Ten things you didn't know about Russia

[Tom Nicholson]

"Considering that the defining line in a family's history was its patrilineal descent as it was just about anywhere else in the western world, Pushkin's preoccupation with his African ancestry is all the more telling since Ibrahim Gannibal was his maternal great-grandfather. Furthermore, Nadja, his mother, was through her own mother, a descendant of the same Pushkin forbear from whom her husband Serge descended. This is genetically interesting since it explains why the poet, who is generally but mistakenly accepted as an octoroon, looks perceptibly blacker."

>From PBS/WGBH's Frontline, "The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families"




-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list on behalf of Alina Israeli
Sent: Tue 3/18/2008 2:32 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Ten things you didn't know about Russia
 
1. Matreshki came from Japan.
2. The greatest Russian poet is 1/8 Black (octoroon).
3. The last Russian czar was 1/256 Russian by blood.
4. St. Basil cathedral is the most un-Russian church, more like  
Turkish, and for good reason: it was built on the occasion of the  
taking of Kazan.
5. It was not the Bolsheviks who abolished the monarchy.
6. Peter the Great usurped the power from his older brother Ivan V.
7. Russia covers 11 time zones.


On Mar 18, 2008, at 1:47 PM, Andrew Jameson wrote:

> Dorogie SEELANGovtsy,
> I've been asked to write a not-too-serious lecture for the Annual  
> General
> Meeting of a society concerned with Russian and Soviet studies. I'm  
> calling
> it "Ten things you didn't know about Russia". Such things as: St Cyril
> didn't create the Cyrillic alphabet etc. etc.
> I'm wondering if you have any unusual or bizarre facts about Russia  
> which
> you would like to share?
> Grateful for any ideas!
> Yours with best wishes
> Andrew Jameson
> Malvern UK
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ---
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your  
> subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface  
> at:
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ---

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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