Life.

Réaumur was born in a prominent La Rochelle family and educated in Paris. He learned philosophy in the Jesuits' college at Poitiers, and in 1699 went to Bourges to study civil law and mathematics under the charge of an uncle, canon of La Sainte-Chapelle. In 1703 he went to Paris, where he continued the study of mathematics and physics. In 1708, at the age of 24, he was nominated by Pierre Varignon (who taught him mathematics) and elected a member of the Académie des Sciences. From this time onwards for nearly half a century hardly a year passed in which the "Mémoires de l'Académie" did not contain at least one paper by Réaumur.  At first, his attention was occupied by mathematical studies, especially in geometry. In 1710, he was named the chief editor of the "Descriptions of the Arts and Trades", a major government project which resulted in the establishment of manufactures new to France and the revival of neglected industries. For discoveries regarding iron and steel he was awarded a pension of 12,000 livres. Content with his ample private income, he requested that the money should go to the Académie des Sciences for the furtherance of experiments on improved industrial processes. In 1731 he became interested in meteorology, and invented the thermometer scale which bears his name: the Réaumur. In 1735, for family reasons, he accepted the post of commander and intendant of the royal and military Order of Saint Louis. He discharged his duties with scrupulous attention, but refused the pay. He took great delight in the systematic study of natural history. His friends often called him "the Pliny of the 18th century".  He loved retirement and lived at his country residences, including his chateau La Bermondière, Saint-Julien-du-Terroux, Maine, where he had a serious fall from a horse, which led to his death. He bequeathed his manuscripts, which filled 138 portfolios, and his natural history collections to the Académie des Sciences.  Réaumur's scientific papers deal with many branches of science. His first, in 1708, was on a general problem in geometry. His last, in 1756, on the forms of birds' nests. He proved experimentally the fact that the strength of a rope is more than the sum of the strengths of its separate strands. He examined and reported on the auriferous (gold-bearing) rivers, the turquoise mines, the forests and the fossil beds of France. He devised the method of tinning iron that is still employed, and investigated the differences between iron and steel, correctly showing that the amount of carbon is greatest in cast iron, less in steel, and least in wrought iron. His book on this subject (1722) was translated into English and German.  He was noted for a thermometer he constructed on the principle of taking the freezing point of water as 0°, and graduating the tube into degrees each of which was one-thousandth of the volume contained by the bulb and tube up to the zero mark. It was an accident dependent on the particular alcohol employed which made the boiling-point of water 80°; mercurial thermometers graduated into 80 equal parts between the freezing- and boiling-points of water are named Réaumur thermometers but diverge from his design and intention.  Réaumur wrote much on natural history. Early in life he described the locomotor system of the Echinodermata, and showed that the supposed ability of replacing their lost limbs was actually true. He has been considered as a founder of ethology.  In 1710 he wrote a paper on the possibility of spiders being used to produce silk, which was so celebrated at the time that the Kangxi Emperor of China had it translated into Chinese. His observations of wasps making paper from wood fibres have led some to credit him with this change in paper-making techniques. It was over a century before wood pulp was used on any industrial scale in paper making.  He studied the relationship between the growth of insects and temperature. He also computed the rate of growth of insect populations and noted that there must be natural checks since the theoretical population numbers achieveable by geometric progression were not matched by observations of actual populations.  He also studied botanical and agricultural matters, and devised processes for preserving birds and eggs. He elaborated a system of artificial incubation, and made important observations on the digestion of carnivorous and graminivorous (grass-eating) birds. One of his greatest works is the "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des insectes", 6 vols., with 267 plates (Amsterdam, 1734–42). It describes the appearance, habits and locality of all the known insects except the beetles, and is a marvel of patient and accurate observation. Among other important facts stated in this work are the experiments which enabled Réaumur to prove the correctness of Peyssonel's hypothesis, that corals are animals and not plants.  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in November 1738 by virtue of the fact that ""His Name hath been known for many years among the Learned by Several Curious disertations published in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris & in particular by a very Learned and usefull book wrote in French entitled 'The Art of Converting Forged Iron into Steel' and 'the Art of Soft'ning Cast Iron' printed at Paris 1722 4to and lately by his 'Curious Memoires relating to the History of Insects' at Paris in 4to three Volumes of which work have been Laid before the Royal Society"". He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1748.  He is commemorated in numerous place names including the rue Réaumur and the Réaumur - Sébastopol metro station in Paris and the Place Réaumur, Le Havre.

René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (; 28 February 1683, La Rochelle – 17 October 1757, Saint-Julien-du-Terroux) was a French entomologist and writer who contributed to many different fields, especially the study of insects. He introduced the Réaumur temperature scale.

René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (28. února 1683, La Rochelle – 17. října 1757, Saint-Julien-du-Terroux) byl francouzský vědec. Proslavil se v mnoha oblastech vědy. Objevil důležitost uhlíku při výrobě oceli, publikoval rozsáhlé šestisvazkové dílo o hmyzu a vynalezl umělou líheň. Jeho nejznámější objev je lihový teploměr se stupnicí, která nese jeho jméno.


Early life, ordination, and priesthood.

Dziwisz was born in the village of Raba Wyżna to Stanisław Dziwisz, a railroad worker, and his wife, Zofia Bielarczyk. The fifth of seven children, he has four brothers and two sisters. During World War II, the family hid a Jewish man in their house. When the younger Stanisław was only nine, his father died after being struck by a train while crossing the railroad tracks. He attended the classical Secondary School (Liceum) in Nowy Targ, passing the exam of maturity in 1957.  Dziwisz then entered the Major Seminary of Kraków, where he completed his studies in philosophy and theology. On 23 June 1963, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Kraków by its auxiliary bishop, Bishop Karol Wojtyła. His first assignment was as a curate at a parish in Maków Podhalański, where he served for two years. He then continued his studies at the Faculty of Theology of Kraków, specialising in liturgy and earning a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 1967. In October 1966, he was appointed by Archbishop Wojtyła, who had been elevated to Archbishop of Kraków, to serve as his personal secretary. Dziwisz remained in this position until Wojtyła's death in 2005.  In addition to his duties as personal secretary, Dziwisz served as professor of liturgy at the Superior Catechetical Institute in Kraków, editor of the official newspaper of the archdiocesan curia, member and secretary of the Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission, and a member of the Presbyteral Council. He also participated in the work of the Committee for the Holy Year (1974–1975) and of the Pastoral Synod of Kraków (1972–1978).  Dziwisz accompanied Wojtyła to the papal conclave of August 1978, which elected of Pope John Paul I. Following the death of John Paul I thirty-three days later, he and Wojtyła returned for the next conclave, which elected Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. Dziwisz was appointed his principal private secretary and served in that capacity throughout John Paul's 27-year pontificate.  In 1981 he earned a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from the Faculty of Theology of Kraków, with a thesis entitled "The Cult of Saint Stanislaus, Bishop of Kraków, until the Council of Trent".  John Paul and Dziwisz were said to have a father-son like relationship. Dziwisz slept in a bedroom next to that of John Paul's, was always near him during Mass, and was with him almost every waking moment. During John Paul's papacy Dziwisz became one of the most influential voices in the Vatican.  Dziwisz was appointed titular bishop of San Leone and joint head of the Prefecture of the Papal Household on 7 February 1998. He was consecrated a bishop on 19 March of that year by Pope John Paul II with co-consecrators Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Cardinal Sodano and Cardinal-Archbishop of Kraków Franciszek Cardinal Macharski. John Paul elevated Dziwisz to the rank of archbishop on 29 September 2003.  In 2004, Dziwisz appeared to be the source of a quote from John Paul endorsing the film "The Passion of the Christ", which required clarification from Vatican officials because the pope never makes such endorsements.

Death of John Paul II.

As the Vatican denied the pope's health was getting worse, the Roman newspaper "Il Messaggero" reported that Dziwisz had told a priest, "Pray for the pope, because he's getting worse." On 31 March 2005 Archbishop Dziwisz administered the Anointing of the Sick to him. Before the death of John Paul II, Dziwisz was reported to have helped him write a message to his staff not to grieve, that he (John Paul) was happy and that they should be too. In 2013, Dziwisz said that Pope John Paul II had not resigned because of his failing health because he believed "you cannot come down from the cross".  When John Paul died on 2 April 2005, Archbishop Dziwisz was at his bedside. According to rules created by John Paul, Dziwisz packed his belongings and vacated the papal apartments before they were sealed by the Camerlengo. During the Requiem Mass for John Paul on 8 April, Archbishop Dziwisz had the honour of placing a white silk veil over the face of the Pope before the body was lowered into three separate caskets. It was the symbolic last act of service of Archbishop Dziwisz as papal secretary for John Paul. He was one of the few people mentioned in the will of Pope John Paul II, who wrote: "and I thank him for his help and collaboration, so understanding for so many years".

Archbishop of Krakow and cardinal.

