1.
Nizhny Novgorod
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Nizhny Novgorod, colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is a city in the administrative center of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and Volga Federal District in Russia. From 1932 to 1990, it was known as Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, the city is an important economic, transportation, scientific, educational and cultural center in Russia and the vast Volga-Vyatka economic region, and is the main center of river tourism in Russia. In the historical part of the city there are a number of universities, theaters, museums. Nizhny Novgorod is located about 400 km east of Moscow, where the Oka empties into the Volga, the city was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. In 1612 Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky organized an army for the liberation of Moscow from the Poles, in 1817 Nizhny Novgorod became a great trade center of the Russian Empire. In 1896 at a fair, an All-Russia Exhibition was organized, during the Soviet period, the city turned into an important industrial center. In particular, the Gorky Automobile Plant was constructed in this period, then the city was given the nickname Russian Detroit. During the World War II Gorky became the biggest provider of equipment to the front. Due to this, the Luftwaffe constantly bombed the city from the air, the majority of the German bombs fell in the area of the Gorky Automobile Plant. Although almost all the sites of plant were completely destroyed. After the war, Gorky became a city and remained one until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990. At that time the city was renamed Nizhny Novgorod once again, in 1985 the metro was opened. In 2016 Vladimir Putin opened the new 70th Anniversary of Victory Plant which is part of the Almaz-Antey Air, the Kremlin – the main center of the city – contains the main government agencies of the city and the Volga Federal District. Originally the name was just Novgorod, but to distinguish it from the other, older and well-known Novgorod to the west and this land was named lower because it is situated downstream, especially from the point of view of other Russian cities such as Moscow, Vladimir and Murom. Later it was transformed into the name of the city that literally means Lower Newtown. Later a major stronghold for border protection, Nizhny Novgorod fortress took advantage of a moat formed by the two rivers. With the agreement of the Mongol Khan, Nizhny Novgorod was incorporated into the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality in 1264, after 86 years its importance further increased when the seat of the powerful Suzdal Principality was moved here from Gorodets in 1350. Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich sought to make his capital a rival worthy of Moscow, he built a stone citadel, the earliest extant manuscript of the Russian Primary Chronicle, the Laurentian Codex, was written for him by the local monk Laurentius in 1377
2.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
3.
Moscow Oblast
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Moscow Oblast, or Podmoskovye, is a federal subject of Russia. With a population of 7,095,120 living in an area of 44,300 square kilometers, the oblast has no official administrative center, its public authorities are located in Moscow and across other locations in the oblast. In the center stands the city of Moscow, which is a separate federal subject in its own right. The oblast is highly industrialized, with its main branches being metallurgy, oil refining, and mechanical engineering, food, energy. The oblast is flat, with some hills with the height of about 160 meters in the western. The western and northern parts of the oblast contain the Moscow Uplands and their average height peaks at about 300 meters near Dmitrov and the upper point of 310 meters lies near the village of Shapkino in Mozhaysky District. The northern part of the Moscow Uplands is steeper than the southern part, the uplands contain lakes of glacial origin, such as Lakes Nerskoye and Krugloye. To the north of the Moscow Uplands lies the alluvial Verhnevolzhsk Depression, It is marshy, to the south stretches a hilly area of the Moskvoretsko-Oksk plain. Its greatest height of 254 meters lies in the area of Tyoply Stan, the plain has clearly defined river valleys, especially in the south parts, and occasional karst relief, mostly in Serpukhovsky District. In the extreme south, after the Oka River, lies the Central Russian Upland and it contains numerous gullies and ravines and has average height above 200 m with the maximum of 236 m near Pushchino. Most of the part of Moscow Oblast is taken by the vast Meshchera Lowlands with much wetland in their eastern part. Their highest hill peaks at 214 meters but the heights are 120–150 meters. Most lakes of the lowlands, such as Lakes Chyornoye and Svyatoye, are of glacial origin, here lies the lowest natural elevation of the region, the water level of Oka River at 97 meters. Moscow Oblast is located in the part of the East European craton. Like all cratons, the latter is composed of the crystalline basement, the basement consists of Archaean and Proterozoic rocks and the cover is deposited in the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. The lowest depth of the basement is to the south of Serebryanye Prudy, in the south area of the oblast. Tertiary deposits are almost absent within the oblast, significantly more abundant are deposits of the Carboniferous and Jurassic periods. In the Cretaceous period, a sea was covering Moscow Oblast, as evidenced by phosphate deposits, Cretaceous sediments are most common in the north of the oblast
4.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
5.
Modernism
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Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief, the poet Ezra Pounds 1934 injunction to Make it new. Was the touchstone of the approach towards what it saw as the now obsolete culture of the past. In this spirit, its innovations, like the novel, atonal and twelve-tone music, divisionist painting and abstract art. Modernism explicitly rejected the ideology of realism and makes use of the works of the past by the employment of reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision, others focus on modernism as an aesthetic introspection. While J. M. W. Art critic Clement Greenberg describes the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as proto-Modernists, There the proto-Modernists were, of all people, the Pre-Raphaelites actually foreshadowed Manet, with whom Modernist painting most definitely begins. They acted on a dissatisfaction with painting as practiced in their time, rationalism has also had opponents in the philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and later Friedrich Nietzsche, both of whom had significant influence on existentialism. A major 19th-century engineering achievement was The Crystal Palace, the huge cast-iron, Glass and iron were used in a similar monumental style in the construction of major railway terminals in London, such as Paddington Station and Kings Cross Station. These technological advances led to the building of structures like the Brooklyn Bridge. The latter broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be and these engineering marvels radically altered the 19th-century urban environment and the daily lives of people. Arguments arose that the values of the artist and those of society were not merely different, but that Society was antithetical to Progress, the philosopher Schopenhauer called into question the previous optimism, and his ideas had an important influence on later thinkers, including Nietzsche. Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection undermined religious certainty and the idea of human uniqueness, in particular, the notion that human beings were driven by the same impulses as lower animals proved to be difficult to reconcile with the idea of an ennobling spirituality. Karl Marx argued that there were fundamental contradictions within the capitalist system, historians, and writers in different disciplines, have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Everdell also thinks modernism in painting began in 1885–86 with Seurats Divisionism, the poet Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, and Flauberts novel Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. In the arts and letters, two important approaches developed separately in France, the first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors. Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, the school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners, and became increasingly influential. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by artists, the work of Manet attracted tremendous attention
6.
Socialist realism
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Socialist realism is a style of realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in that country as well as in other socialist countries. Socialist realism is characterized by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat. Although related, it should not be confused with social realism, Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in the early 1920s to its eventual fall from popularity in the late 1960s. While other countries have employed a prescribed canon of art, socialist realism in Soviet Union persisted longer and was more restricted than elsewhere in Europe, Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades. Early examples of realism in Russian art include the work of the Peredvizhnikis, while these works do not have the same political connotation, they exhibit the techniques exercised by their successors. After the Bolsheviks took control of Russia on October 25,1917, there had been a short period of artistic exploration in the time between the fall of the Tsar and the rise of the Bolsheviks. In 1917, Russian artists began to return to traditional forms of art. Shortly after the Bolsheviks took control, Anatoly Lunacharsky was appointed as head of Narkompros and this put Lunacharsky in the position of deciding the direction of art in the newly created Soviet state. Lunacharsky created a system of aesthetics based on the body that would become the main component of socialist realism for decades to come. He believed that the sight of a body, intelligent face or friendly smile was essentially life-enhancing. He concluded that art had an effect on the human organism. By depicting the perfect person, Lunacharsky believed art could educate citizens on how to be the perfect Soviets, there were two main groups debating the fate of Soviet art, futurists and traditionalists. Russian Futurists, many of whom had been creating abstract or leftist art before the Bolsheviks, believed communism required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, traditionalists believed in the importance of realistic representations of everyday life. By 1928, the Soviet government had enough strength and authority to end private enterprises, at this point, although the term socialist realism was not being used, its defining characteristics became the norm. The first time the term socialist realism was officially used was in 1932, the term was settled upon in meetings that included politicians of the highest level, including Stalin himself. Maxim Gorky, a proponent of literary socialist realism, published an article titled Socialist Realism in 1933. During the Congress of 1934 four guidelines were laid out for socialist realism, the work must be, Proletarian, art relevant to the workers and understandable to them. Typical, scenes of life of the people
7.
