Piraeus
Piraeus is a port city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens urban area, 12 kilometres southwest from its city centre, lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf. According to the 2011 census, Piraeus had a population of 163,688 people within its administrative limits, making it the fourth largest municipality in Greece and the second largest within the urban area of the Greek capital, following the municipality of Athens; the municipality of Piraeus and several other suburban municipalities within the regional unit of Piraeus form the greater Piraeus area, with a total population of 448,997. Piraeus has a long recorded history, dating to ancient Greece; the city was developed in the early 5th century BC, when it was selected to serve as the port city of classical Athens and was transformed into a prototype harbour, concentrating all the import and transit trade of Athens. During the Golden Age of Athens the Long Walls were constructed to fortify its port, it became the chief harbour of ancient Greece, but declined after the 4th century AD, growing once more in the 19th century, after Athens' declaration as the capital of Greece.
In the modern era, Piraeus is a large city, bustling with activity and an integral part of Athens, acting as home to the country's biggest harbour and bearing all the characteristics of a huge marine and commercial-industrial centre. The port of Piraeus is the chief port in Greece, the largest passenger port in Europe and the second largest in the world, servicing about 20 million passengers annually. With a throughput of 1.4 million TEUs, Piraeus is placed among the top ten ports in container traffic in Europe and the top container port in the Eastern Mediterranean. The city hosted events in both the 1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens; the University of Piraeus is one of the largest universities in Greece. Piraeus, which means'the place over the passage', has been inhabited since the 26th century BC. In prehistoric times, Piraeus was a rocky island consisting of the steep hill of Munichia, modern-day Kastella, was connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of land, flooded with sea water most of the year, used as a salt field whenever it dried up.
It was called the Halipedon, meaning the'salt field', its muddy soil made it a tricky passage. Through the centuries, the area was silted and flooding ceased, thus by early classical times the land passage was made safe. In ancient Greece, Piraeus assumed its importance with its three deep water harbours, the main port of Cantharus and the two smaller of Zea and Munichia, replaced the older and shallow Phaleron harbour, which fell into disuse. In the late 6th century BC, the area caught attention due to its advantages. In 511 BC, the hill of Munichia was fortified by Hippias and four years Piraeus became a deme of Athens by Cleisthenes. According to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, in 493 BC, Themistocles initiated the fortification works in Piraeus and advised the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours' strategic potential instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron. In 483 BC, a new silver vein was discovered in Laurion mines, utilized to fund the construction of 200 triremes, the Athenian fleet, transferred to Piraeus and was built in its shipyards.
The Athenian fleet played a crucial role in the battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BC. From on Piraeus was permanently used as the navy base. After the second Persian invasion of Greece, Themistocles fortified the three harbours of Piraeus and created the neosoikoi; the city's fortification was farther reinforced by the construction of the Long Walls under Cimon and Pericles, with which secure port's route to Athens main city. Meanwhile, Piraeus was rebuilt to the famous grid plan of architect Hippodamus of Miletus, known as the Hippodamian plan, the main agora of the city was named after him in honour; as a result, Piraeus flourished and became a port of high security and great commercial activity, a city bustling with life. During the Peloponnesian War, Piraeus suffered its first setback. In the second year of the war, the first cases of the Athens plague were recorded in Piraeus. In 429 the Spartans ravaged Salamis as part of an abortive attack on the Piraeus, when the Athenians responded by sending a fleet to investigate, the Spartan alliance forces fled.
In 404 BC, the Spartan fleet under Lysander blockaded Piraeus and subsequently Athens surrendered to the Spartans, putting an end to the Delian League and the war itself. Piraeus would follow the fate of Athens and was to bear the brunt of the Spartans' rage, as the city's walls and the Long Walls were torn down; as a result, the tattered and unfortified port city was not able to compete with prosperous Rhodes, which controlled commerce. In 403 BC, Munichia was seized by Thrasybulus and the exiles from Phyle, in the battle of Munichia, where the Phyleans defeated the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, but in the following battle of Piraeus the exiles were defeated by Spartan forces. After the reinstatement of democracy, Conon rebuilt the walls in 393 BC, founded the temple of Aphrodite Euploia and the sanctuary of Zeus Sotiros and Athena, built the famous Skeuotheke of Philon, the ruins of which have been discovered at Zea harbour; the reconstruction of Piraeus went on
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role while working within the film industry; the award was traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actor winner. At the 9th Academy Awards ceremony held in 1937, Gale Sondergaard was the first winner of this award for her role in Anthony Adverse. Winners in both supporting acting categories were awarded plaques instead of statuettes. Beginning with the 16th ceremony held in 1944, winners received full-sized statuettes. Nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the actors branch of AMPAS. Since its inception, the award has been given to 81 actresses. Dianne Wiest and Shelley Winters have received the most awards in this category with two awards each. Despite winning no awards, Thelma Ritter was nominated on six occasions, more than any other actress.
