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Post by Woland on Jun 14, 2020 12:26:05 GMT -5
Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) was an artist, poet and model. Born in London to parents of English and Welsh descent, she got into poetry and drawing at a young age. She got her big break working at a dressmaker's store, in 1849 she showed her drawings to the father of Walter Deverell, from there she became acquainted with the Pre-Raphaelites. Despite her own poetry and artwork she's most famous as the model for John Everett Millais' "Ophelia"; to capture the precise details of the drowning victim Elizabeth had to sit in a bath for hours during the winter, one time the lamps keeping the tub warm went out and Elizabeth caught pneumonia. She was also the major muse for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, they married in 1860 despite misgivings from his family; her health was so poor she had to be carried to the Church, only a 5 minute walk from her place.
Whether she had tuberculosis or an intestinal disorder is undetermined, she definitely suffered from depression and an addiction to laudanum. The death of her newborn daughter exacerbated her depression, trips to France and Italy to alleviate her illness did not help. In 1862 while pregnant she was found dead in her bed, overdosed on laudanum. Claims of suicide haven't been substantiated.
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Post by Woland on Jun 15, 2020 12:56:45 GMT -5
Raphael (1483-1520) was one of the leading lights of the Italian Renaissance. Born in central Italy he grew up in artistic circles of the nobility; his father was court painter to the Duke of Urbino. Orphaned at age 11, he partly managed his father's art workshop with help from relatives, around 17 he began an art apprenticeship, the start of a legendary artistic career. He worked in Florence and Rome, even indulged in a little architecture in Rome. Raphael was never married, his fiancée died in 1520, although he was known to have several affairs, Raphael himself died the same year after a 2 week illness; one theory about his death suggests he contracted an STD and was too ashamed to admit this to the doctor, who administered a cure which only exacerbated his illness.
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Post by Woland on Jun 16, 2020 10:54:20 GMT -5
Sergei Korolev (1907-1966) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer during the Space Race between the USSR and the USA. A gifted yet argumentative child, he was training to be a carpenter when he designed an air glider on the side, beginning a long love affair with aviation and aeronautical engineering. Once graduated he began designing gliders and aircraft, working as lead engineer on heavy bombers, marrying his love of gliders with rocket engines which may have propelled his interest into space. In the 1930s he supervised cruise missile development for the Soviet State, becoming lead engineer at the Jet Propulsion Research Institute.
In 1938 he was arrested by the NKVD on bogus charges, his death sentence commuted to hard labour in a Siberian prison camp for a year, he was later moved to a labour camp for intellectuals, all in all he spent 6 years in camp before his release near the end of the 2nd World War. After he recovered German Rocket technology at the end of the War, he joined the Communist Party to receive funding for his design projects, developing intercontinental ballisitc missiles. From there it was a short leap to Space, Korolev oversaw the design and launch of Sputnik, he also oversaw satellites orbiting the moon and dreamt up plans for missions to Mars and Venus. Not only was he responsible for launching dogs successfully into orbit and returning to Earth (after some trial and error), he oversaw Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man launched into Space.
In the 1960s his health deteriorated after a couple heart attacks, numerous stories surrounded his death, his family confirmed he died from surgery complications. During his lifetime his name was kept secret by the State for fear of foreign agents learning about him, the Soviet people didn't learn about his accomplishments until after his death, he would've received a Nobel Prize if it wasn't for all the secrecy around his real identity.
The late cosmonaut Alexei Leonov describes him thus:
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Post by Woland on Jun 16, 2020 16:03:22 GMT -5
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was born into a noble Russian family with plenty of naval and military officers in their history; one of the Catherine the Great's lovers was a Rimsky-Korsakov. Nikolai took up piano lessons at 6 years old but he preferred literature over music, composing over playing. He joined the Navy in his early teens and studied Mathematical & Navigational Sciences, taking piano lessons on the side along with composition. At 18 he was introduced to Mily Balakirev and later to Cesar Cui and Modest Mussorgsky, encouraged to take up composing while balancing his duties in the Imperial Navy. During a 2 year stint aboard a sailing vessel he read voraciously but found the time away from music hurt his composing.
