1.
Nativity scene
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A nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christmas season, of art objects representing the birth of Jesus. Nativity scenes exhibit figures representing the infant Jesus, his mother, Mary, other characters from the nativity story, such as shepherds, sheep, and angels may be displayed near the manger in a barn intended to accommodate farm animals, as described in the Gospel of Luke. A donkey and an ox are typically depicted in the scene, several cultures add other characters and objects that may or may not be Biblical. Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first live nativity scene in 1223 in order to cultivate the worship of Christ and he himself had recently been inspired by his visit to the Holy Land, where hed been shown Jesuss traditional birthplace. The scenes popularity inspired communities throughout Catholic countries to stage similar pantomimes, Nativity scenes have not escaped controversy, and in the United States their inclusion on public lands or in public buildings has provoked court challenges. A nativity scene takes its from the accounts of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Lukes narrative describes an angel announcing the birth of Jesus to shepherds who then visit the humble site where Jesus is found lying in a manger, a trough for cattle feed. Matthews account does not mention the angels and shepherds, while Lukes narrative is silent on the Magi, the Magi and the angels are often displayed in a nativity scene with the Holy Family and the shepherds although there is no scriptural basis for their presence. The nativity scene created by Francis is described by Saint Bonaventure in his Life of Saint Francis of Assisi written around 1260, staged in a cave near Greccio, Saint Francis nativity scene was a living one with humans and animals cast in the Biblical roles. Pope Honorius III gave his blessing to the exhibit, such reenactment pantomimes became hugely popular and spread throughout Christendom. Within a hundred years every church in Italy was expected to have a nativity scene at Christmastime, eventually, statues replaced human and animal participants, and static scenes grew to elaborate affairs with richly robed figurines placed in intricate landscape settings. Charles III, King of the Two Sicilies, collected such elaborate scenes, the scenes popularity inspired much imitation in Catholic countries, and in the Early modern period sculpted cribs, often exported from Italy, were set up in Catholic churches and homes. These elaborate scenes reached their apogee in the Papal state, in Emilia, in the Kingdom of Naples. Different traditions of nativity scenes emerged in different countries, hand-painted santons are popular in Provence. In southern Germany, Austria and Trentino-Alto Adige the wood figurines are handcut, colorful szopka are typical in Poland. A tradition in England involved baking a pie in the shape of a manger which would hold the Christ child until dinnertime. When the Puritans banned Christmas celebrations in the 17th century, they also passed legislation to outlaw such pies. In the United States, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City annually displays a Neapolitan Baroque nativity scene before a 20 feet blue spruce, Nativity scenes have not escaped controversy. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals indicates that animals in living displays lack proper care, static nativity scenes may be erected indoors or outdoors during the Christmas season, and are composed of figurines depicting the infant Jesus resting in a manger, Mary, and Joseph
2.
Christmas in Poland
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Christmas in Poland is a major annual celebration, as in most countries of the Christian world. Later influences include mutual permeating of local traditions and various folk cultures, Christmas trees are decorated and lit in family rooms on the day of Christmas Eve. Other trees are placed in most public areas and outside churches, Christmas is called Boże Narodzenie in Polish. Among the special tasks carried out in private homes during Advent is the baking of the Christmas piernik, pierniki are made in a variety of shapes, including hearts, animals, and St. Nicholas figures. St. Nicholas does not play a role on Christmas Day. He visits good children in secret and leaves presents for them and they are lit on Christmas Eve before Wigilia. At the top of each there is a star or a glittering tree topper. In many homes, sparklers are hung on the branches of the trees for wintery ambiance, sometimes the trees are left standing until February 2, the feast day of St. Mary of the Candle of Lighting. During Advent and all the way until Epiphany, or the baptism of Jesus, some of them sing carols, others recite verses or put on szopki, or herody. The last two customs are inspired by the traditional manger scenes or Jaselka, one tradition unique to Poland is the sharing of the opłatek, a thin wafer into which a holy picture is pressed. In the old days people carried these wafers from house to house wishing their neighbors a Merry Christmas, nowadays, opłatek is mostly shared with members of the family and immediate neighbors before the Christmas Eve supper. As each person shares pieces of the wafer with another, they are supposed to forgive each other any hurts that have occurred over the past year, in Poland, Christmas Eve is a day first of fasting, then of feasting. The Wigilia feast begins at the appearance of the first star, there is no red meat served but fish, usually carp. The supper, which includes many dishes and desserts, can sometimes last for over two hours. It is followed by the exchange of gifts, the next day, the Christmas Day, is often spent visiting friends. In Polish tradition, people combine religion and family closeness at Christmas, although gift-giving plays a major role in the rituals, emphasis is placed more on the making of special foods and decorations. On the night of Christmas Eve, so important is the appearance of the first star in remembrance of the Star of Bethlehem, on that evening, children watch the sky anxiously hoping to be the first to cry out, The star has come. Only after it appears, the members sit down to a dinner table
3.
Christmas carol
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A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas, and which is traditionally sung on Christmas itself or during the surrounding holiday season. Christmas carols may be regarded as a subset of the category of Christmas music. The first known Christmas hymns may be traced to 4th century Rome, Latin hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium, written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. Corde natus ex Parentis by the Spanish poet Prudentius is still sung in churches today. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas Sequence or Prose was introduced in Northern European monasteries, in the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol. In the 13th century, in France, Germany, and particularly, Italy, the songs we know specifically as carols were originally communal songs sung during celebrations like harvest tide as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols begun to be sung in church, many carols which have gained popularity today were printed in Piae Cantiones, a collection of late medieval Latin songs which was first published in 1582. Early, Latin forms of such as Christ was born on Christmas Day, Good Christian Men, Rejoice. Adeste Fideles appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, the origin of the tune is disputed. Carols gained in popularity after the Reformation in the countries where Protestant churches gained prominence and this was a consequence of the fact that the Lutheran reformation warmly welcomed music. The publication of Christmas music books in the 19th century helped to widen the appeal of carols. The first appearance in print of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships, the Herald Angels Sing was in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern by William Sandys. The publication in 1871 of Christmas Carols, New and Old by Henry Ramsden Bramley, in 1916, Charles Lewis Hutchins published Carols Old and Carols New, a scholarly collection which suffered from a short print run and is consequently rarely available today. The singing of carols was further popularised in the 20th century when OUP published one of the most popular books in the English-speaking world. First published in 1961 and edited by David Willcocks and Reginald Jacques, today carols are regularly sung at Christian religious services. Some compositions have words that are not of a religious theme. For example, the 16th century song A Bone, God Wot. appears to be a wassailing song, as recently as 1865, Christmas-related lyrics were adopted for the traditional English folk song Greensleeves, becoming the internationally popular Christmas carol “What Child is This. ”. It is not clear whether the word derives from the French carole or the Latin carula meaning a circular dance
4.
