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Pushkin House (London)
Pushkin House (russian: Пушкинский Дом), established in 1954, is the UK's oldest independent Russian cultural centre, now based in Bloomsbury, London. It was founded by a group of émigré Russian friends, led by Maria Mikhailovna Kullmann (Zernova), with the aim of creating a welcoming meeting-place "for the enjoyment, understanding and promotion of Russian culture in all its forms, and for the exchange of views in a lively, informal atmosphere, with freedom of speech a core principle". It continues to host a programme of Russian literature, poetry, art, cinema, music, theatre and dance, history, philosophy and current affairs. Events include lectures, exhibitions, films, concerts, readings, panel discussions, debates and an annual Book Prize. It is a politically independent, registered UK charity, owned and run by the Pushkin House Trust. While its original endowment ensures its independence, it also derives an income from ticket sales and donations from the pub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bloomsbury Square
Bloomsbury Square is a garden square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, London. Developed in the late 17th century, it was initially known as Southampton Square and was one of the earliest London squares. By the early 19th century, Bedford House along the north of the square had been demolished and replaced with terraced housing designed by James Burton. Geography To the north of the square is Great Russell Street and Bedford Place, leading to Russell Square. To the south is Bloomsbury Way. To the west is the British Museum and Holborn is the nearest underground station to the southeast. There are gardens in the centre of the square. History The square was developed for the 4th Earl of Southampton in the early 1660s and was initially known as Southampton Square. It was one of the earliest London squares. The Earl's own house, then known as Southampton House and later as Bedford House after the square and the rest of the Bloomsbury Estate passed by marriage fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy. Born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia, then a part of the Russian Empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917. In 1921 his family moved to the UK, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1932, at the age of twenty-three, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own prolific output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English and, during World War II, worked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Smith (writer)
Douglas Smith is an American writer, historian and translator best known for his books about the history of Russia. Smith was born and raised in Minnesota. After studying German and Russian at the University of Vermont, he earned a PhD in History from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked for the US Department of State in the Soviet Union, and as a Russia analyst for Radio Free Europe. Smith lives in Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ... with his wife and their two children. Bibliography * ''The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How America Saved the Soviet Union from Ruin''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. * ''Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. * ''Former People: The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pushkin House Book Prize
The Pushkin House Book Prize is an annual book prize, awarded to the best non-fiction writing on Russia in the English language. The prize was inaugurated in 2013. The prize amount as of 2020 has been £10,000. The advisory board for the prize is made up of Russia experts including Rodric Braithwaite, Andrew Jack, Bridget Kendall, Andrew Nurnberg, Marc Polonsky, and Douglas Smith. Shortlists and Winners 2022 Judges: Evgenia Arbugaeva, Baroness Deborah Bull, Archie Brown, Dmitry Glukhovsky, Ekaterina Schulmann. Shortlist: * Frank Billé and Caroline Humphrey, ''On the Edge: Life along the Russia-China Border'' * Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet and Ben Noble, ''Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future?'' * Timothy Frye, ''Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia'' * Thane Gustafson, ''Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change'' * Mary Sarotte, ''Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate'' (WINNER) * Maria Stepanova, ''I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Tvardovsky
Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovsky ( rus, links=no, Александр Трифонович Твардовский, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ˈtrʲifənəvʲɪtɕ tvɐrˈdofskʲɪj; – 18 December 1971) was a Soviet poet and writer and chief editor of ''Novy Mir'' literary magazine from 1950 to 1954 and 1958 to 1970. During his editorship, the magazine published ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He is best known for his epic poem '. Biography Tvardovsky was born into a Russian family in Zagorye, in the Smolensky Uyezd of the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire. At the time of his birth, the family lived on a farm that his father had purchased in installments from the Peasant Land Bank. Tvardovsky's father, the son of a landless soldier, was a blacksmith by trade. The farm was situated on poor land, but Tvardovsky's father loved it and was proud of what he had acquired through years of hard labor. He transmitted this love and pride to Aleksandr. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konstantin Fedin
