Personages

Abalkin, Leonid Ivanovich

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Name: Leonid Ivanovich Abalkin

Lived: 1930 –

Notes: Economist, especially prominent during the Gorbachev and post-Soviet eras, associated with the market-oriented reforms of perestroika.

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Abramov, Fedor Aleksandrovich

Name: Fedor Aleksandrovich Abramov

Lived: 1920 – 1983

Notes: Novelist of the “village prose” movement, author of THE PRIASLINS, a cycle of novels on life in a Russian village during and after the that includes BROTHERS AND SISTERS and CROSSROADS.

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Abuladze, Tengiz Evgenevich

Name: Tengiz Evgen’evich Abuladze

Lived: 1924 – 1994

Notes: Georgian film director (“Repentance,” 1987), recipient of Lenin Prize in 1988.

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Adenauer, Konrad

Name: Konrad Adenauer

Lived: 1876 – 1967

Notes: Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-1963, who helped created a post-war German republic integrated into the western economic bloc, and friendly with its former enemies Great Britain, the United States and France.

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Adler, Alfred

Name: Alfred Adler

Lived: 1870 – 1937

Notes: Austrian psychiatrist

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Adzhubei, Aleksei Ivanovich

Name: Aleksei Ivanovich Adzhubei

Lived: 1924 – 1993

Notes: Editor of Komsomol Pravda and then Izvestia, advisor to and son-in-law of Khrushchev.

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Afanasiev, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Afanasiev

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Journalist, historian, from 1986 director of the Moscow Historical Institute and mainstay of the glasnost-era movement to recover lost episodes in the Soviet past.

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Afinogenov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Afinogenov

Lived: 1904 – 1941

Notes: Soviet playwright, author of TERROR (1931) in defense of dekulakization and collectivization, died during an air raid in the early weeks of the war.

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Agamaly-Ogly, Samed Aga

Name: Samed Aga Agamaly-Ogly

Lived: 1867 – 1930

Notes: Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Azerbaidzhan SSR from 1922-1929, best known for his support for adoption of the new Turkish (Latin-based) alphabet.

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Aganbegyan, Abel Gezevich

Name: Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan

Lived: 1932 –

Title: Academician

Notes: Economist, academician from 1974, specialist in productivity, standard of living and mathematical models of economic planning. Leading reformer of centralized planning, advisor to Soviet leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev.

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Agranov, Iakov Samuilovich

Name: Iakov Samuilovich Agranov

Lived: 1893 – 1938

Notes: Member of the Politburo and head of the Leningrad regional party. Secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee 1921-26, moved to Leningrad and rose through the Party ranks. Politbiuro member from 1930, and of the Party secretariat from 1934. Murdered by an alleged terrorist in 1934, an event that triggered the first wave of terror.

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Aguzarova, Zhanna

Name: Zhanna Aguzarova

Lived: 1967 –

Notes: Born in a small town in Siberia, lead of singer of the rock group BRAVO, first female star of Russian rock.

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Ahmadzai, Najib

Name: Najib Ahmadzai

Lived: –

Alias: Najibullah

Notes: Known as Najibullah, Ahmadzai was General Secretary of the Afghan Communist Party, replacing Babrak Karmal when he could not muster support among the military or populace.

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Aivazovskii, Ivan Konstantinovich

Name: Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskii

Lived: 1817 – 1900

Notes: Artist renowned for his magnificent seascapes and Crimean landscapes.

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Akhlomov, Viktor

Name: Viktor Akhlomov

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Soviet news photographer for the newspaper Izvestiia from the 1960s on.

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Akhmadulina, Bella Akhatovna

Name: Bella Akhatovna Akhmadulina

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Poet prominent in the 1960s, associated with the younger generation of thaw artists.

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Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna

Name: Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

Lived: 1889 – 1966

Notes: One of the pleiade of great Silver Age Russian poets, member of the Acmeist movement, wife of poet Nikolai Gumilev and mother of Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev whose testimonies about the purge years are among the most courageous works of Russian literature.

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Akhromeev, Sergei Fedorovich

Name: Sergei Fedorovich Akhromeev

Lived: 1923 – 1991

Notes: Marshal of the Soviet Union (1983), chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces 1984-1988, advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev in the final years of the Soviet Union.

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Akhundov, Rukhulla Ali

Name: Rukhulla Ali Akhundov Lived: 1897 – 1938 Notes: Secretary of the Azerbaidzhan Communist Party, 1924-30

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Aksenov, Vasilii Pavlovich

Name: Vasilii Pavlovich Aksenov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Modernist novelist, author of TICKET TO THE STARS (1961), BURN (1980) and many other novels written in a language characterized by urban and youth slang.

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Alpert, Maksim Vladimirovich (Maks)

Name: Maksim Vladimirovich (Maks) Al’pert

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Notes: Photographer, one of the founders of Russian photojournalism. Best known for his work for USSR IN CONSTRUCTION and PRAVDA.

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Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Vasilievich

Name: Aleksandr Vasilievich Aleksandrov

Lived: 1883 – 1946

Title: General

Notes: Conductor of the famous Red Army Chorus, original composer of the Bolshevik Anthem (1937) which melody became the Soviet National Anthem in 1944.

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Aleksandrovskii, Vasilii Dmitrievich

Name: Vasilii Dmitrievich Aleksandrovskii

Lived: 1897 – 1934

Notes: Poet, a founder of the SMITHY (Kuznitsa) literary circle that gave birth to the proletarian movement in Soviet verse.

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Alekseev, Mikhail Vasilevich

Name: Mikhail Vasil’evich Alekseev

Lived: 1857 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Commander of Russian troops on the Western Front during the First World War, from 1915 chief of the General Staff Headquarters, Commander in Chief from March to May 1917. Later participated in the formation of a “Volunteer Army” to oppose the Bolshevik coup.

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Aleksii

Name: Aleksii

Lived: 1877 – 1970

Title: Patriarch

Notes: Born Sergei Vladimirovich Simanskii. Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia from 1945. Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod 1943-45.

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Alentova, Vera Valentinovna

Name: Vera Valentinovna Alentova

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Actress, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation (1982).

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Aleshin, Samuil Iosifovich

Name: Samuil Iosifovich Aleshin

Lived: 1913 –

Notes: Born Samuil Kotliar. Soviet Russian playwright, author of DIRECTOR (1950), EVERYTHING LEFT TO PEOPLE (1959), THE EIGHTEENTH CAMEL (1983).

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Algasov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Algasov

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Born Burdakov

Notes: Former Left-SR who worked with the Bolsheviks in he Miitary-Revolutionary Committee. Joined the Red Army during the Civil War.

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Aliev, Geidar Alievich

Name: Geidar Alievich Aliev

Lived: 1923 – 2003

Notes: President of Azerbaidzhan from 1993 till his death in 2003. 1967-69 chief of Azerbaidzhan KGB, from 1969 first secretary of the republic Communist Party. 1982-87 deputy chairman of the USSR Soviet of Ministers.

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Amalrik, Andrei Alekseevich

Name: Andrei Alekseevich Amalrik

Lived: 1936 – 1980

Notes: Writer and essayist exiled in 1965, and placed in the labor camps in 1970. Emigrated in 1976, most famous for his WILL THE SOVIET UNION SURVIVE UNTIL 1984?

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Amin, Hafizullah

Name: Hafizullah Amin

Lived: 1929 – 1979

Notes: Marxist president of Afghanistan, 1978-79. He occupied his post for 104 days, until killed by Soviet special forces, placing Babrak Karmal in power and unleashing the Soviet invasion.

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Amonashvili, Shalva Alekseevich

Name: Shalva Alekseevich Amonashvili

Lived: 1931 –

Notes: Georgian child psychologist, joint creator of a pedagogical system for early school-age children.

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Amori

Name: Amori

Lived: 1860 – 1918

Title: Count

Notes: See Rapgof

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Amundsen, Roald

Name: Roald Amundsen

Lived: 1872 – 1928

Notes: Norwegian polar explorer; first person to reach the South Pole.

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Anders, Wladyslaw

Name: Wladyslaw Anders

Lived: 1892 – 1970

Title: Lt. General

Notes: Polish general at the time of the German invasion of 1939, Anders was eventually captured by the Red Army, and imprisoned in Lubianka. The Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941 made him a valuable Soviet ally, and he was made commander of all Polish soldiers once imprisoned in the Soviet Union. His troops were eventually sent west, fighting in valiantly in the Battle of Monte Cassino (Italy). Anders spent the rest of his life after the war in Great Britain.

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Andreev, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Andreev

Lived: 1895 – 1971

Notes: People’s Commissar of Transportation, 1931-35, and Politburo member, 1932-52.

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Andreev, Nikolai Platonovich

Name: Nikolai Platonovich Andreev

Lived: 1882 – 1947

Notes: Soviet photographer and artist.

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Andreeva, Nina Aleksandrova

Name: Nina Aleksandrova Andreeva

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Leningrad chemistry teacher, author of anti-perestroika article of 1988.

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Andropov, Iurii Vladimirovich

Name: Iurii Vladimirovich Andropov

Lived: 1914 – 1984

Notes: Head of KGB under Brezhnev during a period of repression of the so-called dissidents, General Secretary of CPSU, 1982-84. He died in office without accomplishing the reforms that many had anticipated from ascendance.

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Angelina, Praskoviia (Pasha)

Name: Praskoviia (Pasha) Angelina

Lived: 1913 – 1959

Notes: Tractor driver and famous female Stakhanovite, of Greek ethnicity.

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Annenkov, Iurii Pavlovich

Name: Iurii Pavlovich Annenkov

Lived: 1889 – 1974

Notes: Painter and creator of fine ink sketches, illustrator of Blok’s TWELVE (1918).

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Antonii

Name: Antonii

Lived: 1863 – 1936

Title: Metropolitan

Notes: Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, first head of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Born Aleksei Pavlovich Khrapovitskii.

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Antonin

Name: Antonin

Lived: –

Title: Metropolitan

Notes: See Antonin-Krutitskii

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Antonin-Krutitskii

Name: Antonin-Krutitskii

Lived: 1865 – 1927

Title: Bishop

Alias: Antonin

Notes: Bishop of Vladikavkaz and Mozdok. On of the first leaders of the “Living Church.” Cooperated with Soviet officials on many matters, including the removal of valuables from churches.

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Antonov, Oleg Konstantinovich

Name: Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov

Lived: 1906 – 1984

Notes: Aircraft designer, lead designer of the ANT line of Soviet aircraft.

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Antonov-Ovseenko, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko

Lived: 1884 – 1938

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1902. He was active in the 1905 revolution and was arrested. During the First World War he was founder of and collaborator in the periodicals Golos and Nashe Slovo On his return to Russia he Joined the Bolsheviks and took part in the capture of the Winter Palace. Was commander-in-chief in the Ukraine from December 1918 to June 1919. Held government posts 1920-2.

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Apsit, Aleksandr Petrovich

Name: Aleksandr Petrovich Apsit

Lived: 1880 – 1944

Notes: Latvian Soviet propaganda artist.

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Aragon, Louis

Name: Louis Aragon

Lived: 1897 – 1982

Notes: French writer and member of the French Communist Party from 1927. One of the founders of surrealism in literature, Aragon wrote a warm tribute to Soviet socialist after a trip to the USSR in 1931.

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Arakcheev, Aleksei Andreevich

Name: Aleksei Andreevich Arakcheev

Lived: 1769 – 1834

Title: Count

Notes: Artillery general who became Russian Minister of War, 1808-10, effectively reorganizing the artillery for the soon-to-be war with Napoleon. Most trusted advisor of Aleksandr I from 1815-1825, during which he created a system of military colonies designed to reform army life, but which were unnecessarily harsh and spartan.

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Arbatov, Georgii Arkadevich

Name: Georgii Arkad’evich Arbatov

Lived: 1923 –

Notes: Journalist, historian and economist, academician since 1974, polemicist in support of Gorbachev during his reforms.

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Arnshtam, Leo Oskarovich

Name: Leo Oskarovich Arnshtam

Lived: 1905 – 1979

Notes: Director of such films as GIRL FRIENDS (1936), ZOYA (1944), and HISTORY LESSONS (1957)

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Aronson, Naum

Name: Naum Aronson

Lived: 1872 – 1943

Notes: Born at Kieslavka, Ukraine. Russian-Jewish sculptor whose most famous work is the Beethoven monument at Bonn. Awarded gold medal at Liege, 1906. His bust of Lenin was exhibited at the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 World Fair in Paris.

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Arskii, Pavel Aleksandrovich

Name: Pavel Aleksandrovich Arskii

Lived: 1886 – 1967

Alias: Born Pavel Afanasiev

Notes: One of the original stormers of the Winter Palace, proletarian poet and dramatist, early leader of the Proletkult movement. His poetry collections include “Songs of Struggle” (1918) and “Hammer and Sickle” (1925).

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Artiukhina, Aleksandra Vasilevna

Name: Aleksandra Vasil’evna Artiukhina

Lived: 1889 – 1969

Notes: Leader of the Zhenotdel movement during the 1920s. Rumored to be a favorite of Iosif Stalin.

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Artsybashev, Mikhail Petrovich

Name: Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev

Lived: 1878 – 1927

Notes: Writer whose tremendously popular SANIN (1907) helped spread a form of Nietzsche®s thought that seemed to emphasize hedonism and amorality.

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Arutiunian, Iurii Vartanovich

Name: Iurii Vartanovich Arutiunian

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Russian sociologist, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, specialist in ethnosociology.

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Askoldov, Aleksandr Iakovlevich

Name: Aleksandr Iakovlevich Askoldov

Lived: –

Notes: Director of the film COMMISSAR, shot in 1967 but not released until 1987.

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Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal

Name: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Title: President

Alias: Kemal

Notes: Founding father of modern Turkey, as president of the Turkish Republic following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Atatürk instituted reforms that transformed the Ottoman Empire into a modern secular, nation-state.

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Attlee, Clement

Name: Clement Attlee

Lived: 1883 – 1967

Notes: British Labor Party politician, elected Prime Minister in 1945.

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Avanesov, Varlaam Aleksandrovich

Name: Varlaam Aleksandrovich Avanesov

Lived: 1884 – 1930

Alias: Born Suren Karpovich Martirosov

Notes: Social Democrat from 1903, Bolshevik from 1914. Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in October 1917, Secretary of the Central Executive Committee (1917-19), 1920-24 Cheka Presidium.

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Avdeenko, Aleksandr Ostapovich

Name: Aleksandr Ostapovich Avdeenko

Lived: 1908 – 1996

Notes: Writer, most famous for his autobiographical novel, I LOVE (1933), about an orphan and thief who becomes a shock-worker in Magnitogorsk.

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Averbakh, Leopold Leonidovich

Name: Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh

Lived: 1903 – 1939

Notes: Literary critic, head of Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) in late 1920s.

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Avilov, Nikolai Pavlovich

Name: Nikolai Pavlovich Avilov

Lived: 1887 – 1942

Alias: Glebov

Notes: Revolutionary, participant in the October Revolution. Narkom of Post Office and Telegraph in 1917, chief commissar of the Black Sea Fleet in 1918. Occupied high posts in industry until he perished in the purges.

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Avksentiev, Nikolai Dmitrievich

Name: Nikolai Dmitrievich Avksentiev

Lived: 1878 – 1943

Notes: SR leader. In 1917, chairman of the Soviet of Peasant Deputies and the pre-parliament, Minister of Internal Affairs under the Provisional Government. Fought the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, in emigration thereafter.

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Axelrod, Pavel Borisovich

Name: Pavel Borisovich Axelrod

Lived: 1850 – 1928

Notes: Pseudonym of Pinkhas Boruch Axelrod. Early Marxist theoretician. One of the founders of the ‘Liberation of Labour’ group, 1883. Became Menshevik after 1903 Party split.

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Azhaev, Vasilii Nikolaevich

Name: Vasilii Nikolaevich Azhaev

Lived: 1915 – 1968

Notes: Soviet novelist, author of FAR FROM MOSCOW (1948, State Prize 1949).

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Babel, Isaak Emmanuilovich

Name: Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel

Lived: 1894 – 1941

Notes: Writer, author of Red Cavalry and other short stories, died in the purges.

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Babeuf, Francois Noel

Name: Francois Noel Babeuf

Lived: 1760 – 1797

Notes: French revolutionary, organizer of an uprising against the Directory by a secret society called the Conspiracy of Equals.

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Babochkin, Boris Andreevich

Name: Boris Andreevich Babochkin

Lived: 1904 – 1975

Notes: Fine stage actor whose career was overshadowed by his one great film role, Chapaev in the film of that name (1934)

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Bach-Zelewski, Erich von dem

Name: Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski

Lived: 1899 – 1972

Title: General Notes: SS Obergruppenfhrer and General of the Waffen-SS. Nazi officer in charge of finding and exterminating Soviet partisans. Testified in Nuremburg Trials.

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Bagirov, Kyamran Mamed ogly

Name: Kyamran Mamed ogly Bagirov

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: First secretary of the Azerbaidzhan Communist Party during the Gorbachev era, relieved of his post after the outbreak of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

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Bagration, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Bagration

Lived: 1765 – 1812

Title: Prince

Notes: Infantry general, participant in Suvorov’s Italian and Swiss campaigns. During the Great Patriotric War (War of 1812) he was commander-in-chief of the Second Army, fatally wounded in the Battle of Borodino.

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Baidukov, Georgii Fillipovich

Name: Georgii Fillipovich Baidukov

Lived: 1907 – 1994

Notes: Air Force general, Hero of the Soviet Union (1936), completed famous polar flights with Valerii Chkalov and Aleksandr Beliakov. Air Corps commander during the Second World War.

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Bakatin, Vadim Viktorovich

Name: Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Minister of State Security under Gorbachev.

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Baklanov, Oleg Dmitrievich

Name: Oleg Dmitrievich Baklanov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Deputy chief in Gorbachev’s Security Council and ex-secretary of the Central Committee who was a leading member of the 1991 putsch committee.

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Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Name: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

Lived: 1814 – 1876

Notes: Anarchist and revolutionary, deep influence on Russian populism and revolutionary thought who worked in exile with Aleksandr Herzen.

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Balmont, Konstantin Dmitrievich

Name: Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont

Lived: 1867 – 1942

Notes: Symbolist poet, author of musical verse celebrating the sensory world (“We Will Be Like the Sun,” 1903)

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Baltermants, Dmitrii

Name: Dmitrii Baltermants

Lived: 1912 – 1990

Notes: Soviet news photographer for Izvestiia, and later Ogonyok, most famous for his coverage of Operation Barbarossa and the defense of Russia’s major cities. His most famous images were made at Kerch where the German Army killed more than 176,000 men.

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Barannikov, Viktor Pavlovich

Name: Viktor Pavlovich Barannikov

Lived: 1941 – 1995

Notes: Interior Minister of the Russian Federation, later promoted to Interior Minister of the USSR, who became minister of defense in the post-Soviet Russian government.

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Batalov, Aleksei Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksei Vladimirovich Batalov

Lived: 1928 –

Notes: Film actor and director, star of films ranging from CRANES ARE FLYING (1957) to MOSCOW DOESN’T BELIEVE IN TEARS, son of actor Nikolai Petrovich Batalov.

