1.
Mikhail Mikeshin
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Mikhail Osipovich Mikeshin was a Russian artist who regularly worked for the Romanov family and designed a number of outdoor statues in the major cities of the Russian Empire. Mikeshin was born on 21 February 1835 in a village near Roslavl, although his forte was battle painting, Mikeshins sketch won the much-publicized contest for the monument to the Millennium of Russia in 1859. Only a few of Mikeshins outdoor monuments survived the Soviet years and these include the statues of Catherine the Great in Saint Petersburg, Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kiev, and Yermak in Novocherkassk. He also won competitions to erect monuments abroad, e. g. the statue of Pedro IV in Lisbon and this xenophobic element was removed in the monument as finally erected. In 1876-78, Mikeshin was the editor of Pchela, a magazine in which he published his caricatures and illustrations to the works of Nikolai Gogol. He died on 31 January 1896 in Saint Petersburg, media related to Mikhail Mikeshin at Wikimedia Commons A. Savinov
2.
Catherine the Great
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Catherine II of Russia, also known as Catherine the Great, was a Russian monarch. She was the female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. She came to following a coup détat when her husband. Russia was revitalised under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever, in both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherines former lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, in the east, Russia started to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America. Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas, and many new cities, an admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the continued to depend on serfdom. This was one of the reasons behind several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachevs Rebellion of cossacks. The period of Catherine the Greats rule, the Catherinian Era, is considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress and she enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. Catherine was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, she was nicknamed Figchen. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt, two of her first cousins became Kings of Sweden, Gustav III and Charles XIII. In accordance with the then prevailing in the ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess. She once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm, I see nothing of interest in it, although Catherine was born a princess, her family had very little money. Catherines rise to power was supported by her mothers relatives who were both wealthy nobles and royal relations. Catherine first met Peter III at the age of 10, based on her writings, she found Peter detestable upon meeting him. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age, Peter also still played with toy soldiers
3.
Alexandrinsky Theatre
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The Alexandrinsky Theatre or Russian State Pushkin Academy Drama Theater is a theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Alexandrinsky Theatre was built for the Imperial troupe of Petersburg, the theatre was opened on 31 August,1832. Since 1832, the theatre has occupied an Empire-style building that Carlo Rossi designed and it was built in 1828-1832 on Alexandrinsky Square, which is situated on Nevsky Prospekt between the National Library of Russia and Anichkov Palace. The theatre and the square were named after Empress consort Alexandra Feodorovna, the building is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. It was one of the theatres of the Imperial troupe. Dramas, operas and ballets were on the stage, only in 1880-ies, the theatre has become dramatic and tragedy filled. The premières of numerous Russian plays have been performed at the stage of the Alexandrinsky, including plays by Alexandr Griboyedov, Alexander Ostrovsky, famous directors who have staged work there include Vsevolod Meyerhold, Grigori Kozintsev, Georgy Tovstonogov, and Nikolay Akimov. On 30 August 2006 the theatre reopened after a reconstruction, Russian article Official Web Site in English History of the Theatre in English 3D model “Alexandrinsky Theater” for Google Earth
4.
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
5.
Age of Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private
6.
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
7.
Serfdom in Russia
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The term serf, in the sense of an unfree peasant of the Russian Empire, is the usual translation of krepostnoi krestyanin. The origins of serfdom in Russia are traced to Kievan Rus in the 11th century, Legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between peasants and nobility in the 17th century, Serfdom only existed in central and southern areas of the Russian Empire. It was never established in the north, the Urals or Siberia, Tsar Alexander I wanted to reform the system but was stymied. New laws allowed all classes to own land, a privilege that was confined to the nobility. Russian serfdom was abolished in the emancipation reform of 1861 by Tsar Alexander II. The term muzhik, or moujik means Russian peasant when it is used in English, the origins of serfdom in Russia may be traced to the 11th century, however, the most complete form of feudal exploitation enveloped only certain categories of rural population. In the 12th century, the exploitation of the so-called zakups on arable lands, according to the Russkaya Pravda, a princely smerd had limited property and personal rights. His escheat was given to the prince and his life was equated with that of the kholop, in the 13th to 15th centuries, feudal dependency applied to a significant number of peasants, but serfdom as we know it was still not a widespread phenomenon. In the mid-15th century the right of certain categories of peasants in some votchinas to leave their master was limited to a period of one week before and after the so-called Yuris Day. The Sudebnik of 1497 officially confirmed this time limit as universal for everybody, the legal code of Ivan III of Russia, Sudebnik, strengthened the dependency of peasants, statewide, and restricted their mobility. The Russians persistently battled against the states of the Golden Horde. The Sudebnik of 1550 increased the amount of pozhiloye and introduced a tax called za povoz. These also defined the so-called fixed years, or the 5-year time frame for search of the runaway peasants. In 1607, a new ukase defined sanctions for hiding and keeping the runaways, the Sobornoye Ulozhenie of 1649 gave serfs to estates, and in 1658, flight was made a criminal offense. Russian landowners eventually gained almost unlimited ownership over Russian serfs, the landowner could transfer the serf without land to another landowner while keeping the serfs personal property and family, however, the landowner had no right to kill the serf. About four-fifths of Russian peasants were serfs according to the censuses of 1678 and 1719, free peasants remained only in the North, most of the dvoryane were content with the long time frame for search of the runaway peasants. During the first half of the 17th century the dvoryane sent their collective petitions to the authorities, in 1642, the Russian government established a 10-year limit for search of the runaways and 15-year limit for search for peasants taken away by their new owners
8.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
9.
Denis Fonvizin
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Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin was a playwright of the Russian Enlightenment, whose plays are still staged today. His main works are two satirical comedies which mock contemporary Russian gentry, born in Moscow, of a family of gentry of Livonian-German descent, he received a good education at the University of Moscow and very early began writing and translating. He entered the service, becoming secretary to Count Nikita Panin. A man of means, he was always a rather than a professional author, though he became prominent in literary. In 1777-78 he traveled abroad, the aim of his journey being the medical faculty of Montpellier. In 1782 appeared Fonvizins second and best comedy The Minor, which definitely classed him as the foremost of Russian playwrights and his last years were passed in constant suffering and traveling abroad for his health. He died in Saint Petersburg in 1792, Fonvizins reputation rests almost entirely on his two comedies, which are beyond doubt the most popular Russian plays before Aleksander Griboyedovs Woe from Wit. They are both in prose and adhere to the canons of classical comedy, Fonvizins principal model, however, was not Molière, but the great Danish playwright Ludvig Holberg, whom he read in German, and some of whose plays he had translated. Both comedies are plays of social satire with definite axes to grind, the Brigadier-General is a satire against the fashionable French semi-education of the petits-maîtres. It is full of excellent fun, and though less serious than The Minor, but The Minor, though imperfect in dramatic construction, is a more remarkable work and justly considered Fonvizins masterpiece. The point of the satire in The Minor is directed against the brutish and selfish crudeness and this article incorporates text from D. S. Mirskys A History of Russian Literature, a publication now in the public domain
10.
