Etymology.

Gujranwala's name means "Abode of the Gujjars" in Punjabi, and was named in reference to the Gujjar tribe that live in northern Punjab. One local narrative suggests that town was named in reference to a specific Gujjar, Choudhry Gujjar, owner of the town's Persian wheel that supplied water to the town. Evidence suggests, however, that the city derives its name from Serai Gujran (meaning inn of Gujjars)- a village once located near what is now Gujranwala's Khiyali Gate.

History.

Founding.

The exact origins of Gujranwala are unclear. Unlike the ancient nearby cities of Lahore, Sialkot, and Eminabad, Gujranwala is a relatively modern city. It may have been established as a village in the middle of the 16th century. Locals traditionally believe that Gujranwala's original name was Khanpur Shansi, though recent scholarship suggests that the village was possibly Serai Gujran instead - a village once located near what is now Gujranwala's Khiyali Gate that was mentioned by several sources during the 18th century invasion of Ahmad Shah Abdali.

Sikh.

In 1707, with the death of the last great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Mughal power began to rapidly weaken especially following Nader Shah's invasion in 1739 and then completely dissipated from the Punjab region due to the invasions of Ahmad Shah Abdali who raided Punjab many times between 1747 and 1772 causing much devastation and chaos.  Abdalis control over the region began to weaken in the latter part of the 18th century with the rise of the Sikh Misls (independent chieftainships usually consisting of the chief’s kinsmen) who overran Punjab. Charat Singh, ruler of the Sukerchakia Misl, established himself in a fort which he had built in the area of Gujranwala between 1756 and 1758.  Nuruddin, a Jammu-based Afghan (Pashtun) general, was ordered by Abdali to subdue the Sikhs but was driven back at Sialkot by Sikh soldiers led by Charat Singh. In 1761, Khwaja Abed Khan, Abdali’s governor in Lahore, tried to besiege Charat Singh's base in Gujranwala but the bid misfired. The Sikh misls rallied to his support by attacking Afghan officers wherever they were found. A fleeing Abed Khan was pursued by Sikh contingents led by the Ahluwalia misl into Lahore, where he was killed. Charat Singh made Gujranwala the capital of his misl in 1763.  In a 1774 battle waged in Jammu, Charat Singh of the Sukerchakia misl and Jhanda Singh of the powerful Bhangi misl, fighting on opposite sides, were both killed. Before his death, Charat Singh had become master of large and contiguous territories in the three doabs between the Indus and the Ravi. He was succeeded by his son Maha Singh who added to the lands that Charat Singh had not only captured but also capably administered.  In the Gujranwala area in the 1770s, the Jat Chathas of Wazirabad and Rajput Bhattis of Hafizabad (Muslims in both cases) offered ‘fierce resistance’ to the Sukerchakias, whose attack was aided by Sahib Singh of the Bhangi misl. Describing the conflict, the (British) writer of the Gujranwala Gazetteer wrote that, besieged for weeks in his fortress, Ghulam Muhammad Chatha eventually surrendered after Maha Singh assured him safe passage to Mecca, but the promise was ‘basely broken’ when Ghulam Muhammad was shot and his fortress razed to the ground. Rasoolnagar (Prophet's city) which belonged to the Chathas was renamed Ramnagar (Ram's city) to humiliate the Muslims. The Gazetteer noted that the treacherous killing of Chatha and his resistance was remembered ‘in many a local ballad’ in Gujranwala. The Bhattis of Hafizabad tehsil, who were Muslim Rajputs, did not cease their resistance to the Sukerchakias until 1801, when their leaders were killed and their possessions captured. Some Bhattis fled to Jhang.  Ranjit Singh, Maha Singh's son and successor who would later go on to establish the Sikh Empire, was born in 1780 in Gujranwala's Purani Mandi market. Ranjit Singh maintained Gujranwala as his capital initially after rising to power in 1792. His most famous military commander Hari Singh Nalwa, who was also from Gujranwala, built a high mud wall around Gujranwala during this era and established the city's new grid street-plan that exists until the present day. Gujranwala remained Ranjit Singh's capital until he captured Lahore from the Durrani Afghans in 1799, at which point the capital was moved there, leading to the relative decline of Gujranwala in favour of Lahore.Jind Kaur, the last queen of Ranjit Singh and mother of Duleep Singh, was born in Gujranwala in 1817.  By 1839, the city's bazaars were home to an estimated 500 shops, while the city had been surrounded by a number of pleasure gardens, including one established by Hari Nalwa Singh that was famous for its vast array of exotic plants.

British.

The area was captured by the British Empire in 1848, and rapidly developed thereafter. Gujranwala was incorporated as a municipality in 1867, and the city's Brandreth, Khiyali, and Lahori Gates built atop the site of Sikh-era gates were completed in 1869. A new clocktower was built in central Gujranwala to mark the city's centre in 1906.  Christian missionaries were brought to the region during British colonial rule, and Gujranwala became home to numerous churches and schools. The city's first Presbyterian Church was established in 1875 in the Civil Lines area - a settlement built one mile north of the old city to house Gujranwala's European population. A theological seminary was established in 1877, and a Christian technical school in 1900.  The North-Western Railway connected Gujranwala with other cities in British India by rail in 1881. The major Sikh higher learning institution, Gujranwala Guru Nanak Khalsa College, was founded in Gujranwala in 1889, though it later shifted to Ludhiana. The nearby Khanki Headworks were completed in 1892 under British rule, and helped irrigate 3 million acres in the province. Gujranwala's population, according to the 1901 census of British India, was 29,224. The city continued to grow rapidly for the remainder of British rule.  Riots erupted in Gujranwala following the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar on April 1919. These were some of most violent riots to the British massacre in all of British India. Riots lead to the damage of the city's railway station and burning of the city's Tehsil Office, Clock Tower, Dak Bangla and city courts. Much of the city's historical record was burnt in the attacked offices. Protestors in the city, nearby villages, and a procession from Dhullay were fired upon with machine-guns mounted to low-flying planes, and subjected to aerial bombardment from the Royal Air Force under the control of Reginald Edward Harry Dyer.  According to the 1941 census, 269,528 out of the Gujranwala District's 912,234 residents were non-Muslim. 54.30% of Gujranwala city residents were Muslims prior to Partition, though non-Muslims controlled much of the city's economy. Hindus and Sikhs together owned two-thirds of Gujranwala's properties. Sikhs were concentrated in the localities of Guru Nanak Pura, Guru Gobind Garh, and Dhullay Mohallah, while Hindus were dominant in Hakim Rai, Sheikhupura Gate area and Hari Singh Nalwa Bazaar. Muslims were concentrated in Rasul Pura, Islam Pura and Rehman Pura.

Partition.

Following the Independence of Pakistan and the aftermath of the Partition of British India in 1947, Gujranwala was site of some of the worst rioting in Punjab. Large swathes of Hindu and Sikh localities were attacked or destroyed. Rioters in the city gained notoriety for attacks, with the city's Muslim Lohar (blacksmiths) particularly carrying out brutal attacks. In retaliation for attacks against a trainload of refugees by Sikh rioters at Amritsar railway station on 22 September that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Muslims over the course of three hours, rioters from Gujranwala attacked a trainload of Hindus and Sikhs fleeing towards India on 23 September, killing 340 refugees in the nearby town of Kamoke. Partition riots in Gujranwala resulted in systematic violence against the city's minorities, and may constitute an act of ethnic cleansing by modern standards. Gujranwala became home to Muslim refugees who were fleeing from the widespread anti-Muslim pogroms that depopulated eastern Punjab in India of almost its entire Muslim population. Refugees in Gujranwala were mainly those who had fled from the cities of Amritsar, Patiala, and Ludhiana in what had become the Indian state of East Punjab.

Modern.

The influx of Muslim refugees into Gujranwala drastically altered the city's form. By March 1948, over 300,000 refugees had been resettled in Gujranwala District. Many refugees found post-Partition Gujranwala lacking in opportunities, causing some to move south to Karachi. The refugee population mostly settled in localities that were mostly non-Muslim, like Gobindgarh, Baghbanpura and Nanakpura.  Suburban districts were rapidly laid, including Satellite Town in 1950, which was designed mostly to house wealthy and upper middle-class refugees. D-Colony was built in 1956 for poorer Kashmiri refugees, and Model Town in the 1960s. The city experienced strong industrial growth during this period. In 1947, there were only 39 registered factories - a number which rose to 225 by 1961. The city's colonial era metal-working industry continued to grow, while the city became a centre of hosiery manufacturing that was run by refugees from Ludhiana. The city's jewelry-trade had been run by Hindus but came under control of refugees from Patiala.  Gujranwala's economy continued to grow into the 1970s and 1980s. New development continues, such as the opening of a 5,774 foot long flyover that functions as an elevated urban expressway, as well as the nearby Sialkot International Airport which serves the entire Golden Triangle region, and is Pakistan's first privately owned commercial airport. Educations of higher learning have also been established in the city since independence. The Sialkot-Lahore Motorway, due to be open in 2018, will pass near Gujranwala.

Geography.

Gujranwala sits at the heart of the Rechna Doab - a strip of land between the Chenab in the north, and Ravi River in the south. Gujranwala is also part of the Majha - a historical region of northern Punjab. The city was built upon the plains of Punjab, and the surrounding region is unbroken plain devoid of topographical diversity. Gujranwala is 226 metres (744 ft) above sea level, sharing borders with Ghakhar Mandi and several towns and villages. About south is the provincial capital, Lahore. Sialkot and Gujrat lie to its north. Gujrat connects Gujranwala with Bhimber, Azad Kashmir, and Sialkot connects it with Jammu. About southwest is Faisalabad. To its west are Hafizabad and Pindi Bhattian, which connect Gujranwala to Jhang, Chiniot and Sargodha.

Climate.

Gujranwala has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh), according to the Köppen-Geiger system, and changes throughout the year. During summer (June to September), the temperature reaches. The coolest months are usually November to February, when the temperature can drop to an average of. The highest-precipitation months are usually July and August when the monsoon reaches the Punjab. During the other months, the average rainfall is about. October to May have little rainfall.

Urban form.

