The 1920s brought a much-awaited lull to the war-weary nations.
The World War One was over and the territorial and other assets of the
vanquished powers had already been comfortably divided among the victors.
The countries stung by social revolutions were slowly emerging from crisis,
but parties and movements were busily jockeying for power just as they
always are…
In the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin was fighting a losing battle
against death. After a stroke he suffered on March 10th, the leader of
a great country was virtually incapacitated and his speaking ability was
severely impaired and down to just a few interjections. On December 16,
he had a second stroke which left him paralyzed in the right arm and leg.
As hopes for Lenin's recovery were dwindling by the day, his closest associates
launched a fierce succession battle against each other where ideological
principles took a back seat to a struggle for control of the party and
of the armed and security forces. Shortly before his retirement from active
politics, Vladimir Lenin acted as a balance between two rival political
groups. One of them was led by Lenin's longtime associate Lev Trotsky who
was very popular in the armed forces. The other grouping was headed by
Joseph Stalin who controlled the party machinery and, through it, the government.
The moment Lenin saw one of the two groups prevailing over the other, he
immediately sided with the losing side thus maintaining a semblance of
unity within the party ranks.
In 1923 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk became the first democratically
elected president of Turkey launching a vigorous campaign to Europeanize
his now-defunct sultanate. Before long, the Moslem Church was separated
from the state, a system of secular educational introduced and the Arabic
alphabet replaced by European lettering. Men were instructed to wear European
dress and polygamy was banned. The intensity and scope of the reforms initiated
by Kemal Ataturk was without precedence in the entire Moslem world.
In the United States, the Russian-born American engineer Igor
Sikorsky established an aircraft company on Long Island which turned out
15 types of land planes, sea planes and amphibians in about as many years.
In 1939 Sikorsky returned to his original interest in the helicopters and
produced a number of choppers many of which were without a parallel in
the world and were used in the first ever non-stop flights across the Atlantic
and the Pacific Oceans.
In 1923 the world bid farewell to the great French actress Sarah
Bernard who for many years had been the highlight of the Paris stage scene.
Her uniquely versatile acting talent resulted in masterful performances
of female and male roles in Shakespeare's plays, most notably her textbook
rendition of Hamlet. There was another great French talent whose heart
stopped beating in 1923. It was Alexander Gustave Eiffel, the author of
many bridges, viaducts and other metal constructions, most notably the
Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World Exhibition, embodying Eiffel's lifelong
experience of bridge building, stands as a monument to 19th century engineering
skill. From the very start, Eiffel encountered strong opposition from people,
some of them very influential, who feared the tower would spoil the city's
skyline. Time proved Eiffel right and his brainchild has since become an
internationally-recognized symbol of the French capital. Concluding the
sad list is the outstanding German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen who in the
late 19th century made the discovery for which his name is chiefly know,
the Roentgen rays also known as X rays. He developed the world's first
Roentgen tube whose original construction has remained largely unchanged
ever since… Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of the X rays which provided valuable
insights into the structure of matter on the atomic level, won him the
first Nobel prize for physics in 1901.
And now let's remember the famous people who were born in 1923.
One of them, Henry Kissinger, was a Secretary of State under President
Richard Nixon. His diplomatic missions to the Soviet Union and China were
a great help in improving America's relations with the two Communist superpowers.
Kissinger was also actively involved in efforts to end the Vietnam War
and peacefully resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict and his peacemaking
activities made him the winner of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.
Also born in 1923 was Wojciech Jaruzelski, a General, a communist
party leader and President of the Polish Republic. He was tough on the
opposition, outlawed the trade unions but he was also the man who eventually
ordered the release of many political prisoners.
In 1923 the would-be operatic diva Maria Callas was born into
a family of Greek immigrants in new York. Boasting an extensive vocal range
and being a gifted actor, Maria Callas performed leading parts in many
classical operas and sung on the stage of some of the world's finest opera
theaters. In the same year, Marcello Mastroianni was born in Italy. An
actor of multifaceted gift, he appeared in hundreds of films made by the
world's greatest directors providing a profoundly convincing list of characters,
from comic and grotesque to philosophical and psychological ones …
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
BACK TO MAIN PAGE
