The REECAS NW panel on Religion and Identity featured contributions from Matthew Cotton (UW History PhD student) and Anatoliy Klots (UW Slavic Studies PhD Student) on Jewish studies topics Odessa through the prism of Isaac Babel’s prose and the post-Soviet oeuvre of filmmakers like Dmitri Astrakhan and Aleksandr Proshkin. Jennifer Webster (UW History Lecturer) rounded out the panel with a consideration of Baqshy healer women in Kyrgyzstan as a means of exploring the relationship between Islam, ethnic and gender identity, and modernization in Central Asia.

“Russians don’t surrender.” These were the words of Ukrainian Navy Captain Maxim Emelianenko…

by Christi Anne Hofland This article is based on a paper presented at the Nineteenth Annual Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies Northwest Conference in April 2013. Since independence in 1991, Ukraine has struggled with uncertainty as it attempts to solidify a national identity and forge a path for its future. One of its greatest