Search a title or topic

Over 20 million podcasts, powered by 

Player FM logo
Artwork

Content provided by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.
Player FM - Podcast App
Go offline with the Player FM app!

Stephen Kotkin on Stalin, Power, and the Art of Biography

1:26:25
 
Share
 

Manage episode 453745448 series 3563503
Content provided by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Donate to Conversations with Tyler

Give Crypto

Other Ways to Give

In his landmark multi-volume biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin shows how totalitarian power worked not just through terror from above, but through millions of everyday decisions from below. Currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution after 33 years at Princeton, Kotkin brings both deep archival work and personal experience to his understanding of Soviet life, having lived in Magnitogorsk during the 1980s and seen firsthand how power operates in closed societies.

Tyler sat down with Stephen to discuss the state of Russian Buddhism today, how shamanism persists in modern Siberia, whether Siberia might ever break away from Russia, what happened to the science city Akademgorodok, why Soviet obsession with cybernetics wasn't just a mistake, what life was really like in 1980s Magnitogorsk, how modernist urban planning failed there, why Prokofiev returned to the USSR in 1936, what Stalin actually understood about artistic genius, how Stalin's Georgian background influenced him (or not), what Michel Foucault taught him about power, why he risked his tenure case to study Japanese, how his wife's work as a curator opened his eyes to Korean folk art, how he's progressing on the next Stalin volume, and much more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded November 13th, 2024.

Other ways to connect

  continue reading

253 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 453745448 series 3563503
Content provided by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Conversations with Tyler and Mercatus Center at George Mason University or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

Donate to Conversations with Tyler

Give Crypto

Other Ways to Give

In his landmark multi-volume biography of Stalin, Stephen Kotkin shows how totalitarian power worked not just through terror from above, but through millions of everyday decisions from below. Currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution after 33 years at Princeton, Kotkin brings both deep archival work and personal experience to his understanding of Soviet life, having lived in Magnitogorsk during the 1980s and seen firsthand how power operates in closed societies.

Tyler sat down with Stephen to discuss the state of Russian Buddhism today, how shamanism persists in modern Siberia, whether Siberia might ever break away from Russia, what happened to the science city Akademgorodok, why Soviet obsession with cybernetics wasn't just a mistake, what life was really like in 1980s Magnitogorsk, how modernist urban planning failed there, why Prokofiev returned to the USSR in 1936, what Stalin actually understood about artistic genius, how Stalin's Georgian background influenced him (or not), what Michel Foucault taught him about power, why he risked his tenure case to study Japanese, how his wife's work as a curator opened his eyes to Korean folk art, how he's progressing on the next Stalin volume, and much more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded November 13th, 2024.

Other ways to connect

  continue reading

253 episodes

All episodes

×
 
Loading …

Welcome to Player FM!

Player FM is scanning the web for high-quality podcasts for you to enjoy right now. It's the best podcast app and works on Android, iPhone, and the web. Signup to sync subscriptions across devices.

 

Listen to this show while you explore
Play