Name of Russia (Russia TV)

Name of Russia (Russian: Имя Россия, English: "The Name of Russia") was a series produced by the Russia-1 television channel that aimed to determine the most notable figure in Russian history through polling promoted via the Internet, Radio, and Television. Various professors, artists, and politicians would present information on the historical figure they were 'promoting', and people could then vote online for their chosen figure.

From the outset, the project received heavy criticism for many reasons. The information pages on the project website that linked to every personality (named dossier pages by project creators) were inaccurately named and filled with trivial and inconsistent details. Internet news agency Lenta.ru highlighted this and explained how ridiculous some of the mistakes were. Since brigading was allowed and no precautions against botting were taken, the voting was wildly inaccurate, with some candidates rising from the bottom of the list to the top in a matter of hours. On 14 August, new voting rules were introduced that included the use of challenge–response authentication in the form of a multiple-choice question. According to the project's management, this new measure was aimed to curb the 'war of machines' or computer-generated voting.

In his book Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, author Peter Pomerantsev (working as a consultant for the Russian television industry at the time) claims the actual winner of the contest was Joseph Stalin, rather than Alexander Nevsky, and that the "embarrassed" producers had to rig the vote in favor of Nevsky.[1]

Candidates and results

edit

The twelve candidates for greatest Russian were:[2]

Final
position
Candidate Date of
birth
Date of
death
Promoter Airdate
1 Alexander Nevsky, Grand prince of Novgorod and Vladimir 1220 1263 Mitropolit Kirill 5 October 2008
2 Pyotr Stolypin, prime minister of the Russian Empire 1862 1911 Film-director Nikita Mikhalkov 21 December 2008
3 Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Generalissimo during World War II 1878 1953 General of the army Valentin Varennikov 19 October 2008
4 Alexander Pushkin, writer and poet 1799 1837 Pushkinist and Soviet dissident Yuriy Kublanovskiy 17 December 2008
5 Peter the Great, first Emperor of Russia 1672 1725 RF Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin 12 October 2008
6 Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary founder of the Soviet Union 1870 1924 CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov 23 November 2008
7 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, writer 1821 1881 RF Ambassador in NATO Dmitriy Rogozin 9 November 2008
8 Alexander Suvorov, general of the Russian Imperial Army 1729 1800 Federation Council of Russia speaker Sergey Mironov 2 November 2008
9 Dmitri Mendeleev, chemist who invented the periodic table 1834 1907 Professor, vice-president RAES Sergei Kapitsa 26 October 2008
10 Ivan the Terrible, tsar 1530 1584 Painter Ilya Glazunov 14 December 2008
11 Catherine the Great, empress 1729 1796 Governor of Krasnodar Krai Aleksandr Tkachyov 16 November 2008
12 Alexander II, emperor who abolished serfdom in Russia 1818 1881 Director of RAS Russian history institute Andrey Sakharov 30 November 2008

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Pomerantsev, Peter (2014). Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia. Public Affairs. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-1-61039-600-4.
  2. ^ "Имя Россия / Новости // Избран Совет "Имя Россия"".
edit