Roundup: Talking About History

Spiegel Online: 'Eroding One of Turkey's Biggest Taboos' (interview)

More than 25,000 Turks have added their names to an online statement apologizing for Ottoman war crimes committed during World War I. SPIEGEL spoke with campaign initiator Baskin Oran. SPIEGEL: Since the beginning of your online campaign, more than 25,000 Turks have signed a statement apologizing for war crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. More than a million Armenians lost their lives in the catastrophic events which began in 1915. Is this the beginning of a

Tom Parfitt: Medieval warrior overcomes Stalin in poll to name greatest Russian

[Tom Parfitt has been a correspondent in Moscow since 2002.] Joseph Stalin was edged into third place in a nationwide poll to name Russia's greatest historical figure yesterday amid controversy over the results. The Name of Russia project, which captivated the country for several months, ended with accusations that the final tally was rigged. More than 5 million votes by telephone, text and the internet were registered in the poll, which named Alexander Nev

Anne Applebaum: The sinister resurrection of Stalin

Who is the greatest Russian of all time? In the unlikely event that you answered “Stalin”, you would be in good company. One of the 20th century’s most horrific dictators has just come third in an opinion poll conducted by a Russian television station. Some 50 million people are said to have voted. Myself, I have some doubts about the veracity of this poll, particularly given that the television station in question is state-owned, and therefore manipulated by the Kremlin. Also, firs

Roger Pulvers: The Death of a Russian Poet 70 Years Ago ... and Why He Deserves to be Remembered

We live apart from our land Our words dying at 10 paces And anything put edgewise Concerns the Kremlin backwoodsman His coarse fingers are thick, like worms His statements trusty, like the weights on a scale Cockroaches smile on his upper lip And the rims of his shoes blindHe is surrounded by a flock of pencil-neck hacks He plays on the servility of half-men Who whistle, who me

Editorial in the Independent: Benazir Bhutto's divisive legacy to Pakistan

Pakistan's calendar is replete with difficult commemorations. But the first anniversary of Benazir Bhutto's death must be accounted among the most perilous of recent years. Always a divisive figure, Ms Bhutto still inspires sharply conflicting passions. With tens of thousands of people converging on the Bhutto family home today to pay their respects, elaborate security precautions will be tested to the full. For all the despair of one year ago and the doom-laden forecasts for Pakis

Ronald J. Pestritto: Theodore Roosevelt Was No Conservative

[Mr. Pestritto is the Shipley Professor of the American Constitution at Hillsdale College and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. Among his books are "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).] We know that Barack Obama and his allies identify themselves as "progressives," and that they aim to implement the big-government liberalism that originated in America's Progressive Era and was consummated in the New Deal.

E.J. Dionne: The Jesus Of Christmas And The Holiday's True Meaning

Each era depicts Jesus in its own characteristic way, and the late historian Jaroslav Pelikan wove a brilliant book around this theme. He traced images of Jesus from the earliest days of Christianity as "the rabbi" and "the king of kings" to more modern portrayals as "the teacher of common sense," "the poet of the spirit" and "the liberator." The Jesus of Christmas, Pelikan tells us in "Jesus Through the Centuries," owes a

Sean McMeekin: The staggering thievery of Lenin and the Bolsheviks

Since 2006, visitors to the NeueGalerie, the boutique museum of German and Austrian art in New York City, have had the chance to view one of Gustav Klimt’s most celebrated paintings—his seductive, gold-spangled portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. For the 70 years before that, however, you would have had to go to Vienna’s Austrian Gallery to see Klimt’s masterpiece. That’s because the painting, along with four other Klimts the Bloch-Bauer family owns, was stolen by the Nazis after the Anschluss, and r

Michael D Griffin: I fear that we would not be allowed a mission like Apollo 8 today

[The NASA Administrator was addressing the organisation on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 lunar mission.] I was a 19-year-old college sophomore when Apollo 8 flew. I watched it on television – in black-and-white. So I can never share the experience in the same way as it is shared by those of you who lived it. But while I am a dyed-in-the-wool slide-rule-and-pocket protector engineer, I have tried also to understand the history of our enterprise, and the events and decisions th

Anthony Grafton: Inside Hitler's Library ... What The Books He Read Say About The Man He Was

Few buildings on Capitol Hill are grander than the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, with its great stairway, pillared façade, and magnificent domed reading room. And few rooms in that building seem more ordinary, even banal, than the rare book storage area where 1,200 books from the collection of Adolf Hitler stand tightly packed on steel shelves. Along with another eighty items in the Brown University Library and scattered texts elsewhere, these are the modest remains of the more

