Eurasia Policy Forum
Eurasia Policy Forum
The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Clements Center for National Security, and Department of Government are pleased to announce a joint conference on Contemporary Political Myth and Reality in Eurasia, taking place February 12-13, 2026, at UT Austin.
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
This conference bridges disciplines to examine narratives of distortion, democracy, and power in Eurasia. Further, Eurasian states face mounting challenges amid growing polarization, gaps between social needs and political responses, and propaganda blurring myth and reality. Yet Eurasian countries also have unique strengths in navigating these challenges, with strong national identities, robust civic engagement, bursts of democratic progress, and deep cultural traditions.
The conference explores the complicated social and political realities and myths shaping the contemporary Eurasian region, as they are poised to either discourage democratic progress or inspire civil society to action. Academic disciplines have each made progress in understanding the complex dynamics in their area of social, political, legal, or cultural study, yet these lessons are often stove-piped. Meanwhile, states—and students training to work in those states—must grapple with the intersection of challenges across all of these areas. This conference tackles this by bridging disciplines, academic and policy spheres, and policy and cultural studies to critically examine these pressing issues in Eurasia. Panels will be designed to foster discussion among experts from political science, law, linguistics, history, sociology, cultural studies, policymaking, and other fields.
Co-hosts include the Center for European Studies, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Comparative Literature Program, the Department of Communication Studies, the Department of Religious Studies, the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and the Humanities Institute. This event will thus be deeply interdisciplinary, fostering creative engagement on a diverse range of critical topics from state-building and democratic backsliding to the construction of national heroes and minority-majority identities to technology’s role in the spread of these narratives.
Sponsored by: Center for European Studies • Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies • Center for Women’s and Gender Studies • Clements Center for National Security • Department of Government • Department of Religious Studies • Program in Comparative Literature • Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice • Strauss Center for International Security and Law • Humanities Institute
Schedule
Thursday, February 12
The Carillon, AT&T Hotel and Conference Center
1900 University Ave, Austin, TX 78705
5:00 – 7:00 pm: Cocktail Hour and Poster Session
Introductions: Marina Alexandrova, Associate Director, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Welcome remarks: Mary Neuburger, Mildred Hajek Vacek and John Roman Vacek Distinguished University Chair in Russian and Slavic Languages, Director of the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and Chair of the Slavic & Eurasian Studies Department, The University of Texas at Austin
Friday, February 13
Bass Lecture Hall, LBJ School of Public Affairs
2315 Red River St, Austin, TX 78712
8:15 am: Doors open
Coffee and light breakfast available
8:45 am – 9:00 am: Introduction and Welcome Remarks
Eliza Fisher, Assistant Director, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Ashley Moran, Co-Director, Center for Law and Democracy, and Research Scientist, Department of Government, The University of Texas at Austin
9:00 am – 10:00 am: Keynote Conversation
Michael Kimmage, Director, Kennan Institute
Moderator: Alexandra Sukalo, Director, Clements-Strauss Intelligence Studies Project, The University of Texas at Austin
10:00 am – 10:10 am: Break
10:10 am – 11:00 am: Geopolitical Competition among Major Powers in Eurasia
Chair: Sharyl Cross, Director of the Kozmetsky Center at St. Edward’s University, and Global Policy Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Craig Nation, Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow, U.S. Army War College, and Visiting Professor, Department of International Studies, Dickinson College, The Geopolitics of Modern Eurasia
Elizabeth Prodromou, Professor, International Studies Program, Boston College, and Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, Turkey’s Civilizational Revisionism in Eurasia: Geopolitics as Domestic and Foreign Policy
Michael Reynolds, Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, Wolf Whisperer and Bear Tamer? The Civilizational Sources of Azerbaijani Conduct
Andrei Tsygankov, Professor, Department of International Relations, San Francisco State University, A Nation Formed by War? Russia’s Identity and Great Power Militarism
11:00 – 11:50 am: The Political Myth of Holy Rus’ in Russia and America
Chair: Jason Roberts, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Religious Studies and Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, The Myth of the Nation
Rebecca Echevarria, Masters Student, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies and LBJ School of Public Policy, The University of Texas at Austin, The Antichrist, Holy Rus', and Other Ideomyths: Strategic Mythmaking in the Ukraine War
Eliza Fisher, Assistant Director, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Coal and Censers: Weaponized Nostalgia for a Constructed Past in Orthodox Appalachia
Domingos Tavares Campos, PhD Candidate, NOVA University of Lisbon School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Exporting the Katechon: Russian Orthodoxy in the United States of America
11:50 am – 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 – 1:50 pm: Myths of Power and Identity During War
Jonathan Brunstedt, Associate Professor, Department of History, Texas A&M University, An Antifascism without Fascists: Soviet/Russian Mythmaking and Interventionist Justifications from the GDR Workers’ Uprising to Ukraine
Nicholas Kupensky, Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, United States Air Force Academy, Not a Hollywood Movie: The Myths of the Dnipro River Crossing
Anna Romandash, Visiting Fellow, Center for International Governance Innovation, Othering and Myth-Making: Russian Propaganda and Ukrainian Resistance Narratives in the Occupied Territories
Dmitry Shlapentokh, Associate Professor, Department of History, Indiana University South Bend, Russian-Ukrainian Myth and the War
1:50 – 2:00 pm: Break
2:00 – 2:50 pm: From Myth to Reality in State Building
Kiril Avramov, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, The University of Texas at Austin, Power and the Paranormal: Belief, Security Surveillance, and State Support in Late Socialist Bulgaria
Alexey Golubev, Associate Professor, Department of History, Rice University, The Knowledgeable Citizen: Political Literacy and the Making of Socialist Reality in the USSR
Paul Kubicek, Professor, Department of Political Science, Oakland University, Myths, Heroes, and State and Nation-Building in Central Asia
Chechesh Kudachinova, Guest Researcher, Institute for East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Infrastructures of Political Loyalty: Recycling Ethnic Diversity in Russia
2:50 – 3:40 pm: Myths Advancing or Eroding Democratic Values
Chair: Michael Mosser, Director, Center for European Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
Natalia Cwicinskaja, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and Administration, Adam Mickiewicz University, Between Myth and Accountability: Human Rights in Unrecognized Entities of Eurasia
Ia Eradze, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, and Visiting Fellow, Harvard University, Tales of Sovereignty: Unfolding a Crisis of Democracy and a Geopolitical Shift in Georgia
János Fazekas, Associate Professor, Department of Administrative Law, Eötvös Loránd University, and Visiting Professor, School of Law, The University of Texas at Austin, The Contribution of the European Court of Justice to the Evolution of the European Union as a Political Community
Delgerjargal Uvsh, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, University of Texas at Austin, Reclaiming the National Flag: Nationalist Rhetoric and Support for Democracy and Democrats in Mongolia
3:40 – 4:00 pm: Concluding Remarks