1.
Leeuwarden
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Leeuwarden is a city and municipality with a population of 108,249 in Friesland in the Netherlands. It is the capital and seat of the States of Friesland. The oldest remains of houses in the city back to the 2nd century AD. Leeuwarden has been inhabited since the 10th century. It was granted city privileges in 1435, the city was liberated from German occupation in World War II by The Royal Canadian Dragoons in 1945. It is the hub of the province of Friesland, situated in a green and water-rich environment, with lakes, villages. Leeuwarden is a royal residence and has a historic centre, many listed buildings. Leeuwarden has been awarded the title European Capital of Culture 2018, one important cultural and historical event is the Elfstedentocht, an ice skating-tour of eleven cities in Friesland, starting and finishing in Leeuwarden. Besides the city of Leeuwarden, population centres in the municipality with a population of 1,000 or more are Grou, Goutum, Wergea, Jirnsum, Reduzum, and Wirdum. The municipality is governed by the mayor Ferd Crone and a coalition of the Labour Party, Christian Democratic Appeal, and PAL-GroenLinks. The name Leeuwarden first came into use for Nijehove, the most important of the three villages that merged into one, namely Oldehove and Hoek in the early 9th century. There is much uncertainty about the origin of the citys name, historian and archivist Wopke Eekhoff summed up a total of over 200 different spelling variants, of which Leeuwarden, Liwwadden, and Ljouwert are still in use. The second syllable is easily explained, Warden, Frisian/Dutch for an artificial dwelling hill, is a designation of terps, the first part of the name, leeuw, means lion in modern standard Dutch. This interpretation corresponds with the coat of arms adopted by the city, however, modern standard Dutch was not used in this region in the Middle Ages, when the city was called Lintarwrde. Some scholars argue that the name of the city is derived from leeu-, the last one suits the watery province of Friesland. The name is similar to that of the French commune Lewarde, located in the Nord Department, the oldest remains of houses date back to the 2nd century AD in the Roman era and were discovered during an excavation near the Oldehove. The area has been inhabited since the 10th century, and was mentioned as a city in German sources in 1285. Situated along the Middelzee, it was a trade centre until the waterway silted up in the 15th century
2.
Hilversum
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Hilversum is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Located in the region called Het Gooi, it is the largest town in that area and it is surrounded by heathland, woods, meadows, lakes, and smaller towns. Hilversum is part of the Randstad, one of the largest conurbations in Europe, Hilversum is 31 km south-east of Amsterdam and 19 km north of Utrecht. The town is often called media city since it is the centre for radio. Radio Netherlands, heard worldwide via shortwave radio since the 1920s, is based here. As a result, many old AM radio sets in Europe had a Hilversum dial position marked on their tuning scales, the Dutch voting in the Eurovision Song Contest usually takes place from Hilversum. Hilversum is also known for its architecturally important Town Hall, designed by Willem Marinus Dudok and built in 1931. Hilversum has one library, two swimming pools, a number of sporting halls and several shopping centers In the region, the city centre is called het dorp. Earthenware found in Hilversum gives its name to the Hilversum culture, artifacts from this prehistoric civilization bear similarities to the Wessex Culture of southern Britain and may indicate that the first Hilversum residents emigrated from that area. The first brick settlements formed around 900, but it was not until 1305 that the first official mention of Hilversum is found, at that point it was a part of Naarden, the oldest town in the Gooi area. Farming, raising sheep and some wool manufacturing were the means of life for the Gooi in the Middle Ages, in 1424, on 21 March at 6,30 am, Hilversum received its first official independent status. This made possible further growth in the village because permission from Naarden was no longer needed for new industrial development. The town grew further in the 17th century when the Dutch economy as a whole entered its age of prosperity, in 1725 and 1766 large fires destroyed most of the town, leveling parts of the old townhouse and the church next to it. The town overcame these setbacks and the industry continued to develop. In the 19th century a substantial textile and tapestry industry emerged, aided by a link to Amsterdam in 1874. Despite this growth, Hilversum was never granted city rights so it is referred to by many locals as het dorp. For the 1928 Summer Olympics in neighboring Amsterdam, it hosted all of the non-jumping equestrian, the city was the headquarters of the German ground forces in the Netherlands. By then the industry had started its decline, only one factory, Veneta, managed to continue into the 1960s
3.
