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Biography of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

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Biography of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, was the first and only President of the Soviet Union (1990-1991), and he was also the final General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985-1991). The individual who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1989 was Mikhail Gorbachev. Subsequently, he became the first Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1990. A period of time known as “perestroika” occurred under the reign of Mikhail Sergeevich. This era of time resulted in a shift in the way of life in Russia as well as the political situation across the world. In 1990, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. At the same time, many people in the post-Soviet zone blamed the previous leader for the demise of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev passed away on the 30th of August, 2022.
the early years of Mikhail Gorbachev and his educational background
On March 2, 1930, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was born in the Russian village of Privolnoye, which is located in the Medvedensky district of the North Caucasus area (which has been known as the Stavropol region only since 1943).

Mikhail Gorbachev’s father, Sergei Andreevich Gorbachev, was born in Russia in 1909 and passed away in 1976. During the Great Patriotic War, Sergei Andreevich served as a participant and was subsequently honored with two Orders of the Red Star as well as the medal “For Courage.”

Maria Panteleevna Gorbacheva, a Ukraine-born woman, is Mikhail Gorbachev’s mother. She was born Gopkalo in 1911 and passed away in 1993.

Both grandfathers of Mikhail Gorbachev were repressed in the 1930s. His paternal grandpa, Andrei Moiseevich Gorbachev (1890−1962), was an individual peasant. In 1934, he was deported to the Irkutsk area for failure to comply with the planting plan. However, two years later he returned home and joined the collective farm.

Maternal grandfather – Panteley Efimovich Gopkalo (1984−1953) originating from the Chernigov province. Having moved to the Stavropol district, he became the head of a communal farm. However, in 1937 he was suspected of Trotskyism and jailed. According to Wikipedia, Mikhail Gorbachev’s grandpa was rescued by a shift in the “party line” – the famous February 1938 plenum dedicated to the “fight against excesses.”
After the resignation and fall of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev remarked that his grandfather’s stories served as one of the elements that pushed him to reject the Soviet dictatorship.

When the war began, my father went to the front, and the family found themselves under occupation. In 1943, these territories were freed. Misha Gorbachev worked at MTS from the age of 13 while continuing to study in school. In 1949, Mikhail was given the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his hard work, and at the age of 19 he became a candidate member of the CPSU.

In 1950, Mikhail Gorbachev obtained secondary schooling, graduating from school with a silver medal. As someone who got a government grant, the young guy joined Moscow State University without tests. M.V. Lomonosov . Thus, a young guy from Stavropol was able to get higher education at a top Moscow institution.

Career of Mikhail Gorbachev

In 1952, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev became a member of the CPSU.

Gorbachev graduated with honors from the Faculty of Law in 1955 and was posted to Stavropol to the regional prosecutor’s office. However, he worked there for barely 10 days. As is known from the biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, he was invited to the vacant Komsomol position, becoming deputy director of the agitation and propaganda department of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the Komsomol.

This was a fantastic start to his party career. Since 1956, Gorbachev has been the first secretary of the Stavropol city committee of the Komsomol, and in 1961-1962, Mikhail Sergeevich was the first secretary of the regional committee of the Komsomol.

Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev swiftly ascended the career ladder. In October 1961, Gorbachev was a delegate to the XXII Congress of the CPSU. In 1962, Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen party organizer of the regional committee of the Stavropol territorial production collective and state agricultural administration. Then he began working as the head of the department of party bodies of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU. The young party worker Gorbachev was deemed one of the most promising.

On September 26, 1966, Mikhail Sergeevich was elected first secretary of the Stavropol City Committee of the CPSU. At the same time, Gorbachev continued to study – in 1967, he graduated in absentia from the Faculty of Economics of the Stavropol Agricultural Institute with a degree in agronomist-economist.

The biography of Mikhail Gorbachev on the website of his foundation speaks about this era as follows. “The Stavropol Territory is one of the most beautiful and famous resort places in Russia. Top party leaders of the USSR routinely came here to rest. It is here that M.S. Gorbachev met A.N. Kosygin and Yu.V. Andropov . Gorbachev built a deep and trustworthy friendship with Andropov. Later, Andropov would brand Gorbachev a “Stavropol nugget.”

The biography of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev on Wikipedia claims that Gorbachev was twice offered for the role of head of the KGB section. But she was rejected by Vladimir Semichastny . However, Yuri Andropov still viewed Mikhail Sergeevich as a prospective contender for the role of deputy chief of the KGB of the USSR.

In 1970, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU. His predecessor in this role, Leonid Efremov , remarked that Gorbachev’s career acquired pace at the demand of Moscow.

1974−1989 Mikhail Gorbachev was a deputy of the Council of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for the 9th–11th convocations. During this era, Mikhail Sergeevich was a member of the nature conservation commission and was the head of the Youth Affairs Commission of the Union Council of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

According to Gorbachev (as mentioned in his biography on Wikipedia), he was patronized by Yuri Andropov. Mikhail Sergeevich also had powerful allies – Mikhail Suslov and Andrei Gromyko sympathized with him .

It is known that Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev himself authorized the nomination of the young party functionary for the post of Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

On November 27, 1978, during the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was elected Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, following which he came with his family in Moscow. Two years later, he became a member of the party’s highest governing body – the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.

General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee

After a succession of consecutive general secretaries, concluding with the death of Konstantin Chernenko , it was Gromyko who proposed Mikhail Gorbachev to the role of general secretary. This happened on March 11, 1985.

Next, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, combining it with the top post in the party hierarchy (since 1988).

Mikhail Gorbachev began reforms called “Perestroika.” Gorbachev’s biography on his foundation’s website says that during these years “a program was being developed to transfer the economy to a socially oriented market basis” and “the dismantling of the totalitarian regime in the USSR took place.” Accordingly, Gorbachev’s critics believe that Mikhail Sergeevich was engaged in dismantling the state and nothing else.

At the end of 1986, Soviet scientist and dissident, Nobel Prize laureate A.D. returned from political exile. Sakharov. Under Gorbachev’s authority, criminal prosecution for dissent stops.

During this era, Mikhail Gorbachev switched companies to self-financing, self-sufficiency, and self-financing. This was the introduction of the first components of a market economy in the USSR, the broad adoption of cooperatives – the forerunners of private firms, and the easing of limitations on foreign exchange transactions.
In 1985, the “Gorbachev Prohibition Law” was announced. Alcohol prices were increased, sales were curtailed, vineyards were chopped down, and sugar needed for moonshine was given out on ration cards. This led to a rise in the use of moonshine and surrogates, and caused a blow to the budget. But during this era, mortality reduced, life expectancy improved, and the number of crimes linked to drunkenness decreased. “I think that the anti-alcohol campaign was a mistake in the way it was carried out. This overlaps with the closing of stores, notably in Moscow. Huge lineups. The rise of moonshine. Sugar disappeared from shelves. Sobering up society cannot be done in a haste. This takes years. I think that even now we need to battle alcoholism,” Gorbachev himself commented on his “prohibition law” 30 years later.

In January 1987, at a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, which debated the duty of top party cadres, the first serious public disagreement between Gorbachev and Yeltsin occurred . From this time on, Mikhail Sergeevich was often chastised by Boris Yeltsin, and a rivalry between the two leaders began.

In 1990, authority shifted from the CPSU to the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR, a parliament elected in free democratic elections. On March 15, 1990, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev was elected president of the USSR. And until December 1991, Gorbachev was also the Chairman of the USSR Defense Council, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Armed Forces.

Foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev

“In international relations, Gorbachev pursued an active policy of détente based on the principles of “new thinking” that he formulated and became one of the key figures in world politics of the twentieth century. During 1985−1991, there was a fundamental transformation in ties between the West and the USSR – a move from military and ideological conflict to discussion and the creation of partnership relations. Gorbachev’s initiatives had a crucial influence in ending the Cold War, the nuclear weapons race, and the unification of Germany,” says the biography of Mikhail Sergeevich. Gorbachev’s critics believe that the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the liquidation of large groups of Soviet troops abroad (GSVG, TsGV, YuGV, SVG, GSVM) and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact meant the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War, for which the Secretary General was to blame. President Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev.

On December 8, 1987, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan signed an open-ended Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Washington, which went into force on June 1, 1988

In 1989-1990, Mikhail Gorbachev played a crucial role in the unification of Germany, while Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand sought to slow down the pace of the integration process, not wanting a new “domination” of Germany in Europe.

The Moscow Treaty on the Final Settlement with Germany, which was agreed upon by Mikhail Sergeevich and signed on behalf of the USSR on September 12, 1990 by Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze , stated that foreign troops and nuclear weapons or their carriers will not be stationed or deployed on the territory of the former GDR. In a stunning interview with Oliver Stone, Vladimir Putin characterized the acts of Gorbachev, who in 1990 did not formally codify the “non-expansion of NATO,” a “mistake.” Gorbachev himself, reacting to Putin, stated that he did not comprehend this claim.

In an interview with RG, Gorbachev noted that “the question of “NATO expansion” was not discussed or arose at all in those years,” the question was raised of “promoting NATO military structures and the deployment of additional armed forces of the alliance on the territory of the then GDR.”

“The decision of the United States and its allies to expand NATO to the east was finally formed in 1993. From the very beginning I labeled this a major error. Of obviously, this was a breach of the spirit of the promises and guarantees that were provided to us in 1990. As for Germany, they were legally established, and they are being observed,” said Mikhail Sergeevich.
Nowadays, Mikhail Gorbachev highlighted such successes of his rule as freedom, openness, freedom to go abroad, freedom of religion. “Finally, disarmament. People just sighed. Everyone, generally speaking, all across the world, especially in the developed world, in Europe and America, was digging bunkers against a nuclear war, which may break out at any moment. This was all done. It’s over,” Gorbachev believes .

On October 15, 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Speaking in Oslo with the Nobel lecture, Mikhail Sergeevich emphasized the desire of the peoples of the USSR “to be an organic part of modern civilization, to live in accordance with universal human values, according to the norms of international law,” according to Gorbachev’s biography on Wikipedia.

The 1991 putsch and Mikhail Gorbachev

On August 19, 1991, the foundation of the State Committee for the State of Emergency in the USSR (GKChP) was announced. The report claimed that the country’s President Mikhail Gorbachev was unwell and Vice President Gennady Yanaev , Chairman of the State Emergency Committee , took up his duties .

Boris Yeltsin assembled his comrades-in-arms to the White House to “repel the junta.” On August 20, it became evident that the State Emergency Committee was losing against Yeltsin, who organized a crowd at the White House to repel the “putschists” and support Gorbachev, who was unjustly taken from office. On the night of the 21st, in a tunnel on the Garden Ring, three people perished under the rails while trying to halt armored vehicles, and in the afternoon Gorbachev was rescued from Foros. This was followed by arrests by the Russian prosecutor’s office of members of the State Emergency Committee and those leaders who actively backed it.

According to Mikhail Sergeevich himself and those who were with him, he was isolated at Foros (according to the testimony of certain former members of the State Emergency Committee, their allies and lawyers, there was no isolation).
On August 24, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as General Secretary of the Central Committee. “I immediately saw and understood – this is a different Gorbachev. He was morally damaged and demoralized. Therefore, for the next two or three months he became a captive, really a prisoner of Yeltsin,” Ruslan Khasbulatov recalled Gorbachev after the State Emergency Committee in an interview with SP.

In November 1991, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev quit the CPSU, but preserved his party card as a remembrance.

On November 4, 1991, the head of the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office for supervision over the implementation of state security laws, Viktor Ilyukhin , opened a criminal case against Gorbachev under Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (treason) in connection with his signing of resolutions of the USSR State Council of September 6, 1991 recognizing the independence of Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia. USSR Prosecutor General Nikolai Trubin closed the case due to the fact that the decision to recognize the independence of the Baltic republics was taken not by the president directly, but by the State Council.

Collapse of the USSR

On December 8, 1991, President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk and Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Belarusian SSR Stanislav Shushkevich signed the Belovezhskaya Agreement on the termination of the existence of the USSR and the foundation of the CIS.

Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi convinced Gorbachev to arrest Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich. But Gorbachev responded amorphously: “Don’t panic… The arrangement has no legal foundation… They will fly in, we will convene at Novo-Ogarevo. By the New Year there will be a Union Treaty!”

25 years later, Mikhail Sergeevich revealed why he did not arrest them; according to Gorbachev, the atmosphere “smelled like civil war.”

On December 21, by resolution of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS, convened in Almaty, the leaving President of the USSR earned lifelong benefits: a special pension, medical care for the whole family, personal protection, a state dacha, and he was allocated a personal automobile. The settlement of these concerns was assigned to the Government of the RSFSR. Also, the participants at the conference in Almaty actually robbed Gorbachev of the authority of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, handing the command of the Armed Forces of the USSR “until they are reformed” to Air Marshal Evgeny Shaposhnikov .

Accusations of Mikhail Gorbachev for the demise of the USSR

Gorbachev’s administration is still widely debated in society today. Many believe Mikhail Sergeevich to be the perpetrator of the fall of the USSR, as a result of which Russia almost lost its sovereignty. But the former Soviet leader finds such criticism unwarranted.

Currently, Mikhail Gorbachev likes to maintain that he is not to blame for the fall of the USSR and tried everything to rescue the nation. “I always only wanted to reform the USSR, but I never aimed at the collapse of the country. I regret that a big power with huge powers and resources has perished. To tell the truth, if I were still in office, it would continue to exist,” Gorbachev was quoted in the news in 2016.

On the question of the fall of the USSR and blame for it, Mikhail Gorbachev clashed with the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk. Kravchuk said at his press conference that it was Ukraine that destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991, which he called “the last empire, the most terrible.” Gorbachev, in an interview with the National News Service, said that the main culprit for the collapse of the USSR was former Russian President Boris Yeltsin. And former member of the CPSU Central Committee Kravchuk, according to him, began to make such comments owing to age-related changes.

Kravchuk, in a statement to NSN, recalled the age of Gorbachev himself. According to him, Gorbachev is to responsible for everything, as, having announced perestroika, he did not manage it, but it carried on by itself, while Mikhail Sergeevich lived and stated common truths on his own.

Later, Mikhail Gorbachev again asserted that it was Russia that caused the fall of the Soviet Union, blaming then-President Boris Yeltsin of blame for what transpired. “The union could have been saved. The republics required a rebuilt Union. The fall of the Soviet Union was precipitated by the participants in the Belovezhskaya Accords, led by personal aspirations and a craving for power. This is, first of all, the then leadership of Russia,” the media quoted Gorbachev’s statement at the end of 2016.

According to director Nikita Mikhalkov , in order to lead Russia out of the crisis, it is important to recognize at the governmental level the crimes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, who were culpable of the breakup of the USSR. “Nothing can be built without clearing the site. And removing the site involves admitting the crimes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin at the state level. They committed an actual crime. Willingly or unknowingly, led by aspirations or not by ambitions, that’s not what we’re talking about today. Their successes contributed to the demise of our country! And this is the worst geopolitical tragedy that has transpired this century!”

In 2017, Mikhail Gorbachev remarked that he thought it conceivable for a new Union State to arise inside the borders of the old Soviet Union. “The Soviet Union is no, but the Union is yes. I feel that there may be a new Union. Within the same borders and with the same composition, voluntarily,” the ex-president was quoted as saying in the news.

Personal life of Mikhail Gorbachev

In the personal life of Mikhail Gorbachev there only one woman – his wife Raisa Maksimovna. While studying at Moscow State University, Mikhail Gorbachev met Raisa and on September 25, 1953, married a student at the Faculty of Philosophy, Raisa Maksimovna Titarenko (1932−1999). The Gorbachevs had their wedding in the dining area of the student dormitories on Stromynka.

After several years of looking for work in her profession, Raisa Gorbacheva began teaching at the Faculty of Economics at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute. Raisa Maksimovna provided lectures to students and graduate students on philosophy, aesthetics, and questions of religion. Then Mikhail Gorbachev’s wife defended her candidate’s dissertation on the theme “Formation of new features of the life of the collective farm peasantry (based on sociological research in the Stavropol Territory).”
n January 6, 1957, the Gorbachevs gave birth to a daughter, Irina, who presently resides in Moscow. Irina has two grown children, Gorbachev’s granddaughters Ksenia and Anastasia are already married, and she has a great-granddaughter Alexandra. Irina Gorbacheva is a doctor by training, educated at the Second Medical Institute named after. N.I. Pirogova. She was engaged in scientific activity and did research in the field of medical demography and sociology. In 1985 she defended her PhD thesis on the subject of life expectancy for males in the USSR. Irina’s second degree is management; in 1995 she graduated from the International Business School at the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation. Irina Gorbacheva-Virganskaya is vice-president of the Gorbachev Foundation.

