S novym godom

Happy New Year. I have not been very good about posting to my blog about events in Russia. Mostly because I have been swamped with grading (end of semester in December and start of semester in January). We have been having pretty good enrollments in our online HIS 241 course (History of Russia I) the past few semesters of about 20 per semester--not that many actually finish the course. HIS 242 (History of Russia II) usually enrolls fewer, about 7-10 students.
In the meantime, Russia is experiencing an economic crisis,much like most of Western Europe and the United States, but a recent article pointed out how much of the economy has turned "underground" or non-official or illegal.

Gorbachev

Interesting article in the Washington Post, How Gorbachev Slowed the Arms Race (21 September 2009), b David Hoffman and adpated from The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy (2009)--aside, the article was buried on page A11. Anyway, it remains somewhat amazing to me why few Russians to this day appreciate the kind of efforts that Gorbachev undertook to end the arms race (and thus the Cold War). In addition, there was his attempt to re-invigorate Soviet society and re-orient the economy away from military and heavy industry spending. I still believe that he was the major player in bringing about the end of communism in Eastern Europe, the destruction down of the wall, and really the end of the Cold War.
ps. Another fine article in the Post dealt with the effort to control fissionable Uranium in the former republics of the Soviet Union, in this case Kazakhstan, Half a Ton of Uranium -- and a Long Flight by David E Hoffman.

September Days

Recent news that Russia was willing to scrap missiles along the Polish border after the US declared something about abandoning a European missile shield. What nonsense. As if anyone in Russia believed that the US was still aiming missiles at Russia--actually who knows where they are pointing these days. And as if the Poles were a real security threat to the integrity of Russia. Ah, the games people play.

Talking about Trotskii

Check out the dialogue between Christopher Hitchens and Robert Service on the legacy of Trotskii, or whether there ever really was a Trotskiite alternative to Stalinism. This was part of the Uncommon Knowledge program (You might need to check the August 2009 archives).

Another Russian Journalist Has Been Murdered

The editorial piece by Tanya Lokshina, Another Voice Silenced in Russia (Washington Post, 17 July) documented yet another in a long series of "mysterious murders" of journalists who have dared to criticize the Russian government's actions, particularly those that have occurred in Chechnya.

Hoopla over Summit

President Obama visited Russia, and pretty much nothing was accomplished, and pretty much all has been forgotten. One wonders if President Obama has invited President Medvedev to visit the US (alone and without Vladimir Putin).
Anyway, the economies in both the US and Russia have hit the skids in the last year, and both have been trying some desparate measures to keep people employed.
Both the US and Russia are involved in tangled foreign policy issues, Afghanistan and Chechnya to name but two.

Lenin Statue in St. Petersburg Damaged

Well, someone with an axe to grind blew a large hole in one of the few remaining Lenin statues in Russia, this one famously in St. Petersburg, home to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. See Bomb Blows Hole in Lenin Statue.

Kremlin Still Re-Writing History

In yet another attempt by the Putin-Medvedev regime to control ideas in Russia, see
Medvedev Creates History Commission, an article which recently appeared in the Wall Street Jounral online. From what we have seen in the past both in Russia and also on a larger scale in the world, these kinds of thought-control activities can work in the short run, but do not work in the long run.

Weird Anti-Khrushchev Conversation Taking Place in Russia

See the recent article, The Trial of Leonid K. Amazing how the ghosts of a missing-in-action Russian airman from World War II can animate political discourse in contemporary Russia.

Nikolai Gogol and Taras Bulba

I'm a little late on this but back in April Russia unveiled a new, blockbuster film version of Gogol's short story Taras Bulba. The story which loosely fits into the late medieval period of Russian-Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian history deals with a rogue Cossack who sallies out to do battle with the Poles--not quite in the nature of a Robin Hood. Russia designed the film for overtly nationalistic and patriotic intentions to show a mighty Russia (that of course included Ukraine) defending church and state from the infidels from the west. Gogol's intentions are a bit murkier, and his writings caused a lot of uproar back in their own day. He straddled the fence between Russia and Ukraine, between support for the tsar and critique of the system, between support for the system and critique of the tsar. Critics and commentators both in Russia and Ukraine and also abroad have made much of the cultural overtones of the film and the intentions of both countries to claim Gogol, but everyone makes films like this. Look no farther than such stuff as The Patriot (2000).