Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev , 1857-1918, Russian general, chief of staff (1915-17) of Czar Nicholas II . With other officers he urged the czar to abdicate in favor of the czarevich in order to save the dynasty prior to the Russian Revolution. Alekseyev was briefly chief of staff in the provisional government headed by Aleksandr Kerensky after the czar was overthrown. After the Bolsheviks took over in Nov., 1917 (Oct., 1917, O. S.), Alekseyev and General Kornilov organized an anti-Bolshevik movement in the south.

Posokhin, Mikhail Vasil'yevich (1910–89). Russian architect. He worked with Shchusev in the 1930s before establishing a partnership with Ashot Mndoyants (1909–66). Projects included the Moscow Council Building (1943–5) and the offices in Znamenka Street, Moscow (1943–5—a heavy Neo-Classical composition). Posokhin adopted Western notions of urban renewal as can be seen in his brutal destruction of historic fabric and the design of the Kalinin Prospect (1962–8—now New Arbat), with its huge housing and office tower-blocks rising from a base of shops, cinemas, restaurants, etc. It became a paradigm, and was widely imposed throughout the USSR, in climatic and cultural contexts to which it was wholly unsuited.

Bibliography

Cruickshank (ed.) (1996);
Jane Turner (1996)