Posts Tagged ‘wwi’
ww1 poetry
September 4th, 2009 | 
Author: ww1 poetry
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From Baltics to Baltika
lmost 20 percent of Belarusian residents prefer to speak Belarusian at home, with the greater part of these being villagers. As a rule, Russian speech prevails in cities and towns. In 2010, the country's leadership announced its plans to expand the application of the Belarusian language. President Alexander Lukashenko noted, "Like no one else, the state feels its responsibility for the development of the Belarusian language and guarantees to maintain the integrity and unity of its contemporary literary norms. The Government has already approved a plan of action, aiming to popularise and expand the sphere of application of the Belarusian language in the life of society. It has been elaborated taking into account the proposals of state structures and non-governmental organisations, as well as scientists and culture figures." Belarusians abroad try to preserve their national traditions, including receiving education in their native language. This is possible in various countries of the world — from the banks of the Baltic Sea to Baltika village in Russian Bashkortostan.
Bashkortostan, Baltika
Over 17,000 Belarusians reside in Bashkortostan — a Republic of the Russian Federation. The largest Belarusian ‘colony' is situated even further afield— on the banks of Lake Baikal, in Irkutsk.
The first Belarusian settlements appeared in Bashkortostan back in the 19th century, with migration inspired by the abolition of serfdom in 1861; many peasants were left without land plots. The arrival of WW1 also influenced movement, with many residents of contemporary Belarus fleeing to find refuge in Siberia; there, they became arable farmers, bred animals, kept bees, hunted and fished.
The Republican Spadchyna National and Cultural Centre of Belarusians operates in Bashkortostan — not in the capital of Ufa but in Iglino District, where most Belarusians reside. The Centre is sited in Baltika village, organising its annual Kupalle holiday with support from local authorities. There's a library of Belarusian literature, the language is taught in three schools and Belarusian Syabry folk band originates from there. Belarusian is also taught at Pushkin's junior school, in the village of Kaltymanovsky.
A folk museum has been set up at the Centre in Baltika, displaying rural household items, souvenirs and talismans made by the local arts club, headed by Lyubov Vtyurina. A panel of the unique ‘Polotsk quilt' was donated from Baltika, helping create the collective work of decorative and applied art, which honoured the jubilee of the ancient Belarusian city of Polotsk. The quilt has been sewn from 400 patchwork pieces, sent from 40 cities throughout Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Denmark and Germany.
Latvia, Riga
Back in the 1920-1930s, Belarusian schools operated in various regions of Latvia. The development of education in Belarusian was supported by Jānis Rainis, a People's Poet of Latvia and a deputy of the Latvian Parliament. He knew and corresponded with many prominent Belarusian figures, including those residing in the Baltic States. At present, a Belarusian school operates in Riga; it was founded in 1994 at the initiative of the Svitanak Belarusian Society and the Belarusian Embassy to Latvia. It takes children through grades 1-9, with more than 100 pupils on the register; 70 percent are ethnic Belarusians.
Last summer, the Belarusian primary school in Riga moved to a new building, occupying two floors of Riga's secondary school #86. Director Anna Ivane planned to deliver lessons exclusively via the Belarusian language. Initially, all textbooks, even those in mathematics, were in Belarusian, sent from Minsk. However, the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science introduced a requirement that books compiled abroad could not be used. As a result, only Belarusian language and literature lessons are now taught in the native language, as are extra-curricular activities and various clubs. At present, just 2-3 hours are spent weekly on studying the native language, with other lessons conducted in Russian and Latvian, with elements of Belarusian. Schoolchildren sing Belarusian folk songs with pleasure and are keen to recite poetry by national literary genius Maxim Bogdanovich. Each classroom has its own Internet connection.
"Of course, the parents have chosen to send their children here," notes Ms. Ivane. "However, as they grow up, the children begin to appreciate the unique opportunity they've been given to preserve their native culture."
At one Latvian forum, where pupils were asked to ‘assess' their school, the Belarusian school received only positive feedback, with comments such as ‘I study at this school! The best!'
