in Russia’s main cosmonautics society and the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. His collected scientific writings appeared in the USSR from 1951 through 1964. See also: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; SPACE PROGRAM
Petrovich, G. V. (2002). The Soviet Encyclopedia of Space Flight. Seattle, WA: University Press of the Pacific.
TSSU See CENTRAL STATISTICAL AGENCY.
In the early twentieth century Russia expanded its economic and military presence in the Far East, inspired by Minister of Finance Sergei Witte and Russian nationalists close to Nicholas II. Three events were interpreted by Japan as a direct assault on its own continental expansion: the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, begun in 1892; its subsequent shortcut, the Chinese Eastern Railway, built across Manchuria at the turn of the century; and the Russian acquisition of Port Arthur to the south as a naval base. After diplomatic efforts yielded little satisfaction, the modern Japanese navy suddenly struck at the two major Russian bases, Vladivostok and Port Arthur, in February of 1904. By this action they destroyed most of the Russian Far Eastern fleet, and blockaded what remained of it. Russia fared badly in the ensuing Russo-Japanese War on land, because of poor leadership and geography, and because of the domestic unrest that resulted in the Revolution of 1905.
Belatedly, and as a classic example of poor planning, Russia dispatched the much larger Baltic fleet, under the command of Admiral Rozhdestvenski, to sail around Africa to the Pacific with the goal of regaining naval dominance in its Far Eastern waters. Large, unwieldy, and exhausted after the long voyage, the Russian fleet entered the Straits of Tsushima (between Japan and Korea) on its way to Vladivostok in May 1905. The new, modern Japanese navy, under the command of Admiral Togo, was waiting for it. The result was one of the worst disasters in naval history, with most of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Russian ships quickly sunk or immobilized, and with little loss on the other side. Only a few Russian ships, including the cruiser Aurora, of 1917 revolutionary fame, managing to escape.
The consequences of this defeat were enormous. The battle signaled the end of the war and a search for peace, negotiated through the arbitration of President Theodore Roosevelt at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The loss was a major blow to Russian military prestige, lowering morale especially in the navy. Moreover, it prepared the background for the June 1905 mutiny of the battleship Potemkin when it was rumored to be among the next ships to be sent to the Pacific. The defeat also fomented antigovernment agitation that crystallized in the October Uprising and the Moscow Uprising in November. The navy, often referred to, subsequently, as the Tsushima department, never recovered, and was prone to radical revolutionary activism in 1917. See also: POTEMKIN MUTINY
Hough, Richard. (1958). The Fleet that Had to Die. London: H. Hamilton. Pleshakov, Konstantin. (2002). The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Journey to the Battle of Tsushima. New York: Basic Books.
NORMAN E. SAUL
(1892-1941), twentieth-century poet, playwright, translator, and essayist.
Marina Tsvetaeva, one of the most original and complex poets of the twentieth century, led a life of fierce passion, material hardship, and ostracism. Her “poetry of whirling and staccato rhythms” (Obolensky, 1965) stands outside the trends of her time, though it shares some of the mysticism of the Symbolists, the bold experimentation of the Futurists, and the directness of the Acmeists.
Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow. Her father was a professor of art history; her mother, a talented but frustrated pianist who wanted Marina to follow in her footsteps. Tsvetaeva began writing verse at age six. In 1902 the family moved to Europe to
1581
Poet Marina Tsvetaeva lived in Switzerland, Germany, Prague, and France before returning to Russia. © SOVFOTO seek tuberculosis treatment for Tsvetaeva’s mother. They returned to Russia in 1905 and settled in Yalta (Crimea), where Tsvetaeva’s mother died in 1906. At age eighteen Tsvetaeva wrote her first collection of poems, Evening Album (Vecherny albom), which drew praise from critics such as Valery Bryusov and Maximilian Voloshin.
In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron and bore her first child, Ariadna (Alya). Her second collection, Magic Lantern (Volshebny fonar), and a collection of her early poetry, From Two Books (Iz dvukh knig), received lukewarm response. In her next collection, Juvenilia (Yunosheskie stikhi)-not published during her lifetime-she embarked on new forms and treated unconventional themes, including her affair with Sophia Parnok, a literary critic and lesbian. (Tsvetaeva’s affairs and passionate friendships played a key role in her poetry, as did her feverish devotion to her husband.) Juvenilia was followed by Mileposts I (Versty I), which celebrates her complex friendship with poet Osip Mandelsh-tam and abounds with innovation.
Tsvetaeva rejected the Russian Revolution, but her views would prove complex over time: She would come into conflict with reactionary ?migr? circles. At the onset of the Russian civil war, Efron joined the White Army and lost contact with the family. Tsvetaeva and her daughters spent five years of poverty in Moscow. Tsvetaeva sent her younger daughter, Irina, to an orphanage, only to learn later that she had died there. Tsvetaeva’s collection Demesne of the Swans (Lebediny stan), unpublished until 1957, expresses support for the White Army. Other work during this period includes the collections Mileposts II (Versty II) and Remeslo (Craft).
In 1922 Tsvetaeva and Alya emigrated to join Efron, who was in exile. They lived in Berlin, then Prague, then Paris. She gave birth to her son Georgy (Moor) in 1925. Her creative output during this period includes the poetry collections After Russia (Posle Rossii) and Verses to My Son (Stikhi k synu) and the plays Ariadne and Phaedra. Alienated from both her homeland and the Parisian ?migr? circles, Tsvetaeva suffered extreme isolation.
Efron’s political sympathies shifted, and he became a spy for the Soviet Union. Alya, who shared his views, returned to the Soviet Union in 1937; Efron followed later that year. Tsvetaeva and her son joined them in 1939. Boris Pasternak helped her find translation work, but she was otherwise ostracized by the government and by established poets. In 1941 Efron was shot and Alya sent to a labor camp. Tsvetaeva and her son were evacuated to Yelabuga (Tatar Republic), where they lacked means of support. Tsvetaeva committed suicide on August 31, 1941. See also: GULAG
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Feinstein, Elaine. (1987). A Captive Lion: The Life of Marina Tsvetaeva. London: Hutchinson. Karlinsky, Simon. (1985). Marina Tsvetaeva: The Woman, Her World, and Her Poetry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Obolensky, Dimitri. (1976). The Heritage of Russian Verse. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Tsvetaeva, Marina. (1993). Selected Poems, 4th ed., trans. and intro. Elaine Feinstein. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
1582
(1865-1919), political economist and social theorist.
The most significant prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian contributor to economics, Tugan-Baranovsky was born near Kharkov, Ukraine, and attended Kharkov University. As a leading member of the Legal Marxist group, Tugan attempted to reform orthodox Russian Marxism by adding a large dose of neo-Kantian ethics, together with insights from British classical economics and a dash of the German historical school. In economic theory Tu-gan’s most significant work was Industrial Crises in Contemporary England (1894). This pioneered the detailed empirical
