By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 31 August 2023
Murder, Martyrs, and Mystery: The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
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Monthly Archives: August 2023
Islamic State Introduces the Fifth “Caliph”
Origins of Vampire Stories: When, Where, and How
The American Crackdown on Nazi Supporters During the Second World War: A “Brown Scare”?
A Note on Zhdanovism
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 7 August 2023
Andrey Zhdanov was one of the key figures in the Soviet Great Terror (Yezhovshchina) and, indeed, during Stalin’s reign more generally until his death in 1948. Zhdanov is perhaps best remembered for the strictures he imposed on Soviet cultural life in 1946, known as Zhdanovism (or Zhdanovshchina).
NKVD Order No. 00447 (English Translation)
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 6 August 2023
The head of the Soviet NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, issued Prikaz (Order) Number 00447 on 30 July 1937, a secret instruction soon signed-off by Joseph Stalin, which vastly expanded the scope and scale of the Great Terror within the Soviet Union. The 2008 book, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939, by J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, as translated by Benjamin Sher, contains nearly the full text of the order (pp. 473-80), which is reproduced below.
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