Sophie Pinkham Latest Articles

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Sophie Pinkham

Sophie Pinkham is the author of Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine.

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February 1, 2022

Searching for Freedom After the Cold War

Lea Ypi’s memoir recounts Albania’s troubled transition to democracy.

May 1, 2020

How Vivian Gornick Reinvigorated Political Writing

Her most criticized book, “The Romance of American Communism,” has become a modern classic.

August 27, 2019

Vasily Grossman’s Lost Epic

Why was his World War II novel "Stalingrad" shunned by publishers for so long?

May 3, 2018

No Direction Home

Why have post-Soviet countries embraced populism and nostalgia?

March 29, 2018

The Provocative Brilliance of The Death of Stalin

Why is Armando Iannucci’s new film effectively banned in Russia?

September 26, 2017

Understanding Russia’s War Stories

Putin’s foreign policy is rooted in an epic myth of betrayal and redemption.

July 3, 2017

How a Russian Street Art Museum Defies Kremlin Censors

St. Petersburg's Street Art Museum, housed in a working factory, negotiates contemporary art, Stalinist kitsch, and potent dissent.

August 29, 2016

Witness Tampering

Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich crafts myths, not histories.

October 9, 2015

Svetlana Alexievich, The Dostoevsky of Nonfiction

The Nobel Prizewinner’s compassionate oral histories resist Cold War narratives