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Albanian National Awakening

The Albanian National Awakening (Rilindja or Rilindja Kombëtare), commonly known as the Albanian Renaissance or Albanian Revival, is a period throughout the 19th and 20th century of a cultural, political, and social movement in the Albanian history where the Albanian people gathered strength to establish an independent cultural and political life, as well as the country of Albania. Prior to the rise of nationalism, Albania remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries and the Ottoman authorities suppressed any expression of national unity or institutional national conscience by the Albanian people. There is some debate among experts regarding when the Albanian nationalist movement should be considered to have started. Some sources attribute its origins to the revolts against centralisation in the 1830s, others to the publication of the first attempt by Naum Veqilharxhi at a standardized alphabet for Albanian in 1844, or to the collapse of the League of Prizren during the Eastern Crisis in 1881. Various compromise positions between these three theses have also emerged, such as one view positing that Albanian nationalism had foundations that dated earlier but "consolidated" as a movement during the Eastern Crisis (1878–1881).

Another view is that Albanian nationalism's roots "sprouted" in the reforms of the first decades of the 19th century, and that Albanian nationalism emerged properly in the 1830s and 1840s, when it was a romantic movement for societal reform that was initially mainly driven by Albanians publishing from abroad; it transformed into an overt political national movement in the 1870s. On 20 December 1912, the Conference of Ambassadors in London recognized an independent Albania within its present-day borders.

1831–1878
After the fall of the Yanina Pashalik, the power and influence of the Albanian beys had faded. The remaining beys thus attempted to restore their rule. An assembly was held in Berat in 1828. In this Convention, the leaders were Zylyftar Poda and Shahin bej Delvina. The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent the rise of local beys, which presented a menace to centralised power. In 1830, the Sublime Porte sent an expeditionary force under the command of Reşid Mehmed Pasha to suppress the local Albanian beys. On hearing the news of the Ottoman forces' arrival, the three most powerful local chiefs, Zylyftar Poda, accompanied by the remains of Ali Pasha's faction, Veli Bey (whose power base was around Yannina), and Arslan Bey, along with other less powerful beys, began to prepare their forces to resist a probable Ottoman attack. Realising the seriousness of the situation and the danger of a general uprising, Reşid Mehmed Pasha invited the Albanian beys to a meeting on the pretext that they would be rewarded for their loyalty to the Porte. The beys however, were all killed along with their guards.

The last Albanian pashalik to fall was the Scutari Pashalik. The Bushati dynasty rule ended when an Ottoman army under Mehmed Reshid Pasha besieged the Rozafa Castle and forced Mustafa Reshiti to surrender (1831). The Albanian defeat ended a planned alliance between the Albanian beys and the Bosnian nobility, who were similarly seeking autonomy. Instead of the pashalik, the vilayets of Scutari and that of Kosovo were created.

Early revolts
By removing the Timar system, the Sublime Porte intended to strengthen its central government and reclaim the power of the Empire which had been severely weakened due to economic and social backwardness, from the exploitative system and from the ongoing uprisings of peoples. Reforms began to be implemented in Albania since the 1830s. They gave a blow to the ranks of the old military feudal class which had been weakened from Ottoman expeditions from 1822 to 1831. Parts of the feudal heads that had launched revolts were eliminated, others were exiled and those who could, had escaped from the country. All their properties were declared state-owned. This gave rise to new landowners who had connections to the Sublime Porte. Due to the Ottoman occupation, the ideology of Nationalism developed difficultly and were limited in Albanian-inhabited territories in the Balkan. They found more favorable development conditions outside, in the capital of the Empire, Istanbul, Italy, other Balkan countries etc. The national ideas became apparent via popular uprisings against the Tanzimat reforms, but they still did not reach a period to be formulated in full policy of the National Movement. They were more expressed with literary works and studies of the Albanian people, history, language and culture. In their writings, the Rilindas fought to invoke feelings of love for the country by exalting patriotic traditions and episodes of history, especially that of the Skanderbeg era and folk culture; They devoted a lot of attention to native language and Albanian schools as a means to affirm individuality and national vindication.

The centralising reforms of the Ottoman government were implemented immediately with the deployment of civil and military personnel in Albania. This was met with resistance by the local population which first began with the refusal to execute orders and quickly transformed into armed rebellion. After two local uprisings that burst in the beginning of 1833 in Kolonjë and in Dibër were repressed, uprisings occurred in Berat-Vlorë-Delvinë-Çamëria area in larger scales than before. The actions of the Ottoman army were driven by terror and increased unhappiness in the local population, who were aptly anticipated to revolt again. Fugitive agitators circulated across the provinces to organise further rebellions, calling on the people to prepare for war. Others were sent to neighbouring provinces to secure their presence by pointing out they are "brothers." To get ahead of the danger Of the new outbreak of popular hate, at the beginning of 1844, the Ottoman authorities urged urgent action. They concentrated large military forces at various points, especially in Bitola where the state was worse. By the end of March 1844, the new uprising erupted but was suppressed.

In the ensuing years there were bursts of armed insurrections throughout Albania against the Ottoman centralising reforms, and especially against the burden of the new taxes imposed and against the obligatory military service. But, at the same time and within the bosom of these insurrections, preliminary national claims started to spread. These claims came forth especially in the revolt of 1847, which assumed great proportions in two zones of Southern Albania: in the Gjirokastra region led by Zenel Gjoleka and in that of Berat led by Rapo Hekali.

Formation

There is some debate among experts regarding when the Albanian nationalist movement should be considered to have started. Some sources attribute its origins to the revolts against centralization in the 1830s, others to the publication of the first attempt by Naum Veqilharxhi at a standardized alphabet for Albanian in 1844, or to the collapse of the League of Prizren during the Eastern Crisis in 1881. Various compromise positions between these three theses have also emerged, such as one view positing that Albanian nationalism had foundations that dated earlier but "consolidated" as a movement during the Eastern Crisis (1878–1881). Another view is that Albanian nationalism's roots "sprouted" in the reforms of the first decades of the 19th century but Albanian nationalism emerged properly in the 1830s and 1840s as a romantic movement for societal reform that was initially mainly driven by Albanians publishing from a broad, and it transformed into an overt political national movement in the 1870s. According to the view that the Rilindja evolved in the 1870s, because of religious ties of the Albanian majority of the population with the ruling Ottomans and the lack of an Albanian state in past, nationalism was less developed and the national movement was greatly delayed among Albanians in the 19th century compared to neighbouring southeast European nations, such as the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians. The Rilindja was a continuation of the Albanian revolts and cultural activities for independence that took place during the entire Ottoman period. The centralist Tanzimat reforms, which were aimed at replacing local Albanian functionaries and suppression of Albanian culture sowed the seeds of the Rilindja. In that period an intellectual and merchant class with the new ideas that were emerging in Europe was shaped, empowering the existing struggle against the Ottoman rule. Political nationalism and economic liberalism were two modern platforms that inspired many Albanian intellectuals.

The French Revolution left a socio-economic impact on the Albanian society, with many Albanian intellectuals highlighting ideals of the Revolution and important figures such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. During that time, the destruction of the Pashalik of Yanina and the growing Greek nationalist ambitions fueled reaction among the Albanian intellectual elite. The son of one merchant family, Naum Veqilharxhi, started his work to write an alphabet intended to help Albanians overcome religious and political issues in 1824 or 1825. Veqilharxhi thought that the continuous occupations had caused many problems to Albanian education. His work facilitated the diffusion of national awareness based on the unity of kin, identity of language and traditions. Some Albanian patriots, among them many from the Arbëreshë communities in Italy, built contacts with Italian democratic and revolutionary forces. This helped the Rilindja movement to expand beyond the frame of Albanian-Ottoman relations, and become an international issue. The Risorgimento actually served as an inspiration for the movement. The 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War dealt a decisive blow to Ottoman power in the Balkan Peninsula. The Albanians' fear that the lands they inhabited would be partitioned among Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece fueled the rise of the Albanian national movement.

