Yesterday's papers: Russian newspapers from 1909

(From Starosti.ru)

In 1909, just like in the previous three years, Russian major cities, especially Moscow and St.Petersburg, awaited for the 22 January (9 January Old Style) with anxiety. Four years ago, in 1905, on this day, the first Russian revolution began. On the next day, 23 January (10 January Old Style), Golos Moskvy wrote:

This day, 9 January, was calm. Only some days earlier, the workers' groups discussed how they should commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Gapon's demonstration. The opinions split. A part of the workers proposed to stop working after dinner, but this proposal was rejected. The majority of the workers would rather forget Gapon then to commemorate him. Today, on 9 January, the life in the workers' quarters went on as usually. All plants worked full day, there were no demonstrations, nor even enforced police detachments.

The problems in Caucasus persisted:

From Vladikavkaz, 8 Jan 1909. Son of the sheep-farmer Koshel, kidnapped on 26 November, was released by the abreks without ransom. Earlier, his father refused to pay the 16,000 rubles ransom. Army was deployed in the Ingush villages. They threatened that the aborigines will carry the responsibility in case of the death of the victim of kidnapping. The released boy told that he was kept in the corn fields, than in the woods. Sometimes he was brought to villages with a bandage on his eyes and locked in barns.

However, not always the local population caused these problems:

From Rostov on Don, 9 Jan 1909. The persons guilty of numerous recent train robberies along the Vladikavkaz railroad were identified and detained. The culprits were railroad workers. To commit the crimes, they used to disguise as natives.

While we're talking about trains:

Today, on 9 January, at 10:15 a.m., the first express train will depart from Moscow to Berlin and Paris. The train will travel with the speed never heard of before, it will take only 54 hours to get to Paris. This is a train-de-luxe, it consists of only three first class carriages and a restaurant and it is modeled after the best European trains. It will depart once a week, on Fridays, and the arrival is scheduled on Wednesdays, to agree with the Siberian trains in Moscow and the St.Petersburg express in Warsaw.

An interesting news came from the governorate of Livonia:

From Mitau (modern Jelgava in Latvia), 9 Jan 1909. A whole eighth class of the aristocratic German gymnasium, the stronghold of the culture of the Baltic barons, decided to leave the gymansium and to pass the state exams in the Russian gymnasium. This decision produced a shocking impression in the German nationalist circles.

As for the other countries, the events were still moving incessantly toward the August of 1914:

From Sarajevo, 9 Jan 1909. The holiday of the saint Savva, the enlightener and the first apostle of the Serbs, will not be celebrated in this year in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mourn the current situation of the country. Of course, it is true only for schools. In churches, the St.Savva's day will be celebrated.

From Wien, 8 Jan 1909. The journalists in Constantinople report that on last Sunday large anti-Austrian manifestations took place in Tripoli. The crowd attacked the Austrian consul and vice consul. At the same time, pro-Italian demonstrations were held.

From Zemlin, 8 Jan 1909. A bloody conflict between Serbs and Hungarians took place in Southern Hungary. About 50 Hungarians attacked the Serbian monastery Raganica, planning to steal the shrine of Prince Lazarus. The monks defended the monastery. The peasants heard the sounds of shooting and hurried to the monastery. When the police and the army arrived, there were five people killed and about fifty wounded and the battlefield.

From Mostar, 8 Jan 1909. Famine in Herzegovina. Delegates from villages come to Mostar and ask the Austrian authorities for bread. The authorities reply that they will help if the villages sign the petition agreeing with the annexion of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The peasants refuse.

A year ago I wrote about the participation of Russian sailors in the rescue operations in Italy, after the earthquake in Messina. On 22 January 1909, the newspapers wrote:

From Odessa, 8 Jan 1909. The captain of the steamboat Catania that arrived from Messina to Odessa, reported that a group of Russian sailors who saved three little children, whose parents died in the earthquake, asked the Italian royal couple for the permission to adopt the children. Russian sailors promised to bring them to St.Petersburg, to educate them and to provide for them till the end of their lives. The permission was granted.

I assume these children were around 10 years old then. So, eight years later, in 1917, they would be no more than 18. I wonder what happened to them...

January 20 in Russian history. Cornelis de Bruijn. Execution in Moscow.

Sorry for the long silence. That flu is awful and it doesn't end. Poor doctors don't know what to do :). I've spent more time with them in January than in the previous five years, I think.

A little bit more than 200 years ago, in autumn 1701, a Dutchman came to Russia. He departed from the Hague in June and in September he arrived to Arkhangelsk. He spent two years in Russia, till July 1703. In 1707-1708 he visited Russia once again and in 1711 he published a book about his travels to Russia, Persia and India. Besides, he visited Egypt, Palestine, Ottoman empire, His name was Cornelis de Bruijn (other spellings include Cornelius de Bruyn, Corneille le Brun, Kornelius de Bruin, etc.). He was a painter and he was able to earn enough for his travel to Italy in 1674-1677. On the other hand, a number of historians are a bit skeptical about his talents and suspect he made money from espionage. This way or the other, from Italy he moved to Greece and Asia Minor. He spent many years travelling all along the Eastern Mediterranean till, in 1693, he came back to the Netherlands, where he published his first book, Travels in the Principal Parts of Asia Minor. In 1701, he received a proposal to make another journey and write a new book, this time about Russia and Persia.

His adventurous character made him to agree and in 1701 he left to Russia. He came to Arkhangelsk, visited Vologda and Yaroslavl and came to Moscow in early 1702. He made friends with Alexander Menshikov, an associate of the tsar, and then with Peter the Great himself. In 1703, he resumed his journey, went down river Volga to Astrakhan and then to Persia, India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. There, numerous diseases made him to abandon his earlier plans and to retrace his way back to Persia, Russia and then home to the Netherlands.

De Bruijn died in 1726 or in 1727 in dire poverty. The only things left from him are some paintings, two books and a touristy inscription he scratched on the wall of the Achaemenid palace in Persepolis, which is still there.

De Bruijn's second book includes very interesting information about Russia. He wrote about the Samoyeds, who lived in Northern Russia, described many regions of the country, including my home town Samara and other cities along Volga, he analyzed the first periods of the Peter's reforms and wrote about the conflicts of the old Muscovy traditions and the new institutions of the newborn Russian empire, described the early years of the Russian fleet, left a topographical description of Moscow and so on. Many historians say that his Voyage to the Levant and Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies is the best book about Russia written in the first half of the 18th century.

I have to admit that I don't know which calendar De Bruijn used in his book. The Gregorian calendar was adopted in the Netherlands about 120 years before De Bruijn. In Russia, the Julian calendar was in use, and the difference between them was 10 days in the 18th century. It might seem natural to suggest that De Bruijn used the Gregorian calendar, but it seems to me that either he used the Swedish calendar (the difference was 1 day with the Russian calendar) or the Russian 1873 edition of De Bruijn used the Old Style calendar. I assumed the latter. So, the following excerpt, dated by 9 January 1702, may or may not correspond to 20 January in New Style :).

1702

(9 January Old Style)

On the 9th day of this month a terrible execution of a fifty-years old lady, who killed her husband, was committed in Moscow. It was ruled that she should be buried alive up to her shoulders. I was curious enough to have a look at her and I found her half-buried, and she seemed to me rather fresh and pretty. A white towel was tied around her head and neck, which she asked to untie, because it very tight. She was guarded by three or four soldiers who received orders not to allow her to eat or drink, which could prolong her life. But it was allowed to throw some copecks (small coins) to the hole where she was buried, for which she thanked by bowing her head. The money is usually used to buy the wax candles to be put in front of the icons of the saints, to whom the convicts appeal, or, in part, to buy the coffin for them. I am not certain whether the guards take some of this money in exchange for giving some food to the convicts secretly, because some of them live quite a long time being buried. But the woman I saw died on the next day after I had seen her. On the same day, a man was burned, whose crime I am not aware of.

