1.
Ivan Kramskoi
–
Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi was a Russian painter and art critic. He was a leader of the Russian democratic art movement in 1860-1880. Kramskoi came from an impoverished petit-bourgeois family and he became one of the main founders and ideologists of the Company of Itinerant Art Exhibitions. In 1863–1868 he taught at the school of a society for the promotion of applied arts. Kramskois democratic ideals found their brightest expression in his portraits of peasants, in one of Kramskoi’s most well known paintings, Christ in the Desert, he continued Alexander Ivanovs humanistic tradition by treating a religious subject in moral–philosophical terms. He imbued his image of Christ with dramatic experiences in a psychological and vital interpretation. Aspiring to expand the ideological expressiveness of his images, Kramskoi created art that existed on the cusp of portraiture and these paintings disclose their subjects complex and sincere emotions, their personalities and fates. Ivan Kramskois gallery and biography Ivan Kramskoi Gallery at MuseumSyndicate Долгополов, Игорь Викторович Мастера и шедевры, В3 т
2.
Historical Slavic religion
–
Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation. Unlike ancient Greek, Hindu, Chinese or Egyptian mythology, there are no records for the study of Slavic mythology. It has not been proven that the Slavs had any sort of writing system before the arrival of Saints Cyril, fragments of old mythological beliefs and pagan festivals survive up to this day in folk customs, songs, stories and folk-tales of all the Slavic nations. Although Herodotus is himself not convinced by this rumour, he stresses that he has heard some swear it, the identification of Neuri with Proto-Slavs remains controversial, however. According to Procopius, these Slavs worshipped a single deity, who crafted lightning, though not named explicitly, it can be deduced this is a reference to the deity known as Perun in later historic sources, as in many Slavic languages today. Perun simply means thunder or lightning bolt and he also mentions the belief in various demons and nymphs, but does not mention any other names. The Slavic Primary Chronicle is a work with many valuable references to the pagan beliefs of Eastern Slavs. The chronicle treats the history of the early Eastern Slavic state, even though the manuscript was compiled at the beginning of the 12th century, it contains references to and copies of older documents, and describes events predating the Baptism of Kiev. Two deities, Perun and Veles/Volos, are mentioned in the text of the early 10th century peace treaties between pagan rulers of East Slavs and Byzantine Emperors, later, Nestor the Chronicler describes a state pantheon introduced by Prince Vladimir in Kiev in 980 CE. Vladimirs pantheon included Perun, Hors, Dažbog, Stribog, Simargl, the Hypatian Codex of the Primary Chronicle also mentions Svarog, compared to Greek Hephaestus. Also very interesting are the passages in the East Slavic epic The Tale of Igors Campaign referring to Veles, Dažbog, the original epic has been dated to the end of the 12th century, although there are marginal disputes over the authenticity of this work. The most numerous and richest written records are of West Slavic paganism, particularly of Wendish and Polabian tribes, the German missionaries and priests who criticized pagan religion left extensive records of old mythological systems they sought to overcome. However, they restrained themselves from pious lies, claiming pagan Slavs were idolatrous. As none of those missionaries learned any Slavic language, their records are confused and exaggerated, major works include a chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg from the beginning of the 11th century, who described a temple in the city of Riedegost where the great deity Zuarasic was worshipped. According to Thietmar, this was the most sacred place in the land of pagan Slavs, another very valuable document is the Chronica Slavorum written in the late 12th century by Helmold, a German priest. Saxo meticulously described the worship of Svantevit, the associated with it. He also mentioned multi-headed deities of other Slavic tribes, Rugievit, Porewit, according to the manuscript, the most important Slavic deity was Triglav, whose temples in the city of Szczecin were respected oracles. In the cities of Wolgast and Havelberg, the war god Gerovit was worshiped, a corruption of Jarovit
3.
Russian language
–
Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
4.
Romanization of Russian
–
Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST, OST8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced in 16 October 1935. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as a standard of the COMECON. GOST7. 79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship and it is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO stadards for travel documents and it was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013. The standard was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, ISO/R9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization. It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages, ISO9,1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R9,1968, which it deprecates, for Russian, the UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products, American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in the British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, British Standard 2979,1958 is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce, the portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports, transliteration was based on French rules, in 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports, a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST52535. 1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports, in 2010, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST52535. 1-2006. The standard was abandoned in 2013, finally in 2013, Order No.320 of the Federal Migratory Service of Russia came into force. It states that all names in the passports must be transliterated using the ICAO system. This system differs from the GOST52535. 1-2006 system in two things, ц is transliterated into ts, ъ is transliterated into ie, Scholarly ¹ Some archaic letters are transcribed in different ways
5.
