Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the precise area it covers because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is a social and cultural construct". One definition describes Eastern Europe as a cultural entity: the region lying in Europe with the main characteristics consisting of Greek, Eastern Orthodox and some Ottoman culture influences. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc. A similar definition names the communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Majority of historians and social scientists view such definitions as outdated or relegated, but they are still sometimes used for statistical purposes. Several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they lack precision, are too general, or are outdated.
These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts political scientists, as the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical and socioeconomic connotations. There are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region". A related United Nations paper adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is a social and cultural construct". While the eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe is not geographical but historical and cultural; the Ural Mountains, Ural River, the Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe. In the west, the historical and cultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most have undergone historical fluctuations, which makes a precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult; the East–West Schism divided Christianity in Europe, the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity.
Western Europe according to this point of view is formed by countries with dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Eastern Europe is formed by countries with dominant Eastern Orthodox churches, like Belarus, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia and Ukraine for instance; the schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern and Western churches. This division dominated Europe for centuries, in opposition to the rather short-lived Cold War division of 4 decades. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however problematic; the fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East-West division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media or sometimes for statistical purposes.
Another definition was used during the 40 years of Cold War between 1947 and 1989, was more or less synonymous with the terms Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact. A similar definition names the communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists view such definitions as outdated or relegated. Eurovoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, has entries for "23 EU languages", plus the languages of candidate countries. Of these, those in italics are classified as "Eastern Europe" in this source. UNESCO, EuroVoc, National Geographic Society, Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, STW Thesaurus for Economics place the Baltic states in Northern Europe, whereas the CIA World Factbook places the region in Eastern Europe with a strong assimilation to Northern Europe, they are members of the Nordic-Baltic Eight regional cooperation forum whereas Central European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group.
The Northern Future Forum, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Nordic Battlegroup, the Nordic-Baltic Eight and the New Hanseatic League are other examples of Northern European cooperation that includes the three countries collectively referred to as the Baltic states. Estonia Latvia Lithuania The Caucasus nations of Armenia and Georgia are included in definitions or histories of Eastern Europe, they are located in the transition zone of Western Asia. They participate in the European Union's Eastern Partnership program, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, are members of the Council of Europe, which specifies that all three have
Sloss Furnaces
Sloss Furnaces is a National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama in the United States. It operated as a pig iron-producing blast furnace from 1882 to 1971. After closing, it became one of the first industrial sites in the U. S. to be restored for public use. In 1981, the furnaces were designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior; the site serves as an interpretive museum of industry and hosts a nationally recognized metal arts program. It serves as a concert and festival venue. A new visitor center was built 2015 and opened in 2016; the furnace site, along a wide strip of land reserved in Birmingham's original city plan for railroads and industry, hosts thousands of students through their education programs per year. The museum is free to visit during their operating hours of Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 A. M to 4:00 P. M. and Sunday 12:00 to 4:00 P. M. Colonel James Withers Sloss was one of the founders of Birmingham, helping to promote railroad development in Jones Valley and participating in the Pratt Coke and Coal Company, one of the new city's first manufacturers.
In 1881 he formed his own company, the Sloss Furnace Company, began construction of Birmingham's first blast furnace on 50 acres of land donated by the Elyton Land Company for industrial development. The engineer in charge of construction was Harry Hargreaves, a former student of English inventor Thomas Whitwell; the two Whitwell-type furnaces were 18 feet in diameter. The first blast was initiated in April 1882; the facility produced 24,000 tons of high quality iron during its first year of operation. Sloss iron won a bronze medal at the Southern Exposition held in 1883 at Kentucky. In 1886 Sloss retired and sold the company to a group of investors who reorganized it in 1899 as the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company; the group utilized forced African-American convict-laborers that were purchased in collusion with local sheriffs in a system called peonage. Sheriffs would arrest African-American men under bogus charges of “vagrancy” and the Sloss company would purchase these men and work them as slaves.
This amassed great wealth for Sloss. New blowers were installed in 1902, new boilers in 1906 and 1914 and the furnaces rebuilt with modern equipment between 1927 and 1929. In 1909 James Pickering Dovel had become the superintendent of construction. For the next 21 years, Sloss was Dovel's workshop for invention, he developed gas cleaning equipment, modified the design of the furnaces, improved the linings of the furnaces. In all, some 17 patents are credited to Dovel. Sloss's No. 2 Furnace, rebuilt in 1927, included many of these inventions, earning Dovel and Sloss a national reputation for innovation. Through this aggressive campaign of modernization and expansion, including furnace and mining and quarrying operations all around Jefferson County, Sloss-Sheffield became the second largest seller of pig-iron in the district and among the largest in the world. During this period the company built 48 small cottages for black workers near the downtown furnace — a community that became known as "Sloss Quarters" or just "the quarters".