Lyrics
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Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist, the words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a libretto and their writer, as a librettist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit, some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of expression. Rappers can also create lyrics with a variation of rhyming words or words that create, Lyric derives via Latin lyricus from the Greek λυρικός, the adjectival form of lyre. It first appeared in English in the century in reference, to the Earl of Surreys translations of Petrarch. Stainer and Barrett used the word as a substantive, Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music. By the 1930s, the present use of the plurale tantum lyrics had begun, the singular form lyric still appears, its present use, however, is to refer to a specific phrase within a songs lyrics. The differences between poem and song may become less meaningful where verse is set to music, to the point that any distinction becomes untenable and this is perhaps recognised in the way popular songs have lyrics. However, the verse may pre-date its tune, or the tune may be lost over time but the words survive, nursery rhymes may be songs, or doggerel, the term doesnt imply a distinction. The ghazal is a form that is considered primarily poetic. See also rapping, roots of hip hop music, analogously, verse drama might normally be judged as poetry, but not consisting of poems. In Baroque music, melodies and their lyrics where prose, rather than paired lines they consist of rhetorical sentences or paragraphs consisting of an opening gesture, an amplification, and a close, in German Vordersatz-Fortspinnung-Epilog. For example, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, But when I became a man, I put away childish things. -1 Corinthians 13,11 In the lyrics of music a shifter is a word, often a pronoun, where reference varies according to who is speaking, when. For example, who is the my of My Generation, see Royalties Currently, there are many websites featuring song lyrics. This offering, however, is controversial, since some sites include copyrighted lyrics offered without the holders permission, music Publishers Association, which represents sheet music companies, launched a legal campaign against such websites in December 2005. The MPAs president, Lauren Keiser, said the free lyrics web sites are completely illegal, Lyrics licenses could be obtained worldwide through one of the two aggregators, LyricFind and Musixmatch. The first company to provide licensed lyrics was Yahoo, quickly followed by MetroLyrics and Lyrics. com
5.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
6.
Polonaise
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The polonaise is a dance of Polish origin, in 34 time. Its name is French for Polish, the polonaise had a rhythm quite close to that of the Swedish semiquaver or sixteenth-note polska, and the two dances have a common origin. Polonaise is a dance in carnival parties. Polonaise is always a first dance at a studniówka, the Polish equivalent of the prom that occurs approximately 100 days before exams. The notation alla polacca on a score indicates that the piece should be played with the rhythm. For example, the movement of Beethovens Triple Concerto op. 56, marked Rondo alla polacca, and the finale of Chopins Variations on Là ci darem la mano both feature this notation, frédéric Chopins polonaises are generally the best known of all polonaises in classical music. Another more recent prolific polonaise composer was the American Edward Alexander MacDowell, john Philip Sousa wrote the Presidential Polonaise, intended to keep visitors moving briskly through the White House receiving line. Sousa wrote it in 1886 at the request of President Chester A. Arthur who died before it was performed, Polonaise is a Polish dance and is one of the five historic national dances of Poland. The others are the Mazurka, Kujawiak, Krakowiak and Oberek, Polonaise originated as a peasant dance known under various names – chodzony, chmielowy, pieszy or wielki, recorded as early as the 15th century. In later centuries it gained popularity among the nobility and townspeople, waltz Mazurka Varsovienne Redowa Polonaise ‒ The Royal Dance Every Polish Teenager Has to Master
7.
Hymn
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A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek ὕμνος, which means a song of praise, a writer of hymns is known as a hymnodist. The singing of hymns is called hymnody, collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books. Hymns may or may not include instrumental accompaniment, although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent. Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures, some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts. Surviving from the 3rd century BC is a collection of six literary hymns by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus, patristic writers began applying the term ὕμνος, or hymnus in Latin, to Christian songs of praise, and frequently used the word as a synonym for psalm. Originally modeled on the Psalms and other passages in the Scriptures. Many refer to Jesus Christ either directly or indirectly, since the earliest times, Christians have sung psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, both in private devotions and in corporate worship. One definition of a hymn is. a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung, others are used to encourage reverence for the Holy Bible or to celebrate Christian practices such as the eucharist or baptism. A writer of hymns is known as a hymnodist, and the practice of singing hymns is called hymnody, a collection of hymns is called a hymnal or hymnary. These may or may not include music, a student of hymnody is called a hymnologist, and the scholarly study of hymns, hymnists and hymnody is hymnology. The music to which a hymn may be sung is a hymn tune, in many Evangelical churches, traditional songs are classified as hymns while more contemporary worship songs are not considered hymns. The reason for this distinction is unclear, but according to some it is due to the shift of style and devotional thinking that began with the Jesus movement. In ancient and medieval times, stringed instruments such as the harp, lyre and lute were used with psalms, since there is a lack of musical notation in early writings, the actual musical forms in the early church can only be surmised. During the Middle Ages a rich hymnody developed in the form of Gregorian chant or plainsong and this type was sung in unison, in one of eight church modes, and most often by monastic choirs. While they were originally in Latin, many have been translated. Later hymnody in the Western church introduced four-part vocal harmony as the norm, adopting major and minor keys and it shares many elements with classical music. Today, except for choirs, more musically inclined congregations and a cappella congregations, hymns are sung in unison
8.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
9.
