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Moura Budberg
Maria Ignatievna von Budberg-Bönninghausen (russian: Мария (Мура) Игнатьевна Закревская-Бенкендорф-Будберг, ''Maria (Moura) Ignatievna Zakrevskaya-Benckendorff-Budberg'', née Zakrevskaya; February 1892 – 1 November 1974) — also known as Countess von Benckendorff and Baroness von Budberg — was a Russian adventuress and suspected double agent of the Joint State Political Directorate, Soviet Union secret police (OGPU) and British Intelligence Service. According to British journalist Robin Bruce Lockhart, who knew her personally, "she was, perhaps, the Soviet Union's most effective agent-of-influence ever to appear on London's political and intellectual stage". Biography Early life Born in Poltava, in central Ukraine, Moura was the daughter of Ignaty Platonovich Zakrevsky (1839–1906), a member of the Russian nobility and diplomat. In 1911, she married Count Johann (Ivan) Alexandrovich von Benckendorff (1882–1919), a member ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allan Warren
Michael Allan Warren (born 26 October 1948) is an English portrait photographer, primarily known for his images of members of high society. An actor and talent manager in his youth, he rose to prominence for portraits of British nobility, politicians, and celebrities. His subjects include Alec Douglas-Home, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Charles III, Louis Mountbatten and Laurence Olivier. Early life and education After growing up in post-war London with his mother, Warren attended Terry's Juveniles, a stage school based in the Drury Lane Theatre. It was during this period that he attended auditions through which he received several assignments. One such piece of work was as a child presenter in "The Five O'clock Club", which afforded him the opportunity to associate with individuals such as Marc Bolan (then performing as "Toby Tyler"), who would later employ Warren as his first manager. Career Warren started his photographic career at the age of 20, when he was acting in Alan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Alexander (businesswoman)
Dame Helen Anne Alexander DBE (10 February 1957 – 5 August 2017) was a British businesswoman. She served as the chairman of UBM plc. She had an MA from Oxford, an MBA from INSEAD and in 2016 was awarded the Legion d'Honneur. She was Chancellor of the University of Southampton (2011–2017). Early life Alexander was born in Geneva to Bernard Alexander, a British lawyer who worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Tania Benckendorff. Her mother was Russian (with roots in Estonia) and her maternal grandmother was Moura Budberg, adventuress, muse, and suspected double agent. Through her, Helen Alexander was related to Nick Clegg, sometime Deputy Prime Minister, whose paternal grandmother, Kira von Engelhardt, Baroness von Smolensk, was Budberg's niece. Alexander was educated at St Paul's Girls' School in London. She earned a degree in geography from Hertford College, Oxford in 1978 and graduated from INSEAD in 1984. Career She began a career in publi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Life Of Klim Samgin
''The Life of Klim Samgin'' (russian: Жизнь Клима Самгина, translit=Zhizn' Klima Samgina) is a four-volume novel written by Maxim Gorky from 1925 up to his death in 1936. It is Gorky's most ambitious work, intended to depict "all the classes, all the trends, all the tendencies, all the hell-like commotion of the last century, and all the storms of the 20th century." It follows the decline of Russian ''intelligentsia'' from the start of the 1870s and the assassination of Alexander II to the Russian Revolution, 1917 Revolution, seen in the eyes of Klim Samgin, a typical petit-bourgeois intellectual. The fourth and final part is unfinished and abruptly ends with the beginning of the February Revolution, although as seen from Gorky's drafts and fragments, Lenin's return to Russia in April 1917 and Samgin's death may have been intended as the possible ending. The novel received controversial reputation in critic, although later it was described as a notable work of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common-law Marriage
Common-law marriage, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, marriage, informal marriage, or marriage by habit and repute, is a legal framework where a couple may be considered married without having formally registered their relation as a civil or religious marriage. The original concept of a "common-law marriage" is one considered valid by both partners, but not formally recorded with a state or religious registry, nor celebrated in a formal civil or religious service. In effect, the act of the couple representing themselves to others as being married and organizing their relation as if they were married, means they are married. The term ''common-law marriage'' (or similar) has wider informal use, often to denote relations that are not legally recognized as marriages. It is often used colloquially or by the media to refer to cohabiting couples, regardless of any legal rights or religious implications involved. This can create confusion in regard to the term and to the legal ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky ( rus, Корне́й Ива́нович Чуко́вский, p=kɐrˈnʲej ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ tɕʊˈkofskʲɪj, a=Kornyey Ivanovich Chukovskiy.ru.vorb.oga; 31 March NS 1882 – 28 October 1969) was one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language. His catchy rhythms, inventive rhymes and absurd characters have invited comparisons with the American children's author Dr. Seuss. Chukovsky's poems ''Tarakanishche'' (" The Monster Cockroach"), ''Krokodil'' ("The Crocodile"), ''Telefon'' ("The Telephone") and ''Moydodyr'' ("Wash-'em-Clean") have been favorites with many generations of Russophone children. Lines from his poems, in particular ''Telefon'', have become universal catch-phrases in the Russian media and everyday conversation. He adapted the Doctor Dolittle stories into a book-length Russian poem as ''Doctor Aybolit'' ("Dr. Ow-It-Hurts"), and translated a substantial portion of the Mother Goose canon into Russian as ''Angliyskiye Na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lockhart Plot