The story of this woman was later used by Alexey Tolstoy in his book Peter the First.

January 30 in Russian history

1934

Soviet balloon Osoaviakhim-1 reached the record altitude — 22,000 metres. The earlier world records were achieved by Auguste Piccard. In 1931 he and Paul Kipfer reached 15,785 metres and in 1932 Piccard and Max Cosyns ascented to 16,200 metres. In 1933 Soviet aeronauts Georgy Prokofyev, Konstantin Godunov and Ernst Birnbaum on balloon SSSR-1 (USSR-1) reached 19,000 metres. Newspaper Pravda wrote: "On the American balloon that was the first to ascent to the stratosphere there were large letters: Piccard. It was a flight of one man who sought fame for himself. The soviet balloon that flew to 19 kilometres was titled SSSR-1 and this meant that the whole country participates in the flight."

The SSSR-1 was made by the Soviet Air Force. At the same time, a group of engineers from Osoaviakhim (volunteer Society for Assistance to Defense, Aviation and the Chemical Industries of the USSR) were building another balloon. The volume of the balloon was 24,940 cubic metres. The construction was not sponsored by the state. Instead, Osoaviakhim published a brochure titled "To the stratosphere!" and sold it for one ruble, quite expensive for those years. The brochure was sld out in one day. Actually, the factories obliged their workers to buy it. In summer 1933, when the balloon was ready, a commission from Moscow banned the flights, since the construction was too dangerous. So, the commission criticized the escape hatch. To open the hatch, the pilots had to unscrew 24 nuts. In SSSR-1 it took only 5 seconds to turn a handle and open the hatch. Besides, the hatch was located at the top of the gondola. The speed of the ballast release was too low, it took more than one hour to release one ton of the lead shrapnel. The hooks that held the slings attaching the gondola to the balloon were too weak. In spite of all these and other problems, the engineers decided to launch the balloon.

There were three people in the crew. Pavel Fedoseyenko was the commander. He was interested in aeronautics since 1915. During the Civil war he commanded an aeronautic detachment and committed more than 100 reconnaissance flights on balloons. After the war he graduated from the Air Forces Academy and the dirigible building faculty of the Civil Air Fleet Institute. Alexander Vasenko was the chief designer of the balloon. He graduated a prestigious gymnasium in Tsarskoye Selo near St.Petersburg. He was a good opera singer and could make a career in the theater, but he preferred to become an engineer. He entered the airways faculty of the Petrograd Institute of Communication Engineers and defended the thesis "The prospects of the atmosphere exploration with dirigibles". He taught in the Leningrad Military Technical School and then joined the Osoaviakhim-1 project. And the third one was Ilya Usyskin. He was born in Yaroslavl oblast in the family of a blacksmith. His father was a bolshevik who was exiled to Yaroslavl. Since childhood Ilya was a good mathematician. He was also interested in foreign languages and at the age of 14 he could read "Faust" by Goethe in German. When studying in the Leningrad Physical Technical Institute, he wrote two works on the difraction of fast electrons. "If someone asks me many years later, what did I do in the years of the first five-year plan, I will reply: "I studied the space radiation." I know that my country needs my work, but when I read of the coevals who build blast furnaces in Magnitka or roof the factory sections at the STZ factory, I want to be with them." The main objective of the Osoaviakhim-1 was the exploration of the space radiation and it was Usyskin's job.

The balloon was launched at 9:07 am, January 30, 1934. On the same day the XVII congress of VKP(b) (the Communist party of Russia) opened in Moscow. At 9:16 the crew sent the first radio. At 9:32 they reported of problems with the radio, they couldn't hear the messages from the command center. At 10:14 they reached 19,000 metres. At 11:16 Osoaviakhim-1 was at 20,500 metres and at 11:59 the commander sent the welcoming message to the congress of the Communist party. It was the last message from the balloon. This message was read on the congress and was met with the exclamations: "Glory to the Politbureau of the Central Committee! Glory to comrades Stalin and Kirov!"

The following events were recorded by Alexander Vasenko in the log. 12:33 — Osoaviakhim-1 reaches 22,000 metres. 12:45 — descent started. The investigation later said that they spent too much time at this altitude. The balloon, heated by the sun, refused to go down and one the crew released the gas for three minutes. At 15:00 they were on 18,000 metres. The sun was going down and the temperature fell to -50C. Vasenko wrote: "Fedoseyenko untangles the rope of the release valve that got tangled in an instrument." The descent speed is growing slowly. 15:40 — 14,300 metres. The last record was made at 16:10 on 12,000 metres: "The sun is shining brightly. The beauty is unforg..." At the altitude of about 1,500-2,000 metres the slings tore away. At 16:21 or 16:23 the gondola of the balloon hit the ground near the village Potizh-Ostrog in Mordovia.

The strange thing is that at 12:45 a radio amateur from Gomel recorded the following text: "This is Sirius. The balloon is in the precipitation layer and it's icing up. We are covered with ice and falling. Waiting for the strike. My comrades are in terrible condition. Ending. We'll hit soon." This information was dismissed during the investigation as a mystification, and there were no traces of the ice coating on the gondola.

The investigation has shown that the descent speed was too high. The heated gas expanded and left the balloon. When the aeronauts wanted to begin the descent, they must have released too much gas in the hurry. Besides that tangled rope, probably, left the valve open. The speed of the descent was too high. Due to the construction of the gondola, the crew could not release the ballast quickly enough. Besides, there was not enough ballast to compensate for the loss of the gas. The speed increased till the slings tore and the gondola fell to the ground. The investigators came to the conclusion that the safe altitude for Osoaviakhim-1 would be 19,500 metres and the ascent to 20,500 could present acceptable risk. The attempt of the explorers to go even higher led to their death.

The village Potizh-Ostrog, where Osoaviakhim-1 fell, is now named Usyskino, after Ilya Usyskin.

January 24 in Russian history

1919

On 24 January 1919, the Organizational Bureau (Orgbureau) of the TsK VKP(b) (Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist party (bolsheviks) issued the document that started the politics known as the Decossackization (quoted from enotes.com):

24 January 1919

Circular. Secret.

The latest events on different fronts in the Cossack regions — our advance into the interior of the Cossack settlements and the disintegration among the Cossack hosts — compels us to give instructions to party workers about the character of their work during the reestablishment and strengthening of Soviet power in the said regions. It is necessary to recognize, based on the experience of the civil war with the Cossacks, that the most merciless struggle with all the upper layers of the Cossacks through their extermination to a man is the only correct policy. No compromises or halfheartedness whatsoever are acceptable.

Therefore it is necessary:

1. To carry out mass terror against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating them to a man; to carry out merciless mass terror in relations to all Cossacks have taken part in any way directly or indirectly in the struggle with the Soviet power. Against the middle Cossacks it is necessary to take all those measures which give a guarantee against any attempt on their part [to join] a new attack on Soviet power.
2. To confiscate grain and force [them] to gather all surpluses in designated points; this applies both to grain and all other agricultural products.
3. To take all measures assisting the resettlement of newly arrived poor, organizing this settlement where possible.
4. To equalize newly arrived Inogorodnie with the Cossacks in land and in all other relations.
5. To carry out complete disarmament, shooting those who after the time of handing over are found to have arms.
6. To give arms only to reliable elements from the Inogorodnie.
7. Armed detachments are to be stationed in Cossack stanitsas henceforward until the establishment of complete order.
8. To order all commissars appointed to this or that Cossack settlement to show maximum firmness and to carry out the present orders unswervingly.

