Tag: History

Nostalgia for Soviet Past Helping Russians to Overcome Trauma of Loss, Abramov Says

Health, Alcohol, Smoking, AIDS, Epidemics, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Artist's Rendition of Head and Brain, adapted from .gov image at lbl.gov

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “The Best Way to Deal With Russia: Wait for It to Implode” – Politico/ Peter Eltsov

JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Regions, Cities, Municipalities
Russia Regions Map

“… 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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s Moral Disaster” – International Centre fo Defence and Security (Estonia)/ Jukka Mallinen

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and River

“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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Kremlin Opens Door to Changing Constitution as Succession Looms” – Bloomberg/ Henry Meyer

JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Putin at Podium with United Russia Logo, Gesturing

“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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ Review: Wishing and Waiting; Eleven stories by a Russian cardiologist that show how doctors and patients alike soothe themselves with lies, shortcuts and elisions.” – Wall Street Journal/ Laura Kolbe

Health, Alcohol, Smoking, AIDS, Epidemics, History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Medical Symbol with Pole, Serpents, Wings, adapted from image at lanl.gov

“… In these 11 stories … Dr. Osipov, a Russian cardiologist, fiction writer and playwright, regards the field of medicine as though it were a hapless production of a surrealist play. … [T]he borders between hope, delusion and dishonesty are hazy and heavily trafficked. … Dr. Osipov is a master of dramatic irony, wringing bittersweet humor from what the reader […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Review: The Struggle of Russia’s crony capitalists” [re: Anders Aslund new book]” – Reuters/ Dasha Afanasieva

Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, JRL NewsBlog, New Books, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

“… Anders Aslund … in ‘Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy‘ … [casts Putin] as a patriarchal overlord … handsomely reward[ing] those loyal …. creat[ing] a new elite of friends, former co-workers and relatives. What’s less clear is what, if anything [can be done about it]. … [A]naly[zing] the last 15 or so years of Putin’s […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Most Russians Say Soviet Union ‘Took Care of Ordinary People’ – Poll” – Moscow Times

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman – a sweeping tale of war and life; This immense prequel to ‘Life and Fate’ on the siege of Stalingrad finally gets its English translation” – Financial Times/ Tobias Grey

History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Military
Battle of Stalingrad file photo

“… 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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Landing At Pushkin: Putin Decree Assigns Russian Airports The Names Of Cultural Figures

Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Regions, Cities, Municipalities, Transportation
File Photo of Airplane Approaching Runway About to Land

(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – May 31, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/landing-at-pushkin-putin-decree-assigns-russian-airports-the-names-of-cultural-figures/29974519.html) It’s already pretty hard to travel to Russia without hearing the name of the beloved 19th-century poet Aleksandr Pushkin. Now it may be impossible, if you fly into Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree attaching the […]

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Russians Again as in 1989 Beginning to Feel that Fundamental Change is Possible, Solovey Says

Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 27, 2019) A major political crisis in Russia is “inevitable,” Valery Solovey says, not because of the economic crisis but because of “a qualitative change in the mass consciousness” of Russians who once again have come to believe that radical changes are no longer precluded and that if they are so […]

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Flouting The Law In Nostalgia’s Name: Russia’s Growing Movement Of ‘Soviet Citizens’

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH AUDIO: “Russia Without Putin [Interview with Tony Wood; Includes Audio]” – Sean’s Russia Blog/ Sean Guillory/ Tony Wood

Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

“Q: Most narratives of post-Soviet Russia emphasize a break between Yeltsin and Putin. …. But your book[, “Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War,”] stresses that there are continuities …. [A.] I see these two periods as successive phases in the evolution of a single system. … the core differences are really matters of […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin and Trump’s Ominous Nostalgia for the Second World War” –  The New Yorker/ Masha Gessen

History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Military, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations

“… 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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JRL NEWSWATCH AUDIO: “Russia’s role in WWII isn’t ‘part of our collective memory'” – PRI/ Natalia Antonova

History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Military
American Solider Meets Russian Soliders in Berlin in 1945, adapted from image at army.mil

“… 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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Russia’s Struggle Over the Meaning of the 1990s and the Keys to Kremlin Power

Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and River

(PONARS Eurasia – Gulnaz Sharafutdinova – May 7, 2019) Gulnaz Sharafutdinova is Reader at King’s Russia Institute, School of Politics & Economics, King’s College London. (PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo) The days of political promise the Russian liberal opposition enjoyed during 2011-12 when the “angry urbanites” protested against the regime, are long over. The Russian “progressive era” failed without even starting. […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Victory Parade on Red Square: Vladimir Putin attended a military parade marking the 74th anniversary of Victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.” – KremlinRu

History, Soviet Union, Military, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Kremlin.ru – May 9, 2019 – en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60490) Thirty-five marching military bands and over 130 units of modern military equipment took part in the parade. Overall, more than 13,000 service personnel were engaged. Watching the parade on the stand together with the President of Russia were Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and a guest of honour, first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. […]

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‘Does Russia Really Need a Victory Parade Every Year?’

Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Close-Up of Line of Russian Soldiers in Dress Uniforms for Parade, adapted from image at georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov with credit to Eric Draper

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 7, 2019) Sometimes to ask a question is to answer it even if the answer is different than one intends. That appears to be the case with a Russian nationalist who asks, “Does Russia really need a Victory Parade every year?” His answer is an unabashed affirmative, but others clearly don’t […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Herzog Says Gorbachev Documentary Has a ‘Subversive Message'” – AP

History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Nuclear, Missile Defense, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
File Photo of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at Table Signing Documents

“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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Sarah Lindemann-Komarova: “Russiagate, There are No Winners”

Belarus, History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Military, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
American Solider Meets Russian Soliders in Berlin in 1945, adapted from image at army.mil

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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “In Notre Dame fire, echoes of the 1837 blaze that destroyed Russia’s Winter Palace” – The Conversation/ Paul W. Werth

France, History, Soviet Union, JRL NewsBlog
File Photo of Hermitage Art Museum

“In a city graced with remarkable architecture, the [C]athedral of Notre Dame may be Paris’ most striking edifice. … when it was engulfed by a fire that toppled its spire, it seemed as if more than a building had been scorched; the nation had lost a piece of its soul. … I couldn’t help but think of a similar tragedy […]

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Russia Makes Progress When It Looks Outward and Suffers When It Turns in on Itself, Inozemtsev Says

Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Population Disaster, Demographics
Mercator Projection Satellite Image of Earth

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 5, 2019) Yezhednevny zhurnal offers another chapter from Vladislav Inozemtsev’s new book, An Uncontemporary Country, a chapter that demonstrates that whenever Russia has turned outward and involved itself with the rest of the world, it has made progress but that when it has turned in on itself, it has not only […]

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Yermolai Solzhenitsyn: “Re: Some information on SolzhenitsynCenter.org”

History, Soviet Union, In Memoriam, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music
Alexander Solzhenitsyn file photo

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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Putin Preparing Russians for War Much as Stalin Did in 1938-1939

Foreign Policy, Security, Visas, History, Soviet Union, Military
Vladimir Putin file photo with VOA logo; screen shot from video still

(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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Why the ‘Reset’ Didn’t Last

United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
File Photo of Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Nini Arshakuni, Angelina Flood, Natasha Yefimova-Trilling – December 8, 2019 – russiamatters.org/analysis/why-reset-didnt-last) Ten years ago this week, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed up on Vice President Joe Biden’s proposed “reset” in relations with Moscow by giving her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, a symbolic red button marked “RESET.” While the English version of the […]

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NEWSLINK: “IN MEMORIAM: SEWERYN BIALER (1926-2019)” – Columbia University Harriman Institute

Education, In Memoriam, Newslinks, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

“Seweryn Bialer, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Columbia University, MacArthur Fellow, and survivor of Auschwitz, died on February 8, 2019, at his home in Manhattan. …”

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JRL NEWSWATCH AUDIO: “Reconsidering Russia Podcast #17: Stephen F. Cohen”

History, Soviet Union, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations, Videos

(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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Inventorying the Past: Russia Refreshes Its Historical Memory

History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
New Year's Eve on Red Square with Fireworks, Kremlin, Saint Basil's, Crowds

(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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Growth of Public History in Russia ‘Democratizing Memory,’ New Study Says

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television
File Photo of Soviet Gulag at Belbaltlag, adapted from image at nps.gov

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “New Russian order: After presidency, yet another role for Putin?” – Christian Science Monitor/ Fred Weir

Belarus, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Vladimir Putin Seated at Desk

“Russia faces a looming question: What follows Putin’s current, likely final presidential term? An answer is beginning to take shape – and may involve a new position for Putin and a reshaped political landscape” “For many years, the main slogan of anti-Kremlin opposition activists – often shouted as they were being dragged into police vans at street protests – has […]

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Ever More Russians Drawing Analogies between Russia Now and Russia in 1917, Kagarlitsky Says

History, Soviet Union, Pensions, Pensioners, Retirees, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Revolutionaries Marching in Moscow in 1917, adapted from image at state.gov

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 15, 2019) Ever more Russians are drawing analogies between their country today and its situation in 1917 and between Vladimir Putin and the last tsar Nicholas II, sociologist and commentator Boris Kagarlitsky says; and this is quite “logical” given the tone deaf reaction of the powers that be in both cases […]

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Russia’s Lower Classes Far More ‘Soviet’ than Its Elites and That is a Big Problem, Inozemtsev Says

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

(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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More In The Tank: Russian Film Extends Trend Of Patriotic World War II Epics

History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Military
File Photo of Reel of Film

(Article ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Matthew Luxmoore – Jan. 8, 2019 – article also appeared at rferl.org/a/more-in-the-tank-russian-film-extends-trend-of-patriotic-world-war-ii-epics/29697503.html) Yet another patriotic war movie has taken Russia by storm. T-34, a high-octane tribute to the Soviet tank that played a key role on the Eastern Front of World War II, is the latest in a series […]

