Czech Premiere of Donald Knuth's Fantasia Apocalyptica
Multimedia performance of the Fantasia Apocalyptica oratorio
The Czech première of Knuth's musical opus with personal presence of the author
October 11th, 2019, Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, Brno, Czech Republic
Author: Donald Knuth
Organist: Jan Rotrekl
Presenters: Vít Novotný, Tomáš Szaniszlo
Percussion: Slavomír Kvasňovský
Rector of the church: Vojtěch Suchý
Responsible for the organ: Jan Martin Bejček
Projections: Pavel Šiler, AV Media
Audio recording: Petr Holubář
Video editor: Šimon Mačejovský
Photographer: Martina Morávková
Producer: Petr Sojka
LEMMA: Laboratory of Electronic and MultiMedia Applications
Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University
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Veveří Castle - Brno Czech Republic
Veveří Castle (Czech: Hrad Veveří) is a castle located some 15 km northwest of Brno, Czech Republic, on the River Svratka.
Earliest references to Veveří (Squirrel) Castle date back to the turn of the first millennium, when the duke Konrad (Czech: Kunrát) founded a hunting lodge in the area. The first recorded mention of the castle is from the years 1213 and 1222, when Prince Přemysl Otakar II used the fortified castle as a prison for rebellious peers. Initially, it was apparently a wooden residence situated near the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary west of today's castle premises. In the 1220's a stone margrave castle on the extremity of the rocky promontory behind a deep moat cut our of the rock started to grow. The so-called keep is the only structure which has remained well-preserved from this oldest building stage.
Easter Mass April 1st 2018 Brno
Cloudy windy day with the sun teasing Brno. Easter Mass at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was wonderful. I received Communion and wine. It gave me peace. A new life! It's Spring and warmer times are coming. Here is the church:
Polish Catholics hold national prayer for peace at borders and sea
(7 Oct 2017) Polish Catholics held rosaries and prayed together at hundreds of locations on Saturday along the country's 3,500-kilometre (2,000-mile) border, appealing to the Virgin Mary and God for salvation for Poland and the world.
The unusual event called Rosary on the Borders was organised by lay Catholics but also was endorsed by Polish church authorities, with 320 churches from 22 dioceses taking part.
The prayers took place on the Baltic Sea coast in the north to the mountains along Poland's southern borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and all along the other borders of this country of 38 million of whom more than 90 percent identify as Roman Catholics.
Organisers say the event commemorates the centenary of the apparitions of Fatima, when three shepherd children in Portugal said the Virgin Mary appeared to them.
But many people also saw an anti-Islam message in the event, given that it also commemorates the huge 16th-century naval battle of Lepanto, when a Christian alliance defeated Ottoman Empire forces on the Ionian Sea, thus saving Europe from Islamization, as organisers put it.
While organisers insisted the prayers on Saturday were not directed against any group, some participants cited fears of Islam among their reasons for praying at the border, many coming from afar to do so.
On the Czech-Polish Border near the town of Szklarska Poreba hundreds believers arrived in dozens of buses and cars to the Karkonosze mountain range to walk along the Czech-Polish border.
The young, elderly, and families with children in prams braved the cold and rain showers to participate, holding rosaries in their hands and constantly praying to Virgin Mary.
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Black Madonna
A Black Madonna or Black Virgin is a statue or painting of Mary in which she is depicted with dark skin, especially those created in Europe in the medieval period or earlier. The Black Madonnas are generally found in Catholic countries. The term refers to a type of Marian statue or painting of mainly medieval origin, with dark or black features. The statues are mostly wooden but occasionally stone, often painted and up to 75 cm tall. They fall into two main groups: free-standing upright figures or seated figures on a throne. The pictures are usually icons which are Byzantine in style, often made in 13th- or 14th-century Italy. There are about 450–500 Black Madonnas in Europe, depending on how they are classified. There are at least 180 Vierges Noires in France, and there are hundreds of non-medieval copies as well. Some are in museums, but most are in churches or shrines and are venerated by devotees. A few are associated with miracles and attract substantial numbers of pilgrims.
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Josip Broz Tito | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Josip Broz Tito
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
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Josip Broz (Cyrillic: Јосип Броз, pronounced [jǒsip brôːz]; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; Cyrillic: Тито, pronounced [tîto]), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and political leader, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II, he was the leader of the Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian and concerns about the repression of political opponents have been raised, some historians consider him a benevolent dictator. He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained further international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, alongside Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.Broz was born to a Croat father and Slovene mother in the village of Kumrovec, Austria-Hungary (now in Croatia). Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest sergeant major in the Austro-Hungarian Army of that time. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Imperial Russians during World War I, he was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in some events of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and subsequent Civil War. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ).
He was General Secretary (later Chairman of the Presidium) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–1980) and went on to lead the World War II Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–1945). After the war, he was the Prime Minister (1944–1963), President (later President for Life) (1953–1980) of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). From 1943 to his death in 1980, he held the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia, serving as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav military, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, he received some 98 foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honour and the Order of the Bath.
Tito was the chief architect of the second Yugoslavia, a socialist federation that lasted from November 1942 until April 1992. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, he became the first Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony in 1948 and the only one in Joseph Stalin's time to manage to leave Cominform and begin with its own socialist program with elements of market socialism. Economists active in the former Yugoslavia, including Czech-born Jaroslav Vanek and Croat-born Branko Horvat, promoted a model of market socialism dubbed the Illyrian model, where firms were socially owned by their employees and structured on workers' self-management and competed with each other in open and free markets.