#that would be Silesia

[sarcasticdolphin]

.

[enlitment]

New mission after exam period: start editing the Czech Wikipedia to remove the ridiculous homophobic bias

Fricking Frederick the Great?

English wiki: "Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, and his sexuality has been the subject of much study"

Czech wiki: (rough translation): "Some people claim that he might have been infertile or even a homosexual (gasp!), though this remains questionable"

Seriously, bite me.

[caluski]

And you know, yesterday annoyed me by reminding me how fucking MUCH it sucks to have long distance relations with people regarding birthday gifts. In general I fucking hate online friendships in terms of how damn LIMITING they are, it really hurts in a lot of ways but then come their birthdays or Christmas or any other occasion... And you can't really bring them a handmade cake... Not funny helium balloons rearranged as 81 instead of 18.... And since I've started exchanging snail mail with Żmija every now and then, I keep getting angry at the thought that it is basically not possible (or at least - not SAFE) for me to send her a homemade wine made from like, her favorite fruits. It genuinely fucking sucks.

[magpiesbones]

accidentally made a character design that fucks so hard I now must fight the urge to draft a pattern and sew it

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

i had a crazy idea. you know how people make 'sonas for various fandsoms? like a lotr or star wars character? what if you had to make a napoleonic 'sona like a marshalsona or something

Oh man, I guess I don't operate in that corner of the fandoms I'm in so I've never come across that. I associate 'sonas with fursona and other sex-play related things, not fandom. I also personally don't do self-inserts, they're just not to my taste or my style.

If I had to create a self-insert (I think that's what this would qualify as?) for the Napoleonic world I'd 100% just be a long suffering, over-worked civil servant (...which is what I am in real life) OR I'd be a scheming diplomat. So, a Berthier or a Cambeceres or a Talleyrand. Something in that ballpark.

Hmm, probably scheming diplomat or spy. Since that sounds fun.

I'm not terribly into military things (perhaps a surprise?) so being a marshal or a soldier holds no appeal.

Since my character would operate rather high up in the Napoleonic governance structure, they'd have to be damn good at their job because Napoleon didn't suffer fools. I like to think they'd have a bit of Larrey or Lannes' guts in terms of telling Napoleon facts as they are and confronting him when he is making massive, fucking mistakes. Which as the empire continued on, he made more of and was less receptive to critique.

For sure my character would be buddies with Talleyrand and would have an ongoing letter-friendship(?) with Metternich. They'd hang out with Fouche just to get the gossip on everyone but since we all know Fouche is a snake, they wouldn't trust him an inch.

The more I think about it, the more I'm here for them being a spy or agent of some kind who isup to no good, but on behalf of the Empire. An Antonio Cincinello sort of figure (he was a ruthless diplomat/envoy/spy who worked on behalf of king Ferrante of Naples [yes, the one with the museum of mummies of his enemies]). Hopefully my character won't be hacked to death by an angry mob, unlike Cincinello.

So, a mash-up of Thomas Cromwell, Talleyrand, and Cincinello.

My character and Talleyrand would have wine-and-whine sessions where we bitch about people, mostly the Bonapartes and all the crap we put up with from them and on their behalf.

My character does know some of Talleyrand's less-than-loyal-to-Napoleon's schemes but doesn't tell but they're not some godless narc.

Talleyrand: you can't tell a soul.

My character: I'm offended that you think I'm a snitch, honestly.

Appearance I suppose would be unassuming. Nothing to write home about. Um, yeah, I don't know what I'd go for in terms of appearance. Since this is aself-insert do they have to look like me? Just make me a dude, then. Which means I'd look like my father lol. If I get to choose my appearance uhh brown or black hair? Long features, big eyes, ummmm I don' t know man. Average. lol.

I'm sorry if this isn't the right way to answer this! I've never done this before and haven't really seen this sort of thing, again, outside of sexual fantasy situations! Or fursonas, which runs the gamot from pedestrian to very sexual.

Thank you for the ask! <3 <3

[wszczebrzyszynie]

sorry for the train ride… I hope the destination is at least interesting. I would LOVE to hear more about Przemek… he’s one of my absolute faves and I would honestly love to hear anything about him… maybe what inspired you to make him? or how he feels about his sexuality? or maybe his ethnicity (which I remember you saying you didn’t really have an answer for, but maybe you could talk about possible ideas you’ve had for it or how it affects his personality/how people treat him)

Nothing to be sorry for. i love trains. But it is a long trip with nothing but my phone and one book. Well not anymore im in Gdańsk now

Any way this is fun Przemek is one of my favourites as well. I created him because i wanted Ryba to have more friends, so he was very much a side/background character that i learned to love very much very quickly. Im not even sure why. Design wise there were plenty of inspirations... mainly the unbread twins from omori (which i think is where Lena came from as well and it shows), Artur from parties are for losers and Norton IDV (hence the scar... in the first draft Przemek was also a miner so it was very much my Norton at home). He used to be the straight man to Rybas whole... being at that time. They used to be childhood friends but Przemek was the smarter and more of a loner of the two. Tried looking for some old art of him but couldnt find much

