Word: tsars
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...later. At 4, Sasha began to study violin. Ely used to practice too, but gave up when people made fun of him for keeping his mouth open. While Sasha was studying arduously at home, Ely Culbertson, then 14, ran away, hobnobbed with anarchists, spent two wretched months in the Tsar's prison...
...When Tsar Alexander I founded his Lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo to train gentlemen's sons for the government service, 12-year-old Pushkin was sent there because it was free, spent six precocious years annoying his masters, writing light and scurrilous verse, getting into scrapes. He paid little attention to study. Once, when called on to solve an algebra equation, Pushkin guessed the answer was zero. Bellowed the master: "Fine! In my class, Pushkin, everything ends in zero with you. Take your seat and write verses." He graduated from the Lyceum without honors but with a rising reputation...
When Nicholas I became Tsar, Pushkin's tireless hopes rose again. Unluckily for him, the Decembrist Revolt numbered many of his good friends, all of whom seemed to have subversive Pushkin poems among their papers. Though not directly implicated in the conspiracy, Pushkin was again under suspicion. He was allowed to lay his case before the Tsar. After an hour-long interview Pushkin emerged, seething with loyalty. He was free to go anywhere in Russia, except St. Petersburg...
Everything he wrote in future was to be submitted not to the regular censor, but directly to the Tsar. What Pushkin did not understand was that the Tsar thought him too potentially useful to be imprisoned, too dangerous not to be watched. But until he discovered that he was not really free, Pushkin was overjoyed, dove into his old gay life with more zest than ever. He even got permission to visit St. Petersburg, gambled away 17,000 rubles in two months...
...Tsar Alexander emancipated his serfs. In Charleston, S. C.. the guns opened on Fort Sumter. Queen Victoria buried her beloved Albert...