Early life.

He was born in Haßfurt (Kingdom of Bavaria), the only child of a postman and a seamstress. Sauckel was educated at local schools and left early when his mother fell ill. He joined the merchant marine of Norway and Sweden when he was 15, first on a Norwegian three-masted schooner, and later on Swedish and German vessels. He went on to sail throughout the world, rising to the rank of "Vollmatrose" (able seaman). At the outbreak of World War I, he was on a German vessel en route to Australia when the vessel was captured. He was subsequently interned in France from August 1914 until November 1919.  He returned to Germany, found factory work in Schweinfurt, and studied engineering in Ilmenau from 1922 to 1923. He joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in 1923 (member 1,395). In 1924 he married Elisabeth Wetzel, with whom he had ten children. He remained a party member despite its forced dissolution in 1923 and publicly rejoined in 1925. Sauckel was appointed party Gauleiter of Thüringia in 1927 and became a member of the regional government in 1929. Following Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, he was promoted to "Reichsregent von Thüringen" ("Reich Regent of Thüringia") and Reichstag member. He was also given an honorary rank of Obergruppenführer in the SA in 1937.

World War II.

During World War II, he was Reich defence commissioner for the Kassel district ("Reichsverteidigungskommissar Wehrkreis IX") before being appointed General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment ("Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz") on 21 March 1942, on the recommendation of Martin Bormann.

Slave and forced labour.

Sauckel worked directly under Göring through the Four Year Plan Office, directing and controlling German labour. In response to increased demands, he met the requirement for manpower with people from the occupied territories. Voluntary numbers were insufficient and forced recruitment was introduced within a few months. Of the five million foreign workers brought to Germany, around 200,000 came voluntarily, according to Sauckel's testimony at Nuremberg. The majority of the acquired workers originated from the Eastern territories, especially in Poland and the Soviet Union where the methods used to gain workers were very harsh. The Wehrmacht was used to pressgang local people and most were taken by force to the Reich. Conditions of work were extremely poor and discipline severe, especially for concentration camp prisoners. All the latter were unpaid and provided with starvation rations, barely keeping those workers alive. Such slave labour was widely used in many German industries, including coal mining, steel making, and armaments manufacture. The use of forced and slave labour increased throughout the war, especially after Albert Speer came to replace Fritz Todt in charge of armaments production in February 1942 and demanded much more labour from Sauckel.

Trial and execution.

At the Nuremberg trials, Sauckel was accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes and crimes against humanity. He defended the "Arbeitseinsatz" as "nothing to do with exploitation. It is an economic process for supplying labour". He denied that it was slave labour or that it was common to deliberately work people to death (extermination by labour) or to mistreat them.  Robert Servatius, Sauckel's counsel, portrayed Sauckel as a representative of the labour classes of Germany; an earnest and unpretentious party man assiduously committed to promoting the collective utility of the working class. This portrait was contrary to that of Speer, whom Servatius juxtaposed against Sauckel as a technical genius and entrepreneurial administrator. Sauckel surmised that Speer bore greater legal and moral responsibility by virtue of the fact that the former merely met the demands of the latter, in accordance with protocol. This strategy did not yield to his favour, however, as the ratio in the final judgement against the respective defendants outlined that Speer's tasks were numerous, with the forced labour program comprising only one facet of his ministerial responsibilities, while Sauckel was singularly responsible for his office as General Plenipotentiary.  Sauckel was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he, together with a number of colleagues, was hanged at Nuremberg Prison on 16 October 1946, 11 days before his 52nd birthday. His last words were recorded as ""Ich sterbe unschuldig, mein Urteil ist ungerecht. Gott beschütze Deutschland. Möge es leben und eines Tages wieder groß werden. Gott beschütze meine Familie."" ("I die an innocent man, my sentence is unjust. God protect Germany! May it live and one day become great again! God protect my family."). Albert Speer escaped the death sentence, but served 20 years at Spandau prison.  Sauckel's body, as were those of the other nine executed men and the corpse of Hermann Göring, was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar.

Portrayal in popular culture.

Fritz Sauckel has been portrayed by the following actors in film, television and theatre productions;

Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel (27 October 1894 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, Gauleiter of Thuringia and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment ("Arbeitseinsatz") from March 1942 until the end of the Second World War. Sauckel was among the 24 persons accused in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to death by hanging.

Ernst Friedrich Christoph Sauckel (* 27. Oktober 1894 in Haßfurt, Unterfranken; † 16. Oktober 1946 in Nürnberg) war seit 1927 NSDAP-Gauleiter in Thüringen und von 1942 bis 1945 Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz, d. h. für die Zwangsarbeit in der zweiten Hälfte des Weltkrieges.


Duke of Prussia.

Albert became Duke of Prussia after paying feudal homage to his cousin, the King of Poland, Zygmunt August, on July 19, 1569 in Lublin. The homage was described by the Polish chronicler Jan Kochanowski in his work "Proporzec" ("Standard"). During the 1573 Polish election, Albert Frederick attempted to gain acceptance to the Polish senate but was opposed by the powerful Jan Zamoyski (later Grand Hetman of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland) who feared the influence of Protestants in the Polish legislative body. Albert Frederick initially refused to recognize the election of Stefan Bathory and supported the candidacy of Maximilian of Habsburg. However, at the Toruń sejm of October 1576 he gave his support to the new monarch.  As the great grandson of the Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellon, and as a Duke in Prussia who was fluent in Polish, Albert Frederick was seriously considered for a time as a possible candidate for the Polish throne. He particularly enjoyed the support of Polish Lutherans.  In 1572 he began to exhibit signs of mental disorder. In early 1578, the regency was taken over by his cousin, George Frederick of Brandenburg-Kulmbach (1539–1603). After George Frederick's death in 1603, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa appointed Joachim Frederick as regent in 1605, and permitted his son, John Sigismund, to succeed him in 1611. The latter became Duke of Prussia after Albert Frederick's death in 1618.

Marriage.

Albert Frederick was married in 1573 to Marie Eleonore of Cleves, a daughter of Wilhelm, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg and Archduchess Maria of Austria (1531–1581). Maria was a daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary.

Issue.

Albert Frederick and Marie were parents to seven children:  At his death, the duchy passed to his son-in-law John Sigismund, Margrave of Brandenburg, combining the two territories under a single dynasty and forming Brandenburg-Prussia.

References.

Albert Frederick (; ; 7 May 1553 – 28 August 1618) was the Duke of Prussia, from 1568 until his death. He was a son of Albert of Prussia and Anna Marie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. He was the second and last Prussian duke of the Ansbach branch of the Hohenzollern family.

Albrecht Friedrich von Preußen (* 29. April 1553 in Königsberg; † 27. August 1618 in Fischhausen) war seit 1568 regierender Herzog in Preußen.


Etymology.

The name "Rigi" is from Swiss Old High German "*rigî" "horizontal stratification, strip, band", from OHG "rîhan" "gird; pleat, string", cf. OHG "rîga" "row, stripe, furrow", after the horizontal rock ledges and grass strips surrounding the mountain from west to east. The name is first recorded in 1350 as "Riginun".  The name was interpreted as "Regina montium" "queen of mountains" by Albrecht von Bonstetten (1479), who however gives "Rigena" as alternative form.  Bonstetten's interpretation as "Regina" was influential in the 17th century, and was still repeated in 18th-century travelogues. Karl Zay ("Goldau und seine Gegend", 1807) criticized this latinization, arguing for "mons rigidus" instead. Later in the 19th century, many authors repeated either "rigidus" or "regina" as the name's supposed origin. The two possibilities were also adduced as explanation the name's grammatical gender alternating between masculine and feminine. Brandstetter ("Die Rigi", 1914) finally discredited these interpretations and established the origin in Old High German "rîga" (whence modern German "Reihe, Reigen"; cognate with English "row").

Transport.

There are multiple public transport options available to ascend Mt. Rigi:

Recreation.

Mt. Rigi offers an area for recreation and sports measuring approximately offering a variety of well-maintained walking trails or mountain hikes where visitors can have a panoramic view of from various marked points. There are also numerous public grilling stations located near the hiking trails.  Rigi is also a perfect destination for people practising winter sports and other winter recreation activities.

Mt. Rigi in culture.

Mt. Rigi has been featured in many works of art, including both paintings and literary publications. Perhaps the most famous paintings of the Rigi were a series by JMW Turner, including "The Blue Rigi, Sunrise", several of which are in the collection of the Tate Britain art gallery in London.  Mark Twain also visited Rigi during his tour of Central Europe in the late 1870s, and wrote about his travels in chapter 28 of his "A Tramp Abroad."  There is a Catskills resort called the Rigi Kulm in Abraham Cahan's novel The Rise of David Levinsky (1917).  The Rigi, a downhill road in Wellington, New Zealand, is named for the mountain and for many years was used as a main thoroughfare for coach riders.  On 9 July 1868, during a three-week tour through Switzerland, Gerard Manley Hopkins ascended Rigi-Kulm, the highest peak of the Rigi massif: "From Lucerne by steamer to Küssnacht, thence walk across to Immensee, thence by steamer over lake of Zug to Arth, whence up the Rigi."

Geology.

Technically, the Rigi is not a part of the Alps, and belongs instead to the Swiss plateau. It is mostly composed of molasse and other conglomerate, as opposed to the Bündner schist and flysch of the Alps.

The Rigi (or "Mount Rigi"; also known as "Queen of the Mountains") is a mountain massif of the Alps, located in Central Switzerland. The whole massif is almost entirely surrounded by the water of three different water bodies: Lake Lucerne, Lake Zug and Lake Lauerz. The range is in the Schwyzer Alps, and is split between the cantons of Schwyz and Lucerne, although the main summit, named "Rigi Kulm", at 1,798 meters above sea level, lies within the canton of Schwyz.

Die Rigi ist ein Bergmassiv zwischen dem Vierwaldstättersee, dem Zugersee und dem Lauerzersee in der Zentralschweiz. Höchster Gipfel ist mit einer Höhe von "Rigi Kulm", ein beliebtes Ausflugsziel für Touristen. Etwas weniger hoch sind die weiteren Gipfel Rigi Hochflue (gelegentlich "Hochfluh", nach Schweizer Landeskarte 1:25'000 "Hoflue"), Dossen, Rigi Scheidegg und Vitznauerstock (LU) = Gersauerstock (SZ).


