Word: czar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Byzantium's religion, architecture and incense-heavy intrigue to Moscow, which was now more powerful than any other Russian city. She hoped to make it succeed history's two earlier Romes (the one on the Tiber and the one on the Bosporus). Ivan took the title of Czar, i.e., Caesar, and Sovereign of all the Russias. He began to build a strong brick wall around the Kremlin: it still stands today.† Then Moscow was ruled by Ivan IV, called the Terrible, who decisively defeated the Tartars and gave Moscow its first secret police-the blackclad Oprichniki ("extras...
...room . . . used for all purposes. ... In this room you encounter a large stove covered with boards . . . whereon sits almost all year round, the entire family. ..." Their pleasures were few. Muscovites, who were social drinkers, liked to gather in a korchma (wine tavern) but the taverns were owned by the Czar and rented out to nobles: Muscovites who could not pay for what they drank were held until their friends ransomed them. For centuries, Muscovites did not know how to dance, and paid Tartars and Poles to dance for them...
...Kremlin, open to all citizens under the Czar, was tightly closed; Red Square, where once Muscovite merchants had inspected parades of prospective brides, was given over to endless military shows. The Truba, a noisy quarter where children used to buy pet robins or wrens to set free on Annunciation Day, was quieted down; birds were rarely set free nowadays -for one thing, they served as food, and for another, the symbolism of freedom involved was frowned upon. The Kremlin chimes no longer played Glory to our God in Zion; instead they played the Soviet Anthem. But the people still clung...
...grew too narrow, an outer wall was built around the merchants' quarters, known as Kitai Gorod (or Chinatown), a name picked up from the Tartars. Later, two even larger walls were built-one of white stone (which gave its lame to Bely Gorod, or White Town, where the Czar's servants lived) and a wooden wall (which gave its name to Zemlyanoi Gorod, Wooden Town, for workmen and soldiers...
...grimy offices of the new National Labor Relations Board, only one man seemed eager to get the law's machinery into motion. He was Missouri-born, 62-year-old Robert N. Denham, who will be a sort of czar over U.S. labor relations as the board's general counsel. He likes the law; some of his ideas were incorporated in it. Republican Bob Denham thinks he can make the law work. The five new NLRB members, who will sit as robeless judges but will have little authority in enforcing the law, do not share Denham's enthusiasm...