Lloyd Mullaney is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, played by Craig Charles. He made his first on screen appearance on 20 June 2005. The character departed on 23 July 2006, while Charles was suspended from work. He returned on 12 February 2007. Charles took a temporary break from the show in autumn 2011 to film new episodes of Red Dwarf, with Lloyd departing on 15 December 2011. After a seven-month absence, Lloyd returned on 2 July 2012. Charles announced his departure from the show in May 2015. Charles' final scenes aired on 25 September 2015 after Lloyd departed for good after 10 years alongside his pregnant fiancée, Andrea Beckett (Hayley Tamaddon) when they left the street together to move to Jersey.

Lloyd's storylines have included: his comedy-duo act with best friend Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) and running taxi firm StreetCars with him; relationships with Kelly Crabtree (Tupele Dorgu), Cheryl Gray (Holly Quin-Ankrah) and Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard); discovering Cheryl's affair with her ex-husband Chris (Will Thorp); and an engagement with Andrea, which struggled when he discovered she was secretly married, and ended temporarily when Andrea stole a rare 7" record (worth £1,000) in order to help her daughter.

Storylines

Lloyd gets a month's trial as a taxi driver at StreetCars and later buys Dev Alahan's (Jimmi Harkishin) share of the business and moves into the flat upstairs. He then forms an attraction to Kelly Crabtree (Tupele Dorgu) and they begin dating. Lloyd rescues Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) and new employee Ronnie Clayton fend off Ronnie's ex-husband, Jimmy when he comes after them with a shotgun. When Kelly suspects Lloyd of cheating on her, she spikes his beer with laxatives, which have him hospitalised. Lloyd later explains that he owes his ex-girlfriend Tina £10,000 she loaned him in order to buy into StreetCars. They move into together but Kelly's friend, Becky Granger proves to be a problem when they let her stay. Becky's behaviour threatens to drive Lloyd and Kelly apart by playing games and even going as far to frame Kelly, but in the end Lloyd evicts Becky. In spite of this, Kelly refuses to accept Lloyd's apology. After Steve confesses to sleeping with Kelly on the night Ronnie ran over a pedestrian, Lloyd is angry with the pair of them and this rift almost dissolves Steeetcars.

However, after some time off, Lloyd returns and forgives Steve, but not Kelly. They resume their friendship and move on from the past. Following his relationship with Kelly, Lloyd takes an interest in Jodie Morton (Samantha Seager). However, Jodie is under constant pressure to help run the family business and look after her younger siblings Kayleigh (Jessica Barden) and Finlay. She later moves to London, ending any possibility of a relationship.

When Jodie's father, Jerry (Michael Starke) has a heart attack, Lloyd helps him and his family while he is in hospital. When Jerry's ex-wife Teresa Bryant (Karen Henthorn) arrives on the street on hearing about Jerry's plight, it is revealed that she and Lloyd had once had a fling. Teresa takes advantage of this—as well as Finlay's fondness of Lloyd—to con Lloyd into believing he is Finlay's biological father. Lloyd believes her and trying to do the decent thing, offers money to help look after him that she pocketed herself. Teresa's con is eventually revealed when WPC Mel (Emma Edmondson), Finlay's older half-sister gets suspicious and it is revealed that Finlay is not Lloyd's son.

After Steve has a one-night stand with Becky, Steve's girlfriend Michelle Connor (Kym Marsh) becomes suspicious when Steve and Lloyd's behaviour seems strange. Steve flees abroad to see his brother Andy (Nicholas Cochrane), so Michelle bullies Lloyd to tell her what is going on. He lies several times and Michelle discovers that he has been sleeping with someone else. Steve stays away from Michelle but Lloyd convinces Michelle that Steve is planning to propose. Michelle tells her brother Liam Connor (Rob James-Collier) and his wife Maria Connor (Samia Smith),  but Lloyd tells her to keep quiet when Steve returns from Spain. Lloyd then tells Michelle the truth, not knowing that Steve has proposed. Lloyd often helps bookmaker Harry Mason (Jack Ellis) and his wife Clarissa (Alexandra Boyd) when they live on the street.

Lloyd begins attending Brazilian crunch classes with Steve's mother Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard) in an attempt to lose weight, after he enters a bet with Steve, instigated by Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver). Lloyd is initially reluctant but gives it a try and becomes popular with the ladies due to his looks, personality and DJ-ing skills. When Lloyd returns with Liz later that evening and insists on going home due to the pain, Liz's face shows she has feelings for him and is distressed to see him share a kiss under the mistletoe with Poppy Morales (Sophiya Haque), a new member of staff at The Rovers.  Lloyd and Liz kiss in private during a dance evening at the Brazilian crunch classes. Upon returning to The Rovers, Lloyd brushes off Danielle and goes to the back yard to meet Liz. The two declare their feelings for one another, share another kiss and secretly sleep together, while Steve is working behind the bar. Lloyd's friendship with Steve suffers when Steve finds out about Lloyd and Liz. Liz and Lloyd break up when he cheats on her with Teresa.

Following his breakup with  Liz, Lloyd expresses an interest in Cheryl Gray (Holly Quin-Ankrah), a friend of Leanne Battersby's (Jane Danson). Lloyd pursues Cheryl, although she resists his advances. Lloyd later discovers that Cheryl works in a strip club. He later also discovers that she is married, and has a son called Russ Gray (Finton Flynn). Lloyd attacks the strip club owner after he sees Cheryl with a black eye, causing Cheryl to lose her job. She then drops the bombshell that it is her husband Chris Gray (Will Thorp), and so Lloyd offers to let her live with him.

In December 2010, Lloyd is celebrating Peter Barlow's (Chris Gascoyne) stag night in The Joinery, when a fight erupts between him and Chris after he provokes him several times during the evening. The fight intensifies before a huge explosion ends the fight and tears through The Joinery. Lloyd, however, escapes relatively unhurt and even rescues his enemy, Chris. Lloyd kicks down the front door of number 13 only to be blasted back by huge flames. He still manages to save Josh and Freddie Peacock from the inferno along with Russ. Lloyd is left heartbroken when Chris and Cheryl tell him that they are back together. Lloyd throws Chris, Russ and Cheryl out of his house and tells Cheryl he never wants to see her again. Steve speaks to him and tells him that he should not let them get to him and that if they annoy him, then they have won. The conversation helps Lloyd see sense, and he tells Steve that he is grateful for helping him cope through the confession. Lloyd struggles to cope with losing Cheryl and Russ and at one point he grabs Karl Munro (John Michie) by the throat when he jokes about Cheryl. Lloyd sets fire to his sofa in the street as Cheryl and Chris watch. Lloyd and Chris have a fight and Chris hits his head, Cheryl learns he has been lying about his tumour and decides to leave with Russ.

Stella Price (Michelle Collins) helps Lloyd with his taxes and one evening, he misinterprets her concern and tries to kiss her. Stella knocks him back and Lloyd apologises. Lloyd tells Karl about the kiss and subsequently decides to leave Weatherfield and he sells his share of Street Cars to Becky, before departing. Lloyd later sells his house to Steve. Lloyd returns and runs into Steve, who offers him a job and somewhere to live. Lloyd thinks he is being offered half of StreetCars, but Steve reveals that he was just offering him a driving job. Lloyd then sets up a rival taxi firm called Fare Ladies and begins poaching Steve's clients and staff. Lloyd hires Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford), but fires her after he realises she has been sabotaging his cars. Lloyd makes up with Steve and starts working for Street Cars again under the basis that they do not mention their earlier arguments. Lloyd becomes enemies with Karl, after he cheats on Stella with Sunita Alahan (Shobna Gulati). Lloyd fires Karl and refuses to acknowledge his existence, but Karl warns him that he will get him back.

In September 2012, Lloyd has a chance encounter at a gig with an old friend, Mandy Kamara (Pamela Nomvete). They get talking and Mandy reveals that her husband, Johnny (also a good friend of Lloyd's) has recently died and she has moved to Manchester. Lloyd is keen for them to meet up again, but Mandy declines and asks that Lloyd does not contact her again. He tries to make her acquaintance again by returning a necklace she left in the back of his cab but is startled when she is cold towards him. He once again tries goes to her house, but this time the door is answered by a young woman Lloyd does not recognise. After further attempts to contact Mandy, he finds out that this is her daughter Jenna (Krissi Bohn). Realising from Mandy's attitude towards him, Lloyd works out that Jenna must be his daughter, Lloyd finally confronts Mandy, and it is revealed that she planned to leave her husband for Lloyd many years ago, but her pregnancy kept them together, Lloyd moved away, and Johnny  never found out about the affair. When Jenna finds out, she is angry at her mother, who then plans to move back to Nottingham. Lloyd however convinces her to reconcile with Jenna, and move in with him. She grudgingly accepts, but soon warms to Lloyd once again. When Jenna loses her job as a physiotherapist after one of her patients, Sophie Webster (Brooke Vincent) kisses her, and she does not report it, Lloyd supports her, while Mandy despairs over the career she worked so hard for, now over. Lloyd defends Jenna's choices however, and she makes up with Mandy after coming out as a lesbian, and entering a permanent relationship with Sophie.