National anthem
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The majority of national anthems are either marches or hymns in style. The countries of Latin America tend towards more operatic pieces, while a handful of countries use a simple fanfare, a national anthem is usually in the national or most common language of the country, whether de facto or official, there are notable exceptions. Amhrán na bhFiann, the anthem of the Republic of Ireland, was written in English, the current national anthem of South Africa is unique in that five of the countrys eleven official languages are used in the same anthem. One of the two national anthems of New Zealand, God Defend New Zealand, is commonly now sung with the first verse in Māori. The tune is the same but the words are not a translation of each other. God Bless Fiji has lyrics in English and Fijian which are not translations of each other, although official, the Fijian version is rarely sung, and it is usually the English version that is performed at international sporting events. There are several countries that do not have official lyrics to their anthems, one of these is the Marcha Real, the anthem of Spain. In 2007 a national competition to write words was held, other anthems with no words include Inno Nazionale della Repubblica, the anthem of San Marino, and that of Kosovo, entitled Europe. National anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the 19th century, the oldest national anthem belongs to the Netherlands and is called the Wilhelmus. It was written between 1568 and 1572 during the Dutch Revolt, but did not become the anthem until 1932. The Japanese anthem, Kimigayo, has the oldest lyrics, which were taken from a Heian period poem, in contrast, the music of Qaumi Taranah, Pakistans national anthem was composed in 1949, preceding its lyrics, which were written in 1952. The Philippine anthem Lupang Hinirang was composed in 1898 as wordless incidental music for the ceremony declaring independence from the Spanish Empire, the Spanish poem Filipinas was written the following year to serve as the anthems lyrics, the current Tagalog version dates to 1962. Spains national anthem, the Marcha Real, written in 1761, was among the first to be adopted as such, in 1770. Denmark adopted the older of its two national anthems, Kong Christian stod ved højen mast, in 1780, and La Marseillaise, Serbia became the first Eastern European nation to have a national anthem – Rise up, Serbia. – in 1804. Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu, the anthem of Kenya, is one of the first national anthems to be specifically commissioned. It was written by the Kenyan Anthem Commission in 1963 to serve as the anthem after independence from the United Kingdom, National anthems are used in a wide array of contexts. Certain etiquette may be involved in the playing of a countrys anthem and these usually involve military honours, standing up/rising, removing headwear etc. In diplomatic situations the rules may be very formal, there may also be royal anthems, presidential anthems, state anthems etc. for special occasions
10.
Basilian monks
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Basilian monks are monks who follow the rule of Saint Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea. The monastic rules and institutes of St. Basil are important because their reconstruction of life remains the basis for most Eastern Orthodox. Saint Benedict of Nursia, who fulfilled much the function in the West, took his Regula Benedicti from the writings of St. Basil. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, monks do not generally call themselves Basilians, thus the expression Basilian monk almost always refers to religious of those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite. Under the name of Basilians are included all the religious that follow the Rules of St. Basil and it should be noted that the Rules of St. There were two collections, the Greater Asketikon and the Lesser Asketicon. Eastern monasticism has never possessed the hierarchical organization which ordinarily constitutes the Western religious orders, only a few houses were formerly grouped into congregations or are today so combined. Usually each monastery follows its own traditions, and is either under the bishop or is stavropegial. St. Basil drew up his Asketikon for the members of the monastery he founded about 356 on the banks of the Iris River in Cappadocia, St Basils claim to the authorship of the Rules and other ascetical writings that go under his name has been questioned. But the tendency now is to recognize as his at any rate the two sets of Rules, probably the truest idea of his monastic system may be derived from a correspondence between him and St. Gregory Nazianzen at the beginning of his monastic life. Before forming this community St. Basil visited Egypt, Coele-Syria, Mesopotamia, in the latter country and in Syria the monastic life tended to become more and more eremitical and to run to great extravagances in the matter of bodily austerities. When Basil formed his monastery in the neighborhood of Neocaesarea in Pontus, all this was a new departure in monachism. The Rule of Basil is divided into two parts, the Greater Monastic Rules and the Lesser Rules. Rufinus who translated them into Latin united the two into a single Rule under the name of Regulae sancti Basilii episcopi Cappadociae ad monachos and he limits himself to laying down indisputable principles which will guide the superiors and monks in their conduct. He sends his monks to the Sacred Scriptures, in his eyes the Bible is the basis of all monastic legislation, the questions refer generally to the virtues which the monks should practice and the vices they should avoid. The greater number of the replies contain a verse or several verses of the Bible accompanied by a comment which defines the meaning, the most striking qualities of the Basilian Rule are its prudence and its wisdom. Poverty, obedience, renunciation, and self-abnegation are the virtues which St. Basil makes the foundation of the monastic life, as he gave it, the Rule could not suffice for anyone who wished to organize a monastery, for it takes this work as an accomplished fact. The life of the Cappadocian monks could not be reconstructed from his references to the nature and number of the meals, the superiors had for guide a tradition accepted by all the monks
11.