On 3 June 2005 Benedict XVI appointed Dziwisz to succeed Cardinal Macharski as Archbishop of Kraków.  At the consistory of 24 March 2006 Dziwisz was raised to the rank of cardinal, becoming Cardinal-Priest of S. Mariae de Populo. Dziwisz had earlier been mentioned as the possible cardinal created "in pectore" by John Paul II in 2003, but the identity of that person remained unknown at John Paul's death.  On 6 May 2006 Pope Benedict named Dziwisz to be a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.  On 26 May 2010, Dziwisz was awarded the Cardinal Bea Interfaith Award of the Anti-Defamation League. Abraham Foxman, its President, said: "Cardinal Dziwisz is a valued friend to the Jewish people and someone I know I can trust and turn to in moments of tension or controversy." Dziwisz replied: In 2012 Dziwisz, as part of a broader trip, visited parishes with a significant Polish presence in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, in the United States.  Dziwisz participated in the papal conclave in March 2013, where he was thought to have an outside chance of election though he was not mentioned in the press as a likely candidate.  On 8 December 2016, Pope Francis accepted Dziwisz' resignation as Archbishop of Kraków and named Marek Jędraszewski, Archbishop of Łódź, to succeed him. On 27 April 2019 Dziwisz reached 80 years of age and so became ineligible to serve in any further papal conclaves.

Maciel and Groër involvement.

Dziwisz supported Roman Catholic priest Marcial Maciel Degollado of Mexico, the founder of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement. Author Jason Berry wrote that Maciel spent years cultivating Vatican support by funneling money to the Vatican. Under Maciel, the Legion of Christ steered streams of money through Dziwisz to the pope and the Vatican, sums that were designated for use in relation to the pope's private Masses in the Apostolic Palace. Late in Maciel's life, he was revealed to have abused boys and fathered up to six children, two of whom he allegedly abused, with at least two women.  Dziwisz was instrumental in blocking an investigation into allegations of child abuse against the late Benedictine Cardinal of Vienna Hans Hermann Groër. Groer, who died in 2003, headed the Vienna archdiocese and presided over the influential Austrian episcopal conference. Groer, who always denied wrongdoing, was praised by Pope John Paul II as a faithful servant. The Roman Catholic bishops of Austria, however, were of a different opinion. On the occasion of their "ad limina" visit to Rome in 1998, the Austrian bishops informed the Pope that they, as a college of bishops, had reached moral certainty that the allegations against Cardinal Groer had a basis in truth.

Stanisław Jan Dziwisz (; born 27 April 1939) is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Kraków from 2005 until 2016. He was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a long-time and influential aide to Pope John Paul II, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of John Paul II's eventual beatification.

Stanisław Jan kardinál Dziwisz [stanisuav ďživiš], ve Vatikánu zvaný „Don Stanislao“ (* 27. dubna 1939, Raba Wyżna jižně od Krakova) je emeritní arcibiskup krakovský (2005–2017). Před přijetím tohoto úřadu byl osobním sekretářem papeže Jana Pavla II.


Early years.

Khrushchev was born on 15 April 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, near the present Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Xeniya Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin, and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and labouring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning there when he had enough money.  Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev in his memoirs, Shevchenko was a freethinker who upset the villagers by not attending church, and when her brother visited, he gave the boy books which had been banned by the Imperial Government. She urged Nikita to seek further education, but family finances did not permit this.  In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka (now Donetsk, Ukraine); fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after. Yuzovka, which was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire. After the boy worked briefly in other fields, Khrushchev's parents found him a place as a metal fitter's apprentice. Upon completing that apprenticeship, the teenage Khrushchev was hired by a factory. He lost that job when he collected money for the families of the victims of the Lena Goldfields massacre, and was hired to mend underground equipment by a mine in nearby Rutchenkovo, where his father

Party official.

Donbas years.

Through the intervention of a friend, Khrushchev was assigned in 1921 as assistant director for political affairs for the Rutchenkovo mine in the Donbas region, where he had previously worked. There were as yet few Bolsheviks in the area. At that time, the movement was split by Lenin's New Economic Policy, which allowed for some measure of private enterprise and was seen as an ideological retreat by some Bolsheviks. While Khrushchev's responsibility lay in political affairs, he involved himself in the practicalities of resuming full production at the mine after the chaos of the war years. He helped restart the machines (key parts and papers had been removed by the pre-Soviet mineowners) and he wore his old mine outfit for inspection tours. Khrushchev was highly successful at the Rutchenkovo mine, and in mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of the nearby Pastukhov mine. However, he refused the offer, seeking to be assigned to the newly established technical college ("tekhnikum") in Yuzovka, though his superiors were reluctant to let him go. As he had only four years of formal schooling, he applied to the training

Kaganovich protégé.

Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917. In 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine and Khrushchev, falling under his patronage, was rapidly promoted. He was appointed second in command of the Stalino party apparatus in late 1926. Within nine months his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko, was ousted, which, according to Taubman, was due to Khrushchev's instigation. Kaganovich transferred Khrushchev to Kharkov, then the capital of Ukraine, as head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Party's Central Committee. In 1928, Khrushchev was transferred to Kiev, where he served as second-in-command of the Party organization there.  In 1929, Khrushchev again sought to further his education, following Kaganovich (now in the Kremlin as a close associate of Stalin) to Moscow and enrolling in the Stalin Industrial Academy. Khrushchev never completed his studies there, but his career in the Party flourished. When the school's Party cell elected a number of rightists to an upcoming district Party conference, the cell was attacked in "Pravda". Khrushchev emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggle, becoming Party secretary of the school, arranging for

Involvement in purges.

Stalin's office records show meetings at which Khrushchev was present as early as 1932. The two increasingly built a good relationship. Khrushchev greatly admired the dictator and treasured informal meetings with him and invitations to Stalin's "dacha", while Stalin felt warm affection for his young subordinate.  Beginning in 1934, Stalin began a campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge, during which millions of people were executed or sent to the Gulag. Central to this campaign were the Moscow Trials, a series of show trials of the purged top leaders of the party and the military. In 1936, as the trials proceeded, Khrushchev expressed his vehement support: Everyone

World War II.

Occupation of Polish territory.

When Soviet troops, pursuant to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, invaded the eastern portion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Khrushchev accompanied the troops at Stalin's direction. A large number of ethnic Ukrainians lived in the invaded area, much of which today forms the western portion of Ukraine. Many inhabitants therefore initially welcomed the invasion, though they hoped that they would eventually become independent. Khrushchev's role was to ensure that the occupied areas voted

War against Germany.

When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, in June 1941, Khrushchev was still at his post in Kiev. Stalin appointed him a political commissar, and Khrushchev served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and the political rulers in Moscow. Stalin used Khrushchev to keep commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin. As the Germans advanced, Khrushchev worked with the military in an attempt to defend and save Kiev. Handicapped by orders from Stalin that under no circumstances should the city be abandoned, the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans. While the Germans stated they took 655,000 prisoners, according to the Soviets, 150,541 men out of 677,085 escaped the trap. Primary sources differ on Khrushchev's involvement at this point. According to Marshal Georgi Zhukov, writing some years after Khrushchev fired and disgraced him in 1957, Khrushchev persuaded Stalin not to evacuate troops from Kiev. However, Khrushchev

Rise to power.

Return to Ukraine.

Almost all of Ukraine had been occupied by the Germans, and Khrushchev returned to his domain in late 1943 to find devastation. Ukraine's industry had been destroyed, and agriculture faced critical shortages. Even though millions of Ukrainians had been taken to Germany as workers or prisoners of war, there was insufficient housing for those who remained. One out of every six Ukrainians was killed in World War II.  Khrushchev sought to reconstruct Ukraine, but also desired to complete the interrupted work of imposing the Soviet system on it, though he hoped that the purges of the 1930s would not recur. As Ukraine was recovered militarily, conscription was imposed, and 750,000 men aged between nineteen and fifty were given minimal military training and sent to join the Red Army. Other Ukrainians joined partisan forces, seeking an independent Ukraine. Khrushchev rushed from district to district through Ukraine, urging the depleted labor force to greater efforts. He made

Stalin's final years.

Khrushchev attributed his recall to Moscow to mental disorder on the part of Stalin, who feared conspiracies in Moscow matching those which the ruler believed to have occurred in the fabricated Leningrad case, in which many of that city's Party officials had been falsely accused of treason. Khrushchev again served as head of the Party in Moscow city and province. Khrushchev biographer Taubman suggests that Stalin most likely recalled Khrushchev to Moscow to balance the influence of Georgy Malenkov and security chief Lavrentiy Beria, who were widely seen as Stalin's heirs.  At this time, the ageing leader rarely called Politburo meetings. Instead, much of the high-level work

Struggle for control.

On 6 March 1953, Stalin's death was announced, as was the new leadership. Malenkov was the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Beria (who consolidated his hold over the security agencies), Kaganovich, Bulganin, and former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as first vice-chairmen. Stalin's funeral was conducted on 9 March. Those members of the Presidium of the Central Committee who had been recently promoted by Stalin were demoted. Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as Party head for Moscow to concentrate on unspecified duties in the Party's Central Committee. "The New York Times" listed Malenkov and Beria first and second among the ten-man Presidium—and Khrushchev last.  However, Malenkov resigned from the secretariat of the Central Committee on 14 March. This came due to concerns that he was acquiring too much power. The major beneficiary was Khrushchev. His name appeared atop a revised list of secretaries—indicating that he was now in charge of the party. The Central Committee formally elected him

Leader (1953–1964).

Domestic policies.

Consolidation of power; Secret Speech.

