Tag Archives: history

The “TASS Windows” – the windows to our struggle in the Great Patriotic War

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 12 minutes

Following the opening of the TASS exhibition “Their Feat Is Immortal”, where “TASS Windows” were mentioned in Lavrov’s opening speech, we present an extended translation of a publication by TASS made in 2021, celebrating the 80th anniversary of the creation of “TASS Windows”.

The article below is extended with insets, where we add our translation of each of the presented Window. After the article, we will show several other Windows from the posts at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

80 years of “Windows of TASS”

Who and how created the posters that even Goebbels was afraid of

About one and a half thousand posters with a total circulation of more than 2 million copies. With printing for the army and partisans, filmstrips and exhibitions during the War being done in the USSR, Great Britain, Sweden and China. All these are “Windows of TASS”, which were produced during the Great Patriotic War to raise the morale of the Soviet soldiers.

Poster No. 13 “Chatterbox is a godsend for a spy”, 1941. Artist A. Radakov

Poster No. 13 “Chatterbox is a godsend for a spy”

Here you see their different shapes:

– A tongue so long it can let slip a military secret.
– Two ears from each side: a fly flies into one, an elephant emerges from the other (a play on the saying “to make an elephant out of a fly”, that is, to magnify rumours).
– Glasses that are rosier than roses: he sees wolves-spies as innocent kids.
– Catch these helpers of the enemy, BE ON GUARD!

On June 22, three hours after the radio announcement of the outbreak of war, members of the Moscow Organisation of the Union of Artists: Mihail Cheremnyh, Nikolai Denisovsky and Pavel Sokolov-Skala met at the art salon at 11 Kuznetsky Bridge. They discussed the creation of an editorial office for the production of propaganda posters to help the front.
Continue reading →

Poyehali! – Soviet cosmonauts opened the space age for humans

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 2 minutes

On April 12 we marked the Day of Cosmonautics, the day, when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to Space, an achievement possible to the huge collective effort of the Soviet state.

At our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we presented the jubilation though the eyes of the contemporary Soviet drawing in “Krokodil” as well as the reflection of the voyage in the Western press.

We also translated two short films, in addition to last year’s translation with Gagarin wishing Earthlings peace: “Long Live Peace” – Message from the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, restored in colour.

Incidentally, another fragment of that 1962 interview, in the original black-and-white, was translated by a friendly channel Putinger’s Cat. There, Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, shares his greatest dream:


Backup at Rumble.

Poyehali! — Let’s Go!

Yuri Gagarin’s famous words heard in the lift-off exchange with Sergey Korolyov:


Backup at Rumble.

Soviet cosmonauts, participants of the Great Patriotic War

Do you know which Soviet cosmonauts took part in the Great Patriotic War?

These heroes showed courage on the battlefields against the Nazis, and after the war they went down in history as conquerors of space.

On Cosmonautics Day, the Victory Museum tells about their amazing destinies. Watch our video!


Backup at Rumble.

Source: Victory Museum Telegram channel

To Save Vienna: How the Red Army liberated the Austrian capital 80 years ago

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 7 minutes

Commemorating the liberation of Vienna, we re-blog the Telegram post from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by an article-transcripts of “TV Zvezda” video-reportage from the Austrian capital.

Read also Georgy Zotov’s article from 10 years ago, Blood and Vienna.Even After 70 Years the Soviet Soldiers Are Respected in Austria!

One thing is clear: if not for the titanic self-sacrifice of the Soviet people, there would be no Vienna, no Krakow, no Prague… just like there is no Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki!

80 years ago, on April 13, 1945, the Soviet forces liberated the capital of Austria during the Vienna Offensive.

By the spring of 1945, the Red Army drove the Nazi invaders out of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia and rapidly launched an offensive towards Germany. The Third Reich’s defeat was only a matter of time: the Soviet forces were preparing to attack Berlin.

Austria, annexed by the Nazis as a result of anschluss in 1938, served as a shield for the Third Reich’s southern regions during WWII. The capital of Austria — the city of Vienna — was a strategically important point of the Nazi defence, which the enemy was committed to hold at any cost.

In March 1945, during the successful offensive along the Austrian line of advance, the Red Army broke the resistance of the Nazi units deployed between the Danube and Lake Balaton (Hungary) and defeated the troops of the Nazi army group ‘South’. Having advanced by that time up to 80 kilometers to Vienna, the Soviet forces launched the operation to liberate the Austrian capital.

The enemy undertook extensive preprations to hold the city. The streets were barricaded and mine-strewn. Firing points were set up in residential buildings. Destroyed houses were used to camouflage tanks and artillery pieces. All bridges over the Danube were prepared by the Nazis for demolition. In the event of retreat, the Nazis were ready to tear down the Austrian capital to the ground, including by destroying (!) its historical architectural heritage.

On April 5, 1945, the Soviet forces attacked the Nazi garrison in Vienna. Intense fighting erupted on the city outskirts. The Red Army was confronted by the most prepared enemy units and formations, including SS tank divisions. Soviet soldiers fought to death against the Nazis for every quarter and every building of the city.

