Podcasts about russian soviet

We're onto our second episode of the year - looking at the story of Islam in Russia! Flying us through the history is Dr Danielle Ross, a specialist of Islamic and Russian-Soviet history at the State University of Utah.  Russia is home to one of the world's largest Muslim populations, with a rich and complex history that stretches back over a thousand years. We start with its early introduction in the Volga region, and travel through the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Crimea. We explore the role of Tatar Muslims, and the shifting policies of Tsars, Soviets, and modern Russia towards their Muslim citizens. Despite periods of repression and revival, Islam remains a vital force in Russia's diverse society today, shaping everything from local traditions to geopolitical dynamics. Join us as we uncover the resilience and contributions of Russia's Muslim communities in this captivating episode.

Last time we spoke about the Central Plains War. Chiang Kai-Shek faced a formidable anti-Chiang coalition led by Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang, and Li Zongren. Zhang Xueliang, initially absent, worked tirelessly from Mukden to prevent Northern warlords from joining the coalition. The conflict, exacerbated by severe famine in Shaanxi that fueled unrest, saw major battles as Chiang's forces clashed with the anti-Chiang fronts across multiple railways. Despite initial setbacks, Chiang's strategic maneuvers and alliances, including a pivotal deal with Zhang Xueliang, gradually turned the tide. The Young Marshal's entry into the fray and the subsequent defections from Feng Yuxiang's camp weakened the anti-Chiang forces. By October, the anti-Chiang leaders, overwhelmed and isolated, sought peace. The Central Plains War, a grueling seven-month struggle, ended with the anti-Chiang factions disbanding, leaving China's civil war landscape dramatically altered. Within the vacuum, the CCP was thriving, but now the Generalissimo could direct his full attention on the Red Menace.   #125 From the Jinggangshan Mountains to the Jiangxi Soviet Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The last time we were talking about the CCP, they had performed the Nanchang uprising, Autumn Harvest Uprisings and the Guangzhou uprising. These all did not go very well and literally saw the surviving CCP forces fleeing for their lives into the mountains. Their experiences during these uprisings reinforced the idea they required a strong military force to push forward a new agrarian-based communist revolution. To develop such conditions favoring a revolution, Mao Zedong and Zhu De adapted the Red Army and CCP policies to the local conditions in order to recruit, sustain and retain loyal troops and build a relationship between the army, local populaces and party.  After the collapse of the Harvest Autumn Uprisings, the Red Army scattered into the rural parts of China. Mao Zedong himself narrowly escaped capture by the NRA, as he made his way to Sanwan of Jiangxi province. Countless were killed, arrested or deserted. Less than 1000 Red soldiers remained from the original uprising force. Moral was law, there lacked direction, there existed conflicting loyalties and many blamed Mao Zedong for the failings. In order to counteract this, Mao Zedong held a conference on September 29th of 1927 whereupon he implemented a series of radial policies to stave off an implosion. He began streamlining the command structure, instituted political representatives within each unit to instill revolutionary spirit within the troops. A political cell was established in each squad, a branch at company levels and a party committee at the battalion and regiment level. Next he established troop soviets within the units to provide a form of democratic centralism within the units. Additional he began spinning the narrative in his own favor, shifting blame for the failed uprisings to the collective poor understanding of the revolutionary course within China, rather than upon her leadership. Now initially a large part of the Red Army wanted to return to their hometown of Anyuan, but the local military presence was too strong there. Another option was needed and quickly as they had many sick and wounded amongst their ranks. They looked to the nearby Jinggang Mountain Area as a temporary fix. Many of Mao Zdong's former Peasant Movement Training students knew the area well. Jinggangshan meaning “well ridge mountain”, derived its name from the 5 villages around its main city of Ciping: Big Well, Middle Well, Little Well, Upper Well, and Lower Well. The mountain is situated in the Luoxian range, straddling the border between Jiangxi and Hunan. It also happens to be a place where 4 counties converge: Lingxian, Suichuan, Ninggang and Yongxin. Surrounding it were factional and political enemies, thus preventing most provincial forces from really coordinating efforts or massing against them. The terrain provided ample defensive obstacles. It also stood in the midpoint between Changsha, Nanchang and Guangdong, offering the Red Army flexibility to try and finish the uprisings they started in those locations. Given the weak state the Red Army was in, it would not be feasible to occupy Jinggangshan by force. Jinggangshan was controlled by two bandit leaders named Yuan Weicai and Wang Zuo. Mao Zedong was forced to negotiate with the two to come to an arrangement. The CCP was of course concerned about the trustworthiness of the two bandit leaders. At an early meeting in Gucheng, some CCP members of the front committee doubted the revolutionary character of Yuan and Wang, believing them to only be bandits at heart. Mao Zedong on the other hand argued the two leaders and their loyal followers were crucial to the communist movement. I would argue Mao Zedong was grasping at straws.  As for Yuan and Wang, their primary concerns were the impact of a new military force affecting the regional balance of power. In essence the mountain areas outside the major cities had a complex power dynamic. Bandits and local elites maintained the status quo, any change to that power dynamic could lead to problems. There was also an ethnicity issue. Jinggangshan was considered something of a Hakka ancestral land, and the Han settlers amongst them were more like guests. There always remained a Hakka-Han tension, and this prompted Hakka to vet any Hans coming in. Mao first convinced Yuan how a partnership would be mutually beneficial. In exchange for food, housing and local support the Red Army would provide weapons, training and support Yuan and Wang's operations. Mao presented Yuan with a gift of 100 rifles to sweeten him over. Mao then made a similar gesture to Wang, sending him 70 rifles. The two bandit leaders let the Red Army right in. Upon arriving, the Red Army began conducting guerilla operations and peasant mobilization. On October 7th, 1927 the began activity in Maoping and moved to Ciping. While marching they passed through Lingixan and Shuikou villages, attacking the local elites and their militias, freeing prisoners in jails and holding mass rallies to recruit. On the 22nd they reached Dafen, where they were ambushed by a local militia. Using their knowledge of the terrain the militia inflicted severe casualties, forcing the Red Army to retreat towards Wang Zuo for aid. Wang Zuo was wary of them, but Mao Zedong won him over by promising more weapons and training for his bandits. Mao also pledged to support him against his local rivals, one of whom was Xiao Jiabi. Wang's bandits and the Reds joined forces in Dajing and together seized Shimen. Then the Reds arrived in Ciping on October 15th. They quickly seized the city center and within a month's time established a base of operations. The CCP quickly expanded its influence in the surrounding area, preying upon local populations where government control was weak or in flux. By mid November the Red Army dispatched a battalion west to capture Chaling. This success allowed them to further expand into Suichang in January of 1928. In February the Red Army occupied its first major city, Xincheng in Ningang country. Within two months of action the Reds had nearly doubled their territory now occupying portions of 3 counties. For the most part Mao Zedong was left alone because of the political shakeup after the failed uprisings in the larger metropolitan areas. Contact with the provincial and regional CCP community still existed though. Zhou Lu, a member of the southern Hunan special committee heard about the CCP expansion in the mountain areas and came to inspect them. While at Jinggangshan he gave Mao Zedong orders to dispatch his unit to support Zhu De's forces in a uprising about to hit southern Hunan. After the failed Nanchang Uprising, Zhu De took the remnants of his forces and fled into southern Jiangxi and then Fujian where he linked up with a fellow Yunnanese NRA leader, Fan Shisheng. They stayed with Fan Sisheng's unit awhile, but once rumors spread he was harboring Reds they had to go. By January of 1928 they fled for southern Hunan to try and support urban uprisings. Upon arriving, Zhu De's force began augmenting the local peasantry forces and Zhou Lu said he would get Mao Zedong to lend his support. However the uprising never really got its legs. It began in late January, but the urban workers and local populace couldn't rise as expected. Instead local support turned against the communists. Likewise Mao Zedong's men never made it to southern Hunan, he had intentionally dragged his feet on the issue. Instead Mao Zedong focused his attention in central Hunan holding rallies and mobilizing local peasant groups. Thus Zhu De was pounced upon by local warlord groups in Guangdong and Hunan. Zhu De's Red Army engaged the warlord armies as they slowly retreated into Jinggangshan. Zhu De and Mao Zedong would meet in Maoping for a conference. On May 20th, 1928 they agreed to establish the Jinggangshan Special Committee, with Mao Zedong as its general secretary. Additionally the 4th Red Army was created and nicknamed the Ironsides Army. The 4th Red Army was roughly 12,000 men strong consisting of Zhu De's Nanchang uprising force, now designated the 28th regiment, Mao Zedongs Autumn Uprising force now designated the 31st regiment, Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo's bandits, later designated the 32nd regiment and the Hunan uprising force now designed the 29th regiment. Zhu De's arrival also brought in a traditional military mindset, adding some more professionalism to the Red Army. Here Zhu De also made a famous quote “When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy halts and encamps, we harass them; when the enemy seeks to avoid battle, we attack; and when the enemy retreats, we pursue”. This statement would guide much of the Red Army's actions going forward. The increase in communist numbers brought unwanted attention immediately from Jiangxi and Hunan forces. The first major military campaign against the Reds began in May of 1928 and was led by Zhu Peide wielding Jiangxi provincial military units. The campaign was based out of Yongxin with the Jiangxi government unleashing the 27th division. One regiment garrisoned at Yongxin was held as reserve while the division sent another regiment to attack the Red Army stronghold in Nanchang and another regiment flanked to the east. The Reds countered by stationing a regiment in the mountains to protect the base, another regiment to defend the mountain passes and 2 regiments to conduct spoiling attacks on the Jiangxi regiments flank. The Red Army was able to destroy the flanking unit, forcing them to retreat back to Yongxin. They pursued them to Yongxin, destroying its garrison regiment in the process. The Red Army then maneuvered to the rear of the Jiangxi division pushing them to pull back to Ji'an. Thus the Reds occupied Yongxin where they went to work establishing a worker-peasant government, expanding the Soviet across the county.  A second encirclement campaign was unleashed in late MAy, with the same Jiangxi 27th division leading the action. This time they were reinforced as they quickly recaptured Yongxin and began cautiously pursuing the Reds into the mountains. The Reds tried to exploit the terrain for guerilla warfare but was met with little success. The Red 28th regiment was soon forced to help distressed red forces at Chaling county. However the Jiangxi Division did not account for the Red Army's mobility. The Red 31st regiment quickly assumed the 28th regiments former defensive positions offering a stiff fight against the Jiangxi forces. When the 28th regiment returned to reinforce the 31st they hit the enemy's rear and advanced upon Yongxin again while the Jiangxi forces pulled back to Ji'an again.  Another encirclement campaign was unleashed the following June this time seeing Jiangxi and Hunanese forces work together against the Reds. The Jiangxi 9th division was deployed in combination with the remaining 2 regiment of the 27th Jiangxi division. The Jiangxi forces performed a frontal attack through the mountain passes using 3 regiments. Meanwhile the Red Army had to perform a feint attack in the east to occupy a Hunanese division. The Red Army deployed a battalion augmented by local guerilla groups along the western flank of the mountain passes. Guerilla attacks on the eastern flank of the Jiangxi forces caused the commander to maintain 2 regiments at Yongxin. Exploiting the mountain terrain the Red Army managed to destroy one regiment as they funneled up the passes. This small victory brought much needed arms and new soldiers who quickly recaptured Yongxin for a third time.  By the end of June, the Jinggangshan base had basically hit its apex in terms of size. They now controlled Ninggang, Yongxin, Lianhua counties and parts of Ji'an and Anfu. At this point Chiang Kai-Shek took notice of the Red gains and directed a new campaign against them. Another series of campaigns were unleashed seeing Hunanese and Jiangxi armies attack the 4th Red Army beginning in July 1928. The Hunan 8th Army began their attack from the west through Ninggang while the Jianxi army unleashed 11 regiments from the 3rd and 6th armies through Yongxin against the eastern border of Jinggangshan. To meet this threat the Reds kept 2 regiments to defend the bases while the 28th and 29th regiments advanced west to slip behind the Hunanese forces to conduct raids against their rear. Meanwhile local Red Army militia forces began a scorched earth strategy removing all food, poisoning water sources and evacuating villagers to deny their enemy. The Hunan 8th army was forced to retreat in the face of this, allowing the Reds to focus on the Jiangxi forces around Yongxin. The 28th and 29th regiments advanced west to support the attack against the Jiangxi forces, but then suddenly turned south towards southern Hunan, citing orders to assist the Southern Hunan Special Committee. Then these 2 regiments attacked the city of Chenzhou, roughly 200 kms away from the Jinggangshan mountains. There they defeated local forces. Afterwards the Red troops began strolling through the streets of Chenzhou as civilians, many of them had families in the area. Some began looting the area. They had made the egregious error of now pursuing their enemy further and gave them too much respite to reorganize themselves. The local forces counterattacked driving the 28th regiment to withdraw with little casualties. The 29th regiment fared much worse, being ambushed trying to retreat over the only bridge leading in Chengzhou. They suffered heavy casualties and many of their surviving forces simply joined the 28th regiment as a result. Meanwhile with the 2 regiments gone from the mountain, the NRA forces were emboldened. 