In July 2013, Lloyd and his family enter the pub and overhear Paul Kershaw (Tony Hirst) make a possibly racist comment whilst playing darts. This causes a rift between Lloyd's family and Paul but Paul's partner, Eileen Grimshaw, is trapped between the two as Lloyd is her colleague and one of her best friends. The argument between the two sides continue, with Eileen determined to end the feud. Sophie, who is involved with Jenna, contacts the fire service where Paul works and makes a formal complaint about his racist remark. Paul finds this out via his manager and believes Lloyd made the complaint as an act of revenge, trying to get him sacked from his job. He subsequently finds Lloyd near the pub, pins him up against the wall and hits him. Jenna is walking across the street and noticed and she subsequently tells Paul that it was Sophie who made the complaint. However, the police are present as they had been called by Nick Tilsley (Ben Price) to investigate problems at his bar. Nick's wife, Leanne, tells the police they are not needed, so they divert their attention to Paul and Lloyd and they take Paul down to the station for questioning due to his violent behaviour. Finally, Paul gives in and apologises to Lloyd, but there is still tension between the two. Mandy and Lloyd's relationship is almost as shaken by Eileen and Paul's. Events escalate and Lloyd and Mandy split.

Paul has another encounter with Lloyd when Eileen convinces him and Steve to go out to a bar with Paul for his birthday. They are joined by Brian Packham (Peter Gunn), who seeks to lighten the mood, but the conversation soon turns to Lloyd and Paul. Steve and Brian leave soon after Paul and Lloyd stop talking to each other. Paul goes after them, leaving Lloyd to one last drink. He notices a gang of three men, all pale-skinned, observing him. He begins to chat up the barmaid, who is brown skinned. He invites her out, but then decides to abandon his drink and leave after he sees the unwelcome attention they are attracting. He bumps into Paul, who has come back for him, on the way out, but while distracted, he is surrounded by the men from the pub, who seek to rough him up. Paul intervenes, and one of the men "questions his allegiances". Paul ignores this, and tells them to back off. They return to the bar, and Paul and Lloyd begin to walk home. Paul apologises to Lloyd, but Lloyd, believing Paul's language instigated the encounter, shuns him, returning home alone. Later, when Paul leaves the street for good, Lloyd and Steve comfort Eileen, to no avail.

Lloyd later begins a relationship with Andrea Beckett (Hayley Tamaddon), a friend of Steve's from college. Steve is jealous, despite him being in a relationship with Michelle. Andrea later admits to Lloyd that she used to fancy Steve, but she now loves Lloyd  and after many meals at the Bistro, Lloyd forgives Andrea and they reunite. Lloyd and Steve compete in a charity fun-run in memory of Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh). Steve accidentally trips Lloyd up, but Lloyd accuses him of doing it on purpose to beat him. Steve gets to the finish line first, but when Lloyd arrives, he collapses and suffers a heart attack with the concerned competitors watching in horror. Lloyd is rushed to hospital, where the doctors reveal that he has definitely suffered a heart attack. Andrea is nowhere to be seen, which makes Jenna and Eileen suspicious. He later finds out that Andrea is married however stays with her, when she says she is divorcing her husband, Neil. He tries to win her back but she decides to stay with Lloyd. Jenna however is furious and shows hatred towards Andrea, they soon though begin a better friendship before Jenna decides to leave. Lloyd tries to stop her but lets her go eventually and they part on good terms and he is glad that he met her.

A few months later, Andrea and Lloyd break up when she sells one of his records to get money for her daughter. She leaves, but returns later and reveals that she is pregnant. Lloyd reunites with Liz, but calls it off when he finds out about Andrea's pregnancy. Liz and Lloyd remain friends. Andrea tells him that she has been offered a job in Jersey and he has a drunken farewell with Steve before saying goodbye to Eileen. Lloyd and Andrea let go of balloons from Coronation Street as everybody cheers and the car drives off. Lloyd and Andrea return a few days later to say goodbye with Steve and share one final hug. In May 2016, Lloyd rang Steve to break the news that Andrea gave birth to a baby girl.

Casting
The show's producers created the role of Lloyd for Craig Charles to portray. In 2008 it was announced that producers had signed Charles up for a special three-year contract.

On 28 May 2011, it was announced Charles would be leaving Coronation Street for a few months in order to film new episodes of Red Dwarf. Laura Armstrong of The People reported Charles would return to the show in 2012. Lloyd made his departure on screen on 15 December 2011. In May 2012, Digital Spy's Tom Eames reported Charles had started filming his comeback episodes for Coronation Street. The following month Charles confirmed that he would be staying with the soap for the foreseeable future and had just signed another contract extension. Charles returned on 2 July.

Development
On 10 July 2012, Digital Spy's Paul Millar reported Lloyd would discover that he has a daughter. Millar stated that Charles may have teased the upcoming storyline when he appeared on This Morning, saying "There's going to be something really iconic for Coronation Street happening to Lloyd. So I'll leave that as a little teaser!" The show's producers began casting two actresses to play Lloyd's daughter and his ex-girlfriend. A spokesperson commented that Lloyd has not been contact with the ex-girlfriend for a while and then she turns up and announces that they have a daughter together. They added "The news will knock Lloyd for six. His reaction will be pretty explosive." On 26 July, it was announced that Pamela Nomvete and Krissi Bohn had joined the cast as Mandy and Jenna Kamara respectively. Mandy is Lloyd's ex-girlfriend, while Jenna is his daughter. A writer for itv.com stated "A long-dead affair is rekindled and secrets and lies come spilling out as Lloyd, his ex Mandy and their daughter Jenna, struggle to come to terms with the secret Mandy has carried for over 20 years." Series producer Phil Collinson commented that the storyline created an instant "new" family for Lloyd.

Reception
Following Craig Charles's temporary suspension from the show for drug abuse in 2006, The Guardian columnist Grace Dent spoke positively of the character and her hopes for his eventual return: "Love or hate Craig Charles, I thought he was brilliant in Corrie. From the moment Lloyd arrived, he was a breath of fresh air; the perfect foil to Steve McDonald, a friendly face for cab controller Eileen to while away long shifts with, a voice of common sense. Craig, get a grip and come back soon."

References

External links

Coronation Street characters
Fictional Black British people
Fictional taxi drivers
Fictional people from Liverpool
Television characters introduced in 2005
British male characters in television

Lloyd Mullaney


François Fournier (24 April 1846 – 12 July 1917)  was a stamp forger who thought of himself as a creator of "art objects"  and a friend of the little man.

Fournier was born in Croix-de-Rozon, Switzerland, but became a French citizen and served in the army during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71.

Facsimile business
Fournier did not become involved with the philatelic business until later life.

In about 1903 he returned to Switzerland and settled in Geneva, where in May 1904 he bought the stock of Louis-Henri Mercier, real name Henri Goegg, who had gone bankrupt. It is at about this time that Fournier began his business producing facsimile stamps.

The business grew rapidly, and from 1910 to 1913 Fournier produced his own journal and price list, Le Fac-Simile. He claimed agents in 23 countries and in 1913 stated that he had 10,000 approval customers and 10,000 catalogue customers. His last price list in 1914 shows 3,671 different stamps for sale, although not all were his own creations.

At first Fournier was on good terms with stamp dealers and philatelic societies. However, as his business grew and his facsimiles started to be passed off as the real thing by unscrupulous dealers and collectors, a backlash developed against him, and he found his wares banned by dealers and his advertising blocked. The creation of Le Fac-Simile in 1910 was one way of obtaining publicity for his business, and it was said that up to 25,000 copies of each edition were distributed. The journal was also Fournier's personal platform through which to air his grievances and to rail against his treatment by the mainstream stamp trade and particular individuals in it.

The Philatelic Clinic
Fournier also operated a successful "Philatelic Clinic" which employed five "restorers" to repair damaged stamps. The work included removing specimen overprints from high-value British colonial stamps and regumming. The removal of pen cancels was a speciality.

Fournier's philosophy

Fournier was a proud man who was said to have a chip on each shoulder and he was deeply wounded by any criticism. He always saw himself as the champion of the little man, the collector of modest means who could not afford the high prices demanded by dealers for the great philatelic rarities. Fournier was happy to help these collectors fill gaps in their printed albums with an expertly produced facsimile at a fraction of the price of the real thing. He always pointed out that he only produced facsimiles of stamps from dead countries or of items that were no longer valid for postal use. This ignored, however, the possible subsequent misrepresentation of his work as genuine.

Consistent with his philosophy, and somewhat hypocritically, Fournier roundly condemned the reprinting of stamps and sale of remainders by governments as swindles against the collector which destroyed the value of the originals. He claimed that "Le Fac-Simile is the only stamp journal exposing speculators and their exploits."

There is no evidence that Fournier himself passed off any of his work as other than a facsimile. However, he always resisted attempts to identify his work as facsimiles by overprinting, marking on the reverse or any other method. We cannot know whether Fournier was simply naive about the purpose to which his work could be put, or just chose to turn a blind eye to the obvious possibilities for fraud.

Fournier was never convicted of any criminal offence.

Death and disposal of his materials
The mailing restrictions and censorship of World War I caused major problems for Fournier's business, with consignments seized and postal communications disrupted. His health, already poor, declined further, and he died in 1917. He was buried at his birthplace, Croix-de-Rozon.

One of his employees, Charles Hirschburger, attempted to continue the business but ultimately was unsuccessful. He died in 1927 and the Union Philatelique de Genève bought the remaining stock and equipment from Hirschburger's widow in order to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. There were forgeries weighing over 800 pounds, as well as gummed stamp sheets ready for printing and the actual printing equipment. Much had been damaged by storage in damp conditions. The equipment was donated to the Geneva Museum of History. The forged stamps were printed with the words Faux and/or Facsimile. Students from the Geneva School of Arts and Crafts were employed to create 480 representative albums of Fournier's work which were sold to stamp dealers, collectors and others in 1928. In addition, the Union prepared a more extensive five-volume collection of Fournier's work for its library. The remaining stock was burned on 15 September 1928, under the supervision of the Bailiff of the Canton of Geneva.