With a view to prevent victims among the city’s population and protect Vienna from destruction by the Nazis, the Soviet command addressed local residents:

The Red Army entered Austria not to occupy its territory but only to defeat the enemy Nazi troops and liberate the country from German occupation. It also called on the Vienna residents to help fight the Nazis — this call was answered by many Austrian patriots.

On April 13, the last enemy point of resistance in the city centre was crushed, with Vienna being completely liberated from the Nazis.

During the fierce and brutal fighting for Vienna, the Red Army crushed Wehrmacht’s 11 armoured divisions, destroyed the 6th SS Tank Army, and captured more than 130,000 enemy soldiers and officers. The Soviet people paid a high price for the liberation of Vienna from the Nazis: 18,000 Red Army soldiers gave their lives for saving the city from fascists. (BATS note: we corrected the number in the MFA post, which must have been a typo, given at 38,000)

Having liberated Vienna, our country provided aid to the city residents. The population was supplied with food: hundreds of tonnes of grain, meat, sugar, salt and other products were given to the Austrians. After the war, the people of Vienna recalled how their “fear of hunger had disappeared” and spoke with gratitude about the generosity of the Soviet people, which “exceeded all expectations.”

An excerpt from the briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (April 9, 2025):

“By acting swiftly and selflessly, the Soviet forces prevented the destruction of Vienna.

It was thanks to the decision by the Soviet command not to use artillery that Vienna has preserved its historical outlook.”

A monument to the Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the liberation of Austria from Nazism was unveiled on August 19, 1945, on Schwarzenbergplatz in the centre of Vienna. The country has 217 monuments and war graves on its territory.

Tens of thousands Red Army soldiers, who saved Europe from the Nazi plague, are buried in Austria.

❗️ In 1955, under the State Treaty for the Re-establishment of Independent and Democratic Austria (Art.19), Vienna took the obligations to respect, preserve and maintain the graves of the soldiers on Austrian territory.

To Save Vienna: How the Red Army liberated the Austrian capital 80 years ago

(Follow the link to the source article to watch the video reportage)

Memorial at Helmut Zilk Square

The Wehrmacht troops were preparing to blow up the city in case of retreat.

Exactly 80 years ago, the completion of the assault on the Austrian capital became the final part of the Vienna offensive. The complete liberation of the city is celebrated on April 13. On the eve of this date, Rossina Bodrova, a correspondent for Zvezda, visited places in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe that recall the horrors of the Second World War.
Continue reading →

“Their Feat Is Immortal” – TASS photo exhibition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory

Posted on by
1
Reading time: 9 minutes

“TASS is authorised to declare that…” These words heralded may a pivotal moment in the history of the 20th century. TASS – the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, as the abbreviation goes – also played a key information role in the years of the Great Patriotic War.

On April 8, 2025 the presentation ceremony of the TASS photo exhibition “Their Feat Is Immortal”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and prepared using the agency’s photo archive, was held in the atrium of the first building of the Russian Foreign Ministry. As TASS General Director Andrey Kondrashov said, “this exhibition should be shown to the West”, a statement with which we fully agree, and will do so on the pages of the Beehive.

We start with a re-blog of the official opening statement by the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, followed by a translation of the exposition’s presentation by TASS, and finally presenting five of the information stands, courtesy to the journal “The international Affairs”.

Russian TV channel NTV has a short video reportage from the opening of the exhibition at their site.

The title of the exhibition is “Their Feat Is Immortal”, and can also be translated as “Their Immortal Heroism”.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at the opening ceremony of a TASS photo exhibition, “Their Immortal Heroism,” Moscow, April 8, 2025


– The video of Lavrov’s speech (in Russian) can be watched at The International Affairs

Mr Kondrashov, Your Excellencies, Ladies and gentlemen, Friends,

We are delighted to open a photo exhibition, Their Immortal Heroism, at the Foreign Ministry today. It includes archival photographs, official statements and reports by TASS correspondents made in the past few months of the Great Patriotic War.

I would like to begin by expressing gratitude to the TASS management and staff for their contribution to preparing this unique exposition. It opens a series of events dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War and organised for the diplomatic corps accredited in our country.

When speaking about the Great Victory, we recall the combat heroism of Soviet soldiers, who have saved the world from the Nazi plague. The “information army” greatly contributed to the common efforts to defeat the enemy. The courageous TASS correspondents risked their lives every day to create a chronicle of the 1,418 days of that war. To this day, their photographs and reports remain a vital source of reliable information about those events.

TASS played a special role in exposing Nazi propaganda. The Agency’s materials revealed the criminal nature of Nazism and its deadly threat to humanity. Thanks to the journalists’ work, the world learned about the courageous defenders of Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad and about the atrocities the invaders committed in the occupied Soviet territories. TASS photographs were included in the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials.

