More than a dozen pretenders appeared in Russia in the early seventeenth century, during the period of civil strife and foreign invasion known as the Time of Troubles. The most successful of these was the First False Dimitry, who occupied the throne in 1605-6; he was followed by Second and Third False Dimitrys, and by various other impostors. Maureen Perrie traces the careers of these pretenders and offers explanations of their success. She argues that support for the false tsars and tsareviches was influenced not only by the ingenious tales they told to justify their claims, but also by religious-miraculous notions of Christ-like rulers risen from the dead, and by 'popular monarchist' views of the true tsar as the scourge of the boyars. Her conclusion draws comparisons and contrasts between the Russian pretenders and royal impostors who appeared elsewhere in early modern Europe.

This work presents eleven studies in the field of Russian/Soviet economic and social history, which have been specially commissioned as a tribute to Professor R.W. Davies. Each chapter highlights a particular area of controversy, and illuminates the process of policy formation in this critical period of Soviet development. Together they provide an overview of the period 1917-1953.

How new parents in low-wage jobs juggle the demands of work and childcare, and the easy ways employers can help Low-wage workers make up the largest group of employed parents in the United States, yet scant attention has been given to their experiences as new mothers and fathers. Work Matters brings the unique stories of these diverse individuals to light. Drawing on years of research and more than fifteen hundred family interviews, Maureen Perry-Jenkins describes how new parents cope with the demands of infant care while holding down low-wage, full-time jobs, and she considers how managing all of these responsibilities has long-term implications for child development. She examines why some parents and children thrive while others struggle, demonstrates how specific job conditions impact parental engagement and child well-being, and discusses common-sense and affordable ways that employers can provide support. In the United States, federal parental leave policy is unfunded. As a result, many new parents, particularly hourly workers, return to their jobs just weeks after the birth because they cannot afford not to. Not surprisingly, workplace policies that offer parents flexibility and leave time are crucial. But Perry-Jenkins shows that the time parents spend at work also matters. Their day-to-day experiences on the job, such as relationships with supervisors and coworkers, job autonomy, and time pressures, have long-term consequences for parents' mental health, the quality of their parenting, and, ultimately, the health of their children. An overdue look at an important segment of the parenting population, Work Matters proposes ways to reimagine low-wage work to sustain new families and the development of future generations.

This first volume of the Cambridge History of Russia covers the period from early ('Kievan') Rus' to the start of Peter the Great s reign in 1689. It surveys the development of Russia through the Mongol invasions to the expansion of the Muscovite state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and deals with political, social, economic and cultural issues under the Riurikid and early Romanov rulers. The volume is organised on a primarily chronological basis, but a number of general themes are also addressed, including the bases of political legitimacy; law and society; the interactions of Russians and non-Russians; and the relationship of the state with the Orthodox Church. The international team of authors incorporates the latest Russian and Western scholarship and offers an authoritative new account of the formative 'pre-Petrine' period of Russian history, before the process of Europeanisation had made a significant impact on society and culture."

The Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) party gained an overall majority in the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly, which was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in January 1918. The SRs derived the bulk of their electoral support from the peasantry, and the gulf between the predominantly urban Bolshevik party and the rural masses was to create immense problems for the Soviet government in the 1920s, culminating in the horrors of forced collectivization. The SRs offered an alternative vision of the Russian peasant's path to socialism. They were closer to the peasantry than any other revolutionary party, and more aware of the problems involved in implementing a socialist transformation of Russian agriculture. In this study the author traces the development of SR agrarian policy in the party's formative years, from the period of disillusionment which followed the failure of the Populist 'movement to the people' of the 1870s, through the revolutionary years 1905 7, to the subsequent reaction under Stolypin.

Ivan the Terrible has long been a controversial figure. Some historians regard him as a crazed and evil tyrant; while others (especially Soviet scholars of the Stalin period) have viewed him as a progressive and far-sighted statesman. The folklore about Ivan has played an important part in these debates. Was Ivan’s depiction in folklore favourable or hostile? And how far can it be regarded as evidence of contemporary popular attitudes towards the tsar? In this unusual and far-ranging study, Maureen Perrie discusses the nature of Ivan’s image in Russian folklore; its historical basis; its development; and the controversies which have surrounded it in pre-revolutionary and Soviet Russian scholarship. She argues that Ivan was in general portrayed in folklore in a positive light, but that this image does not necessarily reflect sixteenth-century views.

More than a dozen pretenders appeared in Russia in the early seventeenth century, during the period of civil strife and foreign invasion known as the Time of Troubles. The most successful of these was the First False Dimitry, who occupied the throne in 1605-6; he was followed by Second and Third False Dimitrys, and by various other impostors. Maureen Perrie traces the careers of these pretenders and offers explanations of their success. She argues that support for the false tsars and tsareviches was influenced not only by the ingenious tales they told to justify their claims, but also by religious-miraculous notions of Christ-like rulers risen from the dead, and by 'popular monarchist' views of the true tsar as the scourge of the boyars. Her conclusion draws comparisons and contrasts between the Russian pretenders and royal impostors who appeared elsewhere in early modern Europe.

Based on a True Story Memoirs of a Battered Woman She found courage to leave taking her five children with her. She made it and so can you.

This is the first major re-assessment of Ivan the Terrible to be published in the West in the post-Soviet period. It breaks away from older stereotypes of the tsar A whether as Acrazed tyrantA and Aevil geniusA, on the one hand, or as a Agreat and wise statesmanA, on the other A to provide a more balanced picture. It examines the ways in which IvanAs policies contributed to the creation of RussiaAs distinctive system of unlimited monarchical rule.

Ivan is best remembered for his reign of terror, the book pays due attention to the horrors of his executions, tortures and repressions, especially in the period of the oprichnina (1565-72), when he mysteriously divided his realm into two parts, one of which was under the direct control of the tsar and his oprichniki (bodyguard). This work argues that the often gruesome forms assumed by the terror reflected not only IvanAs personal cruelty and sadism, but also his religious views about the divinely ordained right of the tsar to punish his treasonous subjects, just as sinners were punished in Hell.

Primarily chronological in its organisation, the book focuses on three main aspects of IvanAs power: the territorial expansion of the state, the mythology, rituals and symbols of monarchy; and the development of the autocratic system of rule.