In late February 1948, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia through a coup d'état.  It marked the onset of four decades of the party's rule in the country.

The KSČ enjoyed a period of popularity following the reestablishment of pre-war Czechoslovakia. After a successful performance during the 1946 parliamentary election, party leader Klement Gottwald became prime minister of a coalition government at the behest of President Edvard Beneš. By summer 1947, however, the KSČ's popularity had significantly dwindled, and the party was expected to be soundly defeated in the May 1948 elections. This, along with the electoral failures of the French and Italian communist parties, prompted Joseph Stalin to harden his approach and order Gottwald to seize power.

On 21 February 1948, twelve non-Communist ministers resigned in protest. They objected to Gottwald's refusal to stop packing the police with Communists, and believed that Gottwald would give way. Instead, the latter threatened a general strike unless Beneš appointed a Communist-dominated government. Armed Communist militia and police took over Prague and mass demonstrations were mounted. On 25 February, Beneš, fearing civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated and allowed the formation of a new government in accordance with KSČ demands. The Communists quickly consolidated their power following the coup. The National Assembly approved a new constitution on 9 May, declaring Czechoslovakia a "people's democratic state". The 30 May elections, in which voters were presented with a single list of candidates, all but confirmed the Communist victory. Beneš resigned on 2 June and was succeeded by Gottwald as President.

The coup's significance extended well beyond the state's boundaries as it was a clear marker along the already well-advanced road to full-fledged Cold War. The event alarmed Western countries and helped spur quick adoption of the Marshall Plan, the creation of a state in West Germany, paramilitary measures to keep communists out of power in France, Greece and especially Italy, and steps toward mutual security that would, in little over a year, result in the establishment of NATO and the definitive drawing of the Iron Curtain until the Revolutions of 1989.

Background

In the aftermath of World War II, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was in a favorable position. Its powerful influence on Czechoslovak politics since the 1920s, its clean wartime record and cooperation with non-Communist parties, its identification with the Soviet Union, one of the country's liberators, and its determination to become the country's leading political force without alarming the West (a strategy also followed by Communist parties in Italy and in France) dovetailed with popular opposition to Nazi rule, the longing for real change that followed it, and the new political realities of living within the Soviet orbit to produce a surge in membership from 40,000 in 1945 to 1.35 million in 1948. Moreover, the Soviets viewed the country as a strategic prize: it bordered West Germany and boasted uranium deposits around Jáchymov.

Nonetheless, party leader Klement Gottwald said in 1945 that "in spite of the favourable situation, the next goal is not soviets and socialism, but rather carrying out a really thorough democratic national revolution", thereby linking his party to the Czechoslovak democratic tradition (he even claimed to be a disciple of Tomáš Masaryk) and to Czech nationalism by capitalizing on popular intense anti-German feelings. During the early postwar period, working with the other parties in a coalition called the National Front, the Communists kept up the appearance of being willing to work within the system.

Thus, in the 1946 election, the KSČ and KSS won 38% of the vote.  This was the best-ever performance by a European Communist party in a free election, and was far more than the 22% won by their Hungarian counterparts the following year in the only other free and fair postwar election in the Soviet area of influence.  President Edvard Beneš, not himself a Communist but very amenable to cooperation with the Soviets, and who hoped for restraint by the Allied powers, thus invited Gottwald to be prime minister. Although the government still had a non-Communist majority (nine Communists and seventeen non-Communists), the KSČ had initial control over the police and armed forces, and came to dominate other key ministries such as those dealing with propaganda, education, social welfare and agriculture; they also soon dominated the civil service.

However, by the summer of 1947 the KSČ had alienated whole blocs of potential voters. The activities of the police—headed by Interior Minister Václav Nosek, a Communist—were acutely offensive to many citizens; farmers objected to talk of collectivization, and some workers were angry at Communist demands that they increase output without being given higher wages. The general expectation was that the Communists would be soundly defeated in the May 1948 elections. That September, at the first Cominform meeting, Andrei Zhdanov observed that Soviet victory had helped achieve "the complete victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie in every East European land except Czechoslovakia, where the power contest still remains undecided." This clearly implied the KSČ should be accelerating its own efforts to take complete power.  That notion would be reinforced during the Prague Spring, when party archives were opened and showed that Stalin gave up the whole idea of a parliamentary path for Czechoslovakia when the Communist parties of France and Italy failed to achieve power in 1947 and 1948.

The KSČ's number-two leader, general secretary Rudolf Slánský, represented the KSČ at the meeting.  He returned to Prague with a plan for the final seizure of power. Slánský remarked, "as in the international field, we have gone on the offensive on the domestic front as well." The KSČ pursued a two-pronged strategy. The party knew it had to maintain the façade of working within the electoral political system and was aware that a revolutionary coup would be unacceptable. It desired to gain an absolute majority at elections scheduled for 1948, but the fracturing of the left-wing coalition made this unrealistic. This pushed the party into extra-parliamentary action. The organization of "spontaneous" demonstrations to "express the will of the people" and continuous visits to parliament by workers' delegations were meant to ensure "mobilization of the masses".

The coup
During the winter of 1947–48, both in the cabinet and in parliament tension between the Communists and their opponents led to increasingly bitter conflict. Matters came to a head in February 1948, when Nosek illegally extended his powers by attempting to purge remaining non-Communist elements in the National Police Force.  The security apparatus and police were being transformed into instruments of the KSČ, and consequently, according to John Grenville, endangering basic civic freedoms.

On 12 February, the non-Communists in the cabinet demanded punishment for the offending Communists in the government and an end to their supposed subversion. Nosek, backed by Gottwald, refused to yield. He and his fellow Communists threatened to use force and, in order to avoid defeat in parliament, mobilised groups of their supporters in the country. On 21 February, twelve non-Communist ministers resigned in protest after Nosek refused to reinstate eight non-Communist senior police officers despite a majority vote of the cabinet in favour of doing so. Most of the ministers remained at their posts, with Social Democratic leader Zdeněk Fierlinger making no secret of his support for the Communists.

The non-Communists assumed that Beneš would refuse to accept their resignations, keeping them in a caretaker government and in the process embarrassing the Communists enough to make them yield. Beneš initially insisted that no new government could be formed which did not include ministers from the non-Communist parties. However, an atmosphere of mounting tension, coupled with massive Communist-led demonstrations occurring throughout the country, convinced Beneš to remain neutral over the issue, for fear the KSČ foment an insurrection and give the Red Army a pretext to invade the country and restore order.

In Grenville's opinion, had Beneš held his line, the Communists would not have been able to form a government. The historian believed there could have been only two non-violent means of resolving the crisis—give way to the non-Communists or risk defeat in early elections which the KSČ would not have had time to rig. The non-Communists saw this as a moment of opportunity, needing to act quickly before the Communists had total control over the police and threatened the electoral process.

At the same time, the non-Communist ministers seemed to behave as if this was just an old-fashioned pre-1939 governmental crisis.  They did not know that the Communists were mobilizing from below to take complete power. Soviet deputy foreign minister Valerian Zorin, who had been his country's ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1947, returned to Prague to help with the final arrangements for the coup. Armed militia and police took over Prague, Communist demonstrations were mounted and an anti-Communist student demonstration was broken up. The ministries of the non-Communist ministers were occupied, civil servants dismissed and the ministers prevented from entering their own ministries. The army, under the direction of Defence Minister Ludvík Svoboda, who was formally non-partisan but had facilitated Communist infiltration into the officer corps, was confined to barracks and did not interfere.

Communist "Action Committees" and trade union militias were quickly set up, armed, and sent into the streets, as well as being prepared to carry through a purge of anti-Communists. In a speech before 100,000 of these people, Gottwald threatened a general strike unless Beneš agreed to form a new Communist-dominated government. Zorin at one point offered the services of the Red Army, camped on the country's borders.  However, Gottwald declined the offer, believing that the threat of violence combined with heavy political pressure would be enough to force Beneš to surrender. As he said after the coup, Beneš "knows what strength is, and this led him to evaluate this [situation] realistically". Additionally, according to historian Igor Lukes, Beneš had been in poor health since 1945, and by 1948 was "a shell of a man" who did not have the emotional or physical stamina to hold out against the "rough, rough players" of the KSČ.

On 25 February 1948, Beneš, fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention, capitulated. He accepted the resignations of the non-Communist ministers and appointed a new government in accordance with KSČ demands.  Gottwald continued as prime minister of a new government comprising 25 members–13 Communists and 12 non-Communists (nine members from non-Communist parties and three independents). In truth, the new government was dominated by Communists and pro-Moscow Social Democrats.  The Social Democrats' leader, Fierlinger, had been a proponent of closer ties with the Communists for some time; as mentioned above, he openly sided with the Communists during the dispute. Members of the People's, Czech National Social Party and Slovak Democratic parties still figured, so the government was still nominally a coalition. However, this was no longer a coalition in any real sense of the term. The other parties had been taken over by Communist sympathizers, and ministers using these labels were fellow travellers handpicked by the Communists. The only senior minister who was neither a Communist nor a fellow traveller was Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, who was however found dead two weeks later outside a third-floor window. Some friends and admirers believed Masaryk committed suicide out of despair. However, there was longstanding Western suspicion was that he had actually been thrown to his death, which remains to this day, with an investigation closed in 2021 ruling murder, accident, or suicide all possible.

Following the coup, the Communists moved quickly to consolidate their power.  Thousands were fired and hundreds were arrested.  Thousands fled the country to avoid living under Communism. The National Assembly, freely elected two years earlier, quickly fell into line and gave Gottwald's revamped government a vote of confidence in March. The 230-0 result was unanimous, although nine MPs had resigned following the coup.

