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THE HISTORY OF Charles E. Ziegler The Greenwood
Histories of the Modern Nations |
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Notable People in
the History of Anna Akhmatova ( 1888-1966), brilliant poet
whose themes of love were greatly admired before the Revolution. Her work was
condemned for its "bourgeois decadence" during the Stalin era. Aleksandr I ( 1777-1825), Emperor during the
Napoleonic wars (ruled 1801-1825). Aleksandr presided over Aleksandr II ( 1818-1881), called the
Tsar-Liberator because he emancipated the serfs, in 1861. His reforms of the
1860s gave way to increasing conservatism in the 1870s, and he was
assassinated by Russian terrorists in 1881. Aleksandr III ( 1845-1894), reactionary tsar
who ruled from 1881 to 1894. He crushed the Russian revolutionary movement. His
chief advisor, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, called parliamentary democracy
"the great lie of our time." Aleksandr Blok ( 1880- 1921), leading Russian
poet of the early twentieth century. Sympathetic to the Revolution, he is
best known for his poem "The
Twelve." Leonid Brezhnev ( 1906-1982), General Secretary
of the Communist Party, 1964-82. He presided over a period of stagnation and,
with Richard Nixon, initiated détente (relaxation of tensions) between East
and West. Nikolai Bukharin ( 1888-1938), popular Bolshevik
revolutionary and Communist Party theorist. He was convicted and executed in
the last of the great show trials. Catherine II (The Great, 1729-1796), tsarina
of Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( 1821- 1881), brilliant
novelist, Russophile, and moralist whose writings included Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and Notes from Underground. Sergel Eisenstein ( 1893- 1948), the director of a
number of cinema classics. His films include The Battleship Potemkin (the
1905 Revolution) and October (the Bolshevik Revolution). Mikhail Gorbachev ( 1931- ), General Secretary of
the Communist Party from 1985 to 1991. He initiated reforms that led to
collapse of the Ivan IV (The Terrible, 1530-1584),
Muscovite tsar noted for his cruelty. He crushed the power of the aristocracy
through his oprichnina, a centralized political and military authority. Aleksandr Blok ( 1880- 1921), leading Russian
poet of the early twentieth century. Sympathetic to the Revolution, he is
best known for his poem "The
Twelve." Leonid Brezhnev ( 1906-1982), General Secretary
of the Communist Party, 1964-82. He presided over a period of stagnation and,
with Richard Nixon, initiated détente (relaxation of tensions) between East
and West. Nikolai Bukharin ( 1888-1938), popular Bolshevik
revolutionary and Communist Party theorist. He was convicted and executed in
the last of the great show trials. Catherine II (The Great, 1729-1796), tsarina
of Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( 1821- 1881), brilliant
novelist, Russophile, and moralist whose writings included Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and Notes from Underground. Sergel Eisenstein ( 1893- 1948), the director of a
number of cinema classics. His films include The Battleship Potemkin (the
1905 Revolution) and October (the Bolshevik Revolution). Mikhail Gorbachev ( 1931- ), General Secretary of
the Communist Party from 1985 to 1991. He initiated reforms that led to
collapse of the Ivan IV (The Terrible, 1530-1584),
Muscovite tsar noted for his cruelty. He crushed the power of the aristocracy
through his oprichnina, a centralized political and military authority. Aleksandr Kerensky ( 1881-1970), Socialist
Revolutionary lawyer. He was head of the Provisional Government formed after
Nicholas II abdicated and was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Nikita Khrushchev ( 1894-1971), General Secretary
of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964. He promoted partial reforms and the
"deStalinization" of the Aleksandr Kerensky ( 1881-1970), Socialist
Revolutionary lawyer. He was head of the Provisional Government formed after
Nicholas II abdicated and was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Nikita Khrushchev ( 1894-1971), General Secretary
of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964. He promoted partial reforms and the
"deStalinization" of the Vladimir Lenin (Ulianov, 1870-1924), dedicated
Russian revolutionary, political theorist, founder of the Mikhail Lomonosov ( 1711-1765), Russian peasant
who mastered chemistry, physics, astronomy, and geology. He was also a
skilled poet and a talented literary scholar. In tribute to his scientific
contributions, Nicholas I ( 1796-1855), reactionary tsar
whose reign ( 1825-1855) was guided by the principles of autocracy,
Orthodoxy, and nationalism. His resistance to reform contributed to Nicholas II ( 1868-1918), the last Romanov
ruler ( 1896-1917), a weak and incompetent figure who could not deal with the
growing pressures of modernizing Nikon (Nikita Minov) ( 1605-1681), Patriarch of the
Russian Orthodox Church from 1652 to 1658. He initiated the 1667
ecclesiastical reforms that led to the Great Schism, dividing Orthodox and
Old Believers. Boris Pasternak ( 1890- 1960), famous in the
West for his novel Dr.
Zhivago. Pasternak is revered in Peter I (The Great, 1672-1725), tsar of Aleksandr Pushkin ( 1799-1837), generally regarded
as the greatest Russian poet. Pushkin dominated Gregorii Rasputin (ca. 1865-1916), mystic Siberian
peasant who claimed to be able to cure Nicholas and Aleksandra's hemophiliac
son. He manipulated court life during World War I and was murdered by the
Russian nobility. Ilya Repin ( 1844-1930), leading artist of
the Itinerant school, which in the 1860s and 1870s rejected the classical
canon of the Andrei Rublev (ca. 1360-1430), masterful
painter of religious icons. This monk from the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius
Monastery is considered Andrei Sakharov ( 1921-1989), physicist and
human rights activist, father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Banished to
internal exile in the city of Mikhail Sholokhov ( 1905-1984), Cossack novelist
of the Soviet era. Sholokhov's stories about his native Don region, written
in a (talented) socialist realist vein, earned him the Nobel Prize for
literature in 1965. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ( 1918- ), Soviet dissident,
winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, and author of a three-volume exposé
on the labor camps, The
Gulag Archipelago, and many other novels and historical essays, including A Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich. He was expelled from the Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Djugashvili, 1879-1953), Georgian revolutionary
and General Secretary of the Communist Party. He established himself as
absolute dictator of the Peter Tchaikovsky ( 1840- 1893), classical music
composer who wrote the 1812
Overture, the ballet Leo Tolstoy ( 1828- 1910), a count whose
novels included Anna Karenina and the monumental War and Peace. Tolstoy held a
fatalistic view of life grounded in his personal interpretation of
Christianity. Leon Trotsky (Bronstein, 1879-1940),
Russian-Jewish revolutionary, gifted orator, and Bolshevik Commissar of War (
1918-1925). He was edged out of power, deported, and later assassinated on
Stalin's orders in Ivan Turgenev ( 1818- 1883), novelist during
the realist period of Russian literature, and author of Fathers and Sons. His
collection of short stories, Hunting Sketches,
humanized the Russian peasantry of the mid- ninteenth century. Vladimir I (ca. 980-1015), Kievan prince who adopted Orthodox Christianity as the official religion in 988. Boris Yeltsin ( 1931- ), Communist Party
functionary from Gregorii Zinoviev ( 1883-1936), Bolshevik
revolutionary and head of the Comintern from 1919 to 1926. He was one of the
principal contenders for power after Lenin's death and was executed during the
1930s show trials. CHARLES
E. ZIEGLER is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at the |
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