Your Search Results

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        Gender and housing in Soviet Russia

        Private life in a public space

        by Pamela Sharpe, Lynne Attwood, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        This book explores the housing problem throughout the 70 years of Soviet history, looking at changing political ideology on appropriate forms of housing under socialism, successive government policies on housing, and the meaning and experience of 'home' for Soviet citizens. Attwood examines the use of housing to alter gender relations, and the ways in which domestic space was differentially experienced by men and women. Much of Attwood's material comes from Soviet magazines and journals, which enables her to demonstrate how official ideas on housing and daily life changed during the course of the Soviet era, and were propagandised to the population. Through a series of in-depth interviews, she also draws on the memories of people with direct experience of Soviet housing and domestic life. Attwood has produced not just a history of housing, but a social history of daily life which will appeal both to scholars and those with a general interest in Soviet history.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 1999

        The debate on the American Civil War era

        by Hugh Tulloch, Roger Richardson

        This study is the first to critically survey the changing and highly controversial historical literature surrounding the American Civil War era, from contemporary interpretations up to the present.. The book analyses both historians attitudes and assumptions and suggests that each writer's perspective was partly determined by the dictates of time and place.. The author engages with all aspects of the Civil War era; social, cultural and economic as well as its political dimensions.. Aimed at sixth form colleges and university students. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        2021

        Taste of the Soviet Union: Food and Eaters in the Art of Life and the Art of Cinema (mid-1960s - mid-1980s)

        by Olena Stiazhkina

        This book is about Soviet people - women, men, children - who ate at home, at work, on the road, in kindergartens and schools, in the system of the Soviet canteens. It describes those who fought for their food in long queues to the empty shops, at collective farm markets, gathered it in their own gardens, obtained it through bribes and barter exchanges and stole it at workplaces. It is about those who created the food surpluses in the system of the shadow economy and about those who refused food as a way of rebellion against the system and about those who managed to preserve national cuisine despite its deliberate extermination by the Bolsheviks and calling national dishes "simple nationalism." Food culture is considered not only as a sign of the late Soviet consumer revolution, but also as one of the powerful mechanisms of social engineering and (self) coercion. The real world of Soviet eaters is analysed together with the artistic world where filmmakers created and broadcasted the images of Soviet food, as an object representing repressive society in which taste was as problematic and almost unattainable as food and freedom associated with taste and choice.

      • Trusted Partner
        2024

        Where is Russia Heading?

        by Jens Siegert

        Vladimir Putin has been ruling Russia for 25 years. There is no end in sight to his dictatorship. He relies on repression at home and is waging a war of destruction against a neighbouring country. The conflict with the West has long become a systemic conflict between an illiberal-autocratic ideology and liberal-democratic principles. Nothing will change as long as Putin remains in power. Nevertheless, as far as can be ascertained under unfree conditions, the majority of the population seems to be supporting Putin. Does this mean that too many people in Russia do not want democracy or peace? Will everything remain the same after Putin? Or is there a chance that Russia will eventually take a different, more democratic path? Whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Russia is not going to disappear. We will still have to deal with our big neighbour in the east. This makes it all the more important to focus on longer-term developments. As a recognised expert on Russian history and society, the author outlines what the post-Putin era might look like. His in-depth analysis makes it clear that Russia is partly Putin, but Putin is not everything about Russia.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        2014

        History of Ukraine from KGB Secret Files

        by Volodymyr Viatrovych

        The unknown and classified KGB history of the largest country in Europe - Ukraine is the history of people, events, documents and files. The files have answers to many questions. The most important of which - why did a war begin again in Europe? Why is it so important for Russia to conquer Ukraine? Why are Ukrainians putting up such a powerful resistance? Historian Volodymyr Viatrovych, who declassified the secret archives of the Soviet special services from the Cheka to the KGB, talks about the history of Ukraine, the USSR and Eastern Europe from 1918 to 1991. The reader, is offered, along with various heroes and traitors, those who thought they were in control of events, and those who thought they had no power over them, to recreate the nearly century-old chess game between the Ukrainian liberation movement and the creators of the "prison of nations." Described in reports and recreated by a historian, this work looks at the cunning “special operations”, deadly moves, information wars and complex games among several players that are all an attempt to find an answer to the question: what creates our destiny - human will or circumstances?