After the demotion of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov initially worked together well, and the longtime foreign minister even proposed that Khrushchev, not Bulganin, replace Malenkov as premier. However, Khrushchev and Molotov increasingly differed on policy. Molotov opposed the Virgin Lands policy, instead proposing heavy investment to increase yields in developed agricultural areas, which Khrushchev felt was not feasible due to a lack of resources and a lack of a sophisticated farm labor force. The two differed on foreign policy as well; soon after Khrushchev took power, he sought a peace treaty with Austria, which would allow Soviet troops then in occupation of part of the country to leave. Molotov was resistant, but Khrushchev arranged for an Austrian delegation to come to Moscow and negotiate the treaty. Although Khrushchev and other Presidium members attacked Molotov at a Central Committee meeting in mid-1955, accusing him of conducting a foreign policy which turned the world against the USSR, Molotov remained in his position.  By the end of 1955, thousands of political prisoners had returned home, and

Liberalization and the arts.

After assuming power, Khrushchev allowed a modest amount of freedom in the arts. Vladimir Dudintsev's "Not by Bread Alone", about an idealistic engineer opposed by rigid bureaucrats, was allowed to be published in 1956, though Khrushchev called the novel "false at its base". In 1958, however, Khrushchev ordered a fierce attack on Boris Pasternak after his novel "Doctor Zhivago" was published abroad (he was denied permission to publish it in the Soviet Union). "Pravda" described the novel as "low-grade reactionary hackwork", and the author was expelled from the Writer's Union. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but under heavy pressure he declined it. Once he did so, Khrushchev ordered a halt to the attacks on Pasternak. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that he agonized over the novel, very nearly allowed it to be published, and later regretted not doing so. After his fall from power, Khrushchev obtained a copy of the novel and read it (he had earlier read only excerpts) and stated, "We shouldn't have banned it. I should have read it myself. There's nothing anti-Soviet in it."  Khrushchev believed that the USSR could match the West's living

Political reform.

Under Khrushchev, the special tribunals operated by security agencies were abolished. These tribunals, known as "troikas", had often ignored laws and procedures. Under the reforms, no prosecution for a political crime could be brought even in the regular courts unless approved by the local Party committee. This rarely happened; there were no major political trials under Khrushchev, and at most several hundred political prosecutions overall. Instead, other sanctions were imposed on Soviet dissidents, including loss of job or university position, or expulsion from the Party. During Khrushchev's rule, forced hospitalization for the "socially dangerous" was introduced. According to author Roy Medvedev, who wrote an early analysis of Khrushchev's years in power, "political terror as an everyday method of government was replaced under Khrushchev by administrative means of repression". In 1958, Khrushchev

Agricultural policy.

Since the 1940s, Khrushchev had advocated the cultivation of corn (maize) in the Soviet Union. He established a corn institute in Ukraine and ordered thousands of acres to be planted with corn in the Virgin Lands. In February 1955, Khrushchev gave a speech in which he advocated an Iowa-style corn belt in the Soviet Union, and a Soviet delegation visited the U.S. state that summer. While their intent was to visit only small farms, the delegation chief was approached by farmer and corn salesman Roswell Garst, who persuaded him to insist on visiting Garst's large farm. The Iowan visited the Soviet Union in September, where he became great friends with Khrushchev, and Garst sold the USSR

Education.

While visiting the United States in 1959, Khrushchev was greatly impressed by the agricultural education program at Iowa State University, and sought to imitate it in the Soviet Union. At the time, the main agricultural college in the USSR was in Moscow, and students did not do the manual labor of farming. Khrushchev proposed to move the programs to rural areas. He was unsuccessful, due to resistance from professors and students, who never actually disagreed with the premier, but who did not carry out his proposals. Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs, "It's nice to live in Moscow and work at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. It's a venerable old institution, a large economic unit, with skilled instructors, but it's in the city! Its students aren't yearning to work on the collective farms because to do that they'd have to go out in the provinces and live in the sticks."  Khrushchev founded several academic towns, such as Akademgorodok. The premier believed that Western science flourished because many scientists lived in university towns such as Oxford, isolated from big city distractions, and had pleasant living conditions and good pay. He sought to duplicate those conditions in the

Anti-religious campaign.

The anti-religious campaign of the Khrushchev era began in 1959, coinciding with the 21st Party Congress in the same year. It was carried out by mass closures of churches (reducing the number from 22,000 in 1959 to 13,008 in 1960 and to 7,873 by 1965), monasteries, and convents, as well as of the still-existing seminaries (pastoral courses would be banned in general). The campaign also included a restriction of parental rights for teaching religion to their children, a ban on the presence of children at church services (beginning in 1961 with the Baptists and then extended to the Orthodox in 1963), and a ban on administration of

Foreign and defense policies.

When Khrushchev took control, the outside world still knew little of him, and initially was not impressed by him. Short, heavyset, and wearing ill-fitting suits, he "radiated energy but not intellect", and was dismissed by many as a buffoon who would not last long. British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan wondered, "How can this fat, vulgar man with his pig eyes and ceaseless flow of talk be the head—the aspirant Tsar for all those millions of people?"  Khrushchev biographer Tompson described the mercurial leader: He could be charming or vulgar, ebullient or sullen, he was given to public displays of rage (often contrived) and to soaring hyperbole in his rhetoric. But whatever he was, however he came across, he was more human than his predecessor or even than most of his foreign counterparts, and for much of the world that was enough to make the USSR seem less mysterious or menacing.

United States and allies.

Eastern Europe.

The Secret Speech, combined with the death of Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut, who suffered a heart attack while reading the Speech, sparked considerable liberalization in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, a worker's strike in Poznań developed into disturbances which left more than 50 dead in October 1956. When Moscow blamed the disturbances on Western agitators, Polish leaders ignored the claim, and instead made concessions to the workers. With anti-Soviet displays becoming more common in Poland, and crucial Polish leadership elections upcoming, Khrushchev and other Presidium members flew to Warsaw. While the Soviets

China.

After completing his takeover of mainland China in 1949, Mao Zedong sought material assistance from the USSR, and also called for the return to China of territories taken from it under the Tsars. As Khrushchev took control of the USSR, he increased aid to China, even sending a small corps of experts to help develop the new communist country. This assistance was described by historian William C. Kirby as "the greatest transfer of technology in world history". The Soviet Union spent 7% of its national income between 1954 and 1959 on aid to China. On his 1954 visit to China, Khrushchev agreed to return Port Arthur and Dalian to China, though Khrushchev was annoyed by Mao's insistence that the Soviets leave their artillery as they departed.  Mao bitterly opposed Khrushchev's attempts to reach a "rapprochement" with more liberal Eastern European states such as Yugoslavia. Khrushchev's government, on the other hand, was reluctant to endorse Mao's desires for an assertive worldwide revolutionary movement, preferring to

Removal.

Beginning in March 1964, Supreme Soviet presidium chairman and nominal head of state Leonid Brezhnev began discussing Khrushchev's removal with his colleagues. While Brezhnev considered having Khrushchev arrested as he returned from a trip to Scandinavia in June, he instead spent time persuading members of the Central Committee to support the ousting of Khrushchev, remembering how crucial the Committee's support had been to Khrushchev in defeating the Anti-Party Group plot. Brezhnev was given ample time for his conspiracy; Khrushchev was absent from Moscow for a total of five months between January and September 1964.  The conspirators, led by Brezhnev, First Deputy Premier Alexander Shelepin, and KGB chairman Vladimir Semichastny, struck in October 1964, while Khrushchev was on vacation at Pitsunda, Abkhaz ASSR with his close ally Anastas Mikoyan. On 12 October, Brezhnev called Khrushchev to notify him of a special Presidium meeting to

Life in retirement.

Khrushchev was granted a pension of 500 rubles per month and was assured that his house and "dacha" were his for life. Following his removal from power, he fell into deep depression. He received few visitors, especially since his security guards kept track of all guests and reported their comings and goings. In the autumn of 1965, he and his wife were ordered to leave their house and "dacha" to move to an apartment and to a smaller "dacha" in Petrovo-Dalneye. His pension was reduced to 400 rubles per month, though his retirement remained comfortable by Soviet standards. The depression continued, and his doctor prescribed sleeping pills and tranquillizers. One of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, and the boy replied, "Grandfather cries." He was made a non-person to such an extent that the thirty-volume "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War.  As the new rulers made known their conservatism in artistic matters, Khrushchev came to be more favourably viewed by artists and writers, some of whom visited him. One visitor whom Khrushchev regretted not seeing was former U.S. Vice President Nixon, then

Death.

Khrushchev died of a heart attack in a hospital near his home in Moscow on 11 September 1971, at the age of 77. He was denied a state funeral with interment in the Kremlin Wall and was instead buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Fearing demonstrations, the authorities did not announce Khrushchev's death until

Legacy.

