The historical background, the present position, and the future prospects of both the non-Russian and Russian peoples are considered in their many aspects, as are the maneuvers of the Communist regime to suppress, appease, or make use of them. The future of the Soviet Union, and thus of the world, depends greatly on whether, and how, the Communist leadership, whose own ideology has lost most of its appeal, can adjust to a new surge of national feeling....

Rare materials on Belarus are a potential treasure trove for the English language reader. A blank spot on the map for many, Belarus is an undiscovered mystery in the heart of Europe — undiscovered, because little has been published on the country's history and current affairs, and the origin of the ethnic group that calls itself 'Belarusians'. Author Lubov Bazan attempts to uplift the veil of secrecy surrounding Belarus and answer an important question...

Rasputin the Rascal Monk (1917) is a work of historical nonfiction by Anglo-French writer William Le Queux. Published at the height of Le Queux's career as a leading author of popular thrillers, Rasputin the Rascal Monk indulges in the paranoid atmosphere of the First World War to weave a sinister tale of espionage and political conspiracy. Despite the popularity and accessibility of his work, Le Queux was genuinely concerned-and immensely paranoid-about...

The Caucasus region of Eurasia, wedged in between the Black and Caspian Seas, encompasses the modern territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, as well as the troubled republic of Chechnya in southern Russia. A site of invasion, conquest, and resistance since the onset of historical record, it has earned a reputation for fearsome violence and isolated mountain redoubts closed to outsiders. Over extended efforts to control the Caucasus area,...

In these original essays on long-term patterns of everyday life in prerevolutionary, Soviet, and contemporary Russia, distinguished scholars survey the cultural practices, power relations, and behaviors that characterized daily existence for Russians through the post-Soviet present. Microanalyses and transnational perspectives shed new light on the formation and elaboration of gender, ethnicity, class, nationalism, and subjectivity. Changes in consumption...

Marshall T. Poe is the author of several books on Russian history, including A People Born to Slavery: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748. He has taught history at Columbia University, New York University, and Harvard University, and is currently an analyst with the Atlantic Monthly. Is Russian history one big inevitable failure? The Soviet Union's demise and Russia's ensuing troubles have led many to wonder. But this is to look...

Since the days of Dimitur Blagoev, a member of the first Marxist group in Russia and a founder of Bulgarian communism, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) was closely identified with its Russian counterpart. In the waning days of the Soviet Bloc, the best-known fact about Bulgaria was that it modeled itself closely on the USSR and was allegedly linked to KGB terrorist activities. Those similarities were more than superficial. The internal factions...

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies at Stanford University. His books include Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe and The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. The chilling story of Stalin's crimes against humanity Between the early 1930s and his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin had more than a million of his own citizens executed....

For 872 days during World War II, the German Army encircled the city of Leningrad-modern-day St. Petersburg-in a military operation that would cripple the former capital and major Soviet industrial center. Palaces were looted and destroyed. Schools and hospitals were bombarded. Famine raged and millions died, soldiers and innocent civilians alike. Against the backdrop of this catastrophe, historian Brian Moynahan tells the story of Dmitri Shostakovich,...

Vivid reports of the struggle of two parties vying for supremacy in post-czarist Russia.