Biography.

Born into a wealthy Basel family active in the silk industry, Bachofen studied in Basel and in Berlin under August Boeckh, Karl Ferdinand Ranke and Friedrich Carl von Savigny as well as in Göttingen. After completing his doctorate in Basel, he studied for another two years in Paris, London and Cambridge. He was called to the Basel chair for Roman law in 1841, but he retired early in 1845, and published most of his works as a private scholar. Bachofen is buried at the "Wolfgottesacker" cemetery in Basel.

"Das Mutterrecht".

Bachofen's 1861 "Das Mutterrecht" proposed four phases of cultural evolution which absorbed each other:

Reception.

There was little initial reaction to Bachofen’s theory of cultural evolution, largely because of his impenetrable literary style, but eventually, along with furious criticism, the book inspired several generations of ethnologists, social philosophers, and even writers: Lewis Henry Morgan; Friedrich Engels, who drew on Bachofen for "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State"; Thomas Mann; Jane Ellen Harrison, who was inspired by Bachofen to devote her career to mythology; Walter Benjamin; Erich Fromm; Robert Graves; Rainer Maria Rilke; Joseph Campbell; Otto Gross; Erich Neumann and opponents such as Julius Evola.  Friedrich Engels analysed Bachofen's views as follows:  Emile Durkheim credited Bachofen with upsetting the "old conception" that the father must be "the essential element of the family". Before Bachofen, Durkheim claims that "no one had dreamed that there could be a family organization of which the paternal authority was not the keystone".  A selection of Bachofen's writings was translated as "Myth, Religion and Mother Right" (1967). A fuller edited English edition in several volumes is being published.  As has been noted by Joseph Campbell in "Occidental Mythology" and others, Bachofen's theories stand in radical opposition to the Aryan origin theories of religion, culture and society, and both Campbell and writers such as Evola have suggested that Bachofen's theories only adequately explain the development of religion among the pre-Aryan cultures of the Mediterranean and the Levant, and possibly Southern Asia, but that a separate, patriarchal development existed among the Aryan tribes which conquered Europe and parts of Asia.

Johann Jakob Bachofen (22 December 1815 – 25 November 1887) was a Swiss antiquarian, jurist, philologist, anthropologist, and professor for Roman law at the University of Basel from 1841 to 1845.


History.

The label was founded on 1 January 2001 by Berlin rappers Specter, Spaiche and Halil. The first signed artists were Sido and B-Tight. Later, the label also signed Bushido. The same year it released EP "Das Mic und Ich" by A.i.d.S (formerly Royal TS) on the label, which was the first release of Aggro Berlin. In 2002 released the two samplers "Aggro Ansage Nr. 1" and "Aggro Ansage Nr. 2", which contains tracks by its signed artists. Fler was also featured on the second sampler, but he had not yet signed on to the label. Bushido and Fler released, in the same year, the collabo album, entitled "Carlo, Cokxxx, Nutten".  In 2003 Aggro Berlin released Bushido's debut album "Vom Bordstein bis zur Skyline", which was indexed by BPjM (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons).  Later, in 2004, Sido's debut album, "Maske" sold more than 100,000 copies in less than a month. In September of that year, the rapper won a prestigious German music award for "Best Newcomer", but his album had been indexed.  In June 2004 Bushido left the label and signed with Universal.  G-Hot's contract ran out in Autumn 2006. After the song "Keine Toleranz" (No Tolerance) appeared on the internet in July 2007, Aggro Berlin renounced any further business association with him. The song, which featured Boss A, discriminates against homosexuals and calls to kill homosexuals. It was not officially released by any label and G-Hot stated that it had been recorded many years prior to its leak and was never intended to be released.  According to Sido and Fler in an interview with the German hip-hop magazine Juice, Aggro Berlin has not been a fully independent label since October 2007 but now collaborates with Universal Records.

Aggro Berlin was a German hip-hop independent record label based in Berlin, Germany that existed from 1 January 2001 until 1 April 2009. Three artists; Sido, Tony D and Kitty Kat were signed with the label at the time of its closure. Since the end of 2007 it used to be a sub-label of Universal.


History.

The ancestor of the dynasty was Abu Hafs Umar ibn Yahya al-Hintati, a Berber from the Hintata tribal confederation which belonged to the greater Masmuda confederation of Morocco. He was a member of the council of ten and a close companion of Ibn Tumart. His original Berber name was "Faskat u-Mzal Inti", which later was changed to "Abu Hafs Umar ibn Yahya al-Hintati" (also known as "Umar Inti") since it was a tradition of Ibn Tumart to rename his close companions once they had adhered to his religious teachings. His son Abu Muhammad Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs, was appointed by the Almohad caliph Muhammad an-Nasir as governor of Ifriqiya (present day Tunisia), where he ruled from 1207 to 1221  The Hafsids as governors on behalf of the Almohads faced constant threats from Banu Ghaniya who were descendants of Almoravid princes which the Almohads had defeated and replaced as a ruling dynasty. The Hafsids were Ifriqiya governors of the Almohads until 1229, when they declared independence. After the split of the Hafsids from the Almohads under Abu Zakariya (1228–1249), Abu Zakariya organised the administration in Ifriqiya (the Roman province of Africa in modern Maghreb; today's Tunisia, eastern Algeria and western Libya) and built Tunis up as the economic and cultural centre of the empire. At the same time, many Muslims from Al-Andalus fleeing the Spanish "Reconquista" of Castile and Aragon were absorbed. He also conquered the Kingdom of Tlemcen in 1242 and made the Abdalwadids his vassals. His successor Muhammad I al-Mustansir (1249–1277) took the title of "Caliph".  He extended the boundaries of his State by subjugating the central Maghreb, going so far as to impose his overlordship over the Kingdom of Tlemcen, northern Morocco and the Nasrids of Granada Spain. The Hafsids become completely independent in 1264. The successor of Abû Zakariya' Yahya, Abu'Abd Allah Muhammad al-Mustansir, proclaimed himself Caliph in 1256 and continued the policies of his father. It was during his reign that the failed Eighth Crusade took place, led by St. Louis. After landing at Carthage, the King died of dysentery in the middle of his army decimated by disease in 1270.  In the 14th century the empire underwent a temporary decline. Although the Hafsids succeeded for a time in subjugating the empire of the Abdalwadids of Tlemcen, between 1347 and 1357 they were twice conquered by the Marinids of Morocco. The Abdalwadids however could not defeat the Bedouin; ultimately, the Hafsids were able to regain their empire. During the same period plague epidemics caused a considerable fall in population, further weakening the empire. Under the Hafsids, commerce with Christian Europe grew significantly, however piracy against Christian shipping grew as well, particularly during the rule of Abd al-Aziz II (1394–1434). In 1429, the Hafsids attacked the island of Malta, and took 3000 slaves although they did not conquer the island. The profits were used for a great building programme and to support art and culture. However, piracy also provoked retaliation from Aragon and Venice, which several times attacked Tunisian coastal cities. Under Utman (1435–1488) the Hafsids reached their zenith, as the caravan trade through the Sahara and with Egypt was developed, as well as sea trade with Venice and Aragon. The Bedouins and the cities of the empire became largely independent, leaving the Hafsids in control of only Tunis and Constantine.  In the 16th century the Hafsids became increasingly caught up in the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire-supported Corsairs. The Ottomans conquered Tunis in 1534 (see "Conquest of Tunis (1534)") and held it for one year, driving out the Hafsid ruler Muley Hassan. A year later the King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles I and V seized Tunis, drove the Ottomans out and restored Muley Hassan as a Hapsburg tributary (see "Conquest of Tunis (1535)"). Due to the Ottoman threat, the Hafsids were vassals of Spain after 1535. The Ottomans again conquered Tunis in 1569 and held it for four years. Don Juan of Austria recaptured it in 1573. The Ottomans reconquered Tunis in 1574, and Muhammad VI, the last Caliph of the Hafsids, was brought to Constantinople and was subsequently executed due to his collaboration with Spain and the desire of the Ottoman Sultan to take the title of Caliph as he now controlled Mecca and Medina. The Hafsid lineage survived the Ottoman massacre by a branch of the family being taken to the Canary Island of Tenerife by the Spanish.

The Hafsids ( "al-Ḥafṣiyūn") were a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Berber descent who ruled Ifriqiya (western Libya, Tunisia, and eastern Algeria) from 1229 to 1574.


Geography and geology.

The plateau is the largest peneplain (eroded plain) in Europe, covering an area of about at an average elevation of. The highest point on the plateau is the Sandfloegga, which reaches a height of. The landscape of the Hardangervidda is characterised by barren, treeless moorland interrupted by numerous pools, lakes, rivers and streams. There are significant differences between the west side, which is dominated by rocky terrain and expanses of bare rock, and the east side, which is much flatter and more heavily vegetated. The climate also varies between the two sides: it is considerably wetter on the west side than on the east, with over per year recorded in some parts. The prominent peak of Hårteigen is visible across much of the plateau.  Much of the Hardangervidda's geology is extremely ancient. The rolling fells of the Hardangervidda are the remnants of mountains that were worn down by the action of glaciers during the ice ages. The bedrock is mainly of Precambrian and Cambro-Silurian origin.  The area of Hardangervidda was once part of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain before it was thrusted-over by the nappes of the Caledonian orogeny in Paleozoic times. Much later, in the Miocene epoch, the modern flatness of Hardangervidda took form as a peneplain formed at sea level. Then in Early Pliocene times Hardangervidda and the whole of southern Scandinavian Mountains were uplifted more than thousand meters.

Flora and fauna.

The whole of the Hardangervidda is above the tree line. Its alpine climate enables the presence of many species of arctic animals and plants further south than anywhere else in Europe. Its wild reindeer herds are among the largest in the world, with some 15,000 animals recorded in 1996 and about 8,000 in 2008. They migrate across the plateau during the year, moving from their winter grazing lands on the east side of the Hardangervidda, where they graze on lichen, to their breeding grounds in the more fertile west of the plateau. On August 26, 2016, 323 were killed by lightning, prompting a Norwegian Environment Agency discussion on whether to leave so many corpses in the open.  The varying climate of the plateau has a marked effect on the flora, which is richer on the wetter west side than in the drier east; much of the plateau is covered by coarse grasses, mosses (especially sphagnum) and lichens.  Ciclosporin, an immunosuppressant drug widely used in organ transplantation to prevent rejection was initially isolated from the fungus "Tolypocladium inflatum" ("Beauveria nivea"), found in a soil sample obtained in 1969 from Hardangervidda.  In the Holocene climatic optimum (Stone Age) 9,000–5,000 years ago, the regional climate was warmer, and large parts of Hardangervidda were wooded; pine logs can still be found preserved in bogs well above today's treeline. With the predicted warming, Hardangervidda could again be largely wooded ().

