Governorate of Estonia
The Governorate of Est(h)onia (Estonian: Eestimaa kubermang) or Province of Estonia, also known as the Government of Estonia, was a governorate of the Russian Empire in what is now northern Estonia. The Governorate was also known as Duchy of Estonia that Russia gained from Sweden during the Great Northern War in 1721. The Russian Tsars held the title Duke of Estonia (Russian: Князь Эстляндский, Knyaz' Estlyandskii), during the Russian era in English sometimes also referred to as Prince of Estonia.
Historical overview
Until the late 19th century the governorate was administered independently by the local Baltic German nobility through a feudal Regional Council (German: Landtag).
Initially named the Reval Governorate after the city of Reval, today known as Tallinn, it was created in 1719 out of territories conquered from Sweden in the Great Northern War. The former dominion of Swedish Estonia was formally ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. During subsequent administrative reordering, the governorate was renamed in 1796 into the Governorate of Estonia. While the rule of the Swedish kings had been fairly liberal with greater autonomy granted for the peasantry, the regime was tightened under the Russian tsars and serfdom was not abolished until 1819.
Estonia
Estonia (
i/ɛˈstoʊniə/;Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsti]), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km2 (17,505 sq mi) of land, and is influenced by a humid continental climate.
Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties, with its capital and largest city being Tallinn. With a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the OECD and the Schengen Area. Ethnic Estonians are Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is a Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish and the Sami languages, and distantly to Hungarian.
MS Estonia
MS Estonia, previously Viking Sally (1980–1990), Silja Star (−1991), and Wasa King (−1993), was a cruise ferry built in 1979/80 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg. The ship sank in 1994 in the Baltic Sea in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. It is the deadliest European shipwreck disaster to have occurred in peacetime, costing 852 lives.
Coordinates: 59°23′0″N 21°40′0″E / 59.38333°N 21.66667°E / 59.38333; 21.66667
Construction
The ship was originally ordered from Meyer Werft by a Norwegian shipping company led by Parley Augustsen with intended traffic between Norway and Germany. At the last moment, the company withdrew their order and the contract went to Rederi Ab Sally, one of the partners in the Viking Line consortium (SF Line, another partner in Viking Line, had also been interested in the ship).
Originally the ship was conceived as a sister ship to Diana II, built in 1979 by the same shipyard for Rederi AB Slite, the third partner in Viking Line. However, when Sally took over the construction contract, the ship was lengthened from the original length of approximately 137 metres (449 ft) to approximately 155 metres (509 ft) and the superstructure of the ship was largely redesigned.
This Strange Engine
This Strange Engine is the ninth studio album by British rock band Marillion, released in 1997.
Release
It is the first of three albums in three consecutive years that Marillion released on a contract with Castle Communications, after being dropped by EMI Records following the relative lack of commercial success of Afraid of Sunlight in 1995; peaking at No. 16, Afraid of Sunlight had been the band's first studio album not to reach the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. Without the promotional efforts of a major label, This Strange Engine continued Marillion's decline in mainstream success; it reached No. 27 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for two weeks. The album sold significantly better in the Netherlands, home of one of the band's most loyal audiences, reaching #10.
Music
Most of the tracks are soft rock styled but relatively lengthy compositions.
The first single released from the album was "Man of a Thousand Faces". A music video was also released of this track. The second single from the album was "Eighty Days". Neither single received any mainstream radio airplay. For the first time, no singles from a Marillion album entered the UK Singles Chart.
Podcasts:
