The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Russian: Большая советская энциклопедия, or БСЭ; transliterated Bolshaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya) is one of the largest and most comprehensive Russian encyclopedias in the world,^[1] issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 (under the name Bolshaya Rossiyskaya entsiklopediya or "Great Russian Encyclopedia").

Editions[link]

There were three editions. The first edition of 65 volumes (65,000 entries, plus a supplementary volume about the Soviet Union) was published during 1926–1947, the chief editor being Otto Schmidt (until 1941). The second edition of 50 volumes (100,000 entries, plus a supplementary volume) was published in 1950–1958; chief editors: Sergei Vavilov (until 1951) and Boris Vvedenskii (until 1969); two index volumes to this edition were published in 1960. The third edition of 1969–1978 contains 30 volumes (100,000 entries, plus an index volume issued in 1981). Volume 24 is in two books, one of them being a full-sized book about the USSR) – all with about 21 million words,^[2] and the chief editor being Alexander Prokhorov (since 1969).

From 1957 to 1990 each year the Yearbook of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was released, with up-to-date articles about the Soviet Union and all countries of the world.

The first online edition, an exact replica of text and graphics of the third (so-called Red) edition, was published by Rubricon.com in 2000.

Editors[link]

Editors and contributors to the GSE included a number of leading Soviet scientists and politicians: Hamid Alimjan, Viktor Ambartsumian, Nikolai Baibakov, Mykola Bazhan, Maia Berzina, Nikolay Bogolyubov, Andrei Bubnov, Nikolai Bukharin, Nikolai Burdenko, Mikhail Frunze, Victor Glushkov, Igor Grabar, Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii, Veniamin Kagan, Ivan Knunyants, Andrei Kolmogorov, Valerian Kuybyshev, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Vladimir Obruchev, Aleksandr Oparin, Yuri Prokhorov, Karl Radek, Nikolai Semashko, and Kliment Voroshilov.

Role and purpose in Soviet society[link]

The foreword to the first volume of the GSE (2nd ed.) proclaims "The Soviet Union has become the center of the civilized world."^[3] The GSE, along with all other books and other media and communications with the public, was directed toward the "furtherance of the aims of the party and the state."^[3] The 1949 decree issued for the production of the second edition of the GSE directed:

The second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia should elucidate widely the world-historical victories of socialism in our country, which have been attained in the U.S.S.R. in the provinces of economics, science, culture, and art. ... With exhaustive completeness it must show the superiority of socialist culture over the culture of the capitalist world. Operating on Marxist-Leninist theory, the encyclopedia should give a party criticism of contemporary bourgeois tendencies in various provinces of science and technics.^[3]

The foreword to the GSE (3rd ed.) expanded on that mission, paying particular attention to developments in science and technology: nuclear engineering, space technology, atomic physics, polymer chemistry, and radio electronics; also the detailing the history and activities of the Russian revolutionary movement, the development of the labor movement worldwide and summarizing Marxist scholarship on political economy, sociology, and political science.^[4] In support of that mission, the GSE (2nd ed.) described as the role of education:

"To develop in children's minds the Communist morality, ideology, and Soviet patriotism; to inspire unshakable love toward the Soviet fatherland, the Communist party, and its leaders; to propagate Bolshevik vigilance; to put and emphasis on internationalist education; to strengthen Bolshevik willpower and character, as well as courage, capacity for resisting adversity and conquering obstacles; to develop self-discipline; and to encourage physical and aesthetic culture."^[3]

The third edition of the GSE subsequently expanded on the role of education:

"Education is essential to preparing for life and work. It is the basic means by which people come to know and acquire culture, and it is the foundation of culture's development...The Soviet education rests on the principles of the unity of education and communist upbringing; cooperation among the school, the family, and the society in bringing up young people; and the linkage of education and training to life and the practical experience of building communism. The underlying principles of the Soviet system of public education include a scientific approach to and continual improvement of education on the basis of the latest achievements in science, technology and culture; a humanistic and highly moral orientation in education and upbringing; and co-education of both sexes, secular education which excludes the influence of religion. " ^[5]

