When the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, they inherited responsibility for around two million foreign prisoners of war – mostly soldiers from the Germany and Austro-Hungarian armies – captured during the First World War. Dispersed across the former Russian Empire, from the Baltic to Siberia and Central Asia, these prisoners posed...

As well as being admired for their aesthetic beauty, medieval and early modern tapestries often conveyed deeper symbolic meanings. Here Damien Dessane examines a famous sixteenth century tapestry and reveals the insights it provides into Anglo-French relations in that period and into the increasing agency of some important women...

In this article, Emily C. Floyd explores a rare eighteenth-century self-commissioned engraved portrait of an elite Indigenous man in colonial Lima. By comparing this unassuming image with a more overtly Inca portrait, the article reveals how Indigenous leaders navigated identity, loyalty, and colonial restrictions, using portraiture to assert agency in...

Martyn Whittock explores the lesser-known world of the Vikings who travelled east, forging the early state of Kyivan Rus and leaving a legacy still debated in Russia and Ukraine today. From silver routes and sagas to modern political claims, this article explores how their story and origins remain as dramatic...

Concerns about demobilised soldiers after the Second World War were widespread, reflecting both the practical challenges faced by returning servicemen and broader anxieties about their reintegration into civilian life. In this article, Helen George explores how a temporary education facility in Hertfordshire helped prepare demobilised Canadian soldiers for higher education...

Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk  Alexander Stewart’s life combined hardship, resilience and moral conviction....

In this article Folusho Alabi reveals a relatively unknown story from the history of the British Empire. She analyses the issues and strategic manoeuvres in an ongoing struggle between Nigerian market women and the British colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. Despite an innate imbalance of power in this struggle,...

How did groups resisting the creation of new borders after 1947 use shadow state structures?  Luke Rimmo Lego, Abigail Tamang and Sneha Singh with Laishram Bullion and Chinglai Ngamba Moirangthem explore the history of these structures and their development over the past half century.

Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected sto greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...

In his work on the local history of his hometown in Panama, Miguel Elias Escobar Cornejo highlights the importance of understanding the geography of the historical sites we study. Here, he explains how a defensive route from the coast to the rugged mountain interior developed into one of the most important...

(Student and corporate secondary members can view these films in our Student Zone) Leonid Brezhnev was the second longest serving leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin, overseeing some of the most difficult relations between East and West, yet he does not have the popular cultural legacy of some of the...

Historians love making analogies to the present day, and in 2014, during the 100th anniversary of the Sarajevo assassination and outbreak of the First World War, many were tempted to see parallels to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But not only is this analogy mistaken, it conceals the blundering true nature...

‘Your Country Needs You’ and other posters are still remembered today as a prominent vehicle by which men were encouraged to fight in the First World War. Virtually absent from the literature, however, is analysis of the impact of thousands of recruitment meetings and their speakers. Robert Bullard explores the contribution...

The Luftwaffe had been a real achievement of Prussian military culture, but under poor Nazi leadership it degenerated into an ineffective fighting force, writes Stephen Graham.

(Student and corporate secondary members can view these films in our Student Zone) Two men – Trotsky and Lenin – symbolise the Russian Revolution for most people. While Trotsky came to an icy end in Mexico, Lenin remains an enduring figure in the history of Russia and the history of Communism...

The founders of Communism, Marx and Engels, had created a set of social structures and industrial developments that were believed necessary for Communism to be achieved. Imperial Russia did not fit these conditions and yet at the start of the twentieth century Russian revolutionaries were some of the most active...

How has the understanding of what Ukraine is and, therefore, its image changed through the centuries? What did the word ‘Ukraine’ mean in the Middle Ages, the early modern times, or in the twentieth century? Even during the last four decades, this image has transformed dramatically, and the first association...

Kateryna Petrova explores the history and evolution of street art, especially graffiti and murals in Ukraine from the Soviet era to the present day. She traces the transformation of street art from a forbidden and persecuted activity to one coordinated with city authorities and embraced by the public. She also...

Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...

(Student and corporate secondary members can view these films in our Student Zone) Khrushchev came to power in the Soviet Union at a time when the whole region was used to living on a knife's edge. He appeared to usher in a more relaxed calm era as though that had...