Through a cracking CWT episode, I discovered Julia Ioffe’s ‘Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy’. The book traces the entire arc of Russian history from the Bolsheviks to Putin through a feminist lens and the lived experiences of Ioffe’s own family (who also happen to be Jewish and experienced the … Continue reading The Tragedy of the Russian Woman
Until yesterday, the only Eden that I knew was Antony Eden, the British PM remembered for the disastrous Suez Crisis of 1956. Apparently, Lord Auckland, the Governor General of India from 1836-42 was an ancestor of Eden. When Lord Auckland was posted in India, he was accompanied by his sister Emily Eden who ended up … Continue reading Emily Eden’s ‘Ranjit Singh’
With Finland and Sweden joining the NATO, the Baltic Sea is now often referred to as the NATO Lake. The alliance controls more than 95 per cent of the Baltic’s coastline and all of its sizeable islands, as well as the western entrance through the Kattegat and both sides of the Gulf of Finland, Russia’s … Continue reading The NATO Lake
It was only after reading Diana Preston’s 'Eight Days at Yalta' that I fully grasped the perils of flying in February 1945. Though the writing was on the wall for Nazi Germany, the war was far from over—Japan was still fiercely defending its Pacific island outposts, and the full horrors of the Holocaust were just … Continue reading Roosevelt’s Journey to Yalta
When the Russians entered Berlin in 1945, the most feared words for a woman in Berlin were ‘‘Frau, komm’ (Woman, come)! For Antony Beevor, the occupation of Berlin by the Russians resulted in the ‘greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history’. Close to 100,000 women in the city were raped irrespective of their age. Frederick … Continue reading ‘Frau, komm’, the Berlin Airlift and the Himalayan Hump of WWII
Some thoughts after finishing Tolstoy's War and Peace: The sheer number of aristrocatic parties and balls featured in the book was mind-boggling. The peasants and aam-aadmi perspectives are conspicuously absent. Tolstoy goes to great lengths to dismiss the 'Great Man of History' theory. For him, its sheer foolishness to describe historical events as grand narratives … Continue reading On War and Peace
