Eastern Europe as Laboratory of Change invites you to an upcoming event: Brotherhoods, Codes, and Ink: Comparing Mafia Worlds, Unveiling the Vory v Zakone (Panel discussion) and Surrounded by Criminals (Photography exhibition) featuring works by Nicolas Wieërs.
Event location: EUI Library, Stockholm room, first floor.
Panel abstract:
This panel, led by Federico Varese, begins with an in-depth examination of the Vory v Zakone, tracing their historical development, organisational structure, and role within the Soviet and post-Soviet criminal landscape.
Building on this foundation, the discussion broadens to a comparative analysis with other traditional mafia organisations across different regions, especially the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Italian-American Mafia, the Yakuza and the Triads. This way, the panel highlights commonalities and differences between the Vory and other mafia-type organisations. These include core features that distinguish mafias from more ordinary gangs, such as a formal rite of initiation, a shared code of conduct, hierarchical structure, mechanisms of dispute resolution, and the ambition to govern markets and territories rather than merely participate in crime. On the other hand, the Vory’s historical development and encoded bodily symbolism marks them off. With its deep roots in the status-oriented, hierarchical prison world, organization members have historically defined themselves through radical opposition to the state, rejection of official work, and a distinctive carceral ethos - factors which continue to set them apart. The Vory are best understood as a traditional mafia shaped by its specifically Soviet and post-Soviet trajectory.
The panel will conclude with a 10-minute intervention on criminal tattoos among the Vory v Zakone, providing a focused insight into their role within this milieu and opening the floor to the accompanying photography exhibition by Nicolas Wieers, ‘Surrounded by Criminals’.
About the speakers:
- Federico Varese is a Professor of Criminology and former Head of Department in the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. Since April 2023, he has been a Professor at Sciences Po in Paris. Professor Varese's main area of research is the study of organised crime. He has written on the Russian mafia, Soviet criminal history, migration of mafia groups, Somali piracy, the dynamics of altruistic behaviour, and the application of Social Network Analysis to criminology. Currently, he is involved in research projects on the governance dimension of organised gangs in the UK, cybercrime markets, the Russian mafia and sub-standard medicines. He is the author of three monographs - The Russian Mafia (OUP, 2001), Mafias on the Move (PUP, 2011) and Mafia Life (2018) - and an edited collection, Organized Crime (Routledge, 2010). His books have been translated into eight languages.
- Nicolas Wieërs is a Belgian cultural producer, filmmaker and photographer. Founder of the Balkan Trafik! festival in Brussels in 2007, he has spent over two decades exploring the cultures of Eastern Europe and the Balkans through music, image and the visual arts. A graduate of IAD, he has collaborated with media such as Euronews, Canal+ and BeTV, as well as European institutions. He lived for five years in Moldova, where he immersed himself over a three-year period in an in-depth socio-documentary investigation with surviving members of the Vory v Zakone brotherhood. This long-term engagement led to the development of his photographic project Surrounded by Criminals – But Some Are More So Than Others , which examines the symbolic language of prison tattoos while critically questioning contemporary perceptions of criminality, power and social legitimacy.
- Katerina Borrelli is a 1st year PhD Researcher at the EUI Law Department, examining the role of tattoos among the Vory and the Yakuza. Her research interests span mafia studies, legal pluralism, criminal law and criminology. She worked in disaster risk reduction and cybersecurity within the UNDRR and the private sector before becoming a tattoo artist and pursuing the study of criminal tattoos.
- Jacob Grech is a 1st year PhD Researcher at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences, working at the intersections of international relations theory and postcolonial political economy. He has also written on citizenship, borders, humanitarianism and corruption. Jacob previously worked in public sector consultancy and as a support officer for the UK FCDO, focused on illicit finance and serious and organised crime.
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