Russia

From Rapallo to the Zeitenwende, The German-Russian Century: History of a Tangled Relationship by Stefan Creuzberger discovers the dynamic that defines Europe.  

In the 19th century Russian peddlers became a scapegoat in Finland’s resistance against the tsar’s empire.

Compassion from the Kremlin often proved as short-lived as its critics. In Exit Stalin: The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953-1991, Mark B. Smith finds that terror was a feature rather than a bug.

During the Crimean War soldiers died in appalling conditions, but the treatment of enemy prisoners was surprisingly humane.

At the end of the Cold War, Russia and the West seemed set on a path towards cooperation. Why did it veer into renewed animosity?

The Decembrist revolt of 1825 saw Russia’s nobility attempt to depose tsar Nicholas I. Dismissed as romantic idealists, they were driven by a bold vision for the future of the country.

Chernobyl Children: A Transnational History of Nuclear Disaster by Melanie Arndt discovers how Soviet civil society flourished – and then faltered – in the fallout.

In the chaos unleashed by the October Revolution, Mikhail Bulgakov found a past become fragmented and confused, and history the domain of madmen and devils.

In The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 Vladislav Zubok argues that circumstance rather than ideology shaped the clash between communism and capitalism.

Russia’s entry into the global economy was met with glee by international firms in the early 1990s. The exodus has been just as sudden.