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Reggie Lewis, we hardly knew ye.
That's an old form of tribute, spawned by a 19th Century British song that sardonically mourned the loss in war of a soldier who died, obviously, too young. Later, more somberly, it was famously applied to John F. Kennedy, whose Presidency and life were snuffed by an assassin's bullet to the world's shock and dismay.
But in the case of Lewis, the Boston Celtics guard who collapsed and died on July 27, 1993, from a confusing and ultimately lethal heart condition, the construction literally is true. As sad as Lewis' death was to those throughout the NBA and across the sports world, its sheer impact was buffered by several factors.
First, the element of surprise was absent. Lewis had exhibited symptoms of a heart ailment – the eventual cause of death was deemed to be hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – in the preceding months, including his collapse in Game 1 of Boston's 1993 first-round playoff series against Charlotte. He had been advised to retire, then got cleared for a return to the Celtics and had been shooting baskets at the team's practice facility at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., when he collapsed and died.
This wasn't Len Bias, the Celtics' first-round selection and No. 2 pick overall in 1986, who died just two days after the Draft from a cocaine overdose. The franchise and Boston's sports fans still were reeling from that when they tabbed Lewis the following spring at No. 22.
This wasn't Hank Gathers, the Loyola Marymount forward who died in the middle of a WCC tournament game from the same conditions as ESPN cameras rolled. Gathers had shown symptoms, too, and had been prescribed medication, but largely was an unknown until his dramatic and public death (with current Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on the floor that day, a point guard for the University of Portland).
A search for context, and an understanding of why Lewis' death didn't resonate nationally the way it might have or should have or, certainly, would have now in a world of 24/7 Internet and social media, yields only guesses. It doesn't soothe the pain of a young family man dying so young, no matter if he'd poured in points for the Celtics on their parquet floor or picked up towels in their locker room.
That pain remains for those who knew Lewis, loved him and followed his career most closely. Veteran NBA writer Jackie MacMullan's tribute piece on ESPN.com covers so much of that because she and the people she interviewed about Lewis were a part of the Baltimore native's life and premature death. Such as:
Brian Shaw and Reggie Lewis planned to grow up in the NBA together. They shared an agent, bought their houses at the same time, picked out new BMWs just days apart. They even went out and bought life insurance policies together.
"I miss him," Shaw said. "I miss the closeness of having a friend who was going through the same things as me.
"We used to talk all the time about how we wanted to be the breakout tandem, the Celtics backcourt to be reckoned with for a long, long time."
Lewis was on his way. At the time of his death, he had averaged more than 20 points a game and led the Celtics in scoring for two consecutive seasons. He had played in the 1992 NBA All-Star Game.
But there was so much going on at that time for Boston and in the league, and frankly so many deaths and setbacks, that Lewis' tragic tale wound up muted for a lot of NBA and sports fans.
Besides Bias and Gathers, there was James Jordan, the father of Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan. He went missing on July 22, 1993 – just five days before Lewis collapsed – and soon was found dead under first mysterious, then sinister circumstances that grabbed headlines for weeks afterward (a pair of young armed robbers shot and killed Jordan while he slept in his car alongside a country road).
Just 21 months before Lewis died, in November 1991, Lakers star Magic Johnson had been given what figured to be his own death sentence, announcing he had contracted the HIV virus and immediately retiring. His Boston counterpart, Larry Bird, was dying only an athletic death, but still – Bird played in only 45 games in 1991-92 and just four of 10 in the playoffs due to a worsening back injury that forced his retirement after that season.
The Celtics were in transition-slash-decline, still thought of nationally for what they were and who'd they be losing rather than any bounce they'd get from Lewis, Shaw or anyone else. They played in the 1987 Finals before Lewis arrived, then didn't get back until 21 years later. In 1988, they lost the Eastern Conference title to Detroit, and from there, NBA casual fans shifted their attention to the "Bad Boy" Pistons, to Jordan's quest for rings and to wannabes such as the Knicks and the Jazz.
Lewis wasn't exactly his own greatest press agent, either. He had star talent but a role player's personality, deferring to Boston's legendary veterans personally even as the arc of their games crossed; in his final season, he played about as many minutes and took as many shots as Kevin McHale and Robert Parish combined. Fans at Boston Garden and league insiders recognized the budding star before them, but even at his best, he never cracked the Top 10 in scoring (15th in 1991-92, 16th in 1992-93).
The Celtics, their opponents and MacMullan knew how good Lewis was – and was becoming – even if his national profile was low. Having written about him when he was at Northeastern, having known him as a rookie, MacMullan – a longtime Boston Globe reporter – saw the evolution in Lewis' game. She revisited it in her ESPN.com piece, focusing on a 1991 matchup against the Bulls and Jordan:
In that March 31 game, as Jordan pulled up for his patented fallaway — one of the most feared weapons in basketball — Lewis waited patiently for MJ to launch himself, then stretched his arms and timed it so he deflected the ball just as Jordan released.
The block surprised Jordan, whose otherworldly elevation usually negated any chance of a rejected shot.
Most players weren't athletic enough to literally "hang" with Jordan. Lewis was one of the exceptions.
"He was a tough matchup," Jordan said. "He had those long arms that really bothered me.
"I was trying to be aggressive with him. I was trying to take advantage of his passive demeanor, but he didn't back down. He never relinquished his own aggressiveness.
"He shocked me a little bit."
MJ dismissed Reggie's initial block as an anomaly. When it happened again, this time on a pull-up jumper, Jordan became irked. The next time, he became concerned. And by the fourth time, on a lefty drive to the hoop, Jordan was irritated — and somewhat spooked.
"His length confused me," Jordan conceded. "Every time I thought I had him beat, he'd recover and get up on me. When you have the skills to break someone down on defense and you can't, it makes you tentative offensively."
Here's where we pause for a moment to understand the magnitude of what Jordan is saying. The most dynamic scorer in NBA history is now admitting two decades later that he was shocked by what Reggie Lewis did to him, confused by his length and made tentative offensively.
How many other NBA players can lay claim to making Michael Jordan feel that way?
The answer: Too damn few. One of whom was gone way too soon.


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On April 8, a panel of female ministers will reflect on their life in ministry and what they wish they had known when they graduated from seminary. The discussion, "Sacraments in Stilettos, Preaching in Pumps" will take place at 6 p.m. in 0014 Westbrook and is open to Divinity School students, faculty, staff, and graduates.
The event grew out of discussions that took place in Professor Lauren Winner's Women in Ministry class (Parish 815), and will give students an opportunity to ask questions directly to women involved in parish and chaplain ministry.
"I am very excited about this panel," said Winner. "I expect the conversation to address some hard, important questions submitted by students, like the place of ambition in the lives and careers of clergy women, how being ordained intersects with women's dating relationships and marriages, and why women love parish ministry—and why they think of leaving it."
Said Adrienne Koch, M.Div.'11, communications specialist at Duke Chapel and a teaching assistant for the class, "Conversations from whether or not female clergy can wear lipstick on a Sunday morning to how to go about asking for maternity leave have been happening in the halls of the Divinity School for decades. We thought it was time to bring them into the classroom."
The panel will include Katie Ricks, associate pastor of the Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, N.C.; Sarah Jobe, a chaplain at Raleigh Correctional Center for Women and author of Creating with God: The Holy Confusing Gift of Pregnancy; Ashley-Anne Masters, pastor, chaplain, and co-author of Bless Her Heart: Life as a Young Clergy Woman; Lisa Yebuah, pastor at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, N.C.; and Rev. Dr. Ginger Brasher-Cunningham, senior pastor at Pilgrim United Methodist Church of Christ in Durham, N.C. Winner will facilitate the discussion.
The discussion is co-sponsored by the Divinity School's Ministerial Division and by the Office of Black Church Studies. The Divinity School Women's Center will provide refreshments.

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text: The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery features six exhibitions each year that represent the diversity of artistic production today, as well as throughout the history of Eastern and Western art. In addition to exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection and organized from public and private sources, a number of traveling exhibitions are presented as well. Additionally, a portion of the gallery space is frequently dedicated to the exhibition of selected works from the permanent collection.


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Do we save it or let it go? That's the question Lancaster County officials are facing with the historic jail building on West Gay Street in downtown Lancaster.
The top of the building is sinking and an engineer has told the county the building could collapse. The building hasn't been used as a jail in years, but has housed the county's Emergency Operation Center, Lancaster County Fire Service and Emergency Management. After a structural engineer informed the county of the problem, the operation center was moved out of the building.
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DAMASCUS, Syria, July 2 (UPI) -- A Catholic website has posted a video purportedly showing a priest beheaded by Islamist militants in Syria but others say the Rev. Francois Murad was shot.
The Vatican, which announced Murad's death last week, has said it has no knowledge of the video, posted Monday by Catholic Online, CNN reported.
The Daily Telegraph of London reported local sources said Murad was shot.
"It is very important the world knows that Christians are being murdered for their faith, and that martyrdom isn't an ancient phenomenon," the website said. "This should make it clear to Christians around the world what jihadists are about. Make no mistake. Catholics and Christians around the globe are under dire threat, particularly from the spread of militant Islam. Until the threat is recognized and taken seriously, martyrdoms like this will continue."
The Telegraph said the video, which shows two men being beheaded as a crowd yells "God is great," is too grainy to identify any of the prisoners depicted. The newspaper said it may be an older video.
The newspaper said its sources said Murad "died when he was shot inside his church." The sources said that occurred June 23 in Ghassaniyeh, a Christian village near the Turkish border.
About three-quarters of Syrians are Sunni Muslims. The family of President Bashar Assad are Alawites, members of a minority Muslim sect, and there are also Shiite communities and Christians.
In its statement last week, the Vatican said Murad died defending his church, CNN reported. The Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is in charge of Franciscan monks in the region, was cited as the source of its information.