Based on his extensive talks with the editors of the GSE, to whom he was granted unprecedented access, William Benton, publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica, wrote the following in observation of the GSE's chief editor B. A. Vvedenskii stating their compliance with the 1949 decree of the Council of Ministers:

"It is just this simple for the Soviet board of editors. They are working under a government directive that orders them to orient their encyclopedia as sharply as a political tract. The encyclopedia was thus planned to provide the intellectual underpinning for the Soviet world offensive in the duel for men's minds. The Soviet government ordered it as a fighting propaganda weapon. And the government attaches such importance to its political role that its board of editors is chosen by and is responsible only to the high Council of Ministers itself."^[3]

Translations[link]

English[link]

Great Soviet Encyclopedia in English in a library

The third edition was translated and published into English in 31 volumes between 1974 and 1983 by Macmillan Publishers. Each volume was translated separately, requiring use of the index found at the front of each volume to locate specific items; knowledge of Russian can be helpful to find the right volume the first time. Not all entries were translated into English; these are indicated in the index. Overall, some entries indicate an anti-American bias,^{[citation needed]} reflecting the international tensions and ideological conflict between the United States and the USSR at the time.

Greek[link]

The third edition has also been translated and published into Greek in 34 volumes between 1977 and 1983. All articles that were related to Greece or Greek history, culture and society were expanded and hundreds of new ones were written especially for the Greek edition. Thus the encyclopaedia contains, for example, both the Russian entry on Greece as well as a much larger one prepared by Greek contributors.

Finally, a supplementary volume covering the 1980s was published in 1989. It contains translated and original Greek articles which, sometimes, do not exist in the 34-volume set.

Other Soviet encyclopedias[link]

Content[link]

The Soviet Encyclopedia is a systematic summary of knowledge in social and economic studies and in the applied sciences. It became a universal reference work for the Soviet intelligentsia.^[6] According to the publisher's foreword in the English-language translation of the encyclopedia, the encyclopedia is important for knowledge and understanding of USSR. A major value of the Encyclopedia is its comprehensive information about Soviet and its peoples. Every aspect of Soviet life is systematically presented, including history, economics, science, art, and culture. The ethnic diversity of USSR’s peoples and its languages and cultures are extensively covered. There are biographies of prominent cultural and scientific figures who are not as well-known outside of Russia. There are detailed surveys of USSR’s provinces and towns, as well as their geology, geography, and flora and fauna.^[6]

The encyclopedia’s Chief Editorial Board and Advisory board sought input from the general public. The entry list was sent to universities, scientific institutions, museums, and private specialists in every field. More than 50,000 suggestions were received and many additions were made.^[7] Scholars believe that the Encyclopedia is a valuable and useful source for Russian history.^[8] The Encyclopedia, though noted as having a strong Marxist bias, provides useful information for understanding the Soviet point of view.^[9][10]

Damnatio memoriae[link]

Following the arrest and punishment of the infamous Lavrentiy Beria, the notorious head of the NKVD, in 1953 the encyclopedia—ostensibly in response to overwhelming public demand—mailed subscribers to the second edition a letter from the editor^[11] instructing them to cut out and destroy the three-page article on Beria and paste in its place enclosed replacement pages expanding the adjacent articles on F. W. Bergholz (an 18th-century courtier), the Bering Sea, and Bishop Berkeley.^[12] By April 1954, the Library of the University of California had received this “replacement.”^[13] This was not the only case of political influence. Encyclopedia subscribers received missives to replace articles in the fashion of the Beria article frequently.^[14] Content of others changed significantly, to reflect not the scientific knowledge but the current party line. An article affected in such a fashion was the one on Bukharin, whose evolution of descriptions went through several versions.^[15]

[edit] Great Russian Encyclopedia

Publication of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was suspended in 1990 and halted in 1991, but in 2002 it was reinstituted by decree of Vladimir Putin. In 2003 and 2004 a team of editors overhauled the old encyclopedia by updating facts, removing most examples of overt political bias, and changing its name to the Great Russian Encyclopedia. Many outdated articles were entirely rewritten. In 2004, the first volume of the newly overhauled Great Russian Encyclopedia was published. As of 2009, the first complete (30-volume) edition since 1990 is about to be published.

