Videos
"Failed Decolonisation: Russia, Ukraine and Vladimir Putin," Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture, The University of Melbourne, 19 May 2022.
Part II of the Melbourne Eurasianist Seminar Series (MESS) on Russia’s War on Ukraine: History (featuring Olga Bertelsen, Oxana Shevel, and Serhy Yekelchyk, moderated by me on 29 April 2022.
‘Soviet History with Ukraine Left In: What Difference did Independence Make to the Writing of Soviet History?’ Keynote at Conference of Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand, 3-5 February 2022, The University of Melbourne.
Stalin in the Summer of 1941: A Drama in Three Acts. Short online lecture to commemorate the start of the German-Soviet war, 80 years ago, on 22 June 1941. The lecture is an edited excerpt from a longer article to be published by the Russian journal Neprikosnovennyi zapas as part of a special issue commemorating the start of the German-Soviet war of 1941–45 (a discussion of the issue is here). The lecture zooms in on the earliest days of the war. It observes up close Stalin’s behaviour between the German invasion on 22 June and a crisis of confidence the dictator suffered on 29 June.
How World War 2 Nations Mobilised Their Economies for War, Timeline – World History Documentaries (7 March 2021)
Stalinism at War. Interview on my forthcoming book with Uketube (11 February 2021).
Australian Centre for Public History, Movies on Monday Public History Hour: "The Death of Stalin" (2017) 25 May 2020.
Interview with Sky News on constitutional shakeup in Russia. 21 January 2020.
Interview with ABC News Breakfast on 6 June 2019. During the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy we should not forget the decisive contribution the Red Army made to the defeat of Nazism.
My keynote address at the National Conference of the History Teachers' Association of Australia (convened by the ACT HTA), 2 October 2018. Filmed and recorded by HTA NSW on behalf of ACT HTA and HTAA.
Interview with ABC News 24 on Skripal case and expulsion of Russian diplomats. 27 March 2018
The Russian Revolution of 1917 and World History: A Centenary Reflection | 6 April 2017 | La Trobe University
Audio
Ukraine’s most difficult days since the start of Russia’s invasion. ABC Radio National Saturday Extra (Geraldine Doogue). 9 December 2023.
Why Putin went to war. ABC Radio National Sunday Extra (Julian Morrow). 20 August 2023.
Putin is an ageing macho with a history obsession. Interview for New Books Network (Tim Gwynn Jones) 13 August 2023.
What’s behind Putin’s war in Ukraine? ABC RN Breakfast (Patricia Karvelas), joint interview with Mark Galeotti (UCL) 6 December 2022.
How the war in Ukraine will end. 7am podcast, 29 March 2022.
Vladimir Putin: Who is the man behind the power? Interview by Rebecca Levingston on ABC radio, 25 February 2022.
Interview with Martin Crotty, Neil Diamant, and myself on our book The Politics of Veteran Benefits in the Twentieth Century (Cornell 2020) in Wesley Livesay’s History of the Second World War podcast, October 2021.
Long interview with Jonathon Dallimore of the HTANSW on my new book Debates on Stalinism (June 2020)
Contribution to the 2020 School of Historical and Philosophical Studies (SHAPS) podcast series on Disaster and Change. I reflect on the Soviet case of World War II to answer the question if calamities trigger political change.
Why and how the Soviet Union won the Second World War in Europe. University of Melbourne, Faculty of Arts, Dean’s Lecture series 2018.
More information on the event introducing Tony Kevin's book Return to Moscow (see link above). My comments were cut significantly, and these edits have not been acknowledged in the recording. My critique of the book was, as a result, significantly weakened. My complete comments, with the deleted sections reproduced in bold type, can be accessed here.
Update on the above, 13 December 2017. On 12 December 2017, the National Security Archive published declassified documents which do show that Gorbachev received assurances that NATO would not expand. These never made it into treaties, but these documents do falsify Mark Kramer's research on which I drew in my comments. I stand corrected on this issue.
Inside Story
Russia’s failed Syrian bluff. Is Vladimir Putin’s global strategy about to collapse under its own weight? Inside Story, 11 December 2024.
Unhealthy ambitions (review of Sergey Radchenko’s history of the Soviet Cold War). Inside Story, 12 September 2024.
Russia’s war against Ukraine: a longer view. Inside Story, 22 February 2024.
