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Propiska in the Soviet Union

A propiska (пропи́ска, plural: propiski) was both a written residency permit and a migration-recording tool, used in the Russian Empire before 1917 and in the Soviet Union from the 1930s.

The USSR had both permanent (прописка по месту жительства or постоянная прописка) and temporary (временная прописка) propiskas. In the transition period to a market economy in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the permanent propiska in municipal apartments was a factor that allowed dwellers to obtain private-property rights on the living space they were "inscripted" in during privatization (those who built housing at their own expense obtained a permanent propiska there by definition).

Etymology
Originally, the noun propiska meant the clerical procedure of registration, of enrolling the person (writing his or her name) into the police records of the local population (or writing down the police permission into the person's identification document - see below). Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary describes this procedure as "to enroll [the document] in a book and stamp it". Page 20 of the internal passport of the Russian Empire (see illustration) was entitled Место для пропи́ски ви́довъ поли́цiею Space for registration of vids by police. Five blank pages (20 to 24) were gradually filled with stamps with the residential address written in. It allowed a person to reside in his/her relevant locality. Article 61 of the Regulations adopted on February 7, 1897 (see pp. 18–19 of the passport) imposed a fine for those found outside the administrative unit (as a rule, uezd) in which they were registered to live.

As a clerical term, the noun вид (vid) is short for вид на жи́тельство (vid na žítel'stvo). Although translated into English as a "residential permit", in Russian, this combination of words also conveys a presence of the right of a resident to live somewhere. In the sense of a "[legal] right" the word vid also appears in the phrase иметь на неё виды (imet' na nejo vidy, planning to gain husband's rights with her). Among many explanations of вид, Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary indicates a "certificate of any kind for free passage, travel and living", mentioning "passport" as its synonym.

History
The origin of the propiska dates back to when Peter the Great wanted to ensure "that serfs stayed in the fields where they belonged." In the pre-Soviet Russian Empire, a person arriving for a new residency was obliged (depending on the estate) to enroll in the registers of the local police authorities. The latter could deny undesirable persons the right to settle (in this case, no stamps were made in passports). In most cases, this would mean the person had to return to their permanent domicile. The verb "propisat" was used as a transitive verb with "vid" being the direct object.

After the reintroduction of the passport system in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the noun propiska was also associated with the result of residential registration. In common speech, the stamp in the passport into which the residential address was written was also called "propiska". Permanent propiska ("постоя́нная пропи́ска") confirmed the housing rights of its owner. Temporary propiska ("вре́менная пропи́ска") could be provided alongside a permanent one when a resident had to live outside the permanent residence for a long period of time. As an example, students and workers leaving to study or work in other cities received temporary propiskas at their dorms, apartments, or hostels.

When reintroduced in the 1930s, the passport system in the USSR was similar to that of the Russian Empire where passports were required mainly in the largest cities and in the territories adjacent to the country's external borders. Officers and soldiers always had special identity documents, while peasants could obtain internal passports only by a special application. In the USSR, the term residential permit (Вид на жи́тельство) was used as a synonym for temporary propiska, particularly with regard to foreign nationals. By the end of the 1980s, when emigrants from the USSR could return, those who had lost Soviet citizenship could also apply for an identity document with this title. The "passportization" of the citizen of the USSR reached its all-encompassing scope only in the 1970s: the right (and obligation) of every adult (from 16) to have a passport promoted the propiska as the primary lever of the regulation of migration. On the other hand, the propiska underlined the mechanism of the constitutional obligation of the state to provide everyone a dwelling: no one could be stripped of the propiska at one location without substitution with another permanent propiska location, even amidst the then-rarely-granted right to emigrate.

The limit system for migrant workers
The system of a propiska limit (Лимит прописки) existed in the last 30 or so years of the USSR. This was the only means by which outsiders could settle in big cities like Moscow and Leningrad, except marriage. Often enterprises in large cities built hostels with dormitories at their own expense, to provide accommodation (with temporary "propiska") for migrant workers from elsewhere. After long-term employment at an enterprise, a worker could be given an apartment (as opposed to an individual hostel room, which often shared a single bathroom and kitchen per floor and was ill-suited for family life), with permanent "propiska" rights to it.

Cities themselves had a propiska limit for the low-wage city employers, such as street sweeps or janitors, because city natives shun from such occupations.

The native populations of large cities like Moscow often despised these migrant workers ('limit-dwellers' лими́тчики), considering them rude, uncultured, and violent. The derogatory term "limita" (лимита́) was used to refer to them.

Students from rural areas or smaller towns lived in similar students' hostels, with the termination of right of abode in the hostel on graduation or on exclusion from their schools.

Details of propiska
The verb "propisat" was used with both the passport and its owner as a direct object. Reciprocally, "propiska" became an object which one can have, e.g.: "to have a propiska in Moscow" (име́ть пропи́ску в Москве́).

The propiska was recorded both in the internal passport of a Soviet citizen and at local governmental offices. In cities it was a local office of a utility organisation, such as РЭУ (District Production Department), ЖЭК (Housing Committee Office), or ЖСК (Housing and Construction Cooperative). The passports were stamped at the local police precinct's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) office, with the Military Comissariat (the draft body) also involved. In rural areas, it was a selsoviet, or "village council", a governing body of a rural territory. A propiska could be permanent or temporary. The administrations of hostels, student dormitories, and landlords (very rare case in the USSR, since the "sanitary norm" (a minimum of 12 m2 per person, see below for further details) would usually cause rejection of temporary propiska for such a person) were obliged to maintain temporary propiska records of their guests. The propiska played the role of both residence permit and resident registration of a person.

Acquiring a propiska to move to a large city, especially Moscow, was extremely difficult for migrants and was a matter of prestige. Even moving to live with relatives did not automatically provide a person with a permanent propiska because of a minimum area limit (12 m2) for each resident of a specific apartment.

Owing to Soviet property regulations (officially based on the Universal Right to Housing for all), the permanent propiska (which provided the permanent right to dwell in this housing) was nearly impossible for authorities to terminate. The only major exception was a second criminal sentence (after serving the penalty for the first sentence, the inmate returned to the old permanent propiska). If the authorities needed to rule in a certain case, they might refuse a permanent propiska for an individual, but usually not revoking the existing permanent propiska. This also resulted in a situation in which if a spouse agreed (at marriage) to provide the marriage partner with permanent propiska at their apartment, the propiska could not be terminated by divorce, and so exchanging the apartment for two smaller ones was often the only possibility.

Sanitary norm
Spouses could always provide one another a permanent propiska, but explicit consent was required for this. Children were granted a permanent propiska at one of the parents' permanent propiska locations, and this could not be terminated during the lifetime of the child even as an adult (with the exception of a second criminal sentence), unless the grown-up child voluntarily relocated to another place (and was granted a permanent propiska there).

It was not this easy for any other relatives. For such cases, as also for any unrelated people, the so-called "sanitary norm" was used: a propiska would not be issued if it would cause the apartment area to fall below 12 m2 per person. Also, the number of rooms in the apartment was important: two persons of different gender, one or both being 9 years or older, were forbidden to share a single room. If the new "propiska" of the new dweller violated this rule, the propiska would not be granted (spouses being an exception). This was officially meant to prevent unhealthy overcrowding of apartments and sexual abuse, but since most Soviet people had only a little over 9 m2 per person, it was also an effective method of migration control.

These norms were very similar to getting onto the governmental (not dependent on particular employer) "housing list", which was yet another Soviet form of mortgage (again with real money replaced by years of working at one's workplace—the queue was free in terms of money). The main difference was that to gain admission to the housing list the space had to fall below the required 9 m2 per person in an existing apartment (and, due to the dwelling-area rule already mentioned, children of different gender also raised the chances of getting to the queue). This housing list was very slow (much slower than employers' list), and sometimes it took a person's whole life to get an apartment.

As a result, practically the only way for a person legally to improve their living conditions was marriage or childbirth. This was also a serious driving force in migration of young people to "monocities", the new cities built from scratch, often in Siberia or the Arctic, some around a single facility (factory, oil region, or the like).

Housing property rights and mortgage: pre/post Soviet
In 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, propiska was restructured as resident registration, so the modern Russian legislation does not use the terms "propiska" and "propisat" (with the exception of situations where a reference is needed for the Soviet period). However, it is still used as a colloquial abbreviation for permanent residency registration.

In the USSR, there had been some so-called "cooperative" apartments, owned on a Western-style mortgage basis, but they were scarce and getting one was very difficult. The three major post-Soviet reforms, to "not show ethnic background" on this still-vital document, private ownership (something previously disallowed), and seemingly free movement, being "able to register to live anywhere, once they arrange a written lease or buy a house" also ended the situation where these were the only apartments which passed down to children by inheritance. In normal apartments, when the last dweller died, the apartment was returned to the government: when the grandparents became older, they usually preferred to live separately from their children and grandchildren. This was usually connected to cheating of the propiska system: the grandparents were registered not for the apartment in which they lived but the apartment of their children, to avoid the return of their apartment to the government after their death.

Violations of the propiska system within a single city/town were rarely actually punished. Also, Moscow employers were allowed to employ people from the vicinity of Moscow living in a given radius (around 40 km) from Moscow. In theory, it was possible to exchange apartments over mutual agreement between parties. Few people wanted to move from a large city to a smaller one, even with additional money, but the exchange of two flats for one in a larger city was sometimes possible. Also, apartment exchange with money involved was something of a "gray area" bordering on a criminal offence, and there was a real possibility that the participants would be prosecuted as for an economic crime, and real estate agents arranging such things were strictly outlawed and prosecuted, living in a "gray area" and hiding their activities from the authorities.

Many people used subterfuge to get a Moscow propiska, including marriages of convenience and bribery. Another way of obtaining Moscow residency was to become a limitchik: to enter Moscow to take certain understaffed job positions, such as at cleaning services, according to a certain workforce quota (limit). Such people were provided with a permanent living place (usually a flat or a room in a shared flat) for free, in exchange for working for a certain number of years. Some valuable specialists, such as scientists or engineers, could also be invited by enterprises, which provided them with flats at the expense of the enterprise.

