Today's birthday

[Алексей Конобеев]

Today is the anniversary of a person Russia is rightfully proud of. On May 7 (new style) 170 years ago, in 1840, was born one of the greatest composers in the world, Peter Tchaikovsky. Everyone has heard his music many times, often even without realising that it was composed by Tchaikovsky. A lot of my American friends were astonished when they were told that some of the most traditional melodies they hear everywhere at Christmas time were, in fact, Russian ones, exerpts from the Nutcracker ballet. But of course Tchaikovsky's role and impact of his work on world's music is far greater than just a few Christmas melodies.

Peter Tchaikovsky was born in the town of Votkinks, which then was part of Vyatka region but now is in the Republic of Udmurtia. His father was an engineer who served as a lieutenant colonel in the Department of Mines and manager of the famed Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks.

Peter loved music since his early childhood and when he was only 5 years old he began taking piano lessons. At first his parents were very supportive of his love of music, they hired a tutor for him and encouraged the development of his musical talent . But when Peter was 10 years old he was sent to study at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg to become a lawyer.

When peter was only 14 years old, his mother died of cholera, and even many years later Tchaikovsky wrote in one of his letters that he still remembered every single moment of that day and it still brought tears in his eyes.

in 1859 Tchaikovsky graduated from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence and for three years worked as an assistant the Ministry of Justice. But his passion for music was so great, that at the age of 23 he went to study composition and musical theory.

In 1863 he abandoned his legal service and went on to study at the new St petersburg conservatory full-time, from which he graduated in December 1865. From there Tchaikovsky went on to teach at the new Moscow Conservatory.

 

On the whole, Peter Tchaikovsky was not a very happy person. He often had depressions, and what made the depressions stronger was the fact that many of his works were not received well by critics. For example, he dedicated his very famous First Piano Concerto to his teacher Nikolay Rubinstein, but Mr. Rubinstein didn't like the work and Tchaikovsky removed the dedication, feeling devastated. He was also greatly opposed by the Five, also known as the Mighty Handful, a group of Russian composers which consisted of Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, Alexander Borodin and Cesar Cui. Cesar Cui criticised Tchaikovsky's music bitterly and it was Balakirev who changed the Five's attitude to Tchaikovsky, so that his overture Romeo and Juliet was well-received by the Five.

Tchaikovsky went on composing and teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, but many of his works did not go down well with the critics.

When Peter was 28, he met the Belgian soprano Dйsirйe Artфt and they got engaged, but very soon Artot married a singer without even warning Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky got married only in June 1877 to one of his students, Antonina Milyukova, but the marriage was not a happy one and very soon the couple separated. However, they never got divorced legally, so Antonina officially remained Tchaikovsky's wife and, later, his widow. She was not a very mentally stable woman and ended her days in a mental asylum.

What we now believe to be Tchaikovsky's greatest works were often not understood at their first performanced. He was blamed on being "too Eauropean and distant from native culture", Vis Violin concerto was rejected by the great violinist leopold Auer, to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated the piece, and audience in Vienna hissed during the performance. This is what an Austrian music critic wrote about this Concerto: "The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is surely no ordinary talent, but rather, an inflated one, obsessed with posturing as a man of genius, and lacking all discrimination and taste ... the same can be said for his new, long, and ambitious Violin Concerto. For a while it proceeds soberly, musically, and not mindlessly, but soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and dominates until the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue ... The Adagio is well on the way to reconciling us and winning us over when, all too soon, it breaks off to make way for a finale that transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian church festival. We see a host of gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze. In the course of a discussion of obscener illustrations, Friedrich Vischer once maintained that there were pictures whose stink one could see. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear". When Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan lake" was first performed, some critics wrote that the music was dull and monotonous.

But gradually, first abroad and then in Russia, Tchaikovsky's fame and recognition began to grow. For 13 years he was financially supported by a Russian mecenate Nadezhda von Meck, and after that he was supported by the Emperor Alexander III. It's interesting that, although they exchanged more than 1000 letters, Tchaikovsky and von Meck never met in person.

Tchaikovsky worked a lot to promote Russian music and at the same time introduce moder European music to Russian audiences. Tchaikovsky served as director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society during the 1889-1890 season. In this post, he invited a number of international celebrities to conduct, including Johannes Brahms, Antonнn Dvořбk and Jules Massenet.

He visited most of European capitals, conducting his own music there, and there even began Tchaikovsky festivals. In 1888 he made an international conducting tour, appearing in Leipzig, Hamburg, Prague, Paris, and London. And in 1891 he conducted his own works at the opening ceremony of carnegie Hall in New York. By this time publioc adored him and the halls where he conducted were always full. This is how Walter Damrosch, a prominent American composer, described his impression of Tchaikovsky:

"In the spring of 1891 Carnegie Hall, which had been built by Andrew Carnegie as a home for the higher musical activities of New York, was inaugurated with music festival in which the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies took part. In order to give this festival a special significance, I invited Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowsky [sic], the great Russian composer, to come to America and to conduct some of his own works. In all my many years of experience I have never met a great composer so gentle, so modest - almost diffident - as he. We all loved him from the first moment - my wife and I, the chorus, the orchestra, the employees of the hotel where he lived, and of course the public . . .

He came often to our house, and, I think, like to come. He was always gentle in his intercourse with others, but a feeling of sadness seemed never to leave him, although his reception in America was more than enthusiastic and the visit so successful in every away that he made plans to come back the following year. Yet he was often swept by uncontrollable waves of melancholia and despondency."

Tchaikovsky's las work was his Sixth Symphony, whihc was first performed only 6 days before his death. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky dies of cholera on November 6, 1893 in St. Petersburg, aged only 53 years old.

