Word: voroshilov
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...original audience. The paintings presuppose a knowledge of Russian society, and above all a saturation with its period propaganda, that few in the West can claim. Why did it matter for political purposes that the writer Maxim Gorky should be depicted taking lessons on the rifle range from Marshal Voroshilov, the commissar of war? It mattered because Gorky, though a literary favorite and a devoted friend of Lenin's, was opposed to shooting, and this bothered Stalin...
...voters want Lenin excised, nonetheless, in the well-established Soviet tradition of exorcising demons of the past by rewriting place names. The city of Lugansk has flip-flopped titles four times: Stalin made it Voroshilovgrad, after Marshal Kliment Voroshilov; Khrushchev restored the original name in his anti-Stalin campaign; his successors -- deciding that purge had gone too far -- changed it back to Voroshilovgrad; and finally (well, at least for now), the city is called Lugansk again...