National Library of the Czech Republic
The National Library of the Czech Republic is the central library of the Czech Republic. It is directed by the Ministry of Culture; the library's main building is located in the historical Clementinum building in Prague, where half of its books are kept. The other half of the collection is stored in the district of Hostivař; the National Library is the biggest library in the Czech Republic, in its funds there are around 6 million documents. The library has around 60,000 registered readers; as well as Czech texts, the library stores older material from Turkey and India. The library houses books for Charles University in Prague; the library won international recognition in 2005 as it received the inaugural Jikji Prize from UNESCO via the Memory of the World Programme for its efforts in digitising old texts. The project, which commenced in 1992, involved the digitisation of 1,700 documents in its first 13 years; the most precious medieval manuscripts preserved in the National Library are the Codex Vyssegradensis and the Passional of Abbes Kunigunde.
In 2006 the Czech parliament approved funding for the construction of a new library building on Letna plain, between Hradčanská metro station and Sparta Prague's football ground, Letná stadium. In March 2007, following a request for tender, Czech architect Jan Kaplický was selected by a jury to undertake the project, with a projected completion date of 2011. In 2007 the project was delayed following objections regarding its proposed location from government officials including Prague Mayor Pavel Bém and President Václav Klaus. Plans for the building had still not been decided in February 2008, with the matter being referred to the Office for the Protection of Competition in order to determine if the tender had been won fairly. In 2008, Minister of Culture Václav Jehlička announced the end of the project, following a ruling from the European Commission that the tender process had not been carried out legally; the library was affected by the 2002 European floods, with some documents moved to upper levels to avoid the excess water.
Over 4,000 books were removed from the library in July 2011 following flooding in parts of the main building. There was a fire at the library in December 2012. List of national and state libraries Official website
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and the Hundred Years' War, it was an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the western half of the Carolingian Empire, with the Treaty of Verdun. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, when Hugh Capet was elected king and founded the Capetian dynasty; the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, in 1190. France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a feudal monarchy. In Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France.
West Frankish kings were elected by the secular and ecclesiastic magnates, but the regular coronation of the eldest son of the reigning king during his father's lifetime established the principle of male primogeniture, which became codified in the Salic law. During the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars. France in the early modern era was centralised. Religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France. Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America but was costly and achieved little for France.
The Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the other great powers in 1814 and lasted until the French Revolution of 1848. During the years of the elderly Charlemagne's rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks. After Charlemagne's death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble; the Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Charles the Bald was crowned King of Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, but in the Treaty of Meerssen was forced to cede much of Lotharingia to his brothers, retaining the Rhone and Meuse basins but leaving the Rhineland with Aachen and Trier in East Francia. Viking advances were allowed to increase, their dreaded longships were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other inland waterways, wreaking havoc and spreading terror.
During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, to become Normandy. The Carolingians were to share the fate of their predecessors: after an intermittent power struggle between the two dynasties, the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years; the old order left the new dynasty in immediate control of little beyond the middle Seine and adjacent territories, while powerful territorial lords such as the 10th- and 11th-century counts of Blois accumulated large domains of their own through marriage and through private arrangements with lesser nobles for protection and support. The area around the lower Seine became a source of particular concern when Duke William took possession of the kingdom of England by the Norman Conquest of 1066, making himself and his heirs the King's equal outside France.
Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, married France's newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who ruled much of southwest France, in 1152. After defeating a revolt led by Eleanor and three of their four sons, Henry had Eleanor imprisoned, made the Duke of Brittany his vassal, in effect ruled the western half of France as a greater power than the French throne. However, disputes among Henry's descendants over the division of his French territories, coupled with John of England's lengthy quarrel with Philip II, allowed Philip II to recover influence over most of this territory. After the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne; the death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line. Under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman (Philip IV's daughter
Oława
Oława is a town in south-western Poland with 32,674 inhabitants. It is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, it is the seat of Oława County, of the smaller administrative district of Gmina Oława. Oława began to develop during the early 12th century at a site, protected by the rivers Oder and Oława, it was first mentioned as Oloua in a document of 1149 confirming its donation to the abbey of St. Vincent in Wrocław. In 1206 Oława became one of the residence towns of the dukes of the Silesian Piast dynasty, who granted Oława the status of a town in 1234. During its history Oława was destroyed three times. In 1241 it was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Europe, in 1448 by the Hussites, again in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War. After the Polish King Casimir III had renounced his rights on Silesia with the contract of Trenčín in 1335, Silesia became until 1806 a part of the Holy Roman Empire as a Bohemian fief. In 1526, when the Habsburgs gained the Bohemian crown, Silesia came under Austrian sovereignty.
