Leonhard Frank
Leonhard Frank was a German expressionist writer. He studied painting and graphic art in Munich, gained acclaim with his first novel The Robber Band; when a Berlin journalist celebrated in a famous café about news of the loss of the ship RMS Lusitania, torpedoed by a German submarine, Frank was upset – and slapped the man in his face. That is why he went into exile in Switzerland, where he wrote a series of pacifist short-stories published under the title Man is Good, he returned to Germany, but after the Nazis gained power in 1933 Frank had to emigrate a second time. He lived in Switzerland again, moved to London Paris and fled under adventurous conditions to the United States in 1940, returning to Munich in 1950, his best-known novels were In the Last Coach and Carl and Anna, which he dramatized in 1929. In 1947 MGM made. Leonhard Frank's novels and plays are known for their sensationalism. Frank's prose was austere; this choice of style was used to highlight his favorite theme—the damage inflicted by bourgeois society on the individual spirit.
Frank had become a writer after working as a commercial artist. After he fled to Switzerland in 1914, he blossomed as a writer, it was in Switzerland that he published his first work The Robber Band. The book told the story of a group of rebellious young boys who harbor ambitions of dismantling their exploitative society and replacing it with an ideal one. But, as it happens, the belligerent youth turn into docile adults, the good citizens of an unquestioning society; the story, like so many of his writings, presents the humorous facet of the middle class in a realistic manner. He published other books during his exile in Switzerland like The Cause of the Crime, a scathing criticism of repressive educational systems, Man Is Good, a revolutionary denunciation of war. Frank was a staunch believer in socialism, he regarded the overthrow of capitalism as paramount to the establishment of socialism. This desire was reflected in The Singers, it was during this period of semi-autobiographical writings that Frank produced what is regarded as his best work, the novel Carl and Anna.
The novel was a realistic masterpiece. Success came with a price for Frank, his revolutionary writings did not go down well with the Nazis, who banned his books in 1933 and burned them. He did not get published in Germany again until in 1952, when his autobiographical novel Heart on the Left came out; the Victor Works by Leonhard Frank at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Leonhard Frank at Internet Archive
Woodcut
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print; the block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks; the art of carving the woodcut can be called "xylography", but this is used in English for images alone, although that and "xylographic" are used in connection with block books, which are small books containing text and images in the same block. They became popular in Europe during the latter half of the 15th century. A single-sheet woodcut is a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration.
Since it's origins in China, the practice of woodcut has spread across the world from Europe, to other parts of Asia, to Latin America. In both Europe and the Far East, traditionally the artist only designed the woodcut, the block-carving was left to specialist craftsmen, called block-cutters, or Formschneider in Germany, some of whom became well-known in their own right. Among these, the best-known are the 16th-century Hieronymus Andreae, Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops and operated as printers and publishers; the formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists; this is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as "designed by" rather than "by" an artist. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium easily, without needing to learn the use of woodworking tools. There were various methods of transferring the artist's drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow.
Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block, or a drawing on paper was glued to the block. Either way, the artist's drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing. In both Europe and the Far East in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga, as opposed to shin-hanga, a movement that retained traditional methods. In the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print; as a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe, a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were used. There are three methods of printing to consider: Stamping: Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts; these were printed by putting the paper/fabric on a table or other flat surface with the block on top, pressing or hammering the back of the block.
Rubbing: Apparently the most common method for Far Eastern printing on paper at all times. Used for European woodcuts and block-books in the fifteenth century, widely for cloth. Used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present; the block goes face up with the paper or fabric on top. The back is rubbed with a "hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton". A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren. In Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process; this was helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers. Printing in a press: presses only seem to have been used in Asia in recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, before that for woodcut book illustrations. Simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking.