The first postwar treaty, the abortive Treaty of San Stefano signed on March 3, 1878, assigned Albanian-populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom blocked the arrangement because it awarded Russia a predominant position in the Balkans and thereby upset the European balance of power. A peace conference to settle the dispute was held later in the year in Berlin.

The Treaty of San Stefano triggered profound anxiety among the Albanians meanwhile, and it spurred their leaders to organize a defense of the lands they inhabited. In the spring of 1878, influential Albanians in Constantinople—including Abdyl Frashëri, one of the first political ideologues of the National Revival-organized a secret committee to direct the Albanians' resistance. In May the group called for a general meeting of representatives from all the Albanian-populated lands. On June 10, 1878, about eighty delegates, mostly Muslim religious leaders, clan chiefs, and other influential people from the four Albanian-populated Ottoman vilayets, met in Prizren. The delegates declared the formation of the League of Prizren which consisted of two branches: the Prizren branch and the southern branch. The Prizren branch was led by Iljas Dibra and it had representatives from the areas of Kirçova (Kicevo), Kalkandelen (Tetovo), Pristine (Pristina), Mitroviça (Mitrovica), Viçitirin (Vushtrri), Üsküp (Skopje), Gilan (Gjilan), Manastir (Bitola), Debar (Debar) and Gostivar. The southern branch, led by Abdyl Frashëri consisted of sixteen representatives from the areas of Kolonjë, Korçë, Arta, Berat, Parga, Gjirokastër, Përmet, Paramythia, Filiates, Margariti, Vlorë, Tepelenë and Delvinë. The League of Prizren was set under the direction of a central committee that had the power to impose taxes and raise an army. The League of Prizren worked to gain autonomy for the Albanians and to thwart implementation of the Treaty of San Stefano, but not to create an independent Albania. The participants wanted to return to the status quo before the start of Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. The main aim was to defend from immediate dangers. Among other things the League requested an official status for the Albanian language in the Albanian-inhabited territories and the foundation of Albanian schools.

At first the Ottoman authorities supported the League of Prizren, but the Sublime Porte pressed the delegates to declare themselves to be first and foremost Ottomans rather than Albanians. Some delegates supported this position and advocated emphasizing Muslim solidarity and the defense of Muslim lands, including present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other representatives, under Frashëri's leadership, focused on working toward Albanian autonomy and creating a sense of Albanian identity that would cut across religious and tribal lines. Because conservative Muslims constituted a majority of the representatives, the League of Prizren supported maintenance of Ottoman suzerainty.

In July 1878, the league sent a memorandum to the Great Powers at the Congress of Berlin, which was called to settle the unresolved problems of Turkish War, demanding that all Albanians be united in a single autonomous Ottoman province. The Congress of Berlin ignored the league's memorandum. The congress ceded to Montenegro the cities of Bar and Podgorica and areas around the mountain towns of Gusinje and Plav, which Albanian leaders considered Albanian territory. Serbia also gained some Albanian-inhabited lands. The Albanians, the vast majority loyal to the empire, vehemently opposed the territorial losses. Albanians also feared the possible occupation of Epirus by Greece. The League of Prizren organized armed resistance efforts in Gusinje, Plav, Scutari, Prizren, Preveza, and Ioannina. A border tribesman at the time described the frontier as "floating on blood."

In August 1878, the Congress of Berlin ordered a commission to trace a border between the Ottoman Empire and Montenegro. The congress also directed Greece and the Ottoman Empire to negotiate a solution to their border dispute. The Great Powers expected the Ottomans to ensure that the Albanians would respect the new borders, ignoring that the sultan's military forces were too weak to enforce any settlement and that the Ottomans could only benefit by the Albanians' resistance. The Sublime Porte, in fact, armed the Albanians and allowed them to levy taxes, and when the Ottoman army withdrew from areas awarded to Montenegro under the Treaty of Berlin, Roman Catholic Albanian tribesmen simply took control. The Albanians' successful resistance to the treaty forced the Great Powers to alter the border, returning Gusinje and Plav to the Ottoman Empire and granting Montenegro the Albanian-populated coastal town of Ulcinj. There the Albanians refused to surrender as well. Finally, the Great Powers blockaded Ulcinj by sea and pressured the Ottoman authorities to bring the Albanians under control. The Great Powers decided in 1881 to cede Greece only Thessaly and the district of Arta.

Faced with growing international pressure "to pacify" the refractory Albanians, the sultan dispatched a large army under Dervish Turgut Pasha to suppress the League of Prizren and deliver Ulcinj to Montenegro. Albanians loyal to the empire supported the Sublime Porte's military intervention. In April 1881, Dervish Pasha's 10,000 men captured Prizren and later crushed the resistance at Ulcinj. The League of Prizren's leaders and their families were arrested and deported. Frashëri, who originally received a death sentence, was imprisoned until 1885 and exiled until his death seven years later. In the three years it survived, the League of Prizren effectively made the Great Powers aware of the Albanian people and their national interests. Montenegro and Greece received much less Albanian-populated territory than they would have won without the league's resistance.

Formidable barriers frustrated Albanian leaders' efforts to instill in their people an Albanian rather than an Ottoman identity. Divided into four vilayets, Albanians had no common geographical or political nerve centre. The Albanians' religious differences forced nationalist leaders to give the national movement a purely secular character that alienated religious leaders. The most significant factor uniting the Albanians, their spoken language, lacked a standard literary form and even a standard alphabet. Each of the three available choices, the Latin, Cyrillic, and Arabic scripts, implied different political and religious orientations opposed by one or another element of the population. In 1878 there were no Albanian-language schools in the most developed of the Albanian-inhabited areas and the choice for education was between Orthodox Church schools, where education was in Greek and Ottoman government schools where education was in Turkish.

The Ottoman Empire continued to crumble after the Congress of Berlin and Sultan Abdül Hamid II resorted to repression to maintain order. The authorities strove without success to control the political situation in the empire's Albanian-populated lands, arresting suspected nationalist activists. When the sultan refused Albanian demands for unification of the four Albanian-populated vilayets, Albanian leaders reorganized the League of Prizren and incited uprisings that brought the Albanian-populated lands, especially Kosovo, to near anarchy. The imperial authorities disbanded a successor organisation Besa-Besë (League of Peja) founded in 1897, executed its president Haxhi Zeka in 1902, and banned Albanian-language books and correspondence. In Macedonia, where Bulgarian-, Greek-, and Serbian-backed guerrillas were fighting Ottoman authorities and one another for control, Muslim Albanians suffered attacks, and Albanian guerrilla groups retaliated. Albanian leaders meeting in Bitola during 1905 established the Secret Committee for the Liberation of Albania. In 1905, priest Kristo Negovani who had attained Albanian national sentiments abroad returned to his native village of Negovan and introduced the Albanian language for the first time in Orthodox liturgy. For his efforts Negovani was killed by a Greek guerilla band on orders from Bishop Karavangelis of Kastoria that aroused a nationalist response with the Albanian guerilla band of Bajo Topulli killing the Metropolitan of Korçë, Photios.

In 1906 opposition groups in the Ottoman Empire emerged, one of which evolved into the Committee of Union and Progress, more commonly known as the Young Turks, which proposed restoring constitutional government in Constantinople, by revolution if necessary. In July 1908, a month after a Young Turk rebellion in Macedonia supported by an Albanian uprising in Kosovo and Macedonia escalated into widespread insurrection and mutiny within the imperial army, Sultan Abdül Hamid II agreed to demands by the Young Turks to restore constitutional rule. Many Albanians participated in the Young Turks uprising, hoping that it would gain their people autonomy within the empire. The Young Turks lifted the Ottoman ban on Albanian-language schools and on writing the Albanian language. As a consequence, Albanian intellectuals meeting in Bitola in 1908 chose the Latin alphabet as a standard script. The Young Turks, however, were set on maintaining the empire and not interested in making concessions to the myriad nationalist groups within its borders. After securing the abdication of Abdül Hamid II in April 1909, the new authorities levied taxes, outlawed guerrilla groups and nationalist societies, and attempted to extend Constantinople's control over the northern Albanian mountain men. In addition, the Young Turks legalized the bastinado, or beating with a stick, even for misdemeanors, banned carrying rifles, and denied the existence of an Albanian nationality. The new government also appealed for Islamic solidarity to break the Albanians' unity and used the Muslim clergy to try to impose the Arabic alphabet.

