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Site: ONCE UPON A TIME IN... EUROPE
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Glossary: Glossary of terms

HISTORY

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Giuseppe Garibaldi (Italian pronunciation: [d?u?z?ppe ?ari?baldi]) (July 4, 1807 ? June 2, 1882) was an Italian general and politician. He is considered, with Camillo Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II and Giuseppe Mazzini, as one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland".

Garibaldi was a central figure in the Italian Risorgimento, since he personally commanded and fought in many military campaigns that led eventually to the formation of a unified Italy. He generally tried to act on behalf of a legitimate power, which does not make him exactly a revolutionary: for example, he was appointed general by the provisional government of Milan in 1848, General of the Roman Republic in 1849 by the Minister of War, and led the Expedition of the Thousand on behalf and with the consent of Victor Emmanuel II.

Giuseppe Garibaldi

He has been called the "Hero of Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe. These earned him a considerable reputation in Italy and abroad, aided by exceptional international media coverage at the time. Many of the greatest intellectuals of his time, such as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and George Sand showered him with admiration. The United Kingdom and the United States helped him a great deal, offering him financial and military support in difficult circumstances.

In the popular telling of his story, he is associated with the red shirts worn by his volunteers in lieu of a uniform.

(source: Wikipedia)
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The House of Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs.

House of Bourbon coat of arms

Bourbon monarchs ruled Navarre (from 1555) and France (from 1589) until the 1792 overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, the senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830. A cadet branch, the House of Orl?ans, then ruled for 18 years (1830?1848), until it too was overthrown. The Princes of Cond? were a cadet branch of the dukes of Vend?mes and, in turn, were senior to the Princes of Conti both of which are now extinct.

Philip V of Spain was the first Bourbon of Spain. The Spanish Bourbons (in Spanish, the name is spelled Borb?n) have been overthrown and restored several times, reigning 1700?1808, 1813?1868, 1875?1931, and 1975 to the present day. From this Spanish line comes the royal line of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (1734?1806 and 1815?1860, and Sicily only in 1806?1816), the Bourbon of the Two Sicilies family, and the Bourbon rulers of the Duchy of Parma.

Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg married a cadet of the Parmese line and thus her successors, who have ruled Luxembourg since her abdication in 1964, have also been members of the House of Bourbon. Isabel, Princess Imperial, the declared heiress and thrice-regent of the now-defunct Empire of Brazil, married twenty years before their deposition Prince Gaston, Count of Eu, their descendants, known as the Orl?ans and Braganza, would have ascended to that throne had the empire not ended in 1889.

From the time of Hugh Capet to Charles X (987?1830), the senior Capets were also the Kings of France. In 1589, Henry IV of France, head of the House of Bourbon, became the senior Capet, following the extinction of male line of the House of Valois. All members of the House of Bourbon and its cadet branches alive today are direct agnatic descendants of Henry IV.

(source: Wikipedia)
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The Kingdom of Sardinia (Italian: Regno di Sardegna, Sardinian: Rennu de Sardigna, Piemontese: Regn ?d Sard?gna; also known as Piedmont-Sardinia or Sardinia-Piedmont) consisted of the possessions of the House of Savoy from 1720 or 1723 onwards, following the award of the crown of Sardinia to King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy under the Treaty of The Hague (1720). This compensated him for the loss of the crown of Sicily to Austria and allowed him to retain the title of king, as the title "King of Sardinia" had existed since the 14th century.

Kingdom of Sardinia

Besides Sardinia, the Savoyard state at that time included Savoy, Piedmont, and Nice; Liguria, including Genoa, was added by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. During most of the 18th and 19th centuries, the political and economic capital of the kingdom was Turin in Piedmont on the Italian mainland. In 1860, Nice and Savoy were ceded to France in return for French consent and assistance in Italian unification. In 1861, the Kingdom of Sardinia became the founding state of the new Kingdom of Italy, annexing all other Italian states. The Kingdom thus continued in legal continuity with the new Italian state, to which it transferred all its institutions.

(source: Wikipedia)
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The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Italian: Regno delle Due Sicilie; Sicilian: Regnu d? Dui Sicili; Neapolitan: Regno d' 'e dduje Sicilie) was the largest of the Italian states before Italian unification. It was formed of a union of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples in 1816 and lasted until 1860, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, which became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The Two Sicilies had its capital in Naples and was commonly referred to in English as the "Kingdom of Naples".

