Human-cost band
three civilians dead in Moscow; the USSR dissolved by December -- a low-body-count, high-system event
Three named civilian dead in Moscow; plotter suicide; then a superpower's legal death -- costs of different kinds.
Economic collapse of the 1990s is a sequel ledger, not an August body count.
Bands
Dated span (19-21 August 1991)
Soviet 1991 coup attempt is taught as 19-21 August 1991. 1991-06 and 1991-12-26 are the usual poles.
Theatre (Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republ.)
Moscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republics is the geography of the ledger -- cities, seas, plants, or ministries as the file requires.
Committee announces
1991-08-19-am: Tanks; Gorbachev "ill."
Gorbachev quits party post
1991-08-24: The CPSU unravels.
Regions
Moscow
Core theatre of Soviet 1991 coup attempt (19-21 August 1991). The fuse the GKChP named.
Perestroika crisis
1985-91: Reform without a new union consent.
Acceleration
Aug-Dec 1991: Party banned; republics leave.
Memory
After: Yeltsin myth, later Russian revisits.
US / UK / AU / CA classrooms
English hours on Soviet 1991 coup attempt (19-21 August 1991) are thin beside Chile 1973 film and a paragraph on Lisbon 1974; Seoul 1979 is thinner still.
Korean comparative reader
Soviet 1991 coup attempt is a comparative officers' file beside 12 December 1979 -- three morals, no method.
Key numbers
Span19-21 August 1991
Cost bandthree civilians dead in Moscow; the USS.
TheatreMoscow, Foros (Gorbachev), union republ.
Hero article1991 Soviet coup d'etat attempt
Makers
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev (USSR president) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. Isolated at Foros, then returned too late to save a union presidency.
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin (RSFSR president) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. The tank photograph; later the 1990s Russian president -- a longer, harder file than August.
Gennady Yanayev
Gennady Yanayev (GKChP face) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. The shaking-hands vice-president of the television ruin.
Dmitry Yazov
Dmitry Yazov (Defence minister) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. The army name on the committee; units did not finish a seizure.
Vladimir Kryuchkov
Vladimir Kryuchkov (KGB) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. The intelligence name on the committee -- a last KGB political throw.
Boris Pugo
Boris Pugo (Interior) is a named maker of the Soviet 1991 coup attempt story. Died by suicide as the committee collapsed -- a named death of the plotters' side.
The "cost" English television celebrated as freedom was, for many Soviet citizens, a lost country and a hard decade. Both can be true.
Nostalgia politics later fed on that double ledger.