“… Putin did not want to be compared with … Brezhnev … [who] ruled the Soviet Union … 1964 to 1982 … leader of Putin’s gritty youth … the long stagnation that preceded the empire’s collapse. By the end … butt of a million jokes … doddering grandfather of a doddering state …. ‘Stalin proved that just one person could […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 10, 2019) “Societies which experience historical traumas, need anesthesia an psychotherapy, sociologist Roman Abramov says. That often takes the form of nostalgia for “‘the good old times,’” which in the Russian case for many but far from all was the period of Brezhnev’s rule (https://iq.hse.ru/news/301388060.html). “Waves of nostalgia became a frequent […]
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“… Putin has moved to annex former Soviet territories, orchestrated cyberattacks on foreign infrastructure and rolled back domestic democratic protections …. [I]n reality, Russia today is much weaker than either the Romanov Empire, which lasted from 1613 to 1917, or the Soviet Union. Russia’s biggest problem is internal: … fail[ing] to produce a national identity … encompass[ing] its entire population. […]
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“Russians cannot tell good from evil. Many people were shocked when a large majority of Russians named Stalin ‘the greatest Russian.’ In 1988, 8% of the citizens of the Soviet Union deemed Stalin acceptable. In 2016 the dictator’s approval rating among Russians was 54%, and in 2018 his support had increased to 70%. … researcher … Andrey Kolesnikov, explains … […]
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“The Kremlin raised the possibility of changing Russia’s Constitution after a top lawmaker proposed bolstering parliament’s powers, in a move that could help to extend … Putin’s rule. … constitutional amendments, including allowing parliament a say in forming the government, received ‘a widespread response’ and are ‘a matter for discussion,’ Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters …. Putin in 2024 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 17, 2019) Fewer Russians believe that a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster could happen now than at any point in the past two decades, according to an independent Levada Center poll published Wednesday. The April 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl power plant in Soviet Ukraine spread radioactive material across much of the Northern Hemisphere, affecting tens […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 4, 2019) Women in Russia will be allowed to work as truck drivers and serve in the navy under new rules taking effect in 2021, the RBC news website reported Thursday. The Russian government bans women from holding 456 jobs in 38 industries that entail physically strenuous tasks or harmful working conditions. The restrictions […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 25, 2019) The end of the Soviet Union brought many benefits, but one that has not attracted much attention up until now is that its demise has resulted in a significant decline in the release of greenhouse gases as a result of changes in post-Soviet food systems, a new study by […]
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(The Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Maxim Trudolyubov – June 20, 2019) Maxim Trudolyubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Vedomosti, an independent Russian daily. Mr. Trudolyubov was the editorial page editor of Vedomosti between 2003 and 2015. He has been a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times since the fall […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 24, 2019) A majority of Russians believe that the Soviet system took care of the common man and woman, according to a recent poll by the independent Levada Center pollster. Russia has seen an upward trend in positive opinions about the Soviet Union in recent years, with nostalgia toward it hitting a 14-year high […]
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“… At nearly 1,000 pages Stalingrad is slightly longer than its sequel. … Grossman places an earlier focus on the Shaposhnikov family and friends … their lives … thrown into disarray by the impending Battle of Stalingrad. Hitler’s huge offensive on the Eastern Front has driven Soviet forces into a prolonged retreat. Stalingrad … on a clifftop by the Volga […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Matthew Luxmoore – MOSCOW, May 25, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/flouting-law-in-nostalgia-s-name-russia-s-growing-movement-of-soviet-citizens-/29962523.html) Konstantin Vyatkin has never acknowledged the Soviet collapse. “For the past 28 years I’ve tried to live in this country called Russia,” he says. “But in my heart I still live there, in the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, May 12, 2019) Metropolitan Ilarion, head of the Synodical Department of External Relations and generally viewed as second only to Kirill in the Moscow Patriarchate, says that Russians should not give Joseph Stalin credit for victory in World War II or revive the cult of personality around the late Soviet dictator. In […]