On 9 May, a new constitution was approved by parliament, which declared Czechoslovakia a "people's democratic state."  Although it was not a completely Communist document (indeed, the KSČ was not even mentioned), it was close enough to the Soviet model that Beneš refused to sign it. At the 30 May elections, voters were presented with a single list from the National Front, which officially won 89.2% of the vote; within the National Front list, the Communists had an absolute majority of 214 seats (160 for the main party and 54 for the Slovak branch). This majority grew even larger when the Social Democrats merged with the Communists later in the year.  Practically all non-Communist parties that had participated in the 1946 election were also represented within the National Front list and thus received parliamentary seats.  However, by this time they had all transformed themselves into loyal partners of the Communists, and the few independent-minded members of those parties were either in prison or in exile.  The National Front was converted into a broad patriotic organisation dominated by the Communists, and no political group outside it was allowed to exist. Consumed by these events, Beneš resigned on 2 June and was succeeded by Gottwald twelve days later. Beneš died in September, bringing a symbolic close to the sequence of events, and was buried before an enormous and silent throng come to mourn the passing of a popular leader and of the democracy he had come to represent.

Impact

Czechoslovakia was ruled by a victorious Communist Party of Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution of 1989. More immediately, the coup became synonymous with the Cold War.  The loss of the last remaining liberal democracy in Eastern Europe came as a profound shock to millions in the West. For the second time in a decade, Western eyes saw Czechoslovak independence and democracy snuffed out by a foreign totalitarian dictatorship intent on dominating the small country (though unlike in 1938–39, the KSČ did most of the "dirty work").

The USSR seemed to have completed the formation of a monolithic Soviet bloc and concluded the partition of Europe, which appeared to vindicate and certainly crystallized the pessimistic appraisals of Soviet power in the West by people who felt certain that it was folly to try to do business with the USSR. Because its impact was equally profound in Western Europe as in the United States, it helped unify Western countries against the Communist bloc. It gave an air of prescience to the French and Italian governments for having forced their local Communists out of their governments a year earlier.

Additionally, it finally discredited Soviet moves to prevent the formation of a West German state and accelerated the construction of a West European alliance, the Treaty of Brussels, the following month; mutual security was the new watchword. Until early 1948, Western and Soviet representatives had communicated in regular meetings at the foreign minister level; the Czechslovak coup constituted a final rupture in relations between the two superpowers, with the West now signaling its determination to commit itself to collective self-defence. By early March, even a previously wavering France was demanding a concrete military alliance with definite promises to help in certain circumstances.

From the Soviet's point of view, the coup could not have come at a worse time. The government crisis in Prague lasted from 20 to 27 February, just when Western foreign ministers were meeting in London. From the West's perspective, the coup was an example of Communism in its most unacceptable form; the USSR seemed to the West bent on ruthless expansion and the suppression of freedom.

United States

The coup's impact in the United States was immediate. Opposition towards the Marshall Plan had developed in the United States Congress, but a shocked and aroused public opinion overwhelmed this, and Congress promptly approved over US$5 billion for the first year of the European Recovery Program.

Until the Czech coup, the emphasis in Washington had been on economic containment of Communism, primarily through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and a heavy reliance on atomic power as a shield to support it. President Harry S. Truman understood that in 1946 and 1947 the American people were not prepared for a massive conventional arms buildup or a confrontation with the Soviet Union. He was reluctant to increase the military budget dramatically and instead chose a gradual and balanced buildup. Expecting to spend large amounts on the Marshall Plan, he sought to keep the annual defence budget below $15 billion.

However, the coup served to expose the limitations of U.S. conventional forces and its over-reliance on atomic power. At the time of the Prague crisis, roughly ten ill-equipped and poorly trained U.S. and West European divisions faced over thirty Soviet divisions. When taking into account Defense Department complaints that the U.S. atomic arsenal and the air power to use it were starkly inadequate, it became clear that the U.S. lacked a credible military deterrent in Europe.

The Czechoslovak coup changed the whole tone of the debate on the U.S. military budget. It helped spark a new round of Pentagon lobbying for a substantial rise in the military budget, while the NSC called for "a worldwide counter-offensive" against the Soviet bloc, including U.S. military aid to the Western European Union. Truman responded to the crisis with a grim nationwide radio address on 17 March calling for a renewal of selective service, which had been allowed to lapse the previous year. He also sought congressional approval for a programme of Universal Military Training (UMT). He aimed to send a signal of determination to the Soviet Union that U.S. military posture was strong and that the country with this expansion of military preparedness was also prepared in the future to rearm massively if necessary. Congress rejected UMT, but did vote to resume selective service, and voted the money for a seventy-group air force, 25% larger than the official request.

Nevertheless, the change in American foreign policy in response to the crisis-like atmosphere of early 1948 was more symbolic than real. American willingness to consult on new security arrangements for Europe was the product of neither a changed estimate of Soviet intentions nor a readiness to take on a larger share of the burden of defending Western Europe. Rather, it was a tactical maneuver intended to mitigate the effect of the coup in Czechoslovakia and the brief but intense war scare that followed.

As a result, a series of quick fixes followed to ensure that American forces would not be caught completely off guard in the event of war. More important was the sensitivity with which American officials now treated the nervousness of their European counterparts; the Americans now became more willing to take steps to boost morale in Europe and ease the now-widespread anxieties there. The coup and the Berlin Blockade that June made clear that constant reassurance was needed to bind the Europeans to the U.S. system; hence, the remobilization of U.S. armed forces began.

Indeed, the fear of war between the Soviets and the West reached a high point after the coup. On 5 March, General Lucius D. Clay sent an alarming telegram from Berlin that advised of its likelihood: "Within the last few weeks, I have felt a subtle change in Soviet attitude which I cannot define but which now gives me a feeling that it may come with dramatic suddenness". General Omar Bradley later wrote that when he read Clay's "lugubrious assessment" in Washington he was "lifted right out of [his] chair", and George F. Kennan wrote that the coup and the telegram had combined to create "a real war scare" where "the military and the intelligence fraternity" had "overreacted in the most deplorable way". Only a week later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended rearmament and a restoration of the draft.

In fact, Clay's warning had more to do with a request by Army director of intelligence Lt. Gen. Stephen Chamberlain for material that would persuade Congress to spend more on military readiness than with any hard evidence of Soviet intent to launch a war in Europe. Still, in Europe too in February and March "war was being commonly, even calmly discussed in streets and cafes on the Continent", a fear exacerbated by reports on 27 February that Stalin had invited Finland to sign a treaty of mutual assistance, contributing to expectations it would be the next domino to fall; pressure for a treaty was placed on Norway too.

Amidst the general alarm, more sanguine voices were also raised. The Truman Administration had months earlier written off Czechoslovakia as little more than a Soviet satellite; in November 1947 U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall told a cabinet meeting that the Soviets would probably soon consolidate their hold on Eastern Europe by clamping down on Czechoslovakia as a "purely defensive move", and Kennan cabled from Manila that the Soviets seemed to be consolidating their defences, not preparing for aggression. He later wrote that the Prague coup and the Berlin Blockade were "defensive reactions" to the Marshall Plan's initial successes and to the Western decision to press for an independent West German state. This view of the event sees Truman's reaction as him seizing on a necessary crisis to sell the Marshall Plan and the rearmament programme the Pentagon had long been pushing.

Marshall's own reaction was that "in so far as international affairs are concerned, a seizure of power by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia would not materially alter...the situation which has existed in the last three years". Even as he was holding a press conference to push his economic aid plan on 10 March, the CIA reported that "We do not believe...that this event reflects any sudden increase in Soviet capabilities, more aggressive intentions, or any change in current Soviet policy or tactics...The Czech coup and the demands on Finland...do not preclude the possibility of Soviet efforts to effect a rapprochement with the West", but the administration chose a different course.

On 2 March, CIA director Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter had also written to Truman that "the timing of the coup in Czechoslovakia was forced upon the Kremlin when the non-Communists took action endangering Communist control of the police. A Communist victory in the May elections would have been impossible without such control".

Italy and France

In Italy, elections were scheduled for 18 April and the Communist-dominated Popular Democratic Front stood a realistic chance of victory. In the hysteria and foreboding that gripped Western circles following the Czech coup, it was concluded that similar tactics could be employed in Italy, whose citizens might not even have a chance to vote. British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin and the British Cabinet saw the cooperation between the two leading parties of the Italian left in almost apocalyptic terms, believing that once the Italian Communist Party (PCI) won power it would marginalise any moderating influence from the socialists. Bevin immediately concluded that the "forces of democratic Socialism" must be strengthened in Italy, and that Britain must support the Christian Democrats, despite all of their faults.

Bevin was especially alarmed by the ability of the PCI, through the use of its dominant position in the trade union movement, to organise industrial disturbances not only to sabotage the success of the Marshall Plan, but also to subvert the Italian government through factory committees of action as in Czechoslovakia. The Italian foreign minister, despite his alarm over the coup's timing, remained optimistic, assuring Bevin (who saw Italy as "the immediate danger spot") that the army and police were in excellent shape and that the coup would have an adverse effect, turning swing voters away from the socialists.

This was observed when Communist and socialist leaders in Italy defended the Czech coup as a victory for democracy, rationalizing that the violation of civil rights was a necessary and just response to a reactionary threat posed by Western imperialist (i.e., American) interests; such discourse probably damaged the Front's credibility and undercut its promises of moderation. Kennan cabled to suggest the PCI should be outlawed and the U.S. should intervene militarily in the likely event of a civil war, but he quickly softened his line.

