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85-454: Hiwis comprised 50% of the 2nd Panzer Army 's 134th Infantry Division in late 1942, while the 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad was composed of 25% Hiwis. By 1944, their numbers had grown to 600,000. Both men and women were recruited. Veteran Hiwis were practically indistinguishable from regular German troops, and often served in entire company strengths. Between September 1941 and July 1944

170-507: A great power ; and one of the most powerful states in Europe after the victory over Napoleon . Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. The Emperor Alexander II abolished Russian serfdom in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and revolutionary pressures grew. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms of 1906–1914, the constitution of 1906 , and

255-476: A rave band, has gained popularity in Russia and across Europe. Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention, resulting in world-renowned films such as The Battleship Potemkin . Soviet-era filmmakers, most notably Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky , would go on to become among of the world's most innovative and influential directors. Eisenstein was a student of Lev Kuleshov , who developed

340-689: A coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to seizure of power by the communist Bolsheviks on 25 October 1917 (7 November New Style ). In 1922, Soviet Russia, along with Soviet Ukraine , Soviet Belarus , and the Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , officially merging all four republics to form the Soviet Union as a country. Between 1922 and 1991,

425-545: A gap between Nazi ideologues and pragmatic German Army commanders. Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler regarded all Slavs as Untermenschen and therefore of limited value as volunteers also. On the other hand, the manpower was needed, and German Intelligence had recognised the need to divide the Soviet nationals. The contradiction was sometimes disguised by reclassification of Slavs as Cossacks . Colonel Helmuth Groscurth ( XI Corps ' Chief of Staff ) wrote to General Beck : "It

510-549: A genuine desire to volunteer, and seeming to volunteer in the hope of a better chance of surviving the war. A captured Hiwi told his NKVD interrogators: Russians in the German Army can be divided into three categories. Firstly, soldiers mobilized by German troops, so-called Cossack sections, which are attached to German divisions. Secondly, Hilfswillige [Voluntary Assistants] made up of local people or Russian prisoners who volunteer, or those Red Army soldiers who desert to join

595-420: A greater variety of artistic styles in Soviet cinema. The comedies of Eldar Ryazanov and Leonid Gaidai of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catchphrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar -winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic War and Peace , which was the most expensive film made in the Soviet Union. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl 's White Sun of

680-614: A significant role in the early stages of the German invasion of the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa in 1941 when it was a constituent part of Army Group Centre . 2nd Panzer Group was part of the Army Group Centre during Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army formed the Army Group's southern pincer while Hoth's 3rd Panzer Army formed

765-405: A solo mission on Vostok 6 . In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk , exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2 . Until the 18th century, music in Russia consisted mainly of church music and folk songs and dances. In the 19th century, it was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with other members of The Mighty Handful , and

850-417: A state as a result of in-fighting between members of the princely family that ruled it collectively. After the 13th century, Moscow became a political and cultural center. Moscow has become a center for the unification of Russian lands . By the end of the 15th century, Moscow united the northeastern and northwestern Russian principalities, overthrew the "Mongol yoke" in 1480, and would be transformed into

935-423: A thoroughly negative meaning during World War II when it entered into several other languages in reference to Ostlegionen as well as volunteers enlisted from occupied territories for service in a number of roles including hands-on shooting actions and guard duties at extermination camps on top of regular military service, drivers, cooks, hospital attendants, ammunition carriers, messengers, sappers , etc. In

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1020-509: Is россияне ( rossiyane ), derived from Россия ( Rossiya , Russia), which denotes "people of Russia", regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation. In daily usage, those terms are often mixed up, and since Vladimir Putin became president, the ethnic term русские has supplanted the non-ethnic term. The name of the Russians derives from the early medieval Rus' people , a group of Norse merchants and warriors who relocated from across

1105-533: Is Christianity —It has the world's largest Orthodox population . According to differing sociological surveys on religious adherence, between 41% to over 80% of the total population of Russia adhere to the Russian Orthodox Church . Non-religious Russians may associate themselves with the Orthodox faith for cultural reasons. Some Russian people are Old Believers : a relatively small schismatic group of

