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Emmanuel Chabrier

Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier (18 January 1841 – 13 September 1894) was a French Romantic composer and pianist. His bourgeois family did not approve of a musical career for him, and he studied law in Paris and then worked as a civil servant until the age of thirty-nine while immersing himself in the modernist artistic life of the French capital and composing in his spare time. From 1880 until his final illness he was a full-time composer.

Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, Chabrier left a corpus of operas (including L'étoile), songs, and piano music, but no symphonies, concertos, quartets, sonatas, or religious or liturgical music. His lack of academic training left him free to create his own musical language, unaffected by established rules, and he was regarded by many later composers as an important innovator and a catalyst who paved the way for French modernism. He was admired by, and influenced, composers as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Satie, Stravinsky, and the group of composers known as Les Six. Writing at a time when French musicians were generally proponents or opponents of the music of Wagner, Chabrier steered a middle course, sometimes incorporating Wagnerian traits into his music and at other times avoiding them.

Chabrier was associated with some of the leading writers and painters of his time. Among his closest friends was the painter Édouard Manet, and Chabrier collected Impressionist paintings long before they became fashionable. A number of such paintings from his personal collection by artists known to him are now housed in some of the world's leading art museums. He penned a large number of letters to friends and colleagues which offer an insight into his musical opinions and character.

Chabrier died in Paris at the age of fifty-three from a neurological disease, probably caused by syphilis.

Early years

Chabrier was born in Ambert, (Puy-de-Dôme), a town in the Auvergne region of central France. He was the only son of a lawyer, Jean Chabrier, and his wife, Marie-Anne-Evelina, née Durosay or Durozay. The Chabriers were of old Auvergne stock, originally of peasant origin (the surname comes from "chevrier" – goat-herd), but in recent generations merchants and lawyers had predominated in the family. A key member of the household was the boy's nanny Anne Delayre (whom he called "Nanine" and "Nanon"), who remained close to him throughout her life.

Chabrier began taking music lessons at the age of six; his early teachers were from cosmopolitan backgrounds: at Ambert he studied with a Carlist Spanish refugee called Saporta, and after the family moved to Clermont-Ferrand in 1852 he studied at the Lycée imperial with a Polish musician, Alexander Tarnovsky. The earliest of Chabrier's compositions to survive in manuscript are piano works from 1849. A piano piece, Le Scalp!!! (1856) was later modified into the Marche des Cipayes (1863). The first piece to which the composer gave an opus number was a waltz for piano, Julia, op. 1, 1857.

Tarnovsky advised Chabrier's parents that their son was talented enough to pursue a musical career, but Jean Chabrier was determined that his son should follow him into the legal profession. He moved the family to Paris in 1856, so that Chabrier could enrol at the Lycée Saint-Louis. From there Chabrier went on to law school, but did not neglect music, continuing his studies in composition, violin and piano. After graduating from the law school in 1861 he joined the French civil service at the Ministry of the Interior, where he worked for nineteen years.

Paris: dual harness
Chabrier was well regarded at the ministry, but his passion was music, to which he devoted his free time. He continued his studies, with teachers including Edouard Wolff (de) (piano), Richard Hammer (violin), Théophile Semet (fr) and Aristide Hignard (both composition). In a study of the composer published in 1935 Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme commented that it would be wrong to class Chabrier as merely an amateur in this period: "For, while in quest of the technique of his art, he displayed a curiosity in the painting and literature of the 'modernists' of his day that, among musicians, had few parallels."

From 1862 Chabrier was among the circle of the Parnassians in Paris. Among his friends were Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Paul Verlaine; with the latter he planned a comic opera in the fashionable style of Offenbach, Vaucochard et fils Ier. He did not complete it, but four fragments (dating from about 1864 or 1865) have survived. His full-time official post severely restricted Chabrier's ability to compose large-scale works. He began an opera on a Hungarian historical theme entitled Jean Hunyade, to a libretto by Henry Fouquier, but abandoned it, after completing four numbers, in 1867. In December 1872 he scored a success at a private theatre club, the Cercle de l'union artistique with a three-act opérette bouffe Le Service obligatoire written in collaboration with two other composers, and which according to Victorin de Joncières was acclaimed by the audience as undoubted proof of Chabrier's talent. Another attempt at operatic comedy, Fisch-Ton-Kan, with Verlaine and Lucien Viotti, was performed in March 1875 at the same club with Chabrier at the piano; five fragments survive. He did not set any poems by Villiers de L'Isle Adam or Verlaine, although the latter wrote a sonnet À Emmanuel Chabrier (published in Amour, 1888) as a remembrance of their friendship.

There are several descriptions of Chabrier's piano-playing at around this time; many years later the composer Vincent d'Indy wrote, "Though his arms were too short, his fingers too thick and his whole manner somewhat clumsy, he managed to achieve a degree of finesse and a command of expression that very few pianists – with the exception of Liszt and Rubinstein – have surpassed." The composer and critic Alfred Bruneau said of Chabrier, "he played the piano as no one has ever played it before, or ever will…" The wife of the painter Renoir, a friend of the composer, wrote: "One day Chabrier came; and he played his España for me. It sounded as if a hurricane had been let loose. He pounded and pounded the keyboard. [The street] was full of people, and they were listening, fascinated. When Chabrier reached the last crashing chords, I swore to myself I would never touch the piano again […] Besides, Chabrier had broken several strings and put the piano out of action.'"

Both Chabrier's parents died within the space of eight days in 1869. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and Commune, he continued in his official post as the ministry moved from Tours to Bordeaux then to Versailles. In 1873 he married Marie Alice Dejean, the granddaughter of Louis Dejean, who had gained his fortune as founder and manager of the Cirque d'été and the Cirque Napoléon. Alice and Chabrier had three sons, one of whom died at birth. Chabrier's friends in Paris included the composers Gabriel Fauré, Ernest Chausson, and Vincent d'Indy; painters including Henri Fantin-Latour, Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet, whose Thursday soirées Chabrier attended; and writers such as Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Jean Moréas, Jean Richepin and Stéphane Mallarmé.

During the 1870s Chabrier began several stage works. The first to be completed was a three-act opéra-bouffe L'étoile (The Star), commissioned by the Bouffes-Parisiens, the spiritual home of Offenbach. He secured the commission through his many contacts in the world of arts and letters: he had met the librettists, Albert Vanloo and Eugène Leterrier through the painter Alphonse Hirsch, whom he had got to know as a member of Manet's set. The opera was modestly successful, running for 48 performances in 1877, but was not revived in his lifetime. Nonetheless, it brought him to the attention of the press and attracted the publishing firm Enoch & Costallat, who published his works during the rest of his life. Above all, as a result of  L'étoile he ceased to be regarded as a talented amateur. The same year Saint-Saens gave the first public performance of his 1865 Impromptu, his first piano piece of real importance with his personal stamp of originality.

Full-time composer
Like many progressively-minded French composers of the time, Chabrier was greatly interested in the music of Wagner. As a young man he had copied out the full score of Tannhäuser to gain an insight into the composer's creative process. On a trip to Munich with Henri Duparc and others in March 1880, Chabrier first saw Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde; he wrote to the personnel director at the ministry saying he had to go to Bordeaux on private matters, but in confidence confessed that for ten years he had wanted to see and hear Wagner's opera, and promised that he would back at his desk the following Wednesday. D'Indy, who was among the group, recorded that Chabrier was moved to tears at hearing the music, saying of the prelude, "I have waited ten years of my life to hear that A in the cellos".

This event led Chabrier to conclude that he must single-mindedly pursue his vocation as a composer, and after several periods of absence he left the Ministry of the Interior in late 1880. In a 2001 study, Steven Huebner writes that there may have been additional factors in Chabrier's decision: "the growing momentum of his musical career … his high hopes for the Gwendoline project, and the first signs of a nervous disorder, probably the result of a syphilitic condition, that would claim his life 14 years later."

The project to which Huebner refers was the operatic tragedy Gwendoline, on which Chabrier had begun working in 1879. The librettist was Catulle Mendès, described by the pianist and scholar Graham Johnson as "a relentlessly ambitious member of the literary establishment". Mendès wrote texts that were set by at least seven French composers, including Fauré, Massenet, Debussy and Messager; none of his operatic works were successful, and Johnson rates the libretto for Gwendoline as "catastrophic". Chabrier worked on the piece until 1885.

The conductor Charles Lamoureux appointed Chabrier as his chorus master and répétiteur, and included his music in the Lamoureux Orchestra's concerts. In 1881 Chabrier's piano cycle Pièces pittoresques was premiered. César Franck commented, "We have just heard something extraordinary: this music links our time with that of Couperin and Rameau". Chabrier travelled to London (1882) and Brussels (1883) to hear Wagner's Ring cycle, and in 1882 Chabrier and his wife visited Spain, which resulted in his most famous work, España (1883), a mixture of popular airs he had heard and his own original themes. It was premiered under its dedicatee, Lamoureux, in November 1883. It met with what Poulenc calls "immediate and rapturous success", made Chabrier's reputation, and by public demand received multiple performances over the next months. Admirers included de Falla, who stated that he did not think any Spanish composer had succeeded in achieving so genuine a version of the jota as in the piece,

The Paris Opéra declined to present Gwendoline, which was premiered at La Monnaie in Brussels under Henry Verdhurdt in 1886. It was well received, but closed after two performances because the impresario went bankrupt. William Mann wrote of the music that "in full, rapturous cognizance of mature Wagner", Chabrier composed "great music ...such as the long solo and choral ensemble, 'Soyez unis', and all the love duet music, and there is more Frenchman than Wagner in them, above all in the final Liebestod".

While striving for a staging of his opera Chabrier was also working on some of his mature songs – Sommation irrespectueuse, Tes yeux bleus, Chanson pour Jeanne, Lied, as well as a lyric scene for mezzo, women's chorus and orchestra La Sulamite and the piano version of the Joyeuse Marche. He then found a new lyric project to tackle – Le roi malgré lui (The King in Spite of Himself) – and completed the score in six months. It was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and a favourable reception seemed to promise a successful run, but the theatre burned down after the third performance. Through Chabrier's friendship with the Belgian tenor Ernest van Dyck and subsequently the conductor Felix Mottl, directors of opera houses in Leipzig and Munich expressed interest in both works and Chabrier made several happy trips to Germany as a result; his works were given in seven German cities. In July 1888 he was appointed as a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.

Chabrier left a rich and exuberant body of correspondence; Myers sees the "letter-writer's gift of spontaneous self-expression, with no undertones of insincerity or of writing for effect". He expressed himself in "Rabelaisian language" and "laced with a profusion of racy slang". In 1994 the musical scholar Roger Delage, with Frans Durif and Thierry Bodin, produced a 1,300 page edition of the composer's correspondence, containing 1,149 letters, ranging from those to his family and Nanine, exchanges with contemporary friends in the musical world (sometimes with musical quotations), negotiations with publishers, and one a commiseration with his son André on the death of his pet bird (with gentle reproach for having over-fed the creature).

