Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Dance Studies

This dissertation examines the dance studio and its built environment, exploring the dynamic relationship between dance and space. The focal point is the concept of the dance studio, analyzed through the urban landscapes and the experimental art practices in the city of Zagreb from the 1950s to the 2010s. The study investigates the dance studio through the histories of spatial structures, dance history, and the history of cinema. Shaped by these processes, dance is specifically entangled with spatial structures and is expanded by their horizons, outcomes, and histories. The dance studio here is a hypothesis built in the process—a space that exists at the intersection of context and time, with dance emerging as an archival record embedded in spatial and societal change. The dissertation argues that this very process constitutes the dance studio's structure: a space, practice, and environment made possible—reimagined, shaped, and hypothesized through the lens of dance and its experimental inquiry. The study approaches the dance studio from the vantage point of the long contemporaneity, extending across both modernism and postmodernism while facilitating the juxtaposition and productive friction of these terms. The city of Zagreb is approached as a dynamic multitude, encompassing a range of developments in the socialist and post-socialist periods that influenced, challenged, and shaped art, dance artists, and their spaces between 1949 and 2010.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation examines how reformist (1989-1992) and communist (1994-1997) activist groups—holding diametrically opposing ideological views—made sense of the transition period from the Ukrainian SSR to independent Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk print media. The main argument of the dissertation is that the two activist groups participated in the formation of a Dnipropetrovsk-specific variety of civic Ukrainian nationalism, by depicting Dnipropetrovsk political elites as an existential threat to Ukraine's sovereignty and deputizing themselves in the threat response. This blend of civic nationalism helps to explain how the Russophone, industrial Dnipropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine became a bulwark of Ukrainian patriotism and resistance to Russia's invasion of Ukraine since 2014. Dnipropetrovsk residents saw Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a threat to their regional identity, which first developed in the transition period based on the presumption that Dnipropetrovsk would play a coequal role to Kyiv in the political trajectory of the Ukrainian state. Source material for the dissertation includes the activists' periodicals, key officials' autobiographies, and other published works. Historians have noted that Dnipropetrovsk served an important supportive role in the official narratives of state prestige in the Tsarist Imperial and Soviet periods. The tumultuousness of the transition period, combined with the political and economic influence of Dnipropetrovsk vis-a-vis Kyiv, emboldened the two activist groups to claim an unprecedented coequal role to the state in shaping the official narrative of national prestige.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

During the Great Patriotic War (that is, the Soviet-German War (1941-1945) as part of the Second World War), performances of music and songs were an important part of the life of soldiers in the Red Army. This study examines how these songs could function in unofficial aspects of the lives of frontline soldiers. There was a “cult of folklore” in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s, which meant that depiction of folklore in film and literature was an official policy. However, the fact that such performances featured in officially sanctioned artistic works raises the question, how much was propaganda and how much reflected actual practices? To answer this question, I looked at all of the references to performances of songs in over fifty Russian-language diaries and volumes of letters written by members of the Soviet military. I did not use journalism to avoid propaganda, nor memoirs to avoid the problem of transformations of memories over the years; instead, I used sources written during the war itself that reflected the everyday life of the soldiers.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

The paper offers a discursive analysis of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's manifesto "Letter to the Soviet Leaders," along with Andrei Sakharov's and Mihajlo Mihajlov's subsequent responses. The primary objective of this inquiry is to examine the politico-ideological positionality of dissident writers in relation to the authoritative discourse of the time. The political landscape of the official discourse is defined through the ideological postulates of Socialist Realism, such as partiinost', klassovost', ideinost' and narodnost'. Drawing on the theory of Althusserian Marxism, it is posited that the dissident texts will reflect the ideological effects of the Socialist Realist cultural economy in which they were situated. Since Althusserian Marxism, in addition to the materialistic nature of cultural production, recognizes its transformative potential, it is further anticipated that the dissident texts may significantly depart from the observed topos of Socialist Realism. Finally, considering dissenters' oppositional activities as attempts to construct future ontological moments, the paper will also address the extent to which dissidents succeeded in future projections.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