Mikhail Shcherbatov
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Prince Mikhailo Mikhailovich Shcherbatov was a leading ideologue and exponent of the Russian Enlightenment, on the par with Mikhail Lomonosov and Nikolay Novikov. His view of nature and social progress is kindred to Swifts pessimism. He was known as a statesman, historian, writer and philosopher, M. M. Shcherbatov received a good-formal education. He studied history, philosophy, literature and medicine, until the end of his life he had a vast collection of 40,000 volumes in his home library. Like all educated people of that time he knew French, and in addition to that, he was competent in German, Italian. From 1767 onwards, Shcherbatov was in the service and held responsible posts. In 1768 he received the position of historiographer and was appointed a Chief Herald of the Senate, in his view the political ideal was to follow the British example of a constitutional monarchy with separation of powers. He found a certain analogy to this ideal in Pre-Petrian Russia when, in his opinion, mikhail’s personal view and attitude of Peter I of Russia or Peter the Great in his writings was quite ambiguous. Yet, Shcherbatov was aware that, apart from the personal weaknesses, Peter was forced by the time to be a despot. Scherbatovs father was a governor-general of Moscow and a Rurikid prince and his belonging to the oldest of Russian families may explain Scherbatovs lifelong interest in the national history. In a series of published in 1759-61 he defended serfdom. When elected by the nobility of Yaroslavl to represent their interests at the Legislative Assembly of 1767 and he caught the attention of the Empress and was appointed imperial historian in 1768 and president of a ministry in 1778. He worked in the Senate from 1779 to 1786, Scherbatovs History of Russia from the Earliest Times, of which seven volumes appeared between 1771 and 1791, is imbued with rationalistic ideals of the Age of Reason. He thought that inequality was inherent to nature and illustrated this tenet in the first Russian utopia. Scherbatovs final and probably most lasting work was an attack on the contemporary social customs in the treatise On the Corruption of Morals in Russia. There was also criticism of the methods of Peter the Great by which he promoted obscure people, yet, Shcherbatov tried to be unbiased and to show both the positive and negative sides of Peter’s modernization. After the accession of Catherine II, Shcherbatov participated in the Established Commission and he supported the elimination of cards on the Table of Ranks and the expansion of the rights of the Russian nobility. However, he was not a pure court ideologist, caring only about narrow interests, as far as those serfs who were registered at the factories, he proposed to free them little by little, giving them freedom as a reward for good character and excellent knowledge of arts
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Andrey Bolotov
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Andrey Timofeyevich Bolotov was the most prolific memoirist and the most distinguished agriculturist of the 18th-century Russian Empire. Bolotov was born and spent most of his life in the family estate of Dvoryaninovo. He was brought up by his parents in Livland, where his fathers regiment was stationed, after taking part in the Seven Years War he settled into retirement in Dvoryaninovo. During his life there, he brought out a manual on crop rotation and elaborated an innovative system of pomology which included more than 600 cultivars of apple. Always interested in plant breeding, Bolotov discovered dichogamy of apple-trees, bolotovs works brought him to the attention of Count Orlov, who asked him to manage the neighbouring estate of Bobriki, where Catherine IIs illegitimate son, Count Bobrinsky, was being raised. Bolotov turned Bobriki into the most up-to-date agricultural estate in provincial Russia, Bolotov was also active in the Free Economic Society, which published his treatise on forestry. Together with Nikolay Novikov, he edited the journals The Village Resident and The Magazine of Economics, which brought him the income of 400 roubles a year, a very considerable sum for the time. His extensive memoirs, entitled Life and Adventures of Andrei Bolotov, in 26 parts, Bolotov died in Dvoryaninovo aged 94. During his lifetime Bolotov achieved a modest measure of recognition as a writer on agricultural and horticultural issues, he is best known today, however, Болотов - первый русский учёный агроном. Newlin, Thomas, The Voice in the Garden, Andrei Bolotov and the Anxieties of Russian Pastoral, 1738-1833, Northwestern University Press,2001, ISBN0810116138
12.
Alexander Radishchev
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Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev was a Russian author and social critic who was arrested and exiled under Catherine the Great. He brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence with the publication in 1790 of his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow and his depiction of socio-economic conditions in Russia earned him exile to Siberia until 1797. Radishchev was born into a noble family on an estate just outside Moscow. His father, Nicholas Afanasevich Radischev, a prominent landowner in Moscow, had a reputation for treating his 3000-plus serfs humanely. Until he was 8 years old he lived on his fathers estate in Verkhni Oblyazovo, one hundred miles west of the Volga river with a nurse and tutor. He then went to live with a relative in Moscow, where he was allowed to spend time at the newly established Moscow University, because of his exceptional academic promise, Radishchev was chosen as of one of a dozen young students to be sent abroad to acquire Western learning. For several years he studied at the University of Leipzig, Novikovs sharp satire and indignation inspired Radischevs most famous work – Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow – in which he emulates Novikovs harsh and passionate style. He too was critical of serfdom and of the limits to personal freedom imposed by the autocracy. The Empress Catherine the Great read the work, viewed Radishchevs calls for reform as evidence of Jacobin-style radicalism, out of the 650 copies originally printed, only 17 had survived by the time the work was reprinted in England fifty years later. In 1790 Radischev was arrested and condemned to death and he humbly begged forgiveness of Catherine, publicly disowning his book, and his sentence was commuted to exile to Ilimsk in Siberia. En route the writer was treated like a convict, shackled at the ankles. Beginning in October,1790, Radischevs two-year trip took him through Siberia, stopping in the towns of Ekaterinberg, Tobolsk, along the way, he began writing a biography of Yermak, the Cossack conqueror of Siberia, and pursuing an interest in geology and nature. He also wrote a treatise, On Man, His Mortality, His Immortality. In it he addresses mans belief in the afterlife, the corporality of the soul, the redemption of sinners. After Catherines death her successor Tsar Paul recalled Radishchev from Siberia and confined him to his own estate, when Alexander I became Emperor, Radishchev was briefly employed to help revise Russian law, a realization of his lifelong dream. Unfortunately, his tenure in this administrative role proved short and unsuccessful, in 1802 a despondent Radishchev - possibly threatened with another Siberian exile - committed suicide by drinking poison. During the authors last years, his Moscow apartment became the center of literary circles who extolled similar views. Following the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, however, Radischev was accepted into the canon and became widely read throughout Russia
13.
Druzhina
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Druzhina, Drużyna or Družyna in the medieval history of Poland and Kievan Rus was a retinue in service of a chieftain, also called knyaz. The name is derived from the Slavic word drug with the meaning of companion, compare it to druhti of old Germanic cultures. In early Rus a druzhina helped the prince administer his principality, the first members of a druzhina in Rus Khaganate were the Varangians, whose princes established control there in the 9th century. Soon members of the local Slavic aristocracy as well as adventurers of a variety of other nationalities became druzhinniki, the druzhina organization varied with time and survived in one form or another until the 16th century. The druzhina was composed of two groups, the members, later known as boyars, and the junior members. The boyars were the prince’s closest advisers who also performed higher state functions, the junior members constituted the prince’s personal bodyguard and were common soldiers. Members were dependent upon their prince for financial support, but they served the prince freely and had the right to leave him and join the druzhina of another prince. At the Battle of Lake Peipus the army of the Novgorod Republic had about 5000 men in all, abraham ben Jacob, who traveled in 961–62 in Central Europe, mentions that the drużyna of Polish Mieszko I had 3000 men, paid by the duke. Mieszko would later marry his daughter Świętosława to the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard, mieszkos daughter would later give birth to Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway - as well as a conqueror of England. It is likely that the Polish-Norse relationship was a result of earlier trade, unlike his predecessors, Casimir I the Restorer promoted landed gentry over the druzhina as his base of power
14.
Peter the Great
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Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat, a large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
15.
