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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

Král', Janko
(1822-1876) Slovak poet and radical nationalist. A passionate advocate of pan-Slavism, during the revolutions of 1848 he participated in a Slovak uprising against the kingdom of Hungary, of which Slovakia was...

Kramer, Hilton
(1928) US art critic. He was an art critic and editor for many periodicals, including Arts Magazine (1955-58) and the New York Times (1965-82). He was the founder-editor of New Criterion in 1982....

Kramer, Josef
(1907-1945) German SS officer; commandant of Belsen concentration camp November 1944 until its liberation by British troops April 1945. Film of the camp shocked cinema audiences across Britain and the USA and...

Krasicki, Ignacy
(1735-1801) Polish cleric and writer, Poland's leading poet of the 18th century. He rose to early prominence in the Roman Catholic Church, and was appointed archbishop of Gniezno (Gnesen) in 1795. His most...

Krasinski, Zygmunt
(1812-1859) Polish dramatist and Romantic poet. He lived and wrote in exile but his messianic vision of Polish sacrifice and resurrection in poems such as `Przedświt/The Moment Before Dawn` 1843 inspired...

Krasko, Ivan
(1876-1958) Slovak Symbolist poet (see Symbolism), the greatest of his generation. The subjective, melancholic tone of his two collections, Nox et solitudo 1909 and Verses 1912, reveals the influence of Czech...

Kraszewski, Józef Ignacy
(1812-1887) Polish novelist, poet, and publicist. A prolific author with over 400 titles to his name, Kraszewski wrote on a wide range of subjects, edited newspapers and magazines, travelled extensively, and...

Kraus, Karl
(1874-1936) Austrian poet, essayist, and satirist. He was the founder 1899 of the important literary journal Die Fackel/The Torch to which, from 1912 to his death, he was the sole contributor. Kraus's...

Krauskopf, Joseph
(1858-1923) Prussian-born US rabbi. He was rabbi of Congregation Keneseth Israel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1887 until the end of his life. A leader of Reform Judaism, he was also devoted to public...

Krauth, Charles Porterfield
(1823-1883) US Protestant clergyman and theologian. A studious child, he was ordained in the Lutheran ministry at the age of 19. He became a leader of conservative Lutheranism, helping to revive older European...

Krautheimer, Richard
(1897-1994) German-born US architectural historian. A specialist in early Christian and medieval architecture who later turned to the baroque period, he was an early exponent of architectural iconography. His...

Kravchuk, Leonid
(1934) Ukrainian politician, president 1990-94. Formerly a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party (UCP), he became its ideology chief in the 1980s. After the suspension of the UCP in August 1991,...

Kray, Ronald
(1933-1995) and Reginald (1933-2000) British twins who controlled the East End of London with a Mafia-style operation during the 1960s. Their gang ran drinking clubs and protection rackets, and organized illegal gambling operations....

Kreimhild Line
German name for a fortified line of trenches and pillboxes in World War I. Designed as a fall-back position some miles behind the Hindenburg Line it was not completed until 1918. ...

Kreisky, Bruno
(1911-1990) Austrian Social Democrat politician and diplomat, chancellor of Austria 1970-83. He headed Austria's first Socialist government since the war, and consolidated his position when the 1975 general...

kremlin
Citadel or fortress of Russian cities. The Moscow kremlin dates from the 12th century, and the name `the Kremlin` was once synonymous with the Soviet government. ...

Krenz, Egon
(1937) East German communist politician. A member of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) from 1955, he joined its politburo in 1983 and was a hardline protégé of Erich Honecker, succeeding him as...

Kress, S(amuel) H(enry)
(1863-1955) US retailer, art collector, and philanthropist. His chain of 51 five-and-dime stores, S H Kress Company, was incorporated in 1916, with headquarters based in New York City; at Kress's death the...

Kretschmer, Otto
(1912-1998) German U-boat commander; highly successful, he was awarded the Knights Cross for sinking seven ships on a single patrol. He is generally credited with s ...

