Life.

Gustavus Adolphus was born in Stockholm as the oldest son of Duke Charles of the Vasa dynasty and his second wife, Christina of Holstein-Gottorp. At the time, the King of Sweden was Gustavus Adolphus' cousin Sigismund, who ruled Sweden from Poland. The staunch Protestant Duke Charles forced the Catholic Sigismund to let go of the throne of Sweden in 1599, a part of the preliminary religious strife before the Thirty Years' War, and reigned as regent before taking the throne as Charles IX of Sweden in 1604. Crown Prince Gustav Adolph had Gagnef-Floda in Dalecarlia as a duchy from 1610. Upon his father's death in October 1611, a sixteen-year-old Gustavus inherited the throne, being declared of age and able to reign himself at seventeen as of 16 December. He also inherited an ongoing succession of occasionally belligerent dynastic disputes with his Polish cousin. Sigismund III wanted to regain the throne of Sweden and tried to force Gustavus Adolphus to renounce the title.  In a round of this dynastic dispute, Gustavus invaded Livonia when he was, beginning the Polish–Swedish War (1626–29). He intervened on behalf of the Lutherans in Germany, who opened the gates of their cities to him. His reign became famous from his actions a few years later when in June 1630 he landed in Germany, marking the Swedish Intervention in the Thirty Years' War. Gustavus intervened on the anti-Imperial side, which at the time was losing to the Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic allies; the Swedish forces would quickly reverse that situation.  Gustavus was married to Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, the daughter of John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and chose the Prussian city of Elbing as the base for his operations in Germany. He died in the Battle of Lützen in 1632. His early death was a great loss to the Lutheran side. This resulted in large parts of Germany and other countries, which had been conquered for Lutheranism, to be reconquered for Catholicism (via the Counter-Reformation). His involvement in the Thirty Years' War gave rise to the saying that he was the incarnation of "the Lion of the North", or as he is called in German "Der Löwe aus Mitternacht" (lit. "The Lion of Midnight").

Military innovator.

Historian Ronald S. Love finds that in 1560–1660 there were "a few innovators, notably Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, whom many scholars credit with revolutionary developments in warfare and with having laid the foundations of military practice for the next two centuries." Scholars all agree that Gustavus Adolphus was an extremely able military commander. His innovative tactical integration of infantry, cavalry, logistics and particularly his use of artillery, earned him the title of the "Father of Modern Warfare". Future commanders who studied and admired Gustavus Adolphus include Napoleon I of France and Carl von Clausewitz. His advancements in military science made Sweden the dominant Baltic power for the next one hundred years ("see Swedish Empire"). He is also the only Swedish monarch to be styled "the Great". This decision was made by the Swedish Estates of the Realm, when they convened in 1633. Thus, by their decision, he is officially called Gustavus Adolphus the Great ("Gustavus Adolphus Magnus").  Gustavus Adolphus was the main figure responsible for the success of Swedish arms during the Thirty Years' War and led his nation to great prestige. As a general, Gustavus Adolphus is famous for employing mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as very aggressive tactics, where attack was stressed over defense, and mobility and cavalry initiative were emphasized.  Among other innovations, he installed an early form of combined arms in his formations, where the cavalry could attack from the safety of an infantry line reinforced by cannon, and retire again within to regroup after their foray. Inspired by the reform of Maurice of Nassau he adopted much shallower infantry formations than were common in the pike and shot armies of the era, with formations typically fighting in 5 or 6 ranks, occasionally supported at some distance by another such formation—the gaps being the provinces of the artillery and cavalry as noted above. His artillery were themselves different—in addition to the usual complements of heavy cannon, he introduced light mobile guns for the first time into the Renaissance battlefield. These were grouped in batteries supporting his more linearly deployed formations, replacing the cumbersome and unmaneuverable traditional deep squares (such as the Spanish Tercios that were up to 50 ranks deep) used in other pike and shot armies of the day. In consequence, his forces could redeploy and reconfigure very rapidly, confounding his enemies. He created the modern Swedish Navy, which successfully transported troops and supplies to the Continental battlefront.  Carl von Clausewitz and Napoleon Bonaparte considered him one of the greatest generals of all time, an evaluation agreed with by George S. Patton and others. He was also renowned for his constancy of purpose and the equality of his troops—no one part of his armies was considered better or received preferred treatment, as was common in other armies where the cavalry were the elite, followed by the artillery, and both disdained the lowly infantry. In Gustavus' army the units were extensively cross-trained. Both cavalry and infantry could service the artillery, as his heavy cavalry did when turning captured artillery on the opposing Catholic Tercios at First Breitenfeld. Pikemen could shoot—if not as accurately as those designated musketeers—so a valuable firearm could be kept in the firing line. His infantrymen and gunners were taught to ride, if needed. Napoleon thought highly of the achievement and copied the tactics. However, recent historians have challenged his reputation. B. H. Liddell Hart says it is an exaggeration to credit him with a uniquely disciplined conscript army, or call his the first military state to fight a protracted war on the continent. He argues that he improved existing techniques and used them brilliantly. Richard Brzezinski says his legendary status was based on inaccurate myths created by later historians. Many of his innovations were developed by his senior staff.

Political reforms.

Gustavus Adolphus's politics in the conquered territory of Estonia also show progressive tendencies. In 1631 he forced the nobility to grant the peasants greater autonomy. He also encouraged education, opening a school in Tallinn in 1631, today known as Gustav Adolf Grammar School (). On 30 June 1632, Gustavus Adolphus signed the Foundation Decree of Academia Dorpatensis in Estonia, today known as the University of Tartu. With policies that supported the common people, the period of Swedish rule over Estonia initiated by Gustavus Adolphus and continued by his successors is popularly known by Estonians as the "good old Swedish times" (Estonian: vana hea Rootsi aeg).  On 27 August 1617, he spoke before his coronation, and his words included these:  I had carefully learned to understand, about that experience which I could have upon things of rule, how fortune is failing or great, subject to such rule in common, so that otherwise I would have had scant reason to desire such a rule, had I not found myself obliged to it through God’s bidding and nature. Now it was of my acquaintance, that inasmuch as God had let me be born a prince, such as I then am born, then my good and my destruction were knotted into one with the common good; for every reason then, it was now my promise that I should take great pains about their well-being and good governance and management, and thereabout bear close concern.

Military commander.

Gustavus Adolphus inherited three wars from his father when he ascended the throne: against Denmark, which had attacked Sweden earlier in 1611; against Russia, due to Sweden having tried to take advantage of the Russian Time of Troubles; and against Poland, due to King Charles's having deposed King Sigismund III, his nephew, as King of Sweden.  The war against Denmark (Kalmar War) was concluded in 1613 with a peace that did not cost Sweden any territory, but it was forced to pay a heavy indemnity to Denmark (Treaty of Knäred). During this war, Gustavus Adolphus let his soldiers plunder towns and villages, and as he met little resistance from Danish forces in Scania, they pillaged and devastated twenty-four Scanian parishes. His memory in Scania has been negative because of that fear. In the winter of 1612, during a period of two weeks, did he burn down, or otherwise destroyed 24 Scanian parishes and most of their population without meeting any enemy troops. The largest destroyed settlement was the Town Væ, which two years later was replaced by Danish King Christian IV as the nearby Christiansted (after the Swedification process, spelled Kristianstad), the last Scanian town to be founded by a Danish king.  The war against Russia (Ingrian War) ended in 1617 with the Treaty of Stolbovo, which excluded Russia from the Baltic Sea. The final inherited war, the war against Poland, ended in 1629 with the Truce of Altmark, which transferred the large province Livonia to Sweden and freed the Swedish forces for the subsequent intervention in the Thirty Years' War in Germany, where Swedish forces had already established a bridgehead in 1628.  The weak electorate of Brandenburg was especially torn apart by a quarrel between the Protestant and Catholic parties. The Brandenburg minister and diplomat baron influenced Gustavus Adolphus to support and protect the Protestant side in Germany. When Gustavus Adolphus began his push into northern Germany in June–July 1630, he had just 4,000 troops. He was soon able to consolidate the Protestant position in the north, however, using reinforcements from Sweden and money supplied by France at the Treaty of Bärwalde. After Swedish plundering in Brandenburg (1631) endangered the system of retrieving war contributions from occupied territories, "marauding and plundering" by Swedish soldiers was prohibited. Meanwhile, a Catholic army under Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly was laying waste to Saxony. Gustavus Adolphus met Tilly's army and crushed it at the First Battle of Breitenfeld in September 1631. He then marched clear across Germany, establishing his winter quarters near the Rhine, making plans for the invasion of the rest of the Holy Roman Empire.  In March 1632, Gustavus Adolphus invaded Bavaria, a staunch ally of the Emperor. He forced the withdrawal of his Catholic opponents at the Battle of Rain, marking the high point of the campaign. In the summer of that year, he sought a political solution that would preserve the existing structure of states in Germany, while guaranteeing the security of its Protestants. But achieving these objectives depended on his continued success on the battlefield.  Gustavus is reported to have entered battle without wearing any armor, proclaiming, "The Lord God is my armor!" It is more likely that he simply wore a leather cuirass rather than going into battle wearing no battle protection whatsoever. In 1627, near Dirschau in Prussia, a Polish soldier shot him in the muscles above his shoulders. He survived, but the doctors could not remove the bullet, so from that point on, he could not wear iron armor; two fingers of his right hand were paralyzed.

Death.

The Battle of Lützen (6 November 1632) was one of the most decisive battles of the Thirty Years' War. It was a Protestant victory, but the Protestant alliance lost one of its most important leaders, which caused the Protestant campaign to lose direction. Gustavus Adolphus was killed when, at a crucial point in the battle, he became separated from his troops while leading a cavalry charge on his wing.  Towards 1:00 pm, in the thick mix of gun smoke and fog covering the field, the king was separated from his fellow riders and suffered multiple shots. A bullet crushed his left arm below the elbow. Almost simultaneously his horse suffered a shot to the neck that made it hard to control. In the mix of fog and smoke from the burning town of Lützen the king rode astray behind enemy lines. There he sustained yet another shot in the back, was stabbed and fell from his horse. Lying on the ground, he received a final, fatal shot to the temple. His fate remained unknown for some time. However, when the gunnery paused and the smoke cleared, his horse was spotted between the two lines, Gustavus himself not on it and nowhere to be seen. His disappearance stopped the initiative of the hitherto successful Swedish right wing, while a search was conducted. His partly stripped body was found an hour or two later, and was secretly evacuated from the field in a Swedish artillery wagon.  After his death, Gustavus's wife initially kept his body, and later his heart, in the castle of Nyköping for over a year. His remains (including his heart) now rest in Riddarholm Church in Stockholm.

