Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Stepniak, S. styĭpnyäkˈ [key], 1852–95, Russian revolutionary and writer, whose real name was Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski. He fled Russia in 1878 after taking part in the assassination of the...

(Encyclopedia) Krüdener, Juliana, Baroness von fən krüdˈənər [key], 1764–1824, Russian novelist and mystic. Born a Livonian aristocrat, she married a Russian diplomat. She left her husband (1801) for the ple...

(Encyclopedia) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Rus. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, former republic. It was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. The Soviet Union was the first state...

(Encyclopedia) Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Aleksey Petrovich, Count əlyĭksyāˈ pētrôˈvĭch byĭsto͞oˈzhĕv-rēo͞oˈmyĭn [key], 1693–1766, Russian statesman. With the accession (1741) of Czarina Elizabeth, he was a...

(Encyclopedia) Northern War, 1700–1721, general European conflict, fought in N and E Europe at the same time that the War of the Spanish Succession was fought in the west and the south. It arose chiefly from the d...

(Encyclopedia) Dagestan Republic or Daghestan Republic dägəstänˈ [key], constituent republic, c.19,4...

(Encyclopedia) Syktyvkar sĭktĭfkärˈ [key], city (1989 pop. 232,000), capital of Komi Republic, NW European Russia, a port on the Sysola River near its entry into the Vychegda. Lumbering and the manufacture of wo...

(Encyclopedia) nihilism nīˈəlĭzəm [key], theory of revolution popular among Russian extremists until the fall of the czarist government (1917); the theory was given its name by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Father...

(Encyclopedia) Derbent dyĭrbyĕntˈ [key], city, SE European Russia, in Dagestan, on the Caspian Sea. It st...

(Encyclopedia) Frederick William, known as the Great Elector, 1620–88, elector of Brandenburg (1640–88), son and successor of George William. At his accession the scattered lands of the Hohenzollern were devasta...