1.
Kharkiv
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Kharkiv or Kharkov is the second-largest city in Ukraine. In the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region, the city has a population of about 1.5 million people. Kharkiv is the centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv district. The city was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a centre of Ukrainian industry, trade. Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934 and its industry specializes primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of companies in the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory, Khartron, the Turboatom. Some sources indicate that the city may have named after the Hunnic name for swan. Other sources offer that the city was named after its near-legendary founder, archeological evidence discovered in the area of present-day Kharkiv indicates that a population has existed in that area since the second millennium BC. Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers, there is also evidence that the Chernyakhov culture flourished in the area from the second to the sixth centuries. The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654, the years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate. The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where a settlement stood. According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk, at first the settlement was self-governed under the jurisdiction of a voivode from Chuhuiv that is 40 kilometres to the east. The first appointed voivode from Moscow was Voyin Selifontov in 1656 who started to build a local ostrog, at that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of whom were local cossacks, while Selifontov brought along a Moscow garrison of another 70 servicemen. The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that locals refused to cooperate in building the fort, Kharkiv also became the centre of the local Sloboda cossack regiment as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement had a fortress with underground passageways, in 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to the Moscow tsar. The locals led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused, however, with the election of the new otaman Tymish Lavrynov the community sent a request to the tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by deans of Kharkiv churches. Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force, with the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort. Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine, the Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was at University Hill
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.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
4.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
5.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
6.
Jack of Diamonds (artists)
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Jack of Diamonds, also called Knave Of Diamonds, was a group of avant-garde artists founded in 1910 in Moscow. The group remained active until December 1917, the Knave of Diamonds was an exhibition that opened in Moscow in December 1910, featuring French cubist paintings by Henri Le Fauconnier, André Lhote, Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. Curated by Alexandre Mercereau, the included works of four Russian artists expelled from the Moscow School of Painting. Subsequently the title was adopted by a newly formed artistic society in Moscow, soon thereafter, this group became the largest and one of the most significant exhibition societies of the early Russian avant-garde. The name itself was coined by Mikhail Larionov for the exhibition of 1910 because he liked the sound of it, well-known painters that participated in the first Jack of Diamonds exhibition, in addition to the French Cubists were Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kazimir Malevich. The group included Robert Falk, Aristarkh Lentulov, Ilya Mashkov, Alexander V. Kuprin, Adolf Milman, Alexander Osmerkin, Wladimir Burliuk, Pyotr Konchalovsky and Moisey Feigin. Other new styles and genres, such as performance and body-art, emerged from this unlikely blending of fine European art, Russian folk art, later Mikhail Larionov and his followers disagreed with the groups ethos and formed the more radical Donkeys Tail. G. G. Pospelov, Bubnovii Valet / Knave of Diamonds, State Russian Museum, State Tretiakov Gallery, Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, The Knave of Diamonds in the Russian Avant-Garde. Benedikt Livshits, The One and a Half-Eyed Archer, newtonville, Mass, Oriental Research Partners,1977, pages 69–96. Knave of Diamonds, InCoRM, Compiled by Patricia Railing
7.
Sloviansk
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Sloviansk is a city of oblast significance in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. It also serves as the center of the Sloviansk Raion. The city was one of the points in the early stages of the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine. It was retaken by Ukrainian forces in July 2014, the city of Sloviansk was founded by Russian tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich in 1645 as a border fortress against the Crimean attacks and slave raids on the southern suburbs of the Russian State. In 1676, a fortress named Tor was built at the confluence of the Kazenyy Torets and Sukhyy Torets Rivers where they form the Torets River, shortly thereafter, the town of Tor grew up next to the fortress. As several salt lakes were located close by, the became a producer of salt. During the sixteenth century, salt production was the local industry. In 1784, the city was renamed Sloviansk, and it became a part of the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1797, a resort was established on the shores of Lake Ropne in 1832. The city was occupied by the Germans on October 28,1941, in December 1941, SS Einsatzkommando 4b executed more than a thousand Jews who lived in the city. The Red Army temporarily expelled the Nazi occupiers on February 17,1944, Germans retook it on 1 March 1943. Finally Red Army liberated it on 6 September 1943, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described the gunmen as terrorists and vowed to use the Ukrainian special forces to retake the building. On April 13,2014, there were reports of fighting between the gunmen and Ukrainian troops, with casualties on both sides. The BBCs David Stern described the forces as carrying Russian weapons. Ukraines outgoing President Olexander Turchynov described the downing as a terrorist attack, the city was held by separatist forces until July 5,2014, when pressed by the Ukrainian army they had to retreat from Sloviansk and pull back to Donetsk city. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, The climate in Sloviansk is a mild to warm summer subtype of the continental climate. Companies in Mariupol, Kryvyi Rih, Donetsk, and Kamianske use their products, the Betonmash machine-building factory which produces concrete mixing plants, spare parts for mining equipment and metal works, parts for coke ovens. The factory provides foundry services for companies across Donetsk Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, the Sloviansk mechanical plant which employs approximately four hundred people. It produces chemical equipment for production as well as overhead cranes
8.