Decline and final years
In his final years, Chabrier was troubled by financial problems caused by the collapse of his bankers, failing health brought on by the terminal stage of syphilis, and depression about the neglect of his stage works in France. The death of his beloved "Nanine" in January 1891 greatly affected him. In 1892, he wrote to his friend Charles Lecocq, "Never has an artist more loved, more tried to honour music than me, none has suffered more from it; and I will go on suffering from it for ever". He became obsessed with the composition of his final opera Briséïs, which was inspired by a tragedy of Goethe and has melodic echoes of Wagner; he completed only one act. The Paris première of Gwendoline, finally took place in December 1893. The composer, ailing physically and mentally, sitting in a stage box with his family, enjoyed the music but did not realise he had written it, nor did he understand that the applause was for him.

Chabrier succumbed to general paresis in the last year of his life and died in Paris at the age of 53. Although he had asked to be buried near the tomb of Manet in the Cimetière de Passy, a plot was not available and he was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. His widow and children also suffered from probable infection: she had severe eye problems, becoming almost blind, and, after Chabrier's death, became paraplegic, dying aged 51; the eldest son, Marcel, died at 35 having also displayed related symptoms, and the second son, Charles, died after only five weeks, the youngest, André, also became paraplegic and died also aged 35.

Works
Vincent d'Indy called Chabrier "that great primitive ... a very great artist". In The Oxford Companion to Music (2011), Denis Arnold and Roger Nichols write that Chabrier's lack of a formal musical education at one of the major conservatoires allowed him the freedom to "bypass the normal paths of French music of the 1860s, and to explore a new harmonic idiom and especially a novel way of writing for the piano". Chabrier's musical language introduced several striking features. Among them, Huebner singles out a liking for melodies of wide range with large leaps from one note to the next; frequent doubling of melodies by the bass or in octaves; a mixture of orthodox and unorthodox chromatic decoration; and frequent use of cross-rhythms and syncopation. Chabrier is reported to have said, "My music rings with the stamp of my Auvergnat clogs", and the pianist and scholar Roy Howat points to examples of this in fast stamping rhythms in the Bourrée fantasque, the Joyeuse marche and several of the Pièces pittoresques.

Orchestral
Duparc and Ravel both had reservations about Chabrier's skills as an orchestrator in his early works; Poulenc disagreed, feeling that Chabrier was a master of orchestration from an early stage. Poulenc wrote, "The fact that Chabrier always composed at the piano – as did Debussy and Stravinsky – did not prevent him from finding a rare orchestral colour: a unique achievement at a time when Franck, d'Indy and Saint-Saëns hardly ever emerged from well-worn paths".

The work for which Chabrier is best known is his rhapsody España, which became popular internationally (except in Spain, where it was not a success). The rhythmic verve of España is found also in the Joyeuse marche, which goes further in orchestral invention. Not all of Chabrier's orchestral pieces are in this exuberant vein: his Lamento (1874), unpublished in his lifetime, is an unusually poignant work.

A few of Chabrier's piano works were later orchestrated. The composer arranged the four movements of the Suite pastorale from the ten Pièces pittoresques. Chabrier began an orchestration of Bourrée fantasque in 1891 (completed in 1994 by Robin Holloway) but his friend and champion Felix Mottl orchestrated it in 1898, proving popular; he did the same for  Trois valses romantiques in 1900, and in 1917–18 Ravel arranged the "Menuet pompeux" from the Pièces pittoresques.

Stage works
Chabrier's ebullient orchestral works have always been popular with the public and critics, but there is less agreement about his serious stage works, and in particular the influence of the music of Wagner. For some critics, the Wagnerian ethos and French sensibilities are simply incompatible, and consequently much of the music of Gwendoline and Briséïs has been denigrated; others have argued that Chabrier so transformed his influences that the music does not sound especially Wagnerian. Huebner puts the truth somewhere between the two, noting Wagner's influence in the similarities between Gwendoline and The Flying Dutchman and Tristan and Isolde, but noting Chabrier's "un-Wagnerian concision", the retention of conventional self-contained numbers, and Chabrier's recognisable melodic and instrumental characteristics. He suggests that preoccupation with supposed derivativeness has deprived the repertory of works such as Gwendoline "with substantial musical and dramatic interest".

L'etoile, an opéra bouffe in three acts (1877) was Chabrier's first modestly successful opera, and is the most often revived. Although the plot was described by a reviewer in 2016 as "wilfully unfathomable and illogical", the libretto was professional and polished, in contrast with other libretti set by Chabrier. The critic Elizabeth Forbes calls the score, "light as thistle-down … in the best tradition of Offenbachian opéra bouffe, with each singer perfectly characterized in his or her music".

Une éducation manquée (An Incomplete Education), a one-act opérette about a young couple seeking essential advice on their wedding night, received a single private performance in 1879, and was not performed in public until 1913. Forbes wrote in 1992, "Why this charming little work had to wait so many years for a public performance remains a total mystery. The subject is treated with the greatest delicacy… Musically, the piece is quite enchanting, in particular the central duet for the two high voices, while the bass has a fine comic number."

Chabrier's only completed serious opera was Gwendoline, composed between 1879 and 1885 and premiered in 1886. Mendès's libretto was a liability: Henri Büsser commented that it lacked the verve and movement the composer needed; Poulenc was dismissive of "Mendès' ineptitudes … balderdash"; and another critic wrote in 1996, "Mendes's dramaturgy is not only painfully thin but takes a long time to get under way". Arnold and Nichols comment that the work is considerably less Wagnerian than has often been supposed: "certainly the modal, asymmetrical, loosely articulated theme of the overture is individual to a degree". The music satisfied neither the pro- nor anti-Wagner lobby: Chabrier commented, "The wagnérien calls me a reactionary and the bourgeois considers me a wagnérien". The opera has been revived from time to time, but has not gained a regular place in the international repertory.

Arnold and Nichols write that some of Chabrier's best music went into his comic opera Le Roi malgré lui (Opéra-Comique, 1887), "but unfortunately the work is saddled with one of the most complex and incomprehensible librettos of all time". Ravel so loved the piece that he said he would rather have written it than Wagner's Ring cycle; reviewing a rare revival in 2003 the critic Edward Greenfield commented that despite the plot, the music made one see Ravel's point. After the same production, the critic Rupert Christiansen wrote, "Le Roi malgre lui doesn't know whether it's a Carry On farce by Offenbach or a nationalist epic by Wagner. Perhaps "grand operetta" is the best way of describing this problem piece".

Chabrier's last opera was Briséïs, to another libretto by Mendès. Mortally ill, Chabrier could only complete the first of the projected three acts, and the remaining sketches were too inconclusive for any of his colleagues to attempt a completion. It was to have been a romantic tragedy, set in Corinth during time of the Roman Empire. The existing act is rarely staged, but a recording of a concert performance in 1994 has been issued on CD. Poulenc was unimpressed by the libretto, but Messager thought the music of Briséïs showed what heights Chabrier might have reached had he lived.

Piano
Although the piano works are not the best known part of Chabrier's oeuvre, Poulenc put the cycle  Pièces pittoresques on a par with Debussy's Preludes in its importance for French music. In his introduction to a 1995 edition of the piano works, Howat writes that it was Chabrier, more than any other composer, who restored to French music "the essential French traits of clarity, emotional vitality, wit and tenderness" when other French composers were under the influence of Wagner or of dry academicism.

Chabrier's early works were for piano solo, and in addition to a small corpus of about twenty completed mature works, some juvenilia have survived. Most of the piano pieces were published in the composer's lifetime, but five completed works and the unfinished Capriccio (1883) were issued posthumously.

Some of the mature works are better known in their later orchestral versions, including the Joyeuse marche and the four numbers from the Pièces pittoresques that make up the Suite pastorale. The trip to Spain that inspired España also gave Chabrier the material for a Habanera (1885) which became one of his most popular piano works.

Among Chabrier's works for four hands is Souvenirs de Munich. Although Wagner's Tristan und Isolde had made a deep impression on him, his irreverent nature led him to arrange five themes from the opera into a comic quadrille. Poulenc called it "irresistibly funny … Tristan's principal themes with false noses and added beards."

Vincent d'Indy wrote, after studying the Trois valses romantiques and playing them with the composer: "I thus worked on these three waltzes con amore, doing my best to perform all the indications marked with the greatest precision... and there are many of them! In rehearsal, which was at Pleyel's, Chabrier stopped me dead in the midst of the first waltz, and, addressing me a look that was both amazed and arch, said: "But my dear boy it's not that at all!..." And, as not quite knowing how to react, I asked for explanations, he retorted: "You play that as if it were music by a Member of the Institute!..." And then I had a marvellous lesson in playing alla Chabrier; contrary accents, pianissimi to the point of extinction, sudden fire-crackers bursting out in the middle of the most exquisite softness, and also indispensable gesturing, giving over the body, too, to the intention of the music".

Chabrier was an important influence on Debussy, as he was later on Ravel and Poulenc; Howat has written that Chabrier's piano music such as "Sous-bois" and "Mauresque" in the Pièces pittoresques explored new sound-worlds of which Debussy made effective use 30 years later.

Songs
There are forty-three published songs by Chabrier. He began writing songs – mélodies – when he was about twenty-one; the first nine were written between 1862 and 1866. Johnson comments that it is strange that in all his songs Chabrier never set anything by his friend Verlaine, but among the well-known poets whose verse Chabrier set in the early songs were Théodore de Banville ("Lied") and Alfred de Musset ("Adieux à Suzon").

In 1888 Chabrier made sixteen arrangements of French folk songs for an anthology called Le plus jolies chansons du pays de France. He was among the first important composers to work with folk songs, a pioneer for Ravel, Bartók, Britten and others. Johnson writes that Chabrier's touch in these pieces is "deceptively light and restrained", but that the piano writing continually adds enormously to the charm of the music. A later group of songs (1889) with a linking theme is what Chabrier called his "poultry farm", to lyrics by Edmond Rostand and Rosemonde Gérard, with subjects including fat turkeys, little ducklings, pink pigs and chirping cicadas.

Most of the songs are for solo voice and piano, but there is one duet (the comic "Duo de l'ouvresse de l'Opéra-Comique", 1888) and in Chabrier's setting of Baudelaire's "L'invitation au voyage" (1870), the voice and piano are joined by a solo bassoon. Chabrier's last song, "Ode à la Musique", to words by Rostand, is for solo soprano, piano and female choir.