3 Hunanese regiment joined 11 Jiangxi regiments to attack the Jinggangshan mountains. The remaining Reds employed every tactic they knew to survive. They began giving up terrain as the enemy penetrated closer to the mountain base. The 31st and 32nd regiments found themselves retreating to the protection of higher ground, where the established defensive positions along key routes to maximize casualties upon the invaders. Mao Zedong took a battalion from the 3st regiment south to escort the incoming 28th regiment, further weakening the lines. Meanwhile guerillas raided the flanks and rear of the advancing NRA forces heading up the mountain. After repeated failed attempts to get to the peaks of the mountains,the Jiangxi and Hunanese forces ultimately had to withdraw come September allowing the 28th regiment to safely get back to Jinggangshan. From there the Red Army contuined to fight and recapture lost territory. By October they retook Ninggang county and portions of Suichuang, Lixing and Yongxin, but were unable to reclaim everything they once had.  Another campaign coincided with an economic blockade and the arrival of General Peng Dehaui's 5th Army. The Jiangxi and Hunanese forces adopted blockade tactics, normally employed against bandits, to try and deprive the Reds from using markets in the lowlands. Starting in the fall of 1928, NRA and local militias established checkpoints along all routes and trails leading into the Jinggangshan mountains. Local private armies with troops familiar with the area conducted interdiction patrols to capture anyone trying to get past blockades. The blockade halted most local trade, meaning little medicine, clothing, food or salt was getting into Janggangshan. The Reds began subsisting on sweet potatoes and pumpkins, then Peng Dehuais 5th army arrived in December worsening the burden on the area. Simulteanously NRA forces from Fujian were added to the Jiangxi and Hunanese to fully surround the mountains in preparation for a offensive.  In the face of all of this the 4th Red Army's leadership convened a conference at Bailu. The attendees all were trying to figure out how to overcome the situation but their options were very limited. Many called for the same tactics that had been winning them the battles as before. Some called for withdrawing to a safer area momentarily and launch a counterattack when the enemy lightened up. The economic blockade exacerbated the civilian military relations in the mountains and it seemed the local populace was no longer willing to help the Reds. The last option many advocated for was to mount a defense of the mountain range, but this would not allow for any withdrawal route for the 6000 or so troops. Ultimately the adoptd a hybrid solution. The 4th army would break through the blockade to try and draw forces away from the mountains while also obtaining supplies. The 5th army who were pretty battered from their march would defend mountains and base. On January 14th of 1929 the 4th army led by Zhu De and Mao Zedong broke through the blockade and headed south into Jiangxi.  The 4th army at first was only meeting light resistance as they captured Suichuan and Shangyu. After this they headed for Dayu, but there found 3 Jiangxi regiments who ambushed them. The Reds were forced north into the Xingguo-Ji'an area. They marched 30 days, often 30 miles per day to avoid their pursuers, while taking casualties and losing equipment. They found themselves at Dabaidi village on February 10th where 2 regiments of the 15th NRA division fought them. The Reds routed the NRA forces and even captured the two regimental commanders alongside 800 soldiers and their equipment. This victory earned the 4th army a safe place to rest up for quite some time. As we saw in the former episodes, the Chiang-Gui and Central Plains War engulfed Chiang Kai-Sheks attention, giving the Reds some breathing space. During this period, Mao Zedong and Zhu De expanded that is referred to as the Jiangxi Soviet. They did so through a series of campaigns into western Fujian. In February 1929 the 4th army incorporated 2 independent guerilla regiments and used them to occupy Ji'an, Ningdu and Ruijin. In March they entered western Fujian and captured Tingzhou. At Tingzhou the Reds got 3000 NRA soldiers to defect. From Tingzhou they expanded the Jiangxi Soviet to encompass over 20 counties in Jiangxi and Fujian. In light of their major accomplishments, Mao Zedong dispatched word to the Central Committee proclaiming all they had done in Jiangxi and Fujian. In May the Red Army unleashed a second campaign into western Fujian, this time capturing Longyan and Yongding. With every successful campaign the Red Army recruits more soldiers, obtained more equipment, more territory and acquired further fundings sources.  The early days of the Jiangxi Soviet were quite chaotic. Despite the Red Army's expansion, in reality they were not a unified force. Numerous factions with their own ideologies existed. The Red Army was an amalgamation of different groups coming together less so of a common goal, more so out of survival. Many of the soldiers were former peasants, but there were also former NRA troops, warlord troops and bandits. The traditions of these different groups, coupled with a lack of education in the rural areas creating a boiling pot of bad behaviors and this hurt morale. To accommodate this the Red Army made itself extremely flexible in the early days. In the early days it was only about survival. Mao Zedong and Zhu De recognized the fact, in a conventional battle the Red Army stood no chance against even a Warlord Army, let alone the NRA. Thus the 4th army created a new political-military strategy within the rural areas to protect and grow the revolution. The first part of the strategy adopted by Mao Zedong was making alliances. It was a no brainer, increase numbers, gain more legitimacy, learn more about local areas, keep expanding. Yet the Central Committee frowned upon being too open to alliance, like with lets say, bandits? In 1928 a resolution from the CCP 6th Party Congress called for expelling bandits from the Red Army, but this obviously ran counter to everything going on in Jinggangshan. To remedy this, Mao Zedong simply did not comply and vetoed any plans made against the bandit leaders such as Yuan and Wang. The second strategy was adapting communist policies to local conditions. Contrary to the CCP guidance of attacking landlords and rich peasants, the Red Army tended to just attack those disliked by the local community. They often would avoid attacking popular landlords or rich peasants because it could endanger local support. Instead they would use propaganda and negotiations to win over such popular figures. Yet over time the strategies changed from survival to expansion. Mao Zedong described the CCP expansion to come in a series of waves. He believed a systematic development of rural Soviets was an effective way to encircle cities and create the conditions necessary for revolution.  To survive and expand the Red Army had to create a new way to fight their superior enemies. A famous slogan “the enemy advances, we retreat”, became doctrine quickly. The Red Army combined mobile warfare, guerilla warfare and propaganda against their rival the KMT. During the Jingangshan and Jiangxi Soviet period, guerilla warfare was the mainstay. It's purpose was not to gain victory, but to gain time, so the CCP could continue growing. The Red Army in Jinggangshan and Jiangxi focused on small-unit tactics, emphasizing scouting, patrolling, ambushing, mobility and so on. Most guerilla units were local militia units trained by Red Army officers, many of whom were also political leaders. They always sought to meet the enemy via ambush, during a raid, a feint attack or attacks to the rear and flank. Yet the Red Army did often find itself facing those like the NRA in conventional warfare. For these engagements it tended to be done only by the professional Red Army units. A major issue facing the Reds was logistics. They were guests in most of the areas they occupied and had to abide by the local customs. They also could not consume all the local resources in an area, it would hinder growth and foster resentment. Thus the Red Army had to make sure they gained as much as possible from battle. The capture of Tingzhou in 1929 was essentially an economic choice. There the Red Army captured 2 arsenals and a clothing factory. The Red Army also focused strongly on propaganda. Early on propaganda teams were created, each assigned 5 soldiers. These teams had one oratory section and one product section. The oratory section was responsible for spreading propaganda in village markets, centers and halls. The products section was responsible for creating propaganda products. They would go around towns placing up signs and banners to increase awareness. Typically in a month the propaganda teams would hold a large mass rally in the center part of town to vie for local support. They would try to tailor their messaging to meet the local needs. These efforts would help recruitment, elicit support and differentiate them from the run of the mill bandits. If the conditions became ripe and a local populace was sufficiently agitated by social inequalities, the Red Army leaders would make a call for action to topple the local government and push the people to create their own. The Red Army was very careful on who to replace in such situations as the local leadership typically proved useful at transitioning. The Red Army had a selective way of executing key leaders who would be the most troublesome towards their communist needs.  When a new local government sprung up, the CCP would entice everyone to join the Red Army. This saw people join different parts of the Red Army. For teenagers there was the communist youth organization which was basically a feeder unit into the Red Army. The Red Guard was a local militia group that protected the community and supplemented the Red Army when needed. Those who proved themselves capable could join the Red Army proper. The Red Army instituted a series of organizational changes to establish loyalty to the CCP and allow for a dispersion of forces. Initially the Red Army applied the Russian Soviet and NRA models, but changes were necessary to meet local conditions. When the 4th Red Army captured Sanwan, Mao Zedong established party rule over the army by using party representatives and soldier soviets. The party representatives and army leaders held equal footing, allowing for both to have greater oversight into the issues and concerns of the other. It was commonplace in Warlord armies and the NRA for soldiers to be abused. This quasi democratization allowed soldiers to have a greater voice. On June 22nd of 1929 the 4th Red Army held their 7th representative congress in Longyan. Mao Zedong spoke much of party control over the military, ruffling a lot of feathers and would contribute to his failure at becoming the Front Committee secretary General that year. In the wake of that loss, Mao Zedong departed for Fujian to assist the mass mobilization going on over there whence he became quite ill. During that period, Chen Yi representing the 4th Red Army in Shanghai reported to the Central Committee. Based on his reports they authorized political communist control over the Red Army units. At least vindicated that his ideas were accepted, Mao Zedong attended the 9th Representative Congress in Gutian county of Fujian. Here he would issue a famous statement “On the Rectification of Incorrect Ideas in the Party” . It outlined his views on the Red Army and what needed to be improved. That same conference gave a platform to Mao Zedong and Zhu De to push for further centralization of power within the Red Army. The Red Army had suffered numerous casualties, desertions and received numerous new recruits. Because of this Mao Zedong believed the military structure needed change. There was also the issue of factionalism within the Red Army. Mao Zedong believed more educated and centralized control would help maintain the unity of the armed forces.  In December of 1929 a conference was held in Gutian seeing more initiatives adopted to help consolidate military power under party control. The Red Army adopted the political commissariat system from the Soviet Red Army, placing greater control of the army into the hands of the political commissar. The political commissar had political training, but did not have the same power over political operations. The introduction of former KMT and NRA members into the Red Army increased a need for more political indoctrination. Alongside this the Gutian Conference reiterated the equality amongst soldiers and civilians. Mao Zedong and Zhu De understood the important role of military training for the Red Army. Two major groups of soldiers already had formal training, former NRA and graduates of the Peasant movement training institute. Many of these men were lost in the initial battles however leading the Red Army to be filled with peasants with little to any combat experience. Another issue was the Red Guards lacking any experience, requiring Red Officers to be pulled from front lines to help them out. By developing a competent and trained local force, this further allowed the Red Army to advance outside its borders and expand.  With a lack of discipline a lot of property damage became common. To combat this, Mao Zedong initially instituted three disciplines in 1927 (1) obey orders in all your actions; (2) don't take anything from the workers and peasants; and (3) when attacking the local bullies, turn over whatever you take from them. This was expanded further into 8 by 1930 (1) Put back the doors [you have taken down for bed boards]; (2) put back the straw [you have used for bedding]; (3) pay fairly for what you buy; (4) return everything you borrow; and (5) pay for anything you damage. Mao and Zhu later added two more points of attention: (7) defecate only in latrines, and (8) do not steal from captives. The purpose of such rules was two-fold, to curb reckless soldierly behavior and to not piss off local communities.  Yet discipline alone does not guarantee success in war. The 4th Army held many senior leaders who had trained at Baoding, Whampoa and the Yunnan military schools. But at the lower levels the military experience was quite uneven. The Red Army needed to create a universal standard. Mao Zedong established the first training unit, the 31st regiment training units in December of 1927 at the Longjiang academy in the Jingangshan mountains. Zhu De and Chen Yi would create similar units. Once in Jiangxi the Red Army established mobile schools that accompanied the forces to the front lines. The pressure from the KMT led encirclement campaigns made it impossible to implement a normal education system. While schools were important, for many soldiers the only way to learn was from doing. Sometimes conditions did not allow for the training, and the students were thrust into combat immediately. Mao stated “to learn warfare through warfare—this is our chief method.” However many of the new recruits and junior leaders never received formal education and found classes and training boring. To retain interest, practical exercises were used. By the beginning of 1930, the 4th Red Army had expanded from Jinggangshan to Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian. Additionally 7 other Soviets were established in the interior of China, demonstrating the viability of the CCP model. For a large part it was the efforts of Mao Zedong and Zhu De that allowed the CCP to thrive. However major issues loomed externally and internally. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Mao Zedong had forged a seed in the Jinggangshan mountains the would grow into the base of a new 4th Red Army. Forming alliances with local groups and adopting new innovative strategies to survive allowed the 4th Red Army to expand and with it Mao Zedong's career. Yet externally and internally enemies lay everywhere.   