The “TASS Windows” war-time posters made an invaluable contribution to Victory. They showed that art and satire can be a lethal weapon in capable hands. These posters have become widely popular not only in our country but also beyond it, where they could be acquired by subscription and included in the exhibitions held in Washington, Johannesburg, London, Beijing, Istanbul, Stockholm and Tehran.

This TASS legacy is especially important today when more and more attempts are being made in the West to rewrite history and overhaul the political, international legal and moral results of the Great Victory in the Second World War. Our country’s role in defeating the enemy is being deliberately played down. The monstrous crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices and collaborators are being justified. The very principle of outlawing the man-hating Nazi ideology is being undermined. I would like to remind you that it is one of the fundamentals principles of the post-war world order, known as the Yalta-Potsdam world order, alongside the primacy of international law and the central role of the UN, and primarily its Security Council, in balancing the interests of states.

In this situation, TASS remains a reliable keeper of historical truth. The archival materials collected during the war are an effective weapon in the battle against the falsification of history.

A relevant example is a letter, which you can see at the exhibition, from the head of Poland’s Provisional Government to the Soviet leadership, dated February 16, 1945, with assurances of eternal friendship between Polish, Russian and all other Soviet peoples. Equally eloquent are the photographs made in the liberated European cities, showing people welcome Soviet soldiers with joy and present them with flowers. The EU prefers to forget about these documents and is trying to eradicate this memory, but facts cannot be erased from history.

Keeping the truth about the war is our common responsibility to those who have given their lives for peace and freedom. I believe that this exhibition can be shown not only in Russia but also beyond it, also based on the possibilities of the embassies and Russia Houses, wherever they exist.

In conclusion, I would like to note that we also regard this exposition as our tribute to the 17 TASS journalists who perished in the war, as well as to our colleagues from the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs who died in battle and while delivering diplomatic bags or accompanying foreign journalists to the front line.

Kondrashov: the TASS exhibition “Their feat is immortal” should be shown to the West

TASS Director General called on everyone “who is rewriting history in the West” to pay attention to the exhibition
Continue reading →

The radio address of Iosif Stalin on the 9th of May 1945

Posted on by
1
Reading time: 3 minutes

Comrades! Compatriots!

The great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany, brought to its knees by the Red Army and the troops of our allies, recognized itself defeated and declared unconditional surrender.

On May 7, a preliminary protocol of surrender was signed in the city of Reims. On May 8, representatives of the German High Command, in the presence of representatives of the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Troops, signed in Berlin the final act of surrender, the execution of which began at 24 hours on May 8.

Knowing the wolfish habit of German bosses who consider contracts and agreements to be just a piece of paper, we have no reason to take their word for it. However, this morning, the German troops, in pursuance of the act of surrender, began to lay down their weapons en masse and surrender to our troops. This is no longer an empty piece of paper. This is the actual surrender of the German armed forces. However, one group of German troops in the area of Czechoslovakia is still evading surrender. But I hope that the Red Army will be able to bring it to its senses.

Now we can state with full justification that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany has come, the day of the great victory of our people over German imperialism.

The great sacrifices we made in the name of freedom and independence of our Motherland, the incalculable hardships and sufferings endured by our people during the war, the hard work in the rear and at the front, given on the altar of the Fatherland, were not in vain and were crowned with a complete victory over the enemy. The age-old struggle of the Slavic peoples for their existence and their independence ended in victory over the German invaders and German tyranny.

From now on, the great banner of freedom of peoples and peace between peoples will fly over Europe.

Three years ago, Hitler publicly declared that his goals included the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the separation of the Caucasus, Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic region and other regions from it, he bluntly stated: “We will destroy Russia so that it can never rise again.” That was three years ago. But Hitler’s crazy ideas were not destined to come true – the course of the war scattered them to dust. In fact, it turned out to be the exact opposite of what the Nazis were raving about. Germany is completely defeated. The German troops are capitulating. The Soviet Union is triumphant, although it does not intend to dismember or destroy Germany.

Comrades! The Great Patriotic War ended with our complete victory. The period of war in Europe is over, the period of peaceful development has begun.

Happy victory to you, my dear compatriots!

Glory to our heroic Red Army, which defended the independence of our Motherland and won victory over the enemy!

Glory to our great people, the victorious people!

Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in battles with the enemy and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!

— Printed in “Pravda”. 10th of May 1945

The speech was first translated by us as an afterword for our publication of the Danish underground book “2 Years”, and also published at our Telegram channel, “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

“Operation Weserübung”, the Blitzkrieg overture. Remembering April 9, 1940 – “The Dark Birds Flew”

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 6 minutes

As part of the invasion and occupation of Norway, Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany on the morning of April 9th 1940. We remember the occupation with our commemorative posts at “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.

Denmark capitulated after a few hours, whereas Norway fought heroically until the 2nd of May against Hitler’s superior troops.

“Operation Weserübung”, which was the code word for the attack on Norway and Denmark, aimed at giving the German navy enhanced operative conditions in the Atlantic Ocean and to ensure the important shipment of Swedish iron ore to the German armaments industry from the Norwegian port city of Narvik.