Governorate (Russia)
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A governorate, or a guberniya, was a major and principal administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire and the early Russian SFSR. The term is translated as government, governorate, or province. A governorate was ruled by a governor, a word borrowed from Latin gubernator, sometimes the term guberniya was informally used to refer to the office of a governor. Selected governorates were united under a governor general such as Grand Duchy of Finland, Tsardom of Poland, Russian Turkestan. There also were military governors such as Kronshtadt, Vladivostok, aside of governorates, other types of divisions were oblasts and okrugs. This subdivision type was created by the edict of Peter the Great on December 18,1708 On the establishment of the gubernias and cities assigned to them, in 1719, guberniyas were further subdivided into provinces. Later the number of guberniyas was increased to 23, the term guberniya, however, still remained in use. These viceroyalties were governed by namestniki or governors general, correspondingly, the term governorate general was in use to refer to the actual territory being governed. The office of general had more administrative power and was in a higher position than the previous office of governor. Sometimes a governor general ruled several guberniyas, for the guberniya as subdivisions of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland, see Administrative division of Congress Poland and Governorates of the Grand Duchy of Finland. For the guberniya as subdivisions of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic and the Ukrainian SSR, after the February Revolution, the Russian Provisional Government renamed governors into guberniya commissars. The October Revolution left the subdivision in place, but the apparatus was replaced by guberniya soviets. Actual subdivisions of the Soviet Union into particular territorial units was subject to numerous changes, eventually, in 1929, the subdivision was replaced by the notions of oblast, okrug, and raion. In post-Soviet republics such as Russia and Ukraine, the term Guberniya is obsolete, there is another archaic meaning of the word as the word denoted a type of estate in former Lithuania of the Russian Empire till 1917. History of the division of Russia List of governorates of the Russian Empire Governorate-General GOELRO plan Ignatov. History of state administration of Russia
9.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
10.
Valentin Serov
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Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was a Russian painter, and one of the premier portrait artists of his era. Serov was born in Saint Petersburg, son of the Russian composer and music critic Alexander Serov, Serovs early creativity was sparked by the realistic art of Repin and strict pedagogical system of Chistyakov. The greatest works of Serovs early period were portraits, The Girl with Peaches, in these paintings Serov concentrated on spontaneity of perception of the model and nature. From 1890 on, the became the basic genre in Serovs art. It was in this field that his style would become apparent. Serovs favorite models were actors, artists, and writers, initially abstaining from the polychromatic, brightly colored painting style of the 1880s, Serov often preferred a dominant scale of black-grey or brown tones. Impressionistic features appeared sometimes in construction of a portrait, or to capture a sense of spontaneous movement. As in the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, the impressionism is not doctrinaire, receiving wide popularity, in 1894 Serov joined with the Peredvizhniki, and took on important commissions, among them portraits of grand duke Pavel Alexandrovich, S. M. Botkin,1899, and Felix Yusupov,1903 as well as Princess Olga Orlova, in these truthful, compositionally skillful, and picturesque executions in the grand manner, Serov consistently used linear-rhythmic drawing coupled with decorative color combinations. At the same time, he developed a contrasting direction, he frequently produced intimate, heartfelt, chamber portraits, mainly of children and women. In portraits of children Serov aspired to capture pose and gesture, to reveal and emphasize a spontaneity of internal movement, Serov frequently called upon various graphic techniques - watercolors, pastels, lithographs and so forth. Figures in Serovs portraits gradually became more and more refined and economical. From 1890 to 1900 Serov produced many landscape compositions on country themes, Serov married Olga Trubnikova in 1889. His wife and his children were the subject of many of his works, notably, his painting Children was of his sons Yura and Sasha. M. Gorkis museum, Moscow, Maria Yermolova, Feodor Chaliapin - both in the Tretyakov Gallery, and Helena Roerich, Serovs democratic beliefs were clearly shown during the Revolution from 1905 to 1907, he depicted a number of satirical figures exposing chastisers. A full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts since 1903, in 1905 he resigned as a gesture of protest against the execution of striking workers and their families on 9 January, Bloody Sunday. His late creativity found expression in painting, and depth of comprehension of the historical maintenance of an epoch. The last years of Serovs life were marked by works on themes from classical mythology, while addressing images from the ancient tradition, Serov endowed classical subject matter with a personal interpretation
11.
Mikhail Vrubel
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Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel is usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement and of Art Nouveau. In reality, he stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine. Vrubel was born in Omsk, Russia and his paternal grandfather Mikhail Antonovich Vrubel was of Polish heritage, he served in the Imperial Russian Army, then headed the Astrakhan Cossacks. Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vrubel followed his fathers steps and made a military career and his wife Anna Karlovna von Krabbe was Danish. Vrubel was one of the four children and his mother died when he was three years old. The next year he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied by direction of Pavel Chistyakov, even in his earliest works, he exhibited great talent for drawing and an idiosyncratic style. He would later develop a penchant for fragmentary composition and an unfinished touch, in 1884, he was summoned to replace the lost 12th-century murals and mosaics in the St. Cyrils Church of Kiev with new ones. In order to execute this commission, he went to Venice to study medieval Christian art and it was here that, in the words of an art historian, his palette acquired new strong saturated tones resembling the iridescent play of precious stones. Most of his works painted in Venice have been lost, because the artist was interested in creative process than in promoting his artwork. In 1886, he returned to Kiev, where he submitted designs to the newly built St Volodymir Cathedral. The jury, however, failed to appreciate the novelty of his works, at that period, he executed some illustrations for Hamlet and Anna Karenina, which had little in common with his later Demon and Prophet themes. In 1905 he created the mosaics of the hotel Metropol in Moscow, while in Kiev, Vrubel started painting sketches and watercolours illustrating the demon, from a long Romantic poem by Mikhail Lermontov. The poem described the carnal passion of an eternal nihilistic spirit for a Georgian girl Tamara, at that period Vrubel developed a keen interest in Oriental arts, and particularly Persian carpets, and even attempted to imitate their texture in his paintings. In 1890, Vrubel relocated to Moscow where he could best follow the burgeoning innovations, like other artists associated with the Art Nouveau style, he excelled not only in painting but also in applied arts, such as ceramics, majolics, and stained glass. He also produced architectural masks, stage sets, and costumes and it is the large painting of Seated Demon that brought notoriety to Vrubel. During 1896, he met the opera singer Nadezhda Zabela. Half a year later married and settled in Moscow, where Zabela was invited by Mamontov to perform in his private opera theatre. While in Moscow, Vrubel designed stage sets and costumes for his wife, who sang the parts of the Snow Maiden, the Swan Princess, using Russian fairy tales, he executed some of his most acclaimed pieces, including Pan, The Swan Princess, and Lilacs
12.
