Stories about History from April, 2011
Memories of Portuguese Decolonization
“In their dreams they still revisit Africa”, and they share their memories on the blog Retornados da África [pt]. Read the stories of those who returned to Portugal from the African colonies, after the end of the dictatorship, on April 25th, 1974.
Kazakhstan, Russia: Photos of Baikonur
At Russia Blog, Anton Verstakov's photos from Baikonur, a city in Kazakhstan, rented and administered by Russia, home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Haiti: The Democratic Process
Toussaint on Haiti suggests that the recent election “is a sign we still believe in democracy and that these elections might have breathed new life into to Haiti’s nascent and fragile democracy.”
Russia: Play on the swansong of the Yeltsin era
British playwright Thomas Hirst guestblogs at Siberian Light, writing about his new play The 17, about the demise of the Yelstin era in Russian politics.
Germany: A blog of rare German records from flea markets
Berlin Beatet Bestes is a blog by Andreas Michalke of rare out of print German 45 rpm records found at flea markets. For instance, this 1959 tune of Trinidadian singer Mona Baptiste singing a mambo in German.
Ukraine: Chernobyl Charity Walk on April 22
On April 22, a group of volunteers from the British and French embassies in Ukraine will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe and fundraise for the Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund (CCRDF) and the British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association (BLESMA) by walking 63 miles (110 km)...
Russia: Interviews With Miriam Dobson, Thomas de Waal, Christopher Ward
Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog interviews authors Miriam Dobson (“Khrushchev’s Cold Summer: Gulag Returnees, Crime, and the Fate of Reform After Stalin”), Thomas de Waal (“The Caucasus: An Introduction”) and Christopher Ward (“Brezhnev’s Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism”) for New Books in Russia and Eurasia.
Bangladesh: New Year Festival Getting Popular Each Year
Jyoti Rahman at Mukti analyzes why each year the Pahela Baishakh, new years celebrations in Bangladesh are getting bigger and more popular with the participation of mass people.
Pakistan: Pukhtun Stonehenges
Salman Rashid at Doodh Patti highlights two stone circles in Pakistan which have been dated between the 14th and 12th century BCE.
Korea: A Collection of North Korean Post Stamps
South Korean blogger/journalist ID: Aroma of Desert introduced [ko] a collection of rare North Korean postage stamps.
Russia: Yuri Gagarin's “Public Diplomacy Legacy”
Yelena Osipova of Global Chaos pays tribute to Yuri Gagarin and his “public diplomacy legacy” in this overview of web stories and events devoted to the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight.
Mexico: Netizens Deploy the “Failed State” Meme
The idea of Mexico as an actual or potential "failed state," pending since its introduction into public discourse in 2008 following news of a report to this effect by the U.S. Joint Forces, has become a popular meme in its own right on the Internet, as bloggers and other netizens deploy the parlance (signaled on Twitter by the ubiquitous hashtag #estadofallido) for their own critical purposes.
Armenia: Starlet ‘upset’ about Turkish magazine cover
Ianyan comments on attempts by the Armenian lobby in the U.S. to scandalize the use of a photograph of American-Armenian starlet Kim Kardashian on the cover of this month's Turkish edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Coinciding with the anniversary of the the 1915 deportation and massacre of ethnic Armenians in the...
Haiti: Relevance of Lavalas
In the context of Haiti's recent elections, Toussaint on Haiti considers Fanmi Lavalas‘ political future: “The answer is not to cancel the last elections to have new elections that include FL. The worst thing that FL can do is continue with the same arguments of the last 24 years. If...
Iran:TV anchors before and after revolution
Here is a film showing TV anchors before and after Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Poland: Remembering April 10, 2010
Politics, Economy, Society shares memories of April 10, 2010, the day the Polish President and nearly a hundred other people were killed in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia.
Hungary: “Refusing to Face the Past”
Hungarian Spectrum writes about the revisions of history initiated by Hungarian politicians, including the history of the Holocaust in Hungary: “The new constitution will state that whatever happened between March 19, 1944 and May 2, 1990 simply doesn't exist. Or, more precisely, it existed but entirely independently from the Hungarians....
Czech Republic: “Honor to the Astronaut”
Luboš Motl of The Reference Frame offers a Czech perspective on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin‘s first human spaceflight on April 12, 1961. (More in this 2007 post by the same blogger.)
Bosnia & Herzegovina: “Remembering War in Sarajevo”
Café Turco writes about the April 6 commemoration of the liberation of Sarajevo in WWII and the beginning of the siege of the city in 1992.
Poland, Russia: Smolensk Plane Crash, One Year On
On OpenDemocracy.net, Adam Szostkiewicz shares thoughts on the Polish-Russian relations one year after the plane crash near Smolensk that killed Poland’s president and nearly a hundred other dignitaries.
Egypt: Remembering Bahr El-Baqar Incident
Forty one years ago, the Israeli Air Force raided a primary school in the Egyptian village of Bahr el-Baqar. About 30 of its students died, over 50 were severely wounded, and many were left with disabilities. And after all those years, Egyptians still remember the massacre.
