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Rorschach (character)

Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs) is a fictional antihero and one of the protagonists in the graphic novel limited series Watchmen, published by DC Comics in 1986. Rorschach was created by writer Alan Moore with artist Dave Gibbons; as with most of the main characters in the series, he was an analogue for a Charlton Comics character, in this case Steve Ditko's the Question. Moore also modeled Rorschach on Mr. A, another Steve Ditko creation on whom the Question was originally based.

While Watchmen has an ensemble cast, many consider Rorschach to be the protagonist as he drives most of the plot forward and serves as the series' narrator. In the beginning of the story, he is introduced as the only masked vigilante to remain active on his own terms and initiative, a criminal outlaw as opposed to other former superheroes now covertly employed by the U.S. government. A ruthless crime-fighter, Rorschach believes in moral absolutism—good and evil as pure ends, with no shades of gray—which compels him to seek to punish any evidence of evil at all costs. His mask displays a constantly morphing inkblot based on the ambiguous designs used in Rorschach inkblot tests, also his namesake, with the mask's black and white coloring consistent with his sense and view of morality.

The original character was positively received, with multiple references in other comic titles and appearances in other media. He reappears in the Before Watchmen comic book prequel including his own miniseries. Rorschach made his live-action debut in the 2009 film Watchmen, played by Jackie Earle Haley, who also voices him in the video game Watchmen: The End Is Nigh.

A successor to the Rorschach mantle, named Reggie Long, debuted in the sequel limited series Doomsday Clock, which connects the Watchmen universe with the mainstream DC Universe. Another incarnation of Rorschach, Wil Myerson, appears in the DC Black Label limited series Rorschach, a standalone sequel to Watchmen.

Publication history

As with the rest of the main characters of Watchmen, Alan Moore based Rorschach on Charlton Comics characters, using them as a "starting point". The characters Rorschach was specifically based on were the Question (a Charlton character) and Mr. A, two comic book characters created by Steve Ditko.

Ditko, who was inspired by the writings of Ayn Rand's personal philosophy of Objectivism, created both the Question and Mr. A as followers of the ideology. Regarding Rand's philosophy, Moore said he personally found it "laughable". In spite of this, Moore had a healthy respect for Ditko despite having different views politically. Moore recalled that Ditko's very right-wing agenda was quite interesting to him at the time, and that "probably led to me portraying Rorschach as an extremely right-wing character".

In trying to create Rorschach, Moore said he was trying to "come up with this quintessential Steve Ditko character—someone who's got a funny name, whose surname begins with a 'K,' who's got an oddly designed mask". On how he decided Rorschach's name, Moore recalls:

"I noticed, when I was a teenager, that Ditko had got some fixation about the letter K, probably because it occurs in his own name. It's sort of 'Kafka,' and 'Ditko,' and there seemed to be a lot of Ditko characters with prominent Ks ... Ted Kord ... Ditko seemed very fond of that sort of sound, so in some half-assed way, that observation influenced me in giving Rorschach the name Walter Kovacs."

The Question was used as the prototype for creating Rorschach, while Mr. A, being a far more radical right-wing character than the mainstream-suited Question, served as the main inspiration for Rorschach's right-wing views as well as his black-and-white morality. Moore came to view Rorschach as a logical extension of both Mr. A and the Question. On the other hand, upon being asked whether he had seen Watchmen, Ditko himself described Rorschach as being "like Mister A, except Rorschach is insane."

Moore stated that Rorschach was created as a way of exploring what an archetypical Batman-type character—a driven, vengeance-fueled vigilante—would be like in the real world. He concluded that the short answer was "a nutcase". Moore also stated that the tone of Rorschach's diary was inspired by the Son of Sam letters David Berkowitz sent to the newspapers, and that his speech patterns were based on Herbie the Fat Fury.

While Moore came up with Rorschach's name and descriptions, Dave Gibbons was in charge of the character's appearance. In Gibbons' initial designs, Rorschach wore white clothing which had inkblots not only on his head but all over his body. He also wore a large blue trench-coat, red gloves, red-blue hat and items that look like jodhpurs or spats over his boots. When designing the characters of the series, Gibbons said Rorschach was his favorite to draw due to his relatively simpler features. He described:

"If I had a favorite character to draw, ... the one that I'll draw is Rorschach. Basically, you just have to draw a hat. If you can draw a hat, then you've drawn Rorschach, you just draw kind of a shape for his face and put some black blobs on it and you're done. So he's a favorite to draw in that circumstance."

Moore said he did not foresee the death of Rorschach until the fourth issue when he realized that his refusal to compromise would result in his not surviving the story. He claimed that initially he knew a lot about the character's surface mannerisms, but did not realize what was inside him until he "started to dig." Moore added that Rorschach had a "king-sized" deathwish due to his psychologically troubled life, and actively wanted to die but in his own dignified and honorable way, no matter how "twisted" it might have been. In response to why he chose to have Rorschach take off his mask to face death at the end, Moore said that he thought it "just felt right". He believed that it "is not the mask talking, it's not Rorschach, it's the actual human being [Walter Kovacs] that is somewhere under there".

Before Watchmen
Walter Joseph Kovacs was born on March 21, 1940, the son of Sylvia Kovacs, who was a prostitute, and an unknown father only known to Kovacs as "Charlie". His mother was frequently abusive and condescending towards him. In July 1951, at the age of 11, Kovacs became involved in a violent fight with two older bullies, and subsequently his living conditions were finally looked into. After his home was investigated, Kovacs was removed from his mother's care and put in "The Lillian Charlton Home for Problem Children" in New Jersey, where he rapidly seemed to improve, excelling at scholastics as well as gymnastics and amateur boxing. In 1956, after leaving the Charlton Home when he was 16, Kovacs took a job as a garment worker in a dress shop, which he found "bearable but unpleasant" partly because he had to handle women's clothing; it was here that he acquired a certain dress fabric that he would later fashion into the mask he wears as Rorschach. His mother was brutally murdered by her pimp, George Paterson, by forcing her to drink Drano cleaning fluid and dumped her body in the back alleyway. In 1962, Kovacs scavenged the material from a rejected dress that had been special-ordered by a young woman with an Italian name. Though Kovacs learned how to cut and fashion the material successfully with heated implements, he soon grew bored with it, as it served him no real purpose at the time.

Two years later when buying a newspaper on his way to work in March 1964, Kovacs read about the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, who he believed was the Italian woman who had rejected the dress. Ashamed by what he read about the unresponsiveness of her neighbors, Kovacs became disillusioned with the underlying apathy that he saw as inherent in most people. Inspired by Genovese's fate, Kovacs returned home, made "a face [he] could bear to look at in the mirror" from the dress's fabric, and began fighting crime as the vigilante Rorschach. Initially, Kovacs left criminals alive, but bloodied, for the police to arrest, leaving a calling card in the form of a Rorschach test at every crime scene. In the mid 1960s, he teamed up with Nite Owl II, a partnership which proved highly successful at battling organized crime.

In 1975, an investigation into the kidnapping of a young girl named Blair Roche led to the transformation of the "soft" Kovacs into the ruthlessly uncompromising Rorschach. He tracked the kidnapping to a man named Gerald Grice. At Grice's shack, Kovacs found evidence Grice had killed the girl and had fed her remains to his dogs. Discovering this, Rorschach suffered a psychotic breakdown, killed the dogs with Grice's meat cleaver and waited for his arrival. When Grice returned, Rorschach hurled the corpses of the dogs through his windows, handcuffed him to a stove, and poured kerosene around him. Leaving Grice a hacksaw, Rorschach told him that his only chance to escape would be by cutting off his hand. Rorschach then set the shack on fire and left. No one emerged. During a later psychological evaluation, the vigilante stated that Kovacs went into the shack, but that Rorschach came out.

When the Keene Act was passed in 1977 to outlaw vigilantes, Rorschach responded by killing a wanted serial rapist and leaving his body outside a police station with a note bearing one word: "never!"

In Watchmen
By 1985 and the events of Watchmen, Rorschach is the vigilante who continues to operate in defiance of the Keene Act, the rest having retired or become government operatives. He investigates the murder of a man named Edward Blake, discovering that he is the Comedian. He believes that someone is picking off costumed superheroes, a view that strengthens when Doctor Manhattan is forced into exile and when Adrian Veidt, the former vigilante known as Ozymandias, is targeted in an assassination attempt. Rorschach questions Moloch, a former supervillain who unexpectedly attends Blake's funeral, who tells him what little he knows. Later, after reading a note written by Moloch telling him to come over for more information, Rorschach visits him again, only to find him dead, shot through the head. The police, tipped off anonymously over the phone, surround the house. Rorschach scolds himself for falling into such an obvious trap, and is arrested after a fight, in which Rorschach tries to escape by jumping through a window, but is unmasked. After the unmasking, Rorschach is revealed to be the red-haired man who, in addition to being the first character to appear in the series, was shown several times in the early chapters carrying a sign reading "THE END IS NIGH".

Rorschach is sent to a prison where many of its inmates are criminals he put away, including Big Figure, a dwarf crime boss who is hungry for Rorschach's blood. During his incarceration, he is interviewed by the prison psychologist Dr. Malcolm Long. Long believes he can help rehabilitate him; instead, Rorschach's explanation of his life and his justifications for his uncompromising worldview lead Long to question his own views.

One day during lunch, one of the inmates attempts to attack Rorschach with a shiv, whereupon Rorschach throws the boiling-oil contents of a deep-fryer into his face in self-defense. As the guards grab and begin to beat him, Rorschach hoarsely yells at the watching crowd, "None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me." After the inmate dies, the prison breaks out in a riot. The Big Figure and two of his associates try to kill Rorschach, but he outwits and ultimately kills them all in rapid succession. Rorschach's two former colleagues, Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre II, begin to take his "mask killer" theory seriously and break him out of jail to follow up on it.