Assassination assertions.

As late as the 19th century several stories were retold about Gustav Adolph being assassinated. In most of them the assassin was named as Prince, who was next to the king on the occasion and was thought to be acting on behalf of the enemy. When King Charles XII of Sweden was shown purported evidence in 1707 he dismissed the theory out of doubt that "any prince could be so ungrateful"."

Aftermath.

In February 1633, following the death of the king, the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates decided that his name would be styled Gustavus Adolphus the Great (or "Gustav Adolf den Store" in Swedish, Latinized as "Gustavus Adolphus Magnus"). No such honor has been bestowed on any other Swedish monarch before or since.  The crown of Sweden was inherited in the Vasa family, and from Charles IX's time excluded those Vasa princes who descended from deposed monarchs. Gustavus Adolphus's younger brother had died ten years before, and therefore there was only the King's daughter left as a female heir. Maria Eleonora and the king's ministers took over the government on behalf of Gustavus Adolphus's underage daughter Christina upon her father's death. He left one other known child, his illegitimate son Gustav, Count of Vasaborg.

Memorials.

Gustavus Adolphus is commemorated today with city squares in major Swedish cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsingborg. The Gustav-Adolf-Werk (GAW) of the Evangelical Church in Germany, founded on the bicentennial celebration of the Battle of Lützen, has as its object the aid of feeble sister churches and commemorates the king's legacy. Swedish royalty visited the GAW headquarters in Leipzig on the festivities of Gustavus Adolphus' 400th birthday, in 1994. Gustavus Adolphus College, a Lutheran college in St. Peter, Minnesota, is also named for the Swedish King.

Evaluations.

The "Columbia Encyclopedia" sums up his record:  The German Socialist Franz Mehring wrote a biography of Gustavus Adolphus with a Marxist perspective on the actions of the Swedish king during the Thirty Years' War. In it, he makes a case that the war was fought over economics and trade rather than religion. The Swedes discovered huge deposits of copper, which were used to build brass cannon. The cottage-industrial growth stimulated an armaments industry.  In his book "Ofredsår" ("Years of Warfare"), the Swedish historian and author Peter Englund argues that there was probably no single all-important reason for the king's decision to go to war. Instead, it was likely a combination of religious, security, as well as economic considerations. This view is supported by German historian Johannes Burkhardt, who writes that Gustavus entered the 30 Years War exactly 100 years after the publication of the Confessio Augustana, the core confession of faith of the Lutheran Church, and let himself be praised as its saviour. Yet Gustavus' own "manifesto of war" does not mention any religious motivations at all but speaks of political and economic reasons. Sweden would have to maintain its integrity in the face of several provocations and aggressions by the Habsburg Empire. The manifesto was written by scholar Johann Adler Salvius in a style common of the time that promotes a "just war". Burkhardt argues that traditional Swedish historiography constructed a defensive interest in security out of that by taking the manifesto's text for granted. But to defend Stockholm, the occupation of the German Baltic territories would have been an extreme advance and the imperial Baltic Sea fleet mentioned as a threat in the manifesto had never reached more than a quarter of the size of the Swedish fleet. Moreover, it was never maintained to challenge Sweden but to face the separatist Netherlands. So if ruling the Baltic Sea was a goal of Swedish strategy, the conquests in Germany were not a defensive war but an act of expansion. From Swedish Finland, Gustavus advanced along the Baltic Sea coast and eventually to Augsburg and Munich and he even urged the Swiss Confederacy to join him. This was no longer about Baltic interests but the imperial capital of Vienna and the alpine passes that were now in close reach of the Swedish army. Burkhardt points out that the Gothic legacy of the Swedes, coalesced as a political program. The Swedish king was also ""Rex Gotorum"" (), and the list of kings was traced back to the Gothic rulers to construct continuity. Prior to his embarkment to northern Germany, Gustavus urged the Swedish nobility to follow the example of conquests set by their Gothic ancestors. Had he lived longer, it would have been likely that Gustavus had reached out for the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire.

Timeline.

A history of Gustavus Adolphus' wars was written by Johann Philipp Abelin.

Legacy.

Gustavus Adolphus Day is celebrated in Sweden and Finland each year on 6 November, the day the king died at Lützen. One of the traditions on this day is the Gustavus Adolphus pastry. In Finland, the day is also called "the Swedish day".  The Gustav-Adolf-Werk (GAW), a society under the roof of the Evangelical Church in Germany, has the objective of aiding feeble sister churches. It is responsible for taking care of the Diasporawork of the EKD and has separate branches internationally. The organization in Austria is still called the Gustav-Adolf-Verein. The project of forming such a society was first broached in connection with the bicentennial celebration of the battle of Lützen on 6 November 1832; a proposal to collect funds for a monument to Gustavus Adolphus was agreed to, and it was suggested by Superintendent Grossmann that the best memorial to the great champion of Protestantism would be the formation of a union for propagating his ideas. It quickly gained popularity in Germany. The lack of political correctness received some criticism; however, the organization used GAW as its brand in the meanwhile. The Swedish royalties visited the GAW headquarters in Leipzig on the 400th birthday of Gustavus Adolphus, in 1994.

Gustavus Adolphus (9/19 December 1594 – 6/16 November 1632, O.S./N.S.), also known in English as Gustav II Adolf or Gustav II Adolph, was the King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, and is credited for the founding of Sweden as a great power (). He led Sweden to military supremacy during the Thirty Years' War, helping to determine the political as well as the religious balance of power in Europe. He was formally and posthumously given the name Gustavus Adolphus the Great (, ) by the Riksdag of the Estates in 1634.

Gustav II. Adolf (* in Stockholm; † bei Lützen, Kurfürstentum Sachsen) aus dem Haus Wasa war von 1611 bis 1632 König von Schweden und eine der wichtigsten Figuren der schwedischen Geschichte und des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Er trug durch Reformen und sein militärisch-politisches Handeln wesentlich dazu bei, Schweden eine Hegemonialstellung im nördlichen Europa zu verschaffen, die bis Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts bestand. Sein Eingreifen in den Dreißigjährigen Krieg in Deutschland verhinderte einen Sieg des kaiserlich-katholischen Lagers der Habsburger und sicherte damit indirekt die Existenz des deutschen Protestantismus.


Private law.

In contract law, the need for ratification can arise in two ways: if the agent attempts to bind the principal despite lacking the authority to do so; and if the principal authorizes the agent to make an agreement, but reserves the right to approve it. An example of the former situation is an employee not normally responsible for procuring supplies contracting to do so on the employer's behalf. The employer's choice on discovering the contract is to ratify it or to repudiate it.  The latter situation is common in trade union collective bargaining agreements. The union authorizes one or more people to negotiate and sign an agreement with management. A collective bargaining agreement can not become legally binding until the union members ratify the agreement. If the union members do not approve it, the agreement is void, and negotiations resume.

Ratification of an international treaty.

The ratification of international treaties is always accomplished by filing instruments of ratification as provided for in the treaty. In most democracies, the legislature authorizes the government to ratify treaties through standard legislative procedures by passing a bill.

India.

The President makes a treaty in exercise of his executive power, on the aid and the advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister, and no court of law in India may question its validity. However, no agreement or treaty entered into by the president is enforceable by the courts which is incompatible with Indian constitution/ national law, as India follows dualist theory for the implementation of international laws.  If the Parliament wishes to codify the agreement entered into by the executive thereby making it enforceable by the courts of India, it may do so under of the constitution.

United Kingdom.

Treaty ratification was a Royal Prerogative, exercised by Her Majesty on the advice of her Government. By a convention called the Ponsonby Rule, treaties were usually placed before Parliament for 21 days before ratification. It was put onto a statutory footing by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010.

United States.

Treaty power is a coordinated effort between the Executive branch and the Senate. The President may form and negotiate, but the treaty must be advised and consented to by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Only after the Senate approves the treaty can the President ratify it. Once it is ratified, it becomes binding on all the states under the Supremacy Clause. While the House of Representatives does not vote on it at all, the requirement for the Senate's advice and consent to ratification makes it considerably more difficult to rally enough political support for international treaties. Also, if implementation of the treaty requires the expenditure of funds, the House of Representatives may be able to block or at least impede such implementation by refusing to vote for the appropriation of the necessary funds.  The President usually submits a treaty to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) along with an accompanying resolution of ratification or accession. If the treaty and resolution receive favorable committee consideration (a committee vote in favor of ratification or accession), the treaty is then forwarded to the floor of the full Senate for such a vote. The treaty or legislation does not apply until it has been ratified. A multilateral agreement may provide that it will take effect upon its ratification by less than all of the signatories. Even though such a treaty takes effect, it does not apply to signatories that have not ratified it. Accession has the same legal effect as ratification, for treaties already negotiated and signed by other states. An example of a treaty to which the Senate did not advise and consent to ratification is the Treaty of Versailles, which failed to garner support because of the Covenant of the League of Nations.  The US can also enter into international agreements by way of executive agreements. They are not made under the Treaty Clause and do not require ratification of two thirds of the Senate. Congressional-executive agreements are passed by a majority of both houses of Congress as a regular law. If the agreement is completely within the President's constitutional powers, it can be made by the President alone without Congressional approval, but it will have the force of an executive order and can be unilaterally revoked by a future President. All types of agreements are treated internationally as "treaties". See Foreign policy of the United States#Law.

Australia.

In Australia, power to enter into treaties is an executive power within Section 51 of the Australian Constitution so the Australian Government may enter into a binding treaty without seeking parliamentary approval. However, implementation of treaties requires legislation by the Australian parliament, following Section 51(xxix) of the Australian Constitution, signed by the Governor-General of Australia.

Japan.

In Japan, in principle both houses of the parliament (the National Diet) must approve the treaty for ratification. If the House of Councilors rejects a treaty approved by the House of Representatives, and a joint committee of both houses cannot come to agreement on amendments to the original text of the treaty, or the House of Councilors fails to decide on a treaty for more than thirty days, the House of Representatives the will be regarded as the vote of the National Diet approving the ratification. The approved treaty will then be promulgated into law by the act of the Emperor.