TsK imposes the obligation on Narkomzem to work out quickly practical measures concerning the mass resettlement of poor on Cossack land to be carried out through the corresponding soviet institutions.

It is generally believed that the directive was written by Sverdlov and Tsyurupa. Some historians, though, question this idea, arguing that the protocols of the TsK VKP(b) do not correspond to this directive. So, G. Magner wrote in "The Decossackization in the system of mass repressions" (in Russian) that the author was none other than Stalin, who took this decision alone.

Cossacks are a social, not ethnical (probably, sub-ethnical), group or Russian population. They have a long and complicated history. Basically, they are the descendants of free people who left Russia for the new lands and were later recognized as a military organization and performed the functions of border guards for centuries. The Inogorodnie (newcomers or, literally, people from other towns) arrived to the lands settled by Cossacks later, mostly in late XIX century, when Russian government encouraged the people to move to these lands. They did not have to carry out the military duties and could concentrate on agriculture. Cossacks were proud of their outstanding position in Russia — free people and valued warriors. So, they discriminated the Inogorodnie who naturally responded with hatred. So, when the Civil war began, the Inogorodnie supported the bolsheviks. Contrary to the popular belief, the Cossacks did not unanymously support the Whites. During the first year, the Cossacks preferred to stay aside from the Civil war and refused to provide assistance to the Volunteer Army of general Alexeyev. However, they did not try too hard to drive the Volunteer Army from the Cossack lands, where it was formed. Later, the Cossacks split in three parties. Some of them supported the bolsheviks, others fought in the White Guard, while the remaining large group formed independent guerilla groups (in many occasions the bandits would be a better word), called the Greens. In January 1919 seven Cossack stanitsas (stanitsa is a small town or a large village) rebelled against the ataman (the Cossack leader) P. Krasnov. They sent messengers to the Red army and then joined the bolsheviks.

The Wikipedia article on decossackization quotes a number of books that call the decossackization genocide. While very close to the truth, this word does not describe the situation correctly. Modern historian G. Pomerants proposed the term "stratacide", the extermination of a social stratum. The bolsheviks did strive to eliminate the Cossack culture. They opposed, and opposed fiercely, their traditions, including the military uniform. The villages were renamed and even the word "Cossack" was banned. The Cossacks were persecuted with the extreme atrocity. There are many documents written by the bolshevik leaders, including Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, with the direct orders to exterminate the richer Cossacks, the atamans (the leaders), teachers, clerics, etc. In December 1919 Dzerzhinsky wrote a letter to Lenin asking him what to do with the captive Cossacks, there were about one million of them. "Shoot them all," replied Lenin. The Inogorodnie who hated the Cossacks often used these orders as an occasion to exterminate the Cossacks indiscriminately. Even the Cossacks who collaborated with the bolsheviks could not be safe. And yet, thousands of the Red Cossacks who fought together with the bolsheviks played an important role in the Civil war.

As a response to these prosecutions, the Cossacks revolted in March 1919 and many of them joined the Volunteer Army. The bolsheviks backed down. They condemned the "excesses" of the decossackization and in 1920 ran the All-Russian Congress of the working Cossacks. By mid-20s the decossackization was basically over.

I have recently finished reading the book "Russia. My native land" by Gregory P. Tschebotarioff, professor of the Princeton University, former Cossack officer. I enjoyed this simple, plain and honest book. Tschebotarioff says that he wrote the book to disprove the false conceptions common in the West. He tries to explain to the Americans what the real Russia looked like before the revolution, who are the Cossacks and what happened in 1917. Tschebotarioff knew personally many leaders of the White movement and the Cossack leaders — general Denikin, ataman Krasnov, general Kornilov and others. Tschebotarioff rejects the idea that the Cossacks were separatists who wanted to secede from Russia. When in 1959 the US Congress adopted the US Public Law 86-90 (The Law on Enslaved Peoples, if I back-translate the name correctly), obliging the United States to assist the peoples subjugated by the bolsheviks. In January 1961, Tschebotarioff wrote an article protesting again the false ideas on which the law was based. So, he says that the law offers assistance to the mythical "countries" like Cossackia or Idel-Ural, while there have never been such countries. He insists that the Cossacks were never separatists and that the words of ataman Krasnov and other Cossack leaders were misinterpreted. Being a Cossack and knowing all these people personally, he is very convincing. I highly recommend this book to all students of Russian history. A thorough, deeply personal account, it lacks the analytical approach, but describes with extreme honesty the real events of those years.

January 11 in Russian history

1929

About ten years ago I began working as a service engineer for the well-known American company NCR. During the interview my new boss told me about the company and said: "The director of the Russian branch is Konstantin Slashchev. The last name is also the name of the famous general of the White guard." "Yes," I replied absent-mindedly, "Yakov Alexandrovich." The boss, probably, didn't expect me to remember this name, but I did. He was never really famous, though.

On 11 January 1929 Yakov Alexandrovich Slashchov was killed in Moscow by a Trotskyist named Kolenberg.

He was born on 10 January 1886 (29 December 1885 Old Style) in St.Petersburg and 1905 became an army officer in the Finland regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard (Leib-Guard). He was not sent to the Russo-Japanese war and was disappointed by this fact. Instead, he entered the Academy of the General Staff and graduated in 1911. In the Academy he was especially interested in rather unusual operations: a mix of guerilla and what we now know as spetsnaz — active night operations of small specially trained groups. Since the very first days of the WWI he fought on the frontline, was wounded five times, contused twice and awarded the order of St.George. In December 1917, he joined the Volunteer Army (the core of the future White Guard). His guerilla style operations were very useful during the fights against the bolsheviks in Northern Caucasus and along Kuban river. In 1918, his regiments drove the Red Army away from Odessa and Nikolayev, giving a chance to the White Guard to liberate half of Ukraine. In May 1919 he was promoted to general-major.

In 1919 the Red Army stroke back and the White Guard was forced to retreat to Crimea. On 27 December 1919 Slashchov's corps took their stand on the Perekop isthmus, which connected Crimea and mainland Russia and prevented the occupation of Crimea by the Red Army. Slashchov's unusual tactics almost saved Crimea and since then he became known as Slashchov-Krymsky (Slashchov of Crimea). However, the peninsula was overcrowded with demoralized and despaired refugees who were sometimes even more dangerous than the bolsheviks. They intrigued, demanded, committed crimes, bribed and took bribes and did their best to avoid the hardships of the army life. Slashchov was responsible for he defense of Crimea and his first task was the discipline.

Slashchov issued orders like this one: "The wine stores are to be sealed. The card games are strictly prohibited on the whole territory of Crimea. The owners of gambling dens will be punished as the accomplices of bolsheviks. Beware now, and if you don't listen, don't blame me for your untimely death." This was when he earned his nickname Slashchov the Hanger. Many years later, he became the prototype of general Khludov in the novel Flight (Beg in Russian) by M.Bulgakov — the brave but demoralized general who knew only one tool to restore discipline, the death penalty. Slashchov's reputation is still defined by this nickname. He sentenced hundreds of people to death. However, the largest part of his victims were not bolsheviks or their spies and saboteurs, but the officers of the White Guard accused of robbery, marauding, desertion or cowardice. So, in Simpheropol he ordered to hang three officers who robbed a Jewish jeweller. He executed soldiers who stole geese from the farms. Nevertheless, his courage, even audacity, and respect towards those who, in his opinion, deserved this respect — brave soldiers and officers — gave him another nickname. The soldiers called him "general Yasha" (diminutive of Yakov) and told legends of his inclination to risky adventures.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin, the commander of the White Guard, didn't like Slashchov, but understood that Crimea depends on Slashchov. When Denikin had to leave his position, he was replaced by baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel. The relationship between Slashchov and Wrangel were even worse. Wrangel, like Denikin, understood perfectly the importance of Slashchov and the dangers of quarrels between the leaders of the White Guard. However, the personality of Slashchov made this task very difficult. Wrangel wrote later in his memoirs:

Being a good officer, general Slashchov, even with his average army, coped with his tasks very well. With a handful of people, amid of the total chaos, he saved Crimea. But the unlimited autonomy and impunity turned his head. Unbalanced and flabby, vulnerable to flattery and prone to alcohol and drugs, he got absolutely lost in the atmosphere of chaos. He attempted to influence the politics, sent confused projects and proposals to the head-quarters, demanded to replace the leaders with other people who, he thought, were more talented.

