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Earthquakes, nuclear accidents, and floods were among the many unexpected tragedies that struck the Soviet Union over its history. Requiring the immediate mobilization of vast resources and aid, and embedded within a specific context and time, these catastrophes provide critical insights into the nature of the twentieth-century Communist state. All Shook Up takes a close look at the representation in film, the political repercussions, and the social opportunities of large-scale catastrophes in separate Soviet epochs, including the 1927 earthquake in the Crimean peninsula, the 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat, the Tashkent earthquake in 1966, the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, and the Armenian earthquake in 1988. Juxtaposing various disaster responses and demonstrating the ways both Soviet authorities and citizens molded them to their own cultural needs, Nigel Raab highlights the radical shifts in disaster policy from one leader to the next. Given the opportunity to act outside regular parameters, Soviet residents not only rebuilt their devastated cities, but also experimented with new values and crafted their own worldview while the state struggled to return the situation to normal. Based on archival research conducted in Russia and Ukraine, All Shook Up fills a gap in a global literature and challenges stereotypical representations of the Soviet Union as a monolithic state.Earthquakes, nuclear accidents, and floods were among the many unexpected tragedies that struck the Soviet Union over its history. Requiring the immediate mobilization of vast resources and aid, and embedded within a specific context and time, these catastrophes provide critical insights into the nature of the twentieth-century Communist state. All Shook Up takes a close look at the representation in film, the political repercussions, and the social opportunities of large-scale catastrophes in separate Soviet epochs, including the 1927 earthquake in the Crimean peninsula, the 1948 earthquake in Ashgabat, the Tashkent earthquake in 1966, the Chernobyl explosion in 1986, and the Armenian earthquake in 1988. Juxtaposing various disaster responses and demonstrating the ways both Soviet authorities and citizens molded them to their own cultural needs, Nigel Raab highlights the radical shifts in disaster policy from one leader to the next. Given the opportunity to act outside regular parameters, Soviet residents not only rebuilt their devastated cities, but also experimented with new values and crafted their own worldview while the state struggled to return the situation to normal. Based on archival research conducted in Russia and Ukraine, All Shook Up fills a gap in a global literature and challenges stereotypical representations of the Soviet Union as a monolithic state.

Nineteenth-century commentators often claimed that Russia burned to the ground every thirty years. In an empire whose cities were built of wood, firefighters had a visible presence throughout Russia’s urban centres and became politically active across the country. Democracy Burning? studies the political, cultural, and social values of volunteer firefighters and reveals the ways in which their public organizations cooperated with the authoritarian state.

In The Crisis from Within, Nigel Raab explores weaknesses that emerge when using interdisciplinary theories in historical analysis. With chapters that focus on knowledge, language, memory, imagining and inventing, and civil society, the analysis reveals how theoretical applications can be the source of interpretive confusion.By drawing from a global range of historical works, Nigel Raab demonstrates how this problem concerns all historical sub-fields. From science in the seventeenth century to communism in the twentieth century, theories often overdetermine analysis in a way the historian never intended. After the enthusiastic reception of theory for over a generation, The Crisis from Within argues that the time has come to pause and think seriously about how we wish to proceed with theory.

On 15 May 1985, a radio station in Kyiv announced that the Kyiv Hydroelectric Dam had burst open and that there was a high risk of catastrophic flooding. The announcement came across the airwaves as follows: “The headquarters of the civil defence of the city of Kyiv is speaking. The headquarters of the civil defence of the city of Kyiv is speaking ... There is a threat of catastrophic flooding. There is a threat of catastrophic flooding ... As a result of the breach of the dam at the Kyiv Hydroelectric Station, there is a risk of short-term flooding along

In the 1920s, the new Soviet authorities had to overcome a number of hurdles before they could solidify the new state. In 1917, the Bolsheviks had successfully put an end to the Imperial government, but by the start of the 1920s they were still fighting a civil war against resilient opponents. Once the civil war ended, social and economic peace did not follow military peace. The Bolsheviks emerged victorious from the civil war and silenced their Menshevik critics, but they were not in a position to impose a full-fledged communist program while the country suffered the aftermath of this war.

In the first week of 1966, the capital of Uzbekistan became the home of intense diplomatic discussions between the leaders of Pakistan and India. Aleksei N. Kosygin, the premier of the Soviet Union, had invited President Mohammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan and Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri of India to resolve their conflict over disputed territory in the Kashmir region. The Soviets were taking steps to increase their involvement in South Asian diplomacy. To this end, Soviet officials made extensive preparations to ensure equal treatment of the esteemed guests. Indeed, Soviet efforts at neutral diplomacy reached comical proportions.¹ Upon arrival,

By 1966, the Soviets already had experience with major urban reconstruction projects. In the more creative atmosphere of the 1920s, constructivist architects combined innovative building plans with revolutionary values to make their impact in the new communist capital, though mostly at the level of individual buildings.¹ After the end of the New Economic Policy and the drive to industrialization at the end of the decade, urban changes became even bolder. In the Urals, foreign and domestic architectural planners designed Magnitogorsk, a great industrial city built from scratch.² Moscow had a new subway built and experienced such heavy construction that, in

By the summer of 1988, the Chernobyl disaster was already two years old. After Chernobyl, the Central Committee and related ministries had refused to consider public opinion; to feed the energy needs of a powerful state, it wanted to forge ahead with plans that had been developed in the Brezhnev years. Yet the political and social situations were changing faster than officials in Moscow could grasp. Scientists and activists had had their first public meeting in the Crimean peninsula to mobilize opinion against the government’s plan to finish construction of a nuclear power plant there. At the Chernobyl reactor, the