Sidney George Reilly (; – 5 November 1925)—known as "Ace of Spies"—was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard's Special Branch and later by the Foreign Section of the British Secret Service Bureau, the precursor to the modern British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6/SIS). He is alleged to have spied for at least four different great powers, and documentary evidence indicates that he was involved in espionage activities in 1890s London among Russian émigré circles, in Manchuria on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), and in an abortive 1918 ''coup d'état'' against Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik government in Moscow. Reilly disappeared in Soviet Russia in the mid-1920s, lured by Cheka's Operation Trust. British diplomat and journalist R. H. Bruce Lockhart publicised his and Reilly's 1918 exploits to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Lockhart's 1932 book ''Memoirs of a British Agent.'' This became an international best-seller and ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kay Francis
Kay Francis (born Katharine Edwina Gibbs; January 13, 1905 – August 26, 1968) was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star and highest-paid actress at Warner Bros. studio. She adopted her mother's maiden name (Francis) as her professional surname. Early life Kay Francis was born as Katharine Edwina Gibbs in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory (present-day Oklahoma), in 1905, the only child of Katharine Clinton ( Francis), an actress, and Joseph Sprague Gibbs. Her parents wed in 1903. In 1909, Kay's mother left her alcoholic husband, taking their daughter. Kay apparently inherited her 5-foot 9 inch height from her 6 feet 4 inch father, and is believed to have been Hollywood's tallest 1930s female lead actress. Her mother had been born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and was a moderately successful actress and singer on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard Steiner (3 April 18931 June 1943) was an English actor, director and producer.Obituary ''Variety'', 9 June 1943. He wrote many stories and articles for ''The New York Times'', ''The New Yorker'', and '' Vanity Fair'' and was one of the biggest box-office draws and movie idols of the 1930s. Active in both Britain and Hollywood, Howard played Ashley Wilkes in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). He had roles in many other films, often playing the quintessential Englishman, including ''Berkeley Square'' (1933), ''Of Human Bondage'' (1934), ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' (1934), ''The Petrified Forest'' (1936), ''Pygmalion'' (1938), ''Intermezzo'' (1939), '' "Pimpernel" Smith'' (1941), and ''The First of the Few'' (1942). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for ''Berkeley Square'' and ''Pygmalion''. Howard's World War II activities included acting and filmmaking. He helped to make anti-German propaganda and shore up support for the Allies—two years after hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Agent
''British Agent'' is a 1934 American romantic espionage film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Leslie Howard and Kay Francis. It is based on ''Memoirs of a British Agent'', the 1932 autobiography of R. H. Bruce Lockhart, who worked for the British Secret Service during the Russian Revolution and had an affair with a Russian agent, later known as Moura Budberg. The film was produced by First National, then a division of Warner Bros. Production At one point, the studio considered the possibility of shooting some scenes on location in the Soviet Union, but the political situation there made that impossible. Instead, the film was shot at the studio in Hollywood, with sets designed by the art director Anton Grot. The comparatively-large budget of $475,000 allowed 41 different sets to be used to recreate Imperial Russia and the early years of the Revolution. The same book was partly used as an inspiration for the television series ''Reilly, Ace of Spies'', which also portraye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folio Society
The Folio Society is a London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it operates as an employee ownership trust since 2021. It produces illustrated hardback editions of classic fiction and non-fiction books, poetry and children's titles. Folio editions feature specially designed bindings and include artist-commissioned illustrations (most often in fiction titles) or researched artworks and photographs (in non-fiction titles). Most editions come with their own slipcase. For many years the Folio Society had a bookshop in Holborn, London, but the bookshop closed in December 2016 when the company moved premises. Folio editions can be purchased only online through their website, by post or over the telephone. Some editions are stocked by independent bookstores, by Blackwell's in Oxford, and by Selfridges, Harrods and Hatchards in London. History The Folio Society was founded in 1947 by Charles Ede, Christopher Sandford ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lubyanka Building
The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large Neo-Baroque building with a facade of yellow brick designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev from 1940 to 1947. It was previously the national headquarters of the KGB. Soviet hammer and sickles can be seen on the building's facade. Description The Lubyanka building is home to the Lubyanka prison, the headquarters of the Border Guard Service, a KGB museum, and a subsection of the FSB. Part of the prison was turned into a prison museum, but a special authorization is required for visits. The lower floors are made of granite with emblazoned Soviet crests. History Origins The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as the headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company (''Rossiya Insurance Company''), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent states, Berlin is surrounded by the State of Brandenburg and contiguous with Potsdam, Brandenburg's capital. Berlin's urban area, which has a population of around 4.5 million, is the second most populous urban area in Germany after the Ruhr. The Berlin-Brandenburg capital region has around 6.2 million inhabitants and is Germany's third-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main regions. Berlin straddles the banks of the Spree, which flows into the Havel (a tributary of the Elbe) in the western borough of Spandau. Among the city's main topographical features are the many lakes in the western and southeastern boroughs formed by the Spree, Havel and Dahme, the largest of which is Lake Müggelsee. Due to its l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
