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astronaut

(Encyclopedia)astronaut, crew member on a U.S. manned spaceflight mission; the Soviet term is cosmonaut. Candidates for manned spaceflight are carefully screened to meet the highest physical and mental standards, a...

Schröder, Gerhard

(Encyclopedia)Schröder, Gerhard shröˈdər [key], 1944–, chancellor of Germany (1998–2005), b. Mosenburg, Germany. A telegenic lawyer and Social Democrat, he entered politics as a Marxist student in the 1960...

Gulag

(Encyclopedia)Gulag, system of forced-labor prison camps in the USSR, from the Russian acronym [GULag] for the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps, a department of the Soviet secret police (originally the Ch...

psychiatry

(Encyclopedia)psychiatry səkīˈətrē, sī– [key], branch of medicine that concerns the diagnosis and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, including major depression, schizophrenia, and anx...

Russian art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)Russian art and architecture, the artistic and architectural production of the geographical area of Russia. Around the turn of the century Mir Iskusstva (World of Art Group) was initiated, a movemen...

Wilson, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Edmund, 1895–1972, American critic and author, b. Red Bank, N.J. grad. Princeton, 1916. He is considered one of the most important American literary and social critics of the 20th cent. From...

Kiev

(Encyclopedia)Kiev or Kyiv kēˈĕf, –ĕv [key], Ukrainian Kyyiv, Rus. Kiyev, city (1990 est. pop. 2,600,000) and municipality with the status of a region (oblast), capital of Ukraine and of Kiev region, a port o...

Engels, Friedrich

(Encyclopedia)Engels, Friedrich frēˈdrĭkh ĕngˈəls [key], 1820–95, German socialist; with Karl Marx, one of the founders of modern Communism (see communism). The son of a wealthy Rhenish textile manufacturer...

Zinoviev, Grigori Evseyevich

(Encyclopedia)Zinoviev, Grigori Evseyevich grĭgôˈrē yĭfsyāˈəvĭch zēnôˈvēĕf [key], 1883–1936, Soviet Communist leader, originally named Radomyslsky. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor part...

Strategic Defense Initiative

(Encyclopedia)Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), former U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (se...