For over 30 years the Warsaw Pact was a threatening presence on the European political scene, but on 31 March 1991 it was disbanded with little pomp or circumstance. Alexander Cherkasov looks back over significant events in its history.
Gorbachev is hailed for doing away with Soviet totalitarianism, yet his predecessor Andropov was the man actually responsible for preparing liberal reform some twenty years earlier. With Gorbachev hopelessly unaware of the forces he was unleashing, failure was inevitable, argues Andrei Konchalovsk
Chechnya’s ex-foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov has published a book chronicling the loss of his republic to Russia. Politicians from other countries with similar tales of loss and betrayal have tried to justify their actions in the same way. Oliver Bullough examines the current situation in the lig
Over the last 20 years the teaching of history has changed dramatically in Russia. Today’s children seem not to know or care very much about their country’s past. Elena Strelnikova wonders how well they are being taught in school.
As events in North Africa and the Middle East are daily displaying, America’s global influence is rapidly waning. This is an apt time to return to Brian Landers’ Empires Apart, a hugely impressive comparative study of the imperial imperatives of America and Russia: one which stimulates reflective
Many great statesmen have shaped the course of recent history: Churchill, de Gaulle, Thatcher, Kohl, Reagan, Havel and Wałęsa among them. But only one leader – Mikhail Gorbachev – determined the long-term history of the global order. Swept away by the wave he himself had unleashed, his life after
Whether in Russia or beyond, moves to rewrite awkward histories are always done with evil intent. When it is done in relation to genocide, it is doubly offensive. Andrei Konchalovsky reflects on last month's Holocaust Memorial Day
On Friday, prominent Russians of varied political hue presented a daring open letter to President Medvedev. In the best Soviet dissident tradition, they expressed concern for the future. Russia is at a crossroads, they said; and the country needs to embrace freedom if it is to avoid revolutionary
Boris Yeltsin inherited many problems which he had to try and address while at the same time establishing the new Russian state. Many of these problems were, and continue to be, in the North Caucasus. Yeltsin’s presidency should be judged in the round, asserts Sergei Markedonov, rather than from t
In October, two members of the Voina art collective were imprisoned for overturning police cars in provocative protest against corruption. As their criminal case continues, Danila Rozanov explains how their controversial methods have made it difficult to mobilise support.
The epic events in the Arab world’s heartland are also a lesson in the loneliness of power, says Goran Fejic.
President Yanukovych has awakened the spirit of nationalism in Ukraine, writes Roman Kabachiy. In all probability, this was a deliberate operation, executed to allow the “guarantor of the nation” to triumphantly rid his countrymen of radical nationalism.
