title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue's signing with Deconstruction Records in 1993 marked a new phase in her career. Her fifth album, "Kylie Minogue", was released in September 1994 and was a departure from her previous efforts as it "no longer featured the Stock-Aitken-Waterman production gloss", with critics praising Minogue's vocals and the album production. It was produced by dance music producers the Brothers in Rhythm, namely Dave Seaman and Steve Anderson, who had previously produced "Finer Feelings", her last single with PWL. As of 2015, Anderson continued to be Minogue's musical director. The album peaked at number four on the UK Albums Chart and was certified gold in the country. Its lead single, "Confide in Me", spent four weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart. The next two singles from the album, "Put Yourself in My Place" and "Where Is the Feeling?", reached the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: During this period, Minogue made a guest appearance as herself in an episode of the comedy "The Vicar of Dibley". Director Steven E. de Souza saw Minogue's cover photo in Australia's "Who Magazine" as one of "The 30 Most Beautiful People in the World" and offered her a role opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in the film "Street Fighter". The film was a moderate success, earning US$70 million in the US, but received poor reviews, with "The Washington Post"s Richard Harrington calling Minogue "the worst actress in the English-speaking world". She had a minor role in the 1996 film "Bio-Dome" starring Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin. She also appeared in the 1995 short film "Hayride to Hell" and in the 1997 film "Diana & Me". In 1995, Minogue collaborated with Australian artist Nick Cave for the song "Where the Wild Roses Grow". Cave had been interested in working with Minogue since hearing "Better the Devil You Know", saying it contained "one of pop music's most violent and distressing lyrics". The music video for their song was inspired by John Everett Millais's painting "Ophelia" (1851–1852), and showed Minogue as the murdered woman, floating in a pond as a serpent swam over her body. The single received widespread attention in Europe, where it reached the top 10 in several countries, and reached number two in Australia. The song won ARIA Awards for "Song of the Year" and "Best Pop Release". Following concert appearances with Cave, Minogue recited the lyrics to "I Should Be So Lucky" as poetry in London's Royal Albert Hall.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: By 1997, Minogue was in a relationship with French photographer Stéphane Sednaoui, who encouraged her to develop her creativity. Inspired by a mutual appreciation of Japanese culture, they created a visual combination of "geisha and manga superheroine" for the photographs taken for Minogue's sixth album, "Impossible Princess", and the video for "German Bold Italic", Minogue's collaboration with Towa Tei. She drew inspiration from the music of artists such as Shirley Manson and Garbage, Björk, Tricky and U2, and Japanese pop musicians such as Pizzicato Five and Towa Tei. The album featured collaborations with musicians including James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore of the Manic Street Preachers. "Impossible Princess" garnered some negative reviews upon its release in 1997, but would be praised as Minogue's most personal and best work in retrospective reviews. In 2003, "Slant Magazine"'s Sal Cinquemani called it a "deeply personal effort" and "Minogue's best album to date", while Evan Sawdey, from "PopMatters", described "Impossible Princess" as "one of the most crazed, damn-near perfect dance-pop albums ever created" in a 2008 review. Mostly a dance album, Minogue countered suggestions that she was trying to become an indie artist.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Acknowledging that she had attempted to escape the perceptions of her that had developed during her early career, Minogue commented that she was ready to "forget the painful criticism" and "accept the past, embrace it, use it". The music video for "Did It Again" paid homage to her earlier incarnations. Retitled "Kylie Minogue" in the UK following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, it became the lowest-selling album of her career. At the end of the year, a campaign by "Virgin Radio" stated, "We've done something to improve Kylie's records: we've banned them." In Australia, the album was a success and spent 35 weeks on the album chart. Minogue's Intimate and Live tour in 1998 was extended due to demand. She gave several live performances in Australia, including the 1998 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and the opening ceremonies of Melbourne's Crown Casino, and Sydney's Fox Studios in 1999 (where she performed Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend") as well as a Christmas concert in Dili, East Timor, in association with the United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces. She played a small role in the Australian-made Molly Ringwald 2000 film "Cut".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In 1999, Minogue performed a duet with the Pet Shop Boys' on their "Nightlife" album and spent several months in Barbados performing in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". She then appeared in the film "Sample People" and recorded a cover version of Russell Morris's "The Real Thing" for the soundtrack. She signed with Parlophone in April, who wanted to re-establish Minogue as a pop artist. Her seventh studio album, "Light Years", was released on 25 September 2000. "NME" magazine called it a "fun, perfectly-formed" record, which saw Minogue "dropping her considerable concern for cool and bouncing back to her disco-pop roots". It was a commercial success, becoming Minogue's first number-one album in her native Australia. The lead single, "Spinning Around", debuted atop the UK Singles Chart in July, making her only the second artist to have a number-one single in three consecutive decades (after Madonna). Its accompanying video featured Minogue in revealing gold hotpants, which came to be regarded as a "trademark". Three other singles—"On a Night Like This", "Kids" (with Robbie Williams), and "Please Stay"—peaked in the top ten in the United Kingdom.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: An elaborate art book titled "Kylie", featuring contributions by Minogue and creative director William Baker, was published by Booth-Clibborn in March 2000. At the time, she began a romantic relationship with model James Gooding. In October, Minogue performed at both the closing ceremonies of 2000 Sydney Olympics and in the opening ceremony of the Paralympics. Her performance of ABBA's "Dancing Queen" was chosen as one of the most memorable Olympic closing ceremony moments by Kate Samuelson of "TNT". The following year, she embarked on the On a Night Like This Tour, which was inspired by the style of Broadway shows and the musicals of the 1930s. She also made a brief cameo as The Green Fairy in Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!", which earned her an MTV Movie Award nomination in 2002. "Spinning Around" and "Light Years" consecutively won the ARIA Award for Best Pop Release in 2000 and 2001.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In September 2001, Minogue released "Can't Get You Out of My Head", the lead single from her eighth studio album, "Fever". It reached number one in over 40 countries and sold 5 million copies, becoming Minogue's most successful single to date. The accompanying music video featured the singer sporting an infamous hooded white jumpsuit with deep plunging neckline. The remaining singles—"In Your Eyes", "Love at First Sight" and "Come into My World"—all peaked in the top ten in Australia and the United Kingdom. Released on 1 October, "Fever" topped the charts in Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, eventually achieving worldwide sales in excess of six million. Dominique Leone from "Pitchfork" praised its simple and "comfortable" composition, terming it a "mature sound from a mature artist, and one that may very well re-establish Minogue for the VH1 generation".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: The warm reception towards the album led to its release in the United States in February 2002 by Capitol Records, Minogue's first in 13 years. It debuted on the "Billboard" 200 at number three, her highest-charting album in the region, while peaking at number 10 on the Canadian Albums Chart.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: To support the album, Minogue headlined her KylieFever2002 tour in Europe and Australia, which ran from April to August 2002. She performed several songs from the setlist in a series of Jingle Ball concerts in the United States in 2002–2003. In May 2002, Minogue and Gooding announced the end of their relationship after two and a half years. She received four accolades at the ARIA Music Awards of 2002, including Highest Selling Single and Single of the Year for "Can't Get You Out of My Head". That same year, she won her first Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist and Best International Album for "Fever". In 2003, she received her first Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording for "Love at First Sight", before winning the award for "Come into My World" the following year, marking the first time an Australian music artist had won in a major category since Men at Work in 1983.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In November 2003, Minogue released her ninth studio album, "Body Language", following an invitation-only concert, titled "Money Can't Buy", at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. The album downplayed the disco style and was inspired by 1980s artists such as Scritti Politti, The Human League, Adam and the Ants and Prince, blending their styles with elements of hip hop. The sales of the album were lower than anticipated after the success of "Fever", though the first single, "Slow", was a number-one hit in the United Kingdom and Australia. Two more singles from the album were released: "Red Blooded Woman" and "Chocolate". In the US, "Slow" reached number-one on the club chart and received a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Dance Recording category. "Body Language" achieved first week sales of 43,000 and declined significantly in the second week.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In November 2004, Minogue released her second official greatest hits album, entitled "Ultimate Kylie". The album yielded two singles: "I Believe in You" and "Giving You Up". "I Believe in You" was later nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Dance Recording". In March 2005, Minogue commenced her . After performing in Europe, she travelled to Melbourne, where she was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing her to cancel the tour. She underwent surgery in May 2005 and commenced chemotherapy treatment soon after. It was announced in January 2006 that she had finished chemotherapy and the disease "had no recurrence" after the surgery. She would continue her treatment for the next months. In December 2005, Minogue released a digital-only single, "Over the Rainbow", a live recording from her Showgirl tour. Her children's book, "The Showgirl Princess", written during her period of convalescence, was published in October 2006, and her perfume, "Darling", was launched in November. The range was later augmented by eau de toilettes including Pink Sparkle, Couture and Inverse.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue resumed her then cancelled tour in November 2006, under the title . Her dance routines had been reworked to accommodate her medical condition, with slower costume changes and longer breaks introduced between sections of the show to conserve her strength. The media reported that Minogue performed energetically, with the "Sydney Morning Herald" describing the show as an "extravaganza" and "nothing less than a triumph". She voiced Florence in the animated film "The Magic Roundabout", based on the television series of the same name. She finished her voice role back in 2002, before it was released in 2005 in Europe. A year later, she reprised the role and recorded the theme song for the American edition, re-titled as "Doogal", which grossed $26,691,243 worldwide.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In November 2007, Minogue released her tenth and much-discussed "comeback" album, "X". The electro-styled album included contributions from Guy Chambers, Cathy Dennis, Bloodshy & Avant and Calvin Harris. The album received some criticism for the triviality of its subject matter in light of Minogue's experiences with breast cancer. "X" and its lead single, "2 Hearts", entered at number one on the Australian albums and singles charts, respectively. In the United Kingdom, "X" initially attracted lukewarm sales, although its commercial performance eventually improved. Follow-up singles from the album, "In My Arms" and "Wow", both peaked inside the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. In the US, the album was nominated at the 2009 Grammy Awards for Best Electronic/Dance Album.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue began a relationship with French actor Olivier Martinez after meeting him at the 2003 Grammy Awards ceremony. They ended their relationship in February 2007, but remained on friendly terms. Minogue was reported to have been "saddened by false [media] accusations of [Martinez's] disloyalty". She defended Martinez, and acknowledged the support he had given during her treatment for breast cancer. As part of the promotion of her album, Minogue was featured in "", a documentary filmed during 2006 and 2007 as she resumed her Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. She also appeared in "The Kylie Show", which featured her performances as well as comedy sketches. She co-starred in the 2007 "Doctor Who" Christmas special episode, "Voyage of the Damned", as Astrid Peth. The episode was watched by 13.31 million viewers, which was the show's highest viewing figure since 1979.