1.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
2.
Byzantine history
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This history of the Byzantine Empire covers the history of the Eastern Roman Empire from late antiquity until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD. Several events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period during which the Roman Empires east and west divided. In 285, the emperor Diocletian partitioned the Roman Empires administration into eastern and western halves, between 324 and 330, Constantine I transferred the main capital from Rome to Byzantium, later known as Constantinople and Nova Roma. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion, and finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use instead of Latin. The borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through cycles of decline. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia as a homeland, the final centuries of the Empire exhibited a general trend of decline. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Roman Empire, during the 3rd century, three crises threatened the Roman Empire, external invasions, internal civil wars and an economy riddled with weaknesses and problems. The city of Rome gradually became important as an administrative centre. The crisis of the 3rd century displayed the defects of the system of government that Augustus had established to administer his immense dominion. His successors had introduced some modifications, but events made it clearer that a new, more centralized, Diocletian was responsible for creating a new administrative system. He associated himself with a co-emperor, or Augustus, each Augustus was then to adopt a young colleague, or Caesar, to share in the rule and eventually to succeed the senior partner. After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, however, the tetrachy collapsed, Constantine moved the seat of the Empire, and introduced important changes into its civil and religious constitution. Constantine also began the building of the fortified walls, which were expanded. Constantine built upon the administrative reforms introduced by Diocletian and he stabilized the coinage, and made changes to the structure of the army. Under Constantine, the Empire had recovered much of its military strength and he also reconquered southern parts of Dacia, after defeating the Visigoths in 332, and he was planning a campaign against Sassanid Persia as well. In the course of the 4th century, four great sections emerged from these Constantinian beginnings, Constantine established the principle that emperors should not settle questions of doctrine, but should summon general ecclesiastical councils for that purpose
3.
Edward Gibbon
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Edward Gibbon FRS was an English historian, writer and Member of Parliament. Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove and he had six siblings, five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. As a youth, Gibbons health was under constant threat and he described himself as a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse. At age nine, he was sent to Dr. Woddesons school at Kingston upon Thames and he then took up residence in the Westminster School boarding house, owned by his adored Aunt Kitty, Catherine Porten. Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health, at the age of 15 Gibbon was sent by his father to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to the atmosphere and later rued his 14 months there as the most idle and unprofitable of his life. In that tract, Middleton denied the validity of such powers, Gibbon promptly objected and he was further corrupted by the free thinking deism of the playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet, and finally Gibbons father, already in despair, had had enough. David Womersley has shown, however, that Gibbons claim to having been converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely, and was introduced only into the final draft of the Memoirs in 1792–93. Within weeks of his conversion, the adolescent was removed from Oxford and sent to live under the care and tutelage of Daniel Pavillard, Reformed pastor of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was here that he one of his lifes two great friendships, that of Jacques Georges Deyverdun, and that of John Baker Holroyd. Just a year and a later, after his father threatened to disinherit him, on Christmas Day,1754. The various articles of the Romish creed, he wrote, disappeared like a dream, Gibbon returned to England in August 1758 to face his father. There could be no refusal of the elders wishes, Gibbon put it this way, I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son. He proceeded to cut off all contact with Curchod, even as she vowed to wait for him and their final emotional break apparently came at Ferney, France in the spring of 1764, though they did see each other at least one more time a year later. The following year he embarked on the Grand Tour, which included a visit to Rome, Womersley notes the existence of good reasons to doubt the statements accuracy. In June 1765, Gibbon returned to his fathers house, and these years were considered by Gibbon as the worst five of his life, but he tried to remain busy by making early attempts towards writing full histories. His first historical narrative known as the History of Switzerland, which represented Gibbons love for Switzerland, was never published nor finished, even under the guidance of Deyverdun, Gibbon became too critical of himself, and completely abandoned the project, only writing 60 pages of text. However, after Gibbons death, his writings on Switzerlands history were discovered and published by Lord Sheffield in 1815, soon after abandoning his History of Switzerland, Gibbon made another attempt towards completing a full history
4.
