Urban Biography and the Reconstruction of Sevastopol after World War II
Journal: Russian History
Year: 2014

The Crimean War brought destruction to Russia’s Black Sea peninsula but, like Napoleon’s invasion fifty years earlier, the war also became a central event in Russia’s national history. In his The Origins of the Crimean War (1994), David Goldfrank introduced readers to the complex diplomatic wrangling that led to the Crimean War. This article seeks to explain how and why the Crimean War (or “first great defense”) rivals only World War II (the “second great defense”) in Sevastopol’s urban biograph