Publication of the Great Russian Encyclopedia is overseen by the Russian Academy of Sciences, and funded by the Government of the Russian Federation. The encyclopedia is now found in libraries and schools throughout the CIS.^[16] Additionally, the 1980s editions remain in widespread use, particularly as references in scientific and mathematical research.

See also[link]

• Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia
• Damnatio memoriae

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Great Soviet encyclopedia, ed. A. M. Prokhorov (New York: Macmillan, London: Collier Macmillan, 1974–1983) 31 volumes, three volumes of indexes. Translation of third Russian edition of Bol'shaya sovetskaya entsiklopediya
• Kister, Kenneth. Kister's Best Encyclopedias. 2nd ed. (1994)

External links[link]

• (Russian) Great Soviet Encyclopedia online

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin^[1] (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин; 6 January 1872 [O.S. 25 December 1871] – 27 April [O.S. 14 April] 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. Scriabin's work initially possessed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language in line with the innovations of Frédéric Chopin, but developed an increasingly atonal and dissonant sound. Scriabin is known for developing, independent of the advances of Arnold Schoenberg, an atonal musical system, accorded to mysticism. Scriabin innovated several new harmonic techniques initially based on romanticism but moving increasingly into contemporary musical atonality; he is known for associating colors with the various harmonic tones of his atonal scale. Scriabin was influenced by synesthesia, and his color-coded circle of fifths was also influenced by theosophy. He may be considered to be the main Russian Symbolist composer. Scriabin is also known for his eccentricities and mystical beliefs, which contributed to the angle at which he approached music and harmonization. Scriabin was one of the most innovative and most controversial of early modern composers. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of Scriabin that, "No composer has had more scorn heaped or greater love bestowed..." Leo Tolstoy once described Scriabin's music as "a sincere expression of genius."^[2]

While early works, including his first preludes and major works such as his piano concerto, exhibit strong tonal romanticism, even here Scriabin moves toward a progressively more modern sound. But his turn to sharp dissonance is notable in his later piano sonatas, especially the fifth.^{[citation needed]}

Scriabin had a major impact on the music world over time, and influenced composers like Roy Agnew, Nikolai Roslavets, Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, although Scriabin was reported to have disliked the last two.^[3] Scriabin's importance in the Soviet musical scene, and internationally, drastically declined. "No one was more famous during their lifetime, and few were more quickly ignored after death."^[4] In the 1970s, for instance, there were only three recordings of his complete (published) sonatas. Yet Scriabin's work has steadily regained popularity^{[citation needed]}; his piano music, particularly the sonatas, has grown in popularity with professional pianists in recent decades.

Biography[link]

Childhood and education (1872–1893)[link]

A young Alexander Scriabin (late 1870s).

Scriabin was born into an aristocratic family in Moscow on Christmas Day 1871, according to the Julian Calendar (this translates to 6 January 1872 in the Gregorian Calendar). His father and all of his uncles had military careers.^[5] When he was only a year old, his mother—herself a concert pianist and former pupil of Theodor Leschetizky—died of tuberculosis. After her death, Scriabin's father completed tuition in the Turkish language in St. Petersburg, subsequently becoming a diplomat and finally leaving for Turkey, leaving the infant Sasha (as he was known) with his grandmother, great aunt, and aunt. Scriabin's father would later re-marry, giving Scriabin a number of half-brothers and sisters. His aunt Lyubov (his father's unmarried sister) was an amateur pianist who documented Sasha's early life until the time he met his first wife. As a child, Scriabin was frequently exposed to piano playing, and anecdotal references describe him demanding his aunt play for him.

Apparently precocious, Scriabin began building pianos after being fascinated with piano mechanisms. He sometimes gave away pianos he built to house guests. Lyubov portrays Scriabin as very shy and unsociable with his peers, but appreciative of adult attention. Another anecdote tells of Scriabin trying to conduct an orchestra composed of local children, an attempt that ended in frustration and tears. He would perform his own immature plays and operas with puppets to willing audiences. He studied the piano from an early age, taking lessons with Nikolai Zverev, a strict disciplinarian, who was teaching Sergei Rachmaninoff and a number of other prodigies at the same time, though Scriabin was not a pensionaire like Rachmaninoff.^[5]

Zverev's students in the late 1880s. Scriabin, with military attire, is the second on the left. Rachmaninoff is the fourth from the right.