Theophan Prokopovich
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Feofan/Theophan Prokopovich was a Ukrainian-born Russian theologian, writer, poet, mathematician, philosopher, rector of the Kiev-Mogila Academy, Archbishop of Novgorod. He elaborated and implemented Peter the Greats reform of the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the founding fathers of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prokopovich wrote much religious verse and some of the most enduring sermons in the Russian language. Eleazar Prokopovich was born in Kiev in the family of a shopkeeper Tsereysky from Smolensk, eleazars uncle sent him to the monastery for his primary school. After graduation, Eleazar became a student of the Kiev-Mogila Academy, after his uncles death, Feofan Prokopovich, it supported the Kiev Metropolitan, rector of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Barlaam Jasinski. In 1698, after graduating from the Kiev-Mogila Academy Eleazar decided to continue his education, in the same year he entered the Volodymyr-Volynskyi Uniate Collegium, he lived in the Basilian monastery, where the union takes and tonsured as a monk under the name of Elisha. October 28,1701 left Rome without completing the course of the academy. He passed through France, Switzerland, Germany, while studying in Halle, from 1705 he taught rhetoric, poetics and philosophy at the Kiev-Mogila Collegium, wrote the tragicomedy Vladimir, dedicating it to Hetman Ivan Mazepa. At the same time he write and pronounced the theological and philosophical sermon through which were seen by the Kiev governor-general Dmitry Golitsyn, in 1707 he became Prefect of the Kiev-Mogila Academy. In 1711 Tsar of Muscovy Peter I in the Treaty of the Pruth, upon returning to Kiev, Feofan Prokopovich was appointed rector of the Kiev-Mogila Academy and professor of theology. At the same time he became abbot of the Kiev Brotherhood Epiphany Monastery and he entirely reformed the teaching of theology there, substituting the historical method of the German theologians for the former Orthodox scholastic system. In 1716 he was to St Petersburg, from henceforth it was Prokopovichs duty and pleasure to explain the new ideas and justify the most alarming innovations from the pulpit. 1 He had served as vicar to the previous Archbishop of Novgorod since the early 18th century, see Pavel Tikhomirov, Kafedra Novgorodskikh Sviatitelei. Chistovitch, Theofan Prokopovich and his Times P. Morozov, Theophan Prokopovich as a Writer and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
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Antiochus Kantemir
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Antiochus or Antioch Kantemir or Cantemir was a Moldavian who served as a man of letters, diplomat, and prince during the Russian Enlightenment. He has been called the father of Russian poetry, Kantemir was born into a noble Moldavian family of Tatar origin at Iaşi on 8 September 1708. His illiterate grandfather Constantin had been made voivode of Moldavia by the Ottomans in 1685 and was succeeded by his well-educated sons Antioch, Kantemir was the son of Demetrius by his wife, the Princess Kassandra Cantacuzene, who claimed descent from the Byzantine dynasty of the same name. He spent much of his youth in Constantinople as a hostage to the Turks and he was then educated by his father and at the St Petersburg Academy before moving to the family estate near Dmitrovsk. He served as the Russian ambassador at London from 1731 to 1736, there, he became a noted intellectual and a close friend of Montesquieu and Voltaire. Kantemir died a bachelor in Paris amid litigation concerning his illegitimate children, considered the father of Russian poetry, Kantemir used his classical education to assist Peter the Greats programme of modernizing and westernizing Russian culture. His most noticeable effort in this regard is his Petrida, an unfinished epic glorifying the emperor and he produced a tract on old Russian versification in 1744 and numerous odes and fables. His use of rhyme schemes can make his work seem antiquated. He edited his fathers History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire in England and his 1742 Letters on Nature and Man was a philosophical work. Kantemir also translated Horace and Anacreon into Russian, as well as Algarottis Dialogues on Light and his 1740 translation of De Fontenelles Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds was partly censored as heretical. His own works were translated into French by the Abbé Guasco, a collection of Kantemirs poetry The ancestors Prince Antiokh Dmitrievich Kantemir
17.
Vasily Tatishchev
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Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev was a prominent Russian statesman, and ethnographer, best remembered as the author of the first full-scale Russian history. Throughout this work, he advocates his favourite idea that autocracy is the form of government for Russia. A male-line descendant of the 9th-century prince Rurik, Tatischev was born near Pskov on April 19,1686, having graduated from the Engineering school in Moscow, he took part in the 1700-1721 Great Northern War with Sweden. He was entrusted by Anna with an office of the management of Ural factories. At that post he founded the cities of Perm and Yekaterinburg, a monument to him was opened in Perm in 2003. During the Bashkir War of 1735-40 he was in command of Siberian operations from the winter of 1736-37 and he was removed from command after March 1739, nominally on charges of corruption, but mainly because he had made too many enemies. Tatischev finished his career as a governor of Astrakhan. He died at the Boldino estate near Moscow on July 15,1750, having retired from active service, the elderly statesman dedicated himself to scholarly pursuits. Feeling that the Russian historiography had been neglected, he discovered and published several legal monuments of great interest, e. g. Russkaya Pravda and Sudebnik of 1550. His magnum opus was the first sketch of Russian history, entitled Russian History Dating Back to the Most Ancient Times and he also compiled the first encyclopedic dictionary of the Russian language. The scientific merits of Tatischevs work were disputed even in the 18th century and it is also true that he could never tell a genuine work from a fake, and some incidents inserted in his history could have been products of his own fancy. Only recently some prominent historians have demonstrated that Tatischevs lost sources may actually be relied on, a settlement and a district in Saratov Oblast are named after Tatishchev. There are monuments to Tatishchev in Perm and Yekaterinburg and in 1998 a large statue of Tatishchev was estasblished in Tolyatti. Popov N. Tatischev and His Time, deutch G. M. Vasily Nikitich Tatischev. Peshtich S. L. Russian historiography of the 18th century, ideas Socioeconómicas en la Rusia de los Siglos XVIII y XIX, Editorial Progreso, pp. 34-37, URRSS, Moscú,1990. Russian biography with a portrait Tatischevs views on history History of Perm
18.