There's a large Belarusian diaspora in Riga, working actively and efficiently to promote its culture and native language. Additionally, two cultural societies operate: Pramen and Svitanak. These are successfully involved in preserving cultural traditions while promoting the native language. The school boasts a strong ‘Belarusian aura'. Everything begins with the teachers, who speak only their native language.
In late summer 2010, the Belarusian Ministries for Education, Industry, Culture and Sports and Tourism joined Bellesbumprom and Bellegprom concerns, as well as regional executive committees and Minsk's City Executive Committee to send equipment to the Belarusian school in Riga. Under the instruction of Alexander Lukashenko, the school was given a bus, catering tools and equipment for teaching chemistry, biology, physics, foreign languages and handicraft. They even sent furniture for classrooms and auxiliary areas, computers and office equipment, sports gear, teaching materials, carpets and rugs, curtains, cleaning equipment, toys, table games and handicraft items.
Lithuania, Vilnius
Belarusians have lived on Lithuanian territory for more than a century: since the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania — a multi-national medieval state and one of the largest in Eastern Europe. Many Belarusians moved to Lithuania in the Soviet times, after the WW2.
In the 16th century, Vilnius was a centre of book printing in the Belarusian language. In 1906, the first newspaper in Belarusian — Nasha Dolya — was released there; Yanka Kupala, Yakub Kolas and Maxim Bogdanovich had their works first printed on its pages. In 1919, the Lithuanian Government agreed to allow a Belarusian gymnasium to open in Vilnius, which existed for 25 years — until 1944.
The Frantsisk Skorina Belarusian language school continues the traditions of the original gymnasium. Skorina was the first to publish books in Vilnius and is also considered to be Lithuania's first printer. School alumni continue the traditions of uniting cultures, speaking perfect Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian and English.
In recent times, Minsk's Mayoral Office has allocated $500,000 to strengthen the material base of the Belarusian school in Vilnius, including the purchase of equipment for its language laboratory, two computer classes and a new bus. Moreover, first graders have been given knapsacks and books in Belarusian.
Estonia, Tallinn
The Belarusian Sunday school, named after Vladimir Korotkevich, is located behind the wall of the ancient city in Tallinn, near St. Olaf's Church (Oleviste kirik) — a symbol of the Estonian capital. The National Library of Belarus has donated books for use both by children and adults wishing to study their native language.
The school aims to popularise Belarusian language, history and culture among Belarusians in Estonia. The educational programme relies on the creative legacy of Vladimir Korotkevich — a classical writer of Belarusian literature and a master of historical novels. Korotkevich managed to skilfully describe every important stage in the development of the Belarusian nation.
The first stage of the one year school course aims to give complete understanding of Belarusian, while teaching the basics of the country's history and culture. At the second stage, pupils learn to speak Belarusian.
Lessons are conducted by Artur Tsurbakov — an author and host of the Batskaushchyna (Fatherland) Belarusian programme for Estonian Radio-4. He graduated from Gomel's Frantsisk Skorina State University and boasts a Master's Degree in international Relations from Tallinn University of Technology.
Poland, Podlaskie Voivodeship
In Poland, primarily in Podlaskie Voivodeship, bordering Belarus, 3,000 schoolchildren speak and write Belarusian during additional lessons at school. Belarusians have lived there since ancient times, being native inhabitants of the region, just like the local Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Jews. In March 2009, Belarusian was recognised as the second official language in the municipality of Gmina Orla and, in April 2009, in Gmina Narewka.
Most pupils study Belarusian at schools in Bielsk and Hajnуwka districts. All teachers of Belarusian language have graduated from Białystok University's Department of Belarusian Philology. Rector Jerzy Nikitorowicz is very proud, noting, "I'm reviving Belarusian studies at Białystok University, enrolling all those wishing to study Belarusian language and culture. Students arrive from across Poland, despite not having known of the existence of the Belarusian language previously."
