Showing titles in Russia

Grigori Rasputin began life as a peasant in the poorest reaches of Siberia and ended his life as the virtual second-in-command of Tsarist Russia. How did he achieve such a rapid change in fortunes? Was it through palace intrigue or magic and mind control? Or perhaps, the causes were a combination of hypnosis and hemophilia? The tsar’s son Nicholas had been born with the dreaded “royal disease” otherwise known as the blood clotting deficiency named hemophilia. The self-proclaimed healer managed to convince the royal family that he was the only way that their son would stay alive.

Of all the goals the Bolshevik Revolution aimed to bring about, perhaps nowhere were Russian promises delivered on more than in the success of the Soviet Space program of the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of Russian innovation and technology, but also due to incredible drive to modernize and compete with the United States for world power, Russia was finally and triumphantly modernized in the eyes of her own people and the world.

Durante más de medio siglo y hasta su abolición en 1991, el Comité para la Seguridad del Estado (KGB), conocido también en el mundo del espionaje como ‘El Centro', dirigió una auténtica guerra de espías desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial hasta el fin de la Guerra Fría. Pero no solo el KGB significaba el enemigo para la CIA o el MI6, sino también el terror para miles de ciudadanos de la antigua Unión Soviética. El 'escudo y la espada' (símbolo del KGB) a través de sus agentes y espías fueron sin duda alguna la vanguardia de la defensa de unos valores que dejaron de serlo abruptamente en 1991.

In this powerful reassessment of the postwar order in Europe, Norman Naimark suggests that Joseph Stalin was far more open to a settlement on the continent than we have thought. Through revealing case studies from Poland and Yugoslavia to Denmark and Albania, Naimark recasts the early Cold War by focusing on Europeans' fight to determine their future. As nations devastated by war began rebuilding, Soviet intentions loomed large. Stalin's armies controlled most of the eastern half of the continent, and in France and Italy, communist parties were serious political forces.

It is impossible to think of Russia today without thinking of Vladimir Putin. More than any other major national leader, he personifies his country in the eyes of the outside world, and dominates Western media coverage of it to an extraordinary extent. In Russia itself, he is likewise the centre of attention for detractors and supporters alike. But as Tony Wood argues, this overwhelming focus on the president and his personality means that we understand Russia less than we ever did before.

Russia's forests account for nearly one-fifth of the world's wooded lands. The Oak and the Larch is the first-ever English-language exploration of this vast expanse—a dazzling environmental history of Russia that offers an urgent new understanding of the nature of Russian power, and of Russia's ideas of itself.

Soviet socialism was based on paradoxes that were revealed by the peculiar experience of its collapse. To the people who lived in that system the collapse seemed both completely unexpected and completely unsurprising. At the moment of collapse it suddenly became obvious that Soviet life had always seemed simultaneously eternal and stagnating, vigorous and ailing, bleak and full of promise. Although these characteristics may appear mutually exclusive, in fact they were mutually constitutive.

One day in 1936 there was a knock at the doctor's door. He was invited to follow, and he was never again allowed to rejoin his family. He was placed in the building of the chemical laboratory of the NKVD near Moscow. He lived there and was forced to carry out various jobs given to him by his masters, he was a witness at questionings, tortures and the most terrible happenings and crimes. This book is an exact recorded report of the questioning of the former Ambassador in France.

Ukraine expert Adrian Karatnycky provides an eyewitness account of the history of the modern Ukrainian state and of the nation through the tenures of the six presidents who have led Ukraine since the collapse of the USSR, including Volodymyr Zelensky. Karatnycky shows how—despite the influence of corrupt oligarchs, pressures from Russia, and the legacies of Soviet rule—an inclusive and united Ukrainian nation has emerged that inspires the world as it defends the principle that states and peoples have the right to their national sovereignty.

Since the invasion of Ukraine and ban on foreign reporters, Russia seems to have sunk into an even deeper shadow than in the darkest times of the Soviet Union. Only by presenting himself as an historian was Italian journalist Marzio G. Mian able to penetrate the Russian heartland, leading to his groundbreaking cover story for Harpers’ Magazine, “Behind the New Iron Curtain.”

