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the two other giants of the Soviet silent cinema—
Eisenstein and DOVZHENKO —Pudovkin remained
a respected film teacher, and texts like Film Tech-
nique and Film Acting (1954) still remained influ-
ential decades after his death.
1991 she was named a National Artist of the
USSR, the highest designation in the cultural
world of the former Soviet Union. At home,
Pugacheva was known for the lavish lifestyle of
a celebrity, complete with a turbulent personal
life that included four marriages. Although
Pugacheva was not able to build on her fame
beyond the Russian-language world, her iconic
status in Russian society remains undiminished,
even as she moves away from music and into
ancillary fields such as fashion design.
Pugacheva, Alla Borisovna (1949-
)
singer
Born in Moscow, Pugacheva has been a super-
star in the world of Soviet music for almost three
decades, having sold more than 200 million
records. She first trained in classical music at the
Ippolitov-Ivanov School of Music in Moscow
before enrolling in the Lunacharsky State Insti-
tute of Theatrical Arts, also in Moscow. She
began her career as a singer at the age of 16 and
spent the next decade traveling across the Soviet
Union, performing with various bands, such as
New Electron, Muscovites, and Happy Fellows.
A hint of her future success came with a third-
place prize at the All-Union Soviet Pop Festival
in 1974. The following year, Pugacheva received
a lucky break when the official Soviet represen-
tative to the Golden Orpheus Song Festival in
Bulgaria was replaced at the last moment amid
rumors of bad behavior. Chosen to take his
place, Pugacheva won the Grand Prize, perform-
ing the song “Arlekino.” She quickly capitalized
on her success with broadcasts on Soviet televi-
sion and recordings through the state recording
house, Melodiya, and in 1978 again won an
international competition, this time at the Inter-
national Song Festival in Sopot, Poland. By the
late 1970s Pugacheva had developed a distinc-
tive style that combined Western pop songs
delivered with great drama that harked back to
the traditions of Russian variety music known as
estrada. Her fame grew throughout the 1980s
with numerous performances in European song
festivals, and she continued to gather more
awards, Soviet and international. Pugacheva
also developed a career in television and cinema.
In 1988 she toured the United States for the first
time, performing in Seattle's “Bumbershoot” fes-
tival. One year later she performed at the Coun-
try Music Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. In
Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1774)
Peasant uprising. The Pugachev rebellion was the
last of four major peasant revolts that shook the
Russian state in the 17th and 18th centuries. In
September 1773, Emelian Ivanovich Pugachev
(1726-75), a Don Cossack who had served in
the Seven Years' War, raised the banner of rebel-
lion along the eastern banks of the Volga River.
Claiming to be the true emperor PETER III , who
had actually been murdered during the palace
revolt that placed his wife, CATHERINE II , on the
throne in 1762, Pugachev issued a “manifesto”
emancipating the serfs. Pugachev's imperial
claims, fervent OLD BELIEVER preachings, the
promise to abolish SERFDOM , and the discontent
of ethnic minorities recently incorporated into
the Russian Empire helped him recruit a motley
“army” of COSSACKS , peasants, as well as nomadic
Kazakhs and Bashkirs. The rebels were able to
make their initial advance up the Volga River in
great part because the bulk of the Russian army
was occupied in a war with Turkey. Imperial
armies sent by Catherine were at first unable to
defeat the rebels, who sacked KAZAN and seized
Saratov and marked a trail of destruction, loot-
ing and burning the nobles' estates in the region.
Finally, while peasants and others throughout
Russia awaited the coming of Pugachev as a sav-
ior, his ill-equipped, untrained men were over-
whelmed by Catherine's forces, led most notably
by Count Aleksandr SUVOROV (1729-1800), and
were thoroughly defeated at Tsaritsyn (now Vol-
gograd) in September 1774. Betrayed by his own
troops, Pugachev was handed over to the impe-
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