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In May 2008, Minogue embarked on the European leg of the KylieX2008 tour, her most expensive tour to date with production costs of £10 million. The tour was generally acclaimed and sold well. She was then appointed a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the junior grade of France's highest cultural honour. In July, she was officially invested by The Prince of Wales as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. She also won the "Best International Female Solo Artist" award at the 2008 BRIT Awards. In September, she made her Middle East debut as the headline act at the opening of Atlantis, The Palm, an exclusive hotel resort in Dubai, and from November, she continued her "KylieX2008" tour, taking the show to cities across South America, Asia and Australia. The tour visited 21 countries, and was considered a success, with ticket sales estimated at $70,000,000. In 2009, Minogue hosted the BRIT Awards with James Corden and Mathew Horne. She then embarked on the For You, for Me tour which was her first North American concert tour. She was also featured in the Hindi movie, "Blue", performing an A. R. Rahman song. Minogue was in a relationship with model Andrés Velencoso from 2008 to 2013.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In July 2010, Minogue released her eleventh studio album, "Aphrodite". The album featured new songwriters and producers including Stuart Price as executive producer. Price also contributed to song writing along with Minogue, Calvin Harris, Jake Shears, Nerina Pallot, Pascal Gabriel, Lucas Secon, Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley and Kish Mauve. The album received favourable reviews from most music critics; Rob Sheffield from "Rolling Stone" labelled the album Minogue's "finest work since 1997's underrated "Impossible Princess"" and Tim Sendra from Allmusic commended Minogue's choice of collaborators and producers, commenting that the album is the "work of someone who knows exactly what her skills are and who to hire to help showcase them to perfection". "Aphrodite" debuted at number-one in the United Kingdom, exactly 22 years after her first number one hit in the United Kingdom. The album's lead single, "All the Lovers," was a success and became her 33rd top ten single in the United Kingdom, though subsequent singles from the album—"Get Outta My Way", "Better than Today", and "Put Your Hands Up"—failed to reach the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. However, all the singles released from the album have topped the US "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Songs chart.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue recorded a duet with synthpop duo Hurts on their song "Devotion", which was included on the group's album "Happiness". She was then featured on Taio Cruz's single "Higher". The result was successful, peaking inside the top 20 in several charts and impacting the US Hot Dance Club Charts. In February 2011, Minogue became the first act to hold two of the top three spots on the US Dance/Club Play Songs survey, with "Better Than Today" at number one and "Higher" at number 3. To conclude her recordings in 2010, she released the extended play "A Kylie Christmas", which included covers of Christmas songs including "Let It Snow" and "Santa Baby". Minogue embarked on the in February 2011, travelling to Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa. With a stage set inspired by the birth of the love goddess Aphrodite and Grecian culture and history, it was greeted with positive reviews from critics, who praised the concept and the stage production. The tour was a commercial success, grossing US$60 million and ranking at number six and 21 on the mid-year and annual Pollstar Top Concert Tours of 2011 respectively.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In March 2012, Minogue began a year-long celebration for her 25 years in the music industry, which was often called "K25". The anniversary started with her embarking on the Anti Tour in England and Australia, which featured b-sides, demos and rarities from her music catalogue. The tour was positively received for its intimate atmosphere and was a commercial success, grossing over two million dollars from four shows. She then released the single "Timebomb" in May, the greatest hits compilation album, "The Best of Kylie Minogue" in June and the singles box-set, "K25 Time Capsule" in October. She performed at various events around the world, including Sydney Mardi Gras, Queen Elizabeth II's "Diamond Jubilee Concert", and BBC Proms in the Park London 2012. Minogue released the compilation album "The Abbey Road Sessions" in October. The album contained reworked and orchestral versions of her previous songs. It was recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios and was produced by Steve Anderson and Colin Elliot. The album received favourable reviews from music critics and debuted at number-two in the United Kingdom. The album spawned two singles, "Flower" and "On a Night Like This". Minogue returned to acting and starred in two films: a cameo appearance in the American independent film "Jack & Diane" and a lead role in the French film "Holy Motors". "Jack & Diane" opened at the Tribeca Film Festival on 20 April 2012, while "Holy Motors" opened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, which Minogue attended.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In January 2013, Minogue and her manager Terry Blamey, whom she had worked with since the start of her singing career, parted ways. The following month, she signed to Roc Nation for a management deal. In September, she was featured on Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini's single "Limpido", which was a number-one hit in Italy and received a nomination for "World's Best Song" at the 2013 World Music Awards. In the same month, Minogue was hired as a coach for the third series of BBC One's talent competition "The Voice UK", alongside record producer and Black Eyed Peas member, will.i.am, Kaiser Chiefs' lead singer Ricky Wilson and singer Sir Tom Jones. The show opened with 9.35 million views from the UK, a large percentage increase from the second season. It accumulated an estimated 8.10 million viewers on average. Minogue's judging and personality on the show were singled out for praise. Ed Power from "The Daily Telegraph" gave the series premiere 3 stars, praising Minogue for being "glamorous, agreeably giggly [and] a card-carrying national treasure". In November, she was hired as a coach for the third season of "The Voice Australia".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In March 2014, Minogue released her twelfth studio album, "Kiss Me Once". The album featured contributions from Sia, Mike Del Rio, Cutfather, Pharrell Williams, MNEK and Ariel Rechtshaid. It peaked at number one in Australia and number two in the United Kingdom. The singles from the album, "Into the Blue" and "I Was Gonna Cancel", did not chart inside the top ten of the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 12 and number 59 respectively. In August, Minogue performed a seven-song set at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, donning a custom Jean Paul Gaultier corset. In September, she embarked on the Kiss Me Once Tour. In January 2015, Minogue appeared as a guest vocalist on Giorgio Moroder's single "Right Here, Right Now" providing her 12th number one hit on the U.S. Dance Chart on 18 April 2015.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In March, Minogue's contract with Parlophone Records ended, leaving her future music releases with Warner Music Group in Australia and New Zealand. The same month, she parted ways with Roc Nation. In April, Minogue played tech reporter Shauna in a two episode arc on the ABC Family series, "Young & Hungry". Also in April, reality TV personality Kylie Jenner entered into a trademark dispute with Minogue in her attempt to establish the brand "Kylie", which Minogue has been trading under since the 1990s. The dispute was eventually resolved in Minogue's favor in 2017. Minogue also appeared as Susan Riddick in the disaster film "San Andreas", released in May and starring Dwayne Johnson and Carla Gugino. In September 2015, an extended play with Fernando Garibay titled "Kylie + Garibay" was released. Garibay and Giorgio Moroder served as producers for the extended play. In November, Minogue was a featured artist on the track, "The Other Boys" by Nervo, alongside Jake Shears and Nile Rodgers. This became her 13th chart topper on the U.S Dance Chart, lifting her position in the list of artists with the most U.S. Dance Chart number ones to equal 8th alongside Whitney Houston, Enrique Iglesias and Lady Gaga.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In December 2015, Minogue was the guest on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs". Her choices included "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, "Purple Rain" by Prince and "Need You Tonight" by INXS. Minogue released her first Christmas album, "Kylie Christmas", in November 2015. In 2016, she recorded the theme song "This Wheel's on Fire", from the soundtrack "". Minogue's holiday album "Kylie Christmas" was re-released in November entitled as "". In November 2015, Minogue confirmed she was dating British actor Joshua Sasse. On 20 February 2016, their engagement was announced in the "Forthcoming Marriages" section of "The Daily Telegraph", but in February 2017, she confirmed the couple had ended their relationship.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In February 2017, Minogue signed a new record deal with BMG Rights Management. In December 2017, Minogue and BMG had struck a joint-deal with Mushroom Music Labels — under the sub-division label Liberator to release her new album in Australia and New Zealand. In 2017, Minogue worked with writers and producers for her 14th studio album, including Sky Adams and Richard Stannard, and recorded the album in London, Los Angeles and Nashville, with the latter profoundly influencing the record. Minogue's album "Golden" was released in April 2018 with "Dancing" serving as its lead single. The album debuted at number one in the UK and Australia. Tim Sendra from AllMusic labelled "Golden" a "darn bold" for an artist of Minogue's longevity, stating "The amazing thing about the album, and about Minogue, is that she pulls off the country as well as she's pulled off new wave, disco, electro, murder ballads, and everything else she's done in her long career." "Golden" also received criticism, with "Pitchfork"'s Ben Cardew claiming that it "sounds like someone playing at country music, rather than someone who understands it." Minogue was among the performers at The Queen's Birthday Party held at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2018. Minogue began dating Paul Solomons, the creative director of "British GQ", in 2018.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue released a greatest hits compilation "" on 28 June 2019, featuring "New York City" as the lead single. The album reached number one in her native Australia and in the UK, becoming her seventh album to reach the top spot in the latter. On 30 June, Minogue made her debut at the Glastonbury Festival, fourteen years after her breast cancer diagnosis forced her to cancel her 2005 headlining slot. Performing in the Legends Slot, Minogue's set featured guest appearances from Nick Cave and Chris Martin. Her set received rave reviews from critics, with "The Guardian" declaring it a "solid-gold", "peerless" and "phenomenal". It was a big hit with fans, with Minogue's performance being the most-watched set of the BBC coverage (earning three million viewers, ahead of The Killers who received 1.4 million) and reportedly breaking records for the most attended Glastonbury set in history. Minogue also appeared in her own Christmas television special, "Kylie's Secret Night", which aired on Channel 4 in December 2019.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Following her Glastonbury performance, Minogue stated that she would like to create a "pop-disco album" and return to recording new material after the performance. Work continued on "Disco" during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with Minogue using a home studio to record throughout lockdown. Alistair Norbury, president of Minogue's record label BMG, announced to industry title "Music Week" that Minogue was also learning to record and engineer her own vocals using music software Logic Pro in order to continue working apace during lockdown. On 23 July 2020, "Say Something" was unveiled as the first single from "Disco". The album's second single, "Magic", was released on 24 September, and a promotional single, "I Love It", followed on 23 October.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: "Disco" was released on 6 November 2020, reaching number one in her native Australia and in the UK, where Minogue became the first female solo artist to achieve a number one album in five consecutive decades from the 1980s to the 2020s. In the same month, she was featured on Children in Need's charity single – "Stop Crying Your Heart Out". On 5 December 2020, "Real Groove" was announced as the album's third single. A subsequent remix was released on 31 December 2020 with Dua Lipa. In May 2021, Minogue featured on a remix of "Starstruck" with Years & Years. Minogue reissued "Disco" on 12 November 2021, preceded with the release of "A Second to Midnight" featuring Years & Years. The reissue, titled "Disco: Guest List Edition", included duets with Jessie Ware and Gloria Gaynor, aside from remixes of "Disco"'s singles.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: On 28 July 2022, Minogue returned as Charlene to "Neighbours" for a one-off cameo appearance (alongside Jason Donovan as Scott) for the show's .