Gujranwala's oldest precincts were laid according to the new city plan devised by Hari Singh Nalwa, following Ranjit Singh's establishment of Gujranwala as his capital in 1792. A street plan based mostly on a grid plan was implemented, with bazaars intersecting one another at 90-degree angles. Some of the blocks are rectangular in shape, resulting in a polygonal shaped old city. This old city was then enclosed by a high mud wall with gates and a fort that was built immediately north of the old city. The city's Sheranwala Bagh was also expanded under Hari Singh Nalwa's direction.  Gujranwala's old city is centred on the "Shahi" (Royal) Bazaar. The old city is home to many of the city's pre-Partition houses of worship for Hindus and Sikhs. The Hindu Devi Talab temple was once famous for its large water-tank, and remains in good condition despite being used as a residence for a family who fled Patiala. The Sikh Gurdwara Damdama Sahib is located near the Devi Talab temple, is important in Sikhism for its association with Baba Sahib Singh Bedi, a Sikh saint. An old gurdwara is also located near the Chashma Chowk intersection near Shahi Bazaar.  Gujranwala grew rapidly following British rule, and connection of the city to the railways of British India. The city grew outside of the city's walls, requiring new bazaars to be laid - which were done in a radial plan centred on the old city. Some historic structures like the Haveli of Sardar Mahan Singh were torn down by the British and replaced with other structures. The city's Brandreth, Lahori, and Khiyali Gates were built atop the city's demolished original gates, while Mahan Singh's haveli was transformed into a public square named Ranjit Ganj. The city's boundaries remained mostly west of the railways line prior to 1947.  The Civil Lines neighbourhood was built for European residents approximately one mile north of the old city. The area was characterized by bungalows, large and verdant lawns, and shady tree-lined avenues. Civil Lines is where the city's Presbyterian Church was built in 1875, while the city's Theological Seminary was established here in 1877. The Christian Technical Training Center followed suit in 1900. The city's elite Hindus and Sikhs eventually also settled in small numbers in Civil Lines. Several of their mansions still remain in the area including those of Charan Singh, Banarsi Shah, as well as other buildings such as Islamia College and Khurshid Manzil.  Growth occurred mostly in areas northwest and southeast of the city immediately after independence until 1965 along routes emanating from old Gujranwala. Satellite Town was established on the southwest side in 1950. Areas northeast and southwest of the city were the sites of most growth between 1965 and 1985. Growth grow outwards mostly evenly after 1985 until present time. Much of the growth has been unplanned due to poor enforcement of development guidelines and lax enforcement of property laws.

Architecture.

There are various historic buildings in Gujranwala, e.g. Brandreth Gate, Lahori Gate, Khiyali Gate in the Bazar area, the Main Railway Station built in 1881 und the Clock Tower dating from 1906. One of the largest churches is Saint Paul's Presbyterian Church, inaugurated in 2010.

Economy.

Gujranwala is the Pakistan's third largest centre of industrial production, after Karachi and Faisalabad. Gujranwala, along with the nearby industrial cities of Sialkot and Gujrat City, form what is sometimes referred to as the Golden Triangle in reference to their relative prosperity and export-oriented industrial base. The city's industries employ up to 500,000 people, while the city's GDP makes up 5% of Pakistan's overall economy.  An estimated 6,500 small and medium enterprises, 25,000 cottage units, and some large factories, are located in and around the city as of 2002 -and are engaged in the manufacture of a wide variety of goods. The city is the centre for manufacture and export of sanitary fittings and wares in Pakistan, with over 200 producers based in Gujranwala. More than 60 producers of auto parts are found in the city. The city is well known as a centre for manufacturing electric fans - with 150 small and medium enterprises in Gujranwala tied to the electric fan industry. The city is Pakistan's third largest centre for iron and steel manufacturing - reflecting Gujranwala's historic association with metalworking since the migration of the Lohar clan of blacksmiths to the city during the colonial era. The city has been a centre of hosiery-manfuacture since the migration of refugees primarily from Ludhiana in 1947.  Textiles, apparel, yarn, and other textile goods are also produced in Gujranwala. Other manufacturing based in the city include rice, plastic, cutlery, coolers and heaters, agricultural tools and equipment, carpets, glass goods, surgical equipment, leather products, and machinery for military uses, domestic appliances, motorcycles, and food products. The rural regions surrounding Gujranwala are heavily engaged in the production of wheat and are yield more wheat per acre than the national average. Gujranwala District is also the most productive region for rice-growing in Punjab.  In 2010, Gujranwala was rated number 6 out of Pakistan's top 13 cities in order of ease of doing business by the World Bank, and was ranked the second-best in Pakistan for construction permits. Pakistan's electric shortages of the 2010s severely stymied the city's growth. Industrial units in the city suffered an average of 2872 hours per year in Gujranwala in 2012. By the end of 2017, the supply of electricity had drastically improved with augmented electric generation as a result of new power-stations coming online. Improved supplies of electricity contributed to the country's double-digit rise in exports in the second half of 2017.

Transportation.

Road.

Gujranwala is situated along the historic Grand Trunk Road that connects Peshawar to Islamabad and Lahore. The Grand Trunk Road also provides access to the Afghan border via the Khyber Pass, with onward connections to Kabul and Central Asia via the Salang Pass. The Karakoram Highway provides access between Islamabad and western China, and an alternate route to Central Asia via Kashgar, China.  Gujranwala will be connected to Lahore by way of the under-construction Sialkot-Lahore Motorway, due to open in 2018. The motorway will pass east of the Grand Trunk Road, and will terminate near the Sialkot International Airport. Plans for the motorway's extension farther north to Kharian near Gujrat City were announced in late 2017.

Rail.

Gujranwala railway station serves as a stop along Pakistan's -long Main Line-1 railway that connects the city to the port city of Karachi to Peshawar.  The entire Main Line-1 railway track between Karachi and Peshawar is to be overhauled at a cost of $3.65 billion for the first phase of the project, with completion by 2021. Upgrading of the railway line will permit train travel at speeds of 160 kilometres per hour, versus the average 60 to 105 km per hour speed currently possible on existing track.

Air.

Gujranwala has no airport of its own. The city is instead served by airports in nearby cities, including the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore that offers non-stop flights to Europe, Canada, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Gujranwala is also serviced by the nearby Sialkot International Airport - Pakistan's first privately owned commercial airport. Built in 2007, the airport offers non-stop service to the Middle East, as well as domestic locations.

Public transportation.

Gujranwala lacks a centrally managed public transportation system. Uber became available in Gujranwala in early 2017, and were soon followed by Careem.

Administration.

Gujranwala and its environs were amalgamated into a district in 1951. The Gujranwala Development Authority was established in 1989 to oversea economic and infrastructure development in the city. The city is currently administered by the City District Government Gujranwala (CDGG) and Municipal Corporation Gujranwala, while development is generally under the office of the Gujranwala Development Authority. In 2007, the city was re-classified as a city-district with 7 constituent municipalities: Aroop, Kamonke, Khiali Shahpur, Nandipur, Nowshera Virkan, Qila Didar Singh, and Wazirabad Towns.

Education.

Gujranwala city's adult literacy rate in 2008 was 73%, which rose to 87% in the 15-24 age group throughout Gujranwala District, including rural areas. The city is also home to the Gujranwala Theological Seminary which was established in Sialkot in 1877, and moved to Gujranwala in 1912. The Army Aviation School of the Pakistan Air Force was moved to Gujranwala in 1987 from Dhamial. Many institutes are established for higher education such as;

Gujranwala (Punjabi, ) is a city and capital of Gujranwala Division located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is also known as "City of Wrestlers" and is quite famous for its food. The city is Pakistan's 5th most-populous metropolitan area, as well as 5th most populous city proper. Founded in the 18th century, Gujranwala is a relatively modern town compared to the many nearby millennia-old cities of northern Punjab. The city served as the capital of the Sukerchakia Misl state between 1763 and 1799, and is the birthplace of the founder of the Sikh Empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

Gudžranvala ( گوجرانوالا) je město v Pákistánu v provincii Paňdžáb. Má podle sčítání lidu z roku 2017 přes dva miliony obyvatel a je pátým největším městem v zemi. Většinu obyvatel tvoří muslimové, hovořící paňdžábštinou a urdštinou. Město se nachází 70 km severozápadně od Láhauru v nadmořské výšce 226 metrů.


Club career.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Ferhatović led FK Sarajevo to great heights, and became the club's best and most famous player, scoring 198 goals in 422 games. He also had a short stint at Fenerbahçe where he played only 7 league games and scored 1 goal. After only half a season he left Fenerbahçe and went back to Sarajevo. His greatest personal achievement was becoming the lead scorer in the Yugoslav First League with 19 goals for FK Sarajevo in the 1963–64 season. His last season, (1966–67) saw Sarajevo win their first-ever First League title and qualify for the European Cup.  Ferhatović's retirement was one of the most important events in Sarajevo's sporting history, and the local newspapers ran the headline "Jedan je Hase!" ("There is Only One Hase!") in his honour that day.

International career.

Ferhatović played once for the Yugoslavia national football team, on 8 October 1961 against South Korea in a qualification match for the 1962 FIFA World Cup.

Death and legacy.

Ferhatović died on 25 January 1987, the day after his 54th birthday, of a heart attack.  Sarajevo's Asim Ferhatović Hase Stadium, the site of the Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 Winter Olympics and the home of FK Sarajevo, is named in his honour. The Bosnia and Herzegovina national team often used the stadium for their international matches in the past. It is also the largest stadium in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In popular culture.

The Bosnian rock band Zabranjeno Pušenje wrote a song in honour of Ferhatović called "Nedjelja kad je otišao Hase" ("The Sunday When Hase Left") and was included in their 1985 album "Dok čekaš sabah sa šejtanom".

Honours.

Club.

Sarajevo

Individual.

Performance

Asim Ferhatović "Hase" (; 24 January 1933 – 25 January 1987) was a Bosnian professional footballer. He started his football career in 1948 with FK Sarajevo, for whom he made his first-team debut in 1952. Ferhatović remained with the club until his retirement in 1967, although he represented Fenerbahçe in the 1962–63 Turkish league season. He won a solitary cap for the Yugoslavia national team in 1961.

