1812 Overture
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The Year 1812, Solemn Overture, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture, is a concert overture in E♭ major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the French invasion of the country by Napoleon in 1812.
A performance, with cannon fire, at the 2005 Classical Spectacular in Melbourne, Australia
A scene depicting the French retreat from Russia in 1812, painting by Illarion Pryanishnikov (1874)
Ivan Susanin
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Ivan Susanin was a Russian national hero and martyr of the early-17th-century Time of Troubles. According to the popular legend, Polish troops seeking to kill Tsar Mikhail hired Susanin as a guide. Susanin persuaded them to take a secret path through the Russian forests, and neither they nor Susanin were ever heard from again.
Ivan Susanin (Konstantin Makovsky, 1914)
A 19th-century Russian painting representing Susanin's last minutes
Death of Ivan Susanin, by Mikhail Scotti, 1851.