See also
 List of stamp forgers

References

Further reading
Maaßen, Wolfgang. Echt oder Falsch? Fälschungen und Fälscher in der Philatelie. Schwalmtal: Phila Creativ, 2003.  (German language)
Union Philatélique de Genève. Album des Fac-Similés. Geneva: 1928. (French language)

External links

Stampforgeries.com - Many Fournier forged stamps compared to genuine side-by-side

 Finland: Fake stamps from Russian period - Fournier

1846 births
1917 deaths
Stamp forgers
Swiss criminals
20th-century French criminals
Stamp dealers
French philatelists
Businesspeople from Geneva
French stamp dealers
French military personnel of the Franco-Prussian War

François Fournier (stamp forger)


Imants Lešinskis (17 December 1931 – 23 December 1985) was a Latvian KGB agent and a double agent for the CIA who defected from the Soviet Union to the United States with his wife and daughter in 1978 while working for the United Nations in New York City. His daughter, Ieva Lešinska, made a film about her relationship with her father called My Father the Spy. His work in the KGB mainly consisted of denouncing and defaming, both domestically and abroad, those Latvians perceived as anti-Soviet.

Biography
Lešinskis was born in 1931, in Riga, Latvia.

In 1956, Lešinskis was blackmailed into joining the KGB as an informant. In 1960, during the 1960 Summer Olympics, under the cover of working for a newspaper called the Homeland Voice, he was tasked with contacting Latvian athletes on the Australian Olympic Team, but he instead approached the American embassy in Rome seeking political asylum. His request was turned down, but he was offered a job working as a CIA informant, which he accepted.

In 1976, Lešinskis and his wife, Rasma, were posted in New York City as part of the Soviet mission to the United Nations, with Lešinskis working as a translator. On September 3, 1978, while still posted in New York City, he and his family defected to the West by driving themselves to Washington, D.C., and turning themselves in to the United States Department of State. After Lešinskis' defection, Kofi Annan, who would later serve as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, sent him a letter asking why he failed to show up to his UN post.

In 1982, Lešinskis testified in a court case, Kairys v. I.N.S., that a man named Liudas Kairys worked at the Treblinka extermination camp during World War II for the SS. Kairys claimed that the evidence was fabricated by the Soviet Union and Lešinskis told the court that the Soviets had done so in other cases, without commenting on the specific case.

Lešinskis died in 1985.

References

1935 births
1985 deaths
Soviet intelligence personnel who defected to the United States
People from Riga
Soviet spies

Imants Lešinskis


A revolver is a type of gun. Revolvers are repeating firearms with a cylinder that spins. Revolvers have several chambers each holding one cartridge. Most are handguns, but other types of weapons also use revolving cylinders. They are also called revolving guns, though revolver is used far more often. The first revolvers date back to late 1500s in Europe. It was not until the 1700s or 1800s, however, they became affordable. Revolvers are sometimes used by law enforcement agencies. On some occasions, these guns can be reset by one hand, then loaded with the other.

Action

Single-action

In a single-action revolver, the hammer is manually cocked. This is usually done with the thumb. This action turns the cylinder to the next cartridge. It also locks the cylinder in place with the chamber aligned with the barrel. The trigger, when pulled, releases the hammer, which fires the round in the chamber. To fire again, the hammer must be manually cocked again. This is called "single-action" because the trigger only performs a single action—that of releasing the hammer. Because only a single action is performed and trigger pull is very light, firing a revolver in this way allows most shooters to achieve greater accuracy. Additionally, the need to cock the hammer manually acts as a safety. The gun will not fire unless the hammer is cocked back. The Colt Paterson Revolver, the Walker Colt, the Colt's Dragoon and the Colt Single Action Army pistol of the American Frontier era are all good examples of this system.

Double-action

In double-action, the stroke of the trigger pull generates three actions:
The hammer is pulled back to the cocked position.
At the same time, the cylinder turns to the next round.
The hammer is released to strike the firing pin.
Double-action means that a cocking action separate from the trigger pull is not needed. Every trigger pull causes a complete cycle and a bullet is fired. This allows the gun to be carried uncocked. It also allows the gun to be drawn from the holster and fired using only the trigger. However, a double-action revolver has a longer and harder trigger pull. However, this drawback can also be viewed as a safety feature, as the gun is safer against accidental discharges from being dropped.

Most double-action revolvers may be fired in two ways.
 The first way is single-action. It can be used the same a single-action revolver. The hammer is cocked with the thumb, which indexes the cylinder and when the trigger is pulled the hammer fires the round. In this mode the trigger pull is lighter.
 The second way is double-action, or from a hammer-down position. In this case, the trigger first cocks the hammer and revolves the cylinder. It then trips the hammer at the rear of the trigger stroke, firing the round in the chamber. In this mode the trigger pull is much heavier.

References

Revolver


Honour (Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as valour, chivalry, honesty, and compassion. It is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or of institutions such as a family, school, regiment, or nation. Accordingly, individuals (or institutions) are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions with a specific code of honour, and with the moral code of the society at large.

Samuel Johnson, in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), defined honour as having several senses, the first of which was "nobility of soul, magnanimity, and a scorn of meanness".
This sort of honour derives from the perceived virtuous conduct and personal integrity of the person endowed with it. Johnson also defined honour in relationship to "reputation" and "fame"; to "privileges of rank or birth", and as "respect" of the kind which "places an individual socially and determines his right to precedence". This sort of honour is often not so much a function of moral or ethical excellence, as it is a consequence of power. Finally, with respect to sexuality, honour has traditionally been associated with (or identical to) "chastity" or "virginity", or in case of married men and women, "fidelity". Some have argued that honour should be seen more as a rhetoric, or set of possible actions, than as a code.

Social context

Honour as a code of behaviour defines the duties of an individual within a social group. Margaret Visser observes that in an honour-based society "a person is what he or she is in the eyes of other people". A code of honour differs from a legal code, also socially defined and concerned with justice, in that honour remains implicit rather than explicit and objectified.

One can distinguish honour from dignity, which Wordsworth assessed as measured against an individual's conscience rather than against the judgement of a community. Compare also the sociological concept of "face".

In the early medieval period, a lord's or lady's honour was the group of manors or lands he or she held. "The word was first used indicating an estate which gave its holder dignity and status." For a person to say "on my honour" was not just an affirmation of his or her integrity and rank, but the veracity behind that phrase meant he or she was willing to offer up estates as pledge and guarantee.

The concept of honour appears to have declined in importance in the modern West; conscience has replaced it in the individual context, and the rule of law (with the rights and duties defined therein) has taken over in a social context. Popular stereotypes would have it surviving more definitively in more tradition-bound cultures (e.g. Pashtun, Southern Italian, Polish, Persian, Turkish, Arab, Iberian, "Old South" or Dixie) in a perception akin to Orientalism. Pre-modern societies may tend to "honour" more than do contemporary industrial societies. Note that Saint Anselm of Canterbury () in Cur Deus Homo extended the concept of honour from his own feudal society to postulate God's honour.

An emphasis on the importance of honour exists in such traditional institutions as the military (serving officers may conduct a court of honour) and in organisations with a military ethos, such as Scouting organisations (which also feature "Courts of Honour").

Honour in the case of sexuality frequently relates, historically, to fidelity: preservation of "honour" equates primarily to maintenance of the virginity of singles and to the exclusive monogamy of the remainder of the population. Further conceptions of this type of honour vary widely between cultures; some cultures regard honour killings of (mostly female) members of one's own family as justified if the individuals have "defiled the family's honour" by marrying against the family's wishes, usually for reasons such as refusing to enter an arranged marriage, having sex outside marriage, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual relations or even by becoming the victims of rape. Western observers generally see these honour killings as a way of men using the culture of honour to control female sexuality.

Skinners, executioners, grave-diggers, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, linen-weavers, sow-gelders, latrine-cleaners, and bailiffs and their families were among the "dishonourable people" (unehrliche Leute) in early modern German society.

Cultural difference from law

Various sociologists and anthropologists have contrasted cultures of honour with cultures of law. A culture of law has a body of laws which all members of society must obey, with punishments for transgressors. This requires a society with the structures required to enact and enforce laws. A culture of law incorporates a social contract: members of society give up some aspects of their freedom to defend themselves and to retaliate for injuries, on the understanding that society will apprehend and punish transgressors.

An alternative to government enforcement of laws is community or individual enforcement of social norms.

One way that honour functions is through reputation. In a system where there is no court that will authorise the use of force to guarantee the execution of contracts, an honourable reputation is very valuable to promote trust among transaction partners. To dishonour an agreement could be economically ruinous, because future potential transaction partners might stop trusting the party not to lie, steal their money or goods, not repay debts, mistreat the children they marry off, have children with other people, abandon their children, or fail to provide aid when needed. A dishonourable person might be shunned by the community as a way to punish bad behaviour and create an incentive for others to maintain their honour.

If one's honour is questioned, it can thus be important to disprove any false accusations or slander. In some cultures, the practice of dueling arose as a means to settle such disputes firmly, though by physical dominance in force or skill rather than by objective consideration of evidence and facts.

