Early life and career.

Born 9 March [O.S. 26 February] 1876 in Nevel to a family of Jewish contractors, his true birth name is unknown, in various sources, Isai (Yiddish: Shaya or Shai) and Isak, Isayevich, Isaakovich, Itskovich are indicated as real names. His first wife, Bertha Iosifovna Perelman, was born in 1876 to the family of an artisan. She was arrested and sent into exile in the Narym region. In exile Bertha Perelman married Goloshchyokin. She died in 1918. After graduating from a dental school in Riga, Goloshchyokin worked for a time as a dental technician. In 1903 he joined the RSDLP. He conducted revolutionary work in St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, Sestroretsk, Moscow and other cities. He took part in the Revolution of 1905-1907. From 1909, he worked in the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP and directed it. In 1909 he was arrested and exiled to the Narym region, and fled in 1910. In 1912, he was a delegate to the Bolshevik Congress in Prague, at which Vladimir Lenin formalized the break with the Mensheviks and created a separate Bolshevik organization with its own Central Committee, of which Goloshchyokin was a founding member. He assumed the alias "Filipp", also transliterated "Philipp" or "Philippe", as his party cryptonym.  In 1913 he was again arrested by the Russian authorities and deported to the Turukhansk Territory in Siberia, and released only after the February Revolution in 1917. In May, Yakov Sverdlov, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, sent Goloshchyokin to the Ural Region, informing the local Bolsheviks: "Comrade Philippe has gone to the Urals; a man; very energetic; with the right party line". He served as a member of the Perm Committee of the All-Union Communist Party, then a member of the Regional Committee. As a delegate to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Goloshchyokin arrived in Petrograd. He entered the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee and participated in the October Revolution. At the Second Congress of Soviets, he was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Goloshchyokin recalled that before his departure for the Urals, Lenin aimed at delaying the convocation and the subsequent dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. After the success of the October Revolution and the outbreak of the Russian Civil War, he was elected to the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, based in Ekaterinburg, and was elected Military Commissar of the Urals, where he formed and headed the Red Guard in the region and oversaw the activities of the Red Army Reserve District in Ekaterinburg. In Spring 1918, he proposed to execute Prince Lvov, who had served as Chairman of the Provisional Government after the February Revolution, and was a prisoner in Ekaterinburg, but was ordered not to by the People's Commissar for Justice, a Left Socialist Revolutionary, during the period when the Left SRs were in coalition with the Bolsheviks.

Execution of the Tsar.

While he was in Moscow in the spring of 1918, Goloshchyokin decided to first suggest to Yakov Sverdlov that the former Emperor Nicholas II should be moved to Ekaterinburg, where there was less chance of his being rescued by the anti-Bolshevik White Army. Sverdlov and Lenin were reluctant to agree because they planned to put the former Emperor on trial in a grand public spectacle, with Leon Trotsky acting as Chief Prosecutor, and they suspected that the militant Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks would lynch him instead, but ultimately agreed that the prisoner and his family should pass through Ekaterinburg on the way to Moscow. Upon arrival in Ekaterinburg, the family and their retainers were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House on the suggestion of Pyotr Voykov, a member of the Ural Soviet, with Yakov Yurovsky, a ranking member of the Ekaterinburg Cheka, appointed as commandant of the Ipatiev House by the decision of the Soviet. Though Yurovsky held direct command over the Red Guards and Red Army Reserve troops stationed on the grounds, overall command was ultimately held by Goloshchyokin as Military Commissar of the Ural Region. In this capacity, he frequently oversaw the dismissal of guardsmen believed too sympathetic to the family and their replacement with more hardened, ruthless Bolshevists, such as Peter Ermakov, the Military Commissar of the 4th Red Army Reserve District in Ekaterinburg and one of Goloshchyokin's immediate subordinates, who was called "the most bloodthirsty man in the Urals". When one of the guards, Ivan Skorokhodov, who was smitten with Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, smuggled a birthday cake to the Grand Duchess for her 19th birthday, Goloshchyokin had him removed from duty and tightened security.  In June 1918, amidst the rapid gains made by the White Army in the Ural Region, Goloshchyokin was in Moscow for the Fifth Congress of Soviets, spoke to Lenin and Sverdlov, and it appears that they agreed that the Tsar should be killed without delay. On 16 July, Yurovsky was informed by Alexander Beloborodov, Chairman of the Ural Soviet, that Red Army contingents were retreating in all directions, and the executions could not be delayed any longer. A coded telegram seeking final approval was sent by Goloshchyokin and Georgy Safarov at around 6:00 PM to Lenin and Sverdlov in Moscow, but the lines were down and they could not get a direct connection, leaving them with no choice but to send the telegram on the direct line to Petrograd instead addressed to Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Petrograd Soviet, based in the Smolny Institute, with a request to forward a copy to Sverdlov in Moscow. Zinoviev duly forwarded the telegraph to Moscow, noting that he had done so by 5:50 PM Petrograd time. There is no documented record of a final answer from Moscow, although Yurovsky insisted that an order from the Central Executive Committee to move forward signed by Sverdlov had been passed on to him by Goloshchyokin at around 7:00 PM. While Beloborodov and Safarov remained at the local Cheka Headquarters at the Amerikanskaya Hotel nearby, Goloshchyokin arrived personally at the Ipatiev House as a representative of the Ural Soviet to direct the executions, but did not appear to physically participate in the shooting himself, and instead remained outside with the other guardsmen while Yurovsky personally led the assembled death squad.  Goloshchyokin is said to have repeatedly paced back and forth along the perimeter palisade erected around the Ipatiev House in an attempt to determine if anyone could hear what was going on from outside as one of the guardsmen revved the engines of the fiat truck waiting outside to mask the sounds of the gunfire, screams, and barking dogs. When it was clear that the gunfire could be discerned even from outside the palisade walls, Goloschyokin ordered one of the guards to tell the executioners to cease fire and to use their bayonets to kill the family and their dogs. As the corpses were brought out from the house and loaded onto the truck, Goloshchyokin stooped down to examine the corpse of the Tsar, murmuring, "So this is the end of the Romanov Dynasty, is it...", to which Mikhail Kudrin, who was in charge of the loading of the corpses, responded: "No, not yet; there is still much work to be done". According to Kudrin, when the body of the French Bulldog Ortino, "the last pathetic remnant of the Imperial Family", was brought out on the end of a Red Guardsman's bayonet and unceremoniously hurled onto the fiat, Goloshchyokin sneered, "Dogs deserve a dogs death" as he glared at the dead Tsar. Goloschyokin climbed into the truck and departed along with Yurovsky, Kudrin, Ermakov, and Vaganov, while Yurovsky's deputy Nikulin was left in charge of the Ipatiev House.  At a telegraph office in Ekaterinburg on 18 July, he caught Sir Thomas Preston, a diplomat at the British Consulate, attempting to cable Sir Arthur Balfour in London with the message, "The Tsar Nicholas the Second was shot last night." Goloshchyokin snatched it, and struck out the words of Preston's text with a red pencil, rewriting on the paper, "The hangman Tsar Nicholas was shot last night – a fate he richly deserved." He subsequently oversaw the disposal of the remains along with Yurovsky, while Beloborodov and Nikulin oversaw the ransacking of the Romanov's quarters, with the most valuable items piled into Yurovsky's office and later transported to Moscow in sealed trunks under heavy guard by commissars on Goloshchyokin's instructions, while items deemed of little consequence were stuffed into the stoves and burned. Goloshchyokin was safely evacuated from Ekaterinburg along with most of the other members of the Ural Soviet prior to the arrival of the White Army, who captured Ekaterinburg on 25 July.

The Goloshchekin Genocide.