In our largest-ever gathering in "the bunker," scholars David Gioe, Huw Dylan, and Elena Grossfeld discuss their latest article, "The Autocrat's Indispensable Service: How Russian Intelligence Secured Vladimir Putin's Regime After Failing Him in Ukraine." With the Prez presiding over the conversation from the end of the long table, we dive into a pressing research puzzle: Why does Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence operative himself, struggle to use intelligence data effectively in decision-making? Professor David Gioe is Visiting Professor of Intelligence and International Security in the Department of War Studies. He joins the department as a British Academy Global Professor. He is Associate Professor of History at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he also serves as History Fellow for the Army Cyber Institute. David is also Director of Studies for the Cambridge Security Initiative and co-convener of its International Security and Intelligence program. Elena Grossfeld is a PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London (KCL), and a member of King's Intelligence and Security Group (KISG). Her research interests are strategic culture of Russian/Soviet intelligence, Cold War, and information warfare. Dr Huw Dylan is a Reader in Intelligence and International Security at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He is also an Associated Researcher at the Centre for Intelligence Studies in the Norwegian Intelligence School. His work is focused on intelligence in the Cold War and beyond, with a specific focus on deception operations, intelligence in diplomacy, and covert action.  -------------------- LINKS: The Autocrat's Indispensable Service: How Russian Intelligence secured Vladimir Putin's Regime after failing him in Ukraine: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13691481241258108 The autocrat's intelligence paradox: Vladimir Putin's (mis)management of Russian strategic assessment in the Ukraine War: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13691481221146113 -------------------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL https://buymeacoffee.com/inthebunkerwithdarth https://www.patreon.com/c/IntheBunkerwithDarth 

This is a conversation with the three esteemed authors of a paper entitled “The autocrat's intelligence paradox: Vladimir Putin's (mis)management of Russian strategic assessment in the Ukraine War. Huw Dylan, David V. Gioe and Elena Grossfeld ---------- This article argues that Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is illustrative of this broader, though understudied, pattern of autocratic mismanagement of strategic intelligence. The invasion was both spurred and accompanied by a catastrophic intelligence failure, the responsibility for which rests with Vladimir Putin, the arbiter of a system with limited capacity to offer dispassionate strategic assessments. His failure is characteristic of autocratic regimes assessing foreign developments, including Putin's Soviet predecessors. ---------- LINKS: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/17/putins-kgb-past-didnt-help-him-with-intelligence-ukraine/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13691481241258108 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13691481221146113 ---------- Professor David Gioe is Visiting Professor of Intelligence and International Security in the Department of War Studies. He joins the department as a British Academy Global Professor. He is Associate Professor of History at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he also serves as History Fellow for the Army Cyber Institute. David is also Director of Studies for the Cambridge Security Initiative and co-convener of its International Security and Intelligence program. Dr Huw Dylan is a Reader in Intelligence and International Security at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He is also an Associated Researcher at the Centre for Intelligence Studies in the Norwegian Intelligence School. His work is focused on intelligence in the Cold War and beyond, with a specific focus on deception operations, intelligence in diplomacy, and covert action. Elena Grossfeld is a PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London (KCL), and a member of King's Intelligence and Security Group (KISG). Her research interests are strategic culture of Russian/Soviet intelligence, Cold War, and information warfare. ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ ----------

Pavel Golubev gave a lecture on, “Queer(ing) Art of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Emigration, 1890s—1940s” on Thursday, March 7, 2024 at 4:00 pm in 206 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Drive. About the Lecture: The Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia invites you to a lecture about the queer imagery in the art of Russia, and its colonies from the late Imperial period to the early Soviet era. The talk will explore the evolution of the homosexual narrative in Russian art through the lens of gender and sexuality studies. It details how artists navigated the complex interplay of societal norms, personal identification, and creative expression and how the shifts in political and cultural landscapes influenced the representation and perception of themes and subjects in art referring to same-sex love, desire, and sexual identity from the late 19th century to the 1930s. The focus of the lecture stands on key artistic movements and notable figures whose work challenged conventional norms during a time of significant sociopolitical upheaval, such as Konstantin Somov, Leon Bakst, Alexander Nikolaev (also known as Usto Mumin), Pavel Tchelitchew, and many others. This event will intrigue anyone interested in the intersection of art history, gender studies, and Russian/Soviet sociocultural history, providing a perspective into a largely unexplored subject in recent years. About the Lecturer: Pavel Golubev is a visiting research scholar in the History of Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Moscow State University and subsequently defended his thesis there. Pavel Golubev is responsible for the multivolume edition of the diaries of Russian symbolist artist Konstantin Somov, a monograph about him, and a retrospective show at the Odesa Fine Art Museum in 2019. In Odesa, Golubev headed the exhibitions there before leaving Ukraine for the United States in 2022.

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History (Oxford UP, 2023) presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and/or Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise, highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all, they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars and spies. A set of new maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover. Eileen Kane teaches modern European history at Connecticut College, where she also directs the Program in Global Islamic Studies. A historian of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, she is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. She is the 2017 recipient of a Mellon New Directions Fellowship and is currently writing a history of Jewish and Muslim migrations from Russia to the Middle East. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is a historian of exchanges between the Soviet Eurasia and the Middle East. She is finishing a book called The Eastern International: Culture, Power, and Politics in Soviet-Arab Relations. Her articles have appeared in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Ab Imperio, Iranian Studies, and Mediterranean Politics. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. A historian of modern Arabic literature and its global ties, she is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow. Her current book project, Another East: Arab Writers, Moscow Dreams, reconstructs some literary legacies of Arab-Russian and Arab-Soviet cultural ties during the long 20th century. She also writes about Arabic theatre for global audiences. Tugrul Mende holds an M.A in Arabic Studies. He is based in Berlin as a project coordinator and independent researcher.

Today's guest is Russian/Soviet historian and maroon-blooded Aggie Roger Reese! Roger is Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies at Texas A&M University. He specializes in the social history of the Imperial Russian and Soviet militaries and has written seven books on the Russian armed forces. He received his BA in history from Texas A&M and moved to Austin to earn his MA and PhD from the University of Texas. Following his commissioning from Texas A&M, Roger served in the United States Army from 1981-1984. Roger's many books include Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the Red Army, 1925-1941 (Kansas), Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II (Kansas), and The Imperial Russian Army, in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917 (Kansas). The latter won the World War One Historical Association's Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Book Prize. His most recent book is Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine (Oklahoma). Roger's articles have been published in leading journals that include the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, War & Society, and the Journal of Military History. In 2003, he was awarded The Society for Military History's Moncado Prize for the outstanding article in military history for "Red Army Professionalism and the Communist Party, 1918-1941." He sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, and Histories. Roger is an exceptional teacher and received Texas A&M's University Distinguished Achievement Award in the Area of Teaching in 2009. Join us for a very interesting chat with Roger about the Russian military through time, researching in post-Cold War Russian archives, being in the Aggie Corps of Cadets, Aggie football, Willie Nelson, Tolstoy, and the common theme it seems of this podcast - serendipity. Shoutout to Fargo's Pit BBQ in Bryan, Texas (though Roger claims his brisket is the best around)! Rec.: 11/03/2023

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic Studies Press, 2022) highlights the main features and trends of Russian “political” thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and visual sources that point towards depersonalization and secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica. Endre Sashalmi is a professor of history at the Department of Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Pécs (Hungary), and is a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of academic interest and research are comparisons of Western and Russian political thought and political iconography from the 15th to the 18th century, as well as the issue of state formation in Russia and in early modern Europe. Steven Usitalo is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, modern genocide studies, and the history of film. He is the recipient of several research grants. He co-edited an anthology on Russian history and published a monograph on the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Dr. Usitalo is finishing a substantially revised Russian translation of his book on Mikhail Lomonosov. His research focuses on two areas: Russian/Soviet and Armenian film, and the history of the Roma in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. When time allows, he is at work on a study of the genocide of the Roma peoples on Soviet territory during World War II. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

• Knyzhka Corner Book Review: Winterkill by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch is set during the Holodomor of the 1930s and describes the conscious choice of Russian Soviet authorities to starve Ukrainian farmers and their families in order to impose Stalin's five-year plan • Feature Interview: In 2004 Victor Malarek launched his exposé the global network of human trafficking for sexual exploitataion The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade. In this interview he describes some of the horrific situations that young East Europeans found themselves in, and the dangers he faced in researching his book • Ukrainian Proverb of the Week • Other Items of Interest • Great Ukrainian Music!Tune in to the Vancouver edition of Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio every Saturday at 6pm PST on AM1320 CHMB and streaming here..Tune in to the Nanaimo edition on Wednesdays at 11am on air at 101.7FM or streaming online at CHLY Radio Malaspina.For podcast feed, transcipts, and links to reputable Ukrainian charities visit our website here. Support the show on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Photo: 1921. No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow PREVIEW: Victor David Hanson answering the inquiry, does the Russian (Soviet or Imperial Russian Army) quit when losing? Victor Hanson, Hoover.

