Monthly Archives: July 2011

Romanovs win access to Tsar murder files

A court in Moscow ordered Russia’s Investigative Committee to hand over its 800-page file on the Bolshevik killings of Nicholas II and his family to Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, a descendant of the Tsar whose claim to be his legal … Continue reading

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Humanising Stalin?

The link below is to a really interesting article by Simon Sebag Montefiore. He asks the question, “History portrays Stalin as an inhumane and vicious leader – but he was a man as well as a monster. Do we betray … Continue reading

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Russia: The Wild East

The link below is to the the homepage of the BBC Radio 4 Russia: The Wild East programme. It is excellent, and well worth downloading. As Martin Sixsmith says inthe first episode, “in Russia, things change only to remain the … Continue reading

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The real end of the story ?

If the last post focuses upon the start of our period (the Crimean War), this post might initially seem too late. In February 2011 a statue was unveiled to Boris Yeltsin in, of all places, Yekaterinburg. It was one of the … Continue reading

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Why the Crimean War Matters…

Our course starts with the end of the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas I. The book review below from the New York Times of Orland Figes’ new book on the topic is most helpful. In particular you might … Continue reading

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Who was the greatest Russian of them all ?

A super question, and of course much depends on how you define “great”. The question was asked to Russians recently. The medieval winner Alexander Newski, (shown left), does not impact on our course. What is very interesting however is that the … Continue reading

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A series of articles on Lenin

Although we can upload much of what was destroyed from the old site, it is impossible to recover all the news articles. Moreover the student comments are lost forever. That said, over the next few weeks we will aim to upload … Continue reading

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Welcome to the Russian dictatorships section of the site.

Those of you who used the old site will know it as predominantly a vehicle to discuss Russian history. These pages are designed to support Little Heath A2 students studying for their summer examination. Our examination board is OCR, and … Continue reading

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