The Lower Depths
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The Lower Depths is perhaps the best known of Maxim Gorkys plays. It was written during the winter of 1901 and the spring of 1902, subtitled Scenes from Russian Life, it depicted a group of impoverished Russians living in a shelter near the Volga. Produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18,1902 and it became his first major success, and a hallmark of Russian social realism. When it first appeared, The Lower Depths was criticized for its pessimism, the presentation of the lower classes was viewed as overly dark and unredemptive, and Gorky was clearly more interested in creating memorable characters than in advancing a formal plot. However, in respect, the play is generally regarded as a masterwork. The theme of harsh truth versus the comforting lie pervades the play from start to finish, in a corner, thin boards partition off the room of Vaska, the young thief. In the kitchen live Kvashnya, a vendor of meat pies, the decrepit Baron, all around the room are bunks occupied by other lodgers. Nastya, her head bent down, is absorbed in reading a novel titled Fatal Love, the Baron, who lives largely on Nastya’s earnings, seizes the book and reads its title aloud. Then he bangs Nastya over the head with it and calls her a lovesick fool, Satine raises himself painfully from his bunk at the noise. His memory is vague, but he knows he took a beating the night before, the Actor stirs in his bed on top of the stove. He predicts that some day Satine will be beaten to death, the Actor reminds the Baron to sweep the floor. The landlady is strict and makes them clean every day, the Baron loudly announces that he has to go shopping, he and Kvashnya leave to make the day’s purchases. The Actor climbs down from his bunk and declares that the doctor has told him he has an organism poisoned by alcohol, Anna coughs loudly in her bunk. She is dying of consumption—there is no hope for her and her husband, Kleshtch, is busy at his bench, where he fits old keys and locks. Anna sits up and calls to Kleshtch, offering him the dumplings that Kvashnya has left for her in the pot, Kleshtch agrees that there is no use feeding a dying woman, and so with a clear conscience he eats the dumplings. The Actor helps Anna down from her bed and out into the drafty hall. The sick woman is wrapped in rags, as they go through the door, the landlord, Kostilyoff, enters, nearly knocking them down. Kostilyoff looks around the dirty cellar and glances several times at Kleshtch, loudly, the landlord says that the locksmith occupies too much room for two rubles a month and that henceforth the rent will be two and one-half rubles
8.
The Song of the Stormy Petrel
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The Song of the Stormy Petrel is a short piece of revolutionary literature written by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky in 1901. Written in a variation of unrhymed trochaic tetrameter with occasional Pyrrhic substitutions, in 1901, no one could criticise the Tsar directly and hope to escape unhappy fate. Aesopian language of a fable, which had developed into a form of art by earlier writers such as Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, was not infrequently used by the critics of the regime. Maxim Gorky wrote The Song of the Storm Petrel in March 1901 in Nizhny Novgorod and it is believed that originally the text was part of a larger piece, called Spring Melodies and subtitled Fantasy. The entire fantasy was published in Berlin in 1902, the Song was first published in the Zhizn magazine in April 1901. Gorky was arrested for publishing The Song, but released shortly thereafter, the poem was later referred to as the battle anthem of the revolution, and the epithet Burevestnik Revolyutsii soon became attached to Gorky himself. According to Nadezhda Krupskaya, The Song became one of Lenins favorite works by Gorky, as a poet, Gorky would not pay too much attention to precisely identifying the birds species appearing in his Song. The Russian word burevestnik is applied to a number of species in the families Procellariidae and Pelecanoididae, according to Vladimir Dals Dals Dictionary, Russias favorite dictionary in Maxim Gorkys time, burevestnik could be understood as a generic word for all Procellariidae. This Russian word is not, however, used to name the species properly known in English as storm-petrel. Other avian characters of the poem are generic seagulls, loons, while North Hemisphere loons and south hemisphere penguins are not likely to meet in the wild, their joint participation in the poem is a legitimate example of a poetic license. Or the penguin might refer to the great auk, genus Pinguinus. The Song was translated to many languages, the text in original Russian and English translation follows. Naturally, Burevestnik-themed names were popular in Gorky Oblast
9.
Mother (Gorky novel)
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The Mother is a novel written by Maxim Gorky in 1906 about revolutionary factory workers. The work was translated into many languages, and was made into a number of films, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and his collaborators based their 1932 play The Mother on this novel. The Mother is considered to be the long work of Gorky on the Russian revolutionary movement, however, of all his novels. Nevertheless, it remains the best known work of Gorky among the other important novels. While on a trip to the United States in 1906, he wrote the novel, the political agenda behind the novel was clear. In 1905, after the defeat of Russians first revolution, Gorky tried to raise the spirit of the movement by conveying the political agenda among the readers through his work. He was trying to raise spirit among the revolutionaries to battle the defeatist mood, Gorky was personally connected to the novel as the novel is based on real life events, revolving around Anna Zalomova and her son Piotr Zalomov. Gorky, being a distant relative of Anna Zalomova who visited Gorkys family when he was a child, had a connection to the story. The event took place during a May Day demonstration in Sormovo in 1902, in his novel, Gorky portrays the life of a woman who works in a Russian factory doing hard manual labour and combating poverty and hunger, among other hardships. Pavel noticeably begins to emulate his father in his drunkenness and stammer, abandoning drinking, Pavel starts to bring books to his home. Being illiterate and having no political interest, Nilovna is at first cautious about Pavels new activities, however, she wants to help him. Pavel is shown as the revolutionary character. Nevertheless Nilovna, moved by her feelings and, though uneducated. Despite being a novel, the correctness of the novel was questioned. As after further examination of the novel, the condition upon which the novel was written are unfettered possibilities, the paradoxical nature of the literatures representation needed a further clarification due to the complex history and portrayal of the reality. Being considered one of the most influential novel of the worldwide, The Mother. In the following years, in 1932, the novel was dramatized into a play by German playwright Bertolt Brecht in Die Mutter, in the later years, the novel was adapted in two other films of the same name. Mark Donskoys Mother which released in 1955 and Gleb Panfilovs Mother which released 84 years, in 1990, after the publication of the novel
10.
Children of the Sun (play)
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Children of the Sun is a 1905 play by Maxim Gorky, written while he was briefly imprisoned in Saint Petersburgs Peter and Paul Fortress during the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. It was nominally set during an 1862 cholera epidemic, but was understood to relate to contemporary events. The play was banned, but imperial authorities allowed it to premiere October 24,1905 at the Moscow Art Theater. Given conditions in the city, the atmosphere was so tense that the audience began to panic in response to the mob noises in Act III. Kachalov had to stop the play to them that, while his character might be in danger from a mob. Vasili Kachalov as Professor Protassov Olga Knipper as Lisa, Lisa, in contrast, is sickly, nervous, and prophetically aware of impending crisis. It is set during an 1862 cholera epidemic in Russia in which fear drove people to mob action, a Life on the Stage, A Memoir, translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld
11.
Leo Tolstoy
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Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth. Tolstoys fiction includes dozens of stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays, in the 1870s Tolstoy experienced a profound moral crisis, followed by what he regarded as an equally profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his non-fiction work A Confession. His literal interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. Tolstoy also became an advocate of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George. Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, a family estate 12 kilometres southwest of Tula, the Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility, tracing their ancestry to a mythical Lithuanian noble Indris. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, Tolstoys parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives. In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University and his teachers described him as both unable and unwilling to learn. Tolstoy left the university in the middle of his studies, returned to Yasnaya Polyana and then spent much of his time in Moscow, in 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he went with his older brother to the Caucasus and joined the army. It was about time that he started writing. Others who followed the path were Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin. During his 1857 visit, Tolstoy witnessed an execution in Paris. Writing in a letter to his friend Vasily Botkin, The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere. Tolstoys concept of non-violence or Ahimsa was bolstered when he read a German version of the Tirukkural and he later instilled the concept in Mahatma Gandhi through his A Letter to a Hindu when young Gandhi corresponded with him seeking his advice. His European trip in 1860–61 shaped both his political and literary development when he met Victor Hugo, whose literary talents Tolstoy praised after reading Hugos newly finished Les Misérables, the similar evocation of battle scenes in Hugos novel and Tolstoys War and Peace indicates this influence. Tolstoys political philosophy was influenced by a March 1861 visit to French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
12.