The American Ambassador in Rome worried that the coup would push self-interested voters to side with what they considered the winning side, and that events in Prague probably increased the PCI's prestige, "direct[ing] the politics of the generally opportunistic Italian toward the Communist bandwagon". However, the coup was one of several factors that led a strong plurality of voters to vote for Christian Democracy and defeat the left. Stalin, satisfied that America had not moved militarily after the Czech coup and unwilling to provoke war, respected the result, considering Italy a Western country.

In France, interesting political currents were also set in motion. The United States was still pushing the French government to support German rehabilitation. In the aftermath of the coup, foreign minister Georges Bidault was afraid of stoking anti-German sentiment that the French Communist Party (PCF) could exploit and harness to instigate a coup of its own. At the same time, the coup had forced the hand of PCF leader Maurice Thorez, whose public remarks suggested that in the wake of a Soviet invasion, he would support the Red Army.

The Czech coup, the PCF's failed policy of sabotage and the Marshall Plan's likely passage were all beginning to sway French public opinion. 70% of French people now believed the U.S. would do more than any other country to help France, compared to 7% who thought the USSR would do more. Despite French concern about Germany, it was becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet threat was greater than the German. France would still seek an advantageous power position vis-à-vis Germany, but it was becoming reconciled to the prospect of a rehabilitated Germany as part of postwar Europe.

Along with passage of the Marshall Plan, the other far-reaching implication of the Czech coup for U.S. foreign policy was to heed Bevin's call for a Western defence association. He had found the Truman Administration reluctant to accept an unambiguous and binding alliance with Western Europe even after the irretrievable breakdown of the Council of Foreign Ministers conference in London in December 1947; Marshall was not prepared to accept the idea in discussions with Bevin that 17 December.

On 26 February, Bevin again reiterated that the best way to prevent another Czechoslovakia was to evolve a joint Western military strategy, and this time he got a more receptive hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. That spring, European leaders quietly met with U.S. defence, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, under Marshall's orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association for mutual defence. The following year, NATO would ultimately be born out of these talks.

See also
 Gajda Affair

Notes

References

Bibliography
 Behrman, Greg. The Most Noble Adventure: The Marshall Plan and the Time When America Helped Save Europe. Simon & Schuster, 2007, .
 Blaive, Muriel, "The Danger of Over-Interpreting Dissident Writing in the West: Communist Terror in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1968", in Friederike Kind-Kovács and Jessie Labov (eds.), Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism. Berghahn Books, 2013, .
 Cabada, Ladislav and Waisová, Šárka. Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in World Politics. Lexington Books, 2011, .
 Europa Publications Limited. Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Volume 4. Routledge, 1999, .
 Grenville, John Ashley Soames. A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century. Routledge, 2005, .
 Grogin, Robert C. Natural Enemies: The United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, 1917–1991. Lexington Books, 2001, .
 Hixson, Walter L. George F. Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast. Columbia University Press, 1989, .
 Hunter, Allen. Rethinking the Cold War. Temple University Press, 1998, .
 Kaplan, Morton A. Macropolitics: Essays on the Philosophy & Science of Politics. Transaction Publishers, 1969, .
 Killingsworth, Matt. Civil Society in Communist Eastern Europe. ECPR Press, 2012, .
 Koester, Otto. Seeing Babies in a New Light: the Life of Hanuš Papoušek. Routledge, 2005, .
 Kofsky, Frank. Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation. Palgrave Macmillan, 1995,
 Korbel, Josef. The Communist Subversion of Czechoslovakia, 1938–1948: The Failure of Co-existence (1959).
 Lonsdale, Kathleen Is Peace Possible?. Penguin Books, 1957.
 Lukes, Igor. "The 1948 Coup d'État in Prague through the Eyes of the American Embassy." Diplomacy & Statecraft 22.3 (2011): 431–449.
 Matthias, Willard C. America's Strategic Blunders: Intelligence Analysis and National Security Policy, 1936–1991. Penn State Press, 2003, .
 Offner, Arnold A. Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945–1953. Stanford University Press, 2002, .
 Pedaliu, Effie G. H. Britain, Italy, and the Origins of the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, .
 Saxonberg, Steven. The Fall: A Comparative Study of the End of Communism in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Routledge, 2001, .
 Skroug, Kenneth N. Czechoslovakia's Lost Fight for Freedom, 1967–1969. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, .
 Smetana, Vít. "The US "Loss" of Czechoslovakia: On the Edge of Historical Truth." Journal of Cold War Studies 17.3 (2015): 220–226.
 Steel Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Transaction Publishers, 1999, .
 Taborsky, Edward. Communism in Czechoslovakia, 1948–1960 Princeton University Press, 1961.
 Thies, Wallace J. Friendly Rivals: Bargaining and Burden-Shifting in NATO. M.E. Sharpe, 2002, .
 Ventresca, Robert. From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of 1948. University of Toronto Press, 2004, .
 Vertzberger, Yaacov. Risk Taking and Decisionmaking: Foreign Military Intervention Decisions. Stanford University Press, 1998, .
 Waller, Michael. The End of the Communist Power Monopoly. Manchester University Press ND, 1993, .

Further reading
 Kaplan, Karel. Pět kapitol o Únoru. Brno: Doplněk, 1997, .
 Wójtowicz, Norbert. ''Nástup komunistickej diktatúry v Československu z pohľadu Poľska'', [in:] ''Február 1948 a Slovensko (Zborník z vedeckej konferencie, Bratislava 14. – 15. február 2008)'', red. Ondrej Podolec, Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa, 2008, p. 63-83.
 Wójtowicz, Norbert. ''Przewrót komunistyczny w Czechosłowacji 1948 roku widziany z polskiej perspektywy'', Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2021, 368 pp., ISBN 978-83-8229-162-9

Cold War conflicts
1948 in Czechoslovakia
Politics of Czechoslovakia
Conflicts in 1948
Political repression in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia–Soviet Union relations
Eastern Bloc
Czechoslovakia
Communist revolutions
February 1948 events in Europe
War scare
Democratic backsliding

1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état


Ronald Bernard Simpkins (born April 2, 1958) is a former American football player. He played college football at the University of Michigan as an inside linebacker from 1976 to 1979. He became Michigan's all-time career tackle leader in 1979 and was a consensus first-team selection for the 1979 College Football All-America Team. He later played professional football in the National Football League (NFL) for the Cincinnati Bengals (1980, 1982–1986) and the Green Bay Packers (1988).

Early years
Simpkins was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1958.  He attended Western International High School in Detroit.

University of Michigan
Simpkins enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1976 and played college football as an inside linebacker for coach Bo Schembechler's Michigan Wolverines football teams from 1976 to 1979.  Simpkins saw playing time as a freshman and won the John F. Maulbetsch Award in the spring of 1977, given each year by the University of Michigan after spring practice to a freshman football candidate on the basis of desire, character, capacity for leadership and future success both on and off the football field.

As a sophomore, Simpkins was the leading tackler for the 1977 Michigan Wolverines football team that compiled 10-2 record, won the Big Ten Conference championship, and allowed only 97 points (8.8 points per game) in 11 regular season games.  Simpkins totaled 144 tackles, nearly double the total of 76 compiled by the team's second-leading tackler. He also sacked opposing quarterbacks 10 times and recovered five fumbles in 1977. In the final regular season game of the 1977 season, Simpkins had 20 tackles (15 solo) and recovered a fumble that set up the game-winning touchdown in Michigan's 14-6 victory over Ohio State.

As a junior, Simpkins was Michigan's leading tackler for the second straight year.  His 144 tackles was once again nearly double the 79 compiled by the team's second-leading tackler.  He led the 1978 Michigan Wolverines football team to its second straight 10-2 record with a defense that allowed only 88 points (8.0 points per game) in 11 regular season games.  At the end of the 1978 season, Simpkins was selected as a first-team All-Big Ten Conference linebacker.

As a senior, Simpkins was Michigan's leading tackler for the third consecutive season, and he was selected as the Most Valuable Player on the 1979 Michigan Wolverines football team.  He was also a consensus selection on the 1979 College Football All-America Team, earning first-team honors from the Associated Press, United Press International and Football Writers Association of America.

In his four years at Michigan, Simpkins set a school record with 415 tackles (including 262 solo tackles).  His career tackles record stood until 1996 when Jarrett Irons concluded his Michigan career with 429 tackles.  During his Michigan career, Simpkins also had 11 pass breakups, seven fumble recoveries and an interception.

Professional football
Simpkins was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the seventh round (167th overall pick) of the 1980 NFL Draft.  He signed with the Bengals in May 1980.  As a rookie, he started two games following an injury to Glenn Cameron.

Simpkins did not appear in any games during the 1981 NFL season. He returned in 1982 but was cut by the Bengals during the first week of September 1981. He returned to the Bengals midseason in 1982, appearing in five games as a backup.  In 1983, he appeared in 15 games as a backup linebacker. Simpkins finally became a starter for the 1984 and 1985 Bengals, appearing in all 32 games, including 20 games as a starter.  In 1986, Simpkins returned to a backup role for the Bengals. Following the 1987 preseason, Simpkins was cut by the Bengals in the first week of September.

After being cut by the Bengals, Simpkins did not play in the NFL during the 1987 season.  He signed with the Green Bay Packers in May 1988.  After being cut late in the preseason, he was re-signed by the Packers in late September 1988.  He appeared in seven games, all as a backup, for the Packers during the 1988 NFL season.

Between 1980 and 1988, Simpkins appeared in 91 NFL games, 22 of them as a starter.

Later years
In the spring of 1990, Simpkins returned to Detroit to coach football. During a career that spanned eighteen seasons, Ron was at the helm for the Cowboys of Western International High School; he retired in 2007.