The Albanians refused to submit to the Young Turks' campaign to "Ottomanise" them by force. New Albanian uprisings began in Kosovo and the northern mountains in early April 1910. Ottoman forces quashed these rebellions after three months, outlawed Albanian organizations, disarmed entire regions, and closed down schools and publications. Montenegro held ambitions of future expansion into neighbouring Albanian-populated lands and supported a 1911 uprising by the mountain tribes against the Young Turks regime that grew into a widespread revolt. Unable to control the Albanians by force, the Ottoman government granted concessions on schools, military recruitment, and taxation and sanctioned the use of the Latin script for the Albanian language. The government refused, however, to unite the four Albanian-inhabited vilayets.

Revolts of 1910 and 1911

In 1910, due to the new centralisation policies of the Young Turk Ottoman government towards Albanians, local Albanian leaders Isa Boletini and Idriz Seferi started an uprising against the Ottomans in the Kosovo vilayet. After subduing the Ottoman garrisons in towns such as Prishtina and Ferizaj, the Ottoman government declared martial law and sent a military expedition of 16,000 men led by Shefket Turgut Pasha. Simultaneously, forces under Idriz Seferi captured the Kaçanik pass. They successfully defended the pass from the Ottoman expeditionary force thus, forcing them to send a force of 40,000 men. After two weeks the pass was lost to the Ottomans After fierce fighting, the rebels retreated to Drenica and the Ottomans seized control of Prizren, Gjakova and Peja Afterwards Ottoman forces incurred into Northern Albania and Macedonia. Ottoman forces were stopped for more than 20 days in the Agri Pass, from the Albanian forces of Shalë, Shoshë, Nikaj and Mërtur areas, led by Prel Tuli, Mehmet Shpendi, and Marash Delia. Unable to repress their resistance, this column took another way to Scutari, passing from the Pukë region. On July 24, 1910, Ottoman forces entered the city of Scutari. During this period martial courts were put in action and summary executions took place. A large number of firearms were collected and many villages and properties were burned by the Ottoman army.

In 1911, the Albanian National Committee was formed. In a meeting of the committee held in Podgorica from 2 to 4 February 1911, under the leadership of Nikolla bey Ivanaj and Sokol Baci Ivezaj, it was decided to organise an Albanian uprising. Terenzio Tocci gathered the Mirditë chieftains on 26/27 April 1911 in Orosh, proclaimed the independence of Albania, raised the flag of Albania (according to Robert Elsie it was raised for the first time after Skanderbeg's death) and established the provisional government. Shefqet Turgut Pasha wanted to meet this threat and returned to the region with 8.000 soldiers. As soon as he reached Shkodër on 11 May, he issued a general proclamation which declared martial law and offered an amnesty for all rebels (except for Malësor chieftains) if they immediately return to their homes. After Ottoman troops entered the area Tocci fled the empire abandoning his activities. After months of intense fighting, the rebels were trapped and decided to escape to Montenegro.

On 23 June 1911, in the village of Gerče, in Montenegro, an assembly of the tribal leaders of the revolt was held to adopt the "Greçë Memorandum". This memorandum was signed by 22 Albanian chieftains, four from each tribe of Hoti, Grudë and Skrel, five from Kastrati, three from Klemendi and two from Shalë.

Requests of the memorandum included:

The Memorandum was submitted to the representatives of Great Powers in Cetinje, Montenegro.
 * 1) general amnesty for all participants in the revolt
 * 2) demand for recognition of the Albanian ethnicity
 * 3) election of the deputies of Albanian ethnicity for the Ottoman Parliament according to the proportional system
 * 4) Albanian language in schools
 * 5) governor and other appointed high officials have to know Albanian language and all other positions in the administration have to be reserved only for people of Albanian ethnicity
 * 6) men who are ethnic Albanians to serve army only in Albania during the peacetime
 * 7) confiscated arms to be returned
 * 8) all Albanian property damaged by Ottoman troops to be compensated

Ottoman representatives managed to deal with the leaders of Albanian rebels in Kosovo Vilayet and Scutari Vilayet separately, because they were not united and lacked central control. The Ottomans promised to meet most Albanian demands, limited mainly to Catholic highlanders like general amnesty, the opening of Albanian language schools, and the restriction that military service was to be performed only in the territory of the vilayets with substantial Albanian population. Other demands included requiring administrative officers to learn the Albanian language, and that the possession of weapons would be permitted.

Revolts of 1912

The Albanian Revolt of 1912 was one of many Albanian revolts in the Ottoman Empire and lasted from January until August 1912. Albanian soldiers and officers deserted the Ottoman military service and joined the insurgents. After a series of successes, Albanian revolutionaries managed to capture the city of Skopje, the administrative centre of Kosovo vilayet within the Ottoman rule.

On August 9, 1912, Albanian rebels presented a new list of demands (the so-called list of Fourteen Points), related to the Albanian vilayet, that can be summarized as follows:
 * autonomous system of administration and justice of four vilayets populated with Albanians (Albanian vilayet)
 * Albanians to perform military service only in territory of four vilayets populated with Albanians, except in time of war
 * employing officials who know local language and customs, but not necessarily Albanians,
 * establishment of new licees and agricultural schools in the bigger districts
 * reorganisation and modernisation of the religious schools and use of Albanian language in secular schools
 * freedom to establish private schools and societies
 * the development of trade, agriculture and public works
 * general amnesty for all Albanians involved in revolt
 * court martial for those Ottoman officers who attempted to suppress the revolt

The revolt ended when the Ottoman government agreed to fulfill the rebels' demands, except of the last one, on September 4, 1912. The autonomous system of administration and justice of the four vilayets with a substantial Albanian population was accepted by the Ottoman Empire, however they avoided granting autonomy to a unitary Albanian vilayet which was part of the Albanian National Awakening agenda during the League of Prizren.

Independence

The First Balkan War, however, erupted before a final settlement could be worked out. The Balkan allies—Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Greece—quickly drove the Ottomans to the walls of Constantinople. The Montenegrins surrounded Scutari.

An assembly of Muslim and Christian leaders meeting in Vlorë in November 1912 declared Albania an independent country. The complete text of the declaration was: In Vlora, on the 15th/28th of November. That time the President was Ismail Kemal Bey, in which he spoke of the great perils facing Albania today, the delegates have all decided unanimously that Albania, as of today, should be on her own, free and independent. A second session of the Assembly of Vlorë was held on December 4, 1912. During that session members of the assembly established the Provisional Government of Albania. It was a government that consisted of ten members, led by Ismail Qemali until his resignation on 22 January 1914. The Assembly established the Senate (Pleqësi) with an advisory role to the government, consisting of 18 members of the Assembly. An ambassadorial conference that opened in London in December decided the major questions concerning the Albanians after the First Balkan War in its concluding Treaty of London of May 1913. The Albanian delegation in London was assisted by Aubrey Herbert, MP, a passionate advocate of their cause.

One of Serbia's primary war aims was to gain an Adriatic port, preferably Durrës. Austria-Hungary and Italy opposed giving Serbia an outlet to the Adriatic, which they feared would become a Russian port. They instead supported the creation of an autonomous Albania. Russia backed Serbia's and Montenegro's claims to Albanian-inhabited lands. Britain and Germany remained neutral. Chaired by Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, the ambassadors' conference initially decided to create an autonomous Albania under continued Ottoman rule, but with the protection of the Great Powers. This solution, as detailed in the Treaty of London, was abandoned in the summer of 1913 when it became obvious that the Ottoman Empire would, in the Second Balkan War, lose Macedonia and hence its overland connection with the Albanian-inhabited lands.

