Russia & Eurasia

Ukrainian History Collection Grows with Papers of Simon Starow ("Miron Dolot")

Simon Starow, also known under his literary pseudonyms S. Starko and Miron Dolot, was a Ukrainian language instructor at the Army Language School at the Presidio in Monterey, California. He is better known by his pseudonym Miron Dolot, under which he published Execution by Hunger on the famine of 1932–33 in Ukraine. The materials in his collection include draft manuscripts and research materials for his publications, including Execution by Hunger. Other topics include the Winter War in Finland, Ukrainian émigrés (especially displaced persons), Ukrainian national identity, the history of Kievan Rus, Christianity in Ukraine, and Ukraine under Soviet rule.

Stephen Kotkin Presents New Biography of Stalin

On Wednesday, January 28, in a talk sponsored by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Princeton professor and Hoover fellow Stephen Kotkin discussed his newly published book Stalin, Volume 1: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928. Based on extensive research, the book is the first volume of his trilogy on the life and times of the Soviet dictator. Kotkin's biography focuses on Stalin's role in the Russian revolution and his subsequent rise to power within the Bolshevik hierarchy. It also situates Stalin's political career in the wider context of Russian and world history.

New Collection on US Intervention in Siberia, 1919–1920

This valuable addition to the Hoover Institution’s collections on the Russian Civil War and US intervention in that conflict contains the diaries, photographs, and associated papers of Henry Nelson Hammond (1900–1969), a corporal in the US Army (27th Infantry Regiment, “Wolfhounds”), covering his enlistment and deployment in the Russian Far East as part of the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia.

The Hoover Institution acquires the papers of Ukrainian political consultant Kost Bondarenko

The origins of the current Ukrainian political turmoil lie in the country's recent path of development, and in particular the electoral contests that resulted in the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the election of Viktor Yanukovych as Ukrainian president in 2010. The Hoover Institution has recently acquired an important collection of papers that help to document this period and will be useful to all researchers seeking to understand the state of Ukrainian politics today.

Hoover Fellows Paul Gregory and Mark Harrison Inaugurate Gaidar Memorial Lecture Series in Moscow

Two Hoover fellows were invited to deliver the inaugural Gaidar lectures. Mark Harrison spoke on  “Stumbling Bear, Soaring Dragon: Could the Soviet Union Have Gone Down China’s Path?” on April 17. The video can be viewed at http://lectures.gaidarfund.ru/articles/1663. Hoover fellow Paul Gregory followed on April 22 with a lecture entitled “Economic Causes of the Collapse of the Soviet Union.” His lecture can be viewed at http://lectures.gaidarfund.ru/articles/1683.

Politics, Murder, and Love in Stalin's Kremlin: The Story of Nikolai Bukharin and Anna Larina

Spies and Commissars: The Early Years of the Russian Revolution by Robert Service

Robert Service, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, is a noted Russian historian and political commentator. In his recent book, Spies and Commissars, Service writes about the espionage and intrigue during the early years of the Bolshevik regime in Russia. In this Wall Street Journal review, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, the book is described as delving into the revolution of October 1917, the civil war, the Western intervention, the brutal measures by which Lenin won the war, and the Western attempts to strangle the regime in its cradle. Click here to read the full review.

A Soviet Vignette of the Hoover Institution

During a recent archival reconnaissance expedition to Latvia, in advance of yet another Hoover digitization project in the countries of the former USSR, Stanford history professor Amir Weiner came across an account of a 1967 visit to Stanford by Aleksandrs Drizulis, a high Soviet Communist Party official and historian. The following text is from Drizulis’s presentation to party activists on April 18, 1968.

Former Soviet dissident Yuri Yarim-Agaev’s papers at the Hoover Archives

Yuri Yarim-Agaev is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, as well as a scientist and human rights activist. After receiving his degree in 1972 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, he worked at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He joined the Moscow Helsinki Group (founded in 1976) and became a leader of the human rights movement in Russia, working closely with Andrei Sakharov and other dissidents. As a consequence of his dissident activities, he was forced into exile in the summer of 1980.