title: Kylie Minogue

text: On 8 August 2022 it was announced that Minogue would release her sixteenth studio album in the first half of 2023.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue explained that she first became interested in pop music during her adolescence: "I first got into pop music in 1981, I'd say. It was all about Prince, Adam + the Ants, that whole New Romantic period. Prior to that, it was the Jackson 5, Donna Summer, and my dad's records – the Stones and Beatles." She would also listen to the records of Olivia Newton-John and ABBA. Minogue said that she "wanted to be" Newton-John while growing up. Her producer, Pete Waterman, recalled Minogue during the early years of her music career with the observation: "She was setting her sights on becoming the new Prince or Madonna ... What I found amazing was that she was outselling Madonna four to one, but still wanted to be her." Minogue came to prominence in the music scene as a bubblegum pop singer and was deemed a "product of the Stock, Aitken & Waterman Hit Factory". Musician Nick Cave, who worked with Minogue in some occasions, was a major influence on her artistic development. She told "The Guardian": "He's definitely infiltrated my life in beautiful and profound ways." Throughout her career, Minogue's work was also influenced by Cathy Dennis, D Mob, Scritti Politti, Björk, Tricky, U2 and Pizzicato Five, among others.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has been known for her soft soprano vocal range. Tim Sendra of AllMusic reviewed her album "Aphrodite" and said that Minogue's "slightly nasal, girl-next-door vocals serve her needs perfectly." According to Fiona MacDonald from "Madison" magazine, Minogue "has never shied away from making some brave but questionable artistic decisions". In musical terms, Minogue has worked with many genres in pop and dance music. However, her signature music has been contemporary disco music. Her first studio albums with Stock, Aitken, and Waterman present a more bubblegum pop influence, with many critics comparing her to Madonna. Chris True from "Allmusic", reviewed her debut "Kylie" and found her music "standard late-'80s Stock-Aitken-Waterman bubblegum", however he stated that she presented the most personality of any 1980s recording artist. He said of her third album "Rhythm of Love", from the early 1990s, "The songwriting is stronger, the production dynamic, and Kylie seems more confident vocally." At the time of her third studio album, "She began to trade in her cutesy, bubblegum pop image for a more mature one, and in turn, a more sexual one." Chris True stated that during her relationship with Michael Hutchence, "her shedding of the near-virginal façade that dominated her first two albums, began to have an effect, not only on how the press and her fans treated her, but in the evolution of her music."


title: Kylie Minogue

text: From Minogue's work on her sixth studio album, "Impossible Princess", her songwriting and musical content began to change. She was constantly writing down words, exploring the form and meaning of sentences. She had written lyrics before, but called them "safe, just neatly rhymed words and that's that". Sal Cinquemani from "Slant Magazine" said that the album bears a resemblance to Madonna's "Ray of Light". He said that she took inspiration from "both the Brit-pop and electronica movements of the mid-'90s", saying that "Impossible Princess is the work of an artist willing to take risks". Her next effort, "Light Years" is a disco-influenced dance-pop record, with AllMusic's Chris True calling it "Arguably one of the best disco records since the '70s". True stated that her eighth album, "Fever", "combines the disco-diva comeback of "Light Years" with simple dance rhythms". Her ninth album, "Body Language", was quite different from her musical experiments in the past as it was a "successful" attempt at broadening her sound with electro and hip-hop for instance. Incorporating styles of dance music with funk, disco and R&B, the album was listed on "Q"s "Best Albums of 2003".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Critics said Minogue's tenth record "X" did not feature enough "consistency" and Chris True called the tracks "cold, calculated dance-pop numbers." Tim Sendra of AllMusic said that her eleventh album, "Aphrodite", "rarely strays past sweet love songs or happy dance anthems" and "the main sound is the kind of glittery disco pop that really is her strong suit." Sendra found "Aphrodite" "One of her best, in fact." Minogue's 14th studio album, "Golden" was heavily influenced by country music, although maintaining her dance-pop sensibilities. Sal Cinquemani from "Slant Magazine" wrote that ""Golden" further bolsters Minogue's reputation for taking risks—and artfully sets the stage for her inevitable disco comeback."


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue's efforts to be taken seriously as a recording artist were initially hindered by the perception that she had not "paid her dues" and was no more than a manufactured pop star exploiting the image she had created during her stint on "Neighbours". Minogue acknowledged this viewpoint, saying, "If you're part of a record company, I think to a degree it's fair to say that you're a manufactured product. You're a product and you're selling a product. It doesn't mean that you're not talented and that you don't make creative and business decisions about what you will and won't do and where you want to go."


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In 1993, Baz Luhrmann introduced Minogue to photographer Bert Stern, notable for his work with Marilyn Monroe. Stern photographed her in Los Angeles and, comparing her to Monroe, commented that Minogue had a similar mix of vulnerability and eroticism. Throughout her career, Minogue has chosen photographers who attempt to create a new "look" for her, and the resulting photographs have appeared in a variety of magazines, from the cutting edge "The Face" to the more traditionally sophisticated "Vogue" and "Vanity Fair", making the Minogue face and name known to a broad range of people. Stylist William Baker has suggested that this is part of the reason she entered mainstream pop culture in Europe more successfully than many other pop singers who concentrate solely on selling records.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: By 2000, Minogue was considered to have achieved a degree of musical credibility for having maintained her career longer than her critics had expected. Her progression from the wholesome "girl next door" to a more sophisticated performer with a flirtatious and playful persona attracted new fans. Her "Spinning Around" video led to some media outlets referring to her as "SexKylie", and sex became a stronger element in her subsequent videos. In September 2002, she was ranked 27 on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists list. She was also named one of the 100 Hottest Women of All-Time by "Men's Health" in 2013. William Baker described her status as a sex symbol as a "double edged sword", observing that "we always attempted to use her sex appeal as an enhancement of her music and to sell a record. But now it has become in danger of eclipsing what she actually is: a pop singer." After 20 years as a performer, Minogue was described by "BBC"s Fiona Pryor as a fashion "trend-setter" and a "style icon who constantly reinvents herself". Pointing out the several reinventions in Minogue's image, Larissa Dubecki from "The Age" labelled her the "Mother of Reinvention".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has been inspired by and compared to Madonna throughout her career. She received negative comments that her Rhythm of Love tour in 1991 was too similar visually to Madonna's Blond Ambition World Tour, for which critics labelled her a Madonna wannabe. Writing for the "Observer Music Monthly", Rufus Wainwright described Minogue as "the anti-Madonna. Self-knowledge is a truly beautiful thing and Kylie knows herself inside out. She is what she is and there is no attempt to make quasi-intellectual statements to substantiate it. She is the gay shorthand for joy." Kathy McCabe for "The Telegraph" noted that Minogue and Madonna follow similar styles in music and fashion, but concluded, "Where they truly diverge on the pop-culture scale is in shock value. Minogue's clips might draw a gasp from some but Madonna's ignite religious and political debate unlike any other artist on the planet ... Simply, Madonna is the dark force; Kylie is the light force." Minogue has said of Madonna, "Her huge influence on the world, in pop and fashion, meant that I wasn't immune to the trends she created. I admire Madonna greatly but in the beginning she made it difficult for artists like me, she had done everything there was to be done", and "Madonna's the Queen of Pop, I'm the princess. I'm quite happy with that."


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In January 2007, Madame Tussauds in London unveiled its fourth waxwork of Minogue; only Queen Elizabeth II has had more models created. During the same week a bronze cast of her hands was added to Wembley Arena's "Square of Fame". In 2007, a bronze statue of Minogue was unveiled at Melbourne Docklands for permanent display.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In March 2010, Minogue was declared by researchers as the "most powerful celebrity in Britain". The study examined how marketers identify celebrity and brand partnerships. Mark Husak, head of Millward Brown's UK media practice, said: "Kylie is widely accepted as an adopted Brit. People know her, like her and she is surrounded by positive buzz". In 2016, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, Minogue had a net worth of £55 million.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue is regarded as a gay icon, which she has encouraged with comments including "I am not a traditional gay icon. There's been no tragedy in my life, only tragic outfits" and "My gay audience has been with me from the beginning ... they kind of adopted me." Her status as a gay icon has been attributed to her music, fashion sense and career longevity. Author Constantine Chatzipapatheodoridis wrote about Minogue's appeal to gay men in "Strike a Pose, Forever: The Legacy of Vogue..." and observed that she "frequently incorporates camp-inflected themes in her extravaganzas, drawing mainly from the disco scene, the S/M culture, and the burlesque stage." In "Beautiful Things in Popular Culture" (2007), Marc Brennan stated that Minogue's work "provides a gorgeous form of escapism". Minogue has explained that she first became aware of her gay audience in 1988, when several drag queens performed to her music at a Sydney pub, and she later saw a similar show in Melbourne. She said that she felt "very touched" to have such an "appreciative crowd", and this encouraged her to perform at gay venues throughout the world, as well as headlining the 1994 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Minogue has one of the largest gay followings in the world.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: "Entertainment Weekly"s Ernest Macias said that, by combining "a panache for fabulous fashion" with "her unequivocal disco-pop sound", Minogue "established herself as a timeless icon." Paula Joye of "The Sydney Morning Herald" wrote that "Minogue's fusion of fashion and music has made a huge contribution to the style "zeitgeist"." Fiona MacDonald, from fashion magazine "Madison", acknowledged Minogue as "one of the handful of singers recognised around the world by her first name alone. ... And yet despite becoming an international music superstar, style icon and honorary Brit, those two syllables still seem as Australian as the smell of eucalyptus or a barbeque on a hot day." In 2009, the Victoria and Albert Museum "celebrated her influence on fashion" with an exhibition called "Kylie Minogue: Image of a Pop Star".


