1.
Neva River
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The Neva is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of 74 kilometres, it is the fourth largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge, the Neva is the only river flowing from Lake Ladoga. It flows through the city of Saint Petersburg, three towns of Shlisselburg, Kirovsk and Otradnoye, and dozens of settlements. The river is navigable throughout and is part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway and White Sea – Baltic Canal. There are at least three versions of the origin of the name Neva, from the ancient Finnish name of Lake Ladoga, from the Finnish, neva meaning swamp, or from the Swedish, ny – new river. Modern names for the distributaries of the delta were settled only by the end of the 18th century. In the Paleozoic, 300–400 million years ago, the territory of the modern delta of the Neva River was covered by a sea. Modern relief was formed as a result of glacier activity and its retreat formed the Littorina Sea, the water level of which was some 7 to 9 metres higher than the present level of the Baltic Sea. Then, the Tosna River was flowing in the bed of the Neva. In the north of the Karelian Isthmus, the Littorina Sea united by a strait with Lake Ladoga. The Mga River then flowed to the east, into Lake Ladoga, near the source of the Neva River. Near the modern Lake Ladoga, land rose faster, and a reservoir was formed. Its water level began to rise, eventually flooded the valley of Mga, the Ivanovo rapids of the modern Neva were created in the breakthrough area. So about 2000 BC the Neva was created with its tributaries Tosna, according to some newer data, it happened at 1410–1250 BC making the Neva a rather young river. The valley of Neva is formed by glacial and post-glacial sediments, the delta of Neva was formed at that time, which is actually pseudodelta, as it was formed not by accumulation of river material but by plunging into the past sediments. The Neva flows out of Lake Ladoga near Shlisselburg, flows through the Neva Lowland and it has a length of 74 kilometres, and the shortest distance from the source to the mouth is 45 kilometres. The river banks are low and steep, on average about 3 to 6 metres and 2 to 3 metres at the mouth. There are three turns, the Ivanovskye rapids, at Nevsky Forest Park of the Ust-Slavyanka region and near the Smolny Institute
2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
3.
Novgorod Republic
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Citizens referred to their city-state as His Majesty Lord Novgorod the Great, or more often as Lord Novgorod the Great. The Republic prospered as the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League, in the middle of the 9th century Novgorod was only a name used to describe a staging post on the trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Byzantine Empire. It was populated by various Finnic and Slavic tribes that were constantly at war with one another for supremacy. However, these tribes came together during the beginning of the 9th century to try, Novgorod functioned as the original capital of the Rus people until 882 when Oleg transferred his administration to Kiev. From that time until 1019-1020 Novgorod was a part of Kievan Rus, Novgorod Princes were appointed by the Grand Prince of Kiev. Novgorod was sort of a center as by legend it was the first city of Rus. Novgorod still possesses relics of the beliefs that preceded Christianity and are now part of their pre-Christian Pagan/Norse/Slavic history. Novgorod continuously played a key role in the politics of Rus by assisting Vladimir the Great of Kiev, one of his first actions as Grand Prince was to grant loyal Novgorodians numerous freedoms and privileges. Thus the foundation for the Novgorod Republic was laid, while still a part of Kievan Rus, Novgorod eventually evolved into a powerful regional center that was largely independent. The Novgorod boyars began to dominate the offices of posadnik and tysyatsky, in 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich and over the next century and a half were able to invite in and dismiss a number of princes. However, these invitations or dismissals were often based on who the dominant prince in Rus or Appanage Russia was at the time, cities such as Staraya Russa, Staraya Ladoga, Torzhok, and Oreshek were part of the Novgorodian Land. According to some accounts, a vicar of the archbishop ran the city of Staraya Ladoga in the 13th century, the city of Pskov, initially part of the Novgorodian Land, had de facto independence from at least the 13th century after joining the Hanseatic League. Several princes such as Dovmont and Vsevolod Mstislavich reigned in Pskov without any deference to or consultation with the prince or other officials in Novgorod, pskovs independence was acknowledged by the Treaty of Bolotovo in 1348. Even after this, however, the Archbishop of Novgorod headed the church in Pskov and kept the title Archbishop of Novgorod the Great, in the 12th–15th century, the Novgorodian Republic expanded east and northeast. The Novgorodians explored the areas around Lake Onega, along the Northern Dvina, in the beginning of the 14th century the Novgorodians explored the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, and the West-Siberian river Ob. The Ugric tribes that inhabited the Northern Urals had to pay tribute to Novgorod the Great, losing them meant economic and cultural decline for the city and its inhabitants. Indeed, the failure of the Novgorodians to win these wars led to the downfall of the Republic. Soviet-era Marxist scholarship frequently described the system of Novgorod as a feudal republic
4.
Karelians
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The Karelians are a nation that belongs to Baltic-Finnic ethnic group that are currently living in Finland and Russia. In Russia Karelians mostly settle in the Republic of Karelia and in other parts of the Russian Federation. There are also significant Karelian enclaves in the Tver and Novgorod region, in Finland they traditionally settle in the regions of Savonia and Northern and Southern Karelia. The historic homeland of the Karelians has been the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia, Olonets Karelia in Russia, the first written mention of Karelia and Karelians occurs in Scandinavian sources. Another mention of Karelians in Scandinavian sources is The Chronicle of Erik, part of the Chronicle mentions a Karelian raid to the, then notable, Swedish town of Sigtuna in 1187 and its subsequent pillage. This mention of Karelian raids on Sweden in the chronicle is given as the reason to found Stockholm - the current capital of Sweden. The first mention of Karelians in ancient Russian chronicles is dated 1143 AD when the Novgorod chronicle mentions that Karelians raided neighbouring Tavastia, ancient Russian chronicles referred to ancient Karelians as Koryela. Until the end of 13th century Karelians have enjoyed period of relative independence, however, as Karelians came in contact with Novgorod some of them started to take part in the Novgorodian internal and external politics. Russian chronicles mention joint raid of Novgorod and Karelians on Tavastia in 1191, in 1253, Karelians are aiding Novgorod in its wars with Estonians. In 1269 AD The duke of Novgorod is planning a raid against Karelians, plans are abandoned as he is advised against it by his councilors. In 1278, Novgorod makes war against Karelians and according to the chronicle puts Karelian lands to sword and fire, while Novgorod was unsuccessfully trying to subdue Karelians, Sweden was successfully doing the same with the neighbouring Finnish tribes. In 1293 Swedes raided Karelian lands and successfully founded a castle of Vyborg on the site of an ancient Karelian settlement, Sweden began to convert the local Karelian population to Roman Catholicism. In 1295, Sweden attempted to establish a dominance of Karelian lands by founding a castle of Köxholm on the site of ancient Karelian settlement of Käkisalmi. However this time Novgorod manages to repel Swedish attack by capturing and burning down the castle, after this both Sweden and Novgorod engage in the long conflict over dominance of Karelians and their lands. In 1314 AD Karelians rebel over the attempt to convert them to Christianity according to the Novgorod chronicle and it is interesting to note that first rebellion started against Russian Orthodixy by capturing Käkisalmi and killing all Christians there. Then the rebelling spreads over all Karelian lands, which sufficiently weakens Novgorodian influence, in 1323 AD, Karelians suffer a forceful sundering as Sweden and Novgorod divide Karelian lands and their inhabitants by signing a peace agreement. The agreement transfers governance of all western Karelian lands to Swedish sovereignty, subsequent wars have shown that Karelians were fighting on both sides of the conflict and often against each other. At the same time Karelians on the Novgorodian and later Russian side of the continued to settle northward towards the White Sea
5.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
6.
Tavastia (historical province)
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Tavastia is a historical province in the south of Finland. It borders Finland Proper, Satakunta, Ostrobothnia, Savonia and Uusimaa, from 1997 to 2010 Tavastia was divided between the administrative provinces of Southern Finland and Western Finland. The prehistoric era of Tavastia can be said to end with the Second Swedish Crusade in 1239 or 1249, the construction of the Häme castle began in the 1260s, on the orders of Birger Jarl. It was to be the centre of the three counties, the other two being the castle of Turku in Finland Proper and Viipuri castle in Karelia. After the peace Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 the castle lost some of its importance as a defence against the East, when Finland was ceded to Russia in 1809, the province ceased to be a part of Sweden. The provinces have no administrative function today but live on as a legacy in both Finland and Sweden. The province has been inhabited since the Stone Age, northern Tavastia was for a long time a wilderness inhabited by Sami hunter-gatherers and frequented also by Finnish hunters. Only during the late Middle Ages was agriculture slowly introduced to the parts of the province. In the 19th century, the growth of the forest industry started to bring new wealth to the area, the waterways of Näsijärvi and Vanajavesi provided easy transport for timber. The most notable centres of the industry were, and still are, Mänttä. The most notable industrial center in historical Tavastia, however, is Tampere, Western Tavastia extends over both sides of the great Kokemäenjoki drainage basin. In Eastern Tavastia, the regions of Päijänne Tavastia and Central Finland are located around the shores of Lake Päijänne, the Southern borders of the province roughly follow the Salpausselkä ridge. The Southern parts of the province consist of plains intermixed with fields, towards the north, the land gradually rises and becomes more hilly. At the same time, the proportion of cultivated land decreases, the northern boundary of Tavastia is in Central Finland. As this area was settled only at the time of the replacement of the old system with the county system. The same applies to the border with Satakunta, which is located in Pirkanmaa. As a result of the pattern of settlement, the inhabited areas are located around the waterways. The lakes are navigable but the rapids of Kymijoki and Kokemäenjoki restrict navigation to the sea, similarly, the lakes form three separate navigable areas
7.
