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In-Depth Information
posers, including Brahms, Grieg, Dvorak, Gou-
nod, Massenet, and Paderewski. He visited the
United States in 1891, then traveled to England
to receive an honorary degree from Cambridge
University. Versions of his death are contradic-
tory. Some accounts note that he was forced to
commit suicide, others that he died of cholera in
St. Petersburg. An exponent of Russian romanti-
cism who also introduced nationalist themes
into Russian classical music, his works are
among the best known in the Russian canon.
Among these are the operas
Eugene Onegin
(1877-78) and
The Queen of Spades
(1890); the
ballets
Swan Lake
(1875-76),
Sleeping Beauty
(1888-89), and
The Nutcracker
(1891-92); and
the overtures
Romeo and Juliet
(1880) and
The
Year 1812
(1880). In addition to these he left six
symphonies, piano concertos, a violin concerto,
chamber music, church music, and numerous
arrangements.
Committee for Women, serving as chair from
1968 to 1987, but she failed to be reelected to
the committee in 1987. She then became chair
of the Soviet Society for Friendship and Cultural
Relations with Foreign Countries. Tereshkova
was elected to the landmark USSR Congress of
People's Deputies in 1989. In 1992 she was
appointed chair of the Presidium of the Russian
Association for International Cooperation. She
represented the Soviet Union abroad at many
conferences and was known as a formidable,
businesslike woman. A crater on the moon is
named after her.
Tilsit, Treaty of
(1807)
A treaty signed in July 1807 between Napol-
eonic France and Russia that inaugurated a five-
year alliance between the two countries that was
eventually broken by Napoleon's invasion of
Russia in June 1812. The background to the
Treaty of Tilsit was the War of the Third Coali-
tion that began in 1805 when Russia joined Aus-
tria, Sweden, and Great Britain against France
and Spain. After Napoleon's decisive victory at
Austerlitz in December 1805, Austria was
knocked out of the war, but the Russians contin-
ued, joined by Prussia in 1806. The French rout
of the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt, and a
major victory over the Russians at Friedland on
June 14, 1807, set the stage for peace negotia-
tions at Tilsit, a town in East Prussia on the
Niemen (Memel) River. The negotiations began
on June 25, 1807, with a celebrated meeting
between Napoleon and Emperor
ALEXANDER I
on
a raft. By the time a treaty was signed on July 7,
1807, the two sides had agreed to an alliance.
Two days later, a treaty was signed between
France and Prussia. The terms of the Treaty of
Tilsit were most onerous for the Prussians, who
retained their independence only out of
Napoleon's regard for the emperor of Russia.
Prussia surrendered all territory west of the Elbe
River, the Polish territories it had acquired in the
last two partitions of Poland (see
POLISH PARTI
-
TIONS
), from which Napoleon created the Duchy
Tereshkova, Valentina Vladimirovna
(1937- )
cosmonaut
Tereshkova became a Soviet and world celebrity
as the first woman to travel in space, when she
circled the earth in June 1963 aboard
Vostok-VI.
Her father was a
kolkhoznik
(collective farm
worker) in Yaroslavl oblast. She worked in fac-
tories in Yaroslavl and was a parachutist at the
local aviation club until selected for training as a
cosmonaut (Soviet astronaut) in 1962. In 1963
she married fellow cosmonaut Adrian Nikolaev,
whom she later divorced. Their daughter, born
in 1964, could claim to be the first child with
two cosmonauts as parents. Tereshkova contin-
ued her studies, graduating from the Zhukovsky
Aviation Academy in 1969. As a cosmonaut, she
had entry into the Soviet Union's political estab-
lishment, joining the
COMMUNIST PARTY
in 1962
and becoming a candidate member of the Cen-
tral Committee from 1971 to 1990. Well aware
of her unique status, the Soviet government
placed her in highly visible public relations posi-
tions. She was actively involved in the Soviet
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