Personality and Power: Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe
- 19-Jan-2024
In this authoritative study, Ian Kershaw looks at the Personality and Power of 12 major historical figures: four despots (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini), two national autocrats (Tito, Franco), five democratic leaders (Churchill, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Thatcher, Kohl), and Gorbachev, who rose in a totalitarian system but ultimately destroyed it. What characteristics do they have in […]
World Cup fans head underground to explore Stalin’s bunker
- 06-Jul-2018
SAMARA: As the Russian city of Samara gears up for Saturday’s England-Sweden clash, some fans have been taking time out to discover a darker side of the city hidden underground. Hundreds of visiting supporters have been queuing up to visit Josef Stalin’s bunker – chambers dug out underneath the southwestern city to protect the Soviet […]
Court fines Moscow cinema that showed ‘Death of Stalin’
- 22-Feb-2018
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Thursday slapped a $1,700 fine on a Moscow cinema which screened British comedy “The Death of Stalin” in defiance of an official ban, prompting a police raid. The film, which depicts the power struggle in the politburo following the death of the Soviet dictator, was to have been released last […]
Putin will seek new term as Russia president
- 07-Dec-2017
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said he would seek a new six-year term in March elections, a move that would make him the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin. Putin, who has run Russia both as president and prime minister for the past 18 years, is expected to sail to victory, with only token […]
Russia conflicted on how to mark 100 years since revolutions
- 15-Mar-2017
MOSCOW: It was the year that ended centuries of royal rule, brought two revolutions, ushered in Soviet domination and changed the course of Russian history irrevocably. A century later, the country seems unsure how to treat the tumultuous events of 1917 that saw it hurtle from the abdication of the last tsar Nicholas II to […]
Tank battles and Stalin selfies at Belarussian war museum
- 01-Nov-2016
MINSK: At Belarus’s Stalin Line museum visitors can watch reenactments of World War Two battles, fire Soviet-era weapons and even pose for photographs next to a wreath-decked monument to Josef Stalin himself. The open air complex 30 km (19 miles) outside Minsk was built to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the war […]