Biography.

1917–1933: Early life.

Thelonious Sphere Monk was born two years after his sister Marion on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and was the son of Thelonious and Barbara Monk. His poorly written birth certificate misspelled his first name as "Thelious" or "Thelius". It also did not list his middle name, taken from his maternal grandfather, Sphere Batts. A brother, Thomas, was born in January 1920. In 1922, the family moved to the Phipps Houses, 243 West 63rd Street, in Manhattan, New York City; the neighborhood was known as San Juan Hill because of the many African-American veterans of the Spanish–American War who lived there (urban renewal displaced the long-time residents of the community, who saw their neighborhood replaced by the Amsterdam Housing Projects and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, though the Phipps Houses remained). Monk started playing the piano at the age of six and was largely self-taught. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a public school for gifted students, but did not graduate.

1934–1946: Early playing career.

At 17, Monk toured with an evangelist, playing the church organ, and in his late teens he began to find work playing jazz. In the early to mid-1940s, he was the house pianist at Minton's Playhouse, a Manhattan nightclub. Much of Monk's style (in the Harlem stride tradition) was developed during his time at Minton's, when he participated in after-hours cutting contests, which featured many leading jazz soloists of the time. Monk's musical work at Minton's was crucial in the formulation of bebop, which would be furthered by other artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Parker, and, later, Miles Davis. Monk is believed to be the pianist featured on recordings Jerry Newman made around 1941 at the club. Monk's style at this time was later described as "hard-swinging," with the addition of runs in the style of Art Tatum. Monk's stated influences included Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and other early stride pianists. According to the documentary "", Monk lived in the same neighborhood in New York City as Johnson and knew him as a teenager.  Mary Lou Williams, who mentored Monk and his contemporaries, spoke of Monk's rich inventiveness in this period, and how such invention was vital for musicians, since at the time it was common for fellow musicians to incorporate overheard musical ideas into their own works without giving due credit. "So, the boppers worked out a music that was hard to steal. I'll say this for the 'leeches,' though: they tried. I've seen them in Minton's busily writing on their shirt cuffs or scribbling on the tablecloth. And even our own guys, I'm afraid, did not give Monk the credit he had coming. Why, they even stole his idea of the beret and bop glasses."  In 1944 Monk made his first studio recordings with the Coleman Hawkins Quartet. Hawkins was one of the earliest established jazz musicians to promote Monk, and the pianist later returned the favor by inviting Hawkins to join him on a 1957 session with John Coltrane.

1947–1952: Lorraine Gordon.

In 1947, Ike Quebec introduced Monk to Lorraine Gordon and her first husband, Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note Records. From then on, Gordon preached his genius to the jazz world with unrelenting passion. Shortly after meeting Gordon and Lion, Monk made his first recordings as a leader for Blue Note (later anthologized on "Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1"), which showcased his talents as a composer of original melodies for improvisation. Monk married Nellie Smith the same year, and on December 27, 1949 the couple had a son, T. S. Monk (called Toot), who became a jazz drummer. A daughter, Barbara (affectionately known as Boo-Boo), was born on September 5, 1953 and died of cancer in 1984.  In her autobiography, Gordon spoke of the utter lack of interest in Monk's recordings, which translated to poor sales. "I went to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me. I'll never forget one particular owner, I can still see him and his store on Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. 'He can't play lady, what are you doing up here? The guy has two left hands.' 'You just wait,' I'd say. 'This man's a genius, you don't know anything.'"  Due to Monk's reticence, Gordon became his mouthpiece to the public. In February 1948, she wrote to Ralph Ingersoll, the editor of the newspaper "PM," and described Monk as "a genius living here in the heart of New York, whom nobody knows". As a result, one of "PM"'s best writers visited Monk to do a feature on him, but Monk wouldn't speak to the reporter unless Gordon was in the room with him. In September of the same year, Lorraine approached Max Gordon, the owner and founder of the Village Vanguard jazz club, and secured Monk his first gig there. Monk was showcased at the club for a week, but not a single person came.  In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and his friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was nominally unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served. Although this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years, a coterie of musicians led by Randy Weston introduced Monk to Black-owned bars and clubs in Brooklyn that flouted the law, enabling the pianist to play little-advertised, one-night engagements throughout the borough with a modicum of regularity. Monk spent most of the early and mid-1950s composing, recording at Blue Note, and performing at theaters, outer borough clubs and out-of-town venues.

1952–1954: Prestige Records.

After intermittent recording sessions for Blue Note from 1947 to 1952, Monk was under contract to Prestige Records for the following two years. With Prestige, he cut several highly significant, but at the time under-recognized, albums, including collaborations with the saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. In 1954, Monk participated in a Christmas Eve session, which produced most of the albums "Bags' Groove" and "Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants" by Davis. In his autobiography, "Miles", Davis claimed that the alleged anger and tension between them did not take place and that the claims of blows being exchanged were "rumors" and a "misunderstanding".  In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Paris. As well as performing at concerts, he recorded a solo piano session for French radio (later issued as an album by Disques Vogue). Backstage, Mary Lou Williams introduced him to Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild family and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She was a close friend for the rest of Monk's life, including taking responsibility for him when she and Monk were charged with marijuana possession.

1955–1961: Riverside Records.

By the time of his signing to Riverside, Monk was highly regarded by his peers and by some critics, but his records remained poor sellers and his music was still regarded as too "difficult" for more mainstream acceptance. Indeed, with Monk's consent, Riverside had managed to buy out his previous Prestige contract for a mere $108.24. He willingly recorded two albums of jazz standards as a means of increasing his profile: "Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington" (1955) and "The Unique Thelonious Monk" (1956).  On "Brilliant Corners", recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music. The complex title track, which featured Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk.  After having his cabaret card restored, Monk relaunched his New York career with a landmark six-month residency at the Five Spot Cafe in the East Village neighborhood of New York beginning in June 1957, leading a quartet with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Shadow Wilson on drums. Little of this group's music was documented owing to contractual problems: Coltrane was signed to Prestige at the time, but Monk refused to return to his former label. One studio session by the quartet was made for Riverside, three tunes which were not released until 1961 by the subsidiary label Jazzland along with outtakes from a larger group recording with Coltrane and Hawkins, those results appearing in 1957 as the album "Monk's Music". An amateur fan recording from the Five Spot (a later September 1958 reunion with Coltrane sitting in for Johnny Griffin) was issued on Blue Note in 1993; and a pristine quality recording of the quartet performing at a Carnegie Hall concert on November 29 was recorded in high fidelity by Voice of America engineers, rediscovered in the collection of the Library of Congress in 2005 and released by Blue Note.  "Crepuscule with Nellie," recorded in 1957, "was Monk's only, what's called through-composed composition, meaning that there is no improvising. It is Monk's concerto, if you will, and in some ways it speaks for itself. But he wrote it very, very carefully and very deliberately and really struggled to make it sound the way it sounds. [... I]t was his love song for Nellie," said the author of the "definitive Monk biography," Robin Kelley.  The Five Spot residency ended Christmas 1957; Coltrane left to rejoin Davis's group, and the band was effectively disbanded. Monk did not form another long-term band until June 1958 when he began a second residency at the Five Spot, again with a quartet, this time with Griffin (and later Charlie Rouse) on tenor, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums.  On October 15, 1958, en route to a week-long engagement for the quartet at the Comedy Club in Baltimore, Maryland, Monk and de Koenigswarter were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer the policemen's questions or cooperate with them, they beat him with a blackjack. Although the police were authorized to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as given under duress.

1962–1970: Columbia Records.

After extended negotiations, Monk signed in 1962 with Columbia Records, one of the big four American record labels of the day. Monk's relationship with Riverside had soured over disagreements concerning royalty payments and had concluded with a brace of European live albums; he had not recorded a studio album since "5 by Monk by 5" in June 1959.  Working with producer Teo Macero on his debut for Columbia, the sessions in the first week of November had a lineup that had been with him for two years: tenor saxophonist Rouse (who worked with Monk from 1959 to 1970), bassist John Ore, and drummer Frankie Dunlop. "Monk's Dream", his first Columbia album, was released in 1963.  Columbia's resources allowed Monk to be promoted more heavily than earlier in his career. "Monk's Dream" became the best-selling LP of his lifetime, and on February 28, 1964, he appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine, being featured in the article "The Loneliest Monk". The cover article was originally supposed to run in November 1963, but it was postponed due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to biographer Kelley, the 1964 "Time" appearance came because "Barry Farrell, who wrote the cover story, wanted to write about a jazz musician and almost by default Monk was chosen, because they thought Ray Charles and Miles Davis were too controversial.... [Monk] wasn't so political....[O]f course, I challenge that [in the biography]," Kelley wrote.  Monk continued to record studio albums, including "Criss Cross", also in 1963, and "Underground", in 1968. But by the Columbia years his compositional output was limited, and only his final Columbia studio record, "Underground", featured a substantial number of new tunes, including his only time piece, "Ugly Beauty".  As had been the case with Riverside, his period with Columbia contains many live albums, including "Miles and Monk at Newport" (1963), "Live at the It Club", and "Live at the Jazz Workshop", the latter two recorded in 1964, the last not being released until 1982. After the departure of Ore and Dunlop, the remainder of the rhythm section in Monk's quartet during the bulk of his Columbia period was Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, both of whom joined in 1964. Along with Rouse, they remained with Monk for over four years, his longest-serving band.

1971–1982: Later life and death.

