Nikolay Gallery

'False Dmitry takes an oath of allegiance to King Sigismund III Vasa', 1874. Artist: Nikolay Nevryov

'False Dmitry takes an oath of allegiance to King Sigismund III Vasa', 1874. Sigismund III Vasa (1566-1632) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1587 until his death. He was also King of Sweden from 1592 until 1599, when he was deposed by his uncle, Charles IX of Sweden. False Dmitry was the name of two impostors who laid claim to the Russian throne with Polish-Lithuanian support in the 1600s. Found in the collection of the State A Radishchev Art Museum, Saratov, Russia.

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Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev, Russian author, c1860-c1864. Artist: Unknown

Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev, Russian economist and political theorist, c1860-c1864. A relative of the novelist Ivan Turgenev, Nikolay Turgenev (1789-1871) is best known for his Essay on the Theory of Taxation (1817) and Russia and the Russians (1847). He was involved in the foundation of several reformist societies, including the Northern Society of the Decembrists. He was abroad at the time of the unsuccessful Decembrist Revolt in 1825, after which he opted not to return to Russia, where he was tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Siberian katorga (labour camps). Found in the collection of the State Museum of History, Moscow.

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First Chappe telegraph message from St Petersburg, early 19th century, (c1870). Artist: Unknown

First Chappe telegraph message from St Petersburg, Russia, early 19th century, (c1870). Tsar Nicholas I (1796-1855), sending the first message from St Petersburg telegraph station, using a modification of Claude Chappe's semaphore system.The Tsar is turning the mechanism which altered the position of the signalling arms on top of the tower. From Les Merveilles de las Science, (The Wonders of Science), by Louis Figuier, (Paris, c1870).

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