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An online lecture with Dr. Susan Smith-Peter
The lecture will discuss how Mikhail Lomonosov, the 18th century polymath and poet, turned into a culture hero. A culture hero personifies the transition from one era to another, in this case from old Russia to new Petrine Russia. While this made Lomonosov a central figure in Russian culture, his importance to Russian history has not always been clear. Making things more difficult is Lomonosov’s connection to Peter III, the unlucky and deposed spouse of Catherine the Great. While Catherine dismissed Peter as disloyal to Russia and lazy, new work shows that he was highly involved in governance and had a tight-knit circle around him. Lomonosov was part of that circle.
Already in the 18th century, former members of that circle reshaped Lomonosov’s memory after his death so that it became apolitical and linked to poetry and physics. This has meant that Lomonosov’s work on geography has not been seen as central to his life and legacy, even though his influence on the provinces was considerable. Lomonosov did reshape Russia’s approach to geography by introducing the idea of economic geography. By moving beyond the tropes of the culture hero, we can begin to see the outlines of an important figure in mid-eighteenth century Russia who has not yet been fully appreciated.
An online lecture with Liliya Dashevski
What did children play with in nineteenth-century Russia? Many of us might immediately think of the matreshka—the iconic Russian nesting doll. But surprisingly, matreshkas were not actually traditional folk toys at all. They were invented at the very end of the nineteenth century to look traditional.
So if Russian children were not playing with matreshkas, what were they playing with?
This talk examines the rich and often underexplored world of children’s toys and games from both peasant and elite households, from handmade wooden figures to imported European dolls, board games, and paper theatres. It shows that Russian play culture was not simply “traditional” or “European,” but a blend of both. Russian childhood was shaped by a vernacular craft tradition shared across social classes and by a Europeanized model adapted to elite educational goals. Looking at toys allows us to rethink how Russians imagined childhood, culture, and identity in a period of profound social change.
A conversation with Serhii Plokhy, renowned historian at Harvard University and author of several books on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This conversation will explore Professor Plokhy's new book, David and Goliath: Commentaries on the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the historiographical questions in involved in understanding the origins of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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