1.
Culture of Sweden
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Swedish society and its culture is concerned with the welfare and well-being of others, both within and outside Sweden. Swedes have a tradition of informal coffee-break get-togethers known as Fika, the 25 historical provinces of Sweden, which early in their histories had poor intercommunication, each have a distinct culture. The provinces long ago lost their importance as administrative and political regions, but are seen as cultural ones. Each province has a history, each with its own robust nature. Some of them constituted separated parts of Sweden with their own laws, other regions have been independent, or a part of another country, such as, etc. They have different indigenous dialects of North Germanic, and some have ethnic minorities, singing is popular in Sweden, and of its 9 million inhabitants,600,000 belong to various choirs. Three of the worlds leading songwriters, Jörgen Elofsson, Daniel Liljeroth and Max Martin, in popular music, the group ABBA became the essence of Swedish music during the 1970s and early 1980s. Later Roxette emerged, mostly performing songs in the late 1980s. This band was successful in the USA. Europe, Ace of Base and The Cardigans are Swedish pop groups that have been popular internationally, pop promo director Jonas Åkerlund is from Sweden. He is perhaps best known for The Prodigys Smack My Bitch Up, indie pop/rock is very big in Sweden. Gothenburg especially has spawned a number of prominent bands and artists, thanks to labels such as Sincerely Yours, Service. In contrast with its pop music scene, Sweden also boasts one of the most prolific death metal scenes in the world. Gothenburg is famed in the scene for the death metal sound. Melodic death metal is quite a broad genre with many variations, still, many bands are influenced by genres as broad as Swedish folk music, alternative music, electronica, gothic music, progressive music and even neo-classical music. However, there are a lot of bands and artists who dominate the national music scene, such as Kent, Håkan Hellström. Traditional Swedish national costumes are worn on special occasions, such as Midsummer. Many such costumes are darkly colored, sverigedräkten, a version mainly in blue and yellow, has been the established National Costume since 2004 and is thus worn by royalty on some official occasions
2.
History of Sweden
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During the 11th and 12th centuries, Sweden gradually became a unified Christian kingdom that later included what is today Finland. During the early Middle Ages, the Swedish state also expanded to control Norrland and Finland, Modern Sweden started out of the Kalmar Union formed in 1397 and by the unification of the country by King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. Vasa fought for an independent Sweden and broke with the papacy, in the 17th century Sweden expanded its territories to form the Swedish empire. Most of these territories had to be given up during the 18th century. During the 17th century, after winning wars against Denmark, Russia, Swedens role in the Thirty Years War determined the political as well as the religious balance of power in Europe. The Russians won a war against Sweden in 1709, capturing much of the Swedish army, Sweden joined in the Enlightenment culture of the day in the arts, architecture, science and learning. Between 1570 and 1800 Sweden experienced two periods of urban expansion, Finland was lost to Russia in a war in 1808–1809. In the early 19th century Finland and the territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost. After its last war in 1814, Sweden entered into a union with Norway which lasted until 1905. Since 1814, Sweden has been at peace, adopting a foreign policy in peacetime. Sweden was neutral in World War I, post-war prosperity provided the foundations for the social welfare policies characteristic of modern Sweden. Sweden created a model of social democracy. Sweden remained neutral during World War II, avoiding the fate of occupied Norway, Sweden was one of the first non-participants of World War II to join the United Nations. Apart from this, the tried to stay out of alliances and remain officially neutral during the entire Cold War. The social democratic party held government for 44 years, the 1976 parliamentary elections brought a liberal/right-wing coalition to power. During the Cold War, Sweden was suspicious of the superpowers, with the end of the Cold War, that suspicion has lessened somewhat, although Sweden still chooses to remain nonaligned. The earliest images can, however, be found in the province of Jämtland and they depict wild animals such as elk, reindeer, bears and seals. The period 2300–500 BC was the most intensive carving period, with carvings of agriculture, warfare, ships, domesticated animals, also, petroglyphs with themes have been found in Bohuslän, these are dated from 800–500 BC
3.
Swedes
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Swedes are a Germanic ethnic group native to Sweden. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular Finland, with a substantial diaspora in other countries, the English term Swede has been attested in English since the late 16th century and is of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. The term is believed to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se. The word must have meant ones own, the same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, preserved to this day in the name Swabia. Sweden enters proto-history with the Germania of Tacitus in AD98, in Germania 44,45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow in both ends. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. In the 6th century Jordanes named two tribes, which he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi, who lived in Scandza and these two names are both considered to refer to the same tribe. The Suehans, he says, has very fine horses just as the Thyringi tribe, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote of the 6th-century Swedish king Adils that he had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans supplied black fox-skins for the Roman market, then Jordanes names the Suetidi which is considered to be the Latin form of Svitjod. He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men - together with the Dani, later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century AD and they reaching Scythia on the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine, where Goths left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture. In the 5th and 6th centuries, they divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact in the Crimea until the late 18th century, the Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. During this period, it is believed that the Swedes expanded from eastern Sweden and it is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine the Black Sea and further as far as Baghdad. Their routes passed through the Dnieper down south to Constantinople, on which they did numerous raids, the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard. The Swedish Vikings, called Rus are also believed to be the fathers of Kievan Rus. The Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings as following, I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys, each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort, the adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones
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Languages of Sweden
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Swedish is the official language of Sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10 million inhabitants of the country. It is a North Germanic language and quite similar to its sister Scandinavian languages, Danish, for most of its history, Sweden was a larger country than today. At its height in 1658, the Swedish Empire comprised the territories of what is Finland and Estonia as well as parts of Russia, Latvia, Germany, Denmark, hence, Swedens linguistic landscape has historically been very different from that of today. Swedish evolved from Old Norse around the 14th and 15th century, and historically, since the 20th century Standard Swedish prevails throughout the country. The Scandinavian languages constitute a continuum and some of the traditional Swedish dialects could equally be described as Danish or Norwegian. Finnish was the majority language of Swedens eastern parts, though it was used almost exclusively as a spoken language and these areas were also home of a significant Swedish-speaking minority. Finnish became a minority language in the west as well since many Finnish speakers migrated there, estonian was the language of the majority in Swedish Estonia but the province, like Finland hosted a Swedish-speaking minority and also a more significant minority of Germans. In medieval Sweden, the Low German language had an important role as a commercial language. As such, the Low German language influenced Swedish and other languages in the region considerably, in medieval Stockholm, half of the population were Low German speakers. Livonia was also inhabited by Latvians, Estonians and Livonians, in Swedish Ingria, apart from Swedish also Finnish, Ingrian and Votian were spoken. Latin as the language of the Catholic Church was introduced in Sweden with the Christianisation, as in most of Europe, Latin remained the lingua franca and scholarly language of the educated communities for centuries in Sweden. For instance, Carl Linnaeus most famous work Systema Naturae, published in 1735, was written in Latin, during the 18th century, French was the second language of Europes upper classes and Sweden was no exception. The Swedish aristocracy often spoke French among themselves and code-switching between French and Swedish was common, the Swedish King Gustav III was a true Francophile and French was the common language at his court. Gradually Sweden lost its overseas possessions and obtained its current borders in 1809, as a consequence, Sweden became a rather homogeneous country with the exceptions of the indigenous Sami-people and the Finnish-speaking Tornedalians in the northernmost parts of the country. During the 19th century Sweden became more industrialised, resulting in important demographic changes, the population duplicated and people moved from the countryside to towns and cities. As a consequence, of this and factors such as generalised education and mass media, a large number of Swedes also decided to emigrate, especially to the United States. There, the Swedes came in contact with the English language, since then, as in the rest of Europe and much of the world, English has grown as an important foreign language in Sweden, especially since the allied victory in World War II. During the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century and it is unclear to what degree these communities will hold on to their languages and to what degree they will assimilate
5.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
6.
