Blogside Inn

(Chain)Bridging Budapest

2008-04-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

Throughout the l9th century, there was a growing sense that Hungarians are powerful, Hungarians have a great language, Hungarians can and should live independently and free—free of Mongols, free of Turks, free even of Austrians, free of all non-Hungarian invaders, occupiers, rulers. Of course, Buda and Pest will be a big part of this movement because they are the heart of Hungary, and a lot of the events associated with the drive for Hungarian freedom happen in Budapest

There are several people whose names you need to know in connection with Budapest and the Hungarian independence: Lajos Kossuth, Sandor Petofi, Gyula Andrassy, the man for whom the main street of Pest is named. But there is no one more important than Istvan Szechenyi, the man who built a bridge, united Buda and Pest into one capital, and united the Hungarian nation.

Since Roman days, it had always been a problem getting across the Danube.

The Romans used pontoon, difficult because of flooding, instability; the Mongols had to wait until it froze so they could gallop their horses over into Pest. The Turks constructed a bridge mounted on oil drum-type structures. But none of these solutions was very satisfactory. After the l800, when the Hungarian national movement was underway, people began thinking seriously about the necessity of building a modern bridge, so that links between Buda and Pest could be improved, so that the Hungarian capital cities could be modernized and improved with an eye towards the future.

Count Szechenyi would be the man to realize this objective. He had motivation after trying to cross from Pest to Buda in January of l820 in a wild winter storm. After this ordeal, he declared, “I will give a year’s income if a permanent bridge is built between Buda and Pest.”

And he put his money and effort where his mouth was. In l832, Szchenyi formed a sort of lobbying association on behalf of a good bridge on the Danube, the Bridge Association of Budapest. This was interesting, because to my knowledge no one had ever united the words “Buda and Pest” into Budapest. Already there was thought that this bridge would make for one united capital city.
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This is kind of a DeWitt Clinton story…the chain bridge is the product of a man with a vision, an ability to see into the future and determine what was necessary to make the most of that future. In the l820s, Szechenyi, like a lot of young Hungarians, was thinking about three things: first, what had happened to Hungarians and Budapest since the reign of King St. Stephen: invasion by the Mongols, invasion by the Turks, takeover by the Habsburgs.
Secondly, they were thinking about what the French had done in their revolution: thrown off their King, established a democratic government and then nearly conquered the world. Perhaps Hungarians could follow their example
Third, they were thinking about Buda and Pest and realizing that it could be a major city, a capital for the eastern part of central Europe. They were even thinking that it could be a capital of an autonomous, even independent Hungary.
That was Szechenyi’s world view at that time…how to provide for a different and successful future for Hungary?

But even if it was an accidental inspiration, the bridge really seized Szechenyi’s imagination, and he gave over all his efforts and energy to making it a reality. This was a bigger deal than people in this country probably realized, because in Hungary of that day, and in the empire of which it was a part, there really was no such thing as citizen action. If projects were to be undertaken, the ideas came from on high, from the court or court circles, and imposed on the citizenry.
Szechenyi decided that this model wasn’t correct for a society that wanted to join the modern world. The modern world was built on the ideas and inspiration of ordinary people—the Frenchmen who had made the French revoloution, the Americans who had made the American revolution, the Britishers who had made the city of London the most important city in all the world. In Szechenyi’s opinion, everything depended on the actions of the individual.

“We cannot overcome time, and must be patient to see what it may bring. But it IS in our power to stand in the right place. And for Hungarians, the right place cannot be but Buda and Pest, which nature has so designated, because this is the heart of the nation—it must be in order and beat with all its vigor, and gush the lifeblood into the nation’s arteries.”

In l832, he founded a sort of lobbying assocation for the bridge, called the Buda Pest bridge organization—the VERY FIRST time anyone had ever used the term Buda-pest publicly.

This group of citizens began by arranging for a scientific analysis of the features of the Danube bank where the bridge would be built. Then they began to solici the opinions of engineers and architects about what kind of bridge would be best.

Once they had those details, in other words once they had a real start, they approached the Pest county diet, or legislature, with their plan. “The signatories claim with the utmost sincerity that creating a bridge between Pest and Buda is no longer physically impossible.”

The diet gave its preliminary approval, and so Szechenyi and his lobbying committee set out for London, where the acknowledged masters of bridge-building lived and worked.

There they met a man named Tierney Clark, who had built a bridge near Hammersmith in suburban London that was the most modern and attractive bridge built to date. Clark agreed to draw up the plans, to do the engineering tasks associated with the bridge-building.

Another Englishman, whose name was ADAM CLARK, no relation to Tierney, would direct the actual construction of the bridge. In l834, the two men collaborated on the dredging of the Danube at the place where the bridge would be built

The main issues were, first—who would own the bridge and have primary responsibility—Buda or Pest? How would the bridge be financed? That one was easy—you charge a toll—except that noblemen were exempt by long tradition from paying tolls or fees.

It took more than a year of arm-twisting, persuading, threatening and speechmaking—much of it done by Szechenyi himself—to get the legislators to agree that Buda and Pest city governments would jointly administer the bridge, and that noblemen as well as ordinary citizens would be required to pay the toll. If everyone in Buda and Pest would benefit from the bridge, everyone should be happy to pay his or her fair share of its costs—a very radical notion for that day.

In March l836, approval was finally given, and the proposal passed on to the Emperor of Austria, who had the last word.
In March of l838, a little sign from on high that this was an excellent idea: Buda and Pest were hit with the worst flood in history. A terrible winter with lots of ice gave way to a sudden thaw, which burst the Danube dams and inundated Buda and Pest. 3/4 of the buildings in pest were damaged or demolished in the flood; Buda escaped mostly because its buildings were higher up the bank
At any rate, the only bridge then existing across the Danube was obliterated in the first hours.

Meanwhile, the planning for the bridge was only slightly interrupted; in l839, Emperor Leopold approved the plan for the bridge; in l842, the city saw the triumphal laying of the cornerstone.

This bridge is a huge, defining event and symbol in Budapest history for several reasons:
tt was the first permanent bridge over the Danube in Hungary, and it confirmed the positive and negative aspects of geography in Budapest’s history: it was located along one of the great rivers of Europe, a river town, but rivers divide people unless they are bridged. So the appearance of the bridge was a kind of triumph over geography, much as the Erie Canal was in New York.

It unified the two biggest cities in Hungary physically, made them physically one town; it was only a matter of time before they united administratively. By the same token, as you will see, the Brooklyn bridge made inevitable the union of Brooklyn with New York, followed by the rest of the five boroughs in l898. First the physical union, then the political.

The building of this bridge is also cited as the dawn of a new Hungary, the first step towards its becoming a modern entity, the first step on its road to self-determination and independence, to controlling its own destiny. As we just said, this bridge marked the first time in which one individual took it upon himself to launch a project for the betterment of society. Individual inititiative is key to a society’s development, as we’ve seen in New York and other places, and that hadn’t been seen in Hungary prior to this time. Secondly, the bridge was the first instance in which EVERYONE contributed to something that had made life better. Previous to that, noblemen never paid taxes, never contributed anything unless they felt like it. The toll on this bridge that applied to everyone was the first step on the road to all citizens being equal under the law, another indispensable quality of a modern state.

The writer Gyula Krudy:

“Beneath the lofty arches of the Chain Bridge old Hungary passed over into New Hungary. The bridge had a hole, and thorugh it our grandfathers cast outmoded catchwords and ideals from their memories into the Danube. On the bridge the wind was strongest, disseminating the seeds of liberty and renewal along the shores, in the hearts and minds of people.”

The Chain Bridge is a survivor. Even before it was finished, it managed to avoid being blown up in the Hungarian war for independence in l849. It survived the hospitalization of its inspiration, count Szechenyi, in l849. It survived the terrible times Budapest and Hungary went through between World war I and II, and even though Budapest was eventually invaded by the Germans in World War II, it managed to survive until the Russians arrived from the east to chase the Germans from the city; at that time, the Germans detonated not just the Chain Bridge, but all the other bridges across the Danube: the Margit bridge, the Elizabeth bridge, the Franz Joseph Bridge, the Arpad bridge. All of them had to be rebuilt.

All were rebuilt, however, and the Chain Bridge stands again today, as one of the two most important symbols of Budapest and Hungary and the most beloved place in the city.

Budapest basics, part II

2008-04-25T10:17:00.000-07:00

Compared with New York, which had its first major settlements in the l700s, Budapest is as old as the sea.
Its recorded history begins about the time of Christ’s death, 32. Today’s Budapest, just as its predecessor settlements, is very valuable for its proximity to the Danube, and its central location on the European continent. That led the greatest empire of its time, the Romans, to take control of the area and make the part of Budapest known as Obuda an important regional outpost. We know a fair amount about the Roman settlement now, because of archeological digs going on there for most of the past 50 years.

--it was conquered by Emperor Caesar Augustus, a name everyone knows, in around l00 AD
--several of its governors, including the famous Hadrian, went on to become Roman emperors.

In Roman times, neither the officials nor the townspeople called the settlement Obuda; they called it Aquincum for the endless flow of mineral waters that flow from the hills in the area. To this day, Budapest and Hungary generally are fantastic and well-visited spa areas. In Budapest, you can go to a spa hotel and take the waters one, two, three times a day; outside,you can go to a spa resort complex and take the waters AND learn Hungarian horsemanship, or shepherding, or just relax. MINERAL WATERS are one of the best things about Hungary. The Romans were the first to discover this.

Aquincum, as the archeologists have told us, was a typical regional town for the Roman legions. “the function of the Roman army was not only to conquer, but to spread culture and bring civilization to the peoples it came into contact with. Wherever it went, and set to building, which it did in times of peace, it had a common plan for its cities and facilities in which people could live and feel at home in, whether they lived in Asia minor, southern Europe or northern Europe.

It was an enclosed place, separated from the river by high walls and a moat. Inside were barracks for soldiers, assembly halls, stores, an arsenal, baths, gymnasium and infirmary, plus an aqueduct and network of streets, stores, and a library. Of course,a Roman town wouldn’t be complete without an amphitheater, and Aquincum had TWO, each of which seated ten thousand. Today, the Hungarian passion is soccer; back then it was bloody animal and human fights. I guess that means we’ve evolved.

The Roman empire eventually fell, of course; in the 5th century, contemporary Budapest was overrun by Atilla and the Huns, who are popularly supposed to be the fathers of Hungarians, but who actually don’t have any relation to them ethnically. They laid waste to aquincum and generally turned the Budapest area into a staging ground for combat with rival tribes.

At the end of the 8th century, the Magyar, or Hungarian, tribes arrived in what was to become their homeland. Five of seven Hungarian tribes settled here; their leader was a warrior named Arpad. Arpad himself made his headquarters in Obuda, where Aquincum had been, but substantial numbers of people lived south in Buda, and also Pest, where Islamic merchants had settled.

His successor, Stephen, the man known to history as King St. Stephen, honored every year on the country’s biggest holiday, August 20, also preferred to keep his headquarters away from the heart of modern Budapest; he actually established his reign in a city called Estergom, which is quite a bit farther north of Budapest. King St. Stephen is the man who accepted Christianity on behalf of the Hungarians from Pope Sylveszter II in the year l000, and he apparently felt that modern Budapest had too much the look and feel of an army camp to be a capital city.
For all that he believed the Budapest area unsuitable for his purposes, King St. Stephen is a HUGE presence in Budapest today. The main church in the city is St. Stephen’s Bacillica, a monstrous cathedral nearly the size of St. Peter’s in Rome; inside, you can go and inspect the Szent Jobb, the mummified Holy Right Hand of St. Stephen. The crown St. Stephen received from the Pope is in the Parliament; it dates to the year 1000, and it is very well-traveled. It has been hidden under hay carts in the countryside, it went to Vienna when the Hungarians lived under Austrian rule, came back to Budapest in l867, then resided there until it disappeared during World War II and then resurfaced in the US, where it remained in Fort Knox untill979.
In any case although it was not the capital in St. Stephen’s day, Budapest remembers its King Saint in many places. King St. Stephen is a major symbol of a free Hungary.

The next two hundred years of Budapest’s history pass without a lot of notice in the history books—St. Stephen’s son, Imre, died young, there was a struggle to succeed him, and a series of internal upheavals and invasions. The next of Hungary’s notable Kings, King Bela IV, founded a convent on what we now know is Margit island, the island in the middle of the Danube, and his daughter Margit died there, and left her name on the island.

Bela IV is generally considered to be a good king, progressive and enlightened, but he is notable for the terrible tragedy that befell Hungary and Buda in l241—in that year, like so many lands and cities before them, they were invaded by Genghis Khan and his Mongol warriors, who came on horseback and sent showers of arrows flying into the air before they attacked. The Danube kept them on the Pest side for a time, but only until it froze in the winter. They sacked all the buildings in Pest and Buda, killed a lot of people, then burned everything they could manage There was a Dalmatian priest who witnessed the attack and described it as follows:

Fortunately, the Mongols didn’t linger; they had other conquests to complete. King Bela more or less counted his blessings and took several lessons away from the experience. First, this settlement along the Danube has strategic weaknesses; second, the only things that were not razed by the Mongols were made of stone; third, there was a nice, level space at the top of one of the lower hills, south of Obuda. This all translated into a decision to build a castle on this hill, which then came to be known as Castle Hill, or in Hungarian, Varhegy.
This castle has been destroyed and rebuilt many times times; it was destroyed in the Turkish invasion after l526, then rebuilt; destroyed when the Austrians helped the Hungarians expel the Turks in l783, then rebuilt; damaged in l848, bombarded and destroyed in l945, shelled in l956—it isn’t the same building at all as the one King Bela built at all. It now houses the National Art Gallery and the Hungarian National Library—there aren’t even any administrative offices left there. But it is one of the most important symbols that you will see in Budapest. This thing was built long before Budapest became the capital of Hungary, when there was barely a Buda or Pest. Nonetheless.

It says that Budapest is a city that has known foreign invaders, that it is a city that wishes to keep its freedom and independence, and therefore it built its most important structure for many years ON A HILL, where it can see and assess any threats to its independence and freedom.

Buda castle links the two key themes in Budapest’s development, the influence of geography(this time, the disadvantages), its legacy of foreign invasion and its preoccupation with preventing it. The Buda castle is probably the most important symbol in all the city for that reason—that and the parliament building, across the river.

Perhaps the second-greatest Hungarian King was Matyas, the author of the Hungarian renaissance.

He was determined that Budapest should have high culture, that it should be mentioned in the same breath as the great Italian cities, and so he was a very busy man during his 50-year reign

He rebuilt the Buda castle in a Florentine, Renaissance style. He retained the services of architects from Florence for this rebuilding, in which 20 Italian craftsmen worked more or less constantly. The reconstruction had everything that a renaissance structure of its day should have: three magnificent stories, an elaborate chapel, hanging gardens, tall columns, sculpture of classical figures, such as Athena, goddess of wisdom and knowledge—it was a state of the art building.
Inside, King Matyas had the best artwork money could buy—paintings, frescoes, even a sculpture of the Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci.
He also assembled the best library money could buy—the Corvina library, which ended up being second only in volume and import to the Vatican—Greek and Latin manuscripts, a wide variety of subject matter, philosophy, history, poetry, geography, mathematics.
He arranged to have a printing press, a rarity at that time. Matyas believed that Budapest would be a celebrated capital and thus it should be a center of book publishing.

Matyas is credited with establishing Buda as the center of action in Hungary, and with making the Castle the focal point of the city. He believed that a free city is also a cultured city, and so his legacy is not only the rebuilt castle, but also its place as a historical/cultural center. To this day, the Buda castle houses the National Art Gallery, the Budapest History Museum and the Hungarian national archives.

But there were two problems with Matyas’s reign in Hungary:: one, he eventually died without an heir, which guaranteed an internal fight for the throne, and Hungary was about to be invaded by the fiercest fighting force ever to hit Europe—the Ottoman Turks.

The Turks had already conquered all of southeastern Europe before l500—Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, part of Croatia, Romania. They were moving steadily towards Hungary with overwhelming force. In August of l526, in southern Hungary, the Hungarian King Lajos met 80,000 Ottoman crack infantrymen with an army of l0,000 in light armor. It was brutal and quick. At the end of l526, Budapest was yet again occupied by a foreign invader. This time, it was the Ottoman Turks who would came to rule Budapest and the Hungarians—they moved into the Buda castle as conquerors(illustration). Their tenure lasted a couple of hundred years, l526-1783.

You can see the Ottoman influence in many places in Budapest. First, you can see it in the huge number of coffeehouses there, now mostly on the Pest side. The Ottomans were the ones who brought coffee, strong coffee, to Budapest—concentrated essence of coffee that is served in a small cup. It packs a punch.
You can see it in the huge number of bathhouses, too, mostly on the Buda side—Islam prescribed the taking of medicinal baths, so there were very many on the Buda side because there were so many mineral springs there. There are at least three that I know of dating to this period on the Buda side, down from the castle near the river.
The other major evidence of Ottoman rule in Budapest is now a world heritage site. It’s located in the Buda Hills, a little bit north of the Castle area and across the Margit bridge.
It’s a tomb—the tomb of Gul Baba(visible on this post), one of the Turks who took Budapest in l527. He was a cleric, close to the Pasha, who took part in the week-long celebrations after the Turks took Budapest. In that time, the Turks took control of the castle, turned the Matyas church, the signature church from Matyas’s time, into a mosque. Unfortunately, Gul died suddenly during the celebrations, but he was given a splendid funeral and a burial in the Buda Hills. His name in Turkish means “father of roses,” and according to local legend, he introduced the rose to Budapest. So the area around the tomb is called Roszadomb, or Rose Hill, and it has been maintained carefully in good times and bad, with recent help from the Turkish government.

It is an ongoing reminder of a two-hundred year period in which Budapest and Hungary endured foreign rule—more evidence of Budapest’s obsession with independence and freedom.

Some Budapest basics, part I

2008-04-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

By popular demand, some Budapest fundamentals:

What are the foundations of Budapest? We know that New York is New York because of geography, the desire to make lots and lots of money, the appearance of visionaries at every key moment, and the acceptance of newcomers. Belfast and Londonderry became the cities they are today largely because of the Protestant-Catholic conflict.

What about Budapest?

Budapest’s foundations are in some respects similar to, and in some respects pretty drastically different from, New York:

1) It shares favorable geography with New York: it is located along a major riverway on the European continent—the Danube--which make it easy to get goods back and forth to major markets—and it’s close enough to the black sea that you see possibilities far beyond Europe.

But, there’s more to it than that. One of the reasons that Buda was founded is that it is high on a hill, affording a commanding view of the east if not the west. That hints that this is a dangerous neighborhood, and it IS. Budapest is both blessed and cursed by its geography—there are NO natural frontiers, no high mountains, no huge rivers that would slow down opposing armies, just some foothills and lots and lots of plains, flat, flat, flat. That wouldn’t be good in any case, but it’s really going to be murder when the Russians get going, then the Germans. It is NOT GOOD to be a small nation and people with no natural frontiers in a hostile neighborhood sandwiched between historically aggressive powers.
Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic were some of the first to ask to get into NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty of Alliance, because of their history at the hands of the Germans and Russians. The Germans are no longer a threat; Russia may or may not become a good neighbor.

2) It is fiercely committed to the idea of freedom, of being able to determine its own destiny. It has the most elaborate parliament building in the world—it looks like a combination of the Vatican and the US Congress. Inside that parliament, they have the relics of their most famous warrior king, King Saint Steven, who first fought for their freedom and aligned them with the “civilized” nations of Europe, huge, imposing statues of the great men of Hungarian history and there is an honored quote by one of Hungary’s great men: I don’t like to say “Hungary was.” I prefer to say Hungary WILL BE!
Both the concept of freedom and the people who fought to make Hungary free of foreign rulers, foreign invaders, foreign influence are everywhere commemorated in Budapest.
One of the major bridges in Budapest is the Freedom Bridge. If you drive over it from Buda into Pest, you will arrive at the American Embassy, which is located on Freedom Square.
The square that the Parliament is located on is Kossuth ter, named for Lajos Kossuth, the man considered the father of Hungarian freedom. The metro station is Kossuth Ter. There is a Kossuth street. There is a Kossuth high school in the town. And that is just for starters.

There is even a GEO WASHINGTON statue in Budapest City Park, a tribute to the US founding father whose country gave so many Hungarians over the years the chance to live in freedom.

The major statues and monuments are all devoted to Hungarian fighters for freedom

Kossuth. Sandor Petofi. Imre Nagy. General Bem, whose image you see above. And the lady atop Gellert Hill, once a Soviet monument, but rechristened in the spirit of a free and independent Hungary

And if you look at Hungarian state holidays, a great many of them have to do with freedom, days on which independence was proclaimed, or reproclaimed:

March l5—the day independence from Austria was proclaimed

June l6—the day Hungary celebrates the winning of its freedom from Russia in l989

August 20-- St. Stephen day, celebrates King St. Stephen, who oversaw the Christianization of Hungary and ruled a free, golden-age state in the l0th century

October 23—beginning of the Hungarian rebellion of l956 against the Soviet Union..

Thus the factors that made Budapest a city, shaped its destiny, are: geography, and then the all-consuming desire for freedom, from invaders, from foreigners ruling them, from

450 final

2008-04-15T22:27:00.001-07:00

And now, what we've all(!?) been waiting for...the ModEur final...

History 450
Europe since 1945
Final exam spring 2008

Directions Part I(60%): Prepare the following question, drawing upon lectures, readings, videos, travel and personal reflection. Be sure to make clear at the outset what points you will address in the essay and back each point up with specific names, dates, etc. EVERYBODY will do this one.

One fact that characterized Europe between l945 and l989 was division. Write an essay in which you explain for someone unfamiliar with Europe how it became divided. Then identify briefly two or three manifestations of this division. Conclude by discussing briefly why the dividing lines dissolved in the late l980s. Use specific examples in specific places to support your discussion.

Part II(40%) Prepare answers to these questions, using the same methods as described above. You should prepare ALL of them, unless you are a betting man(or woman!)…

“Blessed are those who hunger for justice,” reads a mural in a Catholic neighborhood in northern Ireland. Select one of the H-Block martyrs(not Bobby Sands, because he’s too well known) and discuss the reasoning behind his decision to take his own life on behalf of Irish Catholics. Then evaluate the success of the hunger strike in improving the lot of Catholic citizens over the long term.

The fight for civil rights was waged in both the United States and northern Ireland in the l960s, the Irish taking a page from the notebook of Martin King and other American civil rights leaders. Discuss the conditions the northern Irish Civil Rights Association sought to change in their country, then trace the evolution of their movement. What role did they ultimately play in the resolution of the Troubles?