Evaldas could have stayed in his native Lithuania and earned much more from doing comedy. After all, he started performing at a critical time in Lithuania when anyone who decided to perform was almost automatically a professional comedian.Instead, the hopeless romantic fan of stand up comedy came to the UK and started again from bottom of the barrel - doing open mic gigs all over the place to work his way up. All these because he saw a visiting pro and concluded he had to leave to get good. Your host Kuan-wen reunited with his victor - they both participated in a new act competition in Manchester in 2019. Your host came second; this episode's guest was the rightful winner. Evaldas talks about how he worked on his English to soften the accent and how he gets annoyed when the audience make notes of his accent rather than focusing on his jokes. He talks about the "East European" label as seen by audience in the UK, as most Brits know very little about his home country. You will also hear Evaldas' nuanced view on comedy sketches on social media, including his own ones, and the use of social media for comedians in general. Apart from comedy, the discussion also includes his take on the legacy of Russian/Soviet occupation in Lithuania---------------------------------Follow Evaldas on Instagram and Youtube Evaldas also produced a very interesting documentary on his experience of participating in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as a new-ish comedian. See the documentary here. Follow your host Kuan-wen on Instagram and Twitter---------------------------------00:53 Intro02:11 Evaldas' seemingly American accent04:58 Lithuania and Taiwan's “Small Country Syndrome”06:38 Evaldas would rather people focus on his jokes than on his accent (even if it is a praise)09:01 Private English lessons in the past and continue to work on his English pronunciation11:16 Being half Russian but not embracing the Russian side of heritage13:52 Comedy audiences from Eastern Europe15:36 Russian or English as foreign language in Lithuania17:34 Why Evaldas moved to the UK (Manchester first, then London)19:22 Lithuania's fast-growing comedy scene23:31 The regional “East European” identity26:30 Not yet addressing a harsh and poor East European childhood on stage27:26 A preference over American style comedy30:43 Evaldas' committed approach to comedy sketches on social media32:17 Social media as a comedian's necessary evil in this day and age----------------------------------If you like the episode, please share it and leave a review. For any comments or suggestions, please contact us on Instagram or email comedywithanaccent@gmail.com----------------------------------Podcast intro music by @Taigenkawabe

In Former President Richard Nixon's final book "Beyond Peace" he often wrote like a psychic of some kind.  He wrote: “The United States must lead. We must lead to open the eyes of those still blinded by despotism, to emboldened those who remain oppressed, and bring out from the dungeons of tyranny those who still live in darkness. The question remains whether the United States will meet its responsibilities of leadership beyond peace as it did to defeat the communists in the Cold War. History thrusts certain powers at certain times on to center stage. In this era, the spotlight shines on the United States. How long it stays with us – – and how brightly it shines – – will be determined by us alone. “Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose in the cadence of war…. Our contact at home and abroad will determine how well we improvise beyond peace.”"The failure of freedom would also have a profoundly negative global impact. The reestablishment of a dictatorship and a command economy in Russia would give encouragement to every dictator and would-be dictator in the world. Since an authoritarian Russia would be far more likely to adopt an aggressive foreign policy than a democratic Russia, freedom's failure would threaten peace and stability in Europe and around the world. If Russia turns away from democracy and economic freedom and we have not done everything possible to prevent it, we will bear a large measure of responsibility for the ominous consequences."Page 40"at the same time, the West must take note of warning signs on the horizon. Russian military thinking is becoming more nationalistic and more assertive in defense of Russia's interests in the other former Soviet states bordering on Russia, and more supportive of the use of military force as an instrument of foreign policy. Russian policy toward other post-Soviet nations represents the greatest dilemma for the United States. A new attempt by Moscow to rebuild its empire would be a tragedy for Russia and its neighbors alike. In view of the Russian-Soviet historical legacy, it is understandable that Russia's neighbors are sensitive to any signs of new assertiveness on Moscow's part."Page 61"I am convinced that the Russian people will not turn back to communism. But if they have no choice, they will turn to some kind of political dictatorship, which will at least promise the safety-net guarantees that were supposed to have been delivered by the communist regime."Page 81It seems he wrote about how to help Russia enter the 21st century and he wrote about what could happen if we failed to help them.  What he described on page 81 of his book sounds almost exactly like a perfect description of what did eventually happen in Russia and the rise of Vladamir Putin. In this episode we will listen to a casual interview President Nixon had on Russia, the old Soviet Union, and how to deal with them in the post Cold War, and it sounds like a lesson that can still be applied today.  Questions or comments at , Randalrgw1@aol.com , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcastsThanks for listening!!

The Netflix series The Last Czars and HBO's Chernobyl have (in very different ways) brought Russian & Soviet history to televisions across the world. In this episode, Ben sits down with fellow Russian historians Dr. Philippa Hetherington and Dr. Jonathan Waterlow to discuss their opinions on the two series, what they think they got right, and ways that producers and scholars might benefit most from collaboration on future projects. Philippa, who is a featured scholar in The Last Czars, shares her experience being interviewed, her impression of the show after seeing it, and her work to correct historical errors that viewers identified after release. This episode is a rebroadcast of RTN #141, which originally aired on Sept. 2, 2019. Tragically, Philippa Heatherington passed away on November 5, 2022 after a long fight with cancer. She was a brilliant scholar, an advocate for those living with cancer, and a genuinely delightful human being. You can learn more about her work at PhilippaHeatherington.com. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.  

Host | Matthew S WilliamsOn ITSPmagazine  

Host | Matthew S WilliamsOn ITSPmagazine  

Matthew Furlong from our Dialectics Deep Dive series returns to the show to discuss Valentin Nikolaevich Voloshinov, a Russian Soviet linguist, whose work has been influential in the field of literary theory and Marxist theory of ideology. Other links:   Vijay Prashad - "Looking Over the Horizon at Non-Alignment and Peace" (2022) https://thetricontinental.org/studies-on-contemporary-dilemmas-2-non-alignment-and-peace/   Vijay Prashad - "Why the United States Opposed the Historical Integration of Eurasia" (2022)  https://youtu.be/i1ukha-IphA   Vijay Prashad - "What Gives Imperialists the Right to Use the Word 'Democracy'?" (2022) https://youtu.be/efEdxJrBcIg   Breakthrough News - https://www.youtube.com/c/BreakThroughNews   Multipolarista - https://www.youtube.com/c/Multipolarista   Michael Brooks & Felix Biederman - "Alex Jones' Advice for Man Unwilling to Leave Parents' House" (2018) https://youtu.be/-65HmxjIzPI   Color Theory podcast w/ Ed Charbonneau - https://www.buzzsprout.com/1859353 Outro music:  "Human Language" by Aceyalone  Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

*** Please support us to keep bringing you in-depth coverage. Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/talkeasterneuropeIn this episode, Aga and Maciek sit down not with one but two guests, diving deep into the history of Russian/Soviet disinformation and memory politics, and linking it to the most recent events, including the partial mobilization in Russia and sham referenda in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The voices of our guests will seem familiar to our regular listeners, as Aga and Maciek were joined by Prof. Agnieszka Legucka of the Polish Institute of International Affairs and Dr. Maria Domańska of the Centre for Eastern Studies. The inspiration for our discussion was a recently published volume "Disinformation, Narratives and Memory Politics in Russia and Belarus", to which both of our guests contributed.Additional materials:"Disinformation, Narratives and Memory Politics in Russia and Belarus" - https://www.routledge.com/Disinformation-Narratives-and-Memory-Politics-in-Russia-and-Belarus/Legucka-Kupiecki/p/book/9781032251103"Forward, into the past! Russia's politics of memory in the service of ‘eternal' authoritarianism" - https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-report/2021-11-22/forward-past"The Set-up" by Vladimir Volkoff, https://archive.org/details/setup00volk/mode/2up Follow our guests:Prof. Legucka - https://www.pism.pl/analysts/Agnieszka_Legucka_en ; @ALegucka on TwitterDr. Domańska - https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/eksperci/maria-domanska ; @MDomanskaOSW on TwitterOur guests' previous episodes:Episode 34 "Pandemic, power and Putin forever" with Prof. Legucka - https://talkeasterneurope.eu/episodes/episode-34-pandemic-power-and-putin-forever-856Episode 71 "Putin's test of the West" with Prof. Legucka - https://talkeasterneurope.eu/episodes/episode-71-putins-test-of-the-west-434Episode 87 "Russian memory politics" with Dr. Domańska - https://talkeasterneurope.eu/episodes/episode-87-russian-memory-politics-762

A Russian & Soviet politician, Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91. He helped to take down the Iron Curtain and end the Cold War in 1991.  Join the Community! https://community.toddhuffshow.com/c/stack-of-stuff/

A Russian & Soviet politician, Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91. He helped to take down the Iron Curtain and end the Cold War in 1991.  Join the Community! https://community.toddhuffshow.com/c/stack-of-stuff/

Sean Farrington speaks to hospitality businesses about challenges the summer has brought them and reflects on the life of former Russian Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.

A Russian & Soviet politician, Mikhail Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91. He helped to take down the Iron Curtain and end the Cold War in 1991. Join the Community!https://community.toddhuffshow.com/c/stack-of-stuff/

In this episode Evgenia and I talk to Anya Bernstein about Nikolai Fyodorov, Cosmism, and Russian/Soviet anti-death utopias of the industrial age.Anya is a Professor of Anthropology at Harvard and the author of The Future of Immortality, a book about cosmism and transhumuanist movements in Russia. Check out her work.—Yasha LevineWant to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe

Within the strategy of countering the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many states are targeting Russian oligarchs with economic sanctions and other restrictive measures. But who are these oligarchs, and how do they live their lives? How did they build their wealth, and how did western capitalist elites benefit from their presence? Alison and Jerome discuss it with Elisabeth Schimpfossl, a sociologist expert in Russian elites, power and social inequality. Elisabeth lives in London and is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Policy at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. She also taught at a number of other universities in the UK (University College London, Liverpool University, Brunel University, University of Westminster), primarily in the field of Russian/Soviet politics and history.Russian Philanthrocapitalism and her other publications can be found on her website: https://schimpfossl.com/category/academic-publications/ Breaking the Fever is produced by Fiorella Lavorgna - https://www.bevocal.eu/

