An Unfavorable Balance: Government and Human Rights in the Russian Mindset
The following was written as a mid-term essay for an SRAS program in St. Petersburg. Students were encouraged to draw upon not only the program…
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Vestnik publishes student research on any subject related to the broad geographic region of Eurasia. Find out more about Vestnik and how you can contribute or support the publication here
The Soviet Union in Angola: Soviet and African Perspectives on the Failed Socialist Transformation
Africa’s drive for independence came to a head by the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. It was seen by the Soviet Union…
Vestnik – Issue 8, Winter 2010
Vestnik was launched by SRAS in 2004 as one of the world’s first online academic journals focused on showcasing student research. We welcome and invite…
Environmental Policy and Politics of Lake Baikal: A review of physical, psychological, and political contexts
Lake Baikal in Siberia has a rich biological and cultural history. It is highly valued for its aesthetic qualities and rich biological diversity. In addition,…
Ordinary Men? Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied Mogilevskaya Oblast’
The subject of collaboration and resistance in occupied Europe is one of the most controversial issues related to the history of the Second World War….
The Pupil of the People: Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s Peasant Schools at Yasnaya Polyana
Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is best known as the author of some of the world’s most famous literature, specifically the epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Tolstoy…
Vestnik – Issue 7, Winter 2007
Vestnik was launched by SRAS in 2004 as one of the world’s first online academic journals focused on showcasing student research. We welcome and invite…
Catholic and Protestant: Two Religious Periodicals and US-Soviet Relations, 1930-1950
From the time of the October Revolution in 1917, the United States had a tense relationship with the Soviet Union. The United States was, after…
From the Silk Road to Chevron: The Geopolitics of Oil Pipelines in Central Asia
Kazakhstan has received much press recently as a result of the success of the comic film Borat. However, that movie got everything wrong in its depiction…
Vestnik – Issue 6, Summer 2007
Vestnik was launched by SRAS in 2004 as one of the world’s first online academic journals focused on showcasing student research. We welcome and invite…
Rejecting Professional Medicine in Contemporary Russia
The rejection of professional medical care (except for acute cases demanding urgent or specific treatment) has become common in contemporary Russia (Maximova 2002, Rose 2000)….
Layers of Identity: Self-identity in U.S. child immigrants from the former Soviet Union
Geography and history have made Russian identity hard to define. Russia spans both Europe and Asia and is split between East and West. The Soviet-era…
The ‘Norman Problem’ in Historiography: Nationalism and the Origins of Russia
Within the realm of history, several old controversies persist, taking on new meanings within the context of today’s political and cultural imperatives. One of these,…
Empire, Nationalities, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
Michael Doyle defines empires as follows: “Empires are relationships of political control imposed by some political societies over the effective sovereignty of other political societies.”[1]…
Vestnik – Issue 5, Fall 2006
Vestnik was launched by SRAS in 2004 as one of the world’s first online academic journals focused on showcasing student research. We welcome and invite…
Military Learning Between the Chechen Wars
The downward spiral of the Russian military that began with Afghanistan is often compared to the U.S. army’s experience in Vietnam. However, unlike the American…
US-Russian Energy Security in the Caucasus: The Prospects for Conflict in the National Interest
It has taken energy (namely coal and oil) to produce the industrialized and economically prosperous nations of today. That is certain to change in the…
From Vixen to Victim: The Sensationalization and Normalization of Prostitution in Post-Soviet Russia
Since the height of its popularity in the mid-1990s, the Moscow nightclub “Golodnaya Utka,” or “The Hungry Duck,” has been dubbed “Moscow’s first rape camp.”[1]…
Russian Political Culture Since 1985
The traditional view of Russian political culture has been that, due to historical experience, Russians have favored strong autocratic rule. After nearly seventy years of…
Vestnik – Issue 4, Spring 2006
Vestnik was launched by SRAS in 2004 as one of the world’s first online academic journals focused on showcasing student research. We welcome and invite…