In these difficult times, let’s celebrate life. Specifically, five Russians (from a diplomat to an conductor to an activist) who happen to share today, June 4, as their birthday.

The life of Rasputin's daughter, Maria, was full of twists and turns almost as dramatic as her father's, and took her deep into the American heartland.

Russian history is interesting. Not always beautiful, not always glorious, but almost always... interesting.

170 years ago this week, January 15, 1850, the mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya was born.

245 years ago this week, on January 10, 1775, the rebel Yemelyan Pugachev was executed in Moscow.

Poor, unfortunate Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin-Krukovsky. He worked so hard to help his family flourish, and, at least in his eyes, it all went to waste.

Vsevolod Ivanov’s books have long since been largely forgotten, and today it is hard to decide whether or not his current obscurity is deserved.

Yury Luzhkov, who died in December from complications during routine heart surgery, is difficult to pin to a particular pantheon of Russian political figures.

Happy birthday to Velimir Khlebnikov, Futurist poet, avant-gardist, and developer of an algorithm to predict the future.

One of the oldest actors working in Russia, Vladimir Etush, has died at 96.

I can’t imagine a cleverer or more perverse way of presenting “the first political biography” of Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1975) than as if from the conscience-addled Sholokhov’s perspective.

Catherine the Great was a prolific letter writer and her missives offer a uniquely intimate view of her personal life and political development (to say nothing of her humor and passion).