Anton Chekhov
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in esteem by writers. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his career, Medicine is my lawful wife, he once said. These four works present a challenge to the ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a theatre of mood. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew and he made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. Anton Chekhov was born on the feast day of St. Anthony the Great 29 January 1860, the third of six surviving children, in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a serf and his Ukrainian wife, were from the village Vilkhovatka near Kobeliaky. A director of the choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father. Chekhovs mother, Yevgeniya, was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia and our talents we got from our father, Chekhov remembered, but our soul from our mother. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that its sickening and frightening to think about it, remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool. Chekhov attended the Greek School in Taganrog and the Taganrog Gymnasium and he sang at the Greek Orthodox monastery in Taganrog and in his fathers choirs. In 1876, Chekhovs father was declared bankrupt after overextending his finances building a new house, to avoid debtors prison he fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolay, were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhovs mother physically and emotionally broken by the experience, Chekhov was left behind to sell the familys possessions and finish his education. Chekhov remained in Taganrog for three years, boarding with a man called Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, had bailed out the family for the price of their house. Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by private tutoring, catching and selling goldfinches and he sent every ruble he could spare to his family in Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer them up. Chekhov also enjoyed a series of affairs, one with the wife of a teacher. In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow, Chekhov now assumed responsibility for the whole family
13.
Vladimir Lenin
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino
14.
Alexander Bogdanov
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Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov was a Russian and Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity. In the first decade of the Soviet Union, he was an opponent of the government from a Marxist perspective. Bogdanov received training in medicine and psychiatry and his scientific interests ranged from the universal systems theory to the possibility of human rejuvenation through blood transfusion. He invented an original philosophy called “tectology, ” now regarded as a forerunner of systems theory and he was also an economist, culture theorist, science fiction writer, and political activist. Alyaksandr Malinovsky was born in Sokółka, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire, into a teachers family. He attended the Gymnasium at Tula, which he compared to a barracks or prison and he was awarded a gold medal when he graduated. Upon completion of the gymnasium, Bogdanov was admitted to the Natural Science Department of Moscow University. In his autobiography, Bogdanov reported that, while studying at Moscow University, he joined the Union Council of Regional Societies, the occasion of his arrest and exile is as follows. The head of the Moscow Okhrana used an informant to acquire the names of members of the Union Council of Regional Societies, punishment of a few of the students was arbitrary and unfair that the Union Council requested a fair reexamination of the issue. That very night, the Okhrana arrested all the students on the list mentioned above - including Bogdanov - were arrested, expelled from the university, here he met and married Natalya Bogdanovna Korsak, who, as a woman, had been refused entrance to the university. She was working as a nurse for Rudnev, Malinovsky adopted the nom de plume that he used when he wrote his major theoretical works and his novels from her patronym. Alongside Bazarov and Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov he became a tutor in a study circle. This was organised in the Tula Armament Factory by Ivan Saveliev, during this period, he wrote his Brief course of economic science which was published – subject to many modifications made for the benefit of the censor – only in 1897. He later said that this experience of student-led education gave him his first lesson in proletarian culture, in autumn 1895, he resumed his medical studies at the University of Kharkiv but still spent much time in Tula. He gained access to the works of Lenin in 1896, particularly the latters critique of Peter Berngardovich Struve, in 1899, he graduated as a medical doctor and published his next work, Basic elements of the historical perspective on nature. However, because of his views, he was also arrested by the Tsars police, spent six months in prison. Bogdanov dates his support for Bolshevism from autumn of 1903, early in 1904, Martin Lyadov was sent by the Bolsheviks in Geneva to seek out supporters in Russia. He found a group of revolutionaries in Tver
15.
Bolsheviks
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The RSDLP was a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898 in Minsk in Belarus to unite the various revolutionary organisations of the Russian Empire into one party. In the Second Party Congress vote, the Bolsheviks won on the majority of important issues and they ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks or Reds came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, with the Reds defeating the Whites, and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in December 1922. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism, in the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, held in Brussels and London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the membership rules. Lenin wanted members who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means, Julius Martov suggested by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the partys organisations. Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a core of active members. A main source of the factions could be attributed to Lenin’s steadfast opinion. It was obvious at early stages in Lenin’s revolutionary practices that he would not be willing to concede on any party policy that conflicted with his own predetermined ideas and it was the loyalty that he had to his own self-envisioned utopia that caused the party split. He was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow minded that he believed there were only two types of people, Friend and enemy—those who followed him, and all the rest. Leon Trotsky, one of Lenins fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Robespierre, Lenins view of politics as verbal and ideological warfare and his inability to accept criticism even if it came from his own dedicated followers was the reason behind this accusation. The root of the split was a book titled What is to be Done. that Lenin wrote while serving a sentence of exile, in Germany, the book was published in 1902, in Russia, strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the points of Lenin’s writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses. After the proposed revolution had overthrown the government, this individual leader must release power. Lenin also wrote that revolutionary leaders must dedicate their lives to the cause in order for it to be successful. Lenins view of a socialist intelligentsia showed that he was not a supporter of Marxist theory. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral, and were loyal to the idea of a completely classless society, so Lenin’s variations caused the party internal dissonance. Although the party split of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks would not become official until 1903, as discussed in What is to be Done. Lenin firmly believed that a political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution
16.
Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues
17.
Tbilisi
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Tbilisi, commonly known by its former name Tiflis, is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1.5 million inhabitants. Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of Georgias ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia, Tbilisi has since served, with intermissions, as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Under Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, Middle Eastern, Art Nouveau, historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though it is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Archaeological studies of the region have indicated human settlement in the territory of Tbilisi as early as the 4th millennium BC, according to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisis founding states that King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia went hunting in the wooded region with a falcon. The Kings falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location. The name Tbilisi derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi, and further from Tpili, the name Tbili or Tbilisi was therefore given to the city because of the areas numerous sulphuric hot springs that came out of the ground. King Dachi I Ujarmeli, who was the successor of Vakhtang I Gorgasali, Tbilisi was not the capital of a unified Georgian state at that time and did not include the territory of Colchis. It was, however, the city of Eastern Georgia/Iberia. During his reign, King Dachi I oversaw the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. From the 6th century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the favourable and strategic location which placed the city along important trade. Tbilisis favourable and strategic location did not necessarily bode well for its existence as Eastern Georgias/Iberias capital, in the year 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine/Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad. After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi, in 764, Tbilisi, still under Arab control was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance, the Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1068, the city was again sacked, only this time by the Seljuk Turks under Sultan Alp Arslan. In 1122, after fighting with the Seljuks that involved at least 60,000 Georgians and up to 300,000 Turks. After the battles for Tbilisi concluded, David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State, from 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a dominant regional power with a thriving economy and a well-established social system/structure
18.
Yalta
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Yalta is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. The city is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony and it is situated on a deep bay facing south towards the Black Sea, surrounded by the mountain range Ai-Petri. It has a humid subtropical climate and surrounded by numerous vineyards and orchards. The existence of Yalta was first recorded in the 12th century by an Arab geographer and it became part of a network of Genoese trading colonies on the Crimean coast in the 14th century, when it was known as Etalita or Galita. Yalta was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783, along with the rest of Crimea, sparking the Russo-Turkish War, prior to the annexation of the Crimea, the Crimean Greeks were moved to Mariupol in 1778, one of the villages they established nearby is also called Yalta. In the 19th century, the became a fashionable resort for the Russian aristocracy. The town was closely associated with royalty. In 1889 Tsar Alexander III finished construction of Massandra Palace a short distance to the north of Yalta, during the 20th century Yalta was the principal holiday resort of the Soviet Union. Numerous workers sanatoria were constructed in and around Yalta and the surrounding district, there were, in fact, few other places that Soviet citizens could come for a seaside holiday, as foreign travel was forbidden to all but a handful. The Soviet elite also came to Yalta, the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin used the Massandra Palace as his summer residence, Yalta was occupied by the German Army from 9 November 1941 to 16 April 1944. The town came to attention in 1945 when the Yalta Conference between the Big Three powers – the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom – was held at the Livadia Palace. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yalta has struggled economically, the towns transport links have been significantly reduced with the end of almost all passenger traffic by sea. The longest trolleybus line in Europe goes from the station in Simferopol to Yalta. Yalta is crowded in the season and prices for accommodation are very high. Most of the tourists are from countries of the former Soviet Union, in 2013, Yalta has a beautiful embankment along the Black Sea. People can be seen strolling there all seasons of the year, there are several beaches to the east and west of the embankment. The town has several theaters, a drama theater, plenty of restaurants
19.