Elizabeth of Russia
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Elizabeth Petrovna, also known as Yelisaveta or Elizaveta, was the Empress of Russia from 1741 until her death. She led the country into the two major European conflicts of her time, the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, on the eve of her death Russia spanned almost 16,200,000 square kilometres. Her domestic policies allowed the nobles to gain dominance in government while shortening their terms of service to the state. She encouraged Mikhail Lomonosovs establishment of the University of Moscow and Ivan Shuvalovs foundation of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and she also spent exorbitant sums of money on the grandiose baroque projects of her favourite architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli, particularly in Peterhof and Tsarskoye Selo. The Winter Palace and the Smolny Cathedral in Saint Petersburg are among the monuments of her reign. She remains one of the most popular Russian monarchs due to her opposition to Prussian policies. Elizabeth was born at Kolomenskoye, near Moscow, on 18 December 1709, Peter valued Catherine and married her again at Saint Isaacs Cathedral in St. Petersburg on 9 February 1712. On this day his two surviving children by Catherine were legitimized by their father and this circumstance would later be used by Elizabeths political opponents to challenge her right to the throne on grounds of illegitimacy. Of the twelve children born to Peter and Catherine only two daughters, Anna and Elizabeth survived to adulthood, both of them were given the title of Tsarevna on 6 March 1711, and of Tsesarevna on 23 December 1721. They had one surviving sibling, crown prince Alexei Petrovich, who was their fathers son by his first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina. As a child Elizabeth was the favorite of her father. She resembled him both physically and temperamentally and she was a bright girl, if not brilliant, but received only an imperfect and desultory formal education. Even though he adored his daughter Peter did not devote time or attention to her education and he had a son from his first marriage to a noblewoman and did not anticipate that a daughter born to his second wife might one day inherit the throne. Indeed, no woman had ever sat upon the throne of Russia yet and it was therefore left to Catherine to raise the girls, but she was herself too uneducated to be able to superintend the formal education of her daughters. Elizabeth had a French governess and grew fluent in Italian, German and she was also an excellent dancer and rider. Like her father Elizabeth was physically active and loved riding, hunting, sledging, skating, from her earliest years she delighted everyone with her extraordinary beauty and vivacity, and was regarded as the leading beauty of the Russian Empire. The wife of the British minister described Elizabeth as fair, with brown hair, large sprightly blue eyes, fine teeth. She is inclinable to be fat, but is very genteel and she speaks German, French and Italian, is extremely gay and talks to everyone
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Ivan Shuvalov
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Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov was called the Maecenas of the Russian Enlightenment and the first Russian Minister of Education. Russias first theatre, university, and academy of arts were instituted with his active participation and he was born in Moscow, the only son of Ivan Menshoi Shuvalov, an army captain who died when the boy was ten, and Tatiana Rodionovna. The Shuvalov family fortunes changed drastically in 1741, when Empress Elizaveta Petrovna ascended to the Russian throne with help from Ivans powerful cousins – Peter Shuvalov, the following year, they had the fourteen-year-old Ivan attached to the imperial court as a page. Three months later, Shuvalov was appointed a kammer-junker, and his liaison with the Empress began, although the cousins planned to use him as a pawn in their court intrigues, Shuvalov refused to get enmeshed in their machinations. As his biographers like to point out, Shuvalov was mild, promoted general in 1760, Shuvalov refused most other honours that the Empress wished to bestow upon him, including the title of count. A model of the courtier, he maintained correspondence with the leading French thinkers – Helvetius, dAlembert, Diderot. He supplied the latter with materials necessary for his Histoire de lempire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand and was instrumental in publishing it in Russia. Shuvalovs activity brought him in touch with Mikhail Lomonosov, a Russian scholar who aspired to establish a university in Russia, Lomonosov found a loyal patron in Shuvalov and paid tribute to his accomplishments in his dedication of a couple of odes and meditations to him. On January 23,1755 – the name-day of Shuvalovs mother Tatiana Rodionovna – the Empress endorsed their project to set up the Moscow University for all sorts, Tatiana Day is still celebrated in Russia as Students Day. Shuvalov became the universitys first curator and attracted the finest scholars to teach there and he came up with the idea of establishing The Moscow News, a newspaper published by the university press, which was also founded at Shuvalovs instigation. Apart from two colleges affiliated with the Moscow University, he helped establish the first Russian college outside Moscow – in Kazan. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1758, in 1757, Shuvalov submitted to the Senate his project for establishing the Academy of Three Noble Arts at his own palace in Saint Petersburg. This institution – later transformed into the Imperial Academy of Arts – was envisioned by him for the education of the most gifted boys from all strata of society. At first no formal examination was required to enter the Academy, even peasants children – like Fyodor Rokotov, Shuvalov served as the Academys first president until 1763, when he was succeeded by Ivan Betskoy. In 1758, he donated to the Academy his own collection of Western drawings and paintings, at the time, his palace also hosted performances by Russias first theatrical troupe, led by Fyodor Volkov and Ivan Dmitrievsky. Upon Elizavetas death and the ascension of Catherine II, Shuvalov set off for Europe, during fourteen years of foreign travels, he acquired choice works of art for the Academy and the Hermitage Museum. He also commissioned copies of the finest Roman sculptures in Rome, Florence and Naples, as regards politics, Shuvalovs life abroad was not as exciting as the previous period of his career. On Catherine IIs request, he would go on errands, thus it was he who persuaded the Pope to replace Durini
20.
Courtier
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A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers, historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and the social and political life were often completely mixed together. Monarchs very often expected the more important nobles to spend much of the year in attendance on them at court, not all courtiers were noble, as they included clergy, soldiers, clerks, secretaries, and agents and middlemen of all sorts with regular business at court. All those who held a court appointment could be called courtiers and those personal favorites without business around the monarch, sometimes called the camarilla, were also considered courtiers. Promotion to important positions could be very rapid at court, the key commodities for a courtier were access and information, and a large court operated at many levels - many successful careers at court involved no direct contact with the monarch. The largest and most famous European court was that of the Palace of Versailles at its peak, although the Forbidden City of Beijing was even larger and more isolated from national life. Very similar features marked the courts of all very large monarchies, whether in Delhi, Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, Ancient Rome, Byzantium, early medieval European courts frequently traveled from place to place following the monarch as he traveled. This was particularly the case in the early French court, but, the European nobility generally had independent power and was less controlled by the monarch until roughly the 18th century, which gave European court life a more complex flavour. The earliest courtiers coincide with the development of definable courts beyond the rudimentary entourages or retinues of rulers, two of the earliest titles referring to the general concept of a courtier were likely the ša rēsi and mazzāz pāni of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The imperial court of the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople would eventually contain at least a thousand courtiers, the courts systems became prevalent in other courts such as those in the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. Byzantinism is a term that was coined for this spread of the Byzantine system in the 19th century, in modern literature, courtiers are often depicted as insincere, skilled at flattery and intrigue, ambitious and lacking regard for the national interest. More positive representations of the stereotype might include the role played by members of the court in the development of politeness, in modern English, the term is often used metaphorically for contemporary political favourites or hangers-on. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from William Shakespeares Hamlet Sir Lancelot from Arthurian legend Gríma Wormtongue from J. R. R, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington from J. K.36, No
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Moscow State University
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Lomonosov Moscow State University is a coeducational and public research university located in Moscow, Russia. It was founded on January 25,1755 by Mikhail Lomonosov, MSU was renamed after Lomonosov in 1940 and was then known as Lomonosov University. It also claims to house the tallest educational building in the world and it is rated among the universities with the best reputation in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy, ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov promoted the idea of a university in Moscow, and Russian Empress Elizabeth decreed its establishment on January 251755. The first lectures were given on April 26th, russians still celebrate January 25th as Students Day. Saint Petersburg State University and Moscow State University engage in rivalry over the title of Russias oldest university. The present Moscow State University originally occupied the Principal Medicine Store on Red Square from 1755 to 1787, in the 18th century, the University had three departments, philosophy, medicine, and law. A preparatory college was affiliated with the University until its abolition in 1812, in 1779, Mikhail Kheraskov founded a boarding school for noblemen which in 1830 became a gymnasium for the Russian nobility. The university press, run by Nikolay Novikov in the 1780s, published the most popular newspaper in Imperial Russia, in 1804, medical education split into clinical, surgical, and obstetrics faculties. During 1884–1897, the Department of Medicine -- supported by donations. The campus, and medical education in general, were separated from the University in 1918, as of 2015, Devichye Pole was operated by the independent I. M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University and by various other state and private institutions. The roots of student unrest in the University reach deep into the nineteenth century, in 1905, a social-democratic organization emerged at the University and called for the overthrow of the Czarist government and the establishment of a republic in Russia. The imperial government repeatedly threatened to close the University, after the October Revolution of 1917, the institution began to admit the children of the proletariat and peasantry. In 1919, the University abolished fees for tuition and established a facility to help working-class children prepare for entrance examinations. During the implementation of Joseph Stalins First Five-Year Plan, prisoners from the Gulag were forced to construct parts of the newly expanded University, after 1991, nine new faculties were established. The following year, the University gained a status, it is funded directly from the state budget. On March 19,2008, Russias most powerful supercomputer to date and its peak performance of 60 TFLOPS makes it the fastest supercomputer in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Since 1953, most of the faculties have been situated on Sparrow Hills, the main building was designed by architect Lev Vladimirovich Rudnev
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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
23.
