[Women in EE Lit anon] Yeah Im Southern US and I do think its misogyny. After all almost no EE author is available in English until someone translates it but its like... no one bothered to translate the women. We have classes to learn Polish, Czech, and even Bosnian-Serbo-Croation languages. Im also in a Ukrainian book club but theres still NO WOMEN.

The list Im working off is on wikipedia but Tsvetaeva and Parnok (poetry) Filipiak (assorted) Galgóczi (plays) Vera Ignatievna Gedroits/Sergei Gedroits (Scientific/Medical texts and assorted) Maria Janion (Literary Theory) Chawa Zloczower (novelist but known for other things) Anna Laszuk (political) Lída Merlínová (novel) Maria Rodziewiczówna (novelist and straight up hottie) Mima Cimić (short story) Polyxena Sergeyevna Solovyova (Poetry) Honorary Mention: Yoshiko Yuasa (Russian Lit in Translation) because I love what Japanese creators do with Russian Literature (My fave joke is that the best Russian director is Akira Kurosawa)

it is the unfortunate reality and proves how much work there’s yet to be done. (thank you for the authors!)

apparently in 1998 NATO wanted to translate half a million copies of “The Sneetches and Other Stories” by Dr Zeuss into Serbo-Croation and distribute them to children in bosnia

Dungeon23 12feb hex 5,3 - the bursa?

This map of Zamość has been invaluable in building this block map of the city. It comes from much closer to 1630, the approximate date in my setting, and thus shows the city before it was conquered and its fortifications destroyed. Several of the major landmarks present in modern-day Zamość are also absent, as they haven’t been built yet. However, the map also presents a number of challenges. First and most obvious, rather than the now-conventional north=up, this map has south=up. Secondly, several of the buildings are labeled with early-modern Latin, the meanings of which are hard to find directly. Most are obvious - administratii, arx, collegium are not too different from their original meanings. Bursa and gielda, however, proved more challenging to understand. Bursa is Latin and is the root of bursar and purse. Gielda, however, is not Latin. Giełda is Polish, with an archaic meaning of guild and a contemporary meaning of stock exchange, which is also what burza means in Czech and Serbo-Croation (burza in Polish means storm). Each building is near a different city gate and important enough that they make the same list as the cathedral, palace, and college, but neither has been preserved or called out as noteworthy. The giełda makes sense as a guildhall, the headquarters for the (goyish) trade guilds. We’ll explore that more when we get to that block. The bursa/burza, however, poses more of a puzzle. A stock exchange doesn’t make a lot of sense: while Zamość is a locally-important city, it does not compare to a city like Amsterdam (where some contemporaneous stock trading was happening, mostly w/r/t the Dutch East India Company). Even if in actual 17th-century Zamość there was a stock exchange there, one doesn’t make sense in Nowa Polska. The location, right next to the city gate, is disadvantageous for a treasury for the ordynat or a bank. We’ll say the bursa is a building for the collecting and administration of taxes. Taxes in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were controlled locally, varying from place to place. The bursa’s proximity to the Lublin Gate makes it easy to transport the fees collected at the gate to relative safety. Taxing authorities would not be based at the Zamoyski Palace, nor the Ratusz, and are not in the purview of the trade guilds, so a separate block for it makes a certain amount of sense. While the bursa is the focal point of the block, it is surrounded by more tenements that house middle- and lower-class burghers: older students at the Zamoyski Academy, tax collectors and administrators who work at the bursa, day laborers, and so on. A tavern here serves the locals and also offers lodging to the caravan hands passing through the Lublin Gate. This tavern, due to the diversity of patrons, has the best food of all the taverns in Zamość. Characters who eat here should get some small bonuses to health and healing due to the hearty and high-quality fare - a small reward for exploring the city, albeit one not available to characters that keep kosher. The folk here value good stories and good company but have little patience for blowhards and liars, and they’ve a good sense at sniffing both out. Characters who tell a good yarn, knowing how much to stretch the truth and when to do so, and also are a good audience for others’ tales will find it easy to make friends, and these friends might offer rumors from far-away places, news of incoming and outgoing caravans, or be available for hire.

for the sake of transparency, i'm hoarding 2 Eva urls and 1 Bright Eyes urls, plus 3 additional urls that i don't even rly think count as hoarding bc they're so specific. Every now and then I'm tempted to switch to one of them, but....this brand and its level of name-recognition have gotten me so far that I always chicken out

Baba Yaga is a Striga in Slavic Folklore of the Eastern Mythos. Her name means Grandmother, Old Women.

