Revolutionary Russia 1891 1991

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Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2014-04-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9780805095982

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Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 by Orlando Figes Pdf

From the author of A People's Tragedy, an original reading of the Russian Revolution, examining it not as a single event but as a hundred-year cycle of violence in pursuit of utopian dreams In this elegant and incisive account, Orlando Figes offers an illuminating new perspective on the Russian Revolution. While other historians have focused their examinations on the cataclysmic years immediately before and after 1917, Figes shows how the revolution, while it changed in form and character, nevertheless retained the same idealistic goals throughout, from its origins in the famine crisis of 1891 until its end with the collapse of the communist Soviet regime in 1991. Figes traces three generational phases: Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who set the pattern of destruction and renewal until their demise in the terror of the 1930s; the Stalinist generation, promoted from the lower classes, who created the lasting structures of the Soviet regime and consolidated its legitimacy through victory in war; and the generation of 1956, shaped by the revelations of Stalin's crimes and committed to "making the Revolution work" to remedy economic decline and mass disaffection. Until the very end of the Soviet system, its leaders believed they were carrying out the revolution Lenin had begun. With the authority and distinctive style that have marked his magisterial histories, Figes delivers an accessible and paradigm-shifting reconsideration of one of the defining events of the twentieth century.

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 473 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 0141043679

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Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 by Orlando Figes Pdf

What caused the Russian Revolution? Did it succeed or fail? Why are we still all living with its consequences? In his remarkable new book Orlando Figes describes and takes apart the story of Russia's century of revolution in the shortest space possible. Starting with the horrific famines of 1891, Figes charts a vast experiment in state-building. The manipulation of many millions of people, first by Tsarist ministers and then by the Communists - on a scale and with a ferocity that their predecessors could not dream of - aimed to totally transform Russian society. Through war and peace Russia's rulers battled to subdue and control their vast state, fighting off a mass of real and imagined enemies until exhaustion, corruption and intellectual bankruptcy brought the whole terrible experiment to an end. As the Soviet Union becomes ever more distant in our memory, Revolutionary Russia is an invaluable reminder of why this one, hideously violent and callous state became for so long the great focus of the hopes and fears of much of humankind. Orlando Figes teaches history at Birkbeck, University of London, and is the author of many acclaimed books on Russian history, including A People's Tragedy, which The Times Literary Supplement named as one of the '100 most influential books since the war', Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers, Crimea and Just Send Me Word. The Financial Times called him 'the gretest storyteller of modern Russian historians'.

Just Send Me Word

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 454 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2012-05-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780805095234

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Just Send Me Word by Orlando Figes Pdf

A heroic love story and an unprecedented inside view of one of Stalin's most notorious labor camps, based on a remarkable cache of letters smuggled in and out of the Gulag "I went to get the letters for our friends, and couldn't help but feel a little envious, I didn't expect anything for myself. And suddenly—there was my name, and, as if it was alive, your handwriting." In 1946, after five years as a prisoner—first as a Soviet POW in Nazi concentration camps, then as a deportee (falsely accused of treason) in the Arctic Gulag—twenty-nine-year-old Lev Mishchenko unexpectedly received a letter from Sveta, the sweetheart he had hardly dared hope was still alive. Amazingly, over the next eight years the lovers managed to exchange more than 1,500 messages, and even to smuggle Sveta herself into the camp for secret meetings. Their recently discovered correspondence is the only known real-time record of life in Stalin's Gulag, unmediated and uncensored. Orlando Figes, "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians" (Financial Times), draws on Lev and Sveta's letters as well as KGB archives and recent interviews to brilliantly reconstruct the broader world in which their story unfolded. With the powerful narrative drive of a novel, Just Send Me Word reveals a passion and endurance that triumphed over the tragic forces of history.

Peasant Russia, Civil War

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : History
ISBN : 1842124218

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Peasant Russia, Civil War by Orlando Figes Pdf

From the preface Many historians outside the Soviet Union have sought to explain why the Bolsheviks won the civil war. Some have focused on the military history of 1918-20. Others have connected the victory of the Red Army to the growth of the Soviet State. But none has made a detailed study of the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the peasantry, the overwhelming majority of the Russian population, during the formative years of the Soviet regime. None has seriously investigated the ways in which the Bolshevik victory was made possible by the transformation of the Russian countryside in the years leading up to and during the revolution. That is the purpose of this book.

A People's Tragedy

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Bodley Head Childrens
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Russia
ISBN : 1847922910

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A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes Pdf

Vast in scope, based on exhaustive original research, and written with passion, narrative skill and human sympathy, this book offers an account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation.

The Whisperers

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 1000 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2008-09-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780141808871

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The Whisperers by Orlando Figes Pdf

Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.