Vasily Surikov
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Vasily Ivanovich Surikov was a Russian Realist history painter. Many of his works have become familiar to the public through their use as illustrations. He was born to an old Don Cossack family that had settled in Siberia and his father was a Collegiate Registrar, a civil service rank that often served as postmasters. In 1854, as a result of his father being reassigned, the moved to the village of Sukhobuzimskoye. In 1859, his father died of tuberculosis so the family returned to Krasnoyarsk and were forced to rent the second floor of their house to make ends meet and he began drawing while attending the district school and was encouraged by the local art teacher. His first formal work dates from 1862, but his family could not afford to continue his education and he became a clerk in a government office. This brought him contact with Pavel Zamyatin, the Governor of Yenisei, who was able to find him a patron, Pyotr Kuznetsov. After a year there, he was allowed to audit classes at the Academy, from 1869 to 1875, he studied with Pavel Chistyakov, Bogdan Willewalde and Pyotr Shamshin, winning several medals. His great attention to composition earned him a nickname, The Composer, in 1875, he graduated with the title of Artist, first degree. In 1877, he received a commission to paint murals at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, unable to afford a house, he lived in rented apartments and hotels and visited Krasnoyarsk whenever possible. In 1878, he married Elisabeth Charais, a French woman who was descended from the Decembrist, Pyotr Svistunov, after that, he chose to remain in Moscow and began the series of historical paintings that would establish his reputation, starting with The Morning of the Streltsy Execution. In 1881, he had his first exhibition with the Peredvizhniki, in 1883, Menshikov in Berezov was bought by Pavel Tretyakov for a sum that allowed him to take a European tour. In 1887, he added portraits to his repertoire, beginning one of his mother. In 1888, his wife died and he returned to Krasnoyarsk with his daughters and this was followed by a visit to his ancestral home in Siberia. There, on the Ob River, he made sketches for one of his most familiar works and this brought him a full membership in the Imperial Academy. In 1897, he visited Switzerland and painted Suvorov Crossing the Alps, in 1907, he left the Peredvizhniki and joined the Union of Russian Artists. Three years later, he visited Spain, together with his son-in-law and that same year, he and the architect, Leonid Chernishyov, opened an art school. Four years later, he made a stay in Krasnoyarsk
13.
Gymnasium (school)
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In its current meaning, it usually refers to secondary schools focused on preparing students to enter a university for advanced academic study. In the US, the German Gymnasium curriculum was used at a number of universities such as the University of Michigan as a model for their undergraduate college programs. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men, in the Polish educational system the gimnazjum is a middle school for pupils aged 13 to 16. The same applies in the Greek educational system, with the option of Εσπερινό Γυμνάσιο for adults. The gymnasium is a school which prepares the student for higher education at a university. They are thus meant for the more academically minded students, who are sifted out at about the age of 10–13, in addition to the usual curriculum, students of a gymnasium often study Latin and Ancient Greek. Some gymnasiums provide general education, others have a specific focus, today, a number of other areas of specialization exist, such as gymnasiums specializing in economics, technology or domestic sciences. In some countries, there is a notion of progymnasium, which is equivalent to beginning classes of the full gymnasium, here, the prefix pro indicates that this curriculum precedes normal gymnasium studies. The term was derived from the classical Greek word gymnasion, which was applied to an exercising ground in ancient Athens. Here teachers gathered and gave instruction between the hours devoted to exercises and sports, and thus the term became associated with. This use of the term did not prevail among the Romans, but was revived during the Renaissance in Italy, in 1538, Johannes Sturm founded at Strasbourg the school which became the model of the modern German gymnasium. In 1812, a Prussian regulation ordered that all schools which had the right to send their students to the university should bear the name of gymnasia, by the 20th century, this practice was followed in almost the entire Austrian-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires. In the modern era, many countries which have gymnasiums were once part of three empires. In Albania a gymnasium education takes three years following a compulsory nine-year elementary education and ending with an aptitude test called Matura Shtetërore. The final test is standardized at the level and serves as an entrance qualification for universities. There are both public and private schools in these countries. Therefore, gymnasiums often base their admittance criteria on an entrance exam, in Austria the Gymnasium has two stages, from the age of 11 to 14, and from 15 to 18, concluding with Matura. The Humanistisches Gymnasium focuses on Ancient Greek and Latin, the Neusprachliches Gymnasium puts its focus on actively spoken languages
14.