Many of Khrushchev's innovations were reversed after his fall. The requirement that one-third of officials be replaced at each election was overturned, as was the division in the Party structure between industrial and agricultural sectors. His vocational education program for high school students was also dropped, and his plan for sending existing agricultural institutions out to the land was ended. However, new agricultural or vocational institutions thereafter were located outside major cities. When new housing was built, much of it was in the form of high rises rather than Khrushchev's low-rise structures, which lacked elevators or balconies.  Historian Robert Service summarizes Khrushchev's contradictory personality traits. According to him, Khrushchev was:  at once a Stalinist and an anti-Stalinist, a communist believer and a cynic, a self-publicizing poltroon and a crusty philanthropist, a trouble-maker and a peacemaker, a stimulating colleague and a domineering boor, a statesman and a politicker who was out of his intellectual depth.  Some of Khrushchev's agricultural projects were also easily overturned. Corn became so unpopular in 1965 that its planting fell to the lowest level in the postwar period, as even "kolkhozes" which had been successful with it in Ukraine and other southern portions of the USSR refused to plant it. Lysenko was stripped of his policy-making positions. However, the MTS stations remained closed, and the basic agricultural problems, which Khrushchev had tried to address, remained. While the Soviet standard of living increased greatly in the ten years after Khrushchev's fall, much of the increase was due to industrial progress; agriculture continued to lag far behind, resulting in regular agricultural crises, especially in 1972 and 1975. Brezhnev and his successors continued Khrushchev's precedent of buying grain from the West rather than suffer shortfalls and starvation. Neither Brezhnev nor his colleagues were personally popular, and the new government relied on authoritarian power to assure its continuation. The KGB and Red Army were given increasing powers. The government's conservative tendencies would lead to the crushing of the "Prague Spring" of 1968.  Though Khrushchev's strategy failed to achieve the major goals he sought, Aleksandr Fursenko, who wrote a book analyzing Khrushchev's foreign and military policies, argued that the strategy did coerce the West in a limited manner. The agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba has been adhered to. The refusal of the western world to acknowledge East Germany was gradually eroded, and, in 1975, the United States and other NATO members signed the Helsinki Agreement with the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations, including East Germany, setting human rights standards in Europe.  The Russian public's view of Khrushchev remains mixed. According to a major Russian pollster, the only eras of the 20th century that Russians evaluate positively are those under Nicholas II, and under Khrushchev. A poll in 2003 of young Russians found that they felt Nicholas II had done more good than harm, and all other 20th-century Russian leaders more harm than good—except Khrushchev, about whom they were evenly divided. Subsequent polls, however, have found Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev the most popular Russian leaders of the century. Khrushchev biographer William Tompson related the former premier's reforms to those which occurred later: Throughout the Brezhnev years and the lengthy interregnum that followed, the generation which had come of age during the 'first Russian spring' of the 1950s awaited its turn in power. As Brezhnev and his colleagues died or were pensioned off, they were replaced by men and women for whom the Secret Speech and the first wave of de-Stalinization had been a formative experience, and these 'Children of Twentieth Congress' took up the reins of power under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and his colleagues. The Khrushchev era provided this second generation of reformers with both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev ( – 11 September 1971) was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers (or premier) from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

Nikita Sergejevič Chruščov (:, také Chruščev, 15. dubna 1894 Kalinovka, Ruské impérium – 11. září 1971 Moskva, Sovětský svaz) byl sovětský politik a vůdce, který v letech 1953 až 1964 zastával funkci prvního tajemníka ústředního výboru Komunistické strany Sovětského svazu (ÚV KSSS) a v letech 1958 až 1964 post předsedy rady ministrů (premiéra) Sovětského svazu (SSSR). Jeho vláda přinesla částečnou destalinizaci SSSR, podporu počátků sovětského kosmického programu a řadu relativně liberálních reforem v oblasti domácí politiky. Svými spolupracovníky byl odstaven od moci v roce 1964, kdy jej jako prvního tajemníka ÚV KSSS nahradil Leonid Brežněv.


"Star Wars".

The franchise, which began with the 1977 film "Star Wars", features a variety of droids designed to perform specific functions.

Protocol droid.

A protocol droid specializes in translation, etiquette and cultural customs, and is typically humanoid in appearance. The most notable example is C-3PO, introduced in "Star Wars" and featured in all sequels and prequels. 4-LOM is a protocol droid turned bounty hunter who responds to Darth Vader's call to capture the "Millennium Falcon" in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980). TC-14 is a droid with feminine programming that appears in "" (1999), and ME-8D9 is an "ancient protocol droid of unknown manufacture" that resides and works as a translator at Maz Kanata’s castle on Takodana in the 2015 "".

Astromech droid.

An astromech droid is one of a series of "versatile utility robots generally used for the maintenance and repair of starships and related technology". These small droids usually possess "a variety of tool-tipped appendages that are stowed in recessed compartments". R2-D2 is an astromech droid introduced in 1977's "Star Wars" and featured in all subsequent films. The malfunctioning droid R5-D4 also makes a brief appearance in "Star Wars". U9-C4 is a timid droid sent on a mission with D-Squad, an all-droid special unit in "", C1-10P is an oft-repaired, "outmoded" astromech who is one of the "Star Wars Rebels" regular characters, and BB-8 is the astromech droid of X-wing fighter pilot Poe Dameron in "The Force Awakens".

Battle droid.

A battle droid is a class of military robot used as an easily controlled alternative to human soldiers, most notably seen in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy of films and the "" TV series, in which 'B1' and 'B2' models are frequent antagonists. Due to their ubiquity, the terms 'B1' and 'battle droid' are used interchangeably; 'B2' models are also referred to as'super' battle droids.  The tall, thin B1 model resembles the Geonosian species, who designed the droids, and are known to "suffer programming glitches that manifest as personality quirks." The droideka is a three-legged heavy infantry unit with twin blasters and the ability to generate a force shield and transform into a disk shape. Multiple other types of specialized battle droids have been featured in the "Star Wars" fictional universe.  Within the "Star Wars Legends" continuity, HK-47 is a humanoid soldier robot, designed as a violent killer, which first appeared in the 2003 video game "".

Other droids.

During the production of "The Empire Strikes Back", Joe Johnston drew storyboard panels influenced by Dan O'Bannon and Moebius's short comic "The Long Tomorrow" (1975), one of which repurposes a pose Johnston admitted he borrowed from said work. The same panel of the comic features a robot design by Moebius, which may have been the basis of the probe droid (or "probot") design that concept designers Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie created for the film.  "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" has featured WAC-47, a "pit droid" programmed as a pilot and sent on a mission with the all-droid special unit D-Squad, and AZI-3, a medical droid serving the cloners of Kamino who helps uncover the secret of Order 66. The 2015 young adult novel "" by Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry introduces the droid PZ-4CO, to whom Leia Organa dictates her memoirs. PZ-4CO also appears in "The Force Awakens" (2015). In the 2016 film "Rogue One", K-2SO is an Imperial enforcer droid reprogrammed by the Rebel Alliance.

Behind the scenes.

Droids are performed using a variety of methods, including robotics, actors inside costumes (in one case, on stilts), and computer animation.

Trademark.

Lucasfilm registered "droid" as a trademark in 1977. The term "Droid" has been used by Verizon Wireless under licence from Lucasfilm, for their line of smartphones based on the Android operating system. Motorola's late-2009 Google Android-based cell phone is called the Droid. This line of phone has been expanded to include other Android-based phones released under Verizon, including the HTC Droid Eris, the HTC Droid Incredible, Motorola Droid X, Motorola Droid 2, and Motorola Droid Pro. The term was also used for the Lucasfilm projects EditDroid, a non-linear editing system, and SoundDroid, an early digital audio workstation.  The name "Omnidroid" was used with permission of Lucasfilm for the 2004 Pixar movie, "The Incredibles".

A droid is a fictional robot possessing some degree of artificial intelligence in the "Star Wars" science-fiction franchise. Coined by special effects artist John Stears, the term is a clipped form of "android", a word originally reserved for robots designed to look and act like a human. The word "droid" has been a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd since 1977.

Droid je ve sci-fi literatuře označení pro inteligentního robota se schopností se přemisťovat. Název je odvozen od slova android, což je humanoidní typ inteligentního robota (týká se vzhledu – podobný člověku), droid však nemusí být nutně humanoid. Zato i droid má značně autonomní vlastní umělou inteligenci, ba i uvědomění sebe sama a vlastní vůli. Pro svět Star Wars vytvořil droidy pracovník speciálních efektů John Stears a na slovo "droid" má registrovanou ochranou známku společnost Lucasfilm Ltd.


Literature in Akkadian society.

Most of what we have from the Babylonians was inscribed in cuneiform with a metal stylus on tablets of clay, called "laterculae coctiles" by Pliny the Elder; papyrus seems to have been also employed, but it has perished.  There were libraries in most towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write, and in Semitic times, this involved a knowledge of the extinct Sumerian language, and a complicated and extensive syllabary. The Babylonians' very advanced systems of writing, science and mathematics contributed greatly to their literary output.

Relation to other ancient literatures.

A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up.  Assyrian culture and literature came from Babylonia, but even here there was a difference between the two countries. There was little in Assyrian literature that was original, and education, general in Babylonia, was mostly restricted to a single class in the northern kingdom. In Babylonia, it was of very old standing. Under the second Assyrian empire, when Nineveh had become a great centre of trade, Aramaic — the language of commerce and diplomacy — was added to the number of subjects that the educated class was required to learn.  Under the Seleucids, Greek was introduced into Babylon, and fragments of tablets have been found with Sumerian and Assyrian (i.e. Semitic Babylonian) words transcribed into Greek letters.

Notable works.

According to A. Leo Oppenheim, the corpus of cuneiform literature amounted to around 1,500 texts at any one time or place, approximately half of which, at least from the first millennium, is extant in fragmentary form, and the most common genres included (in order of predominance) are omen texts, lexical lists, ritual incantations, cathartic and apotropaic conjurations, historical and mythological epics, fables and proverbs.

Annals, chronicles and historical epics.