Visitor centres.

The national park has two visitor centres on the plateau: the Hardangervidda Natursenter (Nature Centre) in Eidfjord, and the Hardangervidda Nasjonalparksenter (National Park Centre) in Tinn at Skinnarbu, near the lake Møsvatnet, the town Rjukan and the mountain village Rauland.

Human settlement.

The Hardangervidda has been occupied for thousands of years; several hundred nomadic Stone Age settlements have been found in the area, most likely related to the migration of the reindeer. Ancient trails cross the plateau, linking western and eastern Norway. One example is the "Nordmannsslepa" linking Eidfjord and Veggli in the Numedal valley with Hol and Uvdal. It is still a key transit route between Oslo and Bergen. The Bergen Line and the main Norwegian National Road 7 cross the plateau.

National park.

In 1981, much of the Hardangervidda was designated a national park, Norway's largest at. The park's boundaries stretch from Numedal and Uvdal in the east and Røvelseggi and Ullensvang in the west. The Norwegian Mountain Touring Association (DNT) maintains a comprehensive network of huts and paths across the plateau. It is a popular destination for hiking, climbing and fishing, and in winter for cross-country skiing from hut to hut.

In culture.

Norwegian music projects Ildjarn and Nidhogg combined their talents to produce two ambient albums, one titled 'Hardangervidda Part I' (2003) and the other 'Hardangervidda Part II' (2003), inspired entirely by this zone.  The final two acts of the play "When We Dead Awaken" () by Henrik Ibsen, are set in a mountain health resort in Hardangervidda.  Location shooting for the Hoth sequences in The Empire Strikes Back took place on the Hardangerjøkulen glacier.  The title theme of the Norwegian film O'Horten, by Norwegian composer Kaada, is titled Across the Hardanger Mountain Plateau and features a train crossing the area.

Hardangervidda () is a mountain plateau (Norwegian: "vidde") in central southern Norway, covering parts of Vestland, Vestfold og Telemark, and Viken counties. It is the largest plateau of its kind in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate, and one of Norway's largest glaciers, Hardangerjøkulen, is situated here. Much of the plateau is protected as part of Hardangervidda National Park. Hardangervidda is a popular tourist and leisure destination, and it is ideal for many outdoor activities.


Biography.

Drechsler was born in Gera, Bezirk Gera, East Germany (now Thuringia, Germany). As a teenager she was active in the Free German Youth (FDJ) and in 1984 she was elected to the Volkskammer of East Germany.  Initially a very competitive long jumper early in her career as a teenager, Drechsler made a transition into the world of elite sprinting in 1986 at the age of 21. She married Andreas Drechsler in July 1984 and competed as "Heike Drechsler" from then on. She was coached by Erich Drechsler, her father-in-law.  In addition to her Olympic success, Drechsler won two World Championships in the long jump (1983 and 1993), as well as gold medals in the long jump and the 200 m sprint in the World Indoor Championships 1987. She also had numerous successes in European and German championships. Drechsler's greatest rival in the long jump was Jackie Joyner-Kersee, with whom she was also very good friends.  In 1986, Drechsler twice equalled Marita Koch's 200 metres sprint (21.71 seconds) world record and set two long jump world records and equalled one in 1985 and 1986., she had more than four hundred long jump competitions with results over seven meters, more than any other female athlete.  According to an article written by Ron Casey (an Australian statistician), in 1986 Drechsler made significant improvements to her 100 m and 200 m times. In one season she went from an 11.75-second 100 m to 10.91 seconds. Her 200 m time improved from 23.19 seconds to 21.71 seconds (equaling the world record) in the 1986 season.  Her 21.71 second performance for 200 m was run into a head wind of −0.8 m/s. By comparison, Marita Koch's 21.71 second runs in 1979 and 1984 had tail winds of +0.7 m/s and +0.3 m/s respectively.  Drechsler's 200 m performance of 21.71 seconds into a head wind (−0.8 m/s) is one of the fastest ever run by a woman in the history of track and field.  In October 1986, she was awarded a Star of People's Friendship in gold (second class) for her sporting success. Several German websites, including her own, claim that Heike Drechsler was voted "Athlete of the Century" in 1999 by the IAAF. This is not quite correct: she was put on the "shortlist", but the award was given to Fanny Blankers-Koen.

Personal records.

Long jump.

1983: in Bratislava / (Juniors)
 1985: in East Berlin
 1986: in Tallinn
 1988: in Neubrandenburg
 1992: in Sestriere  Drechsler's 1992 jump in Sestriere was made with a tailwind of 2.1 meters per second, just 0.1 m/s over the allowable level of 2.0 m/s to be considered a world record; it was also performed at an altitude of greater than 1000 meters above sea level, which is the level beyond which marks are designated to have been achieved "at altitude." The jump is 11 cm longer than the current world record.

200 metres.

1986: 21.71 seconds in Jena<br> 1986: 21.71 seconds in Stuttgart

Heptathlon.

1981: 5891 Points (Junior)<br> 1994: 6741 Points in Talence

Doping allegations.

There were many accusations of drug use while she competed for East Germany. She has never failed a drug test during her career; however, all East German athletes competing abroad were tested before departure to avoid getting caught. In 2001, the BBC claimed she has admitted to unknowingly taking prohibited substances in the early 1980s under orders from her team doctors.  In 1991, after the fall of East Germany, Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke found several theses and dissertations quoting former GDR doping researchers in the Military Medical Academy Bad Saarow (MMA). The basis of the work reconstructed state-organized doping practices involving many well-known GDR athletes, including Heike Drechsler. Indications were that Heike Drechsler used high doses of Oral Turinabol plus more testosterone ester injections before competitions from 1982 to 1984. In 1993, Drechsler challenged Brigitte Berendonk, accusing her of lying in a lawsuit. In the case, the full annual dosage schedules, and charts of the development of sport performance as a function of the dosage amount, were released. Drechsler lost the lawsuit. However, Drechsler continued to win titles after the DDR time (after 1989), when she started for the merged German team and was tested regularly.

Heike Gabriela Drechsler (; née Daute; born 16 December 1964) is a German former track and field athlete who represented East Germany and later Germany. One of the most successful long jumpers of all-time, she is a former world record holder and ranks third on the all-time list with her legal best of 7.48 metres in 1988. Her marginally wind-assisted jump of 7.63 metres (+2.1) in 1992 at altitude in Sestriere, is still the furthest a woman has ever long jumped. She is the only woman who has won two Olympic gold medals in the long jump, winning in 1992 and 2000.


History.

The Coptic alphabet has a long history, going back to the Hellenistic period, when the Greek alphabet was used to transcribe Demotic texts, with the aim of recording the correct pronunciation of Demotic. During the first two centuries of the Common Era, an entire series of magical texts were written in what scholars term "Old Coptic", Egyptian language texts written in the Greek alphabet. A number of letters, however, were derived from Demotic, and many of these (though not all) are used in "true" Coptic writing. With the spread of Christianity in Egypt, by the late 3rd century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, as well as Demotic slightly later, making way for a writing system more closely associated with the Christian church. By the 4th century, the Coptic alphabet was "standardised", particularly for the Sahidic dialect. (There are a number of differences between the alphabets as used in the various dialects in Coptic.) Coptic is not generally used today except by the members of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria to write their religious texts. All the Gnostic codices found in Nag Hammadi used the Coptic alphabet.  The Old Nubian alphabet—used to write Old Nubian, a Nilo-Saharan language —is written mainly in an uncial Greek alphabet, which borrows Coptic and Meroitic letters of Demotic origin into its inventory.

Form.

The Coptic alphabet was the first Egyptian writing system to indicate vowels, making Coptic documents invaluable for the interpretation of earlier Egyptian texts. Some Egyptian syllables had sonorants but no vowels; in Sahidic, these were written in Coptic with a line above the entire syllable. Various scribal schools made limited use of diacritics: some used an apostrophe as a word divider and to mark clitics, a function of determinatives in logographic Egyptian; others used diereses over and to show that these started a new syllable, others a circumflex over any vowel for the same purpose.  The Coptic alphabet's glyphs are largely based on the Greek alphabet, another help in interpreting older Egyptian texts, with 24 letters of Greek origin; 6 or 7 more were retained from Demotic, depending on the dialect (6 in Sahidic, another each in Bohairic and Akhmimic). In addition to the alphabetic letters, the letter ϯ stood for the syllable or.  As the Coptic alphabet is simply a typeface of the Greek alphabet, with a few added letters, it can be used to write Greek without any transliteration schemes. Latin equivalents would include the Icelandic alphabet (which likewise has added letters), or the Fraktur alphabet (which has distinctive forms). While initially unified with the Greek alphabet by Unicode, a proposal was later accepted to separate it, with the proposal noting that Coptic is never written using modern Greek letter-forms (unlike German, which may be written with Fraktur or Roman Antiqua letter-forms), and that the Coptic letter-forms have closer mutual legibility with the Greek-based letters incorporated into the separately encoded Cyrillic alphabet than with the forms used in modern Greek.

Alphabet table.

Letters derived from Demotic.

In Old Coptic, there were a large number of Demotic Egyptian characters, including some logograms. They were soon reduced to half a dozen, for sounds not covered by the Greek alphabet. The following letters remained:

Unicode.

In Unicode, most Coptic letters formerly shared codepoints with similar Greek letters, but a disunification was accepted for version 4.1, which appeared in 2005. The new Coptic block is U+2C80 to U+2CFF. Most fonts contained in mainstream operating systems use a distinctive Byzantine style for this block. The Greek block includes seven Coptic letters (U+03E2–U+03EF highlighted below) derived from Demotic, and these need to be included in any complete implementation of Coptic.

Diacritics and punctuation.

These are also included in the Unicode specification.

Combining diacritics.

These are codepoints applied after that of the character they modify.