Oxymoron
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An oxymoron is a rhetorical device that uses an ostensible self-contradiction to illustrate a rhetorical point or to reveal a paradox. A more general meaning of contradiction in terms is recorded by the OED for 1902. e and it is itself an example of an oxymoron. The most common form of oxymoron involves a combination of two words. To give an example from English poetry, the line from Tennysons Idylls of the King contains two oxymorons, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. Oxymorons are not always a pair of words, they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases, richard Lederer assembled a taxonomy of oxymorons in an article in Word Ways in 1990, running from single-word oxymorons such as pianoforte through doublespeak oxymorons and opinion oxymorons. A good example of use of oxymorons is found in Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet. Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, in Henry James novella The Lesson of the Master, a character is described as dressed in a manner conventionally unconventional, suggesting a tortuous spontaneity. In this way James highlights the contradiction between the desire to appear spontaneous, and the efforts she makes to appear so. Voltaire we might call, by an oxymoron which has plenty of truth in it, J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron. Comical oxymoron is a term for the claim, for comical effect, the humour derives from implying that an assumption is so obvious as to be part of the lexicon. Garry Wills accused William F. Buckley of popularising this trend, examples popularized by comedian George Carlin include military intelligence and business ethics. Similarly, the civil war is sometimes jokingly as an oxymoron. Other examples include healthful Mexican food, affordable caviar, Microsoft Works. Listing of antonyms, as in good and evil, male and female, great and small, etc. are not oxymorons, in some languages, it is not necessary to place a conjunction like and between the two antonyms, such compounds are known as dvandvas. For example, in Chinese, compounds like 男女, 陰陽, 善悪 are used to indicate couples, ranges, auto-antonym Colorless green ideas sleep furiously Paradox Performative contradiction Pleonasm Tautology Retronym. Self refuting idea Meinongs jungle Principle of contradiction Shen, Yeshayahu, on the structure and understanding of poetic oxymoron
12.
Gospel of John
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The Gospel According to John is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament. It traditionally appears fourth, after the gospels of Matthew, Mark. John begins with the witness and affirmation of John the Baptist and concludes with the death, burial, resurrection, although the Gospel of John is anonymous, Christian tradition historically has attributed it to John the Apostle, son of Zebedee and one of Jesus Twelve Apostles. C. K. Barrett, and later Raymond E. Brown, suggested that a tradition developed around the Johannine Community, and that this tradition gave rise to the gospel. The discovery of a number of papyrus fragments of manuscripts with Johannine themes has led more scholars to recognize that the texts were among the most influential in the early Church. The discourses contained with this gospel seem to be concerned with issues of the debate at the time of composition. It is notable that in John, the community appears to define itself primarily in contrast to Judaism, though Christianity started as a movement within Judaism, it gradually separated from Judaism because of mutual opposition between the two religions. The Gospel of John can be divided into four sections, a prologue, a Book of Signs, a Book of Glory, the narrative of Jesus public ministry, beginning with the introduction of the first disciples of Jesus. It consists of seven miracles, or signs, interspersed with long dialogues, discourses, Amen, amen sayings, in John it is this, and not the cleansing of the Temple, that prompts the authorities to have Jesus executed. The narrative of Jesus Passion, Resurrection, and post-Resurrection appearances and this is followed by Jesus Farewell Discourse, an account of his betrayal, arrest, trial, death, burial, post-Resurrection appearances, and final commission for his followers. Jesus mocking and crowning with thorns, the Ecce homo, the discovery of the empty tomb, the noli me tangere, the Great Commission, and the incredulity of Thomas. The section ends with a conclusion on the purpose of the gospel, that may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, a large majority of scholars believes this chapter to be an addition to the gospel. The Gospel of John is anonymous, traditionally, Christians have identified the author as the Disciple whom Jesus loved mentioned in John 21,24, who is understood to be John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus Twelve Apostles. These identifications, however, are rejected by the majority of biblical scholars. Nevertheless, the author of the fourth Gospel is sometimes called John the Evangelist, a significant minority consider the traditional account of John the Apostles authorship to be genuine. In addition, the ancient external attestation for Johannine authorship is strong, John is usually dated to AD 90–110. It arose in a Jewish Christian community in the process of breaking from the Jewish synagogue, scholars believe that the text went through two to three redactions, or editions, before reaching its current form. John, which regularly describes Jesus opponents simply as the Jews, is more hostile to the Jews than any other body of New Testament writing
13.
Christ Child
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The Christ Child, also known as Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, Child Jesus, the Holy Child, and Santo Niño, refers to Jesus Christ from his nativity to age 12. Upon reaching 13 years-old he was considered to be an adult in accordance with Jewish custom, the canonical Gospels lack any narration of the years between Jesus infancy and the Finding in the Temple when he was twelve. Commonly these are nativity scenes showing the birth of Jesus, with his mother, Mary, depictions as a baby with the Virgin Mary, known as Madonna and Child, are iconographical types in Eastern and Western traditions. Other scenes from his time as a baby, of his circumcision, presentation at the temple, the adoration of the Magi, scenes showing his developing years are more rare but not unknown. Saint Joseph, Anthony of Padua, and Saint Christopher are often depicted holding the Christ Child, the Christ Child was a popular subject in European wood sculpture beginning in the 1300s. The popularity of the Christ child was known in Spain under the title Montanesino after the santero sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés who began the trend. The growth of images being made were quite popular among nobility, while images were also used to colonize kingdoms such of Spain. The symbolism of the Child Jesus in art reached its apex during the Renaissance, tàladh Chrìosda is a Scottish carol from Moidart, Scotland. The Catholic priest Father Ranald Rankin, wrote the lyrics for Midnight Mass around the year 1855 and he originally wrote 29 verses in Scottish Gaelic, but the popular English translation is limited to five. The melody, Cumha Mhic Arois, is from the Hebrides and was a sung as a charm for the fisherman away at sea. The rhythm mirrors the rhythm of the surf and it is sung in the Hebrides at Midnight Mass of Christmas Eve. A number of texts, the Infancy Gospels grew up with legendary accounts of the intervening period. These stories were intended to show Jesus as having extraordinary gifts of power and knowledge, one common pious tale has the young Jesus animating sparrows out of clay belonging to his playmates. When admonished for doing so on the Sabbath, he causes the birds to fly away, in the seventeenth century veneration of the Christ Child under the title the Little King of Beaune was promoted by French Carmelites. In the late nineteenth century devotion to the Holy Child of Remedy developed in Madrid
14.
