On Tuesday 11 March 2025 ( 21 pm), at the Collegio Nuovo, we go to the heart of Russia, also passing through the Great North, with Marzio G. Mian, a journalist affiliated with the Pulitzer Center in Washington who has carried out investigations in 58 countries, winning the 2023 True Story Award in Bern for best international reporting.
He has published volumes such as White War. On the Arctic Front of the World Conflict(Neri Pozza, 2022), which also reflects the intentions of the “Arctic Times Project”, a journalistic company founded by him that aims to tell the consequences of climate change in the Arctic region. More recently, in 2024, he published Volga Blues.Journey to the heart of Russiareleased by Feltrinelli's new Gramma imprint: a work that falls within the objectives of the “River Journal Project”, co-founded by Mian, a multimedia storytelling of current affairs through the great rivers of the world.
Volga Blues is a volume in eleven chapters that retraces the stages of the journey undertaken (without a journalistic visa) by Mian, with the photographer Alessandro Cosmelli and two Russian travel companions, along the Volga route for six thousand kilometers, without ever meeting a foreigner and speaking (or rather, above all listening to) only Russian.
«Listening to the Chechen, his terrifying psychopolitical reading of the overbearing Russian awakening – writes Mian – I realize with growing clarity that our journey along the Volga [….] is above all a journey into the ideas and mind of the nation that has not only broken the taboo of war in Europe, but that is arming itself with rancor, reasons and bullets in such a combative and furious way as to make the hypothesis of the expansion of the conflict beyond Ukraine anything but theoretical».
Conversing with Mian will be Marco Clementi, professor at the University of Pavia, whose research interests include international relations theory and theories of hegemony, international conflict and cooperation, and US foreign policy.
The meeting will be held in person (Aula Magna del Collegio Nuovo, v. Abbiategrasso 404, Pavia) and remotely. Registration is required by March 10 for in-person participation; by March 11, 18.30:XNUMX pm for those who wish to connect remotely. The event will also be broadcast live on Facebook at @collegionuovopavia.
The initiative falls within the recognized training activities, subject to confirmation by the individual interested College member of the CCUM, and is recognized by the IUSS School as an extra-scope training activity.
