A Soviet alternative to Disney cartoon became a state ideal, but the three-color process behind Silly Symphony cartoons wasn’t easy to perfect.

Anti-Western and pro-expansionist, Eurasianists believed every country had a right to its own existence...as part of the Russian civilization.

The Soviet dictator was notorious for hosting drinking parties where vodka loosened the inhibitions of associates and got them to reveal their secrets.

Soviet artworks that featured Black Americans tended to trade in stereotypes. The paintings of Alexsandr Deineka were an exception.

Free from Russian dictates over language usage and education, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan prepare to embrace Latin lettering. It’s the latest chapter in the region’s fraught history of alphabet reform.

Neither supernatural forces nor Soviet censors were able to suppress individual creativity and determination.

“Lesya Ukrainka” was a carefully considered pseudonym for a writer who left behind a legacy of poems, plays, essays and activism for the Ukrainian language.

The two-time Nobel winner helped preserve her native Polish language, and undertook her education, at a time when these acts were potentially treasonous.

To leaders, the ideal Soviet worker should be sober. Actual workers had other thoughts.

Catherine II ruled Russia for many years. She also wrote her own memoirs, in a time when such writing was considered inappropriate for a monarch.