From October 1922 to 1925, Goloshchyokin served as Chairman of the Samara Provincial Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, Chairman of the Samara Gubernaya Executive Committee and a member of the Provincial Committee of the RCP. On October 23, 1922 he abolished martial law in the Samara Province. He was elected a Candidate Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1924, and a Full Member in 1927. On 19 February 1925, he was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in the newly created Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. From 1925 to 1933 he ran the Kazakh ASSR with virtually no outside interference as a local dictator. He played a prominent part in the construction of the Turkestan-Siberian railway, which was constructed to open up Kazakhstan's mineral wealth. After Joseph Stalin ordered the forced collectivization of agriculture throughout the Soviet Union, Goloshchyokin ordered that Kazakhstan's largely nomadic population was to be forced to settle in collective farms. This caused a deadly famine in Kazakhstan, known within Kazakhstan as the Goloshchekin Genocide, which killed between 1 and 3 million people. 38% of all Kazakhs died, the highest number of any ethnic group killed "per capita" in the Soviet famines of the early 1930s. Violent measures were taken to enable the transfer of nomads to sedentary lifestyles, which led to massive casualties, mainly among the indigenous Kazakh population.  While a general figure of around 1-2 million deaths is often given, some Kazakh historians give significantly higher estimates of the number of victims of the famine and violence, such as Professor K.M. Abzhanov, Director of the Institute of History and Ethnology who stated that: "Hunger killed at least 3 million Kazakhs. One-sixth of the indigenous population left their historical homeland forever. Of 3.5 million Kazakhs in 1897 accounting for 82% of the region's population, by 1939 there were only 2.3 million, their share in the population of the republic fell to 38%". Two Soviet censuses show that the number of the Kazakhs in the Kazakh ASSR dropped from 3,637,612 in 1926 to 2,181,520 in 1937. The actions of the Soviet government made Kazakhs a minority in the Kazakh ASSR, and not until the 1990s did Kazakhs become the largest group in Kazakhstan again.  A historian of the revolution, V.L. Burtsev, who knew Goloshchyokin, characterized him as such:  Statements have been made that, in seven years, he never went outside the capital and was not interested in how the people lived, and did not correspond to reality. In April 1931, Goloshchyokin traveled only ten districts. The handling of collectivization and "dekulakization" under his leadership in Kazakhstan is remembered with a mixed feeling of hatred and horror by the Kazakh people.

Downfall.

In August 1932, the second most senior communist in Kazahstan, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Uraz Isayev, wrote to Stalin accusing Goloshchyokin of believing his own myth that every single Kazakh had decided to join the collective farms, and of blaming his own mistakes on 'kulaks'. In October, a prominent Kazakh writer, Gabit Musirepov reporting finding corpses stacked like firewood by the roadside in the Turgai district of Kazakhstan. The West Siberian party boss, Robert Eikhe, also complained about starving Kazakhs pouring into Siberia, while Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov queried the number of Kazakh refugess crossing the border into China.  Goloshchyokin defended himself by claiming that the poor and middle income Kazakhs had "Voluntarily, in powerful waves, turned towards socialism". At first it appeared he had Stalin's support. On 11 November, 1932, he and Isaev ordered the mass arrest and deportation of peasants accused of impeding grain collection. In January 1933, at a plenum of the Central Committee, he boasted of the "enormous successes" of the Five year Plan in Kazakhstan - but a few days later, he was suddenly sacked, and was subject to widespread public criticism for his handling of collectivization.  After his return to Moscow, despite being appointed to a senior post as President of the State Council of Arbitration, Goloshchyokin brooded over his dismissal, and threatened suicide until his exasperated wife, Elizaveta Arsenievna Goloshchyokina, handed him a pistol and dared him to shoot himself - after which he reputedly never threatened suicide again. Throughout his term as Chief State Arbiter of the Council of People's Commissars, he was an active participant in Stalinist repression, and was a frequent contact and collaborator of Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD from 1936-1938 during the most active period of the Great Purge.

Arrest and Execution.

Unlike most prominent Old Bolsheviks, he survived the Great Purge unscathed for as long as Nikolai Yezhov was the head of the NKVD; but when Yezhov was arrested in 1939, he made a detailed confession to his interrogators, including the information that he had lived in Goloshchyokin's apartment in Kzyl-Orda, then the capital of the Kazakh ASSR, in the latter half of 1925, and that during those months, they were homosexual lovers. Homosexuality was not a criminal offense in the USSR in 1925, though it was criminalized in 1934, but Goloshchyokin, who was almost 20 years older than Yezhov, was arrested nonetheless on 15 October 1939. He was accused of sympathy for Trotskyism, the preparation of a terrorist act, excesses in the matter of collectivization, and of spying for Nazi Germany. He was under heavy interrogation in the Lubyanka in Moscow at the time of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II in June 1941, and was transferred to Kuybyshev by 17 October when the headquarters of the NKVD were evacuated there. He was one of 20 'especially dangerous' prisoners, who included 14 high-ranking military officers, who were executed by firing squad on 28 October 1941 on the direct orders of Lavrentiy Beria, and consigned to an unmarked grave.  He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1961, 20 years after his death. From 1976 to 1990, one of the streets in Ekaterinburg, then known as Sverdlovsk, was named after Goloshchyokin.

Name.

The surname is often written as "Goloshchekin", a transliteration of the surname written without diacritics: Голощeкин.  He is also often referred to as Shaya Goloshchekin (Шая) by the diminutive from the name Isay in Yiddish. "Filipp" was his party cryptonym.

In popular culture.

Goloshchyokin was portrayed by Lithuanian actor Jokūbas Bareikis in the 2019 American docudrama "The Last Czars".

Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin (), born Shaya Itsikovich (), ( – October 28, 1941) was a Bolshevik, communist revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functionary.

Filipp Isajevič Gološčokin (pravým jménem Isaj Isaakovič – Исай Исаакович, narozen 26. února 1876, Něvel, Vitebská gubernie – popraven 28. října 1941, Varboš, Kujbyševská oblast) byl ruský revolucionář a sovětský státní a partajní činovník, předseda Výkonného výboru v Samarské gubernii (губернский исполнительный комитет) a sekretář Kazašského oblastního výboru (РКП). Účastník boje za ustanovení Sovětské vlády na Urale a na Sibiři. Aktivně se podílel na kolektivizaci v Kazachstánu a také na obnově hospodářství Samarské oblasti zničené v důsledku občanské války. Byl jedním z organizátorů zavraždění ruské carské rodiny.


Early life.

Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 18 April 1964 to James Campbell Ferguson, a doctor, and Molly Archibald Hamilton, a physics teacher. He attended The Glasgow Academy. He was brought up as, and remains, an atheist, though he has encouraged his children to study religion and attends church occasionally.  Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, while his mother encouraged his creative side. His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write. Ferguson ascribes his decision to read History at University instead of English Literature to two main factors: Leo Tolstoy's reflections on History at the end of "War and Peace" (which he read at the age of fifteen), and his great admiration of historian A. J. P. Taylor.

University of Oxford.

Ferguson received a demyship (highest scholarship) from Magdalen College, Oxford. Whilst a student there, he wrote a 90-minute student film "The Labours of Hercules Sprote", played double bass in a jazz band "Night in Tunisia", edited the student magazine "Tributary", and befriended Andrew Sullivan, who shared

Career.

Academic career.

In 1989, Ferguson worked as a research fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge. From 1990 to 1992 he was an official fellow and lecturer at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He then became a fellow and tutor in modern history at Jesus College, Oxford, where in 2000 he was named a professor of political and financial history. In 2002 Ferguson became the John Herzog Professor in Financial History at New York University Stern School of Business, and in 2004 he became the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. From 2010 to 2011, Ferguson held the Philippe Roman Chair in history and international affairs at the London School of Economics. In 2016 Ferguson left Harvard to become a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he had been an adjunct fellow since 2005.  Ferguson has received honorary degrees from the University of Buckingham, Macquarie University (Australia) and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (Chile). In May 2010, Michael Gove, education secretary, asked Ferguson to

Business career.

In 2000, Ferguson was a founding director of Boxmind, an Oxford-based educational technology company.  In 2006, he set up Chimerica Media Ltd., a London based television production company.  In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an investment management consultant by GLG Partners, to advise on

Political involvement.

Ferguson was an advisor to John McCain's US presidential campaign

Non-profit organisation.

Ferguson is a trustee of the New

Career as a commentator, documentarian and public intellectual.

Ferguson has written regularly for British newspapers and magazines since the mid 1980s. At that time, he was lead writer for "The Daily Telegraph," and a regular book reviewer for "The Daily Mail".  In the summer on 1989, while travelling in Berlin, he wrote an article for a British newspaper with the provisional headline “The Berlin Wall is Crumbling,” but it was not published.  In the early 2000s he wrote a weekly column for "The Sunday Telegraph" and Los Angeles Times, leaving in 2007 to become a contributing editor to the "Financial Times". Between 2008 and 2012 he wrote regularly for "Newsweek". Since 2015 he has written a weekly column for The Sunday Times and The Boston Globe, which also appears in numerous papers around the world.  Ferguson's television series The Ascent of Money won the 2009 International Emmy award for Best Documentary. In 2011 his film company Chimerica Media released its first feature-length documentary, "Kissinger", which won the New York Film Festival's prize for Best Documentary.