 

Listen to 8 early 20-th century phonograph recordings of Tchaikovsky's music here: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.p...e=%40attr+1%3D1

 

Watch a very dramatic episode from Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" (the entrance of Carabosse and the casting of the spell):

 

 

You can find musical scores of many Tchaikovsky's works here: http://kreusch-sheet-music.net/eng/index.p...ch+Tschaikowski

http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-...r=TchaikovskyPI

http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Tchaikovsky,_Pyotr_Ilyich

http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Tchaikovsky.php

[Алексей Конобеев]

Imagine a large bookstore. Several stories full of books, magazines, newspapers, CDs and DVDs, a store complete with a coffee shor where you can let your hair down, sipping your favourite coffee and looking through the pages of a book you're still unsure about buying.

In such a store in the UK or the USA, with its multitudes of titles, books by which Russian authors are you likely to find? Leo Tolstoy? Yes. Feodor Dostoyevsky? For sure. Anna Akhmatova? In most cases. But what about modern Russian writers, which books would and average American or British customer buy, who sells well and thus represents modern Russia to the Anglo-Saxon mind? There is only a few of such writers and one of them has his birthday on May 20th.

Let me list the English titles of his books. Can you guess who this writer is? So,

The Winter Queen

The Turkish Gambit

Murder on the Leviathan

The Death of Achilles

The Jack of Spades

The Decorator

The State Counsellor

The Coronation

and many others. You may have guessed the pen-name of this author, Boris Akunin. the man behind the pen-name, Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, is not only the author of popular detective stories, he is also a brilliant translator, an essayist and a specialist in Japanese literature.

The Times wrote about Boris Akunin: "Boris Akunin is a sensation. He has created a popular hero to equal Sherlock Holmes and James Bond in his bestselling whodunnits." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/c...ticle551700.ece

 

Whether you like detective fiction and Boris Akunin's writing style or not, he represents modern Russian literature to many people abroad and today is a good day to wish Grigory Chkhartishvili a very happy birthday and many happy returns of the day.

[пять гор]

Several stories fool of books, magazines, newspapers...

thnx for the info....now i feel like burying myself in a book...

[Алексей Конобеев]

Several stories fool of books, magazines, newspapers...

thnx for the info....now i feel like burying myself in a book...

: - ) Corrected the typo, thank you for telling me. Also, if you have a chance to read Akunin's Winter Queen in English, do so - the translation is very good.

Here's a review of this book:

”A wondrous strange and appealing novel . . . Elaborate, intricate, profoundly czarist, and Russian to its bones, as though Tolstoy had sat down to write a murder mystery. Not quite like anything you’ve ever read before.”

–Alan Furst, author of The Foreign Correspondent

[Алексей Конобеев]

On May 24 in 1819 a girl was born, who had such an impact on world's history that an entire epoch was named after her. Although her name was Alexandrine Victoria (after her godfather, Emperor Alexander of Russia) and her family nickname was Drina, we all know and remember her as Queen Victoria of Great Britain, Empress of India. Her reign lasted 63 years and 7 months and she is the longest-reigning female monarch in history.

Alexandrina Victoria, or Victoria, was a granddaughter of King George III. Her father was Duke of Kent, but he had three elder brothers. However. all those brothers had no legitimate children, so it was obsvious that sooner or later Princess Victoria would become the Queen of the United Kingdom. Her father died when little Victoria was only one year old, so her education was supervised by her German mother, whose name was also Victoria. That is why the little princess spoke German, but when she was three years old, she began learning English and French. Although Queen Victoria spoke German, English and French fluently, she still made minor mistakes in English now and then.

Her uncle, King William IV, was quite fond of his niece but he heartily disliked her mother, the Duchess of Kent. He even said once that he really hoped to live long enough to see Victoria's eighteenth birthday, so that when he died, her mother could not become Regent and rule over England.

Victoria's childhood was not a very happy one. She was not allowed to interact with other children, so she spent time with her dog, spaniel Dash, and her mother made her sleep in the same bedroom as herself to make surethat Victoria would not talk to someone "improper". Apart from languages, she was taught to play the piano, to paint, and she also studied history, geography and the Bible.

William IV did as he promised: he lived long enough to see Victoria turn 18. A month after that he died of heart failure, aged 71.

Victoria was woken up early in the morning by two very important messengers. This is how she described the event in her diary:

"I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here, and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing-gown), and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen. Lord Conyngham knelt down and kissed my hand, at the same time delivering to me the official announcement of the poor King's demise. The Archbishop then told me that the Queen was desirous that he should come and tell me the details of the last moments of my poor, good Uncle; he said that he had directed his mind to religion, and had died in a perfectly happy, quiet state of mind, and was quite prepared for his death. He added that the King's sufferings at the last were not very great but that there was a good deal of uneasiness. Lord Conyngham, whom I charged to express my feelings of condolence and sorrow to the poor

Queen, returned directly to Windsor. I then went to my room and dressed."

 

On the same day Victoria ordered that she should have her own bedroom from now on, and she would also be called Victoria and not Alexandrina Victoria.

 

The reign of Victoria was a very long and eventful one and it changed Britain greatly. She was the first monarch to live in Buckingham palace, she got married at the age of 21 after she proposed to Prince Albert, seven attempts were made to assasinate her, she was the first British monarch to use trains regularly, she introduced very strict and prudish morals in her kingdom when even the legs of tables and chairs were covered with cloth, because a naked leg was "improper", she made Scotland fashionable with aristocracy and it was under her rule that the Crimean war was fought and Russia was defeated by the joint forces of three Empires - the French, the British and the Ottoman ones - and many more events happened. Many places and even priovinces are named after Victoria, and Victoria era has many distinctive features in art, literature, industry and invention as well as politics.

She had 9 children and 42 grandchildren, and their living descendants include: Queen Elizabeth II (as well as her husband), King Harald V of Norway, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, King Juan Carlos I of Spain (as well as his wife), and the deposed kings Constantine II of Greece (as well as his wife) and Michael of Romania. The pretenders to the thrones of Serbia, Russia, Prussia and Germany, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Hanover, Hesse, Baden and France (Legitimist) are also descendants.

