Description: A comprehensive exploration of racialization and racism in Russia that spans the Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods.
Brief description: Eugene M. Avrutin is the Tobor Family Endowed Professor of Modern European Jewish History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. He is the author and co-editor of several award-winning books, including Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (2010) and The Velizh Affair: Blood Libel in a Russian Town (2018). Most recently, he edited, with Elissa Bemporad, Pogroms: A Documentary History (2021).
Review Quotes:
"In Racism in Modern Russia Avrutin affirms the utility of studying racial formations in Russia, the Soviet Union, and Postsoviet space. The work offers an important intervention, demonstrating how to move beyond questioning the applicability of race to showing how and why race emerged as a feature of these societies and to what ends." --Sunnie Rucker-Chang, Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, USA
"Racism in Modern Russia offers a superb overview of the history of racial thinking in Russia and the Soviet Union and the rise of far-right nationalism and racism in post-Soviet Russia. In this excellent book, Avrutin makes an important contribution to understanding the current political and intellectual climate in Russia." --Adrienne Edgar, Professor of History, University of California, USA