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Barthélemy Boganda

Barthélemy Boganda (c. 1910 – 29 March 1959) was a Central African politician and independence activist. Boganda was active prior to his country's independence, during the period when the area, part of French Equatorial Africa, was administered by France under the name of Oubangui-Chari. He served as the first Premier of the Central African Republic as an autonomous territory.

Boganda was born into a family of farmers, and was adopted and educated by Roman Catholic missionaries after the deaths of his parents. In 1938, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. During World War II, Boganda served in a number of missions and afterwards was persuaded by the Bishop of Bangui to enter politics. In 1946, he became the first Oubanguian elected to the National Assembly of France, where he spoke out against racism and the abuses of the colonial regime. He then returned to Oubangui-Chari to form a political organisation, culminating in the 1949 foundation of the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (MESAN), which became popular among villagers and the peasantry. Boganda was laicized from the priesthood after developing a relationship with and eventually marrying Michelle Jourdain, a parliamentary secretary. Nonetheless, he continued to advocate for equal treatment and fundamental rights for blacks in the territory well into the 1950s. As France conceded measures of representation to its colonies, MESAN won local elections and he gained influence in Oubangui-Chari's government, though his reputation suffered when he backed an unsuccessful economic scheme.

In 1958 French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle proposed the creation of a French Community through which France's colonies could associate with the metropole. After being assured that Oubangui-Chari's membership in the community would not preclude it from securing independence at a later time, Boganda supported joining it. He sought to do so as part of a federation with other territories in French Equatorial Africa as a "Central African Republic", which he believed would bolster the financial situation of the member states. He hoped this would serve as a basis for a United States of Latin Africa, a conglomeration including other countries in central Africa. This never came to fruition, and on 1 December, Boganda declared the establishment of the Central African Republic for only Oubangui-Chari. He became the autonomous territory's first premier as the President of the Council of Government, and began drawing up administrative reforms and preparing for the next election. He was killed in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, while en route to Bangui. Experts found a trace of explosives in the plane's wreckage, but a full report on the incident was never published, and the possibility of an assassination remains unresolved. The Central African Republic attained formal independence from France in 1960. His death is annually commemorated in the country, and his presence in the national collective memory remains politically potent.

Early life
Little is known about Boganda's early life. He was born around the year 1910 to a family of farmers in Bobangui, a large M'Baka village in the Lobaye basin located at the edge of the equatorial forest some 80 km southwest of Bangui. His father, Swalakpé, was a village head and the wealthy owner of several palm plantations who had taken numerous wives. Boganda's mother, Siribé, was Swalakpé's third wife. French commercial exploitation of Central Africa had reached an apogee around the time of Boganda's birth, and although interrupted by World War I, activity resumed in the 1920s. The French consortia used what was essentially a form of slavery—the corvée—and one of the most notorious was the Compagnie Forestière de la Haute Sangha-Oubangui (CFSO), involved in rubber gathering in the Lobaye district. Coercive labour practices, violence, and disease had severely disrupted traditional society by the time Boganda was born. Bobangui was particularly affected by these elements. His uncle, whose son, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, would later crown himself as the Emperor of the Central African Empire, was beaten to death at a colonial police station as a result of his alleged resistance to work.

Both of Boganda's parents died when he was young; his father was reportedly killed in a punitive campaign conducted by colonial forces shortly after his birth. His mother died before 1915, probably having been murdered by a CFSO militiaman for not having met a rubber collection quota. Boganda was then given to the care of a guardian who joined the French Army during World War I and was killed at the Battle of Verdun. He was subsequently placed in the tutelage of other relatives, and in 1920 he contracted smallpox. In June his brother was instructed to take him to an uncle, and along the way they encountered a French patrol led by a Lieutenant Mayer. His brother fled out of fear. Left alone, Boganda said, "Gboganda". This was probably a Ngbaka phrase meaning "I am [from] elsewhere", and he was probably hoping to explain that he was lost. The soldiers believed this was his name, rendering it "Boganda", and the name was used for the rest of his life. Mayer took him to the orphanage in the nearby town of Mbaïki. Once there, a Spiritan missionary touring the area decided to take him to the mission station of Saint Jean Baptiste in Bétou, a town further south on the Ubangi River which was home to a school.

At Bétou, Boganda was instructed in reading and writing in Lingala. Most accounts concur that he was an excellent student. In December 1921 he was taken to the main Spiritan mission of Saint Paul des Rapides in Bangui, the capital of Oubangui-Chari. He was baptised there under the name Barthélemy in late 1922. He later wrote, "To be a Christian meant for me to free myself from ancestral customs, to become a brother of humanity". At Saint Paul he learned French, the catechism, and agricultural labour. By mid-1924 Boganda had completed his primary education and had indicated his desire to become a priest. In November he was sent to the Jesuit petit séminaire in Lemfu, Belgian Congo. The school's curriculum included Latin, French, mathematics, history, and philosophy and was scheduled to take six years to complete, though Boganda had left by 1928/1929. After failing to enroll in a school in France due to lack of money, he entered the Spiritian petit séminaire in Brazzaville. He spent his final year of studies in Bangui, where he was tutored by Monsignor Marcel Grandin, the head of the Catholic Church in Oubangui-Chari. Once this was completed, Grandin enrolled Boganda in the Saint Laurent grand séminaire in Mvolyé, Yaoundé, French Cameroon, in 1931. The first African student at the school, he learned history, Latin, philosophy, theology, and other subjects.

On 17 March 1938 Boganda was ordained. He was subsequently posted to the new Saint Marcel petit séminaire in Bangui as a teacher. In 1939 his bishop denied his request to join the French Army, deeming it necessary for him to remain, as many persons involved with the church had been recalled to the metropole to fight in World War II. He was posted in the Grimari region from 1941 to 1946 to evangelize the resident Banda population. Boganda was enthusiastic about his work and was angered by local resistance to some of his teachings and practices. This especially included his efforts which contravened local cultural norms, such as his encouragement to abandon polygamy and fetishism and work to enroll girls in school. His response to such hesitation sometimes included violence, and he was accused of beating people and once suggesting a recalcitrant chief be shot with a cartridge of salt. Despite this, he showed a measure of appreciation for some indigenous culture, and was particularly proud that some locals fearfully dubbed him mourou, or leopard, a traditional symbol of power and violence. Boganda believed that the church was providing him with insufficient support and, by the mid-1940s, was in conflict with the local government administrator and felt he was facing racial discrimination from colonial officials, settlers, and some missionaries. Further strain on his position was incurred when he fathered a child in the Bakala region, an action his missionary colleagues saw as scandalous. As a result of these tensions, in 1946 Boganda was transferred to a mission at Bangassou.

National Assembly of France
After World War II, Boganda was urged by Grandin to involve himself in politics. In particular, Grandin hoped he would seek election to the National Assembly of France. Some Oubanguians had already indicated that they would support Boganda if he contested a seat in the assembly, and Grandin hoped that Boganda could preserve the interests of the Catholic Church from the local growth of Protestantism and increasing leftist and anti-colonial thought in both France and its colonies. Boganda decided to compete, and on 10 November 1946, he was elected deputy for Oubangui-Chari, becoming the first native Oubanguian to join the assembly after winning 10,846 votes—almost half of the total votes cast—and defeating three other candidates, including the incumbent, François Joseph Reste, who had formerly served as the Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa. Formally, Boganda identified with the Popular Republican Movement (MRP). His election was confirmed on 20 December and he was made a member of the Assembly's Overseas Territories Commission and the Supply Commission. He arrived in Paris attired in his clerical garb and introduced himself to his fellow legislators as the son of a polygamous cannibal, probably in a deliberate attempt to project a personal aura of omnipotence. Grandin sought to maintain influence over his former pupil and had requested that the Spiritans in France welcome him, provide lodging, and introduce him to Catholic politicians and keep him away from left-leaning groups. They did not do this, and Boganda expressed disappointment at the lack of a reception upon his arrival and the weak support from French deputies for his proposals to help his constituents in Oubangui-Chari.

Boganda left the MRP in 1950 and served as an independent thereafter. He was reelected to the National Assembly in 1951 and 1956. He made only two parliamentary interventions during his tenure, in August 1947 on the abuses of colonialism and in June 1950 on the lack of social justice in French Equatorial Africa. After 1956, he largely stopped attending the Paris parliament, though he remained a deputy until 1958. Frustrated by the faults of colonial rule in Oubangui-Chari and an unwillingness on the part of local officials to accept reforms, he quickly resorted to vocal criticism of French administration in the colony. He paid particular attention to racism and highlighted incidents of settler violence against black Africans to boost his own political following. Among his complaints were instances of arbitrary arrest, low wages, compulsory cotton cultivation, and the barring of blacks from restaurants and cinemas. In April 1947, Grandin complained to the governor of Oubangui-Chari that Boganda had "escaped from his cage" and was "flying like an idiot". While his rhetoric was anti-colonial, Boganda nominally supported French political ideals and did not oppose continuing connections between France and Oubangui-Chari. He also identified as a staunch anti-communist and accused colonial administrators of being "anti-French" and "worthy sons of Stalin", making it difficult for them to criticise him. He proposed several measures aimed at reforming communal land ownership and ensuring the prohibition of forced labour, but his serious attacks on French colonial policy upset the other deputies and as a result his ideas were never incorporated into the parliamentary agenda.

Political organising in Oubangui-Chari
Feeling as though his actions in the National Assembly were engendering little substantive change in Oubangui-Chari, Boganda grew disenchanted with parliamentary politics and decided to seek direct political action within the territory. In an attempt to improve Oubanguian farmers' incomes, spur colonial reform, and form a political organisation for himself, in 1948 he launched a co-operative project, the Société Coopérative Oubangui, Lobaye, Lesse (SOCOULOLE), which aimed to provide food, clothing, lodging, medical care, and education. Boganda hastily established the organization without regard for the competence of its staff or the standards of trading goods, though he made sure to include communal healers in its management. Initially operating with a French subsidy, over time the co-operative became embroiled with allegations of financial improprieties and ran low on money. Boganda attempted to fund it with his parliamentary salary, but its deficits rapidly increased.