In July 1913, the Great Powers opted to recognise an independent, neutral Albanian state ruled by a constitutional monarchy and under the protection of the Great Powers. The August 1913 Treaty of Bucharest established that independent Albania was a country with borders that gave the new state about 28,000 square kilometres of territory and a population of 800,000. Montenegro had to surrender Scutari after having lost 10,000 men in the process of taking the town. Serbia reluctantly succumbed to an ultimatum from Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy to withdraw from northern Albania. The treaty, however, left large areas with majority Albanian populations, notably Kosovo and western Macedonia, outside the new state and failed to solve the region's nationality problems.

Arts

The Albanian Renaissance is one of the most valuable periods in Albanian culture, a period characterised by a cultural, economic, political and social flourishing of Albanian consciousness within the Ottoman Empire. The period is directly connected with Jorgji Panariti and Kolë Idromeno, the most renowned representatives of the Albanian Renaissance.

Literature

Albanian intellectuals in the nineteenth century began devising a single, standard Albanian literary language and making demands that it be used in schools. In Constantinople in 1879, Sami Frashëri founded a cultural and educational organization, the Society for the Printing of Albanian Writings, whose membership comprised Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox Albanians. Naim Frashëri, the most-renowned Albanian poet, joined the society and wrote and edited textbooks. Albanian émigrés in Bulgaria, Egypt, Italy, Romania, and the United States supported the society's work. The Greeks, who dominated the education of Orthodox Albanians, joined the Turks in suppressing the Albanians' culture, especially Albanian-language education. In 1886 the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople threatened to excommunicate anyone found reading or writing Albanian, and priests taught that God would not understand prayers uttered in Albanian. In 1844-5 however, Albanian intellectual Naum Veqilharxhi published his work Evëtori Shqip Fort i Shkurtër (English: The short Albanian Evëtor) which was an alphabet that included thirty three letters which were invented by himself. He avoided the use of Latin, Greek or Arabic alphabets and characters because of their religious associations and divisions. In November 1869, a Commission for the Alphabet of the Albanian Language was gathered in Istanbul.

One of its members was Kostandin Kristoforidhi and the main purpose of the Commission was the creation of a unique alphabet for all the Albanians. In January 1870 the Commission ended its work of the standardization of the alphabet, which was mainly in Latin letters. A plan on the creation of textbooks and spread of Albanian schools was drafted. However this plan was not realized, because the Ottoman Government wouldn't finance the expenses for the establishment of such schools. Although this commission had gathered and delivered an alphabet in 1870, the writers from the North still used the Latin-based alphabet, whereas in Southern Albania writers used mostly the Greek letters. The turning point was the aftermath of the League of Prizren (1878) events when in 1879 Sami Frashëri and Naim Frashëri formed the Society for the Publication of Albanian Writings. Members of the society Sami Frashëri, Naim Frashëri and Jani Vreto published the Primer of the Albanian language and other works in Albanian that dealt with the humanities, natural sciences and so on. After a long time struggling with obstacles coming from the Ottoman authorities, the first secular school of Albanian language was opened on the initiative of individual teachers and other intellectuals on 7 March 1887 in Korce. Diamanti Tërpo, a citizen of the city, offered her house to serve as a school building. The first director and teacher of the school was Pandeli Sotiri.

One year earlier, the Albanian dictionary (Fjalori i Gjuhës Shqipe) by Kostandin Kristoforidhi had been published in 1904. The dictionary had been drafted 25 years before its publication and was written in the Greek alphabet. In 1908, the Congress of Monastir was held by Albanian intellectuals in Bitola (in modern-day North Macedonia). The Congress was hosted by the Bashkimi (unity) club, and prominent delegates included Gjergj Fishta, Ndre Mjeda, Mit'hat Frashëri, Sotir Peçi, Shahin Kolonja, and Gjergj D. Qiriazi. There was much debate and the contending alphabets were Istanbul, Bashkimi and Agimi. However, the Congress was unable to make a clear decision and opted for a compromise solution of using both the widely used Istanbul, with minor changes, and a modified version of the Bashkimi alphabet. Usage of the alphabet of Istanbul declined rapidly and it was essentially extinct over the following decades. The Bashkimi alphabet is at the origin of the official alphabet of the Albanian language in use today.

A major role during the Albanian National Awakening was played by literature, which served to many Rilindas as a way to express their ideas. It was imbued with the spirit of national liberation, with the nostalgia of the émigré and the rhetorical pathos of past heroic wars. This literary school developed the poetry most. Regarding the motifs and poetical forms, its hero was the ethical man, the fighting Albanian, and to a lesser degree the tragic man. Because its major purpose was to awaken national consciousness it was closely linked with the folklore tradition.

Literature

 * Library of Congress Country Study of Albania
 * Schwandner-Sievers and Fischer (eds.), Albanian Identities: Myth and History, Indiana University Press (2002), ISBN 0-253-21570-6.
 * Sette, Alessandro. "L'Albania nella strategia diplomatica italiana (1871-1915)", Nuova Rivista Storica, 102, I (2018): 321–378.
 * Schwandner-Sievers and Fischer (eds.), Albanian Identities: Myth and History, Indiana University Press (2002), ISBN 0-253-21570-6.
 * Sette, Alessandro. "L'Albania nella strategia diplomatica italiana (1871-1915)", Nuova Rivista Storica, 102, I (2018): 321–378.
 * Schwandner-Sievers and Fischer (eds.), Albanian Identities: Myth and History, Indiana University Press (2002), ISBN 0-253-21570-6.
 * Sette, Alessandro. "L'Albania nella strategia diplomatica italiana (1871-1915)", Nuova Rivista Storica, 102, I (2018): 321–378.
 * Schwandner-Sievers and Fischer (eds.), Albanian Identities: Myth and History, Indiana University Press (2002), ISBN 0-253-21570-6.
 * Sette, Alessandro. "L'Albania nella strategia diplomatica italiana (1871-1915)", Nuova Rivista Storica, 102, I (2018): 321–378.

title: Albanian National Awakening


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Talk:List of castles in England

Maiden Castle
Does Maiden Castle count? It's more of a hill fort than a castle, but... --Steinsky 22:48, 7 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Winchester Palace
Is Winchester Palace a palace or a castle? It seems to be a Palace... Ian Cairns 10:58, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Condition
I notice Norwich is described as 'intact'. Since only the keep really survives (museum model showing the missing baileys) I wonder if that's the right term. Would 'ruin' fit the bill or is that being used for structures which are a bit more tumble down? Richard Nevell (talk) 22:01, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

possible castle in Wednesbury
According to [|[1]], there was once a castle in Wednesbury, Wolverhampton. Should I add it into this article?

-Paleofroggy, 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paleofroggy (talk • contribs) 16:55, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of castles in England


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Shkodër (disambiguation)

 Shkodër or Shkodra is a city and municipality in the northwest of Albania.

Shkodër or Shkodra may also refer to:

 * Shkodër County, first-level administrative division of Albania
 * Shkodër District, former administrative division of Albania
 * Lake of Shkodër, the largest lake in Southern Europe

title: Shkodër (disambiguation)


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Citizens' assemblies of the Roman Republic

The legislative assemblies of the Roman Republic were political institutions in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the contemporary historian Polybius, it was the people (and thus the assemblies) who had the final say regarding the election of magistrates, the enactment of Roman laws, the carrying out of capital punishment, the declaration of war and peace, and the creation (or dissolution) of alliances. Under the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the people (and thus the assemblies) held the ultimate source of sovereignty.

Since the Romans used a form of direct democracy, citizens, and not elected representatives, voted before each assembly. As such, the citizen-electors had no power, other than to cast a vote. Each assembly was presided over by a single Roman Magistrate, and as such, it was the presiding magistrate who made all decisions on matters of procedure and legality. Ultimately, the presiding magistrate's power over the assembly was nearly absolute. The only check on that power came in the form of vetoes handed down by other magistrates.

