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Death in Venice

Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig) is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourists—Tadzio, so nicknamed for Tadeusz. Tadzio was based on a real boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the city.

Plot
The main character is Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous Silesian author and child predator in his early 50s who recently has been ennobled in honor of his artistic achievement (thus acquiring the aristocratic "von" in his name). He is a man dedicated to his art, disciplined and ascetic to the point of severity, who was widowed at a young age.

As the story opens, he is strolling outside a cemetery and sees a coarse-looking, red-haired foreigner who stares back at him belligerently. Aschenbach walks away, embarrassed but curiously stimulated. He has a vision of a primordial swamp-wilderness, fertile, exotic and full of lurking danger. Soon afterward, he resolves to take a holiday.

After a false start in traveling to Pula on the Austro-Hungarian coast (now in Croatia), Aschenbach realizes he was "meant" to go to Venice and takes a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the island of Lido. While shipbound and en route to the island, he sees an elderly man in company with a group of high-spirited youths, who has tried hard to create the illusion of his own youth with a wig, false teeth, make-up, and foppish attire. Aschenbach turns away in disgust. Later, he has a disturbing encounter with an unlicensed gondolier—another red-haired, skull-faced foreigner—who repeats "I can row you well" when Aschenbach orders him to return to the wharf.

Aschenbach checks in to his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about 14 in a sailor suit. Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His elder sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns.

Later, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears Tadzio, the boy's name, pronounced Tadjoo in Polish by his mother, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest.

Soon the hot, humid weather begins to affect Aschenbach's health, and he decides to leave early and move to a cooler location. On the morning of his planned departure, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station and discovers his trunk has been misplaced, he pretends to be angry, but is really overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He happily returns to the hotel and thinks no more of leaving.

Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach's interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud "I love you!"

Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odor everywhere, later realising it is disinfectant. However, the authorities adamantly deny that the contagion is serious, and tourists continue to wander obliviously round the city.

Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city's disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, a third red-haired and disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach's path; this one belongs to a troupe of street singers who entertain at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose. The boy eventually returns Aschenbach's glances, and although the moment is brief, it instills in the writer a sense that the attraction may be mutual.

Next, Aschenbach rallies his self-respect and decides to discover the reason for the health notices posted in the city. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice.

Aschenbach considers warning Tadzio's mother of the danger; however, he decides not to, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him. But Aschenbach is not rational; "nothing is as abhorrent to anyone who is beside himself as returning into himself.... The awareness that he was complicit, that he too was guilty, intoxicated him...."

One night, a dream filled with orgiastic Dionysian imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterward, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that Aschenbach feels the boy's guardians have finally noticed, and they take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too near the strange, solitary man. However, Aschenbach's feelings, although passionately intense, remain unvoiced; he never touches Tadzio or speaks to him, and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than occasionally surreptitious glances.

Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel's barber shop almost daily, where the barber persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. The result is a fairly close approximation to the old man on the ship who had so appalled Aschenbach.

Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amid the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.

A few days later, Aschenbach goes to the lobby in his hotel, feeling ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plans to leave after lunch. He goes to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there, unsupervised for once, and accompanied by Jasiu, an older boy. A fight starts between the two boys, and Tadzio is quickly bested; afterward, he angrily leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach's part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea, then turns halfway around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: He tries to rise and follow, only to collapse sideways into his chair.

His body is discovered minutes later.

Origins
Mann's original intention was to write about "passion as confusion and degradation" after having been fascinated by the true story of Goethe's love for 17-year-old Baroness Ulrike von Levetzow, which had led Goethe to write his "Marienbad Elegy". The May 1911 death of composer Gustav Mahler in Vienna and Mann's interest in the boy Władzio during summer 1911 vacation in Venice were additional experiences occupying his thoughts. He used the story to illuminate certain convictions about the relationship between life and mind, with Aschenbach representing the intellect. Mann also was influenced by Sigmund Freud and his views on dreams, as well as by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who had visited Venice several times.

Allusions
The novella is rife with allusions from antiquity forward, especially to Greek antiquity and to German works (literary, art-historical, musical, visual) from the 18th century.

The novella is intertextual, with the chief sources being first the connection of erotic love to philosophical wisdom traced in Plato's Symposium and Phaedrus, and second the Nietzschean contrast between Apollo, the god of restraint and shaping form, and Dionysus, the god of excess and passion. The trope of placing classical deities in contemporary settings was popular at the time when Mann was writing Death in Venice.

Aschenbach's name and character may be inspired by the homosexual German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde. There are allusions to his poems about Venice in the novella, and like Aschenbach, he died of cholera on an Italian island. Aschenbach's first name is almost an anagram of August, and the character's last name may be derived from Ansbach, Platen's birthplace (however, Aschenbach is a real ancient German name, for instance, the founder of the Kishkin family). However, the name has another clear significance: Aschenbach literally means "ash brook". It "suggests dead ashes (Aschen) clogging the stream (Bach) of life".

The novella's physical description of Aschenbach was based on a photograph of the composer Gustav Mahler. Mahler had made a strong personal impression on Mann when they met in Munich, and Mann was shocked by the news of Mahler's death in Vienna. Mann gave Mahler's first name and facial appearance to Aschenbach but did not talk about it in public. The soundtrack of the 1971 film based on the novella made use of Mahler's compositions, particularly the "Adagietto" 4th movement from the Symphony No. 5, and made Aschenbach into a composer instead of a writer.

Aschenbach's name may be an allusion to Wolfram von Eschenbach, the author of the Middle High German medieval romance Parzival, whose reimagining and continuation of the Grail Quest romance of Chrétien de Troyes contained themes similar to those found in Mann's novella, such as the author's fascination with and idealization of the purity of youthful innocence and beauty, as well as the eponymous protagonist's quest to restore healing and youthfulness to Anfortas, the wounded, old Fisher King. Given Mann's obsession with the works of Richard Wagner, who famously adapted and transformed von Eschenbach's epic into his opera Parsifal, it is possible that Mann was crediting Wagner's opera by referencing the author of the work that had inspired the composer.

Modris Eksteins notes the similarities between Aschenbach and the Russian choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, writing that, although the two never met, "Diaghilev knew Mann's story well. He gave copies of it to his intimates". Diaghilev often stayed at the same hotel as Aschenbach, the Grand Hotel des Bains, and took his young male lovers there. Eventually, like Aschenbach, Diaghilev died in the hotel.

The real Tadzio

In her 1974 Unwritten Memories, Mann's wife Katia recalls that the idea for the story came during an actual vacation in Venice at the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido, which they took in the summer of 1911: "[A]ll the details of the story, beginning with the man at the cemetery, are taken from actual experience [...]. [I]n the dining-room, on the very first day, we saw the Polish family, which looked exactly the way my husband described them: the girls were dressed rather stiffly and severely, and the very charming, beautiful boy of about thirteen was wearing a sailor suit with an open collar and very pretty lacings. He caught my husband's attention immediately. This boy was tremendously attractive, and my husband was always watching him with his companions on the beach. He didn't pursue him through all of Venice—that he didn't do—but the boy did fascinate him, and he thought of him often. […] I still remember that my uncle, Privy Counsellor Friedberg, a famous professor of canon law in Leipzig, was outraged: 'What a story! And a married man with a family!'"