Polymath
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A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century, the related term, the term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti and this term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance. Renaissance man was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century and it is now used to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often described as the archetype of the Renaissance man. These polymaths had an approach to education that reflected the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play an instrument, write poetry. The idea of an education was essential to achieving polymath ability. At this time, universities did not specialize in specific areas but rather trained students in an array of science, philosophy. This universal education gave them a grounding from which they could continue into apprenticeship toward becoming a master of a specific field, aside from Renaissance man as mentioned above, similar terms in use are Homo Universalis and Uomo Universale, which translate to universal person or universal man. The related term generalist—contrasted with a used to describe a person with a general approach to knowledge. The term Universal Genius or Versatile Genius is also used, with Leonardo da Vinci as the prime example again. The term seems to be used especially when a person has made lasting contributions in at least one of the fields in which he was involved. When a person is described as having knowledge, they exhibit a vast scope of knowledge. This designation may be anachronistic, however, in the case of such as Eratosthenes whose reputation for having encyclopedic knowledge predates the existence of any encyclopedic object. One whose accomplishments are limited to athletics would not be considered a polymath in the sense of the word. An example is Howard Baker, who was called a sporting polymath by the Encyclopedia of British Football for winning high jump titles and playing cricket, football, many polymaths from across the centuries have their roots in medical applications. One of the well known polymaths, Leonardo da Vinci, was known for his immense interest in human anatomical structure
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Mikhail Lomonosov
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Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the Law of Mass Conservation in chemical reactions and his spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language, Lomonosov was born in the village of Denisovka in Archangelgorod Governorate, on an island not far from Kholmogory, in the far north of Russia. Lomonosovs mother was Vasilys first wife, a daughter, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova. He remained at Denisovka until he was ten, when his father decided that he was old enough to participate in his business ventures, learning was young Lomonosovs passion, however, not business. The boys thirst for knowledge was insatiable, Lomonosov had been taught to read as a boy by his neighbor Ivan Shubny, and he spent every spare moment with his books. He continued his studies with the deacon, S. N. Sabelnikov, but for years the only books he had access to were religious texts. When he was fourteen, Lomonosov was given copies of Meletius Smotrytskys Modern Church Slavonic, on his religious views, Lomonosov was a deist. In 1724, his father married for the third and final time, Lomonosov and his stepmother Irina had an acrimonious relationship. Unhappy at home and intent on obtaining an education, which Lomonosov could not receive in Denisovka. In 1730, at nineteen, Lomonosov went to Moscow on foot, not long after arriving, Lomonosov obtained admission into the Slavic Greek Latin Academy by falsely claiming to be a priests son. That initial falsehood would nearly get him expelled from the academy a few years later when discovered, Lomonosov lived on three kopecks a day, living off only black bread and kvass, but he made rapid progress scholastically. After three years in Moscow he was sent to Kiev to study for one year at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and he quickly became dissatisfied with the education he was receiving there, and returned to Moscow several months ahead of schedule, resuming his studies there. He completed a study course in only five years, graduating at the top of his class. In 1736, Lomonosov was awarded a scholarship to St. Petersburg Academy and he plunged into his studies and was rewarded with a two-year grant to study abroad at the University of Marburg, in Germany. The University of Marburg was among Europes most important universities in the century due to the presence of the philosopher Christian Wolff. Lomonosov became one of Wolffs personal students while at Marburg, both philosophically and as a science administrator, this connection would be the most influential of Lomonosovs life
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Enlightened despotism
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Enlightened despotism referred to a leaders espousal of Enlightenment ideas and principles to enhance the leaders power. The concept originated during the Enlightenment period in the 18th and early 19th centuries, an enlightened despot is a non-democratic or authoritarian leader who exercises their political power for the benefit of the people, rather than exclusively for themselves or elites. Enlightened despots distinguished themselves from ordinary despots by claiming to rule for their subjects well-being, an enlightened despot may focus government priorities on healthcare, education, nonviolent population control, or physical infrastructure. John Stuart Mill stated, Despotism is a mode of government in dealing with barbarians. Enlightened despots beliefs about royal power were similar to those of regular despots. Enlightened despots believed that they were destined to rule, to their credit, enlightened rulers may have played a part in the abolition of serfdom in Europe. A classic enlightened despot, Emperor Joseph II of Austria said, Everything for the people, long-seated dictators are more likely to be regarded as enlightened because they acknowledge public interest in order to remain in power and to be regarded as legitimate. In Spanish the word dictablanda is sometimes used for a dictatorship that preserves some of the liberties, opposing theories, Psychological egoism Other, Benevolent dictatorship Noblesse oblige Soft despotism Biography. com Editors. J. S. Mill, On Liberty and Other Writings, perry, Marvin, Chase, Myrna, Jacob, James, Jacob, Margaret, Daly, Jonathan. Western Civilization, Ideas, Politics, and Society, Volume I, ‘Everything for the people, nothing by the people’ Enlightened despotism
26.
Montesquieu
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He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon. Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France,25 kilometres south of Bordeaux and his father, Jacques de Secondat, was a soldier with a long noble ancestry. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel, who died when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of La Brède to the Secondat family. After the death of his mother he was sent to the Catholic College of Juilly, a prominent school for the children of French nobility and his father died in 1713 and he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu. He became a counselor of the Bordeaux Parliament in 1714, in 1715 he married Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant, who eventually bore him three children. The Baron died in 1716, leaving him his fortune as well as his title, Montesquieus early life occurred at a time of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution, in France the long-reigning Louis XIV died in 1715 and was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV. These national transformations had a impact on Montesquieu, he would refer to them repeatedly in his work. Montesquieu withdrew from the practice of law to himself to study. De lEsprit des Lois was originally published anonymously in 1748, the book quickly rose to influence political thought profoundly in Europe and America. In France, the met with an unfriendly reception from both supporters and opponents of the regime. The Catholic Church banned lEsprit – along with many of Montesquieus other works – in 1751 and it received the highest praise from the rest of Europe, especially Britain. Montesquieu was also regarded in the British colonies in North America as a champion of liberty. Following the American revolution, Montesquieus work remained an influence on many of the American founders, most notably James Madison of Virginia. He was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Montesquieus philosophy of history minimized the role of individual persons and events. Ask the Romans, who had a sequence of successes when they were guided by a certain plan. There are general causes, moral and physical, which act in every monarchy, elevating it, maintaining it, all accidents are controlled by these causes
27.