On 28 September 1949, at Bangui, Boganda established the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (MESAN), a mass political party. He wrote its founding code, which stipulated that the organisation sought "to develop and liberate the black race by progressive and pacific evolution, achieved by the combined efforts of all negroes throughout the world". Politically, the party supported liberty and equality for Africans, while economically it endorsed the use of co-operative ventures. Framing his political programme as a matter of fundamental rights, Boganda coined the Sango phrase zo kwe zo, which translated to "every human being is a person". He praised "peasant virtues" and the rustic life before colonialism, and these messages resonated with rural farmers. Furthermore, Oubanguians appreciated his willingness to angrily confront colonial officials. Boganda deliberately strived to instill his rhetoric with a sense of religiosity and mysticism, and he frequently used Latin in his speeches. Rumours began to circulate of his supposed invulnerability and supernatural powers, and at one point later in his career a large crowd waited on the shore of the Ubangi River to see him walk over the water (he did not appear).

MESAN's activities angered the French administration and the companies trading in cotton, coffee, diamonds, and other commodities. The Bangui Chamber of Commerce was controlled by these companies, and its members resented the end of forced labour and the resultant rise of black nationalism. They despised Boganda, viewing him as a dangerous revolutionary demagogue and a threat to their "free enterprise", and they resolved to get rid of him. French colonists and administrators established local Gaullist Rally of the French People (RPF) branches to counter MESAN. Drawing on the support of government workers, clerks, and Free French veterans of World War II, the party sought to take credit for colonial reforms, but failed to generate popular traction. The presence of the African Democratic Rally (RDA) in the other three territories of French Equatorial Africa posed some threat to MESAN, but they were eventually reduced to minor groups.

Boganda was not particularly concerned with his religious mission once he entered politics, but he used the enormous popular respect for the Catholic Church to his advantage, manipulating religious symbols for political purposes. Boganda's attachment to the clergy weakened when he met and fell in love with a young Frenchwoman, Michelle Jourdain, who was employed as a parliamentary secretary. By 1949 they were cohabitating and Boganda wrote a letter to his Catholic superiors, pointing out that clerical celibacy was a rule created by the Catholic Church and had no biblical basis. On 25 November he was expelled from the priesthood. Despite this, Boganda remained a devout Catholic and sympathetic to missionary interests. The couple was married on 13 June 1950, and would later have two daughters and a son.

On 10 January 1951, SOCOULOLE agents in the village of Bokanga became involved in a heated dispute with local Portuguese merchants, with the former objecting to the latter's practice of forming a coalition amongst themselves. The co-operative agents insisted that the village market be closed until Boganda could arrive to represent their case. By the time he arrived, SOCOULOLE members had blocked the roads leading out of the locale with trees to prevent the merchants' trucks from leaving. Fearing a loss of law and order, the head of the district of Mbaïki arrested Boganda (along with his accompanying wife) and held him in detention for two days. He was charged with "endangering the peace" and on 29 March the local court sentenced him to two months in prison (his wife was condemned to two weeks incarceration for aiding him). Since he was arrested in flagrante delicto, his parliamentary immunity offered him no protection. Boganda terminated SOCOULOLE later that year due to financial difficulties. Boganda's arrest occurred five months before the next round of French National Assembly elections, and he framed it as a campaign issue. He ultimately won re-election, defeating challengers from the RPF and RDA, and the colonial administration acceded to his return to office.

Co-operation with the French
In 1952, the French government appointed more reform-oriented officials in French Equatorial Africa, allowing for a relaxation in tensions between Boganda and the local administration. In March 1953 RPF leader Charles de Gaulle visited Bangui. Boganda refused to see him due to his leadership of the party, but de Gaulle refrained from taking a public stance on the politics in Oubangui-Chari, a move which was interpreted as an expression of disapproval of the local RPF's tactics.

On 30 April 1954, disorder erupted in Berbérati when news emerged that two Africans who worked for a European—who was known for his abusive treatment of the locals—had died. The families of the deceased demanded the European's arrest, and a crowd gathered in the town and began rioting and assaulting public officials. Once word reached Brazzaville, the colonial authorities began mobilising troops to march on Berbérati, and Oubangui-Chari Governor Louis Sanmarco pleaded with Boganda to accompany him to the locale and intervene. The following day Boganda appeared before the crowd and told them that "the same justice would be administered to white as to black". Thus assured, the crowd dispersed and order was restored. The riot deeply worried the administration, which acknowledged in its own reports that Europeans' racism towards Africans was pervasive in the territory.

No substantial violence succeeded the Berbérati riot, and in the following months the RPF increasingly struggled as MESAN continued to grow. Boganda praised the educational and health work done by the colonial administration before the French National Assembly, saying "doctors, administrators, and colonists are our friends [...] We are not as ungrateful as we are black. We know how much has been done for our country". Addressing the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa, he complimented Sanmarco and declared, "Oubangui-Chari has embarked on a positive undertaking at last, after years of negative grievances and sterile struggles, and a better future is ahead". With the assistance of the colonial administration, Boganda established his own coffee plantation and encouraged rural residents to follow suit if possible. Meanwhile, district councils were established, and he attended their meetings in Boda and Mbaïki, urging the MESAN members to collaborate with the European district heads.

Internal autonomy and MESAN government
In June 1956 the French National Assembly passed the Loi-cadre Defferre, an act which conceded a measure of internal autonomy to French colonies. The Europeans in Oubangui-Chari politically organised themselves to seize control of the new local institutions, particularly the office of Mayor of Bangui. René Naud—the European president of the Bangui Chamber of Commerce—and other white merchants offered themselves as candidates in the November election, but Boganda entered the race and quickly became the favourite to win. On 18 November he won the election and became the first Mayor of Bangui.

On 4 February 1957, in accordance with the loi-cadre, the French government formally decreed the semi-autonomous status of each of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa, including Oubangui-Chari. Collectively, the four territories constituted a federation led by a General High Commissioner with the assistance of a Grand Council. Within Oubangui-Chari, the former French governor became the High Commissioner, who was to preside over a Council of Government, with its members to be chosen by the newly-created Territorial Assembly. On 31 March, MESAN won all seats in the Assembly and, at Boganda's request, Hector Rivierez was elected its presiding officer. He also arranged for Abel Goumba, the territory's only African doctor and a former catechism student of his, to become Vice President of the Council of Government. The council was installed on 17 May without Boganda as a member, since he did not want to participate in a government presided over by a French commissioner, and was also increasingly concerned with political organising at a federal level. Instead, he became President of the Grand Council.

The only European minister in the Council of Government was Roger Guérillot, who had previously secured the confidence of Boganda and worked as MESAN's treasurer. He was given charge of the portfolio for economic and administrative affairs. Guérillot sought to increase Africanisation of the administration, since there was a lack of trained Oubanguians and such a change would weaken the government and strengthen the position of the French colonists. He encouraged Boganda to go on a rhetorical offensive against French officials, whom he dubbed "the saboteurs of the loi-cadre". In a speech before the Territorial Assembly, Boganda suggested that the French administrators should leave and Oubanguians could "curse their shameful memory for ever", but also noted that it would take several years to train African personnel to replace them. He softened his stance a few days later while addressing the Grand Council, suggesting the colonies needed "a new form of administration" and proposing the transformation of districts into "rural communities" with trusted officials from the existing bureaucracy serving as directors of each.

In the mid-1950s a Bangui study group had proposed the construction of a rail line from Bangui to Chad. This was both to secure Oubangui-Chari's commercial relations with southern Chad—which was facing strain due to competition from Cameroon—and to satisfy private firms that sought a large state contract to make up for the decline in foreign investment driven by uncertainties in the territory's political future. Boganda believed that it would only be reasonable to embark on the railway project if Oubanguian economic output was greatly increased, so he requested that Guérillot draw up a programme for improving production and raising the standard of living.

Guérillot proposed a large scheme totaling four billion Central African CFA francs in expenditures to greatly increase the cultivation of coffee trees, cotton, and ground-nuts. As a part of this, he conceived a Committee of Economic Safety, which would consist of more regional bodies of European merchants and MESAN officials who would oversee peasants' production efforts. On 30 December, Boganda praised the committee as "the union of capital and Oubanguian labour" and convinced the Territorial Assembly to allow Guérillot to proceed. French colonists found the project risky and did not invest in it, and were followed in their abstention by banks and French economic aid organizations. Goumba also thought the proposal demanded too much of peasants and began formulating his own economic platform. Meanwhile, Guérillot recruited unemployed whites in Bangui as "inspectors" with African auxiliaries to directly manage cultivation. Peasants regarded the scheme as a return to the concessionary system and began publicly protesting it. Facing skepticism in the press and a measure of isolation for earlier excluding Antoine Darlan—Oubangui-Chari's representative to the French Union—from MESAN, Boganda traveled throughout the territory to try to allay peasants' fears and exhort them to work. He stressed that increased agricultural production was the only way for Oubangui-Chari to become economically viable without French aid. Angered by public criticism, he proposed banning all political activity. The economic scheme ultimately failed to achieve its goals and damaged Boganda's reputation, as well as tarnishing the view of the Council of Government both domestically and in the French and Belgian governments.

De Gaulle and the French Community

Following the failure of the Algiers putsch in May 1958, de Gaulle reassumed power in France as Prime Minister and prepared to draft a new French constitution, stressing the importance of re-examining a federal relationship between France and its colonies. Boganda was not included in the new constitutional commission, to his dismay. De Gaulle hosted him in Paris in July, and upon his return to Oubangui-Chari he expressed to the Territorial Assembly that the loi-cadre was insufficient for the territory and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. He told the body he wanted assurance of "the people's right to self-determination and a voluntary freely-consented independence. The ways of introducing it are to be examined". The Assembly passed a motion repeating Boganda's demands.