Youth and early travels.

Burckhardt was born on 24 November 1784 in Lausanne, Switzerland to a wealthy Basel family of silk merchants, the Burckhardt family. His father was named Rudolf, son of Gedeon Burckhardt, an affluent silk ribbon manufacturer; his mother, Sara Rohner, was Rudolf's second wife following a brief marriage to the daughter of the mayor of Basel which ended in divorce. After studying at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen, he travelled to England in the summer of 1806 with goal of obtaining employment in the civil service. Unsuccessful, he took employment with the African Association with the objective of resolving some of the problems of the course of the Niger River. The expedition called for an overland journey from Cairo to Timbuktu. To prepare for the journey, he attended Cambridge University and studied Arabic, science and medicine. At this time he also began to adopt Arabian costume. In 1809 he left England and travelled to Aleppo, Syria to perfect his Arabic and Muslim customs. En route to Syria, he stopped in Malta and learned of Ulrich Jasper Seetzen who had left Cairo in search of the lost city of Petra and had subsequently been murdered. Once in Syria, he adopted the moniker Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah to hide his true European identity. While in Syria, he investigated local languages and archaeological sites and became the first discoverer of Hittite or Luwian hieroglyphs. He suffered setbacks during his time in Syria having been robbed of his belongings more than once by people he had paid to guarantee his protection. After more than 2 years living and studying as a Muslim in Aleppo, he felt he could travel safely and not be questioned on his identity. To test his disguise, he made 3 journeys in the area of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Transjordan travelling as a poor Arab, sleeping on the ground and eating with camel drivers. With these trips being successful, he prepared to continue his journey to Cairo. He left Aleppo in early 1812 and headed south through Damascus, Ajloun and Amman. In Kerak, he trusted his security to the local governor, Sheikh Youssef. The governor, under the guise of concern for his guest, liberated him of his most valuable belongings and then sent him south with an unscrupulous guide. The guide soon after took the remainder of his belongings and abandoned him in the desert. Burckhardt found a nearby Bedouin encampment and obtained a new guide and continued his journey south.

Discoveries and death.

On the road to Cairo along the more dangerous inland route to Aqaba, Burckhardt encountered rumours of ancient ruins in a narrow valley near the supposed biblical tomb of Aaron, the brother of Moses. This region was the former Roman province of Arabia Petraea leading him to believe these were the ruins he had heard about in Malta. Telling his guide that he wished to sacrifice a goat at the tomb, he was led through the narrow valley where on 22 August 1812, he became the first modern European to lay eyes on the ancient Nabataean city of Petra:  He could not remain long at the ruins or take detailed notes due to his fears of being unmasked as a treasure-seeking infidel. Seeing no evidence of the name of the ruins, he could only speculate that they were in fact the ruins of Petra which he had been informed about on his journey to Syria. He continued his travels and after crossing the southern deserts of Transjordan and the Sinai peninsula, he arrived at Cairo on 4 September 1812.  After spending four months in Cairo with no westbound caravans across the Sahara available, Burckhardt decided to journey up the Nile River to Upper Egypt and Nubia. He justified this to his employer with the argument that the information he would collect on African cultures would help him in his planned journey to west Africa. In January 1813 he departed Cairo travelling up the Nile river over land via donkey. He planned to reach Dongola in what is now modern-day Sudan. He was eventually blocked by hostile people less than 160 km from his goal near the third cataract of the Nile river. Journeying north, he came across the sand-choked ruins of the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel in March 1813. After considerable effort, he was unable to excavate the entrance to the temple. He later told his friend Giovanni Belzoni about the ruins and it was he who later returned in 1817 to excavate the temple. Burckhardt continued north to Esme. He later made an additional trip to Nubia travelling as far as Shendi near the Pyramids of Meroë. From here he journeyed to the Red Sea and resolved to make the pilgrimage to Mecca as this would enhance his credentials as a Muslim on his journey to Timbuktu.  After crossing the Red Sea, he entered Jeddah on 18 July 1814 and became sick with dysentery for the first time in his travels. Here he proved his credentials as a Muslim and was permitted to travel to Mecca. He spent several months in Mecca performing the various rituals associated with the Hajj which was unheard of for a European. He wrote of his detailed observations of the city and the deportment and culture of the local inhabitants. His journals were a valuable source of information for the African explorer Richard Burton who also later travelled to Mecca a few decades later. He later made a side trip to Medina where he again became sick with dysentery and spent three months recovering. Departing Arabia, he arrived in a state of great exhaustion in the Sinai peninsula and travelled overland to Cairo, arriving on 24 June 1815.  Burckhardt spent the remaining two years of his life editing his journals and living modestly in Cairo while waiting and preparing for the caravan that would take him west across the Sahara to Timbuktu and the Niger river. He made a trip to Alexandria and another to Mount Sinai where he visited St Catherine's Monastery before returning to Cairo. In Cairo, he met and introduced The Great Belzoni to Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, who commissioned Belzoni to remove the colossal bust of Ramesses II from Thebes to the British Museum. He was again stricken with dysentery and died in Cairo on 15 October 1817, never having made his intended journey to the Niger. He was buried as a Muslim, and the tombstone over his grave bears the name that he assumed on his travels in Arabia.  He had from time to time carefully transmitted to England his journals and notes, and a copious series of letters, so very few details of his journeys have been lost. He bequeathed his collection of 800 volumes of oriental manuscripts to the library of Cambridge University.

Publications.

His works were posthumously published by the African Association in the following order:

Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt (24 November 1784 – 15 October 1817) was a Swiss traveller, geographer and orientalist. Burckhardt assumed the moniker "Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah" during his travels in Arabia. He wrote his letters in French and signed " Louis". He is best known for rediscovering the ruins of the ancient Nabataean city of Petra in Jordan.

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (* 24. November 1784 in Lausanne; † 15. Oktober 1817 in Kairo) war ein Schweizer Orientreisender. Während seines Aufenthalts im Orient nannte er sich "Scheich Ibrahim ibn Abdallah". Bekannt ist er vor allem als Wiederentdecker der Nabatäerstadt Petra und des grossen Tempels von Abu Simbel. Weniger bekannt, aber wohl bedeutender sind seine präzisen und umfangreichen ethnografischen Aufzeichnungen.


History.

From the first event in the summer of 1999 through 2005 the AnimagiC took place in the Rhein-Mosel-Halle at Koblenz, Germany. Due to a growing number of visitors the event spread to a growing number of additional premises. By 2005 it additionally spanned the Kurfürstliches Schloss, two cinemas and a Koblenz discothèque named “Circus Maximus”.  In 2006 the event was relocated to the Beethovenhalle in Bonn as Koblenz no longer could provide sufficient capacity for the increasing number of visitors.  Since 2017 the event takes place in the Rosengarten in Mannheim

Agenda.

The agenda of the three-day-long event includes Japanese pop culture (Japanese rock music, visual kei, cosplay), video rooms, a cinema program, a traders room, bring and buy stands, show acts, Japanese guests, role-playing games, drawing courses, concerts, and much more.  The guests of honor who attend the event every year include well-known people (graphic artists, directors, etc.) from different animation studios, Japanese manga artists and singers. Among the most renowned guests was Tadashi Ozawa (free animator for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, The Castle in the Sky, Akira und Record of Lodoss War) who from 2000 to 2006 held drawing workshops for selected visitors.

Scale.

The total number of visitors of the three-day event currently is around 12,000. Contrary to widespread assertions AnimagiC is not the largest anime convention in Europe; this record is held by the Japan Expo at Paris, France that annually takes place at the beginning of July and attracts over 230,000 visitors followed by the Salón del Manga de Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, that annually takes place at the end of October or beginning of November and counts over 112,000 visitors.

The AnimagiC is a German annual anime convention and one of the largest of its kind in the German-speaking world with currently about 12,000 visitors.

Die Animagic (Eigenschreibweise AnimagiC) ist eine seit 1999 stattfindende deutschsprachige Anime-Convention. Sie wird jährlich im Sommer ausgetragen und findet seit 2017 in Mannheim statt. Die AnimagiC wird vom Verlag des Fachmagazins AnimaniA veranstaltet.


History.

Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

The title "Duke of Brunswick and Lüneburg" () was held, from 1235 on, by various members of the Welf (Guelph) family who ruled several small territories in northwest Germany. These holdings did not have all of the formal characteristics of a modern unitary state, being neither compact nor indivisible. When several sons of a Duke competed for power, the lands often became divided between them; when a branch of the family lost power or became extinct, the lands were reallocated among surviving members of the family; different dukes might also exchange territories. The unifying element of all these territories was that they were ruled by male-line descendants of Duke Otto I (ruled 1235-1252).  After several early divisions, Brunswick-Lüneburg re-unified under Duke Magnus II (d. 1373). Following his death, his three sons jointly ruled the Duchy. After the murder of their brother Frederick I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, brothers Bernard and Henry redivided the land, Henry receiving the territory of Wolfenbüttel.

House of Dannenberg.

On Frederick Ulrich's death, his complex of territories passed to a line of distant cousins ruling in Lüneburg. Wolfenbüttel was eventually awarded to Augustus, son of Henry of Dannenberg.

House of Brunswick-Bevern.

Frederick William's son Charles (a minor at the time of his father's death) became the first Duke of independent Brunswick.

Duchy of Brunswick.

Formal sovereignty confirmed.

The territory of Wolfenbüttel was recognized as a sovereign state by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. It had been a portion of the medieval Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. From 1705 onward, all other portions of Brunswick-Lüneburg except Wolfenbüttel had been held by the Prince of Calenberg and Celle, i.e. the Elector of Hanover, but the Wolfenbüttel line retained its independence from Hanover.  The Wolfenbüttel principality had for the period from 1807 to 1813 been held as part of the Kingdom of Westphalia. The Congress turned it into an independent country under the name Duchy of Brunswick.

Charles II (1815–1830).

