History
“We Await You, Merry Gnome!”
By Sean at 18 February, 2010, 11:53 pm
Russian chinovniki are known for a lot of things–graft, ineptitude, oblomovism, and when necessary, zealous obsequiousness. Sometimes, the latter leads the chinovnik to take preemptive action in hopes to satisfy the leader even if the latter is not looking to be satisfied. Take for example, the recent hilarious incident in Omsk where a preemptive measure to make President Medvedev “comfortable” led to the removal of a poster reading “We Await You, Merry Gnome.”
Read More >>Sly Uncivility
By Sean at 13 January, 2010, 7:02 am
Forget about “civil society” destroying Communism in Eastern Europe, says Stephen Kotkin in this interview about his new book, Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment on New Books in History. It’s a myth. The Communist establishments in Eastern Europe were quite politically stable and were hardly challenged by widespread opposition (except in Poland). Instead, Kotkin attributes the collapse of Communism to “uncivil society”, that is the elites who became disillusioned with their own system and by 1989 simply let it melt away. Lively and pointed, this interview will change your views on the collapse of Communism in the East.
Read More >>Khrushchev’s Cold Summer
By Sean at 30 December, 2009, 11:00 am
Studies of the Soviet gulag encompass a cottage industry of its own in Russian historiography. Since 1991, a torrent of studies have been published examining the gulag’s construction, management, memory, and legacy. Few, however, have delved into how Soviet citizens reacted to the return of over 4 million prisoners from labor camps and colonies to society between 1953 and 1958. It is for this reason that Miriam Dobson’s Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin is a welcomed and refreshing edition to so-called “Gulag Studies.”
Read More >>Dissecting Kirov’s Murder
By Sean at 15 December, 2009, 11:02 am
Two weeks ago, I did a post on 75 years since the Kirov law. I was happy to find that the New Times published an interview with Matthew Lenoe whose forthcoming book, Kirov’s Murder and Soviet History, is a hefty reexamination of the famous assassination. Below is a translation I did of the interview.
The Kirov Law at 75
By Sean at 2 December, 2009, 2:07 am
Yesterday, December 1, was 75 years since the assassination of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad Party Organization, and Stalin ally. It was on the night of December 1, 1934 that a certain Leonid Nikolaev, a disgruntled party worker, shot Kirov in the secretary’s third floor office. Nikolaev was immediately caught and interrogated [...]
Read More >>Revolutionary Manliness
By Sean at 2 November, 2009, 12:51 pm
For those interested in a taste of my academic work, I’ve contributed an entry called “Revolutionary Manliness” to the Soviet history site Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. If you register, and you should because the site is a wonderful resource especially for instructors, you can check out the accompanying source, “Klasha the Komsomol Girl.” Here [...]
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