Honour can also imply duty to perform certain actions, such as providing for and disciplining one's children, serving in the military during war, contributing to local collective projects like building infrastructure, or exacting revenge in retaliation for acts one is directly harmed by.

Family honour
The concept of personal honour can be extended to family honour, which strengthens the incentives to follow social norms in two ways. First, the consequences of dishonourable actions (such as suicide or attempted robbery that results in death) outlive the perpetrator, and negatively affect family members they presumably care about. Second, when one member of the family misbehaves, other members of the family are in the position to and are incentivised to strongly enforce the community norms.

In strong honour cultures, those who do not conform may be forced or pressured into conformance and transgressors punished physically or psychologically. The use of violence may be collective in its character, where many relatives act together. An extreme form of punishment is honour killing. Dueling and vengeance at a family level can result in a sustained feud.

Honour-based cultures are also known as honour-shame cultures and are contrasted with guilt cultures on the guilt-shame-fear spectrum of cultures.

Cultures of honour are often conservative, encoding pre-modern traditional family values and duties. In some cases these values clash with those of post-sexual revolution and egalitarian societies. Cultures of law sometimes consider practices in honour cultures to be unethical or a violation of the legal concept of human rights; for example, they may outlaw vigilante or individual justice-taking.

Examples

Thinkers ranging from Plato to Montesquieu have remarked upon the mindset needed for a culture of honour.

Historians have examined the culture of honour in the American South. Social scientists have looked at specialised subcultures such as South Asian Muslims in Britain. Others have compared multiple modern nations.

From the viewpoint of anthropologists, cultures of honour typically appear among nomadic peoples and among herdsmen who carry their most valuable property with them and risk having it stolen, without having recourse to law enforcement or to government. Due to the lack of strong institutions, cultivating a reputation for swift and disproportionate revenge increases the safety of one's person and property against aggressive actors.

According to Richard Nisbett, cultures of honour will often arise when three conditions exist:

 a scarcity of resources
 situations in which the benefit of theft and crime outweighs the risks
 a lack of sufficient law-enforcement (such as in geographically remote regions)

Historically, cultures of honour exist where the herding of animals dominates an economy. In this situation, the geography is usually extensive, since the soil cannot support intensive sustained farming and thus large populations; the benefit of stealing animals from other herds is high, since animals are the main form of wealth; and there is no central law-enforcement or rule of law. However, cultures of honour can also appear in places like modern inner-city slums. The three conditions exist here as well: lack of resources (poverty); crime and theft have high rewards, compared to the very limited alternatives; and law enforcement is generally lax or corrupt.

Once a culture of honour exists in a society, its members find it difficult to make the transition to a culture of law, which requires that people become willing to back down and refuse to immediately retaliate. From the viewpoint of the culture of honour, the perceived humiliation of such an action makes personal restraint extremely difficult, as it reflects weakness and appeasement.

One paper finds that present-day Canadians born in communities that historically lay outside the reach of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties) seem to inherit a violent code of honour that drives their behaviour.

War of 1812
Historian Norman Risjord emphasised the importance of honour as a cause of the War of 1812, which the United States launched against Britain despite Britain's much more powerful naval and military strength. Americans of every political stripe saw the need to uphold national honour, and to reject the treatment of the United States by Britain as a third class nonentity. Americans talked incessantly about the need for force in response. This quest for honour was a major cause of the war in the sense that most Americans who were not involved in mercantile interests or threatened by Indian attack strongly endorsed the preservation of national honour. The humiliating attack by HMS Leopard against USS Chesapeake in June 1807 was a decisive event.  Historians documented the importance of honour in shaping public opinion in a number of states, including Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, as well as the territory of Michigan. Americans widely celebrated the conclusion of the war as successful, especially after the spectacular defeat of the main British invasion army at New Orleans restored the American sense of honour.
National honor, the reputation of republican government, and the continuing supremacy of the Republican party had seemed to be at stake... National honor had [now] been satisfied, says historian Lance Banning, "Americans celebrated the end of the struggle with a brilliant burst of national pride."

The British showed respect for American honour. "Some of the strongest praise for America and swiftest recognition of what the young republic had achieved for American honor, prestige, and power came from within British naval circles." Britain refrained from interfering with American maritime interests and ceased with the impressment of American citizens following the war.

Predisposition in the United States of America

A 2016 study suggests that honour culture increases the risk of war. The study found that international conflicts under U.S. presidents who were raised in the South of the country "are shown to be twice as likely to involve uses of force, last on average twice as long, and are three times more likely to end in victory for the United States than disputes under non-Southern presidents. Other characteristics of Southern presidencies do not seem able to account for this pattern of results."

See also

Notes

References

Bowman, James. Honor: A History. Encounter Books, 2006. . Cf. excerpts from writings of James Bowman on Honor.
 Cossen, William S. "Blood, honor, reform, and God: anti-dueling associations and moral reform in the Old South." American Nineteenth Century History 19.1 (2018): 23–45.
d'Iribarne, Philippe. The Logic of Honor: National Traditions and Corporate Management. Welcome Rain Publishers, 2003. .
Hauser, Marc. Moral Minds: How nature designed our universal sense of right and wrong. New York: Ecco Press, 2006. .
Hein, David. "America's Honor: Lost and Regained." Modern Age 63, no. 4 (Fall 2021): 17–25.
Hein, David. "Rethinking Honor". Journal of Thought 17.1 (Spring 1982): 3–6.
Hein, David. "Learning Responsibility and Honor". Washington Times, 3 July 2008.
 Hein, David. "Christianity and Honor." The Living Church, 18 August 2013, pp. 8–10.
Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws. 2 vols.Online
Nisbett, Richard E., and Dov Cohen. Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South. Westview, 1996. .
Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002. .
 Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (1982), Antebellum United States

Further reading
 For a closer understanding of the way in which ideas of honour (and related shame) are linked to social structures such as law and religion, a reading of the works of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is worthwhile, particularly with reference to his discussions of the idea of "habitus".

Social concepts
Social status
Virtue
Warrior code

Honour


Kathleen Pettingill (born 27 March, 1935) is the matriarch of the Melbourne criminal family, the Pettingill family.

Family
Pettingill's 10 children are:

(with Dennis Ryan)
Dennis Bruce Allen (1951–1987) – a drug dealer, jailed for rape in 1973 and died in 1987 of a heart attack while in custody awaiting trial for murder.
Peter Allen (born 1953) – convicted of armed robbery, who was once Victoria's most dangerous man and spent 28 years in jail.

(with William George "Billy" Peirce (died 1968))
Vicki or Vicky Brooks (born 1954; née Pettingill) – gave evidence against the family in the Walsh Street trial and subsequently went into witness protection.
"Shelley" (born 1956) – real name unknown. Placed for adoption and reestablished contact with Pettingill in 1989.
"Stephen" (born 1957) – real name unknown. Placed for adoption and reestablished contact with Pettingill in 1989.
Victor George Peirce (1958–2002) – acquitted of the 1988 Walsh Street police shootings and was killed in 2002.
Lex Peirce (born 1960) – has a minor criminal record.
"David" (born 1961) – real name unknown. Placed for adoption and whereabouts currently unknown.

(with Jimmy Pettingill (died 1972))
Jamie Pettingill (1963–1985) – died of a heroin overdose aged 21.
Trevor Pettingill (born 1965) – acquitted of the 1988 Walsh Street police shootings, who has multiple convictions for firearms and drug-related offences and has served several jail terms. He has been described as a "career criminal".

Personal life
Pettingill first worked in a bar, and having herself been a prostitute, she went on to run brothels. She lived with her children in the Richmond area of Melbourne, and a number of her sons were sent to the Turana Boys' Home.

Pettingill has a glass eye in place of the one she lost after being shot in 1978 by Kim Nelson and Keryn Thompson. The bullet passed through a closed door at the Collingwood Housing Commission of Victoria flats as she and her son, Dennis Allen, attempted to repay a $300 debt on behalf of her daughter, Vicky Brooks.

In popular culture
A biography of her life, The Matriarch: The Kathy Pettingill Story, was written by Adrian Tame and published in 1996. As of 2007, Pettingill was living in Venus Bay, Gippsland, Victoria.

In the 2011 miniseries Killing Time, Pettingill is a major character, played by Kris McQuade.

Fictionalized versions of Pettingill, as the character Janine "Smurf" Cody, have appeared in both the 2010 Australian film Animal Kingdom portrayed by Jacki Weaver, and the 2016 TNT television show of the same name portrayed by Ellen Barkin.  Weaver was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance.

References

External links
Father's fury at Walsh St admission -  Herald Sun, 2 October 2005

1935 births
Living people
Australian brothel owners and madams
Australian drug traffickers
Australian female gangsters
Australian female prostitutes
Criminals from Melbourne
Place of birth missing (living people)
Kath
Australian people with disabilities

Kath Pettingill


The Merina Kingdom, or Kingdom of Madagascar, officially the Kingdom of Imerina (; –1897), was a pre-colonial state off the coast of Southeast Africa that, by the 18th century, dominated most of what is now Madagascar. It spread outward from Imerina, the Central Highlands region primarily inhabited by the Merina ethnic group with a spiritual capital at Ambohimanga and a political capital  west at Antananarivo, currently the seat of government for the modern state of Madagascar. The Merina kings and queens who ruled over greater Madagascar in the 19th century were the descendants of a long line of hereditary Merina royalty originating with Andriamanelo, who is traditionally credited with founding Imerina in 1540.