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Batur

Name: Batur

Lived: 1208 – 1255

Notes: Also Batyi or Batu, grandson of Chingiz Khan, chief of the Mongol Horde in eastern and central Europe (1236-1243) and then the Golden Horde from 1243.

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Bauman, Nikolai Ernestovich

Name: Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman

Lived: 1867 – 1905

Alias: Grach

Notes: Veterinarian, revolutionary since the 1890s. Leader of the Moscow Party Central Committee from 1904. Murdered by reactionaries on October 18, 1905, his funeral gave cause to massdemonstrations.

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Beatty, Bessie

Name: Bessie Beatty

Lived: 1886 – 1947

Notes: Employed by the San Francisco Bulletin, Beatty visited Russia in 1917 with John Reed and Louise Bryant. Her book on the Russian Revolution, The Red Heart of Russia, was published in 1919.

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Bednyi, Demian

Name: Demian Bednyi

Lived: 1883 – 1945

Notes: Friend of Lenin and poet whose folksy verse castigated the White Army and other opponents of the Bolsheviks during the Revolution and Civil War.

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Beethoven, Ludwig van

Name: Ludwig van Beethoven

Lived: 1770 – 1827

Notes: German composer during the period between classicism and romanticism, most famous for the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and his Moolight and Path€tique Sonatas.

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Belashova, Ekaterina Fedorovna

Name: Ekaterina Fedorovna Belashova

Lived: 1906 – 1971

Notes: Sculptor, Secretary of the Board of the USSR Artists’ Union, awarded several state prizes for such works as Untamed (1957), Aleksandr Pushkin, 1837 (1964)

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Belavin, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Belavin

Lived: 1865 – 1925

Title: Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Notes: Patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church from 1917, opponent of bloodshed caused by Revolution who pronounced anathema on Bolsheviks in 1918, accused and imprisoned by Bolsheviks for anti-Soviet activity in 1922.

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Beliaev, Aleksandr Romanovich

Name: Aleksandr Romanovich Beliaev

Lived: 1884 – 1942

Notes: Early Russian science fiction, author of PROFESSOR DOWELL’S HEAD (1925) and AMPHIBIAN MAN (1928).

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Beliakov, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Beliakov

Lived: 1897 – 1982

Notes: Air Force general, Hero of the Soviet Union (1936), navigator of famous polar flights with Valerii Chkalov and Georgii Baidukov.

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Belinsky, Vissarion

Name: Vissarion Belinsky

Lived: 1811 – 1848

Notes: Russian literary critic and critical intellectual, role model of future westernizers and revolutionaries. His essays appeared in the thick journal Sovremennik.

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Bellamy, Edward

Name: Edward Bellamy

Lived: 1850 – 1898

Notes: Author of the classic utopia Looking Backward (1888), which had a profound influence on economic idealism in America.

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Beloborodov, Aleksandr Georgievich

Name: Aleksandr Georgievich Beloborodov

Lived: 1891 – 1938

Notes: Chairman of the Ural Region TsIK in 1918, signed the order to execute Aleksandr II and the royal family. People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1923-27. Victim of the purges.

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Belov, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Belov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Writer concerned with Russian rural life and its vanishing traditions.

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Belyi, Andrei

Name: Andrei Belyi

Lived: 1880 – 1934

Notes: Symobolist poet, peer and friend of Aleksandr Blok, and author of the first modernist novel in Russia, PETERSBURG.

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Benes, Edvard

Name: Edvard Benes

Lived: 1884 – 1948

Notes: Minister of Foreign Affairs (1918-1935) and President of Czechoslovakia (1935-1938), president in wartime exile and once again from 1946-48 until a Soviet-influenced socialist government was installed.

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Bennigsen, Leontii Leontevich

Name: Leontii Leont’evich Bennigsen

Lived: 1745 – 1826

Title: Count

Alias: Born Levin August Theophil Bennigsen

Notes: Russian cavalry general, participant in the plot to kill Tsar Pavel I. Unsuccessful army commander in the war with France in 1807, he began the War of 1812 as army chief-of-staff, but was relieved of his duties when Kutuzov became supreme commander.

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Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdiaev

Lived: 1874 – 1948

Notes: Lapsed Marxist philosopher who became one of the great Russian religious philosophers of the twentieth century. Participant in the VEKHI collection (1909), he was exiled to France in 1922, where his most famous work was likely THE RUSSIAN IDEA (1948).

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Berggolts, Olga Fedorovna

Name: Olga Fedorovna Berggolts

Lived: 1910 – 1975

Notes: Poetess, author of moving verse during the months of the blockade.

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Beria, Lavrentii Pavlovich

Name: Lavrentii Pavlovich Beria

Lived: 1899 – 1953

Notes: Rose to prominence in the Transcaucasian Cheka and GPU. From 1931-38 secretary of the Georgian Party, and Narkom of Internal Affairs from 1938. High positions in the Sovnarkom and Soviet Communist Party, and in the Defense Council during the war. Arrested in 1953, sentenced by a special court and shot.

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Berkman, Alexander

Name: Alexander Berkman

Lived: 1870 – 1936

Notes: American anarchist born in Vilnius. Closely associated with Emma Goldman, both were arrested in 1917 for opposing the draft, and deported to Russia in 1919, where they were bitterly disappointed in their hopes of finding freedom.

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Bernes, Mark Naumovich

Name: Mark Naumovich Bernes

Lived: 1911 – 1969

Notes: Singer and actor immensely popular for many decades, star of such films as FIGHTER PILOTS (1939) and TWO SOLDIERS (1942)

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Berolzheimer, Fritz

Name: Fritz Berolzheimer

Lived: 1869 – 1920

Notes: Legal philosopher and historian, author of System der Rechts-und Wirtschaftsphilosophie (Munich, 1907)

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Bessmertnykh, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bessmertnykh

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: Diplomat, ambassador to the United States, who succeeded Eduard Shevardnadze to become the last Soviet Foreign Minister.

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Bevin, Ernest

Name: Ernest Bevin

Lived: 1881 – 1951

Notes: British labor leader and statesman. Born an orphan, trade union leader for many years, entered the parliament as part of Churchill’s wartime coalition government, and became foreign minister from 1945 to 1951, when he laid the foundations for close cooperation with the United States and Western Europe.

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Bezymenskii, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Bezymenskii

Lived: 1898 – 1973

Notes: Komsomol poet, author of “Komsomolia” (1924), the song “Young Guard” and the satirical verse play SHOT (1929)

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Bibikov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Bibikov

Lived: 1729 – 1774

Title: General

Notes: Infantry officer who first distinguished himself during the Seven Year War, and who commanded military operations against the Pugachev Rebellion

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Bidault, Georges

Name: Georges Bidault

Lived: 1899 – 1983

Notes: French political leader. Imprisoned (1940 41) in World War II, then joined the French underground, becoming its leader. Imprisoned (1940-41) in World War II and then joined the French underground, becoming its leader. Opposed to Algerian independence, he formed the underground National Council of Resistance within the terrorist Secret Army Organization (OAS), and lived in exile from 1962.

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Bliukher, Vasilii Konstantinovich

Name: Vasilii Konstantinovich Bliukher

Lived: 1890 – 1938

Notes: Commander of Far East Military District, 1929-1938, leading proponent of tank warfare, one of the highest ranking officer killed in the military purges of 1938.

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Blix, Hans

Name: Hans Blix

Lived: 1928 –

Notes: Swedish diplomat and politician. Minister for Foreign Affairs (1978 – 1979); head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from 2000 to 2003.

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Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok

Lived: 1880 – 1921

Notes: Symbolist poet. See 1921: The Death of a Poet, on this website

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Blum, Leon

Name: Leon Blum

Lived: 1872 – 1950

Notes: French socialist, head of Popular Front government in the late 1930s

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Bogaevskii, Konstantin Fedorovich

Name: Konstantin Fedorovich Bogaevskii

Lived: 1872 – 1943

Notes: Painter, Honored Artist of Russia (1933), gained fame for “heroic” landscapes in the classical spirit, in Soviet times for decorative industrial landscapes.

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Bogatyrev, Petr Grigorevich

Name: Petr Grigor’evich Bogatyrev

Lived: 1893 – 1971

Notes: Folklorist

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Bogdanov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bogdanov

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Notes: See Malinovskii, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich. Leading Bolshevik and Marxist philosopher, active in Proletkul’t movement after October Revolution.

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Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir Dmitrievich

Name: Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich

Lived: 1873 – 1955

Notes: Bolshevik and friend of Lenin, organizer of several Bolshevik newspapers and publishers during the underground years. 1917-20 business manager of the Soviet of People’s Commissars. Learned historian and author of works about the revolution and religious sectarians.

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Bondarchuk, Sergei Fedorovich

Name: Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk

Lived: 1920 – 1994

Notes: Film director and actor, director and star of FATE OF MAN (1959), WAR AND PEACE (1966-67), and THEY FOUGHT FOR THE MOTHERLAND (1975).

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Bonner, Elena Georgievna

Name: Elena Georgievna Bonner

Lived: 1923 –

Notes: Human rights activist, wife of Andrei Sakharov

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Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich

Name: Aleksandr Porfir’evich Borodin

Lived: 1833 – 1887

Notes: Russian composer and chemist. Member of the so-called Mighty Five, the generation of composer that established the unique values of Russian classical music. Composed opera PRINCE IGOR, completed later by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov (1890), and the symphonic picture “Central Asia” (1880). Highly accomplished as a chemist as well.

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Borodin, Leonid Ivanovich

Name: Leonid Ivanovich Borodin

Lived: 1939 –

Notes: Dissident and author, imprisoned in the labor camps from 1967-73 and 1982-87.

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Mikhail Borodin

Name: Mikhail Borodin

Lived: 1884 – 1953

Notes: Comintern envoy to the Chinese revolutionary government headed by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, which he helped organize into a national force. His intriguing was blamed for the Kuomintang split with the Communists and subsequent failure of Soviet policy. Later served as editor of the English-language Moscow News. Arrested and shot as an “enemy of the people” in 1949.

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Borovik, Artem Genrikhovich

Name: Artem Genrikhovich Borovik

Lived: 1960 – 1999

Notes: Talented journalist for Ogonek whose reporting from Afghanistan was the first indication Soviet readers had of the hardships of that campaign.

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Braude, Semen Iakovlevich

Name: Semen Iakovlevich Braude

Lived: 1911 –

Notes: Physicist specializing in radio waves, laureate of the State Prize of the Soviet Union.

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Breshko-Breshkovskaia, Ekaterina Konstantinovna

Name: Ekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaia

Lived: 1844 – 1934

Notes: Dubbed the “grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” took part in the populist “going to the people” of the 1870s, imprisoned and in exile from 1874-96. A leader of the SRs and their “Combat Organization”. Participant in the revolution of 1905-07, imprisoned again from 1907-17. Released by the February Revolution, she was active among right SRs, and was hostile to the October Revolution. After participating in armed resistance to the Bolsheviks, she emigrated in 1919.

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Breshko-Breshkovskii, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Breshko-Breshkovskii

Lived: 1874 – 1943

Notes: Son of the “grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” with whom he had minimal contact after her exile. Writer of popular and somewhat scandalous novels, his specialty was the lives of athletes, especially professional wrestlers.

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Brezhnev, Leonid Ilich

Name: Leonid Ilich Brezhnev

Lived: 1906 – 1982

Notes: General Secretary of the CPSU, 1964-1982

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Britten, Benjamin

Name: Benjamin Britten

Lived: 1913 – 1976

Notes: British composer, conductor, violist, and pianist; close friend of Dmitri Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich.

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Brodskii, Iosif Aleksandovich

Name: Iosif Aleksandovich Brodskii

Lived: 1940 – 1996

Notes: Poet in both Russian and English, forced emigre to the US in 1972. Writer of elegant essays, stories and translations. Tried as a “parasite” in 1966 for having no legally recognized profession, Brodskii was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1987.

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Bronstein, Lev Davydovich

Name: Lev Davydovich Bronstein

Lived: 1879 – 1940

Alias: Trotsky

Notes: See Trotsky

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Broz-Tito, Josif

Name: Josif Broz-Tito

Lived: 1892 – 1980

Alias: Tito

Notes: See Tito

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Brusilov, Aleksei Alekseevich

Name: Aleksei Alekseevich Brusilov

Lived: 1853 – 1926

Title: General

Notes: Cavalry general, commander in several important battles of the First World War, commander in chief from May to July 1917, as the Russian Army disintegrated. One of the first “specialists” to work with the Red Army, which he served during the Civil War and after.

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Bryant, Louise

Name: Louise Bryant

Lived: 1885 – 1936

Notes: Journalist, companion of John Reed, with whom she journeyed to Russia during the Revolution. Upon her return she published her memoirs of that time, Six Red Months in Russia.

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Bubnov, Andrei Sergeevich

Name: Andrei Sergeevich Bubnov

Lived: 1883 – 1940

Notes: A Bolshevik from 1903. A professional revolutionary. A member of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee during the October Revolution and after it a member of the Collegium. of the Commissariat of Transport. In 1918 he went to the Ukraine and became a member of the Ukrainian CC and of the Ukrainian government of January 1919.

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Budennyi, Semen Mikhailovich

Name: Semen Mikhailovich Budennyi

Lived: 1883 – 1973

Notes: Civil War commander of the Bolshevik cavalry and led the Southern Front in World War II, a close crony of Stalin.

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Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin

Lived: 1888 – 1938

Notes: Joined the Bolsheviks in 1906 and became a member of their Moscow Committee in 1908. Played active part in October Revolution and was editor of Moscow Izvestiia Was editor of Pravda from December 1917 to 1929. A Left Communist at the time of the Brest negotiations and a co-editor of their journal, Kommunist. Bukharin’s moderate views were eventually eclipsed by the radical policies of Stalin, and Bukharin gradually lost influence until he perished in the purge trials of 1938.

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Bukovskii, Vladimir Konstantinovich

Name: Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskii

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Dissident and defender of human rights, organized a demonstration in defense of Siniavskii and Daniel in 1965. Subject to a variety of repressive measures, including psychiatric hospitals, in the 1960s, Bukovsky presented the 1971 World Congress of Psychiatrists evidence of abuse in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Exiled in 1976.

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Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasevich

Name: Mikhail Afanas’evich Bulgakov

Lived: 1891 – 1940

Notes: Writer best known for his novel, The Master and Margarita

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Bulganin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bulganin

Lived: 1895 – 1975

Notes: Politician prominent in the late Stalin and early post-Stalin eras, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, 1955-1958.

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Bullitt, William

Name: William Bullitt

Lived: 1891 – 1967

Notes: US Ambassador to the Soviet Union in the 1930s

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Bunich, Pavel Grigorevich

Name: Pavel Grigor’evich Bunich

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Economist active in post-Soviet politics

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Burbank, Luther

Name: Luther Burbank

Lived: 1849 – 1926

Notes: American botanist and horticulturist who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of fruits, flowers, grains, and vegetables over his long career.

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Burbulis, Gennadii Eduardovich

Name: Gennadii Eduardovich Burbulis

Lived: 1945 –

Notes: Politician. From June 1991, state secretary of the Russian Federation, and simaltaneously deputy chief of the Russian government.

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Burlatskii, Fedor Mikhailovich

Name: Fedor Mikhailovich Burlatskii

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Speechwriter for Khrushchev, politically active again under Gorbachev

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Busygin, Aleksandr Kharitonovich

Name: Aleksandr Kharitonovich Busygin

Lived: 1907 – 1985

Notes: Stakhanovite blacksmith, later to become a member of the Supreme Soviet.

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Castro, Fidel

Name: Fidel Castro

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Cuban revolutionary, leader of the successful revolution that toppled dictator Batista in 1959, premier of Cuba (1959-1976), president of the Council of State and Council of Ministers (1976-)

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Ceaucescu, Nicolae

Name: Nicolae Ceaucescu

Lived: 1918 – 1989

Notes: Secretary-general of the Romanian Communist Party (1965-89) and the first president of the Socialist Republic of Romania (1974-89). Schemes for the the total socialization of society led to economic failure and the impoverishment of the countryside. His repressive and totalitarian regime ended with his execution following the revolution of 1989.

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Chaikovskii Petr Ilich

Name: Petr Il’ich Chaikovskii

Lived: 1840 – 1893

Notes: Sometimes spelled Tchaikovsky. Towering figure in Russian music, one of the most popular composers in history. Wrote 11 operas (EUGENE ONEGIN, QUEEN OF SPADES), four concertos, six symphonies, three ballets (NUTCRACKER, SWAN LAKE), and other works.

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Chakovskii, Aleksandr Borisovich

Name: Aleksandr Borisovich Chakovskii

Lived: 1913 – 1994

Notes: Writer, author of the wartime trilogy IT HAPPENED IN LENINGRAD (1944), BLOCKADE (1968-1975) and VICTORY (1978-1981).

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Chamberlain, Neville

Name: Neville Chamberlain

Lived: 1869 – 1940

Notes: British Prime Minister in late 1930s, most famous for his attempts to appease Nazi Germany at then Munich Conference in 1938, when Hitler’s aggressive designs against Czechoslovakia became apparent. His guarantee of “peace in our time” would soon ring hollow.

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Chapaev, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Chapaev

Lived: 1887 – 1919

Notes: Son of a peasant, decorated non-commissioned officer during the First World War, Chapaev joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and was made a division commander during the Civil War. Chapaev’s unfettered spirit and courage were memorialized in a novel by his commissar, Dmitry Furmanov, and made into a hugely popular film in 1934.

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Chaplygin, Sergei Alekseevich

Name: Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin

Lived: 1869 – 1942

Notes: Academician from 1929, one of the founders of aerodynamics, with N. E. Zhukovskii founded the Central Aerodynamics Institute in Moscow.

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Chazov, Evgenii Ivanovich

Name: Evgenii Ivanovich Chazov

Lived: 1929 –

Title: Dr.

Notes: Prominent cardiologist and Soviet Minister of Health from 1987-1990, physician to many Kremlin leaders.

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Chebrikov, Viktor Mikhailovich

Name: Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov

Lived: 1923 – 1999

Notes: Soviet spymaster who, as deputy chairman (1968 82) and chairman (1982 88) of the KGB, presided over the agency during a period of great success against the U.S., only to lose power when his ideological opponent Mikhail Gorbachev became ascendant.

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Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich

Name: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Lived: 1860 – 1904

Notes: Russian short-story writer, dramatist, and physician. Author of world famous plays such as Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904), which in the performance of Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theater were founding events of twentieth-century realist theater, in Russian he is at least as beloved for his short stories.

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Cheremisov, Leontii G.

Name: Leontii G. Cheremisov

Lived: 1893 – 1967

Title: Lieutenant-General Notes: Commander at the Northern Front during the final months of the Russian effort in the First World War.

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Cheremnykh, Mikhail Mikhailovich

Name: Mikhail Mikhailovich Cheremnykh Lived: 1890 – 1962 Notes: Graphic artist, one of the creators of the ROSTA Windows and the satiric journal KROKODIL.

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Cherkasov, Nikolai Konstantinovich

Name: Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov

Lived: 1903 – 1966

Notes: Actor, member of the Pushkin Drama Theater in Leningrad from 1933, film actor best known for his starring roles in PETER the GREAT, BALTIC DEPUTY, ALEKSANDR NEVSKY, IVAN the TERRIBLE, DON QUIXOTE.

