This astonishing book explores the delusional imaginings of Russia's past by the pseudo-scientific 'Alternative History' movement. Despite the chaotic collapse of two empires in the last century, Russia's glorious imperial past continues to inspire millions. The lively movement of 'Alternative History', diligently re-writing Russia's past and 'rediscovering' its hidden greatness, has been growing dramatically since the collapse of Communism in 1991. Virtually unknown in the West, these pseudo-historians have published best-selling books, attracted widespread media attention, and are a prominent voice in Internet discussions about Russian and world history. Alternative History claims that Russia is much older than Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; that the medieval Mongol Empire was in fact a Slav-Turk world empire; and that, in the twentieth century, duplicitous foreign powers stabbed Russia in the back and stole its empire. For its followers the key to Russia's greatness in the future lies in ensuring that Russians understand the true wealth of their past. Alternative history has become a popular therapy for Russians still coming to terms with the reality of Post-Soviet life. It is one of the forces shaping a new Russian nationalism and an important factor in the geopolitics of the twenty-first century.

History as Therapy

History

Konstantin Sheiko

Russia

ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon

This comprehensive volume analyzes the radical change in the nature of armed conflicts and in the way they are narrated and represented. Ever since the First World War has changed war itself, rendering meaningless the very vocabulary of war in terms such as "battle," "front," "non-combatant," "open city" and "hero," new words, new approaches, new theories and new texts had to be invented. The enemy became invisible: Submarines, tanks, mines, gas, long-range artillery, and airplanes made this war different from all the other that came before. A hundred years after the beginning of this terrible war, it is now time to recall different representations of the armed conflicts of the 20th century. The articles in this collection analyze representations of the Canudos Civil War in Brazil, the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the colonial wars in Africa, and the war in Afghanistan, aiming to understand how war and the telling of war have changed during the most murderous hundred years in the history of mankind.

War and Literature

Literature & Fiction

JosA Otaviano da Mata Machado Silva

History & Criticism

Skylarks and Rebels is a story about Latvias fate in the 20th century as told by Rita Laima, a Latvian American who chose to leave behind the comforts of life in America to explore the land of her ancestors, Latvia, which in the 1980s languished behind the Soviet Iron Curtain. In writing about her own experiences in a totalitarian state, Soviet-occupied Latvia, Laima delves into her familys past to understand what happened to her fatherland and its people during and after World War II. She also pays tribute to some of Latvias remarkable people of integrity who risked their lives to oppose the mindless ideology of the brutal and destructive Soviet state.

Skylarks and Rebels: A Memoir about the Soviet Russian Occupation of Latvia, Life in a Totalitarian State, and Freedom

Laima, Rita

Europe

An Interesting Life, So Far - Memoirs of Literary and Musical Peregrinations

Biographies & Memoirs

King, Bruce

Arts & Literature

The Sobibor Death Camp was the second extermination camp built by the Nazis as part of the secretive Operation Reinhardt -- with intent to carry out the mass murder of Polish Jewry. Following the construction of the extermination camp at Belzec in south-eastern Poland from November 1941 to March 1942, the Nazis planned a second extermination camp at Sobibor, and the third and deadliest camp was built near the remote village of Treblinka. Sobibor was similarly designed as the first camp in Belzec, it was regarded as an 'overflow' camp for Belzec.  This account of the Nazis' remorseless and relentless production line of killing at the Sobibor death camp tells of one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind. Chris Webb's painstakingly researched volume ranges from the survivors and the victims to the SS men who carried out the atrocities. What makes this work special is the research which has been gathered on the survivors, who by good fortune, courage, and determination survived Sobibor and built new lives for themselves, new families, but bore the scars of this terrible place for all of their lives. Closing a gap in the existing literature, Webb focuses on the victims and presents details of their lives which have been found and re-tells them to keep their memory alive, to show they are not forgotten. The cruel and barbaric murder process is described in great detail, as well as the confiscation of the valuables and possessions of the unfortunate Jews who crossed the threshold of this man-made hell. One cannot fail to be moved by the personal accounts of those who survived, their loved ones perished in this factory of death. The book covers the construction of the death camp, the physical layout of the camp, as remembered by both the Jewish inmates and the SS staff who served there, and the personal recollections that detail the day-to-day experiences of the prisoners and the SS. The courageous revolt by the prisoners on 14 October 1943 is re-told by the prisoners and the German SS, with detailed accounts of the revolt and its aftermath.  The post-war fate of the perpetrators, or more precisely those that were brought to trial, and information regarding the more recent history of the site itself concludes this book. There is a large photographic section of rare and some unpublished photographs and documents from the author's private archive.

Sobibor Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance

Webb, Chris

Religion & Magic in Socialist & Postsocialist Contexts: Part I -- Historic & Ethnographic Case Studies of Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy & Alternative Spirituality

Alexandra Cotofana

Religion & Spirituality

Conceived as the answer to all of mankinds seemingly insoluble health and social problems, and promoted as a substitute for orthodox religious beliefs, the pseudo-science of eugenics recruited disciples in many countries during the latter years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. Nowhere was this doctrine more enthusiastically endorsed than in Germany, where the application of eugenic theory received its most fervent support. A programme born of what were often contradictory opinions began, under Nazi rule, with the compulsory sterilization of thousands of Germanys citizens before morphing into the mass murder of the most vulnerable of the states own population under the guise of so-called euthanasia, before ultimately escalating into a continent-wide policy of extermination of those who did not fit the Nazi eugenic template. The progress of this inexorable descent into barbarity was marked by successive stages of development. From the practical application of euthanasia through the organisation dedicated to it -- later on called Aktion T4 -- and the killing centres that this institution spawned, to the centrality of Aktion T4 to Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust, important elements of the historical record can be seen to emerge. How did it happen? What impact has it had on contemporary society? And what of the character and fate of the individuals involved in the gestation and implementation of this murderously inhumane quasi-religion? Deceptively simple questions that require complex and often disturbing answers.

Nazi Eugenics: Precursors, Policy, Aftermath

Conflict Resolution Beyond the International Relations Paradigm: Evolving Designs as a Transformative Practice in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria

Philip Gamaghelyan

Kind Words, Cruise Missiles, and Everything in Between

Politics & Social Sciences

Kunz, Barbara

Politics & Government

This volume retraces Carl Lutzs diplomatic wartime rescue efforts in Budapest, Hungary, through the lens of Jewish eyewitness testimonies. Together with his wife, Gertrud Lutz-Fankhauser, the director of the Palestine Office in Budapest, Moshe Krausz, fellow Swiss citizens Harald Feller, Ernst Vonrufs, Peter Zurcher, and the underground Zionist Youth Movement, Carl Lutz led an extensive rescue operation between March 1944 and February 1945. It is estimated that Lutz and his team of rescuers issued over 50,000 lifesaving letters of protection (Schutzbriefe) and placed persecuted Jews in 76 safe houses -- annexes of the Swiss Legation. Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors in Canada, Hungary, Israel, Switzerland, the UK, and the United States, this volume shines a light on the extraordinary scope and scale of Carl Lutzs humanitarian response.

Under Swiss Protection: Jewish Eyewitness Accounts from Wartime Budapest

David Gur

Historical

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Books by ibidem-Verlag, Jessica Haunschild u Christian Schon