Aleksandr Isayevich (at birth — Isaakiyevich) Solzhenitsyn was born on December 11, 1918, in Kislovodsk. His mother, Taisiya Zakharovna Shcherbak, raised her son alone.
In 1913, the future head of the first socialist state, Vladimir Lenin, who was a unitarian like Marx and Engels, wrote that a large centralized state "is a huge historical step forward from medieval fragmentation towards the future socialist unity of all countries." In the period from February to October 1917, the centuries-old state unity of Russia collapsed.
Russia has the largest territory of all the states. It covers an area of more than 17 mln km2, which is 30 times larger than the territory of France — the largest state in Western Europe.
Nikolai Gogol is a renowned representative of the classical writers of the nineteenth century, recognized for his works as a novelist, playwright, and literary critic. He is one of the most celebrated Russian writers worldwide.
He had a heart for butterflies, chess and literature but stood aside from other people and sighed for Russia. He left his homeland when he was young and firmly settled on the other side of the ocean.
Despite his short reign, Yuri Andropov was remembered by the USSR population. For a little more than a year in his capacity as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU), Andropov managed to prepare and partially implement some reforms that boosted the country's economy.
On March 27, 1793, Catherine the Great issued a manifesto on the inclusion of Right-Bank Ukraine into the Russian Empire.
For many decades of the twentieth century, the Russian Federation (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) was the largest republic of the Soviet Union. Like other Soviet republics, despite having its own executive, legislative and judicial authorities, it was tightly controlled by the Union Centre located in the same place as the republic centre — in Moscow.
When enumerating the leaders of the Soviet State, the name of Georgy Malenkov (1901–1988) always remains in the shadow of such historical figures as Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev.
On October 1, 1653, representatives of all estates of Russian society supported the idea of accepting the Zaporozhian Sich as part of Russia.
Lavrentiy Beria, a prominent Soviet leader of the Stalin era, became an icon of the power and cruelty of USSR law enforcement.
Anton Chekhov, a writer, physician, publicist, philanthropist, and a classic of world drama, may have lived only 44 years, but his works influenced numerous generations of writers both in Russia and abroad.
Alexander Pushkin was born on May 26 (June 6), 1799, to a noble family of modest means.
During the recent Direct Line, when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people – a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context.
Russian statehood spans over 1000 years of great history. Over that time, the small princedom founded in the northern lands became the largest country on the planet.
Peter the Great
