Stalin was the “most successful Soviet leader”. Thus proclaims Filippov’s controversial textbook A New History of Russia 1945-2006 – a symbol of the Putin-inspired drive to rehabilitate Stalinism and steep the next generation of Russian schoolchildren in the glories of sovereign democracy. Right? Unfortunately, there’s just a few problems with this kitschy narrative of neo-Soviet
Ever since the publication of Filippov’s (in)famous textbook A History of Russia 1945-2006 in 2007, the state of Russian history teaching drew a fair degree of negative commentary in the West, some of it reasonably lucid, most of it superficial or hysterical. What the latter have in common is that they almost invariably haven’t read
It is a pity that foreigners are not privy to the wild and wacky world of LiveJournal, Russia’s premier blogging site – many prominent people have accounts there and traditions of opposition and kompromat makes for a lively stream of scandal. One recent case involved Tatyana Korchevnaya, who used to be a prominent member of
Two weeks ago Illarionov gave an interview on the Echo of Moscow radio station. Covering it in-depth is somewhat of a pointless exercise, what with him comparing 1999-2007 Russia with Nazi Germany in 1932-40 (because of their rapid economic growth and Russia’s supposed loss of the rule of law). Now not only is invoking Godwin’s
Here‘s the video. My section begins at 8:02. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jih6HCC_tww&w=425&h=355] Why was my speech not exactly on-topic? I was contacted by al-Jazeera and offered a choice of three questions. 1. What dangers do journalists and activists face in speaking out against the Russian government? 2. What role does the (international) media play in giving Russian regime
The US State Department has released its latest human rights report – as usual, a veritable list of America’s bugbears (North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan are the ‘top ten’). It is true that the majority of the above are pretty odious regimes, with the partial exception of Belarus
The Western media has begun to whine about the Russian presidential elections five weeks in advance. Their beef is that Kasyanov was barred from running, ostensibly because above 5% of his required signatures were rigged, but actually to undercut the last independent candidate – Russia’s last and only hope of salvation from the ‘slippery slope
Freedom House publishes its 2008 report on Freedom in the World. Russia scored a 6 for Political Rights and and 5 for Civil Rights (1 is best, 7 is worst). According to their figures, Russia is no different from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Brunei, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and the UAE, and less free than
In the first 5 days of its existence, this blog has been priveleged to receive more than more than 200 page views from more than 100 visitors from 18 different countries. We have also been linked to by the Winthrop88 blog and Marginalia (probably the leading English-language blog about Latvia) – of those that we’re