In 1882 he enlisted in the Second Moscow Cadet Corps. As a student, he became friends with the actor Leonid Limontov, although in his memoirs Limontov recalls his reluctance to become friends with Scriabin, who was the smallest and weakest among all the boys and was sometimes teased because of this.^[5] However, Scriabin won his peers' approval at a concert in which he played the piano.^[5] He ranked generally first of his class in academics, but was exempt from drilling due to his physique and was given time each day to practice at the piano.

Scriabin later studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Anton Arensky, Sergei Taneyev, and Vasily Safonov. He became a noted pianist despite his small hands, which could barely grasp a ninth. Feeling challenged by Josef Lhévinne, he damaged his right hand while practicing Franz Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan and Mily Balakirev's Islamey.^[6] His doctor said he would never recover, and he wrote his first large-scale masterpiece, his Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, as a "cry against God, against fate." It was his third sonata to be written, but the first to which he gave an opus number (his second was condensed and released as the Allegro Appassionato, Op. 4). He eventually regained the use of his hand.^[6]

In 1892, he graduated with the Little Gold Medal in piano performance, but did not complete a composition degree because of strong differences in personality and musical opinion with Arensky (whose faculty signature is the only one absent from Scriabin's graduation certificate) and an unwillingness to compose pieces in forms that did not interest him.^[5]

Career and later life (1894–1915)[link]

In 1894, Scriabin made his debut as a pianist in St. Petersburg, performing his own works to positive reviews. During the same year, Mitrofan Belyayev agreed to pay Scriabin to compose for his publishing company (he published works by notable composers such as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov).^[5] In August 1897, Scriabin married the young pianist Vera Ivanovna Isakovich, and then toured in Russia and abroad, culminating in a successful 1898 concert in Paris. That year he became a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, and began attempting to establish his reputation as a composer. During this period he composed his cycle of études, Op. 8, several sets of preludes, his first three piano sonatas, and his only piano concerto, among other works, mostly for piano.

For a period of five years Scriabin was based in Moscow, during which time the first two of his symphonies were conducted by his old teacher Safonov.

According to later reports, between 1901 and 1903 Scriabin envisioned writing an opera. He talked a lot about it and expounded its ideas in the course of normal conversation. The work would center around a nameless heroe, a philosopher-musician-poet. Among other things, he would declare: I am the apotheosis of world creation. I am the aim of aims, the end of ends.^[5]

By the winter of 1904, Scriabin and his wife had relocated to Switzerland, where he began work on the composition of his Symphony No. 3 (or The Divine Poem). While living in Switzerland, Scriabin was separated legally from his wife. The Divine Poem was performed in Paris during 1905, where Scriabin was now accompanied by Tatiana Fyodorovna Schloezer—a former pupil and the niece of Paul de Schlözer.^[5] With Schloezer, he had other children, including a son named Julian Scriabin, who composed several musical works before drowning in the Dnieper River at Kiev in 1919 at the age of 11 years old.^[7] Scriabin may have also had some homosexual relationships.^[5]

Scriabin (sitting on the left of the table) as a guest at Wladimir Metzl's home in Berlin, 1910

With the financial assistance of a wealthy sponsor, he spent several years traveling in Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium and United States, working on more orchestral pieces, including several symphonies. He was also beginning to compose "poems" for the piano, a form with which he is particularly associated. While in New York City in 1907 he became acquainted with Canadian composer Alfred La Liberté, who went on to become a personal friend and disciple.^[8]

In 1907 he settled in Paris with his family and was involved with a series of concerts organized by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was actively promoting Russian music in the West at the time. He relocated subsequently to Brussels (rue de la Réforme 45) with his family.