References

External links

1958 births
Living people
All-American college football players
American football linebackers
Cincinnati Bengals players
Green Bay Packers players
Michigan Wolverines football players
Western International High School alumni
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Ron Simpkins


Goetia () is a type of European sorcery, often referred to as witchcraft, that has been transmitted through grimoires—books containing instructions for performing magical practices. The term "goetia" finds its origins in the Greek word "goes," which originally denoted diviners, magicians, healers, and seers. Initially, it held a connotation of low magic, implying fraudulent or deceptive mageia as opposed to theurgy, which was regarded as divine magic. Grimoires, also known as "books of spells" or "spellbooks," serve as instructional manuals for various magical endeavors. They cover crafting magical objects, casting spells, performing divination, and summoning supernatural entities like angels, spirits, deities, and demons. Although the term "grimoire" originates from Europe, similar magical texts have been found in diverse cultures across the world.

The history of grimoires can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, where magical incantations were inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets. Ancient Egyptians also employed magical practices, including incantations inscribed on amulets. The magical system of ancient Egypt, known as heka, underwent changes after the Macedonian invasion led by Alexander the Great. The rise of the Coptic writing system and the Library of Alexandria further influenced the development of magical texts, which evolved from simple charms to encompass various aspects of life, including financial success and fulfillment. Legendary figures like Hermes Trismegistus emerged, associated with writing and magic, contributing to the creation of magical books.

Throughout history, various cultures have contributed to magical practices. Early Christianity saw the use of grimoires by certain Gnostic sects, with texts like the Book of Enoch containing astrological and angelic information. King Solomon of Israel was linked with magic and sorcery, attributed to a book with incantations for summoning demons. The pseudepigraphic Testament of Solomon, one of the oldest magical texts, narrates Solomon's use of a magical ring to command demons. With the ascent of Christianity, books on magic were frowned upon, and the spread of magical practices was often associated with paganism. This sentiment led to book burnings and the association of magical practitioners with heresy and witchcraft.

The magical revival of Goetia gained momentum in the 19th century, spearheaded by figures like Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley. They interpreted and popularized magical traditions, incorporating elements from Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and ceremonial magic. Levi emphasized personal transformation and ethical implications, while Crowley's works blended various mystical philosophies. Contemporary practitioners of occultism and esotericism continue to engage with Goetia, drawing from historical texts while adapting rituals to align with personal beliefs. Ethical debates surround Goetia, with some approaching it cautiously due to the potential risks of interacting with powerful entities. Others view it as a means of inner transformation and self-empowerment.

History of grimoires

A grimoire (also known as a "book of spells", "magic book", or a "spellbook") is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons. While the term grimoire is originally European—and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, have used grimoires—the historian Owen Davies has noted that similar books can be found all around the world, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra. He also noted that in this sense, the world's first grimoires were created in Europe and the ancient Near East.

The earliest known written magical incantations come from ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where they have been found inscribed on cuneiform clay tablets that archaeologists excavated from the city of Uruk and dated to between the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The ancient Egyptians also employed magical incantations, which have been found inscribed on amulets and other items. The Egyptian magical system, known as heka, was greatly altered and expanded after the Macedonians, led by Alexander the Great, invaded Egypt in 332 BC.

Under the next three centuries of Hellenistic Egypt, the Coptic writing system evolved, and the Library of Alexandria was opened. This likely had an influence upon books of magic, with the trend on known incantations switching from simple health and protection charms to more specific things, such as financial success and sexual fulfillment. Around this time the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus developed as a conflation of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes; this figure was associated with writing and magic and, therefore, of books on magic.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that books on magic were invented by the Persians. The 1st-century AD writer Pliny the Elder stated that magic had been first discovered by the ancient philosopher Zoroaster around the year 647 BC but that it was only written down in the 5th century BC by the magician Osthanes. His claims are not, however, supported by modern historians. The Greek Magical Papyri, nearly a millennium after the fall of Mesopotamia, preserve the name of the Sumerian goddess Ereshkigal.

The ancient Jewish people were often viewed as being knowledgeable in magic, which, according to legend, they had learned from Moses, who had learned it in Egypt. Among many ancient writers, Moses was seen as an Egyptian rather than a Jew. Two manuscripts likely dating to the 4th century, both of which purport to be the legendary eighth Book of Moses (the first five being the initial books in the Biblical Old Testament), present him as a polytheist who explained how to conjure gods and subdue demons.

Meanwhile, there is definite evidence of grimoires being used by certain—particularly Gnostic—sects of early Christianity. In the Book of Enoch found within the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, there is information on astrology and the angels. In possible connection with the Book of Enoch, the idea of Enoch and his great-grandson Noah having some involvement with books of magic given to them by angels continued through to the medieval period.

Israelite King Solomon was a Biblical figure associated with magic and sorcery in the ancient world. The 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Josephus mentioned a book circulating under the name of Solomon that contained incantations for summoning demons and described how a Jew called Eleazar used it to cure cases of possession.

The pseudepigraphic Testament of Solomon is one of the oldest magical texts. It is a Greek manuscript attributed to Solomon and was likely written in either Babylonia or Egypt sometime in the first five centuries AD; over 1,000 years after Solomon's death. The work tells of the building of The Temple and relates that construction was hampered by demons until the archangel Michael gave the King a magical ring. The ring, engraved with the Seal of Solomon, had the power to bind demons from doing harm. Solomon used it to lock demons in jars and commanded others to do his bidding, although eventually, according to the Testament, he was tempted into worshiping "false gods", such as Moloch, Baal, and Rapha. Subsequently, after losing favour with God, King Solomon wrote the work as a warning and a guide to the reader.

When Christianity became the dominant faith of the Roman Empire, the early Church frowned upon the propagation of books on magic, connecting it with paganism, and burned books of magic. The New Testament records that after the unsuccessful exorcism by the seven sons of Sceva became known, many converts decided to burn their own magic and pagan books in the city of Ephesus; this advice was adopted on a large scale after the Christian ascent to power.

Magic and goetia in the Greco-Roman world

Greece

The English word magic has its origins in ancient Greece.
During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, the Persian maguš was Graecicized and introduced into the ancient Greek language as μάγος and μαγεία. In doing so it transformed meaning, gaining negative connotations, with the magos being regarded as a charlatan whose ritual practices were fraudulent, strange, unconventional, and dangerous. As noted by Davies, for the ancient Greeks—and subsequently for the ancient Romans—"magic was not distinct from religion but rather an unwelcome, improper expression of it—the religion of the other". The historian Richard Gordon suggested that for the ancient Greeks, being accused of practicing magic was "a form of insult".

Magical operations largely fell into two categories: theurgy () defined as high magic, and goetia () as low magic or witchcraft. Theurgy in some contexts appears simply to glorify the kind of magic that is being practiced – usually a respectable priest-like figure is associated with the ritual. Goetia was a derogatory term connoting low, specious or fraudulent mageia.

Katadesmoi (Latin:  defixiones), curses inscribed on wax or lead tablets and buried underground, were frequently executed by all strata of Greek society, sometimes to protect the entire polis. Communal curses carried out in public declined after the Greek classical period, but private curses remained common throughout antiquity. They were distinguished as magical by their individualistic, instrumental and sinister qualities. These qualities, and their perceived deviation from inherently mutable cultural constructs of normality, most clearly delineate ancient magic from the religious rituals of which they form a part.

A large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered and translated. They contain early instances of:
 the use of magic words said to have the power to command spirits;
 the use of mysterious symbols or sigils which are thought to be useful when invoking or evoking spirits.

In the first century BCE, the Greek concept of the magos was adopted into Latin and used by a number of ancient Roman writers as magus and magia. The earliest known Latin use of the term was in Virgil's Eclogue, written around 40 BCE, which makes reference to magicis... sacris (magic rites). The Romans already had other terms for the negative use of supernatural powers, such as veneficus and saga. The Roman use of the term was similar to that of the Greeks, but placed greater emphasis on the judicial application of it.

Roman Empire
In ancient Roman society, magic was associated with societies to the east of the empire; the first century CE writer Pliny the Elder for instance claimed that magic had been created by the Iranian philosopher Zoroaster, and that it had then been brought west into Greece by the magician Osthanes, who accompanied the military campaigns of the Persian King Xerxes.

Within the Roman Empire, laws would be introduced criminalising things regarded as magic. The practice of magic was banned in the late Roman world, and the Codex Theodosianus (438 AD) states:

If any wizard therefore or person imbued with magical contamination who is called by custom of the people a magician [...] should be apprehended in my retinue, or in that of the Caesar, he shall not escape punishment and torture by the protection of his rank.

Defixiones and sorcery in Roman Britain

Christopher Faralone writes that "In Late Antiquity we can see that a goddess invoked as Hecate Ereshkigal was useful in both protective magic and in curses. [...] she also appears on a number of curse tablets [...]" Robin Melrose writes that "the first clear-cut magic in Britain was the use of curse tablets, which came with the Romans. This is disputed by Stephen Yeates in his book The Tribe of Witches, which presents an investigation of the religion of the peoples who occupied the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds immediately before and after the Roman occupation: the Dobunni and the Hwicce. The name of the latter tribe is the root of the Old English words wicce and wicca, meaning female and male practitioners of witchcraft respectively.

Potter and Johns wrote that "Some classical deities, notably Hecate of the underworld, had triple manifestations. In Roman Britain, some fifty dedications to the Mothers are recorded in stone inscriptions and other objects, constituting ample evidence of the importance of the cult among native Celts and others."

In 1979–80, the Bath curse tablets were found at the site of Aquae Sulis (now Bath in England). All but one of the 130 tablets concerned the restitution of stolen goods. Over 80 similar tablets have been discovered in and about the remains of a temple to Mercury nearby, at West Hill, Uley, making south-western Britain one of the major centres for finds of Latin defixiones.

