Macedonia naming dispute
The use of the name "Macedonia" was disputed between the Southeast European countries of Greece and North Macedonia. Pertinent to its background is an early 20th-century multifaceted dispute and armed conflict that formed part of the background to the Balkan Wars; the specific naming dispute, although an existing issue in Yugoslav–Greek relations since World War II, was reignited after the breakup of Yugoslavia and the newly gained independence of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia in 1991. Since it was an ongoing issue in bilateral and international relations until it was settled with the Prespa agreement in June 2018, the subsequent ratification by the Macedonian and Greek parliaments in late 2018 and early 2019, the official renaming of Macedonia to North Macedonia in February 2019; the dispute arose from the ambiguity in nomenclature between North Macedonia known as the Republic of Macedonia, the adjacent Greek region of Macedonia and the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. Citing historical and irredentist concerns, Greece opposed the use of the name "Macedonia" without a geographical qualifier such as "Northern Macedonia" for use "by all... and for all purposes".
As millions of ethnic Greeks identify themselves as Macedonians, unrelated to Slavs, Greece further objected to the use of the term "Macedonian" for the neighboring country's largest ethnic group and language. North Macedonia was accused by Greece of appropriating symbols and figures that are considered part of Greek culture such as the Vergina Sun and Alexander the Great, of promoting the irredentist concept of a United Macedonia, which involves territorial claims on Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia; the dispute escalated to the highest level of international mediation, involving numerous attempts to achieve a resolution. In 1995, the two countries formalised bilateral relations and committed to start negotiations on the naming issue, under the auspices of the United Nations; until a solution was found, the provisional reference "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" was used by multiple international organisations and states. UN members, the UN as a whole, agreed to accept any name resulting from successful negotiations between the two countries.
The parties were represented by Ambassadors Vasko Naumovski and Adamantios Vassilakis with the mediation of Matthew Nimetz, who had worked on the issue since 1994. On 12 June 2018, an agreement was reached between Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev, whereby the name "Republic of North Macedonia" would be adopted. A referendum was held in Macedonia on 30 September 2018, with voters overwhelmingly affirming support for EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement, albeit with 37% voter turnout. After the agreement was ratified by both sides, it entered into force from 12 February 2019. In antiquity, the territory of the present-day Republic of Macedonia equated to the kingdom of Paeonia, which lay north of ancient Macedonia. After the Romans conquered Greece in 168 BC they established a large administrative district in northern Greece which added Paeonia to other territories outside the original ancient Macedonia, used the name'Macedonia' to describe the whole of this new province.
This province was divided in the 4th century CE into Macedonia Prima in the south, encompassing most of the ancient Macedonia, coinciding with most of the modern Greek region of Macedonia, Macedonia Salutaris in the north, encompassing Dardania and the whole of Paeonia. Thus Macedonia Salutaris encompassed most of the present-day Republic of Macedonia; this situation lasted, with some modifications, until the Ottoman Empire absorbed the remnants of the eastern Roman Empire in the 15th century. Ottoman Macedonia became part of Rumelia, controlled by the Ottoman Empire up to 1913. In 1893 a revolutionary movement against Ottoman rule began, resulting in the Ilinden Uprising on 2 August 1903; the failure of the Ilinden Uprising caused a change in the strategy of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization from revolutionary to institutional. It split into two wings: one led by Yane Sandanski and fighting for autonomous Macedonia inside the Ottoman Empire or inside a Balkan Federation, a second Supremist wing supporting the inclusion of Macedonia in Bulgaria.