Norwegians
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Norwegians are a Germanic ethnic group native to Norway. They share a culture and speak the Norwegian language. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Proto-Indo-European speaking Battle-Axe peoples migrated to Norway bringing domesticated horses, agriculture, cattle, during the Viking age, Harald Fairhair unified the Norse petty kingdoms after being victorious at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in the 880s. Two centuries of Viking expansion tapered off following the decline of Norse paganism with the adoption of Christianity in the 11th century, during The Black Death, approximately 60% of the population died and in 1397 Norway entered a union with Denmark. In 1814, following Denmark-Norways defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway entered a union with Sweden, rising nationalism throughout the 19th century led to a 1905 referendum granting Norway independence. Although Norway remained officially neutral in World War I, the country was allied with the Entente powers. In World War II Norway proclaimed its neutrality, but was occupied for five years by Nazi Germany. In 1949, neutrality was abandoned and Norway became a member of NATO, discovery of oil and gas in adjacent waters in the late 1960s boosted Norways economic fortunes but in referenda held in 1972 and 1994, Norway rejected joining the EU. Key domestic issues include integration of a fast growing immigrant population, maintaining the countrys generous social safety net with an aging population, as with many of the people from European countries, Norwegians are spread throughout the world. There are more than 100,000 Norwegian citizens living abroad permanently, mostly in the U. S, Norwegian Vikings travelled north and west and founded vibrant communities in the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and northern England. They conducted extensive raids in Ireland and founded the cities of Cork, Dublin, in 947, a new wave of Norwegian Vikings appeared in England when Erik Bloodaxe captured York. Apart from Britain and Ireland, Norwegian Vikings established settlements in largely uninhabited regions, the first known permanent Norwegian settler in Iceland was Ingólfur Arnarson. In the year 874 he settled in Reykjavík, after his expulsion from Iceland Erik the Red discovered Greenland, a name he chose in hope of attracting Icelandic settlers. Viking settlements were established in the fjords of the southern and western coast. Eriks relative Leif Eriksson later discovered North America, during the 17th and 18th centuries, many Norwegians emigrated to the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. The Netherlands was the second most popular destination for Norwegian emigrants after Denmark, loosely estimated, some 10% of the population may have emigrated, in a period when the entire Norwegian population consisted of some 800,000 people. The Norwegians left with the Dutch trade ships that when in Norway traded for timber, hides, herring, young women took employment as maids in Amsterdam. Young men took employment as sailors, large parts of the Dutch merchant fleet and navy came to consist of Norwegians and Danes
8.
Alexander Nevsky
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Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky served as Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev and Grand Prince of Vladimir during some of the most difficult times in Kievan Rus history. He was canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church by Metropolite Macarius in 1547, as it was told by the prophet Isaiah, Thus sayeth the Lord, I appoint the princes because they are sacred and I direct them. He was taller than others and his voice reached the people as a trumpet, and his face was like the face of Joseph and his power was a part of the power of Samson and God gave him the wisdom of Solomon. This Prince Alexander, he used to defeat but was never defeated, born in Pereslavl-Zalessky, Alexander was the second son of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich and Rostislava Mstislavna, daughter of Kievan Rus Prince Mstislav Mstislavich the Bold. Alexander seemed to have no chance of claiming the throne of Vladimir, in 1236, however, he was summoned by the Novgorodians to become knyaz of Novgorod and, as their military leader, to defend their northwest lands from Swedish and German invaders. According to the Novgorod Chronicle written in the 14th cent, the Neva battle of 1240 saved Novgorod from a full-scale invasion from the West. Because of this battle, 19-year-old Alexander was given the sobriquet Nevsky and he would soon have to leave Novgorod because of this conflict. This supposed battle is not mentioned in any Swedish or other source, the supposed Swedish commander was called Spiridon which is an Orthodox, not Scandinavian name. Furthermore, Sweden was on the brink of war with Norway ever since the Norwegians infamous Värmland expedition in 1225, relations improved only after the Treaty of Lödöse in 1249, which was forged by the newly empowered Birger Jarl. Before the treaty, Norway remained an ally of the folkungs, giving them refuge and providing men, in this situation, it seems unlikely that Sweden could have been able to organize a major expedition against Novgorod. After Pskov had been invaded by the Germans and Estonians, the Novgorod authorities sent for Alexander, in spring of 1241 he returned from his exile, gathered an army, and drove out the invaders. Alexander and his men faced the Livonian heavy cavalry led by the bishop of Dorpat Hermann, Nevsky faced the enemy on the ice of the Lake Peipus and defeated the German knights and Estonian infantry during the Battle of the Ice on 5 April 1242. Alexander’s victory was a significant event in the history of the Russia, foot soldiers of Novgorod had surrounded and defeated an army of knights, mounted on horseback and clad in thick armour. Tactical military considerations aside, Alexanders victory was an important milestone in the development of Muscovite Russia, after the Livonian invasion, Nevsky continued to strengthen Russia’s Northwest. He sent his envoys to Norway and, as a result, Alexander led his army to Finland and successfully routed the Swedes, who had made another attempt to block the Baltic Sea from the Russians in 1256. Nevsky proved to be a cautious and far-sighted politician, historians seem to be unsure about Alexander’s behavior when it came to his relations with Mongols. He may have thought that Catholicism presented a more tangible threat to Russian national identity than paying a tribute to the Khan, Alexander tried to strengthen his authority at the expense of the boyars and at the same time suppress any anti-Mongol uprisings in the country. According to one interpretation, Alexander’s intentions were to protect scattered principalities of what would become Muscovy from repeated invasions by the Mongol army
9.
Thomas (bishop of Finland)
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Thomas is the first known Bishop of Finland. Only a few facts are known about his life and he resigned in 1245 and died in Visby three years later. The only reference to Bishop Thomas during his episcopate in Finland is a signed by him in Nousiainen in 1234. The lands may be related to the permission from Pope Gregory IX in early 1229 that authorized the church to take over all non-Christian places of worship in Finland. The letter is the oldest surviving letter written in Finland, no further information on the bishops activities has survived before he was granted resignation by Pope Innocent IV on 21 February 1245. According to the Pope, Thomas had admitted committing several felonies, such as torturing a man to death, church representatives to oversee the resignation were the Archbishop of Uppsala and the Dominican prior of the Dacian province. Thomas donated his books to the newly established Dominican convent in Sigtuna and went on to live his last years in the Dominican convent in Visby and he died there in 1248, shortly before the Second Swedish Crusade, which cemented Swedish rule in Finland for more than 550 years. This was a realignment of the bishoprics position, since the Pope had earlier used Swedish bishops to assist the Finnish church. On 24 November 1232, the Pope even asked the Livonian Brothers of the Sword to provide forces for the unnamed Bishop of Finland to defend the country against the Novgorodian attacks, after Thomas had resigned in 1245, there was no immediate successor to him. The diocese was overseen by William at least until 5 June 1248, Finland is not listed among the Swedish dioceses in surviving documents from 1241 and 1248, but appears among them in 1253. Even though Thomas is the first known Bishop of Finland, it is certain that he was not the first bishop overall, an unnamed Bishop of Finland is mentioned dead in a letter by Pope Innocent III already in 1209. A 15th-century chronicle names bishops Henry, Rodulff and Folquinus before him, being the first historical figure of importance in Finland, historians have tried to attribute more significance to Thomas than what is evident from the existing sources. Church representatives ordered by the Pope to assist the bishop were the Bishop of Linköping. Thomas identification with the bishop remains doubtful, a surviving letter by Pope Gregory IX directly to the chaplain of Nousiainen on 20 October 1232 makes the Finnish see appear vacant. The letter handled the same land dispute that Thomas himself addressed two years later, in some copies of the letter, the Bishop of Finland is also referred to as N. while not directly saying whether he was still in office or not. A papal letter to an unknown Bishop of Finland was also sent already in 1221, the letter, addressed to the Archbishop of Uppsala, does not mention the Bishop or Diocese of Finland in any way. The Pope had clearly not known where Tavastia exactly was, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword had been all but annihilated in the Battle of Saule in 1236. Even if there is no evidence of their presence in Finland than the earlier papal letter from 1232
10.
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
11.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
12.