Marxism
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It originates from the mid-to-late 19th century works of German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As the contradiction becomes apparent to the proletariat through the alienation of labor, Marxism has since developed into different branches and schools of thought, and there is now no single definitive Marxist theory. Marxism has been adopted by a number of academics and theorists working in various disciplines. Critics have taken issue with particular Marxist claims or accused Marxism as a whole of being inconsistent, refuted based on new information. The Marxian analysis begins with an analysis of the material conditions, the economic system and these social relations form a base and superstructure. As forces of production, most notably technology, improve, existing forms of social organization become inefficient, from forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution and these inefficiencies manifest themselves as social contradictions in society in the form of class struggle. Under the capitalist mode of production, this struggle materializes between the minority who own the means of production, and the vast majority of the population who produce goods, the socialist system would succeed capitalism as humanitys mode of production through workers revolution. According to Marxism, especially arising from crisis theory, socialism is a historical necessity, in a socialist society private property, in the form of the means of production, would be replaced by co-operative ownership. A socialist economy would not base production on the creation of private profits, Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. The historical materialist theory of history analyses the causes of societal development. All constituent features of a society are assumed to stem from economic activity, the base and superstructure metaphor portrays the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx, The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society and this relationship is reflexive, at first the base gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of social organization. As Friedrich Engels clarified, The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production. Primitive Communism, as in tribal societies. Slave Society, a development of tribal to city-state, aristocracy is born, feudalism, aristocrats are the ruling class, merchants evolve into capitalists. Capitalism, capitalists are the class, who create and employ the proletariat. According to the Marxist theoretician and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the content of Marxism was Marxs economic doctrine
20.
Social democracy
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In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. By 1868–1869, Marxism had become the official theoretical basis of the first social democratic party established in Europe, in this period, social democracy became associated with reformist socialism. The origins of social democracy have been traced to the 1860s, with the rise of the first major party in Europe. 1864 saw the founding of the International Workingmens Association, also known as the First International, another issue in the First International was the role of reformism. Although Lassalle was not a Marxist, he was influenced by the theories of Marx and Engels, however unlike Marxs and Engelss The Communist Manifesto, Lassalle promoted class struggle in a more moderate form. While Marx viewed the state negatively as an instrument of class rule that should only exist temporarily upon the rise to power of the proletariat and then dismantled, Lassalle accepted the state. Lassalle viewed the state as a means through which workers could enhance their interests, Lassalles strategy was primarily electoral and reformist, with Lassalleans contending that the working class needed a political party that fought above all for universal adult male suffrage. The ADAVs party newspaper was called Der Sozialdemokrat, Marx and Engels responded to the title Sozialdemocrat with distaste, Engels once writing, But what a title, Sozialdemokrat. Why dont they simply call it The Proletarian. Marx agreed with Engels that Sozialdemokrat was a bad title, there was a Marxist faction within the ADAV represented by Wilhelm Liebknecht who became one of the editors of the Die Sozialdemokrat. Friction in the ADAV arose over Lassalles policy of an approach to Bismarck that had assumed incorrectly that Bismarck in turn would be friendly towards them. This approach was opposed by the partys Marxists, including Liebknecht, opposition in the ADAV to Lassalles friendly approach to Bismarcks government resulted in Liebknecht resigning from his position as editor of Die Sozialdemokrat and leaving the ADAV in 1865. Though the SDAP was not officially Marxist, it was the first major organization to be led by Marxists and Marx. The party adopted stances similar to those adopted by Marx at the First International, there was intense rivalry and antagonism between the SDAP and the ADAV, with the SDAP being highly hostile to the Prussian government while the ADAV pursued a reformist and more cooperative approach. In spite of such militant rhetoric to appeal to the working class, in 1875 Marx attacked the Gotha Program that became the program of Social Democratic Party of Germany in the same year in his Critique of the Gotha Program. Marx was not optimistic that Germany at the time was not open to a means to achieve socialism. In addition he noticed a change over the relations between the two classes. The Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 make an approach to universal suffrage. The Fabian Society was founded as a group from the Fellowship of the New Life due to opposition within that group to socialism
21.
Intelligentsia
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The intelligentsia is a status class of educated people engaged in the complex mental labours that critique, guide, and lead in shaping the culture and politics of their society. As a status class, the intelligentsia includes artists, teachers, and academics, writers, journalists, historically, the political role of the intelligentsia varies between being either a progressive influence or a regressive influence upon the development of their societies. The intelligentsia status-class arose in the late 18th century, in Russian-controlled Poland, in practice, the status and social function of the intelligentsia varied by society. Whereas in Western Europe, especially in Germany and Great Britain, the Bildungsbürgertum, in Europe, the Intelligentsia existed as a status class before the coinage of the term intelligentsia in the 19th century. As people whose professions placed them outside the places and functions of the town-and-country monarchic social-classes of the time. In 1860s Russia, the writer Pyotr Boborykin made the term intelligentsiya popular, 20th century After the Invasion of Poland, by Nazi Germany and the Soviet union, in occupied Poland each side proceeded to eliminate any possible resistance leader. The concept of intelligentsia must not be confused with the notion of intellectuals. ”Moreover, in 1860 there were 20,000 professionals in Russia and 85,000 by 1900. Originally composed of educated nobles, the intelligentsia became dominated by raznochintsy after 1861, in 183378.9 per cent of secondary-school students were children of nobles and bureaucrats, by 1885 they were 49.1 per cent of such students. The proportion of commoners increased from 19.0 to 43.8 per cent, in fear of an educated proletariat, Tsar Nicholas I limited the number of university students to 3,000 per year, yet there were 25,000 students, by 1894. Similarly the number of periodicals increased from 15 in 1855 to 140 periodical publications in 1885, the third element were professionals hired by zemstva. By 1900 there were 47,000 of them, most were liberal radicals, in Russia, the Bolsheviks did not consider the status class of the intelligentsiya to be a true social class, as defined in Marxist philosophy. As a status-class, the intelligentsia grow by recruiting members of the working class, hence, the intelligentsia merely are an ideological illusion, a class of lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the landowners. Despite being a de facto oppressed status-class, the intelligentsia lack revolutionary drive, in the creation of post-monarchic Russia, Lenin dismissed the intellectuals and managers, because the “intelligentsia is not the ‘brain of the nation’, it is the ‘faeces of the nation. ”. The Russian Revolution of 1917 divided the intelligentsia and the classes of Tsarist Russia. The members of the Tsarist-era intelligentsia who remained in Bolshevik Russia were tentatively integrated to Soviet society, although the Bolsheviks recognised the managerial importance of the intelligentsia to the future of soviet Russia, they distrusted their ideological commitment to Marxist philosophy. The Soviet intelligentsiya arose from the commitment of the Communist government for the education of Russia. In the late Soviet Union the term acquired a formal definition of mental and cultural workers. There were subcategories of scientific-technical intelligentsia and creative intelligentsia, between 1917 and 1941 there was a massive increase in the number of engineering graduates, from 15,000 to over 250,000
22.
Hillel the Elder
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Hillel was a famous Jewish religious leader, one of the most important figures in Jewish history. He is associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud and he is popularly known as the author of two sayings, If I am not for myself who is for me. And being for my own self, what am I, and the expression of the ethic of reciprocity, or Golden Rule, That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, the rest is the explanation, go and learn. Hillel was born in Babylon and, according to the Iggeret of Rav Sherira Gaon, Hillel descended from the Tribe of Benjamin on his fathers side, and from the family of David on his mothers side. Only Hillels brother Shebna is mentioned, he was a merchant, Hillel lived in Jerusalem during the time of King Herod and the Roman emperor Augustus. In the Midrash compilation Sifre, the periods of Hillels life are made parallel to those in the life of Moses. Both lived 120 years, and at the age of forty Hillel went to the Land of Israel, forty years he spent in study, a biographical sketch can be constructed, that Hillel went to Jerusalem in the prime of his life and attained a great age. His activity of forty years likely covered the period of 30 BCE to 10 CE, according to the Mishnah Hillel went to Jerusalem with the intention of studying biblical exposition and tradition at the age of 40 in 70 BCE. On that occasion, it is narrated, they resigned their position as Nasi in favor of Hillel. After the resignation of the Benei Betheira, Hillel was recognized as the highest authority among the Pharisees, whatever Hillels position, his authority was sufficient to introduce those decrees handed down in his name. The most famous of his enactments was the Prozbul, an institution that, a likewise tendency is found in another of Hillels institutions, having reference to the sale of houses. These two are the only institutions handed down in Hillels name, although the words that introduce the show that there were others. Of other official acts no mention is found in the sources, some of Hillel the Elders teachings remain commonly known. However, at least two other notable Hillels came after him, and some scholars have suggested that some attributed to Hillel may have originated from them. In mentioning these characteristics, which the Haggadah attributes to Moses brother and he considered love of man the kernel of Jewish teaching. The comparative response to the challenge of a Gentile who asked that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot, illustrates the character differences between Shammai and Hillel. Hillels gentleness and patience are illustrated in an anecdote that describes how two men made a wager on the question of whether Hillel could be made angry, though they questioned him and made insulting allusions to his Babylonian origin, they were unsuccessful
23.