Once back in St. Petersburg he conversed with his fellow composers known as "The Five", threw himself into composing music once again. In 1871 he became Professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Aware of his technical shortcomings he took a 3-year sabbatical from composing to overcome his deficiencies. His studies of Western styles saw him clash with his fellow composers who accused him of selling out his nationalist leanings. In the 1880s he kept himself busy completing works by the late Mussorgsky and late Borodin. In the 1890s after another creative drought he began to focus on composing operas, he also developed angina at this time. A series of deaths and the stress brought on by the 1905 Revolution worsened his health until he died at the age of 64, highly regarded as one of the finest Russian composers of his time.
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Post by Woland on Jun 18, 2020 10:40:53 GMT -5
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a writer responsible for one of the longest novels ever written. Born to a wealthy family in Auteuil, Paris just a couple months after the Franco-Prussian War, his father an epidemiologist, his mother was so well-read she helped Marcel's translations of John Ruskin. He was a sickly child as a youth, in his later years he was practically bed-ridden, by contrast his brother was a sturdy chap who served as a military surgeon during the First World War. Despite his health issues he excelled at literature in school and served a year in the French Army stationed at Orleans, he wrote columns and contributed to a literary review journal in his 20s, the shock of losing both his parents in his 30s was only mildly dampened by his inheritance.
As he frequented the upper class salons he got a glimpse of the declining aristocracy, in 1909 he would embark on the novel that would make his name: À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past). A 7 volume affair over 4,000 pages long and over 1,000,000 words, the first volume was rejected by several publishers until released in 1913. Proust would work on it from home; his illness so debilitating he slept during the day and wrote at night to get it done, but he died of pneumonia before he finished the final draft of Volume 7. After his death his brother helped edit the rest while the first English translator of the novel died before he could finish translating the whole thing.
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Post by Woland on Jun 19, 2020 12:20:58 GMT -5
Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915) was a popular author of books on insects. Growing up poor he was largely self-taught, earning a teaching post in Provence, Corsica and Avignon while continuing his studies in physics, chemistry and botany. His entomology books written in an engaging manner full of lucid observations have earned him the nickname "Godfather of Entymology". His 10 volume series "Souvenirs Entomologiques" was an influence on Charles Darwin; Fabre disliked grand theories and systems hence he didn't share Darwin's enthusiasm for the theory of evolution. He wrote dozens of textbooks on entymology before his death, his books have earned him comparisons with David Attenborough.
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Post by Woland on Jun 20, 2020 13:55:17 GMT -5
Alexander Nevsky (1221-1263) was an important figure in Medieval Russian history. He served as Grand Prince of Kiev (1236-1252) then became Grand Prince of Vladimir (1252-1263). The second son of Prince Yaroslav, Alexander was summoned to become Prince of Novgorod in 1236, as military leader he was tasked with defending the great Northern city from German and Swedish invaders. With the Mongols invading from the East and Swedish forces invading from the West, Nevsky needed to avoid getting crushed from both sides. On 15th July 1240 Alexander and his armies defeated Swedish forces on the Neva River, preventing an all-out invasion from the West and earning himself the nickname "Nevsky". The victory damaged his relationship with the boyars he had to go into exile for a couple years, he returned in 1242 once word got out of Germans and Estonians invading Pskov, on 5th April Alexander and his forces met the Livonian heavy cavalry on the frozen ice of Lake Peipus, his infantry defeated the heavy cavalry on the famous "Battle of the Ice". Alexander would send envoys to Norway to forge a peace treaty in 1251, five years later when the Swedes tried to block Baltic access to the Russians Nevsky defeated them again.
Nevsky was less belligerent towards the Mongols, perhaps they were too strong for the Russians at that time, or their religious tolerance was more acceptable compared to Catholicism from the West. He agreed to pay tribute to the Mongols, doing his best to ensure the citizens didn't rise up against their overlords incase of Mongol reprisals. Thanks to his friendship with Sartaq Khan (son of Batu, great-grandson of Genghis), he became Grand Prince of Vladimir until he died on the return journey from Sarai (capital of the Golden Horde).
Alexander Nevsky was canonised as a saint in 1547. In 2008 he was voted the Greatest Russian of all time.
