title: Shropshire

text: The proposal to create a Shropshire unitary authority, covering the area of the existing non-metropolitan county, was supported by the DCLG and 1 April 2009 was set as the date for the re-organisation to take place. The first elections to Shropshire Council took place on 4 June 2009, with the former Shropshire County Council being the continuing authority and its councillors became the first members of the new Shropshire Council on 1 April.


title: Shropshire

text: Part of the proposals include parishing and establishing a town council for Shrewsbury. The parish was created on 13 May 2008 and is the second most populous civil parish in England (only Weston-super-Mare has a greater population) with a population of over 70,000.


title: Shropshire

text: Shropshire Council has been under Conservative control since the first election held in 2009; Telford and Wrekin Council has been under Labour control since 2011.


title: Shropshire

text: Shropshire is connected to the rest of the United Kingdom via a number of road and rail links. Historically, rivers and later canals in the county were used for transport also, although their use in transport is now significantly reduced. The county's main transport hub is Shrewsbury, through which many significant roads and railways pass and join.


title: Shropshire

text: Canals in Britain were originally constructed for the transport of goods, but are now mainly used for leisure. In northern Shropshire three canals with a total navigable length of are managed by the Canal & River Trust: the Shropshire Union Canal (from north of Adderley to near Knighton), the Llangollen Canal (from Chirk Aqueduct to Grindley Brook) and the Montgomery Canal (from its beginning at Frankton Junction to Llanymynech). In addition, the Shrewsbury and Newport Canal potentially could be restored in the


title: Shropshire

text: Major roads in the county include the M54 motorway, which connects Shropshire to the rest of the motorway network, and more specifically to the West Midlands county. The A5 also runs through the county, in an east–west direction. The road formerly ran through Shrewsbury, although a large dual-carriageway bypass has since been built. Other major trunk roads in the county include the north–south A49, the A53 and the A41.


title: Shropshire

text: There are a number of major railway lines running through the county, including the Welsh Marches Line, the Heart of Wales Line, the Cambrian Line, the Shrewsbury to Chester Line and the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury Line, as well as heritage railways including the well established Severn Valley Railway. The Cambrian Heritage Railway exists in Oswestry. The three train operating companies working in the county are West Midlands Trains, Transport for Wales and Avanti West Coast. A new company, Wrexham & Shropshire, commenced services from Shropshire to London Marylebone, in spring 2008 but the service was discontinued on 28 January 2011 leaving Shrewsbury without a direct link to the capital. Virgin Trains (the operator at the time) recommenced services from Shrewsbury to London Euston on 11 December 2014, having withdrawn them in the late 1990s.


title: Shropshire

text: Two major water supply aqueducts run across Shropshire; the Elan aqueduct running through South Shropshire carrying water from Elan Valley to Birmingham and the Vyrnwy Aqueduct running through North Shropshire delivering water from Lake Vyrnwy to Liverpool.


title: Shropshire

text: Traditionally, agriculture has dominated the economy of Shropshire . The area later became more service-oriented. The county town of Shrewsbury, the historic castle-dominated Ludlow, the International Olympic Movement's reputed birthplace Much Wenlock and the industrial birthplace of Ironbridge Gorge are the foremost tourist areas in Shropshire, along with the restored canal-network which provides narrowboat holidays on the Shropshire Union Canal and other canals in the region. The natural beauty of the county draws people to all areas.


title: Shropshire

text: Industry is mostly found in Telford, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Market Drayton and Shrewsbury, though small industrial estates have developed in most of the market towns as well as on former airfields in rural areas. In towns such as Whitchurch, much of the high street is predominantly composed of small independent business which specialise in handmade items or antiques. Many of the businesses in Shropshire are family run such as Raven Yard Antiques, a family run antiques shop located in Watergate Street, Whitchurch. Shrewsbury is becoming a centre for distribution and warehousing, as it is located on a nodal point of the regional road-network.


title: Shropshire

text: In Telford, a new rail freight facility was opened in 2009 by Telford and Wrekin Council at Donnington with the future goal of extending the line to Stafford.


title: Shropshire

text: Telford and Shrewsbury are the county's two main retail centres, with contrasting styles of shopping – Shrewsbury's largely historic streets and Telford's large modern mall, Telford Shopping Centre. Shrewsbury also has two medium-sized shopping centres, the indoor "Pride Hill" and "Darwin" centres (both located on Pride Hill), and a smaller, partially covered, "Riverside Mall". Shrewsbury's location as the nearest substantial town for those in a large area of mid-Wales helps it draw in considerable numbers of shoppers, notably on Saturdays.


title: Shropshire

text: Well-known companies in Shropshire include Müller Dairy (UK) Ltd in Market Drayton. The Royal Air Force operates two bases at RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury, and the charity PDSA has its head office in Priorslee, Telford.


title: Shropshire

text: Below is the chart of regional gross value added for the non-metropolitan county (that is, excluding Telford & Wrekin) of Shropshire at current basic prices, with figures in millions of British pounds sterling.


title: Shropshire

text: With the statistics for the borough of Telford and Wrekin included, the following represents the ceremonial county:


title: Shropshire

text: The Shropshire Council area has a completely comprehensive education system, whilst in the borough of Telford and Wrekin there are two selective schools, both of which are located in Newport — these are the Haberdashers' Adams School and Newport Girls' High School (both of which are ranked within the top thirty schools in the country). In Telford itself is the Thomas Telford School, ranked as one of the best comprehensive schools in England.


title: Shropshire

text: The county has many independent schools, including Ellesmere College, founded in 1884, Shrewsbury School, founded in 1552, and Oswestry School, founded in 1407.


title: Shropshire

text: There are three sixth-form colleges located in Shropshire: the New College, Telford, Shrewsbury Sixth Form College and Ludlow College. Adams' Grammar and Newport Girls' High Schools both provide sixth-form education as well as secondary education.


title: Shropshire

text: There are also two institutions of higher education in Shropshire, the Telford campus of the University of Wolverhampton and in Edgmond, near Newport, Harper Adams University, which formerly offered mostly agriculture-based degrees but is expanding its range of provision. A third higher education institution was created in Shrewsbury in 2015, which is a campus of the University of Chester.


title: Shropshire

text: In Ironbridge, the University of Birmingham operates the Ironbridge Institute in partnership with the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, which offers postgraduate and professional development courses in heritage.


title: Shropshire

text: There are a significant number of sporting clubs and facilities in Shropshire, many of which are found in Shrewsbury and Telford in addition to a number of clubs found locally throughout the county. Shropshire is home to a variety of established amateur, semi-pro and professional sports clubs.


title: Shropshire

text: The county is home to one of five National Sports Centres. Situated at Lilleshall Hall just outside Newport in Lilleshall, this is where the 1966 England National football team trained for two weeks prior to their success in the World Cup of 1966.


title: Shropshire

text: The three highest football (and only professional) clubs in the county are Shrewsbury Town (EFL League One), A.F.C. Telford United (National League North) and The New Saints (Welsh Premier League) in Oswestry.


title: Shropshire

text: There are numerous semi-professional football clubs in the lower leagues, the highest of which is Market Drayton Town. The governing body in the county is the Shropshire Football Association, who organise a number of county-wide cup competitions, including the Shropshire Senior Cup. In May 2012 the Mercian Regional Football League was created, replacing the Shropshire County Premier Football League and Telford Combination. the following Shropshire clubs play in these English leagues (the highest team of each club shown only):


title: Shropshire

text: The historic Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games (begun 1850) are held annually in Much Wenlock during the second weekend in July. A four-day festival, the Games include cricket, volleyball, tennis, bowls, badminton, triathlon, 10k road race, track and field events, archery, five-a-side football, veteran cycle events, clay pigeon shooting and a golf competition.


title: Shropshire

text: The county of private and public golf courses, including the Church Stretton Golf Club, situated on the slopes of the Long Mynd. It is the oldest 18-hole golf course in Shropshire, opened in 1898, and one of the highest in the United Kingdom. There is one notable horse racing racecourse in Shropshire, near Ludlow, the Ludlow Racecourse.


title: Shropshire

text: The area also has a rich motorsports heritage, with the Loton Park Hillclimb and Hawkstone Park Motocross Circuit situated near Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury Motocross Club has staged motocross events in the area for over 30 years. There is additionally an ice hockey club in the county, the Telford Tigers.


title: Shropshire

text: One of the biggest one-day events in Shropshire and the biggest one-day cycle race in the UK is the Shropshire Star Newport Nocturne, founded 1970; held every four years, it is Britain's only floodlit cycle race.


title: Shropshire

text: The county has one American football team, Shropshire Revolution, which was founded in 2006, and is a club in the British American Football League. Former teams in the county have included the Wrekin Giants, which ran from 1985 to 1989 and the Shropshire Giants which ran in 1989. Shropshire has a number of rugby clubs, including Newport (Salop) Rugby Union Football Club, the highest-leveled team in the county, playing in the National League 3 Midlands.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in "Razzias", raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands and Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Arab slavery market in North Africa and the Middle East. Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.