Aided by Media and Cultural studies, specifically Stuart Hall's Reception theory, I analyze social power dynamics in media through the lenses of gender, sexuality, and race. Media frames narratives and representations through implicit subjectivity and explicit rhetoric as well as more technical strategies like gatekeeping and topic associations. In part I, I reveal competing modernities in human rights discourses on queerness in the Russian Federation in documentary films, television and web docuseries, and a reality television competition show. In part II, I expose competing modernities in narratives and representations of gender and sexual deviation in the Russian Federation in animated television series for children and melodrama television series for adults. Popular media representations communicate continua of modernity, which is defined by Western neoliberal or Russian neoliberal civilizational progress. The continua articulate competition as linear progression or as concentric circles depending on the society's dominant perspective and marginalized population. Discourse forms in responses to the media. I analyze the discourse and categorize negotiation as acceptance, neutrality, or rejection of the mediated hierarchies. Collective responses like public recognition and media critique as well as individual viewer responses form a discourse in favor of a one universalization against others. sl Parts I & II are three-fold: 1) I contextualize hierarchies of modernity, which are validated by Western or Russian neoliberal thinking on gender and sexual comportment, in chapters 1 & 4; 2) I analyze examples of popular media framing that articulate competing modernities in non-fiction and fiction genres in chapters 2 & 5; and, 3) I analyze discourses and negotiation in the collective and individual responses to the media in chapters 3 & 6. The analytical timeframe of this dissertation is January 2000 to September 2023, which incorporates significant attitude changes, (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

The Romani people are arguably the most ostracized group in Europe. This thesis examines how their minority status intersects with the vulnerability factors for human trafficking. Romania serves as the location of my research as it is not only a dominant sending country of trafficking victims, but it also has the largest Roma population in Europe. My research provides an overview of trafficking in Romani communities, the responses of the Romanian government, non-government organizations (NGOs), and anti-trafficking groups in Romania. I analyze data on the Roma community's access to state services, Roma socioeconomic status, Roma migration patterns, and anti-Roma sentiment among civil society and state actors in order to explain why the Roma are at higher risk of being trafficked. I employ a labor market and human rights approach to anti-trafficking in order to 1) formulate more appropriate responses to anti-trafficking efforts and Roma inclusion initiatives and 2) challenge the notion that human trafficking in Romani communities is inherently a Roma, or ethnocultural, problem.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

This dissertation investigates the ways in which Russian media have transformed over the course of the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on the response that prominent news outlets have offered to recent events. Chapter 1 outlines the structure of this dissertation and summarizes the goals, methods, and findings of subsequent chapters. Drawing from recent scholarship on Russian media, Chapter 2 focuses on the state of Russian mass media during the pre-pandemic period and particularly Vladimir Putin's multiple presidential terms. Chapter 2 concludes that while the authorities had undoubtedly sought to limit the freedoms available to mass media during the pre-pandemic period, these efforts remained insufficient to fully eliminate the independence afforded to the media domain. Chapter 3 utilizes Appraisal Theory to analyze the coverage that three Russian(-language) outlets – RIA Novosti, Novaia gazeta, and Meduza – have provided to Russia's 2020 constitutional reform. Similarly to the preceding chapter, Chapter 3 determines that in 2020, Russian(-language) mass media still retained enough autonomy to offer an explicitly critical view on a major government undertaking. Lastly, Chapter 4 employs Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the reactions of Instagram users toward the content that was created by RIA Novosti and Meduza at the onset of hostilities in Ukraine and reaches two main conclusions. First, stances that RIA Novosti and Meduza had expressed on Instagram toward the military confrontation between Russia and Ukraine did not fully correlate with the outlook of the users who left comments on the posts published by these two outlets. Second, at times users made rhetorical choices that could conceivably be considered paradoxical. The presence of these incongruities suggests that the official narrative that Russian authorities had crafted to discuss and justify the war in Ukraine possessed limited reach during the first few weeks of this military conflict.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis explores the chronology of events surrounding the U.S. Arctic Expedition of 1879–1881, also known as the Jeannette Expedition, as well as the expedition's place in public memory. This epic expedition, which tested the limits of human endurance and will for survival, was a story of its time. Its tragic fate captivated the imagination of its contemporaries and was widely covered by the press. However, it is nearly absent in today's collective consciousness of this country and receives little attention from scholars. Often, basic facts concerning the expedition, such as the dates of the events, their duration and sequence, and the number of crew members, vary from one publication or source to another. Relying on primary and secondary materials, the author seeks to verify some of these basic facts and identify the reasons behind the expedition's obscurity in public memory.

