Showing posts with label 1887. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1887. Show all posts

2007/03/13

March 13 in Russian history

1807: Death of Nikolay Rezanov, Russian diplomat, merchant, on of the founders of the Russian-American Company, an initiator of the first Russian circumnavigational expedition. He was born in 1764 and was a talented boy. At the age of 14, he spoke 5 languages. Since 1791 till 1793 he works as the secretary of the poet and politician Gavriil Derzhavin. Since 1797 he works in the Senate. He gets married in 1794, but in 1802 his wifed died. In August 1803, he leaves St.Petersburg with the expedition of Ivan Kruzenshtern, visits Japan and goes to Alaska. In Sitka, he meets a unique man, the governor of Russian America, merchant Alexander Baranov. Lack of food in the Russian colonies in Alaska makes the colonists to search for the supplies in the south. In spring of 1806, Rezanov on the ship Juno comes to el presidio Hierba Buena, later known as San Francisco, to sign trading contracts with the Spanish colonists. The Spanish king prohibited the colonists to trade with foreigners, but here a really romantic story begins. Rezanov meets 15 years old donna Maria de la Concepcion Marcella Arguello (or simply Conchita), the daughter of the commander of the fort don Jose Dario Arguello. She fell in love with him and he love her, too. Don Jose also liked the Russian traveler and he did his best to help him. Rezanov offered Conchita to become his wife and she agreed. They engaged, but he had his duties. In June 1806, Juno leaves California with food supplies for Alaska. Rezanov must return to St.Petersburg and then he would return to Conchita. In Alaska, Rezanov get pneumonia, but continues his way back home. In Krasnoyarsk, his weakened heart fails and he dies. Conchita was waiting for him for thirty years. She heard of his death, but did not believe the rumours. At last, in 1849 she becomes a nun in a Dominican monastery. She died in 1857, when she was 67 years old. In Alasks, near Sitka, there is an island named by Rezanov after his bride -- Arguello.

In 1978, poet Andrei Voznesensky and musician Alexander Rybnikov created a musical "Juno and Avos", based on these events. The musical is still very popular in Russia.

1887: An attempt of assassination of Alexander III fails. 15 minutes before the emperor's carriage goes enters the scene, six people with three bombs are detained. A month and a half later, the five organizers of the plot were sentenced to death. One of them was Alexander Ulyanov, brother of Vladimir Ulyanov, aka Lenin. Alexander III, having read the revolutionary program of the terrorists, notes: "This is not even a madman's writing, but a creation of a complete idiot".

1930: The last unemployment office in Moscow is closed. USSR becomes the first country of the world without unemployment.

1964: A Soviet trial in Leningrad sentences the great Russian poet Joseph Brodsky to 5 years of exile for "parasitism".

2007/01/22

January 20-21 in Russian history

Sorry for being late, but the week-ends are usually such a busy time...

January 20

1591: Tsar Feodor I Ivanovich, son of Ivan IV the Terrible, the last Rurikid tsar, signed a 12-year truce with Poland. By that time, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had been competing for a long time for the lands between Moscow and Lithuania, like Smolensk, Polotsk and other important towns. This truce stopped this rivalry for some time and gave a chance to Russia to withstand the attack of the Crimean Khanate. The Crimean Khan signed a treaty with the Swedish king Johan III, and the danger of the simultaneous attack from North and South was imminent. Johan III had about 20,000 people on the Northern borders of Russia, but he didn't want to start a war without the support from Poland. The Crimean Khan attacked Russia with 100,000 people, but due to the truce with Poland, Russia concentrated on this war and after a grave defeat the Crimean Khan left Russia. Johan III, assuming that Russia was weakened by this war, attacked Pskov, but Russian forces drove him away.

January 21

1924: V.Ulyanov (Lenin) died. One of the most controversial figures in Russian history. Born in 1870 in Simbirsk. His elder brother Alexander was executed in 1887 as a participant of a plot against the life of tsar Alexander III. In 1895 Ulyanov founds the Union for Liberation of the Working Class in St.Petersburg. He is immediately arrested and sent to Siberia for three years. He emigrates in 1900. In 1917, after the February revolution, he is allowed to return to Russia where he begins to prepare a new revolution. In October 1917 he leads the October revolution and becomes the chairman of Sovnarkom (the council of people's commissars). The initiator of the Red Terror, the "military communism", liquidation of the oppositional parties. A ruthless leader, but how could he organize a revolt, had it not been for the huge popular support?