Olexandra Povoroznyk: Tsars, spies and colonialism

Colourful onion-domed churches capped with sparkling snow, seductive spies in lavish mink coats, dancing bears, strong-willed revolutionaries…we see these tropes everywhere. They feature in Netflix shows such as Shadow and Bone, in Marvel blockbusters, gritty Cold War-inspired thrillers, and children’s animated films like Anastasia. Western pop-culture’s fascination with Russia – or, rather, with a simplified and fantastical version of Russia’s complicated history – is understandable.

Back in the 1960s, at the height of the ideological rivalry between the US and the USSR, Russians were Hollywood’s go-to villains. When news of Russia’s involvement in the 2016 United States presidential election broke, old tropes came back with a vengeance and, once again, Hollywood started looking to Eastern Europe for inspiration.

The way the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union are portrayed in American media isn’t just unrealistic – at times it borders on absurdism. Liberties are taken with history, language, culture and politics. Slavic languages are turned into decorative nonsense (the Bourne Trilogy is a repeat offender), real-life events are swapped for fictitious ones, and most characters are walking blond-and-blue-eyed stereotypes….

https://www.eurozine.com/tsars-spies-and-colonialism/

Sergei Loznitsa, the Ukrainian film-maker who refuses to be cancelled

Don’t cry for me, Dostoevsky

Book review: Day of the Oprichnik, 16 Years Later

THE CANCELLATION OF RUSSIAN CULTURE. By Gary Saul Morson

P.B. Mehta: Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder

JUAN COLE: The US would be on firmer ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried / Aditya Chakrabortty: Western values? They enthroned the monster who is shelling Ukrainians today

Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

10 Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats (1977

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Ukraine: India refuses to take a clear position on the Russian invasion

Jonathan Steele: Understanding Putin’s narrative about Ukraine is the master key to this crisis / Oliver Stone: American Exceptionalism Is on Display in Ukraine / Mariia Shynkarenko: Not about NATO