After the prison break, Dr. Manhattan comes back from his self-exile to transport Silk Spectre II to Mars. After acquiring a spare costume from his apartment, Rorschach, along with Nite Owl, enters underworld bars to find out who ordered the assassination attempt on Veidt. They obtain a name, a company called Pyramid Deliveries, and then break into Veidt's office. Nite Owl correctly deduces Veidt's password and finds that he runs Pyramid Deliveries. Rorschach, who has been keeping a journal throughout the duration of the novel, realizes that they may be no match for Veidt. He makes one last entry in his journal, stating his certainty that Veidt is responsible for whatever might happen next, and drops it into a mailbox.

Nite Owl and Rorschach fly out to Antarctica. There they learn the true nature of the conspiracy and Veidt's motivations: to unite the world against a perceived alien threat and stop the possibility of a nuclear holocaust. Veidt then reveals that he set his plan into motion well before they arrived. Doctor Manhattan and Silk Spectre II arrive at the base after viewing the carnage Veidt's false alien has wrought on New York City. Despite their mutual horror, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre II and Doctor Manhattan all agree to keep quiet about the true nature of the events when the United States surprisingly does enter into a peace accord with the Soviet Union.

Rorschach states the others must be joking, and leaves to tell the world. Dr. Manhattan confronts him outside, telling him he cannot allow Rorschach to reveal the truth. Refusing to compromise his principles, Rorschach understands he will be killed. He removes his mask and demands that Manhattan just "do it", which he does.

In the final scenes of the comic, Rorschach's journal has made it to the offices of the New Frontiersman, a right-wing newspaper. Outraged by the new accord between the Soviet Union and the United States, the editor pulls a planned two-page story. He leaves it to his assistant Seymour to decide how to fill that space, and Seymour begins to reach for the paper's "Crank File," which contains the journal. The outcome is ambiguous.

Events of Doomsday Clock
The events of Doomsday Clock begin with Robert Redford winning the 1992 election by using the details of Kovacs' journal, which he gained from the New Frontiersman, leading the citizens of New York to rally against Ozymandias, while the United States faces an inevitable nuclear war. Reggie Long, son of Kovacs's prison psychologist Dr. Malcolm Long, later takes on the Rorschach mantle after being driven insane by Veidt's monster and learning self-defense techniques from former Mothman Byron Lewis, and mistakenly believing that his father and Rorschach had been friends after reading parts of his reports on him.

Events of Rorschach
Thirty-five years after the death of Rorschach, right-wing vigilante Laura "The Kid" Cummings brainwashes two elderly comic book creators, Wil Myerson and Frank Miller, into believing that they are Rorschach's reincarnation, before attempting to assassinate Robert Redford's political opponent, being killed themselves in the process.

Appearance
Rorschach is 5'6" tall and weighs 140 pounds, and, as Walter Kovacs (his "disguise"), he appears as a red-haired, expressionless man who always carries with him a sign that reads "THE END IS NIGH". Most people who see Kovacs consider him ugly and Rorschach himself states that he cannot bear to look upon his own human face, considering his mask (or true "face") to be beautiful instead. His clothing then matches those of a homeless man, which seems to be his disguise when he has not donned his vigilante attire.

During Rorschach's nighttime patrols, he wears a striped purple business suit, similarly colored leather gloves, a grayed scarf, and heavily unpolished elevator shoes. More signature of his apparel is his brown trench coat with his matching fedora hat that has a light purple stripe. However, Rorschach's most defining feature of his costume is his ink-blotted mask.

Rorschach's mask, which he considers his true "face", is a piece of fabric made from a material derived from the technologies of Dr. Manhattan, and it is blank except on the front, where two viscous liquids, one black and one white, are between two layers of latex. The liquids continually shift in response to heat and pressure, which explains why the liquid only animates when Rorschach puts it on his face. The black liquids form symmetrical patterns like those of a Rorschach inkblot test while never mixing with the white color of the mask, thus never producing a gray color, much like Rorschach's view of morality and the world.

Personality
During his childhood, Walter Kovacs was described as bright, and excelled in literature, mathematics, political science, and religious education. Kovacs continues a one-man battle against crime long after superheroes have become both detested and illegal, eventually replacing his Kovacs identity with the persona of Rorschach. Rorschach considers his mask his true "face" and his unmasked persona to be his "disguise", refusing to answer to his birth name during his trial and psychiatric sessions. Moore depicted Rorschach as being extremely right-wing, and morally absolute, a viewpoint that has alienated him from the rest of society, even among other superheroes. Rorschach presents his views on right and wrong as starkly black and white with no room for compromise, with the exception of his respect for the Comedian, whose attempted rape of the first Silk Spectre he dismisses as a "moral lapse". He holds deep contempt for behavior he considers immoral and is openly derogatory toward heroes who do not share his unwavering views, deriding them as "soft".

Rorschach displays a discomfort with female sexuality as a result of his early childhood, although the crimes that most affected him spiritually were against women: the murders of Kitty Genovese and Blair Roche. Rorschach is often described as being mentally ill by other characters in the comic.

Skills and abilities
Like most characters in Watchmen, Rorschach has no obvious "superpowers". He merely has his strong will, peak-human physical strength, and finely-honed sense of timing and precision. Rorschach is very resourceful and creative, adapting ordinary household objects into tools or weapons, such as the use of a can of aerosol spray in combination with multiple matches to set fire to a police officer and throwing ground black pepper to blind another police officer, during a confrontation at Moloch's house. During the series he is shown to use cooking fat, a toilet bowl, a cigarette, a fork and his jacket all as weapons; he is also shown using a coat hanger as a makeshift measuring device. He owns a gas-powered grappling gun, which he uses to climb buildings (and once as a makeshift harpoon gun against a police officer), as seen in Chapter One, which was designed and built by Nite Owl II.

Rorschach is well versed in street combat, gymnastics, and boxing. He is also extremely stoic, as shown by his indifference to pain and discomfort. He even tolerated Antarctic temperatures while wearing only a trenchcoat over street clothes, without complaining or even commenting on the severe cold.

Despite his mental instability, Rorschach is extremely intelligent and was described as "tactically brilliant and unpredictable" by Nite Owl, and shows a marked affinity for detective work, as evidenced by his ability to locate the Comedian's costume in his apartment when the police could not. Much like Batman in the mainstream DC Universe, Rorschach is given the title of "World's Greatest Detective."

He is also skilled at lock picking (although a running gag throughout the series has him simply forcing Nite Owl's front door to talk to him).

Reception
The character of Rorschach has been received with critical acclaim by critics, reviewers, and readers; he has also been awarded. In 1988, the character won the "Character Most Worthy of Own Title" category in the American Section of the Eagle Awards for comics released during 1987. Rorschach has been labelled the "obvious fan favorite" and the "flagship" character of Watchmen, and is often regarded as the most iconic and popular character of the series. The misanthropic character's popularity has led author Alan Moore to proclaim Watchmen's failure as literature.

Rorschach was named the 6th-greatest comic book character of all time by Wizard magazine in May 2008, with the magazine stating that "Rorschach still stands as one of the most compelling and frightening characters in comics' history." In July 2008, he was ranked as the 16th "Greatest Comic Book Character" by Empire magazine, which, when picking their top Watchmen character, proclaimed "from a purely iconic point of view, it had to be Rorschach" and described him as "taut, tortured, complex creation who, as well as being at the centre of some of Watchmen's most memorable sequences [...], ends up being perhaps the most pure out of the graphic novel's characters." TopTenz placed Rorschach 3rd on their 2010 list of the "Top 10 Comic Book Anti-Heroes (Marvel & DC)" where he was described as "just one of many outstanding characters introduced during the landmark Watchmen series, but he is far and away the most popular and fascinating." In 2011, IGN ranked the character 16th on their "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list, noting that "One has to admire his determination, if not necessarily his methods." Rorschach's friendship with Nite Owl II was listed 10th on Fandomania's 2009 "Top 10 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Friendships" list, which commented that "even though they have contrasting world views, they have the same belief towards crime: it must be fought against."

In the making of the film adaptation, director Zack Snyder said "no character" was more important than Rorschach. The Los Angeles Times further added on Snyder's statement, claiming "The filmmaker said [Rorschach] 'is easily one of the greatest comic book characters ever' and that's a view shared by many fans and the press that serves them." When asked what he thought of the character, Jackie Earle Haley responded that Rorschach was "an awesome character. He is one twisted, sick individual but he's still a fascinating character."

Haley's performance as Rorschach in the Watchmen film has been acclaimed. Empire magazine remarked that the portrayals of Rorschach, along with Nite Owl, were the most successful and commented that Haley's performance would make the audience "half-wish Snyder might have stuck with Rorschach as [the sole] protagonist rather than spreading the net so wide." IGN praised Haley's performance, despite his face being obscured for most of the film, as one of the film's key highlights, proclaiming that "Haley IS Rorschach. It's not just a career-defining performance, it's one of the best this genre has seen other than Heath Ledger's Joker. He owns the screen whenever he's on it." Richard Corliss of Time praised Haley, "who does right by his grizzled role" and named him and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian) as the standout actors of the film.

Other versions
Rorschach has been referred to, quoted, and parodied several times in various media. These include:
 * In Kingdom Come #2, a miniseries published by DC Comics in 1996, Rorschach appears as a background character breaking Brother Power's fingers. He is also seen standing between the Question and Obsidian, during a scene in which Superman visits a metahuman bar.
 * In 2007, Rorschach was featured in the promo artwork by Art Adams for the Countdown to Final Crisis: Arena miniseries by DC Comics, where he is being beaten by Batman from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. However, DC opted to omit Rorschach and the aforementioned Batman from the actual Countdown to the Final Crisis: Arena miniseries.