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with this in mind, that this episode of ‘Arguing History', takes a look at the subject of ‘Ukrainian Nationalism and the Russian / Soviet state'. To guide us in this intricate and not well know matter, are three superb historians: John-Paul Himka, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Alberta; David R. Stone, is a Professor in Russian Studies in the United States, Naval War College; Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. John-Paul Himka is an American-Canadian historian and retired professor of history of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Himka received his BA in Byzantine-Slavonic Studies and Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan in 1971 and 1977 respectively. The title of his Ph.D. dissertation was Polish and Ukrainian Socialism: Austria, 1867–1890. He received numerous awards for both excellence in teaching and in research. His work on Ukrainian history has been subject to widespread debate and discussion in Ukraine. David R. Stone, the William E. Odom Professor of Russian Studies at the Naval War College, joined the Strategy and Policy Department in 2015. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and a Ph.D. in history from Yale. He previously taught at Kansas State University. His book “Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union” (2000) won the Shulman Prize of ASEEES and the Best First Book Prize of the Historical Society. He has also published “A Military History of Russia” (2006) and “The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917” (2015). He edited “The Soviet Union at War, 1941-1945” (2010). He is the author of several dozen articles on Russian military history and foreign policy. Alexander Watson is Professor of History at Goldsmiths, University of London. His latest book is The Fortress. The Great Siege of Przemysl (London: Allen Lane, 2019). This is the story of the First World War's longest siege, and of the opening of the brutal tragedy which befell East-Central Europe during the twentieth century. It follows a ragtag Habsburg garrison of old soldiers as they desperately defend Central Europe from Russian invasion, and recounts the vicious fighting, starvation and anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing which began in the region already in 1914. The book won a Society for Military History 2021 Distinguished Book Award and was a BBC History Magazine and Financial Times ‘Book of the Year'. The Times newspaper praised it as ‘a masterpiece'. ‘Vividly written and well researched …it deserves to become a classic of military history.' His two prior books were also award winners. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House's International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time Eric welcomes back to CounterPunch Radio author and historian Shalon van Tine for a discussion of the greatest Russian/Soviet films of all time. Eric and Shalon present their top 5 films and go back and forth discussing various aspects of these films and filmmakers. If you are a film nerd or just a student of history, this is an indispensable conversation for you exclusively at CounterPunch. More The post Shalon van Tine appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

Virtually everyone is talking about Ukraine which makes it a bit curious that we're even asking whether we should talk about the Russian – Soviet conflict in our classroom. This week we posed the question on #Edchat. Follow on Twitter: @shiftparadigm @HarveyAlvy1 @tomwhitby @sgthomas1973 @bamradionetwork @jonHarper70bd Ed Chat Archive: http://edchat.pbworks.com/ Mark Weston Ph.D. has worked at all levels of the educational system — classroom, school, congress, US Dept of education, technology companies and universities. He's currently an Associate Dean at Georgia Tech. Harvey Alvy has served as a teacher, principal, and university professor, and was honored to be a National Distinguished Principal. He is the author of Fighting for Change in Your School: How to Avoid Fads and Focus on Substance, and co-author of Learning From Lincoln: Leadership Practices for School Success.

Vladimir Putin's decision to launch a brutal invasion of Ukraine has sparked a coordinated wave of sanctions from the US and members of the European Union. This may be the most comprehensive set of sanctions that Moscow has seen, but it is certainly not the first. In this episode, Bob & Ben speak with Kristy Ironside, who specializes in the history of the Russian & Soviet economy, for a conversation about the long history of western sanctions against Russia, the Ruble's tenuous position in the global economy, and how Russia's long-term economic isolation has, and may continue to, impact people around the world. Although things remain uncertain, it is our hope that these sanctions help to bring an end to the tragedy that Vladimir Putin has unleashed against the people of Ukraine. Dr. Kristy Ironside is Assistant Professor of Russian, Soviet & International History at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and the author of A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union, 1945-1964 (Harvard University Press, 2021). You can follow her on twitter at @Kristy_Ironside. This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.

WAF Episode 19 Hello! Welcome to episode 19 of the Winning at Fibromyalgia podcast! I feel a weird sense of pride that I am inching toward the number 20. First of all, I want to acknowledge the tragedy and injustice going on in Ukraine. I am originally from Slovakia and during the era of Soviet union, Slovakia had Russian/Soviet military bases all over the country. We were still Czechoslovakia when we came under the political influence of the Soviet union in 1948. We were their “satellite” state until 1989 when the Velvet revolution happened and Communism and Soviet union fell apart. I do NOT know war. My heart goes out to ALL the Ukrainians who did NOT sign up for this, who did NOT ask to be invaded. I am completely horrified by what unfolded this week. I hope and pray for miracles on the ground there. I held my first virtual training on chronic pain last week, it was a success, I had one attendee who was a rheumatologist comment that she learned more from my presentation than she did in her fellowship. That was so good to hear and just solidified my conviction to continue doing this work. I will be doing more of these and I will always post on my website. So if you are not subscribed to my website, please do so right now so that you can be kept abreast of what is going on  www.winningatfibromyalgia.com So today, I am going to share with you how life and mind and the body are interconnected in my OWN life. I teach my clients somatic tracking and fierce self-compassion and I practice it myself, but it does not always go as I want it to. So this past week was my vacation week and it started off well enough. I gave the virtual talk on Fibromyalgia on Saturday. I joined a virtual coaching program for female physicians on Sunday. Life was good  I had big plans for how I am going to declutter my basement office  and all the things I was going to do for my business. On Tuesday, while exploring cape cod with my son I found out I was on call for Rheumatology. ON my vacation – big fail in planning on my end. But it did not take too long, and I was able to solicit one of my colleagues help in switching the call. Which was great Except the staff would contact me basically every day until Friday about one or the other thing happening with my patients. I gently re-directed them to an on-call provider. Then, an upsetting situation related to a close family member/members was culminating on Wednesday/Thursday. I do not have permission to share publicly but it has to do with rejection – I asked to be somewhere with a close family member, and I was told no. And I did not take it well. I felt rejected, hurt and I took it personally. So I said some harsh words – something along the lines, don't ever contact me again then. The story already started unfolding 2 months ago but it was kind of culminating this week. On Thursday I had a planned appointment for pelvic ultrasound due to some health issues I am dealing with. I woke up Thursday morning with a pelvic/bladder type of pain. I am not kidding you. I was initially surprised and still a little sleepy trying to figure out what is happening. And then it dawned on me – my body is experiencing pain IN ANTICIPATION of the pelvic ultrasound! I was completely fascinated. This has never happened to me like that before so that was all new to me. I lay down in bed and decided to try a little somatic tracking. And it worked! Within minutes, probably. I basically was sitting with that pain (actually I was laying down but you get the point), I was trying to describe it to myself, the best I could, and was telling my brain, listen buddy, I know what is going on, we don't like the pelvic ultrasound, it can be annoying but our track record of surviving these is 100 percent – that's pretty good right? So why don't you let go. So that got better. I was so relieved. Then I checked the news and found out about the attack on Ukraine – and almost immediately my back started hurting. In between my shoulder blades. Stabbing/burning, annoying pain I get mostly with driving, or when I have to work longer than I want to basically anytime I engage in activities I don't fully enjoy or when I cannot relax. Then I had the said ultrasound – and it was not normal but again, nothing horribly major. Then more news on Ukraine. And then I was reminded again about the sore family situation when I felt rejected (I still do). So most of these things were out of my control. And they were affecting me. And I felt I was kind of losing it. I was catastrophizing and exaggerating: The world is falling apart (although one could argue that when innocent people are being slaughtered the world really is falling apart); my body is falling apart and my family is rejecting me. I needed help. I did ask for help and received a lot of online support and suggestions on how to deal with the overwhelm over the news of war in Ukraine. One perspective stood out – from a friend who grew up in war time. She wrote: “I grew up in wartime. It started when I was 3 years old and went on for 8 years. I remember rationed oil, good and the long lines in front of bakeries and supermarkets. I missed schools and so many final exams. I well remember the red alarm and my parents rushing us out the door to go take shelter under the staircase. I remember the taped windows and the ruins of the bombed sites. War was ingrained into our lives from the beginning. It was part of our household, part of our daily life. We were awaiting the red alarm every damn night and having fun to reunite with the neighbors under the staircase or in the parking garage. …Life was going on. We were traveling, meeting with friends, celebrating birthdays at the same time that we were lining up outside phone kiosks after each attack to call our loved ones to make sure they are alive”. She was a young child, the war was engrained in her upbringing. This is not to diminish he tragedy of what is happening. My friend's words were: This may sound absurd, but the passion and hope for living always overcomes killing…Its time for us to stop hate and war. This gave me perspective. It is ok for me to be upset over the world's events. It is ok for ALL of US to be upset. Because what is happening is horrid and unjust. At the same time, I am not helping anyone by freaking out. So I took a pause, I took a pause to breathe, to collect myself, to decide what to do next. While not being ok with all of this. But taking the pause and breathing did help me calm my brain. I felt at peace – still upset but realizing that I cannot help anyone by wrecking my mind and body over this. It helps to be calm and maybe plan out my next steps on how I can help. My Doctor called me about the ultrasound the next day and we discussed the findings. She told me my options. I heard her out, without freaking out. I am not dying. My situation with my family is not sorted out. When I am ready I will reach out to apologize for my harsh words. And we will see what happens. They may choose to forgive or not. We may be in each other's lives again or we may not. IN the meantime, I am giving myself grace and patience and love. Because nobody else will love me and be my best friend if I am not my best friend first. If I don't give myself what I need, nobody else will do it. That's the thought I want to leave you all tonight. Meet yourself where you are at, give yourself all the love and all that you need. Like you would do to someone you truly love and care about. Because that person is you first. Warmly Martina Ziegenbein, MD From my friend's FB page: Write a letter to your MP asking to remove Russia from the SWIFT payment system and establish a No Fly zone over Ukraine. I have provided templates in the comments. Educate yourself and others. Remain aware of your sources and be wary of disinformation. Sign this petition to help limit civilian casualties and give Ukraine a fighting chance. https://www.change.org/CloseTheSky Donate. Below is a list of organizations, all vetted by Ukrainians either in Ukraine or Canada. https://unitedhelpukraine.org/... OR https://www.facebook.com/UnitedHelpUkraine.org/ https://www.redcross.ca/ (The federal government will match donations made to the Canadian Red Cross to help bring humanitarian relief to Ukraine) https://bcufoundation.com/donate-today/ (Friends of Ukraine Defense Forces Fund (FUDF Fund) https://www.ucc.ca https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ (a Ukrainian organization operating on the grounds in Ukraine; I would hold off on this one since all banks are currently frozen and therefore relief efforts must be through other sources) For other resources on how you can help as well as information on what is going on from people on the ground, please visit: linktr.ee/RazomForUkraine

Photo:   The Hall of Space Technology in the Tsiolkovsky* State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics, Kaluga, Russia. The exhibition includes the models and replicas of the following Russian/Soviet inventions: the first satellite, Sputnik 1 (a ball under the ceiling); the first spacesuits (lower-left corner); the first human spaceflight module, the Vostok 3KA (center); the first Molniya-type satellite (upper right corner); the first space rover, Lunokhod 1 (lower right); the first space station, Salyut 1 (left); the first modular space station, Mir (upper left). *[The honest-to-goodness genius Konstantin Tsiolkovky] #HotelMars: ISS continues combined NASA, Roscosmos and ESA endeav]or on Nauka Module and ESA robotic arm.  @Russianspaceweb Anatoly Zak. David Livingston, SpaceShow.com http://www.russianspaceweb.com/protected/mlm-era-activation.html#2022_0124