Macrons and overlines.

Coptic uses to indicate syllabic consonants, for example.  Coptic abbreviations use to draw a continuous line across the remaining letters of an abbreviated word. It extends from the left edge of the first letter to the right edge of the last letter. For example,.  A different kind of overline uses,, and to distinguish the spelling of certain common words or to highlight proper names of divinities and heroes. For this the line begins in the middle of the first letter and continues to the middle of the last letter. A few examples:,,.  Coptic numerals are indicated with letters of the alphabet such as for 1. Sometimes numerical use is indicated with a continuous line above using as in for 1,888 (where "" is 1,000 and "" is 888). Multiples of 1,000 can be indicated by a continuous double line above using as in for 1,000.

The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Egyptian Demotic and is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language. There are several Coptic alphabets, as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various dialects and subdialects of the Coptic language.


Early life and education.

Duras was born Marguerite Donnadieu on April 4, 1914, in Gia-Dinh (near to Saigon), Cochinchina, French Indochina (now Vietnam); she was the only daughter of two teachers who had responded to a campaign by the French government encouraging French people to settle in the colony.  Duras's father fell ill soon after their arrival and returned to France, where he died. After his death, her mother remained in Indochina with her three children. The family lived in relative poverty after her mother made a bad investment in an isolated property and area of rice farmland in Cambodia. See, e.g. "Un Barrage contre le Pacifique".  At 17, Duras went to France, her parents' native country, where she began studying for a degree in mathematics. She soon abandoned this to concentrate on political science, then law. After completing her studies, through 1941, she worked for the French government in the Ministry of the Colonies; in the 1930s she also changed her name to Marguerite Duras. In 1939, she married the writer Robert Antelme.  During World War II, from 1942 to 1944, Duras worked for the Vichy government in an office that allocated paper quotas to publishers and in the process operated a "de facto" book-censorship system. She also became an active member of the PCF (the French Communist Party) and a member of the French Resistance as a part of a small group that also included François Mitterrand, who later became President of France and remained a lifelong friend of Duras. Her husband, Antelme, was deported to Buchenwald in 1944 for his involvement in the Resistance, and barely survived the experience (weighing on his release, according to Duras, just 38 kg). She nursed him back to health, but they divorced once he recovered his health.

Career.

Duras was the author of many novels, plays, films, interviews, essays, and works of short fiction, including her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work "L'Amant" (1984), translated into English as "The Lover", which describes her youthful affair with a Chinese man. It won the Prix Goncourt in 1984. The story of her adolescence also appears in three other books: "The Sea Wall", "Eden Cinema" and "The North China Lover". A film version of "The Lover", produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, was released to great success in 1992. Duras's novel "The Sea Wall" was first adapted into the 1958 film "This Angry Age" by René Clément, and again in 2008 by Cambodian director Rithy Panh as "The Sea Wall".  Other major works include "Moderato Cantabile" (1958), which was the basis of the 1960 film "Seven Days... Seven Nights"; "Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein" (1964); and her play "India Song", which Duras herself later directed as a film in 1975. She was also the screenwriter of the 1959 French film "Hiroshima mon amour", which was directed by Alain Resnais. Duras's early novels were fairly conventional in form, and were criticized for their "romanticism" by fellow writer Raymond Queneau; however, with "Moderato Cantabile", she became more experimental, paring down her texts to give ever-increasing importance to what was not said. She was associated with the "nouveau roman" French literary movement, although she did not belong definitively to any one group. She was noted for her command of dialogue.  In 1971, Duras signed the Manifesto of the 343, which publicly announced she had an abortion.  Many of her works, such as "Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein" and "L'Homme assis dans le couloir" (1980), deal with human sexuality.  Towards the end of her life, Duras published a short, 54-page autobiographical book as a goodbye to her readers and family. The very last entry was written on August 1, 1995 and read ""I think it is all over. That my life is finished. I am no longer anything. I have become an appalling sight. I am falling apart. Come quickly. I no longer have a mouth, no longer a face". Duras died at her home in Paris on March 3, 1996, aged 81.

Personal Life.

While married to Robert Antelme, Duras acted on her belief that fidelity was absurd. She created a "menage a trois" when she started an affair with Dionys Mascolo, who fathered one of her sons.  During the final two decades of Duras’ life, she experienced various health issues. Starting in 1980 she was hospitalized for the first time from a combination of alcohol and tranquilizers. She was also undergoing various detoxification procedures to help her recover from her alcohol addiction. After being hospitalized in October of 1988 she fell into a coma that lasted until June of 1989.  Paralleling her health issues in the 1980s, Duras began having a relationship with a homosexual actor named Yann Andréa. Yann Andréa would help Duras through her various health issues. Duras would later detail these interactions and companionship in her final book "Yann Andréas Steiner".  Sadly Duras’ health would continue to decline into the 1990s. Resulting in her death on March 3rd 1996.

Marguerite Donnadieu (4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film "Hiroshima mon amour" (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.


Early life.

August was born in Linz, Austria, the only surviving child to parents of Czech and Sudeten-German origin. He was baptized Catholic at the St. Matthias Church where his parents had married the previous year. His father Michael Kubíček (also born in Linz) was an upholsterer while his mother Maria Panholzer-Bláhová was born illegitimate in Rosenberg an der Moldau, legitimized by her stepfather when she was 14. His sisters Maria, Therese and Karoline died in early childhood. Kubizek later wrote that this was a striking parallel between his own life and that of Adolf Hitler, whose mother had lost four children prematurely. As the surviving sons of grief-stricken mothers, August and Adolf could not help but feel they had been spared or "chosen" by fate.  Kubizek and Hitler first met while competing for standing room in the Landestheater in Linz. Because of their shared passion for the operas of Richard Wagner, they quickly became close friends and later roommates in Vienna while both sought admission into college. The two shared a small room in Stumpergasse 31/2 door 17 in the sixth district of Vienna from 22 February to early July 1908.  As the only son of a self-employed upholsterer, August was expected to someday take over his father's business, but he secretly harboured dreams of becoming a conductor. With Adolf's encouragement, he devoted more and more of his time to this passion, completing all the musical training available to him in Linz. However, to achieve his goal of being an orchestral conductor, he would require higher education in music which was offered only in Vienna. It was an 18-year-old Adolf Hitler who successfully persuaded Kubizek's father to let his son go to the metropolis to attend the conservatory. As Kubizek wrote, this was something that changed the course of his life for good.  He was immediately accepted into the Vienna Conservatory where he quickly made a name for himself. Hitler, however, was twice denied entrance into Vienna's art academy, a fact which he kept hidden from his friend for some time. In 1908, Hitler abruptly broke off the friendship and drifted into homelessness. Kubizek completed his studies in 1912 and was hired as conductor of the orchestra in Marburg on the Drau, Austria (Maribor, in Slovenia, after 1918). He was later offered a position at the Stadttheater in Klagenfurt, but this job and his musical career were cut short by the beginning of World War I. Before leaving for the front, he married Anna Funke (7 October 1887 – 4 October 1976), a violinist from Vienna with whom he had three sons: Augustin, Karl Maria and Rudolf.  From August 1914 until November 1918, Kubizek served as a reservist in Regiment 2 of the Austro-Hungarian Infantry. In the Carpathian winter campaign of 1915, he was wounded at Eperjes in Hungary (now Prešov in Slovakia) and later evacuated to Budapest in an ambulance train. After months of convalescence, he returned to the front and was attached to a mechanised corps in Vienna. After the war, Kubizek accepted a position as an official in the municipal council of Eferding, Upper Austria and music became his hobby.

Later contact with Hitler.

After seeing Hitler on the front page of the "Münchner Illustrierte" (circa 1920), Kubizek followed his friend's career with some interest, although he did not attempt to contact him until 1933 when he wrote to congratulate him on having become Chancellor of Germany. On 4 August of that year, Kubizek received an unexpected reply from Hitler, who wrote to his old friend "Gustl" saying, "I should be very glad... to revive once more with you those memories of the best years of my life." Thirty years after Hitler had broken off contact with Kubizek, the two friends were reunited on 9 April 1938 during one of Hitler's visits to Linz. The two spoke for over an hour at the Hotel Weinzinger and Hitler offered Kubizek the conductorship of an orchestra, which Kubizek politely refused. Upon learning of his friend's three sons, Hitler insisted on financing their educations at the Anton Bruckner Conservatory in Linz. Hitler later invited Kubizek to attend the Bayreuth festival as his guest in 1939 and again in 1940, experiences described by Kubizek as "the happiest hours of my earthly existence".  In 1938, Kubizek was hired by the Nazi Party to write two short propaganda booklets called "Reminiscences" about his youth with Hitler. In one episode, Kubizek said that Hitler had a great love for a girl named "Stefanie" and wrote her many love poems but never sent them. Hitler biographer John Toland noted that when Stefanie learned she had been an early subject of Hitler's affection, she was stunned.  Kubizek saw Hitler for the last time on 23 July 1940, although as late as 1944, Hitler sent Kubizek's mother a food basket for her 80th birthday. Hitler told Kubizek: "This war will set us back many years in our building programme. It is a tragedy. I did not become Chancellor of the Greater German Reich to fight wars." Hitler was speaking after the successful campaigns in Poland and France that he as Führer had led.  When the tide began to turn against Hitler, Kubizek, who had avoided politics all his life, became a member of the Nazi Party in 1942 as a gesture of loyalty to his friend.

Later life, imprisonment and memoirs.

In December 1945, Kubizek gathered the collection of keepsakes given to him by Hitler during their youth and concealed them carefully in the basement of his house in Eferding. He was arrested by American forces shortly afterwards and held at Glasenbach, where he was imprisoned and interrogated by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. His home was searched, but the Hitler correspondence and drawings were not found. He was released on 8 April 1947.  In 1951, Kubizek, who had rejected other post-war offers for his memoirs, agreed to publish "Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund" ("Adolf Hitler, My Childhood Friend") through the Leopold Stocker Verlag. The original manuscript, written in 1943 at the behest of Martin Bormann, had been only 150 pages long. However, after communications answering questions from the Hitler biographer Franz Jetzinger, his new extended version had 352 pages and included several pictures, many of which showed postcards and sketches given to Kubizek by Hitler when young, between the years 1906 and 1908. The book is divided into three parts and consists of a prologue, 24 chapters and an epilogue.  It caused a stir when it was released in 1953 and was later translated into several languages. In the epilogue, Kubizek wrote, "Even though I, a fundamentally unpolitical individual, had always kept aloof from the political events of the period which ended forever in 1945, nevertheless no power on earth could compel me to deny my friendship with Adolf Hitler."  Kubizek's second wife and widow, Pauline (1906–2001), was credited with having provided the Stocker Verlag with additional photographs for the book's fourth edition in 1975.  On 8 January 1956, Kubizek was named the first honorary member of the Musikverein in Eferding. He died on 23 October 1956, aged 68, in Linz and is buried in Eferding, Upper Austria.