At a certain period, residents of rural areas had their passports stored at selsoviets (officially "for safekeeping") which prevented them from unofficial migration to the areas where they did not have apartments. This was intended to prevent cities from having an influx of migrants who sought higher living standards in large cities but had permanent registration far away from their actual place of residence.

Propiska fee in Moscow
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, just before the collapse of the USSR, the authorities in Moscow introduced an official charge to be permanently registered in Moscow even in their own property. The fee was around US$5,000, around a quarter of the price of a small apartment at that time.

This system lasted several years, causing major public uproar from human rights activists and other liberals, and was abolished after several rulings of the Russian Constitutional Court, the last one in late 1997.

Propiska and education
Students not of the city in question were provided a temporary propiska in the dormitories of their university campuses (generally, dormitory space was not provided to students studying in the same city as their parents' residence, but they often wanted it to be free from their parents). After graduation or leaving school early (expulsion, withdrawal, etc.), this temporary propiska was terminated.

In Soviet times, this was connected to a "distribution" system which was a mandatory official allocation of a first job placement for university graduates (even from the same city), where they had to work for around 2 years "to pay back the cost of their education". Only postgraduates were exempted from this requirement.

This system was despised as being a violation of freedom, since nobody wanted to relocate from a larger city to a smaller one, but it still provided at least a propiska (and the dwelling space connected to it) to a graduate. Also, a "young specialist" could nearly never be fired, the same as a pregnant woman and other specific (in terms of labor laws) categories of people who were entitled to such benefits.

After the end of the USSR, the distribution system was almost immediately abolished, leaving graduates with the choice of returning to their home town/village, to their parents or other relatives or struggling to find work in the large city where the school was located. To do the latter, some people became "propiska hunters", i.e. people marrying anybody with permanent propiska in a large city, just to retain their legal right to stay there after graduation. Since, once provided the permanent propiska was not revocable, the natives of the large city were very suspicious about senior-age students from smaller towns or villages when it came to marriage.

Modern usage
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the propiska system was officially abolished. Several former Soviet republics, such as Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia, chose to keep their propiska systems, or at least a scaled-down version of them.

The Supreme Court of Russia has ruled the propiska to be unconstitutional on several occasions since the fall of communism and it is considered by human rights organizations to be in direct violation of the Russian constitution, which guarantees freedom of movement. Russia changed propiska to registration, though the word propiska is still widely used to refer to it colloquially. Citizens must register if they live in the same place for 90 days (Belarusian citizens in Russia and vice versa, 30 days). There are two types of registration, permanent and temporary. A place of permanent registration is indicated on a stamp made in an internal passport, and a place of temporary registration is written on a separate paper. Living in a dwelling without a permanent or temporary registration is considered an administrative offence.

Registration is used for economic, law enforcement and other purposes, such as accounting for social benefits, housing and utility payments, taxes, conscription, and medical care.

Today, registration plays little role in questions of property. In Soviet times, for example, if after a marriage, a wife was registered in accommodation her husband rented from the state, in case of divorce, she could obtain some part of her husband's place of residence for her own usage. In modern Russia, this was mostly abandoned due to apartment privatisation, but if a person has no other place to live, he still cannot be evicted without substitution, acting as a powerful deterrent for registering others on their property title.

At the same time, many documents and rights may be obtained only at the place where a citizen has permanent registration, which causes problems, for example, with obtaining or changing passports, voting, obtaining inquiry papers, which are often needed in Russia. Unfortunately, officials tend to ignore laws that allow people to obtain such things and rights if they exist.

For foreigners, registration is called "migration control" and is stamped on a migration card and/or coupon, approximately one third the size of an A4 paper, which must be returned to officials before departure.

Migration control is much stricter than internal registration. For instance, to employ any Russian citizen, even with the permanent registration out of the city in question, the employer needs no special permit; only the employee must be registered.

Employing unregistered people is an administrative offence for the employer, but penalties are rare: sometimes even Western companies in Moscow employ unregistered people (usually university graduates who have lost their dormitory registration due to graduation). The penalty is much stricter in the case of foreigners. To employ foreigners, employers must have a permit from the Federal Migration Service.

Belarusian citizens have the same employment rights as Russian citizens in Russia.

In 2001, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled that propiska was unconstitutional. In 2003, the registration of the place of residence was introduced instead.

In Uzbekistan, even though citizens are issued a single passport, severe restrictions on movement within the country apply, particularly in the capital Tashkent. After the 1999 Tashkent bombings, the former Soviet era restrictions were reimposed, making it virtually impossible to acquire propiska in Tashkent.

title: Propiska in the Soviet Union


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The Three Weeks

The Three Weeks or Bein ha-Metzarim (בין המצרים, "Between the Straits") (cf "dire straits") is a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples. The Three Weeks start on the seventeenth day of the Jewish month of Tammuz—the fast of Shiva Asar B'Tammuz—and end on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av—the fast of Tisha B'Av, which occurs exactly three weeks later. Both of these fasts commemorate events surrounding the destruction of the Jewish Temples and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the land of Israel. According to conventional chronology, the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II occurred in 586/7 BCE, and the second siege of Jerusalem (70) by the Romans, in 70 CE. Jewish chronology, however, traditionally places the first destruction at about 421 BCE. (See Missing years (Hebrew calendar) for more information.)

Observances
The mourning observances during the Three Weeks are divided into four levels, increasing in intensity:
 * 1) From the Seventeenth of Tammuz until the end of Tammuz
 * 2) From Rosh Chodesh Av until the week in which Tisha B'Av falls
 * 3) The week in which Tisha B'Av falls until the Eighth of Av
 * 4) Tisha B'Av itself

Standard Ashkenazic custom, or minhag, restricts the extent to which one may take a haircut, shave or listen to music, though communities and individuals vary their levels of observance of these customs. No Jewish marriages or other major celebrations are allowed during the Three Weeks, since the joy of such an event would conflict with the expected mood of mourning during this time.

Many Orthodox Jews refrain from eating meat during the Nine Days from the first of the month of Av until midday of the day after the fast of Ninth of Av, based on the tradition that the Temple burned until that time.

Time of danger
The Three Weeks are considered historically a time of misfortune, since many tragedies and calamities which befell the Jewish people are attributed to this period. These tragedies include: the breaking of the Tablets of the Law by Moses, when he saw the people worshipping the golden calf; the burning of a Sefer Torah by Apostomus during the Second Temple era; the destruction of both Temples on Tisha B'Av; the expulsion of the Jews from Spain shortly before Tisha B'Av 1492; and the outbreak of World War I shortly before Tisha B'Av 1914, which overturned many Jewish communities.

As a result, some Jews are particularly careful to avoid all dangerous situations during the Three Weeks. These include: going to dangerous places, undergoing a major operation that could be postponed until after Tisha B'Av, going on an airplane flight that could be postponed until after Tisha B'Av, and engaging in a court case with a non-Jew if it can be postponed until after Tisha B'Av.

History
The first source for a special status of the Three Weeks—which is also the oldest extant reference to these days as Bein ha-Metzarim—is found in Lamentations Rabbah 1:29 (4th century?). This midrash glosses Lamentations 1:3 ("All [Zion's] pursuers overtook her between the straits"), interpreting "straits" as "days of distress"—namely the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av.

Rabbi Isaac Tyrnau (late 14th-early 15th centuries) wrote in his book Minhagim, a record of Austrian customs, that haircuts are not taken and weddings are not celebrated during the Three Weeks. His opinion was cited as halacha by Moses Isserles in Rema on Shulchan Aruch, which is the foundation for most of current Ashkenazic practice.

Special haftarot
Special haftarot (passages from the Prophets), the "Three of Affliction" (tlat de-pur`anuta), are read in the synagogue on each Sabbath of the three weeks. These prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah predict the fall of Jerusalem, unlike most haftarot of the yearly cycle which reflect the theme of the day's Torah reading.

Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana is the first source to designate the appropriate 12 selections from the Prophets, the Three of Affliction being
 * 1) "Divre Yirmeyahu", Words of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1.1-2.3),
 * 2) "Shim`u Devar Hashem" Hear the word of the LORD (Jeremiah 2.4-28), and
 * 3) "Hazon Yisha`yahu" Vision of Isaiah (Isaiah 1.1-27).

The great majority of congregations use the haftarot suggested by Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, which are not mentioned in the Talmud. But Maimonides in his law code prescribes a slight variation of these three, and the Yemenite Jews read the haftarot that he lists. The nine haftarot of the eight weeks following Tisha B'Av likewise were selected for their content. These are the "Seven of Consolation" (shev di-nhemta) followed by the "Two of Repentance" (tarte di-tyuvta)—which two appropriately fall between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur; one is read on Saturday like the other special haftarot, but the other is read on the Fast of Gedaliah.

The Nine Days
According to the Mishnah, "from the beginning of Av, happiness is decreased." The last nine days of the three weeks—which are also the first nine days of the month of Av, culminating in the Tisha B'Av fast—constitute therefore a period of intensified mourning in the Ashkenazic custom. Many Jewish communities refrain from partaking of poultry, red meat, and wine; wearing freshly laundered clothes; and bathing in warm water. Sephardim observe many of these restrictions only from the Sunday before Tisha B'Av, dispensing with them entirely in years when Tisha B'Av falls on a Sunday. Yemenite Jews do not maintain these customs.

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

title: The Three Weeks


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Sulphur-crested cockatoo

The sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) is a relatively large white cockatoo found in wooded habitats in Australia, New Guinea, and some of the islands of Indonesia. They can be locally very numerous, leading to them sometimes being considered pests. A highly intelligent bird, they are well known in aviculture, although they can be demanding pets.