1190-588: Is Russian , the most spoken Slavic language . The majority of Russians adhere to Orthodox Christianity , ever since the formation of the Russian identity in the Middle Ages . By total numbers, they are the largest Slavic and European nation . Genetic studies show that Russians are closely related to Poles , Belarusians , Ukrainians , as well as Estonians , Latvians , Lithuanians and Finns . They were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry

1275-544: Is based in Kievan Rus' . The Russian word for the Russians is derived from the people of Rus' and the territory of Rus' . Russians share many historical and cultural traits with other European peoples, and especially with other East Slavic ethnic groups, specifically Belarusians and Ukrainians . The vast majority of Russians live in native Russia, but notable minorities are scattered throughout other post-Soviet states such as Belarus , Kazakhstan , Moldova , Ukraine , and

1360-400: Is disturbing that we are forced to strengthen our fighting troops with Russian prisoners of war, who are already being turned into gunners. It's an odd state of affairs that the "Beasts" we have been fighting against are now living with us in closest harmony." The Hiwis may have constituted one quarter of 6th Army 's front-line strength, amounting to over 50,000 Slavic auxiliaries serving with

1445-508: Is remembered mainly for his novel Oblomov . Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote prose satire, while Nikolai Leskov is best remembered for his shorter fiction. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. Other important 19th-century developments included the fabulist Ivan Krylov , non-fiction writers such as the critic Vissarion Belinsky , and playwrights such as Aleksandr Griboyedov and Aleksandr Ostrovsky . The beginning of

1530-445: Is summed up in the popular phrase (sometimes attributed to Emperor Alexander III of Russia ) - Хочешь быть русским - будь им! ( transl.   You want to be Russian - be that! ). Russian is the official and the predominantly spoken language in Russia. It is the most-spoken native language in Europe, the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, as well as the world's most widely spoken Slavic language . Russian

1615-664: Is the third-most used language on the Internet after English and Spanish , and is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Russian literature is considered to be among the world's most influential and developed. It can be traced to the Middle Ages , when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By

1700-655: The SS employed thousands of collaborationist auxiliary police recruited as Hiwis directly from the Soviet POW camps. After training, they were deployed for service with Nazi Germany , in the General Government , and the occupied East. In one instance, the German SS and police inducted, processed, and trained 5,082 Hiwi guards before the end of 1944 at the SS training camp division of

1785-825: The 2021 Russian census , the number of ethnic Russians in the Russian Federation decreased by nearly 5.43 million, from roughly 111 million people in 2010 to approximately 105.5 million in 2021. Among Russians, a number of ethnographic groups stand out, such as: the Northern Russians , the Southern Russians , the Cossacks , the Goryuns , the Kamchadals , the Polekhs , the Pomors ,

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1870-524: The Age of Enlightenment , literature had grown in importance, with works from Mikhail Lomonosov , Denis Fonvizin , Gavrila Derzhavin , and Nikolay Karamzin . From the early 1830s, during the Golden Age of Russian Poetry , literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to

1955-505: The Baltic Sea and played an important part in the foudation of the first East Slavic state that later became the Kievan Rus' . The idea of a single " all-Russian nation " encompassing the East Slavic peoples , or a "triune nation" of three brotherly " Great Russian ", " Little Russian " (i.e. Ukrainian ), and " White Russian " (i.e. Belarusian ) peoples became the official doctrine of

2040-547: The Baltic states . A large Russian diaspora (sometimes including Russian-speaking non-Russians), estimated at 25 million people, has developed all over the world, with notable numbers in the United States , Germany , Brazil , and Canada . There are two Russian words which are commonly translated into English as "Russians". One is русские ( russkiye ), which in modern Russia most often means "ethnic Russians". The other one

2125-580: The Chetniks under Draža Mihailović and the communist Yugoslav Partisans under Josip Broz Tito . Despite engaging in several operations aimed to crush the partisan movement, particularly the communists, no clear victory was gained. Indeed, the partisan movement grew in size and equipment, particularly after Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943, which led to Italian units in occupied Bosnia and Montenegro either surrendering or defecting to

2210-650: The Christianization of Kievan Rus' , for several centuries it was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine Empire . Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia. The 16th century saw the development of the unique tent-like churches ; and the onion dome design, which is a distinctive feature of Russian architecture. In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl , gradually paving