Denmark, a well-developed and highly productive agricultural nation, played an important role in supplying the German military with food. The Danish state paid via a so called “Clearing Account” (see our footnotes on page 7 of the Danish underground publication “2 Years”) farmers and producers for everything, the Germans took.

The politicians chose full collaboration with the Nazis and Denmark was used by the propaganda as example of “friendly protective occupation”. The Danish police co-operated closely with the Nazis, and when the Communist Party of Denmark was sent underground on June 22nd 1941, they began a manhunt, which continued for years. The communists began building the resistance movement with underground press and sabotage. In 1943, the tide was turning and on August 29th, the collaborator government was forced to step down as result of intensified sabotage and a general strike. Until the Nazi capitulation, the underground “Freedom Council” was de facto the legitimate government.

In Norway, thanks to the quick response of the military forces defending Oslo fjord, the main German assault ship Blücher was sunk and the capture of Oslo was delayed by a few hours, allowing the Norwegian government and the Royal house to escape to Britain, to coordinate sabotage raids against the Nazi occupiers and to distribute the underground press in Norwegian from there.

On August 10, 1940, the Communist Party of Norway issued a call to intensify the fight against the German occupiers. In autumn of 1940, anti-Nazi demonstrations were held in Bergen, Trondheim and Sarpsborg.
Continue reading →

“Russian drunks and invaders.” How they thank us for the liberation in Denmark.

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 9 minutes

Has the memory of the soviet feat in WWII been completely erased in Europe? Georgy Zotov is a travelling correspondent of “Argumenty i Fakty”, reporting from various corners of the world.

10 years ago, in 2015, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory he visited several European countries taking the pulse of the historic memory. Back then, we translated many of those articles, and our readers can find them under the tag of Georgy Zotov.

This year, on the eve of the 80th anniversary, he takes a new sample of the level of the historic amnesia in the West.

The reality of the occupation of Denmark by the Germans is reflected in the Danish communist underground book “2 Years”, which we translated in its entirety, with many contextual footnotes. On page 7 there is the following illustration: In the picture we see green hands with a swastika grabbing the supplies. “Eggs” is written on the box. In the text below the picture it says: “- and then everything else.”

“Russian drunks and invaders.” How they thank us for the liberation in Denmark.

– by Georgy Zotov, April 2, 2025. All photographs in the article are by the author.

Inscription on the stella: “Eternal glory to the Russian strongmen, who fell in the battles with the German occupants.”

…An icy wind is blowing from the sea. It’s spring and understandably cold, but it’s amazing how this gloomy island is considered a resort in Denmark. The church and cemetery are located on a hill, the sky is covered with gray clouds. “Where can I buy flowers? I want to put them on the grave,” I ask my driver. “Flowers? There are no tourists here right now, man. They only sell beer.”

I walk up to the doorway. There used to be iron doors with the coat of arms of the USSR, but they have recently disappeared — I will explain why later. I walk to the obelisk with the red star, where the letters are embossed — “Eternal glory to the Russian strongmen, who fell in the battles with the German occupants”. 30 Soviet soldiers who participated in one of the last battles of the Second World War are buried here. On May 9, 1945, Red Army troops landed on Bornholm and captured 11,138 Wehrmacht soldiers. Later, there was a Soviet military base on the island, and it was under Soviet control until our troops left Denmark on April 5, 1946. Do the Danes have gratitude for their liberation, and how do they feel about the Red Army’s presence on Bornholm?

The Battle after the Victory

…First of all, I’ll tell you how it all happened. On May 4, 1945, German divisions surrendered to the British in Denmark. However, the British did not reach the Nazi garrison on Bornholm. Air defence and German Navy ships often opened fire on passing Soviet destroyers and planes flying by. The group on Bornholm hoped to cross to Copenhagen, and once there, surrender to the British — but at the same time they fired at the Red Army. The Soviet command issued an ultimatum to the German units on Bornholm demanding surrender. There was no response, so on May 7 and 8, airstrikes were carried out on the island, during which hundreds of Wehrmacht soldiers were killed. At 14:30 on May 9, 1945, five boats of the Soviet Navy entered the main port of Bornholm, Rønne, and landed an amphibious company. The Germans were told that if they tried to resist, the bombing would resume. The company occupied the telegraph office, the port management building, and cut the communication cables. Three hours later, the garrison in Rønne surrendered. Soviet aircraft sank 10 enemy ships trying to escape from Bornholm and shot down 16 German aircraft. All day there were skirmishes between the Red Army and the Germans, who were fleeing on transports and boats from the island — dozens of our soldiers died. On May 10, a barge was intercepted at sea, on which 800 German soldiers tried to escape.
Continue reading →

The text of Hitler’s statement on the extermination of Slavic peoples has been published in Russia for the first time.