Several schools offer additional Belarusian language lessons and have been given textbooks by the Belarusian Embassy. One school is named after Jarosław Kostycewicz while another, in Bielsk Podlaski, is named after Bronisław Taraszkiewicz. Alongside the Belarusian Lyceum in Hajnуwka, they began lessons on September 1st, 1944.
The history of Belarusian schools abroad covers many decades. Belarusian can be studied at universities in various countries, alongside those in Białystok and Warsaw, in Poland.
Germany
Belarusian is taught at the University of Oldenburg by professors Gerd Hentschel and Gun-Britt Kohler. Moreover, an intensive course in Belarusian language and literature is available (covering 40 hours). During her internship in Minsk, Ms. Kohler perfectly mastered the Belarusian language and now writes reports and organises discussions in Belarusian. Claudia Hurtig teaches Belarusian at the University of Leipzig, conducting compulsory and optional courses. Meanwhile, Prof. Uwe Junghanns has ensured that Belarusian language is now taught for three, rather than two, terms.
Previously, Belarusian language courses were also available at the University of Jena. Recently, grammar books, phrase books and textbooks on Belarusian were released in Berlin, Munich, Jena and Bielefeld.
Hungary
Since 1994, Belarusian language has been taught by famous Slavist and Belarusian language expert Andrбs Zoltбn, who heads the Department for Eastern Slavonic and Balkan Philology at Budapest University. He holds the Frantsisk Skorina Medal from the Belarusian President and is assisted by linguists from Brest's University. There, associate professor Larisa Stankevich has been teaching Belarusian for the last five years. University teachers and students have helped compile a Hungarian-Belarusian Dictionary (2007), in addition to Twenty Meetings with Belarus — a textbook in Hun-garian (2006).
Slovakia
A former associate professor from the Belarusian State University, Victoria Lyashuk, is now working with the University of Preљov, which boasts good relations with the Belarusian State Pedagogical University. Moreover, Slovak language is now offered at the BSU's Philology Department.
Serbia
Belarusian has been taught for five years at the University of Belgrade. In 2007 and 2009, Minsk was visited by Serbian students, who arrived for internships. Svetlana Kristina, an associate professor of the BSU's Philology Department, is working in Belgrade, speaking perfect Serbian.
The Czech Republic
Extracurricular studies of Belarusian are available at Prague's Charles University, conducted by young Czech philologist Marian Sloboda and a former associate professor of the BSU's Philology Department Yuras Bushlyakov .
Switzerland
Due to the efforts of an assistant at the Zьrich Central Library, Monika Bankowski-Zьllig, Belarusian was offered as an optional, short course.
Russia
Prof. Sergey Mikhalchenko teaches Belarusian at the University of Bryansk to those learning Regional Studies. Students then pass a state exam in Belarusian.
The USA
Prominent Slavist Prof. Curt Woolhiser, of Harvard University, speaks perfect Belarusian. He annually organises a Summer School of Belarusian Studies in Polish Hajnуwka.
The UK
Prof. Jim Dingley is involved in teaching Belarusian, joining Prof. Peter Mayo in writing an English language textbook for foreigners wishing to learn Belarusian. However, the work has had to be postponed.
About the Author
BELARUS
By Victor Korbut
Posted in Uncategorized | 
Tags: history, poetry, war, ww1, ww1 poetry, ww1 poetry analysis, ww1 poetry archive, ww1 poetry facts, ww1 poetry propaganda, ww1 poetry sassoon, ww1 poetry siegfried sassoon, ww1 poetry themes, ww1 poetry trenches, ww1 poetry wilfred owen, ww1 poetry written by soldiers, wwi | 
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vintage patriotic posters
vintage patriotic posters
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Antique Posters Means Of Awaking The People Of Past
In the old time, for the advertisement, many people use an easy way to fascinate the surroundings with antique posters around the streets and on the bus stop to keep people aware with the events or from some awaking news. In antique posters, black and white lifeless two-tone broadsides, which were commonly, hanged on the poles and shopkeepers walls with relevant stuff of the town, becoming a thing of the past, and some times a silent message for the wise people.
