And the The Welcome to Russian History Retold, episode 167, famines in Russia and the Soviet Union.

Last time we covered the final years of the life and the death of

famed Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Today as you can tell we're going to cover a completely

different topic.

But before we start, I'd like to tell everyone to hang on to the end of the podcast because

I'm going to be making a major announcement about it and it's quite important. Starvation and

famines in Russian history were a major factor in shaping the society and

culture we've covered over the past five years.

In researching this topic,

it was hard to come by information on many of the famines,

so I'm going to focus on five major ones.

The one that hit most of Europe as well as Russia in 1315 to 1317. The famine of 1601-2003, which

coincided with a time of troubles. the last of the Russian famines of 1891 to 92, the first

Soviet famine of 1921 to 22, and the one of 13, 1932 to 32. to

31 to 32 and the one of 13, 1932 to 33, also known as the Holodomor.

Femin and drought were commonplace in the history of Russia, with droughts hitting every about 5 to 7 years,

and an outright famine hitting about every 10 to 13 years.

Now, as you might imagine, part of the problem is that most of Russia, especially before the spread

southward at the time of Ivan IV was the short growing season. If anything like unusual long

rains during the spring, or trout at the beginning or middle of the season,

there was just no way to grow a second crop like you can in places like the United States, Europe, or other more temperate zones.

The first famine we're going to talk about is one that caused the death of millions of people throughout Europe.

...