EF p 8. Photo Exhibition. Listening

 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were executed (1) _______________ Lenin.

Anna Anderson was the most famous (2) _______________ .

The fact that in 1979 Anastasia's body was not found (3)________________ of her escape.

This moving photo shows Kennedy's (4)_______________ family side.

Kennedy's son John also died young like other members of this (5)______________ family.

Francoise wrote a (6)_______________ description of Picasso in a book. This is why Picasso (7)_________________ to see his own children again.

Gandhi and his wife married young because it was an (8)_________________ marriage.

Gandhy's (9)________________ to achieve the independence of India lasted 32 years.

The thought of meeting his wife was always (10)______________ Gandhi.

Sofia was (11)______________ to Tolstoy's views and was also (12)___________ of his followers.

Tolstoy left his wife one winter in the (13)___________________

Before dying Tolstoy had been (14)_________________ love and non-violence.

Einstein and his sister (15)___________________ each other.

At the (16)_________________ of World War II Maja had to leave Italy and (17)______________ refuge with Einstein in the US where she had a (18)_______________ just after the war.

KEY

1. on the orders of

 

 

2. impostor 

3. fuelled the myth 

4. softer

5. ill-fated

not lucky and ending sadly, especially in death or failure.

E.g. 

an ill-fated expedition
She regretted ever meeting him at that ill-fated party.

 

 

6. damning

 

 

7. refused

 

 

 

8. arranged 

9. struggle

 

 

 

10. haunting

 

 

 

11. strongly opposed

 

 

 

12. jealous

 

 

 

13. dead of night 

in the dead of night
(British English also at dead of night)​ in the quietest part of the night

E.g.

I crept out of bed in the dead of night and sneaked downstairs.

 

 

 

14. preaching

 

 

 

15. resembled 

16. outbreak

17. sought

18. stroke.

Transcript:

1.2

1 These four children would never grow old. The photo, taken around 1906, shows the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. After the Russian revolution in 1917, they and their parents and brother were arrested and imprisoned in a house in Yekaterinburg. There, on 17th July 1918, they were executed on the orders of Lenin. For many years after their assassination, there were rumours that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, on the right of the photo, had managed to escape. Several women claimed to have been Anastasia; the best-known impostor was Anna Anderson, a woman living in Germany, whose claims, though rejected by most surviving members of the Tsar’s family, were widely believed. In 1979, the bodies of the Tsar and his wife and three of their daughters were discovered near Yekaterinburg, which fuelled the myth that Anastasia had escaped. However, in July 2007, an amateur historian discovered bones near Yekaterinburg belonging to a boy and a young woman, and in April 2008, DNA tests proved that they belonged to two children of Nicholas II, a son and a daughter – Anastasia. As a result, the story of her survival was conclusively disproved.

2 In this rather touching photo, showing his softer family side, US President John F. Kennedy is greeted by his children, John Jr. and Caroline, on his arrival to spend the weekend with them at their summer home in Massachusetts on 23rd August 1963. His natural joy at seeing them may well have been intensified on this occasion by the fact that, a few weeks previously, his third child, a son named Patrick, had died at just a few days old. Almost exactly three months later, on 22nd November, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His son John Jr., as so many of this ill-fated family, also died young in a plane crash in 1999, and Caroline is the only surviving member of the family.

3 Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is seen here with Francoise Gilot and their son Claude in around 1952. Francoise met Picasso in 1943, when she was 21 and he was over 40 years older. Although they never married, they spent nearly ten years together and had two children, Claude and Paloma. However, Francoise and Picasso’s relationship was not a happy one, and in 1964, 11 years after their separation, she wrote a damning description of him in her book called Life with Picasso. Picasso tried to stop its publication, but he failed, and it went on to sell over one million copies in dozens of languages. From then on, Picasso refused to see Claude or Paloma ever again.

4 In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas Gandhi was married to 14-year-old Kasturba, following the arranged marriage custom of their region at the time. This photo was taken in 1915, when Gandhi was beginning his 32-year struggle for Indian independence, and it is the earliest known photo of Gandhi and his wife. In the first years of their marriage, Gandhi is said to have been a very controlling husband, but writing many years later, he described the feelings he felt for Kasturba at the time: ‘Even at school I used to think of her, and the thought of nightfall and our subsequent meeting was ever haunting me.’ Despite frequently being apart, their shared beliefs in national independence and education, not to mention a deep emotional attachment, held them together, and their marriage lasted for over 60 years.

5 The importance of family to the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy apparently influenced his work, especially his two most famous novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This photo, taken in 1909, shows him telling a story to two of his grandchildren, Ilya and Sonia. Although his relationship with his children and grandchildren was very close, for most of his marriage he and his wife, Sofia, did not get on. She was strongly opposed to many of his views, especially the idea of giving away his private property, and was also jealous of the attention he gave to his many followers. Shortly after this photo was taken, at the age of 82 and after nearly 50 years of marriage, Tolstoy finally made up his mind to separate from her. He left home in the middle of winter, in the dead of night. He took a train south, but when he arrived at Astapovo station a day later, he became ill and died of pneumonia. According to some sources, he had spent the last hours of his life preaching love and non-violence to his fellow passengers on the train.

6 This photo, taken around 1886, is of scientist Albert Einstein with his sister Maja, as small children. They resembled each other physically, and were extremely close – according to Albert, she was his only friend. After Maja’s marriage, she and her husband Paul bought a villa in Italy, near Florence, and Albert frequently visited her. In 1939, at the outbreak of World War II, she was forced to leave Italy because she was Jewish. She sought refuge with her beloved brother in the USA, but she had to leave behind her husband, who could not get a visa. Tragically, in 1946, just after the war had ended, she had a stroke, and was unable to travel. She never saw her husband again, and Albert cared for her until her death in 1951.