Monk had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a small number of appearances during the final decade of his life. His last studio recordings as a leader were made in November 1971 for the English Black Lion label, near the end of a worldwide tour with the Giants of Jazz, a group which included Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Al McKibbon, and Blakey. Bassist McKibbon, who had known Monk for over twenty years and played on his final tour in 1971, later said: "On that tour, Monk said about two words. I mean literally maybe two words. He didn't say 'Good morning,' 'Goodnight,' 'What time?' Nothing. Why, I don't know. He sent word back after the tour was over that the reason he couldn't communicate or play was that Art Blakey and I were so ugly." A different side of Monk is revealed in Lewis Porter's biography, "John Coltrane: His Life and Music"; Coltrane states: "Monk is exactly the opposite of Miles [Davis]: he talks about music all the time, and he wants so much for you to understand that if, by chance, you ask him something, he'll spend hours if necessary to explain it to you." Blakey reports that Monk was excellent at both chess and checkers.  The documentary film "" (1988) attributes Monk's quirky behavior to mental illness. In the film, Monk's son says that his father sometimes did not recognize him, and he reports that Monk was hospitalized on several occasions owing to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, then pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. Doctors recommended electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment option for Monk's illness, but his family would not allow it; antipsychotics and lithium were prescribed instead. Other theories abound: Leslie Gourse, author of the book "Straight, No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk" (1997), reported that at least one of Monk's psychiatrists failed to find evidence of manic depression (bipolar disorder) or schizophrenia. Another doctor maintains that Monk was misdiagnosed and prescribed drugs during his hospital stay that may have caused brain damage.  As his health declined, Monk's last six years were spent as a guest in the Weehawken, New Jersey, home of his long-standing patron and friend, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who nursed Monk during his final illness. She proved to be a steadfast presence, as did his own wife Nellie, especially as his life descended into further isolation. Monk did not play the piano during this time, even though one was present in his room, and he spoke to few visitors. He died of a stroke on February 17, 1982, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Technique and playing style.

Monk famously said, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes."  According to "Bebop: The Music and Its Players" author Thomas Owens, "Monk's usual piano touch was harsh and percussive, even in ballads. He often attacked the keyboard anew for each note, rather than striving for any semblance of legato. Often seemingly unintentional seconds embellish his melodic lines, giving the effect of someone playing while wearing work gloves. [...] He hit the keys with fingers held flat rather than in a natural curve, and held his free fingers high above the keys. [...] Sometimes he hit a single key with more than one finger, and divided single-line melodies between the two hands." In contrast with this unorthodox approach to playing, he could play runs and arpeggios with great speed and accuracy. He also had good finger independence, allowing him to play a melodic line and a trill simultaneously in his right hand.  Monk often used parts of whole tone scales, played either ascending or descending, and covering several octaves. He also had extended improvisations that featured parallel sixths (he also used these in the themes of some of his compositions). His solos also feature space and long notes. Unusually for a bebop-based pianist, as an accompanist and on solo performances he often employed a left-hand stride pattern. A further characteristic of his work as an accompanist was his tendency to stop playing, leaving a soloist with just bass and drums for support. Monk had a particular proclivity for the key of B flat. All of his many blues compositions, including "Blue Monk," "Misterioso," "Blues Five Spot," and "Functional," were composed in B flat; in addition, his signature theme, "Thelonious," largely consists of an insistently repeated B-flat tone.

Tributes.

Tribute albums.

The following tribute albums to Monk have been released:

Awards and accolades.

In 1993, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz".  The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz was established in 1986 by the Monk family and Maria Fisher. Its mission is to offer public school-based jazz education programs for young people around the globe, helping students develop imaginative thinking, creativity, curiosity, a positive self-image, and a respect for their own and others' cultural heritage. In addition to hosting an annual International Jazz Competition since 1987, the Institute also helped, through its partnership with UNESCO, designate April 30, 2012, as the first annual International Jazz Day.  Monk was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.

Thelonious Sphere Monk (10. říjen 1917, Rocky Mount, Severní Karolína – 17. února 1982, Englewood, New Jersey) byl jazzový pianista a skladatel. Obecně je pokládán za jednoho z nejvýznamnějších jazzových hudebníků všech dob. Ve hře měl unikátní improvizační styl a do jazzu přinesl mnoho nového (mimo jiné klasické standardy jako "Round Midnight" nebo "Blue Monk"). Často bývá pokládán za zakladatele bebopu, přestože jeho styl hry se vyvíjel jinak než tato forma jazzu. Jeho kompozice a improvizace jsou plné nesouzvučných souzvuků a hrubých jemností, neoddělitelných od Monkova neortodoxního přístupu ke hře na piano, v níž kombinoval explozivní, nárazové tempo s dramatickými odmlkami a pozastaveními.


Municipalities.

Smolyan Province (Област, "Oblast") contains 10 municipalities (singular: община, "obshtina"; plural: Общини, "obshtini"). The following table shows the names of each municipality in English and Cyrillic, the main town or village (towns are shown in bold), and the population of each as of December 2009.

Population.

The Smolyan province had a population of 140,066 according to the 2001 census, of which were male and were female. As of the end of 2009, the population of the province, announced by the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute, numbered 124,795 of which are inhabitants aged over 60 years. The following table represents the change of the population in the province after World War II:

Ethnic groups.

Total population (2011 census): 121 752<br> Ethnic groups (2011 census): Identified themselves: 95,175 persons: A further 26,000 persons in the Province did not declare their ethnic group at the 2011 census.  In the 2001 census, 132,654 people of the population of 140,066 of Smolyan Province identified themselves as belonging to one of the following ethnic groups:

Language.

In the 2001 census, 135,761 people of the population of 140,066 of Smolyan Province identified one of the following as their mother tongue (with percentage of total population): 129,181 Bulgarian (), 5,782 Turkish (), 532 Romani () and 266 other ().

Religion.

Unlike Kardzhali Province where the majority of the Muslim population is Turkish, the Muslim population of Smolyan Province is made up mostly of Muslim Bulgarians. The Muslim population is mainly concentrated in the municipalities Banite, Borino, Dospat, Madan and Rudozem. The Orthodox-Christians population live predominantly in the municipality of Smolyan and the municipality of Chepelare. The religious structure of the municipalities of Devin, Nedelino and Zlatograd is mixed with Pomaks as well as Orthodox-Christians.  Religious adherence in the province according to 2011 census:

Economy.

The economy of the province is based on tourism, mining, timber and machine industries and livestock raising. The main crops of the region are potatoes (about 30% of the national production), rye and barley; but sheep, pigs and cattle are of greater importance for the agriculture. In the eastern parts of the province are located more than 20 lead and zinc mines, which form one of the most extensive ore deposits in the Balkans. The dense coniferous forests are prerequisite for well developed timber industry in Dospat, Smolyan, Devin. In Smolyan there are big plants producing machine tools and other machinery, while textile industry is mainly developed to the east in Nedelino, Zlatograd, Madan and Rudozem. There is also a synthetic rubber plant in Madan Bulgaria's national observatory, Rozhen Observatory, is located near Chepelare. The primary of Media of Bulgaria has a 2-meter mirror, and is the largest observatory in SE Europe.

Smolyan Province (, "Oblast Smolyan"; former name Smolyan okrug) is a province in Southern-central Bulgaria, located in the Rhodope Mountains, neighbouring Greece to the south. It is named after its administrative and industrial centre—the city of Smolyan. The province embraces a territory of. that is divided into 10 municipalities with a total population of 124,795 inhabitants, as of December 2009.

Smoljanská oblast ( "Област Смолян") je jedna z oblastí Bulharska. Leží v jeho jižní části podél hranice s Řeckem a jejím správním střediskem je město Smoljan.


Personal life.

Moir was born in London, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Alma (née MacCormack) and Joe Moir, and was raised in Ilderton, Ontario. Moir comes from a skating family. He is the younger brother of Danny Moir and Charlie Moir. His cousins Sheri Moir and Cara Moir competed at the 2007 World Synchronized Skating Championships for Canada's NEXXICE team. His mother is a coach. Moir attended Medway High School (Arva, Ontario), in addition to an electronic learning high school called AMDEC. As of 2016, he lived in Montreal, Quebec.  In August 2019, Moir confirmed his engagement to former skating partner Jaclyn Mascarin at the Hometown Walk of Fame Canada event where he and Virtue were being honored for their accomplishments accumulated during their 22-year skating career.

Career.

Early career.

Moir was first partnered with Jaclyn Mascarin. They only skated one competition together before ending the partnership.  Tessa Virtue and Moir began skating together in 1997, paired together by his aunt. Early in their career, Virtue and Moir trained in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, with Paul MacIntosh and Suzanne Killing. They were the pre-novice champions at the 2001 Canadian Championships.  In the 2001–02 season, Virtue and Moir won the bronze medal at the 2002 Canadian Championships at the novice level. The following season, they placed 7th at the 2003 Canadian Championships in the junior division.  In 2004, Virtue and Moir moved to Canton, Michigan, and began working with coaches Igor Shpilband and Marina Zueva at the Arctic Edge Ice Arena.

2003–04 season: Junior Grand Prix debut.

In 2003–04, Virtue and Moir made their ISU Junior Grand Prix debut on the 2003–04 ISU Junior Grand Prix. They placed 4th at the event in Croatia and 6th in Slovakia. At the 2004 Canadian Championships, they won the Junior title, qualifying them for the team to the 2004 World Junior Championships, where they placed 11th.

2004–05 season.

The following season, Virtue and Moir moved up to the senior level nationally but remained juniors internationally. On the 2004–05 ISU Junior Grand Prix, they won the event in China and won the silver medal at the event in France, which qualified them for the Junior Grand Prix Final, where they won the silver medal. They made their senior national debut at the 2005 Canadian Championships and placed fourth. They were named to the team to the 2005 World Junior Championships, where they won the silver medal.

2005–06 season: World Junior title and senior international debut.

Virtue and Moir remained at the junior level internationally in the 2005–06 season. On the 2005–06 ISU Junior Grand Prix, they won both their events as well as the Junior Grand Prix Final.  At the 2006 Canadian Championships, Virtue and Moir placed 3rd and were named first alternates to the Olympic team. They were named to the team to the 2006 Four Continents, where they won the bronze medal. At the 2006 World Junior Championships, they became the first Canadian ice dancers to win the title. Virtue and Moir are the most decorated junior-level Canadian ice dancers.

2006–07 season: Grand Prix debut.

