Masha Gessen writes on “The Commissar Vanishes,” a photo book by David King, which documents the erasing of certain peoples from the images of the Soviet Union—and, therefore, from Soviet history.

The denigration of Mikhail Gorbachev in China underlines the lengths Xi Jinping has gone to forge a path different from the reformist Soviet leader's.

On the 20th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s collapse, historian Richard Sakwa wrote of “a triumphalist discourse” in the U.S. “which suggests that the Soviet demise was a deliberate act plotted and executed by president Ronald Reagan.” The parts of his ingenious master plan included “engineering lower oil prices… launching the Star Wars initiative” and … Continue reading "The Collapse of the Soviet Union in Pictures"

Part 20 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II

Whoa. The Soviet Union got racial equality right before America?

Before the availability of the tape recorder and during the 1950s, when vinyl was scarce, people in the Soviet Union began making records of banned Western music on discarded x-rays. With the help of...

An unused border bridge between North Korea and China has shown increased activity this week in a potential sign of its opening since construction was completed nearly a decade ago...

I believed myself to be a Russian in Russia and an American in America.

Big Heart, Strong Hands is the story of the women who live on the isolated Estonian islands of Kihnu and Manija in the Baltic Sea. It is often considered the last matriarchal society in Europe

Part 20 of a weekly 20-part retrospective of World War II

Janina Forbertówna (code name "Jasia"), a liason officer of the Armia Ludowa. Her fate is unknown.