1.
Ivan Bilibin
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Throughout his career, he was inspired by Slavic folklore. Ivan Bilibin was born in Tarkhovka, a suburb of St. Petersburg and he studied in 1898 at Anton Ažbe Art School in Munich, then under Ilya Repin in St. Petersburg. After graduating in May 1900 he went to Munich, where he completed his training with the painter Anton Ažbe, in 1902–1904 Bilibin travelled in the Russian North, where he became fascinated with old wooden architecture and Russian folklore. He published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North in 1904, another influence on his art was traditional Japanese prints. Artistic design of magazines such as Dog Rose and expenditure of the Moscow publishing house followed. Bilibin gained renown in 1899, when he released his illustrations of Russian fairy tales, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, he drew revolutionary cartoons, especially for the magazine Župel, which in 1906 became prohibited. He would further serve as the designer for the 1909 première production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovs The Golden Cockerel, after the October Revolution in 1917, he left Russia after the revolution proved alien to him. After brief stints in Cairo and Alexandria, he settled in Paris in 1925 and he still longed for his homeland and, after decorating the Soviet Embassy in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia, delivering lectures at the Russian Academy of Arts until 1941. Bilibin died during the Siege of Leningrad and was buried in a collective grave, in 1902 he Bilibin married his former student, the painter Marija Jakovlevna Tschembers. They had two sons, Alexander and Ivan, in 1912 he again married a former student, the art school graduate Renée Rudolfowna OKonnel. In 1923 he married the painter Alexandra Vasilyevna Schtschekatichina-Potozkaja, with whom he had a joint exhibition in Amsterdam in 1929, works of Ivan Bilibin at Cascadia Graphics Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin at the Wayback Machine at www. scumdog. demon. co. uk
2.
Historical Slavic religion
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Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation. Unlike ancient Greek, Hindu, Chinese or Egyptian mythology, there are no records for the study of Slavic mythology. It has not been proven that the Slavs had any sort of writing system before the arrival of Saints Cyril, fragments of old mythological beliefs and pagan festivals survive up to this day in folk customs, songs, stories and folk-tales of all the Slavic nations. Although Herodotus is himself not convinced by this rumour, he stresses that he has heard some swear it, the identification of Neuri with Proto-Slavs remains controversial, however. According to Procopius, these Slavs worshipped a single deity, who crafted lightning, though not named explicitly, it can be deduced this is a reference to the deity known as Perun in later historic sources, as in many Slavic languages today. Perun simply means thunder or lightning bolt and he also mentions the belief in various demons and nymphs, but does not mention any other names. The Slavic Primary Chronicle is a work with many valuable references to the pagan beliefs of Eastern Slavs. The chronicle treats the history of the early Eastern Slavic state, even though the manuscript was compiled at the beginning of the 12th century, it contains references to and copies of older documents, and describes events predating the Baptism of Kiev. Two deities, Perun and Veles/Volos, are mentioned in the text of the early 10th century peace treaties between pagan rulers of East Slavs and Byzantine Emperors, later, Nestor the Chronicler describes a state pantheon introduced by Prince Vladimir in Kiev in 980 CE. Vladimirs pantheon included Perun, Hors, Dažbog, Stribog, Simargl, the Hypatian Codex of the Primary Chronicle also mentions Svarog, compared to Greek Hephaestus. Also very interesting are the passages in the East Slavic epic The Tale of Igors Campaign referring to Veles, Dažbog, the original epic has been dated to the end of the 12th century, although there are marginal disputes over the authenticity of this work. The most numerous and richest written records are of West Slavic paganism, particularly of Wendish and Polabian tribes, the German missionaries and priests who criticized pagan religion left extensive records of old mythological systems they sought to overcome. However, they restrained themselves from pious lies, claiming pagan Slavs were idolatrous. As none of those missionaries learned any Slavic language, their records are confused and exaggerated, major works include a chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg from the beginning of the 11th century, who described a temple in the city of Riedegost where the great deity Zuarasic was worshipped. According to Thietmar, this was the most sacred place in the land of pagan Slavs, another very valuable document is the Chronica Slavorum written in the late 12th century by Helmold, a German priest. Saxo meticulously described the worship of Svantevit, the associated with it. He also mentioned multi-headed deities of other Slavic tribes, Rugievit, Porewit, according to the manuscript, the most important Slavic deity was Triglav, whose temples in the city of Szczecin were respected oracles. In the cities of Wolgast and Havelberg, the war god Gerovit was worshiped, a corruption of Jarovit
3.
