Archive For The “Russia” Category
By Ben Mezrich
ISBN-10: 147677191X
ISBN-13: 9781476771915
The bestselling writer of Bringing Down the House (sixty-three weeks at the New York Times bestseller checklist and the foundation for the hit motion picture 21) and The unintended Billionaires (the foundation for the Academy Award–winning movie The Social Network) provides an epic drama of wealth, contention, and betrayal between mega-wealthy Russian oligarchs—and its overseas repercussions.
Once Upon a Time in Russia is the untold real tale of the larger-than-life billionaire oligarchs who surfed the waves of privatization to harvest riches after the autumn of the Soviet regime: “Godfather of the Kremlin” Boris Berezovsky, a former mathematician whose first entrepreneurial enterprise used to be operating an car reselling company, and Roman Abramovich, his speeding younger protégé who outfitted a multi-billion-dollar empire of oil and aluminum. Locked in a posh, uniquely Russian partnership, Berezovsky and Abramovich battled their means during the “Wild East” of Russia with Berezovsky appearing because the more youthful man’s krysha—literally, his roof, his protector.
Written with the heart-stopping pacing of a thriller—but much more compelling since it is true—this tale of collecting obscene wealth and tool depicts a rarefied global seldom obvious up shut. below Berezovsky’s krysha, Abramovich equipped considered one of Russia’s greatest oil businesses from the floor up and in alternate made funds deliveries—including 491 million cash in precisely 365 days. yet their courting frayed while Berezovsky attacked President Vladimir Putin within the media—and needed to flee to the united kingdom. Abramovich persevered to prosper. useless our bodies trailed Berezovsky’s footsteps, and threats him to London, the place an affiliate of his died painfully and famously of Polonium poisoning. Then Berezovsky himself used to be later chanced on lifeless, declared a suicide.
Exclusively sourced, taking pictures a momentous interval in fresh global historical past, Once Upon a Time in Russia is immediately own and political, supplying an unparalleled look at the wealth, corruption, and gear at the back of what Graydon Carter known as “the tale of our age.”
By Fyodor Dostoyevsky
ISBN-10: 1615340602
ISBN-13: 9781615340606
The Possessed (In Russian: Бесы, tr. Besy), additionally translated because the Devils or Demons, is an 1872 novel via Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Possessed is an incredibly political e-book, and is a testimonial of lifestyles in Imperial Russia within the overdue nineteenth century. because the innovative democrats start to upward thrust in Russia, diverse ideologies start to collide. Dostoevsky casts a serious eye on either the left-wing idealists, exposing their principles and ideological origin as demonic, and the conservative establishment's ineptitude in facing these rules and their social outcomes. this kind of highbrow conservativism tied to the Slavophil stream of Dostoevsky's day, is obvious to have persisted on into its glossy manifestation in contributors like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Dostoevsky's novels concentrating on the concept that utopias and positivist rules, in being utilitarian, have been unrealistic and unobtainable. The booklet has 5 fundamental ideological characters: Verkhovensky, Shatov, Stavrogin, Stepan Trofimovich, and Kirilov. via their philosophies, Dostoevsky describes the political chaos visible in 19th-Century Russia.
By Basil Dmytryshyn
The efforts of Peter I and Catherine II of Russia to modernize their state and remodel it right into a significant ecu strength are the following tested by means of the 2 monarchs, through modern observers (Russian and non-Russian), and via pre-Soviet and Soviet historians. numerous decisions have by no means seemed in English ahead of. All are candid, short, readable checks put in a formal ancient standpoint by way of Professor Dmytryshyns introductory statements. Basil Dmytryshyn used to be a professor at Portland kingdom collage, and this booklet is a part of the publishers significant matters in historical past sequence.
By Ariel Cohen
ISBN-10: 0275953378
ISBN-13: 9780275953379
The autumn of the Soviet Union used to be probably the most dramatic occasions of this century. It was once additionally the most unbelievable. might be simply because many Sovietologists ignored its prestige as an empire, so much americans have been taken thoroughly without notice whilst the USSR begun its precipitous cave in lower than Mikhail Gorbachev. This booklet matters the Soviet Union as an empire to systematic scrutiny, utilizing instruments and strategies on the disposal of recent political technological know-how. international coverage experts, safety specialists, and Russian zone analysts will locate this ebook crucial. The ebook can also be urged for undergraduate and graduate classes in Russian and Soviet historical past and the learn of empires.
This publication matters the Soviet Union as an empire to systematic scrutiny, utilizing instruments and strategies on the disposal of contemporary political technological know-how. overseas coverage experts, protection specialists, and Russian zone analysts will locate this publication crucial. The publication can be prompt for undergraduate and graduate classes in Russian and Soviet background and the learn of empires.
By Anna Procyk
By Jay Parini
ISBN-10: 1841959677
ISBN-13: 9781841959672
By means of 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the world's most renowned writer, had turn into a nearly spiritual determine, surrounded on his lavish property by way of relations and fans alike. Set within the tumultuous final yr of the count's lifestyles, "The final Station" centres at the conflict for his soul waged by way of his spouse and his top disciple.Torn among his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity at the one hand and the truth of his huge, immense wealth, his 13 little ones, and a lifetime of hedonism at the different, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his domestic. Too unwell to proceed past the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes he's loss of life by myself, whereas open air over 100 newspapermen are waiting for hourly experiences on his condition.Narrated in six varied voices, together with Tolstoy's personal from his diaries and literary works, "The final Station" is a richly artistic novel that dances bewitchingly among truth and fiction.