In the Roman system of direct democracy, two primary types of gatherings were used to vote on legislative, electoral, and judicial matters. The first was the Assembly (comitia), which was a gathering that was deemed to represent the entire Roman people, even if it did not contain all of the Roman citizens or, like the comitia curiata, excluded a particular class of Roman citizens (the plebs). The second was the Council (concilium), which was a gathering of citizens of a specific class. In contrast, the Convention was an unofficial forum for communication. Conventions were simply forums where Romans met for specific unofficial purposes, such as, for example, to hear a political speech. Voters always assembled first into Conventions to hear debates and conduct other business before voting, and then into Assemblies or Councils to actually vote.

Assembly procedure

There were no set dates to hold assemblies, but notice had to be given beforehand if the assembly was to be considered formal. Elections had to be announced 17 days before the election took place. Likewise, 17 days had to pass between the proposal of legislation and its enactment by an assembly. In addition to the presiding magistrate, several additional magistrates were often present to act as assistants. There were also religious officials known as augurs either in attendance or on-call, who would be available to help interpret any signs from the gods (omens). On several known occasions, presiding magistrates used the claim of unfavorable omens as an excuse to suspend a session that was not going the way they wanted. Any decision made by a presiding magistrate could be vetoed by a magistrate known as a Plebeian Tribune. In addition, decisions made by presiding magistrates could also be vetoed by higher-ranking magistrates.

On the day of the vote, the electors first assembled into their conventions for debate and campaigning. In the Conventions, the electors were not sorted into their respective units (curia, centuries or tribes). Speeches from private citizens were only heard if the issue to be voted upon was a legislative or judicial matter. If the purpose of the ultimate vote was for an election, no speeches from private citizens were heard, and instead, the candidates for office used the Convention to campaign. During the Convention, the bill to be voted upon was read to the assembly by an officer known as a "Herald". Then, if the assembly was composed of Tribes, the order of the vote had to be determined. A Plebeian Tribune could use his veto against pending legislation until the point when the order of the vote was determined.

The electors were then told to break up the Convention and assemble into the formal Assembly or Council. The electors voted by placing a pebble or written ballot into an appropriate jar. The baskets that held the votes were watched by specific officers, who then counted the ballots, and reported the results to the presiding magistrate. The majority of votes in any Curia, Tribe, or Century decided how that Curia, Tribe, or Century voted. Each Curia, Tribe, or Century received one vote, regardless of how many electors each Tribe or Century held. Once a majority of Curiae, Tribes, or Centuries voted in the same way on a given measure, the voting ended, and the matter was decided.

If a law was passed in violation of proper procedures (such as failing to wait 17 days before voting on a law), the Senate could declare the law nonbinding.

Assembly of the Curiae
The Curiate Assembly (comitia curiata) was the principal assembly during the first two decades of the Roman Republic. The Curiate Assembly was organized as an Assembly, and not as a Council even though only patricians were members. During these first decades, the People of Rome were organized into thirty units called Curiae. The Curiae were ethnic in nature, and thus were organized on the basis of the early Roman family, or, more specifically, on the basis of the thirty original Patrician (aristocratic) clans. The Curiae assembled into the Curiate Assembly, for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes. The Curiate Assembly passed laws, elected Consuls (the only elected magistrates at the time), and tried judicial cases. Consuls always presided over the assembly.

Shortly after the founding of the republic, most of the powers of the Curiate Assembly were transferred to the Centuriate Assembly and the Tribal Assembly. While it then fell into disuse, it did retain some theoretical powers, most importantly, the power to ratify elections of the top-ranking Roman Magistrates (Consuls and Praetors) by passing the statute that gave them their legal command authority, the lex curiata de imperio. In practice, however, they actually received this authority from the Centuriate Assembly (which formally elected them), and as such, this functioned as nothing more than a reminder of Rome's regal heritage. Other acts that the Curiate Assembly voted on were mostly symbolic and usually in the affirmative. At one point, possibly as early as 218 BC, the Curiate Assembly's thirty Curia were abolished, and replaced with thirty lictors, one from each of the original Patrician clans. Since the Curia had always been organized on the basis of the Roman family, the Curiate Assembly actually retained jurisdiction over clan matters even after the fall of the Roman Republic in 27 BC. Under the presidency of the Pontifex Maximus, it witnessed wills and ratified adoptions, inaugurated certain priests, and transferred citizens from Patrician class to Plebeian class (or vice versa). In 44 BC, for example, it ratified the will of Julius Caesar, and with it Caesar's adoption of his nephew Gaius Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus) as his son and heir. However, this might not have been the comitia curiata but instead the comitia calata.

Assembly of the Centuries
The Centuriate Assembly (comitia centuriata or "Army Assembly") of the Roman Republic was originally the democratic assembly of the Roman soldiers. The Centuriate Assembly organized the Roman citizens into economic classes, defined by a means test. The Roman army was divided into units called "Centuries", and these gathered into the Centuriate Assembly for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes. However, since the number of centuries in each class was fixed, centuries could contain far more than 100 men. Only this assembly could declare war or elect the highest-ranking Roman Magistrates: Consuls, Praetors and Censors. The Centuriate Assembly could also pass a statute that granted constitutional command authority to Consuls and Praetors, and Censorial powers to Censors. In addition, the Centuriate Assembly served as the highest court of appeal in certain judicial cases, and ratified the results of the Census. Although the voters in this assembly wore white undecorated togas and were unarmed, while participating in the Assembly they were classified as soldiers, and as such were not allowed to meet within the physical boundary of the city of Rome. The president of the Centuriate Assembly was usually a Consul (although sometimes a Praetor). Only Consuls (the highest-ranking of all Roman Magistrates) could preside over the Centuriate Assembly during elections because the higher-ranking Consuls were always elected together with the lower-ranking Praetors. Once every five years, after the new Consuls for the year took office, they presided over the Centuriate Assembly as it elected the two Censors.

The Centuriate Assembly was supposedly founded by the legendary Roman King Servius Tullius, less than a century before the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. As such, the original design of the Centuriate Assembly was known as the "Servian organization". Under this organization, the assembly was supposedly designed to mirror the Roman army during the time of the Roman Kingdom. Soldiers in the Roman army were classified on the basis of the amount of property that they owned, and as such, soldiers with more property had more influence than soldiers with less property. The 193 Centuries in the assembly under the Servian Organization were each divided into one of three different grades: the officer class, the enlisted class, and a class of unarmed adjuncts. The officer class was grouped into eighteen Centuries. The enlisted class was grouped into five separate property classes, for a total of 170 Centuries. The unarmed soldiers were divided into the final five Centuries. Of five enlisted classes, the wealthiest controlled 80 of the votes. During a vote, all of the Centuries of one class had to vote before the Centuries of the next lower class could vote. The first candidate to reach a majority of 97 votes was victorious. When a measure or candidate received 97 votes, a majority of the centuries, the voting ended, and as such, many lower ranking Centuries rarely if ever had a chance to actually vote. Combined the 18 equites and the 80 centuries of the first property class had one more century than needed, and a unanimous vote from the elite would thus elect a candidate.

In 241 BC, the assembly was reorganized, though the exact details are uncertain. Some sources have a new total of 373 Centuries, but Cicero still writes of 193 centuries in his era, and most scholars still use that number. It is known that the first property class was reduced from 80 to 70 centuries, and the order of voting was changed so that the first class would go first, and be followed by the equites.

The lowest ranking Century in the Centuriate Assembly was the fifth Century (called the proletarii) of the unarmed adjunct class. This Century was the only Century composed of soldiers who had no property, and since it was always the last Century to vote, it never had any real influence on elections.

During his dictatorship from 82 BC until 80 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla restored the old Servian Organization to this assembly. Sulla died in 78 BC, and in 70 BC, the Consuls Pompey Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus repealed Sulla's constitutional reforms, including his restoration of the Servian Organization to this assembly. Thus, they restored the newer organization that had originated in 241 BC. The organization of the Centuriate Assembly was not changed again until its powers were all transferred to the Roman Senate by the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, after the fall of the Roman Republic in 27 BC.