Posted on by
3
Reading time: 8 minutes

At the site of History.rf, the “Russian Military Historic Society” and historian Yegor Yakovlev published for the first time an unknown until now speech of Adolf Hitler. The publication is from July 27, 2023.

This publication, this document is something that needs to be shown to the brainwashed Ukrainians, who are brought up with the idea that Hitler was the “liberator” of Ukraine, as we showcased in an earlier article Indoctrination of the Ukrainian children with the Nazi ideology!

We have newly presented another work by Yegor Yakovlev in the article “How falsification of history works in our reality”, a lecture by Yegor Yakovlev.

“My mission, if I succeed, is to destroy the Slavs,” Adolf Hitler said in a conversation with Romanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu. During their meeting in Berlin on November 27, 1941, Hitler openly declared plans for the genocide of the Slavs.

Yegor Yakovlev, an expert at the “Russian Military Historical Society” and head of the “Digital History” project, found the recording of the negotiations and translated its full text into Russian for the first time. The document is published on the portal HISTORY.RF. The original of the so-called “meeting record” is kept in the archives of the “National Council for the Study of Security Archives” in Bucharest.

Word to Yegor Yakovlev:

It was known earlier of the existence of such a document. Together with other captured materials, it was taken to Moscow and ended up in the archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. There, the Soviet historian Alexei Shevyakov, who was preparing the monograph “The Economic and Military-political Aggression of German Imperialism in Romania: 1936-1941”, managed to work with him. This book was published in 1963, and there, in a modest footnote, I saw for the first time quotes from the dialogue between Antonescu and Hitler about plans to destroy the Slavs. However, my appeal to the archive was unsuccessful: it turned out that in Hrushyov’s time a large body of documents, including those of interest to me, had been returned to Bucharest. Fortunately, in 2013, a recording of the negotiations between Hitler and Antonescu was published in the twelfth issue of the Romanian scientific journal “Zargidava”. The publication from the archives of the National Council for the Study of Security Archives in Bucharest was carried out by Gheorghe Buzatu, Professor of History at the University of Iasi, an ambiguous nationalist historian. Nevertheless, the document, introduced by him into scientific circulation, speaks for itself.

During Mihai Antonescu’s conversation with Adolf Hitler in Berlin on November 27, 1941, the Romanian leadership discussed issues that were of great concern. The first part of the recording is devoted to Romanian-Hungarian relations, which, despite the presence of both countries in the orbit of Nazi Germany, were extremely tense. In 1940, as a result of the Second Vienna Arbitration, Hungary took over Northern Transylvania from Romania with a mixed Romanian-Hungarian population. In this dispute, the Nazi leadership sided with the Hungarians, promising compensation to the Romanians at the expense of the USSR. However, despite these promises, the loss of Northern Transylvania was felt very painfully in Bucharest. Antonescu informed the Fuhrer about the severe discrimination of Romanians in the excluded region, asking him to intervene and achieve a “fair solution”.
Continue reading →

Reunification of the Left Bank of the Dnieper with Russia. With re-blog of a detailed article by Vladimir Putin.

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 30 minutes

Our re-blog of the publication by the Russian Foreign Ministry on the anniversary of the reunification of the Left Bank of the Dnieper with Russia, followed by the complete re-blog of an article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“.

A small linguistic/phonetic aside. The name “Khmelnitsky” is pronounced “Hmelnitsky” (with “h” sounding as in the word “home”); and “Hetmanate” is pronounced “Getmanate” (with “g” sounding as in the word “get”).

On April 6, 1654, Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia Alexey I Romanov, “The sole ruler of all Russia Great and Little”, granted his royal charter to Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The document secured the reunification of the Left Bank of the Dnieper with Russia.

In the late XVI and the early XVII century, all groups of the Orthodox population in the lands of Ancient Rus, controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, were subject to an increased religious and ethnic pressure from the Polish-Lithuanian gentry, which sought to fully assimilate local residents through a policy of Polonisation and Latinisation.

After the Union of Brest was adopted in 1596, a majority of Orthodox priests became subordinate to the Pope. Those who remained faithful to Orthodoxy became outcasts and were deprived of hierarchical leadership, since Metropolitan of Kiev Mikhail Rogoza had also joined the Greek Catholics.

Amid forced Catholicisation, the loss of noble titles and lands, and ongoing persecution, the local Orthodox population began searching for ways to escape oppression. All attempts to come to an agreement with the Polish king failed as the Polish gentry firmly refused to acknowledge the autonomy of the Orthodox Cossacks and nobility.

✊ In 1648, a major liberation movement was sparked, led by the renowned military and political leader Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The Cossacks rebelled against the Polish oppressors to defend their faith, identity, and the right to self-determination.

Recognising the need for a stronger alliance, Khmelnitsky made several appeals to Tsar Alexey I of Russia, requesting protection and support, and asking him to take the lands of the Hetmanate under “his royal hand”. In 1653, Hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky approached Tsar Alexey I, asking him to accept “all of Little Russia (Malorossiya) and the entire Zaporozhian Host into his eternal possession, allegiance, and protection” Later that year, in May, the Zemsky Sobor convened in Moscow, where an unequivocal decision was adopted in favour of the integration of Malorossiya into the Russian state.