Asim Ferhatović (24. ledna 1933 Sarajevo – 25. ledna 1987 tamtéž), známý jako Hase, byl jugoslávský fotbalový útočník bosňáckého původu a jugoslávský reprezentant (srbskou cyrilicí Асим Ферхатовић Хасе). Je považován za jednoho z nejlepších fotbalistů z Bosny a Hercegoviny, ve svém rodišti se stal legendou a je po něm pojmenován mj. stadion FK Sarajevo – Stadion Asima Ferhatoviće Hase (Olympijský stadion Koševo nebo Městský stadion Koševo, hlavní stadion ZOH 1984 v Sarajevu). Zemřel na infarkt.


History.

The first World Pond Hockey Championship tournament was held in 2002. The event was created by Tom Chamberlain and Danny Braun, the director for community development of Plaster Rock and the current President and CEO of the tournament. Danny first set out wanting to organize an event to help raise money for a new recreation centre for the Tobique Valley community. So in 2000, Braun organized a fundraiser in the form of a snowmobile race. The event was popular and well received by the community, but it failed to generate a large enough profit to justify running for more than two years. It was at this point in 2002 that Braun got the idea to organize a pond hockey tournament instead. In its first year ever run, the World Pond Hockey Championship tournament featured 40 teams from the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and from the state of Maine, U.S.. Unlike the snowmobile race, it was financially successful, and continued to grow with more teams registering every year. Its continued growth and popularity allowed for the construction of the Tobique-Plex recreation centre that officially opened in November, 2007. Over the past seven years that the tournament has been held, the profits from the event continue to help pay for the operating costs of the centre.  Since its debut, the tournament has greatly expanded from its original 40 teams. It now features 120 teams from 15 countries all over the world such as the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico, and Denmark. There are now participating teams from all of the Canadian provinces, and from 35 states from the U.S.. Every year, over 200 volunteers help to maintain the ice and run the event, while over 8,000 people, including many representatives from newspapers, television networks, and other media companies, watch and participate in the tournament. In 2007, the organizers of the event received over 800 applications from teams wanting to enroll in the competition, which is significantly higher than the 100 applications they received in the first year the tournament was held. It was in this same year that the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, attended the World Pond Hockey Championships, dropping the puck to signify the official start of that year's tournament.

Description.

The World Pond Hockey Championship tournament is played in a four-on-four, round robin format. The 20 outdoor rinks allow for 40 teams to play at any given time. All competing teams consist of 4 players ages 19 and over, but they are permitted to have a fifth member in case of injury or illness. Every team is guaranteed at least five 30-minute games over the course of the four-day tournament. The playoff round starts on the Sunday of every tournament weekend, which features the best 32 teams from the previous rounds.  The Pond Hockey Championships feature some untraditional rules and notable differences in gameplay as compared to traditional hockey games. The nets that players must score on are 6 feet wide, but only 10 inches high, so all shots must be kept low to the ice. This is to ensure that pucks cannot be shot into one of the other closely situated rinks and disrupt games or spectators. There are no goalies, and players have to be over the centre line of the rink in order to score. There is also no traditional penalty box in this tournament; if any penalties are called on a member of one team, the opposing team automatically is awarded one goal.

The World Pond Hockey Championships is an annual international competition that takes place outdoors, on a body of frozen water, playing the pond hockey variant of ice hockey. The event takes place in the small, rural village of Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, Canada, on Roulston Lake.

Mistrovství světa v rybníkovém hokeji je mezinárodní hokejový turnaj pořádaný v Kanadě. Rybníkový hokej je druh ledního hokeje, který se hraje na menším hřišti ve čtyřech hráčích. Mistrovství probíhá v Kanadě v obci Plaster Rock, v provoncii Nový Brunšvik, na jezeře Roulston.


Early life.

Nash was the son of a successful barrister, William Harry Nash, and his wife Caroline Maude, the daughter of a Captain in the Royal Navy. He was born in Kensington and grew up in Earl's Court in West London, but in 1902 the family moved to Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. It was hoped the move to the countryside would help Caroline Nash, who was increasingly showing symptoms of mental illness. The growing cost of Caroline Nash's treatment led to the house at Iver Heath being rented out while Paul and his father lived together in lodgings and his younger sister and brother went to boarding schools. On Valentine's Day 1910, aged forty-nine, Caroline Nash died in a mental institution. Paul Nash was originally intended for a career in the navy, following the path of his maternal grandfather, but despite additional training at a specialist school in Greenwich, he failed the Naval Entrance Examination and returned to finish his schooling at St Paul's School. Encouraged by a fellow student at St Paul's, Eric Kennington, Nash considered the possibility of a career as an artist. After studying for a year at the South-Western Polytechnic in Chelsea, he then enrolled at the London County Council School of Photo-engraving and Lithography, in Bolt Court off Fleet Street, in the autumn of 1908. Nash spent two years studying at Bolt Court, where he began to write poetry and plays and where his work was spotted and praised by Selwyn Image. He was advised by his friend, the poet Gordon Bottomley, and by the artist William Rothenstein, that he should attend the Slade School of Art at University College, London. He enrolled in October 1910, though he later recorded that on his first meeting with the Professor of Drawing, Henry Tonks, 'It was evident he considered that neither the Slade, nor I, were likely to derive much benefit'.  The Slade was then opening its doors to a remarkable crop of young talents – what Tonks later described as the school's second and last 'Crisis of Brilliance'. Nash's fellow students included Ben Nicholson, Stanley Spencer, Mark Gertler, William Roberts, Dora Carrington, Christopher R. W. Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. Nash struggled with figure drawing, and spent only a year at the school. Nash had shows in 1912 and 1913, sometimes with his brother John, largely devoted to drawings and watercolours of brooding landscapes, influenced by the poetry of William Blake and the paintings of Samuel Palmer and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Two locations in particular featured in his landscape work at this time, the view from his father's house in Iver Heath and a pair of tree-topped hills in the Thames Valley known as the Wittenham Clumps. These were the first in a series of locations, which would eventually include Ypres, Dymchurch, the Romney Marshes, Avebury and Swanage, that would inspire Nash in his landscape paintings throughout his life. By the summer of 1914 Nash was enjoying some success and during that year he worked briefly at the Omega Workshops under Roger Fry and also worked with him on restoring the Mantegna cartoons at Hampton Court Palace. He was elected to The London Group in 1914.

World War I.

Army officer.

On 10 September 1914, shortly after the start of World War I, Nash reluctantly enlisted as a private for home service in the Second Battalion, the Artists' Rifles, part of the 28th London Regiment of Territorials. Nash's duties, which included guard duty at the Tower of London, allowed him time to continue drawing and painting. In December 1914 Nash married Margaret Odeh, an Oxford-educated campaigner for Women's Suffrage, at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Her father, Naser Odeh, had been the priest in charge of St Mary's mission and the pro-cathedral, Cairo. The couple had no children. Nash began officer training in August 1916 and was sent to the Western Front in February 1917 as a second lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment. He was based at St. Eloi on the Ypres Salient at a relatively quiet time and although the area did come under shelling, no major engagements took place while he was there. Whilst clearly aware of the destruction that had taken place there, he was delighted to see that, with spring arriving, the landscape was recovering from the damage inflicted on it. However, on the night of 25 May 1917, Nash fell into a trench, broke a rib and, by 1 June, had been invalided back to London. A few days later the majority of his former unit were killed in an assault on a position known as Hill 60. Nash considered himself lucky to be alive. While recuperating in London, Nash worked from sketches he had done at the Front to produce a series of twenty drawings, mostly in ink, chalk and watercolours, of the war. Whilst some of these pieces showed the influence of the Vorticist movement and their manifesto, the literary magazine "BLAST", the majority concerned the spring landscape and were similar in tone to his pre-war work. "Chaos Decoratif", for example, shows part of a trench and a shattered tree amid a scene of almost pastoral calm. The collection was well received when exhibited in June that year at the Goupil Gallery. A further exhibition of these drawings was held in Birmingham in September 1917. As a result of these exhibitions, Christopher Nevinson advised Nash to approach Charles Masterman, head of the government's War Propaganda Bureau, to apply to become an official war artist. Nash was with a reserve battalion near Portsmouth, preparing to return to France in a combat role, when he received word that his commission as a war artist had been approved.

Official war artist – Belgium, 1917.

In November 1917 Nash returned to the Ypres Salient as a uniformed observer with a batman and chauffeur. At this point the Third Battle of Ypres was three months old and Nash himself frequently came under shellfire after arriving in Flanders. The winter landscape he found was very different from the one he had last seen in spring. The system of ditches, small canals and dykes which usually drained the Ypres landscape had been all but destroyed by the constant shellfire. Months of incessant rain had led to widespread flooding and mile upon mile of deep mud. Nash was outraged at this desecration of nature. He believed the landscape was no longer capable of supporting life nor could it recover when spring came. Nash quickly grew angry and disillusioned with the war and made this clear in letters written to his wife. One such written, after a pointless meeting at Brigade HQ, on 16 November 1917 stands out,  Nash's anger was a great creative stimulus which led him to produce up to a dozen drawings a day. He worked in a frenzy of activity and took great risks to get as close as possible to the frontline trenches. Despite the dangers and hardship, when the opportunity came to extend his visit by a week and work for the Canadians in the Vimy sector, Nash jumped at the chance. He eventually returned to England on 7 December 1917.

Official war artist – England, 1918.