In 1527 with the Reformation High German language came in use and with it the first usage of the version of the town's name Ohlau is reported. Following the death of the last Silesian Piast duke George IV William of Legnica in 1675, Ohlau ceased to be a residence town. Together with most of Silesia, the town became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1741; the 18th and 19th centuries were a period of economic growth and Ohlau became well known as a centre of tobacco-growing. Ethnic Polish traditions and population remained strong in the area, with a large influx of people from nearby Congress Poland. In 1842 a railroad between Ohlau and Breslau, the first in Silesia, was opened; the historic town of Ohlau did not suffer any damage during World War I, however, in World War II about 60% of the buildings were destroyed. On 2 September 1939, one Polish PZL.23 Karaś bomber plane did bomb a German factory within the city in the first attack on German territory during the war. After 1945, most of the population of the town fled or were expelled, as they were German, new Polish citizens, some of whom had been expelled from the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union, took their place.
Ohlau, renamed as Oława, became a garrison town of the Red Army Northern Group of Forces and remained so until 1992. The flag of Oława presents the Coat of Arms of Oława, on a diagonally divided white-red background; the Coat of Arms presents a white rooster on a red-shield background. There are two traditional hypothesis for the origin of the Coat of Arms: The symbol links in with Walloonian weavers; the shield originates from the town Coat of Arms of the Czech knight family of Olav. Neither hypothesis explains the look of the Coat of Arms in relation to Oława; the Coat of Arms of Oława is identical on the content of the Kur Coat of Arms. On the basis that the Coat of Arms of Oława is in relation to the Kur Coat of Arms, such hypothesis can be deemed agreeable; the Kur Coat of Arms can be linked to Jan of Kur, a knight of Konrad I of Głogów, being the owner of the village of Kurów Wielki in 1266, in County of Polkowice. The Coat of Arms can be traced back to the personage of Szyban von Der - the court adjudicator of Henry III of Głogów - erroneously equated to Szaban Tader, a castellan of the Świny Castle, mentioned in Franciszek Piekosiński's book - Heraldyka polska wieków średnich - published in Kraków, in 1899.
Oława is the centre for production in the Oława County. The town's industries include the production of electronics and car parts. Largest industries include: Zm Silesia SA – production of zinc oxide, lead oxide and cadmium oxide SCA Hygiene Products – production of nappies for toddlers and adults DS Smith – packaging production Autoliv Poland – production of seat belts and car airbags Centrozłom Wrocław PPZM – branch of metal recycling The Lorenz Bahlsen Snack-World Sp. Z o.o. – food production Ergis SA – packaging production MetalErg – furniture processing and packaging Tabex – car parts production ZNTK Oława Sp. Z o.o. – train repair department Zakpol – architrave production Marco – plastic materials production Formtech – plastic materials production Rotex – plastic materials production Atex Sp. Z o.o. – muffler and petrol tank production Electrolux Poland – electronics Nardi Appliances Poland – electronics Standis Polska Sp. Z o.o. - shop furniture production Bama Europa Sp. Z o.o. - confectionery production Maria Karolina Sobieska, duchesse de Bouillon, daughter of James Louis Sobieski.