Distribution
In Australia, sulphur-crested cockatoos can be found widely in the north and east, ranging from the Kimberley to as far south as Tasmania, but avoiding arid inland areas with few trees. They are numerous in suburban habitats in cities such as Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Except for highland areas, they occur throughout most of New Guinea and on nearby smaller islands such as Waigeo, Misool and Aru, and various islands in the Cenderawasih Bay and Milne Bay. There are four recognised subspecies:

Introduced species
Within Australia, sulphur-crested cockatoos of the nominate race have also been introduced to Perth, which is far outside the natural range. Outside Australia, they have been introduced to Singapore, where their numbers have been estimated to be between 500 and 2000. They have also been introduced to Palau and New Zealand. In New Zealand, the introduced populations may number less than 1000. This species has also been recorded as established in Hawaii and from various islands in Wallacea (e.g. Kai Islands and Ambon), but it is unclear if it has managed to become established there.

Description
Sulphur-crested cockatoos are 44 – long, with the Australian subspecies larger than subspecies from New Guinea and nearby islands. The plumage is overall white, while the underwing and -tail are tinged yellow. The expressive crest is yellow. The bill is black, the legs are grey, and the eye-ring is whitish. Males typically have almost black eyes, whereas the females have a more red or brown eye, but this requires optimum viewing conditions to be seen. The differences between the subspecies are subtle. C. g. fitzroyi is similar to the nominate race but lacks the yellow on the ear tufts and has slightly blueish skin around the eye. C. g. eleonora is similar to C. g. fitzroyi but is smaller and has broader feathers in the crest, and C. g. triton is similar to C. g. eleonora except it has a smaller bill.

It is similar in appearance to the three species of corellas found in Australia. However, corellas are smaller, lack the prominent yellow crest and have pale bills. In captivity, the sulphur-crested cockatoo is easily confused with the smaller yellow-crested cockatoo or the blue-eyed cockatoo with a differently shaped crest and a darker blue eye-ring.

Behaviour
Sulphur-crested cockatoos' distinctive raucous calls can be very loud, which is a result of an adaptation in order to travel through the forest environments in which they live, including tropical and subtropical rainforests. These birds are naturally curious, as well as very intelligent. They have adapted very well to European settlement in Australia and live in many urban areas.

Being intelligent, in Sydney, Australia, they have learned how to open garbage bins as a source of food. The behavior spreads among the birds by imitation. In captivity some will spontaneously dance to music with a variety of unique moves.

These birds are very long-lived, and can live upwards of 70 years in captivity, although they only live to about 20–40 years in the wild. They have been known to engage in geophagy, the process of eating clay to detoxify their food. These birds produce a very fine powder to waterproof themselves instead of oil as many other birds do.

The sulphur-crested cockatoo is a seasonal breeder in Australia; little is known about its breeding behaviour in New Guinea. In southern Australia, the breeding season is from August to January, whereas in northern Australia the season is from May to September. The nest is a bed of wood chips in a hollow in a tree. Like many other parrots it competes with others of its species and with other species for nesting sites. Two to three eggs are laid and incubation lasts between 25–27 days. Both parents incubate the eggs and raise the nestlings. The nestling period is between 9 and 12 weeks, and the young fledglings remain with their parents for a number of months after fledging.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos have a range of visually observable expressions. A 2009 study involving an Eleonora cockatoo (the subspecies Cacatua galerita eleonora) named Snowball found that sulphur-crested cockatoos are capable of synchronizing movements to a musical beat. Sulphur-crested cockatoos use facial expressions (with their feathers) to indicate positive emotions.

Species that feed on the ground are very vulnerable to predator attack. The cockatoo has evolved a behavioural adaptation to protect against this: whenever there is a flock on the ground, there is at least one high up in a tree (usually a dead tree), keeping guard. This is so well known that it has even entered Australian slang: a person keeping guard for sudden police raids on illegal gambling gatherings is referred to as a cockatoo or cocky for short.

Pest status
In some parts of Australia, sulphur-crested cockatoos can be very numerous, and may cause damage to cereal and fruit crops and newly planted tree seedlings, as well as soft timber on houses and outdoor furniture. Consequently, they are sometimes shot or poisoned as pests. A government permit is required for any culling, because the birds are a protected species under the Australian Commonwealth Law.

Many have assumed that the human feeding of sulphur-crested cockatoos have caused many issues for the birds, including pest behaviour and disease in many localities. Numerous places around Australia like the Surf Coast in Victoria and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales have had residents complain and rules be constructed to forbid locals and visitors in towns and national parks from hand-feeding cockatoos.

Aviculture
Sulphur-crested cockatoos may no longer be imported into the United States as a result of the Wild Bird Conservation Act (WBCA). However, they have been bred in captivity, with Eleonora and Triton cockatoos the most common subspecies seen in aviculture in the USA and Europe. They are socially demanding pets and have a natural desire to chew wood and other hard and organic materials. They are also loud, often unleashing loud squawks or piercing screeches. They may also make aggressive, unpredictable movements which can frighten people and animals unaware of the accompanying affection.

One cockatoo called Fred was still alive at 100 years of age in 2014. Cocky Bennett of Tom Ugly's Point in Sydney was a celebrated sulphur-crested cockatoo who reached an age of 100 years or more. He had lost his feathers and was naked for much of his life, and died in the early years of the twentieth century. His body was stuffed and preserved after death. Another 'cocky', born in 1921 and residing in Arncliffe with his owner Charlie Knighton, was 76 years old in the late 1990s. Their longevity can cause a problem of being a beloved pet and bonding to an adult who then, as they age together, dies while the bird is in their prime but has lost their life partner. The deceased owner's children are often faced with the problem of how to rehome the bird. RSPCA in Canberra regularly form large flocks of these birds which are then rehabilitated to the wild as a family unit.

Sulphur-crested cockatoos, along with many other parrots, are susceptible to psittacine beak and feather disease, a viral disease, which causes birds to lose their feathers and grow grotesquely shaped beaks. The disease occurs naturally in the wild, and in captivity.

title: Sulphur-crested cockatoo


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Kenya African Union

The Kenya African Union (KAU) was a political organization in colonial Kenya, formed in October 1944 prior to the appointment of the first African to sit in the Legislative Council. In 1960 it became the current Kenya African National Union (KANU).

Formation
KAU was formed on October 1, 1944, with the veteran political leader Harry Thuku as its President. Francis Joseph Khamisi became its Secretary while Albert Owino became its Treasurer. It had a Representative Committee of seven which included John K. Kebaso (South Nyanza), James Samuel Gichuru (Central), Jimmy Jeremiah (Coast), Simeon Mulandi (Ukambani), Harry L. Nangurai (Maasai) and S.B. Jakeyo (Central Nyanza). Nine days later, on October 10, 1944, Governor Sir Philip Mitchell appointed Eliud Mathu to become the first African to sit in the Kenya Legislative Council. This appointment marked an important turning point in the political development of the Africans. The following month in November 1944, at the insistence of the Governor, the name ‘Study’ was added to the name becoming the Kenya African Study Union. The Governor stated that the name ‘Study’ was meant to make it a “colony-wide African body to provide an organization where the views of the educated African elite could be given a forum.” The organization was meant to ‘study’ the problems or grievances of the Africans and accordingly advise Eliud Mathu at the Legislative Council. To change the name to Kenya African Union, Mathu called for a meeting in Harry Thuku’s shop in Nairobi, and in attendance was Gichuru, Joseph D. Otiende, Jonathan Njoroge, Henry Mwaniki, Francis Khamisi, Kamau Njoroge, Albert Awino, Ambrose Ofafa, Mucohi Gikonyo and Simeon Mulandi.

KAU’s objectives
At inception, the party’s objectives included advancing African interests, constitutional reforms, and fighting for better living and working conditions for Africans. KAU also helped coordinate nationalist activities and to unite Kenyan Africans towards a common cause. Initially, KAU enjoyed cordial relations with the Colonial administration but then the relationship quickly turned sour, particularly with the exit of Harry Thuku who was considered a moderate. The colonial administration also created a hostile environment which made the attainment of KAU’s objectives difficult. Soon, ideological differences in its ranks, particularly among the moderates and the radicals, threatened to tear apart the fabric that held it together. The lack of political awareness among the Africans coupled with widespread ethnic distrust among the Africans also slowed down the new party. They also lacked adequate funds for operations and for a long time did not have a fixed address.

Gichuru takes over
In January 1945, Thuku resigned, and at the first Delegates Conference held on February 3, 1945, his place was taken over by James Gichuru, a Makerere-trained teacher who had resigned from his teaching position at Alliance High School. Thuku was considered a bit of a moderate taking this position after returning from his decade-long detention for political agitation. James Gichuru quickly reorganized the party and expanded the Delegates. He launched a newspaper “Sauti ya Mwafrika” (Voice of the African) which was edited by Francis Khamisi. The paper articulated the grievances of the Africans. In the next Delegates Conference in February 1946, the name ‘Study’ was dropped and the party reverted to its old name KAU. At this point, KAU was considered by many to be a reincarnation of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) which had been banned in 1939. In fact, one of the Committee members Simeon Mulandi, had been the leader of the Ukamba Member’s Union which had been banned alongside the KCA. Under Gichuru, the party took a more nationalistic path. During the Second Delegates Conference, Joseph D. Otiende from North Nyanza (now Western Kenya), was elected Vice President of the party, giving the party a more national outlook. Like Gichuru, Otiende had studied at Makerere and had also taught at Alliance High School. They had joined Makerere in the same year (1933) and had also been students at Alliance High School before that. The KAU demanded an end to the ‘Kipande system’, the identification system much loathed by the Africans. Eliud Mathu successfully had it repealed in what was one of the major triumphs by the Africans. Other demands by the KAU included the abolition of taxes designed only for Africans, the return of alienated land, equal pay for equal work, and increased African representation at the Legislative Council.

KAU's achievements
In January 1946, Governor Mitchell appointed Fanwell Walter Odede to sit at the Legislative Council to replace Rev. Leonard J. Beecher in an acting capacity. Odede remained at the Legislative Council until 1947 when Beecher decided to resign from the Legislative Council altogether. But rather than appoint Odede substantively, Governor Mitchell, decided to appoint Benaiah Apolo Ohanga to replace Beecher and revoked the appointment of Odede. And so officially, Ohanga became the second African to be appointed to the Legislative Council.