Most of the inscriptions are in colloquial Latin, and specifically in the Vulgar Latin of the Romano-British population, known as "British Latin". Two of the inscriptions are in a language which is not Latin, although they use Roman lettering, and may be in a British Celtic language. If this should be the case, they would be the only examples of a written ancient British Celtic language; however, there is not yet scholarly consensus on their decipherment.

There is also a medieval-era Templar Magic Square in the Rivington Church in Lancashire, England. Scholars have found medieval Sator-based charms, remedies, and cures, for a diverse range of applications from childbirth, to toothaches, to love potions, to ways of warding off evil spells, and even to determine whether someone was a witch. Richard Cavendish notes a medieval manuscript in the Bodleian says: "Write these [five sator] words on in parchment with the blood of a Culver [pigeon] and bear it in thy left hand and ask what thou wilt and thou shalt have it. fiat."

In medieval times, the Roman temple at Bath would be incorporated into the Matter of Britain. The thermal springs at Bath were said to have been dedicated to Minerva by the legendary King Bladud and the temple there endowed with an eternal flame.

Goetia in Medieval Europe

Role of the Matter of Britain in the condemnation of goetia

Godfrid Storms argued that animism played a significant role in the worldview of Anglo-Saxon magic, noting that in the recorded charms, "All sorts of phenomenon are ascribed to the visible or invisible intervention of good or evil spirits." The primary creature of the spirit world that appear in the Anglo-Saxon charms is the ælf (nominative plural ylfe, "elf"), an entity who was believed to cause sickness in humans. Another type of spirit creature, a demonic one, believed to cause physical harm in the Anglo-Saxon world was the dweorg or dƿeorg/dwerg ("dwarf"), whom Storms characterised as a "disease-spirit". A number of charms imply the belief that malevolent "disease-spirits" were causing sickness by inhabiting a person's blood. Such charms offer remedies to remove these spirits, calling for blood to be drawn out to drive the disease-spirit out with it.

The adoption of Christianity saw some of these pre-Christian mythological creatures reinterpreted as devils, who are also referenced in the surviving charms. In late Anglo-Saxon England, nigromancy ('black magic', sometimes confused with necromancy) was among the witchcraft practices condemned by Ælfric of Eynsham  (c.955–c.1010):

Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil; and he comes to them in the likeness of the man that is buried there, as if he arises from death.

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) had said that demons had children with women called cambions, which added to the children they had between them, contributed to increase the number of demons. However, the first popular account of such a union and offspring does not occur in Western literature until around 1136, when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the story of Merlin in his pseudohistorical account of British history, Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), in which he reported that Merlin's father was an incubus.

Anne Lawrence-Mathers writes that at that time "... views on demons and spirits were still relatively flexible. There was still a possibility that the daemons of classical tradition were different from the demons of the Bible." Accounts of sexual relations with demons in literature continues with The Life of Saint Bernard by Geoffrey of Auxerre ( 1160) and the Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth ( 1173). The theme of sexual relations with demons became a matter of increasing interest for late 12th-century writers.

Prophetiae Merlini (The Prophecies of Merlin), a Latin work of Geoffrey of Monmouth in circulation by 1135, perhaps as a libellus or short work, was the first work about the prophet Myrddin in a language other than Welsh. The Prophetiae was widely read — and believed — much as the prophecies of Nostradamus would be centuries later; John Jay Parry and Robert Caldwell note that the Prophetiae Merlini "were taken most seriously, even by the learned and worldly wise, in many nations", and list examples of this credulity as late as 1445.

It was only beginning in the 1150s that the Church turned its attention to defining the possible roles of spirits and demons, especially with respect to their sexuality and in connection with the various forms of magic which were then believed to exist.  Christian demonologists eventually came to agree that sexual relationships between demons and humans happen, but they disagreed on why and how. A common point of view is that demons induce men and women to the sin of lust, and adultery is often considered as an associated sin.

Goetia viewed as maleficium, sorcery and witchcraft

Goetia and some (though not all) medieval grimoires became associated with demonolatry. These grimoires contain magical words of power and instructions for the evocation of spirits derived from older pagan traditions. Sources include Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon paganism and include demons or devils mentioned in the Bible, such as Asmodeus, Astaroth, and Beelzebub.

During the 14th century, sorcerers were feared and respected throughout many societies and used many practices to achieve their goals. "Witches or sorcerers were usually feared as well as respected, and they used a variety of means to attempt to achieve their goals, including incantations (formulas or chants invoking evil spirits), divination and oracles (to predict the future), amulets and charms (to ward off hostile spirits and harmful events), potions or salves, and dolls or other figures (to represent their enemies)".

Medieval Europe saw the Latin legal term maleficium applied to forms of sorcery or witchcraft that were conducted with the intention of causing harm. Early in the 14th century, maleficium was one of the charges leveled against the Knights Templar.

Maleficium was defined as "the practice of malevolent magic, derived from casting lots as a means of divining the future in the ancient Mediterranean world", or as "an act of witchcraft performed with the intention of causing damage or injury; the resultant harm." In general, the term applies to any magical act intended to cause harm or death to people or property. Lewis and Russell stated, "Maleficium was a threat not only to individuals but also to public order, for a community wracked by suspicions about witches could split asunder". Those accused of maleficium were punished by being imprisoned or even executed.

Sorcery came to be associated with the Old Testament figure of Solomon; various grimoires, or books outlining magical practices, were written that claimed to have been written by Solomon. One well-known goetic grimoire is the Ars Goetia, included in the 16th-century text known as The Lesser Key of Solomon, which was likely compiled from materials several centuries older.

One of the most obvious sources for the Ars Goetia is Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum in his De praestigiis daemonum (1577). Weyer relates that his source for this intelligence was a book called Liber officiorum spirituum, seu liber dictus Empto Salomonis, de principibus et regibus demoniorum ("The book of the offices of spirits, or the book called Empto, by Solomon, about the princes and kings of demons"). Weyer does not cite, and is unaware of, any other books in the Lemegeton, suggesting that the Lemegeton was derived from his work, not the other way around. Additionally, some material came from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), and the Heptameron by pseudo-Pietro d'Abano.

The later Middle Ages saw words for these practitioners of harmful magical acts appear in various European languages: sorcière in French, Hexe in German, strega in Italian, and bruja in Spanish. The English term for malevolent practitioners of magic, witch, derived from the earlier Old English term wicce. A person that performs sorcery is referred to as a sorcerer or a witch, conceived as someone who tries to reshape the world through the occult. The word witch is over a thousand years old: Old English formed the compound  from  ('witch') and  ('craft'). The masculine form was  ('male sorcerer'). In early modern Scots, the word warlock came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but is used predominantly for females).

Probably the best-known characteristic of a sorcerer or witch is their ability to cast a spell—a set of words, a formula or verse, a ritual, or a combination of these, employed to do magic. Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give that object magical powers; by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect them magically; by the recitation of incantations; by the performance of physical rituals; by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions; by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination; and by many other means.

During the Renaissance, the many magical practices and rituals of goetia were considered evil or irreligious and by extension, black magic in the broad sense. Witchcraft and non-mainstream esoteric study were prohibited and targeted by the Inquisition.

European witch-hunts and witch-trials

In Christianity, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy and to be viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Early Modern period, fears about sorcery and witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The key century was the fifteenth, which saw a dramatic rise in awareness and terror of witchcraft, culminating in the publication of the  but prepared by such fanatical popular preachers as Bernardino of Siena.

The Malleus Maleficarum, (Latin for 'Hammer of The Witches') was a witch-hunting manual written in 1486 by two German monks, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. It was used by both Catholics and Protestants for several hundred years, outlining how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely than a man to be a witch, how to put a witch on trial, and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female. The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which even cautioned against relying on the work. In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men.

Johann Weyer (1515–1588) was a Dutch physician, occultist and demonologist, and a disciple and follower of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. He was among the first to publish against the persecution of witches. His most influential work is  ('On the Illusions of the Demons and on Spells and Poisons'; 1563).

In 1584, the English writer Reginald Scot published The Discoverie of Witchcraft, a book intended as an exposé of early modern witchcraft. Scot believed that the prosecution of those accused of witchcraft was irrational and not Christian, and he held the Roman Church responsible. Popular belief held that all obtainable copies were burned on the accession of James I in 1603.

In 1597, King James VI and I published a treatise, Daemonologie, a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. It was reprinted again in 1603 when James took the throne of England. The widespread consensus is that King James wrote Daemonologie in response to sceptical publications such as Scot's book.

European witch-trials reached their peak in the early 17th century, after which popular sentiment began to turn against the practice. Friedrich Spee's book Cautio Criminalis, published in 1631, argued that witch-trials were largely unreliable and immoral. In 1682, King Louis XIV prohibited further witch-trials in France. In 1736, Great Britain formally ended witch-trials with passage of the Witchcraft Act.

Magical revival

The magical revival of Goetia gained significant momentum in the 19th century with the contributions of figures like Eliphas Levi. Levi, a French occultist and writer, played a pivotal role in reinterpreting and popularizing magical traditions, including Goetia. His works, such as The Key of the Mysterie and Transcendental Magic, synthesized elements of Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and ceremonial magic. Levi's perspective framed Goetia as a means of harnessing and mastering the forces of the spiritual world for personal transformation. He emphasized the moral and ethical implications of magical practice, reflecting the changing intellectual landscape of the time.