Voltaire
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Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 21,000 letters and over two books and pamphlets. He was an advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma. Some speculation surrounds Voltaires date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the son of a nobleman. Two of his older brothers—Armand-François and Robert—died in infancy and his brother, Armand. Nicknamed Zozo by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mothers cousin, standing as godparents. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric, later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English. By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father out, he sent Voltaire to study law. Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies, Voltaires wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Châteauneuf, at The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. Their scandalous affair was discovered by de Châteauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year, Most of Voltaires early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government and these activities were to result in two imprisonments and a temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the Régent of incest with his own daughter, the Comédie-Française had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, Œdipe, and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release. Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation, both the Régent and King George I of Great Britain presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation. He mainly argued for tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects peoples rights, the author adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille
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Westernization
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To assume, however, Western societies are not affected or changed by this process and interaction with non-Western groups is misleading. Westernization traces it back to Ancient Greece, the birthplace of Western culture. As Ancient Greece flourished, a new Empire was emerging namely Roman, the Roman Empire would take on the first process of Westernization as it was heavy influenced by Greece and created a new culture based on the principles and values of the Ancient Greek society. The Romans emerged with a culture that would lay the new foundations of Europe, Westernization can also be related to acculturation and enculturation. Acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between groups and their individual members. After contact, changes in patterns are evident within one or both cultures. Westernization can include Americanisation and Europeanisation, with historical versions including Romanisation, Hellenisation, Francisation, other trends include Islamisation, Japanisation, Africanisation, and Sinicisation. Specifically, the extent to which domination, destruction, resistance, survival, the West was originally defined as the Western world. Ancient Romans distinguished between Oriental cultures that inhabited present-day Egypt and Occidental cultures that lived in the West, a thousand years later, the East-West Schism separated the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church from each other. The definition of Western changed as the West was influenced by, islamic and Byzantine scholars added to the Western canon when their stores of Greek and Roman literature jump-started the Renaissance. Western civilisation is commonly said to include United States, Canada, European Union, Australia, some countries in Latin America are considered Western countries, largely because most of its peoples are descended from Europeans. And thus their society operates in a highly Westernized way, indeed, most countries in Latin America use their official language, either in Spanish or Portuguese. According to the CIA World Factbook, there has also been immigration to Latin America from European nations other than Spain. The following countries experienced a significant influence by the process of Westernization and it is usually a member of European organisations for sports and cultural events such as UEFA and the Eurovision Song Contest. It is a member of the OECD and it is usually a member of European organisations for sports and cultural events such as UEFA and the Eurovision Song Contest. According to Sammy Smooha, an emeritus of sociology at Haifa University, Israel is described as a “hybrid, ” a modern. With the passage of time, he acknowledged, Israel will become ”more and more Western. ”But as a result of the ongoing Arab-Israeli dispute, full Westernization will be a slow process in Israel. Although geographically Lebanon is located in the Middle East north of Israel, Western influence brought in by the countrys Christians spread to the rest of its population, making todays Lebanon a unique blend of East and West
29.
Bureaucracy
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Bureaucracy means both a body of non-elective government officials and an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials, today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution. The public administration in many countries is an example of a bureaucracy, since being coined, the word bureaucracy has developed negative connotations. Bureaucracies have been criticized as being inefficient, convoluted, or too inflexible to individuals, the dehumanizing effects of excessive bureaucracy became a major theme in the work of German-language writer Franz Kafka and are central to his novels The Trial and The Castle. The elimination of bureaucracy is a key concept in modern managerial theory and has been an issue in some political campaigns. Others have noted the necessity of bureaucracies in modern life, the term bureaucracy is French in origin and combines the French word bureau – desk or office – with the Greek word κράτος kratos – rule or political power. It was coined in the century by the French economist Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay and was a satirical pejorative from the outset. Gournay never wrote the term down but was quoted at length in a letter from a contemporary. Here, too, the sense was pejorative, with Irish novelist Lady Morgan referring to the Bureaucratie, or office tyranny, by which Ireland has so long been governed. By the mid-19th century, the word was being used in a neutral sense. In this sense bureaucracy was seen as a form of management. In the1920s, the definition was expanded by the German sociologist Max Weber to include any system of administration conducted by trained professionals according to fixed rules, although the term bureaucracy was not coined until the mid 18th century, organized and consistent administrative systems are much older. Ancient Egypt also had a class of scribes that administered the civil service bureaucracy. The Roman Empire was administered by a hierarchy of regional proconsuls, the reforms of Diocletian doubled the number of administrative districts and led to a large-scale expansion in Roman bureaucracy. After the Empire split, the Byzantine Empire developed a complicated administrative hierarchy. In Ancient China, the Han dynasty established a complicated bureaucracy based on the teachings of Confucius, who emphasized the importance of ritual in family, relationships, with each subsequent Dynasty, the bureaucracy evolved. During the Song dynasty, the bureaucracy became meritocratic, following the Song reforms, competitive exams were held to determine who could hold which positions. The imperial examination system lasted until 1905, six years before the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, a modern form of bureaucracy evolved in the expanding Department of Excise in the United Kingdom, during the 18th century
30.
Crimea
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The peninsula is located south of the Ukrainian region of Kherson and west of the Russian region of Kuban. It is connected to Kherson Oblast by the Isthmus of Perekop and is separated from Kuban by the Strait of Kerch, the Arabat Spit is located to the northeast, a narrow strip of land that separates a system of lagoons named Sivash from the Sea of Azov. Crimea has historically been at the boundary between the world and the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Crimea and adjacent territories were united in the Crimean Khanate during the 15th to 18th century, in 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. It became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine in 1991, with Sevastopol having its own administration, within Ukraine, the ex-Soviet Black Sea Fleet and its facilities were divided between Russias Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Naval Forces. The two navies shared some of the harbours and piers, while others were demilitarised or used by either country. Sevastopol remained the location of the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters with the Ukrainian Naval Forces Headquarters also based in the city, most of the international community does not recognize the annexation and considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory. Russia currently administers the peninsula as two federal subjects, the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Ukraine continues to assert its right over the peninsula, the classical name Tauris or Taurica is from the Greek Ταυρική, after the peninsulas Scytho-Cimmerian inhabitants, the Tauri. In English usage since the modern period the Crimean Khanate is referred to as Crim Tartary. The Italian form Crimea also becomes current during the 18th century, the omission of the definite article in English became common during the later 20th century. The name Crimea follows the Italian form from the Crimean Tatar name for the city Qırım which served as a capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde, the name of the capital was extended to the entire peninsula at some point during Ottoman suzerainty. The origin of the word Qırım is uncertain, suggestions argued in various sources include, a corruption of Cimmerium. A derivation from the Turkic term qirum, from qori-, other suggestions that have not been supported by sources but are apparently based on similarity in sound include, a derivation from the Greek Cremnoi. However, he identifies the port, not in Crimea, no evidence has been identified that this name was ever in use for the peninsula. The classical name was revived in 1802 in the name of the Russian Taurida Governorate, in the 8th century BCE the Cimmerians migrated to the region and subsequently the Scythians as well it being the site of Greek colonies. The most important city was Chersonesos at the edge of todays Sevastopol, the Persian Achaemenid Empire expanded to Crimea. Later occupiers included the Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, the Byzantine Empire, Khazars, the Kipchaks, the Golden Horde, consideration of the succeeding residents of the peninsula by their linguistic grouping is also of relevance
31.
