A Discussion of State-Sanctioned Misogyny and Sofi Oksanen’s Book “Same River, Twice”

Listen to the Episode here or on your favourite streaming platform.

In the newest episode of EstoCast, we’re steering away from the usual format to share a literary discussion. The text in question is Sofi Oksanen’s book Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women – A Feminist Investigation of Sexual Violence, Genocide, and Threats to Democracy

Helping us understand this topic better are two guests: Professor Kate Holland and Dr. Kadri Tüür, both of whom teach at the University of Toronto.

During the course of the episode, we hear about:

🖊️how gender equality is a necessary component of democracy

🖊️the decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia and the Istanbul Convention

🖊️the historic “amnesia points” that enabled the war in Ukraine to happen

🖊️and much more

Things mentioned in this episode include:

-Sofi Oksanen: https://sofioksanen.com/ 

-Sofi Oksanen’s book “Same River, Twice”: https://www.amazon.ca/Same-River-Twice-Putins-Women/dp/0063435446 

-about the Bucha massacre: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/marking-third-anniversary-liberation-bucha-ukraine_en 

-the decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/putin-approves-change-to-law-decriminalising-domestic-violence 

-“Purge” by Sofi Oksanen: https://www.amazon.ca/Purge-Sofi-Oksanen/dp/0802170773 

-“Trauma and Life-Writing” by Leena Kurvet-Käosaar: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351025225-28/trauma-life-writing-leena-kurvet-käosaar 

– “‘Other things happened to women’: World war two, violence, and national identity…”, an article by Leena Kurvet-Käosaar: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01629770300000111 

-Ukrainian author Oksana Zabuzhko: http://zabuzhko.com/en/biography/index.html 

-the Istanbul Convention: https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/about-the-convention 

-about the debate regarding the Istanbul Convention in the Estonian Parliament: https://www.riigikogu.ee/en/sitting-reviews/the-riigikogu-did-not-support-the-vote-of-no-confidence-in-minister-of-regional-affairs-hendrik-johannes-terras/