title: Barbary pirates

text: While such raids had occurred since soon after the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 710s, the terms "Barbary pirates" and "Barbary corsairs" are normally applied to the raiders active from the 16th century onwards, when the frequency and range of the slavers' attacks increased. In that period, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli came under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, either as directly administered provinces or as autonomous dependencies known as the Barbary States. Similar raids were undertaken from Salé (see Salé Rovers) and other ports in Morocco.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Barbary corsairs captured thousands of merchant ships and repeatedly raided coastal towns. As a result, residents abandoned their former villages of long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy. Between 100,000 and 250,000 Iberians were enslaved by these raids.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The raids were such a problem that coastal settlements were seldom undertaken until the 19th century. Between 1580 and 1680 corsairs were said to have captured about 850,000 people as slaves and from 1530 to 1780 as many as 1.25 million people were enslaved. However, these numbers have been questioned by the historian David Earle. Some of these corsairs were European outcasts and converts (renegade) such as John Ward and Zymen Danseker. Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis, Turkish Barbarossa brothers, who took control of Algiers on behalf of the Ottomans in the early 16th century, were also notorious corsairs. The European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast around 1600, which enabled the corsairs to extend their activities into the Atlantic Ocean. The effects of the Barbary raids peaked in the early-to-mid-17th century.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Long after Europeans had abandoned oar-driven vessels in favor of sailing ships carrying tons of powerful cannon, many Barbary warships were galleys carrying a hundred or more fighting men armed with cutlasses and small arms. The Barbary navies were not battle fleets. When they sighted a European frigate, they fled.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The scope of corsair activity began to diminish in the latter part of the 17th century, as the more powerful European navies started to compel the Barbary States to make peace and cease attacking their shipping. However, the ships and coasts of Christian states without such effective protection continued to suffer until the early 19th century. Between 1801 and 1815, occasional incidents occurred, including two Barbary wars waged by the United States, Sweden and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary States. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, European powers agreed upon the need to suppress the Barbary corsairs entirely. The threat was finally subdued by the French conquest of Algeria in 1830 and subsequent pacification by the French during the mid-to-late 19th century.


title: Barbary pirates

text: In 1198 the problem of Barbary piracy and slave-taking was so great that the Trinitarians, a religious order, were founded to collect ransoms and even to exchange themselves as ransom for those captured and pressed into slavery in North Africa. In the 14th century Tunisian corsairs became enough of a threat to provoke a Franco-Genoese attack on Mahdia in 1390, also known as the "Barbary Crusade". Morisco exiles of the Reconquista and Maghreb pirates added to the numbers, but it was not until the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and the arrival of the privateer and admiral Kemal Reis in 1487 that the Barbary corsairs became a true menace to shipping from European Christian nations.


title: Barbary pirates

text: From 1559, these African cities, although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, were in fact military republics that chose their own rulers and lived by war booty captured from the Spanish and Portuguese. There are several cases of Sephardic Jews, including Sinan Reis and Samuel Pallache, who upon fleeing Iberia turned to attacking the Spanish Empire's shipping under the Ottoman flag, a profitable strategy of revenge for the Inquisition's religious persecution.


title: Barbary pirates

text: During the first period (1518–1587), the beylerbeys were admirals of the sultan, commanding great fleets and conducting war operations for political ends. They were slave-hunters and their methods were ferocious. After 1587, the sole object of their successors became plunder, on land and sea. The maritime operations were conducted by the captains, or "reises", who formed a class or even a corporation. Cruisers were fitted out by investors and commanded by the "reises". Ten percent of the value of the prizes was paid to the pasha or his successors, who bore the titles of "agha" or "dey" or "bey".


title: Barbary pirates

text: In 1544 Hayreddin captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 2,000–7,000 inhabitants of Lipari. In 1551 Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to Ottoman Tripolitania. In 1554 corsairs under Turgut Reis sacked Vieste, beheaded 5,000 of its inhabitants, and abducted another 6,000.


title: Barbary pirates

text: A notable counter action occurred in 1607, when the Knights of Saint Stephen (under Jacopo Inghirami) sacked Bona in Algeria, killing 470 and taking 1,464 captives. This victory is commemorated by a series of frescoes painted by Bernardino Poccetti in the ""Sala di Bona"" of Palazzo Pitti, Florence. In 1611 Spanish galleys from Naples, accompanied by the galleys of the Knights of Malta, raided the Kerkennah Islands off the coast of Tunisia and took away almost 500 Muslim captives. Between 1568 and 1634 the Knights of Saint Stephen may have captured about 14,000 Muslims, with perhaps one-third taken in land raids and two-thirds taken on captured ships.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Ireland was subject to a similar attack. In June 1631 Murat Reis, with corsairs from Algiers and armed troops of the Ottoman Empire, stormed ashore at the little harbor village of Baltimore, County Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and took them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates—some lived out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while women spent long years as concubines in harems or within the walls of the sultan's palace. Only two of these captives ever returned to Ireland. England was also subject to pirate raids; in 1640 sixty men, women and children were enslaved by Algerian pirates who raided Penzance.


title: Barbary pirates

text: More than 20,000 captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. The rich were often able to secure release through ransom, but the poor were condemned to slavery. Their masters would on occasion allow them to secure freedom by professing Islam. A long list might be given of people of good social position, not only Italians or Spaniards, but German or English travelers in the south, who were captives for a time.


title: Barbary pirates

text: In 1675 a Royal Navy squadron led by Sir John Narborough negotiated a lasting peace with Tunis and, after bombarding the city to induce compliance, with Tripoli.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Piracy was enough of a problem that some states entered into the redemption business. In Denmark, "At the beginning of the 18th century money was collected systematically in all churches, and a so called 'slave fund' (slavekasse) was established by the state in 1715. Funds were brought in through a compulsory insurance sum for seafarers. 165 slaves were ransomed by this institution between 1716 and 1736." "Between 1716 and 1754 nineteen ships from Denmark-Norway were captured with 208 men; piracy was thus a serious problem for the Danish merchant fleet."


title: Barbary pirates

text: During the American Revolution the pirates attacked American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. But, on December 20, 1777, Sultan Mohammed III of Morocco issued a declaration recognizing America as an independent country, and stating that American merchant ships could enjoy safe passage into the Mediterranean and along the coast. The relations were formalized with the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship signed in 1786, which stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty with a foreign power.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Until the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, British treaties with the North African states protected American ships from the Barbary corsairs. Morocco, which in 1777 was the first independent nation to publicly recognize the United States, in 1784 became the first Barbary power to seize an American vessel after the nation achieved independence. The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding the United States Navy in March 1794. While the United States did secure peace treaties with the Barbary states, it was obliged to pay tribute for protection from attack. The burden was substantial: from 1795, the annual tribute paid to the Regency of Algiers amounted to 20% of United States federal government's annual expenditures.


title: Barbary pirates

text: In 1798, an islet near Sardinia was attacked by the Tunisians, and more than 900 inhabitants were taken away as slaves.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The Barbary states had difficulty securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, as this had been traditionally of central importance to the North African economy. Slavers continued to take captives by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Europeans at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 discussed possible retaliation. In 1824 a British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Burrard Neale bombarded Algiers. Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until France conquered the state in 1830.


title: Barbary pirates

text: From bases on the Barbary coast, North Africa, the Barbary pirates raided ships traveling through the Mediterranean and along the northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and enslaving the people they captured. From at least 1500, the pirates also conducted raids along seaside towns of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children. On some occasions, settlements such as Baltimore, Ireland were abandoned following the raid, only being resettled many years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone had 466 merchant ships lost to Barbary pirates.


title: Barbary pirates

text: At night the slaves were put into prisons called 'bagnios<nowiki>'</nowiki> (derived from the Italian word ""bagno"" for "public bath", inspired by the Turks' use of Roman baths at Constantinople as prisons), which were often hot and overcrowded. Bagnios had chapels, hospitals, shops and bars run by captives.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Although the conditions in bagnios were harsh, they were better than those endured by galley slaves. Most Barbary galleys were at sea for around eighty to a hundred days a year, but when the slaves assigned to them were on land, they were forced to do hard manual labor. There were exceptions: "galley slaves of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople would be permanently confined to their galleys, and often served extremely long terms, averaging around nineteen years in the late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century periods. These slaves rarely got off the galley but lived there for years." During this time, rowers were shackled and chained where they sat, and never allowed to leave. Sleeping (which was limited), eating, defecation and urination took place at the seat to which they were shackled. There were usually five or six rowers on each oar. Overseers would walk back and forth and whip slaves considered not to be working hard enough.


title: Barbary pirates

text: According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. However, to extrapolate his numbers, Davis assumes the number of European slaves captured by Barbary pirates were constant for a 250-year period, stating:


title: Barbary pirates

text: Historians welcomed Davis's attempt to quantify the number of European slaves, but were divided as to the accuracy of the unorthodox methodology which he relied on in the absence of written records. The historian David Earle, author of "The Corsairs of Malta" and "Barbary and The Pirate Wars", questioned Davis, saying "His figures sound a bit dodgy and I think he may be exaggerating." He cautioned that the true picture of European slaves is clouded by the fact that the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe and black people from west Africa. He wouldn't "hazard a guess about their total". Professor Ian Blanchard, an expert on African trade and economic history at the University of Edinburgh, said that Davis's work was solid and that a number over a million was in line with his expectations.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Davis notes that his calculations were based on observers reports of approximately 35,000 European Christian slaves on the Barbary Coast at any one time during the late 1500s and early 1600s, held in Tripoli, Tunis and, mostly, Algiers.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The history of Muslim enslavement of white Europeans has been cited by some as contextualising the importance of subsequent European and American enslavement of blacks. Scholar Robert Davis noted that the larger picture isn't so one-sided: during a "clash of empires... taking slaves was part of the conflict," and at the same time 2 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa and the Near East, 1 million Muslim slaves in Europe.


