often oppose the government, sometimes as a direct result of the 2018 crackdown.

This thesis proposes a reappraisal of the narthex as an architectural unit with a unique decorative, functional, and ideological program that differs from the liturgically-oriented organization of the nave and the sanctuary. On the example of the Middle Byzantine monastic church of Hosios Loukas, the analysis shows how the narthex developed an original arsenal of representational practices in response to the theological legacies and practical demands of two major events of the period – the icon controversy and the monastic reform movement. A close reading of the primary sources (writings by iconophile authors and texts of monastic foundation documents) demonstrates how the values of corporeality, synergism, and empathy – while commonly omitted from the discussion of the Middle Byzantine theological climate – arose as guiding principles of the post-iconoclast approaches to the image-beholder interaction. Against this background, the narthex became uniquely suited to represent the humanity of Christ. Representations of Christ-as-Man drive pathways of relatability, compassion, and corporeality that legitimize the beholder as an equal participant in dialogue with the divine. Through a face to face dialogue predicated on the value of synergism, the monastic community engages in ritual performances that not simply imitate, but rather complete Biblical events of the surrounding pictorial program.

Theories in political sociology and migration studies point to a diaspora’s structural position in a host state as a factor promoting cooperative political behavior. However, these theories do not consider the transnational influence of authoritarian regimes. In this thesis, I examine cooperation among the EU-based exiles of different factions of Tajikistan’s political opposition. Based on the results of ten qualitative interviews with members of the Tajikistani opposition in four EU countries, I conclude that cooperation among these diasporans remains limited between the two largest opposition groups, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) and Group 24. The Tajikistani government’s transnational repression tactics solidify the rift within the EU-based Tajikistani opposition. However, intergroup activism on behalf of individual human rights cases may provide a pathway to future joint efforts within the opposition. This thesis suggests that the political cooperation of diasporic populations is tied to conditions in both the home and host state. Where factors promoting cooperation exist, they may be eclipsed by the transnational influence of authoritarian host states.

The status and function of language are intricately cohesive values as both causes and symptoms of a nation’s history and identity. Each of the 15 republics that once composed the territories of the Soviet Union possess their own sociolinguistic environments that are both unique and mutually exclusive to one another due to selective concessions present in Soviet language policy. One can interpret efforts to advocate for language reform as a function of what the titular population viewed as ensuring a capable state through ‘their own’ language. Moscow, in acknowledging these concerns and granting the establishment of now-legitimized state languages for these republics during the Soviet era, had deepened an aspect of language ecology for each of the republics that still define the political, social, economic, and educational genomes of each of these states in present day. This study is a multi-faceted scholarly work examining the modern contexts of proposed trilingual education policy in a comparison between two nations - the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Kazakhstan. Each of these nations represent important cases in the relationship between symbolic and substantive policy adoption, in that their aspirations for promulgating trilingual education policy are predicated on disparate conceptualizations of identity through knowledge of state language. This study is an attempt to bridge the gap between established scholarship on post-Soviet Turkic multilingualism over the last thirty years and modern projections of education quality with respect to language of instruction. In addition, a phenomenon known as policy-practice decoupling serves as a central framework to analyze instances of departure from stated and enacted policy between both republics, answering questions regarding each nation's unique sociolinguistic and historical heritage through language and language policy under the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. Motivations for symbolically adopting a policy can take on many forms, and tendencies for following educational standards created by external influences can be ascribed to characteristics of developing and developed nations. In relation to language-of-education policy, I argue that these two countries do not neatly fit into either decoupling tendencies – neither that of developed nor developing – due to their own unique sociolinguistic, demographic, and economic makeups. Moreover, their own unique instances of policy-practice decoupling represent poignantly distinct contexts of language-identity relationships owing to unique forms of settler-and-exploitation-based colonization under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The educational frameworks and policies for trilingual education may seem similar in proposed goals and roles for each language (heritage, modernity, and “groupness”). However, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan’s motivations for – and infrastructure for proposing, adopting, and developing – trilingual education are a direct investiture of each state’s conceptualization of language. These conceptualizations affect heritage, identity, and responsibility for citizens and government – values that widely contrast between both countries post-independence.

Vladimir Mayakovsky's 1913 piece, Vladimir Mayakovsky: a Tragedy, is a landmark artistic work emanating from the early years of Russian Futurism. In this work, the author rejects traditional artistic conventions, permeates the work with instabilities, and depicts the poet as a perpetually unsatisfiable figure. This essay is a close examination of the text, analyzing the unstable nature of the poet and the world around him.

