In recent years, the study of twentieth-century Russian foreign policy has focused predominantly on the Cold War and post-Soviet years. However, there has been a slight resurgence in studies focusi...

When Professor Nikolai Krementsov of the University of Toronto was confronted with a chapter grown too large for his book on the fate of the biomedical sciences after the Russian Revolution, he dec...

Neither Russia nor the Soviet Union can be adequately analysed without a clear understanding of how they engaged with the outside world and tried to project influence abroad. During the twentieth c...

This article examines the attempts made by Russian émigré activists in inter-war Europe to educate Russian refugee children in a network of national Russian schools. This formed an important aspect of the émigré elite's mission of ‘saving’ Russian culture abroad as well as their attempts to prevent assimilation. It is argued that although these schools gave the opportunity of education to thousands of vulnerable and marginalised children, the network thrived mainly due to support from outside actors, in particular the Czechoslovak state. The evidence does not support the argument that the majority of Russian refugees in the 1920s shared an obsession with Russianness, but instead could often be flexible and pragmatic where their children were concerned.

This paper deals with the role of patronage networks, which served as safety nets in the period of revolution. These informal hierarchical associations were eventually incorporated into the new networks that appeared in the process of the establishment of post-revolutionary institutions, and became integrated into the new Soviet hierarchies, thus mitigating the social rupture caused by the upheaval of 1917. Documentary sources reveal that personal relations of various kinds extended across 1917, providing relief and support in the course of the revolutionary turmoil and playing an extremely important role for those who identified themselves with the old regime. As a result of the revolution they became byvshie; for them to live through the revolution meant to survive, physically and mentally, while trying to sustain an old identity and to develop – or accept – new ones. A recent sociological study has determined a number of patterns of response to the revolution among the old elite: protest and emigration; migration inside the country; allegiance to the new authorities in the hope of an improvement in the situation; and, finally, apathy. The article argues that personal networks, including patronage connections that stemmed from professional and occupational ties, played a significant role in choosing a particular path of behaviour. The article focuses on one distinctive case-study, namely the relationships among three historians: Sergei Fedorovich Platonov, Nikolai Dmitrievich Chechulin and Sergei Dmitrievich Sheremetev. The relations among them are examined here as an example of the flexible patronage relationships that functioned successfully in the estate-based, but intensively modernising social order of Imperial Russia, became vital during the revolutionary period and were effectively incorporated into early Soviet Russia's social fabric.

Ben Lewis and Lars T. Lih, eds, Martov and Zinoviev: Head to Head in Halle . London: November Publications, 2011. Pp. 228. £14.00 (paperback). ISBN 9781447809111 The Communist Party of Germany was ...

Using the Karelian districts as a case study, this article discusses desertion in the Red Army during 1919. It argues that a primary reason for a relatively successful anti-desertion campaign was the Bolsheviks' own efforts and their wish to construct a stronger peasant–state relationship. Thus the threat of the Whites only partly explains why the peasantry stayed or returned to serve in the Red Army. It not only deepens our understanding of why soldiers deserted and how the Bolsheviks attempted to solve the problem, but highlights the importance of viewing desertion within its local context.

The peculiar situation of Finland in 1917–19 – suspended between its old and new dependencies (Russia and Germany), its desired sovereignty, its neutrality and involvement in the world war and, finally, the stabilisation of it relations with Western great powers after the collapse of the German Empire – is reflected in documents written by representatives of foreign countries present in Finland at this time. News from Finland concerned not only internal Finnish affairs but also the situation in Russia, especially Petrograd. This article draws from the large collection of telegrams and reports received by the United States Department of State consulate in Finland, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Christiania and from the US embassies in Russia. Exploration of these documents helps to understand the general situation prevailing in Russia after the February Revolution as well as the significance of Russian affairs for international relations with Baltic Europe in these eventful years.