2295-484: The Don , Terek , and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of parts of Russia. In accordance with the 2008 research results of Russian and Estonian geneticists, two groups of Russians are distinguished: the northern and southern populations. Central and Southern Russians, to which the majority of Russian populations belong, according to Y chromosome R1a, are included in

2380-700: The Hunger Plan and the Generalplan Ost , including one million civilian casualties during the Siege of Leningrad . After the victory of the Soviet Union and the Western Allies , the Soviet Union became a superpower opposing Western countries during the Cold War . By the mid-1980s, with Soviet economic and political weaknesses becoming acute, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms; these culminated in

2465-638: The Raid on Drvar (Operation Rösselsprung) failed to assassinate the communist partisan leadership via airborne assault , the 2nd Panzer Army and all of Army Group F were pushed out of Belgrade in a joint operation by the Partisans and Red Army during the Belgrade Offensive . The 2nd Panzer Army finished the war in disarray in modern Austria . As all German armies on the Eastern Front, Panzer Group 2 implemented

2550-759: The Russian Chinese , the Siberians ( Siberiaks ), Starozhily , some groupings of Old Believers ( Kamenschiks , Lipovans , Semeiskie ), and others. The main ones are the Northern and Southern Russian groups. At the same time, the proposal of the ethnographer Dmitry Zelenin in his major work of 1927 Russian (East Slavic) Ethnography to consider them as separate East Slavic peoples did not find support in scientific circles. Russia's Arctic coastline had been explored and settled by Pomors , Russian settlers from Novgorod . Cossacks inhabited sparsely populated areas in

2635-650: The Russian Empire from the beginning of the 19th century onwards. The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes , whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes , one of the largest wetlands in Europe. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia with Moscow included in two waves: one moving from Kiev toward present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov . Prior to

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2720-797: The Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein . The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era , was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff , one of the last great champions of the Romantic style of European classical music. World-renowned composers of the 20th century include Alexander Scriabin , Alexander Glazunov , Igor Stravinsky , Sergei Prokofiev , Dmitri Shostakovich , Georgy Sviridov and Alfred Schnittke . Soviet and Russian conservatories have turned out generations of world-renowned soloists. Among

2805-505: The State Duma (1906–1917) attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the Emperors refused to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power. A combination of economic breakdown, war-weariness , and discontent with the autocratic system of government triggered revolution in Russia in 1917 . The overthrow of the monarchy initially brought into office

2890-659: The Trawniki concentration camp set up in the village of Trawniki southeast of Lublin . They were known as the " Trawniki men " ( German : Trawnikimänner ) and were former Soviet citizens, mostly Ukrainians . Trawnikis were sent to all major killing sites of the " Final Solution ", which was their training's primary purpose. They took an active role in the executions of Jews at Bełżec , Sobibor , Treblinka II , Warsaw (three times), Częstochowa , Lublin , Lvov , Radom , Kraków , Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz , and Trawniki itself. The term 'Hiwis' acquired

2975-578: The Trinity as outlined by the Nicene Creed , Orthodox fasts , military service, and practices including water baptism . Other world religions have negligible representation among ethnic Russians. The largest of these groups are Islam with over 100,000 followers from national minorities, and Baptists with over 85,000 Russian adherents. Others are mostly Pentecostals , Evangelicals , Seventh-day Adventists , Lutherans and Jehovah's Witnesses . Since

3060-634: The Tsardom of Russia after Ivan IV was crowned tsar in 1547. In 1721, Tsar Peter the Great renamed his state as the Russian Empire , hoping to associate it with historical and cultural achievements of ancient Rus' – in contrast to his policies oriented towards Western Europe. The state now extended from the eastern borders of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the Pacific Ocean , and became

3145-742: The United States . Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and South Beach, Staten Island in New York City are examples of large communities of recent Russian and Russian-Jewish immigrants. Other examples are Sunny Isles Beach , a northern suburb of Miami , and West Hollywood of the Los Angeles area. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many Russians who were identified with the White army moved to China  — most of them settling in Harbin and Shanghai . By

3230-465: The atmosphere of Venus , and founded modern geology . Since the times of Nikolay Lobachevsky , who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry , and a prominent tutor Pafnuty Chebyshev , Russian mathematicians became among the world's most influential. Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table , the main framework of modern chemistry . Sofya Kovalevskaya was a pioneer among women in mathematics in