You can read more about Queen Victoria on the Royal website: http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarc...s/Victoria.aspx

[Алексей Конобеев]

May 25th is the birthday of a man whose role in development of aviation is hard to overestimate. Igor Sikorsky was born on May 25th, 1889, in Kiev in the Russian Empire. His mother taught him at home and she instilled in him a love of books by Jules verne and works by Leonardo da Vinci. His father taught him to love natural sciences, and at the age of 12 Igor made a model of a rubber-band powered helicopter. Igor began hist studies at Saint Petersburg Imperial Russian Naval Academy? then he went on to study in Paris and, upon return to Russia in 1907, he studied for a year at the Mechanical College of the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. When he learned about the Wright brothers' plane and about German zeppelins, he realised that aviation was waht he loved most of all, so he went to Paris again to study at the Ecole des Techniques Aéronautiques et de Construction Automobile. In May 1909, he returned to Russia and began designing his first helicopter, which he began testing in July. However, the helicopter was not really successful, so Igor gave up the idea for a while. Insted, he built an original plane and got a pilot's license from the Imperial Aero Club of Russia in 1911. His plane was truly original, it was not based on any other plane design.

In early 1912, Igor Sikorsky became Chief Engineer of the aircraft division for the Russian Baltic Railroad Car Works (Russko-Baltiisky Vagonny Zavod or R-BVZ) in Saint Petersburg. It was then and there that Igor Sikorsky did something that had not been done before him. He constructed and built the first multi-engine plane in the world. The plane was named Russky Vityaz, and he called it Le Grand (the Great One). The first flight happened on May 13, 1913, and Igor Sikorsky was the test pilot.

Sikorsky took the experience from building the Russky Vityaz to develop the world's first four-engined bomber, the S-22 Ilya Muromets, for which he was decorated with the Order of St. Vladimir.

During the Civil War Igor Sikorsky saw that he had no opportunities to design and build new planes in Russia and in the ravaged Europe, so he emigrated to the United States in 1919.

After a short period of lecturing at a university, in 1923, Sikorsky formed the Sikorsky Manufacturing Company in Roosevelt, New York.[24] He was helped by several former Russian military officers. Among Sikorsky's chief supporters was composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who introduced himself by writing a check for US$5,000 (approximately $61,000 in 2007 dollars). His company created and manufactured new planes, including flying boats. And it was Sikorsky who designed the first massmanufactured helicopter, thus achieving what people have been dreaming about since Ancient China. Sikorsky's rotor configuration is used in most helicopters produced today

 

Throughout his entire life Igor Sikorsky remained a deeply spiritual person. He once wrte in a letter: "Our concerns sink into insignificance when compared with the eternal value of human personality - a potential child of God which is destined to triumph over lie, pain, and death. No one can take this sublime meaning of life away from us, and this is the one thing that matters."

 

As I wrote earlier, Igor Sikorsky's role in the development of aviation is hard to overestimate, and we can all be truly proud that a person from Russian culture had such an impact on the world.

[Алексей Конобеев]

One of the people born today created one of the most famous images in world's cinema. Alongside with Charlie Chaplin, this person is one immediately recognised by people all over the world. Inspite of this fame, her life was not a very happy one and came to a sad and tragic end. Today is Marylin Monroe's birthday. She was born on 1 July 1926, and her full name was Norma Jeane Mortenson, although she was baptised as Norma Jeane Baker.

At her birth no one would have anticipated that the newly-born girl will became a culture and fashion icon. She was born in a charity ward and baptised by her grandmother. We know the girl's mother (Gladys Pearl Baker (1902-1984)), but the identity of Marylin's biological father is still debated.

Marilyn's mother was mentally unstable, so the girl grew up with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, and lived with them until she was 7. Then her mother's friend became her guardian, but later on she was sent to an orphanage. Finally Marilyn married a neighbor boy, James Dougherty, so that she would not have to return to an orphanage.

In 1946 she decided to pursue her own career. At first she worked at an aeroplane factory, but then, on advice of an Army photographer, she spplied to the The Blue Book modeling agency. As a model she became very successful and in 1948 she started acting in films. Her first films and roles went unnoticed, but in 1950 she began her ascend to fame. She took up a stage name, had minor dental, chin and nose plastic surgeries and in 1952 she got her first starring role in Don't Bother to Knock.

InNiagara in 1953 she played an unbalanced woman planning to murder her husband, and that role made her truly well-known in the cinema world. Over the following months, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire strengthened Monroe's status as an A-list actress and she became one of the world's biggest stars as we know her.

She created the image of gold-digging "dumb blonde" that was later on heavily exploited by madonna, Kylie Minogue and many other singers and actresses.

Her fame grew, she was acclaimed as a brilliant comedienne, but at the same time some film directors said that she was difficult to work with. Her last official pictures were taken in 1962 and very soon afterwards Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home on the morning of August 5, 1962. Some people believe it was suicide, other say that it was murder. The official cause of Monroe's death was classified, by Dr. Thomas Noguchi of the Los Angeles County Coroners office, as a case of "acute barbiturate poisoning."

Here are some quotes from Marilyn Monroe:

Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

 

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they go right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart, so that better things can fall together.

 

When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them.

[Владислав]

Алексей Васильевич!

 

Хочется выразить Вам благодарность за то, что Вы нас радуете интересным и полезным материалом в этой теме.

 

Спасибо большое!!!

[Алексей Конобеев]

Would you think that the fourteenth child out of 21 in one family would be a very successful one? Probably not. However, such a child, born on May 30 (old style)/ June 9 (n.st) 1672 in Moscow is knowl all over the world and indeed, what he did still affects our lives today. Can you guess who this child was?

[пять гор]

уж не Петр ли Великий?

[Алексей Конобеев]

уж не Петр ли Великий?

