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Orientation: places, names and peoples |
A journalistic cliche of the nineteenth century described the Kosovo region as the lost heart of the Balkans. Like many cliches, this one was both slightly foolish and, at the same time, suggestive of a significant truth. Although Kosovo has played a central role in Balkan history, it has remained, during much of that ... |
The present borders of Kosovo -- that is, of the `Autonomous Province' of the post-1945 Yugoslav constitutions -- are of course the products of political history. At the same time, they correspond more or less to a physical fact. Kosovo forms a geographical unit because it is ringed by ranges of mountains and hills... |
Within this ring of peaks and hills, the interior of Kosovo is raised up, its plains qualifying as plateaux, 1,200 feet or more above sea level. Some idea of the elevation, and the near-central position of Kosovo in this Balkan region, can be gained from the curious fact that rivers run out of Kosovo into each of t... |
Running from north to south through the middle of Kosovo is a lesser range of hills which divides the whole territory into two roughly equal halves: streams running off the eastern side of these hills will flow into the Ibar and the Danube, while the western side sends its waters to the White Drin and the Adriatic.... |
Where Kosovo's eastern half is concerned, confusion arises because this sub-division of Kosovo is itself known simply as `Kosovo'. (Historically, the confusion happened the other way around: it is this area which gave its name to the entire territory, rather in the way that Holland, one of the component territories... |
In order to hold some of these confusions at bay, a simple rule will be adopted in this book. The term `Kosovo' will refer to the entire geographical region in accordance with its post-1945 borders (the so-called Kosovo and Metohija). The western half of Kosovo will be called Western Kosovo; the eastern half will b... |
Geography, or rather geology, supplies one essential reason for the enduring historical importance of Kosovo -- particularly of its eastern half. It contains the greatest concentration of mineral wealth in the whole of south-eastern Europe. The Trepca mine (Srb.: Trepca; near Mitrovica, 30 miles north of Prishtina)... |
But of all the mineral assets of Kosovo, the most important for much of its earlier history was its wealth of silver. There was mining in this area in pre-Roman times, and both silver and lead (and, probably, some gold) were mined extensively during the Roman period. The medieval Serbian kingdom drew much of its we... |
Geography also explains why the possession of this territory has always been important for strategic reasons. Despite its ring of mountains, Kosovo has always been a crossing-place for both merchant caravans and armies. It is true, admittedly, that the most important routes in the western and central Balkans lay el... |
But Kosovo did possess two routes of real importance. The first linked it with the city of Shkodra, a major trading centre in north-western Albania (connected by a short stretch of navigable river to the Adriatic coast). From Shkodra an old caravan track, based partly on a Roman military road, wound through the mou... |
The second important long-distance route, also connecting Kosovo to the Adriatic coast, began in Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik). This extraordinary commercial city-state, at the southern end of modern Croatia, was in some periods the main rival of Venice in the trade of the Eastern Mediterranean, and gained a privileged... |
Trading-routes can play a great role in history; but the strategic importance of Kosovo is not a question of roads alone. A glance at the map of the Balkans will show why Kosovo mattered so crucially to the Ottoman sultans. Whoever held Kosovo would control their strategic access to Bosnia and northern Albania, and... |
Some of the links between Kosovo and its surrounding territories have now been briefly sketched; it may be helpful to add a few more details here about those neighbouring areas, which have been connected with Kosovo not only by trade and war but also by overlapping populations. Just to the north and north-west of K... |
Moving clockwise round Kosovo again, one comes to the upper Morava valley, the area of Serbia south of Nis. This region too had a large Muslim Albanian minority in the later Ottoman period, until the wars of the 1870s and the territorial changes of 1878 enabled the Serbian authorities to expel the Albanians en mass... |
Passing westwards along the Kosovo-Macedonian border, one finds at first, in the hills of the Skopska Crna Gora, a fairly clear ethnic frontier between Albanians and Macedonians. The Macedonians are Slavs whose language is quite distinct from Serbian and closely related to Bulgarian. In the past, populations have s... |