Aleister Crowley, a central figure in 20th-century occultism, continued the magical revival of Goetia. A member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Crowley was deeply influenced by its teachings and rituals. His exploration of Goetia can be seen in his The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King, which offered his perspective on working with spirits. Crowley's approach blended his interpretation of ceremonial magic, Eastern mysticism, and personal experimentation. He emphasized the magician's willpower and authority in commanding spirits, reflecting his individualistic and transformative magical philosophy.

The magical revival of Goetia has persisted into modern times within the realm of occultism. Contemporary practitioners of ceremonial magic, occult traditions, and esotericism often incorporate elements of Goetia into their practices. These individuals draw from historical grimoires, including the classic Lesser Key of Solomon, while also interpreting and adapting its rituals to align with their personal beliefs and spiritual goals. While some view Goetia as a path to self-mastery and spiritual empowerment, others engage with it as a historical curiosity or a means of connecting with symbolic forces.

The magical revival of Goetia has sparked discussions about ethics, responsibility, and the boundaries of magical practice. Some practitioners approach Goetia with caution, recognizing the potential risks and consequences of invoking powerful entities. Others emphasize the symbolic and psychological aspects of the practice, focusing on inner transformation rather than literal spirit conjuration. As with any magical tradition, the revival of Goetia showcases the diversity of perspectives within the occult community, reflecting the evolving understanding of magic in the modern world.

See also
 Astral cult
 Black shamanism
 Ceremonial magic
 Chaos magic
 Classification of demons
 Geomancy
 Left-hand path and right-hand path
 Magical formula
 Magical Treatise of Solomon
 Neopagan witchcraft
 Renaissance magic
 Scrying
 Sexuality in Christian demonology

References

Notes

Citations

Works cited

Further reading

Christianity in the Middle Ages
Demonology
Early Modern witch hunts
European witchcraft
Greek words and phrases
Knights Templar
Left-Hand Path
Magic (supernatural)
Sociology of religion
Witchcraft

Sorcery (goetia)


Radyo Natin () is a community radio network owned by Manila Broadcasting Company. It has more than 100 stations across the Philippines spread from Aparri in the northernmost part to Bongao in the south. The network also runs its main feed known as Radyo Natin Nationwide, which broadcasts on 96.3 FM's HD2 channel.

Unlike MBC's radio brands, Radyo Natin enacts as a "network-community" station operated by different local entities (both companies and individuals) under an entrepreneurship/franchise agreement with the network.

History
Radyo Natin was launched by the MBC on December 16, 1997 as a replacement for the short-lived Community Radio Network (ComNet). Back then, its original programming consisted of DZRH hook-up programming on mornings, local programming from late morning to early evenings, and the controversial religious program Ang Dating Daan on mid-evenings until sign-off.

In mid-2017 (and prior to the 20th anniversary of the network), most of the Hot FM stations switched to the Radyo Natin brand, thus dissolving the Hot FM branding. In turn, Radyo Natin now has over 120 stations.

On October 2, 2019, the main studios and satellite uplink facilities of Radyo Natin Nationwide at the MBC Building, CCP Complex in Pasay, along with its sister MBC radio stations, were affected by a major fire that originated in the nearby Star City theme park. In interim, Radyo Natin beamed its broadcasts from its backup studios at BSA Twin Towers in Ortigas, while most of their local stations are temporarily suspended its network hookup from its satellite uplink facility and temporarily replaced with local music/fillers programs until January 2022.

On November 15, 2021, Radyo Natin Nationwide relaunched its new logo along with the new logos of all MBC radio stations and its new corporate slogan, Sama-Sama Tayo, Pilipino! (lit. We are all Filipinos!). In February 2022, after a three-year hiatus, the central studios of Radyo Natin Nationwide returned to the newly renovated MBC Building inside the Star City complex.

Composition and network synopsis

Programming
All Radyo Natin stations operate in the FM band. Each of them airs a hometown radio format, with the weekday morning schedule consisting of local programming cleared to each affiliate station from 4:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. and from 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and a simulcast of DZRH, the flagship AM station of MBC, from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. Weekend mornings and Sunday afternoons until 7:00 p.m. are also cleared in the same format.

Network-level afternoon programming is fed to all stations every Monday to Saturday at 1:00 p.m. before going to a two-hour local programming window for stations from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Primetime network shows conclude with Evenings with Dennis and Jay on Mondays to Fridays and Gladly Yours on Sundays, until the network feed signs off at 10:00 p.m. By local discretion, stations may air local late-night fare after the network feed by omitting the closing prayer intended for stations closing down at midnight or sign-off altogether by seamlessly playing the local station's sign-off sequence after the feed.

Technology

From its central studios at the MBC Building within the Star City Complex in Pasay, Radyo Natin signals its stations via satellite technology. The stations then broadcast the signals to their respective areas of responsibility.

Radyo Natin used to operate two kinds of low-power FM stations. The first one operates with a transmitter power of 500 watts but with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 1 kilowatt. The other one had much lower power (100 watts); these stations were allowed to operate by the NTC with permits issued during the time of Commissioner Rio. However, the same permits were recalled during the time of NTC Commissioner Borje. Currently, most Radyo Natin stations broadcast at 500 watts and 1 kilowatt designated for smaller provinces but few stations broadcast on a full-power 5 kilowatt or 10 kilowatt signal designated for major market cities.

Proposed TV companion
TV Natin was in the pipeline, originally as part of the Radyo Natin project, but it was never launched. RHTV instead was launched as a separate MBC venture and not even under the division of DZRH.

In December 2008, TV Natin changed to DZRH RadyoVision, now DZRH News Television.

Personalities

Anchors
 Angelo Palmones (also with DZRH)
 Anthony Taberna (also with DZRH)
 Gerry Baja (also with DZRH)
 Glady Mabini (also with DZRH)

Disc jockeys
 Cheska San Diego-Bobadilla (also with DZRH)
 Dennis Lazo
 Kleir Pineda
 Atty. Ethel Aldea
 Jay Perillo
 Ellanie Bensal (also with DZRH)
 Faith Salaver-Clamor (also with DZRH)
 DJ Eduard
 DJ Fatima

Programming
*Simulcast with DZRH and DZRH TV

Network programs

News/talk
 Magandang Umaga Pilipinas*
 Dos por Dos*
 Radyo Natin Nationwide (with Angelo Palmones and DJ Elanie)

Specialty
 Ang Galing Mo Doc*
 Lunas (with Dennis Lazo)
 Negosyo Atbp.*

Music and entertainment
 Chillax Time (with DJ Elanie)
 Tugstugan (with DJ Faith)
 Evenings with Dennis and Jay (with Dennis and Jay)
 BFF (with Atty. Ethel Aldea and Glady Mabini)
 Saturday Rewind (with DJ Kleir)
 Sunday Buffet: All the Way! (with DJ Elanie)
 Gladly Yours (with Glady Mabini)

Syndicated programming
These programs are exclusively fed to select stations by the network, fed by a Radyo Natin affiliate to fellow Radyo Natin stations in their area, or fed by a blocktimer to select stations.
 Trans World Radio
 Kasangga ng Bayan with Larry Karangalan (Southern Luzon – Padre Garcia)
 Dok Alternatibo (blocktimer; selected stations only)
 The Voice of Prophecy (produced by Adventist World Radio)
 Kalusugan iwas Karamdaman (produced by Doc Samaritan Alternative Medicine and Wellness Center)
 MX3 Prayer Watch (Oras ng Panalangin) (produced by DMI-MX3)

Awards
Radyo Natin has been awarded as the Best Provincial FM Station in the Philippines for 4 consecutive years on the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 26th KBP Golden Dove Awards (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2018).

Radyo Natin stations

References

External links
 Radyo Natin FM Official Website

Radio stations in the Philippines
Philippine radio networks
News and talk radio stations in the Philippines
OPM formatted radio stations in the Philippines
Manila Broadcasting Company

Radyo Natin


An Claidheamh Soluis () was an Irish nationalist newspaper published in the early 20th century by Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League). It was named for the "Sword of Light" (in modern spelling Claíomh Solais) of Gaelic myth.

Eoin MacNeill was its first editor, overseeing its publication from 1899 to 1901. In 1900 the League took control of the weekly bilingual paper Fáinne an Lae, when its editor went bankrupt. Fáinne an Lae was merged with An Claidheamh Soluis under the title An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae.

From, 1903 to 1909 the paper was edited by Pádraig Pearse, the teacher and barrister who later became a key figure in the Easter Rising in 1916. Under his editorship the paper played a prominent role in the Irish Literary Revival, publishing original literary works in both Irish and English and devoting considerable space to commentary on cultural matters. From 1909 to 1916 the editor was Seán Mac Giollarnáth.

The paper continued under the names Fáinne an Lae (1918–19, 1922–30) and Misneach (1919–22), reverting briefly to An Claidheamh Soluis in 1930–1. It was discontinued after 1932.

References

External links

 An Claidheamh Soluis Online scanned volumes, 1899–1928 and 1931

1899 establishments in Ireland
1931 disestablishments in Ireland
Conradh na Gaeilge
Defunct newspapers published in Ireland
Newspapers established in 1899
Publications disestablished in 1931
Weekly newspapers published in Ireland

An Claidheamh Soluis


Hellgate: London is a dark fantasy themed action role-playing game originally developed by Flagship Studios, released on October 31, 2007. It was developed by a team led by former Blizzard Entertainment employees, some of whom had overseen the creation of the Diablo series. The original release of the game was co-published by Namco Bandai Games and Electronic Arts.

Set in a post-apocalyptic London in the year 2038, Hellgate: London is a fast-paced action role-playing hack and slash game. It includes random elements from roguelikes such as weapon and armor attributes, item drops, mob spawns, and level composition. The game featured both single-player and online multiplayer support when it was released, although North American and European online support has been discontinued. The single-player version features a five-act story questline. When completed, the player is eligible to restart the storyline again in a higher difficulty and create new characters in an elite mode.