Ratification of a constitution.

Federations usually require the support of both the federal government and some given percentage of the constituent governments for amendments to the federal constitution to take effect.

Ratification in the Constitution of India.

Not all constitutional amendments in India require ratification by the states. Only constitutional amendments that seek to make any change in any of the provisions mentioned in the proviso to of the Constitution of India, must be ratified by the Legislatures of not less than one-half of the States. These provisions relate to certain matters concerning the federal structure or of common interest to both the Union and the States viz., the election of the President (articles 54 and 55); the extent of the executive power of the Union and the States (Articles 73 and 162); the High Courts for Union territories (Article 241); The Union Judiciary and the High Courts in the States (Chapter IV of Part V and Chapter V of Part VI); the distribution of legislative powers between the Union and the States (Chapter I of Part XI and Seventh Schedule); the representation of States in Parliament; and the provision for amendment of the Constitution laid down in Article 368. Ratification is done by a resolution passed by the State Legislatures. There is no specific time limit for the ratification of an amending Bill by the State Legislatures. However, the resolutions ratifying the proposed amendment must be passed before the amending Bill is presented to the President for his assent.  However, when the treaty terms are interfering with the powers exclusively applicable to states (State List), prior ratification of all applicable states are to be obtained per of the Indian constitution before the ratification by the Parliament.

Ratification in the United States Constitution.

Article Seven of the constitution of the United States describes the process by which the entire document was to become effective. It required that conventions of nine of the thirteen original States ratify the constitution. If fewer than thirteen states ratified the document, it would become effective only among the states ratifying it. New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify, doing so on June 21, 1788, but, as a practical matter, it was decided to delay implementation of the new government until New York and Virginia could be persuaded to ratify. Congress intended that New York City should be the first capital, and that George Washington, of Mount Vernon, Virginia, should be the first President, and both of those things would have been somewhat awkward if either New York or Virginia were not part of the new government. Ratification by those states was secured - Virginia on June 25 and New York on July 26 - and the government under the Constitution began on March 4, 1789.  For subsequent amendments, Article Five describes the process of a potential amendment's adoption. Proposals to adopt an amendment may be called either by a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress or by a national convention as a result of resolutions adopted by two-thirds (presently at least 34 out of 50) of the states' legislatures. For an amendment to be adopted, three-quarters of the states (presently at least 38 out of 50) must ratify the amendment either by a vote of approval in each state's legislature or by state ratifying conventions – Congress may specify which method must be used to ratify the amendment. Congress may also set a deadline by which the threshold for adoption must be met.

Use in parliamentary procedure.

A deliberative assembly, using parliamentary procedure, could ratify action that otherwise was not validly taken. For example, action taken where there was no quorum at the meeting is not valid until it is later ratified at a meeting where a quorum is present.

Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent that lacked the authority to bind the principal legally. Ratification defines the international act in which a state indicates its consent to be bound to a treaty if the parties intended to show their consent by such an act. In the case of bilateral treaties, ratification is usually accomplished by exchanging the requisite instruments, and in the case of multilateral treaties, the usual procedure is for the depositary to collect the ratifications of all states, keeping all parties informed of the situation.

Die Ratifikation, auch Ratifizierung, Substantivierung von ratifizieren (von, ‚berechnet, gültig, rechtskräftig‘, und "" ‚machen, tun‘), ist ein juristischer Fachbegriff. Er bezeichnet die völkerrechtlich verbindliche Erklärung der Bestätigung eines zuvor abgeschlossenen, d. h. unterzeichneten völkerrechtlichen Vertrages durch die Vertragsparteien. Diese geschieht durch das Organ der jeweiligen Vertragspartei, das diese nach außen vertritt, in der Regel das jeweilige Staatsoberhaupt; es verspricht damit feierlich, den Vertrag als bindend anzusehen, und gewährleistet die innerstaatliche Einhaltung. Darüber wird eine Ratifikationsurkunde erstellt. Bei zweiseitigen Verträgen wird diese dem Vertragspartner übergeben, bei multilateralen Verträgen können sie bei einer der beteiligten Regierungen hinterlegt werden. Diese ist dann der Depositar und wird im Vertrag bestimmt. Der Vertrag tritt regelmäßig mit der Hinterlegung der Ratifikationsurkunden oder nach Ablauf einer daran gebundenen Frist in Kraft.


Holy Biblical source.

The prayer incorporates two greetings to Mary in Saint Luke's Gospel: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." and "Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." In mid-13th-century Western Europe the prayer consisted only of these words with the single addition of the name "Mary" after the word "Hail", as is evident from the commentary of Saint Thomas Aquinas on the prayer.  The first of the two passages from Saint Luke's Gospel is the greeting of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, originally written in Koine Greek. The opening word of greeting,, "chaíre", here translated "Hail", literally has the meaning "rejoice" or "be glad". This was the normal greeting in the language in which Saint Luke's Gospel is written and continues to be used in the same sense in Modern Greek. Accordingly, both "Hail" and "Rejoice" are valid English translations of the word ("Hail" reflecting the Latin translation, and "Rejoice" reflecting the original Greek).  The word, ("kecharitōménē"), here translated as "full of grace", admits of various translations. Grammatically, the word is the feminine perfect passive participle of the verb, "charitóō", which means "to show, or bestow with, grace" and here, in the passive voice, "to have grace shown, or bestowed upon, one".  The text also appears in the account of the annunciation contained in the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 9.  The second passage is taken from Elizabeth's greeting to Mary in Luke 1:42, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Taken together, these two passages are the two times Mary is greeted in the Chapter 1 of Luke.

In Western (Latin) tradition.

After considering the use of similar words in Syriac, Greek and Latin in the 6th century, Herbert Thurston, writing in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" concludes that "there is little or no trace of the Hail Mary as an accepted devotional formula before about 1050", (though a later pious tale attributed to Ildephonsus of Toledo (fl. 7th century) the use of the first part, namely the angel's greeting to Mary, without that of Elizabeth, as a prayer). All the evidence suggests that it took its rise from certain versicles and responsories occurring in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which just at that time was coming into favour among the monastic orders.  Saint Thomas Aquinas spoke of the name "Mary" as the only word added at his time to the Biblical text, to indicate the person who was "full of grace." But at about the same time the name "Jesus" was also added, to specify who was meant by the phrase "the fruit of thy womb".  The Western version of the prayer is thus not derived from the Greek version: even the earliest Western forms have no trace of the Greek version's phrases: "Mother of God and Virgin" and "for thou hast given birth to the Saviour of our souls."  To the greeting and praise of Mary of which the prayer thus consisted, a petition "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." was added later. The petition first appeared in print in 1495 in Girolamo Savonarola's "Esposizione sopra l'Ave Maria". The "Hail Mary" prayer in Savonarola's exposition reads: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."  The petition was commonly added around the time of the Council of Trent. The Dutch Jesuit St. Petrus Canisius is credited with adding in 1555 in his Catechism the sentence  Eleven years later, the sentence was included in the Catechism of the Council of Trent of 1566. The catechism says that to the first part of the Hail Mary, by which "we render to God the highest praise and return Him most gracious thanks, because He has bestowed all His heavenly gifts on the most holy Virgin... the Church of God has wisely added prayers and an invocation addressed to the most holy Mother of God... we should earnestly implore her help and assistance; for that she possesses exalted merits with God, and that she is most desirous to assist us by her prayers, no one can doubt without impiety and wickedness." Soon after, in 1568 Pope Pius V included the full form as now known in his revision of the Roman Breviary.  The current Latin version is thus as follows, with accents added to indicate how the prayer is said in the current ecclesiastical pronunciation of Latin, as well as macrons to indicate the Classical vowel lengths:  Because recitation of the Angelus, a prayer within which the Hail Mary is recited three times, is usually accompanied by the ringing of the Angelus bell, words from the Ave Maria was often inscribed on bells.

Byzantine Christian use.

The Hail Mary prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches is similar to the first part of the Latin Church form, with the addition of a very brief opening phrase and a short concluding phrase. It is well known and often used, though not quite as frequently as in the Western Church. It appears in several canons of prayer. It is typically sung thrice at the end of Vespers during an All-Night Vigil, and occurs many times in the course of daily prayer.  The Greek text, of which those in other languages are translations, is: To the Biblical texts this adds the opening invocation "Theotokos Virgin", the name "Mary", and the concluding phrase "because it was the Saviour of our souls that thou borest".  Another English rendering of the same text reads:

Slavonic versions.

There exist two variant versions in Church Slavonic: The first is the older, and remains in use by the Old Believers as well as those who follow the Ruthenian recension (among them the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and the Ruthenian Catholic Church). The second, corresponding more closely to the Greek, appeared in 1656 under the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, and is in use by the Russian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church).

Latin Church Catholic use.

The Hail Mary is the last prayer in Appendix V of the Roman Missal, the last of seven prayers under the heading “Thanksgiving After Mass”. There it appears with "with you" instead of the traditional "with thee", "are you" instead of the traditional "art thou" and "your womb" in place of the traditional "thy womb":  Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you;
 blessed are you among women,
 and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.
 Holy Mary, Mother of God,
 pray for us sinners
 now and at the hour of our death.
 Amen.
  The Hail Mary is the central part of the Angelus, a devotion generally recited thrice daily by many Catholics, as well as broad & high church Anglicans, and Lutherans who usually omit the second half.  The Hail Mary is an essential element of the Rosary, a prayer method in use especially among Roman Rite (Western) Catholics. The Eastern Catholic Churches say a similar version.  The Rosary consists traditionally of three sets of five Mysteries, each Mystery being meditated on while reciting a decade (a set of ten) of Ave Marias. The 150 Ave Marias of the Rosary thus echo the 150 psalms. These Mysteries concern events of Jesus' life during his childhood (Joyful Mysteries), Passion (Sorrowful Mysteries), and from his Resurrection onwards (Glorious Mysteries). Another set, the Luminous Mysteries, is of comparatively recent origin, having been proposed by Pope John Paul II in 2002. Each decade of Ave Marias is preceded by the Our Father ("Pater Noster" or "The Lord's Prayer") and followed by the Glory Be ("Gloria Patri") (Doxology). The repetition of the fixed-language prayers assists recitation from the heart rather than the head. Pope Paul V said that "the Rosary is a treasure of graces... Even for those souls who pray without meditating, the simple act of taking the beads in hand to pray is already a remembrance of God – of the supernatural".