In six weeks on the Western Front, Nash completed what he called "fifty drawings of muddy places". When he returned to England, he started to develop these drawings into finished pieces and began working flat-out to have enough pictures ready for a one-man show in May 1918. While in Flanders Nash had mostly worked in pen-and-ink, often over painted in watercolours, but in England he learnt, from Nevinson, to produce lithographs. The 1917 drawing "Nightfall, Zillebecke District" showing soldiers walking along a zig-zagging duckboard became the 1918 lithograph "Rain". "After the Battle" shows a battlefield, deserted save for some corpses sinking into the mud. "The Landscape – Hill 60" shows fields of mud and shellholes with explosions filling the sky above. One of the largest and most powerful new drawings was "Wire", originally titled "Wire-The Hindenburg Line" and again uses the destruction of nature, in the form of a tree trunk wrapped in barbed wire, akin to a crown of thorns, to represent the catastrophe of war.  Early in 1918, Nash began working in oils for the first time. The first oil painting he made was "The Mule Track" in which, amidst explosions from a bombardment, are the tiny figures of soldiers trying to stop their pack animals charging away along another zig-zagging duckboard. Switching to oils allowed Nash to make far greater use of colour and the explosions in "The Mule Track" contain yellow, orange and mustard shades. The canvas "The Ypres Salient at Night" captures the disorientation caused by the changes in direction of the defensive trenches at the Front, which Nash would have been familiar with, and which was exacerbated at night by the constant explosion of shells and flares.  Whilst in France Nash had made a pen-and-ink drawing he called "Sunrise, Inverness Copse". Inverness Copse was the site of heavy fighting in the summer of 1917 during the Battle of Langemarck, part of the Third Battle of Ypres and Nash depicts the aftermath of the fighting, showing a landscape consisting of mud and blasted trees illuminated by a pale yellow Sun. Early in 1918, when Nash decided to produce a larger oil painting based on this drawing, whatever little hope that pale Sun represented had vanished. The bitter title, "We are Making a New World", clearly mocks the ambitions of the war but is also a more universal reference than the previous title and represents a scene of devastation that could be anywhere on the Western Front. There are no people in the picture nor any of the details of, for example, "The Mule Track" to distract from the broken tree stumps, shellholes and mounds of earth. The Sun is a cold white orb and the brown clouds of the original drawing have become blood red. One modern critic, writing in 1994, likened it to a 'nuclear winter' whilst one of the first people to see it in 1918, Arthur Lee, the official censor responsible for the British war artists, thought it was a 'joke' at the expense of the public and the art establishment.  These new works, alongside the 1917 pieces and some other works such as "Mackerel Sky", were exhibited in Nash's solo exhibition entitled "The Void of War" at the Leicester Galleries in May 1918. This exhibition was critically acclaimed with most commentators focusing on how Nash had portrayed nature, in the form of devastated woods, fields and hillsides, as the innocent victim of the war.

"The Menin Road".

In April 1918 Nash was commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee to paint a battlefield scene for the Hall of Remembrance project. He chose to depict a section of the Ypres Salient known as 'Tower Hamlets' that had been devastated during the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge. Once his work for the "Void of War" exhibition was complete in June 1918, Nash started painting the huge canvas, now known as "The Menin Road", which was almost in size, at Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire using a herb-drying shed as his studio. He completed the piece in February 1919 in London. The picture depicts a maze of flooded trenches and shell craters while tree stumps, devoid of any foliage, point towards a sky full of clouds and plumes of smoke bisected by shafts of sunlight resembling gun barrels. Two soldiers at the centre of the picture attempt to follow the now unrecognisable road itself but appear to be trapped by the landscape.

1920s.

When the war ended Nash was determined to continue his career as an artist but struggled with periodic bouts of depression and money worries. Throughout 1919 and 1920 Nash lived in Buckinghamshire and in London where he made theatre designs for a play by J. M. Barrie. Along with several other artists, Nash became prominent in the Society of Wood Engravers and in 1920 was involved in its first exhibition. He became close friends with Eric Fitch Daglish whom he educated in the art of wood engraving and as a result Daglish became a successful engraver. From 1920 until 1923 Nash taught, on an occasional basis, at the Cornmarket School of Art in Oxford.

Dymchurch and Iden.

In 1921, after visiting his sick father, Nash collapsed and, after a week during which he repeatedly lost consciousness, was diagnosed as suffering from 'emotional shock' arising from the war. To aid his recovery, the Nashes moved to Dymchurch which they had first visited in 1919 and where he painted seascapes, the seawall and landscapes of Romney Marsh. The seawall at Dymchurch became a key location in Nash's work. The conflict between land and sea depicted in the seawall paintings at Dymchurch recalled elements of Nash's paintings on the Western Front and were also influenced by his grief at the death of his friend Claud Lovat Fraser in June 1921. In 1922, Nash produced "Places", a volume of seven wood engravings for which he also designed the cover, cut the lettering and wrote the text. At this time he also began painting floral still-lifes as well as continuing his landscape paintings, most notably with "Chilterns under Snow" in 1923. Throughout 1924 and 1925 Nash taught part-time at the Design School at the Royal College of Art, where his students included both Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. In 1924 he held a commercially successful exhibition at the Leicester Galleries. This allowed the Nashes to spend the winter near Nice and visit Florence and Pisa at the start of 1925 after which they moved home to Iden near Rye in Sussex. Iden and the Romney Marshes became the settings for a series of paintings by Nash, most notably "Winter Sea" painted in 1925 and reworked in 1937. In 1927 Nash was elected to the London Artists' Association and in 1928 held another successful exhibition of his paintings at the Leicester Galleries whilst an exhibition of his wood-engravings was held at the Redfern Gallery the same year. The Leicester Galleries exhibition was notable for showing Nash turning away from his popular landscapes and beginning to explore abstraction in his work.  This change in direction continued throughout 1929 and 1930 when Nash produced a number of innovative paintings,

Other media.

Nash often worked in media other than paint. As well as two volumes of his own wood engravings, "Places" and "Genesis", throughout the 1920s Nash produced highly regarded book illustrations for several authors, including Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Nash was one of the contributors of illustrations to the Subscriber's Edition of T. E. Lawrence's "Seven pillars of wisdom", published in 1926. In 1930, Nash produced the dust jacket design for "Roads to Glory", a collection of World War I stories by Richard Aldington.  In 1921 Nash displayed textile designs at an exhibition at Heal's and in 1925 developed four fabric designs for the "Footprints" series sold by Modern Textiles in London. Later still, in 1933, Brain & Co in Stoke-on-Trent commissioned Nash and other artists to produce designs for their Foley China range which was showcased at the "Modern Art for the Table" exhibition at Harrods. In 1931, Margaret Nash gave him a camera when he sailed to America to serve as a jury member at the Carnegie International Award in Pittsburgh. Nash became a prolific photographer and would often work from his own photographs alongside his preparatory sketches when painting a work.  By April 1928, Nash wanted to leave Iden but did not do so until after his father's death in February 1929, when he sold the family home in Iver Heath and bought a house in Rye.

1930s.

In 1930 Nash started working as an art critic for "The Listener", and in his writings acknowledged the influence of the 1928 Giorgio de Chirico London exhibition and of the modernist works he had seen during a visit to Paris in 1930 at Léonce Rosenberg's gallery. Nash became a pioneer of modernism in Britain, promoting the avant-garde European styles of abstraction and surrealism throughout the 1930s. In 1933 he co-founded the influential modern art movement Unit One with fellow artists Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Edward Wadsworth and the critic Herbert Read. It was a short-lived but important move towards the revitalisation of British art in the inter-war period.

Avebury.

When in 1931 he was invited to illustrate a book of his own choice, Nash choose Sir Thomas Browne's "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial" and "The Garden of Cyrus", providing the publisher with a set of 30 illustrations to accompany Browne's discourses. For "Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial" Nash also produced six larger watercolours, including "Mansions of the Dead", and three oil paintings on the book's themes of death and burial customs. These became significant themes for Nash when in July 1933 he went to Marlborough on holiday and visited Silbury Hill and Avebury for the first time. This ancient landscape with its neolithic monuments and standing stones "excited and fascinated" Nash and stirred "his sensitiveness to magic and the sinister beauty of monsters" according to Ruth Clarke who had accompanied him to Marlborough. Nash went on to paint the landscape at Avebury several times in different styles, most notably in his two 1934 paintings, "Druid Landscape" and "Landscape of the Megaliths". The 1935 painting "Equivalents for the Megaliths" stresses the mystery of the site by portraying it in an abstract manner rather than a more literal depiction. Nash appears to have been unhappy with the restoration work, started in 1934, at Avebury by Alexander Keiller, seemingly preferring the previous wilder and more unkept appearance of the area.  Nash wanted to move to live in Wiltshire but instead he left Rye for London in November 1933 before the Nashes undertook a long trip to France, Gibraltar and north Africa. When they returned to England in June 1934, the Nashes rented a cottage on the Dorset coast near Swanage. Nash was asked by John Betjeman to write a book in the Shell Guides series. Nash accepted and undertook writing a guide to Dorset.

Swanage.

Between 1934 and 1936 Nash lived near Swanage in Dorset, hoping the sea air would ease his asthma whilst he worked on the "Shell Guide to Dorset". He produced a considerable number of paintings and photographs during this period, some of which he used in the guide book. The guide was published in 1935 and featured some peculiarities of landscape and architecture that are often overlooked. Nash found Swanage with its diverse flora and fauna, fossils and geology to have certain Surrealist qualities. In a 1936 essay, entitled "Swanage or Seaside Surrealism", he wrote that the place had something "of a dream image where things are so often incongruous and slightly frightening in their relation to time or place." Whilst there Nash met the artist Eileen Agar. The two began a relationship, which lasted some years, and also collaborated on a number of works together. In Swanage, Nash produced some notable surrealist works such as "Events on the Downs", a picture of a giant tennis ball and a tree trunk seemingly embarking on a journey together and, later, "Landscape from a Dream", a cliff-top scene with a hawk and mirror. For a collage of black and white photographs entitled "Swanage", Nash depicts objects found in, or connected to, locations around Dorset within a surrealist landscape. On Romany Marsh Nash found his first surrealist object, or Objet trouvé. This piece of wood retrieved from a stream was likened by Nash to a fine Henry Moore sculpture and was shown at the first International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 under the title "Marsh Personage".  By the time of the exhibition Nash had come to dislike Swanage and in mid-1936 moved to a large house in Hampstead. Here he wrote articles on "seaside surrealism", created collages and assemblages, began his autobiography and organised a large one-man show at the Redfern Gallery in April 1937. That summer he visited the site of the Uffington White Horse in Berkshire and shortly afterwards began work on "Landscape from a Dream". In 1939, shortly after World War II began, the Nashes left Hampstead and moved to Oxford.

World War Two.

