Foreign affairs specialists James Goldgeier, Peter Herrell, Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Andrew S. Weiss discuss the current state of sanctions on Russia and their impact.

The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) jointly hosted an evening of Russian poetry, featuring Evgeny Bunimovich, Elena Fanailova and Yuli Gugolev. The poets read their work in Russian, followed by a reading of English translations by Bill O'Brien, director of theater and musical theater at NEA. Afterward, the poets participated in a question-and-answer session moderated by NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. Bunimovich is the editor of a new bilingual book titled "Contemporary Russian Poetry, An Anthology." Fanailova and Gugolev, the two poets with whom he will share the stage, are included in his book. The evening event is a celebration of the anthology's publication by Dalkey Archive Press.

Constanze Stelzenmüller and Andrew Weiss discuss what systems are handling the pandemic better and why, how the European Union is dealing with the pandemic, internal politics in Russia, and how all of this impacts the United States. John Haskell moderated.

Eliyana Adler discusses her new book, "In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia."

Jonathan Dueck presented "Empires, Multiculturalisms and Borrowed Heartsongs: What Does It Mean to Sing Russian/Mennonite Songs?" as part of the Benjamin Botkin lecture series sponsored by the American Folklife Center. As "colonists" in 19th-century Russia, Mennonites sang German diasporic choral musics and borrowed Russian choral musics; when war drove many to North America, Mennonites drew on this repertoire and borrowed new repertoires to forge links to a new elite: North American classical choral singing circles. This webcast traces this story not as linear narrative, but as genealogical fragments, beginning with the resonances of particular songs for present-day Mennonite writers, historians and singers; and then exploring past moments of the production and reception of these songs in Russia and North America.

Archimandrite Tikhon discusses his book "Everyday Saints and Other Stories," followed by a musical performance by the renowned choir of the Sretensky Monastery.

Ann Brener follows Omanut Press from its beginning in revolutionary Moscow to its final relocation to Tel-Aviv in 1926, and shows images from some of their rare and beautiful children's books now preserved in the Library of Congress. Shoshana Zlatopolsky Persitz was the 24-year old founder of Omanut Press and its guiding spirit. It is to her that we owe some of the most beautiful books ever printed for children in Hebrew, yet in many ways the story behind their printing is almost as compelling as the books themselves. The lecture is followed by a reading of "Tom Thumb" by Chaim Nahman Bialik, translated from the Hebrew into English.

In 1885 George Kennan travelled to Russia as a reporter for "The Century" to investigate and write about the so-called Nihilists. Hundreds of political dissidents had been exiled to Siberia since the mid-1870s, and in 1881 Russia's most violent revolutionaries attracted international attention with the assassination of Alexander II. "The Century" hoped to capitalize upon a prurient interest in "bomb-throwing fanatics." However, what Kennan met instead in Siberia were dozens of earnest and rational young men and women who told of a cruel and despotic regime and proved to be cultured individuals sharing Americans' love of freedom and democracy. This talk draws upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of friendship to explore several of Kennan's relationships with revolutionaries during a pivotal time in both American and Russian history. It shows the extent to which the private and the political spheres overlap, and suggests that because friendship is historically conditioned and therefore not what it once was, so too has politics changed.

Film producers Boris Cherdabayev and Aliya Uvalzhanova show selected clips and discuss the film, the tale of a young Jewish orphan is sent into exile during a Stalinist purge.

Architectural historian and photographer William Craft Brumfield discussed his book, "A History of Russian Architecture." The book is the most comprehensive study of Russian architecture in English, of interest to both scholars and general audiences. Illustrated with photographs taken by Brumfield, "The History of Russian Architecture" is divided into four parts: the early medieval period up to the Mongol invasion; the revival of architecture in Novgorod and Muscovy from the 14th to 17th centuries; Peter the Great's cultural revolution; and the advent of modern, avant-garde and monumental Soviet architecture. Brumfield, professor of Russian studies at Tulane University, New Orleans, was in residence at the Kluge Center while Tulane was closed due to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Alicia Campi discusses her book "The Impact of China and Russia on United States-Mongolian Political Relations in the Twentieth Century."

Drawing on the resources of the Heskes Collection of Yiddish American Sheet Music and the Historic Sheet Music Collection, Randall Goldberg explored the Jewish American musical responses to the Kishineff Pogrom of 1903 in Russia. With a detailed look at Herman Shapiro's "Kishineff Massacre" and other works, Goldberg's talk contextualizes American artistic contributions following this awful event, which served as a catalyst for Jewish activism in the 20th century. Presented in association with the American Musicological Society.

Authors Dinaw Mengestu and Azar Nafisi celebrate the birthday of Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov by reading selections from his work and discussing his influence on their own writing.

Oksana Marafioti, Black Mountain Fellow, explores the effects of folk belief and religion on Russian culture, the fascinating relationship between the people of that region and their past, and the connection the Russian complex faith systems might have with Magical Realism as a genre as well as a mindset.

Library of Congress Junior Fellows made surprising discoveries in the summer of 2012 while looking for books from the Yudin Collection, the largest private Russian library in the West. Maggie Burke and Caitlin Oakley, at the time recent graduates of the College of William & Mary, and Meredith Doubleday, then entering her senior year at the University of Rochester, focused on works by the once prominent mapmaking firm of A. Il'in's, founded in St. Petersburg in 1859. Working with Barbara Dash, a librarian in the Rare Materials Section, the students used Yudin's own handwritten catalog, Library of Congress card catalogs, and information from Russian libraries to identify all manner of publications produced by Il'in's firm, including Yudin's copy of the rare, color-illustrated coronation album of Czar Alexander III and his young wife, Empress Mariia Feodorona. Just as surprising a discovery was the personal connection of one of the students with cartographer Il'in's American descendants. In the presentation, Il'in's great granddaughter tells her own dramatic story.