The boy who inspired "Tadzio" was perhaps Baron Władysław Moes, whose first name was usually shortened as Władzio or just Adzio. This story was uncovered by Andrzej Dołęgowski, Thomas Mann's translator, around 1964, and was published in the German press in 1965.

Moes was born on 17 November 1900 in Wierbka, the second son and fourth child of Baron Aleksander Juliusz Moes. He was aged 10 when he was in Venice, significantly younger than Tadzio in the novella. Baron Moes died on 17 December 1986 in Warsaw and is interred at the graveyard of Pilica, Silesian Voivodeship. He was the subject of the biography The Real Tadzio (Short Books, 2001) by Gilbert Adair. Ironically, while in the novella Aschenbach is Silesian, it was Moes who was really Silesian.

However, serious doubts about this identification were raised in an article in "Der Spiegel" in 2002, mainly because of the significant differences in age and physical appearance between the Tadzio figure of the novella and Moes.

Another candidate is Adam von Henzel-Dzieduszycki, a Polish-Austrian, who was also on vacation in the same hotel in the summer of 1911 and was 15 years old at the time.

Translations
An English translation by Kenneth Burke was published in periodical form in The Dial in 1924 over three issues (vol. LXXVI, March to May, issues # 3–5, Camden, NJ, USA). This translation was published in book form the following year as Death in Venice and Other Stories. W. H. Auden called it the definitive translation, but it is unclear to what other translations Auden was comparing it.

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter's authorized translation, published in 1922 in Mann's Stories of Three Decades, has been less well received by critics due to Lowe-Porter's treatment of sexuality and homoeroticism. In the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation it is criticized for its "puritanism", which saw Lowe-Porter "tone down Mann's treatment of sexuality, especially homoeroticism". The author considers the result "disastrous" and sees "a reworked, sanitized version of the text" by Mann.

A translation published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.

Other translations include those by David Luke (1988), Clayton Koelb (1994), Stanley Applebaum (1995), Joachim Neugroschel (1998), Martin C. Doege (2010), and Damion Searls (2023).

Adaptations

 * A film adaptation of Death in Venice starring Dirk Bogarde was made by Luchino Visconti in 1971.
 * Benjamin Britten transformed Death in Venice into an opera, his last, in 1973.
 * The novella was dramatised by Peter Wolf for BBC Radio 3 in 1997.
 * John Neumeier adapted it for a ballet for his Hamburg Ballet company in December 2003.
 * A stage production in 2013, directed by Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, titled Death in Venice/Kindertotenlieder, took elements from Gustav Mahler's song cycle Kindertotenlieder.
 * In 2023 Luk De Bruyker transformed the book into a stage play titled Dood in Venetië in Ghent, Belgium, with Koen Crucke in the lead role.

title: Death in Venice


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Talk:China Central Television

Article too negative
Surely the phrase "state-owned propaganda machine" violates Wikipedia's policy for impartiality? LeetToTheBeatMakeItRoar (talk) 17:23, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

 * Yes, but it appears there are WP:COI or basic troll farms or state paid propaganda actors of the U.S. government's defence dpartment or their paid think-tanks on here who are actively changing Wikipedia to have everything the U.S. government's talking points should be about foreign entities. CaribDigita (talk) 11:24, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, at the very least - "propaganda machine" part is an epithet if not straight down name-calling it's just not neutral, hands down. 2A00:1370:81A2:156:30F4:76F0:BD72:10BB (talk) 20:19, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Weird style with headlines
Ridiculous, e.g. non-neutral line. Had the head paragraph omited Propaganda outlet notion, the head paragraph would be concise to read. "State-owned media" should have been enough, but noooooo~ 2A00:1370:81A2:156:30F4:76F0:BD72:10BB (talk) 20:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Could you restate what your specific issue is? CCTV is a media outlet, and one that distributes propaganda. I really don't see how that's "non-neutral". Remsense  留  23:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:China Central Television


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Fellfield

A fellfield or fell field comprises the environment of a slope, usually alpine or tundra, where the dynamics of frost (freeze and thaw cycles) and of wind give rise to characteristic plant forms in scree interstices.

Soil dynamics
The freeze-thaw cycles tend to push plants out of the soil. In addition, the high porosity of the soil makes a fellfield a difficult place for plants to grow. Fellfields often have typical patterns of rocks: lines of rocks that have been pushed out of the soil, and slid into a low region.

Botany
In botany the term "fellfield" describes an ecoregion, ecosystem, habitat, or plant community. The term frequently used is alpine fellfield. Fellfield is usually applied to an alpine tundra region of high altitude mountains, or high latitude islands, and the alpine plants there.

Flora
Fellfields are typically populated by cushion plants: perennials that grow close to the ground. Cushion plants are well-adapted to the dryness and short growing season of a fellfield. Cushion plants often have hairy foliage and long taproots, to gather and retain moisture. Examples of cushion plants include the lupines and buckwheats.

Fellfield species

 * Alpine flora list
 * Azorella selago
 * Oenothera xylocarpa
 * Calyptridium umbellatum

Some geologists find it is controversial to share the term for biology and geomorphology applications.

title: Fellfield


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Saratov

Saratov (, ;  Саратов, ) is the largest city and administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River. Saratov had a population of 901,361, making it the 17th-largest city in Russia by population. Saratov is 389 km north of Volgograd, 442 km south Samara, and 858 km southeast of Moscow.

The city stands near the site of Uvek, a city of the Golden Horde. Tsar Feodor I of Russia likely developed Saratov as a fortress to secure Russia's southeastern border. Saratov developed as a shipping port along the Volga and was historically important to the Volga Germans, who settled in large numbers in the city before they were expelled before and during World War II.

Saratov is home to a number of cultural and educational institutions, including the Saratov Drama Theater, Saratov Conservatory, Radishchev Art Museum, Saratov State Technical University, and Saratov State University.

Etymology
The name Saratov may be derived from Sary Tau (Сары Тау), meaning "Yellow Mountain" in the Tatar language. Another version of the name origin derives it from the words Sar Atau, which means the "Boggy Island".

History

Uvek, a city of the Golden Horde, stood near the site of the modern city of Saratov from the mid-13th century until its destruction by Tamerlane in 1395. While the exact date of the foundation of modern Saratov is unknown, plausible theories date it to ca. 1590, during the reign (1584–1598) of Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, who constructed several settlements along the Volga River in order to secure the southeastern boundary of his state. Town status was granted to it in 1708.

By the 1800s, Saratov had grown to become an important shipping port on the Volga. The Ryazan-Ural Railroad reached Saratov in 1870. In 1896, the line crossed the Volga and continued its eastward expansion. A unique train-ferry, owned by the Ryazan-Ural railroad, provided the connection across the river between the two ends of the railroad for 39 years, before the construction of a railway bridge in 1935.

During January 1915, with World War I dominating the Russian national agenda, Saratov became the destination for deportation convoys of ethnic Germans, Jews, Hungarians, Austrians and Slavs whose presence closer to the western front was perceived as a potential security risk to the state.

During World War II, Saratov was a station on the north–south Volzhskaya Rokada, a specially designated military railroad supplying troops, ammunition and supplies to Stalingrad. In 1942-1943 the city was bombed by German aircraft. The main target was the Kirov oil refinery, which was heavily bombarded, seriously damaging the installation and destroying 80% of its plant and temporarily interrupting its work. The Luftwaffe was able to destroy all the fuel stock at bases in Saratov and eliminate the oil plant in the city.

Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet authorities designated Saratov a "closed city"; off-limits to all foreigners due to its military importance as the site of a vital facility manufacturing military aircraft.

German community
Saratov played a prominent role in the history of the Volga Germans. Catherine II, through her two edicts published in Germany, had promised the settlers that they would remain German, enjoying a great deal of autonomy, even if they moved to the Volga region, and they did so. There, the Germans continued with their German language, their own education, their churches, their publications, etc.

However, after more than a century living in that region, the living conditions of the Germans began to change. Catherine II was no longer alive, and the government began to apply an aggressive Russification policy, which meant that from 1878 some groups of Volga Germans began to emigrate to the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Those who could not leave or who remained in the hope conditions would improve suffered greatly. Hostilities did not stop even after the confiscation of their assets. In 1941, Stalin ordered the deportation of all ethnic Germans.

Today only a few reminders remain of the once prominent place for Volga Germans. The Roman Catholic St. Klemens Cathedral, which had been built by the Volga Germans on the main street of Saratov, the then called "German Street" (Deutsche Straße, Немецкая Улица), has its steeples removed and was converted into the Pioneer Cinema by order of the Soviet government (religion was prohibited). Meanwhile, the old German Street, the pedestrian street of Saratov, was renamed Kirov Prospect in reference to the Bolshevik leader Sergei Kirov, a name that still retains.

Administrative and municipal status
Saratov is the administrative center of the oblast and, within the framework of administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative center of Saratovsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as the city of oblast significance of Saratov—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Saratov is incorporated as Saratov Urban Okrug.

Climate
Saratov has a moderately continental climate with warm summers, relatively dry climate and an abundance of sunny days. The warmest month is July with daily mean temperature near +23 C; the coldest is February, at -8 C.

Summers are hot and in Saratov daytime temperatures of +30 C or higher are commonplace, up to +40.9 C during a heat wave in 2010.

Snow and ice are dominant during the winter season. Days well above freezing and nights below -25 C both occur in the winter.

Economy and infrastructure

Saratov Oblast is highly industrialized, due in part to the richness in natural and industrial resources of the area. The oblast is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centers in Russia. Saratov possesses six institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, twenty-one research institutes, nineteen project institutes, as well as the Saratov State University, the Saratov State Socio-Economic University, the Saratov State Technical University, and many scientific and technological laboratories attached to some of the city's large industrial enterprises.

Transportation
Saratov is served by the Saratov Gagarin Airport (opened in 20 August 2019 replacing Saratov Tsentralny Airport). The airport serves flights to both international and domestic destinations. Saratov West is a general aviation airfield. The aerospace manufacturing industry is served by the Saratov South airport. Nearby Engels-2 (air base) is the main base for Russian strategic Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers. Motorways link Saratov directly to Volgograd, Samara, and Voronezh. The railways also play an important role. The Privolzhskaya Railway is headquartered in Saratov. The Volga itself is an important inland waterway. Buses and trolleybuses form the backbone of public transport in the city.

Saratov has a tram network, which opened in 1908. Currently, there are two depots, while a third was closed in 2001. The rolling stock currently consists of 71-605, 71-619, 71-608 and a number of refurbished Tatra T3, renamed to MTTE and MTTCh.

A trolleybus network is also present in the city. On July 2, 2021, an intercity route over the Volga was opened, linking to the trolleybus network of Engels.

City budget
Information about revenues and expenditures of the city budget for the period 2007–2017.

Demographics
Saratov has a population of 901,361 within city limits and roughly 1.2 million in the urban agglomeration. More than 90% of the city's population are ethnic Russians. Among the remainder are Tatars, Kazakhs, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Ukrainians and others.

In the 2021 Census, the following ethnic groups were listed:

Education
Saratov is host to a number of colleges and universities. These include the Saratov State University (1909), Saratov State Technical University, Saratov State Medical University, Saratov State Academy of Law and Saratov State Agrarian University. In 2014 a newly renovated campus for the Saratov Regional College of Art was opened.

Culture
One of the city's most prominent landmarks is the 19th century neo-Gothic Conservatory. When it was built in 1912, the Conservatory was Russia's third such institution (after Moscow and St. Petersburg). At the time, Saratov, with a population of 240,000, was the third-largest city in Russia. The main building of the conservatory had been built in 1902 by architect Alexander Yulyevich Yagn, and originally it housed a music school. Before the opening of the conservatory in 1912, the building was reconstructed by the architect Semyon Akimovich Kallistratov. When Saratov Conservatory opened in September 1912, it immediately had 1,000 students ready to begin their studies.

The Saratov Drama Theater was founded in 1802, making it one of Russia's oldest. It is ranked as one of Russia's National Theaters. In Soviet times, the theater was renamed in honor of Karl Marx, but now carries the name of Ivan Slonov (1882–1945), an actor, theatrical director and educator, born in the city. The full name in Russian is The I. A. Slonov Saratov State Academic Theater (Саратовский государственный академический театр драмы имени И. А. Слонова).

Saratov is noted for several art museums, including the Radishchev Art Museum, named for Alexander Radishchev, Fedin Art Museum, named after Russian novelist Konstantin Fedin, Saratov Local History Museum, Chernyshevsky Estate Museum, named for Nikolay Chernyshevsky, and some others. The Radishchev Art Museum contains more than 20,000 exhibits, including ancient Russian icons, works by Camille Corot, Auguste Rodin, as well as works by some of the finest Russian painters (e.g. Ivan Kramskoy, Vasily Polenov, Ilya Repin, Ivan Shishkin, Aleksandra Ekster, Pavel Kuznetsov, Aristarkh Lentulov, Robert Falk, Pyotr Konchalovsky, Martiros Saryan, Fyodor Rokotov).

Sports
Several sports clubs are active in the city:

Twin towns – sister cities
Saratov is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇸 Carrboro, United States
 * 🇺🇸 Dallas, United States (ties suspended in 2022)
 * 🇧🇬 Dobrich, Bulgaria
 * 🇨🇳 Wuhan, China

Notable people

 * Roman Abramovich (born 1966), businessman and politician
 * Boris Andreyev, actor
 * Oleg Antonov, aircraft designer
 * Boris Babochkin, actor, director
 * Denis Bakurskiy, former Russian professional football player
 * Rachel Bluwstein, poet
 * Alexey Bogolyubov, painter
 * Nikolai Bondarenko, politician
 * Viktor Borisov-Musatov, painter
 * Nikolay Chernyshevsky, philosopher
 * Gavrila Derzhavin, poet
 * Irina Dryagina, World War II pilot and scientist
 * Katia Elizarova, model
 * Konstantin Fedin, writer
 * Nikolai Grandkovsky, painter
 * Joseph Hakobyan, engineer
 * Lev Igorev, painter
 * Anastasia Karpova, pop singer
 * Lev Kassil, writer
 * Kombinaciya, female pop band
 * Pavel Kuznetsov (1878–1968), painter and graphic artist
 * Eduard Limonov, writer and politician
 * Konstantin Lokhanov (born 1998), Russian junior world champion and Olympic sabre fencer living in the United States
 * Konstantin Paustovsky, writer
 * Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, painter
 * Lev Pitaevskii, theoretical physicist
 * Natalia Pogonina, chess player, women Grandmaster (WGM)
 * Jean-Victor Poncelet, French engineer and mathematician (POW)
 * Alexander Radishchev, writer
 * Lidiya Ruslanova, Russian folk singer
 * Sweeney Schriner, Russian-born Canadian ice hockey player
 * Nikolay Semyonov, Nobel Prize-winning chemist
 * Ellen Sheidlin, photoblogger and painter
 * Fyodor Shekhtel, architect
 * Leonid Sobinov, operatic tenor
 * Pyotr Stolypin, statesman
 * Vladimir Stoupel, Russian-born French pianist and conductor
 * Elvira T, singer and songwriter
 * Oleg Tabakov, actor
 * Evgeny Tomashevsky, chess Grandmaster and former World number 15
 * Valeriya, pop singer
 * Nikolai Vavilov, biologist and geneticist, died in a Saratov jail
 * Mikhail Vrubel, painter
 * Oleg Yankovsky, actor
 * Zedd, music producer and DJ, born in Saratov and moved to Germany.
 * Nikolay Zinin, chemist