In 1952, the Sloss Furnaces were acquired by the U. S. Pipe and Foundry Company, sold nearly two decades in 1969 to the Jim Walter Corp; the Birmingham area had been suffering from a serious air pollution problem during the 1950s and 1960s due to the iron and steel industry there, Federal legislation such as the U. S. Clean Air Act encouraged the closure of out-of-date smelting works. By the early 1960s, higher-yielding brown ores from other regions were feeding the blast furnaces; the Jim Walter company closed the furnaces two years and donated the property to the Alabama State Fair Authority for possible development as a museum of industry. The authority determined that redevelopment was not feasible and made plans to demolish the furnaces. Local preservationists formed the Sloss Furnace Association to lobby for preservation of this site, of central importance to the history of Birmingham. In 1976, the site was documented for the Historic American Engineering Record and its historic significance was detailed in a study commissioned by the city.
Birmingham voters approved a $3.3 million bond issue in 1977 to preserve the site. This money went towards stabilization of the main structures and the construction of a visitors' center and the establishment of a metal arts program; the Sloss Furnaces site became a National Historic Landmark in 1981, opened to the public as the nation's first and only 20th century blast furnace site preserved as a museum on Labor Day weekend, 1983. In February 2009 Sloss became the new home of the SLSF 4018 steam locomotive, relocated from Birmingham's Fair Park. Sloss is used to hold metal arts classes and events, food festivals, fun runs, education programs and concerts. Being a haunted location, it is rents the site to an outside company to create an annual Halloween haunted attraction. Sloss Furnaces holds Historic Night Tours to give visitors a chance to hear the darker history of Sloss; the story of Sloss' preservation and modern use was documented in Alabama Public Television's Sloss: Industry to Art.
For many years Sloss Furnaces has been used as a haunted house attraction during the Halloween season. The event is termed "Fright Furnace at the Historic Sloss Furnaces". In June 2012 a formal groundbreaking ceremony was held at the site, signaling the beginning of construction on a new 16,000 square foot Visitors' and Education Center to be located on the south-west corner of the furnace site; the new complex
Famous Players-Lasky
Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company created on July 19, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company; the deal, guided by president Zukor resulted in the incorporation of eight film production companies, making the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation one of the biggest players of the silent film era. Famous Players-Lasky, under the direction of Zukor, is best known for its vertical integration of the film industry and block booking practices. In September 1927, Famous Players-Lasky was reorganized under the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation becoming the Paramount Pictures Corporation; the Balaban and Katz Historical Foundation now owns the Famous Players trademark. The former Famous Players-Lasky Movie Ranch at Lasky Mesa in the Simi Hills is now within the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve; the Astoria studio was designated a national historic district and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The district encompasses six contributing buildings. In 1914, film-production companies Famous Players Films and Jesse L. Lasky Feature Plays signed a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures Corporation. Under the agreement Hodkinson would distribute the two companies' films through a 65/35 arrangement in which the producer agreed to take only 65% of film profits with 35% of the gross revenue going to Hodkinson's Paramount. While the agreement seemed like a good deal and Lasky realized that they could make much higher revenues if they could integrate the production and distribution of their films. Accordingly, less than a year into their distribution contracts the two men began looking for a way to buy Hodkinson out of Paramount and to incorporate the three companies. In late 1915 Zukor began buying as much Paramount stock as possible, including stock belonging to Hiram Abrams, a member of the Paramount board of directors. On July 13, 1916, at Paramount Corporation's annual board meeting, Hodkinson found himself ousted from the presidency and replaced by Abrams, who won the seat by a single vote.
