Ivan S War

Author : Catherine Merridale
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 480 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2007-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1429900709

Get Book

Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale Pdf

A powerful, groundbreaking narrative of the ordinary Russian soldier's experience of the worst war in history, based on newly revealed sources Of the thirty million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, eight million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan -- as the ordinary Russian soldier was called -- remain a mystery. We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Union Army rank and file. She follows the soldiers from the shock of the German invasion to their costly triumph in Stalingrad, where life expectancy was often a mere twenty-four hours. Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin, where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had been fighting to secure. A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. In the process Merridale restores to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war.

Author : Catherine Merridale
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 396 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Soldiers
ISBN : 0571218083

Get Book

Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale Pdf

Catherine Merridale's book is the first to put the experience of the ordinary Russian soldier at the heart of a narrative of the war on the Eastern Front, displacing the dictators and their generals who have dominated books on the subject for the past sixty years. Ivan, the archetypal Russian infantryman, emerges at last as a human figure. Merridale has explored letters, diaries, military records, the documents of the secret police and the testimonies of hundreds of surviving witnesses in an attempt to let us hear the voices of those who lived through the worst war in history. She found reports on morale by the NKVD, Stalin's secret police, medical surveys of illness and wounds (and denial of the reality of shell shock), and confiscated letters that said unguarded things about Stalin and sent their authors to punishment battalions.

Author : Catherine Merridale
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 757 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2011-03-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780571265909

Get Book

Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale Pdf

'Essential reading, not just for those interested in the Eastern Front, but for anyone who wants to understand Russia.' Antony Beevor, Sunday Times They died in their millions, shattered by German shells and tanks, freezing behind the wire of prison camps, driven forward in suicidal charges by the secret police. Yet in all the books about the Second World War on the eastern front, there is very little about how the Russian soldier lived, dreamed and died. Catherine Merridale's discovery of archives of letters, diaries and police reports have allowed her to write a major history of a figure too often treated as part of a vast mechanical horde. Here are moving and terrible stories of men and women in appalling conditions, many not far from death. They allow us to understand the strange mixture of courage, patriotism, anger and fear that made it possible for these badly fed, dreadfully governed soldiers to defeat the Nazi army that would otherwise have enslaved the whole of Europe. The experience of the soldiers is set against a masterly narrative of the war in Russia. Merridale also shows how the veterans were treated with chilling ingratitude and brutality by Stalin, and later exploited as icons of the Great Patriotic War before being sidelined once more in Putin's new capitalist Russia.

Author : Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2014-07-29
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0374534683

Get Book

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Pdf

For the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a new edition of the Russian Nobel Prize-winning author's most accessible novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an undisputed classic of contemporary literature. First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, it is the story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovich's struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent—which makes its ultimate tribute to one man's will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced-work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary works to have emerged from the Soviet Union. The first of Solzhenitsyn's novels to be published, it forced both the Soviet Union and the West to confront the Soviet's human rights record, and the novel was specifically mentioned in the presentation speech when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Above all, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich establishes Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy" (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times). This unexpurgated, widely acclaimed translation by H. T. Willetts is the only translation authorized by Solzhenitsyn himself.

Author : Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2020-12-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9780228003090

Get Book

Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire by Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva Pdf

Ivan Mazepa (1639-1709), hetman of the Zaporozhian Host in what is now Ukraine, is a controversial figure, famous for abandoning his allegiance to Tsar Peter I and joining Charles XII's Swedish army during the Battle of Poltava. Although he is discussed in almost every survey and major book on Russian and Ukrainian history, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire is the first English-language biography of the hetman in sixty years. A translation and revision of Tatiana Tairova-Yakovleva's 2007 Russian-language book, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire presents an updated perspective. This account is based on many new sources, including Mazepa's archive - thought lost for centuries before it was rediscovered by the author in 2004 - and post-Soviet Russian and Ukrainian historiography. Focusing on this fresh material, Tairova-Yakovleva delivers a more nuanced and balanced account of the polarizing figure who has been simultaneously demonized in Russia as a traitor and revered in Ukraine as the defender of independence. Chapters on economic reform, Mazepa's impact on the rise to power of Peter I, his cultural achievements, and the reasons he switched his allegiance from Peter to Charles integrate a larger array of issues and personalities than have previously been explored. Setting a standard for the next generation of historians, Ivan Mazepa and the Russian Empire reveals an original picture of the Hetmanate during a moment of critical importance for the Russian Empire and Ukraine.

Author : Chris Lynch
Publisher : Scholastic Inc.
Page : 159 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2014-10-21
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 9780545640176

Get Book

Walking Wounded (Vietnam #5) by Chris Lynch Pdf

"The best Vietnam War novels yet for this age range." -- Kirkus Reviews Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck were best friends. So when one of them was drafted into the Vietnam War, the others signed up, too. They promised to watch out for one another. They pledged to come home together.Now, that pledge has been broken. One of the four has been killed in action. And the remaining three are the only men alive who know the awful truth about their friend's death.Each is left to deal with their secret in his own way. One of them will accompany his friend's body home to Boston. One of them will defy orders in an act of protest. And one of them will decide it's up to him to single-handedly win the war.In the end, Vietnam may claim more than their lives. As the war grinds on, their very souls are at stake. And their shattered friendship will prove either their salvation... or their ruin.