A deceased Abbess of Mechelen in 1465 had "unum instrumentum ad imprintendum scripturas et ymagines... cum 14 aliis lapideis printis"—"an instrument for printing texts and pictures... with 14 stones for printing". This is too early to be a Gutenberg-type printing press in that location. Main articles Old master print for Europe, Woodblock printing in Japan for Japan, Lubok for Russia Woodcut originated in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and on paper; the earliest woodblock printed fragments to survive are from China, from the Han dynasty, are of silk printed with flowers in three colours. "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe." Paper arrived in Europe from China via al-Andalus later, was being manufactured in Italy by the end of the thirteenth century, in Burgundy and Germany by the end of the fourteenth. In Europe, woodcut is the oldest technique used for old master prints, developing about 1400, by using, on paper, existing techniques for printing.
One of the more ancient woodcuts on paper that can be seen today is The Fire Madonna, in the Cat
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is Saarland's administrative and cultural centre and is next to the French border. Saarbrücken was created in 1909 by the merger of three towns, Saarbrücken, St. Johann, Malstatt-Burbach, it was the industrial and transport centre of the Saar coal basin. Products included iron and steel, beer, optical instruments and construction materials. Historic landmarks in the city include the stone bridge across the Saar, the Gothic church of St. Arnual, the 18th-century Saarbrücken Castle, the old part of the town, the Sankt Johanner Markt. In the 20th century, Saarbrücken was twice separated from Germany: in 1920–35 as capital of the Territory of the Saar Basin and in 1947–56 as capital of the Saar Protectorate. In modern German, Saarbrücken translates to Saar bridges, indeed there are about a dozen bridges across the Saar river. However, the name predates the oldest bridge in the historic center of Saarbrücken, the Alte Brücke, by at least 500 years.
The name Saar stems from the Celtic word sara, the Roman name of the river, saravus. However, there are three theories about the origin of the second part of the name Saarbrücken; the most popular theory states that the historical name of the town, derived from the Celtic word briga, which became Brocken in High German. The castle of Sarabrucca was located on a large rock by the name of Saarbrocken overlooking the river Saar. A minority opinion holds that the historical name of the town, derived from the Old High German word Brucca, meaning bridge, or more a Corduroy road, used in fords. Next to the castle, there was a ford allowing land-traffic to cross the Saar. A rejected theory claims that the historical name of the town, derived from the Germanic word bruco. There is an area in St Johann called Bruchwiese, which used to be swampy before it was developed, there were flood-meadows along the river, those are marshy. However, the Saarbrücken area was first settled by Celts and not by Germanic peoples.
In the last centuries BC, the Mediomatrici settled in the Saarbrücken area. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in the 1st century BC, the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire. From the 1st century AD to the 5th century, there was the Gallo-Roman settlement called vicus Saravus west of Saarbrücken's Halberg hill, on the roads from Metz to Worms and from Trier to Strasbourg. Since the 1st or 2nd century AD, a wooden bridge upgraded to stone, connected vicus Saravus with the south-western bank of the Saar, today's St Arnual, where at least one Roman villa was located. In the 3rd century AD, a Mithras shrine was built in a cave in Halberg hill, on the eastern bank of the Saar river, next to today's old "Osthafen" harbor, a small Roman camp was constructed at the foot of Halberg hill next to the river. Toward the end of the 4th century, the Alemanni destroyed the castra and vicus Saravus, removing permanent human presence from the Saarbrücken area for a century; the Saar area came under the control of the Franks towards the end of the 5th century.
In the 6th century, the Merovingians gave the village Merkingen, which had formed on the ruins of the villa on the south-western end of the Roman bridge, to the Bishopric of Metz. Between 601 and 609, Bishop Arnual founded a community of a Stift, there. Centuries the Stift, in 1046 Merkingen, took on his name, giving birth to St Arnual; the oldest documentary reference to Saarbrücken is a deed of donation from 999, which documents that Emperor Otto III gave the "castellum Sarabrucca" to the Bishops of Metz. The Bishops gave the area to the Counts of Saargau as a fief. By 1120, the county of Saarbrücken had been formed and a small settlement around the castle developed. In 1168, Emperor Barbarossa ordered the slighting of Saarbrücken because of a feud with Count Simon I; the damage can not have been grave. In 1321/1322 Count Johann I of Saarbrücken-Commercy gave city status to the settlement of Saarbrücken and the fishing village of St Johann on the opposite bank of the Saar, introducing a joint administration and emancipating the inhabitants from serfdom.