title: Saratov


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Lianjiang County

Lianjiang (BUC: Lièng-gŏng) is a county on the eastern coast in Fuzhou prefecture-level city, the provincial capital of Fujian Province, China. Most of the county is administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC), while a number of outlying islands, collectively referred to as the Matsu Islands, are administered as Lienchiang County (same Chinese character name in traditional Chinese characters and referred to using Wade–Giles romanization) by the Republic of China (ROC) (now based in Taiwan) ever since their return to ROC control after Japanese occupation in World War II.

History
Lianjiang, in 282, during the Jin dynasty, was Wenma, named after a shipyard there, Wensha Ship-hamlet (溫麻船屯). It was incorporated into Min Prefecture (閩縣) in 607, during the Sui dynasty.

Wenma was changed to the present name and made its own county in 623, during the Tang dynasty, when Baisha (白沙) or Fusha (伏沙) of Aojiang was the capital of Lianjiang County. The capital was changed to Fengcheng as today in 742.

After the Republic of China was established, Lianjiang switched back and forth numerous times between two special regions:

 * Minhou Special Region (閩侯專區): 18 years in total
 * Fu'an (Ningde) Special Region (福安（寧德）專區): 16 years in total

During the Second Sino-Japanese War on September 10, 1937, Japan seized the two Lianjiang islands of Beigan and Nangan via the Collaborationist Chinese Army, making the islands the first in Fujian to fall to Japan. This led the county government to relocate to Danyang Township on April 19, 1941, before returning at the end of the war.

In 1949, the county was split in two due to the Chinese Civil War, as it remains today.

On March 4, 1964, a Chinese Nationalist commando raid on the Chinese Communist Party headquarters of the county captured and returned a commune file to Taipei.

Beginning on 1 July 1983, the PRC side reverted control to Fuzhou Municipality. In the late 1980s, people living in Lianjiang County began a massive emigration wave to western countries like the United Kingdom and the United States.

Geography
Gaodeng Island in Lienchiang County (the Matsu Islands), ROC (Taiwan), is located 9.25 km away from the Beijiao Peninsula in Lianjiang County, China (PRC).

 * Geographic coordinates: 26°03'-26°27' N, 119°17'-120°31' E
 * Coastline length: 209 km

Administrative divisions

The PRC (China) administers 16 towns and 6 townships:

Towns (镇, zhen):
 * Fengcheng ("Phoenix City Town")
 * Mabi (Ma-pi; ) ("Horse Snout Town")
 * Danyang
 * Dongdai (Tungtai; )
 * Donghu ("East Lake Town")
 * Guanban (Traditional: 官阪镇)
 * Tailu (T'ai-lu; )
 * Aojiang ("Ao River Township")
 * Pukou (P'u-k'ou; ) ("River Mouth Township")
 * Toubao (T'ou-pao; )
 * Huangqi (Huang-ch'i, Huangchi; )
 * Xiao'ao (Hsiao-ao; )
 * Guantou (Kwantow, Kuan-t'ou; – Guǎntóu)
 * Xiaocheng (Hsiao-ch'eng; – Xiǎochéng)
 * Changlong (, formerly ) ("Long Dragon")
 * Kengyuan (K'eng-yüan;, formerly )

Townships (乡, xiang):
 * Xiagong (Hsia-kung; )
 * Xiaocang She Ethnic Township (Traditional: 小滄畲族鄉)
 * Ankai
 * Liaoyan
 * Pandu
 * Jiangnan
 * Mazu *

 * * The People's Republic of China ("Mainland China") claims the Matsu Islands (Mazu in Hanyu Pinyin) as Mazu township of Lianjiang county but has never controlled them; they are de facto administered under Lienchiang County of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

These townships are divided into 266 villages.

Culture
Residents of Lianjiang – both on the Mainland and Matsu – speak the Lianjiang dialect, a subdialect of the Fuzhou dialect, a branch of Eastern Min. The dialect is also known as Bàng-uâ (平話).

Language
The Lianjiang dialect is a subdialect of Fuzhou dialect (the most prestigious dialect of Eastern Min). The Lianjiang dialect is mutually intelligible with Fuzhou dialect. It differs from Fuzhou dialect in its tonal sandhi pattern and vowel sandhi system. Small lexical differences also exist on object names, e.g. waxmelon is called "卷瓜" in Fuzhou but "冬瓜"  in Lianjiang.

Generally speaking, the tonal sandhi system of Lianjiang is more conservative than that of Fuzhou, in that the Lianjiang tonal sandhi is still largely controlled by the Middle Chinese tonal registers, while the Fuzhou tonal sandhi shows more deviation and irregularity.

Lianjiang vowel sandhi is more complicated than that of Fuzhou. Both Lianjiang and Fuzhou have systematic vowel variations between citation forms and non-final forms of the same morpheme, e.g. "地" /tei/ "land" – "地主" /ti-tsuo/ "landlord". However, not all morphemes have such variations. Only the morphemes with low-starting tones show such variation. The morphemes with high-starting tones instead only have the more close variant, e.g. "迟" /ti/ "late"- "迟早" /ti tsia/ "early or late". However, some cognates are produced with different vowels in Lianjiang and Fuzhou, e.g. "江 river" is produced as /kyeŋ/ in Lianjiang, but /kouŋ/ in Fuzhou. Also, the rimes in Lianjiang are generally more close and front than that in Fuzhou, which is especially salient in the open vowels, e.g. "下 down" is [ɑ] in Fuzhou, but [a] in Lianjiang.

Surrounded by mountains, Lianjiang used to be a relatively isolated from the inland part of China for centuries. This explains why the Lianjiang phonological system is relatively more conservative. However, with the construction of the high-speed railway system and the improvement of tunnel system, northern migrants are flooding into Lianjiang in the past decade, which may bring language contact into perspective. Just like in Fuzhou, most young or middle-aged Lianjiang speakers speak Mandarin Chinese fluently, but usually with a local accent influenced by the local dialect. However, due to the misleading language policy (Not speaking Mandarin Chinese is taken as "immoral".) and disadvantageous status of the dialect, both Fuzhou and Lianjiang dialects are losing speakers in the youngest generation. More and more young people and children are only receptive bilinguals in Lianjiang.