Karelia
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Karelia, the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden. It is currently divided between the Russian Republic of Karelia, the Russian Leningrad Oblast, and Finland, various subdivisions may be called Karelia. Finnish Karelia was a province of Finland, and is now divided between Finland and Russia, often called just Karjala in Finnish. The eastern part of this chiefly Lutheran area was ceded to Russia after the Winter War of 1939–40 and this area is the Karelia of the Karelian question in Finnish politics. The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject, including the so-called East Karelia with a chiefly Russian Orthodox population, Karelia stretches from the White Sea coast to the Gulf of Finland. It contains the two largest lakes in Europe, Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega, the Karelian Isthmus is located between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. In the North there were the nomadic Samis, but no natural border except for huge woods, in historical texts Karelia is sometimes divided into East Karelia and West Karelia, which are also called Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia respectively. The area to the north of Lake Ladoga which belonged to Finland before World War II is called Ladoga Karelia, White Sea Karelia is the northern part of East Karelia and Olonets Karelia is the southern part. Tver Karelia denotes the villages in the Tver Oblast that are inhabited by Tver Karelians, the Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg became the capital of the new Swedish province, in the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 large parts of Russian Karelia were ceded to Sweden. Conflicts between the new Swedish rulers and the population of these areas led to an exodus, thousands of Karelians, including the ancestors of the Tver Karelians. The Treaty of Nystad in 1721 between Imperial Russia and Sweden ceded most of Karelia to Russia, after Finland had been occupied by Russia in the Finnish War, parts of the ceded provinces were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1917, Finland became independent and the border was confirmed by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920, Finnish partisans were involved in attempts to overthrow the Bolshevists in Russian Karelia in 1918–20, such as in the failed Aunus expedition. They also wanted to incorporate the rest of Karelia into Finland and these mainly private expeditions ended after the peace treaty of Tartu. After the end of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, in 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, thus starting the Winter War. The Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940 handed most of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union, about 400,000 people, virtually the whole population, had to be relocated within Finland. In 1941, Karelia was liberated for three years during the Continuation War of 1941 to 1944 when East Karelia was occupied by the Finns. As a consequence of the treaty, the Karelian ASSR was incorporated with the Karelo-Finnish SSR 1941–1956
13.
Southwest Finland
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Southwest Finland, also known in English as Finland Proper is the region in south-western Finland that borders the regions of Satakunta and Tavastia Proper. Its capital and biggest city is Turku with 182,000 inhabitants, Turku was also the most important city in Finland from its establishment around the 13th century until the 1840s. The area comprising the southwest is largely the same as the province of Finland Proper. 5. 7% of population of the region speaks Swedish natively, the name of Finland Proper has a historial function. In historic times, in the area of the present southern Finland lived three tribes, which were the Finns, the Tavastians and the Karelians, the southwestern part of the country, the province where the Finns lived, was called simply Finland. In the 17th century the name began to be used to refer to the whole land, the Finnish term Varsinais-Suomi became established only around the 1850s. The region of Southwest Finland is made up of 27 municipalities, Finland Proper travel guide from Wikivoyage Regional Council of Southwest Finland — official website South Finland EU Office
14.
Ust-Izhora
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The chronicles tell of a great battle, in which Alexanders men stormed and sank three Swedish ships, and Alexander himself wounded Birger, the Swedish commander. Following this victory on the Neva, the prince was renamed Alexander Nevsky, the Russian Orthodox Church eventually canonized him, and he is now the patron saint of Saint Petersburg. A church was built on the bank of the Neva in 1799 to commemorate the famous battle, close by the church are two monuments honoring Alexander Nevsky, in whose memory the church is dedicated
15.
Invasion
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An invasion can be the cause of a war, be a part of a larger strategy to end a war, or it can constitute an entire war in itself. Due to the scale of the operations associated with invasions, they are usually strategic in planning. Archaeological evidence indicates that invasions have been frequent occurrences since prehistory, in antiquity, before radio communications and fast transportation, the only way to ensure adequate reinforcements was to move armies as one massive force. This, by its nature, led to the strategy of invasion. With invasion came cultural exchanges in government, religion, philosophy, States with potentially hostile neighbors typically adopt defensive measures to delay or forestall an invasion. In addition to utilizing geographical barriers such as rivers, marshes, or rugged terrain, such barriers have also included trench lines and, in more modern times, minefields, cameras, and motion-sensitive sensors. However, these barriers can require a large force to provide the defense, as well as maintain the equipment and positions. Some of those same techniques can also be turned against defenders, during Operation Starvation, Allied forces used airdropped mines to severely disrupt Japanese logistical operations within their own borders. Alternatively, the fortifications can be built up at a series of sites, forts can be positioned so that the garrisons can interdict the supply lines of the invaders. The theory behind these spaced forts is that the invader cannot afford to bypass these defenses, in modern times, the notion of constructing large-scale static defenses to combat land-based threats has largely become obsolete. The use of precision air campaigns and large-scale mechanization have made lighter, the obsolescence of large fortifications was displayed by the failure of the Maginot Line in the beginning of World War Two. Nations defending against modern invasions normally use large population centers such as cities or towns as defensive points, the invader must capture these points to destroy the defenders ability to wage war. The defender uses mobile armored and infantry divisions to protect these points, but the defenders are still very mobile and can normally retreat. A prominent example of the use of cities as fortifications can be seen in the Iraqi Armys stands in the 2003 invasion of Iraq at Baghdad, Tikrit, and Basra in the major combat in the Iraq War. A defender can use these mobile assets to precipitate a counteroffensive like the Soviet Red Army at the Battle of Kursk or the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. However, static emplacements remain useful in defense against naval attacks and defense against air attacks. Naval mines are still an inexpensive but effective way to defend ports, large static air defense systems that combine antiaircraft guns with missile launchers are still the best way to defend against air attacks. Such systems were used effectively by the North Vietnamese around Hanoi, a successful naval defense, however, usually requires a preponderance of naval power and the ability to sustain and service that defense force
16.
Staraya Ladoga
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It used to be a prosperous trading outpost in the 8th and 9th centuries. A multi-ethnic settlement, it was dominated by Scandinavians who were called by the name of Rus, for that reason, it is sometimes called the first capital of Russia, though back then Russia didnt exist for many centuries to come. Dendrochronology suggests that Ladoga was founded in 753, until 950, it was one of the most important trading ports of Eastern Europe. Merchant vessels sailed from the Baltic Sea through Ladoga to Novgorod and this route is known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. An alternative way led down the Volga River along the Volga trade route to the Khazar capital of Atil, tellingly, the oldest Arabian Middle Age coin in Europe was unearthed in Ladoga. The original inhabitants of the settlement were Norsemen, the original Finnish name, Alode-joki, was rendered as Aldeigja in Norse language and later as Ladoga in Old East Slavic. According to the Hypatian Codex that was created at the end of 13th century, Ruriks successors later moved to Novgorod and then to Kiev where foundations for the powerful state of Kievan Rus were laid. There are several huge kurgans, or royal funerary barrows, at the outskirts of Ladoga, one of them is said to be Ruriks grave, and another one—that of his successor Oleg. The Heimskringla and other Norse sources mention that in the late 990s Eric Haakonsson of Norway raided the coast and set the town ablaze. Ladoga was the most important trading center in Eastern Europe from about 800 to 900 CE, Ladogas next mention in chronicles is dated 1019, when Ingigerd of Sweden married Yaroslav of Novgorod. Under the terms of their settlement, Yaroslav ceded Ladoga to his wife, who appointed her fathers cousin. This information is confirmed by sagas and archaeological evidence, which suggests that Ladoga gradually evolved into a primarily Varangian settlement, at least two Swedish kings spent their youths in Ladoga, king Stenkil and Inge I, and possibly also king Anund Gårdske. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Ladoga functioned as a trade outpost of the powerful Novgorod Republic, later its trade significance declined and most of the population engaged in fishing in the 15th century. After new fortresses such as Oreshek and Korela were constructed in the 14th century further to the west of Ladoga, Ladoga belonged to the Vodskaya pyatina of the Republic and contained eighty-four homesteads in the 15th century, most of the land belonged to the church. The Novgorodians built there a citadel with five towers and several churches, the reconstruction of one of the towers of Staraya Ladogas fortress was scheduled to be completed in 2010. The fortress was rebuilt at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, while the churches of St. George. Inside St. Georges, some magnificent 12th-century frescoes are still visible, in 1703, Peter the Great founded the town of Novaya Ladoga closer to the bank of Lake Ladoga. The ancient fortress thenceforth declined and came to be known as Staraya Ladoga, the heart of Staraya Ladoga is an old fortress where the Yelena River flows into the Volkhov
17.
Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks
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The trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks was a medieval trade route that connected Scandinavia, Kievan Rus and the Eastern Roman Empire. The route allowed traders along its length to establish a prosperous trade with the Empire. An alternative route was along the Dniestr river with stops on the Western shore of Black Sea and these more specific sub-routes are sometimes referred to as the Dnieper trade route and Dniestr trade route, respectively. The route began in Scandinavian trading centers such as Birka, Hedeby, and Gotland, crossed the Baltic Sea, entered the Gulf of Finland, from there, a portage led to the Toropa River and downstream to the Western Dvina River. From the Western Dvina, the ships went upstream along the Kasplya River and were portaged again to the Katyn River, along the Dnieper, the route crossed several major rapids and passed through Kiev. After entering the Black Sea, it followed its west coast to Constantinople, though this has come to mean “Vikings” to many, the term for the Byzantines meant all Scandinavians and their kindred living in what is now Russia. The route was established in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The route gained significant importance from the tenth until the first third of the century, concurrently with the Volga trade route. These sailboats were then transported along the Dnieper to Kiev, there they were sold to the Varangians who re-equipped them and loaded them with merchandise. Places named include Smolensk, Liubech, Chernihiv, Vyshhorod, Vytachiv, though Constantine Zuckerman suggests a more obvious etymology, from the Turkic roots sam and bat. The runestone N62 preserves the name Vitaholmr for Vytachiv, on the Dnieper, the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids, where they had to be on guard for Pecheneg nomads. The rapids began below Dnipropetrovsk where the river turns south and fell 50 meters in 66 kilometers and they dont exist anymore, as a chain of basins was established starting from the 1950s to the 1970s. Below the rapids, they had to pass a rocky spot called the Ford of Vrar. The Varangians stopped at St. George Island, then they equipped their ships with sails in the Dnieper estuary and continued to navigate along the western shore of the Black Sea all the way to Constantinople. The Varangian boats were used along the rivers and along the Black Sea shores, according to Constantine VII, the navigation near the western shore of Black Sea contained stops at Sulina, Conopa, Constantia. There are some remains of the Varangian presence in this area at Murfatlar Cave Complex near Constantia, numerous runic inscriptions, symbols and even a graffiti of a viking navy are visible on the walls of the rock church from Murfatlar. Another offshoot was along the Dnieper and the Usyazh-Buk River towards Lukoml, the Trade Route from the Varangians to the Greeks was used to transport different kinds of merchandise. Wine, spices, jewelry, glass, expensive fabrics, icons, volhyn traded spinning wheels and other items
18.
Veliky Novgorod
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It is situated on the M10 federal highway connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg. The city lies along the Volkhov River just downstream from its outflow from Lake Ilmen, UNESCO recognized Novgorod as a World Heritage Site in 1992. At its peak during the 14th century, the city was the capital of the Novgorod Republic, the Charter of Veliky Novgorod recognizes 859 as the year when the city was first mentioned. Archaeological dating is fairly easy and accurate to within 15–25 years, as the streets were paved with wood, and most of the houses made of wood, allowing tree ring dating. The Varangian name of the city Holmgård/Holmgard is mentioned in Norse Sagas as existing at a yet earlier stage, originally, Holmgård referred only to the stronghold southeast of the present-day city, Rurikovo Gorodische. First mention of this Nordic or Germanic etymology to the name of the city of Novgorod occurs in the 10th-century policy manual De Administrando Imperio by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII, in 882, Ruriks successor, Oleg of Novgorod, conquered Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus. Novgorods size as well as its political, economic, and cultural influence made it the second most important city in Kievan Rus, according to a custom, the elder son and heir of the ruling Kievan monarch was sent to rule Novgorod even as a minor. When the ruling monarch had no son, Novgorod was governed by posadniks, such as the legendary Gostomysl, Dobrynya, Konstantin. Of all their princes, Novgorodians most cherished the memory of Yaroslav the Wise and his son, Vladimir, sponsored construction of the great St. Sophia Cathedral, more accurately translated as the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom, which stands to this day. In Norse sagas the city is mentioned as the capital of Gardariki, four Viking kings—Olaf I of Norway, Olaf II of Norway, Magnus I of Norway, and Harald Hardrada—sought refuge in Novgorod from enemies at home. No more than a few decades after the 1030 death and subsequent canonization of Olaf II of Norway, the town of Visby in Gotland functioned as the leading trading center in the Baltic before the Hansa League. At Novgorod in 1080, Visby merchants established a trading post which they named Gutagard, later, in the first half of the 13th century, merchants from northern Germany also established their own trading station in Novgorod, known as Peterhof. At about the time, in 1229, German merchants at Novgorod were granted certain privileges. In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, the year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. One of the most important local figures in Novgorod was the posadnik, or mayor, the tysyatsky, or thousandman, originally the head of the town militia but later a commercial and judicial official, was also elected by the Veche. Another important local official was the Archbishop of Novgorod who shared power with the boyars, archbishops were elected by the Veche or by the drawing of lots, and after their election, were sent to the metropolitan for consecration. While a basic outline of the officials and the Veche can be drawn up. The boyars and the archbishop ruled the city together, although where one officials power ended, throughout the Middle Ages, the city thrived culturally
19.
Prince
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A prince is a male ruler, monarch, or member of a monarchs or former monarchs family. Prince is also a title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess, the English word derives, via the French word prince, from the Latin noun princeps, from primus + capio, meaning the chief, most distinguished, ruler, prince. The Latin word prīnceps, became the title of the informal leader of the Roman senate some centuries before the transition to empire. Emperor Augustus established the position of monarch on the basis of principate. The term may be used of persons in various cultures. These titles were borne by courtesy and preserved by tradition, not law, in medieval and Early Modern Europe, there were as many as two hundred such territories, especially in Italy, Germany, and Gaelic Ireland. In this sense, prince is used of any and all rulers and this is the Renaissance use of the term found in Niccolò Machiavellis famous work, Il Principe. Most small territories designated as principalities during feudal eras were allodial and this is attested in some surviving styles for e. g. British earls, marquesses, and dukes are still addressed by the Crown on ceremonial occasions as high, in parts of the Holy Roman Empire in which primogeniture did not prevail, all legitimate agnates had an equal right to the familys hereditary titles. Gradual substitution of the title of Prinz for the title of Fürst occurred. Both Prinz and Fürst are translated into English as prince, but they not only different. This distinction had evolved before the 18th century for dynasties headed by a Fürst in Germany, note that the princely title was used as a prefix to his Christian name, which also became customary. Cadets of Frances other princes étrangers affected similar usage under the Bourbon kings, the post-medieval rank of gefürsteter Graf embraced but elevated the German equivalent of the intermediate French, English and Spanish nobles. By the 19th century, cadets of a Fürst would become known as Prinzen, the husband of a queen regnant is usually titled prince consort or simply prince, whereas the wives of male monarchs take the female equivalent of their husbands title. In Brazil, Portugal and Spain, however, the husband of a monarch was accorded the masculine equivalent of her title. To complicate matters, the style His/Her Highness, a prefix often accompanying the title of a dynastic prince, although the arrangement set out above is the one that is most commonly understood, there are also different systems. Depending on country, epoch, and translation, other usages of prince are possible, foreign-language titles such as Italian principe, French prince, German Fürst and Prinz, Russian knyaz, etc. are usually translated as prince in English
20.
Lake Ladoga
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Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia just outside the outskirts of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, and the 15th largest freshwater lake by area in the world, Ladoga Lacus, a methane lake on Saturns moon Titan, is named after the lake. In one of Nestors chronicles from the 12th century he mentions a lake called the Great Nevo, ancient Norse sagas and Hanseatic treaties both mention a city made of lakes named Old Norse Aldeigja or Aldoga. Since the beginning of the 14th century this hydronym was commonly known as Ladoga, according to T. N. Jackson, it can be taken almost for granted, that the name of Ladoga first referred to the river, then the city, and only then the lake. Therefore, he considers the primary hydronym Ladoga to originate in the inflow to the lower reaches of the Volkhov River whose Finnic name was Alodejoki river of the lowlands. The Germanic toponym was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis ald- → lad- to Old East Slavic, Ладога. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from Karelian, aalto wave and Karelian, aaltokas wavy, or from the Russian dialectal word алодь, meaning open lake, eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German. Through the intermediate form *Aldaugja, Old Norse, Aldeigja cam about, the lake has an average surface area of 17,891 km2. Its north-to-south length is 219 km and its width is 83 km. Basin area,276,000 km2, volume,837 km3, there are around 660 islands, with a total area of about 435 km2. Ladoga is, on average,5 m above sea level, most of the islands, including the famous Valaam archipelago, Kilpola and Konevets, are situated in the northwest of the lake. Separated from the Baltic Sea by the Karelian Isthmus, it drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Neva River, Lake Ladoga is navigable, being a part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway connecting the Baltic Sea with the Volga River. The Ladoga Canal bypasses the lake in the part, connecting the Neva to the Svir. The basin of Lake Ladoga includes about 50,000 lakes and 3,500 rivers longer than 10 km, about 85% of the water inflow is due to tributaries, 13% is due to precipitation, and 2% is due to underground waters. Geologically, the Lake Ladoga depression is a graben and syncline structure of Proterozoic age and this Ladoga–Pasha structure, as it known, hosts Jotnian sediments. During the Pleistocene glaciations the depression was partially stripped of its sedimentary rock fill by glacial overdeepening, deglaciation following the Weichsel glaciation took place in the Lake Ladoga basin between 12,500 and 11,500 radiocarbon years BP. Lake Ladoga was initially part of the Baltic Ice Lake, a historical stage of Baltic Sea. It is possible, though not certain, that Ladoga was isolated from it during regression of the subsequent Yoldia Sea brackish stage, at 9,500 BP, Lake Onega, previously draining into the White Sea, started emptying into Ladoga via the River Svir
21.