BBC Reith Lectures.

In May 2012, the BBC announced Niall Ferguson was to present its annual Reith Lectures – a prestigious series of radio lectures which were first broadcast in 1948. These four lectures, titled "The Rule of Law and its Enemies", examine the role man-made institutions have played in the economic and political spheres.  In the first lecture, held at the London School of Economics, titled "The Human Hive", Ferguson argues for greater openness from governments, saying they should publish accounts which clearly state all assets and liabilities. Governments, he said, should also follow the lead of business and adopt the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and, above all, generational accounts should be prepared on a regular basis to make absolutely clear the inter-generational implications of current fiscal policy. In the lecture, Ferguson says young voters should be more supportive of

Books.

"The Cash Nexus".

In his 2001 book, "The Cash Nexus", which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England,

"Colossus" and "Empire".

In his books "Colossus" and "Empire", Ferguson presents a reinterpretation of the history of the British Empire and in conclusion proposes that the modern policies of the United Kingdom and the United States, in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the failure of states, are analogous to the

"War of the World".

In "War of the World", published in 2006, Ferguson argued that a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, racially/ethnically motivated and institutionalised violence resulted in the wars and genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". "The New York Times Book Review" named "War of the World"

"The Ascent of Money".

Published in 2008, "The Ascent of Money" examines the history of money, credit, and banking. In it Ferguson predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit. He cites the China–United States dynamic which he refers to as

"Civilization".

Published in 2011, "Civilization: The West and the Rest" examines what Ferguson calls the most "interesting question" of our day: "Why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?" The "Economist" in a review wrote: Mr Ferguson starts with the overwhelming success of European civilisation. In 1500 Europe's future imperial powers controlled 10% of the world's territories and generated just over 40% of its wealth. By 1913, at the height of empire, the West controlled almost 60% of the territories, which together generated almost 80% of the wealth. This stunning fact is lost, he regrets, on a generation that has supplanted history's sweep with a feeble-minded relativism that holds "all civilisations as somehow equal".  Ferguson attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "killer apps", which he claims are largely missing

"Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist".

"Kissinger The Idealist", Volume I, published in September 2015, is the first part of a planned two-part biography of Henry Kissinger based on his private papers. The book starts with a quote from a letter which Kissinger wrote in 1972. The book examines Kissinger's life from being a refugee and fleeing Germany in 1938, to serving in the US army as a "free man" in World War II, to studying at Harvard. The book also explores the history of Kissinger joining the Kennedy administration and later becoming critical of its foreign policy, to supporting Nelson Rockefeller on three

"The Square and the Tower".

Ferguson proposed a modified version of group selection that history can be explained by the evolution of human networks. He wrote, "Man, with his unrivaled neural network, was born "to" network." The title refers to a transition from hierarchical, "tower" networks to flatter, "square" network connections between individuals. John Gray in a review of the book was not convinced. He wrote, "He offers a mix of metaphor and what purports to be a new science." "Niall Ferguson has again written a brilliant book," wrote Deirdre McCloskey in The Wall Street Journal, "this time in defence of traditional top-down principles of governing the wild market and the wilder international order. "The Square and the Tower" raises the question of just how much the unruly world should be governed—and by whom. Not everyone will agree, but everyone will be charmed and educated.... 'The Square and the Tower' is always readable, intelligent, original. You can swallow a chapter a night before sleep and your dreams will overflow with scenes of Stendhal's 'The Red and the Black,' Napoleon, Kissinger. In 400 pages you will have restocked your mind. Do it."

Opinions and research.

World War I.

In 1998, Ferguson published "The Pity of War: Explaining World War One", which with the help of research assistants he was able to write in just five months. This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the Great War. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win. Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the "Sonderweg" interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as Fritz Fischer, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen, who argued that the German Empire deliberately started an aggressive war in

Rothschilds.

Ferguson wrote two volumes about the prominent Rothschild family: "The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798–1848" and "The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849–1999". These books were the result of original archival research. The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.  The books were widely acclaimed by some historians, although they did receive some criticism. John Lewis Gaddis, a Cold War–era historian, praised Ferguson's "unrivaled range, productivity and visibility", while criticising the book as unpersuasive and containing contradictory

Counterfactual history.

Ferguson sometimes champions counterfactual history, also known as "speculative" or "hypothetical" history, and edited a collection of essays, titled "Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals" (1997), exploring the subject. Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do, and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for Ferguson, there are no paths in history that will determine

Henry Kissinger.

In 2003, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of Kissinger. In 2015, he published the first volume

British Empire.

Ferguson has defended the British Empire, many historians and commentators have considered his views both "audacious" and "wrong", "informative", "ambitious" and "troubling". Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterises modern European thought.  In the related TV documentary of 2003, "Empire", which professor Dr Jon Wilson of the Department of History at KCL described as "false and dangerous" apologia, Ferguson argued that the mantle of the British Empire as the world's foremost power was passed on to the United States during the Second World War, which led to Ferguson favorably reciting Rudyard Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden"—written in 1898 to praise the United States for becoming an imperial power by conquering the Philippines from Spain—as just as relevant today as it was in 1898. Ferguson argues that the United States should celebrate being an imperial power comparable to Britain, conquering other people's countries for what Ferguson insists is their own good, and complains that far too often Americans refuse to accept that nation has an imperialist role to play in the modern world.  Richard Drayton, Rhodes

Islam and "Eurabia".

Matthew Carr wrote in "Race & Class" that "Niall Ferguson, the conservative English [sic] historian and enthusiastic advocate of a new American empire, has also embraced the Eurabian idea in a widely reproduced article entitled 'Eurabia?', in which he laments the 'de-Christianization of Europe' and the secularism of the continent that leaves it 'weak in the face of fanaticism'." Carr adds that "Ferguson sees the recent establishment of a department of Islamic studies in his (Oxford college) as another symptom of 'the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom'," and in a 2004 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute entitled 'The End of Europe?', Ferguson struck a similarly Spenglerian note, conjuring the term 'impire' to depict a process in which a 'political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes – when the energies come from outside into that entity'. In Ferguson's opinion, this process was already under way in a decadent 'post-Christian' Europe that was drifting inexorably towards the dark denouement of a vanquished civilisation and the fatal embrace of Islam.  In 2015, Ferguson deplored the Paris attacks committed by

Iraq War.

Ferguson supported the 2003 Iraq War, and he is on record as being not necessarily opposed to future western incursions around the world. It's all very well for us to sit here in the

Trump election.

On the rise of Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump, Ferguson was quoted in early 2016: "If you bother to read some of the serious analysis of Trump's support, you realize that it's a very fragile thing and highly unlikely to deliver what he needs in the crucial first phase of the primaries... By the time we get to March–April, it's all over. I think there's going to be a wonderful catharsis, I'm really looking forward to it: Trump's humiliation. Bring it on." Trump eventually won the nomination.  Three weeks before the 2016 United States presidential election, after

Trump's "New World Order".

In an article from November 2016 in "The Boston Globe", Ferguson advised that Trump should support the efforts of Prime Minister Theresa May to have Britain leave the European Union as the best way of breaking up the EU, and sign a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom once Brexit is complete. Ferguson advised that Trump should give recognition to Russia as a Great Power, and work with President

Economic policy.

In its edition of 15 August 2005, "The New Republic" published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:  In November 2012, Ferguson stated in a video with CNN that the U.S. has enough energy resources to move towards energy independence and could possibly enter a new economic golden age due to the related socio-economic growth—coming out of the post-world economic recession doldrums.  Ferguson was an attendee of the 2012 Bilderberg Group meeting, where he was a speaker on economic policy.  Ferguson was highly critical of Britain's vote to leave the European Union, warning that "the economic consequences will be dire". Later, after backing the Remain campaign during the referendum, Ferguson changed his mind and came out in support of Britain's exit from the EU.

Exchanges with Paul Krugman.

In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a high-profile exchange of views with economist Paul Krugman arising out of a panel discussion hosted by PEN/"New York Review" on 30 April 2009, regarding the U.S. economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously Keynesian and monetarist, in an "incoherent" mix, and specifically claimed that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds would cause an increase in interest rates.  Krugman argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "hasn't bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It's all style, no comprehension of substance."  In 2012, Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said that subsequent events had shown Ferguson

Remarks on Keynes' sexual orientation.

