Update the software of the Russian soul?

Andrei Konchalovsky 14 October 2010
Government attempts to modernise Russia are doomed because the Russian mindset remains stuck in an unchanging peasant mentality, laments film-director Andrei Konchalovsky. No change will be possible without reloading our spiritual software, but do we want to change?

Latest on Ukraine’s history wars: Orange fighter down

Roman Kabachiy 23 September 2010
The recent arrest of Ukrainian museum director Ruslan Zabily provoked an outcry. Did he actually leak state secrets or is the Yanukovych regime just trying to undo all Orange achievements, including the revival of Ukrainian historical memory?

Down on the farm: a history lesson in Kazan

Oleg Pavlov 20 September 2010
Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture in the USSR in the 1930s led to famine, repression and widespread family tragedy. Oleg Pavlov visited a school in the capital of Tartarstan to find out how this period is being taught now

When enemies are better than friends

Alexei Levinson 6 July 2010
Rather than emphasising friends and allies, today's Russian leaders prefer to single out their enemies, writes Alexei Levinson. It is an approach that plays on Russians' traditional psychological comfort zones, while at the same time allowing politicians to evade responsibility at home.

Does Russia need a memory law?

Nikolai Koposov 16 June 2010
Russia’s Duma has been trying to draft a ‘memory law’, in order to protect the Soviet version of the events of World War II from revisionist interpretations. The historian Nikolai Koposov deconstructs the attempts so far. His view is that the proposed law is not only misconceived, but would be unworkable. He also points out that the unspoken agenda behind it is the defence of Stalin and Stalinism. In the end, the law is never going to be the right vehicle for defending historical truths, he concludes.

Skating on thin ice in Sochi

Sufian Zhemukhov 4 June 2010
The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi threatens to be overshadowed by a centuries-old row between Russia and the disposessed Circassian nation, writes Sufian Zhemukhov. Russia should take the opportunity to engage and impress its way to a lasting solution.

Circassian Nationalism and the Internet

Zeynel Abidin Besleney 21 May 2010
Circassian communities are scattered throughout the North Caucasus and the diaspora is spread throughout the world. On the day of Circassian Genocide and Exile, Zeynel Abidin Besleney examines the role played by the internet as a lifeline linking otherwise isolated activists and communities and reinforcing the Circassian nationalist cause

Ukraine's Stolen Memory

Roman Kabachiy 5 May 2010
During Viktor Yushchenko’s five years in power, Ukraine did not start facing up to its totalitarian history. Since President Yanukovich came to power, that task has become almost impossible.

Teaching History in Orenburg

Elena Strelnikova 4 May 2010

Against a backdrop of an ever increasing politization of the Soviet past, journalist Elena Strelnikova returned to her old classroom. Her fly-on-the-wall account shows the contentious debates played through the eyes of 14-year-olds.

After the plane crash: Russian attitudes to Katyn

Alexei Levinson 28 April 2010
The NKVD’s mass execution in 1940 of Polish officers in Katyn Forest has complicated the often tense relations between Russia and Poland. But the plane crash on 10 April 2010 brought the countries closer together. Russia’s Levada Center has recently carried out a survey into Russian attitudes to Poland and Katyn in particular. The results were sometimes startling, as Alexei Levinson recounts.

Parroting history

Elena Godlevskaya 23 April 2010
History teaching has fallen victim to politics in Russia. Educational standards are falling and children are not being taught to think. They learn that Russia is great, but not the reasons why. Could this be because it is easier to run a nation of naïve, illiterate people who do not know their history?

Russia-Poland: a history too terrible

Andrei Kolesnikov 16 April 2010
The plane crash at Smolensk which Poland’s president has provoked an outpouring of Russian sympathy, from Putin down. It has helped many Russians identify their country’s responsibility for the Katyn massacre in 1940. But it has left many others unmoved, even cynical. ‘Re-setting’ Russian-Polish relations is not going to be easy.

Charisma and complications: the legacy of Abkhazia’s founding father

Sergei Markedonov 8 April 2010
With the death of Vladislav Ardzinba, Abkhazia’s first president, a period of post-Soviet upheaval passes further into history. Sergei Markedonov considers Ardzinba’s achievements in the wider context of the Caucasus

A Soldier's Tale

Tolya's Letters 29 March 2010

openDemocracy Russia now puts together in one document the 9 letters written by Tolya (probably not his real name), a private in the Russian army. Tolya preferred to serve in the army rather than study at university. These letters were written some time ago, but few publications give such a clear indication of the state of affairs in the Russian military.

Arthur Koestler: 20th century man

Masha Karp 16 March 2010
Arthur Koestler, whose turbulent life charts the intellectual history of the 20thc in the West, has finally found a worthy biographer in Michael Scammell. A youthful communist and survivor of Franco’s prisons, Koestler developed into one of the West’s most persuasive crusaders against communism.

The Russian media

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Russia-China

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The new year in Russia

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Russia's new economy

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Russian rights at the crossroads

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Beyond the gastarbeiter: post-Soviet migration

Madeleine Reeves (Manchester University, UK) presents the other side of post-Soviet migration.

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Regions

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Russia's year of elections

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Women, tradition and power in the North Caucasus

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Project_ID

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Privatizatsiya, twenty years on

Russian economy: trying to please people doesn’t help, Dmitry Travin

Privatisation, but no private property, Andrei Zaostrovtsev

Is corruption in Russia's DNA?, Pyotr Filippov

The Russian banking system: between the market and the state, Pavel Usanov

Russia’s crony capitalism: the swing of the pendulum, Vladimir Gelman

Russian reforms, twenty years on. Introduction to the series, Dmitry Travin

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