"My dad is considered to be one of the few, maybe the only American G.I. who in World War II fought against the Germans in both the American and the Soviet armies …. He hid out for a couple of days until a Russian Tank Unit rolled into the small village, and then very carefully – my dad was a very shrewd guy – he found the right time to present himself to the Russian soldiers. He had a pack of Lucky Strikes cigarettes, and he knew a few words of Russian, two of which were amerikanskii tovarish, American comrade. Well, the Russian Soviet soldiers looked at him like he just dropped off of a Martian spaceship: 'Who is this guy? Where did he come from?'" - Ambassador John Beyrle The Ambassadorial Series is a one-of-a-kind docuseries featuring in-depth interviews with eight of the living former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and the Soviet Union. In eight, hour-long podcast episodes, the ambassadors recall their experiences in strikingly personal terms. They share insights from high-stakes negotiations and reflections on the challenges and dangers they sometimes faced. The ambassadors discuss a range of geopolitical issues from their decades of experience, including the Soviet Union's breakup and the tense months that preceded it, the 1991 attempted coup, President Yeltsin's 1993 standoff, the early years of President Vladimir Putin, Russia's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. The ambassadors also discuss nuclear, cyber, and economic cooperation, the impact of sanctions, and how social media and other technology changed their ability to communicate with the Russian people, among much else.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. I'm one of the pastors here along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy, and if you're new or visiting, we'd love to connect with you. Do that through the connection card, either the physical copy that you can get at the door, or the virtual one that you can get at the website or in our app.That said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's Word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you sent Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, the law God through whom you created absolutely everything in Jesus, you came. And you lived a perfect life, a life of perfection as decreed by God the Father. And you did that in order to present yourself as a substitute, as a sacrifice for our sin, for our lack of perfection, or even a lack of desire to pursue moral perfection. And Jesus, we thank you for the sermon on the mountain, which you show us the way into the kingdom of God is not through anything that we do. It's not through pretending to be righteous. It's through repentance of the fact that we are not righteous. That's how we enter.And then you do call us to the same standard of perfection. And we do understand that there's a gap between our performance and your standard of perfection. And we have two options with that gap of what to do. Either we can pretend that we have met that gap with our own righteousness, or we repent and keep going. Let us be at people who, like Saint Paul said, "Not that I'm already perfect or have attained perfection, but forgetting what lies behind, pursuing what lies ahead, I press on to seek the goal of the upper call of Christ, of God in Christ Jesus."Holy Spirit, come in to this place and show us how to fight hypocrisy on a daily basis by rooting our identity in you. We are accepted because of the sacrifice of Christ. We are yours. You know every single one of our sins, past, present, and future. And Jesus, you died on the cross for those sins. Everything was exposed there on the cross. Therefore, there's no need to cover up our sin, our lack of righteousness. There's no need to pretend. We can come to you, we can repent, and we can receive grace to keep going. And I pray that you bless our time with the holy word today and we pray this in Christ Jesus' name. Amen.Today, we are dealing with everyone's favorite topic of hypocrisy. We love hypocrisy, especially anyone else's hypocrisy. We love pointing out other people's hypocrisy, and we have lived through a day and age where hypocrisy has been evident. There's a spotlight on hypocrisy in all kinds of realms. I'll start with the easiest one of politics. The politicians who say put your masks on, they got the mask on, camera turns off, mask is off. Politicians who say, "No, you can't get your haircut. No haircuts for you, haircut only for me. Salon opens up just for me." Politicians who say, "No indoor dining except for me and my 15 closest friends and without social distancing." Politicians who say, "No travel, you can't travel, no vacations for any of you." And then they come back from Mexico with a nice tan.We see that in politicians. We see that in leaders in academic and all kinds. I think the most dangerous kind of hypocrisy is that of spiritual hypocrisy. Why? Because it has the greatest consequences, eternal consequences, not just for ourselves, but also for our testimony to others. When people see that we proclaim Christ with our mouth, but our lives are far from that profession of faith, it shakes people to the core.So one of the things I want to talk about today is how Jesus talks about hypocrisy. He doesn't talk about hypocrisy of do as I say, not as I do. That's the hypocrisy that we see in politics and in all kinds of realms. Jesus isn't talking about the hypocrisy of do as I say, but not as I do. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the hypocrisy of this is what I do. But in my heart, things are very different. It's not a disconnect between what we say and what we do. It's a disconnect between what we do and what we really want to do. It's a disconnect between what we do with our hands and what we do in our hearts. And Pastor Shane preached a masterful sermon last week landing, closing off Matthew five. But Jesus drops a bomb in Matthew 5:48 with this conclusion. He says, "Therefore you must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."So as children of God the Father, we have to emulate God the Father, who is absolutely perfect. He's holy, we are to grow in holiness. The goal is perfection. We're always to be pursuing perfection, full tilt, not that we'll ever attain it. But we always need to be aspiring to it. Obviously, we'll never achieve it. But there has to be growth, there has to be forward momentum. But the challenge is, what do we do with the gap, with the missing piece between our reality and the reality that God calls us to? Our reality, where we are now in our walk with the Lord and the perfection that God calls us to? What do we do with this gap, with this missing piece?Do we pretend that it isn't there? That's what Jesus is addressing today. Do you pretend to be better than you are? And do we cover it up with a mask of hypocrisy? And all of us do this to an extent. No one shows everybody just how sinful we are. It's too scary. We don't reveal our greatest struggles to everyone, but we should reveal them to God. And we should reveal them to ourselves. And that's where true transformation happens. You have a choice of what to do with that missing piece. You can either pretend that it's not there or you can repent and be honest with yourself and be honest with God.C.S. Lewis, talking about prayer, he said this. He said, "May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real thou I speak to." It's about being real with God. And that's how we fight religion works righteousness. There's a difference between religious righteousness and real righteousness. Religious righteousness focuses primarily on behavior. Just change your behavior. Just fix how you act. Real righteousness is all about the transformation of the heart. It's about embracing that what God is calling us to in the heart, God I love you, and I love your standards and I want to pursue moral perfection and I know I can't do it enough myself. Forgive me, give me grace, give me the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's what transforms you from being religious to being a real follower of the Lord.Religion is all about what you do. Real Christianity is why you do it. Purify the why, and the what will take care of itself. And this is how we develop true spiritual character, not just grow, and being and playing the role of spiritual characters. So today, we're in Matthew six, one through 18. I'm going to read the whole text here to set up our time, and we'll dig right in. Matthew six, one through 18."Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. That's when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So that your giving may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray at the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their award. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points just to frame up our time. First, we look at hypocritical mercy, prayer and fasting. Then we'll look at authentic mercy, prayer and fasting. And then we'll dig into the motivation for authenticity.First of all, hypocritical mercy, prayer and fasting. So Jesus demands perfection. It's hard to pursue perfection so instead of pleasing God the Father, in pursuing perfection, we often settle in pleasing not God the Father, but the people around us. So that's why verse 48, 5:48, Jesus says, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Command, and then the very next verse, he says, "Be careful to not practice your righteousness in front of people." Be perfect. Be careful. Why? Because Jesus is fully aware of our propensity, our heart's propensity for self deception.So this is verse one, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you." This can be metaphorical or literal. The Pharisees would actually hire musicians to go on ahead of them to say, "We're handing out money. So everyone meet us at the crossroads intersection.", in order to draw attention to themselves, "As the hypocrites do in the synagogues, in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, they've received their award."Verse five about prayer, they're praying in the street corners and synagogues, "That they may be seen by others." So their primary prayer life is public that they may be seen. How do you know that you are a hypocrite in prayer? You know you're a hypocrite in prayer when perhaps that community or with a group of other Christians, you pray to God, but when you are with God one on one, you have nothing to say. And you're bored with God. God has become a friend of a friend. When there's someone else there who knows God better, you can connect with God. But when you're on your own, you don't have a living relationship with Him. It gets kind of awkward, you have nothing to say. It's hypocrisy there.Verse 16 talks about fasting. "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others." So their goal, hypocritical spirituality, hypocritical piety is to please people. And here we are faced with a question. Honestly, what is more valuable to you, people's opinion of you, or God's opinion of you? People's approval and acceptance of you, or God's approval and acceptance of you? Do you fear people more than God? Fear of people, fear of God, the age old question.And this is really important, because we crave attention, acceptance, approval. We are approval junkies, so to speak. We do things for the proverbial slap on the back. So people notice, and people give you encouragement, kudos, good job. And how does this apply? So my wife and I were talking about how does this apply in real life, because no one's walking around and praying on streets. No one's walking around with a trumpet and saying, "Hey, come to this intersection, and we'll give money." No one's really doing that.Well, one of the places this hypocrisy really applies is within the church community itself. And that's what Jesus, the Pharisees were in that religious community. And that's kind of where to play. And how does this work out in real life? I'll just give you a few examples. When a guy sees a really great Christian girl who loves the Lord, and he wants to pursue her in dating or courting or dating or marriage, whatever, and all of a sudden, now he's in community group. Now he is serving. Now he's carrying his Bible around with him. Now he's memorizing Bible verses. Now he's really worshiping. Now he's really getting into loving God. It's great if that's real and vice versa. It could be a gal pursuing, getting attention.Sometimes it's husbands and wives, you want to score points with your spouse. And you do that with morning devotion and coffee, "Baby, I made you coffee. And by the way, I'm reading scripture." And all of a sudden, she's like, "My spouse is so spiritual." It could work that way. Children and parents, parents with children, we want our kids to think that we are sometimes better Christians than we really are. So we pretend around them and kids definitely, with parents, if you grew up in a Christian house, you know exactly how you need to act with your parents in a way for them to get off your back with your with your Christianity, so that you can do what you really want.I've seen this play out and I was like this is my favorite thing. It's not my favorite thing. But I see it too often. It's comical to me. Every September, every September, some college student comes up to me to introduce themselves, and they make an effort for me to remember their names. And I'm like, "That's weird. Never met you before. Cool." The very next Sunday is parents' weekend. Their parents fly up from Texas, from Georgia, and then they bring their parents to me, "Hi, Pastor Jan." And I'm like, my first two years of ministry, I had no idea what's going on. And then after that, I never see him again. I was getting played. I was getting played by hypocritical Christian college students.So does this apply to us? Yes, yes. Why? Because we want people to think good, it feels good for people to think that we are good. It feels good for people to think that we are doing the right things. And like there, then you would ask why the desire to do good. Why the desire to be approved of doing good because there's a moral compass in every single one of our hearts, and we know that it's better to be good than bad. And for many non Christians, this right here, people's approval is also a hang up for two ways. First, you say as a non Christian, why do I need the gospel? Everyone around me thinks I'm a good person. I'm already a good person, because I have the approval of the people around me. And here, what Jesus is getting at is the approval of the people around you doesn't matter as much as the approval of God.What does God think of you? What's the point of getting approval from fallen people who have lowered the standards of God? Or sometimes with unbelievers, you're interested in the Gospel, you understand your need for grace, you understand your need for God in your life, you understand your need for repentance, but you understand also that if you devote yourself to God, if you become a Christian, you will lose the approval and acceptance of the people in your life, perhaps the people in your office or your family or your community.John 12:42-43. "Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be pulled out of the synagogue for they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." This ravenous hunger for the approval and praise of people was the besetting sin of the Pharisees, and often it's the besetting sin of ourselves. We crave the approval of people. John 5:44, "How can you believe when you receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?"Jesus here says several times do not do as the hypocrites do, but he doesn't just say it like that. He says, "Do not be like the hypocrites.", verse five, in verse eight, "You must not be like the hypocrites, do not be like them." Now he's getting not just at action but at identity. He's not just saying, "Do not do what the hypocrites do." He's saying, "Do not be like the hypocrites." He's getting at identity. What were the hypocrites rooting their identity in? What were they? They were rooting their identity in what people thought of them. Look at them, they pray so well. Look at them, they give. They're so generous. Look at them, they fast. They're so self controlled. They're so righteous. They're so godly. Their identity was being rooted in the approval of people. And Jesus says, "Do not be like them. Don't root your identity in people's approval. Root your identity in God's approval."What is a hypocrite? Basically, in Greek, the word means actor, acting consciously or unconsciously, where the outside contradicts the inside. And you're so much better on the outside. The facade is so much nicer than the inside. Hypocrisy and this is what I'll just say because a lot of people are like, "Christians are all hypocrites. I don't go to church because there's too many hypocrites there." And my answer to that is join the club. There's plenty of room. Welcome. We're all hypocrites. So in one sense, we all struggle with it.So what is hypocrisy? Hypocrisy is not failing to live up to standards that you set or that God sets. That's not hypocrisy. That's human frailty. We're all sinners. We're all broken. And we are to pursue perfection through repentance. So hypocrisy isn't failing to live up to the standards that you aspire to. It's pretending to meet them, while failing to embrace them with your heart. It's pretending to meet the standards of God, "Yes, I've arrived or yes, I'm pursuing these standards." But deep in your heart, you're not. Deep in your heart, you're pursuing other things. And we talked about this in terms of imagination. Well, God doesn't captivate your imagination, something else does. So in your heart, you can be a wicked sinner pursuing wicked things. But on the outside, you look like everything's wonderful.That's the hypocrisy Jesus is talking about. It's not the gap between what we say and what we do. It's the gap between what we do and what we love. That's what Jesus is getting at. The other thing I want to point out here is three times Jesus says when you, when you give to the needy, when you pray, when you fast. He's not saying if but when, meaning this is expected. This is expected of the Jews at the time, that was basic Judaic piety. It's actually Muslim piety, five of the pillars, these three are three of the five, including the other two are visiting Mecca, pilgrimage to Mecca and reciting the creed. So people of all religions, people of all religions and nations and creeds, we know that it's good to be generous, it's good to help the needy, and it's good to pray and it's good to fast.The assumption is we do these things. We know these things are good. And most people want to be generous and want to be known for giving. Most people pray. Very few people I've ever met who say, "I have never prayed." Even as an unbeliever, there are those situations that you get into when you're vulnerable, when you feel weak, when you feel helpless, that the natural cry of your heart, something just inside calls out to the supernatural, we can't but pray. And this is our heart's witness to the existence of God. And many people even today fast. Fasting has been a fad as of late. People talk about intermittent fasting, extended fasting, fasting from social media, fasting from entertainment, fasting from alcohol, sober October. So these things are part and parcel of our lives.So Jesus says when, we do these things, there's a way to do it that's right. And there's a way to do it to feed your ego. And Jesus said, when you do it for the approval of people, you have received your award, you get what you're after, but that's all you get. He's saying there's two rewards. There's rewards that you get from people and there's a reward that you get from God, approval from people and delight of God.So this brings us to the second point, authentic mercy, prayer and fasting. Authentic giving or mercy in verse three says, "When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. So that your giving maybe in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." One of the things that comes to mind immediately is if you've been attentively reading the Sermon on the Mount, you'll all automatically you ask, "Well, how do I reconcile this with what it says in Matthew 5:14 through 16, where Jesus says, 'You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a mat, a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.'"