"The village had been under attack from Islamist rebels for the past few weeks, forcing the majority of the population to flee," the Vatican statement said. "When Father Francois tried to oppose resistance to defend the nuns and other people, the guerrillas shot him, killing him."


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I heard the weather forecaster mention the chance of an Indian summer last week and it got me thinking about this old print my father had hanging in his office. The two juxtaposed images of a young man and his grandfather around a small bonfire: as the scene turns to night the smoke that arose from the fire reveals an image of dancing American Indians, the hay stacks in the distance become teepees and the verse that accompanies the print reads like a tale from a not so enlightened time: "Yep, sonny, this is sure enough Injun summer. Don't know what that is, I reckon, do you?" It goes on for several paragraphs explaining, "That's when all the homesick Injuns come back to play." And more on spirits and bad grammar, you get the idea.
It turns out that the image and verse by John T. McCutcheon was reprinted in the Chicago Tribune every fall, which explains why my father would have it because he was from the Chicago area. He was also a very sentimental person who loved this time of the year so the nostalgia of the print out -weighed the off color depiction and language of lore. (Remember that I have a master's in American Indian Studies so the stereotypical imagery is far from the truth.)
Alas, the image is nostalgic for me now even if the verse proves a bit offensive; and a real Indian summer is upon us even if my version is a bit different than Mr. McCutcheon's. Fall is a transition season that proves warm one day and cold the next. We know that the eventual outcome is winter but we hold on to the idea of just one more, warm sunny day and this year it keeps coming.
Some areas have had a hard frost, which sets the scene for a real Indian summer. Frost occurs when the surface temperature, at ground level, drops to 32 degrees or lower and dew is present. The crazy thing is that this can happen even if the ambient air temperature is as high as 40 degrees.
On still, cool, clear, nights frost is more likely because the accumulated heat in the soil radiates back into the atmosphere at a faster rate leaving more time in the morning hours, just before dawn, when the surface temperature is at or below freezing. And, we all have been taught that cool air settles and warm air rises so on still nights there are no breezes to mix the air temperatures together.
The difference between a light, hard or killing frost is really the amount of time that the surface temperatures stay at or below freezing. A short period of time just before dawn usually only allows single ice crystals to form; longer periods of time allow the crystal to connect like filigree, this is a hard or hoar frost. A killing frost is called black frost because it usually turns plant tissue black.
When the weather people say we are in for a light freeze they mean temperatures will fall between 29 and 32 degrees, cold enough to kill plant tissue of tender plants, one reason is because of more moisture in the foliage; a moderate freeze is 28 to 25 degrees, enough to blacken foliage of most plants (of course, not evergreens); and a hard freeze is 24 degrees or colder. By the time a hard freeze hits most hardy and deciduous plants have dropped foliage and gone dormant for the winter.
Indian summer is a weather event that brings back summer-like weather after a hard or killing frost. The American Meteorological Society defines it as "A time interval, in mid or late autumn, of unseasonably warm weather, generally with clear skies, sunny but hazy days, and cool nights…at least one killing frost and preferably a substantial period of normally cool weather must precede this warm spell in order for it to be considered a true Indian summer." Mr. McCutcheon missed this part of the seasonal description.
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Media Statements & Speeches
|Statement: December 17, 2009
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Commissioner Kelly's statement on enforcement package
- Today's orders and Annual Report are not only a culmination of this past year's efforts to provide well-defined "rules of the road" for market participants in wholesale markets, they also advance our goal of providing effective and fair regulatory oversight for competitive energy markets.
- Since EPAct 2005, the Commission has consistently stated that compliance with the Commission's requirements is our primary enforcement objective. The path for meeting this objective must be marked with guidance, guidance, and more guidance. Since the day EPAct 2005 was enacted, we have listened in earnest to industry and others to help inform our determinations of what the standards for compliance should be. This is a constantly evolving effort and I am confident that the enforcement program will continue to develop and mature, particularly given the Commission's good fortune in having smart, dedicated enforcement staff with strong, effective leadership.
- In passing EPAct 2005, Congress entrusted to the Commission significant new enforcement authorities to help create a culture of compliance. I believe that over the last 4 ½ years we have responded promptly and responsibly in discharging our expanded authorities by providing compliance roadmaps, improving transparency, clarifying the rights of those being investigated, and establishing measures to ensure that entities are treated fairly.
- It is hard to believe that only just over 4 years ago, FERC issued its first Policy Statement on Enforcement, that set out the remedies available to FERC, and explained how we would determine the appropriate remedy for a violation. We have since followed up with a number of orders, including today's, that set forth the hallmark of our enforcement program. In the end, compliance is what regulators should hope for, what industry should constantly strive for, and what consumers deserve. Thanks to staff's hard work, not just on today's orders, but over the years, for advancing this goal.
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Jules Winnfield
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
One of the difficulties I have come across in running this site is that sometimes I come across a badass who is so unassailably, unquestionably fucking tough that it's damn near impossible for me to come up with anything new or original to say about him (or her) that either hasn't already been done or isn't completely fucking obvious. Cash was one of those guys. Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction is another.
If there has ever been a more quotable movie hardass than Jules Winnfield, then I don't know about it. Sure Ash has some good lines, but when it comes to serious, no bullshit, fuck-with-me-and-I'll-put-a-motherfucking-bullet-in-your-head stone-cold killer lines, Jules Winnfield is king. He's the quintessential hatchetman, the ultimate badass and a sharp dresser to boot. I could probably just fill this entire article up with Jules lines and make a perfectly good case for his über-badassitudeness. He's just that well-spoken. He's also a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker.
Nobody but Samuel L. Jackson could have pulled off a foul-mouthed tough-as-shit hitman with as much class and badassitude. It just wouldn't have worked. He exudes awesome through his pores because his body fucking manufactures that shit the same way normal humans produce red blood cells or sweat. On top of the fact that nobody delivers the time-honored word "motherfucker" better than Jackson, you only have to take one look at Jules to know that he would put a bullet in your brain and not only not even think twice about it, but probably also tell all his friends about how he made you piss yourself right before he waxed you. He's also the kind of guy who is so fucking cool that you could make an entire movie out of just him walking down the street in slow motion while awesome music plays in the background and it would be one of the greatest movies of all time.
The scene where he interrogates that douchebag Brett is probably one of the greatest displays of badassery in cinema history. Nobody but Jules could successfully intimidate the shit out of someone simply by eating a cheeseburger and quoting The Bible. That's fucking SKILL right there. Shit, he freaks that one punk out so bad that he completely misses with six shots at point blank range.
Just in case anyone ever has any doubts, his fucking wallet also has "Bad Mother Fucker" written right on it in huge retro-style bold lettering. That's not the sort of thing that you carry around with you if you're not completely prepared to back it up by wrecking someone's shit with nine millimeters of juicy hot lead at any given moment or pummeling some fools into submission with your bare hands simply for looking at you funny. And it sure as shit qualifies you to fucking KICK THE ASS of some snakes on a plane.
Towards the end of the film, Jules decides that he's going to give up the "professional asskicker" job to walk the Earth and have adventures. While this type of general aimless meandering is usually reserved for aging washed-up California ex-hippie stoners, Jules strikes me as being one of the few people who could probably just walk around being awesome and kicking peoples' asses, sort of like Lone Wolf and Cub or some shit, just going from place to place saving villages from massacre and being a total hardass. He's awesome.
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Carter-Finley Stadium
Scroll below for building history
Location: West Campus
Carter-Finley Stadium
North Endzone: 7,421
The stadium honors Wilbert James (Nick) Carter (1902-1972) , Harry Clifton Carter (1908-1990), and Albert Earle Finley (1895-1985). The two Carter brothers graduated from NC State from the school of Textiles and became top executives in the J. P. Stevens Company. They contributed several hundred thousand dollars to fundraising for completion of the stadium. In 1937, the Carter brothers formed their own company, Carter Fabrics of Greensboro, and merged with the J.P. Stevens Corporation. The family was particularly involved with support of the NC State school of textiles. NC State awarded an honorary Doctor of Textile Science degree to Nick Carter in 1943.
Finley was also a strong supporter of the athletics program at NC State. After two years of business school in Virginia, he became a stenographer for the Baltimore, Chesapeake, and Atlantic Railroad Company, rapidly working his way to a position of secretary to the general manager. Finley, a former US Army 2nd Lieutenant, soon became involved in the sale of heavy construction equipment and eventually started his own business, the Raleigh Tractor and Equipment Company. Finley kept an active interest in supporting the college, and even donated a motel on Western Boulevard to the Wolfpack Club as an athletics dormitory.


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Russian literature
Russian literature, the body of written works produced in the Russian language, beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century.
The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous controversies. Three major and sudden breaks divide it into four periods—pre-Petrine (or Old Russian), Imperial, post-Revolutionary, and post-Soviet. The reforms of Peter I (the Great; reigned 1682–1725), who rapidly Westernized the country, created so sharp a divide with the past that it was common in the 19th century to maintain that Russian literature had begun only a century before. The 19th century's most influential critic, Vissarion Belinsky, even proposed the exact year (1739) in which Russian literature began, thus denying the status of literature to all pre-Petrine works. The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Bolshevik coup later in the same year created another major divide, eventually turning "official" Russian literature into political propaganda for the communist state. Finally, Mikhail Gorbachev's ascent to power in 1985 and the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 marked another dramatic break. What is important in this pattern is that the breaks were sudden rather than gradual and that they were the product of political forces external to literary history itself.
The most celebrated period of Russian literature was the 19th century, which produced, in a remarkably short period, some of the indisputable masterworks of world literature. It has often been noted that the overwhelming majority of Russian works of world significance were produced within the lifetime of one person, Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Indeed, many of them were written within two decades, the 1860s and 1870s, a period that perhaps never has been surpassed in any culture for sheer concentrated literary brilliance.