As of the 2019 ceremony, Regina King is the most recent winner in this category for her role as Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, correspond to the year of film release in Los Angeles County. All Academy Award acting nominees BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role Crouse, Richard. Reel Winners: Movie Award Trivia. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-55002-574-3. Kinn, Gail. Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards. New York, United States: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-34540-053-6. OCLC 779680732. Oscars.org Oscar.com The Academy Awards Database
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, in a production by a Danish company on tour. Like many of Ibsen's plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality; because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease and euthanasia, it generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since the play has fared better, is considered a “great play” that holds a position of “immense importance”. Theater critic Maurice Valency wrote in 1963, "From the standpoint of modern tragedy Ghosts strikes off in a new direction.... Regular tragedy dealt with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. Ghosts, on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it." Mrs. Helen Alving, a widow Oswald Alving, her son, a painter Pastor Manders, an old friend of Helene Alving Jacob Engstrand, a carpenter Regina Engstrand, Mrs. Alving's maid and purported daughter of Jacob Engstrand, who learns she is Captain Alving's natural child Helen Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in the memory of her late husband, Captain Alving.
She reveals to Pastor Manders that her marriage was secretly a miserable one because of her husband's immoral, unfaithful behavior. She has built the orphanage to deplete her husband's wealth so that their son Oswald will not inherit anything from him. Pastor Manders had advised her to return to her husband despite his philandering, she followed his advice in the belief that her love for her husband would reform him, but her husband continued his affairs until his death, Mrs. Alving stayed with him to protect her son from the taint of scandal, for fear of being shunned by the community. During the action of the play, she discovers that her son Oswald is suffering from syphilis that he inherited from his father, she discovers that Oswald has fallen in love with her maid Regina Engstrand, a serious problem because Regina is revealed to be an illegitimate daughter of Captain Alving, making her Oswald's half-sister. A sub-plot that concludes before the play's denouement involves a carpenter, Jacob Engstrand, who married Regina's mother when she was pregnant and regards Regina as his own daughter.
Having completed his work building Mrs. Alving's orphanage, Engstrand announces his ambition to open a hostel for seafarers, he tries to persuade Regina to leave Mrs. Alving and help him run the hostel; the night before the orphanage is due to be opened, Engstrand asks Pastor Manders to hold a prayer-meeting there. That night, the orphanage burns down. Earlier, Manders had persuaded Mrs. Alving not to insure the orphanage, as to do so would imply a lack of faith in divine providence. Engstrand says the blaze was caused by Manders' carelessness with a candle and offers to take the blame, which Manders accepts. In gratitude Manders offers to support Engstrand's hostel; when Regina and Oswald's sibling relationship is exposed, Regina departs. He asks his mother to help him die by a morphine overdose to end his suffering from his disease, which could put him into a helpless vegetative state, she agrees, but only. The play concludes with Mrs. Alving having to confront the decision of whether or not to euthanize her son in accordance with his wishes.
As with his other plays, Henrik Ibsen wrote Ghosts in Danish, the common written language of Denmark and Norway. The original title, in both Danish and Norwegian, is Gengangere, which can be translated as "again walkers", "ones who return", or "revenants", it has a double meaning of both "ghosts" and "events that repeat themselves", so the English title Ghosts fails to capture this double meaning. Ibsen published it in December of the same year; as early as November 1880, when he was living in Rome, Ibsen was meditating on a new play to follow A Doll's House. When he went to Sorrento, in the summer of 1881, he was hard at work upon it, he published it in Copenhagen on 13 December. Its world stage première was on 20 May 1882 in Norwegian by a Danish company in Illinois. Ghosts premiered in May 1882 in the United States, when a Danish touring company produced it in Chicago, Illinois, at the Aurora Turner Hall. Ibsen disliked the English translator William Archer's use of the word "Ghosts" as the play's title, as the Norwegian Gengangere would be more translated as "The Revenants", which means "The Ones Who Return".
