Тени истории: События прошлого, которые помогают понять настоящее

When reading historical novels, monographs and articles, you must have experienced deja vu - the events described are so consonant with what happened in other eras, with a difference of tens or hundreds of years, and sometimes strikingly resemble events taking place here and now.
Historian Konstantin Gaivoronsky finds parallels both within the centuries-old history of our country, and between long-standing events in different countries and recent ones in Russia. For example, you will see how the situation with the annexation of Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia resembles the Crimean events of 2014.
The history of Russia begs for such a parallel, often repeating both in individual events and on a global scale: there were two Patriotic Wars in it - 1812 and 1941-1945, and two very similar modernization breakthroughs - Peter's and Stalin's, and two catastrophes associated with the fall of empires - Romanov and Soviet.
Of course, there are no absolute analogies, 100% coincidence in history. Nevertheless, such parallels make it possible to better understand the internal logic of Russian historical achievements, to see more clearly the alternative ways of development that once existed, to understand why we now live in such realities, and to think about what awaits us in the future.