Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

    Born January 6th, in Moscow Russia, Died April 27th in Moscow Russia. Although during his lifetime Scriabin was never out of the mainstream music world. However, he was ignored quickly after his death. It was not until recently before his music and ideas were resurrected and studied.

    

    Scriabin wrote five three of which were the "Divine Poem", "Poem of Ecstasy", and the "Poem of Fire or Prometheus". He also wrote 10 piano sonatas which are now considered a must have in professional pianists repertoire. 

    Scriabin's hundreds of etudes and preludes are considered to be masterpieces of 20th century piano music. In the younger years of his life he stuck to the romantic style music but in his later years he began to explore atonality. Some say that if he lived longer than the 43 years he lived Moscow would have been the center of atonality.

    As soon as Scriabin passed, Sergei Rachmaninoff toured all of Russia playing concerts containing only pieces Scriabin wrote. Rachmaninoff and Scriabin were colleagues and students together in the conservatory. When Scriabin and Rachmaninoff were students together Rachmaninoff was the composer and Scriabin was the pianist. It was because of  Scriabin that Rachmaninoff was able to launch is piano career later in his life. 

Enjoy Horowitz play one of Scriabin's piano Etudes.

Op 8 No. 12

Another Soviet Union?

Its hard to read Vladimir Putin's intentions, but many do not believe he will stop what he started in Ukraine. Just several months ago, Putin and Russia took back Crimea after decades of separation due to the split of the Soviet Union. Putin, however brusque Americans and westerners believe he may be, is more intelligent in the affairs in which he concerns himself than people give him credit for. An invasion of Russia's neighboring country Estonia, while perhaps profitable for Russia because of its conquest of yet another country lost during the split of the Soviet Union, is not in Putin's best interests. While Russia's military force certainly remains strong, it is incomparable when placed against NATO and the treaties set in place to protect countries around the globe from being invaded. Therefore, Putin may tread a different path regarding possible Russian military movement into Estonia. In Crimea, Russian military entered and remained with no indicative pieces of evidence (no license plates, no logos, nothing). NATO and countries affected by the numerous treaties strewn throughout the globe (like the US) cannot act against or protect a country that they have an agreement with if the forces that invade their country are not marked. Russian's unmarked troops and vehicles ensure that NATO cannot act accordingly to their treaties with former soviet countries like Estonia and those surrounding it, should Russia indeed elect to invade more than one more of them. What I find most interesting about doing a blog post like this is that all of these facts, all of these statements about countries actually invading other countries, are relevant right now.

One of the the most iconic Russian items is the matryoshka doll. Matryoshka dolls were first carved in the 1890's by Vasily Zvyozdochkin and Sergey Malyutin. These dolls, for those of you that don't know, go in descending order of size to end in the ultimate one wooden piece baby. The dolls typically have a theme to them ranging from fairy tales to leaders. The dolls are created off of a "Matryoshka principal", meaning that each preceding layer is similar to the one before it, sort of like an onion. During production of the dolls, the wood is fit into shape using only the crafters eye measurements and the wood frames are placed inside one another in order to dry into a snuggly fit shape. The name Matryoshka means "little matron" and is derived from the female name Matryona. These cute little dolls are a great center piece for any Russian home. The dolls are each carved by hand with special care and deserve to be treated as such.

A Mirror Facing North

China Emulates Putin in Attempts to Quell Riots 

Russia has a history of information monopolization. And of oppression of what most would consider to be basic human rights. And moving from totalitarianism not into democracy but into quasi-autocracy.

And now, a country with many similar proclivities is borrowing some tactics. Much like Putin's response after protests in 2012, the Chinese government is now dealing with protests in Hong Kong about oppression, the demand for civil liberties, and information liberalization. This situation

 

is reminiscent of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 - a time which most Chinese citizens don't even know happened. The Chinese government hopes to continue that trend with the protests in Hong Kong - but this time, there's a different strategy.Tiananmen ended with soldiers firing into a crowd of largely peaceful protesters, killing over 100. However, in Hong Kong, the leaders are following the strategy of containment adopted by Vladimir Putin - a strategy which involves simply waiting for public opinion to shift back to the status quo, and then enforcing punitive measures on all those who had a hand in the fomentation of rebellion. And sadly, history makes it seem like this plan might just work. 

Humans are fickle by nature, and the protesters in China, similar to many of the Russian protesters, actually have more to lose the longer the ordeal drags out. Democracy isn't the ultimate goal - they feel that the good life is already achievable via the resources available in Hong Kong, just as many Russians felt they weren't fighting for basic rights, but rather luxurious rights. 

The fortunate news is that the situation currently looks far better than a different Putinist response to protest - Erumaidan in Киев. If the containment strategy fails and China continues to follow the lead of their товарищи to the North, the square might not look so much different from Tiananmen did 20 years ago. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/10/03/is-china-looking-to-vladimir-putin-for-tips-on-suppressing-hong-kong-protests/