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Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich

Name: Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko

Lived: 1911 – 1985

Notes: General Secretary of the CPSU, 1984-85

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Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich

Name: Viktor Mikhailovich Chernov

Lived: 1876 – 1952

Notes: An SR leader and theorist. Took part in the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences. Became Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government and in January 1918, Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. Emigrated in 1921.

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Chi-Minh, Ho

Name: Ho Chi-Minh

Lived: 1890 – 1969

Notes: Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman, who later became Prime Minister and President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Famous for leading the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. Lived in the Soviet Union 1933-1938.

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Chicherin, Georgii Vasilevich

Name: Georgii Vasilevich Chicherin

Lived: 1872 – 1936

Notes: Employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1896 onwards. Returned to Russia in January 1918 and was soon appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. joined the Bolshevik party. Served as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs from 30 May 1918 to 1930.

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Chirkov, Boris Petrovich

Name: Boris Petrovich Chirkov

Lived: 1901 – 1982

Notes: Soviet stage and film actor, four time State Prize Laureate, including in 1952 for his role in DONETSK MINERS, People’s Artist of the Soviet Union (1950).

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Chkalov, Valerii Pavlovich

Name: Valerii Pavlovich Chkalov

Lived: 1904 – 1938

Notes: Test pilot, pilot of famous non-stop flights in 1936-1937: Moscow-Udd Island (Soviet Far East), Moscow-North Pole-Vancouver (Washington). Died testing a new fighter plane.

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Chkheidze, Nikolai Semenovich

Name: Nikolai Semenovich Chkheidze

Lived: 1864 – 1926

Notes: Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917, and one of the Menshevik leaders of Georgia before it fell under Soviet power in 1921.

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Chubais, Anatolii Borisovich

Name: Anatolii Borisovich Chubais

Lived: 1955 –

Notes: Chairman of the State Privatiztion Fund of the Russian Federation, 1991-94, often implicated in the massive accumulation of wealth by tycoons during that period.

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Chubar, Vlas Iakovlevich

Name: Vlas Iakovlevich Chubar

Lived: 1891 – 1939

Notes: High Soviet Ukrainian official, specialist in economic and administrative questions, who was shot in the purges

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Chuikov, Semen Afanasievich

Name: Semen Afanasievich Chuikov

Lived: 1902 – 1980

Notes: Russian painter, genre paintings and landscapes devoted to Soviet Kirghiziia and India.

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Chuikov, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Chuikov

Lived: 1900 – 1982

Title: General

Notes: Soviet general, commander of the 62nd Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. Later commanded the 8th Guards and led its advance through Poland. Directed the Soviet offensive which captured Berlin in April 1945.

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Chukhrai, Grigorii Naumovich

Name: Grigorii Naumovich Chukhrai

Lived: 1921 – 2001

Notes: Film director (“Ballad of a Soldier”)

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Chukovskii, Kornei Ivanovich

Name: Kornei Ivanovich Chukovskii

Lived: 1882 – 1969

Notes: Writer and critic best known for his children’s verse (“Moidodyr,” “Doctor Aibolit”), and FROM TWO TO FIVE, on the idiosyncracies of children’s language.

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Churbanov, Iurii

Name: Iurii Churbanov

Lived: 1936 – 2013

Title: General

Notes: Brezhnev son-in-law who rose to become first deputy minister of the interior, a position he used to protect numerous corrupt practices. After his father-in-law’s death in 1982, Churbanov was arrested and sentenced to 12 years for taking bribes. Coming in the early years of economic and political reform under former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the case sent an important signal that no one was above the law. Churbanov was released from prison in 1993.

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Clemenceau, Georges

Name: Georges Clemenceau

Lived: 1841 – 1929

Notes: French statesman, twice premier (1906-9, 1917-20)

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Dan, Fedor

Name: Fedor Dan

Lived: 1871 – 1947

Notes: Menshevik leader, married to the sister of Martov. Joined Social Democratic party in 1894. Became Menshevik in 1903. Shared with Martov the leadership of the Menshevik faction until after October 1917. Later exiled to New York in 1922.

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Daud, Mohammed

Name: Mohammed Daud

Lived: 1909 – 1978

Title: General

Notes: General Mohammed Daud overthrew the Afghan king in 1973 and established friendly relations with the Soviet Union. He ruled Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978.

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Demchenko, Mariia Sofronovna

Name: Mariia Sofronovna Demchenko

Lived: 1912 –

Notes: Outstanding Stakhanovite sugarbeet worker

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Demichev, Petr Nilovich

Name: Petr Nilovich Demichev

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Politbiuro member from 1966 to 1988, Minister of Culture under Brezhnev.

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Denikin, Anton Ivanovich

Name: Anton Ivanovich Denikin

Lived: 1872 – 1947

Notes: Tsarist military leader who commanded the anti-Bolshevik forces in the South, 1918-1919

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Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich

Name: Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev

Lived: 1872 – 1929

Notes: Founder with Aleksandr Benois of the WORLD OF ART movement, Impressario of the “Ballet russe” from 1907.

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Diderot, Denis

Name: Denis Diderot

Lived: 1713 – 1784

Notes: French philosopher and writer; prominent figure in the Enlightenment, and editor-in-chief of the famous Encyclopédie.

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Djilas, Milovan

Name: Milovan Djilas

Lived: 1911 – 1995

Notes: Yugoslav Communist politician, theorist and author, key figure in the partisan movement and post-war government who later became an incisive critic of the Tito regime.

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Dobroliubov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Dobroliubov

Lived: 1836 – 1861

Notes: Russian literary critic, publicist, and revolutionary democrat.

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Dobrynin, Anatolii Fedorovich

Name: Anatolii Fedorovich Dobrynin

Lived: 1919 –

Notes: Diplomat, many years the Soviet Ambassador to the United States and leading foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin.

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Dokuchaev, Vasilii Vasilevich

Name: Vasilii Vasil’evich Dokuchaev

Lived: 1846 – 1903

Notes: Natural scientist, professor at Petersburg University. In his classic RUSSIAN BLACK EARTH (1883), laid the foundation of genetic soil studies

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Donahue, Phil

Name: Phil Donahue

Lived: 1935 –

Notes: American media personality best known as star of The Phil Donahue Show.

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Donskoi, Dmitrii

Name: Dmitrii Donskoi

Lived: 1350 – 1389

Notes: Grand Prince of Muscovy and Vladimir. The first stone churches of the Moscow Kremlin were built in his reign. Commander of Russian forces in their greatest victories of over the Mongols, including the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). Made Moscow most powerful of Russian cities.

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Doronin, Ivan Vasilevich

Name: Ivan Vasil’evich Doronin

Lived: 1903 – 1951

Notes: Pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union (1934). Participant in polar flights from 1930, and in the expedition to save the Cheliuskin in 1934.

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Dostoevskii, Fedor Mikhailovich

Name: Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii

Lived: 1821 – 1881

Notes: Russian novelist whose works include Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov.

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Dovzhenko, Aleksandr Petrovich

Name: Aleksandr Petrovich Dovzhenko

Lived: 1894 – 1956

Notes: Director of ARSENAL (1929), EARTH (1930), and other films.

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Drabkin, Sergei Ivanovich (Iakov Davydovich)

Name: Sergei Ivanovich (Iakov Davydovich) Drabkin

Lived: 1874 – 1933

Alias: Gusev

Notes: Became a Bolshevik in 1903. A professional revolutionary. He was secretary of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. During the Civil War he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of, successively, the Fifth Army, the Second Army, the Eastern Front, the Southeastern Front and the Southern Front. Appointed head of the Army Political Administration in the spring of 1921.

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Dubcek, Alexander

Name: Alexander Dubcek

Lived: 1921 – 1992

Notes: Reformist president of Czechoslovakia, ousted after Soviet-led invasion of 1968

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Dubinin, Nikolai Petrovich

Name: Nikolai Petrovich Dubinin

Lived: 1907 –

Notes: Geneticist, member of the Academy of Sciences from 1966. Discovered technique for splitting genes.

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Dudin, Samuel Martinovich

Name: Samuel Martinovich Dudin

Lived: 1863 – 1929

Notes: Photographer who collected vast photographic and ethnographic collections in Central Asia between 1893 and 1914.

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Dudintsev, Vladimir Dmitrievich

Name: Vladimir Dmitrievich Dudintsev

Lived: 1918 – 1998

Notes: Writer, author of novel, Not By Bread Alone (1956)

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Dudko, Dmitrii Sergeevich

Name: Dmitrii Sergeevich Dudko

Lived: 1922 – 2004

Notes: Orthodox priest, arrested in 1980 for his writings and sermons.

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Dukhonin, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Dukhonin

Lived: 1876 – 1917

Title: Commander-in-Chief

Notes: Last commander-in-chief of the Russian Army before the October Revolution. He was killed by Red Guards for refusing to follow the Bolshevik order to cease fire against the German Army in 1917.

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Dunaevskii, Isaak Osipovich

Name: Isaak Osipovich Dunaevskii

Lived: 1900 – 1955

Notes: Composer of immensely popular songs, including SONG OF THE MOTHERLAND (1936), MARCH OF ENTHUSIASTS (1940), and music to such films as HAPPY-GO-LUCKY FELLOWS (1934) and VOLGA-VOLGA (1938)

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Duranty, Walter

Name: Walter Duranty

Lived: 1884 – 1946

Notes: New York Times correspondent in Moscow during the 1920s and 1930s, criticized much then and now for his blindness to many of the Stalin regimes worst sins.

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Dutov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Dutov

Lived: 1879 – 1921

Notes: White military leader who led a Cossack revolt in the Orenburg region in Nov-Dec 1917

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Dybenko, Pavel Efimovich

Name: Pavel Efimovich Dybenko

Lived: 1889 – 1938

Notes: Joined Bolsheviks in 1912. A naval rating in the Baltic Fleet from 1911. Elected head of the CC of the Baltic Fleet after the February Revolution. Played a prominent role in the October Revolution and was a member of the military collegium of the first Sovnarkom in November 1917. During the Civil War held various commands, including that of the first Ukrainian army in January 1919.

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Dzerzhinskii, Feliks Edmundovich

Name: Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskii

Lived: 1877 – 1926

Notes: Elected to the Party CC at its VI Congress. Head of Cheka from its foundation on 20 December 1917 until his death (except for a short time in August 1918) Chairman first of the Cheka, then of OGPU. From 1921 People’s Commissar for Transport.

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Dzhaparidze, Prokofii Aprasionovich

Name: Prokofii Aprasionovich Dzhaparidze

Lived: 1880 – 1918

Alias: Alesha

Notes: 1917-18 deputy and then chairman of the Baku Soviet, a leader of the Baku Commune. One of the famous executed “Baku Commissars.”

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Dzhemilev, Mustafa

Name: Mustafa Dzhemilev

Lived: 1943 –

Alias: Mustafa Abdlcemil Qirimglu (in Tatar) Notes: Crimean Tatar deported as a one-year during the exile of his people to Uzbekistan. Human rights activist in the 1960s, supporting both Tatar and other causes. Active now in Ukrainian politics.

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Dzhugashvili, Iosef Vissarionovich

Name: Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

Lived: 1879 – 1953

Alias: Stalin

Notes: See Stalin

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Dziuba, Ivan Mikhailovich

Name: Ivan Mikhailovich Dziuba

Lived: 1931 –

Notes: Literary critic, critic of Soviet nationality policies.

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de Gaulle, Charles

Name: Charles de Gaulle

Lived: 1890 – 1970

Notes: French general and statesman, first president (1959 69) of the Fifth Republic.

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Eden, Anthony

Name: Anthony Eden

Lived: 1897 – 1977

Notes: Conservative statesmen, British Foreign Secretary during WW II, and under the conservatives during the 1950s.

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Efimov, Boris Efimovich

Name: Boris Efimovich Efimov

Notes: Political cartoonist and propagandist known for his political caricatures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, and for his anti-Trotskyist cartoons of the mid-1930s, featured in KROKODIL and OGONEK. Brother of Mikhail Kol’tsov.

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Efron, Sergei

Name: Sergei Efron

Lived: 1893 – 1940

Notes: Journalist, husband of poet Marina Tsvetaeva, former White Guard officer later suspected of collaboration with Soviet security officials.

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Efros, Anatolii Vasilevich

Name: Anatolii Vasil’evich Efros

Lived: 1925 – 1987

Notes: Stage director at the Theater of Leninist Komsomol and the Dramatic Theater on Malaia Bronnaia in Moscow. Later head director of the Taganka Theater.

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Egorov, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Egorov

Lived: 1883 – 1939

Title: Marshal

Notes: Army commander during the Civil War, led the rout of Denikin on the Southern Front and fought in the Polish War of 1920. Chief of the General Staff in 1935-37, commander in the Caucasus in 1938 before perishing in the purges.

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Egorychev, Nikolai Grigorevich

Name: Nikolai Grigor’evich Egorychev

Lived: 1920 –

Notes: Party official under Khrushchev and Brezhnev who began a successful diplomatic career when designated ambassador to Denmark in 1970, and to Afghanistan in 1988.

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Eikhe, Robert Indrikovich

Name: Robert Indrikovich Eikhe

Lived: 1890 – 1940

Notes: A founder of the Latvian Communist Party, victim of the purge trials.

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Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Name: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Lived: 1890 – 1969

Notes: Supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during the Second World War, later thirty-fourth president of the U.S. (1953-1961).

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Eizenshtein, Sergei

Name: Sergei Eizenshtein

Lived: 1898 – 1948

Notes: Great film director, most notably of BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and OCTOBER, master editor whose daring cross-cut techniques (montage) laid the foundation of modern film.

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El-Registan, Garold

Name: Garold El-Registan

Lived: 1899 – 1945

Notes: Soviet-Armenian poet, journalist, adventure story writer, and co-author of words to Soviet National Anthem (1944).

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Eltsin, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Eltsin

Lived: 1931 – 2007

Notes: Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk oblast, then Moscow; his activities as President of the RSFSR put him into conflict with then USSR President Gorbachev, eventually leading to the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. First President of post-Soviet Russian Federation.

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Eluard, Paul

Name: Paul Eluard

Lived: 1895 – 1952

Notes: Pen name of Eug„ne ˆmile Paul Grindel, French poet and surrealist until joining the Communist Party in 1942.

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Engels, Friedrich

Name: Friedrich Engels

Lived: 1820 – 1895

Notes: German socialist thinker, co-author of Karl Marx in many of the fundamental texts of the world socialist movement.

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Enukidze, Avel Sefronovich

Name: Avel Sefronovich Enukidze

Lived: 1877 – 1937

Notes: Secretary of Central Executive Committee, 1918-1935, Party Presidium from 1927, victim of the purge trials.

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Erenburg, Ilia Grigorevich

Name: Il’ia Grigor’evich Erenburg

Lived: 1891 – 1967

Notes: Novelist and journalist based in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Master at treading on the fine line between critique and loyalism. Author of JULIO JURENITO (1922), THAW (1956) and many other novels, and sharp essays during the wartime and after.

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Ermak

Name: Ermak

Lived: 1532 – 1585

Notes: Also Ermak Timofeevich. Cossack explorer of Siberia, beginning Russian colonization of the region.

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Ermilov, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Ermilov

Lived: 1904 – 1965

Notes: Literary critic of orthodox Soviet bent.

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Ernesaks, Gustav

Name: Gustav Ernesaks

Lived: 1908 – 1993

Notes: Estonian composer and choral director, chief director of Estonian Song Festivals from 1947.

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Esenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich

Name: Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin

Lived: 1895 – 1925

Notes: Russian poet of immense lyric talent whose verse (TAVERN MOSCOW, 1924) animated young people and aggravated Soviet critics. Died a suicide.

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Esenin-Volpin, Aleksandr Sergeevich

Name: Aleksandr Sergeevich Esenin-Volpin

Lived: 1924 –

Notes: Mathematician and son of the famous poet Sergei Esenin, had spent varying periods in mental hospitals since 1949. In 1959 he had sent to the West a philosophical treatise and collection of poems, published as A Leaf of Spring, and in 1965 he had founded the “Constitution Day demonstrations,” which later became an annual event. He became a prolific contributor to samizdat on legal problems, and in February 1968 was forcibly committed to the Kashchenko Mental Hospital for protesting against the “Trial of the Four” (Ginzburg, Galanskov, Dobrovolsky, and Lashkova). He was released again in May. He then became the chief legal adviser to the Moscow Human Rights Committee, led by Andrei Sakharov, until his emigration to the U.S. in 1972.

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Evdokimov, Efim Georgievich

Name: Efim Georgievich Evdokimov

Lived: 1891 – 1940

Notes: High ranking officer of the Cheka, OGPU and NKVD shot in the purges of 1940.

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Evtushenko, Evgenii Aleksandrovich

Name: Evgenii Aleksandrovich Evtushenko

Lived: 1933 –

Notes: Poet, member of the young generation of the 1960s.

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Ezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Ezhov

Lived: 1895 – 1939

Notes: People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs, 1936-38; carried out Great Purges, often called Ezhovshchina for his leading role. Died a victim of those purges.

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Fedin, Konstantin

Name: Konstantin Fedin

Lived: 1892 – 1977

Notes: Member of the Serapion Brothers literary grouping best known for his novel, Cities and Years, who supported the Revolution and creative freedom for writers.

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Fedorchuk, Vitalii Vasilievich

Name: Vitalii Vasilievich Fedorchuk

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Chairman of the Ukrainian KGB from 1970, Fedorchuk became chairman of the Soviet KGB and Minister of Internal Affairs in 1982. He was transferred to a minor inspectoral post under Gorbachev.

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Feinberg, Evgenii Lvovich

Name: Evgenii L’vovich Feinberg

Lived: 1912 – 2005

Notes: Theoretical physicist in the field of radio waves, acoustics and nuclear physics.

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Feltrinelli, Giangiacomo

Name: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

Lived: 1926 – 1972

Notes: Italian publisher and left-wing activist known for publishing the first edition of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, for which he was expelled from the Italian Communist Party.

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Feuchtwanger, Leon

Name: Leon Feuchtwanger

Lived: 1884 – 1958

Notes: German novelist who wrote laudatory book on the USSR after his 1937 visit.

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Figner, Vera Nikolaevna

Name: Vera Nikolaevna Figner

Lived: 1852 – 1942

Notes: A leader of Narodnaya Volya who participated in assasination of Alexander II in 1881

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Filatov, Anatoly N.

Name: Anatoly N. Filatov

Lived: –

Notes: Soviet Foreign Ministry aide entrapped by the CIA, whose espionage work was quickly detected by the KGB, resulting in a quick trial and international scandal.

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Flatten, Fritz

Name: Fritz Flatten

Lived: 1883 – 1942

Notes: Swiss socialist and friend of Lenin who helped negotiate his passage back to Russia in 1917 with the Germans. Later saved Lenin from an assassination attempt. Died in the Soviet labor camps.

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Forsh, Olga Dmitrievna

Name: Ol’ga Dmitrievna Forsh

Lived: 1873 – 1961

Notes: Historical novelist who made the successful transition from pre-revolutionary author to Soviet memoirist, satirist, novelist and children’s writer.

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Fourier, Charles

Name: Charles Fourier

Lived: 1772 – 1832

Notes: French utopian socialist most influential in Russia for his idea of cooperative communities called phalanges.

