Virtual Summit Submission

Florida State University
International Affairs and Russian (Slavic) Studies

Biography

Sophie Works is a third-year Honors student pursuing a dual degree in Russian Studies and International Affairs. Inspired by the emotional bond she developed with her mother through Russian lacquer art, her current project investigates the evolving narratives projected onto lacquer art across private and public Baltic spaces. Highlighting themes of Soviet nostalgia, contested memory, and the digital humanities, she combines the antiquity of Russian lacquer with the modernity of 3D modeling to create an interactive archive. A 2025 Global Scholar and recipient of the Edna Ranck International Studies Award, Sophie is conducting her Honors in the Major thesis on the same topic while advancing her Russian language skills in Riga, Latvia. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Russian and Slavic Studies, digitally documenting Soviet objects and curating open-access repositories.

Project

Lacquer and Legacy: Opening the Box to Soviet Narratives and Baltic Realities
Following the full-scale invasion in the Russo-Ukrainian War, de-Russification initiatives have intensified across the sociopolitical spheres of the Baltics. In Latvia, where nationalist policies reduce Soviet influence, allegations of “Russophobia” have emerged from a third of Riga’s population: ethnic Russians. This project utilizes Russian lacquer art to examine the legacy of Soviet identity, nostalgia, and the tripartite struggle between public pro-Latvian memory, private ethnic Latvian memory, and private ethnic Russian memory through its manifestation in public and private Baltic spaces. Dating back to the 16th century, Russian lacquer originates and persists in the iconography villages of Palekh, Fedoskino, Mstera, and Kholui. The subsequent religious censorship of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution forced these iconographers to pivot to folklore lacquer painting to supply Soviet Russia with a needed sense of national identity amidst the revolution’s earlier cultural upheaval. Through its historical endurance across ruptures in Russian history and intricate, pastoral depictions of folk wondertales, motifs, nature, and ideological themes within the Russian canon, lacquer positions itself as a paradigm of “Russianness”. Becoming more than a Soviet-era antique, lacquer is a living artifact mediating transgenerational relationships between memory, identity, and heritage. Using object-based interviews and photogrammetry, this project pairs anonymized “portraits” of Russian and Latvian academics, antique dealers, gallery owners, and auctioneers with 3D models of their lacquer in a digital repository. Examining the role of Russian lacquer in these spaces reveals how art accrues new layers of function—beyond original intent—to reflect ways individuals experience, resist, and reinterpret historical legacies through material culture.