Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements; the period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's play of the same name, first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller were notable proponents of the movement early in their life, although they ended their period of association with it by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism. French neoclassicism, a movement beginning in the early Baroque, with its emphasis on the rational, was the principal target of rebellion for adherents of the Sturm und Drang movement. For them, sentimentality and an objective view of life gave way to emotional turbulence and individuality, enlightenment ideals such as rationalism and universalism no longer captured the human condition.
The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler's Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776. The setting of the play is the unfolding American Revolution, in which the author gives violent expression to difficult emotions and extols individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. Though it is argued that literature and music associated with Sturm und Drang predate this seminal work, it was from this point that German artists became distinctly self-conscious of a new aesthetic; this spontaneous movement became associated with a wide array of German authors and composers of the mid-to-late Classical period. Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion; the movement soon gave way to Weimar Classicism and early Romanticism, whereupon a socio-political concern for greater human freedom from despotism was incorporated along with a religious treatment of all things natural.
There is much debate regarding whose work should or should not be included in the canon of Sturm und Drang. One point of view would limit the movement to Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, their direct German associates writing works of fiction and/or philosophy between 1770 and the early 1780s; the alternative perspective is that of a literary movement inextricably linked to simultaneous developments in prose and drama, extending its direct influence throughout the German-speaking lands until the end of the 18th century. The originators of the movement came to view it as a time of premature exuberance, abandoned in favor of conflicting artistic pursuits; the literary topos of the "Kraftmensch" existed as a precursor to Sturm und Drang among dramatists beginning with F. M. Klinger, the expression of, seen in the radical degree to which individuality need appeal to no outside authority save the self nor be tempered by rationalism; these ideals are identical to those of Sturm und Drang, it can be argued that the name exists to catalog a number of parallel, co-influential movements in German literature rather than express anything different from what German dramatists were achieving in the violent plays attributed to the Kraftmensch movement.
Major philosophical/theoretical influences on the literary Sturm und Drang movement were Johann Georg Hamann and Johann Gottfried Herder, both from Königsberg, both in contact with Immanuel Kant. Significant theoretical statements of Sturm und Drang aesthetics by the movement's central dramatists themselves include Lenz' Anmerkungen übers Theater and Goethe's Von deutscher Baukunst and Zum Schäkespears Tag; the most important contemporary document was the 1773 volume Von deutscher Art und Kunst. Einige fliegende Blätter, a collection of essays that included commentaries by Herder on Ossian and Shakespeare, along with contributions by Goethe, Paolo Frisi, Justus Möser; the protagonist in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. Goethe's unfinished Prometheus exemplifies this along with the common ambiguity provided by juxtaposing humanistic platitudes with outbursts of irrationality.
The literature of Sturm und Drang features an anti-aristocratic slant while seeking to elevate all things humble, natural, or intensely real. The story of hopeless love and eventual suicide presented in Goethe's sentimental novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers is an example of the author's tempered introspection regarding his love and torment. Friedrich Schiller's drama, Die Räuber, provided the groundwork for melodrama to become a recognized dramatic form; the plot portrays a conflict between two aristocratic brothers and Karl Moor. Franz is cast as a villain attempting to cheat Karl out of his inheritance, though the motives for his action are comp
Landau
Landau, or Landau in der Pfalz, is an autonomous town surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town, a long-standing cultural centre, a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the Palatinate wine region. Landau lies east of the Palatinate forest, Europe's largest contiguous forest, on the German Wine Route, it contains the districts of Arzheim, Godramstein, Mörlheim, Mörzheim, Nussdorf and Wollmesheim. Landau was first mentioned as a settlement in 1106, it was in the possession of the counts of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Landeck, whose arms, differenced by an escutcheon of the Imperial eagle, served as the arms of Landau until 1955. The town was granted a charter in 1274 by King Rudolf I of Germany, who declared the town a Free Imperial Town in 1291; the town did not regain its ancient rights until 1511 from Maximilian I. An Augustinian monastery was founded in 1276. Landau was part of France from 1680 to 1815, during which it was one of the Décapole, the ten free cities of Alsace, received its modern fortifications by Louis XIV's military architect Vauban in 1688–99, making the little town one of Europe's strongest citadels.