Matvei Golovinski
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Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work, back in the mid-1930s, Russian testimony in the Berne Trial had linked the head of Russian security service in Paris, Pyotr Rachkovsky, to the creation of the Protocols. Matvei Golovinski was born into a family in the village of Ivashevka. His father, Vasili Golovinski was a friend of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, both were members of the progressive Petrashevsky Circle, sentenced to the capital punishment as conspirators and both were pardoned later. Vasili Golovinski died in 1875 and Matvei Golovinski was reared by his mother, while studying jurisprudence, Golovinski joined an anti-Semitic counter-revolutionary group Holy Brotherhood. Upon graduation, he worked for the Okhrana, secretly arranging pro-government coverage in the press, golovinskis career almost collapsed and he had to leave the country after his activities were publicly exposed by Maxim Gorky. In France, he wrote and published articles on assignments of the Chief of Russian secret service in Paris, after the October Revolution of 1917, Golovinsky switched sides and worked for the Bolsheviks until his death in 1920. After working for the czarist secret service, he changed sides. Mr. Lepekhine’s findings, published in the French magazine LExpress, Skuratovsky provides evidence that Charles Joly, a son of Maurice Joly, visited Saint Petersburg in 1902 and that Golovinsky and Charles Joly worked together at Le Figaro in Paris. Skuratovsky also traces the influences of Dostoyevskys prose on Golovinskys writings, in his book The Non-Existent Manuscript. Princess Radziwill was known to be an unreliable source, also, the protocols had been mentioned already in the press in 1902. Golovinski had been linked to the work before, the German writer Konrad Heiden identified him as an author of the Protocols in 1944, the Black Book of German Atrocities. An Experience of Criticism of Bourgeois Morals, with a preface by the author. Conversations with My Grandfather about Typhus, Paris Okhrana 1885-1905 CIA historical review program L’origine des Protocoles des sages de Sion by Éric Conan. LExpress,16 November 1999 The Question of the Authorship of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Vadim Skuratovsky, Kiev,2001
24.
Nicholas II of Russia
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Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic, Soviet historiography portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader, whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. The Anglo-Russian Entente, designed to counter German attempts to influence in the Middle East. Nicholas approved the Russian mobilisation on 30 July 1914, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and it is estimated that around 3,300,000 Russians were killed in World War I. Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son, Nicholas, the recovered remains of the Imperial Family were finally re-interred in St. Petersburg, eighty years to the day on 17 July 1998. In 1981, Nicholas, his wife and their children were canonized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, located in New York City. On 15 August 2000 Nicholas and his family were canonized as passion bearers, Nicholas was born in the Alexander Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. He had five siblings, Alexander, George, Xenia, Michael. Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexanders death in 1894 and he was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia and his maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mothers siblings included Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway, as well as King Constantine I of Greece, Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin-once-removed of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. To distinguish between them the Grand Duke was often known within the Imperial family as Nikolasha and Nicholas the Tall, while the Tsar was Nicholas the Short. In his childhood, Nicholas, his parents and siblings made annual visits to the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff to visit his grandparents, the king and queen. The visits also served as family reunions, as his mothers siblings would come from the United Kingdom, Germany. It was there in 1883, that he had a flirtation with one of his English first cousins, in 1873, Nicholas also accompanied his parents and younger brother, two-year-old George, on a two-month, semi-official visit to England. In London, Nicholas and his family stayed at Marlborough House, as guests of his Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix, the Prince and Princess of Wales, where he was spoiled by his uncle
25.
Vladimir Korolenko
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Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was a Russian and Ukrainian short story writer, journalist, human rights activist and humanitarian. His best-known work include the short novel The Blind Musician, as well as short stories based upon his experience of exile in Siberia. Korolenko was a critic of the Tsarist regime and in his final years of the Bolsheviks. Vladimir Korolenko was born in Zhytomyr, Volhynian Governorate, Russian Empire and his mother Evelina Skórewicz was of Polish origins. In his early childhood Korolenko did not very well know to which nationality he belonged and learned to read Polish before he did Russian and it was only after the 1863 January Uprising that the family did have to choose its nationality and decided to become Russians. After the sudden death of her husband in Rovno in 1866 Evelina Iosifovna, suffering enormous hardships, somehow managed to raise her five children, three sons and two daughters, on a meagre income. Korolenko started his education in a Polish Rykhlinsky boarding school to continue it in the Zhitomir and later Rovno gymnasiums, in his final year, he discovered the works of Nikolai Nekrasov and Ivan Turgenev. It was then that I found my true native land and that was the world of, first and foremost, Russian literature and he also cited Taras Shevchenko and Ukrainian folklore as major influences. In 1871 Korolenko enrolled into Saint Petersburg Technological Institute but after a year spent in utmost poverty had to leave in early 1873 due to financial problems, in 1874 he moved to Moscow and joined the Moscow College of Agriculture and Forestry. In August 1877 Korolenko enrolled in the Saint Petersburg Mineral Resources Institute where he became a member of a Narodnik group. Eight months later was reported on by a 3rd Section spy, arrested and sent into exile, first to Vyatka, then Vyshnevolotsk Region and he was finally allowed to settle in Perm. Another early story, Chudnaya, written in prison cell, spread across Russia in its form and was first published in London in 1893. In August 1881, while in Perm, Korolenko refused to swear allegiance to the new Russian Tsar Alexander III and was exiled again, this time much farther, to Yakutia. He spent the three years in Amga, a small settlement 275 verstas from Yakutsk, where he did manual work. In Nizhny, Korolenko became the center of the social activism, attracting radicals to fight all kinds of wrong-doing committed by the authorities. Makars Dream established his reputation as a writer when it was published in 1885, the story, based on a dying peasants dream of heaven, was translated and published in English in 1892. Also in 1886 he published the short novel Slepoi Muzykant, which enjoyed 15 re-issues during its authors lifetime and it was published in English as The Blind Musician in 1896-1898. One of his Siberian stories, Sokolinets was praised by Anton Chekhov, in 1896 Korolenko moved his family to Saint Petersburg
26.
Yasnaya Polyana
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Yasnaya Polyana is a writers house museum, the former home of the writer Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy was born in the house, where he wrote both War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy called Yasnaya Polyana his inaccessible literary stronghold. It is 12 kilometres southwest of Tula, Russia, and 200 kilometres from Moscow, in June 1921, the estate was nationalized and formally became his memorial museum. It was at first run by Alexandra Tolstaya, the writers daughter, the current director of the museum is Vladimir Tolstoy, also one of Tolstoys descendants. The museum contains Tolstoys personal effects and movables, as well as his library of 22,000 volumes, the estate-museum contains the writers mansion, the school he founded for peasant children, and a park where Tolstoys unadorned grave is situated. The estate of Yasnaya Polyana was originally owned by the Kartsev family, the house passed from Nikolai Volkonskiy to his only daughter, Maria Nikolayevna, the mother of Leo Tolstoy. Her husband, Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the war against Napoleon in 1812, built a 32-room house and an ensemble of work buildings, Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9,1828, in a house at Yasnaya Polyana. His parents died when he was young, and he was raised there by relatives. In 1856, at age 28, after he finished his service, he moved into a house, which had been one wing of the previous mansion, and brought his wife there in 1862. The estate had four clusters of peasant houses for about 350 peasants living and working on the estate, Tolstoy wrote War and Peace at Yasnaya Polyana between 1862 and 1869, and wrote Anna Karenina there between 1873 and 1877. Each chapter went through five or six drafts, and she recopied War, all the drafts were saved by his wife and are now in the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow. Tolstoys thirteen children, of whom four died in childhood, were all born at Yasnaya Polyana and they were born on the same leather sofa where Tolstoy himself was born, which was kept in his study next to his writing desk, and is still there today. When he was living and working at Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy awakened at 7,00 a. m. did physical exercises, and walked in the park, before starting his writing. During the harvest season he worked in the fields with the peasants. He also visited the school for peasant children which he had created in one building, Tolstoy entertained almost all the important Russian cultural and artistic figures of his time at Yasnaya Poloyana. His guests are known to have included Anton Chekhov, Turgenev, Maxim Gorky, the painters Valentin Serov, in 1911, Tolstoys widow Sofia Alexandrovna applied to Tsar Nicholas II to have Yasnaya Polyana made into a state museum. The Tsar refused, but did grant a pension to the family allowed the house. In October 1941, as the Germans approached Moscow,110 crates filled with the exhibits of the museum were evacuated to Moscow, and then to Tomsk
27.