From 1381 to 1793 the counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken were the main local rulers. In 1549, Emperor Charles V prompted the construction of the Alte Brücke connecting Saarbrücken and St Johann. At the beginning of the 17th century, Count Ludwig II ordered the construction of a new Renaissance-style castle on the site of the old castle, founded Saarbrücken's oldest secondary school, the Ludwigsgymnasium. During the Thirty Years' War, the population of Saarbrücken was reduced to just 70 by 1637, down from 4500 in 1628. During the Franco-Dutch War, King Louis XIV's troops burned down Saarbrücken in 1677 completely destroying the city such that just 8 houses remained standing; the area was incorporated into France for the first time in the 1680s. In 1697 France was forced to relinquish the Saar province, but from 1793 to 1815 regained control of the region. During the reign of Prince William Henry from 1741 to 1768, the coal mines were nationalized and his policies created a proto-industrialized economy, laying the foundation for Saarland's highly industrialized economy.
Saarbrücken was booming, Prince William Henry spent on building and on infrastructure like the Saarkran
Clifford Harper
Clifford Harper is a worker and militant anarchist. Clifford Harper is a worker and militant anarchist, he was born in Chiswick, West London – at that time within Middlesex – on 13 July 1949. His father was his mother a cook. Expelled from school at 13 and placed on two years probation at 14, he worked in a series of "menial jobs" before "turning on, tuning in, dropping out" in 1967. After living in a commune in Cumberland, he started a commune on Eel Pie Island in the River Thames near Richmond, Surrey, in 1969. In 1971 he took part in the All London Squatters organization, squatting in Camden, North London Stepney Green, East London, Peckham in South East London, while being active in anarchist circles. In 1978 he settled in Camberwell where he has lived since, he has suffered from poor health for most of his adult life. After contracting TB in France in 1969 Harper was hospitalised for three months in 1971, leaving his lungs and heart badly damaged and leading to heart failure in 2002. In early 2006 he survived heart attacks, in 2008 was diagnosed as diabetic, further heart attacks followed.
In 2017 he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent major surgery at Guy's Hospital in London, successful. In 2018 he badly fractured his hip. Beginning in the early 1970s he became a prolific illustrator for many anarchist, radical and mainstream publications, organisations and individuals, including Freedom Press, Respect for Animals, BIT Newsletter, Arts Lab Newsletter, Idiot International,!977 Firemans Strike, Libertarian Education, The Idler, Radical Community Medicine, Anarchy Magazine, Black Flag, Anarchy Comix, Common Ground, Industrial Worker, Abelour Distillery, Country Life, Graphical Paper and Media Union, The Times Saturday Review, Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, New Scientist, Oxford University Press, Penguin Books, Times Educational Supplemnt, London Anarchist Bookfair and Commercial Services Union, The Sunday Times Magazine, Catholic Worker, Soil Association, The Bodleian Library, New Statesman, Cienfeugos Anarchist Review, Headline Books, The Financial Times, Scotland on Sunday and Country Planning Association, Movement Against a Monarchy, Nursing Times, John Hegarty, The Listener, Zero, McCallan Whisky, New Society, News From Neasden, House & Garden, The Tablet, Radical Science Journal, Royal Mail, The Co-ops Fairs, Picador Books, Pluto Press, Working Press, Insurrection, Our Generation, Ogilvy & Mather, Radio Times, National Union of Teachers, Faber & Faber, Trades Union Congress and General Workers Union, Serpents Tale, Compendium Books, Poison Girls, Yale University Press, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Elephant Editions, Intelligent Life, Zounds, New Musical Express, Knockabout Comics, Trickett & Webb, The Times, See Sharp Press, Countryside Commission, Industrial Common Ownership Movement, BBC Worldwide, Stop The War Coalition, The Folio Society, Unite The Union, Anarchist Studies, Country Standard, Fitzrovia News, Anarchist Black Cross, Dog Section Press and many others.