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Franco, Francisco

Name: Francisco Franco Lived: 1892 – 1975

Title: General

Notes: Leader of anti-Republic forces during Spanish Civil War, dictator of Spain from 1939 to his death.

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Frumkin, Moisei Ilich

Name: Moisei Il’ich Frumkin

Lived: 1878 – 1938

Notes: Old Bolshevik who held responsible office in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade. Joined RSDRP in 1898. In 1906 a member of Bolshevik Military Organisation in Petrograd. After the February Revolution he was a member of the Regional Party Committee and the Executive Committee in Krasnoyarsk and later in Omsk Member of Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Food, 1918-22. Later in the 1920s, he proposed a milder policy towards the peasantry and more moderate plans for economic growth.

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Frunze, Mikhail Vasilevich

Name: Mikhail Vasilevich Frunze

Lived: 1885 – 1925

Notes: A Bolshevik from 1904. Took part in the October Revolution in Moscow. In 1918 he was appointed Military Commissar of the Yaroslavl Military District and in December 1918 given command of the Fourth Army In April 1919 he became commander of the Southern Army Group of the Eastern Front, in July 1919 Commander of the Eastern Front and in September 1920 of the Southern Front. At the end of 1920 he became commander-in-chief of the newly created Southern Front against Wrangel and a member of the Ukrainian CC.

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Furmanov, Dmitrii Andreevich

Name: Dmitrii Andreevich Furmanov

Lived: 1891 – 1926

Notes: Comissar during the Civil War, novelist and author of the hugely popular CHAPAEV.

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Furtseva, Ekaterina Alekseevna

Name: Ekaterina Alekseevna Furtseva

Lived: 1910 – 1974

Notes: First female member of the Politburo, Minister of Culture under Khrushchev.

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Galanskov, Iurii Timofeevich

Name: Iurii Timofeevich Galanskov

Lived: 1939 – 1972

Notes: Poet, member of the human rights movement in the USSR, sentenced to seven years prison in 1972, where he died.

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Galczynski, Konstanty Ildefons

Name: Konstanty Ildefons Galczynski

Lived: 1905 – 1953

Notes: Whimsical and graceful Polish poet; wrote politically correct work for the post-war Polish socialist state.

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Gende-Rote, Valerii Albertovich

Name: Valerii Albertovich Gende-Rote

Lived: 1926 – 2000

Notes: Photographer for magazine “Soviet Photo” and for the international department of “Photochronika TASS” (1957-1968), one of the leaders of the Russian “young photography” movement in the sixties, most famous for his photos Gagarin’s report to the Soviet Government.

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Georgadze, Mikhail Porfirevich

Name: Mikhail Porfirevich Georgadze

Lived: 1912 – 1982

Notes: Secretary of Presidium of Supreme Soviet, 1957-1984, who began as a tractor driver and official in his native Georgia before being brought to Moscow by Khrushchev.

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Gerasimov, Sergei Apollinarevich

Name: Sergei Apollinarevich Gerasimov

Lived: 1906 – 1985

Notes: Film director, much decorated by the Soviet state. Best known for THE DARING SEVEN (1936), MASQUERADE (1941), YOUNG GUARD (1948), QUIET FLOWS THE DON (1957-58)

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Gibbon, Edward

Name: Edward Gibbon

Lived: 1737 – 1794

Notes: English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Ginzburg, Aleksandr Ilich

Name: Aleksandr Il’ich Ginzburg

Lived: 1936 – 2002

Notes: Poet, dissident and samizdat editor of the poetry almanac “Sintaksis, who compiled the “White Book.”

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Gittis, Vladimir Mikhailovich

Name: Vladimir Mikhailovich Gittis

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Notes: Commanded armies on the northern and southern fronts of the Civil War, and promoted subsequently until reaching the rank of corps commander in 1935. Victim of the military purge of 1938.

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Glazunov, Ilia Sergeevich

Name: Il’ia Sergeevich Glazunov

Lived: 1930 –

Title: People’s Artist of the USSR Notes: Painter and graphic artist, best known for his large canvases that trace his personal conception of the unique path of Russian history and culture.

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Glebov

Name: Glebov

Lived: –

Notes: See Avilov, Nikolai Viktorovich

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Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka

Lived: 1804 – 1857

Notes: Composer, patriarch of Russian classical music. His IVAN SUSANIN (Life for the Tsar, 1836) and RUSLAN AND LIUDMILA (1842) established the two most important prototypes for Russian operas, the national drama and the fairy tale opera.

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Godunov, Boris Fedorovich

Name: Boris Fedorovich Godunov

Lived: 1551 – 1605

Notes: Regent of Russia from 1584 to 1598, tsar from 1598 to 1605. Under his rule Russia received its Orthodox Patriarchate, and saw many necessary reforms, but eventually it descended into the chaos known as the Time of Troubles.

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Goebbels, Joseph

Name: Joseph Goebbels

Lived: 1897 – 1945

Notes: Nazi propaganda minister and fierce anti-Semite.

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Golshtein, Moisei Markovich

Name: Moisei Markovich Golshtein

Lived: 1891 – 1918

Alias: V. Volodarskii

Notes: Revolutionary at the age of 14 under the influence of the 1905 revolution.1913 departure to America. Returned to Russia after the February revolution, soon becoming a Bolshevik. Member of the Petrograd Party Committee, one of the finest propagandists. Member of the Petrograd Soviet, later of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Editor of the newspaper Krasnaia Gazeta, Petrograd. Commissar for the Press, Propaganda and Agitation of the Petrograd Commune. Murdered on June 20, 1918.

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Gompers, Samuel

Name: Samuel Gompers

Lived: 1850 – 1924

Notes: American labor leader and union organizer

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Gorbanevskaia, Natalia

Name: Natalia Gorbanevskaia

Lived: 1936 – 2013

Notes: Poet; translator; member of the Action Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR; first editor of The Chronicle of Current Events; participant in the demonstration in Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Arrested in 1969 and held in Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital until 1972. Emigrated in 1975. Lived in Paris till her death, working as a journalist and publishing her poetry.

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Gorky, Maksim

Name: Maksim Gorky

Lived: 1868 – 1936

Notes: See Peshkov, Maksim. Writer, author of celebrated novels, essays and poems, progressive essayist and sometimes associate of the Bolsheviks. Gorkii spent much of the Bolsheviks time in power in voluntary exile. He was invited back to the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1932, when he was feted and served as a leader of the Soviet literary world. His name is most associated with the birth of socialist realism.

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Gotz, Abram Rafailovich

Name: Abram Rafailovich Gotz

Lived: 1882 – 1940

Notes: Socialist Revolutionary, a member of the secret “Combat Organization” that arranged political assassinations after the failed 1905 Revolution, exiled from 1907-17. Participated in Soviet organizations in 1917, but opponent of the Bolsheviks after the October takeover. Frequently jailed and repressed under their rule.

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Govorov, Leonid Aleksandrovich

Name: Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov

Lived: 1897 – 1955

Notes: Marshal of the Soviet Union from 1944, one of the leading commanders of the Red Army during the Second World War. Commanded an army during the Battle of Moscow, and important commander during the Leningrad Blockade.

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Govorukhin, Stanislav

Name: Stanislav Govorukhin

Lived: 1936 –

Notes: Director, actor, script writer; after 1991 Deputy of the State Duma known for his conservative politics. Director “We Can’t Live Like This” and “The Russia That We Lost”, and “The Great Criminal Revolution”.

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Grabar, Igor Emmanuilovich

Name: Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar

Lived: 1871 – 1960

Notes: Russian-Soviet artist and art critic first associated with the World of Art movement, whose art, critical and museum activities were increasingly in line with official policies under Stalin.

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Grach

Name: Grach

Lived: –

Notes: See Bauman, Nikolai

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Griboedov, Aleksandr Sergeevich

Name: Aleksandr Sergeevich Griboedov

Lived: 1790 – 1829

Notes: Writer and diplomat, most famous for his witty play WOE FROM WIT (1822), in which social conservatives were mercilessly satirized. Investigated for connections to the Decembrists, he was sent as Russian emissary to Persia, where he was torn to pieces by an angry mob.

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Grigorenko, Petr Grigorevich

Name: Petr Grigor’evich Grigorenko

Lived: 1907 – 1987

Title: Major General

Notes: After a successful military career, including action at Khalkhin-Gor (1939), the Second World War, and a post-war teaching post at the Frunze Military Academy, Grigorenko became a defender of human rights and critic of Khrushchev, for which he was transferred to the Far East in 1961. After creating the Union to Resurrect Leninism in 1963, he was deprived of his rank, medals and pension. Stints in prison and a psychiatric hospital preceded his emigration to the USA in 1977.

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Grigorev, Aleksandr Dmitrievich

Name: Aleksandr Dmitrievich Grigorev

Lived: 1874 – 1940

Notes: Ethnographer

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Grinko, Grigorii Fedorovich

Name: Grigorii Fedorovich Grinko

Lived: 1890 – 1938

Notes: Chairman of Gosplan, People’s Commissar of Finance (1930-1937) and other high posts in financial planning. Victim of the purges

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Grishashvili, Iosif Grigorevich

Name: Iosif Grigor’evich Grishashvili

Lived: 1889 – 1965

Notes: Real name: Mamulaishvili. Georgian poet, member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences since 1947, People’s Poet of Georgia (1959), concerned with social and political themes.

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Gromova, Uliana Matveeva

Name: Ul’iana Matveeva Gromova

Lived: 1924 – 1943

Notes: One of the leaders of the Komsomol underground in the city of Krasnodon, immortalized in Fadeev’s post-war novel YOUNG GUARD, executed by the Germans.

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Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Gromyko

Lived: 1909 – 1989

Notes: Ambassdor to the United States during the war and then delegate to the United Nations. Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1957-1985.

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Grossman, Vasilii Semenovich

Name: Vasilii Semenovich Grossman

Lived: 1905 – 1964

Notes: Soviet Jewish writer and war correspondent, author of Forever Flowing and Life and Fate, epic novels about the Great Patriotic War that were published only many years after their writing, to great critical acclaim.

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Grosz, Georg

Name: Georg Grosz

Lived: 1893 – 1959

Notes: German artist famous for his anti-capitalist caricatures in years following the First World War.

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Gubenko, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Gubenko

Lived: 1941 –

Notes: Actor, director, People’s Artist of Russia (1985). Minister of Culture of the USSR, 1989-91.

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Guchkov, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Name: Aleksandr Ivanovich Guchkov

Lived: 1862 – 1936

Notes: Factory owner, leader of the Octobrist faction in the Duma. Member of the State Council, 1907-1915. Chairman of the Central Military Industrial Committee, 1915-17, and Minister of War under the Provisional Government.

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Guevara, Ernesto "Che"

Name: Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Lived: 1928 – 1967

Notes: Cuban revolutionary and political leader born in Argentina and trained as a physician. Close comrade of Castro, he was more comfortable as a revolutionary than a state administrator. Left Cuba in 1965 to foster revolutionary activity in the Congo and other countries. In 1967, directing an ineffective guerrilla movement in Bolivia, he was wounded, captured, and executed by government troops.

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Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich

Name: Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev

Lived: 1886 – 1921

Notes: Acmeist organizer and poet, once husband of Anna Akhmatova, executed as counter-revolutionary in 1921.

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Gurvich, Fedor Ilich

Name: Fedor Il’ich Gurvich

Lived: 1871 – 1947

Alias: Dan

Notes: See Fedor Dan. Menshevik leader, married to the sister of Martov. Joined Social Democratic party in 1894. Became Menshevik in 1903. Shared with Martov the leadership of the Menshevik faction until after October 1917. Later exiled to New York in 1922.

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Gusev

Name: Gusev

Lived: –

Notes: See Drabkin, Sergei Ivanovich

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Handel, George Frideric

Name: George Frideric Handel

Lived: 1685 – 1759

Notes: English composer born in Germany, great master of baroque music, most celebrated for his oratorio The Messiah.

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Harriman, William Averell

Name: William Averell Harriman

Lived: 1891 – 1986

Notes: Heir to the Harriman railroad fortune, filled various high governmental posts in commerce before the war. Adminstered the Land Lease program from 1941, and was American ambassador to the Soviet Union 1943-46. Played many important roles in American foreign policy until the late 1960s.

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Heiden, Eric

Name: Eric Heiden

Lived: 1958 –

Notes: American long track speed skater who won an unprecedented five gold medals, and set four Olympic records and one world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid.

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Hull, Cordell

Name: Cordell Hull

Lived: 1871 – 1955

Notes: American statesman, named Secretary of State by FDR in 1933. Placed great emphasis on international economic relations and fostered the “good neighbor” policy toward Latin American countries. After World War II broke out, pushed for aid to the Allies and recommended revision of the Neutrality Act. After U.S. entry into the war, he worked to improve cooperation among the Allies, visiting Moscow in 1943. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

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Iakobson, Anatolii Aleksandrovich

Name: Anatolii Aleksandrovich Iakobson

Lived: 1935 – 1978

Notes: Poet, school teacher, editor of The Chronicle of Current Events. Involved in human rights defense after the Siniavsky-Daniel trial. Emigrated from the USSR in 1973, lived in Jerusalem. Died by his own hand.

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Iakunin, Gleb Pavlovich

Name: Gleb Pavlovich Iakunin

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Orthodox priest, banished to a strict regime camp in 1979 for his criticism of Soviet state manipulation of the Orthodox Church.

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Ianaev, Gennadii Ivanovich

Name: Gennadii Ivanovich Ianaev

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Vice President under Gorbachev, involved in failed putsch of August 1991 when he assumed the constitutional duties of president.

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Ianov, Aleksandr Lvovich

Name: Aleksandr L’vovich Ianov

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Historian, expert in the origins of Russian autocracy and nationalism.

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Iaroslavskii, Emelian Mikhailovich

Name: Emelian Mikhailovich Iaroslavskii

Lived: 1878 – 1943

Notes: Secretary of the Central Committee, 1921-22, later chairman of League of Militant Atheists.

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Iavlinskii, Grigorii Alekseevich

Name: Grigorii Alekseevich Iavlinskii

Lived: 1952 –

Notes: Economist, leading proponent of economic reforms in the final years of Soviet power and in the new Russian Federation.

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Ignatiev, Semen Denisovich

Name: Semen Denisovich Ignatiev

Lived: 1904 – 1983

Notes: Joined the Cheka at age sixteen in 1920, and worked his way up through the party and industrial apparatus under Stalin. Ignatiev served as minister of state security from 1951-1953, during Stalin’s final years.

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Inber, Vera Mikhailovna

Name: Vera Mikhailovna Inber

Lived: 1890 – 1972

Notes: Leningrad lyric poet, children’s author, writer of powerful verse about the Leningrad under the blockade (Pulkovo Meridian, 1943)

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Iofan, Boris Mikhailovich

Name: Boris Mikhailovich Iofan

Lived: 1891 – 1970

Notes: Architect, chiefly known for his design for the Palace of Soviets and other monumental buildings

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Ioffe, Adolf Abramovich

Name: Adolf Abramovich Ioffe

Lived: 1883 – 1927

Notes: Joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. He served on the Brest-Litovsk peace delegation and opposed signing the peace treaty. Appointed ambassador to Berlin on 6 April 1918.

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Ioganson, Boris Vladimirovich

Name: Boris Vladimirovich Ioganson

Lived: 1893 – 1973

Notes: Painter of socialist realist canvases (Rabfak is Coming, 1928; Interrogation of the Communists, 1933; Old Urals Factory, 1937); later President of the USSR Academy of Arts.

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Iudenich, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Iudenich

Lived: 1862 – 1933

Notes: Tsarist military leader who led anti-Bolshevik forces in Estonia and on the northern front, 1918-1920

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Ivanov, V. N.

Name: V. N. Ivanov

Notes: Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol in the late Stalin years.

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Ivanov, Vsevolod

Name: Vsevolod Ivanov

Lived: 1895 – 1963

Notes: Novelist, author of stories PARTISANS (1921), ARMORED TRAIN 14-69 (1922), ADVENTURES OF A FAKIR (1934)

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Jellinek, Georg

Name: Georg Jellinek

Lived: 1851 – 1911

Notes: Author of Verfassungsd derung und Verfassungswandlung (n.p., n.d.), promoter of the study of law and philosophy.

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Jodl, Alfred

Name: Alfred Jodl

Lived: 1890 – 1946

Notes: German General and commander-in-chief, who signed the surrender in 1945.

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John Paul II

Name: John Paul II

Lived: 1920 – 2005

Title: Pope

Notes: See Wojtyla, Karol

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Jordania, Noi

Noe Jordania

Lived: 1869 – 1953

Notes: Georgian journalist and Menshevik politician. Leader in the socialist revolutionary movement in the Russian Empire, and later head of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from July 24, 1918 until March 18, 1921, when he was deposed and exiled by the Red Army invasion of Georgia.

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Jouhaux, Leon

Name: Leon Jouhaux

Lived: 1879 – 1954

Notes: French trade union leader, Resistance fighter, and Nobel Prize Laureate.

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Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseevich

Name: Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich

Lived: 1893 – 1991

Notes: Close associate of Stalin who was ousted from leadership in 1957. Party leader of Ukraine from 1925-28 and 1947; Central Committee Secretary from 1928-39, and also of the Moscow Party Committee (1930-1935). Held other important posts as well until he was removed from power as part of the so-called “Anti-Party Group.” Ironically, this henchman and collaborator in some of the bloodiest campaigns of Soviet history lived until the ripe old age of 98, almost outliving the Soviet Union itself.

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Kaganovich, Mikhail Moiseevich

Name: Mikhail Moiseevich Kaganovich

Lived: 1888 – 1941

Notes: Brother of Lazar. From 1932, Deputy People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry; from 1937, People’s Commissar of Defense Industry. Committed suicide during a period of mass repressions.

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Kai-shek, Chiang

Name: Chiang Kai-shek

Lived: 1887 – 1975

Notes: Chinese military and political figure who led the Nationalists against the rising Communist forces and was driven from the mainland to Taiwan (1949), where he served as president of Nationalist China until his death.

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Kalatozov, Mikhail Konstantinovich

Name: Mikhail Konstantinovich Kalatozov

Lived: 1903 – 1973

Notes: Soviet film director, whose work ranged from SALT FOR SVANETIIA (1930) to VALERY CHKALOV (1941) and CRANES ARE FLYING (1957).

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Kaledin, Aleksei Maksimovich

Name: Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin

Lived: 1861 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Cavalry general and Cossack leader. Appointed ataman of the Don Cossack Army in 1917, and from November of that year to January 1918, leading a resistance effort to Soviet power.

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Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin

Lived: 1875 – 1946

Notes: Worker. Member of the SD party from 1898 Active in both revolutions in 1917. After the October Revolution was head of the City of Petrograd. In March 1919 succeeded Sverdlov as Chairman of the CEC. Travelled widely in a propaganda train during the Civil War. Chairman of the TsIK from 1922, and a close colleague of Stalin.

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Kamenev, Lev Borisovich

Name: Lev Borisovich Kamenev

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Notes: See Rozenfeld, Lev Borisovich. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1901; a Bolshevik in 1903. Close associate of Lenin. Arrested and exiled to Siberia in November 1914. Released February 1917. Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Soviets. Supported Trotsky in the anti-Stalin opposition. 1926-27 Soviet Ambassador to Italy. Condemned and executed in the first major ‘purge’ trial, 1936.

