Ladies and
gentlemen, today we present part three of our new "The 20th Century:
Year After Year" series of programs prepared for you by Vladimir Zhamkin,
who is the head of our English-language service.
The year 1903...
We'd like to begin with two, seemingly unrelated events, one of which turned
around the entire history of this country. It goes back into the late 19th
century when the socialist movement started taking root in Russia. Being
the inheritors and devout espousers of the teachings by the prominent German
economist Karl Marx, the Russian Socialists wanted a redistribution of
capitalist property and the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship.
In 1903 they held their 2nd Congress which gave rise to the Bolshevik party
led by Vladimir Lenin.
The year's other highlight was the commissioning
of the cruiser Avrora which joined the Baltic Fleet almost simultaneously
with the birth of the Bolshevik party. 14 years later Aurora's fore gun
fired a blank shot signaling the start of a Bolshevik assault on the Provisional
government's headquarters in the Winter Palace in St.Petersburg. It so
happened that the Avrora and the Bolsheviks were born in the same year
and, 14 years later, led the 1917 October revolution...
Let's get back to the year 1903 though and
remember the great French Postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin who died
on May 8th. Gauguin strove to artistically recreate his dreams of an ideal
society. His dreams came true on the faraway Tahiti island in the Caribbean
where he met people still unburdened by the European civilization. Gauguin's
many portraits of these people, of their primordial nature and the pristine
simplicity of their everyday life were a very big influence on his style.
Also in 1903 the two remarkable French writers
of the 19th century, Edmond and Jules Goncourt, instituted a literary prize
of their own name awarded to the year's best novelist. Less than a dozen
French-writing foreigners have since won this prestigious award, among
them our fellow Russian Andrei Makin who was awarded the prize for his
French Will novel. On the other side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, the United
States was making technological strides with the legendary Wright brothers,
aircraft designers and pilots all, fitting their plane with an internal
combustion engine of their own design. On December 17th, 1903, they made
the world's first successful flight which lasted 59 seconds. It may not
sound much now, but it sure did 95 years ago!
Back on earth, Henry Ford set up a car-manufacturing
company of his own name introducing standardization of processes and products
and the assembly-line method of automobile production which dramatically
increased the car output. The Ford Motor company is not only one of the
biggest carmakers around the world but is also a widely-recognized symbol
of the United States of America.
Also in 1903 there was born one of the century's
greatest conductors, Yevgeny Mravinsky whose orchestras performed music
by such all-time greats as Dmitry Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofyev and Aram
Khachaturian.
The year 1903 also gave the Russian cinema
one of its most outstanding directors, Mikhail Kalatozov whose Cranes Are
Flying masterpiece about wartime love and loyalty won him the coveted Grand
Prix award at the Cannes film festival in France. Kalatozov is also remembered
for his still popular movie about the great Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov.
In the early Seventies Kalatozov teamed up with the Italians to shoot The
Red Tent recreating the details of Umberto Nobile's failed dirigible flight
to the North Pole. The lead female part was played by the world-famous
and inimitable Claudia Cardinale. The year 1903 also witnessed the birth
in India of the prominent English writer and publicist George Orwell. The
aphorism from his 1945 satire Animal Farm about all animals being equal
but some being more equal than others, has since been enjoyed the world
over... Orwell's prophetic 1949 fantasy Nineteen Eighty-Four is a world
bestseller and has been translated into 62 languages. And now, before we
say goodbye, we'd like to remember the 1903 staging in London of Leo Tolstoy's
Resurrection. The premiere was attended by members of the British royal
family. The play became a hit of the season and was a major box-office
success, maybe because the British have always been very partial to Tolstoy's
writings...
And there we end part three of our new “The
20th CENTURY: YEAR AFTER YEAR” series prepared for you by the head or our
English-language service, Vladimir Zhamkin.
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