The underage Duke Charles, the eldest son of Duke Frederick William (who had been killed in action), was put under the guardianship of George IV, the Prince Regent of the United Kingdom and Hanover.  First, the young duke had a dispute over the date of his majority. Then, in 1827, Charles declared some of the laws made during his minority invalid, which caused conflicts. After the German Confederation intervened, Charles was forced to accept those laws. His administration was considered corrupt and misguided.  In the aftermath of the July Revolution in 1830, Charles finally had to abdicate. His absolutist governing style had alienated the nobility and bourgeoisie, while the lower classes were disaffected by the bad economic situation. During the night of 7–8 September 1830, the ducal palace in Braunschweig was stormed by an angry mob, set on fire and destroyed completely. Charles fled the country.

William VIII (1830–1884).

When Charles' brother William VIII arrived in Brunswick on 10 September, he was received joyfully by the people. William originally considered himself only his brother's regent, but after a year declared himself ruling duke. Charles made several desperate attempts, unsuccessfully, to depose him.  William left most government business to his ministers, and spent most of his time outside of his state at his possessions in Oels. After the revolution of 1830, liberal reforms were made and a new constitution was adopted on 12 October 1832. While the number of voters was limited by a system of census suffrage to about 40% of Brunswick's male population, the parliament of Brunswick was granted more rights than in most other German states at the time and the duke's budget and powers were significantly limited.  While William joined the Prussian-led North German Confederation in 1866, his relationship to Prussia was strained, since Prussia refused to recognize Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, his nearest male-line relative, as his heir.  While the Kingdom of Hanover was annexed by Prussia in 1866, the Duchy of Brunswick remained sovereign and independent. It joined first the North German Confederation and in 1871 the German Empire.  In the 1870s, it became obvious that the then senior branch of the ruling House of Welf would die with Duke William. By house law, the House of Hanover would have ascended the ducal throne. However, the Hanoverians still refused to accept the Prussian annexation of their kingdom. As a result, Prussia was unwilling to let George V of Hanover or his son, Ernest Augustus, succeed to Brunswick. Berlin would only agree to the Hanoverians becoming dukes of Brunswick under severe conditions, including swearing allegiance to the German constitution and renouncing all claim to Hanover.  By a law of 1879, the Duchy of Brunswick established a temporary council of regency to take over at the Duke's death. If Ernest Augustus–who had been created the Duke of Cumberland in the British peerage–were unable to succeed, the council would also be empowered to appoint a regent. With William's death in 1884, the Wolfenbüttel line came to an end. The Duke of Cumberland then proclaimed himself Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick. However, since he still claimed to be the rightful King of Hanover, the Federal Council ruled that he would violate the peace of the German Empire if he succeeded to Brunswick. Lengthy negotiations ensued, but were never resolved.

Regency (1884–1913).

Two regents were appointed: first, Prince Albert of Prussia until his death in 1906, and then Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg.

Ernest Augustus (1913–1918).

The need for a Regent ended in 1913. The Duke of Cumberland's eldest son having died in 1912, the elderly Duke renounced Brunswick in favor of his youngest son, Ernest Augustus, who married Emperor Wilhelm II's daughter, swore allegiance to the German Empire, and renounced all claims to Hanover. Accordingly, he was allowed to ascend the throne of the Duchy in November 1913.  In the midst of the German revolutions of 1918, the Duke had to abdicate, and the Free State of Brunswick was founded as a member state of the Weimar Republic.

Claimants to the Duchy.

For further information on the governments of Brunswick from 1918 on, see Free State of Brunswick.

Geography.

The Duchy of Brunswick consisted of several non-connected parts - three larger and seven smaller ones. The biggest and most populous of those was the area surrounding the cities of Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel and Helmstedt as well as the Elm, which extended from the river Aller in the north to the Harz mountains in the south. The western part with the town of Holzminden extended from the river Weser in the east to the Harz Foreland in the west. The southern part with the town of Blankenburg was located in the Harz mountains. The Duchy's smaller exclaves were Thedinghausen near Bremen, Harzburg, Calvörde, Bodenburg and Östrum, Ostharingen near Goslar, Ölsburg near Peine and a small woodland near the Fallstein. The Duchy of Brunswick was almost entirely surrounded by the Prussian Provinces of Hanover and Saxony, in the south-east it also bordered the Duchy of Anhalt and in the west the Principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont and the Prussian Province of Westphalia.  The western part of the Duchy lay in the Weser Uplands, the central and southern parts in the northern Harz Foreland and the Harz mountains. The northern part was located on the border between the North German Plain and the Central Uplands of Germany. The Duchy's highest peak was the Wurmberg at 971 metres (3,186 ft). The major rivers that ran through Brunswick were the Weser, Aller, Leine, Oker, Bode and Innerste.

Districts.

The Duchy of Brunswick was subdivided into six districts ("Kreise") in 1833. The districts were further subdivided into cities or towns ("Städte") and more rural townships ("Ämter").

Demographics.

In 1910, the Duchy of Brunswick had a population of 494,339 people.  According to the 1885 census, 84.90% (316,208 people) of the Duchy's inhabitants held citizenship of Brunswick, while 54,738 people (14.70%) were citizens of other German states. 1506 people (0.40%) were foreign nationals, among those 785 came from Austria-Hungary, 133 from the United Kingdom, 112 from the United States, 91 from Italy, 83 from the Russian Empire, and 81 from Switzerland.

Religion.

In 1905, 450,760 people or 92.5% of the population adhered to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick. 26,504 (5.5%) people were Catholic, 4720 (0.97%) adhered to Reformed churches. 1815 (0.39%) people were of Jewish faith.

Economy.

In 1905, out of 1,000 residents 455 were working in the industrial sector, mining or construction, 289 were working in agriculture and forestry, 121 in commerce, 57.3 were employed in the civil service and 70 were working in miscellaneous other professions.

Transport.

The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway was the first state railway in Germany. The first section of its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line connecting Braunschweig and Wolfenbüttel opened on 1 December 1838, as the first railway line in Northern Germany. In the 1870s, the Duchy of Brunswick State Railway merged with the Royal Prussian State Railways. Some other railways of secondary importance were operated by the Brunswick State Railway Company, founded in 1884.

Sports.

In 1847, MTV Braunschweig was founded as the first sports club in Brunswick.  Brunswick also played a pioneering role in the history of association football in Germany: Konrad Koch, a school teacher from Braunschweig, was the first to write down a German version of the rules of football, and, together with August Hermann, also arguably organized the first football match in Germany between pupils from his school "Martino-Katharineum" in 1874.  The Duchy of Brunswick Football Association (German: "Fußballbund für das Herzogtum Braunschweig") was founded in May 1904. Eintracht Braunschweig, founded in 1895, quickly became one of the leading football clubs in Northern Germany. To this day, the team plays in the colours blue and yellow, derived from the flag of Brunswick.

Coat of arms.

The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg was formed out of the possessions of senior branch of the House of Brunswick. The House of Brunswick originated from the Italian House of Este. This family acquired the inheritance of the Guelph family by marriage — around the year 1000 — of Azzo II with Kunigunde of Altdorf, daughter of Welf II. Again important possessions were gained in (Lower) Saxony by the marriage of Henry the Black to Wulfhilde of Saxony (d 1126), daughter of the last member of the House of Billung, who had been Dukes of Saxony for five generations. They were made Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg in 1235. In 1269 the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg divided into the branches of Lüneburg and Brunswick (later Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the later Duchy of Brunswick). In 1432 the Principality of Calenberg, the later Electorate of Hanover, split from Brunswick(-Wolfenbüttel), and in 1705 acquired the territory of Lüneburg.  Both branches used in their arms the two lions of Brunswick, the blue lion of Lüneburg and the white steed of Saxony. The use of the lion as a heraldic animal in the House of Guelph goes back to Henry the Lion in the 12th century at least. However, Henry used only a single lion as his symbol. Later accounts by medieval writers that the two golden lions of Brunswick were granted to Henry by the English king, his father-in-law, are deemed fictional by modern historians. It were Henry's sons from his marriage with Matilda of England, the future Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV and Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine, who adapted the Royal Arms of England to display their royal lineage. While Otto's coat of arms showed the three golden lions of England, Henry used only two. The two lions of Henry V then went on to become the symbol of the House of Guelph. The blue lion of Lüneburg was adopted by John I of Lüneburg, who based his coat of arms on the coat of arms of Denmark to emphasise his kinship with the Danish kings. The dukes of Brunswick later added the blue lion to their arms as well, to show their own claim to the territory of Lüneburg.  The white steed was said to be the emblem of the eighth century Saxon duke Widukind, who according to legend rode a black horse before his baptism and a white horse afterwards. In truth, the use of the horse as a symbol for Saxony only goes back to the 14th century, when the House of Guelph, after the ducal title of Saxony had fallen to the House of Ascania, adopted the fictional "ancient" symbol to represent themselves as the true descendants of the old Saxon dukes. Due to the legend associated with it, the white horse became a very popular symbol among the population of Brunswick, even more so than the lions.  Over time, the arms of smaller territories that had been acquired by the Dukes of Brunswick were added to the coat of arms. The coat of arms of the Duchy of Brunswick eventually consisted of a crown and shield, supported by two wild men, on which the blue lion of Lüneburg, the two golden lions of Brunswick, the Saxon steed and the arms of various counties were displayed. The lesser coat of arms of the Duchy of Brunswick showed a crowned shield with the white horse on a red background. The Saxon steed was dropped from the coat of arms during the reign of William VIII. The greater coat of arms of the Duchy of Brunswick, as adopted in 1834, shows a shield with a ducal crown on top and surrounded by the insignia of the Order of Henry the Lion. Displayed on the shield are, from left to right, the blue lion of Lüneburg, the two lions of Brunswick, and the arms of the Counts of Eberstein, Homburg, Diepholz (upper half), Lauterberg, Hoya and Bruchhausen, Diepholz (lower half), Honstein, Regenstein, Klettenberg and Blankenburg. The new lesser coat of arms introduced under William VIII was a return to the arms of Brunswick-Lüneburg, displayed on a crowned shield supported by two lions. The Latin inscriptions read "IMMOTA FIDES" ("unswerving faithfulness") and "NEC ASPERA TERRENT" ("they are not afraid of difficulties").  The flag of the Duchy of Brunswick was blue over yellow, and demonstrates a remarkable similarity with the Ukrainian national colours. The standard of the dukes of Brunswick given by Siebmachers Wappenbuch, Nuremberg 1878, shows the white horse on a red cloth - this, however, is today assumed to have been in error. The state flag introduced in 1912 was blue over yellow, with a crowned shield with the white horse on a red background in the center.

