This article examines the link posited by Virilio and others between the camera shot and gun shot, arguing that this link operates differently in the context of Soviet vs. Western fantasies of agency, community and technology. Comparing THE LOST PATROL (USA 1934, John Ford) with TRINADTSAT (THIRTEEN, UdSSR 1936, Mikhail Romm), it asks what kind of…[Read more]

The political system of early socialist-era Mongolia, established by the first Constitution in 1924, can be interpreted as a vernacular version of the Soviet system, in which the formally supreme representative body, the State Great Khural (“assembly”), was sidelined by the standing Presidium of the Small Khural and the Cabinet and eclipsed by the…[Read more]

In the early part of the reign of Alexander I (1801-1825), the emperor sought to reform Russia through the creation of new European-style institutions. The aim was to ensure that Russia’s great-power status would be retained through updating its institutions, in line with a reform impulse dating back to Peter the Great and before. Among the new i…[Read more]

In the ten years following the publication of the infamous Reports on the State of Education in Wales (1847) that had classified the Welsh population as a vice-ridden nation of working-class drunkards and promiscuous hoydens, the middle-classes in Wales strongly rejected this Anglo-centric condemnation at first in the press and, later on, in…[Read more]

In an article that exposes the roots of Brexit-era Germanophobia, Rita Singer details how Welsh press coverage and poetry about U-Boat attacks on Welsh ships evolved into racialised depictions of German U-Boat combatants as ‘Huns’, monsters, ghouls and Satanic fiends

Housing as a trophy: the housing issue in bureaucratic practices and personal strategies of the Soviet military administration in Germany (1945-1949)

Collected volume review. Paweł Kowal, Georges Mink and Iwona Reichardt (eds.) “Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine.” Volume one. Stuttgart, Ibidem Verlag, 2019.

At the end of late Stalinism: the cult of vigilance and secrecy rituals (based on the materials of the Soviet military administration in Germany, 1945-1949)

Soviet consumer practices in the “small USSR”, 1945-1949 (based on the materials of the Soviet military administration in Germany)

Late Stalinism as an Ideological Practice. Party Life of Soviet Communists in Occupied Germany. 1945-1949 /

“Outrages” as a management concept.
Understanding the military-bureaucratic culture of the Soviet occupation regime in Germany (1945-1949)

This paper was presented as part of an online symposium titled “Research as a Radical Act of Creativity” organized by the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University. As a response to “radical creativity” – one of the current cross-cutting, strategic themes of Aalto University – the paper addresses the need to learn from dec…[Read more]

Over the last four decades of the 18th century, the image of Sparta began to include a few characteristic elements that later became an important point of reference for 19th-century writers, philosophers and historians. Issues of Spartan equality of citizens, fully responsible for their country, and also soldierly honour and Sparta’s military c…[Read more]

This book first proves that the rationale behind Russia’s aggressive actions in its neighborhood resides in its goal of achieving certain geostrategic objectives which are largely predefined by the state’s imperial traditions, memories, and fears that the Kremlin may irretrievably lose control over lands which were once Russian. In other words,…[Read more]

The term “Intermarium” has a long historical tradition and was commonly used to define the area between the Baltic and Black Seas. With its regular re-appearances in contemporary academic and political discourses, this book explores and assesses a variety of its connotations. In order to do this, it applies a multi-dimensional approach to the Int…[Read more]

Az orosz történetírásban hagyományosan szmutá-nak, “zavaros időszaknak” nevezett évtizedek három legmarkánsabb, művészi szempontból a legerőteljesebb feldolgozásának mindegyike különböző szemléletet és műfajt képvisel, ám egy dologban egyek: a kérdéses időszak adekvát elbeszélésére illetőleg megjelenítésére Borisz Godunov cár uralkodói pályáj…[Read more]

English abstract: A paper arguing the relevance of a cognitive narratological perspective and a retrospective stance attentive to hindsight bias in order to clarify the debate on racial differences and population diversity in biology. The issue is discussed with reference to the dichotomy between ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters’ in paleoanthropology as…[Read more]

Mark Bray is a historian of human rights, terrorism, and political radicalism in Modern Europe as well as a political organizer. This interview outlines what fascism is, the history of anti-fascist resistance, the debate surrounding free-speech, anti-imperialism, World War II, and the Trump Era.

Mark Bray is a political organizer and historian…[Read more]

España tiene una relación traumática con su guerra civil. Del franquismo ni hablamos: es para el discurso oficial del régimen político actual la personificación abyecta del mal, y esa versión oficial es defendida por el actual gobierno izquierdista como la única verdadera y aspira a ser impuesta como la única autorizada. En 2020, y con Franco y…[Read more]

The chapter analyzed the debates on parliamentarism in the late Russian Empire and revolutionary Russia and explored how the idea of parliament helped intellectuals locate Russia globally. The establishment of the legislative State Duma and the adoption of the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire during the Revolution of 1905–1907 seemed to m…[Read more]