On January 18, 1654, Pereyaslav Rada made a historic decision — the Zaporozhian Cossacks declared their allegiance to the Russian Tsar. On April 6, Tsar Alexey I of Russia signed the royal charter, which mentioned the Russian monarch’s title “the sole ruler of all Russia Great and Little” for the first time, emphasising the historical continuity of a unified state.

❗️ The Pereyaslav Agreement reflected a natural historical process of returning the ancient Russian lands to the unified Russian state and reuniting parts of a single nation, divided by civil strife and the Golden Horde yoke.

On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians

– Article by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, July 12, 2021

During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context. It is what I have said on numerous occasions and what I firmly believe. I therefore feel it necessary to explain my position in detail and share my assessments of today’s situation.
Continue reading →

The “Not an inch Eastward” NATO abomination is turning 76

Posted on by
2
Reading time: 17 minutes

At “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we are marking the sad date of the 76th year of NATO burdening the world with forever wars…

On the 76th anniversary of NATO

In Washington, on April 4th 1949, the foreign ministers of ten Western European countries together with the United States and Canada, signed an agreement on the creation of the military-political NATO bloc. In its 76 years of existence, this instrument of US imperialism has tormented humanity as world champion of children’s mass murder, destructor of nations, peoples, heritage. Creator of chaos and hunger, grief, loss and heartbreak, devastation and despair. A menace! An abomination!

One year ago, on the occasion of the 75-years jubilee, we wrote:

“We won’t send any congratulations.
But dear NATO, receive our deepest and most sincere wishes for a quick demise.”

Since then, mouths of the US MIC has forcefully been pushing for massive re-armament of European NATO countries to fill orderbooks and pockets of shareholder billionaires. Calling for war against a fake aggressor while salivating over the expected spoils of plunder, in no regard of the sanctity of life, in lack of anything human, serving only the dictum of profits; the classic strategy of crisis struck capitalism: Fascism.

Shaving the NATO sheep for the needs of the American MIC

Before you are two caricatures by the Soviet art collective “Kukryniksy” on the topic of the financial obligations of the NATO members before their American master.

The first caricature appeared in 1950 under the title “At the Marshallised Hairdresser. Standard hair-do”, referring to the “Marshall Plan”, which de-facto ensnared the whole of Western Europe in a financial net. The hapless members are sitting on the “Atlantic Treaty” bench, being shaved by Dean Acheson — the 51st Secretary of State in the Truman administration.

The British Ernest Bevin and the French Robert Schuman are already admiring their clean scalps, while the Italian Alcide De Gasperi is in the process of getting a new haircut. Next in line, tied by a single blanket, are the Be-Ne-Lux.

The illustration is from the “Kukryniksy 100 Years” Exhibition.

😈😈😈

The second image is a 1977 take by the “Kukryniksy” on the same topic. Now, the names of the individual politicians are gone, replaced by a single, all-tying NATO blanket. At the foot of the bench, the $-box has grown and turned into a whole sack, carrying a label “For the military needs”. And the shaving is done by the embodiment of the menacing-looking American Military-Industrial Complex.

The caricature is from the Kukryniksy artbook in The Shieldmaiden’s library, the book’s chapter with the title “Nuclear Maniacs”.

‼️ Here are several of the highly-relevant Soviet caricatures about NATO, which we showcased on our Telegram channel!
Continue reading →

Soviet film about a Nazi-German false flag operation – A fragment of a 1985 film “Confrontation”

Posted on by
1
Reading time: 2 minutes

You are about to watch a fragment of the 1985 film Confrontation, based on the novel by Julian Semyonov of the same name, written in 1979.

The film is a drama-documentary, intertwining documentary footage with a dramatised plot of the novel.


Backup at Rumble.

Julian Semoynov is known for the usage of archival materials in the research for his novels, and the episode you are about to watch could very well have a real-life prototype.

The antagonist of the story, Krotov, defects to the Germans in 1941 and serves them. In 1945, through murder, he manages to assume a different identity, and only another murder that he commits in the 1970s leads the investigators onto his trail.

The German false flag operation, detailed in the episode, is situated subsequent to the liberation of Krasnodar from the fascists, which happened on 13th of February 1943, resulting in the order by Hitler, issued the next day, on the evacuation and the driving westwards of the population.

The operation must have taken place within a time frame from Hitler’s order until the first time Soviet troops crossed into Eastern Prussia on the 17th of August 1944.

The parallell between the film episode and the events in Bucha was so striking that the following was posted by us on the 5th of April 2022 in the article Bucha massacre – the script from the German Nazi false flags of 1945; Killing of the Russian POWs by UkroNazis

The UkroNazis are nowhere as thorough as their German Nazi “colleagues” were, so today we see a lot of plot holes in the UkroReich narrative. Back in 1945, the Germans used converted, now collaborating, Russian POWs, dressed in Soviet uniforms to do the killing (promising those POWs freedom), but then executing them on the spot to make a picture of a battle, where the Soviets would have seemingly killed the civilians, only to be killed by the Germans. And then the “indignant civilised West” in the face of the Red Cross observers would be invited to witness and document the false flag, thinking it was for real.