In 1883, France invaded the Merina Kingdom to establish a protectorate. France invaded again in 1894 and conquered the kingdom, making it a French colony, in what became known as the Franco-Hova Wars.

History

Hova-Vazimba conflict

Madagascar's central highlands were first inhabited between 200 BC–300 AD by the island's earliest settlers, the Vazimba, who appear to have arrived by pirogue from southeastern Borneo to establish simple villages in the island's dense forests. By the 15th century the Hova people from the southeastern coast had gradually migrated into the central highlands where they established hilltop villages interspersed among the existing Vazimba settlements, which were ruled by local kings and queens. The two peoples coexisted peacefully for several generations and are known to have intermarried. In this way, a reigning Vazimba queen (alternately given in the oral histories as Rafohy or Rangita) married a Hova man named Manelobe. Their oldest son, Andriamanelo (r. 1540–1575), broke this tradition by launching a largely successful war to subjugate the surrounding Vazimba communities and force them to either submit to Hova dominance and assimilate, or flee.

Andriamanelo was succeeded by his son Ralambo (r. 1575–1612), whose many enduring and significant political and cultural achievements earned him a heroic and near mythical status among the greatest ancient sovereigns of Merina history. Ralambo was the first to assign the name of Imerina ("Land of the Merina people") to the central highland territories where he ruled. Ralambo expanded and defended the Kingdom of Imerina through a combination of diplomacy and successful military action aided by the procurement of the first firearms in Imerina by way of trade with kingdoms on the coast.  Imposing a capitation tax for the first time (the vadin-aina, or "price of secure life"), he was able to establish the first standing Merina royal army and established units of blacksmiths and silversmiths to equip them. He famously repelled an attempted invasion by an army of the powerful western coastal Betsimisaraka people. According to oral history, the wild zebu cattle that roamed the Highlands were first domesticated for food in Imerina under the reign of Ralambo, and he introduced the practice and design of cattle pen construction, as well as the traditional ceremony of the fandroana (the "Royal Bath"), to celebrate his culinary discovery.

Upon succeeding his father, Andrianjaka (1612–1630) led a successful military campaign to capture the final major Vazimba stronghold in the highlands on the hill of Analamanga. There he established the fortified compound (rova) that would form the heart of his new capital city of Antananarivo. Upon his orders, the first structures within this fortified compound (known as the Rova of Antananarivo) were constructed: several traditional royal houses were built, and plans for a series of royal tombs were designed. These buildings took on an enduring political and spiritual significance, ensuring their preservation until being destroyed by fire in 1995. Andrianjaka obtained a sizable cache of firearms and gunpowder, materials that helped to establish and preserve his dominance and expand his rule over greater Imerina.

Expansion of sovereignty
Political life on the island from the 16th century was characterised by sporadic conflict between the Merina and Sakalava kingdoms, originating with Sakalava slave-hunting incursions into Imerina.

By the early 19th century, the Merina were able to overcome rival tribes such as the Bezanozano, the Betsimisaraka, and eventually the Sakalava kingdom and bring them under the Merina crown. It is through this process that the ethnonym "Merina" began to be commonly used, as it denotes prominence in the Malagasy language. Though some sources describe the Merina expansion as the unification of Madagascar, this period of Merina expansion was seen by neighboring tribes such as the Betsimisaraka as aggressive acts of colonialism. By 1824, the Merina captured the port of Mahajanga situated on the western coast of the island marking a further expansion of power. Under Radama I, the Merina continued to launch military expeditions that both expanded imperial control and enriched military chiefs. The ability of the Merina to overcome neighboring tribes was due to British firepower and military training. The British had an interest in establishing trade with the Merina kingdom due to its central position on the island since 1815. Merina imperial expeditions became more frequent and violent after the renunciation of the second Merina-British treaty. Between 1828 and 1840, more than 100,000 men were killed and more than 200,000 enslaved by Merina forces. Imperial rule was met with resistance from escaped slaves and other refugees from imperial rule numbering in the tens of thousands. These refugees formed raiding brigands that were dealt with by imperial troops who hunted them down in 1835. Notably, the rate of escaping refugees only heightened the demand for slave labor in the Merina kingdom, further fueling campaigns of military expansion. Throughout the middle of the 19th century, continued imperial expansion and increasing control in coastal trade solidified Merina predominance over the island. The Merina kingdom nearly consolidated all of Madagascar into a single nation before French colonization in 1895.

Division and civil war
King Andriamasinavalona quartered the kingdom to be ruled by his four favourite sons, producing persistent fragmentation and warfare between principalities in Imerina. He extended the borders of the kingdom to their largest historical extent prior to the kingdom's fragmentation.

Reunification

It was from this context in 1787 that Prince Ramboasalama, nephew of King Andrianjafy of Ambohimanga (one of the four kingdoms of Imerina) expelled his uncle and took the throne under the name Andrianampoinimerina. The new king used both diplomacy and force to reunite Imerina with the intent to bring all of Madagascar under his rule.

Kingdom of Madagascar

This objective was largely completed under his son, Radama I, who was the first to admit and regularly engage European missionaries and diplomats in Antananarivo.

The 33-year reign of Queen Ranavalona I, the widow of Radama I, was characterised by a struggle to preserve the cultural isolation of Madagascar from modernity, especially as represented by the French and British. Her son and heir, King Radama II, signed the unpopular Lambert Charter giving French entrepreneur Joseph-François Lambert exclusive rights to many of the island's resources. His liberal policies angered the aristocracy, however, and Prime Minister Rainivoninahitriniony had the King strangled in a coup d'état. This aristocratic revolution saw Rasoherina, the queen dowager, placed on the throne upon her acceptance of a constitutional monarchy that gave greater power to the Prime Minister. She replaced the incumbent Prime Minister with his brother, Rainilaiarivony, who retained the role for three decades and married each successive queen. The next sovereign, Ranavalona II, converted the nation to Christianity and had all the sampy (ancestral royal talismans) burnt in a public display. The last Merina sovereign, Queen Ranavalona III, acceded the throne at age 22 and was exiled to Réunion Island and later French Algeria following French colonisation of the island in 1896.

French colonisation

Angry at the cancellation of the Lambert Charter and seeking to restore property taken from French citizens, France invaded Madagascar in 1883 in what became known as the First Franco-Hova War (Hova referring to the andriana). At the war's end, Madagascar ceded Antsiranana (Diégo Suarez) on the northern coast to France and paid 560,000 gold francs to the heirs of Joseph-François Lambert. Meanwhile, in Europe, diplomats partitioning the African continent worked out an agreement whereby Britain, in order to obtain the Sultanate of Zanzibar, ceded its rights over Heligoland to the German Empire and renounced all claims to Madagascar in favor of France. The agreement proved detrimental for the monarchy of Madagascar. Prime Minister Rainilaiarivory had succeeded in playing Great Britain and France against one another, but now France could meddle without fear of reprisals from Britain.

In 1895, a French flying-column landed in Mahajanga (Majunga) and marched by way of the Betsiboka River to the capital, Antananarivo, taking the city's defenders by surprise since they had expected an attack from the much closer eastern coast. Twenty French soldiers died in combat while 6,000 died of malaria and other diseases before the Second Franco-Hova War ended. In 1896, the Merina Kingdom was put under French protection as the Malagasy Protectorate and in 1897 the French Parliament voted to annex the island as a colony, effectively ending Merina sovereignty.

Geography

Spatial organization

Andriamanelo established the first fortified rova (royal compound) at his capital at Alasora. This fortified palace bore specific features – hadivory (dry moats), hadifetsy (defensive trenches) and vavahady (town gates protected by a large rolled stone disc acting as a barrier) – that rendered the town more resistant to Vazimba attacks.

Andrianjaka's policies and tactics highlighted and increased the separation between the king and his subjects. He transformed social divisions into spatial divisions by assigning each clan to a specific geographical region within his kingdom.

Andrianjaka unified the principalities on what he later designated as the twelve sacred hills of Imerina at Ambohitratrimo, Ambohimanga, Ilafy, Alasora, Antsahadita, Ambohimanambony, Analamanga, Ambohitrabiby, Namehana, Ambohidrapeto, Ambohijafy and Ambohimandranjaka. These hills became and remain the spiritual heart of Imerina, which was further expanded over a century later when Andrianampoinimerina redesignated the twelve sacred hills to include several different sites.

Under Andriamasinavalona, the Kingdom of Imerina was composed of six provinces (toko): Avaradrano, constituting Antananarivo and land to the northeast of the capital, including Ambohimanga; Vakinisisaony, including the land to the south of Avaradrano and its capital at Alasora; Vonizongo to the northwest of Antananarivo with its capital at Fihaonana; Marovatana to the south of Vonizongo, with its capital at Ambohidratrimo; Ambodirano, south of Marovatana with its capital at Fenoarivo; and Vakinankaratra to the south of Antananarivo with its capital at Betafo. Andrianampoinimerina reunited these provinces and added Imamo to the west, which has been described by some historians as having been incorporated into Ambodirano, and by others as separate from it; and Valalafotsy to the northwest. Together, these areas constitute the core territory rightly called Imerina, the homeland of the Merina people.

Imerina is located in the central highlands of Madagascar. It is notable that the word Imerina is derived from the Malagasy word meaning the "occupancy of a prominent place." Consistent with the name, much of the documented manipulation of the land in the Merina kingdom involve the building of palaces for royalty or of temples. Andrianampoinimerina (c.1745-1809) was the first to use the toponym of Imerina after conquering Antananarivo. He projected his power by constructing a palace on the site that became the seat of royal power in the Merina kingdom.

