Laws against Holocaust denial are perhaps the best-known manifestation of the present-day politics of historical memory. In Memory Laws, Memory Wars, Nikolay Koposov examines the phenomenon of memory laws in Western and Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia and exposes their very different purposes in the East and West. In Western Europe, he shows how memory laws were designed to create a common European memory centred on the memory of the Holocaust as a means of integrating Europe, combating racism, and averting national and ethnic conflicts. In Russia and Eastern Europe, by contrast, legislation on the issues of the past is often used to give the force of law to narratives which serve the narrower interests of nation states and protect the memory of perpetrators rather than victims. This will be essential reading for all those interested in ongoing conflicts over the legacy of the Second World War, Nazism, and communism.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–91), writer, traveller and spiritualist, is well known for her role in nineteenth-century theosophy. Born in the Ukraine, Blavatsky travelled extensively and claimed to have spent seven years studying esoteric mysteries in Tibet. From 1863 she began working as a medium and later counted W. B. Yeats among her followers. In 1875 she founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Steel Olcott. Influenced by Eastern philosophy and the Templars, Freemasons and Rosicrucians, the Society aimed to unravel the occult mysteries of nature. First published in 1877, this book outlines theosophy's precepts. The book is a mishmash of Hermetic philosophy, Christian history and Asian theology, and was allegedly dictated astrally from authorities including Plato, Solomon and Roger Bacon.
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE FT & McKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021'An intricately detailed, deeply sourced and reported history of the origins and growth of the cyberweapons market . . .Hot, propulsive . . .Sets out from the start to scare us out of our complacency' New York Times'A terrifying expose' The Times 'Part John le Carre and more parts Michael Crichton . . .Spellbinding' New YorkerZero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break in and scamper through the world's computer networks invisibly until discovered. One of the most coveted tools in a spy's arsenal, a zero day has the power to tap into any iPhone, dismantle safety controls at a chemical plant and shut down the power in an entire nation - just ask the Ukraine. Zero days are the blood diamonds of the security trade, pursued by nation states, defense contractors, cybercriminals, and security defenders alike.In this market, governments aren't regulators; they are clients - payi
Michael Palij introduces the English-language reader and students of history to a relatively little-known aspect of the revolutionary upheavals that engulfed Ukraine, Poland, and Russia after the Firs
Written in the early seventeenth century, the Hustyn' Chronicle represents the first attempt of early modern chroniclers to write a systematic history of Ukraine. The chronological sweep of the text
From investigating the relationship between Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, and the GRU, to the agency's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and the election of Donald Trump, to its current operations in digital misinformation, THE GLASS HOUSE is the first definitive history of Russia's most dangerous asset. While we associate the KGB with the bad guys of James Bond movies or John le Carré novels, the GRU has arguably been more significant in shaping the nature, outcome, and aftermath of the world post-Cold War.The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, known simply by its acronym―GRU―stands accused of hacking the communication systems of a U.S. presidential race; attempting to murder one of its defectors in England with a weapon of mass destruction; and shooting down a commercial airliner over the skies of Ukraine, killing close to 300 people on board. Add to that list its failed effort plotting a coup in a sovereign nation as it sought
This study explores the organization, history and uniforms of the Soviet Red Army during the 20 years between its victory in the Civil War and the invasion of the USSR by Germany in 1941.The two decades following the Bolshevik victory over the “Whites” in the Russian Civil War saw widespread and fundamental developments for the Red Army. Nevertheless, these still left it largely unready to face the German’s Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. Having been reduced in size and planning for modernization, the Red Army of the 1920s was employed to ruthlessly crush anti-Bolshevik opposition (real or suspected) in several regions of the USSR, notably Ukraine and Central Asia, and to fight a brief border war against Chinese Manchuria.During the 1930s, Stalin virtually “beheaded” the army by a needless series of murderous purges of the officer class; despite this, the Red Army was victorious in clashes against Imperial Japan in the Nomonhan region in 1938–39, where General Zhukov earned his spur
A unique work of fiction from the troubled streets of Ukraine, giving invaluable testimony to the new history unfolding in the nation’s post-independence years This captivating book is Serhiy Zh
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) disaster that occurred in Ukraine on April 26, 1986, was one of the most devastating in human history. Using this as a case study, the AGU monograph Groundwater
This book provides a thorough survey and analysis of the emergence and functions of written culture in Rus (covering roughly the modern East Slav lands of European Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). Part I introduces the full range of types of writing: the scripts and languages, the materials, the social and physical contexts, ranging from builders' scratches on bricks through to luxurious parchment manuscripts. Part II presents a series of thematic studies of the 'socio-cultural dynamics' of writing, in order to reveal and explain distinctive features in the Rus assimilation of the technology. The comparative approach means that the book may also serve as a case-study for those with a broader interest either in medieval uses of writing or in the social and cultural history of information technologies. Overall, the impressive scholarship and idiosyncratic wit of this volume commend it to students and specialists in Russian history and literature alike. Awarded the Alec Nove Prize, given by
This book provides a comparative history of Islamic education in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. Case studies on Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan and on two