Верно, сегодня про него расскажу :-)

[Алексей Конобеев]

June 15th is the birthday of a man who helped Russia get over a major political and military crisis. This man is also famous because he studied together with Alexander Pushking at the Lyceum and outlived all other graduates of that year. The man I am talking about is prince Alexander Gortchakoff (as his surname was spelled in the 19th century). He was born in 1798 in Haapsalu (current Estonia), studied at the Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo and made an outstanding diplomatic career. At first his career took a slow, although a high-positioned start. His first diplomatic work of importance was the negotiation of a marriage between the grand duchess Olga and the crown prince Charles of Wurttemberg. He remained at Stuttgart for some years as Russian minister and confidential adviser of the crown princess. He foretold the outbreak of the revolutionary spirit in Germany and Austria, and was credited with counselling the abdication of Ferdinand in favor of Francis Joseph. When the German Confederation was re-established in 1850 in place of the parliament of Frankfurt, Gorchakov was appointed Russian minister to the diet. It was here that he first met Prince Bismarck, with whom he formed a friendship which was afterwards renewed at St Petersburg.

He was made ambassador in Vienna at a very difficult time, and spent there the entire Crimean War. He advised against many of the measures that the then minister of foreign affairs, Cou8nt Nesselrode, was recommending, and after the war was lost, refused to put his signature underneth the treaty at the paris conference. This treaty was a very bad one for Russia because the country lost its Black Sea navy and had to promise not to keep fortresses there. Alexander II saw Gortchakoff's wisdom and courage and appointed him the new minister of foreign affairs.

Not long after his accession to office Gorchakov issued a circular to the foreign powers, in which he announced that Russia proposed, for internal reasons, to keep herself as free as possible from complications abroad, and he added the now historic phrase, La Russie ne bouge pas; elle se recueille. As head of Russia's diplomatic service, he protected Russia against all the attempts of Austria, Britain and other countries to diminish Russia's significance. He also supported Otto von Bismarck and assisted in Prussia's rise in significance and military power. In July 1863 Gorchakov was appointed chancellor of the Russian empire expressly in reward for his bold diplomatic attitude towards an indignant Europe. The appointment was hailed with enthusiasm in Russia, and at that juncture Prince Chancellor Gorchakov was unquestionably the most powerful minister in Europe.

In 1863 Gorchakov smoothed the way for the occupation of Holstein by the Federal troops. This seemed equally favorable to Austria and Prussia, but it was the latter power which gained all the substantial advantages; and when the conflict arose between Austria and Prussia in 1866, Russia remained neutral and permitted Prussia to reap the fruits and establish her supremacy in Germany. In 1867 Russia and the US concluded the sale of Alaska, a process which began as early as 1854 during the Crimean War. Gorchakov was not against the sale but always advocated for careful and secret negotiations, seeing the eventuality of the sale but not the immediate necessity. When the Franco-German War of 1870-71 broke out Russia answered for the neutrality of Austria. An attempt was made to form an anti-Prussian coalition, but it failed in consequence of the cordial understanding between the German and Russian chancellors.

It is interesting, that Russia supported Abraham Lincoln in his fight against the Southern Confederacy and slavery. Here is a report from Thurlow Weed who was a special envoy of President Lincoln to Great Britain:

 

It will be remembered that early in the Rebellion a Russian fleet lay for several months in our harbor, and that other Russian men-of-war were stationed at San Francisco. Admiral Farragut lived at the Astor House, where he was frequently visited by the Russian Admiral, between whom, when they were young officers serving in the Mediterranean, a warm friendship had grown up. Sitting in my room one day after dinner, Admiral Farragut said to his Russian friend, Why are you spending the winter here in idleness?' ' I am here,' replied the Russian Admiral, ' under sealed orders, to be broken only in a contingency that has not yet occurred.' He added that other Russian war vessels were lying off San Francisco with similar orders. During this conversation the Russian Admiral admitted that he had received orders to break the seals, if during the Rebellion we became involved in a war with foreign nations. Strict confidence was then enjoined.

When in Washington a few days later, Secretary Seward informed me that he had asked the Russian Minister why his government kept their ships of war so long in our harbors, who, while in answering he disclaimed any knowledge of the nature of their visit, felt at liberty to say that it had no unfriendly purpose.

Louis Napoleon had invited Russia, as he did England, to unite with him in demanding the breaking of our blockade. The Russian Ambassador at London informed his government that England was preparing for war with America, on account of the seizure of Mason and Slidell. Hence two fleets were immediately sent across the Atlantic under sealed orders, so that if their services were not needed, the intentions of the Emperor would remain, as they have to this day, secret. It is certain, however, that when our government and Union were imperiled by a formidable rebellion, we should have found a powerful ally in Russia, had an emergency occurred.

The latter revelation is corroborated by a well-known New York gentleman, who was in St. Petersburg when the Rebellion began, and who, during an unofficial call upon Prince Gortschakoff, was shown by the Chancellor an order written in Alexander's own hand, directing his Admiral to report to President Lincoln for orders, in case England or France sided with the Confederates. (Memoir of Thurlow Weed, vol. II, pp. 346-347).

 

Through his political and diplomatic skill Gortchakoff enabled Russia to denounce the Treaty of Paris without any military action. This is what feodor Tyutchev wrote on this occasion:

Да, вы сдержали ваше слово:

Не двинув пушки, ни рубля,

В свои права вступает снова

Родная русская земля —

 

И нам завещанное море

Опять свободною волной,

О кратком позабыв позоре,

Лобзает берег свой родной.

 

Prince Gorchakov devoted himself entirely to foreign affairs, and took some part in the great internal reforms of Alexander II's reign: for example he submitted 4 projects of Emancipation reform and also presented to Alexander II analysis of foreign experience of various reforms. As a diplomatist he displayed many brilliant qualities: adroitness in negotiation, incisiveness in argument and elegance in style.

