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
An astonishing trivia about Vienna is that sometime in 1913, Hitler, Stalin, Freud, Trotsky and Archduke Franz Ferdinand lived in the same city. It’s irresistible to speculate if Hitler and Stalin had bumped into each other in a café or exchanged smiles while sipping an espresso or an Einspänner. Source Vienna was the most beautiful … Continue reading Vienna Notes
On a whim, I decided to go to Warsaw from Krakow and spent around six hours in the city (of which one was spent trying to figure out its tram lines). Warsaw is large, spread-out and has the ‘big-city vibes’ when compared to Krakow. The entire city was rebuilt after the Second World War. After … Continue reading Warsaw Notes
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