MFA, Kent State University, 0, College of the Arts / School of Art

Loss is a major component of my lived experience and informs much of the work in my thesis exhibition, Oh, Horse Hockey! Herein, I explore my personal and familial relationship to grief. I utilize a working narrative of symbolic, metaphoric, and literal interpretations of grief. Through the use of recurring visual symbols of addiction, childhood, and celebration, I call attention to avoidance. Most glaring, however, is the inclusion of party ephemera. Its significance enlivens a contrapuntal read of this body of work, wherein the seemingly oppositional concepts of loss and celebration are made interdependent.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

The persistence and growth of anti-LGBTQ+ violence and discrimination demonstrate that present forms of queer organizing do not sufficiently guarantee LGBTQ+ security, rights, and freedom. New forms of LGBTQ+ along transnational, intersectional, and democratic paradigms can address the shortcomings of current LGBTQ+ rights structures. Through analysis of the environments of LGBTQ+ lives and activism, considering the systems and structures which construct these environments, this project explores how the LGBTQ+ movement organizes currently in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. A national and regional focus allows for the contextualization of global trends in the struggle for queer rights, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate the general applicability of conclusions regarding modes of activism. Methods of analysis focused on pairing scholarship with considerations from LGBTQ+ activists themselves. With the goal of ensuring this project contributes to the inclusion of queer voices in academia, analysis of interviews with 10 organizers from the region forms the basis for conclusions.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions against Russia has had an overwhelmingly negative impact on the Russian automobile industry. This has resulted in industry-wide changes, most notably the nationalization of privately-held automakers and an exodus of foreign automakers. This marks the beginning of a new era within the Russian automobile industry that is distinct from the post-Soviet era, which had been characterized by globalization and a highly diversified, competitive market. This new era will be defined by a struggle to overcome the reliance on globalized supply chains, the development of indigenous technologies and processes related to automobile production, and the growing role of the Chinese auto industry in Russia. This piece argues that, since its founding, the Russian automobile industry has relied on foreign technology transfers to facilitate progress, as opposed to long-term investment in domestically developing these technologies. Dating back to the Soviet Union, the automobile has been a symbol used by Russian leaders to show progress towards larger objectives, like industrialization under Stalin or achieving parity with the West under Khrushchev. Using these historical trends and markers as a lens for interpreting events today, this piece argues the automobile industry of today continues to be influenced by the trends of the past, while developing under the unique realities of post-February 24, 2022 Russia.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

The Chechens & Chechen national movement have a turbulent history with Russia which includes assassinations, staged bombings, two-wars, and genocide. The separatist movement itself has seen both its highs and lows, but when failed at certain points in history, transformed into other types of identity movements. This thesis uses public theologies framework to analyze how this transformation happened and argues that what exactly the movement transforms into varies on the time period, the space the movements operate in, and the spiritual meanings associated with belonging and nationalism. It identifies three distinct public theologies of belonging among the Chechens: those of the nationalist-separatists; jihadis; and the Kadyrov followers.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

Scholars and analysts widely agree that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan employ autocratic regime types and that since their achieving their independence in 1991, have not meaningfully democratized their political systems. This notwithstanding, both countries also employ liberal institutions, such as governments with three branches, multi-candidate elections, and constitutions that champion democracy and human rights. I argue that, rather than acting as checks on presidential power, autocratic capture of these liberal institutions has transformed them into valuable instruments of rule without sacrificing legitimacy from actual liberal democracies that other autocrats typically do not receive. Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani autocrats utilize, in particular, elections and constitutional reforms to further entrench their personal power while promoting a narrative of gradual democratization.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

“How can teachers help students improve their second language (L2) speaking accuracy?” This is a question that most L2 educators ask themselves every day. Although L2 writing is a popular topic among Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers, the consideration that L2 writing has the potential to act as a scaffold for L2 speaking accuracy has often been overlooked. This research attempts to draw SLA researchers' attention to the untapped potential that L2 writing has on improving L2 speaking accuracy. This research provides empirical evidence that L2 writing have a great potential to improve accuracy of L2 oral discourse. Twenty-three Novice, twenty-one Intermediate, and twenty Advanced university students of Russian participated in the study. They completed a text reconstruction task by working with the original text to 'notice the gap' using both written and spoken modes of recall. Both written and spoken forms of recall provided sufficient opportunity for improving semantic accuracy and produced textual complexity, and for acquiring new vocabulary with all three levels of learners. However, only the Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced learners working with the texts in writing showed improvement in their speaking accuracy. These findings can be considered the first step in drawing scholars' attention to the benefits of utilizing L2 writing to improve L2 speaking accuracy that have often been overlooked. This research also bridges the gap in our understanding of written and spoken recall of texts written in L2. The relationship between written and spoken recall has primarily been analyzed with English-speaking monolinguals. It has been reported that written recall provides semantically more accurate responses than spoken recall due to the higher cognitive load and attention required to produce a text. The pilot study described in this dissertation examined the written and spoken text recall relationship in L2 learners of Russian, and analyzed how individual w (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

