Moscow's Heavy Shadow

Moscow's Heavy Shadow PDF Author: Isaac McKean Scarborough
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501771035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Moscow's Heavy Shadow tells the story of the collapse of the USSR from the perspective of the many millions of Soviet citizens who experienced it as a period of abjection and violence. Mikhail Gorbachev and the leaders of the USSR saw the years of reform preceding the collapse as opportunities for rebuilding (perestroika), rejuvenation, and openness (glasnost). For those in provincial cities across the Soviet Union, however, these reforms led to rapid change, economic collapse, and violence. Focusing on Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Isaac McKean Scarborough describes how this city experienced skyrocketing unemployment, a depleted budget, and streets filled with angry young men unable to support their families. Tajikistan was left without financial or military resources, unable and unprepared to stand against the wave of populist politicians of all stripes who took advantage of the economic collapse and social discontent to try to gain power. By May 1992, political conflict became violent and bloody and engulfed the whole of Tajikistan in war. Moscow's Heavy Shadow tells the story of how this war came to be, and how it was grounded in the reform and collapse of the Soviet economy that came before.

Moscow's Heavy Shadow

Moscow's Heavy Shadow PDF Author: Isaac McKean Scarborough
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501771035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Moscow's Heavy Shadow tells the story of the collapse of the USSR from the perspective of the many millions of Soviet citizens who experienced it as a period of abjection and violence. Mikhail Gorbachev and the leaders of the USSR saw the years of reform preceding the collapse as opportunities for rebuilding (perestroika), rejuvenation, and openness (glasnost). For those in provincial cities across the Soviet Union, however, these reforms led to rapid change, economic collapse, and violence. Focusing on Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Isaac McKean Scarborough describes how this city experienced skyrocketing unemployment, a depleted budget, and streets filled with angry young men unable to support their families. Tajikistan was left without financial or military resources, unable and unprepared to stand against the wave of populist politicians of all stripes who took advantage of the economic collapse and social discontent to try to gain power. By May 1992, political conflict became violent and bloody and engulfed the whole of Tajikistan in war. Moscow's Heavy Shadow tells the story of how this war came to be, and how it was grounded in the reform and collapse of the Soviet economy that came before.

The House of Government

The House of Government PDF Author: Yuri Slezkine
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888174
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1123

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Book Description
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman’s Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine’s gripping narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin’s purges. A vivid account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children’s loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union. Completed in 1931, the House of Government, later known as the House on the Embankment, was located across the Moscow River from the Kremlin. The largest residential building in Europe, it combined 505 furnished apartments with public spaces that included everything from a movie theater and a library to a tennis court and a shooting range. Slezkine tells the chilling story of how the building’s residents lived in their apartments and ruled the Soviet state until some eight hundred of them were evicted from the House and led, one by one, to prison or their deaths. Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews, and featuring hundreds of rare photographs, The House of Government weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable human saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.

The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes

The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict and War Crimes PDF Author: Patrycja Grzebyk
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040152015
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This book offers a multidisciplinary examination of the international crimes committed in the Russia-Ukraine War, and the challenges of their prosecution and documentation. As the largest international armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia’s war against Ukraine has provoked strong reactions and questions about the post-1945 world order, the utility of the war, and the effectiveness of international criminal justice. Throughout the chapters in this volume, scholars and legal practitioners from Canada, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States present the results of interdisciplinary research, insights from the perspective of other post-communist states, and first-hand expertise from directly working on the documentation and prosecution of these crimes. This offers a broader picture of post-Cold War relations and sheds light on the roots and nature of the war and the importance of regional approaches. The chapters also present some possible responses to the crimes committed in the conflict, with a focus on a victims-centered approach to transitional justice. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of international criminal and humanitarian law, security studies, peace and conflict studies, and Eastern European history.

Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan

Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan PDF Author: Elena Borisova
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1800086644
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan is the first ethnographic monograph on migration in Tajikistan, one of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world. Moving beyond economistic push-pull narratives about post-Soviet migration, it foregrounds the experiences of those who ‘stay put’ in the sending society and struggle to reproduce their moral communities. Elena Borisova examines the role of mobility in historical and cultural ideas about the good life and how it becomes entwined with people’s efforts to become good, moral and modern subjects. Addressing the complex relationship between the economic, imaginative and moral aspects of (im)mobility, she shows that mass migration from Tajikistan is as much a project of navigating ethical personhood as it is a quest for economic resources. This book reveals how transnational regimes and structures of mobility, citizenship and histories map out in the intimate spheres of the body, the person and the family. It is a contribution to contemporary migration research, which is mostly centred on Europe and North America, and to the field of Central Asian studies. It will be of interest to researchers of migration, (im)mobility and citizenship, and to scholars of all disciplines working on Central Asia. Praise for Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan ‘In this vivid and poignant ethnography, grounded in an intimate portrait of life in northern Tajikistan, Borisova shows how migration is much more than a response to economic necessity...Taking us from homes and wedding halls to passport offices and border posts, Borisova illuminates migration as an ethical project inseparable from the search for a good life – an argument of profound relevance for scholars of migration, as well as for students of anthropology.’ Madeleine Reeves, University of Oxford ‘This deeply researched account of the lived experience of migration between Tajikistan and Russia is a must-read for all those interested in Central Asia and the migratory experience more generally. This remarkable book is a testament to anthropology’s relevance for understanding some of the most pressing issues and sensitive world regions of the present era.’ Magnus Marsden, University of Sussex ‘Paradoxes of Migration in Tajikistan is a masterful account of migrants’ mobility between Tajikistan and Russia. Carefully examining how people live their lives on the move under difficult conditions, Borisova’s lucidly written book is set to become a landmark study in the anthropology of migration.’ Till Mostowlansky, Geneva Graduate Institute 'An amazing book. Borisova offers a rich fieldwork-based account of life in the North of Tajikistan, which is also a delightful read. This work requires a substantial rethinking about how we conceptualise and think of mobility and migration. Paying attention to the politics of care and ethical struggles the book helps a reader to understand what migration is and how it is weaved into everyday fabric of life in Tajikistan.' Malika Bahovadinova, University of Amsterdam

Shadow Shoguns

Shadow Shoguns PDF Author: Jacob M. Schlesinger
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804734578
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This is a vivid account of the corrupt and improbable political machine that ran Japanese politics for twenty years, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, the period during which Japan became the world's second-largest economy. Reviews "Washington lobbyists, Moscow mafiosi, and Beijing party bosses stand back! . . . Here is one of the longest running big-time political sleaze serials of the past quarter-century. . . . This was a book waiting to be written, and not only has Schlesinger done it, but he has also produced a fine job of political reporting." --New York Times Book Review "In a rollicking style, Schlesinger . . . demolishes the popular misconception that politicians are boring. His is a tale of monstrous personalities. . . . This is the most entertaining short history of Japanese politics this reviewer has encountered." --The Economist "A story which is told vividly in this well researched and reliable account. . . . A superb analysis of Japan's politics and economic affairs." --Washington Post Book World "Shadow Shoguns is a lively and anecdote-rich account of the eerie parallels between Tokyo's now-battered political machine and New York's Tammany Hall. . . . Schlesinger masterfully demonstrates why Prime Minister Tanaka personified the collusive ties between Japanese politicians and Big Business." --Business Week "A fascinating and penetrating tale about the Tanaka machine that dominated Japan's politics for several decades and whose demise in the early 1990s has created a political vacuum that accounts for many of Japan's current problems." --Foreign Affairs

Moscow, 1937

Moscow, 1937 PDF Author: Karl Schlögel
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745650777
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Moscow, 1937: the soviet metropolis at the zenith of Stalin’s dictatorship. A society utterly wrecked by a hurricane of violence. In this compelling book, the renowned historian Karl Schlögel reconstructs with meticulous care the process through which, month by month, the terrorism of a state-of-emergency regime spiraled into the ‘Great Terror’ during which 1 ½ million human beings lost their lives within a single year. He revisits the sites of show trials and executions and, by also consulting numerous sources from the time, he provides a masterful panorama of these key events in Russian history. He shows how, in the shadow of the reign of terror, the regime around Stalin also aimed to construct a new society. Based on countless documents, Schlögel’s historical masterpiece vividly presents an age in which the boundaries separating the dream and the terror dissolve, and enables us to experience the fear that was felt by people subjected to totalitarian rule. This rich and absorbing account of the Soviet purges will be essential reading for all students of Russia and for any readers interested in one of the most dramatic and disturbing events of modern history.

