A Short History of the Crimea Partisans The partisan movement in Crimea developed in a complex context, given the USSR’s general lack of war-readiness and the defeats in the fall of 1941 on the Crimean section of the front.
November 01, 1996 A Woman of Substance Two hundred years ago this month, the death of Empress Catherine II brought many things in Russia to an end. Russia said goodbye to its last female ruler, and to the last ruler in its history to be given the title "veliky" (great). The period known as the Golden Age of the Nobility also drew to a close. Nikolai Pavlenko tells the story of the controversial and strong-willed German princess who siezed ppower in a vast foreign country and earned the ardent respect of her subject and outsiders alike.
July 01, 2005 The Defense of Sevastopol Russian soldiers held off the French at Malakhov Kurgan for 349 days, before it fell, 150 years ago this month. The end of this battle brought an end to the Crimean War.
September 01, 1997 Potemkin's Palace From Prince Potemkin to Prince Charles, Petersburg's Tauride Palace has seen its share of VIPs over the years. This month, 205 years after the death of the palace's famous namesake, we take a look at the history of the Tauride from its founding to the present day.
July 01, 2012 Catherine Ascends; Peter Falls We read history through the eyes of the victors, and in June 1762, the victor was a German-born princess newly ascended to the throne with her husband, Peter III. To history she became known as Catherine the Great.
May 01, 1998 The Prince and the Empress A biography of Catherine the Great's favorite and the noted diplomat, Grigory Potemkin.
July 01, 2014 Simferopol's Banksy For six years, a street artist nicknamed Sharik has been leaving his mark on Crimean streets.
January 01, 2015 Crimean Sojourn Mikhail Mordasov has been traveling all over Crimea since the annexation last spring. He shares this moving photo feature.
March 07, 2014 7 Ways Not to Protest the Occupation of Crimea Russia’s occupation cum annexation of Crimea is a tragedy no matter how you slice the salami tactics. One just wants to protest, boycott, DO something. But what? Well, like President Obama and the EU, we’re coming up a bit short on the list of feasible and effective sanctions. But here are a few things we recommend NOT doing.
March 28, 2014 The Solution to Crimea Lies Through Finland You have to hand it to History. She has a very well developed sense of irony. Exactly 160 years ago today the Crimean War began... While it is useful for the current crisis over Crimea and Ukraine to understand history, solving the crisis is more likely through analogy.
April 01, 2016 Crimea Crisis Solved? In a surprising move that has shocked international pundits, Secretary of State John Kerry today announced he has arranged the de-annexation of Crimea by Russia.
June 28, 2017 Catherine Seizes Power On June 28, 1762, Catherine (born Sofia Frederika Augusta), the German wife of a weakened tsar, seized Russian throne. She soon earned the appellation "the Great."
November 24, 2019 Too Much Catherine, Not Enough Greatness: Two Reviews of "Catherine the Great" Two reviewers evaluate Catherine the Great through a gender and a storytelling lens.
Kashtanka – A Bilingual Reader A bilingual presentation of one of the great classics of Russian literature.
White Magic The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual) The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
Tolstoy Bilingual This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious.
Marooned in Moscow This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Red Star Tales: A Century of Russian and Soviet Science Fiction For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection changes that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit.
Fish: A History of One Migration This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual) This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Bears in the Caviar Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Okudzhava Bilingual Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards.
The Latchkey Murders Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