 

The ministry of foreign affairs of the modern Russia has established the Gortchakoff medal, an award for diplomatic services and skill.

Moscow light metro has one of the stations named in honour of Alexander Gortchakoff.

Here's one of the most famous documents in the history of the XIX century diplomacy: http://runivers.ru/doc/portal1/details.php...mp;IBLOCK_ID=63

[Алексей Конобеев]

On June 16 in 1754 was born the famous national hero and bashkir poet Salavat Yulayev. His father was a local authority in a village in Ufa province of the Orenburg "governorate", and his family included mullahs, warriors and well-known people, who took part in many uprisings and rebellions. In 1768 Salavat's father was appointed the leader of the Bashkir division of th elocal armed forces, but when the rich merchant Tverdyshev took away a large plot of his land to build a factory there, Salavat's father and his soldiers joined the Pugachev rebellion. Of course Salavat followed his father.

Salavat met Pugachev when he was only 19 years old, and for the next year and 15 days, until his arrest, he was an active participant of the Peasant war. He took part in 28 battles, and he led the troops in 11 of them. Although he was defeated several times, he always managed to keep most of his troops. The uprising in Bashkiria was so strong that it was suppressed only by Alexander Suvorov. Salavat was arrested on November 25, 1774 and on July 15th 1775 he was sentenced to hard labour in Estonia. He spent the second part of his life doing hard labour and died in 1800.

Salavat was also known as a poet, and he remains a national hero of Bashkiria. A monument to Salavat is the first thing you see as you drive into Ufa from the airport. A panoramic view of the monument and the city is here: http://viewat.org/?i=en&id_pn=7518&sec=pn

This monument is now part of Bashkortostan's national emblem.

[Алексей Конобеев]

On 22 of June in 1856 was born an English writer, one of the founders ounder of the Lost World literary genre, and the author of numerous exciting adventure novels Sir Henry Rider Haggard. His best-known novels include "King Solomon's mines", "She", "Montezuma's daughter" and many others.

Henry's father was a barrister and his mother was a writer and a poet. Henry was the eighth of ten children. Since there were so many children, Henry did not get to study in expensive schools, unlike his brothers, and when he was 19 years old, his father sent him to South Africa to take up an unpaid position as assistant to the secretary to Sir Henry Bulwer, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Natal. He changed several jobs there and fell in love with Mary Elizabeth "Lilly" Jackson, whom he intended to marry. But his father forbade him to marry the girl and return to England until he established a career, so very soon the girl married a well-to-do banker.

When Haggard eventually returned to England, he married a friend of his sister, (Mariana) Louisa Margitson in 1880, and the couple travelled to Africa together. One of their daughres became an author herself.

Haggard's stories were and still are popular and influential. Although he tells colonial stories, he, unlike so many people of his time, portrays his native African characters with sympathy and respect.

 

You can read more about H Rider Haggard and find textx of his novels here.

[Алексей Конобеев]

One of the people who represent Russia to so many other cultures is Anna Akhmatova. She was born on June 23 (O.S. June 11) in Bolshoy Fontan near Odessa. Her real name is Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, and she took up the pen name Akhmatova because her father did not want her to disgrace their family name by publishing poems. This is what Anna Akhmatova wrote about the origin of her pen name: "No one in my large family wrote poetry. But the first Russian woman poet, Anna Bunina, was the aunt of my grandfather Erasm Ivanovich Stogov. The Stogovs were modest landowners in the Mozhaisk region of the Moscow Province. They were moved here after the insurrection during the time of Posadnitsa Marfa. In Novgorod they had been a wealthier and more distinguished family. Khan Akhmat, my ancestor, was killed one night in his tent by a Russian killer-for-hire. Karamzin tells us that this marked the end of the Mongol yoke on Russia. On that day, to commemorate the happy occasion, a religious procession marched from Sretensky (Feast of Purification) Monastery in Moscow. It was well known that this Akhmat was a descendant of Genghiz Khan. In the eighteenth century, one of the Akhmatov Princesses - Praskovia Yegorvna - married the rich and famous Simbirsk landowner Motovilov. Yegor Motovilov was my great-grandfather; his daughter, Anna Yegorovna, was my grandmother. She died when my mother was nine years old, and I was named in her honor. Several diamond rings and one emerald were made from her brooch. Though my fingers are thin, still her thimble didn't fit me."

 

Anna Akhmatova spent most of her life in St Petersburg. The family moved to Tsarskoye Selo when the girl was only a few months old. It was there, where, aged 11, Anna began to write her first poems. Her friends and relatives tell that throughout all her life Anna Akhmatova retained the habit of walking around, muttering something under her breath, "buzzing", as one woman recalled, and this meant that she was composing a new poem.

In 1903 Anna met Nikolay Gumilyov, or, rather, he met her. He fell in love with her and steadily pursued her, but she was not really fascinated by this clumsyish youth as she was secretly in love with someone else. It took Nikolay many years and an attempt at suicide to persuade Anna to marry him, which she did in 1910. By that time Anna had already begun to publish her first poems and give public reading of them, quickly becoming popular. In the autumn of 1910, she came together with poets such as Osip Mandelstam and Sergey Gorodetsky to form the Guild of Poets. In 1912, the Guild of Poets published her book of verse Evening (Vecher) - the first of five in nine years. The small edition of 500 copies quickly sold out. The book contained only 35 out of the 200 poems that she had written by that time. Anna wrote about these poems years later: "These naïve poems by a frivolous girl for some reason were reprinted thirteen times [...] And they came out in several translations. The girl herself (as far as I recall) did not foresee such a fate for them and used to hide the issues of the journals in which they were first published under the sofa cushions"

It was also in 1912 that her son Lev Gumilyov was born.

Her second collection, The Rosary (or Beads - Chetki) appeared in March 1914 and firmly established her as one of the most popular poets of the day.

Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914. Nikolay Gumilyov immediately volunteered for the Russian cavalry.

In 1918 Anna and Nikolay divorced as their marriage had been heading for a fast end. Both had affairs outside their marriage and quarreled a lot.

 

A little earlier that that, in early 1917, Anna Akhmatova piblishes her third collection of poetry, Belaya Staya (he White Flock). The poems there contain the first signs of the feeling of terror that never seemed to leave her poetry afterwards.

After the Bolshevik revolution Anna decided to stay in Russia, no matter what the destiny brought. It was then when she wrote a poem, declaring that she will not follow those who abandon their motherland.

In 1921, her ex-husband Nikolay Gumilyov was prosecuted for a minor role in an anti-Bolshevik plot and on August 25 was shot along with sixty-one others. Anna was already married to another man, a renoun Assyrologist Shileyko, but she never forgot Gumilyov, often calling herself his widow in her poems.

Her poems reminded of the recent imperial past only too well, so she was not popular with the new government. Her work was unofficially banned by a party resolution of 1925 and she found it hard to publish, though she didn't stop writing poetry. During this time, she pursued academic work on Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, working as a critic, translator and essayist. She made renowned translations of works by Victor Hugo, Rabindranath Tagore, Giacomo Leopardi, but for 13 years her poems were not published.

With the onset of state terror many of her friends were arrested and executed. The famous poet Osip Mandelshtam was arrested and died in a camp. Her son Lev Gumilyov was arrested several times. Once Anna Akhmatova wrote to Stalin himself to plead for her son, but it had little effect. It was at this time that Lev began to think that his mother could have saved him but that she just did not try hard enough. This idea grew in him and forever poisoned his relationship with Anna Akhmatova, who was several times on the point of being arrested herself, suffered heart strokes, had to burn a lot of her papers so that her friends memorised her poems by hears so that there would be someone who'd remember them if something terrible happened to her. Many of her poems are lost because she had to burn them or people forgot them, and she could never recreate them after Stalin's death.

In 1939, Stalin approved the publication of one volume of poetry - From Six Books - however the collection was withdrawn and pulped after only a few months. Anna's flat was bugged by the authorities and her movements were watched and reported as if she were a criminal. The files remaining from that time contain 900 pages of "denunciations, reports of phone taps, quotations from writings, confessions of those close to her".

Luckily, when the war started, Anna Akhmatova was evacuated from leningrad and spent several months in tashkent where she became friends with the brilliant actress Faina Ranevskaya.

On returning to Leningrad in May 1944, she writes of how disturbed she was to find "a terrible ghost that pretended to be my city". Her more patriotic poems found their way to the front pages of Pravda. She regularly read to soldiers in the military hospitals and on the front line.

In 1946 she was visited by the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin, and that started a new series of condemnations. Andrey Zhdanov, the Communist Party's chiefe ideologist, made a speech against her and then there was a special resolution of the Communist party about the two magazines which published the works of Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoschenko. Anna was deprived of all the coupons and tokens and couldn't buy any bread. she was also expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers and suffered a heart stroke after that. Anna once said: "I cannot understand why a great country had to send all her tanks and troops marching on the heart of a poor old woman". Translating foreign poetry was the only was for her to earn any living at all, no matter how pooer it was.

It was only Stalin's death 6 years later that a small compilation of her poems was published. She gradually regained all the fame that she deserved so well. During the last years of her life she was honoured in Russia and the West. For her 75th birthday in 1964, new collections of her verse were published.[16] Akhmatova was able to meet some of her pre-revolutionary acquaintances in 1965, when she was allowed to travel to Sicily and England, in order to receive the Taormina prize and an honorary doctoral degree from Oxford University. In November 1965, Akhmatova suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised. She was moved to a sanatorium in Moscow in the spring of 1966 and died of heart failure at the age of 76, on March 5.

Isaiah Berlin summarised her life and work with these words:

 

Akhmatova lived in terrible times, during which [...] she behaved with heroism [...] She did not in public, nor indeed to me in private, utter a single word against the Soviet regime: but her entire life was [...] one uninterrupted indictment of Russian reality. The widespread worship of her memory in [Russia] today, both as an artist and as an unsurrendering human being, has, so far as I know, no parallel. The legend of her life and unyielding passive resistance to what she regarded as unworthy of her country and herself, transformed her into a figure [...] not merely in Russian literature, but in Russian history in [the Twentieth] century

 

Although many poets have tried translating Akhmatova's poetry into English, there have been few successful attempts so far. One of the best translators of Akhmatova's poems, I think, is the American poet and playwright Lynn Coffin, who used to work with Joseph Brodsky. Her book of Anna's poems was published in 1983 and has been reprinted several times worldwide. Below is an Akhmatova's poem translated by Lynn Coffin:

 

Anna Akhmatova

The breakup

 

Not weeks, not months - it took us years

To part. And now at last we feel,

Having a gray wreath over our ears,

The breeze of freedom, cool and real.

 

No more being betrayed and betraying,

And you don't have to listen all night

To the evidence I've been busy arraying

Which proves me incomparably right.

 

Translated by Lyn Coffin.

 

You may find some other excellent translations of Akhmatova's poems on this website: http://home.comcast.net/~kneller/Akhmatova.html

The poems are translated by Andrey Kneller, a Russia-born young American translator and poet.

[Алексей Конобеев]

On this day in 1880, 130 years ago, was born a prominent Russian writer, Alexander Green. Yes, the one who wrote about the Scarlet Sails, the gold chain and so many other amazing stories and novels. His books sell very well even today, 70 years after his death, and he is remembered as perhaps the most romantic of Russian and Soviet authors. But have you ever thought of why he has so much sympathy for the poor and for vagabonds, why he knows about their life so well? Actually, it is so because Alexander Grin had to beg for money on the roads himself to sustain a living for quite a while.