In 1909 he returned to Russia permanently, where he continued to compose, working on increasingly grandiose projects. For some time before his death he had planned a multi-media work to be performed in the Himalayas Mountains, that would cause a so-called "armageddon", "a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world".^[9] Scriabin left only sketches for this piece, Mysterium, although a preliminary part, named L'acte préalable ("Preparatory Action") was eventually made into a performable version by Alexander Nemtin.^[10] Part of that unfinished composition was performed with the title 'Prefatory Action' by Vladimir Ashkenazy in Berlin with Aleksei Lyubimov at the piano.^[11] The Mysterium was, psychologically, a world Scriabin created to sustain its own evolution.^[12]

Scriabin was small and reportedly frail, and a hypochondriac his entire life. At the age of 43, he died in Moscow from septicemia, contracted as a result of an infected boil on his lip or shaving cut.^[12]

Music[link]

Style and musical influences[link]

The introduction to Scriabin's Étude, Op. 8, No. 12.

	"Étude Op. 8 No. 12" Awadagin Pratt performs Alexander Scriabin's Étude, Op. 8, No. 12. at the White House Classical Music Student Workshop Concert. (2009-11-04) Étude Op. 8 No. 12 Étude, Op. 8, No. 12. played by Domenico Stigliani
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Many of Scriabin's works are written for the piano. The earliest pieces resemble Frédéric Chopin's and include music in many forms that Chopin himself employed, such as the étude, the prelude, the nocturne, and the mazurka. Scriabin's music gradually evolved over the course of his life, although the evolution was very rapid and especially brief when compared to most composers. Aside from his earliest pieces, his works are strikingly original, the mid- and late-period pieces using very unusual harmonies and textures. The development of Scriabin's style can be traced in his ten piano sonatas: the earliest are composed in a fairly conventional late-Romantic manner and reveal the influence of Chopin and sometimes Franz Liszt, but the later ones are very different, the last five being written without a key signature. Many passages in them can be said to be atonal, though from 1903 through 1908, "tonal unity was almost imperceptibly replaced by harmonic unity."^[13]

Aaron Copland praised Scriabin's thematic material as "truly individual, truly inspired", but criticized Scriabin for putting "this really new body of feeling into the strait-jacket of the old classical sonata-form, recapitulation and all", calling this "one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all music."^[14] According to Samson the sonata-form of Sonata No. 5 has some meaning to the work's tonal structure, but in Sonata No. 6 and Sonata No. 7 formal tensions are created by the absence of harmonic contrast and "between the cumulative momentum of the music, usually achieved by textural rather than harmonic means, and the formal constraints of the tripartite mould." He also argues that the Poem of Ecstasy and Vers la flamme "find a much happier co-operation of 'form' and 'content'" and that later Sonatas such as Sonata No. 9 employ a more flexible sonata-form.^[13]

Philosophical influences[link]

Scriabin was interested in Friedrich Nietzsche's übermensch theory, and later became interested in theosophy. Both would influence his music and musical thought. During 1909–10 he lived in Brussels, becoming interested in Jean Delville's Theosophist philosophy and continuing his reading of Helena Blavatsky.^[13]

Theosophist and composer Dane Rudhyar wrote that Scriabin was "the one great pioneer of the new music of a reborn Western civilization, the father of the future musician", and an antidote to "the Latin reactionaries and their apostle, Stravinsky" and the "rule-ordained" music of "Schoenberg's group."^{[citation needed]} Scriabin developed his own very personal and abstract mysticism based on the role of the artist in relation to perception and life affirmation. His ideas on reality seem similar to Platonic and Aristotelian theory though much less coherent. The main sources of his philosophy can be found in his numerous unpublished notebooks, one in which he famously wrote "I am God". As well as jottings there are complex and technical diagrams explaining his metaphysics. Scriabin also used poetry as a means in which to express his philosophical notions, though arguably much of his philosophical thought was translated into music, the most recognizable example being the Ninth Sonata ('the Black Mass').

Influence of colour[link]

Keys arranged in a circle of fifths in order to show the spectral relationship.

Though these works are often considered to be influenced by synesthesia, a condition wherein one experiences sensation in one sense in response to stimulus in another, it is doubted that Scriabin actually experienced this.^[15][16] His colour system, unlike most synesthetic experience, accords with the circle of fifths: it was a thought-out system based on Sir Isaac Newton's Opticks. Note that Scriabin did not, for his theory, recognize a difference between a major and a minor tonality of the same name (for example: c-minor and C-Major). Indeed, influenced also by the doctrines of theosophy, he developed his system of synesthesia toward what would have been a pioneering multimedia performance: his unrealized magnum opus Mysterium was to have been a grand week-long performance including music, scent, dance, and light in the foothills of the Himalayas Mountains that was somehow to bring about the dissolution of the world in bliss.

