To what extent was the collapse of Tsarism due to the personal weakness of Nicholas II? "[The Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II,] was very much a family man and a loving father to his children. But this all meant that he was far removed from his subjects, with little understanding of the outside w...

World War 1: German Guilt. Introduction Few historical areas can have aroused as much debate as that of the origins and causes of WW1. The thousands of documents and eyewitness testimonies collated have allowed historians to construct exceedingly detailed illustrations of what happened in the days...

The methods that Russia has used to deal with the break-away Republic of Chechnya has caught the eye of the world media, and not without good cause. This dynamic portion of the former Soviet Union is seen as a predecessor of things to come from other pieces of the dead communist giant. So many diffe...

1. Catherine II (the Great). The successor of the sickly Peter III, Catherine II was his wife until his suspected murder and she took the throne in 1762. Although she made no great reforms in Russian society, she gathered many friends by her death in 1796. Catherine had to keep the nobility ple...

Throughout history, Russia has been viewed as a regressive cluster of barely civilized people on the verge of barbarism. In the eighteenth century, ideas of science and secularism grasped hold of Europe, and Russian Czars, realizing how behind Muscovite culture was, sought out this knowledge, at...

Exploring the importance of the Revolutions of 1917 in bringing about the rise of a single-party state in Russia. "No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution.... Revolution is but thought carried into action (Emma Goldman, Anarchism 1917)." The people of Russ...

The historical impact of Operation Barbarosa cannot be denied. The Soviet victory over the Nazi German invaders set up the Soviets as a world superpower and set the stage for the Cold War. Had the Germans not attacked, the Russians may not have gained their dominance in Eastern Europe, and the W...

The Fall of Winter Palace Czar Nicholas II's reign lasted twenty-one years and ended with the Bolsheviks seizing power. However, from the very start of Nicholas's rule, fate was not in his favor. For a long time Czars have ruled Russia with power all in their hands. The society that ...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th century. Josep...

Joseph Stalin was the soviet communist leader who's passing molded an era, and whose iron rule determined the lives of millions of people. Considering that he shaped the direction of post-World War II Europe, we may regard him as the most powerful person to live during the 20th c...

Biography: Slavomir Rawicz was born in the city of Pinsk (today a city in White Russia) in 1915, to a Polish father and a Russian Mother. In Pinsk, The Rawicz family lived a relatively well-to-do life. They not only owned a successful estate business, but a beautiful house within ...

Nikita Khrushchev is undoubtedly one of the most important and interesting political figures of the twentieth century. Rising from a background of extreme poverty, he became an early supporter of the November 1917 bolshevik revolution. During the inter war years he joined the Communist Party, and ...

Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago was published in 1957. It was not published in Pasternak's native country of Russia, but in Italy. The USSR did not allow the publication of the novel because some believed that it showed a 'nonacceptance of the socialist revolution." (...

Post Cold-War Soviet Union had left the country in a state of shambles. The economy was in ruins, the military was behind those of the western nations, and the government's ideologies were beginning to be questioned. When S.U. itself ceased to exist on December 25, 1991, the United States (Bus...

The Russian Orthodox Church's history and development, which established it as an arm of the Tsarist state and an instrument of the perpetuation of Russia's unequal class system and anti-reform policies, made it a necessary object of destruction for the security of the Bolshevik revolution. The my...

During the late nineteenth century the Russian government undertook a policy of rapid industrialisation which, due to a combination of factors, drove the desire to industrialise Russia for the principle aim of keeping the 'facade' of her militaristic strength and power status. It was ev...

Asses the impact Lenin had on Russia and the Russian people. Lenin was a remarkable leader who introduced many new policies that helped in the development of Russia to make it a stronger and more independent country. The War Communism was one of the most disliked policies by the people. Lenin was...

Chechen Rebels In the course of Russian history, there has been one territory that has caused a lot of controversy. The area is Chechnya, which is located in southwestern Russia near Dagestan and Georgia. Most of Chechnya's population is Muslim and doesn't like the rule of the Christi...

Around the world, at any instant, millions of people are watching movies. They watch mainstream entertainment, serious "art films," documentaries, cartoons, experimental films, educational shorts. They sit in air-conditioned theaters, in village squares, in art museums, in college classroo...

Abstract This essay concentrates on two representatives of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and in the 1970s--Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The essay introduces the history of the dissident movement in the Russian Empire under the Tsars and in the Sovie...

The persecution, deportation, and general abuse of those who call themselves Chechnyans, has been a heavy burden to bear over the last few centuries. Ethnically and religiously these people from the Caucasus are markedly different from their expansionist Russian neighbors. Centuries of miscommunicat...