Moscow Art Theatre
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The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in 1898 by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and it was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russias dominant form of theatre at the time. The theatre, the first to put on shows implementing Stanislavskis system, proved hugely influential in the acting world and in the development of modern American theatre. At the end of the 19th-century, Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko both wanted to reform Russian theatre to high-quality art that was available to the general public and they set about creating a private theatre over which they had total control. On 22 June 1897, the two men met for the first time at the Slavyanski Bazar for a lunch that started at 2 PM, while Stanislavski’s approach to theatre revolved around the acting process, Nemirovich was far more concerned with the literary, intellectual angle. Stanislavski interviewed all his actors, making sure they were hard working and he made them live together in common housing for months at a time to foster community and trust, which he believed would raise the quality of their performances. Stanislavskis system, in which he trained actors via the studios he founded as part of the theatre. The system played an influence in the development of method acting. This production was so successful that the theatre adopted the seagull as its emblem and he took with him Savva Morozov, one of the theatre’s main investors at the time. Now in dire straits, the decided to accept invitations to go on an international tour in 1906, which started in Berlin and included Dresden, Frankfurt, Prague. The tour was a success, gaining the theatre international acclaim. The tension between the two led Stanislavski to abandon his duties as a member and to relinquish all his power over policy decisions. Mikhail Bulgakov wrote several plays for the MAT and satirised the organisation mercilessly in his novel Black Snow, isaac Babels Sunset was also performed there during the 1920s. A significant number of Moscow Art Theatres actors were awarded the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR. Many actors became known and admired thanks to their film roles. However, the Civil War saw many of the actors being cut off from Moscow. The subsidies it had come to rely on were withdrawn and the theatre was forced to survive on its own profits, by 1923, the MAT was in $25,000 debt. The theatre experienced further blows through the end of the 1930s, a “red director” was appointed to the management by the government to ensure that the MAT’s activities were not counter-revolutionary and that they served the Communist cause
28.
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko
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Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was born into a mixed Ukrainian-Armenian family in the village of Shemokmedi near Ozurgeti. His father was an officer of the Russian army, and his mother and he was educated at High school in Tbilisi and then at Moscow State University. In 1879 he left the University for the theatre, starting as a critic, and in 1881, his first play Dog-rose. He was a teacher of Moskvin, Knipper and Meyerhold, in 1919 he established the Musical Theatre of the Moscow Art Theatre, which was reformed into the Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre in 1926. In 1943 Nemirovich-Danchenko established the Moscow Art Theatre School, which is still extant, Nemirovich-Danchenko opened for theatre a true sense of Chekhov and Gorky plays, a prose of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. It has been said that If Stanislavsky was the soul of Art Theatre, Nemirovich-Danchenko created an acting and directing style of the Moscow Art Theatre, actors ensemble and atmosphere. Because of this the Moscow Art Theatre was considered the best theatre of the world at that time, but Nemirovich didnt write down his system of acting and we know only the system of Stanislavski. He was one of the first recipients of the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR in 1936, later, he was awarded the USSR State Prize, the Order of Lenin, and Order of the Red Banner of Labour. The Brothers Karamazov Resurrection Anna Karenina Three Sisters Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Biography from Answers. com
29.
Konstantin Stanislavski
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Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski was a seminal Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognised as a character actor and the many productions that he directed garnered a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his system of training, preparation. Its influential tours of Europe and the US and its productions of The Seagull and Hamlet established his reputation. At the MATs 30-year anniversary celebrations in 1928, a heart attack on-stage put an end to his acting career. He continued to direct, teach, and write about acting until his death a few weeks before the publication of the first volume of his lifes great work, the acting manual An Actors Work. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of Lenin and was one of the first to be granted the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR. Stanislavski wrote that there is nothing more tedious than an actors biography, at the request of a US publisher, however, he reluctantly agreed to write his autobiography, My Life in Art, though its account of his artistic development is not always accurate. Two English-language biographies have been published, David Magarshacks Stanislavsky, A Life and Jean Benedettis Stanislavski, His Life, Stanislavski subjected his acting and direction to a rigorous process of artistic self-analysis and reflection. His system of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his performances and he also introduced into the production process a period of discussion and detailed analysis of the play by the cast. Despite the success that this brought, particularly with his Naturalistic stagings of the plays of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky. Both his struggles with Chekhovs drama and his experiments with Symbolism encouraged a greater attention to inner action and he began to develop the more actor-centred techniques of psychological realism and his focus shifted from his productions to rehearsal process and pedagogy. He pioneered the use of theatre studios as a laboratory in which to innovate actor training, the system cultivates what Stanislavski calls the art of experiencing. In rehearsal, the searches for inner motives to justify action. Stanislavskis earliest reference to his system appears in 1909, the year that he first incorporated it into his rehearsal process. The MAT adopted it as its official rehearsal method in 1911, later, Stanislavski further elaborated the system with a more physically grounded rehearsal process that came to be known as the Method of Physical Action. Minimising at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an active analysis, in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised, the best analysis of a play, Stanislavski argued, is to take action in the given circumstances. The Opera-Dramatic Studio embodied the most complete implementation of the training exercises described in his manuals, meanwhile, the transmission of his earlier work via the students of the First Studio was revolutionising acting in the West
30.
Savva Morozov
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Savva Timofeyevich Morozov was a Russian textiles magnate and philanthropist. Established by Savva Vasilievich Morozov, the Morozov family was the fifth richest in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, Savva Timofeyevich Morozov came from an Old Believer merchant family which held the hereditary civil rank of honorary citizen. This gave him freedom from conscription, freedom from corporal punishment and he grew up at the Morozov house at Trehsvyatitelskaya Lane 1-3c1 on Ivanovo Hill in the White City, now the boulevards, of Moscow. He attended nearby gymnasium at Pokrovsky Gates and his family home was the most expensive home in Moscow and its Morozov gardens were a favorite place of S. Aksakov, F. Dostoevsky, A. Ostrovsky, L. Tolstoy, and P. Tchaikovsky. Later, he studied physics and mathematics at Moscow University where he wrote a study on dye, beginning on January 7,1885, at 10 oclock in the morning, textile workers at the Morozov factories in Bogorodsk, especially Orekhovo-Zuyevo, went on strike for several weeks. In 1885-1887, he studied chemistry at the University of Cambridge, while he was in England, he studied the structure of the textile industry in Great Britain, especially Manchester. He married his cousins wife Zinaida Grigorievna née Zimin. On one of these balls recalled Olga Knipper, I had to go to the ball at Morozova, Ive never seen such luxury, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Morozov was the largest shareholder of the Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko. The renovations incorporated Anna Golubkinas high relief plaster of The Wave above the entrance of the theater. All of this made the MAT the most advanced theatre in Russia, for the fifth and sixth seasons, Morozov funded the entire cost of the equipment and the operating costs of the building, too. This new theatre had seating for 1200 which was a more than the older building. However, the rent increased for the season and Morozov ceased paying for the leasehold. He would only pay back the principle for the cost of the improvements which took 9 years, when Gorkys Summerfolk was not well received by Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavski, Gorky left the theatre and Morozov followed. His mother angrily removed Savva from the business and one month later apparently despondent Morozov shot himself while in the south of France. Morozov died from a wound in Cannes, France. His death was ruled a suicide, however, various murder theories exist. His mansion became the headquarters of the Moscow Proletkult
31.
