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adventurer Manasevich-Manuilov. Sent back to
Petrograd, he died in 1919.
in the village of Sima in Vladimir province, near
Moscow. In 1839 his remains were transferred to
the Borodino field.
Bagration, Petr Ivanovich
(1765-1812)
general
A talented student and associate of
SUVOROV
and
KUTUZOV
, Bagration was a hero of the War of
1812. Bagration was born in Kizliar to a princely
Georgian family. He entered Russian service in
1782 and until 1792 performed military service
in the Caucasus Musketeer Regiment, and later
in the Kiev Chasseurs and Sofia Carabineer regi-
ments, rising rapidly from the rank of sergeant to
lieutenant colonel. During the various wars that
preceded Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812,
Bagration fought with distinction. In 1798, he
was promoted to colonel and given command of
the Sixth Chasseurs Regiment; the following year
he was further promoted to major general. Bagra-
tion commanded the vanguard in Suvorov's Ital-
ian and Swiss campaigns of 1799; his troops
played an important role in the battles of Adda
and Trebbia, and at Novi. He also fought hero-
ically and with distinction at St. Goddard during
Suvorov's remarkable escape maneuver. In the
campaigns of 1805-7, Bagration commanded the
Russian army vanguard and fought with distinc-
tion in the Battles of Shoengraben, Eylau, and
Friedland. He fought in the
RUSSO
-
SWEDISH WAR
of 1808-9 and headed the Aland expedition of
1809, after which he was promoted to infantry
general. In the
RUSSO
-
TURKISH WAR
of 1806-12,
he commanded the Moldavian army from July
1809 to March 1810, the Podolsk army from
March 1811, and from March 1812 he com-
manded the Second Western Army. This was the
army he commanded during the War of 1812. In
March 1812 his troops skillfully eluded a stronger
French force and joined
BARCLAY DE TOLLY
's First
Western Army outside of Smolensk, not before
causing heavy losses to the French army in rear-
guard battles at Mir, Romanov, and Saltanovka.
Bagration commanded the Russian army's left
flank at the Battle of
BORODINO
in September
1812. Seriously wounded, he died a month later
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Also known as Tyuratam, the Baikonur Cosmo-
drome, located in south central Kazakhstan, is
the oldest space launch facility in the world.
From its foundation in the late 1950s, the Bai-
konur Cosmodrome served as the center of the
Soviet space program until the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991, after which it has contin-
ued to operate under the sponsorship of the
Commonwealth of Independent States. All the
various projects of the Soviet and (since 1991)
Russian space program—lunar, planetary, and
geostationary—have been launched from Baiko-
nur. Since the early Soviet space program was
clouded in secrecy, there has been some confu-
sion as to the exact location of the cosmodrome,
as it is not located near the town of Baikonur
itself, but rather about 400 kilometers to the
southwest near the railhead at Tyuratam. In the
decades since the 1950s, the Soviet government
also built the town of Leninsk with apartments,
schools, and offices for the staff that works at the
cosmodrome. The dissolution of the Soviet
Union raised the difficult question of the owner-
ship of the cosmodrome, with Kazakhstan
claiming ownership, while most of the staff were
Russian. After protracted negotiations an agree-
ment was reached in March 1996, according to
which Russia would lease the space center for 20
years at a cost of $115 million in annual rent,
with an option to extend the lease for another
10 years.
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich
(1895-1975)
literary theorist
A literary theorist whose influence spread
worldwide after his death, Bakhtin spent most of
his active professional life in obscurity, in trou-
ble with Soviet literary authorities, writing
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