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The Power Of The Powerless
''The Power of the Powerless'' ( cs, Moc bezmocných) is an expansive political essay written in October 1978 by the Czech dramatist, political dissident, and later statesman, Václav Havel. The essay dissects the nature of communist regimes of the time, life within such a regime, and how by their very nature such regimes can create dissidents of ordinary citizens. The essay goes on to discuss ideas and possible actions by loose communities of individuals linked by a common cause, such as human-rights petition Charter 77. Officially suppressed, the essay was circulated in samizdat form and translated into multiple languages. It became a manifesto for dissent in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other communist regimes. The essay was translated into English by Paul Wilson and published in 1985 as part of a volume of essays edited by John Keane, called ''The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe''.Havel, Václav. 1985. The Power of the Powerless: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Keane (political Theorist)
John Keane may refer to: Sports * John Keane (hurler) (1917–1975), Irish sportsman * Jack Keane (hurler) (1892–1978), Irish hurler for the Limerick senior team * John Keane (Gaelic footballer) (born 1980), Gaelic football player for Westmeath GAA * Johnny Keane (1911–1967), American baseball player * Jack Keane (footballer) (1911–2005), Australian rules footballer * J. J. Keane (John James Keane, 1871–1956), Irish Gaelic footballer and Olympic official Politicians * John F. Keane, U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay, 2003–2005 * John J. Keane (politician), Irish Fianna Fáil politician from Galway * John Thomas Keane (died 1946), Irish politician * Sir John Keane, 5th Baronet (1873–1956), member of the first Irish government's Senate and a director of the Bank of Ireland * Sir John Keane, 1st Baronet (1757–1829), MP for Youghal Musicians * John E. Keane (born 1952), British film and television composer * John M. Keane (musician) (born 1965), American songwriter and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Totalitarian
Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and regulation over public and private life. It is regarded as the most extreme and complete form of authoritarianism. In totalitarian states, political power is often held by autocrats, such as dictators (totalitarian dictatorship) and absolute monarchs, who employ all-encompassing campaigns in which propaganda is broadcast by state-controlled mass media in order to control the citizenry. By 1950, the term and concept of totalitarianism entered mainstream Western political discourse. Furthermore this era also saw anti-communist and McCarthyist political movements intensify and use the concept of totalitarianism as a tool to convert pre-World War II anti-fascism into Cold War anti-communism. As a political ideology in itself, totalitarianism is a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established Political system, political or Organized religion, religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th century, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian governments in countries such as Fascist Italy (1922-43), Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan, Francoist Spain, the Soviet Union (and later Russia), Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, China, and Turkmenistan. In the Western world, there are historical examples of people who have been considered and have considered themselves dissidents, such as the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In totalitarian countries, dissidents are often incarcerated or executed without explicit political accusations, or due to infringements of the very same laws they are opposing, or because they are supporting civil liberties such as freedom of speech. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Live Not By Lies
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in particular the Gulag system. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church. While still young, Solzhenitsyn lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist, and embraced Marxism–Leninism. While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically-minded Eastern Orthodox Christian. As a result of the Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, in particular the Gulag system. Solzhenitsyn was born into a family that defied the Soviet anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and remained devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church. While still young, Solzhenitsyn lost his faith in Christianity, became an atheist, and embraced Marxism–Leninism. While serving as a captain in the Red Army during World War II, Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the SMERSH and sentenced to eight years in the Gulag and then internal exile for criticizing Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in a private letter. As a result of his experience in prison and the camps, he gradually became a philosophically-minded Eastern Orthodox Christian. As a result of the Khrushchev Thaw, Solzhenitsyn was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous member state of the European Union. Warsaw is the nation's capital and largest metropolis. Other major cities include Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin. Poland has a temperate transitional climate and its territory traverses the Central European Plain, extending from Baltic Sea in the north to Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains in the south. The longest Polish river is the Vistula, and Poland's highest point is Mount Rysy, situated in the Tatra mountain range of the Carpathians. The country is bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west. It also shares maritime boundaries with Denmark and Sweden. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solidarity (Polish Trade Union)
Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of Communist rule in Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-authoritarian social movement, using methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers' rights and social change. Government attempts in the early 1980s to destroy the union through the imposition of martial law in Poland and the use of political repression failed. Operati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zbigniew Bujak
Zbigniew Bujak (born 29 November 1954, in Łopuszno) is a former Polish activist and anti-Communist dissident. Biography Bujak was an electrician and foreman in 1980 at the Ursus tractor factory near Warsaw, Poland. He became engaged with trade union activists, and during the strike action, he organized strike committees at the Ursus factory. He became chairman of the Warsaw Solidarity branch in September 1980 and was one of the few Solidarity leaders who escaped arrest in 1981 after martial law in Poland was declared to break Solidarity. He became one of the leaders of the Solidarity's underground movement, organizing underground committees including underground press and radio. He was finally arrested in 1986, becoming the last Solidarity leader to be captured. Soon afterwards, he was released in general amnesty, and participated in Polish Round Table Talks with the government in 1989. He was elected to the Sejm (Polish parliament) in the 1989 elections. In the 1990s he jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ursus Factory
Ursus SA (often stylized URSUS SA) is a Polish agricultural machinery manufacturer, headquartered in Lublin, Poland. The company was founded in Warsaw in 1893, and has strong historic roots regarding Polish tractor production history. It has also carried out some production of trolleybuses in a joint venture with the Ukrainian manufacturer Bogdan, and manufactures buses, coaches, and trolleybuses in a joint venture with AMZ Kutno under the name Ursus Bus. History Early history The Ursus Factory was founded in Poland in 1893 on 15 Sienna Street, Warsaw, by three engineers and four businessmen. It began producing exhaust engines and then later trucks and metal fittings intended for the Russian Tsar. In 1930, the Ursus factory fell on hard times due to the world financial crisis and was nationalised under the Państwowe Zakłady Inżynieryjne (National Engineering Works, PZInż), the Polish manufacturer of arms and vehicles. It then began producing military tractors, tank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Emperor's New Clothes
"The Emperor's New Clothes" ( da, Kejserens nye klæder ) is a literary folktale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about a vain emperor who gets exposed before his subjects. The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.Andersen 2005a 4 "The Emperor's New Clothes" was first published with "The Little Mermaid" in Copenhagen, by C. A. Reitzel, on 7 April 1837, as the third and final installment of Andersen's ''Fairy Tales Told for Children''. The tale has been adapted to various media, and the story's title, the phrase "the Emperor has no clothes", and variations thereof have been adopted for use in numerous other works and as an idiom. Plot Two swindlers arrive at the capital city of an emperor who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of state matters. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. The emperor hires them, and they set up looms and go to work. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motif (narrative)
In narrative, a motif ( ) is a distinctive repeating feature or idea; often, it helps develop other narrative (or literary) aspects such as theme or mood.James H. Grayson. ''Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials'' (p. 9). New York and Abingdon: Routledge Curzon, 2000. . Alain Silver and James Ursini, (2004Some Visual Motifs of ''Film Noir'' A narrative motif can be created through the use of imagery, structural components, language, and other elements throughout literature. The flute in Arthur Miller's play ''Death of a Salesman'' is a recurrent sound motif that conveys rural and idyllic notions. Another example from modern American literature is the green light found in the novel ''The Great Gatsby'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Narratives may include multiple motifs of varying types. In Shakespeare's play ''Macbeth'', he uses a variety of narrative elements to create many different motifs. Imagistic references to blood a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workers Of The World, Unite!
The political slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" is one of the rallying cries from ''The Communist Manifesto'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (german: Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!, literally "Proletarians of all countries, unite!", but soon popularised in English as "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"). A variation of this phrase ("Workers of all lands, unite") is also inscribed on Marx's tombstone. The essence of the slogan is that members of the working classes throughout the world should cooperate to defeat capitalism and achieve victory in the class conflict. Overview Five years before ''The Communist Manifesto'', this phrase appeared in the 1843 book ''The Workers' Union'' by Flora Tristan. The International Workingmen's Association, described by Engels as "the first international movement of the working class" was persuaded by Engels to change its motto from the League of the Just's "all men are brothe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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