Sexuality wise hes mostly in denial. He doesnt like thinking of himself as queer and doesnt want to be considered a part of the community, which affects the way he treats others (initial embarrasement to be seen with Ryba or Mikita, who are either visibly queer or just simply stand out; he grows out of it as the story progresses) and later on shapes his relationship with Ryba (mostly his struggles with being vunreable and opening up mixed with a very crushing need to be normal; he tends to force himself to do things he doesnt really want but thinks will be either for the ultimate greater good or just to be able to lie to himself more, either harming himself or Ryba in the process. Communication is a skill they both are learning as they go but it is a hard one)

And exact ethnicity wise I Dont Know. Well i mean he is polish ethnically and culturally but he does have darker skin from back where the story was set in a fictional dystopian world and i never figured out how to make it work with the background he has in current more historically grounded DNS. Most probably will never know until it just dawns on me one day. In the original DNS story hes simply "from here" (as is the case with most of the characters) and it doesnt really shape his experience as much as his class and upbringing does; hes catholic, he speaks polish, his family are peasants and hes a working man. In modern au its a different case that i dont know how to resolve and he does have a different experience with it; i dont like being cruel to my characters, especially with things i dont have personal experiences with, but i do know my country pretty well, so i can imagine some of the hardships he has to go through. It definitely can be a stress factor; hes a shy, slightly anxious person (which he doesnt even realize that he is? Second nature), so "standing out" and possible conftontations that can come with looking different in a relatively middle sized nowhere town is something he had to learn how to ignore throughout his life. I will finish this by saying i think it would be funny if it turned out some of his ancestors are from the old yugoslavia but not to explain anything just because i think at some point he used to be half balkan (and also many other slavic identites) . No clue from where exactly and it wouldnt affect him at all. Normal thing in lower silesia but he is from the other side of the country. Sadly. Bit of a lacking response hope you can forgive me for that

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Barborka and Permoník, two Silesian Coalwings

The Silesian Coalwing (wůnglok ślůnski/węglak śląski/slezský uhelák/Schlesischer Kohlvogel) is a small courier-class working breed used by miners in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (and other mining regions around Central Europe, though many areas prefer the larger Alpine Stollenwurm). Used in mining for as long as there have been coal mines in Silesia, these hardy little dragons were bred from firebreathing ferals who would dig for coal as fuel to incubate their eggs to make up for the lack of local volcanoes, particularly in the Landek area where erosion exposed black coal veins to the surface. For this reason, these dragons are sometimes referred to as "landečak". Other common names are "darkovak", "węglowód", or the affectionate "šlonzoček", "uhelníček", "węglarek" and many others (a common joke is that every mine has its own name for the breed). The English and German names for the breed reference a common occurence when this breed is in flight - since they are almost permanently covered in a layer of coal dust, they leave a slight trail behind them with every wing flap, making it seem almost as if their wings were smoking.

They are a very hardy breed, although small, they possess great physical strength allowing them to pull minecarts and carry coal by air from mines to coal preparation plants. Each unit of miners typically has one Coalwing, harnessed typically by the foreman, and share a bond similar to that of a military dragon and its crew. This is an important factor in mine rescue since this way the unit has a powerful animal particularly motivated to get its miners to safety.

As firebreathers, although rather weak, young dragons of this breed have to be carefully taught to suppress their flame to prevent disasters in case of undetected gas leaks.

They are not the only European breed to seek out coal for egg incubation, but they are one of the few breeds that actively dig underground. Some other breeds have been known to bury their eggs in man-made charcoal piles and kilns, which is presumed to have been the origin of dragon domestication in Europe somewhere during the Iron Age

[balkanradfem]

"Growing flax to make linen was one of the oldest human activities in Europe, particularly in the Rhineland. Archeologists have found linen textiles among the settlements of Neolithic cultivators along the shores of Lake Neuchâtel in the Jura Mountains west of Bern, Switzerland. These were elaborate pieces: Stone Age clothmakers of the Swiss lakeshores sewed pierced fruit pits in a careful line into a fabric with woven stripes. The culture spread down the Rhine and into the lowland regions.

The Roman author Pliny observed in the first century AD that German women wove and wore linen sheets. By the ninth century flax had spread through Germany. By the sixteenth century, flax was produced in many parts of Europe, but the corridor from western Switzerland to the mouth of the Rhine contained the oldest region of large-scale commercial flax and linen production. In the late Middle Ages the linen of Germany was sold nearly everywhere in Europe, and Germany produced more linen than any other region in the world.