At a May 2013 investment conference in Carlsbad, California, Ferguson was asked about his views on economist John Maynard Keynes' quotation that "in the long run we are all dead." Ferguson stated that Keynes was indifferent to the future because he was gay and did not have children. The remarks were widely criticised for

Stanford.

In Spring of 2018, Professor Ferguson was involved with College Republican leaders at Stanford to oppose a Left-leaning student take over of the Cardinal Conversations initiative. In leaked emails, he was quoted as asking for opposition research on the student involved. He later apologized and resigned from the said initiative when emails were leaked revealing his involvement in the events. "I very much regret the publication of these emails. I also regret having written them," Ferguson wrote in a statement to The Daily.

Cryptocurrency.

Ferguson was an early skeptic of cryptocurrencies, famously dismissing his teenage son's recommendation to buy Bitcoin in 2014. By 2017, he had changed his mind on Bitcoin's utility, saying it had established itself as a form of "digital gold: a store of value for wealthy investors, especially those located in countries with weak rule of law and high political

Personal life.

Ferguson married journalist Susan Douglas, whom he met in 1987 when she was his editor at "The Sunday Times". They have three children: Felix, Freya, and Lachlan.  In February 2010, news media reported that Ferguson had separated from Douglas and started dating former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ferguson and Douglas divorced in 2011. Ferguson married Hirsi Ali on 10 September 2011 and Hirsi Ali gave birth to their son Thomas in December 2011. In an interview in April 2011, Ferguson complained about the media coverage of his relationship with Ali, stating: "No, I never read their shitty coverage of people's private lives. I don't care about the sex lives of celebrities, so I was a little unprepared for having my private life all over the country. So yeah, I was naive, yeah. Because you have to stoop to conquer," – but will never write for The Daily Mail again. "That's because I'm a vendetta person. Yes, absolutely. Implacable."  Ferguson dedicated his book "Civilization" to "Ayaan". In an interview with "The Guardian", Ferguson spoke about his love for Ali, who, he writes in the preface, "understands better than anyone I know what Western civilisation really means – and what it still has to offer the world".  Ferguson's self confessed workaholism has placed strains on his personal relations in the past. Ferguson has commented that:...from 2002, the combination of making TV programmes and teaching at Harvard took me away from my children too much. You don't get those years back. You have to ask yourself: "Was it a smart decision to do those things?" I think the success I have enjoyed since then has been bought at a significant price. In hindsight, there would have been a bunch of things that I would have said no to. In an interview, Ferguson described his relationship with the left: "No, they love being provoked by me! Honestly, it makes them feel so much better about their lives to think that I'm a reactionary; it's a substitute for thought. 'Imperialist scumbag' and all that. Oh dear, we're back in a 1980s student union debate."  Ferguson was the inspiration for Alan Bennett's play "The History Boys" (2004), particularly the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his pupils to find a counterintuitive angle, and goes on to become a television historian. Bennett's character "Irwin", writes David Smith of "The Observer", gives the impression that "an entire career can be built on the trick of contrariness."  In 2018 Ferguson naturalised as a United States citizen.

Niall Campbell Ferguson (; born 18 April 1964) is a Scottish-born historian and the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Previously, he was a professor at Harvard University and New York University, visiting professor at New College of the Humanities and senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (* 18. duben 1964, Glasgow) je britský historik skotského původu. Je profesorem na Harvardově univerzitě a pracuje rovněž jako výzkumný pracovník na univerzitě v Oxfordu a na Hooverově institutu Stanfordovy univerzity. Specializuje se na oblast ekonomické historie (zejména dějiny inflace, akciových trhů či rodu Rothschildů) a mezinárodních vztahů (zejména dějiny britského a amerického imperialismu).


Background.

In late 1977 and early 1978, Siouxsie and the Banshees received major press coverage but failed to secure a recording deal. A fan undertook a graffiti campaign in London, spraying the walls of the major record companies with the words "Sign the Banshees: do it now". Polydor finally signed them in June.  John McKay had become the band's guitarist in July 1977; music historian Clinton Heylin argued that the recruitment of McKay along with the formation of Magazine and PiL between August 1977 and May 1978 marked the ""true" starting-point for English post-punk". Several songs from "The Scream" had already been recorded on BBC Radio 1 for two John Peel sessions: "Mirage", "Metal Postcard" and "Suburban Relapse" premiered in November 1977, and "Overground" and "Carcass" were aired three months later in February 1978. When recording their first Peel session, Siouxsie and Severin had described their music as "cold, machine-like and passionate at the same time". Vivien Goldman wrote: "Siouxsie and the Banshees sound like a 21st century industrial plant".

Recording and music.

"The Scream" was recorded in one week during August 1978, and mixed in three weeks with Steve Lillywhite co-producing. The band was in the studio while their debut single "Hong Kong Garden" was released. Lillywhite was recruited because he recorded the drums in a different way. He asked drummer Kenny Morris to play the bass drum and the snare drum first. Then he did the cymbals and the tom-toms later. Journalist Kris Needs noted that Lillywhite used "deep echo" on drums.  J. G. Ballard and William Burroughs provided the reference points for the lyrics of "The Scream". In a track such as "Suburban Relapse", the band wrote about suburbia, where they were born and raised. Bassist Steven Severin emphasized: "That's why J.G. Ballard resonated so much with us, because all his near-future tales were set in this bizarre suburban wasteland. Suburbia is a place where you can imagine any kind of possibility, because there's space, not urban clutter".  Simon Goddard described the music on "The Scream" as a "claustrophobic abyss of angst and angularity", saying it was part of a triptych of albums layering the foundations of post-punk. The opening cut, "Pure", had a spacious, atmospheric sound. Journalist Miranda Sawyer noted that Siouxsie's "vocals came from a distance", that "there was a lot of space" and that "the sound was big and slow". Kris Needs remarked that at the end, it seeps out into "Jigsaw Feeling", a "song of disorientation and bewilderment" with a "huge, sometimes awe-inspiring sound". On "Metal Postcard", there is a "motorik austerity" in the rhythm patterns. The last song, "Switch", was arranged in three different sections, "for the different people who swap jobs with terrible results - scientists, general practitioner and vicar".  McKay co-wrote most of the songs. Only "Carcass" dated from the band's time with Peter Fenton, their guitarist from January to July 1977. Siouxsie wanted the Banshees' music to be "cinematic"; Bernard Herrmann's score to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" inspired the music of "Suburban Relapse", where the guitars echo the knife-screeching violins of the famous shower scene. Drummer Stephen Morris noted in his autobiography that the Banshees used "the bass-led rhythm" and their drummer "Kenny Morris played mostly toms".

Title and sleeve.

The title of the album was in part inspired by the 1968 film "The Swimmer" (starring Burt Lancaster), in which main character, Neddy Merrill, intended to swim home, using open-air pools. Climbing over garden fences, from pool to pool, his journey put him into a state of mental and physical exhaustion, and in the end, Goddard said, "all Neddy Merrill could think to do was scream, [...] as a scream of exhausted jubilance after a troubled, arduous journey".  The idea for the cover was Siouxsie's. Photographer Paul Wakefield met with her and the band to discuss the project. Wakefield later said: "The idea was to shoot disquieting and unnerving images underwater in a swimming pool – you can't scream underwater. I wanted to be able to completely control the lighting, and so an indoor pool was the only option. I scouted quite a few pools, but when I saw this pool in the YMCA in Central London, which was dark blue tiled with light blue lane stripes instead of the normal reverse colors, I knew it was the ideal location. I wanted to give it an eerie underwater night-time feel, and this setting was perfect. We used a number of 1000K and 2000K lights around the pool edge. I used school kids as models and they pretty well ran riot."

Release.

More than one month prior to its release, DJ John Peel broadcast the album on BBC radio 1 from an advance copy on a cassette, from the beginning to end, with no interruptions. "That's the one boys and girls,' he says when it's over. 'That's the one.'"  "The Scream" was released on 13 November 1978. It was an almost instant commercial success, peaking at No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart.  "The Scream" was reissued in the UK on 27 October 2005 as part of Universal's Deluxe Edition series. The new edition featured a remastered version of the album on the first disc, while the second disc contained demo and live tracks together with the singles from that period. A single-disc edition of the reissue was released in 2007.  In November 2016, a vinyl picture disc edition was released, mastered from the original tapes by Kevin Metcalfe. A 180g vinyl reissue of the original edition, mastered from the original 1⁄4 inch tapes and cut half-speed at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell, was released in September 2018. A blue vinyl edition, limited to 1,000 copies, was released in November 2018 for the 40th anniversary of the album, on indie only record stores' websites.