Assembly of the Tribes
The Tribal Assembly (comitia populi tributa) of the Roman Republic was the democratic assembly of Roman citizens. The Tribal Assembly was organized as an Assembly, and not as a Council. During the years of the Roman Republic, citizens were organized on the basis of thirty-five Tribes which included patricians and plebeians. The Tribes gathered into the Tribal Assembly for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes. The president of the Tribal Assembly was usually either a Consul (the highest ranking Roman Magistrate) or a Praetor (the second-highest ranking Roman Magistrate). The Tribal Assembly elected three different magistrates: Quaestors, Curule Aediles, and Military Tribunes. The Tribal Assembly also had the power to try judicial cases.

In addition to the above-mentioned magistrates, the Tribal Assembly elected the Pontifex Maximus. His was a lifetime appointment, however, and so the Tribal Assembly only elected a new Pontifex Maximus after the previous one died.

The thirty-five Tribes were not ethnic or kinship groups, but rather a generic division into which Roman citizens were distributed. When the Tribes were created the divisions were geographical, similar to modern Parliamentary constituencies. However, since one joined the same Tribe that one's father belonged to, the geographical distinctions were eventually lost. The order that the 35 Tribes voted in was selected randomly by lot. The order was not chosen at once, and after each Tribe had voted, a lot was used to determine which Tribe should vote next. The first Tribe selected was usually the most important Tribe, because it often decided the matter. It was believed that the order of the lot was chosen by the Gods, and thus, that the position held by the early voting Tribes was the position of the Gods. Once a majority of Tribes had voted the same way, voting ended.

Plebeian Council
The Plebeian Council (concilium plebis) was the principal popular gathering of the Roman Republic. As the name suggests, the Plebeian Council was organized as a Council, and not as an Assembly. It functioned as a gathering through which the Plebeians (commoners) could pass laws, elect magistrates, and try judicial cases. This council had no political power until the offices of Plebeian Tribune and Plebeian Aedile were created in 494 BC, due to the Plebeian Secession that year.

According to legend, the Roman King Servius Tullius enacted a series of constitutional reforms in the 6th century BC. One of these reforms resulted in the creation of a new organizational unit with which to divide citizens. This unit, the Tribe, was based on geography rather than family, and was created to assist in future reorganizations of the army. In 471 BC, a law was passed which allowed the Plebeians to begin organizing by Tribe. Before this point, they had organized on the basis of the Curia. The only difference between the Plebeian Council after 471 BC and the ordinary Tribal Assembly (which also organized on the basis of the Tribes) was that the Tribes of the Plebeian Council only included Plebeians, whereas the Tribes of the Tribal Assembly included both Plebeians and Patricians.

The Plebeian Council elected two 'Plebeian Magistrates', the Plebeian Tribunes and the Plebeian Aediles. Usually the Plebeian Tribune presided over the assembly, although the Plebeian Aedile sometimes did as well. Originally, statutes passed by the Plebeian Council ("Plebiscites") only applied to Plebeians. However, in 449 BC, a statute of an Assembly was passed which gave Plebiscites the full force of law over all Romans (Plebeians and Patricians). It was not until 287 BC, however, that the last mechanism which allowed the Roman Senate to veto acts of the Plebeian Council was revoked. After this point, almost all domestic legislation came out of the Plebeian Council.


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Chinese whispers

Chinese whispers (some Commonwealth English), or telephone (American English and Canadian English), is an internationally popular children's game in which messages are whispered from person to person and then the original and final messages are compared. This sequential modification of information is called transmission chaining in the context of cultural evolution research, and is primarily used to identify the type of information that is more easily passed on from one person to another.

Players form a line or circle, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they just heard, to the entire group. The first person then compares the original message with the final version. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming garbled along the way, part of the enjoyment is that, regardless, this usually ends up happening. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly from that of the first player, usually with amusing or humorous effect. Reasons for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections, or the difficult-to-understand mechanism of whispering.

The game is often played by children as a party game or on the playground. It is often invoked as a metaphor for cumulative error, especially the inaccuracies as rumours or gossip spread, or, more generally, for the unreliability of typical human recollection.

United Kingdom, Australian, and New Zealand usage
In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the game is typically called "Chinese whispers"; in the UK, this is documented from 1964.

Various reasons have been suggested for naming the game after the Chinese, but there is no concrete explanation. One suggested reason is a widespread British fascination with Chinese culture in the 18th and 19th centuries during the Enlightenment. Another theory posits that the game's name stems from the supposed confused messages created when a message was passed verbally from tower to tower along the Great Wall of China.

Critics who focus on Western use of the word Chinese as denoting "confusion" and "incomprehensibility" look to the earliest contacts between Europeans and Chinese people in the 17th century, attributing it to a supposed inability on the part of Europeans to understand China's culture and worldview. In this view, using the phrase "Chinese whispers" is taken as evidence of a belief that the Chinese language itself is not understandable. Yunte Huang, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has said that: "Indicating inaccurately transmitted information, the expression 'Chinese Whispers' carries with it a sense of paranoia caused by espionage, counterespionage, Red Scare, and other war games, real or imaginary, cold or hot." To this end, the negative connotations attributed to the phrase "Chinese Whispers" have made it increasingly politically incorrect, offensive and racist. Usage of the term has been defended as being similar to other expressions such as "It's all Greek to me" and "Double Dutch", however these phrases also have racist undertones to them.

Alternative names
As the game is popular among children worldwide, it is also known under various other names depending on locality, such as Russian scandal, whisper down the lane, broken telephone, operator, grapevine, gossip, secret message, the messenger game, and pass the message, among others. In Turkey, this game is called kulaktan kulağa, which means "from (one) ear to (another) ear". In France, it is called téléphone arabe ("Arabic telephone") or téléphone sans fil ("wireless telephone"). In Germany the game is known as Stille Post ("quiet mail"). In Poland it is called głuchy telefon, meaning "deaf telephone". In Medici-era Florence it was called the "game of the ear".

The game has also been known in English as Russian Scandal, Russian Gossip and Russian Telephone.

In North America, the game is known under the name telephone. Alternative names used in the United States include Broken Telephone, Gossip, and Rumors. This North American name is followed in a number of languages where the game is known by the local language's equivalent of "broken telephone", such in Malaysia as telefon rosak, in Israel as telefon shavur (טלפון שבור), in Finland as rikkinäinen puhelin, and in Greece as halasmeno tilefono (χαλασμένο τηλέφωνο).

Game
The game has no winner: the entertainment comes from comparing the original and final messages. Intermediate messages may also be compared; some messages will become unrecognizable after only a few steps.

As well as providing amusement, the game can have educational value. It shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. The game has been used in schools to simulate the spread of gossip and its possible harmful effects. It can also be used to teach young children to moderate the volume of their voice, and how to listen attentively; in this case, a game is a success if the message is transmitted accurately with each child whispering rather than shouting. It can also be used for older or adult learners of a foreign language, where the challenge of speaking comprehensibly, and understanding, is more difficult because of the low volume, and hence a greater mastery of the fine points of pronunciation is required.

Notable games
In 2008 1,330 children and celebrities set a world record for the game of Chinese Whispers involving the most people. The game was held at the Emirates Stadium in London and lasted two hours and four minutes. Starting with "together we will make a world of difference", the phrase morphed into "we're setting a record" part way down the chain, and by the end had become simply "haaaaa". The previous record, set in 2006 by the Cycling Club of Chengdu, China, had involved 1,083 people.

In 2017 a new world record was set for the largest game of Chinese Whispers in terms of the number of participants by schoolchildren in Tauranga, New Zealand. The chain involved 1,763 school children and other individuals and was held as part of Hearing Week 2017. The starting phrase was "Turn it down". As of 2022 this remained the world record for the largest game of Chinese Whispers by number of participants according to the Guinness Book of Records.

In 2012 a global game of Chinese Whispers was played spanning 237 individuals speaking seven different languages. Beginning in St Kilda Library in Melbourne, Australia, the starting phrase "Life must be lived as play" (a paraphrase of Plato) had become "He bites snails" by the time the game reached its end in Alaska 26 hours later. In 2013, the Global Gossip Game had 840 participants and travelled to all 7 continents.

