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
Prehistoric Front of the Cold War
Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 4:00 – 5:30 PM ET
The Cold War was waged on many fronts, in nations and whole continents, in the oceans and outer space, from hockey rinks to chess boards. In this talk, Michael Kunichika considers how it played out in the study of prehistory when Western and Soviet scholars debated the origins of art—and of the human—as they contested who would be the best interpreter and, thus, inheritor of the past. Register here.

Davis Center
Artist Talk: ‘The Things They Shared’ — Stories From Uzbekistan’s Cotton Fields
Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 5:30 – 7:00 PM ET
Farrah Karapetian’s exhibition “The Things They Shared” opens with the artist in conversation with Madison Brown, John R. and Barbara Robinson Family Curatorial Fellow in Photography at the Harvard Art Museums. The Davis Center’s art space is dedicated to rotating exhibitions presenting artists and shows from the regions of the center’s research focus. “The Things They Shared” is an excerpt from a project called “Fieldwork,” a series of photographs representing the narratives of people involved in the cotton harvest in Uzbekistan and Mexicali, cyanotypes on cotton rag, and silver gelatin prints. The work resists the documentary impulse even as it mimics anthropological strategies. It problematizes a representational history mainly drawn in favor of institutional interests by focusing on the banalities of personal memory. Register here.

Davis Center
Strains and Potential Gains: Trump’s Evolving Worldview and the Future of Central Asia
Friday, April 18, 2025 | 4:30 – 6:00 PM ET
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the emerging foreign and economic policies of President Trump have added a third shock that could fundamentally lead to a paradigm shift in Central Asia. After a hopeful beginning in the latest round of U.S. relations with the region’s countries, including calls between President Trump and regional leaders and supportive testimony during the Senate confirmation testimony of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the airwaves have been dominated by international crises and tariff levies, leaving it unclear when, if ever, the administration will upgrade the relationship. Register here.

Davis Center
The Central Asian Origins of Post-Socialist Economic Reforms
Saturday, April 19, 2025 | 9:00 – 10:30 AM ET
How did Central Asian states approach the transition from state socialism? Why did they embrace some reforms and not others? This talk will argue that making sense of these questions requires examining the role of the social scientists working within and outside government in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as their interactions with international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF. Tracing their positions on questions such as utility pricing, social welfare, and labor, the talk will show how archival research, combined with other methods, can shed new light on this contentious period. Register here.

Davis Center
Foreign Oil Companies and Kazakh Civil Society, Knowledge Circulation in the Soviet Union
Monday, April 21, 2025 | 12:00 – 2:00 PM ET
Join our Visiting Scholars Program and Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for the final Visiting Scholar Seminar of the year, featuring two presentations that investigate the connection between foreign oil companies and civil society in Kazakhstan and the study of knowledge production in the USSR. Register here.

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University
Repression, Survival, and Revival of Science: The Life and Work of M. V. Ptukha (1884-1961) and the History of the Demographic Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1919-1938)
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 | 12:00 – 1:30 PM ET
A lecture by Mie Nakachi, HURI Research Fellow (February – May 2025), Professor of Global Studies at Hokusei Gakuen University, and Research Associate at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center of Hokkaido University. Register here.

Davis Center
The Soviet Union and Mossadegh’s Government in Iran at the Height of the Cold War
Thursday, April 24, 2025 | 4:30 – 6:00 PM ET
Muhammed Mossadegh’s left-wing government in Iran established close ties with the Soviet Union in the early 1950s. This seminar will explore those ties and the reactions of U.S. policymakers to what they saw as the Soviet government’s dangerous inroads into a key energy-producing region. Register here.

Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University
Olesya Khromeychuk: On Love and War
Thursday, April 24, 2025 | 5:00 – 6:30 PM ET
In her talk, Olesya Khromeychuk challenges conventional views of love as life-giving and hatred as destructive and questions our motivations for loving humanity as a whole versus specific individuals. She focuses on Russia’s war in Ukraine and examines how the international community has been willing to let Ukrainians bear the brunt of this conflict, often justifying its own inaction as a way to prevent escalation. To explore this philosophical reflection on love and hatred in times of war, Khromeychuk draw on the work of Lesia Ukrainka, the Ukrainian fin-de-siècle feminist writer. In her drama A Woman Possessed, the protagonist Miriam rejects traditional notions of love. It is Miriam’s healing hatred and lethal love that form the framework of the talk. Register here.

Online Events

Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University
Nature Under Fire: How the War Redraws the Ecological Map of Ukraine and the World
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 | 10:10 AM – 12:00 PM ET
Please join the Harriman Institute for a lecture by Tetiana Perga. Moderated by András Vadas. The full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has caused unprecedented ecological changes, comparable to the largest technological disasters. Its impact on Ukraine’s environment is already showing signs of ecocide. As a result of military actions, the ecological map of the country is shifting: water, soil, and air are being poisoned, biodiversity and natural resources are being destroyed, and new ecological zones and landscapes are emerging. This report will examine the local, regional, and global ecological consequences of the war on Ukraine’s territory, as well as the outcomes of the weaponization of nature and its resources. The new symbolic significance of nature, which has become part of the struggle not only for territory but also for the future of life, will be explored. Special attention will be given to the new dimensions of ecological solidarity and humanism, demonstrated not only by Ukrainians but also by many members of the international community. Register here.

Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University
Conference. “Russia After Putin”
Friday, April 25, 2025 | 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM ET
This conference presents and discusses the first public findings from a project supported by Columbia’s Harriman Institute and the Carnegie Corporation of New York on “Russia After Putin.” Rather than trying to predict how or when Russian President Vladimir Putin will eventually leave the halls of Kremlin power, our goal is to assess what will happen inside Russia in the aftermath of his inevitable departure, and what the implications will be for Russia and the world. This conference brings together top academic analysts with deep knowledge of particular sectors of the Russian political system, to think extensively about what kinds of actions people from those sectors would likely take to further their own interests and preferences in that future situation—and then to think together about potential interaction effects between those political sectors. Register here.