Historical Figures

[symmakhos]

Axel Oxenstierna, 1583–1654.

Swedish statesman. Named chancellor in 1612, he was the actual administrator of Sweden because Gustavus II was continually occupied with foreign campaigns. Oxenstierna also organized the conquered territories, skillfully managed financial affairs, and aided Gustavus’s wars by his diplomacy. In 1629 he arranged a favorable truce with Poland, freeing the army for the campaign in Germany. Habitually cautious, he opposed Sweden’s entry into the Thirty Years War, but he acceded to the king’s wishes and devoted his energies to keeping supplies and troops at the command of the king. After the death (1632) of Gustavus II at Lützen, the diet granted Oxenstierna full control of Swedish affairs in Germany. At a congress at Heilbronn (1633), he managed to weld the German Protestant princes into some semblance of unity. The Swedish defeat at Nördlingen (1634) forced Oxenstierna to solicit direct assistance from France. From Cardinal Richelieu he secured enlarged subsidies and the open entry (1635) of France into the conflict. As the dominant member of the council of regency in the minority of Christina and virtual ruler of Sweden (1632–44), he followed a cautious foreign policy and distinguished himself by his great program of reforms, including commercial, administrative, and social improvements. He was the author of the constitution of 1634, which centralized administration. He planned and directed the war against Denmark (1643–45) and brought it to a successful conclusion in the Peace of Bromsebro, by which Sweden gained several Danish provinces. Clashes between Oxenstierna and the young queen led to the decline of his power. He himself took no part in the negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), but his son was one of the Swedish representatives. Oxenstierna opposed the abdication of Christina in 1654, but for the short remainder of his life he served Charles X well in attempts to rehabilitate Sweden financially.

Text from http://www.bartleby.com/65/ox/Oxenstie.html

Famous quote: an nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur? ("don't you know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?")

[Frankiz]

De(a)r Elssaser, the characters you chose to represent French History are really typical of the French myth. All these people are either not French, or invented historical characters, and/or climbers.

Clovis, Martel, Vercingetorix, Karl Der Grosse can't be French, at that time France didn't exist. The French enterprise began with the Capetian, nobles from the Paris region who expanded little by little by waging war to their neighbours.
Napoleone Bunoaparte was not French but Italian (Corsican with a family from Genoa). At the beggining of his life, he hated those French who had invaded and fought his Corsican people. He couldn't speak a word of French before his majority anyway. He hesitated to chose between France and Italy to realize his dreams of conquest, but he chose France, a strong centralized state living political instability and terror offering a real oppportunity. His feelings towards France remained ambiguous when he became emperor of France. And after Waterloo, when he had just been prisoner of the English, he thought about emigrating to the Americas and lead the new United States to conquest another empire, incidentally against the French presence! But the English didn't accept, of course. So saying that Napoleone was the greatest French of all times, well yes in a way it's true : he was a bloody climber who attacked the real peoples, created départements everywhere (for instance in the Netherlands), organized an oppressing and terribly efficient centralized state the Bretons fought desesperately (the "chouannerie"), slaughtered resistant local populations (the Spanish could tell you about it), and last but not least introduced the ideas of the French Revolution wherever he would go, ancestors of the Marxist ideas. I prefer Cadoudal : he was a Chouan leader who served Brittany and liberty with fidelity to the death. In his parisian jail in 1804, Buonaparte, who admired his fighting qualities, came to meet him and proposed him to become general in his army, he refused and prefered to be guillotined, singing religious hymns in Breton.

About Du Guesclin, he's a Breton of the XIIIth century, at that time Brittany was independant so you can't reasonably say he's French. Even French distionaries say he's Breton. But it's true he waged war for the French King, motivated by money and titles. He fought the brigands, the English and... his own people the Bretons! for France. No need to add he was hated by the Bretons who considered him as a climber and a traitor. In my opinion, he is the worst Breton man of all the History of Brittany.

Surcouf was a Breton privateer during the French Revolution and the Napoleone Empire. Kleber was indeed Elsassian, fighting in the French army again during the French revolution, a definitely propitious period for carreerists!

As far as d'Artagnan and Joann of Arc are concerned, they are more litterature ans cinema characters than Historical characters. They did exist but their fame appeared much later in the XXth century. D'Artagnan was draged out from anonymity by the world best-seller The three Musketeers of Dumas, but is of no importance for History itself, and Johan of Arc was rediscoved at the end of the XXth century by the French monarchists who had to create a glorious and religious History of France "the elder daughter of Church" to oppose to the glorious version of the Republicans (you know, those who told the Senegalese their ancestors were tall blond Gaulish warriors with winged helmets and long moustaches! ). The monarchists managed to make Johan of Arc a saint in 1920 by lobbying very strongly the pope. Actually the Republicans had found this story about this little sheepkeeper very interesting in terms of glorious French past, and the monarchists were not dangerous anymore, the IIIrd republic was well establised, so they accepted to pay 30 millions of "francs-or" (gold-francs?) to the pope! Anyway her santification arrived a very long time after her death in 1431.

