Primary Sources
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Romania and Its Neighbors
One of the more challenging parts of teaching Romania is the relative unfamiliarity of many Americans with the geography of the places in Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans. Having some grounding in 'where' things are happening leads to better understanding of why and how things are happening. Thus, a good place to begin any study of Eastern Europe is to show students a map of the….
45 Years is Enough!
While the world watched the events in Berlin, another Soviet ally in East-Central Europe suddenly collapsed: On November 9-10, after three-and-a-half decades in power, Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov was unceremoniously dumped. This poster - a map of the Bulgarian gulag - was circulated by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces during the spring 1990 election….
Commonwealth of Independent States, Map 1994
This map outlines the political territories that took the place of the Soviet Union after 1991. The fifteen republics of the USSR became fifteen independent states: Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldavia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The boundary lines etched onto the Soviet map remained intact, but now….
Soviet Administrative Map, 1989
This map describes the administrative structure of the Soviet Union. The fifteen Soviet federative socialist republic provided one division along national lines, yet this map also demonstrates how each region was further divided into territorial units. In some cases, these lines were based on ethnic divisions. As this map indicates, national identity in the Soviet Union was an administrative as….
Soviet Nationalities Map, 1989
This map offers a different representation of the same information as in Document 1. In this case, the population distribution of each Soviet republic is depicted in the pie charts and in the accompanying table. While republics such as Armenia, Lithuania, or Belorussia had a majority of one nationality within their borders, in other republics, such as Latvia, Kazakhstan, or Kirghizstan, the….
Soviet Map, 1982
This map provides one representation of the national composition of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. As the distribution of colors indicates, each of the major ethnic groups occupied specific regions of the country. Although the different ethnicities were concentrated in specific regions, it is also clear that the entire country was multinational. The distribution of ethnic groups shown….
Soviet Nuclear Reactors in Eastern Europe
On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine led to the radioactive contamination of the surrounding countryside and to radioactive fallout throughout Eastern and Western Europe. The radiation released from the explosion was 100 times that of atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 30 to 35 million acres of land were irradiated; this land was home to….
Radiation Contamination after the Chernobyl Disaster
On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine led to the radioactive contamination of the surrounding countryside and to radioactive fallout throughout Eastern and Western Europe. In a test of the new Soviet policy of glasnost' (openness), Soviet authorities acknowledged the disaster, though only after Western countries had traced the radiation source to….
Ethnic Groups in Yugoslavia
In 1990, the Yugoslav Communist Party divided into several separate parties, one for each of the six Yugoslav Republics. Tensions among the ethnic groups of Yugoslavia, divided among the republics, led to an outbreak of a civil war by 1991. This map demonstrates the complexity of the Yugoslav situation, as few of the republics were populated by just one ethnic group. This is especially….