Polish language
–
Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
6.
Linguistics
–
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning, phonetics is the study of speech and non-speech sounds, and delves into their acoustic and articulatory properties. While the study of semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions, Grammar is a system of rules which governs the production and use of utterances in a given language. These rules apply to sound as well as meaning, and include componential sub-sets of rules, such as those pertaining to phonology, morphology, modern theories that deal with the principles of grammar are largely based within Noam Chomskys ideological school of generative grammar. In the early 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure distinguished between the notions of langue and parole in his formulation of structural linguistics. According to him, parole is the utterance of speech, whereas langue refers to an abstract phenomenon that theoretically defines the principles. This distinction resembles the one made by Noam Chomsky between competence and performance in his theory of transformative or generative grammar. According to Chomsky, competence is an innate capacity and potential for language, while performance is the specific way in which it is used by individuals, groups. The study of parole is the domain of sociolinguistics, the sub-discipline that comprises the study of a system of linguistic facets within a certain speech community. Discourse analysis further examines the structure of texts and conversations emerging out of a speech communitys usage of language, Stylistics also involves the study of written, signed, or spoken discourse through varying speech communities, genres, and editorial or narrative formats in the mass media. In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida, for instance, further distinguished between speech and writing, by proposing that language be studied as a linguistic medium of communication in itself. Palaeography is therefore the discipline that studies the evolution of scripts in language. Linguistics also deals with the social, cultural, historical and political factors that influence language, through which linguistic, research on language through the sub-branches of historical and evolutionary linguistics also focus on how languages change and grow, particularly over an extended period of time. Language documentation combines anthropological inquiry with linguistic inquiry, in order to describe languages, lexicography involves the documentation of words that form a vocabulary. Such a documentation of a vocabulary from a particular language is usually compiled in a dictionary. Computational linguistics is concerned with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective, specific knowledge of language is applied by speakers during the act of translation and interpretation, as well as in language education – the teaching of a second or foreign language. Policy makers work with governments to implement new plans in education, related areas of study also includes the disciplines of semiotics, literary criticism, translation, and speech-language pathology. Before the 20th century, the philology, first attested in 1716, was commonly used to refer to the science of language
7.
Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin
–
Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin was a Russian linguist and ethnographer. He led the European Brigade of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography, in November 2004 the Antropologicheskii forum of St Petersburg honoured him with some readings dedicated to him Mezhdunarodnyi iazyk nauki i kulturnykh snoshenii, Moscow,1901. Russische Volkskunde, Berlin und Leipzig, de Gruyter,1927, kult ongonov v Sibiri, Moscow,1936. Le culte des idoles en Sibérie, Paris, Payot,1952, acta Eurasica, Issue #1,2005 Empire of Nations, Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union by Francine Hirsch, Cornell University Press,2005
8.
Mermaid
–
A mermaid is a legendary aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of cultures worldwide, including the Near East, Europe, Africa. The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria, in which the goddess Atargatis transformed herself into an out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover. Mermaids are sometimes associated with events such as floods, storms, shipwrecks. In other folk traditions, they can be benevolent or beneficent, the male equivalent of the mermaid is the merman, also a familiar figure in folklore and heraldry. Although traditions about and sightings of mermen are less common than those of mermaids, some of the attributes of mermaids may have been influenced by the Sirens of Greek mythology. Historical accounts of mermaids, such as reported by Christopher Columbus during his exploration of the Caribbean, may have been inspired by manatees. While there is no evidence that mermaids exist outside of folklore, reports of mermaid sightings continue to the present day, including 21st century examples from Israel and Zimbabwe. Mermaids have been a subject of art and literature in recent centuries. They have subsequently been depicted in operas, paintings, books, films, the word mermaid is a compound of the Old English mere, and maid. The equivalent term in Old English was merewif and they are conventionally depicted as beautiful with long flowing hair. Sirenia is an order of aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit rivers, estuaries, coastal marine waters, swamps. They look ponderous and clumsy but are actually fusiform, hydrodynamic and highly muscular, sirenomelia, also called mermaid syndrome, is a rare congenital disorder in which a child is born with his or her legs fused together and small genitalia. This condition is about as rare as conjoined twins, affecting one out of every 100,000 live births and is fatal within a day or two of birth because of kidney and bladder complications. Four survivors were known as of July 2003, many folklorists and mythographers deem that the origin of the mythic mermaid is the dugong, posing a theory that mythicised tales have been constructed around early sightings of dugongs by sailors. The first known mermaid stories appeared in Assyria c.1000 BC, the goddess Atargatis, mother of Assyrian queen Semiramis, loved a mortal and unintentionally killed him. Ashamed, she jumped into a lake and took the form of a fish, the Greeks recognized Atargatis under the name Derketo. Sometime before 546 BC, Milesian philosopher Anaximander postulated that mankind had sprung from an animal species
9.
