Cirque du Soleil and Its Roots in Illegitimate Circus

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderASHA News1 May 2010Schools 2010:Connect, Create, Innovate in Las Vegas Kellie Rowden-Racette Kellie Rowden-Racette Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.AN2.15062010.20 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Harnessing the energy from the city known for nonstop celebration, ASHA Schools 2010 travels to Las Vegas on July 16–18. The theme of this 11th schools conference—“Connect, Create, Innovate”—captures the dynamic backdrop of Las Vegas and reflects the energy and commitment of school-based clinicians. Schools 2010, to be held at the Mirage Hotel, will feature nationally known speakers, new conference topics, interactive sessions, and, of course, entertainment. Keynote speaker Marcia Harding, a speech-language pathologist and president of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, will reflect on the roles of choice, chance, and timing in creating a professional career. She will analyze her own path from school-based SLP to leader in the Arkansas state government, and its lessons for other colleagues in school settings. Later, in a concurrent session, Harding will discuss changes in the systems and structure of K–12 education, with emphasis on the effects on SLPs and audiologists in schools. Harding, director of the Special Education Division of the Arkansas Department of Education, has 39 years of experience as a program administrator and SLP. She has been recognized by several state and national professional organizations for her efforts on behalf of children and youth with disabilities. Hot Topics Throughout the conference, attendees can participate in concurrent sessions on a wide range of school-based topics: cluttering, collaboration and team approaches, the effect of neurotoxins on language and learning, fluency, auditory processing, traumatic brain injury in adolescents, phonology, dysphagia, response-to-intervention and workload, social groups for augmentative and alternative communication users, universal design for learning, early literacy, childhood apraxia of speech, and ethics. (A full list of topics is available online.) Participants also will be able to browse exhibits, participate in roundtable discussions, and speak with members of ASHA’s Board of Directors during the Member Forum. At a regional discussion session, members of the School Finance Committee will discuss resources available to school-based SLPs as well as new policy documents developed this year. ASHA is collaborating with the Educational Audiology Association, which will hold a workshop on July 15, immediately preceding the Schools Conference. The first day of the Schools Conference will feature programming of interest to both professions. Audiologists who want to attend both can take advantage of a special one-day Schools Conference registration rate. SLPs Julie Masterson and Kenn Apel will close the conference by encouraging participants to take what they learn in Las Vegas and pass it on. Their closing session—“What Happens in Vegas Shouldn’t Stay in Vegas!”—will give participants tools to become change agents in their own school settings. Apel is a professor of communication science and disorders at Florida State University in Tallahassee; Masterson is a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Missouri State University. Speed Networking Due to the success of last year’s speed networking, Schools 2010 will again offer participants the opportunity to expand their professional connections quickly. On Thurs., July 15, from 6 to 7 p.m., participants will be able to meet colleagues through a series of six-minute networking sessions. Whether you are looking for professional contacts or congenial dinner companions, you can expand your network of colleagues. Other conference-sponsored fun includes the Royal Flush Raffle, which will benefit the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation’s grant and scholarship programs (see sidebar), and the ASHA-PAC wine tasting reception at the Mirage on Friday night, July 16. Tickets to the wine-tasting (open to ASHA members and their guests only) are $35; proceeds support ASHA’s lobbying efforts. Las Vegas Fun Aside from the well-known presenters and breadth and depth of topics covered at ASHA Schools 2010, one of the best parts of this year’s conference is that it’s happening in Las Vegas. Beyond the obvious fun of The Strip, visitors also can enjoy world-class shopping at the Grand Canal Shoppes or at the Fashion Show Mall (just down the street from the Mirage). Las Vegas offers shows and concerts to suit almost any taste. ASHA Schools 2010 registrants will be able to buy discounted tickets to four Cirque du Soleil shows (Mystère™, KÀ™, Criss Angel Believe™, and Zumanity™). An international phenomenon, Cirque du Soleil combines spectacular theatrics, dance, and athleticism. ASHA Schools 2010, developed with input from members, offers up to 1.6 ASHA CEUs. Delve more deeply into schools practice and enjoy meeting ASHA colleagues in vibrant Las Vegas! For more information or to register, go to the Schools page on ASHA’s Web site. Money-saving early-bird registration closes June 7. Win a Chance to See “Love” Do you “Love” Cirque du Soleil? The winner of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation’s Schools Conference Royal Flush Raffle will win two tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” at the Mirage while in Las Vegas. Place your bet! A $25 raffle ticket gets you: One chance to win two tickets to “Love,”Є which combines the magic of Cirque du Soleil with the spirit of The Beatles to create an entertainment experience celebrating the Beatles’ musical legacy ($300 value). Three chances to win the Phenomenal Philly prize package at the 2010 ASHA Convention. Valued at more than $2,400, the package includes free ASHA Convention registration, a hotel suite for four nights, dinner for two, and other VIP amenities. Take a chance to hit this jackpot and support the ASHFoundation. To purchase raffle tickets, check the Royal Flush Raffle tickets box on the conference registration form. Already registered? Then phone 800-498-2071 to add Royal Flush Raffle tickets to your registration. Author Notes Kellie Rowden-Racette, print and online editor for The ASHA Leader, can be reached at[email protected]. Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 15Issue 6May 2010 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: May 1, 2010 Metrics Downloaded 119 times Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2010 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

