Milenapetrofig’s Blog

Bring America’s Past Back to Life

The first publicly available photographic process was invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced around the world. A daguerreotypist in the early nineteenth century would polish a sheet of silverplated copper to a mirror finish to treat it with light sensitive fumes before exposing it in a camera and then make the latent image visible using mercury vapour. The resulting images sealed under glass are detailed and have been used both for documentation and artistic expression.

Daguerreotype photography spread rapidly across the United States after the discovery first appeared on the page in newspapers by February early in the decade of the 1840s after the invention was introduced in a period of months to practitioners in the United States by the inventor of the telegraph code Samuel Morse.

*Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre in 1844 by Jean Baptiste Sabatier-Blot*

The inventor of the daguerreotypes Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was in Paris and met Morse in January of 1839 when Daguerre’s invention was announced. One of the original Morse daguerreotype cameras currently is displayed at the National Museum of American History in a branch of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

Born in Cormeilles en Parisis in the Val d’Oise the French artist and photographer was apprenticed in architecture, theatre design and panoramic painting. Skill in theatrical illusion led to the invention of the diorama which debuted in Paris in 1822.

A Frenchman in Jamaica Adolphe Duperly produced a booklet of daguerreotypes called Daguerreian Excursions in Jamaica, being a collection of views … taken on the spot with the Daguerreotype in 1844 which probably appeared in Paris. François Arago had in his address to the French Chamber of Deputies outlined a wealth of possible applications including astronomy and the daguerreotype was used occasionally for astronomical photography until the decade of the 1870s.

The first known photograph of a solar eclipse was taken on the twenty eighth of July in 1851 by Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski using the daguerreotype camera.

*Daguerreotype camera built by La Maison Suisse Frères with a lens by Charles Chevalier.*

Without bills being passed by Parliament as had been arranged in France Arago having presented a bill in the House of Deputies and Gay Lussac in the Chamber of Peers, the possibility of repeating the French arrangement in England was unlikely as the daguerreotype was given to the world by the French government with the exception of England and Wales for which Richard Beard controlled the patent rights.

Alexander Simon Wolcott invented the mirror daguerreotype camera according to John Johnson’s contemporary account in one single day after reading the description of the daguerreotype process published in English translation. The New Yorker substituted a concave mirror to gather more light resulting in improved image quality of the first photographic portrait created by photographing John Johnson’s father with the innovation.

Wolcott’s mirror camera which gave postage stamp sized miniatures was in use for about two years before it was replaced by Petzval’s portrait lens which gave larger and sharper images. Chemist Jean Baptiste Dumas who was president of the National Society for the Encouragement of Science as the Société nationale d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale is known in the French language put a laboratory at Daguerre’s disposal.

According to the Austrian chemist Joseph Maria Eder, Daguerre hardly was versed scientifically so that it was Dumas who suggested Daguerre use sodium hyposulfite discovered by Herschel in 1819 as a fixer to dissolve the unexposed silver salts. François Arago briefly referred to the earlier process that Niépce had developed. Daguerre had helped to improve it without mentioning the photograph by name as the heliograph and the physautotype at a joint meeting of the French Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Beaux Arts held on the nineteenth of August in 1839 at the Institut de France.

A well exposed and sharp large format daguerreotype is able to record faithfully the detail at a fine resolution. Two innovations were introduced that dramatically shortened the required exposure times namely by a lens that produced a much brighter image in the camera and a modification of the chemistry used to sensitize the plate.

Cameras were fitted with Chevalier lenses which were slower but projected a sharp and undistorted dim image onto the plate. Such a lens was necessary in order to produce the highly detailed results which had elicited so much astonishment and praise when daguerreotypes primarily were exhibited. The appeal of the image object medium lies in the magic mirror effect of light striking the polished silver plate and revealing a silvery image which can seem ghostly and ethereal even while being perfectly sharp by the dedication and handcrafting required to make a daguerreotype.

Since the Renaissance period in the arts inventors had searched for a mechanical method of capturing visual scenes. Using the camera obscura artists traced manually the visible or used the optical image as a basis for solving the problems of perspective and parallax on deciding colour values. A camera obscura optically reduces a real scene in three dimensions to a flat rendition in two dimensions.

The early seventeenth century Italian physician and chemist Angelo Sala wrote that powdered silver nitrate was blackened by the sun but did not find any practical application of the phenomenon. The first reliably documented attempt to capture the image formed in a camera obscura was made by Thomas Wedgwood as early as the 1790s according to an account of his work in 1802 by Sir Humphrey Davy.

From the discovery and commercial availability of the halogens iodine, bromine and chlorine developed a few years earlier by the French chemist Courtois in 1811, the production of bromine by Carl Jacob Löwig in Germany in 1825 and by Antoine Jérôme Balard a French chemist who found bromine independently in 1826 working during his lifetime from 1802 until 1876 and chlorine as a previously unknown gas by the Swedish Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1774 contributed to the meaningful silver photographic processes that rely on the reduction of silver iodide, silver bromide and silver chloride to metallic silver became feasible. The daguerreotype is one of the inventions but it was not the first as a French inventor Nicéphore Niépce had experimented using a technique that allowed a camera to produce the first permanently fixed photograph with paper silver chloride negatives in 1826 and 1827 while Wedgwood’s experiments were with silver nitrate as were Johann Heinrich Schultze’s stencils of letters without the use of a camera. Hippolyte Bayard had been persuaded by François Arago to wait before making the paper process public.

*Arthur Wellesley the First Duke of Wellington’s portrait made in 1844 by Antoine Claudet.*

Frederic Chopin 1849

Two Paintings from the Circle of Eynard

*Daguerreotype* *of an unidentified painting.*

*Daguerreotype of an unidentified etching*

Other Family Gems: paintings and etchings

Jean Gabriel Eynard was a wealthy amateur photographer born in Lyon in France in 1775 who made photographs chiefly for his own amusement. Daguerreotype processes in Paris were learned in the early 1840s not long after the invention was announced in the previous year. Financial independence afforded for the artwork of the era the time and ability to practice photography which was from its infancy an expensive pastime and difficult to master.

Assisted by a gardener Jean Rion at home Eynard photographed his family and his servants in the general daily life at a Geneva house in Switzerland. Artworks by the Swiss daguerreotypist or group were created and their role in the creation of ninety two works in the Getty Museum collection is listed below the title of each work.

*Carriage and team of two horses at Beaulieu house of Jean Gabriel Eynard*

*Group portrait of ten family members and friends in the circle of Eynard Lullin.*

*Group of four servants of Jean Gabriel Eymard*

*Jean Gabriel Eynard and his wife Sophie with Monsieur and Madame Regny*

*Self portrait with a daguerreotype of Geneva*

*Jean Rion by Jean Gabriel Eynard, Swiss*.

*Palais Eynard Town House of Jean Gabriel Eynard born 1775 and died 1863 in Geneva*

*Still Life of Greek Vases and Three Paintings*

*Portrait of six boys in military school uniforms with a schoolmaster*

*Orangery of the Palais Eynard in Geneva*

*Street in front of the Palais Eynard in Geneva*

*The self portrait of Jean Gabriel Eynard is with a daguerreotype of the Roman Forum*

*Portrait of Two Children of Sophie Eynard with their Nanny.*

Perhaps revelling in the daguerreotype’s capacity for recording minute detail Jean Gabriel Eynard combined sumptuous patterns to give the daguerreotype an extraordinary richness of texture. While he wore a boldly graphic dressing gown and slippers and his wife Anne sported an equally intricate jacket, striped skirt and lace cap and the giraffe skin patterned tablecloth together with the diamond patterned footrest add to the abundance of ornament.

Madame Eynard’s steady worshipful gaze might reflect the devotion of a wife to Jean Gabriel Eynard or it might indicate the desire not to move the eyes during the exposure. Often the pose was assumed with an elbow propped on a table when being photographed.

*Portrait of two children] / Comte Ernest Andre Gabriel de Traz de Budé et sa soeur Amélie* *1843*

Comte de Traz de Budé served as a diplomat representing Swiss interests abroad and diplomatic postings allowed him to engage with other European nations during a period of significant political and social change. The Swiss aristocrat and diplomat hailed from a prominent family with the life intersected by various cultural and historical contexts.

Born in 1808 the Comte’s lineage included notable individuals and their influence extended across Switzerland and beyond. While the diplomatic work remains significant the photographic portrait adds a personal dimension to the story.