Anglican use.

Some Anglicans also employ the Hail Mary in devotional practice. Anglo-Catholic Anglicanism uses the prayer in much the same way as Roman Catholics, including use of the Rosary and the recitation of the Angelus. Some Anglican churches contain statues of the Virgin Mary, and the faithful use devotional prayers including the Hail Mary. That manifestation of veneration of Mary, decried by certain Protestants as worship, was largely removed from Anglican churches during the English Reformation but was reintroduced to some extent during the Oxford Movement of the mid-1800s.

Lutheran use.

Martin Luther believed that Mary should be held in highest reverence. Although he did not agree with Mary's veneration, he did advocate the use of the first half of the Hail Mary (that is, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.") as a sign of reverence for and devotion to the Virgin. Only after his death was the second part ("Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death") added.

Musical settings.

The Hail Mary, Ave Maria in Latin, has been set to music numerous times. The title "Ave Maria" has been given also to musical compositions that are not settings of the prayer.  One of the most famous is the version by Franz Schubert (1825), composed as "Ellens dritter Gesang" (Ellen's Third Song), D839, part 6 of his Opus 52, a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's popular epic poem "The Lady of the Lake", translated into German by Adam Storck. Although it opens with the greeting "Ave Maria" ("Hail Mary"), the text was not that of the traditional prayer, but nowadays it is commonly sung with words of the prayer. Its music was used in the final segment of Walt Disney's "Fantasia".  The version by Charles Gounod (1859), adding melody and words to Johann Sebastian Bach's first prelude from "The Well-Tempered Clavier", omits the words "Mater Dei" (Mother of God).  Anton Bruckner wrote three different settings, the best known being a motet for seven voices. Antonín Dvořák's version was composed in 1877. Another setting of Ave Maria was written by Giuseppe Verdi for his 1887 opera "Otello". Russian composer César Cui, who was raised Roman Catholic, set the text at least three times: as the "Ave Maria", op. 34, for one or two women's voices with piano or harmonium (1886), and as part of two of his operas: "Le flibustier" (premiered 1894) and "Mateo Falcone" (1907).  Settings also exist by Mozart, Liszt, Byrd, Elgar, Saint-Saëns, Rossini, Brahms, Stravinsky, Mascagni, Lauridsen, David Conte and Perosi as well as numerous versions by less well-known composers, such as J. B. Tresch and Ninel Samokhvalova.  In the Renaissance, this text was also set by numerous composers, including Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso, Tomás Luis de Victoria, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Before the Council of Trent there were actually different versions of the text, so the earlier composers in the period sometimes set versions of the text different from the ones shown above. Josquin des Prez, for example, himself set more than one version of the Ave Maria. Here is the text of his motet Ave Maria... Virgo serena, which begins with the first six words above and continues with a poem in rhymed couplets. The much anthologized "Ave Maria" by Jacques Arcadelt is actually a 19th-century arrangement by Pierre-Louis Dietsch, loosely based on Arcadelt's three part madrigal "Nous voyons que les hommes".  In the 20th century, Franz Biebl composed Ave Maria (Angelus Domini), actually a setting of the Angelus prayer, in which the Ave Maria is repeated three times, but the second part only once as the climax.  In Slavonic, the text was also a popular subject for setting to music by Eastern European composers. These include Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Bortniansky, Vavilov (his version often misattributed to Caccini), Mikhail Shukh, Lyudmyla Hodzyumakha and others.  A famous setting for the Orthodox version of the prayer in Church Slavonic (Bogoroditsye Djevo) was composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in his "All-Night Vigil".  Since Protestant Christianity generally avoids any special veneration of Mary, musical settings of the prayer are sometimes sung to other texts that preserve the word boundaries and syllable stresses.

The Hail Mary (Latin: Ave Maria) is a traditional Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Roman Catholicism, the prayer forms the basis of the Rosary and the Angelus prayers. In the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, a similar prayer is used in formal liturgies, both in Greek and in translations. It is also used by many other groups within the Catholic tradition of Christianity including Anglicans, Independent Catholics, and Old Catholics.

Ave Maria "(Gegrüßet seist du, Maria)" ist der lateinische Beginn und gleichzeitig die Bezeichnung eines Grundgebetes der katholischen Kirche zur Anrufung Marias, der Mutter Jesu Christi. "Ave" ist dabei ein in das Lateinische eingedrungenes semitisches Lehnwort und stammt ursprünglich wohl aus Karthago (phönizisch-punisch "hawe" bedeutet „lebe“).


Etymology.

As attested by Sigismund von Herberstein, in the 16th century Russians called the range by a variety of names derived from the Russian words for rock (stone) and belt. The modern Russian name for the Urals (Урал, "Ural"), first appearing in the 16th–17th century when the Russian conquest of Siberia was in its heroic phase, was initially applied to its southern parts and gained currency as the name of the entire range during the 18th century. It might have been a borrowing from either Turkic "stone belt" (Bashkir, where the same name is used for the range), or Ob-Ugric. From the 13th century, in Bashkortostan there has been a legend about a hero named Ural. He sacrificed his life for the sake of his people and they poured a stone pile over his grave, which later turned into the Ural Mountains. Possibilities include Bashkir "үр" "elevation; upland" and Mansi "ур ала" "mountain peak, top of the mountain", V.N. Tatischev believes that this oronym is set to "belt" and associates it with the Turkic verb oralu- "gird". I.G. Dobrodomov suggests a transition from Aral to Ural explained on the basis of ancient Bulgar-Chuvash dialects. Geographer E.V. Hawks believes that the name goes back to the Bashkir folklore Ural-Batyr. The Evenk geographical term "era" "mountain" has also been theorized. Finno-Ugrist scholars consider Ural deriving from the Ostyak word "urr" meaning "chain of mountains". Turkologists, on the other hand, have achieved majority support for their assertion that 'ural' in Tatar means a belt, and recall that an earlier name for the range was'stone belt'.

History.

As Middle-Eastern merchants traded with the Bashkirs and other people living on the western slopes of the Ural as far north as Great Perm, since at least the 10th century medieval mideastern geographers had been aware of the existence of the mountain range in its entirety, stretching as far as to the Arctic Ocean in the north. The first Russian mention of the mountains to the east of the East European Plain is provided by the Primary Chronicle, when it describes the Novgorodian expedition to the upper reaches of the Pechora in 1096. During the next few centuries Novgorodians engaged in fur trading with the local population and collected tribute from Yugra and Great Perm, slowly expanding southwards. The rivers Chusovaya and Belaya were first mentioned in the chronicles of 1396 and 1468, respectively. In 1430 the town of Solikamsk (Kama Salt) was founded on the Kama at the foothills of the Ural, where salt was produced in open pans. Ivan III of Moscow captured Perm, Pechora and Yugra from the declining Novgorod Republic in 1472. With the excursions of 1483 and 1499–1500 across the Ural Moscow managed to subjugate Yugra completely. Nevertheless, around that time early 16th century Polish geographer Maciej of Miechów in his influential "Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis" (1517) argued that there were no mountains in Eastern Europe at all, challenging the point of view of some authors of Classical antiquity, popular during the Renaissance. Only after Sigismund von Herberstein in his Notes on Muscovite Affairs (1549) had reported, following Russian sources, that there are mountains behind the Pechora and identified them with the Riphean Mountains and Hyperboreans of ancient authors, did the existence of the Ural, or at least of its northern part, become firmly established in the Western geography. The Middle and Southern Ural were still largely unavailable and unknown to the Russian or Western European geographers. In the 1550s, after the Tsardom of Russia had defeated the Khanate of Kazan and proceeded to gradually annex the lands of the Bashkirs, the Russians finally reached the southern part of the mountain chain. In 1574 they founded Ufa. The upper reaches of the Kama and Chusovaya in the Middle Ural, still unexplored, as well as parts of Transuralia still held by the hostile Siberian Khanate, were granted to the Stroganovs by several decrees of the tsar in 1558–1574. The Stroganovs' land provided the staging ground for Yermak's incursion into Siberia. Yermak crossed the Ural from the Chusovaya to the Tagil around 1581. In 1597 Babinov's road was built across the Ural from Solikamsk to the valley of the Tura, where the town of Verkhoturye (Upper Tura) was founded in 1598. Customs was established in Verkhoturye shortly thereafter and the road was made the only legal connection between European Russia and Siberia for a long time. In 1648 the town of Kungur was founded at the western foothills of the Middle Ural. During the 17th century the first deposits of iron and copper ores, mica, gemstones and other minerals were discovered in the Ural.  Iron and copper smelting works emerged. They multiplied particularly quickly during the reign of Peter I of Russia. In 1720–1722 he commissioned Vasily Tatishchev to oversee and develop the mining and smelting works in the Ural. Tatishchev proposed a new copper smelting factory in Yegoshikha, which would eventually become the core of the city of Perm and a new iron smelting factory on the Iset, which would become the largest in the world at the time of construction and give birth to the city of Yekaterinburg. Both factories were actually founded by Tatishchev's successor, Georg Wilhelm de Gennin, in 1723. Tatishchev returned to the Ural on the order of Empress Anna to succeed de Gennin in 1734–1737. Transportation of the output of the smelting works to the markets of European Russia necessitated the construction of the Siberian Route from Yekaterinburg across the Ural to Kungur and Yegoshikha (Perm) and further to Moscow, which was completed in 1763 and rendered Babinov's road obsolete. In 1745 gold was discovered in the Ural at Beryozovskoye and later at other deposits. It has been mined since 1747.  The first ample geographic survey of the Ural Mountains was completed in the early 18th century by the Russian historian and geographer Vasily Tatishchev under the orders of Peter I. Earlier, in the 17th century, rich ore deposits were discovered in the mountains and their systematic extraction began in the early 18th century, eventually turning the region into the largest mineral base of Russia.  One of the first scientific descriptions of the mountains was published in 1770–71. Over the next century, the region was studied by scientists from a number of countries, including Russia (geologist Alexander Karpinsky, botanist Porfiry Krylov and zoologist Leonid Sabaneyev), the United Kingdom (geologist Sir Roderick Murchison), France (paleontologist Édouard de Verneuil), and Germany (naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, geologist Alexander Keyserling). In 1845, Murchison, who had according to "Encyclopædia Britannica" "compiled the first geologic map of the Ural in 1841", published "The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains" with de Verneuil and Keyserling.  The first railway across the Ural had been built by 1878 and linked Perm to Yekaterinburg via Chusovoy, Kushva and Nizhny Tagil. In 1890 a railway linked Ufa and Chelyabinsk via Zlatoust. In 1896 this section became a part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1909 yet another railway connecting Perm and Yekaterinburg passed through Kungur by the way of the Siberian Route. It has eventually replaced the Ufa – Chelyabinsk section as the main trunk of the Trans-Siberian railway.  The highest peak of the Ural, Mount Narodnaya, (elevation 1,895 m (6,217 ft)) was identified in 1927.  During the Soviet industrialization in the 1930s the city of Magnitogorsk was founded in the South-Eastern Ural as a center of iron smelting and steelmaking. During the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941–1942, the mountains became a key element in Nazi planning for the territories which they expected to conquer in the USSR. Faced with the threat of having a significant part of the Soviet territories occupied by the enemy, the government evacuated many of the industrial enterprises of European Russia and Ukraine to the eastern foothills of the Ural, considered a safe place out of reach of the German bombers and troops. Three giant tank factories were established at the Uralmash in Sverdlovsk (as Yekaterinburg used to be known), Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil, and Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant in Chelyabinsk. After the war, in 1947–1948, Chum – Labytnangi railway, built with the forced labor of Gulag inmates, crossed the Polar Ural.  Mayak, 150 km southeast of Yekaterinburg, was a center of the Soviet nuclear industry and site of the Kyshtym disaster.

