Haitian slave, president and later emperor of Haiti who represented the black majority of the country against the mulatto elite.
Soulouque was born a slave while Haiti was still under French rule.
He participated in a successful revolt in 1803 that expelled the French and he remained in the army of the newly formed nation.
In 1847 he was named president with the backing of a group of mulatto leaders who thought he could easily be made to take orders from them.
In 1849 he ousted them and created a following of his own.
He adopted the title of emperor and ruled as Faustin I.
Soulouque mede several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the neigbouring Dominican Republic. On one occasion the United States, France and Great Britain pressured him to desist.
In 1859 the mulattoes rallied under the chief of the general staff and deposed him.
Soulouque escaped and went into exile where he died.
December 18, 2014
RICHARD SORGE (1947)
German press correspondent who headed a successful Soviet espionage ring in Tokyo during World War II.
After service in the German Army during World War I he earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Hamburg and then went to Moscow.
In 1929 the Communist International sent him to China to organize a spy ring.
He built a reputation there as an able journalist and loyal German and in 1933 joined the Nazi Party.
The Comintern then sent him to Japan where he became political adviser to the German ambassador Maj. Gen. Eugen Ott.
On May 12 1941 Sorge reported to the Russians that 170 German divisions would attack along the Soviet frontier on June 20 (the attack came on June 22) proceeding in the direction of Moscow.
In August 1941 Sorge reported that the Japanese Army was planning to advance southward against the U.S.S.R.. This information freed Soviet troops along the Manchurian border for service in the west.
On Oct. 18 1941 Sorge was arrested by the Japanese and he and Ozaki Hotsumi another agent of Russia were executed.
In 1964 Sorge was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.
After service in the German Army during World War I he earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Hamburg and then went to Moscow.
In 1929 the Communist International sent him to China to organize a spy ring.
He built a reputation there as an able journalist and loyal German and in 1933 joined the Nazi Party.
The Comintern then sent him to Japan where he became political adviser to the German ambassador Maj. Gen. Eugen Ott.
On May 12 1941 Sorge reported to the Russians that 170 German divisions would attack along the Soviet frontier on June 20 (the attack came on June 22) proceeding in the direction of Moscow.
In August 1941 Sorge reported that the Japanese Army was planning to advance southward against the U.S.S.R.. This information freed Soviet troops along the Manchurian border for service in the west.
On Oct. 18 1941 Sorge was arrested by the Japanese and he and Ozaki Hotsumi another agent of Russia were executed.
In 1964 Sorge was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN (1947-74)
Soviet novelist and Nobel Prize winner who achieved international fame in the early 1960s with the publication od Odin den iz zhizni Ivana Denisovicha (1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) describing life in a forced-labour camp during the Stalin era.
Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and brought up primarily by his mother who was a teacher (his father was killed in an accident before his birth).
He attended the University of Rostov-na-Donu graduating in mathematics and took correspondence courses in literature at the Moscow State University.
He fought in World War II achieving the rank of captain of artillery.
In 1945 he was arrested for writing a letter in which he criticized Stalin and was imprisoned for eight years after which he spent three more years in a detention camp.
Rehabilitated in 1956 he was allowed to settle in Ryazan in central Russia where he became a mathematics teacher and began to write.
In 1962 Solzhenitsyn´s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir and its popularity was so immediate that stores quickly sold out all their copies.
It produced a political sensation both abroad and in the Soviet Union where it inspired a number of other writers to produce accounts of life under Stalin´s regime.
The period of liberalization was short-lived.
In 1963 with the publication of a collection of short stories he provoked official criticism.
After that he had much difficulty in getting his works published and many of his manuscripts were confiscated.
In response he adressed an open letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers reprimanding that organization for its past betrayal of writers.
Several of his works printed in the Soviet Union as samizdat (self-published, illegal) literature were published abroad in popular editions including Cancer Ward (1968) and The First Circle (1968).
In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature but did not go to Stockholm to receive it.
His next novel to be published outside the Soviet Union was August (1971).
In August 1973 Solzhenitsyn at a press conference with Western correspondents charged the government with threats against him and criticized the Soviet system for curbing the individual freedom of its citizens.
A few days later he and the physicist Andrey Sakharov were implicated in a highly publicized treason trial of two other dissidents who had turned state´s evidence.
Solzhenitsyn announced that he had received threats against his life and that in the event of his death or disappearance he had made arrangements for the publication of the main body of his works in the West.
In September 1973 two revised chapters of The First Circle were circulated in the samizdat press.
In December the first parts of The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 were published in Paris. In this book he documents the opression of the Soviet labour camp system for which Gulag is the Russian acronym.