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“… Victory Day is undoubtedly Russia’s most important, most grandly celebrated, and most political holiday. … not observed … immediately following the Second World War, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated twenty-seven million people; it became a holiday a generation later … gain[ing] in prominence as the U.S.S.R. unleashed less righteous battles abroad …. After the Soviet Union […]
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“Russians have been encouraged to see Hitler as a tyrant, but Stalin as their defender. Now some wish Stalin were still around.” “… most of Europe dates the beginning of the war to 1939, partly because of a nonaggression pact that … Stalin made with Hitler that opened the way for him to invade Poland. That was followed by the […]
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“… the Soviet Union was … a complex actor, in spite of being an ally. The fact that it was at the time ruled by a mass murderer, Joseph Stalin, doesn’t help. … Americans … don’t know what to think about the USSR’s role in the worst conflict in human history … Russia’s revanchism on the world stage today doesn’t […]
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“… former sports reporter … [Yuri Dud] runs his own YouTube interview show …. generat[ing] millions of views … a serious competitor even to state-owned TV. … [T]he subject of Dud’s latest show shocked his … 5 million [subscribers] and the general public: a two-hour documentary about the Kolyma region, in Russia’s far northeast … almost synonymous with Stalin-era repressions. […]
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“Werner Herzog says there’s a ‘subversive message’ to his new documentary ‘Meeting Gorbachev’: Talk to your geopolitical enemies. Herzog interviewed former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev three times in a six-month span to make the new film. He highlights … the reunification of Herzog’s native Germany as well as the groundbreaking 1986 arms control summit with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Gulnaz Sharafutdinova – April 29, 2019 – wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/rip-soviet-man-scrapping-homo-sovieticus-the-spirit-yuri-levada) Gulnaz Sharafutdinova is a Reader at King’s Russia Institute (King’s College London). “Soviet man is a servile double-thinker with no morality.” “Soviet man is being reproduced in modern-day Russia.” These two messages have occupied a prime position in the Levada Center’s communications over the past two decades […]
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Subject: Russiagate, There are No Winners Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2019 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> Russiagate, There are No Winners Sarah Lindemann-Komarova [Sarah Lindemann-Komarova has been a community development activist in Siberia since 1992. Currently she is focusing on research and writing about civil society in Russia.] medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/russiagate-there-are-no-winners-4de2dd97acbc Baby boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, we are now into the […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 16, 2019) On the centenary of the establishment of the GULAG that he did so much to expand (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5CB56680ECD4C), the Levada Center polling agency released the results of a survey showing 70 percent of Russians have a positive attitude toward the Soviet dictator, the highest share ever (rbc.ru/politics/16/04/2019/5cb0bb979a794780a4592d0c). Not surprisingly, this […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 4, 2019 – en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60222) Vladimir Putin spoke at the Memory Watch 2019 plenary meeting and learned about the Russian Search Movement’s projects, including the Frontline Portrait: A Soldier’s Destiny, which presents 27 portraits of Red Army soldiers that were painted at the frontline. This nationwide event, due to last until April 6, will involve over 250 representatives […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 1, 2019) Last Friday and Saturday, a group of civic activists met in Moscow to honor the memory of the late Arseny Roginsky, a dissident and political prisoner who served as chairman of the board of Memorial. Many of those attending believe that they are the heirs to the Soviet dissidents; […]
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“… [Mikhail Abyzov’s] arrest has … demonstrat[ed] to the Russian political class that everyone is vulnerable, unless … personally protected by … Putin. All must live in fear. … corruption is omnipresent, the rule of law is selective and property rights are dependent on the will of the Kremlin …. [with] a pattern of growing in-fighting and repression among elite […]
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Subject: Some information on solzhenitsyncenter.org Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 From: Yermolai Solzhenitsyn <yermolai_solzhenitsyn@mckinsey.com> To: davidjohnson@starpower.net Dear David, We saw recently a piece on JRL Russia Insider, russia-insider.com, March 18, 2019 Great Russian Documentary on Life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Video) [https://russia-insider.com/en/great-russian-documentary-life-alexander-solzhenitsyn-video/ri26536], where the authors were wondering whether there were English language copies of all the three films in question. We […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 9, 2019) Two out of three Russians now believe that their country will be involved in a major war (a-nalgin.livejournal.com/1661358.html), the result of a concerted effort by Vladimir Putin and his regime to convince them of that, an effort that in many ways resembles the one Stalin engaged in during the […]