Imperial Academy of Arts
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The Russian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, the academy promoted the neoclassical style and technique, and sent its promising students to European capitals for further study. Training at the academy was virtually required for artists to make successful careers, formally abolished in 1918 after the Russian Revolution, the academy was renamed several times. It established free tuition, students from across the country competed fiercely for its few places annually, in 1947 the national institution was moved to Moscow, and much of its art collection was moved to the Hermitage. The building in Leningrad was devoted to the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, since 1991 it has been called the St. Petersburg Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The academy was located in the Shuvalov Palace on Sadovaya Street, in 1764, Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned its first rector, Alexander Kokorinov, to design a new building. It took 25 years to complete the Neoclassical edifice, which opened in 1789, konstantin Thon was responsible for the sumptuous decoration of the interiors. He also designed a quayside in front of the building, with stairs down to the Neva River, Ivan Betskoy reorganized the academy into a de facto government department, it supervised matters concerning art throughout the country, distributing orders and awarding ranks to artists. The academy vigorously promoted the principles of Neoclassicism by sending the most notable Russian painters abroad, in order to learn the ancient and Renaissance styles of Italy and it also had its own sizable collection of choice artworks intended for study and copying. The adherents of this movement became known as peredvizhniki, led by Ivan Kramskoi, they publicly broke with the Academy and organized their own exhibitions, which traveled from town to town across Russia. Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel and some other painters still regarded the academys training as indispensable for the development of professional and technical skills. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Imperial Academy passed through a series of transformations, after the Academys move to Moscow that year, the building in what was then called Leningrad was renamed Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. The national academy has stayed in Moscow, in 1991 it was renamed the Russian Academy of Arts. The old academys art collection, which included works by Poussin, David. During the Soviet era, academies were free of tuition fees as they were financed by the government, many would-be students would apply to the Academy for as many as six or seven years in a row without success. With just twenty places available and thousands of applicants, the competition was brutal, well-known graduates of Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1930–1950s include, The Russian Academy of Arts has been headquartered in Moscow since 1947. Its current president is Zurab Tsereteli and its vice-president is Tair Salakhov and it is also called the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts, Sculpture and Architecture. - Saint Petersburg, NP-Print Edition,2007, the Leningrad School Russian Academy of Arts The St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts Sergei V. Ivanov
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Saint Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg is Russias second-largest city after Moscow, with five million inhabitants in 2012, and an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea. It is politically incorporated as a federal subject, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, it was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 271703. In 1914, the name was changed from Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad, between 1713 and 1728 and 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia. In 1918, the government bodies moved to Moscow. Saint Petersburg is one of the cities of Russia, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world. A large number of consulates, international corporations, banks. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress, at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, in a then called Ingermanland. A small town called Nyen grew up around it, Peter the Great was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, and he intended to have Russia gain a seaport in order to be able to trade with other maritime nations. He needed a better seaport than Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea to the north, on May 1703121703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans, and soon replaced the fortress. On May 271703, closer to the estuary 5 km inland from the gulf), on Zayachy Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, tens of thousands of serfs died building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712,9 years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war, he referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital as early as 1704. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the bank of the Neva, near the Peter. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan, by 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed, but is evident in the layout of the streets, in 1716, Peter the Great appointed French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great, in 1725, Peter died at the age of fifty-two. His endeavours to modernize Russia had met opposition from the Russian nobility—resulting in several attempts on his life
16.
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy
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Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, nicknamed the Comrade Count, was a Russian and Soviet writer who wrote in many genres but specialized in science fiction and historical novels. During World War II, he served on an Extraordinary State Commission which ascertained without reasonable doubt the mass extermination of people in gas vans by the German occupiers. His work in the investigation of atrocities committed in the Stavropol region was recognized by Soviet prosecutors during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals, Aleksey was the son of Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Tolstoy and Alexandra Leontievna Turgeneva. His mother was a grand-niece of Decembrist Nikolay Turgenev and a relative of the renowned Russian writer Ivan Turgenev and his father belonged to the Tolstoy family of Russian nobles and was a remote relative of Leo Tolstoy. His father had been a cavalry officer, whose rowdy excesses proved too much even for his fellow hussars. He was obliged to leave his regiment and the two cities, and retired to an estate in Samara, Russia. There he met and married Alexandra Leontievna Turgenev, a girl of good family. She bore him two sons, Alexander and Mstislav, and a daughter Elizabeth, but the wild blood of the Tolstoys did not allow him to settle down to an existing domestic harmony. Within a year the retired hussar had been exiled to Kostroma for insulting the Governor of Samara, when strings were eventually pulled to arrange his return, he celebrated it by provoking a fellow-noble to a duel. This was more than his wife could stand. In May 1882, already two months pregnant with her child, Alexandra fled into the arms of her lover. The scandal that followed was appalling, the Count loosed off his revolver at Bostrom and was exculpated by the courts, whilst the ecclesiastical court in granting a divorce ruled that the guilty wife should never be allowed to remarry. In order to keep the baby, Alexandra was compelled to assert that it was Bostroms child. Ostracized by society and even for years by her own parents, she left with her lover for Nikolaevsk. Due in part to their rejection by both the Russian nobility and the Church, Aleksei Bostrom and Alexandra Tolstoy raised Aleksei in a staunchly atheistic, Aleksei would insist in later years that they were also great admirers of the writings of Karl Marx and Georgi Plekhanov. Even after learning the truth, he still considered Aleksey Bostrom his true father, Nikolai Tolstoy comments that As with so many Russian children at that time, little Alexei picked up his earliest education at home. There were lessons with his not over-strict tutor, his mother taught him to read and write and his attention was perfunctory, and in his earliest years it was his imagination and dreams which absorbed his energy. His mother was a writer and poetess of modest abilities
17.