A significant alteration of the landscape made under the rule of Andrianampoinimerina was the introduction of irrigation systems that allowed for the farming of rice paddies. To the present day rice remains a staple of Malagasy cuisine. The digging of canals and dikes was done by vast numbers of slaves placed under royal servitude, or fanompoana.

The landscape of Imerina and its geographical manipulation had significant ritual meaning in Merina culture. The irrigation system introduced to Antananarivo, the central authority of Imerina, represented the unification between the Merina royalty and its people. This infrastructural feat paralleled the ritual sprinkling of water known as tsodrano done to represent the unification of land and people. Merina beliefs held the connection between cultural history and the landscape in high regard. The use of water to represent spiritual connections between people, the land, and ancestors remains common in the present day.

By the 1820s, an increased European population had superimposed many Western geographic features onto Imerina. This involved the introduction of non native plants and trees. This proved particularly successful for Europeans as the Malagasy soil and climate were particularly conducive to growing European plants and vegetables.

Social organization

Caste system
Before the unification of the Merina kingdom under Andrianampoinimerina, the social structure of the central highlands of Madagascar were distinguished by a class of petty princes and peasant masses.

Andriamanelo was reportedly the first to formally establish the andriana as a caste of Merina nobles, thereby laying the foundation for a stratified and structured society. From this point forward, the term Hova was used to refer only to the non-noble free people of the society which would later be renamed Merina by Andriamanelo's son Ralambo. The first sub-divisions of the andriana noble caste were created when Ralambo split it into four ranks.

Andrianjaka was the first king to be buried on the grounds of the Rova of Antananarivo, his tomb forming the first of the Fitomiandalana (seven tombs placed in a row on the Rova grounds). To commemorate his greatness, his subjects erected a small wooden house called a small sacred house on top of his tomb. Future Merina sovereigns and nobles continued to construct similar tomb houses on their tombs well into the 19th century.

After the conquests of the 19th century, approximately half of the Merina population consisted of the descendants of slaves. This distinction is calcified in the present day by the classification of the descendants of slaves as "blacks" and those of freemen as "whites". The use of color to describe social distinction is further supplemented by the racial distinctions of the Malagasy population tracing back to the original settlement of the island, with Austronesian racial features are contrasted by African racial features.

Religion

Andriamanelo is credited with introducing astrology in Imerina. The Merina rite of circumcision, described by Bloch (1986) in great detail, continued to be practiced by the Merina monarchy through the end of the 19th century in precisely the way first established by Andriamanelo generations before. Many elements of these rituals continue to form part of the circumcision traditions of Merina families in the 21st century. The origins of these practices can be traced back to the southeastern part of the island that the Hova had left behind as they migrated into the central highlands. Astrology, for instance, had been introduced early to the island by way of trade contacts between coastal Malagasy communities and Arab seafarers.

Under Andriamanelo's son Ralambo, the sovereign became imbued with increasing power to protect the realm. This was preserved by honoring the sampy, traditional amulets made from assorted natural materials. Amulets and idols called ody had long occupied an important place among many ethnic groups of Madagascar, but these were believed to offer protection to the individual wearer only and were commonplace objects possessed by anyone from slave children to kings. After Ralambo received a highly powerful sampy called Kelimalaza that was distinguished by its supposed capacity to extend protection to an entire community, he sought out and amassed a total of twelve others from communities across Imerina believed to have such a quality. These sampy were personified—complete with a distinct personality—and offered their own house with guardians dedicated to their service. Ralambo then transformed the nature of the relationship between sampy and ruler: whereas previously the sampy had been seen as tools at the disposal of community leaders, under Ralambo they became divine protectors of the king's sovereignty and the integrity of the state, which would be preserved through their power on the condition that the line of sovereigns ensured the sampy were shown the respect due to them. By collecting the twelve greatest sampy—twelve being a sacred number in Merina cosmology—and transforming their nature, Ralambo strengthened the supernatural power and legitimacy of the royal line of Imerina. Oral history recounts numerous instances where sampy were taken into battle, and subsequent successes and varying miracles were attributed to them, including several key victories against Sakalava marauders. The propagation of similar sampy at the service of less powerful citizens consequently increased throughout Imerina under Ralambo's rule: nearly every village chief, as well as many common families, had one in their possession and claimed the powers and protection their communal sampy offered them. These lesser sampy were destroyed or reduced to the status of ody by the end of the reign of Ralambo's son, Andrianjaka, officially leaving only twelve truly powerful sampy (known as the sampin'andriana: the "Royal Sampy") which were all in the possession of the king. These royal sampy, including Kelimalaza, continued to be worshiped until their supposed destruction in a bonfire by Queen Ranavalona II upon her public conversion to Christianity in 1869.

Also beginning under Ralambo, the ritual sanctification of the realm occurred through the annual fandroana festival at the start of each year. Although the precise form of the original holiday cannot be known with certainty and its traditions have evolved over time, 18th- and 19th-century accounts provide insight into the festival as it was practiced at that time. Accounts from these centuries indicate that all family members were required to reunite in their home villages during the festival period. Estranged family members were expected to attempt to reconcile. Homes were cleaned and repaired and new housewares and clothing were purchased. The symbolism of renewal was particularly embodied in the traditional sexual permissiveness encouraged on the eve of the fandroana (characterized by early 19th-century British missionaries as an "orgy") and the following morning's return to rigid social order with the sovereign firmly at the helm of the kingdom. On this morning, the first day of the year, a red rooster was traditionally sacrificed and its blood used to anoint the sovereign and others present at the ceremony. Afterward the sovereign would bathe in sanctified water, then sprinkle it upon attendees to purify and bless them and ensure an auspicious start to the year. Children would celebrate the fandroana by carrying lighted torches and lanterns in a nighttime processional through their villages. The zebu meat eaten over the course of the festival was primarily grilled or consumed as jaka, a preparation reserved uniquely for this holiday. This delicacy was made during the festival by sealing shredded zebu meat with suet in a decorative clay jar. The confit would then be conserved in a pit for twelve months to be served at the next year's fandroana.

Customs
The marriage tradition of the vodiondry, still practiced to this day throughout the Highlands, is said to have originated with Andriamanelo. According to oral history, after the sovereign had successfully contracted a marriage with Ramaitsoanala, sole daughter of Vazimba King Rabiby, Andriamanelo sent her a variety of gifts including vodiondry—meat from the hindquarters of a sheep—which he believed to be the tastiest portion. The value placed on this cut of meat was reaffirmed by Ralambo who, upon discovering the edibility of zebu meat, declared the hindquarters of every slaughtered zebu throughout the kingdom to be his royal due. From the time of Andriamanelo forward, it became a marriage tradition for the groom to offer vodiondry to the bride's family. Over time the customary offerings of meat have been increasingly replaced by a symbolic piastre, sums of money and other gifts. Andriamanelo's son Ralambo is credited with introducing the tradition of polygamy in Imerina. He also introduced the traditions of circumcision and family intermarriage (such as between parent and step-child, or between half-siblings) among Merina nobles, these practices having already existed among certain other Malagasy ethnic groups.

According to oral history, the institution of lengthy formal mourning periods for deceased sovereigns in Imerina may also have begun with the death of Andrianjaka. He was succeeded by his son, Andriantsitakatrandriana.

Despite plenty of religious variation across Imerina and the Malagasy highlands in general, ritual circumcision has remained a constant factor in Merina and Malagasy culture. The permanence of the circumcision ritual continues to the modern day.

Indigenous silk clothing (landibe) is especially important in highland cultures, including with the Merina. It was worn during ancestral funerary ceremonies.

The Tantaran'ny Andriana or Histories of Kings is the written classic of Merina culture, compiled from oral traditions and stories. The Tantara was collected by the Jesuit priest François Callet in the 1860s. The Tantara and other printed works are held in such high regard that very few can be obtained for any price.

Present day Malagasy culture is still tied extensively to the past. Many ceremonies involve reenactments of the past, such as tromba, or the spirit possession ceremony. Generally, the concept of history in Madagascar places a great emphasis on feeling and experiencing rather than knowing.

Political organization

The line of succession in Imerina used a system called fanjakana arindra ("organized government"), which was established by the Vazimba noblewomen who raised Andriamanelo, founder of Imerina. While the Vazimba had historically tended to favor rule by queens, the Hova favored male heirs, and the marriage between Andriamanelo's Vazimba and Hova parents had produced two sons and a daughter. To prevent conflict, the queen decided that Andriamanelo would inherit the crown upon his mother's death and would be succeeded not by his own child but by his younger brother. This system of succession was ordered by the queens to be followed for all time, and applied to families as well: in any instance where there was an elder child and a younger one, the parents would designate an elder child to assume authority within the family upon their death, and that authority would be handed to the designated younger child in the event of the death of the elder child. Ralambo was the first Merina sovereign to practice polygamy, and his second wife was the first to give him a son. While his younger son by his first wife was to rule, Ralambo sought to assuage the elder son by declaring that the crown could henceforth only be passed to a child born of the reigning sovereign and a princess from the elder son Andriantompokoindrindra's family line.

The practice of sanctifying deceased Merina sovereigns is believed to have originated with Ralambo.