In his autobiographical Recollections, Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov about Scriabin's association of colour and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff's opera The Miserly Knight accorded with their claim: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that "your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny."

While Scriabin wrote only a small number of orchestral works, they are among his most famous, and some are performed frequently. They include a piano concerto (1896), and five symphonic works, including three numbered symphonies as well as The Poem of Ecstasy (1908) and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1910), which includes a part for a machine known as a "clavier à lumières", known also as a Luce (Italian for "Light"), which was a colour organ designed specifically for the performance of Scriabin's tone poem. It was played like a piano, but projected coloured light on a screen in the concert hall rather than sound. Most performances of the piece (including the premiere) have not included this light element, although a performance in New York City in 1915 projected colours onto a screen. It has been claimed erroneously that this performance used the colour-organ invented by English painter A. Wallace Rimington when in fact it was a novel construction supervised personally and built in New York specifically for the performance by Preston S. Miller, the president of the Illuminating Engineering Society.

Scriabin's original colour keyboard, with its associated turntable of coloured lamps, is preserved in his apartment near the Arbat in Moscow, which is now a museum dedicated to his life and works.

Performers and legacy[link]

Scriabin himself made recordings of 19 of his own works, using 20 piano rolls, six for the Welte-Mignon, and 14 for Ludwig Hupfeld of Leipzig.^[17] The Welte rolls were recorded during early February 1910, in Moscow, and have been replayed and published on CD. Those recorded for Hupfeld include the Piano Sonatas, Op. 19 and Op. 23.^[18]

Scriabin's music has also been performed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Sofronitsky, Wojciech Kocyan, Andrei Gavrilov, Bernd Glemser, Emil Gilels, Ruth Laredo, Marc-André Hamelin, Evgeny Kissin, Claudio Arrau, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Stanislav Neuhaus, Michael Ponti, Glenn Gould, Roberto Szidon, Robert Taub, Dimitri Alexeev, Matthijs Verschoor, Piers Lane, Stephen Coombs, Nikolai Demidenko, John Ogdon, Alfred Cortot, Evgeny Zarafiants, Mikhail Pletnev, Daniele Conti, Boris Berezovsky and Eric Le Van. Swedish pianist Maria Lettberg has recently made an acclaimed recording of all Scriabin's piano music with opus numbers. Australian pianist Roger Woodward has made recordings of the late works of Scriabin as well as Scriabin's Piano Concerto.

Pianists who have performed Scriabin to particular critical acclaim include Vladimir Sofronitsky, Vladimir Horowitz and Sviatoslav Richter. Sofronitsky never met the composer, as his parents forbade him to attend a concert due to illness. The pianist said he never forgave them. Rubinstein premiered the Fifth Sonata in the West.^{[citation needed]} Horowitz performed for Scriabin as an 11-year-old child, and Scriabin had an enthusiastic reaction, but cautioned that he needed more training.^[19] As an elderly man, Horowitz remarked that Scriabin had nervous tics and could not sit still for long.^[19]

Scriabin's funeral was attended by such numbers that tickets had to be issued. Rachmaninoff went on tour, playing only Scriabin's music. Sergei Prokofiev admired the composer, and his Visions fugitives bears great likeness to Scriabin's tone and style. Another admirer was the British-Parsi composer Kaikhosru Sorabji who strenuously collected the obscure works of Scriabin while living in Essex as a youth. Sorabji promoted Scriabin even during the years when Scriabin's popularity had decreased greatly. Scriabin's great-great-grandson Elisha Abas is a concert pianist who divides his time between New York and Israel.^[20]

The work of Roslavets, unlike that of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, is often seen as a direct extension of Scriabin's. Unlike Scriabin's, however, Roslavets' music was not explained with mysticism and eventually was given theoretical explication by the composer. Roslavets was not alone in his innovative extension of Scriabin's musical language, however, as quite a few Soviet composers and pianists such as Sergei Protopopov, Nikolai Myaskovsky, and Alexander Mosolov followed this legacy until Stalinist politics quelled it in favor of Socialist Realism.^[21]

Media[link]

• Scriabin's own recordings for the Welte-Mignon have been replayed in modern times and transferred to audio.