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Kapitsa, Petr Leonidovich

Name: Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa

Lived: 1894 – 1984

Notes: Physicist, Nobel Prize winner (1978), organizer and first director of the Academy of Science Institute of Physical Problems

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Kardelj, Edvard

Name: Edvard Kardelj

Lived: 1910 – 1979

Notes: Slovene-Yugoslav partisan, communist political leader, and economist. Architect of the post-war state ideology, and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1948 to 1953. Kardelj was instrumental in the split with the Soviet Union, his influence in the government later waned.

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Karimov, Khurshed Khilovich

Name: Khurshed Khilovich Karimov

Lived: 1935 –

Notes: Tajik physiologist and biochemist.

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Karmal, Babrak

Name: Babrak Karmal

Lived: 1929 – 1996

Notes: Afghan Commuunist leader who succeeded Hafizullah Amin in 1979, and ruled until 1986.

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Kataev, Valentin Petrovich

Name: Valentin Petrovich Kataev

Lived: 1897 – 1986

Notes: Dramatist (Squaring the Circle, 1928), novelist (TIME, FORWARD!, 1932), and memoirist.

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Katsman, Evgenii

Name: Evgenii Katsman

Lived: 1890 – 1976

Notes: Painter and co-founder of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) from 1921-1928

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Kaverin, Veniamin Aleksandrovich

Name: Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin

Lived: 1902 – 1989

Notes: Prose writer who subscribed to formalist literary theories but who also composed successful socialist realist works in the 1930s and 1940s such as the Two Captains (1939).

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Kazakov, Iurii Pavlovich

Name: Iurii Pavlovich Kazakov

Lived: 1927 – 1982

Notes: Short story writer who published between 1957 and 1977 and who was influential in reviving the style of Chekhov and Bunin.

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Kerenskii, Aleksandr Fedorovich

Name: Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii

Lived: 1881 – 1971

Notes: Lawyer. An SR member of the Duma from 1912. Became Minister of Justice in first Provisional Government. Later Prime Minister. After the Kornilov revolt he took over as commander-in-chief as well. Kerenskii was deposed from power by the Bolsheviks, for whom he was a figure of particular contempt, and all of whom he outlived.

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Khachaturian, Aram

Name: Aram Khachaturian

Lived: 1903 – 1978

Notes: Composer, conductor and professor at Moscow Conservatory

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Khalatov, Artashes (Artemii) Bagratovich

Name: Artashes (Artemii) Bagratovich Khalatov

Lived: 1896 – 1938

Notes: Food supply official in Moscow during the Revolution, later part of the Commissariat of Railroads, and chairman of Gosizdat (1927-32). Fell victim to the purges

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Khariton, Boris Osipovich

Name: Boris Osipovich Khariton

Lived: 1875 – 1942

Notes: One of the founders of Dom Literatorov in Petrograd, 1918-1921 who emigrated to Latvia and was deported after its occupation by the Soviet military.

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Khasbulatov, Ruslan

Name: Ruslan Khasbulatov

Lived: 1942 –

Notes: Scholar, Chechen state official and People’s Deputy of the RSFSR, 1990, who supported economic reforms but whose independent leadership of the Duma led to sharp confrontations with the Eltsin government in 1993.

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Khmelnitskii, Bogdan

Name: Bogdan Khmelnitskii

Lived: 1595 – 1657

Notes: See Bohdan Khmelnytsky (Ukrainian name)

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Khmelnytsky, Bohdan

Name: Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Lived: 1595 – 1657

Notes: Hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. He led the uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth magnates (1648-1654) with the goal of creating an independent Cossack state. In 1654 he concluded the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Russia, which led to the eventual loss of Ukrainian independence in the Russian Empire and later in the Soviet Union.

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Khodasevich, Vladislav Felitsianovich

Name: Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich

Lived: 1886 – 1939

Notes: Poet and essayist.

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Khodzhaev, Faizulla

Name: Faizulla Khodzhaev

Lived: 1898 – 1938

Notes: Former Jadadist who served as Chairman of the Uzbek Council of People’s Commissars, and the First Secretary of the Uzbek party organization in the mid 1930s. Khodzhaev was removed from office in 1937, and was convicted in the last of the great show trials.

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Khristianovich, Sergei Alekseevich

Name: Sergei Alekseevich Khristianovich

Lived: 1908 – 2000

Notes: Highly decorated scientist who served at the Hydrological Institute in Leningrad.

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Kirov, Sergei Mironovich

Name: Sergei Mironovich Kirov

Lived: 1886 – 1934

Notes: Member of the Politburo and head of the Leningrad regional party. Secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee 1921-26, moved to Leningrad and rose through the Party ranks. Politbiuro member from 1930, and of the Party secretariat from 1934. Murdered by an alleged terrorist in 1934, an event that triggered the first wave of terror.

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Kliuchevskii, Vasilii Osipovich

Name: Vasilii Osipovich Kliuchevskii

Lived: 1841 – 1911

Notes: Prominent historian

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Knipper, Lev Konstantinovich

Name: Lev Konstantinovich Knipper

Lived: 1898 – 1978

Notes: Composer and conductor who led the Red Army Orchestra.

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Kobets, Konstantin Ivanovich

Name: Konstantin Ivanovich Kobets

Lived: 1932 –

Title: General Notes: Army officer who chaired the Committee for Preparing and Carry Out Military Reform Under the USSR State Council, Sept.-Dec. 1991.

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Kochetov, Vsevolod Anisimovich

Name: Vsevolod Anisimovich Kochetov

Lived: 1912 – 1973

Notes: Author who epitomized the Socialist Realist school of writing who served as secretary of the Leningrad branch of Writers’ Union, 1953-1955.

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Koltsov, Mikhail Efimovich

Name: Mikhail Efimovich Kol’tsov

Lived: 1898 – 1942

Notes: Journalist and writer, PRAVDA correspodent, author of sharp-witted essays and feuilletons and the SPANISH DIARY (1938), a first-person account of the Spanish Civil War. Victim of the purges

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Kolchak, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak

Lived: 1873 – 1920

Notes: At Naval Academy 1888-94. Afterwards served in the Baltic and Pacific Fleets. Taken prisoner during the Russo-Japanese war. Served in the Baltic Fleet during the First World War. Appointed Commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 1916 with the rank of Rear Admiral. Resigned his command in July 1917. Appointed Minister of Defense by Ufa Directorate. Staged military coup in November 1918 and assumed title of Supreme Ruler Detained by Czechs in Irkutsk and handed over to the local Revolutionary Committee which tried him and had him shot.

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Kollontai, Aleksandra Mikhailovna

Name: Aleksandra Mikhailovna Kollontai

Lived: 1872 – 1952

Notes: Soviet political leader and activist for women whose leadership of the Zhenotdel ended because of her continued involvement in the Workers’ Opposition.

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Kolmanovskii, Eduard Savelevich

Name: Eduard Savelevich Kolmanovskii

Lived: 1923 – 1994

Notes: Composer of musical comedies, choral works and symphonies.

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Konchalovskii, Petr Petrovich

Name: Petr Petrovich Konchalovskii

Lived: 1876 – 1956

Notes: Painter who accepted socialist realism in the 1930s but who still retained his own unique style.

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Konev, Ivan Stepanovich

Name: Ivan Stepanovich Konev

Lived: 1897 – 1973

Title: General

Notes: Served as a prominent Soviet military commander during and after World War II.

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Korneichuk, Aleksandr Evdokimovich

Name: Aleksandr Evdokimovich Korneichuk

Lived: 1905 – 1972

Notes: Russian-Ukrainian drmatist, director of the Writers’ Union, and President of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

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Kornilov, Lavr Geogievich

Name: Lavr Geogievich Kornilov

Lived: 1870 – 1918

Title: General

Notes: Commander in Chief of the Russian forces under the Provisional Government who led the revolt against Kerensky in August 1917.

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Kosarev, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kosarev

Lived: 1903 – 1939

Notes: Komsomol leader who advanced quickly through Party ranks in the early 30s to become a member of the Central Committee and Orgbiuro by 1934. A willing participant of the purges and Terror, he himself was victim of a false denunciation, and was fired and General Secretary of the Komsomol in 1938, and was executed in 1939.

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Kosygin, Aleksei Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksei Nikolaevich Kosygin

Lived: 1904 – 1980

Notes: Served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers after the fall of Khrushchev, 1964-1980, tried to implement economic reform in 1956 but met with great opposition.

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Kotov, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Kotov

Lived: 1889 – 1953

Notes: Painter of portraits and battle scenes, professor at Moscow Art Institute (1948-1951), originally opposed the Bolshevik takeover.

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Krasin, Leonid Borisovich

Name: Leonid Borisovich Krasin

Lived: 1870 – 1926

Notes: A Marxist since the end of the 1880s On SD work since the 1890s. A first class engineer, he worked as such during emigration from 1908 to 1917. After the October Revolution he was engaged on diplomatic work. In August 1918 he became head of a commission providing the Red Army with supplies. In November 1918 he became People’s Commissar of Trade and Industry. Later he was People’s Commissar for Transport. From 1919 he was mainly engaged in diplomatic work. Played important part in arranging Anglo-Soviet trade agreement in 1921.

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Kraval, Ivan Adamovich

Name: Ivan Adamovich Kraval

Lived: 1897 – 1938

Notes: Head of the Central Directorate of the National Economic Account Attached to USSR Gosplan, 1935-1937, blamed and put to death when the census of 1937 yielded data unflattering to the Soviet government.

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Kravchuk, Leonid Makarovich

Name: Leonid Makarovich Kravchuk

Lived: 1934 –

Notes: Chair of the Supreme Soviet of Ukraine, July 1990 and president of Ukraine, Dec 1991.

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Krestinskii, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Krestinskii

Lived: 1883 – 1938

Notes: Joined RSDRP in 1903. People’s Commissar for Finance from August 1918 to 1921 as well as being a CC secretary, 1919-21. Lost secretaryship at Tenth Party Congress. From 1921 Soviet diplomatic representative in Berlin. Caught up in the purge trials, and sentenced to death on March 13, 1938, along with Bukharin and Rykov.

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Kriuchkov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kriuchkov

Lived: 1924 –

Notes: Trained as a diplomat, Kriuchkov began his career serving in embassies around the world before joining the security organs in 1967. Chairman of the KGB from 1988-1991, Kriuchkov was implicated in the failed putsch of August 1991.

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Krupskaia, Nadezhda Konstantinovna

Name: Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaia

Lived: 1869 – 1939

Notes: Lenin’s wife and fellow revolutionary who held educational offices after 1921. Member of the Party Central Committee from 1927.

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Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilevich

Name: Nikolai Vasilevich Krylenko

Lived: 1885 – 1940

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1904. Together with Antonov-Ovseenko and P. E Dybenko he was made a member of the Collegium for Military and Naval Affairs of the Sovnarkom on 8 November. Made Supreme Commander-in-Chief on 22 November when Dukhonin refused to negotiate

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Krzhizhanovskii, Gleb Maksimilianovich

Name: Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovskii

Lived: 1872 – 1959

Notes: Became Marxist in 1891. Graduated from St Petersburg as an engineer 1894. Early Bolshevik. In 1895 arrested and exiled to Siberia. Emigrated to Munich in 1901, collaborated on Iskra. Elected to Central Committee of SD Party at 2nd Congress, 1903. An organizer of the railway strike in the 1905 revolution. Member of Moscow Soviet during 1917. Originated the plan for the electrification of Russia. Founded and ran Gosplan (State Planning Commission) from 1921 to 1930. Vice-president, Academy of Sciences.

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Kuhlmann, Richard von

Name: Richard von Kuhlmann

Lived: 1873 – 1948

Notes: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Germany, from August 1917, led the delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia.

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Kuibyshev, Valerian Vladimirovich

Name: Valerian Vladimirovich Kuibyshev

Lived: 1888 – 1935

Notes: Prominent economic planning official.

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Kukryniksy

Name: Kukryniksy

Lived: –

Notes: Composite names for the most succesful Soviet caricaturists who worked for Pravda and Krokodil: Mikhail Kuprivanov (1903), Proforoi Krylov (1902) and Nikolai Sokolov (1903). Pictured here with satirist Boris Efimov

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Kuleshov, Lev Vladimirovich

Name: Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov

Lived: 1899 – 1970

Notes: Innovative film director (Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks, 1924; By the Law, 1926), teacher and theorist of film, inventor of basic techniques of film montage.

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Kun, Bela

Name: Bela Kun

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Hungarian Communist leader who led the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Embraced Communism as a prisoner-of-war in Russia, sent back to Hungary as propagandist after the October Revolution. After the Hungarian Revolution was deposed, he eventually was allowed to return to Moscow, where he lived in exile, participating in the Komintern, until he died in the purges.

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Kunaev, Dinamukhammed Akhmedovich

Name: Dinamukhammed Akhmedovich Kunaev

Lived: 1912 – 1993

Notes: First Secretary of the Kazakh Party, 1964-1986, whose replacement with an ethnic Russian in 1987 precipitated rioting in Alma-Atta.

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Kurchatov, Igor Vasilevich

Name: Igor Vasil’evich Kurchatov

Lived: 1903 – 1960

Notes: Physicist and director of the Soviet nuclear weapons program from 1943

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Kurskii, Dmitrii Ivanovich

Name: Dmitrii Ivanovich Kurskii

Lived: 1874 – 1932

Notes: People’s Commissar of Justice, 1918-1928, from 1928 Soviet ambassador (polpred) in Italy.

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Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich

Name: Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov

Lived: 1745 – 1813

Title: Count

Notes: Russian Field Marshal, pupil of Suvorov, victor over Napoleon in the French invasion of Russia, 1812. Participant in the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, and commander in the Austrian War of 1805.

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Kuznetsov, Eduard

Name: Eduard Kuznetsov

Lived: 1939 –

Notes: Jewish Soviet dissident and human rights activist. Sentenced in 1962 to seven years in the labor camps for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. In 1970 he was one of the chief participants in the celebrated attempted hijacking in Leningrad, for which he was first sentenced to death and then to fifteen years in special-regime labor camps. His Prison Diaries (1975) is one of the most powerful books to describe the experience of dissidents.

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Kuznetsov, Vasilii Vasilevich

Name: Vasilii Vasil’evich Kuznetsov

Lived: 1901 – 1990

Notes: First Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1977-1986, relieved of his duties upon the rise of Gorbachev to power.

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Lamm, Pavel Aleksandrovich

Name: Pavel Aleksandrovich Lamm

Lived: 1882 – 1951

Notes: Musicologist, famed for his work on the academic texts of the operas of Mussorgsky with Asafiev) and Borodin. Lamm wrote the orchestrations for many important works of Prokofiev, including The Betrothal in the Convent and War and Peace, as well as the music for the films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible.

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Landsbergis, Vytautas

Name: Vytautas Landsbergis

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Professor of Musicology who helped organize the Sajudis national movement, and served as first President of independent Lithuania

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Larin, Iurii

Name: Iurii Larin

Lived: 1882 – 1932

Notes: Economic theorist, chief of the Bureau of Legislation of the Sovnarkom, proponent of the unification of the single state economy.

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Larina, Anna Mikhailovna

Name: Anna Mikhailovna Larina

Lived: 1914 – 1996

Notes: Wife of Nikolai Bukharin, adopted daughter of Iurii Larin, who wrote memoirs of her life with Bukharin on the eve of the purges.

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Latsis, Martin Ivanovich

Name: Martin Ivanovich Latsis

Lived: 1888 – 1938

Alias: Born Jan Sudrabs

Notes: Prominent member of the Cheka, 1918-21, in charge of the secret section of that institution. Director of the Plekhanov Institute of Economics from 1932, victim of the purges.

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Lavrentiev, Mikhail Alekseevich

Name: Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentiev

Lived: 1900 – 1980

Title: Academician

Notes: Prominent physicist and mathematician, founder of Akademgorodok, Siberian haven for Soviet scientists.

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Lebedev-Kumach, Vasilii Ivanovich

Name: Vasilii Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach

Lived: 1898 – 1949

Notes: Poet who was involved in Communist propaganda efforts during the Civil War and thereafter wrote highly-popular songs for films.

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Lenin, Vladimir Ilich

Name: Vladimir Il’ich Lenin

Lived: 1870 – 1924

Notes: See Ul’ianov. Bolshevik leader before October Revolution; architect of Soviet Communism. Leader of Bolsheviks from II Congress in 1903, and dominant influence in the party until his death. After October Revolution appointed Chairman of Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom.)

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Lentsman, Leonid Nikolaevich

Name: Leonid Nikolaevich Lentsman

Lived: 1915 – 1996

Notes: Russian Estonian who served as Second Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party from 1953-1964, and as Secretary from 1964-1971. Lentsman was the party’s ideological watchdog in Estonia.

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Leonov, Leonid Maksimovich

Name: Leonid Maksimovich Leonov

Lived: 1899 – 1994

Notes: Author whose novels (THIEF, 1927) were praised by Gorky and Lunacharskii.

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Leskov, Nikolai Semionovich

Name: Nikolai Semionovich Leskov

Lived: 1831 – 1895

Notes: Russian realist writer whose deeply Russian narrative language (e.g. The Left-Handed Blacksmith) established the model for “skaz” writers thereafter

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Liatoshinskii, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Liatoshinskii

Lived: 1895 – 1968

Notes: Ukrainian composer who received the Stalin Prize in 1952 for his various operas (SHCHORS, 1938) and symphonies.

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Libedinskii, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Libedinskii

Lived: 1898 – 1959

Notes: Activist in the literary groups October and RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, 1925-1932)

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Liberman, Evsei Grigorevich

Name: Evsei Grigor’evich Liberman

Lived: 1897 – 1983

Notes: Economist whose 1962 essay in PRAVDA laid the groundwork for the econmic reform of 1965.

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Lidin, Vladimir Germanovich

Name: Vladimir Germanovich Lidin

Lived: 1894 – 1979

Notes: Novelist who taught at Gorky Institute for twenty-five years.

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Ligachev, Egor Kuzmich

Name: Egor Kuzmich Ligachev

Lived: 1920 –

Notes: Informal leader of conservatives in the Politburo during the Gorbachev administration.

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Lisitsyn, Pavel Gerasimovich

Name: Pavel Gerasimovich Lisitsyn

Lived: 1911 –

Notes: Baritone singer who was named People’s Artist of the USSR in 1956

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Lissitzsky, Lazar Mark

Name: Lazar Mark Lissitzsky

Lived: 1890 – 1941

Alias: El Lissitsky

Notes: Artist, designer, and photographer, teacher, typographer, and architect. Better known as El Lissitzky, he helped develop suprematism with his friend Kazimir Malevich, and designed numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His experimentation anticipated many of the devices that would characterize avant-garde graphic art.

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Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich

Name: Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov

Lived: 1876 – 1951

Notes: People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs, 1930-39; spokesman for collective security

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Lloyd-George, David

Name: David Lloyd-George

Lived: 1863 – 1945

Notes: British Minister of War and then Prime Minister, 1916-1922, pursued interventionist policies against the young Soviet state.

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Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasilievich

Name: Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov

Lived: 1711 – 1765

Notes: Russian scientist, writer and polymath who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. His poetry and tractates on poetic language were the foundation of modern Russian verse.

