Mark Schauss
390 episodes listed below
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First we follow the Russian rulers from Rurik to Putin. From there, we will cover all aspects of Russian and Soviet history as well as the histories of all of the countries that were part of the USSR and the Russian Empire. Hopefully, the podcast can help you understand the policies of Vladimir Putin, and Russia. If you'd like to support the podcast with a small monthly donation, click this link - https://www.buzzsprout.com/385372/support
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Mark makes Russian and Soviet history legible by following the institutions, technologies, and claims to authority behind major events.
Russian Rulers History Podcast traces how power moves through Russian and Soviet history, with Mark favoring chronological narration and careful scene-setting.
A tsar asks to be called the Great White Khan, and your Russia timeline needs a new map.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A direct look at Russian expansion, from Siberia and Alaska to Crimea and Ukraine.
Russian Colonialism and Imperialism takes aim at the familiar claim that Russia stood apart from European and Western colonial projects. It works by first separating imperialism, understood as domination through political, economic, or cultural power, from colonialism, with its…
A 1938 Moscow trial becomes a sharp study of scripted testimony, political paranoia, and the old Bolsheviks' deadly fate.
This episode centers on the 1938 Moscow trial of 21 accused men, using its charges of treason, German espionage, economic sabotage, and conspiracy to show how insistently the case was tied back to Leon Trotsky.
A compact tour of Russian science from Tatyshev to Ivanovsky.
Russian Scientists uses the shift from tsarist Russia to the Soviet era as its organizing line, defining its subjects as scientists whose main careers belonged to the earlier order and whose major discoveries did not come under Soviet rule.
Three women take competing political roads through Russia's revolutions.
Women stand at the center of Russia's revolutions here, each arriving by a sharply different political route. Ekaterina Dmitriyeva Kuzkova moves from the Narodnics into Marxist exile circles, then toward the hybrid position associated with her controversial article Credo.
Kiev's long recovery from Mongol devastation gives the city's history a stark, enduring shape.
Kiev's history comes through as a pattern of collapse, survival, and return. The episode traces a city that stood at 100,000 people in 1050, was reduced to 50 or 100 after the Mongol conquest in 1241, and did not regain that earlier population until 1870.
A brisk Cold War pass linking Korea, Eastern Europe, Berlin, Austria, and Khrushchev's rise.
The episode treats the Cold War as a chain of pressure points, moving from Korea into the Soviet bloc, Berlin, and the leadership struggle after Stalin's death.
Gagarin’s flight is the center of it, but the failures, pressure, and propaganda matter just as much.
This episode follows Yuri Gagarin, the rush to prepare a cosmonaut, and the way Soviet firsts were folded into propaganda. It moves through the early test launches and the selection process before reaching the flight that put the first human into orbit.
A brisk, unsentimental tour of Soviet science where breakthroughs stay tied to state power.
The episode follows Soviet scientists as they move between geology, physics, railroads, institutes, escape plans, and arms-race politics. It begins with Vladimir Obruchov and his work on geology, especially gold mining, then passes through George Gamow and Andrei Sakharov,…
Tracy Wilson and Holly Frey narrate overlooked history, from Courbet's realism to IUD regulation.
History, remembered by witnesses.
Pop culture with the historical wiring exposed.
This episode segment explores the early influencers of Russian Tsars, focusing on Ivan I and key figures like metropolitans Peter and Theognostos, who helped establish Moscow as a center of Russian orthodoxy, and Khan Muhammad Uzbek of the Golden Horde.
The series continues the Cold War story in Korea.
Russian History Retold examines the Raskol—the only major schism in Russian Orthodox Church history (mid-17th century).
The episode argues that the Bolshevik Revolution is often remembered for the spectacle of the takeover, while its effects on Russian people get less attention.
Russian History Retold episode 330 features Mark interviewing David Chaffetz about Raiders, Rulers, and Traitors, The Horse and the Rise of Empires, with Moscow, the Golden Horde, and cavalry at the center of the discussion.
Russian History Retold’s “The Rurikid Dynasty” traces rule from Rurik’s proposed arrival in Novgorod in 862 to Fyodor I’s death in 1598.
The episode starts by narrowing a broader survey of Russian scientists to the Soviet era.
Princess Olga's revenge against the Drevelians was so brutal it shocked even Byzantine historians.
One of history's greatest discoveries came not from calculation but from a dream.
Russian History Retold turns to the Cold War from a Soviet-side angle.
Russian Rulers History Podcast examines the Battle of Kursk, fought from July 5 to August 23, 1943, as a turning point on the Eastern Front.
Russian History Retold moves from the Cold War back into the Russian Imperial Era.
The episode wraps up the Soviet Space Program with Gagarin.
The episode picks up in 1979 and moves through the last big stretch of the Cold War.
The story starts on June 21, 1941.
Veliky Novgorod gets the spotlight here.
The podcast turns the Russian revolutions toward the women who helped drive them.
This episode explores the origins and early development of the Soviet space program, focusing on key figures like Sergei Korolev and early pioneers.
This episode explores the history of the Astrakhan, Kazan, and Crimean Khanates, remnants of the Mongol Golden Horde, detailing their origins, conflicts with Moscow, and eventual conquest by Russia.
This episode recounts the events leading up to the 1921 Kronstadt Rebellion against the Bolsheviks, using a book by a history professor as the main source.
Host Mark Schaus updates listeners on his knee surgery and previews an upcoming episode about Archpriest Avakum's autobiography and the Russian Orthodox schism.
This episode recounts the history of St.
An interview with Professor Paul Robinson about the history and concept of Russian liberalism.