Anna of Russia or Anna Ivanovna (Russian: Анна Ивановна) (7 February [O.S. 28 January] 1693, Moscow – 28 October [O.S. 17 October] 1740) reigned as Duchess of Courland from 1711 to 1730 and as Empress of Russia from 1730 to 1740.

Anna was the daughter of Ivan V of Russia, as well as the niece of Peter the Great. The latter married her to Frederick William, Duke of Courland in November 1710, but on the return trip from Saint Petersburg in January 1711, her husband died. Anna proceeded to rule Courland (now western Latvia) from 1711 to 1730, with the Russian resident, Peter Bestuzhev, as her adviser (and sometimes lover). She never remarried after the death of her husband, but was reputed by her enemies to have conducted a love affair with Ernst Johann von Biron for many years.

On the death of Peter II, Emperor of Russia, the Russian Supreme Privy Council under Prince Dmitri Galitzine made Anna Empress in 1730. They had hoped that she would feel indebted to the nobles for her unexpected fortune and remain a figurehead at best, and malleable at worst. In the hope of establishing a constitutional monarchy in Russia, they convinced her to sign articles that limited her power. However, these proved a minor inconvenience to her, and soon she established herself as an autocratic ruler, using her popularity with the imperial guards and lesser nobility.

Anna O. was the pseudonym of a patient of Josef Breuer, who published her case study in his book Studies on Hysteria, written in collaboration with Sigmund Freud. Her real name was Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), an Austrian-Jewish feminist and the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women).

Anna O. was treated by Breuer for severe cough, paralysis of the extremities on the right side of her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing, and speech, as well as hallucination and loss of consciousness. She was diagnosed with hysteria. Freud implies that her illness was a result of the resentment felt over her father's real and physical illness that later led to his death.

Her treatment is regarded as marking the beginning of psychoanalysis. Breuer observed that whilst she experienced 'absences' (a change of personality accompanied by confusion), she would mutter words or phrases to herself. In inducing her to a state of hypnosis, Breuer found that these words were "profoundly melancholy fantasies...sometimes characterized by poetic beauty". Free Association came into being after Anna/Bertha decided (with Breuer's input) to end her hypnosis sessions and merely talk to Breuer, saying anything that came into her mind. She called this method of communication "chimney sweeping", and this served as the beginning of free association.

Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud's family and ancestry were Jewish. Freud always considered himself a Jew even though he rejected Judaism and had a critical view of religion. Freud's parents were poor, but ensured his education. Freud was an outstanding pupil in high school, and graduated the Matura with honors in 1873. Interested in philosophy as a student, Freud later turned away from it and became a neurological researcher into cerebral palsy, Aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy.

Freud went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach. Freud postulated the existence of libido (an energy with which mental process and structures are invested), developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so), discovered the transference (the process by which patients displace on to their analysts feelings based on their experience of earlier figures in their lives) and established its central role in the analytic process, and proposed that dreams help to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awake the dreamer. He was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the interpretation and critique of culture.

Bertha Pappenheim (February 27, 1859, in Vienna - May 28, 1936, in Neu-Isenburg) was an Austrian-Jewish feminist, a social pioneer, and the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women). Under the pseudonym Anna O., she was also one of Freud's best documented patients.

Bertha Pappenheim was born on 27 February, 1859 in Vienna as the 3rd daughter of Siegmund Pappenheim and Recha Pappenheim. Her father Siegmund (1824–1881) was from Preßburg (today's Bratislava), Hungary; the Jewish family name "Pappenheim" alludes to the Franconian town of Pappenheim. Her mother Recha, neé Goldschmidt (1830–1905), was from Frankfurt am Main. Both families were well-to-do and had roots in Orthodox Judaism. Bertha was raised in the style of well-bred young ladies of good class. She attended a Roman Catholic girls' school and led a life structured by the Jewish holiday calendar and summer vacations in Ischl.

When she was 8 years old her oldest sister Henriette (1849–1867) died of "galloping consumption". When she was 11 the family moved from Vienna's Leopoldstadt, which was primarily inhabited by poverty-ridden Jews, to Liechtensteinstraße in the 9th District Alsergrund. She left school when she was 16, devoted herself to needlework and helped her mother with the kosher preparation of their food. Her 18-month-younger brother Wilhelm (1860–1937) was meanwhile attending high school, which made Bertha intensely jealous.

Anna Yuryevna Netrebko (Russian: Анна Юрьевна Нетребко, born 18 September 1971) is a Russian operatic soprano. She now holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and currently resides in Vienna. She has been nicknamed "La Bellissima" by fans.

Netrebko was born in Krasnodar (Russia), in a family of Kuban Cossack background. While a student at the Saint Petersburg conservatoire, Netrebko worked as a janitor at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre. Later, she auditioned for the Mariinsky Theatre, where conductor Valery Gergiev recognized her from her prior work in the theater. He subsequently became her vocal mentor. Under Gergiev's guidance, Netrebko made her operatic stage debut at the Mariinsky at age 22, as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. She went on to sing many prominent roles with the Kirov Opera, including Amina in La sonnambula, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor.

In 1994, she sang the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte with the Riga Independent Opera Avangarda Akadēmija under conductor David Milnes.