April 1 — The Day of Price Reductions in Stalin’s Time

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 2 minutes

Stalingrad Pravda, April 1, 1953
“On the new reduction of the state retail prices for food and industrial goods”

Today at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we mark the true power of April the First – the day we were asked to forget!


Backup at Rumble.

On this day, every year, under Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, there was yet another price reduction for all basic types of food and industrial goods. The regular post-war Stalinist reduction of prices for products and industrial goods was carried out from 1947 to April 1, 1954.

And after Iosif Stalin passed away, the other government gradually curtailed the annual price drop, advertising April 1 as a Fool’s day.

Video source

But that is not all!

The CIA feared that the USSR would… reduce the working day

The Soviet Union proposed this measure and doubled the standard of living to solve the problems it was facing at the time, such as the lack of wage control, insufficient economic efficiency, and a shortage of urban labour. Why did it work? And why did it worry the U.S. so much?

In 1956, the USSR implemented a wage increase that, within a decade, increased from 250 rubles per month to 500 and 600 for rural and urban workers respectively. It also reduced the working week from 48 hours to 41 over four years, with a view to further reducing it to 35 by 1968.

At first, the CIA was not concerned because it believed that reducing working hours would limit Soviet production and productivity, but by 1961, it was deeply concerned (remember, we are in the midst of the Cold War) that not only had these conditions not been affected, but they had actually improved in most cases.

With the reduction in working hours, hourly output increased by 10.5% in three years and by 10% in four. Employees performed better because they arrived more rested, given their more free time. Unemployment decreased, as more labour had to be hired to fill the vacant hours.

The reduction of the workday also enabled Soviet innovation. Since managers could no longer rely on long hours, they were forced to find advanced methods and develop new and improved technology to shorten working hours. This boosted both light and heavy industry.

Material from elOJOen, with the source at the CIA

The anniversary of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, and an unexpected turn in the “Wild ’90s”

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 10 minutes

We shall start with the contents of the post from our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, where we marked the creation of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, and proceed to the translation of an article from “Argumenty i fakty” from July 23, 2019, which takes a deeper historical dive into the topic, as well as uncovers an unexpected twist from the “Wild ’90s”. The article also adds more touches to the portrait of the late Genndy Burbulis.

On March 31, 1940, at the sixth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Moscow, the law on the transformation of the Karelian ASSR into the Union Karelo-Finnish SSR was adopted.

Most of the territories acquired by the USSR under the Moscow Peace Treaty, which ended the Soviet-Finnish “winter” War (1939 – 1940), were transferred to the KFSSR.

At that time, the Karelo-Finnish SSR became the 12th Union Republic of the USSR, in connection with which amendments were made to the Constitution of the USSR. Petrozavodsk remained the capital of the KFSSR.

♦️♦️♦️

In 1954 – 1955, relations between Finland, headed by President J. K. Paasikivi, and the USSR, headed by N. S. Hrushyov, began to improve. In early 1956, Paasikivi refused to run for a new term, and Urho Kekkonen was elected president in March.

On January 1, 1956, the USSR prematurely returned the territory of Porkkala to Finland, which it had received under the peace treaty, approved Finland’s neutrality and did not prevent its entry into the UN.

On July 16, 1956, the KFSSR was officially downgraded to the ASSR and returned to the RSFSR. At the same time, the word “Finnish” (Karelian ASSR) was removed from its name. The transformation of the KFSSR into the Karelian ASSR was supposed to show that the USSR had no aggressive goals regarding Finnish independence, and at the same time put an end to attempts by Finnish politicians to re-raise the issue of redefining the borders and annexing the western regions of Karelia (the Karelian question).

Source

♦️♦️♦️

In retrospect, if such a change had not happened in 1956, Vyborg and Petrozavodsk would now be outside of Russia, while Murmansk would be in the position of Kaliningrad.

The price list of Burbulis. Was Russia going to sell Karelia to Finland?

In the early 1990s, Russia could lose Karelia. There was no talk of secession of the Russian region on the initiative of local authorities: the federal government was thinking of selling Karelia to neighbouring Finland.

15 billion for the “problem territory”

“The idea of selling Karelia back to Finland was an emergency decision by Russia due to lack of money in 1991,” writes Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, referring to the words of former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Fedorov.

According to Fedorov, in the summer of 1991, in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, a working group was formed, which included Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, Fedorov himself, as well as Boris Yeltsin’s adviser Gennady Burbulis. The group was engaged in compiling a list of regions with a high risk of the growth of nationalist sentiments and the strengthening of extremist movements, advocating their own autonomy. Karelia was also included in the number of high-risk zones, referring primarily to the territories annexed following the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940.

