The Motherland: Russia Travel Video Diary
For a blog competition :)
Follow me around Obninsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tarusa, and Borovsk ALL IN RUSSIA
Enjoy!
Choir Partes - II° International Competition CHORUS INSIDE Christmas 2011
II° International Festival CHORUS INSIDE Christmas 2011
10.12.2011, Marrucino Theatre - Chieti (Italy)
Choir: Obninsk (Russia)
Director: Tatiana Bulgakova
00:00 Slava... Edinorodniy Sine (Pavel Chesnokov)
02:30 Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Gospoda (Konstantin Shvedov)
3. Vecher (Sergey Taneev)
4. Zimnyaya doroga (Vissarion Shebalin)
5. Ug,ti,zimushka-zima (anonimo)
6. Kengury (C. Ekimov)
Category
Score: 20,89/30 (Silver)
Recording in Russia - Day 3 TimeLapse
Recording horns in Russia for an upcoming project. Music by Scott Buckley – scottbuckley.com.au
Sound Diplomacy - Russia
More Than Music In The Margins - 6-minute HD video documenting our trip to 10-day Sound Diplomacy tour to Russia (Yekaterinburg, Izhevsk, Ufa Shigiri, and Perm).
During this tour, Dave LeMieux and House of Soul presented 2 days of masterclasses and concerts with and for young jazz musicians, fostered cultural exchange through music with a Muslim village, performed in concert halls, a sold-out jazz club, and churches, and gave away instruments to students at an orphanage for musically gifted children.
Timeline of Russian innovation | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Timeline of Russian innovation
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Timeline of Russian Innovation encompasses key events in the history of technology in Russia, starting from the Early East Slavs and up to the Russian Federation.
The entries in this timeline fall into the following categories:
Indigenous inventions, like airliners, AC transformers, radio receivers, television, artificial satellites, ICBMs
Products and objects that are uniquely Russian, like Saint Basil's Cathedral, Matryoshka dolls, Russian vodka
Products and objects with superlative characteristics, like the Tsar Bomba, the AK-47, and Typhoon class submarine
Scientific and medical discoveries, like the periodic law, vitamins and stem cellsThis timeline examines scientific and medical discoveries, products and technologies introduced by various peoples of Russia and its predecessor states, regardless of ethnicity, and also lists inventions by naturalized immigrant citizens. Certain innovations achieved by a national operation may also may be included in this timeline, in cases where the Russian side played a major role in such projects.
History of Russia | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
History of Russia
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The History of Russia begins with that of the East Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The traditional beginning of Russian history is the establishment of Kievan Rus', the first united Eastern Slavic state, in 882. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Orthodox Slavic culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240 along with the resulting deaths of about half the population of Rus'.
After the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center, and by the 18th century, the Tsardom of Russia had grown to become the Russian Empire, stretching from eastern Poland to the Pacific Ocean. Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and often turned to revolutionary pressures. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms, the constitution of 1906, and the State Duma attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the tsars refused to relinquish autocratic rule or share their power.
The Russian Revolution in 1917 was triggered by a combination of economic breakdown, war-weariness, and discontent with the autocratic system of government. It initially brought to power a coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to seizure of power by the communist Bolsheviks on 25 October. Between 1922 and 1991, the history of Russia is essentially the history of the Soviet Union, effectively an ideologically based state which was roughly conterminous with the Russian Empire before the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The approach to the building of socialism, however, varied over different periods in Soviet history, from the mixed economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s to the command economy and repressions of the Joseph Stalin era to the era of stagnation in the 1980s. From its first years, government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918.
By the mid-1980s, with the weaknesses of its economic and political structures becoming acute, Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms, which led to the overthrow of the communist party and the breakup of the USSR, leaving Russia again on its own and marking the start of the history of post-Soviet Russia. The Russian Federation began in January 1992 as the legal successor to the USSR. Russia retained its nuclear arsenal but lost its superpower status. Scrapping the socialist central planning and state ownership of property of the socialist era, new leaders, led by President Vladimir Putin, took political and economic power after 2000 and engaged in an energetic foreign policy. Russia's recent annexation of the Crimean peninsula has led to severe economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
Eastern Bloc economies | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Eastern Bloc economies
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Eastern Bloc (also known as the Socialist Bloc, Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc) was the group of Communist-controlled states stretching from Central and Eastern Europe to East and Southeast Asia largely controlled by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in opposition to the Western Bloc led by the United States. The term generally includes the USSR and its satellite states in the Comecon, including Vietnam and its satellites Laos and Kampuchea, North Korea, and China (before 1961.) Cuba is included as well after 1961, but demonstrated independence from Soviet policy following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Widespread Soviet hegemony ended with the success of the Revolutions of 1989 against the Warsaw Pact, and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union brought the Eastern Bloc and the Cold War to an end.