Russian literature, especially of the Imperial and post-Revolutionary periods, has as its defining characteristics an intense concern with philosophical problems, a constant self-consciousness about its relation to the cultures of the West, and a strong tendency toward formal innovation and defiance of received generic norms. The combination of formal radicalism and preoccupation with abstract philosophical issues creates the recognizable aura of Russian classics.
Old Russian literature (10th–17th centuries)
The conventional term "Old Russian literature" is anachronistic for several reasons. The authors of works written during this time obviously did not think of themselves as "old Russians" or as predecessors of Tolstoy. Moreover, the term, which represents the perspective of modern scholars seeking to trace the origin of later Russian works, obscures the fact that the East Slavic peoples (of the lands then called Rus) are the ancestors of the Ukrainian and Belarusian as well as of the Russian people of today. Works of the oldest (Kievan) period also led to modern Ukrainian and Belarusian literature. Third, the literary language established in Kievan Rus was Church Slavonic, which, despite the gradual increase of local East Slavic variants, linked the culture to the wider community known as Slavia orthodoxa—that is, to the Eastern Orthodox South Slavs of the Balkans. In contrast to the present, this larger community took precedence over the "nation" in the modern sense of that term. Fourth, some have questioned whether these texts can properly be called literary, if by that term is meant works that are designed to serve a primarily aesthetic function, inasmuch as these writings were generally written to serve ecclesiastic or utilitarian purposes.
The Kievan period
The Kievan period (so called because Kiev was the seat of the grand princes) extends from the Christianization of Russia in 988 to the conquest of Russia by the Tatars (Mongols) in the 13th century. Russia received Christianity from Byzantium rather than from Rome, a fact of decisive importance for the development of Russian culture. Whereas Catholic Poland was closely linked to cultural developments in western Europe, Orthodox Russia was isolated from the West for long periods and, at times, regarded its culture as dangerous. Conversion by Byzantium also meant that the language of the church could be the vernacular rather than, as in the West, Latin; this was another factor that worked against the absorption of Western culture.
Russia was not the first Slavic culture to be converted to Christianity, and a standardized language, the Old Church Slavonic pioneered in the 9th century by Saints Cyril (or Constantine) and Methodius, was already available. Bulgaria, which had been Christianized a century earlier and had offered a home to the Cyrillo-Methodian community, became a conduit for the transmission of Greek culture, translated into Old Church Slavonic, to Russia, which in turn rapidly established its own scribal activities in copying and translating. Thus a significant literary activity of the Kievan period consisted of translating or adapting borrowed works. It is worth stressing that the enormous prestige accorded to translating has continued to be a distinctive characteristic of Russian culture. Even in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, major Russian writers devoted their energies to the translation of foreign works, which in some cases constituted their most significant contribution—a literary fact reflecting Russia's status as a self-conscious cultural borrower for much of its history.
During the Kievan period the selection of translated foreign works circulating in Russia by and large reflected the interests of the church: almost all were from the Greek, and most were of ecclesiastical interest. Ostromirovo evangeliye (The Ostromir Gospel) of 1056–57 is the oldest dated Russian manuscript. Versions of the four Gospels, the Book of Revelation, guidebooks of monastic rules, homilies, hagiographic collections, and prayers reflect the religious interests of the clerical community. To be sure, translations of secular works also circulated, including Flavius Josephus' The Jewish War (which influenced Russian military tales), chronicles, and some tales. But, on the whole, translations offered a rather limited access to Greek culture aside from the ecclesiastical.
A celebrated monument of Old Russian literature is Hilarion's Slovo o zakone i blagodati (1037–50; "Sermon on Law and Grace"), an accomplished piece of rhetoric contrasting Old Testament law with New Testament grace. Other significant homiletic works were written by Clement of Smolensk, metropolitan of Russia from 1147 to 1154, and by St. Cyril of Turov (1130–82). The central genre of Old Russian literature was probably hagiography, and a number of interesting saints' lives date from the earliest period. Both a chronicle account and two lives of Boris and Gleb, the first Russian saints, have survived to the present day. The sanctity of these two men, who were killed by their brother Svyatopolk in a struggle for the throne, consists not in activity but in the pious passivity with which, in imitation of Christ, they accepted death. This ideal of passive acceptance of suffering was to exercise a long-lasting influence on Russian thought.
The monk Nestor (c. 1056–after 1113), to whom a life of Boris and Gleb is ascribed, also wrote Zhitiye prepodobnogo ottsa nashego Feodosiya ("Life of Our Holy Father Theodosius") (d. 1074). The Kievo-Pechersky paterik (The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery), closely related to hagiography, collects stories from the lives of monks, along with other religious writings. A saint's life of quite a different sort, Zhitiye Aleksandra Nevskogo ("Life of Alexandr Nevsky") (d. 1263), celebrates a pious warrior prince. The tradition of pilgrimage literature also begins in this period. Nestor was involved with compiling the Povest vremennykh let ("Tale of Bygone Years"; The Russian Primary Chronicle), also called the Primary Chronicle of Kiev (compiled about 1113), which led to the writing of other chronicles elsewhere.
From a literary point of view, the best work of Old Russian literature is the Slovo o polku Igoreve (The Song of Igor's Campaign), a sort of epic poem (in rhythmic prose, actually) dealing with Prince Igor's raid against the Polovtsy (Kipchak), a people of the steppes, his capture, and his escape. Composed between 1185 and 1187, the Igor Tale, as it is generally known, was discovered in 1795 by Count Musin-Pushkin. The manuscript was destroyed in the Moscow fire of 1812; however, a copy made for Catherine II the Great survived. The poem's authenticity has often been challenged but is now generally accepted. Its theme is the disastrous fratricidal disunity of the Russian princes.
From the 14th to the 17th century
Moscow's ascendancy
Beginning in the 1230s, the Tatars conquered most of the Russian lands, thus destroying the hegemony of Kiev and initiating a period in which political and cultural power was dispersed among numerous principalities. Eventually the grand princes of Moscow succeeded in defeating the Tatars (1480) and subduing the principalities. (The exception was the lands under the rule of the Lithuanian-Polish kingdom, and this division initiated the development of separate Ukrainian and Belarusian cultural traditions.) Once the Russian lands were united, Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible; reigned 1533–84) undertook a campaign against the remaining power of the old aristocracy (boyars). Reflecting these political facts, chronicles and saints' lives served the interests of particular local powers. A series of works in various genres, known as the Kulikovo cycle, celebrated the first (but by no means definitive) Russian victory over the Tatars in 1380 under the leadership of Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich ("Donskoy"). A rather weak imitation of the Igor Tale, the Zadonshchina (attributed to Sofony of Ryazan and composed no later than 1393) glorifies Dmitry Donskoy.
The Second South Slavic Influence
The Ottoman occupation of the Balkans at the end of the 14th century, and later the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, drove a number of prelates to Russia, thus initiating the "Second South Slavic Influence." Schooled in an Eastern Christian theological movement, Hesychasm, these men brought with them a style of writing closely linked to their theological doctrines. Known as "word weaving," this ornamental style played with phonic and semantic correspondences. It appears in the most notable hagiography of the period, Zhitiye svyatogo Sergiya Radonezhskogo ("Life of Saint Sergius of Radonezh") by Epifany Premudry (Epiphanius the Wise; d. between 1418 and 1422).
Possessors and Nonpossessors
A theological and political controversy of great significance took place between St. Joseph of Volokolamsk (1439–1515) and his followers, known as the "Possessors," or "Josephites," and Nil Sorsky (1433–1508) and his followers, known as the "Nonpossessors." Joseph justified the killing of heretics and the church's possession of lands (thus the name "Possessors"). These positions were disputed by Nil and his followers, especially Vassian Patrikeyev (d. before 1545) and Maximus the Greek (c. 1475–1556). The Nonpossessors called for greater tolerance and an inner, more spiritual religion, a view that left its mark on a tradition eventually embodied in Dostoyevsky's ideal monk, Father Zosima, in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. With the Josephites' triumph, the division between church and state dissolved; apostasy and treason became inseparably linked.
Works reflecting Muscovite power
Accompanying Moscow's rise were a series of writings on the theme of translatio imperii ("translation of empire"), which constructed genealogies and described the transmission of imperial and ecclesiastical regalia to Russia. Particularly important is the monk Philotheus' (Filofei's) epistle to Vasily III (written between 1514 and 1521), which proclaimed that, with the fall of Constantinople (the second Rome), Moscow became the third (and last) Rome. Along with the title tsar (caesar) and the claim that Orthodox Russia was the only remaining true Christian state, the doctrine of the Third Rome came to justify Russian imperial ambitions and to legitimize the idea that it was Russia's destiny to save and rule the world.
Reflecting the consolidation of Muscovite power were a series of encyclopaedic works, including the enormous Velikiye Minei-Cheti ("Great Martyrologue") of 1552, the Ulozheniye ("Code of Laws"), and other collections or codifications. Encyclopaedic writing also includes the famous Domostroy, or rules for household management, which later became a byword for oppressive narrow-mindedness. The 16th century also saw the first examples of polemical writing by laymen. Ivan Peresvetov (rather superfluously) urged Ivan the Terrible to inspire fear. From a literary point of view, the most remarkable work of this period is the correspondence between Andrey Mikhaylovich, Prince Kurbsky (1528–83) and Ivan the Terrible. In a series of letters Kurbsky, who escaped from Russia and entered the service of the Polish king, denounced Ivan's tyrannical rule and developed a theory justifying rebellion against unjust power. In a simple but polemically powerful style, which included citations from Cicero, he also denounced Russian cultural backwardness, thus earning a reputation as Russia's first "Westernizer" (as well as first "dissident" and first "émigré" writer). In his vituperative replies, Ivan exhibits the psychology of a victim (self-pitying in accounts of his childhood) turned victimizer.