Swedish cuisine
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Swedish cuisine is the traditional food of the people of Sweden. Due to Swedens large North–South expanse, there are differences between the cuisine of North and South Sweden. Many traditional dishes employ simple, contrasting flavours, such as the dish of meatballs and brown cream sauce with tart. Swedes have traditionally been open to foreign influences, ranging from French cuisine during the 17th and 18th century, to the sushi. Swedish cuisine could be described as centered around cultured dairy products, crisp and soft breads, berries and stone fruits, beef, chicken, lamb, pork, potatoes are often served as a side dish, often boiled. Swedish cuisine has a variety of breads of different shapes and sizes, made of rye, wheat, oat, white, dark, sourdough, and whole grain. There are many sweetened bread types and some use spices, many meat dishes, especially meatballs, are served with lingonberry jam. Fruit soups with high viscosity, like rose hip soup and blueberry soup served hot or cold, are typical of Swedish cuisine, butter and margarine are the primary fat sources, although olive oil is becoming more popular. Swedens pastry tradition features a variety of yeast buns, cookies, biscuits and cakes, many of them are in a very sugary style, the importance of fish has governed Swedish population and trade patterns far back in history. For preservation, fish were salted and cured, salt became a major trade item at the dawn of the Scandinavian middle ages, which began circa 1000 AD. Cabbage preserved as sauerkraut and various kinds of preserved berries, apples, lingonberry jam, still a favourite, may be the most traditional and typical Swedish way to add freshness to sometimes rather heavy food, such as steaks and stews. Swedens long winters explain the lack of vegetables in many traditional recipes. A lack of distinct spices made every-day food rather bland by todays standards, although a number of local herbs and this tradition is still present in today’s Swedish dishes, which are still rather sparingly spiced. Both before and after this period, some new Germanic dishes were also brought in by immigrants, such as related to the Hanseatic League, settling in Stockholm, Visby. Swedish traders and aristocrats naturally also picked up some food traditions in foreign countries, Swedish husmanskost denotes traditional Swedish dishes with local ingredients, the classical every-day Swedish cuisine. The word husmanskost stems from husman, meaning house owner, beside berries, apples are the most used traditional fruit, eaten fresh or served as apple pie, apple sauce, or apple cake. Time-consuming cooking methods such as redningar and långkok are commonly employed, many of the dishes would be considered comfort food for the nostalgic value. Dishes akin to Swedish husmanskost and food traditions are also in other Scandinavian countries
7.
Religion in Sweden
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Lutheran Christianity is officially the largest religion in Sweden, with 6.2 million Swedish citizens being members of the Church of Sweden. The high membership figure is mainly due to the fact that until 1996 all newborn children with at least one parent being a member of the church were made members. Other Christian Churches include the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, islam is the second largest religion in Sweden, practiced by 5% of the population. The rest of the population are irreligious or members of other religious groups. Sweden was Christianized from Norse paganism during a period, not final until the 1130s. Since the 16th century, Sweden has been predominantly Lutheran, from the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s until 2000, the Lutheran Church of Sweden was the state church. As of 2015,63. 3% of Swedish citizens are members of the Church of Sweden, compared to over 95% in 1970, atheism and agnosticism are widespread in Swedish society. In a Eurobarometer Poll in 2010, just 18% of Swedish citizens responded that they there is a god. In a 2009 Gallup poll, 17% answered yes to the question Is religion an important part of daily life. A survey found that only 15% of Church of Sweden members actually believe in Jesus, while another 15% identified as atheists, less than 4% of the Church of Sweden membership attends public worship during an average week, about 2% are regular attendees. Some scholars consider the nation to be a place where religion is regarded with “benign indifference”. The history of the Jews in Sweden can be traced back to the 17th century, because of immigration in the latter part of the 20th century, there is today a sizeable minority of Muslims and Roman Catholics. Before the 11th century, most Swedes adhered to Norse paganism, worshipping Æsir gods, the shape and location of this temple is sparsely documented, but it is referenced in the Norse sagas and Saxo Grammaticus Gesta Danorum, and is also described by Adam of Bremen. It was probably destroyed by King Ingold I in 1087 during the last known battle between the pagans and the Christians, the oldest evidence of Christian burial sites in Sweden are dated to the 6th century, but they are very few in number. The earliest documented campaign to Christianize the territory that form today is the country of Sweden was made by the monk Ansgar. Making his first visit to Birka in 828-829, he was granted permission to build a church, in 831, he returned home and became Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, with responsibility for Christianity in the north. Around 850, he back to Birka, where the original congregation had been shattered. Ansgar tried to reestablish it, but it lasted a few years
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Buddhism in Sweden
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Buddhism is a relatively small religion in Sweden. Most of the practicing Buddhists have various Asian heritage, a Buddhist Temple was planned for Fredrika, a small town in the north part of Sweden. This Thai-style temple would be the biggest Buddhist temple in Europe when finished, there is a Thai pavilion in Jämtland, a region in central Sweden. A 500s AD Kashmir Indian made Buddha statue made of bronze was found at Helgö in Sweden dating from the Viking era, Buddhism Today - Sweden, A growing interest in Buddhism
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Church of Sweden
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The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. A member of the Porvoo Communion, the Church professes the Lutheran branch of Christianity and it is composed of thirteen dioceses, divided into parishes. It is a national church which, working with a democratic organisation and through the ministry of the church. The Primate of the Church of Sweden is the Archbishop of Uppsala — currently Antje Jackelén, today, the Church of Sweden is an Evangelical Lutheran church. 6.2 million people are members of the Church of Sweden and it is liturgically and theologically high church, having retained priests, vestments, and the Mass during the Swedish Reformation. In common with other Evangelical Lutheran churches, the Church of Sweden maintains the historical episcopate, the Church of Sweden is known for its liberal position in theological issues, particularly the question of homosexuality. When Bishop Eva Brunne was consecrated as Bishop of Stockholm in 2009, despite a significant yearly loss of members, its membership of 6,225,091 people accounts for 63. 2% of the Swedish population. Until 2000 it held the position of state church, the high membership numbers are because until 1996 all newborn children were made members, unless their parents had actively cancelled their membership. Approximately 2% of the members regularly attend Sunday services. According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2009, 17% of the Swedish population considered religion as an important part of their daily life, King Gustav I Vasa instigated the Church of Sweden in 1536 during his reign as King of Sweden. This act separated the church from the Roman Catholic Church and its canon law, in 1571, the Swedish Church Ordinance became the first Swedish church order following the Reformation. The Church of Sweden became Lutheran at the Uppsala Synod in 1593 when it adopted the Augsburg Confession to which most Lutherans adhere, at this synod, it was decided that the church would retain the three original Christian creeds, the Apostles, the Athanasian, and the Nicene. In 1686, the Riksdag of the Estates adopted the Book of Concord, although certain parts, labelled Confessio fidei, were considered binding. Confessio dei included the three aforementioned Creeds, the Augsburg Confession and two Uppsala Synod decisions from 1572 and 1593, during the 20th century the Church of Sweden oriented itself strongly towards liberal Christianity and human rights. In 1957, the assembly rejected a proposal for ordination of women. Since 1960, women have been ordained as priests, and since 1994, a proposal to perform same-sex weddings was approved on October 22,2009 by 176 of 249 voting members of the Church of Sweden Synod. The Christian church in Scandinavia was originally governed by the archdiocese of Bremen, in 1104 an archbishop for all Scandinavia was installed in Lund. Uppsala was made Swedens archdiocese in 1164, and remains so today, the papal diplomat William of Modena attended a church meeting in Skänninge in March 1248, where the ties to the Catholic Church were strengthened
10.
