Calendar Notes

120 & 210 years ago Poetic Twins

Alexander Pushkin (born June 6, 1799) and Anna Akhmatova (born June 11, 1889) had much in common besides being born under the same sign (Gemini: the twins). Not only were both poets recognized early to have great talent, both struggled against the powers that be, both had tragic personal lives, and both left behind almost unequaled literary legacies. Pushkin butted heads with Tsar Nicholas, who eventually became his “personal censor,” and Akhmatova, who spent much of her life studying Pushkin, was relentlessly persecuted by the Soviet regime, her husband and son both sent off to the camps, while she remained behind to endure the Leningrad Blockade. Pushkin died February 10, 1837. Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966. 

245 years ago  Smolny Institute Opened

Established June 28, 1764 at the behest of Ivan Betskoy, an advisor to Catherine II, the Institute for Noble Maidens was the first educational institution for women in Russia, offering them 12 years of education in the humanities, languages, music and the arts, preparing them for life in high society. It came to be called the Smolny Institute, because it was originally located next to the Resurrection Smolny Novodevichy Convent. The current Palladian building was built in 1806-1808 by Giacomo Quarenghi. Students had to dress in a specific color, depending on which three-year quadrant of studies they occupied: coffee, blue, grey or white. In 1917, Smolny became the Bolsheviks’ headquarters, and Lenin lived there for a time, before moving to the Moscow Kremlin. It then housed offices for the Leningrad Communist Party and, in the post-Soviet era, for the city administration. Vladimir Putin worked there for six years in the 1990s.

105 years ago
Mikhail Glinka

Born May 20, 1804, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka was a founder of Russian classical music, though his father wanted him to join the foreign service. His opera Ivan Susanin, renamed over his objection to A Life for the Tsar, was his first major work (1836). It was a resounding success and ensured the young composer’s fame, soon bolstered by Ruslan and Ludmila. His Patriotic Song was the tune for the Russian national anthem from 1991 to 2000.

165 years ago Vasily Polenov

Born May 20 (June 1, new style), 1844, Vasily Polenov was a realist painter and member of the Itinerant movement. He created his best works between 1860 and 1870, and his landscapes are peacefully prosaic, filled with light and a love for the Russian landscape, as in Overgrown Pond (left) and Moscow Courtyard. As a resident at Savva Mamontov’s Abramtsevo Artist Community, he also broke new ground in stage design. He died in 1927.