Critical reception.

Upon its release, "The Scream" received critical acclaim. Critics in the British and American press generally agreed that the album was a landmark of its time and that the band's willingness to experiment made it a challenging listen.  "The Scream" was hailed as "the best debut album of the year" by "Sounds". Critic Peter Silverton gave the album 5 stars out of 5, and the paper listed it at No. 2 in its end-of-year best album list. "Record Mirror" also published a 5-star review, saying: "The Scream" "points to the future, real music for the new age. [...] It is vital, it's moving. It's a... landmark." Chris Westwood praised the cohesion between the words and the music: "The album's lyrical frame of mind is perfectly reflected in the work of [guitarist] McKay. [Bassist] Severin and [drummer] Morris; constantly shifting, restless, controlled aggression, they are as essential as Siouxsie." "Melody Maker" described the sound as "strong, abrasive, visceral and constantly inventive, with a thrust that makes the spaces equal partners to the notes", with the critic comparing the album's textures to that of Wire and Pere Ubu. "ZigZag" qualified it as a "magnificent record", with reviewer Kris Needs writing: "I can't think of another group who could have made an LP so uncompromising, powerful and disturbing, yet so captivating and enjoyable [...] It is certainly a special classic to join milestones like <nowiki>[</nowiki>David Bowie's<nowiki>]</nowiki> "Diamond Dogs", "Roxy [Music]'s first" and <nowiki>[</nowiki>Lou Reed's<nowiki>]</nowiki> "Berlin". This is music of such strength and vision that you just can't not be moved by the time they swing into the final climactic passage of 'Switch', the closing track." Needs qualified the sound as "huge, sometimes awe-inspiring" and commented that drummer Morris created "one of the best drum sounds I've ever heard – the deep echo and floor-shuddering mix accentuating his muted Glitter Band stomp". Critic Adam Sweeting began his review by saying, "This is a chilling, intense masterpiece". Sweeting then noted that the musicians "have perfected a group sound which is powerful but streamlined", adding that "the words and music combine to produce coolly dazzling images".  Several journalists from "NME" also praised the record. Nick Kent first stated that the band sounded "like some unique hybrid of the Velvet Underground mated with much of the ingenuity of "Tago Mago"-era Can." He then focused his attention on the opening track, saying: "Pure" "takes the sound to its ultimate juncture, leaving spaces that say as much as the notes being played. Certainly, the traditional three-piece sound has never been used in a more unorthodox fashion with such stunning results." In December 1978, another critic from "NME", Paul Morley, described the music on "The Scream" as "unlike anything in rock":  It is not, as some would say, chaotic – it is controlled. Each instrument operates within its own space, its own time, as if mocking the lines of other instruments. Known rock is inverted, leaving just traces of mimickry of rock's cliches – satire that often bursts with glorious justification into shaking celebration (as on "Helter Skelter"). It is easy to gain attention by doing something which is crudely obviously out of the ordinary, but the Banshees have avoided such futile superficialities: it is innovation, not revolution, not a destruction but new building. It has grown out of rock – Velvets, "Station to Station", Bolan. And Siouxsie's staggering voice is dropped, clipped, snapped prominently above this audacious musical drama, emphasizing the dark colours and empty, naked moods.  However, in her review of the album, "NME"'s Julie Burchill expressed reservations, stating that the Banshees sound was "a self-important threshing machine thrashing all stringed instruments down onto the same low level alongside that draggy sub-voice as it attempts futile eagle and dove swoops around the mono-beat. Their sound is certainly different from the normal guitar-bass-drums-voice consequence. But it’s radically stodgy [...] loud, heavy and levelling".  Kurt Loder gave a very favourable review in "Rolling Stone", remarking that "The Scream" was a "striking debut album"; and that its "sound, stark though fully realized (thanks partly to a most simpatico co-producer, Steve Lillywhite), is lent added intellectual dimension by a series of disturbingly ambiguous lyrical images".  During a BBC radio show, David Bowie mentioned a concert of the group given after their release of their first album: "I saw you Siouxsie and you were really excellent [...] I was clutching my copy of "The Scream"".

Legacy.

Record Mirror's Ronnie Gurr wrote that ""The Scream", a masterpiece that, for six months, I failed to recognise as such, was a harrowing listening experience." Since its release, "The Scream" has received a number of accolades from the music press. "NME" rated it at No. 58 in their "Writers All Time 100 Albums" list in 1985. Don Watson of "NME" described the album's music as "something that whipped the past into a great whirlpool of noise, pulling the future down". "Uncut" magazine placed it at No. 43 in their list of the 100 greatest debut albums. It was featured in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". In 2006, the music critic Garry Mulholland included it in his book "Fear of Music" about the 261 greatest albums since 1976. In 2007, Kris Needs wrote that "it stands as one of the great debut albums from any era". In 2017, "Q" included it in their list of "the debut albums that changed music" with "revolutionnary sounds".  "The Scream" placed the group among the pioneers of post-punk, as peer Robert Smith of the Cure contended:  "When "The Scream" came out, I remember it was much slower than everybody thought. It was like the forerunner of the Joy Division sound. It was just big-sounding."  Joy Division's Peter Hook, who saw the group in concert in Manchester in 1977, said about "The Scream": "Siouxsie And The Banshees were one of our big influences [...] The Banshees first LP was one of my favourite ever records, the way the guitarist and the drummer played was a really unusual way of playing and this album showcases a landmark performance." Geordie Walker of Killing Joke praised McKay's guitar playing and sound : "on "The Scream", [...] he came out with these chord structures that I found very refreshing. The guy's been ripped off so much, he started that flanged chord thing"."  "The Scream" had a strong impact on other musicians. Massive Attack covered and sampled "Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)" on their song "Superpredators (Metal Postcard)" in 1997 for the soundtrack to the movie "The Jackal". Steve Albini praised guitarist John McKay for the noise created : ""The Scream" is notable for a few things: only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player (you know, the one who's been replaced by everyone in England) got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". and further added: "good noise guitar is like an orgasm." While playing his favourite records on BBC Radio 6 in 2012, Jim Reid of the Jesus and Mary Chain commented: "'Jigsaw Feeling' from "The Scream" album [...] it was brilliant, amazing. That's a reason why I made music". Morrissey had "Mirage" played during intermission before all concerts of his 1991's "Kill Uncle" tour. Morrissey's main composer, Boz Boorer, also rated "The Scream" highly, ranking it second in his "Top Five Desert Island Album Selection". Boorer stated: "Another big influence on my playing is John McKay [...]. That first Siouxsie record was quite incredible sounding, and it started me in thinking that music didn’t have to be any certain way—that there could be many different influences in music and it didn’t have to be a single, strict avenue. That first Banshees album has a lot of jarring guitar that rubs against what you’d think was going to or maybe should happen over a part, and that changed my thinking quite a bit". Faith No More covered "Switch" in concert and cited this first Siouxsie and the Banshees' album as one of their influences. Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson cited it as one of her all-time favourite records. "The Scream" was also hailed by the singer of Suede, Brett Anderson. Marc Almond of Soft Cell also explained why the songs mattered to him: ""The Scream" made a real impression on me. I loved the way they turned these suburban things into nightmares--that was a great influence on early Soft Cell stuff". Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl remembered 1978 as an important music year. "Back then when I only had five or six records I'd listen to each of them over and over, knowing every beat, every word, every scratch. Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True", "The Scream" by Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Jam's "In the City", "Moving Targets" by Penetration, and "Another Music in a Different Kitchen" by Buzzcocks.

The Scream is the debut studio album by British rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was released in November 1978 on Polydor. The album is considered a landmark recording: its innovative combination of bass led rhythm and angular guitar with motorik drums played mostly on toms, would make it a pioneering work of the post-punk genre.

The Scream je první studiové album britské post-punkové skupiny Siouxsie and the Banshees. Jeho producentem byl Steve Lillywhite a album vyšlo v listopadu 1978 u vydavatelství Polydor Records. Vedle devíti autorských skladeb obsahuje i píseň „Helter Skelter“ od skupiny The Beatles.


Construction and use.