Indeed, to decrease the pains in the abdomen caused by the recent wound, Slashchov used morphine in large doses. Slashchov accused Wrangel of cowardice and even theft. Wrangel deprived Slashchov of the orders and the right to wear military uniform.

One of the reasons for their quarrels was that Wrangel understood perfectly well that without the Western allies Russia will fall under bolshevism. This meant that Russia depended on the political will of Britain and, especially, France. For Slashchov, it was impossible and he came up with an idea of the Slavic unity. Slashchov was the first leader of the White Guard who proposed to grant autonomy to Ukraine. He preferred the alliance with Pilsudski's Poland, in spite of the pro-German position of Pilsudski, to the union with L'Entente. His disagreement with Wrangel began during the discussions of the planned advance. Slashchov offered to meet the Poles who advanced from the West, and Wrangel was inclined to accept the proposal of the Western allies and to attack Donetsk. Probably, Wrangel understood that the Slashchov's plan was correct, but the alliance with France and Britain was too important for him.

After the defeat of the White Guard Slashchov evacuated to Turkey and spent some time in Constantinople, growing and selling vegetables. One day he read the agreement between Wrangel and the Entente. His reaction was, as always, unpredictable. "The reds are my enemies, but they did the most important thing: they have revived the great Russia! And I don't care how they call her." This was unbelievable and the white emigrants boycotted him. The bolsheviks, on the contrary, were interested by this reaction. Now, an interesting story begins. During the sitting of Politbureau, Felix Dzerzhinsky offered to invite Slashchov to the Red Army. Zinovyev, Bukharin, and Rykov opposed, but Kamenev, Stalin and Voroshilov supported Dzerzhinsky. Lenin abstained from voting. Trotsky hated Slashchov, but he was not present on this sitting. Dzerzhinsky insisted on sending invitation to Slashchov and the proposal was accepted. Slashchov was amnestied and in November 1921 he and his young second wife Nina Nechvolodova arrived to Sevastopol. BTW, the life of Nina Nechvolodova is itself extremely interesting, but let's leave it for another story.

Why did Dzerzhinsky wanted to see Slashchov in the Red Russia? Of course, Slashchov was a gifted and lucky officer. But it seems that there were other reasons of which we no very little. In 1920, Nina Nechvolodova, who was then pregnant, was caught by the bolsheviks. They knew she was Slashchov's wife. Trotsky's commissar, Rozalia Zemlyachka (Samoylova), who later became one of the executors of Crimea and together with the Hungarian communist Bela Kun exterminated thousands of people there, ordered to shoot Nechvolodova, but for an unknown reason she was set free. The rumours tell that in 1920 Slashchov had a secret meeting with the a Dzerzhinsky's commissar in the Korsunsky monastery, near Berislav. Probably, there were some links between Dzerzhinsky and Slashchov of which we know nothing.

In 1922 Slashchov wrote an appeal to the former officers of the White Guard offering them to return to Russia and many of them did. By 1923, about 223,000 emigrants returned. The officers became officers of the Red Army. Slashchov was sentenced to death in absentia by the Russian All-Military Union, the organization of the white emigrants. The execution never happened, though. Slashchov became a teacher of the Soviet military academy — the Vystrel courses. Many Soviet commanders attended the courses. Soviet general Batov recalled: "He was a brilliant teacher and the tension in the room reminded the tension of the battle. Many of us fought against the White Guard and now a former White general sarcastically commented on our errors. We gritted our teeth angrily, but kept learning." Once Slashchov said that the main cause for the failure of the Soviet-Polish war was the stupidity of the Soviet commanders. Angry Semyon Budyonny, who was one of those "stupid ones", grasped his revolver and made some shots to Slashchov, but missed. Slashchov came to Budyonny and said: "You fought just like you shoot now."

On 11 January 1929, Slashchov was shot in his room by Lazar Kolenberg. During the trial, Kolenberg explained that he did it to revenge for his brother who was hanged by Slashchov. He couldn't prove this, but was soon released without punishment. This assassination strangely coincided with the beginning of repressions against former White officers. Or, probably, it is not strange at all…

Update @13:40 2008-01-15: correction in the paragraph about Wrangel and Poland (see comments below)

Update @0:58 2008-01-25: I have received a very interesting comment from Marc at SimaQianStudio.com. He writes:

"In my much younger days I was known to associate with a bunch of Wrangel and Denniken veterans. The only time I heard Slashchev's name mentioned, the room came to a quick and tense quiet. followed by conversation on other topics. A reaction like that naturally piqued my interest, and since those old timers didn't suffer fools gladly, it was off to the the public library. That's where I learned Slashchev's revolutionary insurgent and counter-insurgent tactics. It was a real revelation, and that knowledge would serve me in good stead in later years. By the way, the old White veterans held Slashchev responsible for the deaths of their comrades, who they thought would never had returned to the USSR were it not for Slashchev's entreaties."

Could it be the reason why the English Wikepedia still lacks the article about Slashchov?

January 6 in Russian history

1865

(25 December 1864 Old Style)

Birthday of Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr. An extravagant and a bit frightening figure in the Soviet science. Wikipedia writes:

Marr earned a reputation of the maverick genius with his Japhetic theory, postulating the common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic, and Basque languages. In 1924, he went even further and proclaimed that all the languages of the world descend from a single proto-language which had consisted of four "diffused exclamations": sal, ber, yon, rosh. Although the languages undergo certain stages of development, the linguistic paleontology makes it possible to discern elements of primordial exclamations in any given language. To draw support for his speculative doctrine, Marr elaborated a Marxist footing for it. He hypothesized that modern languages tend to fuse into a single language of communist society. This theory was a base of the mass campaign in 1920-30s in the Soviet Union of introduction of Latin alphabets for smaller ethnicities of the country, including replacement of the existing Cyrillic alphabets, e.g., for the Moldovan language.

His father, James Montague-Marr, was a Scot and his mother, Agafya Magulariya, was Georgian. Nikolay was one of the most strange pupils in the Kutaisi gymnasium. After a disease, when he couldn't attend the lessons for half a year, he decided to leave the school and become a telegraphist. His mother hardly managed to convince him to continue his studies. He was spending so much time studyihg foreign languages that he rarely visited the school, but his grades were always good. He was so interested in ancient Greek that he asked the principal for permission to stay in the eighth form for the second year, but the principal decided that Marr was mentally ill and almost sent him down. Marr was the editor of the school newspaper. He wrote revolutionary verses, welcoming the assassination of Alexander II and calling to the arms to "liberate" Georgia from Russians. However, he was not a revolutionary. During elections to the university council he always associated with the far right candidates.