The Duchy of Brunswick () was a historical German state. Its capital was the city of Brunswick ("Braunschweig"). It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation, the North German Confederation and from 1871 the German Empire. It was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick.

Das Herzogtum Braunschweig wurde 1814 nach dem Wiener Kongress in der Nachfolge des Fürstentums Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel begründet. Seine Wurzeln liegen im Herzogtum Braunschweig-Lüneburg, das 1235 durch Aufteilung des sächsischen Stammesherzogtums der Welfen entstand. Nach der Novemberrevolution in Braunschweig von 1918 wandelte es sich in den Freistaat Braunschweig um.


Origin.

Two accounts of the flag's origin connect it to the tricolor used by the Dutch Republic (the flag of the Netherlands).  The earliest mention of the flag occurs during the reign of Alexis I, in 1668, and is related to the construction of the first Russian naval ship, the frigate Oryol. According to one source, the ship's Dutch lead engineer Butler faced the need for the flag, and issued a request to the Boyar Duma, to "ask His Royal Majesty as to which (as is the custom among other nations) flag shall be raised on the ship". The official response merely indicated that, as such issue is as yet unprecedented, even though the land forces do use (apparently different) flags, the tsar ordered that his (Butler's) opinion be sought about the matter, asking specifically as to the custom existing in his country.  A different account traces the origins of the Russian flag to tsar Peter the Great's visits to Arkhangelsk in 1693 and 1694. Peter was keenly interested in shipbuilding in the European style, different from the barges ordinarily used in Russia at the time. In 1693, Peter had ordered a Dutch-built frigate from Amsterdam. In 1694 when it arrived, the Dutch red-white-and-blue banner flew from its stern. Peter decided to model Russia's naval flag after this banner by changing the sequence of colors.  The Dutch flag book of 1695 by Carel Allard, printed only a year after Peter's trip to Western Europe, describes the tricolour with a double-headed eagle bearing a shield on its breast, and wearing a golden crown over both of its heads.

History.

A study on clarifying the national colours of Russia based on disquisition on documents of the Moscow Archive of Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire was summarized by Dmitry Samokvasov, a Russian archaeologist and legal historian, in an edition of 16 pages called "On the Question of National Colours of Ancient Russia" published in Moscow in 1910.

Flags of the Tsardom of Russia & the Russian Empire.

In 1552, Russian regiments marched on the victorious assault of Kazan under Ivan the Terrible with the banner of the Most Gracious Savior. For the next century and a half, the banner of Ivan the Terrible accompanied the Russian army. Under Tsarina Sophia Alekseevna, it visited the Crimean campaigns, and under Peter the Great, the Azov campaigns and the Russo-Swedish War.  In the Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible, there is an image of the banner of Ivan the Terrible in the Kazan campaign – a bifurcated white one with the image of the Savior and an eight-pointed cross above it. According to other sources, the banner was red instead of white. A copy of this banner, which has been restored many times, is still kept in the Kremlin Armoury.  In 1612, the Nizhny Novgorod militia raised the banner of Dmitry Pozharsky, it was crimson in color with the image of the Lord Almighty on one side and the archangel Michael on the other. In 1669, the Polish painters Stanislav Loputsky and Ivan Mirovsky invited by Tsar Alexis of Russia, painted for the tsar's palace in Kolomenskoye "the hallmarks (that is, the emblems) of the sovereigns and all the universal states of this world." Then Loputsky drew "on the canvas, the coat of arms of the Moscow State and the arms of other neighboring countries, under every emblem of the planet under which they are." The coat of arms was a white rectangular banner with a "slope" and a wide red border, in the center of which was depicted a gold two-headed eagle and the emblems symbolizing the subject kingdoms, principalities and lands. In the inventory of the Kremlin Armoury, the coat of arms is described as the following: "In the circle there is a two-headed eagle wearing two crowns, and in his chest, the king on horseback pricks a serpent with his spear".  On 6 August 1693, during Peter the Great's sailing in the White Sea with a detachment of warships built in Arkhangelsk, the so-called "Flag of the Tsar of Muscovy" was raised for the first time on the 12-gun yacht "Saint Peter". The flag was a cross-stitch of 4.6x4.9 meters sewn from cloth, composed of three equal-sized horizontal stripes of white, blue and red, with a golden double-headed eagle in the middle. The original of this oldest surviving Russian flag is located in the Central Naval Museum in Saint Petersburg.  A 1695 flag book by Carel Allard describes three flags used by the tsar of Muscovy: the tricolour with the double-headed eagle bearing a shield on its breast and wearing a golden crown over both of its heads, the same tricolour with a blue saltire over it, and a cross flag showing red and white quartering with a blue cross over all. The is depicted upon the Construction of Kronschloss Medal, which commemorates the construction of Fort Kronschlot (Kronschloss) in Kronstadt by Peter the Great in 1704, the colors of the flag being determined according to the hatchings engraved.  The armorial flag of Peter the Great was created in 1696. Made from red taffeta with a white border, the flag depicted a golden eagle hovering over the sea. On the chest of the eagle in the circle is the Savior, next to the Holy Spirit and the holy apostles Peter and Paul. The banner was likely made for the second Azov campaign. In 1693, Franz Timmerman received the order to build merchant ships in Arkhangelsk and trade with Europe. He was told to display the two-headed eagle spread with wings, with three crowns over it. On the chest of the eagle, a warrior on horseback was to be displayed with a spear, in a military harness. The same eagle was also to hold a sceptre with the right leg and an apple with a crest with the left. The same instructions were given to other traders.  According to Dutch newspapers, in June 1694, a 44-gun frigate bought by Russia and built in Rotterdam stood in the Amsterdam roadstead under the white-blue-red flag.  In 1696, at the mouth of the river Don, a Russian flotilla of armed rowboats blocked the supply of the Ottoman fortress of Azov. On the 1700 engraving by Adrian Shkhonebek, "Taking the fortress of Azov. 1696", depicts the ships carrying rectangular panels on the flagpoles, the heraldic shading of which shows that some of the flags are blue with a straight red cross, and the rest are white with a straight red cross. A number of researchers doubt the accuracy of Shkonebek's engraving because he was not a witness to the events.  Images of various white-blue-red Russian flags are present in the three later paintings of Abraham Storck's workshop dedicated to the arrival in Amsterdam of Peter I. Peter I took part in a practice battle on the river IJ while on board the yacht of the Dutch East India Company. In the paintings of Abraham Stork depicting the show fight, this yacht sails under the white-blue-red flag with a double-headed eagle, or under a white-red-blue pennant and a white-red-blue aft flag with a double-headed eagle.  In October 1699, Peter I, on the back of the sheet with instructions sent to the Russian envoy Yemelyan Ukraintsev in Istanbul, drew a sketch of a three-band white-blue-red flag.  In December 1699, the Austrian ambassador Anton Paleyer gave a list of weapons and flags seen on the vessels of the Azov Flotilla in a letter. He described seeing three small flags of white-red-blue colors and two regimental colors of red and white mixed in with other colors.  In April 1700, Peter I ordered the Kremlin Armoury to build white-red-violet sea banners. The design and dimensions of these banners correspond to the figure and the size of the regimental banner kept among the other 352 trophy Russian banners in the burial vault of Swedish kings – the Riddarholm Church in Stockholm.  The three-band white-blue-red flag, as well as the flag with a red Jerusalem cross, were also used on warships up to 1720 as signals.  The Russian tricolour flag was adopted as a merchant flag at rivers in 1705. The choice of colors is significant in that they represent in order of priority, white for God, Blue for king, and Red for people and/or country. These colors of the flag of Russia inspired the choice of the "Pan-Slavic colours" by the Prague Slavic Congress, 1848. Two other Slavic countries, Slovakia and Slovenia, have flags similar to the Russian one, but with added coats-of-arms for differentiation. On 7 May 1883, the Russian flag was authorized to be used on land, and it became an official "National flag" before the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in 1896.  The flag continued to be used by the Russian Provisional Government after the Tsar was toppled in the February Revolution and was not replaced until the October Revolution which established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

Flags of the Russian SFSR.

On 8 April 1918, the flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was discussed at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. The Council proposed that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee create a red flag with the abbreviation for the phrase "Workers of the world, unite!" However, the proposal was not adopted. On 13 April 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee established the RSFSR flag to be a red banner with the inscription "Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic". The text of the decree did not contain any clarification regarding the color, size and location of the inscription, or the width and length ratio of the cloth.  On 17 June 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee approved a sample image of the flag of the RSFSR, developed on behalf of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the Russian SFSR by the graphic artist Sergey Chekhonin. The flag was a red rectangular panel, in the upper corner of which was placed the inscription "RSFSR" in gold letters stylized as Slavic. This inscription was separated from the rest of the cloth on both sides by gold stripes forming a rectangle.  On 30 December 1922, the RSFSR combined with the Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, and Transcaucasian SFSR to form the Soviet Union. The national flag of the USSR was established on 18 April 1924, described in the Constitution of the USSR as a red or scarlet rectangular cloth with a 1:2 width to length ratio, with a gold sickle and hammer in the top corner next to the flagpole and a red five-pointed star framed with a golden border. This flag was carried by all ships of the USSR and diplomatic representations of the USSR. The 1:2 red flag was used, until replaced in 1954 with the universal design of the Soviet flag with a blue stripe along the mast.  Contrary to the belief that the USSR state flag outranked the flag of the RSFSR, the actual use of the USSR flag was limited. The USSR flag in Russia flew only over two buildings, that of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union and the Council of People's Commissars. That decision was adopted on 23 March 1925, also establishing that the flag of the RSFSR had to be raised constantly not only on the buildings of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars but also on the buildings of all local soviets, including village soviets and district soviets in cities. On holidays, the RSFSR flag had to be raised on many public buildings (such as schools, hospitals, and government offices). During the Second World War, the white-blue-red tricolor was used by Nazi collaborators, most of whom were from groups targeted by the repressions of the Stalin era, including anti-communist Christians and the remnants of the Kulaks, who generally regarded the Nazi invasion as a liberation of Russia from communism to preserve White Christendom. Thus, in the war, the troops known as the Russian Liberation Army, led by Andrey Vlasov, who was allied with Germany against the Soviet Union, flew the tricolor flag, as well as the St Andrew's Flag, as they fought against the Soviet Army.  On 20 January 1947, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR found it necessary to amend the national flags of the allied republics so that the flags reflected the idea of a Soviet Union state as well as the unique national identities of the republics. On each of the flags was placed the emblem of the USSR, a sickle and a hammer with a red five-pointed star, with the inclusion of national ornaments and new colors. The new RSFSR flag was established in January 1954: a red rectangular panel with a light blue strip near the pole running the full width of the flag. In the upper left corner of the red canvas were depicted a golden sickle and a hammer and above them a red five-pointed star framed with a golden border. By the Law of the RSFSR of 2 June 1954, this flag was approved and the description of the flag was included in Article 149 of the Constitution of the RSFSR

Flags of the Russian Federation.

