Memory
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 >>Kebab House of Comedy
By Sean at 5 October, 2009, 12:28 pm
Russian politics is a joke. I’m not being sarcastic. It really is funny. Perhaps in an effort to one up the inanity of American politics (as we all know Russians just want to be like us!), or because it has a fatuous dynamic of its own, what passes for the political over there often epitomizes [...]
Read More >>The Year of Stalin
By Sean at 25 July, 2009, 9:48 am
Those communists in Voronezh really, really like Stalin. Last month, the Voronezh KPRF put up billboards of Stalin to promote the dictator’s great achievements. The local government demanded that the billboards be removed citing laws on advertising.
But the KPRF is undeterred. Spurred on by the OSCE’s recent resolution equating Stalin with Hitler and the local [...]
Stalin not Welcome in Voronezh
By Sean at 25 June, 2009, 12:12 pm
увеличить фото …
On June 22 residents of Voronezh found their local billboards featuring an ominous, but familiar face: Comrade Stalin “Victory will be ours!” reads a slogan in large white letters below a large picture of the vozhd. The question, curious residents asked, was why Comrade Stalin’s visage was once again taking such a prominent [...]
Read More >>Lenin’s Suit
By Sean at 26 May, 2009, 8:52 am
“Lenin” and “Death”
these words are enemies.
“Lenin” and “Life”
are comrades . . .
Lenin
lived.
Lenin
lives.
Lenin
will live.
–Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1924
Vladimir Ilich Lenin turned 139 last month making him the oldest living person on Earth. However, Lenin does not live like his eulogizers had imagined. When some mourners proclaimed that “Lenin has ceased to be an individual-Lenin belongs to the millions,” [...]
Memorial’s “Winchesters” Returned
By Sean at 7 May, 2009, 1:38 pm
It appears that some of Medvedev’s liberal posturing is producing concrete results. Or at least someone is getting the signals. Finally, fi-nal-ly Memorial has gotten its materials back from the St. Petersburg prosecutor. Twelve computer hard disks, or “Winchesters” as one report calls them, about 1000 business cards belonging to A. D. Margolis (the general [...]
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