Former Soviet Republics & Siberia in The Books Store

A little over a century ago the American Museum of Natural History launched its ambitious Jesup North Pacific Expedition to learn more about the peoples inhabiting the remote easternmost extension of Siberia and the northwest coast of North America. In The Museum at the End of the World: Encounters in the Russian Far East, anthropologists Alexia Bloch and Laurel Kendall tell the story of their journey through this same part of the world in 1998, retracing the old expedition as they link the expedition legacy of artifacts, photographs, and archival material from the museum in New York to the present-day descendants of its subjects.

Contrasting the time of the Jesup expedition with their own travel, the authors reveal a physical and cultural landscape that was profoundly shaken over the past century, first by Soviet control and then by that empire's unraveling. The Museum at the End of the World is not the story of a heroic adventure but rather a series of conversations about Siberian culture with museum workers, native scholars, performers and artisans, and a great variety of ordinary people. They reveal a strong concern about past legacies, cultural preservation, and their uncertain future as they struggle to reinvent themselves.

The authors' combination of travelers' curiosity and professional inquiry provide a compelling portrait of life in the Russian Far East and a meditation on the fate of culture and tradition in the face of hard economic times and sudden autonomy after decades of state control.

The book also covers the dramatic development of Ukrainian-Moldavian relations in the years 1650–53, beginning with the Cossacks’ victorious campaign against Moldavia. The period witnessed the marriage of Tymish Khmelnytsky to Roksanda Lupu, the daughter of the Moldavian hospodar, and it ended with Tymish's tragic death during the siege of Suceava by allied Polish, Wallachian, and Moldavian forces—a major blow not only to Khmelnytsky's policy in the Danube region, but also to his dynastic aspirations. In covering these events, Hrushevsky again proved himself an outstanding researcher with scrupulous attention to detail. His portrait of Tymish, whom Bohdan Khmelnytsky was grooming to become his successor, remains the most complete in the literature. The book concludes on the eve of the Battle of Zhvanets (1653) and the Pereiaslav Council of 1654, events crucial to the future of Ukraine.

Boris Yeltsin is one of modern history's most dynamic and underappreciated figures. In this vivid, analytical work, Herbert J. Ellison establishes Yeltsin as the principal leader and defender of Russia's democratic revolution and the embodiment of Russia's fragile new liberties, including the evolving respect for the rule of law and private property, as well as core freedoms of speech, religion, press, and political association.

In 1987, President Mikhail Gorbachev expelled Boris Yeltsin from his team of reform politicians. Yeltsin rebounded from this potentially devastating setback to become the leader of the Russian democratic movement and to create a new office of Russian president, to which he was elected. He also designed a democratic constitution for the Soviet Union that precipitated a coup attempt by traditionalist communist leaders, granted independence to the nations of the Soviet Union, and replaced Communist Party rule with democracy and the socialist economy with a market economy. In a short period, Yeltsin succeeded in becoming the first popularly elected leader in a thousand years of Russian history. He blocked violent attempts at counter-revolution and overcame powerful resistance to his reform program.

Ellison, who has devoted his career to observing and recording Russian and Soviet political life, asserts that Yeltsin's achievements rank among the most extraordinary feats of political leadership in the twentieth century. This groundbreaking book will be essential to all scholars of Russia and modern European politics.