Standard or "low-form" (A) beakers typically have a height about 1.4 times the diameter. The common low form with a spout was devised by John Joseph Griffin and is therefore sometimes called a Griffin beaker. These are the most universal character and are used for various purposes—from preparing solutions and decanting supernatant fluids to holding waste fluids prior to disposal to performing simple reactions. Low form beakers are likely to be used in some way when performing a chemical experiment. "Tall-form" (B) beakers have a height about twice their diameter. These are sometimes called Berzelius beakers and are mostly used for titration. Flat beakers (C) are often called "crystallizers" because most are used to perform crystallization, but they are also often used as a vessel for use in hot-bath heating. These beakers usually do not have a flat scale.  The presence of a spout means that the beaker cannot have a lid. However, when in use, beakers may be covered by a watch glass to prevent contamination or loss of the contents, but allowing venting via the spout. Alternatively, a beaker may be covered with another larger beaker that has been inverted, though a watch glass is preferable.  Beakers are often "graduated", that is, marked on the side with lines indicating the volume contained. For instance, a 250 mL beaker might be marked with lines to indicate 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 mL of volume. These marks are not intended for obtaining a precise measurement of volume (a graduated cylinder or a volumetric flask would be a more appropriate instrument for such a task), but rather an estimation. Most beakers are accurate to within ~10%.

Standards.

DIN EN ISO 3819:2015-12 defines the following types and sizes:

In laboratory equipment, a beaker is generally a cylindrical container with a flat bottom. Most also have a small spout (or "beak") to aid pouring, as shown in the picture. Beakers are available in a wide range of sizes, from one millilitre up to several litres. A beaker is distinguished from a flask by having straight rather than sloping sides. The exception to this definition is a slightly conical-sided beaker called a Philips beaker. The beaker shape in general drinkware is similar.

Kádinka je válcová skleněná nádobka, užívaná v laboratořích k uchovávání, míchání, ohřívání a odměřování kapalin a roztoků. Patří k nejběžnějšímu laboratornímu zařízení.


Background.

Magnitsky was an auditor at the Moscow law firm Firestone Duncan, working for its owner, Jamison Firestone. He worked with Firestone Duncan client Hermitage Capital Management, an investment advisory firm accused of tax evasion and tax fraud by the Russian Interior Ministry.  Over the years of its operation Hermitage had, on a number of occasions, supplied to the press information related to corporate and governmental misconduct and corruption within state-owned Russian enterprises. Hermitage's company co-founder, American Bill Browder, was expelled from Russia in November 2005 as a purported national threat; Browder arrived in Moscow, was told his visa had been annulled, and was deported the next day. Browder has said that he represented a threat only "to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats" in Russia, and believed that he was removed to leave his company open for exploitation.  On 4 June 2007, Hermitage's Moscow office was raided by about 20 Ministry of Interior officers. The offices of Firestone Duncan were also raided. The officers had a search warrant alleging that Kamaya, a company administered by Hermitage, had underpaid its taxes. This was highly irregular, as the Russian tax authorities had just confirmed in writing that this company had overpaid its tax. In both cases, the search warrants permitted the seizure of materials related only to Kamaya. But, in both cases the officers illegally seized all the corporate, tax documents and seals for any company that had paid a large amount of Russian taxes, including documents and seals for many of Hermitage's Russian companies. In October 2007, Browder received word that one of the firms maintained in Moscow had a judgment against it for an alleged unpaid debt of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to Browder, this was the first he had heard of this court case and he did not know the lawyers who represented his company in court. Magnitsky was assigned to investigate the case.

Exposing the scandal.

In his investigation, auditor Magnitsky came to believe that the police had given the materials taken during the police raids to organized criminals, who used them to take over three of Hermitage's Russian companies and who fraudulently reclaimed $230m (£140m) of the taxes previously paid by Hermitage. He also claimed police had accused Hermitage of tax evasion solely to justify the police raids, so they could take the materials needed to hijack the Hermitage companies and effect the tax refund fraud. Magnitsky's testimony implicated police, the judiciary, tax officials, bankers, and the Russian mafia. In spite of the initial dismissal of his claims, Magnitsky's core allegation that Hermitage had not committed fraud—but had been victimized by it—was eventually validated. A sawmill foreman pleaded guilty in the matter to "fraud by prior collusion", though the foreman would maintain that police were not part of the plan. Before then, however, Magnitsky became the subject of investigation by one of the policemen against whom he had testified as involved in the fraud. According to Browder, Magnitsky was "the 'go-to guy' in Moscow on courts, taxes, fines, anything to do with civil law."  According to Magnitsky's investigation, the documents that had been taken by the Russian police in June 2007 were used to forge a change in ownership of Hermitage. The thieves used the forged contracts to claim Hermitage owed $1 billion to shell companies. Unbeknownst to Hermitage, those claims were later authenticated by judges. In every instance, lawyers hired by the thieves to represent Hermitage (unbeknownst to Hermitage) pleaded guilty on the company's behalf and agreed to the claims, thereby obtaining judgments for debts that did not exist; all while Hermitage officials were unaware of these court proceedings.  The new owner, based in Tatarstan, turned out to be Viktor Markelov, a convicted murderer released two years into his sentence. The company's fake debt was used to make the companies look unprofitable in order to justify a refund of $230 million in tax that the companies had paid when they had been under Hermitage's control. The refund was issued on Christmas Eve 2007 and was the largest tax rebate in Russian history.  Hermitage contacted the Russian government with the findings of its investigation. The money, which was not Hermitage's, belonged to the Russian state. Rather than opening a case against the police and the thieves, the Russian authorities opened a criminal case against Magnitsky.

Custody and death.

Magnitsky was arrested and imprisoned at the Butyrka prison in Moscow in November 2008 after being accused of colluding with Hermitage. Held for 11 months without trial, he was, as reported by "The Telegraph", "denied visits from his family" and "forced into increasingly squalid cells." He developed gall stones, pancreatitis and calculous cholecystitis, for which he was given inadequate medical treatment during his incarceration. Surgery was ordered in June, but never performed; detention center chief Ivan P. Prokopenko later said that he "...did not consider Magnitsky sick... Prisoners often try to pass themselves off as sick, in order to get better conditions."  On 16 November 2009, eight days before he would have had to be released if he were not brought to trial, Magnitsky died. Prison officials at first attributed his death to a "rupture to the abdominal membrane" and later to a heart attack. Reporters learned that Magnitsky had complained of worsening stomach pain for five days prior to his death and that by the 15th, he was vomiting every three hours, and had a visibly swollen stomach. On the day of his death, the prison physician, believing Magnitsky had a chronic disease, sent him by ambulance to and later transferred him to Matrosskaya Tishina prison's medical unit, which was equipped to help him. But the surgeon there—who described Magnitsky as "agitated, trying to hide behind a bag and saying people were trying to kill him"—prescribed only a painkiller, and left him to receive a psychiatric evaluation. Magnitsky was found dead in his cell a little over two hours later.  According to Ludmila Alekseeva, leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Magnitsky had died from being beaten and tortured by several officers of the Russian Ministry of Interior. The official death certificate stated "closed cerebral cranial injury" as the cause of death (in addition to the other conditions mentioned above), and the post-mortem examination showed numerous bruises and wounds on Magnitsky's legs and hands. Another post-mortem from 2011 summarized the death as being caused by "traumatic application of the blunt hard object (objects)" as confirmed by "abrasions, ecchymomas, blood effusions into the soft tissues".  Journalist Owen Matthews described Magnitsky's suffering in Moscow's Butyrka prison:  According to [Magnitsky's] heartbreaking prison diary, investigators repeatedly tried to persuade him to give testimony against Hermitage and drop the accusations against the police and tax authorities. When Magnitsky refused, he was moved to more and more horrible sections of the prison, and ultimately denied the medical treatment which could have saved his life.

Aftermath and official investigations.

