Scarecrow / historian
At the weekend, I watched The Scarecrow — Rolan Bykov’s landmark film of 1983 — for the second time. The first time was fifteen years ago in the library of … Continue reading
The World Cup, a month on
Only a month on, what can a historian add? First of all the usual pleasantries. My household was completely hooked. It was a spectacularly successful event, generating excitement and enthusiasm, … Continue reading
A Bolshevik Christmas
Today is Russian Christmas, dated according to the calendar of the Orthodox Church. Now it’s a popular festival, but for seventy-four years, under the guise of the Soviet Union, Russia … Continue reading
Post-Soviet Eurovision and the singer in the wheelchair
Held in Kiev in May, this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is an international incident waiting to happen. From selecting the Russian and Ukrainian entrants to calibrating the crowd’s response to … Continue reading
How Soviet maths might yet destroy capitalism
Post-Soviet mathematicians have the world in their hands, and they know all about you. Sergei Brin was born in Moscow in 1973. Six years later, he migrated with his family … Continue reading
The iron curtain first lady
Laughed at, unable to answer back, constrained in private life but derided for political involvement: the modern political spouse can’t do right for doing wrong. Was it the same behind … Continue reading
The Panama Papers: Soviet history lessons?
Are you any the wiser, or did you know it already? The massive leak of documents from the law firm Mossack Fonseca reveals — pause — that David Cameron inherited … Continue reading
John Steinbeck invents ‘late Stalinism’
John Steinbeck visited the Soviet Union in 1947 when it was going through its post-war purgatory. What an encounter: between the author of The Grapes of Wrath (later to win … Continue reading
1917: the revolution of multitudes
‘Make arrangements for the children,’ said Molotov to his closest friend, Alexander Arosev, shortly before Arosev’s arrest in July 1937. You can read this and have a pure connection with the … Continue reading
The Philadelphia ghetto, the CIA, and the Soviet city
It’s not a very constructive argument. The neighbours scream that your new fence encroaches on their garden; you shout that their extension bears a doubtful relationship to the building regulations. … Continue reading
