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Red Square—a collaborative design—Shchusev
built important projects in Georgia and Uzbek-
istan. With the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute
(1933-38) in Tbilisi, which combined classical
and Georgian styles and won him the 1941 Stalin
Prize, and the Opera (1933-40) and Alisher
Navoi Theater (1933-47) in Tashkent, Shchusev
attempted a “social regionalism” that drew from
regional traditions. One of his last projects was
the Komsomolskaia Metro station in Moscow
(1945-52), whose richly ornate interior with
chandeliers and mosaics synthesizes Stalinist and
rococo styles. Shchusev received academic hon-
ors from both regimes: academician of the St.
Petersburg Academy of Arts (1910), member of
the USSR Academy of Architecture (1939), and
full member of the USSR
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
(1943).
Station (1902) and the building of the Moscow
Merchants Society (1909). Shekhtel worked suc-
cessfully in various styles, developing a distinc-
tive blend of old Russian architecture and Art
Nouveau. He was among the first in Moscow to
explore the possibilities of iron, glass, and rein-
forced-concrete technology. Shekhtel also made
important contributions to the professional
development of Russian architecture. In 1896 he
joined the faculty of the Stroganov Institute,
teaching theory of composition. After the
OCTO
-
BER REVOLUTION
of 1917, he taught at the presti-
gious and influential Vkhutemas (Higher State
Artistic-Technical Studios) (1919-22). He was
president of the Association of Moscow Architects
(1908-22) and sat on several committees, the last
one the program committee and jury of the com-
petition for the Palace of Labor (1922-23).
Shekhtel, Feodor Osipovich
(1859-1926)
architect
One of the most important architects of the pre-
revolutionary era, Shekhtel was born in the
provincial town of Saratov; his parents were
Volga German immigrants. He arrived in Moscow
in the mid-1870s and first worked as a book
designer, illustrator, and theater decorator. Start-
ing as an independent architect in the 1880s, he
first made his mark with designs for villas (
osob-
niaki
) for wealthy business patrons, the first of
these being the Morozov house (1893). Although
his work ranged widely, including designs for
office buildings, banks, sanatoriums, factories,
and cinemas, Shekhtel's most productive phase
came in association with the wealthy Riabushin-
sky family. They commissioned some of the
works for which he is best known: the stunning
Riabushinsky mansion (1900-1902), later inhab-
ited by Maksim
GORKY
before his death, the
Riabushinsky Bank (1903), and the printing
house of the Riabushinsky-owned newspaper
Utro Rossii
(1907). The patronage of the Ria-
bushinsky family was also important in securing
other commissions, such as the Yaroslavl Railway
Shevardnadze, Eduard Amvrosievich
(1928- )
politician
A resilient and savvy Georgian politician, She-
vardnadze has built three distinct and important
careers in Soviet and Georgian politics. He was
born in Mamati, Georgia, joined the
COMMUNIST
PARTY
in 1948, and graduated from the Party
School of the Georgian Central Committee in
1951 and the Kutaisi Pedagogical Institute in
1959. Shevardnadze began his first career, rising
through the Georgian party apparatus in pre-
dictable fashion: first secretary of the Georgian
KOMSOMOL
(1957), first deputy minister of inter-
nal affairs (1964), minister of internal affairs
(1965). Charged with combating crime and cor-
ruption, he built a formidable dossier against the
Georgian first party secretary, V. P. Mzhvanadze,
who ruled the republic as a private business. After
seeing the information, Leonid
BREZHNEV
named
Shevardnadze first party secretary of Georgia with
the special task of cleaning up Mzhavanadze's
affairs and purging his appointees. As a reward,
Shevardnadze was elected to the Soviet Com-
munist Party's Central Committee in 1976 and a
candidate member of the party's Politburo in
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