Influence
The musicologist David Charlton evaluated his influence by saying "While the musical language of Reyer, Massenet and Saint-Saens presented syntheses of current practice, that of Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) was a catalyst: his work became the cradle of French modernism".

Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc all acknowledged Chabrier's influence on their music. Debussy wrote in 1893 "Chabrier, Moussorgsky, Palestrina, voilà ce que j'aime" – they are what I love, and said that he could not have written La Damoiselle élue without Chabrier's La sulamite as a model. Huebner remarks on echoes of Chabrier in Debussy's "La soirée dans Grenade" in Estampes, and the piano prelude "Général Lavine – excentric". The influence on Ravel is still more marked. In a 1975 study of the two composers, Delage wrote, "In truth there are few works by Ravel which do not to some extent echo one or another work of Chabrier and of which the harmonic procedures are not derived from him". Ravel paid explicit homage to Chabrier in his A la manière de Chabrier, based on Chabrier's piano piece Mélancolie.

Poulenc said that he had L'étoile in mind while he wrote Les mamelles de Tirésias. Huebner comments that the influence of Chabrier on Poulenc and the other members of Les Six was particularly strong, although the later composers were more often drawn to the humorous, parodic side of Chabrier's oeuvre than to the romantic and serious. Other French composers whose music shows the influence of Chabrier include Charles Lecocq, Messager and Satie.

Composers from other countries who works show the influence of Chabrier include Stravinsky, whose Petrushka has thematic and melodic echoes of Chabrier, and Mahler, who called España "the beginnings of modern music" and alluded to the "Dance Villageoise" in the Rondo Burleske movement of his Ninth Symphony. Richard Strauss, who was an admirer of Chabrier, conducted the first stage performance of the one act of Briséïs, and the critic Gerald Larner comments that Strauss was evidently influenced by the work when he came to compose his Salome eight years later.

Chabrier and art

Chabrier was known for his continual contacts with contemporary artists, particularly painters of the Impressionist school. He left a rich collection of paintings by contemporary French painters; Edward Lockspeiser felt that "if ever it could be reassembled [the collection] would be rivalled, among collections of other composers, only by that of Chausson, which consisted largely of Delacroix". A sale of his collection at the Hôtel Drouot on 26 March 1896 included works by Cézanne, Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley.

Chabrier himself was frequently painted or sketched by his artist friends. Two of these portraits are reproduced above: a drawing of Chabrier at the piano (1887) by Édouard Detaille and Manet's Portrait de Chabrier (oil on canvas, 1881). He is seen at the piano in Autour du piano by Henri Fantin-Latour (right). Other portraits of Chabrier include a crayon drawing by James Tissot (1861); in the stage box in L'orchestre de l'Opéra by Degas (c. 1868); on the right of Bal masqué à l'opéra by Manet (1873), a pastel sketch by Manet (1880), a portrait by Marcellin Desboutin (c.1881) and a bust (1886) by Constantin Meunier.

Johnson comments that although it now seems extraordinary that the owner of such magnificent works of art should have money worries, this was before Impressionist paintings became sought-after and expensive, and "in any case, this was a composer who regarded his collection as a spiritual necessity rather than a financial asset". Chabrier was also a collector of avant-garde writing; as well as Verlaine, among others he sought out the works of Régnier, Willette and Gill.

Books

 * (Format = Year - Letter number - Note number)

title: Emmanuel Chabrier


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Blue Magic

Blue Magic can refer to:

 * Blue Magic (band), a R&B and soul music vocal quintet
 * Blue Magic (album)
 * "Blue Magic" (song), a song from rapper Jay-Z's album American Gangster
 * Blue Magic, a novel by A. M. Dellamonica
 * Blue Magic, a novel by Edith Ballinger Price
 * The name of a high quality brand of heroin marketed by drug lord Frank Lucas, which later inspired the film American Gangster and the song of the same name by Jay-Z.

 * Others
 * A type of magic in the Final Fantasy video game; see Final Fantasy magic
 * Blue Magic is the name of the Direct to Home venture by Reliance ADAG
 * "Magic blue" refers to the chemical compound Tris(4-bromophenyl)ammoniumyl hexachloroantimonate

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

title: Blue Magic


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dajuroka

Non-English word dictcef. RickK 06:02, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
 * agreed, delete—Rory ☺ 22:00, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, even though I find things like that interesting...shouldn't be here, though. --Tothebarricades.tk 22:14, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Interwiki and delete. Yelyos 04:00, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - not an article. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:57, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


text:
Sorek

Sorek may refer to:

 * Adi Sorek (born 1970), Israeli writer
 * Nahal Sorek
 * Sorek, Nepal

title: Sorek


text:
Transaxle

A transaxle is a single mechanical device which combines the functions of an automobile's transmission, axle, and differential into one integrated assembly. It can be produced in both manual and automatic versions.

Engine and drive at the same end
Transaxles are nearly universal in all automobile configurations that have the engine placed at the same end of the car as the driven wheels: the front-engine/front-wheel-drive; rear-engine/rear-wheel-drive; and mid-engine/rear-wheel-drive arrangements.

Many mid- and rear-engined vehicles use a transverse engine and transaxle, similar to a front-wheel-drive unit. Others use a longitudinal engine and transaxle like Ferrari's 1989 Mondial t which used a "T" arrangement with a longitudinal engine connected to a transverse transaxle. Front-wheel-drive versions of modern Audis, from the A4 upwards, along with their related marques from the Volkswagen Group (which share the same automobile layout) also use a similar layout, but with the transaxle also mounted longitudinally.

The front-wheel-drive Renault 16 had a longitudinal engine and transaxle, with the engine behind the transaxle. The transaxle case was designed to allow the final-drive ring gear to be on either side of the pinion; this allowed the engine-transaxle assembly to be used in the rear-wheel-drive Lotus Europa, which had the engine in front of the transaxle (i.e., mid-engined).

Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive transaxles
Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles tend to have the transmission up front just after the engine, but sometimes a front-engine drives a rear-mounted transaxle. This is generally done for reasons of weight distribution and is therefore common on sports cars. Another advantage is that since the driveshaft spins at engine speed, it only has to endure the torque of the engine instead of the torque multiplied by the 1st gear ratio. This design was pioneered in the 1934 Škoda Popular, and then in the 1950 Lancia Aurelia, designed by Vittorio Jano.

Since this placement of the gearbox is unsuitable for a live axle (due to excessive unsprung mass), the rear suspension is either independent, or uses a de Dion tube (notably in Alfa Romeos). Rare exceptions to this rule were the Bugatti T46 and T50 which had a three speed gearbox on a live axle.

Notable front-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles with a transaxle design include:

• 1898–1910 De Dion Bouton

• 1914–1939 Stutz Bearcat

• 1929–1936 Bugatti Type 46

• 1934–1944 Škoda Popular

• 1950–1958 Lancia Aurelia

• 1951–1956 Pegaso Z-102

• 1957–1970 Lancia Flaminia

• 1959–1963 DAF 600

• 1961–1963 Pontiac Tempest

• 1964–1968 Ferrari 275

• 1963–1968 Ferrari 330

• 1968–1973 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 "Daytona"

• 1972–1984 Alfa Romeo Alfetta

• 1974-1987 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT/GTV and GTV/GTV6

• 1976–1988 Porsche 924

• 1976–1991 Volvo 300 series

• 1977–1985 Alfa Romeo Giulietta (116)

• 1978–1995 Porsche 928

• 1982–1995 Porsche 944 and Porsche 968

• 1984–1987 Alfa Romeo 90

• 1985–1992 Alfa Romeo 75/Milano

• 1989–1991 Alfa Romeo SZ/RZ

• 1992–2003 Ferrari 456

• 1996–2005 Ferrari 550/Ferrari 575M

• 1997–2004 Chevrolet Corvette C5

• 1997–1999 Panoz Esperante GTR-1

• 1997–2002 Plymouth Prowler

• 1998–2005 Shelby Series 1

• 2001-2007 Maserati Coupé and Spyder

• 2004–2016 Aston Martin DB9

• 2004 Peugeot 907 Concept

• 2004–2009 Cadillac XLR

• 2004–2013 Chevrolet Corvette C6

• 2004–2011 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

• 2004–2012 Maserati Quattroporte

• 2005–2017 Aston Martin V8 Vantage

• 2006–2012 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

• 2007–2010 Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione

• 2007–2019 Maserati GranTurismo/GranCabrio

• 2007- Nissan GT-R

• 2008–2018 Ferrari California/California T

• 2009–2012 Lexus LF-A

• 2010–2020 Aston Martin Rapide

• 2010–2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG

• 2012–date Aston Martin Vanquish

• 2017–date Ferrari F12berlinetta

• 2014–2019 Chevrolet Corvette C7

• 2014–date Mercedes-AMG GT

• 2017–date Ferrari Portofino/Portofino M

Note: The C5, C6 and C7 Corvettes, produced in the 1997 to 2019 model years, do not feature an integrated transaxle, where the transmission, axle and differential are combined into a single assembly. These years actually featured a rear-mounted transmission, which was a stand-alone unit bolted directly to the differential. While many, including General Motors, refer to this configuration as a transaxle, the first Corvette with an integrated transaxle was produced in the eighth generation Corvette, which was released in the 2020 model year.

Rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive transaxles
Volkswagen and later Porsche made extensive use of transaxles in their rear (and mid) engined vehicles. Over the years, models adopting this configuration have included:

• 1921–1925 Rumpler Tropfenwagen

• 1938–2003 Volkswagen Beetle

• 1940–1945 Volkswagen Kübelwagen (Type 82)

• 1941–1944 Volkswagen Schwimmwagen (Type 166)

• 1947–1961 Renault 4CV

• 1948–1965 Porsche 356

• 1950–1990 Volkswagen Type 2 T1-T3

• 1955–1974 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia

• 1960–1969 Chevrolet Corvair

• 1961–1973 Volkswagen Type 3

• 1963–1976 Hillman Imp

• 1963–present Porsche 911

• 1964–1969 Škoda 1000 MB

• 1965–1969, 1976 Porsche 912

• 1967-1973 Matra 530 (mid-engined)

• 1967-1973 Lamborghini Miura (mid-engined)

• 1968–1974 Volkswagen Type 4

• 1969–1976 Porsche 914 (mid-engined)

• 1969–1980 Škoda 100, Škoda 110 R

• 1971-1978 Maserati Bora

• 1971-1992 De Tomaso Pantera

• 1973-1980 Matra Bagheera (mid-engined)

• 1975–1989 Porsche 930

• 1976–1990 Škoda 105, Škoda 120, Škoda 130, Škoda Garde, Škoda Rapid (1984)

• 1980-1983 Matra Murena (mid-engined)

• 1981–1983 DeLorean

• 1984-1988 Pontiac Fiero (mid-engined)

• 1991-1995/2006-present Cizeta-Moroder_V16T/Cizeta V16T (mid-engined)

• 2013–present Praga R1 (mid-engined)

• 2020–present Chevrolet Corvette C8

Four-wheel-drive
All Audi cars with longitudinal engines and their 'trademark' quattro four-wheel-drive (4WD) system, along with their related marques from the Volkswagen Group which share the same layout, utilise a transaxle. This is mounted immediately behind the front-mounted engine (again, longitudinally) and contains the 'gearbox' (manual, automatic, DSG, or CVT), along with both the centre differential, and the front differential and final drive unit.