In Polish her name means Grandmother.

In Serbo-Croation, Macedonian and Balgarian Baba means Grandmother as it does in Old Russian.

It's also noted that in Polish Baba is the Prejorative Synonym of Women especially in the area of Old, Dirty and or Foolish meanings.

Yaga means different things depending upon the region and language used. For example-

Serbo-Croation Yaga means Jeza or Horror. Shudder. And or chill. Basically Jeza means Anger.

Slovene Jeza (Anger) is associated with Old Czech Jeze meaning Witch, Legendary Evil Being. Modern Czech Jezinka means Wicked wood nymph. Basically dyrad!. Polish yaga means Evil women and witch. In Old church Slavonic we see yaga associated with Jeza/Jedza which means Disease and illness. In other Indio European Traditions we see yaga become an element iaga which was linked to Lithuanian Engti which means to abuse continually. Old English Inca means doubt worry and pain. Old Norse Ekki means pain and worry.

Baba Yaga is associated in many countries and regions as an Evil Witch of the 12th realm. She is known to kidnap, cook, eat children. Her home is an old hut which walks on chicken legs and moves around the forest. She is associated with the Infernal Necromancer "Koschei" who passed all her tests and challenges.

The regions she is known are-

(1) Russia

(2) Ukraine

(3) Belarus

(4) Turkey

(5) Germanic

(6) Bulgia

(7) Hungarian

Creatures from Folklore: Slavic Region A-D

You ever need different creatures to base things off of, or just want some legends for a setting? Or heck, you ever just want to chuck a creature at someone and say you’ll figure it out? Well, do I have the posts for you. This one will focus on the Slavic Region but I’ll make more at a later date

Ala are considered to be demons of bad weather in several folklore, including that of Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Serbs. Their main purpose is to lead thunderclouds that produce hail towards fields, vineyards, or orchards to either destroy the crops or to loot and take them. They are very voracious and really like to eat children. Though one shouldn’t assume they limit their tastes to Earth, no. They sometimes try to devour the sun and moon which lead to eclipses and if they succeed it means the end of the world. People who encounter one may find their mental and physical health as well as their lives at risk. It is, however, possibly to gain her favor by approaching with trust and respect. These good relationships can be very beneficial since she (the ala) can make those with her favor wealthy and save their lives if they are in danger. Ala can take on many different forms: black wind, giant creatures with no distinct form, a monster either humanlike or snake like witha  huge mouth, a female dragon, a raven, various human and animal shapes. Ala can also possess people’s bodies. They live in the clouds or in lakes, springs, hidden remote places as well as caves, inhospitable mountains, forests, or even a huge tree. Usually hostile towards humans, they have powerful enemies capable of defeating them like the dragons.

Alkanost have an incredible voice, capable of making anyone who hears her song might forget everything in their search for paradise. A creature of good who resides in the garden of the gods or whatever version of heaven required, the alkanost has the head and bust of a woman and the rest of the body is that of a bird. Sometimes this creature lays eggs which assist in the changing of winter to spring. Basically she wouldn’t sit on her eggs just dump them into the Ocean-Sea and when they reached the bottom the weather would turn fair. Though i think that takes her out of the running for parenting awards.

Anchutka is a small malevolent spirit, residing most often in water or a swamp. Even without wings, it is capable of flight. One of its nicknames is the one without heels. This is a common theme to look for, as oftentimes evil forces have a limp. Though in some storied this spirit has lost their heels because they got bitten off by a wolf. This spirit is often a sidekick to a water spirit called Vodyanoy, and as such you should never say its name aloud since it will always show up.

Aspid, a type of dragon with a beak and other birdlike elements, resides primarily in the mountains, preferring solitude. When it invades a region, nearly always it caused universal devastation.

