Iain MacGregor is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and author of The Lighthouse of Stalingrad (Constable)
Victory over Japan Day – VJ Day – falls today, 15 August being the day in 1945 that Emperor Hirohito spoke to his people for the very first time to inform them of the country’s submission to the allies’ Potsdam declaration of unconditional surrender. Eighty years on, it will be an occasion shrouded in both
Eighty years on, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima continues to provoke fierce debate, reflection, and deep moral inquiry. How did the thirteen men aboard the Enola Gay – the US aircraft that delivered the bomb that killed at least 150,000 people – live with the knowledge of what they had done? The morning of 6
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery reports on the rise of luxury watch thefts in London (1:18); Melanie McDonagh discusses the collapse of religion in Scotland (5:51); reflecting on the longevity of Diane Abbott and what her selection row means for Labour, Matthew Parris argues that shrewd plans need faultless execution (10:44); Iain MacGregor
‘We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime… Any man or state who fights against Nazism will have our aid.’ These words were spoken by Winston Churchill in a BBC radio broadcast to the nation from Chequers on the evening of 22 June 1941. Churchill detested Stalin – but he
A year before Russia launched its brutal campaign to subjugate Ukraine, I visited a wintry Moscow. It was striking to see how far the capital had moved away from celebrating the cult of the old communist leadership that had dominated the then Soviet Union with an iron fist. The tomb of Lenin by the Kremlin
Ukrainian and Russian forces have been locked in either dogged stalemate or vicious urban fighting for towns and cities in the Donbass and in the north of the country throughout winter. As the bitter Ukrainian winter thaws, the war will soon take on a more deadly momentum as the spring rains of the Rasputitsa give
‘Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.’ Albert Einstein’s deft avoidance of the question put to him in 1929 – whether he considered himself a German or a Jew – was prophetic of what would happen to his country in the following decade. He was just one of the many stars
A faded mural on the streets of Coventry is meant to represent an unbreakable bond between itself and Russia. Volgograd twinned with Coventry in 1944, becoming the first city in the world to pair with a foreign counterpart. The mural was called ‘Volgograd Place’ and encapsulated the enduring friendship between East and West which had survived