University of Amsterdam
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The University of Amsterdam is a public university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities and later renamed for the city of Amsterdam and it is one of the largest research universities in Europe with 31,186 students,4,794 staff,1,340 PhD students and an annual budget of €600 million. It is the largest university in the Netherlands by enrollment, the main campus is located in central Amsterdam, with a few faculties located in adjacent boroughs. The university is organised into seven faculties, Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Science, Law, Medicine, the University of Amsterdam has produced six Nobel Laureates and five prime ministers of the Netherlands. In 2014, it was ranked 50th in the world, 15th in Europe, in January 1632, the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam was founded by the municipal authorities in Amsterdam. It was mainly devoted to medical teaching, the first two professors were Gerardus Vossius and Caspar Barlaeus. The Athenaeum Illustre provided education comparable to higher education institutions. After training at the Athenaeum, students could complete their education at a university in another town, Amsterdams large degree of religious freedom allowed for the establishment of these institutions. Students of the Colegium Chirugicum and the institutions regularly attended classes at the Athenaeum Illustre. ”The Athenaeum began offering classes for students attending non-academic professional training in pharmacy. The Athenaeum remained an institution until the 19th century, with no more than 250 students. Alumni of the Athenaeum include Cornelis Petrus Tiele, in 1877, the Athenuem Illustre became the Municipal University of Amsterdam and received the right to confer doctoral degrees. This gave the university the same privileges as national universities while being funded by the city of Amsterdam, the professors and lecturers were appointed by the municipal council. This resulted in a staff that was in ways more colorful than the staffs of national universities. The University of Amsterdams municipal status brought about the relatively early addition of the faculties of Economics, after the World War II the dramatic rise in the cost of university education put a constraint on the university’s growth. In 1961 the national government made the university a national university, giving it its current name, funding was now given by the national government instead of the city and the appointment of professors was transferred to the Board of Governors. The city of Amsterdam retained a limited influence until 1971, when the appointment was handed over to the Executive Board, the protest lasted for days and was eventually broken up by the police. During the 1970s and 1980s, the university was often the target of nationwide student actions, the university saw considerable expansion since becoming a national university, from 7,500 students in 1960 to over 32,000 in 2010. In 2007, UvA undertook the construction of the Science Park Amsterdam, much of the park has now been completed
4.
Harlingen, Netherlands
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Harlingen is a municipality and a city in the northern Netherlands, in the province of Friesland at the Wadden Sea. Harlingen is a town with a history of fishing and shipping. Harlingen received city rights in 1234, Harlingen is served by two stations on the railway line from Leeuwarden. From 1904 to 1935 there was a service on the North Friesland Railway. Rederij Doeksen operate ferries to the Wadden islands of Vlieland and Terschelling that depart from Harlingen, the famous Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk was born in Harlingen and used to depict his hometown in his writings as Lahringen. The town of Harlingen, Texas, in the United States is named after this city many of the original settlers of the Texas town came from Harlingen. The Admiralty of Friesland was established in Dokkum in 1597 but moved to Harlingen in 1645, Harlingen Midlum Wijnaldum Harlingen travel guide from Wikivoyage Official website streaming webcams Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Harlingen
5.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
6.
Hendrik Marsman
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Hendrik Marsman was a Dutch poet and writer. Marsman studied law and practised in Utrecht, but after 1933 he travelled in Europe, under the influence of the German Expressionists, Marsman made his literary debut about 1920 with rhythmic free verse, which attracted notice for its aggressive independence. The collection Verzen expresses an antihumanist, anti-intellectual rebelliousness, which the poet called “vitalism. ”As editor of the periodical De Vrije bladen and his next collection of verse appeared in 1927 with the English title Paradise Regained and was greeted as a major artistic achievement. Another cycle, Porta Nigra, dominated by the idea of death and his last book of verse, Tempel en kruis, an autobiographical account of the poet’s development, reaffirms humanistic ideals. After obtaining a Portuguese visa in Bordeaux, France, on June 18,1940 from the Consul-General Aristides de Sousa Mendes, tragically, he drowned three days later when the ship sunk after an explosion in the English Channel. His wife survived as the only passenger and his poetry is vitalistic and expressionistic, and death, as a metaphor for defeat in life, is a recurring theme. His Herinnering aan Holland, Denkend aan Holland zie ik breede rivieren traag door oneindig laagland gaan, Thinking about Holland, in 2000, the Dutch people chose this as the Dutch Poem of the Century. The ship had set sailing from Bordeaux and sank in the North Sea, different accounts exist on what might have sunk the S. S. Berenice. According to the of U-65, they sighted a big steamer, identified as Champlain, at 5.45 hours, which was shadowed until 7.35 hours, when the U-boat lost contact in fog. A short time later the ship was sighted again and attacked with a spread of three torpedoes at 8.17 hours. Allied sources reports that the Champlain went to the bottom after being damaged by an air laid magnetic mine off La Pallice at 09.30 hours on 17 June. In knowledge of these sources, the report of U-65 claims the Champlain as his own success. After presenting by email a librarian of the Royal Dutch Library with the rather confusing stories regarding the S. S, an attack one day later was confused with the explosion on the Berenice. Source for the biography on this matter was a 1986 history of Dutch merchant shipping by historian Karel Bezemer. In Holland the U-boat-attack on the Berenice is considered to be a persistent myth, stimulated by his widow, the only surviving passenger was Marsmans wife Rien Barendregt. She was saved because at the time of the explosion she was on deck serving breakfast while wearing a life jacket and she told captain Groenhof of the boat that picked her and the few survivors up about her husband He could no longer hold on. According to the article no manuscript or body was recovered after the explosion. An on-line published biography mentions six poems that seem to predict the way Marsman died, only a verse of the poem Maannacht is used there as illustration
7.