When Marr entered the St.Petersburg university, he chose the faculty of Oriental languages. Students had to choose the languages they planned to learn and join the corresponding groups. Marr joined ALL groups that studied the languages of Near East and Caucasus! And he did learn all these languages. He became a great polyglot and could have become a great linguist, had it not been for the passion and obsession with his own unsubstantiated theories. He never even completed a single course in theoretical linguistics. He was a brilliant dilettante, a bit like Schliemann in archaeology. Unlike Schliemann, though, Marr was not successful. He was so deeply fascinated with his home Caucasus that he maniacally exaggerated the role of the peoples of Caucasus in history. Still a student, Marr introduced the term "Japhetic languages" — first to denote the unity of Georgian, Svan, Mingrelian and some other languages of Georgia and Semitic and Hamitic languages. This was an arguable, but more or less scientific theory. Later Marr began to include all dead languages of Mediterranean and Near East into this Japhetic group. His method is exemplified by his hypothesis that the Greeks originated in Caucasus. One of the earliest tribes of ancient Greece is called Pelasgians. This name is so similar to the name of Lezgins (an ethnic group in Northern Caucasus, Dagestan), Marr said, that these must be the same people. So, Pelasgians are from Caucasus. Or another example: we know of the two groups of Romans, the plebs and the patricians. In Marr's opinion, the sounds -eb- in plebs which remind the plural ending in Georgian language, prove that the plebs belonged to the Japhetic peoples who were conquered by Indo-European patricians.

However, Marr was also an archaeologist, and a good one. He began the explorations of Ani, the ancient Armenian capital, founded the Ani museum and published a number of works in Armenian history. The Armenians then even called all archaeologists "marrs". He found an ancient Georgian Christian treatise. His ideas about the close ties between the languages and the material culture are still interesting.

In 1917, Marr heartily welcomed the October revolution. He organized the Academy of the history of the material culture, participated in the foundation of many linguistic institutions, wrote the grammars for many languages of the USSR which hadn't had writing systems, including the Veps and the Karelian languages. In 1933 he opposed the the attempts to replace the Georgian and Armenian alphabets with Cyrillic. Instead, he spent many years developing the overcomplicated Latin-based "analytic alphabet" that would be suitable for all languages. He proposed to use it for the Abkhazian language, one of the most complicated languages from the phonetic point of view, but was not successful. Some people told that Marr saved them from Cheka.

On the other hand, Marr very rude and impudent. When he read lectures in Armenia and explained some features in the Armenian language, and Armenian raised his hand and said that he, as a native Armenian speaker, cannot agree with the Marr's examples. Marr immediately replied: "A fish wants to become and ichtyologist!" He often called his opponents fascists or compared them to Chamberlaine, Poincare and other "bourgeois politicians".

In 1921 or 1922 Marr, the only member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences who joined the Communist party, founded the Japhetic Institute. His outstanding personality, which reminded of the recent scientific revolution of Einstein, Roentgen and Bohr, attracted many scientists to the institute. Marr continues to enhance his theories. It was then when he deduced the four syllables of his "proto-language". Any word of any language may be reconstructed to these four syllables, he argued. "There are things which need not be proven, they can only be demonstrated," replied Marr when his opponents asked for proofs. Since 1928, Marr used the Marxist demagoguery to make his theory the official Marxist linguistics. When his opponents shrugged: "I don't understand you," Marr replied: "You'll never understand me till you change your class thinking!"

To be just, we have to note that the worst persecutions of the Marr's opponents began only after his death in 1934. He became the icon of the "proletarian linguistics". And then, suddenly, in 1950, Pravda published a whole page of criticism of Marr by A.S. Chikobava, who accused Marr of "misinterpretation of the national". For two months, Pravda continued the discussion of the Japhetic theory till finally, on 20 June, the article titled "Marxism and problems of linguistics" was published: "N. Y. Marr introduced into linguistics incorrect and non-Marxist formula, regarding the "class character" of language, and got himself into a muddle and put linguistics into a muddle. Soviet linguistics cannot be advanced on the basis of an incorrect formula which is contrary to the whole course of the history of peoples and languages.". The author was someone "J.Stalin". Marr, like modern linguists, told that there are no primitive languages, that the complexity of languages has nothing to do with the maturity of the civilization. Stalin, on the other hand, argued that more complicated languages are signs of a more mature society. Academic Vinogradov supported Stalin: "Josef Vissarionovich, Pushkin's vocabulary contains 21,000 words and the Shakespeare's vocabulary is only 20,000 words!" Basically, Stalin proclaimed the national minorities of the USSR the people of the second class. As the result, a huge number of national, non-Russian, schools and newspapers were closed.

After this article, all Marr's achievements, both mythical and real, became non-science. Two weeks later Marr's disciples wrote: "We see the fallaciousness of the theoretical way we used to follow."

A good article about Nikolay Marr in Russian by V. Alpatov: Marr, Marrism and Stalinism.

January 3 in Russian history

1940

Mussolini wrote a letter to Hitler, disproving the recent German agreements with the Soviet union:

Nobody knows better than I do, with my fourty-years long experience, that the politics, especially the revolutionary politics, sometimes demands tactical manoeuvres. In 1924 I recognized the Soviets. In 1934 I signed the treaty of trade and friendship with them. So, I understood, especially considering the fact that the Ribbentrop's prediction of the non-interference of Britain and France did not prove to be correct, that you had to avoid the second front. For this, you had to reconcile with the huge territories in Poland and Baltic countries being gained by Russia who didn't strike a single blow in that campaign.

But I, who was born a revolutionist and who never betrayed the revolution, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your Revolution to the tactical exigencies of a certain political moment. I feel that you cannot abandon the anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik banner which you have been flying for twenty years and for which so many of your comrades have died; you cannot renounce your gospel.

…

I feel it my duty to add that any further step in the relationships with Moscow would cause catastrophic consequences in Italy, where the anti-Bolshevik sentiments are universal, absolute, hard as granite and inviolable. Permit me to believe that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum problem is in Russia and nowhere else.

…

Germany’s task is this; to defend Europe from Asia. That is not only Spengler’s thesis. Until four months ago Russia was world enemy number one; she cannot have become, and is not, friend number one.

…

The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with our two Revolutions. It will then be the turn of the big democracies, which cannot survive the cancer which is gnawing at them and which manifests itself in the demographic, political and moral fields.

I especially enjoyed this brave and pompous "revolutionist". They're so eloquent, these revolutionists, aren't they? :)

January 31 in Russian history

1714: When Peter I travelled in Europe, he visited Kunstkabineten, or collections of rarities, in various countries. When he came back to Russia, he organized such "cabinet of rarities", Kunstkamera, and ordered to collect various interesting things all over Russia. In 1714, when Russian capital was moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg, the collection was also transferred there and on January 31, it was opened in the Summer Palace. In the times of Peter I, the collection consisted mostly of exotic animals, anatomical anomalies, weapon, ethnografic rarities. The collection grew with time and in 1820s-1830s it was split into a number of museums: Ethnografic, Egyptian, Zoological, Mineralogical and others. In 1878, two of them formed the modern Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, one of the most interesting museums in St. Petersburg.

January 30 in Russian history

1489: Muscovy establishes diplomatic relationships with the Holy Roman Empire. During the late XV century, Muscovy had two strong enemies: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman empire, and was looking for allies. To achieve this, Ivan III seeked to establish contacts with other European countries. He signs a treaty with Livonia in 1481, exchanged messages "of brotherhood and union" with Venice (1485), exchanged ambassadors with Austria (1489), signed a treaty with Hungary (1485), agreed on joint military actions against Sweden with Denmark (1481 and 1493). In 1486, a knight from Sylesia, someone Nicholas Poppel, visited Moscow. When he returned from Muscovy, he spoke of the Russian state, whose ruler was "more powerful and rich than the Polish king." It was a surprise for Europe, since the rumors spoke of Russia as a country still in subjugation of either Tatars or Poles. In 1489, Poppel visited Moscow again, this time as an ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire. He and Ivan III signed a treaty and Poppel offered Ivan to accept the title of the king. Ivan III replied: "By God's grace, we have been the lords of our land from the beginning, since our first forefathers, and we have been placed by God, and we never wanted and do not want any other permissions."