De Gaulle proposed the creation of a new federal French Community that would encompass the African colonies. Boganda opposed Oubangui-Chari joining the community, fearing it would forestall independence. In August a meeting was held in Brazzaville between de Gaulle and political leaders in French Equatorial Africa. Boganda presented a petition signed by the leaders which requested that the new French constitution recognise the right of its colonies to declare independence. De Gaulle assured him that Oubangui-Chari's membership in the community would not preclude it from securing independence at a later time. A referendum was to be held in each colony in order to determine its support for the new constitution and joining the community; de Gaulle warned that while a negative vote would grant a territory immediate independence, it would also lead to the termination of all French aid. On 30 August Boganda told MESAN leaders he supported an affirmative vote in favour of the constitution, and he subsequently traveled around Oubangui-Chari to tell the people that the French would remain slightly longer "to set right the ravages of colonisation". The referendum was held on 28 September and 98% of voters chose to support the new constitution.

Regional unity and the United States of Latin Africa
While the French constitution had placed political responsibility upon each territorial assembly in Africa and expected them to ratify the results of their referendums, it left open the possibility of federations. Boganda had been worried about balkanisation in Africa for some time, and believed that independence of Oubangui-Chari as a single state would be disastrous. He used his position as President of the Grand Council to encourage the formation of a united state in Central Africa. He wrote a tract which stated, "A united state with a united government and united parliament would reduce our expenses considerably. We could restrict the administrative budget and devote more of our resources to developing the welfare of our countries, so that all citizens would benefit, not just one privileged category. It is obvious that such an arrangement would encourage investment".

Boganda articulated a new framework for the states of French Equatorial Africa whereby there would be a central government and legislature. There would be an annually rotating presidency in which each former territory would take turns supplying the officeholder. The territories would become departments under the supervision of ministers of state and be divided into urban sections and rural communes. Due to the geographic span of such a federation—which would include Oubangui-Chari, Congo, Gabon, and Chad—he proposed that the state would be known as the "Central African Republic". He stressed the urgency of accomplishing this as quickly as possible, saying, "The Central African Republic must be built today, for tomorrow it will be too late [...] Chad and Oubangui-Chari will surely be solicited by other voices and other means". In a speech, Boganda revealed he envisioned the Central African Republic as a step in creating a larger United States of Latin Africa:

"Next we have to examine the question of the right bank of the Congo [river]. Since the official historical frontier is the Congo and not the Oubangui [river], we must regard that area from now on as belonging to the Central African Republic. Thirdly, we must work towards re-uniting the two Congos. The fourth stage will be to create the United States of Latin Africa, including the Central African Republic, the so-called Belgian Congo, Ruanda-Urundi, Angola, and Cameroon."

Boganda dispatched Rivierez and David Dacko to Gabon, Chad, and the Congo to explore their interest in a united state. The two were unable to secure a meeting with authorities in Gabon, while Chadian leaders rejected the idea. Jacques Opangault, the leader of the government in the Congo, was enthusiastic about the proposal, but his majority in the Congolese legislature was slim and his position weak. Gabon was the richest of the states, and its refusal to engage with the proposal made the French hesitant to sanction the federation. In late November the French High Commissioner convened a meeting of the equatorial leaders in Brazzaville and told them that each territorial assembly was to independently ratify its referendums and finalise its decision to adhere to the new constitution. By 28 November, all the other territories had decided to join the French Community as separate entities. Disheartened, Boganda resigned himself to proclaiming only Oubangui-Chari as the Central African Republic on 1 December.

Central African Republic

The Central African Republic adopted a design drawn up by Boganda for its flag, including a star, the French tricolour, and colors of other African flags. He also penned the lyrics for the national anthem, "La Renaissance". On 6 December, the CAR's first government was established with Boganda as President of the Council of Government (premier), though a French High Commissioner was retained. Frustrated with Guérillot's economic failures and political maneuverings to be elected to the French Senate, he sent Guérillot to France as a diplomat and replaced him at the Ministry of Interior and Economic Affairs with Dacko. He made several other changes to the composition of the original council, but retained Goumba as Minister of State and de facto vice president of the council.

The new government's first action was to adopt a law banning nudity and vagrancy. Its main objective, however, was to draw up a constitution. Democratic in nature, the document provided for a unicameral parliament with a five-year term and a prime minister for the same period. The text was largely borrowed from the French constitution, though Boganda had some influence over the wording of the preamble and pushed for the inclusion of a provision that allowed the country to cede its sovereignty to a wider union. The draft was approved by the assembly on 16 February 1959. Boganda then set about creating extensive administrative reforms, including the establishment of rural and urban municipalities, the creation of district councils with broad authority, and the institution of mutual development societies. The government also drafted new electoral constituencies and scheduled elections for the Legislative Assembly on 5 April. Boganda personally oversaw the selection of MESAN's candidates and agreed to include five Frenchmen on its lists. The government also created a new electoral law which stipulated that civil servants could not run for office unless they had been on leave of absence for at least six months prior to the polling date. Furthermore, the law required all parties to nominate their candidates in lists instead of individually, and if one candidate was disqualified, the whole list would be dismissed. As a result, all opposition lists were thrown out by the courts, leaving MESAN unopposed. Opposition politicians were infuriated, and when asked about the impending lack of a parliamentary opposition, Boganda told the press, "We will create our own opposition within our party".

Plane crash
On 29 March 1959 Boganda boarded a Nord Noratlas plane at Berbérati, where he had been campaigning, for a flight to Bangui. The plane was owned by Union Aéromaritime de Transport, which transported the mail between the two cities. The plane went missing, and its wreckage was discovered the following day in the district of Boda. All four crew and five passengers, including the government's information chief and a member of the Assembly, were found dead. Boganda's body was recovered from the pilot's cabin.

The French General Secretariat of Civil Aviation ordered an inquiry and sent a team to investigate the crash site. A report was never published, but shortly afterwards the Paris weekly L'Express revealed that investigators had identified traces of explosive in the wreckage. The French High Commissioner ordered all copies of the reporting edition suppressed in the Central African Republic. No cause for the crash has ever been definitively determined. Many Central Africans believed that the crash was an assassination; in particular, many suspected that expatriate businessmen from the Bangui Chamber of Commerce, possibly aided by the French secret service, played a role. Michelle Jourdain was also suspected of being involved; by 1959, relations between Boganda and his wife had deteriorated, and he thought of leaving her and returning to the priesthood. She had a large insurance policy on his life, taken out just days before the accident. Historian Gérard Prunier wrote that "the probability of foul play was very high", noting, "The whites who worked for what was left of the Grandes Compagnies Concessionaires hated Boganda, who had been instrumental in finally getting compulsory labor outlawed in 1946. They also hated his intelligence, which was unsettling to their view of black inferiority".

Political consequences
Aside from some minor disorder in Mbaïki, the country received Boganda's death in relative calm. Some of his followers suggested that he had not died and would return to the public in the future. His funeral was held on 3 April outside of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Bangui and attended by thousands, with Robert Lecourt representing the French government and Raymond Janot representing the French Community. Charles Féraille, a priest who had been personally acquainted with Boganda, declared that he had been "chosen by God" to lead the country. Goumba replaced him as interim President of the Council of Government, while Étienne Ngounio took over the office of Mayor of Bangui and the MESAN party presidency. Boganda's parliamentary constituency was declared vacant in the elections held on 5 April, which were handily won by MESAN, though with a sharp drop in voter turnout. With its founder gone, MESAN substantively ceased to exist aside as a label.

Dacko, with the backing of the French High Commissioner, the Bangui Chamber of Commerce, and Jourdain, offered himself as a candidate to lead the Council of Government. Goumba was hesitant to divide the populace, and after a month in power conceded the presidency to Dacko. Dacko became consumed with administrative work and, though he had initially retained Goumba as Minister of State, dismissed him after several months. In 1960 Goumba founded a new political party, the Democratic Evolution Movement of Central Africa (MEDAC), and claimed it carried the ideals of Boganda and MESAN. Frightened by its rapid growth, Dacko declared his intent to revive MESAN. Under his government, political focus moved away from the peasantry and was drawn to the creation of a new moneyed elite, mostly favouring officials who received large salaries. The Central African Republic received its full independence from France on 13 August 1960. Dacko pushed several measures through the Assembly which invested him as President of the Republic and head of state, and gave the government wide authority to suppress political opposition. By 1962 he had arrested Goumba and declared MESAN the sole party of the state.

Commemoration and political legacy

The Legislative Assembly declared Boganda the "Father of the Nation" in June 1959. He was posthumously awarded Knight of the Legion of Honour, Grand Cross of the Order of Central African Merit, and Commander of the Order of Agricultural Merit. The Boganda National Museum, named for the former premier and hosted in his former Bangui residence, was opened in 1966. A secondary school and an avenue were also named in his honour, while a statue of him was erected at an independence memorial in the capital. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, leader of the Central African Republic between 1966 and 1979, promoted a cult of personality for Boganda as the founder of MESAN and the republic. Boganda Day is observed annually on 29 March to commemorate his death.

Mythical perceptions of Boganda's invulnerability persisted after his death, and his presence in Central African collective memory remains politically potent, serving as a unifying element among both the country's elite and the general populace. His phrase, zo kwe zo, was incorporated into the state's coat of arms. The preamble of the republic's 2004 constitution read, in part: "Animated by the wish of assuring to man his dignity with respect to the principle of 'ZO KWE ZO' enunciated by the Founder of the Central African Republic Barthélemy BOGANDA". Despite this, his political ideas have generally not been studied by successive Central African leaders. Historian Klaas van Walraven wrote, "his contemporary significance may lie precisely in the memory of his comportment and the widespread ignorance of his ideas".

Historiography
Historian Georges Chaffard described Boganda as "the most prestigious and the most capable of Equatorial political men", while Prunier called him "probably the most gifted and most inventive of French Africa's decolonization generation of politicians". Historian Brian Titley suggested that Boganda's death "robbed the country of a charismatic leader" able to maintain legitimacy and in the long term facilitated General Bokassa's overthrow of Dacko and subsequent military takeover in 1966.