The play was first performed in Sweden at Helsingborg on 22 August 1883. The play was produced independently in September 1889 at Berlin's Die Freie Bühne; the play achieved a single private London performance on 13 March 1891 at the Royalty Theatre. The issue of Lord Chamberlain's Office censorship, because of the subject matter of illegitimate children and sexually transmitted disease, was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Independent Theatre Society to produce the play, its members included playwright George Bernard Shaw and authors Thomas Henry James. Ghosts was first produced in New York City on 5 January 1894, it was produced again in 1899 by the New York Independent Theatre with Mary Shaw as Mrs. Alving. Russian actress Alla Nazimova, with Paul Orleneff, gave a notable production of Ghosts in a small room on the Lower East Side; when Nazimova was a student in Russia, she wanted to “play Regina for my graduation piece at the dramatic school at Moscow, but they would not let
The Father (Strindberg play)
The Father is a naturalistic tragedy by Swedish playwright August Strindberg, written in 1887. Captain Adolph, an officer of the cavalry, his wife, have a disagreement regarding the education of their daughter Bertha. Laura wants her to stay at home and become an artist, while Adolph wants Bertha to move into town and study to be a teacher. Adolph says that his decision is final, that the law supports him, because, he points out, the woman sells her rights when she agrees to be married; the argument becomes fierce. Laura suggests. Laura persuades the family doctor that Adolph may be mad, because, as an amateur scientist, he thinks he has discovered life on another planet by looking through a microscope. Adolph in fact has discovered signs of organic life by studying meteorites through a spectroscope. Laura reveals to the doctor that she has obtained a letter that Adolph once wrote confessing that he himself feared he might go mad. Adolph becomes frustrated and responds with violence — he throws a burning lamp in the direction of his wife as she exits.
The moment he does. It appears that Laura has cunningly provoked him to commit this irrational act, which becomes the pretext for having him committed. While waiting for the straitjacket to arrive, the pastor tells Laura she is strong. "Let me see your hand! Not one incriminating spot of blood to give you away!" he says, "One little innocent murder that the law can't touch. In a scene of intense emotional pathos, it is Margaret, the captain's old nurse, who cajoles the captain, who indeed has now been driven mad, into a straitjacket. Laura is presented as having a stronger will than her husband, who says to her: "You could hypnotize me when I was wide awake, so that I neither saw nor heard, only obeyed." As the captain suffers a stroke and dies, Bertha rushes to her mother, who exclaims, "My child! My own child!" as the pastor says, "Amen". This play expresses a recurrent theme in Strindberg: the state’s marriage laws are unjust, in particular when the law gives the husband rights while depriving the wife and mother.
The play shows a determined individual finding her way to oppose injustice, the play demonstrates how factors can lead one to become fiercely determined. At the time the play was written, Strindberg's marriage was deteriorating with his wife Siri von Essen, situations in the play could have loosely resembled situations occurring in his failing marriage. Different religions, Baptist, an occult spiritualism, exist in the household and vie for Bertha's acceptance. There are references in the play to Greek Mythology and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. Strindberg was aware of the literary discussions regarding what constituted naturalism in drama, the theory of Emile Zola, naturalism’s chief proponent. Zola felt that the naturalistic playwright should observe life carefully, render it in a documentary fashion. In creating character the playwright should be scientific and show that character is determined by heredity and environment, and the playwright should apply understanding of physiology.
Sets and costumes should be realistic, the long expositions and complicated intrigues of romances and the "well-made play" should be avoided. Zola felt that the French drama had not achieved true naturalism, Strindberg felt challenged to succeed where others had not; because of blasphemous comments, Strindberg found it hard for his work to be published and produced in Sweden. This play was the first Strindberg play to be produced outside of Scandinavia, in Berlin in 1890; the Father marked a turning point for Strindberg, as he went to a style of writing he deemed "artistic-psychological writing". In an essay "Psychic Murder", written just after "The Father" was completed, Strindberg discusses Henrik Ibsen’s play Rosmersholm, suggests how Ibsen might have handled Rebecca West’s "psychic murder" of Mrs. Rosmer, which Ibsen doesn’t describe, it might be affected, according to Strindberg, by planting jealousy in Mrs. Rosmer's mind, the way Iago did to Othello, he goes on to describe the same methods that Laura uses against the Captain in The Father.
The use of psychological elements in Strindberg’s play move it closer to Naturalism than Ibsen’s play. There is a Darwinian struggle between the two principals, Darwin's theory is referenced in the play. Warner Oland's 1912 Broadway production of The Father was the first performance of a Strindberg play in the United States. Oland translated and starred in the production, which met with mixed reviews and closed after 31 performances. Raymond Massey directed and starred in a 1949 Broadway production, which featured Grace Kelly in the role of Bertha; the play has been translated by Peter Watts, Michael Meyer, Harry G. Carlson, Michael Robinson, Gregory Motton and Laurie Slade; the role of the Captain has been played in the West End by Michael Redgrave, Wilfrid Lawson and Trevor Howard. The play was adapted by John Osborne in 1989 a production at the Royal National Theatre. Osborne described himself as "Strindberg's Man in England", determined to be "the keeper of that unpredictable flame". In 2016, Theatre for a New Audience produced David Greig's version of the play in rep with Thornton Wilder's adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House.