It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the tricolor was brought back as the official flag of the new Russian Federation. Following the events of the attempted coup in Moscow, the supreme soviet of the Russian SFSR declared, by resolution dated 22 August 1991, that the old imperial tricolor flag serve as the national flag of the state. The constitution was subsequently amended by Law No. 1827-1 1 November 1991. At the disintegration of the USSR on 25 December 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from Kremlin and then replaced by the tricolor flag.  The modern era flag underwent a proportion change from 1:2 to 2:3 in 1993 and has been most recently provided for by a 2000 law. On 11 December 1993, President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin signed Decree No. 2126 "On the State Flag of the Russian Federation". In Article 1 of the decree, the flag was described as a "rectangular panel of three equal horizontal stripes: the top – white, middle – blue, and bottom – red, with a width to length ratio of 2:3."  The National Flag Day is an official holiday in Russia, established in 1994. It is celebrated on 22 August, the day of the victory over putschists in 1991, but employees remain at work.

Symbolism.

There are varying interpretations as of to what the colors on the Russian flag mean. The most popular is as follows: The white color symbolizes nobility and frankness, the blue for faithfulness, honesty, impeccability and chastity, and red for courage, generosity and love.

Colour specifications.

Federal constitutional law of the Russian Federation only says that the colours of the flag are "white", "blue", and "red". It does not specify the exact colours of the flag. In practice, however, federal authorities tend to use the following colors:

Variant versions.

A variant of the flag was authorized for private use by Tsar Nicholas II before World War I, adding the large state eagle on a yellow field (imperial standard) in the canton. It was never been the official state flag.  When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, the tricolor design was discarded, and a definitive new flag of the RSFSR (one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union) was introduced in 1954 (see flag of Russian SFSR), and this remained the republic's flag until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. All of the Soviet Republics' flags were created by introducing a small but noticeable change to the flag of the Soviet Union. For Russia, the change was an introduction of the left-hand blue band. The previous Soviet design was different, a plain red flag with different variants of the "RSFSR" abbreviation in the canton. Today, the Soviet flag is used by the supporters and members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.  The tricolor was used by the anticommunist forces during the Civil War called the White movement. It was continued to be used by White émigrés in various countries as the Russian flag. The tricolor was associated both in Soviet Russia as well as the Russian White emigre communities as symbolizing a traditional tsarist Orthodox Russia. It, as well as the naval ensign of the Imperial Russian Navy was used by anticommunist Russian troops under German command during the Second World War. Both flags can be seen inside a few Orthodox churches in the West established by the Russian communities. In the Soviet Union, this flag was used in films set in the prerevolutionary period and was seen as an historical flag, especially after the 1940s.  It, rather than the black-yellow-white color combination, was readopted by Russia on 22 August 1991. That date is celebrated yearly as the national flag day.  The President of Russia uses a Presidential Standard (), which, since 1994, is officially defined as the square tricolor with the coat of arms (in this case the two-headed eagle is depicted without the shield) in the middle. Likewise, the flag of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is a tricolour with the sky blue square including its emblem for canton since 1992.  During the annual Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, a variant of the Soviet flag that was used during the raising a flag over the Reichstag has the grey hammer and sickle, referred to as the Victory Banner. Under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, an earlier version of the Victory Banner was red with just a golden star on the top.

Unicode.

The Flag of Russia is represented as the Unicode emoji sequence and.

The flag of Russia () is a tricolour flag consisting of three equal horizontal fields: white on the top, blue in the middle, and red on the bottom. The flag was first used as an ensign for Russian merchant ships and became official as the flag of the Tsardom of Russia in 1696. It remained in use until 1858, when the first official flag of the Russian Empire was decreed by Alexander II, which was a tricolor consisting of three horizontal fields: black on the top, yellow in the middle, and white on the bottom. A decree in 1896 made the original white, blue, and red tricolor the official flag of the Russian Empire until its eventual capitulation in 1917. Following the creation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian tricolor was abolished, and its usage was preserved by the White Movement and the Russian state during the Russian Civil War.

Die Flagge Russlands ist eine Trikolore aus drei gleich großen horizontalen Streifen in den Farben Weiß-Blau-Rot und basiert auf der Flagge der Niederlande. 1848 wurden die Flaggenfarben zu den panslawischen Farben erklärt.


Early life.

Sigismund was the son of Christopher Báthory and his second wife, Elisabeth Bocskai. He was born in Várad (now Oradea in Romania) in 1573, according to the Transylvanian historian, István Szamosközy. At the time of Sigismund's birth, his uncle, Stephen Báthory, was the voivode of Transylvania. After being elected King of Poland in late 1575, Stephen Báthory adopted the title of Prince of Transylvania and made Sigismund's father voivode. Stephen Báthory set up a separate chancellery in Kraków to supervise the administration of the principality.  Sigismund's father and uncle were Roman Catholic, but his mother was Calvinist. According to the Jesuit Antonio Possevino, Sigismund demonstrated his devotion to Catholicism already at the age of seven. His mother mocked him for his piety, saying that he only wanted to secure his uncle's goodwill. Sigismund was especially hostile towards the Anti-Trinitarians in his youth. His mother died in early 1581.

Reign.

Voivode.

Christopher Báthory fell seriously ill after his wife's death. At his request, the Diet of Transylvania elected Sigismund voivode in Kolozsvár (present-day Cluj-Napoca in Romania) around 15May 1581. Since Sigismund was still a minor, his dying father tasked a council of twelve noblemen with the government. Christopher Báthory's cousin, Dénes Csáky, and his brother-in-law, Stephen Bocskai, headed the council. Christopher Báthory died on 27May.  The Ottoman Sultan, Murad III, confirmed Sigismund's election on 3July 1581, reminding him of his obligation to pay a yearly tribute of 15,000 florins. However, Pál Márkházy, a young nobleman who lived in Istanbul, offered to double the tribute and to pay an additional tax of 100,000 florins if he was made the ruler of Transylvania. The Grand Vizier, Koca Sinan Pasha, supported Márkházy's claim. Taking advantage of the situation, Murad demanded the same payments from Sigismund, but Stephen Báthory and the "Three Nations of Transylvania" resisted. After receiving the customary tribute from Transylvania, the sultan again confirmed Sigismund's rule in November 1581.  Stephen Báthory who took charge of Sigismund's education confirmed the position of his Jesuit tutors, János Leleszi and Gergely Vásárhelyi. According to Szamosközy, Stephen Báthory also ordered Sigismund's companions to talk of foreign lands, wars, and hunting with him during their dinners together. He reorganized the government on 3May 1583, charging Sándor Kendi, Farkas Kovacsóczy, and László Sombori with the administration of Transylvania during Sigismund's minority. The Diet suggested to Stephen Báthory that he dismiss them, but he only dissolved the council on 1May 1585. He replaced the three councillors with the devout Calvinist János Ghyczy, making him regent for Sigismund.

Prince under guardianship.

Sigismund adopted the title of Prince of Transylvania after Stephen Báthory died on 13 December 1586. He was still a minor, and Ghyczy continued to rule as regent. Sigismund was one of the candidates to the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. His advisors knew that he had little chance to win, but they wanted to demonstrate that the Báthorys had a valid claim to rule the Commonwealth. Kovacsóczy officially announced Sigismund's application at the "Sejm" (or general assembly) on 14August 1587. Five days later, the assembly elected Sigismund III Vasa king. During the ensuing war of succession, Transylvanian troops supported SigismundIII against Maximilian of Habsburg, who had also laid claim to Poland and Lithuania.  Sigismund's cousins, Balthasar and Stephen Báthory, returned from Poland to Transylvania. Balthasar wanted to take charge of the government, making his court at Fogaras (present-day Făgăraș in Romania) the center of those who opposed Ghyczy's rule. Kovacsóczy, the chancellor of Transylvania, remained neutral in the conflict.  In October 1588 the Diet proposed to declare the sixteen-year-old Sigismund of age if he banished the Jesuits from Transylvania. He did not accept the offer, mainly because he did not want to expel his confessor, Alfonso Carillo. The Diet was dissolved, but Sigismund's cousins convinced him not to resist the Diet, which was dominated by Protestant delegates. The Diet was again summoned in late 1588; on 8December it ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits and declared Sigismund to be of age.

Internal conflicts.