Boganda's life has some presence in French language histography, but much of what has been written about his biographical details, especially by Central African authors, is hagiographic in nature. His ideas and speeches have been more thoroughly incorporated into general analyses of political philosophies. Boganda is rarely mentioned in English historiography, and where he is included it is generally within the context of his Pan-African project of the United States of Latin Africa.

title: Barthélemy Boganda


text:
Bobby Ávila

Roberto Francisco Ávila González (April 2, 1924 – October 26, 2004), known as "Beto" in Mexico and as "Bobby" in the United States, was a Mexican professional baseball second baseman.

A native of Veracruz, Mexico, Ávila began his career playing for the Puebla Angeles of the Mexican League from 1943 to 1947. He played 10 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Cleveland Indians from 1949 to 1958 before dividing the 1959 season between the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and Milwaukee Braves.

Ávila won the 1954 American League batting championship with a .341 batting average. He also received The Sporting News American League Player of the Year award in 1954 and was named to the American League All-Star team in 1952, 1954, and 1955.

After retiring as a player, Ávila owned a Mexican baseball team and became president of the Mexican League. He became mayor of Veracruz in 1980 and later served two terms in the Mexican national legislature. He was inducted into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Early years
Ávila was born in 1924 in Veracruz, Mexico, to Maria Gonzalez and Jorge Ávila.

Ávila played baseball and soccer as a youth. He began playing professional soccer as a teenager. He then switched to baseball, playing for the semi-professional Cordoba club. He began as a pitcher, but later converted to second base.

Mexican League (1943-47)
Ávila began his baseball professional baseball career at age 19 with the Puebla Angeles of the Mexican League. He played for Puebla from 1943 to 1947. In 1947, he led the Mexican League with a .346 batting average.

Initial seasons in US (1948–50)
The Cleveland Indians signed Avila in 1948 for a $17,500 bonus and assigned him to the Baltimore Orioles, the Indians' farm team in the International League. He missed two months during the 1948 season after undergoing surgery for a hernia. He appeared in 56 games for the Orioles and compiled a .220 batting average.

In September 1948, the Orioles sold Ávila to the Cleveland Indians. He made his major league debut on April 30, 1949, but with Hall of Famer Joe Gordon starting 145 games as the Indians' second baseman, Ávila appeared in only 31 games and had only 14 at bats during the 1949 season.

An injury to Joe Gordon finally gave Ávila the opportunity to play during the 1950 season. He appeared 80 games, 52 as the Indians' starting second baseman. He compiled a .299 batting average and a .390 on-base percentage.

Peak years (1951–55)
In 1951, Ávila began a string of five consecutive seasons in which he started at least 135 games as the Indians' second baseman. During those five seasons, which were the peak of Ávila's career, he appeared in 716 games and compiled a .301 batting average, .374 on-base percentage, and 839 hits.

In 1952, Ávila appeared in a career-high 150 games and ranked among the American League leaders with 11 triples (first), 28 errors (first), 179 hits (second), 19 sacrifice hits (second), 431 assists (third), and a .300 batting average (eighth). He was also selected as the American League's starting second baseman for the 1952 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. He had one hit and an RBI in two at bats in the All-Star Game.

In 1953, Ávila had one of his best defensive seasons. He led American League second basemen in fielding percentage (.986), assists (445), and range factor per nine innings (5.86).

In 1954, Ávila had the best season of his career despite breaking his right thumb on June 2 when Hank Bauer slid into him at second base. His batting average, which stood at .392 at the time of the injury, fell precipitously after the injury but then rebounded. He ended the season with career highs in batting average (.341), on-base percentage (.402), home runs (15), RBIs (67), and runs (112). He won the American League batting championship and received The Sporting News Player of the Year award.

The 1954 Cleveland team, loaded with talent that included Ávila, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, and Al Rosen, won 111 games and the American League pennant. The 1954 World Series matched the two leagues' batting champions, Ávila and Willie Mays. Ávila had only two hits in 15 at bats during the World Series.

Ávila was selected as an All-Star for a second time in 1954 and for a third time in 1955. In the 1954 All-Star Game, he had three hits in three at bats, scored a run, and had two RBIs. Ávila was the first Mexican-born player to play in an All-Star Game and the first to win a batting championship.

Final years as a player (1956–60)
Ávila's offensive production declined after the 1955 season. His batting average fell in his final three years in Cleveland to .224, .268, and .253 respectively. In 1957, Harry Grayson wrote a syndicated column on "The Sudden Fall of Bobby Avila", a matter that was "a national calamity in Mexico." Cleveland manager Kerby Farrell observed: "They just pitch Avila close to the hands and nothing happens. The ball no longer travels when he hits it."

In his final season in the major leagues, he played for three different teams. He was traded by the Indians on December 2, 1958, to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for Russ Heman and $30,000. He was shifted to right field by the Orioles, starting nine games at the position. He compiled a .170 batting average in 47 at bats.

On May 21, 1959, the Orioles sold Ávila to the Boston Red Sox. He returned to second base and hit .244 in 45 at bats for Boston.

On July 21, 1959, the Red Sox sold Ávila to the Milwaukee Braves. In his first game for the Braves, he hit a two-run home run in the ninth inning for a Milwaukee victory. He started 45 games at second base for the Braves and hit .238 in 172 at bats.

Dealt three times in the last season of his career, Ávila returned to Mexico for the 1960 season. In his final season as a professional baseball player, he played for the Mexico City Tigers, compiled a .333 batting average and set a Mexican League record with 124 walks.

Career statistics
In 11 major league seasons, Ávila compiled a .281 batting average and a .359 on-base percentage with 1,296 hits, 80 home runs, 467 RBIs, 725 runs, 185 doubles, 35 triples, and 78 stolen bases in 1,300 games.

Later years and legacy
As the first Mexican-born player to have success in Major League Baseball, Ávila became a national hero in Mexico. Fernando Valenzuela said: "Everyone knows who Avila was in Mexico. He was an inspiration, of course, for Mexican ballplayers to follow to the States and play in the major leagues." Hall of Fame broadcaster called Ávila "a tremendous source of pride for the Mexican ballplayers." The Estadio Universitario Beto Ávila in Veracruz was named in his honor.

After retiring from baseball, Ávila purchased the Veracruz Eagles and later became president of the Mexican League.

In 1971, he was inducted into the Mexican Professional Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 1980, Ávila was elected as the mayor of his home city of Veracruz. He later served two three-year terms in the Mexican national legislature.

In 1999, The Sporting News chose Ávila as the second baseman on its All-Star Latin American team.

In 2004, Ávila died at age 80 in Veracruz. The cause of death was complications from diabetes and a lung ailment.

In 2010, Ávila was posthumously inducted in the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame.

In 2020, Ávila was selected as the starting second baseman on the Mexican League Historic Ideal Team by a committee of baseball journalists and historians.

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

title: Bobby Ávila


text:
Cyclobutadiene

Cyclobutadiene is an organic compound with the formula C4H4. It is very reactive owing to its tendency to dimerize. Although the parent compound has not been isolated, some substituted derivatives are robust and a single molecule of cyclobutadiene is quite stable. Since the compound degrades by a bimolecular process, the species can be observed by matrix isolation techniques at temperatures below 35 K. It is thought to adopt a rectangular structure.

Structure and reactivity
The compound is the prototypical antiaromatic hydrocarbon with 4 pi electrons (or π electrons). It is the smallest [n]-annulene ([4]-annulene). Its rectangular structure is the result of a pseudo - (or second order) Jahn–Teller effect, which distorts the molecule and lowers its symmetry, converting the triplet to a singlet ground state. The electronic states of cyclobutadiene have been explored with a variety of computational methods. The rectangular structure is consistent with the existence of two different 1,2-dideutero-1,3-cyclobutadiene valence isomers. This distortion indicates that the pi electrons are localized, in agreement with Hückel's rule which predicts that a π-system of 4 electrons is not aromatic.

In principle, another situation is possible. Namely, cyclobutadiene could assume an undistorted square geometry, if it adopts a triplet spin state. While a theoretical possibility, the triplet form of the parent cyclobutadiene and its substituted derivatives remained elusive for decades. However, in 2017, the square triplet excited state of 1,2,3,4-tetrakis(trimethylsilyl)-1,3-cyclobutadiene was observed spectroscopically, and a singlet-triplet gap of EST = 13.9 kcal/mol (or 0.6 eV per molecule) was measured for this compound.

Synthesis
Several cyclobutadiene derivatives have been isolated with steric bulky substituents. Orange tetrakis (tert-butyl)cyclobutadiene arises by thermolysis of its isomer tetra-tert-butyltetrahedrane. Although the cyclobutadiene derivative is stable (with respect to dimerization), it decomposes upon contact with O2.

Trapping
Samples of cyclobutadiene are unstable since the compound dimerizes at temperatures above 35 K by a Diels-Alder reaction. By suppressing bimolecular decomposition pathways, cyclobutadiene is well-behaved. Thus it has been generated in a hemicarceplex. The inclusion compound is generated by photodecarboxylation of bicyclopyran-2-one. When released from the host–guest complex, cyclobutadiene dimerizes and then converts to cyclooctatetraene.

After numerous attempts, cyclobutadiene was first generated by oxidative degradation of cyclobutadieneiron tricarbonyl with ammonium cerium(IV) nitrate. When liberated from the iron complex, cyclobutadiene reacts with electron-deficient alkynes to form a Dewar benzene:

 * Cyclobutadiene-DewarbenzeneConversion.png

The Dewar benzene converts to dimethyl phthalate on heating at 90 °C.