The Gorbachevs enjoyed a long and happy life, but in 1999, Mikhail Sergeevich was widowed – his wife Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia, which was a severe loss for the former USSR president.

In 2009, the album “Songs for Raisa” was published (along with Andrei Makarevich )

After quitting large politics, Mikhail Gorbachev starred in advertising. Mikhail Sergeevich marketed the Pizza Hut restaurant business, Louis Vuitton accessories, computers, and Austrian trains.

In 1993, Gorbachev played himself in Wim Wenders’ feature film So Far, So Close! In 2007, Mikhail Sergeevich participated in the documentary film by Leonardo DiCaprio “The Eleventh Hour”.

In 2004, he got a Grammy Award for scoring Sergei Prokofiev’s musical fairy tale “Peter and the Wolf” jointly with Sophia Loren and Bill Clinton , Wikipedia writes in the section “Gorbachev’s acting activities.”

Mikhail Gorbachev at now, health situation.

The former president of the USSR is the founder of the Gorbachev Foundation. Since 1993, Mikhail Sergeevich has been a co-founder of CJSC Novaya Dezhednevnaya Gazeta (Novaya Gazeta) and a member of the editorial board.

At the end of September 2015, Vladimir Zhirinovsky launched a lawsuit against former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev. The chairman of the LDPR was angry that the former head of the Soviet Union dubbed him a provocateur in his book “After the Kremlin.” Zhirinovsky wanted to publish a response, and also to compensate him for moral damages in the sum of 1 million rubles. The Timiryazevsky court of the Russian capital partially satisfied the claim to safeguard the honor, dignity and business reputation of the leader of the LDPR and his party, opting to collect 6,300 rubles as legal fees from the first and at the same time final president of the USSR.

In the fall of 2016, the media propagated the word that the Vilnius District Court planned to call the former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev as a witness in the case of the January 1991 events, when fifteen people died during disturbances in the capital of Lithuania. The press staff of the Gorbachev Foundation responded that they had not received any documentation concerning Gorbachev being summoned for interrogation and added that the ex-USSR president had regularly spoken out in his books on the matter of the events in Vilnius in 1991.

In 2015, it became known that Mikhail Gorbachev’s health was also failing. He suffers from a severe form of diabetes, his condition cannot be considered stable, as quite often the politician has crises, as a consequence of which he needs to be quickly hospitalized in a clinic to stabilize his general health. In 2015, they even disseminated “news” regarding Gorbachev’s death, although Mikhail Sergeevich turned out to be alive.

The notice regarding the death of former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev was published on the German microblog RIA Novosti on Twitter and on the official Twitter channel of the agency’s worldwide multimedia press center. As it turned out, RIA Novosti channels were hacked, and Gorbachev himself responded on his “death” as follows: “They are hoping in vain. Alive and healthy. I wonder who doesn’t like it.”

In April 2015, the automobile in which the first president of the USSR was was engaged in an accident in the north-west of Moscow, although Mikhail Gorbachev himself was not hurt.

Mikhail Gorbachev currently actively continues to conduct creative activities, releasing new scientific works and publishing memoirs. In 2014, Mikhail Gorbachev’s book “Life after the Kremlin” was published, and earlier he released a book of memoirs about the love of his life, “Alone with Myself.” On February 29, 2016, the Gorbachev Foundation hosted a presentation of the new book “Gorbachev in Life,” according to Mikhail Gorbachev’s Wikipedia page. Mikhail Sergeevich often appears in the news and speaks out about modern politics. Gorbachev, for example, claims that he knows how to improve relations between Russia and the United States.

He also asks Vladimir Putin to apply his expertise. Mikhail Gorbachev deems Putin a “worthy president” and a “strong personality,” but admits that he opposed a number of his policies.

In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the first and last president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, on his 85th birthday.

In a congratulatory letter published on the Kremlin’s official website, Putin observed that everyone “knows Mikhail Gorbachev as a bright, extraordinary person, a prominent statesman and public figure.”

Currently, Gorbachev positively considers the actions of the current Russian President Vladimir Putin, backing his position on Crimea and Ukraine.

In 2016, Free Press reported that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was placed on a list of people banned from visiting Ukraine for five years. As noted in the news, the reason for this decision was Gorbachev’s support for the return of Crimea from Russia, which he expressed in an interview with the British publication The Sunday Times. Press Secretary of the Russian head of state Dmitry Peskov , commenting on the news, “expressed regret at the next expansion of the list of persona non grata, especially at the expense of such veterans of our and world politics as Mikhail Gorbachev.”

Former President Gorbachev now lives in a Moscow apartment and at a dacha near Moscow. In February 2017, news appeared that the family of the former president of the Soviet Union, after ten years of use, put the villa in Germany up for sale. Mikhail Gorbachev lived mostly alone in a house near Lake Tegernsee, and in recent years he came to Bavaria extremely rarely. As the mayor of Oberach, Christian Kok , said , local residents used to often meet Gorbachev on the streets and in restaurants; the ex-president was a landmark of the region.

The total area of ​​the 3-storey 17-room villa Hubertus-Schloessl (“Hubertus-Schloessl”) is 2.6 thousand square meters, its living area is 600 square meters. The Gorbachev family purchased this property in 2006. The real estate agent expects to receive seven million euros for the land plot along with the house.

In 2017, Mikhail Gorbachev won the winner of the “Lion Award” for 2017, which was founded by the humanitarian organization Human Projects and is given “For services to achieving peace and reconciliation.”

Death of Mikhail Gorbachev

On August 30, 2022, the first president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, died at the age of 92. This was recorded at the Central Clinical Hospital.

“This evening, after a serious and long illness, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died,” the Central Clinical Hospital stated.

Biography of Joseph Stalin

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Biography of Joseph Stalin

The childhood and youth of Joseph Stalin

The actual date of birth of Joseph Dzhugashvili (the alias, which over time became a more well-known surname, emerged no earlier than 1912) is uncertain. For a long time it was thought that tiny Soso was born on December 9, 1879, until in the early 1990s. scholars have not shown that a far more plausible date of his birth is December 6, 1878. There are less differences regarding the location of birth of the future leader – Tiflis province, the city of Gori.

Joseph’s father was a poor shoemaker Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili (c. 1850–1909) from the hamlet of Didi-Lilo, his mother Ekaterina Georgievna Geladze (1858–1937) was born in the town of Gambareuli near Gori. Both of the boy’s parents hailed from serfs. Joseph became the third child in the family, but his older brothers George and Mikhail perished in infancy. Stalin’s father died while the youngster was just 11 years old. By this time, he drank a lot, often raised his hand on his wife and kid, and finally entirely left the family. Joseph’s mother exerted herself doing day labor to obtain a portion of food for herself and her son. She doted on the youngster, but she nurtured him in strictness.
In 1886, young Joseph, at the urging of his mother, took the first step towards a vocation as a priest. He sought to enroll the primary Orthodox theology school in Gori, but the first attempt failed – the youngster did not speak the Russian language at all. After extended sessions with the children of a local priest in 1888, Joseph promptly entered the second preparation course. Six years later, in 1894, the young man finished from primary school and attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary, but failed to graduate. Already in his fifth year, in 1899, Joseph Dzhugashvili was expelled for failing to appear for exams, but the real reason was the revolutionary activity of the young man – he did well in all subjects, but since 1895 he was associated with Marxists and conducted appropriate propaganda among seminarians.

Path to power

The early years of Stalin’s party career were spent in Transcaucasia. After his expulsion, the dropout seminarian made his livelihood by providing individual lessons and functioned as a computer-observer at the Tiflis Physical Observatory, but most of his time was devoted distributing illegal publications and organizing many protests and strikes. Soon Joseph Dzhugashvili came to the notice of the police. In March 1901, following a search at the observatory, he went underground, ultimately becoming an underground revolutionary with the party moniker “Koba.”

In the fall of the same year, on the proposal of Dzhugashvili, the first illegal Social Democratic newspaper in the Georgian language, Brdzola (Struggle), began to be published in Baku. Joseph became the editor and author of the editorial of the first edition. At the beginning of November 1901, in Tiflis, Dzhugashvili was chosen a member of the local committee of the RSDLP, and at the end of the month he traveled for Batum to create a branch of the party there too.

In April 1902, the first arrest followed, and in the fall of 1903, the first exile to the Irkutsk province. Over the following 10 years, arrests, imprisonments, exiles and escapes will follow one after another. In between his freedom, Joseph Dzhugashvili managed to join the Bolsheviks following the split of the RSDLP in 1903, and in 1905 he met V.I. Lenin, participated in the party conferences in 1906 in Stockholm and 1907 in London.

In January 1912, Joseph Dzhugashvili was elected in absentia to the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the RSDLP. Once in St. Petersburg, he worked in the editorial office of the newspaper Pravda. In May 1912, another arrest and banishment to the Tomsk province occurred, from whence Joseph escaped after 40 days. Returning to the city, he visited overseas multiple times. At the beginning of 1913 in Austria, Joseph Dzhugashvili produced a journal article “Marxism and the National Question,” which not only won him a reputation as a specialist on national problems, but also became the first piece published under the alias “Stalin.”

In March of the same 1913, in St. Petersburg, Stalin was once again imprisoned and banished to the Turukhansky district of the Yenisei province, and subsequently to Achinsk near Krasnoyarsk. After the February Revolution in early March 1917, he went to Petrograd, where he took an active part in plotting a new coup.

Stalin’s career following the October Revolution

Immediately after the triumph of the Bolsheviks, on October 26 (November 8), 1917, Stalin entered the established Council of People’s Commissars as People’s Commissar for Nationalities, and thereafter, jointly with V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, Ya.M. Sverdlov – to the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), empowered with emergency powers. Immediately after the commencement of the Civil War, Stalin became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council and was continuously at the fronts, organizing the war against both internal and external adversaries.

On April 3, 1922, Joseph Stalin was chosen General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). In conjunction with the postmortem disclosure of Lenin’s political testament (the so-called “Letter to the Congress”), in which he recommended to remove Stalin from power, in May 1924 at the XIII Congress of the RCP (b), he resigned, which was not accepted. In the 10 years of bitter intra-party battle that began, Stalin, in collaboration with L.B. Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev initially managed to eradicate L.D. from all major roles. Trotsky, and then these transitory friends. In 1934, during the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, it was stated that there was no longer any resistance in the party. The vanquished opponents of Stalin openly recognized their sins and repented, which subsequently did not rescue any of them.

 

The emergence of Stalinism. Period of repression

At the end of 1934, with the death of Stalin’s close friend, the first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee of the CPSU (b) S.M. Kirov’s trend towards relative peaceful cohabitation with the internal opposition terminated. Massive repressions, known as the Great Terror, raged over the country, climax in 1937–1938. The flywheel of repression, begun at the very top, looked unstoppable: the internal affairs authorities churned out new criminal cases based on the evidence of people engaged in prior cases and the wave of denunciations that swamped the country.
During the years Stalin was in power, nearly 3.8 million individuals were detained and convicted under “political” articles, of which about 700 thousand were condemned to death penalty. Taking into consideration those who perished in jails and camps, this yielded more than a million victims. All levels of the populace, from agriculture and the army, to science and culture, were cleansed of phantom and actual “enemies of the people,” while the most fanatical perpetrators of the purges themselves disappeared into the running system.

Collectivization and industrialization

In 1928, Stalin authorized the first five-year plan for the industrialization of the USSR. Within this framework, it was intended to establish more than 1,500 new facilities and industries. New industrial facilities were developed throughout the country, from the western boundaries to the Far East. It was planned to raise finances for such large-scale building by whatever available methods, from strengthening the export of natural resources to the sale of cultural property. To raise the productivity of agricultural output, collectivization began, to improve mining, large-scale geological investigation of new reserves, etc.

During collectivization, various blunders and miscalculations were committed. According to a number of scientists, the country was then on the edge of widespread upheavals and a new civil war. However, in general, the set of steps adopted allowed the USSR, albeit at the expense of huge sacrifices, to swiftly change from a backward and civil war-ravaged agrarian country into a rather robust industrial state capable of battling a strong foreign opponent.

Stalin is the commander in chief. The Great Patriotic War

The Second World War was foreseen from the very beginning of the establishment of the USSR, and Stalin took all feasible efforts to improve the defensive capabilities of the state. Under his direct supervision and administration, both army reforms and the creation of new types of weaponry took place. With the declaration of war on June 22, 1941, Stalin became the leader of the State Defense Committee, People’s Commissar of Defense and Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

After the commencement of hostilities, the senior Soviet military leadership and Stalin himself made several strategic blunders, which resulted in large-scale defeats, multimillion-dollar deaths and material losses in the opening stage of the conflict. Stalin might be accused for missing intelligence signals concerning the exact date of the commencement of German aggression, openly denying the mere prospect of war with the Third Reich, the encirclement of the Red Army around Kiev, Vyazma, Kharkov and some other miscalculations of 1941–1942.
At the same time, it was under the leadership of Stalin that the tough situation on the fronts was not only reversed, but also secured unconditional triumph. In 1945, in acknowledgment of his military honors, Stalin was granted the highest military position of Generalissimo of the USSR, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and was twice bestowed the highest military order of Victory.

Stalin’s reforms

During Stalin’s time in power, the “new economic policy” announced by Lenin was curtailed, the collectivization of agriculture, the industrialization of industry and numerous army reforms, the administrative reform of the USSR itself, which had grown to 16 republics, and the monetary reform of 1947 were carried out.
In addition, one might mention the ideological reform of culture and science in the 1930s and 1940s, the agricultural reforms of 1947–1950, and the post-war transfer of the military-industrial complex and the army to peaceful lines. Stalin’s last reform supposedly provided for the separation of the party nomenklatura from the real control of the country, but it remained unfulfilled.

Stalin’s internal and foreign policy

During the initial years of his rule, Stalin constructed a formidable state, developing its economic and ideological capabilities, relentlessly dealing with anyone who interfered with this or even theoretically may interfere. The primary features of domestic policy were the growth of the horizontal authority, the eradication of any resistance, collectivization, industrialization, and countless changes in nearly all fields.

Stalin’s foreign policy was highly active and aimed at restoring both the borders of the USSR itself to the old limits of the Russian Empire and enlarging its sphere of influence. Despite the clear expansionist aim, it was marked by significant flexibility and awareness not just of the current moment, but also of prospective long-term implications.

Taking advantage of the defeat of Poland in 1939, the Soviet Union regained some of the territory that belonged to the Russian Empire. As a result of the Soviet-Finnish conflict, the boundary in the northern direction was dramatically pushed back. In the same year, Bessarabia and the Baltic nations returned to the state with the foundation of four new union republics.

In February 1945, the Yalta Conference was conducted in Crimea with the participation of the US President and the British Prime Minister, at which concerns of the post-war organization of the globe were discussed. After winning the war, the USSR consolidated its reputation as a superpower for several decades, and its sphere of influence spanned extensive territories of Eastern Europe and Asia. The world has become bipolar.

Stalin’s family and personal life

Joseph Stalin was married twice. The first wife in 1906 was Ekaterina Semyonovna Svanidze (1885–1907), who came from a bankrupt noble family. Less than a year after the wedding, she died of typhoid disease, having given birth to her son Yakov. Stalin met his second wife, the daughter of a Bolshevik worker Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva (1901–1932), at the height of the Civil War. The wedding took place in 1919. In November 1932, Nadezhda shot herself – there are various accounts regarding the reasons for suicide, but none of them can be regarded trustworthy today.

Joseph Stalin had three children. The son Yakov Dzhugashvili (1907–1943) from his first marriage after the death of his mother was nurtured by his grandmother, Stalin’s mother, and he had practically little contact with his father. Having acquired an engineering education, at the urging of his father, he later graduated from the military academy. At the beginning of the war he commanded a howitzer battery, was arrested in July 1941 and died in a German prison camp in April 1943.

The middle son from his second marriage, Vasily Stalin (1921–1962), became a military pilot. During the war, he led a fighter air division with the rank of colonel, and in the post-war years he ascended to the position of lieutenant general and head of aviation in the Moscow Military District. After the death of his father, Vasily went into shame and exile, suffered from drunkenness and died very early, at the age of 40.