Vladimir Propp
–
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. Vladimir Propp was born on April 17,1895 in Saint Petersburg to a German family and he attended Saint Petersburg University, majoring in Russian and German philology. Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and his Morphology of the Folktale was published in Russian in 1928. His character types are used in education and can be applied to almost any story, be it in literature, theatre, film, television series, games. In 1932, Propp became a member of Leningrad University faculty, after 1938, he chaired the Department of Folklore until it became part of the Department of Russian Literature. Propp remained a faculty member until his death in 1970, Morphology of the Tale was translated into English in 1958 and 1968. It was also translated into Italian and Polish in 1966, French and Romanian in 1970, Spanish in 1971, historical Roots of the Wonder Tale was translated into Italian in 1949 and 1972, Spanish in 1974, and French, Romanian and Japanese in 1983. Oedipus in the light of folklore was translated into Italian in 1975, Russian Agrarian Feasts was translated into French in 1987. Vladimir Propp broke up fairy tales into sections, through these sections he was able to define the tale into a series of sequences that occurred within the Russian fairytale. Usually there is a situation, after which the tale usually takes the following 31 functions. Vladimir Propp used this method to decipher Russian folklore and fairy tales, first of all, there seems to be at least two distinct types of structural analysis in folklore. If a tale consists of elements A to Z, the structure of the tale is thus delineated in the same sequence, the other type of analysis is termed paradigmatic, and describes instead the underlying pattern of the folkloric text, independent of chronology. Elements of the plot may be out of their given order. Respectively equivalent to syntagmatic and paradigmatic are the terms diachronic and synchronic, diachronic covers the sort of analysis that conveys a sense of traversing the highs and lows of a story, like riding the pattern of a sine wave. The second term, synchronic, is where the story is instead absorbed as a whole, most literary analyses are synchronic, offering a greater sense of unity among the components of a story. Although both structural analyses convey partial information about the story, each angle of analysis delivers a different set of information. After the initial situation is depicted, the tale takes the following sequence of 31 functions, ABSENTATION and this may be the hero themselves, or it may be some other relation that the hero must later rescue. This division of the cohesive family injects initial tension into the storyline and this may serve as the Heros introduction, typically portraying them as an ordinary person
10.
Paganism
–
Paganism is a term that derives from Latin word pagan, which means nonparticipant, one excluded from a more distinguished, professional group. The term was used in the 4th century, by early Christian community, the term competed with polytheism already in use in Judaism, by Philo in the 1st century. Pagans and paganism was a pejorative for the same polytheistic group, Paganism has broadly connoted religion of the peasantry, and for much of its history a derogatory term. Alternate terms in Christian texts for the group was hellene. In and after the Middle Ages, paganism was a pejorative that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, there has been much scholarly debate as to the origin of the term paganism, especially since no one before the 20th century self-identified as a pagan. In the 19th century, paganism was re-adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. Forms of these religions, influenced by various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, exist today and are known as contemporary or modern paganism, while most pagan religions express a worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans. It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised, the notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition, as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense. The term pagan is from Late Latin paganus, revived during the Renaissance and it is related to pangere and ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *pag-. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church, elsewhere, Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan, and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace. However, this idea has multiple problems, first, the words usage as a reference to non-Christians pre-dates that period in history. Second, paganism within the Roman Empire centered on cities, the concept of an urban Christianity as opposed to a rural paganism would not have occurred to Romans during Early Christianity. Third, unlike words such as rusticitas, paganus had not yet acquired the meanings used to explain why it would have been applied to pagans. Paganus more likely acquired its meaning in Christian nomenclature via Roman military jargon, Early Christians adopted military motifs and saw themselves as Milites Christi. As early as the 5th century, paganos was metaphorically used to persons outside the bounds of the Christian community. In response, Augustine of Hippo wrote De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos, in it, he contrasted the fallen city of Man to the city of God of which all Christians were ultimately citizens. Hence, the invaders were not of the city or rural
11.
