Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

I just want to tell you how much I am enjoying the special insert called Uchites in the March/April issue of your magazine.  (I am a senior citizen who enjoys translating Russian stories.) I have already translated the story by Gogol, and I am working through the questions on the text which has increased my understanding of the material.  I am looking forward to future issues.

Marlene Welton

To the Editors:

Hurrah the May/June 2009 issue! I have received your magazine for several years and have always enjoyed it but this issue has to be the best ever! I especially liked the “100 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia” and the whimsical illustrations.

And what of Mikhail Sholokhov, 1965 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature? I was surprised And Quiet Flows The Don was not included in the 10 Must Read Novels. It is a beautifully written account of the Don Cossacks families and villages during the Revolution, Civil War, and World War I. Perhaps we can have a list of 10 more must read novels, short stories, composers works, etc. including input from your readers?  Keep up the good work.

Marge McCabe

Lincoln, NE

Marge:

We encourage you and other readers to post additional Must Read literature on the posting on our blog:

 blog.russianlife.com

The Editors

To the Editors:

First off, I want to commend the editors and staff of Russian Life on one of your best issues yet. The quality of articles in your magazine continues to be first-rate, with the range of topics kept broad and of interest to a wide readership. In the latest issue, the feature “100 Things Everyone Should Know about Russia” was particularly noteworthy. Our Russian-language students here at the JSC Language Education Center have found it very informative and useful.

I would, however, like to point out one small error in your list of “Space Firsts,” on page 32. There you list Mir as the “world’s first space station.” This is incorrect. Prior to Mir there was a series of smaller Soviet space stations under the designation “Salyut.” The first Salyut station was launched April 19, 1971, some 15 years before the launch of the first Mir module. Indeed, it was the Salyut program that made the Mir station possible. Over the course of this program, the Russians not only worked out methods for automated (unpiloted) rendezvous and docking, but also began to gather significant data on the effects of long-duration space flight on human beings. The last Salyut station, Salyut-7 (April 19, 1982-Feb. 7, 1991) was in orbit for almost nine years and was manned by a total of nine different crews.

Also worthy of mention in this section would have been Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), the pioneering theoretician of human space flight. His contributions to the development of the Russian/Soviet space program cannot be underestimated... While I realize that it’s impossible to include everyone on your list, Tsiolkovsky is certainly worthy of mention, particularly as most Americans are unaware of him and his contributions.

Please keep up your wonderful work in publishing this magazine. The students and staff at the JSC Language Education Center look forward to each new issue of Russian Life. The copies you send us disappear quickly from the place where we make them available. Lastly, thanks also to the Russky Mir Foundation for their support in making this distribution of your magazine possible.

Regards,

Tony Vanchu

Houston, TX

Tony:

Yes, we could not include everyone or everything. You may recall that we ran a feature on Tsiolkovsky in our Sep/Oct 2007 issue.

The Editors

To the Editors:

...In the article, Portrait of a Terrorist (Jan/Feb 2009), there is a picture... of Lt. Baranovsky, General Yakubovich, Boris Savinkov, Alexander Kerensky, Lt. Tumanov.

...In the Old Russian Imperial Army, as well as in the Army of the Provisional Government there was not the rank “Lieutenant.” The latter corresponds with poruchnik (the epaulette had one stripe and three small stars). As you can clearly see on the photograph, both officers... have epaulettes with two stripes and no stars... the rank of colonel (poruchnik) and not lieutenant.

Thank you very much for an interesting and not so much biased publication.

Sincerely,

Theodor Kiezeloff

Grant, AL

To the Editors:

You write on page 23 of the May/June 2009 issue of Russian Life that Anna Akhmatova “remained behind to endure the Leningrad Blockade.”

Did she not leave the 900-day blockade in part:  Tashkent in 1942 and Samarkand (Central Asia, 1944), only to return after the war?

Thanks,

Stewart Lillard

Silver Spring, MD

Stewart:

Yes, you are correct. The sentence was in error.

The Editors

To the Editors:

In your May/June 2009 issue Michael Czuboka [Reader Letters] is misinterpreting the name of Ukrainians as “Little Russians.” It came from the word Malorossiya or “Small Russia” and doesn’t have anything to do with the size or height of the people. The word Ukraine actually means “a border,” which was a border of the Russian Empire...

...Russians and Ukrainians are two wings of the same “tribe.” No wonder that both nations share common celebrities. Gogol was one of them. As one of his biographer wrote: “He was Ukrainian by origin but Russian by soul.” ...And by the way, Ukrainians are not the tallest people in Europe...

Best,

Pavel Kozhevnikov