Fyodor Uspensky
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Fyodor Ivanovich Uspensky or Uspenskij was the preeminent Russian Byzantinist in the first third of the 20th century. His works are considered to be among the finest illustrations of the flowering of Byzantine studies in Tsarist Russia, Uspensky was born near Galich in 1845. He was educated at the University of St. Petersburg, with his first thesis dedicated to Nicetas Choniates, for two decades he read lectures at the Novorossiysky University in Odessa. This position allowed him to spend time abroad. Uspenskys doctoral thesis dealt with the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, although he specialized in the Byzantine-Bulgarian relations and investigated the Slavic influence on the Byzantine economy, Uspensky also researched and wrote extensively on the Crusades. He founded the Russian Archaeological Institute and presided over its pioneering research in Constantinople, Asia Minor. In 1900, he was elected into the Russian Academy of Sciences, with the outbreak of World War I, Uspensky was forced to abandon his work and flee Turkey. Back in Petrograd, the 70-year-old professor was invited to edit the organ of Byzantine studies, Uspensky died in Leningrad in 1928. The posthumous publication of his opus, based on numerous unpublished sources and unprecedented in scope. His book about the Trapezuntine Empire also appeared posthumously, the Taktikon Uspensky is named after him
5.
Vasily Vasilievsky
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Vasily Grigorievich Vasilievsky was a Russian historian who founded the St. Petersburg school of medieval studies and was a major force in Byzantine studies during the second half of the 19th century. The son of a rural priest, Vasilievsky was born on 2 February 1838, graduating with honours from the University of St. Petersburg in 1860, he was appointed professor there and was elected into the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1890. Vasilievsky edited the Journal of the Ministry of Education before founding, in 1894, the Vizantiyskiy Vremennik and he was the first to publish many medieval Greek sources relating to Russian history. He was also the first to research the history of Byzantium. Vasilievsky died in Florence on 25 May 1899 and his collected works were published in four volumes between 1908 and 1930. The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary noted that almost every modern Byzantinist is Vasilievskys disciple, the foremost among his pupils was Alexander Vasiliev. Василий Григорьевич Васильевский - основатель санкт-петербургского центра византиноведения, volume 55, part 1, pages 5–21
6.
University of St Petersburg
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Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg. It is the oldest and one of the largest universities in Russia, the university has two primary campuses, one on Vasilievsky Island and the other in Peterhof. During the Soviet period, it was known as Leningrad State University and it was named after Andrei Zhdanov in 1948. Saint Petersburg State University is the second best multi-faculty university in Russia after Moscow State University, the university has a reputation for having educated the majority of Russias political elite, these include presidents Vladimir Putin and Dimitry Medvedev, both of whom studied Law at the university. The university is Russias oldest university, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great, Saint Petersburg state university is included in all ratings and lists of the best universities in the world and is one of the leaders in all indicators in Russia. The university was the first from Russian universities to join The Coimbra Group and it is disputed by the university administration whether Saint Petersburg State University or Moscow State University is the oldest higher education institution in Russia. The Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, renamed the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1814, was established in 1804, in 1823 most of the university moved from the Twelve Collegia to the southern part of the city beyond the Fontanka. In 1824 a modified version of the charter of Moscow University was adopted as the first charter of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, in 1829 there were 19 full professors and 169 full-time and part-time students at the university. In 1830 Tsar Nicholas returned the building of the Twelve Collegia back to the university. In 1835 a new Charter of the Imperial Universities of Russia was approved, however, Pyotr Pletnyov was reappointed Rector and ultimately became the longest-serving rector of Saint Petersburg University. In 1855 Oriental studies were separated from the Faculty of History and Philology, in 1859–1861 female part-time students could attend lectures in the university. In 1861 there were 1,270 full-time and 167 part-time students in the university, of them 498 were in the Faculty of Law, many Russian, Georgian etc. managers, engineers and scientists studied at the Faculty of law therefore. During 1861–1862 there was student unrest in the university, and it was closed twice during the year. The students were denied freedom of assembly and placed under police surveillance, after the unrest, in 1865, only 524 students remained. A decree of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia adopted on 18 February 1863 restored the right of the university assembly to elect the rector and it also formed the new faculty of the theory and history of art as part of the faculty of history and philology. In March 1869, student unrest shook the university again but on a smaller scale, by 1869,2,588 students had graduated from the university. In 1880 the Ministry of National Enlightenment forbade students to marry, in 1882 another student unrest took place in the university. In 1884 a new Charter of the Imperial Russian Universities was adopted, on March 1,1887 a group of the university students was arrested while planning an attempt on the life of Alexander III of Russia
7.