Unclean spirit
–
In English translations of the Bible, unclean spirit is a common rendering of Greek pneuma akatharton, which in its single occurrence in the Septuagint translates Hebrew ruaḥ tumah. The Greek term appears 21 times in the New Testament in the context of demonic possession and it is also translated into English as spirit of impurity or more loosely as evil spirit. The Latin equivalent is spiritus immundus, some scholarship seeks to differentiate between unclean spirit and evil spirit or demon. In the Christian scriptures, the pneuma is used variously for the human soul, angelic or demonic spirits. For those who practiced the religions of antiquity, possession by a pneuma could be a desired state of visionary trance. References to a spirit of impurity or a spirit are found in the Hebrew Bible, in Rabbinic literature. The se’irim or śa‘ir are goat-demons or hairy demons associated with other supernatural beings and with ruins. The demonic figure Azazel, depicted with goat-like features and in one instance as a bird, is consigned to desert places as impure. To pneuma to akatharton appears in the Septuagint at Zechariah 13,2 and this occurrence of unclean spirit is unique in the Tanakh, the Hebrew is rûah hattum’â. The spell concludes with a protracted insufflation, exorcism is the most thoroughly attested Jewish magical practice of the Second Temple period. The exorcism of demons or unclean spirits is one of the categories of miracles attributed to Jesus. In the Greek New Testament,20 occurrences of pneuma akatharton are found in the Synoptic Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and the Book of Revelation. The phrase may be used instead of daimonion or a form of daimonizesthai, to be possessed by a demon or to be or act as a demoniac. Throughout The Gospel of Mark, the pneuma and daimonion seem to be equivalent. Mental illness, however, was the most common result and he touched those who were in ritual terms unclean, including lepers, and healed them. Jesus is said to have granted his 12 disciples the power to cast out unclean spirits. Elsewhere, Jesus appoints 72 missionaries who also have the power to cast out demons, the attribution of animal-like qualities to demons continues from the Jewish tradition, like demons, animals may be classified as unclean. Revelation 16,13 describes three unclean spirits like frogs, frogs are unclean as animals for food in the Jewish dietary code
12.
Dmitry Zelenin (ethnographer)
–
Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin was a Russian linguist and ethnographer. He led the European Brigade of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography, in November 2004 the Antropologicheskii forum of St Petersburg honoured him with some readings dedicated to him Mezhdunarodnyi iazyk nauki i kulturnykh snoshenii, Moscow,1901. Russische Volkskunde, Berlin und Leipzig, de Gruyter,1927, kult ongonov v Sibiri, Moscow,1936. Le culte des idoles en Sibérie, Paris, Payot,1952, acta Eurasica, Issue #1,2005 Empire of Nations, Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union by Francine Hirsch, Cornell University Press,2005
13.
Soul
–
In many religious, philosophical and mythological traditions, the soul is the incorporeal essence of a living being. Depending on the system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal. In Judeo-Christianity, only human beings have immortal souls, for example, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas attributed soul to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Other religions hold that all organisms have souls, as did Aristotle, while some teach that even non-biological entities possess souls. The latter belief is called animism, Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, understood that the soul must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. Anima mundi is the concept of a world soul connecting all living organisms on planet Earth, the Modern English word soul, derived from Old English sáwol, sáwel, was first attested in the 8th-century poem Beowulf v.2820 and in the Vespasian Psalter 77.50. Further etymology of the Germanic word is uncertain, the Koine Greek word ψυχή psychē, life, spirit, consciousness, is derived from a verb meaning to cool, to blow, and hence refers to the breath, as opposed to σῶμα, meaning body. Vulgate, et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam. Authorized King James Version And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, vulgate Creavitque Deus cete grandia, et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem. KJV And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, Paul of Tarsus used ψυχή and πνεῦμα specifically to distinguish between the Jewish notions of נפש nephesh and רוח ruah. The ancient Greeks used the word alive for the concept of being ensouled, the soul was considered the incorporeal or spiritual breath that animates the living organism. Francis M. Cornford quotes Pindar by saying that the soul sleeps while the limbs are active, but when one is sleeping, the soul is active and reveals an award of joy or sorrow drawing near in dreams. Erwin Rohde writes that an early pre-Pythagorean belief presented the soul as lifeless when it departed the body, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being, Socrates says that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is reborn in subsequent bodies and Plato believed this as well, however. Thymos is located near the chest region and is related to anger, eros is located in the stomach and is related to ones desires. Plato also compares the three parts of the soul or psyche to a caste system. According to Platos theory, the soul is essentially the same thing as a states class system because, to function well
14.
