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Anna Akhmatova
1889–1966 - Russian/Ukranian
Poet. Her apartment in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) represented a beacon of culture in the midst of the harshest and most barbaric conditions, and she courageously criticized Stalin.
Alcibiades
450–404 BCE - Athenian
Statesman and general. His name became synonymous with ancient Greek ideals of male beauty. But in his military career, he betrayed his city, Athens, and was eventually assassinated.
Sholem Aleichem
1859–1916 - Russian, and then American
Writer. He wrote the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" and helped preserve Yiddish culture.
Alexander I
1777–1825 - Russian
Czar from 1801. He began his reign with ideas of liberalizing the Russian political regime. However, he became an example of reaction and despotism mixed with religious mysticism.
St. Alexander Nevski
1218–1263 - Russian
Prince. He exemplified the concept of Holy Russia, which combined Russian nationalism with Orthodox Christianity.
Alexander the Great
356–323 BCE - Macedonian
King of Macedonia and conqueror of Persia. Some see in him the spirit of youth, daring, courage, energy, hardihood, curiosity, vision, and the intellectual and artistic heritage of ancient Greece, which he spread widely, together with a tolerance and appreciation of other cultures.
Others see drunkenness, superstition, cruelty, vindictiveness, violence, killing both on and off the battlefield, lack of self-control, despotism, and the age-old gods of power, wealth, fame, and glory pursued to the point of madness.
Alp-Arslan
1032–1072 - Seljuk
Seljuk (Turkish) leader, devout Muslim, and brilliant military strategist. He wore a burial shroud under his armor when he met a larger Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071. But he won and secured what became Turkey for Islam.
Anaxagoras
500–428 BCE - Greek
Philosopher. His life expressed the value of scientific or at least pre-scientific curiosity, inquiry, and speculation. He was charged with religious deviance, and was forced into exile from Athens.
Antisthenes
445–365 BCE - Greek
Thinker and pupil of Socrates. He is credited, along with his own pupil Diogenes, with founding the famous Cynic school of Athens. (See Diogenes.)
Apollonius of Tyana
3–97 - Greek
Neo-pythagorean. He was reputed to have worked miracles, came to be worshipped by some devotees, and thus represents magic, mystery, and the hope for miraculous intercession.
Archimedes
287–212 BCE - Greek
Scientist and engineer. He was a founder of hydrostatics, discoverer of mathematical descriptions of various shapes and figures, and inventor of many practical machines, including defense weapons. His life, work, and personality expressed the sheer joy of investigation, study, discovery, and knowledge. In one story, he leaps from his bath shouting "Eureka (I have found it)" after solving a problem and runs into the street.
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