Arabic language
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
8.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
9.
Nicholas Marr
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Marrs hypotheses was used as a rationale in the campaign during the 1920-1930s in the Soviet Union of introduction of Latin alphabets for smaller ethnicities of the country. In 1950, the Japhetic theory fell from favour, with Joseph Stalin denouncing it as anti-Marxist. Marr was born in Kutaisi, Georgia, in the family of the Scot James Marr who founded the garden of the city. His parents spoke different languages, and neither of them understood Russian, having graduated from the St Petersburg University, he taught there beginning in 1891, becoming dean of the Oriental faculty in 1911 and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1912. In 1924, he went even further and proclaimed that all the languages of the descended from a single proto-language which had consisted of four diffused exclamations, sal, ber, yon. Although the languages undergo certain stages of development, his method of linguistic paleontology claims to make it possible to discern elements of primordial exclamations in any given language, one of his followers was Valerian Borisovich Aptekar, and one of his opponents was Arnold Chikobava. Selected publications, Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, Vardan, tristan and Isolda, love of the heroine of feudal Europe to the matriarchal goddess Afrevrazii. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. p.286, Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, Valerian Borisovich Aptekar. State Academy of the History of Material Culture, nikolay Yakovlevich Marr, Valerian Borisovich Aptekar. CS1 maint, Uses authors parameter Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, description of the Georgian manuscripts of Sinai Monastery. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. p.276, les lois du sens, la sémantique marriste. Bern, Peter Lang,2007 — — ISBN 978-3-03911-208-1, marxism and Problems of Linguistics, by Joseph Stalin Nikoli Marr and his excavations at Ani Nikolai Marrs Writings 5 Vols, Djvu
10.
Saint Catherine's Monastery
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The monastery is controlled by the autocephalous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world, the site contains the worlds oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus. A small town with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City, has grown around the monastery, according to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr sentenced to death on the wheel. When this failed to kill her, she was beheaded, according to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains, although it is commonly known as Saint Catherines, the monasterys full official name is the Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The patronal feast of the monastery is the Transfiguration, the monastery has become a favorite site of pilgrimage. The oldest record of life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381-384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, the living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses. Structurally the monasterys king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world, the site is sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism. During the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was in desolate condition, during the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated, only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a high in the outer walls. The monastery was supported by its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus, the monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, the finding from 1859 left the monastery in the 19th century for Russia, in circumstances that had been long disputed. But in 2003 Russian scholars discovered the donation act for the manuscript signed by the Council of Cairo Metochion, the monastery received 9000 rubles as a gift from Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the British Library, London, prior to September 1,2009, a previously unseen fragment of Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in the monasterys library. In February 1892, Agnes Smith Lewis identified a palimpsest in St Catherines library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and is still in the Monasterys possession
11.
Sinai Peninsula
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The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has an area of about 60,000 km2. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypts 27 governorates, the Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. In periods of occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire. Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was the site of fierce fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its setting, rich coral reefs. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in Abrahamic faiths, in addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as Arḍ ul-Fairūz. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Mefkat, or land of turquoise, Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez,125 kilometres wide strip of land, the eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around 200 kilometres wide. The peninsulas eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate, the southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park. Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt, South Sinai and North Sinai, together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres and have a population of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt, Suez is on the end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia in the centre. The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine, Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinais cities and towns reach −16 °C, the mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable and these may be the first historically attested mines. According to the Hebrew Bible, the peninsula was crossed by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and this included numerous halts over a 40-year period of travel sometime towards the end of the Bronze Age
12.