Sigismund took the customary oath of the Transylvanian monarchs on 23December 1588. Pope Sixtus V excommunicated him for the expulsion of the Jesuits. Sigismund's cousin, Cardinal Andrew Báthory, urged the pope to lift the ban, saying that the prince's Protestant advisors had forced him to throw out the priests. The pope authorized Sigismund to employ a confessor in May 1589, and the excommunication was revoked on Easter 1590.  Sigismund made several attempts to strengthen the position of the Roman Catholic Church, especially by appointing Catholics to the highest positions of state administration. Carillo and other Jesuit priests returned to Sigismund's court in disguise in early 1591. Sigismund met Andrew and Balthasar Báthory in August to seek their support for the legalization of the Jesuits' presence, but they refused to stand by the priests at the Diet.  Sigismund dispatched his favorite, István Jósika, to Tuscany to start negotiations regarding his marriage to Eleonora Orsini (a niece of Ferdinando I de' Medici), although his cousins had sharply opposed Jósika's appointment. He also invited Italian artists and artisans to his court, making them his advisors or butlers. Szamosközy described them as "the trashiest representatives of the noblest nation". The delegates of the "Three Nations" criticized Sigismund for his prodigal way of life at the Diet in Gyulafehérvár in November. To reduce his authority, the Diet prescribed that Sigismund should only make decisions in the royal council. Sigismund deprived his cousins of the allowances that the royal treasury had paid to them.  Gossip about conspiracies spread during the following months. Sándor Kendi accused Sigismund's former tutor, János Gálffy, of deliberately stirring up debates between the prince and his cousins. Other courtiers claimed that Balthasar Báthory was planning to dethrone Sigismund. A Jesuit priest was informed at Vienna that Gálffy and his allies wanted to murder the prince and his cousins. In late 1591 Sigismund stated that he was willing to renounce in favor of Balthasar if the members of the royal council favored his cousin. His offer was refused, but during the debate Kendi referred to Sigismund and Balthasar as the "two monsters and greatest disasters of the Transylvanian realm". Pope Clement VIII's legate, Attilio Amalteo, mediated a reconciliation between Sigismund and his cousins in the summer of 1592. The pope also urged Sigismund to marry a Catholic princess from the House of Lorraine.  At the demand of the sultan, Transylvania troops assisted Aaron the Tyrant, Voivode of Moldavia. The sultan also ordered Sigismund to pay double the amount of the yearly tribute. Balthasar Báthory murdered Sigismund's secretary, Pál Gyulai, on 10December 1592. He also persuaded Sigismund to order the execution of Gálffy on 8March 1593. That summer, Sigismund went to Kraków in disguise to start negotiations regarding his marriage with Anna, the sister of SigismundIII of Poland. The Holy See had proposed the marriage, which could have enabled Sigismund to rule Poland during the absence of the king, who was also King of Sweden, but the plan came to nothing.  Murad III declared war against the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph in August. The sultan ordered Sigismund to send reinforcements to support the Ottoman army in Royal Hungary. According to diplomatic sources, the grand vizier was planning to occupy Transylvania. At the proposal of Jan Zamoyski, Chancellor of Poland, Sigismund sent envoys to Elizabeth I of England, asking her to intervene on his behalf at the Sublime Porte. She ordered her ambassador at Istanbul, Edward Barton, to support Sigismund.  Pope Clement VIII wanted to persuade Sigismund to join the Holy League that the pope had organized against the Ottoman Empire. After Rudolph's troops defeated the Ottomans in a series of battles in the autumn of 1593, Sigismund decided to join the Holy League, provided that Rudolph acknowledged the independence of Transylvania from the Hungarian Crown. However, the delegates of the Three Nations refused to declare war against the Ottoman Empire at three consecutive Diets between May and July. Sigismund abdicated, tasking Balthasar Báthory with the government in late July. Balthasar wanted to seize the throne, but Kovacsóczy, Kendi, and the other leading officials decided to set up an aristocratic council to administer Transylvania.  The commanders of the army (including Stephen Bocskai), and Friar Carillo jointly convinced Sigismund to return on 8August. They also persuaded him to order the arrest of Kovacsóczy, Kendi, Balthasar Báthory, and twelve other noblemen who had opposed the war against the Ottomans on 28August, accusing them of plotting. Sándor and Gábor Kendi were beheaded along with two other members of the royal council; Balthasar Báthory, Kovacsóczy, and Ferenc Kendi were strangled in prison. All but one murdered noblemen were Protestants, mostly Unitarians. Many of their relatives converted to Catholicism to prevent the confiscation of their estates.

Holy League.

Sigismund decided to join the Holy League together with Aaron the Tyrant, voivode of Moldavia, and Michael the Brave, voivode of Wallachia, on 5October 1594. The two voivodes had started direct negotiations with the Holy See, but Sigismund, who claimed suzerainty over them, prevented them from conducting further direct negotiations. Sigismund's envoy, Stephen Bocskai, signed the document that confirmed the membership of Transylvania in the Holy League in Prague on 28January 1595. According to the treaty, RudolphII recognized Sigismund's hereditary right to rule Transylvania and Partium and to use the title of prince, but he also stipulated that the principality was to be re-united with the Hungarian Crown if Sigismund's family died out. The Diet of Transylvania confirmed the treaty on 16April. The Diet also prohibited religious innovations, which gave rise to the persecution of Szekler Sabbatarians in Udvarhelyszék.  The Wallachian boyars and prelates recognized Sigismund's suzerainty over Wallachia on behalf of Michael the Brave in Gyulafehérvár on 20May 1595. According to the treaty, Michael was forbidden to enter into an alliance with foreign powers without Sigismund's approval. The voivode's right to sentence his boyars to death was also limited. The Diet of Transylvanian was authorized to impose taxes in Wallachia with a council of twelve boyars. After Aaron the Tyrant refused to sign a similar treaty, Sigismund invaded Moldavia and captured him in Iași. He made Ștefan Răzvan the new voivode on 3June, forcing him to swear fealty to him. Thereafter, Sigismund styled himself "By the Grace of God, Prince of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Count of the Székelys and Lord of Parts of the Kingdom of Hungary".  Sigismund married Maria Christierna of Habsburg, a niece of RudolphII, on 6August. However, the marriage was never consummated. Sigismund accused Margaret Majláth (who was the mother of his executed cousin, Balthasar Báthory) of witchcraft, causing his impotence. Historian László Nagy notes that Sigismund's contemporaries made no reference to his relationship with women, showing that Sigismund was homosexual.  György Borbély, Ban of Karánsebes, captured Lippa (now Lipova in Romania) and other Ottoman fortresses along the Maros River before the end of August. Koca Sinan Pasha broke into Wallachia, forcing Michael the Brave to retreat towards Transylvania. Michael routed the invaders in the Battle of Călugăreni, but he could not prevent them from seizing Târgoviște and Bucharest. He withdrew to Stoenești to await the arrival of the Transylvanian and Moldavian troops.  Since the Ottoman army outnumbered the forces at Sigismund's disposal, he proposed the Székely commoners (who had been reduced to serfdom in the 1560s) to restore their freedom if they joined his campaign against the Ottomans. The Székelys accepted his offer, enabling Sigismund to launch a counter-invasion in Wallachia in early October. The united forces of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia defeated the retreating Ottoman army in the Battle of Giurgiu on 25October. Although the victory was not decisive, the battle enabled the two voivodes to maintain their alliance with the Holy League.  Ignoring the Székely warriors' preeminent role during the war, the Diet of Transylvania refused to restore their freedom on 15December. Sigismund left for Prague to start negotiations with RudolphII in early January 1596, tasking his wife and Stephen Bocskai with the government. The Székelys tried to secure their freedom, but Bocskai repressed their movement with extraordinary cruelty during the "Bloody Carnival" in early 1596.  Rudolph II promised Sigismund to send reinforcements and money to continue the war against the Ottomans. Sigismund returned to Transylvania on 4March. He laid siege to Temesvár (now Timișoara in Romania), but he lifted the siege when an Ottoman army of 20,000 strong approached the fortress. The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed III invaded Royal Hungary in summer. Sigismund joined his forces with the royal army, which was under the command of Maximilian of Habsburg. However, the Ottomans routed their united army in the Battle of Mezőkeresztes between 23 and 26 October.  Sigismund again went to Prague to meet RudolphII and offered to abdicate in January 1597. After he returned to Transylvania, he restored the Roman Catholic bishopric in Gyulafehérvár. He sent envoys to Italy to demand the supreme command of a new Christian army, but his delegates at Istanbul started negotiations regarding a reconciliation with the sultan.

Abdications and returns.

The failure of his marriage and the defeats of the Holy League diminished Sigismund's self-confidence. He sent his envoys to RudolphII and again offered to abdicate in September 1597. An agreement regarding his abdication was signed on 23December 1597. RudolphII granted Sigismund the Silesian duchies of Racibórz and Opole and a yearly subsidy of 50,000 thalers. The agreement was kept secret for months.  The Diet of Transylvania acknowledged Sigismund's abdication on 23March 1598. Maria Christierna took charge of the government until the arrival of Maximilian of Habsburg, whom RudolphII had appointed to administer Transylvania. Sigismund went to Silesia, but he did not like his new duchies. Bocskai, who had been dismissed after Sigismund's abdication, urged him to return.  Sigismund came to Kolozsvár on 21 August. On the following day, Bocskai convoked the Diet to his military camp at Szászsebes (now Sebeș in Romania), and the delegates proclaimed Sigismund prince. Most Transylvanians accepted the decision, but György Király, the deputy captain of Várad, remained loyal to RudolphII. In September an Ottoman army invaded the principality, capturing the fortresses along the Maros. Sigismund sent his envoys to the commander of the army, Mehmed, convincing him to attack Várad instead of breaking into Transylvania proper.  All of Sigismund's attempts to make peace with the sultan failed. He sent his envoys to Prague to negotiate with RudolphII, while his confessor, Carillo, started negotiations with Jan Zamoyski in Poland. At Sigismund's invitation, his cousin, Andrew Báthory, returned from Poland. Sigismund abdicated at the Diet in Medgyes (now Mediaș in Romania) on 21March 1599. Eight days later, the Diet proclaimed Andrew Báthory prince, hoping that Andrew could make peace with the Ottomans with the assistance of Poland. Sigismund left Transylvania for Poland in June. His marriage with Maria Christierna was declared invalid in Rome in August.  Andrew Báthory lost his throne and his life fighting against Michael the Brave and his Székely allies in autumn. Michael the Brave administered Transylvania as RudolphII's governor, but his rule was unpopular among the noblemen, especially because of the pillaging raids made by his unpaid soldiers. As early as 9February 1600 Sigismund announced that he was ready to return to Transylvania. Moses Székely, a commander-in-chief during Michael the Brave's campaign against Moldavia in May, deserted Michael and came to Poland to meet Sigismund.  The elected leader of the Transylvanian noblemen, István Csáky, sought assistance from RudolphII's military commander, Giorgio Basta, against Michael. Basta invaded Transylvania and expelled Michael the Brave in September. Basta's unpaid soldiers regularly pillaged the principality, while Ottoman and Tatar marauders made frequent incursions across the frontiers. Sigismund returned to Transylvania across Moldavia at the head of a Polish army on 24March 1601. The Diet proclaimed him prince in Kolozsvár on 3April. Basta and Michael the Brave invaded Transylvania in summer. They routed Sigismund's army in the Battle of Goroszló on 3August 1601. After the battle, Sigismund fled to Moldavia, but he returned on 6September.  The sultan's envoy confirmed Sigismund's position as Prince of Transylvania in Brassó (now Brașov in Romania) on 2October. At the head of an army which also included Ottoman and Tatar soldiers, Sigismund expanded his rule over most regions of the principality, but he could not capture Kolozsvár in late November. He started new negotiations with Basta over his abdication in March 1602, because he did not trust his own supporters. He referred to them as "intoxicated and brutish sons of a bitch" and asked István Csáky to help him to leave their camp on 2July. He left Transylvania for the last time on 26July 1602.

