Russian Studies Story Briefs

For about 70 years of its long history, Russia was part of the Soviet Union. Explore before-and-after stories about the country and its people, writers, artists, culture, rulers and worldwide influence.

Even during Roman times, sculptors prized the white marble from Carrara's quarries.

In 1885, the Russian Tsar decided to give his wife a surprise Easter present. Inside the beautiful Easter egg were even more surprises. It led to an I...

At the beginning of 1917, the Russian city ofSt.

Borodino, a small village about 70 miles west of Moscow, was the site of a bloody battle during the Napoleonic Wars. It took place on September 7, 181...

This clip, from a 1968 Soviet-era adaptation of Brothers Karamazov (by Fydor Dostoevsky), depicts the scene (from the novel) in which Ivan Karamazov (...

Before she was a Russian ruler, Catherine the Great was the daughter of a minor German prince. Then Empress Elizabeth picked Sophie to marry her heir,...

The children, featured in this fountain, are dancing the Khorovod. The Khorovod is a type of common circle dance which Russian children loved to do b...

The Bay of Pigs fueled Castro's worry of an American invasion and his desire for missiles from the Soviet Union.

Known as Dostoevsky's most-violent novel, "Demons" is based on a real-life murder which took place in 1869.

When Napoleon and his men reach the Berezina River, they find the bridge destroyed and the river thawed. To escape a trap, they must build a 100-mete...

Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham, knows a Russian aristocrat who fled Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. What's the history behind...

Living as an artist among other artists in Brooklyn, Emil Goldfus / Willy Fisher / Rudolf Abel became particularly close to Burton Silverman.

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