At this juncture, linen weavers became victims of an odd prejudice. “Better skinner than linen weaver,” ran one cryptic medieval German taunt. Another macabre popular saying had it that linen weavers were worse than those who “carried the ladders to the gallows.” The reason why linen weavers were slandered in this way, historians suspect, was that although linen weavers had professionalized and organized themselves into guilds, they had been unable to prevent homemade linen from getting onto the market. Guilds appeared across Europe between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries but many of the items they produced for exchange, like textiles and soap, were also produced at home right up through the nineteenth century. The intricate regulations of the guilds—determining who could join, how they would be trained, what goods they would produce, and how these could be exchanged—were mainly designed to distinguish guild work from this homely labor. That linen making continued to be carried out inside of households—a liability for guilds in general—lent a taint to the linen guild in particular.

In the seventeenth century, guilds came under pressure from a new, protocapitalist mode of production. Looking for cheaper cloth to sell on foreign markets, entrepreneurs cased the Central European countryside offering to pay cash to home producers for goods. Rural households became export manufacturing centers and a major source of competition with the guilds. These producers could undercut the prices of urban craftsmen because they could use the unregulated labor of their family members, and because their own agricultural production allowed them to sell their goods for less than their subsistence costs.

The uneasiness between guild and household production in the countryside erupted into open hostility. In the 1620s, linen guildsmen marched on villages, attacking competitors, and burning their looms. In February 1627 Zittau guild masters smashed looms and seized the yarn of home weavers in the villages of Oderwitz, Olbersdorf, and Herwigsdorf.

Guilds had long worked to keep homemade products from getting on the market. In their death throes, they hit upon a new and potent weapon: gender. Although women in medieval Europe wove at home for domestic consumption, many had also been guild artisans. Women were freely admitted as masters into

the earliest medieval guilds, and statutes from Silesia and the Oberlausitz show that women were master weavers. Thirteenth-century Paris had eighty mixed craft guilds of men and women and fifteen female-dominated guilds for such trades as gold thread, yarn, silk, and dress manufacturing. Up until the mid-seventeenth century, guilds had belittled home production because it was unregulated, nonprofessional, and competitive. In the mid-seventeenth century this work was identified as women’s work, and guildsmen unable to compete against cheaper household production tried to eject women from the market entirely. Single women were barred from independent participation in the guilds. Women were restricted to working as domestic servants, farmhands, spinners, knitters, embroiderers, hawkers, wet nurses. They lost ground even where the jobs had been traditionally their own, such as ale brewing and midwifery, by the end of the seventeenth century.

The wholesale ejection of women from the market during this period was achieved not only through guild statute, but through legal, literary, and cultural means. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries women lost the legal right to conduct economic activity as femes soles. In France they were declared legal “imbeciles,” and lost the right to make contracts or represent themselves in court. In Italy, they began to appear in court less frequently to denounce abuses against them. In Germany, when middle-class women were widowed it became customary to appoint a tutor to manage their affairs. As the medieval historian Martha Howell writes, “Comedies and satires of this period…often portrayed market women and trades women as shrews, with characterizations that not only ridiculed or scolded them for taking on roles in market production but frequently even charged them with sexual aggression.” This was a period rich in literature about the correction of errant women: Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1590–94), John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1629–33), Joseph Swetnam’s “The Araignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women” (1615). Meanwhile, Protestant reformers and Counter-Reformation Catholics established doctrinally that women were inherently inferior to men.

This period, called the European Age of Reason, successfully banished women from the market and transformed them into the sweet and passive beings that emerged in Victorian literature. Women accused of being scolds were paraded in the streets wearing a new device called a “branks,” an iron muzzle that depressed the tongue. Prostitutes were subjected to fake drowning, whipped, and caged. Women convicted of adultery were sentenced to capital punishment.

As a cultural project, this was not merely recreational sadism. Rather, it was an ideological achievement that would have lasting and massive economic consequences. Political philosopher Silvia Federici has argued this expulsion was an intervention so massive, it ought to be included as one of a triptych of violent seizures, along with the Enclosure Acts and imperialism, that allowed capitalism to launch itself.

Part of why women resisted enclosure so fiercely was because they had the most to lose. The end of subsistence meant that households needed to rely on money rather than the production of agricultural goods like cloth, and women had successfully been excluded from ways to earn. As labor historian Alice Kessler-Harris has argued, “In pre-industrial societies, nearly everybody worked, and almost nobody worked for wages.” During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, monetary relations began to dominate economic life in Europe. Barred from most wage work just as the wage became essential, women were shunted into a position of chronic poverty and financial dependence. This was the dominant socioeconomic reality when the first modern factory, a cotton-spinning mill, opened in 1771 in Derbyshire, England, an event destined to upend still further the pattern of daily life."

- Sofi Thanhauser, Worn: A People's History of Clothing

[justpentdraws]

THEY'RE PULLING THROUGH!!!!!

