Career.

Röhrl grew up as the youngest of three children of a stonemason in Regensburg. His parents separated when he was ten years old. From then on he lived with his mother. After leaving school he completed a commercial education at Bishop's Ordinariate Regensburg. At the age of 16, Röhrl began working for the commercial director of a company that legally represented the Bishop of Regensburg along with 6 further Bishops in Bavaria, and skied in his spare time. In time he became a qualified ski instructor and a keen driver, and became the chauffeur to the commercial director, covering up to 120,000 kilometres annually. Some unqualified reports have stated he was once the Bishop's own driver, but this has been acknowledged as untrue. Having also now been active in sports like skiing, Röhrl was invited to drive his first rally in 1968.  Röhrl was a World Rally Championship favourite throughout the 1970s and 1980s, winning the Monte Carlo Rally four times with four different marques. His co-driver for many years was Christian Geistdörfer. His Fiat 131 Abarth carried him to the 1980 title, clinched with his victory in that year's San Remo rally, but it was arguably his equivalent success in 1982 that impressed most of all, with Röhrl fending off audacious four-wheel drive opposition, led by Audi's resurgent Michèle Mouton, to take the title, by virtue of consistency, in his increasingly outmoded rear-drive Opel Ascona 400. It was also during this time that he won the African Rally Championship, in 1982. However, shortly after winning the championship he was fired from the team by team manager Tony Fall because he disliked competing in the RAC rally (the rally he had little success in). Röhrl had already had severe arguments with Tony Fall about publicity activities for the team sponsor, tobacco company Rothmans. Röhrl, as a strict nonsmoker, simply refused to do any filming for Rothmans publicity spots, claiming that he had been hired as a driver, not an actor, and that he could not see any sense in promoting tobacco as a nonsmoker anyway.  In 1983, he joined Lancia to pilot the new, rear-wheel drive Lancia 037, before finally changing his machinery, in 1984, to the four-wheel drive Audi Quattro, an automobile actually produced in his home state of Bavaria.  In 1987 Röhrl set up a new record in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for being the first driver to cover the 14.42 miles (19.99 km) long mountain track to the Pikes Peak in less than 11 minutes. In his 600 hp (440 kW) Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2 he did the famed American hillclimb in 10 minutes and 47.850 seconds to reach Pikes Peak on the road which at that time was mainly covered with gravel.  Despite being selective in his choice of top-level events (he declined to do the famed 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland due to his dislike of jumps and cars getting airborne), he did the RAC Rally in Britain only once more after 1979 and he only did the Swedish Rally twice, despite finishing 3rd in 1982) albeit during a time when this was a less unusual occurrence for top-line drivers in the championship, Rohrl still scored 14 WRC victories in his career.  Röhrl was also successful in road racing events, and was called "Genius on Wheels" by Niki Lauda. In the 1992 24 Hours Nürburgring race which saw fog and heavy rain in the night, he hardly slowed down, anticipating the corners by timing. The race was nevertheless interrupted for hours.  In Italy, he was elected "Rallye driver of the century". In France he was elected "Rallye driver of the millennium" in November 2000. A jury out of 100 worldwide motorsports experts meeting in Italy elected him "Best Rallye driver ever".  In recent years, he has been retained as the senior test driver for Porsche road cars, famously setting quick laptimes for them testing round the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife, for example with the Porsche Carrera GT.  Röhrl was expected to make his competitive return to the Nürburgring 24 hour race in 2010 at the wheel of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. However, he was forced to withdraw from the event due to a back injury. It was to be his first 24-hour race in 17 years, since his last start in 1993. In 2011, Röhrl was inducted into the Rally Hall of Fame along with Hannu Mikkola and in July 2016 was inducted into Germany's Sports Hall of Fame.

Walter Röhrl (born 7 March 1947) is a German rally and auto racing driver, with victories for Fiat, Opel, Lancia and Audi as well as Porsche, Ford and BMW.


Etymology.

The Greek ἔρως, meaning "desire," comes from ἔραμαι "to desire, love", of uncertain etymology. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin.

Cult and depiction.

Eros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. In the earliest sources (the cosmogonies, the earliest philosophers, and texts referring to the mystery religions), he is one of the primordial gods involved in the coming into being of the cosmos. In later sources, however, Eros is represented as the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form, often illicitly. Ultimately, in the later satirical poets, he is represented as a blindfolded child, the precursor to the chubby Renaissance Cupid, whereas in early Greek poetry and art, Eros was depicted as a young adult male who embodies sexual power, and a profound artist.  A cult of Eros existed in pre-classical Greece, but it was much less important than that of Aphrodite. However, in late antiquity, Eros was worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae. In Athens, he shared a very popular cult with Aphrodite, and the fourth day of every month was sacred to him (also shared by Herakles, Hermes and Aphrodite).  Eros was one of the Erotes, along with other figures such as Himeros and Pothos, who are sometimes considered patrons of homosexual love between males. Eros is also part of a triad of gods that played roles in homoerotic relationships, along with Heracles and Hermes, who bestowed qualities of beauty (and loyalty), strength, and eloquence, respectively, onto male lovers.

Primordial god.

According to Hesiod's "Theogony" (c. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros (the god of love) was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia (the Earth), and Tartarus (the abyss).  Homer does not mention Eros. However, Parmenides (c. 400 BC), one of the pre-Socratic philosophers, makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence.  The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night (Nyx). Aristophanes (c. 400 BC), influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros:

Son of Aphrodite and Ares.

In later myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares: it is the Eros of these later myths who is one of the erotes. Eros was depicted as often carrying a lyre or bow and arrow. He was also depicted accompanied by dolphins, flutes, roosters, roses, and torches.  [Hera addresses Athena:] “We must have a word with Aphrodite. Let us go together and ask her to persuade her boy [Eros], if that is possible, to loose an arrow at Aeetes’ daughter, Medea of the many spells, and make her fall in love with Jason...” (Apollonius of Rhodes, "Argonautica" 3. 25 ff – a Greek epic of the 3rd century BC)  "He [Eros] smites maids’ breasts with unknown heat, and bids the very gods leave heaven and dwell on earth in borrowed forms." (Seneca, "Phaedra" 290 ff.)  "Once, when Venus’ son [Eros] was kissing her, his quiver dangling down, a jutting arrow, unbeknown, had grazed her breast. She pushed the boy away. In fact the wound was deeper than it seemed, though unperceived at first. [And she became] enraptured by the beauty of a man [Adonis]." (Ovid, "Metamorphoses" 10. 525 ff.)  "Eros drove Dionysos mad for the girl <nowiki>[</nowiki>Aura<nowiki>]</nowiki> with the delicious wound of his arrow, then curving his wings flew lightly to Olympus. And the god roamed over the hills scourged with a greater fire.” (Nonnus, "Dionysiaca" 48. 470 ff – a Greek epic of the 5th century AD)

Eros and Psyche.

The story of Eros and Psyche has a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius' Latin novel, "The Golden Ass". The novel itself is written in a picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche retains her Greek name. Eros and Aphrodite are called by their Latin names (Cupid and Venus), and Cupid is depicted as a young adult, rather than a child.  The story tells of the quest for love and trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite was jealous of the beauty of mortal princess Psyche, as men were leaving her altars barren to worship a mere human woman instead, and so she commanded her son Eros, the god of love, to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth. But instead, Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche's jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded, Eros leaves his wife, and Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love. Eventually, she approaches Aphrodite and asks for her help. Aphrodite imposes a series of difficult tasks on Psyche, which she is able to achieve by means of supernatural assistance.  After successfully completing these tasks, Aphrodite relents and Psyche becomes immortal to live alongside her husband Eros. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas or Hedone (meaning physical pleasure, bliss).  In Greek mythology, Psyche was the deification of the human soul. She was portrayed in ancient mosaics as a goddess with butterfly wings (because psyche was also the Ancient Greek word for 'butterfly'). The Greek word psyche literally means "soul, spirit, breath, life or animating force".

In Greek mythology, Eros (, ;, "Desire") is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is described as one of the children of Aphrodite and Ares and, with some of his siblings, was one of the Erotes, a group of winged love gods.


Nomenclature.

"α Aquilae" (Latinised to "Alpha Aquilae") is the star's Bayer designation. The traditional name "Altair" has been used since medieval times. It is an abbreviation of the Arabic phrase "An-nisr Al-ta'ir" "".  In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included "Altair" for this star. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.

Physical characteristics.

Along with β Aquilae and γ Aquilae, Altair forms the well-known line of stars sometimes referred to as the "Family of Aquila" or "Shaft of Aquila".  Altair is a type-A main sequence star with about 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and 11 times its luminosity. Altair rotates rapidly, with a rotational period of about 9 hours; for comparison, the equator of the Sun makes a complete rotation in a little more than 25 days. Its rapid rotation forces Altair to be oblate; its equatorial diameter is over 20 percent greater than its polar diameter.  Satellite measurements made in 1999 with the Wide Field Infrared Explorer showed that the brightness of Altair fluctuates slightly, varying by just a few thousandths of a magnitude with several different periods less than 2 hours. As a result, it was identified in 2005 as a Delta Scuti variable star. Its light curve can be approximated by adding together a number of sine waves, with periods that range between 0.8 and 1.5 hours. It is a weak source of coronal X-ray emission, with the most active sources of emission being located near the star's equator. This activity may be due to convection cells forming at the cooler equator.

Rotational effects.