To the north-west of Debar lie the great mountain massifs of northern Albania. Inhabited by powerful clans (many of them Catholic) who jealously guarded their territory and lived by their own customary law, this area enjoyed a kind of semi-autonomy for much of the Ottoman period. As one English traveller in the lat... |
Finally, north of the Malesi, there are the mountains of Montenegro. The Montenegrins are generally regarded, in ethnic terms, as a type of Serb, and their adherence to the Orthodox Church has indeed aligned them closely to the Serbian cultural world, rather than to the Croatian or Bosnian. But Montenegro has led a... |
As these details may already have suggested, the two main ethnic groups whose history will dominate this book -- Serbs and Albanians -- are far from being homogeneous blocs of humankind. There are many variations within each of them, different ethnic roots, regional varieties and different cultural and religious al... |
Generalizations about `the Serbs' or `the Albanians' are always slightly suspect, and statements about `national character' are of no explanatory value to the historian. But some characteristics -- social practices, inherited traditions -- can be broadly described, and a few words about them may be of some use to r... |
The Serbs of modern Kosovo come, as we shall see, from many different stocks, some of which migrated to Kosovo from Dalmatia or Bosnia or northern Serbia. Within Kosovo, however, their differences of origin were largely discarded, and they shared a common way of life, touched to some extent (in matters of clothing,... |
The same factors help to explain the famous zadruga or family commune, which involves several generations of the same family living together (usually in a group of houses protected by an outer wall) and functioning as a single economic unit. The zadruga died out in most parts of Serbia in the late nineteenth centur... |
There are many other aspects of the traditional way of life of the Serb peasant which can be found mirrored in his Albanian counterpart. Some may be historical products of shared centuries of Ottoman rule; others may reflect a common heritage at a far deeper level. Codes of honour, respect for military prowess, a s... |
Of the things that differentiate Serbs and Albanians, the most obvious is language. But although the Serbian language clearly separates Serbs from Albanians, it does not so clearly constitute Serbs as Serbs: the type of dialect and pronunciation used in Serbia shades off -- in Bosnia, for example, and in Montenegro... |
However, although Serbian Orthodoxy may in this way have a national-political dimension to it, Western readers should be reminded that the type of Christianity found in the Orthodox Church is in some ways much further removed from social and political matters than is the case with Protestantism or Roman Catholicism... |
These issues are relevant to any study of the Kosovo question, not only because of the quasi-religious fervour of some Serbian writers and politicians on this subject, but also because the Patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church is located at the Western Kosovo town of Pec. Let the last word on the general ques... |
The religious sentiment of the Servians [i.e. Serbians] is neither deep nor warm. Their churches are generally empty, except on very great Church festivals, and on political festivals. The Servians of our day consider the Church as a political institution, in some mysterious manner connected with the existence of the n... |
No religion, on the other hand, unites the Albanians. There is an autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church, but it gained its autonomy from the Greek Church only as recently as 1923; its members are all in the southern half of Albania (or in the emigre community), and it has played no part in the history of Kosovo. O... |
The other division in the overall Albanian population is between the Gegs, who live in northern Albania and Kosovo, and the Tosks, who live in southern Albania. (There are also two smaller southern groups who are considered distinct from the Tosks, the Cams and the Labs, but these can be ignored here.) The differen... |
The linguistic differences between Gegs and Tosks are striking, but not large enough to get in the way of mutual intelligibility; in most respects the gulf is no greater than that between Scotland and the south of England. To the outsider, the most obvious differences are in the pronunciation of certain vowels (nas... |
The basis of the traditional Geg social system, as mentioned already, is the clan. The Albanian word for this, fis, is also sometimes translated `tribe' (like the Serbian word pleme, which refers to the Montenegrin equivalent). Northern Albanian society was strictly patrilinear, which means that descent was calcula... |