Mir iskusstva
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In fact, few Europeans outside Russia actually saw issues of the magazine itself. From 1909, several of the miriskusniki also participated in productions of Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes company based in Paris, the artistic group was founded in November 1898 by a group of students that included Alexandre Benois, Konstantin Somov, Dmitry Filosofov, Léon Bakst, and Eugene Lansere. The starting moments for the new group was organization of the Exhibition of Russian. The magazine was co-founded in 1899 in St. Petersburg by Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and they aimed at assailing low artistic standards of the obsolescent Peredvizhniki school and promoting artistic individualism and other principles of Art Nouveau. Apart from three founding fathers, active members of the World of Art included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Eugene Lansere, exhibitions organized by the World of Art attracted many illustrious painters from Russia and abroad, notably Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov, and Isaac Levitan. Representative works In its classical period the art group organized six exhibitions,1899,1900,1901,1902,1903,1906, in 1904-1910, Mir iskusstva did not exist as a separate artistic group. Its place was inherited by the Union of Russian Artists which continued officially until 1910, the Union included painters, illustrators, restorators, and scenic designers. In 1910 Benois published an article in the magazine Rech about the Union of Russian Artists. Nicholas Roerich became the new chairman, the group admitted new members including Nathan Altman, Vladimir Tatlin, and Martiros Saryan. Some said that the inclusion of Russian avant-garde painters demonstrated that the group had become an organization rather than an art movement. In 1917 the chairman of the group became Ivan Bilibin, the same year most members of the Jack of Diamonds entered the group. The group organized numerous exhibitions,1911,1912,1913,1915,1916,1917,1918,1921,1922 Saint-Petersburg, the last exhibition of Mir iskusstva was organized in Paris in 1927. Some members of the group entered the Zhar-Tsvet and Four Arts artistic movements, like the Romantics before them, the miriskusniki promoted understanding and conservation of the art of previous epochs, particularly traditional folk art and the 18th-century rococo. Antoine Watteau was probably the single artist whom they admired the most, such Revivalist projects were treated by the miriskusniki humorously, in a spirit of self-parody. They were fascinated with masks and marionettes, with carnaval and puppet theater, with dreams, everything grotesque and playful appealed to them more than the serious and emotional. Their favorite city was Venice, so much so that Diaghilev, as for media, the miriskusniki preferred the light, airy effects of watercolor and gouache to full-scale oil paintings. Seeking to bring art into every house, they designed interiors. Bakst and Benois revolutionized theatrical design with their ground-breaking decor for Cléopâtre, Carnaval, Petrushka, potter, Michelle, ‘Mir iskusstva, Serge Diaghilev’s Art Journal’, in NLA News, July 2005, Volume XV, Number 10 Mir iskusstva Artists at the Russian Art Gallery
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Tretyakov Gallery
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The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world. In 1892, Tretyakov presented his famous collection of approximately 2,000 works to the Russian nation. The façade of the building was designed by the painter Viktor Vasnetsov in a peculiar Russian fairy-tale style. It was built in 1902–04 to the south from the Moscow Kremlin, during the 20th century, the gallery expanded to several neighboring buildings, including the 17th-century church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. In 1977 the Gallery kept a significant part of the George Costakis collection, Pavel Tretyakov started collecting art in the middle of 1850. The founding year of the Tretyakov Gallery is considered to be 1856, schilder and Skirmish with Finnish Smugglers by V. G. Kudyakov, although earlier, in 1854-1855, he had bought 11 graphic sheets and 9 pictures of old Dutch masters, in 1867 the Moscow City Gallery of Pavel and Sergei Tretyakov was opened. The Gallery’s collection consisted of 1,276 paintings,471 sculptures and 10 drawings of Russian artists, in August 1892 Tretyakov presented his art gallery to the city of Moscow as a gift. In the collection at time, there were 1,287 paintings and 518 graphic works of the Russian school,75 paintings and 8 drawings of European schools,15 sculptures. The official opening of the called the Moscow City Gallery of Pavel. The gallery was located in a mansion that the Tretykov family had purchased in 1851. As the Tretyakov collection of art grew, the part of the mansion filled with art and it became necessary to make additions to the mansion in order to store. Additions were made in 1873,1882,1885,1892 and 1902-1904, construction of the façade was managed by the architect A. M. In early 1913, the Moscow City Duma elected Igor Grabar as a trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery, on June 3,1918, the Tretyakov Gallery was declared owned by Russian Federated Soviet Republic and was named the State Tretyakov Gallery. Igor Grabar was again appointed director of the museum, with Grabar’s active participation in the same year, the State Museum Fund was created, which up until 1927 remained one of the most important sources of replenishment of the gallerys collection. In 1926 architect and academician A. V, shchusev became the director of the gallery. In the following year the gallery acquired the house on Maly Tolmachevsky Lane. After restructuring in 1928, it housed the administration, academic departments, library, manuscripts department
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Still life
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A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made. Still life gives the artist more freedom in the arrangement of elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of such as landscape or portraiture. Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious, some modern still life breaks the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound. Still life emerged from the painting of details in larger compositions with subjects, the term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered art, although in practice they were often painted from dead models. The still-life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially botanical illustration, generally a still life includes a fully depicted background, and puts aesthetic rather than illustrative concerns as primary. Still life occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy of genres, the trompe-lœil painting, which intends to deceive the viewer into thinking the scene is real, is a specialized type of still life, usually showing inanimate and relatively flat objects. Still-life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs and it was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in the afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects, by the 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains and these vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600. As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of painting, genre painting. He singled out Peiraikos, whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few, by 1300, starting with Giotto and his pupils, still-life painting was revived in the form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects. Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, still life in Western art remained primarily an adjunct to Christian religious subjects, painters like Jan van Eyck often used still-life elements as part of an iconographic program. Petrus Christus’ portrait of a bride and groom visiting a goldsmith is an example of a transitional still life depicting both religious and secular content. Another similar type of painting is the family portrait combining figures with a table of food. Around this time, simple still-life depictions divorced of figures were beginning to be painted on the outside of shutters of private devotional paintings, another step toward the autonomous still life was the painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475. This was a development by Pieter Aertsen, whose A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms introduced the type with a painting that still startles. A small religious scene can often be out in the distance
20.