This study notes “storytelling” as an important factor that enabled Cirque du Soleil, established in 1984, to develop into a world-class performing troupe, and seeks to investigate what processes and functions utilized storytelling. Cirque du Soleil revolutionized the classical elements and overall composition of the circus, becoming an innovative performing arts troupe, centering its vision around the “new circus” concept and “storytelling”. While the classical circus was a simple lineup of skills, Cirque du Soleil utilized unique audiovisual elements through artistic assets built before its establishment and has used storytelling as a tool to weave these elements together organically. This study explores the purpose and process of the introduction of storytelling by Cirque du Soleil and examines the aspects of storytelling in convergence with the circus as well as the results achieved through it by an analysis of KÀ, a permanent performance in Las Vegas. KÀ is the first performance with a scripted, cohesive story in Cirque du Soleil that attempts to converge storytelling with a circus-style production.

Reviewed by: Zaia, and: The House of Dancing Water Andy Lavender Zaia. Written and directed by Gilles Maheu. Cirque du Soleil, The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, Macau. 13 February 2011. The House of Dancing Water. Written and directed by Franco Dragone. Franco Dragone Entertainment Group, Dancing Water Theater, City of Dreams, Macau. 14 February 2011. As I was on the TurboJet ferry from Hong Kong, before I had even reached the Macau Maritime Ferry Terminal, I received four unsolicited text messages. The first read: "Macau Govt Tourist Office welcomes you! Choose licensed hotels and inns for your visit, don't stay at illegal accommodation." A tourism hotline number followed. The rest were from casinos, offering me opportunities to "Spin for a Million!" (City of Dreams) or "SPIN 2 WIN" (Grand Lisboa). If the texts indicated the blithe grip of the gambling industry on Macanese culture, it is also worth noting that the government got in first. I was traveling to see two super-spectacular shows in a location where a certain sort of theatre—international, intermedial, and (up to a point) intercultural—is a bargaining chip in an ongoing commercial and cultural cleanup operation. (You are free to understand "cleanup" in both senses of the term.) Cirque du Soleil's Zaia premiered on 28 August 2008, joining a stable of shows permanently housed in casinos (Cirque has seven such productions in Las Vegas). Along with Zed in Tokyo, Zaia is one of the company's two resident productions outside of North America and is a vehicle for its ongoing corporate engagement with China. Relatively hot on its heels, The House of Dancing Water is the brainchild of Franco Dragone, a former Cirque du Soleil director whose resume includes a number of Vegas mega-hits. The show opened on 17 September 2010 and comfortably wears a billing as "the world's largest water-based extravaganza." Both productions belong to that familiar genre of populist spectaculars that set high-grade circus skills amid high-end production values. They must also be seen as a function of their setting in casino developments on the Cotai Strip—an extensive land-reclamation project in the Pearl River Delta—where both have a strategic place in the consolidation of Macau's civic and geo-political identity. A former Portuguese colony, Macau became a Special Administrative Region of China in 1999, two years after its neighbor Hong Kong. Long positioned as a meeting point between East and West, the region is the only area in China where gambling is legal, and it is now home to the most profitable concentration of casinos in the world. In February 2002, seeking to revitalize and re-legitimize Macau's lucrative gambling industry, the government awarded franchises to three operators, including two Las Vegas-based conglomerates. Macau now turns over four times the gaming revenue of Las Vegas, the result of 25 million trips made to the region, mostly by residents of mainland China. The Macanese government required investors to commit to "diversification": namely, the development of a wider range of leisure offerings and entertainment experiences. In this environment, theatre must be accessible, chic, and consumable, which is where Cirque du Soleil and Dragone come in. The resulting productions, commissioned by the casino corporations to run for years, are located in bespoke venues integrated within larger leisure developments. An 1,800-seat theatre was built for Zaia, its round proscenium apparently modeled on Indian and Mayan architecture. The venue is located within Macau's lavish version of The Venetian: a hotel, mall, and casino complex modeled not so much on the Italian city as on The Venetian in Las Vegas, except that the Macanese iteration is three times the size of its US counterpart. Directly across the road is the City of Dreams complex, described in its marketing material as an "integrated entertainment resort" that includes three hotels and an apartment complex with 2,200 rooms, a casino with 400 gaming tables, and a shopping mall featuring leading Western designer brands. The House of Dancing Water was conceived, according to a press release, as "the iconic entertainment centrepiece of City of Dreams' leisure . . . offering." Its dependence on corporate subvention was exemplified...