In popular culture.

Kubizek is portrayed by Rupert Grint in the short 2017 movie "Adolf Hitler: The Artist" in which Hitler calls him "Gustl".

August ("Gustl") Friedrich Kubizek (3 August 1888 – 23 October 1956) was an Austrian musical conductor best known for being a close friend of Adolf Hitler, when both were in their late teens. He later wrote about their friendship in his book "The Young Hitler I Knew" (1955).


History.

The German Alpine Club was founded as on 9 May 1869 in Munich by 36 former members of the Austrian Alpine Club around the Ötztal curate Franz Senn, in order to promote the tourist development of the Eastern Alps by the erection of mountain huts, hiking trails, and via ferratas. The association enjoyed a large clientele from the beginning, with a number of 1070 members after only 10 months. The German and the Austrian societies merged in 1873 to form the German and Austrian Alpine Club (DÖAV). Already in the late 19th century, the association's policies were increasingly characterized by nationalism and antisemitism. In 1899 the Brandenburg section amended an "Aryan paragraph" to exclude non-Christian members, followed by the Vienna section in 1905 and the Alpine corporations of Vienna and Munich in 1907 and 1910. After World War I, the Jewish associates like Viktor Frankl and Fred Zinnemann (adding up to about one third of the membership) were banned in most of the sections and in turn established a separate "Donauland" section insisting on their DÖAV fellowship. The "Donauland" members were officially ousted in 1924. Jews were even banned from visiting the DÖAV mountain huts.  Upon the 1938 Austrian "Anschluss" to Nazi Germany, the DÖAV was renamed "Deutscher Alpenverein" (DAV) under the leadership of Arthur Seyss-Inquart and incorporated as mountaineering division of the "Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen" (National Socialist League of the Reich for Physical Exercise) organization. After World War II, the DAV was dissolved by the Allied authorities. Its assets were held by the Austrian Alpine Club as trustee.  The German Alpine Club was re-established in 1952. It joined the organization in 1992. After leaving the Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme in 2008, mainly due to differences in respecting both competitions and recreational sports, the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs rejoined the Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme in 2013.

Structure.

The DAV is an umbrella organization of 358 legally independent regional sections with a total of around 1,3 million members. Every section is a registered voluntary association ("Eingetragener Verein", e.V.) in its own right; it exclusively admits to membership. The collective body of the sections is represented by the general assembly, association council, and presidium.  Main task of the Club is the maintenance of mountain huts. The sections currently provide 321 alpine club huts to hikers and mountaineers, as well as 207 indoor climbing gyms. The DAV publishes Alpine Club maps and the "Alpine Club Guides" in cooperation with Bergverlag Rother, organises hillwalks and alpine style tours, has mountaineering equipment available and arranges collective insurances. It also runs the Alpine Museum on Prater Island in Munich. In recent years, the Club's policies have turned to habitat conservation of fauna and flora of the Alps.

The German Alpine Club (, DAV for short) is the world's largest climbing association, and the eighth-largest sports union in Germany. The Club is a member of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, and the responsible body for sport and competition climbing, hiking, mountaineering, hill walking, ice climbing, mountain expeditions, as well as ski mountaineering.


Names.

The Italian name of the city was anciently spelled as "Capo d'Istria", and as such reported on maps and sources in other European languages. Modern names of the city include:,,.

History.

Koper began as a settlement built on an island in the southeastern part of the Gulf of Koper in the northern Adriatic. Called "Insula Caprea" (Goat Island) or "Capro" by Roman settlers, it developed into the city of Aegida, which was mentioned by the Roman author Pliny the Elder in his "Naturalis Historia (Natural History) (iii. 19. s. 23).  In 568, Roman citizens of nearby Tergeste (modern Trieste) fled to Aegida due to an invasion of the Lombards. In honour of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, the town was renamed "Justinopolis". Later, Justinopolis was under both Lombard and Frankish rule and was briefly occupied by Avars in the 8th century.  Since at least the 8th century (and possibly as early as the 6th century) Koper was the seat of a diocese. One of Koper's bishops was the Lutheran reformer Pier Paolo Vergerio. In 1828, it was merged into the Diocese of Trieste.  Trade between Koper and Venice has been recorded since 932. In the war between Venice and the Holy Roman Empire, Koper was on the German side, and as a result was awarded with town rights, granted in 1035 by Emperor Conrad II. After 1232, Koper was under the Patriarch of Aquileia, and in 1278 it joined the Republic of Venice. It was at this time that the city walls and towers were partly demolished.  In 1420, the Patriarch of Aquileia ceded his remaining possessions in Istria to the Republic, consolidating Venetian power in Koper.  Koper grew to become the capital of Venetian Istria and was renamed "Caput Histriae" 'head of Istria' (from which stems its modern Italian name, "Capodistria").  The 16th century saw the population of Koper fall drastically, from its high of between 10,000 and 12,000 inhabitants, due to repeated plague epidemics. When Trieste became a free port in 1719, Koper lost its monopoly on trade, and its importance diminished further.  According to the 1900 census, 7,205 Italian, 391 Slovenian, 167 Croatian, and 67 German inhabitants lived in Koper.  Assigned to Italy after World War I, at the end of World War II it was part of the Zone B of the Free Territory of Trieste, controlled by Yugoslavia. Most of the Italian inhabitants left the city by 1954, when the Free Territory of Trieste formally ceased to exist and Zone B became part of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1977, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Koper was separated from the Diocese of Trieste.  With Slovenian independence in 1991, Koper became the only commercial port in Slovenia. The University of Primorska is based in the city.

Architecture.

Koper's 15th-century Praetorian Palace is located on the city square. It was built from two older 13th-century houses that were connected by a loggia, rebuilt many times, and then finished as a Venetian Gothic palace. Today, it is home to the city of Koper's tourist office.  The city's Cathedral of the Assumption was built in the second half of the 12th century and has one of the oldest bells in Slovenia (from 1333), cast by Master Jakob in Venice. The upper terrace is periodically open and offers a great view of the Bay of Trieste. In the middle of it hangs the Sacra Conversatione painting from 1516, one of the best Renaissance paintings in Slovenia, made by Vittore Carpaccio.

Climate.

Koper has a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa"). There is an adequate amount of rainfall in Koper, even in the driest month. This climate is considered to be Cfa according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. The average temperature in Koper is. The average annual rainfall is.

Demographics.

Italian was once the main language in the town, spoken by 92% of the population in 1900, but this number decreased sharply after Slovenian Istria was incorporated into Yugoslavia in 1954 and many ethnic Italians left the town. Today, Italian is mainly used as a second language by the Slovene-speaking majority.

The Port of Koper.

"Full article: Port of Koper"  First established during the Roman Empire, the port of Koper has played an important role in the development of the area. It is among the largest in the region and is one of the most important transit routes for goods heading from Asia to central Europe. In contrast with other European ports, which are managed by port authorities, the activities of the Port of Koper comprise the management of the free zone area, the management of the port area, and the role of terminal operator.

International relations.

Twin towns and cities.

Koper is twinned with:

Koper () (, ) is the fifth largest city in Slovenia. Located in the Istrian region in southwestern part of the country, approximately five kilometres () south of the border with Italy and 20 kilometres () from Trieste, Koper is the largest coastal city in the country. It is bordered by the satellite towns of Izola and Ankaran. With a unique ecology and biodiversity, it is considered an important natural resource. The city's Port of Koper is the major contributor to the economy of the Municipality of Koper. With only one percent of Slovenia having a coastline, the influence that the Port of Koper also has on tourism was a factor in Ankaran deciding to leave the municipality in a referendum in 2011 to establish its own. The city is a destination for a number of Mediterranean cruising lines. Koper is the main urban centre of the Slovenian Istria, with a population of about 25,000. Ales Brzan is the current mayor, serving since 2018.


Production.

In 2004, an estimated 1.3 million tonnes were produced worldwide. The combined annual production in 1985 of Japan, North America, and Europe was about 400,000 tonnes. The global ethyl acetate market was valued at $3.3 billion in 2018.  Ethyl acetate is synthesized in industry mainly via the classic Fischer esterification reaction of ethanol and acetic acid. This mixture converts to the ester in about 65% yield at room temperature: The reaction can be accelerated by acid catalysis and the equilibrium can be shifted to the right by removal of water.  It is also prepared in industry using the Tishchenko reaction, by combining two equivalents of acetaldehyde in the presence of an alkoxide catalyst:  Silicotungstic acid is used to manufacture ethyl acetate by the alkylation of acetic acid by ethylene:

Uses.

Ethyl acetate is used primarily as a solvent and diluent, being favored because of its low cost, low toxicity, and agreeable odor. For example, it is commonly used to clean circuit boards and in some nail varnish removers (acetone is also used). Coffee beans and tea leaves are decaffeinated with this solvent. It is also used in paints as an activator or hardener. Ethyl acetate is present in confectionery, perfumes, and fruits. In perfumes, it evaporates quickly, leaving only the scent of the perfume on the skin.

Laboratory uses.

In the laboratory, mixtures containing ethyl acetate are commonly used in column chromatography and extractions. Ethyl acetate is rarely selected as a reaction solvent because it is prone to hydrolysis, transesterification, and condensations.

Occurrence in wines.

Ethyl acetate is the most common ester in wine, being the product of the most common volatile organic acid – acetic acid, and the ethyl alcohol generated during the fermentation. The aroma of ethyl acetate is most vivid in younger wines and contributes towards the general perception of "fruitiness" in the wine. Sensitivity varies, with most people having a perception threshold around 120 mg/L. Excessive amounts of ethyl acetate are considered a wine fault.

Reactions.