Upon publication of The Gulag Archipelago he was immediately attacked in the Soviet press.
Despite the intense interest in his fate that was shown in the West he was arrested and charged with treason on Feb. 12 1974.
Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union on the following day and later settled in Switzerland.
In December he took possession of his Nobel Prize.
Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and brought up primarily by his mother who was a teacher (his father was killed in an accident before his birth).
He attended the University of Rostov-na-Donu graduating in mathematics and took correspondence courses in literature at the Moscow State University.
He fought in World War II achieving the rank of captain of artillery.
In 1945 he was arrested for writing a letter in which he criticized Stalin and was imprisoned for eight years after which he spent three more years in a detention camp.
Rehabilitated in 1956 he was allowed to settle in Ryazan in central Russia where he became a mathematics teacher and began to write.
In 1962 Solzhenitsyn´s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir and its popularity was so immediate that stores quickly sold out all their copies.
It produced a political sensation both abroad and in the Soviet Union where it inspired a number of other writers to produce accounts of life under Stalin´s regime.
The period of liberalization was short-lived.
In 1963 with the publication of a collection of short stories he provoked official criticism.
After that he had much difficulty in getting his works published and many of his manuscripts were confiscated.
In response he adressed an open letter to the Fourth National Congress of Soviet Writers reprimanding that organization for its past betrayal of writers.
Several of his works printed in the Soviet Union as samizdat (self-published, illegal) literature were published abroad in popular editions including Cancer Ward (1968) and The First Circle (1968).
In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature but did not go to Stockholm to receive it.
His next novel to be published outside the Soviet Union was August (1971).
In August 1973 Solzhenitsyn at a press conference with Western correspondents charged the government with threats against him and criticized the Soviet system for curbing the individual freedom of its citizens.
A few days later he and the physicist Andrey Sakharov were implicated in a highly publicized treason trial of two other dissidents who had turned state´s evidence.
Solzhenitsyn announced that he had received threats against his life and that in the event of his death or disappearance he had made arrangements for the publication of the main body of his works in the West.
In September 1973 two revised chapters of The First Circle were circulated in the samizdat press.
In December the first parts of The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 were published in Paris. In this book he documents the opression of the Soviet labour camp system for which Gulag is the Russian acronym.
Upon publication of The Gulag Archipelago he was immediately attacked in the Soviet press.
Despite the intense interest in his fate that was shown in the West he was arrested and charged with treason on Feb. 12 1974.
Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union on the following day and later settled in Switzerland.
In December he took possession of his Nobel Prize.
JUAN DÍAZ DE SOLÍS (1474)
Spanish seaman.
One of the first explorers to enter the Río de la Plata estuary in South America.
Solís had made a voyage to the Americas in 1508 before being commissioned to lead an expedition to an area 1,700 leagues (about 5,000 miles) south of the Isthmus of Panama and beyond.
He led three vessels from Sanlúcar de Barrameda Spain on Oct. 8, 1515 with a crew of 70 men and provisions for 2 and 1/2 years.
In February 1516 he reached the estuary of Río de la Plata which he called Mar Dulce.
The first island he reached therein was named Martin Garcia after one of his crewmen who had died.
Sailing up the Uruguay River he landed on the left bank (modern Uruguay) and was attacked by the Charrúa Indians of the region.
He and the rest of the landing party, except for one man, Francisco del Puerto, were killed and eaten in sight of the remaining crewmen on shipboard.
Puerto was made prisoner and later gave valuable information about the area to Sebastian Cabot who arrived there in 1526.
The ships set sail for Spain but one was wrecked off the island of Santa Catarina and its survivors were later rescued by Cabot.
Information from those survivors made Cabot believe there was great wealth in the interior.
He therefore set sail up the Paraná River.
One of the first explorers to enter the Río de la Plata estuary in South America.
Solís had made a voyage to the Americas in 1508 before being commissioned to lead an expedition to an area 1,700 leagues (about 5,000 miles) south of the Isthmus of Panama and beyond.
He led three vessels from Sanlúcar de Barrameda Spain on Oct. 8, 1515 with a crew of 70 men and provisions for 2 and 1/2 years.
In February 1516 he reached the estuary of Río de la Plata which he called Mar Dulce.
The first island he reached therein was named Martin Garcia after one of his crewmen who had died.
Sailing up the Uruguay River he landed on the left bank (modern Uruguay) and was attacked by the Charrúa Indians of the region.
He and the rest of the landing party, except for one man, Francisco del Puerto, were killed and eaten in sight of the remaining crewmen on shipboard.
Puerto was made prisoner and later gave valuable information about the area to Sebastian Cabot who arrived there in 1526.
The ships set sail for Spain but one was wrecked off the island of Santa Catarina and its survivors were later rescued by Cabot.
Information from those survivors made Cabot believe there was great wealth in the interior.
He therefore set sail up the Paraná River.
SNORRI STURLUSON (1247)
Poet, historian and chieftain who was the author of the Prose Edda and the probable author of the Egils saga one of the finest of Icelandic family sagas.
Snorri a descendant of the great poet and hero of the Egils saga, Egill Skallagrímsson, was brought up at Oddi from the age of three in the home of Jón Loptsson the most influential chieftain in Iceland.
Jón was the grandson of Saemundr Sigfússon the Wise the first known Icelandic historian and of King Magnus III Barfot or Barefoot of Norway.
Like many chieftains Jón also was an ordained priest and was keenly interested in history.
From him Snorri acquired both a deep knowledge of Icelandic tradition and a European breadth of outlook.
In 1199 Snorri married an heiress and began to acquire lands and power.
In 1206 he settled at Reykjaholt (modern Reyholt) where most of his works were written (between 1223 and 1235). There he built a magnificent house with a tiled bath, heated by volcanic springs.
During 1215-18 and 1222-32 he was lawspeaker or president of the Icelandic high court.
In 1218 he was invited to Norway by King Haakon IV. He also visited noble families in Sweden.
He became involved in politics while visiting the Norwegians who were planning a punitive raid on the Icelanders of Oddi.
Snorri was able to persuade Haakon that he could become king of Iceland and win the Icelanders over to him.
He became Haakon´s vassal and on his return to Iceland in 1220 sent his son to Haakon as hostage.
But when Snorri failed to further Haakon´s cause Haakon took revenge by stirring up a feud between Snorri and his kinsman Sturla.
Snorri was outlawed and fled to Norway in 1237.
In 1239 he returned to Iceland against Haakon´s express command.
By Haakon´s order Snorri was attacked and killed in his home by his son-in-law and enemy Gissur Thorvaldsson.
Snorri´s writings are remarkable both for their scope and for their formal assurance.
The Prose Edda is a handbook on poetics in which he explains the ornate diction and obscure allusions of the skalds (ancient bards who recited or sang their heroic poetry) and illustrates their metres often with verses of his own.
Of greater general interest is his retelling of the old Norse myths within a frame-story of his own creation.
He also wrote a life of St. Oláf of Norway which he included in the Heimskringla a history of the Norwegian kings from their legendary descent from the warrior-wizard god Odin down to Magnus Erlingsson (1184).
Snorri based the Heimskringla on earlier histories but contributed much new material of his own. As sources he particularly valued poems handed down orally from the times of the events themselves and he selected the traditions that seemed most authoritative and true to the politics of the times and to human nature. His genius lay in his power to present all that he perceived critically as a historian with the immediacy of drama.
The qualities of intelligence, warmth and scholarly industry in Snorri´s writings contrast sharply with the weak, shifty character that emerges in the account of his life by his nephew in the Sturlunga saga.
In that record he is presented as cold and miserly toward his family, opportunistic in politics and ambitious for greatness but lacking the courage and will power to achieve it.
It is possible that the critical detachment that was an advantage to Snorri as a writer did not suit him for the role of a powerful man of action in a ruthless age.
Snorri a descendant of the great poet and hero of the Egils saga, Egill Skallagrímsson, was brought up at Oddi from the age of three in the home of Jón Loptsson the most influential chieftain in Iceland.
Jón was the grandson of Saemundr Sigfússon the Wise the first known Icelandic historian and of King Magnus III Barfot or Barefoot of Norway.
Like many chieftains Jón also was an ordained priest and was keenly interested in history.
From him Snorri acquired both a deep knowledge of Icelandic tradition and a European breadth of outlook.
In 1199 Snorri married an heiress and began to acquire lands and power.
In 1206 he settled at Reykjaholt (modern Reyholt) where most of his works were written (between 1223 and 1235). There he built a magnificent house with a tiled bath, heated by volcanic springs.
During 1215-18 and 1222-32 he was lawspeaker or president of the Icelandic high court.
In 1218 he was invited to Norway by King Haakon IV. He also visited noble families in Sweden.
He became involved in politics while visiting the Norwegians who were planning a punitive raid on the Icelanders of Oddi.
Snorri was able to persuade Haakon that he could become king of Iceland and win the Icelanders over to him.
He became Haakon´s vassal and on his return to Iceland in 1220 sent his son to Haakon as hostage.
But when Snorri failed to further Haakon´s cause Haakon took revenge by stirring up a feud between Snorri and his kinsman Sturla.