During Joseph Stalin's lifetime, Soviet control over the Eastern Bloc was tested but never seriously challenged by the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état and Tito–Stalin Split over control of Yugoslavia, the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution and Chinese and North Korean involvement in the Korean War against the United Nations. After his death in 1953, the Korean War was halted but not settled and anti-Soviet sentiment sparked the East German uprising. The Eastern Bloc started to break apart in 1956, when new leader Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Stalin helped spark the anti-Soviet Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which was suppressed by a Soviet invasion, and the Sino–Soviet Split with Mao Zedong's China, which gave North Korea and North Vietnam more independence from both, and facilitated the Soviet–Albanian split. The Cuban Missile Crisis preserved the Cuban Revolution from rollback by the United States, but Fidel Castro became increasingly independent of Soviet rule afterwards, most notably in its 1975 intervention in Angola. That year, the fall of former French Indochina to communism following the end of the Vietnam War gave the Eastern Bloc renewed confidence which had been frayed by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring, which had led to Albania withdrawing from the Pact, briefly aligning with Mao Zedong's China until the Sino-Albanian split.
Under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in other Communist countries. In response, China moved towards the United States following a 1969 border war which almost went nuclear, and later reformed and liberalized its economy, while the Eastern Bloc stagnated economically behind the capitalist First World. Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan nominally expanded the Eastern Bloc, but the war proved unwinnable and too costly for the Soviets, challenged in Eastern Europe by civil resistance in Poland. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) to reform the Eastern Bloc and end the Cold War, which brought forth unrest throughout the bloc. Unlike previous Soviet leaders in 1953, 1956, and 1968, Gorbachev refused to use force to end the 1989 Revolutions against Marxist-Leninist rule in Eastern Europe. The fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Warsaw Pact spread nationalist and liberal ideals throughout the Soviet Union, which would soon fall itself at the end of 1991. Conservative communist elites attempted to turn back liberal reforms and movements, which hastened the end of Marxist-Leninist rule in Eastern Europe but preserved it in China.
Though the Soviet Union and its rival the United States considered Europe the most important front of the Cold War, during the Cold War, the term Eastern Bloc was often used interchangeably with the term Second World. This broadest usage of the term would include not only Maoist China and Cambodia, but short-lived Soviet satellites such as East Turkestan Republic (1944-1949), the People's Repub ...
Timeline of Russian inventions and technology records | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Timeline of Russian inventions and technology records
00:01:07 1 Early East Slavs
00:07:36 2 Kievan Rus'
00:07:45 2.1 10th century
00:11:15 2.2 11th century
00:15:10 2.3 12th century
00:17:34 2.4 13th century
00:19:22 3 Grand Duchy of Moscow
00:19:31 3.1 14th century
00:22:30 3.2 15th century
00:27:48 3.3 Early 16th century
00:29:36 4 Tsardom of Russia
00:29:45 4.1 Late 16th century
00:34:44 4.2 17th century
00:42:50 4.3 Early 18th century
00:45:24 5 Russian Empire
00:45:33 5.1 1720s
00:46:22 5.2 1730s
00:49:21 5.3 1740s
00:49:35 5.4 1750s
00:50:04 5.5 1760s
00:50:36 5.6 1770s
00:52:21 5.7 1780s
00:52:35 5.8 1790s
00:53:44 5.9 19th century
00:54:20 5.10 1810s
00:54:44 5.11 1820s
00:55:27 5.12 1830s
00:56:17 5.13 1840s
00:56:36 5.14 1850s
00:58:51 5.15 1860s
01:00:01 5.16 1870s
01:02:51 5.17 1880s
01:05:35 5.18 1890s
01:07:46 5.19 20th century
01:10:02 5.20 1910s
01:12:47 6 Soviet Union
01:12:56 6.1 Late 1910s
01:13:50 6.2 1920s
01:16:14 6.3 1930s
01:23:47 6.4 1940s
01:27:01 6.5 1950s
01:32:10 6.6 1960s
01:36:56 6.7 1970s
01:40:20 6.8 1980s
01:42:35 6.9 Early 1990s
01:43:54 7 Russian Federation
01:44:04 7.1 1990s
01:45:57 7.2 2000s
01:48:09 7.3 2010s
01:48:52 8 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Timeline of Russian Innovation encompasses key events in the history of technology in Russia, starting from the Early East Slavs and up to the Russian Federation.
