1.
Poland
–
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
Poland
–
Reconstruction of a
Bronze Age,
Lusatian culture settlement in
Biskupin, c. 700 BC
Poland
–
Flag
Poland
–
Earliest known contemporary depiction of a Polish ruler; King
Mieszko II Lambert of Poland being presented with a
Liturgical book by
Matilda of Swabia, 1025–1031
Poland
–
Drawing of the
Battle of Grunwald, which was fought against the
German Order of Teutonic Knights, 15 July 1410
2.
Voivodeships of Poland
–
A województwo is the highest-level administrative subdivision of Poland, corresponding to a province in many other countries. The term województwo has been in use since the 14th century, the word województwo is also rendered as voivodeship or a variant spelling. The Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, which went into effect on 1 January 1999 and these replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975. Todays voivodeships are mostly named after historical and geographical regions, while prior to 1998 generally took their names from the cities on which they were centered. The new units range in area from under 10,000 km2 to over 35,000 km2, voivodeships are further divided into powiats and gminas, see Administrative divisions of Poland. Competences and powers at voivodeship level are shared between the voivode, the sejmik and the marshal. In most cases these institutions are all based in one city, but in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lubusz Voivodeship the voivodes offices are in a different city from those of the executive, Voivodeship capitals are listed in the table below. The voivode is appointed by the Prime Minister and is the representative of the central government. The voivodes offices collectively are known as the urząd wojewódzki, the sejmik is elected every four years, at the same time as the local authorities at powiat and gmina level. It passes bylaws, including the development strategies and budget. It also elects the marszałek and other members of the executive, the marshals offices are collectively known as the urząd marszałkowski. According to 2014 Eurostat data, the GDP per capita of Polish voivodeships varies notably, Administrative division of Poland between 1979 and 1998 included 49 voivodeships upheld after the establishment of the Third Polish Republic in 1989 for another decade. This reorganization of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of government reform acts of 1973–1975. In place of the administrative division, a new two-level administrative division was introduced. The three smallest voivodeships – Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź – had the status of municipal voivodeship. After World War II, the new division of the country within the new national borders was based on the prewar one and included 14 voivodeships. The voivodeships in the east that had not been annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. The newly acquired territories in the west and north were organized into the new voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław and Olsztyn, two cities were granted voivodeship status, Warsaw and Łódź
Voivodeships of Poland
–
Voivodeships 1816-1820
Voivodeships of Poland
–
Voivodeships of Poland Województwa Polski (
Polish)
Voivodeships of Poland
–
Voivodeships of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1635
3.
Opole Voivodeship
–
Opole Voivodeship, or Opole Province, is the smallest and least populated voivodeship of Poland. The provinces name derives from that of the capital and largest city. It is part of Upper Silesia, a relatively large German minority lives in the voivodeship, with representatives in the Sejm. Opole Voivodeship is bordered by Lower Silesian Voivodeship to the west, Greater Poland and Łódź Voivodeships to the north, Silesian Voivodeship to the east, and the Czech Republic to the south. Opole Provinces geographic location, economic potential, and its populations level of education make it a business partner for other Polish regions. Formed in 1997, the Praděd/Pradziad Euroregion has facilitated economic, cultural, the voivodeship lies in southwestern Poland, the major part on the Silesian Lowland. To the east, the touches upon the Silesian Upland with the famous Saint Anne Mountain, the Sudetes range. The Oder River cuts across the middle of the voivodeship, the northern part of the voivodeship, along the Mała Panew River, is densely forested, while the southern part consists of arable land. Opole Voivodeship was created on January 1,1999, out of the former Opole Voivodeship and parts of Częstochowa Voivodeship, the solution came in late 1999, when Olesno was, after 24 years apart, finally reunited with the Opole Voivodeship to form the new legally defined region. The Opole Voivodeship is the smallest region in the makeup of the country in terms of both area and population. About 15% of the one million inhabitants of this voivodeship are ethnic Germans, as a result, many areas are officially bilingual in Opolskie, and the German language and culture play a significant role in education in the region. The Opole voivodeship is a region with three large lakes, Turawskie, Nyskie, and Otmuchowskie. The Opawskie Mountains are extremely popular, the region has the warmest climate in the country. The region has four crossings, and direct rail connections to all important Polish cities, as well as to Frankfurt, Munich, Budapest, Kiev. The voivodeship contains 35 cities and towns and these are listed below in descending order of population, Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties,1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas, the counties are listed in the following table. The Opole voivodeship is an industrial as well as an agricultural region, with respect to mineral resources, of major importance are deposits of raw materials for building, limestone, marl, marble, and basalt. The favourable climate, fertile soils, and high farming culture contribute to the development of agriculture, a total of nineteen industries are represented in the voivodeship
Opole Voivodeship
–
Opole Voivodeship Województwo opolskie
Opole Voivodeship
–
Moszna Castle, near Opole
Opole Voivodeship
–
Opole, the voivodeship's capital
Opole Voivodeship
–
Nysa
4.
Powiat
–
A powiat is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture in other countries. The term powiat is most often translated into English as county, a powiat is part of a larger unit, the voivodeship or province. A powiat is usually subdivided into gminas, major towns and cities, however, function as separate counties in their own right, without subdivision into gminas. They are termed city counties and have roughly the same status as county boroughs in the UK. The other type of powiats are termed land counties, as of 2008, there were 379 powiat-level entities,314 land counties, and 65 city counties. For a complete listing, see List of Polish counties. For tables of counties by voivodeship, see the articles on the individual voivodeships, the history of Polish powiats goes back to the second half of the 14th century. They remained the basic unit of organization in Poland, then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the powiats were again the territorial units. Powiats were abolished in 1975 in favor of a number of voivodeships. This reform also created 16 larger voivodeships, legislative power within a powiat is vested in an elected council, while local executive power is vested in the starosta, who is elected by that council. The administrative offices headed by the starosta are called the starostwo, however, in city counties these institutions do not exist separately – their powers and functions are exercised by the city council, the directly elected mayor, and the city offices. In some cases a powiat has its seat outside its own territory, for example, Poznań County has its offices in Poznań, although Poznań is itself a city county, and is therefore not part of Poznań County. Powiats have relatively limited powers, since many local and regional matters are dealt with either at gmina or voivodeship level, the Polish the name of an county, in the administrative sense, consists of the word powiat followed by a masculine-gender adjective. In most cases, this is the formed from the name of the town or city where the county has its seat. Thus the county with its seat at the town of Kutno is named powiat kutnowski, if the name of the seat comprises a noun followed by an adjective, as in Maków Mazowiecki, the adjective will generally be formed from the noun only. There are also a few counties whose names are derived from the names of two towns, from the name of a city and an adjective, or a mountain range. There is more one way to render such names into English
Powiat
–
Division of Poland into powiats (counties)
5.
Metropolitan area
–
As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
Metropolitan area
–
Greater Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Metropolitan area
–
Paris (
France), one of Europe's major centres
Metropolitan area
–
Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area,
Israel
Metropolitan area
–
Perth, Western Australia, an isolated metropolitan area
6.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
Daylight saving time
–
Ancient
water clock that lets hour lengths vary with season.
Daylight saving time
–
G. V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.
Daylight saving time
–
Retailers generally favor DST.
United Cigar Stores hailed a 1918 DST bill.
Daylight saving time
–
William Willett independently proposed DST in 1907 and advocated it tirelessly.
7.
Central European Summer Time
–
It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
Central European Summer Time
–
light blue
8.
Polish car number plates
–
Polish vehicle registration plates indicate the region of registration of the vehicle encoded in the number plate. According to Polish law, the plate is tied to the vehicle. There is no possibility for the owner to keep the number for use on a different car. The licence plates are issued by the powiat of the vehicle owners registered address of residence, if it is owned by a legal person, the place of registration is determined by the address of its seat. Vehicles leased under operating leases and many de facto finance leases will be registered at the seat of the lessor, when a vehicle changes hands, the new owner must apply for new vehicle registration document bearing his or her name and registered address. The new owner may obtain a new licence plate although it is not necessary when new owners residence address lies in the area as the previous owners. In such a situation the licence plates are carried over to the new owner. If the car has a pre- May 1,2006 plate, the plaque cannot be replaced if destroyed. The change of the set is required. The change in system shown below in 2001 is related to the reduction in the year of the number of voivodeships in Poland from 49 to 16. The pre-2001 licence plates can be used indefinitely, but since they are obsolete they have to be replaced in case of change of vehicles ownership. In the pre-2001 model, there were not sufficient letters in the Polish alphabet for each of the old voivodeships to have a single letter, only the standard latin alphabet were used, the specific Polish characters with diacritics were excluded in order to make the plates fully internationally readable. Therefore, two letters had to be used to indicate the vehicles origin, since the change, the first letter denotes the new voivodeship. One additional letter is used in cities with rights of powiat, two additional letters are used in any other powiat. It is not necessary for EU citizens to re-register the vehicles they have brought them, which are duly registered and taxed elsewhere in the EU. This emerges from European law, although local regulations have to not been changed to reflect the law. If in doubt, refer to your Embassy, if the vehicle uses only one licence plate the excessive sticker must be attached to the registration papers. Each powiat uses a two or three letter code, with the first letter denoting the powiats voivodeship
Polish car number plates
–
Polish license plates from
Radomsko
Polish car number plates
–
Polish voivodeship licence plate codes
Polish car number plates
–
Polish license plate from
Ustrzyki Dolne
Polish car number plates
–
Motorcycle plate from
Wrocław
9.
German language
–
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
German language
–
Old Frisian (Alt-Friesisch)
German language
–
The widespread popularity of the
Bible translated into German by
Martin Luther helped establish modern German
German language
–
Examples of German language in
Namibian everyday life
German language
–
German-language newspapers in the U.S. in 1922
10.
Silesian German
–
Silesian German or Lower Silesian is a nearly extinct German dialect spoken in Silesia. It is part of the East Central German language area with some West Slavic influences, variations of the dialect until 1945 were spoken by about seven million people. Most descendents of the Silesian Germans expelled to West and East Germany no longer learned the dialect, in origin, Silesian German appears to derive from 12th-century dialects of Middle High German, including medieval forms of Upper Saxon German, East Franconian German and Thuringian. The inhabitants of Silesia are thought to be descendants of settlers from Upper Lusatia, Saxony, after World War II, local communist authorities forbade the use of the language. After the expulsion of the Germans from Silesia, German Silesian culture, polish authorities banned the use of the German language. Today, Silesian German is a dialect spoken in Upper Lusatia and it can be divided into Gebirgsschlesische Dialektgruppe, Südostschlesische Dialektgruppe, mittelschlesische Dialektgruppe, westschlesische Dialektgruppe and niederländische Dialektgruppe. The nordostböhmische Dialektgruppe belongs to Silesian, too, Silesian German was the language in which the poetry of Karl von Holtei and Gerhart Hauptmann was written, during the 19th century
Silesian German
–
Historical area of distribution of the Silesian German
11.