Maria Clementina Sobieska, wife of the Jacobite pretender James Francis Edward Stuart, sister of the above. Johann Baptist Alzog, German theologian and Catholic church historian. Alfred Israel Pringsheim, German mathematician and patron of the arts Hermann Eberhard, German explorer Bernhard Lichtenberg German Roman Catholic priest and theologian, awarded the title righteous among the Nations. Leopold Lichtwitz, German-American internist Hans-Georg von der Marwitz, German World War I flying ace Richard Peter, German photographer, born in Klein Jenkwitz near Ohlau Bernd Eistert, German chemist Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, German jurist and a member of the German Resistance against Nazism
Jan Daniłowicz
Jan Daniłowicz was a Polish nobleman, voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodeship and grandfather of King Jan III Sobieski. He was voivode of the Ruthenian Voivodship since 1613, castellan of Lviv since 1612, Great Krajczy of the Crown since 1600, Great Podczaszy of the Crown, łowczy of Belz, starost of Belz, Korsuń and Chyhyryn. In his youth he fought with the Tatars. In 1594 he participated in the suppression of the Nalyvaiko Uprising. With his first wife Barbara Krasicka he had two daughters: Katarzyna – wife of Andrzej Firlej Marcjanna – wife of Stefan KoniecpolskiIn 1605 he married Zofia Żółkiewska the daughter of Great Hetman of the Crown Stanisław Żółkiewski and had four children: Zofia Teofila – mother of King of Poland Jan III Sobieski Stanisław – killed by Tatars Jan Dorota – Benedictine Abbess in Lwów since 1640 Kazimierz Lepszy, Jan Daniłowicz, w: Polski Słownik Biograficzny, Kraków 1938, t. IV, s. 414-415. Olesko Castle
Battle of Vienna
The Battle of Vienna took place at Kahlenberg Mountain near Vienna on 11 September 1683 after the imperial city had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months. The battle was fought by the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire, under the command of King John III Sobieski against the Ottomans and their vassal and tributary states; the battle marked the first time the Commonwealth and the Holy Roman Empire had cooperated militarily against the Ottomans, it is seen as a turning point in history, after which "the Ottoman Turks ceased to be a menace to the Christian world". In the ensuing war that lasted until 1699, the Ottomans lost all of Hungary to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I; the battle was won by the combined forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the latter represented only by the forces of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The Viennese garrison was led by Ernst Rüdiger Graf von Starhemberg, an Austrian subject of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I.
The overall command was held by the senior leader, the King of Poland, John III Sobieski, who led the relief forces. The opposing military forces were those of the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman fiefdoms, commanded by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha; the Ottoman army numbered 90,000 to 300,000 men. They began the siege on 14 July 1683. Ottoman forces consisted, among other units, of 60 ortas of Janissaries with an observation army of some 70,000 men watching the countryside; the decisive battle took place on 11 September, after the arrival of the united relief army. Historians suggest the battle marked the turning point in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, a 300-year struggle between the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires. During the 16 years following the battle, the Austrian Habsburgs recovered and dominated southern Hungary and Transylvania, cleared of Ottoman forces; the battle is noted for including the largest known cavalry charge in history. Capturing the city of Vienna had long been a strategic aspiration of the Ottoman Empire, because of its interlocking control over Danubian southern Europe and the overland trade routes.
During the years preceding this second siege under the auspices of grand viziers from the influential Köprülü family, the Ottoman Empire undertook extensive logistical preparations, including the repair and establishment of roads and bridges leading into the Holy Roman Empire and its logistical centers, as well as the forwarding of ammunition and other resources from all over the Empire to these centers and into the Balkans. Since 1679 the plague had been raging in Vienna. On the political front, the Ottoman Empire had been providing military assistance to the Hungarians and non-Catholic minorities in Habsburg-occupied portions of Hungary. There, in the years preceding the siege, widespread unrest had grown into open rebellion against Leopold I's pursuit of Counter-Reformation principles and his desire to crush Protestantism. In 1681 Protestants and other anti-Habsburg Kuruc forces, led by Imre Thököly, were reinforced with a significant force from the Ottomans, who recognized Thököly as King of "Upper Hungary".
This support included explicitly promising the "Kingdom of Vienna" to the Hungarians if it fell into Ottoman hands. Yet before the siege, a state of peace had existed for 20 years between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire as a result of the Peace of Vasvár. In 1681 and 1682 clashes between the forces of Imre Thököly and the Holy Roman Empire intensified, the incursions of Habsburg forces into central Hungary provided the crucial argument of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha in convincing Sultan Mehmet IV and his Divan to allow the movement of the Ottoman army. Mehmet IV authorized Mustafa Pasha to operate as far as Győr and Komárom Castles, both in northwestern Hungary, to besiege them; the Ottoman army was mobilized on 21 January 1682 and war was declared on 6 August 1682. The logistics of the time meant it would have been risky or impossible to launch an invasion in August or September 1682, since a three-month campaign would have taken the Ottomans to Vienna just as winter set in.