Pope John Paul II
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Pope Saint John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, was Pope from 1978 to 2005. He is called by some Catholics Saint John Paul the Great and he was elected by the second Papal conclave of 1978, which was called after Pope John Paul I, who had been elected in August after the death of Pope Paul VI, died after thirty-three days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the day of the conclave. John Paul II is recognised as helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland, John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Churchs relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He upheld the Churchs teachings on such matters as artificial contraception and the ordination of women and he was one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated a large number of the worlds bishops, a key goal of his papacy was to transform and reposition the Catholic Church. His wish was to place his Church at the heart of a new alliance that would bring together Jews, Muslims. He was the second longest-serving pope in history after Pope Pius IX. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Pope Adrian VI, John Paul IIs cause for canonisation commenced in 2005 one month after his death with the traditional five-year waiting period waived. A second miracle attributed to John Paul IIs intercession was approved on 2 July 2013, John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014, together with Pope John XXIII. On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added John Paul IIs optional memorial feast day to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints, in response to worldwide requests. It is traditional to celebrate saints feast days on the anniversary of their deaths, Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of Wadowice. He was the youngest of three born to Karol Wojtyła, an ethnic Pole, and Emilia Kaczorowska, whose mothers maiden surname was Scholz. Emilia, who was a schoolteacher, died in childbirth in 1929 when Wojtyła was eight years old and his elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13 years his senior. Edmunds work as a physician led to his death from scarlet fever. As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper, during his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with Wadowices large Jewish community. School football games were organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish side. I remember that at least a third of my classmates at school in Wadowice were Jews
15.
Violetta Villas
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Czesława Gospodarek, known by her stage name Violetta Villas, was a Belgian-born Polish and international cabaret star, singer, actress, composer and songwriter. Her voice was characterized as coloratura soprano, which spanned over 4 octaves and she could play the piano, violin, and trombone and had absolute pitch. Characterisations of her included the voice of the age, the singing toast of the continent, a voice like French champagne. Villas was the first star of the Casino de Paris at Dunes Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Villas was known for her conspicuous wardrobe and number-one hits. She was a rights activist. Villas was a controversial person for her alcohol and morphine addiction. Moreover, she had a disorder, which had a bad influence on her contacts with her environment. In 2011, Villas received the Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis, Villas was born in Heusy, Liège province, the third of four children. She spent her childhood in Belgium and her father Bolesław Cieślak was a miner and bandmaster, and her mother Jane was a housewife. In 1948 she came with her parents to Poland and settled in Lewin Kłodzki where she began studying music and she played the piano and violin in her youth. In 1956 she began studying singing at the State Musical High School in Szczecin. She continued her education in Wrocław with a professor Gisela Posh. In 1959 she began vocal lessons with a professor Eugenia Falkowska in Warsaw. In 1960, Villas made her debut on Polskie Radio at the invitation of its director of music and her first broadcast songs were Gdy zakwitną czereśnie and Ja nie mogę tamtej drugiej znieść. She recorded her first album, Rendez-vous with Violetta Villas in 1962 and she received her first noteworthy prize at the Sopot Festival in 1961 and 1962. In 1964,1965 and 1966 she performed at National Festival of Polish Song in Opole, in 1964 at the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole, Bruno Coquatrix invited her to France. At the 3rd Festival International des Variétés et Music-Halls in Rennes, in 1965, she performed at the Fontaine Theatre. In 1966, at a personal request of Bruno Cocquatrix, Villas appeared in the Grand Music Hall de Varsovie, the premiere was 26 July 1966
16.
Krzysztof Krawczyk
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Krzysztof January Krawczyk is a Polish pop singer having a baritone voice, a guitarist and composer. He was the vocalist of a popular Polish band, Trubadurzy and he was co-founder of the Post-secondary School of Stage Art in Łódź. His creative activity in the area of music is characterized by a combination of music genres such as rock and roll, country music. His album To co w życiu ważne reached number one on the Polish Music Charts, Krawczyk learned to play the guitar on his own, whereas his vocal abilities were practised when he attended secondary school of music in Łódź. However, he had to quit his studies and become an errand-boy, because his father. He was the member of the family to earn a living. Ten years after that bands establishment, Krawczyk started his solo career, in the 1970s he recorded several successful songs such as Parostatek, Pokochaj moje marzenia, Pamiętam Ciebie z tamtych lat or Ostatni raz zatańczysz ze mną. He had numerous performances at festivals in Opole, Sopot and Kołobrzeg and he also toured in all the countries of the Warsaw Pact as well as in Sweden, Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland. His work of the 1970s was considered to be kitsch by some critics, nevertheless, his songs of that time have been genuinely popular to this day. He collaborated with a cabaret performer, Bohdan Smoleń. All these songs were different from what he had performed before. In 1981 Krawczyk moved to the U. S. to perform, the 1982 LP, From a Different Place, was distributed nationally, a single, Solidarity, received heavy airplay in several cities, especially Chicago. John Cascella, later to become John Mellencamps keyboardist, composed many of the songs on the album, for U. S. audiences, Krawczyks name was shortened and Anglicized to Krystof. While in the U. S. Krawczyks wife Ewa helped him overcome addictions to alcohol, after a return to Poland in the mid 1980s, he underwent tonsil surgery and spent one year living in Kolobrzeg to recover his voice. In 1988, he was driving his family and fell asleep behind the wheel, as a result, he suffered numerous injuries that required long months of therapy. In the 1990s, he was in the US again and he returned to Poland in 1994. When he encountered lack of interest from esteemed music producers, he got involved in the disco polo business and he later admitted that this decision helped him to survive the hard times, because the albums he made at that time were very successful. However, this did not protect him against constant criticism, in the late 1990s Krawczyk changed his image from a discotheque playboy to a mature middle-aged artist who propagated family values
17.