According to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Magnitsky's death "caused public outrage and sparked discussion of the need to improve prison healthcare and to reduce the number of inmates awaiting trial in detention prisons."  An independent investigatory body, the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, indicated in December 2009 that "psychological and physical pressure was exerted upon" Magnitsky. One of the Commissioners said that while she had first believed his death was due to medical negligence, she had developed "the frightening feeling that it was not negligence but that it was, to some extent, as terrible as it is to say, a premeditated murder."  An official investigation was ordered in November 2009 by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Russian authorities had not concluded their own investigation as of December 2009, but 20 senior prison officials had already been fired as a result of the case. In December 2009, in two separate decrees, Medvedev fired Alexander Piskunov, deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, and signed a law forbidding the jailing of individuals who are suspected of tax crimes. Magnitsky's death is also believed to be linked to the firing of Major-General Anatoli Mikhalkin, formerly the head of the Moscow division of the tax crimes department of the Interior Ministry. Mikhalkin was among those accused by Magnitsky of taking part in fraud. Opalesque TV released a video on 8 February 2010, in which Hermitage Capital Management founder Bill Browder revealed details of Sergei Magnitsky's ordeal during his 11 months in detention. On 25 June 2010 radio-station Echo of Moscow announced that Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs "Department for Own Security" started investigations against Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Kuznetsov, who has been accused of improper imprisonment of Magnitsky. The investigation was in response to an appeal by the Hermitage Capital Management and United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In February 2011, the investigation, which had not yet identified any suspects, was extended to May.  In November 2010, Magnitsky was given a posthumous award from Transparency International for integrity. Magnitsky, according to the awards committee, "believed in the rule of law and died for his belief." A film produced to highlight Magnitsky's persecution has been shown to the American Congress and British, Canadian, German, Polish, and the European parliaments.  In July 2011, Russia's Investigate Committee initially acknowledged that Magnitsky died because prison authorities restricted medical care for him. Russian authorities also opened criminal cases against the two doctors who treated him; Dr. Dmitri Kratov, the chief medical officer at Butyrskaya Prison, and Dr. Larisa Litvinova who managed Magnitsky's treatment towards the end. Dr. Kratov was demoted soon after Magnitsky's death and was charged with involuntary manslaughter from negligence and is facing five years in prison. Dr. Litvinova may receive up to three years in prison if convicted of causing death through professional negligence. An independent prison watchdog commission reported that the prison doctors were pressured by investigators to deny treatment, and Dr. Litvinova disclosed to the Public Oversight Commission that she was trying to get approval for Magnitsky's treatment. However, investigators looking into the death of Magnitsky cleared Oleg F. Silchenko, who oversaw the investigation of Magnitsky, of any wrongdoing. Charges of professional negligence against Dr. Litvinova were dropped due to statute of limitations issues. On 23 December 2012, as the trial neared its end, the prosecutor conducting the trial against Dr. Kratov suddenly reversed course and sought acquittal, citing no direct connection between Kratov's actions and Magnitsky's death. On 28 December 2012, a Tverskoy court found Kratov not guilty of negligence causing Magnitsky's death, thus complying with the prosecution's request.  In 2012 Pavel Karpov, former Russian Interior Ministry officer accused by Magnitsky and Browder of being the main beneficiary of the tax fraud, filed a libel suit in London. Karpov lost the case and was ordered to pay over £800,000 to Hermitage Capital Management. In 2016 Karpov was additionally sentenced to three months in prison for "contempt of court" for non-payment of costs of the libel action. As of September 2016, over £660,000 of that amount remained unpaid.  In February 2012, the Russian police announced their intention to resubmit charges of tax evasion against Magnitsky for a second trial. As pointed out in the press, this was the first posthumous trial in Russia. William F. Browder, who lives in London, was a co-defendant tried in absentia. On 11 July 2013, a court in Moscow found Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion in the posthumous trial. The court also found Magnitsky's onetime client, the US-born British investor William Browder, guilty of evading some $17 million in taxes.  In 2012, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a Sarajevo-based network of investigative centers, successfully traced some of the missing Russian funds to a company owned by Denis Katsyv, the son of Pyotr Katsyv. The money had been invested into a real estate firm that was buying Wall Street apartments in New York City. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a seizure order to recover the apartments in September 2013.  In 2013, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit news organization, obtained records of companies and trusts created by two offshore companies. These included information on at least 23 companies linked to an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia, a case that was being investigated by Sergei Magnitsky. The ICIJ investigation also revealed that the husband of one of the Russian tax officials deposited millions in a Swiss bank account set up by one of the offshore companies.  In 2016 a large criminal investigation was completed in Russia where a number of public officers from tax, security, and customs agencies were involved in large scale VAT carousel fraud schemes, very similar to the one that was used in the fraud against Hermitage Capital, and with the same high-ranking officers providing krysha (, "protection") in both cases. A few low-ranking officers were convicted in the case, but no mid- or high-ranking officers were even indicted, despite total losses to the budget exceeding 20 billion rubles. Since worsening of relations with the European Union after 2014, the version officially promoted in Russia is that Bill Browder's Hermitage Capital was responsible for tax fraud and that Magnitsky died as result of his conspiracy involving Alexey Navalny, which was highlighted in a 2016 "investigative" film by Andrei Nekrasov. Both Magnitsky's wife and mother, whose manipulated citations were used in the film, wrote a protest letter criticizing the film for bias and manipulations.  On 21 March 2017, the Magnitsky family's lawyer, Nikolai Gorokhov fell, or was thrown, from the 4th floor of his apartment building in Moscow. Seriously injured, he was taken to hospital by helicopter.

Increasing international reactions.

In late 2010, international attention to the matter intensified, with the European Parliament calling for 60 officials believed to be connected to Magnitsky's death to be banned from entering the European Union, and the Parliament of Canada resolving to deny visas to and freeze the Canadian assets of allegedly involved officials. The EU Parliament also urged members to freeze assets of officials, while similar measures were under consideration in the United States. In October 2010, US Senator John McCain co-sponsored the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act, which would forbid entry to the US to 60 individuals named in court documents related to the Magnitsky case. McCain said the law would help to "identify those responsible for the death of this Russian patriot, to make their names famous for the whole world to know, and then to hold them accountable for their crimes." The law is considered analogous to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 in the precedent it hopes to create. In July 2011, the US stated that dozens of Russian officials were barred from entering the United States due to their involvement in the death of Magnitsky.  The Russian Foreign Ministry described the Canadian resolution as "an attempt to pressure the investigators and interfere in the internal affairs of another state", while in a November statement the head of the lower house's international committee Konstantin Kosachyov criticized the European Parliament's conclusions, indicating that sanctions violated the "presumption of innocence" principle and should await the resolution of the Russian court. "Bloomberg" reported in December that, according to an "Interfax" story, "identical measures" would be taken by Russia if a European Union ban was put into place. In mid-December, the European Parliament passed the resolution allowing the officials to be banned by member states and their assets to be seized.  In January 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, opened an investigation into Magnitsky's treatment and death.  In November 2011 a permanent exhibition with the title "Sergei Magnitsky – witness for justice and democracy in Russia" was opened in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin.  In December 2012, the United States passed a law called "Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012" which, among other things, authorized the president to sanction people responsible for violations of human rights in Russia.  Similar acts are being considered in the UK parliament and Irish Dáil.  In December 2012, the Russian parliament passed a bill which was widely regarded by mass media, including Russia's media, as retaliation for the Magnitsky bill. Russia's bill signed into law by Putin on 28 December 2012, banned, among other things, Americans from adopting Russian children.  In the 2013 meetings of the World Economic Forum, the issue surfaced at the highest level, with Reuters reporting that before Medvedev gave his opening speech, some 78 percent of respondents voting in an audience packed with hundreds of Western executives and politicians agreed that Russia's biggest problem was weak government and corporate governance.  On 1 October 2015, Sergei Magnitsky was posthumously awarded 'Honourable Mention' at the Allard Prize for International Integrity ceremony. The Magnitsky family attended the ceremony and responded, "Sergei would have been so proud and humbled by this nomination. He always strived to live his life in the best possible way, with honesty and integrity. Six years after his untimely and heartbreaking death, it is awards such as this that keep Sergei's memory alive. Being nominated for the Allard Prize gives his whole family a huge sense of pride and once again asserts that his life was not sacrificed in vain. Our whole family is immensely grateful for the attention this award will give to the global Magnitsky justice campaign which emerged from our tragedy."

Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky (; 8 April 1972 – 16 November 2009) was a Russian tax advisor. His arrest in 2008 and subsequent death after eleven months in police custody generated international media attention and triggered both official and unofficial inquiries into allegations of fraud, theft and human rights violations in Russia.

Sergej Leonidovič Magnitskij (rusky "Сергей Леонидович Магнитский"; 8. dubna 1972 – 16. listopadu 2009) byl ruský auditor a právník, jehož uvěznění a následná smrt ve vazbě vzbudila mezinárodní pozornost a podezření z porušení lidských práv.


History of stock broking.

The first recorded buying and selling of shares occurred in Rome in the 2nd century BC. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, stockbroking did not become a profession until after the Renaissance, when government bonds were traded in Italian city-states such as Genoa and Venice. In 1602, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (now Euronext Amsterdam) became the first official stock market with trading in shares of the Dutch East India Company, the first company to issue stock. In 1698, the London Stock Exchange, opened at a coffeehouse. On May 17, 1792, the New York Stock Exchange opened under a platanus occidentalis (buttonwood tree) in New York City, as 24 stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement, agreeing to trade five securities under that buttonwood tree.