Silesian language
–
Silesian or Upper Silesian is a West Slavic lect, part of its Lechitic group. Its vocabulary has been influenced by Central German due to the existence of numerous Silesian German speakers in the area prior to World War II and after. There is no consensus on whether Silesian is a language or a somewhat divergent dialect of Polish. Silesian speakers currently live in the region of Upper Silesia, which is split between southwestern Poland and the northeastern Czech Republic. At present Silesian is commonly spoken in the area between the border of Silesia on the east and a line from Syców to Prudnik on the west as well as in the Rawicz area. Until 1945 Silesian was also spoken in enclaves in Lower Silesia, in 2003, the National Publishing Company of Silesia commenced operations. This publisher was founded by the Alliance of the People of the Silesian Nation and it prints books about Silesia, in July 2007, the Slavic Silesian language was given the ISO 639-3 code szl. On 6 September 2007,23 politicians of the Polish parliament made a statement about a new law to give Silesian the official status of a regional language, the first official National Dictation Contest of the Silesian language took place in August 2007. In dictation as many as 10 forms of writing systems and orthography have been accepted, on 30 January 2008 and in June 2008, two organizations promoting Silesian language were established, Pro Loquela Silesiana and Tôwarzistwo Piastowaniô Ślónskij Môwy Danga. On 26 May 2008, the Silesian Wikipedia was founded, on 30 June 2008 in the edifice of the Silesian Parliament in Katowice, a conference took place on the status of the Silesian language. This conference was a forum for politicians, linguists, representatives of interested organizations and persons who deal with the Silesian language, the conference was titled Silesian — Still a Dialect or Already a Language. Ślabikŏrzowy szrajbōnek is the new alphabet created by the Pro Loquela Silesiana organization to reflect the sounds of all Silesian dialects. It was approved by Silesian organizations affiliated in Rada Górnośląska, ubuntu translation is in this alphabet as is the Silesian Wikipedia. It is used in a few books, including the Silesian alphabet book. Letters, A, Ã, B, C, Ć, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, Ł, M, N, Ń, O, Ŏ, Ō, Ô, Õ, P, R, S, Ś, T, U, W, Y, Z, Ź, Ż. One of the first alphabets created specifically for Silesian was Steuers Silesian alphabet, created in the Interwar period, Silesians phonetic alphabet replaces the digraphs with single letters and does not include the letter Ł, whose sound can be represented phonetically with U. It is therefore the alphabet contains the fewest letters. Large parts of the Silesian Wikipedia, however, are written in Silesians phonetic alphabet, although the morphological differences between Silesian and Polish have been researched extensively, other grammatical differences have not been studied in depth
Silesian language
–
Grave inscription at Lutheran cemetery in
Střítež near
Český Těšín. The inscription, which says "Rest in Peace", is in the Cieszyn Silesian dialect.
Silesian language
–
Range of Silesian on a map of
East-Central Europe (marked as G1 and G2, in southern Poland and the eastern Czech Republic).
12.
Czech language
–
Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
Czech language
–
The
Bible of Kralice was the first complete
translation of the Bible into the Czech language. Its six volumes were first published between 1579 and 1593.
Czech language
–
regions where Czech is the language of the majority
Czech language
–
Jan Hus
Czech language
–
Josef Dobrovský, whose writing played a key role in reviving Czech as a written language
13.
Oder River
–
The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, the river ultimately flows into the Szczecin Lagoon north of Szczecin and then into three branches that empty into the Gulf of Pomerania of the Baltic Sea. Ptolemy knew the modern Oder as the Συήβος – a name derived from the Suebi. While he also refers to an outlet in the area as the Οὐιαδούα Ouiadoua, the name Suebos may be preserved in the modern name of the Świna river – an outlet from the Szczecin Lagoon to the Baltic. In the Old Church Slavonic language, the name of the river is Vjodr, the Oder is 854 kilometres long,112 km in the Czech Republic,742 km in Poland and is the second longest river in Poland. It drains a basin of 118,861 square kilometres,106,056 km2 of which are in Poland,7,217 km2 in the Czech Republic, channels connect it to the Havel, Spree, Vistula system and Kłodnica. It flows through Silesian, Opole, Lower Silesian, Lubusz, and West Pomeranian voivodeships of Poland, the main branch empties into the Szczecin Lagoon near Police, Poland. The Szczecin Lagoon is bordered on the north by the islands of Usedom, between these two islands, there is only a narrow channel going to the Bay of Pomerania, which forms a part of the Baltic Sea. The largest city on the Oder is Wrocław, in Lower Silesia, the Oder is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as the town of Koźle, where the river connects to the Gliwice Canal. The upstream part of the river is canalized and permits larger barges to navigate between the sites around the Wrocław area. Further downstream the river is flowing, passing the towns of Eisenhüttenstadt. Downstream of Frankfurt the river Warta forms a connection with Poznań. At Hohensaaten the Oder–Havel Canal connects with the Berlin waterways again, near its mouth the Oder reaches the city of Szczecin, a major maritime port. The river finally reaches the Baltic Sea through the Szczecin Lagoon, the river in Germania Magna was known to the Romans as the Viadrus or Viadua in Classical Latin, as it was a branch of the Amber Road from the Baltic Sea to the Roman Empire. In German language it was and is called the Oder, written in older records as Odera or Oddera in Medieval Latin documents and it was mentioned in the Dagome iudex, which described territory of the Duchy of Poland under Mieszko I of Poland ca. 990, as a part of western frontier. Before Slavs settled along its banks, Oder was an important trade route, a document of the Bishopric of Prague mentions Zlasane, Trebovyane, Poborane, and Dedositze in Silesia. In the 13th century, the first dams were built to protect agricultural lands, the Finow Canal, built for the first time in 1605, connects Oder and Havel
Oder River
–
Oder between Kienitz and Zollbrücke, Germany
Oder River
–
Oder in
Wrocław,
Ostrów Tumski
Oder River
–
Oder in
Wrocław
Oder River
–
Oder River view from Ziegenwerder Island in
Frankfurt (Oder), Germany to
Słubice, Poland
14.
Opole County
–
Opole County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Opole Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1,1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998 and its administrative seat is the city of Opole, although the city is not part of the county. The county contains three towns, Ozimek,20 km east of Opole, Niemodlin,24 km west of Opole, the county covers an area of 1,586.82 square kilometres. As of 2006 its total population is 134,874, out of which the population of Ozimek is 9,944, that of Niemodlin is 6,849, that of Prószków is 2,713, the county is subdivided into 13 gminas. These are listed in the table, in descending order of population
Opole County
15.
9th century
–
The 9th century is the period from 801 to 900 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Common Era. Around the 9th century the Igbo people of what is now southeastern Nigeria developed bronze casts of humans, animals and these bronzes, which were used as vessels, amulets, pendants, and sacrificial tools, are among the earliest made bronzes ever found in Nigeria. Most items were part of a burial of a nobleman of the Nri-Igbo culture in the part of Igboland. Long distance trading was also discovered through the thousands of glass found at the sites. The discovery of the bronzes was made by locals from Igbo Ukwu, the Ghana Empire was located in what is now southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. It is considered the first of the Sahelian Kingdoms, which would exist in some form until the early 20th century, Britain experienced a great influx of Viking peoples in the 9th century as the Viking Age continued from the previous century. The kingdoms of the Heptarchy were gradually conquered by the Danes and this invasion was achieved by a huge military force known as the Great Heathen Army, which was supposedly led by Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, and Guthrum. This Danish army first arrived in Britain in 865 in East Anglia, after conquering that kingdom, the army proceeded to capture the city of York and establish the kingdom of Jorvik. The Danes went on to subjugate the kingdom of Northumbria and to take all, the remaining kingdom of Wessex was the only kingdom of the Heptarchy left. Alfred re-established Anglo-Saxon rule over the half of Mercia, and the Danelaw was established which separated Mercia into halves. Ireland was also affected by the Viking expansion across the North Sea, extensive raids were carried out all along the coast and eventually permanent settlements were established, such as that of Dublin in 841. Particular targets for these raids were the monasteries on the western coast of Ireland, Ireland in the 9th century was organised into an amalgam of small kingdoms, called tuatha. These kingdoms were sometimes grouped together and ruled by a single, if such a ruler could establish and maintain authority over a portion of these tuatha, he was sometimes granted the title of High King. Scotland also experienced significant Viking incursions during the 9th century, the Vikings established themselves in coastal regions, usually in northern Scotland, and in the northern islands such as Orkney and Shetland. The Viking invasion and settlement in Scotland provided a contributing factor in the collapse of the kingdoms of the Picts and this may have caused the new king, MacAlpin, to move to the east, and conquer the remnants of the Pictish realms. MacAlpin became king of the Picts in 843 and later kings would be titled as the King of Alba or King of Scots, Art in the 9th century was primarily dedicated to the Gospel and employed as basic tools of the Roman Catholic mass. An unknown event causes the decline of the Maya Classical Era, beowulf might have been written down in this century, alternatively, it could also have been in the 8th century. Reign of Charlemagne, and concurrent Carolingian Renaissance in Western Europe, large-scale Viking attacks on Europe begin, devastating countless numbers of people
9th century
–
A bronze ceremonial vessel made around the 9th century, one of the bronzes found at
Igbo-Ukwu.
9th century
–
Eastern Hemisphere at the beginning of the 9th century.
9th century
–
Borobudur was likely founded around 800 CE. This corresponds to the period between 760 and 830 CE, the peak of the
Sailendra dynasty in central Java, when it was under the influence of the
Srivijayan Empire. The construction has been estimated to have taken 75 years and been completed during the reign of
Samaratungga in 825.
9th century
–
Charlemagne (left) and Pippin the Hunchback. 10th-century copy of a lost original from about 830.
16.
Magdeburg Rights
–
Named after the German city of Magdeburg, these town charters were perhaps the most important set of medieval laws in Central Europe thus far. They became the basis for the German town laws developed during many centuries in the Holy Roman Empire, in medieval Poland, Jews were invited along with German merchants to settle in cities as part of the royal city development policy. Jews and Germans were sometimes competitors in those cities, Jews lived under privileges that they carefully negotiated with the king or emperor. They were not subject to city jurisdiction and these privileges guaranteed that they could maintain communal autonomy, live according to their laws, and be subjected directly to the royal jurisdiction in matters concerning Jews and Christians. Other provisions frequently mentioned were a permission to sell meat to Christians, external merchants coming into the city were not allowed to trade on their own, but instead forced to sell the goods they had brought into the city to local traders, if any wished to buy them. Being a member of the Hanseatic League, Magdeburg thus was one of the most important trade cities also, maintaining commerce with the Low countries, the Baltic states, in these lands they were mostly known as German or Teutonic law. The Law of Magdeburg implemented in Poland was different from its original German form and it was combined with a set of civil and criminal laws, and adjusted to include the urban planning popular across Western Europe – which was based on the ancient Roman model. Polish land owners used the location known as settlement with German law across the country usually with no German settlers present. Meanwhile, the people often ignorant of the actual German text. The advantages were not only economic, but also political, members of noble families were able to join the city patriciate usually unchallenged. In the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, the first town to receive the Magdeburg rights was Székesfehérvár in 1237, followed by, towns and cities including Bardejov, Buda, Bratislava and Košice adopted the Southern German Nuremberg town rights, rather than the Magdeburg rights. German town law Kulm law Lübeck law Danzig law
Magdeburg Rights
–
City charter of
Kraków, Poland's medieval capital; inscribed in obligatory Latin
17.
Medieval Period
–
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Medieval Period
–
The
Cross of Mathilde, a
crux gemmata made for
Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the
enamel plaque. The body of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in
Cologne or
Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques:
cast figurative sculpture,
filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical
cameos and
engraved gems.
Medieval Period
–
A late Roman statue
depicting the four Tetrarchs, now in
Venice
Medieval Period
–
Coin of
Theodoric
Medieval Period
–
Mosaic showing
Justinian with
the bishop of
Ravenna, bodyguards, and courtiers
18.
Renaissance
–
The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
Renaissance
–
David, by
Michelangelo (
Accademia di Belle Arti,
Florence) is a masterpiece of Renaissance and world art.