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In 2012, Dino Scatena of "The Sydney Morning Herald" wrote about Minogue: "A quarter of a century ago, a sequence of symbiotic events altered the fabric of Australian popular culture and set in motion the transformation of a 19-year-old soap actor from Melbourne into an international pop icon." Scatena also described her as "Australia's single most successful entertainer and a world-renowned style idol". In the same year, VH1 cited Minogue among its choices on the 100 Greatest Women in Music and the 50 Greatest Women of the Video Era.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has been recognised with many honorific nicknames, most notably the "Princess of Pop". Jon O'Brien of AllMusic reviewed her box-set "" and stated that it "contains plenty of moments to justify her position as one of the all-time premier pop princesses." In January 2012, "NME" critics ranked her single "Can't Get You Out of My Head" at number four on their Greatest Pop Songs in History list. Channel 4 listed her as one of the world's greatest pop stars. In 2020, "Rolling Stone Australia" placed her at number three on its 50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time list.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue's work has influenced pop and dance artists including Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Alice Chater, Rina Sawayama, Kim Petras, Melanie C, Ricki-Lee Coulter, Years & Years singer Olly Alexander, September, Diana Vickers, The Veronicas, Slayyyter, Pabllo Vittar and Paris Hilton. In 2007, French avant-garde guitarist Noël Akchoté released "So Lucky", featuring solo guitar versions of tunes recorded by Minogue.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has received many accolades, including a Grammy Award, three Brit Awards, 17 ARIA Music Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, two MTV Europe Music Awards and six Mo Awards, including the Australian Performer of the Year in 2001 and 2003. In 2008, she was honoured with Music Industry Trust's award for recognition of her 20-year career and was hailed as "an icon of pop and style", becoming the first female musician to receive a Music Industry Trust award. In April 2017, the Britain-Australia Society recognised Minogue with its 2016 award for outstanding contribution to the improving of relations and bilateral understanding between Britain and Australia. The citation reads: "In recognition of significant contributions to the Britain-Australia relationship as an acclaimed singer, songwriter, actor and iconic personality in both countries". The award was announced at a reception in Australia House but was personally presented the next day by Prince Philip, Patron of the Society, at Windsor Castle.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: As of 2020, she has sold 80 million records worldwide. Minogue is the most successful Australian female recording artist of all time and, in November 2011, on the 25th anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards, she was inducted by the Australian Recording Industry Association into the ARIA Hall of Fame. In June 2012, The Official Chart Company revealed that Minogue is the 12th best selling singer in the United Kingdom to date, and the third best selling female artist, selling over 10.1 million singles. In January 2011, Minogue received a "Guinness World Records" citation for having the most consecutive decades with top five albums in the UK, with all her albums doing so. Minogue and American singer Madonna are the only artists to have had reached the top position of the UK Albums Chart in four consecutive decades, from the 1980s to the 2010s. Minogue's fifteenth studio album, "Disco" reached number one in the UK Albums Chart in 2020. It made her the first female artist to reach the top spot of the chart in five consecutive decades, from the 1980s to the 2020s.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: According to PRS for Music, her single "Can't Get You Out of My Head" was the most-played track of the 2000s, "after receiving the most airplay and live covers" in the decade.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In 2004, she held the record for the most singles at number one in the ARIA singles chart, with nine. In 2011, she made history for having two songs inside the top three on the U.S. Dance Club Songs chart, with her singles "Better than Today" and "Higher" charting at one and three, respectively. In December 2016, "Billboard" ranked her as the 18th most successful dance artist of all time.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has helped fundraise on many occasions. In 1989, she participated in recording "Do They Know It's Christmas?" under the name Band Aid II to help raise money. In early 2010, Minogue along with many other artists (under the name Helping Haiti) recorded a cover version of "Everybody Hurts". The single was a fundraiser to help after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. She also spent a week in Thailand after the 2005 tsunami. During her 2011 Aphrodite World Tour, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, which was on her itinerary. She declared she would continue to tour there, stating, "I was here to do shows and I chose not to cancel, Why did I choose not to cancel? I thought long and hard about it and it wasn't an easy decision to make." While she was there, she and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard were star guests at an Australian Embassy fundraiser for the disaster. In January 2020, in response to the 2019–20 Australian bushfires, Minogue announced that she and her family were donating A$500,000 towards immediate firefighting efforts and ongoing support.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: In 2008, Minogue pledged her support for a campaign to raise money for abused children, to be donated to the British charities ChildLine and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. According to the source, around $93 million was raised. She spoke out in relation to the cause, saying: "Finding the courage to tell someone about being abused is one of the most difficult decisions a child will ever have to make." Minogue is a frequent supporter of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, hosting the amfAR Inspiration Gala in Los Angeles in 2010. She has also attended amfAR fundraising benefits in Cannes, and performed at galas for the charity in São Paulo and Hong Kong.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Since Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis in 2005, she has been a sponsor and ambassador for the cause. In May 2010, she held a breast cancer campaign for the first time. She later spoke about the cause saying "It means so much to me to be part of this year's campaign for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer. I wholeheartedly support their efforts to raise funds for the vital work undertaken by Breakthrough Breast Cancer." For the cause, she "posed in a silk sheet emblazoned with the distinctive target logo of Fashion Targets Breast Cancer" for photographer Mario Testino. In April 2014, Minogue launched One Note Against Cancer, a campaign to raise funds and awareness for French cancer research charity APREC (The Alliance for Cancer Research). As part of the campaign, Minogue released the single "Crystallize", with fans able to bid via online auction to own each of the song's 4,408 notes. The proceeds of the auction were donated to APREC, with the names of the successful bidders appearing in the accompanying music video's credits.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36 in May 2005, leading to the postponement of the remainder of her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour and her withdrawal from the Glastonbury Festival. Her hospitalisation and treatment in Melbourne resulted in a brief but intense period of media coverage, particularly in Australia, where then Prime Minister John Howard issued a statement of support. As media and fans began to congregate outside the Minogue residence in Melbourne, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks warned the international media that any disruption of the Minogue family's rights under Australian privacy laws would not be tolerated.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue underwent surgery on 21 May 2005 at Cabrini Hospital in Malvern and commenced chemotherapy treatment soon after. After the surgery, the disease "had no recurrence". On 8 July 2005, she made her first public appearance after surgery when she visited a children's cancer ward at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital. She returned to France where she completed her chemotherapy treatment at the Institut Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, near Paris. In January 2006, Minogue's publicist announced that she had finished chemotherapy, and her treatment continued for the next months. On her return to Australia for her concert tour, she discussed her illness and said that her chemotherapy treatment had been like "experiencing a nuclear bomb". While appearing on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2008, Minogue said that her cancer had originally been misdiagnosed. She commented, "Because someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments doesn't necessarily mean they're right", but later spoke of her respect for the medical profession.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue was acknowledged for the impact she made by publicly discussing her cancer diagnosis and treatment. In May 2008, the French Cultural Minister Christine Albanel said, "Doctors now even go as far as saying there is a "Kylie effect" that encourages young women to have regular checks." Several scientific studies have been carried out how publicity around her case resulted in more women undergoing regular checks for cancer symptoms. Television host Giuliana Rancic cited Minogue's cancer story as "inspirational" when she too was diagnosed with cancer.


title: Kylie Minogue

text: Minogue has been in relationships with Jason Donovan, Olivier Martinez, Andres Velencoso and Michael Hutchence. She has been in a relationship with British GQ creative director Paul Solomons since 2018. In 2022, she moved back to Australia, and presently lives in Melbourne.


title: Achilles

text: In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's "Iliad". He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia.


title: Achilles

text: Achilles' most notable feat during the Trojan War was the slaying of the Trojan prince Hector outside the gates of Troy. Although the death of Achilles is not presented in the "Iliad", other sources concur that he was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him with an arrow. Later legends (beginning with Statius' unfinished epic "Achilleid", written in the 1st century AD) state that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for one heel, because when his mother Thetis dipped him in the river Styx as an infant, she held him by one of his heels. Alluding to these legends, the term "Achilles' heel" has come to mean a point of weakness, especially in someone or something with an otherwise strong constitution. The Achilles tendon is also named after him due to these legends.


title: Achilles

text: Linear B tablets attest to the personal name "Achilleus" in the forms "a-ki-re-u" and "a-ki-re-we", the latter being the dative of the former. The name grew more popular, becoming common soon after the seventh century BC and was also turned into the female form Ἀχιλλεία ("Achilleía"), attested in Attica in the fourth century BC (IG II² 1617) and, in the form "Achillia", on a stele in Halicarnassus as the name of a female gladiator fighting an "Amazon".