The youngest daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva (1926–2011), became a philologist and translator and went to the USA in 1967. She left behind many books of memoirs, notably about her father. In addition to his own children, Stalin’s family reared an adopted kid – Artyom Fedorovich Sergeev (1921–2008), the son of Stalin’s close friend and party member F.A. Sergeev, known under the party moniker “Artyom”.
In ordinary life, Stalin was marked by tremendous restraint – he had a tiny wardrobe, lived in very humble residences and dachas. The leader appreciated fine food and quality wines, however, even in this situation, he rather valued the company at the table and wanted to treat people more. During these feasts, many key state issues were settled, and access to dinner with Stalin represented the highest degree of his confidence.

Death and burial of Stalin

Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953 in the government dacha at the age of 73 (74) years due to a cerebral hemorrhage that developed on March 1 against the background of the development of hypertension and atherosclerosis. The formal news of death followed the next day. The country went into mourning. The funeral, arranged on an unprecedented magnitude for the country, took place on March 9, 1953 in Red Square in Moscow.
During the burial, due to enormous throngs of people, the stampede killed, according to various accounts, from 100 to more than 400 persons. Initially, the casket holding the body of I.V. Stalin was placed in the tomb close to V.I. Lenin, however, in 1960, after exposing the “cult of personality,” the bones were reburied in the earth near the Kremlin wall.

Results of Stalin’s efforts

Finding himself the president of the USSR at a particularly difficult period, when the country that had barely concluded the Civil War found itself surrounded by unfriendly enemies, I.V. Stalin succeeded not only to retain the state, but also to strengthen it, and also to enlarge its area. It was under his direction, and frequently on his direct commands, that practically all the alterations in the state took place – both positive and negative. The deeds of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin as a state still provoke great dispute and are unlikely to obtain a clear judgment in the foreseeable future that most of society will be willing to accept.

 

Biography of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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Biography of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in the hamlet of Votkinsk. Now the land of the settlement belongs to Udmurtia. Pyotr Ilyich’s father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, did not have a musical vocation. He hailed from the Cossack family of Chaikas, who were highly renowned in Ukraine and worked as a basic engineer. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s mother, Alexandra Andreevna Assier, graduated from a school for orphans, where she studied literature, geography, mathematics, rhetoric and foreign languages.

At one point, the father of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky acquired a respectable post, which is why he relocated to the Urals. He became the head of the Kama-Votkinsk steel mill, one of the major corporations. He was supplied not only with a huge residence with servants, but also with an army in which one hundred Cossacks served. Among the visitors of the enormous home were nobility, the capital’s youth, English engineers and other members of high society.

There were six children in the Tchaikovsky family: the eldest – Nikolai, the second son – Pyotr (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Ippolit and the younger sister Alexandra, subsequently twins Modest and Anatoly were born. In addition, the relatives of Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky always resided in the spacious mansion, and subsequently the children’s governess, Frenchwoman Fanny Durbach from Montbéliard, who was accepted as a part of the family.
From the memoirs of M. I. Tchaikovsky: “A mass of people ran out to meet us, hugs and kisses began, among which it was difficult to distinguish between relatives and servants, so affectionate and warm were the manifestations of universal joy. My father approached the small girl and kissed her like his own. This simplicity and patriarchal relationship quickly encouraged and warmed the young stranger and put her in the position of nearly a family member.”

Despite the fact that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s parents were not skilled musicians, music always resided in their house. Ilya Petrovich could play the flute, Alexandra Andreevna could play the piano and harp, they also stated that she played romances well, and the governess just enjoyed music very much.
In the Tchaikovskys’ residence there was an orchestrion (mechanical organ) and a piano. Pyotr Ilyich had piano lessons from the serf Marya Palchikova. He was not only brilliant in music, but also wrote poems.
The Tchaikovskys’ oldest children enjoyed a solid education: they studied in St. Petersburg at the Schmelling boarding school. Here Pyotr Ilyich became familiar with ballet, opera and a symphony orchestra. At an early age, misfortune struck: Pyotr Tchaikovsky caught measles, from the repercussions of which he suffered all his life.
In 1850, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky attended the Imperial School of Law, where he studied until 1859. Before the downfall of his father and the death of his mother, Pyotr Ilyich also had piano lessons from the famed German musician Rudolf Kündinger. Due of the family’s situation, they later had to be stopped.
After finishing his education, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky worked at the Ministry of Justice, where he handled the concerns of peasants. In his leisure time, he went to the theater and performed music. In 1861, Tchaikovsky traveled abroad for the first time, where he visited Hamburg, Berlin, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Ostend and London.

Music career

at 1859, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky graduated from college and began working at the Ministry of Justice with the title of titular adviser. In 1861, Tchaikovsky visited Berlin, Hamburg, Antwerp, Brussels, London, and Paris as a translator. Upon returning, he attended the composition department at the Music Classes of the Russian Musical Society, which subsequently became the St. Petersburg Conservatory. For some time he blended service with studies, but eventually made the ultimate choice, against the opposition of his family. At the same time, he took part in performances as an accompanist.

In 1865, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky graduated from the conservatory with a huge silver medal and traveled to Moscow, where he earned a job as a professor at the newly founded conservatory. That same year he made his debut as a conductor.

In 1866, Tchaikovsky created his first symphony and began work on the opera “ The Voevoda ” , which debuted in 1869. In 1868, his first critical writings were published. From 1871 until 1876 he was the staff music critic of the Contemporary Chronicle.

In 1873, the debut of Ostrovsky’s “ The Snow Maiden ” to the music of Tchaikovsky took place at the Maly Theater in Moscow. In 1875, Tchaikovsky’s opera “ The Oprichnik ” was presented at the Bolshoi.

In 1877, the ballet “ Swan Lake ” debuted on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater . In 1878, Tchaikovsky abandoned his work at the conservatory and traveled abroad. By that time, his name was well recognized to the musical world; his symphonies were played in the USA. A year later, the opera “ Eugene Onegin ” was produced in Moscow ; since 1881, the performance has been staged at the Bolshoi Theater.
In 1885, Tchaikovsky lived in the settlement of Maidanovo near Klin, where he supported the building of a school.

In 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky presented a series of concerts in Leipzig, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Paris, and London, conducting his own compositions. In addition to strong reviews in the press, the trip provided him familiarity with famous contemporaries – Grieg, Strauss, Mahler, Dvorak, Gounod . A year later, the tour proceeded in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Dresden, Berlin, Geneva, Hamburg, London, and Paris. In 1891, Tchaikovsky went to conduct concerts in the USA.

In 1890, the ballet “ The Sleeping Beauty ” opened at the Mariinsky Theater, while Tchaikovsky began composing the opera “ The Queen of Spades .” In 1892, the debuts of the opera “ Iolanta ” and the ballet “ The Nutcracker ” took place in St. Petersburg.

Works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky worked in all known musical genres of his day, but gave priority to large-scale ones: operas and symphonies. He was interested in the deep interior realm of man, his soul and the experience of drama. Tchaikovsky’s music is highly delicate, lyrical and melodic. His pieces provoke a powerful emotional response from the listener. Tchaikovsky supplemented even tiny musical genres with symphonic scale. One of the fundamental themes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s work was compassion and affection for humans.
Tchaikovsky also engaged in the realm of choral religious music. S. Taneyev, A. Glazunov, S. Rachmaninov, A. Scriabin were deemed the continuers of his musical traditions. Tchaikovsky’s music became a symbol of Russian life and culture of the 19th century. Thanks to Tchaikovsky’s legacy, we were able to rediscover the pictures of Russian and global literature – Pushkin and Gogol, Shakespeare and Dante, Russian lyric poetry of the second half of the 19th century. Tchaikovsky justifiably acquired international acclaim during his lifetime and is currently considered one of the finest Russian composers.

Death

In the fall of 1893, Pyotr Ilyich was offered unboiled cold water in a restaurant on Nevsky. This became the source of a dreadful sickness – cholera, from which Tchaikovsky died unexpectedly a few days later, on October 25, 1893, at the apartment of his brother Modest.

The composer’s burial was paid for by Alexander III, and the funeral service at the Kazan Cathedral was attended by the Prince of Oldenburg and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is interred in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Biography of Leo Tolstoy

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Biography of Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province. In the 1860s, he penned his first major masterpiece, War and Peace. In 1873, Tolstoy began writing on the second of his most renowned works, Anna Karenina. He continued to create novels during the 1880s and 1890s. One of his most popular latter pieces is “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in St. Astapovo, Ryazan province.

The early years of life

The future writer Lev Nikolaevich was the youngest of four sons. In 1830, when Tolstoy’s mother, née Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father’s cousin took over the care of the children. Their father, Count Nikolai Tolstoy died seven years later, and their aunt was named guardian. After the death of Aunt Tolstoy, his siblings and sisters relocated to a relative in Kazan. Although Tolstoy faced several losses at an early age, he eventually glorified his childhood recollections in his art.
Tolstoy got his initial schooling at home, taught by French and German instructors. In 1843 he attended the Faculty of Oriental Languages ​​at the Imperial Kazan University. Lev Nikolayevich struggled to prosper as a student; his bad marks compelled him to shift to an easier law department. But later Tolstoy ultimately left him completely in 1847, without a degree. He returned to his parents’ estate, where he expected to take up farming. Since he was away too much (went to Tula and Moscow), this quest ended in failure. What he truly excelled at was maintaining his own journal – it was this lifetime practice that inspired most of Leo Tolstoy’s work.
While Tolstoy was working on the farm, his older brother, Nikolai, came to visit on his army leave. Nikolai pushed his brother to join the army as a cadet, south to the Caucasus highlands, where he himself served. Later (in November 1854) Tolstoy was sent to Sevastopol, where he took part in the Crimean War until August 1855.

Early publications

During his years as a cadet in the army, Tolstoy had a lot of spare time. During peaceful moments, he worked on an autobiographical narrative called “Childhood.” In it, he wrote about his best recollections from boyhood. In 1852, Tolstoy sent a piece to Sovremennik, the most popular journal of the period. The narrative was joyfully accepted, and it became Tolstoy’s first publication.
After completing his novel “Childhood,” Tolstoy began writing about his daily life at an army station in the Caucasus. The work “Cossacks”, which he began during his service years, was completed only in 1862, after he had already left the army. Surprisingly, Tolstoy managed to continue writing while actively fighting in the Crimean War. During this period he published Boyhood (1854), a sequel to Childhood, the second book of his autobiographical trilogy. At the height of the Crimean conflict, Tolstoy articulated his opinions on the stunning paradoxes of the conflict through a trilogy of works, Sevastopol Tales. In the second book of Sevastopol Tales, he tried with a relatively new technique: part of the narrative is given as a narration from the point of view of a soldier.
After the end of the Crimean War, Tolstoy left the army and returned to Russia. Returning home, the rising author was in high demand on the St. Petersburg literary scene. Stubborn and haughty, Tolstoy refused to subscribe to any single school of thinking. Declaring himself an anarchist, he traveled for Paris in 1857. Once there, he lost all his money and was forced to return home to Russia. He also managed to write Youth, the third half of his autobiographical trilogy, in 1857. Returning to Russia in 1862, Tolstoy published the first of 12 issues of the themed journal Yasnaya Polyana. That same year he married the daughter of a doctor called Sofya Andreevna Bers.

Major Novels

Living at Yasnaya Polyana with his wife and children, Tolstoy spent most of the 1860s writing on his first renowned novel, War and Peace. Part of the work was initially published in Russian Bulletin in 1865, under the title “1805”. By 1868, he had written three additional chapters. A year later, the novel was totally done. Both reviewers and the public were buzzing about the historical authenticity of the Napoleonic Wars in the novel, along with the development of the tales of its intelligent and realistic, yet fictitious characters. The work is particularly remarkable in that it includes three extensive satirical essays on the rules of history. Among the topics that Tolstoy wants to express in this work is the conviction that a person’s status in society and the significance of a person’s existence are essentially derived from his everyday actions.
After the popularity of War and Peace, in 1873, Tolstoy began work on the second of his most renowned writings, Anna Karenina. It was largely based on genuine events during the conflict between Russia and Turkey. Like War and Peace, this novel depicts some of the biographical events in Tolstoy’s own life, most notably in the love connection between the characters Kitty and Levin, which is thought to be evocative of Tolstoy’s courting with his own wife.
The opening phrase of Anna Karenina is one of the book’s most famous lines: “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina was published in parts from 1873 to 1877, and was hailed by the people. The payments that Tolstoy got for the work immediately enriched him.

Conversion

Despite the popularity of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy faced a spiritual crisis and was melancholy. Trying to grasp the purpose of life, Tolstoy first went to the Russian Orthodox Church, but could not find answers to his inquiries there. He determined that Christian churches were corrupt and, instead of structured religion, propagated their own views. He chose to communicate his thoughts by creating a new journal named The Mediator in 1883.
As a result, for his unique and controversial spiritual ideas, Tolstoy was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church. He was even monitored by the secret police. His wife was strongly against it when Tolstoy, motivated by his new views, wanted to give up all his money and give up everything needless. Not wishing to aggravate the issue, Tolstoy grudgingly agreed to a compromise: he handed the copyright and, allegedly, all income on his work until 1881 to his wife.

Later Fiction

In addition to his theological treatises, Tolstoy continued to produce fiction during the 1880s and 1890s. Genres included morality tales and realistic fiction. One of the most successful works of the period was the novella “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” written in 1886. The main character does his best to fight the death looming over him. Ivan Ilyich is shocked by the revelation that he spent his life on trifles, but the insight comes too late. In 1898, Tolstoy authored the novel Father Sergius, a work of fiction in which he challenges the views he gained following his spiritual transition.

The next year he published his third lengthy book, Resurrection. The work garnered favorable reviews, although its success scarcely reached the degree of fame of his prior works. Tolstoy’s other late works are meditations on art: a satirical drama called The Living Corpse (1890), and a tale called Hadji Murad (1904), which was found and published after his death.

Old Age

Over the last 30 years of his life, Tolstoy positioned himself as a spiritual and religious leader. His thoughts on peaceful resistance to evil were similar to those of Mahatma Gandhi.
Over the past few years, Tolstoy has experienced the rewards of international reputation. However, he still battled to reconcile his spiritual views with the problems he produced in his home life. His wife not only did not agree with his teaching, she also did not approve of his students, who routinely visited Lev Nikolaevich on the family estate. In an effort to evade his wife’s wrath, in October 1910, Tolstoy and his daughter Alexandra embarked on a pilgrimage. Alexandra, Tolstoy’s youngest daughter, was meant to be a doctor for her old father on the journey. Trying not to divulge their private lives, they went secretly, trying to dodge the press, but sometimes to no effect.

 

Death and Legacy

Unfortunately, the trek proved too onerous for the old writer. In November 1910, the stationmaster in Astapovo gave his residence to Tolstoy so that the ill writer might rest. Soon Lev Nikolaevich died. The writer was buried on the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana. At that moment, Tolstoy left behind a wife and 10 children.

Biography of NICHOLAS II ALEXANDROVICH

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Biography of NICHOLAS II ALEXANDROVICH

Between the years 1894 to 1917, Nicholas II Alexandrovich was our all-Russian Emperor.
As a result of the fact that the economic state of the nation in 1913 is still considered, in a sense, a benchmark, he was there during the most significant ascent of the empire and took part in it. However, it turned out that he was not only a witness to the catastrophic collapse of a great empire, but he was also a victim of it. It is still the attitude toward him that causes division in society. However, even after the act of church canonization, many who are opposed to this act say that the declaration of Nicholas II as a saint was of a political character. On the other hand, among certain segments of the Orthodox community, the concept that praising the Tsar as a passion-bearer is not sufficient is gaining weight. On May 6, 1868, Nicholas II, the first son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, was born at Tsarskoe Selo. He was the first of his family’s children. As befits the heir to the royal throne, he was provided with an outstanding education. During Nikolai’s early youth, the Englishman Karl Osipovich Heath, who resided in Russia, served as his teacher. Subsequently, General Grigory Grigorievich Danilovich was designated as Nikolai’s formal teacher as the heir to the position.

Nikolai began his education by participating in a big gymnasium course. Subsequently, he became a student in accordance with a specifically crafted program that merged the courses of the state and economic departments, as well as the law school of the university, and the course of the Academy of the General Staff. Nikolai’s teachers were prominent professors N.H. Bunge, E.E. Zamyslovsky, N.N. Beketov, N.N. Obruchev, Ts.A. Cui, M.N. Dragomirov. In addition to being fluent in Danish and German, Nicholas II possessed a brilliant mastery of the French and English languages.

CHAMPION OF AUTOCRACY

Nicholas II Alexandrovich assumed the throne after the death of his father in 1894. He confessed more than once that the paradigm of a ruler for him was Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the father of Peter I. After all, Alexei Mikhailovich carefully preserved the traditions of antiquity and the beginning of autocracy, as the basis of the strength and well-being of Russia. And Nicholas II fought the “beginnings of autocracy” strongly and persistently.

