Scrivener: a copyist of documents; a clerk, scribe or notary [from OldFr. escrivein from L. scriba (“scribe”)]
Sebastomania: religious insanity or mania [ [Gk. sebastos, (“reverence”) + -mania]
Sermocination: the practice of making speeches; the habit of preaching constantly [from L. sermo (“speech”; “conversation”) + -ion]
Sermocination (photo: David Henry)
Sicarian: a murderer, especially an assassin; mercenary fighter [from Sicarii a group of Jewish zealots/insurrectionists opposing the Roman occupation of Judea; cloak-and-dagger assassination unit [from sicae (“small daggers (sickles) concealed in the sicariis’ cloaks”]
Sicarian (image: EBay)
Sillograph: writer of satires [from the book Gk.Sílloi by Timon of Phlius, (flourished ca.280 BC)+ -graphe]
Sillograph (Timon)
Smatchet: a small, nasty person or child; a contemptible, unmannerly person [Scot. Eng. probably from MidEng. smatch + -et]
Somatoparaphrenia: (Psych. ) a type of monothematic delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one’s body [from Gk. sôma, (“body”) + -para (“beside”) + –phrenia]
Staurophobia: pathological aversion to the cross or crucifix (eg, cinematic portrayals of Dracula) [Gk. staurós, (“cross”) + -phobia]
Stentorphonic: speaking very loudly [from Stentōr, a Greek herald in the Trojan War (Homer’s Iliad)]
Stentorphonic (image: tumblr.com)
Stramineous: strawlike; valueless; consisting of straw [L. stramineus (“of straw”) from sternere (“to strew”; “spread out”; “lay flat”)]
Subderisorious: mocking gently and with affection; ridiculing with moderation [L. sub (“below”; “under”) + L. –dērīdeō (“I deride”) + -ous]
Subintelligitur: a meaning or understanding (as of a statement) implied but not expressed [from L. sub- (“secretly”; “under”) + intelligere (“to understand”) + -al]
Succussion: the action or process of shaking the body or the condition of being shaken especially with violence [L. sucussio, from -cussus, (“to shake up”)]
Supernumerary: (person) in addition to usual or necessary number [L. super- (“above”) + number]
Susurrant: gently whispering and rustling [from L. susurrare (“to whisper”)]
Syncretistic: seeking to identify common features of different belief systems, philosophies or civilisations and assimilate them or merge them into a single system [from syncretise (“to attempt to unite and harmonise”), from Gk. synkrētismos (“joining together of Greeks”)]
Synethnic: of (or together with) same race or country [Gk. syn (“same”; “with”; “together”) + –ethno (“people”; “race”; “tribe”; “nation”)]
In the 1950s and ‘60s Berlin, bisected into eastern and western sections, was ground zero for the Cold War. One surprising arena for the head-to-head competition between the rival political systems/ideologies was the public zoological park. Before 1955 there was just one zoo in the divided city, the historic Zoologischer Garten in West Berlin, immensely popular and well patronised, not just by West Berliners but by citizens from the Eastern sector as well𝟙. In that year the East German Communist state established its own (East) Berlin zoo, called the Tierpark (literally “animal park”), to counter the popularity of the Zoologischer Garten. The rivalry between the two Berlin zoos for hegemony sustaining itself over the next 30-plus years would be a personal as well a political one.
Heinrich Dathe (Photo: Katrin Böhme, Ekkehard Hölxtermann, Wolfgang Viebahn: Heinrich Dathe – Zoologe und Tiergärtner aus Leidenschaft)
Zookeepers at 40 paces! The new zoo in the East has the advantage of a dynamic, forceful director, zoologist (Curt) Heinrich Dathe, who managed to wrangle funds out of a cash-strapped GDR to enhance the zoo’s collections and facilities impressively. Construction of the new polar bear habitat for instance was financed by the Stasi (State secret police). When Heinz-Georg Klös took over as director of the Berlin Zoo in 1957 the competitiveness between the two zoos became deeply personal, with a bitter hatred developing and enduring between Dathe and Klös𝟚. The two directors were constantly engaging in contests of oneupmanship…if one zoo acquired a rhinoceros the other zoo got one, or as Jürgen Lange, director of West Berlin Aquarium, described the two men’s relationship: “if one of them buys a miniature donkey, the other buys a mammoth donkey” (Mohnhaupt). Sometimes Klös would get the upper hand…knowing that it was hard for the GDR to get certain exotic animals and that there was a shortage of raw materials in the East, he built an ape house which Dathe couldn’t muster the resources to reciprocate (Mohnhaupt & Frisch). Notwithstanding this, under Dathe the Tierpark was an instant success, so successful that by 1958 it was attracting 1.7 M visitors, 200,000 more than was going through the turnstiles of Berlin Zoo and Aquarium combined.