One cyclobutadiene derivative is also accessible through a [2+2]cycloaddition of a di-alkyne. In this particular reaction the trapping reagent is 2,3,4,5-tetraphenylcyclopenta-2,4-dienone and one of the final products (after expulsion of carbon monoxide) is a cyclooctatetraene:

 * [[File:CyclobutadienSynthDessyWhite.png|400px|Acetylene-Acetylene [2 + 2] Cycloadditions Chung-Chieh Lee 2006]]

title: Cyclobutadiene


text: Category:Annulenes

title: Category:Annulenes


text:
Marcus Welby, M.D.

Marcus Welby, M.D. is an American medical drama television series that aired on ABC from September 23, 1969, to May 4, 1976. It starred Robert Young as the title character, a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, who made house calls and was on a first-name basis with many of his patients; James Brolin as his partner Steven Kiley, a younger doctor; and Elena Verdugo as Consuelo Lopez, Welby and Kiley's dedicated and caring nurse/office manager.

Marcus Welby, M.D. was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell through Universal Television, which was then an MCA company. The pilot, titled "A Matter of Humanities", had aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 26, 1969.

Overview
As with most medical dramas of the day, the plots often concerned a professional conflict between well-meaning physicians. Here, Welby's unorthodox way of treating patients was pitted against the more straight-laced methods of Kiley (Brolin). The catch with this particular program was that the roles were reversed in that Kiley was much younger than Welby. The opening credits of each episode reminded viewers of the generation gap between the two doctors, Welby driving his sedan and Kiley riding a motorcycle. Welby had served in the US Navy as a doctor during the war, and was a widower.

The doctors worked alongside each other in their private practice in Santa Monica, California, regularly working in conjunction with the nearby Lang Memorial Hospital. (This was later revealed in exterior shots to be the real-life Saint John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica.) At the office, their loyal secretary-nurse and friend was Consuelo Lopez (Verdugo). Other characters that appeared throughout the series included Dr. Welby's frequent girlfriend Myra Sherwood (Anne Baxter), his daughter Sandy (originally Christine Belford, and later Anne Schedeen) and her son Phil (Gavin Brendan), and Kathleen Faverty (Sharon Gless), an assistant program director at the hospital, who worked closely with Welby and Kiley. Kiley met and married public relations director Janet Blake (played by Pamela Hensley) in 1975, at the beginning of the show's final season on the air.

In the episode "Designs", which aired on March 12, 1974, Young was reunited with his Father Knows Best co-star, Jane Wyatt; she played a fashion designer whose marriage to an embittered paraplegic led her to fall in love with the doctor while keeping her marriage a secret most of the episode.

Medical features
Its handling of many varied medical cases – some common, some uncommon – made it an instant hit for ABC. Story lines included impotence, depression, brain damage, breast cancer, mononucleosis, teenaged obesity, juvenile diabetes, sexually transmitted diseases, epilepsy, learning disabilities, leukemia, haemophilia, paraplegia, dysautonomia, rape, Alzheimer's disease, and addiction to painkillers, among others. At its second season (1970–1971), it ranked number one in the Nielsen ratings, becoming the first ABC show to top the list. The same year, both Young and Brolin won Emmy Awards for their work, as did the show for Outstanding Dramatic Series. Young won a Golden Globe in 1972 for his performance. Members of the American Academy of Family Physicians served as technical advisers for the series and reviewed every script for medical accuracy.

Politics
The 1973 episode "The Other Martin Loring" was about a middle-aged man whom Welby advised to resist his homosexual impulses. The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) zapped ABC, occupied its New York headquarters and picketed. The next year, "The Outrage" was a story of a teenaged student who was sexually assaulted by his male teacher, associating homosexuality with pedophilia. Seven sponsors refused to buy television advertising time, and 17 television network affiliates refused to air the episode. This was the first known instance of network affiliates refusing a network episode in response to protests.

In addition, an episode dealing with abortion was refused by San Diego area ABC affiliate XETV, a station licensed to Tijuana across the border in Mexico, due to that country's stance on the practice at the time.

Crossovers with Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law
During its run, Marcus Welby, M.D. had two crossover stories with its legal spin-off series, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law.

In "Men Who Care", Marshall defends the father of Welby's patient when the man is accused of murdering his daughter's boyfriend. In "I've Promised You a Father", Marshall defends Kiley in a paternity suit filed by a nurse claiming that Kiley is the father of her child.

Nielsen ratings
It was the first show in ABC's history to become the number-one show on television.

Ending of the series
By the mid-1970s, the popularity of medical dramas began to wane. Ratings for both Marcus Welby, M.D. and CBS's Medical Center began to drop, as did the ratings for daytime dramas General Hospital and The Doctors. Previous episodes initially went into syndication in the fall of 1975 as Robert Young, Family Doctor (to avoid confusion with the first-run episodes still airing on ABC). The show ended its run in 1976 after 169 episodes were made. On an awards show that year, Young joked publicly, "I knew that it was time to quit when I started taking time off to play golf!"

Television movies
In 1984, the reunion movie The Return of Marcus Welby, M.D. aired, with Young and Verdugo reprising their roles. The major conflict, aside from interactions with patients, centered around Welby being accused of being too old to retain his medical license safely. Though Brolin was unavailable to reprise his role as Kiley, a statement described as being from him was read before the board that would decide Welby's fate. Another movie was made in 1988, Marcus Welby, M.D.: A Holiday Affair. This last made-for-television film was the last acting role of Robert Young's career.

Home media
Shout! Factory (under license from Universal Studios) has released the first two seasons of Marcus Welby, M.D. on DVD in Region 1.

Mill Creek Entertainment released a 10-episode best-of set entitled Marcus Welby, M.D.: The Best of Season One on March 22, 2011.

title: Marcus Welby, M.D.


text: User talk:67.101.63.213

title: User talk:67.101.63.213


text:
Dora Bakoyannis

Theodora "Dora" Bakoyanni (Θεοδώρα "Ντόρα" Μπακογιάννη, ; née Mitsotaki, Μητσοτάκη; born May 6, 1954) is a Greek politician. From 2006 to 2009 she was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, the highest position ever to have been held by a woman in the Cabinet of Greece at the time; she was also Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 2009. Previously she was the Mayor of Athens from 2003 to 2006, the first female mayor in the city's history, and the first woman to serve as mayor of a city hosting the Olympic Games. She also served as Minister for Culture of Greece from 1992 to 1993.

Bakoyannis has been serving as an independent member of the Hellenic Parliament representing unofficially Democratic Alliance, the political party she founded in 2010, having been expelled from the opposition New Democracy party due to voting against the party line. In May 2012, due to the critical situation in Greece before the elections and given the established electoral law, Democratic Alliance decided to cooperate with New Democracy, based on a specific framework of values and to suspend its activities. Dora Bakoyannis rejoined New Democracy on 21 May 2012, ahead of the parliamentary election in June, where she headed the state deputies' ballot.

Early life and education
Bakoyannis was born in Athens in 1954 to a prominent Greek family in the field of politics. She is the eldest of four children of the veteran Greek politician Konstantinos Mitsotakis, former Prime Minister of Greece and former leader of country's main centre-right political party New Democracy, and Marika Mitsotakis (née Giannoukou). Her family originates from Chania, Crete, and has a long tradition in the politics of Greece. Besides her father and herself, other members of the family include prominent politicians such as her grandfather, Kyriakos, and his brother Aristomenis, while her younger brother Kyriakos, is the current Prime Minister of Greece. She is also a great-granddaughter of Eleftherios Venizelos' sister. This decade-long involvement has been reprehended as attestation for family-rule in Greek political life.

During her early school years, she attended the German School of Athens. Her family was exiled to Paris by the Greek military junta in 1968, thus she completed her secondary schooling at the German School of Paris. She then studied political science and communication at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich without graduating. After the collapse of the junta, she returned to Greece and continued her academic studies in public law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. In addition to Greek, Bakoyannis is fluent in English, French and German.

Minister for Culture, 1992–1993
In the November 1989 election, Bakoyannis successfully contested her late husband's seat in the Evrytania constituency and was re-elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament in the 1990 election and served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, following the election of her father as Prime Minister of Greece. From September 1991 to August 1992, she served in the General Secretariat of International Affairs for New Democracy and represented the party at the European Democrat Union and the International Democrat Union. Since December 1992, she served as Minister for Culture of Greece until the 1993 election, when she was re-elected a member of Parliament for New Democracy as the main opposition party.

Years in opposition
On 29 April 1994, Bakoyannis was elected in the Central Committee of New Democracy by the party's Third Congress. In the 1996 election Bakoyannis was a candidate for a first time in the Athens A' electoral district and was elected again as member of Parliament, coming first of all the candidates in it, something that was repeated in the 2000 election. Meanwhile, on 22 March 1997, she was elected again to the Central Committee of New Democracy by the party's Fourth Congress. She also served for two terms as the chairperson of the party's Executive Committee later. In September 1997 she was appointed by New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis in the party's Department for Development and as Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence in May 2000.

Mayor of Athens, 2002–2006
On 29 March 2002, Bakoyannis was picked to run for Mayor of Athens in the 2002 local elections, both a choice of Kostas Karamanlis who was looking for a way to demonstrate New Democracy's growing strength against the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement and a chance for Bakoyannis to earn prestige by this office in advance of the city hosting the Olympic games. She was elected what was aired as Athens' first female mayor in the city's 3,500-year history, defeating her socialist opponent Christos Papoutsis and receiving a percentage of 60.6% in the runoff. As mayor, she was heavily involved in the preparation of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the first woman to serve as mayor of a city hosting the Olympic Games, and passed the Olympic flag to the mayor of Beijing, Wang Qishan. In 2005 she was awarded the World Mayor Prize.

In 2003, upon the invitation of Romano Prodi, then President of the European Commission, Bakoyannis joined a group of 12 high-level independent figures from Europe, as a member of a prestigious round-table conference, contributing proposals on the social character, cultural identity and economic future of new Europe.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2006–2009
Bakoyannis left the office of Mayor before the end of her term, replaced by acting mayor Fotini Pipili, to become Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece on 15 February 2006 and thus the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Cabinet of Greece. She also retained the position after the 2007 election, managing to be elected as a member of the Hellenic Parliament first among all the candidates in the Athens A' constituency once more. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bakoyannis assumed the rotating Greek presidency of the United Nations Security Council in September 2006, while at a time of international tensions over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and amidst a fragile United Nations brokered cease-fire in Lebanon.