title: Achilles

text: Achilles' name can be analyzed as a combination of (') "distress, pain, sorrow, grief" and (') "people, soldiers, nation", resulting in a proto-form "*Akhí-lāu̯os" "he who has the people distressed" or "he whose people have distress". The grief or distress of the people is a theme raised numerous times in the "Iliad" (and frequently by Achilles himself). Achilles' role as the hero of grief or distress forms an ironic juxtaposition with the conventional view of him as the hero of "" ("glory", usually in war). Furthermore, "laós" has been construed by Gregory Nagy, following Leonard Palmer, to mean "a corps of soldiers", a muster. With this derivation, the name obtains a double meaning in the poem: when the hero is functioning rightly, his men bring distress to the enemy, but when wrongly, his men get the grief of war. The poem is in part about the misdirection of anger on the part of leadership.


title: Achilles

text: Some researchers deem the name a loan word, possibly from a Pre-Greek language. Achilles' descent from the Nereid Thetis and a similarity of his name with those of river deities such as Acheron and Achelous have led to speculations about his being an old water divinity . Robert S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name, based among other things on the coexistence of "-λλ-" and "-λ-" in epic language, which may account for a palatalized phoneme /l/ in the original language.


title: Achilles

text: In the account of Dares the Phrygian, Achilles was described having ". . .a large chest, a fine mouth, and powerfully formed arms and legs. His head was covered with long wavy chestnut-colored hair. Though mild in manner, he was very fierce in battle. His face showed the joy of a man richly endowed."


title: Achilles

text: Achilles was the son of Thetis, a Nereid and daughter of The Old Man of the Sea, and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons. Zeus and Poseidon had been rivals for Thetis's hand in marriage until Prometheus, the fore-thinker, warned Zeus of a prophecy (originally uttered by Themis, goddess of divine law) that Thetis would bear a son greater than his father. For this reason, the two gods withdrew their pursuit, and had her wed Peleus.


title: Achilles

text: There is a tale which offers an alternative version of these events: In the "Argonautica" (4.760) Zeus' sister and wife Hera alludes to Thetis' chaste resistance to the advances of Zeus, pointing out that Thetis was so loyal to Hera's marriage bond that she coolly rejected the father of gods. Thetis, although a daughter of the sea-god Nereus, was also brought up by Hera, further explaining her resistance to the advances of Zeus. Zeus was furious and decreed that she would never marry an immortal.


title: Achilles

text: According to the "Achilleid", written by Statius in the 1st century AD, and to non-surviving previous sources, when Achilles was born Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx; however, he was left vulnerable at the part of the body by which she held him: his left heel . It is not clear if this version of events was known earlier. In another version of this story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire in order to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage.


title: Achilles

text: None of the sources before Statius make any reference to this general invulnerability. To the contrary, in the "Iliad", Homer mentions Achilles being wounded: in Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelagon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He was ambidextrous, and cast a spear from each hand; one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood".


title: Achilles

text: In the few fragmentary poems of the Epic Cycle which describe the hero's death (i.e. the "Cypria", the "Little Iliad" by Lesches of Pyrrha, the "Aithiopis" and "Iliou persis" by Arctinus of Miletus), there is no trace of any reference to his general invulnerability or his famous weakness at the heel. In the later vase paintings presenting the death of Achilles, the arrow (or in many cases, arrows) hit his torso.


title: Achilles

text: Peleus entrusted Achilles to Chiron the Centaur, who lived on Mount Pelion, to be reared. Thetis foretold that her son's fate was either to gain glory and die young, or to live a long but uneventful life in obscurity. Achilles chose the former, and decided to take part in the Trojan War. According to Homer, Achilles grew up in Phthia with his companion Patroclus.


title: Achilles

text: According to Photius, the sixth book of the "New History" by Ptolemy Hephaestion reported that Thetis burned in a secret place the children she had by Peleus. When she had Achilles, Peleus noticed, tore him from the flames with only a burnt foot, and confided him to the centaur Chiron. Later Chiron exhumed the body of the Damysus, who was the fastest of all the giants, removed the ankle, and incorporated it into Achilles' burnt foot.


title: Achilles

text: Some post-Homeric sources claim that in order to keep Achilles safe from the war, Thetis (or, in some versions, Peleus) hid the young man dressed as a princess or at least a girl at the court of Lycomedes, king of Skyros.


title: Achilles

text: There, Achilles, properly disguised, lived among Lycomedes' daughters, perhaps under the name "Pyrrha" (the red-haired girl), Cercysera or Aissa ("swift"). With Lycomedes' daughter Deidamia, whom in the account of Statius he raped, Achilles there fathered two sons, Neoptolemus (also called Pyrrhus, after his father's possible alias) and Oneiros. According to this story, Odysseus learned from the prophet Calchas that the Achaeans would be unable to capture Troy without Achilles' aid. Odysseus went to Skyros in the guise of a peddler selling women's clothes and jewellery and placed a shield and spear among his goods. When Achilles instantly took up the spear, Odysseus saw through his disguise and convinced him to join the Greek campaign. In another version of the story, Odysseus arranged for a trumpet alarm to be sounded while he was with Lycomedes' women. While the women fled in panic, Achilles prepared to defend the court, thus giving his identity away.


title: Achilles

text: According to the "Iliad", Achilles arrived at Troy with 50 ships, each carrying 50 Myrmidons. He appointed five leaders (each leader commanding 500 Myrmidons): Menesthius, Eudorus, Peisander, Phoenix and Alcimedon.


title: Achilles

text: When the Greeks left for the Trojan War, they accidentally stopped in Mysia, ruled by King Telephus. In the resulting battle, Achilles gave Telephus a wound that would not heal; Telephus consulted an oracle, who stated that "he that wounded shall heal". Guided by the oracle, he arrived at Argos, where Achilles healed him in order that he might become their guide for the voyage to Troy.


title: Achilles

text: According to other reports in Euripides' lost play about Telephus, he went to Aulis pretending to be a beggar and asked Achilles to heal his wound. Achilles refused, claiming to have no medical knowledge. Alternatively, Telephus held Orestes for ransom, the ransom being Achilles' aid in healing the wound. Odysseus reasoned that the spear had inflicted the wound; therefore, the spear must be able to heal it. Pieces of the spear were scraped off onto the wound and Telephus was healed.


title: Achilles

text: According to the "Cypria" (the part of the Epic Cycle that tells the events of the Trojan War before Achilles' wrath), when the Achaeans desired to return home, they were restrained by Achilles, who afterwards attacked the cattle of Aeneas, sacked neighbouring cities (like Pedasus and Lyrnessus, where the Greeks capture the queen Briseis) and killed Tenes, a son of Apollo, as well as Priam's son Troilus in the sanctuary of Apollo Thymbraios; however, the romance between Troilus and Chryseis described in Geoffrey Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" and in William Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" is a medieval invention.


title: Achilles

text: In Dares Phrygius' "Account of the Destruction of Troy", the Latin summary through which the story of Achilles was transmitted to medieval Europe, as well as in older accounts, Troilus was a young Trojan prince, the youngest of King Priam's and Hecuba's five legitimate sons (or according other sources, another son of Apollo). Despite his youth, he was one of the main Trojan war leaders, a "horse fighter" or "chariot fighter" according to Homer. Prophecies linked Troilus' fate to that of Troy and so he was ambushed in an attempt to capture him. Yet Achilles, struck by the beauty of both Troilus and his sister Polyxena, and overcome with lust, directed his sexual attentions on the youth – who, refusing to yield, instead found himself decapitated upon an altar-omphalos of Apollo Thymbraios. Later versions of the story suggested Troilus was accidentally killed by Achilles in an over-ardent lovers' embrace. In this version of the myth, Achilles' death therefore came in retribution for this sacrilege. Ancient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his parents. Had Troilus lived to adulthood, the First Vatican Mythographer claimed, Troy would have been invincible; however, the motif is older and found already in Plautus' "Bacchides".


title: Achilles

text: Homer's "Iliad" is the most famous narrative of Achilles' deeds in the Trojan War. Achilles' wrath (μῆνις Ἀχιλλέως, "mênis Achilléōs") is the central theme of the poem. The first two lines of the "Iliad" read:


title: Achilles

text: The Homeric epic only covers a few weeks of the decade-long war, and does not narrate Achilles' death. It begins with Achilles' withdrawal from battle after being dishonoured by Agamemnon, the commander of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon has taken a woman named Chryseis as his slave. Her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, begs Agamemnon to return her to him. Agamemnon refuses, and Apollo sends a plague amongst the Greeks. The prophet Calchas correctly determines the source of the troubles but will not speak unless Achilles vows to protect him. Achilles does so, and Calchas declares that Chryseis must be returned to her father. Agamemnon consents, but then commands that Achilles' battle prize Briseis, the daughter of Briseus, be brought to him to replace Chryseis. Angry at the dishonour of having his plunder and glory taken away (and, as he says later, because he loves Briseis), with the urging of his mother Thetis, Achilles refuses to fight or lead his troops alongside the other Greek forces. At the same time, burning with rage over Agamemnon's theft, Achilles prays to Thetis to convince Zeus to help the Trojans gain ground in the war, so that he may regain his honour.


title: Achilles

text: As the battle turns against the Greeks, thanks to the influence of Zeus, Nestor declares that the Trojans are winning because Agamemnon has angered Achilles, and urges the king to appease the warrior. Agamemnon agrees and sends Odysseus and two other chieftains, Ajax and Phoenix. They promise that, if Achilles returns to battle, Agamemnon will return the captive Briseis and other gifts. Achilles rejects all Agamemnon offers him and simply urges the Greeks to sail home as he was planning to do.


title: Achilles

text: The Trojans, led by Hector, subsequently push the Greek army back toward the beaches and assault the Greek ships. With the Greek forces on the verge of absolute destruction, Patroclus leads the Myrmidons into battle, wearing Achilles' armour, though Achilles remains at his camp. Patroclus succeeds in pushing the Trojans back from the beaches, but is killed by Hector before he can lead a proper assault on the city of Troy.


title: Achilles

text: After receiving the news of the death of Patroclus from Antilochus, the son of Nestor, Achilles grieves over his beloved companion's death. His mother Thetis comes to comfort the distraught Achilles. She persuades Hephaestus to make new armour for him, in place of the armour that Patroclus had been wearing, which was taken by Hector. The new armour includes the Shield of Achilles, described in great detail in the poem.


