June and July in History

June

1 International Children’s Day. This year, June 1 is also the 155th birthday of the itinerant painter Vasily Polenov (1844-1927). Polenov created his best works between 1860 and 1870. His famous canvasses, like The Grandmother’s Garden and especially Moscow Courtyard (opposite page), are full of warmth and sunlight. Other Russian favorites are his landscapes Early Snow, The Flooding Oka River and Golden Autumn.

3 This day is set aside to celebrate Russia’s most venerated icon: the St. Vladimir Virgin.

6 Alexander Pushkin was born this day in 1799. He died less than 38 years later, leaving behind a monumental legacy. Our stories on Pushkin begin on page 20.

10 Russia’s most famous living doctor, Yevgeny Chazov, celebrates his 70th birthday today. Chazov was Minister of Health from 1987-1990 and before that a leading cardiologist and director of the All-Union Cardiological and Scientific Center of the Academy of Sciences. But Chazov is more than a doctor; he is a historical personality: he literally took the pulse of many high-ranking Soviet leaders, from Leonid Brezhnev to the legendary Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Chazov was also the one whose signature was at the bottom of special death notices printed in Pravda, which listed at length the diseases causing the deaths of notable Politburo and CPSU Secretariat members.

12 Independence Day (formally, Day of Declaration of National Sovereignity) is celebrated in Russia this day and is a national holiday.

18 Russian actor Ivan Moskvin (1874-1946) was born 125 years ago.  Justly considered “the soul of the Moscow Art Theater” (MKHAT), Moskvin was the very icon of Russian acting. One of his major roles, which he played repeatedly, was Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, in Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy’s play of the same name.

19 255th anniversary of the ukaz (decree) signed by Empress Elizabeth which awarded the highest title of “Lavra” (i.e. main, supreme monastery) to the Trinity St. Sergey Monastery in Sergiyev-Posad (known as Zagorsk during the Soviet era), shown at right. The world-famous Lavra is the spiritual and historical center of Russian Orthodoxy. It is famous for its seminary and also as the final resting place of Saint Sergey Radonezhsky, Tsar Boris Godunov and Archbishop Nikon.

The writer Vasil Bykov also marks his 75th birthday today. Bykov became famous for his books about the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, about the heroic deeds of the simple soldiers. It is no wonder Bykov cherished this theme: in his native Belarus, every fourth person died at the hands of the Germans. Bykov himself fought in the war from 1941 till 1945. At one point, he was even reported missing in action.  Yet, as he would write, he “survived to tell the truth about the War.” This truth he told in such stories as The Death of a Man (1955), and in his novels The Alpine Ballad (1964), The Dead Feel No Pain (1966), The Obelisk (1972), To Live Until Dawn (1973). His novel The Sign of Disaster”(1982) earned him a State Prize. In recent years, Bykov has led an uncompromising fight for political freedom for Belarusan intellectuals, which is threatened by the non-democratic actions of Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko.

23 Anna Akhmatova’s 110th birthday is celebrated on this day. One of the greatest Russian poets of this century, Akhmatova had a tragic life, yet she somehow survived the purges, the Leningrad blockade and the Stalin post-war repressions. She died in 1966 and her funeral, like that of Pushkin before her (whom she studied in great depth) was a national event. A short note in this Calendar surely does not do the poet justice – for that, the biography of Akhmatova by Roberta Reeder is highly recommended.

24 Day of Ivan Kupala, “John the Baptist’s Day,” this was actually a Summer Solstice celebration (associated with a pagan water god Kupala) now imbued with Christian baptismal overtones. It is tradition to douse others with water on this day.

25 Of Olga Sadovskaya (1849-1919), whose 150th birthday is noted today, Konstantin Stanislavsky said: “All the laws of stage are silent in the presence of a genius.” Sadovskaya made her debut in Stanislavsky’s MkhAT, but she went down in history as an actress at the Moscow’s Maly Theater — she moved there in 1879. At the Maly she played all the major heroine roles in playwright Alexander Ostrovsky’s works.

July

1 At least one work of Vera Mukhina (1889-1953), whose 110th birthday falls on this day, is known worldwide: the famous “Worker and Peasant.” A student of Konstantin Yuon, Mukhina pursued her education in Paris (1912-1914) at the famous Academy Grande Chaumière. Few know that, in her latter years, Mukhina worked on a monument to Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It was completed after her death and stands in front of the Moscow Conservatory.

3 135 years ago Mitrofan Pyatnitsky (1864-1927) died. He was a collector and performer of Russian folk songs and created a famous choir which still bears his name.

6 Konstantin Savitsky (1844-1905), an itinerant Russian painter famous for portraying the lives of Russian peasants, was born on this day 155 years ago. His best-known canvasses included Fire in the Village (1876), Meeting the Icon (1878) and On to War (1880-1888).

7 Two of the Russian Orthodox Church’s four major annual feast days fall in July. The first is today and celebrates the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. The second is on July 12, celebrating the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

8 290 years ago, Russia defeated the Swedes at Poltava (now in Ukraine), turning the tide in Russia’s favor in the Northern War of 1700-1721. Swedish King Karl XII’s army was routed thanks to Russia’s superiority of numbers and firepower, as well as the Swedish army’s many strategic errors and its weariness from two years of battle on foreign soil. King Karl and his entourage fled to Turkish territory and Swedish troops, previously hailed across Europe as invincible, surrendered. The victory inspired Alexander Pushkin to write his famous poem, “Poltava.”

21 Day of the Icon of the Virgin of Kazan, one of the most venerated holy images of the Russian Orthodox Church.

25 Russian playwright Mikhail Zagoskin (1789-1852) was born 210 years ago on this day. Zagoskin wrote the popular historical novel Yuri Miloslavsky or the Russians in 1612; Pushkin even congratulated Zagoskin on “having written one of the best novels of the epoch.” Another novel, The Grave of Ascold, about the era of Kievan Prince Vladimir, also made a big splash, thanks to a famous opera of the same name by the composer Alexander Verstovsky. This opera is still staged in Russia’s leading theaters.

Another great Russian writer shares this birthday. Seventy years ago on this day Vasily Shukshin (1929-1974) was born. Yet Shukshin was more than a writer; he was also an accomplished movie actor and director. In all events, Shukshin was a marvel: a provincial lad from the small Altai town of Srostki became a world-class artist in just 10-15 years. Shukshin’s artistic attraction was his honest portrayal of the values of human sincerity and honesty, themes which come out in his remarkable short stories (see Russian Life, June 1997), novels and his movies. His film There Lives Such a Lad won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and his Snowball Berry Red, based on his novel of the same name, is a Russian favorite. While too young to fight in WWII, Shukshin, in a way, died at the front, like a hero in one of his stories. While starring in Sergey Bondarchuk’s film They Fought for the Fatherland, based on novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, Shukshin succumbed to heart failure; and his role was later dubbed by another actor.