The City Head Nikolay Hagelstrom
 
Nicolay Hagelstrom was one of the most eminent city chiefs in the 19 century.
 
N.Hagelstrom was born in 1812, got higher education, for many long years he had been serving in the tsarist army, and resigned in the major-general’s rank. Worked as a chief engineer for the Dinaburg Fortresses. After the resignation, Hagelstrom joined the city’s public life and in 1865 he was appointed to the position of the mayor, which he had been holding for 11 years.
 
When he managed the city, the New Forshtadt (it is a city center nowadays) began to be built up intensively. Hagelstrom was an initiator of creation of the two first parks in the city center – Alexander Nevsky’s (nowadays its Pumpurs’ park) and Dubrovin’s Gardens.
 
For his merits in developing the city and equipping it with modern services and utilities, he was awarded with the highest awards.
N.Hagelstrom was a passionate amateur of theatrical art, and in 1856 he at his own expense opened the first in Dinaburg private theatre to which he devoted all his free time. The theatre was near the Daugava, in Theater Street, so it has been called to this day. The theatre became a pride and sight of the city, raised the city’s significance. The theatre existed for more than half a century. Then they wrote that “the public life in Dinaburg is more advanced than in all other cities of this province. In Dinaburg, there was a private theatre whereas in Vitebsk there is not even a city theater.
 
Date of death of N.Hagelstrom is still not established. He was buried in an Orthodox cemetery, near its chapel.

 

 

The City Head Pavel Dubrovin 
 
Pavel Dubrovin was born on May 24, 1839. He graduated from the Konstantinovsky Military School, and after the graduation Dubrovin was given the rank of an official of the seventh class – an outdoor adviser. In connection with the falling of the feudal system in Russia (in 1861, the manifest signed by Alexander I) and in order to prevent conflict situations between peasants and landowners, an institution of arbitrators was created.
 
On January 29, 1864, P.Dubrovin was appointed as the chairman of the first department of arbitrators in the city of Dinaburg, and in this position he got his first awards – the Order of St. Anna of the 3rd class, for his irreproachable service, and a merit badge – for consummation of the manifest of cancellation of serfdom. In 1864, Pavel Dubrovin was awarded with the medal “For suppression of the Polish insurrection in 1863-64”.
 
In 1874, P.Dubrovin became a director of the first city public bank, and in 1876 he was elected the mayor for the first time and was invariable remaining in this position to his death. For the city, P.F.Dubrovin did very much, and the city remembers him.
 
Dubrovin was an initiator of foundation of a voluntary fire-fighting company, petitioned for creation of a progymnasia for women, and later on, about its transformation to a gymnasium. Subsequently this woman’s gymnasia became the largest educational institution in the city. With Dubrovin’s active participation, “Society of Compassionate Benefit to Needy Schoolgirls of Dinaburg Women’s Gymnasium” was established, in 1879 “Mutual Loan Society” was established, where he was a chairman of board. Then an office of the national bank was opened, a new line of stores was constructed on Big Market Square, which turned to a city shopping center with its traditions – annually at the end of winter during the Pancake week sledging was organized.
 
At the end of the 19 century, a park was created in which there was an entrance arch and a stage for concerts. The park has remained up to now and is called the Dubrovin’s Park.
 
P.Dubrovin was a knight of the Order of St. Anna of the 2nd and 3rd classes, was awarded with two Orders of St. Stanislav, one of which was with the imperial crown, and with the Red Cross badge. There is information that Dubrovin was also awarded with the Japanese Order of Rising Sun of the 5th class, which mainly diplomats were awarded with, and two more orders of Montenegrin Prince Daniel of different classes.
Pavel Dubrovin died on May 23, 1890, and was buried in an Orthodox cemetery.

 

 

Professor Solomon Mihoels (Vovsi)
 
 In March 1990, according to a decision made by UNESCO the centenary of the eminent director, actor, thinker, eminent public figure, people’s artist of the USSR, professor Solomon Mihoels’ birth (Vovsi’s) was solemnly celebrated.
 
Solomon Vovsi was born on March 16, 1890, in Dinaburg, at 4 Postoyalaya St. (nowadays it is Mihoela St.), in a wood trader’s family. In the family there were nine children. His family was typically Jewish, patriarchal, and each step in it was accompanied by a pray. At the same time, in addition to strict religious practices, in Vovsi’s family they liked to recite verses, sing national songs, organize home performances, and that affected the choice of professions by the children.
 