Brodsky Among Us

Brodsky Among Us PDF Author: Ellendea Proffer Teasley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781618115782
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A searingly personal memoir of the great Russian poet by his American friend and publisher, containing much previously unknown material about how Brodsky left Russia and how he made his way in the new world, and how, during the cold war, Americans played a crucial role in his fate.

The Underground

The Underground PDF Author: Hamid Ismailov
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 0989983242
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
“I am Moscow’s underground son, the result of one too many nights on the town,” says Mbobo, the precocious twelve-year-old narrator of Hamid Ismailov’s The Underground. Born from a Siberian woman and an African athlete competing in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Mbobo navigates the complexities of being a fatherless, mixed-raced boy in the Soviet Union in the years before its collapse, guided only by the Moscow subway system. Named one of the "ten best Russian novels of the 21st Century" (Continent Magazine), The Underground is Ismailov’s haunting tour of the Soviet capital, on the surface and beneath. Though deeply engaged with great Russian authors of the past—Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, and, above all, Pushkin—Ismailov is an emerging master of Russian writing that reflects the country’s diversity today. Reviews "Hamid Ismailov has the capacity of Salman Rushdie at his best to show the grotesque realization of history on the ground." —Literary Review "The dream of grandeur is more than justified by the artfulness of The Underground, which...create[s] the motifs of blackness, subterranean movement, and isolation that are the novel’s strongest effects." —Transitions Online Hamid Ismailov is an Uzbek journalist, writer, and translator who was forced to flee Uzbekistan in 1992 for the United Kingdom, where he now works for the BBC World Service. His works are still banned in Uzbekistan. His writing has been published in Uzbek, Russian, French, English, and other languages. He is the author of novels including Sobranie Utonchyonnyh, Le Vagabond Flamboyant, Two Lost to Life, The Railway, The Underground, A Poet and Bin-Laden and The Dead Lake; poetry collections including Sad (Garden) and Pustynya (Desert); and books of visual poetry Post Faustum and Kniga Otsutstvi. Carol Ermakova studied German and Russian language and literature and holds an MA in translation from Bath University. She first visited Russia in 1991. More recently, Ermakova spent two years in Moscow working as a teacher and translator. Carol currently lives in the North Pennines and works as a freelance translator.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking PDF Author: Anya von Bremzen
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307886832
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
A James Beard Award-winning writer captures life under the Red socialist banner in this wildly inventive, tragicomic memoir of feasts, famines, and three generations “Delicious . . . A banquet of anecdote that brings history to life with intimacy, candor, and glorious color.”—NPR’s All Things Considered Born in 1963, in an era of bread shortages, Anya grew up in a communal Moscow apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen. She sang odes to Lenin, black-marketeered Juicy Fruit gum at school, watched her father brew moonshine, and, like most Soviet citizens, longed for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, naively joyous, and melancholy—and ultimately intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother, Larisa. When Anya was ten, she and Larisa fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return. Now Anya occupies two parallel food universes: one where she writes about four-star restaurants, the other where a taste of humble kolbasa transports her back to her scarlet-blazed socialist past. To bring that past to life, Anya and her mother decide to eat and cook their way through every decade of the Soviet experience. Through these meals, and through the tales of three generations of her family, Anya tells the intimate yet epic story of life in the USSR. Wildly inventive and slyly witty, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Christian Science Monitor, Publishers Weekly

The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita PDF Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802190510
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Satan comes to Soviet Moscow in this critically acclaimed translation of one of the most important and best-loved modern classics in world literature. The Master and Margarita has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin’s time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov’s masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love. In The Master and Margarita, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. The Master and Margarita combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged “brilliant” by Publishers Weekly. Praise for The Master and Margarita “A wild surrealistic romp. . . . Brilliantly flamboyant and outrageous.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The Detroit News “Fine, funny, imaginative. . . . The Master and Margarita stands squarely in the great Gogolesque tradition of satiric narrative.” —Saul Maloff, Newsweek “A rich, funny, moving and bitter novel. . . . Vast and boisterous entertainment.” —The New York Times “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant. . . . A great work.” —Chicago Tribune “Funny, devilish, brilliant satire. . . . It’s literature of the highest order and . . . it will deliver a full measure of enjoyment and enlightenment.” —Publishers Weekly