title: Barbary pirates

text: As Dr. John Callow at University of Suffolk notes, the experience of enslavement by the Barbary pirates preceded the Atlantic slave trade and "the memory of slavery, and the methodology of slaving, that was burned into the British consciousness was first and foremost rooted in a North African context, where Britons were more likely to be slaves than slave masters."


title: Barbary pirates

text: According to historian Adrian Tinniswood, the most notorious corsairs were European renegades who had learned their trade as privateers, and who moved to the Barbary Coast during peacetime to pursue their trade. These outcasts, who had converted to Islam, brought up-to-date naval expertise to the piracy business, and enabled the corsairs to make long-distance slave-catching raids as far away as Iceland and Newfoundland. Infamous corsair Henry Mainwaring, who was initially a lawyer and pirate-hunter, later returned home to a royal pardon. Mainwaring later wrote a book about the practise of piracy in the Mediterranean, aptly titled the "Discourse of Pirates". In the book, Mainwaring outlined potential methods to hunt down and eliminate piracy.


title: Barbary pirates

text: The most famous of the corsairs in North Africa were the Barbarossa brothers, Aruj and Khayr al-Din. They, and two less well-known brothers all became Barbary corsairs in the service of the Ottoman Empire; they were called the Barbarossas (Italian for Redbeards) after the red beard of Oruç, the eldest. Oruç captured the island of Djerba for the Ottoman Empire in 1502 or 1503. He often attacked Spanish territories on the coast of North Africa; during one failed attempt in 1512 he lost his left arm to a cannonball. The eldest Barbarossa also went on a rampage through Algiers in 1516, and captured the town with the help of the Ottoman Empire. He executed the ruler of Algiers and everybody he suspected would oppose him, including local rulers. He was finally captured and killed by the Spanish in 1518, and put on display.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Oruç, based mainly on land, was not the best-known of the Barbarossas. His youngest brother Hızır (later called Hayreddin or Kheir ed-Din) was a more traditional corsair. He was a capable engineer and spoke at least six languages. He dyed the hair of his head and beard with henna to redden it like Oruç's. After capturing many crucial coastal areas, Hayreddin was appointed admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman sultan's fleet. Under his command the Ottoman Empire was able to gain and keep control of the Mediterranean for over thirty years. Barbaros Hızır Hayreddin Pasha died in 1546 of a fever, possibly the plague.


title: Barbary pirates

text: English corsair Jack, or John, Ward was once called "beyond doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England" by the English ambassador to Venice. Ward was a privateer for Queen Elizabeth during her war with Spain; after the end of the war, he became a corsair. With some associates he captured a ship in about 1603 and sailed it to Tunis; he and his crew converted to Islam. He was successful and became rich. He introduced heavily armed square-rigged ships, used instead of galleys, to the North African area, a major reason for the Barbary's future dominance of the Mediterranean. He died of plague in 1622.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Sayyida al-Hurra was a female Muslim cleric, merchant, governor of Tétouan, and later the wife of the sultan of Morocco. She was born around 1485 in the Emirate of Granada, but was forced to flee to Morocco when she was very young to escape the Reconquista. In Morocco, she gathered a crew largely of exiled Moors, and launched pirate expeditions against Spain and Portugal to avenge the Reconquista, protect Morocco from Christian pirates, and seek riches and glory. She co-founded the Barbary Corsairs with her allies the Barbarossa brothers. Sayyida al-Hurra became wealthy and renowned enough for the Sultan of Morocco, Ahmad al-Wattasi to make her his queen. Notably, however, she refused to marry in his capital of Fez, and would not get married but in Tétouan, of which she was governor. This was the first and only time in history that a Moroccan monarch had married away from his capital.


title: Barbary pirates

text: Barbary corsairs are protagonists in "Le pantere di Algeri (the panthers of Algiers)" by Emilio Salgari. They were featured in a number of other noted novels, including "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe, "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas, père, "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame, "The Sea Hawk" and the "Sword of Islam" by Rafael Sabatini, "The Algerine Captive" by Royall Tyler, "Master and Commander" by Patrick O'Brian, the "Baroque Cycle" by Neal Stephenson, "The Walking Drum" by Louis Lamour, "Doctor Dolittle" by Hugh Lofting, "Corsair" by Clive Cussler and "Angélique in Barbary" by Anne Golon. Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish author, was captive for five years as a slave in the "bagnio" of Algiers, and reflected his experience in some of his fictional (but not directly autobiographical) writings, including the Captive's tale in "Don Quixote", his two plays set in Algiers, "El Trato de Argel" (The Treaty of Algiers) and "Los Baños de Argel" (The Baths of Algiers), and episodes in a number of other works. In Mozart's opera "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" (a Singspiel), two European ladies are discovered in a Turkish harem, presumably captured by Barbary corsairs. Rossini's opera "L'italiana in Algeri" is based on the capture of several slaves by Barbary corsairs led by the bey of Algiers.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" (), commonly known as Svoboda, is an ultranationalist political party in Ukraine. It has been led by Oleh Tyahnybok since 2004.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: It formed and officially registered as a political party in October 1995. It was characterized as a radical right-wing populist party that combined elements of ethnic ultranationalism and anti-communism. During the 1990s, it was accused of neo-Nazism due to the party's recruitment of skinheads and usage of neo-Nazi symbols. Tyahnybok was elected in 2004 as the president of the party and shortly after he made efforts to moderate the party's image by changing the party's name and symbols and expelling neo-Nazi and neofascist groups.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Although Tyahnybok expelled neofascist groups from his party, it never abandoned ethnic ultranationalist views. The party gained increasing popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s, winning 10.45% of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary election. Between 2009 and 2014, it was an observer member of the far-right Alliance of European National Movements. It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests but its support dropped quickly following the 2014 elections. Since then, Svoboda has been polling below the electoral threshold, and it currently has one seat in the Verkhovna Rada.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda's political position has been described as right-wing or far-right. Widely described as an ultranationalist and right-wing populist party, it expressed support and staged commemorations honoring early 20th century, Ukrainian far right nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, and it opposes immigration, globalism and free trade. It is staunchly anti-communist and conservative regarding social issues, and it favors economic nationalism and protectionism. It has been also widely considered as a neofascist, neo-Nazi and antisemitic party by multiple journalists and organizations, although those labels are disputed, while some consider them as a radical-right nationalist party.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) was registered as a party on 16 October 1995; the constituent congress of the party took place on 13 October 1991, in Lviv. The party was established by the Soviet Afghan War veterans organization, the youth organization "Spadshchyna" ("Heritage", headed by Andriy Parubiy), the Lviv Student Fraternity (headed by Oleh Tyahnybok), the Rukh Guard (headed by Yaroslav Andrushkiv and Yuriy Kryvoruchko). Dr. Yaroslav Andrushkiv was elected leader of the party. The party adopted a party emblem that could be associated with fascist formation and in Europe is used by neo-Nazi organizations.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Due to a corporate raid threat on temples of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate), there were created SNPU formations for their protection, particularly the Holy-Dormition Church of Volodymyr and the Saint Trinity Church in Lutsk. Due to the 1993 Massandra Accords, SNPU formed the Extraordinary Committee in Rescue of Nation and State which in the fall of 1993 picketed the Ukrainian parliament in regards to eliminate the threat of loss by Ukraine the Crimea and Black Sea Fleet.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The SNPU's official program defined itself as an "irreconcilable enemy of Communist ideology" and all other parties to be either collaborators and enemies of the Ukrainian revolution, or romanticists. According to Svoboda's website, during the 1994 Ukrainian parliamentary elections the party presented its platform as distinct from those of the communists and social democrats.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the 1998 parliamentary elections the party joined a bloc of parties (together with the All-Ukrainian Political Movement "State Independence of Ukraine") called "Fewer Words" (), which collected 0.16% of the national vote. Party member Oleh Tyahnybok was voted into the Ukrainian Parliament in this election. He became a member of the People's Movement of Ukraine faction.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The SNPU established the paramilitary organization Patriot of Ukraine in 1999 as an "Association of Support" for the Military of Ukraine and registered with the Ministry of Justice. The paramilitary organization was disbanded in 2004 during the SNPU's reformation but was reconstituted as an independent organization in 2005. Svoboda officially ended association with the group in 2007, but they remain informally linked, with representatives of Svoboda attending social campaigns such as protests against price increases and leafleting against drugs and alcohol. In 2014, Svoboda was noted for clashing with the far-right group Right Sector, a coalition which included Patriot of Ukraine.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In 2001, the party joined some actions of the "Ukraine without Kuchma" protest campaign and was active in forming the association of Ukraine's rightist parties and in supporting Viktor Yushchenko's candidacy for prime minister, although it did not participate in the 2002 parliamentary elections. However, as a member of Victor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, Tyahnybok was reelected to the Ukrainian parliament. The SNPU won two seats in the Lviv oblast council of deputies and representation in the city and district councils in the Lviv and Volyn oblasts.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In February 2004, the arrival of Oleh Tyahnybok as party leader led a significant change in moderating the Social-National Party's image. Then still the Social-National Party of Ukraine, it changed its name to the All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda", and abandoned the "I + N" (Ukrainian «Ідея Нації» ""Idea Natsii" = "idea of a nation"") Wolfsangel logo (a symbol popular among neo-Nazi groups) with a three-fingered hand reminiscent of the 'Tryzub' pro-independence gesture of the late 1980s. Svoboda also pushed neo-Nazi and other radical groups out the party, distancing itself from its neofascist past while retaining the support of extreme nationalists. Andrushkiv, former head of the party, rejected Tyahnybok's claim that Svoboda was successor party to the SNPU and called Svoboda 'a different political phenomenon.' Both he and Andriy Parubiy would leave the 'new' party following its transformation.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: However, according to Polish lawyer and political scientist , party leader Tyahnybok never concealed that these changes were made primarily for image purposes. The party remained associated with the 'wide social nationalist movement' (consisting of numerous organisations and websites) and gathered around the Social-Nationalist Assembly which was set up in 2008. Yuri Mykhailyshyn, Tyahnybok's adviser who topped the list of Svoboda's Lviv branch in the 2010 municipal council elections, founded the Internet "Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" (the centre later changed Goebbels for Ernst Jünger) in 2005. Ukraine's Patriot, a paramilitary organisation dissolved in 2004 and re-established in 2005 in a different legal form, continued to maintain ties with Svoboda. It was not until 2007 that this paramilitary organisation announced the break-up of all relationships with "Svoboda". Even then, some prominent Svoboda members, such as Andriy Illienko from Svoboda's Kyiv branch, continued to identify themselves with the ideas of "Patriot of Ukraine", which still uses the Wolfsangel symbol.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In 2004, Tyahnybok was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction for a speech calling for Ukrainians to fight against a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia", and celebrated the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists for having fought "Moscovites, Germans, Jews and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state." The speech was delivered at the grave-site of a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army where Tyahnybok praised its struggle against "Moskaly", a derogatory term for either Russians or pan-Russian nationalists; Germans; and "Zhydy", an archaic but controversial term for Jews in Ukraine due to it being a slur when used in the Russian language. Tyahnybok's 2004 comments were widely circulated on the three TV channels controlled by the head of the Presidential Administration, Viktor Medvedchuk: State Channel 1, 1+1 and Inter.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the 2006 local elections the party had obtained 4.2% of the votes and 4 seats in the Ternopil Oblast Council, 5.62% of the votes and 10 seats in the Lviv Oblast Council and 6.69% of the votes and 9 seats in the Lviv city council.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the 2007 parliamentary elections, the party received 0.76% of the votes cast, more than double their share during the 2006 parliamentary elections, when they received 0.36%. It was ranked eighth out of 20 parties (in the 2007 elections) and the non-participation of the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists made the party the only far-right party to participate in the 2007 parliamentary elections.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In autumn 2009, Svoboda joined the Alliance of European National Movements as the only organisation from outside the European Union. That year the party claimed to have 15,000 members.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The party's electoral breakthrough was the 2009 Ternopil Oblast local election when they obtained 34.69% of the votes and 50 seats out of 120 in the Ternopil Oblast Council. This was the best result for a far-right party in Ukraine's history.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Tyahnybok's candidacy in the 2010 presidential election did not build on the 2009 Ternopil success. Tyahnybok received 1.43% of the vote. Most of his votes he gained in Lviv oblast, Ternopil Oblast and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast accounted to 5% of the vote. In the second round, Tyahnybok did not endorse a candidate. He did present a list of some 20 demands for second round candidate Yulia Tymoshenko had to fulfil first before gaining his endorsement—which included publicizing alleged secret deals Tymoshenko had with Vladimir Putin and ridding herself of what he called Ukraine-haters in her close circles.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections the party won between 20 and 30% of the votes in Eastern Galicia, where it became one of the main forces in local government. The 2009 provincial elections in Ternopil had previously been the greatest success of the Svoboda party, when it won 34.4 per cent of votes cast. During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections, Svoboda surpassed this figure, accounting for 5.2% of the vote nationwide. Analysts explained Svoboda's victory in Galicia during the 2010 elections as a result of the policies of the Azarov Government, who were seen as too pro-Russian by the electorate. According to Andreas Umland, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Svoboda's increasing exposure in the Ukrainian media has contributed to its recent successes.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Between 2004 and 2010 party membership increased threefold to 15,000 members (traditionally party membership is low in Ukraine