Writing the history of the present. Russia’s war against Ukraine is generating a rich historiography. Inside Story, 21 November 2023.
Russia's war against Ukraine: an eighteen-month stocktake. Inside Story, 22 August 2023.
Eastern Europe’s Faultline. A distinguished historian uses one family’s story to illuminate the borderland between Europe and Russia. Inside Story, 21 March 2023.
“It’s NATO, stupid!” Two new books disagree about the origins of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Inside Story, 22 November 2022.
Do Leaders matter? It depends, says historian Ian Kershaw. Inside Story 15 November 2022.
The long war of Soviet succession. Inside Story 19 September 2022.
‘Better to Lose Australia.’ Sean McMeekin’s new account of Stalin’s war will suit Vladimir Putin very well. Inside Story 25 May 2021.
The Saturday Paper
How the war in Ukraine will end. The Saturday Paper (No. 392), 26 March - 1 April 2022.
Inside Vladimir Putin’s paranoia. The Saturday Paper (No. 389), 5-11 march 2022.
The Age
Has Putin stumbled badly over the treatment of Alexei Navalny? Online 21 April 2021.
Timothy Snyder puts the blame on Vladimir Putin. 27 July 2018.
The Australian
History sheds little light on Prigozhin affair. The Australian (28 June 2023).
The Conversation
Has Russia contained the Prigozhin threat? Its long history of managing violent mercenaries suggests so. The Conversation 24 July 2023
Is NATO to blame for the Russo-Ukrainian war? It’s complicated, explains historian Serhii Plokhy [review of Plokhy’s The Russo-Ukraine War (Allan Lane, 2023). The Conversation 24 May 2023.
Essentialising 'Russia' won't end the war against Ukraine. Might 'real and credible' force be the answer? [review of Russia’s War on Everybody. An What it Means for You. By Keir Giles. London: Bloomsbury, 2023]. The Conversation 22 February 2023)
5 must-read books about Russia and Ukraine: our expert picks The Conversation (25 March 2022), with Judith Armstrong, Julie Fedor, Marko Pavlyshyn, and Stephen Fortesue. The Conversation (25 March 2022).
World politics explainer: the Russian revolution. The Conversation (12 October 2018).
No laughing matter: Armando Ianucci's The Death of Stalin reveals the anxieties of team Putin. The Conversation (26 March 2018)
Friday essay: Putin, memory wars and the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution, 17 February 2017
Russia still struggles with a violent past, 70 years after the defeat of Nazism, 7 May 2015
Other print media
Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History: A contribution to Decolonizing Soviet History. With Rebecca Friedman. NewsNet 62, No. 4 (2022).
What History Can Really Teach Us. Pursuit. The University of Melbourne, 7 June 2019.
The Battle of Kursk: 75 Years On. Pursuit. The University of Melbourne. 13 July 2018.
No laughing matter: The Death of Stalin and Putin's Anxieties. Russia's ban on the movie reveals how much the Kremlin fears losing its grip on power. Pursuit. The University of Melbourne. 26 March 2018.
The legacies of the "Russian" Revolution(s): World War II. OUP Blog. 4 December 2017.
Is the Russian Revolution Over yet? Pursuit. The University of Melbourne 8 November 2017.
1917-й столетие спустя, или Почему нас должна заботить русская революция. Russian translation of the ABR review essay on new English-language books on 1917. Published in НЕПРИКОСНОВЕННЫЙ ЗАПАС № 115 (5/2017).
Война окончена, всем спасибо. Почему совесткая власть не спешила воздать должное ветеранам, May 2017. Mikhail Karpov for lenta.ru discusses with Mark Edele his 2008 monograph Soviet Veterans of the Second World War: A Popular Movement in an Authoritarian Society, 1941-1991. The article also contains a series of reader comments.
Australian Book Review
Murky Worlds: A Careful Study of the Cold War. March 2020.
'A Century after 1917: Why Should You Care about the Russian Revolution?' October 2017
'Stalin and the Scientists: A History of triumph and tragedy 1905–1953' by Simon Ings, April 2017
'The Romanovs: 1613-1918' by Simon Sebag Montefiore, September 2016
'The Conflict in Ukraine: What everyone needs to know' by Serhy Yekelchyk, May 2016
'On Stalin's Team' by Sheila Fitzpatrick, April 2016
'Stalin, Volume I' by Stephen Kotkin and 'Stalin' by Oleg V. Khlevniuk, November 2015