Like all the small nations in the Soviet orbit, Czechoslovakia had a tragic history after l945. Discuss briefly how it fell under Soviet control, then describe the yearlong attempt by some Czechoslovak authorities to achieve a more humane “socialism” in the Prague Spring l967-68. Conclude your essay by outlining some of the assets and liabilities life there now, nearly 20 years after the state’s breakaway from the Soviet Union.

Titanic Anniversary

2008-04-15T17:03:00.002-07:00

Today is the 96th anniversary of the loss of the Titanic. BBC.com has a phenominal history website and of course there is one on the Titanic. Check it out here.

Essential website

2008-04-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

As I was saying the other day, a group of dedicated observers and researchers at Queen's University, Belfast, has put together and digitized a remarkable collection of memorabilia documenting the northern Irish conflict. It will help a lot with preparation for the 425 final, so by all means visit here.

425 final

2008-04-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've been in the salt mine for awhile, so this blog has been less than active, but I've come back up for air, just in time for finals 2008, of which this is the first to be posted:

History 425
Final exam—April 30, 2008

Directions Part I: Prepare the following four questions, taking care to bring in materials from reading, lectures, video, and whatever outside reading you have done. You will do ONE question in section I, and then ONE question in section TWO, but you don’t know WHICH questions will be selected, so you are advised to prepare ALL of them.

1) The Chain Bridge(lanchid in Hungarian) is indisputably the most beloved bridge in Budapest, a city of bridges. What is its significance for the evolution of the city, and more broadly, the Hungarian nation?

2) As in Ireland, the history of Budapest and Hungary is the story of a constant fight for freedom. First, outline for someone you know will be visiting where he/she can see evidence of this fight on the landscape of the Hungarian capital city. Then explain briefly the circumstances of the l956 Hungarian revolution and describe how Budapesters have chosen to commemorate that shattering event.

Directions Part II: See directions for Part I

3) In his book, Belfast Diary: War as a Way of Life, John Conroy despairs of how the “core issues that have driven of this conflict can ever be solved through peace talks.” What are(were, now, thankfully) these “core issues,” and how did they affect residents on the Falls Road, the Catholic neighborhood where Conroy lived during his time in northern Ireland?

4) Clues to the northern Irish conflict—its past as well as its future—abound, particularly in the two largest cities, Londonderry and Belfast. What are some of the clues visitors can see, and what can they reveal about the way Catholics and Protestants view the “Troubles?”

Onward and upward...past this exam to summer break.

A new Rite of Spring?!

2008-03-02T14:58:00.001-08:00

It must be spring, since we're beginning to see those quasi-pagan rituals emerge here and there. Here is a great one, by way of Flanders in Belgium...care for some goldfish with your beverage?

A Really "Bad" Girl...

2008-03-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for pranksters, practical jokers and professional outrages, people who would upset the apple cart, drop a f-bomb on an unsuspecting dinner party, trip a little light fantastic maybe. Thus I was sorry to hear of the passing of Dorothy Podber this week at the age of 75...in a town full of eccentrics, she certainly upheld the reputation of " wild children" everywhere:

NEW YORK - Dorothy Podber, a wild child of the New York art scene in the 1950s and '60s who is probably best known for brandishing a pistol and putting a bullet through the forehead of Marilyn Monroe's likenesses on a stack of Andy Warhol's paintings, died at her apartment in Manhattan on Feb. 9. She was 75.

The artist Herndon Ely, her friend and caretaker, said she died of natural causes.

Ms. Podber was an artist and helped run the Nonagon Gallery in Manhattan in the late '50s and early '60s, which showed the work of a young Yoko Ono and was known for jazz concerts by performers such as Charles Mingus. But she became famous, and infamous, in the art world mostly as a muse and a coconspirator of more prominent artists such as Ray Johnson, with whom she staged impromptu happenings on Manhattan streets.

In one, she and Johnson persuaded people they had just met to allow them into their apartments, where they would play records used by speech therapists that contained samples of stuttering.

"She said people were pretty nonplussed, as you'd expect," Ely said. "She and Ray would also do another bit where they'd reenact the shower scene from 'Psycho.' "

In a 2006 interview with the writer Joy Bergmann, Ms. Podber said: "I've been bad all my life. Playing dirty tricks on people is my specialty."

Certainly the most outrageous was her unsolicited contribution to a few of Warhol's "Marilyn" silk-screen paintings. In fall 1964 Ms. Podber, a friend of the photographer and significant Warhol collaborator Billy Name, visited Warhol's Factory in midtown Manhattan with her Great Dane (named Carmen Miranda or Yvonne De Carlo, depending on the account). Ms. Podber asked Warhol whether she could shoot a stack of the "Marilyn" paintings; he apparently thought that she wanted to take pictures of them and consented.

But she produced a pistol and fired at them, penetrating three or four. One of them, "Shot Red Marilyn," with a repaired bullet hole over the left eyebrow, sold for $4 million in 1989, at the time setting a record at auction for a Warhol work.

"After she left," Name told Bergmann, "Andy came over to me and said: 'Please make sure Dorothy doesn't come over here anymore. She's too scary.' "

Ms. Podber told Bergmann that when money was low, as it often was, she generally found unorthodox ways to make it. She once ran a service that dispatched maids to doctors' offices, primarily as a way to get the keys to the doctors' drug cabinets. "I never worked much," she said.

No doubt New York will be the poorer without Podber and her prankstering...

Startling news!

2008-03-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

I don't want to alarm anyone, but it is a FACT, History 425 and 450 will be meeting at their regularly scheduled times ALL THIS WEEK(!!!). 469ers will be in the salt mine, working diligently on their chefs d'oeuvres, and I will be hanging in the office, as usual, during NORMALLY SCHEDULED office hours.

That is all. Over and Out!

425 reminder

2008-02-26T20:32:00.001-08:00

Don't forget, I will not make City in History class tomorrow(Wednesday), because i am the featured program at the Rotarians' meeting in Kennewick at noon. We WILL meet on Friday, no question, as usual. I am sure that this news will devastate everyone, but please try to recover in time for Friday...

Required reading on Russia

2008-02-25T17:11:00.000-08:00

This morning, I referenced the article by Clifford Levy in Sunday's New York Times about the Putin election "campaign" as played out in a regional Russian city, Nizhnii Novgorod. Click here to access it from the International Herald Tribune, which you can read without registration. It is definitely required reading for understanding this incarnation of Russia.

More exam resources...

2008-02-19T21:10:00.001-08:00

I mentioned the other day that the last in the New York: A Documentary Film series, "New York: The Center of the World," has a website on which you can find the transcript of the broadcast, as well as other helpful features. You can also access descriptions of the other episodes, but there are no transcripts. Nonetheless, it might be worth your time to look at the Big Apple history section...it certainly won't hurt. Click here to go there(if that makes any sense).

If you scroll down this page, you will find a great site for the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which is the subject of one of the two questions in part II.

Onward and upward, as my grad advisers used to say!

The 425 exam cometh...

2008-02-18T15:18:00.001-08:00

...and just in time, some thoughts on those pesky questions on part II of the test...

Here’s a few things to think about…

On geography…remember that New York has probably the best, or at least one of the best, natural harbors in the world. That was very attractive at the time New Amsterdam was founded, and even well before, since we know a number of explorers landed there to look around. If ships can come and go easily, and find the kind of natural shelter from the ocean tempests that New Amsterdam offered, then it’s very likely that the mainland will become a commercial center.

Because it was so ideally positioned and equipped to become a commercial center, the city was a magnet for immigrants seeking work. And because there always was work for newcomers, those newcomers tended not to venture farther, which helped make New York the most dynamic city in the country. And of course, those immigrants all arrived by ship, until well into the 20th century…

Related to that is the Hudson river, which flows into the Atlantic at Manhattan and allows access to the north American inland. It allowed far more when DeWitt Clinton’s enterprise and brain power was applied to cutting a waterway that linked the Great Lakes and the Hudson. There’s natural geography and man-made geography, or rather man helping natural geography along…both were key to New York’s becoming the commercial HQ of the north American continent.

In the revolutionary war, New York just happened to be located right in the center of the American colonies…it was about equidistant from Virginia and Boston. This meant that if the British took and held New York in the war, they could probably hold most of the rest of north America. But they failed to hold New York, which goes a long way towards explaining their ultimate failure to hold onto the American colonies. So goes New York, so goes the rest of the nation.

And then there is the island factor…because Manhattan is a slender piece of land with finite space, the buying and selling of real estate has always been an obsession there, from the time that the Dutch bought “Manahatta” from the Lenape in 1624…remember, the city’s first millionaire, Mr. John Jacob Astor, made most of his millions by buying up as much of the island as he could and reselling--after he quit the fur trading biz. The finite space factor also determined what the city would look like…if you are on an island and you want to make $$$, you pretty much have to build up. Remember all the skyscrapers, e.g the Flatiron building, Woolworth’s, Empire State and Chrysler before the WTC…they didn’t just go up because people wanted tall buildings. The higher they go, the more office space and/or apartments you can build and the more rent you can charge…that was the imperative behind the WTC’s being 110 floors/tower.

Does this help? What you really need to do, granted probably not before the exam, is make a pilgrimage to Gotham and look for evidence yourself. In any case, you'll be an informed visitor when you do get there.

Dumb and dumber?

2008-02-14T18:53:00.000-08:00

There's a new book out by Susan Jacoby probing the depths of, and the reasons for, American anti-intellectualism. There's always been a strong undercurrent of disregard and even scorn for the life of the mind in this country, beginning with life on the frontier. Who were the teachers there? The ones who couldn't DO anything, like clear away trees or build houses.

The New York Times report on Jacoby's book offers some contemporary evidence of American ignorance, including the following:

The American idol stalwart, Kelli Pickler, on a recent episode of "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

"Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

A recent National Geographic poll that discovered

that "early half of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think it is necessary or important to know where countries in the news are located. So more than three years into the Iraq war, only 23 percent of those with some college could locate Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel on a map."

But what exactly was it that moved her to plumb the depths of her countrymen's ignorance? It happened on New York's darkest day, 9/11/2001.

"Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

'This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, 'What is Pearl Harbor?'

'That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,' the first man replied."

At that point, Jacoby said, she decided that she needed to write the book. I had a student once who, under severe stress, wrote on an exam that Lyndon Johnson dropped the atom bomb on north Vietnam, but that's not quite in the same category.

Sheesh...we've got some DUMB people in this culture, dumb and dumber.

Nightmare time again

2008-02-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

It's happened again...this time at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb, Illinois, about sixty miles from Chicago. A gunman described as a "skinny white guy with a stocking cap on," dressed all in black, opened fire on a geology lecture this afternoon on campus. The latest reports indicate five are dead and several others in extremely critical condition. Read the latest here.

Every time this happens, I am first outraged--people have no right to bring their private grudges and weaponry into a place of peace and exploration and reflection. That is a severe trespass on all that I treasure. Then I wonder how long it will be before administrators will be putting up metal detectors and checkpoints at key entrances to the classrooms and offices. That is the way I've always known universities to be overseas. You can't get in any campus buildings there, generally speaking, without proper documentation and/or someone coming to confirm that you are expected.

Finally, of course, I wonder how and when it became acceptable to exorcise your demons on innocent people in a place where people come to learn and improve themselves. What's happening to this culture? Can someone explain this to me?

Congressman Tom Lantos and The City in History Class

2008-02-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

How are Califorinia Congressman Tom Lantos and your City in History class possibly connected? Congressman Lantos is a Hungarian Jew and the only Holocaust survivor elected to the U.S. Congress. He grew up in a small town just outside of Budapest and he was saved by one Raoul Wallenberg, who you will learn more about when you study Budapest.

Congressman Lantos passed away yesterday. He was 80-years-old. Here is the Washington Post article where you can read a little more about his remarkable life.

A thought for the upcoming holiday...

2008-02-09T15:46:00.001-08:00

Valentine's Day is nearly upon us, and so is Champagne, a great gift for just about anyone, or at least anyone who enjoys a little drink or two. In that spirit, I remind you of Mme. Bollinger, the sometime grande dame of the Bollinger Champagne houses, who spoke of her devotion to the bubbly stuff in a l961 interview:

"I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I'm thirsty."

That pretty much sums up my attitude towards Champagne...one of the great thrills of my life was visiting some of the great Champagne houses in the eponymous region of France and taking a tour of Pommery, which you see above. It would be a sin to visit Lafayetteland and fail to pay a visit to Champagne...I heartily recommend it.

Triangle narrative site

2008-02-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

There is a terrific site sponsored by Cornell University that is dedicated to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of March 25, l911 in New York City. You can find a summary of events, chronology, photos/illustrations, original newspaper articles from the following days, and closeup shots of turn-of-the-century sweatshops(which actually are indistinguishable from 21st century sweatshops). Worth your time and attention...

Four excellent questions

2008-02-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when people are contemplating life changes and/or changes in direction--grad school or no grad school, taking a year off, quitting the job in favor of going back to school, things like that. I was just reading a riff on risk from a prominent surgeon who is called upon to make life-or-death decisions virtually every day in his work. This individual always asks himself these four questions before proceeding:

What is the best thing that can happen if I do this?

What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this?

What is the best thing that can happen if I don't do this?

What is the worst thing that can happen if I don't do it?

You will notice that most of these questions lead to doing whatever it is you are reluctant, or afraid, to do, so if you are looking for courage or support in taking a risk, or going out on a limb, take a copy of these questions and block out some answers...

p.s. one of my graduate advisers, the late, great Robert Francis Byrnes, always told people to "do what you are afraid to do." That's pretty good advice, too, and good practice.

Today's 425

2008-02-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

By popular demand, a summary of today's City in History: we talked briefly again about the "second wave" of immigration, which brought millions of east/east central europeans and southeast Europeans to the lower east side of New York. There were some questions about assimilation, i.e. whether today's New York City immigrants have the same burning desire to become Americanized, learn English, etc., as their predecessors. The answer to that is yes, and no...there is a six-year waiting list for free English classes, so the desire to learn is there, even if the money and resources are not. On the other hand, people are more able to keep up with things in the old country via the Internet, and often can work in their ethnic enclave rather than get out, e.g. Russians who work in Russian establishments in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. All the local institutions and businesses speak Russian there, and there is Russian-language media there, thus not so much need to leave there and socialize with non-Russians. So, yes, there is a desire to assimilate, yet also circumstances that permit people to remain in their own world within greater New York.

One of the consequences of the crowding of all these people into lower Manhattan was the (further)congestion of streets--then, as now, it's very hard to make your way above ground there. Thus was born the necessity of the underground, or subway. The city fathers decided that New York would have a subway in the early l890s, and employed mostly Italian unskilled labor to dig the tunnels. In October l904, what is now known as the Lexington Avenue Line debuted to great fanfare, and the subway was launched. Unlike most subways in Europe, you pay the same amount wherever you are going in the five boroughs, so there was now incentive to move out of crowded Manhattan into Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx. You would not be financially penalized on your commute to work from there...so that is a great example of necessity--an immigrant influx--being the engine of invention(the subway).

We also looked at the three major New York newspapers, the New York Times, and then the two tabloid rags, the Daily News and the Rupert Murdoch vehicle, the Fox News of print, the New York Post. These are reliable guides to what is going on in the city today; which you prefer is a function of your tastes in media. If you'd rather see the New York Mayor referred to as "Mr. Bloomberg," you'll probably like the Times. If you like him as "Bloomie," the tabloids are your cup of tea.

Grand Central on PBS

2008-02-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

Make sure you watch, or tape, tomorrow night's American Experience on your local PBS station(out here, AE usually airs at 9 pm). It's all about the most splendid public building in the world, Grand Central Station in New York City. Built at the turn of the last century, it is going strong a century later, as a subway and train station, mini-shopping mall, luscious food hall host, restaurant venue and peoplewatching mecca. If you park yourself for awhile in the Oyster Bar downstairs from the main terminal, and order a martini at the bar, you can find yourself transported back to prewar New York, when People in the Know drank nothing BUT martinis. I dislike them intensely, in fact they trip my gag reflex every time, but I've choked a couple down in my time, in order to drink in something of retro New York.

On a related note: New. York. Won. The. Superbowl.

425 midterm

2008-02-03T17:11:00.000-08:00

As promised, the midterm for City in History, the "New York" exam...

History 425—Spring ’08, the New York exam
Midterm exam –for Friday, February 22, 2008

This might seem to be an ambitious set of questions—you’re not wrong—and that is why I scheduled the exam for a Friday. I will be in the room before l2 for all those who would like to get an early start and will plan to stay until l:15 for anyone who wants some extra time.

Directions Part I(50%): Answer the question, taking care to use specific details from the readings, lectures, videos and any independent readings or investigations you have done:

This question will be based on the text City in the Sky. It will be general, not excessively concerned with details, but will test your understanding of the fundamental facts behind the campaign for and construction of the World Trade Center.

Directions Part II(30%). Answer the agreed-upon question—you won’t know which one until test day—again, using some or all of the materials to which you have had access:

1. It is often said that geography is destiny. Write an essay in which you explain(at least in part)how geography helped shape New York’s destiny from its origins to the present. Be sure to back up the points you made with specific names, dates, facts, etc.

2. The Triangle shirtwaist factory disaster was a dark chapter in New York history, the
darkest in New York history prior to the attacks of September ll, 2001. Outline the
circumstances in which the employees worked, explain how and why they died and conclude by indicating what changes it brought to the life of the city.

Directions part III(20%): Identify, describe and GIVE THE SIGNIFICANCE of the following. You will be asked to do TWO among these on test day(which two, you don't know): “Clinton’s Big Ditch,” Shearith Israel, St. Patrick’s cathedrals(old and new), 1624, John Jacob Astor, Peter Stuyvesant, Emma Lazarus/The New Colossus, Alexander Hamilton, Grand Central Station.

Best of New York, part deux

2008-02-01T09:13:00.001-08:00

Germann has pointed out that I have shamefully neglected to include within the best of New York the immortal NEW YORK YANKEE baseball team. I humbly offer my mea culpa and wish to send you now to the official website of the BRONX BOMBERS, where you can check to see how many hours, minutes and seconds remain until pitchers and catchers report, get news on the new additions to the roster and progress on the new-and-improved Yankee stadium, plus buy official Yankee gear, of which I must have an entire roomful by now. I realize we are operating in a Seattle Mariners environment, but their fans should look at this historically...there is not a more storied American sports team, with the possible exception of the Boston Red Sox, than the Yankees. You need to know about the Yankees if you are interested in New York, because a passion for the Yankees might be the only unifying factor in the city besides the mania to make money...every immigrant group has its own TV station and its own Yankees beat reporter. It was quite a shock in December to see even Russian-speaking public access TV speculating on the team's chances in 2008. And Yankee baseball caps are a cultural statement, both here and abroad...the coolest people worldwide are in NYY headgear.

And then there's the civic chauvinist factor: New York is great, New York should always win, GO YANKS!

I wish to point out that the METS don't figure into this calculus, because they are not Manhattan, they are the SUBURBS. Plus, they are parvenus, only on the scene since the l960s. It would be unthinkable to root for them.

The best of New York

2008-01-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

We've talked a lot about the virtues of New York City this past week, but there is one institution that stands out in terms of its accessibility, its value and...PRICE. It's the Astor family's greatest gift to their city and the world, the New York Public Library. You can read a rundown of what's up this month here, after which you can pay a personal virtual visit and get CATNYP(!) here.

January 30, l972-2008

2008-01-30T08:12:00.000-08:00

Today is the 36th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Londonderry, northern Ireland. On that day, a mass march for civil rights in the Bogside, or Catholic section of the city, turned into blood-soaked mayhem as British army paras, or special forces opened fire on the march, killing l4 people. There are varying explanations of what happened that day, including allegations that IRA members were present and fired on the soldiers, but it seems clear that the soldiers were pumped up and determined to "teach those Fenians a lesson," in the words of one commander. Several of those murdered were l8 or under, including Jack Duddy, a promising boxer who hoped for a spot on the Irish Olympic team. He became the symbol of the horror of that day, as a priest and several marchers tried to carry him to safety.

I first learned of this incident in global studies class--one actually relevant moment in an otherwise forgettable course-- leafing through the pages of Life magazine. I wondered how this could happen in one of the cradles of western Civilization, British soldiers shooting down their fellow citizens, some roughly my own age, on a sunny weekend day. With time and some reading, you come to a more nuanced understanding of these kinds of incidents, but the sight of l3 coffins in the church where the mass funeral was held is something I can never forget. I saw it first in that life magazine, then was lucky enough to get to the Bogside Inn in Derry, where there is an entire wall dedicated to pictures of the march, then the mayhem, funeral and burials.

Fortunately, Londonderry is peaceful today, thanks to the passage of time, people's impatience with the "fanatics hijacking our lives" and the dedicated negotiators of the Good Friday peace agreement. But it can only be bittersweet for people who lost loved ones on that day, like Jack Duddy's sister, who laments that "all I can do for him now, on holidays, is bring him a fresh bouquet of flowers in the cemetery."

The image you see above is of the mortally wounded Jackie Duddy and the people who tried to get him some help. The priest you see is Fr. Daly, who later went on to become the bishop of Derry. The photograph is mine, but the mural is the work of the Kelly brothers, who call themselves the Bogside artists. All credit to them and their wonderful story of the northern Irish conflict in murals throughout the Bogside, or Catholic neighborhood of Derry. PLEASE go visit their official site and inspect their work. If you are in Londonderry, you can knock on the door of their studio, located just in back of the Bogside Inn, and if they are there, they will greet you warmly.

Geogaffe

2008-01-29T20:17:00.001-08:00

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a smart man--he's a billionaire turnaround specialist and Olympic mastermind--but he has some work to do on the world map. On a recent campaign stop, he was heard to declare, "America faces competition from countries like Asia and India."

Ouch. This reminds me of President Bush's confusion of Slovenia with Slovakia...these Republican candidates need to step it up a notch, as they say, if they want to spin the globe in the Oval Office.

Our luck has run out

2008-01-29T20:14:00.000-08:00

It appears that the weather is not going to cooperate in giving us another Snow Day, so I'll see you tomorrow at the usual time. History 469 will not meet tomorrow, but MONDAY...I had planned on meeting Monday(the snow day) and so agreed to a lunch beforehand. MONDAY for 469, TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY, for everyone else. C U then...

No class anywhere!

2008-01-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

NO CLASSES PERIOD AT WSU TRI-CITIES! Take your snow day and use it productively(lol!). See you Wednesday.

