• Opinion Paper
  • February 18, 2026
  • Open access

Khlevnyuk O. V. Stalin. The Life of a Leader: A Biography. Moscow: AST Publishing House: CORPUS, 2024. 464 p.: Book review

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the personality of I. V. Stalin. The author examines the activities of the long-term leader of the Soviet state from the perspective of the “totalitarian school” of historians. From this work, the reader can gain a comprehensive understanding of the assessments of I. V. Stalin in the liberal historiography of the 1990s. The author has used a wide range of sources and literature in writing this work.

Author information

Alexander Evgenievich Smirnitsky

PhD

Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia

About this article

Publication history

  • Received: February 11, 2026.
  • Published: February 18, 2026.

Keywords

  • личность И. В. Сталина
  • историки «тоталитарной школы»
  • либеральная историография
  • Вторая мировая война
  • personality of I. V. Stalin
  • historians of the “totalitarian school”
  • liberal historiography
  • World War II

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)
© 2026 Gramota Publishing, LLC

User license

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)