Kreymborg, Alfred
(1883-1966) US poet, editor, and dramatist. He is known as an initiator of the `little` literary magazine. He founded The Glebe (1913-14), a publication showcasing the Imagists, and Others (1915-19), an...

Krier, Leon
(1946) Luxembourg architect who settled in the UK in 1968. He has built little but his anti-modernist arguments have helped to revive vernacular traditions and 19th-century neoclassicism. From 1968 to...

Krimmel, John (Lewis)
(1789-1821) German-born US painter. Influenced by European engravings, primarily of the Dutch genre school, the detail of his work is well illustrated in his most famous canvas, Country Wedding (1814)....

Krinsky, Carol (Herselle)
(1937) US architectural historian. Initially specializing in the Renaissance, her interest broadened to the modern period and she became a leading expert on twentieth-century architecture. Her books...

Kripke, Saul
US philosopher and logician. Educated at Harvard University, he was a fellow and lecturer there (1963-67), then taught at Rockefeller University (1967-76) and Princeton University (from 1976)....

Krishna
Eighth avatar (incarnation) of the Hindu god Vishnu. The devotion of the bhakti movement is usually directed towards Krishna; an example of this is the Krishna Consciousness Movement
Popular name for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. ...

Krishna Menon, Vengalil Krishnan
(1897-1974) Indian politician who was a leading light in the Indian nationalist movement. He represented India at the United Nations 1952-62, and was defence minister 1957-62, when he was dismissed by Nehru...

Krishnamurti, Jiddu
(1895-1986) Indian mystic who was hailed by the adherents of theosophy as a spiritual teacher. Despite his considerable follow ...

Kristallnacht
Night of 9-10 November 1938 when the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) militia in Germany and Austria mounted a concerted attack on Jews, their synagogues, homes, and shops. It followed the assassination...

Kristeva, Julia
(1941) Bulgarian-born French psychoanalyst and literary theorist. Drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis and structuralist linguistics, she has analysed the relationship between language, society, and the...

Krleža, Miroslav
(1893-1981) Croatian writer. A pivotal figure in the Yugoslav struggle against Stalinism and its artistic form, socialist realism, he was the most influential Croatian writer of the 20th century. His work...

Kroeber, Alfred Louis
(1876-1960) US anthropologist. His extensive research into and analysis of the culture of California, Plains, Mexican, and South American Indians dramatically broadened the scope of anthropological studies. His...

Kroeger, Alice Bertha
(1864-1909) US librarian. A protégée of Melvil Dewey, she taught librarianship at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and became the first director of Drexel's Library School (1892-1909). Her...

Kroger, Helen
(1913-1992) US communist sympathizer and Soviet spy. Convicted in the UK of espionage in 1961, with her husband Morris Cohen, she was imprisoned and then released eight years later in a spy-swap deal,...

Krogman, Wilton M(arion)
(1903-1987) US physical anthropologist. His examinations of fossil North American human skeletons ascertained their physical typology and cultural patterns. His later palaeoanthropological studies (1935-45)...

Krol, John Joseph
(1910-1996) US Catholic prelate. He taught canon law, and held administrative posts in the Cleveland diocese, becoming auxiliary bishop and vicar general in 1953. As archbishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...

Kronstadt uprising
Revolt in March 1921 by sailors of the Russian Baltic Fleet at their headquarters in Kronstadt, outside Petrograd (now St Petersburg). On the orders of the leading Bolshevik, Leon Trotsky, Red Army...

Krueger, Walter
(1881-1967) US general. After building his reputation as a trainer, he took command of 6th US Army in Australia 1943, under MacArthur. He soon made it into a highly efficient force that served in...

Kruger telegram
Message sent by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to President Kruger of the Transvaal 3 January 1896 congratulating him on defeating the Jameson raid of 1895. The text of the telegram provoked...

Krupp
German steelmaking armaments firm, founded in 1811 by Friedrich Krupp (1787-1826) and developed by his son Alfred Krupp by pioneering the Bessemer steelmaking process. The company developed the...