A daguerreotype portrait of Comte Ernest André Gabriel de Traz de Budé and his sister Amélie exists. The daguerreotype created in 1843 captures the two children at the beach. The image itself is a testament to the evolving art of photography during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Last Stagecoach in a Historic Town

*Railway travel became more prevalent and consequently in 1873 the last stagecoach rolled out of Sunbury*.

Central Ohio’s historic Sunbury town square

The impressive Sunbury Town Hall was constructed in the centre of the square in 1848 and built two stories tall. Masons constructed the third floor of the brick building that served the in the town municipality for over ninety years. Ohio Historical Markers are placed around the square providing informational items for the public.

Near the actual geographic centre of the State of Ohio the village was laid out in the classic New England square in 1816 and the town’s centenary held in 2016 had many businesses on display surrounding the square. Sunbury was designed to be a stagecoach town by Lawrence Myers the town’s founder with an inn built at the intersection of two major stagecoach routes of the Old Walhonding Trail and the Delaware Newark Pike.
The Old Baltimore Pike was built before 1720 and connected Elkton in Maryland to Christiana. It was a turnpike called the Elk and Christiana Turnpike between 1817 and 1838. In the past it served as a major connection between Philadephia and Baltimore. The first stagecoach arrived in Sunbury from Mount Vernon in 1820.

Turnpike tolls were collected to pay for the maintenance of the road. The construction of the New Castle and Frenchtown railroad lowered the revenues of the turnpike and it became a public road again in 1838. The road historically went through agricultural areas but the surroundings have become more developed over the years.

Horsemen in the story of the Civil War figure prominently underlying the statue of a mounted soldier with boots and spurs on the stirrups and a plinth refers to Major General William Starke Rosecrans’ glory at the Battle of Stone’s River on the fourth of October in 1862 with a motto “Stand by your flag and country, my men” dedicated by the Big Walnut Area Historical Society and Delaware County Foundation with the Ohio Historical Society. Dubbed “Old Rosy” the Unionist soldier commanded armies of the Ohio, Cumberland and Missouri and in peacetime as an engineering graduate from West Point in 1842 constructed a river lock system.

A frequent local visitor around the building completed later in 1868 was John Chapman remembered as “Johnny Appleseed” edified in a statue of an American favourite definition barefooted and bearing the Pot Head and an axe in one hand. Notable stagecoach travellers who stopped in Sunbury included William Henry Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, Henry Clay with Johnny Appleseed.

Parnassian Memoirs in Art

Most of the Renaissance artist Claude Lorrain’s paintings included biblical or classical themes and their true subject was the light, atmosphere and poetic mood of the natural world. The painting done when the artist was eighty two years of age represents Apollo who is the god of poetry and music surrounded by the nine Muses who were the goddesses of the creative arts.

At the upper right is the winged horse Pegasus who has kicked a rock to release the spring that is a source of artistic inspiration. The colourful appearance of frescoes based on Parnassus which is a sacred mountain in Greece greatly contrasts with the sombre palace exterior.

*Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon by the French painter Claude Lorrain 1600 to 1682.*

Born in the Lorraine region of France the painter named Claude Lorrain or Gellée settled early in Italy and spent most of his life painting the countryside around Rome with its many associations to the ancient world. The nine Greek Muses were Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomeni, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Urania and Calliope. It was the role of the muses to protect the arts in Ancient Greece.
Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna who lived in the years between 1637 and 1689 in Rome made the original commission of the painting in 1680 which remained in his collection probably until 1789 by descent within the family when within the year of 1789 probably it was sold by the Colonna family in Rome. The tableau by Claude Lorrain was identified as the painting in the Filippo III Colonna inventory of 1783 and in a Colonna inventory of 1787 acquired in Rome by Robert Sloane after whose death in 1802 the artwork was imported in 1803 or 1804 to England by Sloane’s widow.
The Sloane sale is recorded in 1804 to Mister Bryan’s Picture Gallery in London and bought privately in the sale to William Buchanan who lived between the years of 1777 and 1864 in London. The painting was acquired on the twenty fourth of May in 1808 in the Buchanan sale at Oxenden Street in London.

Recorded as the owner in the inscription found on an aquatint of 1812 the dealer probably put up the painting at auction under the more famous name of Porter in 1815 and 1816. Curiously in discussing the history of the Colonna Parnassus imported by Sloane, Buchanan does not mention it among the paintings he sold in 1808 nor those owned by Porter or Carr who had been his business partner. A painting was bought in Bath and sold or passed by descent to Porter’s brother in law William Scrope of Castle Coombe in Wiltshire on the tenth of June in 1815 remaining with Scrope after it was withdrawn from sale by Christie, Watson and Woods to Bernard Pinney on the sixteenth of April in 1816 until after Scrope’s death in 1852. This would make its ownership by the Aynard collection in Paris by 1824 impossible.
The auction catalogue of 1816 includes it among the paintings that had belonged to Walsh Porter although unlike the others from his collection it did not appear in his posthumous sales on the fourteenth of April in 1810 or in 1811 on the twenty first of June. There can be no doubt that it is the MFA painting as its description in the Scrope sales of 1815 and 1816 matches that of the MFA work found in the information provided by the Getty Provenance Index. In The Treasures of Art of Great Britain published in London in 1854 the painting is mentioned in the second volume of the book. There was possibly an anonymous sale by George Stanley to Edward Gray in London by 1854 and was sold by Gray to Wynn Ellis in the Ellis estate sale in London on the seventeenth of June in 1876 then sold by Christie, Watson and Woods in London to Waters and was acquired probably from Waters in 1886 by William Graham of Oakden near Guildford in Surrey in the Graham estate sale. The painting passed to William Grindlay in London on the twenty third of April in 1887 and as a posthumous Grindlay sale by Christie, Watson and Woods in 1889 to Thomas Humphrey Ward and by them as an anonymous sale in London on the twenty eighth of June in 1890 to Sir William James Farrer.

In the posthumous Farrer sale in March of 1912 the partners sold to Agnew who in the same year made a sale of the painting to Trotti et Cie in April in Paris who sold it to the MFA in Boston for one hundred and eighty pounds in British sterling on the accession date in 1912 on the third of October.

Network diagram of agents connecting the British, French, Dutch and Belgian auction markets from 1801 to 1820 using 230,000 records from the Getty Provenance Index in 2014 in detail. © J. Paul Getty Trust and Maximilian Schich.

The information on the sales first was provided in a letter to the MFA from Burton Fredericksen on the sixth of September in 1988 and can also be accessed online at the Getty Provenance Index. It is unclear whether it is the painting presently at the MFA. The sale catalogue does not describe the painting except to say that it is known as the Colonna Claude and it is too well known to need description. It can be assumed that this refers to the MFA composition although several paintings by Claude Lorrain were in the Colonna collection. The catalogue gives the provenance as Reverend Holwell Carr, Mister Walsh Porter and Lord Kinnaird. It has not been indicated elsewhere that the MFA painting was owned by Kinnaird who lent the painting in 1889 to an exhibition at Whitechapel in Saint Jude’s.
The subject owes much of its inspiration to seventeenth century classicism and to Raphael for both the poses of its figures and its general composition. In ancient Greece the most celebrated oracle was at the town of Delphi on the south slope of lofty Mount Parnassus. There a sacred stone marked what in ancient Greek religion was believed to be the exact centre of the Earth.

From reproductions of the statue of the Aphrodite of Cnidus by the Attic sculptor Praxiteles on Roman coins numerous copies have been recognized and the best known are in the Vatican Museum as well as in the Louvre. Another work that has been recognized in various Roman figures in marble is the Apollo Sauroctonus.

During the Renaissance artist Raphael in the Raphael Rooms named in Italian Stanze di Raffaello in the Palace of the Vatican in Rome painted the frescoes at the commission of Pope Julius II.

(http://piweb.getty.edu): Description of Sale Catalog Br-273; Description of Sale

The Entombment circa 1612 by Peter Paul Rubens in a Christie’s sale in 1992.

At that time the provenance of the painting could be traced only as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. The number 146 located on the face of the painting appeared to be an inventory number in the search for a 1651 inventory preserved in the Archivo de la Casa de Alba at the Palacio de Liria in Madrid which lists this Rubens painting. Possibly its first owner was Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán Carpio living between 1629 and 1687. The Getty Provenance Index provides additional information about the collector, inventory and related documents.

Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the southern Netherlands. An avid collector who had one of the largest collections of art and books in Antwerp his works include altarpieces, portraits, landscapes and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

Peter Paul Rubens was the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens’ highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. Unique and immensely popular the Baroque style emphasized movement, colour and sensuality. Born in Seigen in Germany the painter returned to Antwerp at about twelve years of age in addition to running a large workshop in the northern part of the country known as Flanders.

The catalogue of Sir Peter Paul Rubens works by Michael Jaffe lists one thousand four hundred and three pieces excluding numerous copies made in the workshops which produced cartoons for Flemish tapestries and frontispieces for publishers in Antwerp. Subjects which were favoured by the nobility of an age included King Philip of Spain and King Charles I of England as the collectors of Rubens art.

*The young Maria de Medici Queen of France was painted by Rubens who lived in the period from his birth in 1577 until 1640*.

Sir Peter Paul Rubens created a remarkable painting titled “The Arrival of Marie de Medici at Marseilles.” The Baroque masterpiece executed between 1622 and 1625 was commissioned by Marie de Medici the Queen of France to commemorate her life and that of her late husband Henry IV of France when the Queen Consort served as regent in 1610 to 1614 for her son King Louis XIII. The painting is part of the larger Marie de Medici cycle by Rubens which consists of twenty four paintings.

*Le Débarquement à Marseilles* *or the arrival of Marie de Medicis born on April 26 in 1575 in Florence, Italy.*

A master of Flemish painting Rubens received a number of gold chains during his career including in 1609 one from the Archdukes Albert and Isabella of Austria and in 1623 from Christian IV of Denmark. The black hat worn at an acute angle while fashionable in the artist’s self portrait was around 1615 in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. The objects in the background of the portrait could be described as ‘…a rock and a reddening sky’ which in Latin would read Petrus et caelum rubens. Rubens blushing portrait is signed and dated with the inscription along the top right margin Petrus Paullus Rubens / se ipsum expressit / A.D. MDCXIII / Aetatis Suse XXXXV

The self portrait of the painter Rubens bearing the artist’s signature on the presentation to Charles I when Prince of Wales is in the Royal Collection Trust copyright of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2012

*The ceiling in the grand hall of the Banqueting House represents the apotheosis of James I as ruler viewed from below looking up into heaven.*

In the specific work Rubens portrays the moment when Marie de Medici arrives by ship in Marseille on the third of November in 1600 and is greeted by symbolic figures representing France adorned with the symbol of the royal Fleur-de-lis. At the bottom of the painting Neptune and the daughters of Nereus salute the Queen. Fame flies overhead trumpeting her arrival. Rubens skilfully transforms this historical event into an allegory that reinforces Marie de Medici’s right to the throne.

*King James I in an allegory of the Court painted by Rubens in 1621.*

Commissioned by Henry Danvers the Earl of Danby the self portrait of the artist was held in the Long Gallery at Whitehall in 1639 and was sold to Edward Bass and others for sixteenth pounds from Saint James Palace in 1651 on the nineteenth of December but recovered at the Restoration and listed in the passage at Whitehall in 1666 and again in 1688 returning by 1700 in the Staircase at Kensington Palace. In store there in 1710 it was installed in the Crimson Damask Cabinet at Saint James Palace in 1720 and in the Queen’s Dressing Room at Buckingham Palace in 1790 from where King George IV evidently borrowed it to hang in the Rose Satin Room at Carlton House where it is recorded in 1816 still appearing in Pyne’s Illustrated Royal Residences of 1819 and taken to Windsor Castle.

Measure of Man, Liberty and Virtue

*Portrait oil paintings of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesc*a *about 1465*

The couple are facing one another and the spatial element is suggested by the light and the continuity of the rolling landscape in the background representing the area of the Marches which the Duke ruled. The chromatic contrast between the bronze skin tones used for Federico da Montefeltro and the pale tones of Battista Sforza is striking. The portrait’s pallor not only respects the aesthetic conventions which were fashionable during the Renaissance but also might allude to an untimely death. On the back of the panels the pair are featured being carried triumphantly on ancient wagons surrounded by the Christian virtues in the Latin inscriptions paying tribute to the couple’s moral values.

One of the most celebrated portraits of the Italian Renaissance in the diptych features the Duke of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro born in 1422 with his death in 1482 and his wife Battista Sforza date of birth in 1446 and of death in 1472 and is inspired by the design of ancient coins traditionally during the period of the fourteenth century. The two oil paintings are in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The presence of the images on the reverse side suggests that the two paintings after being separate in a modern frame once would have been part of a diptych. An angle in profile signified that it ensured a good likeness and a faithful representation of facial details without allowing the sentiments to show through of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino appearing to be unaffected by turmoil and emotions.

The aristocratic and hieratic art of Piero della Francesca achieves a noble goal making the memory of the Duke and his Duchess seem eternal. On the reverse side including the two antique wagons in the company of the Virtues the Duke wears Armour like a leader while his head is crowned by Victory and the Duchess seated in a chariot pulled by two unicorns is accompanied by symbols of chastity to emphasize a pious gentle soul.

With a rational but metaphysical style the great artist creates the perfect representation of the Renaissance man aware of the centrality of a role in the universe and the importance of intelligence and culture. Classical portrait medals give an ancient solemnity to the two figures. The busts in the foreground dominate the wonderful landscape in the background in order to refer to the majesty of the court of Urbino.

*The ancient painting of Fra Teodoro da Urbino by Giovanni Bellini in 1475 details the learned character of the subject holding a book.*

Lorenzo di Piero de Medici was the ruler of Florence from 1516 until his death three years later and was also Duke of Urbino during the same period. The daughter Catherine de Medici became Queen Consort of France while his illegitimate son became the first Duke of Florence.

Ambitious by nature Lorenzo II despite being appointed Captain of the Florentine militia lacked patience with Florence’s republican system of government in 1516 and thus convinced his uncle Pope Leo X to make him Duke of Urbino at the age of twenty four years beginning a conflict with the preceding rulers in the person of the Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere. During the protracted war in Urbino della Rovere recaptured the city only to have a Papal army led by de Medici in turn to retake the city. Battle for control in the region ended with Lorenzo wounded which prompted the Medici to retire to Tuscany. By September of 1517 the city of Urbino was regained in a treaty and remained under the rule of the Medici family for only two years prior to the eventual return of the duchy in 1521 to the della Rovere family.

Lorenzo II married Madeleine de la Tour the daughter of the Count of Auvergne. and the marriage produced a daughter Catherine de Medici who became Queen by a marriage to the future King Henry II of France. Only days after the birth of Catherine in 1519 Lorenzo II died worn out by disease and excess.

*Lorenzo Piero de Medici the ruler of Florence painted by Raphael in 1519.*

Catherine was raised primarily by the Medici Popes Leo X and Clement VII with the surrogates in France and Rome. The Bourbon Princess was educated and disciplined by the nuns in Rome and Florence until the marriage in April of the year 1533 by her uncle Pope Clement VII to Henry the Duke of Orleans as the inheritor of the French Crown from his father Francis I at whose court she was esteemed greatly.

Along a long reign until 1589 with her son Francis II fraught with religious wars the kingdom was saved ultimately by the achievement of ensuring the succession of the Bourbon King Henry IV of Navarre by whom royal authority was restored. Catherine was renowned for the building of chateaus of the Tuileries and for the original design of Chenonceau.

*Sculpture by Michelangelo of Lorenzo II* *in the Medici Chapel*.

The tomb of Lorenzo II in the Medici Chapel of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence is adorned by the sculpture titled Pensieroso by Michelangelo. The disagreement has arisen over which of the two tombs is received viewing that it offers an idealized portrait of Lorenzo II but much is uncertain about that it is its companion piece also sculpted by Michelangelo which represented the uncle of Lorenzo II holding a mappa Giuliano di Lorenzo de Medici who was appointed Captain of Roman forces.

Ivory notebook diptychs from Late Antiquity featured covers carved in low relief on the outer faces. The consular diptychs celebrated persons becoming a Roman consul and sometimes were distributed as sets to inner circles and followers. Others presented as adjoining panels in mediaeval times commemorated a marriage or were in private use.