NO CLASS TODAY, MONDAY, JANUARY 28

2008-01-28T07:57:00.000-08:00

Like the headline says...NO CLASS TODAY in HISTORY 425, 469 or 450!! The roads between here and Tri-Cities are dreadful, and the roads around Tri-Cities look terrible, so let's do us all a favor and NOT RISK COMING OUT IN IT. We are to be plagued with high winds today anyway, making driving still more hazardous.

See you WEDNESDAY the 31st as usual...get out and play in the snow. We've got almost a foot of it here, so there will be a lot to play in...

Are you a good citizen?

2008-01-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

If you weren't taxed enough by the previous quiz, here's some questions applicants for US citizenship must answer correctly in order to proceed to the swearing-in ceremony. I did okay, so I think I will be allowed to retain my residence in the country, but there are some traps for the unwary and uncertain.

So how did you do?

Life-skilled?

2008-01-25T20:08:00.000-08:00

As is their wont, the editors of the London Independent newspaper made me think today, with their list of twenty things everyone should know. This is not academic knowledge at all, it is everything from how to change a tire( tyre, in Londonese)to the basics of conducting a background information(?!). Go and check yourself. I admit to some serious deficiencies in my basic life skills, starting with the background check...

Reminder

2008-01-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Don't forget, we will NOT have class in History 425 tomorrow, Wednesday, 1-23. I will be regaling the Richland Kiwanians as the featured entertainment.

History 469 and 450 will meet, as scheduled. The Kiwanians go back to work or retirement promptly at 1 pm...

History 425 WILL meet on Friday, 1-25, as usual, l2:10.

Quiz on this information to follow(NOT!)...

A new contender

2008-01-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

A propos of last year's contest in this space for Foreign Leader past or present with the most exotic name, e.g. Megawatti Bambang of Indonesia...there's a new entrant. The new President of the Turkmens is...Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, who recently replaced the immortal Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-styled "Father of all Turkmen" who named all the days of the week after himself, and some of the months of the year as well. President Berdymukhamedov--just try saying that three times quickly!-- has already reversed "Father's" decision to disallow circuses and opera(no word yet on returning the names of the days of the week), so he's on his way to a different place on the political landscape of Turkmenistan, but he's certainly got a name reminiscent of his illustrious precedessor.

A toast to the Turkmens and their new Leader!

Food geography--Italia

2008-01-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about travel and geography is getting to know the various regions of a given country. Italy has a lot of them, and each has made its own distinctive contribution to the great cause of Italian cuisine. Liguria is in the northwest of the country, next door to France--Europeans know it as the Italian Riveria, because it's located on the Ligurian sea(the Grant's tomb part of the post, in case you missed it).

Its culinary signatures are its fish soup--cioppino--basil and(surprise!)pesto. Ligurians use pesto the way the rest of the Italy uses marinara sauce...it is the standard topping. You can make yourself a quick introduction to Ligurian Italia by making this dish, the recipe for which is here:

Penne with pesto, green beans and potatoes

I standard-sized package of pesto, which you can buy at a good grocery or Italian food store. If you want to make your own, there are thousands of good recipes on the web…you’ll need fresh basil, extra-virgin olive oil, pecorino-romano cheese and salt

Then…

1/2 lb small red potatoes, peeled and cut into slices about 1/4 inch thick
1/2 lb young, slender green beans, stem ends trimmed
1 lb penne, ziti or trenette pasta
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp

Bring a large pot 3/4 full of water to a rolling boil and add about 2 tablespoons salt. Add potatoes and green beans and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Using a large slotted spoon, transfer the potatoes and beans to a large, warmed serving bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with aluminum foil to keep the veggies warm.

Bring the water back to a rolling boil, add the penne, stir well, and cook, stirring occasionally(about l0 minutes), until al dente. Scoop out and reserve about 2 ladlesfull of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.

Add the drained pasta to the vegetables and then add the pesto. Stir and toss until the pasta and veggies are evenly coated with the sauce, adjusting with some of the cooking water if necessary. Add the butter and toss to coat evenly. Serve at once….

If you want more on Ligurian food and/or info on Italian cuisine from all the regions of the country, you can't do better than this site

A City in (Current)History, 2008

2008-01-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

My oldest pal--we've known each other since the age of six months, so i'm told--wrote this about an incident that happened yesterday near her workplace on Capitol Hill, DC:

"It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood, a beautiful day in my neighborhood, won't you be my neighbor?

Well maybe not yesterday afternoon. One of those days we have in DC from time to time when something just a little bit odd pops out. In this case, it was a guy walking down the street with a loaded shotgun, a samurai sword and a bag that was found filled with gunpowder. He was walking down the street near my office, heading towards the capital. It's the sort of thing that sooner or later does draw attention, and he was stopped by the Capitol Police who arrested him and then sent a robot bomb detecting unit over to his car to blow up a suspicious package or two there.

Of course it is the sort of thing that does cause the streets to close down and police to swarm a bit, so people coming back from lunch to their offices (this happened around 1pm) get not only a floor show, but the fun of trying to find a new way to get back to their office because they can't cross one of the police lines."

That's one of the endearing features of both Washington and New York--both cities are nutcase magnets. Eccentrics are drawn there, especially to New York, like moths to light. One prefers the nonlethal eccentrics, of course, over the ones with shotguns and samurai swords, but it's difficult to sort them out...generally speaking, long live cities!!

Your almighty 425 tier III...

2008-01-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

Without further ado, the instructions for 425 tier III:

History 425—City in History—Writing Assignment 2008

This is a Tier III course, which brings with it a substantial, as in 5-7 page, writing assignment. What you will do is this: first, assume you are a professional researcher. You have been asked to do a profile of a city OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA that will be of interest to businesspeople preparing to live and do business overseas. You will proceed as follows:

A) Choose a city outside north America that interests you. If you’ve always been interested in London, for example, this is your chance to get to know it better, a lot better, for CREDIT.

b) START READING about your city. If there is a “biography,” a contemporary portrait of a city like Alastair Horne’s Seven Ages of Paris, read it. Then begin a search for related articles and books. You will be doing the bulk of your reading from newspapers and magazines, most likely, such as the London Times or Le Figaro for a city like Paris, or the International Herald Tribune, or Time or Newsweek or National Geographic. Travel books and magazines can be of help too. Lots of cities have websites, too, and you should consult those. You’ll be expected to read 2-3 articles per week about your city or events in it, writing and filing away a summary of each article as you go along(for a total of about l6-20 summaries). In mid-April, you will stop reading and prepare to write the profile based on your findings. Everyone needs to keep track of his/her reading, documenting it all along, establishing a “paper trail,” so to speak.

c) Once you are prepared to write the profile, you should do three things: one, give your businessperson an idea of how history and/or geography has shaped this city. New York is New York in part because of its geography; what major factor(s) made London/Paris/Brussels/Rio/Cape Town/Chennai what it is today? Secondly, what is a/the major preoccupation of this city at this point in time? One obvious example is London, shaken as it has been by terrorist incidents and plots. Finally, what should a foreigner know about this city’s business climate? What kinds of initiatives and proposals would have the best chance of succeeding? How is the cost of living?

D) Hand in the paper, your summaries and articles(your paper trail, in other words)on the designated day in mid-April. You should be finished with it before finals…

Mapmania

2008-01-15T19:13:00.000-08:00

Continuing the thread about geography, and more particularly geography and politics, there is a great link for you to explore
here. It's the Department of History at the United States Military Academy, and they have done a great service in putting hundreds of maps online, a lot of them dealing(for some strange reason)with this country's wars, but many of them historical, e.g. Europe in l922. On the table of contents, look for the section "Our Atlases" and click.

I've already used the site many times, and I never even had to stand at attention. Go Army!!

More GEOGRAPHY(!)

2008-01-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

Geographymania lives...here is the short-answer portion of the GEO midterm for 450. Even if you won't be doing these for credit, test yourself...no cheating, now!

History 450…in addition to identifying countries and caps and a few other features, you will be asked SOME of the following short-answer questions on the upcoming GEO midterm…as usual, prepare ALL of them unless you are a betting man/woman.

What European regional capital is known as “Titanic town?”

Match the European country with its homegrown alcoholic beverage: Calvados, ouzo, shlivovitz, palinka, Bushmills, Pilsner, Dom Perignon

What central. European country is home to the Lippizaner stud farm?

Where is Dracula's castle? Name the country AND region

What French city was seat of the Papacy for a time a few centuries ago?

Which central European country is famous for gulyas and paprika?

What east European city is the location of the Lenin ship
Yard, famous for its role in the l980s? What country was it in before l945?

What defines the states we know as the “Baltics” and the “Balkans”? Name two Baltic and Balkan states.

What country’s capital has been the head of two major religious empires?

Where is the home base of the Ibizian hound, one of the biggest, skinniest dogs you will find? How about the celebrated hunting dog known as the “Kurzhaar?”

What accounts for both French and German being heard on the streets of the eastern French city of Strasbourg?

What city is considered the birthplace of the Beatles?

Identify the countries to which these Olympic cities belong: Turin , Lillehammer, Athens, Grenoble, Sarajevo, Munich, Barcelona, St. Moritz

Which city is lucky enough to have Schipol as its airport, one of the most user-friendly in the world?

For which southeast European country is the region of Kosovo the cradle of civilization?

Cartographic confusion: What are these cities called today, and where are they? Koloszvar, Caporetto, Breslau, Take one of them and explain how its name got changed.

Geo quiz prep

2008-01-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

All the Europe since l945 students are now or will be very familiar with the following illustration...it's the map on which the geo midterm will be based, at least in part. It won't be just countries and capitals--there will be some short-answer questions--but filling this out correctly will be a good first step in the gradual reduction of your geographic illiteracy...

More on "The Jewish Americans"

2008-01-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in the PBS series I referenced below, "The Jewish-Americans," you can access the website and accompanying resources here. PBS always sets up a website with all kinds of extras for people interested in a given program, so it's worth a look.

Must-see TV

2008-01-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

The coming week features two PBS offerings that promise to be worth your time. First is the American Experience, by definition a must, featuring yet another look at the JFK assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald's role in it. I doubt this round will clear up the controversy that still continues to swirl around that tragic incident, but AE always has an interesting take on whatever it chooses to highlight.

Then Wednesday, KTNW will air part II of the excellent series "The Jewish Americans." Part I covered the Jewish experience in America from the arrival of the first Spanish and Portuguese Jews--the first Shearith Israel congregants in New York City--to the beginnings of the 20th century. Part II deals with the emergence of anti-Semitism in America after the turn of the century, an unhappy period to be sure, but a matter of record. This is a terrific program that should be of interest especially to City in History students, since so much of the Jewish experience in America is centered in the five boroughs of New York City.

Of course, if you want to take a break from history and politics, TCM and TVLand continue to make available the old favorites, e.g. Gone with the Wind, Andy Griffith, The Addams Family, Leave it to Beaver, etc. etc. I've almost always got something like that on, as background noise...the soundtracks of our lives, or something like that.

Merry Russian Christmas!

2008-01-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, Russians actually get a double dose of Christmas and New Year's, because the Russian Orthodox Church continues to use the Julian calendar, while the society at large follows the Gregorian, as we do here. Many Russians celebrated western Christmas on December 25; now they get their second, as today is Russian Orthodox Christmas. Hooray! Three Cheers! Here is another picture-perfect church to help us mark the occasion, St. Anna-on-the Corner, Moscow.

425

2008-01-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

...and 425, City in History. I think that's it...i HOPE I only have 3 classes this term!

History 425
City in History
WSUTC
Spring ‘08
B. Farley

A fatal moment for Budapest and Hungary—the Trianon Treaty of l920.

First things first: My office is 207J in the west building. You can call me at the office(372-7357), or you can EMAIL me at bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu OR brigitf2001@yahoo.com. I will always try to get back to you by the next day if at all possible. You can also call me at my ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon(541-276-6962). In any case, feel free to get in touch. I don’t bite and at least some people feel that my other habits are satisfactory.
My office hours face-to-face are 4-5:30 pm, Mondays and Wednesdays and whenever else you can catch me on campus. Virtual office hours are 24/7—you can email me anytime and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible, preferably by the next day.

Students with Disabilities: Accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. See Cherish Tijerna, Disability Resources Coordinator, as soon as possible to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. To make an appointment, please call 372-7352. In other words, if you have a learning disability, people and resources are available to help you.

The lowdown: Welcome to History 425, City in History. This is a course that can be done two ways, either concentrating on the role of the city in history or the role of history in a given city. I’m a fan of historical travel, so I lean to the latter rather than the former. This term, we will do an overview of four cities—New York, Budapest, Londonderry and Belfast—and focus on one or two defining events, events that shaped or made that city what it is today. In the case of New York, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and 9-11 are an obvious touchstone; for Budapest, the ordeal of World War II and then the l956 revolution against Soviet control are both key moments in its evolution. In Londonderry and Belfast, the long-running conflict between Catholic and Protestant citizens of northern(British)Ireland has literally shaped Londonderry and divided Belfast into ethnic enclaves worthy of Iraq. We will read about, and discuss all these places and the force(s)that shaped them in the modern age.
We will have three texts this term: for New York City, City in the Sky, a history of the World Trade Center, whose demise at the hands of the cavemen ushered in the world we now inhabit. The two buildings were always, to put it mildly, star-crossed. For Londonderry and Belfast, John Conroy, Belfast Diary. John Conroy was a Chicago Tribune correspondent who volunteered to live in “The Falls,” the main Catholic neighborhood, for 8 months in the contentious year l980-81. Conroy lived in Belfast, but what he experiences was not much different than what you would’ve found in Londonderry. Then, Michael Korda’s book on the Hungarian revolution against Soviet power, which took place 62 years ago this August. 1956 was the key event in Budapest and Hungarian history in the 20th century, and Journey to a Revolution is a timely look at how the revolution affects the city 60 years later.

Evaluation: We will have two exams, one midterm and one final. Each will be worth 25%. This being a capstone course, you will also have a substantial writing assignment, which I will describe for you in the coming days.

Course objectives: To get to know three major world cities/capitals and how recent history has affected them. To look beyond the buildings and boulevards and learn something of how the history of their respective countries is or is not reflected in them. To think about what makes a great city. To become convinced of the virtues of visiting cities as certified residents of very small towns…

Schedule

Part I : New York, New York

The beginnings—New Amsterdam, then New York

Revolutionary war and the making of Big Money in New York

The immigrant city

Catastrophe no. 1: Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The vertical city, the city in the sky

The twin towers

Catastrophe no. 2: September 11, 2001 and the future of New York

Required readings: City in the Sky: Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center. All.
Recommended readings: Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s kind of a kids’ book—I read it in 7th grade—but it gives all readers a real flavor of what life was like in Irish/immigrant New York circa l900. It is not a work of glowing nostalgia; it has the ring of authenticity and truth. Bernard Malamud, who died recently, wrote many works chronicling Jewish life in New York, such as The Chosen. Very worthwhile. Also, David Halberstam, Firehouse, one of the best books about 9-11, profiling the ten firefighters lost from the house closest to Halberstam’s home on the upper West Side
Recommended films: Where do you start? King Kong, Midnight Cowboy, Out-of-Towners, Odd Couple, Moscow on the Hudson, Radio Days (actually, almost anything starring Woody Allen), Once Upon a Time in America, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull (almost anything starring Robert DeNiro, who owns an expensive restaurant in lower Manhattan), The Apartment, Breakfast at Tiffany’s…and the list goes on.

First exam after conclusion of New York

Part II: Buda-Pest, tale of two cities

Buda-Pest, capital of the heart of Europe

How Buda-Pest became Budapest

Hungary and Budapest’s Golden Age

World War I and the tragedy of the Trianon Treaty

World War II and the destruction of the Hungarian Jews

Exit Nazis, enter Russians

1956: Budapest fights back

Budapest in the new Europe

Required readings: Korda, Journey to a Revolution, all.
Recommended readings: The Budapest Sun, English-language newspaper for Budapest. www.budapestsun.com. It isn’t a great source of hard news, but it does have interesting feature articles about the city and its culture.
Recommended film: “Sunshine,” starring Ralph Fiennes. Four generations of a Hungarian Jewish family, set in Budapest, and widely available in video stores here.

Part III: Londonderry and Belfast, cities shaped by war

Origins of Catholic and Protestant conflict

1968: beginnings of the Troubles

London-Derry, divided city in a divided country

Belfast, “Titanic town” and ethnic enclaves

1972: Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday

Evolution of the Troubles

Londonderry and Belfast, a decade after Good Friday

Required readings: Conroy, Belfast Diary, all
Recommended readings: Eamonn McCann, War and an Irish Town, about life in Londonderry as a Catholic; Geoffrey Beattie, Protestant Boy, the life and education of a Protestant youth from Belfast.
Recommended films: “Michael Collins,” with Liam Neeson; “Patriot Games,” with Harrison Ford. Both deal with the Irish Republican Army and the Catholic perspective on the struggles; both are excellent.

Paper due date TBA before dead week. Second exam during finals week.

History 469, the writin' class

2008-01-07T17:12:00.001-08:00

Continuing with the drumroll accompaniment, 469...

History 469
Seminar in History
WSUTC spring ’08
B. Farley

Essential details: Office is 207j on faculty row in WEST bldg; tel. 372-7357(office), 541-276-6962(ancestral estate). Emails bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu, brigitf2001@yahoo.com. You can now send to either or both emails because I can actually view and read attachments now on the school email. Wonders truly never cease.
Office hours face-to-face this term are 4-5:30 pm, Mondays and Wednesdays. In addition, on days we are not meeting as a group, which is most of the second part of the term and some days before, you all have first priority. VIRTUAL OFFICE HOURS are 24/7 on email. I will always try to get back to you at least by the next day.

Students with Disabilities: Accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. See Cherish Tijerna, Disability Resources Coordinator, as soon as possible to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. To make an appointment, please call 372-7352. Translation from Officialspeak: If you have a learning disability, people and resources are available to help you.

Introduction: Welcome to History 469, Seminar in History. This is the place where you will get the opportunity to produce a nice piece of historical research and writing, something which you have hopefully been preparing since History 300, the pre-requisite for this course. That is your major assignment, to research and write a 10-15 page paper on a topic of your choosing in 20th century European and American history. This will be something that you can present with confidence to a potential employer, or as a writing sample for graduate or professional school.
What we will do in this course is a) meet Mondays and some Wednesdays during the first few weeks of the semester. During that time, we will cover the essentials of bringing your original idea or the one you developed earlier to fruition—finding and/or refining a topic, how to find and use sources, how to evaluate and present information from sources, bias and how to avoid or minimize it, and generally the dos and don’ts of writing about history. The main point about that last matter is: be honest, and avoid trying for spectacular or controversial findings. Your task is to determine what happened with/to your subject, wherever that might lead you.
Also during this first few weeks, you will be reading ONE REALLY, REALLY FINE piece of work in American history: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s OUTSTANDING book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II, No Ordinary Time. I want you to read this first because she uses a diversity of sources to maximum advantage and makes them work for her. This book is serious and substantive, yet full of humanity and telling anecdotes. DKG is an ordinary mortal who produced this wonderful portrait; YOU are an ordinary mortal capable of doing the same thing. Oh, and did I mention that you will have an in-class quiz on this book in mid-February?
The second part of the course consists of your producing your DKG-style work, doing your research, putting the paper together and making sure the product meets standards of excellence in terms of diversity of sources, writing and editing. We will do that part together as well, face-to-face and in cyberspace. After we finish the in-class part of the course, I will be in the office during the class period exclusively to talk with anyone who has a question or an issue. In any case, you will turn in to me a rough draft by March 31, I will return it to you with comments, and you will then return to me a finished product by April l6.
In between, you have an excellent resource in the Marius book on how to conduct research in and write history. You also have first priority in the office and on email…I’m basically available at any time to help with ideas, editing, and whatever issues come up during the “birth” of this paper.

NB: Please stop by my blog, http://blogsideinn.blogspot.com, periodically, for updates, announcements and between-classes happenings.

January 7-9: Course Introduction: types of history AND how to choose and/or refine a topic you have already chosen.
Your task: Produce a topic, presented in a coherent paragraph, by January l4. Read 2 chapters of Marius, also 2 chapters of Goodwin

January 14-16: Discussion of paper topics. Then: types of sources and how to use them
Your task: Investigate all possible primary sources accessible in this area and make a list of secondary sources. Continue with Marius and Goodwin.

January 22: NO CLASS this week. Searching for and getting what you need
Your task: Start gathering your sources. Continue with Marius and Goodwin.

January 29: Nuts and bolts of writing, part I: organization and note-taking
Finish Marius and Goodwin

February 7: Nuts and bolts of writing, part I: editing and annotating
Continue with Goodwin.

February l1-13: History on film, TBA

February 21-23: NO CLASS February 21, Prexies’ Day; QUIZ on DKG on February 23.
Your task: Read, make notes and WRITE SOMETHING EVERY DAY for the next couple of months. If you do those things, the paper will materialize.

Back by popular(?!)demand...

2008-01-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

SYLLABI, '08 editions. First up is History 450, Europe since l945...

History 450—Europe since ‘45
Spring ‘08
WSU/Tri-Cities

Contact Info: 207j West Building/372-7357(office), 541-276-6962(home). Face-to-face office hours: Monday-Wednesday, 4-5:30 pm and by appointment, Virtual office hours 24/7 via email, bfarley@tricity.wsu.edu or brigitf2001@yahoo.com. Email was made for me—I don’t like talking on the phone and I always try to answer any communiqué I get that same day. Please feel free to get in touch anytime.

Make it a point to visit the class blog at http://blogsideinn.blogspot.com for updates, syllabi, test questions and miscellaneous information and opinion. If you’ve forgotten or lost something, you can find it here, and you are always welcome to leave comments, using your real name or a pseudonym…

The Lowdown

Well, we’re back to contemplating Modern Europe, or Europe since l945, again. I was not sure what to do about this period in 2005, and I am no more so in 2008. Europe is allegedly united, but divided into more and less “established” camps of states. It supposedly saw the light and renounced war and violence after the horror of the Holocaust, yet was wracked by some of the worst genocide and ethnic cleansing of the century in the territories of the former Yugoslavia in the l990s. It touts itself as modern, tolerant and accepting, yet is continually threatened, and sometimes hit, by alienated young men who have embraced militant Islam. There is no grand national narrative, no unifying theme, that we can lean on in studying the modern history of this region. Therefore, we will look at several episodes in the period that seem to be particularly interesting and/or enlightening, and hope for the best. The first will be the uniting, then division, then reconstruction of postwar Europe, followed by the rise of anticolonialism, with particular emphasis on France and its desperate attempts to hold on to Algeria, Tunisia and Indochina. Then we will examine the Year That Was in Europe as well as America—l968—because we “celebrate” its 40th anniversary this year. The development of a vicious, prolonged conflict between Protestants and Catholics in northern Ireland comes next, and then the story behind the reunification of Europe in l989, the year that everything seemed to become possible.
Since we will be concentrating on four or five key episodes in European history, it seems reasonable to work in some crucial films highlighting some singular aspect of each. Besides, I like film, and Europeans do a great job on them. The first will be the newly relevant “Battle of Algiers,” to accompany the Alastair Horne classic. Next comes “Oratorio for Prague,” a film that began to chronicle the miraculous “Prague Spring” of l968, but ended up being shut down by invading Soviet forces sent to crush it.
“Bloody Sunday,” a re-creation of the worst day of the northern Irish conflict, will be the third offering. Closing out the term will be “Goodbye, Lenin,” an hilarious comment on the end of Communist Europe.