Bloody Sunday (1905)
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For other events of the same name, see Bloody Sunday. The massacre on Bloody Sunday is considered to be the start of the phase of the Revolution of 1905. After the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II of Russia, prior to emancipation no working class could be established because serfs working in the cities to supplement their incomes retained their ties to the land and their masters. The emancipation of the resulted in the establishment of a permanent working class in urban areas. Peasants “were confronted by social relationships, a frustrating regime of factory discipline. Generally unskilled, these peasants received low wages, were employed in working environments. Although some workers still had a relationship with their employer, factory employers were more present. Under serfdom, peasants had little, if any, contact with their landowner, in the new urban setting, however, factory employers often used their absolute authority in abusive and arbitrary manners. Their abuse of power, made evident by the working hours, low wages. “The Russian term for strike, stachka, was derived from an old term, stakat’sia- to conspire for a criminal act. ”As such, Russian laws viewed strikes as criminal acts of conspiracy. These corrections did not address a grossly unbalanced system that favored the employers. This caused the continuation of strikes and the first major strike in Russia. This new phenomenon was a catalyst to more strikes in Russia. This large strike prompted officials to consider regulations that would restrain the abuses of employers, a new law was passed in 1886 that required employers to specify working conditions in their factories in writing. This included the treatment of the workers, the hours. This new law also created factory inspectors who were charged with preserving industrial peace, despite these changes, strike activity again reached high proportions during the 1890s, resulting in the restriction of the workday to eleven and a half hours in 1897. Georgii Apollonovich Gapon was seeking a way to make a mark on the world by serving a noble cause, the Assemblys objectives were to defend workers rights and to elevate their moral and religious status. The Assembly served as a type of union for the workers of St. Petersburg, the Assembly would act as one of the catalysts for what would later be known as Bloody Sunday
32.
1905 Russian Revolution
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The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire, some of which was directed at the government. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies and it led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906. According to Sidney Harcave, author of The Russian Revolution of 1905, newly emancipated peasants earned too little, and were not allowed to sell or mortgage their allotted land. A nascent industrial working class resented the government for doing too little to them, banning strikes. Finally, the educated class fomented and spread radical ideas after a relaxing of discipline in universities allowed a new consciousness to grow among students, vladimir Lenin was a political theorist who also contributed his own ideology of how a revolution would be caused. In his book Imperialism he claimed that driven imperialism and the dependence on overseas markets would be a factor to revolution. This would cause a rivalry between the powers, leading to war. Taken individually, these issues might not have affected the course of Russian history, the government finally recognized these problems, albeit in a shortsighted and narrow-minded way. The minister of interior Plehve stated in 1903 that, after the problem, the most serious ones plaguing the country were those of the Jews, the schools. This setback aggravated social unrest during the five years preceding the revolution of 1905, every year, thousands of nobles in debt mortgaged their estates to the noble land bank or sold them to municipalities, merchants, or peasants. By the time of the revolution, the nobility had sold off one-third of its land and this plan was meant to prevent proletarianisation of the peasants. However, the peasants were not given land to provide for their needs. Their earnings were often so small that they could buy the food they needed nor keep up the payment of taxes. By the tenth year of Nicholas IIs reign, their total arrears in payments of taxes and dues was 118 million rubles, masses of hungry peasants roamed the countryside looking for work and sometimes walked hundreds of kilometres to find it. Desperate peasants proved capable of violence and these violent outbreaks caught the attention of the government, so it created many committees to investigate their causes. The committees concluded that no part of the countryside was prosperous, some parts, although cultivated acreage had increased in the last half century, the increase had not been proportionate to the growth of peasant populations, which had doubled. The investigations revealed many difficulties but could not find solution that were both sensible and acceptable to the government, nineteenth-century Russians saw cultures and religions in a clear hierarchy. Non-Russian cultures were tolerated in the empire but were not necessarily respected, European civilization was valued over Asian culture, and Christianity was on the whole considered more progressive and true than other religions
33.
Vpered
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Vpered was an organization emanating from within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The faction was gathered by Alexander Bogdanov in December 1909, the group included, Alexander Bogdanov, Maxim Gorky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky, Grigory Aleksinsky, Stanislav Volski, and Martyn Liadov. Although Vpered emerged from the Bolshevik wing of Russian Social Democracy, Vpered developed in a political atmosphere of counterrevolution and squabbling for political control, authenticity and funds within the RSDLP. Philosophically, Bogdanov and his supporters envisaged a role for intellectuals in the party. They advocated ways for intellectuals of the party to systematise the socialist education of workers, in order to allow workers a greater, otherwise, with the departure of many intellectuals from the party, those remaining in its ranks would form the new party leadership. Meanwhile, Lenin had distanced himself from this work, Vpered began when Zhdanov presented a statement to the editors of Proletarii. In a meeting with the board in late June 1908. And to the conference of the editorial board called by Lenin in June 1909 in Paris. In this context, Bogdanov raised the issue of the work of widening and deepening the fully socialist propaganda among the working class. He argued that the editors of Proletarii had not adequately addressed the development of the workers. Bogdanov aimed to meet this challenge by organizing proletarian universities, Bogdanov hoped to nurture an influential nucleus of workers who could act as conscious leaders in all forms of proletarian struggle. A1909 Paris conference rejected Bogdanovs proposal outright, at which point Bogdanov left, Bogdanov then wrote a report, which appeared in July 1909. Bogdanov and Krasin complained that Proletarii had failed to even one pamphlet in 18 months, and. The failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905 gave rise to bourgeois liberalism during the Duma period, rule by elected members, Bogdanov and his allies accused Lenin and his partisans of allowing this through parliamentarism at any price. Vpered organised an experimental proletarian university on the Isle of Capri which operated from August to December 1909, another operated in Bologna from November 1910 to March 1911. Lenin argued that Vpered had used 80,000 rubles for the undertaking, joined by Pokrovsky and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, this redefined group gained control of the editorial board of Proletarii and disassociated it from proletarian culture and science. However, Vpered lost momentum and eventually stalled in 1912
34.
Peter and Paul Fortress
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The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzinis designs from 1706 to 1740. In the early 1920s, it was used as a prison and execution ground by the bolshevik government. Today it has adapted as the central and most important part of the State Museum of Saint Petersburg History. The museum has become virtually the sole owner of the fortress building. The fortress was established by Peter the Great on May 161703 on small Hare Island by the bank of the Neva River. Built at the height of the Northern War in order to protect the capital from a feared Swedish counterattack. The citadel was completed with six bastions in earth and timber within a year, from around 1720, the fort served as a base for the city garrison and also as a prison for high-ranking or political prisoners. The Trubetskoy Bastion, rebuilt in the 1870s, became the prison block. The first person to escape from the prison was the anarchist Prince Peter Kropotkin in 1876. During the February Revolution of 1917, it was attacked by soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment on February 27. Under the Provisional Government, hundreds of Tsarist officials were held in the Fortress, the Tsar was threatened with being incarcerated at the Fortress on his return from Mogilev to Tsarskoe Selo on March 8, but he was placed under house arrest. On July 4 when the Bolsheviks attempted a coup, the Fortress garrison of 8,000 men declared for the Bolsheviks and they surrendered to government forces without a struggle on July 6. On October 25, the fortress fell into Bolshevik hands. Only two hit, inflicting minor damage, and the defenders refused to surrender– at that time. At 02.10 on the morning of October 26, the Winter Palace was taken by forces under Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, in 1918-1921 at least 112 persons including 4 grand dukes were killed here. In 1924, most of the site was converted to a museum, in 1931, the Gas Dynamics Laboratory was added to the site. The structure suffered damage during the bombardment of the city during WWII by the German army who were laying siege to the city. It has been faithfully restored post-war and is a prime tourist attraction, such legends had the effect of turning the prison into a symbol of government oppression in the minds of the common folk
35.
Marie Curie
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Marie Skłodowska Curie, born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris and she was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaws clandestine Floating University and began her scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris and she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and her achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the worlds first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms and she founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals, while a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland and she named the first chemical element that she discovered—polonium, which she isolated in 1898—after her native country. Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in the Russian partition of Poland, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, the elder siblings of Maria were Zofia, Józef, Bronisława and Helena. On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Polands independence. This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria, her sisters and her brother. Marias paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski, had been a teacher in Lublin, where he taught the young Bolesław Prus. Her father, Władysław Skłodowski, taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, after Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home, and instructed his children in its use. Marias mother Bronisława operated a prestigious Warsaw boarding school for girls and she died of tuberculosis in May 1878, when Maria was ten years old. Less than three years earlier, Marias oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus contracted from a boarder, Marias father was an atheist, her mother a devout Catholic. The deaths of Marias mother and sister caused her to give up Catholicism and become agnostic. When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the school of J. Sikorska, next she attended a gymnasium for girls. After a collapse, possibly due to depression, she spent the year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw
36.