Mortar and pestle
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A pestle and mortar is a kitchen device used since ancient times to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder. The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, the pestle is a heavy and blunt club-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The substance to be ground is placed in the mortar and ground, mortars and pestles have been used in cooking up to the present day, they are frequently also associated with the profession of pharmacy due to their historical use in preparing medicines. They can also be used in masonry and in types of construction. Scientists have found ancient mortars and pestles that date back to approximately 35,000 B. C, the English word mortar derives from classical Latin mortarium, meaning, among several other usages, receptacle for pounding and product of grinding or pounding. The classical Latin pistillum, meaning pounder, led to English pestle, the Roman poet Juvenal applied both mortarium and pistillum to articles used in the preparation of drugs, reflecting the early use of the mortar and pestle as a symbol of a pharmacist or apothecary. The antiquity of these tools is well documented in writing, such as the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus of ~1550 BCE. Mortars and pestles were used in pharmacies to crush various ingredients prior to preparing an extemporaneous prescription. The mortar and pestle, with the Rod of Asclepius, the Orange Cross, for pharmaceutical use, the mortar and the head of the pestle are usually made of porcelain, while the handle of the pestle is made of wood. This is known as a Wedgwood mortar and pestle and originated in 1759, today the act of mixing ingredients or reducing the particle size is known as trituration. Mortars and pestles are used as drug paraphernalia to grind up pills to speed up absorption when they are ingested. Mortars are also used in cooking to prepare ingredients such as guacamole, gazpacho and pesto, the molcajete, a version used by pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures including the Aztec and Maya, stretching back several thousand years, is made of basalt and is used widely in Mexican cooking. Other Native American nations use mortars carved into the bedrock to grind acorns, many such depressions can be found in their territories. In Japan, very large mortars are used with wooden mallets to prepare mochi, a regular sized Japanese mortar and pestle are called a suribachi and surikogi, respectively. Granite mortars and pestles are used in Southeast Asia, as well as Pakistan, in India, it is used extensively to make spice mixtures for various delicacies as well as day to day dishes. With the advent of motorized grinders, use of the mortar and it is traditional in various Hindu ceremonies to crush turmeric in these mortars. In Malay, it is known as batu lesung, large stone mortars, with long wood pestles were used in West Asia to grind meat for a type of meatloaf, or kibbeh, as well as the hummus variety known as masabcha. In Indonesia and the Netherlands mortar is known as Cobek or Tjobek and it is often used to make fresh sambal, a spicy chili condiment, hence the sambal ulek/oelek denote its process using pestle
4.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
5.
