History/mythology meme псто #3

[acityofmarble]

Бой тридцати

HISTORY MEME - FRANCE VERSION ♛ Combat of the Thirty (25 march 1351)
Robert Bemborough, a knight leading the Montfortist faction which controlled Ploërmel, was challenged to single combat by Jean de Beaumanoir, the captain of nearby Josselin, controlled by the Blois faction. According to the chronicler Froissart, this purely personal duel between the two leaders became a larger struggle when Bemborough suggested a combat between twenty or thirty knights on each side, a proposal that was enthusiastically accepted by de Beaumanoir. The motivation for the combat is unclear. The earliest written sources present it as a purely chivalric exercise, undertaken to “honour” the ladies for whom the knights were fighting. However, popular ballads portrayed the cause differently. The earliest of these, written by an unknown local supporter of the Blois faction, depicts Bemborough and his knights as ruthless despoilers of the local population, who appealed to Beaumanoir for help. Beaumanoir is depicted as a hero coming to the aid of the defenceless people.

The battle, fought with swords, daggers, spears, and axes, mounted or on foot, was of the most desperate character, in its details very reminiscent of the last fight of the Burgundians in the Nibelungenlied, especially in the celebrated advice of Geoffroy du Bois to his wounded leader, who was asking for water: “Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir; thy thirst will pass”. According to Froissart, the battle was fought with great gallantry on both sides. After several hours of fighting there were four dead on the French side and two on the English side. Both sides were exhausted and agreed to a break for refreshments and bandaging of injuries. After the battle resumed, the English leader Bemborough was wounded and then killed, apparently by du Bois. At this point the English faction formed a tight defensive body, which the French repeatedly attacked. A German soldier called Croquart is said to have displayed the greatest prowess in rallying the Anglo-Breton defence. In the end, the victory was decided by Guillaume de Montauban, a squire who mounted his horse and rode into the English line, breaking it. He overthrew seven of the English champions, the rest being forced to surrender. All the combatants on either side were either dead or seriously wounded, with nine on the English side slain. The prisoners were well treated and released on payment of a small ransom.
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речь Виктора Гюго в Законодательном собрании

HISTORY MEME - FRANCE VERSION ♛ Victor Hugo speech to Legislative Assembly (9 july 1849)
I am one of those who think and say that it is possible to destroy extreme poverty. Mark you, gentlemen, I am not saying ‘reduce’, ‘lessen’, ‘limit’, ‘control’, I said destroy. Poverty is a disease of society such as leprosy was a disease of the human body, and can be eliminated just as leprosy has disappeared. Yes, it is possible. Legislators and policymakers must think about it constantly, for as long as the possible is not done, our duty will never be fulfilled.
In Paris, in these suburbs of Paris where the wind of revolt once blew so easily, there are streets, houses, sewers, where families, whole families live pell-mell, men, women, girls, children, having no beds, blankets. For clothing they have stinking heaps of rags – the cities, where human beings huddle to escape the cold of winter.
Well, gentlemen, I say that these are things that should not be, I say that society must spend all its strength, all its care, its intelligence, all its will, so that such things are not! I say that such facts in a civilized country, engage the conscience of the whole society,
[For all your efforts] gentlemen, you have done nothing as long as the people suffer! As long as those in the prime of life and work are without bread, as long as those that are old and have worked are homeless! It is not only your generosity that I appeal to, it is your wisdom, I implore you to think. You have made laws against anarchy, now make laws against poverty!
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Поезд Сирот

the children of the Orphan Train

The children ranged in age from about six to 18 and shared a common grim existence. Homeless or neglected, they lived in New York City’s streets and slums with little or no hope of a successful future. Their numbers were large - an estimated 30,000 children were homeless in New York City in the 1850s. Charles Loring Brace believed that there was a way to change the futures of these children. By removing youngsters from the poverty and debauchery of the city streets and placing them in morally upright farm families, he thought they would have a chance of escaping a lifetime of suffering. He proposed that these children be sent by train to live and work on farms out west. They would be placed in homes for free but they would serve as an extra pair of hands to help with chores around the farm. They wouldn’t be indentured. In fact, older children placed by The Children’s Aid Society were to be paid for their labors. The Orphan Train Movement lasted from 1853 to the early 1900s and more than 120,000 children were placed. This ambitious, unusual and controversial social experiment is now recognized as the beginning of the foster care concept in the United States. Orphan Trains stopped at more than 45 states across the country as well as Canada and Mexico. Although records weren’t always well kept, some of the children placed in the West went on to great successes. There were two governors, one congressman, one sheriff, two district attorneys, three county commissioners as well as numerous bankers, lawyers, physicians, journalists, ministers, teachers and businessmen. Х
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эпос о Гильгамеше