I would like to request a docm77 mayhaps :3

lower silesia, where i live, is flooding currently, so i drew the him dealing with the water

vote roomies at LSAB!

[tiredwitchplant]

Everything You Need to Know About Crystals: Chrysoprase

The Stone of Venus

Requested by @acovenoftwo

Chemical Formula:  SiO2

Color: Apple green, lemon

Rarity: Easy to obtain as a tumble stone, finer quality is expensive

Hardiness: 7

Type: Chalcedony

Chakra Association: Heart and Solar Plexus

Deities: Venus

Birthstone: May

Astrological Signs: Gemini, Taurus

Element: Water

Planet: Mercury

Origin: Formerly Poland, Now Australia, Brazil, Madagascar, Russia, Tanzania, USA

Powers: Encouraging development, Compassion, Tolerance, Growth, Forgiveness, Connection to Nature

Crystals It Works Well With: Mountain “jade”, Tourmaline, Smokey Quartz

How It is Created: Chrysoprase is a type of chalcedony quartz with a microcrystalline structure. Its color comes from nickel deposits, and it can be found in pale shades through to brighter green. Raw pieces have a granular appearance, similar to pieces of coconut, and a waxy sheen when polished.

History: Chrysoprase, called Stone of Venus because in antiquity it represented the goddess of divine love, the famous Venus, is a magnificent apple-green nickeliferous chalcedony belonging to the family of microcrystalline quartz. The ancient Egyptians also used chrysoprase for practical purposes such as sealing letters, but they would also wear pendants, amulets and other jewelry made of chrysoprase. For hundreds of years, the only major source of chrysoprase was a region of southwestern Poland between the Czech Republic and Germany, formerly known as Lower Silesia. This area has a complex geology and is extremely rich in all kinds of mineral deposits, including gold, silver, serpentine, quartz, marble, granite, alabaster—and chrysoprase. Stone artifacts from as far back as the Iron Age show the long history of Silesian carving and masonry. In the eighteenth century, Frederick II, King of Prussia (now part of Germany), conquered Lower Silesia. In particular, he wanted its deposits of green chrysoprase, which he used to decorate the halls of his favorite palace at Potsdam near Berlin.

What It Can Do:

Known as the healer of the heart space and helps connect you with infinite supply of compassion and love

Supports cardiac health and provides a centered peace

Helps people suffering from melancholy and manifests optimism and joy

Can be placed by homegrown herbs and vegetables to boost production

Perfect to artist as it increases creativity and talent

Encourages fidelity, forgiveness, compassion, and nonjudgmental thinking in relationships, while banishing greed and selfishness

Helps with inducing deep meditative states and promotes the love of truth

Calming and nonegotistical, creating openness in new situations

Stimulates fluent speech and mental dexterity, preventing you from speaking out unthinkingly in anger

Lifts oppressive and recurrent images, preventing nightmares, especially in children

Is said to detoxify heavy metals in one’s body and stimulate liver function

Is said to enhance fertility, reverse effects of infertility that are caused by infection and guard against STIs

Increases the absorption of Vitamin C

How to Get the Best Out Of: Wear as a necklace, bracelet, earrings or even use it in an elixir. Carrying chrysoprase for long periods attunes to the devic realm, a band of frequency found present on Earth which can connect you to nature and the planet directly

How to Cleanse and Charge: Can be cleansed briefly under running water then recharged overnight among a host of rock crystals for a few weeks. Cleanse during a rain shower for optimized cleansing,

Crystal Grid:

Healing for Children (Nightmares)

Shape: Fruit of Life

• 6 “issue” or calming stones

• 4 grounding crystals

• 2 light-bringing crystals

1. Hold your crystals in your hands and state your intention for the grid.

2. Lay the central keystone to represent your child.

3. Lay six crystals around the keystone to assist with the challenge or issue. (These crystalscan either represent a single issue, or different ones—whichever feels best to you. However,it may be more effective to address separate issues by laying individual grids.)

4. Lay four grounding crystals to anchor the grid at each corner of the “square.”

5. Lay a light-bringing crystal at the top and bottom.

6. Leave in place until the issue or issues have been resolved, remembering to cleanse thegrid regularly.

Crystals to use: Chrysoprase, Amethyst, Prehnite, Bloodstone

Sources

[best-habsburg-monarch]

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, etc. reigned 1740-1780

The empress who reformed the empire while having a ton of children at the same time.

Maximilian , Emperor of Mexico, reign: 1864-1867

The last emperor of Mexico who supported liberal reform against the desires of Mexican conservatives.

Propaganda under the cut:

Maria Theresa:

From anon:

- chucked into ruling at age 23. while pregnant

- no prep!!!! Prussia invades Silesia!!! Ministers fucking around for their own provincial interests instead of for the Whole !!!!! and she has to somehow cope with all of this ....