Variants
A variant of Chinese Whispers is called Rumors. In this version of the game, when players transfer the message, they deliberately change one or two words of the phrase (often to something more humorous than the previous message). Intermediate messages can be compared. There is a second derivative variant, no less popular than Rumors, known as Mahjong Secrets (UK), or Broken Telephone (US), where the objective is to receive the message from the whisperer and whisper to the next participant the first word or phrase that comes to mind in association with what was heard. At the end, the final phrase is compared to the first in front of all participants.

The pen-and-paper game Telephone Pictionary (also known as Eat Poop You Cat ) is played by alternately writing and illustrating captions, the paper being folded so that each player can only see the previous participant's contribution. The game was first implemented online by Broken Picture Telephone in early 2007. Following the success of Broken Picture Telephone, commercial boardgame versions Telestrations and Cranium Scribblish were released two years later in 2009. Drawception, and other websites, also arrived in 2012.

A translation relay is a variant in which the first player produces a text in a given language, together with a basic guide to understanding, which includes a lexicon, an interlinear gloss, possibly a list of grammatical morphemes, comments on the meaning of difficult words, etc. (everything except an actual translation). The text is passed on to the following player, who tries to make sense of it and casts it into their language of choice, then repeating the procedure, and so on. Each player only knows the translation done by his immediate predecessor, but customarily the relay master or mistress collects all of them. The relay ends when the last player returns the translation to the beginning player.

Another variant of Chinese whispers is shown on Ellen's Game of Games under the name of Say Whaaat?. However, the difference is that the four players will be wearing earmuffs; therefore the players have to read their lips. A similar game, Shouting One Out, in which participants wearing noise-canceling headphones had to interpret the lip movements of the preceding player, appeared in multiple editions of the ITV2 panel game series Celebrity Juice.

The CBBC game show Copycats featured several rounds played in a Chinese whispers format, in which each player on a team in turn had to interpret and recreate the mimed actions, drawing or music performed by the preceding person in line, with the points value awarded based on how far down the line the correct starting prompt had travelled before mutating into something else.

A party game variant of telephone known as "wordpass" involves saying words out loud and saying a related word, until a word is repeated.

As a metaphor
Chinese whispers is used in a number of fields as a metaphor for imperfect data transmission over multiple iterations. For example the British zoologist Mark Ridley in his book Mendel's demon used Chinese Whispers as an analogy for the imperfect transmission of genetic information across multiple generations. In another example, Richard Dawkins used Chinese Whispers as a metaphor for infidelity in memetic replication, referring specifically to children trying to reproduce drawing of a Chinese junk in his essay Chinese Junk and Chinese Whispers. It was used in the movie Tár to represent gossip circling within an orchestra.

title: Chinese whispers


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Cozy Powell

Cozy Powell (born Colin Trevor Flooks; 29 December 1947 – 5 April 1998) was an English drummer who made his name with major rock bands and artists such as The Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group, Gary Moore, Graham Bonnet, Brian May, Whitesnake, Emerson, Lake & Powell, and Black Sabbath.

Powell appeared on at least 66 albums, with contributions on many other recordings. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential drummers of all time; many rock drummers have cited him as a major influence.

Early life
Colin Trevor Flooks (Cozy Powell) was born in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, and was adopted. He never knowingly met his birth parents. He started playing drums aged 12 in the school orchestra, thereafter playing along in his spare time to popular singles of the day. The first band Powell was in, called the Corals, played each week at the youth club in Cirencester. During this time the band broke the world record for non-stop playing. Aged 15, Cozy had already worked out an impressive drum solo. The stage name Cozy was borrowed from the jazz drummer Cozy Cole. The Corals also played at a youth club in Latton, a small village 7 mi from Cirencester.

Career
The semi-professional circuit was next with The Sorcerers, a vocal-harmony pop band. The late nights and usual on-the-road exploits began to affect his education, and Powell left to take an office job to finance the purchase of his first set of Premier drums. The Sorcerers performed in the German club scene of the 1960s.

By 1968 the band had returned to England, basing themselves in the Birmingham area. Powell struck up friendships with notable local musicians, including Robert Plant, John Bonham, future Slade vocalist Noddy Holder, bassist Dave Pegg and Tony Iommi. The Sorcerers, then renamed Youngblood, released a series of singles in late 1968 and 1969. The group then linked up with The Move's bassist/singer Ace Kefford to form The Ace Kefford Stand. Five recorded tracks are available on the Ace Kefford album Ace The Face, released by Sanctuary Records in 2003. Powell also began session work and, with fellow Sorcerers Dave and Denny Ball, formed Big Bertha.

Isle of Wight 1970 and Jeff Beck
Powell also played with swamp rocker Tony Joe White at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970. Powell landed the then highly prestigious drumming job with Jeff Beck's group in April 1970. Their first project was to record an album of Motown covers in the US. This was never finished and remains unreleased. During the sessions, photographs show Cozy Powell and Jeff Beck present at the recording of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition", on which Beck appears. Cozy has stated in interviews he plays on the record, but this remains to be confirmed. After the recording of two albums, Rough and Ready (October 1971) and Jeff Beck Group (July 1972), the band fell apart.

1972–1974
In 1972 Powell drummed for two tracks ("Hey Sandy" and "Martha") on Harvey Andrews' album Writer of Songs. By late 1972 he had joined up with the Ball brothers and singer Frank Aiello to form Bedlam, whose eponymous album was recorded for Chrysalis and released in August 1973. With Powell's session work at RAK and subsequent solo success (including "Dance with the Devil", which reached No. 3 in the UK singles chart during January 1974), Bedlam fell apart.

"Dance With The Devil" was his only solo hit in the United States, peaking at No. 49. The track featured Suzi Quatro on bass. Powell's second hit during 1974 was with "The Man in Black", which reached No. 18. Arrows front man Alan Merrill, also a RAK records artist, played electric bass on '"The Man in Black'" and the b-side '"After Dark".

Jeff Beck's studio producer was Mickie Most and Powell soon found himself drafted into sessions for artists signed to Most's RAK label, including Julie Felix, Hot Chocolate, Donovan and Suzi Quatro. To cash in on his chart success, the drummer formed "Cozy Powell's Hammer" in April 1974. The line-up included Bernie Marsden (guitar), Clive Chaman (bass), Don Airey (keyboards) and Frank Aiello (Bedlam) on vocals. Clive Chaman was replaced on bass by Neil Murray in the band in early 1975 for the RAK Rocks Britain Tour. "Na Na Na" was a UK No. 10 hit, and another single "Le Souk" was recorded but never released.

Sharing a love of the power-trio set up (Cream), Cozy Powell formed a band with guitarist Clem Clempson and bassist Greg Ridley (Humble Pie), but when this fell apart Cozy temporarily quit the music business to take up motorcycle racing. His desire to launch a three-piece in the vein of Cream remained; recordings with Tipton, Entwistle & Powell are testament to this as much as sessions with Cream's Jack Bruce and on guitar Uli Jon Roth, briefly after recording for Cinderella: "to get him (Uli Roth) had been the idea of Larry Mazer (at the time manager of Cinderella), Jack met him, but at the time Uli was busy with a symphony. I don't think it would have worked, we had him in mind as well as some other people, like Gary Moore, ideally Jeff Beck really", followed by Clem Clempson, Pat Travers and Pat Thrall with whom they recorded, shopped for a deal - unsuccessfully—until Powell would join Black Sabbath.

1975–1980: Rainbow
In 1975 Powell joined Rainbow and over the next five years he and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore were the only constants in the band's line-up. During this time, Blackmore evolved the sound of the band from a neo-classical hard rock-heavy metal to a more commercial AOR sound. However, Powell was concerned with the overtly commercial direction of the band and decided to leave Rainbow, although not before they headlined the first Monsters of Rock show at Castle Donington, England, on 16 August 1980. The festival was Powell's last show with the band.

1980–1983: Bonnet, Michael Schenker, Phenomena
After leaving Rainbow, Powell again worked with vocalist Graham Bonnet, their most notable single being "Night Games" from Bonnet's solo album Line-Up, which reached number 6 in the UK singles chart.

