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Under Western Eyes (novel)
''Under Western Eyes'' (1911) is a novel by Joseph Conrad. The novel takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Geneva, Switzerland, and is viewed as Conrad's response to the themes explored in Fyodor Dostoevsky's ''Crime and Punishment''; Conrad was reputed to have detested Dostoevsky. It has also been interpreted as Conrad's response to his own early life; his father was a Polish independence activist and would-be revolutionary imprisoned by the Russians, but, instead of following in his father's footsteps, at the age of sixteen Conrad left his native land, only to return briefly decades later. Indeed, while writing ''Under Western Eyes'', Conrad suffered a weeks-long breakdown during which he conversed with the novel's characters in Polish. This novel is considered to be one of Conrad's major works and is close in subject matter to ''The Secret Agent''. It is full of cynicism and conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals. Conrad remarks in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language; though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he came to be regarded a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. He wrote novels and stories, many in nautical settings, that depict crises of human individuality in the midst of what he saw as an indifferent, inscrutable and amoral world. Conrad is considered a Impressionism (literature), literary impressionist by some and an early Literary modernism, modernist by others, though his works also contain elements of 19th-century Literary realism, realism. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters, as in ''Lord Jim'', for example, have influenced numerous authors. Many dramatic films have been adapted from and ins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque, in works such as " The Nose", " Viy", "The Overcoat", and "Nevsky Prospekt". These stories, and others such as " Diary of a Madman", have also been noted for their proto-surrealist qualities. According to Viktor Shklovsky, Gogol's strange style of writing resembles the "ostranenie" technique of defamiliarization. His early works, such as ''Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'', were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (''The Government Inspector'', '' Dead Souls''). The novel ''Taras Bulba'' (1835), the play ''Marriage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fyodor Trepov (senior)
Fedor Fedorovich (Fyodor Fyodorovich) Trepov Senior (russian: Фёдор Фёдорович Тре́пов) (1809–1889) was a Russian government official. He was a natural child of Friedrich Wilhelm von Stenger (1770–1832) and was registered in the Russian nobility on 4 May 1837. Feodor Trepov began his military career in 1831 by participating in the suppression of the November Uprising in Poland in 1830 and 1831. He then commanded a cavalry regiment of gendarmes in Kiev. He distinguished himself during the suppression of another uprising in Poland in 1863–1864He became somewhat infamous in Warsaw for his brutality and impunity. A popular folk tune recalls a situation in which Trepov, then in the rank of Colonel, assaulted a passerby on the streets of Warsaw's old town. The civilian fought back, hitting Trepov's face with his cane. See: After Dmitry Karakozov's assassination attempt on Alexander II in 1866, Trepov was appointed chief of Saint Petersburg's police force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thecla
Thecla ( grc, Θέκλα, ) was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The earliest record of her life comes from the ancient apocryphal ''Acts of Paul and Thecla''. Church tradition The ''Acts of Paul and Thecla'' is a 2nd-century text () which forms part of the ''Acts of Paul'', but was also circulated separately. According to the text, Thecla was a young noble virgin from Iconium who listened to Paul's "discourse on virginity", espoused his teachings and became estranged from both her fiancé, Thamyris, and her mother. Thecla sat by her window for three days, listening to Paul and his teachings. When her mother and fiancé witnessed this, they became concerned that Thecla would follow Paul's demand that "one must fear only one God and live in chastity", and turned to the authorities to punish both Paul and Thecla. Thecla was miraculously saved from burning at the stake by the onset of a storm and traveled with Paul to Antioch o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom she attended. Although she may either have received a retainer or may not have received compensation for the service she rendered, a lady-in-waiting was considered more of a secretary, courtier, or companion to her mistress than a servant. In other parts of the world, the lady-in-waiting, often referred to as ''palace woman'', was in practice a servant or a slave rather than a high-ranking woman, but still had about the same tasks, functioning as companion and secretary to her mistress. In courts where polygamy was practised, a court lady was formally available to the monarch for sexual services, and she could become his wife, consort, courtesan, or concubine. ''Lady-in-waiting'' or ''court lady'' is often a generic term for women whose r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyotr Ivanovich Poletika
