Uzbekistan follows a now well-established custom since its independence in 1991. Every year on December 8, the Day of the Constitution, the guiding theme for the coming year is announced. For example, 2014 was the year of the “Healthy Child”, 2004 the “Year of Love and Compassion.”

The Uzbekistan government has declared 2015 to be “The Year of Attention and Care for Elder People.”

The Ellison Center is pleased to announce that graduate alumnus Taylor Zajicek was awarded the ASEEES Graduate Student Essay Prize for an outstanding essay by a graduate student in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies for his paper “Modern Friendship: The ‘New Turkey’ and Soviet Cultural Diplomacy, 1933-1934”.

As a National Resource Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, the Ellison Center offers master teacher workshops for local community educators. In cooperation with the Center for West European Studies, the Ellison Center was pleased to host a two part workshop for social studies teachers at the Jackson School on “Europe’s Transformative 20th Century: From a Continent of War and Division to a Continent of Peace.”

Thanksgiving holiday is a time of gratitude, family feasts, cozy nights and no-holds-barred shopping. Unless you are a graduate student or college senior. For us, it is a time for studying, writing, researching and worrying. There are many applications for internships, government programs and graduate schools to manage on top of our academic load just prior to dead week. You may be eating turkey at the table, watching football in the den, or waiting in line for a Hollywood blockbuster, but the question will inevitably come up — “So, what are your plans after graduation?”

Which types of contemporary Russian firms are most likely to use violence or corruption to resolve business disputes, and which types are most likely to utilize the law? Jordan Gans-Morse presented findings from an original survey of Russian businesses analyzing the relationships between firm-level characteristics and firm strategies relating to property rights.

After living in Russia for one year and visiting again prior to my trip this summer, I thought that I would be very prepared for my experiences in St. Petersburg and Sochi. To my surprise, neither city was anything like Moscow or the lovely village of Beloomut, on the outskirts of Moscow.

Dr. Virgina Martin’s lecture about Kazakh nomadic political culture over the first ten years of Russian rule in the Middle Horde Kazakh Steppe was held in Thompson 317 at 1:30pm today.

Dr Martin presented her recent research which explores local political views and practices of service, loyalty and governance as she works to challenge the standard outdated nationalist and statist historiographies on resistance and bureaucratization of the Kazakhs during this period.

After Vladimir Putin’s fiery Valdai Club speech in Sochi on October 21st, it has become clear that 2014 will be a watershed year for the Russian Federation and Russia-watchers everywhere. From Euromaidan to the Olympics, from the Crimean Crisis to the support of separatists in the Donbass region, Westerners have been attempting to answer one simple question:

What is motivating Putin?

Changing perception from “win-lose” to “win-win” in legal cases goes beyond lawyering. It is a physiological process and it requires intensive training for mediators. I believe that popularization of mediation as a mechanism of alternative dispute resolution is a step forward for the country. However, the concept of mediation is used in various contexts within Georgia.

Storytelling festivals are a fascinating phenomenon. Festivals and circles aimed at adults, first appearing in Western Europe and the United States in the early 1970s, have now become an established practice worldwide. In the United States, for example, the storytelling revival movement dates back to the Jonesborough Storytelling Festival in Tennessee, established in 1973. Among the post-communist countries, Slovenia shows an interest in not only studying collections of its native folktales, but in reviving traditional storytelling as an oral performance art aimed at adults.