The entries in this timeline fall into the following categories:
Indigenous inventions, like airliners, AC transformers, radio receivers, television, artificial satellites, ICBMs
Products and objects that are uniquely Russian, like Saint Basil's Cathedral, Matryoshka dolls, Russian vodka
Products and objects with superlative characteristics, like the Tsar Bomba, the AK-47, and Typhoon class submarine
Scientific and medical discoveries, like the periodic law, vitamins and stem cellsThis timeline examines scientific and medical discoveries, products and technologies introduced by various peoples of Russia and its predecessor states, regardless of ethnicity, and also lists inventions by naturalized immigrant citizens. Certain innovations achieved by a national operation may also may be included in this timeline, in cases where the Russian side played a major role in such projects.
Slavic Native Faith | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Slavic Native Faith
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Slavic Native Faith, also known as Rodnovery, is a modern Pagan religion. Classified as a new religious movement, its practitioners harken back to the historical belief systems of the Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. Rodnovery is a widely accepted self-descriptor within the community, although there are Rodnover organisations which further characterise the religion as Orthodoxy, Old Belief and Vedism.
Rodnovers typically regard their religion as a faithful continuation of ancient beliefs that survived as folk religion or as conscious double belief following the Christianisation of the Slavs in the Middle Ages. Rodnovery draws upon surviving historical and archaeological sources, folk religion and even non-Slavic sources such as Hinduism. Rodnover theology and cosmology may be described as pantheism and polytheism—worship of the supreme God of the universe and of the multiple gods, ancestors and spirits of nature identified through Slavic culture. Adherents usually meet together in groups to conduct religious ceremonies. These typically entail the invocation of gods, sacrifices and the pouring of libations, dances and a communal meal.
Rodnover ethical thinking emphasises the good of the collective over the rights of the individual. The religion is patriarchal, and attitudes towards sex and gender are generally conservative. Rodnovery has developed distinctive strains of political and identitary philosophy. Rodnover organisations often characterise themselves as ethnic religions, emphasising that the religion is bound to Slavic ethnicity. This often manifests as ethnic nationalism, opposition to miscegenation and the belief in the fundamental difference of racial groups. Rodnovers often glorify Slavic history, criticising the impact of Christianity in Slavic countries and arguing that these nations will play a central place in the world's future. Rodnovers share a strong feeling that their religion represents a paradigmatic shift which will overcome Western thought and what they call mono-ideologies.
The contemporary organised Rodnovery movement arose from a multiplicity of sources and charismatic leaders just at the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union and spread rapidly by the mid-1990s and the 2000s. Antecedents are to be found in late 18th- and 19th-century Slavic Romanticism, which glorified the pre-Christian beliefs of Slavic societies. Active religious practitioners devoted to establishing Slavic Native Faith appeared in Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s and 1940s. Following the Second World War and the establishment of communist states throughout the Eastern Bloc, new variants were established by Slavic emigrants living in Western countries, being later introduced in Central and Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In recent times, the movement has been increasingly studied in academic scholarship.