French History is just a big lie.


The most famous Breton national figure is Anna of Brittany (Anne de Bretagne, Anna Vreizh), also simply called the Dukess Anna, who in the 15th and 16th century fought for independance all her short but dense life.



Bust which can be seen at the Museum of the Hermitage, st Petersburg :

[Gil]

Afonso Henriques
(Guimarães, 1109 – 1185), also known as the Conqueror, was the first King of Portugal, declaring his independence from Leon-Castille, a deed often identifying the Condado Portucalense as the first nation-based state of Europe.
Alfonso was the son of Henry, Count of Portucale and Teresa of Leon, the illegitimate daughter of Afonso VI of Castille. He was proclaimed king in July 26, 1139 and died on December 6, 1185 inCoimbra.
At the end of the 11th century, the Iberian Peninsula political agenda was mostly concerned with the Reconquista, the driving out of the Muslim successor-states to the Caliphate of Córdoba after its collapse. With European military aristocracies focussed on the Crusades, Alfonso VI of Castile called for the help of the French nobility to deal with the Moors. In exchange, he was to give the hands of his daughters in wedlock to the leaders of the expedition and bestow royal privileges to the others. Thus, the heiress Urraca of Castile wedded Raimond, second son of the Duke of Burgundy, and her half-sister, princess Teresa of Leon, wedded his uncle, Henry of Burgundy. Henry was made Count of Portugal, a burdensome earldom in the south of Castile, where Moorish incursions and attacks were to be expected. With his wife Teresa as co-ruler of Portugal, Henry stood the ordeal and held the lands for his father-in-law.

From this wedlock several sons were born, but only one, Afonso Henriques (meaning "Afonso son of Henry") thrived. The boy followed his father as Count of Portugal in 1112, under the tutelage of his mother. The relations between Teresa and her son Afonso proved difficult. Only eleven years old, Afonso had already his own political ideas, greatly different from his mother's. In 1120, the young prince took the side of the bishop of Braga, a political foe of Teresa, and both were exiled by her orders. Afonso spent the next years away from his own county, under the watch of the bishop. In 1123 Afonso became fourteen, the adult age in the 12th century. He made himself a knight on his own account in the cathedral of Zamora, raised an army, and proceeded to take control of his lands. Near Guimarães he overcame the troops under his mother's ally Count Fernão Peres de Trava of Galicia, making her his prisoner and exiling her forever to a monastery in León. Thus the possibility of incorporating Portugal into a kingdom of Galicia was eliminated. He also vanquished Alfonso VII of Castile, another of his mother's allies, and thus freed the earldom from political dependence on the crown of León and Castile. He had already a dangerously independent mind. On April 6, 1129, Afonso Henriques dictated the writ in which he proclaims himself King of Portugal.

Afonso then turned his arms against the everlasting problem of the Moors in the south. His campaigns were successful and, on July 26, 1139, he obtained an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Ourique, and straight after was unanimously proclaimed king by his soldiers. This meant that Portugal was no longer a earldom of Castile, but an independent kingdom in its own right. Next, he assembled the first assembly of the states-general at Lamego, where he was given the crown from the bishop of Bragança, to confirm the independence.

Independence, however, was not a thing a land could choose on its own. Portugal had still to be acknowledged by the neighbouring lands and, most important, by the Catholic church and the pope. Afonso wedded Mafalda, daughter of Count Amadeo III of Savoy, and sent ambassadors to Rome to negotiate with the pope. In Portugal, he built several monasteries and convents and bestowed important privileges to religious orders. In 1143, he wrote to Pope Innocent II to declare himself and the kingdom servants of the Church, swearing to pursue driving the Moors out of the Iberian peninsula. Bypassing any king of Castile, Afonso declared himself the direct liegeman of the Papacy. Thus, Afonso continued to distinguish himself by his exploits against the Moors, from whom he wrested Santarém in 1146 and Lisbon in 1147. He also conquered an important part of the land south of the Tagus River, although this was lost again to the Moors in the following years.