By J.L. Black
ISBN-10: 0802053351
ISBN-13: 9780802053350
Nicholas Karamzin (1766–1826) used to be a remarkably lively philosopher and author in the course of a time that was once attempting to all Europeans. A first-hand witness to the French Revolution, Napoleonic suzerainty over Europe, the burning of Moscow, and the Decembrist riot in St. Petersburg, he awarded in his voluminous correspondence and released writings an international view that famous the weaknesses of the Russian Empire and while foresaw the hazards of either radical switch and inflexible autocracy. Russian conservatism owes a lot to this guy, even supposing he might have agreed with only a few of these who got here after him and have been known as conservative: he supported autocracy, yet used to be dedicated to enlightenment; he abhorred constitutions. the truth that his writing had lasting importance has hardly ever been challenged, however the social and political nature of that contribution hasn't ever earlier than been validated. earlier reports of Karamzin have handled his literary occupation. This monograph specializes in the ultimate 3rd of his existence, on his occupation at courtroom (1816–26) and at the cultural history he left to the Russian Empire. because the historian of Russia most generally learn through his and later generations, his ancient interpretations reflected and assisted in shaping the picture Russians had of themselves. Professor Black’s examine of Karamzin is important to any exam of Russia’s enlightenment, conservatism, old writing, and nationwide self-consciousness.
By Robert K. Massie
ISBN-10: 0679456724
ISBN-13: 9780679456728
The Pulitzer Prize–winning writer of Peter the good, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with one other masterpiece of narrative biography, the intense tale of an imprecise younger German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to develop into the most extraordinary, robust, and desirable ladies in history.
Born right into a minor noble family members, Catherine remodeled herself into Empress of Russia by way of sheer decision. owning an excellent brain and an insatiable interest as a tender girl, she wolfed the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, while she reached the throne, tried to exploit their rules to lead her rule of the massive and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent old figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the good, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, unusually, the yankee naval hero, John Paul Jones.
Reaching the throne fired through Enlightenment philosophy and decided to develop into the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by way of Montesquieu, she stumbled on herself regularly contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian existence, together with serfdom. She persisted, and for thirty-four years the govt., international coverage, cultural improvement, and welfare of the Russian humans have been in her fingers. She handled household uprising, international wars, and the tidal wave of political switch and violence churned up via the French Revolution that swept throughout Europe. Her attractiveness depended fullyyt at the viewpoint of the speaker. She used to be praised via Voltaire because the equivalent of the best of classical philosophers; she used to be condemned by way of her enemies, commonly overseas, as “the Messalina of the north.”
Catherine’s kin, acquaintances, ministers, generals, fans, and enemies—all are the following, vividly defined. those incorporated her bold, eternally scheming mom; her susceptible, bullying husband, Peter (who left her mendacity untouched beside him for 9 years after their marriage); her unsatisfied son and inheritor, Paul; her liked grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of younger males from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of teenage in addition to intercourse. the following, too, is the enormous determine of Gregory Potemkin, her most important lover and attainable husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of affection and separation, by means of seventeen years of extraordinary mutual achievement.
The tale is beautifully instructed. the entire targeted traits that Robert okay. Massie delivered to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are current the following: ancient accuracy, intensity of knowing, felicity of favor, mastery of element, skill to shatter fable, and a unprecedented genius for locating and expressing the human drama in amazing lives.
History bargains few tales richer in drama than that of Catherine the good. during this publication, this perpetually interesting lady is lower back to lifestyles.
By Anton Chekhov
ISBN-10: 0307742962
ISBN-13: 9780307742964
Anton Chekhov's The Duel the escalating animosity among males with antagonistic philosophies of existence is performed out opposed to the backdrop of a seedy hotel at the Black Sea coast.
Laevsky is a dissipated romantic given to playing and flirtation; he has run off with one other man's spouse, the attractive yet vapid Nadya, and now unearths himself tiring of her. The scientist von Koren is contemptuous of Laevsky; as a fanatical devotee of Darwin, von Koren believes the opposite guy to be unworthy of survival and is extra enraged by means of his remedy of Nadya. because the war of words among the 2 turns into more and more heated, it ends up in a duel that's as comically inadvertent because it is inevitable. Masterfully translated by means of the award-winnning Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Duel is without doubt one of the so much refined examples of Chekhov's narrative art.
Translated by means of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Includes a brand new ahead via the screenwriter Mary Bing.
By Christopher Read
ISBN-10: 1857283597
ISBN-13: 9781857283594
Written from the viewpoint of the manufacturing unit employee and peasant on the floor point, this examine of Russia through the Revolution 1917-21 goals to make clear the realities of dwelling via and taking part in those tumultuous occasions. The booklet is meant for undergraduate classes in background, Soviet stories, and politics.