	Prélude Op. 11, No. 1 (728 kB) Prélude Op. 11, No. 2 (1492 kB) Mazurka Op. 40, No. 2 (677 kB) Prelude No. 1, Op. 67 Performed by Jennifer Castellano. Courtesy of Musopen, 1.87 mB
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Eponym[link]

Asteroid 6549 Skryabin is named for the composer.^[22]

Relatives[link]

Scriabin was the uncle of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh, a renowned bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church who directed the Russian Orthodox diocese in Great Britain between 1957 and 2003. Scriabin's daughter Ariane (1906..1944) was born in Italy, converted to Judaism taking the name Sarah and married the Russian poet and Jewish WWII Resistance fighter David Knout. She was responsible for communications between the command in Toulouse and the partisan forces in the Tarn district and for taking weapons to the partisans, which resulted in her death being ambushed by the French Militia.

See also[link]

• Synthetic chord
• Mystic chord
• Atonality
• Romantic music
• 20th century classical music

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alexander Scriabin

Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Alexander Scriabin.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alexander Scriabin

• Rachmaninoff and Scriabin: Creativity and Suffering in Talent and Genius by Emanuel E. Garcia
• Scriabin Society of America
• The mythical time in Scriabin by Lia Tomás
• Was Scriabin a Synaesthete? by B. Galeyev & I. Vanechkina
• Scriabin in Aspen No.2 on UBUWEB (A short biography by Faubion Bowers; four preludes and the tenth sonata available for download)
• Alexander Scriabin discography at MusicBrainz
• Aleksandr Scriabin – MIDI files (subscription needed)
• Works by or about Alexander Scriabin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Scriabin Liner Notes Russian-born pianist Yevgeny Sudbin discusses Scriabin's work and life.

Scores[link]

• Free scores by Alexander Scriabin at the International Music Score Library Project
• Scriabin's Sheet Music by Mutopia Project
• Free scores by Alexander Scriabin in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net — Free Scores by Alexander Scriabin

Recordings[link]

• Scriabin's own recording of the third and fourth Movements from his Piano Sonata, no. 3, Op. 23 (The Pianola Institute)*
• Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)

This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization. (October 2010)

Lamara Chkonia, Tbilisi 1975

Lamara Chkonia (Georgian: ლამარა ჭყონია, born December 27, 1930) is a prominent Georgian soprano. Belonging to a circle of opera singers who made significant contributions to the vocal culture of Georgia and the former Soviet Union, Lamara was one of the few women to break through the Iron Curtain and present her talent to the world’s cultural community.

Early years[link]

Lamara was born in Georgia, then part of the Soviet Union, to a family of theater and musical traditions. Her uncle Akaki Chkonia, a known writer and a director of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre, was executed in 1937 during Greate Purge. At Tbilisi State Conservatoire, Lamara studied with Valerian Cashelli, who for years performed at Milan's La Scala and other Opera Houses in Italy. Under his tutelage, her art from the beginning was infused with the influence of the Italian school of opera. After much success at home in Georgia's Tbilisi Opera [7], she was accepted a leading soloist of the Kiev National Opera and Ballet Theatre. During the same time she debuted in productions of other famous theaters such as the Kirov Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Lamara Chkonia became laureate of many national and international vocal competitions, among which the Glinka Competition in Moscow, Sofia Competition in Bulgaria, the "Prague Spring" in Czechoslovakia and the famous Madama Butterfly Competition in Japan, where she won the Grand Prix, the Award for the Best Madame Butterfly and the Audience Appreciation's Gold Cup. She was the first female singer from Georgia to became a laureate of the international vocal competition and from this time her art belonged not to Georgia and Ukraine only, it has become international. "The most beautiful voice, good looks and brilliant acting put Lamara Chkonia on a par with the world's best Cio-Cio-San," [8] wrote one of the Japanese newspapers.