After accepting the presidency, Abrams announced to the board, "On behalf of Adolph Zukor, who has purchased my shares in Paramount, I call this meeting to order."Within a week of removing Hodkinson, on July 19, 1916, Famous Players and the Lasky Feature Play Company merged to form Famous Players-Lasky, with Zukor as President and Jesse L. Lasky as Vice President. For a brief period Famous Players-Lasky acted as a holding company for its subsidiaries- Famous Players, Feature Play, Oliver Morosco Photoplay, Cardinal, Paramount Pictures Corporation and The George M. Cohan Film Corporation. However, on December 29, 1917, all of the subsidiaries were incorporated into one entity called the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. However, Zukor was not satisfied with consolidation; the cost of producing films was rising – screenplays cost more to purchase and the rise of the star system meant that celebrities were demanding higher salaries. Zukor needed to increase revenue, he would do so over the next ten years by integrating film production and exhibition into one corporation.
In 1919, Famous Players-Lasky faced a boycott from the First National Exhibitions Circuit, a group that controlled nearly 600 theaters nationwide. The Circuit disagreed with the Corporation's distribution practices, which required theaters to purchase large blocks of feature films sight-unseen. In addition to selling strategic blocks of features, theater owners were offered options such as "program distribution", in which the exhibitor booked a single evening's worth of entertainment, "star series" in which the exhibitor signed up for a given number of pictures per year featuring a particular star. "Selective Bookings" in which exhibitors were allowed to purchase a single film, made up only a small percentage of the Corporation's offerings. The Circuit's protest of these practices and boycott of Famous Players-Lasky films put the Corporation in desperate need of its own theaters. In 1919, Zukor began directing the purchase of theater chains across the nation. In the Northeast, Zukor acquired Alfred Black's Black's New England Theaters, Inc. and in the South, Zukor acquired S.
A. Lynch's Southern Enterprises, which owned 200 theaters and was at the time the exclusive Paramount distributor in 11 Southern states. In order to weaken First National, Zukor sent Lynch and Black to acquire theaters held by First National members employing heavy-handed tactics. By the mid-1920s, the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was one of the largest theater owners in the world, with a controlling interest in the Rialto and Criterion theater chains. However, in 1921 the corporation hit a brief stumbling block when Zukor's practice of block booking films and buying up theatres led to an FTC antitrust suit. Financial problems within the movie industry as a result of the Great Depression pushed Famous Players-Lasky Company, with $2,020,024 in debts but only $134,718 in assets, into receivership August 3, 1933. On August 30, 1921, the Federal Trade Commission formally charged Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Realart Pictures Corporation, The Stanley Company of America, Stanley Booking Corporation, Black New England Theaters, Inc.
Southern Enterprises, Inc. Saenger Amusement Company, Adolph Zukor, Jesse L. Lasky, Jules Mastbaum, Alfred S. Black, S. A. Lynch, Ernest V. Richards, Jr. with restraint of trade as part of an ongoing investigation i
Alabama
Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U. S. states. With a total of 1,500 miles of inland waterways, Alabama has among the most of any state. Alabama is nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, after the state bird. Alabama is known as the "Heart of Dixie" and the "Cotton State"; the state tree is the longleaf pine, the state flower is the camellia. Alabama's capital is Montgomery; the largest city by population is Birmingham. The oldest city is Mobile, founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana. From the American Civil War until World War II, like many states in the southern U. S. suffered economic hardship, in part because of its continued dependence on agriculture. Similar to other former slave states, Alabamian legislators employed Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and otherwise discriminate against African Americans from the end of the Reconstruction Era up until at least the 1970s.
Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature from 1901 to the 1960s. During this time, urban interests and African Americans were markedly under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama grew as the state's economy changed from one based on agriculture to one with diversified interests; the state's economy in the 21st century is based on management, finance, aerospace, mineral extraction, education and technology. The European-American naming of the Alabama River and state was derived from the Alabama people, a Muskogean-speaking tribe whose members lived just below the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers on the upper reaches of the river. In the Alabama language, the word for a person of Alabama lineage is Albaamo; the suggestion that "Alabama" was borrowed from the Choctaw language is unlikely. The word's spelling varies among historical sources; the first usage appears in three accounts of the Hernando de Soto expedition of 1540: Garcilaso de la Vega used Alibamo, while the Knight of Elvas and Rodrigo Ranjel wrote Alibamu and Limamu in transliterations of the term.