The angular diameter of Altair was measured interferometrically by R. Hanbury Brown and his co-workers at Narrabri Observatory in the 1960s. They found a diameter of 3milliarcseconds. Although Hanbury Brown et al. realized that Altair would be rotationally flattened, they had insufficient data to experimentally observe its oblateness. Altair was later observed to be flattened by infrared interferometric measurements made by the Palomar Testbed Interferometer in 1999 and 2000. This work was published by G. T. van Belle, David R. Ciardi and their co-authors in 2001.  Theory predicts that, owing to Altair's rapid rotation, its surface gravity and effective temperature should be lower at the equator, making the equator less luminous than the poles. This phenomenon, known as gravity darkening or the von Zeipel effect, was confirmed for Altair by measurements made by the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer in 2001, and analyzed by Ohishi et al. (2004) and Peterson et al. (2006). Also, A. Domiciano de Souza et al. (2005) verified gravity darkening using the measurements made by the Palomar and Navy interferometers, together with new measurements made by the VINCI instrument at the VLTI.  Altair is one of the few stars for which a direct image has been obtained. In 2006 and 2007, J. D. Monnier and his coworkers produced an image of Altair's surface from 2006 infrared observations made with the MIRC instrument on the CHARA array interferometer; this was the first time the surface of any main-sequence star, apart from the Sun, had been imaged. The false-color image was published in 2007. The equatorial radius of the star was estimated to be 2.03 solar radii, and the polar radius 1.63 solar radii—a 25% increase of the stellar radius from pole to equator. The polar axis is inclined by about 60° to the line of sight from the Earth.

Etymology, mythology, and culture.

The term "Al Nesr Al Tair" appeared in Al Achsasi al Mouakket's catalogue, which was translated into Latin as "Vultur Volans". This name was applied by the Arabs to the asterism of Altair, β Aquilae, and γ Aquilae and probably goes back to the ancient Babylonians and Sumerians, who called Altair "the eagle star". The spelling "Atair" has also been used. Medieval astrolabes of England and Western Europe depicted Altair and Vega as birds.  The Koori people of Victoria also knew Altair as "Bunjil", the wedge-tailed eagle, and β and γ Aquilae are his two wives the black swans. The people of the Murray River knew the star as "Totyerguil". The Murray River was formed when "Totyerguil" the hunter speared "Otjout", a giant Murray cod, who, when wounded, churned a channel across southern Australia before entering the sky as the constellation Delphinus.  In Chinese, the asterism consisting of Altair, β Aquilae, and γ Aquilae is known as "Hé Gǔ" (; lit. "river drum"). The Chinese name for Altair is thus "Hé Gǔ èr" (; lit. "river drum two", meaning the "second star of the drum at the river"). However, Altair is better known by its other names: "Qiān Niú Xīng" () or "Niú Láng Xīng" (), translated as the "cowherd star". These names are an allusion to a love story, "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", in which Niulang (represented by Altair) and his two children (represented by β Aquilae and γ Aquilae) are separated from respectively their wife and mother Zhinu (represented by Vega) by the Milky Way. They are only permitted to meet once a year, when magpies form a bridge to allow them to cross the Milky Way.  The people of Micronesia called Altair "Mai-lapa", meaning "big/old breadfruit", while the Māori people called this star "Poutu-te-rangi", meaning "pillar of heaven".  In Western astrology, the star Altair was ill-omened, portending danger from reptiles.  This star is one of the asterisms used by Bugis sailors for navigation, called "bintoéng timoro", meaning "eastern star"  Japan Airlines's Starjet 777-200 JA8983 was named Altair.  Altair Airlines was a regional airline that operated out of Philadelphia from 1966 to 1982.  NASA announced "Altair" as the name of the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) on December 13, 2007. The Russian-made Beriev Be-200 Altair seaplane is also named after the star.  The Altair 8800 was one of the first microcomputers intended for home use.  Altair is the name of three United States navy ships:, and USNS Altair (T-AKR-291).  The Chevron 136,000-DWT Suezmax oil tanker originally named "Condoleezza Rice" (1993) was renamed "Altair Voyager (2001)".  One of the tankers attacked and damaged in the June 2019 Gulf of Oman incident was named "Front Altair".  "Altair" is the name of a 1919 poem by Karle Wilson Baker.

Visual companions.

The bright primary star has the multiple star designation WDS 19508+0852A and has three faint visual companion stars, WDS 19508+0852B, C, and D. Component B is not physically close to A but merely appears close to it in the sky.

Altair, designation α Aquilae (Latinised to Alpha Aquilae, abbreviated Alpha Aql, α Aql), is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. It is currently in the G-cloud—a nearby interstellar cloud, an accumulation of gas and dust. Altair is an A-type main sequence star with an apparent visual magnitude of 0.77 and is one of the vertices of the Summer Triangle asterism (the other two vertices are marked by Deneb and Vega). It is 16.7 light-years (5.13 parsecs) from the Sun and is one of the closest stars visible to the naked eye.


History.

Châlons is conjectured to be the site of several battles including the Battle of Châlons fought in 274 between Roman Emperor Aurelian and Emperor Tetricus I of the Gallic Empire. The Catalaunian Fields was the site of the battle of Châlons in 451 which turned back the westward advance of Attila.  It is the setting of the last operetta of Johann Strauss II, "Die Göttin der Vernunft (The Goddess of Reason)", (1897).

Transport.

The Gare de Châlons-en-Champagne railway station is served by the TGV network with service to and from Paris Gare de l'Est. Other destinations are Reims, Saint-Dizier, Nancy, Bar-le-Duc and Verdun. Additionally, Châlons is connected with the Champagne-TGV station, near Reims, with high speed trains going to Lille, Nantes, Rennes and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport.  Châlons is located at the intersection of two major axes:  Châlons is also served by an international airport devoted to shipping (Châlons Vatry Airport ), ranking third in France with almost 60,000 tonnes of freight passing through each year.  Local transportation is provided by SITAC BUS buses.

Sport.

ESPE Basket Châlons-en-Champagne is a Châlons' basketball team. A temporary firing range was used for some shooting events at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Châlons-en-Champagne is twinned with:

Camp de Mourmelon.

The "Camp de Mourmelon" (formerly known as "Camp de Châlons") is a military camp of circa 10,000 hectares located near Mourmelon-le-Grand north. It was created at the behest of Napoleon III and opened 30 August 1857 during the Second French Empire.  The initial purpose was simply for practising military manoeuvres, but it quickly turned into a showcase of the French Imperial Army, a theatrical propaganda display, where French citizens could meet the army and watch parades. Each year the camp was transformed into a town of tents and wooden chalets.  The camp survived the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, but changed into a training camp and a departure point for troops engaging in overseas operations.  The camp is used for military manoeuvres, and cavalry training, along with the neighbouring, 2,500 hectare, "Camp de Moronvillers". Firing of live ordnance (rockets, missiles) is prohibited.

Births.

Châlons-en-Champagne was the birthplace of:

Deaths.

Châlons-en-Champagne was the death place of:

Châlons-en-Champagne () is a city in the Grand Est region of France. It is the capital of the department of Marne, despite being only a quarter the size of the city of Reims.


Background.

Rudolf was born at Schloss Laxenburg, a castle near Vienna, as the son of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth. Influenced by his tutor Ferdinand von Hochstetter (who later became the first superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum), Rudolf became very interested in natural sciences, starting a mineral collection at an early age. After his death, large portions of his mineral collection came into the possession of the University for Agriculture in Vienna.  In 1877 the Count of Bombelles was master of the young prince. Bombelles was the former custodian of his aunt Empress Charlotte of Mexico.  Rudolf was raised together with his older sister Gisela and the two were very close. At the age of six, Rudolf was separated from his sister as he began his education to become a future Emperor of Austria. This did not change their relationship and Gisela remained close to him until she left Vienna upon her marriage to Prince Leopold of Bavaria.  In contrast with his deeply conservative father, Rudolf held liberal views, that were closer to those of his mother. Nevertheless, his relationship with her was, at times, strained.

Marriage.

In Vienna, on 10 May 1881, Rudolf married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, a daughter of King Leopold II of the Kingdom of Belgium, at the Augustinian Church in Vienna. Although their marriage was initially a happy one, by the time their only child, the Archduchess Elisabeth, was born on 2 September 1883, the couple had drifted apart, and he found solace in drink and other female companionship. Rudolf started having many affairs, and wanted to write to Pope Leo XIII about the possibility of annulling his marriage to Stéphanie, but the Emperor forbade it. In 1886, the spouses were diagnosed with gonorrhea, which rendered Stéphanie sterile.

Affairs and suicide.

In 1886, Rudolf bought Mayerling, a hunting lodge. In late 1888, the 30-year-old Crown Prince met the 17-year-old Marie "Freiin" von Vetsera, known by the more fashionable Anglophile name Mary, and began an affair with her. On 30 January 1889, he and the young "Freiin" (Baroness) were discovered dead in the lodge as a result of an apparent joint suicide. As suicide would prevent him from being given a church burial, Rudolf was officially declared to have been in a state of "mental unbalance", and he was buried in the Imperial Crypt ("Kapuzinergruft") of the Capuchin Church in Vienna. Vetsera's body was smuggled out of Mayerling in the middle of the night and secretly buried in the village cemetery at Heiligenkreuz. The Emperor had Mayerling converted into a penitential convent of Carmelite nuns and endowed a chantry so that daily prayers would eternally be said by the nuns for the repose of Rudolf's soul.  Vetsera's private letters were discovered in a safe deposit box in an Austrian bank in 2015, and they revealed that she was preparing to commit suicide alongside Rudolf, out of love.

Effect of Rudolf's death.

Rudolf's death plunged his mother into despair. She wore black or pearl grey, the colours of mourning, for the rest of her life and spent more and more time away from the imperial court in Vienna. Empress Elisabeth was murdered while abroad in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1898 by an Italian anarchist, Luigi Lucheni.  Politically, Rudolf's death left Franz Joseph without a direct male heir. Franz-Joseph's younger brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, was next in line to the Austro-Hungarian throne, though it was falsely reported that he had renounced his succession rights. In any case, his death in 1896 from typhoid made his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the new heir presumptive. In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand precipitated World War I. Emperor Franz-Joseph died in November 1916 and was succeeded by his grandnephew, Karl I of Austria. The demands of American President Woodrow Wilson forced Emperor Karl to renounce involvement in state affairs in Vienna in early November 1918. As a result, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist and a republic came into being without revolution. Karl and his family went into exile in Switzerland after spending a short time at Castle Eckarstau.

Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889), was the only son and third child of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. He was heir apparent to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from birth. In 1889, he died in a suicide pact with his mistress, Mary "Freiin" von Vetsera, at the Mayerling hunting lodge. The ensuing scandal made international headlines. He was named after the first Habsburg King of Germany, Rudolf I, who assumed the throne in 1273.


First Benedictine foundation.

Founded in 1093 as a priory of Affligem Abbey (in modern Belgium) by the first Count Palatine of the Rhine Heinrich II von Laach and his wife Adelheid von Orlamünde-Weimar, widow of Hermann II of Lotharingia, Laach became an independent house in 1127, under its first abbot, Gilbert. Affligem itself had been founded by Hermann. Although the abbey was founded by a prominent (although perennially excommunicated) member of the imperial party (Investiture Controversy), Affligem became soon after a prominent member of the Cluniac reform movement.  The abbey developed as a centre of study during the 12th century. The 13th-century abbots Albert (1199–1217) and Theoderich II (1256–1295) added significantly to the buildings and architectural decoration, including the monumental tomb of the founder.  In common with most other German Benedictine houses, Laach declined during the 14th century in terms of its spiritual and monastic life, a tendency which was reversed only in the late 15th century, under the influence of the reforming Bursfelde Congregation, which the abbey joined, supported against a certain resistance within the abbey by Abbot Johannes V von Deidesheim (1469–1491).  The consequent improvement in discipline led to a fruitful literary period in the abbey's history, prominent in which were Jakob Siberti, Tilman of Bonn and Benedict of Munstereifel, but principally Prior Johannes Butzbach (d. 1526). Although much of his work, both published and unpublished, survives, his chronicle of the abbey is unfortunately lost.

Secularisation and the Jesuits.

Laach Abbey was dissolved in the secularisation of 1802. The premises became the property, first of the occupying French, and then in 1815 of the Prussian State.  In 1820 the buildings were acquired by the Society of Jesus, who established a place of study and scholarship here. Of particular note were Fathers Gerhard Schneemann, Theodor Granderath and Florian Reiss, who produced a number of important works: the "Collectio lacensis" ("Acta et decreta sacrorum conciliorum recentiorum", 7 volumes, Freiburg, 1870–1890); the "Philosophia lacensis", a collection of learned books on the different branches of philosophy (logic, cosmology, psychology, theodicy, natural law) and published at Freiburg, 1880–1900; and, perhaps best-known, the "Stimmen aus Maria-Laach" (""Voices from Maria Laach""), appearing from 1865, at first as individual pamphlets defending against liberalism within the Roman Catholic church, and from 1871 as a regular periodical. The Jesuits were obliged to leave during the ""Kulturkampf"" of the 1870s.

Second Benedictine foundation.

The Benedictines of the Beuronese Congregation moved into the monastery in 1892, and it was raised into an abbey the following year. The restoration of the church, at that time still the property of Prussia, was inaugurated by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1897.  In the first half of the twentieth century Maria Laach played a leading role in the Liturgical Movement.  The abbey structure dates from between 1093 and 1177, with a "paradisium" added around 1225 and is considered a prime example of Romanesque architecture of the Staufen period. Despite its long construction time the well-preserved basilica with its six towers is considered to be one of the most beautiful Romanesque buildings in Germany.  Due to a considerable reduction of the lake level in the early 19th century, serious and unexpected structural damages to the church vaults and roofs were detected. Three important renovation campaigns took place - the first in the 1830s to repair the structural damages including the removal of the "paradisium's" upper storey (it had an upper storey at that time for accommodation facilities), the second in the 1880s including repairs after a serious fire in the southern round tower in 1885, and the third in the 1930s. Many former changes to the buildings carried out in Gothic (e.g. steep tower roofs) and Baroque style (e.g. wider windows) have been re-altered to Romanesque style.

Controversial relations with the Nazi regime.

The Maria Laach Abbey has been at the center of a controversy over its relations with the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. In particular, Heinrich Böll depicted (in "Billiards at Half-past Nine") a Benedictine monastery whose monks actively and voluntarily collaborated with the Nazis, and is generally considered to have had Maria Laach in mind.  In 2004 researcher Marcel Albert published a work ( translated under the title "The Maria Laach Benedictine Abbey and National Socialism"). In reviewing the book, Dr. Mark Edward Ruff of Saint Louis University wrote:  In its closing chapters, the book shows that the abbey cultivated a positive relationship to Adenauer and the CDU after 1945, but retained its monarchist beliefs. However, the post-war parts of the book are less extensive, and this part of the monastery's history seems to await further research.

Basilius Ebel.

Born Henri Ebel in 1896 as son of a wine-producing family from Alsace, and later a significant scholar of his times, Dr. Basilius Ebel became abbot of St. Matthias' Abbey in Trier in 1939 and provided a sanctuary to Jews whom he admitted among the monks. In 1941, his abbey was confiscated by the Gestapo and he himself was exiled to Maria Laach where he became abbot from 1946 to 1966. Under his leadership, Maria Laach became an important centre of reconciliation between Christians and Jews.  On the scholarly side, he should be remembered for publishing a 12th-century Alemannic hymnal and for the restoration of the Maria Laach basilica to its original style.

Notable features.

The abbey church of Maria Laach is considered a masterpiece of German Romanesque architecture, with its multiple towers, large westwork with arcaded gallery, and unique west porch.  The east end has a round apse flanked by twin square towers. Over the transept crossing is a broad cupola with cone-shaped roof. The monumental west façade includes a west choir with apse flanked by round twin towers and a square central tower.  The Paradise, a single-story, colonnaded west porch surrounding a small courtyard, was added in about 1225. It recalls the architecture of Early Christian basilicas. Its capitals are richly carved with human and mythical figures. The imaginative mason is known as the Laacher Samson-Meister or "Master of the Laach Samson", whose carvings are also found in Cologne and elsewhere. The Lion Fountain in the courtyard was added in 1928.  Notable features of the interior include the tomb of the founder Pfalzgraf Heinrich II (dating from 1270), 16th-century murals, a Late Romanesque baldachino in the apse, and interesting modern decorations such as mosaics from c. 1910 and stained glass windows from the 1950s.

Maria Laach Abbey (in German: "Abtei Maria Laach", in Latin: "Abbatia Maria Lacensis" or "Abbatia Maria ad Lacum") is a Benedictine abbey situated on the southwestern shore of the Laacher See (Lake Laach), near Andernach, in the Eifel region of the Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany. It is a member of the Beuronese Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation. The abbey was built in the 11th-12th centuries and was originally known as "Abtei Laach" ("Abbatia Lacensis" or "Laach Abbey", meaning the "Lake Abbey") until 1862 when the Jesuits added the name "Maria".


Witches and the Church.

Belief in witchcraft is ancient. in the Hebrew Bible states: "Let there not be found among you anyone who immolates his son or daughter in the fire, nor a fortune-teller, soothsayer, charmer, diviner, or caster of spells, nor one who consults ghosts and spirits or seeks oracles from the dead."  Pope Gregory VII wrote to Harald III of Denmark in 1080 forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence. According to Herbert Thurston, the fierce denunciation and persecution of supposed sorceresses which characterized the cruel witchhunts of a later age, were not generally found in the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era.  The early Church distinguished between "white" and "black" magic. The former was generally dealt with through confession, repentance, and charitable work assigned as penance.

Dominican Inquisition origin.

The bull was written in response to the request of Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer for explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany, after he was refused assistance by the local ecclesiastical authorities, who maintained that as the letter of deputation did not specifically mention where the inquisitors may operate, they could not legally exercise their functions in their areas. The bull sought to remedy this jurisdictional dispute by specifically identifying the dioceses of Mainz, Köln, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen.  Innocent's Bull enacted nothing new. Its direct purport was to ratify the powers already conferred upon Kramer (also known as "Henry Institoris") and James Sprenger to deal with witchcraft as well as heresy, and it called upon the Bishop of Strasburg (then Albert of Palatinate-Mosbach) to lend the inquisitors all possible support. Some scholars view the bull as "clearly political", motivated by jurisdictional disputes between the local German Catholic priests and clerics from the Office of the Inquisition who answered more directly to the pope.

Content.

The bull recognized the existence of witches:"Many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving,...they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls,...the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation."  It gave approval for the Inquisition to proceed "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" such persons "according to their deserts". The bull essentially repeated Kramer's view that an outbreak of witchcraft and heresy had occurred in the Rhine River valley, specifically in the bishoprics of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, as well as in Salzburg and Bremen, including accusations of certain acts.  The bull urged local authorities to cooperate with the inquisitors and threatened those who impeded their work with excommunication. Despite this threat, the bull failed to ensure that Kramer obtained the support he had hoped for, causing him to retire and to compile his views on witchcraft into his book "Malleus Maleficarum", which was published in 1487. The "Malleus" professed, in part fraudulently, to have been approved by the University of Cologne, and it was sensational in the stigma it attached to witchcraft as a worse crime than heresy and in its notable animus against women.  "Summis desiderantes affectibus" was published as part of the preface of the book, implying papal approval for the work. However, the "Malleus Maleficarum" received an official condemnation by the Church three years later, and Kramer's claims of approval are seen by modern scholars as misleading.  The bull, which synthesized the spiritual and the secular crimes of witchcraft, is often viewed as opening the door for the witchhunts of the early modern period. However, its similarities to previous papal documents, emphasis on preaching, and lack of dogmatic pronouncement complicate this view.