Artists, sketch makers, all have word for this purpose but after this technique, colors were introduced as a modification in this field of advertisement. It was the way, like choosing color Television over black-and-white. People in the field of poster making and designing, implement color lithography after its birth in Paris in 1869 and started using the new technique over the old means of antique posters. Galleries dedicated utterly selling posters colored and black and white, introduced all over the city. After its great success, people around the world especially, the countries associated with film industry. Beyond an advertising standard, posters appeared as an art form and many drawing lover. It's important to remember that posters were initially produced for aware people with graphics and texts, not to be saved as reminder as an antique decorating piece, but to be posted on the relevant area of the town for advertisement of products. It is true that the antique posters were the step toward the success of colored poster of today, mostly hanged on a book store or at a public cinema. These characteristic are pretty obvious with a magnifying glass, if we open the past thoroughly. Condition also plays a big part in value of posters. The difference can be hundreds opposed to thousands of dollars regarding these promotional contributions. This is especially true for posters that regularly show up at public sale. A collector knows he can wait, and eventually one in better condition. People often specialize and make their own galleries. Battle posters stimulate certain reflective patriotism for some and are trendy to show the picture as an evidence of the history.
About the Author
Juliasantengallery.com deals with all kind of vintage posters, Poster art and antique posters. If you are looking for antique vintage posters then you are at right place. Visit now http://www.juliasantengallery.com/"
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Tags: art, history, posters, vintage patriotic posters, war, wwi |
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wwi
wwi
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Information on Trench Fever-a Bacterial Infection
The term trench fever refers to the crowded conditions in which troops fought in during World War I and World War II. Because the causative bacteria are passed among humans through contact with body lice, overcrowding, and conditions which interfere with good hygiene (including regular washing of clothing) soldiers were predispose to this disease. Currently, homeless people in the United States are sometimes diagnosed with this illness. The bacteria are sometimes passed through the bite of an infected tick.
The first clinical description occurred during World War I (WWI), but the condition has probably caused human infection for centuries. Trench fever was considered the most prevalent disease among Allied troops serving in the trenches during WWI. After WWI, trench fever became dormant, until it reemerged as an epidemic on the eastern European front during World War II. Since WWII, classic trench fever has almost disappeared as a clinical entity.
Trench Fever attacked all armies and until the final year of the war baffled doctors and researchers. Chief symptoms of the disease were headaches, skin rashes, inflamed eyes and leg pains.
Despite such wide-ranging symptoms the condition was not itself particularly serious, with patients recovering after some five or six days although prolonged hospitalisation amounting to several weeks was common.
Trench fever is a louse-borne disease. The lice do not become infectious at once after feeding on a trench-fever patient; there is a latent period of some 8-12 days before they are dangerous to other people. Thereafter the excreta of the lice, rather than their bites, are infective. If these infective excreta be rubbed into a scratch or scarification trench fever develops in about eight days. The importance of this discovery about the excreta lies in the fact that persons may contract the condition who have never had lice upon them. The excreta is a dry powder, easily blown about, and so apt to reach the clothes. It remains infective for long periods and even when exposed to sunlight. Water on the other hand seems to diminish its infectivity quickly.
The blood of trench-fever patients is infective to other patients when injected into their veins. Thus the parasite circulates in the blood. The parasite is also in the louse excreta.
Cause of trench fever:
The cause of trench fever is Bartonella quintana (also called Rochalimaea quintana), an unusual rickettsial organism that multiplies in the gut of the body louse. Transmission of the rickettsia to people can occur by rubbing infected louse feces into abraded (scuffed) skin or into the conjunctivae (whites of the eyes).
The vector for Trench Fever was, of course the body louse, pediculus corporis which became infected by feeding on the blood of infected soldiers; spread was by migration of the louse and infection of the new host by the insect bite or by scratching the skin which was contaminated by the louse excreta. The excreta remained infective for long periods, weeks or months.
