Fedot Alekseyevich Popov (, also Fedot Alekseyev, ; nickname Kholmogorian, , for his place of birth (Kholmogory), date of birth unknown, died between 1648 and 1654) was a Russian explorer who organized the first European expedition through the Bering Strait.

He was normally known as Fedot Alekseyev. Only a few sources call him the son of Popov. He was from Kholmogory and the agent of Alexey Usov who was a member of the Gostinaya Sotnya, the highest merchant guild in Moscow. (Some time between 1647 and 1653 Usov petitioned to have Fedot apprehended on the grounds that Usov had sent him to Siberia with 3,500 rubles worth of goods and he had not reported back for eight years.) He went to Siberia in 1639. Moving east, he was at Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yeniseisk (1641) and Yakutsk(1642). In 1642 he joined a group of about 100 men under Ivan Rebrov who went down the Lena to the sea and up the Olenyok River to the west. Fedot had 29 men under him. Two years later they were defeated by the local Tungus and fled down the river. Fedot and some of his companions sailed east to the Kolyma River.

When he arrived at Srednekolymsk in 1645 he had 12 men with him and, probably, his Yakut concubine. Hearing of a rich 'Pogycha River' somewhere to the east, he organized an expedition to find it. Since he was not a service-man, Semyon Dezhnev was called in as the official leader. In June 1647 he sailed down the river to the Arctic with 50 men in four koches but they were forced to turn back due to thick ice. Next year they tried again. For a fuller account see Semyon Dezhnev. Sometime in September he rounded the northeastern tip of Asia and entered the Pacific Ocean. On September 20, 1648 (old style, September 30 in our calendar) he was wounded in a fight with the Chukchis. About the first of October (o.s) a storm separated Fedot's and Dezhnev's boats and we lose track of him. In 1653/54 Dezhnev captured his Yakut woman from the Koryaks. She said that Fedot died of scurvy, some of his companions were killed by the Koryaks and the rest fled in small boats to an unknown fate. From the location of the woman's capture, it is likely that his boat was wrecked somewhere not far south of Anadyr Estuary.

Dezhnev is usually called the first European to reach the Bering Strait since he was the formal leader and left most of the documents, but Fedot Alexeyev organized the expedition and may have been more important than the few surviving documents indicate.

The Fedotov Legend: When, in 1697, Vladimir Atlasov reached Kamchatka, he heard that other Russians had been there first. The natives said that a certain 'Fedotov' and his men had lived on the Nikul River, a tributary to the Kamchatka River, and had married local women. The ruins of their huts could still be seen. The natives thought they were gods or demons and left them alone, but when they saw one Russian kill another, they changed their minds. The Russians were attacked and fled, some going west to the sea of Okhotsk. All were killed, some by the Kamchadals, some by the Koryaks.

So who was Fedotov? There have been four answers: 1)Gerhardt Friedrich Müller thought he was probably Fedot's son, but offered no evidence. 2)Stepan Krasheninnikov thought he was Fedot himself and tried to reconcile this with the Yakut woman's story. Other versions of Fedotov=Fedot have been tried. 3) He may have been one of the lost men from the Dezhnev or some other expedition. In Siberia at this time there was a Vas'ka Fedotov, a few people who used Fedotov as a patronymic and various Fedors and so on whose names could have been garbled. 4) He was some other Russian who does not appear in the surviving records. About all we can say is that some Russians reached Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th century and died there. Who they were is a matter of speculation.

references

Raymond H Fisher, The Voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648, The Hakluyt Society, 1981.

Category:17th-century explorers Category:Explorers of Siberia Category:Russian and Soviet polar explorers Category:Russian explorers

ru:Попов, Федот Алексеевич

Branislav Nušić (, ; October 8, 1864 — January 19, 1938) was a Serbian novelist of Aromanian descent, playwright, satirist, essayist and founder of modern rhetoric in Serbia. He also worked as a journalist and a civil servant.

Biography

Born Alkibijad Nuša (Aromanian: ''Alchiviadi al Nuşa'') in Belgrade, Principality of Serbia to a well-off family, Nušić enjoyed the benefits of a privileged upbringing for only a brief time. His father Đorđe Nuša was a well known grain merchant of Cincar (Aromanian Vlach) origin who lost his wealth shortly after his son's birth and was forced to move the family to Smederevo where young Alkibijad attended elementary school and first two grades of boarding school. During his teens, Nuša moved back to Belgrade where he graduated from boarding school. Upon turning 18 years of age, he legally changed his name to Branislav Nušić. In 1884, he graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. During his studies, he also spent a year in Graz, Austria-Hungary.

Twenty-one-year-old Nušić fought in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 while serving in the Serbian Army. After the war, he published a controversial poem "Dva Raba" in ''Dnevni list'' for which he spent two years in prison. The poem ridiculed Serbian King Milan, namely his decision to attend the funeral of the Serbian general Dragutin Franasović's mother instead of that of the war's hero Captain Mihailo Katanić who died as a result of wounds sustained while saving the regimental flag from the hands of Bulgarians.