Undead
–
The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. A common example of an undead being is a corpse re-animated by supernatural forces, by the application of the deceaseds own life force, the undead may be incorporeal like ghosts, or corporeal like vampires and zombies. The undead are featured in the systems of most cultures. Bram Stoker considered using the title The Un-Dead for his novel Dracula, the word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of alive or not dead, for which citations can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. In one passage, nosferatu is given as an Eastern European synonym for un-dead, Stokers use of the term refers only to vampires, and the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to beings which had at one time been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death. In Bram Stokers novel Dracula, Van Helsing describes the Un-Dead as the following, ‘Before we do any-thing and it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the UnDead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality and they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiply-ing the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying of the Undead become themselves Undead, and so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. But of the most blessed of all, when this now UnDead be made to rest as true dead, instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. Later notable 19th-century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierces The Death of Halpin Frayser, in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort uses reanimated dead bodies that are placed under his control by his dark magic powers as his guardians
15.
Ivan Bilibin
–
Throughout his career, he was inspired by Slavic folklore. Ivan Bilibin was born in Tarkhovka, a suburb of St. Petersburg and he studied in 1898 at Anton Ažbe Art School in Munich, then under Ilya Repin in St. Petersburg. After graduating in May 1900 he went to Munich, where he completed his training with the painter Anton Ažbe, in 1902–1904 Bilibin travelled in the Russian North, where he became fascinated with old wooden architecture and Russian folklore. He published his findings in the monograph Folk Arts of the Russian North in 1904, another influence on his art was traditional Japanese prints. Artistic design of magazines such as Dog Rose and expenditure of the Moscow publishing house followed. Bilibin gained renown in 1899, when he released his illustrations of Russian fairy tales, during the Russian Revolution of 1905, he drew revolutionary cartoons, especially for the magazine Župel, which in 1906 became prohibited. He would further serve as the designer for the 1909 première production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovs The Golden Cockerel, after the October Revolution in 1917, he left Russia after the revolution proved alien to him. After brief stints in Cairo and Alexandria, he settled in Paris in 1925 and he still longed for his homeland and, after decorating the Soviet Embassy in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia, delivering lectures at the Russian Academy of Arts until 1941. Bilibin died during the Siege of Leningrad and was buried in a collective grave, in 1902 he Bilibin married his former student, the painter Marija Jakovlevna Tschembers. They had two sons, Alexander and Ivan, in 1912 he again married a former student, the art school graduate Renée Rudolfowna OKonnel. In 1923 he married the painter Alexandra Vasilyevna Schtschekatichina-Potozkaja, with whom he had a joint exhibition in Amsterdam in 1929, works of Ivan Bilibin at Cascadia Graphics Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin at the Wayback Machine at www. scumdog. demon. co. uk
16.