Summis desiderantes affectibus (Latin for "desiring with supreme ardor"), sometimes abbreviated to "Summis desiderantes" was a papal bull regarding witchcraft issued by Pope Innocent VIII on 5 December 1484.


Early life.

Charles was born on 6 March 1823 in Stuttgart as the son of King William I and his third wife Pauline Therese (1800–1873). As the king's eldest son he became Crown Prince of Württemberg.  He studied in Berlin and Tübingen.

Marriage and King of Württemberg.

On 13 July 1846 Karl married Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaievna of Russia, the daughter of Tsar Nicholas I and Charlotte of Prussia. (Charlotte was a daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; she took the name Alexandra Feodorovna upon her marriage into the Russian imperial family.) Karl acceded to the throne of Württemberg upon his father's death in 1864.  The couple had no children, perhaps because of Karl's homosexuality. Karl became the object of scandal several times for his closeness with various men - most notoriously with the American Charles Woodcock, a former chamberlain whom Karl elevated to Baron Savage in 1888. Karl and Charles became inseparable, going so far as to appear together in public dressed identically. The resulting outcry forced Karl to renounce his favorite. Woodcock returned to America, and Karl found private consolation some years later with the technical director of the royal theater, Wilhelm George.  In 1870, Olga and Karl adopted Olga's niece Vera Konstantinovna, the daughter of her brother Grand Duke Konstantin.

Politics.

He sided with Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, but after the battle of Sadowa concluded a secret military treaty with Prussia, and took part on her side in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–'71, joining the new German Empire at the close of 1870.  He died, childless, in Stuttgart on 6 October 1891, and was succeeded as King of Württemberg by his sister's son, William II. He is buried, together with his wife, in the Old Castle in Stuttgart.

Bibliography.

For Karl's homosexuality and other familiar issues:

Charles (; 6 March 1823 – 6 October 1891) was King of Württemberg, from 25 June 1864 until his death in 1891.


Career.

His father owned an auto & moto garage and repair shop "Rosemeyer & Co sur Bahnhofstraße", where young Rosemeyer worked on motorcycles and cars. Having started by racing motorbikes, Rosemeyer became a member of the Auto Union racing team with hardly any experience in racing cars. This was later considered a benefit as he was not yet used to the handling of traditional layout race cars. The Ferdinand Porsche-designed mid-engined Silver Arrows of Auto Union were fast, but hard to drive, and only he, Tazio Nuvolari and to a lesser extent Hans Stuck truly mastered the machines. Rosemeyer was also a very skilled mechanic, so, like Hermann Lang of Mercedes, he was able to give good technical feedback to Dr. Porsche and development engineer Eberan von Eberhorst to further develop the Auto Union cars and set his cars up for races to make them quicker and easier to drive.  In only his second ever Grand Prix, at the daunting Nürburgring, Rosemeyer took the lead from the great Rudolf Caracciola and was almost in sight of the finish line when he missed a gear and was overtaken. However, in subsequent years he made up for this mistake by winning three consecutive races at the Nürburgring, one famously in thick fog. Later in 1935 he won his first Grand Prix at the Brno Masaryk Circuit in Czechoslovakia.  Whilst on the podium in 1935 at the Czechoslovakian Grand Prix he was introduced to the famous aviator Elly Beinhorn. Their celebrity relationship was too good an opportunity to miss for the Nazi Party. Rosemeyer and Beinhorn were exalted and instrumentalized by the Nazi Party to the ideal German celebrity couple of that time.  Several sensational Grand Prix motor racing victories in 1936 and 1937 (also in the Vanderbilt Cup in the USA) made him popular not only in Germany. He won the European driving championship in 1936. Of the twelve Grand Prix contested in 1937 between Mercedes and Auto Union, Rosemeyer won four of Auto Union's five victories against Mercedes's formidable new W125. Rosemeyer's superlative performances that year cemented him alongside Rudolf Caracciola and Tazio Nuvolari as three of the greatest drivers of 1930's Grand Prix racing.  His marriage to Beinhorn added even more celebrity hype. It also made it possible for him to learn to fly a private plane. Before a testing session, he once used a now-defunct airfield next to the "Flugplatz" section of the Nürburgring as a landing strip, and rolled his plane to the pits via the race track - in the opposite direction.  His son Bernd, Jr. was born in November 1937, only ten weeks before his death.  Rosemeyer considered 13 to be his lucky number. He was married on 13 July 1936. 13 days later he won the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. His last Nürburgring victory came on 13 June 1937. His last race victory came at his 13th start of the 1937 season at Donington Park.

Fatal record attempt.

Rosemeyer was killed during a land speed record attempt on "a regular traffic route" on the Autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt on 28 January 1938.  Competing for the record against Rudolf Caracciola, Rosemeyer went out later in the day in his Auto Union streamliner, setting a new class record of 432 km/h (268 mph). In an effort to raise the record still higher, despite a report that wind was picking up, Rosemeyer took the streamliner again. After two preliminary runs he was on his third and final attempt at 11:47, when the car suddenly went out of control. Whether caught by a gust of wind or by an unforeseen aerodynamic effect, it skidded to the left onto the median, then right and off the highway, where it went airborne and collided with a bridge embankment. Rosemeyer was thrown out of the car as it somersaulted through the air; he died at the roadside.

Memorial.

The Rosemeyer memorial is south of Frankfurt at the Rosemeyer layby (German: "Bernd-Rosemeyer-Parkplatz") on the southbound side of A5 motorway at kilometer marker 508. At the south end of the layby a footpath leads west into the forest, where the memorial is located at.  Audi honoured the 100th anniversary of Rosemeyer's birth by placing a wreath at the memorial.  Audi built a concept car, the Audi Rosemeyer, which combined elements of modern design with styling strongly resembling the former Auto Unions "Silver Arrows" Grand Prix racers, namely their 16-cylinder car driven by Rosemeyer, after which the car is named.  There is also a bronze memorial situated next to the entrance to the Donington Park Museum in Leicestershire.  Bernd Rosemeyer is buried in the Waldfriedhof Dahlem on Hüttenweg in Berlin.  In his birthplace of Lingen (Ems), Bahnhofstraße, where the racer grew up, was renamed by the Nazi Party in his honor as "Bernd-Rosemeyer-Straße" in 1938. In addition, the city is the home of Motorsport Club "MSC Bernd Rosemeyer Lingen e.V. im ADAC", founded in 1964. The namesake "Autohaus Rosemeyer" at Lindenstraße 7 closed its doors on 30 November 2003. ! colspan="3" style="background:#9f6;"| Sporting achievements

Bernd Rosemeyer (14 October 1909 – 28 January 1938) was a German racing driver and a member of the SS. He held the rank of a Hauptsturmführer.


Origins.

Originally called Pa-ra-mes-su, Ramesses I was of non-royal birth, being born into a noble military family from the Nile delta region, perhaps near the former Hyksos capital of Avaris. He was a son of a troop commander called Seti. His uncle Khaemwaset, an army officer, married Tamwadjesy, the matron of the Harem of Amun, who was a relative of Huy, the viceroy of Kush, an important state post. This shows the high status of Ramesses' family. Ramesses I found favor with Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the tumultuous Eighteenth dynasty, who appointed the former as his Vizier. Ramesses also served as the High Priest of Set – as such, he would have played an important role in the restoration of the old religion following the Amarna heresy of a generation earlier, under Akhenaten.  Horemheb himself had been a nobleman from outside the immediate royal family, who rose through the ranks of the Egyptian army to serve as the royal advisor to Tutankhamun and Ay and, ultimately, Pharaoh. Since Horemheb had no surviving children, he ultimately chose Ramesses to be his heir in the final years of his reign presumably because Ramesses I was both an able administrator and had a son (Seti I) and a grandson (the future Ramesses II) to succeed him and thus avoid any succession difficulties.  Upon his accession, Ramesses assumed a "prenomen", or royal name. When transliterated, the name is "mn-pḥty-rʿ", which is usually interpreted as Menpehtyre, meaning "Established by the strength of Ra". However, he is better known by his "nomen", or personal name. This is transliterated as "rʿ-ms-sw", and is usually realised as Ramessu or Ramesses, meaning 'Ra bore him'. Already an old man when he was crowned, Ramesses appointed his son, the later pharaoh Seti I, to serve as the Crown Prince and chosen successor. Seti was charged with undertaking several military operations during this time–in particular, an attempt to recoup some of Egypt's lost possessions in Syria. Ramesses appears to have taken charge of domestic matters: most memorably, he completed the second pylon at Karnak Temple, begun under Horemheb.

Death.

Ramesses I enjoyed a very brief reign, as evidenced by the general paucity of contemporary monuments mentioning him: the king had little time to build any major buildings in his reign and was hurriedly buried in a small and hastily finished tomb. The Egyptian priest Manetho assigns him a reign of 16 months, but this pharaoh certainly ruled Egypt for a minimum of 17 months based on his highest known date which is a Year 2 II Peret day 20 (Louvre C57) stela which ordered the provision of new endowments of food and priests for the temple of Ptah within the Egyptian fortress of Buhen. Jürgen von Beckerath observes that Ramesses I died just 5 months later—in June 1290 BC—since his son Seti I succeeded to power on III Shemu day 24. Ramesses I's only known action was to order the provision of endowments for the aforementioned Nubian temple at Buhen and "the construction of a chapel and a temple (which was to be finished by his son) at Abydos." The aged Ramesses was buried in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb, discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1817 and designated KV16, is small in size and gives the impression of having been completed with haste. Joyce Tyldesley states that Ramesses I's tomb consisted of a single corridor and one unfinished room whose Seti I, his son and successor, later built a small chapel with fine reliefs in memory of his deceased father Ramesses I at Abydos. In 1911, John Pierpont Morgan donated several exquisite reliefs from this chapel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Rediscovery and repatriation.

