Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History
    Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History
    Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History
    Ebook160 pages2 hours

    Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History

    By Jennifer Eremeeva

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "Russia's colorful history," suggests American writer and Russian historian, Jennifer Eremeeva, "should ideally be experienced on a huge, 3D IMAX screen, with the surround sound booming and a jumbo bucket of popcorn in your lap."

    In Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History, Eremeeva distills thirteen centuries of Russia's complex history into entertaining chapters that guide the reader effortlessly from the emerging Russian state in the ninth century through the aftermath of the 2014 Annexation of Crimea. 

    This is the perfect primer for those embarking on a visit to Russia or an exploration of the country's rich literature and culture.   The updated third edition includes access to extensive companion web pages, reading lists, and sightseeing suggestions to enhance readers' exploration of the world's largest country.  

    Praise for Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russiafrom readers:



    "After reading the book, I had a greater understanding and appreciation for the places and sights I saw and learned about on my trip."

    "This is a great brief history of Russia! I was able to understand all of it and it was fascinating, not a dry history book at all. Makes me want to delve more into Russian history."



    "A sometimes rollicking, always tongue-in-cheek examination of Russian/Soviet history (rarely a rollicking subject) by an American who has lived there as an insider for decades."



    Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who divides her time between Riga, Latvia, and New England.  Jennifer writes about travel, food, lifestyle, and Russian history and culture, and has written for Reuters, Fodor's, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life.  She is the in-house travel blogger for Alexander & Roberts, and the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow.  



    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJennifer Eremeeva
    Release dateJul 23, 2019
    ISBN9781393965886

    Related to Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia

    Related ebooks

    Travel For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Russian Roulette

      Feb 1, 2021

      As a longterm fan of Dostoevsky (and yes, unusually for a 19th century literary novelist, he does have a kind of fan club, many of whom are adolescents high on the thrill of first encountering his freewheeling combo of philosophical pondering and jaz

      2 min read

    • Article

      Murder in Kiev

      Mar 23, 2017

      Murder in Kiev
      3 min read

    • Article

      Edward Wilson

      Dec 3, 2020

      Edward Wilson immigrated to the UK from America after serving in the Vietnam War. After his teaching career ended, he became the author of eight highly acclaimed books, including the Catesby spy thrillers as well as standalones. ‘Portrait of the Spy

      6 min read

    • Article

      Speak, Memory

      Jul 5, 2023

      MY first English Christmas was spent in Cambridge. The carol service at King’s College Chapel. A heavy snowfall. Icy grandeur. It was beautiful. It was cold. ‘There is nothing between the flat lands of East Anglia and Siberia except Ely Cathedral,’ m

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Arif Anwar

      Dec 9, 2021

      I’m on track to have finished a book a week in 2021, which I’m happy with given that so much of my time is spoken for by family, work, and writing. I don’t like stuffing 100-plus books into a year like passengers in a rush hour subway car, leaving me

      13 min read

    • Article

      Paperback In The USSR

      Sep 1, 2019

      THE SECRETS WE KEPT By Lara Prescott KNOPF $36.95; 369 PAGES When I taught American literature at a Soviet university in 1980, I managed to bring along some books that were banned by the Kremlin: Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Slaughterho

      3 min read

    • Article

      Dissident Lit

      Sep 1, 2022

      My sophomore year in college, I took a class on the Russian novel. I remember our goodlooking young professor striding across campus in a long black coat, heads turning in his wake. It was said he looked like Lenin. His eyes burned like coals, his ch

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Stephen Dodson

      Dec 2, 2019

      This year I read two of the greatest novels ever written. The post A Year in Reading: Stephen Dodson appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Great Divide

      Oct 24, 2021

      The Amur River is the 10th longest river in the world. It rises in the mountains of Mongolia, near Genghis Khan’s birthplace, and flows into Siberia before meandering south-east towards the Pacific, forming the border between Russia and China, before

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Stephen Dodson

      Dec 1, 2017

      I wasn’t planning to make Yuri Slezkine’s The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution my lead review as I was reading it; it seemed overlong and somewhat scattered.  But by the time I was done, I realized I had been badly mistaken: Slez

      4 min read

    • Article

      Simon Evans

      Oct 29, 2021

      It is the 1977 Easter holidays, the year before I am due to take my ‘A’ Levels, and a group of 20 or so Sixth Formers from my school board a plane bound for the other side of the Iron Curtain. This is the height of the Cold War so flying to Moscow fe

      1 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš

      Dec 20, 2022

      Il'ja Rákoš reflects on 2022 through the books he read. The post A Year in Reading: Il’ja Rákoš appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      László Krasznahorkai

      Jun 15, 2018

      László Krasznahorkai
      27 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia - Jennifer Eremeeva

      1

      Kievan Rus 862 - 1237

      Russian history kicks off in AD 862 when a group of pagan Slavic tribes realizes that their government lacks a certain something.

