Latvia has been plagued by both deep recession and fractious relations with its large Russian-speaking minority. But with the economy now recovering fast, Andrew Wilson believes the country is creeping under the radar and off the well-worn postcommunist map.
Mintimer Shaimiyev served in the government of Tatarstan during Soviet times (1969-91) and was subsequently President of the republic for nearly 20 years. Oleg Pavlov talked to him about the past, the present and the future of his republic, and of Russia.
The 1991 coup attempt completely disintegrates with the tragic deaths of three young men and the continuing irresistible rise of Boris Yeltsin. openDemocracy Russia presents the last 2 entries of Rodric Braithwaite’s diary.
The (unsuccessful) coup d’état in August 1991 eventually brought about the end of the USSR. As British Ambassador, Rodric Braithwaite was in the thick of the rapidly developing situation and kept a diary. Yesterday we published his entries for the initial days of the coup. In today’s entries the p
The (unsuccessful) coup d’état in August 1991 eventually brought about the end of the USSR. Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador at the time. He kept a diary and has kindly allowed openDemocracy Russia to publish the entries for those eventful 5 days.
Next week marks the twentieth anniversary of the August 1991 coup attempt. While this proved a dramatic final nail in the Soviet coffin, many more fundamental changes — the breaking down of information walls and the dissipation of fear — occurred in the months and years leading up to then. Susan R
Effective opposition in Belarus has traditionally been limited by a limited sense of nationhood, a deeply controlled society and a social contract that exchanges rights for “stability”. The country’s deepening financial crisis undermines all three of these pillars. Could it be that the time for ch
Director Andrei Konchalovksy and film critic Professor Ian Christie continue a fascinating conversation. In this second part: censorship, the Communists, corruption and civilisation. Part one can be found here
In the opinion of film director Andrei Konchalovsky the true herald of liberal reform in the Soviet Union was Yury Andropov, not Mikhail Gorbachev. Irina Borogan asks if this is the same Andropov who headed the KGB through two of its darkest decades, who crushed dissidents by incarcerating them in
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
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