3315-519: The de facto architectural style, and Nicholas I opened the gate of Eclecticism to Russia. The second half of the 19th-century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival style. In early 20th-century, Russian neoclassical revival became a trend. Prevalent styles of the late 20th-century were the Art Nouveau , Constructivism , and Socialist Classicism . Russia's largest religion

3400-462: The dissolution of the Soviet Union , leaving Russia again alone and marking the beginning of the post-Soviet Russian period. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself the Russian Federation and became one of several successors to the Soviet Union . Ethnic Russians historically migrated within the areas of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union , though they were sometimes encouraged to re-settle in borderland areas by

3485-738: The mixed economy and diverse society and culture of the 1920s through the command economy and repressions of the Joseph Stalin era to the "era of stagnation" from the 1960s to the 1980s. The actions of the Soviet government caused the death of millions of citizens in the famine of 1930–1933 and the Great Purge . The attack by Nazi Germany and the ensuing war , together with the Holocaust , again claimed millions of lives . Millions of Russian civilians and prisoners of war were killed or starved to death during Nazi Germany's genocidal policies called

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3570-630: The 1930s, Harbin had 100,000 Russians. Many of these Russians moved back to the Soviet Union after World War II . Today, a large group in northern China still speak Russian as a second language. Russians ( eluosizu ) are one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China (as the Russ ); there are approximately 15,600 Russian Chinese living mostly in northern Xinjiang , and also in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang . According to

3655-525: The 19th century. Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002, as well as the Fields Medal in 2006, both of which he declined. Alexander Popov was among the inventors of radio , while Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov were co-inventors of laser and maser . Zhores Alferov contributed significantly to

3740-552: The 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry . This era had poets such as Alexander Blok , Anna Akhmatova , Boris Pasternak , Konstantin Balmont , Marina Tsvetaeva , Vladimir Mayakovsky , and Osip Mandelstam . It also produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin , Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin , Leonid Andreyev , Yevgeny Zamyatin , Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely . After

3825-789: The 2nd Panzer Army were subsequently transferred to Hungary as part of Army Group South in January 1945, holding off the Soviet invasion of Austria. 2nd Panzer Army took part in the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills in March 1945 before surrendering at the end of the war to both Soviet and Anglo-American forces. Organization of Panzer Group Guderian on 28 May 1940 Generaloberst Heinz Guderian Russians Russians ( Russian : русские , romanized :  russkiye [ˈruskʲɪje] ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe . Their mother tongue

3910-456: The 2nd Panzer Army would turn northwest and attack Moscow from the south. Guderian's forces tried to encircle the 50th Army , which was successfully defending Tula . After unsuccessful attempts to capture Tula, the high command ordered Gudarian to bypass Tula on November 18 and head towards the vital town of Kashira. The furthest attack was stopped near Kashira by the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps , 173rd Rifle Division , and other units that withstood

3995-582: The 2nd Panzer Group, turning southward towards Kyiv to form the northern pincer at Kyiv. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army and Kleist's 1st Panzer Army were locked in a pincer around Kyiv to trap 665,000 Soviet prisoners. After concluding the Kyiv encirclement, the German planned for the three Panzer armies to attack Moscow from different directions: 4th Panzer Army in the North around Leningrad would attack southward. Hoth's 3rd Panzer Army would attack eastward towards Moscow, while

4080-440: The Desert was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern ; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space. In 2002, Russian Ark was the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. Today, the Russian cinema industry continues to expand. The history of Russian architecture begins with early woodcraft buildings of ancient Slavs, and the architecture of Kievan Rus' . Following

4165-508: The German Vernichtungskrieg (war of annihilation) policy in mind. For example, volunteering allowed Soviet POWs to get out of the barbaric German POW camp system , giving them a much higher chance of survival. During World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatment of Soviet POWs, in contrast to their treatment of British and American POWs. This resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths, or 57% of all Soviet POWs. Therefore it becomes very difficult to differentiate between

4250-423: The German troops. 2nd Panzer Army The 2nd Panzer Army ( German : 2. Panzerarmee ) was a German armoured formation during World War II , formed from the 2nd Panzer Group on October 5, 1941. Panzer Group Guderian ( German : Panzergruppe Guderian ) was formed on 5 June 1940 and named after its commander, general Heinz Guderian . In early June 1940, after reaching the English Channel following

