Stalin S Meteorlogist

Winner of the 2014 Prix du Style "Masterful . . . An eloquent addition to a violent episode in the history of science in the twentieth century." —Nature In 1934, the highly respected head of the Soviet Union’s meteorology department, Alexei Feodosievich Wangenheim, was suddenly arrested without cause and sentenced to a gulag. Less than a year after being hailed by Stalin as a national hero, he ended up with thousands of other "political prisoners" in a camp on Solovetsky Island, under vast northern skies and surrounded by water that was, for more than six months of the year, a sheet of motionless ice. He was violently executed in 1937—a fact kept from his family for nearly twenty years. Olivier Rolin masterfully weaves together Alexei's story and his eventual fate, drawing on an archive of letters and delicate drawings of the natural world that Wangenheim sent to his family from prison. Tragically, Wangenheim never stopped believing in the Revolution, maintaining that he'd been incarcerated by accident, that any day Stalin would find out and free him. His stubbornness suffuses the narrative with tension, and offers insight as to how he survived an impossible situation for so long. Stalin’s Meteorologist is a fascinating work that casts light on the devastating consequences of politically inspired paranoia and the mindlessness and trauma of totalitarianism—relevant revelations for our time.

Shortlisted for the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2018 The beautifully illustrated, heartbreaking story of an innocent man in a Soviet gulag, told for the first time in English. One fateful day in 1934, a husband arranged to meet his wife under the colonnade of the Bolshoi theatre. As she waited for him in vain, he was only a few hundred metres away, in a cell in the notorious Lubyanka prison. Less than a year before, Alexey Wangenheim – a celebrated meteorologist – had been hailed by Stalin as a national hero. But following his sudden arrest, he was exiled to a gulag, forced to spend his remaining years on an island in the frozen north, along with thousands of other political prisoners. Stalin’s Meteorologist is the thrilling and deeply moving account of an innocent man caught up in the brutality of Soviet paranoia. It's a timely reminder of the human consequences of political extremism.

Shortlisted for the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2018 The heartbreaking story of an innocent man in a Soviet gulag, told for the first time in English, and beautifully illustrated with the original drawings he sent to his family from the camp. One fateful day in 1934, a husband arranged to meet his wife under the colonnade of the Bolshoi theatre. As she waited for him in vain, he was only a few hundred metres away, in a cell in the notorious Lubyanka prison. Less than a year before, Alexey Wangenheim – a celebrated meteorologist – had been hailed by Stalin as a national hero. But following his sudden arrest, he was exiled to a gulag, forced to spend his remaining years on an island in the frozen north, along with thousands of other political prisoners. By chance, Olivier Rolin discovered an album of the letters and beautiful drawings of the natural world which Alexey sent home to his wife, Varvara, and his four-year-old daughter, Eleonora. Intrigued by these images, Rolin became determined to uncover Alexey’s story and his eventual horrifying fate. Stalin’s Meteorologist is the fascinating and deeply moving account of an innocent man and his family caught up in the brutality of Soviet paranoia, and a timely reminder of the human consequences of political extremism.

A "magisterial" (Sunday Times) history of how books were used in war across the twentieth century—both as weapons and as agents for peace We tend not to talk about books and war in the same breath—one ranks among humanity’s greatest inventions, the other among its most terrible. But as esteemed literary historian Andrew Pettegree demonstrates, the two are deeply intertwined. The Book at War explores the various roles that books have played in conflicts throughout the globe. Winston Churchill used a travel guide to plan the invasion of Norway, lonely families turned to libraries while their loved ones were fighting in the trenches, and during the Cold War both sides used books to spread their visions of how the world should be run. As solace or instruction manual, as critique or propaganda, books have shaped modern military history—for both good and ill. With precise historical analysis and sparkling prose, The Book at War accounts for the power—and the ambivalence—of words at war.

In the wake of Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, various protagonists grappled to become his successor, but it was not until 1928 that Joseph Stalin emerged as leader of the Russian Marxists’ Bolshevik wing. Surrounded by an increasingly hostile capitalist world, Stalin reasoned that Soviet Russia had to industrialize in order to survive and prosper. But domestic capital was scarce, so the country’s minerals, timber, and grain were sold abroad for hard currency for funding the development of heavy industry. Claiming total control of agricultural management and production, Stalin implemented the collectivization of farming, consolidating small peasant holdings into large collective farms and controlling their output. The program was economically successful, but it came at a high social cost as the state encountered intense resistance, and between 1928 and 1934 collectivization led to the deaths of at least ten million people from starvation and associated diseases. Hungry and Starving elicits the voices of both the culprits and the victims at the centre of this horrific process. Through primary accounts of collectivization as well as the eyewitness observations of ambassadors, reporters, tourists, fellow travellers, Russian emigrés, tsarist officials, aristocrats, scientists, and technical specialists, James Gibson engages the crucial notions and actors in the academic discourse of the period. He finds that the famine lasted longer than is commonly supposed, that it took place on a national rather than a regional scale, and that while the famine was entirely man-made – the result of the ruthless manner in which collectivization was executed and enforced – it was neither deliberate nor ethnically motivated, given that it was not in the Soviet state’s economic or political interest to engage in genocide. Highlighting the experiences of life and death under Stalin’s ruthless regime, Hungry and Starving offers a broader understanding of the Great Soviet Famine.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians—comes “a meticulously researched, authoritative biography” (The New York Times), the companion volume to the prize-winning Stalin, and essential reading for anyone interested in Russian history. This revelatory account unveils how Stalin became Stalin, examining his shadowy journey from obscurity to power—from master historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. Based on ten years of research, Young Stalin is a brilliant prehistory of the USSR, a chronicle of the Revolution, and an intimate biography. Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, darkly turbulent boy born into poverty, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a murderous revolutionary. Here is the dramatic story of his friendships and hatreds, his many love affairs, his complicated relationship with the Tsarist secret police, and how he became the merciless politician who shaped the Soviet Empire in his own brutal image.

When Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler’s armies were on the run, and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace—but instead they set the stage for a forty-four year division of Europe into Soviet and Western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was beginning to fracture. Although the most dramatic Cold War confrontations such as the Berlin airlift were still to come, a new struggle for global hegemony had got underway by August 1945 when Truman used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants.

Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union has been called 'the other Holocaust'. During the Stalin years, it is thought that more innocent men, women and children perished than in Hitler's destruction of the European Jews. Many millions died in Stalin's Gulag of torture prisons and forced-labour camps, yet others survived and were freed after his death in 1953. This book is the story of the survivors. Long kept secret by Soviet repression and censorship, it is now told by renowned author and historian Stephen F. Cohen, who came to know many former Gulag inmates during his frequent trips to Moscow over a period of thirty years. Based on first-hand interviews with the victims themselves and on newly available materials, Cohen provides a powerful narrative of the survivors' post-Gulag saga, from their liberation and return to Soviet society, to their long struggle to salvage what remained of their shattered lives and to obtain justice. Spanning more than fifty years, "The Victims Return" combines individual stories with the fierce political conflicts that raged, both in society and in the Kremlin, over the victims of the terror and the people who had victimized them. This compelling book will be essential reading for anyone interested in Russian history.