Here's what Wikipedia tells about Alexander Grin:

"Alexander Grin was born Alexander Stefanovich Grinevsky (Russian: Александр Стефанович Гриневский) in a suburb of Vyatka in 1880, the son of a Pole, deported after the January Uprising of 1863. In 1896, after graduating from a school in Vyatka, Grinevsky went to Odessa and lived the life of a vagabond. He was a sailor, gold miner, construction worker, but often he found himself without a job and sustained himself by begging and thanks to money sometimes sent by his father.

 

After joining the Russian army, he became a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was arrested and spent time in jail for "revolutionary propaganda". His first short story was published in a newspaper in 1906. In the same year he was arrested in Saint Petersburg and sentenced to four years of exile in a remote area of Tobolsk guberniya. However, very soon after arriving to Tobolsk, Grin escaped and returned to Petersburg to live illegally. He was again arrested in 1910 and sent to live in Arkhangelsk guberniya. In a small village called Kegostrov, Grin and his first wife Vera Pavlovna Abramova (whom he married in 1910) lived from 1910 to 1912.

 

In 1912, he returned to Saint Petersburg and divorced his wife. At that time, Grin published mostly short stories; most of his larger works were written after the October revolution and enjoyed significant popularity in the first half of 1920s. In 1921, he married Nina Nikolaevna Grin (1894-1970). In 1924, they moved to Feodosia to live near the sea. In his late days, Grin's romantic visions were in stark conflict with the mainstream Soviet literature; publishers in Moscow and Leningrad refused to consider his romantic writings for publication, and Grin and his wife lived in extreme poverty. Grin suffered from alcoholism and tuberculosis which eventually ruined his health. He died of stomach cancer in 1932 in Stary Krym" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grin

 

Grin's writing is very poetic and his language is a true heir to the best literary traditions of Russian literature. Little as his works known outside the former Soviet Union, you can still find translations of his works into English here: http://lib.ru/RUSSLIT/GRIN/ and here his famous book "Scarlet Sails" is a standalone text: http://home.wanadoo.nl/scarletsails/

 

Enjoy.

[Владислав]

Today is the birthday of an American film director, film producer, writer and artist, Tim Burton. He is famous for his dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and for blockbusters such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, his most recent film, that is currently the highest-grossing film of 2010 as well as the fifth highest-grossing film of all time.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Burton

[Владислав]

One more birthday today.

 

Sean Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), more commonly known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes.

 

He is best known for portraying the character James Bond, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His film career also includes such films as Marnie, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Murder on the Orient Express, Dragonheart, and The Rock.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Connery

[Владислав]

On this day, August 29th was born the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. His contribution to music, dance and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in the mid-1960s, and began his solo career in 1971.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson

[Алексей Конобеев]

On August 30th 150 years ago was born one of the greatest artists in the world. Isaac Levitan was born to a poor, although well-educated family. His father taught French and German and later worked as a translator for a French building company.

The Levitans moved to Moscow in 1870 and Isaac and his elder brother entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Isaac was taught by Savrasov, Polenov and Serov.

Soon Isaac's parents died and he and his brother fell into poverty. Isaac was given a scholarship due to his talent. When Isaac was 17, his paintings were shown at an exhibition.

Isaac soon became famous for his landscapes. He did not only show the beauty of nature, but he managed to depict a certain mood. In some of his pictures he showed people, but they were always a part of nature rather than the main focus of the painting. Many of Isaac's paintings were bought by Pavel Tratyakov for his famous gallery.

While still at School of Painting, he was given a grant to spend some time in germany and Italy, where he also became famous very soon. His brother, although a good artist himself, never achieved as much as Isaac did.

Isaac was friends with the Checkovs and he was in love with the sister of Anton Checkov. However, she did not marry him. While Isaac Levitan did have a long-time affair with a rich patroness, he never got married, and he had neither family nor children.

He died in August 1900, not yet 40 years old.

This summer I went to see his grave at Novodevichy convent. The grave was not very well-kept. I left flowers there and I know I will come back again to thank Isaac levitan for these feelings of immense beauty I get every time I see his paintings in museums. If you ever have a chance to go to Novodevichiy convent, do visit him. Have a look at some of his paintings here:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mart_levitan.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isaak_Il...Lewitan_005.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Levitan_...Autumn_1879.jpg

http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=32407

[Алексей Конобеев]

September 13 is the birthday of a very popular British writer, Roald Dahl. He is so popular, that his birthday is celebrated as "Roald Dahl Day" in the United Kindgom, Africa and Latin America. In Russia he is known for his short stories and for the films based on his screenplays and his stories, such as "Charlie and the Chocolate factory", a series of "tales of the Unexpected", a number of films directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Roald dahl's adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel, made into a James Bond film "You only live twice".

But Roald Dahl is much more than just a few screenplays, no matter how popular these films are. He is famous for his short stories, which are full of suspense, his humorous poems and fiction for children and his macabre short stories for adults.

 

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian parents. He served in the Royal Air Force during WWII and in the 1940s he became a writer. He enjoyed immense popularity throughout his career and his books are still very popular. This is what The Guardian writes about the celebrations of Roald dahl Day in 2010:

 

"Originally launched on 13 September 2006 to celebrate what would have been the writer's 90th birthday, Roald Dahl Day has this year expanded to a full month of festivities. "We thought it was going to be a one-off celebration but, because the previous years have been so successful, we can't stop," said Felicity Dahl, the author's widow. "Roald was a great believer in birthdays being filled with treats, so he would be so happy that this tradition seems to be becoming an annual event."

 

Dahl died in 1990 but his books remain as popular as ever, published in almost 50 languages. This September's celebrations include stagings of Fantastic Mr Fox at the Little Angel Theatre in Islington and George's Marvellous Medicine at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea, and a roadshow called Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Roald Dahl, which will let children quiz Dahl experts." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/1...eptember-events

To get a taste of what his writing for children is like, here are three short extracts from his poems, used as examples:

 

From "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf":

 

Then Little Red Riding Hood said, ”But Grandma,

what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.”