Renaissance
–
Renaissance
Renaissance
–
Leonardo da Vinci 's
Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) shows clearly the effect writers of Antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in
Vitruvius '
De architectura (1st century BC), Leonardo tried to draw the perfectly proportioned man.
Renaissance
–
Portrait of a young woman (c. 1480-85) (
Simonetta Vespucci) by
Sandro Botticelli
19.
Brzeg
–
Brzeg is a town in southwestern Poland with 36,381 inhabitants and the capital of Brzeg County. It is situated in Silesia in the Opole Voivodeship on the bank of the Oder. The town of Brzeg was first mentioned as a trading and fishing settlement in the year 1234, in 1248, Duke Henry III the White granted the settlement town rights and by the late 13th century the city became fortified. During the interwar period, Brzeg, often referred to as “the garden town”, was considered one of the most beautiful locations on the Oder River and its size greatly expanded after the construction of dwelling houses which were located on the city outskirts. Towards the end of World War II, in February 1945, the Soviet army captured Brzeg, in accordance with the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, the area was annexed by Poland. Subsequently, the town’s German population was deported and replaced with Polish settlers from the Eastern Borderlands, since 1950 the reconstructed town has been a part of the Opole Voivodeship. Brzeg was in earlier documents referred to as Civitas Altae Ripae, meaning city at high banks of the Oder river, its name is derived from the Polish Brzeg. The historian Konstanty Darmot, in his book of the etymology of Silesian localities, states that in a Latin document from 1234, the early human populous left behind traces of lithic flakes, flint flakes and other flint related tools. The earliest signs of agriculture come around during the Neolithic Era, the Neolithic culture developed agriculture and domesticated farm animals, this lifestyle led Nomadic cultures to settle in the locality. The time period of 1300–700 BC bears the existence of the Lusatian culture of the late Bronze Age, tribes of the Lusatian culture were Orthodox, being the ancestors of the early Slavic peoples. The culture settled in the region and in large continued to develop agriculture, the natural economy of the culture was based on weaving, pottery and metal works. To follow the Lusatian culture, which witnessed its declension around 500 BC, were the Celts, around 400–300 BC in Silesia, as identified with archaeological findings in Lubsza and Pawłów. Around 100 BC, the peoples of Silesia began trading with the Roman Empire, the ages of 500–1000 AD saw the establishment of the early feudal system in Silesia. The era was characteristic of the establishment of settlements, towns. It is believed the permanent populous around modern-day Brzeg was set up by Silesian tribes, the Ryczyn gords became the main line of defence for the Silesians, namely to protect the river trade routes along the River Oder and the land trade route between Ryczyn and Brzeg. The importance of the Ryczyn gords is demonstrated by Henry V of the Holy Roman Empires army halting their advancement before the gords in 1109, around the year 990, Silesia was annexed into Mieszko Is Poland. During the Fragmentation of Poland, the area of the Brzeg Lands, together with Silesia, came under the control of King of Poland, Bolesław III Wrymouths oldest son, Władysław II the Exile. The most favourable area for the settlement of Brzeg is located between the Castle Square, with elevated ground extending south-east towards the Square of the American Polonia
Brzeg
–
Town hall
Brzeg
–
List of Silesian cities (in Polish), 1750
Brzeg
–
Market Square in Brzeg
Brzeg
–
Castle of Silesian Piasts
20.
Bohemia
–
Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, after World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland, in 1990, the name was changed to the Czech Republic, which become a separate state in 1993 with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Until 1948, Bohemia was a unit of Czechoslovakia as one of its lands. Bohemia was bordered in the south by Upper and Lower Austria, in the west by Bavaria and in the north by Saxony and Lusatia, in the northeast by Silesia, and in the east by Moravia. In the 2nd century BC, the Romans were competing for dominance in northern Italy, the Romans defeated the Boii at the Battle of Placentia and the Battle of Mutina. After this, many of the Boii retreated north across the Alps, much later Roman authors refer to the area they had once occupied as Boiohaemum. The earliest mention was by Tacitus Germania 28, and later mentions of the name are in Strabo. The name appears to include the tribal name Boi- plus the Germanic element *haimaz home and this Boiohaemum was apparently isolated to the area where King Marobods kingdom was centred, within the Hercynian forest. The Czech name Čechy is derived from the name of the Slavic ethnic group, the Czechs, Bohemia, like neighbouring Bavaria, is named after the Boii, who were a large Celtic nation known to the Romans for their migrations and settlement in northern Italy and other places. Another part of the nation moved west with the Helvetii into southern France, to the south, over the Danube, the Romans extended their empire, and to the southeast in Hungaria, were Sarmatian peoples. In the area of modern Bohemia the Marcomanni and other Suebic groups were led by their king Marobodus and he took advantage of the natural defenses provided by its mountains and forests. In late classical times and the early Middle Ages, two new Suebic groupings appeared to the west of Bohemia in southern Germany, the Alemanni, many Suebic tribes from the Bohemian region took part in such movements westwards, even settling as far away as Spain and Portugal. With them were also tribes who had pushed from the east, such as the Vandals, other groups pushed southwards towards Pannonia. These are precursors of todays Czechs, though the amount of Slavic immigration is a subject of debate. The Slavic influx was divided into two or three waves, the first wave came from the southeast and east, when the Germanic Lombards left Bohemia. Soon after, from the 630s to 660s, the territory was taken by Samos tribal confederation and his death marked the end of the old Slavonic confederation, the second attempt to establish such a Slavonic union after Carantania in Carinthia. Other sources divide the population of Bohemia at this time into the Merehani, Marharaii, Beheimare, Christianity first appeared in the early 9th century, but only became dominant much later, in the 10th or 11th century
Bohemia
–
Karlštejn Castle
Bohemia
–
Historical map with Bohemia proper outlined in pink,
Moravia in yellow, and
Austrian Silesia in orange.
Bohemia
–
The more extreme Hussites became known as
Taborites, after the city of
Tábor that became their center.
Bohemia
–
Bohemia as the heart of
Europa regina, 1570
21.
Prussia
–
Prussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centred on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised, Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership, in November 1918, the monarchies were abolished and the nobility lost its political power during the German Revolution of 1918–19. The Kingdom of Prussia was thus abolished in favour of a republic—the Free State of Prussia, from 1933, Prussia lost its independence as a result of the Prussian coup, when the Nazi regime was successfully establishing its Gleichschaltung laws in pursuit of a unitary state. Prussia existed de jure until its liquidation by the Allied Control Council Enactment No.46 of 25 February 1947. The name Prussia derives from the Old Prussians, in the 13th century, the Teutonic Knights—an organized Catholic medieval military order of German crusaders—conquered the lands inhabited by them. In 1308, the Teutonic Knights conquered the region of Pomerelia with Gdańsk and their monastic state was mostly Germanised through immigration from central and western Germany and in the south, it was Polonised by settlers from Masovia. The Second Peace of Thorn split Prussia into the western Royal Prussia, a province of Poland, and the part, from 1525 called the Duchy of Prussia. The union of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia in 1618 led to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Prussia entered the ranks of the great powers shortly after becoming a kingdom, and exercised most influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century it had a say in many international affairs under the reign of Frederick the Great. During the 19th century, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck united the German principalities into a Lesser Germany which excluded the Austrian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna, which redrew the map of Europe following Napoleons defeat, Prussia acquired a section of north western Germany. The country then grew rapidly in influence economically and politically, and became the core of the North German Confederation in 1867, and then of the German Empire in 1871. The Kingdom of Prussia was now so large and so dominant in the new Germany that Junkers and other Prussian élites identified more and more as Germans and less as Prussians. In the Weimar Republic, the state of Prussia lost nearly all of its legal and political importance following the 1932 coup led by Franz von Papen. East Prussia lost all of its German population after 1945, as Poland, the main coat of arms of Prussia, as well as the flag of Prussia, depicted a black eagle on a white background. The black and white colours were already used by the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order wore a white coat embroidered with a cross with gold insert
Prussia
–
... during the
Renaissance period
Prussia
–
Flag (1892–1918)
Prussia
–
... according to the design of 1702
Prussia
–
Prussian King's Crown (
Hohenzollern Castle Collection)
22.
Germany
–
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
Germany
–
The
Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.
Germany
–
Flag
Germany
–
Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the
Protestant Reformation.
Germany
–
Foundation of the
German Empire in
Versailles, 1871.
Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.
23.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
World War II
–
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the
Battle of Wanjialing, Australian
25-pounder guns during the
First Battle of El Alamein, German
Stuka dive bombers on the
Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the
Lingayen Gulf,
Wilhelm Keitel signing the
German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the
Battle of Stalingrad
World War II
–
The
League of Nations assembly, held in
Geneva,
Switzerland, 1930
World War II
–
Adolf Hitler at a German
National Socialist political rally in
Weimar, October 1930
World War II
–
Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
24.
Yalta Agreement
–
The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea, USSR. The goal of conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order, the meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, to a degree, it has remained controversial. Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three and it had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Stalin, Churchill and Harry S. Truman, Roosevelts successor. All three leaders were attempting to establish an agenda for governing post-war Germany and they wanted to keep peace between post-world war countries. On the Eastern Front, the front line at the end of December 1943 remained in the Soviet Union but, by August 1944, Soviet forces were inside Poland, by the time of the Conference, Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukovs forces were 65 km from Berlin. Stalins position at the conference was one which he felt was so strong that he could dictate terms. According to U. S. delegation member and future Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, t was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, moreover, Roosevelt hoped for a commitment from Stalin to participate in the United Nations. Stalin, insisting that his doctors opposed any long trips, rejected Roosevelts suggestion to meet at the Mediterranean and he offered instead to meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta, in the Crimea. Stalins fear of flying also was a factor in this decision. Each leader had an agenda for the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the U. S, Poland was the first item on the Soviet agenda. Stalin stated that For the Soviet government, the question of Poland was one of honor, in addition, Stalin stated regarding history that because the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland, the Soviet government was trying to atone for those sins. Stalin concluded that Poland must be strong and that the Soviet Union is interested in the creation of a mighty, free, Roosevelt wanted the USSR to enter the Pacific War with the Allies. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany, Stalin pledged to Truman to keep the nationality of the Korean Peninsula intact as Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. At the time, the Red Army had occupied Poland completely, the Declaration of Liberated Europe did little to dispel the sphere of influence agreements that had been incorporated into armistice agreements. They also agreed to give France a zone of occupation, carved out of the U. S. also, the Big Three agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries and that all civilians would be repatriated. The Declaration of Liberated Europe is a declaration that was created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and it was a promise that allowed the people of Europe to create democratic institutions of their own choice. The declaration pledged, the earliest possible establishment through free elections governments responsive to the will of the people and this is similar to the statements of the Atlantic Charter, which says, the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live
Yalta Agreement
Yalta Agreement
–
A Big Three meeting room
Yalta Agreement
–
The military situation [
clarification needed] at the end of the conference
Yalta Agreement
–
Taken by War Office official photographer, United Kingdom
25.