As Fedorov told Finnish journalists, Moscow was seriously considering selling the troubled territories for $15 billion, thereby replenishing the Russian treasury.
Continue reading →

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview for the No Statute of Limitations: The Front without a Frontline project, Moscow, March 30, 2025

Posted on by
Reply
Reading time: 5 minutes

A reblog of the interview, published on the site of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Question: Mr Lavrov, could you please explain why there are attempts today to downplay or even completely deny the role of the Red Army and the Soviet people in the victory over Nazism?

Sergey Lavrov: It is a traditional position of the West to seek to weaken its competitors. Europeans dominated for about 500 years, primarily because they sought to conquer as much land as possible and enslave as many people as possible. Essentially, all of humanity’s tragedies that occurred before 1939, including World War II, were triggered by Europeans. From colonialism, slavery, and the Turkish wars, to the First and Second World Wars, these were all attempts by various powers in Europe to suppress their competitors.

In fact, there is nothing new about competition. People and states have always competed with each other. But the methods used by Europe to suppress its competitors were horrendous. These instincts are deeply ingrained in today’s European society, particularly in the elites currently in power in most EU and NATO countries. Although there is growing opposition against such actions, these policies still persist.

The instincts of the ruling class in Europe are clearly evident in what is happening in Ukraine – the war that the West has unleashed against the Russian Federation, using the Kiev regime as its proxy and paving the way for its juggernaut with the bodies of Ukrainians. Just like Napoleon mobilised almost all of Europe during the Patriotic War of 1812, and Hitler, after conquering most of Europe, put the French, Spaniards, and a large part of the continent’s countries under arms, this is also happening now. The French conducted punitive operations, and the Spanish participated in the blockade of Leningrad. This is a well-known fact.

Therefore, we can see even today that almost all of Western Europe has been mobilised to try to prolong the existence of the Nazi Zelensky regime. Just like during Hitler’s era, this is being done under Nazi flags, with SS Totenkopf chevrons, etc, and so on.

If we were to honestly describe the West’s contribution to the development of humanity, we would get an unseemly picture. That is why they are attempting to whitewash their actions and the actions of their predecessors. It’s no coincidence that the rehabilitation of Nazism is becoming one of the cornerstones of the West’s position in international discussions. At least, they vote against the resolution that the Russian Federation, along with its allies, submits annually to the UN General Assembly. This resolution calls for preventing the glorification of Nazism and similar racist practices.

They cynically try to insert amendments into this resolution, equating Russia’s actions – liberating people from Nazi oppression during the special military operation – with Nazism. But these attempts have not been successful, and I am confident that they will not succeed.
Continue reading →

“How falsification of history works in our reality”, a lecture by Yegor Yakovlev

Posted on by
1
Reading time: 7 minutes

History can be rewritten. But it will remind you of itself with a new trouble, rooted in the forgotten past!

The quote of from our previous article The Hungarian “Revolt” of 1956 – a detailed historical look at the events, carrying an idea that we wish to explore more. In this article, we start with a lecture by Yegor Yakovlev on the topic of history rewriting, followed by several re-posts from Russian MFA, and from a friendly Telegram channel Baza.

How falsification of history works in our reality

🎙 Yegor Yakovlev, a prominent Russian historian and creator of Russia’s largest scientific and educational historical project, “Digital History,” explains in his lecture how history is often being manipulated becoming a powerful tool that serves one’s political agenda and goals. This is particularly evident in the West, with certain academicians and media pushing and shaping anti-historical and anti-factual narratives that serve the Western neoliberal elites’ agenda.


Backup at Rumble.

Yakovlev highlights several common techniques of historical falsification:

🔻 Distorting facts to fit a particular narrative;
🔻 Selective omission of inconvenient events;
🔻 Unjustly equating historical events;
🔻 Manipulating timelines to downplay certain events.

Through concrete examples Yegor Yakovlev challenges widespread fakes about Russia’s and Soviet Union’s history, including:

• The Kiev regime and Western ridiculous ahistorical attempts to label the 1932-1933 famine in the USSR as a genocide against the Ukrainian people by Soviet leadership;

• The selective focus on the Non-Aggression Treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany while ignoring the Munich Betrayal, which in fact boosted Nazi Germany’s expansionist policies, as well as constant Soviet attempts at creating an anti-Hitlerite coalition throughout the 1930s;

• The heinous false narrative that equates the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as equal aggressors in the outbreak of WWII, which distorts historical reality;

• Attempts to deny the Siege of Leningrad being a genocide, manipulating the timeline, facts & context of the events.

👉 Watch, learn & educate oneself to avoid being misled by Western and Neo-Nazi propaganda and fabrications that distort historical truth.

THE FALSIFIERS OF HISTORY WILL NOT WIN

The lies we are told about the history of Communism, so numerous, pervasive and conniving in their manufacture by ruling class agencies, will be easily dispelled in America the minute that history is concretely linked up with the struggles of today’s working class.
Continue reading →