Source: etsy.com
Baby Vietnamese elephant, Tierpark (Photo: archiv Freunde des Haupstadt)
Proxy cultural war Dathe modernised the look of his zoo with innovative flair while the Zoologischer Garten remained more of a traditional zoo…in 1963 the Tierpark opened the Alfred-Brehm-Haus, at that time the largest and most modern animal house in the world. Containing a massive 50,000-foot state-of-the-art facility for big cats, the Brehm-Haus boasted the first barless enclosures for lions and tigers. The Tierpark, with the advantage of boundless space (set on 160 hectares), eventually became the largest zoo in Europe𝟛. The GDR loudly trumpeted its modernised zoo, heralding it as a triumph of socialism over capitalism, the zoo which due to a shortage of labour in East Germany was built partly by citizen-volunteers. Meanwhile Klös anxious to keep up with Dathe, was busy adding to the Berlin Zoo’s species collection, making it the most biodiverse zoo in the world. The duelling zoos in Berlin had become showcases for each side in the Cold War conflict (Rotondi). When either zoo notched up some success it was taken as an endorsement of its political system, a symbol of superiority and the validation of its society.
Zoo Berlin (Source: Reddit)
End of the zoo wars This cultural competitiveness between East and West, the preoccupation with demonstrating “who’s got the better zoo?”, purportedly asserted to be an indicator of a superior society and way of life, persisted right up tothe collapse of the Eastern Bloc and Wiedervereubugung (German unification) in 1990…it was only in that year that “Professor” Dathe relinquished his iron-grip hold on the Tierpark. With unification came a thaw in the combative climate and a subsequent rapid shift from rivalry to cooperation between the Berlin zoos, symbolised by the appointment in 1991 of a single director in charge of both zoos.
(Elephant Gate, Zoo de Berlin)
Footnote: ZoomaniaAs can be inferred from the above, zoos were and still are a big deal in Germany (in both the bisected and unified eras), a product of the salient fact that the Germans are basically “animal tragics”…it’ssaid that Berliners love animals more than people (Mohnhaupt), a measure of which is the astounding number of zoos Germany has, in a country smaller than the US state of Montana, they number more than 880!
Image source: design-mkt.com
─═─═─═─═─═─═─
𝟙 zoos provided the perfect diversion for Berliners from both sectors during the Cold War, availing them of the opportunity to escape from the city of walls and connect with the world of nature (Rotondi)
𝟚the relationship deteriorating even to the point of a physical confrontation between the two zookeepers in Berlin Zoo’s elephant enclosure
𝟛 cf. the much smaller, cramped, inner city Zoologischer Garten with little space to expand
Bibliography
J.W. Mohnhaupt, The Zookeepers’ War, (2020)
‘Even Before the Wall, Berlin’s Zoos Were Already Cold War Rivals’, J.W. Mohnhaupt & Shelley Frisch, Time, 12-Nov-2019, www.time.com
‘The Cold War Rivalry Between Berlin’s Two Zoos’, Jessica Pearce Rotondi, History, 08-May-2023, www.history.com
The premier tournament of world football, the quadrennial World Cup, is along with the Olympics the most publicised and prestigious international sporting event on the calendar. The powerhouses of the soccer World Cup, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are household names in the world game, but the World Cup pedigree of the likes of Occitania, Sámpi, Padania, Abkhazia and Kurdistan is far less understood. And yet these geographical (and in some cases linguistic) entities have participated in their own football world cup – of sorts!
The VIVA World Cup
FIFA𝟙 is the international governing body which controls association football globally. For a raft of reasons football-playing territories like the above ones have zero prospects of ever joining FIFA (or UEFA𝟚). This has not stopped them from forming “national” soccer teams and organising ‘“friendly” games with fellow non-FIFA teams. These embryonic encounters on the pitch lead eventually to the formation in 2003 of a new para-FIFA body, Nouvelle Fédération Board (AKA N.F.-Board), to represent their interests. In 2006 the N.F.-Board had held its first (downsized) world cup for male players, known as the VIVA World Cup. The organisation of this event however exposed the fragile nature of this association of disparates. Originally VIVA 2006 was intended to be hosted by the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, but member-states fell out over planning and politics and the Board reassigned the holding rights to Occitania (a region linguistically defined and stretching over parts of Spain, France, Monaco and Italy). The organisation of the event, beset by various problems, did go ahead but with only three teams participating…Sámpi (representing the Sámi people of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia) routed Monaco 21–1 in the final.