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
21.
Sergey Mikhalkov
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Mikhalkov was born in Moscow, Russian Empire, to Vladimir Alexandrovich Mikhalkov and Olga Mikhailovna. Mikhalkov stemmed from the family of Mikhalkovs and had tsarist admirals, governors. Since the 1930s, he has rivalled Korney Chukovsky and Agniya Barto as the most popular poet writing for Russophone children and his poems about enormously tall Uncle Styopa enjoyed particular popularity. Uncle Styopa is a friendly policeman always ready to rescue cats stuck up trees, in English, his name translates as Uncle Steeple. As a 29-year-old in 1942, Mikhalkovs work drew the attention of the Soviet Unions leader Joseph Stalin, at the time, the country was deeply embroiled in World War II and Stalin wanted a Russian theme for the national anthem, to replace the Internationale. Mikhalkov penned words to accompany a musical score by the composer Alexander Alexandrov that became known as National Anthem of the Soviet Union, the new anthem was presented to Stalin in the summer of 1943 and was introduced as the countrys new anthem on January 1,1944. On the death of Stalin in 1953, the lyrics, which mentioned him by name, were discarded during the process of destalinization, Mikhalkov wrote new lyrics in 1970, but they were not submitted to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet until May 27,1977. The new lyrics, which removed any reference to Stalin, were approved on September 1 and were made official with the printing of the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977 and his younger brother Mikhail Mikhalkov was also a notable writer as well as a KGB agent. Use of the Soviet anthem, with Mikhalkovs lyrics, continued until 1991, however, when Vladimir Putin took over from Yeltsin in 2000, he began to clamor for a restoration of Alexandrov’s music in place of Yeltsins choice. But when Putin’s push to restore the old anthem began to pick up momentum, he picked up his pen once again, the result was the National Anthem of Russia, which was officially adopted in 2001. Apart from the anthem, Mikhalkov produced a great number of satirical plays. He also successfully revived a long derelict genre of satirical fable and he was awarded three Stalin Prizes and numerous other awards. On his 90th birthday in 2003, Putin personally visited him at his home to present him with the 2nd class Order For Service to Fatherland, citing him for his contributions to culture of Russia. Mikhalkov was also decorated with a Hero of Socialist Labor and the Order of Lenin, among others, in 1936 Mikhalkov married Natalia Petrovna Konchalovskaya, granddaughter of Vasily Surikov. They remained married for 53 years until her death, in 1997 Mikhalkov married physics professor Yulia Valeryevna Subbotina. Mikhalkov died in his sleep at the age of 96 in a Moscow hospital and his funeral, held at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, was attended by family, friends, and government officials. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow with full military honors, Order For Merit to the Fatherland, 2nd Class - for outstanding contributions to the development of national culture. Order of Honour - for great contributions to the development of domestic multi-national culture
22.
State Anthem of the Soviet Union
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The lyrics were written by Sergey Mikhalkov in collaboration with Gabriel El-Registan and the music was composed by Alexander Alexandrov. Although the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, its national anthems melody continues to be used in the Russian Federations national anthem, the Anthem of the Soviet Union was played for the first time on the Soviet radio at midnight on 1 January 1944. Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Unions war against Nazi Germany were originally invoked in the lyrics, with the process of de-Stalinization inaugurated after Stalins death, the lyrics which referred to Stalin were considered unacceptable and during 1953–1977 the anthem was performed without lyrics. In 1977, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, revised lyrics, the varying refrains were replaced by a uniform refrain following all stanzas, the line praising Stalin was dropped, as were the lines referring to the Great Patriotic War. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation adopted a new wordless anthem called the Patriotic Song, as a result, a few different versions were produced. In 2000, the National Anthem of Russia was introduced, which used the music of the Soviet national anthem, the Soviet anthem remains for many a song of national pride and of international unity with former Union republics. It is often played at Communist rallies and apolitical Victory Day celebrations, in the summer of 2012, at an MMA competition in St. Also, the same music was used for a proposal of the anthem of the State Union of Russia and Belarus entitled Derzhavny Soyuz Narodov. Although never officially adopted, the lyrics of that piece were not tied to any specific nationality, however, there appears to be no plans to utilize that piece in any official role. The anthem also had versions in the languages of every Soviet republic. In some post-Soviet states which adopted decommunization laws banning the Communist symbolism, for example, since 2015 in Ukraine the offenders face up to five years of prison. Similar laws were adopted in Latvia and Lithuania and its worth mentioning that Germany has also adopted a similar law in 1991 with the Horst-Wessel Lied, because performing that anthem in Germany is currently illegal, with limited exceptions. 20 Most popular Soviet songs The author of Russian national anthem, bortnianskys anthem Kol slaven - Eng. Vocal performance of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union with Subtitles on YouTube As presented by Central Television in 1984 on YouTube
23.