Imerina was initially ruled under Andriamanelo from his mother's home village of Alasora. The capital was shifted by his son Ralambo to Ambohidrabiby, location of the former capital of his maternal grandfather King Rabiby. Andrianjaka moved his capital from Ambohidrabiby to Ambohimanga upon ascending to the throne around 1610. The Besakana, Masoandrotsiroa and Fitomiandalana houses at the Rova of Antananarivo were preserved and maintained over the centuries by successive generations of Merina sovereigns, imbuing the structures with deep symbolic and spiritual meaning. As Andrianjaka's residence, the Besakana was particularly significant: the original building was torn down and reconstructed in the same design by Andriamasinavalona around 1680, and again by Andrianampoinimerina in 1800, each of whom inhabited the building in turn as their personal residence. King Radama I likewise inhabited the building for much of his time at the Rova, and in 1820 he designated the building as the first site to house what came to be known as the Palace School, the first formal European-style school in Imerina. Sovereigns were enthroned in this building and their mortal remains were displayed here before burial, rendering Besakana "the official state room for civil affairs... regarded as the throne of the kingdom."

Defense
The early Merina fighters under the first king of Imerina were equipped with iron-tipped spears, an innovation credited to Andriamanelo himself, who may have been the first among the Hova to use smithed iron in this way.

Justice system
Andrianjaka imposed an intimidating change to the traditional form of justice, the trial by ordeal: rather than administering tangena poison to an accused person's rooster to determine their innocence by the creature's survival, the poison would instead be ingested by the accused himself.

Economy and trade
Andriamanelo was the first in the highlands to transform lowland swamps into irrigated rice paddies through the construction of dikes in the valleys around Alasora. Under Andrianjaka, the plains surrounding Antananarivo were gradually transformed into vast, surplus-producing rice paddies. This feat was accomplished by mobilizing large numbers of his able-bodied subjects to construct dikes that enabled the redirection of rainwater for controlled flooding of planted areas.

Andrianjaka was reportedly the first Merina leader to receive Europeans around 1620 and traded slaves in exchange for guns and other firearms to aid in the pacification of rival principalities, obtaining 50 guns and three barrels of gunpowder to equip his army.

Technology
Andriamanelo is traditionally credited with discovering the technique of silversmithing, iron smithing and the construction and use of pirogues. While these technologies were not discovered during his reign, Andriamanelo may have been among the first sovereigns in Imerina to make wide-scale use of them.

The Slave Trade

Export of slaves
Captives from tribal raids were made into the Malagasy slave population. Surpluses of these populations were sent to foreign traders on the coast. These traders were initially Arab and Indian, though Europeans began to join those demanding slaves at the start of the 16th century. Malagasy slaves were exported to Arabia, India, Réunion and Mauritius, and the Americas, primarily Brazil.

British influence
After the British emerged victorious from the Napoleonic wars, they captured the French Mascarene Islands which lie east of Madagascar. These islands facilitated the export of slaves and agricultural products. Some of the first stories of Madagascar to be told in Britain were those told by Robert Drury, a shipwrecked British sailor who wrote about the Malagasy slave trade of in his journal that would be published and widely distributed in England. It was this fixation on the slave trade in Madagascar that initially drew the British to the Merina, giving the Merina the firepower to extend their empire and trading networks across Madagascar. Though the British later returned the island of Réunion to France, they retained Mauritius and included it in the second British-Merina treaty of 1820. This treaty declared an end to the export of slaves in Madagascar under the Merina crown. However, the internal slave market still boomed after 1820 despite British efforts. It is estimated that between 6,000 to 10,000 slaves per year were exported from Antananarivo by 1820. In 1828, Ranavalona I revoked the second British-Merina treaty and expelled most foreigners from Madagascar by 1836.

Domestic slavery
Due to the thin population density of Madagascar, domestic slavery was a way to broadcast control over resources and manpower. The elite of Imerina relied heavily upon slave labor. Because of this, the Merina king Radama I had little intent to abide by the first British-Merina treaty signed in 1817. Slave ownership became increasingly common in the following decades. As the slave caste expanded, more and more of the Merina population began holding slaves. As imperial conquests continually increased the supply of slaves captured from neighboring tribes, the population of Antananarivo grew from around 10,000 in 1820 to 50,000 in 1833. The demand in slaves matched the rise in supply as a result of fanompoana, or mandatory military service, being established in the Merina kingdom thereby drawing able bodied free men away from agricultural labor and into the army. In the second half of the 19th century, the Merina had begun to import slaves from East Africa. This was driven by an economy that critically relied on slave labor as well as the demands of Merina court officials that had personal financial interests. Emancipation of domestic slaves began in 1877, when an estimated 150,000 slaves were freed. However, these newly freed slaves were made into an imperial labor reserve, a position not far removed from enslavement. A clandestine trade thrived in the 1880s until Franco-Merina hostilities broke out in 1882.

See also

List of Imerina monarchs

References

Bibliography

Berger, Laurent (2012). "Ritual, History and Cognition: From Analogy to Hegemony in Highland Malagasy Polities". Anthropological Theory, vol. 12, no. 4, Dec. 2012, pp. 351–385, doi:10.1177/1463499612470908.
Bird, Randall (2005). "The Merina Landscape in Early Nineteenth Century Highlands Madagascar". African Arts, vol. 38, no. 4, 2005, pp. 18–92. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20447730.

Campbell, G. (1981). Madagascar and the Slave Trade, 1810–1895. The Journal of African History, 22(2), 203–227. Retrieved March 26, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/181583

Cole, Jennifer (2001). Forget Colonialism? Sacrifice and the Art of Memory in Madagascar. University of California Press.

Drury, Robert, and Daniel Defoe. The Pleasant and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during His Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar: Containing I. His Voyage to, and Short Stay at the East Indies. II. An Account of the Shipwreck of the Degrave, on the Island of Madagasear; the Murder of Capt. Younge and His Ship's Company, except Admiral Bembo's Son, and Some Few Others, Who Made Their Escape. III. His Captivity, Hard Usage, Marriage, and Wonderful Variety of Fortune. IV. His Travels Thorow the Island, and Description of Its Situation, Product, Manufactures, Commodities, &c. V. The Nature of the People, Their Customs, Wars, Religion, and Policy: as Also, the Conferences between Some of Their Chiefs, and the Author, Concerning the Christian, and Their Religion. VI. His Redemption from Thence by Capt. Mackett, Late Commander of the Prince of Wales, in the Honourable East India Company's Service: His Arrival in England, and Second Voyage Thither. VII. A Vocabulary of the Madagasear Language. The Whole Is a Faithful Narrative of Matter of Fact, Interspers'd with a Variety of Amazing Incidents, and Illustrated with a Sheet Map of Madagasear and Other Cuts. First Written by Himself, and Now Carefully Revised and Corrected from the Original Copy, with Improvements. Printed for and Sold by M. Sheepey, under the Royal Exchange; J. Wren, near Great Turn Style. Holborn; and T. Lownds, Exeter Exchange in the Strand, 1750.
Emoff, R. (2002). Phantom Nostalgia and Recollecting (From) the Colonial Past in Tamatave, Madagascar. Ethnomusicology, 46(2), 265–283. doi:10.2307/852782

Green, Rebecca L (2009). "Conceptions of Identity and Tradition in Highland Malagasy Clothing." Fashion Theory, vol. 13, no. 2, Routledge, June 2009, pp. 177–214, doi:10.2752/175174109X415069.
Kent, Raymond Knezevich (1970). Early Kingdoms in Madagascar, 1500–1700. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Larson, Pier M (1996). "Desperately Seeking 'the Merina' (Central Madagascar): Reading Ethnonyms and Their Semantic Fields in African Identity Histories." Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 22, no. 4, 1996, pp. 541–560. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2637156.

Randrianja, Solofo, and Stephen Ellis (2009). Madagascar: a Short History. The University of Chicago Press.

Sanchez, Samuel F. (2019). "The value of the "royal bath" (fandroana). Tributary exchanges and sovereignty in the kingdom of Madagascar (19th century)" Revue d'Histoire du XIXe siècle, no. 59, Dec. 2019 Sanchez, Samuel F., The value of the "royal bath" (fandroana). Tributary exchanges and sovereignty in the kingdom of Madagascar (19th century)

History of Madagascar
Malagasy monarchy
Countries in precolonial Africa
1540s establishments in Africa
1897 disestablishments in Africa
States and territories established in 1540
States and territories disestablished in 1897
Former kingdoms

Merina Kingdom


Ivan Vasilyevich Drago (, , ) is a  fictional Russian character from the Rocky film series. He first appears in the 1985 film Rocky IV, in which he is the main antagonist and rival of Rocky Balboa and is also responsible for the death of Apollo Creed after brutally defeating him in their match. He also appears in the 2018 film Creed II, in which he is the main antagonist and serves as the trainer to his son Viktor. He is portrayed by Swedish actor and real-life martial artist Dolph Lundgren in both films. Despite Drago only having a single professional fight due to all other fights being amateur bouts, a poll of former heavyweight champions and prominent boxing writers ranked Drago as the third-best fighter in the Rocky film series.

Character biography
Ivan Drago is an Olympic gold medalist and a boxing champion from the Soviet Union, who had an amateur record of 100–0–0 wins (100 KO). He is billed at  and . Drago is carefully fitted and trained to be the consummate fighter. His heart rate and punching power are constantly measured via computers during his workouts. Drago is seen receiving intramuscular injections in the movie, implied to be anabolic steroids, though the actual nature of the injected solution is never explicitly stated; instead, Ludmilla, his wife, states as a joke that Drago is like Popeye and eats spinach every day.

