July and August in History

July

7 Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Ivan Kupala).

12 Day of the Apostles Peter and Paul (also known as Petrov Day).

15 Today is the 760th anniversary of the Battle on the Neva (1240), one of the key battles for Russia’s hard-won independence and unity. In that year, Rus’ was beseiged by Khan Baty and his Tartars in the South, and Teutonic Knights in the Northwest. On top of this, the Swedes coveted the lucrative domains of Novgorod the Great. The son-in-law of the Swedish King, Birger rallied to his cause an army of Swedes, Finns and Norwegians and went to war against Novgorod’s Prince Alexander. Alexander had wisely made something of a peace with the Tartars, allowing him to concentrate on defending Rus’ from the North. He gathered Russian warriors and responded with the famous phrase: “äÚÓ Í Ì‡Ï Ò Ï˜fiÏ ÔˉfiÚ, ÚÓÚ ÓÚ Ï˜‡ Ë ÔÓ„Ë·ÌÂÚ” (“He who comes to Russia with a sword, will die by the sword.”). The phrase would be invoked through the centuries by Russian military commanders, whenever foreign invaders attempted to take Russian soil. Alexander routed the Swedes in a battle on the Neva. Prince Alexander himself struck Birger dead with a spear. The battle earned the prince the appellation, “Nevsky.”

17 55 years ago on this day the Potsdam Conference opened. It was convened to discuss issues surrounding the post-war division of the world in general and Europe in particular. Josef Stalin, Harry Truman and Winston Churchill met to discuss and decide on the demilitarization and denazification of a defeated Germany. The measures adopted included full disarmament and dissolution of German armed forces, liquidation of German monopolies, a ban on the national-socialist party and punishment of war criminals. Germany was divided into four zones of occupation (occupied by the USSR, the US, Great Britain and France). The conference also determined the new Western border of Poland—on the rivers Oder and Neise—and confirmed the transfer of Koenigsberg (present day Kaliningrad) to the USSR, along with the adjacent area of Eastern Prussia. It was also decided to divide up equally the remaining German military and commercial fleet and to sink the bulk of the German submarine fleet. The heads of the three great powers further ruled that the punishment for the main military criminals would be determined by an international military tribunal.

21 Day of the St. Kazan Virgin Icon. Today would also have been the 90th birthday of the painter Vladimir Serov (1910-1968). Serov’s artistic career was crowned in 1962 by his election to the post of President of the USSR Academy of Arts. Serov was a loyal practician of the socialist realist style and devoted his art to revolutionary and socialist themes—hence his two most famous canvases: Lenin Receiving Visitors (1950) and Seizure of the Winter Palace (1957). Serov is known as a fine portraitist and book illustrator. His most famous illustrations were for Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace and for Nikolai Nekrasov’s poem, Who Lives Well in Russia?

23 Today would have been the 85th anniversary of the poet Mikhail Matusovsky (1915-1990). Graduating in 1939 from the Gorky Literary Institute, Matusovsky became a war correspondent in 1941-1945 like many others of his “comrades of the plume.” His first collection of verses was titled Front (1942). Matusovsky is also known as writer of scripts and prose—note especially his autobiographical novel Family Album (1970-1978). But it is his song lyrics that made him famous: “A song is an oral manuscript of the times, the spiritual bread of the people,” Matusovsky once said. He wrote the soundtrack to such famous Soviet films as Faithful Friends, Trial by Loyalty and others. Yet one song made him famous worldwide: Moscow Nights (Podmoskovsnye Vechera). The song was a co-production of Matusovsky and the composer Vasily Soloviev-Sedoy. The song became very popular after the Soviet Union had opened up to the world after many years behind the iron curtain. It was translated into several languages and most notably performed by Van Cliburn at a White House recital for the Reagans and Gorbachevs, who sang in chorus:

ç ÒÎ˚¯Ì˚ ‚ Ò‡‰Û ‰‡  ¯ÓÓıË,

ÇÒfi Á‰ÂÒ¸ Á‡ÏÂÎÓ ‰Ó ÛÚ‡

ÖÒÎË · Á̇ÎË ‚˚, Í‡Í ÏÌ ‰ÓÓ„Ë

èÓ‰ÏÓÒÍÓ‚Ì˚ ‚˜Â‡

25 This is the 20th anniversary of Vladimir Vysotsky’s tragic death. The death and funeral of the tremendously popular bard even eclipsed the massively-hyped 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, as thousands of his fans flocked to the Taganka theater (where he made his fame) to bid farewell to their idol. Today, the passions and controversy surrounding his name have quieted, but his songs are still with us (see our biography of Vysotsky in Russian Life, February 1998).

31 This is the 70th birthday of Oleg Popov (1930), dubbed by the Russian public “the Sun Clown.” When he was just 27, he was acclaimed as laureate of the International Circus Festival in Warsaw. Popov’s hero is a clown in large pants with a trademark square cap and red nose. In short, he is a good-hearted, witty guy, frolicking with ease on the arena, always ready to get a laugh from children and adults. Unfortunately, after the disintegration of the Soviet circus, Popov’s talent went unappreciated and the artist had to move from Russia to Germany to make a living.