As early as 1702, the French called the tribe the Alibamon, with French maps identifying the river as Rivière des Alibamons. Other spellings of the name have included Alibamu, Albama, Alibama, Alabamu, Allibamou. Sources disagree on the word's meaning; some scholars suggest the word comes from amo. The meaning may have been "clearers of the thicket" or "herb gatherers", referring to clearing land for cultivation or collecting medicinal plants; the state has numerous place names of Native American origin. However, there are no correspondingly similar words in the Alabama language. An 1842 article in the Jacksonville Republican proposed it meant "Here We Rest." This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek. Experts in the Muskogean languages have not found any evidence to support such a translation. Indigenous peoples of varying cultures lived in the area for thousands of years before the advent of European colonization. Trade with the northeastern tribes by the Ohio River began during the Burial Mound Period and continued until European contact.
The agrarian Mississippian culture covered most of the state from 1000 to 1600 AD, with one of its major centers built at what is now the Moundville Archaeological Site in Moundville, Alabama. This is the second-largest complex of the classic Middle Mississippian era, after Cahokia in present-day Illinois, the center of the culture. Analysis of artifacts from archaeological excavations at Moundville were the basis of scholars' formulating the characteristics of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Contrary to popular belief, the SECC appears to have no direct links to Mesoamerican culture, but developed independently; the Ceremonial Complex represents a major component of the religion of the Mississippian peoples. Among the historical tribes of Native American people living in present-day Alabama at the time of European contact were the Cherokee, an Iroquoian language people. While part of the same large language family, the Muskogee tribes developed distinct cultures and languages. With exploration in the 16th century, the Spanish were the first Europeans to reach Alabama.
The expedition of Hernando de Soto passed through Mabila and other parts of the state in 1540. More than 160 years the French founded the region's first European settlement at Old Mobile in 1702; the city was moved to the current site of Mobile in 1711. This area was claimed by the French from 1702 to 1763 as part of La Louisiane. After the French lost to the British in the Seven Years' War, it became part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1783. After the United States victory in the American Revolutionary War, the territory was divided between the United States and Spain; the latter retained control of this western territory from 1783 until the surrender of the Spanish garrison at Mobile to U. S. forces on April 13, 1813. Thomas Bassett, a loyalist to the British monarchy during the Revolutionary era, was one of the earliest white settlers in the state
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993. From 1939 to 1945, following its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, the state did not de facto exist but its government-in-exile continued to operate. From 1948 to 1990, Czechoslovakia was part of the Eastern Bloc with a command economy, its economic status was formalized in membership of Comecon from 1949 and its defense status in the Warsaw Pact of May 1955. A period of political liberalization in 1968, known as the Prague Spring, was forcibly ended when the Soviet Union, assisted by several other Warsaw Pact countries, invaded. In 1989, as Marxist–Leninist governments and communism were ending all over Europe, Czechoslovaks peacefully deposed their government in the Velvet Revolution. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the two sovereign states of Slovakia.
Form of state1918 – 1938: A democratic republic championed by Tomáš Masaryk. 1938 – 1939: After annexation of Sudetenland by Nazi Germany in 1938, the region turned into a state with loosened connections among the Czech and Ruthenian parts. A large strip of southern Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine was annexed by Hungary, the Zaolzie region was annexed by Poland. 1939 – 1945: The region was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Republic. A government-in-exile continued to exist in London, supported by the United Kingdom, United States and their Allies. Czechoslovakia adhered to the Declaration by United Nations and was a founding member of the United Nations. 1946 – 1948: The country was governed by a coalition government with communist ministers, including the prime minister and the minister of interior. Carpathian Ruthenia was ceded to the Soviet Union. 1948 – 1989: The country became a socialist state under Soviet domination with a centrally planned economy. In 1960, the country became a socialist republic, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
It was a satellite state of the Soviet Union. 1969 – 1990: The federal republic consisted of the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic. 1990 – 1992: Following the Velvet Revolution, the state was renamed the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, consisting of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, reverted to a democratic republic. NeighboursAustria 1918 – 1938, 1945 – 1992 Germany Hungary Poland Romania 1918 – 1938 Soviet Union 1945 – 1991 Ukraine 1991 – 1992 TopographyThe country was of irregular terrain; the western area was part of the north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of the northern reaches of the Carpathian Mountains and lands of the Danube River basin. ClimateThe weather is mild summers. Influenced by the Atlantic Ocean from the west, Baltic Sea from the north, Mediterranean Sea from the south. There is no continental weather. 1918–1920: Republic of Czechoslovakia /Czecho-Slovak State, or Czecho-Slovakia/Czechoslovakia 1920–1938: Czechoslovak Republic, or Czechoslovakia 1938–1939: Czecho-Slovak Republic, or Czecho-Slovakia 1945–1960: Czechoslovak Republic, or Czechoslovakia 1960–1990: Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, or Czechoslovakia April 1990: Czechoslovak Federative Republic and Czecho-Slovak Federative Republic The country subsequently became the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, or Československo and Česko-Slovensko.