Television

 * Rorschach appears in Watchmen: Motion Comic, where he, along with every other character in the series, is voiced by actor Tom Stechschulte.
 * In Watchmen, after Rorschach's mysterious disappearance (in reality his death, as depicted at the end of the graphic novel), his journal was discovered. Published in a reactionary newspaper known for conspiracy theories, it was initially ignored. However, the journal was later appropriated by the "Seventh Kavalry", a white supremacist splinter terrorist group, who, given Rorschach's right-wing politics and description of morality as "black-and-white", misinterpreted it as a racist manifesto. Members of the Kavalry wear crude replicas of Rorschach's mask and attack members of the Tulsa police and their families for enforcing President Robert Redford's reparations to victims of racial injustices, and intend to acquire the powers of Doctor Manhattan for themselves and their masters, the secret white supremacist order "Cyclops" led by Senator Joseph Keene, Jr.

Film

 * Rorschach appears in Watchmen, portrayed by Jackie Earle Haley, with Eli Snyder, the son of the film's director Zack Snyder, playing the young Rorschach in flashbacks. While Rorschach in the film adaptation is relatively faithful to his graphic novel counterpart, there are still some differences in description and storyline. Rorschach's age in the film is 35, whereas in the graphic novel he is 45 years old (although this was most likely an error in production as his certificate marks him as forty-five). He is depicted in the film as being right-handed (justified by Jackie Earle Haley being right-handed) as opposed to left-handed. In the graphic novel, Rorschach consistently talks in a thudding pidgin while this is toned down in the film, with Rorschach talking in a more growling manner. His psychological instability in the film is downplayed, and he appears to be stronger than his graphic novel-self as he manages to ward off some attacking policemen, even after falling from an apartment window. He is also shown to openly disapprove of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's relationship. In the film, rather than Rorschach, Nite Owl II is the one who warns Ozymandias of the possible mask-killer, although Rorschach was revealed to have visited him earlier. Rorschach's method of killing Grice differs also. In the film he uses the meat cleaver that killed Blair Roche to continuously hack the kidnapper, uttering after killing Grice, "Men get arrested. Dogs get put down!". The number of times Rorschach visits the criminal underworld, Nite Owl and Moloch are reduced, and some of these scenes are also altered. Rorschach's landlady, and anything concerning his apartment are left out; when obtaining his costume after the prison break, instead of wearing a spare one in his apartment, he regains his previous one in the prison. While Rorschach's meeting with Dr. Malcolm Long is shown, this has been reduced to one meeting; also, Long's dark subplot where Rorschach's story affects his personal life and philosophy are omitted. Snyder admitted that while he did not film the scene he "would have loved to." Rorschach's confrontation with Dr. Manhattan is extended. Unlike in the novel, Nite Owl is present for Rorschach's death, becoming enraged at Ozymandias after witnessing the spectacle. Snyder felt he "needed a moment at the end" and explained that he changed this scene because he wanted to show a glimpse of the "sweet" relationship between Rorschach and Nite Owl that was established in the film.

Rorschach appears in the animated film voice by Titus Welliver.

Video games

 * Rorschach appears as a playable character in Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, with Jackie Earle Haley reprising his role.

In popular culture

 * In The Question #17 published by DC Comics in 1988, the Question, on whom Rorschach was partly based, actually read a copy of the Watchmen trade paperback. Question is briefly inspired by the comic and the character of Rorschach, leading him to take a more physically aggressive style of crime fighting. At the end of the issue, having been overpowered in hand-to-hand combat by a pair of villains, he is asked if he has any final words, and Question remarks, "Rorschach sucks." Rorschach is also featured in a dream sequence experienced by the Question in that issue.
 * In Deadpool: Sins of the Past #4, a miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1994, Deadpool's mask is forcibly removed by the Juggernaut, at which point Deadpool parrots Rorschach by screaming, "My face! Give me back my face!".
 * In Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #6 published by Marvel Comics in 2004, Rorschach makes another appearance in one of the riot scenes, running across the panel.
 * In the 2009 one-shot comic Watchmensch released by Brain Scan Studios which parodies the Watchmen series, Rorschach is depicted as a lawyer who is known instead as "Spottyman" and is pretending to be Jewish.
 * In Uncanny X-Men #525 published by Marvel Comics in 2010, during the "Second Coming" storyline, Fantomex, while fighting a group of Nimrods from the future, imitates Rorschach's line from when he was in prison: "I'm not trapped in here with you... You're trapped in here with me" and then adds "That film was stupid."
 * During the Marvel storyline "Spider-Verse" when the master weaver shows the web of life to Solus, Morlun's father, to show where Morlun is, various Spider-men are seen, one of them dressed like Rorschach but with red instead of white and with the black spots as eyes with smaller spots around them.
 * The character Pastry Face II is used to represent Rorshach in the Simpsons Comics Spectacular #13 storyline "Who Splotches the Splotchmen?"
 * In The Simpsons 2007 episode "Husbands and Knives", infant versions of Rorschach along with Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, and Nite Owl II are shown riding a surfboard on the cover of a DVD of the fictional film Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation (a parody of Alan Moore's graphic novels Watchmen and V for Vendetta).
 * The Question, as voiced by Jeffery Combs in Justice League Unlimited, mimics Rorschach's speaking patterns and monotone voice and his reputation for being crazy by the other heroes. In the episode "Question Authority," after being beaten and tortured by Lex Luthor, the Question is rescued and unmasked, where it is revealed the ordeal has given him bruises resembling Kovacs' after his arrest; the Question additionally holds a sign reading "The End is Nigh", identical to the sign Walter Kovacs is seen holding throughout the graphic novel.
 * Rorschach, along with the other main characters of the graphic novel, are shown in Saturday Morning Watchmen, a 2009 Newgrounds and YouTube viral video which parodies the Watchmen series. In the video, Rorschach appears as a "nutty" character who usually is "clowning around". He is also a "friend to the animals", and is shown petting a pair of German Shepherds, in ironic contrast to the graphic novel.
 * In the first episode of the second season of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Velma is dressed in an overcoat and fedora and asks Fred, "Who were you expecting, Rorschach?"
 * Rorschach was briefly portrayed in the documentary The Mindscape of Alan Moore, where he is voiced by Alan Moore himself.
 * In the Japanese manga Attack on Titan, the character Levi Ackerman was inspired by Rorschach, according to the series creator Hajime Isayama. In the same manga, the character Erwin Smith is inspired by Ozymandias, another character from Watchmen.
 * Rorschach appears in Laura Beatty's 2019 novel, Lost Property.

title: Rorschach (character)


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Świdnik

Świdnik is a town in southeastern Poland with 40,186 inhabitants (2012), situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, 10 km southeast of the city of Lublin. It is the capital of Świdnik County. Świdnik belongs to the historic province of Lesser Poland, and was first mentioned in historical records in the year 1392. It remained a village until the end of the 19th century when it began to develop as a spa, due to its location and climate. In the early Middle Ages, the area of Świdnik was under the authority of a castellan from nearby Lublin. In the location of the current city three villages existed: Adampol, Świdnik and Krępiec (the name of the city itself was later taken from the village which was located in the immediate vicinity of the PZL Świdnik factory).

Świdnik, due to its location, is often considered to be a Satellite town of Lublin. The town is host to various industrial and advanced technology companies. It is a part of the Lublin Agglomeration, extending its business-oriented capabilities.

There are other villages named Świdnik in Poland, as well as Svidnik, a town in Slovakia.

History
The first documented mention of Świdnik comes from the year 1392, and at that time the village was called Świdnik Wielki (Maior Swidnik, Magna Swydnyk). In the early 15th century, a Świdnik Mały (Świdnik Minor) appeared in documents and, in 1450, another village, Świdniczek, was mentioned. In 1564, Świdnik Wielki had a folwark, 32 peasants, 14 houses and a public house, and belonged to Lesser Poland's Lublin Voivodeship. After the Partitions of Poland, all three villages briefly belonged to the Habsburg Empire (1795–1807). In 1815, they became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. During the January Uprising, several skirmishes between Russian units and Polish rebels took place in the area of Świdnik. The biggest one was the Battle of Fajsławice (August 24, 1863), in which 63 Poles were killed. The battle is now commemorated by a monument. In 1877, Świdnik received its first rail connection, on the newly completed Vistula River Railroad. In 1905 – 1914, a red brick station was built; it now is the oldest public utility building in the city.

During World War I, heavy fighting between Russian and German and Austro-Hungarian units took place in the area of Świdnik (August 1914, July 1915). On July 30, 1915, the city was captured by the Austro-Hungarian Army, and remained under Austrian occupation until November 1918. A World War I military cemetery is located in the outskirts of Świdnik. In late 1918, the town became part of Lublin Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. At that time Świdnik developed as a spa due to its unique microclimate. Świdnik's district of Adampol was a popular leisure destination among residents of Lublin in the 1920s and 1930s.

Prior to World War II an airfield was built, which probably influenced the postwar decision of the government of the People's Republic of Poland to locate the PZL Świdnik plant here in the early 1950s. In 1937, the government of Poland purchased 136 hectares of land from the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul and, in the autumn of that same year, construction of the complex of School of Civilian Pilots of the Airborne and Antigas Defence League was initiated. The school unofficially opened in late June 1938, and the first pilot training was carried out in the autumn of 1938. The size of the Świdnik airfield was 800 x 750 meters, and the official opening of the school took place on June 4, 1939. Both the airport and the school were bombed by the Luftwaffe on September 2, 1939, but the Wehrmacht did not capture Świdnik until September 17. During World War II, the Germans used the airfield and its facilities for their military purposes; it was one of main centers of the Luftwaffe in initial stages of Operation Barbarossa.