Ethyl acetate hydrolyses to give acetic acid and ethanol. Bases accelerate the hydrolysis, which is subject to the Fischer equilibrium mentioned above. In the laboratory, and usually for illustrative purposes only, ethyl esters are typically hydrolyzed in a two-step process starting with a stoichiometric amount of a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide. This reaction gives ethanol and sodium acetate, which is unreactive toward ethanol:  Under anhydrous conditions, strong bases induce the Claisen condensation to give ethyl acetoacetate:

Safety.

The for rats is 5620 mg/kg, indicating low toxicity. Given that the chemical is naturally present in many organisms, there is little risk of toxicity.  In the field of entomology, ethyl acetate is an effective asphyxiant for use in insect collecting and study. In a killing jar charged with ethyl acetate, the vapors will kill the collected insect quickly without destroying it. Because it is not hygroscopic, ethyl acetate also keeps the insect soft enough to allow proper mounting suitable for a collection.  Overexposure to ethyl acetate may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. Severe overexposure may cause weakness, drowsiness, and unconsciousness. Humans exposed to a concentration of 400 ppm in 1.4 mg/L ethyl acetate for a short time were affected by nose and throat irritation. Ethyl acetate is an irritant of the conjunctiva and mucous membrane of the respiratory tract. Animal experiments have shown that, at very high concentrations, the ester has central nervous system depressant and lethal effects; at concentrations of 20,000 to 43,000 ppm (2.0–4.3%), there may be pulmonary edema with hemorrhages, symptoms of central nervous system depression, secondary anemia and liver damage. In humans, concentrations of 400 ppm cause irritation of the nose and pharynx; cases have also been known of irritation of the conjunctiva with temporary opacity of the cornea. In rare cases exposure may cause sensitization of the mucous membrane and eruptions of the skin. The irritant effect of ethyl acetate is weaker than that of propyl acetate or butyl acetate.

Ethyl acetate (systematically ethyl ethanoate, commonly abbreviated EtOAc, ETAC or EA) is the organic compound with the formula, simplified to. This colorless liquid has a characteristic sweet smell (similar to pear drops) and is used in glues, nail polish removers, and in the decaffeination process of tea and coffee. Ethyl acetate is the ester of ethanol and acetic acid; it is manufactured on a large scale for use as a solvent.


Early life.

Nuno Álvares Pereira was born on 24 June 1360 in Flor da Rosa, near Crato, central Portugal, the illegitimate son of Dom Álvaro Gonçalves Pereira, Prior of Crato and Iria Gonçalves do Carvalhal. His grandfather was Dom Gonçalo (Gonçalves) Pereira, 97th Archbishop of Braga (1326–1349). He was descended from the oldest Portuguese and Galician nobility.  About a year after his birth, the child was legitimized by royal decree and so was able to receive a knightly education typical of the offspring of the noble families of the time.  At 13 years of age he became page to Queen Leonor. At age 16, he married Leonor de Alvim, a rich young widow, daughter of João Pires de Alvim and wife Branca Pires Coelho and childless widow of Vasco Gonçalves Barroso. Three children were born to the union, two boys who died early in life, and a girl, Beatrice, who would eventually marry Afonso, first Duke of Bragança, son of King João I.

Military life.

Nuno began military service in 1373, when he was only 13, and helped stop an invasion from Castile. However, according to his own words, his first military campaigns were no more than skirmishes on the borders of Portugal. He was an impetuous and brave young man who soon showed himself to be an excellent leader.  When King Fernando I of Portugal died in 1383, his only heir was Beatrice, married to king John I of Castile. In order to preserve Portuguese independence, the nobles supported the claim of King Fernando's step-brother John, Master of Aviz to the throne. John was a natural son of Peter I of Portugal. After his first victory over the Castilians, in the Battle of Atoleiros (April 1384), João of Aviz named Nuno Álvares Pereira Protector and second Constable of Portugal ("Condestável do Reino"), in practice supreme commander of Portugal’s armies, and third Count of Ourém. He was only 24 years old.  Nuno used guerilla tactics trying to dislodge the Castilian army besieging Lisbon in 1384 but plague finally drove them away.  In April 1385, João of Aviz was recognized as king by the kingdom assembly (the "Cortes") as John I. This triggered an invasion of the country by Juan I of Castile, in support of his wife's rights to the throne. Nuno Álvares Pereira was engaged against the northern cities loyal to the Castilians. During this time of war, he fed the hungry populations of his Castilian opposition at his own expense. On 14 August 1385, at Aljubarrota he led 6,500 volunteers to victory against a Castilian force of over 30,000, thus ending the threat of annexation. He attributed the victory to the Blessed Virgin, whose name, Maria, was inscribed on his sword. Dedicated to Mary, he fasted on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The banner he chose as his personal standard bore the image of the cross, of Mary and of the saintly knights James and George. At his own expense he built numerous churches and monasteries, among which was the Carmelite church in Lisbon and the church of Our Lady of Victories at Batalha.  After the 1383-1385 Crisis, Álvares Pereira received from John I the titles of second Count of Arraiolos and seventh Count of Barcelos, which, along with the previous one, were the only three countdoms existing at the time and which had been taken from nobles who had taken the part of Castile. He was also made the 38th "Mordomo-Mór" (Major Majordomo) of the Realm.  Not wanting to give the enemy room to manoeuvre, John I and his supreme general took the offensive and raided several Castilian towns, defeating once again a much larger Castilian army at the Battle of Valverde. He continued to watch out for Juan I of Castile, until his death in 1390. When hostilities ended, he gave the bulk of his wealth to the veterans.

Religious life.

After the death of his wife, he became a Carmelite friar (he joined the Order in 1423) at the Carmo Convent (Lisbon) which he had founded in fulfilment of a vow, and took the name of Friar Nuno of Saint Mary (). There he lived until his death on 1 November of 1431. He was noted for his prayer, his practise of penance and his filial devotion to the Mother of God. Nuno suffered from debilitating arthritis.  During the last year of his life, King John I went to visit and embrace him for the last time. He wept for he considered Nuno Álvares Pereira his closest friend, the one who had put him on the throne and saved his country's independence.  Nuno Álvares Pereira's tomb was lost in the famous 1755 Lisbon earthquake. His epitaph read:

Veneration.

Nuno was beatified on 23 January 1918 by Pope Benedict XV. He was celebrated liturgically on 1 April as an obligatory memorial by the Order of Carmelites and as an optional memorial by the Order of Discalced Carmelites.  He had been on the point of being canonised by decree in 1940 by Pope Pius XII. According to a recent statement by the postulator general of the Carmelite Order, his canonisation was postponed for diplomatic reasons (the Portuguese ambassador indicated that the time was not right).  On 3 July 2008 Pope Benedict XVI signed two decrees in Rome, promulgating the heroic virtues of Nuno and the authenticity of a miracle that had already been previously confirmed as such by medical and theological commissions. By this act, the pope formally canonised Friar Nuno de Santa Maria Álvares Pereira. The public celebration of his canonisation took place on 26 April 2009 in Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican City. The Carmelites now celebrate St Nuno on 6 November; the date also appointed for his feast in Portugal.

Legacy.

The Blessed Nuno Society is a mission society and prayer apostolate officially recognized by the Catholic Church as a diocesan Private Association of the Christian Faithful and affiliated with, the Catholic Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota.  Nuno Álvares Pereira had a daughter by his marriage to Leonor de Alvim, Beatriz Pereira de Alvim, who later became the wife of Afonso, first Duke of Braganza. Therefore, Nuno Álvares Pereira was, through the female line, the ancestor of the House of Braganza which became the Portuguese royal house in the 17th century, ruling the Kingdom of Portugal (1640–1910), the Kingdom of Brazil (1815–1822) and the Empire of Brazil (1822–1889).

D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, O. Carm. (; 24 June 1360 – 1 November 1431), also spelled Nun'Álvares Pereira, 7th Count of Barcelos, 3rd Count of Ourém and 2nd Count of Arraiolos, was a Portuguese general of great success who had a decisive role in the 1383-1385 Crisis that assured Portugal's independence from Castile. He later became a mystic and was beatified by Pope Benedict XV, in 1918, and canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.


Etymology and meaning.

The word in Arabic stems from a triliteral root connected with age and aging:, "shīn-yā'-khā"'. The title carries the meaning leader, elder, or noble, especially in the Arabian Peninsula within the Tribes of Arabia, where "shaikh" became a traditional title of a Bedouin tribal leader in recent centuries. Due to the cultural impact of Arab civilization, and especially through the spread of Islam, the word has gained currency as a religious term or general honorific in many other parts of the world as well, notably in Muslim cultures in Africa and Asia.

Sufi term.

In Sufism, the word "Sheikh" is used to represent a "wali" who initiates a particular "tariqa" which leads to Muhammad, although many saints have this title added before their names out of respect from their followers. Two prominent examples are Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani, who initiated the Qadiriyya order, and Shaikh Ahmad al-Tijani, who initiated the Tijaniyyah sufi order.

Regional usage.

Arabian Peninsula.

In the Arabian Peninsula, the title is used for royalty, such as kings, princes, and princesses. For example, it was the term used in the West to refer to the leaders of Kuwait's ruling Al-Sabah dynasty, and in UAE Al-Nahyan dynasty and Al Maktoum dynasty. The same applies to all the Arab states of the Persian Gulf countries. The term is used by almost every male and female (Sheikha) member of all the Gulf royal houses.

Lebanon.

In Mount Lebanon, the title had the same princely and royal connotation as in the Arabian peninsula until the Ottoman invasion in 1516 since it represented an indigenous autonomous "sui iuris" ruler or tribal chief. An example of an ancient families that holds the title of "sui iuris" sheikh is the Al-Chemor family ruling since 1211 CE in Koura and Zgharta until 1747 CE, the Boudib Family (descendants of the Hashemite Family) who were Ehdenian rulers of Jebbeh since 1471 CE until 1759 CE. Descendants of this royal family now live in Miziara, Mexico and Nigeria, and the Abu Harmoush family which ruled the Chouf region until the Battle of Ain Dara in 1711 CE. After the Ottoman rule and the implementation of the Iltizam system, the title gained a noble instead of royal connotation since it was bestowed by a higher authority, in this case the Ottoman appointed Emir who was nothing more than a mültezim or tax collector for the empire. Some very influential Maronite families—who had the title bestowed upon them in chronological order—are El Hachem of Akoura (descendants of the Hashemite Family, since 1523), El-Khazen (since 1545), Hubaysh of Kisrawan, and Douaihy of Zgharta. Other families who are nowadays addressed or known as "Sheikhs" were not traditionally rulers of provinces, but instead they were high-ranking officials at the service of the Emir at that time.