The article will carry out an artistic analysis in the context of circology, namely: comparative and artistic analysis of the show “OVO” of the “Cirque du Soleil”. Research in the field of circus arts, its theory and practice will be carried out in the context of circological research.
 The problem of this article is that in domestic and world art criticism there are practically no serious scientific studies on the specifics of circus performances of the “Cirque du Soleil”.
 It is important to note that separate publications, announcements, programs of circus performances, popular articles from modern magazines in the press of the late 20th and early 21st centuries certainly took place. However, their exclusively narrative display without specific factors should be noted, namely: lack of clear connection between practical specifics of circus art and scientific transmission of information and analytics in the field of art criticism.
 The purpose of the article is to give clear and systematic analysis within circological plane, namely, to provide comparative analysis of the show “OVO” with other performances of the Cirque du Soleil circus as well as to reveal in detail the uniqueness of direction and features of the numbers of the show “OVO” in terms of circus genres, scenario and artistic design.
 Comparative analysis of various circus performances of the show of the Cirque du Soleil, defines diversity and different facts of difference of show "OVO" from such circus performances of the Cirque du Soleil as “Alegría”, “Zumanity”, “Kà”, “O”. The description emphasizes and gives clear description of decoration, modern methods of circus apparatuses, pyrotechnics and innovative technologies, lighting and musical accompaniment. Music was written separately for each show, musical samples were created depending on scenario and plot.
 “OVO” is considered a touring production of the Cirque du Soleil, written and directed by Deborah Kolker. This is the 25th “Cirque du Soleil” show since 1984 created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cirque du Soleil. The name “OVO” translated from Portuguese means “egg”. This corresponds to the theme of the series on life cycle and birth of insects. It is also the main threat of the show. Production designer Gringo Kardia was inspired by nests and colonies of various insects when creating the scene for the “OVO”. Acrobatic structure used during free throw is situated at an angle of 45°. The structure can be lifted up to 4.5 meters and weighs more than 5 tons. Costume designer Liz Vandal to create costumes for “OVO” used her signature style inspired by futuristic superheroes and a variety of armour.
 Thus comparative and artistic analysis of the show “OVO” is a combination of creative and unique, at the same time simple, but understandable plot, bright costumes and make-up that really turn artists into insects. Well-chosen numbers, the way they interconnect and an unsurpassed acting gives an excellent performance about fabulous world of insects which one can visit with the whole family and take a break from real life.