Ivan Drago was forced to leave Russia to look after his son Viktor Drago following his loss to Rocky.

Drago was married to another athlete, Ludmilla Vobet (Brigitte Nielsen), who is mentioned to be a double gold medalist in swimming. She is much more articulate than Drago, who seldom talks, and always speaks on his behalf at press conferences and interviews. In Creed II, it is revealed that Drago and Ludmilla had divorced as a result of his loss to Rocky Balboa and he is now raising their son - himself a professional boxer - alone.

Rocky IV

Drago's trainers, Sergei Igor Rimsky (George Rogan) and Manuel Vega (James "Cannonball" Green), along with his wife Ludmilla (née Vobet) (Brigitte Nielsen), are convinced that he can defeat any boxer. Drago enters professional heavyweight boxing in the beginning of the movie.

Former champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), now 43 years old, comes out of retirement to challenge Drago to an exhibition match, assisted by Creed's former rival Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Creed arrives to the ring wearing his signature Stars & Stripes boxing garb to "Living in America", sung by James Brown, dancing upon a huge stage that is lowered into the ring. Before the match begins, Drago mutters "You will lose."

At the beginning of the fight, a confident Apollo dances around the Soviet boxer, flicking jabs at Drago. But then Drago connects with a series of violent blows, proving Apollo is no match for the younger and stronger Russian fighter. Drago even continues to attack Creed after the bell is rung to end the round, despite this being an exhibition match, leaving Apollo bloodied and slumped against the ropes. Rocky is ready to throw in the towel, but Apollo orders him not to as the second round begins. Drago continues to attack Apollo without mercy, and Rocky is ready to go against his wishes and end the fight, however he hesitates due to Apollo's refusal. This turns out to be a fatal mistake, as Drago lands a final savage punch that knocks him out, but fatally injures him, resulting in his death minutes later as he was cradled by Rocky.

Drago exhibits no remorse, coldly stating "if he dies, he dies", claiming he will soon "defeat a real champion". Apollo does indeed die, succumbing to his injuries. Rocky decides to fight Drago to avenge Apollo's death, and when the boxing commission refuses to allow it, Rocky surrenders his World Heavyweight Title to fight Drago an unsanctioned bout, arranged to take place on Drago's home turf in Moscow on Christmas Day. After weeks of training in the Russian mountains, and after an initially reluctant Adrian arrives to support him, Rocky is ready to take on Drago. Unlike the match with Apollo, Drago comes out on the offensive and pummels Rocky for the first round and much to the second, until Rocky manages to causes a deep cut below Drago's right eye. With Drago's confidence shaken, and Rocky's determination fully empowered, the fight eventually becomes a long, drawn-out war between the two. To everyone's shock, Rocky manages to withstand Drago's punishing hits and starts wearing him down, to the point where the Russian crowd begins to cheer for Rocky, whereas at the start of the fight, they were hostile to him. Drago's trainer—a Soviet/East German official—insults him, claiming that by allowing an American to fight so admirably on Russian soil, Drago is disgracing the Soviet Union. The enraged Drago grabs him by the throat, throws him out of the ring, and proclaims he only fights for himself. Immediately preceding the final round, Rocky and Drago meet in the middle of the ring where the two men touch gloves as Drago says to Rocky, "To the end". Rocky finally defeats Drago by KO in the dying seconds of the 15th and final round.

Rocky V

It is revealed that the punishment Drago inflicted on Balboa left him with traumatic brain injuries (specifically diagnosed as cavum septi pellucidi [CSP]), causing issues with his memory and to experience both visual and auditory hallucinations. During Rocky's fight with Tommy Gunn, Rocky sees visions of Drago killing Apollo while believing he is about to suffer the same fate at Tommy's hands. Balboa is saved when
he witnesses the ghostly, fragmented dream figure of his old trainer, Mickey, exhorting Rocky to get up and fight one more time, thus inspiring him to defeat Tommy.

Creed II

After his loss to Rocky, Drago was disgraced by the USSR and Ludmilla left him to raise their son, Viktor, on his own. Following the end of the Cold War, Drago was forced to move to Ukraine, where he lived a modest life while relentlessly training Viktor to be an even more formidable boxer than he was. After Viktor knocks out every opponent he faces in Ukraine and Adonis "Donnie" Creed wins the World Heavyweight Championship, Drago, Viktor, and promoter Buddy Marcelle travel to Philadelphia to issue a challenge to Donnie for the title. Drago visits Rocky in his restaurant to tell him how Rocky cost him everything, and threatens to avenge his loss through Viktor, telling Rocky, "My son will break your boy."

After Donnie accepts the fight and Rocky refuses to train him, Drago intensifies Viktor's training regimen adding weighted chin ups, and battle rope push ups. During the weigh in, Drago taunts Donnie, telling him he is much smaller than Apollo was. Donnie shoves Drago and a scrum breaks out between the two champs.

Viktor pummels Donnie, breaking his ribs and brutally injuring his kidneys, but is disqualified for landing a punch on Donnie while he was down. With Donnie injured and his confidence shattered, Viktor ascends to the top of the boxing world thanks to his unmatched power punches, and Drago's good standing with Russia is partially restored. Ludmilla appears during a dinner meeting, causing Viktor to storm out in disgust. He scolds Drago for seeking validation from the very people who turned their backs on him when he needed them.

Still lacking a true championship belt, the Dragos challenge Donnie to a rematch in Russia. Ivan pushes Viktor to his limit in training for the bout. However, Rocky trained Donnie to accustom his body to repeatedly absorb heavy impact, and uses Viktor's lack of technique and reliance on power punches to his advantage. Viktor enters the tenth round with a slight lead, but begins to tire, as he had never gone past the fourth round in prior matches without knocking his opponent out. Donnie knocks Viktor down twice in the round, causing a number of Viktor's supporters, including Ludmilla, to leave the fight. Seeing that his son is unable to defend himself and might end up like Apollo, Drago throws in the towel, stopping the fight and allowing Donnie to emerge victorious. Drago hugs Viktor after the fight, assuring him that it is okay and that he is proud.

Finally at peace with his past, Ivan focuses on developing a deeper bond with his son, accepting his failure to improve on his legacy.

Personality
Unlike the flamboyant Apollo Creed and the brash James "Clubber" Lang, Rocky's opponents in previous films, Ivan Drago is quiet and non-boastful. Driven by his desire to be the best at all costs, Drago focuses on this single-minded manner in which he pursues his goal - and it deprives him of his humanity. Many viewers and critics have suggested that Drago was meant to symbolize the U.S. perception of the Soviets: immense, powerful, and emotionless. This is made evident by his cold-blooded pulverization of Creed in an exhibition match as well as by his callous reaction toward news of his opponent's death. Drago generally allows his wife and trainers to talk on his behalf to the press. In the original film, the character only speaks in terse, short statements. For Creed II, Stallone added more lines for the character than the original film.

Rocky IV - Rocky vs Drago Directors Cut
In this director's cut edition of the film, from Stallone himself, Drago is positioned as more of an individual experiencing greater conflict between being an instrument of the Soviets and of his own ambition as a 'warrior'.  More lines of dialogue in the opening fight scenes and the press conference scenes humanize his character and detract from the stereotype purveyed in the original theatrical cut.  The juxtaposition of Rocky as the 'pure' American hero versus the Soviet machine is instead reimagined as a more nuanced warrior versus warrior affair, with the backdrop of the politicizing of the fighting being a source of conflict rather than the reason for the contest.

Reception
Commentaries on Drago often characterize him as a hyperbolic representation of Soviet power in the context of the latter part of the Cold War. This symbolism is particularly clear in some lines in the film, including the radio announcer who says, "Ivan Drago is a man with an entire country in his corner." Others have characterized Drago in contrast to Rocky, the prototypically U.S. hero, and that Drago's defeat represents a crumbling of the Soviet regime.

Some, however, have noticed Drago's individualism. Toward the conclusion of the fourth film, when Drago is confronted by a Communist Party functionary, the fighter from the collectivist USSR screams at the top of his lungs, "I fight to win FOR ME!! FOR ME!!!" Drago wants to win, but not for the crowd, not for his nation, not for the communist party, not for the Politburo. He wants to win for himself.

In 2004, The Washington Times referenced Ivan Drago in a comparison of the Soviet-U.S. Olympic rivalry of the Cold War: "Nationalism makes the Olympics worth watching. Jingoism makes them worth caring about." The Times's Patrick Hruby noted that without an embodiment of the rivalry like Ivan Drago, the Olympics were not as fun.

Russia's "goodwill ambassador" Katya Lycheva of the 1980s objected to the character Ivan Drago, claiming that the film uses him "to vilify the Russian people".

In popular culture
The ABC podcast Finding Drago explores the influence of Ivan Drago on contemporary writers, fan-fiction novelists and comedians.

Legacy
Drago's physical appearance has been compared to Norwegian footballer Erling Haaland. Their similarities became subject to a meme in 2022 after the player signed for Manchester City.

References

Bibliography

Rocky characters
Fictional characters with superhuman strength
Fictional professional boxers
Fictional sports coaches
Fictional male sportspeople
Film characters introduced in 1985
Fictional communists
Fictional Soviet Army personnel
Fictional Ukrainian people
Fictional Russian people
Male film villains
Action film villains
Fictional gangsters
Fictional Olympic competitors

Ivan Drago