Geography and topography.

The Ural Mountains extend about from the Kara Sea to the Kazakh Steppe along the border of Kazakhstan. Vaygach Island and the island of Novaya Zemlya form a further continuation of the chain on the north. Geographically this range marks the northern part of the border between the continents of Europe and Asia. Its highest peak is Mount Narodnaya, approximately in elevation. By topography and other natural features, the Urals are divided, from north to south, into the Polar (or Arctic), Nether-Polar (or Sub-Arctic), Northern, Central and Southern parts.

Polar Ural.

The Polar Urals extend for about from Mount Konstantinov Kamen in the north to the Khulga River in the south; they have an area of about and a strongly dissected relief. The maximum height is at Payer Mountain and the average height is.  The mountains of the Polar Ural have exposed rock with sharp ridges, though flattened or rounded tops are also found.

Nether-polar Ural.

The Nether-Polar Ural are higher, and up to wider than the Polar Urals. They include the highest peaks of the range: Mount Narodnaya (), Mount Karpinsky () and Manaraga (). They extend for more than south to the Shchugor River. The many ridges are sawtooth shaped and dissected by river valleys. Both Polar and Nether-Polar Urals are typically Alpine; they bear traces of Pleistocene glaciation, along with permafrost and extensive modern glaciation, including 143 extant glaciers.

Northern Ural.

The Northern Ural consist of a series of parallel ridges up to in height and longitudinal hollows. They are elongated from north to south and stretch for about from the Usa River. Most of the tops are flattened, but those of the highest mountains, such as Telposiz, and Konzhakovsky Stone, have a dissected topography. Intensive weathering has produced vast areas of eroded stone on the mountain slopes and summits of the northern areas.

Middle Ural.

The Central Ural are the lowest part of the Ural, with smooth mountain tops, the highest mountain being (Basegi); they extend south from the Ufa River.

Southern Ural.

The relief of the Southern Ural is more complex, with numerous valleys and parallel ridges directed south-west and meridionally. The range includes the Ilmensky Mountains separated from the main ridges by the Miass River. The maximum height is (Mount Yamantau) and the width reaches. Other notable peaks lie along the Iremel mountain ridge (Bolshoy Iremel and Maly Iremel). The Southern Urals extend some up to the sharp westward bend of the Ural River and terminate in the wide Mughalzhar Hills.

Geology.

The Urals are among the world's oldest extant mountain ranges. For its age of 250 to 300 million years, the elevation of the mountains is unusually high. They formed during the Uralian orogeny due to the collision of the eastern edge of the supercontinent Laurussia with the young and rheologically weak continent of Kazakhstania, which now underlies much of Kazakhstan and West Siberia west of the Irtysh, and intervening island arcs. The collision lasted nearly 90 million years in the late Carboniferous – early Triassic. Unlike the other major orogens of the Paleozoic (Appalachians, Caledonides, Variscides), the Urals have not undergone post-orogenic extensional collapse and are unusually well preserved for their age, being underlaid by a pronounced crustal root. East and south of the Urals much of the orogen is buried beneath later Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments. The adjacent Pay-Khoy Ridge to the north and Novaya Zemlya are not a part of the Uralian orogen and formed later.  Many deformed and metamorphosed rocks, mostly of Paleozoic age, surface within the Urals. The sedimentary and volcanic layers are folded and faulted. The sediments to the west of the Ural Mountains are formed of limestone, dolomite and sandstone left from ancient shallow seas. The eastern side is dominated by basalts.  The western slope of the Ural Mountains has predominantly karst topography, especially in the Sylva River basin, which is a tributary of the Chusovaya River. It is composed of severely eroded sedimentary rocks (sandstones and limestones) that are about 350 million years old. There are many caves, sinkholes and underground streams. The karst topography is much less developed on the eastern slopes. The eastern slopes are relatively flat, with some hills and rocky outcrops and contain alternating volcanic and sedimentary layers dated to the middle Paleozoic Era. Most high mountains consist of weather-resistant rocks such as quartzite, schist and gabbro that are between 570 and 395 million years old. The river valleys are underlain by limestone.  The Ural Mountains contain about 48 species of economically valuable ores and economically valuable minerals. Eastern regions are rich in chalcopyrite, nickel oxide, gold, platinum, chromite and magnetite ores, as well as in coal (Chelyabinsk Oblast), bauxite, talc, fireclay and abrasives. The Western Urals contain deposits of coal, oil, natural gas (Ishimbay and Krasnokamsk areas) and potassium salts. Both slopes are rich in bituminous coal and lignite, and the largest deposit of bituminous coal is in the north (Pechora field). The specialty of the Urals is precious and semi-precious stones, such as emerald, amethyst, aquamarine, jasper, rhodonite, malachite and diamond. Some of the deposits, such as the magnetite ores at Magnitogorsk, are already nearly depleted.

Rivers and lakes.

Many rivers originate in the Ural Mountains. The western slopes south of the border between the Komi Republic and Perm Krai and the eastern slopes south of approximately 54°30'N drain into the Caspian Sea via the Kama and Ural River basins. The tributaries of the Kama include the Vishera, Chusovaya, and Belaya and originate on both the eastern and western slopes. The rest of the Urals drain into the Arctic Ocean, mainly via the Pechora basin in the west, which includes the Ilych, Shchugor, and the Usa, and via the Ob basin in the east, which includes the Tobol, Tavda, Iset, Tura and Severnaya Sosva. The rivers are frozen for more than half the year. Generally, the western rivers have higher flow volume than the eastern ones, especially in the Northern and Nether-Polar regions. Rivers are slower in the Southern Urals. This is because of low precipitation and the relatively warm climate resulting in less snow and more evaporation.  The mountains contain a number of deep lakes. The eastern slopes of the Southern and Central Urals have most of these, among the largest of which are the Uvildy, Itkul, Turgoyak, and Tavatuy lakes. The lakes found on the western slopes are less numerous and also smaller. Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye, the deepest lake in the Polar Urals, is deep. Other lakes, too, are found in the glacial valleys of this region. Spas and sanatoriums have been built to take advantage of the medicinal muds found in some of the mountain lakes.

Climate.

The climate of the Urals is continental. The mountain ridges, elongated from north to south, effectively absorb sunlight thereby increasing the temperature. The areas west of the Ural Mountains are warmer in winter than the eastern regions because the former are warmed by Atlantic winds whereas the eastern slopes are chilled by Siberian air masses. The average January temperatures increase in the western areas from in the Polar to in the Southern Urals and the corresponding temperatures in July are and. The western areas also receive more rainfall than the eastern ones by per year. This is because the mountains trap clouds from the Atlantic Ocean. The highest precipitation, approximately, is in the Northern Urals with up to snow. The eastern areas receive from in the north to in the south. Maximum precipitation occurs in the summer: the winter is dry because of the Siberian High.

Flora.

The landscapes of the Urals vary with both latitude and longitude and are dominated by forests and steppes. The southern area of the Mughalzhar Hills is a semidesert. Steppes lie mostly in the southern and especially south-eastern Urals. Meadow steppes have developed on the lower parts of mountain slopes and are covered with zigzag and mountain clovers, "Serratula gmelinii", dropwort, meadow-grass and "Bromus inermis", reaching the height of 60–80 cm. Much of the land is cultivated. To the south, the meadow steppes become more sparse, dry and low. The steep gravelly slopes of the mountains and hills of the eastern slopes of the Southern Urals are mostly covered with rocky steppes. River valleys contain willow, poplar and caragana shrubs.  Forest landscapes of the Urals are diverse, especially in the southern part. The western areas are dominated by dark coniferous taiga forests which change to mixed and deciduous forests in the south. The eastern mountain slopes have light coniferous taiga forests. The Northern Urals are dominated by conifers, namely Siberian fir, Siberian pine, Scots pine, Siberian spruce, Norway spruce and Siberian larch, as well as by silver and downy birches. The forests are much sparser in the Polar Urals. Whereas in other parts of the Ural Mountains they grow up to an altitude of 1000 m, in the Polar Urals the tree line is at 250–400 m. The polar forests are low and are mixed with swamps, lichens, bogs and shrubs. Dwarf birch, mosses and berries (blueberry, cloudberry, black crowberry, etc.) are abundant. The forests of the Southern Urals are the most diverse in composition: here, together with coniferous forests are also abundant broadleaf tree species such as English oak, Norway maple and elm. The Virgin Komi Forests in the northern Urals are recognized as a World Heritage site.

Fauna.