Krutch, Joseph Wood
(1893-1970) US literary and drama critic. His works include Edgar Allan Poe, a Study in Genius 1926, The Modern Temper 1929, Five Masters 1930, Samuel Johnson 1944, and The Desert Year 1952. He was professor of...

Krylenko, Nikolai Vasilievich
(1885-1940) Russian Bolshevik politician. A military commander in the immediate aftermath of the revolution of 1917, he helped suppress White forces during the Russian Civil War of 1918-21. Later he was...

Kryukov, Fyodor
(1870-1920) Russian writer. He was alleged by Alexander Solzhenitsyn to be the real author of And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov. ...

Krzaklewski, Marian
(1950) Polish politician and trade union leader, leader of the Solidarity trade union from 1991 and Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) from 1996. A member of the anti-communist Solidarity since its...

Ku K'ai-chih
(344-406) Chinese painter and calligrapher. Although essentially a figure painter, he also painted animals and landscapes. His Admonitions of the Instructress in the Palace is a scroll consisting...

Kuan Lin
Chinese goddess of mercy. She embodies all that is merciful, kind, and good, and is also thought to heal and to aid fecundity. She is portrayed as very beautiful, sometimes holding a...

Kuanyin
Transliteration of Guanyin, goddess of mercy in Chinese Buddhism. ...

Kubin, Alfred
(1877-1959) German graphic artist and writer. One of the most original members of the Symbolist movement, he created a nightmarish world of morbid and erotic subjects - a counterpoint to the tranquil fantasy...

Kubitschek, Juscelino
(1902-1976) Brazilian president 1956-61. His term as president saw political peace, civil liberty, and rapid economic growth at the cost of high inflation and corruption. He had a strong commitment to public...

Kubler, George
(1912-1996) US architectural historian. Teaching at Yale University (from 1938), he published important works on Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American architecture, notably Mexican Architecture of the...

Kucan, Milan
(1941) Slovene politician, president of Slovenia from 1990. He served as chair of the parliament 1978-86 and became chair of the communist party 1986-89. He became president of...

Kuchel, Thomas H(enry)
(1910-1994) US politician. He served in the California assembly and senate before his initial appointment and then election to the US Senate where he served as a Republican representing California (1953-69)....

Kuchma, Leonid
(1938) Ukrainian politician, prime minister 1992-93 and president 1994-2004. A traditional Soviet technocrat, he worked his way up the hierarchy of the Communist Party. As prime minister, he...

Kuhn, Bowie Kent
(1926-2007) US lawyer and baseball commissioner. He served as the Major League's fifth commissioner 1969-84. He counselled several baseball clients while working at the firm of Wilkie, Farr and Gallagher...

Kuhn, Walt(er Francis)
(1877-1949) US painter. He exhibited at the Armory Show in New York City in 1913. From then on he experimented with different styles, particularly those of French painters such as Cézanne, Matisse, and...

Kukucín, Martin
(1860-1928) Slovak realist novelist. His novella, Ryšavá jalovica/The Red Heifer 1886 is the story of a village weakling. The novels House on the Hill 1922 and The Motherland Calls 1926-27 both concern the...

kula
Ceremonial trading cycle found in the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea and adjacent islands of Melanesia. It involves two classes of gifts - red shell necklaces and white shell armbands -...

kulak
Russian term for a peasant who could afford to hire labour and often acted as village usurer. The kulaks resisted the Soviet government's policy of collectivization, and in 1930 they were...

Kulmbach, Hans Suess (Süss) von
(c. 1475-1522) German painter. As a young man, he collaborated with Albrecht Dürer in designing woodcuts, and after 1508 he designed numerous stained-glass windows. When Dürer gave up the execution of...

Kulpe, Oswald
(1862-1915) German psychologist and philosopher. In philosophy, he was attacked by the followers of Immanuel Kant for believing that metaphysics was possible. His psychology is similar to the phenomenology of...