Among the other noteworthy works of this period are some tales of entertainment, including Povest o Petre i Fevroni (mid-16th century; "Tale of Peter and Fevroniya"). In his Khozhdeniye za tri morya ("Journey Beyond Three Seas") a merchant, Afanasy Nikitin, describes his travels to India and Persia during 1466–72. However, what is most striking about this period is what did not take place: Russia experienced no Renaissance and became quite isolated from the West. With nothing resembling Western secular literature, philosophy, or science, it remained a land remarkable for its lacks.
The 17th century
The 17th century began with a period of political chaos. The ruling Muscovite dynasty came to an end in 1598. Before Michael Romanov was at last proclaimed tsar in 1613, Russia was convulsed by struggles for power, peasant rebellions, and foreign invasions. This Time of Troubles became the topic of a number of historical or memoiristic works, including Avraamy Palitsyn's Istoriya v pamyat sushchim predydushchim godom (completed in 1620; "History to Be Remembered by Future Generations").
Western cultural influences gradually penetrated Russia in the 17th century. They entered the country through a number of channels, including the "German [foreign] quarter" in Moscow and through Ukraine, which was united with Russia in 1654. Ukrainian and Belarusian clerics, who had received a Polish-style education at the Kiev Academy, brought Western and Latin culture with them to Moscow. By the end of the 17th century, Russian literature had changed in important ways. A key figure in producing these changes was Simeon Polotsky (1629–80), a monk educated at the Kiev Academy. He played the leading role in introducing syllabic poetry (verse that is measured by the number of syllables in each line), based on Polish models, into Russia. Old Russian literature had been dominated entirely by prose, and so Polotsky's verse marked a decisive break. So did the introduction of drama into Russia with Polotsky's school dramas (modeled on Jesuit Counter-Reformation plays having biblical or religious themes), the establishment of a court theatre by Tsar Alexis, and the production of Artakserksevo deystvo (1672; "Action of Artaxerxes"), the first court play (in prose), by Johann Gottfried Gregory. The change in literary culture is also evident in the beginnings of prose fiction. Translations of foreign adventure romances appeared, along with Russian stories, parodies, and satires, including the picaresque (and erotic) Povest o Frole Skobeyeve ("Tale of Frol Skobeyev") and Kalyazinskaya chelobitnaya ("The Kalyazin Petition"). Povest o Gore-Zlochastii ("Tale of Woe-Misfortune"), written in folk-epic verse, combines motifs of temptation, adventure, and salvation.
In the mid-17th century liturgical reforms undertaken by Patriarch Nikon split the Russian church. The dissenters (or Old Believers) produced some remarkable work, including the masterpiece of 17th-century Russian writing Zhitiye protopopa Avvakuma (1672–73; The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum). Avvakum, who eventually was burned at the stake, narrates his life in a powerful vernacular alternating with Church Slavonicisms. Written in prison, his narrative conveys a feel for his fanatic, earthy personality in a paradoxical form that is both autobiography and autohagiography.
The "Ukrainian hegemony" over Russian letters continued during the reign of Peter I the Great. St. Dmitry (Tuptalo) of Rostov, Stefan Yavorsky, and Feofan Prokopovich, the three most important writers of the period, were all educated at the Kiev Academy.
Imperial literature
The Petrine reforms
The Westernization of Russia
Peter the Great's radical and rapid Westernization of Russia altered the daily life of the upper classes and all high culture. The nobility was made to conform to Western models in its dress, customs, social life, education, and state service; women came out of seclusion; a European calendar was introduced; Russians were sent abroad to study; foreign languages were learned. Western culture was absorbed so rapidly in the course of the 18th century that by the 19th century the first language of the upper nobility was not Russian but French. As a result, a large cultural gap opened between the nobility and the peasantry, whose distance from each other became an important theme of Russian literature. In the context of world history, Russia may be seen as the first of many countries to undergo rapid modernization and Westernization while wrestling with a question capable of different answers: in adopting Western technology and science, is it also necessary to adopt Western culture and forms of living? Under Peter's autocratic will, Russia was forced into an uncompromisingly affirmative answer to this question, which has concerned Russian writers up to the present moment.
In 1703 Peter founded a new capital, St. Petersburg. It was built in Western architectural style and populated by his command on an inhospitable swamp. The city—Peter's "window to the West"—became a key theme of literary works, including Aleksandr Pushkin's poem The Bronze Horseman, Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, and Andrey Bely's novel St. Petersburg. In contrast to Moscow, St. Petersburg came not only to symbolize the power of the state over the individual but also to stand for reason and planning divorced from tradition, individual human needs, and the nonrational elements of human nature. The hero of Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground calls the capital the world's "most artificial city," associating it with utopian contempt for tradition and experience. Like Peter's reforms generally, the city evoked the idea of historical change by sudden leaps rather than by a gradual, organic process.
The response of writers and critics
By the 19th century it became commonplace to regard Russia as a young country that had entered history only with the Petrine reforms. The very genres in which 19th-century literature was written had essentially no counterpart in medieval Russia, deriving instead from European literary history. Thus, in tracing their literary past, Russians often felt the necessity of "crossing borders." To be sure, it became common for Russian writers to appropriate old Russian themes, characters, and events, as is the case in Pushkin's Boris Godunov, Mikhail Lermontov's Pesnya pro kuptsa Kalashnikova, and Tolstoy's Father Sergius. But these works are recognizably conscious of overcoming a break. Some scholars have insisted that the idea of a radical break in Russian literary history is mistaken, but there is no doubt that the perception of discontinuity is a key fact of Russian literary history.
An aura of foreignness adhered to high culture, which is one reason why a tradition arose in which the sign of Russianness was the defiance of European generic norms. Justifying the self-consciously odd form of War and Peace, Tolstoy observed that departure from European form is necessary for a Russian writer: "There is not a single work of Russian artistic prose, at all rising above mediocrity, that quite fits the form of a novel, a poem, or a story." This (admittedly exaggerated) view, which became a cliché, helps explain the enormous popularity in Russia of those Western writers who parodied literary conventions, such as the 18th-century British novelist Laurence Sterne, as well as the development of Russia's most influential school of literary criticism, Formalism, which viewed formal self-consciousness as the defining quality of "literariness." The sense that culture, literature, and the forms of "civilized" life were a foreign product imported by the upper classes is also reflected in a tendency of Russian thinkers to regard all art as morally unjustifiable and in a pattern of Russian writers renouncing their own works. While English and French critics were arguing about the merits of different literary schools, Russian critics also debated whether literature itself had a right to exist—a question that reveals the peculiar ethos of Russian literary culture.
The 18th century
The 18th century was a period of codification, imitation, and absorption of foreign models. The century's major contribution was the development of a literary language. Under the pressure of new subject matter and the influx of foreign expressions, Church Slavonic proved inadequate, and the resulting linguistic chaos required the standardization of literary Russian. In 1758 Mikhail Lomonosov published "Predisloviye o polze knig tserkovnykh v rossiyskom yazyke" ("Preface on the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language") in which he classified Russian and Church Slavonic words, assigning their use to three styles, and correlated these styles with appropriate themes, genres, and tones. Thus the Russian literary language was to be established by a combination of Russian and Church Slavonic.
Verse also changed decisively. The old syllabic verse, based on qualities of the Polish language, gave way to syllabotonic verse (i.e., verse in which the number of stressed syllables in each line becomes the dominant prosodic element), more suitable to Russian. Theories of versification were advanced by Vasily Trediakovsky in 1735 and 1752 and, especially, by Lomonosov in 1739 (the date Belinsky chose as the beginning of Russian literature). It is also noteworthy that the Petrine assault on the church decisively ended the role of the clergy in Russian literature.
Throughout the 18th century Russian writers imitated, adapted, and experimented with a wide variety of European genres, thus grafting them onto the Russian tradition and making them available for later, more original, use. Much classical and western European literature was translated, read, and assimilated, thus producing a kind of telescopic effect, as works and movements that were centuries apart were absorbed at the same time. Four writers dominate the period from the death of Peter to the ascension of Catherine II the Great in 1762. Antiokh Kantemir is best known for his verse satires. In addition to his treatises and poems in various genres, Trediakovsky produced a poetic psalter. Lomonosov, who was also a scientist and played a key role in founding Moscow State University (1755), achieved his greatest poetic success in panegyric and spiritual odes, especially "Oda na vzyatiye Khotina" (1739; "Ode on the Seizure of Khotin"), "Vecherneye razmyshleniye o Bozhiyem velichestve" (1743; "Evening Meditation on the Majesty of God"), and "Utrenneye razmyshleniye o Bozhiyem velichestve" (1743; "Morning Meditation on the Majesty of God"). Whereas Baroque poetics strongly influenced Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, the younger Aleksandr Sumarokov, a poet and dramatist, stood for a rigorous and lucid classicism.
Catherine II the Great
Catherine began her reign as an enlightened despot. She corresponded with Voltaire and Denis Diderot and sponsored the arts. Although her native language was German, she has to her credit a number of plays in Russian as well as a statement of legal principles, Nakaz (Instruction). In 1769 she established a satiric journal, Vsyakaya vsyachina ("All Sorts and Sundries"), which was soon followed by others, including the Truten ("Drone"), founded by Nikolay Novikov. In a curious exchange between journals, Novikov and Catherine disagreed with each other about the nature of satire—like the Kurbsky-Ivan correspondence in the 16th century, it was a case of a sovereign deigning to argue with a subject. Shocked by an uprising of Cossacks and peasants (1773–75), known from the name of its leader as the Pugachov Rebellion, and later by the French Revolution, Catherine turned increasingly conservative. Generally speaking, these events marked a turning point as the Russian autocracy switched from being a modernizing to a restraining force. When Aleksandr Radishchev published Puteshestviye iz Peterburga v Moskvu (1790; A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow), a work that was sharply critical of Russian society and serfdom, Catherine had him condemned to death, a sentence she commuted to Siberian exile. Offended by a posthumously published play by Yakov Knyazhnin (1742–91), Vadim Novgorodsky ("Vadim of Novgorod"), she had copies of the manuscript burned and the published text torn from the offending volume.