A mummy currently believed to be that of Ramesses I was stolen from Egypt and displayed in a private Canadian museum for many years before being repatriated. The mummy's identity cannot be conclusively determined, but is most likely to be that of Ramesses I based on CT scans, X-rays, skull measurements and radio-carbon dating tests by researchers at Emory University, as well as aesthetic interpretations of family resemblance. Moreover, the mummy's arms were found crossed high across his chest which was a position reserved solely for Egyptian royalty until 600 BC.  The mummy had been stolen by the Abu-Rassul family of grave robbers and brought to North America around 1860 by Dr. James Douglas. It was then placed in the Niagara Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls Ontario, Canada. The mummy remained there, its identity unknown, next to other curiosities and so-called freaks of nature for more than 130 years. When the owner of the museum decided to sell his property, Canadian businessman William Jamieson purchased the contents of the museum and, with the help of Canadian Egyptologist Gayle Gibson, identified their great value. In 1999, Jamieson sold the Egyptian artifacts in the collection, including the various mummies, to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia for US $2 million. The mummy was returned to Egypt on October 24, 2003 with full official honors and is on display at the Luxor Museum.

In popular culture.

The 1956 motion picture "The Ten Commandments", directed by Cecil B. DeMille, depicts Ramesses I (portrayed by Ian Keith) as the pharaoh who orders the elimination of the first-born of every Hebrew slave family in Egypt, leading to the scenario of future prophet Moses being sheltered by Bithiah, who in the film is said to be the daughter of Ramesses I and sister of Seti I.  In the 2000 animated musical film "", by DreamWorks Animation, Ramesses I is depicted as the pharaoh who has his dreams interpreted by Joseph and who appoints Joseph to the office of Vizier when his foresight and administrative skills prevent Egypt from being ruined by famine.

Menpehtyre Ramesses I (or Ramses) was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt's 19th dynasty. The dates for his short reign are not completely known but the time-line of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. While Ramesses I was the founder of the 19th dynasty, his brief reign mainly serves to mark the transition between the reign of Horemheb, who had stabilized Egypt in the late 18th dynasty, and the rule of the powerful pharaohs of his own dynasty, in particular his son Seti I, and grandson Ramesses II, who would bring Egypt to the height of its imperial power.


History.

Land consolidation has existed in Europe for many centuries. In France, the first modern land consolidation took place in Rouvres-en-Plaine in 1707. The practice of private land consolidation began to be visible in the Paris Basin during the nineteenth century. Subsequently, it was usually done with the support of the public authorities. A law of 16 June 1824 authorized the exchange of land between individuals in order to fight against the fragmentation of agricultural parcels and to improve productivity. The concept spread more widely in Europe and the USA in the early 20th century. In the Netherlands the first land consolidation was in 1916 when 3659 plots were reduced to 500. In 1919, however, a further attempt to reduce fragmentation broke down against the opposition of one of the owners. This led to the Land Consolidation Act in 1924 which permitted land consolidation to continue without the cooperation of a small number of the owners. In Spain legal provision on land consolidation was not promulgated until December 20, 1952, but it was enthusiastically received by farmers. Similarly, in Germany legislation was passed in the 1950s as part of an overhaul of German agriculture. Land consolidation, known as Flurbereinigung, made possible landscapes being reshaped, for example with respect to construction of access roads. The process particularly benefitted the wine industry.  Following the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries of Europe in 1991, state farms were frequently divided into fragmented parcels. Land was often returned to former owners who, by this time, were elderly, or given in joint ownership to heirs of an original owner. This resulted in a large number of absentee landowners residing in urban areas. In other cases, decollectivization resulted in households receiving several fragmented parcels of different qualities of arable land. Thus the need for consolidation was quickly recognised.

Different approaches.

More recently there have been attempts to promote land consolidation in developing countries. Approaches used include increasing the average size of farms into viable commercial units through sale or lease; consolidation to reduce fragmentation of smallholder plots; and cooperative farming, where farmers retain ownership of their land but farm it jointly. China has been particularly active in promoting consolidation, which involves issuance of land certificates that confirm a person’s entitlement to land, thus permitting sale and lease of land rights. To facilitate the process, land transfer service centers have been set up by local governments to collect information on who is looking to lease out; provide potential clients with information on location, area, major land characteristics, and suggested price of land to be leased out; prepare a formal land contract; and be responsible for contract dispute mediation.  In many countries individual smallholders’ land is distributed among many small fragments. This increases production costs by requiring time for farmers to move between fragments and makes use of machinery almost impossible. A response to this is to restructure land holdings while ensuring that farmers retain the same amount of land. In Uttar Pradesh in India a government program led to field boundaries being straightened and land areas as much as possible being reshaped in rectangular form. This improved ease of cultivation, particularly plowing, and lessened disputes due to unclear border demarcations and encroachments. In the Dinh Hoa commune of Vietnam, land consolidation has also been carried out in order to reduce the number of plots owned by individual farm households, thereby increasing the average size of a plot without changing the total farmland area of each household. This is done with the involvement of the local government and the smallholders. The move has resulted in reduced labour costs and increased mechanization, and has also permitted some restructuring of irrigation systems.

Difficulties.

Successful consolidation has to overcome competing interests of the farmers. There may be objections regarding the initial inventory of ownership, the boundaries between land, and the value attached to different parcels. Consolidation cannot simply involve re-allocating land while ensuring that everyone gets the same amount, as the quality of the land re-allocated has to be taken into account and an owner should not be worse off after consolidation than before. Consolidation programs should aim at ensuring that an owner’s holding after consolidation is equal in value to the original holding; if the value of the holding is less it may sometimes be necessary to pay financial compensation. However, soil quality is not the only factor in valuation as the value of a parcel can be affected by its position relative to roads, water supply, farm buildings and farmers’ homes, as well as the value of trees or vines already planted on the land. Mediation arrangements to resolve these problems are essential. It is important to include respected farmers in the land valuation teams together with valuation experts.

Land consolidation is a planned readjustment and rearrangement of fragmented land parcels and their ownership. It is usually applied to form larger and more rational land holdings. Land consolidation can be used to improve rural infrastructure and to implement developmental and environmental policies (improving environmental sustainability and agriculture).<ref name="10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.07.008">


Biography.

Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze was born in Berlin in 1913 into a wealthy family; his father was a high-ranking civil servant and patron of the arts who maintained friendships with many prominent artists of the period, including Otto Dix. In 1919, the family moved to Dresden, where consequently he found his love for art in 1927. In 1924, Schulze was given a still camera, an event that, along with the death of his father in 1929, became one of the defining moments of his life. In 1930 he began to pursue an apprenticeship with his camera at the Reiman-Schule, the Berlin school of applied art. He was a multifaceted man who was capable of teaching German, painting, and capturing photographs of portrait landscape. After abandoning school, Schulze pursued several interests, including ethnography before moving to Paris in 1932 on the advice of László Moholy-Nagy. After visiting Germany in 1933, he decided not to return, instead traveling to Barcelona, Majorca, and Ibiza, where he worked odd jobs, including a stint as a taxicab driver and a German tutor.  In 1936, he received official permission to live in Paris with the help of Fernand Léger; as an army deserter, Schulze had to report to the Paris police on a monthly basis. Beginning in 1937, he actively worked on his photographs, which were shown in many of Paris's most prestigious galleries. He befriended luminaries of the period, including Max Ernst and Jacques Prévert. As a German national, Schulze (like Ernst) was interned at the start of World War II, but he managed to escape and hide in Cassis near Marseilles, where he passed the time drawing and painting in watercolor. In 1942 he fled from the Germans to the safety of Montelimar.  He spent most of the war trying to emigrate to the United States, an unsuccessful and costly enterprise that may have driven him to alcoholism. Upon his return to Paris, after the hype from the war had died down, he had his first exhibition of watercolors in December 1945 at the Galerie René Drouin, where despite the lack of commercial success he made an impression on the circle of intellectuals around the gallery. These included Jean Paulhan, Francis Ponge, Georges Limbour and André Malraux. The small works were displayed in light boxes. A second exhibition in the same gallery two years later saw greater recognition. His paintings represented a rejection of figuration and abstraction, and a projection into a metaphysical plane. In the years following the war, Schulze concentrated on painting and etching. His health declined severely towards the end of the 1940s; in 1951 he died of food poisoning at the Hotel Montalembert in Paris, after releasing himself from hospital against medical advice. After his death his works were shown at the Kassel documenta (1955), documenta II (1959) and documenta III (1964).

Artistic style.

Wols' painting style, as early as 1946–47 ("Untitled", 1946–47, "Yellow Composition", 1946–7; Berlin, Neue N.G., "It's All Over The City", 1947), was informal, gestural, with the paint applied in layers by means of dripping and with scratching into the surface. This new development in art proved influential, earning him the praise of artists such as Georges Mathieu and critics such as Michel Tapié, who coined the term "Art autre" (the Other Art) to describe the new style.  Wols was noted for his etchings and for his use of stains ("taches") of color dabbed onto the canvas (as exemplified by his painting "Composition", c. 1950). His painted work contains figurative elements as well as free improvisations and abstract elements. Spontaneity and immediateness determine the creative work of Wols, who never underwent any formal artistic training. Randomness (initially inspired by the Surrealist psychic Automatism) plays an important role in his unstructured compositions. In later years Wols was particularly interested in the combination of powerful brushstrokes with a relief-like painted surface structure.

Influences.

His inspiration to become an artist derived from the work of the artists Paul Klee, Otto Dix and George Grosz. His advisor Moholy-Nagy instructed him to pursue his artistic endeavours in Paris. His encounters with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir awakened a lively interest in the philosophy of Existentialism.

Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (27 May 1913, Berlin1 September 1951, Paris), a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, he is considered a pioneer of lyrical abstraction, one of the most influential artists of the Tachisme movement. He is the author of a book on art theory entitled "Aphorismes de Wols".


Course of battle.

On November 30, 1939, the Soviet 163rd Rifle Division crossed the border between Finland and the Soviet Union and advanced from the north-east towards the village of Suomussalmi. The Soviet objective was to advance to the city of Oulu, effectively cutting Finland in half. This sector had only one Finnish battalion (Er.P 15), which was placed near Raate, outside Suomussalmi.  Suomussalmi was taken with little resistance on December 7 (only two incomplete companies of covering forces led a holding action between the border and Suomussalmi), but the Finns destroyed the village before this, to deny the Soviets shelter, and withdrew to the opposite shore of lakes Niskanselkä and Haukiperä.  The first extensive fight started on December 8, when Soviet forces began to attack across the frozen lakes to the west. Their attempt failed completely. The second part of Soviet forces led the attack to the northwest on Puolanka, that was defended by the Er.P 16 (lit. 16th detached battalion), that had just arrived. This attempt also failed.  On December 9, the defenders were reinforced with a newly founded regiment (JR 27). Colonel Hjalmar Siilasvuo was given the command of the Finnish forces and he began immediate counter-measures to regain Suomussalmi. The main forces advanced on Suomussalmi, but failed to take the village, suffering serious losses.  On December 24, Soviet units counterattacked, but failed to break through the surrounding Finnish forces.  Reinforced with two new regiments (JR 64 and JR 65), the Finns again attacked on December 27. This time, they took the village, and the Soviets retreated in panic over the surrounding frozen lakes. A large part of them managed to reach the Russian border along the Kiantajärvi lake.  During this time, the Soviet 44th Rifle Division had advanced from the east towards Suomussalmi. It was entrenched on the road between Suomussalmi and Raate and got caught up in the retreat of the other Soviet forces.  Between January 4 and January 8, 1940, the 44th Rifle Division was divided into isolated groups and destroyed by the Finnish troops (in a tactic known as motti), leaving much heavy equipment for the Finnish troops.

Outcome.

The battle resulted in a major victory for the Finns. If the Soviet Union had captured the city of Oulu, the Finns would have had to defend the country on two fronts and an important rail link to Sweden would have been severed. The battle also gave a decisive boost to the morale of the Finnish army.  In addition, Finnish forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road captured a large amount of military supplies, including tanks (43), field guns (71), trucks (260), horses (1,170), anti-tank guns (29) and other weapons, which were greatly needed by the Finnish army.  Alvar Aalto sculpted a memorial for the Finnish soldiers who died.

Analysis.

The Battle of Suomussalmi is often cited as an example of how a small force, properly led and fighting in familiar terrain, can defeat a vastly numerically superior enemy. Factors which contributed to the Finnish victory included:

The Battle of Suomussalmi was a battle fought between Finnish and Soviet forces in the Winter War. The action took place from around December 7, 1939, to January 8, 1940. The outcome was a Finnish victory against superior forces. Suomussalmi is considered the clearest, most important, and most significant Finnish victory in the northern half of Finland. In Finland, the battle is still seen today as a symbol of the entire Winter War itself.


History.

Boats have served as transportation since the earliest times. Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, findings in Crete dated 130,000 years ago, and in Flores dated to 900,000 years ago, suggest that boats have been used since prehistoric times. The earliest boats are thought to have been dugouts, and the oldest boats found by archaeological excavation date from around 7,000–10,000 years ago. The oldest recovered boat in the world, the Pesse canoe, found in the Netherlands, is a dugout made from the hollowed tree trunk of a "Pinus sylvestris" that was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 BC. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands. Other very old dugout boats have also been recovered. Rafts have operated for at least 8,000 years. A 7,000-year-old seagoing reed boat has been found in Kuwait. Boats were used between 4000 and 3000 BC in Sumer, ancient Egypt and in the Indian Ocean.  Boats played an important role in the commerce between the Indus Valley Civilization and Mesopotamia. Evidence of varying models of boats has also been discovered at various Indus Valley archaeological sites. Uru craft originate in Beypore, a village in south Calicut, Kerala, in southwestern India. This type of mammoth wooden ship was constructed solely of teak, with a transport capacity of 400 tonnes. The ancient Arabs and Greeks used such boats as trading vessels.  The historians Herodotus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo record the use of boats for commerce, travel, and military purposes.

Types.

Boats can be categorized into three main types:

Terminology.

The hull is the main, and in some cases only, structural component of a boat. It provides both capacity and buoyancy. The keel is a boat's "backbone", a lengthwise structural member to which the perpendicular frames are fixed. On most boats a deck covers the hull, in part or whole. While a ship often has several decks, a boat is unlikely to have more than one. Above the deck are often lifelines connected to stanchions, bulwarks perhaps topped by gunnels, or some combination of the two. A cabin may protrude above the deck forward, aft, along the centerline, or covering much of the length of the boat. Vertical structures dividing the internal spaces are known as bulkheads.  The forward end of a boat is called the bow, the aft end the stern. Facing forward the right side is referred to as starboard and the left side as port.

Building materials.

Until the mid-19th century most boats were made of natural materials, primarily wood, although reed, bark and animal skins were also used. Early boats include the bound-reed style of boat seen in Ancient Egypt, the birch bark canoe, the animal hide-covered kayak and coracle and the dugout canoe made from a single log.  By the mid-19th century, many boats had been built with iron or steel frames but still planked in wood. In 1855 ferro-cement boat construction was patented by the French, who coined the name "ferciment". This is a system by which a steel or iron wire framework is built in the shape of a boat's hull and covered over with cement. Reinforced with bulkheads and other internal structure it is strong but heavy, easily repaired, and, if sealed properly, will not leak or corrode.  As the forests of Britain and Europe continued to be over-harvested to supply the keels of larger wooden boats, and the Bessemer process (patented in 1855) cheapened the cost of steel, steel ships and boats began to be more common. By the 1930s boats built entirely of steel from frames to plating were seen replacing wooden boats in many industrial uses and fishing fleets. Private recreational boats of steel remain uncommon. In 1895 WH Mullins produced steel boats of galvanized iron and by 1930 became the world's largest producer of pleasure boats.  Mullins also offered boats in aluminum from 1895 through 1899 and once again in the 1920s, but it wasn't until the mid-20th century that aluminium gained widespread popularity. Though much more expensive than steel, aluminum alloys exist that do not corrode in salt water, allowing a similar load carrying capacity to steel at much less weight.  Around the mid-1960s, boats made of fiberglass (aka "glassfibre") became popular, especially for recreational boats. Fiberglass is also known as "GRP" (glass-reinforced plastic) in the UK, and "FRP" (for fiber-reinforced plastic) in the US. Fiberglass boats are strong, and do not rust, corrode, or rot. Instead, they are susceptible to structural degradation from sunlight and extremes in temperature over their lifespan. Fiberglass structures can be made stiffer with sandwich panels, where the fiberglass encloses a lightweight core such as balsa or foam.  Cold moulding is a modern construction method, using wood as the structural component. In cold moulding very thin strips of wood are layered over a form. Each layer is coated with resin, followed by another directionally alternating layer laid on top. Subsequent layers may be stapled or otherwise mechanically fastened to the previous, or weighted or vacuum bagged to provide compression and stabilization until the resin sets.

Propulsion.

The most common means of boat propulsion are as follows:

Buoyancy.

A boat displaces its weight in water, regardless whether it is made of wood, steel, fiberglass, or even concrete. If weight is added to the boat, the volume of the hull drawn below the waterline will increase to keep the balance above and below the surface equal. Boats have a natural or designed level of buoyancy. Exceeding it will cause the boat first to ride lower in the water, second to take on water more readily than when properly loaded, and ultimately, if overloaded by any combination of structure, cargo, and water, sink.  As commercial vessels must be correctly loaded to be safe, and as the sea becomes less buoyant in brackish areas such as the Baltic, the Plimsoll line was introduced to prevent overloading.

European Union classification.

Since 1998 all new leisure boats and barges built in Europe between 2.5m and 24m must comply with the EU's Recreational Craft Directive (RCD). The Directive establishes four categories that permit the allowable wind and wave conditions for vessels in each class:

A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.


Biography.

Background.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan was described as an Arab in contemporaneous sources. However, the "Encyclopedia of Islam" and Richard N. Frye add that nothing can be said with certainty about his origin, his ethnicity, his education, or even the dates of his birth and death.  Primary sources documents and historical texts reveal that Ahmad Ibn Fadlan was a "faqih", an expert in Islamic jurisprudence and faith, in the court of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir. It appears certain from his writing that prior to his departure on his historic mission, he had already been serving for some time in the court of al-Muqtadir. Other than the fact that he was both a traveler and a theologian in service of the Abbasid Caliphate, little is known about Ahmad Ibn Fadlan prior to 921 and his self-reported travels.

The embassy.