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: As of 2011 Svoboda had factions in eight of Ukraine's 25 regional councils, and in three of those Svoboda is the biggest faction. Reportedly, the members and supporters of Svoboda are predominantly young people.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Several clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are Svoboda members and have stood for election as Svoboda candidates. According to the party, they were chosen on election lists "to counterbalance opponents who include "Moscow priests" in their election lists and have aspirations to build the "Russian World" in Ukraine". Per the party's desire to separate the clergy from politics, all churchmen will be recalled if a draft Constitution of Ukraine proposed by the party is approved.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In early 2012 Svoboda was criticized in domestic and international media after party member Yuri Sirotyuk said that Ukrainian pop star Gaitana, who is of African descent, was a poor choice to represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 because she was "not an organic representative of the Ukrainian culture" Sirotyuk stated that "It looks like we don't want to show our face, and Ukraine will be associated with a different continent, somewhere in Africa."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the run-up to the 2012 election, some Ukrainian media commentators and political analysts expected Svoboda's rising support would come at the expense of more mainstream elements of the opposition and to the benefit of the ruling Party of Regions. In July 2012 the party agreed with Batkivshchyna on the distribution of the candidates in single-seat constituencies (its share was 35 constituencies) in the October 2012 parliamentary elections. In the run up to these elections various opinion polls predicted the national vote (in a parliamentary election) of the party to sixfolded or sevenfolded which would make it possible that the party would pass the 5% election threshold. But the party's results in the elections were much better than that with 10.44 percent (almost a fourteenfold of its votes compared with the 2007 parliamentary elections) of the national votes and 38 out of 450 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament. The lion's share of these votes were won in Western Ukraine (30–40% in three Oblasts), while in Eastern Ukraine it won 1% of the votes. At the 116 foreign polling stations Svoboda won most votes of all parties with 23,63% of all votes. In Lviv the party reportedly won over 50% of the votes. In Kyiv it became the second most popular party, after Fatherland. Voting analysis showed it was the party most popular among voters with a higher education (about 48% of its voters had a higher education). Oleh Tyahnybok was elected leader of the party's parliamentary faction (also) on 12 December 2012. On 19 October 2012 the party and Batkivshchyna signed an agreement "on the creation of a coalition of democratic forces in the new parliament". The party is also coordinating its parliamentary activities with Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR).


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In recent years, the BBC writes that "Svoboda" has "tapped a vast reservoir of protest votes" because of its anti-corruption stance and because it has softened its own image. According to Sociological group "RATING" the percentage of the party's electorate who only use the Ukrainian language decreased from 75% to 68% between September 2012 and March 2013.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: During the first two sessions of the newly elected parliament, Svoboda deputies and other opposition politicians physically clashed with MPs during the election of a prime minister and speaker amid allegations of continued voting for absent colleagues by government deputies. Clashes again erupted in March 2013 between Svoboda and Party of Regions MPs, when ruling Party of Regions MP Oleksandr Yefremov delivered a speech in Russian; the speech was drowned out by Svoboda MPs, shouting "Speak Ukrainian!" A later speech by Tyahnybok provoked chants of "Fascist" and a large, brief fist-fight between the two parties.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda MP and deputy leader Ihor Miroshnychenko attracted international criticism in December 2012 for writing on his Facebook wall that American actress Mila Kunis, who was born in the Ukrainian SSR of Jewish descent, is "not Ukrainian but a zhydivka" (a pejorative term for a Jew). According to Svoboda, the word does not have the antisemitic connotation in Ukrainian that it does in Russian. Citing a Ukrainian academic dictionary, the Ministry of Justice considered the word archaic but not necessarily a slur. Svoboda has repeatedly said that it would not stop using words it considers legitimate Ukrainian parlance. Attempts to use antisemitism as a propaganda weapon against the Euromaidan movement were noted, and reports of widespread antisemitism were disputed by analysts, historians and human-rights activists. In May 2013, Svoboda, Fatherland and UDAR announced that they would coordinate during the 2015 Ukrainian presidential election.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: A 7–17 December 2013 opinion poll indicated that in a presidential election between Viktor Yanukovych and Svoboda leader Tyahnybok Tyahnybok would win 28.8 percent of the popular vote to Yanukovych's 27.1 percent. Svoboda participates in the ongoing pro-European Union protest campaign to influence regime change and integration with the EU. When the Vladimir Lenin monument in Kyiv was toppled during Euromaidan, MP Ihor Myroshnichenko accepted responsibility for the act on behalf of Svoboda.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 27 February 2014 the Yatsenyuk government was formed, including three Svoboda ministers: Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Ihor Shvaika and Environment and Natural Resources Minister Andriy Mokhnyk. Party members were appointed governors of Poltava (Viktor Buhaychuk on 2 March 2014), Ternopil (Oleh Syrotyuk on 2 March) and Rivne Oblasts (Sergey Rybachka on 3 March 2014).