During her incumbency, she promoted the cooperation in the Balkans, where Greek companies are heavily investing, traveled through the Middle East to help outline solutions to problems and attended meetings of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to discuss developments in the region. She also promoted the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by the Hellenic Parliament and supported Nicolas Sarkozy's plan about the Union for the Mediterranean, but did not reach a conciliation with Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia over the Cyprus dispute and the Macedonia naming dispute respectively.

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office
Bakoyannis served as the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from January 2009 to 6 October 2009. As the political leader of the OSCE, she was responsible for the external representation and the appointments of the Organization. She also oversaw the activities of the OSCE in conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. During her chairmanship, she was assisted by her staff and Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the Secretary General of the OSCE, as well as by her predecessor Alexander Stubb and successor Marat Tazhin, who both formed along with Bakoyannis the OSCE Troika.

Later political role
Bakoyannis was expelled from New Democracy on May 7, 2010, on the grounds of having defied New Democracy's line and voting "in favor" of a salient piece of legislation introducing the harsh austerity measures that were required for European Union-International Monetary Fund backed lending. She continued to hold her parliamentary seat, originally secured by New Democracy, as an independent. On November 21, 2010, she founded her own political party called the Democratic Alliance.

A member of the Greek delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 2012, Bakoyannis serves as chairwoman of the Sub-Committee on relations with the OECD and the EBRD. She is also a member of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, which she chaired from 2014 to 2016; a member of the Committee on the Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States of the Council of Europe (Monitoring Committee); co-rapporteur for the monitoring of Russia (alongside Liliane Maury Pasquier); and rapporteur on the Syrian Civil War. In 2019, she announced her candidacy to succeed Thorbjørn Jagland as Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The position was ultimately won by Croatia's Foreign Minister Marija Pejčinović Burić.

In 2015, Bakoyannis was named a member of the OSCE Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project, chaired by Wolfgang Ischinger.

Other activities

 * Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Member of the Board of Directors
 * European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Member of the Council

Recognition
In March 1992, the International Centre for Women awarded Bakoyannis the International Leadership Award, and in June 1993, she was recognised by the 14th International Symposium Fontana di Roma for her valuable contribution to culture.

Bakoyannis received the honor of being elected World Mayor in 2005, an annual internet-based project organized by City Mayors in order to honor the mayors who have served their communities well. Her efforts to get Athens ready to host the 2004 Summer Olympics successfully, her actions to transform the city for the benefit of its residents and her fight against terrorism helped Bakoyannis win the award. During the contest she was strongly supported by the Greek community and also received thousands of votes from several countries around Europe, North America and Australia. She had also been continuously included in the Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women from 2006 to 2008. In 2008, she was awarded the Emperor Maximilian Award-European Award for Regional Policy and Local Government by the State of Tyrol and the city of Innsbruck. In 2009, she was named as the first female foreign associate of the French Academy in Humanities and Political Sciences. The same year, she was also awarded the title of Honorary Senator by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg. In 2010, Dora Bakoyannis has been awarded the National Order of the Chevalry of the Legion of Honour of the French Republic (Ordre Nationale de Chevalier de la Legion d' Honneur).

On 21 March 2008 received a copy of the key of the city of Tirana on the occasion of her official visit to Albania.

Remarkable incidents
On December 13, 2002, two months after taking office as mayor of Athens, an assassination attempt was made on her by a perpetrator who was considered mentally disturbed.

In March 2021, the driver of her guard team killed a 23 year old man outside the Hellenic Parliament and the driver fled so as not to be found. The police drove the eyewitnesses away from the scene of the accident.

Personal life
In December 1974, she was married to journalist Pavlos Bakoyannis and later gave birth to their two children, Alexia and Kostas. In 1977, she took examinations at the Ministry of Economic Coordination and was appointed in the Department of European Economic Community Affairs. When her father was elected leader of New Democracy in 1984, she served as chief of staff until 1989. On 26 September 1989, her husband, who had been elected a member of the Hellenic Parliament in the June 1989 election, was assassinated by members of the terrorist group Revolutionary Organization 17 November, as he entered his office building. She was married to businessman Isidoros Kouvelos in 1998, but she retains her late husband's surname.

On October 18, 2021 she revealed that she has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma - a type of cancer of white blood cells.

title: Dora Bakoyannis


text:
Trnovo

Trnovo may refer to the following places:

Bosnia and Herzegovina

 * Trnovo, Republika Srpska, a town and municipality
 * Trnovo, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the rural part of the same pre-war municipality, presently in the Sarajevo Canton
 * Trnovo, Šekovići, a village in Republika Srpska

Bulgaria

 * Veliko Tarnovo, or Tarnovo, a city
 * Malko Tarnovo, a town

Croatia

 * Trnovo, Croatia, a village near Generalski Stol

Greece

 * Prasino, a village known before 1955 as Trnovo
 * Tyrnavos, a municipality in Thessaly

Montenegro

 * Trnovo, Bar in Bar Municipality

North Macedonia

 * Trnovo, Bitola, a village in Bitola municipality
 * Trnovo, Gostivar, a village in Gostivar municipality
 * Trnovo, Kriva Palanka, a village in Kriva Palanka Municipality

Slovakia

 * Trnovo, Martin, a village in Martin District

Slovenia

 * Trnovo, Ljubljana, a district of Ljubljana
 * Trnovo, Nova Gorica, a village in the Municipality of Nova Gorica

title: Trnovo


text:
Talk:Republic P-47 Thunderbolt

Top speed 426 mph at 30,000ft?
The "Specifications" section says the P-47D-40 has a top speed of 426 mph at 30000ft, but did not provide the condition of the P-47's flight (the manifold pressure, rpm, and whether or not water injection is used). There are many configurations in which the P-47 may fly, but I don't think the 426mph @ 30000ft is particularly representative of the general condition. It appears that the P-47 reached 442mph at a much lower altitude of 23200ft with the use of 70" boost and water injection, which was the standard condition starting from June 1944 . I believe the 426mph at 30000ft would likely be from a P-47 using 56" boost with water injection, but it is purely speculation.Sqrt(-1)magsqrt(-1)nary (talk) 21:27, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Stick with what's already there - it's cited to a perfectly good reliable source, and where possible it's not a good idea to mix references for specs because they won't be the same - they are different versions or have different configurations and you end up with some specs from one version and others from another, which are not compatible.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:53, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Variants table?
I am curious why a very large variants table exists in this article but not in Republic P-47 Thunderbolt variants? Surely it should be moved there (or deleted) with a summary paragraph left behind on variants? A similar but opposite problem is the 'Surviving aircraft' section, there is rightly a link to List of surviving Republic P-47 Thunderbolts but no summary at all. How many are still flying, how many in museums, only needs a couple of sentences. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by)  18:25, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

 * I'd like to see the M and N variants of the P-47 mentioned. These had much higher top speeds and extended the range significantly which was a major criticism of earlier P-47 variants.  Give some credit to Republic for those improvements.  Differences between RE and RA versions could be explained in one sentence. Puff41 (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The P-47M and N are covered in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt variants article. - ZLEA  T \ C 22:34, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Good to see the link to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt variants article in the variants section. I missed that.  I still think it's misleading in the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt article to embed a P-47B line drawing next to a P-47D-40 specification. 47.146.29.231 (talk) 15:14, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Article issues

 * This article is listed as a C-class. The B-class criteria (#1) states, The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The "In German service" has three inline "citation needed" tags dated July 2016. The "External links" section has become somewhat bloated and needs to be trimmed.
 * It would not take much to improve this article to attain B-class status. -- Otr500 (talk) 12:30, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it struggles, even at C Class. There are too many problems with it and it's starting to drift back to where it was ten years ago. An encyclopaedia-standard article needs much better proof reading than this. There are two occasions when the old claims about the toughness of air cooled engines come up, virtually word for word. There is also the comment that Don Blakeslee was talking about the P-47C (before it got the new propeller!). The way it's written sounds like an excuse. Ten years ago, this article was a hagiography of the P-47, using cherry-picked and out-of-sequence claims and quotes and people like me had to get involved to clean it up. The 'Talk' page was a battlefield. Once that happened and the fanbois went away, it was much improved. But recent re-reading shows that there have been some poorly considered edits and the standard has declined as a result. Flanker235 (talk) 03:24, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * P47N 437th Fighter Squadron Iwo Jima 1945.jpg

Nickname
There seems to be no source for the claim that it was named ¨Jug¨ during wartime. I have also seen debate about the meaning of that nickname (equaly without sources) that it meant juggernaut instead of milk jug. 2003:E4:1F22:4200:2D5D:CF0A:1D50:C87B (talk) 15:21, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It is sourced to "Air Force Association 1998, p. 110." in the body of the article.
 * Air Force Fifty. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing (Air Force Association), 1998 (limited edition). ISBN 1-56311-409-7
 * (Hohum @ ) 15:45, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Republic P-47 Thunderbolt


text:
Secretary of state (Canada)

In Canada from 1993 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2008, secretary of state was a title given to junior ministers of state in the Government of Canada that sat outside Cabinet. Because it was a position that was assigned to assist Cabinet ministers, a secretary of state was legally a minister of state; the distinction is that, unlike a minister, a secretary is not a full cabinet portfolio itself and thus not considered a member of Cabinet. (They were hence considered junior to ministers of state.) The Secretary of State (Training and Youth), for instance, would assist the Minister for Human Resources and Development. This usage is opposite to that in the United Kingdom, where junior ministers generally report to more senior secretaries of state. Secretaries of state were, however, members of the ministry and the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

This generic usage should not be confused with the former cabinet positions of Secretary of State for Canada (1867–1996), Secretary of State for the Provinces (1867–1873), and Secretary of State for External Affairs (1909–1995).