Some of the best works surviving from the later Roman Empire are panels of a diptych preserved by being reversed for use as book covers and consisted of a pair of wooden tablets with surfaces for writing. Byzantine ivory panels like one featuring an archangel exemplify the art form.

The Middle Ages have a rich history of artworks serving artistic and practical purposes with many panel paintings in diptych form especially as small portable works. Whether as writing tablets or decorative objects the diptych exemplified the mobile lives of the gentry in the Mediaeval Age. Religious scenes carved in relief were circulated in the Gothic period in the European spheres particularly in Paris.

Beyond collectors the Medici were great patrons of art and without the patronage many of these works never might have been created. At some point in history one woman had assured that the great collection including the Birth of Venus and Primavera by Sandro Botticelli and the other Medici art works would stay in Florence.

The collections were bequeathed to the city by Anna Maria Ludovica von der Pfalz the last heiress of the house of Medici who died in 1743 after the family’s descendant stipulated that they must remain in Florence. The highlight of the greatest treasure is the unique collection of Florentine Renaissance painting in a vital part of the city’s fine contribution to the development of European art. The works from between about 1300 and 1500 set the path that followed for the whole of the art in the Western world. Some of the works are no longer in chronological order but according to schools, regions and countries covering works from about 1500 to 1700.

Springtime of the Nations

Revolutions of 1848

In the rise of German nationalism in 1848 a series of loosely assembled protests and rebellions erupted across the German Confederation including the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The middle classes were raised in the liberal principles of democracy while the working classes not given the universal suffrage and the right to vote were clamouring for better living conditions.

Conservative Juncker aristocracy quashed the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 in Germany and forced the liberals into exile where they became known as the Forty Eighters. Many sailed across the Atlantic to settle in the United States of America from Wisconsin to Texas. There was plenty of political fervour but not the kind to be found in a glass.

Nationalism in Germany during the nineteenth century was a driving force that brought about significant political and cultural changes. The longing for unity influenced by historical events and the intellectuals bent on the economic factors and social movements laid the foundation of the German Empire in 1871.

Eminences such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe played important roles in the rise of German nationalism. Fichte’s speeches emphasized the superiority of the German people particularly and called for collective action to establish a strong and unified Germany. Goethe’s writings glorified German culture and history fostering a sense of national pride and identity of the German people.

*The painting Germania possibly by Philipp Veit hanged inside the Frankfurt Parliament as the first national parliament in German history*.

The results of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars as events that disrupted the existing political order brought to the forefront questions of individual rights and sovereignty with national identity. As a reaction to the French occupation and subsequently the Congress of Vienna headed by Prince Metternich the Austrian Court and State Chancellor conducted themselves wholly in the tradition by attempting to denationalise the question of the Rhine frontier and to treat it as a matter involving all the European powers.

German public opinion responded to signs of a French mobilisation that were almost devoid of emotion whereas the South German press already was engaged in a lively campaign against neighbouring treacherous intentions explaining in innumerable articles that France’s demands for a new frontier affected not only Prussians, Badners or Bavarians but all Germans.

German intellectuals and politicians began to advocate for a unified German state based on a shared language and culture in history. Nationalism emerged as a response to the political fragmentation of Germany which was composed of numerous small states and kingdoms of the German Palatinates.

The formation of the German Customs Union called the Zollverein in 1834 encouraged economic integration and cooperation among German states in a step towards unity which laid the groundwork for the political unification of Germany. Among different German states strengthening the sense of a shared destiny in the growth of industrialization and urbanization accelerated the process of building a German nation with the development of a common market and infrastructure that facilitated communication.

A united Germany could better protect its interests and promote its economic and military power. Intellectuals like Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Johann Gottlieb Fichte advocated for the creation of a strong German nation state to ensure the political and economic success of the German people.

Historically the ideas of the German Romantics celebrated the unique characteristics of the German people and legacy. They emphasized the importance of folklore, mythology and the tales of the Brothers Grimm in shaping the German national identity.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner the enigmatic German composer created the stage of something grand for the total work of art or Gesamtkunstwerk where music, drama, verse, legend and spectacle of a cosmic opera cycle that spans time and space are the very fabric of a canvas with the existence of Gods, heroes and cursed gold. These factors eventually paved the way for the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership in 1871.

The opening phase was called the March Revolution in German also the März revolution initially part of the revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. The series of spasmodic coordinated protests and rebellions arose in the states of the German Confederation including the Austrian Empire and stressed pan Germanism.

With the unification of Germany under democratic principles and with equal rights and opportunities for all Germans liberal thinkers such as Heinrich von Treitschke believed that a united Germany would be a beacon of democracy and progress in the heart of Europe. Treitschke was born in Dresden in 1834 and the views and sympathies held in the career as historian, political writer and a member of the National Liberal Party during the time of the German Empire favoured colonialism. Referring to the Kingdom of Prussia during the Austro-Prussian War led him to move to Berlin where he became a Prussian subject and the editor of the Preussische Jahr Bücher. Writings from the perspective of colonialism were influential but they also stirred controversy due to his strong advocacy of German nationalism and increasing criticism of liberalism.

Every virile people have established colonial power. All great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands, and those who fail to participate in this great rivalry will play a pitiable role in time to come.

Heinrich von Treitschke, lecturer at the University of Freiburg

Treitschke’s extreme nationalism also opposed the British Empire, Catholics, Poles, Jews and socialists within Germany. Previously divided into numerous independent states eminent figures like Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Ernst Moritz Arndt advanced the idea of a unified German nation inspiring a sense of national identity and common heritage.

Activism for liberal reforms spread through many of the German states each of which had distinct revolutions. They were inspired also by the street demonstrations in Paris led by workers and artisans which took place through the twenty second to the twenty fourth of February in 1848 and became known as the February Revolution in France. The riots resulted in the abdication of King Louis Philippe and led him to exile in Britain.

The revolutions spread from France across Europe with demonstrations against the government which erupted in both Austria and Germany beginning with large protests on the thirteenth of March in Vienna. As a result the resignation of Prince von Metternich as chief minister to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria in 1848 caused the statesman to go in exile to Britain.

Origin of the flag of Germany with cheering revolutionaries in Berlin on the nineteenth of March 1848.

Creating the German flag the demonstrators expressed popular discontent with the traditional autocratic political structure of the thirty nine independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire after its dismantlement as a result of the Napoleonic Wars.

French Emperor Napoleon’s mighty forces conquered and gained of control the whole of mainland Europe including the numerous German states. Napoleon reorganised Germany into thirty nine larger states also establishing the Confederation of the Rhine as a league of sixteen German states which brought about unification to Germany. Napoleon was defeated firstly at Leipzig in 1813 and then at Waterloo in 1815 bringing an end to the Confederation of Rhine.

Renaissance, Milan and Italy

Conte Carlo Sforza was an Italian diplomat and statesman living as an exile during the Fascist era. The major figure the Count became in foreign affairs was after the Second World War. Sforza was born on the twenty fourth of September in 1873 of an Italian family first named Attendoli that produced two famous soldiers of fortune and founded a dynasty that ruled Milan for almost a century.

*Conte Carlo Sforza was an Italian politician and diplomat pictured in January of 1945.*

Sforza was a native of Lucca and the second son of Count Giovanni Sforza living between 1846 and 1922 who was an archivist and noted historian from Montignoso in Tuscany and Elisabetta Pierantoni born in a family of rich silk merchants. On the paternal side Carlo was a descendant of the Counts of Castel San Giovanni which was an illegitimate branch of the nobility of Sforza and had ruled the Duchy of Milan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Caterina Sforza was an Italian noblewoman who ruled the cities of Forlì and Imola now in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy during the late fifteenth century becoming known for her cunning and audacity but also brutality as a warrior.

At the death of his older brother in 1936 Carlo inherited the title. Sforza entered the diplomatic service in 1896 and was posted in various capital cities from Cairo to Constantinople, Beijing to Bucharest and Belgrade as well as in London, Madrid and Paris. During the interim between the war years the Count was undersecretary of state for foreign affairs in 1919 to 1920 and was made minister for foreign affairs during the two years from 1920 to 1921. Resigning from the appointment of ambassador to France in February of 1922 nine months later Carlo Sforza was refusing to serve in the fascist regime under Benito Mussolini.