During the war, numerous Polish resistance units operated in the area of Świdnik, including the Home Army. In October 1941, Germans opened the Majdanek concentration camp, located in the village Majdan Tatarski, between Świdnik and Lublin. Furthermore, at the Krępiec Forest near Świdnik, numerous executions took place. As many as 30,000 people were murdered in these executions. The victims were largely both Polish and Jewish prisoners from the Majdanek Camp, the Lublin Castle prison and from other nearby towns and villages. The largest execution took place here on November 3, 1943, when German units shot 18,000 Jews. The massacres are commemorated by a monument-tomb, unveiled in the 1970s. In July 1944, Świdnik was captured by the Red Army. The Soviets immediately made use of the airfield, which had been sabotaged by the Germans prior to their retreat. On August 11, 1944 the first Soviet plane carrying members of the legitimate Polish government (see Government Delegation for Poland) took off from the airfield bound for Moscow. The Soviet Air Forces continued to make use of the Świdnik airfield until spring of 1946.

In 1949 the first trees were felled in the location of the future Transportation Equipment Factory (Wytwórnia Sprzętu Komunikacyjnego, WSK). The factory, which opened in 1951, quickly became one of the main centres of helicopter production both in the Eastern bloc and in Europe as a whole. In 1957 the factory was formally renamed WSK "PZL-Świdnik". In the 1950s, a number of new blocks of flats for the workers was built, which resulted in rapid population growth. In 1951, a high school was opened to accommodate the families of these workers and, in 1952, production began at the factory. In 1951, the population of the settlement was 2,800 but, by 1955, it grew to almost 7,500. A town charter was granted to Świdnik in 1954. The first helicopter produced here, the Soviet-designed SM-1 (Mil Mi-1), flew in 1956 – around 1,800 were produced in Świdnik. In 1965 production switched to the Mil Mi-2, of which 5,450 were produced over the next three decades. The factory was its exclusive manufacturer. In the 1980s the factory started producing helicopters of Polish design – PZL W-3 Sokół and PZL SW-4 Puszczyk. Świdnik was designed as a model Communist town (see Urban planning in communist countries). New districts were built in the 1960s and 1970s, with schools, health centers, hospital and a cinema. Following the example of Nowa Huta, Communist authorities did not allow the construction of a Roman Catholic church for many years, despite the pledges of residents. The government finally relented in 1977. By then, the population of Świdnik was well over 20,000. On July 8, 1980 a strike started in the WSK factory, which quickly spread to other factories in the Lublin region and brought the local economy to a standstill. The Communist government eventually managed to quell these mass protests by granting the workers many of their demands. However, the pressure for change generated by the strikes in turn led to the August strikes in Gdańsk and elsewhere on Poland's Baltic Sea Coast, which shortly after led to the emergence of the Solidarity movement. During the Martial law in Poland, the town was an important center of both active and nonviolent resistance. On December 13, 1981, the workers at PZL Świdnik began a strike action, in protest of the Communist government. The plant was immediately surrounded by security services and Polish Army tanks and armoured vehicles. The strike was broken on December 15, when armed forces entered the factory. In the summer 1982 the town became famous across Poland for the so-called Świdnik Walks (Świdnickie spacery), in which its residents went for walks with their families and children at the time of the main news broadcast (Dziennik Telewizyjny, at 7:30 p.m. daily), in protest of Communist propaganda.

21st Century

In 2010, AgustaWetland acquired PZL-Swidnik. Following this, the factory began production of a new type of medium-lift military helicopter, the AgustaWestland AW149.

Transport
The S17 and the S12 expressways, still under construction in some areas, concurrently bypass Świdnik before diverging at Piaski; Lublin Airport, located on the town's outskirts, serves the whole voivodeship. Świdnik also has a rail station on a major line from Lublin towards Chełm and the border with Ukraine.

Sport

The city is home to Avia Świdnik, a sports club, which independently runs two departments – men's football and men's volleyball.

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

title: Świdnik


text:
Puławy

Puławy (, also written Pulawy) is a city in eastern Poland, in Lesser Poland's Lublin Voivodeship, at the confluence of the Vistula and Kurówka Rivers. Puławy is the capital of Puławy County. The city's 2019 population was estimated at 47,417. Its coat of arms is based on Pogonia.

Puławy was first mentioned in documents of the 15th century. At that time it was spelled Pollavy, its name probably coming from a Vistula River ford located nearby. The town is a local center of science, industry and tourism, together with nearby Nałęczów and Kazimierz Dolny. Puławy is home to Poland's first permanent museum and is a Vistula River port.

The town has two bridges and four rail stations, and serves as a road junction. Nearby Dęblin has a military airport.

Location and transport
Puławy lies in the western part of Lublin Voivodeship, at the edge of the picturesque Lesser Polish Gorge of the Vistula, and near the easternmost point of the Vistula river. Historically the town belongs to Lesser Poland, and geographically, it lies at the border of Mazovian Lowland and Lublin Upland. The area of the town is 50.49 km2. Puławy is located on Polish Expressway S12 (highway), and the intersection of the S17 and S12 highways is located nearby, east of the city. Furthermore, the town has four rail stations (Puławy, Puławy Azoty, Puławy Chemia and Puławy Miasto). Long-distance rail transport is served by the Puławy Miasto station, with connections to all Polish cities.

History
The history of Puławy dates back to the 15th century when a settlement near a Vistula river ford was established. In the late 17th century it emerged as the location of a rural residence of the Lubomirski and the Sieniawski noble families and in 1676–1679, Prince Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski built a summer palace, now known as the Pałac Czartoryskich or the Czartoryskich Palace. In 1687, Lubomirski's daughter Elżbieta (who was called the uncrowned Queen of Poland), married Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, bringing Puławy her dowry. In 1706, during the Great Northern War, the settlement together with the castle were destroyed by Swedish soldiers as Elżbieta was a supporter of King Augustus II the Strong.

In 1731, Maria Zofia Sieniawska (the daughter of Elżbieta and Adam Sieniawski), married August Aleksander Czartoryski. As a result, Puławy remained in the hands of the Czartoryski family for the next 100 years. The settlement prospered, and in 1784 it became the property of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and his wife Izabela Czartoryska, née Fleming. Under their stewardship, and after the loss of Poland's independence in 1795 (see Partitions of Poland) the palace became a museum of Polish national memorabilia and a major cultural and political centre. In 1784 Adam and Izabela moved permanently into the palace, and soon afterwards Puławy became known as Polish Athens. All major cultural figures of the late 18th century Poland visited the palace. Among them were Grzegorz Piramowicz, Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Adam Naruszewicz, Jan Paweł Woronicz, Franciszek Karpiński, Franciszek Zabłocki, Jan Piotr Norblin, Marcello Bacciarelli. In 1794, during the Kościuszko Uprising, Puławy was plundered and burned by the Russians as punishment for the Czartoryski family's support of the rebels. The reconstruction of the palace was initiated in 1796 by Princess Izabela who employed the renowned architect Chrystian Piotr Aigner. In 1801, the Princess opened the first museum in Poland in the Temple of the Sibyl in Puławy.

The end of Puławy's Golden Age was marked by the November Uprising (1830–31), when after its suppression, the estate was taken over by the Russian government. The museum collections that were saved later became the nucleus of the present Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. In the 1830s, the Czartoryski family was forced to leave Russian-controlled Congress Poland (see Great Emigration), and Puławy was reduced into a small, provincial village. In 1842, to further erase traces of Polish culture, the Russians renamed Puławy to Nowa Aleksandria. In 1869, an Agricultural and Forestry Institute was founded here. One of its first students was the future Polish writer Bolesław Prus (who had also spent part of his early childhood in Puławy). Prus would set his 1884 micro-story, "Mold of the Earth," at the Temple of the Sibyl.

20th century
Puławy received its town charter in 1906. In 1915, it was seized by the Austro-Hungarian Army, which remained until November 1918. On 13 August 1920, Józef Piłsudski, Poland's Chief of State, left Warsaw, and established a military headquarters in Puławy. The Soviet Union's Red Army held most of eastern Poland and was besieging Warsaw, (see Polish–Soviet War). Piłsudski's radio-monitoring, cryptological and intelligence services detected a gap in the Soviet flanks in the Puławy region, and he ordered a concentration of Polish forces in the surrounding area around the Wieprz River. On 18 August 1920, the Polish Army launched a counter-attack from Puławy that encircled and defeated a 177,000-strong Soviet force. The attack drove the Red Army from Poland and established Poland's security for two decades, until the German invasion of 1939.

In the Second Polish Republic, Puławy began a slow process of modernization. In 1934, the town significantly grew in size, after several local villages merged with it. Furthermore, in the late 1930s Puławy took advantage of the Central Industrial Area.

In September 1939, during the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, Puławy was seized by the Wehrmacht, and afterwards was occupied by Germany. Three German concentration camps operated around Puławy. In 1940 the Germans carried out mass arrests of local Polish intelligentsia, which was then imprisoned in Lublin, and then often deported to concentration camps or murdered in Rury, Lublin. During the occupation, Polish poet Krystyna Krahelska lived in the city from 1940 to 1942 and was part of the Polish underground resistance movement. She is best known as the author of the most popular song of the Polish resistance movement (Hej chłopcy, bagnet na broń), which she premiered in 1943 in Warsaw, where she was killed in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The town's Jewish population of some 3,600 was first confined to a ghetto, then murdered at the Sobibór camp. The Jewish population ceased to exist and was never reconstituted. The town remained under German occupation until July 25, 1944, when it was freed by the Home Army, as well as the Red Army.

A year later, on April 24, 1945, a local unit of the anti-Communist organization Freedom and Independence under Marian Bernaciak captured the local office of Communist secret services temporarily.

