John Milton (1608-1674)

„The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.“
-Paradise Lost-

One oft he most famous and extraordinary figures of English literture in general and English poetry in particular, is a man born in 1608 in Cheapside in Londen. His name - John Milton. His father was a scrivener und hat a great love for music, which also hiss on John caught at an early age. Milton was educated at St. Paul’s School and by 1625 he wentto Christ’s Collage in Cambridge. He had a very combative ans rebellious nature, attacked the curriculum and his teachers. So he very soon earned the reputition of being a rebell an critique.

In his early years Milton wrote his first poems in Latin, the language in which he succeeded admirably and could rival the best teachers of his time. But very soon he changed his intentions and declared to write his poetry in English. In this early years brillinat peoms were created, as On the morning of Christ’s Nativity, On Shakespeare or On May Morning.

In 1632 Milton left Cambridge and went home to his father’s estate at Horton in Buckinghamshire and planned to retire and devote his whole life to poetry und studying. In his time of solitude some very fine poems like On time or At a Solemn Music were written. The time alone started to change his look onto the world. His studies of theology made him more and more a religious man. For example Milton was very proud of liveing a chastise lifestyle, a virtue which he held very high. The time of solitude was quiet productive. Nevertheless after six years he had enough of his solitary life, and felt a call to action.

The second half of Miltons life made him an embittered idealist and controversialist. He had travelled to Italy, was well accepted and had many constructive contacts with locals like prelates, although his protestand belief and his catholic opponents. He planned to go to Greece, but political circumstances didn’t let him complete his journey. Back in England he worked as a teacher in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Then he became politically involved an his poetic work came to an end for nearly twenty years. Milton as an idealist thought, that a Golden Age for England would start, if bishops and kings would be removed, that would be true liberty. Milton wrote a bunch of pamphlete in which he attacked the political and religious situation in England very harshly.

In 1642 he married Mary Powell, a young girl of 17, with whome he had four children (and giving up his chastise lifestyle). Mary died in 1652. In 1656 John married again, but his wife died only one year later. During the whole time of the lord-protectorship of Cromwell an later on, he defended the Commonwealth, publishing many curragious outcries agains monarchy. After restoration of monarchy in 1660, he was hiding for a certain time, fearing for his life, but in the end he was pardoned. In that time Milton returned to poetry, working on Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667. This was his masterpiece, the work he had prepared for his whole life. A deeply religious man, paradise, the fall of satan and the fall of Man and banishment from Eden were ideal themes to be worked on. Miltons last two works Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, also treated religious topics. Samson agonistes was written according tot he model oft he old Greek tragedies and may be the most personal of all of John Milton’s poems.

Milton was a hightly moral man, believing in the high value of virtue and the good, the strengh, which comes from belief. But he was also an idealist and he himself stayed far behind his ideal (for example he never reached the calm of mind of which he writes in his poems). There was also a lot of critics on Milton: his humorlessness, his egotism, pride and arrogance. But as a poet Milton stands alone in English literature. No other English poet was more involved in the political affaires of his time, an no other every risked so much. The only English poet which could overshine Milton was William Shakespeare. Milton had a big influence on writers oft he 18th century, especially on Alexander Pope, as well as T. S. Eliot. Great writers do something once and for all, Eliot meant.

Peter the great (1672-1725)

Peter I. known as Tsar Peter the Great, is one of the most illustrious and powerful figures which owned the Russian throne. He was the younger son of Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich and his second marriage wife. In 1682 he was proclaimed Tsar after the death of his half-brother Fedor III., together with his other half-brother Ivan, who was a very incompetent and weak character. The patriarch of Moscow and the Boyars (Russian nobility) strongly promoted Peter on the throne, as Peter’s half-sister Sophia and the palace guard wished to see Ivan on the throne alone. Making both of the half-brothers Tsar was the compromise which resulted out of this vivid conflict.

As many rulers of Russia before Peter and after him, a Coup d’état brought single power into the hand a one monarch alone. In the year 1689 on rumours of a plot, Peter could overthrow Sophia, the de facto ruler of Russia, and depose Ivan. The government was in his hand alone from that time onwards. Peter was studying European modern development from politics, army and technical advantages of most of European states. Soon his plan was to westernize and modernize his country. After hundreds of years of inner conflicts and wars against peoples of inner Asia, which threatened the empire from the east and from the south, Russia turned westwards. Peter saw, after travelling many parts of Europe incognito, how much his own country had fallen behind. Especially building a Russian navy, imitating western models (England and The Low Lands where Peter learnt to be an engineer of ship-building), became one of his most ambitious pursuits.

Inner conflict broke out again in 1697-1698 when the Streltsi (the palace guard) revolted against the Tsar. The result of this revolt was the modernization of the Russian army by recruiting one person of every 20th household and a massive restructurization. After successfully overpowering the revolt, Peter strongly supported building up an Russian iron and textile industry, as well as expanding industrialization into areas far away from Moscow (for example the region of Ural). Exports of Russia rose strongly and when Peter died in 1725, exports were twice the volume of its imports.

Foreign Politics lead to war for the dominion in the Black See with the big rival in the south - the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). Peter could expand his empire to the south, the city of Azov was conquered and a fleet was build up to secure Russian interests in the Black Sea. In 1700 war broke out with the kingdom of Sweden ruled by King Charles XII. The Russian defeated Charles in 1708, when he invaded Russia. In 1709 the Swedish were defeated at Poltava. In 1711 Sweden successfully stroke back, but Peter could prevent an alliance between Turkey and Sweden, when Azov war lost to the Turks again. Peter also started expeditions to expand his empire to the Caspian area to the costs of the empire of Persia.