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin ( rus, Константи́н Алекса́ндрович Фе́дин, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈfʲedʲɪn, a=Konstantin Alyeksandrovich Fyedin.ru.vorb.oga; – 15 July 1977) was a Soviet and Russian novelist and literary functionary. Biography Born in Saratov of humble origins, Fedin studied in Moscow and Germany and was interned there during World War I. After his release, he worked as an interpreter in the first Soviet embassy in Berlin. On returning to Russia, he joined the Bolsheviks and served in the Red Army. After leaving the Party in 1921, he joined the literary group called the Serapion Brothers, who supported the Revolution, but wanted freedom for literature and the arts. His first story, "The Orchard," was published in 1922, as was his play ''Bakunin v Drezdene'' (Bakunin in Dresden). His first two novels are his most important; ''Goroda i gody'' (1924; tr. as ''Cities and Years'', 1962, "one of the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonid Pasternak
Leonid Osipovich Pasternak (born ''Yitzhok-Leib'', or ''Isaak Iosifovich, Pasternak''; russian: Леони́д О́сипович Пастерна́к, 3 April 1862 ( N.S.) – 31 May 1945) was a Russian post-impressionist painter. He was the father of the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak. Biography Pasternak was born in Odessa to an Orthodox Jewish family on 4 April 1862. The family claimed to be distantly descended, in one line, from Isaac Abrabanel, the 15th-century Jewish philosopher and treasurer of Portugal, although no independent evidence of this exists. Leonid's father made an income by renting out a guest house. The courtyard of the guest house, with its adjoining coach-house, first awakened Leonid's artistic imagination. He was the youngest of six children. He started to draw very early, but his family tried to discourage him, as they feared that his drawing would interfere with his studies. His first sponsor was the local street cleaner who began buying Paster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mir Iskusstva
''Mir iskusstva'' ( rus, «Мир искусства», p=ˈmʲir ɪˈskustvə, ''World of Art'') was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. The magazine had limited circulation outside Russia. From 1909, several of the ''miriskusniki'' (i.e., members of the movement) also participated in productions of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company based in Paris. Foundation The artistic group was founded in November 1898 by a group of students that included Alexandre Benois, Konstantin Somov, Dmitry Filosofov, Léon Bakst, and Eugene Lansere. The starting moments for the new artistic group was organization of the ''Exhibition of Russian and Finnish Artists'' in the Stieglitz Museum of Applied Arts in Saint-Petersburg. The magazine was co-founded in 1899 in St. Petersburg by Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst, and Sergei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky ( lt, Mstislavas Dobužinskis, August 14, 1875, Novgorod – November 20, 1957, New York City) was a Russian and Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early twentieth-century city. Of noble Lithuanian extraction, Dobuzhinsky was born on August 14, 1875 in Novgorod into the family of an army officer. From 1885 to 1887, he attended the Drawing School of the Society for the Promotion of the Artists. Between 1895 and 1899, he read Law at the University of St. Petersburg, simultaneously studying in private studios. After graduating from the University, he was trained from 1899 to 1901 by Anton Ažbe in Munich and Simon Hollósy in Nagybánya (Austria-Hungary). In Munich, he came to be influenced by the Jugendstil. On his return to Russia, he joined the Mir Iskusstva, an artistic circle which idealized the 18th century as the "age of elegance". Dobuzhinsky was distinguished from other ... [...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] |
Nikolai Medtner
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (russian: Никола́й Ка́рлович Ме́тнер, ''Nikoláj Kárlovič Métner''; 13 November 1951) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. After a period of comparative obscurity in the 25 years immediately after his death, he is now becoming recognized as one of the most significant Russian composers for the piano. A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano. His works include 14 piano sonatas, three violin sonatas, three piano concerti, a piano quintet, two works for two pianos, many shorter piano pieces, a few shorter works for violin and piano, and 108 songs including two substantial works for vocalise. His 38 ''Skazki'' (generally known as "Fairy Tales" in English but more correctly translated as "Tales") for piano solo contain some of his most original music. Biography Nikolai Medtner was born in Moscow on 24 December 1879, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed in a relatively tonal, late Romantic idiom. Later, and independently of his influential contemporary, Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a much more dissonant musical language that had transcended usual tonality but was not atonal, which accorded with his personal brand of metaphysics. Scriabin found significant appeal in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk as well as synesthesia, and associated colours with the various harmonic tones of his scale, while his colour-coded circle of fifths was also inspired by theosophy. He is often considered the main Russian Symbolist composer and a major representative of the Russian Silver Age. Scriabin was an innovator as well as one of the most controversial composer-pianists of the early 20th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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