Readings

The readings pretty much go chronologically, and as usual, we were limited to what is in print at the moment. Still, the books are pretty good. We begin with the text, Felix Gilbert’s End of the European Era, l890-present. I’m not sure the European era is actually over, but he covers the events between l945 and now very well. I actually have read that book, a TEXT, several times. Alastair Horne’s classic study of the French struggle with its Algerian colony comes next. This book has new relevance in light of the US war in Iraq, since both US and French officials used torture on insurgents, a very controversial development. Heda Kovaly’s memoir, Under a Cruel Star, demonstrates how cruel and unforgiving the Communist regimes were, and how dreadful it was to get Communism as soon as the Nazis were vanquished. With respect to the Irish conflict, one highlight is the determination of a group of Catholic prisoners outside Belfast to resist being categorized as common criminals. They believed they were POLITICAL PRISONERS, not criminals, and deserved to be treated as such. The difference between them and a lot of ordinary mortals is that they were willing to die the most gruesome death in order to dramatize their convictions. The “Hunger Strikers” of l980-81 are the subject of David Beresford’s Ten Men Dead. Whether or not you agree with their ideas, you will be stunned by their resolve. Finally, Timothy Garton Ash’s modern classic, The Magic Lantern, so called since it was thought at the time that only magic, or supernatural forces, could put an end to Soviet domination in eastern Europe. As it happened, it wasn’t magic at all, it was a man named Gorbachev, but there certainly was an otherworldly quality to the events of l989, which united Europe after 50 years of division.

Assignments

Modern Europe is an M class, meaning writing across the curriculum, It is impractical for everyone to write a term paper, so we will resort to an old warhorse: the semester-long reading and writing assignment(40%). One thing we WON’T probably get to is the dramatic expansion of the European Union that we witnessed in 2003 and continue to watch as the 21st century continues. Thus, YOU will cover this for yourself. You will select one of the countries admitted in 2004(Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia)OR one of the countries now seeking and/or preparing for admission(Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey), seek out 1-3 articles per week dealing with that country. You can select articles that reflect a sort of general acquaintance, or narrow your focus to something specific, like the economy, tourism, political challenges, minority rights issues, etc. You will summarize each article in a paragraph or two, then store the summaries in a folder. About two weeks before the end of the semester, you will write a 3-5 page paper summarizing your findings for a business that is seeking to establish itself there. What are the most important current issues with which these business people should be familiar as they move into the country? Both your summaries AND your final paper will form the basis for your grade on this part of the course, since this is a “writing across the curriculum” offering.
The writing exercise will be worth 40% of the final grade. Other than that, we’ll have a geography midterm, for 20%, a regular midterm(20%) and a final, or second midterm(20%).

Schedule

Part I, l945-53: Victory, Unity, Recovery, Division, Confrontation

Background to l945

The “big three” and planning for the postwar: two Europes??

Europe and the Marshall Plan: Recovery, retribution, reconquest

The Berlin crisis

Two postwars

Readings: Gilbert, beginnings to chapter 12; start Horne, Savage War of Peace
Recommended readings: Norman Naimark, Russians in Germany, l945-49; Anthony Beevor, Paris after the Liberation, l945-49.
Recommended film: “Judgment at Nuremberg.”

GEOGRAPHY midterm after this section(!). Yes, you will finally have to learn the map of Europe, with all those brand-new countries in it, like Slovenia…or is it SLOVAKIA?!

Part II, The l950s: Reaction/revolt

The east in crisis: Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin

The west in crisis: France and the “colonial wars:” Indochina, Algeria, Tunisia

Featured film: “The Battle of Algiers(l956).”

Readings: Gilbert, chapters 13-14; Horne, all
Recommended readings: Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev: a Biography. Bernard Fall, Street without Joy, Hell in a Very Small Place; Robert Dallek, JFK: An Unfinished Life(new bio of President Kennedy).
Recommended films: “Indochine,” starring Catherine De Neuve

Garden-variety midterm exam after this section…

Part III: l968, the Year that Rocked the World

The USA: reversals, riots, bloody murder

The French crisis

The Czechoslovak l960s and the Prague Spring, January-August l968

Featured film: “Oratorio for Prague(l968).”

Readings: Gilbert, ch. 14; Kovaly, Under a Cruel Star, all.
Recommended readings: William Shawcross, Dubcek; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., RFK: His Life and Times; James Simon Kunen, The Strawberry Statement: Notes of a College Revolutionary; David Maraniss, They Marched into Sunlight

Part IV: The “Troubles” in Ireland

Prelude to a crisis: Catholics and Protestants in northern Ireland to l967

Catholics and the “Civil Rights movement,” l968-69

“Battle of the Bogside” and the coming of the British Army

Playing hardball with the British: Bobby Sands and the Irish hunger strikers

The road to Good Friday

Featured film: “Bloody Sunday(2003).”

Readings: Beresford, Ten Men Dead, all.
Recommended readings: John Conroy, Belfast Diary; Tim Pat Coogan, On the Blanket.

Part V: Europe re-uniting, l985-89

Ferment in the east: Gorbachev, Reagan and nuclear Europe

Gorbachev and the “satellites”

The “Sinatra doctrine.”

The end of the Berlin wall and the “German problem.”

Featured film: “Goodbye, Lenin(2003)!”

Readings: Gilbert, chapters 16-17; Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern, all.
Recommended readings: : David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb: the Last Days of the Soviet Empire; Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.

Final exam-- second midterm, actually-- at the scheduled time

The Royals rock on youtube

2007-12-26T09:38:00.000-08:00

If you're bored already with the holidays, you should check out Queen Elizabeth's new video website on Youtube, appropriately titled "The Royal Channel." She was one of the first world leaders to take advantage of television in the l950s and has gone on to embrace the internet, email and podcasting as she enters her eighth decade. Now, she has her own official spot in the video universe, which you can access here. You can watch yesterday's annual Christmas broadcast, as well as footage from the early years of the century--the Queen Mother's l923 wedding, for example--and a day in the life of Prince Charles.

Inspecting the Queen's new offering will kill at least an hour or so, and you might learn something.

NOVINKA(in the vernacular, a NEW THING)!!

2007-12-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

There's a new blogger in town...he/she is a member of the Tri-Cities history mafia who's unhappy with the century in which he/she is living(the identity clumsily disguised here...i guess I'll never be a spy). When I meet individuals like this, I always quote Art Buchwald's address to my undergraduate graduation...he told everyone that if he wasn't happy with the present, "go out there and pretend today is yesterday, and have yourself a hell of a good time." In that spirit, please go and get acquainted with the new addition. Don't forget to leave a comment or two, a little cyberpat on the back.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

I can't let the day go by without wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. I don't think the holiday is under siege or anything, I'm just sending best wishes on Christmas day. I offer as a special present a recent photo of the l7th-century church of St. Simeon Stolpnik on Novyi Arbat street in Moscow. The Khrushchev knuckledraggers, er, chuckleheads were going to tear it down, until a brave architect named Antropov occupied a city bulldozer and refused to be dislodged...his obstinacy saved the church, which incidentally was the site of Fedor Chaliapin's funeral in l9l2. It stubbornly refuses to be swallowed up by all the ugliness around it, keeping a truce with changing times.

Attention Russian History students!

2007-12-16T08:20:00.000-08:00

If anyone is still conscious after finals and reading this, are you the author of a take-home exam paper that reads, "Big Ole Russian History Paper?" It's a good paper, but I can't determine whose it is because you forgot to put your name on it. If someone would like to claim authorship, please email me so that i can avoid giving you an "X" grade and the paperwork that comes along with changing it later.

That is all. Over and out.

Godspeed, Fr. Dmitrii

2007-12-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

The remarkable life of Fr. Dmitrii Dmitrievich Grigoriev has come to an end. Fr. Dmitrii was my Russian literature prof at Georgetown in the late l970s, and everyone thought he was an exceptional teacher and an outstanding human being. He particularly loved Dostoevskii and would use his works to make relevant points about l9th century Russian history. Of course, he was also a priest, too, serving at St. Nicholas Orthodox cathedral in northwest Washington at the same time as he maintained a full load of classes...he was something. He was the quintessential absent-minded professor. We always knew, every fall and spring when the time change came, to correct for Fr. Dmitrii's failure to note the change. If the clocks went back, we showed up an hour later than usual. If the clocks went forward, an hour earlier. He never took any notice of prosaic things like Eastern Daylight Time...that's part of what made him special.

He never said much about his background, but you somehow knew that he had been around. Today, when I read his obit, I found out just how MUCH he had been around. His life story reads like the Russian exile's 20th century. I can't reproduce it as well as the Washington Post can, so here it is in its entirety:

WASHINGTON - Archpriest Dmitry Grigorieff, dean emeritus of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and a retired professor of Russian language and literature at Georgetown University, died Dec. 8 of cardiac arrest at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. He lived in Bethesda, Md.

His father, Dmitry Dmitrievich Grigorieff, was the Russian governor of Sakhalin and served on the Central Board of the Russian Red Cross. In 1918, during the Russian Revolution, the elder Grigorieff fled Russia with his family, first to Riga, Latvia, and later to England. The elder Grigorieff's son Dmitry was born in London in 1919.

The Grigorieff family moved to Japan in the early 1920s, and the young Dmitry was baptized at St. Nicholas Church in Tokyo. After the Russian Civil War, the Grigorieff family returned to Riga, where Father Grigorieff studied in Russian schools and enrolled in the Orthodox Theological Institute.

As a British citizen, Father Grigorieff was evacuated to Australia during World War II. He served in 1943-44 in the British Merchant Marine in the Pacific. In 1945, he moved to New York, where he served in the Office of War Information.

He received a master's degree in linguistics and comparative literature from Yale University in 1948 and a doctorate in Slavic studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1958. He also received a diploma in theology from St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

A Dostoevsky scholar, he taught Russian language and literature at Georgetown University from 1959 until 1989. He also taught Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, Calif., and at Columbia University.

Father Grigorieff had always been active in the church, and in 1969, at age 50, he was ordained a priest at St. Nicholas Cathedral, where he was designated second priest. During the 1970s, he introduced regular English-language services to the cathedral, and he was made dean of the cathedral in 1986. He was given the title dean emeritus in 1998.

Over the decades, Father Grigorieff maintained ties with the church in his homeland, even when suppression was the official policy of the Soviet Union.

Father Constantine White, dean of St. Nicholas Cathedral, recalled assisting Father Grigorieff in conducting a service in the days before glasnost. Father Grigorieff offhandedly said, "Who knows, one day people from the embassy might be coming to church here."

His wife, Galina Grigorieff, died in 1998.

He notably was never bitter or angry about Russia, and in that next-to-last paragraph there, you see something of his fundamental optimism: when the Gorbachev changes were barely underway, he could see the day when Russian embassy staff would be attending services at his church.

A prince of a guy. Rest in peace.

Moscow doesn't believe in tears...

2007-12-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

and it really doesn't...it expects you to bear up and triumph over all obstacles, whether it's the German army that laid siege to Moscow yesterday in l941, or the people on the street who are hell-bent on running right into you, or the policeman who closes the through street you were counting on because there are some Very Important People nearby. Moscow must be overcome...as a friend says, the battle of Moscow didn't happen in l941. It happens every time you step out onto the street!
We've been busy visiting archives, talking to people and discovering new sources in connection with the church project. En route, there have been small pleasures, like the newly-restored l7th-century church whose bells suddenly rang out the notes to "O Lord Save Us From Jeopardy," the beginning of the l8l2 overture. It's the feast day of St. Nicholas today, and he is a protector of Russia, in fact an all-purpose protector of everyone, so it somehow was fitting. But then there is the over-the-top display of wealth for wealth's sake, the Bentley dealership right beside the Maserati and Lamborghini dealerships, the Burberry megastore with socks that cost $300, the wine boutiques where ordinary beaujolais costs about three times what it does at home. People love to throw around money here just to throw around money, and it shows. The general perception is that the wrong people have money here--these are not people who are inclined towards philanthropy or supporting culture, but rather want to spoil themselves and outdo the neighbors 24/7. Of course, we've seen this show before...
We've been keeping Russian hours--no one goes to bed here before 1 am or gets up before 10. It's going to be an awful shock to go back to type-A American hours, e.g. 5am-10 pm, but somehow I think I can handle it.
Three days left in this stint...time to gear up for the last sprint.

Moscow nights(and days)...

2007-12-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

Day three in Moscow...for those of you following at home, here are the following:

a) The emergency forced diversion of flight 46, bound from Atlanta to Moscow to JFK on November 30 in connection with a problem with pressurization. We were met by NYPD, FDNY and other emergency services...it was nice to know things were all under control. It was easier to transfer all of us to another plane en masse than to fix the problem, so they DID move all of us to another aircraft and we flew off. Finally arrived in Sheremetevo airport at 3 pm Saturday, rather than 11.

b) First visit to Red Square and the glimpse of an outsized billboard proclaiming, "MOSCOW IS VOTING FOR PUTIN" on election day, and then declaring WHICH LIST Moscow would be voting for(#10). An inspiring show of democratic spirit, especially since there wasn't any mention of other parties there. These folks know whom and what they want. They have ALREADY decided. Now just imagine seeing "SEATTLE IS VOTING FOR BUSH!!" in Pioneer Place, and you'll have a feel for the atmosphere here!

c) Close encounter with a Putin supporter near the election victory stand at St. Basil's cathedral yesterday. The victory stand and concert stage were in place well before the votes were counted, which I found rather interesting...anyway, I couldn't read the slogan alongside "OUR VICTORY," and I leaned over a barricade to squint at the left hand side. Bad mistake. One of the Putin youth took me for a wrecker or assassin or something and corrected me by waving a truncheon in my face. I took the hint and moved on, but there was something about those legions of bright-eyed youth in white sheets(?) with Putin's portrait on them. Verrry interesting...

d) The attempt to move through Red Square tonight after visiting one of the archives. All access to the Square was shut off, and police checkpoints established, because the Putin youth were enjoying yet another victory rock concert that surely shook Lenin in his mausoleum inside out. My friend and I ended up walking about two miles out of our way because of said police checkpoints...reminded me of the Paul McCartney concert in '04, when we appeared to be blocked out of our hotel for the night. What a country!

e) I forgot point E. Time to end this Russian day and night.

And so how's dead week going? Bet there are none of you dealing with police checkpoints on campus...and a cheery "do svidaniia" to all!

Reminders about next week and the finals

2007-11-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

For History 466 and 462, here's another reminder about What is Going On this week and next, while I am in the Twilight Zone:

On Thursday, November 29, there WILL be class in Cold War. You'll be discussing the Berlin Wall, the worst public relations disaster in the history of the Communist empire and a huge blunder on Khrushchev's part.

There will be NO class in Russian history because we have gone as far as we can go there.

There will be NO classes during Dead Week, i.e. December 3-7. You can get in touch, though, either through the comments section below, or at my tricity or yahoo addresses. They've got plenty of internet access there, and that is providing a lot of jobs for professional email snoops in the security services, who are tasked with looking for subversive messages coming from the Evil Empire, er, the US of A.

Then, on December 11, 7:15 pm, 462 will gather for that non-standard final that you can't study for(you just can't), and afterward some goodies and maybe some pictures from the Motherland. ALL THE AUDITORS are required to attend, too, because this isn't your garden-variety final. It has something wonderful for everybody(really!). I'll collect your second midterm papers at that time.

On December l3, we will have the 466 final, also followed by pictures and goodies for anyone who still has the strength to enjoy them. Unfortunately, this is a strictly unimaginative final. Everyone who did not give me a project yesterday should plan on handing them in at that time.

If you find yourself without a copy of the questions, they are on this blog for both classes. Just scroll down to "older posts" and look for them.

See you soon. Remember, it isn't Christmas until finals are over!

McCarthyism and one very ordinary American

2007-11-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

I was just reading the Boston Globe and came across the obituary for Milo Radulovich, whom many of you will remember as the fellow in the Edward R. Murrow compilation who was in danger of being mustered out of the Air Force because his father and sister read what were alleged to be Communist newspapers. Here is the text of the obit:

DETROIT - Milo Radulovich, the Air Force Reserve lieutenant championed by Edward R. Murrow when the military threatened to decommission him during the anticommunist crackdown of the 1950s, has died. He was 81.

Mr. Radulovich died Monday in Vallejo, Calif., after complications of a stroke, family members said. He was 81.

He served as a consultant on the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck," which dramatized Murrow's journalistic challenge to Senator Joseph McCarthy. The movie included the Radulovich case and the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings that led to the senator's downfall.

Mr. Radulovich was born in Detroit, joined the Air Force Reserves, worked as a meteorologist in Greenland, and then enrolled at the University of Michigan on the GI Bill.

In 1953, the Air Force threatened to decommission him on grounds that he maintained a "close and continuing relationship" with his father and sister. The military said they were suspect because of the father's subscription to a Serbian newspaper and his sister's political activities.

Mr. Radulovich refused the military's demand that he denounce his relatives and appealed his discharge.

"I couldn't believe it," Mr. Radulovich told The Detroit News in 2005. "No way was I going to repudiate my family. I knew if my case went unresolved, the government could do this to anyone, anywhere. I could see a chain reaction."

Murrow's "See It Now" on CBS aired a segment, "The Case Against Lt. Milo Radulovich," in October 1953. The next month, the Air Force reversed its declaration that Mr. Radulovich was a security risk.

He went on to a career as a meteorologist.

"He was well aware of his historical importance," said his brother-in-law, Al Fishman. "He put his finger in the dike when the flood of McCarthyism inundated the country."

There's a perfect example of how McCarthyism affected an ordinary American. Your relatives read ethnic newspapers--and all members of east European ethnic groups were automatically suspected to be Communists--and your career is ended, or nearly ended because of what they read and believe. That is profoundly un-American and an outrage.

A little help with 466 CW domestic...

2007-11-19T21:10:00.001-08:00

Here are some ramblings on the domestic Cold War Here(the land of the Free)and There(Gulagville):

You've seen some of the fallout associated with the beginning of the Cold War, as the drama played out between the USSR in the dueling speeches, the Czech coup and the Berlin airlift. Now, we’re going to look at the impact of this escalating conflict on the home front. Foreign affairs always come home, after all.

In the United States, just after the war, there was a general euphoria—life was good and getting better.

The war had finally brought the country out of the Great Depression; unemployment was down, prosperity was up, and the United States was the lone economic superpower. Everyone was excited about a new era, and the foundation was being laid for the country’s future prosperity. Mrs. Roosevelt gave a little hint of it in one of her columns from l944: “there is a great fear in the heart of any servicemen, and it is not that he will be killed or maimed, but that when he is finally allowed to go home and piece together what he can of his life, he will be made to feel he has been a sucker for the sacrifice he has made.’”

Both President and Mrs. Roosevelt had thought for a long time about how to guarantee a strong economy in the postwar years, and how to acknowledge the service of the thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, wacs, everyone who had fought for his or her country. What they came up with was the GI bill of rights –a legislative project that passed unanimously in both houses of congress, something that promised to “provide the returning veteran with a chance to command the status, education and training he could have enjoyed if he had not served in the military.

So veterans would enjoy a variety of privileges when they returned: the GI bill guaranteed loans for housing; It authorized those unable to find a job right away with a weekly stipend for an entire year. Most importantly from the standpoint of people like my dad, it provided $500/year for college tuition, plus $75/month for living expenses.

In l940, when the average worker who had a job earned just l,000 per year, and when tuition, room and board averaged $453 at state colleges to $979 at private colleges, college education was the “preserve of the privileged few.” The GI bill guaranteed that virtually anyone who qualified for admission could get his college education, and in so doing lifted the educational horizons and achievement of an entire genereation of Americans.

And this postwar group did great things: a Fortune survey of the nationwide class of l949, of which 75 percent were veterans, concluded that it was “the best, most mature, the most responsible, the most self-disciplined group of college students in history.”

So people in the country were proud of having prevailed in the war, having prevailed over depression and privations, and they were happy and engaged with new opportunities.

But inevitably, beneath the hoo-rahing and new life-making and transitioning and prosperity, there was a vague uneasiness. By the late l940s, it had dawned on people that their great victory in the World War was complete, that they had vanquished Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, only to find themselves at odds with their former ally, the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany had repressed and enslaved and murdered people, and we had taught them a lesson, beaten them. Now….our former ally was doing the same thing…what had happened?

Americans had gotten used to thinking about the Soviet Union in benevolent ways:

--our gallant Russian allies who had a revolution just like we did.
--our brothers in arms who have created a new type of society where the “radio has no commercials.”
n a nation way over there somewhere that was led by a man we called “uncle Joe” stalin who was known to bounce children on his knee.

Now they learned, or at least those who read the paper learned, that this same nation was doing underhanded, sneaky, sometimes openly outrageous things—it had returned to an earlier incarnation, the crusading, hostile, revolutionary entity of the l920s, maybe.

--harassing non-Communists in the e. European states
--making mischief in Greece and Turkey, to the point that President Truman had to proclaim the Truman doctrine to combat them
--imprisoning religious leaders, such as Cardinal Mindzenty in Hungary.

People were confused, at the very least, and a little angry: they were asking two questions:

a) how did this happen?
b) are we in any danger from these developments here?

This anxiety expressed itself in several tangible ways:

--efforts on the part of some civil and business leaders to circle the wagons a little bit, promote what they called “unity,” “americanism,” “American strengths,” Everyone should be united in faith and patriotism and condemn Communism.

--Two advertising agencies, namely the Joint Committee on Economic Education for the Nation and the Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge(EF Hutton and D.D. Eisenhower), launched a crusade to publicize the virtues of the American economy(free enterprise)and created an awards scheme to reward those who “revere and promote democracy.”

First winner: Housewife for her “freedom chocolate chip cookies” and her “recipe for freedom.”

In September l948…KC Missouri held “Democracy beats Communism” week—a week-long, city-wide comparison of the American and Soviet systems.