Economy

Food products:
 * Farm: loquats, rice, sweet potato, bean, cotton, sugar cane, tea plant, jasmine, watermelon, mushroom, grapes, dragon fruit, rhubarb.
 * Sea: hairtail, shad, pomfret, cuttlefish, garoupa, prawn, crab, clam, mudskippers.
 * Other: Yuanhong wine ("元紅")

Transportation
Luochang Expressway runs through the county's section of National Highway 104 in 500.3 km. 42.6 km navigable river length.

Guantou and Kemen (可門) are the largest seaports in Lianjiang with national access.

Tourism
There are hot springs in Gui'an (貴安) and Tanghui (湯尾) of Pandu. There is a Dragon King Palace-Temple (龍宮廟) in the Xiaocang She Ethnic Township.

Notable persons

 * Chen Di, Ming philologist, strategist, and traveler
 * Huang Rulun
 * Zheng Sixiao (Cheng Suu-hsiao; 鄭思肖)

title: Lianjiang County


text:
Carcassonne (disambiguation)

Carcassonne is a medieval fortified city in France.

Carcassonne may also refer to:
 * Cité de Carcassonne
 * Carcassonne (board game), a board game by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede
 * Carcassonne (video game), a video game adaptation
 * Carcassonne Castle, a residence in the United States
 * Joseph ben Solomon of Carcassonne, 11th century liturgical poet
 * Adolphe Joseph Carcassonne (1826–1891), French poet and dramatist
 * David Carcassonne (1789–1861), French physician
 * Philippe Carcassonne, French film producer
 * Roger Carcassonne (1911–1991), French Resistance member

title: Carcassonne (disambiguation)


text:
Astrakhan

Astrakhan (Астрахань, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, 60 miles (100 km) from the Caspian Sea, with a population of 475,629 residents at the 2021 Census. At an elevation of 28 m below sea level, it is the lowest city in Russia.

Astrakhan was formerly the capital of the Khanate of Astrakhan (a remnant of the Golden Horde) of the Astrakhan Tatars, and was located on the higher right bank of the Volga, 7 mi from the present-day city. Situated on caravan and water routes, it developed from a village into a large trading centre, before being conquered by Timur in 1395 and captured by Ivan the Terrible in 1556 and in 1558 it was moved to its present site.

The oldest economic and cultural center of the Lower Volga region, it is often called the southernmost outpost of Russia, and the Caspian capital. The city is a member of the Eurasian Regional Office of the World Organization United Cities and Local Governments. The great ethnic diversity of its population gives a varied character to Astrakhan. The city is the center of the Astrakhan metropolitan area.

Etymology
The name is a corruption of Hashtarkhan, itself a corruption of Haji Tarkhan —a name amply evidenced in the medieval writings. Tarkhan is possibly a Turco-Mongolian title standing for "great khan", or "king", while haji or hajji is a title given to one who has made the Islamic requisite of pilgrimage to Mecca. Together, they denoted "the king who has visited Mecca". The city has given its name to the particular pelts from young karakul sheep, and in particular to the hats traditionally made from the pelts.

Colloquially, the city is known by the short form Astra. Another popular nickname is The Caspian Capital.

Medieval history
Astrakhan is in the Volga Delta, which is rich in sturgeon and exotic plants. The fertile area formerly contained the capitals of Khazaria and the Golden Horde. Astrakhan was first mentioned by travelers in the early 13th century as Xacitarxan. Tamerlane burnt it to the ground in 1395 during his war with the Golden Horde. From 1459 to 1556, Xacitarxan was the capital of Astrakhan Khanate by the Astrakhan Tatars. The ruins of this medieval settlement were found by archaeologists 12 km upstream from the modern-day city.

Starting in A.D. 1324, Ibn Battuta, the famous Berber Muslim traveler, began his pilgrimage from his native city of Tangier, present-day Morocco to Mecca. Along the 7500 mi trek, which took nearly 29 years, Battuta came in contact with many new cultures, which he writes about in his diaries. One specific country that he passed through on his journey was the Golden Horde ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan, located on the Volga River in southern Russia; which Battuta refers to as the river Athal. He then claims the Athal is, "one of the greatest rivers in the world". In the winter, the Khan stays in Astrakhan. Due to the cold water, Özbeg Khan ordered the people of Astrakhan to lay many bundles of hay down on the frozen river. He does this to allow the people to travel over the ice. When Battuta and the Khan spoke about Battuta visiting Constantinople, which the Khan granted him permission to do, the Khan then gifted Battuta with fifteen hundred dinars, many horses, and a dress of honor.

In 1556, the khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, who had a new fortress, or kremlin, built on a steep hill overlooking the Volga in 1558. This year is traditionally considered to be the foundation of the modern city.

In 1569, during the Russo-Turkish War, Astrakhan was besieged by the Ottomans, who had to retreat in disarray. A year later, the Ottoman sultan renounced his claims to Astrakhan, thus opening the entire Volga River to Russian traffic. The Ottoman Empire, though militarily defeated, insisted on safe passage for Muslim pilgrims and traders from Central Asia as well as the destruction of the Russian fort on the Terek River. In the 17th century, the city was developed as a Russian gate to the Orient. Many merchants from Armenia, Safavid Persia, Mughal India, and Khivan Khanate settled in the town, giving it a cosmopolitan character.

Modern history
For seventeen months in 1670–1671, Astrakhan was held by Stenka Razin and his Cossacks. Early in the following century, Peter the Great constructed a shipyard here and made Astrakhan the base for his hostilities against Persia, and later in the same century Catherine the Great accorded the city important industrial privileges.

The city was held from 1707 by the Cossacks under Kondraty Bulavin during the Bulavin Rebellion until they were defeated the next year. A Kalmuck khan laid an abortive siege to the kremlin several years before that.

In 1717, it became the seat of Astrakhan Governorate, whose first governors included Artemy Petrovich Volynsky and Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev. Six years later, Astrakhan served as a base for the first Russian venture into Central Asia. In 1702, 1718 and 1767, it suffered severely from fires; in 1719 it was plundered by the Safavid Persians; and in 1830, cholera killed much of the populace.

The Astrakhan Kremlin was built from the 1580s to the 1620s from bricks taken from the site of Sarai Berke. Its two impressive cathedrals were consecrated in 1700 and 1710, respectively. Built by masters from Yaroslavl, they retain many traditional features of Russian church architecture, while their exterior decoration is definitely baroque.

In March 1919 after a failed workers' revolt against Bolshevik rule, 3,000 to 5,000 people were executed in less than a week by the Cheka under orders from Sergey Kirov. Some victims had stones tied around their necks and were thrown into the Volga. During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the A-A line running from Astrakhan to Arkhangelsk was to be the eastern limit of German military operation and occupation. The plan was never carried out, as Germany captured neither the two cities nor Moscow. In the autumn of 1942, the region to the west of Astrakhan became one of the easternmost points in the Soviet Union reached by the invading German Wehrmacht, during Case Blue, the offensive which led to the Battle of Stalingrad. Light armored forces of German Army Group A made brief scouting missions as close as 35 km to Astrakhan before withdrawing. In the same period, elements of both the Luftwaffe's KG 4 and KG 100 bomber wings attacked Astrakhan, flying several air raids and bombing the city's oil terminals and harbor installations.