In the 2006–07 season, Virtue and Moir competed solely on the senior level. They made their Grand Prix debut at the 2006 Skate Canada International, where they won the silver medal. They placed 4th at the 2006 Trophée Éric Bompard.  At the 2007 Canadian Championships, Virtue and Moir won the silver medal, and repeated their bronze medal finish at Four Continents. Their debut at the World Championships was the highest debut by any team in over two decades when they placed 6th.

2007–08 season: Four Continents title.

Virtue and Moir were assigned to Skate Canada International and the NHK Trophy for the 2007–08 Grand Prix season. They won the 2007 Skate Canada International and placed second at the 2007 NHK Trophy, qualifying them for the Grand Prix Final, where they came in fourth place.  Virtue and Moir won their first Canadian national title at the 2008 Canadian Championships and earned spots for the Four Continents and World Championships. They won the gold medal at the 2008 Four Continents Championships. At the 2008 World Championships in Sweden, Virtue and Moir won the silver medal, winning the free dance segment with their program to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg soundtrack.

2008–09 season.

In the 2008–09 season, Virtue and Moir withdrew from both their Grand Prix events due to Virtue's medical condition; she had been diagnosed with chronic exertional compartment syndrome and underwent surgery in October 2008 to alleviate the condition. She returned to the ice at the start of December, which she later said was probably too early. At the 2009 Canadian Championships, they won the gold medal.  At the 2009 Four Continents Championships, Virtue and Moir won the silver medal behind their friends and training partners, Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White. At the 2009 World Championships, they won the bronze medal, after placing 3rd in the compulsory dance, 6th in the original dance, and 4th in the free skate.

2009–10 season: Olympic and World titles.

Virtue/Moir started off the 2009–10 Olympic season at the 2009 Trophée Éric Bompard, finishing first by a margin of 16.07 points ahead of the silver medalists, Nathalie Péchalat and Fabian Bourzat. They also won the 2009 Skate Canada International with a combined score of 204.38 points, 19.31 points ahead of Péchalat/Bourzat. At that competition, they received the first 10.0 for ice dance under the ISU Judging System. They were second at the Grand Prix Final behind Davis and White. In January 2010, Virtue and Moir won their third national title at the 2010 Canadian Championships, placing first in all three segments of the competition and earning 221.95 points overall, which was 37.25 ahead of silver medalists Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier. They set Canadian records for free dance and for combined total.  Virtue and Moir competed in the ice dance competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics from February 19 through 22. They placed second in the compulsory dance, earning a new personal best score of 42.74 points, just 1.02 off the lead. They earned 68.41 points in the original dance, placing first in that segment of the competition. They scored 110.42 points in the free dance and won the gold medal overall with an insurmountable total score of 221.57, surpassing silver medalists Davis and White by 5.83 points. In the free dance, they received four 10.00 marks from the judges in the program components, two for the performance execution and two for interpretation, a feat never before accomplished by a figure skater or team under the International Judging System. They became the first Canadian as well as the first North American ice dance team and the youngest dance team to win the Olympics, and the first ice dance team to win the Olympic gold on home ice. They were also the first ice dancers to win gold in their Olympic debut since the inaugural Olympic ice dance event in 1976.  Virtue/Moir competed at the 2010 World Championships and placed first in the compulsory dance with 44.13 points, improving their previous personal best. They also won the original dance with 70.27 points, a world record under the ISU Judging System. They placed second in the free dance with 110.03 points, 0.46 behind Davis and White. Overall they claimed their first World Championship title scoring 224.43 points, 1.40 ahead of the Americans. They received numerous 10.00 for program components marks in the original dance and in the free dance.

2010–11 season.

For the 2010–11 Grand Prix season, Virtue and Moir were assigned to the 2010 Skate Canada International and to the 2010 Trophée Éric Bompard. Virtue underwent surgery in October 2010 to reduce the lingering pain in her shins and calves that is a result of chronic exertional compartment syndrome, leading to their withdrawal from Skate Canada. They also withdrew from the 2011 Canadian Championships because they did not have enough time to train after the surgery.  Virtue/Moir made their season debut at the 2011 Four Continents. They were in the lead following the short dance but withdrew midway through the free dance after Virtue felt tightness in her left quad muscle. Virtue stated, "The issue with my quad was actually coming from my pelvis and my back. [I]t seemed to be stemming from a particular lift we were doing, which was a split lift. Upon returning home to Michigan we changed that lift immediately, so now we do an upside-down position instead of a split." At the 2011 World Championships, they placed second overall by 3.48 points behind the American team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White.  Following the World Championships, Virtue experienced pain in her shins and calves. She decided against another surgery and chose other methods to overcome the problem.

2011–12 season: Second Four Continents and World titles.

Virtue/Moir were assigned to two Grand Prix events, 2011 Skate Canada and 2011 Trophée Éric Bompard, having declined a newly introduced option to compete in a third. They announced their music selections in August. The two won their first event of the season, 2011 Finlandia Trophy. They won both their Grand Prix events and qualified for the Grand Prix Final, where they finished second in both segments to win the silver medal. In late December 2011, the ISU acknowledged a scoring error in the free dance; had the scores been correctly calculated (+ 0.5 points), Virtue and Moir would have won that segment. The scores from the Grand Prix Final were left unchanged, however.  Virtue/Moir won their fourth national title in January 2012. In February, they competed at the 2012 Four Continents Championships. After a second place short dance, they rallied in the free dance to win their second Four Continents championships and first since 2008. It was also their first victory over training mates Davis/White since the 2010 World Championships. Virtue and Moir then competed at the 2012 World Championships and won the gold medal, finishing first in both segments ahead of silver medalists Davis and White.  Following Igor Shpilband's dismissal from the Arctic Edge Arena in June 2012, Virtue and Moir decided to remain at the rink with Marina Zueva and ended their collaboration with Shpilband.

2012–13 season.

Virtue and Moir withdrew from the 2012 Finlandia Trophy due to a slight muscle strain in Moir's neck. They were assigned to two Grand Prix events, the 2012 Skate Canada International and the 2012 Rostelecom Cup. At Skate Canada, Virtue and Moir won the short dance with a score of 65.09, only 0.01 points ahead of Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte of Italy. They went on to win the competition with a total score of 169.41, which was 9.35 points ahead of the Italians.  At the Grand Prix Final, Virtue and Moir took the silver medal behind Davis and White. They decided to modify their "The Waltz Goes On" short dance, simplifying the storyline. The two debuted the modified short dance at the 2013 Canadian Championships, earning a score of 79.04. They won their fifth national title with a combined score of 187.19 after their "Carmen"-themed free dance. Virtue and Moir placed first in the short dance at the 2013 Four Continents Championships. During their free dance, Virtue felt cramping in her legs and paused the performance; they resumed after about three minutes and finished second to Davis and White. Virtue and Moir also finished second to Davis and White at the 2013 World Championships in their hometown of London, Ontario.

2013–14 season: Two Olympic silver medals.

Virtue/Moir started their season at the 2013 Finlandia Trophy and won the gold medal. They were assigned to two Grand Prix events for the season, the 2013 Skate Canada International and the 2013 Trophée Éric Bompard, and won both competitions. They finished with a world record score in the Grand Prix Final (190.00) that was beaten minutes later by Davis/White.  During the airing of the 2014 Canadian National Championships on TSN, Virtue and Moir stated that they could be retiring after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. At the Sochi games, they won silver in both the ice dance and team skate events. The second-place finish was coloured by controversy about the coaching and judging. The French sports publication "L’Équipe" alleged that the US and Russian judges had conspired to ensure gold for Russia in the team event and gold for Americans Davis and White in the ice dance competition. Notably, after the individual short dance event where Virtue and Moir were two points behind Davis and White, the creator of the Finnstep (required pattern dance that season), ice dancer Petri Kokko, spoke out on Twitter to support Virtue and Moir. In addition, coach Marina Zoueva's apparent conflict of interest in coaching both the first- and second-place ice dancers provoked questions about whether she had displayed favouritism to the Americans (especially after she chose to march in the opening ceremony with the US team) and had devoted less coaching time to the Canadians. Although Virtue and Moir later admitted concerns about the coaching, they also congratulated the American pair on their Olympic victory.  Virtue and Moir decided not to compete at the 2014 World Championships.

2016–17 season: Third Four Continents and World titles.

On February 20, 2016, Virtue and Moir announced on CBC's "Road to the Olympic Games" that they planned to return to competition for the 2016–17 figure skating season and that they had moved to Montreal, with Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon as their new coaches. Their first assignment back during the 2016–17 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating season was the 2016 Skate Canada International where they won gold with a combined total score of 189.06. In November 2016, they set a new record total score of 195.84 (including a world record short dance mark of 79.47) at the 2016 NHK Trophy competition in Japan. They set the highest scores at a Grand Prix event. Two weeks later, they topped those scores, receiving 80.5 in the short dance and 197.22 total at the Grand Prix Final in Marseille, France, which they won gold for the first time in their careers.  At the 2017 Canadian Figure Skating Championships in January, Virtue and Moir won their seventh national title with a combined score of 203.45, setting Canadian records in the short dance, free dance, and total points. At the 2017 Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in South Korea in February, they won their third title, setting a new personal best in the free dance with 117.20 points and earning 196.95 points overall.  Virtue and Moir broke their own world record short dance score at the 2017 World Championships in Helsinki. They received a score of 82.43 and had a huge 5.5-point lead over reigning champions and training partners Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron. They placed second behind Papadakis/Cizeron in the free dance with Moir tripping. Moir said, "I got back up and Tessa said a really funny joke to me, it automatically put me back on track and I just kept going." Overall they totaled 198.62 points, setting yet another world record and winning their third title as world champions. For the first time in their competitive career, Virtue/Moir were undefeated for an entire season.

2017–18 season: Two Olympic gold medals.