In this paper, Jasmine Alexander-Greene examines works of fiction from around the world in which Russian president Vladimir Putin appears as a protagonist, secondary character, or significant cameo. Rather than a uniform approach to Putin, Alexander-Greene finds significant variation not only in how Putin is represented but also the works' origins, perspectives, and literary approaches. Together, they underscore the paradox between the fantasy of control, tied to the figure of the Russian leader, and the more chaotic reality. (Master's thesis)

The Soviet Union was well-known for its commitment to official ideology and its frequent punishment of those who acted or spoke against the regime. While methods of punishment for political dissenters varied, a particularly cruel and often overlooked method was the institutionalization of dissidents in psychiatric hospital-prisons. Dissenters punished in such a manner were often diagnosed with “sluggish schizophrenia,” a diagnosis developed by leading physician Andrei Snezhnevsky. This sham diagnosis had its roots in the legitimate symptoms of schizophrenia, but instead allowed healthy individuals to be diagnosed under the pretense that the disorder had simply not yet manifested. This paper examines this phenomenon through a broad exploration of the development of psychology in the Soviet Union, and specifically focuses on the roles played by psychiatrists, psychiatric institutions, and the state. Two primary case studies investigating the institutionalization of both Vladimir Bukovsky and Natalya Gorbanevskaya provide examples of the scope and intensity of Soviet abuses. Additionally, a multi-country comparative analysis places the Soviet Union within the global context, and illustrates the ways in which the Soviet Union was unique in its abuse of psychiatry. Ultimately, this understanding of both the roots and methods of Soviet abuse is essential for the prevention of further psychiatric abuse in present-day Russia.

The little-known Kazakh animation film, Why the Swallow’s Tail is Forked (1967), written and directed by Amen Khaydarov, not only holds the position as the aboriginal Kazakh animation film, but is also acclaimed as the greatest work of Kazakh animation by critics, academics, and contemporary animators. The film, based on the traditional Kazakh folktale of the same name, was significantly altered by Khaydarov in his auteurist direction and screenplay resulting in a radically different retelling. However, Khaydarov’s unique variant of the folktale resonated with viewers of the period as well as with viewers today. It was also released at a pivotal moment in Kazakh nationalist thought as it coincided with the first rumblings of the pastoral nationalist narrative of the late 1960s. In this paper I argue how certain motifs are changed, added, and removed from the original folktale by Khaydarov, consciously or unconsciously, to incorporate new allegorical elements in the folktale. This essay is informed by a multitude of theorists and follows a methodology specific to film studies. I perform a close reading of the film, shot by shot, and in the spirit of Eric Hobsbawm, deconstruct alleged “traditional” Kazakh elements. Following the close reading, I use theory from the ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino in analyzing the constructed nature of national identity. This will be supported using concepts I borrow from Benedict Anderson, the prominent theorist on nationalism, the folklorists Roman Jakobson and Petr Bogatyrev, the filmic folklorist Juwen Zhang, and the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Following the deconstruction of Kazakh identity more largely, this essay will turn to the concept of allegory, as defined by Paul de Man but balanced by James Clifford, and will show how specific readings of the audio, visual, and folkloric aspects of the film are justified given the previous close reading. Ultimately, I will return to the film and display it as a construction of a specific nationalist narrative, one that holds surprising elements of suffering, submission, and trauma, thus shedding light on the broader pastoral nationalist vision.

From August 1918 to April 1920, over 9,500 American soldiers and aid workers were in Siberia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Half of these soldiers came from the Phillippines, and half from the temporary Army base at Camp Fremont, CA in present day Menlo Park and Stanford University. The soldiers in Siberia had a neutral military mission, guarded the Trans-Siberian railroad, and lived in close proximity to local Russians. Consequently, there was an American-Russian cultural encounter, recorded in dozens articles, diaries, letters, and notes of Americans who were in Siberia. Through everyday close contact, Americans evidenced more understanding of Russians. They remembered the generosity and hospitality of their hosts, the humbling experience of communicating in another language, and the differences and similarities in rituals like Easter celebrations, weddings, and going to the banya. American society plunged into the depths of the first Red Scare and America and Russia grew further apart. However, in contrast to their society back home, American soldiers and volunteer workers in Siberia bridged the gap in cultural understanding through their experiences, resulting in a shift in their perceptions of Russian identities, in communicating and building relationships with Russians, and in observing and participating in Russian rituals. In contrast to what has been called a civilizational or imperial lens, and a dialogue of superiority and inferiority, Americans displayed increasingly positive impressions of Russians the closer they were to them, while negatively perceived differences were greatest when encounters were brief or at a distance.

By using oil prices as a simple economic proxy, this research attempts to assess the future of Russia’s defense modernization programs through a basic statistical regression between defense spending and oil prices. From there, it builds 5 potential oil price scenarios and examines how overall defense spending might react in each of the 5 scenarios. Additionally, the analysis is extrapolated to 2 primary defense projects — the Borei and Yasen submarines. The financial burden of both programs on the Naval defense budget is then used to assess the feasibility that Russia will be able to successfully complete either project within the scope of the next 10-year modernization plan given each of the 5 budget scenarios. The research then attempts to contextualize the statistical results within the contemporary Russian landscape. This landscape includes a background of Russia’s oil-based economy, its Soviet legacy, and its highly centralized administration. Ultimately, the goal is to assess the probability that Russia will meet its military spending objectives over the next 10 years in each of the 5 budget scenarios while using the specific examples of the two submarine projects to demonstrate how budget constraints and prioritization might take place.

