Category: Uncategorized
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
Comrades of the Traveling Pants
Imagine a world where the bare necessities like water, shampoo, or even jeans were beyond your grasp. What lengths would you go to obtain these simple consumer goods that we have come to take for granted? In the image above, Russian poet Smirnovskii sums it up …
Showdown at Damanskii!
On March 1969, two red behemoths stood on the brink of war. On the Soviet side, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were amassed along the southern border and over a million Chinese faced them. The Communist states of China and Russia, allegedly allies against the global “bourgeoisie” order, were now massed along the border of …
From Stalin with Love: The Victor’s Plight
In its heyday, the Soviets rarely had issues with drumming up “volunteers” for their political and social needs. By 1945, the Red Army was 11 million strong and had proved itself to be the true victors in the European front. Faced with a starving, war torn nation, it was obvious that tanks and bullets were …
Continue reading “From Stalin with Love: The Victor’s Plight”
An Unorthodox Approach
To the average Russian, it must have seemed that in the summer of 1941 there was no salvation from tide of war. Within the first month of Germany’s “Operation Barbarossa”, Russian defenses had been obliterated and 84% of the Soviet’s pre-war active forces had been captured or killed by the end of the year (Freeze, …
Food Fight!
Universal suffering was the hallmark of trench warfare during World War I. As millions died from the innovations in warfare and technology, a more subtle affliction plagued the overwhelmingly peasant population of Russia: food shortage. While the roaring machine guns needed only to be fed yet more bullets to the carnage it produced, the millions …
Tea with a Splash of Vodka
What is it that makes an empire? The ruler may argue that government and order define one’s realm; however, these are all institutions of the people. Before the troubles that would bring about the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia was an immensely diverse spread of land that was called home to many different ethnicities, …
Episode 1: The Phantom Railways
By the middle of the 19th century the Russian Empire found itself lacking in reform and by the start of the 20th century it found itself in a questionable circumstance. Imperial Russia was late to the game in the industrialized arena, but it did attempt to westernize itself. In the process, the introduction of new […]
The Photographer to the Tsar
The Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, photographer and chemist in the early 1900s, displayed the powerful Russian Empire pre-World War I and revolution with the use of colored photography, a new technique that he developed during the time. Supported by Tsar Nicholas II and with the aide of the Ministry of Transportation, Prokudin-Gorskii traveled in an … Continue reading The Photographer to the Tsar
Introduction
My name is Christopher Jackson, I am currently a senior. This is one of the classes that is required to obtain my degree in history. My hope for this class for now is to pass without any close calls. As for my interests in this class is simply to fulfill a requirement. Also, this class …