In 1992 he won a W H Smith Illustration Award and in 2002 he was the winner of the Trade Union Press and PR Award for Best Illustration. His early drawing style was exemplified by the utopian'Visions' series of posters, for the Undercurrents 1974 anthology Radical Technology; these were detailed and precise illustrations showing scenes of post-revolutionary self-sufficiency and alternative technology in urban and rural settings, becoming de rigueur on the kitchen wall of any self-respecting radical's commune, squat or bedsit during the 1970s. Of these posters Harper writes:Funnily enough they were popular in Spain following the death of Franco and the liberalisation that followed that happy, but long overdue, event. I think the reason for their success is that although they are utopian images they depict an existence, approachable—all it would take is the seizing of a few empty buildings and the knocking down of a few meaningless walls... Influenced by George Grosz, Félix Vallotton, Fernand Léger, Eric Gill and, most of all, the narrative woodcuts of Frans Masereel, Harper's style evolved in the 1980s in a bolder, expressionist direction, with much of his work resembling woodcut, although he works in pen and ink, watercolour.
In 1987 Anarchy, A Graphic Guide, which Harper wrote and illustrated, was published by Camden Press:Like all good ideas, Anarchy is pretty simple when you get down to it - Human beings are at their best when they are living free of authority, deciding things among themselves rather than being ordered about. That's what'Anarchy' means - Without Government; this has become a definitive and popular introduction to the subject, combining a thorough and inclusive overview of anarchism with his distinctive illustration. England's principal radical illustrator, he had a strong association with Freedom Press from 1969 up to 2005 as well as many other anarchist groups and individuals. Harper remains a "100% committed" and engaged anarchist activist, having been involved with organising the UK's annual Anarchist Bookfair, re-designing Freedom newspaper in 2005, producing books, posters, book covers and drawings for, supporting, anarchists everywhere, his drawings have been used and reproduced by anarchists and others in nearly every country of the world.
He has produced a book of anarchist postage stamps'For after the Revolution' and created his own small publishing project Agraphia Press. He does a great deal of work for the Union movement in
25 Images of a Man's Passion
25 Images of a Man's Passion, or The Passion of a Man is the first wordless novel by Flemish artist Frans Masereel, first published in 1918 under the French title 25 images de la passion d'un homme. The silent story is about a young working-class man; the first of dozens of such works by Masereel, the book is considered to be the first wordless novel, a genre that saw its greatest popularity in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Masereel followed the book in 1919 with Passionate Journey. Masereel had grown up reading revolutionary socialist literature, expressed his politics in A Man's Passion, it owed its visual style to mediaeval woodcuts. The book was popular in German editions, which had introductions by writers Max Brod, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann. Frans Masereel was born into a French-speaking family in Belgium; when he was five his father died, his mother remarried to a doctor in Ghent, whose political beliefs left an impression on the young Masereel. Masereel grew up reading Marxist and anarchist works by such writers as Karl Marx and Peter Kropotkin, accompanied his stepfather in socialist demonstrations.