A smaller collective sub-group within an Albanian clan -- or, at least, within most of them -- was the vellazeri, or brotherhood (Srb.: bratstvo), which did indeed consist of a group of blood-related families (again, only through the male line). The vellazeri was like a looser version of a zadruga: the family struc... |
In between those two collective identities, large and small, some other groupings also existed. Some of the larger clans were divided into (or had been composed of) several smaller clans. With their belief in patrilinear descent, the malesors regarded any relative on the paternal side as the same blood, and marriag... |
The other important grouping was the bajrak, a word derived from the Turkish for a banner or military standard. This institution, which became a more or less organic part of the clan system, was originally an alien administrative device, imposed on the area by the Ottomans from the seventeenth century onwards. Its ... |
One sign of the alien origin of the office of bajraktar was that it was a hereditary rifle. Most of the Albanian clans, despite their obsession with male genealogy, had not regarded the authority to rule as an inheritable good. (The main exception was the Mirdita, the largest and most untypical of the Catholic clan... |
No such system of local self-government could subsist without a strong framework of customary law. Large-scale assemblies were infrequent, and were usually aimed at getting agreement on action or policy, not at legislation. All the essential rules of human life -- relating to marriage, inheritance, pasture rights, ... |
The importance of the Kanun to the ordinary life of the Albanians of Kosovo and the Malesi can hardly be exaggerated. `Whenever in the mountains I asked why anything was done,' wrote Edith Durham in the 1920s, `I was told, "Because Lek ordered it." ... "Lek said so" obtained more obedience than the Ten Commandments... |
One leading scholar has summed up the basic principles of the Kanun as follows. The foundation of it all is the principle of personal honour. Next comes the equality of persons. From these flows a third principle, the freedom of each to act in accordance with his own honour, within the limits of the law, without be... |
As several details will already have suggested, this was very much a man's world. The reference to `equality of persons' above needs some qualification. Women had their honour, but it existed through, and was defended by, men. Of all the proverbial sayings in the Kanun, few will offend modern sensibilities as sharp... |
A woman in the mountains, in spite of the severe work she is forced to do, is in many ways freer than the women of Scutari. She speaks freely to the men; is often very bright and intelligent, and her opinion may be asked and taken. I have seen a man bring his wife to give evidence in some case under dispute. I have als... |
Which brings us back, finally, to the blood-feud. This is one of the most archaic features of northern Albanian society, resembling the codes that govern other isolated societies in the Mediterranean region (such as Corsica) or the northern Caucasus. What lies at the heart of the blood-feud is a concept alien to th... |
Since honour is of the essence, there are strict rules for every step of the feud: one who `takes blood' to satisfy his (or his family's) honour must announce that he has done so; a formal truce or bese for a set period must be agreed to, if requested for a proper reason (this is a special use of `bese', the genera... |
Only if we bear in mind the whole system of the feud and the Kanun can we make sense, finally, of the very conflicting reports which have come down to us on the Kosovar and Northern Albanian character. In the writings of some past visitors to the Balkans, Kosovo was a place of anarchy and terror, where even childre... |
Our own Army Act draws a distinction between stealing the property of a comrade, and stealing from one of the public, but the Albanian would hardly recognize any similarity between the two. Where the limits of social obligation are so sharply defined as in tribal society, the same man may be loyal, generous, and hospit... |
The traveller, brought `within the bond' by the sacred duties of hospitality, could more easily experience the best of the Albanian character. As one Austrian who visited Kosovo in the bloodiest period of its final revolt against Ottoman rule declared: `If you observe the customs of the land, you can travel more sa... |
(C) 1998 Noel Malcolm All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-8147-5598-4 |
James Bond (Character) |
James Bond (Character) |
from Dr. No (1962) |
The content of this page was created by users. It has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. |
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Overview |
COMMANDER JAMES BOND, CMG, RNVR (Sean Connery, George Lazenby... See more » |
Alternate Names: |
