The years that surrounded the turn of the twentieth century were marked by wide ranging artistic experimentation and innovation. Influenced by the sights and sounds introduced through recent technological creations such as automobiles, airplanes, and the cinema, artists of all genres began to incorporate the new sensations of speed, dynamism, and simultaneity into their creative [...]

A: The Wright brothers, of course.
Although it’s the sort of thing that any American grade-school student should know, the answer to the question “Who invented the airplane?” hasn’t always (or everywhere) been so.
Had that same question been posed to a Soviet citizen, he (or she) would most likely have responded with a name you’ve probably [...]

By the early 1960s, Soviet citizens could boast that their country not only possessed the world’s largest transport plane, the Tupolev Tu-114, but that the state airline company Aeroflot also operated the world’s longest non-stop passenger run with its service between Havana, Cuba and Moscow.
What was it like to fly the Soviet skies at [...]

Twenty years ago Monday, a nineteen-year-old West German named Mathias Rust shocked the world by landing a rented Cessna 172B near Moscow’s Red Square following a six-hour flight from Helsinki.
As this article in today’s Moscow Times notes, the last two decades have been almost as tumultuous for Rust as they have been for Russia. [...]

In yesterday’s issue of Kommersant, Sergei Minaev, a regular contributor to the newspaper’s weekly analytical supplement Власть (Vlast’), published a noteworthy piece on the propensity of Russian citizens and statesmen to measure what happens in their country by the yardstick of foreign standards. Titled, “Half a Century in Pursuit,” the article is a brief history [...]

In the clearest sign yet that the concept of irony is often wasted on state officials, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today rebuked foreign governments that attempt to re-write history in order to serve contemporary political ends.
In a televised appearance at a ceremony honoring Russian diplomats who died during the Great Patriotic War (i.e. World [...]

For eight days in late August 1909, the city of Reims, France played host to Le Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne one of the first and most successful air shows of the new age of flight. The Reims Air Show riveted European attention on the airplane, awakened the public to the reality of flight, [...]

For the last two weeks, H-Russia (a list serv/discussion board catering largely to academics and graduate students) has hosted a lively debate regarding utility of the term “backwardness” in studying and describing the history of Russia. The discussion emerged out of a previous thread devoted to foreign travelers’ accounts of Russia, many of which (like [...]

In the early spring of 2005, a Scottish art collective known as Henry VIII’s Wives launched a new project in homage to one of the twentieth century’s greatest avant-garde works: “Tatlin’s Tower.” Their ongoing project proposes

to build the Tower, full size from steel girders and guy wires. It will be built in sections, [...]