The Ural forests are inhabited by animals typical of Siberia, such as elk, brown bear, fox, wolf, wolverine, lynx, squirrel, and sable (north only). Because of the easy accessibility of the mountains there are no specifically mountainous species. In the Middle Urals, one can see a rare mixture of sable and pine marten named kidus. In the Southern Urals, badger and black polecat are common. Reptiles and amphibians live mostly in the Southern and Central Ural and are represented by the common viper, lizards and grass snakes. Bird species are represented by capercaillie, black grouse, hazel grouse, spotted nutcracker, and cuckoos. In summers, the South and Middle Urals are visited by songbirds, such as nightingale and redstart.  The steppes of the Southern Urals are dominated by hares and rodents such as hamsters, susliks, and jerboa. There are many birds of prey such as lesser kestrel and buzzards. The animals of the Polar Urals are few and are characteristic of the tundra; they include Arctic fox, lemming, and reindeer. The birds of these areas include rough-legged buzzard, snowy owl, tundra partridge, and rock ptarmigan.

Ecology.

The continuous and intensive economic development of the last centuries has affected the fauna, and wildlife is much diminished around all industrial centers. During World War II, hundreds of factories were evacuated from Western Russia before the German occupation, flooding the Urals with industry. The conservation measures include establishing national wildlife parks. There are nine strict nature reserves in the Urals: the Ilmen, the oldest one, mineralogical reserve founded in 1920 in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Pechora-Ilych in the Komi Republic, Bashkir and its former branch Shulgan-Tash in Bashkortostan, Visim in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Southern Ural in Bashkortostan, Basegi in Perm Krai, Vishera in Perm Krai and Denezhkin Kamen in Sverdlovsk Oblast.  The area has also been severely damaged by the plutonium-producing facility Mayak opened in Chelyabinsk-40 (later called Chelyabinsk-65, Ozyorsk), in the Southern Ural, after World War II. Its plants went into operation in 1948 and, for the first ten years, dumped unfiltered radioactive waste into the Techa River and Lake Karachay. In 1990, efforts were underway to contain the radiation in one of the lakes, which was estimated at the time to expose visitors to 500 millirem per day. As of 2006, 500 mrem in the natural environment was the upper limit of exposure considered safe for a member of the general public in an entire year (though workplace exposure over a year could exceed that by a factor of 10). Over of land were contaminated in 1957 from a storage tank explosion, only one of several serious accidents that further polluted the region. The 1957 accident expelled 20 million curies of radioactive material, 90% of which settled into the land immediately around the facility. Although some reactors of Mayak were shut down in 1987 and 1990, the facility keeps producing plutonium.

Cultural significance.

The Urals have been viewed by Russians as a "treasure box" of mineral resources, which were the basis for its extensive industrial development. In addition to iron and copper the Urals were a source of gold, malachite, alexandrite, and other gems such as those used by the court jeweller Fabergé. As Russians in other regions gather mushrooms or berries, Uralians gather mineral specimens and gems. Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak (1852–1912) Pavel Bazhov (1879–1950), as well as Aleksey Ivanov and Olga Slavnikova, post-Soviet writers, have written of the region.  The region served as a military stronghold during Peter the Great's Great Northern War with Sweden, during Stalin's rule when the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Complex was built and Russian industry relocated to the Urals during the Nazi advance at the beginning of World War II, and as the center of the Soviet nuclear industry during the Cold War. Extreme levels of air, water, and radiological contamination and pollution by industrial wastes resulted. Population exodus resulted, and economic depression at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in post-Soviet times additional mineral exploration, particularly in the northern Urals, has been productive and the region has attracted industrial investment.

The Ural Mountains (; ;, "Ural tauźarı") or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. Vaygach Island and the islands of Novaya Zemlya form a further continuation of the chain to the north into the Arctic Ocean.

Der Ural (, ; auch Uralgebirge genannt) ist ein bis 1895 m hohes und knapp 2400 km langes Gebirge, das sich in Nord-Süd-Richtung durch den mittleren Westen Russlands erstreckt und einen Teil der asiatisch-europäischen Grenze darstellt.


History.

Creation.

The song was created by the composer Tsvetan Radoslavov in 1885 after his participation in the Serbo-Bulgarian War. He was inspired to create the song based on his poems when he saw Serbian students singing their own patriotic song on their journey home. It was first printed in 1895 in Part I of "Music Textbook" by K. Mahan.

Adoption as the national anthem.

In the 1960s, after the de-Stalinization process, the poet Georgi Dzhagarov began an effort to replace the previous anthem, which include references to Stalin and because the lyrics of the anthem was similar to the anthem of the Soviet Union. After discussing with Todor Zhivkov, the General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Zhivkov accepted the idea, and soon, by the Order No.1093, on March 29, 1962, the Council of Ministers held a competition for the lyrics and the music for the new anthem, with the deadline whichthe submission of lyrics on May 1, 1963, and the music on November 1, 1963. The composition of the committee for the new anthem was selected by Zhivkov himself, and the lyrics for the new anthem must be finalized in September 1, 1963, and for the music in March 1, 1964. The Council of Ministers also draws up a panel of experts to look at the projects submitted in advance and to put the best of the proposals for discussion with the committee.  After the proposals for the lyrics and the music were submitted, none of the proposals satisfies them, so they accepted the advice of Georgi Dzhagarov to use "Mila Rodino" as the music for the new anthem. The composition of lyrics were assigned to Georgi Dzhagarov and Dmitry Metodiev, while the melody of the anthem was revised with further harmonization by Philip Kutev and Alexander Raichev.  Under Zhivkov's orders, Georgi Dzhagarov and Dimitar Metodiev were resided in the Vrana Palace to compose the text of Mila Rodino.  During the composition of the lyrics, Georgi Dzhagarov was not particularly proud of his creation. He preferred the anthem without the mentions of the Soviet Union and the leadership of the Bulgarian Communist Party in the third verse of the anthem. An alternate version of the third verse can be found in Dzhagarov's manuscript :  The final composition of the lyrics consisted of the original first verse and the chorus of the anthem by Tsvetan Radoslavov, and the new two verses, which the second verse has references to the fight for the independence of Bulgaria and the fight against fascism in World War 2, and the third verse has references to the Soviet Union/Russian SFSR/Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Communist Party of Bulgaria.  On September 8, 1964, Mila Rodino was finally affirmed by the Presidium of the National Assembly, with the Decree No. 534, as the national anthem of Bulgaria. The first performance of the song as the national anthem of Bulgaria was done on September 9, 1964, on the 20th anniversary of the Socialist Revolution of 9 September.

Criticism.

In 1964, before the affirmation of "Mila Rodino" as the national anthem, the decision met resistance from Petko Staynov. Staynov argues that the melody is Jewish (Ashkenazi) and this makes the song not suitable for being the anthem of Bulgaria. Dobri Hristov counters the argument, stating that there are hundreds of melodies in Bulgarian songs which are borrowed from other people and had become an integral part of the Bulgarian musical heritage.  This statement led Staynov being removed from the committee for the new anthem by Todor Zhivkov.

Proposals for a new anthem.

During the discussion for the new constitution of Bulgaria in the 7th Grand National Assembly, there are some proposals submitted for a new anthem. The proposals include "Shumi Maritsa" (, ), the Bulgarian national anthem from 1886 until 1947, and "Vŭrvi, narode vŭzrodeni" (, ), the anthem of the Bulgarian education.  The most recent one was the petition by writer Nikola Indzhov to change the anthem of Bulgaria to "Vŭrvi, narode vŭzrodeni".

Regulation on the anthem.

Current regulation.

According to the Institutional Identity of the Administration of the State of Bulgaria, there are two versions of the anthem, the full and the abridged version.

Performances of the anthem.

The anthem is to be played at the following occasions:  The abridged version of the anthem can be played at the following occasions:  The anthem of the Republic of Bulgaria can only be performed once a day, on the same ceremony.

Bans on the usage of the anthem.

The anthem of the Republic of Bulgaria can not be used in advertising, with the exception of national campaigns taken by state authorities. The anthem can not be used as part of another melody or song, to be performed in remixed variants with text other than the legally established by means of musical instruments that create a humorous sound, with pauses, interruptions or extensions of the tones, which change the original sound.

Original regulation.

The first regulation on the anthem came from the Decree No. 534 "On the approval of the text and the music of the national anthem of the People's Republic of Bulgaria", which was published on September 8, 1964.

Lyrics.

English translation.

<poem>I Proud Balkan Mountains, next to it the Danube sparkles, the sun shines over Thrace, and blazes over Pirin.  Refrain:  II Countless fighters died, for our beloved people, mother, give us manly strength to continue their path.*  III Together, Bulgarian brothers! A great leads Our victorious society.*

Versions of the lyrics.

Another version of the lyrics was published by composer Dobri Hristov. It was published in the "Rodina" collection, by the Publishing of the Bulgarian-Mohammedian Cultural and Enlightenment Friendship, in the town of Smolyan.  Горда Стара-планина. Надъ ней северъ синей, До ней Витошъ възвишава Гордо свойтѣ раменѣ  "Припев:" Мила Родино, Ти си земенъ рай! Твойта хубостъ, твойта прелесть, Ахъ, тѣ нѣматъ край!  Гордо Дунавътъ се лѣй! Свойта пѣсень тихо пѣй! Вѣченъ споменъ той за Ботевъ Отъ гърди си ще лелѣй!  "Припев"  Чуй Марица, какъ шуми, И съсъ радость си мълви, Че тамъ, дето кърви бѣха — Днесъ тамъ розата цъвти!  "Припев"

"Mila Rodino" ("", translated as "Dear Motherland" or "Dear native land") is the current national anthem of Bulgaria. It is based on the music and text of the song "Mila Rodino" by Tsvetan Radoslavov, written and composed as he left to fight in the Serbo-Bulgarian War in 1885. The anthem was adopted in 1964. The text has been changed many times, most recently in 1990.

Mila Rodino (zu Deutsch "„Liebe Heimat“") ist die Nationalhymne der Republik Bulgarien. Text und Komposition stammen von Zwetan Radoslawow (Цветан Радославов, englische/internationale Transkription: Tsvetan Radoslavov) aus der Zeit des Serbisch-Bulgarischen Krieges 1885. Das Werk wurde im Jahr 1964 zur Nationalhymne gewählt.


Location.

Hambach Castle is located on the mountain "Schlossberg" (literally translated ""Castle mountain""; elevation: 325m) in the eastern outskirts of the Palatine Forest. The estate ruled both as a protection castle and as a robber baron castle over the trade roads and the northern route of the Anterior Palatinate section of the Way of St. James.

History.

Before 1832.

