Why did the ageing Soviet leadership suddenly decide to invade Afghanistan in 1979?

Viktor Nekrasov’s recollection of February 1943 in Stalingrad. The work hails Soviet heroism while revealing violence, aggression, poverty, and tedium in the wake of victory.

A translation of Pavel Nilin’s 1951 Stalingrad story, “The Polykhaevs”.

Vadim Sobko’s Unknown Friends is a typical piece of short fiction written at the Stalingrad Front. Published in late September 1942 in the national newspaper Izvestiya, the story’s focus on individuals’ guile and cunning in a bleak period when Stalingrad seemed certain to be lost was typical.

Timofey Belozerov’s poem The Eternal Flame was published in 1985, when the Soviet government held elaborate celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of victory in World War 2. In Belozerov’s work, the narrator tells a brief story of a visit to an eternal flame—presumably the one in Moscow—and, somewhat scoldingly, explains the debt today’s children owe to those martyred in the war. Combined with the rather graphic and dark illustrations, this is quite a shocking piece compared to representations of war shown to western children.

What on earth is the logic behind Putin’s use of medieval history in the fight with the Coronavirus? Western observers are perplexed, but read on to find out why Russians aren’t as confused by references to ancient tribes as westerners might be.

Was Tolstoy a brilliantly accurate writer of war? How did Tolstoy research and write about Austerlitz? If Tolstoy aimed to write Austerlitz accurately, why does his description of the battle exclude so much important information?