University of Tartu
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The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the university of Estonia. The University of Tartu is the only university in the country. It was established by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, there are nearly 14,000 students at the university, of which over 1,300 are foreign students. The QS World University Rankings ranked the University of Tartu 347th in the world in 2016, the university is also ranked 4th in the Emerging Europe and Central Asia region. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings placed it in the 301–350 range among world universities and it is the only university in the Baltic countries to place among the top 200 universities in Europe. UT belongs to top 1% of worlds most cited universities in 10 research areas, the historical buildings of the university are included in the European Heritage Label list as embodiment of the ideas of a university in the Age of Enlightenment. The University of Tartu is a member of the Coimbra Group, the Academia Gustaviana in the then Swedish province of Livonia was the second university founded in the Swedish Empire, following Uppsala University and preceding the Academy of Åbo. A precursor to the academy had been a Jesuit grammar school Gymnasium Dorpatense, founded by Stefan Batory in 1583 and existing to 1601, the first students immatriculated between 20–21 April 1632. The opening ceremony of Academia Dorpatensis took place on 15 October in the same year, the academy in Tartu functioned with Philosophy, Law, Theology and Medical Faculties enjoying the privileges of the University of Uppsala. On account of the Russian–Swedish war, the University of Tartu moved to Tallinn in 1656, in the 17th century the future outstanding Swedish scholars Urban Hiärne, Olof Verelius, Arvid Moller and others studied at the university. In 1690 Tartu became a university town again, Academia Gustavo-Carolina shortly after that moved from Tartu to Pärnu as a result of the coalition against Sweden and the Great Famine of 1695–1697. Academia Gustavo-Carolina, which had opened in Pärnu on 28 August 1699 was closed because of the surrender to Russian forces on 12 August 1710 during the Great Northern War, according to the terms of the capitulation, the Russians agreed to maintain the university in Pärnu. The university was re-opened by the Baltic Germans in Estonia in April 1802, the language of instruction at Dorpat was German from 1802 to 1893. During that time, Dorpat had a nature in that it belonged both to the set of German and Russian universities. Financially and administratively, the latter was important, intellectually and regarding the professoriate and students. Among the 30 German-language universities, of which 23 were inside the German Empire, in teaching, the university educated the local Baltic German leadership and professional classes as well as staff especially for the administration and health system of the entire Russian Empire. In scholarship, it was a university, the time between 1860 and 1880 was its golden age
13.
Russian Archaeology Institute
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The residents of the monastery were referred to as Stoudites. The ruins of the monastery are situated not far from the Propontis in the section of the city called Psamathia and it was founded in 462 by the consul Flavius Studius, a Roman patrician who had settled in Constantinople, and was consecrated to Saint John the Baptist. Its first monks came from the monastery of Acoemetae and they were driven from the monastery and the city by Emperor Constantine V, after his death however, some of them returned. Hegumenos Sabas of Stoudios zealously defended the Orthodox doctrines against the Iconoclasts at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea and his successor was Theodore the Studite to whom the monastery owes most of its fame, and who especially fostered academic and spiritual study. During St. Theodores administration also the monks were harassed and driven away several times, Theodores pupil, Naukratios, re-established discipline after the Iconoclastic dispute had come to an end. Hegumenos Nicholas refused to recognize the Patriarch St. Photios and was on this account imprisoned in his own monastery and he was succeeded by five abbots who recognized the patriarch. The brilliant period of the Stoudios came to an end at this time, as regards the intellectual life of the monastery in other directions, it is especially celebrated for its famous school of calligraphy which was established by Theodore. The art of illumination was cultivated, with many brilliant products of the monastic scriptorium now residing in Venice, Vatican City. The Theodore Psalter, created at the monastery in the century is in the collection of the British Library. In the eighth and eleventh centuries, the monastery was the centre of Byzantine religious poetry, besides Theodore and Niketas, a number of other theological writers are known. Three of the Stoudite monks rose to become the ecumenical patriarchs, in 1204, the monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders and was not fully restored until 1290, by Constantine Palaiologos. The Russian pilgrims Anthony and Stephen were amazed by the size of the monastic grounds and it is thought that the cloister sheltered as much as 700 monks at the time. The greater part of the monastery was destroyed when the Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453. The ancient structure sustained damage from the great fires of 1782 and 1920. The church building, presently a museum, after the end of its restoration in 2014 had plans to be converted into a mosque. Degrees of Orthodox monasticism History of Eastern Orthodox Christianity Sabas of Stoudios This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. Official Website of the Ecumenical Patriarch | Studius Media related to Monastery of Stoudios at Wikimedia Commons Byzantium 1200 | Monastery of Saint John of Stoudios
14.
