Word: roerich
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, an egg-bald Russian with a twin-pronged beard, spent a lifetime seeking peace and, somehow, disturbing everything he touched. Devoted followers thought he was a genius who could unify humanity through art. Loudmouthed Westbrook Pegler thought he was a quack who wanted to become "head" of Siberia...
Quack or genius, Roerich led a busy life that brushed against Eternal Krishna the Regenerator-and the ferrets of the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue; against dreamy Henry Wallace in Washington-and the 363 local gods of the Punjab's Kulu Valley. On Manhattan's Riverside Drive his devotees reared to his name a 29-story skyscraper, graded (like one of his own paintings of Himalayan mountains) from deep purple at the base to white at the top, and hung there 1,000 paintings from his facile brush. St. Mark's-in-the-Bouwerie devoted...
Disturbing Echoes. In the early 1930s Roerich was at the pinnacle of worldly fame as painter and poet, Asiatic explorer, archeologist and mystic philosopher. In 1934, Admirer Henry Wallace, then Secretary of Agriculture, sent Roerich and his son George, an Orientalist, to the Gobi Desert, to collect drought-resisting grasses for the U.S. dust bowl. As the serene man who was used to being called "Master" moved through Asia, disturbing echoes reached the U.S. In Manchukuo the Japanese thought he was a Russian agent. The Russians thought he was a Japanese spy. The Chinese thought...