Catherine's reign saw real accomplishment in Russian poetry. Excellent verse was produced, and the canon as it is known today began to take shape. It is worth stressing the important role of tradition and the canon in Russian poetry. To a much greater extent than in many other traditions, including the English and American, Russian poetry typically relies on the reader's detailed knowledge of earlier poems. The poems of the past constitute a sort of literary bible, a common culture known in detail by the literate public. Poets count on their readers being sufficiently familiar with the tradition to detect even faint allusions to earlier poems. Moreover, Russian poets also rely on readers to appreciate the semantic associations that specific verse forms have acquired, which is perhaps one reason why free (unrhymed and unmetered) verse has played a relatively small role in Russian poetry.
Three poets—Ivan Khemnitser, Ivan Dmitriyev, and Ivan Krylov—are known for their fables. Krylov's fables rapidly became classics and some of his lines proverbial. Rossiyada (written 1771–79; "The Rossiad"), an epic by Mikhail Kheraskov, is a rather stilted effort that proved a literary dead end. It was the ode, rather than the epic, that was the successful high poetic genre of the age. But Vasily Maykov and Ippolit Bogdanovich wrote amusing mock epics. Maykov's Elisey; ili, razdrazhenny Vakkh (1769; "Elisei; or, Bacchus Enraged") cleverly parodies a Russian translation of the Aeneid with a narrative in which the Greek pantheon directs whores, drunks, and other low-lifes. In Dushenka: drevnyaya povest v volnykh stikhakh (1783; "Dushenka: An Ancient Tale in Free Verse"), Bogdanovich produced a light and witty updating of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche.
Gavrila Derzhavin is generally considered to be Russia's greatest 18th-century poet. He is best known for his odes, including his chatty panegyric "Oda k Felitse" (1782; "Ode to Felitsa"), in which praise for the prosaic virtues of Empress Catherine alternates with depictions of the low amusements of courtiers. His poems "Bog" (1784; "God") and "Vodopad" (1791–94; "The Waterfall") daringly make the metaphysical concrete and the specific poetic. Derzhavin, who also served as a governor and as Catherine's personal secretary, exemplifies the tendency of 18th-century writers to pursue government careers, a practice that was almost unthinkable a century later.
Drama and prose fiction
Although the theatrical repertoire in the late 18th and early 19th centuries continued to be dominated by translations and adaptations, numerous, if not very distinguished, tragedies were written by Sumarokov, Kheraskov, Vladislav Ozerov, and others. Of greater merit were two comedies by Denis Fonvizin, Brigadir (1769; The Brigadier), a satire on Gallomania, and Nedorosl (1783; "The Minor"). Prose fiction began to appear in print only in the mid-18th century. Mikhail Chulkov's picaresque Prigozhaya povarikha (1770; "The Comely Cook") is addressed to a popular audience. At the end of the 18th century, the dominant figure of Russian sentimentalism was Nikolay Karamzin, author of Pisma russkogo puteshestvennika (1792; Letters of a Russian Traveler, 1789–1790), describing a journey to western Europe in 1789–90, and of the very popular story "Bednaya Liza" (1792; "Poor Liza"), a tale of lovers separated because they belong to different social classes, which seems cloying to the modern reader. Appointed imperial historiographer, Karamzin later wrote the 12-volume Istoriya gosudarstva rossiyskogo (1818–26; "History of the Russian State"), which is a landmark of Russian literature. Karamzin's importance also lies in his contribution to the Russian literary language. His writing reflected the language of high society, using a Gallicized vocabulary and syntax at the expense of Church Slavonic.
The 19th century
The Russian 19th century is one of the most fruitful periods in world literature. Several features, in addition to those mentioned above, distinguish the literary culture of these years: (1) Literature enjoyed greater prestige in Russia than in the West, and its achievements were sometimes thought (as Dostoyevsky once declared) to be the justification for the Russian people's very existence. Literary critics were typically the leaders of Russian intellectual life and political thought. (2) Literature and criticism were expected to fulfill functions, such as philosophical, moral, and religious analysis, that in Europe were typically assigned to distinct disciplines. Thus Dostoyevsky's works are central to the histories of all these areas of Russian thought. One can see why the highest achievement of Russian literature was probably the philosophical novel. (3) In the 19th (still more, the 20th) century, politics and literature were intimately connected, and a writer or critic was often called upon to be a political prophet.
The "Golden Age" of poetry
Readers relying on translations usually think of Russian literature almost exclusively in terms of prose, but for Russians their tradition is also, and perhaps equally, one of poetry. The 19th century began with the "Golden Age" of Russian poetry. An aristocratic sensibility, the culture of salons, an aura of friendly intimacy, and genres suitable to this ethos marked the poetry of this period. The romantic poet Vasily Zhukovsky is celebrated for several translations or adaptations that are major poems in their own right, including versions of the English poet Thomas Gray's "An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" (1802 and 1839), Homer's Odyssey (completed 1847), and Lord Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon" (1822). His "Svetlana" (1813) reworks the German poet Gottfried August Bürger's "Lenore." Konstantin Batyushkov was noted for playful and erotic as well as melancholy verse and for the elegy Umerayushchy Tass (1817; "The Dying Tasso"). The "Pushkin Pleiad," consisting of poets of Pushkin's generation and closely associated with him, included Anton Delvig, Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky, and, most important, Yevgeny Baratynsky, who was a superb philosophical "poet of thought."
Aleksandr Pushkin
Pushkin occupies a unique place in Russian literature. It is not just that Russians view him as their greatest poet; he is also virtually the symbol of Russian culture. His life, as well as his work, has acquired mythic status. To criticize Pushkin, or even one of his characters—as, for example, Tatyana, the heroine of his novel Yevgeny Onegin (written 1823–31; Eugene Onegin)—has been taken as something akin to blasphemy. Pushkin's quasi-sacred status has itself been parodied by Russian authors, including the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, the absurdist Daniil Kharms, and, most recently, Andrey Sinyavsky in his Progulki s Pushkinym (1972; Strolls with Pushkin).
Even if one sets this mythic image aside, Pushkin is truly one of the world's most accomplished poets; his verse, however, which relies on the author's perfect control of form, tone, and language, does not read well in translation. Deeply playful and experimental, Pushkin adopted a vast array of conflicting masks and personae. He writes now seriously, now with irony, and now with irony at his own irony, on moral and philosophical themes. He is ultimately a philosophical fox, appreciating the limitations, as well as the virtues, of any set of ideas. A master parodist, Pushkin wrote a number of erotic and at times sacrilegious mock-epics, such as "Gavriiliada" (1821; "The Gabrieliad"), a scabrous retelling of the Annunciation, and Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820; Ruslan and Ludmila), which, after parodying epic, folk tale, literary ballad, and romance in a spirit of pure play, ends with a startlingly sombre epilogue. His diverse lyrics include a series on the poet's double identity as artist and man of the world; political poems that got him into trouble with the tsar as well as poems in praise of the tsar and his suppression of the Poles; some remarkable elegies ("Vospominaniye" [1828; "Remembrance"]; "Elegiya" [1830; "Elegy"]); love poems, including the "imageless" "Ya vas lyubil" (1829; "I Loved You Once"); and powerful meditations on human evil ("Anchar" [1828; "The Upas Tree"]; "Ne day mne Bog soyti s uma" [1833; "God Grant I Go Not Mad"]).
Pushkin's narrative poems include Tsygany (1824; "The Gypsies"), which considers the meaning of freedom. Plot is mere excuse for parody of literary forms and conventions in Domik v Kolomne (1830; The Little House in Kolomna). Most famously, Medny vsadnik (written 1833; The Bronze Horseman), which reflects on Peter the Great and the significance of St. Petersburg, examines the meaning of history in relation to individual lives. Concern with the nature of historical causation also led to complex formal innovations in the quasi-Shakespearean drama Boris Godunov (written 1824–25), which reworked Karamzin's Istoriya gosudarstva rossiyskogo and was in turn reworked by other artists, notably Modest Mussorgsky in his opera Boris Godunov (1869; revised 1874). Pushkin's greatest work was probably Eugene Onegin, the first truly great Russian novel and the source of countless themes and images in Russian fiction. Playful in the manner of Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Lord Byron's Don Juan, it far surpasses them for sheer brilliance of form, wit, and thought. Amid endless clever digressions, in which the poet adopts a dazzling array of tones and engages in myriad self-conscious self-parodies, it tells the story of Onegin, a "superfluous man"—that is, a man with no core or purpose to his life—and Tatyana, who stands for authenticity in a sea of literary or social clichés, which she somehow manages to transcend even when she accepts them. The work's serial publication over several years enabled both its own unpredictable creation and changes in the author's perspective to become themes of the poem itself.
Each of Pushkin's four "little tragedies," all written in 1830, succinctly deals with a philosophical problem. The most remarkable, Motsart i Salyeri (Mozart and Salieri), based on a legend that Salieri poisoned Mozart, meditates on the nature of creativity while introducing, in brilliantly compressed speeches, what was to be one of the important Russian themes—metaphysical rebellion against God.
After 1830 Pushkin turned to prose. He wrote both a novella and a nonfictional account—Kapitanskaya dochka (1836; The Captain's Daughter) and Istoriya Pugachovskogo bunta (1834; The History of Pugachev)—about the same historical events, as if to illustrate that representing the historical truth requires more than one genre. Povesti pokoynogo Ivana Petrovicha Belkina (1831; Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin) filters five narratives, each a parody of a received plot, through the minds of several narrators, collectors, or editors. Pikovaya dama (1834; The Queen of Spades) offers a suspenseful account of a man seeking mystic knowledge that would enable him to gamble without risk and, implicitly, to know the deepest forbidden truths. Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment may be seen as an expansion of Pushkin's brief story.