Eleni Tzoka
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Eleni Tzoka is a Polish female singer of Greek descent. Tzoka was born to a Greek family which emigrated to Poland in the 1950s, at an early age, she was familiarized with music by her parents and numerous siblings who would constantly play or sing. She first sang in public when she attended elementary school, at that time she belonged to a childrens group Niezapominajki. Several years later she became a vocalist in Ballada, a group that was formed in her secondary school, Tzoka started her professional career in 1975 when she joined Prometheus, a newly founded music band that was mainly active in Sopot. On July 20 of the year, she debuted at a concert in nearby Gdańsk. Eleni, as she is referred to in Poland, released her first solo album, Ty jak niebo, ja – jak obłok. After the release of her album, she became popular. She began giving concerts all over Poland as well as abroad, among many other countries, she visited Australia, France, Sweden, Canada, and the United States, where she sang for the Polish diaspora. Tzoka participated in the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole four times and she is married to Fotis Tzokas, the brother of Kostas Tzokas, who was the founder of Prometheus. Fotis is currently her manager and composes some of her songs. In 1994, Tzokas 17-year-old daughter, Afrodyta, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend and it was reported that she openly forgave the killer of her only child. When she was informed about her daughters death, she phoned the mother of Afrodytas boyfriend. She was honoured for that in 1999 with the Saint Rita of Cascia prize, Tzoka has been awarded many other prizes. In 2002, she was given the statuette of Złota Muza Polskich Nagrań from a Polish state music company Polskie Nagrania. In 2004, she was given the Medal of Saint Brother Albert for her commitment to charity related with the help for the living with AIDS as well as the disabled. The official justification for the prize included her meetings with the youth, Tzoka is also the holder of a prestigious title of the Knight of the Order of Smile. Tzoka is the author of a book Nic miłości nie pokona published in 2006 and this illustrated album contains an interview given to a Pauline monk, fr. Robert Łukaszuk, in which she talks about her life, human sufferings, love, Prometheus, the band Tzoka has belonged to since 1975, typically played traditional Greek music
18.
Auschwitz concentration camp
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Auschwitz concentration camp was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It consisted of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II–Birkenau, Auschwitz III–Monowitz, Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. The first extermination of prisoners took place in September 1941, from early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camps gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe, where they were killed with the pesticide Zyklon B. An estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, around 90 percent of those killed were Jewish, approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. Many of those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments. In the course of the war, the camp was staffed by 7,000 members of the German Schutzstaffel, some, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allied Powers refused to believe reports of the atrocities at the camp. As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was sent west on a death march, the prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on 27 January 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the following decades, survivors, such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel, wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, acts of violence perpetrated against Jews became ubiquitous. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933 excluded most Jews from the legal profession, similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of the right to practise. Harassment and economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to leave the country voluntarily and their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts. German Jews were subjected to violent attacks and boycotts, in September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were enacted. The Reich Citizenship Law stated that only those of Germanic or related blood were defined as citizens, thus Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship. The laws were expanded on 26 November 1935 to include Romani people and this supplementary decree defined Gypsies as enemies of the race-based state, the same category as Jews. By the start of World War II in 1939, around 250,000 of Germanys 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, the United Kingdom, Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered that the Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed, approximately 65,000 civilians, who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race, were killed by the end of 1939. In addition to leaders of Polish society, the Nazis killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani, sS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, then head of the Gestapo, ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links
19.
Civilization V
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Sid Meiers Civilization V is a 4X video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games. The game was released on Microsoft Windows in September 2010, on OS X on November 23,2010, the game is based on an entirely new game engine with hexagonal tiles instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. Many elements from Civilization IV and its expansion packs have been removed or changed, such as religion, the combat system has been overhauled, removing stacking of military units and enabling cities to defend themselves by firing directly on nearby enemies. In addition, the maps contain computer-controlled city-states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy, a civilizations borders also expand one tile at a time, favoring more productive tiles, and roads now have a maintenance cost, making them much less common. The game features community, modding, and multiplayer elements and it is available for download on Steam. Its first expansion pack, Civilization V, Gods & Kings, was released on June 19,2012, in North America and it includes features such as religion, espionage, enhanced naval combat and combat AI, as well as nine new civilizations. A second expansion pack, Civilization V, Brave New World, was announced on March 15,2013. It includes features such as trade routes, a world congress, tourism, great works, as well as nine new civilizations, eight additional wonders. It was released on July 9,2013, in North America, Civilization V is a turn-based strategy game, where each player represents the leader of a certain nation or ethnic group and must guide its growth over the course of thousands of years. The four levels of AI complement each other to allow for complex and fluid AI behaviours, each of the AI-controlled leaders has a unique personality, determined by a combination of flavors on a ten-point scale, however, the values may differ slightly in each game. There are 26 flavors, grouped into categories including growth, expansion, wide strategy, military preferences, recon, naval recon, naval growth, as in previous versions, cities remain the central pillar of Civilization gameplay. The city will also expand its borders one or more tiles at a time, the expansion process is automated and directed towards the citys needs, but tiles can be bought with gold. Cities have hit points that, if taken down to zero, will signal the citys defeat to invading forces, in addition, any melee unit loses hit points upon attacking a city, dependent upon the strength of the city and unit. Hit points can be increased by garrisoning a unit in the city or building defensive structures. I, in this iteration of the series, tactical gameplay in combat is encouraged in place of overwhelming numerical force, with the introduction of new gameplay mechanisms. Most significantly, the grid of the world map has been replaced with a hexagonal grid. Increased movement points, simpler transportation over water, ranged attacks, there is also a balance between ranged and melee units. Ranged units can attack melee units without retribution, but melee units will normally destroy ranged units, in an effort to make individual units more valuable to the player, they take longer to produce, and gain experience from defeating enemy units. At set levels this experience can be redeemed for promotions, which provide bonuses for increasing their effectiveness
20.