4335-417: The Germans the furthest from the capital, thus resulting in Hitler's dismissal of Heinz Guderian . After the battle, he would never again reach the height and the popularity with Hitler or command any significant part of the German forces. In August 1943, the 2nd Panzer Army was transferred to occupied Yugoslavia , where it was incorporated into Army Group F and engaged in anti-partisan operations against

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4420-444: The Germans. This category wears full German uniform, with their own ranks and badges. They eat like German soldiers and they are attached to German regiments. Thirdly, there are Russian prisoners who do the dirty jobs, kitchens, stables and so on. These three categories are treated in different ways, with the best treatment naturally reserved for the volunteers. Soviet authorities referred to the Hiwis as "former Russians " regardless of

4505-407: The Gulag camps. Russian philosophy has been greatly influential. Alexander Herzen is known as one of the fathers of agrarian populism . Mikhail Bakunin is referred to as the father of anarchism . Peter Kropotkin was the most important theorist of anarcho-communism . Mikhail Bakhtin 's writings have significantly inspired scholars. Helena Blavatsky gained international following as

4590-473: The Russian Orthodoxy that rejected the liturgical reforms introduced in the 17th century. Other schisms from Orthodoxy include Doukhobors which in the 18th century rejected secular government, the Russian Orthodox priests, icons, all church ritual, the Bible as the supreme source of divine revelation and the divinity of Jesus, and later emigrated into Canada. An even earlier sect were Molokans which formed in 1550 and rejected Czar's divine right to rule , icons,

4675-627: The Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. In the 1930s, Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky , who laid the foundations of this style. Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the leading writers of the Soviet era. Nikolay Ostrovsky 's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Influential émigré writers include Vladimir Nabokov . Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, such as Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn , who wrote about life in

4760-435: The Russian ethnicity - and as a historic great power with imperial expansionist tendencies the Russian state has sometimes encouraged Russian-centred monoculturalism. Steppe peoples, Tatars, Baltic Germans, Lithuanians and native Siberians in Rus' , Muscovy or the Russian Empire could in theory become "Russians" ( Russian : русские ) simply by accepting Russian Orthodoxy as their faith. The attitude of ready inclusivity

4845-409: The Slavic migration in the 6-7th centuries, the Suzdal-Murom and Novgorod-Rostov areas were populated by Finnic peoples , including the Merya , the Muromians , and the Meshchera . From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs slowly assimilated the native Finnic peoples, so that by year 1100, the majority of the population in Western Russia was Slavic-speaking. Recent genetic studies confirm

4930-692: The Tsarist and later Soviet government. Sometimes ethnic Russian communities, such as the Lipovans who settled in the Danube delta or the Doukhobors in Canada , emigrated as religious dissidents fleeing the central authority. There are also small Russian communities in the Balkans — including Lipovans in the Danube delta — Central European nations such as Germany and Poland , as well as Russians settled in China , Japan , South Korea , Mexico , Brazil , Argentina and Australia . These communities identify themselves to varying degrees as Russians, citizens of these countries, or both. Significant numbers of Russians emigrated to Canada , Australia and

5015-410: The army's headquarters was subordinated to Army Group F and transferred to the Balkans for anti-partisan operations. The army became primarily an infantry formation at this point and found itself committed to anti-partisan operations, and personnel were accused postwar of multiple atrocities against civilians and partisans. After the Belgrade Offensive overtook army headquarters, surviving units of

5100-503: The best known are violinists David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer , cellist Mstislav Rostropovich , pianists Vladimir Horowitz , Sviatoslav Richter , and Emil Gilels , and vocalist Galina Vishnevskaya . During the Soviet times, popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, such as the two balladeers — Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava , and performers such as Alla Pugacheva . Jazz , even with sanctions from Soviet authorities, flourished and evolved into one of

5185-407: The breakthrough in the Ardennes , the Panzergruppe Guderian was formed from the XIX Army Corps , and thrust deep into France , cutting off the Maginot Line . In November 1940, it was upgraded into Panzergruppe 2 . The 2nd Panzer Group ( German : Panzergruppe 2 ) was formed in November 1940 from Panzer Group Guderian. In October 1941 it was renamed the 2nd Panzer Army. Panzer Group 2 played