Lermontov and Griboyedov
Next to Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, who personifies Romanticism, is probably Russia's most frequently anthologized poet. His celebrated lyrics often recycle lines from his own and others' poems. "Smert poeta" (1837; "Death of a Poet"), which first earned him fame, deals with Pushkin's death shortly after a fatal duel in 1837. Among his narrative poems, Demon (1841; The Demon) describes the love of a Byronic demon for a mortal woman; Pesnya pro tsarya Ivana Vasilyevicha, molodogo oprichnika i udalogo kuptsa Kalashnikova (1837; A Song About Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Bodyguard, and the Valiant Merchant Kalashnikov) is a stylized folk epic. Also an accomplished prose stylist, Lermontov wrote Geroy nashego vremeni (1840; A Hero of Our Time), which in form is something between a novel and a complexly framed cycle of stories about a single hero, a Byronic superfluous man. This work ranges from sketches of philosophical brilliance ("The Fatalist") to episodes of near puerility ("Princess Mary"). The theme of the superfluous man finds another important rendition in Aleksandr Griboyedov's classic work, Gore ot uma (completed 1824; Woe from Wit).
Nikolay Gogol
One of the finest comic authors of world literature, and perhaps its most accomplished nonsense writer, Gogol is best known for his short stories, for his play Revizor (1836; The Inspector General, or The Government Inspector), and for Myortvye dushi (1842; Dead Souls), a prose narrative that is nevertheless subtitled a "poem." "Nos" (1836; "The Nose"), a parable on the failure of all explanatory systems, relates an utterly inexplicable incident and the attempts to come to terms with it. Both "Shinel" (1842; "The Overcoat"), which is probably the most influential Russian short story, and "Zapiski sumasshedshego" (1835; "The Diary of a Madman") mix pathos and mockery in an amazing display. As in "Nevsky prospekt" (1835; "Nevsky Avenue") and "Povest o tom, kak possorilsya Ivan Ivanovich s Ivanom Nikiforovichem" (1835; "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich"), language itself seems to generate its own absurd content while the universe turns out to be a counterfeit of which there is no original. Characteristic of Gogol is a sense of boundless superfluity that is soon revealed as utter emptiness and a rich comedy that suddenly turns into metaphysical horror. The Inspector General develops a sequence of (witting and unwitting) confidence games within confidence games in a corrupt world of endless self-deception. The mock-epic, even mock-satiric, Dead Souls simultaneously allegorizes the timeless bureaucratic tendency to make official documentation more genuine than actual existence, the emptiness of the human soul, and the mind's absurd ways of grasping meaning or value. It is one of the most striking (and most Gogolian) ironies of Russian literary history that radical critics celebrated Gogol as a realist.
Other poets and dramatists
From the death of Lermontov until the end of the 19th century, Russian literature was dominated by prose, but some poets of lasting interest appeared. Fyodor Tyutchev, a member of Pushkin's generation, wrote nature, love, and political poetry but is probably best appreciated for his philosophical "poetry of thought," including "Silentium!" (1830). Afanasy Fet wrote delicate love lyrics remarkable for their absence of verbs. Violently attacked by radical critics as symbolizing pure art, he came to be appreciated by the Symbolist poets to follow. Nikolay Nekrasov, who was also a major figure in Russian journalism, wrote social satires, tendentious "civic" verse, and compassionate accounts of peasant life, including Komu na Rusi zhit khorosho? (1879; Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia?), which he began writing in 1863 and left unfinished at the time of his death.
Among the dramatists of this period, Aleksandr Ostrovsky, who has proved much more popular in Russia than abroad, wrote many slice-of-life plays about the Russian merchantry. His plays Svoi lyudi—sochtyomsya! (1850; "It's a Family Affair—We'll Settle It Among Ourselves"; Eng. trans. A Family Affair) and Groza (1859; The Thunderstorm) were the subject of reviews by Nikolay Dobrolyubov (1836–61), one of Russia's most influential radical critics. Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin wrote a macabre trilogy, whose third play, Smert Tarelkina (1869; The Death of Tarelkin), is a brilliant piece of grotesque humour about a man who fakes his own death. The theme of the faked suicide, a motif of Russian drama, later appeared in Leo Tolstoy's Zhivoy trup (written 1900; The Living Corpse) and Nikolay Erdman's Samoubiytsa (1928; The Suicide).
The "intelligentsia"
Beginning about 1860, Russian culture was dominated by a group known as the "intelligentsia," a word that English borrowed from Russian but which means something rather different in its original Russian usage. In the word's narrow sense, the "intelligentsia" consisted of people who owed their primary allegiance not to their profession or class but to a group of men and women with whom they shared a common set of beliefs, including a fanatic faith in revolution, atheism, and materialism. They usually adopted a specific set of manners, customs, and sexual behaviour, primarily from their favourite book, Nikolay Chernyshevsky's utopian novel Chto delat (1863; What Is to Be Done?). Although appallingly bad from a literary point of view, this novel, which also features a fake suicide, was probably the most widely read work of the 19th century.
Generally speaking, the intelligentsia insisted that literature be a form of socialist propaganda and rejected aesthetic criteria or apolitical works. In addition to Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov, typical members of the intelligentsia came to include Lenin, Stalin, and other Bolsheviks who seized power in 1917. Thus it is not surprising that a gulf separated the writers from the intelligentsia. In an important anthology attacking the mentality of the intelligentsia, Vekhi (1909; Landmarks), the critic Mikhail Gershenzon observed that "an almost infallible gauge of the strengths of an artist's genius is the extent of his hatred for the intelligentsia." Typically, the writers objected to the intelligentsia's intellectual intolerance, addiction to theory, and belief that morality was defined by utility to the revolution. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Anton Chekhov were all sharply contemptuous of the intelligentsia.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Having been imprisoned in Siberia for political activity, Dostoyevsky parodied What Is to Be Done? in Zapiski iz podpolya (1864; Notes from the Underground), a novella that has had incalculable influence on Western literature for formal as well as thematic reasons. In a complex series of paradoxes, its hero argues against determinism, utopianism, and historical laws. In Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (1866; Crime and Punishment), a philosophical and psychological account of a murder, Dostoyevsky examines the tendency of intelligents (members of the intelligentsia) to regard themselves as superior to ordinary people and as beyond traditional morality. Besy (1872; The Possessed), a novel based on Russian terrorism, is famous as the work that most accurately predicted 20th-century totalitarianism. In Idiot (1868–69; The Idiot) and Bratya Karamazovy (1879–80; The Brothers Karamazov), Dostoyevsky, who is generally regarded as one of the supreme psychologists in world literature, sought to demonstrate the compatibility of Christianity with the deepest truths of the psyche.
Leo Tolstoy
Probably even more than Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy has been praised as being the greatest novelist in world literature. The 19th-century English critic and poet Matthew Arnold famously expressed the commonest view in saying that a work by Tolstoy is not a piece of art but a piece of life: his novels read as if life were writing directly, without mediation. Tolstoy's techniques reflect his belief that no theory is adequate to explain the world's complexity, which unfolds by "tiny, tiny alterations" fitting no pattern. He denied the existence of historical laws and insisted that ethics is a matter not of rules but of supreme sensitivity to the particular. "True life," he contended, is lived not at moments of grand crisis but at countless ordinary and prosaic moments, which human beings usually do not notice. All these ideas are illustrated and explicitly expressed in Voyna i mir (1865–69; War and Peace), set in the time of the Napoleonic wars, and in Anna Karenina (1875–77), which applies this prosaic view of life to marriage, the family, and work. Anna Karenina also contrasts romantic love, which is based on intense moments of passion and leads to adultery, with the prosaic love of the family, which is based above all on intimacy.
After completing Anna Karenina, Tolstoy underwent a religious crisis, which eventually led him to reject his two great novels, formulate a new religion that he thought of as true Christianity, and cultivate a different type of art. To outline his views, he wrote a number of tracts, including Tsarstvo bozhiye vnutri vas (1893; The Kingdom of God Is Within You) and Chto takoye iskusstvo? (1898; What Is Art?). His only long novel of this period, Voskreseniye (1899; Resurrection), is a tendentious failure. But he produced brilliant novellas, many of which were published posthumously, including Otets Sergy (written 1898; Father Sergius), in which he seems to reflect on his own quest for sainthood, and Khadzhi-Murat (written 1904; Hadji-Murad). Smert Ivana Ilicha (1886; The Death of Ivan Ilyitch), which is often considered the greatest novella in Russian literature, conveys the existential horror of sickness and mortality while describing civilization as a web of lies designed to distract people from an awareness of death.
Ivan Turgenev
The first Russian writer to be widely celebrated in the West, Turgenev managed to be hated by the radicals as well as by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky for his dedicated Westernism, bland liberalism, aesthetic elegance, and tendency to nostalgia and self-pity. He first gained fame with his subtle descriptions of peasant life in Zapiski okhotnika (1852; A Sportsman's Sketches), which contributed to the climate leading to the abolition of serfdom. He is celebrated for his novels about intelligents and ideology: Rudin (1856), Nakanune (1860; On the Eve), and Dym (1867; Smoke). His most distinguished work, Ottsy i deti (1862; Fathers and Sons), offers both an evenhanded portrait of the radical nihilists and an allegorical meditation on the conflict of generations.