The postwar history of Puławy has been dominated by the 1960 decision of the government of People's Republic of Poland to build a large chemical plant north of the town (Zakłady Azotowe Puławy). It was opened in 1966 and produced nitrate fertilizer. As a result, in the 1960s and 1970s Pulawy quickly grew in size, with new districts built for the influx of workers. Recently the plant has become the world's largest producer of melamine. In 1980 and 1981, Zakłady Azotowe Puławy was one of the largest centers of the Solidarity movement in the Lublin Region. After the declaration of Martial law in Poland (December 13, 1981), strike action was initiated in the plant, which was put down by force by the ZOMO on Dec. 19, and 20 people were arrested.

Points of interest
The most notable landmark in Puławy is the Baroque-Classicist Czartoryski Palace, dating from 1676–1679 (architect Tylman van Gameren), burned in 1706, remodeled 1722–36, and again by Chrystian Piotr Aigner ca. 1800. The palace is surrounded by a 30-hectare park, in 1798-1806 fashioned into an English landscape garden, which includes classicist park pavilions dating from the early 19th century. One, the colonnaded round Temple of the Sibyl, is the setting of Bolesław Prus' striking 1884 micro-story, "Mold of the Earth."

Near the Temple of the Sibyl is the "Gothic House", built between 1800 and 1809 to commemorate Prince Józef Poniatowski’s visit to Puławy; it now houses the Regional Museum. Other palace buildings house the Soil and Fertilizer Institute.

Additional interesting buildings within the park include:
 * Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1800–03) by Chrystian Piotr Aigner, styled after the Pantheon, Rome, originally - Czartoryskis' Chapel. It is actually located outside the park.
 * Marynka"s Palace (1790–94), built for Maria Wirtemberska,
 * Roman Gate, built in 1829 as a permanent ruin, styled after the Arch of Titus,
 * Greek House (1778–1791), currently a public library,
 * Yellow House, in which Tsar Alexander II of Russia stayed,
 * Chinese Arbor,
 * marble sarcophagus, brought from Rome in 1799 by Adam Jerzy Czartoryski,
 * a 1790 sculpture of Clorinda and Tancred (see Jerusalem Delivered).

The town of Puławy itself features some interesting buildings, including a former town hall, former Orthodox church, and historic inn.

Science
Since the mid-19th century, Puławy has been a center of higher education. Institutions operating here are:
 * a local branch of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin,
 * Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation, opened in 1950, and based on an earlier school from 1917,
 * National Veterinary Research Institute, opened in 1945,
 * Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology,
 * Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture, Division of Apiculture,
 * Fertilizer Research Institute, moved in 1968 from Tarnów,
 * Development Department at the Institute of Fundamental Technological of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since 1993 called Echo-Son SA.

Since 2008, local institutes, together with Town Council and the Kazimierz Pułaski University of Technology and Humanities in Radom have been working on a modern scientific campus, which will be located in the district of Azoty. Among others, the complex will host four departments of the Radom University of Technology.

Sports
Puławy has several sports clubs, with the most famous ones being Wisła Puławy (football, swimming, track and field, weight lifting), and KS Azoty-Puławy handball team which plays in the Polish Superliga, the country's top division, finishing 3rd in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Notable people

 * Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski (1734–1823), aristocrat, writer, literary and theater critic, linguist, traveller and statesman
 * Princess Izabela Czartoryska (1746–1835), noblewoman, writer, and art collector, widely regarded as a very prominent figure of the Polish Enlightenment, the founder of Poland's first museum, the Czartoryski Museum, now situated in Kraków
 * Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (1770–1861), nobleman, statesman and author
 * Maria Wirtemberska (1768–1854), noble, writer, and philanthropist
 * Adam of Württemberg (1792–1847), Duke of Württemberg, grandson of Princess Izabela Czartoryska
 * Jan Feliks Piwarski (1794–1859), painter, curator, writer and graphic artist
 * Bolesław Prus (1847–1912), novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature
 * Józef Wierusz-Kowalski (1866–1927), physicist and diplomat
 * Julia Kratowska (1870–1946), activist, educator and politician
 * Samuel Tyszelman (1921–1941), member of the French Resistance during World War II
 * Irena Stankiewicz (born 1925), graphic artist
 * Stanisław Szmajzner (1927–1989), anti-Nazi resistance fighter, one of 58 known survivors of the Sobibór extermination camp
 * Beata Szymańska (born 1938), poet and writer
 * Marian Opania (born 1943), film actor and singer
 * Bohdan Zadura (born 1945), poet, translator and literary critic
 * Tomasz Adamski (bron 1963), singer and guitarist, member of the acclaimed 1980s post-punk band Siekiera
 * Bartosz Opania (born 1970), film, television and theatre actor
 * Blanka Lipińska (born 1985), cosmetologist and author
 * Konrad Czerniak (born 1989), swimmer
 * Kinga Achruk (born 1989), handball player
 * Malwina Kopron (born 1994), hammer thrower

Twin towns — sister cities
Puławy is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇦 Boyarka, Ukraine
 * 🇵🇹 Castelo Branco, Portugal
 * 🇺🇦 Dubliany, Ukraine
 * 🇧🇾 Nyasvizh, Belarus
 * 🇩🇪 Stendal, Germany

Former twin towns, both having ended their relation due to implementation of an LGBT ideology-free zone:
 * 🇫🇷 Douai, France
 * Nieuwegein, Netherlands

title: Puławy


text:
Long River

Long River may refer to:

 * The Yangtze River, from the literal translation of its usual Chinese name Changjiang
 * Any of several rivers named Long (, meaning "Dragon River")
 * Long Island River (Minnesota), a river of Minnesota, US
 * Long River (Guangxi), a river system in Guangxi Province, China
 * Long River, Prince Edward Island, a community in Canada

title: Long River


text:
Chinese pronouns

Chinese pronouns ( or ) differ somewhat from pronouns in English and other Indo-European languages. For instance, there is no differentiation in the spoken language between "he", "she" and "it" (though a written difference was introduced after contact with the West), and pronouns are not inflected to indicate whether they are the subject or object of a sentence. Mandarin Chinese further lacks a distinction between the possessive adjective ("my") and possessive pronoun ("mine"); both are formed by appending the particle 的 de. Pronouns in Chinese are often substituted by honorific alternatives.

In Mandarin

 * * 我们 / 我們 can be either inclusive or exclusive, depending on the circumstance where it is used.
 * † 咱们 / 咱們 is mainly used by northern speakers.

Following the iconoclastic May Fourth Movement in 1919, and to accommodate the translation of Western literature, written vernacular Chinese developed separate pronouns for gender-differentiated speech, and to address animals, deities, and inanimate objects.

Throughout the 1920s, a debate continued between three camps: those that preferred to preserve the preexisting use of 他 without distinction between genders, those that wished to preserve the spoken non-gendered pronoun but introduce a new female pronoun 她 in writing, and those that wished to introduce a differently pronounced female pronoun 伊. The pronoun 伊 enjoyed widespread support in the 1920s and 1930s but lost out to 她 after the Chinese Civil War. Currently, written pronouns are divided between the masculine human 他 (he, him), feminine human 她 (she, her), and non-human 它 (it), and similarly in the plural. This distinction does not exist in the spoken language, where moreover tā is restricted to animate reference; inanimate entities are usually referred to with demonstrative pronouns for 'this' and 'that'.

Other, rarer new written pronouns in the second person are nǐ (祢 "you, a deity"), nǐ (你 "you, a male"), and nǐ (妳 "you, a female"). In the third person, they are tā (牠 "it, an animal"), tā (祂 "it, a deity"), and tā (它 "it, an inanimate object"). Among users of traditional Chinese characters, these distinctions are only made in Taiwanese Mandarin; in simplified Chinese, tā (它) is the only third-person non-human form and nǐ (你) is the only second person form. The third person distinction between "he" (他) and "she" (她) remain in use in all forms of written standard Mandarin.

In the early 21st century, some members of genderfluid and queer Chinese online communities started using X也 and TA to refer to a generic, anonymous, or non-binary third person. As of June 2022, neither have been encoded as a single code point in Unicode, and neither are considered standard usage. Since at least 2014, Bilibili has used TA in its user pages.

Additional notes

 * The first-person pronouns 俺 ǎn and 偶 ǒu "I" are infrequently used in Mandarin conversation. They are of dialectal origin. However, their usage is gaining popularity among the young, most notably in online communications.
 * According to Wang Li, the second person formal pronoun nín (您 "you, formal; polite") is derived from the fusion of the second person plural nǐmen (你们 "you, formal; polite"), making it somewhat analogous to the T-V distinction in Romance languages. Consistent with this hypothesized origin, *nínmen is traditionally considered to be a grammatically incorrect expression for the formal second person plural.  Instead, the alternative phrases dàjiā (大家, "you, formal plural") and gèwèi  (各位, "you, formal plural") are used, with the latter being somewhat more formal than the former.  In addition, some dialects use an analogous formal third person pronoun tān (怹, "he/she, formal; polite").
 * Traditional Chinese characters, as influenced by translations from Western languages and the Bible in the nineteenth century, occasionally distinguished gender in pronouns, although that distinction is abandoned in simplified Characters. Those traditional characters developed after Western contact include both masculine and feminine forms of "you" (你 and 妳). In the simplified system, 妳 is rare.

In other Sinitic languages
There are many other pronouns in modern Sinitic languages, such as Taiwanese Hokkien 恁 "you" and Written Cantonese 佢哋 (keúih deih) "they." There exist many more pronouns in Classical Chinese and in literary works, including 汝 (rǔ) or 爾 (ěr) for "you", and 吾 (wú) for "I" (see Chinese honorifics). They are not routinely encountered in colloquial speech.

Possessives
To indicate alienable possession, 的 (de) is appended to the pronoun. For inalienable possession, such as family and entities very close to the owner, this may be omitted, e.g. 我妈/我媽 (wǒ mā) "my mother". For older generations, 令 (lìng) is the equivalent to the modern form 您的 (nínde), as in 令尊 (lìngzūn) "your father". In literary style, 其 (qí) is sometimes used for "his" or "her" or as a gender-neutral pronoun; e.g. 其父 means "his father" or "her father".

