And that quickly, a month has gone by since I’ve written here. By way of a quick update, my current plan is to take a graduate-level Russian history class at Penn in the fall and another graduate-level history course at Edinburgh in the spring, the latter probably a methodology. Finishing the third class at Edinburgh …
Tag Archives: Russia
Russia v. Ukraine: Causes and Consequences
What are the causes and consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict? It seems pretty clear the causes of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine consist of a combination of ethnolinguistic divisions and security concerns, with some small historical factors thrown into the mix. I’m a big fan of maps as a means of understanding issues. Below …
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The Medvedev Interregnum
6.1. What was the significance of the Medvedev interregnum? I think the greatest significance of the Medvedev interregnum was that the period signaled to the world and the country itself that Russia would at least continue to give the outward appearance of democracy, even while ultimate political power continued to be wielded by Putin. For …
Stalinist Totalitarianism
3.1. Stalin’s regime is an archetype (or model) of totalitarianism. Do you agree? I don’t think it’s much of a question of whether Stalin’s regime was totalitarian. Rather, I think the dispute that has arisen is not over whether it was totalitarian but rather over how well and accurately the term had been defined before …
Why Lenin?
2.2. To what extent was Bolshevist Marxism adapted for the age of imperialism? I think Bolshevism was fairly adapted to the conditions of imperialism and specifically to the conditions of Imperial Russia. The underlying assumption of the need for a party vanguard, as expressed by Lenin in What Is to Be Done?, is that a …
The Road to October
Do you think that the October Revolution would have happened with or without the Bolsheviks? I think a revolution of some kind would have occurred without the Bolsheviks but probably not a coup on the level of what the Bolsheviks actually pulled off. Because Kerensky’s government refused to end the war and it was fairly …
Late Tsarism in Russia
I’m back in school, after having completed my Bachelor’s degree on September 1 (below). Not much time off, but I’ve started a Master’s program in history at the University of Edinburgh, which has an online program. The first class — Ideology and Politics in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Space — is a hybrid course taught …
Hasty Mobilization in World War I
For Germany, a hard-learned lesson of the first year of the war was that how it interpreted the act of military mobilization was not the same as other nations’ interpretations. As a result of this assumption, Germany declared war on Russia although it is not clear that Russia undertook mobilization for reasons other than preparedness …
Colonialism During the Belle Époque
Here’s my first forum post from the next course: Modern European History. ===== The popular militarism of the Belle Époque is broadly expressed in cultural texts from the period. For the readings for the week, this militarism is expressed within the context of colonialism, but more specifically, the readings provide hints of the conflicts that …
Yeltsin and Putin
Last discussion post for Modern Russia. On deck is Modern Europe, beginning June 11. ===== In assessing the two major leaders of Russia since the end of the Soviet era – Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin – it’s difficult not to see Yeltsin as a failure in his goals and Putin as a success in …
Inevitable Historicity 