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 18 March 2014, Svoboda members posted an online video of party MPs beating acting National Television Company of Ukraine president Oleksandr Panteleymonov and trying to force him to sign a letter of resignation because he broadcast the Crimea accession to the Russian Federation ceremony in the Kremlin. In the video Panteleymonov's broadcast was called "state treason" by Svoboda MP Miroshnychenko, deputy head of the Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information. Tyahnybok condemned the attack ("Such actions were fine yesterday (during the protests), but now they are inappropriate"), which was also condemned by Amnesty International and acting prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 20 March 2014 Svoboda withdrew as observers from the Alliance of European National Movements (AENM) over sympathy by several alliance members for the Russian military intervention, and in June the party formed the Sich Battalion to fight the war in Donbass.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The May 2014 Ukrainian presidential election proved to be a defeat for Svoboda, whose candidate Oleh Tyahnybok only received 1.16% of votes.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 24 July 2014 Svoboda and the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) withdrew from the government coalition, stating they were doing so in order to pave the way for early parliamentary elections; Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk announced his resignation to the Verkhovna Rada a few hours later. On 25 July newly elected President Petro Poroshenko dissolved the Verkhovna Rada and called snap elections in November.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the October 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election the party won 6 constituency seats; the party fell short by 0.29% to overcome the required 5% threshold to win seats on the nationwide list. The party's election results thus halved compared with the 2012 election because of negative assessments of the activities of the local governments that included Svoboda members. Svoboda won no constituencies in its former stronghold Lviv Oblast. Its election outcome was also undermined by the fact that in this election the party was not the only one using radically patriotic, anti-communist and anti-Russian slogans.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 12 November 2014 the party's ministers in the Yatsenyuk Government resigned (they became acting ministers until a new Government was formed). The parties governors of Poltava Oblast, Ternopil Oblast and Rivne Oblast also resigned and were formally dismissed by President Petro Poroshenko on 18 November 2014.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In West Ukraine Svoboda improved its electoral performance in the October 2015 Ukrainian local elections. In the elections its candidate Ruslan Martsinkiv was elected Mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 19 November 2018, Svoboda and fellow Ukrainian nationalist political organizations Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, Right Sector and C14 endorsed Ruslan Koshulynskyi candidacy in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. In the election he received 1.6% of the votes.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, other parties joined Svoboda to form a united party list; the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh, Right Sector and National Corps. But in the election they won 2.15% of the votes, less than half of the 5% election threshold, and thus no parliamentary seats via the national party list. The party did win one constituency seat, in Ivano-Frankivsk. Svoboda candidate Oksana Savchuk won the party's sole constituency seat with 46.68% of the votes in constituency 83.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In the 2020 Ukrainian local elections, Svoboda managed to secure first round re-election for their incumbent mayors in West Ukraine, in Ternopil (Serhiy Nadal), Khmelnytskyi (Oleksandr Symсhyshyn) and Ivano-Frankivsk (Ruslan Martsinkiv), but again failed at expanding its support base into other parts of the country. 863 people won seats in local councils on behalf of the party, that is about 2.61% of the available seats. The election gave the party 19 mayors, making the party ninth in the number of elected mayors.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Olexiy Haran, a political science professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, says "There is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding Svoboda" and that the party is not fascist, but radical. Ihor Kolomoyskyi, president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, stated in 2010 that the party has shifted from “ultranationalist closer to the center.” However, the party have been involved in several actions against the country's minorities since then.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In 2012, political scientist Andreas Umland predicted the party would continue to become more moderate over time, and that "there's a belief that Svoboda will change, once in the Verkhovna Rada, and that they may become proper national democrats." Since then, the party has gained seats in parliament and has net over 10% of the national vote in the 2012 parliamentary elections. The US ambassador in Kyiv, Geoffrey Pyatt, said in 2014 that he had been "positively impressed" by Svoboda's evolution in opposition and by its behavior in parliament. "They have demonstrated their democratic bona fides," the ambassador asserted. Alexander J. Motyl argues that Svoboda's brand of nationalism "has significantly diminished during, and possibly as a result of, the Euro Revolution."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Membership was restricted to ethnic Ukrainians, and for a period the party did not accept atheists or former members of the Communist Party. The party has been accused of recruiting skinheads and football hooligans.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 29 August 2013, Svoboda announced the opening of a representative office, at Rue de la Science/Wetenschapsstraat 14b in Brussels, the same address as the 2012-founded European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 12 November 2014 the party's ministers in the Yatsenyuk Government resigned (they became acting ministers until a new Government was formed), they were:


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: With the ecclosion of the War in Donbas and the failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, many former Euromaidan activists and right-wing parties formed volunteer militias and paramilitary groups to fight the separatists, they are known as the Ukrainian volunteer battalions. In June 2014, Svoboda formed the "Sich" Battalion, with volunteers coming mostly from Kyiv. The Sich Battalion was placed under command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and given official status of a "Special Tasks Patrol Police". All volunteers were required to have a military background, and included former Iraq War veterans. The unit was designed for anti-terror operations since its inception. The unit was deployed to the regions around the city of Donetsk, mostly provided internal security and participated of combat operations around Marinka and Avdiivka.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: By 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs banned people registered in political parties of enlisting in their units. The Sich Battalion cut their official ties with Svoboda and was redesignated as the 4th Company "Sich" of the Kyiv Regiment, part of the special police of Kyiv.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda's ideological base emanates from Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Yaroslav Stetsko's "Two Revolutions" doctrine (written in 1951). The essence of this doctrine states: "the revolution will not end with the establishment of the Ukrainian state, but will go on to establish equal opportunities for all people to create and share material and spiritual values and in this respect the national revolution is also a social one". A crucial condition for joining Svoboda is that its members must belong to the Ukrainian nation.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda is a party of Ukrainian nationalism and in 2011 was noted for favoring a solely presidential regime. In 2013, however, the party pushed for constitutional reform which would limit the president's powers and return power to parliament.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Party leader Tyahnybok has argued that "depicting nationalism as extremism is a cliché rooted in Soviet and modern globalist propaganda" and that "countries like modern Japan and Israel are fully nationalistic states, but nobody accuses the Japanese of being extremists." Tyahnybok defined nationalism as love of one's homeland and drew a distinction from chauvinism and fascism which he defined as the superiority of one nation over another.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The party has often staged commemorations honouring Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Bandera lead the UPA in its struggle against the Soviets and later the Germans during World War II to establish an independent Ukrainian state but also engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing including the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. In a 2011 march organized by Svoboda to celebrate the World War II-era Waffen-SS Galicia Division, participants shouted "one race, one nation, one Fatherland."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The party views the dominating role of Ukraine's oligarchy as "devastating". While oligarchs have typically played a major role in the funding of other Ukrainian parties, Svoboda claims to receive no financial support from oligarchs, but rather from Ukraine's small and medium-sized businesses.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: The party seeks to put a stop to immigration into Ukraine, and to make sure that only ethnic Ukrainians can be employed as civil servants.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda is known for its anti-communist stance, and several party activists over the years have been accused of trying to destroy Communist-era statues.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 16 February 2013, police in Ukraine opened a criminal case on charges of hooliganism against nationalist activists led by Svoboda Supreme Rada deputy Ihor Miroshnychenko for the dismantling of a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast. Miroshnychenko said: "There is no place for Communist symbols and ideology in European Ukraine and if the authorities cannot get rid of them, we will do it ourselves." According to police, Miroshnychenko climbed the statue and put a rope around Lenin's figure, which was then pulled down by a truck.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda supports conservative values, and opposes abortion and gay rights. In 2012, Human Rights Watch condemned Svoboda for disrupting a gay rights rally, called "a Sabbath of 50 perverts" in an official statement by Svoboda.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda opposed legislation in 2013 that would have barred employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of their sexual orientation. Journalist David Stern describes the party as a "driving force" behind anti-gay politics in Ukraine, but states that many of its members may not share all its controversial positions.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In April 2013, three Svoboda MPs sponsored a bill banning abortions except in cases involving severe pathology, a medical risk to a woman's life, and rape when proven in court. Future Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, who has long opposed abortion, was one of the authors of the bill and responded to a question about what a pregnant woman should do if she failed to prove the rape in court by encouraging women to "lead the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of rape, including refraining from drinking alcohol and being in controversial company."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda has been described as an antisemitic and sometimes a neo-Nazi party by some journalists, organizations that monitor hate speech, Jewish organizations, and political opponents.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda advisor Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn started a blog called "'Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" in 2005, later changing "Joseph Goebbels" to "Ernst Jünger." Mykhalchyshyn wrote a book in 2010 citing works by Nazi theorists Ernst Röhm, Gregor Strasser and Goebbels. Elsewhere Mykhalchyshyn referred to the Holocaust as a "period of Light in history". According to "Segodnya", the party's 2011 congress was addressed by , the leader of the band Komu Vnyz, who describes himself as a "selective anti-Semite" and who allegedly gave a Nazi-style salute (which a fellow band member described as a roman salute rather than a Nazi gesture).