History
These positions were first used by Jean Chrétien as a way to decrease the size of the Cabinet without substantially decreasing the size of the ministry. When Paul Martin became Prime Minister in 2003, this usage ended, and he instead appointed ministers of state and increased the powers of parliamentary secretaries to act in junior policy positions.

Martin's successor, Stephen Harper, resumed the use of secretaries of state in a cabinet shuffle on 4 January 2007, but went back to ministers of state in his October 2008 cabinet.

List of secretaries of state in Canada
=== External affairs === Between 1993 and 2003, there were at least three junior Minister of State positions within the Department of External Affairs (renamed in 1995 to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade) responsible for assisting the Minister of Foreign Affairs (known until 1993 as the Secretary of State for External Affairs).

 * the Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) — relations within the Asia-Pacific
 * the Secretary of State (Latin America and Africa) — relations with Latin America and Africa.
 * the Secretary of State (Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East) — relations with Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East (introduced by Order-in-Council in 2002).

Between 2007 and 2008, the Conservative Harper government included a less narrow position to assist with the Foreign Affairs minister, called the Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs and International Trade).

Heritage
Several Secretaries of State assisted the Minister of Canadian Heritage (and antecedents) with the various portfolios of the Department of Canadian Heritage (formerly Department of Communications), including multiculturalism, which at one point fell under the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship.

Industry
The Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development) was a position introduced in 1993 to assist the Minister of Industry within Industry Canada.

The Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development) (Western Economic Diversification) was introduced in 1996 to provide assistance to the Minister of Western Economic Diversification within their department.

Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the office of Secretary of State (Small Business and Tourism) was introduced. On 2008 October 30, a ministerial position was established by Harper as the Minister of State (Science & Technology).

Labour
The Secretary of State (Training and Youth) assisted the Minister of Labour for the Department of Labour until July 1996, when the labour ministry was abolished and transferred to the Human Resources Development. In 1997, the secretarial position was changed to Secretary of State (Children and Youth).

Between 2007 and 2008 during the conservative Harper government, Human Resources Development included a Secretary of State (Seniors) to assist with the seniors portfolio.

title: Secretary of state (Canada)


text:
Guccio Gucci

Guccio Giovanbattista Giacinto Dario Maria Gucci (26 March 1881 – 2 January 1953) was an Italian businessman and fashion designer and founder of the fashion house Gucci.

Early life
Guccio Gucci was born in Florence, Tuscany on 26 March 1881. He was the son of Tuscan parents, Gabriello Gucci, a leather craftsman from San Miniato, and Elena Santini, from Lastra a Signa.

As a teenager, in 1899, Guccio Gucci worked at the Savoy Hotel in London. Little is known about his early life circumstances and what influenced his move to London. Gucci was inspired by the elegant upper-class hotel guests and by luggage companies such as H.J. Cave & Sons. He returned to Florence and started making luxury luggage and accessories.

Career
In 1921, he founded the House of Gucci in Florence as a small family-owned leather shop. He began selling saddles, leather bags and other accessories to horsemen in the 1920s. In 1938, Gucci expanded his business to a second location in Rome at the insistence of his son Aldo. His one-man business eventually turned into a family business when his sons joined the company.

In 1951, Gucci opened their store in Milan. He wanted to keep the business small, and for nearly the entirety of his life, the company remained only in Italy. Two weeks before Guccio Gucci's death, the New York Gucci boutique was opened by his sons Aldo, Rodolfo, and Vasco.

Death and legacy
Gucci died on 2 January 1953 in Milan. After his death, the business was left to his four remaining sons. With the change in leadership the Gucci brand expanded to opening international locations and a diversification of product line.

The Gucci Museum (also called Gucci Garden) in Florence, is a fashion museum centered around the history of the company and Guccio Gucci.

Personal life
Gucci and his wife, Aida Calvelli, married in 1901 and had six children, five sons and one daughter. His son Ugo Calvelli Gucci (1899–1973) was adopted, born from his mother Aida Calvelli's previous relationship. His son Enzo (1904–1913) died in childhood. His sons Ugo, Aldo, Vasco, and Rodolfo Gucci held prominent roles in his company, but his daughter was not given a role. There was a lot of sibling rivalry to hold power within the company, and by the 1980s, this became a serious issue dividing the family.

In his final years, he lived near Rusper, in West Sussex, England.

Arms
Guccio Gucci; his eldest biological son, Aldo Gucci; Aldo Gucci's sons, Giorgio Gucci, Paolo Gucci, and Roberto Gucci; and grandson Uberto Gucci claimed the right to use an inherited, ancestral coat of arms after the Kingdom of Italy, which was ruled by the House of Savoy, transitioned to the Italian Republic in 1946.

Guccio Gucci adapted, or incorporated, the Gucci coat-of-arms, as recorded in the Archives of Florence, into the Gucci company's knight logo, which was trademarked by the Gucci company on 4 February 1955.

The blazon recorded in the Florence Archives is as follows: "Azure, three red poles bordered argent (white); a chief or, loaded to the right (dexter) of a wheel of azure, and to the left (sinister) of a rose of red." ("D'azzurro, a tre pali di rosso bordati d'argento; e al capo d'oro caricato a destra di una ruota d'azzurro, e a sinistra di una rosa di rosso.")

Translation: "Family of San Miniato; Giacinto Gucci and his brothers were admitted to the nobility of San Miniato in 1763 (on that occasion it is declared that the family had come from Cremona in 1224); Giuseppe di Gaetano Gucci, on the other hand, was admitted to the nobility of Fiesole in 1839. Francesco di Benedetto Gucci obtained Florentine citizenship in 1601, for the Golden Lion banner; Giovanni Battista by Giovan Piero Gucci obtained it in 1634, in the Scala banner."

Court documents, records, and subsequent rulings indicate that, because the Gucci family trademarked the coat-of-arms in 1955, the trademark transferred with the sale of the Gucci company by Maurizio Gucci to Investcorp, and subsequent company owners, in 1993. However, Uberto Gucci (b. 1960), the son of Roberto Gucci, and the grandson of Aldo Gucci, claims that the Gucci family still has the right to use the ancestral Gucci coat-of-arms.

title: Guccio Gucci


text:
Maradi

Maradi may refer to:
 * Maradi Region, Niger
 * Maradi, Niger
 * Roman Catholic Diocese of Maradi
 * Maradi Airport

title: Maradi


text:
Annulene

Annulenes are monocyclic hydrocarbons that contain the maximum number of non-cumulated or conjugated double bonds ('mancude'). They have the general formula CnHn (when n is an even number) or CnHn+1 (when n is an odd number). The IUPAC accepts the use of 'annulene nomenclature' in naming carbocyclic ring systems with 7 or more carbon atoms, using the name '[n]annulene' for the mancude hydrocarbon with n carbon atoms in its ring, though in certain contexts (e.g., discussions of aromaticity for different ring sizes), smaller rings (n = 3 to 6) can also be informally referred to as annulenes. Using this form of nomenclature 1,3,5,7-cyclooctatetraene is [8]annulene and benzene is [6]annulene (and occasionally referred to as just 'annulene').

The discovery that [18]annulene possesses a number of key properties associated with other aromatic molecules was an important development in the understanding of aromaticity as a chemical concept.

In the related annulynes, one double bond is replaced by a triple bond.

Aromaticity
Annulenes may be aromatic (benzene, [6]annulene and [18]annulene), non-aromatic ([8] and [10]annulene), or anti-aromatic (cyclobutadiene, [4]annulene). Cyclobutadiene is the only annulene with considerable antiaromaticity, since planarity is unavoidable. With [8]annulene, the molecule takes on a tub shape that allows it to avoid conjugation of double bonds. [10]Annulene is of the wrong size to achieve a planar structure: in a planar conformation, ring strain due to either steric hindrance of internal hydrogens (when some double bonds are trans) or bond angle distortion (when the double bonds are all cis) is unavoidable. Thus, it does not exhibit appreciable aromaticity.

When the annulene is large enough, [18]annulene for example, there is enough room internally to accommodate hydrogen atoms without significant distortion of bond angles. [18]Annulene possesses several properties that qualify it as aromatic. However, none of the larger annulenes are as stable as benzene, as their reactivity more closely resembles a conjugated polyene than an aromatic hydrocarbon.

In general, charged annulene species of the form [C4n+2+qH4n+2+q]q (n = 0, 1, 2, ..., q = 0, ±1, ±2, 4n + 2 + q ≥ 3) are aromatic, provided a planar conformation can be achieved. For instance, C5H5–, C3H3+, and C8H82– are all known aromatic species.

title: Annulene


text:
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler

Johann Nepomuk Hiedler (19 March 1807 – 17 September 1888) was the maternal great-grandfather and possibly also the paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler.

His first two names are the same as the name of the Bohemian Saint Johann von Nepomuk. Some people consider this name as evidence that Nepomuk (and therefore his great-grandson Adolf Hitler) had Czech ancestry. However, Johann von Pomuk / Johann Nepomuk, was an important saint for Bohemians of both Czech and German ethnicity, and thus Nepomuk may only indicate an association with Bohemia in general, or to someone else named Johann Nepomuk, because there is no evidence that Hitler's ancestors were of Czech ancestry.

Nepomuk became a relatively prosperous farmer and married Eva Maria Decker (16 December 1792 – 28 December 1873). The couple had three children together: Johanna Hiedler (19 January 1830 – 8 February 1906), Walburga Hüttler (11 April 1832 – 30 November 1900 ), Josefa Hüttler (15 February 1834 – 13 May 1859).

On 15 September 1848, Johanna married Johann Baptist Pölzl, a peasant farmer. The couple would eventually have five sons and six daughters, and only three of these children would survive to adulthood. Walburga married Josef Romeder (born in 1835) on 25 January 1853, but had no children. Josefa married Leopold Seiler (born 14 November 1832) on 1 March 1859, but had no children and died soon after on 13 May 1859.