Goal: to convince Missourians that “one of the major threats to the democratic institutions of this country is the failure of many of its citizens to understand the basic principles of the “antagonistic philosophies that have come to threaten them
They had city council members and selected citizens study the fundamentals of the Soviet and American governments for six months, then those who had studied up fanned out to spread the word in high schools, unions, service clubs and on the radio. Their message? “Americans won’t buy Communism if they know what they are getting.”

Of course, any anxiety in the body politic will always be picked up and acted upon by politicians, especially young, ambitious ones. Take the case of one Richard Milhous Nixon:

The Republican Party in l946 was massively frustrated. It had been out of power since l932. It was hard-pressed to find an issue to run on; St. Franklin Roosevelt had cured the nation’s ills, led it through the war, and Harry S. had picked up where St. Franklin had left off…

What to do?? You have to have an issue to run on.

There were several options, the most attractive of which was to latch on to the Communist threat, all the trouble the Soviet Union was causing in Europe.
The other party hadn’t caused this, but the worsening of relations and the breakup of the allies had occurred on the Democrats’ watch…so the questions came from candidates: Whose fault is divided Europe? Who in the country is sympathetic to the Communists, maybe is helping them out, in the government, in the media, in the schools, wherever?!

This was the general direction of the thoughts southern California Republicans as they searched for a good candidate to run against the democratic incumbent, Jerry Voorhis.
They found one in a young graduate of Duke Law School, a Whittier, California boy and Whittier College alumni, named Richard Milhous Nixon, who was destined to be front and center through most of the great cold war struggles from the Congress, as a private citizen, and eventually as President of the US.

Nixon had just been discharged from the service, and his lifelong ambition was to get into politics. Nixon was tough, hard-working, smart and determined, as you will see. He’s also a good California boy in that he recognized a wave, the issue of Communism and its dangers to America, and rode it with skill, all the way through his campaign for Congress, to victory.

Just as the Communist issue had caught the attention of Nixon and other politicians, veteran and otherwise, so it began to show up on the Congressional Agenda.
Nixon’s first committee assignment was to something called the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC.

This was actually established in l938 by Democrats to uncover “malign, foreign influences in the United States;” after l946, it passed into the hands of Republican members.
Their agenda seemed to be to prove that Democrats had allowed “Communist subversion” to reach alarming levels.

The Movie Industry—Hollywood—was the first target. The charge was that Communists had so infiltrated Hollywood that American films were being tainted with Soviet propaganda, deliberate attempts to soften the brains of Ams and make them susceptible to Communist propaganda. Committee members began to investigate the issue of Communism in Hollywood labor unions, and they were given the names of ten screenwriters who were members of the Communist Party. They never hid it. The committee summoned them to Washington to submit to questioning; these ten screenwriters, who later became known as the “Hollywood Ten,” refused to testify and openly ridiculed and condemned the process. They pointed out that it was not illegal to be a Communist, and that there was no proof that they had done anything subversive. Congress held them in contempt; all of them went to prison for 6 months in l950.

The screenwriters’ guild, in its wisdom, declared that none of them would ever work in Hollywood until and unless they were acquitted of contempt charges and declared they were not Communists.

So essentially, these guys’ careers were over because they allegedly belonged to the Communist Party, which was never illegal. The original ten never really recovered from this ordeal; there were others blacklisted for being affiliated with the ten, like Barbara Bel Geddes, did recover, but it took awhile for them to find work.

The Hollywood Ten investigation was pretty much a disgrace to everyone involved. The next big investigation was a lot more controversial, and it involved newly-minted Congressman Nixon. HUAC also was investigating possible subversion in government, whether people sympathetic to the Soviet Union at any time in their lives were in positions of power in influence. In so doing, members charged a high-ranking State Department official, Alger Hiss, with disloyalty. Alger Hiss had been an aide to Franklin Roosevelt, a close aide, and had been with him at the Yalta Conference. In other words, the committee members alleged that there was a mole at the highest echelons of the American government.

The source for this allegation was Whittaker Chambers, a self-described “former communist” who told the Committee that Hiss had passed him classified documents—the famous “pumpkin papers,” so called because they were hidden under a pumpkin in a patch.

Nixon really latched onto this case, went after it with tenaciousness, as you wil see here. He was convinced that hiss was lying. Some would say it was an honest passion, some would call it “witch hunt…
Hiss was never convicted of espionage; he WAS convicted of perjury, because it was demonstrated that he HAD known Whittaker chambers.

But the case was and is controversial—

Soviet archivists, people who went through the foreign ministry archives, repeatedly have maintained that there was nothing about Alger Hiss anywhere in those collections. HOWEVER, a couple of ex-Soviet agents said they had had contacts with Alger Hiss. There is no proof, but they maintain that they knew Hiss. It was subsequently proven that Alger Hiss’s typewriter actually produced the documents that whittaker chambers found in the pumpkin patch. BUT those documents never turned up anything that couldn’t be found in the public records, and later an fbi man who said that a typewriter could not be used in a forgery was found to be lying under oath.

The general feeling of these first years of the domestic cold war is that the Communist world appears to be on the march, where we are treading water, that they have dynamism and the ability to control events, where we don’t seem to; that they appear to be speaking with one voice, where we have a lot of loud people here demanding explanations and answers.

It was only going to get worse, for a number of reasons: First, the SOVIET UNION GOT THE ATOMB BOMB.

Previous to that, having the bomb gave the US a degree of security, a degree of certainty that the Soviet Union would be constrained by the knowledge that the US could use the bomb against them if it so desired. For example, when the Soviet Union sought to control Berlin in l948, the Soviets felt secure in shutting off the city, but shrank from aggressive actions, like shooting down an American plane. That all changed, of course, in August l949, when the Soviet Union, after years of frenzied work and experimentation, exploded its own bomb.

Almost immediately, the Soviet Union felt secure in giving its blessing to Kim Il-Sung in his quest to invade south Korea and forcibly unite it with the Communist north.

When Stalin and the Soviet Union got that bomb, and immediately sanctioned an aggressive war in Korea, it certainly sent a message to people here that the United States could become a target.

Stalin could target an American city and use his a-bomb. Some people called that unlikely, because that was the end of a big swatch of civilization, and quite possibly the end of the Soviet Union, too, but no one had great confidence in his prudence or good judgment.

So the country was introduced to the concept of learning to live with the threat of the bomb. Some manifestations?

The armed forces, in the first years after the Soviet Union got the bomb, began working on a war plan that envisioned WINNING a nuclear war. In other words, launching our own bomb and sending in the infantry either to accompany or FOLLOW the bomb drop(!)

Other institutions, like the public schools in New York state, wondered about preparedness in the event that Americans got hit suddenly—forget offensive operations, how can we play defense, keep from being killed in the event of a sudden attack?

The Public Schools of New York City and Astoria, New York, in connection with the US Civil Defense Agency, pooled the conventional wisdom on the subject in l951 and put together a preparedness video for children and adults. You might have seen it—it’s called “Duck and Cover.”

When Americans were not actively thinking about preparing for nuclear war or a nuclear bomb, they were seeing a lot about it on TV and at the movies, and listening to it on the radio.

As before, “The Twilight Zone,” which debuted in the late 50s, devoted a lot of time to the Cold War, and nuclear war in particular—see episodes entitled “Time enough at last,” “the Shelter,” and “Two.”
In popular music, there were at least four popular songs about the bomb: The Hydrogen Bomb, Atom Bomb Baby, When they Drop the Atom Bomb, followed presently by the Kingston Trio, “The Merry Minuet.” And then, of course, film…the most famous, of course, is Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Love the Bomb, about a nuclear-trigger-happy American general and his Soviet counterpart. ALSO: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD…ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVES—remember, the corpses were resurrected and sent walking mindlessly towards the people in that farmhouse by an underground nuclear test gone awry.

So concern over the nuclear issue, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the idea of using the bomb against someone, having a President who would, maybe, and/or having the bomb dropped on us, is a major preoccupation of the domestic Cold War in America.

Another really big theme on the domestic front in the early cold war years is the threat of Communist invasion and/or takeover of the United States. On the face of it, this seems extremely unlikely, because of geography and the sheer size of the US—it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to invade and hold this place. Nonetheless, Communism seemed to be on the march, and people here clearly entertained the possibility.

Early in the Cold War, in the l940s, you saw the beginnings of patriotic pageantry, in the Freedom Day celebrations, in efforts to promote awareness of the differences between American democracy and Soviet Communism. After the Korean War, there’s going to be a lot more such pageantry, pageantry not just celebrating American democracy but warning against the possibility of Communist invasion or takeover of the country.

The most famous of these took place in Mosinee, Wisconsin. Citizens there, members of the American Legion and the Mayor, decided to give themselves, their whole town, an important lesson about Communism by staging their own mock Communist takeover. The chairman of the committee charged with planning this takeover, a local lawyer named John Decker, thought it would be a great idea to “dramatize the American liberties that would be forfeit in the event of a real Communist invasion of America.” You can access a great site dedicated to this and other manifestations of the Cold War here.

Inevitably, you always get around to politics, because whatever is on the minds of the body politic is going to be on the minds of their elected officials, who after all want to stay elected. Richard Nixon is probably the most prominent anti-Communist in American politics as of l950—the issues are with him, he seems to be on a roll, a national superstar, already a potential vice Presidential or Presidential candidate on the Republican side. But he’s about to be overshadowed, or at least joined at the forefront of American politics, by a man who gave the world one of the most well-used political phrases EVER:

You had Communism, you had Socialism, you had Bolshevism, you had Fascism, you had Nazism, you had Stalinism, Maoism, and a whole bunch more isms. Joseph McCarthy’s late political career and works gave the world “McCarthyism .” a phenomenon that occupied most of the nation’s attention, at least in terms of domestic politics, between l950 and l954.

Joe McCarthy was a good old Irish pol, Irish-American Catholic, from Wisconsin. He was a graduate of Marquette, the Catholic University of Wisconsin, and then its law school by l921. He always wanted to be in politics…he made a couple of unsuccessful runs for state representative as a Democrat, then switched to the Republican party and was elected to a judgeship in l940, after which he ended up in World War II, just like everyone else of fighting age. Once he got home, he began plotting a run for national office, and set his sights on the seat held by Robert Lafollette, one of Wisconsin’s famous political families. He seemed to have no chance, because Lafollette was well-liked and respected, an FDR democrat, but this was l946, a good year for Republicans, and Lafollette took the seat for granted. Ultimately, McCarthy won the race and headed for the Senate.

In the Senate, he was like a lot of freshmen senators—he was an established anti-Communist, like a lot of Irish Catholics because of the treatment of religion and religious people in the Soviet Union, and because he represented people whose relatives now lived in the Soviet bloc states. But he had trouble getting identified with a big issue—almost everyone was concerned with Communism and developments in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. By l950, he was already worried about the l952 election—he had to have an issue to carve out on his own.

In January 1950, he had dinner with some influential Washingtonians, among which was the first dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Edmund A. Walsh. Walsh was an Irish Catholic just like McCarthy, and very well thought of—he was an expert on the Soviet Union. McCarthy asked them what he should do, what they thought he should emphasize, and Fr. Walsh said, “Communists in government.” Look at this, you’ve had the Alger Hiss case, you’ve seen President Truman impose loyalty oaths, and Communism continues to march on. There’s something to that, the idea that there are Communists in government, some people on the inside, in the establishment, selling us out:

Run with it!!

So McCarthy DID run with it. About a month later, he went before a Republican Women’s meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia, and made a sensational charge: “While I cannot take the time to name all of the men in the State Department who have been named as Communists and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.”

205 people. That was a lot of people, that was a serious charge, and it sounded real—why would you say 205 people if you didn’t have pretty good info?

The State Department promptly challenged McCarthy, after which he changed his tally a bit. In a speech in Denver, he said that he knew of 205 “security risks.”

In Salt Lake City a few weeks later, he revised the tally downwards, to 57, but added “card-carrying Communists” to the 57.

These charges brought forth a lot of reaction…some people were skeptical and angry about them, because the Senator never produced the names, or the documentation for his charges, The New York Times, for example, said, “Senator McCarthy has been giving a good imitation of a hit-and-run driver in his attacks on the state department.” The major paper from his home state of Wisconsin declared, “We suspect that this oratorical spree is cut of demagogic cloth. It is up to the Senate to prove it is NOT.

But McCarthy had a lot of supporters, too. Fellow Irish Catholics certainly supported him, because they hated Communism and cheered on one of their own, ethnic Poles and Czechs and Slovaks certainly supported him, because they felt he was speaking up for their oppressed family members in Soviet bloc Europe, and quite a few people rooted for McCarthy because he was like them—came from a working class family and wasn’t afraid to take on the “establishment,” which consisted of “bright young men born rich, with silver spoons in their mouths.” All of that was important to the people who believed McCarthy. Plus, don’t forget, no one had been able to explain cogently why all these terrible things were happening—the Soviets got the bomb, the Chinese went Communist, Communism on the march in Korea.

So McCarthy’s supporters communicated their feelings to their elected representatives, and the Senate was moved to launch an investigation of the State Department and alleged Communist influence within it.
The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Subversive Influences was the group formed to investigate these charges, and Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland was the chairman. The committee called witnesses, conducted research, did all the things Congressional committees usually do, and after four months, both the majority and minority reports concluded that there was nothing substantial to McCarthy’s charges—there was no evidence of widespread Communist influence in the state department.

But that didn’t stop McCarthy…in fact, it made him MORE popular, because it made him look as if he was a big truthteller, the man who wanted the congress and the nation to know some unpleasant truths, but who got only interference and stonewalling. And even though a lot of newspapers condemned him as a blowhard and a proponent of the Big Lie, the sweeping accusation that you never quite got around to substantiating, quite a few others supported him consistently—like the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times Herlad, and a number of columnists, like Walter Winchell. They told the world, all the time, that McCarthy was cleansing the Reds out of government.

So McCarthy soldiered on with Communists in government.

Later that year, even though there WAS no evidence, no concrete evidence, of Communism in the State Department, McCarthy attacked the Asia division and its staff, particularly John Service and John Carter Vincent. Those guys had served in China, spoke Chinese, in some cases been advisers to Chaing Kai-Shek, the nationalist leader who was competing for the leadershp of China with Mao. Service and Vincent told everyone who would listen that the US had better be prepared for a Communist victory, that it was going to happen no matter WHAT the US did. Get ready to deal with a Communist China and Mao Tse-tung as leader. This was honest advice based on what they heard, read, saw, personally witnessed. And the Communist takeover came, just as these guys said it would.
In l950, McCarthy charged that those statements PROVED that these diplomats were WORKING FOR THE COMMUNISTS. Why else would they have said something so awful? He raised such a fuss that those two guys, and some of the younger people who worked with them, were dismissed. With them went about l00 years of experience of China-watching and observing. When it came time to decide what to do about Indochina, in other words, Vietnam, there was no one experienced in the store, no one who could give a good assessment of what the chances were of preventing Ho Chi Minh from coming the power. AND McCarthy went on to slander General Marshall, the author of the containment policy and collaborator on the Marshall Plan. He claimed that MARSHALL was an agent of Communist China because of a failed mission to China to try to assess the situation there. He went to China because he’d spent quite a bit of there as an army officer, and had a good idea of what was going on there. He had gone to assess the situation, and came back pessimistic. For that, McCarthy accused him of being an agent of a conspiracy “so immense, and an infamy so black, as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man. “

Again, even though there was no proof of these allegations, they at least for some people provided SOME explanation of why certain things had been happening. You didn’t ask for proof, for tangible evidence; you listened to the charges, you looked at McCarthy—who didn’t look like he aspired to higher office, who didn’t look like a suave senator, who looked like a bulldog, and some people said, “he’s onto something, and he’s roughing up those prissy intellectuals.”

He was so convinced of the rightness of his course that he threw himself into campaigning against Senator Tydings, the guy who had led the first investigation into McCarthy’s charges of Communism in government. Tydings was a Democrat, with a relatively safe seat, popular, well-thought-of…but McCarthy was out in Maryland a lot, explicitly campaigning against Tydings, and using a highly questionable tactic: a doctored photograph, in which Tydings was seemingly talking amicably with Earl Browder, the head of the American Communist Party. The photo was a fake, and in fact Browder had gone out of his way to denounce Tydings as a “reactionary,” but never mind: the allegation was there, Tydings is friendly with Communists.

And Tydings lost, in fact, to his Republican opponent—and McCarthy was judged to have been a factor in his defeat.

From then on, politicians of all stripes paid attention to Joe McCarthy. Some politicians, like Richard Nixon, who was going to be the vice-Presidential nominee with General Eisenhower in l952, used McCarthy-like invective: he called McCarthy’s opponent, whose name was Adlai Stevenson, “a graduate of the Cowardly Communist College of Containment,” for his support of President Truman’s firing of General McArthur. Others just tried to stay out of McCarthy’s way, as General Eisenhower did when he exed out a passage in a campaign speech praising General Marshall. McCarthy had attacked General Marshall, attacked him without foundation, but General Eisenhower was wary of McCarthy’s popular support…

So McCarthy was a kingmaker just a couple of years after his first charges regarding Communists in government. He was a kingmaker, and he had gotten mostly good publicity. But the allegations about internal subversion stretched far beyond McCarthy and Washington—an awful lot of ordinary people had suffered for things that just seemed wildly un-American—like having relatives who read Communist newspapers, or even had “controversial” beliefs, or, like my grad adviser, had a “Russian” or “Slavic” names…

In the SOVIET UNION, there was one big divergence from the postwar experience in the United States, and then more similarities than you might think.

The big difference was in the condition of the country. In the US, things could not have been much more favorable; war had not been fought on our territory; everything was intact. The depression had finally given way to the work-on-all-cylinders in the war.
The GI Bill was giving a whole generation of servicepeople and their families advantages they could never have hoped for before: low-cost loans, assistance with finding a job, and college expenses—tuition, books and board. The worst thing that had happened, aside from the people who had died or were wounded in the war, was the internment of Japanese-Americans. And they were rebuilding their lives right along with the rest of the country, even as political tensions increased and sharpened with developments in the Cold War.

In the Soviet Union, things could not have been more catastrophic.

Some of the worst fighting in Europe had occurred in the western Soviet Union—in Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and Stalingrad, but also throughout the borderlands, especially Ukraine, where millions of Jews had lived—and died at the hands of Nazi SS execution squads. Most of European Russia was literally in rubble and ruins. Between 20 and 40 million people had been killed in the war—to this day, we have no exact figure. It could’ve been higher. The material losses were equally staggering. Besides Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and Stalingrad, which were either partially or totally destroyed, 70,000—that’s 70,000 villages and 2,000 towns were completely destroyed, along with 32,000 factories and some 40,000 miles of rail track.

As you can imagine, an awful lot of housing was destroyed outside the major cities; consequently, many, many people lived in holes in the ground, in shacks, in improvised shacks, in the Russian winter. Because the damage was so extensive, and the reconstruction needs so great, quite a few of these people lived this way for years.

And there were two crop failures, in l946 and l947, that resulted in a massive famine in the southwestern part of the country, especially Ukraine. Thousands of people died of starvation, and even in the regions not affected, there was severe bread rationing—basically a quarter of a loaf per person per day, maybe less if you weren’t working full-time.

Interview: Martha Mautner, U.S. Embassy, Moscow
"I took a trip down through the Ukraine and it was the time of the '47 famine that was going on down there about which nothing was heard in the outside world. The Soviets were talking about great grain harvests and everything else. We got down there. On the train stops you would see children with distended bellies begging for bread, er, at the Odessa itself, people lying out on the streets outside the hospitals where they couldn't take them in, starving to death. There was malnutrition everywhere."

So there was no return to normal in the Soviet Union. In fact, there would be nothing “normal” in most people’s lives for a decade or more, if ever, unless you were one of the privileged few people high up in the Communist Party.

But there WAS a disturbing similarity in one sense: both governments took advantage of the growing Cold War, the death of wartime unity, for their own purposes.

In America, it was the legislative branch, the Congress, seizing upon the indignation over the Soviet Union and divided Europe, began looking for Soviet sympathizers, Soviet spies or agents, Communist Party members in the government and Hollywood. The House Un-American Activities Committee held hearings in which Communist Party members were summoned and questioned about their activities and belief.

The implication was that somehow, belonging to the Communist party in the past, or the present, or advocating policies that were in any way associated with Communism, were somehow responsible for divided Europe and a nuclear soviet Union.

For their beliefs, or things they had believed in or done in the past and could not change, people went to prison or had their lives seriously altered.

All of this was maybe understandable since the underlying factor was fear, but it was mostly unforgivable because this IS the United States of America, home of the first amendment, AND because it was largely driven by politicians trying to gain and stay in power. That happens in a two-party system, but it doesn’t mean you have to like it or admire it.

Well, the same kind of dynamic was at work in the Soviet Union, except that it was all the work of the be-all and end-all, the man who was the executive, legislative and judicial branch, all rolled into one: Stalin. Here, in the US, the charge was always: Commsymp, Communist, stooge. Anything related to the Soviet Union, its government or politics was immediately suspect, in some cases openly reviled. There, in the Soviet Union, the bogeyman was…the countries west of Berlin, in first place the US of A. These nations were definitely public enemy number one, with US leading the parade of scoundrels.

The Soviet equivalent of the House Un-American Activities Committee—basically the Communist Party apparatus and its many toadyist minions--got started just as soon as the war in Europe ended.

First, a great many people who found themselves—for whatever reason—in the west, especially Berlin, at the end of the war were arrested soon after returning from the war. These could be, and were, soldiers, people who had fought all the way from Moscow and Leningrad all the way to Berlin, people who had seen years of action. They could be people taken against their will to Germany, for forced labor. Lots of people in Ukraine were forced into cattle cars and taken to work in factories, as slaves. Lots of children ended up there, too, taken to be subjected to medical experiments, since Slavic people were not considered fully human.

These people were arrested after they came back and charged under article 58.1a, anti-Soviet agitation. Ten years at hard labor. Or they could be former prisoners of war, also taken against their will. Their problem was, they were given orders very early in the war, when Stalin’s back was against the wall, NOT to be taken alive. They were to die fighting, by Stalin’s order number 270. Those who violated this order, and were taken prisoner, were arrested after they got home and charged under article 58.1b, anti-Soviet agitation. They got 10 years at hard labor, too.

Interview: Martha Mautner, U.S. Embassy, Moscow
"We had a maid whose husband was a prisoner of war. When he finally was repatriated and came back, it was a great reunion, and life was wonderful again, the family was reunited. Six months later he was arrested because he had been a German prisoner of war."