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Post by Woland on Jun 21, 2020 12:48:32 GMT -5
Isaak Levitan (1860-1900) was a famous Russian landscape painter. Born into a poor Jewish family in the Russian Empire (now modern day Lithuania). He studied in Moscow under Alexei Savrasov, befriended the brother of Anton Chekhov, lost both his parents in the span of 2 years and was given a scholarship to continue his artistic studies. A couple times his jewish heritage became a problem for the State and the Art School, his long friendship with the Chekhovs sustained him along with his moody landscape paintings. The Chekhov friendship wasn't always smooth; Levitan believed Chekhov had based a romantic story in his story "The Grasshopper" on Levitan's real life romance with a married woman, a duel was threatened, Anton later apologised but the two did not reconcile for a few more years. Levitan's life-long heart problem saw him move to Crimea for the last few years of his life, staying with the Chekhovs.
Today he is considered one of the greatest Russian landscape painters, his period from the mid 1880s until the mid 1890s being his absolute prime.
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Post by Woland on Jun 22, 2020 7:35:38 GMT -5
Mary Ann Evans, better known as George Eliot (1819-1880) was an English writer of 7 novels, she used a male pen name to separate her novels from her earlier work as editor and critic. She was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, her father had Welsh ancestry. Considered an ugly yet intelligent child unsuitable for marriage, her father invested in her education until she hit 16. Her father's job managing an Estate gave Mary Ann access to all the books in the library, including Greek literature. After her mother died and her married brother took over the family home, she moved with her father to Coventry. At this point Mary Ann was doubting her religion, her introduction to free-thinking intellectuals increased those doubts until her father threatened to kick her out. After his death in 1849 Mary Ann spent a year in Switzerland, the alpine landscapes were a great inspiration for her. She moved to London, her circle of friends and previous translation work earned her an assistant editor role on the left-wing journal "The Westminster Review", she also attended mathematics classes at Bedford College. She also began a relationship with philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes who was married at the time, their trip to Weimar and Berlin served as research trip and a sort of honeymoon for the couple. Mary Ann Evans was not satisfied with essays, she was determined to become a novelist.
She adopted the pen name George Eliot to publish her first collection of short stories "Scenes from a Clerical Life", the popular novel "Adam Bede" followed with the public speculating over the true identity of the writer. Her identity neither her relationship with a married man damaged her literary career, it took a while for the couple to be accepted in polite society. Over the next 15 years she would write several more novels, her most acclaimed being the provincial realist novel "Middlemarch" in 1872. After she finished her last novel "Daniel Deronda", she moved to Surrey to improve Lewes' failing health, after his death in 1878 George Eliot married a Scottish commission agent John Walter Cross, 20 years younger than her. On their honeymoon in Venice John jumped from his balcony into the Grand Canal in a depressive fit, he survived. Upon their return to London George Eliot developed a kidney disease, a throat infection would prove to be her undoing at 61 years of age.
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Post by Woland on Jun 23, 2020 4:34:17 GMT -5
Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was a french historian noted for focusing on large scale socio-economic factors as opposed to great men and events. He was born in Lorraine to a mathematician father, moved to Paris at 7 and studied history. From 1923-1932 he taught at the University of Algiers, boosting his fascination with the Mediterranean Sea, a topic for one of his seminal works. He taught History back in Paris for a couple more years before he received an invitation to establish the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil with Claude Levi-Strauss. His return to Paris saw him take up an instructor role at the EPHE, one of the most prestigious research and higher education facilities in Paris. During WW2 he was a POW in Mainz and Lubeck, he drafted his great work on the Mediterranean working from memory and with the help of a local library.
In 1949 "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the time of Philip II" was published (originally in 3 volumes, the english translation in 2). His approach revolved around 3 interconnected layers of time: the imperceptible crawl of environmental time; the long-term socio-economic factors; and short-term events. His next major work was "Civilisation and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century), a 3 volume work written over the course of 25 years, published between 1967-1979. Braudel broadens his study of the Mediterranean to the rest of the wider world, initially the work focuses on Western Europe for he had access to more sources from the region. Highly influenced by Werner Sombart, it was written as an attempt to explain the development of modern day capitalism, partly a refutation of the theories of Karl Marx and Adam Smith. In the third volume his focus widens to the rest of the world. His final book "The Identity of France" is supposed to be a more subjective, personal view of his beloved country, he died before it was completed.
In a 2011 poll by History Today, Fernand Braudel was named the most important historian of the past 60 years.
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