Best of
Soviet-History

2013

Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied


Alexander Etkind - 2013
    But there has never been any Russian ban on former party functionaries, nor any external authority to dispense justice. Memorials to the Soviet victims are inadequate, and their families have received no significant compensation. This book's premise is that late Soviet and post-Soviet culture, haunted by its past, has produced a unique set of memorial practices. More than twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remains "the land of the unburied": the events of the mid-twentieth century are still very much alive, and still contentious. Alexander Etkind shows how post-Soviet Russia has turned the painful process of mastering the past into an important part of its political present.

The Soviets Expected It


Anna Louise Strong - 2013
    A discussion of Soviet history through the beginning of the Second World War by a woman who lived there for over 20 years.

Soviet Naval Aviation 1946-1991 - Op


Yefim Gordon - 2013
    Rapid development of naval aviation continued after the October Revolution of 1917 and Soviet naval airmen flying fighters and torpedo-bombers made a significant contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. Yet the heyday of Soviet Naval Aviation (or AVMF) was in the post-war years. While in the late 1940s the AVMF relied largely on indigenous and American propeller-driven aircraft that had survived the fray, in the 1950s the naval airmen began mastering jets. The AVMF units started re-equipping with Il'yushin IL-28 Beagle twinjet bombers and were the sole operator of the Tupolev Tu-14 Bosun torpedo-bomber.In the 1960s the AVMF kept a close watch on the world's oceans with the help of its Tu-95RTs Bear-D long-range maritime reconnaissance/over-the-horizon targeting aircraft which transmitted the coordinates of NATO warships not only to the General Staff in Moscow but also to Soviet submarines armed with torpedoes.The AVMF's fighter element's primary mission was to protect Soviet Navy bases and naval task forces at sea and as technology progressed, the 1950s-vintage Mikoyan MiG-15bis Fagot-B and MiG-17F Fresco-C subsonic fighters were superseded by various versions of the supersonic MiG-21 Fishbed, MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker fourth-generation fighters in the final years of the Soviet era.Along with a chapter devoted to the Soviet aircraft carriers, Soviet Naval Aviation is the definitive reference book of the Soviet maritime presence, both on the sea and in the air.

The Men with the Movie Camera: The Poetics of Visual Style in Soviet Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1920s


Philip Cavendish - 2013
    In the Soviet Union of the 1920s and early 1930s, owing to the fetishization of the camera as an embodiment of modern technology, the cameraman was an iconic figure whose creative contribution was encouraged and respected. Drawing upon the film literature of the period, Philip Cavendish describes the culture of the camera operator, charts developments in the art of camera operation, and studies the mechanics of key director-cameraman partnerships. He offers detailed analysis of Soviet avant-garde films and draws comparisons between the visual aesthetics of these works and the modernist experiments taking place in the other spheres of the visual arts.

Popular Perceptions of Soviet Politics in the 1920s: Disenchantment of the Dreamers


Olga Velikanova - 2013
    These archival sources show an increasing disenchantment of a generation, which resulted in revolution. The population resisted the Soviet mobilization campaigns, which promoted workers-peasants unity, the achievements of socialism and new socialist patriotism. The Bolsheviks failed to reach a national consensus and unite the nation around the great aim of socialist construction. The story of the legitimacy crisis at the end of the 1920s presents an important argument in the explanation of why, in 1927, when faced with economical, political and social crisis at home and in foreign politics, the Bolsheviks started changing their politics in favour of the more oppressive and dictatorial methods.

Reminiscences of Lenin and Other Works


Nadezhda Krupskaya - 2013
    From her marriage with Lenin in 1898 to the couple's travels around Europe, from the arrangements of the October Revolution in 1917 to the organisation of the Soviet Government, Nadezhda Krupskaya recalls the time spent with her husband and the important roles she had among the Bolsheviks before and after the Revolution.

The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture During the 1950s and 1960s


Denis Kozlov - 2013
    Though not overtly revolutionary, this era produced significant shifts in policies, ideas, language, artistic practices, daily behaviours, and material life. It was also during this time that social, cultural, and intellectual processes in the USSR began to parallel those in the West (and particularly in Europe) as never before.This volume examines in fascinating detail the various facets of Soviet life during the 1950s and 1960s, a period termed the 'Thaw.' Featuring innovative research by historical, literary, and film scholars from across the world, this book helps to answer fundamental questions about the nature and ultimate fortune of the Soviet order - both in its internal dynamics and in its long-term and global perspectives.

Tajikistan: A Political and Social History (Asian Studies Series Monograph)


Kirill Nourzhanov - 2013
    

Making the Soviet Intelligentsia: Universities and Intellectual Life under Stalin and Khrushchev


Benjamin Tromly - 2013
    In the postwar period, universities emerged as training grounds for the military-industrial complex, showcases of Soviet cultural and economic accomplishments and valued tools in international cultural diplomacy. However, these fêted Soviet institutions also generated conflicts about the place of intellectuals and higher learning under socialism. Disruptive party initiatives in higher education - from the xenophobia and anti-Semitic campaigns of late Stalinism to the rewriting of history and the opening of the USSR to the outside world under Khrushchev - encouraged students and professors to interpret their commitments as intellectuals in the Soviet system in varied and sometimes contradictory ways. In the process, the social construct of intelligentsia took on divisive social, political and national meanings for educated society in the postwar Soviet state.