Soviet audiences devour the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura"

Stills from the first episode of the Brazilian soap opera "Escrava Isaura," which aired in Brazil in 1976-77 and in the USSR/ Russia in 1988-90. In this first episode, aired on Soviet Central Television on 16 October, 1988, it is revealed that the show's title character, Isaura, is not the niece of the wealthy Almeida family—but instead a "slave" with a “mulatto [sic]” mother and a Portuguese father.

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"Pravda" editors pledge to do better, 23 August 1991

Editors’ statement on the front page of iconic Soviet/ Russian daily "Pravda" from 23 August 1991, just after the failed 1991 anti-Gorbachev putsch.

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The founding of the Memorial Society in the late 1980s

Three moments in the early history of Memorial, a human rights group established in Gorbachev-era Russia (and abolished by Putin’s government in 2022) to document and memorialize Soviet political repressions and abuses.

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