myth figures: The Epic of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk best known from The Epic of Gilgamesh (written c. 2150-1400 BCE) the great Sumerian/Babylonian poetic work which pre-dates Homer’s writing by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic western literature…. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the great king is thought to be too proud and arrogant by the gods and so they decide to teach him a lesson by sending the wild man, Enkidu, to humble him. Enkidu and Gilgamesh, after a fierce battle in which neither are bested, become friends and embark on adventures together. When Enkidu is struck with death, Gilgamesh falls into a deep grief and, recognizing his own mortality through the death of his friend, questions the meaning of life and the value of human accomplishment in the face of ultimate extinction. Casting away all of his old vanity and pride, Gilgamesh sets out on a quest to find the meaning of life and, finally, some way of defeating death. In doing so, he becomes the first epic hero in world literature. The grief of Gilgamesh, and the questions his friend’s death evoke, resonate with every human being who has wrestled with the meaning of life in the face of death. Although Gilgamesh ultimately fails to win immortality in the story, his deeds live on through the written word and, so, does he.. Х

Големы

myth figures: golems

In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, magically created entirely from inanimate matter. The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word גלמי (galmi; my golem), that means “my light form”, “raw” material, connoting the unfinished human being before God’s eyes. Early on, the main disability of the golem was its inability to speak. A golem is inscribed with Hebrew words in some tales, such as the word emet (אמת, “truth” in Hebrew) written on its forehead. The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph in emet, thus changing the inscription from “truth” to “death”. X
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Генрих IV и Сюлли

history meme (french edition) → free choice: relationships (5/?) Henri IV & Sully

His chief minister was Maximilien de Béthune, whom he made Duc de Sully and a Peer of France. Sully belonged to the lesser nobility of Picardy and was a Huguenot. Bald, with a long beard like a patriarch, eccentric, avaricious and illmannered, where Henri was pleasant, affable and friendly in manner, of uncommon generosity: nonetheless, no one ever reached as high in Henri’s life as Sully did, and no one, except perhaps his son Louis, shed more sincere tears for him than Sully did. – D. Seward, The First Bourbon: Henry IV of France & Navarre.
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Эрмитаж

HISTORY MEME → places: Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1754 by Catherine the Great and has been open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatic collection accounts for about one third of them) including the largest collection of paintings in the world. The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky.

Of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five, namely the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists costs more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia and Belarus. However, entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors, and free daily for students and children. The museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for individual visitors is located in the Winter Palace, accessible from the Courtyard.
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Гражданская война в России

HISTORY MEME → Wars: Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russia’s political future. The two largest combatant groups were the Red Army, fighting for the Bolshevik form of socialism led by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which included diverse interests favoring monarchism, capitalism and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic variants. In addition, rival militant socialists and nonideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites. Eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine and the army led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak in Siberia in 1919. The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two more years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934. There were an estimated 7,000,000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen.

Many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war. Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—were established as sovereign states, with their own civil wars and wars of independence. The rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards.
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принцесса Диана

HISTORY MEME → Figures: Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances; née Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II.

Diana was born into a family of British nobility with royal ancestry and was the fourth child and third daughter of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and the Honourable Frances Roche. She grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate, and was educated in England and Switzerland. In 1975, after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer, she became known as Lady Diana Spencer. She came to prominence in February 1981 when her engagement to Prince Charles was announced.

Her wedding to the Prince of Wales was held at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29 July 1981 and reached a global television audience of over 750 million people. During her marriage, Diana was Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, and Countess of Chester. The marriage produced two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then respectively second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions overseas. She was celebrated for her charity work and for her support of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She was involved with dozens of charities including London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for children, of which she was president from 1989.

Diana remained the object of worldwide media scrutiny during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997 and subsequent televised funeral.
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Маргарите де Валуа и дети Генриха IV

history meme (french edition) → free choice: relationships: Marguerite de Valois and Henri IV’s children.

“When Marie de Medici, second wife of Henri IV, was crowned queen of France, Marguerite, his former first wife, garbed in crown and royal mantle, followed behind. This is in fact quite a good metaphore to resume their family life. Marguerite acted as a kind of honorary aunt to her former husband’s children; she was godmother to his son Gaston, and the Dauphin, later Louis XIII, tenderly called her “mama”. After her death in 1615, the young King confessed that ‘he misses her dearly’. ” – A.Lloyd Moote, Louis XIII, the Just.
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History meme: Wars: The wars of religion (Europe)
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