The Assyrian dialect of Akkadian is particularly rich in royal inscriptions from the end of the 14th century BC onward, for example the epics of Adad-nārārī, Tukulti-Ninurta, and Šulmānu-ašarēdu III and the annals which catalogued the campaigns of the neo-Assyrian monarchs. The earliest historical royal epic is, however, that of Zimri-Lim (c. 1710–1698 BC short) of Mari. Similar literature of the middle Babylonian period is rather poorly preserved with a fragmentary epic of the Kassite period, that of Adad-šuma-uṣur and of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur I and Marduk.  The chronicle traditional is first attested in the compositions of the early Iron Age which hark back to earlier times, such as the "Chronicle of Early Kings", the "Dynastic Chronicle", "Chronicle P" and the Assyrian "Synchronistic History". A series of fifteen neo to late Babylonian Chronicles have been recovered which narrate the period spanning Nabû-nasir (747–734 BC) to Seleucus III Ceraunus (243–223 BC) and were derived from the political events described in Babylonian astronomical diaries.

Humorous literature.

Exemplars of comical texts span the genres of burlesque to satire and include humorous love poems and riddles. “At the cleaners” is a tale of the dispute between an insolent scrubber and his client, a “sophomoric fop” who lectures the cleaner in ridiculous detail on how to launder his clothes, driving the exasperated cleaner to suggest that he lose no time in taking it to the river and doing it himself. The Dialogue of Pessimism was seen as a saturnalia by Böhl, where master and servant switch roles, and as a burlesque by Speiser, where a fatuous master mouthes clichés and a servant echoes him. Lambert considered it a musing of a mercurial adolescent with suicidal tendencies.  The "Aluzinnu" (“trickster,” a jester, clown or buffoon) text, extant in five fragments from the neo-Assyrian period concerns an individual, "dābibu, ākil karṣi," “character assassin,” who made a living entertaining others with parodies, mimicry, and scatological songs. The Poor Man of Nippur provides a subversive narrative of the triumph of the underdog over his superior while Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite is a school text of a slapstick nature.

Laws.

The earliest Akkadian laws are the “Old Assyrian Laws” relating to the conduct of the commercial court of a trading colony in Anatolia, c. 1900 BC. The Laws of Eshnunna were a collection of sixty laws named for the city of its provenance and dating to around 1770 BC. The Code of Ḫammu-rapi, c. 1750 BC, was the longest of the Mesopotamian legal collections, extending to nearly three hundred individual laws and accompanied by a lengthy prologue and epilogue. The edict of Ammi-Saduqa, c. 1646 BC, was the last issued by one of Ḫammu-rapi’s successors.  The Middle Assyrian Laws date to the fourteenth century BC, over a hundred laws are extant from Assur. The Middle Assyrian Palace Decrees, known as the “Harem Edicts,” from the reigns of Aššur-uballiṭ I, c. 1360 BC, to Tukultī-apil-Ešarra I, c. 1076 BC, concern aspects of courtly etiquette and the severe penalties (flagellation, mutilation and execution) for flouting them. The Neo-Babylonian Laws number just fifteen, c. 700 BC, probably from Sippar.

Mythology.

One of the most famous of these was the "Epic of Gilgamesh", which first appears in Akkadian during the Old Babylonian period as a circa 1,000 line epic known by its incipit, "šūtur eli šarrī", ‘‘Surpassing all other kings,’’ which incorporated some of the stories from the five earlier Sumerian Gilgamesh tales. A plethora of mid to late second millennium versions give witness to its popularity. The Standard Babylonian version, "ša naqba īmeru", ‘‘He who saw the deep,’’ contains up to 3,000 lines on eleven tablets and a prose meditation on the fate of man on the twelfth which was virtually a word-for-word translation of the Sumerian “Bilgames and the Netherworld.” It is extant in 73 copies and was credited to a certain Sîn-lēqi-unninni and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The whole story is a composite product, and it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.  Another epic was that of the "Creation" "Enûma Eliš", whose object was to glorify Bel-Marduk by describing his contest with Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In the first book, an account is given of the creation of the world from the primeval deep, and the birth of the gods of light. Then comes the story of the struggle between the gods of light and the powers of darkness, and the final victory of Marduk, who clove Tiamat asunder, forming the heaven from half of her body and the earth from the other. Marduk next arranged the stars in order, along with the sun and moon, and gave them laws they were never to transgress. After this, the plants and animals were created, and finally man. Marduk here takes the place of Ea, who appears as the creator in the older legends, and is said to have fashioned man from clay.  The legend of Adapa, the first man — a portion of which was found in the record-office of the Egyptian king Akhenaton at Tell-el-Amarna — explains the origin of death. Adapa, while fishing, had broken the wings of the south wind, and was accordingly summoned before the tribunal of Anu in heaven. Ea counselled him not to eat or drink anything there. He followed this advice, and thus refused the food that would have made him and his descendants immortal.  Among the other legends of Babylonia may be mentioned those of Namtar, the plague-demon; of Erra, the pestilence; of Etana and of Anzu. Hades, the abode of Ereshkigal or Allatu, had been entered by Nergal, who, angered by a message sent to her by the gods of the upper world, ordered Namtar to strike off her head. She, however, declared that she would submit to any conditions imposed on her, and would give Nergal the sovereignty of the earth. Nergal accordingly relented, and Allatu became the queen of the infernal world. Etana conspired with the eagle to fly to the highest heaven. The first gate, that of Anu, was successfully reached; but in ascending still farther to the gate of Ishtar, the strength of the eagle gave way, and Etanna was dashed to the ground. As for the storm-god Anzu, we are told that he stole the tablets of destiny, and therewith the prerogatives of Enlil. God after god was ordered to pursue him and recover them, but it would seem that it was only by a stratagem that they were finally regained.

Omens, divination and incantation texts.

The magnitude of omen literature within the Akkadian corpus is one of the peculiar distinguishing features of this language’s legacy. According to Oppenheim, 30% of all documents of this tradition are of this genre. Exemplars of omen text appear during the earliest periods of Akkadian literature but come to their maturity early in the first millennium with the formation of canonical versions. Notable among these is the Enuma Anu Enlil (astrological omens), Šumma ālu (terrestrial omens), Šumma izbu (anomalous births), Alamdimmû (physiognomic omens), and Iškar Zaqīqu (dream omens). It is among this genre, also, that the Sakikkū (SA.GIG) “Diagnostic Handbook” belongs.  The practice of extispicy, divination through the entrails of animals, was perfected into a science over the millennia by the Babylonians and supporting texts were eventually gathered into a monumental handbook, the Bārûtu, extending over a hundred tablets and divided into ten chapters. Divination, however, extended into other fields with, for example, the old Babylonian libanomancy texts, concerning interpreting portents from incense smoke, being one and Bēl-nadin-šumi’s omen text on the flight paths of birds, composed during the reign of Kassite king Meli-Šipak, being another exemplar.  Incantations form an important part of this literary heritage, covering a range of rituals from the sacred, Maqlû, "burning" to counter witchcraft, Šurpu, “incineration” to counter curses, Namburbi, to preempt inauspicious omens, Utukkū Lemnūtu (actually bilingual), to exorcise “Evil Demons,” and Bīt rimki, or “bath house,” the purification and substitution ceremony, to the mundane, Šà.zi.ga, “the rising of the heart,” potency spells, and Zu-buru-dabbeda, “to seize the ‘locust tooth’,” a compendium of incantations against field pests.

Wisdom and didactic literature.

A particularly rich genre of Akkadian texts was that represented by the moniker of “wisdom literature,” although there are differences in opinion concerning which works qualify for inclusion. One of the earliest exemplars was the "Dialogue between a Man and His God" from the late Old Babylonian period. Perhaps the most notable were the "Poem of the Righteous Sufferer" (Ludlul bēl nēmeqi) and the "Babylonian Theodicy". Included in this group are a number of fables or contest literature, in varying states of preservation, such as the "Tamarisk and the Palm", the "Fable of the Willow", "Nisaba and Wheat" (kibtu), the "Ox and the Horse" (Inum Ištar šurbutum, “When exalted Ishtar”), the "Fable of the Fox", and the "Fable of the Riding-donkey".  W. G. Lambert and others include several popular sayings, and proverbs (both bilingual and Babylonian) together with the "Lament of a Sufferer with a Prayer to Marduk", "Counsels of Wisdom", "Counsels of a Pessimist", and "Advice to a Prince" in this genre. “A Dialogue between Šūpê-amēli and His Father” (Šimâ milka) is a piece of wisdom literature in the manner of a deathbed debate from the Akkadian hinterland. There are also Akkadian translations of earlier Sumerian works such as the Instructions of Shuruppak which are often considered belonging to this tradition.

Other genres.

Besides the purely literary works, there were others of varied nature, including collections of letters, partly official, partly private. Among them the most interesting are the letters of Hammurabi, which have been edited by Leonard William King.

List of works.

