In our previous program we mentioned the quantum leaps in technology
and science, especially in medicine, made during the opening decade of
this outgoing century. Still, the average lifespan in Europe was just over
50 years and even shorter elsewhere in the world. Back in those days the
European population was growing faster than in Asia and Africa, but the
fastest growing nations were the recipients of European immigration. In
the United States alone, the population grew from 5 million at the start
of the 19th century to 76 million by the time the new century had set in.
Big families were still in vogue, marriages early and divorces rare. Husbands
and fathers ruled supreme in their families. The idea of equality of the
sexes was relatively embraced only in Europe but even there women were
still denied voting rights. Hundreds of millions of people everywhere could
neither read nor write, many ethnic groups had no written language at all
and the world was essentially guided by age-old customs and traditions.
In 1911 Russia was successfully cracking down on illiteracy spending
for this purpose a sum that exceeded by more than twice what was being
spent in France and by about 50 percent in Britain. Affordable fiction
and educational literature was being published in millions of copies and
Russia's Brokhaus and Efron and The Granat Brothers encyclopedias were
widely recognized as the world's best.
Russia's artistic life was a motley combination of contrasting
styles, from staid academism to the most extreme forms of avantgardism.
Assessing the cultural life in St.Petersburg, European observers described
it as the most libertarian city in Europe. In Russia's cultural milieu
an artist, his style notwithstanding, has always been viewed as a teacher
and prophet who is always right. That's why, watching plays by Anton Chekhov
and Maxim Gorky, the theatergoers were not only enjoying the actors' playing
but were also searching desperately for answers to Russia's eternally burning
problems such as "where are we going?" and "how are we going
to live now?" Those were the two questions Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin
was trying to answer when he initiated his reforms which were fast making
Russia a prosperous nation. Stolypin never lived to see through his reforms,
though. On September 14th, 1911, he was mortally wounded by a former terrorist
and police agent Dmitry Bogrov.
The Nobel Prizes for 1911 went to the Swedish physician Allvar
Gullstrand for his work on the dioptrics of the eye and to the Polish-born
French physicist Maria Sklodowska-Curie, famous for her work on radioactivity
and twice winner of this prestigious award. In 1903 she shared with her
husband, Pierre Curie, the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of
radioactivity and in 1911 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for
the isolation of pure uranium. Maria Sklodowska-Curie enjoyed honorary
professorships at some of the world's leading universities and her name
was given to the Curie which is a unit that expresses the specific activity
of radioactive material.
In 1911 the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen discovered the
South Pole. Before that he became the first man to take a ship through
the northwest passage from Greenland to Alaska and the second, after Robert
Peary, to reach the North Pole. In 1926 Amundsen flew the dirigible Norge
in the first overflight of the North Pole. Amundsen was lost over the Barents
Sea when on June 18th, 1928, he joined in the attempt to rescue Umberto
Nobile who had crashed in the dirigible Italia. No trace of Amundsen's
airplane was found.
And now a few words about the people who were born in 1911. The
best-known of them all is Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United
States who spent his younger days as a movie actor in Hollywood. Ronald
Reagan first gained national political attention in 1966 when he successfully
ran for Governor of California winning the election easily and going on
to serve two terms. The Americans consider him a tough and popular Chief
Executive. Another popular American was the world-acclaimed dramatist Tennessee
Williams. His plays, bristling with lively dialogues and exciting characters
are well known in the world. His Pulitzer Prizewinning 1947 masterpiece
A Streetcar Named Desire is still being played throughout the globe and
has been put to film in many countries.
The great Russian chess player Mikhail Botvinnik also was born
in 1911. Many times world champion, Botvinnik contributed heavily to the
art of chess playing, especially where it comes to the opening part of
the game.
It's hard to believe it, but the popular American dance Charleston
was also danced for the first time in 1911. 89 year on, Charleston is still
as popular as it was at the dawn of this century.
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series of historical programs is
prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