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Lotman, Iurii Mikhailovich

Name: Iurii Mikhailovich Lotman

Lived: 1922 – 1994

Notes: Semiotician, founder of Tartu school

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Lozovskii, Solomon Abramovich

Name: Solomon Abramovich Lozovskii

Lived: 1878 – 1952

Notes: Head of Trade Union International (1921-1937) and People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs during WW II

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Lukianov, Anatolii Ivanovich

Name: Anatolii Ivanovich Lukianov

Lived: 1930 –

Notes: Elevated to the Secretariat of the Central Committee, 1987. 1990-91, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, candidate member of the Politbiuro until participant in the aborted coup of August 1991.

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Lumumba, Patrice Emergy

Name: Patrice Emergy Lumumba

Lived: 1925 – 1960

Notes: First prime minister of independent Republic of Congo, assassinated.

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Lunacharskii, Anatolii Vasilievich

Name: Anatolii Vasilievich Lunacharskii

Lived: 1875 – 1933

Notes: Old Bolshevik, widely read essayist and critic, first Soviet Commissar for Enlightenment (or Education)

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Lvov, Arkadii Lvovich

Name: Arkadii L’vovich L’vov

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Author who in 1970 was accused of corresponding with International Zionism. Emigrated in 1976.

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Lvov, Georgii Evgenevich

Name: Georgii Evgen’evich L’vov

Lived: 1861 – 1925

Title: Prince

Notes: Large landowner, deputy of the First State Duma, chairman of the All-Russian Land Union. First Prime Minister of the Provisional Government (March – June 1917). Emigrated to Paris after the October Revolution

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Lvov, Vladimir Nikolaevich

Name: Vladimir Nikolaevich L’vov

Lived: 1872 – 1934

Title: Prince

Notes: Member of the Provisional Government from February, 1917. Served as Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod.

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Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich

Name: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko

Lived: 1898 – 1976

Title: Academician

Notes: Academician and agro-biologist who rejected the chromosome theory of heredity purported by modern genetics, and ruled Soviet biology under Stalin and then Khrushchev.

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Maiakovskii, Vladimir Vladimirovich

Name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Maiakovskii

Lived: 1893 – 1930

Notes: Referred to as the “poet of the Russian Revolution”, a Futurist who dedicated his talent to the Bolshevik cause. His pithy agitational verses were featured on posters and newsreels during the Civil War. Ever an advocate of the new Soviet path, Maiakovskii eventually became disillusioned, and committed suicide in 1930.

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Makarenko, Anton Semenovich

Name: Anton Semenovich Makarenko

Lived: 1888 – 1939

Notes: Educator who organized rehabilitation colonies for juvenile delinquents.

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Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich

Name: Nestor Ivanovich Makhno

Lived: 1888 – 1934

Notes: Anarchist commander of the peasant Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (the Greens) during the Civil War, who fought with and against the Bolsheviks, and was forced into exile in 1921.

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Malenkov, Georgii Maksimilianovich

Name: Georgii Maksimilianovich Malenkov

Lived: 1902 – 1988

Notes: Close associate of Stalin who after Stalin’s death became Soviet Party leader and subsequently Premier until 1957

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Malinovskii, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich

Name: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Malinovskii

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Alias: Bogdanov

Notes: Philosopher, sociologist, economist and surgeon. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1890s, became a Bolshevik at the Party split in 1903. Became leader of the left-wing Bolshevik ‘Forward’ group. Served in the First World War as an army doctor.

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Mandela, Nelson

Name: Nelson Mandela

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: South African president (1994-1999) and alack political leader imprisoned for nearly 30 years for his anti-apartheid activities

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Mandelshtamm, Osip Emilevich

Name: Osip Emil’evich Mandelshtam

Lived: 1891 – 1938

Notes: Acmeist poet and close associate of Anna Akhmatova, author of TRISTIA and other collections of verse, who was emprisoned twice in the 1930s and eventually died in transit camp.

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Manet, Edouard

Name: Edouard Manet

Lived: 1832 – 1883

Notes: French painter, forerunner of impressionism whose works, including Dejeuner sur l’herbe (1862), sparked great controversy in their time.

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Manuilov, Aleksandr Apollonovich

Name: Aleksandr Apollonovich Manuilov

Lived: 1861 – 1929

Notes: Economist, liberal populist, later member of the Cadets. Rector of Moscow State University in 1908-11, who resigned in protest against repression of students. Minister of Education under the Provisional Government

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Manuilskii, Dmitrii Zakharovich

Name: Dmitrii Zakharovich Manuilskii

Lived: 1883 – 1959

Notes: Ukrainian political leader, commissar of the Petrograd MRC in 1917, chairman of the 1928-42, deputy chair of the Sovnarkom 1944-53, simaltaneously Ukrainian Foreign Minister. Central Committee member, 1923-52.

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Marat, Jean Paul

Name: Jean Paul Marat

Lived: 1743 – 1793

Notes: French revolutionary who founded L’Ami du peuple (1789) in support of the Revolution. He was elected to the National Convention in 1792 but was assassinated.

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Markin, Nikolai Grigorevich

Name: Nikolai Grigor’evich Markin

Lived: 1893 – 1918

Notes: Sailor of the Baltic Fleet during the Revolution, member of the Central Executive Committee of the Second Congress of Soviets, and secretary who helped organize the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. Died in battle.

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Markov-Grinberg, Mark

Name: Mark Markov-Grinberg

Lived: 1907 – 2006

Notes: Photojournalist who started as a stringer for Ogonek in southern Russia in 1926, and then moved to Moscow to work for SMENA. Joined the TASS photo pool in 1930, for which he travelled the country and chronicled the changes of the industrial revolution, collectivization, and photographed leading Soviet personalities.

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Marshall, George Catlett

Name: George Catlett Marshall

Lived: 1880 – 1959

Title: General

Notes: American general and cabinet member, who in the years after the Second World War initiated the Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program (1947) to foster economic recovery in western European countries.

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Martov, Iulii Osipovich

Name: Iulii Osipovich Martov

Lived: 1873 – 1923

Notes: See Tsederbaum. Russian revolutionary, Menshevik leader exiled in 1921. Editorial board of ISKRA from 1900, Menshevik from 1903. Participated in Pre-Parliment of mid-1917, but saw October Revolution as a catastrophe. Strong critic of dictatorial tendencies of Bolsheviks. Emigrated 1920.

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Masaryk, Jan Garrigue

Name: Jan Garrigue Masaryk

Lived: 1886 – 1948

Notes: Czechoslovak minister to Great Britain (1925-38), foreign minister for the Czechoslovak government in exile during the war, and foreign minister after the war. During the Communist infiltration of the state in 1948, killed in a fall from his office window; reported as suicide.

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Medvedev, Roy Aleksandrovich

Name: Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev

Lived: 1925 –

Notes: Soviet historianand dissident expelled from the Communist Party under Brezhnev. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet 1989-91.

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Menger, Anton

Name: Anton Menger

Lived: 1841 – 1906

Notes: Author of Neue Staatslehre (Jena, 1903).

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Menzhinskii, Viacheslav Rudolfovich

Name: Viacheslav Rudol’fovich Menzhinskii

Lived: 1874 – 1934

Notes: Participant of revolutions of 1905 and 1917, member of the Military-Revolutionay Committee. From 1918 People’s Commissar of Finance. Joined the Cheka Presidium in 1919, and led the OGPU, 1926-1934.

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Merkulov, Vsevolod Nikolaevich

Name: Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov

Lived: 1895 – 1946

Notes: Merkulov worked his way up through the security organs during the purges of the late 1930s, and became deputy commissar and commissar of state security during the Great Patriotic War.

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Merkurev, Sergei Dmitrievich

Name: Sergei Dmitrievich Merkurev Lived: 1881 – 1952 Notes: Realist sculptor whose most famous work is that of Dostoevsky in Moscow.

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Meyerhold, Vsevolod Emilevich

Name: Vsevolod Emil’evich Meyerhold

Lived: 1874 – 1934

Notes: Actor and avant-garde direct prominent in twentieth century Russian and world theater. Declared an “October in the Theater” in 1918, demanding changes in the theater analogous to the revolution in politics. Most fruitful collaborations with Mayakovsky (Mystery-Bouffe (1918), BEDBUG and BATH HOUSE.

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Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich

Name: Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin

Lived: 1855 – 1935

Notes: Practical agronomist who received much praise from Lenin for his work and who was hailed in the press during collectivization for his achievements. Claimed as a direct antecedent by Lysenko and other Stalin-era biologists, who rejected “bourgeois” genetics on the basis of Michurin’s work in selective breeding.

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Mikoian, Anastas Ivanovich

Name: Anastas Ivanovich Mikoian

Lived: 1895 – 1978

Notes: Member of the Politburo, 1935-1966, close colleague of Stalin during the 1930s, filled various posts on the People’s Commissar level in trade and food supply; foreign policy counselor to Khrushchev.

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Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw

Name: Stanislaw Mikolajczyk

Lived: 1901 – 1966

Notes: Polish Peasant Party leader, in Polish post-war government, 1945-1947.

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Miliukov, Pavel Nikolaevich

Name: Pavel Nikolaevich Miliukov

Lived: 1859 – 1943

Notes: Leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party and historian who emigrated in 1920. Served the Provisional Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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Mirbach, Wilhelm von

Name: Wilhelm von Mirbach

Lived: 1871 – 1918

Title: Count

Notes: German ambassador to Soviet Russia from April 1918, assassinated by SRs as a signal to begin their rebellion against the Bolsheviks.

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Molotov, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

Name: Viacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov

Lived: 1890 – 1986

Notes: Stalin’s right-hand man; chairman of the Sovnarkom from 1930-41; People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs from 1939-49, 1953-56. From 1957, demoted to Ambassador to Mongolia in connection with the “Anti-Party” affair.

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Morozov, Pavlik (Pavel Trofimovich)

Name: Pavlik (Pavel Trofimovich) Morozov

Lived: 1918 – 1932

Notes: Russian farm boy who denounced his father for collaborating with kulaks and was himself murdered by villagers.

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Mukhina, Vera Ignatevna

Name: Vera Ignat’evna Mukhina

Lived: 1889 – 1953

Notes: Soviet sculptor most famous for her statue of the Worker and Collective Farm Girl, 1937.

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Mzhavanadze, Vasilii Pavlovich

Name: Vasilii Pavlovich Mzhavanadze

Lived: 1902 – 1988

Notes: Georgian professional soldier from 1924 who served during the Second World War as on the command staff of several armies; and as Deputy Commander for Political Affairs of Kiev and Carpathian Districts from 1946 to 1953. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1953-1972. After moving into civilian life, joined the Politbiuro as candidate member, 1957-72. Dismissed after a corruption scandal, and replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze.

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Nagy, Imre

Name: Imre Nagy

Lived: 1896 – 1958

Notes: Hungarian Communist leader. Nagy was a symbol of the 1956 Hungarian revolt after he was deposed in a Soviet-led invasion.

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Najibullah, Mohammad

Name: Mohammad Najibullah

Lived: 1947 – 1996

Notes: See Ahmadzai, Najib. Najibullahi was General Secretary of the Afghan Communist Party, replacing Babrak Karmal when he could not muster support among the military or populace. Fourth and last president of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

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Nalbandyan, Dmitrii Arkadevich

Name: Dmitrii Arkad’evich Nalbandyan

Lived: 1906 – 1993

Notes: Armenian painter, Kremlin “court painter” for Stalin and Brezhnev alike. People’s Artist of the Soviet Union (1969), Lenin Prize winner (1982), most famous for his historical-revolutionary canvases (“All Power to the Soviets, Peace to the World,” 1950). Self-portrait from 1932.

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Napravnik, Eduard Frantsevich

Name: Eduard Frantsevich Napravnik

Lived: 1839 – 1916

Notes: Composer and director of Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, first director of many of Chaikovskii’s Russian operas.

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Nasser, Gamal Abdal

Name: Gamal Abdal Nasser

Lived: 1918 – 1970

Notes: Egyptian army officer and political leader, first president of the republic of Egypt.

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Nechaev, Sergei Gennadievich

Name: Sergei Gennadievich Nechaev

Lived: 1847 – 1882

Notes: Russian anarchist and revolutionary.

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Neizvestnyi, Ernst Iosifovich

Name: Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestnyi

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Sculptor, painter, writer who was expelled from Artists’ Union in 1954 for his rejection of Socialist Realism. He later designed the gravestone for Nikita Khrushchev, and eventually emigrated to the West.

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Nekrasov, Viktor Platonovich

Name: Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov

Lived: 1911 – 1987

Notes: Soviet writer, author of vivid war stories (In the Trenches of Stalingrad, 1946) who left the Soviet Union in 1974.

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Nesmeianov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Nesmeianov

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Title: Academician

Notes: Organic chemist, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1951-61).

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Nikolaev, Leonid Vasilievich

Name: Leonid Vasilievich Nikolaev

Lived: 1904 – 1934

Notes: Murderer of Sergei Kirov in 1934, executed one month after the event. His wife and many family members were also persecuted during the Kirov investigation.

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Nishanov, Rafik Nishanovich

Name: Rafik Nishanovich Nishanov

Lived: 1926 –

Notes: Secretary for Ideology of the Communist Party, 1963-1970; Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet, 1986-1988, First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party, 1988-1989, chairman of the Council of Nationalities, 1989-91.

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Nobile, Umberto

Name: Umberto Nobile

Lived: 1885 – 1978

Notes: Italian aeronautical engineer and Arctic explorer. His dirigible “Italia” crashed in 1928 on his second expedition to the Pole; part of his crew perished, and the remainder were rescued by an international mission.

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Nosar-Khrustalev, Georgii Stepanovich

Name: Georgii Stepanovich Nosar-Khrustalev

Lived: 1879 – 1919

Notes: (Sometimes referred to as ‘Khrustalev-Nosar’.) First chairman of the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ Deputies during the 1905 revolution. Became a Menshevik in 1907. Gave up politics, became a journalist in the right-wing Press. Headed the ephemeral ‘Khrustalev Republic’ in the Ukraine during the Civil War. Shot by the Bolsheviks.

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Obolenskii-Osinskii, V.

Name: V. Obolenskii-Osinskii

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Also Osinskii.

Notes: See Obolenskii, Valerian Valerianovich

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Oistrakh, David Fedorovich

Name: David Fedorovich Oistrakh

Lived: 1908 – 1974

Notes: Soviet violinist

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Olesha, Iurii Karlovich

Name: Iurii Karlovich Olesha

Lived: 1899 – 1960

Notes: Prose writer whose most famous short novel Envy (1927) was the subject of much controversy because of its ambiguous meaning.

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Orbeli, Leon Abgarovich

Name: Leon Abgarovich Orbeli

Lived: 1882 – 1958

Title: Academician

Notes: Russian-Armenian physiologist, one of the creators of evolutionary physiology. Secretary of the Academy of Sciences Division of Biological Sciences who fell in the struggle with Lysenko.

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Ordzhonikidze, Sergo (Grigorii Konstantinovich)

Name: Sergo (Grigorii Konstantinovich) Ordzhonikidze

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1903, took part in the October Revolution. In January 1918 made plenipotentiary for the Ukraine. In April sent to the Caucasus as an extraordinary Commissar with the Southern Front. After the reverse there he worked on other fronts. From 1921 a member of the Party Central Committee, posted to the Caucasus. From 1930 chairman of the VSNKh, from 1932 People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Committed suicide during period of mass repressions.

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Orlova, Liubov Petrovna

Name: Liubov Petrovna Orlova

Lived: 1902 – 1972

Notes: Popular film actress known especially The Circus (1936) and Volga-Volga (1938).

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Ortega y Gasset, Josô

Name: Josô Ortega y Gasset

Lived: 1883 – 1955

Notes: Spanish philosopher, best known for the idea that life is both fate and freedom, and that freedom “is being free inside of a given fate.”

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Oshanin, Lev Ivanovich

Name: Lev Ivanovich Oshanin

Lived: 1912 – 1996

Notes: Author of popular song lyrics, lyrical and patriotic.

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Osinskii

Name: Osinskii

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Alias: Also Obolenskii-Osinskii

Notes: See Obolenskii, Valerian Valerianovich

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Osipov, Vladimir Nikolaevich

Name: Vladimir Nikolaevich Osipov

Lived: 1938 –

Notes: Russian nationalist and samizdat writer and editor.

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Ostrovskii, Nikolai Alekseevich

Name: Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovskii

Lived: 1904 – 1936

Notes: Writer most famous for his semi-autobiographical novel HOW THE STEEL WAS FORGED (1934). Participant of the Civil War.

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Ovseenko

Name: Ovseenko

Notes: See Antonov-Ovseenko.

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Papanin, Ivan Dmitrievich

Name: Ivan Dmitrievich Papanin

Lived: 1894 – 1986

Notes: Polar explorer, geographer and admiral. Commander of the first floating ice station. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

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Pasha, Enver

Name: Enver Pasha

Lived: 1881 – 1922

Notes: Former Young Turk officer and minister of war who led Basmachi revolt in Soviet Turkestan, killed in a clash with Red Army troops.

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Pashukanis, Evgenii Bronislavovich

Name: Evgenii Bronislavovich Pashukanis

Lived: 1891 – 1937

Notes: Marxist-Leninist legal philosopher of international renown. From 1936 until his death in the purges, Deputy Commissar of Justice.

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Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich

Name: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

Lived: 1890 – 1960

Notes: Poet and novelist who was a 1958 Nobel laureate for DOCTOR ZHIVAGO.

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Paustovskii, Konstantin Georgevich

Name: Konstantin Georgevich Paustovskii

Lived: 1892 – 1968

Notes: Prose writer who played an integral role in rehabilitating and publishing purged writers.

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Perov, Georgii Vasilievich

Name: Georgii Vasilievich Perov

Lived: 1905 – 1979

Notes: Soviet economic planning official.

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Peshkov, Maksim

Name: Maksim Peshkov

Lived: 1868 – 1936

Alias: Maksim Gorkii (“the Bitter”)

Notes: See Gorkii, Maksim. Writer, author of celebrated novels, essays and poems, progressive and sometimes associate of the Bolsheviks who spent much of their time in power in voluntary exile

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Pestkovskii, Stanislav

Name: Stanislav Pestkovskii

Lived: 1882 – 1937

Notes: Born Stanislaw Pestkowski in Poland. Telegraph Commissar during the days of revolution, later Commissar for Commissar for the State Bank in November 1917. Later Stalin’s deputy in the Commissariat of Nationalities; died in the purges.

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Peters, Iakov Khristoforovich

Name: Iakov Khristoforovich Peters

Lived: 1886 – 1938

Notes: Born the son of a day laborer in provincial Russia, Peters joined the Bolsheviks in 1904. He became a member of the board of the dreaded Cheka in December 1917, chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1918, and was head of the Cheka for a period in 1918. After the Civil War, GPU Eastern Director. Peters died in the purges of 1938.

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Petliura, Simon Vasilevich

Name: Simon Vasilevich Petliura

Lived: 1879 – 1926

Notes: A right-wing S.D. and active as such before the revolution. In June 1917 he became Secretary General for Military Affairs in the Rada Government and was at that time a member of the Directorate. He acquired notoriety for the pogroms carried out by his troops. In the summer of 1919 he captured Kiev. When he failed to come to an understanding with Denikin he allied himself with Poland and took part in the Polish-Soviet war of 1920.