Other prose writers
The mid-19th century produced a number of other fine prose writers. Sergey Aksakov wrote fictionalized reminiscences: Semeynaya khronika (1856; The Family Chronicle) and Detskiye gody Bagrova-vnuka (1858; Years of Childhood). Aleksandr Herzen wrote his greatest works in emigration. In S togo berega (written 1847–50; From the Other Shore), which combines essays and dialogues, he reflects with penetrating skepticism on the idea that history has knowable laws. Herzen's Byloye i dumy (written 1852–68; My Past and Thoughts) is regarded as the best Russian autobiography. Ivan Goncharov is the author of the comic masterpiece Oblomov (1859), a study of dreamy slothfulness: its hero spends a hundred pages getting out of bed. Nikolay Leskov is remembered for his short stories, including "Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uyezda" (1865; "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), as well as for his novel Soboryane (1872; The Cathedral Folk). Like Gogol before and Mikhail Zoshchenko after him, he was a master of skaz, a written narrative imitating a spontaneous oral account in its use of dialect, slang, or a particular idiom. A radical satirist and (remarkably) a government official who attained general's rank, Mikhail Saltykov wrote (under the pseudonym N. Shchedrin) the extremely dark novel Gospoda Golovlyovy (1876; The Golovlyov Family), portraying the relentless decline of a family. The agony of an intellectual who wants to merge with the common people and the intimate link of utopianism to madness figure as prominent themes in the short stories of Vsevolod Garshin, including "Khudozhniki" (1879; "Artists") and "Krasny tsvetok" (1883; "The Red Flower").
Anton Chekhov
When Tolstoy abandoned the prosaic ethos, Chekhov, one of the greatest short story writers in world literature, remained loyal to it. Indeed, he reinterpreted it within his essentially bourgeois values, stressing the moral necessity of ordinary virtues such as daily kindness, cleanliness, politeness, work, sobriety, paying one's debts, and avoiding self-pity. Replying to the intelligentsia's demand for political tendentiousness, which he equated with a stifling intellectual conformity, he maintained that his only "tendency" was a protest against lying in all its forms. In his hundreds of stories and novellas, which he wrote while practicing medicine, Chekhov adopts something of a clinical approach to ordinary life. Meticulous observation and broad sympathy for diverse points of view shape his fiction. In his stories, an overt plot subtly hints at other hidden stories, and so the experience of rereading his fiction often differs substantially from that produced by a first reading. Especially noteworthy are "Skuchnaya istoriya" (written 1889; "A Dreary Story"), "Duel" (written 1891; "The Duel"), "Palata No. 6" (written 1892; "Ward Number Six"), "Kryzhovnik" (written 1898; "Gooseberries"), "Dushechka" (written 1899; "The Darling"), "Dama s sobachkoy" (written 1899; "The Lady with the Lap Dog"), "Arkhiyerey" (written 1902; "The Bishop"), and "Nevesta" (written 1903; "The Betrothed").
Along with Gogol's The Inspector General, Chekhov's plays are the high point of Russian drama. In his four great plays, Chayka (1896; The Seagull), Dyadya Vanya (1897; Uncle Vanya), Tri sestry (1901; Three Sisters), and Vishnyovy sad (1904; The Cherry Orchard), Chekhov's belief that life is lived at ordinary moments and that histrionics are a dangerous lie found expression in a major innovation, the undramatic drama—or, as it is sometimes called, the theatre of inaction.
The Silver Age
The period from the 1890s to 1917 was one of intellectual ferment, in which mysticism, aestheticism, Neo-Kantianism, eroticism, Marxism, apocalypticism, Nietzscheanism, and other movements combined with each other in improbable ways. Primarily an age of poetry, it also produced significant prose and drama. Russian Symbolism, which was influenced by French Symbolist poetry and the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), is usually said to have begun with an essay by Dmitry Merezhkovsky, "O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniyakh sovremennoy russkoy literatury" (1893; "On the Reasons for the Decline and on the New Trends in Contemporary Russian Literature"). A poet and propagator of religious ideas, Merezhkovsky wrote a trilogy of novels, Khristos i Antikhrist (1896–1905; Christ and Antichrist), consisting of Yulian otstupnik (1896; Julian the Apostate), Leonardo da Vinchi (1901; Leonardo da Vinci), and Pyotr i Aleksey (1905; Peter and Alexis), which explores the relation of pagan and Christian views of the world.
The Symbolists saw art as a way to approach a higher reality. The first wave of Symbolists included Konstantin Balmont (1867–1942), who translated a number of English poets and wrote verse that he left unrevised on principle (he believed in first inspiration); Valery Bryusov (1873–1924), a poet and translator of French Symbolist verse and of Virgil's Aeneid, who for years was the leader of the movement; Zinaida Gippius (1869–1945), who wrote decadent, erotic, and religious poetry; and Fyodor Sologub, author of melancholic verse and of a novel, Melky bes (1907; The Petty Demon), about a sadistic, homicidal, paranoid schoolteacher.
Three writers dominate the second wave of Symbolism. Eschatology and anthroposophy shaped the poetry and prose of Andrey Bely, whose novel Peterburg (1913–22; St. Petersburg) is regarded as the masterpiece of Symbolist fiction. Aleksandr Blok, who wrote the lyric drama Balaganchik (1906; "The Showbooth"), is best known for his poem Dvenadtsat (1918; The Twelve), which describes 12 brutal Red Guards who turn out to be unwittingly led by Jesus Christ. The principal theoretician of the Symbolist movement, Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949), wrote mythic poetry conveying a Neoplatonist philosophy.
Acmeists and Futurists
In the second decade of the 20th century, Symbolism was challenged by two other schools, the Acmeists, who favoured clarity over metaphysical vagueness, and the brash Futurists, who wanted to throw all earlier and most contemporary poetry "from the steamship of modernity." Among the Acmeists, Nikolay Gumilyov (1886–1921), who stressed poetic craftsmanship over the occult, was executed by the Bolsheviks. Already an accomplished creator of superb love lyrics in these years, Anna Akhmatova produced densely and brilliantly structured poems in the Soviet period, including Poema bez geroya (written 1940–62; A Poem Without a Hero) and Rekviyem (written 1935–40; Requiem), which was inspired by Soviet purges and was therefore unpublishable in Russia. From 1923 to 1940 she was forced into silence, and in 1946 Akhmatova and Zoshchenko became the target of official abuse by the Communist Party cultural spokesman Andrey Zhdanov (1896–1948). Some consider Osip Mandelshtam (1891–1938), who died in a Soviet prison camp, to be the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century. Many of his difficult, allusive poems were preserved by his wife, Nadezhda Mandelshtam (1899–1980), whose memoirs are themselves a classic.
The two most important Futurist poets were Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Khlebnikov hoped to find the laws of history through numerology and developed amazingly implausible theories about language and its origins. His verse, which is characterized by neologisms and "trans-sense" language, includes "Zaklyatiye smekhom" (1910; "Incantation by Laughter") and Zangezi (1922). Mayakovsky epitomized the spirit of romantic bohemian radicalism. Humour, bravado, and self-pity characterize his inventive long poems, including Oblako v shtanakh (1915; A Cloud in Trousers). After the Russian Revolution in 1917, which he ardently supported initially, Mayakovsky "stepped on the throat" of his song to produce propaganda poems. But he also satirized Soviet bureaucracy in the witty "Razgovor s fininspektorom o poezii" (1926; "Conversation with a Tax Collector about Poetry"). As a dramatist, he is best known for Vladimir Mayakovsky (1913), in which he played the lead role, and Klop (1929; The Bedbug), in which a philistine, along with a bedbug, is resurrected into the banal communist future of 1979. Having written a poem about the suicide of the peasant poet Sergey Yesenin (1895–1925), Mayakovsky later shot himself, leaving a brilliantly ironic suicide note with a poem explaining that "love's boat has smashed against daily life."
Celebrated in their day, the fiction writers Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919), Aleksandr Kuprin (1870–1938), and Vladimir Korolenko (1853–1921) now have faded reputations. But Ivan Bunin, who became the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1933), wrote superb works both before the Revolution and as an émigré after it. Especially noteworthy are his dark novella Derevnya (1910; The Village), which is relentlessly critical of Russians, and his Zhizn Arsenyeva (1930; The Life of Arseniev, or The Well of Days), a fictionalized autobiography. Maxim Gorky became the official founder of Socialist Realism. Western readers now appreciate his three-volume autobiography Detstvo (1913–14; My Childhood), V lyudyakh (1915–16; In the World, or My Apprenticeship), and Moi universitety (1923; My Universities) and his Vospominaniya o Lve Nikolayeviche Tolstom (1919; Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy). His highly tendentious novel Mat (1906; Mother), a model for Socialist Realism, and many other works divide characters simplistically into two groups—progressive and virtuous or reactionary and vicious.


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The Cherry (Blossoms) On Top
One of the hottest new trends in weddings today is the cherry blossom wedding cake:
First, always make sure your icing is niiiice and smooth.
Remember, the flowers are the most important part!
(Yes, this was someone's actual wedding cake.)
(And they paid for it.)
(With money.)


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list (women)
>>>full list (men)
NEW ORLEANS - The US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) recently announced its Cross Country All-Academic Team list, with both Georgia College & State University squads making the tome.
Teams needed to have a 3.0 or better grade point average, and also compete at the NCAA Regional Tournament level to qualify. On the women's side 99 teams made the list, while 58 were honored in the men's half.
Adams State College was named the USTFCCCA Scholar Team of the Year on both the men's and women's sides.
The Bobcat women's team had a 3.410 grade point average, tied with ASC, the Division II National Champions. The GCSU women tied for the 29th best GPA in Division II, had the second-best GPA among Southeast Region teams and were tops in the Peach Belt Conference (PBC).
The Bobcat men's team had a 3.210 grade point average, good for 25th in the nation. The GCSU men had the second-best average among Southeast Regional teams, and also took top honors in the PBC.
Both teams had one of their most successful campaigns on the course in 2008, taking their highest finishes in the NCAA Southeast Regional Championship the women getting fifth and the men ninth. The women also picked up the 10th team title in program history, winning the Division II race at the Pepperdine Invitational.
Visit www.GCSUBobcats.com to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GCSU Athletics Hall of Fame. The GCSU Department of Athletics sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, GCSU prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the Bobcats' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement.


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
"AT&T Spotlight Performance" choreographed by pro dancer Mark Ballas
Remaining couples face no elimination this Week
During next week's two-hour "Dancing with the Stars" performance show on Monday, Nov. 5 (8 to 10:01 p.m.), the seven remaining couples will perform a fusion dance that has was chosen by their competitors on last week's show. The show's opening number, choreographed by Henry Byalikov, will feature The Troupe and four pros from the season.