Licensing and training requirements.

Australia.

Investment professionals that offer financial advice in Australia must pass training pursuant to RG146 and hold a licence that is overseen by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. They are subject to fiduciary obligations.

Canada.

In Canada, to be licensed as a "registered representative" or an "investment advisor" and thus be qualified to offer investment advice and trade all instruments with the exception of derivatives, an individual employed by an investment firm must have completed the Canadian Securities Course, the Conduct & Practices Handbook, and the 90-day Investment Advisor Training Program. Within 30 months of obtaining designation as a "registered representative", the registrant is further required to meet the post-licensing proficiency requirement to complete the Wealth Management Essentials course. A registered representative is also required to complete 30 hours of professional development (product knowledge) and 12 hours of compliance training every three year continuing education cycle as set out by the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. To trade options and/or futures, a registered representative must pass the Derivatives Fundamentals Course in addition to the Options Licensing Course and/or the Futures Licensing Course, or alternatively, the Derivatives Fundamentals Options Licensing Course for options.

Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, to become a representative one has to work for a licensed firm and pass 3 exams to prove competency. Passing a fourth exam results in obtaining a'specialist' license. All tests can be taken with the Hong Kong Securities Institute. After passing all tests, approval must be received by the Securities and Futures Commission.

India.

Share brokers in India are governed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 and brokers must register with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange via brokers, provide an ecosystem to investors to trade in capital markets through various channels- broker offices, investment advisor or screen-based electronic trading system. An individual employed by an investment firm must complete the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) exam and apply to SEBI for registration as an Investment Advisor

Ireland.

The recognized benchmark designation for investment professionals in Ireland is the QFA ("qualified financial adviser") designation, which is awarded to those who pass the Professional Diploma in Financial Advice and agree to comply with the ongoing "continuous professional development" (CPD) requirements. The qualification, and attaching CPD program, meets the "minimum competency requirements" specified by the Financial Regulator, for advising on and selling five categories of retail financial products:

New Zealand.

In New Zealand, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority oversees qualifications. The New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services (Level 5) is the minimum level of qualification necessary to offer investment advice.

Singapore.

In Singapore, becoming a trading representative requires passing 4 exams, modules 1A, 5, 6 and 6A, from the Institute of Banking and Finance and applying for the license through MAS and SGX.

South Korea.

In South Korea, the Korea Financial Investment Association oversees the licensing of investment professionals.

United Kingdom.

Stockbroking is a regulated profession in the United Kingdom and brokers must achieve a recognised qualification from the Appropriate Qualifications list of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI) is the largest UK professional body for investment professionals. It evolved from the London Stock Exchange, has around 40,000 members in over 100 countries and delivers more than 37,000 exams each year. CFA UK also offers qualifications. It represents the interests of around 11,000 investment professionals and is part of the worldwide network of members of the CFA Institute.  Qualifications include: the CISI Level 4 Diploma in Investment Advice and the CISI Level 7 Diploma in Wealth Management

United States.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory organization, regulates investment professionals in the United States. Exams that individuals may take for accreditation include the Series 7 exam, the Uniform Securities Agent State Law Exam (Series 63), the Uniform Combined State Law Exam (Series 66), and the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Exam (Series 65).  Individuals holding some of those licenses, such as the Series 6 exam, cannot be called stockbrokers since they are prohibited from selling stocks. Selling variable products, such as a variable annuity contract or variable universal life insurance policy, typically requires the broker to also have one or another state insurance department licenses.  Individuals and firms are regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and laws related to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, including laws related to fiduciary.

A stockbroker, share holder registered representative (in the United States and Canada), trading representative (in Singapore), or more broadly, an investment broker, investment adviser, financial adviser, wealth manager, or investment professional is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks and other investments to financial market participants in return for a commission, markup, or fee, which could be based on a flat rate, percentage of assets, or hourly rate. Examples of professional designations held by individuals in this field, which affects the types of investments they are permitted to sell and the services they provide include chartered financial consultants, certified financial planners or chartered financial analysts (in the United States), chartered strategic wealth professionals (in Canada), chartered financial planners (in the UK), and Master of Business Administration. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority provides an online tool designed to help understand professional designations in the United States.

Burzovní makléř nebo investiční makléř ( nebo "stockbroker") zprostředkovává nákup a prodej finančních nástrojů jako jsou akcie, dluhopisy, komodity a deriváty. Tato fyzická osoba je zaměstnancem obchodníka s cennými papíry. Tento člověk má odborné znalosti fungování kapitálových trhů a patřičné legislativy.


Types of courses.

Courses are made up of individual sessions, typically on a fixed weekly schedule.  There are different formats of course in universities:  Many courses combine these formats. Lecture courses often include weekly discussion sections with smaller groups of students led by the principal instructor, another instructor, or teaching assistant. Laboratory courses often combine lectures, discussion sections, and laboratory sessions.  Students are expected to do various kinds of work for a course:  The exact work required depends on the discipline, the course, and the particular instructor. Unlike most European university courses, grades are generally determined by all of these kinds of work, not only the final examination.

Elective and required courses.

An elective course is one chosen by a student from a number of optional subjects or courses in a curriculum, as opposed to a required course which the student must take. While required courses (sometimes called "core courses" or "general education courses") are deemed essential for an academic degree, elective courses tend to be more specialized. Elective courses usually have fewer students than the required courses.  The term elective is also used for a period of medical study conducted away from the student's home medical school, often abroad. Motivations for choosing such a program include a wish to experience other cultures and to learn how to work in the clinical situations in other countries.  Typically, North American universities require students to achieve both breadth of knowledge across disciplines and depth of knowledge in a particular chosen subject area, known as a major. Thus, students of the Arts or Humanities are required to take some science courses, and vice versa. Normally, students are free to choose their particular electives from among a wide range of courses offered by their university, as long as the students possess the prerequisite knowledge to understand the subject matter being taught. An English major, for example, might also study one or two years of chemistry, biology or physics as well as mathematics and a foreign language.  Elective courses are also offered in the third and fourth years of university, though the choice is more restrictive and will depend upon the particular major the student has chosen. For example, at the University of British Columbia, students intending to specialize in Sanskrit as part of a major in Asian language and culture will usually have to complete several Sanskrit and Hindustani or Punjabi courses during the first two years of university, as well as additional courses in other languages of India in the third and fourth years of study. In addition to these required courses, however, students would choose among several third- and fourth-year elective courses on topics not directly related to India, such as the history and culture of China, Japan or Indonesia.

Course numbering system.

In the United States, most universities implement a course numbering system where each course is identified by the name of the major (or an abbreviation thereof) followed by a 3- or 4-digit number − for example, CS 123. This common numbering system was designed to make transfer between colleges easier. In theory, any numbered course in one academic institution should bring a student to the same standard as a similarly numbered course at other institutions.  The first digit of the course number is related to its level, or relative difficulty, of the course, and can roughly correspond the year of study in which the course is likely to be taken. It is common for the second digit to represent the subfield in the department within which the course is offered − for example, in a Physics department, all courses numbered PHYS 47xx may be about magnetism, while all PHYS 48xx courses may be about optics. The attribution of the third and fourth digits is less standardized, but in general, sequences of related courses tend to have consecutive course numbers, with gaps between such sequences to signal different sets of courses.  The course number 101 is often used for an introductory course at a beginner's level in a department's subject area.

In higher education in Canada, Nigeria and the United States, a course is a unit of teaching that typically lasts one academic term, is led by one or more instructors (teachers or professors), and has a fixed roster of students. A course is usually an individual subject. Courses generally have a fixed program of sessions every week during the term, called lessons or classes. Students may receive a grade and academic credit after completion of the course.

Kurz (z lat. "cursus", běh) je ucelený soubor přednášek, seminářů, cvičení atd., spojený společným tématem a obvykle také osobou (týmem) vyučujících. Účastníci se do kurzu přihlašují (zapisují) a na závěr se často podrobují zkoušce a mohou získat nějaké osvědčení. Kurzy mohou být prezenční, kde se předpokládá pravidelná účast posluchačů, anebo dálkové či e-learningové, kde účastníci dostávají různé studijní materiály a úkoly, studují doma ve volném čase, konzultují písemně a nakonec případně skládají zkoušku.