After the Ilinden Uprising, the revolutionary movement ceased and opened a space for the Macedonian Struggle: frequent insurgencies of Bulgarian and Serbian squads into Ottoman Europe, including the ill-defined territory of the wider Macedonian region. In 1912 rivalries resulted in the First Balkan War of 1912–1913, the Ottomans lost most of their European lands. In 1913, the Second Balkan War began in the aftermath of the division of the Balkans among five entities to have secured control over these territories: Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro. Albania, in conflict with Serbia and Greece, declared its independence in 1912, striving for recognition; the Treaty of London assigned the region of the future Republic of Macedonia to Serbia. The outbreak of the First World War allowed Bulgaria to occupy eastern Macedonia and Vardar Macedonia, helping Austria-Hungary defeat the Serbs by the end of 1915, leading to the opening of the Macedonian front against the Greek part of Macedonia. Bulgaria would maintain control over the area until their capitulation in September 1918, at which point the borders reverted (with small ad
Arab states of the Persian Gulf
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. This excludes the non-Arab state of Iran. All of these nations except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council, prefer to use the term "Arabian Gulf" rather than the official and historical name of the Persian Gulf; some states are constitutional monarchies with elected parliaments. Bahrain and Kuwait have legislatures with members elected by the population; the Sultanate of Oman has an advisory council, popularly elected. In the UAE, a federation of seven monarchical emirates, the Federal National Council functions only as an advisory body, but some of its members are now chosen via a limited electoral college nominated by the seven rulers. Saudi Arabia remains a hereditary monarchy with limited political representation. In Qatar, an elected national parliament has been mooted and is written into the new constitution, but elections are yet to be held.
Soap operas are important national pastimes in the Gulf Arab region. They are most popular during the time of Ramadan. Most of these soap operas are based in Kuwait. Kuwaiti soap operas are the most-watched soap operas in the Persian Gulf region. Although performed in the Kuwaiti dialect, they have been shown with success as far away as Tunisia. Kuwaiti popular culture, in the form of theatre and television soap opera, flourishes and is exported to neighbouring Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Darb El Zalag, Khalti Gmasha, Ruqayya wa Sabika are among the most important television productions in the Persian Gulf region. Kuwait is considered the cultural capital of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region dubbed the "Hollywood of the Gulf" due to the popularity of its Arabic television soap operas and theatre; the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia's coast share similar cultures and music styles such as fijiri and liwa. The most noticeable cultural trait of Eastern Arabia's Arabs is their orientation and focus towards the sea.
Maritime-focused life in the small Arab states has resulted in a sea-oriented society where livelihoods have traditionally been earned in marine industries. Before the GCC was formed in 1981, the term "Khaleeji" was used to refer to the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia. "Khaleeji" meant descendants of Ichthyophagi, the coast-dwelling "fish eaters". Geographically, the Arabic-speaking is Eastern Arabia. Press in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf have varying degrees of freedom with Kuwait topping the league with a lively press that enjoys more freedom than its Persian Gulf counterparts according to Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. Both organizations rank Kuwait's press as the most free of all Arab states of the Persian Gulf and, in fact, rank amongst the top three most free press in the Arab world. Qatar and Oman come in second and third within the regional ranks; the six Arab states of the Persian Gulf lie in a volatile region and their six governments, with varying degrees of success and effort and advance peace in their own countries and other countries.
However, Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region - Saudi Arabia and Qatar - stand accused of funding Islamist militants such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Institute of Economics and Peace's Global Peace Index of 2016, the six governments had varying degrees of success in maintaining peace amongst their respective borders with Qatar ranked number 1 amongst its regional peers as the most peaceful regional and Middle Eastern nation while Kuwait ranks second in both the regional and the Middle East region followed by the UAE in the third spot. All of these Arab states have significant revenues from petroleum; the United Arab Emirates has been diversifying the economy. 79% of UAE's total GDP comes from non-oil sectors. Oil accounts for only 2% of Dubai's GDP. Bahrain has the Persian Gulf's first "post-oil" economy because the Bahraini economy does not rely on oil. Since the late 20th century, Bahrain has invested in the banking and tourism sectors; the country's capital, Manama is home to many large financial structures.