Both plays starred John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey. A Hindi film based on the play, Pita was made in India in 1991; the film was directed by acclaime
Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation
The Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation ‘Vas. Papantoniou' or PFF is museum based in Nafplion, Greece, it was founded in 1974 by the folklorist and scenic designer Ioanna Papantoniou in memory of her father Vasilios Papantoniou. The aim of PFF is the research, preservation and presentation of the material culture of the Greeks. PFF was founded in 1974 by Ioanna Papantoniou and it is located since 1981 in an early 20th century house belonging to Papantoniou family, converted into a museum; the same year PFF was awarded with the European Museum of the Year Main Award. During the 70's and the 80's, the foundation made several researches over Greece and the Griko communities of Southern Italy, gathering data and documents about the traditional culture and dance and about the preindustrial technology and the old fashioned children toys. In 1989 PFF founded a children's museum in Nafplion at the old local railway station. Four years Melina Merkouri assigned to PFF the Hellenic National Costume Archives while in 1999 the foundation's facilities were renovated.
In 2013 PFF was awarded by the Academy of Athens for its cultural activities. Artifacts of the foundation have been exposed in various exhibitions worldwide including Athens, Brussels, Limassol, London etc. in cooperation with foundations and authorities such as Benaki Museum, Municipality of Nafplio, Nicosia Municipality, Harokopio University, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Hellenic Centre of London, Teloglion Foundation of Art etc. PFF collections include 45,000 items; the majority of them, more than 27,000 items, are directly connected to the popular and modern Greek culture including traditional costumes and items from mainland Greece, Crete and Ionian Islands, Asia Minor, etc. The museum holds a collection of 5,500 items linked with the history of fashion, including works by designers such as Christian Dior, Issey Miyake, Paco Rabanne, Christian Louboutin, Sue Wong, Mariano Fortuny, Laura Ashley, Jean Dessès, James Galanos, Yiannis Tseklenis etc. Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation owns a photography and film collection dedicated to its past researches, a library of 10,000 titles a publishing house
First Cemetery of Athens
The First Cemetery of Athens is the official cemetery of the City of Athens and the first to be built. It soon became a prestigious cemetery for Greeks and foreigners; the cemetery is located behind the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the Panathinaiko Stadium in central Athens. It can be found at the top end of Anapafseos Street, it is a large green space with cypresses. In the cemetery there are three churches; the main one is the Church of Saint Theodores and there is a smaller one dedicated to Saint Lazarus. The third church of Saint Charles is a Catholic church; the cemetery includes several impressive tombs such as those of Heinrich Schliemann, designed by Ernst Ziller. There are burial areas for Protestants and Jews, this segregation is not compulsory; the cemetery is declared an historical monument. Odysseas Androutsos, hero of Greek War of Independence George Averoff, businessman Sotiria Bellou, singer Nikolaos Bourandas and fire service general, politician Yannoulis Chalepas, sculptor Christodoulos of Athens, Archbishop of Athens Richard Church, general Jules Dassin, actor Stratos Dionysiou, singer Odysseas Elytis, poet Demetrios Farmakopoulos, painter Adolf Furtwängler, archaeologist Dimitris Horn, actor Humphrey Jennings, filmmaker Georgios Kafantaris, prime minister Dimitrios Kallergis, statesman Tzeni Karezi, actress Manos Katrakis, actor Nikos Kavvadias, poet Stelios Kazantzidis, singer Theodoros Kolokotronis, politician Marika Kotopouli, actress Ellie Lambeti, actress Grigoris Lambrakis, politician Zoe Laskari, actress Vassilis Logothetidis, actor Yannis Makriyannis, military officer, author Orestis Makris, actor Alexandros Mavrokordatos, politician Melina Mercouri, politician Andreas Michalakopoulos, politician Dimitris Mitropanos, singer Dimitri Mitropoulos, pianist, composer Kostis Palamas, poet Alexandros Panagoulis, poet, democracy activist Antonios Papadakis, University of Athens' greatest benefactor Georgios Papadopoulos, military dictator during the Regime of the Colonels Andreas Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece Katina Paxinou, actress Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, poet Demis Roussos, singer Alekos Sakellarios, screenwriter, lyricist Rita Sakellariou, singer Alexandros Papanastasiou, lawyer Kalliroi Parren, feminist Heinrich Schliemann, amateur archaeologist who excavated the site of Troy Giorgos Seferis, poet Angelos Sikelianos, poet Michael Tositsas Charilaos Trikoupis, Prime Minister of Greece Vassilis Tsitsanis, rebetiko composer Ioannis Varvakis, member of Filiki Eteria Thanasis Veggos, actor Sofia Vembo, singer Aliki Vougiouklaki, actress T.
H. White, author Emmanuil Xanthos, a founder of the Filiki Eteria Nikos Xilouris and composer Nikos Zachariadis, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece from 1931 to 1956 Ernst Ziller, architect Xenophon Zolotas, prime minister Papyrus Larousse Britannica, 2006 Media related to First Cemetery of Athens at Wikimedia Commons