Archaeological finds prove that the area of Hambach Castle was used in late Roman times. In late Carolingian Dynasty times and Ottonian dynasty times a castle of refuge was built there. Portions remain in front of and under the outer ring wall.  Probably in the first half of the 11th century, a new castle named "Kästenburg" (translated in the Palatinate dialect as the "chestnut castle") was built inside the former estate. It got its name because of the surrounding magnificent sweet chestnut forests. There is little known about its early history; there are speculations without any proof that it was founded as an Imperial Castle (Reichsburg) or that Emperor Henry IV had started his Walk to Canossa here in 1076. The only thing certain is that between 1090 and 1104 bishop Johann I of Speyer signed over the estate together with "Castle Meistersel" to the Bishopric of Speyer, which stayed the owner to the end of the 18th century.  The big estate was said to be one of the most important facilities of the Bishopric of Speyer in the late Middle Ages. This is indicated by the many residencies of the bishops since 1180. Despite this the first "Burgmannen" primary were known as Imperial Ministeriales and not as commissionaires of the church, especially the first one, "Burkhard of Kästenburg", who is provably in the imperial service from 1154 to 1186. His brother "Trushard of Kästenburg", proven 1178–1201, had a brilliant career at the court of Henry VI.  The descendants of Trushard had no connection to the "Kästenburg". Other houses of "Burgmannen" took place here, among them since 1256 the ministerial family "Schnittlauch of Kästenburg", the Earls of Zweibrücken (1284) and the Earls of Veldenz (1311).  Especially during the 13th century, larger building projects took place. Nikolaus I was consecrated as Bishop of Speyer in the castle chapel on July 12, 1388. More construction was done at the end of the 14th century and in the second half of the 15th century by the bishops Nikolaus I and Matthias I. The castle was the home for the Episcopalian document archive at the end of the 14th century.  Later the importance of the "Kästenburg" declined, one reason being the erection of the new estate Hanhofen after 1414/20 (later Marientraut). In 1466 the "Kästenburg" was the property of the Bishopric of Speyer, which Prince-elector Friedrich I protected for Bishop Matthias. An inventory taken one or two years before shows the castle still decently equipped.  During the German Peasants' War in 1525 the Kästenburg was occupied and looted, but not destroyed, by the "Nußdorfer Bauernhaufen" (literally translated: Nußdorf peasant bunch). In 1552 it was conquered and burned down by troops of Margrave and mercenary-leader Albrecht Alkibiades of Brandenburg to whom a tribute of 150,000 gulden was denied. Bishop Marquard of Speyer, who was in office from 1560–81, only arranged a very provisional rebuilding of the residential buildings and made the ruin the seat of a forester.  The former fortress was undamaged during the Thirty Years' War, but during War of the Palatinian Succession in September 1688, the abandoned castle was destroyed by French soldiers. It was once more provisionally restored from 1701 to 1703.  In 1797 the castle was declared to be French government property. In 1816 after the Congress of Vienna the ruin became the property of the Kingdom of Bavaria together with the complete "linksrheinische Pfalz" (literally translated: left-Rhine Palatinate). A short time later citizens of Neustadt gave the worthless estate to the Bavarian King Maximilian II as a "wedding present". Because of this, the castle is also called "Maxburg" in colloquial language. In 1844 Bavaria began to rebuild the castle in neo-gothic style, August von Voit had provided the plans.

Hambacher Fest.

In the context of the Hambacher Fest of 1832 the then ruined castle was the focal point of the discontent of the Palatinate people over the repressive measures of the Bavarian administration which had been in office since 1816. The administration had retracted important rights which had been given to the people by French Revolution troops (governing 1797/98-1815). Since the Hambacher Fest, Hambach Castle has been considered a symbol of democracy.

Modern history.

Before the 150th anniversary of the Hambacher Fest in 1982 the castle was completely restored for about 12 million DM (about 6 million €). During a further renovation period 2006-07 before the 175th anniversary in 2007, the castle was closed to visitation for one year. Today the national memorial is a museum and convention centre with about 200,000 visitors per year. During the whole year events and receptions of the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate, the District Bad Dürkheim and the city Neustadt an der Weinstraße take place here. A VIP guest in May 1982 was US President Ronald Reagan with his speech "an die Jugend der Welt" (to the youth of the world). Also Presidents of Germany mostly connect their inaugural visit in Rhineland-Palatinate with a visit to this historic site.  A mention of the "Maxburg" evokes a sense of affinity among students and academics: it is considered a stone symbol of freedom and fraternity especially among members of students' fraternities.  Since 1969 the castle has been the property of the - then newly created - District Bad Dürkheim. In 2002 it became part of a new charity: its owners are now the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the "Bezirksverband Pfalz", the District Bad Dürkheim and the city of Neustadt an der Weinstraße. The charity is supported financially by the Federal Republic of Germany.

Hambach Castle () is a castle near the urban district Hambach of Neustadt an der Weinstraße in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is considered a symbol of the German democracy movement because of the Hambacher Fest which occurred here in 1832.

Das Hambacher Schloss (früher Kästenburg, im Volksmund auch Maxburg) beim Ortsteil Hambach der rheinland-pfälzischen Stadt Neustadt an der Weinstraße wurde im Mittelalter als Burg erbaut und in der Neuzeit schlossartig ausgestaltet. Wegen des 1832 dort ausgerichteten Hambacher Festes gilt es neben der Frankfurter Paulskirche als wichtigstes Symbol der deutschen Demokratiebewegung.


Etymology.

"Mithridates" is the Greek attestation of the Persian name "Mihrdāt", meaning "given by Mithra", the name of the ancient Iranian sun god. The name itself is derived from Old Iranian "Miθra-dāta-".

Ancestry, family and early life.

Mithridates VI was a prince of Persian and Greek ancestry. He claimed descent from Cyrus the Great, the family of Darius the Great, the Regent Antipater, the generals of Alexander the Great as well as the later kings Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Seleucus I Nicator.  Mithridates was born in the Pontic city of Sinope, and was raised in the Kingdom of Pontus. He was the first son among the children born to Laodice VI and Mithridates V of Pontus (reigned 150–120 BC). His father, Mithridates V, was a prince and the son of the former Pontic monarchs Pharnaces I of Pontus and his wife-cousin Nysa. His mother, Laodice VI, was a Seleucid princess and the daughter of the Seleucid monarchs Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his wife-sister Laodice IV.  Mithridates V was assassinated in about 120 BC in Sinope, poisoned by unknown persons at a lavish banquet which he held. He left the kingdom to the joint rule of Mithridates' mother, Laodice VI, Mithridates, and his younger brother, Mithridates Chrestus. Neither Mithridates nor his younger brother were of age, and their mother retained all power as regent for the time being. Laodice VI's regency over Pontus was from 120 BC to 116 BC (even perhaps up to 113 BC) and favored Mithridates Chrestus over Mithridates. During his mother's regency, he escaped from his mother's plots against him, and went into hiding.  Mithridates emerged from hiding, returning to Pontus between 116 BC and 113 BC and was hailed as king. By this time he had grown to become a man of considerable stature and physical strength. He could combine extraordinary energy and determination with a considerable talent for politics, organization and strategy. Mithridates removed his mother and brother from the throne, imprisoning both, becoming the sole ruler of Pontus. Laodice VI died in prison, ostensibly of natural causes. Mithridates Chrestus may have died in prison also, or may have been tried for treason and executed. Mithridates gave both royal funerals. Mithridates first married his younger sister Laodice, aged 16. His goal was to preserve the purity of their bloodline, solidify his claim to the throne, to co-rule over Pontus, and to ensure the succession to his legitimate children.

Early reign.

Mithridates entertained ambitions of making his state the dominant power in the Black Sea and Anatolia. He first subjugated Colchis, a region east of the Black Sea, and prior to 164 BC, an independent kingdom. He then clashed for supremacy on the Pontic steppe with the Scythian King Palacus. The most important centres of Crimea, Tauric Chersonesus and the Bosporan Kingdom readily surrendered their independence in return for Mithridates' promises to protect them against the Scythians, their ancient enemies. After several abortive attempts to invade the Crimea, the Scythians and the allied Rhoxolanoi suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Pontic general Diophantus and accepted Mithridates as their overlord.  The young king then turned his attention to Anatolia, where Roman power was on the rise. He contrived to partition Paphlagonia and Galatia with King Nicomedes III of Bithynia. It was probably on the occasion of the Paphlagonian invasion of 108 BC that Mithridates adopted the Bithynian era for use on his coins in honour of the alliance. This calendar era began with the first Bithynian king Zipoites I in 297 BC. It was certainly in use in Pontus by 96 BC at the latest.  Yet it soon became clear to Mithridates that Nicomedes was steering his country into an anti-Pontic alliance with the expanding Roman Republic. When Mithridates fell out with Nicomedes over control of Cappadocia, and defeated him in a series of battles, the latter was constrained to openly enlist the assistance of Rome. The Romans twice interfered in the conflict on behalf of Nicomedes (95–92 BC), leaving Mithridates, should he wish to continue the expansion of his kingdom, with little choice other than to engage in a future Roman-Pontic war. By this time Mithridates had resolved to expel the Romans from Asia.

Mithridatic Wars.