Eastern Bloc | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Eastern Bloc
00:06:40 1 Terminology
00:07:58 2 The Soviet Union and World War II in Central and Eastern Europe
00:08:41 2.1 Expansion of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940
00:11:26 2.2 Eastern Front and Allied conferences
00:14:57 3 Concealed transformation dynamics
00:16:49 4 Early events prompting stricter control
00:17:00 4.1 Marshall Plan rejection
00:19:04 4.2 Berlin blockade and airlift
00:20:16 4.3 Tito–Stalin split
00:22:30 5 Politics
00:24:48 5.1 Political and civil restrictions
00:27:25 5.2 Media and information restrictions
00:29:45 6 Religion
00:30:07 7 Organizations
00:32:36 8 Emigration restrictions and defectors
00:35:53 9 Population
00:37:54 10 Housing
00:38:42 10.1 Housing quality
00:41:58 11 Economies
00:43:06 11.1 Social conditions
00:45:50 11.2 Initial changes
00:45:58 11.2.1 Transformations billed as reforms
00:48:29 11.2.2 Asset relocation
00:49:48 11.2.3 Trade and Comecon
00:51:43 11.3 Five Year Plans
00:54:16 11.4 Heavy industry emphasis
00:59:10 11.5 Black markets
01:00:16 11.6 Urbanization
01:01:27 11.7 Agricultural collectivization
01:05:34 11.8 Economic growth
01:14:16 11.8.1 Growth rates
01:20:46 11.9 Development policies
01:25:42 11.10 Shortages
01:28:03 12 Revolts
01:28:12 12.1 1953 East Germany uprising
01:30:17 12.2 Hungarian Revolution of 1956
01:33:31 12.3 Prague Spring and the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
01:36:04 13 Dissolution
01:39:07 13.1 Aftermath
01:39:59 13.2 List of surviving Eastern Bloc states
01:40:27 14 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Eastern Bloc (also the Socialist Bloc, the Communist Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc) was the group of Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia under the hegemony of the USSR during the Cold War (1945–91), in opposition to the non-communist Western Bloc. Generally, in Western Europe, the term Eastern bloc comprised the USSR and its East European satellite-states, in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon); in Asia, the Socialist bloc comprised the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and the People's Republic of Kampuchea; the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China (before the Sino-Soviet split in 1961); and in the Americas, the Communist bloc included the Caribbean Republic of Cuba, since 1961.Joseph Stalin's control of the Eastern Bloc was tested by the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état and the Tito–Stalin Split for control of Socialist Yugoslavia, the Chinese Communist Revolution (1949), and the PRC's participation in the Korean War. In 1953, after Stalin's death, the Korean War ceased with the 1954 Geneva Conference, and, in Europe, anti-Soviet sentiment provoked the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. The break-up of the Eastern Bloc began in 1956, with Nikita Khrushchev's anti-Stalinist speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences denouncing Stalin, which facilitated the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which the Soviet Union suppressed, and the Sino–Soviet Split with the PRC, which gave North Korea and North Vietnam more independence from both, and facilitated the Soviet–Albanian split. The Cuban Missile Crisis preserved the Cuban Revolution from rollback by the U.S., but Fidel Castro became increasingly independent of Soviet rule afterwards, most notably in its 1975 intervention in Angola. That year, the fall of former French Indochina to communism following the end of the Vietnam War gave the Eastern Bloc renewed confidence which had been frayed by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring, which had led to Albania withdrawing from the Pact, briefly aligning with Mao Zedong's China until the Sino-Albanian split.
Under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in other Communist countries. In response, China moved towards the United States following a 1969 border war which almost went nuclear, and late ...
Slavic Native Faith | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Slavic Native Faith
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Slavic Native Faith, also known as Rodnovery, is a modern Pagan religion. Classified as a new religious movement, its practitioners harken back to the historical belief systems of the Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. Rodnovery is a widely accepted self-descriptor within the community, although there are Rodnover organisations which further characterise the religion as Orthodoxy, Old Belief and Vedism.
Rodnovers typically regard their religion as a faithful continuation of ancient beliefs that survived as folk religion or as conscious double belief following the Christianisation of the Slavs in the Middle Ages. Rodnovery draws upon surviving historical and archaeological sources, folk religion and even non-Slavic sources such as Hinduism. Rodnover theology and cosmology may be described as pantheism and polytheism—worship of the supreme God of the universe and of the multiple gods, ancestors and spirits of nature identified through Slavic culture. Adherents usually meet together in groups to conduct religious ceremonies. These typically entail the invocation of gods, sacrifices and the pouring of libations, dances and a communal meal.
