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Niyazov, Saparmurat

(Encyclopedia)Niyazov, Saparmurat säpärˈmo͞orätˌ nēyäˈzôf [key], 1940–2006, Soviet and Turkmen political leader, president of Turkmenistan (1991–2006). An engineer and member of the Communist party, h...

Kennan, George Frost

(Encyclopedia)Kennan, George Frost, 1904–2005, U.S. diplomat and historian, b. Milwaukee, Wis., grad. Princeton, 1925. A brilliant strategist and among the most influential and intellectual Americans in the 20th-...

Kulakov, Feodor

(Encyclopedia)Kulakov, Feodor fyôˈdər ko͞oˈläkôf [key], 1918–78, Soviet political leader. A member of the Communist party after 1940, Kulakov held various agricultural management positions before becoming ...

Frunze, Mikhail Vasilyevich

(Encyclopedia)Frunze, Mikhail Vasilyevich mēkhəyēlˈ vəsēˈlyəvĭch fro͞onˈzĕ [key], 1885–1925, Russian general. A revolutionary, he was exiled (1914) to Siberia but returned to take part in the October ...

Botvinnik, Mikhail Moiseyevich

(Encyclopedia)Botvinnik, Mikhail Moiseyevich, 1911–95, Soviet chess grandmaster, b. near St. Petersburg. He learned chess at the age of 12 and within a decade became the Soviet champion, a title he won seven time...

Joffe, Abram

(Encyclopedia)Joffe, Abram əbrämˈ yôˈfyə [key], 1880–1960, Soviet scientist, b. Ukraine, grad. St. Petersburg Technological Institute, 1902. From 1902 to 1906 he worked in Munich as an assistant to W. C. Ro...

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...

Nagy, Imre

(Encyclopedia)Nagy, Imre ĭmˈrĕ nôj, nŏdˈyə [key], 1896–1958, Hungarian Communist leader. Nagy was a symbol of the 1956 Hungarian revolt against the Soviet Union. As an agricultural expert he held several g...

Genoa, Conference of

(Encyclopedia)Genoa, Conference of, 1922, at Genoa, Italy. Representatives of 34 nations convened on Apr. 10 to attempt the reconstruction of European finance and commerce. It was the first conference after World W...

Ryazanov, Eldar Aleksandrovich

(Encyclopedia)Ryazanov, Eldar Aleksandrovich, 1927–2015, Russian film director and screenwriter, b. Samara, grad. State Institute of Cinematography (1950). Probably Russia's most popular filmmaker, he renowned fo...