The coronation of Nicholas II at the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin took place on May 14, 1896.

For the ceremonies, three-meter ermine robes were fashioned (2691 skins were used) for the Emperor, Alexandra Feodorovna and Empress Maria Feodorovna.

CHAMPION OF AUTOCRACY

A day after the coronation, on May 18, during the distribution of presents on the occasion of the coronation, a stampede occurred on Khodynskoye Field.

Over an area of ​​over one square kilometer, 150 booths with presents and 10 tents for the distribution of wine and beer were created. At 5 am, nearly 500 thousand people flocked around them.

There was a stampede in which, according to official numbers, 1,389 persons perished.

Since his succession to the throne, Nicholas has not declared any significant changes or reforms in the internal life of the kingdom. The economic and industrial prosperity of the kingdom, which began under the reign of his father, proceeded effectively. According to the testimony of people close to the Tsar, Nicholas II was quiet by nature, did not like to dispute, and was accustomed to constraint, which frequently gave the impression of insensitivity; He had a very even demeanor, but was quite suspicious.

The Emperor truly loved his children and wife and was an outstanding family guy. Rare images and newsreels of the monarch and his family are shown in the historical parks “Russia – My History”. However, all these traits were not enough to, among other things, be a true autocrat.

The epoch in which Nicholas II was destined to govern demanded not simply concessions, but painful judgments. Decisions that would bring about profound changes not just in the social and spiritual sectors of Russian society, but also in the political one. He thought that responsibility for the fate of Russia lay with him. Hence the mindset towards restricting his dictatorial authority: sharing power for him meant moving responsibility from himself to someone else.

The reign of Nicholas II was a time of one of the fastest rates of economic development in the history of Russia, and according to this indicator, Russia came out on top in the globe, ahead of even the quickly rising United States of America. Russia also claimed first place in the world in the production of the key agricultural crops, cultivating more than half of the world’s rye, more than a quarter of wheat, oats and barley, and more than a third of potatoes. Russia has become the primary exporter of agricultural products, the first “breadbasket of Europe”. Its participation amounted for 2/5 of all world exports of peasant products.

The soundness of the economy was assured by the introduction of ruble convertibility, that is, paper money began to be freely traded for gold. Thanks to the monetary reform of Sergei Yulievich Witte, the ruble became a popular currency throughout Europe.

The first all-Russian population census was undertaken. The number of population of Russia was 126 million people, including 87 million Orthodox (70%), Old Believers – 2 million, Catholics – 11 million, Muslims – 14 million, Jews – 5 million. Urban population – 13%, yearly population increase – 1 million 600 thousand people.

There were 16 thousand fairs in the Russian Empire.

The building of the Great Siberian Railway including a passage across Lake Baikal has been finished. The voyage from Moscow to Vladivostok now took only 15 days.

With the completion of the Chinese Eastern Railway, connection with the Far East was created over the whole length of the Great Siberian Road. Europe acquired access to the Pacific Ocean.

PEACE AND WARS

In 1898, the Russian emperor, continuing the tradition set by his father, came to the nations of Europe with offers to sign agreements on preserving global peace and imposing limits to the steady buildup of weaponry. The Hague Peace Conferences took place in 1899 and 1907. Some stipulations of these conferences are still in effect today.

But not all actions in the realm of foreign policy generated results and not all international partners wanted to resolve disputes amicably.

In 1904, the Japanese fleet invaded Port Arthur. Thus started the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which was waged for domination in Northeast China and Korea. The defense of Port Arthur continued until the beginning of 1905. at 1905, the Japanese destroyed the Russian army at the general battle of Mukden, and the Russian navy at Tsushima. The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905, under the terms of which Russia acknowledged Korea as Japan’s area of influence and relinquished Southern Sakhalin and the rights to the Liaodong Peninsula with the towns of Port Arthur and Dalniy to Japan. The failure of the Russian army in the war damaged the domestic political situation of the nation.

Russia’s defeat in the war showed major flaws in the central leadership, organization, recruiting system, combat training and technological equipment of the army, which prompted military changes. And the reforms were carried out: the terms of active service were shortened – in the infantry and field artillery to 3 years, in other branches of the military to 4 years, in the navy to 5 years, the officer corps was rejuvenated; The life of soldiers and sailors and the financial situation of officers and conscripts have been improved.

The State Defense Council was founded – an entity in which the principal concerns of state defense were concentrated, with the involvement of officials of the military and naval ministries. Due to the militarily weak reserve and serf troops, field troops were strengthened, the number of army corps increased, machine gun teams in regiments and corps air squads were created, cadet schools were transformed into military schools that received new programs, and new regulations were introduced.

In Russia there were 20 military schools, comprising 11 infantry, 3 cavalry, 2 Cossack, 2 artillery, 1 engineering, 1 military topographical.

Along with the military, agricultural reform was also carried out. Its inspirer and executor was Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin, who was chosen prime minister of the government in 1906. Peasants were permitted to freely dispose of their land and build farmsteads. An attempt was made to eliminate the rural community, which was of considerable importance for the development of capitalist relations in the countryside. In addition to the peasant reform, Stolypin was active in the notion of “nationalization of capital” – a system of protective measures for Russian firms.

The reign of Nicholas II coincided not only with the beginning of the fast expansion of capitalism, but also with the increasing revolutionary movement in Russia. The first significant outburst of this movement was the events of early 1905, which may be found out in full in the halls of the “Russia-My History” initiative. The catalyst for the onset of revolutionary activities was the shooting on January 9, 1905 of a peaceful workers’ rally in St. Petersburg. There is a very well-founded account that the shooting was started by gunfire fired at troops from the Alexander Garden. This provocative strategy will eventually become quite popular in all types of occasions.

Workers took the most active role in the events that consumed the center portion of Russia, peasant agitation broke out, and dissatisfaction erupted in the army and navy. The bourgeoisie also came out with calls for reform. Trade unions and political unions arose and parties got stronger.

On April 17, 1905, a Manifesto on Religious Tolerance was released, which permitted Russians to transition from Orthodoxy to other Christian religions and acknowledged the religious rights of schismatics.

On October 17, 1905, a Manifesto was produced, which affirmed the principles of civic freedom: personal inviolability, freedom of expression, assembly and union.

In 1906, the State Duma was founded, without whose approval not a single legislation could enter into force. The bills were examined in the State Council and approved by the Tsar. Russia was becoming a rule-of-law state—the court was practically isolated from the administration.

Reforms in the country contributed to the fact that from 1909 to 1913 the Russian economy took another significant leap. The amount of industrial output expanded by 1.6 times, the process of monopolization of the economy acquired a fresh push, as a result of the crisis, weak, tiny firms went bankrupt, which expedited the process of concentration of industrial production.

At the same time, the financial system was being reinforced, new banks were founded, notably Russian-Asian and St. Petersburg International.

In 1913, the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty was heavily honored in Russia. It appeared that nothing could disrupt the historical process, dismantle the most powerful edifice – the Russian Empire. The population of the empire was 155 million people, the gross grain harvest in Russia was 765 million centners, the total length of railways was 70,000 km, the total yearly circulation of literature was 106 million copies. The Russian fleet consisted of 434 ships. The Russian active army totaled 2,711,253 personnel.

But 1914 came an unforeseen calamity – in July, Germany issued Russia with an ultimatum, and the First World War started out.

By the end of 1914, 6.5 million people were put under arms. During the war years, the situation on the fronts altered more than once. Russia entered the 1917 battle stronger than before.

But developments within Russia in 1917 significantly transformed the situation not only at the fronts.

In February 1917, a bourgeois revolution took place in Russia: the Russian Empire ceased to exist, Russia became a republic and the Provisional Government, led by Prince Georgy Evgenievich Lvov, came to power.

Until this time, Lvov served as head of the All-Russian Zemstvo Movement. On the night of March 2-3, Nicholas II, deprived of knowledge about the actual situation in the nation, stuck on the train, signed the compulsory renunciation. Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Mikhail Alexandrovich. But Mikhail Alexandrovich also signed the Manifesto abdicating the crown.

After the February Revolution, Nicholas II began to be named Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; earlier, the surname “Romanov” was not stated by members of the royal line; The titles signified membership in the clan: Grand Duke, Emperor, Empress, Tsarevich.

A decision was made to arrest Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (former Emperor Nicholas II) and Alexandra Fedorovna Romanova (former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna).

At first, the former emperor and members of his family were detained under imprisonment at Tsarskoe Selo, then they were brought to Tobolsk. In 1918, the prisoners were transferred to Yekaterinburg, where on the night of July 17, 1918, the former emperor, his wife and children and the doctor and servants who stayed with them were slain by the Bolsheviks.

Even more information about the lives of the royal family are revealed in all multimedia projects “Russia – My History”.

Biography of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

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Biography of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

One can approach the political activities of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in different ways, without accepting his ideas at all or completely agreeing with them, but the scale of the personality of the head of the first workers’ and peasants’ state in history is difficult to overestimate, just as it is impossible to deny his enormous influence on the subsequent life of the country.

The childhood and youth of Vladimir Lenin

Every inhabitant of the Soviet Union knows the year and date of birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin by memory. He was born on April 10 (22), 1870 in the Volga regional city of Simbirsk, subsequently called Ulyanovsk, from a rather prosperous family. Father Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831–1886) served as director of the provincial inspection of public schools. He was the son of a former serf peasant, but by 1877 he managed to advance to the high title of genuine state councilor, 4th class in the table of ranks, which provided the right to nobility not only to him, but also to his descendants born after this date.

Mother Maria Alexandrovna, née Blank (1835–1916), was interested in raising children – in addition to Volodya, there were two additional boys and three girls in the household. Despite the fact that the distance between the eldest sister Anna (1864–1935) and the youngest sister Maria (1878–1937) was 14 years, all the children were quite friendly. Volodya passionately adored his brother Alexander (1866–1887), who was 4 years older than him. Calm and considerate, Alexander always remained a role model for the brothers Volodya and Dmitry (1874–1943). Volodya’s best playmate and playmate was his sister Olga (1871–1891), with whom they were the same age. Subsequently, her early death from typhus stunned the young guy.

From early youth, Volodya Ulyanov grew up as an energetic lad, with a smart and curious mind. At the age of 9 he was assigned to a gymnasium, where he studied extremely well, often getting encouragement. At the beginning of 1886, when Vladimir was 16 years old, the family suddenly lost his father, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and soon the Ulyanovs were in for an equally strong shock: in May 1887, the eldest son Alexander and a group of Narodnaya Volya members were executed by court verdict for preparing an assassination attempt. Emperor Alexander III.

Two enormous disasters harmed both the pecuniary well-being of the Ulyanov family and its reputation in regional Simbirsk society. However, in the same 1887, Vladimir graduated from high school with a gold medal for knowledge and exemplary behavior and attended the law department of Kazan University. There is a narrative that it was the death of his older brother that defined the future career of the revolutionary Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), a former excellent young man who was not interested in politics.

Career and revolutionary actions of Vladimir Lenin

Immediately after commencing his studies in Kazan, Vladimir Ulyanov joined the People’s Will circle, and three months later he was dismissed from the university without the right to reinstatement for engaging in student disturbances. An aggravating factor was the presence of an executed sibling. Vladimir was listed in the list of untrustworthy individuals, surveillance was formed over him and he was banished to the village of Kokushkino, Kazan province – to an estate that belonged to his aunt on his mother’s side.
Maria Aleksandrovna Ulyanova constantly petitioned for her son to be reinstated in the university, but the authorities were resolute. However, in 1888, Vladimir was permitted to return to Kazan, and in 1890, he was allowed to take tests for a university course as an external student. Persistent independent study helped Vladimir Ulyanov to successfully complete qualification examinations at St. Petersburg University and gain the job of assistant lawyer in Samara, where the Ulyanov family moved in 1889. He began his revolutionary activity early, joining a Marxist group in Kazan in 1888. Here the young revolutionary was significantly impressed by the works of G.V. Plekhanov: after studying them, the opinions of Vladimir Ulyanov began to transition from populist to social democratic.

In 1893, Vladimir Ulyanov went to St. Petersburg, where he continued to work in the legal area. In 1895, on a journey overseas, he directly met the founding leaders of the European social democratic movement: Wilhelm Liebknecht, Paul Lafargue and Grigory Plekhanov. Upon returning to his birthplace, Vladimir Ulyanov made a lot of attempts to reconcile the fragmented St. Petersburg Marxist circles. The consequence of the work done was the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” which he chaired. The aim was the downfall of the dictatorship.

At the end of 1895, an arrest followed. After a year in jail in 1897, Vladimir Ulyanov was transported to the settlement of Shushenskoye, Yenisei province. His future wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, whom they met in 1895 at a meeting of a Marxist group, went with him to Siberia for three years. at 1898, under the threat of transporting Nadezhda to St. Petersburg, young people got married at a local country church.

In the same year, another key event had happened for the party career of Vladimir Ulyanov – a congress was convened in Minsk that founded the first Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). Already in exile, Ulyanov decided to create the daily Iskra, which would serve the purpose of unifying Social Democratic groups throughout the Russian Empire.

In exile, Vladimir Ulyanov did not waste time and worked on the book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia,” geared at “legal Marxists” and populists. From Siberia, he managed to make relationships with Marxists in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other places, among whom he earned reputation under the alias K. Tulin.
In the summer of 1900, Vladimir Ulyanov and his wife, near the conclusion of their exile, sailed for Switzerland. Here they published Iskra, whose editorial board also included P.B. Axelrod,  Zasulich, G.V. Plekhanov, Yu.O. Martov, A.N. Potresov. Later, the scientific and political journal “Zarya” was established, in the first issue of which an article by  Ulyanov “Critics on the Agrarian Question” under the pseudonym N. Lenin – over time, the surname taken from him will supplant the real one, although in total Vladimir Ulyanov used more than 150 pseudonyms. In April 1902, the editorial team of Iskra went to London. Here in the summer of 1903 the Second Congress of the RSDLP was convened, during which the party divided into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) took an active part in the activity of the conference.

In November 1905, Lenin illegally returned to St. Petersburg, where he commanded the preparations for an armed revolt, but in May 1906 he was compelled to depart for Finland and eventually escape to Sweden. Lenin spent the next 10 years in exile, residing in Switzerland, France, and Poland. In 1911, in the Parisian district of Longjumeau, Lenin built a party school where he taught. With the onset of the First World War he resided in Galicia, then moved to Zurich.

Lenin did not foresee the bourgeois revolution of 1917 and did not expect to survive to witness it. In April 1917, the German authorities authorized Lenin to fly to Russia. Upon arriving, Lenin addressed at a gathering with the radical 10 “April Theses,” which was a statement plan for the seizure of power established by the Bolshevik Party. In July 1917, the Provisional Government demanded Lenin’s arrest, and he escaped to Finland. During this era he authored his most major work, State and Revolution.

Participation of Lenin in the October Revolution

In April 1917, Lenin landed in Russia and quickly went underground, and in October of the same year he returned to Petrograd. On the evening of October 24, donning makeup, he made his way to the Smolny Institute, where the headquarters of the rebellion was housed, and assumed direct leadership.
On October 25, Lenin published an appeal regarding his overthrow of the Provisional Government; on the same day, at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, ordinances on land and peace were enacted. On the night of October 26, the Provisional governing was imprisoned at the Winter Palace, and in its stead a new governing body was founded led by Lenin – the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK).

Reforms and internal policy Lenin

In January 1918, Lenin signed a proclamation on the foundation of the Red Army, as well as the basis of the first constitution of the new state – the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People.” He felt it important for Soviet Russia to disengage into the First World War. Despite the resistance of L.D. Trotsky and the allies who joined him in an urgent endeavor to build a universal revolution, the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was reached in March. In the spring of 1918, fearing the conquest of Petrograd by the Germans, Lenin transferred the Soviet administration to Moscow.

In January 1919, a decree “On the separation of church and state” was published; in March of the same year, on the initiative of Lenin, the Communist International was founded, uniting parties of a similar sort from all over the world. When the policies of war communism and surplus appropriation did not explain themselves, excess appropriation was replaced by a tax in kind, and war communism by a new economic policy (NEP). The economy of the nascent country began to revive, and owing to the monetary reform carried out in 1922–1924, the ruble became a freely convertible currency.

Lenin persistently advocated on the growth of state-type businesses, as well as broad electrification. An important issue was the form of unification of the republics that joined Soviet Russia: if the People’s Commissar for Nationalities I.V. Stalin proposed to formalize them as national autonomies within Russia, then Lenin insisted on the independence and equality of all republics, albeit in a formal form – this will play a negative role in the collapse of the country 70 years later.