007 / 007 Boyfriend / Agente 007 / Ajay 'James Bond 009' / Chandu alias James Bond / Cyborg 007 / Daniel Craig Bond / Derek Flint / F.D. James Bond / Fake James Bond / Hue Bond / Ian Fleming's James Bond 007 / Jaggu 'James Bond' / James Bond 007 / James Bond in Gunbarrel Sequence / Noble_Savage_007 / Previous Bonds / P... |
Filmography |
... aka "Abide with Me" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "And in the End..." - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Bike a.m." - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Countdown" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Frankie & June Say... Thanks Tim" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Green and Pleasant Land" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Happy & Glorious" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Interlude" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Let the Games Begin" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Pandemonium" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Second to the Right, and Straight on Till Morning" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" - International (English title) (segment title) |
... aka "Welcome" - International (English title) (segment title) |
Christopher Robert Evans (born June 13, 1981) is an American actor and filmmaker. Evans is known for his superhero roles as the Marvel Comics characters Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Human Torch in Fantastic Four. He began his career on the 2000 television series Opposite Sex, moving to film... |
Early life |
Evans was born in Boston and raised in the town of Sudbury.Pai, Tanya. His mother, Lisa (Capuano), is an artistic director at the Concord Youth Theater, and his father, Robert Evans, is a dentist. He has two sisters, Carly, a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a high school drama and Engl... |
Evans graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. He moved to New York City and took classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. |
Career |
In 1999, Evans was the model for ″Tyler″ in Hasbro's board game Mystery Date. The special edition of the game included an electronic phone, which Evans is shown speaking into on the game box. |
After filming wrapped on Not Another Teen Movie, Evans landed lead roles in The Perfect Score and Cellular, and then starred in two independent films in Chicago: Dirk Wittenborn's Fierce People, playing the sinister Bryce, and London, playing a strung-out drug user with relationship problems. He then played the super... |
In 2008, Evans appeared in Street Kings, co-starring Keanu Reeves, and the Tennessee Williams screenplay adaptation The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, co-starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Ellen Burstyn. The following year he appeared in the science-fiction thriller Push, with Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle. Evans perform... |
In 2010, he completed filming on co-directors Mark Kassen and Adam Kassen's Puncture in Houston, Texas. The film was selected to debut at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival as one of the Spotlight projects for the 10th anniversary of the festival. Also that year, Evans appeared in Sylvain White's The Losers, an adaptation... |
In 2011, Evans played the Marvel Comics character Captain America in Captain America: The First Avenger, and starred in the film What's Your Number?, a romantic comedy co-starring Anna Faris. There were initially scheduling conflicts, as both films were set to film in the summer of 2010. With actress Evan Rachel Woo... |
Evans had signed on to appear in multiple films as Captain America, and first reprised the role in the 2012 film The Avengers. He next starred opposite Michael Shannon in The Iceman, replacing James Franco, who had dropped out. Evans wore a long wig and grew out a beard for the role. He starred in South Korean direct... |
In 2014, Evans starred in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He also starred opposite Michelle Monaghan in the romantic comedy Playing It Cool. His directorial debut, Before We Go, debuted at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. |
In 2015, he played Captain America again in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and reprised the role for the 2016 sequel Captain America: Civil War. Evans said in March 2014 that once his contract with Marvel is up, he may consider doing less acting so he could work more on directing, and believes he will be finished playing ... |
In 2016, he was featured with Evan Rachel Wood in a 2016 ad for Gucci Guilty Eau fragrances." |
Personal life |
From 2001 to 2006, Evans dated actress Jessica Biel. In June 2016, Evans and actress Jenny Slate attended the premiere of The Secret Life of Pets in Manhattan, with Slate saying, "I haven't really had a large premiere before, so it's nice to have someone who knows how it goes" and saying, "It's kind of like I got my ... |
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