The 1970s in the Soviet Union are often known as the time of stagnation. The economy was doing rather poorly, and the new leader, Leonid Brezhnev, backpedaled many of the reforms that had been made under Khrushchev. However, one positive that many Soviet people found was life in communal apartments. While there were definitely some […]
Read moreAfter the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union saw a period of cultural liberalization that would come to be known as “the Thaw”. During this time, the rights of women expanded, from education becoming more accessible to the ban on abortions being lifted to women taking on more responsibilities in the work force. However, […]
Read moreDuring World War II, the Soviet Union paid a huge price in human lives. All of the Soviet citizens stepped up in order to ensure Soviet victory. As a result, the late 1940s and early 1950s saw a slight relaxation in what communism meant to the Soviet Union, in order to effectively reconstruct the war-torn […]
Read moreWhen the Soviet Union entered World War II, the struggle became a battle for the Russians to prove to the rest of the world how strong their nation had become. Intense patriotism fueled the home front during the difficult winters of the war while the Nazis tried unsuccessfully to capture Russia. The Russians made sure […]
Read moreWhile one part of the 1930s seemed to focus on how much life in Russia had improved under the Soviet Union and specifically the policies of Joseph Stalin, on the other hand, there was a great amount of fear, due to domestic policies like the Purges and international pressures, like the eve of World War […]
Read moreIn the 1930s, the Soviet government became firmly established and Stalin was seen as the clear leader of the Russian people. With an economy that was now booming and food now available for most people after the horrors of the early stages of collectivization, culture was free to bloom once more. Cinema prospered in the […]
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In 1924, the great Soviet revolutionary and leader Vladimir Lenin passed away, and Joseph Stalin took his place as the head of the Soviet Union. Stalin was determined to expedite the process of making the Soviet Union a true communist society. He and advisors went over several different plans to make this happen, eventually deciding […]
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In 1919, playwright and revolutionary Pavel Arsky published his one-act play “For the Cause of the Red Soviets”. The play details one fateful evening in the lives of a family in which the father is a Soviet commander who is currently away from home, fighting in the civil war. It served as a serious piece […]
Read moreDuring the period of time around the Russian Revolution, avant-garde art flourished. Lyubov Popova became known as one of the most important artists of the period. Popova was born to a cultured family in 1889. She studied at several prestigious Russian schools of art while in her late teens and early twenties. Around 1910, she […]
Read moreIn Nikolai Leskov’s famous short story “Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk Uezd”, the main character, Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, is a young woman, formerly of the peasant class, trapped in an unhappy marriage to a much older merchant. She falls in love with a handsome and clever young servant, Sergei, and stops at nothing to try to […]
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