Serbo-Croatian
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It is a pluricentric language with four mutually intelligible standard varieties. South Slavic dialects historically formed a continuum, the turbulent history of the area, particularly due to expansion of the Ottoman Empire, resulted in a patchwork of dialectal and religious differences. Due to population migrations, Shtokavian became the most widespread in the western Balkans, Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs differ in religion and were historically often part of different cultural circles, although a large part of the nations have lived side by side under foreign overlords. Serbo-Croatian was standardized in the mid-19th-century Vienna Literary Agreement by Croatian and Serbian writers and philologists, from the very beginning, there were slightly different literary Serbian and Croatian standards, although both were based on the same Shtokavian subdialect, Eastern Herzegovinian. In the 20th century, Serbo-Croatian served as the language of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia affected language attitudes, so that social conceptions of the language separated on ethnic, since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Bosnian has likewise been established as an official standard in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there is an ongoing movement to codify a separate Montenegrin standard. Serbo-Croatian thus generally goes by the ethnic names Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, like other South Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian has a simple phonology, with the common five-vowel system and twenty-five consonants. Its grammar evolved from Common Slavic, with inflection, preserving seven grammatical cases in nouns, pronouns. Verbs exhibit imperfective or perfective aspect, with a complex tense system. Serbo-Croatian is a language with flexible word order, subject–verb–object being the default. It can be written in Serbian Cyrillic or Gajs Latin alphabet, whose thirty letters mutually map one-to-one, throughout the history of the South Slavs, the vernacular, literary, and written languages of the various regions and ethnicities developed and diverged independently. Prior to the 19th century, they were collectively called Illyric, Slavic, at that time, Serb and Croat lands were still part of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires. Officially, the language was called variously Serbo-Croat, Croato-Serbian, Serbian and Croatian, Croatian and Serbian, Serbian or Croatian, Croatian or Serbian, today, use of the term Serbo-Croatian is controversial due to the prejudice that nation and language must match. Old Church Slavonic was adopted as the language of the liturgy and this language was gradually adapted to non-liturgical purposes and became known as the Croatian version of Old Slavonic. The two variants of the language, liturgical and non-liturgical, continued to be a part of the Glagolitic service as late as the middle of the 19th century, the earliest known Croatian Church Slavonic Glagolitic manuscripts are the Glagolita Clozianus and the Vienna Folia from the 11th century. Serbo-Croatian competed with the established literary languages of Latin and Old Slavonic in the west and Persian. Old Slavonic developed into the Serbo-Croatian variant of Church Slavonic between the 12th and 16th centuries, the Baška tablet from the late 11th century was written in Glagolitic. It is a stone tablet found in the small Church of St. Lucy
6.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
7.
Mikhail Lomonosov
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Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the Law of Mass Conservation in chemical reactions and his spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language, Lomonosov was born in the village of Denisovka in Archangelgorod Governorate, on an island not far from Kholmogory, in the far north of Russia. Lomonosovs mother was Vasilys first wife, a daughter, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova. He remained at Denisovka until he was ten, when his father decided that he was old enough to participate in his business ventures, learning was young Lomonosovs passion, however, not business. The boys thirst for knowledge was insatiable, Lomonosov had been taught to read as a boy by his neighbor Ivan Shubny, and he spent every spare moment with his books. He continued his studies with the deacon, S. N. Sabelnikov, but for years the only books he had access to were religious texts. When he was fourteen, Lomonosov was given copies of Meletius Smotrytskys Modern Church Slavonic, on his religious views, Lomonosov was a deist. In 1724, his father married for the third and final time, Lomonosov and his stepmother Irina had an acrimonious relationship. Unhappy at home and intent on obtaining an education, which Lomonosov could not receive in Denisovka. In 1730, at nineteen, Lomonosov went to Moscow on foot, not long after arriving, Lomonosov obtained admission into the Slavic Greek Latin Academy by falsely claiming to be a priests son. That initial falsehood would nearly get him expelled from the academy a few years later when discovered, Lomonosov lived on three kopecks a day, living off only black bread and kvass, but he made rapid progress scholastically. After three years in Moscow he was sent to Kiev to study for one year at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and he quickly became dissatisfied with the education he was receiving there, and returned to Moscow several months ahead of schedule, resuming his studies there. He completed a study course in only five years, graduating at the top of his class. In 1736, Lomonosov was awarded a scholarship to St. Petersburg Academy and he plunged into his studies and was rewarded with a two-year grant to study abroad at the University of Marburg, in Germany. The University of Marburg was among Europes most important universities in the century due to the presence of the philosopher Christian Wolff. Lomonosov became one of Wolffs personal students while at Marburg, both philosophically and as a science administrator, this connection would be the most influential of Lomonosovs life
8.
