Societies and Cultures: Russia

Russia is a vast country, as well as the world's largest nation by far. Readers of this volume will learn about the country's varied landscape, lakes and rivers, climate, and environmental zones. Russia's natural resources and the impact these have had on the country's settlement patterns are also discussed. Moscow is the focus of one chapter, while another celebrates Russia's many UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Maps, charts, and sidebars provide extra information, while colorful photographs give readers a glimpse of some of Russia's most spectacular natural scenery.

Though current events have brought Russia into the spotlight of late, many Americans still have only the haziest notion of Russian culture. This wide-ranging reference introduces the peoples, languages, and religions of Russia and also delves into such facets of Russian culture as sports, the media, holidays, traditional foods, and education. Chapters devoted to architecture, the visual arts, literature, and the performing arts highlight the best of Russia's cultural heritage, including the novels of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the films of Sergey Eisenstein, the music of Tchaikovsky and Sergey Prokofiev, and the churches of Pskov. Readers will find this volume to be a fascinating introduction to a rich, complex culture.

To truly understand today's Russia, it is important to look back through the centuries to the figures, events, and neighboring cultures that have shaped it into what it is today. Starting with the rise of the Rus in the first millennium, this book traces the first thousand or so years of Russian history. The rise and fall of Kiev as the Rus center, the Novgorod Republic, the Mongol Invasion, the rise of first Rurikid and then Romanov Muscovy, and the indelible influences of Peter I and Catherine II, both of whom earned the moniker "the Great" are all covered.

In the slightly more than two centuries since the dawn of the nineteenth century, Russia has undergone sweeping changes several times over. Readers will learn about the tension between reform and autocracy that marked the nineteenth century, World War I and the fall of the last tsar, and the rise of the USSR. They will examine the USSR's time as a twentieth-century superpower, the fall of communism, and Russia's current power plays for global influence. Sidebars provide extra information, while historical photographs let readers see the figures and events that shaped Russian history with their own eyes.