June 19 in Russian history

1739: Captain Martin Shpanberg arrived to Japan. On the orders of the empress Anna he had to get acquainted with the Japan's political system and establish trade between Japan and Russia.

1799: Joint Russian-Austrian army led by Alexander Suvorov defeats the French army lead by McDonald. The French lost 16,000 people out of 33,000-35,000. The allies lost 6,000 people out of 30,000. (See also April 28)

1799: Russian-American company was founded by Grigory Shelikhov and Nikolay Rezanov. This trading company was one of the most successful Russian enterprises of the time. It was granted a trade monopoly in Russian America and a large part of the profit went to the emperor. The company failed to attract a sufficient number of settlers to Alaska, but its first manager, Alexander Baranov, a unique and gifted personality, established good contacts with some of the native American tribes and guaranteed a stable flow of furs to Russia. In 1867, when Alaska was sold to the US government, the company ceased the activity. In 1804-1840 the RAC organized for Russia 25 geographical expeditions, 15 of which were circumnavigational expeditions, including the famous voyage of Ivan Kruzenshtern and Yuri Lisyansky. (See also March 13)

1901: Death of brigadier general of the US Union army John Basil Turchin. Ivan Vasilyevich Turchaninov was born in Russia in 1822. After the Crimean war (1853-1856) he was offered to continue the military service in the General Staff, but he was so disappointed with the military reform and the peace treaty which he thought was shameful, that he left with his wife to Germany and France and then to the USA. Three years later he wrote to his friend Alexander Herzen, who lived in London: "My disappointment is frustrating. I don't see a trace of the real freedom here. This republic is the paradise for the rich, they are really independent here. The worst crimes are justified here by money and profit. As for me, I am deeply grateful to America for one thing: she helped me to get rid of the aristocratic prejudices and brought me down to the level of a mere mortal, I am not afraid of any job now." He became an engineer. When the Civil War began, he joined the Union army as a volunteer and soon became a colonel. In 1862, his troops sacked a town and he was relieved of command and sent under the martial court. He denied all accusations besides presence of his wife in the army. Indeed, she followed him and there was one occasion when she led the troops to the attack when Turchin was ill. However, even before the court was over, he was appointed a brigadier general. In 1864 he resigned. He wrote a book on the art of war which was used later in the US army, but by the end of his life he fell into poverty and had to earn money as a street violinist. In 1901, he died in poverty.

1953: Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenbergs who were sentenced to the capital punishment for espionage for the USSR. All this story is still very unclear and I'd rather not re-tell it, it is too well known. Anyway, what I would like to say is that I take this story as a serious argument in favor of the abolition of the capital punishment.

June 14 in Russian history

1856: Famous Russian mathematicians, Andrei Markov, was born. His best known discovery, Markov chains, are ubiquitous in modern science. They are used in physics to model stochastic processes, in computerized music composition, in statistics, in linguistics, artificial intelligence, robotics. It is most probable that you, dear reader, use Markov chains every day. Markov chains are the basis of Google's ranking algorithm. They are also used in the Bayesian algorithms which filter spam from your e-mail.

1862: Dimitri Pisarev, writer and political extremist, is arrested and put to the jail of the fortress of St. Peter and Paul in St.Petersburg. He had written a political proclamation "On the brochure of Schedo-Ferroti", where he had called to the rebellion against monarcy. He spent more than 4 years in jail. He was not only political, but also literature radical. He fought against "outdated" esthetics, refused to acknowledge the importance of Pushkin's poetry. Lenin's wife, Krupskaya, said later that Lenin grew under Pisarev's influence.

1941: The Soviet Union begins mass deportations in the occupied Baltic countries. Deportations took place before, but not on such large scale. On one day, June 14, the NKVD troops and local Communist party activists enter the homes of former politicians, army officers, judges, state officials, policemen, jounalists, farmer union leaders, businessmen, land owners, ship owners, labour union members, criminals, prostitutes, anti-communist activists and give them one or two hours to gather their clothes and food for one month. About 30%-40% of the deportees were children under 16. People were taken to railway stations and transported to Urals and Siberia. About 30,000 people were deported from Lithuania, more than 15,000 from Latvia and 9,000 from Estonia. Not all of them were ethnic Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. There were also Poles who fled from occupied Poland, Jews (the first victims, as usual), Russians, etc. About 40% of deportees died in the exile. Some starved to death, some were killed, some simply disappeared. The date is the Day of Mourning and Hope in Lithuania and the official mourning day in Latvia. A group of Estonians has prepared an interesting exhibition: No people, no problem (quotation from Stalin). Highly recommended. Two more interesting links are: Materials of the international conference "Deportation of 14 June 1941: Crimes against Humanity" and the database Exile and Imprisonment Locations of the Residents of Lithuania.