title: Achilles

text: Enraged over the death of Patroclus, Achilles ends his refusal to fight and takes the field, killing many men in his rage but always seeking out Hector. Achilles even engages in battle with the river god Scamander, who has become angry that Achilles is choking his waters with all the men he has killed. The god tries to drown Achilles but is stopped by Hera and Hephaestus. Zeus himself takes note of Achilles' rage and sends the gods to restrain him so that he will not go on to sack Troy itself before the time allotted for its destruction, seeming to show that the unhindered rage of Achilles can defy fate itself. Finally, Achilles finds his prey. Achilles chases Hector around the wall of Troy three times before Athena, in the form of Hector's favorite and dearest brother, Deiphobus, persuades Hector to stop running and fight Achilles face to face. After Hector realizes the trick, he knows the battle is inevitable. Wanting to go down fighting, he charges at Achilles with his only weapon, his sword, but misses. Accepting his fate, Hector begs Achilles not to spare his life, but to treat his body with respect after killing him. Achilles tells Hector it is hopeless to expect that of him, declaring that "my rage, my fury would drive me now to hack your flesh away and eat you raw – such agonies you have caused me". Achilles then kills Hector and drags his corpse by its heels behind his chariot. After having a dream where Patroclus begs Achilles to hold his funeral, Achilles hosts a series of funeral games in honour of his companion.


title: Achilles

text: At the onset of his duel with Hector, Achilles is referred to as the brightest star in the sky, which comes on in the autumn, Orion's dog (Sirius); a sign of evil. During the cremation of Patroclus, he is compared to Hesperus, the evening/western star (Venus), while the burning of the funeral pyre lasts until Phosphorus, the morning/eastern star (also Venus) has set (descended).


title: Achilles

text: With the assistance of the god Hermes (Argeiphontes), Hector's father Priam goes to Achilles' tent to plead with Achilles for the return of Hector's body so that he can be buried. Achilles relents and promises a truce for the duration of the funeral, lasting 9 days with a burial on the 10th (in the tradition of Niobe's offspring). The poem ends with a description of Hector's funeral, with the doom of Troy and Achilles himself still to come.


title: Achilles

text: The "Aethiopis" (7th century BC) and a work named "Posthomerica", composed by Quintus of Smyrna in the fourth century CE, relate further events from the Trojan War. When Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons and daughter of Ares, arrives in Troy, Priam hopes that she will defeat Achilles. After his temporary truce with Priam, Achilles fights and kills the warrior queen, only to grieve over her death later. At first, he was so distracted by her beauty, he did not fight as intensely as usual. Once he realized that his distraction was endangering his life, he refocused and killed her.


title: Achilles

text: Following the death of Patroclus, Nestor's son Antilochus becomes Achilles' closest companion. When Memnon, son of the Dawn Goddess Eos and king of Ethiopia, slays Antilochus, Achilles once more obtains revenge on the battlefield, killing Memnon. Consequently, Eos will not let the sun rise until Zeus persuades her. The fight between Achilles and Memnon over Antilochus echoes that of Achilles and Hector over Patroclus, except that Memnon (unlike Hector) was also the son of a goddess.


title: Achilles

text: Many Homeric scholars argued that episode inspired many details in the "Iliad"s description of the death of Patroclus and Achilles' reaction to it. The episode then formed the basis of the cyclic epic "Aethiopis", which was composed after the "Iliad", possibly in the 7th century BC. The "Aethiopis" is now lost, except for scattered fragments quoted by later authors.


title: Achilles

text: The exact nature of Achilles' relationship with Patroclus has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times. In the "Iliad", it appears to be the model of a deep and loyal friendship. Homer does not suggest that Achilles and his close friend Patroclus had sexual relations. Although there is no direct evidence in the text of the "Iliad" that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers, this theory was expressed by some later authors. Commentators from classical antiquity to the present have often interpreted the relationship through the lens of their own cultures. In 5th-century BC Athens, the intense bond was often viewed in light of the Greek custom of "paiderasteia", which is the relationship between an older male and a younger one, usually a teenager. In Patroclus and Achilles' case, Achilles would have been the younger as Patroclus is usually seen as his elder. In Plato's "Symposium", the participants in a dialogue about love assume that Achilles and Patroclus were a couple; Phaedrus argues that Achilles was the younger and more beautiful one so he was the beloved and Patroclus was the lover. However, ancient Greek had no words to distinguish heterosexual and homosexual, and it was assumed that a man could both desire handsome young men and have sex with women. Many pairs of men throughout history have been compared to Achilles and Patroclus to imply a homosexual relationship.


title: Achilles

text: The death of Achilles, even if considered solely as it occurred in the oldest sources, is a complex one, with many different versions. Starting with the oldest account, In the "Iliad Book XXII", Hector predicts with his last dying breath that Paris and Apollo will slay him at the Scaean Gates leading to Troy (with an arrow to the heel according to Statius). "In Book XXIII", the sad spirit of dead Patroclus visits Achilles just as he drifts off into slumber, requesting that his bones be placed with those of Achilles in his golden vase, a gift of his mother.


title: Achilles

text: In the "Odyssey Book XI", Odysseus sails to the underworld and converses with the shades. One of these is Achilles, who when greeted as "blessed in life, blessed in death", responds that he would rather be a slave to the worst of masters than be king of all the dead. But Achilles then asks Odysseus of his son's exploits in the Trojan war, and when Odysseus tells of Neoptolemus' heroic actions, Achilles is filled with satisfaction.


title: Achilles

text: In the "Odyssey Book XXIV" we read dead King Agamemnon's ghostly account of his death: Achilles' funeral pyre bleached bones had been mixed with those of Patroclus and put into his mother's golden vase. Also, the bones of Antilocus, who had become closer to Achilles than any other following Patroclus' death, were separately enclosed. And, the customary funeral games of a hero were performed, and a massive tomb or mound was built on the Hellespont for approaching seagoers to celebrate.


title: Achilles

text: Achilles was represented in the "Aethiopis" as living after his death in the island of Leuke at the mouth of the river Danube. Another version of Achilles' death is that he fell deeply in love with one of the Trojan princesses, Polyxena. Achilles asks Priam for Polyxena's hand in marriage. Priam is willing because it would mean the end of the war and an alliance with the world's greatest warrior. But while Priam is overseeing the private marriage of Polyxena and Achilles, Paris, who would have to give up Helen if Achilles married his sister, hides in the bushes and shoots Achilles with a divine arrow, killing him. According to some accounts, he had married Medea in life, so that after both their deaths they were united in the Elysian Fields of Hades – as Hera promised Thetis in Apollonius' "Argonautica" (3rd century BC).


title: Achilles

text: Achilles' armour was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Ajax the greater). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles to their Trojan prisoners, who, after considering both men's presentations, decided Odysseus was more deserving of the armour. Furious, Ajax cursed Odysseus, which earned him the ire of Athena, who temporarily made Ajax so mad with grief and anguish that he began killing sheep, thinking them his comrades. After a while, when Athena lifted his madness and Ajax realized that he had actually been killing sheep, he was so ashamed that he committed suicide. Odysseus eventually gave the armour to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. When Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax much later in the House of Hades ("Odyssey" 11.543–566), Ajax is still so angry about the outcome of the competition that he refuses to speak to Odysseus.


title: Achilles

text: The armour they fought for was made by Hephaestus thus making it much stronger and more beautiful than any armour a mortal could craft. He was made the gear because his first set was worn by Patroclus when he went to battle and taken by Hector when he killed Patroclus. The Shield of Achilles was also made by the fire god. His legendary spear was given to him by his mentor Chiron before he participated in the Trojan War. It was called the Pelian Spear which allegedly no other man could wield.


title: Achilles

text: A relic claimed to be Achilles' bronze-headed spear was preserved for centuries in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Phaselis, Lycia, a port on the Pamphylian Gulf. The city was visited in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, who envisioned himself as the new Achilles and carried the "Iliad" with him, but his court biographers do not mention the spear; however, it was shown in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century CE.


title: Achilles

text: Numerous paintings on pottery have suggested a tale not mentioned in the literary traditions. At some point in the war, Achilles and Ajax were playing a board game ("petteia"). They were absorbed in the game and oblivious to the surrounding battle. The Trojans attacked and reached the heroes, who were saved only by an intervention of Athena.


title: Achilles

text: The tomb of Achilles, extant throughout antiquity in Troad, was venerated by Thessalians, but also by Persian expeditionary forces, as well as by Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Caracalla. Achilles' cult was also to be found at other places, e. g. on the island of Astypalaea in the Sporades, in Sparta which had a sanctuary, in Elis and in Achilles' homeland Thessaly, as well as in the Magna Graecia cities of Tarentum, Locri and Croton, accounting for an almost Panhellenic cult to the hero.


title: Achilles

text: The cult of Achilles is illustrated in the 500 BC Polyxena sarcophagus, which depicts the sacrifice of Polyxena near the tumulus of Achilles. Strabo (13.1.32) also suggested that such a cult of Achilles existed in Troad:


title: Achilles

text: The spread and intensity of the hero's veneration among the Greeks that had settled on the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus, today's Black Sea, appears to have been remarkable. An archaic cult is attested for the Milesian colony of Olbia as well as for an island in the middle of the Black Sea, today identified with Snake Island (Ukrainian Зміїний, "Zmiinyi", near Kiliya, Ukraine). Early dedicatory inscriptions from the Greek colonies on the Black Sea (graffiti and inscribed clay disks, these possibly being votive offerings, from Olbia, the area of Berezan Island and the Tauric Chersonese) attest the existence of a heroic cult of Achilles from the sixth century BC onwards. The cult was still thriving in the third century CE, when dedicatory stelae from Olbia refer to an "Achilles Pontárchēs" (Ποντάρχης, roughly "lord of the Sea," or "of the Pontus Euxinus"), who was invoked as a protector of the city of Olbia, venerated on par with Olympian gods such as the local Apollo Prostates, Hermes Agoraeus, or Poseidon.