At the start of World War Two Nash was appointed by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to a full-time salaried war artist post attached to the Royal Air Force and the Air Ministry. Nash was unpopular with the Air Ministry representative on the WAAC committee, partly because of the modernist nature of his work and partly because the RAF wanted the WAAC artists to concentrate on producing portraits of their pilots and aircrew. Whilst still a salaried WAAC artist Nash produced two series of watercolours, "Raiders" and "Aerial Creatures". "Raiders", or "Marching Against England", was a set of studies of crashed German aircraft set in English rural landscapes with titles such as "Bomber in the Corn", "The Messerschmidt in Windsor Great Park" and "Under the Cliff". Whilst the Air Ministry could appreciate the patriotic intent and propaganda value of those works, the "Aerial Creatures" series, with its anthropomorphic depictions of British aircraft, displeased the Air Ministry so much they insisted Nash's full-time contract was ended in December 1940. The Chairman of WAAC, Kenneth Clark was aghast at this development and in January 1941 the Committee agreed to put aside £500 to purchase works from Nash on the theme of aerial conflict. Nash worked intermittently under this arrangement until 1944 to produce four paintings for WAAC. The first two of these were "Totes Meer (Dead Sea)" and "Battle of Britain".  "Totes Meer (Dead Sea)" was submitted to WAAC in 1941 and shows a 'dead sea' of wrecked German plane wings and fuselages based on sketches, and photographs, made at the Metal and Produce Recovery Unit at Cowley near Oxford in 1940. The painting recalls a series of bleak sea and coastal paintings Nash made in the 1930s. Although the aircraft dump at Cowley contained many British planes, Nash only depicted German aircraft because he wished to show the fate of the 'hundreds and hundreds of flying creatures which invaded these shores'. He used the German title for the picture as he wanted it included in a series of postcards of crashed German planes he suggested be dropped over the Reich as propaganda. To this end Nash even created a postcard of the painting with Hitler's head superimposed on the wrecked aircraft. Kenneth Clark stated that "Totes Meer" was 'the best war picture so far I think' and is still considered among the most celebrated British paintings of World War II.  "Battle of Britain" (1941) is an imaginative representation of an aerial battle in progress over a wide landscape of land and sea, suggesting the Thames Estuary and the English Channel. The white vapour trails of the Allied aircraft form patterns resembling buds and petals and appear to be growing naturally from the land and clouds, in contrast to the rigid, formal ranks of the attacking forces. Clark recognised the allegorical nature of the work and wrote to Nash, "I think in this and "Totes Meer" you have discovered a new form of allegorical painting. It is impossible to paint great events without allegory... and you have discovered a way of making the symbols out of the events themselves."  After completing "Battle of Britain", Nash found himself creatively blocked and again sick with asthma. Whilst unable to paint he did produce a number of photographic collages which included symbols and motifs from previous works often alongside images of Hitler. Nash submitted a series of these pieces, entitled "Follow the Fuehrer", to the Ministry of Information for use as propaganda but they declined to use them. When he did resume painting, Nash produced "Defence of Albion", which is considered the weakest of his four large WAAC paintings. Nash had great difficulties completing the painting which shows a Short Sunderland flying boat in the sea off Portland Bill. As he had only seen photographs of Sunderlands, and was too ill to go to the coast to view one, Nash wrote to Eric Ravilious, who had painted flying boats in Scotland, asking him to describe the effect of sunlight on the plane. Nash's final painting for WAAC was however an extraordinary, imagined scene of a bombing raid on a city. Despite being given access to official reports and accounts from aircrews who had flown on raids to Germany, for the "Battle of Germany", Nash adopted an unconventional abstract approach. Nash explained that it showed a city under attack with a pillar of smoke from burning buildings in the background and the white spheres of descending parachutes in the foreground. The pillar of smoke and the moon were as threatening to the city as the bombers, concealed within the red clouds, responsible for the explosions on the right side of the painting. Whilst Kenneth Clark found the painting difficult to understand because of what he called the "different planes of reality in which it is painted", he did recognize that it might herald one course that post-war art could take.

Final works.

From 1942 onwards, Nash often visited the artist Hilda Harrisson at her home, Sandlands on Boars Hill near Oxford, to convalesce after bouts of illness. From the garden at Sandlands, Nash had a view of the Wittenham Clumps, which he had first visited as a child and had painted both before World War I and again, as a background, in 1934 and 1935. He now painted a series of imaginative works of the Clumps under different aspects of the Moon. Paintings such as "Landscape of the Vernal Equinox" (1943) and "Landscape of the Moon's Last Phase" (1944) show a mystical landscape rich in the symbolism of the changing seasons and of death and rebirth. The completion of "Battle of Germany" in September 1944 brought Nash's public commitments to an end and he spent the remaining eighteen months of his life in, by his own words, "reclusive melancholy". In these final months, Nash produced a series of paintings, including "Flight of the Magnolia" (1944), which he called 'Aerial Flowers' that combined his fascination with flying and his love of the works of Samuel Palmer. Nash also returned to the influence of William Blake that had so affected his early art, for example in the series of gigantic sunflowers including "Sunflower and Sun" (1942), "Solstice of the Sunflower" (1945) and "Eclipse of the Sunflower" (1945), based on Blake's 1794 poem "Ah! Sun-flower".

Death.

During the final ten days of his life Nash returned to Dorset and visited Swanage, Corfe, Worth Matravers and Kimmeridge Bay. Nash died in his sleep of heart failure, as a result of his long-term asthma, on 11 July 1946, at Boscombe in Hampshire (now Dorset) and was buried on 17 July, in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, Langley in Buckinghamshire (now Berkshire). The Egyptian stone carving of a hawk, that Nash had painted in "Landscape from a Dream", was placed on his grave. A memorial exhibition and concert for Nash, attended by the then Queen Elizabeth, was held at the Tate Gallery in March 1948.

Legacy and works on public display.

Works by Nash are held in the collections of the Aberdeen Art Gallery, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Bolton Art Gallery, Brighton & Hove Museums, Cleveland Museum of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Harvard University Art Museums, Imperial War Museum, Manchester City Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, Tate Gallery, The Huntington Library, The Priseman Seabrook Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery, The Norfolk Museums Collection and Wichita Art Museum.  'Paul Nash', a major exhibition of his work at Tate Britain in London, ran from October 2016 until 5 March 2017, thereafter moving to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich from April to August 2017.

Paul Nash (11 May 1889 – 11 July 1946) was a British surrealist painter and war artist, as well as a photographer, writer and designer of applied art. Nash was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art.

Paul Nash (11. května 1889 Londýn – 11. července 1946 Boscombe) byl britský surrealistický malíř a válečný umělec, fotograf, spisovatel a designér aplikovaného umění. Nash byl jedním z významných krajinářů první poloviny dvacátého století. Hrál klíčovou roli v rozvoji modernismu v anglickém umění.


Euler's approach.

Euler's original derivation of the value essentially extended observations about finite polynomials and assumed that these same properties hold true for infinite series.  Of course, Euler's original reasoning requires justification (100 years later, Karl Weierstrass proved that Euler's representation of the sine function as an infinite product is valid, by the Weierstrass factorization theorem), but even without justification, by simply obtaining the correct value, he was able to verify it numerically against partial sums of the series. The agreement he observed gave him sufficient confidence to announce his result to the mathematical community.  To follow Euler's argument, recall the Taylor series expansion of the sine function  Dividing through by, we have  Using the Weierstrass factorization theorem, it can also be shown that the left-hand side is the product of linear factors given by its roots, just as we do for finite polynomials (which Euler assumed as a heuristic for expanding an infinite degree polynomial in terms of its roots, but is in general not always true for general formula_4):  If we formally multiply out this product and collect all the terms (we are allowed to do so because of Newton's identities), we see by induction that the coefficient of is  But from the original infinite series expansion of, the coefficient of is. These two coefficients must be equal; thus,  Multiplying both sides of this equation by − gives the sum of the reciprocals of the positive square integers.  This method of calculating formula_9 is detailed in expository fashion most notably in Havil's "Gamma" book which details many zeta function and logarithm-related series and integrals, as well as a historical perspective, related to the Euler gamma constant.

Generalizations of Euler's method using elementary symmetric polynomials.

Using formulas obtained from elementary symmetric polynomials, this same approach can be used to enumerate formulas for the even-indexed even zeta constants which have the following known formula expanded by the Bernoulli numbers:  For example, let the partial product for formula_11 expanded as above be defined by formula_12. Then using known formulas for elementary symmetric polynomials (a.k.a., Newton's formulas expanded in terms of power sum identities), we can see (for example) that  and so on for subsequent coefficients of formula_14. There are other forms of Newton's identities expressing the (finite) power sums formula_15 in terms of the elementary symmetric polynomials, formula_16 but we can go a more direct route to expressing non-recursive formulas for formula_17 using the method of elementary symmetric polynomials. Namely, we have a recurrence relation between the elementary symmetric polynomials and the power sum polynomials given as on this page by  which in our situation equates to the limiting recurrence relation (or generating function convolution, or product) expanded as  Then by differentiation and rearrangement of the terms in the previous equation, we obtain that

Consequences of Euler's proof.

By Euler's proof for formula_9 explained above and the extension of his method by elementary symmetric polynomials in the previous subsection, we can conclude that formula_17 is "always" a rational multiple of formula_23. Thus compared to the relatively unknown, or at least unexplored up to this point, properties of the odd-indexed zeta constants, including Apéry's constant formula_24, we can conclude much more about this class of zeta constants. In particular, since formula_25 and integer powers of it are transcendental, we can conclude at this point that formula_17 is irrational, and more precisely, transcendental for all formula_27.

The Riemann zeta function.

The Riemann zeta function is one of the most significant functions in mathematics because of its relationship to the distribution of the prime numbers. The zeta function is defined for any complex number with real part greater than 1 by the following formula:  Taking, we see that is equal to the sum of the reciprocals of the squares of all positive integers:  Convergence can be proven by the integral test, or by the following inequality:  This gives us the upper bound 2, and because the infinite sum contains no negative terms, it must converge to a value strictly between 0 and 2. It can be shown that has a simple expression in terms of the Bernoulli numbers whenever is a positive even integer. With :

A rigorous proof using Euler's formula and L'Hôpital's rule.

The Sinc function formula_32 has a Weierstrass factorization representation as infinite product:  The infinite product is analytic, so taking the natural logarithm of both sides and differentiating yields  After dividing the equation by formula_35 and regrouping one gets  We make a change of variables (formula_37):  Euler's formula can be used to deduce that  Then  Now we take the limit as formula_42 approaches zero and use L'Hôpital's rule thrice:

A rigorous proof using Fourier series.