Meanwhile, King Alfonso VII of Castile (Afonso's cousin) thought of an independent Count of Portugal as nothing but a rebel. Conflict between the two lands was constant and bitter in the following years. Afonso became involved in a war, taking the sides of the Aragonese king, an enemy of Castile. To insure the alliance, his son Sancho was sworn to Dulce Berenguer, daughter of the Count of Barcelona, and princess of Aragon. Finally (probably in 1143) the Treaty of Zamora established peace between the cousins.

In 1167, Afonso was disabled in an engagement near Badajoz by a fall from his horse, and made prisoner by the soldiers of the king of Leon. Portugal was obliged to surrender as his ransom almost all the conquests Afonso had made in Galicia in the previous years.

In 1179 the privileges and favours given to the Catholic Church were compensated. In a papal bull, Pope Alexander III acknowledged Afonso as king and Portugal as an independent land with the right to conquer lands from the Moors. With this papal blessing, Portugal was at last secured as a country and safe from any Castilian attempts of annexation.

In 1184, in spite of his great age, he had still sufficient energy to relieve his son Sancho, who was besieged in Santarém by the Moors. He died shortly after, in 1185.

The Portuguese revere him as a hero, both on account of his personal character and as the founder of their kingdom.



Afonso's descendants

• By his wife, Maud of Savoy (1125–1157)
  • Henrique (1147)
  • Mafalda (1148)
  • Urraca, princess of Portugal (1151–1188), married to King Ferdinand II of León
  • Sancho I, king of Portugal (1154–1212)
  • Teresa, princess of Portugal (1157–1218), married to Philip I of Flanders and next to Eudes III of Burgundy
• Natural offspring
  
  • Urraca Afonso, lady of Aveiro
  • Fernando Afonso, general of the kingdom
  • Afonso, Master of the Order of São João of Rhodes

[Rusalka]

Queen Tamar

1178-84 Joint Ruler Queen Tamar of Georgia

1184-1213 The Most High Queen, by the will of our Lord, King and Queen of Queens of the Abkhazis, Kartvelians, Ranians, Kakhetians and the Armenians, Shirvanshah and Shahanshah and Master of all the East and West, Glory of the World and Faith, Champion of the Messiah

Member of the royal house of Bagrationi, she was 19 years old when her father Grigori III had her crowned co-ruler, and when he died she became the sole ruler of Georgia. Despite the fact that she was 25 on her accession, Tamar was placed under the official guardianship of her father's sister Rusudani. She dealt with the various factions within the nobility by giving commands of provinces to important generals and prominent nobles. During her reign the kingdom reached the apex of its political, economic and cultural might. A unique Georgian Christian Culture flourished in this multinational state, exalted by great building projects. After the conquest of Byzantium by the Fourth Crusaders in 1204, Tamar sent troops to Trebizond and Kerasund in support of her relative, Alexios Comnenus, who would become Byzantine Emperor 1205. She personally led the Georgian forces and routed the Turks at the battle of Basiani. From here on, she pursued a policy of military aggression - Kars surrendered in 1205 and her son Grigori was made Governor; she exerted her hold over the local Muslim semi-protectorates; received tribute from some of the southern Russians provinces. In 1209 The Emir of Ardabil attacked Georgia, slaughtering 12.000 Georgians and enslaving thousands more. Tamar took her revenge the following year - she took the Emir of Ardabil by surprise, killing him, and as warnings to others who might threaten Georgi, Tamar's troops began raiding deep into North Persia and other surrounding regions. Married 1185 and divorced two years later to Prince Giorgi of Novgorod and then in 1189 she married King Davit-Soslani of Ossetia (d. 1207). Succeded frist by son, Giorgi IV Lasha, and then by daughter Rusudan in 1223. Tamar lived (1159-1213).


Tamar of Georgia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Tamar Bagrationi was Queen of the kingdom of Georgia from 1184-1213. She ruled during what is generally regarded as Georgia's "golden age" and gained a reputation as an outstandingly successful ruler, dubbed "King of Kings and Queen of Queens" by her subjects. She was born in 1160, the daughter of King Giorgi III (1156-1184). Tamar's first husband was the Russian prince Yuri (known in Georgia as Giorgi) Bogolyubsky (in 1185-1186). She had no children by Yuri. Then she selected her second husband herself. He was the Ossetian prince David Soslan of the Georgian Bagrationi family, whom she married in 1188. The Queen's consort was King only by virtue of being her husband. Tamar was the supreme ruler, and continued to be called "King of Kings and Queen of Queens".

Tamar played an active military role as the commander of an army. In 1193 the Georgian army marched to Bardav. Following its triumphant return, a new campaign was undertaken against Erzerum. The army under Tamar and David attacked the Seljuks (Turks) wintering on the banks of the river Arax.