Rodnover ethical thinking emphasises the good of the collective over the rights of the individual. The religion is patriarchal, and attitudes towards sex and gender are generally conservative. Rodnovery has developed distinctive strains of political and identitary philosophy. Rodnover organisations often characterise themselves as ethnic religions, emphasising that the religion is bound to Slavic ethnicity. This often manifests as ethnic nationalism, opposition to miscegenation and the belief in the fundamental difference of racial groups. Rodnovers often glorify Slavic history, criticising the impact of Christianity in Slavic countries and arguing that these nations will play a central place in the world's future. Rodnovers share a strong feeling that their religion represents a paradigmatic shift which will overcome Western thought and what they call mono-ideologies.
The contemporary organised Rodnovery movement arose from a multiplicity of sources and charismatic leaders just at the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union and spread rapidly by the mid-1990s and the 2000s. Antecedents are to be found in late 18th- and 19th-century Slavic Romanticism, which glorified the pre-Christian beliefs of Slavic societies. Active religious practitioners devoted to establishing Slavic Native Faith appeared in Poland and Ukraine in the 1930s and 1940s. Following the Second World War and the establishment of communist states throughout the Eastern Bloc, new variants were established by Slavic emigrants living in Western countries, being later introduced in Central and Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In recent times, the movement has been increasingly studied in academic scholarship.
Socialist bloc | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Socialist bloc
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The Eastern Bloc (also known as the Socialist Bloc, Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc) was the group of Communist-controlled states stretching from Central and Eastern Europe to East and Southeast Asia largely controlled by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in opposition to the Western Bloc led by the United States. The term generally includes the USSR and its satellite states in the Comecon, including Vietnam and its satellites Laos and Kampuchea, North Korea, and China (before 1961.) Cuba is included as well after 1961, but demonstrated independence from Soviet policy following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Widespread Soviet hegemony ended with the success of the Revolutions of 1989 against the Warsaw Pact, and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union brought the Eastern Bloc and the Cold War to an end.
During Joseph Stalin's lifetime, Soviet control over the Eastern Bloc was tested but never seriously challenged by the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état and Tito–Stalin Split over control of Yugoslavia, the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution and Chinese and North Korean involvement in the Korean War against the United Nations. After his death in 1953, the Korean War was halted but not settled and anti-Soviet sentiment sparked the East German uprising. The Eastern Bloc started to break apart in 1956, when new leader Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Stalin helped spark the anti-Soviet Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which was suppressed by a Soviet invasion, and the Sino–Soviet Split with Mao Zedong's China, which gave North Korea and North Vietnam more independence from both, and facilitated the Soviet–Albanian split. The Cuban Missile Crisis preserved the Cuban Revolution from rollback by the United States, but Fidel Castro became increasingly independent of Soviet rule afterwards, most notably in its 1975 intervention in Angola. That year, the fall of former French Indochina to communism following the end of the Vietnam War gave the Eastern Bloc renewed confidence which had been frayed by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring, which had led to Albania withdrawing from the Pact, briefly aligning with Mao Zedong's China until the Sino-Albanian split.
Under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene in other Communist countries. In response, China moved towards the United States following a 1969 border war which almost went nuclear, and later reformed and liberalized its economy, while the Eastern Bloc stagnated economically behind the capitalist First World. Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan nominally expanded the Eastern Bloc, but the war proved unwinnable and too costly for the Soviets, challenged in Eastern Europe by civil resistance in Poland. In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) to reform the Eastern Bloc and end the Cold War, which brought forth unrest throughout the bloc. Unlike previous Soviet leaders in 1953, 1956, and 1968, Gorbachev refused to use force to end the 1989 Revolutions against Marxist-Leninist rule in Eastern Europe. The fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Warsaw Pact spread nationalist and liberal ideals throughout the Soviet Union, which would soon fall itself at the end of 1991. Conservative communist elites attempted to turn back liberal reforms and movements, which hastened the end of Marxist-Leninist rule in Eastern Europe but preserved it in China.
Though the Soviet Union and its rival the United States considered Europe the most important front of the Cold War, during the Cold War, the term Eastern Bloc was often used interchangeably with the term Second World. This broadest usage of the term would include not only Maoist China and Cambodia, but short-lived Soviet satellites such as East Turkestan Republic (1944-1949), the People's Republic of A ...