Izhora River
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The Izhora, also known as the Inger River, is a left tributary of the Neva River on its run through Ingria in northwestern Russia from Lake Ladoga to Gulf of Finland. The Izhora flows through Gatchinsky and Tosnensky Districts of Leningrad Oblast as well as through Pushkinsky and Kolpinsky Districts of the city of Saint Petersburg. The settlement of Ust-Izhora is situated at the confluence of Izhora and Neva, the towns of Kommunar and Kolpino are located on the Izhora as well. The river is noted as the farthest Swedish forces ever reached between the Viking Age and the Time of Troubles, the calculated length of the Izhora is 76 kilometres, and the area of its drainage basin is 1,000 square kilometres. The river draws its water mainly from groundwater springs, snow melt. The river has an underground water supply in both summer and winter, never drying up or freezing through. The source of the Izhora is located at the village of Skvoritsy, the Izhora flows to the east, passes at the northern outskirts of Gatchina, and east of Kommunar enters Tosnensky District. There, for a stretch it makes the border between Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, returns to the oblast and gradually turns north. In Kolpino, the Izhora enters the city of Saint Petersburg. There, it flow north and joins the Neva in the settlement of Ust-Izhora, the drainage basin of the Izhora includes the northern parts of Gatchinsky and Tosnensky Districts, as well as some areas within Saint Petersburg
22.
Mother of God
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Theotokos is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus, used especially in Eastern Christianity. The usual Latin translations, Dei Genetrix or Deipara, are translated as Mother of God or God-bearer, the Council of Ephesus decreed in 431 that Mary is the Theotokos because her son Jesus is both God and man, one divine person with two natures intimately and hypostatically united. Similar to this is the title of Mother of God, Mother of God is most often used in English, largely due to the lack of a satisfactory equivalent of Greek τόκος / Latin genetrix. The title has been in use since the 3rd century, in the Syriac tradition in the Liturgy of Mari and Addai, Theotokos is an adjectival compound of two the Greek words Θεός God and τόκος childbirth, parturition, offspring. A close paraphrase would be whose offspring is God or who gave birth to one who was God, the usual English translation is simply Mother of God, Latin uses Deipara or Dei Genetrix. The Church Slavonic translation is Bogoroditsa, in an abbreviated form, ΜΡ ΘΥ, it often is found on Eastern icons, where it is used to identify Mary. The Russian term is Матерь Божия, variant forms are the compounds Θεομήτωρ and Μητρόθεος, which are found in patristic and liturgical texts. The theological dispute over the term concerned the term Θεός God vs. Χριστός Christ, and not τόκος vs. μήτηρ, to make it explicit, it is sometimes translated Mother of God Incarnate. This decree created the Nestorian Schism, Cyril of Alexandria wrote, I am amazed that there are some who are entirely in doubt as to whether the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos or not. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave birth, not. But the argument of Nestorius was that divine and human natures of Christ were distinct, at issue is the interpretation of the Incarnation, and the nature of the hypostatic union of Christs human and divine natures between Christs conception and birth. Within the Orthodox doctrinal teaching on the economy of salvation, Marys identity, role, for this reason, it is formally defined as official dogma. The only other Mariological teaching so defined is that of her virginity, both of these teachings have a bearing on the identity of Jesus Christ. The term was certainly in use by the 3rd century, athanasius of Alexandria in 330, Gregory the Theologian in 370, John Chrysostom in 400, and Augustine all used theotokos. Origen is often cited as the earliest author to use theotokos for Mary, although this testimony is uncertain, the term was used c.250 by Dionysius of Alexandria, in an epistle to Paul of Samosata. The Greek version of the hymn Sub tuum praesidium contains the term, in the vocative, the oldest record of this hymn is a papyrus found in Egypt, mostly dated to after 450. But according to a suggestion by de Villiers possibly older, dating to the mid-3rd century, the use of Theotokos was formally affirmed at the Third Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431. Nestorius opponents, led by Cyril of Alexandria, viewed this as dividing Jesus into two persons, the human who was Son of Mary, and the divine who was not
23.
Mary, mother of Jesus
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Mary, also known by various titles, styles and honorifics, was a 1st-century Galilean Jewish woman of Nazareth and the mother of Jesus, according to the New Testament and the Quran. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament and the Quran describe Mary as a virgin, the miraculous birth took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, the Gospel of Luke begins its account of Marys life with the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. According to canonical gospel accounts, Mary was present at the crucifixion and is depicted as a member of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her life her body was assumed directly into Heaven. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the religion and she is claimed to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, there is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas, namely her status as the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her perpetual virginity, many Protestants minimize Marys role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references. Mary also has a position in Islam, where one of the longer chapters of the Quran is devoted to her. Marys name in the manuscripts of the New Testament was based on her original Aramaic name ܡܪܝܡ. The English name Mary comes from the Greek Μαρία, which is a form of Μαριάμ. Both Μαρία and Μαριάμ appear in the New Testament, in Christianity, Mary is commonly referred to as the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the belief that she conceived Jesus miraculously through the Holy Spirit without her husbands involvement. The three main titles for Mary used by the Orthodox are Theotokos, Aeiparthenos as confirmed in the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, Catholics use a wide variety of titles for Mary, and these titles have in turn given rise to many artistic depictions. For example, the title Our Lady of Sorrows has inspired such masterpieces as Michelangelos Pietà, the title Theotokos was recognized at the Council of Ephesus in 431. However, this phrase in Greek, in the abbreviated form ΜΡ ΘΥ, is an indication commonly attached to her image in Byzantine icons. The Council stated that the Church Fathers did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God, some Marian titles have a direct scriptural basis. For instance, the title Queen Mother has been given to Mary since she was the mother of Jesus, the scriptural basis for the term Queen can be seen in Luke 1,32 and the Isaiah 9,6. Queen Mother can be found in 1 Kings 2, 19-20 and Jeremiah 13, other titles have arisen from reported miracles, special appeals or occasions for calling on Mary
24.
Cyricus and Julitta
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Julietta or Julitta and her son Quriaqos were martyred in AD304 in Tarsus according to Christian tradition. Some evidence exists for an otherwise unknown child-martyr named Quriaqos at Antioch and it is believed that the legends about Saints Quiricus and Julietta refer to him. There are places named after Quriaqos in Europe and the Middle East, Cyricus is the Saint-Cyr found in many French toponyms. The cult of saints was strong in France after Saint Amator, Bishop of Auxerre. It is said that Constantine I discovered their relics originally and built a monastery near Constantinople, according to Church tradition, Julietta and her three-year-old son Quriaqos had fled to Tarsus and were identified as Christians. Julietta was tortured and Quriaqos, being held by the governor of Tarsus, Julietta did not weep but celebrated the fact that her son had earned the crown of martyrdom. In anger, the governor then decreed that Julietta’s sides should be ripped apart with hooks, a story from Nevers states that one night Charlemagne dreamed he was saved from being killed by a wild boar during a hunt. He was saved by the appearance of a child, who had promised to save the emperor from death if he would give him clothes to cover his nakedness. The bishop of Nevers interpreted this dream to mean that he wanted the emperor to repair the roof of the dedicated to Saint Quriaqos. In Georgia, Saint Quriaqos and her mother Saint Julietta are greatly respected, there is a church dedicated to Saint Quriaqos and Saint Julietta on top of the high mountain in Svaneti, Georgia. The church is considered to be one of the most powerful place for prayer, miraculous, the church is called Lagurka which translates as the holy place. According to the Georgian, Svanetian tradition, local people, once in a year on 28 July, sacrificing may mean freeing the sheep. Due to the held on 28 July, the place becomes crowded as people travel from all around the country in order to pay their respect to the holy saints, Quriaqos. Moreover, the church itself was built in 11th century and holds many precious icons, there a twelfth- or thirteenth-century church, based on an eighth-century baptistery, is dedicated to them. The cult, however, is common in parts of country and more than 200 churches, monasteries, localities. Other communes named after them are Corvino San Quirico, San Chirico Nuovo, San Chirico Raparo, Serra San Quirico, and Santa Giuletta. Communes of whom they are patron saints include Borgo San Martino, Cavaria in the municipality of Cavaria con Premezzo, Cisternino, Collesalvetti, and Trofarello (Province of Torino. San Quirico Province of Pistoia In parts of Piedmont, including Centallo, Asti and Murisengo, there are a few churches in England dedicated to Saint Quiricus and Saint Julietta, including Newton St. Cyres in Devon, Tickenham in Somerset and Swaffham Prior, in Cambridgeshire
25.