The area was long a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the empire collapsed at the end of World War I. The new state was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who served as its first president from 14 November 1918 to 14 December 1935, he was succeeded by his close ally, Edvard Beneš. The roots of Czech nationalism go back to the 19th century, when philologists and educators, influenced by Romanticism, promoted the Czech language and pride in the Czech people. Nationalism became a mass movement in the second half of the 19th century. Taking advantage of the limited opportunities for participation in political life under Austrian rule, Czech leaders such as historian František Palacký founded many patriotic, self-help organizations which provided a chance for many of their compatriots to participate in communal life prior to independence. Palacký supported Austro-Slavism and worked for a reorganized and federal Austrian Empire, which would protect the Slavic speaking peoples of Central Europe against Russian and German threats.
An advocate of democratic reform and Czech autonomy within Austria-Hungary, Masaryk was elected twice to the Reichsrat, first from 1891 to 1893 for the Young Czech Party, again from 1907 to 1914 for the Czech Realist Party, which he had founded in 1889 with Karel Kramář and Josef Kaizl. During World War I small numbers of Czechs, the Czechoslovak Legions, fought with the Allies in France and Italy, while large numbers deserted to Russia in exchange for its support for the independence of Czechoslovakia from the Austrian Empire. With the outbreak of World War I, Masaryk began working for Czech independence in a union with Slovakia. With Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Masaryk visited several Western countries and won support from influential publicists. Bohemia and Moravi
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church, alternatively known as the Moscow Patriarchate, is one of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. The Primate of the ROC is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'; the ROC, as well as the primate thereof ranks fifth in the Orthodox order of precedence below the four ancient patriarchates of the Greek Orthodox Church, those of Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem. Since 15 October 2018, the ROC is not in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, having unilaterally severed ties in reaction to the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, finalised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 5 January 2019; the Christianization of Kievan Rus' seen as the birth of the ROC, is believed to have occurred in 988 through the baptism of the Kievan prince Vladimir and his people by the clergy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, whose constituent part the ROC remained for the next six centuries, while the Kievan see remained in the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1686.
The ROC claims its exclusive jurisdiction over the Orthodox Christians, irrespective of their ethnic background, who reside in the former member republics of the Soviet Union, excluding Georgia and Armenia, although this claim is disputed in such countries as Estonia and Ukraine and parallel canonical Orthodox jurisdictions exist in those: the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, respectively. It exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the autonomous Church of Japan and the Orthodox Christians resident in the People's Republic of China; the ROC branches in Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine since the 1990s enjoy various degrees of self-government, albeit short of the status of formal ecclesiastical autonomy. The ROC should not be confused with the Orthodox Church in America, another autocephalous Orthodox church, that traces its existence in North America to the time of the Russian missionaries in Alaska in the late 18th century; the ROC should not be confused with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, headquartered in the United States.
The ROCOR was instituted in the 1920s by Russian communities outside Communist Russia, which refused to recognize the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate de facto headed by Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky. The two churches reconciled on May 17, 2007; the Christian community that developed into what is now known as the Russian Orthodox Church is traditionally said to have been founded by the Apostle Andrew, thought to have visited Scythia and Greek colonies along the northern coast of the Black Sea. According to one of the legends, Andrew reached the future location of Kiev and foretold the foundation of a great Christian city; the spot where he erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrew's Cathedral. By the end of the first millennium AD, eastern Slavic lands started to come under the cultural influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. In 863–69, the Byzantine monks Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, both from the region of Macedonia in the Eastern Roman Empire translated parts of the Bible into the Old Church Slavonic language for the first time, paving the way for the Christianization of the Slavs and Slavicized peoples of Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Southern Russia.
There is evidence that the first Christian bishop was sent to Novgorod from Constantinople either by Patriarch Photius or Patriarch Ignatios, c. 866–867. By the mid-10th century, there was a Christian community among Kievan nobility, under the leadership of Bulgarian and Byzantine priests, although paganism remained the dominant religion. Princess Olga of Kiev was the first ruler of Kievan Rus′, born a Christian, her grandson, Vladimir of Kiev, made Rus' a Christian state. The official Christianization of Kievan Rus' is believed to have occurred in 988 AD, when Prince Vladimir was baptised himself and ordered his people to be baptised by the priests from the Eastern Roman Empire; the Kievan church was a junior metropolitanate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Ecumenical Patriarch appointed the metropolitan, a Greek, who governed the Church of Rus'. The Kiev Metropolitan's residence was located in Kiev itself, the capital of the medieval Rus' state; as Kiev was losing its political and economical significance due to the Mongol invasion, Metropolitan Maximus moved to Vladimir in 1299.