The next ruler of Bithynia, Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, was a figurehead manipulated by the Romans. Mithridates plotted to overthrow him, but his attempts failed and Nicomedes IV, instigated by his Roman advisors, declared war on Pontus. Rome itself was involved in the Social War, a civil war with its Italian allies. Thus, in all of Roman Asia Province there were only two legions present in Macedonia. These legions combined with Nicomedes IV's army to invade Mithridates' kingdom of Pontus in 89 BC. Mithridates won a decisive victory, scattering the Roman-led forces. His victorious forces were welcomed throughout Anatolia. The following year, 88 BC, Mithridates orchestrated a massacre of Roman and Italian settlers remaining in several Anatolian cities, essentially wiping out the Roman presence in the region. 80,000 people are said to have perished in this massacre. The episode is known as the Asiatic Vespers.  The Kingdom of Pontus comprised a mixed population in its Ionian Greek and Anatolian cities. The royal family moved the capital from Amasya to the Greek city of Sinope. Its rulers tried to fully assimilate the potential of their subjects by showing a Greek face to the Greek world and an Iranian/Anatolian face to the Eastern world. Whenever the gap between the rulers and their Anatolian subjects became greater, they would put emphasis on their Persian origins. In this manner, the royal propaganda claimed heritage both from Persian and Greek rulers, including Cyrus the Great, Darius I of Persia, Alexander the Great and Seleucus I Nicator. Mithridates too posed as the champion of Hellenism, but this was mainly to further his political ambitions; it is no proof that he felt a mission to promote its extension within his domains. Whatever his true intentions, the Greek cities (including Athens) defected to the side of Mithridates and welcomed his armies in mainland Greece, while his fleet besieged the Romans at Rhodes. Neighboring King of Armenia Tigranes the Great established an alliance with Mithridates and married one of Mithridates’ daughters, Cleopatra of Pontus. They would support each other in the coming conflict with Rome.  The Romans responded by organising a large invasion force to defeat him and remove him from power. The First Mithridatic War, fought between 88 BC and 84 BC, saw Lucius Cornelius Sulla force Mithridates VI out of Greece proper. After victory in several battles, Sulla received news of trouble back in Rome posed by his enemy Gaius Marius and hurriedly concluded peace talks with Mithridates. As Sulla returned to Italy Lucius Licinius Murena was left in charge of Roman forces in Anatolia. The lenient peace treaty, which was never ratified by the Senate, allowed Mithridates VI to restore his forces. Murena attacked Mithridates in 83 BC, provoking the Second Mithridatic War from 83 BC to 81 BC. Mithridates defeated Murena's two green legions at the Battle of Halys in 82 BC before peace was again declared by treaty.  When Rome attempted to annex Bithynia (bequested to Rome by its last king) nearly a decade later, Mithridates VI attacked with an even larger army, leading to the Third Mithridatic War from 73 BC to 63 BC. Lucullus was sent against Mithridates and the Romans routed the Pontic forces at the Battle of Cabira in 72 BC, driving Mithridates to exile into King Tigranes' Armenia. While Lucullus was preoccupied fighting the Armenians, Mithridates surged back to retake his kingdom of Pontus by crushing four Roman legions under Valerius Triarius and killing 7,000 Roman soldiers at the Battle of Zela in 67 BC. He was routed by Pompey's legions at the Battle of the Lycus in 66 BC. After this defeat, Mithridates VI fled with a small army to Colchis (modern Georgia) and then over the Caucasus Mountains to Crimea and made plans to raise yet another army to take on the Romans. His eldest living son, Machares, viceroy of Cimmerian Bosporus, was unwilling to aid his father. Mithridates had Machares killed, and Mithridates took the throne of the Bosporan Kingdom. Mithridates then ordered conscription and preparations for war. In 63 BC, Pharnaces II of Pontus, one of his sons, led a rebellion against his father, joined by Roman exiles in the core of Mithridates' Pontic army. Mithridates withdrew to the citadel in Panticapaeum, where he committed suicide. Pompey buried Mithridates in the rock-cut tombs of his ancestors in Amasya, the old capital of Pontus.

Assassination conspiracy.

During the time of the First Mithridatic War, a group of Mithridates' friends plotted to kill him. These were Mynnio and Philotimus of Smyrna, and Cleisthenes and Asclepiodotus of Lesbos. Asclepiodotus changed his mind and became an informant. He arranged to have Mithridates hide under a couch to hear the plot against him. The other conspirators were tortured and executed. Mithridates also killed all of the plotters' families and friends.

Representation of power.

Where his ancestors pursued philhellenism as a means of attaining respectability and prestige among the Hellenistic kingdoms, Mithridates VI made use of Hellenism as a political tool. Both Greeks, Romans and Asians were welcome at his court. As protector of Greek cities on the Black Sea and in Asia against barbarism, Mithridates VI logically became protector of Greece and Greek culture, and used this stance in his clashes with Rome. Strabo mentions that Chersonesus buckled under the pressure of the barbarians and asked Mithridates VI to become its protector (7.4.3. c.308). The most impressive symbol of Mithridates VI's approbation with Greece (Athens in particular) appears at Delos: a heroon dedicated to the Pontic king in 102/1 by the Athenian Helianax, a priest of Poseidon Aisios. A dedication at Delos, by Dicaeus, a priest of Sarapis, was made in 94/93 BC on behalf of the Athenians, Romans, and "King Mithridates Eupator Dionysus". Greek styles mixed with Persian elements also abound on official Pontic coins – Perseus was favored as an intermediary between both worlds, East and West.  Certainly influenced by Alexander the Great, Mithridates VI extended his propaganda from "defender" of Greece to the "great liberator" of the Greek world as war with the Roman Republic became inevitable. The Romans were easily translated into "barbarians", in the same sense as the Persian Empire during the war with Persia in the first half of the 5th century BC and during Alexander's campaign. How many Greeks genuinely bought into this claim will never be known. It served its purpose; at least partially because of it, Mithridates VI was able to fight the First War with Rome on Greek soil, and maintain the allegiance of Greece. His campaign for the allegiance of the Greeks was aided in no small part by his enemy Sulla, who allowed his troops to sack the city of Delphi and plunder many of the city's most famous treasures to help finance his military expenses.

Death.

After Pompey defeated him in Pontus, Mithridates VI fled to the lands north of the Black Sea in the winter of 66 BC in the hope that he could raise a new army and carry on the war through invading Italy by way of the Danube. His preparations proved to be too harsh on the local nobles and populace, and they rebelled against his rule. He reportedly attempted suicide by poison. This attempt failed because of his immunity to the poison. According to Appian's "Roman History", he then requested his Gallic bodyguard and friend, Bituitus, to kill him by the sword:  Cassius Dio's "Roman History" records a different account:  At the behest of Pompey, Mithridates' body was later buried alongside his ancestors (in either Sinope or Amaseia). Mount Mithridat in the central Kerch and the town of Yevpatoria in Crimea commemorate his name.

Mithridates' antidote.

In his youth, after the assassination of his father Mithridates V in 120 BC, Mithridates is said to have lived in the wilderness for seven years, inuring himself to hardship. While there, and after his accession, he cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses of the same. He invented a complex "universal antidote" against poisoning; several versions are described in the literature. Aulus Cornelius Celsus gives one in his "De Medicina" and names it "Antidotum Mithridaticum", whence English "mithridate". Pliny the Elder's version comprised 54 ingredients to be placed in a flask and matured for at least two months. After Mithridates' death in 63 BC, many imperial Roman physicians claimed to possess and improve on the original formula, which they touted as Mithradatium. In keeping with most medical practices of his era, Mithridates' anti-poison routines included a religious component; they were supervised by the "Agari", a group of Scythian shamans who never left him. Mithridates was reportedly guarded in his sleep by a horse, a bull, and a stag, which would whinny, bellow, and bleat whenever anyone approached the royal bed.

Mithridates as polyglot.

In Pliny the Elder's account of famous polyglots, Mithridates could speak the languages of all the twenty-two nations he governed. This reputation led to the use of Mithridates' name as title in some later works on comparative linguistics, such as Conrad Gessner's "Mithridates de differentis linguis" (1555), and Adelung and Vater's "Mithridates oder allgemeine Sprachenkunde" (1806–1817).

Wives, mistresses and children.

Mithridates VI had wives and mistresses, by whom he had several children. The names he gave his children are a representation of his Persian and Greek heritage and ancestry.  His first wife was his sister Laodice. They were married from 115/113 BC until about 90 BC. They had several children. Their sons were Mithridates, Arcathius, Machares and Pharnaces II of Pontus. Their daughters were Cleopatra of Pontus (sometimes called Cleopatra the Elder to distinguish her from her sister of the same name) and Drypetina (a diminutive form of "Drypetis"). Drypetina was Mithridates VI's most devoted daughter. Her baby teeth never fell out, so she had a double set of teeth.  His second wife was a Greek Macedonian Noblewoman, Monime. They were married from about 89/88 BC until 72/71 BC and had a daughter, Athenais, who married King Ariobarzanes II of Cappadocia. His next two wives were also Greek: he was married to his third wife Berenice of Chios, from 86–72/71 BC, and to his fourth wife Stratonice of Pontus, from sometime after 86 to 63 BC. Stratonice bore Mithridates a son Xiphares. His fifth wife is unknown. His sixth wife Hypsicratea was Caucasian, and they were married from an unknown date to 63 BC.  One of his mistresses was the Galatian Celtic Princess Adobogiona the Elder. By Adobogiona, Mithridates had two children: a son called Mithridates I of the Bosporus and a daughter called Adobogiona the Younger.  His sons born from his concubines were Cyrus, Xerxes, Darius, Ariarathes IX of Cappadocia, Artaphernes, Oxathres, Phoenix (Mithridates’ son by a mistress of Syrian descent), and Exipodras, named after kings of the Persian Empire, which he claimed ancestry from. His daughters born from his concubines were Nysa, Eupatra, Cleopatra the Younger, Mithridatis and Orsabaris. Nysa and Mithridates, were engaged to the Egyptian Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy XII Auletes and his brother Ptolemy of Cyprus.  In 63 BC, when the Kingdom of Pontus was annexed by the Roman general Pompey, the remaining sisters, wives, mistresses, and children of Mithridates VI in Pontus were put to death. Plutarch, writing in his "Lives" (Pompey, v.45), states that Mithridates' sister and five of his children took part in Pompey's triumphal procession on his return to Rome in 61 BC.  The Cappadocian Greek nobleman and high priest of the temple-state of Comana, Cappadocia, Archelaus was descended from Mithridates VI. He claimed to be a son of Mithridates VI; but the chronology suggests that Archelaus may actually have been a maternal grandson of the Pontic king, and the son of Mithridates VI's favorite general, who may have married one of the daughters of Mithridates VI.

Mithridates or Mithradates VI ( or ; ; 135–63 BC), also known as Mithradates the Great (Megas) and Eupator Dionysius, was king of Pontus and Armenia Minor in northern Anatolia from about 120–63 BC. Mithridates is remembered as one of the Roman Republic’s most formidable and successful enemies, who engaged three of the prominent generals from the late Roman Republic in the Mithridatic Wars: Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus.

Mithridates VI. ( und ) (* ca. 132 v. Chr. in Sinope; † 63 v. Chr. in Pantikapaion), war von ca. 120 v. Chr. bis zu seinem Tod König von Pontos. Pontos wurde unter seiner Herrschaft das größte und einflussreichste Königreich Kleinasiens und stellte die Vorherrschaft Roms in Kleinasien eine kurze Zeit in Frage. Nach Mithridates benannt sind die drei mithridatischen Kriege gegen das Römische Reich.