Johann Nepomuk's wife, Eva Maria, died 28 December 1873, at the age 81 in Spital, Weitra. Johanna's daughter, Nepomuk's granddaughter, Klara Pölzl, would eventually become the third wife of Alois Hitler. Alois was the illegitimate son of Maria Schicklgruber, who had married Johann's older brother, Johann Georg Hiedler on 10 May 1842, who may in fact have been Alois' natural father. Alois would claim in his later life that Johann Georg Hiedler was not his stepfather, but in fact his biological father, since Johann Nepomuk informally adopted Alois during Alois' childhood. In June 1876, Johann and Alois both returned to Weitra and Johann testified before a Catholic notary that Johann Georg was Alois' biological father, who had abandoned the child and handed over his fatherhood responsibilities to Johann Nepomuk. On 6 January 1877, Alois was legitimized as 'Alois Hitler' and the priest then changed the details on the baptismal certificate from "Catholic, Male, Illegitimate" to "Johann Georg Hitler" under his father's name. However, it is also possible that Johann Nepomuk himself was, in fact, Alois' natural father but could not acknowledge this publicly due to his marriage.

Nepomuk willed Alois a considerable portion of his life savings. Nepomuk's granddaughter, Klara, had a protracted affair with Alois before marrying him on 7 January 1885 in Braunau Am Inn after Alois' second wife, Franziska Matzelsberger had died on 10 August 1884 from tuberculosis. Klara had 6 children with Alois, and gave birth to Adolf Hitler on 20 April 1889.

title: Johann Nepomuk Hiedler


text:
Igor Smirnov (politician)

Igor Nikolaevich Smirnov (И́горь Никола́евич Смирно́в; born 23 October 1941) is a Russian-born Transnistrian politician who served as the first president (1991–2011) of the internationally unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic.

Childhood
Igor Smirnov was born in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union during World War II. He was the son of Nikolai Stepanovich Smirnov, a worker within the Soviet Communist Party apparatus and Zinaida Grigor'evna Smirnova, a journalist and newspaper editor. As the Party promoted Nikolai Stepanovich to ever more important positions, the family moved from Petropavlosk to the Ukrainian SSR, where the Red Army had recently expelled the Nazi German military. The Smirnovs initially benefited from Nikolai Stepanovich's successes—he reached the position of First Secretary of the Hola Prystan Raion committee in Soviet Ukraine.

In the summer of 1952, Nikolai Stepanovich was arrested for corruption. He was sentenced to fifteen years in the Soviet forced labor camps with a following period of five years' internal exile. As the family of an enemy of the people, life was difficult for Zinaida Grigor'evna and her three sons, Vladimir, Oleg, and Igor. In the wake of Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, Nikolai Stepanovich was released together with many Soviet inmates. The Smirnov family was reunited in central Russia near the Ural Mountains, where Nikolai Stepanovich directed a primary school and Zinaida Grigor'evna worked as the editor of a local Komsomol newspaper.

Professional life
In 1959, Igor Smirnov began work at the Zlatoust Metallurgical Factory at the age of eighteen. Soon, however, he moved back to Ukraine to work on the construction of a new hydroelectric power station in the town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson Oblast.

Smirnov displayed a great enthusiasm for Soviet life, pursuing higher education in the evenings and weekends after work and participating in a number of athletic and cultural activities. He met and married a young engineer named Zhannetta Nikolaevna Lotnik in the early 1960s and served in the Soviet Army from 1963 to 1966 as a Second Lieutenant. In 1963, Smirnov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and served as a Komsomol organizer (komsorg) after returning to civilian life.

Once back from the military, Smirnov also continued the correspondence courses he had begun in the early 1960s, receiving a degree from the Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Institute in 1974. Meanwhile, he worked his way up from the shop floor to be an assistant director of one of the shops of the Nova Kakhovka Machine-Building Factory. With his college diploma, Smirnov continued to be promoted. He soon became the shop director, then assistant to the factory's chief industrial upgrades and new technologies engineer and finally an assistant director.

While he was not made director in 1987 when that position's erstwhile occupant retired, he was given the directorship of the "Elektromash" Electronics Concern in the nearby Moldovan city of Tiraspol. This was just over two years before Smirnov led the city's municipal government as the chairman of the Tiraspol city soviet and just under three before he held the most powerful position in the embryonic, and unrecognized, Pridnestrovian Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic.

The strike campaign
As communist states began to collapse at the end of the 1980s, people in some areas of the Soviet Union began to demand sovereignty for separate national identities. As the citizens of the Moldavian SSR debated the merits of introducing Moldovan as the official language of the republic—at first with Russian as a second official language and later without—the republic was divided over the issue of nationalizing Moldova. One side believed that Moldova should be independent from the Moscow Kremlin and turned into a nation-state, possibly in a union with Romania where a virtually identical language is spoken. The other believed that Moldova should remain a part of the supranationalist USSR, possibly in a post-communist, but still united country.

Smirnov and many of his colleagues were suspicious of the possibility of language laws from the beginning, they suspected this to be the first step towards "nationalization" of the republic at the expense of "their country", the Soviet Union. However, in August 1989, when it was leaked that Moldovan would be made the only official language, Smirnov and other industrial workers in Tiraspol banded together to create the United Work Collective Council (OSTK – Объединенный Совет трудовых коллективов) and called an immediate strike that eventually led to the shutdown of most major industrial activity (concentrated in the Transnistrian region) throughout the SSR.

Entry into politics
When the strike campaign, from 16 August to 22 September 1989, failed to produce much of an effect in Chişinău, the OSTK re-examined its tactics. Smirnov and others saw the upcoming Moldovan elections as an opportunity to effect change through different means. Smirnov won two seats in the elections of February 1990, the 32nd district seat for the city soviet (municipal government) of Tiraspol and the 125th district seat for the Supreme Soviet of MSSR (republican government) in the 1990 Moldovan parliamentary election. Once in the city soviet, Smirnov ran for chairmanship of that body. In a dramatic demonstration of how much the Communist Party's power had waned, Smirnov beat his challenger, the First Secretary of the city's Party Committee, Leonid Tsurkan, by a 2-to-1 margin. From this time forward, Tiraspol was an OSTK-controlled city.

Things did not go quite as smoothly for Igor Smirnov in the Moldovan Supreme Soviet. The OSTK candidates, mostly from Transnistria in the country's eastern periphery, were a small fraction of the body's overall membership—approximately 15 percent. In May 1990, these Transnistrian Supreme Soviet deputies were attacked and beaten by pro-independence protesters and quickly left the body for their homes in the East. Unable to affect the course of events in Chişinău, these deputies acted to establish their own Soviet republic, a republic that would remain a part of the Soviet Union and not secede with the rest of the Moldova. Many Moldovans reacted with outrage at this infringement of their sovereignty and the Soviet central government publicly rebuked the separatists for making the situation worse and pushing Moldova further toward independence.

Proclamation of independence
Igor Smirnov emerged as a leader of the OSTK on a regional level as Transnistrian politicians and activists worked towards sovereignty from the Moldovan SSR in the summer and autumn of 1990. When the First All-region Congress of Transnistrian Deputies created a self-contained Transnistrian economic zone in June 1990, Smirnov was elected chair of a coordinating council charged with carrying momentum forward to sovereignty. A second congress held on September 2 proclaimed the creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (PMSSR) and deputies elected him to chair the Provisional Supreme Soviet of the PMSSR.

In 1991, Smirnov was arrested in a secret operation by special forces of the Moldovan Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv, accused of "the intentional territorial dismemberment of the Republic of Moldova" and brought to Chișinău. He was released shortly thereafter after reported pressure from Russia.

In his new role as chairman of the PMSSR Supreme Soviet, and later, president of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (PMR), Smirnov worked to gain recognition for the state. While this was never a likely outcome, Smirnov was successful at securing the cooperation of a locally stationed Red Army unit; as the conflict grew increasingly violent at the end of 1991 and into 1992, Red Army leaders and enlisted men, often themselves from Transnistria, gave moral support, weapons and ammunition to PMR separatists. Eventually a number of Red Army soldiers joined the PMR Army.

In December 1991 Smirnov beat Grigorii Marakutsa, his successor as chairman of the PMSSR Supreme Soviet and another challenger in an election for president of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic. He won with 64% of the vote.

Smirnov after the war

Igor Smirnov won three further elections after 1991. On 23 December 1996, he took 72% of the vote against 20% for Vladimir Malakhov and on December 9, 2001, he took 81.9% of the vote against 6.7% for Tom Zenovich and 4.6% for Alexander Radchenko. On December 10, 2006, Smirnov was re-elected for a third time with 82.4% of the vote. His Communist Party opponent, Nadezhda Bondarenko got only 8.1% of the vote. Andrey Safonov, owner and editor of the Opposition newspaper Novaia gazeta got 3.9% and Renewal Party MP Peter Tomaily, standing as an independent candidate, got 2.1%. 1.6% voted for "none of the above" and 1.9% of the ballot papers were blank or spoiled. Turnout was 66.1%. None of these elections were recognized by the international community, which does not recognize the legality of the Transnistrian authorities and called for democratic elections for a self-governing territory within the boundaries of Moldova.

He organized a referendum on 17 September 2006 where the Transnistrian population was asked whether Transnistria should be reintegrated into Moldova (which was rejected) or remain independent and join Russia in the future (which was approved). Smirnov did more references to a possible accession of Transnistria into Russia during his rule.

In the December 2011 elections, Igor Smirnov came in third with 24.82% of the vote. He trailed the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Anatolii Kaminskii, and the former chairman of that body, Evgenii Shevchuk. In the election, leaders of United Russia, the ruling political party of Russia, voiced a lack of confidence in Smirnov and supported the campaign of Anatolii Kaminskii.

Smirnov has announced that he will retire from politics when the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic obtains international recognition as a sovereign state and has called this goal his life's work.

His last vice president was Aleksandr Ivanovich Korolyov.

Cabinet
The following table shows Smirnov's cabinet at the end of his time in office.

title: Igor Smirnov (politician)