Registration REQUIRED by 12pm on May 1, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations for a lecture by Yoshiko Herrera. Elise Giuliano will moderate the talk, and Maxim Matusevich will serve as discussant.
Since the 1990s, Russia has been marked by widespread xenophobic attitudes, yet African American jazz musicians became a significant part of the Russian jazz scene into the 2000s, often reporting very positive interpersonal experiences. Based on interviews with African American musicians, Russian musicians, and club owners, this paper argues that their reception can be explained by three factors. First, the long history of African Americans and Africans in the USSR created a complex legacy shap ing Russian views of race and nationality. Second, both essentialist stereotypes and broader cultural ideas link African Americans with jazz, fostering the belief that they are naturally, or likely to be, especially talented jazz musicians. Third, the relatively de-politicized, market-driven context of contemporary jazz has brought many high-quality African American performers to Russia, reinforcing audience expectations. Together, these factors have produced a strikingly positive reception for African American jazz musicians, despite pervasive xenophobia in Russian society.
Yoshiko M. Herrera is Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on Russian & Eurasian politics, identity, and political economy. Herrera teaches courses on comparative politics, social identities and diversity, and the Russian war on Ukraine. She is also a former director of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia at UW-Madison. She is the author of two books and an influential co-edited volume on Measuring Identity. Her most recent co-authored article, is “Don’t Look Back in Anger: Cooperation Despite Conflicting Historical Narratives” published in the American Political Science Review.
Maxim Matusevich is Professor of History and Department Chair at Seton Hall University. He is the author of “No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations” (Africa World Press, 2003) and “Russia in Africa, Africa in Russia: Three Centuries of Encounters” (Africa World Press, 2007). Prof. Matusevich has published extensively on the history of the Cold War in Africa, the history of African-Russian/Soviet encounters, and the history of African-American and African travel in the Soviet Union. He is a former Fulbright Fellow (Russia), a Woodrow Wilson Institute Research Fellow, a Jordan Center (NYU) Writer-in-Residence, and a Sheila Biddle Ford Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at Harvard University. He served as a historical consultant on the documentary film project “Black Russians: The Red Experience” (Red Palette Pictures, 2024). When not teaching and researching, Prof. Matusevich writes fiction. A collection of his short stories and novellas “Six Trains of No Return” will be published by Academic Studies Press in March 2026.