Maghreb.

In the Maghreb, during the Almohad dynasty, the caliph was also counseled by a body of shaykhs. They represented all the different tribes under their rules, including Arabs, (Bedouins), Andalusians and Berbers and were also responsible for mobilizing their kinsmen in the event of war.

Horn of Africa.

In the Muslim parts of the Horn of Africa, Sheikh is often used as a noble title. In Somali society, it is reserved as an honorific for senior Muslim leaders and clerics ("wadaad"), and is often abbreviated to "Sh". Famous local Sheikhs include Abdirahman bin Isma'il al-Jabarti, an early Muslim leader in northern Somalia; Abadir Umar Ar-Rida, the patron saint of Harar; Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, Sheikh of the riwaq in Cairo who recorded the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt; Abd Al-Rahman bin Ahmad al-Zayla'i, scholar who played a crucial role in the spread of the Qadiriyyah movement in Somalia and East Africa; Shaykh Sufi, 19th century scholar, poet, reformist and astrologist; Abdallah al-Qutbi, polemicist, theologian and philosopher best known for his five-part "Al-Majmu'at al-mubaraka" ("The Blessed Collection"); and Muhammad Al-Sumaalee, teacher in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca who influenced many of the prominent Islamic scholars of today.

South Asia.

In South Asia it is not an ethnic title but an occupational title generally attributed to Muslim trading families with rarely any Arab lineage. After the advent of Islam in South Asia, (Brahmins, Rajputs, Khatris, Kayasthas and vaishya) tribes also converted to Islam and adopted the title.In Punjab, Pakistan the Hindu Brahmins, Kshatriya, Rathores, Bhattis, Chauhans, manihar and other Rajput converted by different Ismaili Pirs to Islam. Ismaili Pirs gave the new converts of Punjab the hereditary title of Shaikh as well as the Muslims who immigrated from Central Asia and settled in Punjab adopted this title.  Distinguished Sindhi Shaikhs include Imtiaz Shaikh, MPA Shikarpur and Special Advisor to PM and Former Provincial Minister and Bureaucrat, Sindh; Shaikh Ayaz, Sindhi poet of Pakistan; Najmudddin Shaikh, Former Foreign Secretary, Pakistan; Ghulam Shabir Shaikh, Former IGP Sindh, Pakistan; Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Federal Finance Minister, Pakistan; Muhammad Ayub Shaikh, Chairman Employees' Old Age Benefits Institution], Pakistan; Maqbool Shaikh, Former Provincial Minister for Food and Health, Sindh; Faraz Shaikh, Chairman Sindh Naujawan Shaikh Ittehad, Sindh; Faryaz Nisar Shaikh, Vice Chairman Sindh Naujawan Shaikh Ittehad, Sindh; Imam Bux Shaikh, Former General Secretary Peoples Students Federation Karachi, Former General Secretary Peoples Engineers Forum Sindh, Famous Student Leader of Pakistan.

Southeast Asia.

In Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, Sheikhs are respected by local Muslims. In Indonesia, the term is usually spelled "Syech", and this is usually attributed to elderly alims. Higher knowledgeable people of Islamic studies in Indonesia are usually referred to as "Ustad" or "Kyai".

Iran.

From the perspective of Iran (which includes Islamic view, too), the word or title of Sheikh possesses diverse meanings, among the individuals who are aged, wise, scientist; and totally it has been a honorable title who was/is used for the elders/learned (scholars), such as: Sheikh al-Rayees Abu Ali Sina, Sheikh Mufid, Sheikh Morteza Ansari, etc. In the past, the ones (Islamic scholars) who were from the Islamic prophet Muhammad's offspring/descendants, were called Sayyid/Seyyed instead of Sheikh.

For women.

Historically, female scholars in Islam were referred to as "shaykhah" (Arabic: ) (alt. "shaykhat"). Notable "shaykha" include the 10th-century Shaykhah Fakhr-un-Nisa Shuhdah and 18th-century scholar Al-Shaykha Fatima al-Fudayliyya.  A daughter or wife or mother of a sheikh is also called a "shaykhah". Currently, the term "shaykhah" is commonly used for women of ruling families, in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf with the exception of Oman.

Sheikh (, ; ', mostly pronounced, plural')—also transliterated Sheik, Sheyikh, Shaykh, Shayk, Cheikh, Shekh, Shaik and Shaikh—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates the ruler of a tribe or a royal family member, who inherited the title from his father. "Sheikh" is given to a royal male at birth and the related title "Sheikha" is given to a royal female at birth.


History.

According to the Landnámabók (the book of settlement), Skutulsfjördur was first settled by Helgi Magri Hrólfsson in the 9th century. In the 16th century, the town grew as it became a trading post for foreign merchants. Witch trials were common around the same time throughout the Westfjords, and many people were banished to the nearby peninsula of Hornstrandir, now a national nature reserve. The town of Ísafjörður was granted municipal status in 1786.  The former Danish trading post "Neðstikaupstaður", established in the 18th century, contains the oldest collection of timber frame houses in Iceland. These include "Krambúð" (1757), "Faktorshús" (1765), "Tjöruhúsið" (1781), and the site of the Westfjords Heritage Museum "Turnhúsið" (1784).

Geography and climate.

The Westfjords are known to be the coolest area in Iceland at sea level. Ísafjörður has a tundra climate (Köppen climate classification: ET), closely bordering on either a dry-summer subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification: Dsc) or a cold-summer mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csc), depending on if you use the 0°C isotherm or the -3°C isotherm. The climate is characterised by cold winters and cool summers. The warmest month is July with the mean temperature of ; the wettest is November with of precipitation. The climate has significantly warmed in recent years due to the effects of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.  As the rest of Iceland, Ísafjörður experiences high winds and very few clear days throughout all the year.

Overview.

The town is connected by road and a road tunnel to Bolungarvík which lies to the northwest, and to the village of Súðavík to the east. The partly one-lane Vestfjarðagöng (Vestfirðir Tunnel), completed in 1996, leads to the towns of Flateyri and Suðureyri, and to the western parts of the Westfjords. Ísafjörður has an airport with regular flights to Reykjavík.  Fishing has been the main industry in Ísafjörður, and the town has one of the largest fisheries in Iceland. A severe decline in the fishing industry for a variety of reasons, such as fishing restrictions in the early 1980s, and a decline in the fish population, has led the inhabitants to seek work elsewhere, leading to a decline in the town's population. The harbor also serves ferries to nearby settlements as well as larger cruise ships for tourists visiting the area. The tourist industry is growing; it is a major access point to the nature reserve on the Hornstrandir Peninsula, an uninhabited wilderness area to which ferries run weekly during summer.  Despite its size, small population, and historical isolation from the rest of the country, the town has a relatively urban atmosphere. Ísafjörður has a school of music, as well as a hospital. The older former hospital building now accommodates a cultural center with a library and showrooms. Recently, the small town has become known in the country as a center for alternative music outside of Iceland. A yearly festival, Aldrei fór ég suður, provides a platform for local musicians and bands from around Iceland and even from overseas. A university center, Háskólasetur Vestfjarða, which acts as a distance learning center for the 7000 residents of the Westfjords, was established in March 2005.

Education.

Ísafjörður is the home to the University Centre of the Westfjords. The University Centre offers three master's degree programs. One in Coastal & Marine Management, one in Coastal Communities and Regional Development and another in Marine Innovation. Students graduate from the University of Akureyri.  The only gymnasium located in the Westfjords, Menntaskólinn á Ísafirði, is in Ísafjörður. The students range from 16 to 20 years of age, as is traditional in Icelandic gymnasium.

Business.

Major employers in the region include Hraðfrystihúsið-Gunnvör, 3X technology, Klofningur, and Íslandssaga. Ísafjörður is also the base of several noteworthy start-up companies including Fossadalur and Kerecis.

Culture.

The town hosts varied and widely popular events, in the realms of both culture and outdoor recreation. These events include, but are not limited to:

Annual music festivals.

Aldrei fór ég suður – Ísafjörður Rock Festival  In 2002, Ísafjörður's own Mugison (a.k.a. Örn Elías Guðmundsson) and his father organized the first Aldrei fór ég suður Music Festival as a free concert to support the burgeoning music community in Ísafjörður. The event has been established as an annual festival in mid April. The name "Aldrei fór ég suður" (I never went south) is taken from a Bubbi Morthens song of the same name, and may refer to a movement among young Icelanders to establish cultural events outside Reykjavík, and draw attention back to the nation's roots in the countryside. The festival's subtitle is ""rokkhátið alþýðunnar"" or "rock festival for the people."  Við Djúpið Music Festival  Since 2001, the Við Djúpið Music Festival has offered master classes and concerts with nationwide and worldwide known artists, such as Erling Blöndal Bengtsson, cellist and Vovka Ashkenazy, pianist as well as the Pacifica Quartet, Evan Ziporyn, clarinetist, composer, and a member of the band Bang on a Can gave a master class and concert in Ísafjörður during Við Djúpið 2007 and among performers at the 2008 festival where Pekka Kuusisto, violinist with Simon Crawford-Phillips, pianist and Håkon Austbø, pianist.

Sports.

Ísafjörður is the home of Íþróttafélagið Vestri and Knattspyrnufélagið Hörður multi-sports clubs. Vestri fields departments in basketball, football, volleyball and bicycling. Its men's and women's basketball teams have played in the top-tier basketball leagues in the country while its men's volleyball team was promoted to the top-tier division in 2019.  Knattspyrnufélagið Hörður was originally a football club but has fielded other departments, most prominently in handball, track & field, skiing and Icelandic wrestling.

Ísafjörður (pronounced, meaning "ice fjord" or "fjord of ice", ice in plural genitive) is a town in the northwest of Iceland.


History.