In the War of the Spanish Succession it had four Sieges. After the Siege in 1702, lost by the French, an Imperial garrison was installed in Landau. After the 2nd Siege from 13 October to 15 November 1703 the French had regained the city, caused by their victory in the Battle of Speyerbach; the 3rd Siege began on 12 September 1704 by Louis, Margrave of Baden-Baden, ended on 23 November 1704 with the French defeat. During this siege King Joseph I arrived at Landau coming from Vienna in a newly developed convertible carriage, it became popular, named Landau in English, or Landauer in German. The French got Landau back after the 4th Siege which lasted from 6 June to 20 August 1713 by Marshal General Villars. Landau was part of Bas-Rhin department between 1789 and 1815. After Napoleon's Hundred Days following his escape from Elba, which had remained French, was granted to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1815 and became the capital of one of the thirteen Bezirksämter of the Bavarian Rheinkreis renamed Pfalz.
In 1840 famous political cartoonist Thomas Nast was born in Landau. Following World War II, Landau was an important barracks town for the French occupation. Landau's large main square is dominated by the market hall. In the 19th-century, the former fortifications gave way to a ring road that encircles the old town centre, from which the old industrial buildings have been excluded. A convention hall, the Festhalle, was built in Art Nouveau style, 1905–07 on a rise overlooking the town park and facing the modernist Bundesamt, the regional government building; the "Protestant Collegiate Church" in Landau in der Pfalz is one of the oldest buildings in the town. With the construction of the church started in the 14th century, was completed in the mid 16th Century; the zoo is located close to the center of Landau alongside the historical fortifications. Animals are held in natural enclosures; the zoo contains numerous exotic species such as tigers and cheetahs, but seals, penguins and flamingos and many more.
Wine-making continues to be an important industry of Landau. The "landau," a luxury open carriage with a pair of folding tops, was invented in the town. Landau in der Pfalz travel guide from Wikivoyage Official website Pictures
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire known as Imperial Russia or Russia, was an empire that existed across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917. The third largest empire in world history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires; the rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Golden Horde, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south; the House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov ruled from 1762. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east.
With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics and religion. There were numerous dissident elements. Economically, the empire had a predominantly agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs, Russian peasants; the economy industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. The land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that emerged, he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, laid the foundations of the Russian state. Emperor Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an huge empire into a major European power, he moved the capital from Moscow to the new model city of St. Petersburg, led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political mores with a modern, Europe-oriented, rationalist system.
Empress Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. Emperor Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861, his policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That connection by 1914 led to Russia's entry into the First World War on the side of France, the United Kingdom, Serbia, against the German and Ottoman empires; the Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy on principles of Orthodoxy and Nationality until the Revolution of 1905 and became a de jure constitutional monarchy. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917 as a result of massive failures in its participation in the First World War. Though the Empire was only proclaimed by Tsar Peter I following the Treaty of Nystad, some historians would argue that it was born either when Ivan III of Russia conquered Veliky Novgorod in 1478, or when Ivan the Terrible conquered the Khanate of Kazan in 1552. According to another point of view, the term Tsardom, used after the coronation of Ivan IV in 1547, was a contemporary Russian word for empire.
Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonization of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, the Russian conquest of Siberia. Poland was divided in the 1790 -- 1815 era, with much of the population going to Russia. Most of the 19th-century growth came from adding territory in Asia, south of Siberia. Peter I the Great played a major role in introducing Russia to the European state system. While the vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns; the class of kholops, close in status to slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation. Russian agricultural kholops were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. Peter's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks.