For nearly two decades Sforza lived abroad in Belgium until 1939 and in the Unites States after 1940 as lecturer and political commentator. When Sforza returned to Italy in 1943 the Count held a number of ministerial and other posts until he was elected a member of the constituent assembly in 1946 as a Republican. Joining the third cabinet of Alcide de Gasperi in 1947 as minister of foreign affairs and retaining this position until July of 1951 the minister resigned because of ill health and died on the fourth of September of 1952 in Rome.

After the War Sforza’s influence was a determining factor in the Italian ratification of the peace treaty and in Italy’s joining the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation and in its adherence to the North Atlantic Treaty. The organization set up by a convention signed in Paris in April of 1948 to coordinate efforts to restore Europe’s economy under the European Recovery Program called the Marshall Plan had among its many functions to help abolish quantitative trade restrictions between its member countries.

The OEEC allocated scarce resources among the countries and devised a system for regular consultation on matters of common economic concern. Superseded by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development including but not limited to European members it was abbreviated as OECD in 1961 with its headquarters in Paris.

The European Commission participates in the work of the OECD but does not have the right to vote. The G20 Summit Meeting brings together the member countries and a range of partners to collaborate on key global issues at national, regional and local issues. The OECD has thirty eight member countries that span the globe from North and South America to Europe and Asia Pacific.

A politician and prime minister of post war Italy from 1945 until 1953 Alcide de Gasperi contributed to the material and moral reconstruction of the nation. Born in the region near Pieve Tesino of Trento in the former Austrian Tyrol now in Italy in 1883 Alcide de Gasperi died on the nineteenth of August in 1954 at Sella di Valsugana.

From the age of twenty four years De Gasperi directed the journal Il Nuovo Trentino in which the defence of Italian culture and the economic interests of the own region were prominent. Elected to the Austrian parliament as an Italian representative in 1911 and joining other Italian deputies the Italians sought the annexation of the Trentino by Italy. When the annexation of Trentino was completed in 1919 De Gasperi was elected deputy to the Italian parliament in 1921 as one of the founders of the Italian Popular Party or Partito Populare Italiano representing the Christian Democrat tradition an adversary of the fascist regime.

A Sicilian priest Luigi Sturzo founded in January 1919 the original Italian Popular Party with its tight organization and discipline and won a quick success. Arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment by the militia de Gasperi was released after serving sixteen months in captivity through the intervention of Pope Pius XI and in 1929 became a librarian in the Vatican.

Active in the resistance during World War II Alcide de Gasperi succeeded in reorganizing the PPI as the Christian Democratic Party. Upon the fall of the fascist regime in 1943 the politician returned to the forefront of Italian politics. He became secretary of the Christian Democratic Party and was appointed minister without portfolio in the first cabinet of Ivanoe Bonomi in June of 1944 and minister of foreign affairs in the two succeeding cabinets. De Gasperi formed his own cabinet on the tenth of December in 1945 remaining in office for more than seven years.

De Gasperi signed the peace treaty with the Allied Forces and made the Italian Parliament ratify it in September of 1947 then enacting a new constitution in January of 1948. The institution of a land reform program over a long term in southern and central Italy by the government had sought to increase utilization of Italy’s natural resources by constructing new power plants fuelled by natural gas or natural steam of volcanic origin.

Many Christian Democrats looked for an opening to the left signifying an alliance with the Italian Socialist Party namely the Partito Socialista Italiano PSI. After years of careful political groundwork Aldo Moro of the Christian Democrats succeeded in forming a government in 1963 that included the PSI. DC and PSI cabinets dominated most of the decade of the 1960s and much of the 1970s. The DC weakened somewhat owing to scandal allegedly involving secret government influence of a Masonic lodge and the DC temporarily surrendered the premiership and presidency in 1981 to its coalition partners.

The party remained strong and was the dominant partner in a series of coalition governments until the early 1990s. The Cold War had ended in non-alignment along with the political climate that had enabled the DC and the PSI with their smaller centrist allies to form coalition governments that excluded the communists but tolerated political corruption. The DC was rocked between 1992 and 1993 by involvement of some of its leading members in financial scandals and political corruption.

The Italian Popular Party was the former centrist Italian political party whose several factions were united by their Roman Catholicism and anticommunism. They advocated programs ranging from social reform to the defence of free enterprise. The DC usually dominated Italian politics from the Second World War until the middle of the decade in the 1990s.

The struggling DC reverted to its original name of the PPI in January of 1994 but in parliamentary elections later that year it fell from power and was reduced to a fairly minor party. Subsequently joined to the centre left Olive Tree coalition from 1996 to 2001 the centrists participated as a junior member of Italy’s coalition government. The PPI merged in 2002 with the centrist Daisy or Margherita party which in 2007 was folded into the Democratic Party on the new centre left as the Partito Democratico.

Footnotes :Also known as Christian Democratic Party, DC, PPI, Partito Della Democrazia Cristiana, Partito Popolare Italiano.

The Settling of North America

Many historians have overlooked the broader political occurrences at the time of Dana’s mission. Several believe Catherine II’s refusal to acknowledge the American diplomat was founded on Russia’s desire to avoid conflict with Great Britain. Catherine the Great attempted to act as a mediator between the United States and Britain by submitting a ceasefire plan.

Catherine the Great played a modest role in the American Revolutionary War through her politicking with other European heads of state. The tsarina took a keen interest in the American struggle initially because it affected English and European politics and believed that Britain was to blame for the conflict. The empress Catherine held a negative opinion of King George III and his diplomats often treating them with contempt. Nonetheless the British Crown formally requested twenty thousand troops in 1775 and sought an alliance but both pleas were ignored. Upon Spain’s entry into the war Britain once again turned to the Russian Empire this time with the English expecting naval support.
During attempts at mediation the empress of Russia appealed to the nation though the Battle of Yorktown thwarted any hope of a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the American Revolutionary War.

As Catherine II took an ambivalent approach to the international policy in the period of the American Revolution some scholars believe that history underestimated Catherine the Great during the war. The negative opinion of the tsarina holds that the ruler acted in the best interest of the Russian Empire and did not offer help for the cause of the Thirteen Colonies.

Inside a political intrigue in 1780 during the period of Catherine II’s mediation Britain tried to tempt the Russian Empire into an alliance when London offered to Saint Petersburg the island of Menorca in exchange for the Russian agreement to join the British in the war. Despite the bounty such an acquisition would signify Catherine the Great refused on the occasion to win over King George III by seizing an opportunity.

Francis Dana served as the American ambassador to Russia from the nineteenth of December in 1780 until September of 1783. As the original mission in Saint Petersburg was to sign the convention about the adherence of the United States to the armed neutrality Dana had expected to reach an agreement about a treaty concerning friendship and trade.

The Founding Father and statesman Dana served as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1777 to 1778 and from 1784. A signatory of the Articles of Confederation Dana had been appointed secretary to the diplomatic mission that negotiated the end of the American Revolution before the diplomat was appointed Minister to Russia.

Firstly the Russian Empire had not recognized the United States as a nation and secondly the Russians formally could not accept a representative from a state which they yet had to acknowledge. The American diplomat fought against these presumptions and put forth in a long memorandum to the Russian imperial court that America’s nationhood stemmed from the Declaration of Independence and not from a peace treaty with Great Britain.

Due to these hindrances to the success of his mission the compatriot Robert Livingston moved that the Continental Congress recall Dana from Saint Petersburg the day after the signing of the peace treaty between the United States and Britain. The diplomat spent years in the Russian court only to see his mission uncompleted. Catherine II’s refusal to acknowledge the American diplomat although Russia and America shared a prosperous commercial aim to have merchants from both countries operating free trade after 1788 led the heads of state in Russia to use the denial of Dana as a leverage point in the annexation of Crimea.

*Russian territories in Europe between 1725 and 1792.*

Russia’s significant role in the American Revolutionary War was first and foremost Catherine the Great’s position as the sponsor of ongoing mediations between the European powers and America that transpired during the war years ultimately serving as a means of legitimizing and rallying support for the American cause amongst the other European powers. The political and military positions of both nations acted further to isolate the British within greater European politics and in the final analysis to help pave the way for the eventual victory of the young republic. The Revolution in America started a trend of positive relations between the two states.

Between Russia and America during the era the ideological conflict would have existed in either the monarchical empire or the democratic republic although the American victory weakened Britain and provoked a sharply negative reaction of the ruling classes in trading freely with each other after 1783.

By December of 1807 Russia first officially agreed to provide full diplomatic recognition of the new American republic. The American Revolution inspired some members of the Decembrist Revolt of 1820 in Saint Petersburg as America represented a motherland of freedom although revolution in Russia would not succeed until early in the next century.

Tsar Alexander I died on the first of December in 1825 and the efforts to swear in Alexander I’s brother Constantine ended on a revolt by a group of officers who refused to owe allegiance to the new tsar Nicholas proclaiming loyalty to the presumptive heir Constantine and the Decembrist Constitution. The rebellion led the new tsar Nicholas to turn away from the modernization of Russia by Peter the Great upholding the orthodoxy and nationality in the autocracy.

The Decembrists in the tradition of a long line of palace revolutionaries against the ruler on the throne wanted to implement classical liberalism in a revolt that was the beginning of a revolutionary movement. The uprising was the first breach between the government and reformist elements of the nobility which would open.

Decembrists at the Senate Square on the twenty sixth of December in 1825 when Russian army officers led about three thousand soldiers in a protest against tsar Nicholas I’s assumption of the throne after his elder brother Constantine removed himself from the line of succession.

The Don Flows Again

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov who was born on the twenty fourth of May in 1905 in Veshenskaya in Russia where he died on the twenty first of February in 1984 was a Russian novelist of wide renown and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965 for his novels and stories about the Cossacks on the Don River of southern Russia.

Sholokhov began writing at seventeen. The first published book being Donskie rasskazy or Tales of the Don a collection of short stories in 1926 Mikhail Sholokhov began the novel Tikhy filmed in 1965 as The Silent Don. Sholokhov’s work evolved slowly and it had taken twelve years to publish the book in four volumes titled Tikhy Don written from 1928 to 1940 translated into English in two parts as Quiet Flows the Don and The Don Flows Home to the Sea.

Another major novel followed Podnyataya tselina written over the period from 1932 to 1960 over the period of twenty eight years and translated in two parts as Virgin Soil Upturned and published as well Seeds of Tomorrow and Harvest on the Don. Oni Srazhalis za rodinu written in 1942 and edited in English as They Fought for Their Country is an unfinished epic tale of the Soviet people’s bravery during the German invasion of the Second World War. Sholokhov’s popular story Sudba cheloveka came out in 1957 under the title in English The Fate of a Man which focused on the period.

The first three volumes were written between 1925 and 1932 and were published in the Soviet magazine Oktyabr between the years 1928 and 1932. The fourth volume was completed in 1940 with artistic power and integrity in an epic of the Don that has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people.

Set in the Don River basin of southwestern Russia at the end of the Tsarist period in the early twentieth century around 1912 before the First World War the novel traces the progress of the Cossack Gregor Melekhov from youthful enthusiast to Red Army soldier and finally to Cossack nationalist. War in the form of international conflict and civil revolution provides both with an epic background for the narrative and determines the moral ambiguity of the tone.

The central characters are the Melekhov family from Tatarsk and descendants of a Cossack who married a Turkish captive during the Crimean War. The second eldest son Grigory Panteleevich Melekhov falls under the spell of Aksinia the wife of a family friend named Stepan Astakhov.

Romance and elopement leading to a feud between Aksinia’s husband and Grigory’s family develops in the novel as it also delves into the impending World and Civil Wars which draw young Cossack men into Russia’s bloodiest conflicts. Against the background of the revolution Grigory’s experiences include changing sides multiple times from Red to White to indifferent during the Civil War. Tragedy strikes when Grigory’s wife Natalya dies in childbirth leaving him with two small children cared for by Aksinia.

The historical novel is considered one of the most significant works of world and Russian literature in the twentieth century depicting the lives and struggles of Don Cossacks during three great events of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and Civil War.

After joining the Red Army in 1920 and spending two years in Moscow Sholokhov had been returned in 1924 to his native village in the region of southern Russia. Sholokhov joined the Communist Party in 1932 and in 1937 was elected to the Supreme Soviet. When a friend who was the secretary of the Veshenskaya party committee P.K. Lugovoi was arrested in the following August Sholokohov was due to take part in an international writers’ conference but he refused to leave the country while Lugovoi was being held.

Stalin sent another official Vladimir Stavsky to investigate the affair and invited Sholokhov to visit him in the Kremlin. After their meeting on the fourth of November in 1937 Lugovoi and two other prisoners on whose behalf Sholokhov had interceded were released but in a subsequent letter to Stalin the complaint was made that the people responsible for wrongfully arresting them had not been punished.

Khrushchev joined the Red Army in January of 1919 and served as a junior political commissar ultimately in the campaigns in 1920 against the Whites and invading Polish armies. Soon after he was demobilized Khrushchev’s wife Galina died during a famine. Khrushchev secured admission to a new Soviet workers’ school in Yuzovka in 1922 where he received a secondary education along with additional party instruction. Later Khrushchev became a student political leader and was appointed secretary of the Communist Party Committee at the school.

Khrushchev flew to Warsaw on the nineteenth of October in 1956 with other Soviet leaders and ultimately acquiesced in the Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka’s national communist solution which allowed the Polish people a great deal of freedom under the period of de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev’s shared decision to crush the Hungarian Revolution with an invasion by force with tanks came largely because of the Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy’s decision to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Aside from this sanguinary exception Khrushchev allowed a considerable amount of freedom to the European communist parties.

Several trips to western Europe in 1959 resulted in a meeting where Sholokhov had accompanied the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to the United States of America and then had joined in 1961 as a member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

Sholokhov was one of the most enigmatic Soviet writers. Letters written to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin boldly defended compatriots from the Don region yet the approval had been given to the sentencing that followed the conviction of the writers Andrey Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel on subversion charges in 1966 and the persecution of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn another Cossack intellectual.

Stalin viewed Tikhy Don as inaccurate but the novel was public knowledge and remained a classic of Soviet literature throughout Stalinism. The artistic merits of Sholokhov’s best novel are in such stark contrast with the mediocracy or worse quality of the rest of his work that questions have been raised about Sholokhov’s authorship of Tikhy Don. Many authors including Solzhenitsyn publicly accused Sholokhov of plagiarism and claimed that the novel was a reworking of another writer’s manuscript. Fyodor Kryukov a writer from the Don region who died in 1920 often is cited as Sholokhov’s real source.

Though a group of Norwegian literary scholars using statistical analysis of the novel’s language proved its affinity with the rest of Sholokhov’s works and despite the recovery of the novel’s early manuscript which had been supposed lost there are a considerable number of literary figures in Russia who actually believed that the novel was plagiarized in a problem of authorship.

The novel has been adapted for the screen four times since a 1931 film by Ivan Pravov and Olga Preobrazhenskaya before the second adaptation was directed by Sergei Gerasimov in 1958 and starred Elina Bystritskaya and Pyotr Glebov.

*Elina Bystritskaya a Ukranian was a theatre pedagogue in the Russian film industry and stage actress.*

A film remade in 1992 and 1993 was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk featuring the English actor Rupert Everett although the film was not finished until 2006 when Fyodor Bondarchuk completed editing and was shown on Russian television as a miniseries in seven episodes. A shorter version of three hours duration of Bondarchuk’s Quiet Flows the Don was released on DVD in several countries. The novel in a comprehensive adaptation directed by Sergey Ursulyak in 2015 was serialized for television in fourteen parts.

Ivan Dzerzhinsky based his opera Quiet Flows the Don or in the Russian title on the novel Tikhiy Don with the libretto adapted by Leonid Dzerzhinsky. Premiered in October 1935 it became wildly popular after Stalin praised the production a few months later. The opera was proclaimed a model of social realism in music and Dzerzhinsky was attributed a Stalin Prize.

Russian novelist and historian Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 for the short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich had submitted to the leading Soviet literary periodical Novy Mir a story based on Solzhenitsyn’s own experiences describing a typical day in the life of an inmate of a Siberian labour camp during the Stalin era.

Rehabilitated in 1956 the author of Ivan Denisovich was allowed to settle in Ryazan in central Russia where he became a mathematics teacher and began to write. The book produced a political sensation both abroad as well as in the Soviet Union where it had inspired a number of other writers to produce accounts of their imprisonment under Stalin’s regime.

Ideological strictures on cultural activity in the Soviet Union tightened with Nikita Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964 and Solzhenitsyn met first with increasing criticism and the period of official favour proved to be short overtly ending by harassment from the authorities when the author emerged as an opponent of repressive government policies. After the publication of a collection of his short stories in 1963 further official publication of the work was denied. Another resort was to circulate the literature in published form by the author as illegal literature clandestinely distributed on home soil as well as abroad.

The following years were marked by the foreign publication of several ambitious novels that secured Solzhenitsyn’s international literary reputation. The First Circle or V kruge pervom written in 1968 was based indirectly on his years spent working in a prison research institute as a mathematician. The book traces the varying responses of scientists at work on research for the secret police as the personages must decide whether to cooperate with the authorities and thus remain within the research prison or to refuse their services and be thrown back into the brutal conditions of the labour camps.

The book Rakovy korpus also in English titled Cancer Ward in 1968 was based on Solzhenitsyn’s hospitalization and treatment for terminally diagnosed cancer during his forced exile in Kazakhstan during the decade of the 1950s. The main character Solzhenitsyn appraised like himself was a recently released inmate of the camps. Solzhenitsyn’s first literary work as a personal treatment of experiences in the Stalinist labour camps established the author’s reputation and foreshadowed in 1973 to 1975 the work on a masterpiece titled The Gulag Archipelago.

Near Paris in the suburb of Fontenay-aux-Roses in France was a Russian critic and author of novels and short stories Andrey Donatovich Sinyavsky who was convicted of subversion by the Soviet government in 1966. Sinyavsky graduated from Moscow University in 1952 and later joined the faculty of the Gorky Institute of World Literature. The former Muscovite contributed to the literary journal Novy Mir and produced an incisive introduction to a volume of poems by Boris Pasternak. Among the works of fiction none of which were published in Russian, the anthology of short stories Fantastic Stories in 1963 explores the themes of government tyranny, dissipation and spiritual loneliness and was smuggled to the West published under the name of Abram Tertz.

The English translations of Sinyavsky’s fiction began with that of the novel Sud Idyot in 1960 translated as The Trial Begins which deals with the Doctor’s Plot of 1953 leading to a massive party purge by government officials during which nine Soviet doctors were unjustly accused of treason. Charged with poisoning Andrey Zhdanov the Central Secretary who had died in 1948 and Alexander S. Shcherbakov who also died in 1945 and who had been head of the Main Political Administration of the Soviet army the doctors in the conspiracy were attempting to murder several marshals of the Soviet army. The doctors at least six of whom were Jewish also were accused of being in the employ of American and British intelligence services as well as of serving the interests of international crime.

Sinyavsky and another writer Yuly Daniel were arrested on the thirteenth of September in 1965 and the following February were convicted of producing propaganda against the communist regime through their writings. Daniel was sentenced to five years of hard labour and Sinyavsky to seven years imprisonment. The trial record was published in the paper On Trial in 1966 which prompted domestic and international protest. Sinyavsky was released from prison in 1971 and two years later moved to Paris where the writer taught Russian literature at the Sorbonne. Later works include Mysli vrasplokh with the English title of Unguarded Thoughts in 1966 and Golos iz khora or A Voice from the Chorus in 1973 as well as Spokoynoy nochi in 1984 translated as Goodnight!

The Captain’s Daughter and a Father’s Blessing

Time has done nothing to dull the excitement of the story which for all its romantic coincidences is something more than a mere tale of adventure. Alexander Pushkin’s short novel is set during the reign of Catherine the Great when the Cossacks rose up in rebellion against the Russian empress. Presented as the dream of Pyotr Grinyov a nobleman the novel The Captain’s Daughter tells the story of a feckless youth and fledgling officer Grinyov sent from Saint Petersburg to serve in faraway southern Russia.

*Catherine the Great’s Palace Tsarskoye Selo is located in Saint Petersburg Pushkin*

Traveling to take up this new post Grinyov gives away his clothing to a gambling friend and then loses his way in a terrible snowstorm only to be guided to safety by a peasant to whom in gratitude Grinyov hands over his fur coat. The trickster Grinyov recounts in his memoir about the saviour in a gesture of Slavic gift giving mindless of the cold.

Pushkin’s prose is in the oral tradition of the literary narrative recounting the paradoxes of the character in The Captain’s Daughter. A classic historical and military novel set during the Pugachov Rebellion which contrasts the human internal world with the inevitable movements of history is derived from Pushkin the progenitor of the Russian novel as one of the collected works in seven volumes.

At once a fairy tale and a thrilling historical novel the singularly Russian work of the imagination is a timeless but universal account as well as a winning story of how love and duty can summon pluck and luck to confront calamity. After the arrival at Fort Belogorsk the protagonist Grinyov begins a relationship with Masha who is the young daughter of the Captain. Then Pugachov as a leader of the Cossack rebellion surrounds the fort. Resistance to the order of the Captain had been made clear to the Russian subjects would be met with death.

The wildness, cruelty and touching romance in the plot captured in prose of The Captain’s Daughter as the narrative is unfolding creates a baffled reflection from the position of political enlightenment on the extraordinary hold exercised by violence. Pushkin created Russian prose as a true poet in a language that is clear and objective at once absolutely unpretentious and penetrating.

During his campaign along the middle and lower Volga River Pugachov’s mere presence in a region was enough to spark off a general peasant uprising. At the rumour of his approach the peasants would gather at the sound of a tocsin, seize whatever weapons they could lay their hands on, whether scythes, pitchforks, clubs and perhaps a musket or two and march on the nearest manor house or state tavern.

Several thousand nobles and their families as well as stewards, publicans and tax officials and sometimes clergymen lost their lives or would flee at the approach of trouble with the Volga in flames. Pushkin writes in The History of Pugachov in chapter eight of the book that the Ataman of the Cossack host settled on the river in the Urals leading a great popular insurrection against Catherine the Great. “…Pugachov was fleeing but his flight seemed like an invasion. Never had his successes been more terrible, never had the rebellion raged more fiercely.”

The Russian novelist is remarkably succinct in the words “…Razve puskyi lyutsya na Tsarey?” The word that will function against can be implicit in “…Can canons be cast against Tsars?’ The sound and the theme in the prose of the two variants of the name of a servant can be remarked by the difference in the first seven chapters of the book and the last seven chapters.

The clergyman Gerasim’s wife Akulina Pamfilovna in chapter twelve calls her maids Palashka and Akulka but the narrator calls the servant by the name Palasha after the encounter in Masha’s room with the beauty and significance of the turning point in the novel. With the words “…may God grant you an honourable man for a husband not a disgraced turncoat” and “…Let him be a true soldier and not some fop of a turncoat in the Guards” the translation of the phrase “fop of a turncoat” is also from “shamaton” an uncommon word that appeared in the eighteenth century to have meant “turncoat” and in the 1830s to have meant “fop.”

The Russian title of Kapitanskaya Dochka in the translated text also contains the mention of “izmenik” as another word for “turncoat.” The inspired wordplay of Pugachov reproduces in English “jailbird” for “vor” which means “thief” and “voron” means “crow” or “raven” and “voronok” means “small bird.”

A romanticized account of Pugachov’s Rebellion in 1773 and 1774 has used the title The Captain’s Daughter also to refer to a collection of stories one of which was the actual novel first published in 1836 in the fourth issue of the literary journal Sovremennik and it is Pushkin’s only completed novel. The event was recorded by a contemporary historian belonging to the period of complexities and tension in society.

Pugachov’s Rebellion written in Cyrillic Восстание Пугачёва and Romanised as Vosstaniye Pugachyova also called the Peasants’ War or Cossack Rebellion of 1773 and 1775 was the principal revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in the Russian Empire after Catherine the Great as reigning empress from 1762 and in power until in 1796 by it overthrew the Tsar Peter III. A long reign began with the ideas of Enlightenment and inspired in Russia a renaissance of culture and sciences which led to the founding of many new cities, universities and theatres along with immigration on a large scale from the rest of Europe.

Russia was recognised as a great European power. Under the rule of Catherine II the nobles notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin relied on the successful generals Aleksandr Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov to govern at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding eastward by conquest and diplomacy.

The Crimean Khanate was annexed in the south following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russian Turkish war. With the support of Great Britain the territories were colonized of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the west ruled by the ally of the empress King Stanislaw August Poniatowski was partitioned with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. To the east Russia became the first European power to colonize Alaska establishing Russia in America.