At first, Nušić's sentence was only two months, but the King pressured the judges to extend it. Despite harsh prison conditions, Nušić still managed to write a comedy: ''Protekcija'' (''Protection'').

When he first asked the prison intendant, Ilija Vlah, for the permission to write, Vlah told him that it was the writing that got him into prison, and denied his request. Knowing that intendant read all outgoing mail, Nušić wrote a brief letter to the second husband of his aunt (he was related to her first husband), who served as a minister of justice. Nušić addressed Gersić as ''uncle'' and told him how it would be much easier for him to serve two years if he could write. He noted that he had no interest in writing political texts, and signed the letter ''your nephew''. One day later, Vlah allowed him to write literature.

In 1889, Nušić became a civil servant. As an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he was appointed to clerk of consulate in Bitola, where he eventually married (1893). He spent a decade in southern Serbia and Macedonia. His last post in this region was vice-consul in Pristina.

In 1900, Nušić was appointed as a secretary of Ministry of Education, and shortly afterwards he became a head dramaturgist of the National Theatre in Belgrade. In 1904, he was appointed a head of Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. In 1905, he left his new post and moved to Belgrade to work as a journalist.

In 1912, Nušić returned to Bitola as a civil servant. During Balkan Wars in February 1913, Nušić, who was the prefect, was regarded as too moderate, and replaced by someone more sympathetic with the views of the military party and of "the black hand." In 1913, he founded a theater in Skopje, where he lived until 1915. Due to the World War I, Nušić fled the country and lived in Italy, Switzerland and France for its duration.

After the war, Nušić was appointed to be the first head of the Art Department of the Ministry of Education. He remained at this post until 1923. Afterwards, he was appointed head of ''Narodno pozorište'' (National Theater) in Sarajevo. In 1927, he returned to Belgrade.

Criticism of the society

More celebrated as playwright than novelist is Branislav Nušić. His incident novels and journalistic ''feuilletons'' are not always of a moral and polished type, but they are lively and amusing sketches of life. He is more prolific in historical drama and comedy. Of his plays the most popular are ''Protekcija'' (The Pull), ''Obirćan Čovek'' (An Unusual Man), ''Iza Bozijih Ledja'' (Behind God's Back), ''Prince of Semberia'', ''Putćina'' (The High Sea), ''Hadji Loja'', and ''Ratsko Nemanjić''.

Through his plays, Nušić presented the Serbian society and mentality of middle class from small towns and counties. He actually brought to the stage not only the retailers, canton captains, semi-educated officers, current and former minister’s wives, but also formerly distinguished and over ambitious householders, their decadent sons, failed students, distinguished daughters aged enough to get married, and greedy upstarts

All-in-all he depicted the Serbian middle class people and morals, which managed to survive despite all the political and social reforms, newly formed educational system and cultural institutions. He also paid special attention to the social conditions under which they started having unrealizable desires and insatiable appetites, the distorted family and marital relationships, misunderstandings and intolerance between fathers and sons, unfaithful husbands and wives, officers’ ignorance and corruption, unreal political ambitions, becoming not only a playwright, observer and interpreter of his time, but also a social analytic of a period in Serbian history, mentality and region.

Selected works

Some of the Nušić's major work (with English translation of titles):

Comedies

''Gospođa ministarka'' (Cabinet Minister's Wife)

''Narodni poslanik'' (Parliamentarian)

''Ožalošćena porodica'' (Bereaved Family)

''Pokojnik'' (The Deceased)

''Put oko sveta'' (A Round-the-World Trip)

''Sumnjivo lice'' (A Suspect Individual)

''Mister Dolar'' (Mister Dollar)

Novels

''Opštinsko dete'' (County's Child), published in Sarajevo as ''Općinsko dijete''

''Hajduci'' (Hajduks)

Short stories

''Politički protivnik'' (Political Rival)

''Posmrtno slovo'' (Eulogy)

''Klasa'' (Class)

Other

''Autobiografija'' (Autobiography)

''Retorika'' (a discourse on rhetoric)

References

External links

Extracts from his autobiography

Primary School "Branislav Nusic", Belgrade, Serbia

__NOTOC__

Category:1864 births Category:1938 deaths Category:People from Belgrade Category:Serbian novelists Category:Serbian writers Category:Serbian dramatists and playwrights Category:People from Smederevo Category:Belgrade Law School alumni Category:Aromanian people Category:Burials in Belgrade

roa-rup:Alchiviadi al Nusha az:Branislav Nuşiç be-x-old:Браніслаў Нушыч bs:Branislav Nušić bg:Бранислав Нушич ca:Branislav Nušić cs:Branislav Nušić de:Branislav Nušić el:Μπράνισλαβ Νούσιτς es:Branislav Nušić eo:Branislav Nuŝiĉ fa:برانیسلاو نوشیج fr:Branislav Nušić hr:Branislav Nušić it:Branislav Nušić he:ברניסלב נושיץ' hu:Branislav Nušić mk:Бранислав Нушиќ ro:Branislav Nušić ru:Нушич, Бранислав sk:Branislav Nušić sl:Branislav Nušić sr:Бранислав Нушић sh:Branislav Nušić