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Faizabad, city, Afghanistan

(Encyclopedia)Faizabad or Feyzabad both : fīˈzəbăd, fīzäbädˈ [key], city (1992 est. pop. 9,098), capital of Badakhshan prov., NE Afghanistan, on the Kokcha River. The chief commercial and administrative cen...

Kádár, János

(Encyclopedia)Kádár, János yäˈnôsh käˈdär [key], 1912–89, Hungarian Communist leader. In 1932 he joined the then illegal Communist party and held high government and party posts from 1942, becoming home ...

Grossman, Vasily Semenovich

(Encyclopedia)Grossman, Vasily Semenovich, 1905–64, Russian novelist and journalist, b. Berdichev (now Berdychiv, Ukraine). He graduated (1929) from Moscow State Univ., published novels and short stories, and bec...

Timoshenko, Semyon Konstantinovich

(Encyclopedia)Timoshenko, Semyon Konstantinovich sĭmyônˈ kənstəntyēˈnəvĭch tyēməshĕnˈkə [key], 1895–1970, Soviet marshal. He served in the civil war of 1918–20 as a cavalry commander and subsequen...

Warsaw Treaty Organization

(Encyclopedia)Warsaw Treaty Organization or Warsaw Pact, alliance set up under a mutual defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, in 1955 by Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania,...

Katyn

(Encyclopedia)Katyn kətĭnˈ [key], village, W central European Russia, 12 mi (19 km) W of Smolensk. During World War II, when it was part of the USSR, it was occupied by the Germans in Aug., 1941. In 1943 the Ger...

Aliyev, Heydar

(Encyclopedia)Aliyev, Heydar khāˈdär älēˈyĕf [key], 1923–2003, Azerbaijani political leader, president of Azerbaijan (1993–2003), b. Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, grad. Azerbaijan State Univ. (1957). A...

Lavrov, Sergey Viktorovich

(Encyclopedia)Lavrov, Sergey Viktorovich, 1950– Russian and Soviet diplomat, b. Moscow, grad. Moscow State Institute of International Relations, 1972. He began his career in the Soviet foreign service, working in...

Rakovsky, Christian Georgyevich

(Encyclopedia)Rakovsky, Christian Georgyevich khrĭstyänˈ gēyŏrˈgyĭvĭch rəkôfˈskē [key], 1873–1938, Soviet Communist diplomat. His early revolutionary activities extended from his native Bulgaria throu...

Iskander, Fazil Abdulovich

(Encyclopedia)Iskander, Fazil Abdulovich, 1929–2016, Russian writer, grad. Moscow Library Institute, 1954. Iskander's novels and stories, mainly set in his native Abkhazia, are charmingly satirical portraits of v...