The rationale here was “contamination by virtue of being in a capitalist country,” even a destroyed one. You were tainted by exposure to the enemy, so you would have to do some hard time before you were re-admitted to the greatest place ever known to man.
Unofficially, Soviet leaders were afraid that these people had figured out that even in its destroyed state, Europe had better living conditions and a higher standard of living than Soviet people did, even though those Soviet people were living in the so-called “workers’ paradise.” And people with these impressions have to be removed for awhile.

As relations with the west, and especially with the United States, got worse, the focus of Stalin’s scapegoating, the people he held responsible for the worsening of the postwar situation, got more specific.

One of the most prominent organizations in the Soviet Union during World War II was the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Everyone knew that Nazi Germany was waging a war largely based on racism and concepts about the innate superiority of some peoples over others. The Jews were the lowest of the low, in Hitler’s opinion.
Stalin understood this, and so he organized some prominent Soviet Jews, like Solomon Mikhoels, to go to the west to represent the Soviet Union and raise funds for the gallant Soviet people, who were doing so much to fight Nazi racists in Europe. Representatives were in the United States and Britain through most of the war, doing interviews, giving benefit concerts and readings and making all kinds of public appearances. They were very popular and very successful in raising money.
Well, after the war, the United States and Great Britain became very unpopular in the Soviet Union, because they dropped the atom bomb, tried to deny the Soviet Union its due, were hostile. So members of this committee, and by extension many Jews in the country, would have to accept part of the blame for how things had gone bad.

The first victim was Mikhoels himself; he was lured to a meeting in Minsk to discuss the publication of a play he had written. Stalin had ordered the secret police to do away with Mikhoels, and they did—when he arrived, the secret police took him away in a car, strangled him and then arranged for a truck to run over the body. After which, the secret police, on Stalin’s orders, announced in the newspapers that Mikhoels had been exposed as an American spy and had been hit by a car as he tried to escape Soviet police!

After this announcement, the hunt was on for Mikhoels’ accomplices, the people who had helped him spy for America.

Everyone who had worked with Mikhoels on the Anti-Fascist Committee was arrested and shot; Jewish newspapers and literatures were confiscated and burned; Jews were thrown out of high schools and universities and arrested. This was all leading to some stunning conclusion, but we won’t see that until just before Stalin finally dies.

So—why is the world disrespecting the Soviet Union now? Why are America and Britain so unjustly opposing the Soviet Union in its peaceful projects everywhere? Why, it’s because of these JEWS—that was the thinking in the Kremlin.

Then there were the Soviet citizens who committed the sin of socializing with people from the Soviet Union’s allies during the war. As we all know, there were westerners in the Soviet Union during and just after the war. The US had pilots flying in supplies to Siberia, unloading lend-lease cargo way up north and various and sundry other people in other places, all on official assignments, of course. French and British people were there, too. Inevitably, because these were soviet allies, they came into contact with Soviet people. It was typically a western guy and a Russian woman, because there weren’t any Women’s Army Corps types in the Soviet Union. Anyway, after the war, and relations with the west worsened, Stalin added another category to the criminal code: Foreigners’ girl friends, who were subject to arrest and imprisonment under a new article of the Soviet criminal code: SDE, Socially Dangerous Element.

It should’ve been obvious to everyone that relationships between western men and Soviet women was directly responsible for the atom bomb, the Marshall plan and the determination of the west to contain Communism wherever it had spread. That’s the way it was in Stalin’s universe. SOMEONE was to blame, and it certainly wasn’t him.

After l948 and the Berlin airlift, in which the United States successfully defeated Stalin’s attempt to take Berlin all for himself, still more punitive measures were cooked up for Soviet citizens who had committed offenses against their country.

This time, it was anyone who was heard to say a good word for America, maybe soldiers sitting around reminiscing about meeting up with Americans somewhere, somehow, and someone saying the Americans were good guys, or maybe someone who said Lend-Lease Aid saved their children or their family. Those individuals were charged with PAD—Praise of American Democracy.

Then, let’s say you had worked somewhere unloading American supplies from lend-lease, maybe trucks or machine parts. You made some remark to a co-worker to the effect that, hey, I remember those American trucks and they were really great.
If you were overheard by someone who was listening deliberately, and chances are you would be, you might be arrested for PAT—Praise of American Technology.

Or, if they couldn’t get you on either of those counts, maybe just thought that you were too much the non-conformist, too independent, not enough of a cheerleader for Stalin, there was always the catch-all: TW, Toadyism towards the West.

Now, before the war, there had been arrests like these…in the early years of Hitler, they used to arrest people studying German, because they should’ve been able to see the future and know that this was the language of the enemy, or later Japanese. But in the prewar, the unfortunates convicted only got TEN years. After l948, Stalin got serious about this, and people convicted of PAD, PAT and TW got…TWENTY-FIVE years(!!)…

But, as someone said once with a straight face, "Yes, we had Stalinism. But YOU had McCarthyism(!)..."

466 midterm #2

2007-11-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

Here it comes again, look out...466 Midterm 2:

History 466/Cold War/2nd midterm for December 13, 2007

Directions Part I: While I am painting the Square Red(er, anyway) in the former enemy capital—Moscow-- here is something to keep you off the streets and out of trouble prior to December l3. As usual, prepare all the questions—unless you’re lucky and/or clairvoyant--using material from reading, lectures, videos, and any outside reading you have done. You will write on ONE at the exam, plus part II, the little diversion on CW geography.

1There is a famous episode of the old series “Twilight Zone” entitled, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” A synopsis would go as follows: the residents of Maple Street are suddenly plagued with scary, inexplicable phenomena: electricity going on and off, cars starting spontaneously, strange lights flashing. Residents become increasingly panicked and focus their worry and anger on “strange” people in the neighborhood with offbeat habits, knowledge or beliefs. The upshot is that a teenage boy is killed by an overwrought adult brandishing a gun. The scene then cuts to a spaceship and a couple of aliens looking satisfied. One says, “We didn’t need to invade them: all we had to do is flash a few lights, make’em a little scared, and they destroy themselves.”

It is said that Rod Serling wrote this episode in the mid-50s with recent events in the Cold War fresh in his mind. What events might have served as an inspiration for this story?

2)We all have a tendency to associate the Cold War with barbed wire, occupation troops and shows of military hardware in faraway places, like Red Square in Moscow. Yet the Cold War came home in a big way, here to the United States as well to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Write an essay in which you discuss some of the ways in whice the Cold War affected the lives of ordinary people in the United States and the Soviet Union/Eastern Europe. Take care with this, be selective, because you’re dealing with a very broad question.

3) In his memoir of the Kennedy White House, Thirteen Days, Robert F. Kennedy spoke of the importance of knowing your adversary’s interests(national and personal) in trying to resolve a crisis. First, explain in general terms what Khrushchev’s and Kennedy’s interests were, heading into their confrontations. Then take TWO from among of the following—the Bay of Pigs, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missle Crisis—and evaluate how each advanced/or defended, or failed to advance/defend, those interests.

Directions Part II, short answer(10%), Cold War Geography: Spin the globe and find the 38th and l7th parallels. What do they mark, and why are they important in the big scheme of things?

Pithy Quote to Give the Exam a Ringing Ending: "Good night, and Good luck!"...E.R. Murrow

Resources for the "Giant Samovar"

2007-11-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a terrific site dedicated to the Church of Christ the Savior, the outsized, horizon-dominating tribute to the Russian victory over Napoleon that was born on the Christmas after l8l2, finished in l883, blown up in l931, and resurrected between roughly l987 and l997. It has had quite an eventful life, I think you will agree. But what else would you expect from a Russian church?

I had forgotten about this one until just now, when it popped up on my bookmarks just above the previous site. You should absolutely go there, too, because the authors give you the entire history of the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, lavishly illustrated, plus a lot of contemporary material, including an icon/portrait of the martyred Nicholas II and family, who are now among the "new martyrs"--victims of Communist tyranny--of the Russian Orthodox church.

462 midterm #2

2007-11-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Here's the 2nd midterm for Russian History, on which you are free to use all the resources at your disposal. You will hand it in at the final, because you can't study for the final. If that makes any sense, which I'm sure it does not at the moment...the final is a state secret.

History 462
Imperial Russia
2nd Midterm—to be handed in December ll, 2007, at the final because

YOU CAN’T STUDY FOR THE FINAL. YOU JUST CAN’T.

Choose ONE of the following and write a brilliant, literate essay, incorporating material from readings, lecture, websites, video personal explorations, etc.

1)We have seen, and you have written on, the wrenching makeover of parts of Russia into a western-oriented state in the l8th century. The transfer of the capital to St. Petersburg, the making of “new people” and the Catherinian mad purchase of western art for the Hermitage all testify to this fact. In the l9th century, however, we have seen the pendulum swing back towards celebrating specifically Russian language, Russian countryside, Russian culture. Discuss the factors behind this change, and explain how this change was manifested, using evidence that you personally find most interesting(this is, again, a VERY broad topic).

2)Russians are acutely conscious of their history—for good reason—and therefore take great care with remembrances. Write an essay in which you discuss two or three major historical events between 1703 and l9l4 and how Russians chose to commemorate them on the country’s physical and/or cultural landscape.

3) One of the problems with monarchy is that sometimes you get a Peter or Catherine the Great, and other times you get a Paul I or Nicholas II. As Forrest Gump says of his box of chocolates, “you just never know what you’re going to get.” What accounts for Nicholas’s reign being so difficult and problematic from his coronation in l896 to the outbreak of war in l9l4? Use the Radzinsky book on Nicholas in the composition of your answer—he has great insight into this man, who was—tellingly—born on the feast day of Job(!).

Alexander II's monument

2007-11-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

There's a great website dedicated to the Church of the Resurrection on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, which is Alexander II's principal monument in the former Russian capital. It has quite an interesting architectural and cultural history, and you can read all about it and go through dozens of historic and contemporary photographs here.

Sobering stat

2007-11-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

Before we leave Armistice Day for another year, anyone know how many British children were left fatherless in World War I? The answer is truly staggering.

Armistice Day Sites of Memory

2007-11-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

One of the great things you can do when you go to Europe is visit some of the "silent cities," the innumerable military cemeteries serving as the final resting place for millions of British, French, American, German and colonial troops who fell in the Great War. Here's one of the biggest: Tyne Cot cemetery near Ypres(Ieper), Belgium.

You can visit this one from the comfort of your armchair...btw, the "silent cities" is a phrase from none other than Rudyard Kipling, who lost his only son in the war.

Remembrance Day offering

2007-11-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

The most famous English Great War poem, or perhaps the one most often recited now, is Lawrence Binyon's "For the Fallen." It is as much a part of British war commemorations as the cross of sacrifice, or the oft-repeated words on the stones of remembrance, "Their name liveth forevermore." This poem will no doubt be recited tomorrow, at the Cenotaph near Whitehall in London, the site of the yearly Remembrance Day celebrations. The most famous lines, those known by every citizen of the UK, begin, "They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old...," but it is terribly moving in its totality. The United Kingdom lost over a million young men in World War I, most of whom lie in the earth of northeastern France and northwestern Belgium.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Yes, we will remember them.

Don't forget those "shot at dawn" tomorrow

2007-11-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

We're in the runup to Veterans' Day here, or if you are in the UK, Remembrance Sunday. Tomorrow is the day to honor the dead of all the conflicts of the bloody century just past--World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the gulf wars--and the one which we've just launched, i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan. There's quite a category of war dead that have been unjustly neglected over the years, namely those unfortunates of World War I who cracked under the strain of constant bombardment, living with corpses in the trenches and pointless and murderous assaults on the enemy across No Man's Land. Some of these soldiers fled the trenches, physically unable to carry on their war service--they were no doubt suffering from what we know today as PTSD. There was no counseling for them, though, no respite in a veterans' hospital--they got a firing squad, often made up of their own comrades.

The families of these soldiers have gone to great lengths to point up the injustice of these executions and clear the names of their loved ones. You can read about their campaign, recently crowned with success in an official exoneration from the British government, here.

Not your garden-variety Veterans' Day experience...

Way beyond the spiritual pale...

2007-11-09T21:02:00.000-08:00

I wonder if you can guess which nation sanctioned a religious service at a prominent cathedral in its capital to celebrate 60 years of its...nuclear weapons program(!). Take a guess, then click here to discover the answer. All you can say is, "sick, sick, sick," or maybe, "who would Jesus nuke?"

Sheesh.

Mir isskustva(World of Art...RUSSIAN ART)...

2007-11-09T20:04:00.000-08:00

We had an exceedingly nice time in Russian History last night reviewing the beginnings of Russian art in the second part of the l9th century. It began with a revolt by some of Moscow's most promising student painters...they were appalled to be assigned "the entrance of Wotan into Valhalla" as their senior assignment, instead of a uniquely Russian theme in accordance with the liberation of the serfs, the discovery of the countryside, Russian language, etc. These students walked out on their scandalized profs and founded their own school of painting, calling themselves the "Wanderers." They did what their name implied: they wandered the countryside, looking for Russian landscape, Russian people, Russian history. You might say they started a movement there...

Anyway, I promised links to the online galleries, and here they are. The first, and probably the biggest, is simply the Russian Art Gallery. I don't know who founded this site, but it is a wonderful sampling of the best painters from about l860, with special sections on photography and icons. This fellow is particularly fond of the work of the great landscape painter, Isaak Levitan.

You can proceed from there to Olga's gallery, an even bigger exhibit space featuring well-known western artists as well as Russians. All the classics are here, but what you really want is her exhibit on Il'ia Repin, probably the best-known of the Wanderers. The Volga barge haulers, Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan, the portrait of Modest Mussorgsky, all the portraits of his beautiful daughters as well as the rich and famous, are there. Afterward, surf on over to the nifty Repin bio page thoughtfully provided by Rollins College. It offers a great summary and yet another look at some of Russia's most famous painting.

Once you finish with Russian art, take a minute to stop by the Tate Modern online. That's Britain's top gallery and it has a superior virtual presence, complete with art history courses you can take online.

Can official culture vulture status be far behind for you?

The Lives of Others

2007-10-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

With mid-terms behind me, I was able to watch The Lives of Others this weekend. Scary stuff. The fact that the Stasi could bug an entire apartment in 20 minutes is mind boggling. It's cool that the staunch Stasi guy developed a conscious in the end and that's all I'll say. Well done and so worth the Academy Award.

Now, if you want to see a prime example of French colonialism, check out The Battle of Algiers (yet another movie rec. for another class).

Just because...

2007-10-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

I know there are so many of you out there who would like the words to the Russian National Anthem of the l9th century, "God Save the Tsar," here it is for you in Library of Congress-certified transliteration:

"Bo' zhe, tsaria' khrani',
sil'nyi, derzhav'nyi,
tsar' stvui na sla'vu, na sla'vu
nam

Repeat the first verse, then

Tsar'stvui na stra'kh vragam',
Tsar' Prav' oslavnyi,
Bo'zhe tsaria', tsaria, khrani!

In the vernacular, that would be...

God, save the Tsar!
(keep him)strong and wise,
Let him rule for the glory of us all!

Rule to frighten our enemies,
O Orthodox Tsar!
God Save the Tsar.

If you want to hear the anthem with the words, go to Google and look for Russian National Anthems page, where you can also find the words and music to several versions of the old Soviet anthem.

Russian History exam...

2007-10-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

As if on cue, the Russian History exam unveiled for your inspection: PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATE!!!

History 462
Imperial Russia
Midterm exam—for Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Directions Part I(70%): Prepare scathingly brilliant answers to the following questions, using material gleaned from readings, lectures, videos and any outside reading /personal exploration you have done. You will do ONE of them on test day, but you don’t know WHICH one, so…. be prepared, as the Russians say.

Lindsey Hughes talks a lot in her biography of Peter the Great about “Peter’s People.” Write an essay in which you compile a composite sketch of a typical “Peter’s person.” How would you describe his or her world view, political views and personal characteristics? How did he or she differ from his/her predecessors before Peter’s reign?

It was not exactly a secret that Catherine II wished to be remembered as Peter the Great’s true successor. In what ways were the two rulers similar? Where did they differ? Make sure to limit your essay and illustrate it with specific points.

One of the great distinguishing characteristics of both Peter and Catherine was their focus, maybe even their obsession, with Things Western. Where do you see evidence of this in their respective reigns? Again, be careful to limit this to two or three points—people have written voluminous books on this.

Directions Part II(30%): Identify, discuss and GIVE THE SIGNIFICANCE of the following. You will be given a choice among some of these on test day:

Hermitage, “Bronze Horseman,” “I am a student and I seek teachers,” Sophia Alekseevna(Peter’s half sister), lst partition of Poland, “ Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, “ Smol’nyi Institute, Grand Embassy, neoclassicism, patronymic

Question #1 prep

2007-10-04T09:53:00.000-07:00

This question--#1—basically asks you why the US and Great Britain ended up enemies with Stalin's Russia just a year or two after the conclusion of a very successful alliance against Hitler.

To answer this, you have to establish first what happened in l9l7. In that year, Woodrow Wilson took the United States into world affairs with his stated intention of “making the world safe for democracy.” Watching from across the sea, Wilson thought the cause of the dreadful European war was a lack of democracy—people not having a choice in what kind of government they lived in. Wilson thought that if people had input into where they lived and could choose their leaders in elections, there wouldn’t be any more wars.
In that same year, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Communists took power in Russia and advanced their own utopian vision of the postwar world. They wanted to bring socialist revolution to the peoples of the world. They promised an end to rich and poor, a guaranteed standard of living, justice for those who had had no justice…in exchange for life in a dictatorship, in which a small group of men would make all the decisions for everybody.
These visions were diametrically opposed to one another. The Wilsonian vision required self-determination and elections; the Communist vision aimed to establish a kind of worldwide dictatorship—a dictatorship for the working classes, but a dictatorship nonetheless.
In the l920s and 30s, the conflict between the two nations was less acute, as each nation focused on its domestic priorities. There was even some improvement in the l930s, as the USSR launched a drive for industrialization and appeared to be in much better shape than the US and the capitalist world. Diplomatic relations were established between the two nations in l933. But as World War II approached, Stalin opted for a non-aggression pact with Hitler, which shocked and appalled the US and Britain. It looked like a cynical move designed to advance the Communist revolution, or at least gain a lot of territory.

In the second part, you need to demonstrate what changed. So connect these dots:

USSR invaded by Hitler
The only viable strategy to defeat Hitler: Make him fight on two fronts.
Decision by Great Britain(and later US)to offer the hand of friendship to Stalin

Then consider what had NOT changed in the relationship, connecting these dots, or some of them anyway:

What both nations wanted from the war : Atlantic Charter vs. Stalin’s insistence on control of territories.
The conflict over when to launch the invasion of Europe
Stalin and the USSR coming as liberators, also conquerors.

In the third section, you need to show what happened when Hitler was defeated. Again, connect these dots:

Yalta and Potsdam conferences: conflict over what should happen in E. Europe
Stalin’s reaction to the atom bomb
The dueling speeches of l946 and the demonizing of one side by the other, and vice-versa.

Now sum it up: doesn’t it seem reasonable to say that the two sides had only Hitler in common? The disappearance of Hitler meant the end of commonality between the two sides. It was back to business as usual, i.e. serious and sharp conflict in world views.

Essential website

2007-10-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

Everyone bogged down with question #1 on the Cold War exam(see below)should go forthwith to the website dedicated to the prehistory of the Cold War, entitled "Comrades." This is based on the CNN series entitled Cold War. You can find the episode script there, interviews with Geo. Kennan and British diplomat Frank Roberts and other interactive features. For that matter, you can find the same materials relating to the beginning of the Cold War...just review the episode guide and click accordingly.

Happy Anniversary, Sputnik!

2007-10-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

...not to be confused with "spudnik," our local delicacy...I'm happy to pay tribute to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev and the l957 launch of the Sputnik satellite. It was a huge coup for the Soviet Union, and ultimately a huge plus for their opponents across the ocean. The U.S. was more than chagrined to be one-upped, so it did a lot of soul-searching and began pouring huge amounts of $$$ into science and area studies education. A couple of generations went to college and graduate school on money earmarked for the training of scientists and Russian linguists/historians/area studies people. It was really important, in other words, not to be outdone by the Soviet Union, and to know the Soviet Union. My grad advisers, Mr. and Mrs. Jelavich--the founders of East European studies in the United States--always reminded all their students to get down on their knees and thank the Lord for Lenin, Stalin and Sputnik. Without them, none of us would have a job!

For Soviet people, I think it's safe to say that was the next to last time they would feel hopeful about the future. Give him credit--Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev had the best of intentions towards them. He really wanted to deliver on all those promises of a better life, of the eventual withering away of the state in Communism. It was hard for him to do anything about a lot of the Soviet Union's problems, but he DID make it possible for a lot of people to live in their own apartments, and he DID give them a lot to shout about by pouring $$$ into high-profile, prestige items like space exploration. The entire Soviet Union rejoiced in Sputnik and they went gaga for Iurii Gagarin in l961. After that, i think it's safe to say the nation sank slowly into pessimism and lethargy(and alcoholism). They lost hope that their revolutionary state would ever raise their standard of living...

So I'll raise an imaginary glass to Nikita Sergeevich, his bluster and bragging, and Sputnik! They have made my life so much more interesting.

The illustration is from a booklet published in l961, "USA-USSR in figures." It purports to show the Soviet people taking off in a jet airplane in terms of their industrial output and living standards, while the Americans stand in slack-jawed disbelief. Oh well, I guess it made people feel better at the time.

Actual Good News(!)

2007-10-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

There IS good news on the dismal world political landscape...if the Myanmar/Burma crisis tells us anything, it's that being tyrannical and repressive isn't nearly as easy as it used to be. In fact, it is just about impossible in the age of blogs, "pigeons" and the cell phone camera. So if you are planning on becoming a totalitarian ruler, a full-blown tyrant, fuhgeddaboutit, you'll have to find a more promising line of work. Too late for you!

Truman's March l947 speech

2007-10-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

Harry S. Truman's speech of March l947, in which he asked Congress for $400 million to help defend Greece and Turkey against Communist aggression, is considered to be the foundation of the Truman Doctrine. Truman was at best a journeyman orator, so the delivery wasn't anything special, but the words mean a lot. Click here to read this milestone address.

The(Really)Long Telegram

2007-10-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

If you want to read George Kennan's famous "Mr. X/Long Telegram/Sources of Soviet conduct" speech, you can access it here.

466 summary--the European World War II

2007-10-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

Happy October! Happy Upcoming Sputnik anniversary!