Snorri was outlawed and fled to Norway in 1237.
In 1239 he returned to Iceland against Haakon´s express command.
By Haakon´s order Snorri was attacked and killed in his home by his son-in-law and enemy Gissur Thorvaldsson.
Snorri´s writings are remarkable both for their scope and for their formal assurance.
The Prose Edda is a handbook on poetics in which he explains the ornate diction and obscure allusions of the skalds (ancient bards who recited or sang their heroic poetry) and illustrates their metres often with verses of his own.
Of greater general interest is his retelling of the old Norse myths within a frame-story of his own creation.
He also wrote a life of St. Oláf of Norway which he included in the Heimskringla a history of the Norwegian kings from their legendary descent from the warrior-wizard god Odin down to Magnus Erlingsson (1184).
Snorri based the Heimskringla on earlier histories but contributed much new material of his own. As sources he particularly valued poems handed down orally from the times of the events themselves and he selected the traditions that seemed most authoritative and true to the politics of the times and to human nature. His genius lay in his power to present all that he perceived critically as a historian with the immediacy of drama.
The qualities of intelligence, warmth and scholarly industry in Snorri´s writings contrast sharply with the weak, shifty character that emerges in the account of his life by his nephew in the Sturlunga saga.
In that record he is presented as cold and miserly toward his family, opportunistic in politics and ambitious for greatness but lacking the courage and will power to achieve it.
It is possible that the critical detachment that was an advantage to Snorri as a writer did not suit him for the role of a powerful man of action in a ruthless age.
JEAN-CHARLES-LÉONARD SIMONDE DE SISMONDI (1847)
Economist and historian who aroused men´s consciences to what he saw as the perils and pitfalls of runaway industrialism.
A pioneer theorist on the nature of economic crises and the risks of limitless competition, overproduction and underconsumption he was warmly regarded by such later economists as Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes.
Son of a Protestant clergyman and a woman of means Sismondi became a clerk at the age of 16 in a Lyon bank and saw the French Revolution unfold. To escape the Revolution´s spreading effects he and his family went in 1794 to Tuscany where they farmed.
Sismondi´s experiences and observations there resulted in Tableau de l´agriculture toscane (1801, Picture of Tuscan Agriculture).
Living in his native Geneva from 1800 on he became so successful as an author of books and essays that he could decline offers of professorships.
Welcome in the best circles he accompanied Madame de Stäel the salon leader to Italy in 1805. He conferred with Napoleon whose liberal 1815 constitution he defended.
Sismondi´s monumental Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen âge (16 vol., 1809-18 History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages) which regarded medieval Italy as the origin of modern Europe inspired the leaders of that country´s Risorgimento (unification movement).
As an economist Sismondi was at first a loyal follower of Adam Smith proponent of laissez faire. His Nouveaux Principes d´economie politique (1819) represents a break with the Englishmen.
Sismondi argued for a regulation of economic competition and for a balance between production and consumption.
He foresaw a growing rift between the bourgeoisie and the working class.
He called for social reform but stopped short of condemning private property which he regarded as necessary for revenue.
A pioneer in the historical schoool of economists he held that the facts underlying economic theories must be judged in their full historical context.
A pioneer theorist on the nature of economic crises and the risks of limitless competition, overproduction and underconsumption he was warmly regarded by such later economists as Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes.
Son of a Protestant clergyman and a woman of means Sismondi became a clerk at the age of 16 in a Lyon bank and saw the French Revolution unfold. To escape the Revolution´s spreading effects he and his family went in 1794 to Tuscany where they farmed.
Sismondi´s experiences and observations there resulted in Tableau de l´agriculture toscane (1801, Picture of Tuscan Agriculture).
Living in his native Geneva from 1800 on he became so successful as an author of books and essays that he could decline offers of professorships.
Welcome in the best circles he accompanied Madame de Stäel the salon leader to Italy in 1805. He conferred with Napoleon whose liberal 1815 constitution he defended.
Sismondi´s monumental Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen âge (16 vol., 1809-18 History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages) which regarded medieval Italy as the origin of modern Europe inspired the leaders of that country´s Risorgimento (unification movement).
As an economist Sismondi was at first a loyal follower of Adam Smith proponent of laissez faire. His Nouveaux Principes d´economie politique (1819) represents a break with the Englishmen.
Sismondi argued for a regulation of economic competition and for a balance between production and consumption.
He foresaw a growing rift between the bourgeoisie and the working class.
He called for social reform but stopped short of condemning private property which he regarded as necessary for revenue.
A pioneer in the historical schoool of economists he held that the facts underlying economic theories must be judged in their full historical context.
December 15, 2014
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