Kenyatta takes over
In September 1946, Jomo Kenyatta returned to Kenya and in June 1947, James Gichuru stepped down as President of KAU in favour of Jomo Kenyatta. After spending many years in England representing the grievances of the Africans, Kenyatta had captured the imagination of many Kenyans and had become a towering national figure. He was considered the natural leader in the quest for Independence and consequently steered the KAU towards a more nationalistic agenda with the attainment of independence in mind. In May 1948, Governor Mitchell appointed John Kipsugut araap Chemallan, a pioneer radio broadcaster to the Legislative Council to represent the Northern and Rift Valley Provinces and the Maasai. Eliud Mathu was now designated as the representative for Central Province. Ohanga now represented Nyanza while James Jeremiah represented the Coast. They were formally nominated as unofficial members of the Legislative Council to represent ‘the interests of the African Community’. Under Jomo Kenyatta, the KAU moved a notch higher demanding the abolition of taxation, free and compulsory education for Africans, expanded representation at the Legislative Council, better pay and better working conditions, return of alienated lands issuance of title deeds to Africans, respect of African culture, compensation of African ex-soldiers, an end of racial discrimination and release of political prisoners. The party began recruiting members nationwide.

Demand for Independence
On June 10, 1951, the KAU demanded an end to colonial rule and Independence within three years. In November 1951, KAU sent a deputation to the United Nations Conference in Paris where they presented a petition entitled “Land Hunger in Kenya” which called for an urgent solution to the Land question in Kenya with regard to the Africans. The same year, radical members of the KAU in the Nairobi Branch formed a ‘Central Committee’ known as “Muhimu” (Kiswahili for ‘Important’) which began to plan more militant methods to achieve Independence. They began oathing members in a secret organization known as the Mau Mau. The “Muhimu” led by Eliud Mutonyi (Chairman), Isaac Gathanju (Secretary), Bildad Kaggia, Paul Ngei, and Fred Kubai as members, coordinated the Mau Mau activities and administration of oaths. The oathing began in Nairobi slums and soon morphed into active oathing in Kiambu, Fort Hall (presently Murang’a County), and Nyeri.

KAU is banned
Soon after his arrival to take up his governorship, Sir Evelyn Baring made a brief tour of Central Kenya to familiarize himself with the situation. He met headmen, chiefs, priests, settlers and other influential members of society, and soon concluded that there was an impending state of anarchy that would almost certainly become unmanageable in due course. He returned to Nairobi and on October 10, 1952, cabled the Secretary of State for the Colonies Oliver Lyttelton seeking permission to declare a state of Emergency in the colony.

Four days later, on October 14, 1952, Lyttelton in response stated, “I approve your proposal to declare a state of Emergency under Emergency Powers Order in Council, 1939, and to take action against Kenyatta and his henchmen. I shall give you my full support in thus maintaining law and order.” Five days later, Governor Baring declared a state of Emergency in Kenya. The following day on October 20, 1952, KAU leaders Jomo Kenyatta and several other leaders were arrested under the Operation Jock Scott. This followed the declaration of the Emergency by the new governor SirEvelyn Baring.

In November 1952, a deputation of KAU leaders which included Walter Odede, Wycliffe W.W. Awori and Joseph Murumbi, tried to meet with Lyttelton who had come to oversee the operations against the Mau Mau. They wanted to discuss the unfolding situation with him. Through Governor Baring, they sought and were granted audience with Lyttelton at Government House. But when they arrived, Lyttelton refused to even greet them greatly embarrassing Governor Baring who had arranged the meeting.

Speaking to them separately, Baring asked them to disassociate themselves with Kenyatta and the arrested leaders of KAU. They tried but were unable to convince the Governor that the KAU did not have any Mau Mau adherents in its ranks, and tried to exonerate Kenyatta from any links with the Mau Mau.

During the meeting, The KAU deputation presented a petition to the Governor seeking a number of reforms including the abolition by law of racial discrimination, the extension of education facilities to Africans, elections for African members and increased African representation in the Legislative Council. They also demanded a common roll for all three races with equal seats for Africans and non-Africans. They also demanded commissioned ranks for Africans in the Armed Forces and senior civil service posts; assistance in agricultural development; equal pay for equal qualifications and work and freedom of speech and assembly.

The Emergency dealt a severe blow to the KAU and most of its leaders, particularly those from Central Kenya, were either arrested or had to flee to avoid arrest. Odede took over the leadership of KAU on an acting capacity but he too was arrested on March 8, 1953, again on suspicions of sympathizing with the Mau Mau. KAU was eventually banned on June 8, 1953, eight months into the Emergency. The ban coincided with the arrival of British troops to boost the effort against the Mau Mau. Prior to Odede's arrest, the Luo Union under the Ker Oginga Odinga, issued a statement supporting KAU and this raised fears that the influence of the Mau Mau would spread to Nyanza. After Odede's arrest, the other influential Nyanza leader Wycliffe Works Wasya Awori was constantly harassed even as he demanded the African MLCs be allowed to hold meetings as they wanted.

KAU and the Mau Mau
In his submissions to the Secretary of State for the Colonies seeking to declare a state of Emergency, Governor Baring argued that the KAU leaders, particularly Jomo Kenyatta, were at the back of Mau Mau and behind the violence. The Colonial administration was convinced beyond a doubt that the KAU was behind the Mau Mau movement. On numerous occasions, Jomo Kenyatta had in fact denounced the Mau Mau at a public meeting in February 1951 and also at a public rally at the Kirigiti Stadium in Kiambu on August 24, 1952. The meeting, which was attended by all the Kikuyu notables, had been called to specifically denounce the Mau Mau. One of those who addressed the meeting was Senior Chief Waruhiu Kungu. It was the death of Senior Chief Waruhiu Kungu on October 7, 1952, that convinced Governor Baring that something had to be done. Chief Waruhiu was gunned down at Gachie, some seven miles outside Nairobi while on his way home. His vehicle was blocked by another and a gunman emerged shooting him dead. The act was blamed on the Mau Mau and the declaration of Emergency followed shortly. The British government sent in troops to bolster the war effort against the Mau Mau. General Sir George Erskine was appointed the Commander-in-Chief of the East African Command meant to deal with the Mau Mau decisively. Upon arrival, General Sir George Erskine addressed the Press saying: “…there is no doubt that there are members of the Kenya African Union who have no connections with the violent movement. But the action has been taken because the government has satisfied itself that there is ample evidence to show that the Kenya African Union has been used as a cover by the Mau Mu terrorist organization and that both before and after the Emergency was declared, there has been a connection between many members of the Kenya African Union and the Mau Mau terrorists.”

“As an illustration of the connection of many KAU members with the violent Mau Mau movement, two of the most wanted terrorists in Kenya, Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge are both KAU members, Kimathi having been Secretary of the Rumuruti-Thompson’s Falls Branch and Mathenge a member of the Nyeri Branch. Mau Mau evolved out of the Kikuyu Central Association which was proscribed in 1939. Both societies relied on similar oath-taking ceremonies to initiate new members; both were subversive. Shortly after its inauguration in 1944, the KAU was penetrated by the influence of former Kikuyu Central Association and by 1947 became dominated by ex-KCA leaders and members”

During one of his radio addresses, acting Chief Native Commissioner Sir Edward H. Windley stated:

“The Kenya African Union is finished. It was like a bad house destroyed because it was infected with disease, and we cannot use the same bricks to build again. It is for all you sensible and reasonable Africans who believe in good government to get together and work for it in the interests of your people, and to think now how best we can achieve it in the future.”

The formation of KANU
On March 27, 1960, the African members of the Legislative Council who had coalesced around a loose political federation known as the Kenya Independence Movement (KIM), met at Kirigiti stadium in Kiambu to discuss the formation of a nationwide political party. Delegates from various political movements across the country were in attendance. Months earlier, in August 1959, eight of the 14 African elected members announced the formation of a moderate Kenya National Party (KNP). Headed by MLC for Nyanza North Masinde Muliro, the new party adopted multi-racialism and even integrated Europeans in its ranks among them S.V. Cooke the European MLC from Mombasa. They also attracted several Asians and Arabs. To counter this move, Tom Mboya and five other African MLCs announced the formation of an all-African Kenya Independence Movement (KIM), declaring that 'African freedom will be achieved only through African nationalism.' During the March 1960 meeting at Kirigiti in Kiambu, a committee was formed to establish a prominent ‘Uhuru’ political party. That committee, chaired by James Gichuru and Dr. Njoroge Mungai as Secretary, also had Oginga Odinga, Dr. Gikonyo Kiano and Tom Mboya among its members. They were tasked to draft the constitution for a new political party. They settled on the name KANU. On May 14, 1960, a second meeting at Kirigiti took place and the delegates ratified the formation of a new political party named the Kenya African National Union. They presented their registration documents to the Registrar of Societies David John Coward. They received the registration documents on June 11, 1960 with James Gichuru as President, Oginga Odinga as Vice President and Tom Mboya as Secretary General. They retained the old KAU flag complete with its colours and adopted the cockerel as its symbol. Indeed the old KAU had roared back to life.

Conclusion
In many ways, the banning of the KAU in June 1953, did not quite extinguish its influence as a political party. Throughout the Emergency, African political activities were completely under check, but the Colonial administration was careful not to push the Africans too far. They instituted reforms meant to deal with the situation that had fomented the outbreak of the Mau Mau rebellion in the first place. Some of the recommendations of the KAU were implemented including the expansion of African representation in both the Legislative Council and the Executive Council. In 1954, KAU member Benaiah Ohanga was appointed to the Executive Council becoming the first African minister. More Africans were appointed to the Legislative Council. In March 1957, the Africans were able to choose their own representations through an election for 8 new seats created for the Africans. Further pressure from the Africans saw the seats expanded to 14 and a by-election was held in 1958 to increase the membership. Among its main achievements, the KAU helped united various communities in Kenya under the banner of national unity. The Luo and the Kikuyu seemed particularly close politically and they would eventually merge the different political ideologies into a more cogent national party named the Kenya African National Union (KANU). The new party, formed in 1960 under KAU’s erstwhile leader James Gichuru, eventually led to the attainment of self-rule in June 1963 after sweeping the polls against its more moderate rival the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU). Independence was achieved under the KANU government on December 12, 1964.

title: Kenya African Union


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title: User talk:66.159.250.4


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Margaret Deland

Margaret Deland (born Margaretta Wade Campbell; February 23, 1857 – January 13, 1945) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. She also wrote an autobiography in two volumes. She generally is considered part of the literary realism movement.