Lamara Chkonia – Madame Butterfly, Kiev 1968 MB

Success and international recognition[link]

In 1976 she was awarded People's Artist of USSR, the highest artistic honor of the time. Later she became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1979–1984). The singer was constantly invited to official state and private solo concerts, where among her listeners were Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Josip Broz Tito, Indira Gandhi, Francois Mitterrand, John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Gustáv Husák, Yuri Gagarin, Todor Zhivkov, Erich Honecker, Nicolae Ceaușescu, János Kádár, Mikhail Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze, and many others. She was a frequent guest on the state television shows such as Blue Light, Morning Post, Music Mail and others. The name of Lamara Chkonia is included in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia[9]. Her abundant repertoire consists of about 40 opera parts, including Violetta [10], Madame Butterfly [11], Gilda, Marguerite, Rosina [12], and many others.

She made many recordings^[1] and recorded 15 CDs (over 250 works) for the "Golden Fund of the USSR" with the National Radio of Moscow, Tbilisi and Kiev with the participation of the Soviet Union best symphony orchestras. The singer went to numerous concert tours to Finland, Italy, Canada, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Germany, Japan, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and many other countries, and everywhere she was praised by critics. The press in Japan wrote: "Who at least once listened to Lamara Chkonia, could not remain indifferent to the voice of such beauty and perfection of her technique." Press in Finland wrote: "Never before has our audience heard a singer of such a high vocal and artistic level."^{[citation needed]}

In 1984, the Higher Education Commission of the USSR awarded her the title of professor of the Higher Academy of Music.

In 1996, Lamara Chkonia moved permanently to Madrid to live with her youngest daughter, the internationally recognized soprano Eteri Lamoris.^[2] There she successfully engaged in teaching,^[3] leaving occasionally to conduct master classes in France and Portugal. Having 40-year experience in teaching, Lamara Chkonia nurtured many high level singers (including her own daughters: Eteri Lamoris and Natela Nicoli). Eight of them became winners of international competitions and presently singing on the best world stages.

LamaraChkonia Rosina Kiev 1968

Lamara Ckronia's State Awards include: "Znak Pocheta" (Order of the Badge of Honor), USSR 1974; «Кредо» (Credo) and "Орден Великомученицы Варвары" (order of St. Barbara) Ukraine 2011 ^[4]; "Order of King Tamar” and The Presidential Order of Excellence", Republic of Georgia 2011; Premio "Cigno D'Oro", Italy 2011

"The phenomenon of Lamar Chkonia in Georgian and international art is one of the most brilliant moments and milestones in the history of the singing elite, which can be considered cultural contribution of our nation to the world civilization", wrote a professor, People's Artist of Georgia Nodar Andghuladze^[5] on January 14, 2001 in The Day of the Georgian Theatre newspaper.

In September 2011, 80th Anniversary of Lamara Chkonia was celebrated at Batumi Music and Art Center. According to the decision of Georgia’s President, Lamara Chkonia has been awarded with the Order of “King Tamar”.^[6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Vano Saradjishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire 1917-2007 http://books.google.com/books?id=OWOM8ia2-2wC&lpg=PP1&dq=The%20Vano%20Saradjishvili%20Tbilisi%20State%20Conservatoire%201917-2007&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Tbilisi State Conservatoire: Lamara Chkonia http://www.conservatoire.edu.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=702
• World Music Days Artists: Tbilisi Opera http://www.danielpearlmusicdays.org/artist_detail.php?id=916
• Vinil Divas http://www.vinyldivas.com/contentsc.htm
• Lamara Chkonia – Madame Butterfly http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tb5AZ2IIxk
• Great Soviet Encyclopedia: Lamara Chkonia (Большая советская энциклопедия: Чкония Ламара Григорьевна) http://slovari.yandex.ru/~книги/БСЭ/Чкония%20Ламара%20Григорьевна/
• CLASES MAGISTRALES DE INTERPRETACIÓN DE CANTO: LAMARA CHKONIA http://www.conservatorioteresaberganza.com.es/CTBadm/files/Tr%C3%ADptico%20curso%20canto.pdf
• Lamara Chkonia awards ceremony, Kiev 2011 http://vip.glavred.info/?/articles/2011/03/03/130514-14
• Lamara Chkonia's Jubilee, Batumi 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdfIf-f-ZRs&feature=related