In 2008, Flagship Studios filed for bankruptcy. All intellectual property was seized as collateral for funding received from Comerica Bank. Subsequently, development of the game halted. Namco Bandai Games provided free ongoing North American and European server support until January 31, 2009, when the multiplayer game servers and websites were taken offline. HanbitSoft has since acquired rights to the game and has redeveloped it as the free-to-play Hellgate London: Resurrection in South Korea, featuring Seoul-based maps. In 2014, Hellgate Global was announced, adding Tokyo to the game for a possible release outside South Korea. During development, a port for the Xbox 360 was considered but was never released.

Gameplay
Hellgate: London is an action role-playing game that builds upon the core design of roguelikes by using random generation of maps, monsters, and loot to allow for replayability. The game can be played in either third person perspective or first person perspective.

Hellgate: London can be played offline or online without a fee. Players can pay a monthly fee to gain additional content over time, including new areas, weapons, monsters, classes, quests, events, titles, game modes, and other content. The game consists of six acts to unify the areas a player travels through on a greater scale. All acts account for approximately 25–40 hours of single-player gameplay.

Hellgate: London was initially designed to be primarily focused on solo and cooperative PvE combat, but players can duel and there is a free-for-all PvP mode for subscribers. Dueling can only take place outside of Underground hubs. Players can also choose to enter into PvP mode, which means they can be attacked and harmed outside of Underground hubs by anyone else that has chosen to enter PvP mode. The game does not feature LAN support.

The game world of Hellgate: London is a set of demon-infested dungeons and city streets, featuring safe zones such as disused London Underground stations. The safe zones scattered across the world act as havens, where players can purchase and upgrade items at NPC merchants, interact with other players in the game world, and commence or complete quests. The journey between zones is randomly generated; levels are fully 3D, rendered with the game's own proprietary graphics engine. Included in these environments are randomly generated enemies, bosses, and items. The game features historical London areas and buildings, such as St Paul's Cathedral and Big Ben.

The Hellgate: London setting has six classes to choose from. These are paired up into three main archetypes, referred to as Factions in game. The factions are split as follows:
Templars, the fighter faction, are of an order of divine warriors who wish to preserve humanity and smite the Great Dark that has fallen upon the world. Their two classes are Guardians and Blademasters.
Cabalists, the mage faction, are seekers of knowledge who want to control the fate of mankind by studying the Great Dark and using their powers. Their classes are Summoners and Evokers.
Hunters, the ranged faction, are highly trained ex-military operatives who have been through almost every warlike scenario imaginable. Marksmen and Engineers are their classes.

Melee classes are limited to a third-person view, whereas ranged classes default to a first-person view but can switch to a third-person view if desired. Precision aiming is not required to use most weapons, which track their targets, lock on, or carpet an area with explosives. The game contains sniper rifles and other weapons that require accurate manual aiming, though most are exclusive to the Hunter faction.

Players may choose the character's name and various visual physical attributes. Depending on whether they're playing single-player or multiplayer, several different difficulty settings will be available to players when creating new characters. A character is permanently locked to the chosen mode. Normal mode is the default difficulty setting. Elite mode is designed to be harder than normal difficulty with several adjustments to game mechanics. Enemies are stronger and deal more damage, and rarer mobs are more likely to spawn. Augments are also more expensive, and merchants pay less for goods. Hardcore mode is played in either Normal or Elite difficulty and adds permanently dies as a consequence for dying.

Hellgate: London uses a heavily randomized item system featuring a large variety of base weapon types and armor types, with a pool of random properties and bonuses (magical affixes) applied to them to promote replayability and item collection. Furthermore, unwanted weapons and armor can be freely disassembled to save space in one's inventory, often yielding crafting materials that can be exchanged for new weapons or used to upgrade existing ones. Items may have slots that a player can insert mods in to further enhance their power.

The single-player version of Hellgate: London hosts a five-act story questline. Elite characters can be created once a character has completed the story quest line once. The storyline can be repeated in Nightmare difficulty, where enemies start at level 30. A character's experience is capped at 50 levels, while enemies in Nightmare difficulty can reach level 62.

History

Original release

The developer Flagship Studios had proposed regular additions to Hellgate: London throughout the life of the game. In March 2008, it was announced that Comerica Bank would provide game funding assistance, using Hellgate: London as collateral, for Flagship Studios so that they would not "rely upon a publisher's investment" to support ongoing development of their games. "The Stonehenge Chronicles" update was scheduled for release on January 21, 2008 but was postponed until January 22, 2008 due to bugs. The last content patch developed by Flagship Studios was the "Abyss Chronicles". The original servers were shut down on February 1, 2009.

The company Ping0 managed the North American and European servers for Hellgate: London, while Infocomm Asian Holdings managed the Southeast Asia server. Players in the Southeast Asia region experienced server crashing issues. The publishing companies involved gave an official response after several requests from the community. Following the shutdown of Flagship Studios in August 2008 and the loss of its intellectual property rights, it was announced that Hellgate: London game servers would be shut down as of January 31, 2009. At 12:00 a.m. CST on February 1, 2009, the game server and website for the North American and European regions became inaccessible.

The following is an account of the North American and European subscription model Flagship Studios had while it was in effect: There were two types of multiplayer accounts: free and subscription accounts. Subscribers had access to ongoing content updates. The US subscription plan cost $9.95 a month and an offer to pay a one-time fee of $149.99 for a lifetime subscription was available for up to 100,000 people who pre-ordered the game and ended on January 31, 2008. The UK subscription is £6.99 and EU subscription is €9.99. Additionally, subscribers would have access to a Hardcore mode, special PvP arenas and a PvP ladder, the ability to bypass server queues, a shared storage space with room for 40 items instead of 20, the ability to create guilds, the ability to achieve officer status in guilds, and 24-hour customer support. Subscribers and non-subscribers were able to interact in all ways in the game.  Non-subscribers could join guilds, but not create them. The level cap is set to 50 and up to 24 character slots are available for all players. As of July 2008, all subscriptions were suspended and players could neither subscribe nor unsubscribe at that point, although they were no longer billed. Since Flagship Studios went into receivership, the US & EU multiplayer ceased.

Due to problems with the subscription service, the Halloween holiday subscription content was made available to all players, both fee-paying and free-playing. In SEA, two weeks after the game was released, many players complained about a game patch, installed by Infocomm Asia Holdings (IAH), which supposedly would have deleted player's characters since game launch. While the EU and US servers had received recent patches and additional content since launch, support and patching of the SEA server had been delayed. IAHGames, the distributor of Hellgate: London and the company providing the "Alliance" server for the SEA region, had promised patch 0 on launch day itself. However, Patch 0 was delayed with no official date of implementation. On November 14, a joint statement by the CEOs of IAHGames and Flagship Studios announced that the both Patch 0 and Patch 0.1 will be implemented on November 22 and that they are considering some compensation for the early adopters.

Relaunches
On November 3, 2008, Korean-based software distributor Hanbitsoft announced via its global public relations blog, that it has acquired the Hellgate: London and Mythos properties from Flagship Studios. The post mentions development of an upcoming expansion, using leftover Flagship development efforts. Updates from company state the expansion pack includes new maps featuring Seoul and a product title, The Second Invasion. On November 12, 2009, HanbitSoft announced the re-development of Hellgate: London (authorized by the former Flagship Studio) had been completed. By July 2011, Hellgate: London multiplayer servers were relaunched using a free-to-play model. Hanbitsoft's redesigned game is live in Korea, while the North American release has been only in beta testing.

In September 2014, Hellgate Global, which was announced to include the expansion Hellgate: Tokyo and the new Hell Mode difficulty level, was listed at Steam Greenlight by HanbitSoft-linked company Redbana Corporation. The project was approved by the Steam Community and Valve contacted Redbana Corporation for the possibility of hosting the game on Steam. However, in January 2016 the T3Fun/Redbana Hellgate Global service was shut down.

On November 15, 2018, Hellgate: London was released on Steam, developed by T3 Entertainment and published by HanbitSoft.

Reception

The game received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game sold almost one million copies.

Positive aspects of the game commented on by reviewers include its story, and the overall look of the game. Other aspects of the game received mixed reception. For instance, some reviewers called the combat enjoyable, with varied classes, and praised the loot and customisation aspects, while other reviewers described combat as underdeveloped and monotonous, with quest repetition and locked progression choices. Similarly, the game's technology received mixed reviews. The multiplayer component was both praised and criticised, with some bugs, slowdowns and crashes mentioned.

Other media

Comic
A comic book adaptation of Hellgate: London was written by Ian Edginton, illustrated by Steve Pugh, and published by Dark Horse Comics. All four issues were collected into a trade paperback published in June 2007 (). The collected comic was also included in the Collector's Edition of the game. The plot focuses on a Templar, Cabalist and Hunter teaming together to rescue a book they believe will give them an advantage over the demons.

Novels
There is also a trilogy of novels based on Hellgate: London written by Mel Odom. The first novel, titled Exodus was released on June 26, 2007; the second novel, Goetia, was released on February 26, 2008; the third novel, Covenant was released on August 26, 2008. Exodus is set 18 years before events of the game, Goetia takes place 14 years before the events of the game, and Covenant takes place 13 years before the events of the game. The novels primarily follow the stories of three characters and their interactions with each other, as well as their individual struggles against the demons. Each character is from a different class from the game. The novels also feature references to and cameos by various characters from the game.

Hellgate VR
Hellgate VR is being developed by Skonec Entertainment.