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In December 2012, the European Parliament expressed concern regarding Svoboda's growing support, recalling "that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU's fundamental values and principles," and appealed "to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with" Svoboda. Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok stated in March 2013 that the EU warning against Svoboda's influence was the result of "Moscow agents working through a Bulgarian socialist MP". Referencing a similar resolution made by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Tyahnybok claimed it to be a result of a mud-slinging campaign by political opponents, stating: "When we did not have a parliamentary faction or normal channels for contacting influential groups in the European Union, a very negative image of Svoboda was created and in an extremely crude fashion." However, after speaking to European MP's he stated they "admitted that they had received completely different information about us." Tyahnybok furthermore stated that "spin doctors who are working against Svoboda" cover up the non-controversial points in the party's election programme "by promoting some clearly secondary issues through mass media outlets controlled by pro-government forces".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: During a Party of Regions rally in Kyiv to counter the ongoing Euromaidan protests, MP Olena Bondarenko called Tyahnybok a "traitor" and one "who helps the Kremlin and Moscow." Her words were altered to read on her party's website that he was instead a "Nazi" and that "Nazis are not just disrespected, they are outlawed in Europe and throughout the civilized world".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda members have denied the party is antisemitic. Party leader Tyahnybok stated in November 2012 "Svoboda is not an anti-Semitic party, Svoboda is not a xenophobic party. Svoboda is not an anti-Russian party. Svoboda is not an anti-European party. Svoboda is simply and only a pro-Ukrainian party". In defense of these accusations, Tyahnybok has stated "I have repeatedly said that Svoboda is not an anti-Semitic organization. If you have any comments on our views, go to court. But nobody will, because everyone understands that even biased Ukrainian courts cannot pass any sentence against Svoboda because we do not violate Ukrainian laws." Tyahnybok says a criminal case was opened against him for promoting racial rights, but he managed to win all the court cases and protect his name.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: According to "Der Spiegel", "anti-Semitism is part of the extremist party's platform," which rejects certain minority and human rights. The paper reported that in 2013 a Svoboda youth leader distributed Nazi propaganda written by Joseph Goebbels. According to the "Algemeiner Journal", "Svoboda supporters include among their heroes leaders of pro-Nazi World War II organizations known for their atrocities against Jews and Poles, such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and the 14th Waffen-SS Galicia Division."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Prominent Ukrainian journalist and president of TVi Channel Vitaly Portnikov defended Svoboda against criticism, as he noted he is often questioned for supporting party leader Oleh Tyahnybok despite himself being Jewish. Portnikov said, "I [stand with them] with great pleasure, because Oleh wants Ukraine to be part of the European Union" and that "presently Svoboda is acting in a very decent way, and I see no problem there. Right-wing parties function in every European country."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Ukrainian media associated with the Party of Regions, the Communist Party of Ukraine, and Russophile groups contributed to a trend of characterizing Svoboda as a "Nazi menace." Political analyst Olszański argued that voters from southern or eastern Ukraine, especially those who are poor, less educated, or attached to a "Soviet historical narrative," are hostile to nationalism, easily convinced that Svoboda is the modern analog of the Nazi invaders, and further that the Party of Regions is the only force capable of stopping a 'brown revenge'. According to political scientist Taras Kuzio, the label "nationalist" is "disastrous" in Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine and used as an epithet by political opponents.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Political scientist Tadeusz A. Olszański writes that the social-nationalist ideology which Svoboda formerly adhered to has included "openly racist rhetoric" concerning 'white supremacy' since its establishment, and that comparisons with National Socialism are legitimized by its history.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Andreas Umland, a political scientist at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, has asserted in 2010 that "Svoboda was a racist party promoting explicitly ethnocentric and anti-Semitic ideas". He also believes that internally, Svoboda "is much more radical and xenophobic than what we see". However, Umland has also stated that he believes the party will continue to become more moderate over time, stating that "there's a belief that Svoboda will change, once in the Verkhovna Rada, and that they may become proper national democrats".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Olexiy Haran, also a political science professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, says "There is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding Svoboda" and that the party is not fascist, but radical.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Alexander J. Motyl contends that Svoboda is not fascist, neither in behaviour or in ideology, and that "they are far more like the Tea Party or right-wing Republicans than like fascists or neo-Nazis."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: According to Anton Shekhovtsov, expert on radical parties in Europe, "The main peculiarity of the Ukrainian far right is that its main enemy is not immigrants or , as often happens with the EU-, but the Kremlin".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Thirty members of the Israeli Knesset condemned the party in a signed letter addressed to the President of the European Parliament. In the letter the Israeli politicians accused Svoboda of "openly glorifying Nazi murder" and "Nazi war criminals". In May 2013 the World Jewish Congress labelled the party as "neo-Nazi" and called for European governments to ban them.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Ukraine's chief rabbi Yaakov Bleich said "Svoboda is an enigma in many ways," calling it "a right-wing, nationalist party with anti-Semitic elements in it." Vyacheslav A. Likhachev of the Eurasian Jewish Congress, said that the "party has a very anti-Semitic core in its ideology," and that it leads to "symbolic legitimization of neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic ideology in the eyes of society."


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Member of parliament from the pro-presidential Party of Regions and president of the Jewish Committee of Ukraine, Oleksandr Feldman, criticized Svoboda as a "party which is notorious for regularly injecting anti-Semitism into their speeches and public pronouncements" and accused the party of "rallying behind this recognition and exploited mistrust of Jews to gain popularity among some in the lower class who painfully welcomed the chance to be a part of campaigns of hate". Feldman also writes that Svoboda has helped erode the shame associated with open expressions of anti-Semitism and other ethnic hatreds. Feldman has been an advocate for the Party of Regions and president Viktor Yanukovych, reportedly also funding the latter's public relations firm. During the Euromaidan protests, Feldman said the protests had degenerated into "ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism," and called for opposition leaders Arseniy Yatseniuk and Vitali Klitschko to distance themselves from Svoboda. Four groups, including the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, said they have seen no upsurge in antisemitic attacks. "We call on Ukrainian citizens and foreign observers to remain calm and critically assess the panic-mongering statements in the media regarding anti-Semitism in the country," the groups said in a statement on the website of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In 2012 international human rights organization The Simon Wiesenthal Center placed Svoboda party leader Oleg Tyahnybok fifth in its list of the top 10 antisemites and haters of Israel, based on his previous comments regarding Jews in Ukraine.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok (in January 2011) has described the Azarov Government and the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych "a Kremlin colonial administration", referencing Svoboda's opposition to perceived Russian influences in Ukrainian politics.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Before the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election most of the radical points which were present on the Svoboda's original party platform vanished from the official election program that Svoboda filed with the Central Election Commission of Ukraine. In its place, a tamer, populist program focused on the impeachment of President Viktor Yanukovych and the renunciation of the 2010 Kharkiv agreements that let Russia's Black Sea Fleet stay in Crimea through 2042 was used. In its campaign for the 2008 Kyiv local elections the party also used less ethnic nationalist terms and it relied more on a strong anti-establishment, populist and anti-corruption rhetoric.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda's platform is called "Our Own Authorities, Our Own Property, Our Own Dignity, on Our Own God-Given Land." and includes the following points:


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Svoboda also states in its programme that it is both possible and necessary to make Ukraine the "geopolitical centre of Europe". The European Union is not mentioned in the programme. According to Party leader Oleh Tyahnybok the programme is a worldview based on Christian values and the "rejection of various deviations".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: Member of parliament Ihor Miroshnychenko asked the head of the Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov on 7 March 2013 to ban a march that was held the next day because he believed it would "contribute to promoting sexual orientation" and he further stated in his request "homosexuality provokes sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS". 8 March rally was in fact not an LGBT march but organized by feminist organizations.


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: In late January 2013 Svoboda urged Ukrainians to boycott revised Ukrainian history textbooks and to give up the teaching of the Russian language in school, calling Ukrainians "to categorically refuse to study in school the language of the occupier – Russian, as a further reliable means of the assimilation of Ukrainians".


title: Svoboda (political party)

text: On 13 February 2014 following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Svoboda supported legislation abolishing the law on regional languages making Ukrainian the sole state language at all levels. This proposal was vetoed by acting President Oleksandr Turchynov.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Christopher Lloyd Smalling (born 22 November 1989) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Serie A club Roma. Smalling represented the England national team from 2011 to 2017.


title: Chris Smalling

text: During his youth, Smalling played for the Millwall academy before joining non-League club Maidstone United. After establishing himself in the Maidstone United first team, he signed for Middlesbrough in May 2008. However, shortly after joining Middlesbrough, Smalling had his contract with the club cancelled after raising concerns over homesickness. Soon after, in June 2008, he signed for Premier League club Fulham. He made his professional debut with them in May 2009 and helped them reach the 2010 UEFA Europa League Final the following season.


title: Chris Smalling

text: In January 2010, Smalling signed a pre-contract agreement with Manchester United and joined them officially in July 2010. He made his competitive debut in the 2010 FA Community Shield victory over Chelsea, which earned him his first career medal. He went on to make more than 300 appearances for the club, winning two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, a League Cup, a UEFA Europa League and a further two Community Shields.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling represented the England Schools under-18 team in early 2008, before making his debut for the national under-20 and under-21 teams in 2009. He made his senior international debut in September 2011 and has appeared at the 2014 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2016.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling was born in Greenwich, London. He is of Jamaican descent. His father Lloyd died when Chris was aged five. Smalling has one brother. After his father's death the family moved to Kent, where he then attended Chatham Grammar School for Boys. Smalling was a schoolboy national Judo champion, and also finished second in an international competition. He was a boyhood Arsenal fan.


title: Chris Smalling

text: As a youngster he played for Walderslade Boys and Lordswood. During his teenage years he sometimes missed training as he could not afford to pay for the bus. After a short spell at Millwall's academy, a 16-year-old Smalling joined Maidstone United's youth set-up.