Magic realism
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It is sometimes called fabulism, in reference to the conventions of fables, myths, and allegory. Magical realism, perhaps the most common term, often refers to fiction and literature in particular, the terms are broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous. Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as what happens when a highly detailed, many writers are categorized as magical realists, which confuses the term and its wide definition. Magical realism is often associated with Latin American literature, particularly authors including Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Angel Asturias, in English literature, its chief exponents include Salman Rushdie and Alice Hoffman. Roh identified magic realisms accurate detail, smooth photographic clarity, and it reflects the uncanniness of people and our modern technological environment. In 1926 he founded the magic realist magazine 900. Novecento, Rohs magic realism also influenced writers in Hispanic America, where it was translated as realismo mágico in 1927. Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who had known Bontempelli, wrote influential magic realist short stories in the 1930s and 40s that focused on the mystery, Luis Leal attests that Pietri seemed to have been the first to adopt the term realismo mágico in Hispanic America in 1948. French-Russian Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, who rejected Rohs magic realism as tiresome pretension, developed his related concept lo real maravilloso, or marvelous realism, in 1949. While Flores named Jorge Luis Borges as the first magical realist, Borges is often seen as a predecessor of magical realists, with only Flores considering him a true magical realist. The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here, however, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text. Magical realism portrays fantastical events in a realistic tone. It brings fables, folk tales, and myths into contemporary social relevance, fantasy traits given to characters, such as levitation, telepathy, and telekinesis, help to encompass modern political realities that can be phantasmagorical. The existence of elements in the real world provides the basis for magical realism. Writers do not invent new worlds but reveal the magical in this world, as was done by Gabriel García Márquez who wrote the work of the style. In the binary world of realism, the supernatural realm blends with the natural. Authorial reticence is the withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world. The narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events, Magical events are presented as ordinary occurrences, therefore, the reader accepts the marvelous as normal and common
8.
Expressionism
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Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. Expressionism was developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War and it remained popular during the Weimar Republic, particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a range of the arts, including expressionist architecture, painting, literature, theatre, dance, film. The term is sometimes suggestive of angst, in a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grünewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though in practice the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism, though an alternate 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, 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, a few years later, in 1911, a like-minded group of young artists formed Der Blaue Reiter in Munich. The name came from Wassily Kandinskys Der Blaue Reiter painting of 1903, among their members were Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Paul Klee, and Auguste Macke. However, the term Expressionism did not firmly establish itself until 1913, though mainly a German artistic movement initially and most predominant in painting, poetry and the theatre between 1910–30, most precursors of the movement were not German. Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it overlapped with other major isms of the modernist period, with Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Surrealism, more explicitly, that the expressionists rejected the ideology of realism. The term refers to a style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions. It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there are examples of art production in Europe from the 15th century onward which emphasize extreme emotion. Expressionism has been likened to Baroque by critics such as art historian Michel Ragon, according to Alberto Arbasino, a difference between the two is that Expressionism doesnt shun the violently unpleasant effect, while Baroque does. Expressionism throws some terrific fuck yous, Baroque doesnt, brazil, Anita Malfatti, Cândido Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, Iberê Camargo and Lasar Segall. Estonia, Konrad Mägi, Eduard Wiiralt Finland, Tyko Sallinen, Alvar Cawén, Juho Mäkelä, there were a number of groups of expressionist painters, including Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke. Der Blaue Reiter was based in Munich and Die Brücke was based originally in Dresden, Die Brücke was active for a longer period than Der Blaue Reiter, which was only together for a year. The Expressionists had many influences, among them Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh and they were also aware of the work being done by the Fauves in Paris, who influenced Expressionisms tendency toward arbitrary colours and jarring compositions
9.