Chalcedon
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Chalcedon was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari, the name Chalcedon is a variant of Calchedon, found on all the coins of the town as well as in manuscripts of Herodotuss Histories, Xenophons Hellenica, Arrians Anabasis, and other works. The site of Chalcedon is located on a peninsula on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara. A stream, called the Chalcis or Chalcedon in antiquity and now known as the Kurbağalıdere, there Greek colonists from Megara in Attica founded the settlement of Chalcedon in 685 BC, some seventeen years before Byzantium. The Greek name of the ancient town is from the Greek name of the ancient Phoenician city of Carthage, the mineral Chalcedony is named for where it came from outside Chalcedon. The mound of Fikirtepe has yielded remains dating to the Chalcolithic period, phoenicians were active traders in this area. Chalcedon originated as a Megarian colony in 685 BCE, nevertheless, trade thrived in Chalcedon, the town flourished and built many temples, including one to Apollo, which had an oracle. Important villages in Chalcedonia included Chrysopolis and Panteicheion, strabo notes that a little above the sea in Chalcedonia lies the fountain Azaritia, which contains small crocodiles. In its early history Chalcedon shared the fortunes of Byzantium, later, the 6th-century BCE Persian satrap Otanes captured it. The city vacillated for a long while between the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian interests, darius the Greats bridge of boats, built in 512 BC for his Scythian campaign, extended from Chalcedonia to Thrace. Chalcedon formed a part of the kingdom of Bithynia, whose king Nicomedes willed Bithynia to the Romans upon his death in 74 BCE, the city was partly destroyed by Mithridates. The governor of Bithynia, Cotta, had fled to Chalcedon for safety along with thousands of other Romans, three thousand of them were killed, sixty ships captured, and four ships destroyed in Mithridates assault on the city. During the Empire, Chalcedon recovered, and was given the status of a free city, Chalcedon suffered somewhat from its proximity to the new imperial capital at Constantinople. First the Byzantines and later the Ottoman Turks used it as a quarry for building materials for Constantinoples monumental structures, Chalcedon also fell repeatedly to armies attacking Constantinople from the east. In 361 AD it was the location of the Chalcedon tribunal, in 451 AD an ecumenical council of Christian leaders convened here. See below for this Council of Chalcedon, the general Belisarius probably spent his years of retirement on his estate of Rufinianae in Chalcedonia. Beginning in 616 and for at least a decade thereafter, Chalcedon furnished an encampment to the Persians under Chosroes II and it later fell for a time to the Arabs under Yazid. Chalcedon was badly damaged during the Fourth Crusade and it came definitively under Ottoman rule under Orhan Gazi a century before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople
26.
Holy Wisdom
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Sophia is a central idea in Hellenistic philosophy and religion, Platonism, Gnosticism, orthodox Christianity, Esoteric Christianity, and Christian mysticism. Sophiology is a concept regarding wisdom, as well as a theological concept regarding the wisdom of the biblical God. Sophia is honored as a goddess of wisdom by Gnostics, as well as by some Neopagan, New Age, plato, following his teacher, Socrates, understands philosophy as φιλοσοφία. This understanding of philosophia permeates Platos dialogues, especially the Republic, in that work, the leaders of the proposed utopia are to be philosopher kings, rulers who are friends of sophia or Wisdom. Sophia is one of the four cardinal virtues in Platos Protagoras, the Pythian Oracle reportedly answered the question of who is the wisest man of Greece. Socrates defends this verdict in his Apology to the effect that he, at least and this contrasted with the attitude of contemporaneous Greek Sophists, who claimed to be wise and offered to teach wisdom for pay. The Greek noun sophia is the translation of wisdom in the Greek Septuagint for Hebrew חכמות Ḥokmot, Wisdom is a central topic in the sapiential books, i. e. In Christian theology, wisdom describes an aspect of God, or the theological concept regarding the wisdom of God. Jesus directly mentions Wisdom in the Gospel of Matthew, The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, but wisdom is justified by her deeds. St. Paul refers to the concept, notably in 1 Corinthians, where is the disputer of this world. Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world, Paul sets worldly wisdom against a higher wisdom of God, But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. The Epistle of James distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom, one is a false wisdom, which is characterized as earthly, sensual, devilish and is associated with strife and contention. In Eastern Orthodoxy humility is the highest wisdom and is to be more than any other virtue. Not only does humility cultivate the Holy Wisdom, but it is the quality that grants people salvation. The Hagia Sophia or Holy Wisdom church in Constantinople was the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly a thousand years. In the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, the exclamation Sophia, or in English Wisdom. will be proclaimed by the deacon or priest at certain moments, especially before the reading of scripture, to draw the congregations attention to sacred teaching. The concept of Sophia has been championed as a key part of the Godhead by some Eastern Orthodox religious thinkers and these included Vladimir Solovyov, Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Berdyaev, and Sergei Bulgakov whose book Sophia, The Wisdom of God is in many ways the apotheosis of Sophiology. For Bulgakov, the Sophia is co-existent with the Trinity, operating as the aspect of God in concert with the three masculine principles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
27.
Nickname
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A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place, or thing, for affection or ridicule. The term hypocoristic is used to refer to a nickname of affection between those in love or with an emotional bond, compared with a term of endearment. The term diminutive name refers to nicknames that convey smallness, hence something regarded with affection or familiarity, the distinction between the two is often blurred. It is a form of endearment and amusement, as a concept, it is distinct from both pseudonym and stage name, and also from a title, although there may be overlap in these concepts. A moniker also means a nickname or personal name, the word often distinguishes personal names from nicknames that became proper names out of former nicknames. English examples are Bob and Rob, nickname variants for Robert, a nickname is often considered desirable, symbolising a form of acceptance, but can sometimes be a form of ridicule. The compound word ekename, literally meaning additional name, was attested as early as 1303 and this word was derived from the Old English phrase eaca an increase, related to eacian to increase. By the fifteenth century, the misdivision of the syllables of the phrase an ekename led to its reanalysis as a nekename, though the spelling has changed, the pronunciation and meaning of the word have remained relatively stable ever since. However, it is common for the nickname to be identified after a comma following the full real name or later in the body of the text. The middle name is generally eliminated, especially in speech, like English, German uses quotation marks between the first and last names. The latter may cause confusion because it resembles an English convention sometimes used for married, in Viking societies, many people had heiti, viðrnefni, or kenningarnöfn which were used in addition to, or instead of the first name. Slaves have often used nicknames, so that the master who heard about someone doing something could not identify the slave, in capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, the slaves had nicknames to protect them from being caught, as practising capoeira was illegal for decades. In Anglo-American culture, a nickname is based on a shortening of a persons proper name. However, in societies, this may not necessarily be the case. For example, my nickname is farmer Phil In Indian society, for example, generally people have at least one nickname, Indian nicknames very often are a trivial word or a diminutive. In Australian society, Australian men will often give ironic nicknames, for example, a man with red hair will be given the nickname Blue or Bluey. A tall man will be called Shorty, an obese person Slim, in England, some nicknames are traditionally associated with a persons surname. A man with the surname Clark will be nicknamed Nobby, the surname Miller will have the nickname Dusty, there are several other nicknames linked traditionally with a persons surname, including Chalky White, Bunny Warren, Tug Wilson, and Spud Baker
28.
Livonian Brothers of the Sword
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The Livonian Brothers of the Sword was a military order established by the third bishop of Riga, Bishop Albert of Riga, in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204 for the second time, the membership of the order comprised German warrior monks who fought Baltic pagans in the area of modern-day Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Alternative names of the Order include Christ Knights, Sword Brethren, from its foundation, the undisciplined Order tended to ignore its supposed vassalage to the bishops. In 1218, Albert asked King Valdemar II of Denmark for assistance, the Brotherhood had its headquarters at Fellin in present-day Estonia, where the walls of the Masters castle still stand. Other strongholds included Wenden, Segewold and Ascheraden, the commanders of Fellin, Goldingen, Marienburg, Reval, and the bailiff of Weißenstein belonged to the five-member entourage of the Orders Master. Pope Gregory IX asked the Brothers to defend Finland from the Novgorodian attacks in his letter of November 24,1232, however, no known information regarding the knights possible activities in Finland has survived. The Order was decimated in the Battle of Schaulen in 1236 against Lithuanians and Semigallians and this disaster led the surviving Brothers to become incorporated into the Order of Teutonic Knights in the following year, and from that point on they became known as the Livonian Order. They continued, however, to function in all respects as a branch of the Teutonic Order. It also appears prominently in The Mongoliad, where they appear as one of the antagonists of the fictional order to which the main characters belong. The Sword Brothers by Peter Darman is an account of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword set in the 13th century. The order is featured in Medieval II, Total War, available as an unit of the Teutonic Order. Teutonic Order Battle of Saule Livonian Crusade Northern Crusades Order of Dobrin
29.