Confronting the dominance of two-dimensional computer images that keep us distant from what we see, the commercial entertainment industry continues to search for ways to involve the audience in the theatrical experience by altering its visual presentation and making a stronger appeal to other senses. Moves to introduce water as a scenographic element in shows such as O (Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio in Las Vegas), Le Rêve – The Dream (Wynn, Las Vegas) or The House of Dancing Water (City of Dreams, Macau) have contributed to the development of advanced stage technologies that, in turn, have provided opportunities to expand the tactile potential of scenography, particularly by allowing the possibility to dive into an under-stage water tank and experience the show from beneath the surface of the water. This article investigates how these new technologies affect audience experience in aquatic theatres, focusing on the haptic and kinaesthetic experience of diving in the water tank at Le Rêve and the perceptual alteration produced by audience displacement in such an environment. The physical presence of the spectator in the water creates a profoundly different perceptual experience and contributes to an abolition of aesthetic distance. What is gained in crossing this scenographic divide, and what is lost? How much distance does scenography need to keep its artistic integrity, and how much distance do spectators need in order to retain their ability for ideological critique? Based on the examples of long-running aquatic shows O, Le Rêve and The House of Dancing Water, this article tries to answer these questions by focusing on the spectator's perceptual and sensory experience in relation to the scenographic construction, including the site-specific technological requirements, of large-scale aquatic spectacles.

Although at least thirty-five women were buried in the earlier necropolis at Vron during the period between ca. 370 / 75 and ca. 435 / 45, only three of them were equipped with typically Germanic brooches or other elements of dress. Such a low proportion of women whose dress was secured according to the Germanic custom by means of brooches, is not unusual in the burial sites of Northern Gaul, and indeed clearly distinguishes these from the burial grounds on the right bank of the Rhine in free Germania, where practically all the women used one or more brooches to fasten their clothing, and were subsequently buried with them. The evidence from Vron, as from other comparable military burial sites to the west of the Rhine (e.g. Oudenburg, Vermand, Vireux-Molhain), attesting how few women were buried with brooch jewellery , may indicate either that in actual fact very few Germanic women had accompanied their men-folk into Northern Gaul, or that the majority of women of barbaric origin had, in the process of cultural assimilation, abandoned their exotic costume at a very early date and now favoured Gallo-Roman dress. Among the typically Germanic dress ornaments observed at Vron, one may distinguish five different brooch types and one hairpin type, analysed below: 1. Simple cross-bow brooches belong to the most frequently attested and geographically widespread group of Germanic women's brooches in the 4 th and 5 th centuries (mid-4 th to mid-5 th centuries) between the Elbe and the Loire (fig. 2). They are almost invariably made of bronze, as are the two examples from Grave 163A and Pit 9. The brooch from Grave 163A, worn as a single item, is remarkable for its greater length, its short spring, and upper chord. These rather unusual features appear most frequently in the simple cross-bow brooches from the Lower Rhine and Westphalia. There, this unusual form may be dated chiefly to the first half of the 5 th century. This corresponds to the chronology proposed by Cl. Seillier, who attributes, on other evidence, Grave 163A to his Phase 3 (= ca.415/20-435/45). 2. Cross-bow brooches with a trapezoid foot-plate represent a further typological development of the simple cross-bow brooch. The silver brooch from Grave 242A possesses in addition a beaded wire decoration on the bow, together with a stamped metal plaque covering the trapezoid foot-plate, features which enable it to be classed with the Vert-la-Gravelle variant (fig. 3). This form of brooch, known almost exclusively by the archaeological evidence from the left bank of the Rhine is probably to be interpreted as the product of workshops in Northern Gaul, which are known to have manufactured other types of Germanic costume ornaments for the wives of foederati (see below). Comparison with the very similar brooches from Grave 7 at Vert-la-Gravelle (Mame) enable this example from Vron to be dated at the earliest to the last third of the 4 th century or to the turn of the century. The location of the inhumation within the burial ground suggests a date within Seillier's Phase 2 (= ca. 390-415/20). 3. The bronze hairpin from the same grave, over 17 cm long, with a small round head, belongs to the Fecamp type (fig. 4), known chiefly from the Germanic female burials and other archaeological evidence found in Westphalia and the Lower Rhine.

The study is devoted to wooden residential buildings in the cities of the Tambov province in the late 19th – early 20th century, the heyday period of residential architecture development (post-reform period) in the Russian Empire. The paper demonstrates the originality of the residential architecture of the northern Black Earth Region (late 19th – early 20th century), its distinctive design, planning and decorative features. The factors that had the greatest impact on the construction trends in the cities of the Tambov province in the late 19th – early 20th centuries are revealed.

