Stalin

Monumental change: the overthrow of the statue of Napoleon I, which was on top of the Vendôme Column. The painter Gustave Courbet is ninth from the right

A short history of statue-toppling

9 January 2016 9:00 am

Sculptural topplings provide an index of changing times, says Martin Gayford

General Anders to the rescue

5 December 2015 9:00 am

Until Poland joined the EU in the 1990s, the biggest single influx of Poles into this country was in the…

Ferdinand Porsche, the inventor of the Doodlebug and the Panzer tank, was treated with rare deference by Hitler, bordering on idolatry

Ferninand Porsche: from the Beetle to the Panzer tank

7 November 2015 9:00 am

The aggressive character of the famous German sports car, in a sort of sympathetic magic, often transfers itself to owner-drivers.…

How the pixel became a key feature of drone warfare

29 October 2015 9:00 am

I hadn’t really thought much about pixels before, despite spending a large portion of my day looking at them. After…

What does it really mean to have a tyrannical father?

24 October 2015 9:00 am

What was it like, asks Jay Nordlinger, to have Mao as your father, or Pol Pot, or Papa Doc? The…

'A glittering concentrate of fury in her dark eyes': Patricia Racette as Katerina Ismailova in 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk'

Thank god for bored wives: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the ENO reviewed

3 October 2015 9:00 am

‘Kiss me, Sergei! Kiss me hard! Kiss me until the icons fall and split!’ sings Katerina Ismailova, adulterous antiheroine of…

Alger Hiss attends his trial (Photo: Getty)

Alger Hiss: Tricky Dick’s scapegoat

26 September 2015 8:00 am

In the more than 40 years since Richard Nixon resigned as president — disgraced as much by his inveterate lying…

What drove Europe into two world wars?

19 September 2015 8:00 am

Sir Ian Kershaw won his knight’s spurs as a historian with his much acclaimed two-volume biography of Hitler, Hubris and…

The second world war — according to Stalin’s ambassador to London

12 September 2015 9:00 am

Ivan Maisky was the Russian ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943, and his knowledge of London, and affection for…

Charles Moore’s Notes: I’ve rarely written a word in favour of Edward Heath, but I don’t believe these accusations

8 August 2015 9:00 am

As someone who has rarely written a sentence in praise of the late Sir Edward Heath, I hope I can…

Leonid Yakobson in Leningrad c. 1926

Leonid Yakobson: the greatest ballet genius you’ve never heard of

28 March 2015 9:00 am

On YouTube there’s a brief dance video of a Viennese waltz so enchanting that not even Fred and Ginger in…

Poster for an exhibition of Mayakovsky’s works, 1930

Both lyricist and agitator: the split personality of Vladimir Mayakovsky

21 February 2015 9:00 am

Why increase the number of suicides? Better to increase the output of ink! wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1926 in response…

The gripping story of the failed NKVD officer who fooled the FBI and the CIA

21 February 2015 9:00 am

This is not quite another story about a man who never was. But it is about a man who certainly…

Why Putin is even less of a human than Stalin was

21 February 2015 9:00 am

LBC likes to tell us it’s ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’, though in the case of weekday pre-lunch presenter James O’Brien you’ll…

Admiral Dönitz, left in charge of the Reich after Hitler’s suicide, was lucky to have escaped the noose at Nuremberg

The madness of Nazism laid bare

14 February 2015 9:00 am

‘If the war is lost, then it is of no concern to me if the people perish in it.’ Bruno…

Hiding in Moominland: the conflicted life of Tove Jansson

13 December 2014 9:00 am

Tove Jansson’s father was a sculptor specialising in war memorials to the heroes of the White Guard of the Finnish…

Plisetskaya in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, 1964. She was one of the supreme trophies in the Soviet display case, the most garlanded, the most suspected

Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin: ‘The KGB put a microphone in our marriage bed’

25 October 2014 9:00 am

Ismene Brown talks to the Russian super-couple Maya Plisetskaya and Rodion Shchedrin about ballet, opera and the KGB

The threat from Russia’s spies has only increased since the fall of Communism

2 August 2014 9:00 am

‘No, we must go our own way,’ said Lenin.  The whole world knows him as Vladimir, while he was in…

Doctor Zhivago's long, dark shadow

5 July 2014 9:00 am

The banning of Dr Zhivago in the Soviet Union had unfortunate consequences for other fine 20th-century Russian novels, says Robert Chandler

A Pole’s view of the Czechs. Who cares? You will

14 June 2014 8:00 am

When this extraordinary book was about to come out in French four years ago its author was told by his…

The many attempts to assassinate Trotsky

4 January 2014 9:00 am

Leon Trotsky’s grandson, Esteban Volkov, is a retired chemist in his early eighties. I met him not long ago in…

Secrets of the Kremlin

14 December 2013 9:00 am

A building bearing testimony to the power of eternal Russia; a timeless symbol of the Russian state; a monument to…

One Night in Winter, by Simon Sebag Montefiore - review

28 September 2013 9:00 am

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s One Night in Winter begins in the hours immediately following the solemn victory parade that marked the…

The Tragedy of Liberation, by Frank Dikötter - review

14 September 2013 9:00 am

The historian of China Frank Dikötter has taken a sledgehammer to demolish perhaps the last remaining shibboleth of modern Chinese…

An Armenian Sketchbook, by Vasily Grossman - review

17 August 2013 9:00 am

Vasily Grossman, a Ukranian-born Jew, was a war correspondent for the Soviet army newspaper Red Star. His dispatches from the…