For the 2017–2018 season, Virtue and Moir chose The Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and Santana for their short dance, and skated to the "Moulin Rouge!" soundtrack for their free dance. Virtue and Moir started their season at the Autumn Classic International in September. Their Grand Prix assignments were Skate Canada International and the NHK Trophy, and they won both competitions, scoring 199.86 and 198.64, respectively. At the 2017 Grand Prix Final, Virtue and Moir lost for the first time in a year, finishing second to frequent competitors Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France, who had a half-point lead after the short dance.  Virtue and Moir competed at the 2018 Canadian National Championships. They debuted their revamped free dance, adding new choreography and music for a more dramatic performance. There, they captured their 8th national title with a combined score of 209.82, after having a nearly perfect short dance and getting a perfect score on the free dance. After the competition, they changed a "risque" lift in their "Moulin Rouge" routine that had involved Virtue's legs wrapped around Moir's head. At the Olympics, they performed the modified lift during the team event but went back to the original version for the individual ice dance event.  On January 16, they were named the Canadian flag bearers for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Virtue and Moir won gold as part of Canada's team in the Olympic team event. With their fourth Olympic medal, they tied the record for the most ever won by a figure skater. In the individual event, Virtue and Moir topped their own record score for the short dance, putting them into first place. They then placed second in the free dance and won another Olympic gold. They also broke the world record for overall score, which had been set by Papadakis/Cizeron minutes before. This was Virtue and Moir's fifth Olympic medal, making them the most decorated figure skaters in Olympic history.

Other work.

In October 2010, Moir, Virtue and co-writer Steve Milton published a book about their career called "Tessa and Scott: Our Journey from Childhood Dream to Gold". In late 2013, they filmed a reality TV show, "Tessa and Scott", which focused on their training for the Olympics. The show aired on W network in January 2014.  Virtue and Moir toured with Stars on Ice in Canada and Japan in the offseason since 2010 and during their break from competition. They performed in ice shows such as Festa on Ice, Shall We Dance On Ice, and All That Skate. They also participated in in Switzerland and went on Gold Medal Plate auction trips multiple times.  He and Virtue co-produced and skated in their own ice skating show, The Thank You Canada Tour in 2018. Following on from that success, they co-produced the Rock the Rink tour in 2019.  Throughout Virtue and Moir's competitive skating career, they have been sponsored by many companies, including:

Records and achievements.

Olympics:  Record scores:  In general:

Competitive highlights with Virtue.

"GP: Grand Prix; CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix"

Scott Patrick Moir (born September 2, 1987) is a retired Canadian ice dancer. With ice dance partner Tessa Virtue, he is the 2010 and 2018 Olympic champion, the 2014 Olympic silver medalist, a three-time World champion (2010, 2012, 2017), a three-time Four Continents champion (2008, 2012, 2017), the 2016–17 Grand Prix Final champion, an eight-time Canadian national champion (2008–2010, 2012–2014, 2017–2018), and the 2006 World Junior champion. Moir and Virtue are also the 2018 Olympic gold medalists in the team event and the 2014 Olympic silver medalists in the team event. They are the most decorated Canadian ice dance team of all time and the most decorated Olympic figure skaters of all time.

Scott Moir (* 2. září 1987 Londýn, Ontario) je kanadský krasobruslař soutěžící v kategorii tanečních párů. Jeho partnerkou je Tessa Virtueová. Je olympijským vítězkem ze Zimních olympijských her 2010 ve Vancouveru, dvojnásobným mistrem světa pro roky 2010 a 2012, stříbrným medailistou z Mistrovství světa v krasobruslení 2008, vítězem Mistrovství čtyř kontinentů pro rok 2008, juniorským mistrem světa 2006 a mistrem Kanady v letech 2008–2010.


Biography.

Yosef Sprinzak was born in Moscow, Russia but following the expulsion of Jews in 1891 moved with his family to Kishinev where he was a founder of the Tze'irei Zion (Zion Youth). He began medical school at the American University in Beirut in 1908 and settled in Palestine in 1910, during the Second Aliyah (1904–1914).  Along with Eliezer Kaplan Sprinzak headed "Hapoel Hatzair" ("The Young Worker") a Zionist socialist faction formed in 1905 and one of the organisations that consolidated to form Mapai in 1930. Its members were pro-British and supported Chaim Weizmann. He was a founder of the Histadrut in 1920 and acted as secretary general of the organisation from 1945 to 1949.  His son Yair Sprinzak also served in the Knesset. Another son, Aharon David Sprinzak, an Israeli Air Force pilot, was killed in action during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. His grandson, Ehud Sprinzak (1940-2002) was one of Israel's foremost experts on counterterrorism and far-right Jewish groups.

Political career.

Sprinzak was elected to the position of speaker of the provisional parliament on 15 July 1948, a role in which he helped lay the foundations of Israel's parliamentarism. He was elected to the first Knesset in 1949 as a member of Mapai, and became the Speaker of the new body. He was re-elected and remained speaker in both the second and third Knessets.  As part of his role as speaker, Sprinzak became acting President of Israel when Chaim Weizmann fell ill from 12 December 1951. After Weizmann's death on 9 November 1952 Sprinzak served as interim President until inauguration of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi on 10 December 1952.

Yosef Sprinzak (; 8 December 1885 – 28 January 1959) was a leading Zionist activist in the first half of the 20th century, an Israeli politician, and the first Speaker of the Knesset, a role he held from 1949 until his death in 1959.

Josef Šprincak (: יוסף שפרינצק, žil 8. prosince 1885 – 28. ledna 1959) byl vůdčí sionistický aktivista první poloviny 20. století, izraelský politik a první předseda Knesetu. Tuto funkci zastával od roku 1949 až do své smrti v roce 1959.


Early life and education.

Quentin Alice Louise Strachan was born in 1942 in Brisbane, the second of four daughters. Her parents, Norman Walter Strachan and Edwina Naida Wetzel, had taken up residence at Ilfracombe in 1940. Bryce—along with all of the children in her family—received home-schooling rather than attending the local State school. Her family left the area in 1949, initially relocating to Launceston, Tasmania, where they remained for approximately a year. Returning to Queensland, her family moved to Belmont. While living in Belmont she attended the Camp Hill State School, and there first met her future husband, Michael Bryce.  During the period that they were residing in Belmont, her father moved to Tenterfield, New South Wales. In 1956, Quentin Strachan started attending boarding school at Moreton Bay College, Wynnum, Brisbane.  Upon graduating from high school, Quentin Strachan undertook studies at the University of Queensland, initially enrolling in a social work and arts degree, but transferring to law in her third year at the institution. She graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1965.  Quentin Strachan married Michael Bryce on 12 December 1964; the couple have two daughters and three sons. In 1965 she became one of the first women to be admitted to the Queensland Bar, although she never practised professionally.

Career.

After spending some time in London, Bryce returned to Australia and accepted a part-time tutoring position at the T. C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland in 1968, thus becoming the first woman to be appointed to the faculty. In 1969 she took up a lecturing position at the law school, and she continued to teach at the university until 1983.  In 1978 the Fraser government formed the National Women's Advisory Council and Bryce was "vaulted to prominence" with her appointment to the council, taking on the role of convener in 1982. In 1984 she became the first director of the Queensland Women's Information Service under the umbrella of the Office of the Status of Women and was appointed as the "women's representative on the National Committee on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation". In 1987 she became the Queensland director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC).  Over a five-year period (1988–1993) Bryce served as Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner during the time of the Hawke Labor government. Her time in the role was a busy one, with around 2,000 complaints being handled by the commission each year and the work difficult and complex. The period was also noted as being one of "galloping legal reform" for the rights of women, yet, as Sandra McLean described it, Bryce kept a firm grip on the "reins of change" during this time. Nevertheless, concerns were raised when, in 1990, Alexander Proudfoot formally complained that the women's health centres in the Australian Capital Territory were operating in breach of the Sex Discrimination Act. This culminated in 1994 when Bryce faced an HREOC hearing after being accused of discriminating against Proudfoot – and ended when the commission found in Bryce's favour and dismissed the complaint, stating that the behaviour in question "did not reflect on the way Ms Bryce discharged her duties".  After finishing her time as the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Bryce became the founding chair and chief executive officer of the National Childcare Accreditation Council, where she remained for three years before changing direction between 1997 and 2003 when she became the principal and chief executive officer of The Women's College within the University of Sydney, New South Wales. The move was said to have "stunned her political and legal acquaintances", but Bryce saw it as bringing "together all the life skills and attributes" that she had acquired, as well as providing an opportunity to have an influence on the students' futures.  In other roles, Bryce has been the chair of the National Breast Cancer Advisory Council and sat on the Australian Women's Cricket Board, and has been a member of organisations such as the YWCA, the Australian Children's Television Foundation and the Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. Bryce was also a US State Department Visitor in 1978 and a Member of the Australian Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland from 1989 to 1991.

Governor of Queensland.

In 2003, on the recommendation of the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, appointed Bryce as Governor of Queensland, the second woman to occupy the position. Once Bryce's nomination had been accepted by the Queen, Beattie opened it up for debate in the Legislative Assembly—an "unprecedented" move performed by the Premier as the first step in changing the manner by which the nominations are managed. Nevertheless, the outcome was never in doubt, as Beattie had a majority in the Legislative Assembly and had "cleared the vote with the National and Liberal leaders" prior to the debate.  Bryce's time at Government House, Brisbane, was not always peaceful, but she was considered by some as a "highly respected figure" during her time as governor. Concerns raised in the media included the "substantial" exit of staff at Government House not long after Bryce became governor, as at least eight staff, including the executive office, head chef, house manager and gardener resigned or were fired during her term, and the use of Government House for private parties. In response to the latter, Beattie argued that there was nothing wrong with holding private functions at Government House, especially as Bryce had paid for the events out of her own pocket, while the Queensland Public Sector Union stated in 2008 that the staff disputes were "with the management as a whole, but there wasn't anything specific against the Governor". Staff at Queensland Government House had "not [been] enthusiastic" about Bryce as Queensland governor. A former staff member described Bryce as a "control freak".  In January 2008, it was announced her initial five-year term, due to end in late July, was to be extended to cover the period of Queensland's sesquicentennial celebrations in 2009. In making the announcement, Labor Premier Anna Bligh described how Bryce had been an "inspiring leader" while serving as governor, and acknowledged Bryce's willingness to spend a "great deal of time" in regional and remote areas, serving as a "Governor for all of Queensland". The extension did not eventuate, however, as she was appointed governor-general, and she was succeeded as Queensland governor on 29 July 2008 by Penelope Wensley.