Bahrain and Kuwait have a high Human Development Index and was recognised by the World Bank as high income economies. In addition, the small coastal states were successful centers of commerce prior to oil. Eastern Arabia had significant pearl banks, but the pearling industry collapsed in the 1930s after the development of cultured pearl methods by Japanese scientists. According to the World Bank, most of these Arab states have been the world's most generous donors of aid as a share of GDP. Persian Gulf naming dispute List of Rulers of the Arab States of the Persian Gulf Iran-Arab relations Madawi Al-Rasheed, ed.. Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf. Lawrence G. Potter, ed.. The Persian Gulf in History. Lawrence G. Potter, ed.. Sectarian Politics in the Persian Gulf. "The Persian Gulf's ancient Ethnic Diversity: An Evolutionary History" in Security in the Persian Gulf: Origins and the Search for Consensus, Edited by G. Sick and L. Potter, pp. 284. Gulf2000 Gulf Research Center
Geographer
A geographer is a scientist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society. The Greek prefix, "geo," means "earth" and the Greek suffix, "graphy," meaning "description," so a geographer is someone who studies the earth; the word "geography" is a Middle French word, believed to have been first used in 1540. Although geographers are known as people who make maps, map making is the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography. Geographers do not study only the details of the natural environment or human society, but they study the reciprocal relationship between these two. For example, they study how the natural environment contributes to human society and how human society affects the natural environment. In particular, physical geographers study the natural environment while human geographers study human society. Modern geographers are the primary practitioners of the GIS, who are employed by local and federal government agencies as well as in the private sector by environmental and engineering firms.
The paintings by Johannes Vermeer titled The Geographer and The Astronomer are both thought to represent the growing influence and rise in prominence of scientific enquiry in Europe at the time of their painting in 1668–69. There are three major fields of study, which are further subdivided: Physical geography: including geomorphology, glaciology, climatology, pedology, oceanography and environmental geography. Human geography: including Urban geography, cultural geography, economic geography, political geography, historical geography, marketing geography, health geography, social geography. Regional geography: including atmosphere and lithosphereThe National Geographic Society identifies five broad key themes for geographers: location place human-environment interaction movement regions Media related to Geographers at Wikimedia Commons Steven Seegel. Map Men: Transnational Lives and Deaths of Geographers in the Making of East Central Europe. University of Chicago Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0-226-43849-8
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1922 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration and the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism known as Leninism. Born to a moderately prosperous middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree, he became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Encouraging insurrection during Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime. Lenin's Bolshevik government shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, it withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty with the Central Powers and promoted world revolution through the Communist International.
Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the market-oriented New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations secured independence after 1917, but three re-united with Russia through the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922. In poor health, Lenin died at his dacha in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government. Considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991, he became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement.
A controversial and divisive individual, Lenin is viewed by supporters as a champion of socialism and the working class, while critics on both the left and right emphasize his role as founder and leader of an authoritarian regime responsible for political repression and mass killings. Lenin's father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility. Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a wealthy German–Swedish Lutheran mother, a Russian Jewish father who had converted to Christianity and worked as a physician, it is that Lenin was unaware of his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, only discovered by his sister Anna after his death. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the Simbirsk district six years later.
Five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman. Lenin was baptised six days later, he was one of eight children, having two older siblings and Alexander. They were followed by three more children, Olga and Maria. Two siblings died in infancy. Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria—a Lutheran by upbringing—was indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Both parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives, being committed to the emancipation reform of 1861 introduced by the reformist Tsar Alexander II; every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in Kokushkino. Among his siblings, Lenin was closest to his sister Olga, whom he bossed around.
Michel Grosclaude
Michel Grosclaude was a philosopher and French linguist, the author of works on grammar and Occitan onomastics. Born on 8 July 1926 in Nancy at, he was the son of a writer. He studied in Lyon and in Marseille and spent time in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon during the war, which had some significance for his humanistic ideas, he finished his training in Latin and philosophy at the Sorbonne. He was appointed as a professor at Chinon where he married a teacher, they sought the possibility of compatible posts and came across them in Béarn: she at Sauvelade, he in the Orthez high school where he arrived in 1958. Volunteering to take the post of secretary of the town council in Sauvelade, he was confronted for the first time with the Occitan language in its béarnaise and Gascon variants, he understood the importance of this language that he had seen at the Mistral de Marseille high school. He decided to train with the help of Roger Lapassade, a high school colleague, who in 1960 founded the association Per Noste in Orthez as a Gascon section of the Occitan Studies Institute.