Ibn Fadlan was sent from Baghdad in 921 to serve as the secretary to an ambassador from the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir to the iltäbär (vassal-king under the Khazars) of the Volga Bulgaria, Almış.  On 21 June 921 (11 "safar" AH 309), a diplomatic party led by Susan al-Rassi, a eunuch in the caliph's court, left Baghdad. Primarily, the purpose of their mission was to explain Islamic law to the recently converted Bulgar peoples living on the eastern bank of the Volga River in what is now Russia. (These were the Volga Bulgars; another group of Bulgars had moved westward in the 6th century, invading the country that today bears their name and became Christians.) Additionally, the embassy was sent in response to a request by the king of the Volga Bulgars to help them against their enemies, the Khazars. Ibn Fadlan served as the group's religious advisor and lead counselor for Islamic religious doctrine and law.  Ahmad Ibn Fadlan and the diplomatic party utilized established caravan routes toward Bukhara, now part of Uzbekistan, but instead of following that route all the way to the east, they turned northward in what is now northeastern Iran. Leaving the city of Gurgan near the Caspian Sea, they crossed lands belonging to a variety of Turkic peoples, notably the Khazar Khaganate, Oghuz Turks on the east coast of the Caspian, the Pechenegs on the Ural River and the Bashkirs in what is now central Russia, but the largest portion of his account is dedicated to the Rus, i.e. the Varangians (Vikings) on the Volga trade route. All told, the delegation covered some 4000 kilometers (2500 mi).  Ibn Fadlan's envoy reached the Volga Bulgar capital on 12 May 922 (12 "muharram" AH 310). When they arrived, Ibn Fadlan read aloud a letter from the caliph to the Bulgar Khan and presented him with gifts from the caliphate. At the meeting with the Bulgar ruler, Ibn Fadlan delivered the caliph's letter, but was criticized for not bringing with him the promised money from the caliph to build a fortress as defense against enemies of the Bulgars.

Ethnographic writing.

Manuscript tradition.

For a long time, only an incomplete version of the account was known, transmitted as quotations in the geographical dictionary of Yāqūt (under the headings Atil, Bashgird, Bulghār, Khazar, Khwārizm, Rūs), published in 1823 by Christian Martin Frähn.  Only in 1923 was a manuscript discovered by Zeki Validi Togan in the Astane Quds Museum, Mashhad, Iran. The manuscript, Razawi Library MS 5229, dates from the 13th century (7th century Hijra) and consists of 420 pages (210 folia). Besides other geographical treatises, it contains a fuller version of Ibn Fadlan's text (pp. 390–420). Additional passages not preserved in MS 5229 are quoted in the work of the 16th century Persian geographer Amīn Rāzī called "Haft Iqlīm" ("Seven Climes").  Neither source seems to record Ibn Fadlān's complete report. Yāqūt offers excerpts, and several times claims that Ibn Fadlān also recounted his return to Bagdad, but does not quote such material. Meanwhile, the text in Razawi Library MS 5229 breaks off part way through describing the Khazars.

Account of the Volga Bulgars.

One noteworthy aspect of the Volga Bulgars that Ibn Fadlan focused on was their religion and the institution of Islam in these territories. The Bulgar king had invited religious instruction as a gesture of homage to the Abbasids in exchange for financial and military support, and Ibn Fadlan's mission as a "faqih" was one of proselytization as well as diplomacy.  For example, Ibn Fadlan details in his encounter that the Volga Bulgar Khan commits an error in his prayer exhortations by repeating the prayer twice. One scholar calls it an "illuminating episode" in the text where Ibn Fadlan expresses his great anger and disgust over the fact that the Khan and the Volga Bulgars in general are practicing some form of imperfect and doctrinally unsound Islam. In general, Ibn Fadlan recognized and judged the peoples of central Eurasia he encountered by the possession and practice of Islam, along with their efforts put forth to utilize, implement, and foster Islamic faith and social practice in their respective society. Consequently, many of the peoples and societies to Ibn Fadlan were "like asses gone astray. They have no religious bonds with God, nor do they have recourse to reason".

Account of the Rus'.

A substantial portion of Ibn Fadlan's account is dedicated to the description of a people he called the "Rūs" (روس) or "Rūsiyyah". Western scholarship has generally assumed that he was describing Volga Vikings, the North Germanic tribes travelling the Volga trade route, though the identification of the people Ibn Fadlān describes is uncertain. The Rūs appear as traders who set up shop on the river banks nearby the Bolğar camp. They are described as having bodies tall as (date) palm-trees, with blond hair and ruddy skin. Each is tattooed from "the tips of his toes to his neck" with dark blue or dark green "designs" and all men are armed with an axe, sword and long knife.  Ibn Fadlan describes the Rus as "perfect" physical specimens and the hygiene of the "Rūsiyyah" as disgusting and shameless, especially regarding to sex (which they perform openly even in groups), and considers them vulgar and unsophisticated. In that, his account contrasts with that of the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah, whose impressions of the Rus were more favourable, although it has been attributed to a possibly intentional mistranslation with the original texts being more in line with Ibn Fadlan's narrative. He also describes in great detail the funeral of one of their chieftains (a ship burial involving human sacrifice). Some scholars believe that it took place in the modern Balymer complex.

Appearances in popular culture.

Ibn Fadlān is a major character in Michael Crichton's 1976 novel "Eaters of the Dead", which draws heavily in its opening passages on Ibn Fadlān's writing. Correspondingly, Ibn Fadlān is a character in the 1999 film adaptation of the novel, "The Thirteenth Warrior", played by Antonio Banderas.  Ibn Fadlān's journey is also the subject of the 2007 Syrian TV series "Saqf al-Alam".

Ibn Fadlan (, "Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād", 921–22) was a 10th-century Arab Muslim traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars, known as his "Risala" ("account" or "journal"). His account is most notable for providing a detailed description of the Volga Vikings, including an eyewitness account of a ship burial.


History.

Digital audio player.

In 1981, Kane Kramer filed for a UK patent for the IXI, the first Digital Audio Player. UK patent 2115996 was issued in 1985, and U.S. Patent 4,667,088 was issued in 1987. The player was as big as a credit card and had a small LCD screen, navigation and volume buttons and would have held at least 8MB of data in a solid-state bubble memory chip with a capacity of 31⁄2 minutes' worth of audio. Plans were made for a 10-minute stereo memory card and the system was at one time fitted with a hard drive which would have enabled over an hour of recorded digital music. Later Kramer set up a company to promote the IXI and five working prototypes were produced with 16-bit sampling at 44.1 kilohertz with the pre-production prototype being unveiled at the APRS Audio/Visual trade exhibition in October 1986. However, in 1988 Kramer's failure to raise the £60,000 required to renew the patent meant it entering the public domain, but he still owns the designs.  In 1987 a German research institute, part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, started the research program for coding music with the high quality and low bit-rate sampling at its institute. The project was controlled by an expert in mathematics and electronics, Karlheinz Brandenburg.  The Listen Up Player was released in 1996 by Audio Highway. It could store up to an hour of music, but despite getting an award at CES only 25 copies were made.

MP3 player.

MP3 was introduced as an audio coding standard in 1994. It was based on several audio data compression techniques, including the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT), FFT and psychoacoustic methods.  In 1997, the world's first MP3 player, the MPMan F10, was developed by a South Korean company SaeHan Information Systems. The world's first car audio hard drive-based MP3 player was also released in 1997 by MP32Go and was called the MP32Go Player. It consisted of a 3GB IBM 2.5" hard drive that was housed in a trunk-mounted enclosure connected to the car's radio system. It retailed for $599 and was a commercial failure. The first handheld portable MP3 player released on the American market was the Eiger Labs F10, a 32MB imported version of the MPMan F10 that appeared in the summer of 1998. It was a very basic unit and wasn't user-expandable, though owners could upgrade the memory to 64MB by sending the player back to Eiger Labs with a check for $69.00 plus $7.95 shipping.  Another early MP3 player needed was the Rio PMP300 from Diamond Multimedia, introduced in September 1998. The Rio was a big success during the Christmas 1998 season as sales significantly exceeded expectations, spurring interest and investment in digital music. The RIAA soon filed a lawsuit alleging that the device abetted illegal copying of music, but Diamond won a legal victory on the shoulders of "Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios" and MP3 players were ruled legal devices. Eiger Labs and Diamond and went on to establish a new segment in the portable audio player market and the following year saw several new manufacturers enter this market.  Other early MP3 portables include Sensory Science's Rave MP2100, the I-Jam IJ-100 and the Creative Labs Nomad. These portables were small and light, but only held enough memory to hold around 7 to 20 songs at normal 128kbit/s compression rates. They also used slower parallel port connections to transfer files from PC to player, necessary as most PCs then used the Windows 95 and NT operating systems, which did not support the then newer USB connections, at least well. As more users migrated to Windows 98 by 2000, all players went USB.  In 1999 the Personal Jukebox (PJB-100) designed by Compaq and released by Hango Electronics Co from had 4.8GB, which held about 1,200 songs, and invented what would be called the jukebox segment of digital music portables. This segment eventually became the dominant type of digital music player.  Also at the end of 1999 the first in-dash MP3 player appeared. The Empeg Car and Rio Car (renamed after it was acquired by SONICblue and added to its Rio line of MP3 products) offered players in several capacities ranging from 5GB to 28GB. The unit didn't catch on as SONICblue had hoped, though, and was discontinued in the fall of 2001.  There are several types of MP3 players:

Equipment.

Generally speaking, MP3 players are portable, employing internal or replaceable batteries and headphones, and may be connected to car and home stereos via a wireless connection such as bluetooth. Some MP3 players also include FM radio tuners.  Many MP3 players can encode directly to MP3 or other digital audio format directly from a line in audio signal (radio, voice, etc.).  Devices such as CD players can be connected to the MP3 player (using the USB port) in order to directly play music from the memory of the player without the use of a computer.  Modular MP3 keydrive players are composed of two detachable parts: the head (or reader/writer) and the body (the memory). They can be independently obtained and upgradable (one can change the head or the body; i.e. to add more memory).

An MP3 player is an electronic device that can play MP3 digital audio files. It is a type of digital audio player (DAP), or portable media player. Most players play more than the MP3 file format, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Vorbis, FLAC, Speex and Ogg.


Life and career.