Author : Rodric Braithwaite
Publisher : Alfred A. Knopf
Page : 458 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : WISC:89091987966

Get Book

Moscow 1941 by Rodric Braithwaite Pdf

Sample Text

Author : Catherine Merridale
Publisher : Penguin Group
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : History
ISBN : PSU:000049079111

Get Book

Night of Stone by Catherine Merridale Pdf

In this provocative book, the author asks Russians difficult questions about how their country's volatile past has affected their everyday lives, their aspirations, their dreams, and their nightmares.

Author : David Stone
Publisher : Praeger
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2006-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015066786271

Get Book

A Military History of Russia by David Stone Pdf

"Integrating military history into the broader themes of Russian history, and drawing comparisons to developments in Europe, Stone traces Russia's fascinating military history, and its long struggle to master Western military technology without Western social and political institutions. Starting with the military dimensions of the emergence of Muscovy and the disastrous reign of Ivan the Terrible, he traces Russia's emergence as a great power under Peter the Great, and her mixed record following her triumph in the Napoleonic wars. The Russian Revolution created a new Soviet Russia, but this book shows how the Soviet Union's harrowing experience in World War II owed much to Imperial Russian precedents."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Ivan Doig
Publisher : HMH
Page : 417 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-03
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780547350585

Get Book

The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig Pdf

After Pearl Harbor, the lives of eleven Montana college football teammates are changed forever in an “intensely suspenseful and moving” novel (Scott Turow). In the early 1940s, the starting lineup of Treasure State University’s football team are local heroes. But as America is pulled into World War II, they feel called to become heroes of another kind. Now, ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war’s lonely and dangerous theaters. The eleventh man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine. He is to chronicle the adventures of his teammates, man by man, for publication in small-town newspapers across the country like the one his father edits. Ready for action, Reinking chafes at the assignment—not knowing that it will bring him love from an unexpected quarter and test the law of averages, which holds that all but one of his teammates should come through the conflict unscathed . . .

Author : Catherine Merridale
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2017-03-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9781627793025

Get Book

Lenin on the Train by Catherine Merridale Pdf

One of The Economist's Best Books of the Year A gripping, meticulously researched account of Lenin’s fateful 1917 rail journey from Zurich to Petrograd, where he ignited the Russian Revolution and forever changed the world In April 1917, as the Russian Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution Vladimir Lenin was far away, exiled in Zurich. When the news reached him, Lenin immediately resolved to return to Petrograd and lead the revolt. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia’s adversaries. Millions of Russians at home were suffering as a result of German aggression, and to accept German aid—or even safe passage—would be to betray his homeland. Germany, for its part, saw an opportunity to further destabilize Russia by allowing Lenin and his small group of revolutionaries to return. Now, in Lenin on the Train, drawing on a dazzling array of sources and never-before-seen archival material, renowned historian Catherine Merridale provides a riveting, nuanced account of this enormously consequential journey—the train ride that changed the world—as well as the underground conspiracy and subterfuge that went into making it happen. Writing with the same insight and formidable intelligence that distinguished her earlier works, she brings to life a world of counter-espionage and intrigue, wartime desperation, illicit finance, and misguided utopianism. When Lenin arrived in Petrograd’s now-famous Finland Station, he delivered an explosive address to the impassioned crowds. Simple and extreme, the text of this speech has been compared to such momentous documents as Constantine’s edict of Milan and Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses. It was the moment when the Russian revolution became Soviet, the genesis of a system of tyranny and faith that changed the course of Russia’s history forever and transformed the international political climate.

Author : Владимир Войнович
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 1977
Category : Russian fiction
ISBN : 0224013289

Get Book

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Владимир Войнович Pdf

Author : Ivan Bunin
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 1998-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781461730309

Get Book

Cursed Days by Ivan Bunin Pdf

The Nobel PrizeDwinning author's great anti-Bolshevik diary of the Russian Revolution, translated into English for the first time, with an Introduction and Notes by Thomas Gaiton Marullo. A harrowing description of the forerunners of the concentration camps and the Gulag. —Marc Raeff

Author : Everest Media,
Publisher : Everest Media LLC
Page : 71 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2022-04-22T22:59:00Z
Category : History
ISBN : 9781669386940

Get Book

Summary of Catherine Merridale's Ivan's War by Everest Media, Pdf

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 When people think they are going to have to fight a war, they start to imagine what it will be like. However, these images are not meant to be taken literally. They are meant to foster a confident, even optimistic, mood when times are tough. #2 Efim Dzigan’s film struck a chord with Soviet audiences. It was not about the war, but faith. The film’s action opened in a fairground in Moscow, where the Kremlin towers were visible in the distance. The city was full of jollity, with ice cream vendors and young people strolling about. #3 The invasion takes place at night, and the border guards hold the aggressor at bay. The Soviet planes destroy enemy aircraft on the ground and fly home without a single loss. #4 The film ends in Berlin, where Soviet planes are flying in formation like wild geese. They are not dropping bombs; their payload is leaflets calling on the population to put down their arms and join the international proletarian socialist revolution.

Author : Ivan Musicant
Publisher : Booksales
Page : 506 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2000-04
Category : History
ISBN : 0785812105

Get Book

Divided Waters by Ivan Musicant Pdf

A military history of the naval aspects of the Civil War, discussing the Union's goal of capturing Confederate ports and the South's determination to break the blockade.