Circle dance
–
Circle dance, or chain dance, is a style of dance done in a circle or semicircle to musical accompaniment, such as rhythm instruments and singing. Circle dancing is probably the oldest known dance formation and was part of community life from when people first started to dance, dancing in a circle is an ancient tradition common to many cultures for marking special occasions, rituals, strengthening community and encouraging togetherness. The dance can also be enjoyed as a group experience or as part of a meditation. Circle dances are choreographed to many different styles of music and rhythms, unlike line dancing, circle dancers are in physical contact with each other, the connection is made by hand-to-hand, finger-to-finger or hands-on-shoulders. It is a type of dance where anyone can join in without the need of partners, generally, the participants follow a leader around the dance floor while holding the hand of the dancers beside them. The dance can be gentle or energetic, modern circle dance mixes traditional folk dances, mainly from European or Near Eastern sources, with recently choreographed ones to a variety of music both ancient and modern. There is also a growing repertoire of new dances to classical music. Modern circle dancing is found in cultures, including Arabic, Israeli, Assyrian, Kurdish, Turkish, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Maltese. It is also used, in its more meditative form, in worship within various religious traditions including, the Church of England, thousands of medieval tombstones called Stećci were found in Bosnia and Hercegovina and neighboring areas. They dated from the end of the 12th century to the 16th century and they bear inscription and figures which look like dancers in a chain. Men and women are portrayed dancing together holding hands at shoulder level, in Macedonia, near the town of Zletovo, the murals on the monastery of Lesnovo, which date from the 14th century, show a group of young men linking arms in a round dance. A chronicle from 1344 urges the people of the city of Zadar to sing, however, a reference comes from Bulgaria, in a manuscript of a 14th-century sermon, which calls chain dances devilish and damned. The circle dance of Germany was called Reigen, which dates from the 10th century, dancing around the church or a fire was frequently denounced by church authorities which only underscores how popular it was. One of the frescos in Tyrol, at Runkelstein Castle, depicts Elisabeth of Poland, Circle dances were also found in Czech Republic, dating to the 15th century. Dancing was primarily done around trees on the village green, in Poland as well the earliest village dances were in circles or lines accompanied by the singing or clapping of the participants. In the 14th century Giovanni Boccaccio describes men and women dancing to their own singing or accompanied by musicians. One of the frescos in Siena by Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted in 1338-40 show a group of women doing a bridge figure while accompanied by another woman playing the tambourine, there are the accounts of two western European travelers to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In Denmark, old ballads mention a closed circle dance which can open into a chain dance, a fresco in Ørslev church in Zealand from about 1400 shows nine people, men and women, dancing in a line
17.
Summer
–
Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, falling between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, the date of the beginning of summer varies according to climate, tradition and culture. When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, a variable seasonal lag means that the meteorological center of the season, which is based on average temperature patterns, occurs several weeks after the time of maximal insolation. Under meteorological definitions, all seasons are set to start at the beginning of a calendar month. This meteorological definition of summer also aligns with the commonly viewed notion of summer as the season with the longest days of the year, the meteorological reckoning of seasons is used in Australia, Austria, Denmark, the former Soviet Union and Japan. It is also used by many in the United Kingdom, in Ireland, the summer months according to the national meteorological service, Met Éireann, are June, July and August. However, according to the Irish Calendar, summer begins on 1 May, school textbooks in Ireland follow the cultural norm of summer commencing on 1 May rather than the meteorological definition of 1 June. Reckoning by hours of daylight alone, summer solstice marks the midpoint, not the beginning, midsummer takes place over the shortest night of the year, which is the summer solstice, or on a nearby date that varies with tradition. Where a seasonal lag of half a season or more is common, by this method, in North America, summer is the period from the summer solstice to the autumn equinox. The similar Canadian tradition starts summer on Victoria Day one week prior and ends, as in the United States, on Labour Day. In Chinese astronomy, summer starts on or around 5 May, with the known as lìxià, i. e. establishment of summer. In Australia and New Zealand, summer begins on 1 December. Summer is traditionally associated with hot or warm weather, in the Mediterranean regions, it is also associated with dry weather, while in other places it is associated with rainy weather. The wet season is the period of vegetation growth within the savanna climate regime. Where the wet season is associated with a shift in the prevailing winds. In the northern Atlantic Ocean, a tropical cyclone season occurs from 1 June to 30 November. The statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is 10 September, the Northeast Pacific Ocean has a broader period of activity, but in a similar time frame to the Atlantic. The Northwest Pacific sees tropical cyclones year-round, with a minimum in February and March, in the North Indian basin, storms are most common from April to December, with peaks in May and November
18.
Ukraine
–
Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
19.