?So on the one hand, Jesus is saying you need to do good work so people see them so they glorify God. On the other hand, he's saying there are things that you need to do so people do not see, so they do not glorify you, but they glorify God. So what's he saying? A.B. Bruce puts it like this, "We are to show when tempted to hide and hide when tempted to show." Jesus has a separation between our good works and our personal piety, our personal devotion to God. Our good works, that can't but be public. Our spiritual disciplines must be in secret and the end goal is the glory of God. Why giving and prayer and fasting in secret? Because that right there is something that glorifies God when no one else sees it. What about our good words? Well, when people see the good works, they glorify God. So the end goal is the glory of God. Our good works have to be visible, but never for the sake of making it visible.The phrase, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, it's an overwhelming metaphor. If you help someone with your right hand, your left hand, in some sense, doesn't know what it's doing. It's not just about not telling others. It's almost like not telling yourself. If you give to someone, and then you don't even think about it. You don't glow over the fact that you help this person, there's a state of unself consciousness, like you don't give with the hand and not with the heart. And Jesus is saying, be careful, because your heart is so porous, that you turn mercy into vanity.So there is a sense in which we set up how much we can give in our generosity and you can budget this out. But there's also a sense where you don't count it. You don't count how much you've given to others in the name of Jesus Christ. There's a sense where that number is never in your mind because you understand that that wasn't even yours to begin with. Matthew 6:6, And when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret." Is Jesus denouncing public prayer? No, of course not. What he is saying, he is denouncing public prayer when you don't have private prayer. When the only time you pray publicly, when you pray is publicly. In secret before God one on one, that's the essence of prayer.Psalm 27, seven through nine, "Hear o Lord, when I cry aloud. Be gracious to me, answer me. You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me.'" So there is to be a place for private prayer in your life, where on a daily basis, you have a place you go to in secret, and he talks about closing a door. So it's a space that you devote to. It's almost like an altar on a daily basis. Lord, this is the place I'm going to meet with you. And when you pray, he says in verse seven, "When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him."He says don't just repeat over and over and over simple prayer. In different Christian traditions in the Russian Orthodox tradition and many Catholic traditions, it's all about repetition. It's all about what you say, how many times you say it. This is how you show God your devotion. And Jesus says no, no, no. It's a conversation. It's a relationship with God the Father. You talk to me, you bare your heart before me. You can't strong arm God into doing what you want by sheer volume. Sheer volume of words isn't a critical factor. Jesus, sometimes he pray with brevity, we just pray quick little prayer. Sometimes he'd spent a whole night in prayer.So it's not about that. It's just about not thinking that we can force God without repetition. Ecclesiastes 5:2, "Do not be rash with your mouth nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on Earth. Therefore, let your words be few." So the volume of words isn't important but the sustained prayer is important. So Luke 18, Jesus gives a parable of a widow that goes to a judge and she's begging for justice, begging for justice, and the judge only because of her impudence, her sustained coming to him, he gives to her.So when we long for something, when it's on our heart to ask God for something, we are to ask and ask and ask, the emphasis on the sustained coming to God, not necessarily on the repetition. And that's Luke 18:1, "He told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray not lose heart." So how are we to pray? How are we to have a private prayer life? Jesus gives us not the prayer that we should pray, but the template by which we should pray.That's why he says in verse nine, "Pray then like this.", not specifically pray this. And a lot of traditions have really misunderstood this text. They think if I just pray this over and over and over on a daily basis, multiple times a day, God's going to do what God wants, what he wants me to do, that's not what's going on. He says, this is the template and the template goes like this, our Father in heaven. And I just want you to see the emphasis on the second person plural, first person, the second person, plural is you together, our Father, he's not saying my Father, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day.So before we get to our needs, what are we focusing on? God. We're focusing on God, Jesus Christ, but tell me this, why did Jesus Christ pray as often as he did? He's God incarnate. He can give himself anything. He can create miracles and meet all of his needs. Why did Jesus Christ pray? What did Jesus Jesus Christ get from prayer that he couldn't give himself? You know what he got? He got time with God the Father. That's why we pray. And this is what fights the hypocrisy in the inside, where you get on your knees before God, you said, "God, you know all things, you know all of my struggles, you know all of my needs. And before I talk about my needs, I need to focus my attention on you. You are my father, you are our father, the community's father, hallowed be your name. May your name be holy, may your transcendent name be holy."And you're also personal because your father, may your kingdom come. Not my kingdom, but your kingdom. May your will be done. Before I talk about my needs, I'm going to talk about your will being done on earth as it is in heaven. And then we get to our needs. Give us this day our daily bread. You're not just praying for your own needs. It's God, everyone in the community of faith. Give us this day our daily bread, not give me bread for tomorrow or next week or for a month, just today. Give us this bread for the day.And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. There's this connection between forgive us because we've forgiven and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lord, I can't overcome temptation on my own, I can't overcome temptation from evil, help me. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespass.This text could be misread, to say the only way that you can have your sins forgiven is to make sure that you have forgiven everybody, as if forgiving others is the price of being heard. And I've been in churches where that's what's been preached. But that doesn't fit in the context of the sermon of the Mount. That doesn't fit in the context of the gospel of Matthew, or the context of all of Scripture. He's not saying you have to do this for God, for God to do something for you. He's saying, asking for forgiveness for yourself, while not forgiving those who have sinned against you, is the pinnacle of hypocrisy.So if you ask for forgiveness, just know God's expecting that you forgive those who have sinned against you. And he brings us in in the prayer life because he understands that if we don't deal with other people's sin against us, that that is going to absolutely destroy us from the inside. And then he gets to fasting, true, authentic fasting, Matthew 6:17 through 18. When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your Father who is in heaven.Jesus assumes that his disciples will fast, that this will be a regular cadence of our spiritual walk. The Pharisees fasted, we know from Luke 18:12, twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. Most likely it was sun up to sundown, that was their fast, so most likely skipping two meals, like a 20 hour, 24 hour fast, and the Pharisees fast. When they fasted, they had glum expression, they looked miserable, they went unwashed, unkempt, they would even sprinkle ashes on themselves to be seen by others.And by the way, if you know someone that fasts on a regular basis and does extended fasting, it's kind of impressive. Wow, you have control over it, you can skip a meal, you can skip two meals, you can do a full day without food. That's really impressive stuff. And the Pharisees would use this to build up social capital in the community where they would let people know so today, it would be like posting on social media. There's all kinds of fasting apps that shows how to start and stop and you can put all your measurements in there and people share on social media, "Oh, I just finished a five day fast." And everyone gives them kudos. That's basically what the Pharisees were doing.And they had received their reward. But that doesn't mean, because they were doing it wrong. Jesus does not say therefore never fast. He still expects that his disciples fast on a regular basis. John the baptizer fasted regularly even often. And the disciples of Jesus did not, while Jesus was there, but it was expected when he left, Matthew 9"14 through 15. "Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."Jesus does expect that his followers fast and fast on a regular basis. Jesus started his ministry by fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. He did that supernatural by the power of the Holy Spirit. But there is an expectation for us to fast and Jesus fasted for 40 days. So it's a struggle, even with the idea of fasting for 40 hours. Jesus is expecting this as part of our life. First of all, you do need to meet with your medical professionals, your doctors to see how and if. And it's not just with food, what is fasting? Strictly speaking, it's a total abstention of food, but it can be legitimately extended to other things.And what's the point? The point of it is the nice self, humbled before God, and where we pursue God in that state of humility. Psalm 35:13, "But I, when they were sick, I wore sackcloth, I afflicted myself with fasting. I prayed with head bowed on my chest." Sometimes in Scripture, fasting is connected with repentance, where you are repentant over sin and you are humbling yourself with God and you bring in fasting to deepen that humility. Nehemiah did that with all of the people. He gathered all the people and with fasting and sackcloth, they stood and confessed their sins.When Jonah goes to preach in Nineveh, they repented Jonah's preaching and they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth. Daniel sought God by prayer and supplication, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes and prayed to the Lord is God and made confession for the sins of people. Remember Paul, when Paul meets Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, for three days and three nights, he doesn't eat because he is in such repentance over the fact that he pursued Christians and killed Christians, persecuted Christians.Sometimes fasting is used to ask the Lord for future mercy, or blessing or guidance. God in this season, I don't know what to do. Where are you leading me? Where are you guiding me? And we see that Moses fasted on Mount Sinai immediately after the covenant was renewed. We see Queen Esther, before she took her life into her hands to go before the king, she asked Mordecai and the people that Mordecai knew, the people of God too fast on behalf of her. Ezra proclaimed a fast before leading the exiles back to Jerusalem, but he says that we may humble ourselves before our God and seek from him a straightway.So if you're in a season where you are pursuing God's direction, fasting is always recommended with prayer. In the early church, the church of Antioch before Paul and Barnabas were sent out, they fasted. Paul and Barnabas before appointing elders in every church, they prayed and fasted. And fasting is also used for self discipline, because saying no to eating one appetite gives you power to say no to other appetites.I've noticed this in my own life and perhaps you have as well. When I have self discipline in one area of life, it translates to self discipline in other areas of life. When self discipline increases here, it increases everywhere else. I Corinthians 9:24 to 27, "Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified."So practically speaking how to incorporate fasting in your life, if you've never done it, you got to do, you got to ease into it. Perhaps push back a meal in the morning, push back breakfast, ease into it or or cut out a certain category of foods, et cetera. I can give you all the practicalities of it. I went through a season where I wanted to learn everything I could on fasting. I read every single book on fasting that I could find. I think it was over like 100 books that I read through. The way I read is I go in, I find out the 40 pages that got the book published and I'm done. I'm out. Next book. And that's the way you should read as well.And so I know at this part of the sermon, I'm like I can get into the way I fast. But Jesus said this part of your life have to be secret. So I'm not going to. We can talk about that in secret. And then when you say that, then that brings attention to yourself. So I still struggle with this part. But yeah, in secret, I'm not going to tell you everything because I want my reward in heaven, not from you. Thank you very much.Point three, motivation for authenticity. Where do we get the motivation? We have to figure out what's the motivation for authenticity. We have to figure out what is the motivation for hypocrisy. If you can isolate the cause, then we can easily find the remedy Why is the hypocrite? What's the hypocrite motivated by? What is the hypocrite obsessed with? Acceptance from people. And if you get acceptance from people, that's not really what you're going for. What you are really obsessed about isn't just the acceptance of people as much as how that feels inside for yourself.So really, you're not motivated by pleasing other people as much as pleasing self. So if you're motivated by pleasing self, and that's why you pray, that's why you give, that's why you fast, that's what leads to hypocrisy. Because getting pleasure from people is much easier than getting delight of God, much easier. Because all you got to do is fake it.So it comes down to what you love most. Do you love most self or God? Ultimately, the only reason that people please others is to find pleasure for self. Why? Because we're insecure. We're self conscious. We need someone else to tell us that we are good, because we know deep inside we are not. We need someone else to tell us that we are righteous because we know deep inside we are not righteous, that there are sins that we cannot expose. So what's the remedy? The remedy is to find your security in God, find your remedy in God, find your acceptance and approval in God. Be secure in the fact that you're loved by God the Father. How can I be sure that I'm loved by God the Father? Look at what God the Father gave for you.It starts with giving to the needy. Well, God gave to the needy us. He gave his beloved Son. Why would God give his beloved son for God so loved the world, that he gave his beloved Son, for whosoever believes in Him should not die but have eternal life. God gave his greatest treasure for us, because he knew that we were good, because he saw that we are righteous.No. Jesus Christ came and died for sinners. And Jesus Christ on the cross, died for every single one of your sins past, present, and future. Therefore, it doesn't even make sense for us to hide our sin from God. Because as a Christian, your sins have been paid for on the cross, absolutely exposed by God, the Father on the cross, as Jesus Christ is bearing God's wrath for those sins. So there's absolutely no need to hide. And we know that when we come to Him, we repent of the sins, not pretending to be righteous, he forgives us of all of our sin, and gives us the power to live a transformed life.And this is where the transformation happens. When you understand how much God has loved you, then your heart begins to grow in love for God. And that's where the true essence modification happens, not just behavior modification, Matthew 6:4 through 5, "So that your giving may be in secret and your Father who is in secret will reward you and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love." That right there, that's the heart of the hypocrisy. And when you understand what the heart of hypocrisy is, then you begin to understand what the heart of authenticity can be. "For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the street corners that they may be seen by others. Truly I say to you, they've received their award."They love getting attention from people, because they loved the pleasure it brought to self. Matthew 23:5 through 7, "And they do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and fringes long. And they love the places of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplace and being called Rabbi by others." They loved it. So we struggle with hypocrisy. This is why we all struggle with this. Because we all struggle with self love. We all struggle with pride.And this is what sin is. Sin is loving anything more than God. So how do we fight the hypocrisy? You fight the hypocrisy with love of God, and you grow in love of God by growing and understanding how much God loves you. And the other way that you practically grow in the self discipline, the spiritual disciplines, of giving, of prayer and of fasting is the phrase that we see in all three of these sections. Verse four, "So that your giving maybe in secret and your Father who sees." That's Matthew 6:4, "And your Father who sees." Matthew 6:6, same thing. "And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." And then verse 18, "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you."Every single child, every single child deep inside, what do they long for? They long for the undivided attention of their father, of their parents. "Daddy, look at me, look at me, look what I can do." And I remember as a kid I was meditating on this this week. When I played sports, my dad never came to any of my events because I played baseball and he's like baseball stupid. He's a Russian Soviet guy. He's like, "I don't know baseball. It's not even sport." That's the only reason I was tremendous is baseball. That's why they called me the crushing Russian. And I remember the only reason I wrestled, and wrestling is just a dumb sport, I never really enjoyed it. My dad thought it was this manly sport. That's the only reason I did it. And my greatest performance is when my dad would show up and just watch.And there's something about making sacrifices for the delight of your father, and just his undivided attention is reward enough, how much more so when our Heavenly Father, he sees our sacrifices that no one sees. He sees our sacrifices of giving to others, of taking from self and giving to, God the Father sees it, and there is a reward. What is the reward? We're not told. What's the reward for prayer? We're not told. What's the reward for fasting? We're not told, well, I think God seeing is reward enough. God sees and He draws you closer to Himself.Why did Jesus pray? Because he got more of the Father. Why did Jesus give? Because he got the delight of the Father, "This is my Son, in whom I'm well pleased." Why did Jesus fast to get the delight of the Father? Jesus prayed, gave fast for an audience of one. How can we give? We can give because Jesus Christ, he who was rich became poor so that we might become rich in him. How do we know that our prayers are heard because Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed a prayer that was rejected. :et this cup pass from me, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Christ says on the cross, his prayer was rejected. He was rejected from the presence of God as He bore the sins, our sins upon himself so that our prayers can be heard. How can I fast? Because I have a treasure greater than food, I have the bread of life.And the Pharisees focused on the letter of the law, which only led to outside righteousness. Jesus focused on the heart of the law, which can only be met from the heart. And this is where we need Jesus Christ. We need Jesus Christ to give us a brand new heart. A lot of people today justify their sin by saying, "I was born this way." Jesus Christ comes and he says, "Yeah, everyone needs to be born again. We're all sinners, we all need a heart transplant. We all need our heart of stone taken out and replaced with the heart of flesh. And that's done by humbling yourself before Jesus Christ, coming to him and saying, "Jesus, I am a hypocrite. Jesus, I'm not righteous. Jesus, I'm not perfect. Jesus, forgive me of my sins, and give me the power of the Holy Spirit to live the life that you have called me to live."I'll close with Psalm 139:1 through 2, and then 7 through 12, one of my favorite Psalms, in which the psalmist talks about and meditates on the fact that God is everywhere, and the God sees, and that should be motivation enough for us to repent of sin, and then grow in authentic following of him. Psalm 139:1 through 2, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, and you discern my thoughts from afar. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. And the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you."Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the reminder that there's nowhere we can go where you are not. Your presence is always before us. And I pray that that motivates us to turn from sin and turn to you, and on a daily basis to pursue perfection as you were perfect and not do it in a way where we pretend we're better than we are. But to do it in a way where we repent when we fall short of the standard of perfection, and then get up and continue following you.We thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We thank you that you forgive us of all of our sins, when we turn from sin and turn to Christ, and continue to make us people that do pursue the spiritual distance of giving makes us generous people, pursue time of prayer with you, because there's nothing more rewarding than spending time with God the Father, and to fast from things that pull us away from you, and to discipline ourselves so that our flesh doesn't take over, and that we continue to walk by the power of the Holy Spirit. And we thank you and we pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen.