Constantinople
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Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the later Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The later Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men, Byzas and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was also called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth, population, and influence grew. In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and later Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew. A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would later rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
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Russian Academy of Sciences
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Headquartered in Moscow, the Academy is considered a civil, self-governed, non-commercial organization chartered by the Government of Russia. It combines the members of RAS and scientists employed by institutions, the Academy currently includes around 650 institutions and 55,000 scientific researchers. There are three types of membership in the RAS, full members, corresponding members, and foreign members, Academicians and corresponding members must be citizens of the Russian Federation when elected. However, some academicians and corresponding members were elected before the collapse of the USSR and are now citizens of other countries, Members of RAS are elected based on their scientific contributions – election to membership is considered very prestigious. In the years 2005–2012, the academy had approximately 500 full and 700 corresponding members, but in 2013, after the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences became incorporated into the RAS, a number of the RAS members accordingly increased. As of November 2016, after the last elections, there were 944 full members and 1159 corresponding members in the renewed Russian Academy of Sciences, the RAS consists of 13 specialized scientific divisions, three territorial divisions, sometimes called branches, and 15 regional scientific centers. The Academy has numerous councils, committees, and commissions, all organized for different purposes, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Siberian Division was established in 1957, with Mikhail Lavrentyev as founding chairman. Research centers are in Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Ulan-Ude, Kemerovo, Tyumen, as of 2005, the Division employed over 33,000 employees,58 of whom were members of the Academy. Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Ural Division was established in 1932, research centers are in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Cheliabinsk, Izhevsk, Orenburg, Ufa and Syktyvkar. As of 2007, the Division employed 3,600 scientists,590 full professors,31 full members, started with just three members, The RSSI now has 3,100 members, including 57 from the largest research institutions. Russian universities and technical institutes are not under the supervision of the RAS, the Academy is also increasing its presence in the educational area. In 1990 the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded, the Academy gives out a number of different prizes, medals and awards among which, Lomonosov Gold Medal Lobachevsky Prize Demidov Prize Kurchatov Medal Pushkin Prize S. V. Expeditions to explore parts of the country had Academy scientists as their leaders or most active participants. A separate organization, called the Russian Academy, was created in 1783 to work on the study of the Russian language, presided over by Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, the Russian Academy was engaged in compiling the six-volume Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language. The Russian Academy was merged into the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1841, in December 1917, Sergey Fedorovich Oldenburg, a leading ethnographer and political activist in the Kadet party, met with Vladimir Lenin to discuss the future of the Academy. They agreed that the expertise of the Academy would be applied to addressing questions of state construction, in 1925 the Soviet government recognized the Russian Academy of Sciences as the highest all-Union scientific institution and renamed it the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Soviet Sciences Academy would be affected like all universities by the rules imposed particularly those pertaining to censorship, the Soviet Science Academy ended up with a leader of the philosophy department who was placed there simply to keep the man out of trouble. The government decided to not execute or send the famous writer to the gulag because he had won the Stalin award, doing this would have discredited the Stalin award and thus Stalin the leader of the Communist party himself
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Michael Rostovtzeff
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Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtzeff, or Rostovtsev was an ancient historian whose career straddled the 19th and 20th centuries and who produced important works on ancient Roman and Greek history. He was a member of the Russian Academy of Science, Rostovtzeff was the son of a Latin teacher. Upon completing his studies at the universities of Kiev and St. Petersburg, Rostovtsev served as an assistant, in 1918, following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated first to Sweden, then to England, and finally in 1920 to the United States. There he accepted a chair at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before moving to Yale University in 1925 where he taught until his retirement in 1944 and he oversaw all archaeological activities of the latter institution in general and the excavations of Dura-Europos in particular. He is believed to have coined the term caravan city, while working in Russia, Rostovtzeff became an authority on the ancient history of South Russia and Ukraine. He summed up his knowledge on the subject in Iranians and Greeks in South Russia and his most important archaeological findings at Yale were described in Dura-Europos and Its Art. Rostovtzeff was known as a proud and slightly overpowering man who did not fit in easily, in later life, he suffered from depression. Rostovtzeff was notable for his theories of the cause of the collapse of the Roman Empire which he expounded in detail in his magisterial The Social, bowersock later described the book as the marriage of pre-1918 scholarly training and taste with post-1918 personal experience and reflection. Today, Rostovtzeffs theories in this area continue to be rejected by scholars as untenable, the Birth of the Roman Empire. Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, a large estate in Egypt in the third century B. C. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, a History of the Ancient World, Volume I The Orient and Greece. A History of the Ancient World, Volume II Rome, the Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World. The great Russian historian M. Rostovtsev in the USA, The years of exile, lewiston, NY, Edwin Mellen Press,1999. Rostovtzeff in Madison in American Scholar, Spring 1986, Vol.55 Issue 3, new Haven, Yale University Press,1979. Rostovtzeff in The Cambridge Journal,1954,7, pp. 334–346, new York, Harper Torchbooks,1966, pp. 91–104. Berkeley, University of California Press,1994, pp. 32–43, historian of the Classic World, A Critique of Rostovtzeff, Studies in Classical History and Society. New York, Oxford University Press,2002, pp. 82–100, under Russian eyes, The Journal of Roman studies, Vol.82. Wes, Marinus A. Michael Rostovtzeff, historian in exile, reviewed by Brent D. Shaw in The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol.82
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Dumbarton Oaks
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It was the residence and gardens of Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss. The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection was founded here by the Bliss couple, Dumbarton Oaks also opens its gardens and museum collections to the public, and hosts public lectures and a concert series. The land of Dumbarton Oaks was formerly part of the Rock of Dumbarton grant that Queen Anne made in 1702 to Colonel Ninian Beall, the Oaks also was the Washington residence of U. S. Senator and Vice President John C. Calhoun between 1822 and 1829, in 1846, Edward Linthicum bought the house, and enlarged it. In 1891, Henry F. Blount bought the house, Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss acquired the property in 1920, and in 1933 they gave it the name of Dumbarton Oaks, combining its two historic names. The Blisses engaged the architect Frederick H. Brooke to renovate and enlarge the house, later renamed the Fellows Building, this building is now known as the Guest House. After retiring to Dumbarton Oaks in 1933, the Blisses immediately began laying the groundwork for the creation of a research institute and they greatly increased their already considerable collection of artworks and reference books, forming the nucleus of what would become the Research Library and Collection. At the same time gave a portion of the grounds—some 27 acres—to the National Park Service to establish the Dumbarton Oaks Park. This committee was first chaired by Paul J, in early years the Administrative Committee appointed a Board of Scholars to make recommendations in regard to all scholarly activities. The Board of Scholars was first organized in 1942, its membership was increased to twenty-two members by 1960, in 1952, this board was titled the Board for Scholars in Byzantine Studies. The Administrative Committee also historically appointed a Visiting Committee consisting of persons interested in the welfare and this committee was abolished in 1960 when it was replaced by a Board of Advisors. In 1937, Mildred Bliss commissioned Igor Stravinsky to compose a concerto in the tradition of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos to celebrate the Blisss thirtieth wedding anniversary, Nadia Boulanger conducted its premiere on May 8,1938 in the Dumbarton Oaks music room, due to the composer’s indisposition from tuberculosis. At Mildred Bliss’s request, the Concerto in E-flat was subtitled “Dumbarton Oaks 8-v-1938, ”, Igor Stravinsky conducted the concerto in the Dumbarton Oaks music room on April 25,1947 and again for the Blisss golden wedding anniversary, on May 8,1958. He also conducted the first performance of his Septet, which is dedicated to the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, in the music room on January 24,1954. Delegations from China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and their meetings resulted in the United Nations Charter that was adopted in San Francisco in 1945. I charge those responsible for carrying forward the life at Dumbarton Oaks to be guided by the set there during the lifetime of my husband. To help the institution better fulfill its mandate, administrative changes were introduced after 1969. The Garden Advisory Committee was abolished in 1974 and replaced in 1975 by the Advisory Committee for Studies in Landscape Architecture, in 1975, the Advisory Committee for Pre-Columbian Art similarly was renamed the Advisory Committee for Pre-Columbian Studies
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Nikodim Kondakov
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Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, was an art historian, with special expertise in the history of Russian Christian icons. Nicodem Pavlovitch Kondakov was born in Russia in 1844, at Khalan village and he attended Moscow University under Fedor Buslaev from 1861 to 1865. After graduation he taught in the Moscow Art School, in 1870 he became a lecturer in the University of Novorossia, Odessa, and in 1877 a professor there. From 1888 he taught in St. Petersburg University, from 1893 he was a member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1898 a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1895 with Fyodor Uspensky he founded the Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople, during the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War in Russia Kondakov lived in Odessa and Yalta. In 1920 he emigrated to Bulgaria, and then to Czechoslovakia, in his first book, on Greek manuscript illumination, published in 1877, Kondakov approached stylistic evolution of eastern Romanesque art through the use of artistic ideal. He collaborated with Salomon Reinach in Antiquités de la Russie Méridionale and his lectures influenced future historians, among others, Michael Rostovtzeff. Kondakov wrote numerous works on the history of Ancient Greek, Russian, Georgian and he founded modern method in the history of the art of the Eastern Roman Empire. Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, 1844–1925, in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Part I, santa-Barbara, CA, Denver, CO, Oxford, England, ABC-Clio,1999, Vol. I, pp. 165–174. Iconography of Mother of God, vol, saint Petersburg 1914, Prague 1915 History of Byzantine Miniature Painting
