Bastion
A bastion is an angular structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly at the corners. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks with fire from the flanks being able to protect the wall and the adjacent bastions. It is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries, Bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defense in the age of gunpowder artillery compared with the medieval fortifications they replaced. By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower, during the Eighty Years War Dutch military engineers developed the concepts further lengthening the faces and shortening the curtain walls of the bastions. To augment this change they placed v shaped outworks in front of the bastions, Bastions differ from medieval towers in a number of respects. Bastions are lower than towers and are normally of similar height to the adjacent curtain wall, the height of towers, although making them difficult to scale, made them easy for artillery to destroy. A bastion would normally have a ditch in front, the side of which would be built up above the natural level slope away gradually.
This glacis shielded most of the bastion from the cannon while the distance from the base of the ditch to the top of the bastion meant it was still difficult to scale. In contrast to late medieval towers, bastions were flat sided rather than curved. This eliminated dead ground making it possible for the defenders to fire upon any point directly in front of the bastion, Bastions cover a larger area than most towers. This allows more cannons to be mounted and provided space for the crews to operate them. Surviving examples of bastions are usually faced with masonry, unlike the wall of a tower this was just a retaining wall, cannonball were expected to pass through this and be absorbed by a greater thickness of hard-packed earth or rubble behind. The top of the bastion was exposed to fire. If a bastion was successfully stormed, it could provide the attackers with a stronghold from which to further attacks. Some bastion designs attempted to minimise this problem and this could be achieved by the use of retrenchments in which a trench was dug across the rear of the bastion, isolating it from the main rampart.
Various kinds of bastions have been used throughout history, solid bastions are those that are filled up entirely, and have the ground even with the height of the rampart, without any empty space towards the centre. Void or hollow bastions are those that have a rampart, or parapet, only around their flanks and faces, so that a void space is left towards the centre. The ground is so low, that if the rampart is taken, no retrenchment can be made in the centre, but what will lie under the fire of the besieged
Matthias Church
Matthias Church is a Roman Catholic church located in Budapest, Hungary, in front of the Fishermans Bastion at the heart of Budas Castle District. According to church tradition, it was built in Romanesque style in 1015. The current building was constructed in the florid late Gothic style in the half of the 14th century and was extensively restored in the late 19th century. It was the second largest church of medieval Buda and the seventh largest church of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom, the first church on the site was founded by Saint Stephen, King of Hungary in 1015. This building was destroyed in 1241 by the Mongols, the current building was constructed in the half of the 13th century. The church was the scene of several coronations, including that of Charles IV in 1916 and it was the site for King Matthiass two weddings. Ornate frescoes that adorned the walls of the building were whitewashed. The church was the location of the Mary-wonder, in 1686 during the siege of Buda by the Holy League a wall of the church collapsed due to cannon fire.
It turned out that an old votive Madonna statue was hidden behind the wall, as the sculpture of the Virgin Mary appeared before the praying Muslims, the morale of the garrison collapsed and the city fell on the same day. Although following Turkish expulsion in 1686 an attempt was made to restore the church in the Baroque style and it was not until the great architectural boom towards the end of the 19th century that the building regained much of its former splendour. The architect responsible for work undertaken in 1873-96 was Frigyes Schulek. The church was restored to its original 13th-century plan, but a number of early original Gothic elements were uncovered, by adding new motifs of his own Schulek ensured that the work, when finished, would be highly controversial. The church was the venue for the coronation of the last two Hungarian Habsburg kings, Franz Joseph in 1867 and Charles IV in 1916, in 1990, The Texas A&M Singing Cadets performed here during one of their highly acclaimed international tours.
