Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Posted on August 25, 2010 - by Venik
Microsoft for Soviet Macedonia
I don’t know why, but today I stopped by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. I was greeted by a photo of Lake Debar located in western Macedonia near the border with Albania. When I hovered the mouse over little black squares on the photo, I was given a quick lesson in Macedonia’s history. My knowledge of [...]
Posted on April 20, 2010 - by Venik
Why Russia and Poland Will Never be Friends
You probably heard the story by now: a plane full of Polish russophobes flew into a tree in Russia. Too bad Dante is dead: a lot of good material for a Commedia sequel. There is a veritable flurry of news reports and editorials predicting an epic thaw in relations between Russia and Poland. A brief [...]
Posted on April 11, 2010 - by Venik
How Poland Defeated the USSR
In his latest article on Russo-Polish relations Matthew Day, a Warsaw-based reporter for The Telegraph, provides a curious timeline of some major events in the common history of the two countries. According to Mr. Day, in 1919-1921 “Poland defeats Soviet Union in war”. A snafu like this I would expect from CNN, but a British [...]
Posted on August 22, 2009 - by Venik
Victims with Guns
Tomorrow’s seventy-year anniversary of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact is giving some historians and journalists pretending to be historians an unbearable urge to write nonsense. The Pact and, most importantly, its secret provisions are blamed by the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians for the years of “Soviet occupation”. This was a difficult period in the history of [...]
Posted on June 8, 2009 - by Venik
Reading Airshow, 2009
The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum (MAAM) is membership supported museum and aircraft restoration facility located at the Carl A. Spaatz Field, the regional airport serving Reading, Pennsylvania. The museum, founded by Russ Strine, the current President, collects and actively restores historic war planes and classic airliners as well as rare civilian and military aircraft. Many of [...]
Posted on May 19, 2009 - by Venik
Russia’s New Policy on Historical Revisionism
The Wall Street Journal is commenting on Russia’s new policy to counter attempts at historical revisionism (“Russia Frames New Policy on History“, by Andrew Osborne, WSJ, May 19, 2009). According to WSJ’s hand-picked collection of opinions, Russia is trying to move back to the Soviet practice of tightly managing the official, state-approved version of history [...]
Posted on May 10, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: 2009 V-Day Celebrations in Russia
WWII V-Day, traditionally celebrated in Russia on May 9, is the most significant holiday in the country, rivaled only by the New Year. The government upped the anty this year by throwing the biggest military parade since the Soviet days, with more troops, tanks, and aircraft. The next year’s parade, commemorating 65-th anniversary of history’s [...]
Posted on May 7, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Russian and Soviet Posters, part 4
The fourth and last part of the gallery featuring commercial and propaganda posters from the Soviet days and the time of the Russian Empire. Political and advertisement posters were a highly developed form of art in Russia and the Soviet Union. My favorite period is definitely the 1890-1930 Russian modernism with its avant-garde and supermatism [...]
Posted on May 7, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Russian and Soviet Posters, part 3
The third part of the gallery featuring commercial and propaganda posters from the Soviet days and the time of the Russian Empire. Political and advertisement posters were a highly developed form of art in Russia and the Soviet Union. My favorite period is definitely the 1890-1930 Russian modernism with its avant-garde and supermatism movements. The [...]
Posted on May 7, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Russian and Soviet Posters, part 2
The second part of the gallery featuring commercial and propaganda posters from the Soviet days and the time of the Russian Empire. Political and advertisement posters were a highly developed form of art in Russia and the Soviet Union. My favorite period is definitely the 1890-1930 Russian modernism with its avant-garde and supermatism movements. The [...]
Posted on May 7, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Russian and Soviet Posters, part 1
The first part of the gallery featuring commercial and propaganda posters from the Soviet days and the time of the Russian Empire. Political and advertisement posters were a highly developed form of art in Russia and the Soviet Union. My favorite period is definitely the 1890-1930 Russian modernism with its avant-garde and supermatism movements. The [...]
Posted on April 30, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Second World War, Panzertruppen
A small gallery of German tank forces during the Second World War. Includes some rarely-seen color photos of Panzertruppen commanders. “The mainstay of the Panzerwaffe was the Panzer division. These consisted of a panzer brigade (two tank regiments) and two motorized or mechanized infantry regiments. All forces of a Panzer division were mobile. Support elements [...]
Posted on April 30, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: African-Americans in WWII
A small gallery of photos showing African-American soldiers during the Second World War. About 125,000 blacks served in US combat units overseas during the war. “Many soldiers of color served their country with distinction during World War II. There were 125,000 African Americans who were overseas in World War II. Famous segregated units, such as [...]
Posted on April 30, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Second World War, part 2
A collection of various photos from the Second World War. The second gallery. Photos of various events and people in no particular order. “The start of the war is generally held to be September 1 1939, with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany[4] by most of the countries in [...]