Different military events marked the first week of August in Russian history, for example, the confrontation between Russia and Germany in World War I and between the Soviet Union and Japan in World War II. Also in the first days of August, but in different years, the annexation of Lithuania to the Soviet Union took place and a Soviet submarine became the world’s only submarine to launch all its missiles.
But we will not talk only about war. We will remember the moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, the first stone of the Cathedral of the Assumption and much more.

Germany goes to war against Russia

On August 1, 1914, just a few days after the beginning of the World War I, Germany declares war on Russia. The Russian Empire had mobilized only three days before the German attack on Serbia. This mobilization was taken as an aggression of the Russian Empire to Germany. Two days later, Germany also declared war on France, which was a Russian ally since 1894.

Russian infantry soldiers

The USSR attacked Japan

We jump nearly forty years forward and arrive to World War II. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan after invading Manchuria on August 8, 1945. USSR invaded this area just two days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Stalin had received the approval of the Allied nations during the Yalta conference for this invasion. An important consequence of this was that the Soviet Union seized the Kuril and Sakhalin Islands, whose status still remain up until today disputed between Japan and Russia.

Annexation of Lithuania

August 5, 1940: Soviet Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union. During World War I Poland occupied part of the territory of Lithuania including its capital Vilnius. But in 1940 the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania and the other Baltic countries, which eventually annexed and became Soviet Socialist Republics.

Last death sentence

On August 2, 1996 Russia executes its last death penalty. A pederast named S. Golovkin was the last criminal to face capital punishment. In practice, the death penalty is in force in Russia but a moratorium has been placed, since it was a condition to join the Council of Europe.

Missile record

The submarine K-407 "Novomoskovsk" becomes the world’s first submarine in history to launch all its missiles (16 in total) on August 6, 1991. The operation was called Behemoth 2, during which the K-407 fired its 16 RSM-54 ballistic missiles with a total weight of 700 tons. This submarine proudly holds the name of “the most shooting” submarine of the Russian Navy.

Submarine K-407

The Cathedral of the Dormition

August 4, 1326: the construction of the Cathedral of the Dormition begins in Moscow. This cathedral, from the times of Ivan I, was demolished in the fifteenth century by Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti to create the first cathedral in the Kremlin area.

Stanislavsky’s death

On August 7, 1938 Konstantin Stanislavsky dies. He was an actor and theater director, and the creator of the world famous method of interpretation named after him. Stanislavsky was also one of the founders of the Moscow Art Theatre. His performance methodology became worldwide known thanks to the Actors Studio in the US and one of his most famous directors: Lee Strasberg.

Konstantin Stanislavsky in 1938

Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies

August 3, 2008: Writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and during his life he suffered imprisonment for his ideas against the Soviet Union. In 1974 he was deported and deprived of his Soviet citizenship in part owing to the publication of his novel "The Gulag Archipelago". He lived in the United States until after the fall of the USSR, when he was able to return to Russia and recover his nationality.