The following gives the better-known extant works, excluding lexical and synonym lists.  Abnu šikinšu • Adad-nārārī I Epic • Adad-šuma-uṣur Epic • Adapa and Enmerkar • Advice to a prince • Agushaya Hymn • Alamdimmû • Aluzinnu text • Ardat-lili • Asakkū marṣūtu • Ašipus' Almanac (or Handbook) • At the cleaners • Atra-ḫasīs • Autobiography of Adad-guppī • Autobiography of Kurigalzu • Autobiography of Marduk • Babylonian Almanac • Babylonian King List • Babylonian Theodicy • Bārûtu • Birth legend of Sargon • Bīt mēseri • Bīt rimki • Bīt salā’ mê • Chronicle of Early Kings • Chronicle of the Market Prices • Chronicle of reign of Šulgi • Chronicle P • Code of Hammurabi • Consecration of a priest • Counsels of a Pessimist • Counsels of Wisdom • Crimes and Sacrileges of Nabu-šuma-iškun • Curse of Akkad • Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin • Dialogue between a Man and His God • Dialogue of Pessimism • Dingir.šà.dib.ba • Dream of Kurigalzu] • Dynastic Chronicle • Dynastic Prophecy • Dynasty of Dunnum (Harab Myth) • Eclectic Chronicle • Edict of Ammi-Saduqa • Egalkura spells • Elegies Mourning the Death of Tammuz • Enlil and Sud • Enuma Anu Enlil • Enûma Eliš • Epic of Anzu • Epic of Gilgameš • Epic of the Kassite period • Epic of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur • Epic of the plague-god Erra (Erra and Išum) • Etana • Fable of the Fox • Fable of the Riding-donkey • Fable of the Willow • Girra and Elamatum • Great Revolt Against Naram-Sin • Harem Edicts • Hemerology for Nazi-Maruttaš • Ḫulbazizi • Inana's Ascent • Iqqur Ipuš • Iškar Zaqīqu • Ištar’s hell ride • Kalûtu catalogue • KAR 6 • Kataduggû • Kedor-laomer texts • Kettledrum rituals • King of Battle (šar tamḫāri) • Ki'utu • Labbu myth • Lamaštu • Lament of a Sufferer with a Prayer to Marduk • Laws of Eshnunna • Lipšur litanies • Ludlul bēl nēmeqi • Maqlû • Marduk's Address to the Demons • Marduk Prophecy • Middle Assyrian Laws • Mîs-pî • Moon god and the cow • Mukīl rēš lemutti • MUL.APIN • Muššu'u • Na'id-Šihu Epic • Nabonidus Chronicle • Namburbi • Namerimburrudû • Neo-Babylonian Laws • Nergal and Ereškigal • New year ritual-Akitu procession • Nigdimdimmû • Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite • Nisaba and Wheat • Ox and the Horse • Pazuzu • Poor Man of Nippur • Prophecy A • Qutāru • Recipes against Antašubba • Religious Chronicle • Royal inscription of Simbar-Šipak • Sag-gig-ga-meš (Muruṣ qaqqadi) • Sakikkū • Salmānu-ašarēdu III Epic • Synchronistic History • Șēru šikinšu • Šammu šikinšu • Šar Pūḫî • Šà.zi.ga • Šēp lemutti • Šu'ila • Šulgi Prophecy • Šumma ālu • Šumma amēlu kašip • Šumma immeru • Šumma Izbu • Šumma liptu • Šumma sinništu qaqqada rabât • Šurpu • Tākultu ritual texts • Tamarisk and the Palm • Tamītu Oracles • Tašritu hemerology • Tukulti-Ninurta Epic • Tu-ra kìlib-ba • The therapeutic series UGU (Šumma amēlu muḫḫašu umma ukāl) • Uruhulake of Gula • Uruk King List • Uruk Prophecy • Ušburruda • Utukkū Lemnūtu • Verse Account of Nabonidus • Vision of the Netherworld • Walker Chronicle • Weidner Chronicle • Zimri-Lim Epic • Zi-pà incantations • Zisurrû (Sag-ba Sag-ba) • Zu-buru-dabbeda

Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the Akkadian language (Assyrian and Babylonian dialects) written in Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age (roughly the 23rd to 6th centuries BC).

Sumerská literatura je nejstarší literaturou světa. Vzhledem ke společným rysům s akkadskou literaturou bývají často obě literatury popisovány společně. Pod pojem literatura v tomto kontextu spadají všechny zachované texty z období Sumeru a Akkadské říše. Dochované písemné památky jsou psány klínovým písmem a mají nejčastěji podobu hliněných destiček. Do těchto tabulek byl vyryt písaři text, podmínkou zachování tabulky bylo její vypálení, protože jinak se tabulka časem (působením vlhkosti) rozpadla. Vypalovány byly pouze tabulky, které byly považovány za důležité, dále docházelo k nechtěnému vypálení při požárech, založených většinou při dobytí města. Významným byl objev knihovny novoasyrského krále Aššurbanipala v Ninive, která obsahovala cca 5000 klínopisných tabulek, které vznikaly "přepisováním" ze starších babylonských a sumerských tabulek.


History.

Industrial coal fields by the river Vorkuta were discovered in 1930 by geologist Georgy Chernov. Georgy was the son of another geologist, Alexander Chernov, who promoted the development of the Pechora coal basin, which included the Vorkuta fields. With this discovery the coal mining industry started in the Komi ASSR. At the time only the southern parts of the field were included in the Komi ASSR. The northern part, including Vorkuta, belonged to the Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast. In 1931 a geologist settlement was established by the coal field, with most of the workers being inmates of the Ukhta-Pechora Camp of GULAG (Ухтпечлаг, Ukhtpechlag).

Forced labour camp.

The origins of the town of Vorkuta are associated with Vorkutlag, one of the most notorious forced labour camps of the Gulag, which was established in 1932 with the start of mining. It was the largest of the Gulag camps in European Russia and served as the administrative centre for a large number of smaller camps and subcamps, among them Kotlas, Pechora, and Izhma (modern Sosnogorsk). The Vorkuta uprising, a major rebellion by the camp inmates, occurred in 1953.  In 1941, Vorkuta and the labour camp system based around it were connected to the rest of the world by a prisoner-built rail line linking Konosha, Kotlas, and the camps of Inta. Town status was granted to Vorkuta on November 26, 1943.

Administrative and municipal status.

Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with eight urban-type settlements (Komsomolsky, Mulda, Oktyabrsky, Promyshlenny, Severny, Vorgashor, Yeletsky, and Zapolyarny) and seven rural localities, incorporated as the town of republic significance of Vorkuta—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the town of republic significance of Vorkuta is incorporated as Vorkuta Urban Okrug.

Economy.

By the early 21st century many mines had closed as problems with the high costs of operation plagued the mine operators. At one time during the late 1980s and 1990s there were labor actions in the area by miners who had not been paid for a year.

Climate.

Vorkuta has a subarctic climate with short cool summers and very cold and snowy winters. The average February temperature is about, and in July it is about.  The polar day in Vorkuta lasts from 30 May to 14 July, the polar night lasts from 17 December to 27 December.

Vorkuta and the crumbling permafrost.

"Vorkuta lies on the edge of Russia's permafrost boundary, and some scientists predict that continued warming could advance that border hundreds of miles northward, weakening the earth beneath the vast infrastructure built during the days of the Soviet Union's industrialization of the Arctic."

Miscellaneous.

The town is served by Vorkuta Airport. During the Cold War, an Arctic Control Group forward staging base for strategic bombers was located at Vorkuta Sovetsky.  One of the largest coal mine disasters in Russia occurred at Vorkuta coal mine on 28 February 2016, when leaking methane gas ignited and killed 32 people, including 26 trapped miners who had been stranded by a similar explosion 3 days prior that had killed four miners.  The Vorkutlag was the location of the mission "Vorkuta" in in which main character Alex Mason escaped the camp with the assistance of Viktor Reznov.  Vorkuta has a location on the Russia map of Unturned named after it, a railway car storage named Vorkuta Junction.  Vorkuta, and the Prison are the setting of Heather Morris' historical fiction Novel Cilka's Journey.

Vorkuta (;, "Vörkuta"; Nenets for ""the abundance of bears", "bear corner"") is a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin at the river Vorkuta. Population:

Vorkuta (Воркута́) je padesátitisícové ruské město ležící za polárním kruhem na nejzazším severovýchodě evropské části země v republice Komi. Vorkuta vznikla z Tábora Vorkuta, patřícího do soustavy sovětských koncentračních táborů – gulagů. Ty byly na tomto uhelném nalezišti zakládány od roku 1932, po postavení přes 1000 km dlouhé železniční tratě z města Kotlas. I tuto trať stavěli vězni gulagů. Vorkuta se oficiálně stala městem v roce 1943. Při teplotách v zimě klesajících pod −50 °C se Vorkuta stala jedním z nejobávanějších lágrů. Při stavbě města a do města vedoucích železničních tratí zahynuly desetitisíce vězňů. Dnes zde probíhá nerentabilní těžba uhlí a perspektivní těžba ropy a zemního plynu. Počet obyvatel dosáhl roku 1991 117 000, od té doby poklesl na současných 58 133 (2017).


Origins and development.