Baba Yaga: I’m pretty sure a lot of people know about Baba Yaga, the witch who lives in a hut with chicken legs and goes around in a mortar and pestle. She does carry a broom though, but she only uses it to sweep away her tracks.

Bannik is a spirit who rarely does any good for anyone. A mischievous spirit that has the appearance of an old man with long claws, he’s a spirit that inhabits the banya (steamhouse). Whenever people bathed in the banya, they would always leave on the third or fourth session to let Bannik have his privacy. They would leave him offerings of soup and regularly thank him. Bannik had the power to tell the future and if asked a question he would softly touch the askers back if it was a good future or flay it if it was a not so good future. Oh and Bannik, when angry, would claw off the skin of those who annoyed him. The banya was also the place of Russian childbirth, so there were measures taken to keep him from interfering. Part of the midwife’s job was to keep him away. And with good reason. Legends say that he ate or flayed children. So therefore the midwife would dip stones in the water and throw them in the corner to distract the steamhouse spirit.

Bauk hide in dark places and holes and abandoned houses. There they wait to grab, take away, and devour their victims. They have a clumsy gait and can be scared away by light and noise.

Babay, possibly the same thing as the bubak, isn’t often described so children will come up with what is most terrible for them. But despite this, Baby has been described as a black and crooked old man. When he is descibed he tends to have some traits such as muteness, lacking arms, or walking with a limp. He carries with him a bag and a cane. Baby lives in a forest or a swamp or a garden only to come out at night to walk the streets and scoop up the children he meets. He will walk close to windows and watched the children sleep. If they aren’t he’ll scare them with noises. Or sometimes he even hides under kids beds to take them away if they get up.

Błędnica is a forest demoness, who leads people astray before leaving her victims alone in the midst of the forest to die of starvation or be eaten by animals. She is usually described as a young and pretty girl. The only way to chase her away is to use strong spells or to sacrifice something at home or during your hunt.

Blud is a fairy in Slavic mythology. An evil deity who causes disorientation and leads a person around and around aimlessly.

Bukavac lives in lakes and pools, coming out at night to make a loud noise. A six-legged monster with gnarled horns, it would jump people and animals and strangle them.

Bubak is often represented as a scarecrow with a skeleton as frame, which is connected with darkness, it is a type of boogeymen used to scare children. The skeleton often is describes as wearing a heavy black coat where it hides the children it steals.

Cikavac, a mythical creature from Serbian mythology and it kinda feels like a basilisk but way weirder. This thing is a bird that has a long beak and a pelican-like sack. You can acquire one at the low low price of your sanity and clear face. For you see, in order to get one, you need to take an egg from a black hen which a woman now needs to carry under her armpit for 40 days ( is now a good time to note that chicken eggs hatch after 21 days or so) and one cannot confess, cut nails, wash their face, or pray. After that the cikavac would suck the honey from other people’s beehives and suck milk from other peoples cows and then bring it back to their owner. It would fulfill its owner’s wishes and it would allow its owner to understand the animal language.

Chort, a demon or a humanlike spirit in Slavic folk tradition.  They are not exactly evil characters. Yes they try to trick people into selling them their souls in exchange for useless gifts. Yes those people are carried off into hell. But they are sometimes tricked into doing such things as building castle walls in a day. Sometimes is depicted as trying to bring evil characters to hell. A small, hairy man with a tail, horns, and one or two hooves. But due to shapeshifting abilities, the chort is able to appear in nicer forms and tries to trick people while in them. Though these transformations aren’t and can’t be complete, so there’s a way to know if one is dealing with a chort whether it be by small horns in curly black hair or a hoofed leg hidden within high boots. Though they share similarities, a chort is not the devil.

Čuma, aka kuga, is a personification of the plague in Serbo-Croation myths. Typically appears as an old woman wearing white, though in some cases has been depicted as a young woman. Direct mention of them were avoided and were usually referred to by godmother or aunty. According to belief, they lived in a far away land where they came from to infect people. Due to their hatred of dirtiness, if they found a dirty household they would be eager to infect it. Due to this, if a plague appeared,every house and its occupants must be thoroughly cleansed. In addition one could make offerings to of food, clean water, basil, and a comb.

