History Sphere Podcast

The Guerilla forces who faced the Red Army in Afghanistan have been defined in various lights. To some, they were the heroic defenders of Afghanistan's freedom. To others, they were bloodthirsty terro...

17 Sep 202433min

The war in Afghanistan was a bridge between the old Soviet Union and the new Russia. The soldiers of the Red Army who fought in it came from every republic and region of the USSR, and the war left an ...

2 Sep 202432min

Between 1973 and 1979, there were three violent coups in Afghanistan, generating a crisis that culminated in the full-scale Soviet invasion of the country. It would be a war with few, if any, redeemin...

27 Aug 202443min

Afghanistan is a country at the crossroads of the world. Just about every major Eurasian Empire has been entangled in Afghan affairs at some point. The history of Afghanistan brings clarity not just t...

19 Aug 202435min

The Soviet Union was an officially and aggressively atheist state. However, religious traditions were strongly rooted among the peoples of the USSR. Even amidst an atmosphere of persecution, various C...

5 Aug 202436min

As Brezhnev pushed back against the reforms of his predecessor, members of the Soviet intelligentsia who had been inspired by the Khrushchev thaw, refused to be silenced. By the 1970's, underground hu...

31 Jul 202432min

When the Soviet Union and several Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, it put an end to the reforms of the Prague Spring. However, it also fractured the Communist World, leading Albania ...

24 Jul 202436min

The Brezhnev era was, socially and politically, the most stable in the history of the USSR. However, it is also the period in which its economic decline accelerated. The complete collapse of the 80's ...

15 Jul 202431min