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In the wake of the Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war, approximately one-and-a-half million Russians fled their country. Many settled in Prague, where they were welcomed and supported by the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. This book presents the first full account of Prague's Russian emigre community from 1918 to 1938, when the Nazi invasion scattered the inhabitants yet again. Russia Abroad examines the life of this vibrant community, its activity, achievement, and importance. Catherine Andreyev and Ivan Savicky explore the reasons that Czechoslovakia embraced the Russian immigrants, the evolution of the Russian community, and why the original idea of supporting Russian emigres and creating an academic centre of progressive Russians had to be modified in the light of national and international politics. The story they tell not only illuminates aspects of Russian life and culture of the period but also offers insights into later diasporas in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
First published in Russian and featuring an Introduction and Notes by the author's daughter, this memoir describes Andreyev's childhood, the Russian Revolution of 1917, his life as a refugee, his detention in Soviet transit jails during World War II, and beyond.
This book tells the story of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the largest nonsectarian refugee relief agency in the world. Founded in the 1930s by socialist militants, the IRC attracted the support of renowned progressives such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Norman Thomas, and Reinhold Niebuhr. But by the 1950s it had been absorbed into the American foreign policy establishment. Throughout the Cold War, the IRC was deeply involved in the volatile confrontations between the two superpowers and participated in an array of sensitive clandestine operations. The IRC thus evolved from a small organization of committed activists to a global operation functioning as one link in the CIA's covert network.
After a chance discovery that her grandmother had pro-German sympathies, Ann Shukman resolved to investigate her grandfather Walter Runciman's 1938 Mission to Prague. This delegation, sponsored by the British Government, sought to broker peace between Czechoslovakia's government and its Sudeten German minority--a dispute that Hitler was aggravating with virulent anti-Czech propaganda and threats of invasion. Drawing fresh evidence from personal diaries, private papers and Czech publications, 44 Days in Prague exposes the misunderstandings and official ignorance that provoked a calamitous series of betrayals, eventually ensuring the failure of the Mission. It reveals that, while Walter Runcim...
This work provides a comprehensive and balanced analysis of the Second World War in all its aspects – military, diplomatic, political, economic, social, and ecological. It explores the complex origins of the conflict in Europe and in the Far East as well as its lasting impact on the postwar world. It pays special attention to the fighting in Russia and China. It also examines the ideological struggle at the heart of this war between autarkic fascism and militarism on one side and liberal, democratic capitalism on the other. The author recounts the ideas and actions of political leaders and generals as well as the experiences of soldiers, sailors, POWs, defense plant workers, sex slaves, an...
The bestselling first authoritative account of the first colossal World War II battle between Germany and the USSR—based on previously unavailable documents, this is the battle that decided the war, and the one that Stalin tried to cover up. The battle for Moscow was the biggest battle of World War II—the biggest battle of all time. And yet it is far less known than Stalingrad, which involved about half the number of troops. From the time Hitler launched his assault on Moscow on September 30, 1941, to April 20, 1942, seven million troops were engaged in this titanic struggle. The combined losses of both sides—those killed, taken prisoner, or severely wounded—were two and a half milli...
The story of the invasion of Moscow, told through its people. Fought over a territory the size of France, the Battle of Moscow in 1941 cost the Russians as many casualties as the British lost in WW1. It marked the first strategic defeat of the Wehrmacht and halted their seemingly unstoppable advance across Europe. This is the story of that battle - and the ordinary men and women who fought it. Based on huge research and scores of interviews, this book offers an unforgettable and richly illustrated narrative of the military action that took place in Moscow during 1941. It paints telling portraits of Stalin and his generals: some apparatchiks, some great commanders. It also traces the individu...
After World War I, diplomats and leaders at the Paris Peace Talks redrew the map of Europe, carving up ancient empires and transforming Europe's eastern half into new nation-states. Drawing heavily on the past, the leaders of these young countries crafted national mythologies and deployed them at home and abroad. Domestically, myths were a tool for legitimating the new state with fractious electorates. In Great Power capitals, they were used to curry favor and to compete with the mythologies and propaganda of other insecure postwar states. The new postwar state of Czechoslovakia forged a reputation as Europe's democratic outpost in the East, an island of enlightened tolerance amid an increas...
Reformers had high hopes that the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union would lead to significant improvements in legal institutions and the role of law in public administration. However, the cumulative experience of 25 years of legal change since communism has been mixed, marked by achievements and failures, advances and moves backward. This book—written by a team of socio-legal scholars—probes the nuances of this process and starts the process to explain them. It covers developments across the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and it deals with both legal institutions (courts and police) and accountability to law in public administration, including anti-c...
A major new account of the Soviet Union at war which charts the development, successes and failures of the Red Army.