December 18
Birthdays
Karl Rossi, an outstanding Russian architect of Italian origin was born on 18 December 1775 in Naples, Italy. He designed quite a number of building and architectural ensembles in
Saint Petersburg. Karl Rossi is considered an adherent of the late classicism architectural style: his works combine grandiosity with noble simplicity. His creations feature expressiveness, resplendence of order compositions, innovative methods and harmonious combinations of architecture and sculpture.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Dzhugashvili 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953). He was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 until his death on 5 March 1953. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the Russian Revolution in 1917, Stalin held the position of General Secretary of the party's Central Committee
from 1922 until his death. While the office was initially not highly
regarded, Stalin used it to consolidate more power after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, gradually putting down all opposition.
Alexei Venediktov (born 18 December 1955) is a Russian journalist, editor-in-chief and host at the Echo of Moscow radio station, president of the Echo TV Russia.
Since 1990 he has been working for Echo of Moscow. Since 1996 he has been the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow. Since 2002 he has been president of the Echo TV Russia. In September 2006, Venediktov tried himself as a host on TV-channels Domashny, V kruge sveta. Venediktov owns 18% of Echo of Moscow's shares, but resigned from the board in protest against Gazprom-Media announcement to change the board in February 2012.
Lev Stepanovich Dyomin (Russian: Лев Степанович Дёмин; January 11, 1926, in Moscow – December 18, 1998, in Zvyozdny Gorodok[1]) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 15 spaceflight in 1974. This spaceflight was intended to dock with the space station Salyut 3, but the docking failed.
ReplyDeleteThe Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, Балет-феерия, Shchelkunchik; French: Casse-Noisette, Ballet-Féerie), is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, 18 December 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta.
ReplyDeleteAlthough always depicted as a towering figure, Stalin, in fact, was of short stature. He possessed the typical features of Transcaucasians: black hair, black eyes, a short skull, and a large nose. His personality was highly controversial, and it remains shrouded in mystery. Stalin was crude and cruel and, in some important ways, a primitive man. His cunning, distrust, and vindictiveness seem to have reached paranoid proportions. In political life he tended to be cautious and slow-moving. His style of speaking and writing was also ponderous and graceless. Some of his speeches and occasional writings read like a catechism. He was at times, however, a clever orator and a formidable antagonist in debate. Stalin seems to have possessed boundless energy and a phenomenal capacity for absorbing detailed knowledge.
ReplyDeleteDaughter of Emperor Peter the Great, Elizaveta Petrovna was born on December 18, 1709, before her father's official marriage to Catherine I. As soon as Catherine died, the position of the Czarevna became most precarious, particularly during the reign of Anna Ivanovna and the Regency of Anna Leopoldovna; both feared the Imperial Guard's loyalty to Peter's daughter. Elizaveta was saved from taking the veil by her nephew, the Prince of Holstein (the future Emperor Peter III).
ReplyDeleteOn the night of November 25, 1741, Elizaveta went to the barracks of the Preobrazhenskii regiment and persuaded the soldiers to follow her. The Braunschweig clan and a number of senior officials were arrested and the 32-year-old Elizaveta was proclaimed Empress. On April 25, 1742, Elizaveta was crowned in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
During her reign, significant advances were made economically and culturally. In foreign policy, Russia became so important that all states were eager to make treaties. One of Elizaveta's most important decrees was made on May 7, 1744: the abolition of capital punishment. During her reign, not a single person was executed.
She died on December 25, 1761, leaving no heir. She was buried in the Cathedral of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
Wartime and After
ReplyDeleteUntil 1934, Stalin had pursued the policy, initiated by the Treaty of Rapallo (see Rapallo, Treaty of, of friendship with Germany. After Adolf Hitler became (1933) chancellor of Germany, Stalin strove for international acceptance and cooperation, joining (1934) the League of Nations and attempting a rapprochement with Great Britain and France. The failure of such a rapprochement and the growing danger of war led Stalin to conciliate Hitler.
The nonaggression pact with Germany (Aug., 1939) was designed to keep the USSR out of World War II. The territorial concessions and strategic advantages granted the Soviet Union by Germany at the expense of other East European nations contributed to Stalin's underestimation of the German threat. The Nazi invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941, took Stalin—who in May had taken over the premiership from V. M. Molotov—by surprise; it temporarily paralyzed his leadership and nearly led to the collapse of the Soviet army.
The extent to which Stalin as a military leader subsequently contributed to Soviet victory has been fiercely debated among Soviet and Western authors; his forceful leadership was probably a greater asset than his military capability. He directed the war effort from the Kremlin, where he remained when the rest of the government was evacuated. He was voted the rank of marshal of the Soviet Union (1943) and of generalissimo (1945).
At the Tehran Conference (1943) and the Yalta Conference (1945) with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and at the Potsdam Conference (1945), Stalin proved an astute diplomat. His diplomatic skill led to the recognition by the Western powers of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Having further strengthened his personal power in the course of World War II, Stalin used it ruthlessly to consolidate his control within the Soviet Union and the emerging Soviet empire against what he perceived as renewed capitalist threats. Always suspicious of Communist movements outside his control, he tried unsuccessfully to dissuade the Chinese Communists from taking power after World War II and broke with Josip Broz Tito in 1948 over the question of Yugoslavia's independent Communist policies.
Stalin's paranoia during the last years of his life led to increased repression and persecution of his closest collaborators, reminiscent of the purges of the 1930s. His public appearances, which had always been rare, became even less frequent in the late 1940s and early 50s. His remoteness only stimulated the public worship bestowed upon him, which verged on apotheosis.
Stalin died Mar. 5, 1953, of a cerebral hemorrhage. His body was entombed next to Lenin's in the mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow. Little is known of Stalin's private life except that he married twice and that both wives died (the second, Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva, by suicide in 1932). Yakov, his son by his first wife, died in Nazi captivity. He had a son and a daughter by his second wife. His son, Vasily, was an officer in the Soviet air force before his death in 1962. His daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, defected to the United States in 1967.