Text 8. RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS

The Russian Academy of Sciences was established in 1726 and has since produced great results. Students the world over learn about the conditional reflex experiments on Ivan Pavlov’s puppies, and about Dmitry Mendeleyev’s 1869 discovery of the periodic table of elements. Yet you may be surprised to hear from locals about Russia’s invention of the electric light and radio (didn’t you know?).

In the USSR science, hampered by secrecy, bureaucracy and a lack of technology, was dependent on the ruling party. Funding was sporadic, often coming in great bursts for projects that served propaganda or militaristic purposes. Thus the space race received lots of money, and even though little of real scientific consequence was achieved during the first missions, the PR was priceless. In other fields, however, the USSR lagged behind the West; genetics, cybernetics and the theory of relativity were all at one point deemed anathema to communism.

Physics - especially theoretical and nuclear - was supported and Russia has produced some of the world’s brightest scientists in the field. Andrei Sakharov (1921-89), ‘father of the H-bomb’, was exiled to Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) in 1980, five years after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his vocal denunciations of the Soviet nuclear programme and the Afghan War. He was one of the most influential dissidents of his time.

Assignment: Texts 9–14. Translate the text into English. Compare your variants with analogous authentic texts in English given below. Explain the peculiarities in naming Russian tsars.

Text 9. MARC CHAGALL

One of the most important names in 20th-century art, visionary Marc Chagall (1887-1985), often grouped in with the surrealists, was born in Vitsebsk on 7 July 1887. He spent from 1897 to 1910 in what is now the Marc Chagall House Museum (vul Pokrovskaja 11), now charmingly kitted out with early-20th-century Jewish knick-knacks and photos. To get there, turn left when exiting the bus or train station, walk one block, then turn right onto vul 1-ja Krasina. After a block you’ll see a fanciful monument to the artist; turn left here onto vul Pokrovskaja.

Chagall left Vitsebsk to go on to greater fame in St Petersburg and Moscow, finally settling in Paris from 1923, where he lived until his death, churning out fantastically poetic and often humorous murals and artwork. Many of his pieces reflect the Jewish country life of his childhood largely influenced by his beloved Vitsebsk.

Nestled in a pretty park, the Chagall Museum has two floors filled with 300 original, colourful lithographs (all donations), as well as reproductions of some of his famous paintings, including the infamous murals he did for the Moscow Jewish Theatre, considered so mesmerising that they were banned from the stage for distracting the audience.

There would be more originals at the museum had Soviet authorities accepted Chagall’s offer to donate some to the city of his birth; they didn’t think much of his art and declined. To get to the museum from Vitsebsk’s Regional Museum, head north along vul Suvorava to vul Uritsoho make a left and walk to the end; the museum will be on your right.

Text 10. КНЯЗЬ ПОТЁМКИН

Григорий Потёмкин(1739-1791) родился в бедной семье в Смоленской губернии. Поступив на военную службу, юноша быстро продвинулся благодаря неисчерпаемой энергии и отваге. Он был силен и статен. Однако красавцем его никак нельзя было назвать. Тем более, что он лишился одного глаза (Потемкин попросту вырезал себе воспаленный глаз в припадке раздражения). Потемкин был вскоре замечен Екатериной Великой и стал ее любовником. В периоды между военными кампаниями он частенько тайно заглядывал к ней в Зимний дворец - небритый, одетый лишь в домашнее платье и тапочки. Даже после появления у императрицы других фаворитов (некоторых из которых, кстати, выбрал сам Потемкин) он оставался ее лучшим другом и главным придворным. В 1787 г. Екатерина совершала инспекционную поездку по Крыму. Потемкину как генерал-губернатору хотелось, чтобы только что завоеванная область выгляделалучше, чем была на самом деле. В своем стремлении он проявил чудеса изобретательности и усердия. Вдоль пути следования императрицы были наскоросооружены бутафорские деревни. Местным жителям выдали новую одежду и велели смотреть бодро и весело. Так появилось выражение «потемкинские деревни». Такой же прием использовали в советское время, когда для своих и иностранных руководителей устраивались поездки по стране.

Text 11. POTEMKIN, GRIGORY ALEKSANDROVICH, PRINCE (KNYAZ) TAVRICHESKY, IMPERIAL PRINCE (REICHSFÜRST)

Potemkin, Grigory Aleksandrovich, Prince (Knyaz) Tavrichesky, Imperial Prince (Reichsfürst), born Sept. 13 [Sept. 24, New Style], 1739, Chizovo, Russia, died Oct. 5 [Oct. 16], 1791, near Iaşi [now in Romania].

Russian army officer and statesman, for two years Empress Catherine II’s lover and for 17 years the most powerful man in the empire. An able administrator, licentious, extravagant, loyal, generous, and magnanimous, he was the subject of many anecdotes. Educated at the University of Moscow, Potemkin entered the horseguards in 1755. He helped bring Catherine II to power as empress and was given a small estate. He shone in the Turkish War of 1768–74 and became Catherine’s lover in 1774. Made commander in chief and governor general of “New Russia” (southern Ukraine), he remained friendly with her, and his influence was unshaken despite Catherine’s taking subsequent lovers.