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Prague
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Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is the 14th largest city in the European Union and it is also the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city has a temperate climate, with warm summers and chilly winters. Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its history and it was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prague is home to a number of cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence. Main attractions include the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The city has more than ten major museums, along with theatres, galleries, cinemas. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city, also, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe. Prague is classified as an Alpha- global city according to GaWC studies, Prague ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016. Its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination, and the city more than 6.4 million international visitors annually. Prague is the fifth most visited European city after London, Paris, Istanbul, the region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. In the last century BC, the Celts were slowly driven away by Germanic tribes, around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map of Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis. In the following century, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in Levý Hradec, Butovice and in the Šárka valley. The construction of what came to be known as the Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, the first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest. The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which was founded in 1344, but completed in the 20th century. The legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied, I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars. She ordered a castle and a town called Praha to be built on the site, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c.1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya. The region became the seat of the dukes, and later kings of Bohemia, under Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973
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Sirarpie Der-Nersessian
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Sirarpie Der Nersessian was an Armenian art historian, who specialized in Armenian and Byzantine studies. Der Nersessian was an academic and a pioneer in Armenian art history. She taught at institutions in the United States, including Wellesley College in Massachusetts and as Henri Focillon Professor of Art. She was a fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, its deputy director from 1954–55 and 1961–62. Der Nersessian was also a member of international institutions such as the British Academy, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Der Nersessian was born the youngest of three children in Constantinople in 1896 and she came from a well-to-do family and her maternal uncle happened to be the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, Malachia Ormanian. Her parents died while she was young, her mother Akabi, when she was nine, and her father Mihran. She graduated from Yesayan Parochial School and the English High School in Constantinople, gaining fluency in Armenian, English and French at an early age. In 1915, during the height of the Armenian Genocide, Der Nersessian and her sister Arax were forced to leave for Europe, Der Nersessian studied at the University of Geneva for several years until settling in Paris, France in 1919. Der Nersessian was admitted to Sorbonne University, studying history at the École des Hautes Études de luniversité de Paris and she studied under the notable Byzantinologists Charles Diehl and Gabriel Millet and art historian Henri Focillon. In 1922, she became Millets assistant, and with his help and she taught art history at Wellesley, quickly gaining a full professorship and later becoming the chairwoman of the Department of Art History and Director of Farnsworth Museum. In 1947, she received the Achievement Award from the American Association of University Women, Der Nersessian remained at Dumbarton Oaks until 1978, when she retired to France and lived with her sister in Paris. Upon retirement, she had her entire library shipped to the Matenadaran in Yerevan, Der Nersessians work primarily concerned Armenian art history, including the study of church architecture, illuminated manuscripts, miniatures and sculpture. Below is a partial list of books and articles that she authored and her 1945 book, Armenia and the Byzantine Empire, was praised by art historians David Talbot Rice, Jurgis Baltrušaitis, and Alexander Vasiliev. Vasiliev wrote in his review of the book that she is the best authority of our day on Armenian history, art, cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,1945. Aghtamar, Church of the Holy Cross, Armenian Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Brussels, Les Editeurs d’Art Associés,1986, publications filmées dart et dhistoire,1965. Lillustration du roman de Barlaam et Joasaph, miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century
21.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
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Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