Potsdam Agreement
–
It also included Germanys demilitarisation, reparations and the prosecution of war criminals. Executed as a communiqué, the Agreement was not a treaty according to international law. It was superseded by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed on 12 September 1990,45 years later. After the Second World War, and the Tehran, Casablanca and Yalta Conferences, the Allies by the Berlin Declaration of June 5,1945, had assumed supreme authority over Germany. In the Three Power Conference of Berlin from 17 July to 2 August 1945, they agreed to and adopted the Protocol of the Proceedings, August 1,1945, the Provisional Government of the French Republic agreed with reservations on August 4. In the Potsdam Agreement the Allies agree, Establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers, see the London Conference of Foreign Ministers and the Moscow Conference which took place later in 1945. The principles to govern the treatment of Germany in the control period. See European Advisory Commission and Allied Control Council A, treatment of Germany as a single unit. Reduction or destruction of all civilian heavy-industry with war-potential, such as shipbuilding, machine production, restructuring of German economy towards agriculture and light-industry. This section covered reparation claims of the USSR from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, all but thirty submarines to be sunk and the rest of the German Navy was to be divided equally between the three powers. The German merchant marine was to be divided equally between the three powers, and they would distribute some of those ships to the other Allies. But until the end of the war with the Empire of Japan all the ships would remain under the authority of the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, City of Königsberg and the adjacent area. The United States and Britain declared that they would support the transfer of Königsberg, the Three Governments reaffirm their intention to bring these criminals to swift and sure justice. The first list of defendants will be published before 1st September, Austria, The government of Austria was to be decided after British and American forces entered Vienna, and that Austria should not pay any reparations. Poland There should be a Provisional Government of National Unity recognised by all three powers, and that those Poles who were serving in British Army formations should be free to return to Poland, conclusion on peace treaties and admission to the United Nations organization. See Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers which took place later in 1945, further he three Governments have also charged the Council of Foreign Ministers with the task of preparing peace treaties for Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary and Romania. The conclusion of Peace Treaties with recognized democratic governments in these States will also enable the three Governments to support applications from them for membership of the United Nations, territorial Trusteeship Italian former colonies would be decided in connection with the preparation of a peace treaty for Italy. Like most of the other former European Axis powers the Italian peace treaty was signed at the 1947 Paris Peace Conference and they agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner
Potsdam Agreement
–
The "Big Three": Attlee, Truman, Stalin
26.
Germans
–
Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages, before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest divided nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. Thus, the number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most often subscribe to their own national identities, the German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic language of the people. It is not clear how commonly, if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German, used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of a German emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century. The Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni and it was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century. The word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects, while in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse, Finnish and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci, originally with a meaning foreigner, the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and later Tacitus. It gradually replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming mostly obsolete by the early 18th century, the Germans are a Germanic people, who as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. Originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and these states eventually formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe, the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe, during antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area that is now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France. Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine, in Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become an influence in the development of a common German identity
Germans
Germans
–
Germanic Kingdoms in Europe c. 500 AD
Germans
–
Extent of
Holy Roman Empire in 972 (red line) and 1035 (red dots) with
Kingdom of Germany marked in blue
Germans
–
18 January 1871: The proclamation of the
German Empire in the
Hall of Mirrors of the
Palace of Versailles.
Bismarck appears in white. The Grand Duke of Baden stands beside Wilhelm, leading the cheers. Crown Prince Friedrich, later
Friedrich III, stands on his father's right.
27.
Upper Silesia
–
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. In 1742 the bulk of Upper Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, after the Second World War it became part of the Republic of Poland, in 1945. Upper Silesia is situated on the upper Oder River, north of the Eastern Sudetes mountain range and the Moravian Gate, within the adjacent Silesian Beskids to the east, the Vistula River rises and turns eastwards, the Biała and Przemsza tributaries mark the eastern border with Lesser Poland. In the north, Upper Silesia borders on Greater Poland, and it is currently split into a larger Polish and the smaller Czech Silesian part, which is located within the Czech regions of Moravia-Silesia and Olomouc. The Polish Upper Silesian territory covers most of the Opole Voivodeship, except for the Lower Silesian counties of Brzeg and Namysłów, divided Cieszyn Silesia as well as former Austrian Silesia are historical parts of Upper Silesia. According to the 9th century Bavarian Geographer, the West Slavic Opolanie tribe had settled on the upper Oder River since the days of the Migration Period, at the time of Prince Svatopluk I, all Silesia was a part of his Great Moravian realm. By 990 the newly installed Piast duke Mieszko I of the Polans had conquered parts of Silesia. Finally in 1137, the Polish prince Bolesław III Wrymouth came to terms with Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia, however, this arrangement fell apart when upon the death of Bolesław III and his testament the fragmentation of Poland began, which decisively enfeebled its central authority. When in 1202 Mieszko Tanglefoot had annexed the Duchy of Opole of his deceased nephew Jarosław, he ruled over all Upper Silesia as Duke of Opole and Racibórz. In the early 13th century the ties of the Silesian Piasts with the neighbouring Holy Roman Empire grew stronger as several dukes married scions of German nobility. The plans to re-unifiy Silesia shattered upon the Mongol invasion of Poland, Upper Silesia further fragmented upon the death of Duke Władysław Opolski in 1281 into the duchies of Bytom, Opole, Racibórz and Cieszyn. About 1269 the Duchy of Opava was established on adjacent Moravian territory, ruled by the Přemyslid duke Nicholas I, as they ruled both duchies in personal union, Opava grew into the Upper Silesian territory. In 1327 the Upper Silesian dukes, like most of their Lower Silesian cousins, had sworn allegiance to King John of Bohemia, by the mid-14th century, the influx of German settlers into Upper Silesia was stopped by the Black Death pandemic. Unlike in Lower Silesia, the Germanization process was halted, still a majority of the population spoke Polish and Silesian as their native language, in the southernmost areas, also Lach dialects were spoken. While Latin, Czech and German language were used as languages in towns and cities. Upper Silesia was hit by the Hussite Wars and in 1469 was conquered by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, while the Duchies of Oświęcim, upon the death of the Jagiellonian king Louis II in 1526, the Bohemian crown lands were inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg. In the 16th century, large parts of Silesia had turned Protestant, after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, the Catholic Emperors of the Habsburg dynasty forcibly re-introduced Catholicism, led by the Jesuits. Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia were occupied by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 during the First Silesian War, a small part south of the Opava River remained within the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown as the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, colloquially called Austrian Silesia
Upper Silesia
–
Duchy of Opole–Racibórz under Duke Casimir I (1211-1230)
Upper Silesia
–
Coat of arms of Upper Silesia as drawn by
Hugo Gerard Ströhl (1851-1919)
Upper Silesia
–
1746 map of Upper Silesia,
Homann heirs, Nuremberg
Upper Silesia
–
Opole on the Oder River
28.
Opole University
–
The University of Opole is a public university in the city of Opole. It was founded in 1994 from a merger of two educational institutions. The university has 17,500 students completing 32 academic majors and 53 specializations, the staff numbers 1,380 - among them are 203 professors and habilitated doctors and 327 doctors. The university confers Licentiate, Masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral degrees, within the field of economics it belongs to the new institutional economics. The journal is published by the University of Opole and was established in 2001, the editors-in-chief are Joachim Ahrens and Joost Platje
Opole University
–
Faculty of Philology
29.
National Festival of Polish Song in Opole
–
The National Festival of Polish Song in Opole is an annual music festival in Opole, Poland. Together with the Sopot Festival it is one of the two most important music festivals in Poland, the Opole Festival is meant as a summary of the past years achievements by Polish song writers and performers. It is also the most important cultural event in Opole, with a going back 50 years. It usually takes place in late June, since 2011 lasting for two days From 2013 again it takes three days, during the KFPP both the hits of the past season and new debut songs are performed, there is also a tournament of performing debuts. Established in 1963, its traditional patrons include Polskie Radio and Telewizja Polska, the only year the Festival did not take place was 1982, due to martial law in Poland. Since the 1980s it has included a section and since 2001 a hip-hop section. The festival takes place at the Millennium Amphitheatre, which was opened in June 1963, the amphitheatre was built on the initiative of Opoles mayor, Karol Musioł, and designed by the architect Florian Jesionowski. It has become one of the symbols of the city of Opole, well-preserved remnants of wooden houses and traces of pavements were discovered by archaeologists, who suggested opening a museum of ancient Opole on the spot. In the spring of 2011, the amphitheatre was remodelled, krajowy Festiwal Piosenki Polskiej w Opolu, WIEM Encyklopedia Media related to National Festival of Polish Song in Opole at Wikimedia Commons
National Festival of Polish Song in Opole
–
Opole amphitheater, main stage of the National Festival of Polish Song, June 2009
30.
Canals
–
Canals and navigations are human-made channels for water conveyance, or to service water transport vehicles. In the vernacular, both are referred to as canals, and in most cases, the works will have a series of dams. These areas are referred to as water levels, often just called levels. In contrast, a canal cuts across a drainage divide atop a ridge, many canals have been built at elevations towering over valleys and others water ways crossing far below. Cities need a lot of water and many canals with sources of water at a higher level can deliver water to a destination where there is a lack of water. The Roman Empires Aqueducts were such water supply canals, a navigation is a series of channels that run roughly parallel to the valley and stream bed of an unimproved river. A navigation always shares the drainage basin of the river, a vessel uses the calm parts of the river itself as well as improvements, traversing the same changes in height. A true canal is a channel that cuts across a drainage divide, most commercially important canals of the first half of the 19th century were a little of each, using rivers in long stretches, and divide crossing canals in others. This is true for many canals still in use, there are two broad types of canal, Waterways, canals and navigations used for carrying vessels transporting goods and people. These can be subdivided into two kinds, Those connecting existing lakes, rivers, other canals or seas and oceans and those connected in a city network, such as the Canal Grande and others of Venice Italy, the gracht of Amsterdam, and the waterways of Bangkok. Aqueducts, water canals that are used for the conveyance and delivery of potable water for human consumption, municipal uses, hydro power canals. Historically canals were of importance to commerce and the development, growth. In 1855 the Lehigh Canal carried over 1.2 million tons of burning anthracite coal, by the 1930s the company which built. By the early 1880s, canals which had little ability to compete with rail transport, were off the map. In the next couple of decades, coal was diminished as the heating fuel of choice by oil. Later, after World War I when motor-trucks came into their own, Canals are built in one of three ways, or a combination of the three, depending on available water and available path, Human made streams A canal can be created where no stream presently exists. Either the body of the canal is dug or the sides of the canal are created by making dykes or levees by piling dirt, stone, the water for the canal must be provided from an external source, like streams or reservoirs. Where the new waterway must change elevation engineering works like locks, lifts or elevators are constructed to raise, examples include canals that connect valleys over a higher body of land, like Canal du Midi, Canal de Briare and the Panama Canal
Canals
–
The Alter Strom, in the sea resort of
Warnemünde, Germany.
Canals
–
The
Royal Canal in Ireland.
Canals
–
Small boat canals such as the
Basingstoke Canal fueled the industrial revolution in much of Europe and the United States.
Canals
–
Loading
Anthracite on the
Lehigh Canal to feed the early United States industries in the pioneer-era.
31.
Slavic peoples
–
Slavs are the largest Indo-European ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They are native to Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Northeastern Europe, North Asia, Slavs speak Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, states with Slavic languages comprise over 50% of the territory of Europe, therefore it is the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe by land area. Present-day Slavic people are classified into West Slavs, East Slavs, there are an estimated 360 million Slavs worldwide. The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural *Slověne, the oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest the autonym as Slověne. The word slovo and the related slava and slukh originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew-, cognate with Ancient Greek κλῆς, whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo, some other theories have limited support. The English term slave eventually derives from the ethnonym Slav, Slavs were captured and enslaved by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. The Slavs under name of the Antes and the Sclaveni make their first appearance in Byzantine records in the early 6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a name in the remote past. He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy, and that believe in one god. They lived in scattered housing, and constantly changed settlement, regarding warfare, they were mainly foot soldiers with small shields and battleaxes, lightly clothed, some entering battle naked with only their genitals covered. And they live a life, giving no heed to bodily comforts. Jordanes described the Sclaveni having swamps and forests for their cities, another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions a Daurentius that slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I. The Avars asked the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars, he declined and is reported as saying, Others do not conquer our land. The relationship between the Slavs and a called the Veneti east of the River Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain. The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs, perhaps some Slavs migrated with the movement of the Vandals to Iberia and north Africa. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers, the Byzantine records note that grass would not regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers
Slavic peoples
–
Living of East Slavs, by
Sergey Ivanov
Slavic peoples
–
Distribution of Slavic languages in Europe
Slavic peoples
–
Adalbert of Prague liberates Slavic slaves from the Jewish slave traders, relief of
Gniezno Doors
Slavic peoples
–
Slavic peoples in 6th century
32.