History of the Jews in Sweden
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The history of the Jews in Sweden probably began with arrivals from the Hanseatic League in medieval times, but there are no records. In the Elizabethan era, it was common for European royalty to have Jewish doctors at court, King Charles XII spent five years with an encampment in the Turkish town of Bender and accumulated a large number of debts there for his entourage. Jewish and Muslim creditors followed him to Sweden, and the Swedish law was altered so that they could hold religious services, in case Jews were found in any Swedish community, they were to be notified to leave within fourteen days. Through court patronage Jewish merchants were occasionally appointed royal purveyors, during his bellicose reign, King Charles XII usually had one or more wealthy Jews with him in the field as the paymaster of his army. In 1718, Jews obtained permission to settle in the kingdom without need to abjure their religion, on his return a large number of Muslim and Jewish creditors arrived in Sweden and the Swedish law was altered to allow them to hold religious services and circumcise their sons. As a consequence the concession of 1718 was renewed and supplemented by royal edicts of 1727,1746, and 1748, but permission was restricted to settlement in smaller cities and rural communities. One of the most prominent Jews in Sweden at this time was the convert Lovisa Augusti, to these was added the town of Landskrona, as a Jew had established there a factory for the manufacture of sails and naval uniforms. They were not permitted to trade in markets elsewhere or to own property, Jews were ineligible for government positions and election to Parliament. They were forbidden from converting Lutherans to the Jewish religion, if the certificates were unsatisfactory, the authorities were at liberty to expel the holder, but in case he was admitted he was directed to Stockholm, Gothenburg, or Norrköping. Rabbis were exempt, and according to previous ordinances, poor Jews were to be deported from the country, the Jews were allowed to establish synagogues in the above-mentioned three cities, and to keep rabbis and other clerical officials. Intermarriages between Jews and Christians were forbidden, the Jews, however, had the right to appoint guardians of minors, and a rabbinical court had jurisdiction in inheritance cases. A Jew convicted of perjury became liable to expulsion from the country, the ordinance of 1782 contained a separate clause referring to particularly wealthy Jews, or such as are proficient in some trade almost, or quite, unknown in the country. Such persons could, through the Department of Commerce, petition the king for privileges, jacob Marcus in Norrköping was granted such privileges and built that citys first synagogue, which opened in 1796. Anger grew at the gap in wealth between Jews and others, such anger reached a height in 1838, on September 21 of the same year the government was compelled to revoke the new ordinance. During the following years the book-market was deluged by brochures for, the friends of the Jews tried to show that the petitioners were actuated by religious intolerance, but their adversaries openly declared the question to be one not of religion, but of race. In 1852, Amalia Assur became the first female dentist in Sweden, during the latter half of the 19th century the few remaining disabilities of the Jews were removed. Under the law of October 26,1860, they were granted the right to acquire real estate in rural communities, whereas they had previously been permitted to own property in the cities only. On January 20,1863, another ordinance removed the prohibition against intermarriages between Jews and Christians, which were declared to be legal provided they had been attended by due ceremonies
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Islam in Sweden
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Among Muslim residents of Sweden, as of 2014,110,000 are registered as member of, or regularly served by, a Muslim faith community. Out of the roughly 500,000 Swedish residents with roots in countries and areas dominated by Muslims, others are cultural Muslims, apostates or converts to other religions. Other sources set the figure at around 6% of the total Swedish population, the first registered Muslim groups in Sweden were Finnish Tatars who emigrated from Finland and Estonia in the 1940s. Islam began to have a presence in Sweden with immigration from the Middle East beginning in the 1970s. Most Muslims in Sweden are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the majority are from the Middle East, in particular Iraq and Iran. However,5 out of 6 Iranians in Sweden consider themselves secular rather than Muslim and are in opposition to the Islamic Republic regime in their ancestral home. Most Iranians and Iraqis fled as refugees to Sweden during the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, the second-largest Muslim group consists of immigrants or refugees from former Yugoslavia, most of them are Bosniaks, who number 12,000. There is also a community of Somalis, who numbered 40,165 in 2011. Sweden has a number of mosques providing the Muslim communities in Sweden places of worship, the first mosque in Sweden was the Nasir Mosque, built in 1976. It was followed by the Malmö Mosque,1984, and later, more mosques were built during the 2000s, including the Stockholm Mosque, the Umeå Mosque and the Fittja Mosque, among others. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Libya have financially supported the constructions of some of the largest Mosques in Sweden, as of the year 2000, an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people of Muslim background lived in Sweden, or 3. Regardless of personal religious convictions. ), of whom about 100,000 were second-generation immigrants, in Sweden registration by personal belief is not common and is normally against the law, thus only figures of practising Muslims belonging to an Islamic community can be reported. In 2009, the Muslim Council of Sweden reported 106,327 registered members, in 2007 a documentary film, Aching Heart was released, documenting Muslim Swedes. Pew Research Center estimates the number of Muslims in Sweden at 451,000 for the year 2010 and they project this to increase to 993,000 by the year 2030. Although there are no statistics of Muslims in Sweden, estimates count 200, 000—250,000 people of Muslim background in 2000. Swedish estimates are rather 350,000, including nominal Muslims, sander re-stated in 2004 that we do not think it unreasonable to put the figure of religious Muslims in Sweden at the time of writing at close to 150,000. Professor Mohammad Fazlhashemi at Umeå University estimates a good 100,000, about 25,000 are regarded as devout Muslims, visiting Friday prayers and practising daily prayers. Muslims in Sweden most often originate from Iraq, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo and they are followed by Muslim refugees from Syria and Somalia, two very rapidly growing groups
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Swedish art
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Swedish art refers to the visual arts produced in Sweden or by Swedish artists. Sweden has existed as country for over 1,000 years and it has, especially since about 1100, been strongly influenced by wider trends in European art. After World War II, the influence of the United States strengthened substantially, due to generous art subsidies, contemporary Swedish art has a big production per capita. The Reformation greatly disrupted Swedish artistic traditions, and left the body of painters and sculptors without large markets. The political success of the Vasa dynasty led to a revival, expressed in the Gustavan style. Among famous Swedish artists are Johan Tobias Sergel, Carl Milles, Anders Zorn, Carl Larsson, when the ice age ended, the Scandinavian peninsula was populated from the south by hunters and gatherers. Art surviving from that period are Stone Age expressions and is simple, only the truly persistent art forms have survived the ravages of time, petroglyphs, are such an expression. The earliest rock carvings in the form of symbols, characters and images are carved in rock outcrops and they began to be produced about 7000 BC. Sweden has one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs with a center in Tanum Municipality in Bohuslän province. During the Bronze Age, a spiral ornamentation was produced in the style that existed in Denmark, from about 400 AD, the development of the Nordic animal ornamentation, an unusually rich and imaginative style that reached its peak during the 7th century with the so-called Vendel style. Animal ornamentation experienced a renewed flourishing of the rune stones, Rune stones - some of which are quite illustrative and are therefore called “image blocks” - were added between about 200 AD and 1130 with a flourishing between the period 980-1100. As an art form, the stone is specific to the Nordic culture. Sweden leads the way with the highest amount of stones with a total of 2,800 inscriptions. Approximately 85% of all the blocks have been in Sweden. The stones were originally painted and combined text with ornamentation and stylized characters and they can be divided into seven different styles. Some of the first known image-makers in Sweden were, in fact, Sweden, especially the south of the country, also participated in Viking Age art, along with the rest of Scandinavia. With the advent of Christianity came a new iconography, originally established in the churches, particularly in the form of altar screens, crucifixes, according to the Swedish History Museum, no other country has such a rich and comprehensive collection of medieval liturgical art. Creativity was shown in Romanesque art products fabrics and gold works, from the 13th century, Gotland was a center for sculptors, such as the anonymous Master Majestatis
