Publications
The media reports on the impending restructuring of the Russian Service for Cultural Preservation (Rosokhrankultura) were a topic of much discussion throughout all of August. We spoke with the head of service, Alexander Kibovsky, about topical cultural issues and the future of this government body.
– The recent UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting resulted in a decision with regard to the construction of the Okhta Center in St. Petersburg. This autumn a group of international experts will visit the city and discuss the issue with municipal authorities. What is the position of Rosokhrankultura with regard to the center?
– We...
Anne Lounsbery, associate professor of Russian and Slavic studies at New York University and a fan of works of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, carried out an interesting studied. Throughout the course of a year she asked Ney York cab drivers whether they had heard of the existence of a certain Russian poet by the name of Alexander Pushkin. Ms. Lounsbery that white tax drivers knew practically nothing about the poet. However, black tax drivers considered Pushkin to be one of their own and called him a poet of African origin.
“They know that he was black,” Lounsbery writes in her paper “Bound by Blood to the Race”:...
On September 7, 1726, Fran...
On September 7, work began on the installation of ancient bells to the restored bell tower of the Bolshoi Theater, reports Mikhail Sidorov, head of public relations at the investment group Summa Capital, which is acting as the general contractor for the restoration work at the theater.
The theater’s bell tower, which is unparalleled in the theatrical world, dates back to the 1920s. It is being restored at the initiative of Alexei Kusakin, who for many years was the “bell ringer” for performances of the Bolshoi Theater. The bells have been carefully selected for their musical tone and range, from the smallest to...
How much time is needed to turn a kingdom into an empire? It depends, but Russia needed 21 years and one war, albeit a long one.
August 30, 1700, the military confrontation between Russia and Sweden began, a confrontation that would later be called the Great Northern War. Twenty-one years and 11 days later the war ended with the signing of a treaty in the Finnish city of Nystad. In that same year, 1721, Peter the Great declared Russia an empire.
Looking back on this several centuries later, this seems a bit strange. For example, why would a victory against Sweden on the northeastern outskirts of Europe be given such significance. Why would...
Hard Power (HP) has been in decline ever since the end of the Cold War. This is not to say that Soft Power (SP) did not exist before 1991 but the importance, which we attach to HP, was predominant over other instruments of state persuasion. The secondary role of SP was emphasised by state's inclination to turn to propaganda rather than to open and inclusive dialogue. Again, this is not to say that HP is a dying species. Far from it: a chain of civil wars in Yugoslavia, NATO's bombing of Serbia, wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Georgia, the spread of WMD, the rocketing military spending of many non-European countries, first of all the USA,...