Interpretatio graeca
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It is thus a comparative methodology that looks for equivalencies and shared characteristics. Interpretatio romana is comparative discourse in reference to ancient Roman religion and myth, both the Romans and the Gauls reinterpreted Gallic religious traditions in relation to Roman models, particularly Imperial cult. …The meaning of a deity is his or her character as it unfolded in myths, hymns, rites. This character makes a deity comparable to other deities with similar traits, the similarity of gods makes their names mutually translatable. … The practice of translating the names of the created a concept of similarity. Pliny the Elder expressed the translatability of deities as different names to different peoples and this capacity made possible the religious syncretism of the Hellenistic era and the pre-Christian Roman Empire. Herodotus was one of the earliest authors to engage in this form of interpretation, in his observations regarding the Egyptians, he establishes Greco-Egyptian equivalents that endured into the Hellenistic era, including Amon/Zeus, Osiris/Dionysus, and Ptah/Hephaestus. Some pairs of Greek and Roman gods, such as Zeus and Jupiter, are thought to derive from a common Indo-European archetype, some deities dating to Romes oldest religious stratum, such as Janus and Terminus, had no Greek equivalent. Other Greek divine figures, most notably Apollo, were adopted directly into Roman culture, the phrase interpretatio romana was first used by the Imperial-era historian Tacitus in the Germania. Tacitus reports that in a grove of the Nahanarvali, a priest adorned as a woman presides. Elsewhere, he identifies the god of the Germans as Mercury. Some information about the deities of the ancient Gauls, who left no written literature other than inscriptions, is preserved by Greco-Roman sources under the names of Greek, a large number of Gaulish theonyms or cult titles are preserved, for instance, in association with Mars. As with some Greek and Roman divine counterparts, the similarities between a Gallic and a Roman or Greek deity may reflect a common Indo-European origin. Lugh was identified with Mercury, Nodens with Mars as healer and protector, in some cases, however, a Gallic deity is given an interpretatio romana by means of more than one god, varying among literary texts or inscriptions. These tendencies extended to cross-cultural identifications, in the Eastern empire, the Anatolian storm god with his double-headed axe became Jupiter Dolichenus, a favorite cult figure among soldiers. Roman scholars such as Varro interpreted the monotheistic god of the Jews into Roman terms as Caelus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, some Greco-Roman authors seem to have understood the Jewish invocation of Yahweh Sabaoth as Sabazius. Interpretatio germanica is the practice by the Germanic peoples of identifying Roman gods with the names of Germanic deities, according to Rudolf Simek, this occurred around the 1st century of the common era, when both cultures came into closer contact. This is also the case with Saturn in some West Germanic languages, such as the English Saturday, the West Frisian Saterdei, the Low German Saterdag and the Dutch zaterdag all meaning Saturns day
9.
Jupiter
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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, the other two giant planets, Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter has been known to astronomers since antiquity, the Romans named it after their god Jupiter. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium and it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its rotation, the planets shape is that of an oblate spheroid. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different latitudes, resulting in turbulence, a prominent result is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere, Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a greater than that of the planet Mercury. Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, the latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4,2016. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the probable ice-covered liquid ocean of its moon Europa, Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with Jupiter destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems with multiple planets, Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets, including Earth. Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter and it is the largest of the four giant planets in the Solar System and hence its largest planet. It has a diameter of 142,984 km at its equator, the average density of Jupiter,1.326 g/cm3, is the second highest of the giant planets, but lower than those of the four terrestrial planets. Jupiters upper atmosphere is about 88–92% hydrogen and 8–12% helium by percent volume of gas molecules, a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a hydrogen atom, so the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by different atoms. Thus, Jupiters atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, the atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, the outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia. The interior contains denser materials - by mass it is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium, through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found
10.
Croatia
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Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period
11.