The disease is classically a 5-day fever. The onset of symptoms is sudden with high fever, severe headache, back pain and leg pain and a fleeting rash.
Recovery takes a month or more. Relapses are common.
About the Author
Read about Breast Enlargement and Breast Enhancement. Also read about Natural Remedies, Home Remedies, Herbal Remedies and Beauty Tips, Makeup Tips, Skin Care Tips
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Tags: history, photos, war, ww1, wwi, wwii, wwii in hd, wwii memorial, wwii timeline, wwitv |
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wwi poetry
wwi poetry
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WWII as Told by Heller's Catch-22 and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
Everyone is talking about the new HBO miniseries The Pacific. While it is well scripted, brilliantly performed, and visually realistic, what really has critics' attention is its jumbled storyline. Herein, they say, lies the series' real strength. So why is it that when we have no overarching narrative, we get bad marks in creative writing, but when Tom Hanks does it, he gets his own miniseries?
Historically, war stories have been told from a zoomed-out perspective that focuses on major events and overall movements. This is a tidy, logical, and totally misleading way of representing war. Just ask any veteran. With time, however, war stories have become increasingly fragmented, switching from the historian's perspective to the combatant's. With this trend comes a heightened awareness of - and ambiguity toward - the morality of individual actions during war.
With technological developments immensely increasing our capacity for destruction, the last century has forever changed the way the world looks at combat. WWI started with the assassination of one man and spiraled out of control into a thirty/plus-nation massacre. WWII had an unprecedented fifty million civilian casualties - many of whom were not simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's no wonder that the way war stories are told increasingly reflects a frustrated, absurdist point of view.
Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, Catch-22, is one of the finest examples of war satire. It follows – if you can justify using that word – a Captain Yossarian, who is hell-bent on getting out of fighting in WWII because he thinks "every one of them" is trying to kill him. Every one of whom? Them. His dream is to get discharged on grounds of insanity, but obviously he can't request to leave outright. After all, only sane people would want to stop fighting, which means the only people qualified to leave are the ones who want to be there in the first place. Now you see why the novel coined the term "catch-22".
Heller's novel is filled with enough circular reasoning to give Lewis Carroll a run for his money. If the idiocy of the plot itself isn't enough to drive the point home, the plot structure certainly will: its forty-two chapters shuffle through time unannounced and incessantly, leaving us readers just as disoriented as the soldiers themselves. Mercifully, Catch-22 is hilarious, which seems to suggest that sometimes, there's really nothing you can do but laugh.
Another WWII novel in this vein is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which he published in 1969 based on his experience as a prisoner of war during the Allied bombing of Dresden. Its protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is an optometrist who is woefully unprepared for the war. At one point, he is saved from extremely friendly fire by the fortuitous arrival of German soldiers, who take him and his would-be assassin prisoner. Because they are locked safely away in a Dresden slaughterhouse, Billy and the other prisoners miraculously survive the demolition of the city.
If this all sounds unsatisfactorily straightforward to you, you'll be happy to hear that Billy is also involuntarily time-tripping between different moments in his life, taking you, the reader, along for the ride. Among these moments is his future life as an abductee on the planet Tralfamadore, where he lives in captivity with another abductee, also from Earth, who happens to be a female porn star. Living with the Tralfamadorians teaches Billy that because there's no such thing as linear time, there's also no free will, which keeps Billy from getting too worked up about the whole thing.
So, the next time you sit down to watch a dizzying installment of The Pacific, keep in mind that it's books like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five that inspired its unusual piecemeal structure. After all, who wants to stay focused on the big picture when there doesn't seem to be one.
About the Author
Shmoop is an online study guide for WWII, Catch-22 and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and many more. Its content is written by Ph.D. and Masters students from top universities, like Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale who have also taught at the high school and college levels. Teachers and students should feel confident to cite Shmoop.
war poetry
war poetry
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The burqa is a war on women
A ban on the burqa is clearly one of them. But the time has come to get over our fears and cultural fragilities - and grow up. The call to ban the burqa is receiving serious consideration in European parliaments. And it should here, too.