Casimir III the Great
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Casimir III the Great reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He was the son of King Władysław I and Duchess Hedwig of Kalisz, Kazimierz inherited a kingdom weakened by war and made it prosperous and wealthy. He reformed the Polish army and doubled the size of the kingdom and he reformed the judicial system and introduced a legal code, gaining the title the Polish Justinian. Kazimierz built extensively and founded the University of Kraków, the oldest Polish university and he also confirmed privileges and protections previously granted to Jews and encouraged them to settle in Poland in great numbers. Kazimierz left no male heir to his throne, producing only daughters. When Kazimierz died in 1370 from an injury received while hunting, his nephew, King Louis I of Hungary, when Kazimierz attained the throne in 1333, his position was in danger, as his neighbours did not recognise his title and instead called him king of Kraków. The kingdom was depopulated and exhausted by war, and the economy was ruined, in 1335, in the Treaty of Trentschin, Casimir was forced to relinquish his claims to Silesia in perpetuity. Kazimierz rebuilt and his kingdom prosperous and wealthy, with great prospects for the future. He waged many wars and doubled the size of the kingdom. He founded the University of Kraków, the oldest Polish University, Kazimierz is the only king in Polish history to both receive and retain the title of Great. In 1355, in Buda, Kazimierz designated his nephew Louis I of Hungary as his successor should he produce no male heir, in exchange Kazimierz gained Hungarian favourable attitude, needed in disputes with the hostile Teutonic Order and Kingdom of Bohemia. Kazimierz at the time was still in his years and having a son did not seem to be a problem. Kazimierz left no son, however, bearing five daughters instead. He tried to adopt his grandson, Casimir IV, Duke of Pomerania, the child had been born to his second daughter, Elisabeth, Duchess of Pomerania, in 1351. This part of the testament was invalidated by Louis I of Hungary, however, thus King Louis I of Hungary became successor in Poland. Louis was proclaimed king upon Kazimierzs death in 1370, though Kazimierzs sister Elisabeth held much of the power until her death in 1380. Casimir was facetiously named the Peasants King and he introduced the codes of law of Greater and Lesser Poland as an attempt to end the overwhelming superiority of the nobility. During his reign all three major classes — the nobility, priesthood, and bourgeoisie — were more or less counterbalanced and he was known for siding with the weak when the law did not protect them from nobles and clergymen
21.
Wikisource
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Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
22.
Pasterka
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Pasterka is a Midnight mass celebrated by Roman Catholics during Christmas between 24 and 25 December across Poland. A close translation of the name would be the Shepherds Mass, in reference to the Biblical shepherds, during the Pasterka Mass, Polish people sing traditional kolędy, Christmas carols from the Roman calendae) in the spirit of joy. Although Pasterka mass is associated with the specific time in Christian liturgy. According to Polish ordinance of the Eucharist, the Pasterka is defined only by the type of prayer and it can be held more than once on December 24, in more than one location by the parish priest, at the church and at a nearby chapel. Often, there are two Pasterkas celebrated next to each other – earlier ones for the families with children, then at 9 and 10 p. m. for the youth, the participation in the Birth of Christ celebrations is obligatory for all practicing Catholics. They have the option of attending any one of the masses or even more than one. Priests may refer to all of them as Pasterka, even though formally they are called Wigilia masses by the episcopate as opposed to the mass at midnight. The exact hour of the birth of Christ is not written in the canonical gospels, on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day, the masses can be celebrated from three different liturgical texts, each suited to a specific sacrament of the Eucharist. In the early hours, the worshippers can attend the Advent waiting mass, there are no masses in the late afternoon on December 24, which is the time for Wigilia, the traditional supper at family homes. The first evening mass of the Christmas Eve is celebrated around 4 p. m. or later before 8 p. m. followed by the 10 p. m. mass and the one-hour-long grand Midnight Mass, which begins at 12. Music for the Midnight Mass begins as soon as the open at 11,00 p. m. The Blessing of the Crib can take place before, or after the homilies, traditionally, the service concludes with an Apostolic Blessing. The next day masses are interchangeable according to scripture, allowing for flexibility in choosing the religious services by individual parishioners, the Christmas Day begins with the early morning mass followed by daytime masses. Pasterka is a Catholic mass specific to the Birth of Christ celebrations in Poland, participation in Pasterka is synonymous with Christmas. Many practicing Catholics visit the Church twice on that occasion and are encouraged by the priest to do so, Polish Christmas carol Bóg się rodzi Christmas worldwide
23.
Christmas music
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Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music was a feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works intended for use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the written in the vernacular. In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing, later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England, Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians. During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan, like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwells interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday and this attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of Father Christmas. The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the holy day in the calendar in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognised this in 1645 and its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend which continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William Sandyss Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern, contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, singing carols in church was instituted on Christmas Eve 1880 in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, England, which is now seen in churches all over the world. Christmas festivities, including music, are celebrated in a more secular fashion by such institutions as the Santa Claus Village, in Rovaniemi. The tradition of singing Christmas carols in return for alms or charity began in England in the century after the Restoration. Also from the century, there was the English custom, predominantly involving women, of taking a wassail bowl to their neighbours to solicit gifts. The status of Christmas as an important feast within the year also means there is a long tradition of music specially composed for celebrating the season. S. This is in due to the efforts of amateur choral societies during the nineteenth century. When it was composed, it was performed during Passiontide, jakub Jan Ryba, Czech Christmas Mass Hey, Master
24.
Koliada
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Koliada or koleda is an ancient pre-Christian Slavic winter festival. It was later incorporated into Christmas, the word is still used in modern Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian Lithuanian and Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Slovene. One theory states that Koliada is the name of a cycle of winter rituals stemming from the ancient calendae, some claim it was named after Kolyada, the Slavic god of winter or Koliada, the goddess who brings up a new sun every day. It specifically applies to children and teens who walk house to house greeting people, singing and sifting grain that denotes the best wishes and receiving candy and small money in return. Similarly in Bulgaria and Macedonia, in the tradition of koleduvane or koledarenje around Christmas, groups of kids visiting houses, singing carols, the kids are called koledari or rarely kolezhdani who sing kolyadki. It is celebrated before Christmas by gathering in the square and lighting a bonfire, followed by local Macedonian music. Croatian composer Jakov Gotovac wrote in 1925 the composition Koleda, which he called a rite in five parts, for male choir. There is also a dance from Dubrovnik called The Dubrovnik Koleda, the ancient god of the underworld Veles was known to regularly send spirits of the dead into the living world as his heralds. This ancient celebration of Velja noć still persists in folk customs of Koleda, in pre-Christian Croatia, koleda was a celebration of death and rebirth at the end of December in honour of the sun and god - Dažbog, whose power once more begins to increase in those days. Krijes, meaning bonfire in Croatian, is another festival honouring the sun, during the summer at the time of his greatest strength, a celebration for good harvest
25.