For most of Soviet history, sex and sexuality were forbidden topics. The official state position was that sex was primarily a means to an end: the conception of future Soviet generations. The state enforced this hushed tenet by restricting discourses on sex in film, the press, and medical journals. However, Gorbachev's glasnost (“openness”) policy relaxed censorship and allowed Soviet people to explore the role of sex in society openly. Between 1986 and 1991, the USSR saw an unprecedented explosion of public discussions on sex and sexuality among journalists, filmmakers, medical clinicians, policy makers, activists, and others interested in the topic. Soviet researchers unearthed realities that the state had attempted to conceal, such as rampant prostitution, sexually transmitted disease (STDs), and high rates of sexual violence. This dissertation argues that a sexual revolution took place in the USSR between 1986 and 1991, due in large part to glasnost. The sexual revolution was mainly a discursive one, in which glasnost allowed journalists, artists, filmmakers, writers, academics, activists, and medical clinicians to publicly debate the terms of sexual citizenship through artistic depictions, medical and sociological studies, legislative decisions, news discourse, and independent publishing. However, the Soviet sexual revolution also brought about discernable changes in sexual behaviors and identities. Some people began to see sexual freedom as a vital aspect of a wider social and political liberation within Soviet society. And when they could not reconcile sexual liberation with the Soviet system, these people began to envision alternatives. Thus, my dissertation explores the Soviet sexual revolution and evaluates its form and function. I show throughout this project that sexual liberation and gender equality could not be achieved within the confines of the Soviet system. As many people, especially LGBT+ activists, came to believe (and express), liberation (open full item for complete abstract)

BA, Oberlin College, 2022, Russian and East European Studies

The Siberian punk movement of the 1980s is often regarded as the Soviet Union's most aesthetically and politically iconoclastic rock underground. Amidst the numerous bands the scene produced, none has matched the notoriety of Grazhdanskaia Oborona (Civil Defense) and its leader Egor Letov. At first glance, Letov's songs declaring hatred for the “totalitarian” Soviet Union and its destruction of the individual evoke associations with the previous generation of Soviet dissidents, who used the term “totalitarianism” to contrast the Soviet system with the Western democracy they admired. Yet Letov, who rejected democratic reforms and after the collapse of the USSR proclaimed himself as an ardent communist, described totalitarianism not as a form of government but as an inborn state of being. Accordingly, resistance toward the Soviet state became a manifestation of the struggle against human nature. Totalitarianism thus serves as a lens through which to examine the role of radical politics in Grazhdanskaia Oborona: a reflection of existential rebellion. By analyzing his interviews and musical output in the mid- to late-1980s, I argue that Letov manipulates listeners' understandings of what it meant to be “against” in the Soviet Union by drawing from existing rhetoric of political protest, replacing the image of the liberal dissident with that of a rebel whose radical politics reflect an existential struggle. I demonstrate his conception of totalitarianism as a line of continuity between his “anti-Soviet” and “pro-communist” years. In doing so, I present Letov as a figure whose works defy conventions of liberal political resistance traditionally employed by Western scholars of the Soviet Union.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

The present study evaluated spinal trauma present in a skeletal assemblage from medieval Giecz, Poland. Degenerative Joint Disease (DJD), vertebral compression fractures, Schmorl's Nodes, and spondylolysis were analyzed and documented in individuals with vertebral columns that were partially or fully complete. Males in this sample presented with a higher frequency of DJD, Schmorl's Nodes, and wedge vertebral compression fractures. This supports the hypothesis that there was a sexual division of labor in the population at Giecz. When placed in a broader historical context, and in concert with findings from biomechanical research, it is clear that the population at Giecz, especially the males, experienced significant physiological pressure associated with agricultural production during the beginnings of feudalism. The members of this population lived a physically demanding lifestyle, as can be seen in the increasing prevalence of DJD and wedge compression fractures with age.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Slavic and East European Studies

