Showing titles in Russia

Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.

История русской революции—двухтомная книга Льва Троцкого о русской революции 1917 года, впервые опубликованная в 1930 году. Является фундаментальным трудом автора по исторической проблематике, в которой формулируется непосредственная связь между событиями Февральской и Октябрьской революций.

What would Russia look like today if there had never been a Peter the Great? Peter I did so much for Russia, including changing the education system to reach more people, reorganizing the government and the Russian Orthodox Church, and even modernizing the dress and social living standards of the Russian people. Peter grew up in a Russia that was stuck in archaic times, but he recognized the need for change, and when his time came to rule over his country he met the challenge head-on. Peter the Great turned Russia into one of the greatest powers of the world.

No disease sparked as much dread in the 18th century as smallpox. The virus killed millions across the globe, carrying off one in every five victims and disfiguring survivors with tell-tale pitted scars. But one mysterious method offered hope: inoculation, the practice of piercing the skin to insert a drop of infected matter and induce a mild case of smallpox. Those inoculated safely were protected from the ‘Speckled Monster’ and stayed immune for life. Only one problem remained: convincing people to accept the treatment.

The formation of the state is a natural stage in the development of society. This is a very lengthy process, so any event that marks the transition to the state forms of life is very conditional. Primitive society could exist, guided by two basic principles that regulated social life: custom (tradition) and the right of the strong. Centuries-old traditions were rarely challenged, so there was no need for some special mechanisms to ensure their compliance. However, as primitive society gradually changed, the relations between the congeners became more and more diverse.

Their wings were weak, their talons broken…yet they flew the Soviets into winning the war against the Nazis. They were ignored, laughed at, and forced to do chores beneath their ranks. Why? They were the "weaker" gender. Despite being capable, they were initially denied entry into combat. And when they did enlist, their treatment only worsened: They were assigned worn-out uniforms and left to the mercy of rusted equipment on the battlefield. These adversities didn’t stop the Soviet female fighters from going ahead and showing unprecedented excellence in warfare.

Living in West Berlin in the 1960s often felt like living in a zoo, everyone packed together behind a wall, with the world always watching. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the East Berlin zoo was spacious and lush, a socialist utopia where everything was perfectly planned...and then rarely successfully finished. Berlin’s two zoos quickly became symbols of the divided city’s two halves. So no one was terribly surprised when the head zookeepers on either side started an animal arms race - rather than stockpiling nuclear warheads, competing to have the most pandas and hippos.

A riveting and deeply personal story, In Search of the Romanovs reveals hidden truths in the legends about the murder and disappearance of Russia's most famous royal family.

Dostoyevski, henüz yirmi dört yaşındadır. Abartılı yaşamı ve gelişen kumar bağımlılığı nedeniyle maddi zorluk yaşamıştır. Yabancı romanların bazı çevirilerini yapmış olmasına rağmen, çok az başarıları vardır ve standartlarını yükseltmeye çalışmak için kendi romanını yazmaya karar vermiştir. İnsancıklar, Fyodor Dostoyevski'nin 18441845 yılları arasında dokuz aylık bir süre zarfında yazdığı ilk romanı ve başyapıtıdır. Dünyanın her yerindeki eleştirmenler tarafından toplumsal olarak sorumlu edebiyat olarak lanse edilen İnsancıklar, insanlık durumunu tasvir etmesi için bir dönüm noktası hâline gelmiştir.

The terror and purges of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records, let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the unique diary assiduously kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. This selection from Maisky's diary grippingly documents Britain's drift to war during the 1930s, appeasement in the Munich era, negotiations leading to the signature of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact....

At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished. The Rebel Romanov is the inspiring tale of a bold woman who, until now, has been ignored by history.

"What journey within our immediate world today would be remotely as interesting, enchanting, instructive and exciting as that to Russia? While our Europe, and especially the capitals, are subject to the inexorably contemporary process of mutual assimilation and resemblance, Russia remains utterly unparalleled." Stephen Zweig, 1928. After Stefan Zweig's bourgeois world collapsed with the First World War, he went searching for alternative forms of society, which culminated in a journey through the at that time still young Soviet Union.

Fleeing East from Nazi terror, over a million Polish Jews traversed the Soviet Union, many finding refuge in Muslim lands. Their story - the extraordinary saga of two thirds of Polish Jewish survivors - has never been fully told. Author Mikhal Dekel's father, Hannan Teitel, and her aunt Regina were two of these refugees. After they fled the town in eastern Poland where their family had been successful brewers for centuries, they endured extreme suffering in the Soviet forced labor camps known as "special settlements".

¿Puede alguien entender realmente a Rusia? Mark Galeotti, uno de los principales expertos del mundo en ese país, lo demuestra en este libro utilizando la fascinante historia de la nación para iluminar su futuro. Rusia es un país sin fronteras naturales, sin una etnia única, sin una verdadera identidad central. En la encrucijada de Europa y Asia, es el «otro» de todos. Pero, sin embargo, es también una de las naciones más poderosas de la tierra, una pieza clave en la escena mundial con una rica historia de guerra y paz, poetas y revolucionarios.

L'ouverture des archives russes, il y a dix ans, permet de porter un regard neuf sur les grands personnages de l'histoire soviétique, à commencer bien sûr par Staline, l'une des figures les plus énigmatiques de l'histoire du XXe siècle. Comprendre l'homme des épurations politiques et physiques, des procès truqués, des millions de morts au cours de la famine de 1932 - 1933, de la déportation d'une quinzaine de peuples, du Goulag, de la guerre froide, c'est aussi reprendre sous un autre angle la question de "l'œuvre noire" du communisme.

Mythen haben Russlands Krieg gegen die Ukraine den Boden bereitet. Von der Erfindung eines geeinten russischen Volks durch den deutschen Mönch Innozenz Giesel bis zum Narrativ einer russischen Krim – russische Propaganda nimmt die Ukraine und ihre Geschichte seit Jahrzehnten in Geiselhaft. In seinem die Jahrhunderte umspannenden Buch führt uns Mikhail Zygar zu den Ursprüngen von Russlands Imperialismus – und weist so den Weg aus seinen zerstörerischen Wahnvorstellungen.

This audiobook offers the first systematic analysis of Putin's two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin's wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide.

At last a book about the so-called "Mad Monk" of Imperial Russia that lays to rest the myths and reveals the truth about one of the most controversial characters in human history while exploring the impact his murder had on a dynasty, a people, and a country.

Rockets and Revolution offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.

There have been many biographies of Stalin, but the court that surrounded him is untravelled ground. Simon Sebag Montefiore, acclaimed biographer of Catherine the Great's lover, prime minister, and general, Potemkin, has unearthed the vast underpinning that sustained Stalin. Not only ministers such as Molotov or secret service chiefs such as Beria, but men and women whose loyalty he trusted only until the next purge.