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“Most Russian schoolchildren hold as true that the Soviet Union collapsed in part because it was foolish enough to engage in a vast global competition with the United States. … [including] a ruinous arms race that diverted resources from the civilian economy and ultimately bankrupted the country. … Despite a decade-long crash program to reform and reequip Russia’s moribund Soviet-era […]
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“… the Soviet leadership made a number of mistakes, first when contemplating whether to intervene in Afghanistan, then during the intervention and, finally, when withdrawing the troops. Some of these mistakes were particularly costly, such as the failure to take full stock either of the hierarchy of vital national interests at stake in Afghanistan or of the costs and benefits […]
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(Reconsidering Russia Podcast #17: Pietro A. Shakarian interview of Stephen F. Cohen – February 1, 2019 – embedded audio should load below, or click here: mixcloud.com/reconsidering-russia/reconsidering-russia-podcast-17-stephen-cohen/) “Guest: Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian History at New York University and Princeton University. … author of numerous books on Russia and the former Soviet region, including the influential “Bukharin and the […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Nikolay Epplee – Feb. 1, 2019) Nikolay Epplee is an independent researcher working on international memorial culture and on memory of Soviet state terror. He published extensively on memory issues in Vedomosti, InLiberty, Colta, and other Russian media. [wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/inventorying-the-past-russia-refreshes-its-historical-memory] The New Year’s holidays are one of the few times in the year that different generations […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – RM Staff – January 11, 2019 – russiamatters.org/blog/do-trumps-afghanistan-claims-mirror-moscows-rhetoric) Earlier this month, President Donald Trump offered his take on Soviet Russia’s experiences in Afghanistan as he argued in favor of a huge U.S. troop withdrawal and a larger contribution by Moscow to stabilize the war-racked country. The U.S. president put forward two basic propositions: that the […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 17, 2019) [Text with links windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/01/growth-of-public-history-in-russia.html] Public history, the trend within the history discipline in many places around the world that seeks to rely on the digitalization of personal memoirs, diaries, and photographs of ordinary people to present the past from below, has come to Russia and is “democratizing memory” in […]
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“… Japanese-Russian negotiations over the disputed Southern Kuril islands took place … in Moscow, ahead of … [a] summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and … Putin. … the only obstacle preventing the two nations signing an official peace agreement to end World War II. … The Kuril archipelago … [includes] 56 islands stretching from the Russian peninsula of […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 7, 2019) New polls show that the share of Russians who would like to go “back to the USSR” is at its highest levels over the last 15 years, a development many find troubling because it will make the future evolution of Russia toward a normal state far more difficult. But […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 7, 2019) Russian commentator Vladimir Pozner argument that Russia will change only when the last member of the Russian elite educated in Soviet times passes away (echo.msk.ru/blog/pozner/2346625-echo/) is fundamentally wrong, Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev says (echo.msk.ru/blog/v_inozemcev/2347259). Not only is Pozner’s analysis mistaken in serious ways, despite being shared by many, the […]
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The rise of diversity and individualism in Russian society is undisputed. However, these new trends are observed, first and foremost, in the private sphere, in consumption, and in everyday practices, while the political realm remains “frozen.” (PONARS Eurasia – Maria Lipman, Maria Volkenstein – December 17, 2018) Maria Volkenstein is the President, CEO, and Founder of the VALIDATA Market Research […]
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(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Dec. 19, 2018 – article also appeared at rferl.org/a/russian-regret-at-soviet-collapse-stands-at-14-year-high-poll-shows/29664759.html) More Russians regret the breakup of the Soviet Union than at any other time since 2004, an opinion poll shows. In a survey whose results were published on December 19, two-thirds — or 66 percent — of respondents answered “yes” […]