Governor-General of Australia.

On 13 April 2008 it was announced that, on the recommendation of the Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the Queen had approved Bryce's appointment as the next Governor-General of Australia. The decision was generally well received: current and previous Labor state premiers supported her selection and both the then Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson, and the leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, spoke in favour of the decision. Patricia Edgar described Bryce's selection as an "inspired choice", while Jill Singer in the "Herald Sun" said that the decision signalled "an important about face for Australia".  There was some opposition to the appointment, in particular from columnist Des Houghton, who argued that she would bring a "fair bit of baggage" to the role (in reference to the controversies surrounding her time as the Governor of Queensland) and that she had failed to live up to her promise to be outspoken during her time at Government House. Concerns were also raised in August 2008, when it was revealed that Bryce intended to replace Malcolm Hazell, who had been the Official Secretary for both Major General Michael Jeffery and Peter Hollingworth, with Stephen Brady. Kevin Rudd defended Bryce's decision, arguing that she had the right to appoint a new Official Secretary.  Bryce was sworn in on 5 September 2008. An extension of her term was announced on 24 October 2012, to expire in March 2014.  On the election of Bill Shorten as Leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition in October 2013, Bryce offered her resignation to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, in order to forestall any perception of bias, given that Bryce's daughter Chloe Shorten is married to Shorten. While acknowledging her magnanimity, Abbott declined to accept her resignation and asked her to serve the rest of her term. According to him Bryce provided continuity at a time of political turbulence and she should be commended for her dedication to public service.

Controversy.

Greg Sheridan, in the national newspaper "The Australian", suggested that the governor-general risked "politicising and misusing the office". Sheridan was commenting on Bryce's planned trip to Africa on behalf of the prime minister to lobby for a seat for Australia in the United Nations Security Council. He further stated that Bryce's "feigned interest in Africa will be seen cynically by Africans". Sheridan added that governors-general should travel overseas "only rarely and for ceremonial purposes", and "they have no right to engage in foreign policy debate, at home or abroad".  David Flint, National Convenor of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, said that any criticism of the South African tour should be directed to the government and not the governor-general. He said: "The Governor-General must act on advice, except in relation to her most important role, that of constitutional guardian. She may advise against a state visit, but if ministers insist, must go. In that event, she must not of course act as an advocate, although she may inform the foreign government of the Australian government's policy." He said that a governor-general must be seen to be above politics.  Similarly to her time as governor in Queensland, Government House in Canberra witnessed significant staff turnover, with claims that she was very difficult to work for.  In November 2013, Bryce delivered the annual ABC Boyer Lecture. Bryce stated she would like to see an Australia where: "people are free to love and marry whom they choose [...] And where perhaps, my friends, one day, one young girl or boy may even grow up to be our nation's first head of state". Her comments drew severe criticism, not merely for their support of a republic while still serving as the Queen's representative, but because the role is meant to be strictly non-partisan. Senator Dean Smith called them "a slap in the face to many, many Australians, and a significant breach of trust". Amanda Vanstone accused her of possible grandstanding, and wrote: "In publicly declaring these views, she has brought that high office into a political realm in which it does not belong... Someone might explain to her that the job is not about her... it's about us." Although the Australian republican movement supported her comments, head of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy David Flint stated that: "There's this sense of division that she's created and the position is not intended to be divisive—it's intended to unite and be above politics." Prime Minister Tony Abbott supported her right to comment, saying "It's more than appropriate for the Governor-General, approaching the end of her term, to express a personal view on a number of subjects, and that's what she was doing."

Honours.

Honorary degrees.

Queensland: New South Wales:

Dame Quentin Alice Louise Bryce, (née Strachan; born 23 December 1942) is an Australian academic who served as the 25th Governor-General of Australia from 2008 to 2014. She is the first woman to have held the position, and was previously the 24th Governor of Queensland from 2003 to 2008.

Dame Quentin Alice Louise Bryceová (rozená Strachanová; 23. prosince 1942 v Brisbane, Queensland) je australská politička a bývalá generální guvernérka Austrálie.


History.

The moshav was founded in the evening of the Jewish holiday Shavuot (23 May 1939) on the lands of the Arab village al-Shajara, which the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association had bought in the 1920s. Initially it was established as a tower and stockade settlement by part of the members from the cooperative moshav Moledet, most of which were immigrants from Germany, whom strove to live in a moshav ovdim. Initially the settlement was named "Omer" after the Nahal which established it, although later on the name of the village was changed to "Shadmot Dvora", after the name of Dorothy de Rothschild, the wife of James Armand de Rothschild who was the president of PICA (he was appointed to this position in 1924 by his father Edmond James de Rothschild), that from his money the lands of the moshav were bought, and also after Deborah the prophetess, whom gathered the Israeli tribes to fight the Canaanites in this area (Judges 4:14).  During the first seven years the residents of the moshav lived within the walls of the small tower and stockade settlement, which was located opposite the unfriendly Arab village of Shaara on the other side of the wadi, only after the conclusion of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War during which the inhabitants of Shaara fled to the neighboring Arab countries, their village was ruined and the residents of the moshav felt more secure to start living outside of the walls. Following this, at the end of the 1940s and the start of the 1950s the lands of the moshav were distributed between all the inhabitants of the moshav, in which the inhabitants established individual farms for each family, while the rest of the lands were distributed among the residents for agricultural purposes.  During the 1970s a new part was added to the moshav in its southern part, in which new houses were constructed which were bought by the children of the residents of the moshav, and also new residents.  During the 1980s the economic condition of the moshav worsened, as a result of financial debts accumulation and the commonalty of the settlement was put under an Administrative receivership. Since the end of the 1990s and during the course of the 2000s, under the Administrative receivership, on a designated vacant part of the moshav in its eastern part, which wasn't in use by anyone, new houses were built and were sold to the children of the veteran residents of the moshav and to new residents in order to cover the debts of the moshav.

Shadmot Dvora () is a moshav in northern Israel. Located south-west of Tiberias, it falls under the jurisdiction of Lower Galilee Regional Council. In it had a population of.

Šadmot Dvora ( שַׁדְמוֹת דְּבוֹרָה, : Shadmot Dvora, doslova "Dvořiny Lány" či "Dvořiny Vinice"; volně "Včelí Lány"), v oficiálním seznamu sídel Shadmot Devora) je vesnice typu mošav v Izraeli, v Severním distriktu, v Oblastní radě Dolní Galilea.


Sources.

Compared to neighbouring Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, few records of 9th- and 10th-century events in Scotland survive. The main local source from the period is the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba", a list of kings from Kenneth MacAlpin (died 858) to Kenneth II (Cináed mac Maíl Coluim, died 995). The list survives in the Poppleton Manuscript, a 13th-century compilation. Originally simply a list of kings with reign lengths, the other details contained in the Poppleton Manuscript version were added in the 10th and 12th centuries. In addition to this, later king lists survive. The earliest genealogical records of the descendants of Kenneth MacAlpin may date from the end of the 10th century, but their value lies more in their context, and the information they provide about the interests of those for whom they were compiled, than in the unreliable claims they contain.  For narrative history the principal sources are the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" and the Irish annals. The evidence from charters created in the Kingdom of England provides occasional insight into events in northern Britain. While Scandinavian sagas describe events in 10th-century Britain, their value as sources of historical narrative, rather than documents of social history, is disputed. Mainland European sources rarely concern themselves with affairs in Britain, and even less commonly with events in northern Britain, but the life of Saint Cathróe of Metz, a work of hagiography written in Germany at the end of the 10th century, provides plausible details of the saint's early life in north Britain.  While the sources for north-eastern Britain, the lands of the kingdom of Northumbria and the former Pictland, are limited and late, those for the areas on the Irish Sea and Atlantic coasts—the modern regions of north-west England and all of northern and western Scotland—are non-existent, and archaeology and toponymy are of primary importance.

Pictland from Constantín mac Fergusa to Constantine I.

The dominant kingdom in eastern Scotland before the Viking Age was the northern Pictish kingdom of Fortriu on the shores of the Moray Firth. By the 9th century, the Gaels of Dál Riata (Dalriada) were subject to the kings of Fortriu of the family of Constantín mac Fergusa (Constantine son of Fergus). Constantín's family dominated Fortriu after 789 and perhaps, if Constantín was a kinsman of Óengus I of the Picts (Óengus son of Fergus), from around 730. The dominance of Fortriu came to an end in 839 with a defeat by Viking armies reported by the "Annals of Ulster" in which King Uen of Fortriu and his brother Bran, Constantín's nephews, together with the king of Dál Riata, Áed mac Boanta, "and others almost innumerable" were killed. These deaths led to a period of instability lasting a decade as several families attempted to establish their dominance in Pictland. By around 848 Kenneth MacAlpin had emerged as the winner.  Later national myth made Kenneth MacAlpin the creator of the kingdom of Scotland, the founding of which was dated from 843, the year in which he was said to have destroyed the Picts and inaugurated a new era. The historical record for 9th-century Scotland is meagre, but the Irish annals and the 10th-century "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" agree that Kenneth was a Pictish king, and call him "king of the Picts" at his death. The same style is used of Kenneth's brother Donald I (Domnall mac Ailpín) and sons Constantine I (Constantín mac Cináeda) and Áed (Áed mac Cináeda).  The kingdom ruled by Kenneth's descendants—older works used the name House of Alpin to describe them but descent from Kenneth was the defining factor, Irish sources referring to "Clann Cináeda meic Ailpín" ("the Clan of Kenneth MacAlpin")—lay to the south of the previously dominant kingdom of Fortriu, centred in the lands around the River Tay. The extent of Kenneth's nameless kingdom is uncertain, but it certainly extended from the Firth of Forth in the south to the Mounth in the north. Whether it extended beyond the mountainous spine of north Britain—Druim Alban—is unclear. The core of the kingdom was similar to the old counties of Mearns, Forfar, Perth, Fife, and Kinross. Among the chief ecclesiastical centres named in the records are Dunkeld, probably seat of the bishop of the kingdom, and "Cell Rígmonaid" (modern St Andrews).  Kenneth's son Constantine died in 876, probably killed fighting against a Viking army which had come north from Northumbria in 874. According to the king lists, he was counted the 70th and last king of the Picts in later times.