Later in the night, after the couples' individual rounds, they will all take the dance floor for a swing dance marathon with the chance to add up to 10 extra points to their scores for the night. The couple in first place will get 10 points, the couple in second place will get 9 points, the couple in third place will get 8 points, the couple in fourth place will get 7 points, the couple in fifth place will get 6 points, the couple in sixth place will get 5 points and the seventh place couple will get 4 points.
As announced during last week's show, the fusion dance that the seven remaining couples will perform are:
Monday night's show also includes the season's second "AT&T Spotlight Performance," featuring some of the Utah's best young dancers. The 10 featured dancers are between the ages of 15-18 and represent the future of ballroom dancing. Pro dancer Mark Ballas, who teaches in Utah during every off season, is choreographing this piece to the hit song, "She Wolf," by David Guetta featuring Sia. Pro dancer Chelsie Hightower, who is from Utah, will also perform in the piece. The performance promises powerful choreography, a fusion of ballroom, hip-hop and contemporary dancing - and a look at what the future has in store.
Hosted by Emmy Award winner Tom Bergeron ("America's Funniest Home Videos") and Brooke Burke-Charvet ("Dancing with the Stars" season seven champion), the celebrities perform choreographed dance routines that will be judged by renowned ballroom judge Len Goodman and dancer/choreographers Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba.
Viewers may cast their votes for their favorite teams via phone on Monday night during and up to 60 minutes after the "Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars" performance shows. AT&T customers may also vote by texting the word "VOTE" and entering the number that corresponds to the team they want to support (message and data rates may apply). Online voting at www.ABC.com is open from the start of each episode on the East Coast and closes at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. Additionally, fans can now vote on Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/dancingwiththestars. A custom Facebook app sponsored by AT&T will let fans vote, share who they voted for and why, as well as see who friends voted for. They can also access the "After Party: Dancing with the Stars" live stream, the "DWTS" "Social Buzz" page, and the AT&T "Spotlight Performance" and "Casting Call" from the app.


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You don't need to be Lindsey Vonn to capture some serious heavy metal this spring--between the ongoing European runways and last night's Oscar red carpet, it seems gold dresses are having a major moment.
Christophe Decarnin's fall 2010 collection for Balmain just walked the runway in Paris, but we wouldn't be surprised if there were already a wait list for his sparkling minidresses.
Sign up for Glamour.com's Style Tips of the Week and Beauty Tip of the Day newsletters!
Dries Van Noten (who designed Maggie Gyllenhaal's gorgeous Oscar dress) was feeling the metallic vibe, too, along with fellow European designers Rochas, Max Mara, and Collette Dinnigan.
Cameron Diaz didn't just attend the Oscars last night, she sort of dressed like one, too! Her strapless Oscar de la Renta gown glittered with gold sequins on a bed of sparkling tulle. Kate Winslet also jumped on the metallic bandwagon in Yves Saint Laurent, and Sandra Bullock shined like a true star in the evening's most visible label (also worn by nominees Gabourey Sidibe and Vera Farmiga), Marchesa.
The brilliant thing about a gold dress is, you hardly need a single accessory--just a great pair of stilettos and a dazzling smile! Shop a few of our favorites at every price point now:
What do you dolls think of this trend? Are you ready to go for the gold? Do you already own a fabulously shiny dress? What do you wear it with? Discuss!
Catch up on more hot Trend Alerts here:
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Huntington Beach Jobs ResourceResumeGator recommends Huntington Beach job seekers to add an ExpertRating online certification to their resume. These certifications can be obtained quite easily from any computer with an Internet connection. The certifications help employers assess your exact skill in a particular area and boost your chances of landing a good job.
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To make the best decisions in career progression, you should get in contact with your corporate networks and find out more about the industry. This will be useful if you want to take up relevant courses to boost your employability in the industry. You can also join informal Internet Forums to get more information.
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Andrew Innerarity / Reuters
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan waves to supporters while holding a cup of coffee during a campaign stop at a Cuban restaurant and coffee shop in Miami on Saturday.
BELOIT, Wis. -- Paul Ryan has been campaigning as Mitt Romney's running mate for six weeks but it wasn't until this week that the Republican vice presidential nominee finally pulled out a tool from his own Wisconsin playbook: a PowerPoint presentation.
"I'm kind of a PowerPoint guy so I hope you'll bear with me," the Wisconsin congressman and budget guru joked to a crowd full of supporters Saturday afternoon in Orlando, Fla.
Speaking on the campus of the University of Central Florida, the wonky Ryan used four different slides to help demonstrate the problems with the nation's debt and how spending has changed under President Barack Obama.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said the use of the presentation – which was displayed on two large television monitors inside a gymnasium – was "simply another tool to highlight President Obama's failed leadership."
But it's also a staple of Ryan's campaigning for his seven terms in the United States Congress.
Ryan's congressional re-election campaign spokesman, Kevin Seifert, told NBC News a PowerPoint presentation is "a staple of Congressman Ryan's townhall meetings" – which, Ryan himself pointed out, he has held more than 500 with his constituents over the years. Seifert added: "It is a great way to explain problems like the debt and deficits and always has spurred great discussion with constituents in the first congressional district."
Florida politicians help Ryan woo Hispanics
After debuting the PowerPoint slides in Florida, Ryan went on to hold a nearly 30-minute question and answer town hall session with the couple thousand-person crowd.
This "new" prop comes just following reports casting Ryan as "mini-Mitt" -- that is, the Romney campaign had forced the congressman to follow the lead of the nominee, rather than letting him be himself. Plus, early Friday morning, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker publicly chided the Romney campaign for not "effectively" utilizing the GOP vice presidential nominee. But, Ryan told reporters, he is happy with his role.
"I feel really good about it [his role]. Look, I am doing the things I want to do," he said Friday inside Walker's Produce, a fruit stand in Lakeland, Fla. "Look at what we are doing, we are talking to local people, going around the country talking to local press. I am excited about my role. I feel very comfortable with it."
The quick event, though, marked Ryan's first retail drop-by since Aug. 25, when he stopped by the Puritan Backroom restaurant in Manchester, N.H., despite holding more than 50 events in the last month and a half.
In the lead-up to his VP selection, Ryan would answer questions from the press practically whenever reporters would have questions. In the month and half since being tapped on Aug. 11 to fill this new position, the congressman has yet to do a formal press conference. Friday, standing inside the fruit stand, was the first time Ryan has answered questions from the press on the ground (he has held two quick gaggles on board his press plane flying between states).
When the House Budget Committee chairman first joined Romney's ticket in August, he was forced to align his views with his running mate noting "no two people agree on every single issue" and Romney is the top of the ticket.
But as the weeks go on, it appears Ryan is settling into his role as Romney's number one surrogate on the campaign trail. Perhaps this weekend is the start of Ryan being allowed to insert more of himself into the ticket with just 44 days left before Election Day.
As it is sometimes said on the campaign trail, it is always good to "let Paul be Paul."


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Object #1025649 from MS-Papers-0032-0287
4 pages written 4 Dec 1872 by Isabelle Augusta Eliza Gascoyne
From: Inward letters - Surnames, Gascoyne/Gascoigne, Reference Number MS-Papers-0032-0287 (56 digitised items). Correspondents:Major Charles Manners Gascoyne (Gascoigne), Motueka, Nelson & Auckland, 1855, 1857-1860 (10 letters, includes letters from McLean to Gascoyne); his wife Isabelle Gascoyne, Motueka, Pangatotara, Nelson & Auckland, 1854-1859, 1863, 1872; and undated (31 letters, includes letters from Jessie McLean). Includes references to the Greenwood family of Motueka.Their son Major Frederick J W Gascoigne, Aorangi, Tauranga, Whakatane, Kaiteriria, Te Haroto & Taupo, 1858-1872 (9 letters)
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Inward letters - Surnames, Gascoyne/Gascoigne, Reference Number MS-Papers-0032-0287 (56 digitised items)
Series 1 Inward letters (English), Reference Number Series 1 Inward letters (English) (14501 digitised items)
McLean Papers, Reference Number MS-Group-1551 (30238 digitised items)
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Israel News - Stay Informed, Pray Informed
Newly-installed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah has tendered his resignation after a mere two weeks on the job, Arab media reported on Thursday.
Hamdallah reportedly resigned following severe disagreements with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
It was originally assumed that Abbas had appointed Hamdallah because of his pliant nature, unlike that of former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who repeatedly clashed with Abbas over the rampant corruption in the Palestinian regime.
It seems those assumptions might have been mistaken.
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FALL RIVER — The state Attorney General's Office has awarded Catholic Social Services a HomeCorps Crisis Response Innovation Grant for $98,861.
FALL RIVER — The state Attorney General's Office has awarded Catholic Social Services a HomeCorps Crisis Response Innovation Grant for $98,861.
In announcing the grant, Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a news release that the funding will assist homeowners and renters affected by the foreclosure crisis, revitalize distressed and blighted neighborhoods, and guard against future financial harm.
The funding is the result of a nationwide settlement involving the nation's five largest mortgage servicers and their connection with unlawful foreclosures and loan servicing.
"Our economy will never fully recover until we address the impact of the foreclosure crisis," Coakley said. "These grants are designed to help strengthen struggling communities, provide direct assistance to distressed borrowers and avoid unnecessary foreclosures. The organizations receiving these funds are doing work that is a critical part of those efforts."
The $98,861 awarded to Catholic Social Services will provide for hands-on support to assist more clients through one-on-one foreclosure counseling including loan modifications and mitigation, financial literacy and credit rebuilding, and homeownership education. This grant will service Fall River, New Bedford, Attleboro, Taunton and Hyannis.
For more information contact Carol Hernandez at email@example.com or 508-674-4681.