In 1943, Astrakhan was made the seat of a Soviet oblast within the RSFSR. The oblast was retained as a national province of the independent Russian Federation in the 1991 administrative reshuffle after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

In the present day, Astrakhan is a large industrial centre of the Volga country, Russia, with a population of over 500,000. Starting nearly 400 years ago and continuing to the present day, Astrakhan has been Russia's main center of fish processing. The market for fish is a large component of the economy in this city.

Owing to shared Caspian borders, Astrakhan recently has been playing a significant role in the relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. As the latter's government has been heavily investing into the wellbeing of the city, Astrakhan has recently begun to symbolize the friendship between both countries. In 2010 a bridge was constructed with donations from Azerbaijan, which was named "Bridge of Friendship". Moreover, Azerbaijani government sponsored secondary school number 11, which carries the name of the national leader Heydar Aliyev, as well as a children's entertainment center named "Dream". Apart from that, a park has been built in the center of Astrakhan which is dedicated to friendship between the two countries. In the last 5 years Astrakhan has been visited by top Azerbaijani delegations on several occasions.

After fraud was alleged in the mayoral election of 2012 and the United Russia candidate was declared the winner, organizers of the 2011–2012 Russian protests supported the defeated candidate, Oleg V. Shein of Just Russia, in a hunger strike. Protestors, buoyed by celebrities who support the reform movement, attracted 5,000 people to a rally on April 14.

Administrative and municipal status
Astrakhan is the administrative center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Astrakhan—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Astrakhan is incorporated as Astrakhan Urban Okrug.

The city of Astrakhan is further subdivided into four administrative districts: Kirovsky, Leninsky, Sovetsky and Truskovsky.

Religion
Astrakhan is the archiepiscopal see of one of the metropolitanates and (as Astrakhan and Yenotayevka) eparchies of the Russian Orthodox Church, its only other suffragan being Akhtubinsk. There is also a Catholic community, served by the Church of the Assumption of Mary (Astrakhan). There is also a substantial Muslim population made up of Astrakhan Tatars and other Muslims. At 1777 the white Mosque was built, and the Baku Mosque was built in 1907–1909.

Population
According to the results of the 2021 Census, the population of Astrakhan was 475,629.

At the time of the official 2021 Census, the ethnic makeup of the city's population was:

Geography
The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, 60 miles (100 km) from the Caspian Sea. At an elevation of 28 meters (92 ft) below sea level, it is the lowest city in Russia.

Climate
Astrakhan features a temperate continental "Aralian" semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSk) with cold winters and hot summers. Astrakhan is one of the driest cities in Europe. Rainfall is scarce but relatively evenly distributed throughout the course of the year with, however, more precipitation (58%) in the hot season (six hottest months of the year), which determines the "Aralian" type (as opposed to the "Turkmenon" type, with the wet season during the cold months). The below sea-level elevation of Astrakhan influences the climate. Partially a result of this and also being far from the oceans means that summers are much hotter than found further west on similar latitude in Europe and worldwide for 46°N with the notable exception of the interior Pacific Northwest of the United States.

It is this even distribution of rainfall and the relatively low annual temperature that causes the city to fall under this climate category as opposed to an arid climate.

Winters tend to be cold in the city, though by Russian standards, Astrakhan features relatively balmy winters. Summers in the city can be hot, with high temperatures in excess of +40 C. The mean annual temperature amplitude (difference between the mean monthly temperatures of the hottest and coldest months) is thus equal to 29.2 C-change (+25.6 °C in July and -3.6 C in January), so the climate is truly continental (amplitudes superior or equal to 21 C-change determines continental climates, while in semi-continental climates amplitudes vary between 18 C-change and 21 C-change). Spring and fall are basically transitional seasons between summer and winter.

Education
Astrakhan has five institutions of higher education. Most prominent among these are Astrakhan State Technical University and Astrakhan State University.

Transportation
The city is served by Narimanovo Airport named after Soviet Azerbaijani politician Nariman Narimanov. It is managed by OAO Aeroport Astrakhan. After its reconstruction and the building of the international sector, opened in February 2011, Narimanovo Airport is one of the most modern regional airports in Russia. There are direct flights between Astrakhan and Aktau, Istanbul, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

There is also a military airbase nearby (Astrakhan (air base)).

Astrakhan is linked by rail to the north (Volgograd and Moscow), the east (Atyrau and Kazakhstan) and the south (Makhachkala and Baku). There are direct trains to Moscow, Volgograd, Saint Petersburg, Baku, Kyiv, Brest and other towns. Intercity and international buses are available as well. Public local transport is mainly provided by buses and minibuses called marshrutkas. Until 2007 there were also trams, and until 2017 trolleybuses.

Notable people

 * Luara Hayrapetyan, singer
 * Boris Kustodiev, painter
 * Joseph Deniker, naturalist and anthropologist
 * Ilya Ulyanov, father of Aleksandr Ulyanov and Vladimir Lenin.
 * Rinat Dasayev, association football player
 * Marziyya Davudova, actress
 * Velimir Khlebnikov, poet
 * Emiliya Turey, handball player
 * Andrei Belyanin, science fiction writer
 * Dmitri Dyuzhev, actor
 * Maksim Gleykin, former professional football player
 * Vasily Trediakovsky, academic, poet, translator
 * Tamara Milashkina, soprano
 * Valeria Barsova, soprano
 * Maria Maksakova, Sr., mezzo-soprano
 * Elena Nikitina, skeleton racer
 * Yelena Shalamova, rhythmic gymnast
 * Natalia Sokolovskaya, pianist and composer
 * Nikolai Petrovich Skarzhinsky Russian Cossack Lieutenant decorated at the Battle of Borodino.
 * Pytor Mikhailovich Skarzhinsky Russian general and governor of Astrakhan.

Twin towns and sister cities
Astrakhan is twinned with:
 * 🇮🇷 Sari, Mazandaran Province, Iran
 * 🇮🇷 Rasht, Gilan Province, Iran
 * 🇮🇳 Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
 * 🇺🇸 Fort Lauderdale, United States
 * 🇰🇿 Atyrau, Kazakhstan
 * 🇧🇾 Brest, Belarus
 * 🇧🇯 Grand-Popo, Benin
 * 🇺🇸 Pembroke Pines, United States
 * 🇸🇮 Ljubljana, Slovenia
 * 🇵🇰 Islamabad, Pakistan

title: Astrakhan


text:
Honne and tatemae

In Japan, honne and tatemae are Japanese terms relating to a person's feelings and outward behaviors. ' refers to a person's true feelings and desires (本音), and ' refers contrastingly to the behavior and opinions one displays in public (建前). This distinction began to be made in the post-war era.

A person's may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's. In many cases, leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings. In English speaking countries they are telling “white lies.”

Causes
In Japanese culture, public failure and the disapproval of others are seen as particular sources of shame and reduced social standing,    so it is common to avoid direct confrontation or disagreement in most social contexts. Traditionally, social norms dictate that one should attempt to minimize discord; failure to do so might be seen as insulting or aggressive. For this reason, the Japanese tend to go to great lengths to avoid conflict, especially within the context of large groups. By upholding this social norm, one is socially protected from such transgressions by others.

The conflict between and  (social obligations) is one of the main topics of Japanese drama throughout the ages. For example, the protagonist would have to choose between carrying out his obligations to his family/feudal lord or pursuing a clandestine love affair.

