title: Religion in England

text: Many of England's most notable buildings and monuments are religious in nature: Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and St Paul's Cathedral. The festivals of Christmas and Easter are widely celebrated in the country.


title: Religion in England

text: The 2001 and 2011 censuses did not include on adherence to individual Christian denominations, since they were asked only in the Scottish and Northern Ireland censuses and not in England and Wales. However using the same principle as applied in the 2001 census, a survey carried out in the end of 2008 by Ipsos MORI and based on a scientifically robust sample, found the population of England and Wales to be 47.0% affiliated with the Church of England, which is also the state church, 9.6% with the Roman Catholic Church and 8.7% were other Christians, mainly Free church Protestants and Eastern Orthodox. Muslims were 4.8% and 3.4% members of other religions, 5.3% were agnostics, 6.8% were atheists and 15.0% were not sure about their religious affiliation or did not answer the question.


title: Religion in England

text: Saint George is recognised as the patron saint of England and the flag of England consists of his cross. Prior to Edward III, the patron saint was St Edmund and St Alban is also honoured as England's first martyr. The first Christianity in England prior to the Great Schism of 1054 AD was what is now known as Orthodox Christianity, whose saints include Saint Patrick, Saint Ethelbert, Saint Morwenna and many other English saints.


title: Religion in England

text: The established church of the realm is the Church of England, whose supreme governor is the British monarch (currently King Charles III) although in practise the church is governed by its bishops under the authority of Parliament. Twenty-six of the church's 42 bishops are Lords Spiritual, representing the church in the House of Lords. The dioceses of England are divided between the two provinces of Canterbury and York, both of whose archbishops are considered primates. The church regards itself as the continuation of the Catholic church introduced by St Augustine's 6th-century mission to Kent, although this is disputed owing to procedural and doctrinal changes introduced by the 16th-century English Reformation, particularly the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. In 2010, the Church of England counted 25 million baptised members out of the 41 million Christians in Great Britain's population of about 60 million; around the same time, it also claimed to baptise one in eight newborn children. Generally, anyone in England may marry or be buried at their local parish church, whether or not they have been baptised in the church. Actual attendance has declined steadily since 1890, with around one million, or 10% of the baptised population attending Sunday services on a regular basis (defined as once a month or more) and three million- roughly 15%- joining Christmas Eve and Christmas services. It has around active and ordained clergy.


title: Religion in England

text: The Free Church of England is another Anglican denomination which separated from the Church of England in the 19th century in opposition to shifts in doctrine and ceremony which brought the established church closer to Roman Catholicism. The Free Church of England is in communion with the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States and Canada.


title: Religion in England

text: The Catholic Church in England and Wales is directed by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, whose current president is Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster. To highlight the historical Catholic continuity of Nichols' office, dating back to Pope Gregory I's appointment of St. Augustine and that pope's sequent bestowal of the pallium on the appointee, the installation rites of pre-Reformation Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury and earlier Archbishops of Westminster were used at his installation as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. The Catholic Church was formerly forbidden from using the names of the Anglican dioceses by the 1851 Ecclesiastical Titles Act. It is divided among five provinces headed by the archbishops of Westminster, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Southwark in England and Cardiff in Wales. The Catholic Church considers itself a continuation of the earliest Celtic Christian communities, although its formal hierarchy needed to be refounded by the Gregorian mission to the Saxon kingdoms in the 6th and 7th centuries and again following the English Reformation. Papal recognition of George III as the legitimate ruler of Great Britain in 1766 opened the way for the Catholic Emancipation, easing and ultimately eliminating the anti-Catholic Penal Laws and Test Acts. This process sometimes faced great popular opposition, as during the 1780 Gordon Riots in London. Daniel O'Connell was the first Catholic member of Parliament. Considering the "actual condition of Catholicism in England," the number of Catholics, and the obstacles "removed which chiefly opposed" it, Pope Pius IX issued in 1850 the bull "Universalis Ecclesiae" to restore "the normal diocesan hierarchy." More recently, the royal family has been permitted to marry Roman Catholics without fear of being disqualified from succession to the throne. Recent immigration from Catholic countries, particularly Poland and Lithuania, has increased the church's numbers still more. Polling in 2009 suggested there were about 5.2 million Catholics in England and Wales, about 9.6% of the population, concentrated in the northwest. Some studies show that weekly attendance at Catholic masses now exceeds that of the Anglican services.


title: Religion in England

text: Pentecostal churches are growing and, in terms of church attendance, are now third after the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. There are three main denominations of Pentecostal churches: the Assemblies of God in Great Britain (part of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship), the Apostolic Church, and the Elim Pentecostal Church. Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion is a small society of evangelical churches, founded in 1783, which today has 23 congregations in England. There is also a growing number of independent, charismatic churches that encourage Pentecostal practices at part of their worship, such as Kingsgate Community Church in Peterborough, which started with 9 people in 1988 and now has a congregation in excess of 1,500.


title: Religion in England

text: Various forms of Protestantism developed from the ferment of the English Civil War onwards. The Quakers (formally, the Religious Society of Friends) were founded by George Fox in the 1640s. Following the Great Ejection of 1662, about a tenth of Church of England ministers gave up their livings to lead the newly formed dissenting churches. Notable dissenting groups were the Presbyterians, the Independents (or Congregationalists) and the Baptists. In the 18th century some Presbyterians favoured ideas known as Rational Dissent which evolved into, among others, Unitarianism, which still has more than 100 congregations in the 21st century. Methodism developed from the 18th century onwards. The Methodist revival was started in England by a group of men including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles as a movement within the Church of England, but developed as a separate denomination after John Wesley's death. The primary church in England is the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The Salvation Army dates back to 1865, when it was founded in East London by William and Catherine Booth. Its international headquarters are still in London, near St Paul's Cathedral. There is one Mennonite congregation in England, the Wood Green Mennonite Church in London.