title: Chris Smalling

text: After rising through Maidstone United's youth and reserve team set-up under the tutelage of coaches Peter Nott and Tony Cornwell, Smalling made his first-team debut for 'The Stones' on 11 April 2007, in a 4–1 loss against Tonbridge Angels in the Kent Senior Cup. After making further appearances in the FA Trophy and Isthmian League Cup, Smalling made his league debut for the club in December 2007, playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–1 draw against Harlow Town. Smalling impressed and quickly established himself as a vital part of Maidstone United's back line; however, injury and international duty restricted his appearances. Smalling scored one goal for Maidstone United, in a 4–2 win at East Thurrock United on 24 March 2008, a match which was also his last game for the club.


title: Chris Smalling

text: After attracting strong interest from Fulham, Gillingham, Charlton Athletic and Reading, Smalling signed for Middlesbrough on a two-year contract on 30 April 2008. However, within a month of signing, his contract with Middlesbrough was cancelled, with Smalling concerned about homesickness, and in June 2008, he signed for Premier League club Fulham. Smalling was not on a contract at Maidstone United, for it would have prohibited him from playing for England Schoolboys, and as such the Isthmian League club were not entitled to a fee for the player; however, Fulham struck a deal which saw Maidstone United given £10,000 upon the transfer and £10,000 for every 10 league matches he played. He was made captain of the club's Development Squad by manager Billy McKinlay.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 24 May 2009, Smalling made his Premier League debut for Fulham, replacing Aaron Hughes in the 77th minute in the final match of the 2008–09 season, a 2–0 home loss to Everton. Smalling made his first start for Fulham on 17 September 2009, in an away tie with CSKA Sofia in the UEFA Europa League, with the match ending 1–1. On 28 December 2009, Smalling made his first league start for Fulham, in a 2–1 loss against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in Fulham's final match of 2009 and scored a decisive own goal in the 75th minute of the match. He was not included in the matchday squad for the 2010 UEFA Europa League Final, in which Fulham were beaten 2–1 after extra time by Atlético Madrid at the Volksparkstadion.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 27 January 2010, Manchester United announced that they had signed Smalling, for an undisclosed fee, with the player staying at Fulham for the remainder of the 2009–10 season before joining United for the beginning 2010–11 campaign. The transfer officially went through on 1 July 2010. Smalling made his debut for United on 8 August 2010 in the 2010 FA Community Shield, appearing as a second-half substitute in a 3–1 win over Chelsea. His Premier League debut for United came in their 3–0 home win over West Ham United on 28 August 2010, coming on as a 74th-minute substitute for Jonny Evans. On 15 September 2010, he made his UEFA Champions League debut, playing the full 90 minutes in a 0–0 draw at home against Rangers. Eight days later, Smalling scored his first goal for Manchester United, also his first senior career goal, in a 5–2 away win over Scunthorpe United in the League Cup. Smalling then made his full Premier League debut for United on 4 January 2011, partnering Nemanja Vidić for the full 90 minutes in a 2–1 home win against Stoke City.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 8 July 2011, Smalling signed a new five-year contract with United. Smalling scored his first goal of the 2011–12 season in the 2011 FA Community Shield against United's local rivals Manchester City, volleying in an Ashley Young free kick from close range to reduce the deficit to 2–1. Manchester United went on to win the match 3–2 and take the Shield. The new season also saw Smalling adapt to a new role, as early injuries to Nemanja Vidić and Rio Ferdinand allowed Smalling, Jonny Evans and new signing Phil Jones to replace them. Evans and Jones played as central defenders, whereas Smalling was deployed as a right-back. Smalling scored his first ever Premier League goal, against Chelsea at Old Trafford, on 18 September 2011, rising unmarked to place a header into the far corner to open the scoring in a match United went on to win 3–1. Smalling was ruled out of the last Premier League fixture of the season and also for England's UEFA Euro 2012 campaign due to a groin injury he sustained during Manchester United's 2–0 win over Swansea City in the penultimate week of the league season.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 21 July 2012, it was announced that Smalling would miss the start of the season after being ruled out for 10 weeks after undergoing surgery on a broken metatarsal. The injury had ruled him out of the entire pre-season tour. He made his return on 7 November 2012, playing the full 90 minutes in a 3–1 win away to Portuguese team Braga in the Champions League. He made his Premier League return three days later, helping his team to a 3–2 win against Aston Villa.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 27 November 2013, Smalling scored his first Champions League goal in a 5–0 win away to Bayer Leverkusen. On 26 December 2013, he scored in a 3–2 win against Hull City.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling was sent off in the first half of United's 1–0 defeat in the Manchester derby on 2 November 2014. Manager Louis van Gaal deemed Smalling "stupid" for his second yellow card in the match, awarded for a foul on James Milner. On 29 November 2014, he scored his first Premier League goal of the season in a 3–0 victory over Hull City at Old Trafford, it was also his first Old Trafford goal in three years.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 11 February 2015, Smalling became the first player in the history of the Premier League to score two first-half goals as a substitute, after appearing as a 5th-minute substitute in a 3–1 victory against Burnley. This entered Smalling into the Guinness Book of Records for "the fastest goal in the Premier League by a substitute from kick-off" and "the most goals in the Premier League scored by a substitute in the first half". On 12 April 2015, he scored his fourth league goal of the season in a 4–2 win over Manchester City. Nine days later, Smalling signed a new contract with Manchester United, keeping him at the club until June 2019. Having been praised by manager Louis van Gaal for his command of the defensive unit, Smalling captained United for the first time on 17 May 2015 during a 1–1 draw against Arsenal. On 2 May 2016, Smalling won the Manchester United Players' Player of the Year award. Later that month, on 21 May, he was sent off against Crystal Palace in the 2016 FA Cup Final, which Manchester United won 2–1 after extra time.


title: Chris Smalling

text: He scored his first goal of the 2016–17 season on 24 September with a 22nd-minute header which opened the scoring in a 4–1 victory over reigning Premier League champions, Leicester City.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling's first goal of the 2017–18 season came in a 4–1 win over Newcastle United on 18 November 2017. Smalling's next goal didn't come until 5 March 2018 in a 3–2 comeback win over Crystal Palace. He scored again a month later, scoring the derby winner in a 3–2 comeback victory over Manchester City. Smalling scored his final goal of the season in a 2–0 away victory over AFC Bournemouth.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling's only goal and what ending up being his final United goal of the 2018–19 season came in a 2–1 victory over Watford on 15 September 2018, which was regarded as "one of the best goals of his career" by the "Manchester Evening News". On 15 December, Smalling signed a new contract with Manchester United, keeping him at the club until June 2022. This came a week after sustaining a foot injury in United's 4–1 home win over Fulham keeping the defender out until he returned to training prior to the reverse fixture in February. Following his return, Smalling received criticism for his overly physical playing style with former Irish footballer Tony Cascarino saying "[he] will be in trouble when video assistant referees are introduced to the Premier League" next season.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 30 August 2019, Smalling joined Serie A club Roma on loan for the 2019–20 season, with the club paying €3 million to sign him. On 24 November 2019, he became the first English player to score at least two goals in the same Serie A campaign since David Beckham during the 2008–09 season, and third overall since 2000 after Jay Bothroyd in the 2003–04 season.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 5 October 2020, Smalling signed for Roma permanently on a three-year contract for an initial €15 million fee, potentially rising to €20 million with add-ons. On 25 May 2022, Smalling was named man of the match in the 2022 UEFA Europa Conference League Final, which Roma won 1–0 against Feyenoord in Tirana, Albania, to become the inaugural winners of the competition.


title: Chris Smalling

text: At the age of 17 and studying for his A Levels, Smalling was selected to represent his county (Kent), and the Kent Schools' Football Association then nominated him for trials for the England Schoolboy international squad. His trial was successful, and Smalling was selected to represent England Schools against Australia in January 2008. England won 2–0, and Smalling went on to play for England in the Centenary Shield, playing all four matches which including 1–0 victory against Wales Schools in which he scored the only goal.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling made his debut for the England under-20 team 31 March 2009, playing 45 minutes in a 2–0 win against Italy at Loftus Road. On 11 August, four months after his under-20 debut, he made his debut for the under-21 squad in a friendly fixture against the Netherlands, coming on as a substitute in the 58th minute of a 0–0 away draw. On 14 November, Smalling made first start for the under-21s in a 2011 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifier against Portugal at Wembley Stadium in a 1–0 win. He scored his first goal for the under-21s on 8 October 2010, against Romania, in England's 2011 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification play-off first leg, converting from inside the area after an assist from Daniel Sturridge. The goal, scored in the 83rd minute, proved to be the winner as England won 2–1.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 13 November 2010, Smalling was called up to the England senior squad for the first time for their friendly against France on 17 November; however, he was an unused substitute in the 2–1 loss. He made his senior debut in the UEFA Euro 2012 qualifier against Bulgaria on 2 September 2011, which England won 3–0, in which he played at right-back.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 12 May 2014, Smalling was named in England's 23-man squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. With England's elimination from the group stages already confirmed, Smalling was given a tournament debut as a starter in the final group match, helping the team to a clean sheet in a 0–0 draw with Costa Rica in Belo Horizonte.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 31 May 2016, Smalling was named in England's 23-man squad for UEFA Euro 2016. On 2 June 2016, in England's final warm-up match for Euro 2016, he scored his first goal for England in a 1–0 victory over Portugal.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Smalling was dropped by England manager Gareth Southgate in November 2017, as Southgate felt players such as John Stones, Harry Maguire and Eric Dier were better at initiating the play. Smalling registered his surprise and responded, "I'm as good a defender as anyone." He was not included in the squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


title: Chris Smalling

text: In June 2017, Smalling married model Sam Cooke near Lake Como, Italy. They have a son, Leo, born in May 2019.