The Atabag of Azerbaijan Abu-Bakr was given command of the army of the coalition of Georgia's Muslim opponents. A battle was fought near Shamkhor in 1195 which ended in a Georgian victory. Numerous prisoners and huge amounts of booty were seized, including the Khalif's standard, which Tamar donated to the Icon of Our Lady of Khakhuli. The Georgians took the city of Shamkhori and the adjoining regions, and the occupied lands were turned over to the Shirvan-Shah on terms of vassalage. From Shamkhori the Georgian army marched to Gandza.

The Georgian victories alarmed the Muslim rulers of Georgia's neighbours, particularly Rukn ad-Din, Sultan of the Seljuk state in Asia Minor. The Sultan prepared for war in order to break the might of Christian Georgia and fought a major battle near Basiani in 1203. Despite the huge size of the Seljuk army - said to number more than 400,000 troops - the Georgian army under Tamar and David won a famous victory.

Under Tamar's rule, Georgia became the strongest power in the Near East and expanded its territorial influence considerably around the shores of the Black Sea. In 1204, Tamar helped found the Byzantine Empire of Trabizond on the southern shore of the Black Sea (now the Turkish province of Trabzon). This so-called "empire" was populated mainly by Lazi (Chani) Georgian tribes, ruled by refugees from Constantinople. In 1206, Tamar's army occupied the city of Kars.

Like other medieval monarchs, Tamar played an active role in promoting her country's religion and culture, sponsoring the construction of numerous Georgian Orthodox churches. The poet Shota Rustaveli commemorated Tamar in his epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin, in which her coronation gave Rustaveli the historical background for his sublime description of the coronation of Tinatin.

Queen Tamar died in 1213 and was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church.

[Rusalka]

Queen Ketevan




Kakheti and Kakhet (The Kingdom of Georgia)

1605-14 Regent Dowager Queen Ketevan

Both her father-in-law, King Alexander II of Kakhetia (1577 - 1605) and her husband, Crown Prince David were assassinated by her brother-in-law, Constantine the Accursed, who had adopted Islam, on the instigation of Shah Abbas I of Persia. After committing this crime, Constantine ordered that the bodies of the murder victims be packed on camels and taken to Queen Ketevan. Assembling the people of Kakhetia, Queen Ketevan took up arms against Constantine, and together with a multitude of Persian warriors, he suffered an ignominious death. Under the wise rule of Queen Ketevan, peace and justice settled in Kakhetia. Shah Abbas I returned her son Teimuraz to her. Later, making threats that he could decimate Georgia, Shah Abbas forced the Kakhetian vassals to give up some important hostages, she volunteered to be one of those hostages. In five years after their exile Ketevan and her grandsons were separated. Shah Abbas had the young princes castrated. Alexander could not endure the torture and died and Levan became insane. They tried to keep all this from Ketevan. The Queen spent ten years in her "honorary" imprisonment in Iran in the house of Imam-Kuli-Khan Undiladze, a Georgian who had accepted Islam. Her body became exhausted through fasting, prayer, and nights spent on cold stone floors. Still, she remained vigorous and cheerful, taking care of her small flock-her retinue numbering about twenty Georgians. Finally, Shah Abbas decided to force Queen Ketevan to renounce Christ and accept Islam. He even offered her to become a member his harem. She refused and was tortured. She became a saint and is known as Holy Great-martyr Ketevan. She was of the royal house of Bagration, and was the great-granddaughter of King Constantine of Kartli (1469-1505). (d. 1624).

[Phlegethon]

Originally Posted by Rusalka

Tamar of Georgia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Damn Wikipedophile!

[Rusalka]

Originally Posted by Phlegethon

Damn Wikipedophile!

Oh shuddup, my first source is not Wikipedia, I added Wiki later on because they had a good image and some links about Imereti, Kartveli, the Bagrationi Dynasty etc.

Just enjoy the damn thing, will you?

[Phlegethon]

What if I don't?

[General Parmenion]

LEONIDAS OF SPARTA



Leonidas was a king of Sparta, the seventeenth of the Agiad line. He was one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta. He succeeded, probably in 489 or 488 BC, his half-brother Cleomenes I, whose daughter Gorgo he married.

In 480 he was sent with about 7000 men to hold the pass of Thermopylae against the army of Xerxes of Persia. (see Battle of Thermopylae). The smallness of the force was, according to a rawwiki_inboundrent story, due to the fact that he was deliberately going to his doom, an oracle having foretold that Sparta could be saved only by the death of one of its kings: in reality it seems rather that the ephors supported the scheme half-heartedly, their policy being to concentrate the Greek forces at the Isthmus.