Map of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The kingdom extended over the Mezzogiorno (the southern part of mainland Italy) and the island of Sicily. Lancaster notes that the integration of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the Kingdom of Italy changed the status of Naples forever: "Abject poverty meant that, throughout Naples and Southern Italy, thousands decided to leave in search of a better future." Many went to the United States. It was heavily agricultural, like the other Italian states; the church owned 50?65% of the land by 1750.

(source: Wikipedia)
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Redshirts (Italian Camicie rosse) or Red coats (Italian Giubbe Rosse) is the name given to the volunteers who followed Giuseppe Garibaldi in southern Italy during his Mille expedition to southern Italy, but sometimes extended to other campaigns of his. The name derived from the colour of their shirts (complete uniforms were beyond the finances of the Italian patriots).

Garibaldi, in a popular colour lithograph
Garibaldi, in a popular colour lithograph

(source: Wikipedia)
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The Spanish Civil War was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the established Spanish republic, and the Nationalists, a rebel group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists prevailed and Franco would rule Spain for the next 36 years.

Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936, by Robert Capa.
Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death,
Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936
, by Robert Capa.


The war began after a pronunciamiento (declaration of opposition) by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces under the leadership of Jos? Sanjurjo against the elected government of the Second Spanish Republic, at the time under the leadership of President Manuel Aza?a. The rebel coup was supported by a number of conservative groups including the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, monarchists such as the religious conservative Carlists, and the Fascist Falange.

The coup was supported by military units in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Valladolid, C?diz, Cordova, and Seville. However, barracks in important cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and M?laga did not join in the rebellion. Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided. The rebels, led by General Franco, then embarked upon a war of attrition against the established government for the control of the country. The rebel forces received support from Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and neighboring Portugal, while the Soviet Union and Mexico intervened in support of the "loyalist," or Republican, side. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, operated an official policy of non-intervention.

Atrocities were committed by both sides in the war. Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces to consolidate the future regime. A smaller but significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, normally associated with a breakdown in law and order. The extent to which killings in Republican territory were carried out with connivance of the Republican authorities varied. The Civil War became notable for the passion and political division it inspired. Tens of thousands of civilians on both sides were killed for their political or religious views, and after the War's conclusion in 1939, those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists.

The war ended with the victory of the Nationalists and the exile of thousands of left-leaning Spaniards, many of whom fled to refugee camps in Southern France. With the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco in the aftermath of the Civil War, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime.

(source: Wikipedia)

LITERARY MOVEMENTS

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The Baroque is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe.

Still-life, Josefa de ?bidos
Still-life, by Portuguese painter Josefa de ?bidos, c.1679, Santar?m, Portugal, Municipal Library

(source: Wikipedia)
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The Generation of '27 (Spanish: Generaci?n del 27) was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of the baroque poet Luis de G?ngora.

Monument to Gerardo Diego in Madrid
Monument to Gerardo Diego, Madrid.

Writers and intellectuals celebrated an homage in the Ateneo de Sevilla, which retrospectively became the foundational act of the movement. One of the members of this group was Federico Garc?a Lorca.

(source: Wikipedia)

LITERARY TERMS

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Allegory is a device in which characters or events represent or symbolize ideas and concepts. Allegory has been used widely throughout the history of art, and in all forms of artwork. A reason for this is that allegory has an immense power of illustrating complex ideas and concepts in a digestible, concrete way. In allegory a message is communicated by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric; a rhetorical allegory is a demonstrative form of representation conveying meaning other than the words that are spoken.

Allegory of arithmetic, by Laurent de La Hyre, ca 1650
Allegory of arithmetic, by Laurent de La Hyre, ca 1650

As a literary device, an allegory in its most general sense is an extended metaphor. One of the best known examples is Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave." In this allegory, there are a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to the allegory, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality.

(source: Wikipedia)
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A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object. Metaphor is a type of analogy and is closely related to other rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance including allegory, hyperbole, and simile.

One of the most prominent examples of a metaphor in English literature is the All the world's a stage monologue from As You Like It:

All the world?s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;

William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7

This quote is a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage. By figuratively asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses the points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the lives of the people within it.