His attention turned to the North. Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him to make a secret alliance in 1699 with Saxony, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden, resulting in the Great Northern War; the war ended in 1721. Peter acquired four provinces situated east of the Gulf of Finland; the coveted access to the sea was now secured. There he built Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. In 1722, he tur
Fort-Louis
Fort-Louis is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It acquired its principal raison d'être from a 17th-century fort, known as Fort Louis. More the population of the settlement increased between 1962 and 2004 from 137 to 279. In 1686 the king mandated Vauban to construct a fortification complex at Fort Louis, situated at that time on an island between two branches of the Rhine; the principal fort, to be called the square fort was to be backed up by two fortified bridgeheads, one of which, named Fort Alsace, was to be on the Alsace side of the river, the other of which, Fort Marquisat, was to be on the Baden side of the river. During the course of the Franco-German wars of the 18th century the fort was besieged on several occasions, following the defeat of Napoleon, the square fort was dismantled in 1818, it was in 1890, purchased by the commune. Today, little survives beyond earthworks and some sections of wall from Fort Carré and Fort Alsace Communes of the Bas-Rhin department INSEE commune file
Zürich
Zürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich; the municipality has 409,000 inhabitants, the urban agglomeration 1.315 million and the Zürich metropolitan area 1.83 million. Zürich is a hub for railways and air traffic. Both Zürich Airport and railway station are the busiest in the country. Permanently settled for over 2,000 years, Zürich was founded by the Romans, who, in 15 BC, called it Turicum. However, early settlements have been found dating back more than 6,400 years ago. During the Middle Ages, Zürich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, became a primary centre of the Protestant Reformation in Europe under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli; the official language of Zürich is German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect, Zürich German. Many museums and art galleries can be found in the city, including the Swiss National Museum and the Kunsthaus.
Schauspielhaus Zürich is one of the most important theatres in the German-speaking world. Zürich is a leading global city and among the world's largest financial centres despite having a small population; the city is home to a large number of financial institutions and banking companies. Most of Switzerland's research and development centres are concentrated in Zürich and the low tax rates attract overseas companies to set up their headquarters there. Monocle's 2012 "Quality of Life Survey" ranked Zürich first on a list of the top 25 cities in the world "to make a base within". According to several surveys from 2006 to 2008, Zürich was named the city with the best quality of life in the world as well as the wealthiest city in Europe in terms of GDP per capita; the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Ranking sees Zürich rank among the top ten most liveable cities in the world. In German, the city name is written Zürich, pronounced in Swiss Standard German. In Zürich German, the local dialect of Swiss German, the name is pronounced without the final consonant, as Züri, although the adjective remains Zürcher.
The city is called Zurich in French, Zurigo in Italian, Turitg in Romansh. In English, the name used to be written without the umlaut. So, standard English practice for German calques is to either preserve the umlaut or replace it with the base letter followed by e, it is pronounced ZEWR-ik, more sometimes with /ts/, as in German. The earliest known form of the city's name is Turicum, attested on a tombstone of the late 2nd century AD in the form STA TURICEN; the name is interpreted as a derivation from a given name Gaulish personal name Tūros, for a reconstructed native form of the toponym of *Turīcon. The Latin stress on the long vowel of the Gaulish name, was lost in German but is preserved in Italian and in Romansh; the first development towards its Germanic form is attested as early as the 6th century with the form Ziurichi. From the 9th century onward, the name is established in an Old High German form Zurih. In the early modern period, the name became associated with the name of the Tigurini, the name Tigurum rather than the historical Turicum is sometimes encountered in Modern Latin contexts.
Settlements of the Neolithic and Bronze Age were found around Lake Zürich. Traces of pre-Roman Celtic, La Tène settlements were discovered near the Lindenhof, a morainic hill dominating the SE - NW waterway constituted by Lake Zurich and the river Limmat. In Roman times, during the conquest of the alpine region in 15 BC, the Romans built a castellum on the Lindenhof. Here was erected Turicum, a tax-collecting point for goods trafficked on the Limmat, which constituted part of the border between Gallia Belgica and Raetia: this customs point developed into a vicus. After Emperor Constantine's reforms in AD 318, the border between Gaul and Italy was located east of Turicum, crossing the river Linth between Lake Walen and Lake Zürich, where a castle and garrison looked over Turicum's safety; the earliest written record of the town dates from the 2nd century, with a tombstone referring to it as to the Statio Turicensis Quadragesima Galliarum, discovered at the Lindenhof. In the 5th century, the Germanic Alemanni tribe settled in the Swiss Plateau.