During World War II the church was badly damaged, matthias Church was used as a camp by the Germans and Soviets in 1944–45 during the Soviet occupation of Hungary. The church was renovated between 1950 and 1970 with funding from the Hungarian government. The bell tower was restored, along with renovation of interior paints, the five-manual organ, which had been destroyed during the war, was updated and sanctified in 1984. A thorough restoration programme was carried out from 2006 to 2013, half of the HUF9.4 billion cost was met by the government. It is home to the Ecclesiastical Art Museum, which begins in the medieval crypt, the gallery contains a number of sacred relics and medieval stone carvings, along with replicas of the Hungarian royal crown and coronation jewels
Shoes on the Danube Bank
The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial in Budapest, Hungary. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away and it represents their shoes left behind on the bank. The composition titled Shoes on the Danube Bank gives remembrance to the 3,500 people,800 of them Jews, the sculptor created sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes out of iron. The shoes are attached to the embankment, and behind them lies a 40 meter long,70 cm high stone bench. At three points are cast iron signs, with the text in Hungarian and Hebrew. Italian Giorgio Perlasca did the same, sheltering Jews in the Spanish Embassy, on the night of 8 January 1945, an Arrow Cross execution brigade forced all the inhabitants of the building on Vadasz Street to the banks of the Danube. At midnight, Karoly Szabo and 20 policemen with drawn bayonets broke into the Arrow Cross house, steiners father had been shot dead by Arrow Cross militiamen 25 December 1944, and fell into the Danube.
His father had been an officer in World War I and spent four years as a prisoner of war in Russia, one of the high-ranking police officers was Pal Szalai, with whom Raoul Wallenberg used to deal. Another police officer in his coat was Karoly Szabo. Pal Szalai was honored as Righteous among the Nations 7 April 2009 for helping save these Hungarian Jews, Karoly Szabo was honored as Righteous among the Nations 12 November 2012. In September 2014, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that several bronze shoes were stolen from the Danube Holocaust memorial, Haaretz noted that it was not immediately clear whether the theft in Budapest, not far from the Hungarian parliament building, was an anti-Semitic act or a meaningless prank. Police said they were not investigating the case because no crime has been reported, miklós Vig The Holocaust List of people who assisted Jews during the Holocaust Gábor, Forgács. Emlék és Valóság, mindennapjaim Raoul Wallenberggel and Tears, Chronicle of a Life. A pesti gettok 1945 januari megmentese, a magyar Schindler, Szalai Pal visszaemlekezesei es mas dokumentumok, ISBN 978-963-7323-14-0.
in Budapest Archives Other documents about January 8,1945. Photographs of the shoes at Szoborlap. hu Jewish. hu - The shoes on the river
Hungarian Parliament Building
It lies in Lajos Kossuth Square, on the bank of the Danube. It is currently the largest building in Hungary and still the tallest building in Budapest, Budapest was united from three cities in 1873 and seven years the Diet resolved to establish a new, representative Parliament Building, expressing the sovereignty of the nation. The building was planned to face the river, construction from the winning plan was started in 1885 and the building was inaugurated on the 1000th anniversary of the country in 1896, and completed in 1904. About 100,000 people were involved in construction, during which 40 million bricks, since World War II the legislature became unicameral and today the government uses only a small portion of the building. During the communist regime a red star perched on the top of the dome, mátyás Szűrös declared the Hungarian Republic from the balcony facing Kossuth Lajos Square on 23 October 1989. The Parliament Building is in the Gothic Revival style, it has a symmetrical façade, the dome is Renaissance Revival architecture.
Also from inside the parliament is symmetrical and thus has two absolutely identical parliament halls out of one is used for the politics, the other one is used for guided tours. It is 268 m long and 123 m wide and its interior includes 10 courtyards,13 passenger and freight elevators,27 gates,29 staircases and 691 rooms. With its height of 96 m, it is one of the two tallest buildings in Budapest, along with Saint Stephens Basilica, the number 96 refers to the nations millennium,1896, and the conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary in 896. The main façade overlooks the River Danube, but the main entrance is from the square on the east side of the building. Inside and outside, there are altogether 242 sculptures on the walls, the façade displays statues of Hungarian rulers, Transylvanian leaders and famous military figures. The coats of arms of kings and dukes are depicted over the windows, the east stairs is flanked by two lions. When entering the Parliament, visitors can walk up great ornamental stairs, see frescoes on the ceiling and pass by the bust of the creator, Imre Steindl, other statues include those of Árpád, Stephen I and John Hunyadi.
