Editor-in-Chief
Roman Koropeckyj (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)

Managing Editor
Oleg Ivanov (Comparative Literature)

Editorial Assistant
Yelena Muratova (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)

Online Editor: Susan Bauckus (Center for World Languages)
Undergraduate Advisors: Olga Kagan and Yelena Furman (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)

Editorial Board: Michael Lavery (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Jesse O'Dell (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Dane Reighard (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Yelena Severina (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Peter Winsky (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Maia Woolner (History), and Amy Garey (Anthropology)

Oleg Ivanov

The Impact of Technology on the Russian Mail Order Bride Industry

Yekaterina Belikov, University of California, Los Angeles

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  This paper argues that the rapid growth and success of the Russian mail order bride (MOB) industry since the 1990s is dependent on the concurrent timing of the fall of the Soviet Union and the proliferation of computers and the internet. The paper will analyze how the Russian MOB industry has responded to changes in technology, beginning with an examination of the history of the MOB industry and detailing the effects of technology on matchmaking agency websites and money transfer systems. Drawing from content analysis of current online MOB profiles, websites, and agency information, along with personal interviews and a review of statistics and available literature, this paper examines how both MOBs and the MOB industry as a whole have responded to changes in the MOB market that have been brought on by technological innovations and how this has led to the commercialization of the industry. This paper concludes with a prediction of the future growth trajectory of the MOB industry based on the impacts of the most recent technological innovations on the Russian MOB industry. This examination will provide evidentiary support as to why the Russian MOB industry has grown at a faster rate than the MOB industry of other regions.

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Responsibility to Protect and Russian Foreign Policy: The Dichotomy

Melanie Dalby, University of California, Los Angeles

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  Since 2011, a stalemate in the United Nations Security Council revealed irreconcilable policy divides between the U.S. and Russia on the topic of international intervention. The root of the divide lies with a vague international law precedent regarding state sovereignty and international autonomy versus protection of humanitarian rights. An idea has developed in the international community that state sovereignty does not override mass crimes against humanity, thus giving the international community an implicit “responsibility to protect” (R2P) citizens, particularly regarding military intervention. Not surprisingly, Russia and the U.S. have clashed over when R2P legitimizes intervention- in particular, during the conflicts in Kosovo (1999), Georgia (2008), Libya (2011), Syria (2011), and Ukraine (2014). Russia’s approach is contradictory: when Russia protests R2P as a justification for intervention, as with Kosovo, Libya, and Syria, it is on the basis that international forces should not be allowed to overstep political sovereignty with military maneuvers. This allows Russia to defend themselves against unwanted intervention, especially as a consequence of Russian military action. However, when Russia utilizes this responsibility, as with Georgia and Ukraine, it is because Russia’s own brand of intervention has an underlying geopolitical benefit. The lack of a clear legal framework on intervention causes strife between Russia and the U.S. and prevents a proactive international community that truly aims to protect humanitarian rights.

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Saving Russian Science: How International Organizations Preserved Russian Science and Prevented Brain Drain

Karlen Nurijanyan, University of California, Los Angeles

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  Following the end of the Soviet Union (December 26, 1991), Russia’s political and economic hardships generated a significant outflow of émigrés, forcing members of the intelligentsia, including scientists, teachers, researchers and other professionals, to leave Russia. Nevertheless, this did not necessarily apply to all scientists. The conventional belief is that, in this atmosphere, scientific funding simply evaporated, forcing scientists look for new opportunities in Western countries, hence resulting in an extensive brain drain from Russia. However, this paper demonstrates that Russia actually received a significant amount of funds from two major organizations: the International Science Foundation (ISF) and the International Science Technology Center (ISTC). These foundations made it possible for Russia to prevent most of its brain drain from occurring and indeed preserved Russian science. Believing that a massive brain drain would destroy Russian schools of science, the ISF invested approximately $110 million from 1991 to 1996 to finance Russia’s fundamental sciences (biology, anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry) and to support around 40,000 scientists. The support of ISF allowed for major contributions by Russian scientists to the international research community. Due to concerns of nuclear proliferation, the European Union and United States funded the ISTC, which commenced its operations in March of 1994. The Western fear was that Russian scientists might offer their services to nations that sponsor terrorism. Until 2011, over 75,000 Russian nuclear scientists received approximately $430 million to devote their knowledge and expertise to basic science such as chemistry, physics, and biology, rather than creating atomic bombs. The ISTC provided funding to ensure that Russian scientific research focused on peaceful activities, such as solving national and global technological problems and supporting the transition to market-based economies. Therefore, contrary to traditional thinking, the measures taken by international organizations allowed Russia to evade a significantly large brain drain and successfully preserve scientific knowledge by providing necessary funding for continuous scientific research.

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Leon Trotskii and Mikhail Khodorkovskii: Adaptive Ideology and the Struggle for Power

Ryan Wauson, University of California, Los Angeles

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  Trotsky and Khodorkovsky are two very different figures in Russian politics. Trotsky was a revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union; Khodorkovsky, an entrepreneur and oligarch who became the richest man in Russia by the beginning of the new millennium. However, one common theme does run through their stories: opposition. When a power vacuum was created following Lenin’s incapacitation after a series of strokes and Yeltsin’s departure from the presidency, Trotsky and Khodorkovsky were widely considered the most powerful men in the country. This supremacy was challenged with the arrival of two unexpected challengers: Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin. To better contest these new opponents, both Trotsky and Khodorkovsky publicly changed their image and ideology. Trotsky, the party’s disciplinarian against those who spoke out against the state and the proponent of the creation of a massive bureaucracy, suddenly began to decry the country’s bureaucratization while calling for greater inner-party democracy and the loosening of party discipline. Khodorkovsky, who had come to wealth and power through the Yeltsin administration’s corruption and the far-from-equitable privatization of the Russian economy, now argued for a more open, liberal government. In the end, Trotsky and Khodorkovsky lost their specific struggles, becoming disenfranchised from their power bases and leaving the country with no substantive domestic opposition. By studying their narratives together, it becomes possible to understand how, even when led by some of the country’s most powerful men, any attempt to create a consistent opposition in Russia is doomed to failure.

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Low Speech Style of Public Political Discourse in Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine

Amanda Marshall, University of California, Los Angeles

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  Since the fall of the Soviet Union, low level speech has been utilized by Eastern European politicians in public discourse. Both the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and ex-president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, have used this speech style during their political careers. Putin’s use of low level speech has contributed positively to his public image, painting him as a hard-liner against corruption and terrorism. On the other hand, Yanukovych’s use of low level speech strengthened his connection with a corrupt and unjust regime, tying him to criminality. This paper analyzes the respective circumstances that allowed for Putin’s utilization of a low speech style to have a positive effect on his political career while Yanukovych’s use of this same speech style had a negative affect on his own. These circumstances include Russia and Ukraine’s unique history, linguistic background, political environment at the onset of Putin and Yanukovych’s careers, and additionally the two personal narratives of both politicians.

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