25 November 2008

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)


This is a confession of Americans on how they created the Taliban. According to this movie, American congressman distributed weapons worth 1billion dollars worth to the local Afgan guerrillas in order to support them against the Soviet Union in 80s Afgan-Soviet war.
IMDB link is here but i did not find anything interesting in this movie.

Book Review: M.Kemal - M.Frunze Gorusmeleri



This thin book is on meetings of Frunze with M.Kemal on his visit to Turkey. In fact only 10 pages of the book contains the meeting info. The book starts with an overview of Turk-Soviet relations of that time and factors that lead to Frunze's visit from Ukraine, continues with meetings which is in fact the book title and ends with lots of documents. The book can be found here . Well...if you are really on this subject this can be for you, otherwise not very useful.

24 November 2008

The Cuban Missile Crisis Declassified - History Channel


Just like any other History Channel documentary nothing is declassified, all already well known shallow information makes this so-called documentary. Anyway it is still a resource of information about US-Soviet missile crisis at Cuba in 1962. From docuwiki as always.

23 November 2008

Ivan's Childhood (1962) by Tharkovsky

Ivan is a 12 year old child who is a spy for Russian army during WWII against the Germans. Although IMDB point is 8.1 I still did not like it very much. Anyway I also did not like Zerkalo, which is considered as masterpiece of Tharkovsky on many sites,so the problem is maybe me:)
Can be found here.

All the Russias - A Musical Journey


Another documentary from docuwiki.net on the history and culture of Russia. The documentary is consisted of 4 episodes of one hour each.

22 November 2008

2 Photos


Ataturk and Voroshilov.













Ataturk and Ismet Inonu with Aralov [Soviet Ambassador to Turkey] and Aboliv [Azerbaycan Ambassador to Turkey] .Note the red-starred cap of the soldier the between Ataturk and Inonu

Red Star In Orbit


Red Star in Orbit is a 3 episode documentary each 60mins. I found it on docuwiki. The same site states that it has won 3 awards.
  • EMMY for "Outstanding Historical Programming".
  • Chicago Film Festival - Silver Plaque.
  • "The Mission " Prix de Reportage, Jules Vernes Prize, Paris.
The documentary is on history of Soviet Space program, research steps, failures and successes.

The is also a corresponding book on amazon.com with the same name.

Book Review: Sovyet Yuzyili



Sovyet Yuzyili is a 500 page huge book on History of Soviet Unionby Mosche Lewin. The book clearly stated now inefficient, wasteful, highly bureaucratized was the Soviet state.
The books starts with a big coverage of Stalin era, his great mass terror and its effects on the Soviet ruling class and party.
Khrushchev reforms are investigated and Andopov era is briefly discussed Brejnev era is not detailed in a separate topic but overall book claims the corruption of that era. It is interesting that book covers Molotov, Mikoyan, Gryimko and others but no mention of Beria.
I bealive that the original book cover is far better than the Turkish translation.

Book Review: Kurtuluş Savaşında Bolşeviklerle Sekiz Ay 1920-1921


This book is memoirs of Major Veysel Unuvar during national independence wat at the eastern front. Due to close Soviet-Turk relationships those days they were operating with Soviet troots, the books tells how the Soviet troops were playing for both sides and trying to trick Turks to help Armeians.
This 100 page small book is an easy read for anyone who is interested in history, especially history of Turkish national independence war.

21 November 2008

Ismet Pasa documentary by Can Dundar


Can Dundar is on the news with another documentary these days, Mustafa, a documentary-movie on Mustafa Kemal Ataturk but I found another documentary of him on rapidshare.The upper photo is Ismet Pasa with Stalin

Ismet Pasa is another documentary by Can Dundar,the very best friend of Ataturk,great commander of Turkish Armies in national independence war and second President of Turkey after Ataturk's death.
This documentary contains very rare shootage of Turkish committee headed by Inonu to the USSR. Below is the photo of Inonu with Molotov.