Novedades

'Wise, comprehensive and brilliantly succinct' OWEN MATTHEWS, author of Stalin's Children When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, he had been the unchallenged leader of the Soviet Union for over twenty years, having presided over the ruthless modernisation of the early 1930s, the Great Purges later in the decade, the near-catastrophe and ultimate victory of World War II, and the country’s postwar emergence as a superpower. He was surrounded by a cult that made him seem godlike; no successors were in sight. His death was bound to be a deeply unsettling event, both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.

In June 2023, the Wagner Group assembled an armed convoy that included tanks and rocket launchers and set out on what seemed like a journey to take control of Moscow. The last person to attempt such a venture was Adolf Hitler. Wagner’s power began from patronage, then grew from international theft and extortion, until it was so great it exposed the weakness of Russia’s conventional military and became a threat to the Russian state, one that was not demonstrably eliminated until a private jet containing Wagner’s core commanders was blown up in midair.

Russia, 1997-1998 Learning the language in order to bring the Gospel to people has a hidden drawback. The more they helped us with the language, the closer our relationship grew with them. And then it really hurt to say goodbye. We spent only four weeks with some Russians learning their language, but at the end of our time, a number of them begged us to stay much longer. We couldn’t. The language school moved us every month to a new city in Russia, and after our first city of Nizhni Novgorod, we realized that we would never see those people again. Our extremely primitive language ability ...

"Это был воистину русский парадокс. В стране домостроя, где многочисленные народные пословицы довольно искренне описывают положение женщины - "Курица не птица, баба не человек", "Кому воду носить? Бабе! Кому битой бить? Бабе! За что? За то, что баба" - весь XVIII век русским государством самодержавно правили пять выдающихся и очень разных правительниц. Например, Елизавета, дочь Петра Первого. "Государственными делами она почти не интересовалась", - приходят к единодушному выводу историки и современники. Чем же она занималась 20 лет на троне? Была, например, верховным главнокомандующим.