Russian nobility
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The Russian nobility arose in the 14th century. Its members staffed most of the Russian government apparatus until the February Revolution of 1917, the Russian word for nobility, dvoryanstvo, derives from the Polish word dwor, meaning the court of a prince or duke and later, the court of the tsar or emperor. A nobleman is called a dvoryanin, pre-Soviet Russia shared with other countries the concept that nobility connotes a status or a social category rather than a title. The nobility arose in the 12th and 13th centuries as the lowest part of the military class. From the 14th century land ownership by nobles increased, and by the 17th century the bulk of feudal lords and they made up the Landed army —the basic military force of Russia. Peter the Great finalized the status of the nobility, while abolishing the boyar title, however, Russia’s existing economic system, which lacked a sizable middle class and which relied on forced labor, was an impassable obstacle to the development of a free market. Furthermore, the lower classes – the overwhelming majority of the Russian population – lived virtually isolated from the upper classes, thus, most of the nobility’s “western” tendencies were largely superficial and confined to a tiny portion of the populace. Ironically, by introducing the nobility to political literature from Western Europe, Catherine exposed Russia’s autocracy to them as archaic and illiberal. Although Peter the Great is considered by many to be the first westernizer of Russia, there were, in fact, ivan III, starting in 1472, sent numerous agents to Italy to study architecture. Both Michael Romanov and his son Alexis invited and sponsored European visitors – mostly military, medical, Peter the Great was, first and foremost, eager to do away with Russia’s reputation as an Asiatic land and to propel his new empire onto the political stage of Western Europe. In 1697, he began to send nobles on compulsory trips abroad to England, Holland, while the tsar primarily designed these expeditions for naval training, he also encouraged the noblemen to learn about the arts of the west. When the travelers returned to Moscow, Peter tested them on their training, insisting on further education for those whose accumulated knowledge was unsatisfactory. By 1724, he had established – for the purpose of study and discovery – the Academy of Sciences. Peter’s westernizing efforts became quite radical after 1698, when he returned from his expedition through Europe, upon arriving, Peter summoned the nobility to his court and personally shaved almost every beard in the room. In 1705 he decreed a beard tax on all ranked men in Moscow and he also reformed the clothing of the nobility, abandoning the long-sleeved, traditional Muscovite robes for European fashion. Beginning in 1699 the tsar decreed strict dress requirements borrowing from German, Hungarian, French, Peter himself, usually sporting German dress and a trimmed mustache, acted as a prime example. While the nobility universally followed Peter’s fashion preferences at court, they greatly resented these styles, away from St. Petersburg, very few noblemen followed Peter’s guidelines and enforcement was lax. Peter also demanded changes in mannerisms and language among nobles, in order to supply Russians with a basic set of “proper” morals and habits, he ordered publication of manuals on Western etiquette
32.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
33.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
34.
Dardanelles
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Together with the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles forms the Turkish Straits. The English name Dardanelles derives from Dardanus, an ancient city on the Asian shore of the strait which in turn takes its name from Dardanus, the ancient Greek name Ἑλλήσποντος means Sea of Helle, and was the ancient name of the narrow strait. It was variously named in classical literature Hellespontium Pelagus, Rectum Hellesponticum and it was so called from Helle, the daughter of Athamas, who was drowned here in the mythology of the Golden Fleece. The Marmara further connects to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus, the strait is located at approximately 40°13′N 26°26′E. The strait is 61 kilometres long, and 1.2 to 6 kilometres wide, water flows in both directions along the strait, from the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean via a surface current, and in the opposite direction via an undercurrent. The Dardanelles is unique in many respects, the very narrow and winding shape of the strait is more akin to that of a river. It is considered one of the most hazardous, crowded, difficult, the currents produced by the tidal action in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara are such that ships under sail must await at anchorage for the right conditions before entering the Dardanelles. It is a sea access route for numerous countries, including Russia. The ancient city of Troy was located near the entrance of the strait. Troy was able to control the traffic entering this vital waterway. Herodotus tells us that, circa 482 BC, Xerxes I had two bridges built across the width of the Hellespont at Abydos, in order that his huge army could cross from Persia into Greece. This crossing was named by Aeschylus in his tragedy The Persians as the cause of divine intervention against Xerxes, according to Herodotus, both bridges were destroyed by a storm and Xerxes had those responsible for building the bridges beheaded and the strait itself whipped. The Histories of Herodotus vii. 33–37 and vii. 54–58 give details of building and crossing of Xerxes Pontoon Bridges. Xerxes is then said to have thrown fetters into the strait, Herodotus commented that this was a highly presumptuous way to address the Hellespont but in no way atypical of Xerxes. Harpalus the engineer eventually helped the invading armies to cross by lashing the ships together with their bows facing the current and, so it is said, two additional anchors. From the perspective of ancient Greek mythology, it was said that Helle, the Dardanelles were vital to the defence of Constantinople during the Byzantine period. Also, the Dardanelles was an important source of income for the ruler of the region, at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum a marble plate contains a law by the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I, that regulated fees for passage through the customs office of the Dardanelles. Whoever dares to violate these regulations shall no longer be regarded as a friend, besides, the administrator of the Dardanelles must have the right to receive 50 golden Litrons, so that these rules, which we make out of piety, shall never ever be violated
35.
Early modern France
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The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Revolution, was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon. This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime, the territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, in addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families. The late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries would see France undergo a massive territorial expansion, France also embarked on exploration, colonisation, and mercantile exchanges with the Americas, India, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, and a few African trading posts. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is called the Ancien Régime. The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348, the concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery. It would be the early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th century levels and these demographic changes also led to a massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe, other major French cities include Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseille. These centuries saw several periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars, between 1693 and 1694, France lost 6% of its population. In the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3. 5% of its population, in the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included. Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme, before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages whereas the written and administrative language remained Latin. Nevertheless, in 1790, only half of the spoke or understood standard French. The southern half of the continued to speak Occitan languages, and other inhabitants spoke Breton, Catalan, Basque, Dutch. In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues doïl continued to be spoken in rural communities, during the French revolution, the teaching of French was promoted in all the schools. The French used would be that of the system, which differed from the French spoken in the courts of France before the revolution. Like the orators during the French revolution, the pronunciation of every syllable would become the new language, France would not become a linguistically unified country until the end of the 19th century. The Peace of Etaples marks, for some, the beginning of the modern period in France. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 began 62 years of war with the Habsburgs, in 1445, the first steps were made towards fashioning a regular army out of the poorly disciplined mercenary bands that French kings traditionally relied on
36.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
37.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
38.
Ochakiv
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Ochakiv also known as Ochakov, Vozia, and Alektor is a small city in Mykolaiv Oblast of southern Ukraine. Serving as the center of Ochakiv Raion, the city itself does not belong to the raion and is designated as a city of regional significance. Population,14, 491 For many years the city-fortress served as a capital of the Ottoman province, the land, where the Ochakov is located, was inhabited by Thracians and Scythians in ancient times. It was known as a part of Great Scythia, in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, Greek colonists had founded a commercial colony town Alektor near the Thracian coast. Archaeological excavations also show that near the area was the old Milesian colony of Pontic Olbia, in the 1st century BC, Alektor became a Roman colony and part of Roman empire. It was a part of the Romanians ethnogenesis space and a place of passage for many migratory people, as a result of the migrations, the city fell and the inhabitants lived in small settlements built on the shores of Bug and Dnieper Rivers. In the Middle Ages the place was named Vozia by Romanians, the name is supposed to come from a plant known in Romanian as bozii/bozia, a medicinal herb very often found there. The territory was a part of the Moldavian Berladnici rulership and it fell under Tatar domination in the time of the Mongol invasion of Europe. Alexandru cel Bun, the Moldavias ruler and his ally Vitovt or Vytautas, Lithuanias leader, had freed the Vozia territory, later the stronghold will be mentioned in Russian chronics as Dashev. In the 14th century AD the Senarega brothers, Genovese merchants and warriors, had settled a castle at the place called Lerici, very close to Vozia city. It was a point for commerce with Romanians and Tatars. In 1492 Crimean Tatars took Vozia from the Moldavians and named it Özü-Cale, the name was also very similar to Romanian Vozia. It also referred to the city as Kara-Kerman as an opposite to Cetatea Albă, also taken by the Tatars and that city was also renamed as Ak-Kerman, today Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi. In 1493 the fortress was taken by the Moldavians cossacks of Bohdan Gliński, due to its strategic location the fortress for a long time was a site of contest between the Moldavia, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Moldavias ally Zaporizhian Sich, and Ottoman Empire. Khadjibey later became a centre and left from Özi one. In 1600 Mihai Viteazul of Valahia freed the city for a short time, giovanni Battista Malbi noted in 1620 that the town and the land of Vozia, even ruled by the Tatars, were inhabited by Romanians. The same ethnic note was made by Niccolo Barsi from Lucca in the same century. Daniel Krmann, monk from Poltava, wrote that outside the Turks and Tatars, the conquereres of the Vozia, the city was inhabited by Moldavians, the Russian Empire besieged Ochakiv in 1737, regarding it as the main obstacle to the possession of the Black Sea littoral
39.