Foreign policy Lenin

Soon after the Bolsheviks came to power, in November 1917, Lenin announced that Soviet Russia was abandoning the secret agreements of 1915–1916. with Great Britain and France on the post-war division of the world, and in 1918–1920. proclaimed recognition of the independence of Finland and the Baltic countries. In the spring of 1919, Lenin negotiated with a covert diplomatic delegation arriving from the United States. The criteria for halting the Entente intervention in Russia and Western backing for the White movement were considered in exchange for the Soviet government settling the tsarist debts, but no agreement was achieved.
In the same 1919, Lenin agreed that the world revolution was a matter of the far future, so it was essential to begin establishing a policy of peaceful cohabitation of Soviet Russia with the bourgeois world, as well as to promote international trade. At the same time, the president of the Soviet state thought that one should not cease playing on the contradictions of the capitalist powers, pushing them against one other in every conceivable manner and preventing them from combining against Russia.

With the end of the Civil War, the Bolsheviks managed to avoid international isolation, conclude peace treaties, and in 1920–1921. establish diplomatic relations with a number of states that, in one way or another, themselves were looking for external support – the first were Turkey, Afghanistan and Persia seeking independence from the Entente, Mongolia that broke away from China, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that emerged from the ruins of the Russian Empire. In 1922, they were joined by Germany, which had lost the war, and following Lenin’s death, in the winter and spring of 1924, the USSR was recognized by a complete group of governments led by Great Britain.

Family and personal life of Lenin

As indicated above, the sole wife of  Lenin till his death was N.K. Krupskaya (1869–1939). The marriage turned out to be childless, however, according to some evidence, the couple dreamt of a child. Vladimir Ilyich regarded Nadezhda Konstantinovna his major support in life, and so the romance alleged to him with the famed revolutionary Inessa Armand scarcely took place in fact. This acquaintance, which took place in 1909 in exile in Brussels or Paris, eventually developed of a commercial and friendly character.

Death of  Lenin

In May 1922, Lenin got extremely unwell and suffered a stroke. The experts who saw him concluded that the cause for the overall deterioration of the leader’s health was the wear and tear of the body’s circulatory and neurological systems owing to chronic weariness and the wound acquired during an assassination attempt in the summer of 1918. By the fall of 1922, the Soviet leader returned to work and public speaking, but in December a second stroke followed with partial paralysis of the body, and in March 1923 a third, which deprived Lenin of speech in the last year of his life. At the beginning of 1924, the Soviet leader’s condition deteriorated seriously, and on January 21 he died at the age of 53. The direct cause of Lenin’s death was a brain hemorrhage.
The country was thrown into unparalleled grief. on the burial slated on January 27, 1924, a temporary wooden mausoleum was built on Red Square, in which a casket carrying Lenin’s embalmed remains was put. In the spring, the temporary building was replaced by a more permanent one, but also constructed of wood, and in 1930 the bones of the “leader of the world proletariat” were relocated to the now well-known permanent mausoleum built of reinforced concrete, lined with red and black stone. Disputes over the necessity to rebury Lenin’s thoughts are regularly addressed in society, but they are not of a fundamental nature.

Results of the activities of Lenin

The principal effect of the actions of  Lenin was the construction of the world’s first Soviet state, which lasted three quarters of a century. During this time, Soviet Russia, and then the Soviet Union, were able to defeat the devastation that struck the country after the First World War and the Civil War, successfully repel large-scale external intervention and transform into a developed industrial state, capable of surviving another world conflict in two decades.
Despite the numerous blunders and miscalculations made by the Soviet leadership, the notion demonstrated its feasibility, and in more favorable conditions the growth of the USSR may have followed a more successful trajectory. The role of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in Russian and international history still requires a fair and objective appraisal.

Biography of Alexei Mikhailovich

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Biography of Alexei Mikhailovich

People’s memory, of course, corrected by historians, has kept the label “The Quietest” for Alexei Mikhailovich. It was partially born of demonstrative Christian humility in his demeanor, good-natured, “quiet” personality, and the capacity to listen to others around him. His main interests were reading books and falconry. He personally produced the first guidebook for hunters in Russian history, “The Book of the Constable: a New Code and Organization of the Order of the Falconer’s Way.”

However, moments of royal “quietness” were regularly overtaken by outbursts of certain firmness and resolve, and occasionally even rage. But the key point is that under his reign an unusual phenomena emerged – a divide. The arrival of the Old Believers brought numerous hardships and anguish into the lives of Russian people.

ON THE REIGN

Alexei Mikhailovich was anointed king at the age of sixteen, after the death of his father Mikhail Fedorovich in July 1645.

Alexey, the son and successor of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov and Evdokia Lukyanovna Streshneva, was born in Moscow on March 19, 1629.

The de facto ruler under Alexei Mikhailovich was the boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, who had been the prince’s tutor for thirteen years. The teacher ordered the prince to wear German clothes as a youngster, just like his workers.

As soon as he became king, he signed an edict on assembling Census Books, that is, conducting a census. After the oprichnina terror of the past century, instability, civil war and intervention, the census was essential to carry out reliable economic calculations. The financial policy of the administration of Alexei Mikhailovich was centered on increasing taxes and restocking the treasury at their cost. The introduction of a hefty tariff on salt in 1645 led to widespread dissatisfaction.

The “salt riot” in Moscow replied with similar protests in several locations, right up to Siberia. In Moscow, the revolting masses sought the “extradition” of the chief covetous boyar, B.I. Morozov. However, Alexei Mikhailovich managed to save his “uncle”, transfer him to the Kirillov Monastery, promising – at the same time – the repeal of the tax loathed by the people. Alexey Mikhailovich met his word (the levy on salt was repealed). Meanwhile, boyar Nikita Odoevsky was placed at the head of the government. He authorized an increase in the salaries of the Streltsy army, the major military backing of the dictator. The Streltsy smothered the revolt in blood.

It was Nikita Odoevsky who subsequently handed over to the Tsar the petition presented by the nobility and the top levels of the township for the convening of the Zemsky Sobor to restore order in the court and administration. At the beginning of 1649, Alexei Mikhailovich signed the draft of the Council Code – the new foundations of Russian legislation. This text upheld the notion of a centralized state with the autocratic power of the king. Where elective roles were kept, they were subservient to the governors – the tsar’s local representatives. The cathedral law banned the “lesson years” for looking for escaped peasants. The situation of the lower classes of the townsfolk also altered significantly: all urban settlements were thus “turned into taxes,” that is, they had to shoulder the whole tax load.

In economic policy, the administration of Alexei Mikhailovich fostered industrial activity, patronized domestic commerce, shielding it from competition from foreign goods. These aims were supported by the Customs and New commerce Charters, which fostered the expansion of international commerce on the basis of protectionism and mercantilism. However, miscalculations in financial policy, such as the creation of copper money equivalent to silver, which depreciated the ruble, generated resentment among the public, which escalated into the “Copper Riot”. The insurrection was repressed by the archers, and copper money was outlawed.

Census booklets were prepared. The edict on the compilation of books read: “As peasants and peasants and their households are rewritten, according to those census books, peasants and peasants, and their children, and brothers, and nephews will be strong and without a lesson…”.

The new census indicated that after the oprichnina horror of the past century, civil war and intervention, in the cities of Russia by 1646, about 41 percent of the townspeople’s houses survived from the level of the mid-16th century.

The years of the reign of the “quiet tsar” went down in Russian history with numerous examples of vigorous governmental change. The Council Code was enacted – the new foundations of Russian legislation. Financial reform has been carried out, although unsuccessfully.

By command of the autocrat, new central orders were founded – Monastic, Little Russian, Reitar, Accounting, Lithuanian, Khlebny, Secret Affairs.

The Order of Secret Affairs oversaw the actions of all government institutions, and, in addition, diplomats and governors; The whole household of the royal family was subservient to him. It is notable that the Order was involved in organizing the hunt for minerals throughout the state. From 1654 until the end of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich’s son, Fyodor, the Zemsky Sobor was no longer assembled. But the order system of management reached its apex, and the process of its bureaucratization proceeded relentlessly.

At the Printing Yard in Moscow, by command of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the book “The Teaching and Cunning of the Military System,” a translation of the German dissertation, was printed. For the first time in history, 35 engravings of this edition were particularly made in Holland.

“The teaching and cunning of the military structure of infantry people” became, in reality, the first Russian Military Regulations and determined the first legislatively created system of military ranks. By the way, the Charter included recommendations on teaching soldiers to swim.

The first Russian fire service was founded. On April 17, 1649, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich signed: “Order on civil deanery.” The Order talks about the foundation of professional fire protection in Moscow. The “Order on City Decoration” became the first normative legislative act encompassing the basic characteristics of establishing a professional fire service. The Order regulates the staffing of the fire department, its equipment, continual duty, city patrols, and establishes penalties for infractions of the norms for managing fire. Moreover, all these laws applied not just to Moscow, but also to all Russian towns.

SPLIT

It all started with the uprisings in Pskov and Novgorod in 1650. They became a response to these changes in the tax system. The repression of the uprisings was headed by Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod. This is how he acquired the royal trust and became the “beloved friend” of the tyrant. In 1652, Nikon was appointed patriarch.

Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod (in the world Nikita Minin (Minov) became the sixth patriarch. The sixth patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, Joseph, died in April.

According to legend, Nikon agreed to the patriarchal throne, on the condition that the tsar, the boyars, the consecrated cathedral and all the Orthodox would make a solemn vow before God that they would preserve the “evangelical dogmas of Christ and the rules of the holy apostles and the holy father, and the laws of the pious kings “and they will obey him, Nikon, in everything, “like a ruler and a shepherd and a most noble father.” The spiritual authorities and boyars swore to this.

The Tsar entrusted the seventh Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, Nikon, with carrying out church reform, the need for which had been talked about for a long time, but they could not get around to implementing it. Nikon’s participation promised success for the enterprise. He was an energetic, strong-willed man and, moreover, enjoyed Alexei’s complete trust.

During his enthronement, Nikon forced the tsar to promise not to interfere in the affairs of the Church. The king and the people swore to “listen to him in everything, as a ruler and a shepherd and a most noble father.” Nikon was officially called the Great Sovereign, and the Tsar sought his advice not only in church but also in state affairs. The full title given to himself by Nikon: “By the grace of God, great lord and sovereign, archbishop of the reigning city of Moscow and all great and small and white Russia and all northern countries and Pomoria and many states, patriarch.”

But the reform introduced into Russian life a heretofore new phenomena – a divide, about which you can read in greater detail at the “Russia – My History” displays.

On an unlucky date, according to popular belief, May 13, the Great Church Council of 1667 condemned all those who did not submit to the new rituals and newly revised printed books. Those convicted who did not recognize the decisions of the council found themselves outside the church. This was in fact the last act that recorded the brewing split between adherents of the old faith – the Old Believers – and supporters of the church reform carried out by Patriarch Nikon.

The Council condemned the Old Believers to curse and anathema, based on incorrect views on the old Russian church rites. Thus, Old Believers have already become an ineradicable phenomenon of Russian life. It is believed that after this Holy Rus’ no longer existed. She went on the run, into the forests, into the fires, into the distant provinces of Russia.
When Nikon began to exert direct influence on state affairs and imagined himself superior to the tsar, guided by the thesis “the priesthood is higher than the kingdom,” Alexei Mikhailovich openly contributed to his condemnation at a church council. Nikon was deprived of the archbishop’s rank and imprisoned in the Belozersky Ferapontov Monastery. But the Church was already split.

FOREIGN POLICY

As a statesman, Alexey Mikhailovich did not limit the interests of only the territories of the state, but was also interested in foreign policy. At this time, the Cossack centurion Bogdan Khmelnitsky, who raised Little Russia against the Poles, turned to the “Eastern Tsar” for help. At the Zemsky Sobor of 1653, the Cossacks of Khmelnitsky were accepted into citizenship, and at the same time war was declared on Poland. In May 1654, Russian troops set out on a campaign and occupied Smolensk. In the spring of 1655, by order of the tsar, the war was continued and the cities of Vilna, Kovno and Grodno were occupied.

At the same time, fearing the strengthening of Sweden, in July 1656 Russia declared war on it and the tsar ordered the army to move to Livonia. After a series of successful campaigns and the capture of Dinaurg, Kokenhusen, Dorpat, the Russian troops nevertheless had to retreat and conclude an unfavorable peace with the Swedes in Kardiss that same year. The reason for agreeing to unfavorable conditions with the Swedes was the “turmoil” in Little Russia, which began after the death of Khmelnitsky and caused a new war with Poland. Alexey Mikhailovich personally participated in many of the military campaigns, led diplomatic negotiations, and supervised the activities of Russian ambassadors.

A noteworthy triumph of Russian diplomacy under the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich was the reunification of Little Russia with Russia. On January 8, 1654, the Pereyaslav Rada accepted the accession of a number of Little Russian regions to Russia.
Under Alexei Mikhailovich, the process of rapprochement between Russian and Western European cultures began. Having visited the Baltic states during the war, he became acquainted with a different way of life, level of culture, with new morals and customs. The Ambassadorial Order was entrusted with the translation of foreign literature, treatises, historical chronicles, and scientific works.

IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE

According to the testimony of some foreigners, the life of the Russian Tsar was a model of moderation and simplicity; Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was always served with the simplest dishes, rye bread, a little wine, oatmeal or light beer, and sometimes only cinnamon water. But this table had no comparison with those that the sovereign kept during fasts.

In “Russia-My History” you can read that, according to some history researchers, Alexei Mikhailovich’s favorite pastime, reading, formed a very deep and conscious religiosity in the tsar. He was completely imbued with religious feeling. He prayed a lot, kept his fasts strictly, and knew all the church rules very well. His main spiritual interest was the salvation of the soul. From this point of view he judged others. When reprimanding anyone guilty, the king certainly pointed out that by his action he was ruining his soul and serving Satan. According to the general idea at that time, the king saw the means to save the soul in strict adherence to rituals and therefore observed all rituals very strictly.

The king’s personal life was going well. The marriage of 19-year-old Alexei Mikhailovich and 23-year-old Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya took place on January 16, 1648.
The Miloslavskys were an old service family, known since the end of the 15th century, but they did not stand out for their wealth and position in society. It is believed that Alexei Mikhailovich accidentally saw Maria Ilyinichna in the church, after which he ordered her to be taken to Verkh, where “he looked at the girl and fell in love and named her princess and, in obedience, betrayed her to his sisters until the hour of marriage arrived.” According to other sources, this acquaintance, like the marriage itself, was arranged by the boyar Morozov, who had in mind to become related to the tsar by marrying his younger sister Maria. The wedding was celebrated in an unusual way: at the insistence of the royal confessor, “blasphemy, demonic games, cold sniffling songs and trumpet singing” were not allowed, but instead spiritual songs were “arranged”.

With Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, he produced 13 children, including the future Tsars Fyodor and Ivan, as well as the princess-ruler Sophia.

After the death of M.I. Miloslavskaya in 1669, Alexey Mikhailovich married in 1671 Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, a relative of A.S. Matveev.

Attention to his young wife, who delivered him three children and, in particular, the future Emperor Peter I, drove Alexei Mikhailovich to establish a theater in the palace.

Alexei Mikhailovich died on January 30, 1676. The main result of his more than 30-year reign was the transformation of an estate-representative monarchy into an absolute one. The autocrat himself was in charge of state affairs and controlled the activities of state institutions through the Order of Secret Affairs. Being an educated man, Alexei Mikhailovich was the first of the Russian tsars to sign decrees with his own hand. The autocrat inherited a powerful state recognized abroad to his sons.

More information about this time period may be found at the historical park “Russia-My History”.

Biography of Mikhail Bakunin

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Biography of Mikhail Bakunin

Overview of Anarchism in Russian History

As the writers of the dictionary-reference book of the same name underline in the preface, “occupies a special place,” “interest in the history, philosophy and practice of Russian anarchism exists in the instant when this social phenomenon came into being. As a result of the fact that the desire for freedom, for emancipation, and criticism of the state and its power institutions that oppress the individual and society as a whole are fundamentally of a natural origin, it is practically impossible to “overcome” them using any kind of force or ideological methods. The anarchist doctrine, which was developed by the middle of the 19th century and continued to be spread throughout the entirety of the 20th century, did not lose its supporters at the beginning of the 21st century. The realities of the beginning of the 21st century include an interest in studying the history and theory of anarchism, as well as attempts to implement the social and philosophical principles of anarchism in the practice of intellectual pursuits and political activism.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin’s birth

The year 2014 saw the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin’s birth. Bakunin is widely regarded as the most influential revolutionary and thinker in Russian history. He is also known as the “apostle of anarchism.” Bakunin, along with Proudhon and Stirner, is considered to be the originator of anarchist doctrine. His social and revolutionary actions directly or indirectly had a considerable influence on developments in the socio-economic and political situation in the world in the second half of the 19th century.

