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  • Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Borodin.

    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Borodin.
    2025/07/18
    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Borodin.Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian composer, chemist and public activist. His best-known work is the opera “Prince Igor” (“Knyaz Igor”). Borodin was born in St. Petersburg from an affair between the 62-year-old Georgian prince Luka Gedianov (or Gedianishvili) and a St. Petersburg commoner, Avdotya Antonova. He was registered as a son of the prince’s serfs Porfiriy and Tatyana Borodins. He remained his father’s serf until 1840, when the prince, just before his death, freed the seven-year-old boy. His real mother was married off to a military medic.
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    8 分
  • Prominent Russians: Nicholas II.

    Prominent Russians: Nicholas II.
    2025/07/18
    Prominent Russians: Nicholas II.Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia. Born 6 May 1868, Nicholas was the oldest son of Tsar Alexander III and his wife Maria Feodorovna. His parents took particular trouble over his education. Nicholas was taught by outstanding Russian academics at home, he knew several languages and had a wide knowledge of history, and he also quickly grasped military science. His father personally guided his education, which was strictly based on religion. Nicholas ascended the throne at age 26 after the unexpected death of his father in 1894. Although a well educated man, he felt unprepared for the hard task as the ruler of the Russian empire, he was not properly prepared to officiate as a monarch and was not fully introduced to top affairs of the state. Nicholas's reign was marked by tragedy from the very beginning. A national celebration to honor the formal coronation of the new tsar turned into a disaster. Overcrowding resulted in a stampede and hundreds of people were crushed to death.
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    6 分
  • Prominent Russians: Rikhard Zorge.

    Prominent Russians: Rikhard Zorge.
    2025/07/18
    Prominent Russians: Rikhard Zorge.
    Rikhard Zorge was a Soviet spy in Japan, and was the first to warn Stalin about Hitler’s plan to attack the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Later that year he also informed the USSR that Japan had no intention to go to war with the Soviet Union. This allowed the USSR to divert military divisions from its eastern borders to fight Nazis in the western front, which ultimately determined the course of World War II. Despite his immense contributions, Stalin’s own James Bond went unrecognized by the Soviet Union for 20 years after his death.
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    10 分
  • Prominent Russians: Boris Godunov.

    Prominent Russians: Boris Godunov.
    2025/07/18
    Prominent Russians: Boris Godunov.The ruler of Russia from 1587-1598 and Tsar from 1598 to 1605, Boris Godunov played an important role in Russian history.According to legend, Godunov’s family originated from the Tatar Prince Chet, who immigrated from the Golden Horde to Russia. Boris was the son of Fyodor Godunov, an average landowner. After his father’s death, he was brought up by his uncle Dmitry Godunov, who reached a high post at the court of Ivan the Terrible. Boris Godunov’s career of service began as an “oprichnik”- a member of the organization “Oprichnina,” established by Ivan the Terrible as a prototype police force but also as an instrument to expose, torture and murder his internal enemies.
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    7 分
  • Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Nevsky.

    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Nevsky.
    2025/07/18
    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Nevsky.

    “Whoever comes to us with a sword, from a sword will perish…” Every Russian student learned these famous words of Aleksandr Nevsky in primary school. He uttered the infamous sentence after accomplishing a series of crucial victories over German and Swedish invaders. The Grand Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir did a lot for his country during the most challenging times in its history. For that reason many Russians nowadays consider him to be one of the most important heroes in their nation’s history.
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    10 分
  • Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Gorchakov.

    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Gorchakov.
    2025/07/17
    Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Gorchakov.Aleksandr Gorchakov was a State Chancellor of Russia. He dedicated his career to denouncing the Paris Treaty, and helped Russia earn the right to resume its naval presence in the Black Sea.
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    10 分
  • Prominent Russians: Maria Spiridonova.

    Prominent Russians: Maria Spiridonova.
    2025/07/17
    Prominent Russians: Maria Spiridonova.Maria Spiridonova was a prominent revolutionary and political figure who helped bring about the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, but was later persecuted for her opposition to some aspects of Bolshevik ideology.
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    8 分
  • Prominent Russians: Georgy Malenkov.

    Prominent Russians: Georgy Malenkov.
    2025/07/17
    Prominent Russians: Georgy Malenkov.
    Georgy Malenkov was born in Orenburg, in the Russian Empire. In 1919 he voluntarily joined the Red Army and was a political worker of the military forces. In a year Malenkov joined the Communist Party and soon became an active functionary. From 1920 Georgy Malenkov studied electrotechnics in the Bauman Moscow State Technical University and headed the commission for the exposure of students who supported the ideas of Leon Trotsky, whose politics sharply differed from Stalinism. Almost all of these students became victims of repressions and many were killed.
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    8 分