Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
171 episodes
2 weeks ago
Lecture by Sergei Antonov (Yale University). Russia’s landmark judicial reform of 1864 introduced the public jury trial and turned the courtroom into a protected forum for social and sometimes even political debates. This lecture will explore some of the most prominent criminal cases of the post-reform era that involved elite women accused of murder, forgery, and embezzlement. For the only time in Russian history, late imperial criminal trials exposed the hidden lives of Russia’s elites to public scrutiny and discussion, framing many key “questions” of the age, such as the limits of permissible violence, bourgeois privacy and autonomy, exercise of personal power, and profit-seeking. Also for the only time in Russia’s history, powerful persons could reliably expect to go on trial for major crimes, while also expecting that trial to be fundamentally fair. But the effects of this panoptic gaze were complex and ambiguous, and the narratives produced during the trials were unintentionally ambivalent not only about those being prosecuted, but also about the new governing regime itself.
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Lecture by Sergei Antonov (Yale University). Russia’s landmark judicial reform of 1864 introduced the public jury trial and turned the courtroom into a protected forum for social and sometimes even political debates. This lecture will explore some of the most prominent criminal cases of the post-reform era that involved elite women accused of murder, forgery, and embezzlement. For the only time in Russian history, late imperial criminal trials exposed the hidden lives of Russia’s elites to public scrutiny and discussion, framing many key “questions” of the age, such as the limits of permissible violence, bourgeois privacy and autonomy, exercise of personal power, and profit-seeking. Also for the only time in Russia’s history, powerful persons could reliably expect to go on trial for major crimes, while also expecting that trial to be fundamentally fair. But the effects of this panoptic gaze were complex and ambiguous, and the narratives produced during the trials were unintentionally ambivalent not only about those being prosecuted, but also about the new governing regime itself.
The lecture will provide insight into the particular (and sometimes peculiar) challenges Central Asian states faced in their energy systems during the first 30 years of independence as they struggled to provide reliable energy at home and secure resource markets abroad. It will then turn to examine what the global transition away from fossil fuels portends for Central Asia’s future.
About the Speaker: Theresa Sabonis-Helf is a Professor of the Practice at Georgetown University. She is based in the Georgetown School of Foreign Service Master’s Degree program, and serves as the Inaugural Chair of the Science, Technology and International Affairs concentration. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College in Washington DC for 18 years. She has lived and worked in seven countries of the Former USSR, has assisted two nations with the development of their first National Security Strategies, has written a textbook on Caucasus regional energy issues, and has co-edited two volumes on Central Asia’s political and economic transition. She has also published and lectured extensively on energy security, climate change policies, critical infrastructure resilience and security, post-Soviet energy and environmental issues, energy transition, and the politics of electricity. She is a frequent advisor to NATO and to the US government. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Emory University, and an MPA in International Affairs from Princeton University.
CREECA Lecture Series Podcast
Lecture by Sergei Antonov (Yale University). Russia’s landmark judicial reform of 1864 introduced the public jury trial and turned the courtroom into a protected forum for social and sometimes even political debates. This lecture will explore some of the most prominent criminal cases of the post-reform era that involved elite women accused of murder, forgery, and embezzlement. For the only time in Russian history, late imperial criminal trials exposed the hidden lives of Russia’s elites to public scrutiny and discussion, framing many key “questions” of the age, such as the limits of permissible violence, bourgeois privacy and autonomy, exercise of personal power, and profit-seeking. Also for the only time in Russia’s history, powerful persons could reliably expect to go on trial for major crimes, while also expecting that trial to be fundamentally fair. But the effects of this panoptic gaze were complex and ambiguous, and the narratives produced during the trials were unintentionally ambivalent not only about those being prosecuted, but also about the new governing regime itself.