For the rest of the 1980s, Powell assumed short-term journeyman roles with a number of major bands including The Michael Schenker Group. In 1985 he started recording with Phenomena for their self-titled first album, which was released the same year. He also worked briefly with another new supergroup named Forcefield along with Bonnet and later Tony Martin on vocals, former Ian Gillan Band member Ray Fenwick and former Focus member Jan Akkerman on the guitars, Neil Murray and later Laurence Cottle on bass. Cottle would eventually join as a session player for the recording of Black Sabbath's Headless Cross and again was replaced by Murray following that tour.

1982–1985: Whitesnake
Powell was invited to join Whitesnake in late of 1982 after his departure from Michael Schenker Group to replace Ian Paice for a presumed farewell tour with the band in Europe, but after the success of the Saints & Sinners album in the British and Japanese charts, and a successful tour that culminated in a memorable performance at the Monsters of Rock Festival in August 1983, the band signed with the American label Geffen Records. Due to contractual obligations, the band had to release one more album for their previous label Liberty which would be 1984's Slide It In.

Now under guidance of A&R executive John Kalodner, the album was remixed with the help of producer Keith Olsen for the American market with Cozy, guitarist Mel Galley and keyboardist Jon Lord the only remaining members of the previous line up along with singer David Coverdale. Powell's tenure with the band ended in January 1985. After that he was offered to join Keith Emerson and Greg Lake in a revamped version of ELP.

1988–1998: Black Sabbath and solo
Powell worked with Gary Moore in 1988, followed by stints with Black Sabbath from 1988 to 1991, and again in 1994–1995.

Between late 1992 and early 1993, Powell put together an occasional touring band using the old band name 'Cozy Powell's Hammer' featuring himself on drums, Neil Murray on bass, Mario Parga on guitar and Tony Martin on vocals and occasional rhythm guitar/synth module. The band performed throughout Europe and appeared on German television. Powell made headlines in 1986 when he appeared on the BBC children's programme Record Breakers, where he set a world record for the most drums (400) played in under one minute, live on television.

Powell and Neil Murray were members of Brian May's band, playing on the Back to the Light and Another World albums. He played with May opening for Guns N' Roses on the second American leg of their Use Your Illusion tour in 1993. The duo also served a spell with blues guitarist Peter Green in the mid-nineties. Powell briefly joined Yngwie Malmsteen for the album Facing the Animal in 1997.

Powell's last recording session was for Colin Blunstone's The Light Inside, alongside Don Airey, which was released shortly after Powell's death. The final solo album by Cozy Powell Especially for You was released in 1998 after his death, and featured American vocalist John West, Neil Murray, Lonnie Park, Michael Casswell and others.

Death
Powell died on 5 April 1998 following a car crash while driving his Saab 9000 at 104 mph in bad weather on the M4 motorway near Bristol. He had been dating a married woman who was having problems with her husband. Upset, she phoned him and asked him to come quickly to her house which was approximately 35 mi away. As he was driving to her house, she phoned him again and asked "Where are you?" He informed her he was on his way and she then heard him say "Oh shit!" followed by a loud bang.

Powell was ejected through the windscreen and died at the scene. According to the BBC report, at the time of the crash Powell's blood-alcohol reading was over the legal limit, and he was not wearing a seat belt, in addition to talking with his girlfriend on his mobile phone. The official investigation also found evidence of a slow puncture in a rear tyre that, it was suggested, could well have caused a sudden collapse of the tyre with a consequent loss of control of the car.

He was living in Lambourn in Berkshire at the time and had returned to the studio shortly before his death to record with Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green. At the time of death, Powell had recently pulled out of tour rehearsals with Yngwie Malmsteen, having suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident.

A memorial plaque at the Corn Hall in Cirencester was unveiled in January 2016 in a ceremony led by Brian May, with Suzi Quatro, Bernie Marsden, Neil Murray, Don Airey and Tony Iommi in attendance.

Posthumous releases
In October 2005, Powell made a "new" appearance on an album. Former Black Sabbath vocalist Tony Martin released a studio album (Scream), and on it is a track named "Raising Hell". This was a track Powell had recorded the drum track for when he and Martin were in Hammer in 1992, and gave to Martin for "future use". There are apparently as many as 19 additional drum tracks also recorded that could turn up in the future. Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton has also released material recorded during the 1997 Baptizm of Fire sessions; this 2006 collection, entitled Edge of the World, was released under the moniker of Tipton, Entwistle & Powell in memory of John Entwistle and Powell.

Band timeline (not including session work)
Text in bold indicates solo work.
 * The Sorcerers (1967–1968)
 * Youngblood (1968–1969)
 * The Ace Kefford Stand (1969)
 * Big Bertha (1969–1970)
 * The Jeff Beck Group (1970–1972)
 * Bedlam (1972–1973)
 * Cozy Powell (1973–1974, 1979–1983, 1992)
 * Cozy Powell's Hammer (1974–1975, 1992–1993)
 * Rainbow (1975–1980)
 * Graham Bonnet (1980–1981)
 * Michael Schenker Group (1980–1982)
 * Whitesnake (1982–1985)
 * Emerson, Lake & Powell (1985–1986)
 * Pete York/Cozy Powell (1987)
 * Blue Murder (1987)
 * Forcefield (1987–1990)
 * Black Sabbath (1988–1991, 1994–1995)
 * The Brian May Band (1991–1992, 1993–1994, 1998)
 * Peter Green Splinter Group (1996–1998)
 * Tipton, Entwistle and Powell (1997)
 * Yngwie Malmsteen (1997–1998)
 * The Snakes (1998)

Guest appearances and sessions

 * Tony Joe White – Swamp Music: The Complete Monument Recordings (2006) – Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
 * Ed Welch – Clowns (1971)
 * Harvey Andrews – Writer of Songs (1972)
 * Julie Felix – Clotho's Web (1972)
 * Donovan – Cosmic Wheels (1973)
 * Chick Churchill – You and Me (1973)
 * Murray Head – Nigel Lived (1973)
 * Tony Ashton and Jon Lord – First of the Big Bands (1974)
 * Bob Sargeant – The First Starring Role (1974)
 * Peter Sarstedt – Every Word You Say (1975)
 * Various – Peter & The Wolf (1976) - including Phil Collins, Brian Eno, Gary Moore, Alvin Lee, Chris Spedding, etc.
 * Hot Chocolate – XIV Greatest Hits (1976)
 * Bernie Marsden – And About Time Too! (1979)
 * Bernie Marsden – Look at Me Now (1981)
 * Jon Lord – Before I Forget (1982)
 * Robert Plant – Pictures at Eleven (1982)
 * Phenomena – Phenomena (1985)
 * Roger Daltrey – Under a Raging Moon (1985)
 * Boys Don't Cry – Who the Am Dam do You Think We Am (1987)
 * Sanne Salomonsen – Ingen Engel (Danish Version) / No Angel (English Version) (1987)
 * Warlock – Triumph and Agony (1987)
 * Pete York – Super Drumming Vol. 1 (1987)
 * Cinderella – Long Cold Winter (1988)
 * James Darby – Southern Region Breakdown (1988)
 * Don Airey – K2 – Tales of Triumph and Tragedy (1988)
 * Gary Moore – After the War (1989)
 * Minute By Minute – Timewatch (1989)
 * Ritchie Blackmore – Rock Profile Vol. 2 (1991)
 * Various Artists – In From The Storm – The Music of Jimi Hendrix (1995)
 * Glenn Tipton – Baptizm of Fire (1997)
 * S.A.S. Band – SAS Band (1997)
 * Colin Blunstone – The Light Inside (1998)
 * Ace Kefford – Ace The Face (2003)
 * Tony Martin – Scream (2005)
 * Pete York – Super Drumming Vol. 3 (2008)

Motor racing and TV appearances
Powell had a fascination with fast cars and motorbikes, and raced a Mazda RX3 sponsored by Hitachi on the UK saloon car circuit for a few months in the mid-seventies. He was quoted as saying in an interview, "I drive like I drum – madly".

title: Cozy Powell