To M. Mr. Bakunin, A. Personal photograph. 1838M.A. A. Bakunin. Postcard (Petrograd, Edition by N.Yu. Reznikov) The fifty-year anniversary of Bakunin’s death, which was enthusiastically honored in our nation in 1926, was generally considered to be his last celebration. When the 150th anniversary of Bakunin was commemorated all over the globe in 1964, and the “thaw” era had not yet ended, the Izvestia newspaper and the Voprosy istorii magazine strove to objectively depict his life and achievements. But the very following day – the centennial of his death in 1976, noted by many books, essays and scientific conferences abroad, remained unreported in our nation. The 200th anniversary of the revolutionary also did not garner much attention from researchers .

And yet, Alexander Blok was right when in 1906, in his anniversary piece dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Bakunin’s death, he wrote: “Officials spit and writhe, and we read Bakunin and listen to the whistle of fire. The moniker “Bakunin” is a fire that is not going out, possibly not yet scattered. Passionate disagreements around this fire – may they be just as fierce and lofty, so that petty dissension burns out!

Mother M.A. Bakunina Varvara Aleksandrovna, née Muravyova. From a watercolor by an anonymous artist. 1820sFather M.A. Bakunin Alexander Mikhailovich Bakunin (1765/68 – 1854). From a watercolor by an anonymous artist. 1820sMikhail Alexandrovich was born into an ancient noble family on May 8 (20), 1814 in Pryamukhin, Tver region. His mother, Varvara Alexandrovna, belonged to the Muravyov family, extensively recognized in Russia.

Father, Alexander Mikhailovich, the provincial leader of the nobility of the Tver province, was a representative of an old noble family that held substantial estates in Novotorzhsky region. He, a diplomat, professor of philosophy at the University of Padua, was a European-educated, free-thinking person, conversant with many notable representatives of European science and philosophy. After retiring, Alexander Mikhailovich committed himself to raising children. The eldest of them, Mikhail, was allotted a military career according to nobility conventions. In 1829 M.A. Bakunin joined the St. Petersburg Artillery School, following which, in 1833, he went for a distant military station in Lithuania. But already in 1835 he quit, lived in Moscow and became a free student at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University.

Nikolai Vladimirovich Stankevich (1813 – 1840) – public figure, philosopher, poetVissarion Grigorievich Belinsky (1811 – 1848) – literary critic, journalist.Under the influence of a close friend of the Bakunin family, public figure and philosopher N.V. Stankevich, he is a member of the literary and philosophical group – the Stankevich circle.

The members of the group were connected by an interest in German philosophy, notably the writings of F. Schelling and G. Hegel, literature and history, hostility to serfdom, advocacy of humanistic ideas and Stankevich’s personal attractiveness. Bakunin’s closest pals in the group were with V.G. Belinsky, with whom he studied the philosophy of Hegel. Belinsky between 1836 – 1838 at one point he stayed with Bakunin in Moscow and twice spent the summer at the Novotorzhsky estate of the Bakunins. Belinsky named Bakunin his “philosophical friend,” noting his “wild power, restless, anxious and deep movement of the spirit, incessant striving into the distance, without satisfaction with the present,” “the ever-moving beginning of his spirit.”

In mid-1840, Bakunin moved overseas and resided in Berlin, the then seat of “German wisdom,” where at the University of Berlin he eagerly studied political economy, history, physics, but, above all, philosophy, listened to Werder’s lectures, and met Schelling.

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804 – 1872) – German materialist philosopher.Arnold Ruge (1802 – 1880) – German philosopher and publicist After encountering the Left Hegelians, especially its leader A. Ruge, Bakunin shifted to radical, revolutionary democratic beliefs. The radicalization of the worldview during this stage of Bakunin’s life was represented in the famous aphorism: “The passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion!” With which he ended his article “Reaction in Germany,” published in 1842 under the pseudonym Jules Elizard in the magazine A. Ruge “German Yearbooks”. This article brought M.A. Bakunin is widely recognized. A.I. greatly loved the innovative pathos of this piece. Herzen, calling it “an open, solemn cry of the democratic party.”

Transition to Anarchism and Conflict with Marx and Engels

Karl MarxF. EngelsDuring the same era, Bakunin got familiar with the philosophy of L. Feuerbach and became captivated with the concepts of his anthropological materialism. Bakunin’s connection with German radicals and socialist circles caused the Saxon authorities to exile him from Dresden outside Germany in 1843. In 1844 M.A. Bakunin settled in Paris, where he became close friends with Proudhon, Marx, Engels, Mickiewicz, Blanc, Beranger, George Sand, grew close to leaders of radical periodicals, became acquainted with the lives of workshop workers, and engaged in the work of the Polish emigration committee.

The tsarist authorities and the Third Section observed the ever-increasing radicalism of Bakunin’s beliefs. In December 1843, the commander of gendarmes ordered him to return to Russia, but Bakunin disobeyed this order, resolving to remain a political emigrant forever. Nicholas I signed an order stripping Bakunin of his rights, sentencing him if he returned to exile in Siberia. When this edict was published in Parisian newspapers in January 1845, the Russian emigrant issued an open letter in the publication Reforma, in which he offered a strong rebuke to tsarism.

Life proved that it was not science, not philosophy, but action, political battle that constituted the basis of his activities. Starting from the second half of the forties, M.A. Bakunin was continually at the center of the revolutionary fight till the end of his life.

Involvement in Pan-Slavic Movement and European Revolutions

He participated in the Pan-Slavist movement and in the revolutionary events of 1848–1849. in Paris, Prague, Dresden. On November 29, 1847, on the anniversary of the Polish revolt of 1830, Bakunin delivered a speech in which he called for Poles and Russian patriots to work together in the interests of the liberation of Poland and the construction of a pan-Slavic federation. His aggressive activities resulted his banishment from Paris by order of Prime Minister F. Guizot, who understood that such a “unbridled” personality was untenable even in France. Before the revolution of 1848, Bakunin returned to Paris, where he settled in the barracks of the workers defending the revolutionary prefect of police. His inflammatory remarks, chaotic actions and intervention in the internal affairs of France, caused the French revolutionary government to transfer his nation under the guise of a political mission to the Slavic territories.

Imprisonment and Writing “Confession”

Prague Uprising of 1848Dresden uprising of 1849Bakunin, with his characteristic ardor and ardor, took part in the Czech revolutionary movement of 1848, and then in the Dresden uprising in the spring of 1849, after the suppression of which, he was arrested and sentenced by the Saxon authorities to death, commuted to life imprisonment. When the inquiry into the Prague revolt began in Austria, he was extradited to the Austrian authorities in 1850, who, in turn, also condemned him to death. The punishment was not carried out and Bakunin, as a Russian national, was handed over to the Russian authorities. He was imprisoned initially in one of the casemates of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress (1851 – 1854), then in the Shlisselburg Fortress (1854 – 1857).

Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Photo from the middle of the 19th century.Shlisselburg Fortress. Artist P. P. Svinin. 1820sOn March 12, 1854, Bakunin was taken to the Shlisselburg fortress with an order to the commandant: “Since Bakunin is one of the most important prisoners, then observe all possible caution in relation to him, have the most vigilant and strict supervision over him, keep him completely separate, do not allow him to no strangers to him and to remove news from him about everything that happens outside his premises so that his very presence in the castle is kept in the greatest secret.”

Bakunin had a hard difficulty sustaining solitary confinement. He was afflicted with scurvy, as a result of which he lost all his teeth. Subsequently, he informed Herzen about this time: “A terrible thing is life imprisonment. To drag out a life without a goal, without hope, without interest! With a horrible toothache that persisted for weeks… not sleeping for days or nights – no matter what I did, no matter what I read, even during sleep I felt… I am a slave, I am a dead man, I am a corpse…”

Bakunin’s lonely cell in the Shlisselburg stronghold.In the Shlisselburg fortress M.A. Bakunin published his “Confession”, in which he denounced his “sins”, “crimes” and praised God that his terrible “undertakings” remained unfulfilled. In “Confession,” Bakunin fairly frankly, comprehensively and accurately detailed his emigrant activities, defined the roots of his worldview, opinions on the situation of events in Russia and the Slavic nations. It expressed the dilemma of Bakunin’s left-Hegelian thinking. In “Confession” he repeatedly and plainly deviates from his prior thoughts and reveals loyal sentiments in the spirit of enlightened absolutism. But his desire to replace incarceration in the fortress with hard work continued without repercussions, and until the next Tsar, Alexander II, after another letter of apology from Bakunin, ordered him to settle in Siberia.

M.A. Bakunin and his wife Antonia. Irkutsk, June 3, 1861Since 1857, Bakunin stayed in Tomsk, and subsequently relocated to Irkutsk. Here in 1858 he married the daughter of an exiled Pole, Antonia Kwiatkowska.

Involvement in Revolutionary Propaganda

A.I. Herzen and N.P. Ogarev in London. 1860Having acquired permission to go for scientific purposes along the Amur, Bakunin flees to Europe. On January 1, 1862, he was already in London with Herzen and Ogarev, who knew him from Moscow, and was actively involved in revolutionary propaganda, published in Kolokol. In 1863 he took part in helping the Polish insurrection. Bakunin planned of organizing a Polish legion that would support the Polish insurgents, and for this purpose he went to Sweden. An attempt to arrange a naval expedition to support the rebels failed. After the defeat of the Polish revolt, Bakunin ultimately shifted to the viewpoint of anarchism. Rejecting any kind of governmental power, he felt that society should be structured “from the bottom up”, in the shape of a federation of self-governing communities, artels, organizations, regions, peoples. He envisioned the future society as the victory of freedom, in which the most complete development of all human faculties is conceivable.

When in 1864 in London Marx and Engels founded the International Workers’ Association – the First International, Bakunin met with Marx, joined the International and volunteered his services to promote his documents in Italy, where he lived at the time. There he met the Italian Freemasons and Garibaldi and founded a secret “International Brotherhood”, for which he prepared the “Revolutionary Catechism”. Having identified in the Freemasons an inherently bourgeois structure and having been convinced of the futility of his attempts to exploit the “brotherhood” for revolutionary goals, Bakunin withdrew to Switzerland. In 1867, he joined the pacifist group “League of Peace and Freedom” and made a speech at its 1st congress, aiming to transform it into an anarchist society. In 1868, he broke with the League, joined the Geneva section of the First International, and at the same time organized the “Alliance of Socialist Democracy,” not much different from the anarchist “International Brotherhood.” Bakunin makes enormous efforts to ensure that the Alliance is accepted into the First International, and he succeeds on the condition that the Alliance as a union is dissolved. But he maintains a secret organization within the International and wages a fierce struggle with Mars and Engels on the most important political and theoretical issues, putting forward as the main provisions the equality of classes, the abolition of inheritance as the starting point of social progress, and abstinence from participation in the political movement.

S.G. Nechaev. Around 1870In 1869, Bakunin met S.G. Nechaev and comes under the sway of this adventurer from the revolution. Bakunin sought, through Nechaev, to promote the principles of the “Alliance” in Russia, where he portrayed his envoy as a representative of the non-existent “European Revolutionary Union”. But he immediately differed with Nechaev on the subject of the means of revolutionary warfare defined in the “Catechism of a Revolutionary” , as he deemed hoaxes, blackmail, provocations, and betrayal of comrades undesirable.

Formation of Anarchist International and Legacy

The schismatic actions of the Alliance drew harsh condemnation from members of the First International, and in 1872, during the Hague Congress of the International Workers’ Association, Bakunin was ejected from its ranks. Expulsion from the ranks of the International did not chill Bakunin’s anarchist claims to the theoretical justification of the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary fight. He forms an Anarchist International named the International Workers’ Association. The growth of the anarchist movement in Europe and America produces a furious conflict between K. Marx and F. Engels with the doctrine and practice of Bakunism.

Grave of M.A. Bakunin in Bern.In 1874, Bakunin proceeded to Bologna, where a peasant insurrection was planned, but the effort failed and he was forced to flee. For the previous two years, Bakunin has been living in Lugano, his financial position was very miserable. He survived mostly on different contributions, in addition, he was aided by A.I. Herzen, I.S. Turgenev, A. Vogt and A. Reichel, the brothers sent something.

On July 1, 1876, Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin died in Bern at a hospital for the destitute. He was buried at the Berne cemetery, over the tomb there is a plain, coarsely processed granite stele, on which are etched two words – MICHEL BAKUNINE and the dates – 1814 – 1876.

Biography of Catherine the Great

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Biography of Catherine the Great

German princess

Sophia Augusta Frederica, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, future Russian Empress Catherine II, was born in 1729. Anhalt-Zerbst, like most other German principalities, itself signified nothing on the political map of the globe – and was virtually wholly dependent on its mighty neighbor – Prussia. But such little kingdoms were at that time a true incubator of brides for the courts of Europe. On the one hand, the rank of their rulers permitted their daughters to be deemed appropriate spouses for European monarchs. On the other hand, such alliances imposed few obligations: the importance of these principalities was too insignificant, so it was possible to look for husbands and wives for numerous princes and princesses there without getting involved, or almost without getting drawn into complex political coalitions.
Sofia, presumably from the very beginning, was an extraordinarily ambitious and strong-willed girl. In addition, she was highly educated, read a lot and was interested in philosophical literature, which was extremely rare for a rural German princess. At the same time, she grew up in a very impoverished family by royal standards, and marriage to the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich, was a fantastic chance for her. Of all, for a European Lutheran young girl, joining the vast political arena of a gigantic, untamed, unintelligible nation should have been a bold gesture. But, evidently, she had no doubt – on the contrary, this was what she was trying for. It should be taken in mind that she moved to Russia at just 14 years old, and got married at 16.

At Elizabeth’s court

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna liked luxury, grandeur, balls with dressing up of a vast number of guests, and so on. So, finding oneself at her court, Sofia Augusta Frederica – now Ekaterina Alekseevna – found herself in settings that were as distant as conceivable from the atmosphere in which she was grown up. The poor Lutheran Zerbst on the fringes of Europe was the polar antithesis of the large, beautiful courtyard of her husband’s aunt, the All-Russian monarch. In her notes, Catherine subsequently stated – and this, most likely, can be accepted – that, as soon as she arrived in St. Petersburg, she made it a rule to first of all satisfy her husband, then the empress, and then the people. Apparently, in respect to Elizabeth, she initially succeeded.

Very little is known about the degree of connection between Catherine and Peter at the beginning of their marriage. The only source is the notes of Catherine herself, in which she asserts that there was no marriage tie between them. Allegedly, when Elizabeth questioned her why there was no heir, she answered that there was no reason why there could be one. It also contains evidence that Pavel Petrovich, who was born barely 10 years after the wedding, was in reality the son of Catherine’s lover Count Saltykov, who, so that he would not blab it out, was banished to Sweden and later to Hamburg. However, these notes are clearly prejudiced and written retrospectively, after the palace revolution staged by Catherine and the death of Peter III. Of course, it was vital for her to defend herself and clear herself of allegations of murder, so one should not trust her memoirs too much. Opponents of this interpretation additionally point to Paul’s significant visual likeness to Peter III and to the fact that Paul himself firmly thought the latter to be his father and lifted his memory to cult. Neither advocates of Saltykov’s paternity nor opponents have more significant grounds, hence the reality remains uncertain.

 

Whatever the emotional relationship between Peter and Catherine, throughout the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna they constituted a single political power, which for a long time was viewed as resistance to the governing empress. This was notably visible during the Seven Years’ War . In 1756, Elizabeth quickly shifted her pro-English attitude to a pro-French one and declared war on England’s ally, Prussia. At the same time, the Court of the Grand Dukes, Peter and Catherine, or the Small Court, took a decidedly pro-Prussian posture. Peter, who also spent his youth in the German territories as Karl Peter Ulrich, the son of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, loved the Prussian king Frederick II and the military order he constructed; for him, Prussia was a paradigm of an ideal, well administered state. Catherine had good cordial connections with the English ambassador. She also gained assistance from Count Alexei Bestuzhev, who was then Chancellor of the Russian Empire, and when Elizabeth fell critically ill, she wrote to the army commander-in-chief Apraksin at the front with instructions not to launch active offensive activities against Prussia. Such an act was, in reality, nothing more than high treason.