Here is a summary of developments taking place in Cold War over the last couple of weeks:

We left off with Stalin and the Russians’ having allied with Nazi Germany, so as to be able to stay out of war, and(just incidentally, of course)pick up some key territories they had lost in the various peace settlements that ended World War I: the Baltic nations(Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), west Ukraine/Eastern Poland(depending on your point of view), and a swatch of disputed Romanian territory known as Bessarabia. Plus, the Soviet Union agreed to a series of raw material shipments to Germany, which fueled Hitler’s efforts in the blitzkrieg war against France and the low countries in l939-40.

This was on paper a great deal for both countries: Hitler bought off the Soviet Union for his invasion of Poland, and Stalin not only avoided war, he was able to reclaim lost lands for the Soviet Union. Moreover, when he got back his part of Poland, he was able to use the NKVD to kill off the Polish Home Guard, the most intelligent and accomplished men in Polish society—a big help, he thought, in making Poland a permanent part of the Soviet sphere of influence. But there were storm clouds on the horizon. Hitler’s agreement with Stalin was designed to buy Germany time to secure its rear—conquer all the countries that could cause him trouble if he moved farther east—and bring closer his dream of conquering part of the Soviet Union for the great German people, whom he believed to be crowded and shut into their current borders. When evidence began to emerge that Hitler would soon doublecross Stalin and invade Russia—diplomats leaving Moscow in droves, ships departing St. Petersburg, German infantry massing on the border—Stalin refused to take action. Hitler, he believed, would never do something so dastardly. The result was that the ensuing invasion on June 22, l941, caught the Soviet people completely unawares. Thousands died in the initial bombing raids, and nearly the entire Soviet air force was destroyed.

Needless to say, when the Soviet Union was attacked, Winston Churchill and Great Britain knew they would have to bring Stalin onto their team. If Hitler captured Russia, the entire world would be looking down the barrel of a big German gun, and the way to defeat Germany is to make it fight on two fronts. Therefore Churchill offered Stalin an alliance, and Stalin took it—when he recovered from his mini-meltdown just after the invasion took place. The United States still sat on the sidelines, but did offer Lend-Lease aid to Britain and the USSR: food, vehicles, war materiels, that sort of thing.

We all know the war eventually found the US on December 7, l941, with the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Once the US declared war on Japan, a German ally, Hitler declared war on the US, which brought the US into the European as well as the Pacific war. Now the US, Great Britain and the USSR became a sort of grand alliance against Hitler. They were an unlikely threesome, in that their systems had been diametrically opposed to one another since l9l7, but all three faced mortal peril from Hitler. It was clear what the strategy had to be: the US and Britain would invade Europe from the west, chasing Nazi invaders back to Germany, and the Russians would do the same from the east. The two sides would rendezvous in Berlin for the final defeat of the Nazi regime.

Despite the evidence of shared purpose in the alliance, there were hints of trouble ahead. The US and Britain announced their war objectives—nearly identical to Woodrow Wilson’s l4 Points-- in the Atlantic Charter of l941. The focus was as usual: self-determination for all affected peoples, open borders, free trade, the traditional democratic/capitalist values. Stalin made no declarations, but he did hint at what he wanted from the war when he told a British diplomat sent to boost morale that he wanted “at a minimum, the territories won in the Nazi-Soviet pact.” We also know from Milovan Djilas that he intended to bring the Soviet system to all territories he liberated from Nazi rule.

At the very least, it was difficult to see how these two views of the postwar world would be reconciled.

The timing of the launch of the Allied invasion into Europe also caused trouble between the US and Britain and Stalin. Understandably, Stalin wanted a second front opened immediately, in order to take the pressure off the eastern front, where Russian troops faced the full strength of the Wehrmacht. When that did not happen, largely due to the US and Britain’s having been basically disarmed in the l920s and 30s, Stalin read it as the western powers’ desire for Russians to bleed themselves white, so that the Soviet Union could be invaded and toppled after the war. No explanations from the Allies succeeded in altering this view, despite their clear lack of preparedness for war, and it remains a hot issue for Russians even today.

When the Normandy invasion finally did come in June l944, the Russians were well on their way to Berlin. They had come nearly halfway across Poland and the other states bordering the Soviet Union. They came as liberators, in that they were the first to reach the death camps in Poland, but they also came as conquerors, bringing with them the basis for “friendly(that is, COMMUNIST)” governments in the states they liberated. When the three allied nations met at Yalta in February l945, there was disagreement about the status of Poland, and by extension all the other Soviet-liberated territories: Great Britain and France insisted that they be allowed to choose their leaders and their destiny; Stalin insisted on his right to impose “friendly” governments, since Russia had suffered invasion through these states twice in the 20th century. Eventually, the issue was dropped, because both sides realized Stalin would probably have his way there. His army was in full control of those territories, and at least Roosevelt still needed Stalin’s help in ending the war in the Pacific.

Thus, on VE Day—Victory in Europe Day—the allies were still united and euphoric in their triumph over Hitler and most powerful army ever, but the cracks in the united front were showing already. Those cracks would widen to become a chasm, approximating the physical and political differences between Soviet-liberated Europe and American/British-liberated Europe.

Required Reading(part 2,345)...

2007-09-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in the current state of affairs in Putin's Russia, you need to take time to read David Remnick's portrait of Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess player of all time who now leads the organized opposition to the Putin "tsardom." It is a remarkable article on many counts--it's a life-and-times article, giving you a great idea of what has made Putin so popular there, and it also makes several very good points, e.g. how much mileage Putin has gotten worldwide out of portraying himself as morally superior to George W. Bush and the United States. This demonstrates remarkable chutzpah, coming from a former KGB-torture-central man, but it's harder to refute him now in view of Guantanamo and the "unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country," a.k.a. the Iraq war.

For those who don't know Remnick, he also authored the best book about the Gorbachev era and the end of the Soviet Union: "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire." Both the current article and the book are REQUIRED reading for people who want to be au courant, in the know, sparkling at cocktail parties, etc., so go get both of them. You have the link to the article above. And this is the CORRECT link, rather than the one to which i originally directed you earlier today.

Cold War Culture: Sputnik 'n us

2007-09-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

This week, we will be observing the 50th anniversary of the sensational launch of Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the earth. Because the Soviet Union accomplished this feat, and we didn't, it had all kinds of interesting effects...not least of which was its invasion of American popular culture in the l960s. Why, it gave you the priceless family associated with "Their Boy, Elroy," and Doctor Smith and the arm-waving robot of Lost in Space, and a lot more. Read this nifty essay here. "Danger, Doctor Smith! Danger!"

466 midterm...

2007-09-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here is the midterm for Cold War...the questions aren't hard, I had no trouble with them whatsoever. Some of the material you will use for this is yet to come, so no need to panic.

History 466
Cold War
Midterm exam…for October 11, 2007

Directions Part I(60%): Prepare the following questions, taking care to support your answers with specific names, facts, dates, etc. On test day, you will answer ONE, but you do not know WHICH one, so prepare them all(unless you are clairvoyant)

A)In the Ken Burns documentary “The War,” viewers learn about the titanic struggle between the US, Great Britain and the USSR on the one hand and Germany, Italy and Japan on the other in World War II. Victory was a team effort, requiring a common strategy, coordination and millions of casualties. How did it happen that this “marriage” ended in divorce, with victorious allies becaming bitter enemies, glowering at each other across barbed-wire borders, just a couple of years after that happy meeting in Berlin? In other words, how did we get a nasty, antagonistic Cold War after the successful conclusion of the Hot War?

B)We have looked at both the American and the Soviet point of view about the disagreements attending the end of World War II. In this essay, put yourself in the shoes(well, maybe “position,” Soviet shoes weren’t that comfortable)of a Soviet citizen circa l945 and explain why you believe your leader, Stalin, took absolutely the right course of action in the latter stages of World War II and the immediate postwar.

C) When it became evident that Stalin and the USSR had designs on territories beyond those they had liberated in the war, how did the United States respond? Describe the strategy President Truman and his aides fashioned to counter this threat.

Part II: Identifications(40%). Identify, discuss briefly and give the significance of the following. You will do FOUR of FIVE on test day(I get to pick the five): Atlantic Charter, Nazi-Soviet Pact l939, Stalingrad, “second front,” Potsdam and Yalta conferences, Poland, Berlin, “Iron Curtain,” “Long telegram.”

A great companion

2007-09-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

If you've been watching the Burns series, you should absolutely go have a look at links the PBS site has listed for the study of World War II. From individual memoirs to heavyweight document collections, there's something for every armchair internet researcher or student of the second war to end all wars...

Postcards from the(Russian)empire

2007-09-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten to mention this earlier, but anyone with an interest in St. Petersburg should visit the Russian National Library website and browse their online collection of old postcards and sketches of the second Russian capital. If you like what you see, email them and say so--we could use more exhibits like this one of materials basically unavailable here.

Mystery!

2007-09-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

Read the following and take a guess about the identity of the subject: who IS this controversial individual?

Julie Kavanagh's biography is about a man who danced like a god, but behaved like a violent, voracious beast. ________ was fond of portraying himself as a barbarian invader, a Tatar who relished the savagery of the Polovtsian dances in Borodin's Prince Igor. He disliked Jews, he explained, because he was an ersatz Arab. Further back, he claimed to be descended from wolves. John Huston wanted to cast him as the snake, the 'homo-reptile' that introduces sin to Eden, in his film The Bible; Francois Truffaut called him a 'man-animal', a wild child who resisted socialisation.

But despite his feral tantrums, interspersed with indiscriminate spending sprees and a sex life that was like a gabbling multiplication game, __________ emerges from this affectionate, acutely perceptive book as someone whose nonsense and neuroses had to be tolerated because his conflicts fed his creativity. Long after ________'s leaps, twirls and feats of athletic transcendence have faded in the memories of those who witnessed them, Kavanagh's achievement is to persuade us that he deserves our compassion as well as our applause.

No cheating, now...give it the old college try!

REAL Must See T.V.

2007-09-20T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'd like to urge everyone to set aside time for(or set your vcr/dvd to record)Ken Burns' documentary on World War II, entitled simply "The War." It was such a huge event with such far-reaching consequences, virtually everyone of a certain age knows WHAT war--it was the defining event of the last century. It's set to begin this coming week on your local PBS station...if you're reading this in the great Mid-Columbia, you can check times and see previews here.

It's one of those required viewings...

9/11/2001-9/11/2007

2007-09-10T21:29:00.001-07:00

Tuesday is the 6th anniversary of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Six years later, I am still so sad for all the innocents who lost their lives after walking out of their dwellings and going to their jobs. I still can't fathom people who hate people they don't know more than they love themselves and their own lives, even though we see these kinds of people throughout history. I remain stupefied by that degree of animus.

I think, though, that life practically commands us to make something of this catastrophe, to do something to make it somehow less appalling, to repair some of the damage it did to the world. Since I can't change the world, only myself and my immediate milieu, all I can do is try to draw some lessons to apply to my own life. I'm not anywhere near as eloquent as Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, but he came close to expressing what I "made" of the tragedy. These remarks come from the transcript of the PBS documentary "New York: the Center of the World," the last in the epic documentary history of New York done by Ken Burns:

" Teilhard de Chardin, great French Jesuit paleontologist and a philosopher, said that one of the tricks in life is to convert everything into good. He makes the reference of the stone. You're a sculptor and you have a stone, and the stone has a scar in it. And well, all right, so now you have to -- sculpt around that scar and you've got to use that scar to make it part of whatever it is you're going to produce that's beautiful, and work with what you have. Play it as it lies. (You know.) So whatever the circumstance, (you know) use it for good purpose. 9/11, how can you possibly use it for good purpose? You think about it. You'd think, as was suggested before, you'd think about: Look, what this reminds you of is the importance of your own life, and making the most of it, because you can lose it in a flash. And if that's all you learned from 9/11, that's all you remembered, that: My God, you could extinguish life so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and it could happen to me, and therefore I should think harder about the way I spend my life instead of just wasting it. Now, it's not going to teach you what to do with your life, but it will teach you to do with your life, and to do it more and quicker and better. And that can be extremely valuable. I -- It's had that effect on me."

I hope everyone, today and every day, will remember to "carpe diem"...those who died six years ago in the blink of an eye never suspected their lives would end in a matter of minutes.

What lessons have you drawn from 9/11?

466 summary

2007-09-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

For the terminally confused, or those a little bit unsure of the course of events between l9l8-l939, here is summary #1 for Cold War:

In these introductory sessions, we have tried to establish that the Cold War actually began a long time before l945. In l9l7, President Woodrow Wilson took the United States into World War I, declaring his intention not just to bring peace, but to “make the world safe for democracy.” That was a very ambitious plan. The same year, in October, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik(Communist) party seized power in Russia, announcing their own grand scheme: to bring to the world a socialist revolution, in which landowners, factory owners and rich people of all stripes would be deposed in favor of peasants and workers and the dispossessed of the earth. The Bolshevik vision was hostile to Wilson’s, in that the bedrocks of “democracy,” as Wilson understood it—free markets, private property, etc.—precluded a lot of what the Bolsheviks wanted, e.g. deposing all wealthy people and creating a world in which no one had an excess of money or resources.

These two visions came into direct conflict in l9l8-l9l9. First, the Bolsheviks appeared to be realizing their objective of bringing revolution to the world with brief successes in Hungary and Germany. These revolutions were short-lived and ultimately brutally crushed, but they frightened the leaders and citizenry of the two countries. Then, the American and British decided to send an intervention force to north Russia. The official reason was to guard ammunition stores sent by the American and British governments to the previous Tsarist government during the war. Unofficially, it was hoped that the appearance of the troops would strike fear into the hearts of the Bolsheviks, and/or that the troops would be able to engage the Bolsheviks and defeat them militarily. After the Bolshevik demise, in theory, there would emerge an acceptable non-Communist government. The intervention failed to dislodge the Bolsheviks, and the intervention troops returned home. But the Soviet Union and its citizens never forgot about it and viewed it as a hostile act, an attempt to destroy their revolution and their new society. Because of this, a lot of scholars say the Cold War began with the north Russian intervention of l9l8.

After l9l8, the active hostility between the two nations waned. The Soviets had a tremendous challenge in establishing their regime, dealing with the consequences of the civil war that followed the revolution, trying to teach a largely illiterate citizenry to read and attempting to decide who would lead them—Vladimir Lenin, the leader, died in l924 and there was no clear successor. Officially, the leadership still believed in bringing the revolution to the entire world, but most people knew this would be impossible for a long while. In the United States, there was widespread disillusionment with foreign affairs, since the World War had ended so badly and President Wilson’s campaign on behalf of the League of Nations and the Versailles peace treaty had failed. Neither nation engaged much with the other.

In the late l920s and l930s, relations improved somewhat. The United States experienced the stock market crash and quickly became mired in a terrible economic depression. At the same time, the new Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, launched a crash industrialization drive in the Soviet Union, which was draconian, even cruel in its intensity and scope, but which did achieve tangible results, at least at first. Some Americans went to the Soviet Union to work on the industrial campaign and were impressed with the enthusiasm and zeal; others read a lot about the USSR and concluded that it represented the future, since capitalism appeared to be dead. For their part, the Soviets often talked of their industrial plant as being a “second America,” and they modeled several of their industrial enterprises after industrial cities in the U.S., e.g. Gary, Indiana and Pittsburgh, Pa.
Hint: this cordial period was short-lived, ending on August 23, 1939, when the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. More to follow...

Diana's memorial

2007-08-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

For all fans of the British Royal Family, closeted and uncloseted--I'm out of the closet, I'm a fan and always read everything about them--the BBC account of the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial service in London is here. You can read the tributes, the prayers and access a PDF version of the order of service. There was some great music there today, including selections from Elgar, Mozart and Rachmaninov.

I hasten to add, in gratitude, that there was no Elton John performance today.

Israel-Palestine and the northern Irish peace process

2007-08-31T09:13:00.000-07:00

As an American with Irish background, I've always followed developments in northern Ireland with great interest. I was elated this year when the Good Friday agreement finally was realized in a power-sharing agreement. Those two old adversaries, Protestant Ian Paisley and IRA operative Martin McGuinness, now preside over a joint administration in Belfast.

Because this is a "pigs are flying" moment, a most unlikely development, I always thought there would be lessons for Israel and Palestine in the northern Irish peace process. Alas, the new Israeli ambassador to Ireland thinks not, for some pretty convincing reasons--starting with the reality that while the IRA was hoping fundamentally to unite northern Ireland with the Irish republic, Hamas adamantly claims all of Israeli territory for Palestinians. As you might expect, religion looms much larger in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it did in northern Ireland. A Muslim-Jewish divide is a lot wider than Protestant-Catholic disgreement.

So it's back to the drawing board for peacemakers in Israel and Palestine...it remains one of the most intractable of the world's difficulties, right up there with Kashmir and Sri Lanka.

Tier III! Tier III! Tier III

2007-08-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the much-anticipated options sheet for the 466 tier three requirement. Please try to contain your enthusiasm!

History 466
Options for Tier III requirement

As stated in the syllabus, a Tier III course requires you to complete a substantial research and writing assignment. You have three options from which to choose, as follows:

The original plan, in which you do 2-3 articles per week from current newspapers and journals on Russian-American relations, with the objective being to determine whether or not the US and Russia are in a renewed Cold War. You will read your 2-3 articles per week, write brief summaries of each and then write up your findings in a 3-5 page paper. You will submit the article summaries as well as the paper on the due date.

You can locate someone in the Tri-Cities area who spent a part of his or her life in the Cold War—for example, an individual who worked at Hanford in the early days—and do some oral history. You will agree upon a set of questions, conduct an interview, then transcribe it and write an essay summarizing the role this person played in the Cold War, whether globally or locally. I will want to see the questions, the transcript of the interview and your essay. Anyone pursuing this option might want to get some help and/or advice from Dr. Bauman, who does a lot of oral/public history.

You can design a museum exhibit showcasing some important individual or event in the
Cold War.

In this case, you should decide upon something that interests you and that you would like to show, or explain to the world at large. The second step is to compile a bibliography of both online and offline sources, 8-10 books minimum, and read them. Then you will write an introduction to your exhibit, setting forth the basic details(remember, the public doesn’t know much history!) as well as explaining where this person/place or thing fits into the general history of the Cold War(3-5 pages). The final step for this option is to submit a description(for the artistically challenged), a design or a mock-up of the exhibit. At the end, you will submit your biography, your exhibit “introduction,” and your description and/or design.

The due date is TBA on these, most likely the week before dead week, in late November/early December.

Some discordant notes from the German capital

2007-08-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

It is one of the world's greatest cultural institutions, and it has just been branded "Hitler's obedient servant" by a Canandian researcher in his new book. This isn't exactly a surprise, in view of the comprehensive cooperation Hitler enjoyed from most of German society, but it does leave fans feeling a little bit dispirited. Go read about it.

Required Film

2007-08-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

For all the Cold War students out there who wonder what the big deal was about the Soviet Union and system, you need to get a film called "The Lives of Others". It's about the secret police and its obsessive hunt for free thinking and non-conformism among the citizenry--the Soviet Union pioneered it, then exported it to all its satellites, so that you had not only the KGB(USSR), but the AVH(Hungary), Securitate(Romania), and Stasi in the GDR, the German Democratic Republic. It gives you a concrete idea of what a nightmare the "revolution" became in the post-l945 years, particularly in the GDR, the state where the "workers' paradise" failed so disastrously that authorities had to build a wall to keep people IN, then TEAR DOWN the wall, STILL to keep them from leaving. Neither solution worked in the end, but a lot of people lived miserable lives in the meantime.

It will also make your skin crawl, as you imagine yourself the target of a comprehensive bugging of your house and the victim of round-the-clock listening to/monitoring of all your comings and goings, all your conversations, all your visitors, everything. That's what life was like for lots of people there, in fact throughout the Soviet sphere of influence.

The film comes highly recommended--it won the Academy Award for best foreign language film--so drop everything and go get it.

Closure?

2007-08-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Most people have probably heard by now that Russian authorities in Yekaterinburg(that's in western Siberia)have found what they believe to be the remains of the two children missing from the martyred Russian royal family. They were all murdered the night of July l7-l8 in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg, which was until recently known as Sverdlovsk, named for the man who authorized their murder(!).

For years, there were rumors about the fate of the two missing children, Anastasia and Aleksei, the heir to the throne. One woman in America went to her grave proclaiming that she was Anastasia. In fact, though, they could not have escaped--all the murderers described in grisly detail what they did to the bodies. The only question was the whereabouts of the two that investigators did not find with the others.

This discovery should bring closure to one of my candidates for THE crime of the last century. It was a little preview of what was to come for the Soviet Union at large.

Global mistake

2007-08-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

A class member has drawn my attention to the fact that the URL for the St. Petersburg Times newspaper listed on the 462 syllabus actually takes you to St. Petersburg, Florida. That's not where we want to go...we want THIS address: http://www.sptimes.ru

That, uh, makes a bit of a difference. My bad.

Velo adventurers, attention!

2007-08-22T17:45:00.001-07:00

If you're already indulging in escape-from-school fantasies, as I am, you'll need to go check the offerings at Bike Tours Direct. They've got adventures in every European country, and while I would strongly advise against biking in Ireland or Russia--you've got bad roads and homocidal motorists, a very unadvantageous combination--there is something on their site to contemplate, and perhaps sustain you through the hard academic slog this year. Click here and let the daydreaming begin.

OMG! Russian Beefcake!!

2007-08-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

Girls, girls, girls! Vladimir Putin stripped off his shirt on vacation this week and had himself photographed, BARE-CHESTED and STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY AHEAD in COMBAT FATIGUES! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!...go get yourself some eye candy, er, beefcake, here.

Looking beyond the classroom

2007-08-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

We all---or at least, many of us--are returning to campus this week. Certainly, the traditional classroom has its advantages, like familiarity. It's kind of like an old shoe. One thing's for sure, though--there are a lot of non-traditional learning opportunities out there, some of which will take you far beyond the US. You can check out one of them here. The catch is that if you are on the youngish side, you will need to convince an older friend of yours to agree to go. The minimum age for at least one of the participants is 55, but the 55-year-old can invite you along, and both of you will have a great time. The range of programs is virtually limitless, from walking in France to art in New Mexico to the new Europe, the states of the former Soviet empire. The quality of the programs and participants is very high...I recommend it highly.

Syllabi Part II: Us and Them, or the Rise and Fall of the Iron Curtain

2007-08-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

And now, Cold War:

History 466
Cold War
Fall ’07/WSUTC

VISUAL INTRO TO THE COLD WAR:

Page and diagram from pamphlet, USSR-USA in Statistics(Moscow, l961), a booklet handed to me by a Soviet citizen in l988. The diagram and caption boast that Soviet workers, industrial production and growth have taken flight in a supersonic aircraft, leaving the hapless United States and its workers earthbound. Nikita Khrushchev was fond of telling Americans that “their grandchildren will live under Communism(!).” Alas, now his son, Sergei, is now an American citizen with a whole portfolio of Rotten Capitalist Investments…if his father could see him now!