Use Parseval's identity (applied to the function ) to obtain  where  for, and. Thus,  and  Therefore,  as required.

Another rigorous proof using Parseval's identity.

Given a complete orthonormal basis in the space formula_52 of L2 periodic functions over formula_53 (i.e., the subspace of square-integrable functions which are also periodic), denoted by formula_54, Parseval's identity tells us that  where formula_56 is defined in terms of the inner product on this Hilbert space given by  We can consider the orthonormal basis on this space defined by formula_58 such that formula_59. Then if we take formula_60, we can compute both that  by elementary calculus and integration by parts, respectively. Finally, by Parseval's identity stated in the form above, we obtain that

Generalizations and recurrence relations.

Note that by considering higher-order powers of formula_63 we can use integration by parts to extend this method to enumerating formulas for formula_64 when formula_65. In particular, suppose we let  so that integration by parts yields the recurrence relation that  Then by applying Parseval's identity as we did for the first case above along with the linearity of the inner product yields that

Cauchy's proof.

While most proofs use results from advanced mathematics, such as Fourier analysis, complex analysis, and multivariable calculus, the following does not even require single-variable calculus (until a single limit is taken at the end).  For a proof using the residue theorem, see the linked article.

History of this proof.

The proof goes back to Augustin Louis Cauchy (Cours d'Analyse, 1821, Note VIII). In 1954, this proof appeared in the book of Akiva and Isaak Yaglom "Nonelementary Problems in an Elementary Exposition". Later, in 1982, it appeared in the journal "Eureka", attributed to John Scholes, but Scholes claims he learned the proof from Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, and in any case he maintains the proof was "common knowledge at Cambridge in the late 1960s".

The proof.

The main idea behind the proof is to bound the partial (finite) sums  between two expressions, each of which will tend to as approaches infinity. The two expressions are derived from identities involving the cotangent and cosecant functions. These identities are in turn derived from de Moivre's formula, and we now turn to establishing these identities.  Let be a real number with, and let be a positive odd integer. Then from de Moivre's formula and the definition of the cotangent function, we have  From the binomial theorem, we have  Combining the two equations and equating imaginary parts gives the identity  We take this identity, fix a positive integer, set, and consider for. Then is a multiple of and therefore. So,  where formula_74 and formula_75.

The Basel problem is a problem in mathematical analysis with relevance to number theory, first posed by Pietro Mengoli in 1650 and solved by Leonhard Euler in 1734, and read on 5 December 1735 in "The Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences". Since the problem had withstood the attacks of the leading mathematicians of the day, Euler's solution brought him immediate fame when he was twenty-eight. Euler generalised the problem considerably, and his ideas were taken up years later by Bernhard Riemann in his seminal 1859 paper "On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude", in which he defined his zeta function and proved its basic properties. The problem is named after Basel, hometown of Euler as well as of the Bernoulli family who unsuccessfully attacked the problem.

Basilejský problém je otázka, zda a k jakému součtu konverguje řada převrácených hodnot čtverců přirozených čísel Roku 1644 tento problém předložil italský matematik Pietro Mengoli. Jako basilejský problém se označuje proto, že na něm pracovali basilejští matematici Jacob Bernoulli, který jej nedokázal plně vyřešit, i když dokázal, že řada konverguje, a Leonhard Euler, žák Jacobova bratra Johanna, který roku 1735 otázku zodpověděl textem "De Summis Serierum Reciprocarum" a ukázal, že součet řady se rovná formula_2.


Early life and background.

Amanda was born in New Jersey to Olga Anisimova and Konstantin Anisimov. She has an older sister, Maria, who played college tennis for the University of Pennsylvania while attending Wharton's undergraduate business school. Her parents emigrated from Russia to the United States a few years before she was born to give their older daughter better opportunities. They worked in the finance and banking industries, and neither played competitive tennis while growing up.  Anisimova started playing tennis at age two. She credits her sister as her inspiration for taking up the sport, saying, "When I was little she was playing tennis. I always saw her playing, and I wanted to do it too. That's how I got into it and my parents got into it too." Her family moved to Florida when she was very young, so Amanda and her sister would have more opportunities to train and find other coaches. Her father long acted as her primary coach while she was a junior, and her mother has also helped coach her. Additionally, she had worked with Nick Saviano starting from when she was 11 years old. Max Fomine, who has also been an assistant coach for the Bryan brothers, has served as her travelling coach.

Junior career.

Anisimova achieved a career high ITF junior ranking of No. 2 in the world in 2016. Early in her junior career she entered the 2015 Abierto Juvenil Mexicano ranked outside the top 300, but unexpectedly won the high-level Grade A tournament at age 14. She continued to excel in 2016, winning the Grade 1 Copa del Café and reaching the final at the Grade A Copa Gerdau. On the strength of these results Anisimova was the No. 2 seed at the French Open. In her second career junior Grand Slam tournament, she became the first American finalist at the girls' event since Ashley Harkleroad in 2002 before finishing runner-up to Rebeka Masarova. During the summer she competed in the USTA Girls' 18s National Championship as the No. 5 seed and finished in 4th place.  As a 15-year-old Anisimova won two more big titles, the first at the Grade 1 Yucatán Cup in late 2016 and the second at the Grade A Copa Gerdau in early 2017 where she had been a finalist a year earlier. Following these titles, she played in only two more ITF junior tournaments that year, both of which were Grand Slams. She capped off her junior career by winning her first Grand Slam title at the US Open, where she defeated fellow American Coco Gauff in the final and did not drop a set during the tournament. Anisimova was also a member of the United States team that won the 2017 Junior Fed Cup, but did not play in the final tie due to illness.

Professional career.

2016–17: French Open debut, ITF title.

In the middle of 2016, Anisimova received a wild card into US Open qualifying, her first professional tournament. She won her debut match against world No. 124 Verónica Cepede Royg at the age of 14, before losing in the following round. Following her junior title at the 2017 Copa Gerdau in February, Anisimova stayed in Brazil and played in an ITF $25K event in Curitiba. She reached her first final on the pro tour at the tournament, despite this being her first professional main draw. A few weeks later, Anisimova was awarded a wild card into the Miami Open, where she lost to Taylor Townsend in three sets in her WTA main draw debut.  During the clay-court season, Anisimova won the USTA French Open Wild Card Challenge by reaching back-to-back finals at the ITF $80K event in Indian Harbour Beach and the ITF $60K event in Dothan the following week. These results also helped her crack the top 300 of the WTA rankings. In her Grand Slam debut, she lost her first-round match at the French Open to Kurumi Nara. Nonetheless, she became the youngest player to participate in the main draw since Alizé Cornet in 2005. After forgoing the grass-court season, Anisimova continued to play on the ITF Pro Circuit. She broke into the top 200 by capturing her first career professional title at the $60K event in Sacramento towards the end of July while she was still 15 years old.

2018: Top 100, WTA final, top 10 victory.

Anisimova's first two tournaments of the year were the inaugural Oracle Challenger Series 125K events at Newport Beach and Indian Wells. She qualified for both main draws, and her semifinal at Indian Wells helped her earn a main draw wild card into the WTA event there the following week. At the Indian Wells Open, Anisimova became the youngest player to reach the fourth round since Nicole Vaidišová in 2005. She defeated Pauline Parmentier for her first career WTA match win before upsetting No. 23 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and then No. 9 Petra Kvitová, who was on a 14-match win streak. Her run ended against No. 5 Karolína Plíšková. Anisimova was also awarded a wild card into Miami Open. She won her opening match against Wang Qiang despite injuring her right foot in the third set. This injury forced her to withdraw from the tournament and kept her out for four months. At the time, she had risen to a career-high ranking of No. 128 in the world.  Anisimova returned to tennis in July at the Silicon Valley Classic. She qualified for the main draw and won her first match back, which was also against Wang Qiang. She then reached the third round of the Cincinnati Open to return to the top 150. After losing her opening match as a wild card at the US Open, Anisimova next entered the Japan Women's Open. In her first tournament as a 17-year-old, she qualified for the main draw and made it to her first career WTA final, dropping just one set overall and none in the main draw before the final. She defeated top seed and world No. 41 Zhang Shuai in the semifinals before finishing runner-up to second seed Hsieh Su-wei. With this performance, she also cracked the top 100 for the first time.

2019: Maiden WTA title, French Open semifinal.

Anisimova played one tune-up event before the Australian Open, reaching the quarterfinals at the Auckland Open. Despite having never won a singles match at a major, Anisimova made it to the fourth round of the Australian Open. She won her first three matches in straight sets, including a victory over one of the favorites for the title in world No. 11 Aryna Sabalenka, before losing to eventual finalist Petra Kvitová. The following two months, she did not record more than a single match win at any of her next four tournaments.  Having skipped the clay-court season the previous year due to injury, Anisimova entered the Copa Colsanitas in Colombia without any match wins on clay at the WTA level. Nonetheless, she won the tournament for her first WTA title. As the sixth seed, she won four of her five matches in three sets, including the final against Astra Sharma. Anisimova closed out the clay-court season by becoming the youngest semifinalist at the French Open since Vaidišová in 2006. During the tournament, she defeated No. 11 Sabalenka again in the second round and then upset the defending champion and world No. 3 Simona Halep in the quarterfinals. She did not lose a set until the semifinals when she was defeated by the eventual champion and world No. 8 Ashleigh Barty despite coming from behind to win the first set after losing the first five games and needing to save two set points in the sixth game. With this result, she rose to No. 26 in the world.  Anisimova had less success in the second half of the season. Her best result was a quarterfinal at the Silicon Valley Classic, where she lost to the eventual champion Zheng Saisai. She dealt with a back injury during the event, which led her to withdraw from both Premier 5 events within the next month. Late in August, she withdrew from the US Open following the death of her father. She entered two more tournaments afterwards, winning one match in total before ending her year early. Nonetheless, she reached as high as No. 21 in the world near the end of the season. She qualified for the WTA Elite Trophy, the second-tier year-end championships, but did not accept the invitation.

2020.