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Petrazhitskii, Lev Iosifovich

Name: Lev Iosifovich Petrazhitskii

Lived: 1867 – 1931

Title: Professor

Notes: Legal scholar, author THEORY OF LAW AND STATE IN CONNECTION WITH THE THEORY OF MORALITY. Emigrated to Poland in 1918.

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Petrov, Vladimir Mikhailovich

Name: Vladimir Mikhailovich Petrov

Lived: 1896 – 1966

Notes: Film director who most prominent films include KUTUZOV (1944) and BATTLE OF STALINGRAD (1947)

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Piatakov, Georgii Leonidovich

Name: Georgii Leonidovich Piatakov

Lived: 1890 – 1937

Notes: Left Oppositionist who became Deputy Commissar of Heavy Industry until arrest in 1937.

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Pilniak, Boris Andreevich

Name: Boris Andreevich Pilniak

Lived: 1894 – 1937

Notes: Modernist novelist, author of NAKED YEAR (1921), MAHOGANY (1929), THE VOLGA FALLS INTO THE CASPIAN SEA (1930). Accused of distorting revolutionary events, and died in the purges.

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Pimen

Name: Pimen

Lived: –

Notes: A well-known character in Russian literature, Pimen (a monk) appears in Pushkin’s BORIS GODUNOV.

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Piontkovskii, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Piontkovskii

Lived: 1898 – 1973

Notes: Jurist, expert in the theory and philosophy of law, and criminal law.

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Platonov, Andrei Platonovich

Name: Andrei Platonovich Platonov

Lived: 1899 – 1951

Notes: Writer best known for his novels FOUNDATION PIT, and CHEVENGUR.

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Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich

Name: Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov

Lived: 1857 – 1918

Notes: Marxist philosopher and historian, Menshevik leader who opposed Bolsheviks’ 1917 coup.

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Pleve, Viacheslav Konstantinovich

Name: Viacheslav Konstantinovich Pleve

Lived: 1846 – 1904

Notes: Minister of the Interior from 1902, persecutor of revolutionary and working class movements, assassinated by the SRs.

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Podgornyi, Nikolai Viktorovich

Name: Nikolai Viktorovich Podgornyi

Lived: 1903 – 1983

Notes: Soviet head of state from 1965-1977, part of the triumvirate that deposed Khrushchev and brought Brezhnev to power.

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Podvoiskii, Nikolai Ilich

Name: Nikolai Il’ich Podvoiskii

Lived: 1880 – 1948

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1901. Served in the Petrograd Military Organisation in 1917. During the October Revolution he was Chair man of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. He was the first People’s Commissar for Military Affairs, replaced by Trotsky in March 1918. People’s Commissar for Military Affairs of the Ukraine, 1919.

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Pogodin, Nikolai Fedorovich

Name: Nikolai Fedorovich Pogodin

Lived: 1900 – 1962

Notes: Soviet playwright whose plays dealt with with Lenin and the White Sea Canal.

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Pokrovskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Name: Mikhail Nikolaevich Pokrovskii

Lived: 1868 – 1932

Notes: Founder of Soviet Marxist historical scholarship.

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Polevoi, Boris Nikolaevich

Name: Boris Nikolaevich Polevoi

Lived: 1908 – 1981

Notes: Writer best known for socialist realist classic STORY OF A REAL MAN (1946)

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Popov, Gavriil Kharitonovich

Name: Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov

Lived: 1936 –

Title: Professor

Notes: Profesor of economics. Radical economic and political reformer who under Brezhnev established management studies at Moscow University. First mayor of Moscow in post-Soviet times.

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Poskrebyshev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev

Lived: 1891 – 1965

Notes: Stalin’s right-hand man and head of his secretariat from 1928-1953. His relationship with Stalin continued despite the arrest and execution of his second wife in 1939.

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Pospelov, Petr Nikolaevich

Name: Petr Nikolaevich Pospelov

Lived: 1898 – 1979

Notes: Russian historian and ideologist who was a staunch defender of Khrushchev.

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Potresov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Potresov

Lived: 1869 – 1934

Notes: Early Russian socialist, collaborated with Lenin in early days of Party journal The Spark (Iskra). Became right wing Menshevik after 1905 revolution, but broke with Mensheviks after 1917 as being insufficiently vigorous in their opposition to Bolsheviks.

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Preobrazhenskii, Evgenii Aleksandrovich

Name: Evgenii Aleksandrovich Preobrazhenskii

Lived: 1886 – 1937

Notes: Member of Trotskyite opposition who spoke out against erosion of internal democracy.

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Primakov, Evgenii Maksimovich

Name: Evgenii Maksimovich Primakov

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Full member of the Central Committee who spent most of his career Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies. Chairman of the Union Council, 1989-1990, and from November 1991 of Russian intelligence services. Became Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1996.

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Prishibeev

Name: Prishibeev

Lived: –

Title: Sergeant

Notes: A character in a Chekhov story of the same name (1885).

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Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeevich

Name: Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev

Lived: 1891 – 1953

Notes: Innovative modernist composer. Lived abroad from 1918-1933. Composer of seven symphonies, opera LOVE FOR THREE ORANGES (1919), ballet ROMEO AND JULIET (1936), music for the film ALEKSANDR NEVSKY (1938). Despite being named People’s Artist of RSFSR in 1947, Prokofiev was severely constrained by Soviet cultural policies.

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Prokopovich, Sergei Nikolaevich

Name: Sergei Nikolaevich Prokopovich

Lived: 1871 – 1955

Notes: Minister of Supplies under the Provisional Government. Exiled in 1922.

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Prunskiene, Kazimiera Daunte

Name: Kazimiera Daunte Prunskiene

Lived: 1943 –

Notes: Lithuanian economist elected Premier-Minister of the Lithuanian Republic in March 1990.

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Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich

Name: Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin

Lived: 1893 – 1953

Notes: One of the most prominent Soviet film directors, director of MOTHER (1926), END OF ST. PETERSBURG (1927)

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Pugacheva, Alla Borisovna

Name: Alla Borisovna Pugacheva

Lived: 1949 –

Notes: Pop diva, best-selling most singer in Russia from the mid-1970s the present. Her outrageous behavior and contempt for political orthodoxy during the Soviet era did not impede her success.

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Pugo, Boris Karlovich

Name: Boris Karlovich Pugo

Lived: 1937 – 1991

Notes: Latvian who served as the First Secretary of the Latvian Communist Party, 1984-1989. Rose through the ranks in the KGB, candidate member of the Politbiuro, 1989-90, and Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs, 1990-91, from which position he participated in coup of August 1991. Committed suicide upon its failure.

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Pyriev, Ivan Aleksandrovich

Name: Ivan Aleksandrovich Pyriev

Lived: 1901 – 1968

Notes: Initially a Proletkult actor turned film director, director of successful if orthodox musicals TRACTOR DRIVERS (1939), SWINEHERD AND THE SHEPHERD (1941), COSSACKS OF THE KUBAN (1948).

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Radomyslskii, Grigorii Evseevich

Name: Grigorii Evseevich Radomyslskii

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Alias: Zinoviev

Notes: Bolshevik from 1903. Returned to Russia with Lenin. Opposed him on April Theses at first; also opposed to taking power in October. Appointed Chairman of the Northern Commune when government moved to Moscow. Chairman of the Comintern from its foundation until 1926. Joined Stalin and Kamenev in struggle with Trotsky in 1926, but soon fell out of Stalin’s favor. Arrested in 1934, executed in 1936.

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Raikin, Arkadii Isaakovich

Name: Arkadii Isaakovich Raikin

Lived: 1911 – 1987

Notes: Satirical comedian who effectively criticized Soviet leaders prior to glasnost.

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Raizman, Iulii Iakovlevich

Name: Iulii Iakovlevich Raizman

Lived: 1903 – 1994

Notes: Successful film director known for honest depiction of Soviet experience, including YOUR CONTEMPORARY (1968), PRIVATE LIFE (1982).

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Rakovskii, Khristian Georgevich

Name: Khristian Georgevich Rakovskii

Lived: 1873 – 1941

Notes: Served in the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs after the October Revolution. Headed commission on Russo-Rumanian affairs, 1918. Leader of Soviet peace delegation in Kiev, May-September 1918. Head of Ukrainian Soviet government in 1919. Served abroad 1923-27. Victim of purges.

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Rapgof, Ippolit Pavlovich

Name: Ippolit Pavlovich Rapgof

Lived: 1860 – 1918

Alias: Count Amori Notes: Music teacher and critic who found fame as a writer of salacious popular tales. Scandalized the literary world by publishing second parts to Aleksandr Kuprin’s THE PIT and Anastasiia Verbitskaia’s KEYS TO HAPPINESS before their authors could complete continuations. Rumored to have been shot when the Bolsheviks overcame an anarchist government he had established in Rostov-on-the-Don.

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Rashidov, Sharaf Rashidovich

Name: Sharaf Rashidovich Rashidov

Lived: 1917 – 1983

Notes: Uzbek political leader very close with Brezhnev during the 1970s.

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Raskolnikov, Fedor Fedorovich

Name: Fedor Fedorovich Raskolnikov

Lived: 1892 – 1939

Notes: Commander of the Red Navy on the Baltic and Caspian Seas during the Civil War. Served as a diplomat after the war, and in 1939 refused to return to the Soviet Union, when he published his “Open Letter to Stalin.” He died soon after under suspicious circumstances, and was rehabilitated after Stalin’s death.

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Rasputin, Valentin Grigorevich

Name: Valentin Grigor’evich Rasputin

Lived: 1937 –

Notes: Conservative prose writer and staunch advocate of environmentalist causes in such novels as LIVE AND REMEMBER (1974), FAREWELL TO MATYORA (1976).

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Reisner, Larisa Mikhailovna

Name: Larisa Mikhailovna Reisner

Lived: 1895 – 1926

Notes: Civil War participant and journalist, best known for her reports from the war front, and later Afghanistan and Germany.

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Rezunov, Mikhail Denisovich

Name: Mikhail Denisovich Rezunov

Lived: 1905 – 1937

Notes: Member of the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law, professor at Leningrad State University, shot during the purges of 1937.

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Riazanov, Eldar

Name: Eldar Riazanov

Lived: 1927 –

Notes: Much-beloved director whose many hit movies, beginning with CARNIVAL NIGHT (1956), and including THE IRONY OF FATE (1975) and GARAGE (1979) revealed the contradictions of Soviet life with a gentle irony.

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Rodchenko, Aleksandr Mikhailovich

Name: Aleksandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko

Lived: 1891 – 1956

Notes: Avant-garde painter and designer who devoted most of his later work to photography.

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Rodov, Semen Abramovich

Name: Semen Abramovich Rodov

Lived: 1893 – 1968

Notes: A proletarian poet literary theoretician and critic who became a member of the Party in 1918.

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Rodzianko, Mikhail Vladimirovich

Name: Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko

Lived: 1859 – 1924

Notes: Octobrist Duma deputy and President of the Fourth Duma

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Rokossovskii, Konstantin Konstantinovich

Name: Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovskii

Lived: 1896 – 1968

Notes: Soviet military commander during the Second World War, Defense Minister of Poland in post-war years.

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Rozenfeld, Lev Borisovich

Name: Lev Borisovich Rozenfeld

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Alias: Kamenev

Notes: See Kamenev. Joined the Social Democratic party in 1901; a Bolshevik in 1903. Close associate of Lenin. Arrested and exiled to Siberia in November 1914. Released February 1917. Chairman, Central Executive Committee of Soviets. Supported Trotsky in the anti-Stalin opposition. 1926-27 Soviet Ambassador to Italy. Condemned and executed in the first major ‘purge’ trial, 1936.

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Rudzutak, Ian Evnestovich

Name: Ian Evnestovich Rudzutak

Lived: 1887 – 1938

Notes: Full member of the Politburo, 1926-1927 arrested in 1937.

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Rutskoi, Aleksandr Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Rutskoi

Lived: 1945 –

Notes: Air Force general, fought in the Afghan War, later Vice President of the Russian Federation under Eltsin and leader of the Duma rebellion against Yeltsin in 1993.

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Rybakov, Anatolii Naumovich

Name: Anatolii Naumovich Rybakov

Lived: 1911 – 1998

Notes: Novelist, successful writer in the final years of Stalin, most famous for the cycle of novels dealing with Moscow life in the 1930s, which began with CHILDREN OF ARBAT (1987)

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Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich

Name: Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov

Lived: 1881 – 1938

Notes: Elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee at the III Party Congress. After October Revolution appointed first People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs but left that pos. Chairman of VSNKh in February 1918. Replaced Lenin as Chairman of Sovnarkom in 1921 and after Lenin’s death appointed to succeed him permanently in this post. Died in the purges.

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Ryzhkov, Nikolai Ivanovich

Name: Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov

Lived: 1929 –

Notes: Chairman of Council of Minister of USSR since 1985-91, Politbiuro member 1985-90. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and Communist Party left him out of politics, but he returned as a deputy in the Russian Duma in 1995.

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Sakharov, Andrei Dmitrievich

Name: Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Lived: 1921 – 1989

Notes: Nuclear physicist who became a major dissident during the Brezhnev era.

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Sarkisov, Sarkis Artemevich

Name: Sarkis Artem’evich Sarkisov

Lived: 1898 – 1938

Notes: Party member from 1917, once a member of the party opposition but later Ukrainian Central Committee member 1933-37, arrested in 1937 and shot.

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Sautin, Ivan Vasilievich

Name: Ivan Vasilievich Sautin

Lived: 1903 – 1975

Notes: Chief, Central Administration of Economic Accounting, Gosplan USSR, in 1938-1940.

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Scheidemann, Philipp

Name: Philipp Scheidemann

Lived: 1865 – 1939

Notes: German Chanceller who denounced the Versailles Treaty in the Reichstag, 1919.

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Sedov, Grigorii Iakovlevich

Name: Grigorii Iakovlevich Sedov

Lived: 1877 – 1914

Notes: Russian hydrographer and polar explore. Organized a 1912 expedition to the North Pole by dog sled, during which he perished.

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Semashko, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko

Lived: 1874 – 1949

Notes: Doctor, founder of the Commissariat of Health from 1918-30, party member since 1893.

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Semichastnyi, Vladimir Efimovich

Name: Vladimir Efimovich Semichastnyi

Lived: 1924 – 2001

Notes: Chairman of the KGB from 1961-1967, during which Soviet security organs began the systematic repression of social dissidents.

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Serafimovich, Aleksandr Serafimovich

Name: Aleksandr Serafimovich Serafimovich

Lived: 1863 – 1949

Notes: Writer best known for his civil war novel IRON FLOOD (1924).

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Serbin, Ivan Dmitrevich

Name: Ivan Dmitrevich Serbin

Lived: 1910 – 1981

Notes: Led the Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee from 1958-1981.

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Serebriakov, Leonid Petrovich

Name: Leonid Petrovich Serebriakov

Lived: 1890 – 1937

Notes: A worker. After the October Revolution was a member of the Presidium of the Moscow Soviet and later of the Presidium of the TsIK. In military work in 1919-20. Appointed deputy Commissar for Transport in 1922. Victim of the purges

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Serov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich

Name: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Serov

Lived: 1910 – 1968

Notes: Major representative of socialist realism and one of Stalin’s favored painters. President of the Soviet Academy of Arts from 1962.

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Shaginian, Marietta Sergeevna

Name: Marietta Sergeevna Shaginian

Lived: 1888 – 1982

Notes: Author of the socialist adventure novel MESS-MEND (1922), and then more politically orthodox novels such as HYDROCENTRAL (1930-31). Later wrote two novels about Lenin’s life for which she was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1972.

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Shaliapin, Fedor Ivanovich

Name: Fedor Ivanovich Shaliapin

Lived: 1873 – 1938

Notes: Russian operatic bass. Powerful and supple voice, a tremendous physique, and superb acting ability made him one of the greatest performers in the history of opera. Left Russia in 1922.

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Shatalin, Stanislav Sergeevich

Name: Stanislav Sergeevich Shatalin

Lived: 1934 – 1997

Notes: Radical economist who emphasized the country’s need to introduce market relations, and was a principle author of the 500 Days Plan of 1990, a last gasp effort at economic reform before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Shatrov, Mikhail Filippovich

Name: Mikhail Filippovich Shatrov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Playwright best known for his eight plays about Lenin that often managed to include a note of unorthodoxy.

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Shatunovskaia, Olga Grigorievna

Name: Olga Grigorievna Shatunovskaia

Lived: 1901 – 1991

Notes: Leading Party worker in Moscow arrested in 1938 on charges of Trotskyite activity. She was rehabilitated in 1954, and her account of conversations with prisoners involved with the Kirov trials were an important part of Khrushchev’s charges that Stalin was behind the murder.

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Shchedrin

Name: Shchedrin

Notes: Saltykov-Shchedrin

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Shchelokov, Nikolai Anisimovich

Name: Nikolai Anisimovich Shchelokov

Lived: 1910 – 1984

Notes: Soviet official close to both Brezhnev and Chernenko and who gained notoriety for corruption.

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Shcherbitskii, Vladimir Vasilievich

Name: Vladimir Vasilievich Shcherbitskii

Lived: 1918 – 1990

Notes: Ukrainian Party leader, chairman of the Ukrainian Soviet of Ministers 1965-72, last Brezhnevite to hold a seat in Gorbachev’s Politburo.

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Shchipachev, Stepan Petrovich

Name: Stepan Petrovich Shchipachev

Lived: 1899 – 1980

Notes: Born into a poor peasant family, joined the Red Army in 1917. Part of an army literary unit in 1930.

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Shchors, Nikolai Aleksandrovich

Name: Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchors

Lived: 1895 – 1919

Notes: Ukrainian hero of the Civil War, who fought German and Polish invaders, and the White Forces of Petliura, before his death in battle.

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Shchukin, Anatolii

Name: Anatolii Shchukin

Lived: –

Notes: A poet, appeared in the samizdat publications Phoenix 1961 and Phoenix 1966.

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Shebalin, Vissarion Iakovlevich

Name: Vissarion Iakovlevich Shebalin

Lived: 1902 – 1963

Notes: Composer who became director of the Moscow Conservatory, 1942-1948.

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Shelepin, Aleksandr Nikolaevich

Name: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Shelepin

Lived: 1918 – 1994

Notes: Chairman of the KGB from 1958-1961. Once heir apparent to Khrushchev who became a full member of the Politburo in 1964, but lost power gradually after Brezhnev’s rise to power. Demoted from the Politburo in 1975.

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Shelest, Petro Iukhymovych

Name: Petro Iukhymovych Shelest

Lived: 1908 – 1996

Notes: First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist party, and member of the Politburo, forced into retirement by Brezhnev in 1973 for alleged Ukrainian national tendencies.

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Shevardnadze, Eduard Amvrosievich

Name: Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze

Lived: 1928 – 2014

Notes: Georgian politician rose as head of the Georgian NKVD, 1965-72, and Georgian party chief, 1972-85, then served as Gorbachev’s Foreign Minister and close supporter, and later as president of independent Georgia, from 1995 until removed from power in the Rose Revolution of 2003.