Belarus
–
Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres is forested and its strongest economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. In the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Belarus declared independence as the Belarusian Peoples Republic, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922 and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland after the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921, during WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years, in 1945 the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR. The parliament of the declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990. Alexander Lukashenko has served as the president since 1994. Belarus has been labeled Europes last dictatorship by some Western journalists, Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Though not directly espousing communism like the five remaining communist countries of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea, in 2000 Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Over 70% of Belaruss population of 9.49 million resides in urban areas, more than 80% of the population is ethnic Belarusian, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages, Belarusian and Russian, the Constitution of Belarus does not declare any official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Belarus is the only European country to retain capital punishment in both law and practice, the name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus, i. e. White Rus. There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus, an alternate explanation for the name comments on the white clothing worn by the local Slavic population. A third theory suggests that the old Rus lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as white, other sources claim that, before 1267, the land not conquered by the Mongols was considered White Rus. The name Rus is often conflated with its Latin forms Russia and Ruthenia, in some languages, including German and Dutch, the country is generally called White Russia to this day. The Latin term Alba Russia was used again by Pope Pius VI in 1783 to recognize the Society of Jesus there, exclaiming Approbo Societatem Jesu in Alba Russia degentem, approbo, approbo. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, the Russian tsars used White Rus to describe the lands added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
20.
Russia
–
Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
21.
Amazons
–
In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of women warriors. The Scythian women may have inspired the myth, apollonius Rhodius, at Argonautica, mention that Amazons were the daughters of Ares and Harmonia. They were brutal and aggressive, and their concern in life was war. Later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the Caïcus, Aeschylus, at Prometheus Bound, places the original home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis and they later moved to Themiscyra on the Thermodon. Homer tells that the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia, Diodorus mention that the Amazons traveled from the Libya under Queen Myrina. Amazon warriors were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art, the Amazons have become associated with many historical people throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are accounts of Amazon raids in Anatolia. From the early period, their name has become a term for female warriors in general. Greeks also used epithets for them. Herodotus used the Androktones and Androleteirai, in Iliad they also called Antianeirai and Aeschylus in his work, Prometheus Bound, the origin of the word is uncertain. Πέρσαι», where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- make, alternatively, a Greek derivation from *ṇ-mṇ-gw-jon-es manless, without husbands has been proposed, an explanation deemed unlikely by Hjalmar Frisk. 19th century scholarship also connected the term to the ethnonym Amazigh, a further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah virility-killing as source. The Hittite researcher Friedrich Cornelius assumes that there had been the land Azzi with the capital Chajasa in the area of the Thermodon-Iris Delta on the coast of the Black Sea and he brings its residents in direct relation to the Amazons, namely based on its name and its customs. The location of land as well as his conclusions are controversial. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, adrienne Mayor suggests the origin of this myth was due to the words etymology. Herodotus and Strabo placed them on the banks of the Thermodon, later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the Caïcus. Aeschylus, at Prometheus Bound, places the home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, the Amazons lived in and about the Tanais river, formerly called the Amazonian or Amazon river, the Amazons later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon
22.
Green week
–
Green week is an ancient Slavic fertility festival celebrated in early June and closely linked with the cult of the dead and the spring agricultural rites. It usually fell upon the Thursday of the Green Week and its name is derived from the Slavic word for seven, because the Green Week was the seventh week after Easter. The end of Semik inaugurated the celebrations of the Trinity Sunday, the Rusalki were believed to be at their most dangerous during the Green Week, and were supposed to have left their watery depths in order to swing on branches of birch and willow trees at night. Peasant women sometimes hung offerings to appease them, a cross, a magic circle, incense, garlic, wormwood, a pin or poker and verbal charms were used to render the rusalki harmless. Swimming was strictly forbidden, lest mermaids would drag the swimmer down to the river floor, on Semik, funeral services were held for those who had not received a proper burial. Peasants decorated the insides and outsides of their houses with birch branches, the birch was usually left in the forest, but was sometimes brought into the village. The birch was seen as a symbol of power and stood as a focal point for girls singing and dancing. Vows of eternal friendship were made here, like Kostroma during Maslenitsa, this fertility symbol was destroyed at the end of the festivities. Usually, it was drowned in order to provide the rainfall for the sprouting crops. There is a holiday celebrating Pentecost in Romania, called Rusalii. Also in Germanic tradition there is a tradition, for example. In modern-day Poland it is celebrated along with Pentecostal Sunday as Zielone Świątki, holy Trinity Day or Svyata Triytsya and Green Holidays in Ukraine
Media related to Rusalka at Wikimedia Commons