National anthem of Russia
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The State Anthem of the Russian Federation is the name of the official national anthem of Russia. Its musical composition and lyrics were adopted from the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, composed by Alexander Alexandrov, the Soviet anthem was used from 1944, replacing The Internationale with a more Sovietcentric and Russiacentric song. The anthem had no lyrics after 1956, due to the lyrics having references to former leader Joseph Stalin. New lyrics were introduced in 1977 by Mikhalkov with lyrics placing less emphasis on World War II, the Russian SFSR was the only republic of the USSR without its own anthem, although most republics within the federation did have anthems of their own. The government sponsored contests to create lyrics for the unpopular anthem, Glinkas anthem was replaced soon after Yeltsins successor as President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, first took office on 7 May 2000. Yeltsin criticized Putin for supporting the reintroduction of the Soviet-era national anthem even though opinion polls showed that many Russians favored this decision, Public perception of the anthem is mixed among Russians. The anthem reminds some of the best days of Russia and past sacrifices, the Russian government maintains that the anthem is a symbol of the unity of the people, and that it respects the past. A2009 poll showed that 56% of respondents felt proud when hearing the anthem, before Molitva russkikh was chosen as the national anthem of Imperial Russia in 1816, various church hymns and military marches were used to honor the country and the Tsars. Songs used include Grom pobedy, razdavaysya. and Kol slaven, Molitva russkikh was adopted around 1816, and used lyrics by Vasily Zhukovsky set to the music of the British anthem, God Save the King. Russias anthem was also influenced by the anthems of France and the Netherlands, in 1833, Zhukovsky was asked to set lyrics to a musical composition by Prince Alexei Lvov called The Russian Peoples Prayer. Known more commonly as God Save the Tsar and it was well received by Nicholas I, who chose the song to be the next anthem of Imperial Russia. The song resembled a hymn, and its style was similar to that of other anthems used by European monarchs. God Save the Tsar. was performed for the first time on 8 December 1833 and it was later played at the Winter Palace on Christmas Day, by order of Nicholas I. Public singing of the anthem began at opera houses in 1834, God Save the Tsar. was used until the February Revolution, when the Russian monarchy was overthrown. Upon the overthrow, in March 1917, the Workers Marseillaise, the modifications Lavrov made to La Marseillaise included a change in meter from 2/2 to 4/4 and music harmonization to make it sound more Russian. It was used at meetings, welcoming ceremonies for diplomats. After the Bolsheviks overthrew the government in the 1917 October Revolution. Kots also changed the grammatical tense of the song, to make it more decisive in nature, the first major use of the song was at the funeral of victims of the February Revolution in Petrograd
24.
Andrei Konchalovsky
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Andrei Sergeyevich Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky is a Russian film director, film producer and screenwriter. He was a frequent collaborator of Andrei Tarkovsky earlier in his career and he is the son of Natalia Konchalovskaya and Sergey Mikhalkov, and brother to Nikita Mikhalkov who is also a well known Russian film director. He changed his first name to Andrei and took his grandfathers surname as his stage name. He is the brother of filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov and the son of author Sergei Mikhalkov and he studied for ten years at the Moscow Conservatory, preparing for a pianists career. In 1960, however, he met Andrei Tarkovsky and co-scripted his movie Andrei Rublev and his first full-length feature, The First Teacher, was favourably received in the Soviet Union and screened by numerous film festivals abroad. His second film, Asya Klyachinas Story, was suppressed by Soviet authorities, when issued twenty years later, it was acclaimed as his masterpiece. Thereupon, Konchalovsky filmed adaptations of Ivan Turgenevs A Nest of Gentle Folk and Chekhovs Uncle Vanya, in 1979 he was a member of the jury at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival. His epic Siberiade upon its 1979 release was received at Cannes. His most popular Hollywood releases are Marias Lovers, Runaway Train, based on a script by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, and Tango & Cash, starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell. Konchalovskys full-length feature, House of Fools, with a role by Bryan Adams as himself, set in a Chechen psychiatric asylum during the war. His film, The Nutcracker in 3D had its American release on November 24,2010, the film had a reported $90,000,000 budget and brought in a total of $65,944 in its U. S opening weekend. The film was critically derided, with Roger Ebert stating in his review of the film. Who considered it even remotely a plausible idea for a movie and his film The Postmans White Nights won the Silver Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. In 2016 Paradise directed by him won the Silver Lion at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and it was selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards. Konchalovsky has been married five times and his first wife was Irina Kandat. His second wife was Kazakh actress Natalia Arinbasarova, with whom he has one son, Yegor and his third wife was Viviane Godet, with whom he has a daughter, Alexandra Mikhalkova, born October 6,1971. His fourth wife is Irina Ivanova, with whom he has two daughters, Nathalia and Elena and his fifth wife is Russian actress Julia Vysotskaya, they have been married since 1998 and have two children, Masha and Piotr. After he came to America, while not working, he lived with Shirley MacLaine, then left her for Nastassja Kinski, special Silver St. George for his contribution to world cinema, 20th Moscow International Film Festival,19972003 Sergei Prokofiev TV documentary in the “Geniuses” series
25.