Schnittke's father, (1914–1975), was Jewish and born in Frankfurt. He moved to the Soviet Union in 1927 and worked as a journalist and translator from the Russian language into German. His mother, Maria Iosifovna Schnittke (née Vogel, 1910–1972), was a Volga German born in Russia. Schnittke's paternal grandmother, Tea Abramovna Katz (1889–1970), was a philologist, translator, and editor of German-language literature. Alfred Schnittke was born in Engels in the Volga-German Republic of the Russian SFSR. He began his musical education in 1946 in Vienna, where his father had been posted. It was in Vienna, Schnittke's biographer Alexander Ivashkin writes, where "he fell in love with music which is part of life, part of history and culture, part of the past which is still alive." "I felt every moment there," the composer wrote, "to be a link of the historical chain: all was multi-dimensional; the past represented a world of ever-present ghosts, and I was not a barbarian without any connections, but the conscious bearer of the task in my life." Schnittke's experience in Vienna "gave him a certain spiritual experience and discipline for his future professional activities. It was Mozart and Schubert, not Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, whom he kept in mind as a reference point in terms of taste, manner and style. This reference point was essentially Classical... but never too blatant."  In 1948, the family moved to Moscow. Schnittke completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 and taught there from 1962 to 1972. Evgeny Golubev was one of his composition teachers. Thereafter, he earned his living chiefly by composing film scores, producing nearly 70 scores in 30 years. Schnittke converted to Christianity and possessed deeply held mystic beliefs, which influenced his music.  Schnittke and his music were often viewed suspiciously by the Soviet bureaucracy. His First Symphony was effectively banned by the Composers' Union. After he abstained from a Composers' Union vote in 1980, he was banned from travelling outside the USSR. On 21 July 1985, Schnittke suffered a stroke that left him in a coma. He was declared clinically dead on several occasions, but recovered and continued to compose. In 1990, Schnittke left the Soviet Union and settled in Hamburg, West Germany. His health remained poor, however. He suffered several more strokes before his death on 3 August 1998, in Hamburg, at the age of 63. He was buried, with state honors, at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, where many other prominent Russian composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich, are interred.

Music.

Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich, but after the visit of the Italian composer Luigi Nono to the USSR, he took up the serial technique in works such as "Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra" (1964). However, Schnittke soon became dissatisfied with what he termed the "puberty rites of serial self-denial." He created a new style which has been called "polystylism", where he juxtaposed and combined music of various styles past and present. He once wrote, "The goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so." His first concert work to use the polystylistic technique was the second violin sonata, "Quasi una sonata" (1967–1968). He experimented with techniques in his film work, as shown by much of the sonata appearing first in his score for the 1968 animation short "". He continued to develop the polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony (1969–1972) and First Concerto Grosso (1977). Other works were more stylistically unified, such as his piano quintet (1972–1976), written in memory of his recently deceased mother.  In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad, thanks in part to the work of émigré Soviet artists such as the violinists Gidon Kremer and Mark Lubotsky. Despite constant illness, he produced a large amount of music, including important works such as the Second (1980) and Third (1983) String Quartets and the String Trio (1985); the "Faust Cantata" (1983), which he later incorporated in his opera "Historia von D. Johann Fausten"; the ballet "Peer Gynt" (1985–1987); the Third (1981), Fourth (1984) and Fifth (1988) Symphonies (the last of which is also known as the Fourth Concerto Grosso) and the Viola (1985) and First Cello (1985–1986) concertos. This period was also marked by a turn in Schnittke and his music to Christian themes, exemplified in his deeply spiritual unaccompanied choral works, the Concerto for Mixed Chorus (1984-1985) and the Penitential Psalms (1988), and alluded to in various others works, including the Fourth Symphony and the Faust Cantata.  The Ninth Symphony was first performed on 19 June 1998 in Moscow in a version deciphered – but also 'arranged' – by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who conducted the premiere. After hearing a tape of the performance, Schnittke indicated he wanted it withdrawn. After he died, though, others worked to decipher the score. Nikolai Korndorf died before he could complete the task, which was continued and completed by Alexander Raskatov. In Raskatov's version, the three orchestral movements of Schnittke's symphony may be followed by a choral fourth, which is Raskatov's own "Nunc Dimittis (in memoriam Alfred Schnittke)". This version was premiered in Dresden, Germany, on June 16, 2007. Andrei Boreyko also has a version of the symphony.

References.

Sources

Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (, Alfred Garriyevich Shnitke; 24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Soviet and German composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic Symphony No. 1 (1969–1972) and his first concerto grosso (1977). In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad with the publication of his second (1980) and third (1983) string quartets and the String Trio (1985); the ballet "Peer Gynt" (1985–1987); the third (1981), fourth (1984), and fifth (1988) symphonies; and the viola concerto (1985) and first cello concerto (1985–1986). As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style.


Biography.

Quantz was born as Hanß Jochim Quantz in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, in the Electorate of Hanover. His father, Andreas Quantz, was a blacksmith who died when Hans was not yet 11; on his deathbed, he begged his son to follow in his footsteps. Nevertheless, from 1708 to 1713 he began his musical studies as a child with his uncle Justus Quantz, a town musician in Merseburg; he also studied for a time with a cousin's husband, the organist Johann Friedrich Kiesewetter. From 1714 on, Quantz studied composition extensively and pored over scores of the masters to adopt their style.  In 1716 he joined the town band in Dresden, where in 1717 he studied counterpoint with Jan Dismas Zelenka. In March 1718 he was appointed oboist in the newly formed Dresden Polish Chapel of August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. As it became clear that he couldn't advance as an oboist in the Polish Chapel, Quantz decided to pursue the flute, studying briefly in 1719 with Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin, principal flute in the Royal Orchestra. He became good friends with Johann Georg Pisendel, concertmaster of the Royal Orchestra, who greatly influenced his style.  Between 1724 and 1727 Quantz completed his education by doing a "Grand Tour" of Europe as a flutist. He studied counterpoint with Francesco Gasparini in Rome, met Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples, befriended the flutist Michel Blavet in Paris, and in London was encouraged by Handel to remain there. In 1728 Quantz accompanied August II on a state visit to Berlin. The Queen of Prussia was impressed and wanted to hire him. Though August II refused, he allowed Quantz to travel to Berlin as often as he was asked to. That year the Crown Prince, Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great), decided to study the flute and Quantz became his teacher for several visits a year. Quantz later told writer Friedrich Nicolai that he once had to hide in a closet during an outburst of Frederick's domineering father, who disapproved of his son's musical studies. Until 1741 Quantz remained at the Saxon Court in Dresden. He married Anna Rosina Carolina Schindler in 1737; the marriage was not happy, and it was generally known in Berlin that Quantz's wife tyrannized him.  When Frederick II became King of Prussia in 1740, Quantz finally accepted a position as flute teacher, flute maker and composer at the court in Berlin. He joined that court in December 1741 and stayed there for the rest of his career. He made flutes from at least 1739 and was an innovator in flute design, adding a second key (D#, in addition to the standard Eb) to help with intonation, for example.  As well as writing hundreds of sonatas and concertos, mainly for the flute, he is known today as the author of "Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen" (1752) (titled "On Playing the Flute" in English), a treatise on traverso flute playing. It is a valuable source of reference regarding performance practice and flute technique in the 18th century.  Quantz remained at Frederick's court at Potsdam until his death in 1773. A biography appeared in 1755 in Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg's "Historisch-kritischen Beyträgen zur Aufnahme der Musik"; another, in Italian, followed in 1762. His grandnephew, Albert Quantz, published a full-length biography in 1877.  Few of Quantz's works were published during his lifetime. Most of them are for transverse flute, including more than 200 sonatas, around 300 concertos, including several for two flutes; around 45 trio sonatas (mostly for 2 flutes or flute and violin, with continuo); 6 quartets for flute, violin, viola and continuo; various flute duets and flute trios; and unaccompanied caprices and fantasias for flute.

List of works.

The thematic catalog for Quantz's works was published by Horst Augsbach. 'QV' stands for 'Quantz Verzeichnis', and 'Anh.' for 'Anhang' ("supplement") when the authenticity of the works is in doubt. A number of additional works have been discovered or come to light since its publication.

Johann Joachim Quantz (; 30 January 1697 – 12 July 1773) was a German flutist, flute maker and Baroque music composer. He composed hundreds of flute sonatas and concertos, and wrote "On Playing the Flute", a treatise on flute performance. His works were known and appreciated by Bach and Mozart.


The form of adverbials.

In English, adverbials most commonly take the form of adverbs, adverb phrases, temporal noun phrases or prepositional phrases. Many types of adverbials (for instance: reason and condition) are often expressed by clauses. An adverbial is a construction which modifies or describes verbs. When an adverbial modifies a verb, it changes the meaning of that verb. Word groups, which are also considered to be adverbials, can also modify verbs: for example, a prepositional phrase, a noun phrase, a finite clause or a non-finite clause. Prepositional phrase in a sentence may be adverbial; that is, it modifies a verb.

Types of adverbials that form sentence elements.

Adverbials are typically divided into four classes:  Adverbial complements (i.e. obligatory adverbial) are adverbials that render a sentence ungrammatical and meaningless if removed.  Adjuncts: These are part of the core meaning of the sentence, but if omitted still leave a meaningful sentence.  Conjuncts: These link two sentences together.  Disjuncts: These make comments on the meaning of the rest of the sentence.

Distinguishing an adverbial from an adjunct.

All verb- or sentence-modifying adjuncts are adverbials, but some adverbials are not adjuncts.

Other types of adverbials.

Directional and locative particles.

Prepositions ("in", "out", etc.) may be used adverbially to indicate direction or location.

Negators.

In some models of grammar negators such as "not" and "never" are considered adverbs and their function that of negating adverbial.

Expletives.

Often ignored, expletives may take up many adverbial syntactic functions. Pragmatically and semantically, they often serve as intensifiers, boosting the content of the clause they appear in.

In grammar, an adverbial (abbreviated ) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial phrase or an adverbial clause) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb. (The word "adverbial" itself is also used as an adjective, meaning "having the same function as an adverb".) Look at the examples below: