Hero of the Soviet Union Alexei Maresyev lost both legs after a serious injury. But he refused to retire and continued combat flights.
Alexei was born on May 20, 1916 in Kamyshin, Saratov region. His father Peter Avdeevich died when the boy was only three years old. Mother Ekaterina Nikitichna raised three sons alone. She worked as a simple cleaner at a woodworking plant.
After school, Maresyev became a turner and started working. But already in those years the young man dreamed of the sky. He wanted to enter the flight school twice, but failed since from childhood he suffered from rheumatism. In 1934 Alexei went to the Far East to build Komsomolsk-on-Amur. There the future pilot made his first flight as a member of a local flying club.
After serving in the army in the Russian Air Force, Maresyev went on to study at a professional college for military pilots. When the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941, Maresyev was sent to the front to serve as a fighter pilot.
His first combat sortie was in the region of Krivoy Rog. By the spring of 1942 the pilot had shot down four enemy planes. But in April there was an event that changed his whole life.
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You know, the World War II was the largest military conflict in history. In the late 1930s the rise of Nazi Germany brought unimaginable suffering to millions of people. Fortunately, Hitler was defeated in 1945. But the Soviet Union paid the highest price for the victory, which would hardly have been possible without the extraordinary courage, determination and endurance of Soviet people.
To tell the truth, the Soviet Union was the only country in the world where women fought shoulder to shoulder with men. And only in the Soviet Union women could become fighter pilots.
The aviation regiment was formed in October 1941 as the 588th night light bomber aviation regiment.
Pilot Evdokia Bershanskaya was appointed the commander of the female regiment. Under her command, the regiment fought until the end of the war. Only the girls served there. They were mechanics, pilots, paramedics. The average age of Night Witches was only 22 years. A special training center for women was set up in Engels.
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Konstantin Simonov is a famous writer, poet and journalist. His works, written during the war, were not just a reflection of reality, but also a kind of prayer. For example, the poem Wait For Me, written in the summer of 1941 and dedicated to Valentina Serova, still gives hope to the soldiers who have gone to the battlefield. Also, the genius of literature is known for the works Kill Him, Open Letter, The Alive and the Dead and others.
Kirill Simonov (his real name) was born on November 28, 1915 in Petrograd. Early years he spent in Ryazan and Saratov. His father, an officer in the Tsar’s army, left Russia after the Revolution in 1917 and died in Poland after 1921. The boy was brought up by his stepfather, who worked as a military specialist, and later headed the workers’ and peasants’ Red Army.
After completing basic seven-year education in 1930 in Saratov, Konstantin entered the factory workshop school. In 1931 his family moved to Moscow, and Simonov worked in a factory until 1935. During those years he began to write poems.
In parallel, Konstantin Mikhailovich was educated at the Literary Institute named after Maxim Gorky. Then he was accepted to graduate school of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History named after N.G. Chernyshevsky.
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Karl Bryullov was a famous artist, whose name became synonymous with the directions of classicism and late Russian romanticism in painting. His talent presented the world with unique works including Horsewoman, Head of Bacchus, Death of Inessa de Castro and many others. And his painting The Last Day of Pompeii still admires the true connoisseurs of art all over the world.
The future artist was born on December 23, 1799 in St. Petersburg. The Brullovs had many children: Karl had three brothers and two sisters. The father of the family had an impeccable artistic taste: he was engaged in ornamental sculpture, carved wood, painted miniatures and taught at the Academy of Arts.
Karl was a weak boy and spent a lot of time in bed. However, despite this, he studied hard. His father was a very strict teacher and sometimes even deprived the son of breakfast for insufficient diligence.
At the age of 10 Karl easily entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, delighting teachers with his talent. The first serious work of the artist was the picture Narcissus Looking Into The Water. In 1819, the painting brought him the first award – a small gold medal of the Academy of Arts. This moment is considered to be the beginning of a serious creative biography of Bryullov.
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Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900)
Works of the great artist Ivan Aivazovsky are in the treasury of world heritage. He was an epic sea poet, who won worldwide fame in his own lifetime. Aivazovsky had an absolute memory. He painted his seascapes from memory, extremely accurately transmitting different sea conditions.
Aivazovsky was born on July 29, 1817 in Feodosia in the Crimea, the son of an Armenian merchant. In childhood, he was fond of watching the sea, liked to draw ships and the waves. Drawing became his favorite pastime. His talent was noticed by influential people of the city. A.I. Kaznacheev, the mayor of Feodosia, sent a teenager to Simferopol school and subsequently applied for his admission to the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
Aivazovsky was surrounded with world fame. Since 1846, 120 personal exhibitions were organized in Russia and abroad. He was elected as a member of the European Academies of Arts: St. Petersburg, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam.
Vicar of Christ wished to get Aivazovsky’s painting Chaos for the Vatican.
In 1844, Aivazovsky painted about 6000 paintings and was awarded the title of academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
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Theophanes the Greek (circa 1340 – circa 1410) was a great Byzantine and Russian icon painter, miniaturist and master of monumental fresco paintings. By the way, he was the best of icon-painter and a wise philosopher.
Theophanes was born in Byzantium, and was therefore known in Russia as the Greek. Before coming to Rus he worked in Constantinople, Chalcedon (suburb of Constantinople), Genoese Galata and the Cafe (now Feodosia in the Crimea). To tell the truth, only frescoes in Feodosia were preserved. Probably, he arrived in Rus along with Metropolitan Cyprian.
Theophanes settled in Novgorod in 1370. In 1378, he began working on the painting of the Church of the Savior’s Transfiguration on Ilin Street. The most grandiose image in the temple is the image of the Savior in the dome. The frescoes of the Trinity chapel are best preserved. Theophanes had a noticeable influence on the development of Novgorod art.
The memory of Theophanes remained in Novgorod icons. In in the icon Fatherland (XIV century) there are seraphim, copied from the frescoes of the Church of the Savior on Ilin Street. His influence is also seen in Novgorod’s book graphics, in the design of such manuscripts as Ivan the Terrible‘s Psalter (the last decade of the fourteenth century) and Pogodinsky Prolog (the second half of the 14th century).
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Peter I (1672—1725), better known as Peter the Great, was a key figure in Russian history. He created the Russian Empire, so he turned out to be the last tsar of All Russia and, accordingly, the first Emperor of Russia. The son of the tsar, the godson of the tsar, the brother of the tsar, Peter was proclaimed the head of the country when he was only 10 years old. At the age of 17 Peter ruled independently, and in 1721 he became emperor.
For Russia, the reign of Peter the Great was the time of large-scale reforms. He significantly expanded the territory of the state, built a beautiful city of St. Petersburg, founded a network of metallurgical and glass factories, and also reduced the import of foreign goods to a minimum. In addition, Peter was the first Russian ruler to adopt the best ideas from Western countries.
The boy was born into the family of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov and his wife Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina. You know, he was the 14th child for his father, but the first baby for his mother. The boy was only four years old when his father died.
His elder brother and godfather, Fyodor III Alekseevich, ascended the throne and ordered to give his brother the best possible education. However, at that moment the Orthodox Church started a war against foreign influence, and all Latin teachers were removed from the court. Therefore, the boy was taught by Russian deacons, who did not have in-depth knowledge. As a result, Peter had a poor vocabulary and until the end of his life he wrote with mistakes.
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