 | Keith Urban Stupid Boy Chicago Soldier Field June 2008 Keith urban jam secession on the guitar while singing stupid boy in Chicago at soldier field June 21 2008. Kenny Chesney Poets and Pirates Tour |
 | Marosvásárhely - Neumarkt am Mieresch Old & new pictures from a great transilvanian city. Erdély szabad és szabad marad!!! Marosvásárhely, (Székely-)Vásárhely, German: Neumarkt am Mieresch; Latin: Novum Forum Siculorum) is a city in Maros county, Transylvania. (Today part of romania) The city was first documented in 1332 in the papal registry under the name Novum Forum Siculorum. In 1405, the King of Hungary Sigismund of Luxembourg granted the city of Marosvásárhely (by then named Székelyvásárhely) the right to organize fairs; in 1482 King Matthias Corvinus declared the city a royal settlement. It became a municipality in 1616, changing its name to Marosvásárhely, (the vásár mean "Market" in Hungarian). The city received a major boost to its social and economic life when it became home to supreme court of justice of the Principality of Transylvania in 1754. The center of the city in 1821, with the famous Bodor musical fountain in the middle. In 1880 the statue of Bem was inaugurated in Roses Square, at the city's center; in 1893 the statue of Kossuth was as well. The statue of Rákóczi was also inaugurated in 1907. All three were demolished after World War I, in 1923. The provincial appearance of the city changed greatly in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In 1913, the Transylvanian Secession-style city hall complex was opened, as part of mayor Bernády György's urban renewal. Economic success continued until World War II. After the conflict, together with the rest of Transylvania, Târgu Mureş became part of Romania and was re-named Oşorheiu. From having been an 89% Hungarian-populated city (1910), Romanian population increased throughout the latter half of the 20th century. From 1940 to 1944, as a consequence of the Second Vienna Award, Marosvásárhely was ceded to Hungary. During this period, a Jewish ghetto was established in the city. It re-entered the Romanian administration at the end of the war in October 1944. After World War II, the communist administration of Romania conducted a policy of massive industrialization that completely re-shaped the community, and set up a Hungarian Autonomous Province based in the city, which lasted 15 years. Târgu Mureş became the center of economic and social life of the region. In March 1990, shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 overthrew the communist regime, Marosvásárhely was the stage of violent confrontations between ethnic Hungarians and Romanians. As of 2000, a considerable percentage of the population of Marosvásárhely has started to work abroad temporarily. The local economy has started to get stronger after various investors settled in the area. Marosvásárhely has a substantial ethnic Hungarian minority, some of whom identify as Székelys. Since 2003 some Székely organizations have been campaigning for the city to again become center of an autonomous region. |
 | Karelia National Anthem [Ex-Nation] Karelia was bitterly fought over by Sweden and the Novgorod Republic since the 13th-century Swedish-Novgorodian Wars. The Treaty of Nöteborg (Finnish: Pähkinäsaaren rauha) in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg (Finnish: Viipuri) became the capital of the new Swedish province. The Treaty of Nystad (Finnish: Uudenkaupungin rauha) in 1721 between Imperial Russia and Sweden ceded most of Karelia to Russia. After Finland had been occupied by Russia in the Finnish War, parts of the ceded provinces (Old Finland) were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1917 Finland became independent and the border was confirmed by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920. During the 1920s, Finns were involved in attempts to overthrow the Bolshevists in Russian Karelia (East Karelia), for instance in the failed Aunus expedition. These mainly private expeditions ended after the peace treaty of Tartu. After the end of the Russian Civil War, and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, the Russian part of Karelia became the Karelian Autonomous republic of the Soviet Union (ASSR) in 1923. In 1939 the Soviet Union attacked Finland starting the Winter War. The Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940 handed most of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union. About 400,000 people, virtually the whole population, had to be relocated within Finland. In 1941 Karelia was re-conquered for three years during the Continuation War 1941--1944 when East Karelia was also occupied by the Finns. The Winter War and the resulting Soviet expansion caused considerable bitterness in Finland, which lost its second biggest city, Viipuri, its industrial heartland along the river Vuoksi, the Saimaa canal that connected central Finland to the Gulf of Finland, access to the fishing waters of Lake Ladoga (Finnish: Laatokka), and made an eighth of her citizens refugees without chance of return. As a consequence of the peace treaty, the Karelian ASSR was incorporated with the Karelo-Finnish SSR 1941--1956, after which it became an ASSR again. Karelia was the only Soviet republic that was "demoted" from an SSR to an ASSR within the Russian SFR. Unlike autonomous republics, Soviet republics (in theory) had the constitutional right to secede. The possible fear of secession, as well as the Russian ethnic majority in Karelia may have resulted in its "demotion." In 1991 the Republic of Karelia was created out of the ASSR. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought an economic collapse. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the area has experienced massive urban decay. The hastily and poorly constructed buildings from the Soviet era, as well as older houses remaining from the Finnish era, are being abandoned. Karelia is divided between Finland and Russia. The Republic of Karelia is a republic of Russia, which was formed in 1991 from the Karelian ASSR. The Karelian Isthmus belongs to the Leningrad Oblast. The Finnish parts of Karelia are part of the regions (maakunta) of South Karelia and North Karelia. There are some small but enthusiastic groups of Finns campaigning for closer ties between Finland and Karelia. The political expression of these irredentist hopes is called the Karelian question and is about for Finland's re-acquisition of the ceded Finnish Karelia live on in for instance the Karjalan Liitto and ProKarelia. These ambitions for closer ties with East Karelia do not include territorial demands. However, much of the original Finnish population of the Russian side of Karelia has been either resettled and integrated to inner Finland, Russified or dispersed into Russia as victims of Soviet internal population transfers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelia |
 | Vlado Gotovac - 1991 speech http://vinovo.magnify.net Vlado Gotovac, was a leading dissident in Communist Yugoslavia and a powerful voice for democracy in the independent Croatia of the authoritarian Franjo Tudjman, Ivo Banac, a Croatian historian who teaches at Yale University, praised Mr. Gotovac for courage that spanned decades. ''Nobody could challenge his primacy in moral leadership, which he retained to the end,'' Mr. Banac said. ''He belonged to the school of Central European dissidence that put primacy on individual example -- on the importance of disassociating oneself from tyranny. He believed that the individual mattered. This is his greatest heritage in a country that is morally ruined after decades of dictatorship, war and corruption.'' Mr. Gotovac was one of Croatia's most urbane, humane and elegant voices. He was a prolific author and the leader of the Liberal Party, a junior partner in the government coalition that took power from the late President Tudjman's nationalists in elections in January, just a month after Mr. Tudjman's death. That triumph came after Mr. Gotovac had already fallen ill and capped a life dedicated to attacking rulers who sought to limit personal freedom. ''In the name of the state all has become permissible,'' Mr. Gotovac told The New York Times in a June 1997 interview about Mr. Tudjman's government. ''All ethical, moral and spiritual values have been subjected to the power of the state. ''Crimes are committed and defended because they are carried out in the name of the state. Totalitarian regimes always justify repressive measures by appealing to the love of the homeland.'' Despite the long years of jail and isolation for his views, Mr. Gotovac did not succumb to bitterness and retained the warm, affable outlook of a befuddled college professor. He said his political mentor was Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. ''He warned us that we must be willing to carry out tasks in life where we have no chance of success,'' he said. Mr. Gotovac was born Sept. 18, 1930, in Imotski in southern Croatia and grew up in poverty. His father was a gendarme in the royal Yugoslav state and his mother was illiterate. But their son went on to study philosophy at Zagreb University and later headed Matica Hrvatska, an influential association of Croatian writers and historians. He was the most philosophical of Croatia's post-1945 poets, finding inspiration in urban society, despite his rural upbringing. He championed the integrity of the individual, and attacked communal passions such as those that inspired Communist and nationalist movements. His blistering attacks against the Tito's Communist system and his widely read essays arguing for democratic freedoms and reforms landed him in prison twice and led to his dismissal from his state job. He was first sent to prison by the Communist authorities in 1972, serving six years in Stara Gradiska in squalor with common criminals. He was released in 1976, but his outspokenness led to another arrest, in 1982. He served two more years in the Lepoglava prison. In 1989, as the old Communist Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, Mr. Gotovac founded the Croatian Social-Liberal Party, part of a coalition that in 1990 lost Croatia's first multiparty elections to Mr. Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union. The election of Mr. Tudjman led to Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia in June 1991 and to a bitter war of independence. Mr. Gotovac, while denouncing the Serbian regime in Belgrade, also opposed the eventual displacement of some half a million Serbs from Croatia. He made their return part of his political platform. Mr. Gotovac was a member of all three parliaments elected since 1990, but he also devoted much of his time to the restoration of Matica Hrvatska, over which he presided from 1990 to 1996. Croatia Croatian vlado gotovac speech politics JNA army kroatien dalmatia dalmatian zagora hrvatska imotski vinovo gornje tony blair george bush drazen budisa demosten cicero ciceron speech party labourist john kennedy robert bill clinton diplomacy war |
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