The Nissan GT-R and Ferrari FF (and its successors) are unusual in being all-wheel-drive cars with front-engined layouts and rear-mounted transaxles. In the Nissan, one driveshaft sends power to the transaxle (which also contains the 'center' differential) and another driveshaft sends power back along the car to the front wheels. In the Ferrari, the rear transaxle works in a conventional manner, whilst the drive to the front wheels comes from a separate gearbox at the front of the engine.

Other 4WD applications include:
 * 1979-2002 Volkswagen Vanagon/Caravelle Syncro Edition - rear-engined, transaxle in the front;
 * 1984–1986 Ford RS200 – mid-engined, with the gearbox in the front;
 * 1989-2001 Mitsubishi 3000GT - front-engined, gearbox (transmission, front and centre differential) in the front;
 * 2007–on  Nissan GT-R – front-engined, gearbox in the rear.
 * 2011–2016 Ferrari FF

title: Transaxle


text:
Harry Maione

Harry "Happy" Maione (October 7, 1908 – February 19, 1942) was a New York mobster who served as a hitman for Murder, Inc. (the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate) during the 1930s. Maione was called "Happy" because his face displayed an eternal scowl.

Early years
As a young man, Maione led the Ocean Hill Hooligans, an Italian street gang in the Ocean Hill, Brooklyn section of New York. His protégé in this gang was Frank "The Dasher" Abbandando. Maione had a son, Albert Maione, who eventually became an associate with the Gambino crime family. Maione's older brother was Louis "The Duke" Maione.

In 1931, Maione and Abbandando helped Abe "Kid Twist" Reles and Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein eliminate their gangster rivals, the Shapiro Brothers (Meyer, Irving, and William). Previously that year, the Shapiros had unsuccessfully tried to murder Reles and Goldstein. Meyer Shapiro then abducted Reles' girlfriend and raped her. Reles and Goldstein wanted revenge and the two wanted to take over the Shapiro operations. On July 11, 1931, Irving Shapiro was gunned down near his apartment. On September 17, 1931, Meyer was found shot to death in the basement of a tenement building on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Murder, Inc.
Maione, Abbandando, Reles, and Goldstein then banded together. They were soon joined by Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, Albert "Tick Tock" Tannenbaum, Seymour "Blue Jaw" Magoon, Louis Capone, Charles "The Bug" Workman and Vito "Chicken Head" Gurino.

The gang started picking up murder contracts from the National Crime Syndicate with the help of Syndicate Board Member Joe Adonis. The gang soon became the official murder-for-hire squad of the Syndicate, and was dubbed "Murder, Inc." by the press. Maione acted as the Italian liaison to the Jewish members of Murder, Inc.; Reles was his counterpart on the Jewish side. Murder, Inc. was directed by the brutal Louis "Lepke" Buchalter (another member of the Syndicate board) and the nefarious Albert "The Executioner" Anastasia. Maione reportedly killed at least 12 men himself while working for Murder, Inc.

Eliminating potential witnesses
In the mid-1930s, New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey targeted Buchalter for prosecution. In response, Buchalter started eliminating all potential witnesses. Murder, Inc., rubbed out anyone that Buchalter even suspected of being an informant. Loan shark George "Whitey" Rudnick was one such victim; he was killed by Maione, Abbandando, and Strauss on May 11, 1937.

In 1940, Reles became an informant for the State of New York. He then implicated Maione and Abbandando in the horrific slaying of Rudnick. According to Reles, the men supposedly killed Rudnick and started stuffing him back in their car. Suddenly, the "corpse" started coughing. To finish him off, Strauss stabbed Rudnick 63 times with an ice pick and Maione buried a meat cleaver in his skull.

In May 1940, Maione was convicted of first degree murder, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. After a second trial, Maione was convicted again. This time, the conviction was not overturned by an appeals court. On February 19, 1942, Maione, along with Frank Abbandando, was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York.

title: Harry Maione


text:
Talk:Political progressivism/to do

 * Move this article to the more appropriate Political Progressivism for this article is too poltical in content. Make a new broader Progressivism article later....
 * Write a third-level section under United States called "Progressive Beliefs". This should attempt a broad survey of progressive ideas, being careful to point out that not all people who call themselves "progressive" believe all or any of these things, and not to advocate for or against the beliefs listed, either explicitly or implicitly.
 * Write a section entitled "Criticism of Progressivism", for NPOV purposes.
 * Expand non-US sections so the article does not appear US-centric, to the degree possible.
 * Identify all historical and contemporary movements or causes calling themselves "progressive".
 * Write a history of each movement or cause self-identified as "progressive", possibly adding material to referenced articles.
 * After the explanation of contemporary progressive beliefs is complete or underway, write a history of ideologically aligned movements and causes, including those not necessarily calling themselves "progressive". Possibly add material to referenced articles.
 * Write about the history of the direct historical antecedents of the contemporary progressive movement(s), possibly adding material to referenced articles.
 * Compare and contrast with Populism, a movement which also traces its U.S. roots back to this period.

title: Talk:Political progressivism/to do


text:
Road House (1989 film)

Road House is a 1989 American action film directed by Rowdy Herrington and produced by Joel Silver. The film stars Patrick Swayze, Ben Gazzara, Kelly Lynch and Sam Elliott. In the film, a bouncer at a newly refurbished roadside bar protects a small town in Missouri from a corrupt businessman.

Road House has achieved cult status and was voted as the most watched film on cable in 2020. The film was followed by a direct-to-DVD 2006 sequel that was widely panned, and was then remade in 2024.

Plot
James Dalton is a professional bouncer working security for a club in New York City. Although stoic and cool-headed, Dalton is tormented by memories of a man he killed in self-defense by ripping out his throat. Frank Tilghman, a businessman, recruits Dalton to take over security at his club "Double Deuce" in Jasper, Missouri. Tilghman plans to invest substantial funds into the dilapidated club and needs Dalton's highly regarded skills to tackle the endemic violence and rough customers. Dalton agrees in exchange for full authority over the club's operations, immediately firing several employees for poor behavior, theft, and drug dealing. For privacy, Dalton stays in a sparse barn owned by a farmer named Emmett, unaware that the mansion across the adjacent lake is owned by Brad Wesley, a crime lord controlling the town through bribery, intimidation, and violence.

Wesley's nephew Pat, who is one of the fired employees, intimidates Tilghman into giving him his job back and attacks Dalton, who badly injures Pat and his accomplices. Receiving a knife wound in the process, Dalton visits a hospital and befriends Dr. Elizabeth Clay to whom Wesley is also attracted. After sending his henchmen to unsuccessfully try to disrupt business at the Double Deuce, Wesley offers to hire Dalton himself. Dalton refuses and Wesley uses his connections to prevent the Double Deuce from purchasing alcohol from any suppliers. Dalton uses his own connections to secure some supplies and reunites with his mentor Wade Garrett, an aging bouncer. Garrett arrived in town after receiving a disconcerting call from Dalton. Wesley sends his men to destroy the Double Deuce's supplies, but Dalton and Garrett defeat them.

One evening, the auto shop adjacent to the Double Deuce — owned by Elizabeth's uncle Red Webster — is destroyed in an arson attack. After Dalton and the crowds return inside the Double Deuce, they find Wesley awaiting them. He has his men fight Dalton's bouncers and damage the bar before agreeing to leave. Wesley sabotages other businesses as the local owners discuss their futile efforts to stop him. Garrett attempts to calm Dalton, trying to assuage his guilt about killing in self-defense and his frustration at being unable to end Wesley's campaign. Elizabeth also tries to dissuade Dalton from continuing before Emmett's home is blown up by Wesley's henchman Jimmy Reno. Although Emmett is saved, the enraged Dalton fights Reno and rips his throat out, much to Elizabeth's shock and disgust.

Later, Wesley contacts Dalton threatening that either Elizabeth or Garrett will die. Garrett is attacked, but fights off his assailants and comes to Double Deuce, while Dalton checks on Elizabeth, who is safe but unwilling to talk to Dalton any further. Dalton returns to the bar to find Garrett murdered. Distraught, Dalton storms Wesley's estate, kills most of his henchmen and defeats, but relents from killing Wesley, refusing to give in to his anger. Elizabeth arrives and reconciles with Dalton, but Wesley recovers and attempts to shoot him before being shot dead by the locals, including Emmett and Red. The police arrive, but all present claim that they saw nothing. Sometime later, the modernized and refined Double Deuce bustles with customers while Dalton and Elizabeth swim together in a lake.

Casting
Annette Bening was originally cast as Dr. Elizabeth Clay. However, the role was recast because she and Patrick Swayze had too little chemistry, and she was replaced by Kelly Lynch. Scott Glenn turned down the role of Jimmy Reno, which eventually went to Marshall Teague. Joel Silver cast Sam Elliott as Garrett due to his "baggage".

Filming
Filming started in April 1988 on location throughout California, primarily in Newhall, Valencia, and Canyon Country. The filming of much of the "New Double Deuce" used Anaheim's Cowboy Boogie, also later called the Bandstand among other names until it closed. The opening and monster truck scenes were filmed in Reedley, California. The Kings River runs between the two residences. The monster truck used was Bigfoot #7, which was originally built for the film. The scene cost $500,000 to film. While filming the famous fistfight scene, Marshall broke Swayze's ribs.

Music
The soundtrack for Road House features Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey, whose band is featured in the film as the house band for the Double Deuce. Cruzados are the band in the opening credits, contributing three songs to the film that never made the soundtrack. Patrick Swayze also wrote one song and sang two for the soundtrack. The film's score was composed by Michael Kamen. A limited edition 14-track score album part of the Special Collection was issued by Intrada Records in 2012. An expanded limited 31-track score was reissued for the film's 30th anniversary by La-La Land Records in 2019.

Road House: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Road House: Original Motion Picture Score

Theatrical
The film premiered in New York and Los Angeles on May 19, 1989.