The Story of Russia

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 267 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2022-09-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781250796905

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The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes Pdf

“This is the essential backstory, the history book that you need if you want to understand modern Russia and its wars with Ukraine, with its neighbors, with America, and with the West.” —Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy and Red Famine Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews From “the great storyteller of Russian history” (Financial Times), a brilliant account of the national mythologies and imperial ideologies that have shaped Russia’s past and politics—essential reading for understanding the country today The Story of Russia is a fresh approach to the thousand years of Russia’s history, concerned as much with the ideas that have shaped how Russians think about their past as it is with the events and personalities comprising it. No other country has reimagined its own story so often, in a perpetual effort to stay in step with the shifts of ruling ideologies. From the founding of Kievan Rus in the first millennium to Putin’s war against Ukraine, Orlando Figes explores the ideas that have guided Russia’s actions throughout its long and troubled existence. Whether he's describing the crowning of Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral or the dramatic upheaval of the peasant revolution, he reveals the impulses, often unappreciated or misunderstood by foreigners, that have driven Russian history: the medieval myth of Mother Russia’s holy mission to the world; the imperial tendency toward autocratic rule; the popular belief in a paternal tsar dispensing truth and justice; the cult of sacrifice rooted in the idea of the “Russian soul”; and always, the nationalist myth of Russia’s unjust treatment by the West. How the Russians came to tell their story and to revise it so often as they went along is not only a vital aspect of their history; it is also our best means of understanding how the country thinks and acts today. Based on a lifetime of scholarship and enthrallingly written, The Story of Russia is quintessential Figes: sweeping, revelatory, and masterful.

Russia and the USSR, 1855–1991

Author : Stephen J. Lee
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2020-06-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000092240

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Russia and the USSR, 1855–1991 by Stephen J. Lee Pdf

From a renowned name in A Level history publishing, this is a Questions and Analysis title on a major period in Russian History. With all three exam boards offering modules on this popular subject at A Level, this book is an absolute must-have. Looking at the many different aspects of the period 1855–1991 that are covered in A Level history, Stephen J. Lee examines and compares: the ideologies of Tsarist autocracy and Soviet communism parties and opposition to these regimes the use of repression and terror agriculture industry the class structure the 1917 revolution the impact of the First and Second World Wars on Russia. Key elements of this book include: each topic/issue forms a well-structured chapter: background; analysis; sources with questions; worked answers a prominent historiography section – an important element of the new A2 history assessment an incorporated A2 synoptic approach that teaches students to draw together their entire range of knowledge and skills to study one topic guidance on how to answer the recently-introduced synoptic questions. Involving the importance of understanding the connections between the essential characteristics of historical study, this key title is the one-stop shop for all history teachers and students.

The Europeans

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2019-10-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9781627792158

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The Europeans by Orlando Figes Pdf

From the “master of historical narrative” (Financial Times), a dazzling, richly detailed, panoramic work—the first to document the genesis of a continent-wide European culture. The nineteenth century in Europe was a time of unprecedented artistic achievement. It was also the first age of cultural globalization—an epoch when mass communications and high-speed rail travel brought Europe together, overcoming the barriers of nationalism and facilitating the development of a truly European canon of artistic, musical, and literary works. By 1900, the same books were being read across the continent, the same paintings reproduced, the same music played in homes and heard in concert halls, the same operas performed in all the major theatres. Drawing from a wealth of documents, letters, and other archival materials, acclaimed historian Orlando Figes examines the interplay of money and art that made this unification possible. At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange—they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures. As Figes observes, nearly all of civilization’s great advances have come during periods of heightened cosmopolitanism—when people, ideas, and artistic creations circulate freely between nations. Vivid and insightful, The Europeans shows how such cosmopolitan ferment shaped artistic traditions that came to dominate world culture.

Gaidar’s Revolution

Author : Petr Aven,Alfred Kokh
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 472 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2015-07-02
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780857726162

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Gaidar’s Revolution by Petr Aven,Alfred Kokh Pdf

After the collapse of the Soviet Union a team of young economic reformers led by Yegor Gaidar worked to create a new economic future for Russia. Against an overwhelming threat of looming hunger and civil war, they created a market economy which is still in place today. In the face of crisis, a process of 'shock therapy'- involving the end of price regulation, the introduction of privatisation and a reduction in public spending - appeared necessary. Their plans have been the subject of controversy ever since - the path to the new economy was not smooth and Russia continued to struggle with economic crises throughout the 1990s. Yet Gaidar's plans have been widely praised for saving the country from complete collapse. For the first time in this book, the participants in the process reveal their experiences during those frantic days, their insights into Yegor Gaidar and of the formation of post-Soviet Russia. In doing so, this book provides a unique perspective on contemporary Russia, making it an indispensable resource for understanding its economic and political complexities.

The Russian Revolution

Author : Sheila Fitzpatrick
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2017-09-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780192529701

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The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick Pdf

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it has become possible to step back and see the full picture. Starting with an overview of the roots of the revolution, Fitzpatrick takes the story from 1917, through Stalin's 'revolution from above', to the great purges of the 1930s. She tells a gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up by devouring its own children. This updated edition contains a fully revised bibliography and updated introduction to address the centenary, what does it all mean in retrospect.