Biography
Margaretta Wade Campbell was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (today a part of Pittsburgh) on February 23, 1857. Her mother died due to complications from the birth, and she was left in the care of an aunt named Lois Wade and her husband Benjamin Campbell Blake.

On May 12, 1880, she married Lorin F. Deland. Her husband had inherited his father's publishing company, which he sold in 1886 and worked in advertising. It was at this period she began to write, first writing verses for her husband's greeting-card business. Her first poem was published in the March 1885 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine and her first poetry collection, titled The Old Garden and Other Verses, was published in late 1886 by Houghton Mifflin. Her novel John Ward, Preacher, her first, was published in 1888.

Deland and her husband moved to Boston, Massachusetts and, over a four-year span, they took in and supported unmarried mothers at their residence at 76 Mount Vernon Street on Beacon Hill. They also maintained the summer home Greywood, overlooking the Kennebunk River in Kennebunkport, Maine. It was in this home that Canadian actress Margaret Anglin visited in 1909, and the two women reviewed Deland's manuscript for The Awakening of Helena Richie. Anglin reported "I never spent a pleasanter time than I did while Mrs. Deland and I chugged up and down the little Kennbunkport [sic] River in a boat, talking over the future of Helena Richie." The Delands kept their summer home in Maine for about 50 years.

In 1910, Deland wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly, recognizing the ongoing struggles for women's rights in the United States: "Restlessness!" she wrote, "A prevailing discontent among women — a restlessness infinitely removed from the content of a generation ago." During World War I, Deland did relief work in France; she was awarded a cross from the Legion of Honor for her work. "She received a Litt.D. from Bates College in 1920. In 1926, she was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters along with Edith Wharton, Agnes Repplier and Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman. The election of these four women to the organization was said to have "marked the letting down of the bars to women." Deland was also a member of an informal women's social club that met regularly and included Amy Beach, Alice Howe Gibbens (wife of William James), and Ida Agassiz (wife of Henry Lee Higginson).

By 1941, Deland had published 33 books. She died in Boston at the Hotel Sheraton, where she then lived, in 1945. She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery. Her home on Mount Vernon Street is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

Critical response
Deland is known principally for the novel John Ward, Preacher (1888), an indictment of Calvinism, which became a best-seller. Her 'Old Chester' books, based on her early memories of the Pittsburgh communities where she grew up — including Maple Grove and Manchester — were also popular. She was recognized as an important and popular author of literary realism in the United States, but some of her plots and themes were shocking to some. In her lifetime, she was called the American Mrs. Humphry Ward and was compared to Elizabeth Gaskell.

Selected works

Poetry
 * The Old Garden and other verses (1886) (Internet Archive e-text)
 * The Old Garden with illustrations by Walter Crane (1893)

Novels
 * John Ward, Preacher (1888)
 * Sidney (1890)
 * The Story of a Child (1892)
 * Philip and His Wife (1894)
 * Dr. Lavendar's People (1903)
 * The Awakening of Helena Richie (1906)
 * The Way to Peace (1910)
 * The Iron Woman (1911)
 * The Voice (1912)
 * Partners (1913)
 * The Hands of Esau (1914)
 * The Rising Tide (1916)
 * Small Things (1919)
 * The Promises of Alice (1919)
 * An Old Chester Secret (1920)
 * The Vehement Flame (1922)
 * The Kays (1926)
 * Captain Archer's Daughter (1932)

Short story collections
 * Mr. Tommy Dove, and Other Stories (1893)
 * The Wisdom of Fools (1897)
 * Old Chester Tales (1898)
 * The Common Way (1904)
 * R.J.'s Mother and Some Other People (1908)
 * Around Old Chester (1915)
 * Small Things (1919)
 * New Friends in Old Chester (1924)
 * Old Chester Days (1935)

Autobiography
 * If This Be I, as I Suppose It Be (1935)
 * Golden Yesterdays (1941)

Other nonfiction
 * Florida Days (1889)

Filmography

 * The Iron Woman, directed by Carl Harbaugh (1916, based on the novel The Iron Woman)
 * The Awakening of Helena Richie, directed by John W. Noble (1916, based on the novel The Awakening of Helena Richie)
 * Smouldering Fires, directed by Clarence Brown (1925)

title: Margaret Deland


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Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; Московский Физико-Технический институт, also known as PhysTech), is a public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares specialists in theoretical and applied physics, applied mathematics and related disciplines.

The main MIPT campus is located in Dolgoprudny, a northern suburb of Moscow. However the Aeromechanics Department is based in Zhukovsky, a suburb south-east of Moscow.

Nikolay Kudryavtsev (Кудрявцев Николай Николаевич]), the president of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology has signed a letter of support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The rector Dmitry Livanov did not sign it.

History
In late 1945 and early 1946, a group of Soviet scientists, including the future Nobel Prize winner Pyotr Kapitsa, lobbied the government for the creation of a higher educational institution radically different from the type established in the Soviet system of higher education. Applicants, selected by challenging examinations and personal interviews, would be taught by and work together with, prominent scientists. Each student would follow a personalized curriculum created to match his or her particular areas of interest and specialization. This system would later become known as the Phystech System.

In a letter to Stalin in February 1946, Kapitsa argued for the need for such a school, which he tentatively called the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, to better maintain and develop the country's defense potential. The institute would follow the principles outlined above and was supposed to be governed by a board of directors of the leading research institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences. On March 10, 1946, the government issued a decree mandating the establishment of a "College of Physics and Technology" (Высшая физико-техническая школа).

For unknown reasons, the initial plan came to a halt in the summer of 1946. The exact circumstances are not documented, but the common assumption is that Kapitsa's refusal to participate in the Soviet atomic bomb project and his disfavor with the government and communist party that followed, cast a shadow over an independent school based largely on his ideas. Instead, a new government decree was issued on November 25, 1946, establishing the new school as a Department of Physics and Technology within Moscow State University. November 25 is celebrated as the date of MIPT's founding.

Kapitsa foresaw that within a traditional educational institution, the new school would encounter bureaucratic obstacles, but even though Kapitsa's original plan to create the new school as an independent organization did not come to fruition exactly as envisioned, its most important principles survived intact. The new department enjoyed considerable autonomy within Moscow State University. Its facilities were in Dolgoprudny (the two buildings it occupied are still part of the present day campus), away from the MSU campus. It had its own independent admissions and education system, different from the one centrally mandated for all other universities. It was headed by the MSU "vice rector for special issues"—a position created specifically to shield the department from the university management.

As Kapitsa expected, the special status of the new school with its different "rules of engagement" caused much consternation and resistance within the university. The immediate cult status that Phystech gained among talented young people, drawn by the challenge and romanticism of working on the forefront of science and technology and on projects of "government importance," many of them classified, made it an untouchable rival of every other school in the country, including MSU's own Department of Physics. At the same time, the increasing disfavor of Kapitsa with the government (in 1950 he was essentially under house arrest) and anti-semitic repressions of the late 1940s made Phystech an easy target of intrigues and accusations of "elitism" and "rootless cosmopolitanism." In the summer of 1951, the Phystech department at MSU was shut down.

A group of academicians, backed by Air Force general Ivan Fedorovich Petrov, who was a Phystech supporter influential enough to secure Stalin's personal approval on the issue, succeeded in re-establishing Phystech as an independent institute. On September 17, 1951, a government decree re-established Phystech as the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Apart from Kapitsa, other prominent scientists who taught at MIPT in the years that followed included Nobel prize winners Nikolay Semyonov, Lev Landau, Alexandr Prokhorov, Vitaly Ginzburg; and Academy of Sciences members Sergey Khristianovich, Mikhail Lavrentiev, Mstislav Keldysh, Sergey Korolyov and Boris Rauschenbach. MIPT alumni include Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, the 2010 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Phystech System
The key principles of the Phystech System, as outlined by Kapitsa in his 1946 letter arguing for the founding of MIPT:
 * Rigorous selection of gifted and creative young individuals.
 * Involving leading scientists in student education, in close contact with them in their creative environment.
 * An individualized approach to encourage the cultivation of students' creative drive and to avoid overloading them with unnecessary subjects and rote learning common in other schools and necessitated by mass education.
 * Conducting their education in an atmosphere of research and creative engineering, using the best existing laboratories in the country.

Departments
In 2016, a large-scale reform took place, and MIPT has since been divided into Phystech schools, created from the ex-faculties:

 * Phystech School of Radio Engineering and Computer Technology (PRCT or FRKT; Физтех-школа Радиотехники и Компьютерных Технологий, ФРКТ)

 * Landau Phystech School of Physics and Research (LPR or LFI; Физтех-школа Физики и Исследований им. Ландау, ЛФИ)
 * Phystech School of Aerospace Technology (PAST or FAСT; Физтех-школа аэрокосмических технологий, ФАКТ)
 * Phystech School of Electronics, Photonics and Molecular Physics (PEPM or FEFM; Физтех-школа электроники, фотоники и молекулярной физики, ФЭФМ)
 * Phystech School of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (PAMCS or FPMI; Физтех-школа прикладной математики и информатики, ФПМИ)
 * Phystech School of Biological and Medical Physics (PBMP or FBMF; Физтех-школа биологической и медицинской физики, ФБМФ)
 * I.V. Kurchatov Phystech School of Nature-like, Plasma and Nuclear Technologies (KST or KNT; Физтех-школа природоподобных, плазменных и ядерных технологий им. И.В. Курчатова, КНТ)
 * Phystech School of High-Tech Business (PHTB or FBVT; Физтех-школа бизнеса высоких технологий, ФБВТ)
 * Higher School of Software Engineering (HSSE or VShPI; Высшая школа программной инженерии, ВШПИ)

Despite the formation of new departments, students and teachers of the Institute often continue to use the old names of faculties. For example, LPR students are usually called "fopfs" (фопфы) in honor of the former Department of General and Applied Physics (DGAP, Факультет общей и прикладной физики, ФОПФ).

