Between 1770 and 1772, Moscow saw a virulent outbreak of the Black Death, one of the most feared diseases in European history: Dr Afanasii Shafonskii was tasked with battling this epidemic. In this episode, we follow the plague's progress as it caused death, deprivation, and revolt in Russia's biggest city.
The principal source for this episode and all of the quotes is: J. T. Alexander, Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
Everyone in the late Russian Empire was in agreement: the country had a vodka problem. But what were its causes and how should it...
In this episode, we examine the history of lèse-majesté (insulting the honour of the tsar, his family, and his image) in imperial Russia through...
Abandoned in 1852 when scarcely two weeks old, Vasilii Gerasimov ultimately became a child worker at the Kreenholm cotton factory, where he worked for...