Tibet v Abkhazia, 2018 World Cup (Photo: Sky Sports)
ConIFA World Cup
N.F.-Board organised several follow-up VIVA World Cups after the maiden event – three have been won by Padania (a would-be independent state in northern Italy proposed by regional separatists) and one by Kurdistan Region. The VIVA World Cup run out of steam however and was disbanded after the 2012 event. In 2013 a new body, ConIFA𝟛, succeeded N.F.-Board and the following year organised the inaugural ConIFA Cup – held in Sweden and won by Countea de Nissa (County of Nice) (France). Subsequent men’s cups have been won by Abkhazia (a partly-recognised breakaway “state” in South Caucasus) and Kárpátalja (representing a Hungarian minority in Carpathian Ruthenia). The 2020 ConIFA World Cup scheduled to be held in North Macedonia was cancelled owing to COVID 19, as was ConIFA Euro 22.
FA Sámpi Women (Source: ConIFA)
Women’s ConIFA Cup
The first women’s ConIFA cup, after a COVID-delayed false start in 2020, finally took place in July 2022. Tibet was the nominal host (though the tournament took place in India), and was only one of two sides to participate. The other “national” team, FA Sámpi, won the two games played and the cup in a woefully lopsided contest.
The non-FIFA world of international football
The host of soccer-playing entities affiliated with ConIFA derive from various categories of statehood or putative statehood. Some are legally and politically recognised entities, small sovereign states or micro-nations such as Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco and the Vatican City, or sub-national territories like Mayotte, Zanzibar and the Falklands Islands. Others are autonomous or autonomous-seeking regions, ethnic minorities and unrecognised states, including Western Sahara, Kurdistan, Somaliland, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Brittany, the Republic of Srpska (within Bosnia/Herzegovina), Northern Cyprus, the Channel Islands, the Romani (people) and even Esperanto (a football team representing the worldwide community of Esperanto speakers). The 2018 World Cup was located in London with the nominal host team, Barawa, representing the Somali diaspora in England. Minorities within states neglected and persecuted by the ruling ethnic/political majority are numbered within the association, eg, the Dafuri (Western Sudan), the Karen and the Rohingya (both from Myanmar).
Beyond football
For many of the players themselves the love of football is not the sole raison d’etre. Engaging in the sport collectively is a means to express their national identity denied to them through official channels, and to take pride in that identity. For the world’s many subsumed and marginalised entities an international football profile provides an opportunity to showcase and preserve their submerged heritages. The fielding of “national” teams on an international stage by the likes of Tibet and Abkhazia also draws attention to the plight of their prevailing political circumstance at the hands of more powerful regional neighbours. Diversity and inclusivity are key terms for ConIFA. The aspirations of it and its predecessor body N.F.-Board are to provide the world’s “underdogs” with a global platform through their football teams, ”a stage for the stateless” and recognition of their cause𝟜.
2018 ConIFA Cup final: Kárpátalja & Northern Cyprus (Photo: Kieran Galvin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Footnote: ConIFA v FIFA FIFA has a checkered history especially of recent times including high profile charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and conspiracy levelled against its highest office-holders. ConIFA by contrast is not FIFA in microcosmic form. ConIFA under president Swede Per-Anders Blind has been at pains to differentiate itself from the perception of FIFA’s pattern of “gravy train” indulgences, operating on a not-for-profit basis with all staff volunteers and an emphasis on transparency in its dealings. Not that everything has been rosy in the ConIFA garden…bickering between members have been a reoccurrence, Somaliland was forced to give up its hosting rights for (the ultimately cancelled) ConIFA 22 because of member opposition. The politically-eclectic nature of ConIFA has provoked ruptures within the association membership (eg, Northern Cyprus’s refusal to recognise Western Armenia).
FYI: That other men’s football cup takes place in November this year, to be controversially hosted by Qatar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 𝟙Fedération Internationale de Football Association (who’s remit also extends to beach football and futsal) 𝟚 Union of European Football Assocations 𝟛 Confederation of Independent Football Assocations 𝟜 the New Yorker tagged the ConIFA Cup as the “the World Cup for Forgotten Nations”
Articles consulted:
‘From Abkhazia to Zanzibar: How CONIFA Are Uniting the World Through Football’, Will Sharp, The Magazine, 04-Jan-2018, www.thesefootballtimes.com
‘The Non-FIFA Renegades’, Steve Menary, Roads and Kingdoms, 07-Apr-2014, www.roadsandkingdoms.com
Japan is one of many nations who have imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, but unlike the others Japan has felt an immediate backlash from Moscow in retaliation. The Russian Federation called a halt to peace talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Island chain[a̼] which has been an ongoing bone of contention between the two countries since the end of WWII.