Battle on the Ice
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The battle is notable for having been fought largely on the frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name. The battle was a significant defeat sustained by the crusaders during the Northern Crusades, the Crusaders defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Slavic territories for the next century. The event was glorified in Sergei Eisensteins historical drama film Alexander Nevsky, released in 1938, Sergei Prokofiev turned his score for the film into a concert cantata of the same title, with The Battle on the Ice being its longest movement. When they approached Novgorod itself, the local citizens recalled to the city 20-year-old Prince Alexander Nevsky, during the campaign of 1241, Alexander managed to retake Pskov and Koporye from the crusaders. In the spring of 1242, the Teutonic Knights defeated a detachment of Novgorodians about 20 km south of the fortress of Dorpat, Alexander, intending to fight in a place of his own choosing, retreated in an attempt to draw the often over-confident Crusaders onto the frozen lake. The crusader forces likely numbered around 2,600, including 800 Danish, the Russians fielded around 5,000 men, Alexander and his brother Andreis bodyguards, totalling around 1,000, plus 2000 militia of Novgorod,1400 Finno-Ugrian tribesman and 600 horse archers. The Teutonic knights and crusaders charged across the lake and reached the enemy and this caused the momentum of the crusader attack to slow. The battle was fierce, with the allied Russians fighting the Teutonic, after a little more than two hours of close quarters fighting, Alexander ordered the left and right wings of his army to enter the battle. The Teutonic and crusader troops by that time were exhausted from the constant struggle on the surface of the frozen lake. The Crusaders started to retreat in disarray deeper onto the ice, after analysing all the sources Ostrowski concludes that the part about ice breaking and drowning appeared first in the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky by Sergei Eisenstein. And there was a slaughter of Germans and Estonians. They fought with them during the pursuit on the ice seven versts short of the Subol shore, and there fell a countless number of Estonians, and 400 of the Germans, and they took fifty with their hands and they took them to Novgorod. According to the Livonian Orders Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, written in the late 1340s, The had many archers, the brothers banners were soon flying in the midst of the archers, and swords were heard cutting helmets apart. Many from both sides fell dead on the grass, then the Brothers army was completely surrounded, for the Russians had so many troops that there were easily sixty men for every one German knight. The Brothers fought well enough, but they were cut down. Some of those from Dorpat escaped from the battle, and it was their salvation that they fled, twenty brothers lay dead and six were captured. The knights defeat at the hands of Alexanders forces prevented the crusaders from retaking Pskov, the Novgorodians succeeded in defending Russian territory, and the crusaders never mounted another serious challenge eastward. Alexander was canonised as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church in 1574, in 1983, a revisionist view proposed by historian John L. I
30.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian
31.
Estonia
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Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia, across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km2 of land and water, and is influenced by a humid continental climate. The territory of Estonia has been inhabited since at least 6500 BC, in 1988, during the Singing Revolution, the Estonian Supreme Soviet issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration in defiance of Soviet rule, and independence was restored on 20 August 1991. Estonia is a parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties. Its capital and largest city is Tallinn, with a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, OECD and Schengen Area. Estonia is a country with an advanced, high-income economy that is among the fastest growing in the EU. Its Human Development Index ranks very highly, and it performs favourably in measurements of economic freedom, civil liberties, the 2015 PISA test places Estonian high school students 3rd in the world, behind Singapore and Japan. Citizens of Estonia are provided with health care, free education. Since independence the country has developed its IT sector, becoming one of the worlds most digitally advanced societies. In 2005 Estonia became the first nation to hold elections over the Internet, in the Estonian language, the oldest known endonym of the Estonians was maarahvas, meaning country people or people of the land. The land inhabited by Estonians was called Maavald meaning Country Parish or Land Parish, one hypothesis regarding the modern name of Estonia is that it originated from the Aesti, a people described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania. The historic Aesti were allegedly Baltic people, whereas the modern Estonians are Finno-Ugric, the geographical areas between Aesti and Estonia do not match, with Aesti being further down south. Ancient Scandinavian sagas refer to a land called Eistland, as the country is called in Icelandic. Early Latin and other ancient versions of the name are Estia and Hestia, esthonia was a common alternative English spelling prior to 1921. Human settlement in Estonia became possible 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, the oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in south-western Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating it was settled around 11,000 years ago, the earliest human inhabitation during the Mesolithic period is connected to Kunda culture, which is named after the town of Kunda in northern Estonia. At that time the country was covered with forests, and people lived in communities near bodies of water
32.
John I of Sweden
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John I was a Swedish king elected in 1216. John was the son of King Sverker II of Sweden of the House of Sverker, when he was one year old, his maternal grandfather Jarl Birger Brosa died. King Sverker appointed his son as nominal jarl in order to strengthen his own ruling powers and this enraged the rival House of Eric as well as some of Birger Brosas offspring, and John was contemptuously known as the breech-less jarl. John retained his dignity until his father King Sverker was beaten in the Battle of Lena in 1208 and his rival Erik Knutsson, from the House of Eric, became King Eric X of Sweden. When King Eric died suddenly in fever in 1216, the teen-aged John was hailed king by the Swedish aristocracy against the will of the Pope in Rome, the Danish King Valdemar Sejr also opposed the choice, since the posthumous son of Eric X was a nephew of his. In Sweden itself the succession did not take place without strife, the last-mentioned was termed chancellor, this is the first time that the title occurs in Sweden. The young ruler was crowned in 1219 and immediately issued a charter of privileges to the Swedish bishops, the charter confirmed the privileges that his father Sverker II had issued i 1200, but expanded them. The properties of the church were to be free from royal revenue demands, King John remained on the throne until his death on March 10,1222. He died unmarried and childless, and left a memory in Swedish historiography, He was young of years. He was king for three winters and died of illness on Visingsö, all of Sweden deeply mourned his death, that he was not allowed a longer life. And he rests in Alvastra, and God may preserve his soul in eternity, in the same year 1222, the rival dynastys young heir, Erik Eriksson ascended the throne at the age of 6 to reign as King Eric XI of Sweden. During the brief reign of King John, a Swedish presence was established in Estonia, the background to this is the activities of the German Order of the Sword Brothers and the Danish King Valdemar Sejr in the still pagan Baltic region. The Swedish aristocracy wished to share the spoils, and an expedition was equipped, King John himself, his cousin, Jarl Karl Döve, and his chancellor, Bishop Karl Magnusson led the fleet to Rotalia in Estonia in 1220. The enterprise was successful and King John established a base in Leal. From this stronghold the Swedish soldiers made forays to the countryside, built churches, however, the expedition ended in disaster. The inhabitants of Ösel assaulted the Swedish base in the Battle of Lihula on August 8,1220, Bishop Karl and Jarl Karl Döve fell together with almost all the Swedish defenders. The devastating defeat left no Swedish presence and discouraged the Swedish expansion to Estonia for more than 300 years, the events were described in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia and the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle. Tunberg, Sven, Sveriges historia till våra dagar
33.
Birger Jarl
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Birger Jarl, or Birger Magnusson, was a Swedish statesman, Jarl of Sweden and a member of the House of Bjelbo, who played a pivotal role in the consolidation of Sweden. Birger also led the Second Swedish Crusade, which established Swedish rule in Finland, additionally, he is traditionally attributed to have founded the Swedish capital, Stockholm around 1250. Birger used the Latin title of Dux Sweorum which in English equals Duke of Sweden, and it is known that Birger grew up and spent his adolescence in Bjälbo, Östergötland but the exact date of his birth remains uncertain and available historical sources are contradictory. Examinations of his mortal remains indicate that he was probably about 50 upon his death in 1266 which would indicate a birth around 1216. However, his father Magnus Minnesköld is assumed to have died no later than 1210 and his brothers or half-brothers — Eskil, Karl, and Bengt — were all born long before 1200, and it can therefore be assumed that they had another mother. He was also a nephew of the jarl Birger Brosa from the House of Bjelbo, the combination of this background proved to be of vital importance. During the 15 years to follow, Birger then consolidated his position and was one of the most influential men years before being formally given the title jarl in 1248 by King Eric XI. Although Birger Jarl saw many battles, some have speculated that traces of a blow in Birgers cranium might have originated from this battle. However, the original 14th-century Russian version of the battle had no information on this at all, in 1247, royal troops led by Birger at the Battle of Sparrsätra fought with Folkung forces led by pretender Holmger Knutsson, son of King Canute II. The Folkungs lost the battle and were unable to resist the central government, Holmger Knutsson fled to Gästrikland and was captured there by Birger in the following year. Quickly brought to trial, he was beheaded, in 1249, Birger succeeded in ending a decades-long period of hostilities with Norway. As a part of the Treaty of Lödöse, he managed to marry off his daughter Rikissa, then only 11 years old, to Haakon Haakonsson the Young. Presumably later that year, Birger led an expedition to Finland, later dubbed as the Second Swedish Crusade, on King Erics death in 1250, Birgers son Valdemar was elected as the new king while Birger acted as regent, holding the true power in Sweden until his death. Birger thus combined financial support from Germany with papal political support to consolidate his own position, ingeborg died in 1254 and in 1261 Birger married the widow of King Abel of Denmark, the Danish queen dowager, Matilda of Holstein. Birger died on 21 October 1266, at Jälbolung in Västergötland and his grave in Varnhem Abbey was opened in May 2002. There is a cenotaph for him at the base of the tower of Stockholm City Hall and it was originally intended that his remains be removed there, but this was never done. Several other historical structures there are named for him including the street Birger Jarlsgatan on Norrmalm. The Hotel Birger Jarl is located in Stockholms Norrmalm neighborhood and he is also the central figure of Bröllopet på Ulvåsa by Frans Hedberg
34.