Auguste Rodin
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François Auguste René Rodin, known as Auguste Rodin, was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past and he was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Pariss foremost school of art. Sculpturally, Rodin possessed an ability to model a complex, turbulent. Many of his most notable sculptures were roundly criticized during his lifetime and they clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodins most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style. Successive works brought increasing favor from the government and the artistic community, by 1900, he was a world-renowned artist. Wealthy private clients sought Rodins work after his Worlds Fair exhibit and he married his lifelong companion, Rose Beuret, in the last year of both their lives. His sculptures suffered a decline in popularity after his death in 1917, Rodin remains one of the few sculptors widely known outside the visual arts community. Rodin was born in 1840 into a family in Paris, the second child of Marie Cheffer and Jean-Baptiste Rodin. He was largely self-educated, and began to draw at age ten, between ages 14 and 17, Rodin attended the Petite École, a school specializing in art and mathematics, where he studied drawing and painting. His drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, believed in first developing the personality of his students so that they observed with their own eyes, Rodin still expressed appreciation for his teacher much later in life. It was at Petite École that he first met Jules Dalou, in 1857, Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance, he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied. Given that entrance requirements at the Grande École were not particularly high, Rodins inability to gain entrance may have been due to the judges Neoclassical tastes, while Rodin had been schooled in light, 18th-century sculpture. Leaving the Petite École in 1857, Rodin earned a living as a craftsman, Rodins sister Maria, two years his senior, died of peritonitis in a convent in 1862. Rodin was anguished and felt guilty because he had introduced Maria to an unfaithful suitor, turning away from art, he briefly joined a Catholic order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Peter Julian Eymard, founder and head of the congregation, recognized Rodins talent and, sensing his lack of suitability for the order and he returned to work as a decorator, while taking classes with animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye. The teachers attention to detail – his finely rendered musculature of animals in motion – significantly influenced Rodin, in 1864, Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret, with whom he would stay – with ranging commitment – for the rest of his life. The couple had a son, Auguste-Eugène Beuret and that year, Rodin offered his first sculpture for exhibition, and entered the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, a successful mass producer of objets dart
37.
Anatole France
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Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers, ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. Anatole France was also documented to have a brain size just three-quarters the normal weight, France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcels literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time. The son of a bookseller, France spent most of his life around books and was a bibliophile and his fathers bookstore, called the Librairie France, specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many notable writers and scholars of the day. France studied at the Collège Stanislas, a private Catholic school, after several years he secured the position of cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. In 1876 he was appointed librarian for the French Senate, Anatole France began his literary career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published one of his poems, in 1875, he sat on the committee which was in charge of the third Parnasse Contemporain compilation. As a journalist, from 1867, he wrote articles and notices. He became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard and its protagonist, skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, embodied Frances own personality. The novel was praised for its elegant prose and won him a prize from the Académie française, in La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque Anatole France ridiculed belief in the occult, and in Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard, France captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle. France was elected to the Académie française in 1896, France took an important part in the Dreyfus affair. He signed Émile Zolas manifesto supporting Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer who had been convicted of espionage. France wrote about the affair in his 1901 novel Monsieur Bergeret and it is a satirical history of France, starting in Medieval times, going on to the writers own time with special attention to the Dreyfus Affair and concluding with a dystopian future. Les dieux ont soif is a novel, set in Paris during the French Revolution, about a true-believing follower of Robespierre and it is a wake-up call against political and ideological fanaticism and explores various other philosophical approaches to the events of the time. La Revolte des Anges is often considered Frances most profound novel, loosley based on the Christian myth of the War in Heaven, it tells the story of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice dEsparvieu. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921 and he died in 1924 and is buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris. On 31 May 1922, Frances entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Roman Catholic Church and he regarded this as a distinction. This Index was abolished in 1966, in 1877, Anatole France married Valérie Guérin de Sauville, a granddaughter of Jean-Urbain Guérin a miniaturist who painted Louis XVI, with whom he had a daughter, Suzanne, in 1881
38.
Adirondack Mountains
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The Adirondack Mountains /ædᵻˈrɒndæk/ form a massif in the northeast of Upstate New York in the United States. Its boundaries correspond to the boundaries of Adirondack Park, the mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles in diameter and about 1 mile high. The current relief owes much to glaciation, the earliest written use of the name, spelled Rontaks, was in 1724 by the French missionary Joseph-François Lafitau. He defined it as tree eaters, in the Mohawk language, Adirondack means porcupine, an animal that may eat bark. The Mohawks had no written language at the time so Europeans have used various phonetic spellings, an English map from 1761 labels it simply Deer Hunting Country and the mountains were named Adirondacks in 1837 by Ebenezer Emmons. People first arrived in the following the settlement of the Americas around 10,000 BC. The Algonquian peoples and the Mohawk nation used the Adirondacks for hunting and travel, european colonisation of the area began with Samuel de Champlain visiting what is now Ticonderoga in 1609, and Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues visited the region in 1642. In 1664 the land came under the control of the English when New Netherland was ceded to The Crown, after the American Revolutionary War, the lands passed to the people of New York State. Needing money to war debts, the new government sold nearly all the original public acreage about 7 million acres for pennies an acre. Lumbermen were welcomed to the interior, with few restraints, resulting in massive deforestation, for the history of the area since industrialization, see The History of Adirondack Park. In 1989, part of the Adirondack region was designated by UNESCO as the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, the rocks of the mountains originated about two billion years ago as 50,000 feet deep sediments at the bottom of a sea near the equator. Because of continental drift these collided with Laurentia in a mountain building episode known as the Grenville orogeny, during this time the sedimentary rock was changed into metamorphic rock. It is these Proterozoic minerals and lithologies that make up the core of the massif, such minerals of interest include, wollastonite, mined near Harrisville magnetite and hematite, formerly mined at the Benson Mines, Lyon Mountain, Mineville, Tawahus, and Witherbee. Graphite, mined near Hague and Ticonderoga, garnet, mined at the Barton Mine, north of Gore Mountain. Anorthosite, visible in road cuts on the New York State Route 3 between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, marble zinc, The Balmat-Edwards district on the northwest flank of the massif also in St. Lawrence County was a major zinc ore deposit titanium was mined at Tawahus. Around 600 million years ago the area began to be pulled apart, as Laurentia drifted away from Baltica, faults developed, running north to north east which formed valleys and deep lakes. Examples visible today include the grabens Lake George and Schroon Lake, by this time the Grenville mountains had been eroded away and the area was covered by a shallow sea. Several thousand feet of sediment accumulated on the sea bed, trilobites were the principal life-form of the sea bed, and fossil tracks can be seen in the Potsdam sandstone floor of the Paul Smiths Visitor Interpretive Center
39.
Maria Fyodorovna Andreyeva
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Maria Fyodorovna Andreyeva was the stage name of Maria Fyodorovna Yurkovskaya, a Russian/Soviet actress and Bolshevik administrator. Her father, Fyodor Alexandrovich Fyodorov-Yurkovsky was the director of the Alexandrinsky Theater and she followed into the steps of her parents. After drama school she went to Kazan, aged 18 and she married Andrey Zhelyabuzhsky, who was her elder by 18 years. He was controller of the Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod railroads, but was involved in theatre. The couple had two children, Yuri and Yekaterina, Yuri went on to become a film director. After Zhelyabuzhsky received a new post, the moved to Tiflis. They next moved to Moscow, where Andreyeva worked with Konstantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre and she made her Moscow debut on December 15,1894. Andreyeva took an interest in Marxist literature and she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1902, she decided to leave acting, in 1900, she met Maxim Gorky in Sevastopol the first time. In 1903 she became his law wife. Gorky and Andreyeva left Russia in 1906 and travelled around the United States, while in Capri, Gorky was involved in the Vpered group but Andreyeva fell out with Anna Aleksandrovna Lunacharskaya, wife of Anatoly Lunacharsky and sister of Alexander Bogdanov. Already by 1914, she was active in attempts to promote classical theatre to the masses, only after the October Revolution did these endeavours bear fruits. Between 1918 and 1921, she was Commissar of Theaters and Public Shows in Petrograd and she was instrumental in the establishment of the Bolshoi Drama Theater, which opened in 1919. In January that year, Anatoly Lunacharsky nominated her as his deputy in his role of head of art section of the Narkompros in Petrograd, the Petrograd Soviet refused to confirm her nomination, but Vladimir Lenin intervened in her favour and the appointment went ahead. In 1920, Lunacharsky offered her the position of head of TEO, the department of Narkompros, in Moscow. During this period she separated from Gorky, between 1931 and 1948, she held the post of Director of the House of Scientists in Moscow. The Commisariat of Enlightenment, Soviet Organization of Education and the Arts under Lunacharsky
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