Notes on Today's Workout:

Translation Exercise - Mayor Luzhkov

History - Osip Maksimovich Brik

Geography - Kresty

Russian/Soviet Military History - German troops evacuate Krivoi Rog

Art - The Messenger, Ilya Glazunov

Cultural Tip - "All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing".
 

Enjoy your Workout!

Wes Reed
DTRA Language Training
 

 

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Quote of the Day
 

"It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature (1970), b.1918

Мы совершаем ошибки не потому, что разглядеть истину слишком трудно... Мы делаем ошибки, потому что для нас удобнее и проще всего то понимание вещей, на которое нас наталкивают наши собственные эмоции - особенно наиболее эгоистичные.
 

Translation by: Mr. Andrei Anzimirov

 

 
Translation Exercise:  (Answer key below)
 

Many experts believe that the long-expected sacking of the head of the Moscow government occurred as a result of all-embracing corruption in the city.  This is the situation when everything looks right on its face, but it's mockery in essence.  The main reason for the Moscow mayor's resignation is corruption that has been eating the entire capital, and absolutely incredible preferences to "insiders".

 

 
This Day in History:

 

Alexander Rodchenko, The Critic Osip Brik (1924)
 

On this date in 1945, Osip Maksimovich Brik died. He was an important member of the Russian Formalist school of literary criticism and Futurist artistic movement, and co-founded the magazine LEF (Leftist Front for the Arts; the photograph above was taken for the magazine's cover).

After Stalin's rise to power, the Communist regime openly encouraged exclusively socialist realism methods and initiated a campaign to stamp out all culture the Communist Party perceived as dangerous. Most avant garde artists and thinkers suffered persecution, and Brik did not escape this fate. In the 1930s he eked out a living writing articles on Mayakovsky and book reviews; he died in 1945 of a heart attack while climbing the stairs to his apartment.
 

Look up two of his films on IMDb.com...

 

Kresty

Kresty, the notorious Russian prison in St. Petersburg, consists of two cross-shaped buildings (hence the name the "Crosses"). It began as St. Petersburg's wine storage warehouse in the 1730's. Later, it was used by landowners to incarcerate serfs, and it eventually became infamous as a solitary confinement facility for political prisoners.

On 28 April 1995 the monument To the victims of Political repressions made by Mikhail Shemyakin was installed on the embankment across the Neva River from the prison. It depicts two bronze sphinxes with pretty women's faces as seen from the residential houses on the embankment and bare skulls as seen from the prison's side of the river. There is a stylized window with prison bars between the sphinxes. On the granite base of the monument there are inscriptions with quotes from Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam,  Nikolay Zabolotsky, Daniil Andreyev, Dmitry Likhachev, Joseph Brodsky, Yuri Galanskov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Vladimir Vysotsky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

(Source)

Основные События Недели из Русского/Советского Календаря Воина:

 

22 February
 

1943:  Beginning of of a counterattack by forces of Heeresgruppe Mitte (von Kluge) in the area between the Dnepr and Donets.

1944:  German troops evacuate Krivoi Rog in the Ukraine.
 

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Недозволенный смех – Анекдоты из России – Уголовный юмор
 

У полковника родился внук. Он распорядился послать одного из рядовых в роддом, чтобы узнать все подробности.
Когда рядовой вернулся, полковник вызвает его к себе и спрашивает:
- Ну как там мой внук? На кого похож?
- Здоров. На Вас очень похож, товарищ полковник!
- Ты поподробней, попоподробней расскажи.
- Да, такой же лысый, пузатый, ни х:!%; не соображает и всё время орёт.

Contributed by:  Mr. Jim Leahy

 

Art

The Messenger, Ilya Glazunov

 

 Cultural Tip:
 

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
 

This saying described the situation in the former Soviet Union very well. The October Revolution took place in 1917, which can be viewed as a military coup de dat. After the Bolsheviks quelled the resistance from the White Army, everybody seemed to have given up on Russia. England and France had some theoretical plans, but eventually they decided to leave Russia alone and watch events unfold. The evil forces triumphed: millions of innocent people died from famine, purges, and labor camps, and nobody could do anything. People were powerless, and this powerlessness grew into a fear of government.

In the United States a totalitarian regime seems highly unlikely. But many people agree that America is become more communist-like in the sense that individual freedoms are being lost under the guise of increased safety and security. People seem to be more afraid of their own government. Whistle blowing seems to have become less and less popular. In many organizations and private companies employees turn a blind eye to obvious injustices and pretend that things are fine. If more people spoke up before the Enron scandal, maybe not so many people would have lost their entire life savings.

Americans still enjoy many inalienable rights, but becoming listless and apathetic will almost guarantee that these rights will be lost. A person who grew up in a totalitarian system can detect early signs of tyranny better than a person who has had no contact with it. One of these signs is unwillingness to speak up and get involved. If this trend continues, we will become more and more “Soviet-like.”
 

Contributed by:  Mr. Ramaz Kvavilashvili
 

 

Suggested Translation:  (Return to English)
 

По мнению экспертов, причиной ожидаемой многими отставки главы столичного правительства стала поразившая город коррупция и преференции "своим".  Эта та ситуация, когда по форме все выглядит верно, а по сути - издевательство.  Базовая причина отставки столичного мэра, изначальная - разветвившаяся по всей столице коррупция, совершенно невероятные преференции "своим".

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