Images Dated 30th March 2010

Helena Blavatsky, Russian author and founder of Theosophy, 1889

Helena Blavatsky, Russian author and founder of Theosophy, 1889. Helena Blavatsky, Russian author and founder of Theosophy, 1889. Helena Blavatsky (nee Hahn) (1831-1891) emigrated from Russia to New York in 1873. Two years later she co-founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge. Theosophy is a mystical religious doctrine that postulates that all religions are attempts by a Spiritual Hierarchy to assist humanity to evolve to a state of greater perfection, and that each individual religion therefore posseses a part of the overall truth

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Victor Hugo, French author, 1879. Artist: Count Stanislaw Walery

Victor Hugo, French author, 1879. Born in Besancon, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) was a central figure in the French Romantic movement. In 1848, the year of revolutions in Europe, he was elected to the Assembly as a Republican but after Napoleon III's coup d'etat he was sent into exile, living in Guernsey in the Channel Islands until 1870. His work includes Notre Dame de Paris (1831), Les Miserables (1862), Les Travailleurs de la Mer (The Toilers of the Sea) (1866). Among his plays La Roi s'amuse (1832) was banned. In its guise as Verdi's opera Rigoletto it is universally popular. Found in the collection of the The State Central A Bakhrushin Theatre Museum, Moscow

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The Alexandrinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1890s

The Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, 1890s. Founded in 1756, the Alexandrinsky Theatre is Russia's oldest national theatre. The Neoclassical building was designed by Carlo Rossi and was completed in 1832. It has staged the premieres of plays by some of Russia's foremost playwrights, including Alexandr Griboyedov, Aleksandr Ostrovsky, and Anton Chekhov. Found in the collection of the The State Central A Bakhrushin Theatre Museum, Moscow

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