The first International Electrical Congress took place in 1881 at the International Exposition of Electricity, held in Paris. At that time the International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units was agreed to.  The International Electrotechnical Commission held its inaugural meeting on 26 June 1906, following discussions among the British Institution of Electrical Engineers, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and others, which began at the 1900 Paris International Electrical Congress, and continued with Colonel R. E. B. Crompton playing a key role. In 1906, Lord Kelvin was elected as the first President of the International Electrotechnical Commission.  The IEC was instrumental in developing and distributing standards for units of measurement, particularly the gauss, hertz, and weber. It also first proposed a system of standards, the Giorgi System, which ultimately became the SI, or Système International d’unités (in English, the International System of Units).  In 1938, it published a multilingual international vocabulary to unify terminology relating to electrical, electronic and related technologies. This effort continues, and the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (the on-line version of which is known as the "Electropedia") remains an important work in the electrical and electronic industries.  The CISPR ("Comité International Spécial des Perturbations Radioélectriques") – in English, the International Special Committee on Radio Interference – is one of the groups founded by the IEC.  Currently, 86 countries are IEC members while another 87 participate in the Affiliate Country Programme, which is not a form of membership but is designed to help industrializing countries get involved with the IEC. Originally located in London, the Commission moved to its current headquarters in Geneva in 1948.  It has regional centres in Africa [(Nairobi, Kenya)], Asia-Pacific (Singapore), Latin America (São Paulo, Brazil) and North America (Boston, United States).  Today, the IEC is the world's leading international organization in its field, and its standards are adopted as national standards by its members. The work is done by some 10,000 electrical and electronics experts from industry, government, academia, test labs and others with an interest in the subject.

IEC standards.

IEC standards have numbers in the range 60000–79999 and their titles take a form such as "IEC 60417: Graphical symbols for use on equipment". Following the Dresden Agreement with CENELEC the numbers of older IEC standards were converted in 1997 by adding 60000, for example IEC 27 became IEC 60027. Standards of the 60000 series are also found preceded by EN to indicate that the IEC standard is also adopted by CENELEC as a European standard; for example IEC 60034 is also available as EN 60034.  The IEC cooperates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In addition, it works with several major standards development organizations, including the IEEE with which it signed a cooperation agreement in 2002, which was amended in 2008 to include joint development work.  Standards developed jointly with ISO such as ISO/IEC 26300 ("Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0"), ISO/IEC 27001 ("Information technology, Security techniques, Information security management systems, Requirements"), and CASCO ISO/IEC 17000 series, carry the acronym of both organizations. The use of the ISO/IEC prefix covers publications from ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 - Information Technology, as well as conformity assessment standards developed by ISO CASCO and IEC CAB (Conformity Assessment Board). Other standards developed in cooperation between IEC and ISO are assigned numbers in the 80000 series, such as IEC 82045–1.  IEC standards are also being adopted by other certifying bodies such as BSI (United Kingdom), CSA (Canada), UL & ANSI/INCITS (United States), SABS (South Africa), SAI (Australia), SPC/GB (China) and DIN (Germany). IEC standards adopted by other certifying bodies may have some noted differences from the original IEC standard.

Membership and participation.

The IEC is made up of members, called national committees, and each NC represents its nation's electrotechnical interests in the IEC. This includes manufacturers, providers, distributors and vendors, consumers and users, all levels of governmental agencies, professional societies and trade associations as well as standards developers from national standards bodies. National committees are constituted in different ways. Some NCs are public sector only, some are a combination of public and private sector, and some are private sector only. About 90% of those who prepare IEC standards work in industry.  IEC Member countries include:

Full members.

Associate members (limited voting and managerial rights).

Source:

Affiliates.

In 2001 and in response to calls from the WTO to open itself to more developing nations, the IEC launched the Affiliate Country Programme to encourage developing nations to become involved in the Commission's work or to use its International Standards. Countries signing a pledge to participate in the work and to encourage the use of IEC Standards in national standards and regulations are granted access to a limited number of technical committee documents for the purposes of commenting. In addition, they can select a limited number of IEC Standards for their national standards' library. Countries as of 2011 participating in the Affiliate Country Programme are:

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: "Commission électrotechnique internationale") is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology". IEC standards cover a vast range of technologies from power generation, transmission and distribution to home appliances and office equipment, semiconductors, fibre optics, batteries, solar energy, nanotechnology and marine energy as well as many others. The IEC also manages four global conformity assessment systems that certify whether equipment, system or components conform to its international standards.


History.

The common rail system prototype was developed in the late 1960s by Robert Huber of Switzerland, and the technology was further developed by Dr. Marco Ganser at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, later of Ganser-Hydromag AG (est.1995) in Oberägeri.  The first successful use in a production vehicle began in Japan by the mid-1990s. Dr. Shohei Itoh and Masahiko Miyaki of the Denso Corporation, a Japanese automotive-parts manufacturer, developed the common rail fuel system for heavy-duty vehicles and turned it into practical use on their ECD-U2 common rail system mounted on the Hino Ranger truck and sold for general use in 1995. Denso claims the first commercial high-pressure common rail system in 1995.  Modern common rail systems, although working on the same principle, are governed by an engine control unit, which opens each injector electrically rather than mechanically. This was extensively prototyped in the 1990s with collaboration between Magneti Marelli, Centro Ricerche Fiat, and Elasis. After research and development by the Fiat Group, the design was acquired by the German company Robert Bosch GmbH for completion of development and refinement for mass production. In hindsight, the sale appeared to be a strategic error for Fiat, as the new technology proved to be highly profitable. The company had little choice but to sell Bosch a licence, as it was in a poor financial state at the time and lacked the resources to complete development on its own. In 1997, they extended its use for passenger cars. The first passenger car to use the common rail system was the 1997 model Alfa Romeo 156 2.4-L JTD, and later that same year, Mercedes-Benz introduced it in their W202 model.  Common rail engines have been used in marine and locomotive applications for some time. The Cooper-Bessemer GN-8 ("circa" 1942) is an example of a hydraulically operated common rail diesel engine, also known as a modified common rail.  Vickers pioneered the use of common rail injection in submarine engines. Vickers engines with the common rail fuel system were first used in 1916 in the G-class submarines. It used four plunger pumps to deliver a pressure up to every 90° of rotation to keep the fuel pressure adequately constant in the rail. Fuel delivery to individual cylinders could be shut off by valves in the injector lines. Doxford Engines used a common rail system in their opposed-piston marine engines from 1921 to 1980, where a multicylinder reciprocating fuel pump generated a pressure around, with the fuel being stored in accumulator bottles. Pressure control was achieved by an adjustable pump discharge stroke and a "spill valve". Camshaft-operated mechanical timing valves were used to supply the spring-loaded Brice/CAV/Lucas injectors, which injected through the side of the cylinder into the chamber formed between the pistons. Early engines had a pair of timing cams, one for ahead running and one for astern. Later engines had two injectors per cylinder, and the final series of constant-pressure turbocharged engines was fitted with four injectors per cylinder. This system was used for the injection of both diesel and heavy fuel oil (600cSt heated to a temperature near 130°C).

Applications.

The common rail system is suitable for all types of road cars with diesel engines, ranging from city cars (such as the Fiat Panda) to executive cars (such as the Audi A8). The main suppliers of modern common rail systems are Robert Bosch GmbH, Delphi, Denso, and Siemens VDO (now owned by Continental AG).

Acronyms and branding used.

The automotive manufacturers refer to their common rail engines by their own brand names:

Principles.

Solenoid or piezoelectric valves make possible fine electronic control over the fuel-injection time and quantity, and the higher pressure that the common rail technology makes available provides better fuel atomisation. To lower engine noise, the engine's electronic control unit can inject a small amount of diesel just before the main injection event ("pilot" injection), thus reducing its explosiveness and vibration, as well as optimising injection timing and quantity for variations in fuel quality, cold starting, and so on. Some advanced common rail fuel systems perform as many as five injections per stroke.  Common rail engines require a very short to no heating-up time, depending on the ambient temperature, and produce lower engine noise and emissions than older systems.  Diesel engines have historically used various forms of fuel injection. Two common types include the unit-injection system and the distributor/inline-pump systems. While these older systems provide accurate fuel quantity and injection timing control, they are limited by several factors:  In common rail systems, a high-pressure pump stores a reservoir of fuel at high pressure — up to and above. The term "common rail" refers to the fact that all of the fuel injectors are supplied by a common fuel rail which is nothing more than a pressure accumulator where the fuel is stored at high pressure. This accumulator supplies multiple fuel injectors with high-pressure fuel. This simplifies the purpose of the high-pressure pump in that it only needs to maintain a target pressure (either mechanically or electronically controlled). The fuel injectors are typically ECU-controlled. When the fuel injectors are electrically activated, a hydraulic valve (consisting of a nozzle and plunger) is mechanically or hydraulically opened and fuel is sprayed into the cylinders at the desired pressure. Since the fuel pressure energy is stored remotely and the injectors are electrically actuated, the injection pressure at the start and end of injection is very near the pressure in the accumulator (rail), thus producing a square injection rate. If the accumulator, pump, and plumbing are sized properly, the injection pressure and rate will be the same for each of the multiple injection events.

Common rail direct fuel injection is a direct fuel injection system for diesel engines. It features a high-pressure (over ) fuel rail feeding solenoid valves, as opposed to a low-pressure fuel pump feeding unit injectors (or pump nozzles). Third-generation common rail diesels now feature piezoelectric injectors for increased precision, with fuel pressures up to.


Biography.