Mihoels wrote that being “a young person, I dreamed to become an actor…” At the age of nine years, under impression of leaving home by his brother, Solomon wrote his first play.
 
Soon the family moves to Riga. Here Mihoels finishes an industrial school and gets acquainted with different socialist currents. Here his acquaintance with professional theatres and interesting people occurs, in particular with a poet and representative of the Jewish educational movement, Isai Nemtsovich, who convinced Solomon that his true vocation should be art.
 
In 1918, after graduating from the faculty of law of the St. Petersburg University, Solomon Vovsi refuses a lawyer’s career and enters the Jewish Drama School. Here his scenic pseudonym – Mihoels – arose. In 1920, the studio moves to Moscow and is transformed to the State Jewish Chamber Theatre, since 1925 it has been the State Jewish Theatre (Goset) the art director of which Mihoels becomes in 1929. He holds this post up to his tragical end. In the theatrical activity, Mihoels realized 14 productions and played more than 30 roles.

 

One of the tops in Mihoels’ scenic activity was a role of King Lear which brought him world glory and forced to speak about him in all the theatre world.
On January 13, 1948, Mihoels’ life tragically broke. On the building where he was born, two memorial boards are installed. The first one was installed on March 16, 1967. The second board was installed in March 1990, when according to the UNESCO decision a centenary from S.Mihoels' birthday was celebrated all over the world. On January 23, 1990, the street in which S.Mihoels was born was named his name – Mihoelsa St.

 

 

Artist Mark Rothko
 
Mark Rothko, born Markus Rothkovich, was born in Dvinsk, Russia (today it is Daugavpils, Latvia), on September 25, 1903. He was the fourth child in the family of pharmacist Jakob Rothkovich (born in 1859) and Anna Goldin Rothkovich (born in 1870). The parents got married in 1886. When Mark was 10 years old, he together with the family emigrated to the USA and settled in the state of Oregon, in Portland. In 1921, Rothko entered the Yale University, where he studied English and French, European history, elementary mathematics, physics, biology, economics, history of philosophy, and general psychology. His initial aspiration was to get education in the field of engineering sciences or jurisprudence. In 1923, Rothko gives up the study and moves to New York.
 
http://www.rothko100.org

 

 

 

Composer Oscar Strok
 
Oscar Strok was born in Dvinsk on 24 December 1892. His father was a theatre orchestra musician. O.Strok started getting interested in music very early. First he learned to play violin, then - piano. At the age of 12 he entered the St.-Petersburg Conservatoire where he studied in the piano class.
 
One of O.Strok’s first musical compositions, which made popular, was a romance for Pushkin’s poem, performed by Anastasia Valceva, a very popular singer of the beginning of the 20th century. In Latvia in 20s.-30s. of the 20th century, O.Strok worked as a pianist and conductor of a dance orchestra and composed musical romances, waltzes, and jazz compositions. In 1928 he went to France on a concert tour. In the interim between the 1st and the 2nd World Wars, his dance music was extremely popular in Europe. It could be heard everywhere – in Paris, Warsaw and Berlin – at restaurants and cafes, concert halls and dancehalls, thousands and thousand records of his music were issued.
O.Strok’s tangos also became popular in Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary and Soviet Russia, and after the composer’s trip to Shanghai and Tokyo in 1935, his music became well-known in China and Japan as well.
 
That is why O.Strok was called “Tango King” already on his lifetime. Till the very end of his life, the composer continued his creative work and at the age of 80 could sit down to the piano and play his melodies brilliantly.

 

Oscar Strok died on 22 June 1975 in Riga.

 

 

Violinist Pauls Krumins
 
For 40 years the Daugavpils musical life was unthinkable without Pauls Krumins – violinist, conductor, pedagogue and public figure.
Pauls Krumins was born on 5 August 1892. He learned to play violin at the Berlin Musical Academy and started his career of a musician with concerts in Germany, Eastern Hungary and Denmark.
 
Starting 1923 P.Krumins worked at the Daugavpils Latgale Folk Conservatoire and in 1928 became its Director. He founded the first Daugavpils symphonic orchestra. As an active conductor P.Krumins was ‘indispensable’ during the summer seasons, when open-air concerts were organized at the Daugavpils resort ”Mežciems”. During World War II, he risked his own life to save Jews from the Holocaust. He was given a high Award of Israel for outstanding courage and a memorial plate was installed in Jerusalem in his honour.

 

P.Krumins died on 24 July 1965 and was buried in the Riga I Meža Cemetery.