Lecture: Tatiana Smorodinska, Middlebury College Professor of Russian

“Dancing the National Idea: The Reception and Appropriation of the Lezginka in Russia”

For nearly two centuries, the Lezginka, a folk dance from the Caucasus region, has played a unique role in the performative representation of political, cultural and ethnic relations between the Russian Empire and its Caucasian colonies. The conflicting attitude towards the dance today illuminates the peculiar process of nation-building in contemporary Russia.