Tag: Cossacks

The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in Grozny — Chechnya, Russia. (Source: iStock, Leonid Andronov)

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The anti-Jewish riots in Dagestan are just a symptom of something larger. Muslims are playing an increasingly important role in Russia. The more Moscow turns away from Europe and toward Asia, the greater their importance.

At the airport in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, an enraged mob shouting “Allahu akbar!” was bent on lynching the Jews who had just landed in a flight from Tel Aviv. (more…)

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Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

II. To Winter Wonderlands

The road through the Almond and Raisin Gate led Nutcracker and Marie to Rock Candy Mountain and the Christmas Woods, Bon-Bonville, Marzipan Castle, and Jamburg. Upon crossing Lemonade River, six monkeys in red vests began “playing the most beautiful Turkish military music,” while they walked “farther and farther on multicolored tiles, which, however, were nothing but nicely filled lozenges.” (more…)

The Journey

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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

Is Putin Yul Brenner with hair?

I first saw the 1959 film The Journey on TV when I was a kid watching NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies. With recent events in Russia, it seemed timely, so I looked it up on YouTube. (more…)

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I have been a stranger in a strange land. — Exodus 2: 22

It is very hard, dear brother, to live in a foreign land. — Leo Tolstoy, The Cossacks

If I were asked what I considered the greatest invention in my lifetime I would have no hesitation in replying that it is the e-reader. Had my grandfather, for example, wished to own the collected works of Plato, he would have had to have taken time off from his work as a film developer for Paramount Films, travelled on the underground from his flat in Ealing, (more…)

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Part 3 of 4

The Red Terror: Lenin and the October Revolution

Prison of the Nation presents an original view of the Communist Revolution in Russia in 1917. (more…)

Viktor Vasnetsov, Ivan the Terrible, detail, 1897

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Part 2 of 4

The Archetype of the Tyrant: Ivan the Terrible

While Ivan III laid the foundations of an independent Russian kingdom (or rather a Muscovite Orthodox khanate) it was his grandson Ivan IV Vasilyevich, better known as Ivan the Terrible who created tsarist Russia and began the real Muscovite expansions of the 16th century.

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Introduction

In no way can a brief article do any justice to a complex idea like the Ukrainian nation. While this author has dedicated his academic life to these and related topics, its poor treatment in the press and distortion by certain emigre circles calls for a certain clarification. One that will not doubt please no one. (more…)