Dniester
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The Dniester River, or Dnister River is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova, finally discharging into the Black Sea on Ukrainian territory again, the name Dniester derives from Sarmatian dānu nazdya the close river. The Dnieper, also of Sarmatian origin, derives from the opposite meaning, alternatively, according to V. Abaev Dniester would be a blend of Scythian dānu river and Thracian Ister, the previous name of the river, literally Dān-Ister. The Ancient Greek name of Dniester, Tyras, is from Scythian tūra, the names of the Don and Danube are also from the same Proto Indo-European word *dānu - river. In Russian, it is known as Днестр, translit, dnestr, in Yiddish, Nester נעסטער, in Turkish, Turla and during antiquity, it was called Tyras in Latin and Danastris in Greek. Classical authors have referred to it as Danaster. These early forms, without -i- but with -a-, contradict Abaevs hypothesis, edward Gibbon refers to the river both as the Niester and Dniester in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The Dniester rises in Ukraine, near the city of Drohobych, close to the border with Poland, and flows toward the Black Sea. Its course marks part of the border of Ukraine and Moldova, after which it flows through Moldova for 398 kilometres and it later forms an additional part of the Moldova-Ukraine border, then flows through Ukraine to the Black Sea, where its estuary forms the Dniester Liman. Along the lower half of the Dniester, the bank is high and hilly while the eastern one is low. The river represents the de facto end of the Eurasian Steppe and its most important tributaries are Răut and Bîc. During the Neolithic, the Dniester River was the centre of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth at the time, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in this area from roughly 5300 to 2600 BC, leaving behind thousands of archeological sites. Their settlements had up to 15,000 inhabitants, making them among the first large farming communities in the world, in antiquity, the river was considered one of the principal rivers of European Sarmatia, and it was mentioned by many Classical geographers and historians. According to Herodotus it rose in a lake, whilst Ptolemy places its sources in Mount Carpates. It ran in a direction parallel with the Ister. It fell into the Pontus Euxinus to the northeast of the mouth of the Ister, scymnus describes it as of easy navigation, and abounding in fish. Ovid speaks of its rapid course, Greek authors referred to the river as Tyras. At a later period it obtained the name of Danastris or Danastus, whence its name of Dniester
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Russian Orthodox Church
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The Russian Orthodox Church, alternatively legally known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches, in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox patriarchates. The Primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus and it also exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the Peoples Republic of China. The ROC branches in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine since the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, in Ukraine, ROC has tensions with schismatic groups supported by the current government, while it enjoys the position of numerically dominant religious organisation. The ROC should also not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, headquartered in New York, New York, the two Churches reconciled on May 17,2007, the ROCOR is now a self-governing part of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to one of the legends, Andrew reached the location of Kiev. The spot where he erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrews Cathedral. By the end of the first millennium AD, eastern Slavic lands started to come under the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. There is evidence that the first Christian bishop was sent to Novgorod from Constantinople either by Patriarch Photius or Patriarch Ignatios, by the mid-10th century, there was already a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Byzantine Greek priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′ to convert to Christianity and her grandson, Vladimir of Kiev, made Rus officially a Christian state. The Kievan church was a metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ecumenical patriarch appointed the metropolitan, who usually was a Greek. The Metropolitans residence was located in Kiev itself, the capital of the medieval Rus state. Following the tribulations of the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival, despite the politically motivated murders of Mikhail of Chernigov and Mikhail of Tver, the Mongols were generally tolerant and even granted tax exemption to the Church. Such holy figures as Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Alexis helped the country to withstand years of Tatar oppression, the Trinity monastery founded by Sergius of Radonezh became the setting for the flourishing of spiritual art, exemplified by the work of Andrey Rublev, among others. The followers of Sergius founded four hundred monasteries, thus extending the geographical extent of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. However, the Moscow Prince Vasili II rejected the act of the Council of Florence brought to Moscow by Isidore in March 1441, Isidore was in the same year removed from his position as an apostate and expelled from Moscow. The Russian metropolitanate remained effectively vacant for the few years due largely to the dominance of Uniates in Constantinople then. In December 1448, Jonas, a Russian bishop, was installed by the Council of Russian bishops in Moscow as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia without the consent from Constantinople. Subsequently, there developed a theory in Moscow that saw Moscow as the Third Rome, the successor to Constantinople
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Partitions of Poland
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The First Partition of Poland was decided on August 5,1772. Two decades later, Russian and Prussian troops entered the Commonwealth again, Austria did not participate in the Second Partition. The Third Partition of Poland took place on October 24,1795, with this partition, the Commonwealth ceased to exist. In Polish, there are two words for the two meanings. In Polish historiography, the term Fourth Partition of Poland has also been used, the term Fourth Partition in a temporal sense can also mean the diaspora communities that played important political role in re-establishing the Polish sovereign state after 1918. A single member of parliaments belief that a measure was injurious to his own constituency, even after the act had been approved and it became increasingly difficult to undertake action. The liberum veto also provided openings for foreign diplomats to get their ways and this applies particularly to the last Commonwealth King Stanisław August Poniatowski, who for some time had been a lover of Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Their alliance later became known in Poland as the Alliance of the Three Black Eagles, the Commonwealth could never be liquidated unless its long-time ally, Austria, allowed it, so Catherine had to use diplomacy to win Austria to her side. Frederick II retaliated by ordering enough Polish currency counterfeited to severely affect the Polish economy and this new constitution undid the reforms made in 1764 under Stanisław II. The liberum veto and all the old abuses of the last one, the irregular and poorly commanded Polish forces had little chance in the face of the regular Russian army and suffered a major defeat. In 1769 Austria annexed a small territory of Spisz and in 1770 – Nowy Sącz and these territories had been a bone of contention between Poland and Hungary, which was a part of the Austrian crown lands. In February 1772, the agreement of partition was signed in Vienna, early in August, Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops simultaneously invaded the Commonwealth and occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. The partition treaty was ratified by its signatories on September 22,1772, to Austria fell Zator and Auschwitz, part of Lesser Poland embracing parts of the counties of Kraków and Sandomir and the whole of Galicia, less the city of Kraków. Catherine of Russia was also very satisfied, by this diplomatic document Russia came into possession of that section of Livonia that had remained in Commonwealth control, and of Belarus embracing the counties of Vitebsk, Polotsk and Mstislavl. By this partition, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 30% of its territory and half of its population, by seizing northwestern Poland, Prussia instantly gained control over 80% of the Commonwealths total foreign trade. Through levying enormous customs duties, Prussia accelerated the collapse of the Commonwealth, after having occupied their respective territories, the three partitioning powers demanded that King Stanisław and the Sejm approve their action. By 1790 the First Polish Republic had been weakened to such a degree that it was forced into an unnatural and terminal alliance with its enemy, the Polish–Prussian Pact of 1790 was signed. The conditions of the Pact contributed to the succeeding and final two partitions of Poland–Lithuania, the May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of the Repnin Sejm
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Prussia
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Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
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