Hohenstaufen
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The Hohenstaufen, also called the Staufer or Staufen, were a dynasty of German kings during the Middle Ages. Besides Germany, they ruled the Kingdom of Sicily. In Italian historiography, they are known as the Svevi, since they were dukes of Swabia from 1079, three members of the dynasty—Frederick I, Henry VI and Frederick II—were crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The name Staufen derives from Stauf, meaning chalice, and was applied to conical hills in Swabia in the Middle Ages. The family derives its name from the castle which the first Swabian duke of the lineage built there in the half of the 11th century. Staufen castle was finally called Hohenstaufen by historians in the 19th century. The name of the dynasty followed, but in recent decades the trend in German historiography has been to prefer the name Staufer, the noble family first appeared in the late 10th century in the Swabian Riesgau region around the former Carolingian court of Nördlingen. A local count Frederick is mentioned as progenitor in a pedigree drawn up by Abbot Wibald of Stavelot at the behest of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1153. He held the office of a Swabian count palatine, his son Frederick of Buren married Hildegard of Egisheim-Dagsburg and their son Frederick I was appointed Duke of Swabia at Hohenstaufen Castle by the Salian king Henry IV of Germany in 1079. At the same time, Duke Frederick I was engaged to the kings approximately seventeen-year-old daughter, Fredericks brother Otto was elevated to the Strasbourg bishopric in 1082. Upon Fredericks death, he was succeeded by his son, Duke Frederick II, Frederick II remained a close ally of the Salians, he and his younger brother Conrad were named the kings representatives in Germany when the king was in Italy. Around 1120, Frederick II married Judith of Bavaria from the rival House of Welf, when the last male member of the Salian dynasty, Emperor Henry V, died without heirs in 1125, a controversy arose about the succession. A civil war between Fredericks dynasty and Lothairs ended with Fredericks submission in 1134, after Lothairs death in 1137, Fredericks brother Conrad was elected King as Conrad III. In 1147, Conrad heard Bernard of Clairvaux preach the Second Crusade at Speyer, conrads brother Duke Frederick II died in 1147, and was succeeded in Swabia by his son, Duke Frederick III. When King Conrad III died without heir in 1152, Frederick also succeeded him. As royal access to the resources of the church in Germany was much reduced and he was soon crowned emperor in Italy, but decades of warfare on the peninsula yielded scant results. The Papacy and the prosperous city-states of the Lombard League in northern Italy were traditional enemies, under the skilled leadership of Pope Alexander III, the alliance suffered many defeats but ultimately was able to deny the emperor a complete victory in Italy. During Fredericks long stays in Italy, the German princes became stronger, offers of reduced taxes and manorial duties enticed many Germans to settle in the east in the course of the Ostsiedlung
26.
Uniwersytet Jagiellonski
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The Jagiellonian University is a research university in Kraków, Poland. Notable alumni include, among others, mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish king John III Sobieski, pope John Paul II, the campus of the Jagiellonian University is centrally located within the city of Kraków. The university consists of fifteen faculties — including the humanities, law, the natural and social sciences, the university employs roughly 4,000 academics, and has more than 40,000 students who study in some 80 disciplines. More than half of the student body are women, the language of instruction is usually Polish, although several degrees are offered in either German or English. The university library is one of Polands largest, and houses several medieval manuscripts, due to its history, the Jagiellonian University is traditionally considered Polands most reputable institution of higher learning — this standing equally being reflected in international rankings. The Jagiellonian University is a member of the Coimbra Group and Europaeum and his efforts to found an institution of higher learning in Poland were rewarded when Pope Urban V granted him permission to set up a university in Kraków. A royal charter of foundation was issued on 12 May 1364, and it is believed that, in all likelihood, the construction of a building to house the Studium Generale began on Plac Wolnica in what is today the district of Kazimierz. After a period of disinterest and lack of funds, the institution was restored in the 1390s by King Władysław II Jagiełło and his wife Saint Hedwig, the Queen donated all of her personal jewelry to the university, allowing it to enroll 203 students. The university was the first university in Europe to establish independent chairs in Mathematics, during the second half of the 15th century, over 40 percent of students came from outside the Kingdom of Poland. The first chancellor of the University was Piotr Wysz, and the first professors were Czechs, Germans and Poles, by 1520 Greek philology was introduced by Constanzo Claretti and Wenzel von Hirschberg, Hebrew was also taught. At this time, the Collegium Maius comprised seven reading rooms, six of which were named for the ancient scholars, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Galen, Ptolemy. The librarys original rooms, in all books were chained to their cases in order to prevent theft, are no longer used as such. However, they are occasionally opened to host visiting lecturers talks. If the lecture halls underwent refurbishment they could be rented out to accommodate a laundry and this period thus represents one of the darkest periods in the universitys history and is almost certainly the one during which the closure of the institution seemed most imminent. After the third partition of Poland in 1795 and the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, Kraków became a city under the protection of the Austrian Empire. In 1846, after the Kraków Uprising, the city and its university became part of the Austrian Empire, however, the threat of closure of the University was ultimately dissipated by Kaiser Ferdinand I of Austrias decree to maintain it. By the 1870s the fortunes of the university had improved so greatly that many scholars had returned, the liquefaction of nitrogen and oxygen was successfully demonstrated by professors Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski in 1883. It was, conversely, from this building that in 1918 a large painting of Kaiser Franz Joseph was removed and destroyed by Polish students advocating the reestablishment of an independent Polish state
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Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