As soon as the empress recovered, an amazing scandal developed. Bestuzhev and Apraksin were detained; Catherine Elizabeth was planning to send her back to Zerbst. But a lengthy discussion took place, as a consequence of which she somehow managed to excuse herself. This was totally astonishing, considering the severity of the charges (it is now also known – most likely, Elizabeth did not know this – that Catherine also got money from the English embassy). How their conversation went place is unknown, but it is pretty evident that Catherine’s incredible talent to captivate people was displayed here. There was not a single person who left memoirs about her who did not write about how charming she was, how she understood how to win her over (a mirror of this Catherine’s mythology may be found in the presence in “The Captain’s Daughter” of a lady whose eyes and smile had “charm” unexplainable”). During the pivotal talk with Elizabeth, Catherine obviously exploited this talent to its maximum.

Married to the Emperor

It is uncertain when a fundamental dispute arose between the Grand Duke and his wife, but at the beginning of his reign it was already a condition of profound and irreparable hostility. Catherine was practically isolated from decision-making and from the emperor himself. There were new individuals about Peter, he maintained a mistress – in itself this was not such a major event (Catherine had previously also had connections with the same Saltykov, and with the future ruler of Poland Poniatowski), but Peter did it entirely openly and even angrily.

Peter III lasted on the throne for barely six months, yet during this time he managed to launch several changes, which, reportedly , he thought of while still being the heir. It is interesting that most of his main transformations – the granting of freedom to the nobility, the secularization of monastic lands, which eliminated the economic independence of the Russian Church, and others – Catherine confirmed or continued in the future, that is, they probably planned them together, even before the final disagreement. Even the terrible peace with the practically defeated Prussia – reached on Prussian conditions and erasing the triumphs of the Russian army of the preceding several years – dictated only by the personal sympathies of the Russian emperor for the Prussian king, was subsequently achieved by Catherine. Although, when she first came to power, it was precisely this world that Peter was blamed for – Lomonosov, in an ode in honor of Catherine’s ascension to the throne, wrote: “Has any of those born into the world ever heard / So that a triumphant people / Surrendered into the hands of the vanquished? / Oh shame, oh weird turn of words!”

The difference was this: unlike Catherine, her husband cared nothing about how his subjects regarded him. In particular, being initially a Lutheran – although as the heir to the Russian throne he was necessarily baptized – Peter continually exhibited scorn for the Orthodox Church, lack of interest in the endlessly long service, and acted provocatively. And his wife, on the contrary, in every conceivable manner highlighted her religiosity, Orthodoxy and Russianness in general – and she liked to do this both before coming to power and after, till her death. She particularly did not speak German , spoke and wrote flawlessly in Russian , demonstratively enjoyed traditional games (round dances, burners and all that), and invested money in collecting monuments of Russian history and folklore. In addition, Catherine recalled the importance of the guards in palace coups and created a unique bond with them: she surrounded herself with officers, donned the uniform of a guards regiment, and so on. Her tumultuous affair with the guards commander Grigory Orlov was also of enormous consequence.
In June 1762, after six months of his failed rule, Peter III was taken from the throne – with the brilliant wording “by the will of all classes, and especially the guards.” A week after his abdication, he died suddenly—almost definitely assassinated. A message has been preserved from Alexei Orlov, the brother of Catherine’s favorite Gregory, in which he asks the Empress for pardon, apologizes and claims that he does not know how this occurred. There are several points of view on these events: was it an order or an accident; Recently, an opinion has evolved that the note is phony. One way or another, it is impossible to deny that the persons who were formally meant to defend Peter III understood that the empress would not be against such an event.

 

Reorganize everything

Like other Russian rulers who find themselves in power, Catherine had ambitions for a thorough reconstruction of the country. She felt herself the heir of Peter I, and viewed the rest of her predecessors sarcastically. She had ambitions for a grandiose enlightened golden era, and she disseminated this notion to the West, corresponding with prominent thinkers and publicists – Voltaire, Grimm and Zimmermann.

Having an extraordinarily high opinion of herself and her ability, Catherine was going to bring the task of Peter the Great to the finish. According to the court poet Alexander Sumarokov, “Peter gave us existence, Catherine – the soul”: Peter created the Russian elite – the nobles, dressed them, shaved them, accustomed them to European manners and etiquette; Catherine decided to raise a new breed of people from them – endowed with a soul, capable of feeling correctly. To achieve this, she took up theater , journals and, of course, education: she constructed a new cadet school, overhauled the university, and launched the Smolny Institute. Smolny became her favorite brainchild : a closed educational institution in which girls spent many years, without going home and only occasionally seeing their parents, was supposed to completely re-educate them in the spirit of the new era – so that they would then raise their own children in the same way.

The core of the changes was to be the assembling of the Legislative Commission in 1767 from members of all classes. This group was designed to establish new full law (before this, the empire technically existed pursuant to the Council Code of 1649). However, very immediately Catherine knew that nothing would come of it: the deputies were mostly involved in praising her, all debates did not lead to any outcomes. After the commencement of war with Turkey, the panel was dissolved under the excuse that among the participants there were many commanders who should have gone to the front. To what degree this was actually a military need, and to what extent Catherine’s great unhappiness in the performance of the deputies was merely reflected, is impossible to determine. However, in any event, the cause for the disintegration was not fights with some type of anti-serfdom opposition, which Soviet historians wrote about.

Catherine herself thought at least about limiting serfdom. There was a notion to proclaim all infants free, and several more suggestions. As Vasily Klyuchevsky stated, until Peter III released the Manifesto on the freedom of the nobility, which eliminated obligatory service, forbade physical punishment for the higher classes, and so on, everyone in Russia was slaves. On February 18, 1762, this manifesto was issued, and – again according to Klyuchevsky – on February 19, logically, a decree on the end of serfdom should have followed. He followed on February 19, only 99 years later, in 1861 . All this time, all Russian kings, with the exception of Paul, believed serfdom to be bad, but never began to free the peasants. It was terrifying to rip apart the cornerstone of the state system. In addition, no one understood what to do with the large mass of peasants, even from a bureaucratic point of view: the census, taxes, courts, recruiting – the landowners were responsible for all this, there were too few officials, the state infrastructure was weak. Catherine, evidently, had neither political, nor administrative, nor financial resources for her transformation. At the same time, during the work of the Legislative Commission, she requested the Free Economic Society the duty of finding out what is better – when peasants are hired to work the land or when they are serfs – and all three first awards were earned by advocates of the free peasantry. That is, the empress’s status is without debate.

Pugachev’s insurrection and the development of bureaucracy

When one of the defenders of serfdom, the court poet and official Alexander Sumarokov, wrote to Catherine about love and peace between the landowning nobles and their peasants, she made a note in the margin about how often gentlemen were “slaughtered from their own.” In reality, the country was in the midst of a low-intensity civil war: every year, peasants killed dozens of landowners. And this war concluded in the Pugachev rebellion. Despite the fact that the Pugachev rebellion was a Cossack revolt, not a peasant one (and one of the reasons for its terrible defeat was the lack of mutual understanding between the Cossack elite who led this rebellion and the peasant masses), the rebels simply did not perceive the nobles as people, as their own. If you read the list of people slain during the Pugachev era, your hair will stand on end. Entire families with tiny children were slain; the objective was to wipe away the nobility.

Sooner or later, this insurrection was bound to loss, yet for three solid years the empire could not cope with it. The Pugachevism revealed Catherine the terrible situation of the Russian bureaucracy: there was no order, no control, no information. The public administration system did not operate. This led her to think up a new, more realistic, methodical and ambitious reform agenda. It became evident that the entire rearrangement of everything in the globe, intended in the 1760s , was unattainable. The reform of the bureaucracy came first.

Catherine began to reconstruct the bureaucratic structure with the reform of state self-government: the formation of governorships, provinces, districts, the description of the roles of governors general, city officials, and so on – with the development of a harmonic and consistent system. Before this, in some areas there were provinces, and in others there were provinces, the boundaries were not defined, the area of ​​responsibility of the governors was not set out. The system formed by Catherine lasted until 1917, and in some way remains to this day.

Another reform of the second part of Catherine’s reign was the Charter issued to the nobility, on noble rights and privileges. First of all, she reaffirmed the clauses of the Manifesto on the independence of the nobility of Peter III and declared that the land belongs to the aristocracy forever (plans for the reform of serfdom, presumably, were already totally buried by Catherine). However, in addition to this, the charter governed the system of class self-government: noble assemblies were created – representation at the local level, the powers of noble courts were specified, and so on. Another Charter – to cities – presented the organization of city self-government and listed the rights of inhabitants. A letter to state peasants was also prepared.

The Greek project and the Slavic world

Throughout much of Catherine’s rule, the southern orientation (relatively speaking, Turkish) was essential for her. Personal rivalry with Peter I had a certain role in this. It was continuously emphasized: if in such an inconvenient region as St. Petersburg, Peter accomplished such exceptional accomplishment, how much may be done in the rich, fertile southern plains. At first, Catherine had no ambitions for aggressive development, but in 1768, the Ottoman Empire unleashed the first Russian-Turkish War when the Zaporozhye Cossacks raided many Turkish cities – Catherine apologized, but this did not help.

During this battle, which progressed rather effectively for Russia, what was eventually termed the Greek idea took shape . It was planned to acquire authority over a substantial part of the Christian areas of the Ottoman Empire, form a network of vassal republics between it and Russia, and even reestablish the Byzantine Empire with its center in Constantinople. Violent agitation was carried out in Greece in order to precipitate an insurrection and declare independence under the sponsorship of Russia. The Morea expedition of Alexei Orlov was organized (the Morea in the Middle Ages was the name of the Greek Peloponnese peninsula). In 1770, he sailed from St. Petersburg, reached the Mediterranean Sea through the Atlantic Ocean, destroyed the Turkish navy in the Battle of Chesme, and even conquered numerous islands in the Aegean Sea to the Russian Empire.

During the first Russian-Turkish War, the Greek idea could not be fulfilled – but Catherine planned its completion in the future, even if not during her lifetime. Her second grandson was called Constantine and they hired him a Greek nurse who was intended to teach him Greek: it was envisaged that he would become the emperor of the future restored Byzantine Empire. Part of the scheme was also the conquering of the Ottoman Crimea and its annexation to Russia . Under the conditions of peace, a technically autonomous state was founded there, but in 1783 Grigory Potemkin, the spirit and core of the Greek project, who had already ceased to be Catherine’s favorite, but kept his power, conquered the peninsula peacefully and without any fighting. This became the reason for the second Russian-Turkish War, although Crimea stayed with Russia.

The failure of the Greek project and the annexation of the regions of Catholic Poland to Russia contributed to the fact that, in addition to the notion of ​​a union of Orthodox states, the idea of ​​a unified Slavic globe developed. Catherine herself had a much colder attitude towards this notion; its major mover was the Polonophilia of the same Prince Potemkin, who felt that the Russian-Polish union would form the basis of the Slavic world, with Russia as the older brother and Poland as the younger.

It is notable that Catherine became perhaps the most aggressive expansionist in Russian imperial history: the capture of Poland, Crimea, and the absorption of enormous areas in the south. Even at the outset of her reign, she considered that Russia already had so many lands and did not need anything more, but the logic of foreign policy dragged her into a radical expansionist scheme, which her son and grandchildren would be doubtful about.

Favoritism

In the 18th century, the presence of favorites among the reigning person was regarded totally natural. Peter I, Paul had favorites, and subsequently they talked about Speransky and Arakcheev as favorites of Alexander I. Of course, no close link was intended. In an absolutist monarchy, this was a regular weapon of personnel management, allowing the king to abruptly elevate a person whom he believed capable and trusted. For male monarchs, the words “favorite” and “favorite” signified radically different things. In the case of empresses, of whom there were many in Russia in the 18th century, both conceptions were often blended in one individual. However, for example, Potemkin remained Catherine’s favorite in a political sense until his death, although there was no romantic interaction between them for the last 15 years. Others, such as Vasilchikov, Zorich, Dmitriev-Mamonov, on the contrary, did not play any role in administering the state.

Rumors of Catherine’s wild promiscuity are undoubtedly overblown, and yet she had at least a dozen official favorites. Of course, she replaced them repeatedly, and in the later years of her reign, when they were all much younger than her, it looked pretty repulsive. In addition, her final boyfriend, Platon Zubov, became an influential political figure, without being distinguished by any great state qualities – unlike Potemkin and Orlov, who were favorites at the beginning of her reign – and this created reasonable dissatisfaction among the courtiers.

Few of Catherine’s favorites had an active political role. And definitely none of them were her co-ruler – not even Potemkin, with whom they may have secretly wedded. If you carefully study their correspondence , the nature of the chain of command leaves no dispute. Catherine controlled the kingdom alone and strongly claimed that the only proper form of administration in Russia was autocracy. Orlov, Potemkin, Zubov fulfilled exactly the political function that she herself allocated to them.

Relationship with the heir

Pavel was born in 1754, 10 years after the wedding of Catherine and Peter. His connection with Catherine was dramatic, particularly since after delivering birth she essentially did not see him. Empress Elizabeth snatched Paul from his mother and did not let her to raise him. When he was 7 years old, Elizabeth died and full duty for raising the heir shifted to Catherine herself: she made programs, recruited instructors for him and trained them. But trust and closeness were no longer formed between them.

As Pavel got older, Catherine became increasingly wary of him. In addition, mother and son have been competitors for a long time. Her personal claims to the throne were not obvious: who was she, a regent or an empress? Moreover, Paul and his entourage had before their eyes the example of Austria, where Empress Mother Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II reigned jointly. It is probable that they may have anticipated Catherine to do something similar, but she herself had no such notions. Pavel himself knew well his father’s destiny, thus he had a neurotic fear for his life. Later, new causes for anxiety were added: as Catherine maintained the Elizabethan tradition and took Paul’s children into her care, people began to allege at court that she meant to disinherit her son and leave the crown to her grandson, Alexander. It is uncertain whether this was even partly accurate, but such reports increased friction.

Having become emperor after the death of Catherine, Paul immediately gravely reburied Peter III, and compelled his alleged assassin, the old Alexei Orlov, to accompany the corpse with his head exposed. He ordered the body of the detested Potemkin to be pulled out of the grave and tossed out of the coffin – he was reburied someplace in an unknown spot in Kherson. After the final palace coup in the history of Russia and the assassination of Paul, his son Alexander I inherited the throne – and pledged that under him everything would be “like under grandmother.”

Biography of Alexander Borodin

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Biography of Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin became famous as the creator of the historical opera “Prince Igor”, which debuted at the Mariinsky Theaterin 1890. He also created symphonies, romances, quartets and concerts. At the same time, Borodin was not a professional composer: he believed chemistry to be the principal task of his life. Alexander Borodin traveled to international conferences with Mendeleev, conducted his own laboratory and even found a chemical reaction that was eventually named after him.

Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg . His father, Luka Gedianov, hailed from a prominent and affluent Georgian family. The prince married late, the marriage was unsuccessful: after a few years the pair began to live apart, and Gedianov went from Moscow to St. Petersburg. In the capital, during one of the dancing evenings, the father fell in love with Avdotya Antonova, the daughter of a modest military man from Narva. Gedianov ordered their common son to be recorded as the kid of his servant called Borodin. According to archives, the future composer was a serf of his own father.

At first, Alexander Borodin grew up at the prince’s house. Avdotya Antonova resided in the adjoining rooms, but in front of outsiders her son called her “auntie . ” She distrusted boarding schools and insisted that Alexander Borodin be educated at home. The mother hired a tutor in French and German and taught her kid to read and count. Subsequently, the composer’s wife Ekaterina Borodina wrote: “His mother idolized him and spoiled him terribly. She loved cats very much and dubbed him “my hundred-ruble cat . ”

In 1839, Luka Gedianov began to suffer major health difficulties. In order to improve the status of his beloved and give her a comfortable living in the case of his death, Avdotya Antonova’s father planned a false marriage with military doctor Hans Kleike. A year later, Gedianov gifted her a four-story home not far from the Semenovsky parade field. Soon Antonova moved there with her kid. The windows of the home overlooked the area where the military practiced, and Alexander Borodin regularly heard a military symphony.

The future composer enjoyed the sounds of marches so much that he sought to pick them by ear on his personal piano. Sometimes Borodin begged permission to walk down to the parade ground: the musicians happily chatted to him and showed him their instruments.

The mother noted her son’s interest in music. Since 1841, the future composer had instruction in playing the flute, and a little later – piano and cello. Already at the age of nine, Alexander Borodin created his first piece of music – the polka “Helen”. He dedicated the work to his first sweetheart. She became Elena, an adult acquaintance of her mother.

