Stalingrad

Stalingrad, named after Joseph Stalin, was the temporary name of a city both earlier and later called Volgograd. It is a city in the southwest [Volgograd province]? (formerly Stalingrad oblast) in what was the Soviet Union. The city was known as Stalingrad from 1925 until 1961. The reversion of the name back to Volvograd was part of [Nikita Khrushchev]?'s attempt to liberalize the Soviet Union somewhat after Stalin's rule. See Volgograd.

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Stalingrad is also a brief way of referring to a vicious World War II battle taking place in the Russian city of Stalingrad from 1942–43--in terms of loss of human life, one of the costliest battles in history. See Battle of Stalingrad.

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Stalingrad was, before the Russian Civil War, known as Tsaritsyn. The city was renamed, according to one source, owing to Stalin's victory over a White Russian force three times the size of his own during the civil war.