The aim of this study is to elaborate comparative portraits of Korean and Japanese beauty in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Six portraits of beauty in the Korean Joseon Dynasty (early 19th century) and 5 in Japanese Edo Dynasty (late 18th century) were analyzed. Twenty anthropometric items were applied to the measure of the features on each portrait and 18 proportional indices of the face were calculated. Among the 18 indices, Korean and Japanese beauty did not show any significant differences in 13, but in 5: 1) the ratio of eye fissure to intercanthal distance was greater in Japanese beauty; 2) eye inclination was greater in Japanese beauty; 3) the ratio of nasal width to intercanthal distance was greater in Japanese beauty; 4) the ratio of nasal and facial width was greater in Korean beauty; and 5) the ratio of vermilion size to mouth width was greater in Japanese beauty. It is assumed that Korean had narrower eye fissure, lower eye inclination, wider nasal ala, and thinner lip than what Japanese craved during that era.

GILLIAN RUSSELL “Announcing each day the performances”: Playbills, Ephemerality, and Romantic Period Media/Theater History O F THE DIVERSE RANGE OF PRINTED EPHEMERA IN LATE GEORGIAN BRITain , the playbill, with the significant exception of the lottery ticket, was the most ubiquitous. Its presence as part ofa late Georgian media ecol­ ogy is apparent in a comment made by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a letter to Sara Hutchinson in 1802. Fancying himselfas a stage manager ofthe de­ ity’s theater of nature in the Lake District, Coleridge writes: “Blessings on the mountains! to the Eye & Ear they are always faithful. I have often thought ofwriting a Set of Play-bills for the vale ofKeswick—for every day in the Year—announcing each Day the Performances by his Supreme Majesty’s Servants, Clouds, Waters, Sun, Moon, Stars, &c.”' Coleridge imagines himself as a kind of diurnal historiographer, the playbill repre­ senting the possibility of inscribing and retaining traces of the constantly changing beauty of the natural “scene.” As stage manager of God’s theater of the world Coleridge not only exemplifies a Romantic poetics of ephemerality—which in its epistolary instantiation is itself to the moment—but also the embeddedness of such a poetics in the practices of collecting, as indicated by the fact that a file of playbills for the Keswick Theatre does in fact survive, in the playbill collections of the British Li­ brary.2 These playbills serve as a correlative of and also, we might say in their status as printed ephemera, an enabling condition of Coleridge’s the­ ater historiography of the everyday natural world. The playbill, which is of central significance to the history of Georgian ephemerology, thus deserves to be recognized as having a place in a cul1 . Coleridge, Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. L. Griggs, vol. 2: 18011806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), 825. 2. British Library Playbills, 291. SiR, 54 (Summer 2015) 241 242 GILLIAN RUSSELL tural history of Romantic textuality as a whole? Throughout her career Jane Moody was attentive to how the playbill could evoke the specificity in time and place of the performance event, vividly imagining, in Illegitimate Theatre in London, “many a spectator poring over the contents of a bill by the light of a candle in a gloomy rented two-pair back?’3 4 5 The playbill enunciated the play to be performed, the actors, the existence of the play­ house, and implicitly, a potential audience, while at the same time signify­ ing dimensions oftheater and theatricality beyond the specific performance event. This dual dimension of the playbill, I want to suggest, accounts for why Georgian men and women were attracted to it, why they collected it, and why, for such an apparently “ephemeral” document, so many play­ bills survive. I am interested in the playbill as an artifact ofboth the theater and Romantic print culture, a zone in which print textuality and theatri­ cality are profoundly imbricated. The playbill can be said to make visible the performative aspects of print, specifically its embedded orality and ocularity—the appeal to both “the Eye & Ear”—that made Coleridge think that the playbill was an appropriate metaphor for the panorama ofthe vale of Keswick. Holding the Playbill to the Light The importance of the playbill in theatrical and urban culture dates from the early modern period, the records of the Stationers’ Company showing that a succession ofprinters were authorized to produce playbills from 1587 onwards. As well as being distributed within and around playhouses, these bills would have been posted on walls and doorways, amplifying the impact ofthe theater, as Tiffany Stern has argued, within the cityscape as a whole? No playbills survive from this period. It was in the eighteenth century, with the expansion of both the print trade and the theater that the playbill became widely used and also archived. The production of playbills was a significant dimension of the jobbing trade for printers, both in London and the provinces. Some of the major metropolitan theaters had their own in­ house printing shops, while there was a close association between local 3. “Ephemerology” was the body ofknowledge about quotidian life, associational culture, customs and amusements, the mundane and the marvellous...