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Swedish literature
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Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden. The first literary text from Sweden is the Rök Runestone, carved during the Viking Age circa 800 AD, with the conversion of the land to Christianity around 1100 AD, Sweden entered the Middle Ages, during which monastic writers preferred to use Latin. Therefore, there are only a few texts in the Old Swedish from that period, Swedish literature only flourished when the Swedish language was standardized in the 16th century, a standardization largely due to the full translation of the Bible into Swedish in 1541. This translation is the so-called Gustav Vasa Bible, with improved education and the freedom brought by secularisation, the 17th century saw several notable authors develop the Swedish language further. In Sweden, the period starting in 1880 is known as realism because the writing had a focus on social realism. In the late 19th and early 20th century, other writers included Ola Hansson. In the 1900s, one of the earliest novelists was Hjalmar Söderberg, the early 20th century continued to produce notable authors, such as Selma Lagerlöf and Pär Lagerkvist. In the 1960s, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö collaborated to produce a series of internationally acclaimed detective novels, the most successful writer of detective novels is Henning Mankell, whose works have been translated into 37 languages. In the spy genre, the most successful writer is Jan Guillou. In recent decades, a handful of Swedish writers have established themselves internationally, such as the detective novelist Henning Mankell, also well-known outside of Sweden is the childrens book writer Astrid Lindgren, author of works such as Pippi Longstocking and Emil of Maple Hills. Most runestones had a practical, rather than a literary, purpose and are mainly of interest to historians. Several runic inscriptions are also nonsensical by nature, being used for magical or incantatory purposes, the most notable literary exception is the Rök Runestone from circa 800 AD. It contains the longest known inscription, and encompasses several different passages from sagas and legends, part of it is written in alliterative verse, or fornyrdislag. It is generally regarded as the beginning of Swedish literature, the Christianization of Sweden was one of the main events in the countrys history, and it naturally had an equally profound impact on literature. The Gök runestone is a case in point of how the older literature dissolved and it uses the same imagery as the Ramsund carving, but a Christian cross has been added and the images are combined in a way that completely distorts the internal logic of events. Whatever the reason may have been, the Gök stone illustrates how the pagan heroic mythos was going towards its dissolution, Literature now looked to foreign texts to provide models. By 1200, Christianity was firmly established and a Medieval European culture appeared in Sweden, only a selected few mastered the written language, but little was written down. Complete manuscripts are found from the early 14th century, written in Latin
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Media of Sweden
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The media of Sweden has a long tradition going back to the 1776 law enacting freedom of the press. The press is subsidized by the government and is owned by many actors, Public service media is financed by a special fee levied on all who own a television or radio receiver. Swedish media has mechanisms for self-regulation, such as the Swedish Press Council, the Swedish press is subsidized by the government through press support. Support also exists in form in the shape of partial tax-exceptions. The Swedish Press is self-regulated through the Public Press Ombudsman, or Allmänhetens Pressombudsman, one example of this is that Swedish media follow a principle of not disclosing the identities of suspected criminals. There was some controversy when Dagens Nyheter on 27 September 2003 published the name and picture of Mijailo Mijailović, freedom of the press in Sweden dates back to 1766 when it was enshrined in a law enacted by the Riksdag of the Estates. It is today a part of the Constitution of Sweden, the Swedish newspaper with the widest circulation is the evening newspaper Aftonbladet, controlled by the Norwegian media conglomerate Schibsted and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation. Its competitor, Expressen, is controlled by Bonnier AB and has sister editions in Gothenburg, Bonnier AB also controls the major national morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. Its Stockholm competitor Svenska Dagbladet is owned by Schibsted, göteborgs-Posten is the major regional newspaper in Gothenburg and the west of Sweden, while another Bonnier-owned newspaper, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, dominates in Malmö and the south. Bonnier AB also owns Swedens major business newspaper, Dagens Industri, in recent years, Swedish state broadcaster, Sverigesradio. Has been offering a selection of news through its website in English. Through its subsidiary Bonnier Tidskrifter AB, Bonnier AB also controls many of Swedens most popular magazines, such as Amelia, Allt om Mat, Teknikens Värld, other major magazine publishers in Sweden are Allers förlag, the Danish-controlled Egmont and the French Hachette Filipacchi Médias. Sweden also has many organizations which almost all produce membership magazines with a wide readership. The biggest ones, with readership figures above 300000, include Vår bostad, PRO-pensionären, Television trials from the Royal Institute of Technology started in 1954. The broadcasts were made by the public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, when a second channel, TV2, started in 1969 it was broadcast by the same company, but the two channels were supposed to compete against each other. Since SR was split into four different companies in the late 70s, SVT and its two channels dominated television for a long time. In 1987 the first commercial channel, TV3 was started, broadcasting from London via satellite, in the early 1990s, TV4 became the first commercial channel to be allowed to join the national terrestrial broadcasting network, run by Teracom. Sweden was an early adopter of digital television, officially launching it in April 1999
15.
Television in Sweden
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Television in Sweden began in Sweden in 1954 with the first test transmissions, prior to the opening of the first station, Radiotjänst, two years later. A second channel was launched in 1969, commercial television arrived in the 1980s through cable television and in 1992, the countrys first terrestrial commercial channel was launched. The shutdown of the PAL analogue service in Sweden started on September 19,2005, typically, non-Swedish content maintains the original language soundtrack while subtitled into Swedish. This includes foreign interviews embedded into news and magazine programmes as well as SVTs Finnish news bulletin, conversely, interview responses given in Swedish aired on Finnish or Sami news bulletins are subtitled into the main language of that respective bulletin. Non-Swedish programming intended for children is, however, usually dubbed into Swedish, regardless of intended audience, some shows receive a Swedish title, which is used in programme schedules. Many of the channels targeting Sweden are not actually broadcasting from Sweden and this is done to avoid the Swedish Broadcasting Law which restricts advertising heavily. The first trial broadcasts in Sweden were launched on October 29,1954. The official launch of television in Sweden took place on September 4,1956 when the Radiotjänst Television service was launched on the high power Nacka transmitter. The service was funded by a fee with no advertising and was operated by Radiotjänst. Daily broadcasts started in 1957 and Radiotjänst was renamed as Sveriges Radio, the first television news programme in Sweden, Aktuellt, was broadcast on 2 September 1958 and continues to this day on SVT2. A second channel was discussed throughout the 1960s and it was eventually decided that a second channel would launch and that it would have the same business model as the first channel. TV2, as the new channel was called, launched on 5 December 1969, both channels were operated by Sverige Radio and funded by licence fees. Colour broadcasts had started in the 1960s, but launched officially in April 1970, trial broadcasts for regional television began in 1970 with regional news programmes in Scania. Further regional news services were introduced with the Stockholm capital region the last to receive its own service in 1987. Sveriges Radio was reorganised and split into new companies in 1979, one of which, Sveriges Television. Cable television started becoming common in the 1980s, at this time, the cable companies also started relaying international satellite channels. The first Swedish-language satellite channel was TV3 which started in December 1987, two other early satellite channels were Nordic Channel, which started in 1989 and TV4, which was launched in 1990. The arrival of satellite channels fueled a debate on allowing advertising on terrestrial services
16.