Potemkin was deeply interested in the question of Russia’s southern boundaries and the fate of the Turkish Empire. In 1776 he sketched the plan for the conquest of the Crimea, which was subsequently realized. He was also busy with the so-called Greek project, which aimed at restoring the Byzantine Empire under one of Catherine’s grandsons. In many of the Balkan lands he had well-informed agents.

After he became field marshal, in 1784, he introduced many reforms into the army and built a fleet in the Black Sea, which, though constructed of inferior materials, served well in Catherine’s second Turkish War (1787–91). The arsenal of Kherson, begun in 1778, the harbour of Sevastopol, built in 1784, and the new fleet of 15 ships of the line and 25 smaller vessels were monuments to his genius. But there was exaggeration in all his enterprises. He spared neither men, money, nor himself in attempting to carry out a gigantic scheme for the colonization of the Ukrainian steppe; but he never calculated the cost, and most of the plan had to be abandoned when but half accomplished. Even so, Catherine’s tour of the south in 1787 was a triumph for Potemkin, for he disguised all the weak points of his administration-hence the apocryphal tale of his erecting artificial villages to be seen by the empress in passing. (“Potemkin village” came to denote any pretentious facade designed to cover up a shabby or undesirable condition.) Joseph II of Austria had already made him a prince of the Holy Roman Empire (1776); Catherine made him prince of Tauris in 1783.

When the second Turkish War began, the founder of New Russia acted as commander in chief. But the army was ill-equipped and unprepared; and Potemkin, in a fit of depression, would have resigned but for the steady encouragement of the empress. Only after A.V. Suvorov had valiantly defended Kinburn did he take heart again and besiege and capture Ochakov and Bendery. In 1790 he conducted the military operations on the Dniester River and held his court at Iaşi with more than Asiatic pomp. In 1791 he returned to St. Petersburg, where, along with his friend A.A. Bezborodko, he made vain efforts to overthrow Catherine’s newest and last favourite, Platon Zubov. The empress grew impatient and compelled him in 1791 to return to Iaşi to conduct the peace negotiations as chief Russian plenipotentiary. He died while on his way to Nikolayev (now Mykolayiv, Ukraine).

Text 12. АЛЕКСАНДР I

Этот царь (годы правления 1801-1825) нес бремя монаршей власти неохотно. Он хотел жить мирно, но был вынужден бороться с Наполеоном. Благодаря славным победам русской армии Россия заняла место в первом ряду европейских держав. Однако сам Александр с детства не любил ничего военного. Это отвращение в нем «воспитал» его отец император Павел, который заставлял мальчика в любую погоду подолгу маршировать на плацу. Кстати, с этим же был связан и известный страх Александра перед дождем. Молодой человек был застенчив, близорук, туг на ухо и немного прихрамывал, поэтому ему больше нравилось проводить время не с отцом на плацу, а с бабушкой Екатериной Великой. Они любили побеседовать о свободомыслии.

Александр был вовлечен в заговор против своего отца, но не предполагал, что Павел I будет убит. Услышав о гибели Павла, он заплакал. Возможно, именно чувство вины за невольное соучастие в убийстве побудило его предложить утопическую идею европейской конфедерации на Венском конгрессе. Международный проект царя был отвергнут. После этого он ушел в религию. Зимой 1825 г. из Таганрога в столицу пришло известие о кончине Александра. Однако ходили упорные слухи о том, что это обман. Чтобы узнать правду, его мать специально поехала в Москву (гроб, вопреки обычаю тех лет, был уже заколочен).

Она опознала сына. Однако все-таки существует мнение, что Александр инсценировал свою собственную смерть. Он будто бы уехал в Сибирь, поселился в ските под именем старца Федора Кузьмича и посвятил остаток своих дней тому, чтобы вымолить у Бога прощение за отцеубийство. Говорят также, что однажды некто любопытный открыл гроб Александра I и не увидел там ничего, кроме песка и орденов.

Text 13. ALEXANDER I

When Catherine died in 1796 the throne passed on to her son, Paul I. A mysterious figure in Russian history (often called the Russian Hamlet by Western scholars), he antagonised the gentry with attempts to reimpose compulsory state service, and was killed in a coup in 1801.

Paul’s son and successor was Catherine’s favourite grandson, Alexander I, who had been trained by the best European tutors. Alexander kicked off his reign with several reforms, including an expansion of the school system that brought education within reach of the lower middle classes. But he was soon preoccupied with the wars against Napoleon, which were to dominate his career.

After Napoleon defeated him at Austerlitz, north of Vienna, in 1805 and then at Friedland, near modern Kaliningrad, Alexander came to the negotiating table. The Treaty of Tilsit (1807) left Napoleon in charge as Emperor of the West and Alexander as Emperor of the East, united (in theory) against England.