Modest Mussorgsky
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Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as The Five. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period and he strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music. Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, such works include the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. For many years Mussorgskys works were known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have posthumously come into their own in their original forms, the spelling and pronunciation of the composers name has occasioned some confusion. The family name derives from a 15th- or 16th-century ancestor, Roman Vasilyevich Monastyryov, who appears in the Velvet Book, Roman Vasilyevich bore the nickname Musorga, and was the grandfather of the first Mussorgsky. The composer could trace his lineage to Rurik, the legendary 9th-century founder of the Russian state, in Mussorgsky family documents the spelling of the name varies, Musarskiy, Muserskiy, Muserskoy, Musirskoy, Musorskiy, and Musurskiy. The baptismal record gives the name as Muserskiy. In early letters to Mily Balakirev, the composer signed his name Musorskiy, the g made its first appearance in a letter to Balakirev in 1863. Mussorgsky used this new spelling to the end of his life, the addition of the g to the name was likely initiated by the composers elder brother Filaret to obscure the resemblance of the names root to an unsavory Russian word, мусoр — n. m. The first syllable of the originally received the stress, and does so to this day in Russia. The mutability of the vowel in the versions of the name mentioned above gives evidence that this syllable did not receive the stress. Doubling the consonant thus reinforces its voiceless sibilant /s/ sound, Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Toropets Uyezd, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire,400 km south of Saint Petersburg. His wealthy and land-owning family, the family of Mussorgsky, is reputedly descended from the first Ruthenian ruler, Rurik. At age six Mussorgsky began receiving lessons from his mother. His progress was sufficiently rapid that three years later he was able to perform a John Field concerto and works by Franz Liszt for family, at 10, he and his brother were taken to Saint Petersburg to study at the elite German language Petrischule. While there, Modest studied the piano with the noted Anton Gerke, in 1852, the 12-year-old Mussorgsky published a piano piece titled Porte-enseigne Polka at his fathers expense. Mussorgskys parents planned the move to Saint Petersburg so that both their sons would renew the tradition of military service
12.
Pictures at an Exhibition
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Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten pieces composed for the piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The suite is Mussorgskys most famous composition and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists. It has become known through various orchestrations and arrangements produced by other musicians and composers. It was probably in 1868 that Mussorgsky first met artist, architect, both men were devoted to the cause of an intrinsically Russian art and quickly became friends. They likely met in the home of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, according to Stasovs testimony, in 1868, Hartmann gave Mussorgsky two of the pictures later featured in Pictures at an Exhibition. In 1870, Mussorgsky dedicated the song of the cycle The Nursery to Hartmann. Stasov remarked that Hartmann loved Mussorgskys compositions, and particularly liked the Scene by the Fountain in his opera Boris Godunov. Mussorgsky abandoned the scene in his original 1869 version, but at the requests of Stasov and Hartmann, the years 1873–74 are associated with the staging of Boris Godunov, the zenith of Mussorgskys career as a composer—at least from the standpoint of public acclaim. The composers triumph was overshadowed, however, by the critical drubbing he received in the press, other circumstances conspired to dampen Mussorgskys spirits. Golenishchev-Kutuzov wrote, banner was held by Mussorgsky alone, all the members had left it. Hartmanns sudden death on 4 August 1873 from an aneurysm shook Mussorgsky along with others in Russias art world, the loss of the artist, aged only 39, plunged the composer into deep despair. Stasov helped organize an exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in February. Mussorgsky lent to the exhibition the two pictures Hartmann had given him, and viewed the show in person, I am writing the 4th No. —the transitions are good. I want to more quickly and steadily. My physiognomy can be seen in the interludes, so far I think its well turned. The music depicts his tour of the exhibition, with each of the ten numbers of the serving as a musical illustration of an individual work by Hartmann. Five days after finishing the composition, he wrote on the page of the manuscript a tribute to Vladimir Stasov. One month later, he added an indication that he intended to have it published, in music for these illustrations, as Mussorgsky called them, he represented, children, Baba Yaga in her wooden house on chicken legs, catacombs, gates, and even rattling carts