1801: Emperor Pavel I signed the Manifesto on the incorporation of Georgia into Russia. In XVI-XVIII centuries Georgia was under constant attacks of Persia and Ottoman empire, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when Georgia became cut from other Christian countries. Persia tried to eliminate the Georgian population entirely and the Ottomans were Turkifying the population of south-eastern Georgia. In early XVIII century, the Georgian king Vakhtang VI and other Georgian political figures find an asylum in Russia. In the end of 1782, king Erekle II asks Catherine to take Eastern Georgia (kingdom Kartli-Kakheti) under protection and in 1783 the treaty of Georgievsk was signed. Eastern Georgia gave up its autonomy and Russia guaranteed its independence and territorial integrity. Russia promised to increase the number of troops in Georgia, but failed to comply. In 1795, Persia attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi. Two Russian battalions retreated, but Russia sent 13,000 soldiers and liberated Georgia. Turkey also gave up all claims. In 1798, Erekle died and his son George XII became the king. Soon, his illness provoked instability in the country, when his son David and his half-brother Yulon contested the throne. Russia backed David and in December 1800 David became the regent of the Eastern Georgia. In January 1801 Russia violated the terms of the treaty of Georgievsk, removed David from power and proclaimed Eastern Georgia a part of the Russian empire. David was brought to St. Petersburg under a military escort, but in Russia he was freed, he settled in St. Petersburg, became a general and an important politician and in 1812 became a senator. In 1810, the Western Georgia (kingdom of Imereti) joined the Eastern Georgia and became a part of Russian empire.

January 29 in Russian history

1649: Zemsky sobor (Russian parliament) issues the new law code, Sobornoe ulozhenie. By this time Russian legal system includes a lot of outdated and even controversial laws and the new dynasty of Romanovs begins to review the laws. The tsar Alexei I summoned the Zemsky sobor, which elected a commission to prepare and review the laws. The drafts were approved by tsar and the Boyar Duma (an advisory council). By the end of 1648 the draft code was prepared and sent for approval. In 1649, the code was sent to all legal departments as the official law code of the Russian empire.

1710: Peter I introduces the new alphabet, which is to replace the Old Slavonic alphabet. This new alphabet is still used in Russia, with some changes. The new "civil" alphabet looked more like Latin letters.The Old Slavonic alphabet included a number of letters, inherited from Greek language. Some of these letters denoted the sounds absent in Russian language and took slightly different meaning in Russian. As a result, there were pairs of letters with the same meaning. For example, sound [f] was denoted by Greek Θ and Slavic Ф. Sound [o] also had two representations: Slavic О and Greek Ω. Nasal vowels, not used in Russian language, were also excluded from the alphabet.

1860: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, one of the best Russian writers, was born. A brilliant playwrite and the author of short stories, for all his life he dreamed of writing a novel. It never happened. So what, he is still my favourite writer in the whole Russian literature!

January 27-28 in Russian history

January 27

1756: I cannot start this post with any other date than this: the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

1871: Alexander II issues a decree allowing women to work in public and state institutions

1944: The siege of Leningrad is totally lifted.

1945: In the course of liberation of Poland, Soviet troops enter the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The majority of prisoners were relocated to Germany and the Soviet soldiers only find about 3,000 people, who were considered 'useless' by the Nazis.

January 28

1725: (Feb 8 New style) Emperor Peter I died. Probably, the most influential ruler in the Russian history. The author of the "westernization" policy. Creator of the Russian Empire. Builder of the Russian fleet. Victor in many wars, including the war with Carl XII, king of Sweden. Architect of St. Petersburg, Russian "window into Europe". On the other hand, it was he who turned the life of Russian serfs into what became the distinguishing quality of Russian history in the eyes of all foreigners. It was he who killed thousands of people by sending them to forced labor. The people remembered him as the Tsar-Antichrist.

1765: Catherine II issues a decree giving the landowners (pomeshchiki) the right to condemn their serfs to penal servitude.

1783: The same empress, Catherine II, allows private book-printing. 13 years later, in 1796, private publishing houses are prohibited again.

1820: Two Russian ships, Vostok and Mirnyi, captained by Faddey Bellinsgauzen and Mikhail Lazarev, discover Antarctica.

January 26 in Russian history

1525: First printed map of Russia. It was drawn by a geographer Dmitri Gerasimov and was based on the accounts of travellers and merchants and on interviews with them.

1582: The end of the Livonian war. Ambassador of Ivan IV, tsar of Russia, and Stefan Batory, king of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with help of the papal legatus Antonio Possevino, sign the Treaty of Jam Zapolski in a village Kiverova Gora. Russian ambassadors were duke Yeletsky and book publisher Alferyev. The Livonian war started in 1558 to establish control on the territory of Livonian Confederation (modern Latvia and Estonia). This confederation consisted of a number of German colonies: the Livonian Order, Archbishopric of Riga, Bishopric of Dorpat, Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, and Bishopric of Courland. In the course of the war Sweden joined the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the accent moved to the territories lying between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. According to the terms of the 20-year truce, Russia renounced the claims to Livonia and Polotsk, but Poland returned the occupied Russian city of Velikie Luki and stopped the siege of Pskov. Russia lost the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, the only access to the Baltic Sea and regained it only 13 years later, during the Russian-Swedish war of 1590-1595.

1924: The 2nd congress of Soviets renamed Petrograd (ex-St. Petersburg) to Leningrad.

1943: Nikolai Vavilov, a prominent botanist and geneticist, died in a prison in Saratov from dystrophia. Vavilov, born in 1887, graduated from Moscow Agricultural Institute and worked together with the father of genetics, William Bateson, for some years. Vavilov was interested in the origin of cultivated plants, especially the cereal crops. He organized a number of botanical expeditions, created the largest collection of largest plant seeds in the world and was the first to identify the centres of origin of the cultivated plants. He also formulated the law of homologous series in variation. In 1940 he was repressed as a defender of the "bourgeois pseudoscience" genetics. In 1968, the Research Institute of Plant Industry in Leningrad was renamed to the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry.

January 25 in Russian history

1547: Ivan IV becomes the tsar of Russia. While the term 'tsar' has been known for quite a while, Ivan IV was the first Russian ruler to be crowned as the "tsar of all Russia". He became a Grand Prince at the age of three, in 1533, and was crowned at the age of 16. The new title, tsar, had to be acknowledged by other monarchs. Patriarch of Constantinople sent his blessings in 1561, while other monarchs for a long time continued to call the Moscow rulers 'the Grand Princes'. During the first half of his reign, he was heavily influenced by his wife, Anastasia Yurieva (or Koshkina, Zakharieva, Romanova -- it's a long story :)) and a priest named Sylvester. The tsar wanted to devote all his life to serving the people and Sylvester organized a whole circle of nobility who wanted to assist the tsar in improving the life of Russians. Ivan IV updated and re-wrote the sudebnik (the law code), gave self-government to many districts and allowed to elect the local administration and judges, summoned the first Zemsky Sobor, the first Russian parliament. He put an end to the attacks of the last Tatars by seizing their capital Kazan and adjoined huge territories along Volga and Kama rivers to Russia. He had some conflicts with Sylvester and the nobility, who wanted to limit the autocratic power of the tsar, but all went well till 1560, when Ivan's wife died. It was a shock which changed him forever. In 1560, he sends Sylvester and other members of his circle into exile. In 1564, he leaves Moscow, stays in a monastery and sends a letter to Moscow, saying that he had left the capital because the boyars were plotting against him. The people asked him to come back and he agreed at last. He divided the country into "zemshchina" and "oprichnina". The first part was governed by the boyars' Duma, and the second belonged to the tsar exclusively. Oprichnina included the lands which belonged earlier to the most powerful boyars and by taking these lands under his hand Ivan attempted to minimize their influence. In practice, oprichnina turned into a removal and even elimination of many people. His guard, called oprichniki used the power given to them by the tsar to rob and to kill (mostly in aristocratic houses) and enjoyed sadistic orgies. After these atrocities he got his name Grozny, or the Terrible (this translation is not perfect, though). It is important to note, though, that the total number of his victims is estimated to be from 4,000 to 7,000 people, that is, much fewer than many other European monarchs managed to kill. He achieved his goals: the nobility lost their influence almost completely. His death in 1584 became the beginning of a long period of unrest, called the Times of Trouble.

