Endowed Faculty Lecture: Alaska in the Russian Cultural Imagination

Join us for the 2025-2026 Endowed Faculty Lecture Series! On Monday, April 20, José Vergara, Associate Professor and Chair of Russian on the Myra T. Cooley Lectureship in Russian Studies, will present a special lecture. A reception will be held after the lecture in the Old Library London Room. 

About the lecture: Where does Alaska lie on the map of Russian literature, and where does it overlap with the political geographies of the Russian and Soviet empires? Exploring a group of disparate texts—a song from the colonial period, a hybrid poetry-photography project by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a samizdat collage book by emigre enfant terrible Konstantin Kuzminsky, and a statue of merchant-governor Alexander Baranov donated to the city of Sitka in 1989—this presentation considers how Alaska fits into the Russian cultural imagination and examines the echoes of colonialism that persist in the former “Russian America.”