Britain and Ireland at the end of the 9th century.

In 899 Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, died leaving his son Edward the Elder as ruler of Britain south of the River Thames and his daughter Æthelflæd and son-in-law Æthelred ruling the western, English part of Mercia. The situation in the Danish kingdoms of eastern Britain is less clear. King Eohric was probably ruling in East Anglia, but no dates can reliably be assigned to the successors of Guthfrith of York in Northumbria. It is known that Guthfrith was succeeded by Sigurd and Cnut, although whether these men ruled jointly or one after the other is uncertain. Northumbria may have been divided by this time between the Viking kings in York and the local rulers, perhaps represented by Eadulf, based at Bamburgh who controlled the lands from the River Tyne or River Tees to the Forth in the north.  In Ireland, Flann Sinna, married to Constantine's aunt Máel Muire, was dominant. The years around 900 represented a period of weakness among the Vikings and Norse-Gaels of Dublin. They are reported to have been divided between two rival leaders. In 894 one group left Dublin, perhaps settling on the Irish Sea coast of Britain between the River Mersey and the Firth of Clyde. The remaining Dubliners were expelled in 902 by Flann Sinna's son-in-law Cerball mac Muirecáin, and soon afterwards appeared in western and northern Britain.  To the south-west of Constantine's lands lay the kingdom of Strathclyde. This extended north into the Lennox, east to the River Forth, and south into the Southern Uplands. In 900 it was probably ruled by King Dyfnwal.  The situation of the Gaelic kingdoms of Dál Riata in western Scotland is uncertain. No kings are known by name after Áed mac Boanta. The Frankish "Annales Bertiniani" may record the conquest of the Inner Hebrides, the seaward part of Dál Riata, by Northmen in 849. In addition to these, the arrival of new groups of Vikings from northern and western Europe was still commonplace. Whether there were Viking or Norse-Gael kingdoms in the Western Isles or the Northern Isles at this time is debated.

Early life.

Áed, Constantine's father, succeeded Constantine's uncle and namesake Constantine I in 876 but was killed in 878. Áed's short reign is glossed as being of no importance by most king lists. Although the date of his birth is nowhere recorded, Constantine II cannot have been born any later than the year after his father's death, "i.e.", 879. His name may suggest that he was born a few years earlier, during the reign of his uncle Constantine I.  After Áed's death, there is a two-decade gap until the death of Donald II (Domnall mac Constantín) in 900 during which nothing is reported in the Irish annals. The entry for the reign between Áed and Donald II is corrupt in the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba", and in this case the "Chronicle" is at variance with every other king list. According to the "Chronicle", Áed was followed by Eochaid, a grandson of Kenneth MacAlpin, who is somehow connected with Giric, but all other lists say that Giric ruled after Áed and make great claims for him. Giric is not known to have been a kinsman of Kenneth's, although it has been suggested that he was related to him by marriage. The major changes in Pictland which began at about this time have been associated by Alex Woolf and Archie Duncan with Giric's reign.  Woolf suggests that Constantine and his cousin Donald may have passed Giric's reign in exile in Ireland where their aunt Máel Muire was wife of two successive High Kings of Ireland, Áed Findliath and Flann Sinna. Giric died in 889. If he had been in exile, Constantine may have returned to Pictland where his cousin Donald II became king. Donald's reputation is suggested by the epithet "dasachtach", a word used of violent madmen and mad bulls, attached to him in the 11th-century writings of Flann Mainistrech, echoed by his description in the "Prophecy of Berchan" as "the rough one who will think relics and psalms of little worth". Wars with the Viking kings in Britain and Ireland continued during Donald's reign and he was probably killed fighting yet more Vikings at Dunnottar in the Mearns in 900. Constantine succeeded him as king.

Vikings and bishops.

The earliest event recorded in the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" in Constantine's reign is an attack by Vikings and the plundering of Dunkeld "and all Albania" in his third year. This is the first use of the word Albania, the Latin form of the Old Irish "Alba", in the "Chronicle" which until then describes the lands ruled by the descendants of Cináed as Pictavia.  These Norsemen could have been some of those who were driven out of Dublin in 902, or were the same group who had defeated Domnall in 900. The "Chronicle" states that the Northmen were killed in "Srath Erenn", which is confirmed by the "Annals of Ulster" which records the death of Ímar grandson of Ímar and many others at the hands of the men of Fortriu in 904. This Ímar was the first of the Uí Ímair, the grandsons of Ímar, to be reported; three more grandsons of Ímar appear later in Constantín's reign. The "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland" contain an account of the battle, and this attributes the defeat of the Norsemen to the intercession of Saint Columba following fasting and prayer. An entry in the "Chronicon Scotorum" under the year 904 may possibly contain a corrupted reference to this battle.  The next event reported by the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" is dated to 906. This records that:King Constantine and Bishop Cellach met at the "Hill of Belief" near the royal city of Scone and pledged themselves that the laws and disciplines of the faith, and the laws of churches and gospels, should be kept "pariter cum Scottis". The meaning of this entry, and its significance, have been the subject of debate. The phrase "pariter cum Scottis" in the Latin text of the "Chronicle" has been translated in several ways. William Forbes Skene and Alan Orr Anderson proposed that it should be read as "in conformity with the customs of the Gaels", relating it to the claims in the king lists that Giric liberated the church from secular oppression and adopted Irish customs. It has been read as "together with the Gaels", suggesting either public participation or the presence of Gaels from the western coasts as well as the people of the east coast. Finally, it is suggested that it was the ceremony which followed "the custom of the Gaels" and not the agreements.  The idea that this gathering agreed to uphold Irish laws governing the church has suggested that it was an important step in the gaelicisation of the lands east of Druim Alban. Others have proposed that the ceremony in some way endorsed Constantine's kingship, prefiguring later royal inaugurations at Scone. Alternatively, if Bishop Cellach was appointed by Giric, it may be that the gathering was intended to heal a rift between king and church.

Return of the Uí Ímair.

Following the events at Scone, there is little of substance reported for a decade. A story in the "Fragmentary Annals of Ireland", perhaps referring to events some time after 911, claims that Queen Æthelflæd, who ruled in Mercia, allied with the Irish and northern rulers against the Norsemen on the Irish sea coasts of Northumbria. The "Annals of Ulster" record the defeat of an Irish fleet from the kingdom of Ulaid by Vikings "on the coast of England" at about this time.  In this period the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" reports the death of Cormac mac Cuilennáin, king of Munster, in the eighth year of Constantine's reign. This is followed by an undated entry which was formerly read as "In his time Domnall [i.e. Dyfnwal], king of the [Strathclyde] Britons died, and Domnall son of Áed was elected". This was thought to record the election of a brother of Constantine named Domnall to the kingship of the Britons of Strathclyde and was seen as early evidence of the domination of Strathclyde by the kings of Alba. The entry in question is now read as "...Dyfnwal... and Domnall son Áed king of Ailech died", this Domnall being a son of Áed Findliath who died on 915. Finally, the deaths of Flann Sinna and Niall Glúndub are recorded.  There are more reports of Viking fleets in the Irish Sea from 914 onwards. By 916 fleets under Sihtric Cáech and Ragnall, said to be grandsons of Ímar (that is, they belonged to the same Uí Ímair kindred as the Ímar who was killed in 904), were very active in Ireland. Sihtric inflicted a heavy defeat on the armies of Leinster and retook Dublin in 917. The following year Ragnall appears to have returned across the Irish sea intent on establishing himself as king at York. The only precisely dated event in the summer of 918 is the death of Queen Æthelflæd on 918 at Tamworth, Staffordshire. Æthelflæd had been negotiating with the Northumbrians to obtain their submission, but her death put an end to this and her successor, her brother Edward the Elder, was occupied with securing control of Mercia. The northern part of Northumbria, and perhaps the whole kingdom, had probably been ruled by Ealdred son of Eadulf since 913. Faced with Ragnall's invasion, Ealdred came north seeking assistance from Constantine. The two advanced south to face Ragnall, and this led to a battle somewhere on the banks of the River Tyne, probably at Corbridge where Dere Street crosses the river. The Battle of Corbridge appears to have been indecisive; the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" is alone in giving Constantine the victory.  The report of the battle in the "Annals of Ulster" says that none of the kings or mormaers among the men of Alba were killed. This is the first surviving use of the word mormaer; other than the knowledge that Constantine's kingdom had its own bishop or bishops and royal villas, this is the only hint to the institutions of the kingdom.  After Corbridge, Ragnall enjoyed only a short respite. In the south, Alfred's son Edward had rapidly secured control of Mercia and had a burh constructed at Bakewell in the Peak District from which his armies could easily strike north. An army from Dublin led by Ragnall's kinsman Sihtric struck at north-western Mercia in 919, but in 920 or 921 Edward met with Ragnall and other kings. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" states that these kings "chose Edward as father and lord". Among the other kings present were Constantine, Ealdred son of Eadwulf, and the king of Strathclyde, Owain ap Dyfnwal. Here, again, a new term appears in the record, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" for the first time using the word "scottas", from which Scots derives, to describe the inhabitants of Constantine's kingdom in its report of these events.  Edward died in 924. His realms appear to have been divided with the West Saxons recognising Ælfweard while the Mercians chose Æthelstan who had been raised at Æthelflæd's court. Ælfweard died within weeks of his father and Æthelstan was inaugurated as king of all of Edward's lands in 925.

Æthelstan.

