1.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
2.
Ethnography
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Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study, an ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, the resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group. The typical ethnography is a study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader. An ethnography records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations, the word ethnography is derived from the Greek ἔθνος, meaning a company, later a people, nation and -graphy meaning field of study. Ethnographic studies focus on large groups of people who interact over time. Ethnography is a design, where the researcher explains about shared learnt patterns of values, behaviour, beliefs. The field of anthropology originated from Europe and England designed in late 19th century and it spread its roots to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the main contributors like EB Tylor from Britain and Lewis H Morgan, franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, were a group of researchers from United States who contributed the idea of cultural relativism to the literature. He gives the point of the native and this became the origin of field work. Since Malinowski was very firm with his approach he applied it practically and he was interested in learning the language of the islanders and stayed there for a long time doing his field work. The field of ethnography became very popular in the late 19th century, again, in the latter part of the 19th century, the field of anthropology became a good support for scientific formation. Though the field was flourishing it had a lot of threat to encounter, post colonialism, the research climate shifted towards post-modernism and feminism. Therefore, the field of anthropology moved into discipline of social science, gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as an area of study. This became known as ethnography, following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin, there are different forms of ethnography, confessional ethnography, life history, feminist ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist ethnography and critical ethnography, realist ethnography, is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists
3.
Russian Revolution
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The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, in the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a communist state. The February Revolution was a revolution focused around Petrograd, then capital of Russia, in the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government. The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the revolution, the February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War, which left much of the Russian Army in a state of mutiny. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes, when the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for stopping the conflict. The Bolsheviks turned workers militias under their control into the Red Guards over which they exerted substantial control, the Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World War, the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918, soon after, civil war erupted among the Reds, the Whites, the independence movements and the non-Bolshevik socialists. It continued for years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated both the Whites and all rival socialists. In this way, the Revolution paved the way for the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922, the Russian Revolution of 1905 was said to be a major factor to the February Revolutions of 1917. The events of Bloody Sunday triggered a line of protests, a council of workers called the St. Petersburg Soviet was created in all this chaos, and the beginning of a communist political protest had begun. World War I prompted a Russian outcry directed at Tsar Nicholas II and it was another major factor contributing to the retaliation of the Russian Communists against their royal opponents. However, the problems were merely administrative, and not industrial as Germany was producing great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major battlefronts, the war also developed a weariness in the city, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a problem in Russia, but the cause of this did not lie in any failure of the harvests. As a result, they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to subsistence farming, thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same time rising prices led to demands for wages in the factories. The outcome of all this, however, was a criticism of the government rather than any war-weariness. The original fever of excitement, which had caused the name of St. Heavy losses during the war also strengthened thoughts that Tsar Nicholas II was unfit to rule, the Liberals were now better placed to voice their complaints, since they were participating more fully through a variety of voluntary organizations
4.
Karl Ernst von Baer
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Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer, Edler von Huthorn was an Estonian scientist and explorer. Baer is also known in Russia as Karl Maksimovich Baer, Baer was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, and a founding father of embryology. He was an explorer of European Russia and Scandinavia, Karl Ernst von Baer was born into a Baltic German noble family in the Piep estate, Kreis Jerwen, Governorate of Estonia, as a knight by birthright. He spent his childhood at Lasila manor, Estonia. Many of his ancestors had come from Westphalia and he was educated at the Knight and Cathedral School in Reval and the Imperial University of Dorpat, each of which he found lacking in quality education. In 1812, during his tenure at the university, he was sent to Riga to aid the city after Napoleons armies had laid siege to it. In his autobiography, his discontent with his education at Dorpat inspired him to write a lengthy appraisal of education in general, after leaving Tartu, he continued his education in Berlin, Vienna, and Würzburg, where Ignaz Döllinger introduced him to the new field of embryology. In 1817, he became a professor at Königsberg University and full professor of zoology in 1821, in 1829, he taught briefly in St Petersburg, but returned to Königsberg. In 1834, Baer moved back to St Petersburg and joined the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, first in zoology and then in comparative anatomy and his interests while there were anatomy, ichthyology, ethnography, anthropology, and geography. While embryology had kept his attention in Königsberg, then in Russia von Baer engaged in a deal of field research. The last years of his life were spent in Dorpat, where he became a critic of Charles Darwin. Von Baer studied the development of animals, discovering the blastula stage of development. In 1826, Baer discovered the mammalian ovum, the human ovum was first described by Edgar Allen in 1928. In 1827, he completed research Ovi Mammalium et Hominis genesi for St Petersburgs Academy of Science, in 1827 von Baer became the first person to observe human ova. Only in 1876 did Oscar Hertwig prove that fertilization is due to fusion of an egg, Von Baer formulated what became known as Baers laws of embryology, General characteristics of the group to which an embryo belongs develop before special characteristics. General structural relations are formed before the most specific appear. The form of any given embryo does not converge upon other definite forms, the embryo of a higher animal form never resembles the adult of another animal form, such as one less evolved, but only its embryo. From his studies of embryology, Baer had believed in the transmutation of species
5.
Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky
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He should not be confused with his grandson, Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov, who served as Russian Foreign Minister between 1897 and 1900. During his years at the University of Moscow, Muravyov set up the Mathematical Society and he volunteered during the Patriotic War of 1812 and was wounded at Borodino. By some sources he was cooperating with the buying out his freedom this way. Upon the intercession of his relatives, Muravyov was appointed Vice-Governor of Vitebsk in 1826. At these posts, he known for his harsh policy of Russification. He instituted a ban on the Latin alphabet and the Lithuanian language in printed content. The ban was lifted in 1904, as a consequence, he made it his priority to close the Vilnius University and to expel Catholic priests from other educational facilities. He was reported as saying that, What Russian rifle did not succeed in doing, in 1831 Muravyov governed Grodno, only to be moved to Minsk the following year. In 1850, he was made a member of the State Council of the Russian Empire, in the 1850s he served as Vice-President of the Russian Geographical Society. Alexander II appointed him Minister of State Properties, a position which Muravyov used to lead the party opposed to the emancipation of the serfs. His administration of state-owned peasant households proved catastrophic and effectively reduced many of them to bankruptcy, during the January Uprising of 1863, Muravyov was appointed Governor General of Northwestern Krai. He managed to subdue the rebellion. About 9000 insurgents were resettled to Siberia,127 were demonstratively hanged, konstanty Kalinowski, Zygmunt Sierakowski and Antanas Mackevičius were amongst the rebel leaders executed on his orders. Those settlements where the rebels were reported had to pay enormous contributions, to many nationally minded Russians, Muravyov was a hero and the de facto head of the Russian Party. They flooded Muravyov with congratulatory telegrams on his nameday, November 8,1863, after defeating the rebels militarily, Muravyov began a series of deep reforms which aimed at the liquidation of the breeding grounds for future uprisings. He strengthened the economic, educational and social positions of Orthodox Belarusian peasants who made up the majority of the Krais population at these times, on May 1,1865 Muravyov was relieved from his duties. For his vital services to the Empire, he received a title and spent late 1865. At the time of his death Muravyov was investigating Dmitry Karakozovs attempt to assassinate the tsar, in the long term, Muravyovs policy proved mixed
6.
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
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Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia was the second son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and younger brother of Tsar Alexander II. During the reign of Alexander II, Konstantin was an admiral of the Russian fleet and he was also an instrumental figure in the emancipation of the serfs. He was less fortunate as viceroy of Poland and had to be recalled to Russia where he was attacked for his liberalism, after the assassination of his brother Alexander II in 1888, Konstantin fell from favour. The new tsar, Alexander III, his nephew, opposed Konstantins liberal ideas and his retirement was marked with personal turmoil and family setbacks. After suffering a stroke, he spent his last years as an invalid, Konstantin was born in St. Petersburg, the second son and fifth child of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. His parents were happy to have a son after nine years of having only daughters. Nicholas I and his wife were devoted to other and to their children. Normally the Imperial children were kept under supervision until they were seven. However, by the time he was five Konstantin had become too willful and difficult for a governess to handle, Nicholas I intended that Konstantin would eventually become Admiral General of the Russian Fleet and with this in mind chose Fyodor Litke as tutor for his son. Litke, who had circumnavigated the globe at the age of twenty, was a brash and bold man, unafraid of controversy or offense and he trained the boy in naval sciences and filled his head with tales of the sea, gaining the friendship of his pupil for life. Languages were an important part of Konstantins education, he learned Russian, English, German, as he grew older, his lessons increased in length and complexity to encompass mathematics, science, statistics, and government administration. There were also early military lessons and drills, Konstantin also enjoyed music, learning to play the piano and cello. He loved drawing and had great appreciation for the arts and he also became an enthusiastic reader and his fascination with Homer led him to translate the Odyssey from German. In 1835, Konstantin accompanied his parents to Germany and from age eight onwards was taught to keep a diary. When he was just eight years old, he was given a small yacht, in 1836, accompanied by Litke, he embarked on a lengthy sailing expedition and finally he was given command of the Russian frigate Hercules under Litkes direction. During his training Konstantin was treated like all other naval cadets and he was placed on watch duty at midnight as well as in rain and storms. The encouragement and guidance of his aunt, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, was important influence in Konstantins education. Elena took him under her wing, broadening his taste in literature and music and she was well known for her liberal bent and had a big influence in her nephews political views
