Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

Julius Margolin

2010-03-23T00:08:10Z

Magicmike:

{{Copyedit|for=grammar|date=January 2009}}
'''Julius Margolin''' ({{lang-ru|Юлий (Юлиус) Борисович Марголин}}, October 14, 1900 — January 21, 1971) was a [[Jew]]ish writer and political activist, an author of the book ''A Travel to the Land [[Gulag#Terminology|Ze-Ka]]'' (Путешествие в страну Зэ-Ка).

"In 1947, when Julius Margolin finished his book about the [[GULAG]], [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] had just begun serving his prison term."<ref>[http://runners.ritsumei.ac.jp/cgi-bin/swets/hold-query-e?mode=1&key=&idxno=03398561 A traveller to the land of the zeks], by Zeldin, Y., Margolin, Julius., ''[[New Times]],'' Moscow, 2001.11. 7, pp. 50-53</ref>

Margolin was born in [[Pinsk]], [[West Belarus]], then in the [[Russian Empire]], now [[Belarus]]. Since 1921, it belonged to Poland. In 1939, he moved to [[Palestine]]. Several months later he was visiting his relatives in Pinsk and was caught by the [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|Soviet invasion of Poland]]. Together with numerous other "socially-dangerous elements", he was rounded up by [[NKVD]] and sent to a [[labor camp]] on the northern bank of the [[Lake Onega]]. He survived there and was freed in 1945 as a former Polish citizen according to the agreement with [[Poland]]. In 1946, he was permitted to return to Poland, from where he moved to Palestine, where he immediately started writing his book, finished in 1947.
:''"Until the autumn of 1939 I was 'favourably neutral' towards the USSR. It was the characteristic stand of progressive and radical intellectuals in Europe. In the last seven years I have become an inveterate and vehement enemy of the Soviet system."'' <Margolin>
It was impossible to publish such a book about the [[Soviet Union]] in the West at these times, immediately after the [[World War II]]. At the same time, the manuscript was also rejected by [[Israel]] establishment as well, because of not very positive portrayal of Jews. At long last, the book was printed in 1952 in the [[United States]] by ''Chekhov Publishing House'' (and reprinted in 1975).

''"The land Ze-Ka is not mapped in the Soviet maps, there is no such land in atlases"'' <Margolin, 1947> This sounds amazingly similar to ''[[Gulag Archipelago]]'', ''"almost invisible, almost untangible country populated by the tribe of 'zeks'"'' <Solzhenitsyn, 1956?>.

In 1951, Margolin was a witness in the trial of [[David Rousset]] against a French communist newspaper. The latter was engaged in slander of Rousset for his activities in revealing of Gulag to French public.

==Publications of the Travel to the Land Ze-Ka==
*1949 - Margoline Jules. "La condition inhumaine. Cinq ans dans les camps de concentration Sovietiques" Traduit par N. Berberova & Mina Journot. Novembre 1949. Calmann-Levi, Editeurs, Paris.
*1952 - Марголин Ю. Б. "Путешествие в страну зэ-ка", 414 стр. ''[[Chekhov Publishing]] House'', New York
**Reprinted several times in various places
*1965 - Julius Margolin "Uberleben ist alles. Aufzeichnungen aus sowietischen Lagern", Munchen,
*Separate chapters from the book were also published in various magazines.

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.lib.ru/MEMUARY/MARGOLIN/Puteshestvie_v_stranu_ze-ka.txt Путешествие в страну зэ-ка ''A Travel to the Land Ze-Ka'', as published in the book] {{ru icon}}
*[http://margolin-ze-ka.tripod.com/contents.html''A Travel to the Land Ze-Ka'', 2005, full text, according to the original manuscript (Part I was skipped in print)] {{ru icon}} ([[KOI8-R]] encoding)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Margolin, Julius}}
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1971 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Pinsk]]
[[Category:Belarusian Jews]]
[[Category:Jewish victims of Soviet repressions]]
[[Category:Israeli writers]]
[[Category:Gulag]]
[[Category:Russian books]]

Attisches Talent

2009-07-24T23:14:59Z

Magicmike:

[[File:Ancient Greek Silver Coin (Dekadrachm), about 400 B.C.E..jpg|thumb|right|A dekadrachm, or 10 drachma silver coin from Syracuse, 400 BC. A talent was equivalent to 6,000 drachma.]]

