Kobarid

Kobarid (pronounced [kɔbaˈɾiːt]; Italian: Caporetto, Friulian: Cjaurêt, German: Karfreit) is a settlement in Slovenia, the administrative centre of the Municipality of Kobarid.

Kobarid is known for the 1917 Battle of Caporetto, where the Italian retreat was documented by Ernest Hemingway in his novel A Farewell to Arms. The battle is well documented in the museum in the centre of Kobarid. The museum won a Council of Europe award in 1993.

Name

Kobarid was attested in written sources as Kauoretum in 1184 (and as de Cavoreto in 1258, Caboret in 1291, and de Chiavoretto in 1343). The Slovenian name is derived from *Koboridъ, borrowed from Old Friulian *Kaborệdu. The original Romance form of the name, *Cap(o)rētum, is probably derived from Latin caper 'goat' and refers to a place where there are goats. The town is known as Cjaurêt in Friulian, Karfreit in German, and Caporetto in Italian.

Geography

The municipality is the westernmost in Slovenia, situated within the Julian Alps in the Upper Soča (Isonzo) Valley, at the confluence with the Nadiža (Natisone) River, close to the border with Italy. In the southwest, the road leads to the neighbouring Italian comune of Pulfero. The area is located in the north of the historic Goriška region, itself part of the larger Slovene Littoral.

Alessandro Barbero

Alessandro Barbero (born April 30, 1959) is an Italian historian, novelist and essayist.

Barbero was born in Turin. He attended the University of Turin, where he studied literature and Medieval history. He won the 1996 Strega Prize, Italy's most distinguished literary award, for Bella vita e guerre altrui di Mr. Pyle gentiluomo. His second novel, Romanzo russo. Fiutando i futuri supplizi, has been translated into English as The Anonymous Novel. Sensing the Future Torments (Sulaisiadar 'san Rudha: Vagabond Voices, 2010). Its critical success in Italy has been repeated in Britain: Franco Cardini wrote in Il Giornale, "Barbero uses the diabolic skills of an erudite and professional narrator to seek out massacres of the distant and recent past. The Anonymous Novel concerns the past-that-never-passes (whether Tsarist or Stalinist) and the future that in 1988 was impending and has now arrived". Allan Massie wrote in The Scotsman, ""If you have any feeling for Russia or for the art of the novel, then read this one. You will find it an enriching experience," and Eric Hobsbawm wrote in The Observer, "The Anonymous Novel: Sensing the Future Torments, from a new publisher, Vagabond Voices, situated on the Isle of Lewis, is a vivid novel about Russians coping with the transition from communism to capitalism and combines echoes of Bulgakov with elements of a thriller."

World War I

World War I (WWI or WW1), also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war (including the victims of a number of genocides), a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by trench warfare, a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.

The war drew in all the world's economic great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom/British Empire, France and the Russian Empire) versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Although Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary, it did not join the Central Powers, as Austria-Hungary had taken the offensive, against the terms of the alliance. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war: Italy, Japan and the United States joined the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers.

Pathé News

Pathé News was a producer of newsreels, cinemagazines, and documentaries from 1910 until 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its collection of news film and movies is fully digitised and available online.

History

Its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Société Pathé Frères was founded by Charles Pathé and his brothers, who pioneered the development of the moving image. Charles Pathé adopted the national emblem of France, the cockerel, as the trademark for his company. After the company, now called Compagnie Générale des Éstablissements Pathé Frère Pt'honographes & Cinématographes, invented the cinema newsreel with Pathé-Journal. French Pathé began its newsreel in 1908 and opened a newsreel office in Wardour Street, London in 1910.

The newsreels were shown in the cinema and were silent until 1928. At first they ran for about four minutes, and were issued biweekly. Even though during the early days the camera shots were taken from a stationary position, the Pathé newsreels captured events such as Franz Reichelt's fatal parachute jump from the Eiffel Tower, and suffragette Emily Davison's fatal injury by a racehorse at the 1913 Epsom Derby.

First World

The concept of the First World originated during the Cold War and included countries that were generally aligned with or on friendly terms with the United States (including all NATO countries) and were generally identified as non-theocratic democracies with primarily market-based economies. While there is no current consensus on an exact definition of the term, in modern usage, "First World country" generally implies a relatively wealthy, stable and functional non-theocratic democracy with a reasonably well educated population, or just any developed country.

During the Cold War, relationships between the First World and the Second World of Communist states were typically competitive, ideological, and occasionally hostile. Relationships of both these "Worlds" with "Third World" countries (i.e. all the rest) were normally positive in theory, while some were quite negative in practice (such as proxy war between client states). Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and advances in communication technology, relations amongst the "Worlds" are not as rigid, although there are still marked disparities, with the First World generally having more influence, wealth, and access to information and technological innovations than the Second and Third Worlds.