title: Achilles

text: Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) in his "Natural History" mentions a "port of the Achæi" and an "island of Achilles", famous for the tomb of that "man" (), situated somewhat nearby Olbia and the Dnieper-Bug Estuary; furthermore, at 125 Roman miles from this island, he places a peninsula "which stretches forth in the shape of a sword" obliquely, called "Dromos Achilleos" (Ἀχιλλέως δρόμος, "Achilléōs drómos" "the Race-course of Achilles") and considered the place of the hero's exercise or of games instituted by him. This last feature of Pliny's account is considered to be the iconic spit, called today "Tendra" (or "Kosa Tendra" and "Kosa Djarilgatch"), situated between the mouth of the Dnieper and Karkinit Bay, but which is hardly 125 Roman miles ( km) away from the Dnieper-Bug estuary, as Pliny states. (To the "Race-course" he gives a length of 80 miles,  km, whereas the spit measures  km today.)


title: Achilles

text: In the following chapter of his book, Pliny refers to the same island as "Achillea" and introduces two further names for it: "Leuce" or "Macaron" (from Greek [νῆσος] μακαρῶν "island of the blest"). The "present day" measures, he gives at this point, seem to account for an identification of "Achillea" or "Leuce" with today's Snake Island. Pliny's contemporary Pomponius Mela () tells that Achilles was buried on an island named "Achillea", situated between the Borysthenes and the Ister, adding to the geographical confusion. Ruins of a square temple, measuring 30 meters to a side, possibly that dedicated to Achilles, were discovered by Captain Kritzikly () in 1823 on Snake Island. A second exploration in 1840 showed that the construction of a lighthouse had destroyed all traces of this temple. A fifth century BC black-glazed lekythos inscription, found on the island in 1840, reads: "Glaukos, son of Poseidon, dedicated me to Achilles, lord of Leuke." In another inscription from the fifth or fourth century BC, a statue is dedicated to Achilles, lord of Leuke, by a citizen of Olbia, while in a further dedication, the city of Olbia confirms its continuous maintenance of the island's cult, again suggesting its quality as a place of a supra-regional hero veneration.


title: Achilles

text: The heroic cult dedicated to Achilles on "Leuce" seems to go back to an account from the lost epic "Aethiopis" according to which, after his untimely death, Thetis had snatched her son from the funeral pyre and removed him to a mythical ("Leúkē Nêsos" "White Island"). Already in the fifth century BC, Pindar had mentioned a cult of Achilles on a "bright island" (φαεννά νᾶσος, "phaenná nâsos") of the Black Sea, while in another of his works, Pindar would retell the story of the immortalized Achilles living on a geographically indefinite Island of the Blest together with other heroes such as his father Peleus and Cadmus. Well known is the connection of these mythological Fortunate Isles (μακαρῶν νῆσοι, "makárôn nêsoi") or the Homeric Elysium with the stream Oceanus which according to Greek mythology surrounds the inhabited world, which should have accounted for the identification of the northern strands of the Euxine with it. Guy Hedreen has found further evidence for this connection of Achilles with the northern margin of the inhabited world in a poem by Alcaeus, speaking of "Achilles lord of Scythia" and the opposition of North and South, as evoked by Achilles' fight against the Aethiopian prince Memnon, who in his turn would be removed to his homeland by his mother Eos after his death.


title: Achilles

text: The Greek geographer Dionysius Periegetes, who likely lived during the first century CE, wrote that the island was called "Leuce" "because the wild animals which live there are white. It is said that there, in Leuce island, reside the souls of Achilles and other heroes, and that they wander through the uninhabited valleys of this island; this is how Jove rewarded the men who had distinguished themselves through their virtues, because through virtue they had acquired everlasting honour". Similarly, others relate the island's name to its white cliffs, snakes or birds dwelling there. Pausanias has been told that the island is "covered with forests and full of animals, some wild, some tame. In this island there is also Achilles' temple and his statue". Leuce had also a reputation as a place of healing. Pausanias reports that the Delphic Pythia sent a lord of Croton to be cured of a chest wound. Ammianus Marcellinus attributes the healing to waters ("aquae") on the island.


title: Achilles

text: A number of important commercial port cities of the Greek waters were dedicated to Achilles. Herodotus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo reported on the existence of a town "Achílleion" (Ἀχίλλειον), built by settlers from Mytilene in the sixth century BC, close to the hero's presumed burial mound in the Troad. Later attestations point to an "Achílleion" in Messenia (according to Stephanus Byzantinus) and an "Achílleios" (Ἀχίλλειος) in Laconia. Nicolae Densuşianu recognized a connection to Achilles in the names of Aquileia and of the northern arm of the Danube delta, called Chilia (presumably from an older "Achileii"), though his conclusion, that Leuce had sovereign rights over the Black Sea, evokes modern rather than archaic sea-law.


title: Achilles

text: The kings of Epirus claimed to be descended from Achilles through his son, Neoptolemus. Alexander the Great, son of the Epirote princess Olympias, could therefore also claim this descent, and in many ways strove to be like his great ancestor. He is said to have visited the tomb of Achilles at Achilleion while passing Troy. In AD 216 the Roman Emperor Caracalla, while on his way to war against Parthia, emulated Alexander by holding games around Achilles' tumulus.


title: Achilles

text: The Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote a trilogy of plays about Achilles, given the title "Achilleis" by modern scholars. The tragedies relate the deeds of Achilles during the Trojan War, including his defeat of Hector and eventual death when an arrow shot by Paris and guided by Apollo punctures his heel. Extant fragments of the "Achilleis" and other Aeschylean fragments have been assembled to produce a workable modern play. The first part of the "Achilleis" trilogy, "The Myrmidons", focused on the relationship between Achilles and chorus, who represent the Achaean army and try to convince Achilles to give up his quarrel with Agamemnon; only a few lines survive today. In Plato's "Symposium", Phaedrus points out that Aeschylus portrayed Achilles as the lover and Patroclus as the beloved; Phaedrus argues that this is incorrect because Achilles, being the younger and more beautiful of the two, was the beloved, who loved his lover so much that he chose to die to avenge him.


title: Achilles

text: The tragedian Sophocles also wrote "The Lovers of Achilles", a play with Achilles as the main character. Only a few fragments survive.


title: Achilles

text: Towards the end of the 5th century BC, a more negative view of Achilles emerges in Greek drama; Euripides refers to Achilles in a bitter or ironic tone in "Hecuba", "Electra", and "Iphigenia in Aulis".


title: Achilles

text: The philosopher Zeno of Elea centred one of his paradoxes on an imaginary footrace between "swift-footed" Achilles and a tortoise, by which he attempted to show that Achilles could not catch up to a tortoise with a head start, and therefore that motion and change were impossible. As a student of the monist Parmenides and a member of the Eleatic school, Zeno believed time and motion to be illusions.


title: Achilles

text: In "Hippias Minor", a dialogue attributed to Plato, an arrogant man named Hippias argues with Socrates. The two get into a discussion about lying. They decide that a person who is intentionally false must be "better" than a person who is unintentionally false, on the basis that someone who lies intentionally must understand the subject about which they are lying. Socrates uses various analogies, discussing athletics and the sciences to prove his point. The two also reference Homer extensively. Socrates and Hippias agree that Odysseus, who concocted a number of lies throughout the "Odyssey" and other stories in the Trojan War Cycle, was false intentionally. Achilles, like Odysseus, told numerous falsehoods. Hippias believes that Achilles was a generally honest man, while Socrates believes that Achilles lied for his own benefit. The two argue over whether it is better to lie on purpose or by accident. Socrates eventually abandons Homeric arguments and makes sports analogies to drive home the point: someone who does wrong on purpose is a better person than someone who does wrong unintentionally.


title: Achilles

text: The Romans, who traditionally traced their lineage to Troy, took a highly negative view of Achilles. Virgil refers to Achilles as a savage and a merciless butcher of men, while Horace portrays Achilles ruthlessly slaying women and children. Other writers, such as Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid, represent a second strand of disparagement, with an emphasis on Achilles' erotic career. This strand continues in Latin accounts of the Trojan War by writers such as Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius and in Benoît de Sainte-Maure's "Roman de Troie" and Guido delle Colonne's "Historia destructionis Troiae", which remained the most widely read and retold versions of the Matter of Troy until the 17th century.


title: Achilles

text: Achilles was described by the Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon, not as Hellene, but as Scythian, while according to the Byzantine author John Malalas, his army was made up of a tribe previously known as Myrmidons and later as Bulgars.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Kaliningrad ( ; ), until 1946 known as Königsberg (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian semi-exclave between Lithuania and Poland. The city sits about west from mainland Russia. The city is situated on the Pregolya River, at the head of the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea, and is the only ice-free port of Russia and the Baltic states on the Baltic Sea. Its population in 2020 was 489,359, with up to 800,000 residents in the urban agglomeration. Kaliningrad is the second-largest city in the Northwestern Federal District, after Saint Petersburg, the third-largest city in the Baltic region, and the seventh-largest city on the Baltic Sea.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The settlement of modern-day Kaliningrad was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement "Twangste" by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named "Königsberg" in honor of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. A Baltic port city, it successively became the capital of the State of the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Prussia (1525–1701) and East Prussia. Königsberg remained the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy, though the capital was moved to Berlin in 1701. From 1454 to 1455 the city under the name of "Królewiec" belonged to the Kingdom of Poland, and from 1466 to 1657 it was a Polish fief. Königsberg was the easternmost large city in Germany until World War II. The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during the Battle of Königsberg in 1945; it was then captured by the Soviet Union on 9 April 1945. The Potsdam Agreement of 1945 placed it under Soviet administration. The city was renamed "Kaliningrad" in 1946 in honor of Soviet revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it has been governed as the administrative centre of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, the westernmost oblast of Russia.