1701: School of mathematical and navigational sciences was founded in Moscow. It was a logical step for Peter I, who wanted to turn Russia into a sea power. Children in the age from 12 to 17 from all social classes could enter the school. In 1715, the elder students moved to St.Petersburg and became the base for the Academy of Sea Guard, now called the St.Petersburg Naval Institute. Among famous graduates of the School were the admirals Kornilov, Nakhimov, Senyavin, Ushakov, Essen, Kuznetsov, Gorshkov and others, explorers Chirikov, Chelyuskin, Laptev, Lisyansky, Kruzenshtern, Nevelsky, Vrangel, etc. Many other graduates became famous in other, non-navy professions: composer Rimsky-Korsakov, writers Stanyukovich and Sobolev, painters Vereshchagin and Bogolyubov, the author of a dictionary of Russian language Dal, constructor of the first aeroplane (well, it was almost an aeroplane) Mozhaisky.

1938: Birthday of Vladimir Vysotsky, a unique poet and singer of the Soviet times. I am afraid that I will not be able to describe the huge role he played in our life in the USSR, so I will simply refer you to web pages. Read about Vysotsky at Wikipedia. Read and listen his verses and songs at the official site. Read the verses here.

1991: My home city got back its original name -- Samara. Since 1935 it was known as Kyibyshev, after the name of Valerian Kuibyshev, a Soviet politician and a Red Army commander. The city was founded in 1586. During the WWII, it was a secondary capital of USSR. The government stayed in Moscow, but many ministeries, foreign embassies, etc., were relocated to Kuibyshev. For many years, Kuibyshev has been an important centre of aerospace industry. A large share of Soviet and Russian spaceships and carriers were built here.

January 24 in Russian history

1776: Well, this is not Russian history, but who cares :). Today is the birthday of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, a brilliant German writer, who in a purely German manner reconciled romanticism and poetry with satire and humour. Der goldene Topf, Nußknacker und Mausekönig, Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober, Meister Floh -- these are some of his books I highly recommend you to read. He is one of my favourite writers and I hope you will pardon me this little digression...

1783: Duchess Ekaterina Dashkova is appointed the president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ekaterina Vorontsova was born in 1743 and received a very good education at home: she spoke four languages, studied music, painting, mathematics, natural sciences, etc. In 1759 she made acquaintance with the grand princess Catherine, who became her best friend for years. In the same year, she marries duke Mikhail Dashkov. After the coup d'etat of 1762, when Peter III was dethroned, Catherine became the empress and she rewarded Dashkova for participation in the coup. Dashkova hoped to build a new, better Russia together with Catherine, but the place was already taken by Catherine's favorite Grigory Orlov. In 1764 Mikhail Dashkov died and Ekaterina Dashkova tries to find consolation in family and children. In 1769, she takes a trip to Europe, where she visits universities and academies, theatres and museums. In 1772, she returns to Russia, but in 1775 leaves to Europe again, because her 13-year old son enters the Edinburgh university and she spends 5 years with him in Britain, where she meets with Hume and Adam Smith. They travel all along Europe and meet Diderot, Voltaire, D'Alambert and other famous scientists and philosophers. In 1782, they come back to Russia and Catherine gives her a hearty welcome. Unexpectedly, Catherine offers her to become the president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, founded on her suggestion. On 24 January, 1783, she officially becomes the first woman in Europe to head an academy. On 30 January, Leonard Euler, the patriarch of the Russian science, introduced her to the academy. In September 1783, she becomes also the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the next eleven years, Dashkova created a fruitful atmosphere in the academy, organized a number of scientific expeditions, created new laboratories, modernized the typography, restored the Botany Garden, built a new building of the Academy. In amazingly short time of five years, the first dictionary of Russian language was prepared (1789-1794). In 1794, a literary magazine published by Dashkova, publishes a tragedy "Vadim of Novgorod" by Khyazhnin. The empress is angered by this antimonarchist play and Dashkova has to retire from all her posts. She died in 1810 in her estate near Moscow.

January 23 in Russian history

1589: Until the schism of 1054, there were five patriarchates, but then Rome became a church of its own and only four patriarchs remained: in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The Russian orthodox church since knyaz Vladimir was governed by a metropolitan, who was appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople. Since 23 Jan, 1589, the Russian church became a separate patriarchate, Russian metropolitan Job became the first patriarch of Russia.

1681: The first of thirteen Russo-Turkish wars is over (1676-1681). A 20-year truce was signed in Bakhchisaray (Crimea). After the Polish-Turkish war, when the Ottoman empire captured the region of Podolia, Turkey attempted to take the whole Right-bank Ukraine (territory to the West from river Dnieper), using the discontent among the Ukrainians. The joint Russian-Ukrainian army was beaten by Turks and the territory of Ukraine was split between Ottomans and Russia. According to the Bakhchisaray treaty, river Dnieper became the border between the two countries, but they also agreed not to settle between rivers Dnieper and Southern Buh. Crimean Tatars were allowed to live in the steppes on both sides of Dnieper. Cossacks had the right to fish, obtain salt and sail all along the Dnieper and its tributaries.

January 22 in Russian history

1905: (Jan 9 Old Style) The Bloody Sunday. Beginning of the first revolution. In the beginning of January, the workers of Putilovsky factory began a strike, demanding for 8-hour working day, guaranteed minimum salary, abolishment of obligatory overtime, etc. The St. Petersburg committee of bolsheviks called on the workers of St.Petersburg for support of the strike. As a result, more than 150,000 people participated in the general strike. Without newspapers and electricity, the city was paralysed. The governement, trying to regain control, declared martial law and collected around 40,000 policemen and armed soldiers in the city. In spite of the tensions, the workers' committees adopted the plan of a mass peaceful demonstration proposed by a priest Father Gapon. A petition to the tsar was prepared, which included both economical and political requirements: convocation of the Constituent Assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of workers' unions, peace with Japan, separation of church from the state, etc. On the day before the demonstration, the bolsheviks issued a proclamation, saying that the workers will achieve liberation through the armed revolt only, but not by sending petitions. The perspective of a bloodshed was getting more inevitable. A group of intelligentsia, including Maxim Gorky, visited the prime-minister S. Vitte, asking him to do all possible to avoid violence. Vitte sent them to the minister of home affairs Svyatopolk-Mirsky, but he refused to admit them. In the morning of January 22, more than 140,000 people started moving to the tsar's palace. Women and children were put in the front rows to prevent the troops from attacking. At about noon, the cavalry attacked the demonstrants and gunmen started shooting. The wounded were killed by sabres or died under the horses' hooves. Father Gapon fled. Streets were covered with bodies. The official government news reported of 96 killed, but most sources give figures of 1000-4000 killed. As a response to the massacre, the workers started all-Russian strike, where around 440,000 people participated. The revolution began.

