Kranz, Patricia Kranz. (1998). “No Tax Man Ever Had It Tougher.” Business Week 3585:51.
(c. 1510-1583), the most celebrated among printers in old Rus.
Ivan Fyoderov (also called Ivan Fyodorovich, Fyodorov syn, Moskvitin, and drukar Moskvitin) was the initiator of printing in Muscovy and Ukraine, and was a printer also in Belarus. He produced the first printed Church Slavonic Bible (the “Ostroh Bible” of 1580-1581), the first Russian (or other East Slavic) textbook (Bukvar, 1574), and the first printed Russian alphabetical subject index, calendar, and poem. He was an accomplished craftsman in numerous trades, and a man of broad vision and great persistence. Altogether, Ivan played an important role in the promotion of literacy and Eastern Orthodox confessional unity, and he introduced a high level of content, design, and craftsmanship into a critically needed profession. Ivan Fyodorov, the first Russian printer. Painting by Alexander Moravov. © TASS/SOVFOTO
Born sometime around 1510 in Muscovy, he studied at Krakow University, where he probably received training in Greek and Latin, and from which he graduated in 1532. Subsequently, he worked as deacon in the St. Nikola Gostunsky church in the Moscow Kremlin, serving from some time after 1533 until 1565. He was selected by Tzar Ivan IV “Grozny” to initiate an official printing press in Moscow where, together with his partner Petr Mstislavets, he printed books that were needed for an expanding Russian Orthodox Church. These included the first dated Russian imprint, the Apos-tol of 1563-1564, and two editions of the Chasovnik (Horologion, 1565). Several anonymous Moscow editions from the immediately preceding period (c. 1553-1563) are also generally ascribed to Ivan. His Moscow activity was cut short by what he de
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scribes in one of his later editions as the antagonism of narrow-minded people, and he moved to Zabludovo in Belarus together with his son (also named Ivan) and Petr Mstislavets. Here he opened a new print shop under the sponsorship of Hetman G. A. Khodkevich and produced several more editions, including the Evangelie uchitelnoe (1569, Instructive Evangelary) and a psalter (1570). Advised by his aging sponsor to retire to farming on land provided him, he declined, saying he was suited to sowing not seeds but the printed word. Instead, he moved to the city of Lviv (now in Ukraine), where with his son he printed more editions, including a reprint of his Moscow Apostol (1573-1574), and the Bukvar (1574, Primer).
Federov subsequently established one more print shop, on the estate of Prince Kostiantyn (Con-stantine) of Ostroh, participating in the latter’s defense of Eastern Orthodoxy against increasing pressure from Western denominations. The major publication among the several issued there was the famous Ostroh Bible, which remains of prime historical, textual, and confessional importance. The first complete printed Church Slavonic Bible, it was issued in a large print-run and widely distributed among East Slavic lands and abroad, surviving in the early twenty- first century in some 300 copies. In 1581 Ivan left Ostroh to return to Lviv, where he died on December 15, 1583. He was buried in the Onufriev Monastery; his gravestone read, in part, “printer of books not seen before.” The literature devoted to Ivan Fyodorov is vast, well exceeding two thousand titles, mostly in Russian and other Slavic languages. See also: EDUCATION; IVAN IV
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Ivan Fedorov’s Primer of 1574: Facsimile Edition,” with commentary by Roman Jakobson; appendix by William A. Jackson. (1955). Harvard Library Bulletin IX-1:1-44. Mathiesen, Robert. (1981). “The Making of the Ostrih Bible.” Harvard Library Bulletin 29(1): 71-110. Thomas, Christine. (1984). “Two East Slavonic primers: Lvov 1574 and Moscow 1637.” British Library Journal 10(1): 60-67.
(1934-1968), cosmonaut; first human to orbit Earth in a spacecraft.