This paper looks at the attempts to found marine stations in Britain during the late 19th century and seeks to show how a fuller understanding of these events, and their success or failure, can be gained by looking both at the scientific background to the movement and at the broadly similar problems that faced their founders. The survival of early marine stations depended largely on how successfully they balanced scientific objectives with the applied work which was the price of government support. Those stations that continued into the twentieth century did so mostly by abandoning pure research in marine zoology and by concentrating on fisheries problems; only these attracted the grants essential for their survival. This was a turn of events unforeseen when the foundation of marine stations was discussed in the 1870's but ideas changed rapidly in the early 1880's when it became apparent that progress could be made only by accepting a different orientation. This paper looks at how official policy towards science in Britain affected oceanography and other aspects of marine science during the late 19th century, and how scientists hoped that the foundation of marine stations would fulfil both a scientific and a practical need for institutional bases for marine research. However, competition for scarce resources created tension and rivalry between institutions from which few escaped unscathed. The underlying reasons for such problems cannot generally be dealt with extensively in the histories of individual stations but they contribute much to our understanding of how such institutions developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The paper concludes with a brief review of individual stations, particularly those in Scotland.

The incentive for writing this book was another book published by the Chemical Society about 60 years ago, titled British Chemists [1] that completely ignored women—as if there had not been any women among the chemists of earlier generations. The authors felt that the early women chemists in Britain, quite a few of them working already as early as the late 19th century, deserve credit. The book wholly justifies this. As the Introduction tells us, these women chemists rarely received recognition; most of them were unmarried and could never play a leading role in the profession. But they were most enthusiastic about and dedicated to chemistry—this is what must have given them the strength to fight all barriers. The first of these barriers was getting a secondary education (Chapter 1, ‘‘Setting the Scene’’) and then being accepted to a university. In secondary schools— as the Rayner-Canhams argue—throughout the early 20th century, there was ambivalence about why girls need an academic education at all. It was assumed that most girls would become wives and mothers and only a small minority would be interested in pursuing a career. Who would then be the curriculum aimed at? This reminds us of the American movie, Mona Lisa Smile, set in the 1950s in a rich private New England liberal arts college for women, where even some of the most intelligent and interested girls thought that their role in life was to be a good housewife and mother—and only that. If this was still the attitude in the United States in the 1950s, certainly it was even more so in the late 19th and early 20th century probably everywhere. It is quite astounding to read how relatively early, already in the late 19th century, the demand for university education appeared among women. The authors ascribe this to several factors. In the second half of the 19th century, several women’s organizations were established that stood up for higher education for middle-class women. In fact, middle-class women started to look much farther than ever before when planning their future. Several magazines supported this attitude. One example from an article in 1914 [2]: ‘‘Woman is taking to herself a new significance. She is discovering that she, as well as man, has another M. Hargittai (&) Materials Structure and Modeling Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, P.O. Box 91, 1521 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: hargittaim@mail.bme.hu

The heights of lower- and upper-class English youth are compared to one another and to their European and North American counterparts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The height gap between the rich and poor was the greatest in England, reaching 22cm at age 16. The poverty-stricken English teenagers were among the shortest for their age so far discovered in Europe or North America; in contrast, the English rich were the tallest in the world in their time: only 2.5cm shorter than today's US standard. Height of the poor declined in the late 18th century, and again in the 1830s and 1840s conforming to the general European pattern, while the height of the wealthy tended rather to increase until the 1840s and then levelled off. The results support the pessimistic view of the course of living standards among the ultra-poor in the Industrial Revolution period.