In a globalized world where states’ domestic problems can and will have international consequences, how do governments resolve the tension between state sovereignty and the protection of human rights? In the context of Russia, what factors drive its leaders to use or refuse humanitarian intervention? This thesis analyzes Russia’s conception of international intervention predicated on humanitarian ideals in three parts: first, the Soviet legacy of the Brezhnev Doctrine; second, how the text of Russia’s foreign policy conceptions is formulated to propagate Russia’s role in the world; finally, analysis of two relevant case studies. The first, of Russia’s intervention in Crimea in 2014, finds Russia using its conception of the “Russian world” to justify its unilateral intervention. The second, of Syria, reveals a more complicated case where Russia utilizes its power in the U.N. Security Council to block humanitarian intervention, but at the same time sends its troops to Syria to assist President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The author’s findings were that Russia uses military intervention ostensibly predicated on humanitarian ideals as a political tool in service of the goal of stability, interpreted as a continued hold on power. Further, when Russia condemns international humanitarian intervention, it preserves for itself power and influence on the world stage—and prevents a precedent of military intervention being established, in order to avoid its application to Russia’s own illegitimate interventions.

Higher education has increasingly become a marker of national prestige, as well as a key instrument of national development. In the past 15 years, developing and developed countries alike have engaged in a series of “excellence initiatives” to pump money into higher education institutions. China, France, Germany, and Russia have all introduced these excellence initiatives as a critical step toward “world-class” status. Higher education reform has been an ongoing project in Russia in the past ten years, as the country strived to overcome setbacks in academia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2009, the state invested in 40 universities as a means of creating world class research institutions across the country. Like most countries, Russia has now turned toward world university rankings as a guide to gauge its global success, which are based on a series of metrics, including publications, collaborations, and the recruitment of foreign scholars and students. This research focuses specifically on internationalization and recruitment efforts at a funded public university, a private university, and a state technical institution, to better understand the differing motives of recruitment. Institutions included in the 5-100 Project are assisted by the government, and so have the largest incentive to recruit internationally. All the same, public institutions throughout the country are governed by nationwide monitoring, although their recruitment occurs at a much more “grassroots” level because they are not provided any special budget. By promoting internationalization across the spectrum, Russia seeks to improve its brand and reputation around the world and expand its reach to students beyond developing countries, in addition to creating a competitive economic good. However, the effect of disproportionately investing in one university over another remains an issue in how higher education reforms are structured, not only in Russia but internationally. The study also examines the impact of implementing reforms quickly on individuals who are recruited by these universities, both to study and teach.

In 1992, the Russian Federation was a state in flux. Amidst an historic territorial breakup, a collapsing economy, and the formation of a new political society, some Western observers hoped that Russia would gradually arrive into the ranks of liberal-democratic states out of the ashes of the Soviet Union. In Russia itself, several vocal reformers created the impression that this dream could soon be within the country’s grasp. And yet, Russia did not start with a clean slate. The legacy of authoritarian Soviet politics still cast a long shadow over the new country. The facade was crumbling, but the fundamentals remained. One key totalitarian institution that survived the initial onslaught of reforms and reorganizations was the security services, namely, the Committee for State Security [Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti—KGB]. In the eyes of optimistic reformers, the fall of the Soviet Union and the creation of an independent Russian state provided the ideal opportunity to rein in the security services and transform them based on the models of Western intelligence services—especially the American, British, and French. In fact, despite these preliminary stirrings of liberal thought and condemnation of the Soviet security services, Russia’s first years of independence did not see their dismantling. To the contrary, besides some cosmetic organizational reshufflings, these institutions remained an integral part of the state’s operations. Scholars such as Yevgenia Albats have noted that the power of Russian security services, especially the Federal Security Service [Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti—FSB], has outpaced those of the KGB and or its predecessors, as they are now subject to the oversight of neither the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) nor any other government institution, such as the State Duma. They are answerable only to the Russian President. The question must then be asked: why did the security services—built to stabilize a totalitarian regime—grow, not contract, during Russia’s first years? During this period, Russian security services used perceived state emergencies to validate their continued existence and expansion. Chechen separatism and the domestic terrorism that followed throughout the 90s fed on an unstable political and economic environment, giving the security services a new raison d’être and producing a key public rationalization used at first to survive and then to consolidate power. Widespread condemnation of low pay and attrition within security services’ ranks, corruption, economic crime, drug trafficking and consumption, and the perceived influx of Western intelligence agencies into Russian territory during this period all served as justifications to expand their budgets and legal capabilities. When actual crises were not enough to vindicate power consolidation, security services personnel and institutions used past triumphs to remind the public of the meaningful role they played in Soviet history. Furthermore, the active mythicization of past notable leaders like the Cheka’s founder, Felix Dzerzhinsky, rehabilitated the ethos of the “noble chekist.” This essay studies aspects of these rationalizations—both actual and mythological—in memoirs produced by ex-chekists as well as the propaganda of the security services to better understand the persistence and growth of security services during the Russian Federation’s early years.