Cinema of Sweden
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Swedish cinema is known for including many acclaimed movies, during the 20th century the industry was the most prominent of Scandinavia. This is largely due to the popularity and prominence of directors Victor Sjöström and Ingmar Bergman, Swedish filmmaking rose to international prominence when Svenska Biografteatern moved from Kristianstad to Lidingö in 1911. Sjöströms most respected films often made use of the Swedish landscape and developed moving studies of character. Stiller fostered the early popularity of Greta Garbo, particularly through the Gösta Berlings saga, in the mid-twenties both of these directors and Garbo moved to the United States to work for MGM, bringing Swedish influence to Hollywood. The departure left a vacuum in Swedish cinema, which went into a financial crisis. Both directors later returned to Sweden, but Stiller died soon after his return while Sjöström returned to work for most of the remainder of his career. Some provincial comedies emerged, created for the local market, during World War II Swedish cinema gained artistically, mainly due to the directors Gustaf Molander, Alf Sjöberg, Hasse Ekman, Anders Henrikson and Hampe Faustman. Cinema had to perform the task of defence during the war. The most famous and influential Swedish filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman, rose to prominence in the fifties and he began making films in the mid-forties, and in 1955, he made Smiles of a Summer Night, which brought him international attention. A year later, he one of his most famous films. In the 1960s, Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for two years, with The Virgin Spring in 1960 and Through a Glass Darkly in 1961. He won the award again in 1983, for the early twentieth-century family drama Fanny, the film lost to The Sting, and oddly enough, it was not nominated in the Foreign Language Film category. It also gave Bergman the first of three nominations for Best Director, Ingmar Bergman also won no less than four Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Working closely with Bergman, cinematographer Sven Nykvist can be said to have had a impact on the visual aspect of Swedish cinema. Twice the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, for Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander and he also directed The Ox, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992. After some cutting, it was released in 1964, sjöman went on to cause even wider controversy, depicting sexual intercourse in his 1967 film I Am Curious. In the United States the film was considered pornography and seized by the customs, most probably, it was also instrumental in establishing a view of Swedish cinema – and perhaps even Swedes in general – as having a liberal attitude towards sexuality. Another Swedish postwar filmmaker of note is Bo Widerberg and his 1963 film Ravens End and The Man on the Roof are widely regarded as Swedish film classics
17.
Flag of Sweden
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The flag of Sweden is the national flag of the Kingdom of Sweden. It consists of a yellow or gold Nordic Cross on a field of blue, the Nordic Cross design traditionally represents Christianity. Blue and yellow have been used as Swedish colors at least since King Magnus IIIs royal coat of arms of 1275, the dimensions of the Swedish flag are 5,2,9 horizontally and 4,2,4 vertically. The dimensions of the Swedish flag with a triple-tail are 5,2,5,8 horizontally and 4,2,4 vertically. The colors of the flag are officially established through the Natural Color System to be NCS 0580-Y10R for the shade of yellow, the square-cut Swedish state flag is identical to the civil ensign. The Swedish law does not regulate the design of the Swedish pennant, the triple-tailed flag is used as a military ensign. Its overall ratio, including the tails, is 1,2, the flag is also used as the Swedish naval jack. The jacks are smaller than the ensigns, but they have the same proportions, the Swedish swallow-tailed flag was originally the Kings personal emblem, or the emblem representing a command conferred by the King. It was at first two-pointed, but by the mid-17th century, the flag is also flown by the defence ministry, while civil ministries fly square flags. The King personally decides about the use of the royal flag. According to early modern legend, the 12th-century King Eric IX saw a cross in the sky as he landed in Finland during the First Swedish Crusade in 1157. Seeing this as a sign from God he adopted the cross against a blue background as his banner. It has been suggested that the Swedish origin legend is chosen to counter a parallel origin story for the Danish flag, according to this theory, the Swedish flag was created during the reign of King Charles VIII, who also introduced the coat of arms of Sweden in 1442. The national coat of arms is a combination of King Alberts coat of arms of 1364 and King Magnus IIIs coat of arms of 1275, and is blue divided quarterly by a golden cross pattée. The exact age of the Swedish flag is not known, but the oldest recorded pictures of a cloth with a yellow cross date from the early 16th century. The first legal description of the flag was made in a warrant of April 19,1562 as yellow in a cross fashioned on blue. As stipulated in a warrant of 1569, the yellow cross was always to be borne on Swedish battle standards. Prior to this, a similar flag appeared in the coat of arms of King John IIIs duchy, the same coat of arms is still used by the province
18.
Coat of arms of Sweden
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The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Sweden has a lesser and a greater version. This includes any mark or text referring to the Swedish State which thus can give the commercial mark a sign of official endorsement and this includes municipal coats of arms which are registered. Any representation consisting of three crowns ordered two above one are considered to be the coat of arms, and its usage is therefore restricted by law 1970,498. The greater coat of arms is blazoned in Swedish law as follows, A shield azure, quartered by a cross Or with outbent arms, in the first and fourth fields three open crowns Or, placed two above one. In the second and third fields three sinisterbendwise streams argent, a lion crowned with an open crown Or armed gules, the inescutcheon is party per pale the arms for the House of Vasa, and the House of Bernadotte. The main shield is crowned by a crown and surrounded by the insignia of the Order of the Seraphim. Supported by two lions regardant, crowned and with forked tails Or armed gules, standing on a compartment Or, all surrounded by ermine mantling, crowned with a royal crown and tied up with tasseladorned strings Or. The greater arms may also be displayed only with the crowned escutcheon, while the arms have undergone significant changes over the years, such as changing the inescutcheon with the ruling dynasty, they are based on arms created by King Karl Knutsson in 1448. The escutcheon used in the greater blazon has in total five elements,4 quarterings on the main escutcheon, however, Bernadotte never used any stars in the arms of Pontecorvo contrary to the illustration below. The Big Dipper, or as it is called in Swedish, Karlavagnen, the arms are supported by two lions with forked tails, facing away from the shield and crowned with Royal Crowns. For centuries, the lion has been an important element in Swedish heraldry, the shield may be surmounted by the Collar of the Order of Seraphim, the foremost order in Sweden, and the highest honour the Swedish state can bestow on an individual. Blazon, The greater state arms consist of a shield azure, quartered by a cross or with outbent arms. In the first and fourth fields three coronets or, placed two above one, in the second and third fields three sinisterbendwise streams argent, a lion crowned with an open crown or with armaments gules. The inescutcheon is party per pale the arms for the House of Vasa, the main shield is crowned by a royal crown and surrounded by the insignia of the Order of the Seraphim. Supported by two lions regardant or crowned, with parted tails and armaments gules, standing on a postament, all surrounded by hermine mantling crowned with a royal crown and tied up with tasseled strings or. The lesser coat of arms is used by the Government of Sweden. As such it may be joined by insignias symbolising the activity of government agencies. It is, for instance, embroidered on all Swedish police uniforms, blazon, Azure, with three coronets Or, ordered two above one
19.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
20.
Polka
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The polka is originally a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia, local varieties of this dance are also found in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America and the United States. The name polka possibly comes from the Czech word půlka, referring to the short half-steps featured in the dance. e, the absence of diacritics, both referring to the half-tempo 24 and the half-jump step of the dance. Zíbrt also ironically dismisses the etymology suggested by A. Fähnrich that polka comes from the Czech word pole, on the other hand, Zdeněk Nejedlý suggests that the etymology given by Fr. Doucha is nothing but an effort to prove the true Czech folk origin of Polka, Nejedlý also writes that Václav Vladivoj Tomek also claims the Hradec Králové roots of a Polka. OED also suggests that the name may have derived from the Czech polka meaning Polish woman. The word was introduced into the major European languages in the early 1840s. It should not be confused with the polska, a Swedish 34-beat dance with Polish roots, a related dance is the redowa. Polkas almost always have a 24 time signature, folk music of Polka style appeared in written music about 1800. She is said to have called the dance Maděra, because of its liveliness, the dance was further propagated by the music teacher Josef Neruda, who witnessed Anna dance in an unusual way, put the tune to paper, and taught other young men to dance it. Čeněk Zíbrt notices that a claim that the events happened in Týnec nad Labem. Zibrt writes that when he published this story in 1894 in Narodni Listy newspaper. In particular, he wrote according to further witness, the originating event actually happened in 1830, in Kostelec nad Labem. Zíbrt writes that he published the first version of the story in Bohemia, from where it was reprinted all over Europe and in the United States. Zíbrt also wrote that simple Czech folk claimed that knew and danced Polka long before the nobles got hold of it. By 1835, this dance had spread to the ballrooms of Prague, from there, it spread to Vienna by 1839, and in 1840 was introduced in Paris by Raab, a Prague dance instructor. It was so well received by both dancers and dance masters in Paris that its popularity was referred to as polkamania, the dance soon spread to London and was introduced to America in 1844. It remained a popular dance until the late 19th century
21.