There is emerging consensus that the motifs used to display seraphs in Hyksos-era Palestine had their original sources in Egyptian uraeus iconography.  The word "saraph/seraphim" appears four times in the Book of Isaiah (6:2–6, 14:29, 30:6). In –6 the term is used to describe a type of celestial being or angel. The other uses of the word refer to serpents.  The vision in Isaiah Chapter 6 of seraphim in an idealized version of Solomon's Temple represents the sole instance in the Hebrew Bible of this word being used to describe celestial beings. "... I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly." (Isaiah 6:1–3) And one cried to another, "Holy, holy, holy, is YHWH of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory." (verses 2–3) One seraph carries out an act of ritual purification for the prophet by touching his lips with a live coal from the altar (verses 6–7) "And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."  The text describes the "seraphim" as winged celestial beings with a fiery passion for doing God's good work. Notwithstanding the wording of the text itself, at least one Hebrew scholar claims that in the Hebrew Bible the seraphim do not have the status of angels, and that it is only in later sources (like "De Coelesti Hierarchia" or "Summa Theologiae") that they are considered to be a division of the divine messengers.  Seraphim appear in the 2nd-century BC Book of Enoch, where they are mentioned, in conjunction with cherubim, as the heavenly creatures standing nearest to the throne of God. They are also called the "Akyəst" ( "serpents", "dragons"; an alternate term for Hell).  In the Second Book of Enoch, two classes of celestial beings are mentioned alongside the seraphim and cherubim, known as the "phoenixes" and the "chalkydri" ( "khalkýdrai", compound of "khalkós" "brass, copper" + "hýdra" "hydra", "water-serpent"—lit. "brazen hydras", "copper serpents"). Both are described as "flying elements of the sun" that reside in either the 4th or 6th heaven, who have twelve wings and burst into song at sunrise.  In the Book of Revelation (4:4–8), the beasts are described as being forever in God's presence and praising him: "[A]nd they rest not day and night, saying, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." This account differs slightly from the account of Isaiah, stating in the eighth verse, "And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within". They appear also in the Gnostic text, "On the Origin of the World".

In Judaism.

The 12th-century scholar Maimonides placed the seraphim in the fifth of ten ranks of angels in his exposition of the Jewish angelic hierarchy. In Kabbalah, the seraphim are the higher angels of the World of Beriah ("Creation", first created realm, divine understanding), whose understanding of their distance from the absolute divinity of Atziluth causes their continual "burning up" in self-nullification. Through this they ascend to God, and return to their place. Below them in the World of Yetzirah ("Formation", archetypal creation, divine emotions) are the Hayot angels of Ezekiel's vision, who serve God with self-aware instinctive emotions ("face of a lion, ox, eagle"). Seraphim are part of the angelarchy of modern Orthodox Judaism. Isaiah's vision is repeated several times in daily Jewish services, including at Kedushah prayer as part of the repetition of the Amidah, and in several other prayers as well. Conservative Judaism retains the traditional doctrines regarding angels and includes references to them in the liturgy, although a literal belief in angels is by no means universal among adherents. Adherents of Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism generally take images of angels as symbolic.  An ancient Judean seal from the 8th century BCE depicts them as flying asps, yet having human characteristics, as encountered by Isaiah in his commissioning as a prophet.

In Christianity.

Medieval Christian theology places seraphim in the highest choir of the angelic hierarchy. They are the caretakers of God's throne, continuously singing "holy, holy, holy". Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his "Celestial Hierarchy" (vii), drew upon the Book of Isaiah in fixing the fiery nature of seraphim in the medieval imagination. Seraphim in his view helped the Deity maintain perfect order and are not limited to chanting the "trisagion". Taking his cue as well from writings in the Rabbinic tradition, the author gave an etymology for the "Seraphim" as "those who kindle or make hot"  The name seraphim clearly indicates their ceaseless and eternal revolution about Divine Principles, their heat and keenness, the exuberance of their intense, perpetual, tireless activity, and their elevative and energetic assimilation of those below, kindling them and firing them to their own heat, and wholly purifying them by a burning and all-consuming flame; and by the unhidden, unquenchable, changeless, radiant and enlightening power, dispelling and destroying the shadows of darkness  Origen wrote in "On First Principles" that the Seraphim, in the Book of Isaiah, are the physical representation of the Christ and the Holy Spirit. His rationale comes from the idea that nothing "can wholly know the beginnings of all things and the ends of the universe" aside from God. Origen concludes this section in writing about the Seraphim as beings that have the knowledge of God revealed to them which elevates the role of the Seraphim to divine levels:  Nevertheless whatever it is that these powers may have learned through the revelation of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit-and they will certainly be able to acquire a great deal of knowledge, and the higher ones much more than the lower-still it is impossible for them to comprehend everything; for it is written, 'The more part of God's works are secret. This quote suggests that Origen believed the Seraphim are revealed this knowledge because of their anointed status as Son of God and the Holy Spirit. He was later criticized for making such claims and labeled a heretic by the Christian church. However, his theory about the Seraphim, as referred to in Isaiah, would be reflected in other early Christian literature, as well as early Christian belief through the second century.  Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologiae" offers a description of the nature of seraphim:  The seraphim took on a mystic role in Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's "Oration on the Dignity of Man" (1487), the epitome of Renaissance humanism. Pico took the fiery Seraphim—"they burn with the fire of charity"—as the highest models of human aspiration: "impatient of any second place, let us emulate dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing", the young Pico announced, in the first flush of optimistic confidence in the human capacity that is the coinage of the Renaissance. "In the light of intelligence, meditating upon the Creator in His work, and the work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with the light of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the Creator only, his consuming fire will quickly transform us into the flaming likeness of the Seraphim."  Bonaventure, a Franciscan theologian who was a contemporary of Aquinas, uses the six wings of the seraph as an important analogical construct in his mystical work "The Journey of the Mind to God".  Christian theology developed an idea of seraphim as beings of pure light who enjoy direct communication with God.

In Islam.

Seraphim ("Sarufiyyun" or "Musharifin") are mentioned in a hadith from Al-Tirmidhi, about a conversation between Muhammad and God, during the Night Journey, concerning what is between the Heavens and the earth, often interpreted as a reference to the "Exalted assembly" disputing the creation of Adam in Surah. Apart from that, Seraphim rarely appear in Islam. Sometimes, specific archangels, like Jibrāʾīl and Israfil, are identified as Seraphim. Robert Southey also noted an Islamic narration about Angels commanded to prostrate before Adam, whereupon Iblis refused as he boasted about himself being a Seraph created from celestial fire, more excellent than Adam.

A seraph (, "the burning one"; or seraphim, in the King James Version also "seraphims" "(plural)"; Hebrew: שָׂרָף "śārāf", plural שְׂרָפִים "śərāfîm"; Latin: "seraphim" and "seraphin" "(plural)", also "seraphus" "(-i, m.)"; "serapheím" Arabic: مشرفين "Musharifin") is a type of celestial or heavenly being originating in Ancient Judaism. The term plays a role in subsequent Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The singular "seraph" is a back-formation from the Hebrew plural-form "seraphim", whereas in Hebrew the singular is "saraph".

Seraf ( שָׂרָף, plurál שְׂרָפִים "serafim") je jeden z řádů nebeských bytostí, o nichž se zmiňuje Starý zákon, konkrétně kniha Izajáš. Přes představy pozdního židovství se ze serafů stal v křesťanství jeden z řádů andělů tzv. kůrů.


Pre-Cold War usage.

Various usages of the term "iron curtain" (; ; ; Czech and Slovak: "Železná opona"; ; ; ; ; ; ) pre-date Churchill's use of the phrase. The concept goes back to the Babylonian Talmud of the 3rd to 5th centuries CE, where refers to a "mechitza shel barzel", an iron barrier or divider: "" ().  The term "iron curtain" has since been used metaphorically in two rather different senses – firstly to denote the end of an era and secondly to denote a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors can refer to either the safety curtain deployed in theatres (the first one was installed by the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1794) or to roller shutters used to secure commercial premises.  The first metaphorical usage of "iron curtain", in the sense of an end of an era, perhaps should be attributed to British author Arthur Machen (1863–1947), who used the term in his 1895 novel "The Three Impostors": "...the door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the brief passage of my life". The English translation of a Russian text shown immediately below repeats the use of "clang" with reference to an "iron curtain", suggesting that the Russian writer, publishing 23 years after Machen, may have been familiar with the popular British author.  Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians used the term "Iron Curtain" in the context of World War I to describe the political situation between Belgium and Germany in 1914.  The first recorded application of the term to Soviet Russia, again in the sense of the end of an era, comes in Vasily Rozanov's 1918 polemic "The Apocalypse of Our Times", and it is possible that Churchill read it there following the publication of the book's English translation in 1920. The passage runs:  The first English-language use of the term "iron curtain" applied to the border of Soviet Russia in the sense of "an impenetrable barrier" was used in 1920 by Ethel Snowden, in her book "Through Bolshevik Russia".  G.K. Chesterton used the phrase in a 1924 essay in "The Illustrated London News". Chesterton, while defending Distributism, refers to "that iron curtain of industrialism that has cut us off not only from our neighbours' condition, but even from our own past".  The term also appears in "England, Their England", an 1933 satirical novel by the Scottish writer A. G. Macdonell; it was used there to describe the way an artillery barrage protected the infantry from an enemy assault: "...the western sky was a blaze of yellow flame. The iron curtain was down". Sebastian Haffner used the metaphor in his book "Germany: Jekyll & Hyde", published in London in 1940, in introducing his discussion of the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933: "Back then to March 1933. How, a moment before the iron curtain was wrung down on

During the Cold War.

Building antagonism.

The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the "iron curtain" had various origins.  During the summer of 1939, after conducting negotiations both with a British-French group and with Nazi Germany regarding potential military and political agreements, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (which provided for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials) and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (signed in late August 1939), named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries (Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop), which included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between the two states.  The Soviets thereafter occupied Eastern Poland (September 1939), Latvia (June 1940), Lithuania (1940), northern Romania (Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, late June 1940), Estonia (1940) and eastern Finland (March 1940). From August 1939, relations between the West and the Soviets deteriorated further when the

Iron Curtain speech.