Anisimova began the year at the WTA Auckland Open, where, after defeating Kateryna Kozlova, Daria Kasatkina, and Eugenie Bouchard, she fell to Serena Williams in the semi-finals. Anisimova followed this up with a disappointing performance at the Australian Open, falling to Zarina Diyas in the first round. She also teamed up with Nick Kyrgios for Mixed Doubles, where they fell in the 2nd round. She suffered a further first round loss in Dubai, where she fell to Barbora Strýcová. She fared better at Doha, where she defeated Ekaterina Alexandrova and Elina Svitolina in straight sets, before having to withdraw from her third round match against Svetlana Kuznetsova with injury.

Playing style.

Anisimova is an aggressive baseliner, who has powerful groundstrokes from both wings. Her two-handed backhand is her most potent weapon, and is hit consistently with depth, speed, and power; she produces many winners with her backhand down-the-line. Her forehand is also strong, and is hit flat with a condensed swing, allowing her to generate sharp angles with this stroke. She can hit her forehand effectively at any ball height, rendering her forehand deadly on any surface. She is fast around the court, and her footwork is quick and intricate, allowing her to extend rallies until she can create an opportunity to hit a winner. One of her greatest strengths is her return of serve, especially when returning second serves, neutralising powerful serves with a crosscourt inside-out forehand or a backhand down-the-line, making her one of the most effective returners on the WTA tour. The cleanliness of her ball-striking, quick movement, point construction, and powerful groundstrokes make her a formidable opponent on any surface.

Amanda Anisimova ( ; born August 31, 2001) is an American professional tennis player. She is the second-youngest player ranked in the top 100 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and has a career-high ranking of No. 21 in the world. Anisimova won her first WTA title at the Copa Colsanitas in April 2019 at the age of 17.

Amanda Anisimovová, nepřechýleně "Anisimova", (* 31. srpna 2001 Freehold Township, New Jersey) je americká profesionální tenistka a vítězka juniorky na US Open 2017. Ve své dosavadní kariéře na okruhu WTA Tour vyhrála jeden singlový turnaj. V rámci okruhu ITF získala do června 2019 jeden titul ve dvouhře. Na French Open 2019 se stala prvním tenistou bez rozdílu pohlaví ve čtvrtfinále Grand Slamu, který se narodil ve 21. století.


Biography.

Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan in the provincial town of Chust, but spent his childhood in the capital Tashkent where his father was a state prosecutor. Planning to pursue a career of a diplomat, he later moved to Moscow and joined Moscow State Institute of International Relations from which he graduated in 1976 with a degree in international law.  After graduating, Usmanov returned to Tashkent where he was appointed director of the Foreign Economic Association of the Soviet Peace Committee.  He was arrested and convicted on charges of fraud and 'theft of socialist property' in Uzbek SSR in August 1980 and imprisoned for six years of an eight-year sentence. This conviction was vacated in July 2000, 11 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, by the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, when it ruled that "the original conviction was unjust, no crime was ever committed, and that the evidence was fabricated." There are also allegations, according to former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, that he was also convicted of rape in the same year. However, the Uzbek government had refuted such conviction ever taking place.  Usmanov, who is Muslim, married Jewish Irina Viner, a top rhythmic gymnastics coach, in 1992. Viner is considered to be close to Putin, having introduced him to former rhythmic gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Usmanov attended the Academy of Finance to study banking beginning in 1997. Although Usmanov has no biological children, through his wife Irina Viner, Usmanov has a step-son, who has become a real-estate investor, currently constructing 30 real estate projects.  Usmanov is a close friend of Roman Abramovich, who owns Chelsea Football Club, and the two shared the same circle of friends in Russia (Usmanov even employed Abramovich's first wife Olga to work for his company).  Usmanov owns the Grade I listed Tudor mansion Sutton Place set in in Surrey, which he bought for £10 million in 2004. In 2012, it was claimed by businessman Boris Berezovsky that Usmanov was given Sutton Place as part of a business deal, a claim that Usmanov denied. In 2008, Usmanov bought Beechwood House, a Grade II listed Regency property in of grounds in the London suburb of Highgate from the Qatari sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani for £48 million. Usmanov also owns a property in Moscow and a villa on the Italian island of Sardinia.  Usmanov has owned two luxury yachts named "Dilbar," after his mother. In 2008 he took delivery of the first "Dilbar" (now Al Raya) from Lürssen at a reported cost of $250 million. As of 2019 she is the 38th largest motor yacht by length, measuring 110.0 m (361 ft). In 2015 Usmanov commissioned the second "Dilbar", the current largest yacht in the world by gross tonnage (15,917 gt) and the 6th largest yacht by length measuring 156.0 m (512 ft). She is reported to have cost $800 million, employ 84 full-time crew members, and contain the largest indoor swimming pool installed on a superyacht at 180 cubic metres. After taking delivery of the second "Dilbar", Usmanov renamed the original "Ona" and in 2018 it was sold to a middle-eastern buyer.

Business interests.

USM Holdings and Metalloinvest.

Usmanov has a 60% economic interest and 100% voting rights in USM Holdings, a global conglomerate with main investments in metals and mining industry, telecommunications, technology, and media.  Through USM Holdings and as an individual investor, Usmanov owns diverse interests including stakes in iron ore and steel, media and internet companies. He is the co-owner of Metalloinvest, which he founded along with business partner Vasiliy Anisimov, in order to manage his acquisitions in the metal industry. Metalloinvest owns a wide range of Russian metal and mining businesses including Lebedinsky GOK and Mikhailovsky GOK; Oskol Elektrometallurgical Plant and Ural Steel steel mills and a ferrous scrap enterprise – Ural Scrap Company. It also has interests in auxiliary businesses including 21% of Nautilus Minerals, which explores the ocean floor for polymetallic sulphide deposits, 100% of Baikal Mining Company, which owns the license to one of the world's largest copper deposits, and 5% of Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium and one of the leading producers of platinum and copper.  Since 2006, he has acquired stakes in Australia-based mining companies, Medusa, Mt Gibson and Aztec Resources through Gallagher Holdings, now USM Holdings. In 2009, Metalloinvest Holding has sold its 10.37% stake in Australian gold producer Medusa Mining. Usmanov is the second largest shareholder, after Dr Mohammed Al Bawani (MB Holding), in Toronto-listed (TSX) Nautilus Minerals (NUSMF), which is planning to extract undersea gold and copper deposits off Papua New Guinea in 2019.  He has also purchased, through Gallagher Holdings, an interest in Australian mining company Strike Resources, which is working on an iron ore deposit in Peru.  In November 2015, USM invested US$100 million in competitive video game esports team Virtus Pro.

Mail.Ru Group.

In May 2009, Digital Sky Technologies (which later changed its name to "Mail.Ru Group"), a company in which he owns a 17.9-percent stake, paid $200 million for a 1.96-percent stake in social networking website Facebook. Mail.ru made notable investments in other international technology companies, including Twitter, Groupon, Zynga, Airbnb, ZocDoc, Alibaba and 360buy. Consistent with its investment goals, in 2013 Mail.ru sold its share of Facebook for 525 million as well as its share of Groupon and Zynga.  The Alibaba investment was said by Usmanov to be up 500% in late 2014. The Facebook investment Usmanov implied he had sold, saying "I admire Facebook, but I said 'arrivederci' Facebook". At the same time, he said he had made an investment in "Chinese low-cost smartphone maker Xiaomi", saying it is a "future technology giant", and that he is looking to invest in India, particularly the online trade sector.  In September 2018, it was reported that Mail.ru would enter into a $2 billion joint venture with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The agreement would merge the online marketplaces of both companies in the Russian market and was backed by the Kremlin via the Russian Direct Investment Fund.

MegaFon.

Usmanov is a co-owner of Russia's second-largest mobile telephone operator, MegaFon. The carrier's subscriber based has grown significantly in the past decade, exceeding 65 million members.  The joint venture between Mail.ru and Alibaba in 2018 also meant that Usmanov would sell its 10% stake, valued at around $486 million, in Mail.ru to Alibaba.

Apple investment.

In 2013, he was said to have invested $100 million in Apple. He subsequently disposed of his shares in early 2014.

Gazprom Invest Holdings.

Usmanov was the General Director of Gazprom Invest Holdings, the investment-holding subsidiary of Russia's state-owned gas company Gazprom, and managed it for more than a decade; During this time it invested in DST and its Facebook and Twitter holdings. Usmanov left the company in 2014.

Kommersant and media firms.

In August 2006, Usmanov began to invest in media. He bought "Kommersant", a newspaper formerly owned by Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The deal was finalised at US$200 million. Usmanov also made a $25 million purchase of a 50-percent stake in Russian sports TV channel 7TV in November 2006 and bought 75 percent of Russian TV music channel Muz-TV for $300 million in June 2007. Usmanov is currently a co-owner of the media holding company UTH, which holds 51% of Disney Russia and 100% of Muz TV and U television channels.

Other.

Usmanov worked as the Deputy General Director of Intercross JSC from 1990 to 1994, and from 1994 to 1998, he headed Interfin Interbank Investment and Finance Company. He also acted as an Adviser to the General Director of Moscow Aviation Industrial Enterprise from 1994 to 1995, and served as the First Deputy Chairman of MAPO-Bank from 1995 to 1997.  Usmanov had a significant ownership in Arsenal F.C.

Sport related activities.

Arsenal F.C..