Notes

References

External links
  Hellgate: London at Hanbiton
 Hellgate: London at MobyGames
 Hellgate Revival

2007 video games
Action role-playing video games
Cooperative video games
Dark fantasy video games
Cancelled Xbox 360 games
Electronic Arts games
Games for Windows
Bandai Namco games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Post-apocalyptic video games
Science fantasy video games
Video games adapted into comics
Video games scored by Cris Velasco
Video games with gender-selectable protagonists
Video games set in the 2030s
Video games set in London
Video games set in Seoul
Video games set in Tokyo
Windows games
Windows-only games
Video games using Havok
Video games developed in the United States
HanbitSoft games
Redbana Corporation games

Hellgate: London


Helen Gardner McCormack (March 17, 1903 – January 22, 1974) was the Director of the Valentine Museum, archivist and curator for the South Carolina Historical Society and director of the Gibbes Museum of Art.

Biography
Helen Gardner McCormack was born on March 17, 1903, in Charleston, the daughter of William Henry McCormack (1868–1940) and Alice Broome (1871-1948).

She attended the College of Charleston and graduated in 1925 with an A.B. in English. She did postgraduate work at Columbia University. In 1936 she received a Rockefeller Foundation grant to study museum methods at the Brooklyn Museum and in Europe. In 1942 she received a fellowship from the Charleston Scientific and Cultural Educational Fund to reorganize the South Carolina Historical Society records and documents.

From 1926 to 1928 she was curator of South Carolina collection at the Charleston Museum. In 1928 she helped organizing the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia and from 1930 to 1940 she was its Director. During this time she completed the restoration of the 1812 Wickham-Valentine House designed by Alexander Parris. She served on the museum committee of the Virginia Academy of Science and on the board of the Virginia Art Alliance. In 1941 she became assistant director at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. From 1942 to 1944 she was archivist for the South Carolina Historical Society in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1947 she was named curator of collections at the Charleston Museum. From 1954 to 1966 she was director of the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. At retirement from directorship in 1966 she remained at the Gibbes Museum of Art as curator. In 1954 she became archivist for the Guild of South Carolina Artists and in 1968 she became its executive director.

In 1941 she undertook the Charleston architectural survey, recording information of 1380 historic properties. The survey was suggested by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and was conducted by the Carolina Art Association with funding from the Carnegie Corporation. It was published in 1944 as This is Charleston.

McCormack was the companion of Laura Bragg, the director of the Charleston Museum. McCormack lived at the Confederate Home, 62 Broad Street.

Helen Gardner McCormack died on January 22, 1974, and is buried at Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston.

The H. F. Plowden Weston (1738–1827) miniature, dating from 1824, by Charles Fraser, was purchased by the Gibbes Museum with funds provided by the Eliza Huger Kammerer Fund in memory of Helen Gardner McCormack.

References

1903 births
1974 deaths

Helen Gardner McCormack


In mathematics, a trivial semigroup (a  semigroup with one element) is a semigroup for which the cardinality of the underlying set is one. The number of distinct nonisomorphic semigroups with one element is one. If S = { a } is a semigroup with one element, then the Cayley table of S is

 {| class="wikitable"
|-
!
! a
|-
|  a
| a
|}

The only element in S is the zero element 0 of S and is also the identity element 1 of S. However not all semigroup theorists consider the unique element in a semigroup with one element as the zero element of the semigroup. They define zero elements only in semigroups having at least two elements.

In spite of its extreme triviality, the semigroup with one element is important in many situations. It is the starting point for understanding the structure of semigroups. It serves as a counterexample in illuminating many situations. For example, the semigroup with one element is the only semigroup in which 0 = 1, that is, the zero element and the identity element are equal.
Further, if S is a semigroup with one element, the semigroup obtained by adjoining an identity element to S is isomorphic to the semigroup obtained by adjoining a zero element to S.

The semigroup with one element is also a group.

In the language of category theory, any semigroup with one element is a terminal object in the category of semigroups.

See also
 Trivial group
 Zero ring
 Field with one element
 Empty semigroup
 Semigroup with two elements
 Semigroup with three elements
 Special classes of semigroups

References

Algebraic structures
Semigroup theory

Trivial semigroup


Ivan Simeonov Duichev (; May 1, 1907, Sofia - April 24, 1986, Sofia) was a Bulgarian historian and paleographer with a focus on Bulgarian and Byzantine medieval history. Throughout his scientific and research life he has followed the maxim of his teacher Vasil Zlatarski that Bulgarian history is inextricably linked and incomprehensible without Byzantine history. Adopted as the father of Bulgarian archival studies.

He specialized and defended his doctorate at the University of Rome on the topic "Asen dynasty in Byzantium". He is a graduate of the Vatican School of Paleography, Diplomatics and Archives Administration. The patron saint of Cardinal Angelo Mercati, the Vatican Apostolic Archive Archbishop, is the patron and mentor.

After the Balkan campaign, he worked on the ground in Macedonia. Translator of the Italian Headquarters and Commandant's Office in Greece during the Second World War. In 1945, for the purpose of educating and publicizing the war in support of the Macedonian Bulgarians, the new Greek authorities included Ivan Duychev in a list of Bulgarian, Italian, and German military and other individuals to be tried in Athens as war criminals. Duichev is accused in particular of "the theft and removal of Greek cultural values from Greece to Bulgaria", such as the Greek authorities' interpretation of the Bulgarian cultural heritage on the territory of Greece, and in particular in Aegean Macedonia, which Duichev saved from plunder. a side of anti-Bulgarian Greek partisans.

Member of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo, Corresponding Member of the British Academy (London), Member of the Pontifical Academy of Archeology (Rome), winner of the Herder Prize (1974). His scientific output includes over 500 publications.

Its name is given by the Institute for Slavic-Byzantine Studies at Sofia University. His is the prototype of the professor-medievalist in the novel by Elisabeth Kostova "The Historian" (2005).

Ivan Duichev contributed to the definitive methodological continuity perception of the medieval history of Bulgaria with respect to Byzantine Bulgaria and Ottoman Bulgaria.

See also
 Golden Age of medieval Bulgarian culture
 Bulgarian historiography
 Cyrillo-Methodian Studies
 Macedonia naming dispute

References

20th-century Bulgarian historians
Bulgarian medievalists
Palaeographers
Archivists
1907 births
1986 deaths
Sofia University alumni
Academic staff of Sofia University
Sapienza University of Rome alumni
Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
Foreign members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Cyrillo-Methodian studies
Scholars of Byzantine history

Ivan Duichev


Lars Reidulv Kirkeby-Garstad (9 March 1907 – 22 May 1977) was a Norwegian politician for the Centre Party.

He was born in Vikten as a son of politician Ivar Kirkeby-Garstad (1877–1951). He worked as a farmer. He was a member of Vikna municipal council from 1934 to 1937, then from 1947 to 1975. He served as deputy mayor from 1947 to 1951 and mayor from 1955 to 1975. He served as a deputy representative to the Parliament of Norway from Nord-Trøndelag during the terms 1954–1957, 1958–1961, 1961–1965 and 1965–1969. In total he met during 202 days of parliamentary session.

References

1907 births
1977 deaths
Centre Party (Norway) politicians
Deputy members of the Storting
Mayors of places in Nord-Trøndelag

Lars Reidulv Kirkeby-Garstad


Mario Tobino (16 January 1910, Viareggio, Province of Lucca, Tuscany – 11 December 1991, Agrigento) was an Italian poet, writer and psychiatrist.

A prolific writer, he began as a poet but later wrote mostly novels. His works are characterized by a strong autobiographical inspiration, and usually deal with social and psychological themes.

Education
Mario Tobino completed his degree in medicine in 1936, after which he embarked on a career that centered on the mental hospital setting, treating people with mental disabilities.

Medical career
Mario Tobino's work took him to Libya in June 1940. He worked as a doctor in Libya until October 1941, when war broke out in the country and he had to flee. His experience of Libya was recorded in the book Il deserto della Libia, which came out in 1952.

In 2015, Staging Memory by Stefania Del Monte dedicates a whole section to the book.

After returning from Libya, Tobino took the job of doctor in the Mental Hospital of Lucca. He worked in the hospital for over four decades.

Works
The period between spring and autumn of 1944 saw Tobino become an ardent supporter of the war of national liberation. His participation in the liberation efforts as a partisan developed him immensely as a writer. The experience morphed into the book Clandestino, which was published in 1962 and won him the Premio Strega. Tobino had published books before Clandestino. In 1953, he brought out Libere donne di Magliano, a work that established his place among important Italian writers. Tobino wrote another prize-winning book in 1972. His Per le antiche scale was the winner of the Premio Campiello that year. Tobino was a tireless writer. He was prolific even in his later life. In 1982 he published Gli ultimi giorni di Magliano, followed by La ladra in 1984 and in 1988 Tre amici. This last phase of his writing career was also marked by several literary prizes. He received the Premio Pirandello on 10 December 1991 in Agrigento. The next day he died.

References

1910 births
1991 deaths
People from Viareggio
Italian male poets
Italian psychiatrists
Strega Prize winners
Viareggio Prize winners
20th-century Italian poets
20th-century Italian physicians
Premio Campiello winners
20th-century Italian male writers

Mario Tobino


The 1966 New Zealand Grand Prix was a race held at the Pukekohe Park Raceway on 8 January 1966.  The race had 19 starters.

It was the 13th New Zealand Grand Prix, and doubled as the opening round of the 1966 Tasman Series.  Graham Hill won his second consecutive NZGP.

Classification
Results as follows:

References

New Zealand Grand Prix
Grand Prix
Tasman Series
January 1966 sports events in New Zealand

1966 New Zealand Grand Prix