The article presents transformation of medical care for patients with mental disorders and the establishment of psychiatric care in Chernivtsi in the late 19th century. Since the proclamation of Bukovyna as the crown land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the provision of psychiatric care has changed. A psychiatric service appeared and helped to understand what a mental disorder really is. There was a transition to a scientific interpretation and a scientific approach to providing psychiatric care.The authors research and systematize information from various available sources, various articles, information messages, data from the state archives of Chernivtsi region, etc.It is known that the model of the regional psychiatric hospital in Chernivtsi was developed by the latest requirements for the construction of mental health facilities in Austria and other European countries of the time.At the beginning of the 20th century, the Bukovynian psychiatric hospital was extremely modern, equipped with all necessary equipment and the location of the wards in accordance with the standard of the time. Leading doctors were involved, as well as local ones, who had the opportunity to train at the University of Vienna and psychiatric hospitals. 15 hectares of land were allocated for the territory of the hospital, which was located outside the city on the territory of the former Strazagasse (Storozha) and Maisgasses (Kukurudziana) streets, now Mussorgsky Street.The opening of the regional psychiatric hospital in Bukovyna took place on May 1, 1902. The structure of the psychiatric hospital included 6 buildings, as well as the administration building and other technical facilities.The purpose of the article was to highlight the main historical moments of assisting persons with mental disorders in Chernivtsi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Describe the historical chronology from the first psychiatric ward at the city hospital to a separate regional psychiatric hospital in Bukovyna. The methodology of the article is a synthesis of the historical chronology of psychiatric care as part of health care in Chernivtsi.The history of the emergence of psychiatric services in Chernivtsi has experienced ups and downs that corresponded to challenging conditions of the time. The transformation of mental service changed from the worldview and level of development of contemporary science. We can observe changes from mystification to the formation of psychiatry, as real modern neuroscience with an evidence-based approach and humane treatment of patients. Through the ages, different countries and changes in the understanding of the aetiology and pathogenesis of mental disorders, Chernivtsi remains the centre of mental health in Bukovyna.

In the late 19th century and especially in the early 20th one, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) actively established temperance societies (TS), whose missions included education and spiritual and material support for people who had embarked on the fight against alcoholism. Libraries played a key role in the work of TS. The purpose of this article is to analyze the organization and activities of TS libraries in the Moscow Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church at the turn of the 20th century. A review of the historiography on this topic revealed a lack of specialized works covering this subject. This study identified organizational, resource, and human-factor-related challenges faced by TS libraries, their organizers, staff, and users. An analysis of methods for expanding library collections and readership was conducted, and the effectiveness of TS libraries was determined. Difficulties in acquiring library collections were one of the main problems faced by this category of libraries. Various approaches were used to address this challenge, enabling them to reach a wide range of readers who were not TS members, especially young people. Thus, TS libraries became cultural and educational centers. This work is based on archival documents, periodicals, and reports on the activities of TS libraries from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The article utilizes statistical and source study methods, as well as comparative analysis. The relevance of this work is linked to the recent rise of the temperance movement in Russia, with a growing demand for pastoral assistance in this area. There is a clear need to create and develop centers (libraries) where specialized literature on alcohol addiction and other types of addictions, consistent with Christian principles, can be obtained.

The significance and relevance of the issues are predetermined by the fact, that, by the time of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev’s activity, the political and social situation of Kazakhstan in the early 20th century was on the verge of collapse. The main factor that influenced this situation was the policy of spreading illiteracy, people alienated from religion language, and writing. From the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kazakhstan suffered from the colonial policies of the Russian Empire. Currently Kudaiberdiev writes a work “Catechism of Muslims”. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the consequences of the creative work on the economic and spiritual and cultural development of Kazakhstan. During the analysis, several scientific sources and materials were analyzed, and the following scientific methods were used: structural-functional and dialectical methods, the method of synthesis, logical and comparative analysis, and the method of generalization. During the research, it was proved that in the works of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev the calls to fight against the policy of tsarist Russia and to revive their language, customs, religion, and history were present. The main result of this research is proof that the works of Shakarim Kudaiberdiev had a tremendous impact on the social status, culture, religion, and language of the Kazakh people. His works acted in opposition to Russian policy and encouraged people who were tired of colonial oppression. The research on this issue is actively developed, therefore this work is of practical value for the definition of the role of Shakarim’s creativity during the economic, cultural, social, and political development of Kazakhstan at the end of 19 – the beginning of 20 century.