Home media
Between VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and streaming service sales, Road House has grossed over $203 million, including its original box office of $61 million. The film was originally released on VHS and then on DVD. In the United States Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer first released the film on DVD on February 4, 2003, with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio and theatrical trailer as the sole extra feature. In 2006 a Deluxe Edition DVD was released with two audio commentaries including one with the director, two featurettes titled "On the Roadhouse" and "What Would Dalton Do?". Road House was first issued by MGM on Blu-ray disc on June 2, 2009. A second disc combines the same six special features ported from the Deluxe DVD. After being reissued numerous times in the U.S., in 2016 Shout! Factory released a 2-disc Blu-ray collectors edition with fourteen extra features with material ported over from the previous editions. New supplements include a 'Making of' documentary with new interviews by Herrington, actors Kelly Lynch, John Doe, Kevin Tighe, Julie Michaels and Red West, a separate conversation with the director and featurette for the film's music. The magnet clasp boxed limited edition 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack from Vinegar Syndrome was released on November 25, 2022.

Box office
The film grossed $30 million in the United States and Canada and $31 million internationally for a worldwide total of $61 million. It has also found life on cable television.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, Road House has a rating of 44% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 5.40/10. The consensus states: "Whether Road House is simply bad or so bad it's good depends largely on the audience's fondness for Swayze -- and tolerance for violently cheesy action." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half out of four stars and commented, "Road House exists right on the edge between the 'good-bad movie' and the merely bad. I hesitate to recommend it, because so much depends on the ironic vision of the viewer. This is not a good movie. But viewed in the right frame of mind, it is not a boring one, either."

When interviewed by Anthony Bourdain, Bill Murray lauded the film as unappreciated, with a complex plot and respect among actors in the film industry since its release.

Accolades
Road House was nominated for (but did not "win") five Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Patrick Swayze), Worst Supporting Actor (Ben Gazzara), Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.

Other media
A sequel, Road House 2, was released directly to DVD in July 2006. Set many years later and telling the story of Dalton's adult son, it featured no characters from the original cast and only a few references to Dalton (who was reportedly shot dead before the film took place). The sequel confirmed that Dalton's first name was James, which could be seen momentarily on the medical chart in the original film's hospital scene, but which had been otherwise left unsaid. At the same time Road House 2 was released, the original film was reissued in a deluxe edition featuring, among other features, separate audio commentary tracks by director Herrington, Kevin Smith, and Scott Mosier, which the duo had expressed an interest in during the introduction of the tenth anniversary Clerks DVD.

In 2003, an off-Broadway musical production of Road House was staged as a campy comedy by Timothy Haskell, as seen by its full title of Road House: The Stage Version Of The Cinema Classic That Starred Patrick Swayze, Except This One Stars Taimak From The 80's Cult Classic "The Last Dragon" Wearing A Blonde Mullet Wig.

In the Family Guy season 8 episode "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag", Peter Griffin purchases a DVD copy of Road House for a dollar at a closing video store. After watching the film, he decides that the only way to solve every problem is by roundhouse kicking everything in sight including his family. The episode was dedicated in memory of Swayze, who died of pancreatic cancer on September 14, 2009.

Following the death of Eric Garner, the New York City Police Department began using a scene from Road House as part of a mandatory, three-day retraining course for 22,000 officers expected to "be nice" under pressure.

In the Young Sheldon season 4, episode 2 titled "A Docent, A Little Lady And A Bouncer Named Dalton" (November 2020), it is discovered that Mary's secret pleasure is watching action movies like Road House, which creates an unexpected bond with her teenager son Georgie.

Remake
On September 9, 2015, it was announced that Ronda Rousey would star in a remake of Road House. On October 12, 2015, Nick Cassavetes was announced to write and direct the film. However, plans for the film fell through and the remake was quietly canceled in 2016.

In November 2021, it was reported that Jake Gyllenhaal was in talks to star in a remake of Road House by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Doug Liman directing. In August 2022, a full cast was announced including Conor McGregor, Billy Magnussen, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Daniela Melchior and would debut on Amazon Prime Video. The film is rumored to have a similar plot with a modern twist. Gyllenhaal's character is to be a former UFC fighter who is now retired and working at a roadhouse in the Florida Keys. Production for the movie began in August 2022 and was released worldwide on Amazon Prime on March 21, 2024, following its premiere at South by Southwest.

title: Road House (1989 film)


text:
User:Lockeownzj00/FinalFantasy

Final Fantasy (Japanese: ファイナルファンタジー) is a very popular series of role-playing video games produced by Square (aka Squaresoft), now Square Enix. The Final Fantasy video game franchise originated in Japan in 1987 and was brought over to North America in 1990 and to Europe in 1998. It is also very popular in Australia and New Zealand. Games in the Final Fantasy series have been featured on the NES, MSX, SNES, PlayStation, Wonderswan Color, PlayStation 2, PC, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and cellular phone. It is the best-selling Square Enix game series. According to Square Enix's press release, it sold over 40 million units worldwide before the Square Enix merger, which went into effect on April 1, 2003. Final Fantasy is considered one of the most influential video game franchises ever.

The games

 * Final Fantasy I
 * Final Fantasy II
 * Final Fantasy III
 * Final Fantasy IV
 * Final Fantasy V
 * Final Fantasy VI
 * Final Fantasy VII
 * Final Fantasy VIII
 * Final Fantasy IX
 * Final Fantasy X
 * Final Fantasy X-2
 * Final Fantasy XI
 * Final Fantasy XII
 * Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

Compilations

 * Final Fantasy Anthology
 * Final Fantasy Chronicles
 * Final Fantasy Origins
 * Final Fantasy I·II Advance

Spinoffs

 * Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
 * Final Fantasy Legend
 * Final Fantasy Adventure
 * Final Fantasy Tactics
 * Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
 * Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon
 * Chocobo Racing
 * Final Fantasy VII: Before Crisis

title: User:Lockeownzj00/FinalFantasy


text:
34th Division (United Kingdom)

The 34th Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was raised in 1914, during the First World War. The division was raised from volunteers for Lord Kitchener's New Armies, originally made up of infantry battalions raised by public subscription or private patronage. The division was taken over by the War Office in September 1915. It served in France and Belgium in the trenches of the Western Front for the duration of the war.

Unit history
The Division was one of the six created for the Fourth New Army on 10 December 1914. The division was originally made up of Pals battalions, and two brigades of the Northumberland Fusiliers; the Tyneside Scottish and Tyneside Irish. Major-General Edward Ingouville-Williams took command of the division in June 1915. It landed in France in January 1916. The division's first major action was the attack at La Boisselle on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The division suffered heavy casualties and many of the original Pals were killed. It went on to suffer further losses at the Battle of the Lys in April 1918.

Order of Battle
The following units served with the division:
 * 101st Brigade:

After reorganisation in July 1918:
 * 15th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots (1st Edinburgh) (left May 1918)
 * 16th (Service) Battalion, Royal Scots (2nd Edinburgh), ('McCrae's Battalion') (left May 1918)
 * 10th (Service) Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment (Grimsby) ('Grimsby Chums') (transferred to 103rd Brigade February 1918)
 * 11th (Service) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment (Cambridgeshire) (left May 1918)
 * 101st Machine Gun Company (joined 27 April 1916, moved to 34th Battalion Machine Gun Corps (M.G.C.) 26 February 1918)
 * 101st Trench Mortar Battery (joined 18 February 1916, broken up 16 May 1918)
 * 2/4th Battalion, Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (Territorial Force (T.F.)) (joined June 1918)
 * 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment (T.F.) (joined June 1918)
 * 2nd Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (Regular) (joined June 1918)
 * 101st Trench Mortar Battery (reformed 2 July 1918)

 * 102nd (Tyneside Scottish) Brigade :

After reorganisation in July 1918:
 * 20th (Service) Battalion, (1st Tyneside Scottish), Northumberland Fusiliers (disbanded February 1918)
 * 21st (Service) Battalion, (2nd Tyneside Scottish), Northumberland Fusiliers (disbanded February 1918)
 * 22nd (Service) Battalion, (3rd Tyneside Scottish), Northumberland Fusiliers (left June 1918)
 * 23rd (Service) Battalion, (4th Tyneside Scottish), Northumberland Fusiliers (left June 1918)
 * 25th (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers (from February 1918 until June 1918)
 * 25st (Service) Battalion, (2nd Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers (joined February left June 1918)
 * 1/4th (T.F.) Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment (joined and left June 1918)
 * 7/8th (Service) Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (joined June left July 1918)
 * 102nd Machine Gun Company (joined 27 April 1916, moved to 34th Battalion M.G.C. 26 February 1918)
 * 102nd Trench Mortar Battery (joined 18 February 1916, broken up 16 May 1918)
 * 1/1st Battalion, Herefordshire Regiment (joined June 1918)
 * 1/4th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment (joined July 1918)
 * 1/7th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment (joined July 1918)
 * 102nd Trench Mortar Battery (reformed 10 July 1918)

 * 103rd (Tyneside Irish) Brigade :

After reorganisation in July 1918:
 * 24th (Service) Battalion, (1st Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers (merged with 27th Battalion to form 24/27th Battalion N.F. on 10 August 1917, disbanded February 1918)
 * 25th (Service) Battalion, (2nd Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers (left February 1918)
 * 26th (Service) Battalion, (3rd Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers (disbanded February 1918)
 * 27th (Service) Battalion,(4th Tyneside Irish), Northumberland Fusiliers (merged with 27th Battalion to form 24/27th Battalion N.F. on 10 August 1917)
 * 9th (Service) Battalion, the Northumberland Fusiliers (joined August 1917, left 26 May 1918)
 * 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment (joined February 1918 left May 1918)
 * 10th (Service) Battalion (Grimsby Chums), Lincolnshire Regiment (transferred from 101st Brigade February 1918 left June 1918)
 * 103rd Machine Gun Company (joined 27 April 1916, moved to 34th Battalion M.G.C. 26 February 1918)
 * 103rd Trench Mortar Battery (joined 18 February 1916, broken up 16 May 1918)
 * 1/5th (Dumfries and Galloway) (T.F.) Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers (joined June 1918)
 * 1/8th Battalion, (T.F.) Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) (joined June 1918)
 * 1/5th (Renfrewshire) (T.F.) Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (joined June 1918)
 * 103rd Trench Mortar Battery (reformed 1 July 1918)

On the First day on the Somme, the division had the largest number of casualties of the British divisions, the 102nd Brigade had 2,324 casualties and the 103rd Brigade incurred 1,968 losses. From 6 July – 22 August, the brigades were swapped with the 111th and 112th brigades of the 37th Division, which was holding the line on a quiet sector at Vimy Ridge.