Japanese residents on Etorofu Is prior to Soviet takeover (Source: ABC News)On 9 August 1945 in the dying days of the war the USSR invaded Japanese-held territories to its east. Part of the victorious Soviet spoils of war was the Kuril Islands chain§. Since that time successive Japanese governments have tried, without success, to negotiate with Moscow the return of four of the southernmost islands – Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and the Habomai islets collectively known to the Japanese as the Northern Territories (Nōzanterotorī). Relations between the two countries have become perpetually strained over the ongoing issue[b̼]. Prospects for resolution of the issue in the three-quarters of a century since the Soviet seizure have been repeatedly stymied…in 1955 Moscow offered to return Shikotan and Habomai to Japan on the proviso that it keeps them demilitarised and not open to foreign vessels, however intervention by Washington effectively torpedoed the arrangement. Secretary of state John Foster Dulles, alarmed at the possible rapprochement of Japan and the USSR warned Japan that if it gave up its claim to any of the southern Kuril Islands, the US might decide to keep Okinawa in perpetuity, squashing the prospect of a peace treaty in 1956. An alternative view from Elleman et al contends that Dulles’ intention was not to sabotage the discussions but to try to give Tokyo a stronger bargaining chip to negotiate with the Russians [Bruce A. Elleman, Michael R. Nichols, & Matthew J. Ouimet. (1998). A Historical Reevaluation of America’s Role in the Kuril Islands Dispute. Pacific Affairs, 71(4), 489–504. https://doi.org/10.2307/2761081].
Kunashir Is (Photo: Reuters)Why is Russia determined to keep the islands?
° ° °
There are both geostrategic and economic factors driving Moscow’s resolve to retain the islands seized from Japan. Kremlin military thinking sees the continued sovereignty over the South Kuril Islands as vital to the defence of the RFE coastline against potential threats from the US, China or Japan. The Soviet rulers viewed the archipelago and the Kunashir and Etorofu islands in particular as a “protective barrier fencing off the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean” (Rajan Menon and Daniel Abele). The Kuriles’ economic value is considerable, they are thought to be rich in minerals (manganese nodules and crusts, titanium, magnetite and rhenium) and there is good prospects of offshore reserves of oil and gas in its waters. In addition, the islands are adjacent to rich fishing grounds [Chang, Duckjoon. “BREAKING THROUGH A STALEMATE?: A STUDY FOCUSING ON THE KURIL ISLANDS ISSUE IN RUSSO-JAPANESE RELATIONS.” Asian Perspective 22, no. 3 (1998): 169–206. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42704185; ‘Why Russia will not return the Kuril Islands to Japan’, Nikola Mikovic, The Interpreter, 17-Nov-2020, www.lowyinstitute.org].
The Japanese perspective and strategy
° ° °
The Japanese position is that the annexed islands have historically been part of the nation, handed to Japan in 1875 by Tsarist Russia in exchange for Sakhalin Island (Treaty of St Petersburg)[c̼]. In particular the Japanese view the two most southern islands as integrally connected to the adjacent island of Hokkaido. Since the 1980s Tokyo has tended to follow a quid pro quo approach, offering up the carrot of economic assistance, much needed by Russia, but making it conditional upon the resolution of the islands dispute (known in Japan as the seikei fukabun[d̼] policy). A change of approach from recent Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe eschewing all mention of the hot button subject of the Kuriles and emphasising economic cooperation in a diplomatic offensive aimed at wooing President Putin, again came up short in delivering the desired result for the Japanese.
Putin and Abe (Source: dw.com)
Intractable thorn in bilateral relations
° ° °
Right up to the contemporary era Japanese and Russian politicians have gotten no closer to resolving the Kuriles dispute. With the passage of time public opinion within both countries has hardened on the issue making it more difficult…the Japanese are distrustful of Russia and its current leader, while the rise of nationalism in Russia post-Cold War has sharpened opposition to making any concessions on the islands. President Yeltsin found that out in the 1990s when he had to back down on his commitment to a peace treaty with Japan including a territorial concession, due to domestic opposition (not least of which came from RFE locals). The Kremlin is keenly aware of the politdownside of returning all or any of the Kuril islands which would be seen by Russian nationalists as a sign of weakness on its part (Mikovic).
Image: OSINTdefenderFollowing Japan’s imposition of sanctions against Russia, prompting the Kremlin to pull the plug on the peace talks, Japanese politicians including current prime minister, Fumio Kishida, have reverted to a hardline position on the dispute, branding Russia as “an illegal occupier” who has militarised sovereign Japanese territories [‘Clash between Japan and Russia looms as Tokyo steps up Kuril Island claims: ‘Russian Army is illegal occupier’, Michael Willems, City A.M., 01-Apr-2022, www.cityam.com]. As a consequence, resolution of the 76-year-old stalemate on the Kuriles’ future now seems further away than ever.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[a̼] in Japan sometimes called the Chishima Islands or the Northern Islands (Hoppō Ryodo)
[b̼] although relations between Japan and the Soviet Union briefly attained a state of normalisation in the mid-1950s
[c̼] the southern portion of Sakhalin was regained by Japan after victory in the 1904-05 war
[d̼] “the non-separation or politics and economics”
