He was given his name, Spartak, which means Spartacus in Russian, at the insistence of his uncle, his father's brother, Professor Aleksandr Vasilevich Mishulin. Aleksandr was a famous teacher and historian, who specialized in the War of Spartacus (73-71 B.C.), the last of the three unsuccessful slave rebellions against ancient Rome, the Servile Wars, that took place in the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.