Folkung
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In modern Swedish, Folkung has two meanings, which appear to be opposites, The medieval House of Bjelbo in Sweden, which produced several Swedish statesmen and kings. A group of people, who were at times in political opposition to the same House of Bjelbo and this political party fought for the ancient right of free men to elect the kings in Sweden. Until the 17th century, Folkunge was used only with the second meaning, however, many of these political opponents were also said to have been descendants of Jarl Folke the Fat, who lived before the family became royal. Hence, in the 17th century, the family, then already extinct. According to one theory, Folkungs wanted to keep the old freedom of the petty kingdoms, including the election of kings, many Folkungs came from the ancient provinces of Svealand, opposing the ruling families of the time that were mostly from Götaland. The first Folkung uprising in 1229 was successful, elevating Canute II onto the throne, later developments were less promising, and the centralized system eventually suppressed their resistance. Unification of Sweden Battle of Sparrsätra Kari, Risto, Suomalaisten keskiaika, WSOY, ISBN 951-0-28321-5
35.
Uppland
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Uppland is a historical province or landskap on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland and it is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea. It has a short and strangely shaped land border with Åland. The name literally means up land, a name which is encountered in especially older English literature. Its Latinised form, which is used, is Uplandia. The traditional provinces of Sweden serve no administrative or political purposes, the corresponding administrative county, or län, is Uppsala County, which occupies the larger part of the territory. The bulk of the population, however, is within Stockholm County, minor parts of the province are also in Västmanland County, Gävleborg County and Södermanland County. Upplands arms were granted in 1560, distinctive in its depiction of a Globus cruciger, historically, Uppland ranked as a duchy and the coat of arms is represented with a ducal coronet. Blazoned thus, Gules, a Royal Orb Or gemmed of the field, despite the fact that the Uppsala län has a different name and a smaller territory it was granted the same coat of arms in 1940. Uppland was historically divided into chartered cities and districts, within Roslagen they were called skeppslag, and in the rest of the province hundreds. The abovementioned districts and cities have no administrative function today, the provincial population corresponds to the different overlapping counties as follows, Uppland is the birth place of Saint Brigitta of Sweden. The earliest unambiguous mention of the province of Uppland comes from the 1296, the Swedish capital of Stockholm is divided between two provinces. The southern half lies in Södermanland and the half in Uppland. Prince Waldemar Princess Ingiburga, his wife Prince Gustav Prince Sigvard Uppsala is the seat of the archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. The archaeological site Birka and the castle of Drottningholm are UNESCO World Heritage sites, football in the province is administered by Upplands Fotbollförbund. Uppland - Tourist site Uppland - Tourist information
36.
Swedes (Germanic tribe)
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The Swedes (Swedish, svear, Old Norse, svíar / suar were a North Germanic tribe. The first author who wrote about the tribe is Tacitus, who in his Germania, Jordanes, in the sixth century, mentions Suehans and Sueones. According to early sources such as the sagas, especially Heimskringla, during the Viking Age they constituted the basis of the Varangian subset, the Vikings that travelled eastwards. As the dominions of the Swedish kings grew, the name of the tribe could be applied more generally during the Middle Ages to include also the Geats, later it again meant only the people inhabiting the original tribal lands in Svealand, rather than the Geats. In modern North Germanic languages, the adjectival form svensk and its plural svenskar have replaced the name svear and is, today, used to denote all the citizens of Sweden. Although this distinction is convention in modern Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, Icelandic and their primary dwellings were in eastern Svealand. Their territories also very early included the provinces of Västmanland, Södermanland, the region is still one of the most fertile and densely populated regions of Scandinavia. Their territories were called Svealand - Swede-land, Suithiod - Swede-people, the Æsir-cult centre in Gamla Uppsala, was the religious centre of the Swedes and where the Swedish king served as a priest during the sacrifices. Uppsala was also the centre of the Uppsala öd, the network of estates that financed the Swedish king. The form Suiones appears in the Roman author Tacituss Germania, a closely similar form, Sweon, is found in Old English and in the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum of Adam of Bremen about the Hamburg-Bremen archbishops who are denoted Sueones. Most scholars agree that Suiones and the attested Germanic forms of the name derive from the same Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se, the word must have meant ones own. In modern Scandinavian, the same appears in words such as svåger. The same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, the details of the phonetic development vary between different proposals. Noréen proposed that Suiones is a Latin rendering of Proto-Germanic *Swihoniz, the form *Swihoniz would in Ulfilas Gothic become *Swaíhans, which later would result in the form Suehans that Jordanes mentioned as the name of the Swedes in Getica. Consequently, the Proto-Norse form would have been *Swehaniz which following the sound-changes in Old Norse resulted in Old West Norse Svíar, *Swe is also the form cited by V. Friesen, who regards the form Sviones as being originally an adjective, Proto-Germanic *Sweoniz, meaning kindred. Then the Gothic form would have been *Swians and the H in Suehans a epenthesis, the Proto-Norse form would then also have been *Sweoniz, which also would have resulted in the historically attested forms. The name became part of a compound, which in Old West Norse was Svíþjóð and he further mentions that the Suiones were much impressed by wealth, and the kings thus was absolute. Further, the Suiones did not normally bear arms, and that the weapons were guarded by a slave, after Tacitus mention of the Suiones, the sources are silent about them until the 6th century as Scandinavia still was in pre-historic times
37.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
38.
Archbishop of Uppsala
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The archbishop of Uppsala has been the primate in Sweden in an unbroken succession since 1164, first during the Catholic era, and from the 1530s and onward under the Lutheran church. There have been bishops in Uppsala from the time of Swedish King Ingold the Elder in the 11th century and they were governed by the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen until Uppsala was made an archbishopric in 1164. The archbishop in Lund was declared primate of Sweden, meaning it was his right to select, to gain independence, Folke Johansson Ängel in 1274 went to Rome and was ordained directly by the pope. This practice was increasing, so that no Uppsala archbishop was in Lund after Olov Björnsson, in 1457, the archbishop Jöns Bengtsson was allowed by the pope to declare himself primate of Sweden. Uppsala was originally located a couple of miles to the north of the present city, in 1273, the archbishopric, together with the relics of King Eric the Saint, was moved to the market town of Östra Aros, which from then on is named Uppsala. In 1531, Laurentius Petri was chosen by King Gustav I of Sweden to be archbishop, taking that privilege from the pope, the archbishop was then declared primus inter pares i. e. first among equals. The archbishop is both bishop of his diocese and Primate of Sweden, he has no more authority than other bishops. In 2000, the Archbishop of Uppsala was aided in the diocese by a bishop of Uppsala, the labours of the archbishops extended in all directions. The archbishops and secular clergy found active co-workers among the regular clergy, among the orders represented in Sweden were the Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Brigittines and Carthusians. Swedish sources never mention him either in Sigtuna or Uppsala and he is apparently the same Bishop Henry who died at the Battle of Fotevik in 1134, fighting along with the Danes after being banished from Sweden. Known from the Chronicon Roskildense written soon after his death and from Saxo Grammaticus Gesta Danorum from the early 13th century, also he is omitted from, or at least redated in, the first list of bishops made in the 15th century. In this list, the first bishop at Uppsala was Sverinius, succeeded by Nicolaus, Sveno, with the exception of Henricus, the list only mentions their names. Johannes was ordained by the Archbishop of Lund, Absalon by November 1185, in 1187, a ship from the pagan Estonia entered Mälaren, a lake close to Uppsala, on a plundering expedition. It sailed to Sigtuna, a city at that time. On its way back, barricades were set up at the exit point at Almarestäket to prevent the ship from escaping. As the ship struggled to pass through, Johannes were among those killed, Sweden got a new king, Sverker II of Sweden in 1196, who was related to the Danish Royal Court, whereby Absalon extended his authority over Sweden. When Petrus in 1196 elected three bishops, Absalon requested that the pope decide since the bishops were the sons of priests. He also mentioned that several Swedish bishops refused to travel to his synods, Absalon was an authoritative person whom the pope trusted and gave him rights, but by the time the message reached Uppsala Petrus had already died
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Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (in Russian). 1906.