The big symbol of the westernization of Russia was building the new Capital of St. Petersburg at the river Neva in 1703. It became Russia’s gate to the west and was always the most modern and western City of Russia up to our times. Between 1709 and 1719 Tsar Peter massively renewed the legal system and the administration of Russia. The country was overflowed by reform and resistance was very strong. One example became a tax on wearing beards. Beards, what most Russian men had worn at that time, were seen as old fashion and antiquated.

Peter was a very powerful and very often compromiseless man who demanded that the whole country had to follow him without debate. A savage criminal code, which was very similar to the military code, became feared in the whole empire. Anecdotes spread around Europe. Peter himself was a man of physically imposing stature. Very strong and tall, he was a domineering person and by character, his natural authority became visible to everybody. For example, when punishment for a revolt had to be performed, some few hundreds of the rebels had to be decapitated. After many executions the executioners were exhausted and couldn’t do their job any more. Peter was laughing at them took, the axe and decapitated a hundred men on his own. When he thought to have finished he asked: “Did everybody get was he deserved?” But one man to be executed was still lying on a block of wood and replied: “No my Tsar, you have forgotten me!” Peter was amused granted life to him and let the man free.

The reform and the administration and parting of the government into different departments of state, made Peter be known as the founder of modern Russia. But a lot of his reforms were ruined by incompetent and weak successors. Only one of his successors in the 18th century did reach partially his level of reform and gave another push of modernization to the Empire of Russia. It was Tsaress Catherine II. the great (1729-1796).

Ferdinand III. of Castile and Léon (1199 – 1252)

One of the biggest heroes of Christianity, the Western World and especially Spain, was the famous third king with the name Ferdinand. He was born in August 1199 as the oldest son of king Alphonso IX. of Léon and Berengaria of Castile. He became king of Castile in 1217 following his uncle Henry I. and by the death of his father in 1230; he also became king of Léon and united the two kingdoms under his strong and wise reign. At that time, big parts of middle and southern Spain were occupied by the Moors and the north was split up into several kingdoms. The “reconquista”, the liberation of Spain from den Moors, went hand in hand with uniting and forming the kingdom of Spain which came to a successful end by the marriage of king Ferdinand II. “The Catholic”, king of Aragon with Isabella of Castile in 1474. From the reign of Ferdinand III. onwards, Léon and Castile were permanently united. Ferdinand III. is also know as “the Saint”, for he was canonized by the Pope in the 17th Century.

Under king Ferdinand III. the reconquista reached a new pinnacle and vast territories were liberated from the Moors. In 711 the Moors came to Spain and conquered the majority of its land. It took many centuries to regain the lost territories by the Christian Spanish nobility. One of the biggest steps in this big project was fulfilled by Ferdinand. Beside of Castile and Léon, Asturia and Galicia became part of the greater kingdom and by this the base of Castile’s glory and power was led. Ferdinand expanded the power of his state to the southern sea (Spain’s Atlantic coast to the south, next to Portugal). Glorious triumphs he made by defeating the Moors at Cordoba (a very symbolic act) in 1236, Jaén in 1246, Seville in 1248 and Cadiz in 1250. By this the majority of the Iberian Peninsula came under his reign. The Moorish kingdom of Granada stayed independent but became dominated by Castile until the final end of Moorish influence in Spain by conquering Granada and its symbol of power, the castle of the Alhambra (“the red one”).

In 1239 he founded the famous University of Salamanca. The legal system was improved by the king and a royal court of appeal was established, before which everybody could appeal. A code of behaviour as a strict rule, for all the clerks of the king was passed and became a guiding line for centuries of Spanish administration. Ferdinand was as strong believer and defender of the Christian believe. For he was not a brutal man and always united wisdom, belief and moderation but stayed strong and invincible about questions of belief. Being king and living a Christian life was always very difficult for occidental rulers. Ferdinand succeeded admirably, like other Christian Saints who were kings like Louis IX. of France or king Olaf II. of Norway. Ferdinand fought strongly against heretics and was eager to secure the purity of Christian belief. Many dioceses were founded by him. One well known building, he let built, was the cathedral of Toledo (another city which was reconquered by one of Ferdinand’s ancestors). Before the king could follow his plans to invade Africa to free the Christians in the Moorish land, he became very sick. Ferdinand’s main interest was not power, but promote the glory of Jesus Christ and bringing back people to the Christianity. Part of this plan of course was to win against the enemy with whom there was no compromise possible: Islam. None the less, he showed a great heart, by treating the unbelievers rightly and let them sell there goods and let them return to the African continent. Also he was enormously successful, he never became arrogant, stayed humble before god and devoted everything to the Lord’s greater honour. As an outer sign of this, he built the cathedral of Burgos.

Ferdinand became famous as “the protector and defender” of the church. There are very beautiful paintings which show the Saint, which are seated in the Prado-Museum in Madrid and the Louvre in Paris. The Cathedral of Burgos owns a painting on which the king can be seen with the devil in the body of a dog, which is lying under the feet of Ferdinand. The royal family had a lot of offspring. As the result of the first marriage of Ferdinand with Beatrix of Swabia (the daughter of the German emperor Philipp of Swabia) arose seven sons and three daughters. His daughter Eleonor (1241 – 1290) became the wife of king Edward I. of England.

Ferdinand died on May 30th in 1252. In 1671 be became canonized by Pope Clement X. His day to remember is May 30th, the day of death.