Silesia
–
Silesia is a region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is about 40,000 km2, and its population about 8,000,000, Silesia is located along the Oder River. It consists of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia, the region is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesias largest city and historical capital is Wrocław, the biggest metropolitan area is the Upper Silesian metropolitan area, the centre of which is Katowice. Parts of the Czech city of Ostrava fall within the borders of Silesia, Silesias borders and national affiliation have changed over time, both when it was a hereditary possession of noble houses and after the rise of modern nation-states. The first known states to hold there were probably those of Greater Moravia at the end of the 9th century. In the 10th century, Silesia was incorporated into the early Polish state, in the 14th century, it became a constituent part of the Bohemian Crown Lands under the Holy Roman Empire, which passed to the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in 1526. Most of Silesia was conquered by Prussia in 1742, later becoming part of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the varied history with changing aristocratic possessions resulted in an abundance of castles in Silesia, especially in the Jelenia Góra valley. The remaining former Austrian parts of Silesia were partitioned to Czechoslovakia, in 1945, after World War II, the bulk of Silesia was transferred to Polish jurisdiction by the Potsdam Agreement of the victorious Allied Powers and became part of Poland. The small Lusatian strip west of the Oder-Neisse line, which had belonged to Silesia since 1815 and its centres are Görlitz and Bautzen. Most inhabitants of Silesia today speak the languages of their respective countries. The population of Upper Silesia is native, while Lower Silesia was settled by a German-speaking population before 1945, an ongoing debate exists whether Silesian speech should be considered a dialect of Polish or a separate language. Also, a Lower Silesian German dialect is used, although today it is almost extinct and it is used by expellees within Germany, as well as Germans who were left behind. The names all relate to the name of a river and mountain in mid-southern Silesia, the mountain served as a cultic place. Ślęża is listed as one of the numerous Pre-Indo-European topographic names in the region, according to some Polish Slavists, the name Ślęża or Ślęż is directly related to the Old Slavic words ślęg or śląg, which means dampness, moisture, or humidity. They disagree with the hypothesis of an origin for the name Śląsk from the name of the Silings tribe, in the fourth century BC, Celts entered Silesia, settling around Mount Ślęża near modern Wrocław, Oława, and Strzelin. Germanic Lugii tribes were first recorded within Silesia in the 1st century, Slavic peoples arrived in the region around the 7th century, and by the early ninth century, their settlements had stabilized. Local Slavs started to erect boundary structures like the Silesian Przesieka, the eastern border of Silesian settlement was situated to the west of the Bytom, and east from Racibórz and Cieszyn
Silesia
–
Silesia in an early period of
Poland's fragmentation, 1172–1177
Silesia
–
Historic Silesia, superimposed on modern national borders: The medieval and early modern Bohemian and Habsburg province outlined in cyan, Prussian Silesia in yellow.
Silesia
–
First map of Silesia by
Martin Helwig, 1561; north at the bottom
Silesia
–
Coal Mine Bolesław Śmiały, Łaziska Górne
33.
Piast
–
The Piast dynasty was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Prince Mieszko I, the Piasts royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great. Branches of the Piast dynasty continued to rule in the Duchy of Masovia, the Piasts intermarried with several noble lines of Europe, and possessed numerous titles, some within the Holy Roman Empire. However, the term Piast Dynasty was not applied until the 17th century, in a historical work the expression Piast dynasty was introduced by the Polish historian Adam Naruszewicz, it is not documented in contemporary sources. The first Piasts, probably of Polan descent, appeared around 940 in the territory of Greater Poland at the stronghold of Giecz, shortly afterwards they relocated their residence to Gniezno, where Prince Mieszko I ruled over the Civitas Schinesghe from about 960. The name Polani, from Slavic, pole, did not appear until 1015, the Piasts temporarily also ruled over Pomerania, Bohemia and the Lusatias, as well as Ruthenia, and the Hungarian Spiš region in present-day Slovakia. The ruler bore the title of a duke or a king, depending on their position of power. The Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty, the Hungarian Arpads and their Anjou successors, the Kievan Rus, later also the State of the Teutonic Order, the Piast position was decisively enfeebled by an era of fragmentation following the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III Krzywousty. Numerous dukes like Mieszko III the Old, Władysław III Spindleshanks or Leszek I the White were crowned, only to be overthrown shortly afterwards. After the Polish royal line and Piast junior branch had died out in 1370, the Masovian branch of the Piasts became extinct with the death of Duke Janusz III in 1526. The last ruling duke of the Silesian Piasts was George William of Legnica who died in 1675 and his uncle Count August of Legnica, the last male Piast, died in 1679. The last legitimate heir, Duchess Karolina of Legnica-Brieg died in 1707 and is buried in Trzebnica Abbey, nevertheless, numerous families, like the illegitimate descendants of the Silesian duke Adam Wenceslaus of Cieszyn, link their genealogy to the dynasty. About 1295, Przemysł II used a coat of arms with a white eagle – a symbol later referred to as the Piast coat of arms or as the Piast Eagle, Piast kings and rulers of Poland appear in list form in the following table. For a list of all rulers, see List of Polish monarchs
Piast
–
Duke
Piast
–
Piast
Piast
–
Bolesław I the Great
Polish: Bolesław I Chrobry (Wielki)
Piast
–
King
34.
Mieszko I
–
Mieszko I was the ruler of the Polans from about 960 until his death. A member of the Piast dynasty, he was a son of Siemomysł, and he was the father of Bolesław I the Brave and Gunhild of Wenden with his wife Oda. The first Christian ruler of territories later called Poland, Mieszko I is considered the de facto creator of the Polish state and he continued the policy of both his father and grandfather, who were rulers of the pagan tribes located in the area of present-day Greater Poland. Through both alliances and the use of force, Mieszko extended ongoing Polish conquests and early in his reign subjugated Kuyavia. For most of his reign, Mieszko I was involved in warfare for the control of Western Pomerania, during the last years of his life, he fought the Bohemian state, winning Silesia and probably Lesser Poland. Mieszko Is marriage in 965 to the Czech Přemyslid princess Dobrawa and his baptism in 966 put him, apart from the great conquests accomplished during his reign Mieszko I was renowned for his internal reforms, aimed at expanding and improving the so-called war monarchy system. According to existing sources, Mieszko I was a politician, a talented military leader. He successfully used diplomacy, concluding alliances, first with Bohemia, then Sweden, in foreign policy, he placed the interests of his country foremost, even entering into agreements with his former enemies. On his death, he left to his sons a country with greatly expanded territories, Mieszko I also enigmatically appeared as Dagome in a papal document dating to about 1085, called Dagome iudex, which mentions a gift or dedication of Mieszkos land to the Pope. It is roughly his borders that Poland was returned to in 1945, There is no certain information on Mieszko Is life before he took control over his lands. Only the Lesser Poland Chronicle gives the date of his birth as somewhere between the years 920–931, however, modern researchers dont recognize the Chronicle as a reliable source, There are three major theories concerning the origin and meaning of Mieszko Is name. The most popular theory, proposed by Jan Długosz, explains that Mieszko is a diminutive of Mieczysław, today, this theory is rejected by the majority of Polish historians, who consider the name Mieczysław to have been invented by Długosz to explain the origin of the name Mieszko. Today, we know that ancient Slavs never formed their names using either animal names or weapon names, ancient Slavic names were abstract in nature. The chronicler related this story as follows, At that time Prince Siemomysł urgently asked the people of his country whether his sons blindness conveyed some miraculous meaning. They explained that this meant that Poland was blind back then. In addition, it is known that the Slavic word mzec can be interpreted as having his eyes closed or be blind, in that symbolic rite a child became a man. That explains that Mieszko wasnt blind in fact, besides his sons name was also Mieszko and it is hard to believe that he was also blind. In addition, as we know today ancient Slavs used only abstract names among nobility, the third theory links the name of Mieszko with his other name, Dagome, as it appeared in the document called Dagome iudex
Mieszko I
–
Portrait by
Jan Matejko.
Mieszko I
–
Monumental tomb of Mieszko I. and
Bolesław I. by
Christian Daniel Rauch in the Golden Chapel of
Poznań Cathedral
Mieszko I
–
19th century illustration: Mieszko, a former pagan, aided by his Roman Catholic Czech wife
Dobrawa, daughter of
Boleslaus I, becomes an
evangelist of Roman Catholicism
Mieszko I
–
Contemporary mural in
Gniezno commemorates the baptism of Mieszko I
35.
Castellany
–
A castellan was the governor or captain of a castellany and its castle. The word stems from the Latin Castellanus, derived from castellum castle, sometimes also known as a constable, governor of the castle district or captain, the Constable of the Tower of London is, in fact, a form of castellan. A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1194, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many tribes migrated into western Europe, causing strife and war. The answer to recurrent invasion was to create fortified areas which evolved into castles, some leaders gained control of several areas, each with a castle. The problem lay in exerting control and authority in each area when a leader could only be in one place at a time. To answer this, lords gave their trusted vassals direct control of a castle and this changed as kings grew in power and as the Holy Roman emperors replaced recalcitrant vassals with ministerials. Usually the duties of a castellan were combined with the duties of a majordomo and this made the castellan responsible for a castles domestic staff and its garrison, as well as a military administrator responsible for maintaining defenses and protecting the castles lands. This was particularly the case if there was no lord resident at the castle, one unusual responsibility in western Europe concerned jurisdiction over the resident Jewish communities near the English Channel. The Constable of the Tower of London and those castellans subordinate to the dukes of Normandy were responsible for their administration, in France, castellans who governed castles without resident nobles acquired considerable powers, and the position actually became a hereditary fiefdom. In Germany the castellan was known as a Burgmann, or sometimes Hauptmann, the burgmann may have been either a free noble or a ministerialis, but either way administered the castle as a vassal. A ministerialis, being wholly indebted to a lord, was easily controlled. Ministeriales replaced free nobles as castellans of Hohensalzburg under Conrad I of Abensberg’s tenure as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1106 to 1147, in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary usually was called várnagy, and in the Latin charts it appeared as castellanus. The lord of the castle had similar functions than the German ones. In Hungary first the King, later the most powerful noblemen designed the castellans between their followers for the administration of their castles and the states that belonged to the fortress, at times, there was a castellan among the Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, starting with Anselm. Lectures on the Statutes of the Sacred Order of St. John of Jerusalem, in the Kingdom of Poland and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the castellans were in most cases lower in precedence to the voivodes. Castellans in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were of senator rank, in Portugal, a castellan was known as alcaide. Later, the role of alcaide became a title awarded by the King of Portugal to certain nobles. As the honorary holder of the office of alcaide did not often live near its castle, an honorary holder of the office became known as alcaide-mor and its delegate became known as alcaide pequeno or alcaide-menor
Castellany
–
The fortress of
Hohensalzburg, Austria, had a ministerial castellan
Castellany
–
Waclaw Rzewuski (1705-1779), made Castellan of Krakow in 1778
Castellany
–
Map of the
Brugse Vrije, a castellany of the
County of Flanders
36.