Last years.

Basta's soldiers accompanied Sigismund to Tokaj. Before long, he went to Prague to beg for RudolphII's mercy. He received the "incolatus" (or the right to own lands in Bohemia) in 1604. After the Diet of Transylvania proclaimed Stephen Bocskai prince in February 1605, Rudolph tried to persuade Sigismund to return to Transylvania, but he did not accept the offer. The ambassadors of Venice and Spain and the emperor again tried to convince him to lay claim to Transylvania in July 1606, but Sigismund refused, saying that he had no information about the affairs of his former principality. In December he again met Rudolph in Prague, but still resisted the emperor's offer.  Sigismund received the domain of Libochovice in Bohemia. After one of his employees accused him of plotting against the emperor, Sigismund was imprisoned for fourteen months in the jails of Prague Castle in 1610. Sigismund died of a stroke in Libochovice on 27March 1613. He was buried in a crypt in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

Sigismund Báthory (; 1573 – 27 March 1613) was Prince of Transylvania several times between 1586 and 1602, and Duke of Racibórz and Opole in Silesia in 1598. His father, Christopher Báthory, ruled Transylvania as voivode (or deputy) of the absent prince, Stephen Báthory. Sigismund was still a child when the Diet of Transylvania elected him voivode at his dying father's request in 1581. Initially, regency councils administered Transylvania on his behalf, but Stephen Báthory made János Ghyczy the sole regent in 1585. Sigismund adopted the title of prince after Stephen Báthory died.

Sigismund Báthory (ungarisch "Báthory Zsigmond"; * 1572; † 27. März 1613 in Prag) war 1581 bis 1598 Fürst von Siebenbürgen, tauschte mit dem Erzhaus Österreich das Land gegen die schlesischen Fürstentümer Oppeln und Ratibor, erhielt am 11. Februar 1604 als Fürst und Herzog von Oppeln und Ratibor das Inkolat in Böhmen, war ab 26. Februar 1604 Angehöriger des böhmischen Herrenstandes und Ritter des Ordens vom Goldenen Vlies.


Etymology.

The word "henge" is a backformation from Stonehenge, the famous monument in Wiltshire. Stonehenge is not a true henge as its ditch runs outside its bank, although there is a small extant external bank as well. The term was first coined in 1932 by Thomas Kendrick, who later became the Keeper of British Antiquities at the British Museum.

Forms.

Henges may be classified as follows:  Sub groups exist for these when two or three internal ditches are present rather than one. Henges are usually associated with the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, and especially with the pottery of this period: Grooved Ware, Impressed Wares (formerly known as Peterborough Ware), and Beakers. Sites such as Stonehenge also provide evidence of activity from the later Bronze Age Wessex culture.  Henges often contain evidence of a variety of internal features, including timber or stone circles, pits, or burials, which may pre- or post-date the henge enclosure. A henge should not be confused with a stone circle within it, as henges and stone circles can exist together or separately. At Arbor Low in Derbyshire, all the stones except one are laid flat and do not seem to have been erected, as no stone holes have been found. Elsewhere, often only the stone holes remain to indicate a former circle.  Some of the best-known henges are at:  Henges sometimes formed part of a ritual landscape or complex, with other Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments inside and outside the henge. Earlier monuments associated with a later henge might include Neolithic monuments such as a cursus (e.g., at Thornborough Henges the central henge overlies the cursus), or a long barrow such as the West Kennet Long Barrow at Avebury, Wiltshire, or even, as in the case of Stonehenge, Mesolithic post holes. Later monuments added after the henge was built might include Bronze Age cairns as at Arbor Low. Examples of such ritual landscapes are:  Burials have been recorded at a number of excavated henges, both pre-dating the henge and as a result of secondary reuse. For example:

Origin and distribution.

Efforts to delineate a direct lineage for the henge from earlier enclosures have not been conclusive. Their chronological overlap with older structures makes it difficult to classify them as a coherent tradition. They seem to take the concept of creating a space separate from the outside world one step further than the causewayed enclosure, and they focus attention on an internal point. In some cases, the construction of the bank and ditch was a stage that followed other activity on the site. At Balfarg, North Mains and Cairnpapple, for example, earlier cremations and deliberate smashing of pottery predate the enclosure.  Concentrations of henges occur over much of Britain. Orkney (Cunliffe 2001) and Wessex (Burl 1969) have both been suggested as the original provenance of the monument type; however, others remain unconvinced (Barclay 2005). Unlike earlier enclosure monuments, henges were not usually built on hilltops but on low-lying ground, often close to watercourses and good agricultural land.  Some scholars, such as the editors of the 1982 edition of the "Penguin Dictionary of Archaeology" (Bray and Trump, 1982), have claimed that henges are unique to the British Isles. They state that similar, much earlier, circles on the European continent, such as Goseck circle (which has no bank), and later ones such as Goloring are not proper "henges". But "The Penguin Archaeological Guide" (Bahn, 2001) does not comment on geographical locations for henges. Julian Cope, in "The Megalithic European", proposes that the henge was a regional development from the Europe-wide causewayed enclosure. He notes it appeared following a cultural upheaval in around 3000 BC, which inspired the peoples of Neolithic Europe to develop more independently. He notes the 'rondel enclosures' of Bavaria's Isar Valley, which according to investigations by the German archaeologist R. A. Maier, "drew comparisons with the henge monuments and causewayed enclosures of the British Isles." Although still with a multiple-causewayed ditch and entrances at cardinal points, the roundels are described by John Hodgson (2003) as not being positioned with defensive aims in mind. The largest, at Kothingeichendorf, appeared to be "midway between a henge and a causewayed enclosure".  Alasdair Whittle (2005) also views the development of the henge as a regional variation within a European tradition that included a variety of ditched enclosures. He notes that henges and the grooved ware pottery often found at them are two examples of the British Neolithic not found on the Continent. Caroline Malone (2001) also states that henges did not occur in the rest of Western Europe, but they developed from a broader tradition of enclosure to become "a phenomenon of the British Isles, a native tradition with sophisticated architecture and calendrical functions."

Interpretation.

Henges may have been used for rituals or astronomical observation rather than day-to-day activity. That their ditches are located inside their banks indicates that they were not used for defence, and that the barrier of the earthworks was more likely symbolic than functional. Following arguments presented for Irish Iron Age enclosures, Barclay suggested that they are 'defensive': that the ditch and bank face something 'dangerous' inside the enclosure. He has also suggested that the considerable range of things surrounded by the earthworks, and the very long date range, are because henges were designed mainly to enclose pre-existing ceremonial sites that were seen as 'ritually charged' and therefore dangerous to people. It has been conjectured that whatever took place inside the enclosures was intended to be separate from the outside world and perhaps known only to select individuals or groups.  The alignment of henges is a contentious issue. Popular belief is that their entrances point towards certain heavenly bodies. But henge orientation is highly variable and may have been more determined by local topography than by desire for symbolic orientation. Statistical analysis showed that Class I henges have a slight tendency to have an entrance set in the north or north-east quarter. Class II henges generally have their axes aligned approximately south-east to north-west or north-east to south-west.  It has been suggested that the stone and timber structures sometimes built inside henges were used as solar declinometers to measure the position of the rising or setting sun. These structures do not appear in all henges; and when they do, often they are considerably more recent than the henges. Thus, they are not necessarily connected with the henge's original function. It has been conjectured that they could have been used to synchronize a calendar to the solar cycle for purposes of planting crops or timing religious rituals. Some henges have poles, stones or entrances that indicate the position of the rising or setting sun during the equinoxes and solstices, while others appear to frame certain constellations. Additionally, many are placed so that nearby hills either mark or do not interfere with such observations. Finally, some henges appear to be placed at particular latitudes. For example, a number are placed at a latitude of 55 degrees north, where the same two markers can indicate the rising and setting sun for both the spring and autumn equinoxes. But as henges are present from the extreme north to the extreme south of Britain, their latitude could not have been of great importance.  Formalisation is commonly attributed to henges: indications of the builders' concerns to control the arrival at, entrance into, and movement within the enclosures. This was achieved by placing flanking stones or avenues at the entrances of some henges, or by dividing the internal space with timber circles. While some henges were the first monuments to be built in their areas, others were added to already important landscapes, especially the larger examples.  The concentric nature of many of the internal features, such as the five rings of postholes at Balfarg or the six at Woodhenge, may represent a finer distinction than the inside-out differences suggested by henge earthworks. The ordering of space and the circular movement suggested by the sometimes densely packed internal features indicates a sophisticated degree of spatial understanding.

Hengiform monument.

Hengiform monuments, or mini henges, are distributed throughout England and mainland Scotland (with examples as far north as Caithness), though no examples have been found in Wales. Pits, cremations, postholes, stone-sockets and graves have been found within them, and postholes and cremation pits have also been found to be present close to the site in some cases. They typically have either one entrance or two opposing entrances. In plan, a mini henge can be mistaken for a ploughed-out round barrow, although the former tend to be slightly larger and their earthworks more substantial. As with ordinary henges, they are thought to have served ritual purposes and are thought to be of late Neolithic date.

Henge enclosure.