      Like organization.

      So they invite a foreign Viking -- or Varangian -- prince to come and rule over them. The Varangians, which means men who row, had been trading along the rivers of the land they called Rus' to Byzantium for several centuries. According to The Primary Chronicle, which is not completely reliable but all we have, the Slavic tribes agreed that:

      …there was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against another. They said to themselves, 'Let us seek a prince who may rule over us, and judge us according to the law.' They accordingly went overseas to the Varangian Rus . . . Then said to the people of Rus, 'Our whole land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us.' ¹

      This is a significant event for all kinds of reasons, but primarily because it is the first and last time anyone in the Russian government ever admits to being at fault.

      The land was, indeed, vast and rich: dense forests, wide rivers, and long stretches of fertile soil. It was a land of long, dark winters and short, intense summers. There were few boundaries in this land save for the rivers -- in fact, there is no significant natural boundary from the Danube River to the Ural Mountains.

      During the reign of the Ruriks, a number of significant developments happened, including the conversion of the Russian lands to Christianity by Prince Vladimir, in 988 AD It happened in Crimea, which becomes important later on. But the story of Vladimir's conversion is much beloved by the tour bus crowd because it includes a vodka punch line: Prince Vladimir was shopping around for an A-list religion for the pagan peoples of Russia; he sent emissaries out to the major centers of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Islam for a recce. Roman Catholicism as practiced in Germany seemed over ceremonious, and the representatives beheld no glory there. ² Islam appeared to lack joy, as the representatives visiting Muslim Bulgaria reported, There is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and a dreadful stench ³.

      Implied in this general lack of cheerfulness was the intrinsic ban on alcohol, which ruled Islam out, tipping the balance in favor of Eastern Orthodoxy as practiced in Byzantium, Rus's nearest neighbor, and obvious cultural and diplomatic choice. There, in the great St. Sophia cathedral, they declared that they:

      ...knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth, there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men. ⁴

      Like so many government tenders in Russia today, you get the sense the outcome was something of a foregone conclusion.

      The Ruriks were based in Kiev, once a tiny trading post along the Viking trade route from Scandinavia to Byzantium. Kiev quickly became a major metropolis, which vied with Paris for sophistication. Today, Kiev is confusingly known as Kyivand is the capital of the (currently -- at the time of writing) independent nation of Ukraine, but back then Kiev was the center of what was (also confusingly) known as Kievan Rus.

      The Ruriks managed things comparatively well. The commonality of religion bolstered the strong cultural ties with sophisticated Byzantium; this is evident in the sacred architecture and dress of the period, as well as the strong Greek influence on the emerging written language of the Slavs, developed by two Byzantine monks, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, and named for the brother with the shorter, more pronounceable name.

      Commerce and learning in Kievan Rus flourished. The Russians were known for their skilled craftsmanship, canny trading ability, and advanced learning. When Princess Anna, daughter of the Rurik Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev, married King Henry I of France in 1051, she was the only member of the wedding party who could write her own name.

      In short, Kievan Rus in the tenth and eleventh centuries was on a similar trajectory as Western Europe, possibly even several healthy lengths ahead of other European nations.

      What could possibly go wrong?

      2

      Tatar Mongol Yoke: 1237 - 1480

      What went wrong was a massive invasion from the South in 1237 of Tatar Mongols led by Ghengis Khan, in other words: foreigners, who are ever the scourge of what Soviet-era guidebooks call the peace-loving Russian people.

      The Mongols

      The Mongols were nomadic tribesmen, fierce fighters mounted on sturdy horses who swept up from Central Asia through Kievan Rus on their way to conquer the world, and they almost managed it: at its height, the Mongol empire stretched from China to Poland. From his capitals in Mongolia and present-day Beijing, the Great Khan ruled over and exacted tribute from more than one hundred million people, including the people of Rus, who remained under Tatar Mongol rule for the next 250 years.

      When you suffer from general backwardness, it's nice to be able to blame your lack of achievement on external forces. Sort of like, I could have gone to Harvard if my ninth-grade geometry teacher hadn't hated me.

      To this day, the Tatar Mongols provide the Russians with a useful handicap to explain why their country lags so far behind Western Europe. Sympathetic historians argue that Russia missed out on such significant Western European developments as the Renaissance and the Reformation because she was effectively cut off from the rest of the world by the Tatar Mongols until well into the fifteenth century.

      Cut off the Russians may have been, but they also learned a lot from the Tatar Mongols. The somewhat less sympathetic historian Joel Carmichael argues

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1