Schloegel strikes again!

Karl Schloegel. A name like thunder. Well. At least a very active chronist and analyst of the German-Russian relations and of the history of the Soviet Union. Almost every year, Mr. Schloegel is issuing a new historical cornerstone analysis. His books on the "Russian Berlin" and on St.Petersburg have found wide applause and recognition. He lectures at the Viadrina university in Frankfurt/Oder.

(Big Schloegel is watching you. Courtesy of Viadrina)

Now a new volume stands on the shelf of bookstores : Moscow 1937 - Terror and Dream. The Deutschlandradio published a Podcast Interview with him.

During a time in which Russia develops a more revisionist perspective on its own history, publications like these of Schloegel would offer a true and revealing image on how oppressive the Stalin and Soviet times were. However we might see interested readers on Novy Arbat's Dom Knigi search in vain for such works.

Georgia blues in the deep south

Halleluja, it took us really long to come back but anyway, here we are again. Our hurting eyes still have to adjust to the new order that has emerged from the war in Georgia. But we do not want to discuss new orders or a new cold period ahead. No, we are still shocked by the pictures as seen on flickr from T. Tseradze and Technorati.

Two words strike us: tragic and unnecessary. This war was coming with an intensity again affecting hundreds of civilians and causing damage of civil infrastructure. It was probably completelly unnecessary from both sides, as it has only made things more difficult - not only for Georgia but also for Russia.

Who started first and which militia was first pulling the trigger - historians may one day find that out or we will never know. But again we have been proved that politicians both in Georgia and Russia were and are trigger happy instead of bringing the conflict to a peaceful resolution. In 2004, the International Crisis Group published a visionary paper titled "GEORGIA:AVOIDING WAR IN SOUTH OSSETIA". It obviously was not read properly in Tbilisi and Moscow. Tell this the victims on both sides now.