Admissions
Most students apply to MIPT immediately after graduating from high school at the age of 18. Traditionally, applicants were required to take written and oral exams in both mathematics and physics, write an essay and have an interview with the faculty. In recent years, oral exams have been eliminated, but the interview remains an important part of the selection process. The strongest performers in national physics and mathematics competitions and IMO/IPhO participants are granted admission without exams, subject only to the interview.

In accordance with the traditions of the Soviet education system, education at MIPT is free for most students. Further, students receive small scholarships (as of 2020, $70–105 for bachelor's and $110–140 for master's degree per month, depending on the student's performance) and rather cheap (as of 2020, $13–20 per month, depending on location and comfort) housing on campus.

Education
It normally takes six years for a student to graduate from MIPT. The curriculum of the first three years consists exclusively of compulsory courses, with emphasis on mathematics, physics and English. There are no significant curriculum differences between the departments in the first three years. A typical course load during the first and second years can be over 48 hours a week, not including homework. Classes are taught five days a week, beginning at 9:00 am or 10:30 am and continuing until 5:00 pm, 6:30 pm, or 8:00 pm. Most subjects include a combination of lectures and seminars (problem-solving study sessions in smaller groups) or laboratory experiments. Lecture attendance is optional, while seminar and lab attendance affects grades. Andre Geim, a graduate and Nobel prize winner stated "The pressure to work and to study was so intense that it was not a rare thing for people to break and leave and some of them ended up with everything from schizophrenia to depression to suicide."

MIPT follows a semester system. Each semester includes 15 weeks of instruction, two weeks of finals and then three weeks of oral and written exams on the most important subjects covered in the preceding semester. Starting with the third year, the curriculum matches each student's area of specialization and also includes more elective courses. Most importantly, starting with the third year, students begin work at base institutes (or "base organizations," usually simply called bases). The bases are the core of the Phystech system. Most of them are research institutes, usually belonging to the Russian Academy of Sciences. At the time of enrollment, each student is assigned to a base that matches his or her interests. Starting with the third year, a student begins to commute to their base regularly, becoming essentially a part-time employee. During the last two years, a student spends 4–5 days a week at their base institute and only one day at MIPT.

The base organization idea is somewhat similar to an internship in that students participate in "real work." However, the similarity ends there. All base organizations also have a curriculum for visiting students and besides their work, the students are required to take those classes and pass exams. In other words, a base organization is an extension of MIPT, specializing in each particular student's area of interests. While working at the base organization, a student prepares a thesis based on his or her research work and presents ("defends") it before the Qualification Committee consisting of both MIPT faculty and the base organization staff. Defending the thesis is a requirement for graduation.

Base organizations
As of 2005, MIPT had 103 base organizations. The following list of institutes is currently far from being complete: In addition, a number of Russian and Western companies act as base organizations of MIPT. These include:
 * Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies (established 1991)
 * Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology RAS
 * Gromov Flight Research Institute
 * Institute for Information Transmission Problems RAS
 * Institute for Nuclear Research RAS
 * Institute for Physical Problems
 * Institute for High Energy Physics (1963)
 * Institute for Problems in Mechanics RAS
 * Institute for Spectroscopy Russian Academy of Sciences
 * Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics
 * Institute of Biochemical Physics RAS
 * Institute of Molecular Genetics RAS
 * Institute of Numerical Mathematics RAS
 * Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics RAS (1956)
 * Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of RAS
 * Institute of Solid State Physics RAS
 * Institute of Synthetic Polymer Materials RAS
 * Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
 * Kurchatov Institute (formerly Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy)
 * Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics
 * Lebedev Institute of Physics RAS (FIAN)
 * Lebedev Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering
 * N.N. Andreyev Acoustics Institute
 * N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, RAS
 * Nuclear Safety Institute of RAS (IBRAE)
 * Shirshov Institute of Oceanology
 * Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography RAS
 * Space Research Institute RAS (1965)
 * Steklov Institute of Mathematics
 * Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute
 * and a number of OKBs (experimental design bureaux)

 * 1C Company
 * ABBYY
 * Competentum Group or Physicon
 * NPMP "Concept Consulting"
 * Intel
 * IPG Photonics
 * Kraftway
 * MetaSynthesis
 * Paragon Software Group
 * S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
 * SWsoft
 * Yandex

Degrees
Before 1998, students could graduate only after completing the full six-year curriculum and defending their thesis. Upon graduation, they were awarded a specialist degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics and, beginning in the early 1990s, a Master's degree in Physics. Since 1998, students have been awarded a Bachelor's degree diploma after four years of study and the defense of a Bachelor's "qualification work" (effectively a smaller and less involved version of the Master's thesis).

The full course of education at MIPT takes six years to complete, just like an American bachelor's degree followed by a master's degree. The MIPT curriculum is more extensive compared to an average American college according to the school. There is an opinion at the school that an MIPT specialist/Master's diploma may be roughly equivalent to an American PhD in physics.

Rankings
In 2020 and 2021, Times Higher Education ranked MIPT #201 in the world, in 2022 QS World University Ratings ranked it #290 in the world, in 2026 U.S. News & World Report ranked it #475 in the world, and in 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked it #501 in the world.

Traditional university rankings are often based in part on the universities' research output and prizes won by faculty.

Demographics
About 15% of all students are residents of Moscow and nearly the same are from Moscow region; the rest come from all over the former Soviet Union. The student population is almost exclusively male, with the female/male ratio in a department rarely exceeding 15% (seeing 2–3 women in a class of 80 is not uncommon). In 2009 more than 20% of first year students were females.

There are no reliable statistics on the careers of MIPT graduates.

Scientists
Nobel Prize winners
 * Lev Landau – physicist, Nobel Prize 1962
 * Pyotr Kapitsa – discovered superfluidity, Nobel Prize 1978
 * Nikolay Semyonov – best known for his work on chain reactions, Nobel Prize 1956 in chemistry
 * Vitaly Ginzburg – physicist, Nobel Prize 2003, co-developer of the Soviet H-bomb
 * Alexandr Prokhorov – an Australian-Soviet-Russian co-inventor of the laser, Nobel Prize 1964
 * Alexey Abrikosov – Soviet-Russian-American theoretical physicist whose main contributions were in the field of condensed matter physics.
 * Igor Tamm – physicist who received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, for their discovery of Cherenkov radiation.
 * Andrei Sakharov – nuclear physicist, dissident, Nobel laureate, and activist for disarmament, peace, and human rights.
 * Sir Andrey Geim – Russian-Dutch-British discoverer of graphene, gecko tape and levitating frogs; Fellow of the Royal Society, Nobel Prize in physics, 2010
 * Sir Konstantin Novoselov – Russian-British, Nobel Prize in physics for graphene research, 2010