- ALL WHILE being pregnant with Joseph (II) and we know that guy was just as ornery in utero as he was irl

- she's everything! He (Francis) is just ....Ken.

- YAS QUEEN rediversify that gene pool

- originally reluctant to participate in the 1st partition of poland (who wants galicia let's be real)

Maximilian

From: anon

- He loved plants

- He was a sassy man

- He had good taste

- He learned Nahuatl

- He’s cute (I mean look at him)

- He said “gay rights”

- He banned child labour in Mexico

- He gave many rights back to indigenous people

- Bro was wronged by France (haven’t we all?)

- He’s baby

- Got executed, come on, give him this guys 🥺

- He loved to design gardens and collect insects which makes me think he would've loved playing animal crossing

- An outspoken liberal in a period where the monarchy was still quite conservative.

- Vice-Admiral of the Navy who initiated scientific projects and exploration.

- Aesthetic girlie. Collected flowers, painted, wrote poetry, and kept a journal. He would have loved Tumblr.

- (Probably) gay or bisexual.

- Allegedly slapped Franz Joseph for refusing to allow Lombardy to have an elective body.

- Sisi's favorite brother-in-law (and not in a romantic way, fuck you Netflix)

- Refused to take the Mexican crown until a plebiscite had been held because he wanted to be invited by the Mexican people.

- Gave up all of his Austrian titles to go to Mexico because he believed he had made a promise to them.

- Also, his wife was amazing and capable and the amount of pure misogyny that certain historians and biographers have thrown at her is ridiculous. I know this isn't a Carlota poll, but she'd want Max to win.

- Netflix did him unbelievably dirty. Please give him this.

Did you know my man Max repatriated many pieces of Mexica artefacts?

He told Austria to cough up 3 main things that he thought were rightfully Mexican.

1. The Chimalli

2. A codex

3. A letter from Cortez to the chocolate man people seem to call Charles

The Austrians took their time but eventually gave back something

The Chimalli next to max so people know who to thank for it

[mask131]

Vampires before they were cool... (1)

Before talking about Dracula, before talking about the first vampire in literature, why don’t we talk about the first vampires in beliefs and folklore?

Everybody is convinced that they know what vampires are. And yet they don’t. People were so influenced by the literary and then cinematic depiction of the vampire as the undead seducer, as the demonic aristocrat, as the tortured soul who just looks like a human with some pointy teeth… They forgot what vampires started out as, and the “original” vampire is. Which is actually something quite close to the modern idea of what a “zombie” is today – with some elements of evil ghosts and murderous wraiths thrown in. A ghostly zombie, how cool is that?

Let’s start at the beginning of it all (and maybe we’ll even go before the beginnings): when did the figure of the vampire per-se appeared in Europe? (I won’t talk here of all the proto-vampires and all the beliefs that led to the apparition of the vampire, I’ll keep this for another time).

[Also just to specify, again, because people are going to raise their fingers: this is by no mean an extensive, well-researched, definitive scholarly work. I'm just scribbling notes here and there in case people didn't heard about this stuff or wish to discover new roads to explore]

As I am using the chronology established by Jean Marigny, I will begin with the 11th century. It was in this era that the first rumors about dead people whose corpse was repeatedly found outside of their grave, and untouched by rot, started spreading around. The bishop of Cahors shared a story in 1031, during the second Council of Limoges (it was later relayed by Collin de Plancy in his “Dictionnaire infernal”): according to him, a knight of his congregation who had been excommunicated before dying had his body found several times outside of his grave, as if he kept coming out of it. The blood-sucking or “life-stealing” element would come later: a mix of old “paganism” from the Norse and Celtic beliefs, and of the superstitions of medieval Christianity, the image of the vampire as we would know it today first truly appeared in the British Isles, in Iceland, and in other Scandinavian countries. As early as the 12th century, we find in England stories of dead people (usually excommunicated) who each night leave their grave to either torment their loved ones, or cause a series of unusual deaths. When upon investigation the graves of the deceased were opened, their corpse was found unrotten and covered in blood – to end the “curse”, people usually burned the corpse after piercing it with a sword. Tales of the sort can be found in works such as “De Nugis Curialium” (1193) by Walter Map, or the “Historia Regis Anglicarum” (1196) by William of Newburgh. Since there was no real terminology or word for these creatures, the chronicles usually described them as “cadaver sanguisugus”.

These early cases of vampirism were a recurring thing throughout the following centuries – similar stories can be found all the way up to the Renaissance, though they were usually so episodic and isolated that they did not leave a lasting impact on cultures or beliefs.