Noted for his knowledge of Latin and Greek, he integrated with the association in 1965 and became a specialist and historian of the language. He would be one of the leaders of the defence of Occitan culture until his death, he became professor of Occitan and worked on the publishing of first level textbooks with Robert Darrigrand. At the same time he contributed to the magazine Per Noste País Gascons and a History of Béarn designed for teachers and students, he directed his first elementary French-Occitan dictionary for the La Civada association in Pau. He tackled writing a more complete version of this dictionary, with Gilbert Narioo, it was completed by Patric Guilhemjoan after his death in 2002. Meanwhile, he taught himself the onomastics of Occitan and made some interesting studies of Gascon toponymy and patronymy. For twelve years he hosted his 15-minute daily show, lo Cercanoms, on Ràdio País with Crestian Lamaison, one of his students, his show was open to all topics pertaining to the heritage of proper names.
Along with his job as a professor of philosophy it was little known that he was interested in many subjects, some of which he was passionate about, such as geology and book binding. He wrote, he worked with the Centre for the Study of Béarnais Protestantism and published several papers in their journal. He died on 21 May 2002, was buried at Sauvelade. La Republica Peiralada. Lo procès de l'aulhèr. La termièra sauvatja. Lo Gascon lèu e plan Le Bearn, testimonials on 1000 years of history La Gascogne, testimonials on 2000 years of history Toponymical Dictionary of the Communes of Béarn. L'Evangèli segon sant Matèu. Etymological dictionary of Gascon family names. Directory of Occitan conjugations of Gascony. Toponymical Dictionary of the Communes of Hautes-Pyrenees. Small French-Occitan dictionary, lo Civadet. 70 keys to the learning of Occitan in Gascony. JH Fondeville, The pastorala deu paisan with Gilbert Narioo. Navera pastorala bearnesa with Gilbert Narioo; the sermon of the priest of Bideren. Father Girardeau, Las macarienas.
Maria Blanga, era darrèra deras aurostèras dera vath Aspa History of Béarn with Dominique Bidot-Germa and Jean-Paul Duchon. French-Occitan Dictionary, 45,000 entries, with Gilbert Narioo and Patric Guilhemjoan
Persian Gulf naming dispute
The Persian Gulf naming dispute is concerned with the name of the body of water known and internationally as the Persian Gulf, after the land of Persia. This name has become contested by some Arab countries since the 1960s in connection with the emergence of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism, resulting in the invention of the toponym "Arabian Gulf", "the Gulf" and other alternatives such as the "Gulf of Basra", as it was known during the Ottoman rule of the region. On all maps printed before 1960, in most modern international treaties and maps, this body of water is known by the name "Persian Gulf"; this reflects traditional usage since the Greek geographers Strabo and Ptolemy, the geopolitical realities of the time with a powerful Persian Empire comprising the whole northern coastline and a scattering of local emirates on the Arabian coast. It was referred to as the Persian Gulf by the Arabic Christian writer Agapius, writing in the 10th century. According to authors Philip L. Kohl, Mara Kozelsky, Nachman Ben-Yehuda in their work Selective Remembrances, Sir Charles Belgrave was "the first westerner to use and advocate the name'Arabian gulf', first in the journal Soat al-Bahrain in 1955."
Mahan Abedin of The Jamestown Foundation agrees with this, noting that Arab countries used the term "Persian Gulf" until the 1960s. However, with the rise of Arab nationalism during that decade, some Arab countries, including the ones bordering the Gulf, adopted widespread use of the term الخليج العربي to refer to this waterway. Teymoor Nabili said "ironically, among the major drivers of the movement for change were Arab perceptions that Iran, driven by Washington, had supported Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973". This, coupled with the decreasing influence of Iran on the political and economic priorities of the English-speaking Western World, led to increasing acceptance, both in regional politics and the petroleum-related business, of the new alternative naming convention "Arabian Gulf" in Arab countries; the capture of Baghdad by the Ottoman Empire in 1534 gave Turkey access to the Indian Ocean via the port of Basra at the head of the Persian Gulf. This coincided with the early mapmaking efforts of Gerard Mercator, whose 1541 terrestrial globe attempts to give the most up-to-date information, naming the gulf Sinus Persicus, nunc Mare de Balsera.
