Its subject is Col. Aleksei Nikolaevich Isakov the (now former) deputy director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Lomonosov district (raion) of Lomonosov region (oblast) not far from St. Petersburg.

The video depicts the drunken colonel emerging from his office wearing only his MVD BVDs and…

The MinMassComm isn’t the only Russian state agency sponsoring a site devoted to the War. The Ministry of Defense also has one of its own. Titled “Feat of the People,” this new(ish) site aims: “to perpetuate the memory of all the Wars’  heroes – irrespective of rank, scale of exploit, or award status; to educate youth concerning the military valor of their forefathers; and to provide a documentary base for counteracting attempts the falsification of World War II history” by creating a digital database of the 30 million military awards given out during the conflict together with archival documents relating to wartime military operations.

As with the “Chronicle of Victory,” non-Russian speakers are a bit out of luck. Although an “English” button is available on the site, it only translates the site’s anchor page and navigational bar.

The crux of the conference involved a series of presentations by KU CREES alumni and current faculty focusing on the Center’s past, present, and future. Guest speakers included one of the Center’s founding members, Richard De George (KU Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, of Russian and East European Studies, and of Business Administration), and several of its most prominent graduates, including John C. Reppert (Dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies), Thomas Wilhelm (Director of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas), and Glen Howard (President of The Jamestown Foundation).

As one would expect for an event such as this, a good deal of time was devoted to extolling KU’s considerable accomplishments in promoting the study of all things Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian. Speakers also focused  remarks on the continuing relevance of an area-studies approach to fostering and sustaining knowledge of the world beyond America’s borders. The most striking aspect of the presentations, however, was a recurring meme that cut across each one of the conference’s dozen or so talks: the vital importance of studying foreign language. Every one of the event’s featured guests (and the vast majority of attendees) owe their current stations in life in no small part to the fact that during their educational career they seized upon the opportunity to not only study, but to master, one or more foreign languages.

Setting aside liberal arts agit-prop regarding the inherent, humanistic value of knowing another culture’s language, there are immense “practical” advantages to be gained from acquiring language skills: from raising one’s standardized test scores, to broadening employment opportunities, to significantly improving fluency in one’s native language. Students looking to get the most “return on investment” in their education would be hard-pressed to do better than investing time and energy mastering a foreign tongue.

It’s not easy. Depending on the target language it can be very difficult and time-consuming. Despite myriad “advances” in instructional technology the acquisition of a foreign language still boils down to a great deal of memorization and repetitive practice. But it is far from impossible. (I started my own language training in Russian relatively late — during my sophomore year at KU).

It’s the one piece of advice I have constantly given students during the course of my teaching career. If you learn nothing else in school — learn a foreign language!

Fortunately, this situation is about to change. Late next month, Routledge publishers will make its 2009 release The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-1945: A Documentary Reader by Alexander Hill (Associate Professor of Military History, University of Calgary) available in a handy paperback edition.

Hill’s edited volume contains documents covering wide-ranging aspects of the Soviet military experience: from pre-War diplomacy and preparations, through the debacle of 1941, to the Fall of Berlin and invasion of Manchuria. Separate chapters covering the Siege of Leningrad, Lend-Lease and the Economy, and the Partisan movement round out the volume. The collection is accompanied by Hill’s expert commentary and suggestions for further readings.

The book is an ideal supplement for individuals interested in the documentary history the Soviet war effort. And it makes a terrific companion text for courses devoted to the Second World War.

To pre-order your copy directly from Routledge, just click on the link above.

Secret documents detailing the Soviet leadership’s decision to murder 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn were released to the Russian public today on orders from President Medvedev.

In an unprecedented step, the Russian State Archive published documents showing how Soviet leader Joseph Stalin approved the World War Two massacre proposed by his secret police henchman Lavrenty Beria. Other prominent members of the ruling Soviet Politburo also signed off on the slaughter.

For the full story, go here.

As Richard Rayner notes in an April 26, 2010 piece for The New Yorker titled “Channeling Ike,”

Ambrose spoke often, on C-SPAN or “Charlie Rose” or in print interviews, about how his life had been transformed by getting to know the former President and spending “hundreds and hundreds of hours” interviewing him over a five-year period before Eisenhower died, in 1969.

The only problem? The claims aren’t true. A recent investigation of President Eisenhower’s papers by Tim Rives, Deputy Director at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum (Abileen, KS) has uncovered an alternate reality, namely “that Eisenhower saw Ambrose only three times, for a total of less than five hours. The two men were never alone together.”

The issue might be brushed off as an unfortunate (if gross) embellishment of the record by an otherwise well-regarded historian save for two things.

First, Ambrose’s early career was built upon his prodigious writing as the “official” historian of the Eisenhower presidency. The discovery that he did not, in fact, have sustained and personal contact with Ike as he long claimed will doubtless call into question the voluminous notes and references in his books that cite these non-existent interviews.

Second, this is hardly the first time that Ambrose has been found to have acted in a manner that might be charitably be described as “less than scrupulous.” In 2002, he was infamously forced to admit to having copped numerous passages of his book The Wild Blue from other authors without attribution. [History News Networked exhaustively chronicled that earlier controversy here.]

On the whole, a rather dismal week for the historical discipline.

On board were the army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said.

Ninety-six people are said to have died in the crash. The President and other state officials were en route to events marking the seventieth-anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

For an early report on the story, click here.

UPDATE @ 9:21 am CST: RIA Novosti is reporting that human error was the cause of the crash. The death toll is now estimated to be as high as 132.

It turns out that over the weekend a nasty attack against WordPress-based blog sites (like TRF) was discovered by Lorelle on WordPress. According to reports, the hack exploits security breeches present in older versions of the blogging software. Bloggers who haven’t yet updated to the most recent edition of WordPress (2.8.4) should do so quickly. The download can be found HERE.

To all appearances we managed to catch things in time. I spent the better part of the weekend manually backing up the entire site and installing the new software. Readers of TRF shouldn’t notice anything different. In the off chance that you do, please drop me a note through the “Contact” page.

Thanks!

ScP

Although specialists may find some of Robinson’s questions insufficiently “nuanced” for academic tastes (”Was Leon Trotsky a good guy, or a bad guy?”) and a good portion of the program is premised on a hypothetical (”What if Lenin had been succeeded not by Stalin, but by Trotsky?”) the responses from the guests are sufficiently informative (Service) and entertaining (Hitchens) to make the thirty-minute program well worth watching. For both video and a transcript of the interview, click HERE.

Next up: What if Superman grew up in Germany, instead of America?

The project’s ultimate contribution will be a series of peer-reviewed volumes expected to be published (both in analog and digital formats) during 2014-2017 — in time to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Russia’s world-altering events. Additional outcomes, including an interactive website containing images, maps, digitized texts, and audio-visual resources designed for the general public and public school teachers, are also in the works.

Professional historians and advanced graduate students whose research focuses on any aspect of the Russian past from 1914 to the early 1920s are urged to contact series editors.

Followed the highlighted link to make you way to the official Call for Papers.

And tell ‘em The Russian Front sent you.