Lower Silesia
–
Lower Silesia is the northwestern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, Upper Silesia is to the southeast. Throughout its history Lower Silesia has been under the control of the medieval Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy from 1526. After 1945 the main part of the former Prussian Province of Lower Silesia fell to the Republic of Poland, Lower Silesia is located mostly in the basin of the middle Oder River with its historic capital in Wrocław. To the north, Lower Silesia originally stretched up to Świebodzin and Krosno Odrzańskie, the Barycz river forms the border with historic Greater Poland in the northeast, the Upper Silesian lands lie to the southeast. They are topographically divided into Western, Central and Eastern Sudetes, the adjacent Silesian Lowland includes the Silesian Lowlands and the Silesian-Lusatian Lowlands. The southern part of the Lowland includes The Sudeten Foreland, consisting of quite low Wzgórze Strzegomskie,232 m or 761 ft, Grupa Ślęży, Lower hills occur also in areas of Obniżenie Sudeckie, Świdnik, and Kotlina Dzierżoniowska. The eastern part of Silesian Lowland consists of the wide Silesian Lowlands, the eastern part includes also Równina Wrocławska with its surrounding lands, Równina Oleśnicka, Wysoczyzna Średzka, Równina Grodkowska and Niemodlińska. From the North, the lowlands are delimited by Wał Trzebnicki, consisting of hills that are 200 km long and over 150 m high, in comparison to neighboring lowlands, the range of hills includes, Wzgórza Dalkowskie, Wzgórza Trzebnickie, Wzgórza Twardogórskie, and Wzgórza Ostrzeszowskie. Obniżenie Milicko-Głogowskie, with Kotlina Żmigrodzka and Milicka, is located in the northern part, the region of the lowlands is coated with a thick layer of glacial elements that covers more diverse relief of the older ground. Generally flat and wide bottoms of the valleys are padded with river settlements, slopes of the hills over 180–200 m are coated with fertile clays and therefore, to begin with the Paleozoic era, they became the lands for people to settle and cultivate intensively. Later form of economy caused almost complete deforestation of the slopes, not only fertile grounds, but also mild climate is conductive to development of agriculture and market gardening. The annual average temperature of the Wrocław area is 9.5 °C, average temperature of the hottest month is 19 °C, and −0.5 °C of the coldest month. The average amount of rainfall is 500–620 millimetres, with its maximum in July, the snow layer disappears after 45 days. The winds, similar to those appearing in the West side of Poland, are West and Southwest, Sudeten rivers are characterized by changeable water rates, and high pollution resulting from large industrialization of the area. There is also the largest right-bank tributary of the area, Barycz, the other guite large rivers—Bóbr, Kwisa, and Lusatian Neisse—flow into Oder River beyond Lower Silesian borders. The majority of the rivers is regulated and their basins are improved, the characteristic feature of the lowlands landscape is the lack of lakes. The region of Legnica is the place where a dozen or so of small lakes survived. The largest one is Jezioro Kunickie, Jezioro Koskowickie, Jezioro Jaśkowickie, in contrast to the number of lakes, there are large groups of artificial ponds founded in Barycz basin, in the Middle Ages
Lower Silesia
–
Śnieżka
Lower Silesia
–
Silesian coat of arms, as drawn by
Hugo Gerard Ströhl (1851–1919)
Lower Silesia
–
Traditional Silesian costumes
Lower Silesia
–
Duchy of Silesia–Wrocław under the rule of
Henry I the Bearded (1201-1238)
37.
Duchy of Opole
–
Duchy of Opole was one of the duchies of Silesia ruled by the Piast dynasty. Its capital was Opole in Upper Silesia, Bolesław originally had the intention to bequest the Duchy of Wrocław as a whole to his son of his second marriage Henry I the Bearded, which caused the protest of his eldest son Jarosław. After a long-term dispute in 1172 the Duchy of Opole was formed with Jarosław becoming the first duke, in turn he was obliged to an ecclesiastical career and became Bishop of Wrocław in 1198. When Duke Jarosław died in 1201, the Opole lands fell back to his father Bolesław and were incorporated into the Duchy of Wrocław. In 1327 the Duchy of Opole was vassalised by the Bohemian king John the Blind, jan however died without issue in 1532 and the Opole line of the Piasts became extinct, whereafter Opole and Racibórz as reverted fiefs were fully under the sovereignty of the Bohemian Crown. Dukes of Opole Dukes of Silesia Opole Voivodeship
Duchy of Opole
–
Silesia 1172-77:
Bolesław I the Tall at Wrocław (orange),
Mieszko I Tanglefoot at Racibórz (yellow),
Jarosław at Opole (green)
Duchy of Opole
–
Piast tower called Strażnica (built around 1300) in the historic centre of Opole
38.
Stream bed
–
A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream, river or creek, the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins are known as the banks or river banks, during all. Under certain conditions a river can branch from one bed to multiple stream beds. A flood occurs when a stream overflows its banks and flows onto its flood plain, as a general rule, the bed is the part of the channel up to the normal water line, and the banks are that part above the normal water line. However, because water flow varies, this differentiation is subject to local interpretation, the nature of any stream bed is always a function of the flow dynamics and the local geologic materials, influenced by that flow. With small streams in mesophytic regions, the nature of the bed is strongly responsive to conditions of precipitation runoff. Where natural conditions of either grassland or forest ameliorate peak flows, stream beds are stable, possibly rich, with organic matter and these streams support a rich biota. Where conditions produce unnatural levels of runoff, such as occurs below roads and this process greatly increases watershed erosion and results in thinner soils, upslope from the stream bed, as the channel adjusts to the increase in flow. The stream bed is very complex in terms of erosion, sediment is transported, eroded and deposited on the stream bed. With global warming there is a fear that the size and shape of riverbeds will change due to increased flood magnitude and this shows that the stream bed is left mostly unchanged in size and shape. Dry stream beds are also subject to becoming underground water pockets and flooding by heavy rains and water rising from the ground and may sometimes be part of the rejuvenation of the stream
Stream bed
–
The bed of this stream is
armored with rocks, some very rounded (having had a longer life in the stream) and some not.
Stream bed
–
The old bed of the
Mississippi River near
Kaskaskia, Illinois, left behind after the river shifted
Stream bed
–
A woman digs in a dry stream bed in
Kenya to find water during a drought.
Stream bed
–
General
39.
German town law
–
The German town law or German municipal concerns was a set of early town privileges based on the Magdeburg rights developed by Otto I. The Magdeburg Law became the inspiration for regional town charters not only in Germany, the German town law was used in the founding of many German cities, towns, and villages beginning in the 13th century. As Germans began establishing towns throughout northern Europe as early as the 10th century, such privileges often included the right to self-governance, economic autonomy, criminal courts, and militia. Town laws were more or less copied from neighboring towns, such as the Westphalian towns of Soest, Dortmund, Minden. The granting of German city rights modelled after a town to a new town regarded the original model as a Rechtsvorort. For instance, Magdeburg became the sponsor of towns using Magdeburg Rights, as territorial borders changed through the passage of time, changes to German city rights were inevitable. During the course of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, ultimately, the older towns laws, along with local autonomy and jurisdiction, gave way to landed territorial rulers. The only remnants of medieval town rights included in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch of 1 January 1900 were single articles concerning family, the cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin are currently administered under Landesrechte, or laws of the federal states of Germany. Many towns granted German city rights had existed for some time. Many European localities date their foundation to their reception of a town charter, German town law was frequently applied during the Ostsiedlung of Central and Eastern Europe by German colonists beginning in the early 13th century. Because many areas were considered underpopulated or underdeveloped, local rulers offered urban privileges to peasants from German lands to them to immigrate eastward. Some towns which received a German town law charter were based on pre-existing settlements, many towns were formed in conjunction with the settlement of nearby rural communities, but the towns urban rights were jealously guarded. Initially German town law was applied only to ethnic Germans, but gradually in most localities all town-dwellers were regarded as citizens, regardless of ethnic origin. Lübeck law spread rapidly among the settlements along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea and was used in northern Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania. It formed the basis of Riga law in Riga, used in the lands of the Livonian Order in Livonia, Estonia, other variants included Brandenburg, Litoměřice, and Olomouc law. South German law, broadly referring to the codes of Nuremberg and Vienna, was used in Bavaria, Austria, and Slovenia, jihlava law was a variant used frequently by mining communities in Bohemia, Moravia, the mountains of Slovakia, and Transylvania. Other town laws were only suitable for or were modified to fit local conditions, such as Głubczyce, Görlitz, Goslar, Lüneburg, Lwówek Śląski, Nysa, Spiš, and Székesfehérvár laws. Many Transylvanian Saxon settlements in Transylvania, especially in the regions of Altland, Burzenland, in the 16th century Muscovy granted or reaffirmed Magdeburg rights to various towns along the Dnieper acquired from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
German town law
–
Town charter for
Höchst on Main and
Gau-Algesheim from February 11, 1355
40.
City walls
–
A defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements, beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced. Existing ancient walls are almost always masonry structures, although brick, depending on the topography of the area surrounding the city or the settlement the wall is intended to protect, elements of the terrain may be incorporated in order to make the wall more effective. Walls may only be crossed by entering the city gate and are often supplemented with towers. Simpler defensive walls of earth or stone, thrown up around hillforts, ringworks, early castles, from very early history to modern times, walls have been a near necessity for every city. Uruk in ancient Sumer is one of the worlds oldest known walled cities, before that, the city of Jericho in what is now the West Bank had a wall surrounding it as early as the 8th millennium BC. The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples, some settlements in the Indus Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 B. C. hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain, many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets. Mundigak in present-day south-east Afghanistan has defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks, babylon was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world, especially as a result of the building program of Nebuchadnezzar, who expanded the walls and built the Ishtar Gate. Exceptions were few — notably, ancient Sparta and ancient Rome did not have walls for a long time, initially, these fortifications were simple constructions of wood and earth, which were later replaced by mixed constructions of stones piled on top of each other without mortar. In Central Europe, the Celts built large fortified settlements which the Romans called oppida, the fortifications were continuously expanded and improved. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, in classical era Greece, the city of Athens built a long set of parallel stone walls called the Long Walls that reached their guarded seaport at Piraeus. Large tempered earth walls were built in ancient China since the Shang Dynasty, although stone walls were built in China during the Warring States, mass conversion to stone architecture did not begin in earnest until the Tang Dynasty. The large walls of Pingyao serve as one example, likewise, the famous walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing were established in the early 15th century by the Yongle Emperor. The Romans fortified their cities with massive, mortar-bound stone walls, the most famous of these are the largely extant Aurelian Walls of Rome and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople, together with partial remains elsewhere. These are mostly city gates, like the Porta Nigra in Trier or Newport Arch in Lincoln, apart from these, the early Middle Ages also saw the creation of some towns built around castles. These cities were only protected by simple stone walls and more usually by a combination of both walls and ditches. From the 12th century AD hundreds of settlements of all sizes were founded all across Europe and these cities are easy to recognise due to their regular layout and large market spaces
City walls
–
Part of the
Great Wall of China, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
City walls
City walls
City walls
41.