Usmanov moved into the football arena in August 2007 by acquiring a 14.58-percent stake in the English football team Arsenal. He and his business partner Farhad Moshiri bought the stake in the club owned by former Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein for £75 million. David Dein was appointed as head of their investment vehicle, Red and White Holdings, which became the largest shareholder in the club outside of members of the board of directors.  On 28 September 2007, it was announced that Red and White Holdings had increased its shareholding to 23 percent, making it the second largest shareholder in the club behind Danny Fiszman on 24 percent. On 15 February 2008, he increased it further to over 24 percent, giving him a stake just short of Arsenal non-executive director and major shareholder Danny Fiszman's 24.11 percent. However, there was speculation that Usmanov might already be the club's largest shareholder at 24.2 percent, which he later increased to 25 percent on 16 February 2009.  Red and White Holdings confirmed on 28 February 2008 that it was the club's largest shareholder and the company said it "has the necessary funding to increase its stake further [but] it has no current intention to make a full takeover bid for Arsenal for six months." If the stake were to reach 30 percent, Red and White Holdings would have to launch a formal takeover. Usmanov said he had been an Arsenal fan for seven years and he had a great love for Arsenal.  Usmanov's interest precipitated a "lock-down" agreement by the Gunners' board, whereby chairman Peter Hill-Wood announced that club directors could sell their stakes only to "permitted persons" before April 2009, and had to give fellow board members "first option" on shares until October 2012. However, there was a termination clause in the agreement in October 2010. "The lockdown...makes us bullet-proof," said the then Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman.  American businessman Stanley Kroenke, already a major Arsenal shareholder, increased his stake in the club to just over 62 percent in April 2011 after buying out Fiszman and Lady Bracewell-Smith, making him the majority shareholder. As Kroenke's stake had risen above 30 percent, he was obliged to make an offer to buy out the remainder of Arsenal shares. Usmanov refused to sell, however, and maintained his stake.  Usmanov increased his Arsenal FC share beyond 29 percent in June 2011. Red and White Holdings announced on 20 June 2011 that it had more than 29-percent stake in Arsenal Holdings Plc. This was further increased after Usmanov purchased shares held by Scottish football club Rangers in February 2012. As of October 2013, he owned over 30% of the club.  Usmanov criticized Arsenal's lack of ambition and financial model in an open letter sent to the board on 5 July 2012. This criticism came as consequence of the Dutch football player Robin van Persie's decision not to extend his contract. Usmanov, who remains a major shareholder, states that he has no intention of selling his shares. A month later, he reiterated his view that "the current politics of the club's management" were in part responsible for Arsenal's failure to win trophies. On 7 August 2018 it was reported that Usmanov had accepted a bid of 550m for his shares at Arsenal.

International Fencing Federation.

A former sabre fencer who fenced for the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Usmanov invested in the promotion of fencing through his charity fund "For the Future of Fencing", created in 2004, and was president of the Russian Fencing Federation from 2001 to 2009 and of the European Fencing Confederation from 2005 to 2009. He was elected president of the International Fencing Federation during the 2008 Paris Congress with 66 votes to 61 for incumbent president René Roch. He was re-elected at the 2012 Moscow congress with 127 votes.

The International Charity Fund for the Future of Fencing.

In 2005, The International Charity Fund for the Future of Fencing was founded by Alisher Usmanov. The mission of the Charity Fund is to facilitate the international popularization of fencing and to raise it to a higher level worldwide.

Specialized Endowment Fund to Support Veterans Fencing.

In 2012, Usmanov announced that a "specialized endowment fund to support veterans fencing" had been created. The fund is capitalized with $15,000,000, the amount allocated by the International Charity Fund For the Future of Fencing.

Other sport-related activities.

Usmanov is a member of the Councils of the 2014 Sochi XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Olympian Sportsmen Support Fund. In 2015 it was announced that USM invested the equivalent of US$100 million in the Eastern European eSports team Virtus.pro.  In January 2017, Usmanov's holding company, USM, entered into a five-year, $15 million+ deal with Everton F.C. for the naming rights of the club's training ground, Finch Farm. Usmanov's accountant and partner in USM holdings is Farhad Moshiri, the current majority shareholder of Everton, and former co-owner of Usmanov's Arsenal shares, Red and White holdings.

Philanthropy.

Charity Fund "Art, Science and Sport" founded by Alisher Usmanov is in close cooperation with London's Tate Britain. Together they carried out several projects in Russia such as the Turner exhibition in 2009 and the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition in 2013.  On 17 September 2007, Usmanov paid more than £20 million for an art collection owned by the late Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, days before it was to be auctioned by Sotheby's in London. He gave all the artwork to the Russian state, where it is housed in the Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg. Later that same month he purchased the rights to a large collection of Soviet cartoons, which for fifteen years had been owned by Russian-born actor Oleg Vidov, who emigrated to the United States in 1985. After the deal, valued at $5–10 million, Usmanov donated the cartoon collection to a newly formed Russian children's television channel.  Usmanov is a member of the Board of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the chairman of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs committee on regulatory activity improvement and removal of administrative barriers. He is also one of the founders of the Arts and Sports Charity Foundation and a guarantor of the Charity project "One Thousand Russian cities".  Usmanov is a Trustee for a range of social, educational and cultural organisations, including the Russian Geographical Society, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, National Research University Higher School of Economics, and European University in St. Petersburg.  According to presidential decree No. 365 of 17 March 2004, Usmanov was awarded with a Medal of Honor of Russia. In 2011, Usmanov received the Order of Friendship of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 2013, he was awarded the Order for Service to the Fatherland IV class in recognition of his services to the state, as well as his community and charitable activities. In the same year, he was awarded a medal 'For contribution to international cooperation' by the Foreign Ministry of Russia. In 2014, Usmanov received the Order of Alexander Nevsky for his community and charitable activities.  According to "The Sunday Times" Giving List 2013, Usmanov was one of the most significant philanthropists, having donated £112.6 million in the preceding twelve months.  On 4 December 2014, Usmanov paid $4.8m for Dr James Watson's Nobel Prize Medal in Physiology or Medicine, which was auctioned at Christie's in New York City. Watson was selling his prize to raise money to support scientific research. After auctions fees, Watson received $4.1m. Usmanov subsequently returned the medal to Watson, stating "in my opinion, a situation in which an outstanding scientist sells a medal recognizing his achievements is unacceptable. Watson's work contributed to cancer research, the illness from which my father died. It is important for me that the money that I spent on this medal will go to supporting scientific research, and the medal will stay with the person who deserved it."  In 2015 he donated €1.5 million toward the restoration of Rome's Basilica Ulpia.  In February 2020, it was revealed Usmanov purchased Pierre de Coubertin's original 1892 Olympic Manifesto for $8.8 million. He then donated it to the Olympic Museum. The manifesto has become the world's most expensive piece of sports memorabilia.  In May 2020, Usmanov topped the list of contributors to the fight against COVID-19 among the participants of "The Sunday Times" Rich List with a donation of £117.7m.

Controversies.

Suppression of online criticism.

On 2 September 2007, Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan referred to Alisher Usmanov's criminal conviction, claiming that Usmanov "was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail" and his pardon was the work of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov on the instructions of Uzbekistani power broker and alleged drug trafficker Gafur Rakhimov. The article was subsequently removed by Murray's web host, allegedly under pressure from Usmanov's legal team, London's Schillings law firm. However, what followed was that Schillings contacted independent blogs and websites warning them to remove any references to Murray's allegations, and any reproduction of the blog posting. UK Indymedia reported that they were one of the sites that had been issued with a take down notice on 10 September 2007 and again on 21 September. On 20 September 2007, Bloggerheads.com, the weblog of Tim Ireland, was taken down for reproducing Murray's article, incidentally causing the loss of other blogs belonging to the MP Boris Johnson and councillor Bob Piper – none of which themselves had reproduced the article. Usmanov has subsequently been referenced in U.S. media reports as a "corrupt oligarch."

Kommersant.

On 12 December 2011, following the 2011 Russian protests regarding vote-rigging in parliamentary elections, the weekly "Kommersant Vlast" magazine ran an unflattering issue on Vladimir Putin titled "Victory of United ballot-stuffers" – a pun on Putin's United Russia party. Usmanov sacked the editor, Maxim Kovalsky, and the head of the publisher's holding company, Andrei Galiyev, saying there had been an "ethical breach" and that the issue "bordered on petty hooliganism". The controversy surrounded an image of a ballot paper from the parliamentary vote with the words "Putin, go fuck yourself" scrawled in red ink. The caption read: "A correctly filled out ballot recognized as invalid." Demyan Kudryavtsev, the head of the Kommersant publishing house, assumed responsibility by resigning, stating in a blog post that the magazine issue had been "in violation of internal procedures, professional journalistic standards and the Russian law".  Nadezhda Azhgihina, executive secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists, was shocked by the incident, calling it "a clear example of censorship from the owner". On 14 December 60 journalists from the Kommersant newspaper signed an open letter to Usmanov, saying, "We are being compelled to be cowards, which is unworthy and unproductive...We regard [Kovalsky's] dismissal as an act of intimidation aimed at preventing any critical words about Vladimir Putin...We take particular offense at the attempt to present the dismissal of a man for his professional position as a fight for the purity of the Russian language. This is the same kind of fabrication that offended people at the election." Usmanov responded that emotionally, he could "understand the journalists speaking up for sacked top managers" but that "Kommersant Vlast is a respectable, independent, socio-political publication." Mikhail Prokhorov, who had announced his candidacy for the 2012 presidential election, offered to buy Kommersant on the same day, but Usmanov rejected the offer.

English Wikipedia.

On 12 November 2012, the British newspaper "The Times" reported that Usmanov had hired a London-based PR firm, RLM Finsbury, that edited Usmanov's article on the online encyclopedia English Wikipedia to remove information on Usmanov's criminal convictions and later controversies surrounding their client. The discovery caused significant backlash among the PR professionals in the UK, with the CEO of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations stressing that "public relations professionals should not directly edit Wikipedia for a client or employer". The PR firm acknowledged their actions and stated that they had acted without the authorisation of their client. The information was said to have been removed in expectation of the stock market listing of MegaFon, which is controlled by Usmanov. As of January 2015, the original "Times" article has been removed from the newspaper's website, its publicly accessible archives, and Google search.

Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov (; ; born 9 September 1953) is an Uzbek-born Russian oligarch. As reported by "Forbes" in 2020, Alisher Usmanov has an estimated net worth of $11.68 billion.

Ališer Burchanovič Usmanov,, (* 9. září 1953 Chust) je ruský podnikatel uzbeckého původu. V roce 2019 Forbes odhadoval jeho majetek na 12,6 miliardy amerických dolarů. Majetek získal v oblasti metalurgie a těžby, je majoritním vlastníkem koncernu Metalloinvest. Dále vlastní nebo spoluvlastní například druhého největšího mobilního operátora Ruska MegaFon, největšího ruského internetového prodejce Mail.Ru (a přes něj sociální sítě Odnoklassniki a VKontakte) nebo vydavatelství Kommersant. Je prezidentem Mezinárodní šermířské federace a tento sport celosvětově podporuje. V dobách Sovětského svazu strávil několik let ve vězení za hospodářskou kriminalitu a v roce 2012 se jím najatá PR firma snažila tuto informaci odstranit z Usmanovova životopisu na anglické Wikipedii.