Corporal Joseph Trumpeldor asks to keep his weapons after losing an arm at Port Arthur

"I have one arm left; but this one is the right. Therefore, wishing to go on sharing the soldier's life of battle with my comrades, I beg Your Honour's intercession for the issue to me of a sabre and a revolver," wrote Lance-Corporal Iosif Trumpeldor of the 7th Company in a report to his company commander after the August fighting at Port Arthur.

The text of this note was ordered to be read out in every unit of the besieged city, and Trumpeldor was presented with the Cross of St George and promoted to the rank of non-commissioned officer. After the surrender of the city, Trumpeldor was taken prisoner

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Letter from the Decembrist Mikhail Lunin to his sister, written in the village of Urik on 29 September 1836

I live among people who see me and do not understand me, or with the Invisible One whom I cannot comprehend. The darkness of my sins veils him, even when the deadly lead had grown numb in my body; a gleam of his gaze flashed before me when the blade

Alexander I as King of Poland and the Incorporation of the Duchy of Warsaw into the Russian Empire in 1815

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A 1930 photograph showing the eviction of a kulak and his family during dekulakisation.

How Many Suffered in Dekulakisation: Estimates by Zemskov, Ivnitsky and Conquest

A photograph of 1930 showing the deportation of a kulak and his family The number of victims of dekulakisation has still not been established and can hardly be stated unambiguously, since the figure includes both those directly repressed (stripped of their property, evicted, exiled, arrested) and, on occasion, the victims

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Letter from the Decembrist Mikhail Lunin to his sister, written in the village of Urik on 29 September 1836

Alexander I as King of Poland and the Incorporation of the Duchy of Warsaw into the Russian Empire in 1815

How Many Suffered in Dekulakisation: Estimates by Zemskov, Ivnitsky and Conquest

Félix Bonfils, photographs of a dragoman and guide for travellers in Syria