The House on the Embankment
Seventy years after his death, the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin was unexpected. Yet however you analyse it, when a government spends decades glorifying a genocidal dictator and only later admits their crimes, we shouldn’t be surprised by a comeback.(...)
Russia in North Macedonia
The Russian government is awarding prizes to Macedonian writers.(...)
Russia 1985–1999, by Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis is a collagist who deals with ideas and their emotional impact.(...)
Germany, Year Zero, Today
It’s hard to watch Roberto Rossellini’s 1948 film Germany, Year Zero to its conclusion. The mood is relentlessly bleak and the landscape bleaker still.(...)
Russia After the Arab Spring
In 2015, I moved to Moscow to spend a year teaching human rights. I lasted five months. As my former students from that time are arrested for protesting the Ukrainian war, here are some reflections on what I learned about the evil of Putin and the kindness of Russians.(...)
Utopia by the Sea
The Russians have struck Odesa again, this time mere hours after reaching a deal with the Ukrainians. Though spared the worst of the war, an attack on Odesa is an attack on the best of Ukrainian and Russophone culture alike.(...)
The When Walls Talk Exhibit
Not long after it opened in 2017, I paid my first visit to the House of European History. (...)
The European Union and China
It’s been one horror story after another. Since Vladimir Putin first invaded Ukraine, the press has been deluged with reports of raw materials shortages and Europe’s reliance on Russian energy imports.(...)
Russia’s Nuclear Tightrope
The German press was alarmed. Wild boars had infiltrated Berlin and were making their way to the city centre.(...)