For my last post, I decided to talk about The Americans, one of my favorite shows currently airing on television. The show follows Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, two undercover Soviet spies who live in Fall Church, VA. The show provides an unique perspective on the Cold War.
Read more →One of the most significant events within the Cold War was the dissolution of the Soviet led Warsaw Pact. Created in 1955, the Warsaw Pact was the answer to West Germany’s admittance into NATO, which was seen as increasing the risk of war and threatening the security of “peaceable states."
Read more →As the Soviet Union carried out its campaign against alcohol, the population made up for it by brewing their own instead. The statistics are notable, however it doesn’t take into account what people who are addicted to alcohol will go through to acquire more of it.
Read more →Although the famous phrase “In the Soviet Union there is no sex” is just a misunderstanding on the part of a participant in a “Spacebridge,” a series of televised dialogues between Soviet and American citizens, it reveals a long tradition of silence and taboo around sex.
Read more →Lyubers were a group of young, white bodybuilders form the oblast of Moscow called Lyuburtsy. They were known to despise anyone who emulated Western culture, or showed any non-Russian individuality at all.
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Poster for the movie (“Intergirl”) about a foreign-currency prostitute.
The explosion occurred due to both human error and design flaws. There was a power surge that ruptured a few pressure tubes which contained uranium dioxide fuel. When the tubes ruptured the hot fuel mixed with water and caused a steam explosion. Standartenfuhrer von Stirlitz is a Soviet spy who was highlighted in the hit series, Seventeen Moments of Spring, which originally aired in 1973. His popularity in Russia is truly comparable to that of James Bond’s in the west. However, his character is starkly different other than the fact that he is a spy and likes …
On May 26th, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed an agreement limiting the use of anti-ballistic missiles (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks). This agreement, known as the SALT I treaty, would mark the beginning of détente between the two superpowers. However, this thaw in the Cold War would not bring international … Continue reading The Soviet’s Vietnam
Arguably the most significant and impactful event of the Brezhnev era was the legalization of the production of blue jeans (jk). Though many universities and workplaces had previously forbidden the wearing of jeans, the USSR embraced the denim craze, commissioning the companies Levi Strauss, Wrangler, and Lee to manufacture jeans in the Soviet Union in 1979. This […]
The Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan is widely seen as one of the most costly and misguided military decisions made in the 20th century, and it is often cited as one of the biggest reasons the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. In his book Russia: A History, Gregory Freeze notes that the “coup de grace for detente was the … Continue reading Aberration in Afghanistan
As the systemic crises of economic failures and political inefficiency continued from the ‘reforms’ of Khrushchev to the ‘restoration’ of … More
For my blog post of the week, I wanted briefly look at censorship in 1960’s Soviet Russia and how censorship effected The Master and Margarita, a book by that many consider to be one of the greatest pieces of literature of the… Continue Reading →
“Soviet society revealed signs of acute stress. One was hyper-alcoholism” (Freeze, 444). When we picture someone from Russia, I think many of us see a beer-bellied man with a 5:00 shadow, rosy cheeks, hazy eyes, and a half empty bottle of vodka next to him. At least that’s what I see. So I was curious […]
In 1960, Diafilm, a Soviet movie studio, released this filmstrip entitled “In the Year of 2017,” seen below. It shows images of what they believed the world would be like in 2017, after the Western imperialists were destroyed and the Soviet’s had perfected their knowledge of science and technology. There are atomic trains and flying… Continue reading Can Soviets Predict the Future? →
Well well, if it isn’t the youth making another noteworthy appearance on my blog. Pardon my language but we’re more than halfway through the 20th Century (and the spring semester) of studying Soviet history, and these youngins have a lot to say from their knowledge and experiences influenced by things outside the Stalinist USSR! I…
When the Stalin was taken out of Stalinism, the mold of the Soviet Union began to disintegrate. This disintegration meant that many elements of the Union that Stalin put into
With the death of Stalin in March 1953 and the soon-to-follow process of de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, socialist realism as a movement finally begins its slow succumb to scrutiny… but not without a lot of mixed signals and zig-zags from the Soviet … Continue reading →
During the 1950s in Soviet Russia, a counter-culture movement called the “stilyagi” emerged. This movement was pro-Western in culture; they wore outfits similar to the zoot suits of the West with bright colors and tight pants. They were intrigued by Western culture, and went to great lengths to be immersed in it—even as far as… Continue reading The Original Hipsters →
Soviet war time brought a unique artistic freedom to the Soviet film and cinema industry. During the war there were over 100 Soviet films produced and half of them had a plot surrounded around the war. The most interesting thing was how many films told the stories of the partisans. The role of women and […]
One group that is often overlooked during wartime is women. Traditional values in Soviet culture told women to stay at home to tend to the children, cook dinner, clean up, and take care of other household issues. However, during the 1940s while men were away at war, women played a very different role in Soviet […]
Abortion… Eight letters that make up one word that is fraught with controversy no matter where one is in the world. Russia is no exception to the controversy. In 1920, the then Soviet Union under Bolshevik rule, became the first country to legalize abortion. The law “on the Legalization of Abortions” asserted that to protect the… Continue reading Mother Russia Finally Says “Nyet” To Abortions…Kind of →
In Chapter 11 of Russia a History, Freeze compares Stalin and the Nazi’s rise to power. This was a compelling observation to me so I looked into “The Cult of Personality” in Seventeen Moments which describes this as “a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the … Continue reading Cult of Personality: Stalin versus Hitler
Though the early Soviet government promoted sport and physical fitness (a healthy population was considered reflective of a healthy society), they generally considered organized competition to be against socialist ideals of cooperation. International competition especially was avoided; the Soviet government refused to take part in the ‘capitalist’ Olympics until the 1950s. Instead they held the … Continue reading “Soviet Football Rivalries Got Very Serious”
According to Dictionary.com, patriotism is a “devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.” Similarly, nationalism is a “devotion and loyalty to one’s own country; patriotism.” Ironically, patriotism is often seen as an admirable quality to possess because of the pride one feels for their country, whereas nationalism is often met with … Continue reading The Power of Patriotism
The Bolsheviks did all that they could to seize power, even if that meant killing thousands to get what they wanted. The Bolsheviks conducted the Red Terror, a campaign of mass arrests and executions. The Red Terror resulted in tens
Peace and bread (America’s favorite carb) are not words commonly associated with Russia prior to the 1917 Revolutions. At the time: “In Russia, military setbacks, food shortages, popular unrest, and a crisis of political leadership brought about the abdication of the tsar and the demise of the Romanov dynasty in February, 1917” (Virginia Tech European … Continue reading Peace, (Love?) Bread, Land, and Worker’s Control
In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels theorized that the inevitable progression of society would lead through a path of feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and end in communism. In 1901, fifty-three years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, social-democrats in Russia were reflecting on the nature of a revolution to achieve the next step … Continue reading Vanguardism and the Revolution
Assassins are a fascinating group of people. They are willing to go to the grandest extremes for their goal, no matter the danger. What is equally as fascinating is the planning that goes into these assassinations, as the assassins spend enormous amounts of time planning the murder of […]
For many of us, tea is so commonplace that we don’t often think of its impact and origins beyond the fact that most tea comes from China. However, this tiny leaf has quite the story and impact on the Russian cultural landscape. Tea leaves first made their way to Russia by way of Northern China […]
At first glance, this looks like a picture of dogs relaxing in the autumn sun, but little do many viewers realize, they are resting less than 15 feet from a building that stores dynamite and other explosives. Although it doesn’t seem to be bothering the dogs. Maybe the dogs are supposed to be guarding the… Continue reading Who let the dogs out? →