AUGUST

4 Today is the 95th birthday of Boris Alexandrov (1905-1994), Russian composer, conductor and teacher. Alexandrov’s father, Alexander Vassiliyevich, was also a composer—he wrote the famous war song Sacred War, as well as the music for the Soviet National Anthem—still considered by many more appropriate than the new Russian National Anthem, by Glinka. The elder Alexandrov founded the Red Army’s Red Banner Ensemble of Song and Dance and son Boris, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, became its artistic director. The Alexandrovs and their musicians and singers entertained Soviet soldiers on all the fronts in WWII. Boris took over the management of the ensemble entirely when his father died in 1946. The chorus traveled around the world to give concerts and was widely hailed. The French composer Georges Aurick wrote: “The Chorus conquered Paris. Nothing compares to such a chorus.” Alexandrov was also an accomplished composer—he wrote a number of symphonies, concertos for piano and the famous operetta, Wedding in Malinovka, which served as a basis for a musical of the same name.

Today is also the centenary of the death of painter Isaac Levitan (1860-1900), the genius of Russian nature, “the poet of Russian landscapes.” His most famous canvases are Fall (1893), Eternal Peace (1893), Vladimirka (1992), March (1895), Summer Night (1900), and Birch Forest (1889). The handsome Levitan (a close friend of Anton Chekhov) was always fashionably dressed, was joyful, witty and adventurous; he loved hunting, fishing and mushroom picking. He also adored music, but often fell prey to bouts of melancholy and solitude and his contradictory character was reflected in his paintings. Like no other Russian painter, Levitan rendered the changing mood of Russian nature through all its seasons, and his landscapes bear a stamp of sadness and silent admiration before the majesty of God’s creation.

15 Today is the 55th birthday of Yekaterina Vasilieva (1945) the talented Russian actress who starred in numerous popular films, including Twenty Years Without War (1977), Ordinary Miracle (1978), and Spellbinders (1982). In the mid-1990s, emotionally upset because of the situation in the country, she underwent a spiritual crisis and quit her successful acting career at the Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT). She decided to devote her life to charity work. Yet last year she did make a rare exception and accepted a role offered by Oleg Menshikov (who starred in Burnt by the Sun), in his directorial debut: a new staging of Alexander Griboedov’s play, Woe From Wit.

19 Transfiguration Day. Also commonly known as ü·ÎÓ˜Ì˚È ëÔ‡Ò (“Apple’s Savior”).  On this day, the first apples of the new crop are supposed to be ripe to eat. This year, Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior will be reconsecrated on this day.

25 This is the 70th birthday of Georgy Daneliya (1930), the Russian film director whose cinematic debut Seryozha (1960), a coproduction with director Igor Talankin, earned him the Main Prize at the Karlovy-Vary Film Festival. His comedies in the 1970s: Afonya (1975), Mimino (1976) and especially Autumn Marathon (1979) are pearls in the Russian film bank. A Georgian by birth, Daneliya penetrated the depths of Russian character like few Russians. In Autumn Marathon, he tells the story of a professional translator, a typical representative of the conformist intelligentsia in his mid forties, torn between his homemaker wife (who bores him) and his typist-lover (who is pushing him to be decisive and divorce his wife and remarry). The film—something of a Soviet precursor to American Beauty—made Daneliya a living legend and his film a popular draw whenever it replays on television.

28 Assumption of the Virgin. Today is the 75th anniversary of the birth of science fiction writer Arkady Strugatsky (1925-1991). A military translator by training, he later teamed up with his brother Boris (then a research fellow at Pulkovo Observatory) to make one of the most famous Russian writing duos. Science fiction novels by the brothers sold out from Soviet bookstores in days. Their most famous works include, It is Hard to be a God (1964), Monday begins on Saturday (1965) and the Picnic on the Sidelines (1972), which inspired filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky to make Stalker, one of his most famous films.

Today is also the 75th birthday of the writer Yuri Trifonov (1925-1981). He published his first novel, Students (1957) when he himself was still a student at the Literary Institute. His later novels, Quenching the Thirst (1963), Reflection of a Fire (1965), The Exchange (1969) and Long Farewell (1969) made Trifonov one of the leading writers of the 60’s generation (shestidesyatniki). But it was his novel House on the Embankment (1976—Dom na naberezhnoy) which became his most famous work. The title of the novel refers to Moscow’s huge, gray apartment building which was home to many communist party leaders—most later shot on Stalin’s orders. In his novel, Trifonov—who lived in the house with his parents—offers a poignant insight into the lives of the Soviet apparatchiki, as seen through the eyes of an adolescent. The novel showed how, even under the Soviet regime, when all were supposed to be equal, in fact a strict hierarchy existed. Published in 1976, the “golden years” of Brezhnevian stagnation, the novel made a huge splash among the intelligentsia, who, despite the often Aesopian language of the novel, learned much from it about Stalin’s terror.

— Valentina Kolesnikova