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Grassroots Modernization

Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

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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Soviet Sentimentality: Russians’ Regret At U.S.S.R.’s Collapse Hits 14-Year High

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Boris Yeltsin’s shrine in Yekaterinburg brings tears for a legacy smashed by Putin” – Sunday Times (UK)/ Matthew Campbell

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

“… 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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Putin Hails Solzhenitsyn As ‘True Patriot’ On Centenary Of His Birth

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Alexander Solzhenitsyn file photo

(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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RUSSIALINK TRANSCRIPT: “[Putin appearance:] Monument to Alexander Solzhenitsyn unveiled in Moscow” – KremlinRu

History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Alexander Solzhenitsyn file photo

(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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NEWSLINK: “85 Years Later, Ukraine Marks Famine That Killed Millions” – New York Times/ Iuliia Mendel

Human Rights, Newslinks, Ukraine
Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“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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Russia Today is Not Where USSR was in 1991 in Three Important Respects, Two Bloggers Say

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, November 21, 2018) The Russian commentariat ever more frequently features apocalyptic predictions about the rapidly approaching end of Russia, with some like MGIMO professor Valery Solovey suggesting that the situation in Russia today is very much like that in the Soviet Union in 1990-1991 and that the results will be similar. But […]

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NEWSLINK: “Walter Laqueur obituary; Influential but pessimistic historian who tried to find answers to the Holocaust and was among the first scholars to study terrorism” – The Times (London)

History, Soviet Union, In Memoriam, Russia & the West
Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

“… 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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With Russia and the U.S., Nuclear Risks Never Go Out of Vogue

History, Soviet Union, NATO, Nuclear, Missile Defense, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Russian Mobile ICBM Parade File Photo

(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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GULAG was Not Something Far Away in Siberia: It was All Around Even in Moscow

Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Soviet Gulag at Belbaltlag, adapted from image at nps.gov

(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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JRL NEWSWATCH: “There’s a museum in Russia honoring Boris Yeltsin. Team Putin doesn’t like it.” – Los Angeles Times/Sabra Ayres

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

“… [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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NEWSLINK: “Putin’s Filmmaker Speaks, Reveals Unseen Footage of Russian Leader’s Rise to Power; Rare insight from Vitaly Mansky, a former Kremlin propagandist, paints an extraordinary portrait of a president drawn ever deeper into dictatorship” – Daily Beast/ Nico Hines

History, Soviet Union, Life in Russia, Culture, Arts, Theater, Music, Media, Internet, Social Media, Television, Newslinks, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin » Read more
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RUSSIALINK: “Moscow govt formally allows Oct. 29 remembrance of victims of repression on Lubyanka Square” – Interfax

History, Soviet Union, Human Rights, In Memoriam, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
FSB Headquarters Building file photo

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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NEWSLINK: “Cold War and the Academy: An Oral History on Russian and Eurasian Studies [Interview Transcripts Hub]” – The Harriman Institute at Columbia University

Education, History, Soviet Union, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
Columbia University Campus with Main Building

“… 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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Russia’s Top Judge Spurs New Talk Of Changing Constitution

Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
Russian Constitutional Court file photo

(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Mike Eckel – October 16, 2018 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-s-top-judge-spurs-new-talk-of-changing-constitution/29547265.html) When the Russian Constitution was approved in late 1993, the fledgling country’s parliament building– now known as the White House– was blackened and charred, the result of an all-out military assault ordered by President Boris Yeltsin to quell […]

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The Cold War, Post-Cold War, and the Academy: Policy Recommendations from an Oral History of Russian and Eurasian Studies

Education, History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations
File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

(PONARS Eurasia – Alexander Cooley, George Gavrilis – October 15, 2018) Alexander Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. George Gavrilis is an Independent Consultant specializing in international relations, foreign policy, higher education, and oral history. [ponarseurasia.org/memo/cold-war-post-cold-war-academy-oral-history-Harriman-russia-eurasia] (PONARS Policy Memo) In Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall […]

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Skepticism About US Intentions and Other Enduring Consequences of Russia’s 1993 Crisis

History, Soviet Union, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
File Photo of Parliament Building Billowing Smoke in 1993

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Paul Saunders – October 4, 2018 – russiamatters.org/analysis/skepticism-about-us-intentions-and-other-enduring-consequences-russias-1993-crisis) Paul Saunders is the executive director of the Center for the National Interest. Twenty-five years ago this week, a confrontation between Russia’s then President Boris Yeltsin and the country’s parliament culminated in armed standoffs that left more than 100 people dead and became unambiguously one of the […]

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NEWSLINK: “Voronezh and the re-branding of post-Soviet Russia; The writer returns to the university she studied at in the 1970s to find a city transformed” – Mary Dejevsky

History, Soviet Union, Newslinks, Regions, Cities, Municipalities
Russia Map

“… Voronezh is, in many ways, unrecognisable from its Soviet self. Even its layout has been altered to restore the 19th-century plan. A vast new church rises from what was once a scruffy park. The skyline boasts a dozen gleaming domes and crosses. Old vistas have been reopened. Voronezh is, once again, a river town. … But the history told […]

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