Romanticism
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Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was embodied most strongly in the arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of heroic individualists and artists, whose examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also promoted the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art, there was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. In the second half of the 19th century, Realism was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism, the decline of Romanticism during this time was associated with multiple processes, including social and political changes and the spread of nationalism. Defining the nature of Romanticism may be approached from the point of the primary importance of the free expression of the feelings of the artist. The importance the Romantics placed on emotion is summed up in the remark of the German painter Caspar David Friedrich that the feeling is his law. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and others believed there were laws that the imagination—at least of a good creative artist—would unconsciously follow through artistic inspiration if left alone. As well as rules, the influence of models from other works was considered to impede the creators own imagination, so that originality was essential. The concept of the genius, or artist who was able to produce his own work through this process of creation from nothingness, is key to Romanticism. This idea is called romantic originality. Not essential to Romanticism, but so widespread as to be normative, was a strong belief, however, this is particularly in the effect of nature upon the artist when he is surrounded by it, preferably alone. Romantic art addressed its audiences with what was intended to be felt as the voice of the artist. So, in literature, much of romantic poetry invited the reader to identify the protagonists with the poets themselves. In both French and German the closeness of the adjective to roman, meaning the new literary form of the novel, had some effect on the sense of the word in those languages. It is only from the 1820s that Romanticism certainly knew itself by its name, the period typically called Romantic varies greatly between different countries and different artistic media or areas of thought. Margaret Drabble described it in literature as taking place roughly between 1770 and 1848, and few dates much earlier than 1770 will be found. In English literature, M. H. Abrams placed it between 1789, or 1798, this latter a very typical view, and about 1830, however, in most fields the Romantic Period is said to be over by about 1850, or earlier
10.
Wall poems in Leiden
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Wall Poems is a project in which 101 poems in many different languages were painted on the exterior walls of buildings in the city of Leiden, The Netherlands. It began in 1992 with a poem in Russian by Marina Tsvetaeva and finished in 2005 with the Spanish poem De Profundis by Federico García Lorca. Other poets included in the set include E. E. Cummings, Langston Hughes, Jan Hanlo, Du Fu, Louis Oliver, Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Shakespeare, yeats, as well as local writers Piet Paaltjens and J. C. A guide available on the web describes a tour for visitors to Leiden that takes in 25 of the 101 poems. The first 43 poems have been collected in a book by Marleen van der Weij, Dicht op de muur, gedichten in Leiden, based on the success of the Leiden poetry project, wall poems have also been painted in several other Dutch cities. In 2012 a poem by Marsman was painted on a wall in Berlin, Marleen van der Weij, Dicht op de muur. Gemeente Leiden, Dienst Bouwen en Wonen,1996, 6th, rev. ed. Burgersdijk & Niermans, Leiden,2000. Marleen van der Weij, Dicht op de muur 2, ISBN9075089112 Poems on the Underground, a public display of poetry in the London Underground Complete list of all poems, with some background information on the project and the poems
11.
Guadalajara
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Guadalajara is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is in the region of Jalisco in the Western-Pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,495,189 it is Mexicos fourth most populous municipality, the municipality is the second most densely populated in Mexico, the first being Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl in the State of Mexico. It is a business and economic center in the Bajio region. Guadalajara is the 10th largest city in Latin America in population, urban area, the city is named after the Spanish city of Guadalajara, the name of which came from the Andalusian Arabic wād l-ḥijāra, meaning river/valley of stones. Other, more industries, such as shoes, textiles. Guadalajara, one of the most popular clubs in Mexico. This city was named the American Capital of Culture for 2005, Guadalajara hosted the 2011 Pan American Games. The city was established in five other places before moving to its current location, the first settlement in 1532 was in Mesa del Cerro, now known as Nochistlán, Zacatecas. This site was settled by Cristóbal de Oñate as commissioned by Nuño de Guzmán, with the purpose of securing recent conquests, the settlement did not last long at this spot due to the lack of water, in 1533 it was moved to a location near Tonalá. Four years later, Guzmán ordered that the village be moved to Tlacotán, while the settlement was in Tlacotán, the Spanish king Charles I granted the coat of arms that the city still has today. This settlement was attacked during the Mixtón War in 1543 by Caxcan, Portecuex. The war was initiated by the due to the cruel treatment of Indians by Nuño de Guzmán. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza had to control of the campaign to suppress the revolt after the Spanish were defeated in several engagements. The conflict ended after Mendoza made some concessions to the Indians such as freeing the Indian slaves, the village of Guadalajara barely survived the war, and the villagers attributed their survival to the Archangel Michael, who remains the patron of the city. It was decided to move the city again, this time to Atemajac. The city has remained there to this day, in 1542, records indicate that 126 people were living in Guadalajara and, in the same year, the status of city was granted by the king of Spain. Guadalajara was officially founded on February 14,1550 in the Valley of Atemajac, the settlements name came from the Spanish hometown of Nuño de Guzmán