After a year at the Ghent Academy of Fine Arts in 1907, Masereel left to study art on his own in Paris. During World War I he volunteered as a translator for the Red Cross in Geneva, drew newspaper political cartoons, copublished a magazine called Les Tablettes, in which he published his first woodcut prints. In the early 20th century there was a revival in interest in mediaeval woodcuts in religious books such as the Biblia pauperum; the woodcut is a less refined medium than the wood engraving that replaced it—artists of the time took to the rougher woodcut to express angst and frustration. From 1917 Masereel began publishing books of woodcut prints, using similar imagery to make political statements on the strife of the common people rather than to illustrate the lives of Christ and the saints. In 1918 he created the first such book to feature a narrative, 25 Images of a Man's Passion, thus the earliest example of the wordless novel genre. 25 Images of a Man's Passion tells of a young man who protests injustice against the working class in an industrialized society.
The man is born to an unwed mother, struggles to make a living, drinks and whores with his coworkers. He educates himself by reading and talking with his coworkers, is executed by the authorities for leading a revolt against his employer. Scenes from 25 Images of a Man's Passion The title and content of the book have biblical resonances with the mediaeval woodcuts from which they draw inspiration. In line with Masereel's politics, the Common Man is martyred instead of Christ; the cover of the German edition depicts the main character burdened Christ-like with a crucifix. Visually, the book owes much to Expressionism, though experts disagree on whether to label Masereel's work Expressionist. Perry Willet finds parallels between the story arc of Masereel's book and that of Expressionist playwright Ernst Toller's The Transformation, though Masereel's work was the more political—Toller lacked Masereel's commitment to socialism. Socialist themes of the martyrdom of the working class were common in wordless novels.
Printed from twenty-five woodcut blocks, the book was first released in 1918 by Édition de Sablier, a Swiss publishing house of which Masereel was a co-sponsor. It was first offered as a numbered collectors' edition, followed by trade editions. Kurt Wolff produced an inexpensive German edition in 1921; the German edition was popular, its several editions had introductions by writers Max Brod, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann. In the same Expressionistic style, Masereel followed Man's Passion with Passionate Journey, The Sun, Story Without Words, The Idea. Gods' Man Graphic novel 25 Images of a Man's Passion online at the Frans-Masereel-Foundation website
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. Expressionism developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War, it remained popular during the Weimar Republic in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including expressionist architecture, literature, dance and music; the term is sometimes suggestive of angst. In a historical sense, much older painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though the term is applied to 20th-century works; the Expressionist emphasis on individual and subjective perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as Naturalism and Impressionism.
While the word expressionist was used in the modern sense as early as 1850, its origin is sometimes traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by obscure artist Julien-Auguste Hervé, which he called Expressionismes. An alternative view is that the term was coined by the Czech art historian Antonin Matějček in 1910 as the opposite of impressionism: "An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself... immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures... Impressions and mental images that pass through... people's soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols."Important precursors of Expressionism were the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche his philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In 1905, a group of four German artists, led by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, formed Die Brücke in the city of Dresden.
This was arguably the founding organization for the German Expressionist movement, though they did not use the word itself. A few years in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter in Munich; the name came from Wassily Kandinsky's Der Blaue Reiter painting of 1903. Among their members were Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, Auguste Macke. However, the term Expressionism did not establish itself until 1913. Though a German artistic movement and most predominant in painting and the theatre between 1910 and 1930, most precursors of the movement were not German. Furthermore, there have been expressionist writers of prose fiction, as well as non-German-speaking expressionist writers, while the movement had declined in Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, there were subsequent expressionist works. Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it "overlapped with other major'isms' of the modernist period: with Futurism, Cubism and Dadaism." Richard Murphy comments, “the search for an all-inclusive definition is problematic to the extent that the most challenging expressionists such as Kafka, Gottfried Benn and Döblin were the most vociferous `anti-expressionists.'
”What can be said, however, is that it was a movement that developed in the early twentieth century in Germany, in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the growth of cities, that "one of the central means by which expressionism identifies itself as an avant-garde movement, by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to realism and the dominant conventions of representation." More explicitly, that the expressionists rejected the ideology of realism. The term refers to an "artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person." It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there are many examples of art production in Europe from the 15th century onward which emphasize extreme emotion. Such art occurs during times of social upheaval and war, such as the Protestant Reformation, German Peasants' War, Eighty Years' War between the Spanish and the Netherlands, when extreme violence, much directed at civilians, was represented in propagandist popular prints.
