The following may be of interest to list members:
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HERMITAGE LECTURES AT THE COURTAULD INSTITUTE
The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg has lent more that 500 works of
art and paintings which will be on view to the public at the Hermitage Rooms
at Somerset House in London until Sunday 23 September 2001. This exhibition
presents a dazzling mix of jewels, metalwork, antiquities and paintings. A
series of 'Hermitage Lectures at the Courtauld' has been arranged to
coincide with the exhibition.
Date: 27 June 2001
Lecturer: Professor Isabel de Madariaga, FBA, FRHistS Professor Emerita of
Russian Studies, University of London at the School of Slavonic and East
European Studies; specialist in the history of Catherine the Great
Subject: Catherine: the Woman and the Empress
What enabled the young German princess with no claims to the Russian throne
whatsoever to impose her personality, with its erratic private life and
disciplined mind, on the vast empire of Russia? What creative personal
qualities enabled her to rule it and to win acceptance from the monarchs of
the old established European dynasties, compelling them eventually to
overlook the murder of her husband?
Date: 25 July
Lecturer: Professor Anthony Cross FBA Professor of Slavonic Studies in the
University of Cambridge and a specialist on Anglo-Russian cultural relations
Subject: Catherine in British Caricature
There were British painters and engravers who portrayed Catherine in her
imperial majesty, but British caricaturists of the golden age, Gillray,
Rowlandson, Newton and Isaac Cruikshank, showed scant respect and attacked
her with great gusto, particularly at the time of the 'Ochakov Crisis' of
1791
Date: 19 September
Lecturer: Viacheslav Fyodorov Head of the Department of Russian Culture at
The State Hermitage Museum
Subject: Catherine as the Successor of Peter the Great
When Catherine II came to the throne, Peter I was already a national hero,
renowned as a great reformer, military commander and creator of a new
Russian culture. Catherine, whose justification for her rule was in need of
reinforcement, repeatedly stressed her continuation of Peter's policies in
international and internal affairs, in science and art.
The Hermitage Lectures will be held at 6.30 pm in the Kenneth Clarke Lecture
Theatre, Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2 0RN.
Tickets: 5 pounds, including a glass of wine. To book, tel. 020 7848 2143.
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Mike Berry
Centre for Russian and Tel: 0121-414-6355
East European Studies, Fax: 0121-414-3423
University of Birmingham, email: [log in to unmask]
Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
***** Umom Rossiyu ne ponyat' *****
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