Olivia Judson: Why the calendar is the way it is

Some years ago, the evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins pointed out to me that Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics and mathematics, and arguably the greatest scientist of all time, was born on Christmas Day, and that therefore Newton’s Birthday could be an alternative, if somewhat nerdy, excuse for a winter holiday. Think of the merchandise! Newton is said to have discovered the phenomenon of gravity by watching apples fall in an orchard. (His insight came after pon

Kazuhiko Togo: Japan’s Historical Memory ... Reconciliation with Asia

[Kazuhiko Togo is the author of Rekishi to Gaiko: Yasukuni-Ajia-Tokyosaiban (History and Foreign Policy: Yasukuni-Asia-The Tokyo Tribunal) (Kodansha 2008). He retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2002.] ... [C]an Japan continue to seek harmonization of its own memory with history, while achieving reconciliation with Asia simultaneously? This is again a very difficult question about which I do not have a definite answer. But I can outline the relevant circumstances and ind

Oliver Kamm: Was Patton assassinated on government orders?

For a few years I played a minuscule supporting role in Martin Bell's parliamentary representation for the Tatton constituency in Cheshire, where the MP is now George Osborne. One point I recall well is the prominence in local history of General George Patton. Patton and the American Third Army were based in and around the town of Knutsford in 1944. Patton is still referred to by the residents - after the beautiful nearby house of Tatton Park - as Patton of Tatton. Well, the

David Stokes: The Spy Who Really Came in From the Cold

[Mr. Stokes is the senior pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, VA.] Several years ago, David Cornwell (better known by his nom de plume, John Le Carré) told an interviewer that, “espionage was not really something exclusive and clandestine. It was actually the currency of the Cold War. Spies were the poor bloody infantry of the Cold War.” They still are – though these days we are in a different war and battling another pernicious ideology. Cold War spy

Hugh Miles: Lockerbie ... was it Iran? Syria? All I know is, it wasn't the man in prison

[Hugh Miles is the author of 'Playing Cards in Cairo'.] Last week saw more than its share of stories about miscarriages of justice. But spare a thought this Christmas for the victim of the biggest miscarriage of justice in Scottish legal history, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the man convicted of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 en route from London to New York, 20 years ago today. For many years, it looked as if there would be no trial over Lockerbie. British and US g

Jane Merrick: Jane Haining, Scotland's Schindler

[Jane Merrick is the Political Editor of The Independent on Sunday.] A British woman who sacrificed her life by refusing to leave Jewish orphans in her care is being hailed as one of the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. Jane Haining's story of personal sacrifice and bravery is emerging only now, nearly 65 years after her death. She is among a list of British people whose selfless heroism during the Second World War should be recognised posthumously in the honours list

Peter Steinfels: New Book Reaffirms Depth of Change Wrought by Vatican II

Was the Second Vatican Council, as the cultural historian the Rev. John W. O’Malley proposes, “quite possibly the biggest meeting in the history of the world”? Obviously the council did not draw the sheer numbers who gather for the Olympics or political conventions. But consider that for two and a half months each fall from 1962 to 1965, 2,400 Roman Catholic bishops from 116 nations, assisted by thousands of aides, theological advisers and other Christian and non-Christian leaders,

Timothy Noah: Deep Throat was not a good man. It didn't matte

Mark Felt, who died at 95 on Dec. 18, was ashamed of being Deep Throat. I know this because he told me so six years before he revealed his secret in Vanity Fair. In July 1999, David Daley of the Hartford Courant tracked Felt down in Santa Rosa, Calif. Felt, the former second-ranking official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had long seemed—to me and many others—the most logical candidate for Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's unnamed garage-dwelling source, made famous in All the Pr

Greg Mitchell: The Other Side of 'Deep Throat': He Bugged My Friends!

Journalists and many others (rightly) lionizing the late W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official, for his contribution as "Deep Throat" in helping to bring down Richard Nixon, should not overlook the fact that Felt was one of the architects of the bureau's notorious COINTELPRO domestic spying-and-burglary campaign. He was convicted in 1980 of authorizing nine illegal entries in New Jersey in 1972 and 1973 -- the very period during which he was famously meeting Bob Woodward

Daniel Willingham: “Study Skills” Ought to Include an Understanding of Memory

[The author is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, where he's taught since 1992. Until about 2000, his research focused solely on the brain basis of learning and memory. Today his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-12 education. He writes the “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” column for American Educator magazine and is the author of Why Don't Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for