In 1923, the leadership of the Soviet Union set forth resolutions announcing their commitment to supporting the development of national communities throughout the Union. These resolutions decentralized decision-making and opened a relatively unfettered intellectual space for national development. The policy lasted through the end of the 1920s when the Central Party became disillusioned because of national communities' demands for more autonomy or independence. The Central Party believed national development should be directed toward building a socialist country, but some national communities were wary of Moscow's influence. As a result, the Party began to target the national communities in the late 1920s and turned to terror in the 1930s to centralize power. I argue that the trajectory of the Ukrainian writers in Kharkiv from 1925 to 1934 offers a very personal but also analytically fertile example of changing Soviet policies. Their story sheds light on a generation of hopeful revolutionary writers that experienced two very different realities as the Stalin-led Soviet Union tried to consolidate its power: wide-ranging creative opportunities followed by unfathomable terror. The lives of Mykola Khvylovy, Ostap Vyshnya, and Mike Johansen, and the creation of Slovo House, where they came to live, demonstrate how writers in Kharkiv freely worked to develop a system where Ukraine's fledgling culture and economy could progress within the Soviet system. The Slovo House, which the writers completed in 1930, transformed from their dream home to their prison. The trajectory of the writers, and their eventual arrests and murders, highlights the Soviet state's transformation from a relatively decentralized state with an emphasis on nationalization to a centralized state machine.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Slavic and East European Studies

In this thesis I explore the historic roots and origins of the political and ideological dispute between Moldova and Pridnestrovie. Why did these two regions become divided as the Soviet Union collapsed? An examination of the history of Pridnestrovie during the final years of the Soviet Union (1989-1990) and the actions, rhetoric, and motivations of Moldovan and Pridnestrovian actors demonstrates that the main factors of the dispute were 1) the Pridnestrovians' fears of excessive Romanian influence and 2) debates over the roles of linguistic equality, multiculturalism, and regional autonomy in the future Moldova. The use of primary-source news articles, interviews, and Party and government documents allows me to detail the Pridnestrovians' fears of so-called “Romanianization” and their attachment to polylingualism, multiculturalism, and regional autonomy— ideas rooted in Soviet nationality policy. This is coupled with secondary sources detailing Soviet nationality policy, which I use to place Pridnestrovie in comparison with other Soviet regions. Finally, I present modern day Pridnestrovian sources to further explore the legacy of Soviet policy and to relate this dispute to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. My examination of the region's history shows that Pridnestrovie maintained its multicultural character, causing multinational population to eschew ethnic nationalism. This thesis adds to our knowledge of Moldova and Pridnestrovie by illustrating the meaning of Romanianization and by examining the term's historic usage in the Russian language and its relation to the fascist occupation of Pridnestrovie during World War II. Additionally, this work is important because I draw connections to the actions and rhetoric of Pridnestrovians in the late Soviet period to the tenets of Soviet nationality policy. Ultimately, this thesis conveys the Pridnestrovians' story and expands on the deeply rooted issues and historic trends, which caused the Moldo-Pridnestrovian split (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

Similar to the space race or nuclear arms race, Olympic competition was a battle between East and West in the Cold War. This thesis examines Soviet engagement in the 1952 Summer Olympics as a form of early Soviet cultural diplomacy and originally claims that Soviet propaganda portrayed the Cold War as a battle for peace. It also identifies the Soviet Union's 1952 Olympic debut as a precursor to the Soviet Union's engagement in international cultural diplomacy emerging in 1956. By analyzing publications of the Soviet press, this thesis argues that the Soviet Union aimed to prove the ideological supremacy of socialism not only through excellent athletic performances, but also by demonstrating the superior moral consciousness of Soviet athletes. To do so, the Soviet press applied its ‘peace offensive' to sport and highlighted parallels between core tenants of Olympism and socialist ideology, such as egalitarianism and international friendship. Soviet newspapers lauded Soviet athletes as fierce defenders of the Olympic Games and invoked the memory of World War II to condemn the ‘capitalist perversion' of sport by ‘warmongering' Western nations—most commonly, these criticisms targeted the United States. The thesis then examines the depictions of individual Soviet athletes. Patriotic biographical sketches presented Soviet Olympians as hero athletes who exemplified the New Soviet Person. These inspirational depictions urged Soviet youth to pursue sport and mobilize for the battle for peace—that is, the Cold War. This research is increasingly relevant in 2022 following the Russian Federation's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as Russian media eerily presents a narrative of fascist aggression against Russian athletes.