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5270-411: The central attack of the Guderian army. The Group's divisions had suffered heavy attrition since the beginning of the invasion and experienced shortages in fuel and ammunition due to the breakdown in logistics. By November, the situation of Guderian's Panzer Group was dire. Nonetheless, Guderian expected the Red Army's resistance to collapse and, driven by National Socialist military thinking, including

5355-434: The circumstances of their joining or their fate at the hands of the NKVD secret police. After the war, thousands attempted to return to their homes in the USSR. Hundreds were captured and prosecuted, charged with treason and therefore guilty of enlistment from the start of judicial proceedings. Most were sentenced to the Gulag labor camps , and released under the Khrushchev amnesty of 1955. The reliance upon Hiwis exposed

5440-478: The contemporary Northern Russians also are genetically close of all Slavic peoples only to the Poles and similar to the Balts. However, this does not mean the northern Russians origin from the Balts or the Poles, more likely, that all the peoples of the Nordic gene pool are descendants of Paleo-European population, which has remained around Baltic Sea . Russians have sometimes found it useful to emphasize their self-perceived ability to assimilate other people to

5525-402: The context of World War II the term has clear connotations of collaborationism , and in the case of the occupied Soviet territories also of anti- Bolshevism (widely presented as such by the Germans). German historian Werner Röhr  [ de ] wrote that there were many different reasons why Soviet citizens volunteered. He argues that the issue has to be seen first and foremost with

5610-429: The country's most popular musical forms. The Ganelin Trio have been described by critics as the greatest ensemble of free-jazz in continental Europe . By the 1980s, rock music became popular across Russia, and produced bands such as Aria , Aquarium , DDT , and Kino . Pop music in Russia has continued to flourish since the 1960s, with globally famous acts such as t.A.T.u. In the recent times, Little Big ,

5695-560: The creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics . Oleg Losev made crucial contributions in the field of semiconductor junctions , and discovered light-emitting diodes . Vladimir Vernadsky is considered one of the founders of geochemistry , biogeochemistry , and radiogeology . Élie Metchnikoff is known for his groundbreaking research in immunology . Ivan Pavlov is known chiefly for his work in classical conditioning . Lev Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics . Nikolai Vavilov

5780-429: The criminal Commissar Order during Operation Barbarossa . In September 1942, the 2nd Panzer Army took part in war crimes while conducting anti-guerrilla operations in the Soviet Union. These operations killed at least a thousand people, razed entire villages, and deported over 18,500. During these operations, Jews and suspected partisans were murdered by being forced to drag ploughs through minefields. In August 1943,

5865-418: The fall of the Soviet Union various new religious movements have sprung up and gathered a following among ethnic Russians. The most prominent of these are Rodnovery , the revival of the Slavic native religion also common to other Slavic nations . Football is the most popular sport in Russia. The Soviet Union national football team became the first European champions by winning Euro 1960 , and reached

5950-423: The fore. Following Pushkin's footsteps, a new generation of poets were born, including Mikhail Lermontov , Nikolay Nekrasov , Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy , Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet . The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol . Then came Ivan Turgenev , who mastered both short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy soon became internationally renowned. Ivan Goncharov

6035-476: The formation's progress to a few kilometres a day. The rasputitsa was not an unusual phenomenon, but the Wehrmacht did not prepare for this contingency as the German high command had expected the German army to be in Moscow and beyond at this time, with the campaign over before the end of summer. After Minsk, the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies captured Smolensk in another successful pincer operation taking around 300,000 prisoners. Hitler ordered Army Group Center to detach

6120-561: The general "East European" gene cluster with the rest East and West Slavs (Poles, Czechs and Slovaks), as well as the non-Slavic Hungarians and Aromanians . Genetically, East Slavs are quite similar to West Slavs; such genetic similarity is somewhat unusual for genetics with such a wide settlement of the Slavs, especially Russians. The high unity of the autosomal markers of the East Slavic populations and their significant differences from