title: Chris Smalling

text: Inspired by his wife, he became vegan, which he credits for improving his health and reducing his recovery time. He had cut out red meat prior to becoming vegan. Smalling has promoted the vegan diet and kindness to animals through advertisements for PETA.


title: Chris Smalling

text: On 16 April 2021, Smalling and his family were robbed by armed men in their home in southern Rome. The thieves took luxury watches and jewellery in an early morning raid.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: In music, the dynamics of a piece is the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings still require interpretation by the performer depending on the musical context: for instance, the "forte" marking (meaning loud) in one part of a piece might have quite different objective loudness in another piece or even a different section of the same piece. The execution of dynamics also extends beyond loudness to include changes in timbre and sometimes tempo rubato.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Dynamics are one of the expressive elements of music. Used effectively, dynamics help musicians sustain variety and interest in a musical performance, and communicate a particular emotional state or feeling.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Dynamic markings are always relative. never indicates a precise level of loudness; it merely indicates that music in a passage so marked should be considerably quieter than . There are many factors affecting the interpretation of a dynamic marking. For instance, the middle of a musical phrase will normally be played louder than the beginning or end, to ensure the phrase is properly shaped, even where a passage is marked throughout. Similarly, in multi-part music, some voices will naturally be played louder than others, for instance, to emphasize the melody and the bass line, even if a whole passage is marked at one dynamic level. Some instruments are naturally louder than others – for instance, a tuba playing "piano" will likely be louder than a guitar playing "fortissimo", while a high-pitched instrument like the piccolo playing in its upper register can usually sound loud even when its actual decibel level is lower than that of other instruments.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Signs sometimes referred to as "hairpins" are also used to stand for these words (See image). If the angle lines open up (), then the indication is to get louder; if they close gradually (), the indication is to get softer. The following notation indicates music starting moderately strong, then becoming gradually stronger and then gradually quieter:


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Hairpins are usually written below the staff (or between the two staves in a grand staff), but are sometimes found above, especially in music for singers or in music with multiple melody lines being played by a single performer. They tend to be used for dynamic changes over a relatively short space of time (at most a few bars), while ', ' and "" are generally used for changes over a longer period. Word directions can be extended with dashes to indicate over what time the event should occur, which may be as long as multiple pages. The word "morendo" ("dying") is also sometimes used for a gradual reduction in dynamics (and tempo).


title: Dynamics (music)

text: For greater changes in dynamics, ' and ' are often used, where the "molto" means "much". Similarly, for more gradual changes ' and ' are used, where "poco" translates as "a little", or alternatively with "poco a poco" meaning "little by little".


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Sudden changes in dynamics may be notated by adding the word "subito" (meaning "suddenly") as a prefix or suffix to the new dynamic notation. "Subito piano ("abbreviated "" or ) ("suddenly soft") indicates that the dynamics quickly, almost abruptly, lower the volume to approximately the range. It is often purposefully used to subvert the listener's expectation and will signify an intimate expression. Although it uses the "piano" dynamic symbol, the performer has slight freedom in their interpretation, causing it to vary based on the preceding loudness or character of the piece. Likewise, "subito" can be used to mark suddenly louder changes, like "subito forte" , or "subito fortissimo" , however in these cases it's usually only used to add a particular amount of accent to one note or chord. If subito is used to note a sudden change to an entire louder passage, something like or should be used to leave out any ambiguity.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: Accented notes are typically notated with the "accent" sign > above or below the note, giving it a general emphasis relative to the current dynamics. A harder and shorter emphasis is usually marked with the "marcato" mark ^ above the note instead. If a very particular emphasis is needed instead, it can be marked with a variation of "subito", "forzando"/"forzato" or "fortepiano".


title: Dynamics (music)

text: "forzando"/"forzato" indicates a forceful accent and is abbreviated as . To emphasize the effect, it is most often preceded with "subito" as ("subito forzato/forzando", "sforzando"/"sforzato"). How these should be interpreted and played in the music is up to the judgement of the performer, but a rule of thumb is that a "forzato/forzando" can be considered as a variation on "marcato" while "subito forzando/forzato" can be considered a variation on "marcato" with added "tenuto".


title: Dynamics (music)

text: The fortepiano notation indicates a "forte" followed immediately by "piano". By contrast, is an abbreviation for "poco forte", literally "a little loud" but (according to Brahms) meaning "with the character of forte, but the sound of piano", though rarely used because of possible confusion with "pianoforte".


title: Dynamics (music)

text: While the typical range of dynamic markings is from to , some pieces use additional markings of further emphasis. Extreme dynamic markings imply an extreme range of loudness, or, alternatively, imply an extremely subtle distinction between very small differences of loudness within a normal range. This kind of usage is most common in orchestral works from the late 19th century onwards. Generally, these markings are supported by the orchestration of the work, with heavy forte markings brought to life by having many loud instruments like brass and percussion playing at once.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: "On Music", one of the "Moralia" attributed to the philosopher Plutarch in the first century AD, suggests that ancient Greek musical performance included dynamic transitions – though dynamics receive far less attention in the text than does rhythm or harmony.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: The Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli was one of the first to indicate dynamics in music notation, but dynamics were used sparingly by composers until the late 18th century. J.S. Bach used some dynamic terms, including "forte", "piano", "più piano", and "pianissimo" (although written out as full words), and in some cases it may be that was considered to mean "pianissimo" in this period.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: The fact that the harpsichord could play only "terraced" dynamics (either loud or soft, but not in between), and the fact that composers of the period did not mark gradations of dynamics in their scores, has led to the "somewhat misleading suggestion that baroque dynamics are 'terraced dynamics'," writes Robert Donington. In fact, baroque musicians constantly varied dynamics: in 1752, Johann Joachim Quantz wrote that "Light and shade must be constantly introduced ... by the incessant interchange of loud and soft." In addition to this, the harpsichord in fact becomes louder or softer depending on the thickness of the musical texture (four notes are louder than two). This allowed composers like J.S. Bach to build dynamics directly into their compositions, without the need for notation.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: In the Romantic period, composers greatly expanded the vocabulary for describing dynamic changes in their scores. Where Haydn and Mozart specified six levels ( to ), Beethoven used also and (the latter less frequently), and Brahms used a range of terms to describe the dynamics he wanted. In the slow movement of Brahms's trio for violin, horn and piano (Opus 40), he uses the expressions , "molto piano", and "quasi niente" to express different qualities of quiet. Many Romantic and later composers added ' and ', making for a total of ten levels between and .


title: Dynamics (music)

text: An example of how effective contrasting dynamics can be may be found in the overture to Smetana’s opera "The Bartered Bride". The fast scurrying quavers played pianissimo by the second violins form a sharply differentiated background to the incisive thematic statement played fortissimo by the firsts.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: In some music notation programs, there are default MIDI key velocity values associated with these indications, but more sophisticated programs allow users to change these as needed. These defaults are listed in the following table for some applications, including Apple's Logic Pro 9 (2009–2013), Avid's Sibelius 5 (2007–2009), musescore.org's MuseScore 3.0 (2019), MakeMusic's Finale 26 (2018-2021), and Musitek's SmartScore X2 Pro (2016) and 64 Pro. (2021). MIDI specifies the range of key velocities as an integer between 0 and 127:


title: Dynamics (music)

text: The velocity effect on volume depends on the particular instrument. For instance, a grand piano has a much greater volume range than a recorder.


title: Dynamics (music)

text: The introduction of modern recording techniques has provided alternative ways to control the dynamics of music. Dynamic range compression is used to control the dynamic range of a recording, or a single instrument. This can affect loudness variations, both at the micro- and macro scale. In many contexts, the meaning of the term "dynamics" is therefore not immediately clear. To distinguish between the different aspects of dynamics, the term "performed dynamics" can be used to refer to the aspects of music dynamics that is controlled exclusively by the performer.


title: Joseph Barbera

text: Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera.


title: Joseph Barbera

text: Born to Italian immigrants in New York City, Barbera joined Van Beuren Studios in 1927 and subsequently Terrytoons in 1929. In 1937, he moved to California and while working at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Barbera met William Hanna. The two men began a collaboration that was at first best known for producing "Tom and Jerry". In 1957, after MGM dissolved their animation department, they co-founded Hanna-Barbera, which became the most successful television animation studio in the business, producing programs such as "The Flintstones", "Yogi Bear", "Scooby-Doo", "Top Cat", "The Smurfs", "Huckleberry Hound", and "The Jetsons". In 1967, Hanna-Barbera was sold to Taft Broadcasting for $12 million, but Hanna and Barbera remained heads of the company. In 1991, the studio was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn was merged with Time Warner, owners of Warner Bros., in 1996; Hanna and Barbera stayed on as advisors.


title: Joseph Barbera

text: Hanna and Barbera directed seven Academy Award films and won eight Emmy Awards. Their cartoon shows have become cultural icons, and their cartoon characters have appeared in other media such as films, books, and toys. Hanna-Barbera's shows had a worldwide audience of over 300 million people in the 1960s and have been translated into more than 28 languages.