Kulturkampf
German word for a policy introduced by Chancellor Bismarck in Germany in 1873 that isolated the Catholic interest and attempted to reduce its power in order to create a political coalition of...

Kumaratunga, Chandrika Bandaranaike
(1945) Sri Lankan politician, president 1994-2005. After becoming head of state, she sought to end the long-running civil war with the separatist Tamil Tigers through a radical devolution plan. This...

Kumari, Royal
Reincarnate patron goddess (Taleju) of the kings of Nepal, worshipped by the Nepalese. Chosen from the Sakya caste, the child believed to be the goddess must h ...

Kumbh Mela
Hindu festival that takes place once every 12 years. It commemorates a 12-year celestial battle between gods and demons, over a pitcher (kumbh) containing the sacred nectar of immortality (amrit)....

Kumin, Maxine
(1925) US poet and writer. A writer of fiction, children's books, essays, and poetry, she was named poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (1981-82). She is best known for poems of the Northe ...

Kumyk
Member of any of a group of northern Caucasus people numbering 282,000 (1989). They live mainly in the autonomous republic of Dagestan, in the lowland area along the Caspian shore. They are Muslims...

Kun, Béla
(1886-1937) Hungarian politician. He created a Soviet republic in Hungary in March 1919, which was overthrown in August 1919 by a Western blockade and Romanian military actions. The succeeding regime under...

Kunaev, Dimmukhamed Akhmedovich
(1912-1993) Kazakh politician. He worked his way up the Kazakh party ladder in the 1940s and 1950s, coming into close contact with Leonid Brezhnev and being made first secretary in 1960. He was demoted by...

kundalini
In Hindu thought, a flow of life energy existing within everyone. It is believed to lie coiled at the base of the spine, and by the practice of kundalini yoga can be raised from the first chakra...

Kunersdorf, Battle of
In the Seven Years' War, Russian victory over Frederick the Great on 12 August 1759 about 20 km/12 mi west of what is now Swiebodzin, Poland. Frederick was attempting to save Dresden from the...

Kung
Member of a small group of hunter-gatherer peoples of the northeastern Kalahari, southern Africa, still living to some extent nomadically. Their language belongs to the Khoisan family. ...

Kunhardt, Dorothy
(1901-1979) US author and illustrator. She began writing in the 1930s and became famous for a new concept of touch-and-feel books for young children, notably Pat the Bunny (1940), a popular classic....

Kunin, Madeleine
(1933) Swiss-born US politician. A Democrat, she was elected to the Vermont house of representatives (1973-78), where she chaired the Appropriations Committee, becoming lieutenant governor (1979-82)....

Kuniyoshi, Utagawa
(1797-1861) Japanese printmaker. His series 108 Heroes of the Suikoden depicts heroes of the Chinese classic novel The Water Margin. Kuniyoshi's dramatic, innovative style lent itself to warriors and fantasy,...

Kunsthalle
Gallery of German painting in Hamburg. It includes works by the 14th- and 15th-century painters Master Bertram and Master Francke, and 19th- and 20th-century works by Philipp Otto Runge,...

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Art gallery in Vienna, Austria. The gallery is particularly rich in early Netherlandish and Dutch, Flemish, and Venetian works. Of special note are paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder,...

Kunstler, William M(oses)
(1919) US lawyer, social activist, and professor. During the 1950s he mainly practised estate and business law, but in the early 1960s his social conscience and commitment were aroused when he began to...

Kuomintang
Original spelling of the Chinese nationalist party, now known (outside Taiwan) as Guomindang. ...

Kupka, Frank (František)
(1871-1957) Czech painter and illustrator who lived in Paris. He was a pioneer of non-representational art, his Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colours: Red and Blue 1912 (Národni Galerie, Prague) being one of the...