The '''Attic [[Talent (weight)|talent]]''' (from Latin ''talentum''), also known as the '''Athenian talent''' or '''Greek talent''', is an ancient unit of mass equal to 25.992kg, as well as a unit of value equal to this amount of pure silver.<ref name="Herodotus">Herodotus, Robin Waterfield and Carolyn Dewald, ''The histories'' (1998), p. 593.</ref> A talent was originally intended to be the mass of water required to fill an [[amphora]]<ref name="unit">[http://www.unitconversion.org/weight/talent-biblical-hebrew-conversion.html Talent (Biblical Hebrew), unit of measure], ''unitconversion.org''.</ref> (39 liters).<ref name="Herodotus"/> At the 2009 price of $414/kg, a silver talent is worth $10,760. It was equivalent to 60 [[mina (unit)|minae]], 6,000 [[Greek drachma|drachma]]e or 36,000 oboloi.<ref name="Herodotus"/>

During the [[Peloponnesian War]], a [[trireme]] crew of 200 rowers was paid a talent for a month's worth of work, about 4.4 grams of silver per rower per day.<ref name="Cecil">Torr, Cecil, "Triremes", ''The Classical Review,'' Vol. 20, No. 2 (Mar., 1906), p. 137.</ref> According to wage rates from 377BC, a talent was the value of nine man-years of skilled work.<ref>Engen, Darel. "[http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/engen.greece The Economy of Ancient Greece]", EH.Net Encyclopedia, 2004.</ref> This corresponds to 2340 work days or 11.1 grams of silver per worker per workday. A modern carpenter gets about $25,060/year or $226,000 for nine years of work.<ref> See careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/240/Carpenter.html</ref>

In 1800, building craftsman in urban Europe got an average wage of 11.9 grams of silver a day,<ref>Calculated from Robert Allen's [http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/Members/robert.allen/WagesFiles/wagesnew Wages New]", p. 36.</ref> or about $0.49 a day.<ref name="HistSilver">Calculated from [http://www.goldmastersusa.com/silver_historical_prices.asp here].</ref> Adjusted for inflation, this corresponds to $6 a day in 2007 money.<ref name="InflationCalc">Calculated from [http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ here].</ref> Assuming a European worker in 1800 to be as efficient as a worker in ancient Greece, the purchasing power of a talent in ancient times was about $14,000 in today's money.<ref> See also footnote one in "[http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Crassus*.html Life of Crassus]", which calculates the value of a talent as $20,000 in 2004 money.</ref> The plausibility of this calculation is confirmed by the fact that a talent of silver was worth $1081 in 1800,<ref name="HistSilver"/> equivalent to $13,000 after adjusting for inflation.<ref name="InflationCalc"/>

See [[talent (measurement)]].

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

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[[Category:Coins of ancient Greece]]

[[uk:Талант (одиниця виміру)]]

The Knight’s Tale

2004-06-14T20:29:05Z

Magicmike:

"'''The Knight's Tale'''" is the first [[tale]] from [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s [[Canterbury Tales]].

The story is about two knights, Arcite and Palamon, who are imprisoned by Theseus, duke of Athens. In prison they see and fall in love with the sister of Hippolyta, Emily (Emelye). They variously get out of prison and end up in a tournament over Emily arranged by Theseus. Arcite wins, but dies before he can claim the prize (Emily) and Palamon marries her. It introduces many typical aspects of knighthood such as love, manners, etc. The story is in poetry.

[[The Two Noble Kinsmen]], a play co-written by [[William Shakespeare]] and [[John Fletcher]], is based on the tale.

The 2001 movie [[A Knight's Tale]], staring [[Heath Ledger]], is also very loosely based on the story, and a fictionalized Chaucer himself appears in it as a character.