But the 15-month gap between mobilization and the launch of a full-scale invasion provided ample time for Vienna to prepare its defense and for Leopold to assemble troops from the Holy Roman Empire and form an alliance with Poland and Pope Innocent XI. This undoubtedly contributed to the failure of the Ottoman campaign; the decisive alliance of the Holy Roman Empire with Poland was concluded in the 1683 Treaty of Warsaw, by which Leopold promised to support Sobieski if the Ottomans attacked Kraków, in return the Polish army would come to the relief of Vienna if it were attacked. On 31 March 1683, another declaration—sent by Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha on behalf of Mehmet IV—arrived at the Imperial Court in Vienna; the next day the forward march of Ottoman army elements began from E
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of western Christianity that identifies with the teaching of Martin Luther, a 16th century German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation; the reaction of the government and church authorities to the international spread of his writings, beginning with the 95 Theses, divided Western Christianity. The split between the Lutherans and the Catholics was made public and clear with the 1521 Edict of Worms: the edicts of the Diet condemned Luther and banned citizens of the Holy Roman Empire from defending or propagating his ideas, subjecting advocates of Lutheranism to forfeiture of all property, half of the seized property to be forfeit to the imperial government and the remaining half forfeit to the party who brought the accusation; the divide centered on two points: the proper source of authority in the church called the formal principle of the Reformation, the doctrine of justification called the material principle of Lutheran theology.
Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification "by grace alone through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone", the doctrine that scripture is the final authority on all matters of faith. This is in contrast to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church, defined at the Council of Trent, concerning authority coming from both the Scriptures and Tradition. Unlike Calvinism, Lutherans retain many of the liturgical practices and sacramental teachings of the pre-Reformation Church, with a particular emphasis on the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper. Lutheran theology differs from Reformed theology in Christology, divine grace, the purpose of God's Law, the concept of perseverance of the saints, predestination; the name Lutheran originated as a derogatory term used against Luther by German Scholastic theologian Dr. Johann Maier von Eck during the Leipzig Debate in July 1519. Eck and other Roman Catholics followed the traditional practice of naming a heresy after its leader, thus labeling all who identified with the theology of Martin Luther as Lutherans.
Martin Luther always disliked the term Lutheran, preferring the term Evangelical, derived from εὐαγγέλιον euangelion, a Greek word meaning "good news", i.e. "Gospel". The followers of John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, other theologians linked to the Reformed tradition used that term. To distinguish the two evangelical groups, others began to refer to the two groups as Evangelical Lutheran and Evangelical Reformed; as time passed by, the word Evangelical was dropped. Lutherans themselves began to use the term Lutheran in the middle of the 16th century, in order to distinguish themselves from other groups such as the Anabaptists and Calvinists. In 1597, theologians in Wittenberg defined the title Lutheran as referring to the true church. Lutheranism has its roots in the work of Martin Luther, who sought to reform the Western Church to what he considered a more biblical foundation. Lutheranism spread through all of Scandinavia during the 16th century, as the monarch of Denmark–Norway and the monarch of Sweden adopted Lutheranism.
Through Baltic-German and Swedish rule, Lutheranism spread into Estonia and Latvia. Since 1520, regular Lutheran services have been held in Copenhagen. Under the reign of Frederick I, Denmark–Norway remained Catholic. Although Frederick pledged to persecute Lutherans, he soon adopted a policy of protecting Lutheran preachers and reformers, the most significant being Hans Tausen. During Frederick's reign, Lutheranism made significant inroads in Denmark. At an open meeting in Copenhagen attended by the king in 1536, the people shouted. Frederick's son Christian was Lutheran, which prevented his election to the throne upon his father's death. However, following his victory in the civil war that followed, in 1537 he became Christian III and advanced the Reformation in Denmark–Norway; the constitution upon which the Danish Norwegian Church, according to the Church Ordinance, should rest was "The pure word of God, the Law and the Gospel". It does not mention the Augsburg Confession; the priests had to understand the Holy Scripture well enough to preach and explain the Gospel and the Epistles for their congregations.
The youths were taught from Luther's Small Catechism, available in Danish since 1532. They were taught to expect at the end of life: "forgiving of their sins", "to be counted as just", "the eternal life". Instruction is still similar; the first complete Bible in Danish was based on Martin Luther's translation into German. It was published with 3,000 copies printed in the first edition. Unlike Catholicism, the Lutheran Church does not believe that tradition is a carrier of the "Word of God", or that only the communion of the Bishop of Rome has been entrusted to interpret the "Word of God"; the Reformation in Sweden began with Olaus and Laurentius Petri, brothers who took the Reformation to Sweden after studying in Germany. They led elected king in 1523, to Lutheranism; the pope's refusal to allow the replacement of an archbishop who had supported the invading forces opposing Gustav Vasa during the Stockholm Bloodbath led to the severing of any official connection between Sweden and the papacy in 1523.
Four years at the Diet of Västerås, the king succeeded in forcing the diet to accept his dominion over the national church. The king was given possession of all church properties, as well as the church appointments and approval of the clergy. While this granted official sanction to Lutheran ideas, Lutheranism did not become official until 1593. At that time the Uppsa