Effects
Contemporary phenomena such as seclusion and parasite singles are seen as examples of late Japanese culture's growing problem of the new generation growing up unable to deal with the complexities of  and pressure of an increasingly consumerist society.

Though and  are not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, some Japanese people feel that it is unique to Japan, especially those who feel their culture is unique in having the concepts of "private mind" and "public mind". Although there might not be direct single word translations for and  in some languages, they do have two-word descriptions; for example in English, "private mind" and "public mind".

A similar discord between one's true feeling and public appearance is observed in, a phrase whose meaning literally translates as "starving to [one's] skeleton", referring to being content or pretending to be so. Nowadays, the phrase is used for two different meanings, expressing the samurai virtue of self-discipline, silent moral heroism,  or ridiculing stubbornness, face-savingness.

Criticisms
Many scholars assert that honne–tatemae is a concept integral to understanding Japanese culture, such as Professor Takeo Doi, who considered the honne–tatemae divide to be of paramount importance in Japanese culture as well as other researchers like Ozaki, who utilized the concept to study Japanese perceptions of class and status. Despite this, there remain criticisms regarding the concept's uniqueness to Japan, as many argue that the concept is widespread rather than distinct to Japan.

Research has shown that many Japanese view the concept as unique and culturally significant. One study found that while foreign students' perceptions regarding examples of honne–tatemae were rather nuanced, Japanese students would often limit perspectives and reinforce stereotypes according to more rigid cultural prescriptions of the concept.

Some researchers suggest that the need for explicit words for tatemae and honne in Japanese culture is evidence that the concept is relatively new to Japan, whereas the unspoken understanding in many other cultures indicates a deeper internalization of the concepts. In any case, all cultures have conventions that help to determine appropriate communication and behavior in various social contexts which are implicitly understood without an explicit name for the social mores on which the conventions are based.

Hence other researchers have argued that this kind of dualism, separation of one's true feelings and what they present outwardly, is not culturally specific, one scholar even suggests that the concepts honne and tatemae may have originally stemmed from Chinese concepts of "Yang" and "Yin". Evidently similar concepts of "face" (as in "saving face") have been observed in several different societies and cultures.

title: Honne and tatemae


text:
Peter Churchill

Peter Morland Churchill, Croix de Guerre (1909 – 1972) was a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) officer in France during the Second World War. His wartime operations, which resulted in his capture and imprisonment in German concentration camps and his subsequent marriage to fellow SOE officer Odette Sansom, received considerable attention after the war, including a 1950 film.

Early life
He was born in Amsterdam on 14 January 1909, the son of William Algernon Churchill (1865–1947), a British Consul who served in Mozambique, Amsterdam, Pará in Brazil, Stockholm, Milan, Palermo, and Algiers. His father was also an art connoisseur, and author of what is still the standard reference work on early European paper and papermaking, Watermarks in Paper, and Violet (née Myers). He was a brother of Walter Churchill DSO DFC, a Royal Air Force pilot during the war, and Oliver Churchill DSO MC, also an SOE officer.

Education and career
He was educated at Malvern School from 1923–27, then spent 18 months at Chillon Castle, then went on to Geneva University. From 1929–32, he read Modern Languages at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In addition to his native English, he was bilingual in French and fluent in Spanish and Italian. He also excelled in sports – he had the reputation of being one of the finest ice-hockey blues the university had produced. Churchill was Captain of the Cambridge University Ice Hockey Club in 1932 and won 15 international caps. He was proficient at exhibition diving, a first-class skier, and played golf off a six handicap.

He moved into the British diplomatic service and served as British Vice-Consul in the Netherlands from 1934–5, and Pro-Consul in Oran, Algeria from 1935–6. From September 1939 to August 1940, he was Under Secretary to Sir Norman Birkett in the Home Office Advisory Committee, and later became President of the Committee.

Wartime activities
At the outbreak of the Second World War he was commissioned into the Intelligence Corps and also underwent commando training. In April 1941 joined the Special Operations Executive as one of its early recruits and assigned to the French Section in June 1941. He was infiltrated into France four times, twice by submarine and twice by aircraft, and spent 225 days behind enemy lines.

First mission
In Operation WILLOW his mission was to inspect three SOE networks in the south of France, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, assess their needs, and give them instructions. He was also given two million francs (equivalent to approximately £480,000 / €500,000 in 2019) to distribute between the three networks, with 400,000 francs for Francis Basin «Laurent» of the URCHIN network in Antibes, 300,000 francs for Georges Duboudin «Charles» of the SPRUCE network in Lyon, and 300,000 francs for Ted Coppin «Olivier» of the DONKEYMAN networkin Marseille. The other million francs was destined for Colonel Deprez in Marseille to facilitate the release of 10 French patriots from Fort St Nicholas prison in Marseille.

On 1 January 1942 submarine P36 took him 2 miles offshore Miramar (Théoule-sur-Mer) from where he rowed to the shore by canoe at night. The next morning he walked 25 km to Antibes where he met his first contact, Dr Élie Lévy «Louis», who introduced him to Baron d'Astier de la Vigerie «Bernard», head of Lyon resistance group known as ‘The Last Column’.

Using false identity papers of an Argentinian journalist, he then travelled by train with «Bernard» to Lyon to meet Virginia Hall «Germaine», an American agent, who put him in contact with Duboudin. He then went by train to Marseille where Hall introduced him to Ted Coppin and Colonel Deprez.

Having completed his mission, Churchill returned to the UK. Travelling as a couple to reduce suspicion, Hall accompanied him on a train to Perpignan, and with a guide he crossed the Pyrenees overnight on foot and walked about 80 km to Bañolas near Figueras. He was then driven to Gibraltar, crossing the Spanish border hidden in the car’s boot, and on 14 February 1943 was flown back to London for debriefing.

Second mission
Operation DELAY II was a brief mission to deliver four SOE agents by submarine to the French Riviera.

In April 1942 Churchill travelled from Gibraltar in HM Submarine P 42 "Unbroken" with three radio operators, Isidore Newman «Julien» for the URCHIN network and Edward Zeff «Matthieu» for the SPRUCE network, Marcel Clech «Bastien» for the AUTOGIRO network, and Victor Gerson «René», an SOE agent on a special mission to organise the VIC Escape Line On the night of 21 April Churchill led Newman and Zeff by canoe to the shore at Antibes with their radios and took them to the house of Dr Élie Lévy, who asked him to take «Bernard» back with him to the UK. Churchill returned to the submarine with «Bernard», after which Clech and Gerson were dropped off by canoe at the Pointe d’Agay and Churchill returned to the UK.

Proposed next mission
On his return Col Buckmaster gave Churchill his next mission which was to blow up a powerful radio transmitter at Sainte-Assise near Fontainebleau which the Nazis were using to direct their U-boat campaign, and was so powerful that the U-boats could pick up its messages without having to surface. He was to be accompanied by 'The Twins' (SOE agents Alfred and Henry Newton) but, just as they were about to undertake the mission, a failed attempt by a French agent resulted in significantly increased security and Churchill’s mission was called off.

Third mission
His third mission was to organise and coordinate the SOE F Section "Spindle" Network in Cannes which directed the delivery of supplies to support the CARTE Organisation run by André Girard.