1908: Lev Landau, an outstanding Russian physicist, was born. Landau was one of the greatest Soviet physicists and a charismatic personality. The areas of physics where he worked include quantum physics, solid body physics, low temperature physics, cosmic rays, hydrodynamics, elementary particles, plasma and many others. In 1927 he graduated from the Leningrad university. In 1929 he went to Denmark, Britain and Switzerland for traineeship. He worked with Niels Bohr, whom he used to call his only teacher. In 1938, during the Stalin's purges, he was arrested and spent one year in Gulag, but was released after the interference of academician Pyotr Kapitsa. He discovered (or co-discovered)the density matrix method in quantum mechanics, the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second order phase transitions, the Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, and the two-component theory of neutrinos. In 1962, he became a Nober Prize laureate for the development of the theory of superfluidity. On the same year he suffered heavily in a car accident and six years later died during a surgical operation. Two most influential parts of his scientific heritage are the Course of Theoretical Physics in ten volumes and the founding of the brilliant scientific school, known as Landau school, which became a legend of the Soviet science.

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?

January 19 in Russian history

1171: Knyaz of Kiev, Gleb, younger brother of Andrei Bogolyubsky, dies. The chronicles wrote of him: "if he gave the word, he kept it, he was humble, loved monasteries and monks and was generous with the poor." There were rumours that he was poisoned, but there were no direct evidences to that. Gleb's throne was given to Vladimir Mstislavich, known for his perfidy.

1918: Bolsheviks dissolve the Constituent Assembly. Ever since the revolution of 1905, many political parties, including socialist democrats, demanded for the Constituent Assembly. After the February revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government began the preparations for the elections. In November 1917 (25 Oct., old style), bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. They banned non-socialist press and began political persecutions of other political parties, notably the Constitutional Democrats, but they permitted the elections, which were scheduled by the Provisional Government on November, 12 (old style). The elections gave 380 places in the Constituent Assembly (out of 703) to the non-Marxist party of Socialist Revolutionaries (aka Right SRs), widely supported by peasants, 168 places to Bolsheviks and much smaller number of places to other parties, including Left SRs, associated with the Bolsheviks. On 18 January (6 Jan, old style) a large demonstration supporting the Constituent Assembly took place in Petrograd (ex-St.Petersburg). The demonstration was dispersed by the Bolshevik troops, especially their praetorian guard, Latvian riflemen, who shot many people with machine guns. The Assembly started their work at around 16:00 on 18 January. Bolsheviks commented: "How can you appeal to such a concept as the will of the whole people? For a Marxist 'the people' is an inconceivable notion: the people does not act as a single unit. The people as a unit is a mere fiction, and this fiction is needed by the ruling classes." The Tauride Palace, where the Assembly took place, was blocked by Bolshevik forces, including the Latvian riflemen. Rebellous sailors entered the building, the Bolshevist leaders were present as guests, even though they already decided to dissolve the Assembly. "There is no need to disperse the Constituent Assembly: just let them go on chattering as long as they like and then break up, and tomorrow we won't let a single one of them come in," said Lenin. At about 4:00 am, the guards entered the hall and sailor Zheleznyakov said his famous "Workers don't need your chatter. The guard are tired and want to sleep. I propose to stop the discussions." The Assembly quickly voted for the Law on the Land, for the law proclaiming Russia a democratic federal republic and an appeal to Entente for peace and dispersed. On the next day, the building was locked and Bolsheviks declared the Assembly dissolved. Actually, it was the day when the Civil War began

1980: President of the USA J.Carter declares that the USA will boycott the Olympic games in Moscow.

January 18 in Russian history

1654: Pereyaslav Rada (Assembly) approved the treaty prepared by the Cossack Hetman, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, to re-unite Ukraine with Russia. In the morning the Hetman called the elders' rada (council of the leaders of Cossacks) and after their approval, the open rada assembled and confirmed the decision. The participants included representatives of all areas liberated from Polish troops, people from the town of Pereyaslav and peasants from nearby villages. The Hetman, the Cossack leaders and the people pledged their allegiance to the tsar Alexey I. The Russian government was very careful about the decision and declined the Ukrainian initiative for a number of times before finally signing the Pereyaslav Treaty on March, 14, 1654.

1825: The new building of the Bolshoi Theatre was inaugurated. The theatre was founded in 1776 and they gave performances in Znamensky theatre. In 1780, it was destroyed by a fire and a new theatre, Petrovsky, was designed by Osip Bove. In 1805, this building burnt down, too, and in 1808 the theatre moved to Arbatsky theatre built by an Italian architect Carlo Rossi. The Arbatsky theatre was destroyed when Napoleon took Moscow in 1812. In 1821, Osip Bove started the construction of the new building, designed by Alexey Mikhailov, the rector of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The Muscovites, impressed by the grandeur of the new building, called it Colosseum. During the first concert on January, 18, 1825, a piece by Russian composers A.Verstovsky and A.Alyabyev, "The Triumph of The Muses", was performed. In 1853, during a fire, the building was damaged, but it was restored in 1856. Now, in 2007, the building is closed for restoration works.

1926: Premiere of "Battleship Potemkin", a film by Sergei Eisenstein. The film is considered one of the most influential films. In 1958, during the World's Fair at Brussels, it was named by experts the greatest film of all time.

1943: The Soviet troops broke the blockade of Leningrad. After a week of fierce fighting, units of Leningrad and Volkhov fronts overcame the German fortifications and opened a corridor to supply the food to the dying city.

1944: Precisely one year later, on January 18, 1944, the siege was ended and the German troops were driven away from Leningrad, after 900 days-long tragedy, one of the most frightening ones in history. From 670,000 to 1,500,000 people died, mostly from starvation and exposure.

January 17 in Russian history

1700: (Julian Jan. 6) Tsar Peter I the Great, who had just returned from Western Europe, decreed that all Russians, except for clerics, had to shave their beards off and to wear short dress instead of the old long one. The new clothes were copied from European fashions: the summer clothes reminded German dress and the winter ones were in the Hungarian style.

1799: Ballerina Avdotya Ilyinichna Istomina was born. Her father was a policeman. Mother died soon. At the age of 6 she entered the St.Petersburg theater college, which was a luck for a girl from a poor family. At the age of 9, she danced for the first time in the ballet 'Zephyr and Flora'. She was the first ballerina to dance sur les pointes, on the toes. She was known not only for her outstanding technique, but also for the purely artistic, dramatic talent. Now, her name is widely known because Pushkin, who admired her, mentioned her name in Evgeny Onegin:

Then with a half-ethereal splendour,
Bound where the magic bow will send her,
Istomina, thronged all around
by Naiads, one foot on the ground,
twirls the other slowly as she pleases,
then suddenly she's off, and there
she's up and flying through the air
like fluff before Aeolian breezes;
she'll spin this way and that, and beat
against each other swift, small feet.

Istomina died from cholera on June, 26, 1848.

1920: Capital punishments outlawed in Soviet Russia.During the rule of Ivan IV the Terrible, death penalty was widely used, around 4000 people were killed (it may be interesting to compare the figure with around 72000 vagabonds hanged by Henry VIII). Boris Godunov swore during the accession to observe a five-year moratorium on death penalty. After these five years, though, he used it often. In the times of Peter I, death penalty was the punishment for 123 various crimes. Peter's daughter, Elizabeth, was the first ruler in Europe who attempted to outlaw the capital punishment. During the period of 1891-1905, it was never used. After the revolutions began, in 1905-1906, about 4000 people were shot. Death penalty was outlawed again in 1917, but not for long, until July, 17. During the Soviet period, death penalty was outlawed three times: Nov.1917-Feb.1918, 17 Jan 1920-11 May 1920, 26 May 1947-12 Jan 1950. Since 1962, death penalty became a punishment for 'economic' crimes. 24000 people were executed during 1962-1990. After the break-up of the USSR, use of capital punishment was dramatically cut (163 executions during 1991-1996). Since 1996, the moratorium was enacted and the death penalty is not used now. However, it is not totally outlawed as yet, unfortunately.