The Effects of the Mongol Empire on Russia
The history of Russia has always been a relatively sad and tumultuous one wrought with wars, power struggles, and abrupt changes. These changes have often been forcibly thrust wholesale upon…
Read MoreThe history of Russia has always been a relatively sad and tumultuous one wrought with wars, power struggles, and abrupt changes. These changes have often been forcibly thrust wholesale upon…
Read MoreThe relationship that has existed between Russia and China has historically been one of mistrust spotted with anger, fear and resentment. Despite their communist ties during more than four decades…
Read MoreMichael Doyle defines empires as follows: “Empires are relationships of political control imposed by some political societies over the effective sovereignty of other political societies.”[1] In both Tsarist Russia and…
Read More1. Introduction: The Dearth of Ideology On the 12th July 1996, following a closely fought election victory, Boris Yeltsin called his advisors to him. ‘In Russia’s history in the 20th…
Read MoreThe traditional view of Russian political culture has been that, due to historical experience, Russians have favored strong autocratic rule. After nearly seventy years of the Soviet experience, Russian society…
Read MoreSince the height of its popularity in the mid-1990s, the Moscow nightclub “Golodnaya Utka,” or “The Hungry Duck,” has been dubbed “Moscow’s first rape camp.”[1] The club exploded on the…
Read MoreThe downward spiral of the Russian military that began with Afghanistan is often compared to the U.S. army’s experience in Vietnam. However, unlike the American experience, the conflict did not…
Read MoreIt has taken energy (namely coal and oil) to produce the industrialized and economically prosperous nations of today. That is certain to change in the future, as fossil fuels are…
Read MoreToday, over 100 identified ethnic groups exist in Russia, 41 of which are legally recognized as “indigenous small numbered peoples.” While these groups make up only 0.2% of the Russian…
Read MoreThe rejection of professional medical care (except for acute cases demanding urgent or specific treatment) has become common in contemporary Russia (Maximova 2002, Rose 2000). Although the statistics for major…
Read MoreGeography and history have made Russian identity hard to define. Russia spans both Europe and Asia and is split between East and West. The Soviet-era process of “Russification” imposed the…
Read MoreWithin the realm of history, several old controversies persist, taking on new meanings within the context of today’s political and cultural imperatives. One of these, often called the “Norman problem,”…
Read MoreАртельный горшок гуще кипит “With a helper, many things are possible” – Russian Proverb ‘Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the…
Read MoreThe Russian nationalist movement came to prominence in the late Soviet era and the early years of the Russian Federation. Russia had never existed as a consolidated nation-state; both the…
Read MoreUzbekistan is a country that holds a very special place in my heart. I grew up in Uzbekistan but left due to political issues in 2006, so returning to Uzbekistan…
Read MoreA map showing Kazan’s strategic position on a particularly well-watered portion of the Volga river. The Volga has long been an important trade route for Moscow – and a potential…
Read MoreScholars of the Soviet Union have written at length about the consolidation of Soviet state control over the media, the establishment of Glavlit and other censorship organs, the expectation of…
Read MoreThe formation of any new state is a fascinating time, let alone the creation of a modern state that possesses an ancient history and rich culture. The Kyrgyz Republic is…
Read MoreChukotka Okrug of Russia Writers call Russia’s Chukotka Region “the shore of two oceans.” Indeed, Chukotka stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Pacific Oñean in the…
Read MorePrimorsky Krai, where Vladivostok is located (near the southern tip). The construction of Vladivostok was the culmination of Russia’s long drive to establish a major naval presence in the Pacific…
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