On 27 August 1942 he was parachuted near Montpellier and went to Cannes where he learned that Francis Basin had just been arrested. Churchill planned to rescue him when he was being transferred by train to Lyon but this attempt was called off, apparently at Basin’s request.

Among his couriers was Odette Sansom «Lise», with whom he was to develop a close relationship and subsequently marry after the war. Adolphe Rabinovitch «Arnaud» was his wireless operator. Churchill arranged an arms drop for General de Lattre de Tassigny, Commander of one of the sole French Divisions still in existence, based in Montpellier, and another for the Maquis des Glières, who operated near Lake Annecy in Haute-Savoie.

Several attempts were made to fly him back to the UK to report on his activities. The first attempt was for a Hudson bomber to land at Vinon near Aix-en-Provence to collect Churchill, Giraud and five French generals, however the terrain had not been surveyed properly by the French resistance and the runway proved inadequate, so Churchill aborted the landing.

Returning to Cannes, Churchill was informed that two police inspectors had called at his accommodation searching for him, and he had to change lodgings immediately. On 8 November 1942 Hitler ordered the occupation of Vichy France and as a result of increased security activities in Cannes, Giraud moved his CARTE operations to Arles.

In November 1942 a CARTE courier, André Marsac, was arrested in Paris by Abwehr intelligence officer Hugo Bleicher and his interrogation in Fresnes prison led to the arrest of another CARTE member, Roger Bardet. Bardet was interrogated in Fresnes, became a double agent, and released. From information provided by Marsac and Bardet, Bleicher came to know all about the SPINDLE network, including the names of Churchill and Sansom, and believed Marsac’s false claim that Churchill was related to Winston Churchill.

A second attempt from Arles in late December 1942 was unsuccessful due to the heavy presence of German soldiers.

In January 1943 Girard was dismissed as head of the CARTE Organisation, and Henri Frager «Paul» and André Marsac «End» were made Joint Commanders. The third attempt was on a small abandoned airfield near Tournus between Mâcon and Chalon-sur-Saône in January 1943 to collect Churchill and take Frager to London to clear up the confusion over the CARTE question and have a definite ruling on the matter from HQ. The Germans had obstructed the planned landing strip to prevent a landing and these obstacles had to be cleared quickly. The Hudson bomber collected 10 men, but it turned out that some of De Gaulle’s agents had planned this landing at the same time, and Churchill and Frager were not collected.

Churchill and Sansom returned to Cannes for the last time, and he arranged a further attempt for a Lysander to land near Périgueux. This entailed a journey of over 800 kilometres through German occupied France, changing trains at Marseille and Toulouse. The landing had to be aborted when it was realised that the Germans were lying in wait, and Churchill, Frager, Sansom and the others escaped on foot, narrowly missing capture.

Churchill and Sampson left Périgueux by train for Toulouse where they were provided accommodation in a safe house and informed that all passengers on an earlier train from Périgueux had been met by the Gestapo and questioned, and that his flat in Cannes has been raided and people arrested. He decided it was too dangerous to remain in Cannes and relocated the SPINDLE network to Saint-Jorioz on Lake Annecy in Haute-Savoie, and changed his cover name.

A further attempt was made to land a Lysander at Tournus north of Lyon, but the aircraft did not arrive. On 22/23 March 1943 a Lysander piloted by Hugh Verity landed at Estrées-Saint-Denis near Compiègne exfiltrated Churchill and Frager, while bringing Francis Cammaerts «Roger» to take over the SPINDLE network in his absence.

Fourth infiltration
On 14/15 April 1943 he returned by parachute onto the mountains above Saint-Jorioz where he was met by Sansom, and they stayed in the Hotel de la Poste in Saint-Jorioz.

Arrest and imprisonment
Later that morning Bleicher arrested Churchill and Sansom in their hotel. He claimed he was related to Winston Churchill and that they were a married couple to make themselves seem more valuable prisoners and less likely to be executed as spies.

They were sent to Fresnes Prison and then different concentration camps where each was sentenced to death, but both escaped execution, unlike the majority of captured SOE agents. Odette endured terrible torture but revealed nothing to her captors.

Churchill was initially taken under Italian custody to the barracks in Annecy, where he was badly beaten after an unsuccessful escape attempt during which he assaulted an Italian guard. He was then transferred to German custody and moved to Fresnes Prison near Paris where he was questioned by Bleicher, who believed Marsac’s false claim that Churchill was a nephew of the British Prime Minister and discussed a prisoner swap with Rudolf Hess.

On 13 February 1944 he was transferred to Berlin for questioning, and on 2 May sent to Sonderlager “A” Sachsenhausen, where he was held in solitary confinement for 10½ months.

On 1 April 1945 he was moved by train to Flossenbürg, 50 miles south-east of Bayreuth, where he was held for 3–4 days before being taken by truck on a 30-hour trip to Dachau where, rather than being taken to the notorious concentration camp, he was lodged in a former brothel along with 30 other officers. As an officer he was given better treatment than most of the 22,000 inmates of Flossenbürg, who were forcibly evacuated on the 200 km death march to Dachau concentration camp, during which one third died. The next day, as the Americans were approaching Dachau, he and 30 other officers were taken by bus to Innsbruck, where he was held in the Straflager. They were joined by over 100 other Prominenten (notable prisoners), including former heads of state and high-ranking military personnel.

On 24 April Churchill was taken from Dachau over the Brenner Pass to Villabassa (Niederdorf in the Tyrol), together with many other prominent concentration camp inmates from different countries, where the SS left the prisoners behind as American forces were approaching.

On 27 April he was taken 15 miles to the south to Pragser Wildsee, where on 4 May he was liberated by the Fifth United States Army. He was taken to Naples for debriefing by officers from the Crimes Investigations Departments and testified against his former captors, and on 12 May was flown back to England in the private plane of Air-Marshall Garrow.

Post-war
Peter Churchill and Odette Sansom married in 1947. In the 1950 film Odette, which recounted their wartime exploits, Anna Neagle played the title role and Churchill was played by Trevor Howard.

He wrote three books about his exploits in SOE, and a further fictitious book about the French resistance movement in Haute Savoie.

Some years after the war Peter and Odette Churchill met up with Hugo Bleicher, after inviting him to the UK.

Peter and Odette divorced in 1956, and the following year he married Australian Irene Hoyle, a former model, in Nice. He continued to live in France after the war, settling in Le Rouret near Cannes, where he worked in real estate, and lived there until his death on 1 May 1972.

Legacy
Peter's brother, Walter, relocated his engineering business, JJ Churchill, from Coventry to Market Bosworth during the war. After the Market Bosworth Historical Society became aware of the wartime gallantry of not just Walter, but also of his brothers Peter and Oliver, it decided to fund a Memorial Cairn. The granite Cairn is located in front of the JJ Churchill factory, and was unveiled in autumn 2015.

Three of the four sides commemorate each of the Churchill brothers, while the fourth side commemorates the factory’s relocation from Coventry to Market Bosworth and Walter landing his Hurricane in the field opposite while overseeing the factory’s move.

Books by Peter Churchill

 * Of Their Own Choice, Hodder and Stoughton, 1952
 * Duel of Wits, Hodder and Stoughton, 1953
 * The Spirit in the Cage, Hodder and Stoughton, 1954
 * By Moonlight, Hale, 1958
 * All About the French Riviera, Vista books, 1960

title: Peter Churchill