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Decembrists

(Encyclopedia)Decembrists dĭsĕmˈbrĭsts [key], in Russian history, members of secret revolutionary societies whose activities led to the uprising of Dec., 1825, against Czar Nicholas I. Formed after the Napoleon...

Sophia Alekseyevna

(Encyclopedia)Sophia Alekseyevna sôˈfyə əlyĭksyāˈyəvnə [key], 1657–1704, regent of Russia (1682–89); daughter of Czar Alexis by his first wife and sister of Czar Feodor III. Supported by the streltsi (...

duma

(Encyclopedia)duma do͞oˈmä [key], Russian name for a representative body, particularly applied to the Imperial Duma established as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905. The parliamentary organization of 19...

Poltava

(Encyclopedia)Poltava pəltäˈvə [key], city (1989 pop. 315,000), capital of Poltava region, E Ukraine, on the Kiev-Kharkiv highway and on the Vorskla River, a tributary of the Dnieper. It is an industrial center...

Brancovan, Constantine

(Encyclopedia)Brancovan, Constantine brän-kōvänˈ [key], 1654–1714, prince of Walachia (1688–1714). A skillful politician who secured domestic peace, he furthered Walachia's economic and cultural development...

Elizabeth, czarina of Russia

(Encyclopedia)Elizabeth, 1709–62, czarina of Russia (1741–62), daughter of Peter I and Catherine I. She gained the throne by overthrowing the young czar, Ivan VI, and the regency of his mother, Anna Leopoldovna...

Mazepa, Ivan

(Encyclopedia)Mazepa, Ivan ēvänˈ məzyāˈpə [key], c.1640–1709, Cossack hetman [leader] in the Russian Ukraine. He was made hetman (1687) on the insistence of Prince Gallitzin, adviser to the Russian regent,...

Pavlovsk

(Encyclopedia)Pavlovsk pävˈləfsk [key], city (1989 pop. 25,500), NW Russia, a summer resort near St. Petersburg. Founded by Catherine the Great in 1777, it was named for Czar Paul I, for whose country estate it ...

Kotzebue, August von

(Encyclopedia)Kotzebue, August von ouˈgo͝ost fən kôtˈsəbo͞o [key], 1761–1819, German dramatist and politician. He wrote some 200 plays, including Menschenhass und Reue (1789, tr. The Stranger, 1798), Die S...

Chmielnicki, Bohdan

(Encyclopedia)Chmielnicki, Khmelnytskyy or Khmelnitsky, Bohdan all: bəkhdänˈ khmĕlnētˈskē [key], c.1595–1657, hetman (leader) of Ukraine. An educated member of the Ukrainian gentry, he early joined the Ukr...
 

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