The Last of the Tsars

Author : Robert Service
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2017-02-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9781447293118

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The Last of the Tsars by Robert Service Pdf

‘A timely and important book . . . he brings to it rare clarity and common sense. His book is a fast-paced account of the last sixteen months of the tsar’s life; brief, sharp, but laced with well-judged feeling for the dramas of the time.’ Catherine Merridale, Observer In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. In this masterful and forensic study, Robert Service examines the last year Nicholas's reign and the months between that momentous abdication and his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. Drawing on the Tsar's own diaries and other hitherto unexamined contemporary records, The Last of the Tsars reveals a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political foment in Russia in the aftermath of Alexander Kerensky's February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet republic.

Armageddon Averted

Author : Stephen Kotkin
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2008-12-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0199743843

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Armageddon Averted by Stephen Kotkin Pdf

Featuring extensive revisions to the text as well as a new introduction and epilogue--bringing the book completely up to date on the tumultuous politics of the previous decade and the long-term implications of the Soviet collapse--this compact, original, and engaging book offers the definitive account of one of the great historical events of the last fifty years. Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post Soviet Russia and he reminds us, with chilling immediacy, of what could not have been predicted--that the world's largest police state, with several million troops, a doomsday arsenal, and an appalling record of violence, would liquidate itself with barely a whimper. Throughout the book, Kotkin also paints vivid portraits of key personalities. Using recently released archive materials, for example, he offers a fascinating picture of Gorbachev, describing this virtuoso tactician and resolutely committed reformer as "flabbergasted by the fact that his socialist renewal was leading to the system's liquidation"--and more or less going along with it. At once authoritative and provocative, Armageddon Averted illuminates the collapse of the Soviet Union, revealing how "principled restraint and scheming self-interest brought a deadly system to meek dissolution." Acclaim for the First Edition: "The clearest picture we have to date of the post-Soviet landscape." --The New Yorker "A triumph of the art of contemporary history. In fewer than 200 pagesKotkin elucidates the implosion of the Soviet empire--the most important and startling series of international events of the past fifty years--and clearly spells out why, thanks almost entirely to the 'principal restraint' of the Soviet leadership, that collapse didn't result in a cataclysmic war, as all experts had long forecasted." -The Atlantic Monthly "Concise and persuasive The mystery, for Kotkin, is not so much why the Soviet Union collapsed as why it did so with so little collateral damage." --The New York Review of Books

Perogies and Politics

Author : Rhonda L. Hinther
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2018-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781487500498

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Perogies and Politics by Rhonda L. Hinther Pdf

In Perogies and Politics, Rhonda Hinther explores the twentieth-century history of the Ukrainian left in Canada from the standpoint of the women, men, and children who formed and fostered it. For twentieth-century leftist Ukrainians, culture and politics were inextricably linked. The interaction of Ukrainian socio-cultural identity with Marxist-Leninism resulted in one of the most dynamic national working-class movements Canada has ever known. The Ukrainian left's success lay in its ability to meet the needs of and speak in meaningful, respectful, and empowering ways to its supporters' experiences and interests as individuals and as members of a distinct immigrant working-class community. This offered to Ukrainians a radical social, cultural, and political alternative to the fledgling Ukrainian churches and right-wing Ukrainian nationalist movements. Hinther's colourful and in-depth work reveals how left-wing Ukrainians were affected by changing social, economic, and political forces and how they in turn responded to and challenged these forces.??

The Crimean War

Author : Orlando Figes
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 610 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2011-04-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781429997249

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The Crimean War by Orlando Figes Pdf

Please note that the maps available in the print edition do not appear in the ebook. From "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians," (Financial Times) the definitive account of the forgotten war that shaped the modern age The Charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale—these are the enduring icons of the Crimean War. Less well-known is that this savage war (1853-1856) killed almost a million soldiers and countless civilians; that it enmeshed four great empires—the British, French, Turkish, and Russian—in a battle over religion as well as territory; that it fixed the fault lines between Russia and the West; that it set in motion the conflicts that would dominate the century to come. In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the first full conflagration of modernity, a global industrialized struggle fought with unusual ferocity and incompetence. Drawing on untapped Russian and Ottoman as well as European sources, Figes vividly depicts the world at war, from the palaces of St. Petersburg to the holy sites of Jerusalem; from the young Tolstoy reporting in Sevastopol to Tsar Nicolas, haunted by dreams of religious salvation; from the ordinary soldiers and nurses on the battlefields to the women and children in towns under siege.. Original, magisterial, alive with voices of the time, The Crimean War is a historical tour de force whose depiction of ethnic cleansing and the West's relations with the Muslim world resonates with contemporary overtones. At once a rigorous, original study and a sweeping, panoramic narrative, The Crimean War is the definitive account of the war that mapped the terrain for today's world..