Divisional Troops Thirteen other infantry battalions joined the Division for short periods during its reorganisation in mid 1918, all had left by July 1918)
 * 18th (Service) Battalion, the Northumberland Fusiliers (joined as Divisional Pioneer Battalion July 1915, left June 1918)
 * 2/4th (T.F.) Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry (joined as Divisional Pioneer Battalion June 1918)
 * 19th Motor Machine Gun Battery	(joined November 1915 left 6 February 1916)
 * 240th Machine Gun Company (joined 18 July 1917, moved to 34th Battalion M.G.C. 26 February 1918)
 * 34th Battalion M.G.C. (formed 26 February 1918 absorbing the brigade M.G. companies)
 * Divisional Mounted Troops
 * E Squadron, North Irish Horse (left May 1916)
 * 34th Divisional Cyclist Company, Army Cyclist Corps (left 11 May 1916)
 * 34th Divisional Train Army Service Corps
 * 229th, 230th, 231st and 232nd Companies.
 * 44th Mobile Veterinary Section Army Veterinary Corps
 * 231st Divisional Employment Company (joined 25 May 1917)

Royal Artillery

The Divisional artillery was placed under temporary command of 5th Division while the infantry was being reorganised in mid 1918.
 * CLII Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (R.F.A.)
 * CLX Brigade, R.F.A.
 * CLXXV Brigade, R.F.A. (left 26 January 1917)
 * CLXXVI (Howitzer) Brigade, R.F.A. (broken up 28 August 1916)
 * 130th Heavy Battery Royal Garrison Artillery (R.G.A.) (raised with Division but moved independently to France)
 * 516th Heavy Battery R.G.A. (joined CLXXV Brigade 7 October 1916)
 * 34th (Nottingham) Divisional Ammunition Column R.F.A.
 * V.34 Heavy Trench Mortar Battery, R.F.A. (formed by 16 August 1916; left for VI Corps 6 March 1918)
 * X.34, Y.34 and Z.34 Medium Mortar Batteries, R.F.A. (formed by 18 June 1916; on 6 March 1918, Z broken up and distributed among X and Y batteries)

Royal Engineers
 * 105th Field Company (left February 1915)
 * 106th Field Company (left February 1915)
 * 207th (Norfolk) Field Company (joined February 1915)
 * 208th (Norfolk) Field Company (joined February 1915)
 * 209th (Norfolk) Field Company (joined February 1915)
 * 34th Divisional Signals Company

Royal Army Medical Corps
 * 102nd Field Ambulance
 * 103rd Field Ambulance
 * 104th Field Ambulance
 * 74th Sanitary Section (left 31 March 1917)

Commanders

 * Major-General Edward Ingouville-Williams 1915 – 22 July 1916
 * Major-General Lothian Nicholson 22 July 1916 – March 1919

title: 34th Division (United Kingdom)


text:
Mykolaiv

Mykolaiv (Миколаїв, ; Николаев) is a city and a hromada (municipality) in southern Ukraine. Mykolaiv is the administrative center of Mykolaiv Raion (district) and Mykolaiv Oblast (province). The city of Mykolaiv, which provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea, is the location of the most downriver bridge crossing of the Southern Bug river. This city is one of the main shipbuilding centers of the Black Sea. Aside from three shipyards within the city, there are a number of research centers specializing in shipbuilding such as the State Research and Design Shipbuilding Center, Zoria-Mashproekt and others. As of 2022, the city has a population of Mykolaiv holds the honorary title Hero City of Ukraine.

The city serves as a transportation hub for Ukraine, containing a sea port, commercial port, river port, highway, railway junction, and airport.

Much of Mykolaiv's land area consists of parks. Park Peremohy (Victory) is a large park on the peninsula just north of the city center, on the north side of the Inhul river.

Name
The city is known under two names, which differ in Ukrainian and Russian; there are several transliterations of each name. The Ukrainian name of the city is Миколаїв, transliterated as Mykolaiv. The Russian name, Никола́ев, transliterates as Nikolaev or as Nikolayev. The city's founding was made by the Russian conquests during the Second Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792. Founded by Prince Grigory Potemkin as Nikolaev, it was the last of the many cities he established. On 27 August 1789, Potemkin ordered its naming near the wharf at the mouth of the Ingul river, on a high, cool and breezy spot where the Ingul river meets the Southern Bug river. To build the city he brought in peasants, soldiers, and Turkish prisoners; 2,500 were working there during 1789. The shipyards were built first (1788).

Potemkin named the city after Saint Nicholas, the patron of seafarers, on whose day (6 December) he had obtained victory at the siege of Ochakov in 1788. The name Nikolaev is known from the legal order (writ) Number 1065 by Prince Potemkin to Mikhail Faleev dated 27 August 1789.

In 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power, the Odesa provincial council (of laborers and peasants' deputies) petitioned the Soviet Ukrainian government—the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee (VUTSIK)—to rename the city of Mykolaiv to Vernoleninsk ("Faithful to Lenin"). As the city of Mykolaiv was a district center of the Odesan province, presumably, the petition would have been initiated by the Odesa city council, but documentary evidence of this so far has not been identified. On 15 April 1924 the Plenum of the Central Administrative-Territorial Commission of the VUTSIK considered and rejected the petition of the Odesan executive committee. Perhaps the members of the Soviet-Ukraine government thought that the name sounded too obsequious.

Information regarding the alleged renaming of Mykolaiv was disseminated by German maps of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as in German encyclopedic publications in 1927 and 1932, which show Vernoleninsk on the USSR part of the European maps. The city was designated as Mykolaiv in publications of the same map in other languages.

To distinguish Mykolaiv from the much smaller west Ukraine city of Mykolaiv in Lviv Oblast, the latter is sometimes called "Mykolaiv on the Dniester" after the major river that it is situated on, while the former is located on the Southern Bug, another major river, and may also be called "Mykolaiv on the Bug".

History

Archaeologists have found proof of ancient settlements on the territory of Mykolaiv. In 2018, archaeologists discovered a sunken Ancient Greek ship near the Mykolaiv region, dating from the fifth century BC, the period of Greek colonization of the Northern Black Sea. Researchers stated: "This Ancient Greek ship is one of the oldest known in the Northern Black Sea."

The city has long had close associations with shipbuilding.

The area was populated throughout time by Scythians, ancient Greeks, Slavic tribes, hordes of nomads and free Zaporozhian Cossacks. However, the intensive settlement of the Mykolaiv peninsula started in the last quarter of the 18th century already after the liberation of the northern Black Sea coast region from the Ottoman Empire.

The Russian Empire's Black Sea Navy Headquarters was in Mykolaiv for more than 100 years until the Imperial Russian Navy moved it to Sevastopol, near the southern tip of the Crimean Peninsula. During the Crimean War (1853-1856), Mykolaiv became the main rear base to support Russia's efforts in the war. Most businesses that were created in the city belonged to the military-industrial complex, and, consequently, Mykolaiv was closed to foreigners for many decades. By the late 19th century, Mykolaiv's port ranked third in the Russian Empire (after Saint Petersburg and Odesa) in trade with foreign countries. Grain-export suppliers of the steppe region (of Ukraine and Southern Russia) were the greatest in the Russian Empire. Mykolaiv had become a great industrial center in the Southern Ukraine.

Jews started to settle in Mykolaiv in the late 18th century. By being in the area west of the Dnieper which was where Jews were legally allowed to reside (the Pale of Settlement), Mykolaiv became a major Jewish centre of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. During the course of the 19th century, the Czarist governments largely banned Jews from living east of the Dnieper River. In 1866 restrictions were lifted and the Jewish community of Mykolaiv developed rapidly but years later Jews suffered in the pogroms of May 1881 and April 1899. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (the seventh leader in the Chabad-Lubavitch dynasty) was born in Mykolaiv on 18 April 1902.

The town was occupied in 1918 by German troops who were commanded by Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn. It was subsequently occupied in 1919 by French and Greek troops who had been attached to the French-commanded Armée d'Orient (1915–1919) in the course of the Greek Ukrainian campaign - which formed part of the Southern Russia campaign of 1918-1919 by the Allies of World War I during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. In 1920, Soviet power was established. In 1926 there were 21,786 Jews (about 20.8% of the total population) in Mykolaiv. In the course of Operation Barbarossa Mykolaiv was occupied on 16 August 1941 by German invaders. In September, German forces massacred over 35,000 non-combatants, many of them Jews, in the city and its region. During the occupation, an underground partisan sabotage group, the Mykolaiv Center, conducted guerilla activities. On 28 March 1944 the city was liberated, in part because of Soviet Senior Lieutenant Konstantin F. Olshansky's marines and their daring raid during which the majority of his troops were killed.

In the post-war period Mykolaiv became one of the shipbuilding centers of the USSR, with three shipyards: Black Sea, 61 Kommunara, and Okean.

The asteroid 8141 Nikolaev (1982 SO4) was discovered in 1982 by Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and was named in honor of the city.

In March 2012, Mykolaiv gained international notoriety for lawlessness and police corruption following the rape and murder of Oksana Makar. Her three attackers were apprehended, but two were released because of family connections to local government officials. After a media outcry and public protests, all three attackers were charged with her murder. During the Euromaidan protests of 2013–2014, Mykolayiv was the scene of anti-Yanukovich protests. After the victory of Euromaidan, the situation calmed down somewhat until 7 April 2014, when some pro-Russians tried to take over the local administration building. Pro-Ukrainians stopped them from taking over the administration building and destroyed the pro-Russian camp not far from it, after which the situation in the city became calm.

Until 18 July 2020, Mykolaiv was incorporated as a city of oblast significance. It also served as the administrative center of Mykolaiv and Vitovka Raions even though it did not belong to any of these raions. In July 2020, as part of the administrative reform of Ukraine, which reduced the number of raions of Mykolaiv Oblast to four, the city of Mykolaiv was merged into Mykolaiv Raion.

In February and March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian military forces attacked Mykolaiv and placed it under siege. Ukrainian forces barred Russian forces from the city, though Russian artillery continued to shell it. By July, half of the pre-war population had left the city.

Administrative status
Mykolaiv is the administrative center of Mykolaiv Oblast (region), as well as that of Mykolaiv Raion. It hosts the administration of Mykolaiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.

Geography

Mykolaiv is located in a primarily flat terrain area, the fertile, grain-producing steppe region of southern Ukraine. The nearest mountains to Mykolaiv are 300 km south, at the southern end of the Crimean Peninsula. The lack of any mountain barriers north of Mykolaiv means that cold Arctic winds can blow south, unimpeded by any terrain elevation, to Mykolaiv in winter.