Henge enclosures often contain or lie close to one or more ordinary henges. Finds of animal bone, grooved ware pottery, and evidence of dwellings have been found and coupled with the time and energy needed to build them, it is considered that they must have been important social centres analogous to tribal capitals. Two or four evenly spaced entrances lead through the earthwork to the centre.

Modern henge monuments.

A henge monument was restored at the Devil's Quoits in Oxfordshire between 2002 and 2008.  In modern times a number of henge type monuments have been built, examples include:

There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions (cf. circular rampart). The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:

Ein Henge [] (auch "henge monument") ist eine spezielle Art von neolithischem Erdwerk. Es sind runde oder ovale Flächen mit einem Durchmesser von 20–480 m, die von einem Erdwall mit zumeist innenliegenden Graben begrenzt waren. Die meisten Henges haben einen einzelnen Graben; ein paar haben zwei und drei konzentrische oder gar keine Gräben. Der Begriff wurde 1932 von Sir Thomas D. Kendrick (1895–1979) geprägt, der später Kustos für die "British Antiquities" im British Museum wurde. Er benutzte dabei das Suffix von Stonehenge. Der Begriff "henge" stammt aus dem Angelsächsischen und bezeichnet eine torartige Struktur. Das 1925 entdeckte Woodhenge, ein Class I Henge (mit einem Zugang) und mit sieben konzentrischen Pfostenringen im Zentrum, wurde aufgrund seiner Ähnlichkeit mit Stonehenge so benannt.


Structure.

Selenocysteine has a structure similar to that of cysteine, but with an atom of selenium taking the place of the usual sulfur, forming a selenol group which is deprotonated at physiological pH. (Like other natural proteinogenic amino acids, cysteine and selenocysteine have chirality in the older / notation based on homology to - and -glyceraldehyde. In the newer "R"/"S" system of designating chirality, based on the atomic numbers of atoms near the asymmetric carbon, they have "R" chirality, because of the presence of sulfur or selenium as a second neighbor to the asymmetric carbon. (The remaining chiral amino acids, having only lighter atoms in that position, have "S" chirality.)  Proteins which contain one or more selenocysteine residues are called selenoproteins. Most selenoproteins contain a single selenocysteine residue. Selenoproteins which depend on selenocysteine's catalytic activity are called selenoenzymes. Selenoenzymes have been found to employ catalytic triad structures that influence the nucleophilicity of the active site selenocysteine.

Biology.

Selenocysteine has both a lower p"K" (5.47) and a lower reduction potential than cysteine. These properties make it very suitable in proteins that are involved in antioxidant activity.  Although it is found in the three domains of life, it is not universal in all organisms. Unlike other amino acids present in biological proteins, selenocysteine is not coded for directly in the genetic code. Instead, it is encoded in a special way by a UGA codon, which is normally a stop codon. Such a mechanism is called translational recoding and its efficiency depends on the selenoprotein being synthesized and on translation initiation factors. When cells are grown in the absence of selenium, translation of selenoproteins terminates at the UGA codon, resulting in a truncated, nonfunctional enzyme. The UGA codon is made to encode selenocysteine by the presence of a selenocysteine insertion sequence (SECIS) in the mRNA. The SECIS element is defined by characteristic nucleotide sequences and secondary structure base-pairing patterns. In bacteria, the SECIS element is typically located immediately following the UGA codon within the reading frame for the selenoprotein. In Archaea and in eukaryotes, the SECIS element is in the 3′ untranslated region (3′ UTR) of the mRNA and can direct multiple UGA codons to encode selenocysteine residues.  Again unlike the other amino acids, no free pool of selenocysteine exists in the cell. Its high reactivity would cause damage to cells. Instead, cells store selenium in the less reactive oxidized form, selenocystine, or in methylated form, selenomethionine. Selenocysteine synthesis occurs on a specialized tRNA, which also functions to incorporate it into nascent polypeptides.  The primary and secondary structure of selenocysteine-specific tRNA, tRNA, differ from those of standard tRNAs in several respects, most notably in having an 8-base-pair (bacteria) or 10-base-pair (eukaryotes) acceptor stem, a long variable region arm, and substitutions at several well-conserved base positions. The selenocysteine tRNAs are initially charged with serine by seryl-tRNA ligase, but the resulting Ser-tRNA is not used for translation because it is not recognised by the normal translation elongation factor (EF-Tu in bacteria, eEF1A in eukaryotes).  Rather, the tRNA-bound seryl residue is converted to a selenocysteine residue by the pyridoxal phosphate-containing enzyme selenocysteine synthase. In eukaryotes and archaea, two enzymes are required to convert tRNA-bound seryl residue into tRNA selenocysteinyl residue: PSTK ("O"-phosphoseryl-tRNA[Ser]Sec kinase) and selenocysteine synthase. Finally, the resulting Sec-tRNA is specifically bound to an alternative translational elongation factor (SelB or mSelB (or eEFSec)), which delivers it in a targeted manner to the ribosomes translating mRNAs for selenoproteins. The specificity of this delivery mechanism is brought about by the presence of an extra protein domain (in bacteria, SelB) or an extra subunit (SBP2 for eukaryotic mSelB/eEFSec) which bind to the corresponding RNA secondary structures formed by the SECIS elements in selenoprotein mRNAs.  Selenocysteine is decomposed by the enzyme selenocysteine lyase into -alanine and selenide.  As of 2016, fifty-four human proteins are known to contain selenocysteine (selenoproteins).  Selenocysteine derivatives γ-glutamyl-"Se"-methylselenocysteine and "Se"-methylselenocysteine occur naturally in plants of the genera "Allium" and "Brassica".

Applications.

Biotechnological applications of selenocysteine include use of Se-labeled Sec (half-life of Se = 7.2 hours) in positron emission tomography (PET) studies and Se-labeled Sec (half-life of Se = 118.5 days) in specific radiolabeling, facilitation of phase determination by multiwavelength anomalous diffraction in X-ray crystallography of proteins by introducing Sec alone, or Sec together with selenomethionine (SeMet), and incorporation of the stable Se isotope, which has a nuclear spin of and can be used for high-resolution NMR, among others.

Selenocysteine (symbol Sec or U, in older publications also as Se-Cys) is the 21st proteinogenic amino acid. Selenocysteine exists naturally in all three domains of life, but not in every lineage, as a building block of selenoproteins. Selenocysteine is a cysteine analogue with a selenium-containing selenol group in place of the sulfur-containing thiol group.

Selenocystein ist eine Aminosäure. -Selenocystein (Abk. Sec oder U) ist die 21. proteinogene -Aminosäure und ein reaktives Analogon des natürlichen -Cysteins. Selenocystein enthält statt des Schwefelatoms ein Selenatom.


Origins.

Kathleen Herbert draws a link between the mythical figure Beowa (a figure stemming from Anglo-Saxon paganism that appears in early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies whose name means "barley") and the figure of John Barleycorn. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood".  In their notes to the "Penguin Book of English Folk Songs" (London, 1959), editors A. L. Lloyd and Ralph Vaughan Williams ponder whether the ballad is "an unusually coherent folklore survival" or "the creation of an antiquarian revivalist, which has passed into popular currency and become 'folklorised. It is in any case, they note, "an old song", with printed versions dating as far back as the sixteenth century.

Versions and variants.

Countless versions of this song exist. A Scottish poem with a similar theme, "Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be", is included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568 and English broadside versions from the 17th century are common. Robert Burns published his own version in 1782, and modern versions abound. Burns's version makes the tale somewhat mysterious and, although not the original, it became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad.  Burns's version begins:  <poem> There was three kings into the east, And they hae sworn a solemn oath  </poem> An early English version runs thus: <poem> There was three men come out o' the west their fortunes for to try, And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die, They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head, Til these three men were satisfied John Barleycorn was dead. </poem>  Earlier versions resemble Burns's only in personifying the barley, and sometimes in having the barley be foully treated or murdered by various artisans. Burns' version, however, omits their motives. In an early seventeenth century version, the mysterious kings of Burns's version were in fact ordinary men laid low by drink, who sought their revenge on John Barleycorn for that offence:  <poem> Sir John Barley-Corn fought in a Bowl, Which made them all to chafe and swear, </poem>  Another early version features John Barleycorn's revenge on the miller:  <poem> Mault gave the Miller such a blow, That from [h]is horse he fell full low, He taught him his master Mault for to know </poem>

Recordings and modern performances.

Many versions of the song have been recorded, including a popular version by the rock group Traffic, appearing on their 1970 album "John Barleycorn Must Die". The song has also been recorded by Fire + Ice, Gae Bolg, Bert Jansch, the John Renbourn Group, Pentangle, Finest Kind, Martin Carthy, Roy Bailey, Martyn Bates in collaboration with Max Eastley, the Watersons, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Joe Walsh, Steve Winwood, Fairport Convention, the Minstrels of Mayhem, Galley Beggar, Donnybrook Fair, Oysterband, Frank Black, Chris Wood, Quadriga Consort, Maddy Prior, Heather Alexander, Leslie Fish, Tim van Eyken, Barry Dransfield, Of Cabbages and Kings, Winterfylleth (band), John Langstaff, Ayreheart, and many other performers. The song is also a central part of Simon Emmerson's "The Imagined Village" project. Martin and Eliza Carthy perform the song alongside Paul Weller on the "Imagined Village" album. Billy Bragg sang in Weller's place on live performances. Rock guitarist Joe Walsh performed the song live in 2007 as a tribute to Jim Capaldi. Lithuanian folk-blues band Working Hobo performs this song in Lithuanian which is called Džonas Miežis.  Julian Cope's album "Drunken Songs" has the following written on its frontcover: "John Barleycorn died for somebody's sins but not mine." This is both a reference to John Barleycorn, Patti Smith, and the Traffic album mentioned above.

"John Barleycorn" is a British folk song (Roud 164). The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering indignities, attacks and death that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.

John Barleycorn ist in englischsprachigen Ländern eine spöttische, meist verharmlosende Bezeichnung für Alkohol. Eine gleichnamige Ballade des schottischen Dichters Robert Burns beschreibt, wie die Gerste (engl. "barley") als Korn in die Erde gebracht wird und schließlich in verarbeiteter Form als Whisky im Glas landet. Das Gedicht geht auf ein altes Volkslied zurück, das schon im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert nachgewiesen ist.