Валенти́н Алекса́ндрович Серо́в

     This Russian painter known as Валентин Серов was the first of his era to perfect the "selfie". Joking aside, Серов truly was one of the premier portrait artists of his time. Серов was born on January 19th, 1865 and died on December 5th, 1911. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia to a Russian composer named Александр Серов and another composer of Jewish-German background named Valentina Bergman.
     In Серов's time span alive he accomplished many feats in his career. In his childhood he began studying art in Paris and Moscow, and as an adult studied in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts under Павел Чистяков. Серов's early creativity was influenced by Чистяков's realist art of Repin  and strict pedagogical system. His later influence came from old master paintings he viewed in the museums of Russia and Western Europe.
     The greatest works of Серов were his portraits. In fact, his portrait known as The Girl with Peaches (1887) was the painting that inaugurated Russian Impressionism. From 1890 on, his focus was mainly on portraits and Серов's favorite models were actors, artists, and writers (Константин Коровин, 1891, Исак Левитан, 1893, Николай Лесков, 1894, Николай Римски-Корсаков, 1898). When married to Ольга Трубникова in 1887, his wife and children were became subject of many of his works. Notably, his painting Children was of his sons Юра and Саша. In 1900, Серов was a member of "The World of art", an influential Russian art association and magazine. At this point in time a turning point in the art community began and Серов's modernistic style started to develop. The last years of Серов's life were marked by works on themes from classical mythology. While addressing images from the ancient tradition, Серов endowed classical subject matter with a personal interpretation.
     When Серов died he left behind a legacy for all Russian artists, and artists in general to admire. The best works of Серов are among the greatest of Russian realistic art.Also a random fact would be that a minor planet discovered by a soviet astronomer named Людмила Журавлёва named it after Серов  as 3547 Серов.

Russia's Ground Forces are set to purchase over 11,000 pieces of new armored vehicles and modernized weaponry by 2020.  The share of advanced weaponry in the Russian army is set to reach 70% by 2020.  The government also plans to buy over 14,000 pieces of modern sample vehicles, which will include such as:

                    -Modernized T-72B3 tanks

                    -Bronetransportyor BTR-82

                    -Modernized BMP-2

Commander-in-chief, Salyukov, has noted that by the end of 2015, their plan is to complete the development of new generation vehicles: "Armat", BMP "Kurganets", and BTR "Boomerang".

The Millennium of Russia

On September 8th, 1862 the Monument to the Millennium of Russia sculpted by Mikhail Mikeshin was erected in the Novgorod Kremlin. The sculpture is meant to celebrate the millennium of Rurik's arrival to Novgorod, the point at which Russian history is said to have begun.

The sculpture is made up of three tiers. The first tier consists of a young woman and angel dressed in national costume surrounding a cross to represent Russia. The second tier is composed of six figures, each representing different eras of the Russian state. The third tier is a relief illustrating 109 eminent figures of the country. Although the Nazis dismantled the monument during World War II, the Red Army regained control of Novgorod and resurrected the Millennium of Russia once again on November 2nd, 1944. 

 

Vladimir Bekhterev's legacy

Vladimir Bekhterev’s research and discovery of certain brain formations revolutionized the way neurophysiologists and psychologists around the world would understand the relationship between man’s physical condition and his mental state.

Bekhterev’s 1910 publication of “The Objective Psychology” asserts that all behavior can be explained by the objective studying of reflexes. Assuming this is true, we can infer that behavioral traits are observable. Conceptually, Bekhterev’s theory is opposed to that of structuralism, a more subjective view. Structuralism places a high value on introspection to study the mind, unlike Bekhterev’s objective psychology which is associated with external metacognition (thinking about thinking). 

Bekhterev was the rival of Ivan Pavlov who also studied behaviorism. They both developed theories about conditioned reflexes which are responsible for instinctual responses to environmental stimuli. Bekhterev’s association reflex is almost identical to Pavlov’s conditioned reflex. John Watson was the first to discover Pavlov’s research regarding his famous classical conditioning experiment. This research was adapted by Watson who later developed his own theory of behaviorism, effectively making Pavlov very well known in the world of psychology. Watson used Pavlov’s research to support his behaviorist claims, but later analysis suggests that Watson’s view is actually better supported by Bekhterev’s study.

The Good and the Bad!

The Soviet Union seems like a beast from the perspective of the Western world and many people had a sigh of relief when it collapsed. But how was life in Soviet Union? Very-very few foreigners know the truth about it actually. And even those who had the chance to visit the USSR, did not see the full picture. The real truth is known only by those who actually lived in the country. And yes, in most of the cases the life in Soviet Union was pretty miserable - totalitarian regime, mandatory enrollment in the Communist party, deficiency of many products, "iron curtain" (which meant the ban on traveling abroad), and many people killed and repressed. There are many bad things about then Soviet Union, and yes, it's great that former Soviet Union countries are now living in a democracy, but in this article, I'd like to list you a few good things that occurred in the Soviet Union, because I'm sure, many people don't even suspect that these things existed.

The Soviet Union was Good because:

A Grand Display of Culture

Their military, needless to say, was extremely advanced

Soviet Union had a far more efficient steel industry

Triumphant space program

Relative equality of wages

Русский Хэллоуин

It’s almost that special day of the year when all of the пебёнок run from door to door, dressed as призраки, упыри, и гоблины. Yes, I’m talking about Halloween; a beloved American holiday, marked by many traditions and the commercialization of death, which is celebrated each year on October 31.  Unfortunately, Russians do not share American’s adoration of this very westernized holiday. In fact, many areas have banned its celebration in schools and are encouraging youths not to participate in any activities at all. The components considered to be harmless fun by Americans are said to be satanic and harmful to children by Russian religious groups.

The rejection of Halloween has more of a purpose than to reject supposedly satanic principles, though. Many Russians believe that, by eliminating holidays such as Halloween and Valentine’s Day, Russia can revive some of its own traditions. Put simply, Halloween is synonymous with the westernization of Russia in the minds of many. After the Soviet Union fell, Halloween became very popular.