However, on his world map of 1569, the name is changed to Mare di Mesendin, while his rival Abraham Ortelius, for the world atlas of 1570, opted for Mare El Catif, olim Sinus Persicus, but labelled the entrance to the gulf – the present-day Strait of Hormuz – as Basora Fretum. Among all this confusion, the old name reasserted itself in the 17th century, but Turkey still uses the name "Gulf of Basra" in Turkish today. Following British attempts to control the seaway in the late 1830s, the Times Journal, published in London in 1840, referred to the Persian Gulf as the "Britain Sea", but this name was never used in any other context; the matter remains contentious as the competing naming conventions are supported by certain governments in internal literature, but in dealings with other states and international organizations. Some parties use terms like "The Gulf" or the "Arabo-Persian Gulf". Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 some people in Islamic groups suggested the use of "Islamic Gulf" or "Muslim Gulf".
The originator of the term Islamic Gulf is not known, while some people suggest that prominent figures of the early years of the Islamic republic including Ruhollah Khomeini, Mehdi Bazargan, Sadegh Khalkhali may have supported the idea. Khalkhali in his May 1979 visit to the UAE suggested the term "Muslim Gulf"; the idea was abandoned after Iran was invaded by its predominantly Muslim neighbor, Iraq. In Arab countries the terms "Gulf" and "Arabian Gulf" are preferred: The "Gulf" refers to the body of water known as the Arabian Gulf in GCC countries, or the Persian Gulf as referred to in many other places. Using the term "Persian Gulf" is impolite at least for GCC countries and nationals, whereas and many Iranians find the term "Arabian Gulf" offensive. Most other people or countries don't care that much one way or another. Iran only uses the term "Persian Gulf" and does not recognize the naming when it is referred to as "Arabian Gulf" or just the "Gulf". Iran does not consider the latter an impartial usage, views it as an active contribution to the abandonment of the historical name.
In a 1974 interview by Mike Wallace in 60 Minutes, the last Shah of Iran himself preferred the term "Persian Gulf" while talking to Wallace. In February 2010 Iran threatened to ban from its airspace foreign airlines those from the Gulf region, who did not use the term "Persian Gulf". In 2011 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a speech to the United Nations General Assembly during which he said that the only correct name of the sea between Iran and the Arabian peninsula was the Persian Gulf, he dismissed the use of any other names as illegitimate and void. Iran designates 30 April as National Persian Gulf Day; the date coincides with the anniversary of Abbas I of Persia's successful military campaign when the Portuguese navy was driven out of the Strait of Hormuz in the Capture of Ormuz. The decision was taken by the High Council of Cultural Revolution, presided over by former President Mohammad Khatami, noti
Andrew Breeze
Andrew Breeze, MA, DipCeltStud, PhD, FSA, FRHistS, has been profesor de filología at the University of Navarra since 1987. Breeze was educated at Sir Roger Manwood's School, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, he is married with six children. Besides numerous research papers on the philology of multiple Celtic languages, he is the author of the substantial Medieval Welsh Literature and The Origins of the "Four Branches of the Mabinogi", he is co-author with Professor Richard Coates of Celtic Voices, English Places. Breeze is one of the most prolific and varied contributors to Mabinogi Studies, The Mabinogion research addressing historical and political parallels. In 1997 he published the controversial'Did a woman write the Four Branches of the Mabinogi?', proposing a woman composer for this leading literature of British/ Welsh heritage. Breeze's theory rests on the unusual lack of warlike or fighting heroics compared to preceding literature; this much has been supported or tolerated by some scholars, but there has been much less approval of Breeze's preferred candidate Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd.
Since the 1997 article Breeze has been persistent in further publications on the idea. In 2015, he published a paper identifying the locations of King Arthur's battles from the 9th-century Historia Brittonum, placing them all in Scotland and Northern England, with the exception of Mount Badon in the year 493, located at a hillfort east of Braydon Forest, but having nothing to do with Arthur. Using these identifications, he suggested that Arthur was a Briton from the Kingdom of Strathclyde who fought other Britons, rather than Anglo-Saxons. Other scholars have questioned his findings, which they believe are based on coincidental resemblances between place-names. 1997 Medieval Welsh Literature, Four Courts Press. 2000 Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in England, Stamford: Shaun Tyas. 2008 The Mary of the Celts, Gracewing 2009 The Origins of the "Four Branches of the Mabinogi", University of Navarra: Andrew Breeze, CV listing publications