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        2021

        Behind the Scenes of the Empire: Essays on Cultural Relationships between Ukraine and Russia

        by Vira Ageyeva

        Much has already been written about Ukrainian-Russian relations in the context of Russian interests and priorities. Russia unceremoniously ennobled its history with other people's achievements while depriving Ukrainians of their past. From the Ukrainian's perspective, the story is completely different. For centuries Ukrainian literature has been involved in the anti-colonial discourse. From Kotlyarevsky, Kvitka-Osnovianenko, Kharkiv romantics to the era of modernism and eventually the emergence of contemporary Ukraine, it offered various models of identity, denying imperial claims and asserting its own cultural sufficiency. In this book, the authoritative literary critic Vira Ageyeva analyses the Ukrainian resistance to imperialism and the struggle of Ukraine for the preservation of it's collective memory through the prism of the cultural process.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2024

        The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia

        Engaging in everyday struggle

        by Alexandrina Vanke

        Despite the intense processes of deindustrialisation around the world, the working class continues to play an important role in post-industrial societies. However, working-class people are often stigmatised, morally judged and depicted negatively in dominant discourses. This book challenges stereotypical representations of workers, building on research into the everyday worlds of working-class and ordinary people in Russia's post-industrial cities. The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia is centred on the stories of local communities engaged in the everyday struggles that occur in deindustrialising settings under neoliberal neo-authoritarianism. The book suggests a novel approach to everyday life in post-industrial cities. Drawing on an ethnographic study with elements of arts-based research, the book presents a new genre of writing about workers influenced by the avant-garde documentary tradition and working-class literature.

      • Trusted Partner
        Biography & True Stories
        2016

        The Universe behind Barbed Wire: Memoirs and Reflections of a Dissident

        by Myroslav Marynovych

        The author of the book served 10 years in prison in a concentration camp and was in exile in Brezhnev times for participating in the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Group (UHG). It was the first legal, not underground, group of the Resistance Movement, which, acting for a long time, revealed to the whole world the situation with the human rights in Ukraine under the Soviet rule. Born in Galicia after the World War 2 and brought up in a Soviet school, the author shows in his memoirs the role of the Galician family in shaping the position of resistance to the totalitarian regime. He tells vigorously, interestingly and frankly about life in Kiev under the Soviets in the era of the Helsinki movement, about the activities of the UHG and its members, about unjust arrests, and Soviet crooked justice. He recounts in detail the life of political prisoners in a concentration camp, describes the circumstances of his exile in Kazakhstan. He pays great attention to the spiritual growth of a person, shares his reflections on dissidence and the nature of totalitarianism. And conclusively, he condemns the communist system.

      • Trusted Partner

        Born in A Great Era

        by A Record of Changes in Contemporary Lifestyle

        1978-2018, a big era. Reform and opening up have profoundly affected the changes in the way of life of the Chinese people. The manuscript replays the development of social life in China over the past 40 years of reform and opening up. It mainly sorts out the great changes in our lives in the past 40 years from the aspects of clothing, food, housing, market, love, and play. Adhering to the purpose of "a magazine and the body temperature of an era", the manuscript has a unique perspective and rich details, which can be regarded as a brief history of alternative life with warmth in this era.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        2005

        Fine Arts in the Era of Mao Zedong

        by Zou Yuejin

        The book put forward the concept of 'Fine Arts in the Era of Mao Zedong' academically for the first time. Starting from the publication of Mao Zedong's Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942 and ending with the passing away of Mao Zedong, the book surveys this period by collecting more than 1,000 pictures and other data, which are arranged under eight themes. The book restores this period of the history of Chinese fine arts to the original form and gives prominence to the time features embodied in this phenomenon of fine arts. The introduction in the book expounds fine arts in the era of Mao Zedong in a macroscopic manner, discussing historical background, thoughts of literature and art, social environment and theme typology concisely and tersely so as to provide readers with theoretical perspective and approaches in understanding and perceiving this phenomenon of fine arts.