Waltz
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The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple time, performed primarily in closed position. There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the waltz that date from 16th century Europe, the French philosopher Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas wrote, Now they are dancing the godless Weller or Spinner, the peasants of Bavaria, Tyrol, and Styria began dancing a dance called Walzer, a dance for couples, around 1750. The Ländler, also known as the Schleifer, a dance in 34 time, was popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria. While the eighteenth century upper classes continued to dance the minuet, describing life in Vienna, Don Curzio wrote, The people were dancing mad. The ladies of Vienna are particularly celebrated for their grace and movements of waltzing of which they never tire, there is a waltz in the second act finale of the opera Una Cosa Rara written by Martin y Soler in 1786. Solers waltz was marked Andante con moto, or at a pace with motion, but the flow of the dance was sped-up in Vienna leading to the Geschwindwalzer. In the transition from country to town, the hopping of the Ländler, a known as Langaus, became a sliding step. In the 19th century, the word primarily indicated that the dance was a one, one would waltz in the polka to indicate rotating rather than going straight forward without turning. The Viennese custom is to anticipate the second beat of each measure, making it sound as if the third is late. The metronome speed for a full bar varies between 60 and 70, with the waltzes of the first Strauss often played faster than those of his sons. Shocking many when it was first introduced, the waltz became fashionable in Vienna around the 1780s, according to contemporary singer Michael Kelly, it reached England in 1791. During the Napoleonic Wars, infantry soldiers of the Kings German Legion introduced the dance to the people of Bexhill and it became fashionable in Britain during the Regency period, having been made respectable by the endorsement of Dorothea Lieven, wife of the Russian ambassador. Diarist Thomas Raikes later recounted that No event ever produced so great a sensation in English society as the introduction of the waltz in 1813, in the same year, a sardonic tribute to the dance by Lord Byron was anonymously published. Influential dance master and author of manuals, Thomas Wilson published A Description of the Correct Method of Waltzing in 1816. Come, its time to be going home, the waltz, and especially its closed position, became the example for the creation of many other ballroom dances. Subsequently, new types of waltz have developed, including many folk and it incorporated hesitations and was danced to fast music. A hesitation is basically a halt on the foot during the full waltz measure
22.
Mazurka
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The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with strong accents unsystematically placed on the second or third beat. The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms which are the slow kujawiak, and the fast oberek, the mazurek is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotted eighth note pair, or an ordinary eighth note pair before two quarter notes. In the 19th century, the dance became popular in many ballrooms in different parts of Europe, the Polish national anthem has a mazurek rhythm but is too slow to be considered a mazurek. In Polish, mazurka is actually the genitive and accusative cases of mazurek, several classical composers have written mazurkas, with the best known being the 69 composed by Frédéric Chopin for solo piano. In 1825 Maria Szymanowska wrote the largest collection of piano mazurkas published before Chopin, Chopin first started composing mazurkas in 1825, but his composing did not become serious until 1830, the year of the November Uprising, a Polish rebellion against the Russian Tsar. Chopin continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death, the stylistic and musical characteristics of Chopins mazurkas differ from the traditional variety because Chopin in effect created a completely separate and new genre of mazurka all his own. For example, he used techniques in his mazurkas, including counterpoint. By including more chromaticism and harmony in the mazurkas, he made them more interesting than the traditional dances. Chopin also tried to compose his mazurkas in such a way that they could not be used for dancing, however, while Chopin changed some aspects of the original mazurka, he maintained others. His mazurkas, like the traditional dances, contain a great deal of repetition, repetition of certain measures or groups of measures, of entire sections, the rhythm of his mazurkas also remains very similar to that of earlier mazurkas. This use of rhythm suggests that Chopin tried to create a genre that had ties to the original form, the dance was common as a popular dance in Europe and the United States in the mid- to late nineteenth century. In Cape Verde the mazurka is also revered as an important cultural phenomenon played with bands led by a violinist. It also takes a variation of the dance form and is found mostly in the north of the archipelago, mainly in São Nicolau. In the south it finds popularity in the island of Brava, czech composers Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, and Bohuslav Martinů all wrote mazurkas to at least some extent. For Smetana and Martinů, these are single pieces, whereas Dvořák composed a set of six mazurkas for piano, and in 1991 Albert Hyden performed a sonet for the president called alpha Q. In France, Impressionistic composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel both wrote mazurkas, Debussys is a piece, and Ravels is part of a suite of an early work. Jacques Offenbach included a mazurka in his ballet Gaîté Parisienne, Léo Delibes composed one which appears several times in the first act of his ballet Coppélia, the mazurka appears frequently in French traditional folk music. In the French Antilles, the mazurka has become an important style of dance, a creolised version of the mazurka is mazouk, which was introduced to the French Caribbean during the 19th century
23.
Accordion
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Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist, the concertina and bandoneón are related, the harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family. The instrument is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing pallets to open and these vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instruments reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the manual. The accordion is widely spread across the world, nevertheless, in Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is used in cajun, zydeco, jazz music. The piano accordion is the official city instrument of San Francisco, the oldest name for this group of instruments is harmonika, from the Greek harmonikos, meaning harmonic, musical. Today, native versions of the accordion are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian, accordions have many configurations and types. Similar to a bow, the production of sound in an accordion is in direct proportion to the motion of the player. The bellows is located between the right- and left-hand manuals, and is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibration. These boxes house reed chambers for the right- and left-hand manuals, each side has grilles in order to facilitate the transmission of air in and out of the instrument, and to allow the sound to better project. The grille for the manual is usually larger and is often shaped for decorative purposes. The right-hand manual is used for playing the melody and the left-hand manual for playing the accompaniment. The manual mechanism of the instrument either enables the air flow, or disables it, the different types have varying components. All instruments have reed ranks of some format, the most typical accordion is the piano accordion, which is used for many musical genres
24.
Clarinet
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The clarinet is a musical-instrument family belonging to the group known as the woodwind instruments. It has a mouthpiece, a straight cylindrical tube with an almost cylindrical bore. A person who plays a clarinet is called a clarinetist, the word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette, or from Provençal clarin, oboe. It would seem however that its roots are to be found amongst some of the various names for trumpets used around the renaissance. Clarion, clarin and the Italian clarino are all derived from the medieval term claro which referred to a form of trumpet. This is probably the origin of the Italian clarinetto, itself a diminutive of clarino, according to Johann Gottfried Walther, writing in 1732, the reason for the name is that it sounded from far off not unlike a trumpet. The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, while the similarity in sound between the earliest clarinets and the trumpet may hold a clue to its name, other factors may have been involved. The trumpet parts that required this speciality were known by the term clarino, Johann Christoph Denner is generally believed to have invented the clarinet in Germany around the year 1700 by adding a register key to the earlier chalumeau. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and these days the most popular clarinet is the B♭ clarinet. However, the clarinet in A, just a lower, is commonly used in orchestral music. Since the middle of the 19th century the clarinet has become an essential addition to the orchestra. The clarinet family ranges from the BBB♭ octo-contrabass to the A♭ piccolo clarinet, the clarinet has proved to be an exceptionally flexible instrument, equally at home in the classical repertoire as in concert bands, military bands, marching bands, klezmer, and jazz. The cylindrical bore is primarily responsible for the clarinets distinctive timbre, the tone quality can vary greatly with the musician, the music, the instrument, the mouthpiece, and the reed. The most prominent were the German/Viennese traditions and the French school, the latter was centered on the clarinetists of the Conservatoire de Paris. The proliferation of recorded music has made examples of different styles of clarinet playing available, the modern clarinetist has a diverse palette of acceptable tone qualities to choose from. The A clarinet and B♭ clarinet have nearly the same bore, orchestral players using the A and B♭ instruments in the same concert could use the same mouthpiece for both. The A and the B♭ instruments have nearly identical tonal quality, the tone of the E♭ clarinet is brighter than that of the lower clarinets and can be heard even through loud orchestral or concert band textures. The bass clarinet has a deep, mellow sound, while the alto clarinet is similar in tone to the bass
25.
Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
26.
Nyckelharpa
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A nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is an instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, the nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the big Sorb geige or viol. Structurally, it is closely related to the hurdy-gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch. A depiction of two instruments, possibly but not confirmed nyckelharpor, can be found in a relief dating from circa 1350 on one of the gates of Källunge church on Gotland. Early church paintings are found in Siena, Italy, dating to 1408 and in different churches in Denmark and Sweden, such as Tolfta church, Sweden, other very early pictures are to be found in Hildesheim, Germany, dating to circa 1590. The Schlüsselfidel is also mentioned in Theatrum Instrumentorum, a work written in 1620 by the German organist Michael Praetorius. The Swedish province of Uppland has been a stronghold for nyckelharpa music since the early 17th century, changes by August Bohlin in 1929/1930 made the nyckelharpa a chromatic instrument with a straight bow, making it a more violin-like and no longer a bourdon instrument. Composer, player and maker of nyckelharpas Eric Sahlström used this new instrument, in spite of this, the nyckelharpas popularity declined until the 1960s roots revival. Continued refinement of the instrument also contributed to the increase in popularity, with instrument builders like Jean-Claude Condi and Annette Osann bringing innovation to the bow and body. In 1990s, the nyckelharpa was recognised as one of the instruments available for study at the music department of the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Elizabeth Weis Nord is a notable Nyckelharpa teacher and performer who resides the US and it has also been used in non-Scandinavian musical contexts, for example by the Spanish player Ana Alcaide. The nyckelharpa is usually played with a strap around the neck, didier François, a violinist and nyckelharpist from Belgium, is noted for using an unusual playing posture, holding the nyckelharpa vertically in front of the chest. This allows a range of motion for both arms. It also affects the tone and sound of the instrument, some players may use a violin bracket to keep the nyckelharpa away from the body so that it can swing freely, causing it to sound more open as its resonance is not dampened. There are four variants of the nyckelharpa still played today, differing in the number and arrangement of keys, number and arrangement of strings. The predominant type is the three-row so-called chromatic nyckelharpa, with the strings tuned A1 - C1 - G, a drone C that is only touched occasionally. The resonance strings, or sympathetic strings, which were added to the instrument during the 2nd half of the 16th century, are not bowed directly, traditional variants of the nyckelharpa used to have one or more drone strings
27.
Roots revival
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A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, the term roots revival is vague, and may not always refer to identical events. The first folk revival was a movement to transcribe and record traditional British songs during the late 19th. Pioneers of this movement were the Harvard professor Francis James Child, compiler of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Sabine Baring-Gould, Frank Kidson, Lucy Broadwood, the Folk Song Society was founded in 1898 to promote this new endeavour. A major figure in movement was Cecil Sharp who was the most influential on the repertoire of subsequent performers. His lectures and other publications attempted to define a musical tradition that was rural in origin, oral in transmission, a second wave of revival that was orientated around culture and entertainment began in the 1930s and 1940s in America and in Britain in the 1940s. The movement became global in the 1960s and 1970s, in other cases, such as Cameroon and the Dominican Republic, no revival was necessary as the music remained common, and was merely popularized and adapted for mainstream audiences at home and abroad. By the 1980s, popular bands included Brabants Volksorkest and the rock band Kadril. Cameroonian music, Beginning with bikutsi in the 1950s and continuing with makossa into the end of the 20th century, the leader of Chinese rock is undoubtedly Cui Jian. Czech music, In 1966, the Porta Festival was held, danish music, In contrast to its neighbors, Denmark did not see a roots revival until to the late 1990s, when performers like Morten Alfred Høirup gained a widespread following in the country. Egyptian music, The city of Cairo is the most important center for Egyptian music, Finnish music, Finlands folk styles include a variety of national genres and ballads, while the traditional rhyming sleigh songs rekilaulu have become an integral part of many pop singers. In 1967, the Savonlinna Opera Festival, the first of similar festivals, contributed to a revival of Finnish opera. French music, Though many of Frances regional styles have seen popularization, the region boasts a uniquely Celtic heritage, which has been emphasized by the revival since its beginnings in the early 1970s, led by Alan Stivell. Corsican music has seen a revival, though with little popular success. See also the Québécois under Canadian music, Gambian music, By the 1970s, Gambian musicians were mostly playing popular merengue or other styles. A visit by pop band The Super Eagles to London to record saw a change, the band became known as Ifang Bondi, and their music was called Afro-Manding blues. Pen Cayetano was the most important figure in this scene, german music, Following the 1968 student revolution in West Germany, singer-songwriters playing a kind of expressive, melancholy music with traditional influences became popular. Due to governmental interference, East Germany did not see much of this influence until the mid-1970s, ghanaian music, Ghana is best known for the highlife style of music, which has been popular throughout the 20th century
28.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
29.
Spelmanslag
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The spelmanslag is an amateur organization of Swedish folk musicians, usually dominated by fiddles, who play tunes together. Often these groups play tunes from the area of Sweden with which they are affiliated. The term has also the meaning for Norwegian folk music. Spelmanslag meetings tend to serve social function as much as they do musical ones, the first Swedish spelmanslag was Dalaföreningens spelmanslag, formed in 1940 by folk musicians from Dalarna who at the time were living in Stockholm. Over the course of the 1940s, the spread throughout the province of Dalarna. The spelmanslag movement saw new life beginning in 2003, with the establishment of the annual student spelmanslag world championships at the Linköping Folk Festival. A number of student spelmanslag have been formed in order to compete—in 2003, there were four competing teams and these student groups tend to be characterized by high-energy playing, and generally do not limit themselves to tunes from one particular region within Sweden. Most spelmanslag are dominated by fiddles, though some are dedicated primarily to the nyckelharpa, often, the spelmanslag will also have one or more instruments that support the melody with chord progressions, such as cittra, accordion, bass, and/or guitar. Spelman Swedish folk music Riksspelman Spelemann - player of Norwegian folk music Spelemannslag - organization of Norwegian folk musicians Kaminsky, hidden Traditions, Conceptualizing Swedish Folk Music in the Twenty-First Century. Ett nyår för svensk folkmusik, Om spelmansrörelsen, in Folkmusikboken, edited by Jan Ling, et al
30.
Radio
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When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form, Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle modulation. Radio systems also need an antenna to convert electric currents into radio waves, an antenna can be used for both transmitting and receiving. The electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios allow individual stations to be selected, the electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving antenna. Radio frequencies occupy the range from a 3 kHz to 300 GHz, a radio communication system sends signals by radio. The term radio is derived from the Latin word radius, meaning spoke of a wheel, beam of light, however, this invention would not be widely adopted. The switch to radio in place of wireless took place slowly and unevenly in the English-speaking world, the United States Navy would also play a role. Although its translation of the 1906 Berlin Convention used the terms wireless telegraph and wireless telegram, the term started to become preferred by the general public in the 1920s with the introduction of broadcasting. Radio systems used for communication have the following elements, with more than 100 years of development, each process is implemented by a wide range of methods, specialised for different communications purposes. Each system contains a transmitter, This consists of a source of electrical energy, the transmitter contains a system to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or altering more subtle such as amplitude, frequency, phase. Amplitude modulation of a carrier wave works by varying the strength of the signal in proportion to the information being sent. For example, changes in the strength can be used to reflect the sounds to be reproduced by a speaker. It was the used for the first audio radio transmissions. Frequency modulation varies the frequency of the carrier, the instantaneous frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal. FM has the capture effect whereby a receiver only receives the strongest signal, Digital data can be sent by shifting the carriers frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying. FM is commonly used at Very high frequency radio frequencies for high-fidelity broadcasts of music, analog TV sound is also broadcast using FM. Angle modulation alters the phase of the carrier wave to transmit a signal
31.
