Literature Some Moldovan word art, distinct from Romanian, can hardly be discerned until during the 20th century. With the Soviet political dominance of the Moldavans in the Autonomous Republic of Moldova (1924-40), the “progressive” Moldovan literature was established as an alternative to the “bourgeois” Romanian. In the Soviet Republic of Moldova (1940–91), literature was aligned…
Author: globalsciencellc
Montenegro Arts and Literature
Music In the area of today’s Montenegro, several traces of early music cultures have been found, including a whistle from older Stone Age, which is Europe’s oldest specimen of a musical instrument. Musical motifs have also been found in cave paintings and archeological objects from the century before Christ. Lots of preserved medieval liturgical songs,…
Netherlands Arts and Literature
Literature, drama and theater The oldest known Dutch writer, Hendrik van Veldeke, lived in the late 12th century in Limburg, which is now partly Belgian. He wrote lyrics and recorded the legend of Servatius, the patron saint of the city of Maastricht, in Middle Dutch. German literature also claims this poet, when he also wrote…
Norway Arts and Literature
Literature There was a close linguistic and literary communion between Norway and Iceland from the time of the country until about 1300. The ancient goddess and heroic poems may have taken their northern form in Norway but were first written down in Iceland in the 13th century (“The Elder Eddan”). The first Skalds were Norwegian,…
Northern Macedonia Arts and Literature
Literature The Macedonian pursuit of political and linguistic autonomy was successfully crowned only in 1944, when the Macedonian was proclaimed as the official language of the Republic of Macedonia in the new Yugoslav federation. The history of Macedonian literature, however, is older. It includes works in the vernacular, which since the last half of the…
Poland Arts and Literature
Literature With Christianity, Western Culture 966 made its entry into Poland One of the most important of the few preserved religious and profane writings of the Middle Ages belongs “Kazania Świętokrzyskie” (“Preachings of the Holy Cross”, c. 1300). In the 1100’s, a French monk, Gallus Anonymus, had created the first Polish chronicle depicting Poland’s history…
Portugal Arts and Literature
Literature Poetry, mainly love poems (“cantigas de amor” and “cantigas de amigo”) and satirical poems (“cantigas de escárnio e maldizer”), flourished in Portugal in the 13th century. However, much of this poetry was written in other languages: the closely related Galician, Provencal, Italian. The Spanish influence became strong for several centuries; many Portuguese writers wrote…
Romania Arts and Literature
Literature The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter from 1521, but no real Romanian literature emerged until the 16th century chronicles. The learned Dimitrie Cantemir was the first modern history writer. The Greek dominance of Romanian cultural life was broken as the so-called Trans-Sylvanian school in the late 1700’s began a novelization of…
Switzerland Arts and Literature
Literature At the center of the first literary flourishing was the monastery of St. Gallen in the 9th century. The language was Latin, but soon got the Swiss Germanhis breakthrough as a literary language. The forerunner was Notker Labeo with translations of Latin texts. The most prominent of the German-speaking poets during the Middle Ages…
Serbia Arts and Literature
Literature The Serbs adopted the Orthodox faith at the end of the 8th century and became involved early in the Kyrgyz literature. In the fence of the Nemanjiids (compare Nemanjić) state formation and an independent church were created in the 13th and 13th centuries the conditions for a literary flourishing in Serbian Kyrgyzstan. The literary…