Ivan was the son of the Prince of Moscow Daniil Aleksandrovich.  After the death of his elder brother Yury, Ivan inherited the Principality of Moscow. Ivan participated in the struggle to get the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir which could be obtained with the approval of a khan of the Golden Horde. The main rivals of the princes of Moscow in this struggle were the princes of Tver – Mikhail, Dmitry the Terrible Eyes, and Alexander II, all of whom obtained the title of Grand Duke of Vladimir and were deprived of it. All of them were murdered in the Golden Horde. In 1328 Ivan Kalita received the approval of khan Muhammad Ozbeg to become the Grand Duke of Vladimir with the right to collect taxes from all Russian lands.  According to the Russian historian Kluchevsky, the rise of Moscow under Ivan I Kalita was determined by three factors. The first one was that the Moscow principality was situated in the middle of other Russian principalities; thus, it was protected from any invasions from the East and from the West. Compared to its neighbors, Ryazan principality and Tver principality, Moscow was less often devastated. The relative safety of the Moscow region resulted in the second factor of the rise of Moscow – an influx of working and tax-paying people who were tired of constant raids and who actively relocated to Moscow from other Russian regions. The third factor was a trade route from Novgorod to the Volga river.  According to Baumer Öz Beg Khan took a fateful decision when he abandoned the former policy of divide and rule by making the new grand prince responsible for collecting and passing on all the tribute and taxes from all the Russian cities. Ivan delivered these exactions punctually, so further strengthening his position of privilege. In this way he laid the foundations for Moscow's future as a regional great power.  Ivan Kalita intentionally pursued the policy of relocation of people to his principality by an invitation of people from other places and by purchase of Russian people captured by Mongols during their raids. He managed to eliminate all the thieves in his lands, thus ensuring the safety of traveling merchants. Internal peace and order together with the absence of Mongolian raids to the Moscow principality was mentioned in Russian chronicles as “great peace, silence, and relief of Russian land.  Ivan made Moscow very wealthy by maintaining his loyalty to the Horde (hence, the nickname "Kalita", or the Moneybag). He used this wealth to give loans to neighbouring Russian principalities. These cities gradually fell deeper and deeper into debt, a condition that would allow Ivan's successors to annex them. The people called Ivan the ‘gatherer of the Russian lands’. He bought lands around Moscow, and very often the poor owners sold their lands willingly. Some of them kept the right to rule in their lands on behalf of Ivan Kalita. In one way or another a number of cities and villages joined the Moscow principality – Uglich in 1323, the principality of Belozero in 1328–1338, the principality of Galich in 1340. Ivan's greatest success, however, was convincing the Khan in Sarai that his son, Simeon The Proud, should succeed him as the Grand Duke of Vladimir; from then on, the important position almost always belonged to the ruling house of Moscow. The Head of the Russian Church – Metropolitan Peter, whose authority was extremely high, moved from Vladimir to Moscow to Prince Ivan Kalita.  Following a Lithuanian raid on the town of Torzhok in 1335 (as part of the Muscovite–Lithuanian Wars), Ivan retaliated by burning the towns of Osechen and Riasna.  Ivan died in Moscow, 31 March 1340 or 1341. He was buried 1 April in the Church of the Archangel Michael. Ivan had built the church and was also the first person to be buried there.

Legacy.

Under Ivan Kalita, Moscow was actively growing, and his residence on the Borovitsky hill became the main part of the city. Erection of either wooden or white-stone constructions was started in the Kremlin. A number of churches were built: in 1326–1327 the Assumption Cathedral, in 1329 the Church of Ivan of the Ladder (John Climacus), in 1330 the Cathedral of the Saviour on the Bor (Forest), and in 1333 the Cathedral of Archangel Michael, where Ivan Kalita and his descendants were buried. Between 1339 and 1340, Ivan Kalita erected a new, bigger oaken fortress on the Borovitsky hill.  In Ivan’s will “the golden cap” was mentioned for the first time; this cap is identified with the well-known Monomakh’s crown, the main crown of Russian sovereigns.

Ivan I Daniilovich Kalita (Russian: Ива́н I Даниилович Калита; 1 November 1288 – 31 March 1340 or 1341) was Grand Duke of Moscow from 1325 and Vladimir from 1332.


Early life and career.

Vladislav Ardzinba was born in the village of Lower Eshera, Sukhumi District, Abkhaz ASSR, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union. After graduating from the Historical Department of the Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute, Ardzinba studied at the Tbilisi State University where he received a doctoral degree. He then worked for eighteen years in Moscow specialising in ancient Middle Eastern civilizations under Yevgeniy Primakov, then head of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, and later Russian foreign and Prime Minister. He then returned to Sukhumi and he served there as the director of the Abkhazian Institute of Language, Literature and History from 1987 until 1989, when he was elected a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union from Gudauta. From there, he was involved closely with national issues, including Abkhazia, and quickly emerged as one of the most active proponents of the Abkhaz secessionist cause. While a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet, Ardzinba forged close ties with the hardliners in Moscow, particularly with the parliamentary chairman Anatoly Lukyanov and other members of the hardline communist groups in Moscow that were responsible for the August 1991 coup attempt.

Role in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict.

He was a member of the first parliament to be elected democratically in the Soviet Union in 1989.  On 4 December 1990, Ardzinba was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia. Ardzinba, a charismatic but excitable figure popular among the Abkhaz was believed by Georgians to have helped to instigate the violence of July 1989. Ardzinba managed to consolidate his power relatively quickly and reneged on pre-election promises to increase the representation of Georgians in Abkhazia's autonomous structures; since then, Ardzinba tried to rule Abkhazia relatively single-handedly, but avoided, for the time being, overt conflict with the central authorities in Tbilisi. In mid-1991, he negotiated and accepted the Georgian concession on the reform of the electoral law that granted the Abkhaz wide over-representation in the Supreme Soviet. However, Ardzinba created the Abkhazian National Guard that was mono-ethnically Abkhaz, and initiated a practice of replacing ethnic Georgians in leading positions with Abkhaz. As the Georgian-Abkhaz tensions rose, Ardzinba's rhetoric mounted, as he claimed in late July 1992 that "Abkhazia is strong enough to fight Georgia."  In August 1992, a Georgian military force ousted Ardzinba and his group from Sukhumi when Abkhazian militants seized government buildings. They took shelter in Gudauta, a home to the Soviet-era Russian military base. Ardzinba benefited from his contacts with the Russian hardliner circles and military leaders to garner critical support in the war against the Georgian government.

Presidency.

After the hostilities ended in 1994 and the bulk of the Georgian population was forced out of Abkhazia, the Abkhazian parliament elected Ardzinba to the presidency, a move that was condemned by Georgia and the United Nations as illegal. He won the first direct polls on 3 October 1999, without an opponent and was re-elected as president of Abkhazia. He installed an autocratic regime and remained politically untouchable until his health seriously deteriorated in 2003. He once stated that independence from Georgia is not negotiable, and he has tried to align the state with Russia, whose political and economic support was essential to the republic. As a leader of the Abkhaz side he met the two successive Russian presidents, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, as well as a President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze.  Under his rule, human rights records were extremely poor as most of the pre-war Georgian population of Abkhazia were deprived the right to return, and those who remained were subjected to systematic ethnic cleansing. Ardzinba aroused some further criticism from the international community after issuing a decree banning Jehovah's Witnesses in 1995.  During the last years of his presidency Ardzinba faced criticism for both failing to bring stability to Abkhazia and his increasingly low public profile. He had not appeared in public since 2002. As a result, the role of governing the state had been increasingly left to Prime Minister Raul Khajimba.  He had been in extremely poor health and underwent treatment in Moscow for some time. Despite increasing calls from the opposition (particularly the Amtsakhara movement) for him to resign he had stated that he would finish his term, which was supposed to end in October 2004, but in fact did not end until 12 February 2005, due to disputes over the election of his successor. There were also calls for him to be impeached. However, although the Abkhaz Constitution allows for impeachment, the process would likely have not been completed before the end of his term, so no serious steps were taken to bring it about. He was unable to run for a third term due to constitutional restrictions, and it is unlikely that his health would have enabled him to do so even if this was allowed.  He was replaced by the winner of the presidential election of 12 January 2005, Sergei Bagapsh. A previous election had been held in late 2004 after the murder of opposition leader Garri Aiba, but the result was controversial.

Death.

By 2010, Ardzinba's health was in decline and had been for some time. Ardzinba died on 4 March 2010, at the age of 64. He was in the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow at the time. He had been escorted there the previous week. The cause of death was not released to the public. He is survived by his wife and daughter. The President of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh, paid tribute: "His service to the Abkhaz people was boundless". Three days of mourning were declared in Abkhazia in remembrance of Ardzinba.

Vladislav Ardzinba (, ; 14 May 1945 – 4 March 2010) was the first "de facto" President of Abkhazia. A historian by education, Ardzinba led Abkhazia to "de facto" independence in the 1992–1993 War with Georgia, but its "de jure" independence from Georgia remained internationally unrecognised during Ardzinba's two terms as President from 1994 to 2005.


Biography.

Enquist was born and raised in, a village in present-day Skellefteå Municipality, Västerbotten. He was the only son of a single mother, who became a widow when he was half a year old. In his youth, he was a promising athlete with a high jump personal best of 1.97 meters. He studied at Uppsala University, receiving a degree in the history of literature.  During his time in Uppsala he started writing, his first novel "Kristallögat" being published in 1961, and became a newspaper journalist. Enquist won the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1968 for "Legionärerna", his account of Sweden's deportation of Baltic-country soldiers at the end of the second world war which also became his international breakthrough. He would write several more books based on true events, including "Kapten Nemos bibliotek" (1991) about where two newly-born boys were accidentally switched, "Livläkarens besök" (1999), "Lewis resa" (2001) about Pentecostalist Lewi Pethrus, and "Boken om Blanche och Marie" (2004) about Marie Curie and mental patient Blanche Wittman. Enquist's first stage play was "Tribadernas natt" (1975), a story about Swedish author August Strindberg, his soon-to-be ex-wife Siri von Essen, and von Essen's presumed lover.  Awards for his writing have included the Dobloug Prize in 1988, the Selma Lagerlöf Prize in 1997, and the Italian Flaiano Prize in 2002. Besides books and stage plays, Enquist also wrote screenplays for motion pictures, including "Pelle Erövraren" (1987) and "Hamsun" (1996), and at the 27th Guldbagge Awards in 1993, Enquist was nominated for the award for Best Screenplay for the film "". He also received the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize as well as the Nelly Sachs Prize in 2003 for "Livläkarens besök", based on the true story of Johann Friedrich Struensee, who was the mentally ill Danish King Christian VII's physician, and his political machinations and relationship with Christian's wife Caroline Matilda in the 1770s. "Livläkarens besök" also became the first of two books Enquist wrote that were awarded the August Prize, the other being his 2008 autobiography "Ett annat liv". Enquist was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2009 and the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize in 2010.  Enquist died on 25 April 2020 after a prolonged struggle with cancer.

Per Olov Enquist, also known as P. O. Enquist, (23 September 1934 – 25 April 2020) was a Swedish author. He had worked as a journalist, playwright and novelist.