Mykolaiv is on a peninsula along the estuary of the Southern Bug river where it meets the Inhul River, 65 km from the Black Sea. Both the Inhul River and the Southern Bug River follow very winding courses just before they join at the northeast corner of Mykolaiv. This has created several long and narrow peninsulas just north of Mykolaiv, and the main part of Mykolaiv is itself on a peninsula at a 180-degree bend in the Southern Bug River.

The area of the city is 260 km2.

Mykolaiv is in the second time zone (Eastern European Time).

Ecology
Mykolaiv has environmental issues, which is common in many cities in Ukraine, such as pollution of water, the air, and groundwater; drinking water quality, noise, waste management, and conservation of biological diversity in the city. One of Mykolaiv's most urgent problems is the disposal of solid household waste. The city has 18 preserved sites, totaling about 12 km²:
 * The Mykolaiv Zoo
 * The monuments of landscape art: Park Peremohy, Park People's Garden, 68 Paratroopers Park, Square, The Sivašskij, The Boulevard Bunker, Linea (Line) Park, Young Heroes Park; Youth Park in the Inhulskyi District
 * The Botanical Natural Monument Memory Square
 * The Dubki Reserved Nature boundary
 * The Balabanovka Forest Reserve
 * The Reservoir Hydrological Reserve
 * The Turkish Fountain Hydrological Natural Monument
 * The Dubka (oak) 4 Botanical Nature Monument

Climate
The city's climate is moderately continental- cold semi arid steppe climate with cold winters and warm to hot summers. Mykolaiv's average temperature is 10 °C. The lowest average temperature is in January -3.1 °C, the highest in July 22.3 °C.

Mykolaiv has an average of 472 mm of precipitation per year, with the lowest precipitation in October, and the most in July. Mykolaiv has mild snow cover every year.

Average relative humidity is 73% for the year; the lowest humidity is in August (60%); the highest in December (86%). The lowest cloud are seen in August; the highest are in December.

The prevailing winds come from the North; the least frequent source of wind is the Southeast. The maximum wind speed is in February, the lowest is from July through September. In January, the average wind speed is 4.1 m/s (meters per second); in July, the average is 3.1 m/s.

Language
Distribution of the population by native language according to the 2001 census:

As of 2017, 63% of the population spoke Russian at home, 7% Ukrainian, and 28% spoke both Ukrainian and Russian equally.

According to a survey conducted by the International Republican Institute in April-May 2023, 30% of the city's population spoke Ukrainian at home, and 61% spoke Russian.

Awards
The Soviet Government awarded Mykolaiv the Order of the Red Banner of Labour on 31 December 1970, for successfully fulfilling its assignments for the development of industrial production, in the USSR's five-year economic plan.

On 25 March 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded Mykolaiv the title of Hero City of Ukraine due to the Battle of Mykolaiv.

Administrative districts
Mykolaiv is divided into four urban districts:

 * Tsentralnyi District is located in the northwest of the city. It includes the historic center of Mykolaiv, Raketne Urochyshche, Temvod, Soliani, Pivnichnyi, Ternivka (with a separate village council), Matviivka, Varvarivka.
 * Zavodskyi District is located in the west of the city. In this area, many industrial enterprises are concentrated. It also includes neighborhoods Lisky and Namyv, as well as towns of Velyka Korenykha and Mala Korenykha.
 * Inhulskyi District (former Leninskyi District) is located in the east of Mykolaiv. Among other neighborhoods, it includes the PTZ, Novyi Vodopii, Staryi Vodopii. The district has a zoo, bus and railway stations.
 * Korabelnyi District is located in the south of the city. It includes a broad beam, Bohoiavlenskyi, Balabanivka, Kulbakyne.

Official symbols
Mykolaiv adopted its current coat of arms on 26 September 1997. Its design came from the one adopted in 1883, by removing the symbol of Kherson province to which Mykolaiv didn't belong anymore. Mykolaiv adopted its current flag on 2 July 1999 and its anthem on 11 September 2004.

Economy
Mykolaiv is a major shipbuilding center of Ukraine since the time of both the Russian Empire (1721–1917) and the now defunct Soviet Union (1922–1991) and an important river port. The city has three major shipyards one of which is capable of building large navy ships. Other important industries are mechanical engineering, power engineering, metallurgy and food industry.

Mykolaiv was closed to foreign visitors until the late 1980s due to the large number of secret Soviet Navy projects that took place in the city (as well as due to its military air base, turbine factory and military port). The majority of the Soviet Navy's surface ships, including its only aircraft carrier, the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, were built in Mykolaiv.

In May 2011, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych visited Mykolaiv and said that Ukraine was serious about reviving and further developing its shipbuilding industry in the Mykolaiv region.

One of the largest industrial businesses in the city is the Mykolaiv Aluminia Factory (formerly part of Rusal and currently owned by Glencore), which produces aluminium oxide (alumina), raw material for the production of aluminum.

In addition to heavy industry, the city has a developed food processing industry, including a juice maker, Sandora (part of PepsiCo), a dairy products maker, Laktalis-Mykolaiv, and a brewery, Yantar. Nibulon (Ukrainian: Нібулон), one of Ukraine's biggest agriculture companies specialized in the production and exportation of grain such as wheat, barley and corn is headquartered in Mykolaiv. The company has its own maritime fleet and shipyard, the Nibulon Shipyard, and also developed its own river fleet to transport grain to export terminals.

In January 2017, the Mykolaiv Development Agency released a promo video of the city's investment potential.

The Mykolaiv Armored Factory (owned by Ukroboronprom) has been a large repair facility for Ukraine's military since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Engineers at the plant designed an armored ambulance based on the BTR-70 to be used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Ukrainian military presence
Mykolaiv, being an important strategic city in southern Ukraine has a significant Ukrainian military presence, including the shipyards that build Ukraine's surface navy ships, the Mykolaiv Ukrainian Navy base, the "MARP" aircraft repair factory (Mykolaiv), and the Kulbakino army base (in the Mykolaiv Oblast, outside of the city of Mykolaiv).

Previously for many years after World War II the city had been home to the 92nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, the former 92nd Guards Rifle Division. The 79th Airmobile Brigade is based in the city.

Transportation
Mykolaiv is one of Ukraine's most important transportation junctions. It is a major commercial river and sea port, and a major highway and rail junction. Mykolaiv also has a dual-function passenger and freight airport, but passenger service at the airport is not significant, compared to Ukraine's major airports. In addition to the airport and sea and river port, Mykolaiv has two train stations, and an intercity bus station.

Air
Mykolaiv Airport (IATA code NLV) is one of the largest and most technically well equipped airports in the South of Ukraine, which serves the city. The airport, located northwest of Mykolaiv, is mainly used for air freight and only has limited passenger service. Russian airline UTAir Aviation offers flights from Mykolaiv to Moscow (Vnukovo – VKO airport). In addition, there are one-hour passenger flights from Odesa (the nearest major airport) to Mykolaiv. Almost all airline passenger service in the South West of Ukraine (where Mykolaiv is located) is through Odesa International Airport: to reach Mykolaiv by airplane, tourists generally reach Odesa by plane, and then take a bus, taxi or train, for approximately 2 hours, to Mykolaiv. Odesa, the largest city in South West Ukraine, is 132 km from Mykolaiv.

Kulbakyno airport, also known as Mykolaiv, is a Class I military air base located just to the southeast of the city center, in Kulbakyno. It primarily supports wings of Sukhoi Su-24, Sukhoi Su-25, Sukhoi Su-27, and Mikoyan MiG-29.

Bus travel long distance
Mykolaiv is an 8.5-hour bus ride from Kyiv's main bus station. Ukrainian private national bus companies Gyunsel and Avtoluks operate overnight buses from Kyiv to Mykolaiv seven nights per week. The bus station in Mykolaiv is located at Prospekt (Avenue) Bohoyavlenskyi 21.

Roads
The main north–south highway that passes through Mykolaiv is H (or M)-14.

The main East-West Highway that passes through Mykolaiv is E-58 M-14 (West and then South to Odesa), and South East to Kherson, a major port on the Dneper River, just before it flows into the Black Sea. The E-58 M-14 then continues East to the major industrial city and port in South Eastern Ukraine, Mariupol.

The main highways to and from Mykolaiv are from Kherson (65 km), Odesa (120 km), Uman (320 km), Chişinău (Kishniev), Moldova (325 km), the Crimean Peninsula (350 km, Kyiv (500 km, Kharkiv (520 km, Lviv (350 km (Western Ukraine). Ukraine's roads, including those leading from Mykolaiv, tend to be poorly maintained and can be very dangerous.

Roads through Mykolaiv include:

the road M14 (Odesa–Novoazovsk), having an exit to the main highway M18 (Yalta–Simferopol–Kharkiv).
 * the east–west Euro-Asian transport corridor: Odesa–Mykolaiv–Kherson–Dzhankoy–Kerch.
 * the corridor Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation: Reni–Izmail–Odesa–Mykolaiv–Kherson–Melitopol–Berdyansk–Mariupol–Novoazovsk.

Roads to/from Mykolaiv include:

 * R-06 (Ulianovka–Mykolaiv) with the highway M05 (Odesa–Kyiv), which, in turn, is linked with the highway M12 in the city district of Uman, having an exit on the route Lublin–Warsaw–Gdańsk (Poland). The length of the route Gdańsk–Mykolaiv is 1530 km.
 * N11 (Dnipro–Kryvyi Rih–Mykolaiv)
 * N14 (Аleksandrovka–Kropyvnytskyi–Mykolaiv)

Bridges
Mykolaiv, being located at the confluence of two major rivers, has two main bridges. The Varvarivskyi Bridge over Southern Bug is a swing bridge with Europe's largest span (134 m). It is also the southernmost bridge over the Southern Bug. The bridge connects the North coast of Mykolaiv to its Tsentralnyi District, located on the West Bank of the river. The Odeske Highway crosses the bridge and then continues south-west to Odesa.

Another major bridge is the Inhul Bridge crossing the Inhul River. The bridge leads from the north coast of Mykolaiv, and goes north-northeast to the peninsula on the north side of the Inhul, just north of Mykolaiv. On the north Side of the Inhul River, the Heroyiv Stalingrada Highway crosses the bridge, streaming into Pushkinska Street on the other side.

Rail
Overnight train travel in sleeper-berth passenger trains is a very common way to travel long distances in Ukraine, cheaper, more comfortable and faster than buses – and more environment-friendly, for that matter. There are nightly trains from Kyiv's main passenger train station to Mykolaiv.

In addition to Kyiv, trains from Mykolaiv regularly run to the two closest major cities to Mykolaiv: Odesa (south west of Mykolaiv); and Kherson (south of Mykolaiv). Direct trains to Moscow (26 hours), Kyiv (8-10), Lviv (18), Odesa (5), the Crimea (8 hours) depart every day. Train departures timetable. All trains have coach cars.

