Revolution, Reaction, Reform

[Lord Baal]

If my damn computer wasn't playing up I could have answered this earlier.

That's another good idea. Are you referring to his 1993 coup to expand presidential powers? There is a whole wealth of great stuff associated with the fall of the Soviet Union.

That's what I'm referring to, yes. Yeltsin's coup very nearly kicked off a full-blown civil war in a modern, nuclear nation. That would have been a fun time for everyone involved.

But surely something as well-known and documented as Jewish revolts would likely have various secondary sources decoding and analyzing the biases of Josephus, wouldn't they? Also as a bonus, I have a copy of Josephus with me.

The problem with the Jewish revolts is that Josephus's writings on the subject are the only contemporary sources that deal with the revolts from the Jewish side. He's also easily the best source for the Roman side, having been captured by the Romans early on. Later, he became a willing collaborator of Titus's. Every other text on the subject is derived from his in some form, in much the same way that every single story about the Chinese general Sunzi (Sun-Tzu) is based on a single written account. We know there were sources other than Josephus's, but they're long gone, and every other extant source is also derived from him. It makes truly accurate scholarship difficult, as the man was obviously biased.

Russia is quite the fertile ground for this project! I think the period fits well too, and it seems unlikely it would be replicated. I know jack-squat about any of this stuff too, and that's something of a con but that could be surmounted

Do yourself a favour and read about the voyage of the Russian Baltic Fleet from the Baltic Sea to the Sea of Japan. It was known amongst the crews as "the voyage of the damned," and with good reason. One of the truly hilarious events in military history.

 

[citedon]

The Hungarian revolution or uprising of 1956 might be a good topic. Very few people outside of Hungary even remember it today, but it kept most of the world enthrallrd at the time. It only lasted about a month which might help you keep the paper at 2500 words or less and did have some significant consequences such as some very negative PR for the Soviets. Also the Soviet reaction to it resulted in a tightening of their grip on the other occupied Eastern European countries. I would imagine that you could easily find a lot of good information to use also.

 

[Verbose]

The Hungarian revolution or uprising of 1956 might be a good topic. Very few people outside of Hungary even remember it today, but it kept most of the world enthrallrd at the time. It only lasted about a month which might help you keep the paper at 2500 words or less and did have some significant consequences such as some very negative PR for the Soviets. Also the Soviet reaction to it resulted in a tightening of their grip on the other occupied Eastern European countries. I would imagine that you could easily find a lot of good information to use also.

Did it really get that kind of attention? One of the things often said, at least, is that as it coincided with Suez, the world's attention was at least divided, and how the Soviets dealt with Hungary didn't necessarily get the lion's share. It might be that the Soviets got a freer hand than it otherwise would, if the would hadn't been distracted elsewhere. If pursued as a subject for a paper, that might be an aspect of how the situation developed of course.

 

[Lord Baal]

The negative publicity from Suez completely overshadowed events in Hungary at the time, and the hypocrisy shown by Western states (particularly Britain and France) in denouncing the Soviet actions there while simultaneously precipitating the Suez Crisis did serious damage to the West's image. The Soviets didn't suffer that much bad press at all, as that sort of behaviour towards an uppity client-state was to be expected.

 

[Tee Kay]

The events did split the Left west of the Iron Curtain though.

 

[Dachs]

I'd support a plan to write up something on Ottoman (neo)constitutionalism in the prewar period, but most of the discussion in this thread skewed the other way.

 

[innonimatu]

If you want something that's well-researched but has very little written about it, you could write about Yeltsin's coup in the Russian Federation. I'd never heard of it until a few days ago, despite living through it. The media outside of Russia just completely glossed it over, because Yeltsin was their boy.

Wow! I'm sure I mentioned it a few times around here! Knew it was obscure, but never though it was so much.

 

[Lord Baal]

Wow! I'm sure I mentioned it a few times around here! Knew it was obscure, but never though it was so much.

I honestly thought Yeltsin was a really good president who was hit with an economic crisis that wasn't really his fault, because that's what the media over here reported. Having now done a little research into the topic, I discover that Yeltsin was possibly the single worst head-of-state in Russian history. And that covers a hell of a lot of ground. He is also pretty much solely responsible for the post-Soviet Russian economic collapse.

 

[Yui108]

So sorry for the delay, but I decided on doing the Ottoman Constitutional/Young Turk Revolution. We are supposed to fill out something like this:

Theme: Revolution, Reaction, Reform
Topic: Conservative and liberal agitation in Ottoman Empire
Interest: Ottoman Empire at turn of 20th Century
Issue: Ottoman Constitutional Revolution


so now I'm supposed to start digging into sources. Does anyone have some reading they can recommend?