In Cantonese, for possessive, 嘅 (ge3) is appended to the pronoun. It is used in the same way as 的 in Mandarin.

In Taiwanese Hokkien, possessive pronouns are homophonous with plural pronouns. For example, 恁 can mean either "your" or "you (plural)".

Demonstrative pronouns
The demonstrative pronouns work the same as in English.

The distinction between singular and plural are made by the classifier 个/個 (gè) and 些 (xiē), and the following nouns remain the same. Usually inanimate objects are referred using these pronouns rather than the personal pronouns 它 (tā) and 它們 (tāmen). Traditional forms of these pronouns are: 這個 (zhège), 這些 (zhèxiē), 那個 (nàge), 那些 (nàxiē), and 它們 tāmen.

Pronouns in imperial times

 * See also Chinese honorifics.

In imperial times, the pronoun for "I" was commonly omitted when speaking politely or to someone with higher social status. "I" was usually replaced with special pronouns to address specific situations. Examples include guǎrén (寡人) during early Chinese history and zhèn (朕) after the Qin dynasty when the Emperor is speaking to his subjects. When the subjects speak to the Emperor, they address themselves as chén (臣), or "your official". It was extremely impolite and taboo to address the Emperor as "you" or to refer to oneself as "I".

In modern times, the practice of self-deprecatory terms is still used in specific formal situations. In résumés, the term guì (贵/貴; lit. noble) is used for "you" and "your"; e.g., guì gōngsī (贵公司/貴公司) refers to "your company". Běnrén (本人; lit. this person) is used to refer to oneself.

title: Chinese pronouns


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Rorschach, Switzerland

Rorschach is a municipality, in the District of Rorschach in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It is on the south side of Lake Constance (Bodensee).

History
Rorschach is first mentioned in 850 as Rorscachun. In 947, Otto I granted the abbot of St. Gall the right to operate markets, mint coins and levy tariffs at Rorschach.

In 1489–90 the Rorschacher Klosterbruch or destruction of the abbey at Rorschach touched off the St. Gallen War. Following decades of conflict with the city of St. Gallen, in late 1480 Abbot Ulrich Rösch began planning to move the abbey away from the city of St. Gallen to Rorschach. By moving he hoped to escape the independence and conflict in the city. Additionally, by moving closer to the important lake trade routes, he could make Rorschach into a major harbor and collect a fortune in taxes. In turn Mayor Varnbüler and the city feared that a new harbor on the lake would cause trade to bypass St. Gallen and Appenzell. They would then be forced to go through the Prince-Bishop's harbor to sell their fabric. Though the city of St. Gallen and Appenzell opposed the new monastery, after the approval of Pope Sixtus IV and protracted negotiations with Emperor Friedrich III the corner stone of the new Mariaberg Abbey was laid on 21 March 1487.

At first the city simply protested the Abbot's plan, but when that went nowhere, they began planning an attack on the abbey. They believed that the Swiss Confederation would not intervene due to tensions between them and the Swabian League. On 28 July 1489 a group of 1200 Appenzellers and 350 St. Galleners assembled at Grub (now part of Eggersriet) and marched on the Abbey. They quickly tore down the walls and burned everything they could find. After spending the night drinking and feasting on the abbot's supplies, they returned to their homes. The attack cost the Abbot the 13,000 gulden he had already spent on construction along with an additional 3,000 in furniture and supplies. The Abbey's vassals were supportive of the actions of the city and Appenzell and on 21 October 1489 signed the Waldkircher Bund with the rebels.

The Abbot spent the following months seeking support from his allies in the Old Swiss Confederation to punish St. Gallen and Appenzell. Initially he had little success. While the four allied cantons (Zürich, Lucerne, Schwyz and Glarus) generally supported the Abbot, the remainder of the Confederacy did not. However, the creation of the Waldkircher Bund appeared threatening to the Confederation and moved it to support the Abbot. On 24 January 1490, the Confederacy allowed the four cantons to attack the city and Appenzell. Facing forces from the Confederation, the Waldkircher Bund dissolved as each group prepared to defend themselves. The Swiss army besieged St. Gallen on 11 or 12 February and on 15 February the city surrendered. The peace treaty dissolved the Bund, restored the abbot's lands, allowed him to rebuild Mariaburg Abbey but required him to remain in St. Gallen. Mariaberg Monastery was rebuilt starting in 1497 and completed 1518. But it only served the monastery of St. Gallen as an administrative center and later became a school.

Geography
Rorschach has an area,, of 1.8 km2. Of this area, 7.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 90.4% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.6%) is non-productive (rivers or lakes).

The municipality is the capital of the Rorschach Wahlkreis. It is located on Lake Constance and bordered by the municipalities of Rorschacherberg and Goldach.

Coat of arms
The blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Garb Or between two Perches urinant.

Demographics
Rorschach has a population (as of ) of. , about 43.7% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Of the foreign population,, 156 are from Germany, 747 are from Italy, 1,353 are from ex-Yugoslavia, 103 are from Austria, 329 are from Turkey, and 740 are from another country. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of −5%. Most of the population speaks German (76.0%), with Italian being second most common ( 5.3%) and Serbo-Croatian being third ( 4.4%). Of the Swiss national languages, 6,572 speak German, 38 people speak French, 462 people speak Italian, and 13 people speak Romansh.

The age distribution,, in Rorschach is; 885 children or 10.2% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 991 teenagers or 11.5% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population, 1,224 people or 14.2% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 1,351 people or 15.6% are between 30 and 39, 1,190 people or 13.8% are between 40 and 49, and 1,013 people or 11.7% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 786 people or 9.1% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 751 people or 8.7% are between 70 and 79, there are 402 people or 4.6% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 54 people or 0.6% who are between 90 and 99.

there were 1,848 persons (or 21.4% of the population) who were living alone in a private dwelling. There were 1,916 (or 22.2%) persons who were part of a couple (married or otherwise committed) without children, and 3,925 (or 45.4%) who were part of a couple with children. There were 555 (or 6.4%) people who lived in single parent home, while there are 42 persons who were adult children living with one or both parents, 38 persons who lived in a household made up of relatives, 96 who lived household made up of unrelated persons, and 227 who are either institutionalized or live in another type of collective housing.

In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 26.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SP (23.6%), the CVP (22.9%) and the FDP (13.9%).

In Rorschach about 55.3% of the population (between age 25–64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule). Out of the total population in Rorschach,, the highest education level completed by 2,313 people (26.7% of the population) was Primary, while 2,915 (33.7%) have completed their secondary education, 704 (8.1%) have attended a Tertiary school, and 582 (6.7%) are not in school. The remainder did not answer this question.

The historical population is given in the following table:

Transport

Train lines link the city to St. Gallen, St. Margrethen, and Romanshorn. A rack railway, the Rorschach-Heiden-Bahn, leads to Heiden (800m a.s.l.). In 1856, the station became the terminus of the Zurich–St. Gallen line. Formerly, train carriages were transported over Lake Constance and thus it was possible to reach Heiden from Frankfurt or Berlin without changing trains.

The highway A1 runs close to the south of Rorschach, but the town does not have its own junction. The highway leads towards Sankt Gallen to the west and Sankt Margrethen to the east.

Rorschach also has a harbour served by passenger ferries. These travel to nearby towns on the Swiss and German sides of the lake.

A number of hiking trails either start or end in Rorschach. These include the Via Jacobi (one of the routes of the Way of St. James), the Alpenpanoramaweg to Geneva, and the Rheintaler Höhenweg to Sargans.

Economy
, Rorschach had an unemployment rate of 3.59%. , there were 30 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 3 businesses involved in this sector. 1,188 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 103 businesses in this sector. 3,417 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 467 businesses in this sector.

the average unemployment rate was 6.3%. There were 558 businesses in the municipality of which 107 were involved in the secondary sector of the economy while 451 were involved in the third.

there were 1,878 residents who worked in the municipality, while 2,486 residents worked outside Rorschach and 4,218 people commuted into the municipality for work.

Religion
From the, 4,033 or 46.6% are Roman Catholic, while 1,868 or 21.6% belonged to the Swiss Reformed Church. Of the rest of the population, there are 9 individuals (or about 0.10% of the population) who belong to the Christian Catholic faith, there are 407 individuals (or about 4.71% of the population) who belong to the Orthodox Church, and there are 187 individuals (or about 2.16% of the population) who belong to another Christian church. There is 1 individual who is Jewish, and 1,106 (or about 12.79% of the population) who are Islamic. There are 68 individuals (or about 0.79% of the population) who belong to another church (not listed on the census), 652 (or about 7.54% of the population) belong to no church, are agnostic or atheist, and 316 individuals (or about 3.65% of the population) did not answer the question.

Heritage sites of national significance
The former granary (Kornhaus) at Hauptstrasse 58 and the former Benedictine Abbey of Mariaberg (now the Kantonales Lehrerseminar) at Seminarstrasse 27 are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance.

In town, sights include the lake promenade, an aviation museum in Altenrhein as well as the castles of St. Anna, Wartensee, Sulzberg and Wartegg.

Additionally, the whole town of Rorschach and the Schlosslandschaft Rorschach / Alter Rhein, a number of castles in a region along the Rhine river, are designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. The Schlosslandschaft is shared between Berg, Goldach, Mörschwil, Rheineck, Rorschacherberg, St. Margrethen, Steinach, Thal and Tübach.

