February Blog: Death of Navalny
Sunday 25 February 2024
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Death of Navalny
There is much in the news about the tragic death of Putin's most vocal opponent, Alexei Navalny. We've added some articles below that you might wish to share with your students, but we particularly recommend the Oscar winning documentary from Storyville on Navalny which gives the whole story of his poisoning in 2020, recovery in Germany and decision to return to Russia. The final moving scenes of the documentary show Navalny's final moments of freedom - arriving back in Russia before immediately being taken away by the police...
BBC Four - Storyville, Navalny (BBC)
Alexei Navalny and his team unravel a plot to poison him with deadly nerve agent novichok.
Alexei Navalny was often asked: ‘Do you fear for your life?' (BBC News)
Sarah Rainsford on how Putin's opponent never abandoned his belief in "the beautiful Russia of the future".
On the theme of Putin, Martin Sixsmith, former BBC Moscow correspondent, has just published Putin the the return of History which examines the complicated, competing narratives of Ukraine–Russia history. The book 'explores the Ukraine war and the change in Putin’s take on the West – from the early days of his presidency as an advocate of the free-market and democracy to his current imperialist nationalism – in the context of Russia’s thousand-year past' (Waterstones)
“Like Stalin before him,” the authors write, “Putin has appointed himself the supreme arbiter of the meaning of history. He declares his strict adherence to historical facts, but they are the ‘facts’ according to the ever-growing number…of Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations that he himself has created'.
If you wish to hear Putin's alternative narrative on the history of Russia and Ukraine in his own words, you can watch the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin.
It is the two year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine this Saturday. Ukraine is now struggling to hold its defensive line in the East and help from the US has stalled. This article from CNN highlights the difficult questions now confronting Europe regarding future support for Ukraine and how it can defend itself in the future from a Russian threat.
Useful site resources for upcoming exams
As we approach the May examinations, don't forget that we have revision tips on the site for students as well as revision summary pages and multiple-choice quizzes. We are also currently adding flashcards to help students with their revision.
The Holocaust: Recent films and books
The Zone of Interest is a film on the holocaust which has just been released to excellent reviews and Oscar nomination:
The Zone of Interest review: Jonathan Glazer's unforgettable Auschwitz drama is a brutal masterpiece (the Guardian)
Only the constant pall of smoke, and a dread-inducing soundscape, tell of the horrors beyond the wall as the idyllic life of the commandant of the death camp and his family rolls by in Glazer's Oscar-nominated film
And also on the theme of concentration camps, The Survivor was published to high acclaim in January:
The Survivor: The remarkable endurance of Josef Lewkowicz (TLS)
Josef Lewkowicz was sixteen when he entered the brutal, terrifying world of the Nazi concentration camps – he was “a boy masquerading as a man”..
And we also strongly recommend this book 'The Escape Artist' by Jonathan Freedman, published last year:
The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland review how an Auschwitz breakout alerted the world (the Guardian)
The gripping and heroic story of Rudolf Vrba, who escaped the death camp in order to tell the world about its horrors
The following book, Aftermath, published in 2022, covers Germany post Second World War: ' a nuanced panorama of a nation undergoing monumental change':