Catherine the Great’s greatest diplomatic contribution came from the creation and proclamation of the First League of Armed Neutrality in 1780. The declaration of armed neutrality had several stipulations but three crucial ones. Firstly that neutral ships may freely visit the ports of belligerent Powers and secondly that the goods of belligerent Powers on neutral ships are permitted to pass without hindrance with the exception of war contraband. Thirdly under the definition of a blockaded port falls only a port into which entry is actually hampered by naval forces. Most European nations agreed to these terms but Britain refused to recognize the arrangement because it undermined the blockade which is its most effective military strategy.

Many cities and towns were founded on the orders of the empress in the newly conquered lands notably Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Nikolayev and Sevastopol as a continuation of Peter the Great’s modernization of Russia along Western European lines. Serfdom continued to be the support of the economy and the dependence on military conscription with the increasing demands of private landowners and the state intensified the exploitation of serfs for labour.

The origins of the words “ataman” and “hetman” are disputed. They may have several independent Germanic and Turkic origins all referring to the same concept. The Ukrainian form hetman is cognate with the German word Hauptmann meaning “captain” or “headman” in the Czech or Polish language. The Russian term ataman most likely is connected to Old East Slavic vatamanŭ and shares similarities with the Turkic term odoman used by the Ottoman Turks with the suggestion that it might mean “father of the horsemen, father of men” and “hetman” in Turkic language.

Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate or the Otaman leaders held a position of lower rank. Otamans were usually elected by the host council or appointed during military campaigns as military units of sources other than artillery. The title was used for administrative purposes by the head of a city.

Chiefly the reasons behind the discontent among the Cossacks, nomads, peoples of the Volga and peasants were manifested under the uprisings against the enlightened despots. The rebellion managed to consolidate support from various groups including the peasants, the Cossacks and old believers with the priesthood. At one point its administration claimed control over most of the territory between the Volga River and the Urals. One of the most significant events of the insurrection in July of 1774 was the Battle of Kazan.

An organized insurrection of Yaik Cossacks in a journey to the Black River as was named on old the Yaik renamed the Ural in 1775 was headed by Yemelyan Pugachov a disaffected former lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Army against a background of profound peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire. After initial success Pugachov assumed leadership of an alternative government in the name of the late Tsar Peter III and proclaimed an end to serfdom. The organized leadership presented a challenge to the imperial administration of Catherine II.

Under the guise of Peter III Pugachov formed a bureaucracy and army which imitated that of the empress Catherine. Some commanders took the pseudonyms of dukes and courtiers namely Zarubin Chaika Pugachov’s major ally and in the guise of Zakhar Chernyshev was a chief of the army Pugachov established at the top levels of command in posture of Catherine. The organizational structure Pugachov set up for the army was extraordinary considering Pugachov had defected as an ensign from Catherine’s army.

Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov where the narrative is conducted on his behalf is the only surviving child of a retired officer Andrej and his wife Avdotija Vasilievna. Arriving in Orenburg Pyotr reports to his commanding officer and is assigned to serve at Fort Belogorsky under Captain Ivan Mironov who is Marja’s father and the army’s captain.

The fort is little more than a fence around a village and the Captain’s wife Vasilisa Egorovna is in charge. Pyotr befriends his fellow officer Aleksej Shvabrin who has been banished there after a duel resulting in the death of his opponent. When Pyotr dines with the Mironov family and their daughter Masha a relationship begins between them causing a rift between Pyotr and Shvabrin who has been rejected by Masha. When Shvabrin insults Masha’s honour Pyotr and his enemy Shvabrin duel and Pyotr is injured. Pyotr asks his father’s consent to marry Masha but is refused by her father.

Masha and Pyotr in an
illustration by watercolour painter and illustrator Pavel Sokolov.

The fortress is besieged not much later by the insurgent Yemelyan Pugachov who claims to be the emperor Peter III as the Cossacks stationed at the fortress defect to the forces of Pugachov. Since the fortress is taken easily with the following demands that Captain Mironov swear an oath of allegiance to Pugachov and when refused the rebel leader hangs the Captain and kills his wife. When it is Pyotr’s turn Shvabrin suddenly appears to have defected as well and upon his advice Pugachov orders Pyotr to be hanged. The life of Pyotr suddenly is spared as Pugachov is revealed as the guide who rescued him from the blizzard and in recognition remembers Pyotr with affection.

The next evening Pyotr and Pugachov talk in private. Pyotr impresses Pugachov with the sincerity of his insistence that he cannot serve in the army. Pugachov decides to let Pyotr go to Orenburg to relay a message to the Governor Andrej Karlovich that Pugachov will be marching on the city. The fort is to be left under the command of Shvabrin who takes advantage of the situation to try to compel Masha to marry him. Pyotr rushes away to prevent this marriage but is captured by Pugachov’s troops. After explaining the situation to Pugachov both officers ride directly to the fortress.

Marja Ivanovna is Pyötr’s great love and his future wife. After Masha is freed both herself and Pyotr embark on the voyage to his father’s estate but they are intercepted by Imperial troops. Pyotr decides to stay with the army and sends Masha to visit his father. The war with Pugachov at the head goes on and Pyotr rejoins the army. At the moment of Pugachov’s defeat Pyotr is arrested for having favourable relations with Pugachov. During the interrogation Shvabrin testifies that Pyotr is a traitor. Not willing to induce Masha into court Pyotr is unable to repudiate the accusation and receives a death penalty. Although the empress Catherine the Great also known by the name of Sofia Augusta commutes his death sentence Pyotr remains a prisoner.

Masha understands why Pyotr was unable to defend himself and decides to go to Saint Petersburg to present a petition to the empress. Meeting a lady of the court in Tsarskoye Selo Masha details her plan to reach the empress on Pyotr’s behalf. The lady refuses at first saying that Pyotr is a traitor but Masha is able to explain all the circumstances. After Masha receives an invitation to see the empress the young woman is shocked to recognize her as the lady she had talked to earlier. The empress has become convinced of Pyotr’s innocence and has ordered his release. Pyotr witnesses the beheading of Pugachov. Pyotr and Masha are married.

Pushkin’s work set in Russia towards the 1820s is engaging with the suspenseful moments and rich in literary and autobiographical digressions. The philosophical novel often is satire offering a glimpse into Russian society during the era. Alexander Pushkin is the author of a literary masterpiece that has captivated readers for generations.

An introduction discussing Pushkin’s life and writings on politics as well as previous translations of the work captures the cadences and lightness of the original verse. After traveling through the Caucasus and the Crimea the army officer was sent to Bessarabia where he wrote The Captive of the Caucasus and The Fountain at Bakhchisaray and began Eugene Onegin. Writings on the work took an increasingly serious turn during the last year of his southern exile in Odessa. Transferred to northwest Russia in 1824 the officer wrote the historical drama Boris Godunov, continued a lyrical poem Eugene Onegin and finished The Gipsies but was mortally wounded and died in January of 1837. Pushkin felt more and more isolated and often thought of retiring to the country where free from perpetual money worries and the silly trivialities of fashionable life the poet could devote himself entirely to writing.

Tired of the glittering ballrooms and glamour of Saint Petersburg society the aristocratic dandy in Eugene Onegin retreats to the country estate recently inherited. With the arrival of the idealistic young poet Vladimir Lendsky an unlikely friendship begins while the poet welcomes the urbane addition to his small social circle and is happy to introduce Onegin to his fiancée Olga and her family. When Olga’s sister Tatiana begins the relationship with Onegin the cold rejection of love brings about a tragedy that engulfs all. Unfolding with dream like inevitability and dazzling energy Pushkin’s tragic poem is one of the great works of Russian literature.

“Blest who betimes has left life’s revel, whose wine-filled glass he has not drained” is the translation of “Blazhen, kto vovremya pokinul pirshestvo zhizni, chey bokal, napolnennyy vinom, on ne osushil.”

Retaining all of the original poem one of the finest of existing verse translations into English reproduces every facet of the poet’s style of writing with the precise meaning, the wit and the lyricism without once finding there a false note either in verse or chronology.

*Alexander* *Pushkin* *wrote in prose and poetry at the time of revolutions in the early nineteenth centry in Russia.*

Russian Opera in verse

Tchaikovsky – Letter Scene (Eugene Onegin) (1878)