Word: soviet
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...serializing At the Last Frontier by Valentin Pikul. The book is a canny mix of fact and rumor about the monk, whose skill in doctoring the Tsarina's sick son gained him inordinate influence over the royal family in the final decade of the Russian empire. By prudish Soviet standards, Pikul's empurpled prose is downright lurid. In one key scene, for example, Rasputin sneaks up to the Tsarina as she prays for her hemophiliac son. Out of the shadows steps the "bony peasant, his face framed by long hair parted in the center and glistening with...
...tenuous basis for these charges is the historical fact that Rasputin, for a Russian of his time, was unusually friendly to Jews. Considering his besmirched reputation in other respects, Rasputin would appear to be an unlikely hero to Soviet human rights activists. But at least one celebrated dissident has taken up his cause. Andrei Amalrik told TIME last week that he was writing a book on Rasputin that would show the monk had a good influence on Tsar Nicholas II. "Rasputin was a very simple person with very good ideas," said the exiled Russian writer, who is doing research...
...tests compare the two models in such categories as navigation, targeting and range. Even more crucial is the ability to survive projected Soviet countermeasures. Explained William Perry, chief of Pentagon Research and Engineering: "We will put these missiles on our radar measurement range and make very detailed measurements of their radar cross sections. The data will be fed into a computer for simulations that predict what kind of performance we will get against different sorts of air defenses...
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Bass Dimiter Petkov, Ambrosian Opera Chorus, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich conductor, Angel; 3 LPs). Soviet critics thought they heard a masterpiece when this, Shostakovich's second opera, was premiered in 1934. Then Stalin walked out of a performance and they listened again. This time they heard "din, gnash and screech" (Pravda). The work was withdrawn, and Shostakovich pursued more orthodox ways. A sanitized version, unveiled in 1963, found its way to the West on records, but this is the first recording of the original score. Harsh, erotic...
...life, he finally, for no clearly discernible reason, "did away with himself as he would an enemy," as another poet, Marina Tsvetayeva, remarked. Official reservations about Mayakovsky's posthumous status were dissipated by Stalin in 1935, when he declared him to be the most talented poet of the Soviet era. "Indifference to his memory and to his work is a crime," he added menacingly...