Television
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Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a set, a television program. Television is a medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip. Television became available in experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, a form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses. During the 1950s, television was the medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US, for many reasons, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity, another development was the move from standard-definition television to high-definition television, which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats, 1080p, 1080i, in 2013, 79% of the worlds households owned a television set. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs, major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are gradually expected to be replaced by OLEDs, also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s, Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by cable or optical fiber, satellite systems and. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, a standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television, the word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε, meaning far, and Latin visio, meaning sight. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907 and it was. formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other. proposals for the name of a technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote. The abbreviation TV is from 1948, the use of the term to mean a television set dates from 1941
32.
Dansband
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Dansband or Danseband is a Swedish term for a band that plays dansbandsmusik. Dansbandsmusik is often danced to in pairs, jitterbug and foxtrot music are often included in this category. The music is inspired by swing, schlager, country, jazz. The main influence for rock-oriented bands is the music of the 1950s and 1960s. The terms dansband and dansbandsmusik were coined around 1970, when Swedish popular music developed a signature style, the genre developed primarily in Sweden, but has spread to neighbouring countries Norway, Denmark and the Swedish speaking regions of Finland. When the music came to Norway it was first called Svensktoppar, a dansband often travels by bus, performing several times every week year-round, outdoors in the summertime and indoors in the wintertime. Performances may also be held on a boat, several dansbands are named after their lead singer, followed by orkester. The tradition origins from the old dance orchestras, often named after their Kapellmeister, the possessive suffix s is often replaced by z in dansband names. Some dansbands are named after earlier members, the main audience for dansband music is middle-aged adults. The music is performed live by the bands at venues where the main interest of the audience is dancing. However, many dansbands also record albums and singles, Dansband lyrics are often brightly characterized, and are mostly about love, friendship and peace. Some of the texts are inspired by national romanticism, with lyrics about things such as old memories from the past, nature. The Norwegian dansband Ole Ivars has also, much with humor, the lyrics are often in Swedish in Sweden, and in Norwegian in Norway. In the 1990s, special dansband songwriters broke through, among them Lasse Holm, Gert Lengstrand, for many years, the same person wrote songs for most bands, but soon dansband musicians became more involved in songwriting. Before dansband music became popular, many jazz orchestras played a dance music. The golden era of music was the 1970s, with bands like Thorleifs, Flamingokvintetten, Ingmar Nordströms, Wizex. There were at most around 800 full-time working dansbands in Sweden, the term dansband was coined in Sweden in 1976, to sound more modern and tougher than the earlier dansorkester, but later many of the bands have begun to call themselves live bands. In 1977, the song Beatles, performed by Swedish dansband Forbes, won the Swedish Melodifestivalen 1977, for taxation reasons, it was possible to deduct fantasy outfits in the declaration of income
33.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
34.
ABBA
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ABBA were a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1974 to 1982. ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 at The Dome in Brighton, UK, giving Sweden its first triumph in the contest, ABBAs record sales figure is uncertain and various estimates range from over 140 to over 500 million sold records. This makes them one of the music artists. They have a joint record eight consecutive number-one albums in the UK, the group also enjoyed significant success in Hispanic American markets, and recorded a collection of their hit songs in Spanish. During the bands active years, Fältskog & Ulvaeus and Lyngstad & Andersson were married and these relationship changes were reflected in the groups music, with later compositions featuring more introspective and dark lyrics in contrast to their usual pure-pop sound. After ABBA disbanded in December 1982, Andersson and Ulvaeus achieved success writing music for the stage, while Lyngstad and Fältskog pursued solo careers with mixed success. Several films, notably Muriels Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, further revived public interest in the group, in 1999, ABBAs music was adapted into the successful musical Mamma Mia. that toured worldwide. A film of the name, released in 2008, became the highest-grossing film in the United Kingdom that year. ABBA were honoured at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2015, their song Dancing Queen was inducted into the Recording Academys Grammy Hall of Fame, in 2016, the members of ABBA announced an upcoming project in 2017. Benny Andersson became a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars, the Hep Stars were known as the Swedish Beatles. They also set up Hep House, their equivalent of Apple Corps, Andersson also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote his first Svensktoppen entry, Sagan om lilla Sofie, in 1968. Björn Ulvaeus also began his career at 18, when he fronted The Hootenanny Singers. Ulvaeus started writing English-language songs for his group, and even had a solo career alongside. The Hootenanny Singers and The Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring, in June 1966, Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together. Their first attempt was Isnt It Easy to Say, a song recorded by The Hep Stars. Stig Anderson was the manager of The Hootenanny Singers and founder of the Polar Music label and he saw potential in the collaboration, and encouraged them to write more
35.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
36.
Norwegians
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Norwegians are a Germanic ethnic group native to Norway. They share a culture and speak the Norwegian language. Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Proto-Indo-European speaking Battle-Axe peoples migrated to Norway bringing domesticated horses, agriculture, cattle, during the Viking age, Harald Fairhair unified the Norse petty kingdoms after being victorious at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in the 880s. Two centuries of Viking expansion tapered off following the decline of Norse paganism with the adoption of Christianity in the 11th century, during The Black Death, approximately 60% of the population died and in 1397 Norway entered a union with Denmark. In 1814, following Denmark-Norways defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway entered a union with Sweden, rising nationalism throughout the 19th century led to a 1905 referendum granting Norway independence. Although Norway remained officially neutral in World War I, the country was allied with the Entente powers. In World War II Norway proclaimed its neutrality, but was occupied for five years by Nazi Germany. In 1949, neutrality was abandoned and Norway became a member of NATO, discovery of oil and gas in adjacent waters in the late 1960s boosted Norways economic fortunes but in referenda held in 1972 and 1994, Norway rejected joining the EU. Key domestic issues include integration of a fast growing immigrant population, maintaining the countrys generous social safety net with an aging population, as with many of the people from European countries, Norwegians are spread throughout the world. There are more than 100,000 Norwegian citizens living abroad permanently, mostly in the U. S, Norwegian Vikings travelled north and west and founded vibrant communities in the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and northern England. They conducted extensive raids in Ireland and founded the cities of Cork, Dublin, in 947, a new wave of Norwegian Vikings appeared in England when Erik Bloodaxe captured York. Apart from Britain and Ireland, Norwegian Vikings established settlements in largely uninhabited regions, the first known permanent Norwegian settler in Iceland was Ingólfur Arnarson. In the year 874 he settled in Reykjavík, after his expulsion from Iceland Erik the Red discovered Greenland, a name he chose in hope of attracting Icelandic settlers. Viking settlements were established in the fjords of the southern and western coast. Eriks relative Leif Eriksson later discovered North America, during the 17th and 18th centuries, many Norwegians emigrated to the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. The Netherlands was the second most popular destination for Norwegian emigrants after Denmark, loosely estimated, some 10% of the population may have emigrated, in a period when the entire Norwegian population consisted of some 800,000 people. The Norwegians left with the Dutch trade ships that when in Norway traded for timber, hides, herring, young women took employment as maids in Amsterdam. Young men took employment as sailors, large parts of the Dutch merchant fleet and navy came to consist of Norwegians and Danes
37.
Heavy metal music
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Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are associated with aggression. The first heavy metal such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the evolution by discarding much of its blues influence, Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden, before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as metalheads or headbangers. During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with such as Mötley Crüe. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre and these include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop. Heavy metal is characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound. Metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes, the typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purples Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ, in 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on Led Zeppelin III, by the 1990s, in. almost every subgenre of heavy metal synthesizers were used. The electric guitar and the power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a use of high volumes. Guitar solos are an element of the heavy metal code. That underscores the significance of the guitar to the genre, most heavy metal songs featur at least one guitar solo, which is a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity. One exception is nu metal bands, which tend to omit guitar solos, with rhythm guitar parts, the heavy crunch sound in heavy metal. Palm muting the strings with the hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more sound and it emphasizes the low end
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