These were unimpressive aesthetically but had the capacity to arouse extreme emotions in the viewer. Expressionism has been likened to Baroque by critics such as art historian Michel Ragon and German philosopher Walter Benjamin. According to Alberto Arbasino, a difference between the two is that "Expressionism doesn't shun the violently unpleasant effect, while Baroque does. Expressionism throws some terrific'fuck yous', Baroque doesn't. Baroque is well-mannered." Some of the style's main visual artists of the early 20th century were: Armenia: Martiros Saryan Australia: Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, John Perceval, Alb
Blankenberge
This article relates to the Belgian coastal town of Blankenberge. For German towns with the near-homophonous names, see Blankenberg or BlankenburgBlankenberge is a town and a municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders; the municipality comprises the settlement of Uitkerke. On 1 December 2014, Blankenberge had a total population of 19,897; the total area of the municipality is 17.41 km², giving a population density of 1,142 inhabitants per km². Like most other Flemish coastal towns, a main characteristic of this one is that it is a national and to a certain extent international seaside resort, as Germans have found their way to the place. Apart from the sandy beach, there's a structure unique along the Belgian coast: a 350-m long art-deco pier, the Belgium Pier, constructed in 1933. Carnival Parade Two Day Marching event, every first weekend of May Klankenberge Flower Parade, every last Sunday of August Bel’Lumière Wing Commander Roy George Claringbould Arnold MiD RAF 29198 is buried in the CWG Cemetery Row A Grave 18.
On 9 June 1941 Arnold saved the lives of his five-man Wellington crew from IX Squadron by calmly staying at the controls of the burning plane to hold it steady while they baled out, in the certain knowledge that he would die doing so. Pieter Aspe, Belgian writer. Adolf Eugen Fick and physiologist, died in Blankenberge in 1901. Frans Masereel, Flemish painter and woodcutter born here in 1889. Leo Van Paemel, artist born in Blankenberge. Rudi Pillen, Belgian contemporary painter. Brian Vandenbussche, Belgian goalkeeper. Anna Kéthly, Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the second female MP of the National Assembly Blankenberge has schools from both school networks in Belgium; the two secondary schools are: Sint-Jozef – Sint-Pieter Blankenberge Maerlant-Middenschool • Maerlant Atheneum Both schools have numeral different elementary schools organized by the same instances. Blankenberge railway station was opened in 1863. Trains operated by NMBS run towards Brussels, the Kusttram run by De Lijn runs along the Belgian coast of the North Sea.
Before the First World War, Blankenberge was an exclusive holiday resort attended by Royalty. HIRH Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife HH Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg as well as his sister HIRH Archduchess Elisabeth Amalie of Austria and her husband HSH Prince Aloys of Liechtenstein and his niece HIRH Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria were regular holiday makers in Blankenberge; the Archduke daily attended service at the St Rochus church. The Archduke and his wife were planning to travel again to Blankenberge after their last official engagement before the summer holiday at Sarajevo in 1914 where they were killed. After the First World War the Blankenberge police station was bombed by an unknown perpetrator; the blast wounded 2 others. After the Second World War it became a popular holiday destination. Blankenberg figures in Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope as the scene of a duel between Finn and another character, Lord Chiltern; the tenor Enrico Caruso attended Blankenberge for a performance in 1910.
Blankenberge is twinned with: Minamiboso, JapanSince 1994, in August a couple of students from Minamiboso visit Blankenberge and live with families over here. Afterworth students from Blankenberge visit Minamiboso for eight days; this is organised by vzw'Tweedaagse Voettocht van Blankenberge'. Official website in English Tourist Information Blankenberge The Pier Blankenberge
