External Events

We promote events pertaining to Russia and Eurasia that are conducted in the Boston area and online. Please check out the links below for more information about upcoming events at affiliated institutions. Scroll further to find information about upcoming external events that might be of interest to the Fletcher community.

Please check out the list below to find events about Russia and Eurasia organized by affiliated institutions.

Greater Boston Area

Davis Center
European Cold War Neutrality in the Kremlin’s Perspective: Historical and Present Implications
Friday, February 14, 2025 | 2:00 P.M. – 3:30 P.M. ET
During the Cold War, some European states (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden) maintained a position of neutrality between East and West. For more than three decades after the Cold War ended, most of these states continued to adhere to what they construed as a neutral status. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted Finland and Sweden to abandon their neutral status and join NATO, but some smaller European states that had been neutral during the Cold War did not seek to join the Western alliance. For the Kremlin, however, the European neutral states are of no special significance, unlike during the Cold War. Yet, a neutral status is demanded by Russia for Ukraine. This demand deviates from earlier understandings when neutrality was a tool or precondition for upholding and safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity. The seminar will discuss the changing Russian understanding of European neutrality in historical perspective. Register here.

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University
No Country for Love: Book Talk by Yaroslav Trofimov
Wednesday, February 12, 2025 | 5:00 P.M. – 6:30 P.M. ET
A book talk by Yaroslav Trofimov, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal. Moderated by Oleh Kotsyuba, Director of Print and Digital Publications, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University. About the book: A sweeping, stunningly ambitious novel about a young Ukrainian girl arriving in Kharkiv in 1930, determined to contribute to the future of her country, and her struggle to survive the devastation and trauma that ravage Ukraine. No Country for Love follows the hard choices Debora makes as Ukraine, caught between two totalitarian ideologies, turns into the deadliest place in the world — while she tries to protect those she loves most. Register here.

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University
The War in Europe
Wednesday, February 19, 2025 | 7:00 P.M. – 8:30 P.M. ET
On the eve of the third anniversary of the bloodiest war in Europe in eighty years, we’ll reflect on how we got here, where we stand now, and what might be required in the aftermath—for the United States, Europe, and of course, Ukraine. Three of the world’s leading authorities on Ukraine will assist us in exploring these matters. Register here.

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University
Invisible Revolutionaries: Women’s Participation in Ukraine’s Euromaidan
Thursday, February 20, 2025 | 4:30 P.M. – 6:00 P.M. ET
Women play a prominent role in pro-democracy movements and contemporary revolutions around the globe. The book proposes an original typology of women’s participation in a revolution. Based on three dimensions (women’s motivations for engagement, the performance of certain roles during mass mobilization, and gender outcomes), the book distinguishes three models: (1) patriarchal, (2) emancipatory, and (3) hybrid. Reinforcing preexisting patriarchal norms in society, the patriarchal model of women’s participation in a revolution assumes that motherhood is a key driver of women’s activism, women primarily perform “support tasks” during mass mobilization, and female revolutionaries retreat into the private sphere in the wake of the revolution. The emancipatory model, on the contrary, views feminism as a catalyst for women’s activism, assumes women’s access to formal positions of leadership within the movement, and anticipates considerable progress in gender equality in the post-revolutionary period. Register here.

Online Events

Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University
V. Domontovych’s On Shaky Ground – Book Presentation and Discussion
Thursday, February 13, 2025 | 4:00 P.M. – 5:30 P.M. ET
Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on February 12, 2025 to attend this event. Please join the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute for a presentation and discussion of V. Domontovych’s novel “On Shaky Ground” on the occasion of the recent publication of the novel’s translation into English by CEU Press. Participating in the event will be Oksana Rosenblum, Tamara Hundorova, and Mark Andryczyk. Register here.

The Wilson Center
Book Launch | Looking at Women Looking at War
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 | 11:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. ET
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country’s literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These heroines include Evgenia, a prominent lawyer turned soldier, Oleksandra, who documented tens of thousands of war crimes and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, and Yulia, a librarian who helped uncover the abduction and murder of a children’s book author. Register here.