Belgian legislators voted last month to outlaw the burqa in public places. On Wednesday, a bipartisan resolution passed by the French parliament deploring the burqa - on the grounds of "dignity" and "equality of men and women" - was presented to the French cabinet, and a ban is expected later this year. Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada are also grappling with the issue.
But in Australia, in a sign of cultural timidity and intellectual weakness, we seem intent on shunning any meaningful debate about the burqa and its place in a liberal democracy. At one level this is understandable, given the issue has become a confusing tussle between feminists and well-meaning liberals; nervous libertarians and right-wing ideologues; and the usual smattering of racists and dog-whistling shock-jocks.
Unfortunately for Muslim women, the burqa is not just a garment. It has become a weapon in a war of ideology: a war in which women are the battleground and their rights and freedoms are at stake.
Here's the problem. Those who are critical of calls to ban the burqa perceive it to be an attack on personal freedoms. They view the burqa as an individual choice - which is arguable - and a religious requirement, which it is not. They look straight past the woman hidden from public view under heavy cloth, and instead applaud our multicultural tolerance. This is a mistake. The burqa has nothing to do with ethnic diversity and everything to do with a war against women. Those who wear it, and those who insist it be worn, subscribe to an ideology in which women are inferior sexual temptresses, whose female form is a problem and must be covered. This is based on the contradictory proposition that men are both superior and yet unable to control their sexual urges if they see women in their natural human state. If this wasn't deadly serious, it would be funny.
Award-winning Muslim journalist Mona Eltahawy says she is appalled to hear Europeans defend the burqa and niqab. "A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women's rights," she says. Yet, to argue directly with Islamic fundamentalists about gender equality is fruitless. According to Eltahawy, "the ideology that promotes the niqab and burqa does not believe in the concept of women's rights to begin with".
Let's be clear. This is not about the hijab - or headscarf. Like any hat or cap, the hijab is a matter of individual right. Whether worn for reasons of devotion, modesty, conformity or fashion, it is personal and the state has no business banning it. The burqa is an entirely different issue.
The burqa and the niqab shroud the full body, covering every part of a woman except her feet. The niqab includes a slit for the eyes, whereas the burqa has mesh netting. Malalai Joya, an Afghan MP and a devout Muslim, hates wearing it. "It's not only oppressive," she says, "but it's more difficult than you might think. You have no peripheral vision. And it's hot and suffocating under there."
When visiting Australia recently, Joya didn't pack her burqa. She is one of the many millions of Muslim women around the world who choose not to wear it - when they don't have to. Numerous Islamic scholars, men and women, argue that there is not a single reference in the Koran that mandates women must cover their face and bodies and hide themselves from public view. The Koran does call for modesty, which some interpret as an obligation to wear the headscarf. But even that is widely questioned by progressive Muslims scholars such as Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress. Furious at Islamic extremists for their "gender apartheid", Fatah insists that even the hijab is being used by fundamentalists as a "political tool" who have turned it into "the central pillar of Islam".
Outside Australia, there are plenty of Muslim women who despise the burqa and niqab as much as I do, and are prepared to say so. British journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a Shiite Muslim who pulls no punches. "I abhor the burqa," she wrote in The Independent, saying that she was "offended" by the presumption that women who wear it "are more pious and true" than her.
There is no doubt that women who don this ostentatious costume in the West are proud of their piety. One such woman told me, "the niqab is submission and servitude to my Almighty Creator" and that I had no right to question her choice to wear it. Well, I do. What God demands men roam free while women wear a sackcloth that restricts their movement and dehumanises them? What God wants to punish women in this way? What God hates women so much that he restricts her right to be man's equal?
The answer is obvious. No God. This is the work of men - who claim a direct link to the divine - and wish to keep women subordinate and under their control. It's that simple.
For more Latest Islamic news - Visit Urdu Tahzeeb
About the Author
Shawn has been a professional writer for over 4 years. I do writing mostly on topical and political issues, Latest Urdu News, Islamic News...