It would only be by the 14th century that vampirism would start to exist as an “epidemic” – with manifestations of mass phenomenon in areas such as Bohemia, Silesia or Eastern Prussia. This generalization of vampires, and the sudden “spectacular” nature of their manifestations, is easy to explain: it all coincides with the great plagues epidemics. It was well known that, out of fear of contagion, the dead were very quickly and hastily buried – sometimes before they were even dead… Just being sick and disease enough could lead you to get six feet underground. Of course, as a result, if the graves or vaults were opened a few days later, one would find the body untouched by rot but covered in blood – as the poor people probably tried to claw their way out, or actually died after their burial. These grizzly tragedies, in a 16th century filled with superstitions and tormented by many diseases, resulted in a true boom of the vampire belief. An interesting case showing how even the upper-class of society could not escape is the one of the Prussian baron Steino of Retten. After dying of the plague, he was buried in grandiose funerals with all the honors due to his rank… But the following days, many people claimed to have seen the baron outside of his graves, walking around as if he was still alive. This led to the baron’s grave being opened, and his body pierced many times with a sword to “allow his soul to go to rest”. Numerous similar cases were reported in Bohemia around the same time.

In Western Europe, meanwhile, vampire cases stayed sporadic and episodic… Until 1484. On 1484, the pope Innocent VIII approved the publication of the “Malleus Maleficarum” – while most known as the “witch-hunter manual” which turned the medieval persecutions into an absolute horror, this book by the Dominicans Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer (who notably got into a lot of troubles and fighting with authorities of the Church precisely due to some of the beliefs in this book contradicting the Church teachings) was also an investigation and study of cases of succubus, incubus and undead. When it was said and shared around Europe that the pope had accepted and “sponsored”, so to speak, this book, it was a HUGE wave of shock with lasting effects: it meant the Church was officially recognizing the existence of the undead…

Then, the Reformation would too strengthen the legend of the vampire, during the second half of the 16th century. You see, there was a belief going around (and born during the times of the great plague) that the dead in their graves would devour themselves, as things looking like bite marks or self-devouring appeared on corpses dug out after their burial (again, very likely result of hasty funerals). This led to an entire belief that the dead, when in their grave, would “chew” and “masticate” (many people claimed hearing the jaws of the dead work when passing by their grave), and that they would eat dirt in their grave, their own shrouds, or their own flesh. (The theory of the “masticating corpses” was notoriously illustrated by a 1728 work by Michael Ranft, “De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis Liber”). Soon the belief came that, when the “masticating death” started eating things like shroud or flesh, they would gain evil powers, dark abilities to cause the death of the living being. This led to the tradition of placing things inside the mouth of corpses to prevent them from “chewing”. Luther himself knew and had talked about these cases – he had been told of them by the pastor Georg Röhrer. From 1552 onward, in Prussia and Silesia, it became common to put a stone or a pfenning in the mouth of the dead – and since, again, the term “vampire” did not exist per se, they were called by the German name “Nachzehrer”, a term which was equated with both “predator” and “parasite”.

However, the Protestants taking over these early cases of vampirism is fascinating because it led to a complete change of doctrine as to the origins of vampirism. You see, up until now the “cadaver sanguisugus” were treated by a Catholic angle, and under the Neo-Platonician idea of a “life after death”. The body was deemed a physical vessel, a container of flesh who after death corrupted and dislocated, while the soul kept on living in some afterlife or otherworld awaiting the End of Times. Through redemption, the soul of the sinners could be saved – and these souls were also protected if they received the Christian sacraments before their death. However, those that did not receive the sacraments, or those that simply did not receive the final sacrament (the extreme unction, the sacrament of death), or even those that were not buried in a holy ground (excommunication, death by suicide) were doomed to never know salvation. From this belief came the idea of the “undead”, of the “unresting souls”, of “those that return in the flesh” – dead people who did not belong in this world anymore, and yet had no place in the afterlife. These cases of vampirism were considered as souls who came back from the Purgatory or the afterlife, and inhabited again their earthly bodies. But Protestants? Protestants had a whole other way to see things (for example, for them Purgatory did not exist) and this whole thing of “the souls coming back in their bodies” as nonsense. Instead, they explained these Nachzehrer by… witchcraft.

This was mostly the work of the Reformation theologians of Switzerland, Calvin or Louis Lavater. In 1581, Lavater wrote a treaty about “wraiths and spirits of the night”, and in there he claims that the undead are not the dead coming back to life, but rather demons that take the shape of those that once were living. This idea actually came from 1597, and from the king of Scotland James VI (later James the First of England) – a studier of occult sciences, he had written about these “face-stealing demons” in his work “Demonology” (another work which also greatly strengthened and hardened the witch-hunts and witchcraft-justified persecutions). This Reformation concept led to the cementation of the vampire in European culture as “the servant of the devil”.

[usafphantom2]

15th August, 1939. The Junkers 87 Stukas of I/StG 76 were briefed to put on a dive bombing demonstration for a group of generals near Neuhammer in Silesia. Those assembled included senior Luftwaffe commanders Hugo Sperrle and Wolfram von Richthofen. A weather reconnaissance of the target area reported a layer of broken cloud, but clear visibility below 2,500 feet. This was considered a sufficient safety margin and the unit’s commander, Hauptmann Walter Siegel, took off as planned at 5:30am with his entire Gruppe of 27 aircraft.