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Shklovskii, Viktor Borisovich

Name: Viktor Borisovich Shklovskii

Lived: 1893 – 1984

Notes: Russian writer, literary scholar, one of the founders of Russian formalism.

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Shliapnikov, Aleksandr Gavrilovich

Name: Aleksandr Gavrilovich Shliapnikov

Lived: 1885 – 1937

Notes: Industrial worker active in the 1905 revolution, subsequently in emigration. In April 1917 became Chairman of the Metal Workers’ Trade Union, and served in that post until 1921. After the October Revolution was appointed the first People’s Commissar of Labor. He served in the army during the Civil War. In 1919-21 he was a leader of the ‘Workers’ Opposition” and afterwards was often under fire for his oppositional views. Under exile and arrest from 1934, he was shot in 1937.

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Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Name: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov

Lived: 1905 – 1985

Notes: Don Cossack novelist best known for QUIET FLOWS THE DON (1928-1940) and other novels and stories. Loyal but not orthodox member of the Soviet literary establishment, awarded Nobel Prize in 1965.

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Shostakovich, Dmitrii Dmitrievich

Name: Dmitrii Dmitrievich Shostakovich

Lived: 1906 – 1975

Notes: Composer of fifteen symphonies, chamber music, and the opera, LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

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Sklianskii, Efraim Markovich

Name: Efraim Markovich Sklianskii

Lived: 1892 – 1925

Notes: Doctor, joined RSDRP in 1913. After the October Revolution became chairman of the committee of the Fifth Army in Dvinsk. Appointed Supreme Commissar on 25 November, two days after being appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Military Affairs. Elected to the Constituent Assembly on 28 November as a delegate for the Northern Front. Throughout the Civil War Trotsky’s most trusted supporter and deputy.

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Skriabin, Viacheslav Mikhailovich

Name: Viacheslav Mikhailovich Skriabin

Lived: 1890 – 1986

Alias: Molotov

Notes: See Molotov

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Smilga, Ivar Tenisovich

Name: Ivar Tenisovich Smilga

Lived: 1892 – 1937

Notes: Bolshevik revolutionary, later member of the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union. Born in modern Latvia), chairman of the Baltic Fleet Committee in 1917-1918. Later vice-chairman of the Vesenkha (1921-1928), and of the Gosplan from 1924 to 1936. Arrested, tried, and executed as a terrorist in the first Moscow Trial (1937).

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Smolich, Nikolai Vasilievich

Name: Nikolai Vasilievich Smolich

Lived: 1888 – 1968

Notes: Opera director, avant-gardist, who directed the premieres of Shostakovich’s operas NOSE The Nose and LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK

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Sokolnikov, Grigorii Iakovlevich

Name: Grigorii Iakovlevich Sokolnikov

Lived: 1888 – 1939

Notes: Lawyer and economist. Bolshevik from 1905 when he took part in the Moscow uprising. Member of the Moscow Party Committee in April 1917. After the October revolution organized nationalization of banks Signed Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918. Between 1918 and 1920 served on the Revolutionary Military Councils of Second, Ninth, Thirteenth and Eighth Armies. From August 1920 in charge of the Turkestan committee of the TsIK and organized Bolshevik takeover in Bukhara. Occupied high positions in finance and industry until fell victim in the purges.

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Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich

Name: Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

Lived: 1918 –

Notes: Novelist, author of the multi-volume GULAG-ARCHIPELAGO, trenchant critic of Soviet ideology and government who was exiled in 1974

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Spiridonova, Mariia Aleksandrovna

Name: Mariia Aleksandrovna Spiridonova

Lived: 1889 – 1941

Notes: Member of the SR party. In 1906 assassinated the Vice Governor of Tambov in retaliation for his persecution of peasants. Sent to Siberia for forced labor; remained until February Revolution. Became a left SR and a member of their Central Committee. Disagreed with the Bolsheviks over the Brest Treaty and helped to organize the left SR uprising in July 1918. Arrested and exiled, subject to frequent repressions until shot in 1941.

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Stakhanov, Aleksei

Name: Aleksei Stakhanov

Lived: 1905 – 1976

Notes: Coalminer whose production record of August 1935 inaugurated the Stakhanovite movement

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Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich

Name: Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin

Lived: 1879 – 1953

Notes: General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1922 until his death in 1953. Stalin’s increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to his becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country. He initiated a series of gruesome purges in the 1930s that eliminated his opponents and consolidated his power. Under Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War and went on to achieve the status of superpower. His crash programs of industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s, World War II casualties, along with his ongoing campaigns of political repression, are estimated to have cost the lives of up to 20 million people.

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Stiedry, Fritz

Name: Fritz Stiedry

Lived: 1883 – 1968

Notes: Conductor, Mahler’s assistant in the Vienna Opera. In 1933 he emigrated to the USSR, where he was conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic. He led the premiere of Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto. After the war one of the principal conductors of the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

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Struve, Petr Berngardovich

Name: Petr Berngardovich Struve

Lived: 1870 – 1944

Notes: One of the earliest Russian Marxist theorists. Although he drafted the first manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1898, Struve changed his politics in 1902 and joined the liberal Kadet party. During Civil War, foreign minister of Wrangel’s ‘White’ government in the Crimea. Died in Paris. Became a Bolshevik in 1903. Member of the Bolshevik Central Committee since 1913. Played leading role in the October Revolution and became Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and was one of the most able Bolshevik administrators.

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Stuchka, Petr Ivanovich

Name: Petr Ivanovich Stuchka

Lived: 1865 – 1932

Notes: Born Pēteris Stučka in Latvia, was head of the Bolshevik government in Latvia during its war of independence (1918-1920). During the 1920s, a leading legal theoretician promoting the “revolutionary” or “proletarian” model of socialist legality.

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Sudrabs

Name: Sudrabs

Notes: See Latsis, Martin Ivanovich

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Sukhanov, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Name: Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov

Lived: 1882 – 1940

Alias: Originally Gimmer

Notes: Economist, Left Menshevik from 1917, worked in Soviet economic organizations after Revolution. Wrote memoir, NOTES ABOUT THE REVOLUTION (1922-23)

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Sverdlov, Iakov Mikhailovich

Name: Iakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

Lived: 1885 – 1919

Notes: Became a Bolshevik in 1903. Member of the Bolshevik Central Committee since 1913. Played leading role in the October Revolution and became Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets and was one of the most able Bolshevik administrators.

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Thant, U

Name: U Thant

Lived: 1909 – 1974

Notes: Burmese diplomat and third Secretary General of the United Nations, 1961-1971.

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Timiriazev, Kliment Arkadievich

Name: Kliment Arkadievich Timiriazev

Lived: 1843 – 1920

Notes: Botanist, physiologist who established a vegetable physiology laboratory at the Petrov Academy. His enthusiasm for the young Soviet regime was rewarded when it was renamed the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

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Tito, Josif

Name: Josif Tito

Lived: 1892 – 1980

Notes: See Broz, Josif. Yugoslav war-time guerilla leader and post-WW II head of Communist government whose independent stance in the face of Stalin®s orders helped split the international communist movement.

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Todorovskii, Aleksandr Ivanovich

Name: Aleksandr Ivanovich Todorovskii

Lived: 1894 – 1965

Notes: Soviet military leader, commissar of the Air Force Academy 1933-36, purged and arrested in 1938, rehabilitated in 1953.

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Tomskii, Mikhail Pavlovich

Name: Mikhail Pavlovich Tomskii

Lived: 1880 – 1937

Notes: Joined the RSDRP in 1904. Member of the Petrograd Executive Committee after the February Revolution. Chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions, 1919-28.

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Topchiev, Aleksandr Vasilevich

Name: Aleksandr Vasil’evich Topchiev

Lived: 1907 – 1962

Notes: Chemist, Chief Academic Secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Khrushchev years

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Toporova, Z. N.

Name: Z. N. Toporova

Lived: –

Notes: defense attorney (for Brodsky?)

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Trapeznikov, Sergei Pavlovich

Name: Sergei Pavlovich Trapeznikov

Lived: 1912 – 1984

Notes: Specialist in the history of Soviet agricultural policies, head of the Science and Education Department of the Party Secretariat, 1965-83, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences

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Tretiakov, Sergei

Name: Sergei Tretiakov

Lived: 1892 – 1939

Notes: Avant-garde playwright, who worked with Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and Mayakovsky. Bertolt Brecht considered Tretyakov one of his teachers in the field of Marxism. He was shot during the Great Terror.

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Trotsky, Leon

Name: Leon Trotsky

Lived: 1879 – 1940

Alias: Born Lev Davydovich Bronstein

Notes: Social Democrat from 1896, exiled to Siberia in 1901, escaped to London in 1902. Sided with Mensheviks at II Congress in 1903. Played leading role in St Petersburg Soviet in 1905. Arrested and deported to Siberia for life in 1906. Escaped en route. Returned to Petrograd in May 1917 and joined the Bolsheviks in July 1917. Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and of its Military Revolutionary Committee in September 1917. Played important role in October Revolution. People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, November 1917-February 1918. Founder of the Red Army. People’s Commissar for Military Affairs, February 1918-December 1922, leader of the Civil War victory. Central Committee, 1917-27, Politbiuro, 1919-26. Bitter struggle with Stalin for power led to his eventual dismissal from posts, exclusion from the Party in 1927, exile to Alma-Ata and then abroad in 1929. Long career in exile as bitter critic of Stalin, ended when murdered by NKVD agent in Mexico.

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Tsederbaum, Iulii Osipovich

Name: Iulii Osipovich Tsederbaum

Lived: 1873 – 1923

Alias: Martov

Notes: See Martov. Russian revolutionary, Menshevik leader exiled in 1921. Editorial board of ISKRA from 1900, Menshevik from 1903. Participated in Pre-Parliment of mid-1917, but saw October Revolution as a catastrophe. Strong critic of dictatorial tendencies of Bolsheviks. Emigrated 1920.

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Tseretelli, Iraklii Georgievich

Name: Iraklii Georgievich Tseretelli

Lived: 1881 – 1959

Notes: A Menshevik leader during the Russian Revolution of 1917, and one of the Menshevik leaders of Georgia before it fell under Soviet power in 1921.

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Tsiolkovskii, Konstantin Eduardovich

Name: Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii

Lived: 1857 – 1935

Notes: Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of astronautic theory, lionized by Soviet patriots as the father of heavier-than-air flight and space travel.

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Tsiurupa, Aleksandr Dmitrevich

Name: Aleksandr Dmitrevich Tsiurupa

Lived: 1870 – 1928

Notes: Social Democrat from 1898. During the October Revolution was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee in Ufa. Appointed deputy People’s Commissar for Food in December 1917. Later became Commissar and held post until 1921

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Tso-lin, Chang

Name: Chang Tso-lin

Lived: 1873 – 1928

Alias: Zhang Zuolin in Pinyin transliteration

Notes: Chinese warlord and military leader under the Kuomintang government, who ruled Manchuria from 1920 until his assassination by Japanese militarists.

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Tsoi, Viktor Robertovich

Name: Viktor Robertovich Tsoi

Lived: 1962 – 1990

Notes: Soviet rock star, lead singer of the group KINO, who died in a motorcycle crash and was memorialized in graffiti and informal memorials throughout the country.

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Tu-hsiu, Chen

Name: Ch’en Tu-hsiu

Lived: 1879 – 1942

Alias: Chen Duxiu in Pinyin transliteration

Notes: Chinese educator and Communist party leader. One of the founders of the Chinese party, he was dismissed and withdrew from the party in 1927 over his opposition to the Comintern-sponsored armed insurrection.

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Tugan-Baranovskii, Mikhail Ivanovich

Name: Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovskii

Lived: 1865 – 1919

Notes: Economics professor at St Petersburg University. ‘Legal’ Marxist. In 1918 Minister of Finance in short-lived Ukrainian government of Hetman Skoropadsky.

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Tukhachevskii, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Name: Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevskii

Lived: 1893 – 1937

Notes: Officer in 1914 and taken prisoner in 1915. Escaped and returned in October 1917. Joined Party in August 1918 and became a commissar of the Moscow Military District. In 1921 he organized and directed military operations against the Kronstadt mutineers. Brilliant strategist who rose through party and military, became Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1935, two years before he fell victim in the military purges.

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Tulin

Name: Tulin

Lived: –

Notes: ‘K. Tulin’ was Lenin’s first pseudonym, which he used between 1895 and 1900.

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Tynianov, Iurii Nikolaevich

Name: Iurii Nikolaevich Tynianov

Lived: 1894 – 1943

Notes: Writer and literary scholar.

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Ulrikh, Vasilii Vasilievich

Name: Vasilii Vasilievich Ulrikh

Lived: 1889 – 1951

Notes: Military jurist who served in the Cheka during the Civil War. Later a senior judge during most of Stalin’s regime. Ulrikh served as the presiding judge at many of the major show trials.

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Uritskii, Moiseei

Name: Moiseei Uritskii

Lived: 1873 – 1918

Notes: First leader of the Cheka, assassinated by SRs in 1918.

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Valk, Robert Robertovich

Name: Robert Robertovich Val’k

Lived: –

Notes: See Falk, Robert

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Varga, Eugene

Name: Eugene Varga

Lived: 1879 – 1964

Notes: People’s Commissar of Finance in Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919); later a distinguished Soviet economist.

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Vertinskii, Aleksandr

Name: Aleksandr Vertinskii

Lived: 1889 – 1957

Notes: Popular singer, poet, composer and actor, a founder of the genre of guitar poetry, Vertinskii’s songs of the high life and decadence endeared him to generations of Russians and Soviets.

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Vinogradova, A. N.

Name: A. N. Vinogradova

Lived: –

Notes: Weaver, Bolshaia Dmitrovskaia Factory, Ivanovo, and model production leader who was celebrated as a Stakhanovite worker, along with her sister Dusya.

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Vinogradova, Evdokiia Viktorovna (Dusya)

Name: Evdokiia Viktorovna (Dusya) Vinogradova

Lived: 1914 – 1962

Notes: Celebrated Stakhanovite weaver and sister of A.N. Vinogradova.

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Vishnevskaia, Galina Pavlovna

Name: Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaia

Lived: 1926 – 2012

Notes: Soprano. Shostakovich’s vocal cycle Satires and his instrumentation of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death are dedicated to her. She sang the premieres of these works and sang in the first performance of the Fourteenth Symphony. In 1978 she and her husband, cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, were stripped of Soviet citizenship for “systematic acts that bring harm to the prestige of the Soviet Union.” Thereafter, Vishnevskaia’s name was removed from all Soviet reference works.

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Vishnevskii, Vsevolod Vitalievich

Name: Vsevolod Vitalievich Vishnevskii

Lived: 1900 – 1951

Notes: Playwright. Took part in the Petrograd rebellion in 1917, and fought in the Civil War as a machine gunner and political agitator in the Red Fleet. Later he was a frontline correspondent for Pravda during WWII, and was in Leningrad during the blockade. His greatest success in the theater came in the 1930s, when he produced WE ARE FROM KRONSHTADT, LAST DECISIVE MAN, and OPTIMISTIC TRAGEDY.

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Vlasov, Aleksandr Vladimirovich

Name: Aleksandr Vladimirovich Vlasov

Lived: 1932 –

Notes: Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR 1986-1988, during the initial period of loosening civil society.

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Vlasov, Andrei Andreevich

Name: Andrei Andreevich Vlasov

Lived: 1901 – 1946

Notes: Joined the Red Army in 1920, commanded an army corps in Second World War. Upon capture by Germans, formed the anti-Soviet Russian Liberation Army from prisoners-of-war. Sentenced to death after capture at end of war

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Volkogonov, Dmitrii Antonovich

Name: Dmitrii Antonovich Volkogonov

Lived: 1928 – 1995

Notes: Historian and army general whose biographies of Lenin and Trotsky received accolades in the 1990s.

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Volodarskii, V.

Name: V. Volodarskii

Lived: 1891 – 1918

Notes: Real name: Golshtein. Revolutionary at the age of 14 under the influence of the 1905 revolution.1913 departure to America. Returned to Russia after the February revolution, soon becoming a Bolshevik. Member of the Petrograd Party Committee, one of the finest propagandists. Member of the Petrograd Soviet, later of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Editor of the newspaper Krasnaia Gazeta, Petrograd. Commissar for the Press, Propaganda and Agitation of the Petrograd Commune. Murdered on June 20, 1918.

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Volpin

Name: Volpin

Notes: See Esenin-Volpin

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Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich

Name: Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov

Lived: 1881 – 1969

Notes: Bolshevik and an active revolutionary from 1903. Outstanding Red Army commander in the civil war. Commissar for military and naval affairs, later defense (1925-1940), Voroshilov helped reorganize the Red Army. Commander of the northwestern front in World War II. Member of the Politburo from 1926 and of the Supreme Soviet from 1937. Close associate of Stalin, he was implicated by Khrushchev in the 1957 “antiparty faction”, and was forced to resign and dropped from the Central Committee in 1961.

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Vyshinskii, Andrei Ianuarevich

Name: Andrei Ianuar’evich Vyshinskii

Lived: 1883 – 1954

Notes: Prosecutor of Judicial Collegia of Supreme Tribunal of the RSFSR, 1933-1939, during which time he conducted the most vicious purge trials. Also occupied various other high posts in the Soviet government, including foreign minister, until his death.

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William of Occam

Name: William of Occam Lived: 1285 – 1349

Notes: English scholastic philosopher. Namesake of Occam’s Razor, the principle that “It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.”

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Wojtyla, Karol

Name: Karol Wojtyla

Lived: 1920 – 2005

Title: Pope

Alias: John Paul II

Notes: Native of Poland, 264th Pope of the Catholic Church. He was the first non-Italian pope since the sixteenth century. His early reign was marked by his opposition to communism, and he is often credited as one of the forces which contributed to its collapse in Eastern Europe. His 1979 journey to Poland electrified his compatriots and was a major impetus for the founding of the Solidarity movement.

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Yu-Siang, Feng

Name: Feng Yu-Siang

Lived: 1882 – 1948

Notes: Also Feng Yu-hsiang. Warlord in Republican China, nicknamed the ‘Christian General’. Feng at controlled most of north-central China by 1929, but was soon defeated by forces loyal to Chiang Kai-shek.

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Zasulich, Vera Ivanovna

Name: Vera Ivanovna Zasulich

Lived: 1851 – 1919

Notes: Began her political career as a Narodnik. She attempted, aged seventeen, to assassinate Trepov, military governor of St Petersburg. Was tried but acquitted and allowed to escape abroad. Became a Marxist in the early 1800s and was one of the first members of the Russian Social Democratic party.

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Zhdanov, Iurii Andreevich

Name: Iurii Andreevich Zhdanov

Lived: 1919 – 2006

Notes: Russian chemist, rector of Rostov State University from 1957 to 1988; son of Andrei Zhdanov and former husband of Svetlana Alliluyeva.

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Zinoviev, Grigorii Evseevich

Name: Grigorii Evseevich Zinoviev

Lived: 1883 – 1936

Notes: Bolshevik from 1903. Returned to Russia with Lenin. Opposed him on April Theses at first; also opposed to taking power in October. Appointed Chairman of the Northern Commune when government moved to Moscow. Chairman of the Comintern from its foundation until 1926. Joined Stalin and Kamenev in struggle with Trotsky in 1926, but soon fell out of Stalin’s favor. Arrested in 1934, executed in 1936.

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