By 926 Sihtric had evidently acknowledged Æthelstan as overlord, adopting Christianity and marrying a sister of Æthelstan at Tamworth. Within the year he appears to have forsaken his new faith and repudiated his wife, but before Æthelstan could respond, Sihtric died suddenly in 927. His kinsman, perhaps brother, Gofraid, who had remained as his deputy in Dublin, came from Ireland to take power in York, but failed. Æthelstan moved quickly, seizing much of Northumbria. In less than a decade, the kingdom of the English had become by far the greatest power in Britain and Ireland, perhaps stretching as far north as the Firth of Forth.  John of Worcester's chronicle suggests that Æthelstan faced opposition from Constantine, from Owain, and from the Welsh kings. William of Malmesbury writes that Gofraid, together with Sihtric's young son Olaf Cuaran fled north and received refuge from Constantine, which led to war with Æthelstan. A meeting at Eamont Bridge on 927 was sealed by an agreement that Constantine, Owain, Hywel Dda, and Ealdred would "renounce all idolatry": that is, they would not ally with the Viking kings. William states that Æthelstan stood godfather to a son of Constantine, probably Indulf (Ildulb mac Constantín), during the conference.  Æthelstan followed up his advances in the north by securing the recognition of the Welsh kings. For the next seven years, the record of events in the north is blank. Æthelstan's court was attended by the Welsh kings, but not by Constantine or Owain. This absence of record means that Æthelstan's reasons for marching north against Constantine in 934 are unclear.  Æthelstan's invasion is reported in brief by the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and later chroniclers such as John of Worcester, William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Symeon of Durham add detail to that bald account. Æthelstan's army began gathering at Winchester by 934, and travelled north to Nottingham by. He was accompanied by many leaders, including the Welsh kings Hywel Dda, Idwal Foel, and Morgan ab Owain. From Mercia the army continued to Chester-le-Street, before resuming the march accompanied by a fleet of ships. Owain was defeated and Symeon states that the army went as far north as Dunnottar and Fortriu, while the fleet is said to have raided Caithness, by which a much larger area, including Sutherland, is probably intended. It is unlikely that Constantine's personal authority extended so far north, so the attacks were probably directed at his allies, comprising simple looting expeditions.  The "Annals of Clonmacnoise" state that "the Scottish men compelled [Æthelstan] to return without any great victory", while Henry of Huntingdon claims that the English faced no opposition. A negotiated settlement might have ended matters: according to John of Worcester, a son of Constantine was given as a hostage to Æthelstan and Constantine himself accompanied the English king on his return south. He witnessed a charter with Æthelstan at Buckingham on 934 in which he is described as "subregulus", "i.e.", a king acknowledging Æthelstan's overlordship, the only place there is any record of such a description. However, there is no record of Constantine having ever submitted to Æthelstan's overlordship or that he considered himself such. The following year, Constantine was again in England at Æthelstan's court, this time at Cirencester where he appears as a witness, as the first of several kings, followed by Owain and Hywel Dda, who subscribed to the diploma. At Christmas of 935, Owain was once more at Æthelstan's court along with the Welsh kings, but Constantine was not. His return to England less than two years later would be in very different circumstances.

Brunanburh and after.

Following his departure from Æthelstan's court after 935, there is no further report of Constantine until 937. In that year, together with Owain and Olaf Guthfrithson of Dublin, Constantine invaded England. The resulting battle of Brunanburh—"Dún Brunde"—is reported in the "Annals of Ulster" as follows:a great battle, lamentable and terrible was cruelly fought... in which fell uncounted thousands of the Northmen....And on the other side, a multitude of Saxons fell; but Æthelstan, the king of the Saxons, obtained a great victory. The battle was remembered in England a generation later as "the Great Battle". When reporting the battle, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" abandons its usual terse style in favour of a heroic poem vaunting the great victory. In this the "hoary" Constantine, by now around 60 years of age, is said to have lost a son in the battle, a claim which the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" confirms. The "Annals of Clonmacnoise" give his name as Cellach. For all its fame, the site of the battle is uncertain and several sites have been advanced, with Bromborough on the Wirral the most favoured location.  Brunanburh, for all that it had been a famous and bloody battle, settled nothing. On 939 Æthelstan, the "pillar of the dignity of the western world" in the words of the "Annals of Ulster", died at Malmesbury. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund, then aged 18. Æthelstan's realm, seemingly made safe by the victory of Brunanburh, collapsed in little more than a year from his death when Amlaíb returned from Ireland and seized Northumbria and the Mercian Danelaw. Edmund spent the remainder of Constantín's reign rebuilding his kingdom.  For Constantine's last years as king there is only the meagre record of the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba". The death of Æthelstan is reported, as are two others. The first of these, in 938, is that of Dubacan, mormaer of Angus or son of the mormaer. Unlike the report of 918, on this occasion the title mormaer is attached to a geographical area, but it is unknown whether the Angus of 938 was in any way similar to the later mormaerdom or earldom. The second death, entered with that of Æthelstan, is that of Eochaid mac Ailpín, who might, from his name, have been a kinsman of Constantín.

Abdication and posterity.

By the early 940s Constantine was an old man in his late sixties or seventies. The kingdom of Alba was too new to be said to have a customary rule of succession, but Pictish and Irish precedents favoured an adult successor descended from Kenneth MacAlpin. Constantine's surviving son Indulf, probably baptised in 927, would have been too young to be a serious candidate for the kingship in the early 940s, and the obvious heir was Constantine's nephew, Malcolm I. As Malcolm was born no later than 901, by the 940s he was no longer a young man, and may have been impatient. Willingly or not—the 11th-century "Prophecy of Berchán", a verse history in the form of a supposed prophecy, states that it was not a voluntary decision—Constantine abdicated in 943 and entered a monastery, leaving the kingdom to Malcolm.  Although his retirement might have been involuntary, the "Life" of Cathróe of Metz and the "Prophecy of Berchán" portray Constantine as a devout king. The monastery to which Constantine retired, and where he is said to have been abbot, was probably that of St Andrews. This had been refounded in his reign and given to the reforming Céli Dé (Culdee) movement. The Céli Dé were subsequently to be entrusted with many monasteries throughout the kingdom of Alba until replaced in the 12th century by new orders imported from France.  Seven years later the "Chronicle of the Kings of Alba" says:[Malcolm I] plundered the English as far as the river Tees, and he seized a multitude of people and many herds of cattle: and the Scots called this the raid of Albidosorum, that is, Nainndisi. But others say that Constantine made this raid, asking of the king, Malcolm, that the kingship should be given to him for a week's time, so that he could visit the English. In fact, it was Malcolm who made the raid, but Constantine incited him, as I have said. Woolf suggests that the association of Constantine with the raid is a late addition, one derived from a now-lost saga or poem.  Constantine's death in 952 is recorded by the Irish annals, who enter it among ecclesiastics. His son Indulf would become king on Malcolm's death. The last of Constantine's certain descendants to be king in Alba was a great-grandson, Constantine III (Constantín mac Cuiléin). Another son had died at Brunanburh, and, according to John of Worcester, Amlaíb mac Gofraid was married to a daughter of Constantine. It is possible that Constantine had other children, but like the name of his wife, or wives, this has not been recorded.  The form of kingdom which appeared in Constantine's reign continued in much the same way until the Davidian Revolution in the 12th century. As with his ecclesiastical reforms, his political legacy was the creation of a new form of Scottish kingship that lasted for two centuries after his death.

Constantine, son of Áed (Medieval Gaelic: "Causantín mac Áeda"; Modern Gaelic: "Còiseam mac Aoidh", known in most modern regnal lists as Constantine II; born no later than 879; died 952) was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name "Alba". The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in modern-day Scotland.

Konstantin II. (před rokem 879 – 952) byl králem Alby, jak se v té době označovalo království na území Skotska. Jeho děda Kenneth I. byl prvním zaznamenaným králem svého rodu, jako král Piktů.


Biography.

Early years.

Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev was born in Smolensk oblast to a peasant family. He left the village at the age of 13 to work as a dishwasher in Moscow. He attended workers' educational courses, and by the time he was 15 had joined a Marxist circle. He joined the Bolsheviks after settling in Petrograd to work in the Putilov arms factory, in 1914. During the great war, he worked as a hospital administrator, while carrying on illegal political work. He was a member of the Petrograd committee of the Bolsheviks in 1915-16, and one of the organisers of the wave of strikes that preceded the fall of the Tsar. After the February revolution, he helped found the Petrograd Metal workers' Union. He was in the crowd that welcomed the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin on his return from exile in April 1917. At the Bolshevik conference that same month, he was one of the younger delegates who backed Lenin's call for a second revolution.

Union leader.

Andreyev spent the early part of the Russian civil war as a trade union and communist party organiser in the Urals, where he oversaw the nationalisation of the factories, and for ensuring that the new soviet republic was supplied with metal, and food He was posted in 1919 to Ukraine as the leader of the metal workers' union, and a member of the All-Russian Central Trade Union Council (TUC).  In the latter part of 1919, Lenin came up against heavy opposition from the trade unions, who wanted democratic control of industry, which Lenin believed would undermine efficiency and delay economic recovery. In January 1920, he was outvoted in a meeting of the communist 'fraction' of the All-Russian TUC. Throughout, Andreyev was one of the minority who supported Lenin's line. His reward was to be appointed head of the railway workers' union, and at the 9th Communist Party Congress in March 1920 he was one of three union leaders, along with Mikhail Tomsky and Janis Rudzutaks elected to the 19-member Central Committee, which, prior to the creation of the Politburo, was the body that effectively ruled Russia and its former colonies. Aged 24, he was its youngest member. (The second youngest, Nikolai Bukharin, was 31.)  During 1920-21, the Central Committee was split 10-9 split over the role of the unions. The minority, led by Leon Trotsky proposed that they be incorporated in the state; the majority, led by Lenin and including Josif Stalin argued for their continued existence, under party control. Andreyev was the only leading trade unionist to support the minority line - surprisingly, in view of his later career. (He was the only former member of that committee apart from Stalin still alive after the Great Purge: all the other who had not died in the meantime were killed.)  Andreyev was dropped from the Central Committee in March 1921, but when the TUC had its next congress, in May 1921, he loyally supported the party leadership against a campaign led by the veteran revolutionary David Riazanov, who called for union leaders to be elected rather than appointed by the party. Tomsky and Rudzutaks were sacked, temporarily, for failing to block this proposal, whilst Andreyev was made a secretary of the TUC, and at the 11th party congress in April 1922, he was restored to membership of the party's Central Committee. He retained his membership for the next 40 years. He was also co-opted onto the Orgburo, which was dominated by Stalin, the newly appointed General Secretary.