Winston Churchill's of 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, used the term "iron curtain" in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe:  Much of the Western public still regarded the Soviet Union as a close ally in the context of the recent defeat of Nazi Germany and of Imperial Japan. Although not well received at the time, the phrase "iron curtain" gained popularity as a shorthand reference to the division of Europe as the Cold War strengthened. The Iron Curtain served to keep people in and information out, and people throughout the West eventually came to accept and use the metaphor.  Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" address was to strongly criticise the Soviet Union's exclusive and secretive tension policies along with the Eastern Europe's state form, Police State ("Polizeistaat").

Political, economic, and military realities.

Eastern Bloc.

While the Iron Curtain remained in place, much of Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe (except West Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Austria) found themselves under the hegemony of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union annexed:  as Soviet Socialist Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  Germany effectively gave Moscow a free hand in much of these territories in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

West of the Iron Curtain.

To the west of the Iron Curtain, the countries of Western Europe, Northern Europe, and Southern Europe – along with Austria, West Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland – operated market economies. With the exception of a period of fascism in Spain (until 1975) and Portugal (until 1974) and a military dictatorship in Greece (1967–1974), democratic governments ruled

Further division in the late 1940s.

In January 1947 Harry Truman appointed General George Marshall as Secretary of State, scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directive 1067 (which embodied the Morgenthau Plan), and supplanted it with JCS 1779, which decreed that an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." Officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets.  After five and a half weeks of negotiations, Molotov refused the demands and the talks were adjourned. Marshall was particularly discouraged after personally meeting with Stalin, who expressed little interest in a solution to German economic problems. The United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer. In a 5 June 1947 speech, Marshall announced a comprehensive program of American assistance to all European countries wanting to participate, including the Soviet Union and those of Eastern Europe, called the Marshall Plan.  Stalin opposed the Marshall Plan. He had built up the Eastern Bloc protective belt of Soviet-controlled nations on his Western border, and wanted to maintain this buffer zone of states

Emigration restrictions.

One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the western Allies would return all Soviet citizens who found themselves in their zones to the Soviet Union. This affected the liberated Soviet prisoners of war (branded as traitors), forced laborers, anti-Soviet collaborators with the Germans, and anti-communist refugees.  Migration from east to west of the Iron Curtain, except under limited circumstances, was effectively halted after 1950. Before 1950, over 15 million people (mainly ethnic Germans) emigrated from Soviet-occupied eastern

As a physical entity.

The Iron Curtain took physical shape in the form of border defences between the countries of western and eastern Europe. There were some of the most heavily militarised areas in the world, particularly the so-called "inner German border" – commonly known as "die Grenze" in German – between East and West Germany. The inner German border was marked in rural areas by double fences made of steel mesh (expanded metal) with sharp edges, while near urban areas a high concrete barrier similar to the Berlin Wall was built. The installation of the Wall in 1961 brought an end to a decade during which the divided capital of divided Germany was one of the easiest places to move west across the Iron Curtain.  The barrier was always a short distance inside East German territory to avoid any intrusion into Western territory. The actual borderline was marked by posts and signs and was overlooked by numerous watchtowers set behind the barrier. The strip of land on the West German side of the barrier – between the actual borderline and the barrier – was readily accessible but only at considerable personal risk, because it was patrolled by both East and West German border guards. Several villages, many historic, were destroyed as they lay too close to the border, for example Erlebach. Shooting incidents were not uncommon, and several hundred civilians and 28 East German border guards were killed between 1948 and 1981 (some may have been victims of "friendly fire" by their own side).  Elsewhere along the border between West and East, the defence works resembled those on the intra-German border. During the Cold War, the border zone in Hungary started from the border. Citizens could only enter the area if they lived in the zone or had a passport valid for traveling out. Traffic control points and patrols enforced this regulation.  Those who lived within the border-zone needed special permission to enter the area within of the border. The area was very difficult to approach and heavily fortified. In the 1950s and 1960s, a double barbed-wire fence was installed from the border. The space between the two fences was

Fall of the Iron Curtain.

Following a period of economic and political stagnation under Brezhnev and his immediate successors, the Soviet Union decreased its intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary from 1985) decreased adherence to the Brezhnev Doctrine, which held that if socialism were threatened in any state then other socialist governments had an obligation to intervene to preserve it, in favor of the "Sinatra Doctrine". He also initiated the policies of "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (economic restructuring). A wave of Revolutions occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc in 1989.  In February 1989 the Hungarian politburo recommended to the government led by Miklós Németh to dismantle the iron curtain. Nemeth first informed Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitzky. He then received an informal clearance from Gorbachev (who said "there will not be a new 1956") on 3 March 1989, on 2 May of the same year the Hungarian government announced and started in Rajka (in the locality known as the "city of three borders", on the border with Austria and Czechoslovakia) the destruction of the Iron Curtain. For public relation Hungary reconstructed 200m of the iron curtain so it could be cut during an official ceremony by Hungarian forein minister Gyula Horn, and Austrian foreign minister Alois Mock, on 27 June 1989, which had the function of calling all European peoples still under the yoke of the national-communist regimes to freedom. However, the dismantling of the old Hungarian border facilities did not open the borders, nor did the previous strict controls be removed, and the isolation by the Iron Curtain was still intact over its entire length. Despite dismantling the already technically obsolete fence, the Hungarians wanted to prevent the formation of a green border by increasing the security of the border or to technically solve the security of their western border in a different way. After the demolition of the border facilities, the stripes of the heavily armed Hungarian border guards were tightened and there was still a firing order.  In April 1989 the People's Republic of Poland legalised the Solidarity organisation, which captured 99% of available parliamentary seats in June. These elections, in which anti-communist candidates won a striking victory, inaugurated a series of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe that eventually culminated in the fall of communism.  The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on August 19, 1989 then set in motion a chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. The idea of opening the border at a ceremony came from Otto von Habsburg and was brought up by him to Miklós Németh, the then Hungarian Prime Minister, who promoted the idea. The Paneuropa Picnic itself developed from a meeting between Ferenc Mészáros of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) and the President of the Paneuropean Union

Monuments.

There is an Iron Curtain monument in the southern part of the Czech Republic at approximately. A few hundred meters of the original fence, and one of the guard towers, has remained installed. There are interpretive signs in Czech and English that explain the history and significance of the Iron Curtain. This is the only surviving part of the fence in the Czech Republic, though several guard towers and bunkers can still be seen. Some of these are part of the Communist Era defences, some are from the never-used Czechoslovak border fortifications in defence against Adolf Hitler, and some towers were, or have become, hunting platforms.  Another monument is located in

Analogous terms.

Throughout the Cold War the term "curtain" would become a common euphemism for boundaries – physical or ideological – between communist and capitalist states.  Post Cold War:

The Iron Curtain was initially a non-physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain.

Železná opona je označení pro neprostupnou hranici mezi západním a východním blokem v době studené války. Nacházela se jednak na západní hranici SSSR, NDR, Československa, Maďarska jednak na jižní hranici Albánie, Bulharska. Existovala od konce druhé světové války v roce 1945 až do konce studené války v roce 1991.


Administrative parts.

Villages Předmostí, Lověšice, Kozlovice, Dluhonice, Újezdec, Čekyně, Henčlov, Lýsky, Popovice, Vinary, Žeravice and Penčice are administrative parts of Přerov.

History.

Settlement in the locality dates back to prehistoric times. There is a world—renowned prehistoric site from the stone age on the mound called Hradisko in Přerov Předmostí. The oldest written reference to Přerov dates to 1141 when bishop Jindřich Zdík mentioned Přerov's church of St. George as one of the most important ones in Moravia. King Ottokar II of Bohemia gave Přerov the privilege of being a royal town in 1256. The mansion of Přerov, built in place of the former castle, was a residence of an influential house, the house of Pernštejn and Žerotín, from which Charles the Elder of Žerotín significantly influenced the town. Přerov also plays an important role in history of the Czech protestant church known as Unity of the Brethren.  The town grew the most in 19th century after a railway line was built through it first from Vienna to Olomouc, later extended to Prague.  In June 1945, during the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, 71 men, 120 women and 74 children were killed in an illegal massacre of the German population.  German terror in Bohemia and Moravia peaked in Spring 1945 sparking a Czech uprising, which started in Přerov on May 1 and then spread throughout the whole country after the murder of 78,154 Czech Jews and 340,000 Czech citizens during the German occupation.

Present.

Today the main commercial heart of the city lies around the T.G. Masaryk Square, which is of limited architectural interest. Of greater interest is the cobbled Upper Square enclosed by historic buildings, where the Comenius Museum can be found. Currently, Přerov is the social, administrative and cultural centre of the district with developing economics.

Transport.

The city is a major railway junction with mainlines to Prague via Olomouc, Warsaw via Ostrava, and Vienna via Břeclav, and a regional line to Brno. The helicopter air force is based in Přerov.

Education.

In Přerov there is a College of logistics, an affiliate of Tomas Bata University in Zlín.

International relations.

Twin towns — Sister cities.

Přerov is twinned with:

Přerov (; ) is a city on the Bečva River in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It has a population of approximately 43,000 people. Přerov is about south east of Olomouc. In the past it was a major crossroad in the heart of Moravia in the Czech Republic.

Přerov ( "Prerau") je statutární město v Olomouckém kraji, 21 km jihovýchodně od Olomouce v Hornomoravském úvalu na řece Bečvě, přibližně 200 m nad mořem a má rozlohu 58,48 km2. Žije zde obyvatel. Statutárním městem je od 1. července 2006. Do roku 2002 byl sídlem okresního úřadu okresu Přerov.