Kingdom of Bohemia
–
The Kingdom of Bohemia, sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czech Republic. It was an Imperial State in the Holy Roman Empire, the kings of Bohemia, besides Bohemia ruled also the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which at various times included Moravia, Silesia and parts of Saxony, Brandenburg and Bavaria. Numerous kings of Bohemia were also elected Holy Roman Emperors and the capital Prague was the seat in the late 14th century. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the became part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire. The Czech language was the language of the Diet and the nobility until 1627. German was then formally made equal with Czech and eventually prevailed as the language of the Diet until the Czech national revival in the 19th century. German was also used as the language of administration in many towns after Germans immigrated and populated some areas of the country in the 13th century. The royal court used the Czech, Latin, and German languages, depending on the ruler, following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, both the Kingdom and Empire were dissolved. Bohemia became the part of the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. In 1204 Ottokars royal status was accepted by Otto IV as well as by Pope Innocent III and it was officially recognized in 1212 by the Golden Bull of Sicily issued by Emperor Frederick II, elevating the Duchy of Bohemia to Kingdom status. Under these terms, the Czech king was to be exempt from all obligations to the Holy Roman Empire except for participation in the imperial councils. The imperial prerogative to ratify each Bohemian ruler and to appoint the bishop of Prague was revoked, the kings successor was his son Wenceslaus I, from his second marriage. Corresponding with the Pope, she established the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in 1233, four other military orders were present in Bohemia, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from c. 1160, the Order of Saint Lazarus from the late 12th century, 1200–1421, and the Knights Templar from 1232–1312. The 13th century was the most dynamic period of the Přemyslid reign over Bohemia, at the same time, the Mongol invasions absorbed the attention of Bohemias eastern neighbors, Hungary and Poland. Přemysl Ottokar II married a German princess, Margaret of Babenberg and he thereby acquired Upper Austria, Lower Austria, and part of Styria. He conquered the rest of Styria, most of Carinthia, and he was called the king of iron and gold. He campaigned as far as Prussia, where he defeated the natives and in 1256, founded a city he named Královec in Czech
Kingdom of Bohemia
–
Wenceslaus II as depicted in the
Codex Manesse
Kingdom of Bohemia
–
Flag
Kingdom of Bohemia
–
Prague Castle, the ancient seat of Bohemian dukes and kings, Roman kings and emperors, and after 1918 the office of the Czechoslovak and Czech presidents
Kingdom of Bohemia
–
Lands of the Bohemian Crown in 15th century
42.
Holy Roman Empire
–
The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Emperor, reviving the title in Western Europe, more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The title was revived in 962 when Otto I was crowned emperor, fashioning himself as the successor of Charlemagne, some historians refer to the coronation of Charlemagne as the origin of the empire, while others prefer the coronation of Otto I as its beginning. Scholars generally concur, however, in relating an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, the office of Holy Roman Emperor was traditionally elective, although frequently controlled by dynasties. Emperor Francis II dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon, before 1157, the realm was merely referred to as the Roman Empire. In a decree following the 1512 Diet of Cologne, the name was changed to Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, by the end of the 18th century, the term Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had fallen out of official use. As Roman power in Gaul declined during the 5th century, local Germanic tribes assumed control, by the middle of the 8th century, however, the Merovingians had been reduced to figureheads, and the Carolingians, led by Charles Martel, had become the de facto rulers. In 751, Martel’s son Pepin became King of the Franks, the Carolingians would maintain a close alliance with the Papacy. In 768 Pepin’s son Charlemagne became King of the Franks and began an expansion of the realm. He eventually incorporated the territories of present-day France, Germany, northern Italy, on Christmas Day of 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, restoring the title in the west for the first time in over three centuries. After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, however, the Carolingian Empire broke apart, according to Regino of Prüm, the parts of the realm spewed forth kinglets, and each part elected a kinglet from its own bowels. After the death of Charles the Fat, those crowned emperor by the pope controlled only territories in Italy, the last such emperor was Berengar I of Italy, who died in 924. Around 900, autonomous stem duchies reemerged in East Francia, on his deathbed, Conrad yielded the crown to his main rival, Henry the Fowler of Saxony, who was elected king at the Diet of Fritzlar in 919. Henry reached a truce with the raiding Magyars, and in 933 he won a first victory against them in the Battle of Riade, Henry died in 936, but his descendants, the Liudolfing dynasty, would continue to rule the Eastern kingdom for roughly a century. Upon Henry the Fowlers death, Otto, his son and designated successor, was elected King in Aachen in 936 and he overcame a series of revolts from an elder brother and from several dukes. After that, the managed to control the appointment of dukes. In 951, Otto came to the aid of Adelaide, the queen of Italy, defeating her enemies, marrying her. In 955, Otto won a victory over the Magyars in the Battle of Lechfeld
Holy Roman Empire
–
The Holy Roman Empire at its maximal extent, in the 13th century
Holy Roman Empire
–
Imperial Banner
Holy Roman Empire
–
An illustration from
Schedelsche Weltchronik depicting the structure of the Reich: The Holy Roman Emperor is sitting; on his left are three ecclesiastics; on his right are four secular electors.
Holy Roman Empire
–
Double-headed eagle with coats of arms of individual states, symbol of the Holy Roman Empire (painting from 1510)
43.
Vladislaus II of Opole
–
This article is about a 14th-century noble. For the 13th-century one, see Władysław Opolski and he was the eldest son of Duke Bolko II of Opole by his wife Elisabeth, daughter of Duke Bernard of Świdnica. He was a descendant of the House of Piast, little is known about his youth. As a young prince, in order to more political experience, he went to Hungary around 1353. Bolko III and Henry remained as co-Dukes of Opole, but only formally, the great political career of Vladislaus began in the mid 1360s in the Hungarian court of King Louis I. Already in 1364 he took part in the famous Congress of Cracow as part of the Hungarian suite, the faithful service to the Hungarian House of Anjou resulted in the appointment of Vladislaus as Count palatine, which made him most important man after the King in the country. The functions of this post were primarily broad judicial powers, who could be had only with the King, in this office, Vladislaus showed great commitment and capability, he created the rule of four Congregatio generalis, which handled court cases. Despite his huge income, his new post in the Hungarian affected Vladislaus finances, during his time as Count palatine, Vladislaus didnt stop to participate in the foreign politics, the example of this was, among other things, his trip to Bulgaria in 1368. In 1370, after the death of Casimir III the Great, as a reward, King Louis give him the towns of Wieluń and Częstochowa. By that time, Vladislaus brother Bolko III inherited Strzelce Opolskie from their uncle Albert and with this, in October 1372 Vladislaus was unexpectedly deprived from the office of Count palatine. Although he retained most of his castles and goods in Hungary, as a compensation, was made Governor of Hungarian-ruled part of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia. In this new position, the Duke of Opole successfully contributing to the development of the territories entrusted to him. Vladislaus mainly resided in Lviv, but at the end of his rule he spent more time in Halych. The only serious conflict during his time as Governor was related to his approaching to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which caused the angry of the local boyars, who were strongly Catholics. Probably following Vladislauss advices, in 1374 King Louis I published an provincial privilege for the Polish nobility in Košice, which ensured the succession of the Kings daughters after his death. In 1378 the departure of Queen Elisabeth from Poland to Hungary, forced King Louis to release Vladislaus from his post of Governor, as compensation for his resignation, the Duke of Opole received from the Hungarian ruler the towns of Dobrzyń Land and part of Kujawy. The Duke of Opole also supported the Church career of the eldest son of Bolko III, Jan Kropidło trying to obtain for him, despite his young age, on 10 September 1382 King Louis I of Hungary, Vladislaus protector, died. Despite the earlier support given to him to late Kings daughters, however, he wasnt popular among the Polish nobility, who decanted for Duke Siemowit IV of Płock
Vladislaus II of Opole
–
Red Ruthenia Coins of Opolczy (1389)
Vladislaus II of Opole
–
Portrait of Vladislaus II by
Jan Matejko
44.
Castellan
–
A castellan was the governor or captain of a castellany and its castle. The word stems from the Latin Castellanus, derived from castellum castle, sometimes also known as a constable, governor of the castle district or captain, the Constable of the Tower of London is, in fact, a form of castellan. A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1194, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, many tribes migrated into western Europe, causing strife and war. The answer to recurrent invasion was to create fortified areas which evolved into castles, some leaders gained control of several areas, each with a castle. The problem lay in exerting control and authority in each area when a leader could only be in one place at a time. To answer this, lords gave their trusted vassals direct control of a castle and this changed as kings grew in power and as the Holy Roman emperors replaced recalcitrant vassals with ministerials. Usually the duties of a castellan were combined with the duties of a majordomo and this made the castellan responsible for a castles domestic staff and its garrison, as well as a military administrator responsible for maintaining defenses and protecting the castles lands. This was particularly the case if there was no lord resident at the castle, one unusual responsibility in western Europe concerned jurisdiction over the resident Jewish communities near the English Channel. The Constable of the Tower of London and those castellans subordinate to the dukes of Normandy were responsible for their administration, in France, castellans who governed castles without resident nobles acquired considerable powers, and the position actually became a hereditary fiefdom. In Germany the castellan was known as a Burgmann, or sometimes Hauptmann, the burgmann may have been either a free noble or a ministerialis, but either way administered the castle as a vassal. A ministerialis, being wholly indebted to a lord, was easily controlled. Ministeriales replaced free nobles as castellans of Hohensalzburg under Conrad I of Abensberg’s tenure as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1106 to 1147, in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary usually was called várnagy, and in the Latin charts it appeared as castellanus. The lord of the castle had similar functions than the German ones. In Hungary first the King, later the most powerful noblemen designed the castellans between their followers for the administration of their castles and the states that belonged to the fortress, at times, there was a castellan among the Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, starting with Anselm. Lectures on the Statutes of the Sacred Order of St. John of Jerusalem, in the Kingdom of Poland and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the castellans were in most cases lower in precedence to the voivodes. Castellans in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were of senator rank, in Portugal, a castellan was known as alcaide. Later, the role of alcaide became a title awarded by the King of Portugal to certain nobles. As the honorary holder of the office of alcaide did not often live near its castle, an honorary holder of the office became known as alcaide-mor and its delegate became known as alcaide pequeno or alcaide-menor
Castellan
–
The fortress of
Hohensalzburg, Austria, had a ministerial castellan
Castellan
–
Waclaw Rzewuski (1705-1779), made Castellan of Krakow in 1778
Castellan
–
Map of the
Brugse Vrije, a castellany of the
County of Flanders
45.
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
–
Louis II was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He was killed during the Battle of Mohács fighting the Ottomans, born prematurely in Buda on 1 July 1506, the court doctors kept him alive by slaying animals and wrapping him in their warm carcasses as a primitive incubator. He was the son of Vladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife. In 1515 Louis II was married to Mary of Austria, granddaughter of Emperor Maximilian I and his sister Anne was married to Marys brother Ferdinand, then a governor on behalf of his brother Charles V, and later Emperor Ferdinand I. As king of Bohemia, Louis II became known as Ludovicus the Child, the first thaler coins were minted during his reign in Bohemia, later giving the name to the dollars used in different countries. After his fathers death in 1516, the minor Louis II ascended to the throne of Hungary, Louis was adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1515. When Maximilian I died in 1519, Louis was raised by his guardian, his cousin George. Following the accession to the throne of Suleiman I, the sultan sent an ambassador to Louis II to collect the tribute that Hungary had been subjected to. Louis refused to pay tribute and had the Ottoman ambassador executed. Louis believed that the Papal States and other Christian States including Charles V and this event hastened the fall of Hungary. Hungary was in a state of anarchy in 1520 under the rule of the magnates. The kings finances were a shambles, he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The countrys defenses weakened as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, in 1521 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was well aware of Hungarys weakness. The Ottoman Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Hungary, Suleiman postponed his plan to besiege Rhodes, Louis failed to coordinate and gather his forces. At the same time, Hungary was unable to get assistance from other European states, Belgrade and many strategic castles in Serbia were captured by the Ottomans. This was disastrous for Louis kingdom, without the important cities of Belgrade and Šabac, Hungary. After the siege of Rhodes, in 1526 Suleiman made an expedition to subdue all of Hungary. Louis made an error when he tried to stop the Ottoman army in an open field battle with a medieval army, insufficient firearms
Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia
–
Louis II painted by
Titian
46.