Party official.

Shortly after Lenin's death, in June 1924, Andreyev was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. From that date Andreyev was a loyal supporter of Stalin and part the inner core of the Stalinist faction. He was one of five hard line Stalinists who were raised to candidate membership of the Politburo in July 1926, a few months before Trotsky was expelled from the same body.  In 1925, when the People's Commissar for Finance, Grigori Sokolnikov, pointed out that workers' wages were still below their pre-war (1913) level and suggested raising them, Andreyev denounced him for attacking the trade unions and for his 'irresponsible attitude to the workers'.  From January 1928 to December 1930, Andreyev was based in Rostov in south Russia, as First Secretary of the North Caucasus territory party committee. In this capacity, he was responsible for the seeing through the forcible collectivisation of agriculture in one of Russia's main grain-producing regions. At the outset, he seemed hesitant about forcing the pace: as late as October 1929, he forecast that it would be impossible to complete the changeover to collective agriculture before the end of the First five-year plan in 1933. His complaints about the difficulty of achieving the grain deliveries Stalin demanded almost caused a rift, when Stalin lost his temper with Andreyev - but then, unusually, apologised. By December, Andreyev had committed the regional party to a target of complete collectivisation by the spring 1931. In January 1930, he announced that they had been too modest, and would complete the process during that year. As part of the process, the North Caucasus OGPU was set a quota of 6,000-8,000 'kulaks' to be arrested and executed, and 20,000 to be deported to remote parts of the USSR. By February, 80 per cent of the rural population of the North Caucasus had been herded onto collective farms, but the result was armed rebellion by thousands of peasants, which was put down by the Red Army, and which forced a partial retreat by the authorities. Within two months, the proportion of peasants on collective farms had fallen to 67 per cent.  In December 1930, Andreyev was recalled to Moscow and appointed Chairman of the Central Control Commission, which was responsible for party discipline, and chairman of Rabkrin. In September 1931, he volunteered to take the additional post of People's Commissar for Transport, after the Politburo had heard a report on the serious state of the railways. He relinquished the chairmanship of the control commission on 4 February 1932, when he became a full member of the Politburo.  In March 1935, Andreyev was reappointed a secretary of the Central Committee, in the wake of the assassination of Sergey Kirov. On 3 April 1935, he was co-opted onto the Orgburo, to chair its meetings, and was put in charge of the Industrial department of the communist party.

Role in the 1930s purges.

During the Great Purge, when it was common to send high-ranking party officials from Moscow to the provinces to oversee mass expulsions and arrests of provincial communist party members, Andreyev "became the unchallengeable master of these murderous sideshows.". Between June and September 1937, he travelled to Voronezh, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kursk, Saratov, Kuibyshev, Tashkent, Stalinabad, Rostov and Krasnodar. Sometimes, he accused local party leaders of arresting the wrong people, who were released. More often, his arrival meant arrests and executions. He always stayed in telegram communication with Stalin, who always approved all his recommended lists of party members to be expelled and/or arrested.  Early in January 1937, he arrived in Rostov to organise the removal of Boris Sheboldayev, his successor as regional party in the renamed Azov-Black Sea territory, who was accused of excessive leniency because he had allowed former oppositionists such as Alexander Beloborodov and Nikolai Glebov-Avilov to hold responsible jobs in the region. Sheldboldayev temporarily saved himself by apologising, and was transferred to another post, only to be arrested later and shot.  In Saratov, where he arrived on 20 July, his main target was the local head of the NKVD Yakov Agranov, who was arrested and shot, along with the second secretary of the regional communist party and others. Some people whom Agranov had had arrested were released. At the same time, Andreyev and identified 20 employees of the Machine Tractor Stations, who were "working very obstructively". Stalin replied with a telegram the same day, saying they should all be shot. In total, in the wake of his visit, 430 people were shot.  In Kuibyshev, he ordered the local party boss, Pavel Postyshev to step up the hunt for hidden enemies, after which Postyshev disbanded most of the local party branches, and had 3,300 party members arrested. By the end of 1937, it was decided that Postyshev had gone too far, and Andreyev was assigned the job of collecting names of people wrongfully expelled from the Kuibyshev party, after which Postyshev was arrested and shot.  When Andreyev arrived in Tashkent, in September 1937, the founder of the Uzbek communist party, Faizullah Khojaev and seven others were denounced as enemies of the people. Four days later, on 12 September, the First Secretary of the Uzbek communist party Akmal Ikramov was expelled from the party. He was arrested two weeks later. In the ensuing purge, 430 people were executed.  Andreyev then moved onto Stalinabad, in Tajikstan, where he had 344 shot.  In March 1938, an official of the USSR Writers' Union approached Andreyev about finding work for the poet Osip Mandelstam, who was in Moscow, but unemployed. Andreyev refused. Mandelstam was arrested, and died in the gulag. In October 1940, he issued an order that a recently published book of poems by Anna Akhmatova was banned and all copies were to be seized. in 1940, Akhmatova had suddenly been granted official recognition, having been prevented from publishing any of her work for 15 years. Andreyev's order meant that "Akhmatova's nine months a published poet again had come to an end."  In November 1938, Andreyev supervised the changes at the headquarters of the NKVD, in which Lavrentiy Beria was confirmed as its new head in place of Nikolai Yezhov, who was arrested and shot. Also in November, he chaired a session of the Central Committee of Komsomol, the communist youth league, at which most of its leaders were sacked, and later arrested and shot.

Later career.

In 1939, Andreyev resumed his former position as Chairman of the Central Commission, combining that with his continued role as party secretary and Politburo member. He was also Chairman of the Soviet of the Union from 1938 until 1946. Despite this array of titles, there were signs that he was being supplanted within Stalin's inner circle by Georgi Malenkov, Nikita Khrushchev Nikolai Voznesensky and other rising stars. During the war, he was not included in the emergency State Defense Committee (GOKO), or involved front line duties, but was given responsibility for transport and food supplies, as Deputy Chairman of the transport sub-committee of GOKO, and as USSR People's Commissar for Agriculture, 1943–46, and was chairman of the Kolkhoz (collective farms) Central Council from December 1943 to February 1950.  After the war, Andreyev appeared to recover his position. In March 1946, he was appointed a Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, responsible for agriculture, while Malenkov was temporarily removed from his role as party secretary, and a protege of Andreyev, Nikolai Patolichev was appointed head of the party organisation department. In March 1947, Khrushchev was temporarily ousted from control of the Ukrainian communist party, and Patolichev was sent to Kiev apparently as the party secretary in charge of agriculture. During 1948, Andreyev ran the investigation which brought down Voznesensky, whom he accused of losing 526 documents from Gosplan. "This invented case was one of Andreyev's last achievements. It marked the start of the Leningrad case.  However, by the summer of 1947, both Malenkov and Khrushchev had recovered their positions, while Andreyev was ill. His doctors proscribed cocaine, to which he became addicted. In December 1949, he was replaced by Khrushchev as the party secretary in charge of agriculture. Although still nominally a member of the Politburo, he was in reality excluded from the party leadership in what Khrushchev later described, somewhat hypocritically, as one of Stalin's "most unbridled acts of willfulness." According to Sergo Mikoyan, son of Andreyev's contemporary and colleague, Anastas Mikoyan Andreyev asked for permission to go into semi-retirement, because he had become partially deaf - making him the only high ranking communist in Stalin's time to leave office alive, without being arrested.

Family.

Andreyev was married to Dora Khazan (1894-1961), who was a student along with Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, at an industrial academy. Together the couple had two children, a son named Vladimir (born 1919) and a daughter Natalya (born 1922-2015). Dora Khazan worked in Stalin's secretariat for a time. She was arrested in 1948. It was not unknown for Politburo members to continue in high offices while their wives were in the gulag: the same happened to Vyacheslav Molotov, Mikhail Kalinin and Otto Kuusinen, among others.  He later married Zinaida Ivanovna Desyatova. They had two daughters, Tatyana and Valentina. He has three grandchildren - Kochergin Ilya N., Kharlamov and Ivan V. Kharlamov Xenia Vyacheslavovna.

Death and legacy.

Andreyev was formally removed from the Politburo, after 20 years, at the 19th party congress in October 1952. After Stalin's death, he was briefly brought back as Chairman of the Central Commission, in 1954-56, and was made a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a largely ceremonial position. Because he was no threat to Khrushchev or his successors, his role in the great purges was generally kept quiet for as long as the communist dictatorship lasted. However, after he died, on 5 December 1971, despite his historical importance and decades of tenure in the top ranks of Soviet government officials, Andreyev's funeral was not attended by either Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the CPSU, or Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.  Andreyev is remembered for having loved the music of Tchaikovsky, mountaineering, and nature photography.  During his life Andreyev was four times awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and other awards. He is the namesake of the AA-20 locomotive, which he is credited for sponsoring as the head of the Soviet railway system from 1931 to 1935.

Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev (; 30 October 1895 – 5 December 1971) was a Soviet Communist politician who rose to power during the rule of Joseph Stalin, joining the Politburo as a candidate member in 1926 and as a full member in 1932. Andreyev also headed the powerful Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1931 and then again from 1939 until 1952.

Andrej Andrejevič Andrejev (rusky "Андрей Андреевич Андреев", 30. října 1895, Kuzněcovo, Ruské impérium — 5. prosince 1971, Moskva, SSSR) byl sovětský politik a v letech 1946—1953 místopředseda Rady ministrů SSSR.