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“… An ailing Yeltsin is believed to have chosen Putin, a former KGB officer, as his successor, because he had a reputation for loyalty. He knew he could count on Putin to protect him and his family. … [H]e made Putin promise to ‘look after Russia.’ In the eyes of Putin’s supporters, he has … [brought] relative prosperity … making […]
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(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – MOSCOW – Dec. 11, 2018 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/putin-solzhenitsyn-true-patriot-centenary-birth/29650018.html) President Vladimir Putin has praised late Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a “true and real patriot” after unveiling a statue honoring the Nobel Prize-winning author in central Moscow. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony marking the centenary of Solzhenitsyn’s birth, Putin […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 11, 2018) The President attended the unveiling ceremony for a monument to Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Moscow’s Tagansky District on the 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The bronze monument sitting on a granite pedestal was designed by National Artist of Russia Andrei Kovalchuk. His project won the architecture and sculpture tender held in 2017 by the Union […]
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“His frail hand covering his heart, Mykhailo Matvienko, 92, peered at the yellow flame of a candle on his kitchen table on Saturday and recounted his childhood during the Great Famine. A searing event seen as one of the great atrocities of 20th-century Europe, the Ukrainian famine of 1933 killed more than three million people, by most estimates, and has […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, November 17, 2018) Court cases against Soviet citizens who collaborated with the Nazis has long been a little studied “and in part taboo subject,” according to Irina Makhalova, a historian at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics who is leading a small team that has partially lifted the veil on this subject. She […]
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“… Laqueur’s curiosity, interest in the future and anxiety remained into his nineties …. As always he was interested in the attacks societies faced, and how internal weaknesses made them vulnerable. … He spoke sometimes of hope, but the searing experience of seeing the society he was born into collapsing into barbarism had never left him. Walter Laqueur, historian, was […]
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(Fred Weir (Christian Science Monitor) – Facebook – facebook.com/fred.weir – November 13, 2018) “This is pretty lurid stuff, very much a prime specimen of the information genre it is denouncing. Odd to find it in the New York Times; even during the Cold War it was left to less reputable platforms to hawk this kind of hyperventilating, conspiracy-laden polemic. For […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Jon B. Wolfsthal – November 8, 2018 – russiamatters.org/analysis/russia-and-us-nuclear-risks-never-go-out-vogue) Jon B. Wolfsthal is the director of the Nuclear Crisis Group and a former senior director on the National Security Council. This week marks an important nuclear milestone of the Cold War: Thirty-five years ago, the United States almost accidentally provoked the Soviet Union into starting […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, October 29, 2018) Today, Russians of good will paused to remember those who had suffered and died in Stalin’s GULAG. This commemoration took many forms but one of the most significant risks being lost: a new map of “The GULAG in Moscow” shows that Stalin’s camps and torture places were not somewhere […]
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“… [In the recorded speech] Yeltsin … assails the slow pace of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms … unabashedly criticiz[ing] … party elite. … Yeltsin’s expressive face and exaggerated hand gestures hint at the magnitude of the speech that, many believe, marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin … [became] the first democratically elected president of […]
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“Over 30 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and I signed in Washington the United States-Soviet Treaty on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. For the first time in history, two classes of nuclear weapons were to be eliminated and destroyed. …”
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MOSCOW. Oct 23 (Interfax) – The Moscow government has formally granted Memorial’s request to hold a ceremony commemorating victims of political repression at the traditional venue near the Solovetsky Stone on Lubyanka Square on October 29, Yelena Romanova from the city administration’s regional security department said. “There was an interagency meeting today to discuss the provision of public peace and […]
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“… the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, in collaboration with the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, and the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), embarked on an oral history project that would document the Institute’s substantive role in area studies and academia and its influence on the making of U.S. foreign policy towards the Soviet Union, Russia, […]
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