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Ferdinand I was Holy Roman Emperor from 1558, king of Bohemia and Hungary from 1526, and king of Croatia from 1527 until his death. Before his accession, he ruled the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburgs in the name of his brother, Charles V. Also, he served as Charles representative in Germany and developed useful relationships with German princes. Ferdinand was able to defend his realm and make it more cohesive. His flexible approach to Imperial problems, mainly religious, finally brought more result than the more confrontational attitude of his brother, Ferdinands motto was Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus, Let justice be done, though the world perish. Ferdinand shared his customs, culture, and even his birthday with his maternal grandfather Ferdinand II of Aragon and he was born, raised, and educated in Spain, and did not learn German when he was young. In the summer of 1518 Ferdinand was sent to Flanders following his brother Charless arrival in Spain as newly appointed King Charles I the previous autumn. He returned in command of his brothers fleet but en route was blown off-course and he was Archduke of Austria from 1521 to 1564. Though he supported his brother, Ferdinand also managed to strengthen his own realm, by adopting the German language and culture late in his life, he also grew close to the German territorial princes. After the death of his brother-in-law Louis II, Ferdinand ruled as King of Bohemia and Hungary. Ferdinand also served as his brothers deputy in the Holy Roman Empire during his brothers many absences, according to the terms set at the First Congress of Vienna in 1515, Ferdinand married Anne Jagiellonica, daughter of King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary on 22 July 1515. Therefore, after the death of his brother-in-law Louis II, King of Bohemia and of Hungary, at the battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526, the success was only partial, as the Diet refused to recognise Ferdinand as hereditary lord of the Kingdom. The Croatian nobles unanimously elected Ferdinand I as their king in the 1527 election in Cetin, in Hungary, Nicolaus Olahus, secretary of Louis, attached himself to the party of Ferdinand but retained his position with his sister, Queen Dowager Mary. Ferdinand was elected King of Hungary by a rump Diet in Pozsony in December 1526, the throne of Hungary became the subject of a dynastic dispute between Ferdinand and John Zápolya, Voivode of Transylvania. They were supported by different factions of the nobility in the Hungarian kingdom, Ferdinand also had the support of his brother, the Emperor Charles V. Ferdinand defeated Zápolya at the Battle of Tarcal in September 1527 and again in the Battle of Szina in March 1528. Zápolya fled the country and applied to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent for support, a further Ottoman invasion was repelled in 1533. In 1538, in the Treaty of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand induced the childless Zápolya to name him as his successor, but in 1540, just before his death, Zápolya had a son, John II Sigismund, who was promptly elected King by the Diet. Ferdinand invaded Hungary, but the regent, Frater George Martinuzzi, Bishop of Várad, Suleiman marched into Hungary and not only drove Ferdinand out of central Hungary, he forced Ferdinand to agree to pay tribute for his lands in western Hungary
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Ferdinand as a young boy
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Ferdinand in 1531, the year of his election as
King of the Romans
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Coat of arms of Ferdinand I as King of the Romans, 1536, Hofburg palace, Vienna
47.
Habsburg Monarchy
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The Monarchy was a composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch. The dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, from 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, and from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy had no official name. The entity had no official name, Austrian Empire, This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i. e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, Austria-Hungary, This was the official name. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy also often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler, Crownlands or crown lands, This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, and then of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen or Lands of Holy Stephens Crown, the Bohemian Lands were called Lands of the St. Wenceslaus Crown. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary, Salzburg finally became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austrias capital became a state January 1,1922, after being residence, Upper and Lower Austria, historically, were split into Austria above the Enns and Austria below the Enns. Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the War of the Bavarian Succession by the so-called Innviertel, formerly part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands, In a narrower sense these were the original Habsburg Austrian territories, i. e. basically the Austrian lands, in a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were also included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term Crownlands in the 1849 March Constitution, within the Habsburg Monarchy, each province was governed according to its own particular customs. Until the mid 17th century, not all of the provinces were even necessarily ruled by the same members of the family often ruled portions of the Hereditary Lands as private apanages. An even greater attempt at centralization began in 1849 following the suppression of the revolutions of 1848. For the first time, ministers tried to transform the monarchy into a bureaucratic state ruled from Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary, in particular, ceased to exist as a separate entity, in this system, the Kingdom of Hungary was given sovereignty and a parliament, with only a personal union and a joint foreign and military policy connecting it to the other Habsburg lands. When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed, it was not incorporated into either half of the monarchy, instead, it was governed by the joint Ministry of Finance. Austria-Hungary collapsed under the weight of the various unsolved ethnic problems that came to a head with its defeat in World War I, to these were added in 1779 the Inn Quarter of Bavaria, and in 1803 the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen
Habsburg Monarchy
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Growth of the Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
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Flag
Habsburg Monarchy
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Europa regina, symbolizing a Habsburg-dominated Europe.
Habsburg Monarchy
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Soldiers of the
Military Frontier against the incursions of the Ottoman Turks, 1756
48.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
Austria
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First appearance of the word "ostarrichi", circled in red. Modern Austria honours this document, dated 996, as the founding of the nation.
Austria
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Flag
Austria
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Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 to 25,000 BC.
Museum of Natural History Vienna
Austria
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"Heidentor" – Remains of the
Roman military city of
Carnuntum
49.
Nicholas II of Niemodlin
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Nicholas II of Niemodlin, was a Duke of Opole-Brzeg-Strzelce-Niemodlin in 1476 and sole Duke of Niemodlin from 1476 until his death. He was the son of Duke Nicholas I of Opole by his wife Agnes. After his fathers death in 1476, Nicholas II inherited Opole, Brzeg, Strzelce and Niemodlin together with his older brothers Louis, however, soon Louis died and Nicholas II maintained the co-government with Jan II. In any case, most of the inheritance was retained by Jan II, the now Duke of Niemodlin supported his brother in his politics, in 1477 the brothers bought Prudnik to Duke Konrad X of Oleśnica, in 1494 they acquired Gliwice and in 1495 Toszek. The only territorial loss was in 1481, when the Duke Frederick I of Legnica purchased Brzeg by the amounts of 8,500 fines and 1,500 ducats. Ultimately, however, the aggressive politics towards the Hungarian ruler in favor of the Polish candidate caused his imprisonment in 1487 in Koźle, Nicholas II regained his freedom only after the payment of 15,000 Hungarian złoty as a ransom. In June 1497, in order to end the disputes between the Duchies of Opole and Cieszyn, a meeting was arranged in Nysa. At the convention assisted, among others, Nicholas II, Duke Casimir II of Cieszyn, Wiktoryn of Poděbrady and his brother Henry I, Duke of Ziębice, during the conversations, on 26 June, the tragedy occurred. For unknown reasons Nicholas II tried to stab both Duke Casimir II and Bishop Jan IV Roth, the attempts to obtain his freedom gave no results, thanks to the clear opposition of the Duke of Cieszyn, who obtain the heaviest sentence for Nicholas II, the death. All the process was performed in the German language, which Nicholas II apparently didnt know, the Duke of Niemodlin was only allowed to write a letter to his brother, in which he left him all his domains. The court ruling that the sentence would take place almost immediately in order to avoid the reaction of the Opole citizens, Nicholas II was beheaded by a sword cut in the Nysa market on 27 June 1497. According to the tradition, his last words were, Nysa and you punish me because my ancestors had given you to the Church, and now you force me to paid the price. Nicholas II never married or had children, according to his last wish, he was buried in the Franciscan church in Opole. On his tombstone was written the epitaph, Here lies who fell for his true principles, complete Genealogy of the House of Piast
Nicholas II of Niemodlin
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Nicholas II of Niemodlin execution in the Nysa market on 27 June 1497. Drawing by
Juliusz Kossak in the Tygodnik Illustrowany magazine (N°9, 1880).
Nicholas II of Niemodlin
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Plaque in honor of Nicholas II in Nysa.
50.
Monarchs of Poland
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This list concerns the historical monarchs of Poland, from the Middle Ages to 1795. For presidents and other heads of state of Poland during the 20th and 21st centuries, Poland was ruled at various times either by dukes or by kings. During the latter period, a tradition of election of monarchs made it a uniquely electable position in Europe. The birth of Poland as an independent nation coincides with the ascension of Duke Mieszko I and he was succeeded by his son, Bolesław I the Brave, who greatly expanded the boundaries of the Polish state and ruled as the first king in 1025. The following centuries gave rise to the mighty Piast dynasty, consisting of kings such as Mieszko II Lambert, Przemysł II or Władysław I the Elbow-high and dukes like Bolesław III Wrymouth. The dynasty ceased to exist with the death of Casimir III the Great in 1370, in the same year, the Capetian House of Anjou became the ruling house with Louis I as king of both Poland and Hungary. During the reign of Casimir IV Jagiellon and Sigismund I the Old culture flourished and this era of progress, also known as the Polish Renaissance, continued until the Union of Lublin under Sigismund II Augustus, which unofficially marked the end of the Polish Golden Age. The meaningful rule of the Vasa dynasty initially expanded the Commonwealth, developing the arts and crafts, as well as trade and commerce. King Sigismund III Vasa, a talented but somewhat despotic ruler, involved the country in many wars and his son, Władysław IV Vasa, fiercely defended the Commonwealths borders and continued the policy of his father until death, unlike John II Casimir whose tragic rule forced his abdication. The election of John III Sobieski to the Polish throne was a great success and his brilliant military tactics led to the victory at Vienna in 1683 and partial recapture of land from the Ottoman Empire. However, the years that followed werent as successful, the long and ineffective rule of the Wettin dynasty placed the Commonwealth under the influence of Saxony, additional feud with rebelled nobility and most notably Stanisław I Leszczyński and France diminished the influence of Poland-Lithuania in the region. This led to the partitions that occurred under King Stanisław II Augustus, yet another enlightened, the last sovereign was Frederick Augustus I as Duke of Warsaw, who throughout his political career attempted at rehabilitating the Polish state. After Poland declared independence in 1918, the monarchy was abolished, uwagi o godłach napieczętnych Piastów Histmag. org June 14,2009 Duczmal M. Jagiellonowie. Dybkowska A. Żaryn J. Żaryn M. Polskie dzieje, od czasów najdawniejszych po współczesność, wyd. Rzeczpospolita w dobie złotej wolności, Kraków 2001, ISBN 83-85719-56-3 Grodziski S. Polska w czasach przełomu, Kraków 2001. ISBN 83-85719-45-8 Grodziski S. Porównawcza historia ustrojów państwowych, Kraków 1998, ISBN 83-7052-840-6 Grzybowski S. Dzieje Polski i Litwy, Kraków 2000. ISBN 83-85719-48-2 Morby J. E. Dynastie świata, przewodnik chronologiczny i genealogiczny, Kraków 1995, s. ISBN 83-7006-263-6 Wyrozumski J. Dzieje Polski piastowskiej, Kraków 1999, henryk Brodaty i jego czasy, wyd
Monarchs of Poland
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Krak
Monarchs of Poland
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Royal coat of arms
Monarchs of Poland
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Lech II
Monarchs of Poland
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Wąda
listen) (German: Oppeln, Silesian German: Uppeln, Silesian: Uopole, Czech: Opolí) is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River (Odra). With a population of approximately 127,792 (January 2017), it is the capital of the Opole Voivodeship and, also the seat of Opole County.
