Curated playlist
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France
- Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring caused a near-riot at its 1913 Paris premiere.
- Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad spoke English with a strong foreign accent all his life. He still became a great English-language writer.
- Marc ChagallMarc Chagall fled Europe in 1941 on a ship carrying 119 refugee children. He taught them drawing.
- Vladimir NabokovNovelist Vladimir Nabokov also named butterfly species, and later genetic research backed his theory.
- Sergei ProkofievComposer Sergei Prokofiev died the same day as Joseph Stalin, and his coffin went through back streets.
- Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky quit a law career at age 30 to enroll in an art academy in Munich. He became a pioneer of abstraction.
- Peter KropotkinAnarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin refused a cabinet seat in Russia's Provisional Government.
- Igor SikorskyA mosquito in a fuel tank changed Igor Sikorsky's career. The crash-landing made him want an aircraft that could fly on.
- Natalia GoncharovaNatalia Goncharova walked Moscow's streets with painted cheeks, handing out a manifesto.
- Élie MetchnikoffÉlie Metchnikoff poked citrus thorns into starfish larvae in 1882 and watched cells swarm them.
- Lev ShestovLev Shestov's dissertation was rejected, which blocked him from becoming a doctor of law.