The Roman castle remained standing until the 7th century. A Carolingian castle, built on the site of the Roman castle by the grandson of Charlemagne, Louis the German, is mentioned in 835. Louis founded the Fraumünster abbey in 853 for his daughter Hildegard, he endowed the Benedictine convent with the lands of Zürich and the Albis forest, granted the convent immunity, placing it under his direct authority. In 1045, King Henry III granted the convent the right to hold markets, collect tolls, mint coins, thus made the abbess the ruler of the city. Zürich gained Imperial immediacy in 1218 with the extinction of the main line of the Zähringer family and attained a status comparable to statehood. During the 1230s, a city wall was built, enclosing 38 hectares, when the earliest stone houses on the Rennweg were built as well; the Carolingian castle was used as a quarry, as it had st
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 637,827 inhabitants, it is the largest city in the three Baltic states, home to one third of Latvia's population and one tenth of the three Baltic states' combined population; the city lies at the mouth of the Daugava river. Riga's territory lies 1 -- 10 m above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga is a former Hanseatic League member. Riga's historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture along with Umeå in Sweden. Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, the 2006 IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championships and the 2013 World Women's Curling Championship, it is home to the European Union's office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications. In 2016, Riga received over 1.4 million visitors. It is served by the largest and busiest airport in the Baltic states. Riga is a member of Eurocities, the Union of the Baltic Cities and Union of Capitals of the European Union.
One theory about the origin of the name Riga is that it is a corrupted borrowing from the Liv ringa meaning loop, referring to the ancient natural harbour formed by the tributary loop of the Daugava River. The other is that Riga owes its name to this already-established role in commerce between East and West, as a borrowing of the Latvian rija, for threshing barn, the "j" becoming a "g" in German — notably, Riga is called Rie by English geographer Richard Hakluyt, German historian Dionysius Fabricius confirms the origin of Riga from rija. Another theory could be that Riga was named after Riege, the German name for the River Rīdzene, a tributary of the Daugava. Another theory is that Riga's name is introduced by the bishop Albert, initiator of christening and conquest of Livonian and Baltic people, he introduced an explanation of city name as derived from Latin rigata that symbolizes an "irrigation of dry pagan souls by Christianity". The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings' Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium.
A sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of today's Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs, as early as the 2nd century. It was settled by an ancient Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages. Riga's inhabitants occupied themselves with fishing, animal husbandry, trading developing crafts; the Livonian Chronicle of Henry testifies to Riga having long been a trading centre by the 12th century, referring to it as portus antiquus, describes dwellings and warehouses used to store flax, hides. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158. Along with German traders the monk Meinhard of Segeberg arrived to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, many Latvians baptised. Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, established his bishopric there.
The Livs, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, having failed in his mission. In 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Berthold died soon afterwards and his forces defeated; the Church mobilised to avenge the issuance of a bull by Pope Innocent III declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg in 1199. Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, extorting agreement to do this from the elders of Riga by force; the year 1201 marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, open to nobles and merchants; the Christianization of the Livs continued. In 1207, Albert started to fortify the town.
Emperor Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. To promote a permanent military presence, territorial ownership was divided between the Church and the Order, with the Church taking Riga and two-thirds of all lands conquered and granting the Order a third; until it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and return home. Albert had ensured Riga's commercial future by obtaining papal bulls which decreed that all German merchants had to carry on their Baltic trade through Riga. In 1211, Riga minted its first coinage, Albert laid the cornerstone for the Riga Dom. Riga was not yet secure. In 1212, Albert led a campaign to compel Polotsk to grant German merchants free river passage. Polotsk conceded Kukenois and Jersika to Albert ending the Livs' tribute to Polotsk. Riga's merchant citizenry sought greater autonomy from the Church. In 1221, they acquired the right to independently self-administer Riga and adopted a city constitution; that same year Albert was compelled to recognise Danish rule over lands they had conquered in Estonia and Livonia.
Albert had sought the aid of King Valdemar of Denmark to protect Riga and Livonian lands against Liv insurrection when reinforcements could not