 

”That’s wrong!” cried Wolf. ”Have you forgot

To tell me what BIG TEETH I’ve got?

Ah well, no matter what you say,

I’m going to eat you anyway.”

The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.

She whips a pistol from her knickers.

She aims it at the creature’s head

And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.

A few weeks later, in the wood,

I came across Miss Riding Hood.

But what a change! No cloak of red,

No silly hood upon her head.

She said, ”Hello, and do please note

My lovely furry wolfskin coat.”

 

From "The Three Little Pigs":

 

The animal I really dig

Above all others is the pig.

Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,

Pigs are corteous. However,

Now and then, to break this rule,

One meets a pig who is a fool.

What, for example, would you say

If strolling through the woods one day,

Right there in front of you you saw

A pig who'd built his house of STRAW?

The Wolf who saw it licked his lips,

And said, ``That pig has had his chips.''

 

 

From Television:

 

The most important thing we've learned,

So far as children are concerned,

Is never, NEVER, NEVER let

Them near your television set --

Or better still, just don't install

The idiotic thing at all.

In almost every house we've been,

We've watched them gaping at the screen.

They loll and slop and lounge about,

And stare until their eyes pop out.

(Last week in someone's place we saw

A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)

They sit and stare and stare and sit

Until they're hypnotised by it,

Until they're absolutely drunk

With all that shocking ghastly junk.

Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,

They don't climb out the window sill,

They never fight or kick or punch,

They leave you free to cook the lunch

And wash the dishes in the sink --

But did you ever stop to think,

To wonder just exactly what

This does to your beloved tot?

...

 

If you want to tell your students about this new festival - Roald Dahl Day - and the popular author - you can find interesting information and games on the official website: http://www.roalddahl.com/

[Алексей Конобеев]

120 years ago, on September 15, 1890 was born the best-selling writer of books of all time, if the Guiness Book of Records is to be trusted at all. This woman is remembered for 80 detective novels, numerous stories and one play that has been running since 1952 and has seen more than 23,000 performances. This woman is also the most translated individual author, her books have been translated into at least 103 languages. Most of her books and short stories have been filmed, some many times over , and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

 

You certainly know at least two of the characters that she has created. It's enough to hear their names - Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot - to remember her name: Dame Agatha Christie.

 

Her full maiden name was Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. She was born in the famour seaside resort town of Torquay, Devon, England, UK.

 

When she grew up and the WWI started, she first worked as a nurse at a hospital, and later on she also worked at a hospital pharmacy, which gave her excellent opportunities to learn about and later describe in her stories and novels different drugs and poisons.

 

On Christmas Eve 1914 Agatha married Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had a daughter, and Agatha began to write fiction. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, came out in 1920. It was in this novel that detective Hercule Poirot, who appeared in 33 of Christie's novels and 54 short stories, first came into existance.

 

It was during this marriage that the famous disappearance happened. In late 1926, Agatha's husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce. On December 8, 1926, the couple quarreled, and Archie Christie left their house Styles in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. She was nowhere to be found for 11 days. Finally, she was found at the Swan Hydropathic Hotelin Harrogate, Yorkshire, where she was registered as 'Mrs Teresa Neele' from Cape Town. Agatha never told anything about this disappearance and always said that she remembered nothing about those days. The topic was not raised in her family, as her grandson recalls. In 1928 Agatha divorced her husband, but kept his surname. During this marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.

In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan, who remained her husband until her death in 1976.

 

Agatha Christie often used real houses that she knew very well, or hotels she stayed at, as settings for her stories and novels. Now if you want to imagine the atmosphere of an Agatha Christie story you can go to the places she described, since "And Then There Were None" is set in Torquay, "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding" and the novel "After the Funeral" are set in Abney Hall in Cheshire and others.

 

For her services to literature Agatha Christie was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. In 1971 she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Agatha Christie died on 12 January 1976 aged 85, but her books are still translated into many languages, published in many countries and her plays are still performed in many theatres all over the world.

 

Read more about Agatha Christie on the official website here: http://www.agathachristie.com/

You can read her first novel here: http://www.online-literature.com/agatha_ch..._affair_styles/

[Aleksana]

Небольшая подборка знаменитостей,которые родились в ноябре.

Famous_people_born_in_November.rar

[Алексей Конобеев]

When did you last admire the collonade in Peterhof, or Kazan Cathedral or Stroganov palace in St Petersburg? Today is a good day to look at their photos, because on this day (28th October new style, 17th October old style) was born the architect who built all those masterpieces. Andrey Nikiforovich Voronikhin, the great architect and painter, was born in the village of Novoa Usolye to a family of serfs which belonged to the count Alexander Stroganov, the president of the Imperial Academy of Arts. He showed great talent when he was still a child, and in 1777 the count sent young Andrey to study in Moscow. The young man studied from Matvey Kazakov and Vassily Bazhenov. In 1875 he was liberated. From 1786 till 1790 he studied architecture and other sciences in France and Switzerland. He became a recongized artist and from early 1800 he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1793 he finished the interiors of Stroganov Palace, which was designed by Rastrelli. Baroque style was going out of fashion with classicism coming in, so the interiors of this baroque building are classicist.

Another fine example of Voronikhin's classicism style is Kazan Cathedral. Its construction began on 27 March 1801, and was finished in 1811. The architect modelled it after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and although the Russian Orthodox Church opposed this idea, the Cathedral became a place to commemorate the heroes of the 1812 Patriotic War.

The architect is well-known for other works, including work on the palaces in Strelna, Gatchina and Pavlovsk. Unfortunately, he did not live long to enjoy his fame as he died in 1814, aged only 54.

[Aleksana]

Подборка знаменитостей,которые родились в январе.

Famous people born in January.rar