Following the tribulations of the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church was pivotal in the survival and life of the Russian state. Despite the politically motivated murders of Mikhail of Chernigov and Mikhail of Tver, the Mongols were tolerant and granted tax exemption to the church; such holy figures as Sergius of Radonezh and Metropolitan Alexis helped the country to withstand years of Mongol rule, to expand both economically and spiritually. The Trinity monastery founded by Sergius of Radonezh became the setting for the flourishing of spiritual art, exemplified by the work of Andrey Rublev, among others; the followers of Sergius founded four hundred monasteries, thus extending the geographical extent of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1439, at t
Lila Lee
Lila Lee was a prominent screen actress a leading lady, of the silent film and early sound film eras. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Appel, Lila Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel in Union Hill, New Jersey, into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City when Lila was quite young. Searching for a hobby for their gregarious young daughter, the Appels enrolled Lila in Gus Edwards' kiddie review shows where she was given the nickname of "Cuddles", her stagework became so popular with the public that her parents had her educated with private tutors. Edwards would become Lee's long-term manager. Lillian Edwards, wife of Gus Edwards, was Lee's guardian; when Lee was 15 years old, she went to court seeking an injunction to prevent Mrs. Edwards "from collecting any money for Lila's services." Mrs. Edwards countered that she had spent 10 years helping to shape Lee's career and had invested money in her. Lee performed in vaudeville for eight years. In 1918, she was chosen for a film contract by Hollywood film mogul Jesse Lasky for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which became Paramount Pictures.
Her first feature The Cruise of the Make-Believes garnered the seventeen-year-old starlet much public acclaim and Lasky sent Lee on an arduous publicity campaign. Critics lauded Lila for her wholesome persona and sympathetic character parts. Lee rose to the ranks of leading lady and starred opposite such matinee heavies as Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Roscoe'Fatty' Arbuckle, Rudolph Valentino. Lee bore more than a slight resemblance to Ann Little, a former Paramount star and frequent Reid co-star, leaving the film business and at this stage in her career an stronger resemblance to Marguerite Clark. In 1922 Lee was cast as Carmen in the enormously popular film Blood and Sand, opposite matinee idol Rudolph Valentino and silent screen vamp Nita Naldi. Lee continued to be a popular leading lady throughout the 1920s and made scores of critically praised and watched films; as the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, Lee's popularity began to wane and Lee positioned herself for the transition to talkies.
She is one of the few leading ladies of the silent screen whose popularity did not nosedive with the coming of sound. She went back to working with the major studios and appeared, most notably, in The Unholy Three, in 1930, opposite Lon Chaney Sr. in his only talkie. However, a series of bad career choices and bouts of recurring tuberculosis and alcoholism hindered further projects and Lee was relegated to taking parts in grade B-movies. Lee was divorced three times, her first husband was actor James Kirkwood, Sr. whom she married on July 26, 1923. The marriage ended in August 1931 on grounds of her desertion. Lee and Kirkwood had a son in James Kirkwood, Jr. whose custody was granted to his father. S. Your Cat Is Dead, her second husband was broker Jack R. Peine and her third husband was broker John E. Murphy. According to author Sean Egan in the James Kirkwood biography Ponies & Rainbows, Murphy's will left Lee at the financial mercy of his second wife, who became the manipulative character Aunt Claire in P.
S. Your Cat Is Dead, written by James Kirkwood, Jr.. In the 1930s she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and moved to Saranac Lake, New York for treatment at the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital. Lee made several uneventful appearances in stage plays in the 1940s, starred in early television soap operas in the 1950s. In 1973 Lee died of a stroke at Saranac Lake. For her contribution as an actress in motion pictures, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1716 Vine Street, it was dedicated on February 8, 1960. Lila Lee on IMDb Lee at Golden Silents Virtual Film History Lila Lee at Find A Grave Houdini's leading ladies: Lila Lee at Wild About Harry Kirkwood and Lee with their baby 1924
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