6205-494: The groundbreaking Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school , the All-Union Institute of Cinematography . Dziga Vertov 's " Kino-Eye " theory had a huge impact on the development of documentary filmmaking and cinema realism. Many Soviet socialist realism films were artistically successful, including Chapaev , The Cranes Are Flying , and Ballad of a Soldier . The 1960s and 1970s saw

6290-642: The history of Russia became essentially the history of the Soviet Union , effectively an ideologically based state roughly conterminous with the Russian Empire before the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk . From its first years, government in the Soviet Union based itself on the one-party rule of the Communists, as the Bolsheviks called themselves, beginning in March 1918. The approach to the building of socialism, however, varied over different periods in Soviet history: from

6375-579: The idea that the "will" was key to success, continued to direct his forces to attack. By early December, the final advance on Moscow failed in the face of stiffening Soviet resistance and due to shortages in men and equipment. Until the Soviet counter-offensive, the Germans enjoyed complete domination of the skies and numerical advantage in material and men power during the Battle of Moscow . The massive and unexpected counter-attacks of 1st Guards Cavalry Corps , 50th Army, 10th Army , and parts of 49th Army drove

6460-482: The leading theoretician of Theosophy , and co-founded the Theosophical Society . Vladimir Lenin , a major revolutionary, developed a variant of communism known as Leninism . Leon Trotsky , on the other hand, founded Trotskyism . Alexander Zinoviev was a prominent philosopher in the second half of the 20th century. Mikhail Lomonosov proposed the conservation of mass in chemical reactions , discovered

6545-578: The neighboring Finnic, Turkic and Caucasian peoples were revealed. Northern Russians , according to mtDNA , Y chromosome and autosomal marker CCR5de132, are included in the "North European" gene cluster (the Poles , the Balts , Germanic and Baltic Finnic peoples ). Consequently, the already existing biologo-genetic studies have made all hypotheses about the mixing of the Russians with non-Slavic ethnic groups or their "non-Slavism" obsolete or pseudoscientific. At

6630-443: The northern pincer destroying several Soviet armies during the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa. During the battles of Bialystok and Minsk, substantial numbers of prisoners were captured and several weapons captured. Suffering heavy losses in men and equipment, the German forces advanced deeper into the Soviet Union. The rasputitsa season (literally "roadlessness", due to heavy rains and sluggish muddy roads) began to slow down

6715-602: The partisans. Throughout 1943-44, the 2nd Panzer Army was progressively stripped of its heavy armor destined for the war on the Eastern Front , and became a primarily motorized infantry force. It did gain specialized Alpine support from units like the Brandenburgers and 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division Prinz Eugen divisions. However, endemic guerilla warfare cost the 2nd Panzer Army heavily, and only months after

6800-506: The presence of a Finnic substrate in modern Russian population. Outside archaeological remains, little is known about the predecessors to Russians in general prior to 859 AD, when the Primary Chronicle starts its records. By 600 AD, the Slavs are believed to have split linguistically into southern , western , and eastern branches. The Rus' state was established in northern Russia in

6885-602: The same time, the long-standing identification of the Northern Russian and Southern Russian ethnographic groups by ethnologists was confirmed. The previous conclusions of physical anthropologists, historians and linguists (see, in particular, the works of the academician Valentin Yanin ) about the proximity of the ancient Novgorod Slavs and their language not to the East, but to west Baltic Slavs . As can be seen from genetic resources ,

6970-509: The way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1690s. After the reforms of Peter the Great, Russia's architecture became influenced by Western European styles. The 18th-century taste for Rococo architecture led to the splendid works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Saint Petersburg was transformed into an outdoor museum of Neoclassical architecture . During Alexander I 's rule, Empire style became

7055-538: The year 862, which was ruled by the Varangians . Staraya Ladoga and Novgorod became the first major cities of the new union of immigrants from Scandinavia with the Slavs and Finns . In 882, the prince Oleg seized Kiev , thereby uniting the northern and southern lands of the East Slavs under one authority. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as

7140-433: Was best known for having identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants. Many famous Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés . Igor Sikorsky was an aviation pioneer . Vladimir Zworykin was the inventor of the iconoscope and kinescope television systems. Theodosius Dobzhansky was the central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis . George Gamow

7225-573: Was one of the foremost advocates of the Big Bang theory. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is called the father of theoretical astronautics , whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Valentin Glushko , and many others. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin . In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space , having flown

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