Essential info: Office 207 J West Building 332-7257. Reality-based, up-close and personal office hours: 3:30-5:30pm Tuesday and Thursday; virtual office hours 24/7 by email at brigitf2001@yahoo.com. I always will try to get back to you as soon as possible—email is my favorite means of communication. For emergencies, my ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon may be reached at 541-276-6962.
N.B. I have a blog entitled “Blogside Inn,” after the Bogside Inn in Londonderry, N.I., where I first learned about Irish history and culture, especially as they relate to the Protestant-Catholic “troubles.” I generally post articles and comments about history and culture broadly defined, basically anything I find interesting, and I also will post syllabi and exams there, so that you will always have access to essential class materials. I will be posting announcements and heads-ups there as well, so try to visit every other day or so. Address: blogsideinn.blogspot.com. If you want, register(you can be yourself or someone else, whatever) and make your own comments. The more the merrier.

Attention Students with Disabilities: Accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. See Cherish Tijerna, Disability Resources Coordinator as soon as possible to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. To make an appointment, please call 372-7352. Translation from Officialspeak: If you have a learning disability, people and resources are available to help you.

Non-essential info: I actually “fought” in the Cold War,--a 14-month rearguard campaign as a United States Information Agency Exhibit Guide in l987-88. We were there ostensibly to give an accurate picture of what life was like in America, since Soviet citizens had been taught that we were imperialist/racist/warmongering/babykilling monsters. Our vehicle was American computer technology—I used to show how you could use Apple computers in education. But mostly, we ended up talking to people about our lives and trying to refute popular perceptions about America. I personally answered the following questions hundreds of times: “Why do you want war?” “Why do you allow people to own guns?” “Why do you kill your Presidents?” “Why don’t Americans know anything about Russians?” and…”How many volts do you give them in the electric chair(answer: “Enough”)?” I was happy if I could leave people with the idea that Americans weren’t good, weren’t evil, just a combination of both, like all the other humans on the planet. But sometimes, I felt as if I’d been in the trenches…and I was actually arrested for espionage briefly. I’ll tell that story sometime.
Other than that, this is my l2th year at WSUTC. I was born just over the mountain, in Pendleton, Oregon, and graduated from high school there before going off to attend Georgetown University(B.S. French language and Russian area studies l979)and Indiana University(M.A. Slavic Languages l984, Ph.D East European and Russian history, l991). I taught at Baylor University for a few years, escaped, then was lucky enough to find my way back to the Pacific Northwest, actually back to Pendleton, and a job here in Tri-Cities. If you have to work for a living, there’s no better place to be than this campus.

The Lowdown: Welcome to Cold War, a study of the 50-year “cold” conflict between the Soviet Union and its allies and the United States and its allies that began in the closing days of World War II and ended with the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe, which was followed by the implosion of Communism in the USSR in August l991. I should amend that to read, “mostly cold.” There was quite a lot of “hot” action, as the thousands of casualties in the Korean, Vietnamese and Afghan conflicts would tell you, even if these were officially “proxy wars.” I don’t think you are any less dead for being killed in a “proxy” rather than a direct conflict between the superpowers.
We will be trying this term to determine what caused this conflict, beginning way before l945. We want to trace the course of the “hostilities,” exploring how the war shaped domestic events and culture in the two superpower “belligerents,” that is, US here in America and THEM in the USSR. We won’t get too much farther than l962, because it takes that long to cover the early part of the Cold War, and people tend to have a lot of comments. However, we will do what we can to cover what happened later.
In between, we will try to get acquainted with some of the most interesting people and events from this odd war. Some of you will find them more familiar than others, especially if you are old enough to remember “ducking and covering” to protect against nuclear annihilation
Readings: Our basic text is McMahon, The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction. This will help you follow the basic narrative of events, which can get complicated at times. Then David McCullough, Truman. Harry S. Truman inherited the postwar world from FDR and found himself fighting a “cold war” with the Russians from the first minute of his term. He had none of the usual qualities you would associate with a President—good looks, charisma, higher education—yet he proved to be an exceptionally prescient and competent leader, even if Americans didn’t think so when he left office. One of Truman’s most persistent critics was Joseph McCarthy, “Tail-Gunner Joe,” senator from Wisconsin. His aggressive investigations of alleged Communists gave the US political dictionary a new term: McCarthyism. Richard Rovere has written a brief but very good biography, Senator Joe McCarthy. Our lone memoir this term—I am partial to these—comes from Robert Kennedy, who was on his brother’s Ex Comm, the group of advisers charged with finding a way out of the Cuban Missle Crisis without destroying western civilization. RFK is very matter-of-fact and understated about the course of events, but he manages to convey the enormity and terror of that assignment very well. He and the others literally held all of our fates in their hands for a time.
Class Procedures and Evaluation: 466 is one of those great Tier III courses, which are designed to bring together knowledge and perspectives from several disciplines and which require a thoughtful writing assignment. You will fulfill this requirement by leaping ahead of where we are in class and attempting to answer the question, “Are the US and Russia in another Cold War?” To do this, you need to read and summarize 2-3 articles per week, culled from online sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, BBC, London Times. I will post any interesting articles I come across on the blog, and you are welcome to use these. You will show evidence of your readings by writing a brief summary of each article you read and keeping it in a binder or folder. About Thanksgiving, you will stop reading and make an assessment of your findings. Then you will write a 5-7 page answer to the original question, based on your reading. You will turn in both the paper and your written summaries on the due date. This assignment will be worth 60% of your final grade.
Also, we(actually YOU, since I’ve already taken tests on this material!)will write two essay exams, one after the end of part II and the other during finals week. Each of these will be worth 20%. In both cases, you will have the questions well ahead of time(at least two weeks), and then either I or you will choose the question you will write on the day of the exam.
Caveats: Come to class and listen—you know what Woody Allen says, 90% of life is just showing up—start the Big Assignment right away and keep up on the not-too-labor-intensive readings. If you do all these things, you’ll have a good time in the course and maybe even learn a thing or two as well.

Schedule

Part I: Beginnings

America and Russia, l9l7

The first skirmish

Two visions of the ideal world, l9l9

America: the view from the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union: the view from America

Dictators’ rendezvous: the Nazi-Soviet pact, l939

The big doublecross and the new team, l941: USA, USSR, Great Britain

The marriage of convenience

Wartime conferences

Endgame: the race to Berlin

Readings: Text, relevant sections; start McCullough.
Recommended readings: Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution. This will tell you all about the revolution and establishment of Russian Communism,. Also, Louis Auchincloss, Woodrow Wilson. That’s the best short bio of Woodrow Wilson, our own drum major for democracy

Part II: Cold War follows hot, l945-53

Outlines of a divided Europe

The United States and the Bomb

Outlines of a Cold War

Dueling speeches

Containment and Marshall Plan

The “Iron Curtain” in eastern Europe. Plus: the state that escaped

The Berlin Crisis, round I: the Virtual Wall

Stalin gets the bomb

Cold War turns hot and goes global: the “police action” in Korea and revolution in China

The Cold War and the home front: US and USSR

Readings: Text, relevant sections; finish McCullough, Rovere(all)
Recommended readings: Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin. This is a great insiders’ view of what Stalin was REALLY like, behind the all-knowing, all-wise Uncle Joe façade. It wasn’t pretty.

Exam #1 following this section

Part III: Hope, Confusion and (Near)Apocalypse: The Khrushchev years, l953-64

The death of “Uncle Joe” and the rise of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev

Korean armistice

Khrushchev’s bombshell

Revolution in Poland and Hungary

Khrushchev agonistes

The ascent of John F. Kennedy: “bearing any burden”

Bad beginning: Castro’s revolution and the Bay of Pigs

K2: Kennedy and Khrushchev .

The Berlin Crisis, round II: The Real Wall

Missles in October

Looking down the abyss: confronting nukes off the American mainland

“The other fellow blinked:” the end of the crisis

Nuclear non-proliferation

The end of an era: the end of Kennedy and Khrushchev and the course of the Cold War

Readings: Text, relevant sections; Kennedy, all. Finish up whatever you didn’t get to.
Recommended readings: William Taubman, Khrushchev: A biography. This is chapter and verse on Nikita Khrushchev, a great book, also a demanding one. If you can get Roy Medvedev, Khrushchev, that one is shorter and written from a Russian perspective. On Kennedy, the classic study is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. A Thousand Days. Schlesinger was the “court historian” of the JFK administration. A more recent(and controversial)bio is Robert Dallek, JFK: An Unfinished Life.

Exam no. 2(non-cumulative)at the regular time during finals.

Syllabi, pt. I: Peter and Catherine and pals in the Gulf(of Finland, that is)

2007-08-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

As the drums roll, here comes the fall 2007 edition of History 462, Imperial Russia
History 462
Imperial Russia
Fall ‘07/WSUTC

Photo of prewar Winter Palace...from a old Petersburg postcard collection.

Essential info: Office 207 J West Building 332-7257. Reality-based, up-close and personal office hours: 3:30-5:30pm Tuesdays and Thursdays; virtual office hours 24/7 by email at brigitf2001@yahoo.com. I always will try to get back to you as soon as possible—email is my favorite means of communication. For emergencies, my ancestral estate in Pendleton, Oregon may be reached at 541-276-6962.

Students with Disabilities: Accommodations are available for students with a documented disability. See Cherish Tijerna, Disability Resources Coordinator, as soon as possible to seek information or to qualify for accommodations. To make an appointment, please call 372-7352. Translation from Officialspeak: If you have a learning disability, people and resources are available to help you.

Important note: I’ve got a blog called Blogside Inn, named for the Bogside Inn, Londonderry, N.I., where I learned my first lessons about Irish history and culture. The various contributors and I comment on history and culture of all kinds, really just interesting stuff that might miss the front page, and I also post class-related stuff from time to time, like syllabi, exams and various announcements. If you think about it, check the blog every day or so. The URL:

blogspot.blogsideinn.com

If you’d like, register(as yourself or someone else)and leave comments. The more the merrier!!

Non-essential information: I’m an old Russia hand—I started studying Russian at Pendleton High School, just over the mountain in Pendleton, Oregon and decided I wanted to take it as far as it would go. After graduating from Georgetown University in l979 with degrees in French and Russian Studies, I spent 6 months in St. Petersburg as an exchange student, a memorable experience. I thought briefly about becoming a Russian-language broadcaster for the Voice of America, but in the end opted for grad school and the chance to get paid for teaching, reading and writing about the things I am most interested in.
In l987, I spent l4 months as a United States Information Agency Exhibit guide, basically talking to Soviet citizens about life in the United States 8 hours per day, 6 days a week in Moscow, Kiev, Rostov-on-Don and also Tbilisi, the capital of now-independent Georgia. Shortly thereafter, I finished grad school in Russian history at Indiana and eventually found my way back home to the Pacific Northwest and the job here at WSUTC.
I’m not very thrilled about events in Russia at the moment, but I keep going back there anyway. At last count, I’ve been there about 30 times and am going again in November. I don’t know whether all these trips qualify as persistence or masochism.

The Lowdown: Welcome to the rise and fall of Imperial Russia, the most brilliant and intriguing period in the grand drama of Russia. The names of the players say it all: Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Grigorii Grigorievich Potemkin-Tavricheskii, Aleksandr I, Aleksandr II, Napoleon, Aleksandr Pushkin, Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin, Modest Mussorgskii, Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov, Sergei Rakhmaninov, Lev Tolstoy, Rastrellis, Aleksandr and Volodia Ulianov, Nijinskii, Diagliev/Ballet russe, Vera Zasulich, Princess Elizaveta(Ella) and the new Romanov martyrs, “yellow monkeys,” and many, many more.
In the political narrative, plots and subplots are equally compelling: Tsar grabs subjects by the beards and drags them into a new capital and new century; successor to this Tsar comes to Russia as a German princess, has husband bumped off and assumes the throne; Tsar-Victor over Napoleon quits the throne at the height of his power and disappears; Tsar-Liberator does more to advance Russia than anyone in his century, then gets blown up by revolutionaries for his trouble; Tsar born on Job’s feast day hit with tragedy upon tragedy, ending with the murder of himself and his family before a firing squad in l9l8; small band of revolutionaries seizes power over l/6 of the world’s surface, holds on to promise to create “utopia,” instead bringing to power the world’s most prolific serial killer.
But it’s in the realm of the arts and culture where the Imperial Russians have their most transcendent and long-lasting successes. I spent a week this summer watching and listening to the Kirov(St. Petersburg)opera and its brilliant conductor, Valerii Gergiev, interpret Richard Wagner’s immortal Ring of the Niebelungen at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Their interpretation was distinctly unorthodox, even provocative, which brought forth indignant cries of protest from the traditionalist fans I was with. I was kind of removed from those debates, because this was my first experience with the Ring. What struck me, as I watched the cast take bow upon bow after the finale, “Gotterdammerung,”was that this group, this Kirov opera, was returning to form. In its heyday, l870-l9l4, it was the most exciting thing going, a company that lived to provoke, even shock people. On several occasions, foreign audiences charged the stage after performances, they were so outraged. Under the Soviet cultural bureaucrats, the Kirov played to the lowest common denominator, dumbed down, stripped of its edginess. That’s the way Communists liked their culture—boring and predictable.
Now that the Communist overseers are gone, the Kirov has returned to its imperial Russian/iconoclastic roots, its artists able to give their talents and inspiration free rein, their capacity to agitate, shock and make you think limitless. That was an Imperial Russia flashback for me, and I enjoyed it immensely. So you can look backward AND forward to some brilliant art and culture.

I don’t have a complicated agenda for this course. What we’re after is basic literacy in the imperial period, including acquaintance with Russian arts and letters, which I hope will go with you and inspire you long after you have left the course. By the end of this term, you will have demonstrated your ability to:

Discuss some of the achievements that won Peter I and Catherine II inclusion on the millenium’s top 100 most influential individuals of all time.

Discuss the meaning of St. Petersburg and outline the differences between Petersburg and Moscow, the “other” and current capital of Russia.

Identify some of the most celebrated and historical buildings and monuments of Imperial Russia and what they commemorate.

Explain the origins of Russians’ love of poetry and identify the best-loved poet, and very probably the best-loved Russian, in Russian history

Identify a few Russian composers and their works. Hopefully, you will like one of them enough to let him(sorry, ladies, they are all men) give you an introduction to the classics.

Identify some l9th Russian painters and their works. Not enough people know about them because it’s terribly complicated and expensive to get them over here--but they are terrific.

Discuss in general terms the issues that divided the Tsar from his subjects between l860 and 19l4 and outline some of the reasons why some people wanted to get rid of him.

Readings: We begin with Robert Massie’s biography of Peter the Great. You have to begin at the beginning, and the beginning is Peter I, founder of St. Petersburg and author of Russia’s long interaction with the west. Isabel de Madariaga’s short biography of Catherine the Great can be a bit dry, but she is the leading scholar of Catherine the Great in the world, and she’s done a good job with this book in covering Catherine’s basics. We will add color in lecture. Then, Edward Radzinsky’s two biographies of the last and next to last Tsars, Alexander II and Nicholas II. Radzinsky isn’t an historian, but he has awfully good sources for his work, especially the one on Nicholas II, and he has a playwright’s way with words.
P.S. If you find you really like St. Petersburg and would like to keep abreast of day-to-day events there, bookmark the St. Petersburg Times website, www.sptimes.com, and visit there often. Registration is not required.

Class Procedures: We will have two essay-type exams this term,(35% each) along with a final exercise(30%), the nature of which is a deep, dark secret, during finals week. On the two essay exams, you will receive a copy of the questions two weeks in advance—the only mystery is which question will be chosen on test day. Sometimes you will get to choose, other times I will choose for you. Sometimes I will choose to let YOU choose. The point is, be prepared for any of the questions, because you can’t bring your notes. For the deep, dark secret exercise, well, just pay good attention all the way along and you won’t be TOO lost(heh, heh, heh…)

Caveats: Come to class, keep up with the readings, do a little extra something each week, enjoy this rendezvous with Imperial Russian splendor, before it all comes crashing down.

Schedule

Part I: The Titans: Peter and Catherine, l672-l796

B.P., Before Peter: the Moscow background

Peter I Alekseevich and the “Grand Embassy”

Sankt-Peterburg or bust! Or else!

New capital, new Russia, new(Peter’s) people

Paradise?! Paradise!!

Peter’s last years

Empress Elizabeth, her favorites and the coming of western culture

Young Catherine, wife of the heir

Catherine II, Empress of Russia

Empress of the Enlightenment: Catherine the Collector/Builder/Educator

Catherine the stateswoman: Let’s carve up the Poles, then go recapture Constantinople!

Pavel I Petrovich the Strange

Readings: Text, TBA, relevant sections; read all of Massie and de Madariaga
Recommended readings: Lindsey Hughes, Peter the Great: A Biography. Professor Hughes, who taught at the University of London, was the first to access all the sources on Peter after the fall of Communism. Tragically, she died a few months ago of cancer, at age 58. She will be greatly missed, because she was such a great scholar and wrote so well.

Exam #1 after this section, a standard two or three essay questions.

Part II: The brilliant l9th century, I

From Pavel I Petrovich to Aleksandr I Pavlovich: controversy and murder

Napoleon, the Grande Armee and the decision to conquer Russia

The burning of Moscow and the end of Napoleon

Aleksandr triumphant

The Decembrist revolt and the debut of Nikolai I Petrovich, Tsar Nicholas I

Nicholas I, gendarme of Europe

The golden age of Russian poetry: Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin and his circle

War, defeat and death

Readings: text, relevant sections; start Radzinsky, The Last Great Tsar.

The brilliant l9th century, II: The “Great Time,” Tsar Aleksandr II Nikolaevich, l856-1881

Picking up the pieces, making big plans

Russia before liberation: serfs and masters

The Abraham Lincoln of Russia

Russia after liberation: a nation in transformation

Going to the(liberated) people: artists and musicians

Going to the(liberated) people: young idealists and revolutionaries

Going after the Tsar

Readings: Continue with text, TBA; finish Radzinsky.
Recommended readings: Priscilla Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate. The one portrait of nobles and estate life available in English, a treasure of a book. I would also advise you to pick up Ivan Turgenev, A Sportsman’s Sketches, Fedor Dostoevsky’s Devils, and Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina OR War and Peace. That is a really long one, but it’s the Gone with the Wind of Russian history.

The Road to Revolution, l881-l9l4

Tsar Aleksandr III Nikolaevich

“Black” reaction: anti-semitism, arrests, executions

The heir, Nikolai Aleksandrovich, “Nicky”

Tsar Nikolai II Aleksandrovich and Tsarevna Aleksandra Fedorovna

The empire he inherited: Russia at the turn of the century

War and revolution, l904-05

Hemophilia and history

The coming of the world war(and revolution: the whole of Russia mutinies in l9l7)

Readings: Text, appropriate sections; Radzinsky, The Last Tsar, all.
Recommended readings: if you like this period, you should read Robert Massie’s Nicholas and Aleksandra. I read that in 9th grade, just before I started Russian language That’s a novel about Nicky and Alicky, with some fictional details, but it’s a pretty good account of that marriage. For my money, the best Russian history book ever written is Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, l890-1924. Everything you ever wanted to know about Nicholas II’s Russia.

Second midterm at the end of this section or the week before deadweek, whichever comes first. Standard essay-type.

Final: The Deep, Dark Secret Exercise will take place on the regularly scheduled day for finals. You can’t really study for it, because it depends on what you have learned all along. Be Scared. Be Very Scared.

Brooke Astor

2007-08-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

The legendary Brooke Astor has died in New York, her playground. She was one of the most influential philanthopists of the last century, giving millions to cultural institutions and charities alike. I can't possibly do justice to all her activities, so I will let the New York Daily News describe them:

"Although a legendary figure in New York City and feted with a famous gala on her 100th birthday in March 2002, Astor was mostly interested in putting the fortune that husband, Vincent Astor, left to use where it would do the most to alleviate human misery.
'Money is like manure, it should be spread around,' was her oft-quoted motto. There was a lot to spread: Vincent Astor's great-great-grandfather John Jacob Astor made a fortune in fur trading and New York real estate.
Brooke Astor gave millions of dollars to what she called the city's 'crown jewels' _ among them the New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, the Bronx Zoo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the flags were lowered to half-staff after her death.
But she also funded scores of smaller projects: Harlem's Apollo Theater; a new boiler for a youth center; beachside bungalow preservation; a church pipe organ; furniture for homeless families moving in to apartments.
It was a very personal sort of philanthropy.
'People just can't come up here and say, `We're doing something marvelous, send a check,' she said. "We say, 'Oh, yes, we'll come and see it.'"

As the Brahms requiem reminds us, Brooke Astor now rests from her labors, and her deeds do follow her.

Pigs flying--on Irish airlines!

2007-08-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

There's still more evidence of Real Change in northern Ireland...the last vestiges of the British army are packed up and gone, and now Aer Lingus, from the Irish republic, the dreaded south, is getting started in northern Ireland. In another first, AL will make Belfast a hub and provide three daily flights from Belfast to Heathrow, adding to existing flights from Shannon to Heathrow. Longtime rivals-to-the-death Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley attended the dedication, Paisley looking positively giddy in the background. You can access this latest chapter of Pigs Flying(on Aer LIngus) here.

A contentious anniversary

2007-08-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Back from hiatus now, in Hawaii...we on the mainland have long ago forgotten, or at least placed out of our minds the events of August 6, l945, the day the United States dropped the first of two atom bombs on the Japanese homeland. Most people either believe that the United States committed a war crime in dropping those bombs, or that the decision was an extremely regrettable necessity. I tend to take the latter position, because of the dilemma President Truman faced: his military advisers all told him that to continue the war in the Pacific would cost at least a million additional lives and prolong the war perhaps by two years. If he used the bomb, the war would be over basically immediately. If you are the American President, it seems to me, your primary responsibility is to save American lives. President Truman did just that, act to save American lives. It was a terrible thing for the Japanese people, but it's important to remember that they were our enemies at the time, and that they started the fight. That is not to justify--you can't justify it--but to explain.

The Japanese, of course, take a different view, and since there are many, many Japanese living in Hawaii, there is a yearly public ceremony of remembrance on the anniversary of the atom bomb, a minute of silence followed by Buddhist prayers and contemplation. It's a good thing to remember...even if you believe the atom bomb was the correct decision, it's worth pausing to contemplate never taking that course again and/or what you can do personally to prevent a repeat of that terrible day.