HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 73

wreck who identified himself as a subject of
Hondo, a name often used for the island of Hon-
shu, the largest of the Japanese islands. After
founding Verkhnekamchatsk on the banks of the
Kamchatka River, Atlasov returned to Anadyrsk
in 1699. He sent Denbei to ST . PETERSBURG to be
presented to Czar PETER I . In St. Petersburg, Den-
bei was placed at the center of a Japanese lan-
guage school but died four years later. Atlasov
himself traveled to Moscow to report on his dis-
coveries of a land rich in furs and was rewarded
with an appointment as commandant of Kam-
chatka. His good fortune changed quickly when
on his return to Kamchatka, his party attacked
and robbed a Russian caravan returning from
China, for which he was imprisoned until 1707.
While in prison, Kamchatka and its native pop-
ulation fell victim to the abuses of leaderless
Russians and Cossacks. Atlasov was released and
charged with restoring discipline, which he did
with great savagery, earning him the enmity of
his former associates. In 1711, during another
Cossack mutiny, he was assassinated in his sleep.
One of the Kuril Islands was later named Atlasov
Island.

With Gorbachev on vacation in Crimea the plot-
ters moved on August 18, 1991, and formed an
eight-member State Emergency Committee. The
coup was accepted by the bulk of the COMMUNIST
PARTY as well as the right-wing and nationalist
politicians who had emerged in the last years of
Gorbachev's rule. Opposing it were Boris YELTSIN ,
president of the Russian Republic with head-
quarters in Moscow, and the mayor of ST . PETERS -
BURG , Anatoli Sobchak. On August 19, troops
loyal to the plotters occupied most of Moscow
but met resistance at the seat of the Russian par-
liament, known as the Russian White House.
There, Yeltsin made his signature appeal to resist
the coup by climbing atop of an armored vehicle.
Poorly organized and unwilling to use the full
force available to them, the coup leaders soon
lost their nerve. Enough members of the army
remained loyal to Gorbachev or to Yeltsin, who
quickly emerged as the leader of the resistance to
the coup. By August 21, the coup had fizzled,
and Gorbachev was released from house arrest.
The failure of the coup led to a backlash against
the Communist Party and accelerated the disin-
tegration of the Soviet Union. On August 24,
1991, Gorbachev resigned as secretary-general of
the Communist Party, and following Yeltsin's
lead in the Russian Republic, he soon suspended
the Communist Party's activities throughout the
Soviet Union. By September 1991, the Soviet
government had recognized the independence of
the three Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania. On December 8, 1991, the Russian
Republic, Ukraine, and Belorussia (Belarus)
agreed to formally disband the Soviet Union and
form a new Commonwealth of Independent
States. As other Soviet republics moved to
declare their independence in the following
weeks, Gorbachev was left a president without a
state, until he himself resigned as president of the
Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.

August Coup (1991)
A short-lived and unsuccessful attempt by the
more conservative members of Mikhail GOR -
BACHEV 's government to undo the reforms of the
late 1980s in the hope of preserving the Soviet
Union and the communist system that they felt
was in danger by 1991. Following a series of
high-level appointments in late 1990, conserva-
tive politicians had gained ground within Gor-
bachev's inner circle. The spark that launched the
coup was the proposed signing of a new union
treaty scheduled for August 20, 1991, which
would have altered the nature of the Soviet
Union by transferring many powers to the con-
stituent republics of the union. The leaders of the
coup included Gennady Yanaev, vice president of
the Soviet Union; Boris Pugo, minister of the
interior; Valentin Pavlov, prime minister of the
government; Vladimir Kriuchkov, head of the
KGB; and Dmitrii Yazov, minister of defense.

Avvakum Petrovich (1620?-1682)
religious leader
Avvakum was one of the most forceful and
articulate opponents of the religious reforms