Other notable scientists

 * Alexander Andreev – a theoretical physicist best known for explaining the eponymous Andreev reflection
 * Alexander Belavin - a physicist, known for his contributions to string theory
 * Boris Babayan – a pioneer of Russian supercomputers, an Intel Fellow 2004 and software architect
 * Oleg Belotserkovsky – rector of MIPT (1962–1987), mathematician and mechanician
 * Spartak Belyaev - a theoretical physicist contributed to nuclear physics
 * Andrei Bolibrukh – a mathematician who solved Hilbert's twenty-first problem in 1989
 * Gersh Budker - Soviet physicist, specialized in nuclear physics and accelerator physics
 * Boris Chertok - electrical engineer and the control systems designer in the Soviet Union's space program
 * Nikolai Borisovich Delone – physicist who discovered multiphoton ionization
 * Gerasim Eliashberg - physicist who contributed to the theory of superconductivity and statistical physics
 * Igor Dzyaloshinskii - theoretical physicist, known for his research on magnetism, multiferroics, one-dimensional conductors, liquid crystals, van der Waals forces, and applications of methods of quantum field theory
 * David A. Frank-Kamenetskii - theoretical physicist and chemist
 * Alexey Fridman - physicist
 * Vsevolod Gantmakher - experimental physicist
 * Semyon Gershtein – a theoretical physicist who contributed to nuclear physics, particle physics and astrophysics
 * Victor Glushkov - a Soviet mathematician, the founding father of information technology in the Soviet Union and one of the founding fathers of Soviet cybernetics
 * Lev Gor'kov – a Russian-American theoretical physicist known for his pioneering work in the field of superconductivity
 * Yurij Ionov – discovered genome instability as a mechanism in colonic carcinogenesis
 * Alexander Holevo – a mathematician known for Holevo's theorem
 * Isaak Khalatnikov – a Soviet theoretical physicist who has made contributions to many areas of theoretical physics, including general relativity, quantum field theory, as well as the theory of quantum liquids
 * Alexey Kitaev - a Russian-American theoretical physicist, best known for introducing the quantum phase estimation algorithm and the concept of the topological quantum computer
 * Sergey Korolev - a Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s
 * Leonid Keldysh – a theoretical physicist known for developing the Keldysh formalism
 * Mstislav Keldysh - a Soviet mathematician who worked as an engineer in the Soviet space program. Among scientific circles of USSR Keldysh was known with epithet "the Chief Theoretician" in analogy with epithet "the Chief Designer" used for Sergey Korolyov.
 * Leonid Khachiyan – Soviet-American mathematician and computer scientist famous for his Ellipsoid method for linear programming, Fulkerson Prize (1982)
 * Vadim Knizhnik - physicist known for the Knizhnik–Zamolodchikov equations
 * Igor Kurchatov - a Soviet nuclear physicist who is known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project
 * Anatoly Larkin - theoretical physicist, recognised as a leader in theory of condensed matter, and who was also a teacher of several generations of theorists
 * Grigory Landsberg - Soviet physicist who worked in the fields of optics and spectroscopy. Together with Leonid Mandelstam he co-discoverer inelastic combinatorial scattering of light, which known as Raman scattering
 * Sergei Lebedev – invented MESM (1950) and BESM (1953) mainframe computers
 * Vladilen Letokhov – Soviet and Russian theoretical physicist, pioneer of laser physics, in particular, the method of laser cooling of atoms.
 * Evgeny Lifshitz - physicist
 * Robert Liptser - Russian-Israeli mathematician who made contributions to the theory and applications of stochastic processes
 * Alexander Migdal – Russian-American, defined 2D quantum gravity, 2D/3D visualization software and internet entrepreneur
 * Viatcheslav Mukhanov – contributor to the theory of cosmological inflation
 * Sergey Nikolsky – mathematician
 * Lev Okun - a Soviet theoretical physicist, who made contributions to the theory of elementary particles
 * Alexander Patashinski - physicist, who made contributions to quantum mechanics, statistical physics, condensed matter theory, high energy physics, general relativity, turbulence theory, theory of liquids and glasses.
 * Lev Pitaevskii – theoretical physicist, who made contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, low-temperature physics, plasma physics, and condensed matter physics
 * Valery Pokrovsky – a Soviet and Russian physicist. He is best known for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to the modern theory of phase transitions
 * Alexander Polyakov – quantum field theory classics, Dirac'86 and Lorentz'94 Medals
 * Emmanuel Rashba – Soviet-American theoretical physicist known for the Rashba effect and prediction of the Electric dipole spin resonance, Lenin Prize
 * Boris Rauschenbach – rocket scientist in control engineering, responsible for the first photographs of the far side of the Moon (1959)
 * Mikhail Shifman – non-perturbative QCD classics, Sakurai Prize (1999), Lilienfeld Prize (2006)
 * Georgiy L. Stenchikov - applied mathematician
 * Andrey A. Varlamov - an Italian physicist of Ukrainian origin, and the principal investigator at the Institute of Superconductors, Oxides and Other Innovative Materials and Devices (SPIN-CNR) in Rome
 * Alexei Vasilievich Shubnikov - crystallographer and mathematician, who pioneered Russian crystallography and its application
 * Rashid Sunyaev – an author of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and a model of black holes
 * Max Taitz - scientist, engineer, and one of the founders of Gromov Flight Research Institute
 * Karen Ter-Martirosian – a theoretical physicist greatly contributed to high-energy physics
 * Edward Trifonov - Russian-Israeli molecular biophysicist
 * Misha Tsodyks - theoretical and computational neuroscientist
 * Alexei Tsvelik – is a theoretical condensed matter physicist working on strongly correlated electron systems.
 * Sergey Vavilov – a physicist, who founded the Soviet school of physical optics, known by his works in luminescence. In 1934 he co-discovered the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, a discovery for which Pavel Cherenkov was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958.
 * Victor Veselago – put forward a theory for metamaterials of the 21st century in 1967
 * Grigory Volovik - theoretical physicist, who specializes in condensed matter physics. He is known for the Volovik effect.
 * Vladimir Zakharov - mathematician and physicist, who is known for his contributions in nonlinear wave theory in plasmas, hydrodynamics, oceanology, geophysics, solid state physics, optics, and general relativity.
 * Alexander Zamolodchikov – quantum field theory classics
 * Alexei Zamolodchikov - physicist known for his contributions to quantum field theory, quantum gravity and the Liouville string theory.
 * Sergey Yablonsky - mathematician, one of the founders of the Soviet school of mathematical cybernetics and discrete mathematics.

Cosmonauts

 * Yuri Baturin – cosmonaut (1998 and 2001 missions), former head of national security
 * Aleksandr Kaleri – cosmonaut, spent 609 days on the Mir and ISS space stations
 * Aleksandr Serebrov – cosmonaut, 373 days in outer space (four flights)

Political and business persons

 * Alexander Abramov – founder of Evraz Group, #137 on the Forbes list
 * Boris Aleshin – deputy prime minister in Russian government (2003–2004), president of AvtoVAZ (2007–2009), general director of TsAGI (2009–)
 * Serguei Beloussov – businessman, entrepreneur, investor and speaker, founder of Acronis, executive chairman of the board and chief architect of Parallels, Inc.
 * Aleksandr Frolov – CEO of Evraz Group, #390 on the Forbes list
 * Valentin Gapontsev – fiber laser technology pioneer, founder of IPG Photonics
 * Mikhail Kirpichnikov – Russian Science & Technology Minister (1998–2000), dean of Biology at MSU (2006–)
 * Pavlo Klimkin – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
 * Alex Konanykhin – Entrepreneur, former banker, former Russian oligarch, with political asylum in the United States.
 * Nikolay Kudryavtsev – rector of MIPT (1997–)
 * Boris Saltykov – Russian Minister of Science and Technology (1991–1996)
 * Natan Sharansky – Israeli Cabinet Minister (1996–2005), US Congressional Gold Medal (1986)
 * Sergey Guriyev – Economist, former rector of New Economic School (2004–2013)
 * Volodymyr Shkidchenko – Defense Minister of Ukraine (2003–2004), four-star general of the Army
 * Nikolay Storonsky – Russian-British founding CEO of British fintech company Revolut (2015–)
 * Ratmir Timashev – American and Swiss businessman, entrepreneur, investor, co-founder and CEO of Veeam and Aelita Software Corporation, founder of ABRT Fund.
 * Arkady Volozh – Kazakhstan-born Israeli technology entrepreneur, computer scientist, investor, and philanthropist
 * Dmitry Zelenin – governor of Tverskaya Oblast (2004–2011)
 * Dmitri Dolgov – Co-founder and CTO of the Google Self-Driving Car Project (Waymo) (2009–2021), then Co-CEO (2021–)
 * Boris Nadezhdin - liberal politician in Russia who is a candidate in the presidential election candidate at 2024


text: User talk:64.12.116.81

title: User talk:64.12.116.81


text:
Talk:Refracting telescope

Untitled
Alternative images:

convex?
"Convex lenses are lenses that are thicker on the outside compared to the middle"...huh? I think it should be the other way around, such as: Convex lenses are lenses that are thicker in the middle compared to the outside.

The terms "convex" and "concave" strictly apply to surfaces. In the Galilean telescope the objective is best described as a "bi-convex" lens - or simply "converging". The eye piece lens in this telescope was "plano-concave" - or simply "diverging" and the concave surface was outside - i.e. on the eye side. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cannocchiale (talk • contribs) 23:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Refraction
The article referred to Galileo's understanding of refraction. The law of refraction did not become widely known in Europe until 1637. Trial and error were used by all parties, until then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.4.21 (talk) 13:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Additions
I have rm'ed these additions to the article and removed some of it to below on this this talk page. Much useful description was (accidently?) removed. Allot of this needs verification (WP:V) before being re-added and some of it sounds like it is opinion and needs to be referenced as such (WP:NPOV). Much more of the other material looks like id should be added to their more relevant articles such as Achromatic telescope and Achromatic lens for example. Again it also needs reference. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dutch telescopes had also appeared in Rome and Naples before Galileo built his first. Galileo had initially heard about the telescope from Fra Paolo Sarpi, his Venetian anti-clerical friend who was in correspondence with an ex-student of Galileo, a French nobleman in Paris, Jacques Badovere. Sarpi was also involved in astronomical work, and he remained a close friend and correspondent of Galileo, despite being attacked by the Varican for his pro-Protestant views -- which played a large part in the Church's later attacks on Galileo.

In making his telescope, Galileo, almost certainly had a rough sketch of the Dutch instrument, but he also had a better knowledge of theoretical optics having spent time during the previous few years involved in optical research, so he was able to build a better instrument. Lens grinders had practical experience, but no theoretical understanding of complex optics.

Recent claims that he personally learned to grind lenses and so made a superior instrument seem to have no foundation. He had direct access to Venetian glass craftsmen, who had 200 years of glass-making and lens-grinding experience and were clearly the best in the world. His lenses have been tested in recent times and shown to be only marginally inferior to those that could be ground today (although they had no correction for colour fringe).

Advantages and applications
Some discussion of the advantages of refracting vs. reflecting telescopes seems warranted, and it also seems like it would be helpful to have a section on applications. For example, for advantages, refracting telescopes don't have occlusions, and therefore don't produce diffraction artifacts. They are also simpler. For applications, they form functional units in a large number of optical systems, such as most microscopes, both for simplicity and because of the diffraction artifact issue. And of course they're sometimes used for entry-level star-gazing telescopes. Ycajal (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

 * Refractors are used in much more than "entry-level telescopes." Astrophotography routinely uses refractors (and sometimes rather small 80-mm apochromatics) to create superb images. Refractors are lighter and more portable than reflectors. They also rarely (indeed, almost never) require collimation. So they are more robust than reflectors and create significantly better images in similar objective sizes. Reflectors are less expensive to make and have little chromatic aberration. Sagging in the glass of refractors becomes a problem in giant 40" or larger lenses. (See the article on the Yerkes refractor). 148.170.196.55 (talk) 22:39, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Use of exotic glasses in refracting telescopes
High quliaty astronomical telescopes often use specialized glasses, often based on Lanthanium or Ytrium. They are also used in other very high performance optical systems, like some telephoto lenses, photolithography equipment in semiconductor industry and microscopy. It might be making a note of that? 2A02:168:2000:5B:BFF5:CA65:7F9E:4032 (talk) 23:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Keplerian telescope information doesn't make any sense
" but to overcome aberrations the simple objective lens needs to have a very high f-ratio (Johannes Hevelius built one with a 46-metre (150 ft) focal length, and even longer tubeless "aerial telescopes" were constructed)."

I am skeptical about this statement. f-ratio (aka f-number) isn't sufficient to overcome all aberrations. The statement in parentheses mentions a telescope with a large focal length, which is not the same as the f-number, so this reference doesn't make any sense. Sedlaon (talk) 11:30, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It actually doesn't say it overcame all aberrations but that it overcame aberration. Its further explained at Aerial telescope (the uncorrected chromatic aberration fell within the large diffraction pattern at focus) with a source further explaining "chromatic aberration... diminished when the ratio between the focal length and the diameter of the objective was increased". It could be further explained that these are very small diameter objectives and therefor very high f-ratios. There may even be a source on what f-ratio they were using (or had to use). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Refracting telescope


text:
Barntrup

Barntrup is a town in the Lippe district of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It has an area of 59.46 km2 and 8,501 inhabitants (2019). It lies 40 km east from Bielefeld and 9 km west from Bad Pyrmont at the east border of NRW to Lower Saxony.