Domovoi are household protectors, generally seen as kind spirits though they would harass the family they protect if said family was rude or unclean. This usually took the form of pulling small pranks until the family corrected their behavior. While domovoi are shape shifters, most depictions show them as small, bearded masculine creatures which are reminiscent of hobgoblins. In order to complete his chores and to fulfill his duty of protecting the house, the domovoi would assume the shape of the head of the household, sometimes working in the yard while the real head of household was asleep. (Guess spirits don’t have to worry about identity theft charges). They were also capable of turning into animals, rarely taking the form of a dog or a cat. Another facet of the domovoi was their ability to act as an oracle. Predictions are as follows

Dancing and laughing= Good fortune would come

Rubbed the bristles of a comb= a wedding would happen soon

Extinguished candles= Misfortune would fall upon the household.

Dziwożona, a type of female swamp demon from Slavic mythology, sometimes called Mamuna or Bognika, who lived in the thickets near rivers and streams and lakes. Thought to appear with foul weather around trees and swamps, they are known for being malicious and dangerous, and usually were previously living humans. Several types of people would be at risk of turning into one after death, such as: midwives, old maids, unmarried mothers, pregnant women who die before giving birth, and abandoned children who were born out of wedlock. Some depictions include an ugly, old woman who had a hairy body, long straight hair, and I quote “breasts so huge she uses them to wash her clothes”. I don’t know what that actually means and I don’t want to find out. She also wore a red hat with a fern twig attached. In case she wasn’t weird enough, she’d watch women with their little children.  Just chilling around making the kid sick and making schemes to get the mother away from the kid when she’d replace the kid with one of her own, a foundling/changeling.

On Multilingualism and Empathy

On Multilingualism and Empathy

Hallo (German informal). Guten Tag (standard German). Moin moin (Northern Germany). Goed morgen (Dutch). Bonjour (French). Ciao (Italian). Privet (Russian). Merhaba (Turkish) . Salam (Arabic). Zdravo (Serbo-croation). Hi (English). These are a few of the greetings I might hear on any day in my hometown of Würselen, Germany, which lies just a few kilometers away from the three-country point where…

View On WordPress

The 3 Greatest Minds of All Time

3. Leonardo Da Vinci

Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, iconology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal. Today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived.

2. Isaac Newton

English physicist and mathematician (described in his own day as a “natural philosopher”) who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy,” first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for the development of calculus. Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists’ view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton’s work removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar System. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves. Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death.

1. Nikola Tesla

Serbo-Croation/American inventor, discoverer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, theoretical and experimental physicist, mathematician, futurist and humanitarian. Tesla was a hyperpolyglot who could speak eight languages including: Serbo-Croatian, English, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin. He claimed to have had a three-dimensional memory and thought process that tormented him in his youth, but later aided him with building his inventions in his own mind without wasting any physical energy. He was known to be able to recite by heart full books, mathematical formulas and poetry such as Goethe’s “Faust,” Njegoš’ “The Mountain Wreath,” Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” and Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin.” Tesla has more original inventions to his credit than any other man in history. He has been accounted for 278 patents in 26 different countries. He is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system that we still use today. Tesla was the first to invent and patent a commutatorless alternating current induction motor that led to an AC/DC war with Thomas Edison. All electrical machinery using or generating alternating current is due to Tesla, without which our our electrified power lines, and our subways would be farless advanced. The Tesla Induction Motor, the Tesla Rotary Converter, the Tesla Phase System of Power Transmission, the Tesla Steam and Gas Turbine, the Tesla Coil ( used for radio technology), and the Oscillation Transformer are perhaps his better known inventions. In his labs he conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He is also the father of remote control, building a wireless controlled boat exhibited in 1898. Although not recognized for, he was the first to discovery the electron, radioactivity, cosmic rays, terrestrial resonance, stationary waves (standing waves), and the first to invent fluorescent light bulbs. He first demonstrated wireless energy/power by lighting his phosphorescent light bulbs wirelessly in a demonstration given before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia,1893. He also theorized a particle beam to be used for defense in war, and also to produce an artificial Aurora Borealis to light the night skies, and a particle beam to be used for defense in war. He intended to unify all his innovations into one big machine known as his “World System,” but lacked the investments and funds to finish his work on a large scale. His failure to accomplish his goals left him with a distorted persona of a mad scientist, and a dreamer whose imagination created an unrealistic hope for the future. Tesla would eventually die penniless and alone in his New York apartment, but like the two greats above, he lives on through all his inventions and contributions to this world that last until the end of man.