Several anecdotes demonstrate the laconic matter-of-fact bravery that Leonidas and the Spartans were famed for even in the ancient world. On the first day of the siege, when Xerxes demanded the Greeks surrender their arms, Leonidas is said to have replied, "Come and get them." The Persian envoy attempted to intimidate the Spartans by telling them Xerxes had so many archers, their arrows would "darken the sun". Leonidas replied, "So much the better. We shall fight in the shade." And on the third day, the king is reputed to have exhorted his men to eat a hearty breakfast, because that night they would dine in Hades.

Leonidas' men repulsed the frontal attacks of the Persians for the first two days, but when the Malian Ephialtes led the Persian general Hydarnes by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks, Leonidas divided his army, himself remaining in the pass with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans.

Perhaps he hoped to surround Hydarnes' force: if so, the movement failed, and the little Greek army, attacked from both sides, was cut down to a man save the Thebans, who are said to have surrendered. Another theory was that Leonidas sent the remainder of the army home in an effort to preserve troops for the main battles of the war. The soldiers who stayed behind were to cover their escape so the Persian cavalry would not overrun the rear of the escaping troops.

Leonidas fell in the thickest of the fight; the Spartans attempted to retrieve his body, but given the numbers they faced, the body did fall into Persian hands. It was said (by contemporary Greeks) that Leonidas' head was afterwards cut off by Xerxes' order and his body crucified.

He was buried with full honors, including a very un-Spartan display to wailing and mourning (Spartans normally accepted death in battle as a matter of course and disapproved of outward grieving), and a carved lion was dedicated at his death site.

Our knowledge of the circumstances are too slight to enable us to judge Leonidas' strategy, but his heroism and devotion serawwiki_inbounded him an almost unique place in the imagination not only of his own time but also of succeeding times.

Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. –– epitaph at Thermopylae (Simonides's epigram)


The Battle at Thermopylae, by Brian Palmer, from his series "Great Last Stands."

[Veles]

St. Jovan Vladimir, emperor of Duklja


St. Contstantine IX, Serb - Byzantine emperor


St. Stefan Nemanja, former of holy Nemanjić dynasty


St. Sava, most known Serbian Saint, former of Serbian Othodox Church


Tzar Dušan Silni, Serbian emperor


Despot St. Stefan Lazarević, tzar who died defending Serbian Kosovo from Turks


Ivan Crnojević, ruler of medieval serbian country of Zeta


St. Petar Cetinjski, bishop and ruler of Montenegro


St. Vasilije Ostroški, most famous Montenegro saint and warrior against Turks


Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Montenegrin bishop, poet and philosopher


Karađorđe Petrović, leader of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire


Dositej Obradović, Serbian writer, translator and poet


Vuk Karadžić, reformer of modern serbian language


Field Marshal Stepa Stepanović, hero of WWI


Nikola Tesla, Serbian scientist (physicist) and inventor


Ivo Andrić, Serbian writer, winner of the Nobel prize

[Strengthandhonour]

Giuseppe Garibaldi(July 4,1807-June 2,1882)
Major Italian patriot who helped to unify the country. A hero of the risorgimento and commanded a military campaign in South America.


Niccolo Machiavelli(May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527)
Highly influential author and political genius


Marco Polo(September 15,1254-January,8,1324)
Venetian explorer and trader who was part of the first group of Westerners to travel the great Silk Road


Leonardo Da Vinci(April 15,1452-May 2,1419)
Painter,Architect,Inventor and overall, an universal genius


Frederick II of Sicily(december 26,1194-December 13,1250)
Son of Constance of Sicily and the Hohenstaufen dinasty of Austria. King of Sicily, King of Cyprus and Jerusalem,King of the Romans, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor.Patron of the arts and medicine(financed the first medical school in history in Salerno). His legacy still lives today in Sicily.


just the tip of the Iceberg

[Strengthandhonour]

Galileo
Italian astronomer,philosopher,astrologer. Helped to make the telescope more useful as well.


Dante Alighieri
One of the fathers of the modern Italian language and one of the best medieval authors.


Azzone Visconti
Father of the duchy of Milan



Marcus Furius Camilus
cant find a picture.
Considered the second father of Rome. Soldier and statesman who helped to expand the Roman army.

Gaius Marius
Reformer of the Roman army and military leader. Was elected consul seven times during his career and grealty improved the Roman army allowing landless citizens to join. Very important man in the history of Rome, with the reformation of the army the Roman Army was able to expand greatly and expand the territorial conquests of the empire.