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Gymnast

Russian History Online: The Khrushchev Years

While this version of the course is primarily intended for students of Russian universities and Slavic departments of USA universities, the authors hope that it will be useful to the general public as well. It can be used for both self-paced studies and for class lectures and seminars.

We hope that this site, a historical course accompanied by archival photos and film clips, will give students and visitors the opportunity to feel the spirit of the Khrushchev era and to see with their own eyes the realities of that time. This period in Russian history was later named "Ottepel" (The Thaw). This term accurately reflects the events and the atmosphere of that turning-point which came after Stalin's death.

This site is currently available in Russian. We are in the process of translating the entire project into English, and when completed, the English site will be made available online.


Visit The Khrushchev Years website. note that it is located off of RAO's site, and will open in a separate window.

USA Project partners:
University of Texas at Austin - David Gracy, the Director of the Center for the Cultural Record;
Thomas Garza, Professor;
Oliver Chen, Assistant Professor.
Abamedia, L.P. - J. Mitchell Johnson, President;
Jen Tsai, Manager.
Russian project partners:
Keldysh Institute for Applied
Mathematics RAS - 		Yuri Bukhshtab, Head of Laboratory;
Andrei Vorobiov, Senior Research Scientist;
Natalia Evteeva, Senior Research Scientist
History Content written by -
 		Alexei Peskov, Professor, Moscow State University.
Graphic Designer -
  		Alexander Volkovich.

Course topics:

  1. USSR between 1920s and early 1940s.
  2. Khrushchev's brief biography up to early 1950s.
  3. 1945 until the beginning of 1953: The epoch of total fear.
  4. 1953-1955: Struggle for power after the death of Stalin.
  5. 1953-1955: Between the Cold War and peaceful co-existence.
  6. The 20th CPSU Congress, and the liberation of society.
  7. 1956: Conflicts and Peaceful co-existence.
  8. 1957 - 1961: Soviet ideology and the problems that come with liberalization after Stalin.
  9. 1957 - 1961: Soviet's planned economy - Advances and failures.
  10. 1957- 1959: USSR foreign policy.
  11. 1960 - 1961: The eve of war: Berlin Wall and Caribbean Crisis.
  12. The end of Khrushchev era.

Photo and video materials used in this course come from the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archives at Krasnogorsk(the electroniccatalog of film documentariesfrom the archives can be found on this site) and from certain private collections.

The text of the course has been edited by Sergey Khrushchev, and his commentary is also included in the course.

© ArkMedia, LP, 2005