Notable people

 * Diethelm Blarer von Wartensee (1503 at Wartensee Castle near Rorschach – 1564 in Rorschach), Abbot of the Abbey of Saint Gall, 1530 to 1564.
 * Joseph Caspar (1799 in Rorschach – 1880), a Swiss painter and engraver
 * August von Bayer (1803–1875), a German painter of architectural subjects
 * John Joseph Frederick Otto Zardetti (1847–1902), a Roman Catholic priest and Bishop
 * Eugen Zardetti (1849–1926), a Swiss portrait and marine painter and early automobile owner.
 * Henry, Duke of Parma (1873 in Wartegg Castle – 1939), head of the House of Bourbon-Parma and the pretender to the defunct throne of the Duchy of Parma
 * Emil Jannings (1884–1950), a German actor, Academy Award for Best Actor, 1929
 * Elsa Cavelti (1907–2001), a Swiss operatic contralto and mezzo-soprano
 * Neel Jani (born 1983), a Swiss professional racing driver of Indian Gujarati origin
 * Urs App (born 1949 in Rorschach), an historian of ideas, religions and philosophies
 * Daniel Pavlović (born 1988), a Bosnian professional footballer

title: Rorschach, Switzerland


text:
Rhino Entertainment

Rhino Entertainment Company (formerly Rhino Records Inc.) is an American specialty record label and production company founded in 1978. It is currently the catalog division for Warner Music Group. Its current CEO is Mark Pinkus.

History
Founded in 1978, Rhino was originally a novelty and reissue label during the 1970s and 1980s. It released compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes from the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as novelty-song LPs (compiled in-house or by Dr. Demento) and retrospectives of famous comedy performers, including Richard Pryor, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, and Spike Jones.

Rhino started as a record shop on Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, in 1973, run by Richard Foos, and became a record distributor five years later thanks to the effort of then-store manager Harold Bronson. Their early releases were mostly novelty records (such as their first single, in 1975, Wild Man Fischer's "Go to Rhino Records"). The difficulties involved in getting airplay and distribution for such material eventually caused Foos and Bronson to take the label in other directions. One of Rhino's early artists was The Twisters, whose Los Angeles popularity far exceeded their album sales. Rhino's mail-order catalogs and early LP labels featured the company's mascot character Rocky—a cartoon greaser rhinoceros wearing a black leather jacket, designed by bootleg cover artist William Stout, and later cartoonist Scott Shaw!.

Some of the label's earliest successes with re-issues were achieved by acquiring the rights to the White Whale Records catalog that included the Turtles. By the mid-1980s, most of Rhino's releases were re-issues of previously released recordings licensed from other companies. For superior sound quality, audio mastering of the original tapes (where possible) was done under the direction of Bill Inglot, and the label's creative packaging made Rhino one of the most respected re-issue record labels, receiving rave reviews from music collectors, fans, and historians; and later, Grammy nominations and awards. Rhino was quick to get into the compact disc market, releasing dozens of oldies CDs at the dawn of the CD age in 1984. Their retrospective compact disc releases, such as those in the Billboard Top Hits series (Billboard Top Dance Hits), are often remastered to restore or improve upon the releases' original analog audio quality.

In the late 1980s, Rhino transitioned into a complete entertainment company specializing in home video (initially VHS, then DVD and Blu-ray) reissues of television programs such as The Monkees, The Lone Ranger, The Transformers, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics collection, as well as compact disc releases of select artists and movie soundtracks.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, the company's head of A&R, Gary Stewart, signed artists who recorded new music, including Cindy Lee Berryhill, Steve Wynn, Rank and File, Gene Clark and Carla Olson, The Textones, and NRBQ. These albums were released on the main Rhino label and on subsidiary labels such as RNA (Rhino New Artists) and Forward. However, the company's artists tended to generate more critical acclaim than public interest; for the most part, sales totals in the low five figures or less were routine for Rhino-produced albums, and the less costly, less risky re-issue business remained the company's primary revenue stream. One exception was the success of "At This Moment" by Billy Vera and the Beaters, a 1981 song that went to the top of the U.S. Billboard charts in late 1986 after being featured in an episode of the hit NBC TV series Family Ties. In 1986, Rhino Records had signed a deal with New World Pictures to set up a feature film company called Rhino Films. The first project planned by Rhino Films was to be a film about the rock band Big Daddy, which was a Rhino group that was returned to the US after several years of absence.

In 1985, Rhino signed a six-year distribution agreement with Capitol Records. During 1989 Rhino and Capitol's parent EMI made a deal to jointly acquire Roulette Records; Rhino received the U.S. rights to Roulette's catalog, excluding jazz. When the distribution deal with Capitol ended in 1992, Rhino signed a new distribution deal with Atlantic Records, and in turn Time Warner bought a 50 percent stake in the record company. In 1993, Rhino's home video unit ended its deal with Uni and moved its deal to A*Vision Entertainment. In 1998, Time Warner bought the other half of Rhino, making the company a wholly owned unit of Time Warner. The Rhino Records retail store, which was part of the 50% sale in 1992 but which reverted to Foos after Time Warner bought out the remainder, closed in 2005.

It was through this merger that the label reissued material from such artists as the Monkees, Eric Burdon, Fanny, Dannii Minogue, the Ramones, the Grateful Dead, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Beach Boys, Yes, the Doobie Brothers, the Cars, Chicago, Tom Paxton, Third Eye Blind, the Doors, War, Spirit of the West and, most recently, the Bee Gees; as well as soundtracks spanning the Turner-owned pre-1986 MGM and pre-1950 Warner Bros. periods, in addition to WB's own post-1949 period. Rhino's soundtrack releases include Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Easter Parade, North by Northwest, Casablanca, King Kong, Doctor Zhivago, Superman, and Finian's Rainbow. The Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. film soundtrack libraries are currently managed by Warner Bros.' in-house label subsidiary, WaterTower Music.

In 1999, Rhino started the 'Rhino Handmade' division of limited-edition releases available primarily from their website. All Handmade deluxe editions were limited to about 3,000 copies or fewer, and once sold out were not re-pressed. In 2003, co-founders and longtime executives Richard Foos and Harold Bronson left Rhino, reportedly due to frustration with the challenges of an increasingly competitive market. In fact, Time Warner's final vesting of its 100 percent ownership of the label, and its subsequent 'reorganization' of label staff, which did not stop at the former owners, were the major factors in their exits. Soon after, Foos inaugurated a new label, Shout! Factory, which began releasing dozens of CDs and videos mirroring the original early-1990s Rhino philosophy.

In 2004, Time Warner spun-off its music divisions and today Rhino is part of the newly organized Warner Music Group.

In addition to dealing with archive material, the label also manages the U.S. distribution or worldwide production of compilations for more recent Warner acts, including still-active artists such as Enya, New Order, and Chicago.

In June 2006, Warner Strategic Marketing in the U.K. was dissolved and Rhino Records U.K. was formed. The division has two main factions: TV-advertised compilations (for example Pure Garage Rewind Back to the Old School) and catalog material from the Warner vaults. Led Zeppelin's 2007 release Mothership and the soundtrack to the film Juno are among the label's successes.

In 2013, WMG acquired certain EMI assets divested by Universal Music Group including Parlophone and worldwide rights to Roulette Records. Those assets are now managed by Rhino.

Street Jams
Street Jams is a series of compilation albums issued by Rhino Entertainment between 1992 and 1994. The albums catalogue a number of influential old school hip hop and electro 12" singles that were released in the early to mid-1980s.

While a few of the singles are early releases from Hip-Hop artists who would go on to greater success later on in the decade such as Run-DMC and Slick Rick, the majority of the tracks in the series are considered one-hit wonders by acts who have fallen into relative obscurity but that had a profound impact upon the Hip-Hop/electro scene of the 1980s and influenced some of the more well known artists of that time.

Electric Funk

 * Street Jams: Electric Funk, Volume 1
 * Street Jams: Electric Funk, Volume 2
 * Street Jams: Electric Funk, Volume 3
 * Street Jams: Electric Funk, Volume 4

Hip-Hop From the Top

 * Street Jams: Hip-Hop From the Top, Part 1
 * Street Jams: Hip-Hop From the Top, Part 2
 * Street Jams: Hip-Hop From the Top, Part 3
 * Street Jams: Hip-Hop From the Top, Part 4

title: Rhino Entertainment


text:
Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro

Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro, (7 July 1782 – 11 November 1855) was a British lawyer, judge, and politician. He was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain between 1850 and 1852.

Background and education
Born in London, Truro was the second son of Thomas Wilde, an attorney, and founder of Wilde Sapte, by his wife, Mary Anne (née Knight). He was educated at St Paul's School and was admitted as an attorney in 1805.

He was the younger brother of Sir John Wylde and the uncle of James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance.

Legal and political career
Wilde subsequently entered the Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1817, having practised for two years before as a special pleader. Retained for the defence of Queen Caroline in 1820, he distinguished himself by his cross-examination and laid the foundation of an extensive common law practice. In 1824, he was made Serjeant-at-Law, and in 1827 King's Serjeant.

He first entered parliament in the Whig interest as a member for Newark (1831–1832 and 1835–1841), afterwards representing Worcester (1841–1846). He was appointed Solicitor General in 1839, knighted in 1840, and became Attorney General in succession to Sir John Campbell in 1841. In 1846 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, an office he held until 1850 when he became Lord Chancellor and was created Baron Truro of Bowes in the County of Middlesex. He held this latter office until the fall of the Russell ministry in 1852.

Family
Lord Truro first married Mary Devaynes in 1813 (the widow of William Devaynes (1730–1809) and daughter of William Wileman). They had three surviving children. After Mary died in 1840, he married Augusta Emma d'Este, daughter of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex and a first cousin of Queen Victoria, on 13 August 1845. There were no children from this marriage. Lord Truro died in London in November 1855, aged 76. He was succeeded in the barony by his second but eldest surviving son, Charles. Lady Truro died in May 1866, aged 64.