The son of a carpenter on a collective farm, Yury Gagarin was born in the village of Klushino, Smolensk Province. During World War II, facing the German invasion, his family evacuated to Gzi-atsk (now called Gagarin City). Gagarin briefly attended a trade school to learn foundry work, then entered a technical school. He joined the Saratov Flying Club in 1955 and learned to fly the Yak-18. Later that year, he was drafted and sent to the Orenburg Flying School, where he trained in the MIG jet. Gagarin graduated November 7, 1957, four days after Sputnik 2 was launched. He married Valentina Goryacheva, a nursing student, the day he graduated.
Gagarin flew for two years as a fighter pilot above the Arctic Circle. In 1958 space officials recruited air force pilots to train as cosmonauts. Gagarin applied and was selected to train in the first group of sixty men. Only twelve men were taken for further training at Zvezdograd (Star City), a training field outside Moscow. The men trained for nine months in space navigation, physiology, and astronomy, and practiced in a mockup of the spacecraft Vostok. Space officials closely observed the trainees, subjecting them to varied physical and mental stress tests. They finally selected Gagarin for the first spaceflight. Capable, strong, and even-tempered, Gagarin represented the ideal Soviet man, a peasant farmer who became a highly trained cosmonaut in a few short years. Sergei Korolev, the chief designer of spacecraft, may have consulted with Nikita Khrushchev, Russia’s premier, to make the final selection.
Gagarin was launched in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyu-ratam, Kazakhstan. The Vostok spacecraft included a small spherical module on top of an instrument module containing the engine system, with a three-stage rocket underneath. Gagarin was strapped into an ejection seat. He did not control the spacecraft, due to uncertainty about how spaceflight would affect his physical and mental reactions. He orbited the earth a single time at an altitude of 188 miles, flying for one hour and forty-eight minutes. He then ejected from the spacecraft at an altitude of seven kilometers, parachuting into a field near Saratov. His mission proved that humans could survive in space and return safely to earth.
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Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin prepares to be the first man to orbit the Earth. © BETTMANN/CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
Gagarin was sent on a world tour to represent the strength of Soviet technology. A member of the Communist Party since 1960, he was appointed a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and named a Hero of the Soviet Union. He became the commander of the cosmonaut corps and began coursework at the Zhukovsky Institute of Aeronautical Engineering. An active young man, Gagarin often felt frustrated in his new life as an essentially ceremonial figure. There were many reports of Gagarin’s resulting depression and hard drinking. In 1967, however, he decided to train as a backup cosmonaut in anticipation of a lunar landing.
On March 27, 1968, Gagarin conducted a test flight with a senior flight instructor near Moscow. The plane crashed, killing both men instantly. Gagarin’s tragic death shocked the public in the USSR and abroad. A special investigation was conducted amid rumors that Gagarin’s drinking caused the crash. Since then, investigators have indicated other possible causes, such as poor organization and faulty equipment at ground level. Gagarin received a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall. American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin left one of Gagarin’s medals on the moon as a tribute. The cosmonaut training center where he had first trained was named after him. A crater on the moon bears his name, as does Gagarin Square in Moscow with its soaring monument, along with a number of monuments and streets in cities throughout Russia. At Baikonur, a reproduction of his training room is traditionally visited by space crews before a launch. Russians celebrate Cosmonaut Day on April 12 every year in honor of Gagarin’s historic flight. See also: SPACE PROGRAM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gagarin, Yuri. (1962). Road to the Stars, told to Nikolay Denisov and Serhy Borzenko, ed. N. Kamanin, tr. G. Hanna and D. Myshnei. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Gurney, Clare, and Gurney, Gene. (1972). Cosmonauts in Orbit: The Story of the Soviet Manned Space Program. New York: Franklin Watts. Johnson, Nicholas L. (1980). Handbook of Soviet Manned Space Flight. San Diego, CA: Univelt. Riabchikov, Evgeny. (1971). Russians in Space, tr. Guy Daniels. New York: Doubleday. Shelton, William. (1969). Soviet Space Exploration: The First Decade,
