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Articles on Russian revolution

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Preparations in 1972 in the Red Square to mark the 55th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Peter Phipp/Travelshots.com/Alamy

How the Soviet century wrote itself into the Moscow cityscape

A monumental book, newly translated into English, describes in painstaking, archeological detail, how the socialist project transformed the spaces in which Soviet citizens lived.
Being seen: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained a constant stream of appearances to press home his country’s narrative. Ukraine Presidency/Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/Alamy Live News

Ukraine war 12 months on: the role of the Russian media in reporting – and justifying – the conflict

The two sides have used media very differently during the conflict: Zelensky has inspired support, Putin has stifled dissent.
Smoke rises on April 15, 2022, above 400 new graves in the town of Severodonetsk, Ukraine. Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Russia is being made a pariah state – just like it and the Soviet Union were for most of the last 105 years

The West’s new approach to Russia – bar it from international organizations, restrict international trade, prevent further military moves – looks just like how it treated Russia in the 20th century.
Memorial tanks at the Ukrainian Motherland Monument in Kyiv. Madeleine Kelly/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Who are the Ukrainians and when were they part of the same empire as Russia? A scholar answers basic questions on war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sit far apart during talks in the Kremlin in Moscow a week before Russia invaded Ukraine. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Deep-rooted Russian fear of the West has fuelled Putin’s invasion of Ukraine

Just because deep-rooted Russian fears might not seem reasonable doesn’t mean they aren’t real in Vladimir Putin’s mind.
Hong Kong protesters shelter behind a thin barrier – and umbrellas – as police fire tear gas and encircle a group of demonstrators. AP Photo/Vincent Yu

Is there hope for a Hong Kong revolution?

Revolutions are built not on deep misery but on rising expectations. History may not provide much hope of immediate change in Hong Kong – but protesters may have a longer view.
Tarana Burke created #MeToo in 2006 but it didn’t emerge as a mass social movement until 2017. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Why social movements like #MeToo seem to come out of nowhere

From the French Revolution to #MeToo, social movements often burst into the mainstream with what seems like little warning. Cass Sunstein explains why.
A plaque on a house in St Petersburg that says: ‘Here the writer Lydia Korneievna Chukovskaya wrote Sophia Petrovna, a story about the Great Terror 1936-1938’. Wikimedia Commons

Hidden women of history: Lydia Chukovskaya, editor, writer, heroic friend

Persecuted by Stalin, writers Lydia Chukovskaya and Anna Akhmatova endured threats, cold and starvation. And in an epic feat, Lydia memorised the poems of her friend that were too dangerous to commit to paper.
To try and understand the Russian revolution outside of the broader social context of the time is to neglect the development of nationhood in the region. Wikicommons

World politics explainer: the Russian revolution

The Russian Revolution – an event that affected more than Russia and was more than a revolution.
Across the world, allegations of sexual assault have hinged on women’s credibility. Michael Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP

Kavanaugh sexual assault hearing evokes early Soviet mock trials

A century ago, Russian leaders staged mock trials on rape and abortion to educate citizens about new Soviet laws and values. Then, as now, victim-blaming and ‘he said, she said’ marred the verdict.
On the streets of Petrograd on July 4, 1917, when troops of the provisional government opened fire on demonstrators. Viktor Bulla/Wikimedia Commons

Conquered city, site of revolutions from above and below

The physical and political space of cities can be shaped from above or below, but few have had more revolutionary changes, first under the tsars, then the communists, than St Petersburg.
Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya. Antoon Kuper/flickr

Nadya Krupskaya: the Russian revolutionary

Russian revolutionary Nadezhda Krupskaya, like other leading women in the new Stalin-led state, was marginalised. But in her case, because she was Lenin’s widow.

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