Thomas Wilde is commemorated by a Blue plaque erected on the front of 2 Kelvin Avenue Bowes Park London N13 which reads: "Site of Bowes Manor THOMAS WILDE 1st BARON TRURO 1782 – 1855 LORD CHANCELLOR 1850 – 1852 LIVED HERE"

Wilde also lived at Truro House, Broomfield Park, Palmers Green London N13, a Grade II listed building that dates back to 1673.

title: Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro


text:
Świebodzin

Świebodzin (Świybodzin; Schwiebus) is a town in western Poland with 21,736 inhabitants (2019). It is the capital of Świebodzin County in Lubusz Voivodeship.

Świebodzin is an important transportation hub, lying at the crossroads of the Polish national roads 2 and 3. The A2 motorway and S3 expressway cross near the town. Świebodzin is located 39 km northeast of Zielona Góra, one of the two voivodeship's capitals, 195 km northwest of Wrocław and 110 km west of Poznań; 70 km east of the German border and 130 km east of Berlin. The crowned statue of Christ in Świebodzin, completed in November 2010, is one of the world's tallest statues of Jesus.

Middle Ages
The town's name derives from the Polish personal name Świeboda, related to swoboda meaning "freedom". The area was part of Poland from the time of the state's creation in the 10th century. As a result of the fragmentation of Poland, it initially was part of Greater Poland, and later it was part of Silesia. The earliest historical records which mention Sebusianis, Sipusius Silesius, Suebosian, Soebosian, Suebusianus for today's Świebodzin date from the beginning of the 14th century, when the area belonged to the Lower Silesian Polish-ruled Duchy of Głogów. The town sprang up at the intersection of the old trade routes linking Silesia with Pomerania and a branch of the route running from Lusatia to Poznań in Greater Poland and further to Pomerelia. Initially, the town was probably a defensive fortification, built on the western banks of Lake Zamecko at a slight elevation. The town wall was ringed by settlements, which were much later incorporated into the city itself. In 1319 the Brandenburg margrave Waldemar of Ascania conquered Świebodzin and the town of Sulechów to its south. He died in the same year and the territory fell back to the Silesian Piasts, who in 1329 became vassals of Bohemia, an Electorate of the Holy Roman Empire. When in 1476 Duke Henry XI of Głogów died without issue, fights over his succession broke out between Duke Jan II the Mad of Żagań and the Brandenburg Elector Albert III Achilles of Hohenzollern, who in ca.1479 was able to acquire the northern part of the duchy with the towns of Crossen (Krosno Odrzańskie) and Züllichau (Sulechów), which were incorporated into the Neumark district of Brandenburg in 1537. The area of Świebodzin however remained a Bohemian fief, becoming an exclave of the Silesian crown land which in 1526 passed with the Bohemian Kingdom to the Habsburg monarchy.

Early modern period
Because of the town's location at an important crossroads, it developed economically, particularly in the areas of commerce and craft production. In the 15th century and particularly in the 16th century, Schwiebus was known for manufacturing beer and exporting cloth. It also developed various urban handicrafts and manufactured goods for local purposes (the weekly market). The salt, wool, grain, horse, and beef trades were also important. For a time the Schwiebus territory was granted by the emperor to Brandenburg-Prussia. Representatives of well-known Silesian families, including the von Knobelsdorffs, among others, held authority and power in the town as district starosts and castle commanders on behalf of the Habsburgs. Because of its position near the Holy Roman Empire's border with the Kingdom of Poland, the town most likely had a population of mixed Polish and German descent at this time, but Germans were the majority by the early modern period. During the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries, the town expanded economically, spatially, and demographically, in spite of local conflicts and the turbulent Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

After the victory of King Frederick II of Prussia in the First Silesian War (1740–1742), Schwiebus came under Prussian administration. In 1817 its territory was merged with the southern Züllichau region to form the Züllichau-Schwiebus District in the Province of Brandenburg. Schwiebus remained in this territorial form until 1945. Annexation by Prussia brought about a sharp economic crisis, as the tradesmen of Schwiebus were cut off from many of their traditional markets and outlets. The Prussian authorities also increased local taxes while limiting the town's autonomy. The period of revolutions and Napoleonic wars brought about a depression in the cloth trade and limited the economic prospects of the town.

The town's extended stagnation ended with the Stein-Hardenberg economic reforms and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century. As a medium-sized town and hub of the local market, lying at the intersection of several routes of communication, including the new Frankfurt (Oder)-Poznań railway line, Schwiebus became a center of local industry (textile, machinery, and agricultural food processing). The town was modernized at this time with improved traffic arteries, renovation of the town hall, reconstruction of the church of St. Michael, and the construction of several new public service buildings (law courts, high school, gas works, and post office). Schwiebus contributed to and benefited from the economic expansion of the German Empire in the years before 1914.

20th century
A new period of economic stagnation began with the territorial changes in central Europe after Germany's defeat in World War I. In the interwar period, Schwiebus found itself in the eastern outskirts of Germany, twenty kilometers west of the newly imposed German-Polish border. During the 1920s, Weimar Germany experienced two major economic crises, the hyperinflation of the early 1920s and the Great Depression beginning in 1929. The citizens of Schwiebus suffered severe economic hardship during this time. As was the case elsewhere in Germany, many of the town's citizens were dissatisfied with their lot and turned to political extremism.

Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. Hitler quickly moved to consolidate and expand his power, adopting severe repressive measures against his political opposition and the German Jewish minority. However, Hitler remained popular with the public because he oversaw the German economic recovery of the 1930s. The new government sponsored many public works programs and a massive rearmament campaign which included the construction of an extensive fortified line of bunkers, Ostwall (today known as the Międzyrzecz Fortified Region) twenty kilometers north of Schwiebus.

During World War II, Nazi Germany operated a forced labour camp for Jews in the town. The war first brought hardship to Schwiebus and then total disaster. In early January 1945, the Soviet Red Army began its final advance through Poland into eastern Germany, reaching Schwiebus before the end of the month. By this time, many of its inhabitants had already fled, fearing the Soviet revenge for the atrocities perpetrated by the German occupation forces against the civilian population of the Soviet Union. The town was largely spared from destruction during the fighting, as the bulk of the Soviet forces passed to the north and south on their way to Berlin. It was finally captured on 31 January 1945. The capture was not without casualties.

After Germany's defeat in the war, the town became again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-imposed communist economic system, which enacted sweeping social, economic, and political reforms. Świebodzin's economic recovery was also hampered by the Soviet policy of dismantling industrial facilities in conquered areas, and shipping components back to the Soviet Union. In this way, Świebodzin lost some of its prewar industries, particularly its breweries.

Świebodzin expanded in the period under communist rule, and its population doubled. New neighborhoods were built to the south of the railway line, composed largely of pre-fabricated apartment buildings. The Communist Economic Planning Commissions chose to develop the electromechanical, furniture, and timber industries in Świebodzin. Products were exported throughout Poland and to the other states in the Soviet Bloc.

Świebodzin was formerly part of the Zielona Góra Voivodeship (1975–1998). Since the Local Government Reorganization Act of 1998, it has been part of Lubusz Voivodeship.

However, with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the revolutions of 1989, Świebodzin once again experienced economic upheaval. With some difficulties, the local economy was adapted to the international market economy. New industries and businesses were established, but others were unable to compete in the new environment and went bankrupt. Many more goods became available in local shops, but at prices that many inhabitants could not afford. In recent years, a few foreign-owned discount supermarkets, pizzerias, hotels, and other businesses have been established in the town, taking advantage of the proximity of Poland's main east–west motorway. With the economic changes there have also been political changes. Since the restoration of free elections in 1989 the city council's former communist control has been replaced by democratic parties.

Attractions and sites of interest
The center of Świebodzin still contains remnants of the town's past as a medieval walled settlement, including two nearly intact towers and fragments of the town's defensive walls and bastions. The central market square is dominated by the town hall, built around 1550 in the renaissance style and rebuilt in the 19th century with the addition of its prominent clock tower. The town hall still contains its original gothic vaults in the rooms of the Regional Museum and basement cafe. There are two large churches in the town center, the Church of St. Michael the Archangel and the Church of the Mother of God. The Church of St. Michael was first built in the second half of the 15th Century, and its neo-gothic façade was added in the second half of the 19th century. The neo-gothic Church of the Mother of God was built during the Imperial German period as a Protestant Church but was reconsecrated as a Catholic Church after World War II.

In the summer of 2008, assembly of the Christ the King, a giant statue of a crowned Jesus Christ, began on a hill on the outskirts of the town. Intended to serve as a future site of pilgrimage, the statue was completed in November 2010, and is claimed to be the world's largest statue of Jesus, although if the crown is excluded the Cristo de la Concordia in Bolivia is still taller. Construction was funded by donations from local people and as far away as Canada. The existence of the statue has seen fellow Poles referring to the town jokingly as Rio de Świebodzineiro.

Sport
Świebodzin has a table tennis club KS Jofrakuda Świebodzin which is playing in 3.liga (Polish third division). The club has also the other teams playing in lower divisions of Lubusz. The club is known from a successful work with young table tennis players, who are highly ranked in Polish youth categories.

Notable people

 * Martin Agricola (1486–1556), composer
 * Ruth Margarete Roellig (1878–1969), writer
 * Otto Feige (B. Traven) (ca. 1882 – ca. 1969), writer of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
 * Werner Kolhörster (1887–1946), physicist
 * Walter Warzecha (1891–1956), admiral and last commander of the Kriegsmarine
 * Alfred Knispel (1898–1945), artist
 * Selli Engler (1899-1972), German writer and leading activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin
 * Karl-Heinz Bendert (1914–1983), Luftwaffe ace
 * Wolfhart Westendorf (1924–2018), egyptologist
 * Michael Witzel (born 1943), Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University
 * Zdzisław Hoffmann (born 1959), first ever triple jump World Champion (1983)
 * Piotr Rysiukiewicz (born 1974), sprinter

Twin towns – sister cities
See twin towns of Gmina Świebodzin.

title: Świebodzin