Unfortunately for Sigel and his crews, a thick ground fog had developed since the weather report, rising to meet the clouds in some places. The aircraft didn’t have radio communications with the ground, so no warning could be sent. When the Stukas arrived overhead at 12,000 feet, they saw thick cloud below, but believed they would pass through it into clear air, so commenced their attack. The aircraft plunged into a 70 degree dive.

Sigel became concerned that it was taking too long to clear the cloud layer, then, to his horror, he glimpsed trees immediately below. Shouting a warning to his Gruppe, he managed to pull out with only feet to spare, but most of the crews weren’t so lucky. The two Stukas behind Sigel ploughed into the ground, followed by all nine in the second wave. The final section managed to abort their dives just in time, but two further aircraft stalled and crashed in the process. 13 Stukas had been destroyed and all 26 men aboard were killed instantly.

Sigel’s survival would be to the misfortune of the undefended Polish town of Wieluń at 4:30 am on 1st September 1939. In one of the first air attacks of the Second World War, Sigel led his reconstituted unit an a series of bombing and strafing runs which killed or wounded a large number of civilians. Sigel went on to serve in the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, the Mediterranean and North Africa. Later a staff officer, he was killed in an accident on 8th May 1944 during an inspection tour of Luftwaffe units in Norway.

Pictured:

1) Stuka pilot Walter Sigel.

📷 thisdayinaviation.com

2) Junkers Ju87 B-1, the variant involved in the Neuhammer accident and the primary equipment of Stuka units for the first year of the war.

📷 hugojunkers.bplaced.net

@JamieMctrusty via x

[mariacallous]

Although considered a relatively minor ballot, Czechia’s upcoming regional elections will set the clock ticking for the next parliamentary elections scheduled in a year.

“Vineyards are a symbol of hard work. And that’s exactly what awaits us after the regional elections, if we win,” mused ANO vice-president Alena Schillerova as the main opposition party kicked off its campaign in the wine country of South Moravia, where she hails from.

Hard work perhaps, but from a strong position, as the latest polls put her ANO party led by the former prime minister Andrej Babis ahead of any those of the ruling coalition, just months after Babis’s movement emerged victorious from the European Parliament elections.

“All national polls show ANO as the strongest party by far, with very stable voting preferences of around one-third of the electorate,” confirms Martin Buchtik, director of the STEM polling agency.

An expected win?

Four years after the last ballot, Czechs will once more head to the polls on Friday and Saturday to elect the 675 members of the country’s 13 regional councils – except for Prague – who will then elect their governor based on post-election negotiations and alliances.

Despite receiving the most votes in 10 out of 13 regions in 2020, ANO only managed to take control of the three governorships of Usti nad Labem, Zlin and Moravia-Silesia.

This year’s ballot might not prove all that different, with Babis himself suggesting that replicating the results of four years ago would be considered a “success”, while hinting that one or two extra seats of governors would be welcome after three years in opposition to an unpopular government.

But due to the intermingling of regional issues with national politics, the importance of individual personalities – some of them well established – and of local dynamics, nation-wide electoral preferences, or lack thereof, do not automatically translate to the level of regional councils.

“In the Czech conditions, post-elections negotiations matter a lot, and in the past, it often happened that other parties agreed without ANO,” explains Lubomir Kopecek from Masaryk University in Brno, hinting at Babis’s own “personality and populism” as a red line keeping many potential partners away.

“It very much depends on how significant ANO victories will be in specific regions,” he tells BIRN. “In general, however, it is not the case that victory automatically means ANO will rule in the regions.”

More than 8,000 candidates hailing from over 80 political parties and movements are vying for regional council posts this year. And the patchwork of local alliances, ad-hoc cooperations or coalition red-lines may look very different region to region, making it sometimes “even quite difficult for voters to understand what’s going on”, according to STEM’s Buchtik.

‘Racist’ billboards

The far-right SPD party of Tomio Okamura, for instance, has confirmed its cooperation with the Trikolora movement in three regions, while both parties will also campaign alongside the PRO party of rabble-rouser Jindrich Rajchl in six other constituencies, and Svobodni in four of them.

The SPD’s widening network of alliances with extra-parliamentary parties – like PRO – it was bluntly attacking just a few months ago testifies to Okamura’s movement weakening following disappointing EU election results as well as its further radicalisation, analysts believe.

Hence the SPD’s attempt to be even “more extreme, more shocking”, according to Karel Kominek from the Institute of Political Marketing, exemplified by its provocative billboard campaign which has caused shock and outrage across Prague.