Pyotr Ivanovich Poletika (russian: Пётр Иванович Полетика; 15 August 1778 – 26 January 1849, occasionally referred to in the West as Pierre de Poletica) was the second Russian ambassador to the United States. Biography Poletika was born in 1778 and enjoyed an aristocratic education. His father Ivan Poletika (1722—1783) was a medical scientist. His mother was of Turkish origin. He served in various diplomatic posts and was a senator. From 1817 to 1822, he was the Russian ambassador to the United States. He died in 1849, and his memoirs were published posthumously in 1885. See also * Russo-American Treaty of 1824 The Russo-American Treaty of 1824 (also known as the Convention of 1824) was signed in St. Petersburg between representatives of Russia and the United States on April 17, 1824, ratified by both nations on January 11, 1825 and went into effect on J ... References Footnotes Sources * 1778 births 1849 deaths Ambassado ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' (also Romanized ''Ilich, Ilych, Ilyitch''; russian: Смерть Ивана Ильича, Smert' Ivána Ilyicha), first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, considered one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s. Considered to be one of the finest examples of a novella, ''The Death of Ivan Ilyich'' tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia and his sufferings and death from a terminal illness. Plot Characters *Ivan Ilyich Golovin (''Ilyich'' is a patronymic, his surname is ''Golovin'') is a highly regarded official of the Court of Justice, described by Tolstoy as, "neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man." As the story progresses, he becomes more and more introspective and emotional as he ponders the reason for his agonizing illness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Notes From Underground
''Notes from Underground'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform Russian: ; also translated as ''Notes from the Underground'' or ''Letters from the Underworld'') is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the journal ''Epoch'' in 1864. It is a first-person narrative in the form of a "confession": the work was originally announced by Dostoevsky in ''Epoch'' under the title "A Confession". The novella presents itself as an excerpt from the memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. Although the first part of the novella has the form of a monologue, the narrator's form of address to his reader is acutely ''dialogized''. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, in the Underground Man's confession "there is literally not a single monologically firm, undissociated word". The Underground Man's every word anticipates the words of an other, with whom he enters into an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary socialist and social anarchist tradition. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe. Bakunin grew up in Pryamukhino, a family estate in Tver Governorate. From 1840, he studied in Moscow, then in Berlin hoping to enter academia. Later in Paris, he met Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who deeply influenced him. Bakunin's increasing radicalism ended hopes of a professorial career. He was expelled from France for opposing The Russian Empire's occupation of Poland. In 1849, he was arrested in Dresden for his participation in the Czech rebellion of 1848 and deported to Russian Empire, where he was imprisoned fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Guards
Guards (russian: гвардия) or Guards units (russian: гвардейские части, ''gvardeyskiye chasti'') were elite military units of Imperial Russia prior to 1917–18. The designation of Guards was subsequently adopted as a distinction for various units and formations of the Soviet Union and the modern Russian Federation. The tradition goes back to a chieftain's ''druzhina'' of medieval Kievan Rus' and the streletskoye voysko (Стрелецкое Войско), the Muscovite harquebusiers formed by Ivan the Terrible by 1550. The exact meaning of the term "Guards" varied over time. Imperial Russian Guard In the Russian Empire, Imperial Russian Guard units (also or ''life-guard'', ), derived from German ''Leibgarde'' (en: lifeguard or life-guard), were intended to ensure the security of the sovereign, initially, that of Peter the Great in the 1690s. These were based on the Prussian Royal Life Guards. During the 19th century the Imperial Russian Guard regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas I Of Russia
Nicholas I , group=pron ( – ) was List of Russian rulers, Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He was the third son of Paul I of Russia, Paul I and younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I of Russia, Alexander I. Nicholas inherited his brother's throne despite the failed Decembrist revolt against him. He is mainly remembered in history as a reactionary whose controversial reign was marked by geographical expansion, economic growth, and massive industrialisation on the one hand, and centralisation of administrative policies and repression of dissent on the other. Nicholas had a happy marriage that produced a large family; all of their seven children survived childhood. Nicholas's biographer Nicholas V. Riasanovsky said that he displayed determination, singleness of purpose, and an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very hard work. He saw himself as a soldier—a junior officer totally consumed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a direct role in matters of the state, may also sometimes be considered an assassination. An assassination may be prompted by political and military motives, or done for financial gain, to avenge a grievance, from a desire to acquire fame or notoriety, or because of a military, security, insurgent or secret police group's command to carry out the assassination. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin or hitman. Etymology The word ''assassin'' may be derived from ''wikt:أساسي#Arabic, asasiyyin'' (Arabic: أَسَاسِيِّين, ʾasāsiyyīn) from أَسَاس (ʾasās, "foundation, basis") + ـِيّ (-iyy), meaning "people who are f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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