He came in a sealed train, carrying nothing but rage, theory, and a plan to burn the world. LENIN: The Man Who Lit the Fuse is the explosive true story of how one man hijacked a crumbling empire, rewired history in blood and steel, and vanished into a myth that still haunts the planet. From the 1905 revolution to the Red Terror, from exile to empire, from bulletproof theory to flesh-and-blood consequences—this is Lenin without euphemism. Visionary and vicious. Strategic and ruthless. Less a man than a detonation. He didn’t just change Russia. He lit the fuse for everything that came after.

A searing chronicle of ambition, brutality, and collapse, Broken Supremacy: The Rise and Fall of the Wehrmacht in Russia reveals the untold dimensions of the most catastrophic military campaign in modern history.

I denne bog følger vi den russiske sikkerhedstjenestes første spor fra Ivan den Grusomme i det 16. århundrede, videre gennem tsarernes Rusland og bolsjevikkernes Sovjetunionen til Putins sikkerhedstjeneste. Hovedvægten i bogen ligger på tjenestens aktiviteter inden for landets grænser, men der tages enkelte afstikkere til de udenlandske aktiviteter, herunder også til Danmark.

What if the empire never died? What if the fall of Rome, the rise of the tsars, the Soviet revolution, and Putin’s reign weren’t separate stories—but one long mutation of power? In tsar.exe, JJ cracks open the greatest geopolitical illusion of our time: that tyranny is something we left behind. This is not just a history book. It’s a blueprint decoder. A survival manual. A mirror. From the mythmaking of Julius Caesar to the ice-veined calculus of Vladimir Putin, this odyssey doesn’t just chart the evolution of empire—it shows you exactly how it hides, adapts, and thrives in plain sight.

Яков Миркин давно известен как собиратель и бережный хранитель исторического опыта России в преодолении войн, революций, репрессий, кризисов. Он выстроил целую портретную галерею политиков, ученых, деятелей культуры, по-разному реагировавших на стресс. Автор собрал более 100 личных историй своих подписчиков и создал поистине исцеляющую книгу – без поиска правых и виноватых, без ярлыков и обвинений. Врачующую душу книгу о том, как на протяжении 200 лет наши предки и современники выживали в эпохи бесконечных перемен.

Discover the riveting journey of Henk B. Rogers, a visionary entrepreneur who transformed Tetris from a humble Soviet puzzle game into an international sensation. From programming his first hit game in Japan, to defying geopolitical boundaries in the Soviet Union, Rogers’ relentless pursuit of innovation led to the creation of the Tetris Company and cemented his place in gaming history. Follow his thrilling story of high-stakes negotiations, unyielding determination, and a passion for sustainable energy that reshaped his life beyond video games.

Nella primavera del 1986 Černobyl' era, ufficialmente , una delle centrali nucleari meglio funzionanti dell'Unione Sovietica. Eppure, il 26 aprile il reattore n. 4 viene sventrato da un'esplosione catastrofica, scatenando il peggior disastro nucleare della Storia. Da oltre trent'anni lo spettro di Černobyl' vive nell'immaginario collettivo, insieme al mistero su quanto realmente accaduto quella notte.

La sera del 23 agosto 1942 la Sedicesima divisione corazzata tedesca si assestava sulle rive del Volga, a breve distanza dalla città di Stalingrado . Era l'avanguardia della "grande armata" che poco più di un anno prima Hitler aveva lanciato a sorpresa contro l'Unione Sovietica "per schiacciare il comunismo slavo". L'Armata Rossa pareva in rotta. Gli uomini della Wehrmacht non potevano sapere che la città assediata sarebbe diventata un baluardo insuperabile, una trappola per le ambizioni del Reich e la tomba di decine di migliaia di suoi soldati.

Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were given sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. Upon reaching the West, they were entitled to special benefits, including financial assistance and permanent residency. In contrast to other migrants, defectors were pursued by the states they left even as they were eagerly sought by the United States and its allies. Defectors follows their treacherous journeys and looks at how their unauthorized flight via land, sea, and air gave shape to a globalized world.

The Soviet Union was one of the most secretive states that ever existed. Defended by a complex apparatus of rules and checks administered by the secret police, the Soviet state had seemingly unprecedented capabilities based on its near monopoly of productive capital, monolithic authority, and secretive decision making. But behind the scenes, Soviet secrecy was double-edged. Mark Harrison combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to evaluate the impact of secrecy on Soviet state capacity from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union.