Wilson Center
The Kennan Institute Honors Black History Month
In honor of Black History Month, the Kennan Institute features research, events, interviews, and blog posts that amplify the voices and experiences of African Americans, Africans, and Black people more broadly within the context of both Soviet history and contemporary US-Russia relations. We highlight black voices and research in the Soviet and Post-Soviet space throughout this month and beyond. Promoting these usually under-recognized experiences is essential to our mission of improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, and the wider Eurasia region.
Past Publications and Events
![Missed Histories: Overlooked Stories in Russian Studies from the Overlooked](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/Missed%20Histories%20Event%20Banner%20%281%29.png)
Missed Histories: Overlooked Stories in Russian Studies from the Overlooked
![Image: Book Covers](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/book%20covers.jpg)
Kennan Institute Black History Month Book List
![Portland, OR / USA - June 11 2016: Grand floral parade, African American female photographer taking pictures with canon dslr camera.](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/shutterstock_1119449066_1.jpg)
Behind the Story: Black Journalists in Russia and Eurasia
![Black student posed with backpack and school items on yard of university, against flags of different countries.](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/shutterstock_1534981739_2.jpg)
Race, Racism, and Diversity in Slavic and Eurasian Studies
![The celebration of the International Women's Day on March 8 at the Patrice Lumumba People's Friendship University. Wilhelmina Scott Boyle, a third year student from Sierra Leone speaks at the podium.](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/RIAN_archive_726717_Celebration_of_March_8_International_Women%27s_Day_at_Patrice_Lumumba_People%27s_Friendship_University_0.jpg)
Andrea Lee's "Russian Journal": A Tapestry of the Late Soviet Era
While several well-known accounts of African American experiences in the Soviet Union exist from the 1920s and 30s, there are fewer memoirs and travelogues from the later Soviet period. As part of the Kennan Institute's Black History Month programming, Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon reflects on one travelogue from the 1970s in particular by Andrea Lee titled "Russian Journal," which is a fast-paced tour through Brezhnev's so-called “stagnant” Soviet Union.
![Washington, USA 12 14 2020 Lloyd Austin is an American retired four-star Army general](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/shutterstock_1874190493_2.jpg)
Facebook Live | Pathways to Success: Russia, Race, and Careers in Public Service
![Flags of Ethiopia and the Russian Federation flying in the wind](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/shutterstock_1858350493.jpg)
Global Perspectives | Ethiopia-Russia Relations
![Image: Joy Carew Book Cover 2](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/81Eruc0cJBL_3.jpg)
“Blacks, Reds, and Russians:” An Interview with Joy Carew
To continue with our Black History Month effort, we recently interviewed Professor Joy Carew of the University of Louisville about her research on the history and experiences of black people in the USSR and Russia.
![The heads of delegations attending the Russia-Africa Summit pose for photographs. October 24, 2019; Sochi, Russia (Source: en.kremlin.ru)](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/Putin-Sochi-Africa%20summit.jpg)
Kennan Cable No. 47: Moscow’s Limited Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa
![Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin and Claude McKay in 1923](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/grigory%20Zinoviev%2C%20Nikolai%20Bukharin%20and%20Claude%20McKaty%20in%201923.jpg)
Black Skin in the Red Land: African Americans and the Soviet Experiment
![Image: Bohdan Khmelnytsky Monument, Kyiv](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/80-391-1247_Kyiv_Khmelnytsky_Monument_RB_18.jpg)
Life as a Black Ukrainian: How Some Natives Are Treated Like Foreigners
“Racism ... has its unique trend on former Soviet Union soil,” according to guest speaker Terrell Starr, who discussed his research as a Fulbright scholar in Ukraine at a May 2011 Kennan Institute event. In particular, Starr focused on the experiences of African-Ukrainian women.
![Image: Langston Hughes](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/Langston_Hughes_by_Carl_Van_Vechten_1936_0.jpg)
"Race Travelers" and Black America's Romance with Soviet Russia
Maxim Matusevich explains how early Soviet Russia was perceived by the black community in the United States as a "red Mecca" of equality, not because of the ideology of the Soviet state, but rather due to the image of a "multi-ethnic Soviet Union marching towards a communist paradise."
![Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes President of Zimbabwe Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa at the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi. Photo: RIA Novosti, Source: Kremlin.ru](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/blog_post/ybgl1j9gipljwjkabsqhzxdshrjbfnse.jpg)
We Need to Change How We Talk about Russia in Africa
Against the backdrop of China and Russia’s growing influence on the African continent, Western news outlets have recently seized on comparisons between these current rivalries and those of the nineteenth-century colonial era. Emily Couch explains why we need to question the new “scramble for Africa” narrative.
![Beyond State Crisis? Post-Colonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/publication/ACF136B.jpg)
Beyond State Crisis? Post-Colonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective
Perspectives on Political Science writes that "Any scholar interested in comparative studies and international relations will find a wealth of substantive detail and theoretical discussion by expert observers of state effectiveness and breakdown" in this 2002 offering from Wilson Center Press and the Johns Hopkins University Press.More about this title can be found on the Johns Hopkins University Press website, along with ordering information.
![Siad Barre, Somali leader and one-time ally of the Soviet Union](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/blog_post/siad_barre_poster_mogadishu.jpg)
The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa
Documents reveal Moscow found itself in the Horn of Africa not by imposition but by invitation.
![Southern Africa in the Cold War, Post-1974](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/publication/Cover_500.jpg)
Southern Africa in the Cold War, Post-1974
CWIHP is pleased to announce publication of the first-ever Critical Oral History on Southern Africa in the Cold War era. Drawing together leading former antagonists from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, the former Soviet Union and with representation from Cuba, this volume combines moderated discussion from contemporary actors, combined with academic analysis and new key multi-archival documents. The volume is an important contribution to study of the complexity of the Cold War in the region's liberation struggles versus white minority resistance.
![Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1960–1965](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/publication/namikas_md.jpg)
Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1960–1965
Lise Namikas traces the Congo Crisis from post-World War II decolonization efforts through Mobutu’s second coup in 1965 from a radically new vantage point.
![A Distant Front in the Cold War: The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1956-1964](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/images/publication/adistantfront.jpg)
A Distant Front in the Cold War: The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1956-1964
Written by Sergey Mazov
![Soviet political poster 1932](/sites/default/files/styles/carousel_promo/public/media/uploads/images/download.png)