Town division

 * Alverdissen, a former residence of the House of Lippe-Alverdissen
 * Barntrup
 * Selbeck
 * Sommersell
 * Sonneborn

History
Barntrup and Alverdissen were founded by the Earl of Sternberg in the year 1220. Originally Barntrup was called Barendorf and was a village at the Schratweg. Between 1317 and 1359 Barntrup was built on the highest point of the "Thornesberg" which is 189 m high above sea level. This is the central point of Barntrup.

Kerssenbrock Castle (also called Schloss Kerssenbrock or Barntrup Castle, see picture) was constructed from 1584-1588 by Anna von Kerssenbrock (maiden name Anna von Canstein). Her husband, Franz von Kerssenbrock, had been a mercenary in the French Wars of Religion, where he had made much money. The Kerssenbrock family was one of the main noble families in the region. It is still today owned by the von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk family.

Education

 * Primary school "von-Haxthausen Grundschule" has at this time 420 pupils and 21 teachers.
 * High school "Städtisches Gymnasium Barntrup" has about 920 pupils and 50 teachers.
 * Junior high school "Hauptschule des Schulverbandes Barntrup-Dörentrup" has about 350 pupils.

Sons and daughters of the town

 * Hermann von Kerssenbroch (1519-1585), longtime rector of the High School Paulinum in Münster (Westfalen)
 * Heinrich Meibom (1555-1625), poet and historian
 * Ludwig Winter (1894, † unknown), politician (NSDAP)
 * Ulrich Born (born 1950), lawyer and politician (CDU)

Economy
The power transmission and industrial automation company KEB Automation KG is located in Barntrup.

title: Barntrup


text:
Talk:Dodona

Panorama
I added a panorama of the theater. There was already another photo of the theatre, but the photo I added is more clear, sharper, has a higher resolution and shows a lot more of the environment. Can we remove the old photo? I'm asking here because the added photo is my own work and I'd rather see that it's an objective decision. - Onno Zweers (talk) 13:31, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Illyrian dedications
It's obvious that dedications were brought to the oracle in that period and not found there as any either dedication Mycenaean, Thracian etc. so please stick to what the source says. This edit is wrong because at that period there weren't processions, headpriests etc. The site wasn't yet used as an oracle in the context of Delphi but it was more of a shrine to mother earth and a thunder god and the only thing resembling an oracle in the context of Delphi was the sacred oak. The edit also implies that the archaeologists found that Illyrians sent dedications to the shrine, but the archaeologists found the real objects not evidence that someone had brought Illyrian objects, so please stick to what the source says to avoid such mistakes. -- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 13:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Alexikoua again attributed to me the motive of trying to hide something while it is obvious that dedications of any civilization don't originate from the area of the Dodona itself.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 16:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * and why you are so obsessive on removing this explanation? At least the source says they were 'received' something that we have no reason to hide.Alexikoua (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not against the fact they sent pilgrims with dedications etc. The wording used is wrong because the oracle didn't receive any dedications because there wasn't a headpriest to accept these dedications. That happened only after 600 BC.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:15, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry I completely disagree, a headpriest is completely irrelevant with this, and still the source says 'received' (and it seems right).Alexikoua (talk) 19:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is yet another example of source falsification by ZjarriRrethues.  Get a load of the OR insertion of "Paleo-Balkan".  I  mean, where does this come from?  What's next, "Dodona was an Illyrian shrine"? Athenean (talk) 18:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Athenean the source refers to the Illyrians and the Thracians who were the northern Paleo-Balkan tribes while the Greeks were the southern ones. At that period there weren't any Greek tribes using Dodona while after 650 BC they started using it. Athenean please don't insist like you did in Byllis, until eventually FutureP had to intervene to stop you.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "At the period there weren't any Greek tribes using Dodona". Nice bit of OR there.  Guess you've never heard of the Mycenean artifacts found there. Athenean (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Mycenean artifacts aren't related to the shrine itself of that period. Athenean the source makes a comparison of importance between Illyrians-Thracians and southern tribes regarding the importance of the shrine to each people so please don't revert blindly without even reading the source.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I did read the source. Did you read the source about the Myceneans?  Athenean (talk) 18:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It disrupted the flow? That was the beginning of the section and you moved it for the usual wp:idontlikeit reasons.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 18:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it did disrupt the flow. Don't you find it weird that your sentence should come before "Dodona is the oldest Hellenic shrine"?  Just like your addition at Amphipolis disrupts the flow.  Seems you are so eager to show that everything is Illyrian, that you just want to add it wherever it is most visible, article flow be damned.  I'm actually surprised you didn't stick your "Illyrian" right into the lead this time.  Athenean (talk) 19:05, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

 * And by the way, if you had actually bothered to read Boardman, on p. 272 he clearly mentions that a Mycenean building was used as a shrine there. The history of Dodona is complex, and sources like Boardman are difficult to follow.  You are dabbling in subjects you have clearly no idea about, using sources you cannot comprehend, for the sole purpose of telling the world that everything Greek, ancient or modern, is actually Illyrian/Albanian/non-Greek.  Your recent edits show you are not interested in building articles, rather only to add POVish bits here and there.  You have been doing this for a while now and it is rapidly becoming disruptive.  Athenean (talk) 19:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Herodotus's text was of the 5th century while the events I added where of the 8-7th century so obviously I added them in the beginning of the section or is the chronological arrangement of events to be overriden over such issues?.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 19:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The first paragraph presents a historical overview of the subject. Then historical details are mentioned in the second paragraph, beginning with the Mycenean finds.  Duh. Athenean (talk) 19:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

 * By the way, in your haste to show how non-Greek Dodona is, you actually omitted the word "Dodona" in your addition. Fixed it for ya.  Athenean (talk) 19:23, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

1840 source
A sentence is sourced by a 1840 source which is wrong. The rest of the history paragraph will be chronologically arranged: 2000-1000 BC, pre-650 importance for Illyrians and Thracians, after 650 for northern Greek tribes, after 500 for southern Greek tribes etc. For the last two I'll add sources since no one has added them.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 10:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I just noticed the french wiki article is a featured article, so I think I'm going to translate it and try to turn this one into a featured article. Athenean (talk) 16:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So is the German wiki one so we could translate that one because its about 60k while the French one is just 29k.-- — ZjarriRrethues — talk 17:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * " Zeus displaced the Mother goddess in the Bronze Age and assimilated her as Aphrodite. ."

 * Probably some editor has misread Hammond: Zeus did not "assimilate" Aphrodite in any sense, in the Bronze Age or later. Perhaps the meaning of "assimilate" was unclear to the editor. The former text was more accurate.--Wetman (talk) 20:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see that Hammond states "p. 39. "...Greek gods too, especially Zeus the sky-god, were at home on Mt. Olympus and in Pieria, and the Zeus of Dodona derived his importance from the Bronze Age when he displaced a Mother Goddess and assimilated her as Aphrodite." Even Hammond nods. What could he have intended in saying that Zeus displaced a Mother Goddess and assimilated her as Aphrodite?--Wetman (talk) 20:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Any evidence originally focused on Dione?
I understand that the role of Dione ("she-Zeus") is usually underemphasized, but what's the rationale for her being the original sole occupant of the oracle? Bacchiad 06:22, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the oldest oracle in Hellas precede the appearance of Zeus in Hellas? I think that changing Dione "the nameless consort "goddess"" --she is all three things-- to Dione "whose name is a feminine form of Zeus" is misleading, for she is a feminine form of "Zeus" only inasmuch as the name "Zeus" simply means "deity." "Dione" is the "dea" or "nameless goddess." The change gives the distinct impression that Zeus is primary at Dodona and Dione is just a feminine form of Zeus. Which isn't right, is it? Wetman 08:07, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Morphologically, "Dione" is a feminine form of "Zeus". We know that "Zeus" is primary (again, linguistically) because of the cognates Jupiter and Dyaus Pitar, Dievas, Tyr etc.   Actually, it's even a feminine form of the patronymic or dimunutive in -iota-omega-nu (cf. Kronion for Zeus) "Zeus" -> "Dion" -> "Dione".

 * Linguistic questions aside, how do we know that Dodona was "originally an oracle of the Mother Goddess" called by Dione or any other name? I'm not saying it was always Zeus's, but how do we know who was there before?  Are there perhaps votive deposits of Willendorf-type figurines?  This would be good to know.  Best, Bacchiad 09:58, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * According to the current version of the Britannica, "the earliest mention of Dodona is in the Iliad (xvi, 234), where its priests are called the Selloi (or Helloi) and are described as “of unwashen feet, sleeping on the ground.” The description suggests worshipers or servants of an earth goddess or of some chthonian power with whom they kept in continual contact, day and night". Also, please count in Pliny's evidence about the torches (Hist. nat. II, 228) and Cicero Div. I, 34, 76. --Ghirla -трёп- 08:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Moved down for comment, re-emphasis.

 * This question still hasn't been answered, let alone sourced. Given the conversation above, it seems that local nationalists seem to be camped out and I guess I shouldn't hold out too much hope of fixing this, but really we need some strong sourcing for this claim. All the literary sources I know of and all the sources currently cited by this article make it primarily a shrine of (some chthonic form of) Zeus from its inception. Is there any evidence from the inscriptions that (some form of) Dione was ever the primary diety or is that entire tangent a part of the 20th c. attempt at giving classical antiquity a long-lost matriarchal period? — Llywelyn II   19:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

earliest worship
The question of the nature of the earliest worship at Dodona is somewhat disputed. Clearly Homer is the earliest source and he did not note any goddesses or priestesses. If someone wants to dispute this matter, please present sources. I found Strabo's analysis rather cogent, and I'll try to add something from him. Y-barton (talk) 19:41, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dodona