One of the parts of the building is the hexadecagonal central hall, with huge chambers adjoining it, the Lower House. The modern National Assembly is unicameral and meets in the Lower House, while the Upper House is used as a conference, the Holy Crown of Hungary, which is depicted in the coat of arms of Hungary, has been displayed in the central hall since 2000. Further features include the glass and glass mosaics by Miksa Róth. Due to its surface and its detailed handiwork, the building is almost always under renovation. The Parliament is accessible with Line 2 of the Budapest Metro and with tram line 2, at the east front of the building is a memorial to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as well as the imposing Kossuth Memorial and the equestrian statue of Francis II Rákóczi
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest and its task was specified as the development of the Hungarian language and the study and propagation of the sciences and the arts in Hungarian. It received its current name in 1845 and its central building was inaugurated in 1865, in Renaissance Revival architecture style. The architect was Friedrich August Stüler, a scientific section is a unit of the Academy organized by one or some closely related branches of science. D academic degree, the D. Sc degree in Hungary. Today it has eleven main sections, I, Section of Linguistics and Literary Scholarship II. Section of Philosophy and Historical Sciences III, Section of Economics and Law X. Section of Earth Sciences XI. Some of the members are György Konrád, Magda Szabó, Péter Nádas writers, Zoltán Kocsis pianist, Miklós Jancsó. The current president is Károly Makk, film director, who succeeded László Dobszay
World War II
World War II, known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Finland and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific.
The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery.
Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is not universally agreed upon.
It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
Byzantine Revival architecture
The Byzantine Revival was an architectural revival movement, most frequently seen in religious and public buildings. The basilica followed the rules of 6th century Ravenna architecture, although its order was a clear deviation from the historical Byzantine art. In 1876 Ludwig II of Bavaria commissioned Neo-Byzantine interiors of the externally Romanesque Neuschwanstein Castle, complete with images of Justinian I. Danish architect Theophil Hansen became a supporter of the style in the 1850s, hansens own Neo-Byzantine work include the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church and the Christuskirche in Matzleindorf. Sophia Cathedral in Pushkin was the earliest and isolated experiment with Byzantine treatment of otherwise neoclassical structures, in 1830s Nicholas I of Russia promoted the so-called Russo-Byzantine style of churches designed by Konstantin Thon. Nicholas I despised true Byzantine art, Thons style in fact had little common with it, true Byzantine art, popularized by Grigory Gagarin and David Grimm, was adopted by Alexander II of Russia as the de facto official style of the Orthodox Church.
Byzantine architecture became a vehicle of Orthodox expansion on the frontiers of Empire, few buildings were completed in the reign of Alexander II due to financial troubles. Neo-Byzantine cathedrals concentrated in the provinces, the Army bases in Caucasus and Central Asia, the Cossack hosts. Architects David Grimm and Vasily Kosyakov developed a national type of a single-dome Byzantine cathedral with four symmetrical pendentive apses that became de facto standard in 1880s-1890s. The reign of Nicholas II was notable for the turn from this standard back to Hagia Sophia legacy, peaking in the Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt. Russian Neo-Byzantine tradition was terminated by the revolution of 1917 but was continued by emigrant architects in Yugoslavia and Harbin. Francis de Sales Church in Philadelphia, Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, in the early 1980s, Philip Johnson designed a Post-Modernist addition to the Cleveland Play House that reflects Byzantine influences, and could thus be termed Neo-Byzantine.
From about 1850 to 1880 in Bristol a related style known as Bristol Byzantine was popular for industrial buildings which combined elements of the Byzantine style with Moorish architecture
Inner City (Budapest)
Inner City is part of the historic old town of Pest. Until 1949, Inner City was the 4th District, today it is one of the two neighbourhoods of the District V of Budapest, the other one being Lipótváros which is the political and financial centre of Hungary. Budapests main shopping street, Váci utca is located in the District V, as is the part of the citys commercial life, banks. Today a colloquial definition of city exists according to which the city centre of Budapest in a broader sense is bordered by the Grand Boulevard on Pest side of the city. In Buda, it is bordered by the continuation of Grand Boulevard by Margit körút, Krisztina körút, Budaörsi út, the Inner City is situated on the banks of the Danube, Its borders follow the line of the old city walls. The borders of Belváros are bounded by Vigadó tér in the north, Deák Ferenc utca in the north, the Small Boulevard streets of Károly körút, Múzeum körút and Vámház körút, and the River Danube. The core of the city was first called Belváros during the 18th century, after the unification of Budapest in 1873, Belváros became the 4th district of the capital.
On 1 January 1950 it was merged with neighbouring Lipótváros to form the 5th District, since 1990 the district has officially called Belváros-Lipótváros. The three Budapest Metro lines converge at Ferenc Deák Square where the Blue and Red lines meet the Millennium Underground Railway, there are several bus and trolleybus lines in this area