This entry in our Foreign and Comparative Law Webinar Series provided an overview of the historic roots of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It was co-sponsored by the Law Library of Congress and the Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL-SIS) of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). The program included a review of background information about the Crimean and East Ukrainian territorial problem, which escalated into the current war; an overview of treaties and agreements between Ukraine and Russia; a review of the laws regulating the use of arms in both countries; and an examination of the legal regimes created in Ukraine and Russia before and during the invasion. Further, an analysis and comparison of legislation that was recently passed in Ukraine and Russia, coupled with Ukrainian legal scholars' discussion of a so-called "juridical front," provided an interesting picture of the situation on the ground and suggested how it would develop in the future. Resources available to research the laws of Ukraine were introduced during the presentation.

James Loeffler discusses the role of music in the formation of modern Jewish identity in 19th- and 20th-century Russia in his new book, "The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire."

Odessa was the Russian Empire's gateway to the Middle East when Catherine the Great created this port city on the Black Sea as a model of enlightenment. Georgetown University professor Charles King recreates this world in his historical account.

Join the John W. Kluge Center and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for a panel discussion about the sharp jump in tensions between the Kremlin and the West amid a growing threat of renewed Russian military action in Ukraine. Panelists from Russia, Europe, and the United States will assess Russian President Putin's goals in fomenting a showdown over Ukraine and his desire to exploit the crisis to create leverage over the United States, NATO, and the European Union.

Jonathan Kapiloff discusses food supply, rail transport, fuel and demographic information related to the Soviet economic and social crisis of 1920.

Stephen F. Williams discussed his book "The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt The Russian Revolution." Published on the centennial of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Williams' book traces the life of reformer Vasily Maklakov and his efforts to develop the rule of law in Russia, both in institutions and civil society, in order to limit government arbitrariness.

Kluge Chair in U.S.-Russia Relations James Goldgeier hosted a panel discussion for congressional staff on what to expect and how to prepare for potential Russian involvement in upcoming U.S. elections. The panel included Alina Polyakova of the Brookings Institutions, Thomas Rid from the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and Carla Anne Robbins of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Library of Congress Chair in U.S.-Russia Relations Andrew Weiss discusses the sequence of events leading to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the current geo-strategic picture. He will also draw on colleagues to discuss the military situation on the ground and how the next phase of the war might play out.

The Open World Leadership Center and the Library of Congress Music Division cosponsored the Russian-American Jazz Summit. Conversations on the American influence in Russian Jazz were led by two world-renowned jazz experts, Russian Cyril Moshkow and American Larry Appelbaum. Both of these experts have been involved with Open World Jazz delegations.

The global social-political and cultural cataclysm at the beginning of 20th century in Russia eradicated the moral and spiritual basis for millions of people. The destruction of archives and private libraries, especially those of the Russian emperors and grand dukes, and the ensuing world-wide dispersal of books caused an unreliable "new" version of history to be written. These books, with their heraldic symbols, ex-libris plates, and marginal inscriptions, reveal a clear, extensive and true picture of the activities and intellectual pursuits of their original owners. In her talk, Dr. Gerasimova examines Russian imperial books once owned by Catherine the Great and Nicholas II, now a part of the LC Rare Book & Special Collections Division (John Batchelder and Yudin Collections), the Law Library, and Harvard University, and how they may be a basis for a virtual reconstruction of the Russian Imperial Libraries. This event is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are needed.

Since the former Soviet Union opened its doors to mass emigration 20 years ago, more than one million Russians have moved to Israel. The impact on Israel of Russian immigration and culture is the subject of this lecture delivered by author and artist David Stromberg. This event is sponsored jointly by the European Division and the Hebrew Language Table in cooperation with the Embassy of Israel.

Igor Fedyukin focused on his current research for a book which, among other points, refutes the received wisdom that Peter I single-handedly designed schools and other institutions and forced them on an unwilling Russian public. A greater role was played by the administrative entrepreneurs (or "projecteurs," as they were called) who pursued their own career goals and pet ideas, and competed for status and resources. Fedyukin examined the relative roles of individual initiative and the state, in the context of the Westernizing autocracy.

During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of European and American writers, professionals, scientists, artists and intellectuals made a pilgrimage to experience the "Soviet experiment" for themselves. The reception of these intellectuals and fellow travelers and their encounters in order to analyze Soviet attitudes toward the West are the subject of a new book by Michael David-Fox.

Minxin Pei, Jim Goldgeier and Oriana Skylar Mastro discussed if and how the Sino-Russian partnership would challenge American interests.

Harlow Robinson discussed Russian and German romance music in a lecture prior to the concert by Canadian baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake.

In this lecture prior to a performance by the Borodin Quartet, Kevin Bartig discusses string quartet traditions in Russia from Borodin to Shostakovich.

Set within the artistic milieu of the last decades of Imperial Russia, this presentation traces the lives and careers of two of that country's most influential composers: Petr Il'ich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), and his student Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915) -- the former having enjoyed a worldwide celebrity during his lifetime, and the latter's reputation having been eclipsed to some degree by his more famous mentor, despite his own monumental accomplishments. The two composers eventually became close colleagues, with Taneyev becoming a trusted friend and adviser to Tchaikovsky, and exerting a substantial influence on the elder composer's music and legacy. Taneyev, outliving his mentor by nearly 20 years, went on to contribute substantially to nurturing Russia's musical culture through teaching, performing, composing and writing, and through his immense talents and intellectual gifts, for which he is now recognized as one of the greatest music scholars of 19th century Russia.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko recited his poetry in both English and Russian in a program titled" There Are No Fears". Yevtushenko is a poet, novelist, film maker and professor of literature and cinema.