On one of the posters, a dark-skinned man with a bloodied knife and clothing is shown with the caption: “The shortcomings in the healthcare sector cannot be solved by imported surgeons”, quickly leading to accusations of racism and disinformation. A criminal complaint has been filed against Okamura’s party, which – presumably unbothered by the extra publicity – focused on the technological merits of their campaign.

“The SPD is the first Czech party that uses the most modern technologies,” Okamura proudly declared as he confirmed the visuals were created with the help of artificial intelligence.

“I think this is really a typical example of how controversial and polarised the upcoming parliamentary campaign will be, which has already technically started with the upcoming regional and Senate elections,” Pavel Havlicek, an analyst at the Association for International Affairs, told Czech Radio.

“This is a good example of how most of the limits of the past are now broken, and most things will unfortunately be possible to say in the public space,” he added.

Nonetheless, Buchtik from the STEM agency does not expect a strong rise of support for extremist parties like the SPD “that traditionally do not fare too well in regional elections” and currently hold a total of 35 seats in nine different regions. “It’s not going to be like in Germany”, he predicts in reference to the regional gains of the far-right AfD party a few weeks ago just across the border.

Polarisation ahead

True to form, the main opposition parties – including Babis’s ANO and Okamura’s SPD – have resorted to turning the upcoming ballot into a referendum on the current five-party coalition of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, which remains unpopular 12 months before the end of its term.

“The main topic of the campaign is whether you’re for or against the government,” Buchtik tells BIRN, nonetheless adding that regional considerations also come into play.

Socio-economic problems are high on the agenda in the poorer regions of Usti nad Labem or Karlovy Vary, he says, fertile ground for ANO and other opposition parties, while analysts expect regions that are better off – like Central Bohemia and South Moravia – to remain in the current centre-right government’s fold.

“Suggesting this is some kind of referendum on the government simply does not work,” Interior Minister Vit Rakusan argued. “This is a referendum on life in individual regions, whether governors have proven themselves or not. Our people are not stupid, they will not be deceived or fooled.”

While the opposition tries to capitalise on low public trust in the ruling coalition and their tainted track-record at the national level, government parties in turn put the “emphasis on regional issues and typically also take advantage of the fact that they have filled most of the positions of governors,” analyses Kopecek from Masaryk University

Coalition-backed governors, on the other hand, are aware of the need to distance themselves from national party affiliation, often choosing to personalise their election bid, like South Bohemia governor Martin Kuba who has launched his campaign without the ruling ODS or SPOLU branding.

Considering the unpopularity of the government, “it makes sense for him to build the campaign around himself”, assesses Otto Eibl from Masaryk University in Brno, while ANO, on the other hand, has proven much less shy in giving centre stage to its national leadership in order to give a boost to the campaign of sometimes lesser-known local figures.

In general, however, many Czechs express little interest in regional elections – the last turnout in 2020 stood at just 38 per cent – and a similarly low level of awareness as to who their governor is or what kind of competence regional councils have in terms of policymaking.

“People identify more with mayors, who often deal with them directly, or with national politicians who appear daily on television,” assessed Milan Skolnik, a political scientist from the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague.

At the same time as regional councils, Czechs will go to the polls to elect a third of the 81-member Senate, currently dominated by the five-party government coalition.

“No big changes are expected,” Buchtik tells BIRN, nevertheless adding that the performance of ANO, which has never fared too well in senatorial elections, is worth keeping an eye on.

“It will also be interesting to see whether Prisaha leader Robert Slachta will manage to win a seat in the Senate,” he adds, as his potential victory or defeat could be instrumental in determining the future or unravelling of the Prisaha-Motorista coalition – the surprise breakthrough of June’s European ballot – ahead of the 2025 legislative elections.

Another example showing that while neither regional nor senatorial elections are expected to bring dramatic changes to Czechia’s political landscape, both will be indicative of the 12 months that lie ahead, giving a picture of where voter preferences lie, how public debate will be shaped over the coming year, and whether political alliances – old and new – will hold in an increasingly polarised climate.

[wszczebrzyszynie]

are your stories are influenced by where you are from, like aside of being polish, more like a concrete area? just curious if anyone else has it like this

(also I'm SO SO SORRY for spamming u with likes in past hour it won't happen again I'm sorry 😭😭😭😭)

jest oki. I would say no, as my main stories take place outside of lower silesia? I like living here but its not much inspiration wise, which makes sense considering that 2/3 of my original stories are also set in the 19th century. DNS is set in eastern poland, KHK in upper silesia, and the Václavs story is a fantasy version of polish and czech silesia

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

If you grew up in Ostrava or another town narrowly on the Moravian side of the Moravia/Silesia border you either identify as:

• Moravian because that's where you live

• Silesian because your teen emo ass thought the Silesian Eagle is cooler than the Moravian one and you never accepted that your coat of arms would be the checkered flannel chicken