Nikita Mikhalkov
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Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov is a Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers Union. Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family and his great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a princess of the House of Golitsyn. Mikhalkovs mother, poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, was the daughter of the avant-garde artist Pyotr Konchalovsky and granddaughter of another outstanding painter, Vasily Surikov. Nikitas older brother is the filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky, primarily known for his collaboration with Andrei Tarkovsky and his own Hollywood action films, such as Runaway Train, Mikhalkov studied acting at the childrens studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and later at the Shchukin School of the Vakhtangov Theatre. While still a student, he appeared in Georgi Daneliyas film I Step Through Moscow and he was soon on his way to becoming a star of the Soviet stage and cinema. While continuing to pursue his career, he entered VGIK, the state film school in Moscow. He directed his first short film in 1968, Im Coming Home, Mikhalkov established an international reputation with his second feature, A Slave of Love. Set in 1917, it followed the efforts of a crew to make a silent melodrama in a resort town while the Revolution rages around them. In 1978, while starring in his brothers epic film Siberiade, Mikhalkov made Five Evenings, a story about a couple separated by World War II. Mikhalkovs next film, Oblomov, with Oleg Tabakov in the role, is based on Ivan Goncharovs classic novel about a lazy young nobleman who refuses to leave his bed. Family Relations is a comedy about a woman in Moscow dealing with the tangled relationships of her relatives. Without Witness tracks a long conversation between a woman and her ex-husband when they are accidentally locked in a room. The film won the Prix FIPRESCI at the 13th Moscow International Film Festival, in the early 1980s, Mikhalkov resumed his acting career, appearing in Eldar Ryazanovs immensely popular Station for Two and A Cruel Romance. At that period, he also played Henry Baskerville in the Soviet screen version of The Hound of the Baskervilles and he also starred in many of his own films, including At Home Among Strangers, A Slave of Love, and An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano. Incorporating several short stories by Chekhov, Dark Eyes stars Marcello Mastroianni as an old man who tells a story of a romance he had when he was younger, a woman he has never been able to forget. The film was praised, and Mastroianni received the Best Actor Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. Mikhalkovs next film, Urga, set in the world of the Mongols. Mikhalkovs Anna, 6–18 documents his daughter Anna as she grows from childhood to maturity, Mikhalkovs most famous production to date, Burnt by the Sun, was steeped in the paranoid atmosphere of Joseph Stalins Great Terror
26.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
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Burnt by the Sun
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Burnt by the Sun is a 1994 film by Russian director and screenwriter Nikita Mikhalkov and Azerbaijani screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov. The film depicts the story of a senior Red Army officer, played by Mikhalkov and it also stars Oleg Menshikov, Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė and Mikhalkovs daughter Nadezhda Mikhalkova. The film achieved a degree of popularity in Russia and positive reviews in the United States. It received the Grand Prize at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, Kotov rides out to order the tank officer to halt. Kotov carries authority as a senior Old Bolshevik and legendary hero of the Russian Civil War, the happy family returns to their country dacha, where they join Maroussias relatives, a large and eccentric family of Chekhovian aristocrats. However, Mitya, an ex-nobleman and veteran of the anti-communist White Army then arrives and he was Maroussias fiance before disappearing in 1923. Joyfully embraced by the family, he is introduced to Nadia as Uncle Mitya, Maroussia is left feeling deeply conflicted, as she had suffered deeply when he left without explanation. Despite his personable nature, Mitya appears to have returned with an agenda, as he works for the Soviet political police. He has arrived to arrest Kotov for a non-existent conspiracy and it is revenge, as Kotov had conscripted Mitya into the CHEKA, the predecessor of the NKVD. Mitya detests Kotov, whom he blames for causing him to lose Maroussia, his love for Russia, faith, Kotov remarks on Mityas activities in Paris, where he fingered eight White Army generals to the NKVD. All were kidnapped, smuggled to the Soviet Union, and shot without trial, Kotov believes his close relationship with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin will save him. However, a car carrying NKVD agents arrives to remove Kotov. Kotov is forced to make a confession to all charges and is shot in August 1936. Maroussia is arrested and dies in the Gulag in 1940, although arrested with her mother, Nadia lives to see all three sentences overturned during the Khrushchev thaw, and works as a teacher in Kazakhstan. Nikita Mikhalkov stated in making the film, his belief was that Bolshevism did not bring happiness to our country, however, he doubted whether entire generations could be judged for actions caused by wider social problems. Mikhalkov also took inspiration from his young daughter Nadezhda Mikhalkova, Azerbaijani screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov created the storyline with Mikhalkov and collaborated with him on the dialogue. The title derives from a popular 1930s song composed by Jerzy Petersburski, originally the Polish tango, To ostatnia niedziela, it became popular in the Soviet Union with new Russian lyrics and the title, Утомлённое солнце. The song is heard repeatedly in the film, the director Mikhalkov said in 2007 that he learned of the song from his elder brother Andrei Konchalovskys 1979 film Siberiade and he compared his use of the music to his having stolen money as a boy from his brother
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Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