title: Kaliningrad

text: As a major transport hub, with sea and river ports, the city is home to the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy, and is one of the largest industrial centres in Russia. It was deemed the best city in Russia in 2012, 2013, and 2014 in Kommersant's magazine "The Firm's Secret", the best city in Russia for business in 2013 according to "Forbes", and was ranked fifth in the Urban Environment Quality Index published by Minstroy in 2019. Kaliningrad has been a major internal migration attraction in Russia over the past two decades, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The history of the city may be divided into four periods: the Old Prussian settlement known as "Twangste" before 1255; the Polish city of "Królewiec" from 1454 to 1455 and then fief of Poland from 1456–1657; the German city of "Königsberg" from 1657 to 1945; and the Russian city of "Kaliningrad" from 1945 to present.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Königsberg was preceded by a Sambian (Old Prussian tribe) fort called "Twangste" (also spelt "Tuwangste" or "Tvankste"), meaning 'Oak Forest'. During the conquest of the Sambians by the Teutonic Knights in 1255, Twangste was destroyed and replaced by a new fortress named "Königsberg" in the honor of Bohemian king Ottokar II. The declining Old Prussian culture finally became extinct around the early 18th century with the Great Plague, and the surviving Old Prussians were integrated through assimilation.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The settlement on the site of present-day Kaliningrad was founded as a military fortress in 1255 after the Prussian Crusade by the Teutonic Knights against Baltic Prussians. The new settlement was named in honor of the Bohemian (Czech) King Ottokar II. The crusade was followed by a settlement of Germans and the surrounding area became predominantly German, with Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian minorities.


title: Kaliningrad

text: In 1454, the city integrated within borders of Poland for a year thanks to King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk and became a fiefdom under the Polish king from 1466. As a symbol of its dependence, the black Prussian eagle had a crown gracefully around its neck bearing the letter "S" from the Latinized name of the king, "Sigismundus." After the secularization of the Teutonic Order in 1525, Königsberg became the capital of the Duchy of Prussia. In 1618 the Duchy of Prussia fell under the control of the Electors of Brandenburg and in 1657 it became controlled in personal union with Brandenburg (sometimes referred to as Brandenberg-Prussia). From 1701, Brandenberg-Prussia became a Kingdom and the entire area was referred to as the Kingdom of Prussia. While the Brandenberg portion was a part of the Holy Roman Empire and later the German Confederation, Prussia (later called East Prussia) was not included within those territorial boundaries.


title: Kaliningrad

text: In the context of the Seven Year War, all of East Prussia was conquered and annexed by the Russian Empire (1758–1762). Immanuel Kant is famous for having sworn allegiance to Empress Elizabeth of Russia.


title: Kaliningrad

text: In the ensuing two centuries the city, first as part of the Kingdom of Prussia, then from 1866 as part of the North German Confederation, and then from 1871 as part of the German Empire, continued to flourish and many iconic landmarks of Königsberg were built. The city had around 370,000 inhabitants and was a cultural and administrative center of Prussia and the German Empire. Immanuel Kant and E. T. A. Hoffmann, notable sons of the city, were born during this time.


title: Kaliningrad

text: In World War II the city of Königsberg was heavily damaged by a British bombing attack in 1944 and the massive Soviet siege in spring 1945. At the end of World War II in 1945, the city became part of the Soviet Union (as part of the Russian SFSR).


title: Kaliningrad

text: The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the City of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The U.S. President Harry Truman and the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee declared that they would support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement.


title: Kaliningrad

text: On 4 July 1946 the Soviet authorities renamed Königsberg to Kaliningrad following the death on 3 June 1946 of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state) of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks. The remaining German population of Königsberg was forcibly moved to Germany in 1946–1949, and the city was repopulated with Soviet citizens (as a part of the agreement between the Allies and the Soviet Government). The city's language of administration was changed from German to Russian.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The city was rebuilt, and as the westernmost territory of the USSR, the Kaliningrad Oblast became a strategically important area during the Cold War. The Soviet Baltic Fleet was headquartered in the city in the 1950s. Because of its strategic importance, Kaliningrad Oblast was closed to foreign visitors.


title: Kaliningrad

text: In 1957 an agreement was signed and later came into force which delimited the border between Poland and the Soviet Union.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The town of Baltiysk, just outside Kaliningrad, is the only Russian Baltic Sea port said to be "ice-free" all year round, and the region hence plays an important role in maintenance of the Baltic Fleet.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Kaliningrad Oblast was an exclave of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 it became separated from the rest of Russia by independent countries. This isolation from the rest of Russia became even more pronounced politically when Poland and Lithuania became members of NATO and subsequently the European Union in 2004. All military and civilian land links between the region and the rest of Russia have to pass through members of NATO and the EU. Special travel arrangements for the territory's inhabitants have been made through the "Facilitated Transit Document (FTD)" and "Facilitated Rail Transit Document (FRTD)".


title: Kaliningrad

text: While in the 1990s many Soviet-era city names commemorating Communist leaders were changed (e.g., Leningrad reverting to Saint Petersburg and Kalinin, also named after Mikhail Kalinin, reverting to Tver), Kaliningrad remains named as it was, though the city is sometimes colloquially referred to as "König" or "Kyonig" (). The question of the name of the city has been raised multiple times; in 2009, the head of the city administration, Felix Lapin, said he personally supported the return of the historical name of the city, and in 2011, the governor of Kaliningrad Oblast, Nikolay Tsukanov, suggested a referendum could be held to resolve the issue, but stated that he was against renaming.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Since the early 1990s, the Kaliningrad oblast has been a Free Economic Zone (FEZ Yantar). In 2005 the city celebrated its 750th anniversary. In July 2007 Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov declared that if US-controlled missile defence systems were deployed in Poland, then nuclear weapons might be deployed in Kaliningrad. On 5 November 2008 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that installing missiles in Kaliningrad was almost a certainty. These plans were suspended, however, in January 2009.


title: Kaliningrad

text: During late 2011, a long range Voronezh radar was commissioned to monitor missile launches within about . It is situated in the settlement of Pionersky (formerly German "Neukuhren") in Kaliningrad Oblast.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Kaliningrad is at the mouth of the navigable Pregolya River, which empties into the Vistula Lagoon, an inlet of the Baltic Sea.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Sea vessels can access Gdańsk Bay/Bay of Danzig and the Baltic Sea by way of the Vistula Lagoon and the Strait of Baltiysk.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Until around 1900, ships drawing more than of water could not pass the bar and use the city's docks; larger vessels had to anchor at Pillau (now Baltiysk), where cargo was transferred to smaller vessels. In 1901, a ship canal between Königsberg and Pillau, completed at a cost of 13 million German marks, enabled vessels of a draught to moor alongside the town (see also Ports of the Baltic Sea).


title: Kaliningrad

text: Kaliningrad has an oceanic climate ("Cfb", depending on the isotherm chosen for class "C" climates) or a humid continental climate ("Dfb", depending on the isotherm chosen for class "D" climates), with cold, cloudy, (though moderate compared to most of Russia) winters and mild summers with frequent showers and thunderstorms. Average temperatures range from and rainfall varies from /month to /month. In general, it has maritime influences and therefore damp, variable and mild, with vast temperature differences between July and January.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The seasons are clearly differentiated. Spring starts in March and is initially cold and windy, later becoming pleasantly warm and often very sunny. Summer, which begins in June, is predominantly warm but hot at times (with temperature reaching as high as at least once per year) with plenty of sunshine interspersed with heavy showers. The average annual hours of sunshine for Kaliningrad is 1,700, similar to other northern cities. Autumn comes in September and is at first warm and usually sunny, turning cold, damp and foggy in November. Winter includes periods of snow. January and February are the coldest months with the temperature sometimes dropping as low as .


title: Kaliningrad

text: The original German population fled or was expelled after the end of World War II, when the territory was annexed by the Soviet Union, and in the following few years. In October 1945, only about 5,000 Soviet civilians lived in the territory. Between October 1947 and October 1948 approximately 100,000 Germans were forcibly moved to Germany, and by 1948 about 400,000 Soviet civilians had arrived in the Oblast.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Today the overwhelming majority of Kaliningrad's residents are Russians settled after 1945, and their descendants. A minority of the population are from other Slavic ethnic groups, including Belarusians and Ukrainians. Kaliningrad today is also home to small communities of Tatars, Germans, Armenians, Poles, and Lithuanians.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The pre-war city center (Altstadt and Kneiphof) consists of parks, broad avenues, a square on the site of the former Königsberg Castle, and two buildings: the House of Soviets ("Dom Sovyetov"), roughly on the site of the former castle, and the restored Königsberg Cathedral on the Kneiphof island (now "Kant island"). Immanuel Kant's grave is situated next to the cathedral. Many German-era buildings in the historic city centre have been preserved and even rebuilt, including the reconstruction of the Königsberg Synagogue. The new city centre is concentrated around Victory Square. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, consecrated in 2005, is located on that square.


title: Kaliningrad

text: The oldest building in Kaliningrad is the Juditten Church (built before 1288). Also worth seeing are the former Stock Exchange, the surviving churches, and the remaining city gates. In counter-clockwise order these gates are: the Sackheim Gate, King's Gate, Rossgarten Gate, Attack Gate (, or Sally Port), Railway Gate ("Eisenbahntor"), Brandenburg Gate, and Friedland Gate (""). Apart from the Dohna Tower, which houses the Amber Museum, the Wrangel Tower also remains as a reminder of the former Königsberg city walls. Only the gate of the former Fort Friedrichsburg remains.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Notable monuments include the statue of Immanuel Kant in front of the Immanuel Kant State University of Russia. The statue was made by notable sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and unveiled in 1864. The statue was destroyed in 1945, but was remoulded in 1992 on the initiative of Marion Dönhoff, a native East Prussian who became prominent in the West. Also worth seeing is the Cosmonaut monument, which honours the Kaliningrad cosmonauts Alexey Leonov, Yuri Romanenko and Aleksandr Viktorenko. Other statues and monuments include the statue for Duke Albert, the statue for Friedrich Schiller, the statue for Tsar Peter the Great, Vladimir Vysotsky, the "Mother Russia" monument, and the Monument for the 1200 Guardsmen, remembering the Battle of Königsberg.


title: Kaliningrad

text: Kaliningrad is a "green" city with many parks and areas with many trees and lawns. Parks range from tiny city squares to massive parks.