After a bit of a hiatus, I bring you a wonderful conversation I had back in April with Sean Guillory, Ph.D., host of the SRB Podcast. We covered various topics about Russia which include a history of US-Russia relations, Russian/Soviet history, what the West gets wrong about Russia, and where contemporary Russia finds itself today. To learn more about Sean Guillory, Ph.D, and his work, please see links below: Website: https://srbpodcast.org/ Apple Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seans-russia-blog/id597948126?ls=1 Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ErfCLcdZ9xbaLwrFcXHPC Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sean-guillory-3 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seansrussiablog/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/seansrussiablog Music: https://www.purple-planet.com/

As of recording on the 21 August 2020, some 566 have been to space. 345 have been American, 121 Russian Soviet. 65 have been women... And at least 7 have been smugglers. Will tells Rod the story of the secret things people have brought into space! The Wholesome Show is Dr Will Grant and Dr Rod Lamberts, proudly brought to you by The Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science!

Now that the dust has settled and Parasite was chosen by the Academy as the Best Picture of 2019, the gang has a sit-down to determine what it all meant. Did the public misunderstand Parasite? Is the movie only applicable to the everyday reality of South Korea? Can this film replace Marx's Communist Manifesto? Join the gang to find out! Tune in next time to join the gang as they discuss "2001: A Space Odyssey", and what many consider to be its Russian (Soviet) counterpart: "Solaris".

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin's Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin's Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin’s Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin’s Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin’s Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin’s Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karl Qualls' new book Stalin’s Niños: Educating Spanish Civil War Refugee Children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 (University of Toronto Press, 2020) examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, camaraderie, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children – and better provisioned than those for Soviet children – served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin’s Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity. Karl Qualls is Professor of History and the John B. Parsons Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Steven Seegel is professor of history at University of Northern Colorado. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I discuss the Russian machines of war in preparation for the Eastern Front campaign. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/learnrealhistory/message

The Funky Thinkers playoffs continue with number one seed Ben Reuter versus Kat McLead.The first outing for the big hitting Funksters after the preliminary round.Number one seed Ben Reuter up against number eight seed Kat Mclead. (Apologies Kat - it doesn't say so in the show).In this episode Q1. Crazy Rich Asians (trailer below)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-YX-5bAs0vesus no way out (Kevin Costner is a Russian/Soviet spy).Q2. People who work in nursing and medical generally along with garbage/trash collectors. We love you and we would love to get one of you on the show.Contact us.Q3. Kat modelled the hairstyle she had with hair tied on one side. Ben recounted when he had what we could call the flat top.Q4. The n+1 theory of bikes (and surfboards and everything else popped up), plus having a $40 kids blow up bath in your nice expensive new bathroom.Q5. Kat reads the Daily Mail - although it was 2020 resolution to remove the app and stop going down the rabbit hole of celebrity news.Each morning, Ben skims the New York Times, The Wall Street journal and uses a feed reader app called feedly.

The Funky Thinkers playoffs continue with number one seed Ben Reuter versus Kat McLead.The first outing for the big hitting Funksters after the preliminary round.Number one seed Ben Reuter up against number eight seed Kat Mclead. (Apologies Kat - it doesn't say so in the show).In this episode Q1. Crazy Rich Asians (trailer below)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ-YX-5bAs0vesus no way out (Kevin Costner is a Russian/Soviet spy).Q2. People who work in nursing and medical generally along with garbage/trash collectors. We love you and we would love to get one of you on the show.Contact us.Q3. Kat modelled the hairstyle she had with hair tied on one side. Ben recounted when he had what we could call the flat top.Q4. The n+1 theory of bikes (and surfboards and everything else popped up), plus having a $40 kids blow up bath in your nice expensive new bathroom.Q5. Kat reads the Daily Mail - although it was 2020 resolution to remove the app and stop going down the rabbit hole of celebrity news.Each morning, Ben skims the New York Times, The Wall Street journal and uses a feed reader app called feedly.