The Latest Breaking News from Josef Stalin

Review: An Idealistic Young Attorney in Stalin's Soviet Union

In Sergei Loznitsa's film Two Prosecutors, even a Bolshevik can believe a version of "Good czar, bad boyars."

Reason · Sep 18

Kylian Mbappé reacts to viral memes comparing him to a dictator

The France has been portrayed in military outfits, sitting on a throne, or posing next to Soviet leader Josef Stalin and other controversial leaders

The Independent UK · Sep 11

Moscow has a long history of paranoia about Britain’s support for Russia’s enemies

Relations between London and Moscow reached another peak of tension in August over the UK’s support for Ukraine. The success of Ukraine’s long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia, with the help of UK-made drones, and the UK’s commitment to supply blueprints to help it manufacture long-range missiles, led the…

The Conversation · Sep 3

An epic border: Finland’s poetic masterpiece, the Kalevala, has roots in 2 cultures and 2 countries

At the outset of the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, a singer bemoans his separation from a beloved friend who grew up beside him. Today, the friends rarely meet “näillä raukoilla rajoilla, poloisilla Pohjan mailla” – lines which translator Keith Bosley renders “on these poor borders, the luckless lands of the…

The Conversation · Feb 4

Xi Jinping’s 'Sacred Games': Why China’s leader keeps purging PLA generals

“Sab marr jaayenge, sirf Trivedi bachega.”

The Times of India · Jan 26

Stalin’s postwar terror targeted Soviet Jews – in the name of ‘anti-cosmopolitanism’

Many Americans know of Josef Stalin’s Terror of the late 1930s, during which more than 1 million people were arrested for political crimes, and over 680,000 executed.

The Conversation · Dec 1, 2025

An Antidote to the FDR Cult

A new biography presents Franklin Roosevelt as one of the greatest scoundrels of American political history.

Reason · Nov 25, 2025

Demolishing the White House East Wing to build a ballroom embodies Trump’s heritage politics

From ancient Egypt to Washington, D.C., rulers have long used architecture and associated stories to project power, control memory and shape national identity. As 17th-century French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert observed:

The Conversation · Oct 24, 2025

Trump and Putin are carrying out a pincer movement on Europe’s democracies. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939

Forget the US president’s seeming volte-face on Ukraine this week: he and Putin fundamentally agree that European liberal democracy is the problem, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

The Guardian - UK · Sep 28, 2025

The Triumph And Tragedy Of The 20th Century: 46 Of The Most Important Images

These 46 images have become historical artefacts in their own right, after searing themselves into our collective memory.

Bored Panda · Aug 27, 2025