Archive for the ‘Russian 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 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: The Battle of Kursk, part 1
The first part of the gallery of the Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle of all times. “The Battle of Kursk refers to German and Soviet operations on the Eastern Front of World War II in the vicinity of the city of Kursk in July and August 1943. It remains both the largest series [...]
Posted on April 30, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: The Battle of Kursk, part 2
The second part of the gallery of the Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle of all times. “The Battle of Kursk refers to German and Soviet operations on the Eastern Front of World War II in the vicinity of the city of Kursk in July and August 1943. It remains both the largest series [...]
Posted on April 30, 2009 - by Venik
Photos: Eastern Front
A small collection of Second World War photos from the Eastern Front in no particular order. “It was the largest theatre of war in history and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life. It bore the bulk of the Holocaust as the site of all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, [...]
Posted on March 15, 2009 - by Venik
Russian Military Reform
Putin and his cabinet have embarked on the most dangerous journey of their political careers: the 2009-2012 military reform. And by “dangerous” I don’t mean just unpopular but life-threatening. The decision to cut nearly 200,000 senior officers, special forces, and intelligence operatives will have serious consequences for Russia’s internal stability. Essentially, over a relatively short [...]
Posted on September 13, 2008 - by Venik
Russian Separatists and Ivan the Terrible
Just ran into a funny article in The New York Times. Obviously, the article’s author did not try at all to be funny, which made it even funnier. In her Russia’s Recognition of Georgian Areas Raises Hopes of Its Own Separatists, Ellen Barry suggests, as you can see from the article’s title, that by recognizing [...]