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4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
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slow-paced
The right book to read, unfortunately, as Russia invades Ukraine. The two countries have a long and tangled history, and the famine that Stalin deliberately engineered is one of the most horrendous events in that history. Applebaum tells the story clearly and directly. Collectivization of farming was Stalin's goal, even though it resulted in poor harvests, to say nothing of the destruction of Ukrainian society - churches, villages, family connections, all gone. For those of us (me) who vaguely thought people starve to death quietly, the reality is much more horrible. She recommends a 1980s documentary, Harvest of Despair, available on YouTube, that brings it all to life (I had to look away from the starving children) but avoids melodrama: the reality is awful enough. Hard to recommend because parts of it are so painful to read, but it provides needed context to what Putin, the new Stalin, is doing and why.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
An eye-opening historical account of soviet genocide and repression in ukraine that provides insight into the current conflict in the country
informative
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
What a chilling book. It's superbly well-researched and surprisingly easy to read, given its subject matter. I was led to it after reading Michael Malice's book, The White Pill: A Tale of Good and Evil.
I'd be fascinated to read another couple of chapters from when the book left off with the events of 2014 and the secession of Crimea.
Just as a point of interest, I spent a year in Odessa in 1995–96 as a student of Russian, and at that time it seemed to be an exclusively Russian-speaking city, albeit with the Ukrainian 'H' sound replacing the hard Russian 'G' sound. And the household in which I rented a room from a Ukrainian woman and her son spoke Russian and watched exclusively Russian-language TV. Maybe Ukrainian was more common outside the city.
I had a similar experience when I spent two years in Almaty, Kazakhstan, although I did hear Kazakh more than I heard Ukrainian in Ukraine. I'd be interested to read a book like Red Famine about what went down in Kazakhstan, as it received only short mentions in Red Famine. If anyone knows of any that you can recommend, drop a comment!
It was interesting to read in Red Famine about Gareth Jones' walking trip through Ukraine. Michael Malice mentioned this in an interview I heard him give to either Chris Williamson or Lex Fridman. (I listened to both can can't recall which one it was). In the interview, he talked about a book called Experiences in Russia--1931—credited on Goodreads as being written by Gareth Jones, but it was actually written by the Jack Heinz II mentioned in Red Famine. The full text is available <a href="https://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/experiences_in_russia_1931.pdf">here</a>.
I'd be fascinated to read another couple of chapters from when the book left off with the events of 2014 and the secession of Crimea.
Just as a point of interest, I spent a year in Odessa in 1995–96 as a student of Russian, and at that time it seemed to be an exclusively Russian-speaking city, albeit with the Ukrainian 'H' sound replacing the hard Russian 'G' sound. And the household in which I rented a room from a Ukrainian woman and her son spoke Russian and watched exclusively Russian-language TV. Maybe Ukrainian was more common outside the city.
I had a similar experience when I spent two years in Almaty, Kazakhstan, although I did hear Kazakh more than I heard Ukrainian in Ukraine. I'd be interested to read a book like Red Famine about what went down in Kazakhstan, as it received only short mentions in Red Famine. If anyone knows of any that you can recommend, drop a comment!
It was interesting to read in Red Famine about Gareth Jones' walking trip through Ukraine. Michael Malice mentioned this in an interview I heard him give to either Chris Williamson or Lex Fridman. (I listened to both can can't recall which one it was). In the interview, he talked about a book called Experiences in Russia--1931—credited on Goodreads as being written by Gareth Jones, but it was actually written by the Jack Heinz II mentioned in Red Famine. The full text is available <a href="https://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/experiences_in_russia_1931.pdf">here</a>.