Saw the last anon, why do you call it Serbo-Croation? Do people think the Bosnian language doesn't exist? Bosnia is still a country you know and Herzegovina isn't another country.

Oh no, I agree with you. Serbo-Croatian was the first name to come to mind when I wrote that. I prefer to refer to call it BCS, but sometimes I slip up and use Serbo-Croatian. Sorry about that. 

Serbian Guy: I'm from Serbia

Sally: OMG Do you speak Serbo-Croation?

SG: That's not a language anymore, I speak Serbian, Croation is about the same thing tho

Sally: OK So my friend Julie lived in Yugoslavia for a year in 1984 and she taught us all how to cuss in Serbo-Croation. But the only word I remember is super-dirty

SG: What's the word?

Sally: (with some hesitation, says word)

People who speak Serbian: (erupt with laughter)

SG: Wow, that's about the dirtiest word we have!

Sally: So I'm told... Thanks JULIE!!

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth. And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes ...

― The Great Gatsby, Frances Scott Fitzgerald

„Kad sam bio mlađi i povredljiviji, otac mi je dao jedan savet, o kome otada često razmišljam. ― Kad god osetiš potrebu da o nekom sudiš ― rekao mi je ― pomisli samo na to da svi ljudi na ovome svetu nisu u životu imali ona preimućstva koja si imao ti.

Rekao mi je samo to, ali nas dvojica smo se uvek neobično dobro razumevali i s malo reči, tako da sam i tom prilikom shvatio i sve ono drugo što je time hteo da kaže. I zato sam otada sklon da svoje mišljenje zadržavam za sebe, a ta moja navika mi je dosad otvorila mnoge neobične prirode i učinila me žrtvom nemalog broja poznatih gnjavatora. Kad takvu osobinu poseduje normalan čovek, nastrane prirode je brzo otkriju i prikače se uz njega; i tako, dok sam bio u koledžu, nepravedno su me optuživali da sam veliki lisac, jer meni su svoje nevolje otkrivali obesni mladići koji se ničim naročitim nisu isticali. Pošto me većina tih ispovesti nije zanimala, često sam se, kad bih na horizontu primetio nesumnjivo približavanje poverljive ispovesti, pravio da spavam, da sam prezauzet poslom, ili bih jednostavno postajao neprijateljski raspoložen; jer poverljivo saopštenje mladog čoveka, ili bar način na koji je ono iskazano, obično deluje plagijatorski i očigledno neiskreno. Ako nekom ne iznesete svoj sud onda je to za onog koji očekuje da ga čuje, stvar beskonačne nade. No ipak se pomalo bojim da ću nešto propustiti ako ne kažem ― kako je to moj otac filistarski nagovestio, a ja filistarski ponavljam ― da se ljudima smisao za osnovnu pristojnost još prilikom rođenja ne dodeljuje ravnomerno. I pošto sam se lepo razmetao svojim smislom za trpeljivost, dolazim do priznanja da i trpeljivost ima granice. Čovekovo držanje može da bude zasnovano na tvrdim stenama ili vlažnim močvarama karaktera...“ ― Veliki Getsbi, Frensis Skot Ficdžerald

True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud - Number 12

True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud – Number 12

Insurance Fraud Based on a Claimed Serbo-Croation War See the full video at https://rumble.com/vtyw1s-true-crime-stories-of-insurance-fraud-number-12.html and at https://youtu.be/_Fy0hgNKDWI Barry Zalma, Esq., CFE presents videos so you can learn how insurance fraud is perpetrated and what is necessary to deter or defeat insurance fraud. This Video Blog of True Crime Stories of Insurance Fraud…

View On WordPress