Kurd
Member of a people living mostly in the Taurus and Sagros mountains of eastern Turkey, western Iran, and northern Iraq in the region called Kurdistan. The Kurds have suffered repression in several...

kurdaitcha man
Among tribal Australian Aborigines, the man given the power to avenge a wrong felt by a tribal member, by pointing the bone at the wrongdoer to induce their death. ...

kurdaitcha shoes
In certain central Australian Aboriginal tribes, shoes made of hair, string, and emu feathers, and matted with human blood, which were worn by a man who had been chosen to avenge the death of a...

Kurdish language
Language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, closely related to Farsi (Persian). It is spoken by the Kurds, a geographically divided ethnic group. Its numerous...

Kuribyashi, Todomichi
(1885-1945) Japanese general of World War II; commander of Japanese forces on Iwo Jima. He constructed a powerful series of defensive positions held by some 23,000 troops. The US invasion of the island 1945 was...

Kuropatkin, Alexei Nikolaievich
(1848-1921) Russian general. He distinguished himself as Chief of Staff during the Russo-Turkish War 1877-78, was commander-in-chief in Manchuria 1903, and resigned after his defeat at Mukden (now...

Kursk, Battle of
In World War II, an unsuccessful German offensive against a Soviet salient in July 1943. Kursk was the greatest tank battle in history and proved to be a turning point in the Eastern Front campaign....

Kusana dynasty (or Kushan dynasty)
Northern Indian family ruling between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, descended from the Yüeh-chih dynasty. The greatest Kusana king was Kaniska (ruled c. 78-102). A devout Buddhist and liberal...

Kusinagara
In Buddhist tradition, the place where the Buddha died. The Nirvana Temple, built in the 5th century AD, contains a reclining statue, 7 m/25 ft long, which shows the Buddha in his state of final...

Kutaisi
City in central Georgia, a major industrial and cultural centre; population (2001 est) 264,000. Situated on the River Rioni, Kutaisi has engineering works (manufacturing mining equipment, lorries,...

Kuter, Lawrence Sherman
(1905-1979) US aviator. A 1927 West Point graduate, he transferred to the Air Corps in 1930 and rose to command a bomber wing in England (1942-43). He held a series of senior commands during the 1950s,...

Kutuzov, Mikhail Illarionovich
(1745-1813) Commander of the Russian forces in the Napoleonic Wars. He commanded an army corps at Austerlitz and the army in its retreat in 1812. After the burning of Moscow that year, he harried the French...

Kuwait
Country in southwest Asia, bounded north and northwest by Iraq, east by the Gulf, and south and southwest by Saudi Arabia. Government Under its 1962 constitution, Kuwait has a parliamentary...

Kuznets, Simon Smith
(1901-1985) Russian-born US economist. Kuznets was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1971 for his pre-war efforts in reconstructing the national income...

Kuznetsov, Anatoly Vasilyevich
(1929-1979) Russian writer. His novels Babi Yar 1966, describing the wartime execution of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, and The Fire 1969, about workers in a large metallurgical factory, were seen as...

Kuznetsov, Vasilly
(1894-1964) Soviet general of World War II. A young general when he defended Kiev 1941, he was afterwards made a scapegoat for its loss, though General Budenny was really at fault. Remarkably, Kuznetsov...

KV tank
Soviet heavy tank of World War II; the initials stood for Klimenti Voroshilov, the minister of war at the time of their approval in 1940. Almost impervious to German anti-tank guns 1941-43, the...

Kwajalien
Atoll in the Marshall Islands; held by the Japanese in World War II. When it was attacked and taken by US troops in February 1944, its garrison of 8,000 men fought so fanatically that...

Kwakiutl
Member of an American Indian people who live on both sides of the entrance to Queen Charlotte Strait in British Columbia, Canada. They number about 3,200 (1996) and their language belongs to the...

Kwannon
In Buddhism, a form, often regarded as female (and known to the West as `goddess of mercy`), of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. Kwannon is the most important bodhisattva in all main schools of...

Kwaśniewski, Aleksander
(1954) Polish reform-communist politician, leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), president 1995-2005. A supporter of the free market, he steered Pol ...