In 1843, his father died. Shortly before his death, Gedianov handed his kid a free certificate. Mother soon went to live with a German language instructor, Fedor Fedorov. In 1846, he introduced Alexander Borodin to Mikhail Shchiglev, the son of a mathematics instructor at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. They decided to educate the students together: it was cheaper to engage teachers for each topic. Shchiglev recalled: “Fedorov persuaded my parents to send me to St. Petersburg, to Sasha Borodin’s family, so that it would be closer to going to the 1st gymnasium, where they wanted to send me, and so that I could prepare for the sciences together. Thus, I moved into the house of Borodin’s mother . ” Teachers in Russian, French and German, history, geography, mathematics, drawing and drawing came to the house. In terms of the complexity of the material, the program differed little from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum – Shchiglev’s father supervised the lesson plan. The students were also taught dance and music.

Alexander Borodin is a distinguished scientist and outstanding musician, who became a unique phenomenon in Russian reality of the 19th century. The academician, who produced a number of significant discoveries in the field of organic chemistry and regarded science and medicine to be his major vocation, became recognized as the writer of musical masterpieces known around the globe.

Childhood and youth

Alexander Porfirievich Borodin, born on November 12, 1833, was the illegitimate son of a representative of the princely family, Luka Gedevanishvili, a Georgian by ethnicity, and a young bourgeois Avdotya Antonova. From infancy until eight years, the youngster was regarded a serf of his father, and his parents were the serf servant Porfiry Borodin and his wife Tatyana.

When Alexander was seven years old, his father granted him his independence and secured a future for him and his mother, giving him a magnificent mansion. After the death of the prince, the boy’s upbringing continued in the household of his mother, who was given in marriage to a military doctor called Kleineke. Soon his stepfather died, and subsequently Borodin gained two more younger half-brothers – Dmitry and Evgeny, with whom he always maintained cordial connections.

Not having the right to obtain an education within the walls of a gymnasium, Borodin studied at home and earned expertise in numerous areas. The youngster was interested in music and showed an aptitude for composing. When he was nine years old, he produced a little dance piece and began to study the flute, cello and piano, and by the age of thirteen he became the creator of a full-fledged concert work inspired by the opera Robert the Devil by Giacomo Meyerbeer.

His enthusiasm for art was not restricted to music – the young composer loved to draw and was active in applied arts. At the same time, the youngster got interested in chemistry, a subject that helped him comprehend the composition and nature of intriguing events. Borodin did his initial investigations at home. Looking at this and anxious about the safety of the family, the mother decided that her son needed to study more.

With the aid of the clerks of the treasury chamber, Alexander was allocated to the merchant class, which allowed him to get an education. He graduated from high school and attended the Medical-Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg as a volunteer, where, while learning the profession of a doctor, he extensively studied chemistry under the supervision of Nikolai Nikolaevich Zinin.

Mikhail Shchiglev, conductor and composer

When Alexander Borodin was 13 years old, he created his first concerto for flute and piano. The composer performed the flute part, Shchiglev – the piano. The music teacher complimented the work and recommended the kid to continue writing. Soon Borodin composed a trio for two violins and cello. The mother published her son’s plays. The introduction read: “We ask readers to pay attention to the new wonderful composition of adagio for piano, written by A. Borodin. There is so much personality and creative strength in this short effort that we congratulate music fans in advance on their new ability . ”

However, music was not the sole pastime of Alexander Borodin. He transformed his room into an improvised chemical laboratory: there were jars of solutions on the windowsills, flasks, tubes and a burner on the table. The future composer studied books on chemistry, produced paints himself for a drawing class, and experimented with explosives. He chose to transform his interest into a profession: in 1850, Alexander Borodin attended the medical faculty of the Medical-Surgical Academy. This was not simple to do: the legislation did not enable former serfs to acquire higher education. Then the mother resorted to a trick. Avdotya Antonova negotiated an arrangement with an official in the Tver region, and he assigned Alexander Borodin to the merchants of the third guild. The composer first passed the matriculation tests at the First St. Petersburg Gymnasium, then the admission exams to the academy, and everything was fantastic.

Alexander Borodin was a keen student. To better study anatomy, he spent a lot of time in the room with anatomical preparations and read textbooks. His uncle Dmitry Alexandrov recalled: “He devoted himself to his studies at the academy with all his soul; it reeked of the absolutely cadaverous smell of a dissection room; I usually read, sitting in a chair with my feet on the windowsill. At home I virtually always wore a robe and shoes . ” In his third year, Alexander Borodin began studying with the famous chemist Nikolai Zinin. The scientist had a vast laboratory. The composer was permitted to be there at any time and perform his own experiments.

Chemistry and medicine

After graduating from the academy in 1856, Borodin served in a military hospital. Soon he defended his dissertation, obtained a PhD in medicine and began research work. The first scientific paper that exalted Alexander Porfiryevich was a study on the influence of mineral waters on the human body, made following a journey to the city of Soligalich, Kostroma region. It was written in such a vivid, intriguing style that it fascinated even people who were far from science. Borodin’s study helped to the development of a mineral water resort in Soligalich.

By that time, the scientist had already been transferred to Europe to strengthen his talents and absorb foreign expertise. For two years in Germany, spent surrounded by outstanding scientists – Eduard Junge, Ivan Sechenov , Sergei Botkin , Nikolai Zinin, Dmitry Mendeleev – Alexander Porfirievich participated in sessions of the scientific congress, where the concepts of “molecule” and “atom” were properly established.
During a foreign business trip, the scientist visited Italy, met local academics, and did chemical experiments with fluoride compounds at a student laboratory at the University of Pisa.

“The laboratory turned into a miniature chemical club, an impromptu meeting of the chemical society, where the life of young Russian chemistry was in full swing, where heated debates were held, where the owner, getting carried away himself and captivating the guests, loudly, passionately developed new ideas and, in the absence of chalk and a blackboard , wrote with his finger on a dusty table the equation of reactions, which were later given pride of place in chemical literature. It was a time of patriarchal cordial interactions between instructor and pupils.”
Alexander Borodin, biographical profile “Nikolai Nikolaevich Zinin”

While studying at the academy, Borodin did not forget about music. He took piano and cello lessons, and on weekends he and Mikhail Shchiglev went to evenings with Ivan Gavrushkevich. Famous musicians and composers gathered there: Alexander Serov, Joseph Gunke, Osip Drobish. Shchiglev recalled: “We did not miss any opportunity to play a trio or quartet anywhere and with anyone. Neither bad weather, nor rain, nor slush – nothing held us back, and I, with a violin under my arm, and Borodin with a cello in a flannel bag on my back, sometimes made huge ends on foot . ” In his fourth year at the academy, Alexander Borodin wrote the romances “Beauty Fish” and “Listen, my friends, to my song,” as well as the trio “How I Upset You.” The composer’s hobby was not approved by his chemistry teacher. Nikolai Zinin said: “Mr. Borodin, spend less time on romances. I pin all my hopes on you to prepare my deputy, and you all think about music and two birds with one stone . ”

In 1856, Alexander Borodin graduated from the Medical-Surgical Academy. He was appointed as a resident at the Second Military Land Hospital. However, the composer soon realized that the work of a doctor was not for him: Borodin fainted several times at the sight of seriously ill patients, and once during an operation he broke an instrument in the patient’s throat. He managed to get his bearings in time, and everything turned out okay. Alexander Borodin recalled: “The coachman fell at my feet; I could hardly resist answering him in the same way. Just think what would have happened if I had tied a piece of tongs in the throat of such a patient! Surely I would have been demoted and ended up in Siberia” . In the hospital, the composer met seventeen-year-old Modest Mussorgsky — they went together to the main doctor’s apartment a couple of times.

In April 1856, Borodin gained a job as Zinin’s assistant and held seminars with academy students. The musician decided to get serious about science and began preparing a dissertation “On the analogy of arsenic acid with phosphoric acid in their effect on the human body.” In 1858 he defended himself and earned a doctor of medicine. In the fall of the following year, “to improve in chemistry,” the academy dispatched Alexander Borodin to Germany.

In Germany, Alexander Borodin worked in the laboratory of the famous scientist Erlenmeyer. It was located in the academic city of Heidelberg, where physiologist Ivan Sechenov and chemist Dmitry Mendeleev lived at that time, doctor Sergei Botkin. The young scientists knew one other and regularly got together. Sechenov stated in his “Autobiographical Notes”: “Having learned that I passionately loved The Barber of Seville, he [Borodin] treated me to all the main arias of this opera and generally surprised us all very much by the fact that he could play everything we demanded without notes as a keepsake.

In 1860, Alexander Borodin, alongside Nikolai Zinin and Dmitri Mendeleev, attended the first international conference of chemists in Karlsruhe, Germany. On it, scientists first developed the concepts of an atom and a molecule.

A few months later, Borodin met pianist Ekaterina Protopopova, who came to Heidelberg to improve her health. They spent a lot of time together. Protopopova said: “His day was organized like this: from 5 in the morning until 5 in the evening – the chemical laboratory; from 5 to 8 our walks in the mountains. What good walks those were, what a lot we didn’t talk to him about then. From 8 or 9 pm until 12 there is music in the hall of the Hoffman boarding house . ” In 1861, Borodin first described the reaction of silver salts of carboxylic acids with halogens. This technique of changing chemical elements was named after him. In 1862, the chemist’s schooling concluded, and the pair returned to Russia, where they quickly were married.

Between music and science

In 1862, in the residence of his friend, therapist Sergei Botkin, Borodin met the famed composer Mily Balakirev. They started chatting about writing, and Balakirev invited the chemist to an evening of his musical group, which was eventually nicknamed the “Mighty Handful”. Composers included Modest Mussorgsky, Cesar Cuiand Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The musicians convened at Balakirev’s: they played their pieces and jointly improved them to the final rendition. After a few of evenings, Alexander Borodin became a permanent member of the circle.

Most commonly, the function of critic was filled by Balakirev, a teacher at the Free Music School he created. About his contact with Borodin, he wrote: “Our acquaintance was important for him because before meeting me he considered himself only an amateur and did not attach importance to his exercises in composition. It appears to me that I was the first one to inform him that his main business was composing . ” After a long break, Borodin began composing music again. He came up with the idea for the first symphony.

In 1863, Alexander Borodin commanded a new chemical laboratory at the Medical-Surgical Academy. The chemist was offered a departmental apartment on the level above: this way he could spend more time working. Borodin was one of the most popular professors at the educational institution.

“Borodin’s close, sincere relationship with his students was not limited only to the laboratory. Almost everyone who worked there was taken into his family as his closest pals; they regularly shared breakfast, lunch, and even supper with him when they stayed for a long period at the laboratory. Borodin’s residence was, one would say, perpetually wide open for all the young folks. After his students departed the institution, he continually troubled about the destiny of everyone.”

Personal life

While overseas, Borodin cared for the young musician Ekaterina Protopopova, who was getting treatment for chronic asthma in Germany. The girl, who had exquisite pitch, regularly played music in the company of the scientist, introducing him to the works of European composers. The couple spent a lot of time together, attended concerts in Baden-Baden, eventually fell in love with each other and decided to be married.
The wedding took place in the spring of 1863. The couple settled in St. Petersburg, in an apartment building on Bocharnaya Street. Due to persistent lung difficulties, the wife could not stay in the capital for a long period. Her excursions to Moscow, to her mother’s house, clouded the personal life of Alexander Porfiryevich.

Professor Alexey Dobroslavin, pupil of Alexander Borodin

Teaching required a lot of time, thus Borodin completed his first symphony just five years later – in 1867. At the debut at the Russian Musical Society, the orchestra was directed by Balakirev. The piece was welcomed warmly: the crowd cheered for a long time, and the composer was called to the stage multiple times. The symphony was highly complimented by the legendary pianist Franz Liszt. Alexander Borodin recalled: “You composed a wonderful symphony!” – barked the figure in a loud voice <…> The first movement is excellent, your andante is a masterpiece, the scherzo is delightful, and then this is wittily invented! .Soon after the debut, Borodin penned the romances “The Sleeping Princess”, “Old Song”, “False Note”, “The Sea Princess”.

In the late 1860s, the composers of the “Mighty Handful” shifted to the opera genre. Mussorgsky was working on Boris Godunov, Balakirev was working on Firebird, while Rimsky-Korsakov was finishing The Woman of Pskov. Alexander Borodin too fell to the prevalent mood: he invented the opera “Prince Igor”. The story was proposed to the composer by music critic Vladimir Stasov. Before commencing to create music, Borodin researched chronicles and historical materials, and journeyed to Putivl, the old Russian city from whence Prince Igor launched his battle against the Polovtsians. The composer himself composed the libretto . By 1870, the first portion, “Yaroslavna’s Dream,” was ready.

At the same time as the opera, the composer began creating a second symphony. However, the job moved slowly – Alexander Borodin was occupied in the laboratory. Moreover, in 1872, the scientist became a teacher of the first Higher Medical Courses in Russia. He had no time for music. Soon his wife Ekaterina Borodina got gravely ill: in order not to disturb her sleep, the composer almost ceased playing the piano.

Alexander Borodin returned to the opera “Prince Igor” only in 1874. The composer was the first to write “The Polovtsian March” and “Lament of Yaroslavna”. He finished most of the work in the summer of 1875 in Moscow, when he was visiting his wife’s family. Away from work, Alexander Borodin dedicated a lot of time to music: during this period “Polovtsian Dances”, the chorus of the first act and Konchak’s aria arose.

In 1876, Alexander Borodin completed his second symphony. The debut took place in February 1877 during a concert of the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg. Critic Vladimir Stasov immediately called the symphony “Bogatyrskaya”: “Borodin himself told me more than once that in the adagio he wanted to paint the figure of Boyan, in the first part – a meeting of Russian heroes, in the finale – a scene of a heroic feast with the sound of the gusli, with the rejoicing of the great people crowds . ” Alexander Borodin incorporated fragments of Russian folk songs to the symphony. The work was regarded ambiguously. The major passages were played on brass instruments: some critics thought it “monumental” , while others deemed it too “heavy” .

In 1880, Alexander Borodin created two string quartets, a symphonic image “In Central Asia” and began working on a third symphony. The composer’s friends urged him to finish the opera “Prince Igor”.
“He liked his chemistry above all else, and when I wanted to speed up the completion of his musical composition, I begged him to take it seriously, instead of replying he questioned: “Have you seen a toy store on Liteinaya, near Nevsky, on the sign of which it is written: “Fun” and that’s all”? To my remark: “What is this for?” – “But, you know, for me music is joy, and chemistry is business.”

Lyudmila Shestakova, sister of Mikhail Glinka

Alexander Borodin did not manage to finish either the third symphony or the opera “Prince Igor”. On February 27, 1887 he died. Soon after the chemist’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov sorted out Borodin’s papers and completed his opera “Prince Igor.” Rimsky-Korsakov recalled: “Some of its numbers were completed and orchestrated by the author <…> the rest were only in fragmentary sketches, and many did not exist at all <…> I knew the content of these actions firmly from conversations and joint discussions with Borodin . ” This version of the opera was first staged in 1890 at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater.

 

Death of Alexander Borodin

At the end of his life, Borodin was actively involved in social activity, was a member of many organizations, the leader of the student choir and symphony orchestra of the school, and participated in receptions and costume parties popular in the scientific community.

In 1880, the composer’s friend and tutor Nikolai Zinin died, and a year later his cherished colleague, Modest Mussorgsky, passed away. Hard work, personal losses and worry about his ailing wife left their imprint on Borodin’s physical and psychological health.

On February 27, 1887, at the celebration of Maslenitsa, Alexander Porfirievich had pleasure in the company of friends and colleagues, danced a lot and laughed. In the midst of the festivities, he halted mid-sentence and slumped dead on the floor. The reason of death of the brilliant scientist and composer was heart failure.

Borodin was interred at the Tikhvin Cemetery, in the necropolis of art masters of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. At the cemetery there is a monument with a picture based on the photo of the dead, surrounded by musical pieces of his works enclosed by molecular formulae.

Memory

For Borodin’s contribution to music, a symphony orchestra and a state quartet, as well as various music schools in Russian cities, were named in his honor. A steamer, a sanatorium and an aircraft are named after the composer. His bust was put in St. Petersburg. In 1993, a commemorative coin was minted on the anniversary of Alexander Porfiryevich.
The legacy of the renowned scientist and musician is preserved in documentaries, especially those from the “Geniuses and Villains” series. The teleplay “On the Threshold” is dedicated to Borodin and other members of the “Mighty Handful”. Anna Bulycheva and Tatyana Popova published novels on him.

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