Questions about the country in turmoil you are probably to embarrased to ask >full text (c) WASHINGTON POST, 2014. Another 10 questions (c) Business Insider
Archive for Soviet Union
Understanding Ukraine
Posted in Uncategorized with tags history, nationaism, politics, riots, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine on 25 January 2014 by delclemStalin in Vienna: 1913, 1949, 2012
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Habsburg Monarchy, Joseph Stalin, Russia, Soviet Union, Stalinism, Vienna on 12 January 2014 by delclem
101 years ago, in January 1913, Ioseb B. dze Jugashvili aka. Joseph Stalin stayed in Vienna for a while to investigate the multi-ethnic setup of the Habsburg Monarchy for his publication on Marxism & the National Question.In 1949 the Austrian Communist Party KPÖ put a commorative plaque on the facade of the building in Schönbrunner Schlosstraße (no. 30) on the occasion of Stalin’s 70th birthday. In 2012, an additional plaque was mounted to commemorate Stalin’s/Stalinist crimes as well – a very Austrian solution to the problem, it seems. >more (in German); photo (c)ru, 2014
Faithfull’s Austrian roots
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 1945, Austria, Great Britain, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger, pop music, rape, Soviet Union, Venus in Furs, Vienna on 29 December 2013 by delclem
Today is the birthday of British singer Marianne Faithfull Geburtstag. Besides, she is not only one of the most sucessful groupies of pop history (having been Mick Jagger’s lover), but also the great-grandniece of the (in)famous Austrian Ukrainian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs). Her mother and grandmother were born in Vienna and in 1945, after the end of WW2, raped by Soviet soldiers. Marianne was born in 1946 as the daughter of an English officer of the British occupation forces.
The Baltic states
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Baltics, Estonia, latvia, Lithuania, photography, Soviet Union on 27 November 2013 by delclem
in Soviet times, seen through the lens of local photographers.
>slideshow (c) livejournal.com 2013
An Irishman’s Diary in Hungary
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Budapest, Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Hungary, Imre Nagy, János Kádár, Soviet Union on 23 October 2013 by delclem
“Today in Budapest, flowers will be laid on the grave of Imre Nagy, prime minister, leader of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and its most notable victim. The revolution against Soviet rule began on October 23rd and lasted 13 days until it was crushed on November 4th, when 2,000 Soviet tanks invaded Hungary.”
Text on the Hungarian uprising and its aftermath with János Kádár
(c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2012
Photographer & Soviet spy with a conscience
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Communism, Edith Tudor-Hart, espionage, exhibition, Greta-Britain, London, photography, Soviet Union, Vienna on 3 October 2013 by delclem
“When Edith Tudor-Hart wasn’t working as a Soviet agent, she was taking lovingly realistic portraits of London’s workers and street children. Now, for the first time, a retrospective is celebrating her double life.” >full text (c) THE TELEGRAPH, 2013
“Kicking the Germans Out of the East”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Central Europe, ethnic Germans, expulsion, National Socialism, Soviet Union, World War II on 8 June 2013 by delclem
A recent book by Colgate historian R.M. Douglas “has opened, or rather reopened, yet another tortured and largely ignored chapter of World War II, (…) whose specter is still dragging and clanking its chains” across Central and Eastern Europe.
>review (c) NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOK, 2013
“God’s Gift”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Cold War, Czech Republic, heritage, military complex, Soviet Union, war history on 3 April 2013 by delclem
Hidden Soviet heritage in the Czech Republic: There’s a bit of the Cold War/
Warsaw Pact military complex left in the middle of country – abandoned, decaying & almost completely forgotten >text & photos from MOTHERBOARD.COM 2013
Stalin’s Shadow
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Anne Applebaum, Central Europe, Communism, Eastern Europe, histroy, Iron curtain, Joseph Stalin, Soviet Union, World War II on 18 January 2013 by delclem
“Having brilliantly documented the horror of Stalin’s Soviet terror machine in her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, author Anne Applebaum now offers a bulky sequel, Iron Curtain, about the brutal effort of that same machine to crush and colonize Eastern Europe in the first decade after World War II. Her evidence, once again drawn from archival research and some survivor interviews, is overwhelming and convincing. But the heart of her story is hardly news.” >review & photo (c) NYT, 2012
“The Tragedy of Central Europe” (1945-1989)
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Central Europe, Communism, Czech Republic, essay, France, Lund, Milan Kundera, Russia, Soviet Union, Sweden on 19 December 2012 by delclem
On Milan Kundera‘s seminal and problematic, ie. almost racist,
essay from 1984 >text (c) EUROPEAN STUDIES IN LUND, 2010
delirium clemens 