Mykolaiv's passenger train station is called Mykolaiv – Passenger. It at the intersection of Myru Avenue and Novozavodska Street 5 (in Ukraine street address numbers are placed after the street name). From the city square outside the railway station, buses depart to all other parts of Mykolaiv.

Mykolaiv's freight train station is called Mykolaiv-Gruzovoi (Freight). It is located at Pryvokzalna ploshcha (Square).

Water-borne travel
Though a major Ukrainian commercial sea port, Mykolaiv has no regular passenger water-borne service. Water transport is offered by three sea ports and one river port, and also by several terminals. The port is linked with the sea by Dnieper-Bug Estuary canal. The canal begins at the island Berezan and extends 44 km until it reaches the port of Mykolaiv. The canal consistes of 13 tracks, six of which reach Dnieper Estuary, and the rest along the river Southern Bug. The width of the canal is 100 m. Its depth is 10.5 m.

Large ocean-going ships can reach Mykolaiv year round, via the Southern Bug River. The Southern Bug River, which flows into the Black Sea 65 km south of Mykolaiv, is 1.5 km wide in Mykolaiv. Mykolaiv's passenger river port is at Varvarovskii Spusk (Descent) 5.

The ports are:

 * Mykolaiv Commercial Sea Port
 * Specialized Seaport Olivia
 * Dnieper-Bug Sea Commercial Port
 * Mykolaiv River Port
 * Sea Specialized Port Nika-Tera

Local transportation

The main forms of city transport are fixed-route marshrutkas, buses, trolley buses, and trams.

Streetcars (trams)
The length of Mykolaiv's streetcar (tram) lines is 73 km. From 1897 until 1925 Mykolaiv's streetcars were pulled by horses. Streetcars began to be powered by electricity in 1915, and this has continued through the present. At their inception, the tracks were 1000 millimeters (3' 3.37"), but during the period from 1952 to 1972 they were switched to standard gauge.

Тrolley Buses
The length of Mykolaiv's trolley bus lines is 59 km. Mykolaiv's trolley buses have operated since 29 October 1967.

Education
There are several universities in Mykolaiv. The main universities are: Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding (leading shipbuilding university in Ukraine), Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University, Sukhomlinsky National University of Mykolaiv, and Mykolaiv State Agrarian University.

Sukhomlinsky National University of Mykolaiv is the oldest university in Mykolaiv. The idea of the university foundation arose in the 1860s, but it was realized only on July 18, 1913, when the Mykolaiv Teacher's Institute was founded. Nowadays there are 7,000 students studying at the university, 300 teachers working at 36 departments. Annually, the university graduates 1,000 specialists and 60-70 undergraduates.

There are 10 higher education institutions in Mykolaiv of level III or IV accreditation. 65 general education schools, lycees, gymnasium schools, 3 evening schools, and 12 private learning institutions are in the city.

In a survey in June–July 2017, adult respondents reported the following educational levels:
 * 5% primary or incomplete secondary education.
 * 26% general secondary education.
 * 31% vocational secondary education.
 * 38% university education (including incomplete university education).

Religion
Mykolaiv is the headquarters of the Mykolaiv Episcopate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which has 18 churches (temples) in the city.

Mykolaiv is also the headquarters of the Mykolaiv Episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which has succeeded the Kyiv Patriarchate.

A survey in June–July 2017 reported the following results for Mykolaiv:
 * 19% Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate.
 * 16% Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
 * 16% atheist.
 * 4% belong to other religions.
 * 44% believe in God, but do not belong to any religion.
 * 2% found it difficult to answer.

Culture
There are three performing arts theaters in Mykolaiv: the Academic Ukrainian Theater of Drama and Musical Comedy, the Mykolaiv State Puppet Theater, and the Mykolaiv Academic Art Russian Drama Theater. In addition, the Mykolaiv Oblast Philharmonic performs in the city.

Mykolaiv has the following museums: Mykolayiv Regional Museum of Local History, The Museum of Shipbuilding and Fleet, the Museum of the World War II Partisan Movement, the V. V. Vereshchagin Art Museum.

Three movie theaters operate in Mykolaiv: Rodina (Motherland), Pioneer, Multiplex. Movies shown include the latest Hollywood films dubbed into Ukrainian and modern Russian films.

Media
Publications include Vecherniy Nikolayev (Evening Mykolaiv), Nikolaevsckie Novosti (Mykolaiv News), and Yuzhnaya Pravda (Southern Truth). Many publications have an Internet version, but exist in an independent Internet publication.

Television programs that are broadcast in Mykolaiv include movies, news, dramas (some of which originated in other countries, such as Mexico and the US, and are dubbed), cartoons, and professional sporting events such as Ukrainian football (soccer). Mykolaiv has the following TV channels: 1+1; 2+2; 5 Kanal; ICTV; Inter; Real Estate TV; Tonis: K1: Kanal Ukraina; Kultura (Ukraina); CTB; TV: TET; and TRK.

Sports
Mykolaiv is represented within the Ukrainian Bandy and Rink-bandy Federation.

MFC Mykolaiv (Municipal Football Club "Mykolaiv", Ukrainian: Муніципальний футбольний клуб "Миколаїв") is a Ukrainian football club. The club has been relegated three times from the Ukrainian Premier League. MFС Mykolaiv's best achievement in the Ukrainian Premier League was 13th place (in 1994–95). MFC Mykolaiv reached first place in Druha Liha group A in 2010–11 season and was promoted to Persha Liha. Mykolaiv's main football stadium is at the west end of Tsentralnyi Prospekt, near the west end of the peninsula that Mykolaiv is on.

Mykolaiv's professional basketball team is MBC Mykolaiv. The team has won or finished second or third in several international tournaments since 1988, and won the Ukrainian Championship in 1992. MBC Mykolaiv is part of the Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague, which is the top professional basketball league in Ukraine.

The Mykolaiv students won two gold and bronze medals of the Cup of Ukraine on academic rowing.

International relations
Mykolaiv is part of the International Black Sea Club and The World Council of Environmental Initiatives, since ICLEI).

Mykolaiv is twinned with:

 * Aalborg, Denmark, since 2023
 * 🇨🇳 Dezhou, China, since 2009
 * 🇷🇴 Galați, Romania, since 2003
 * 🏴 Glasgow, Scotland, since 2024
 * 🇫🇮 Kotka, Finland, since 2024
 * Kutaisi, Georgia, since 2012
 * 🇹🇷 Nilüfer, Turkey, since 2001
 * 🇨🇳 Tianjin, China, since 2001
 * 🇬🇷 Tinos, Greece, since 2012
 * 🇮🇹 Trieste, Italy, since 1996
 * 🇨🇳 Weihai, China, since 2019
 * 🇨🇳 Zhoushan, China, since 2016

Notable people

 * Taisia Afonina (1913-1994), Soviet, Russian painter and watercolorist
 * David Aizman (1869–1922), Russian-Jewish novelist and playwright
 * Mykola Arkas (1853–1909), composer and historian
 * Isaak Babel (1894–1940), journalist and writer, spent part of his childhood in Mykolaiv
 * Paul A. Baran (1909–1964), American Marxist economist
 * Sy Bartlett (1900–1978), Ukrainian-American author and screenwriter/producer of Hollywood films
 * Yurii Biriukov (born 1974), businessman, politician and founder of Phoenix Wings
 * Georgy Brusilov (1884–1914?), Arctic explorer
 * Victor Buerger (Berger) (1904–1996), Ukrainian–British chess player
 * Art Hodes (1904–1993), jazz pianist born in Mykolaiv, emigrated to Chicago as a child
 * Svetlana Ischenko (born 1969), poet, stage actress, teacher and artist
 * Boris Kamensky (1870–1949), Imperial Russian violinist
 * Vitaliy Kim (born 1981), businessman and politician, the Governor of Mykolaiv Oblast since 2020
 * Vsevolod Kniaziev (born 1979), judge and lawyer
 * Stepan Makarov (1849–1904), commander of the Imperial Russian Navy, oceanographer, and author
 * Max Maltzman (1899–1971), American architect noted during the Art Deco era
 * Larisa Matveyeva (born 1969), poet, novelist, playwright and translator
 * Serhii Melnychenko (born 1991), photographer, dancer, master of sports of the international class in ballroom dances
 * Yuri Nosenko (1927–2008), KGB defector, born in Mykolaiv
 * Maria Orska (1893–1930), actress of the German theater and cinema in the 1920s
 * Galina Petrova (1920–1943), medic and Chief Petty Officer in the Black Sea Fleet during WWII
 * Pinkhus Rovner (1875–1919), Jewish Ukrainian Bolshevik revolutionary
 * Serhiy Ryzhkov (1958–2017), constructor, ecologist and academic professor
 * Chana Schneerson (1880–1964), mother of the seventh Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
 * Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), the Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, born in Mykolaiv and lived there until 1909
 * Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (1872–1938), Russian Marxist revolutionary and Leon Trotsky's first wife
 * African Spir (1837–1890), philosopher, studied in Mykolaiv
 * Grigory Stelmakh (1900–1942), Soviet military commander
 * Iryna Sysoyenko (born 1982), politician and lawyer
 * Meir Teomi (1898–1947), Ukrainian-born actor and immigrant to Mandatory Palestine who was murdered during a terrorist attack
 * Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), revolutionary, studied in Mykolaiv
 * Konstantin Umansky (1902–1945), Soviet diplomat, editor, journalist, and artist
 * Vladimir Vasilyev (born 1967), Russian science fiction writer and musician
 * Pyotr Veinberg (1831–1908), Russian Empire poet, translator, journalist, and literary historian
 * Oleg Voloshyn (born 1981), Russian-Ukrainian journalist, political pundit, and former government official
 * Sergei Zakharov (1950–2019), Russian singer with a rare lyrical baritone
 * Oleksandr Zubov, (born 1983), Ukrainian chess player, born in Mykolaiv

Sport

 * Valeriy Dymo (born 1985) – swimmer who competed in the 2004, 2008 and the 2012 Summer Olympics
 * Olha Kharlan (born 1990) – sabre fencer; European, world, and Olympic champion
 * Olena Khomrova (born 1987) – sabre fencer, team gold medalist at the 2008 Summer Olympics.
 * Nikita Rukavytsya (born 1987), professional footballer for Israeli Premier League club Maccabi Haifa and the Australia national team.
 * Oleksiy Sereda (born 2005) – diver; at age 13, he was the 2019 European champion in the 10 metre platform event, the youngest ever to win this gold medal; lives in Mykolaiv
 * Oxana Tsyhuleva (born 1973) – trampolinist, silver medalist at the 2000 Summer Olympics

title: Mykolaiv