      • Trusted Partner
        True stories
        2020

        The case of Vasyl Stus

        by Vakhtanh Kipiani

        Poet and civil rights activist Vasyl Stus (1938-1985) could not attend any of his book presentations. He published his literary works only abroad. Participation in the movement of protesters to the Russification and anti-Ukrainian politics and an active people’s rights protection stance led Stus to the court bench to times and both for the anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. This book contains documents from a six-volume criminal case, which is stored on the shelves of the former Committee for State Security archive of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in Kyiv. The book contains archival documents of the case of Vasyl Stus (records of searches, interrogations, letters, articles, etc.), photographs, articles wrote by Vakhtang Kipiani. The last lifetime notes of Stus are also added - "From the camp notebook", secretly passed to his friends from the soviet camp. Preface to the book is written by Vakhtang Kipiani.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2000

        Churchill and the Soviet Union

        by David Carlton

        In the already vast literature on Churchill, no single work has focused on his changing attitude towards the Soviet Union. This is the first project to isolate just one major theme in Churchill's lifeExplores whether or not Churchill was consistent through forty years and examines the possibility that perceptions of domestic political advantage may have shaped his course more than high-monded and disinterested evaluations of evolving Soviet intentions and capabilitiesChurchill still arouses a great deal of general interest, and a work which challenges a number of preconceptions, as this book does, will undoubtedly appeal to the general readerA clearly argued, revisionist study of Churchill's views about and dealings with the Soviet Union. It will be part of the growing historical literature that seeks to reassess Churchill. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA

        Pastoral Song

        by Dong Hongyou

        This book tells the story of a youth choir in Wuhan during the founding era of New China. The novel could be seen as a "musical novel" for citing many famous Chinese and foreign songs. Just like in Vladimir Korolenko's novel The Blind Musician, where the melodious flute sound of the old groom Joachim has been guiding the growth of the five-year-old blind child, the songs in this book that were created in different eras also play a role as the "spiritual nourishment" for the teenager Jiangnan and his partners in his childhood, leading them to grow from narrow-minded, hesitant, and fragile to broad, firm, and strong.   In this novel, apart from the fact that music forms a great part, it also has another prominent feature, which is the regional culture and folk customs of old Wuhan city. The loud and strong chanting on the pier of the Yangtze River, the mighty sound of the surging river, the melodious bells of Hankow Customs House, the vendor's hawking in the alleys of the old Hankou, as well as various customs, snacks, and dialects, all of which help create a vivid painting of local customs that presents lively daily life and the wharf culture.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2025

        The Caucasus Emirate

        Ideology, identity, and insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus

        by Mark Youngman

        Insurgency has plagued the North Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 2007 and 2015, rebels waged their struggle under the banner of the Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz, IK). This book systematically examines the IK's ideology to explain what the group claimed to be fighting for and against and how it sought to mobilise people behind its cause. It reveals a group with a weakly developed political programme, which aligned itself with global jihadism but consistently prioritised local concerns. It demonstrates the priority rebel leaders afforded to shaping local identities, but also their failure to forge a unified movement or revitalise armed struggle. Re-evaluating the IK's ideology helps us better understand the past and future of armed struggle in the North Caucasus.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2022

        Germany's Russia problem

        The struggle for balance in Europe

        by John Lough

        The relationship between Germany and Russia is Europe's most important link with the largest country on the continent. But despite Germany's unparalleled knowledge and historical experience, its policymakers struggle to accept that Moscow's efforts to rebalance Europe at the cost of the cohesion of the EU and NATO are an attack on Germany's core interests. This book explains the scale of the challenge facing Germany in managing relations with a changing Russia. It analyses how successive German governments from 1991 to 2014 misread Russian intentions, until Angela Merkel sharply recalibrated German and EU policy towards Moscow. The book also examines what lies behind efforts to revise Merkel's bold policy shift, including attitudes inherited from the GDR and the role of Russian influence channels in Germany.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        2020

        Collection "Chornobyl KGB dossier: from construction to accident"

        by Oleg Bazhan, Gennady Boryak, Andriy Kohut

        Documents from the "KGB archives" are published in the book. They cover the period from the beginning of the construction of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant to the commissioning of the "Shelter" facility ("Sarcophagus") after the Chornobyl disaster (1970-1986).

      • Trusted Partner

      Subscribe to our

      newsletter