title: Religion in England

text: Most Greek Orthodox Church parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, based in London and led by Gregorios, the Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain. Created in 1932, it is the diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople that covers England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland as well as Malta. A Greek Orthodox community already existed at the time the UK was formed, worshipping in the Imperial Russian Embassy in London. However, it was another 130 years until an autonomous community was set up in Finsbury Park in London, in 1837. The first new church was built in 1850, on London Street in the City. In 1882, St Sophia Cathedral was constructed in London, in order to cope with the growing influx of Orthodox immigrants. By the outbreak of World War I, there were large Orthodox communities in London, Manchester and Liverpool, each focused on its own church. World War II and its aftermath also saw a large expansion among the Orthodox Communities. Today, there are seven churches bearing the title of Cathedral in London as well as in Birmingham (the Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew) and Leicester. In addition to these, there are eighty-one churches and other places where worship is regularly offered, twenty-five places (including university chaplaincies) where the divine liturgy is celebrated on a less regular basis, four chapels (including that of the Archdiocese), and two monasteries. As is traditional within the Orthodox Church, the bishops have a considerable degree of autonomy within the Archdiocese. The Greek Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in Toxteth, Liverpool, was built in 1870. It is an enlarged version of St Theodore's church in Constantinople and is a Grade II Listed building.


title: Religion in England

text: There are various Russian Orthodox groups in England. In 1962, Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh founded and was for many years the bishop, archbishop and then metropolitan bishop of the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh, the Moscow Patriarchate's diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. It is the most numerous Russian Orthodox group in the country. There are also the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia churches as well as some churches and communities belonging to the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe's Episcopal Vicariate in the UK.


title: Religion in England

text: As well as the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, there are also the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church all in London as well as a non-canonical Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Manchester. The Antiochian Orthodox Church have the St. George's Cathedral in London and a number of parishes across England.


title: Religion in England

text: All Coptic Orthodox parishes fall under the jurisdiction of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria Pope of Alexandria. The Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain and Ireland is divided into three main districts: Ireland, Scotland, and North England; the Midlands and its affiliated areas; and South Wales. In addition, there is one Patriarchal Exarchate at Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Most British converts belong to the British Orthodox Church, which is canonically part of the Coptic Orthodox Church. There is also the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in London. There is also the Armenian Apostolic Church in London.


title: Religion in England

text: According to the 2021 United Kingdom census, 3,801,186 Muslims live in England, or 6.7% of the population. The Muslim population grew by over a million compared to the 2021 census.


title: Religion in England

text: According to the 2011 Census, 2.7 million Muslims live in England where they form 5.0% of the population.


title: Religion in England

text: Although Islam is generally thought of as being a recent arrival to the country, there has been contact with Muslims for many centuries. One example is the decision of Offa, the eighth-century King of Mercia (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existing at that time), to have coins minted with an Islamic inscription on them—copies of coins issued by the near-contemporary Muslim ruler Al-Mansur. It is thought that they were minted to facilitate trade with the expanding Islamic empire in Spain.


title: Religion in England

text: Muslim scholarship was well known among the learned in England by 1386, when Chaucer was writing. In the Prologue to the "Canterbury Tales", there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Razi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). Ibn Sina's canon of medicine was a standard text for medical students well into the 17th century.


title: Religion in England

text: Today Islam is the second largest religion in England. About 38% of English Muslims live in London, where they make up 12.4% of the population. There are also large numbers of Muslims in Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford, Luton, Slough, Leicester and the mill towns of Northern England.


title: Religion in England

text: Notable mosques include the East London Mosque, London Central Mosque, Al-Rahma mosque, Jamea Masjid, Birmingham Central Mosque, Finsbury Park Mosque, Al Mahdi Mosque, London Markaz and Markazi mosque and the Baitul Futuh Mosque of the Ahmadiyya, which acts as its national headquarters.


title: Religion in England

text: Until the 20th century, Judaism was the only noticeable non-Christian religion having first appeared in historical records during the Norman Conquest of 1066. In fact, from 1290 to 1656, Judaism did not officially exist in England due to an outright expulsion in 1290 and official restrictions that were not lifted until 1656 (though historical records show that some Jews did come back to England during the early part of the 17th century prior to the lifting of the restriction). Now, the presence of the Jewish culture and Jews in England today is one of the largest in the world.


title: Religion in England

text: The Baháʼí Faith started with the earliest mentions of the predecessor of the Baháʼí Faith, the Báb, in "The Times" on 1 November 1845, only a little over a year after the Báb first stated his mission. Today there are Baháʼí communities across the country from Carlisle to Cornwall.


title: Religion in England

text: Early Hindus in England were mostly students during the 19th century. There have been three waves of migration of Hindus to England since then.


title: Religion in England

text: Before India's Independence in 1947, Hindu migration was minuscule and largely temporary. The second wave of Hindu migration occurred in the 1970s after the expulsion of Hindus from Uganda. Initially, Hindu immigration was limited to Punjabi and Gujarati Hindus, but, by 2000, small Hindu communities of every ethnicity could be found in England. England is also host to a large immigrant community of Sri Lankan Hindus who are mostly Tamils. The last wave of migration of Hindus has been taking place since the 1990s with refugees from Sri Lanka and professionals from India.


title: Religion in England

text: However, there is becoming an increasing number of English Western Hindus in England, who have either converted from another faith or been an English Hindu from birth.


title: Religion in England

text: The first Sikh migration came in the 1950s. It was mostly of men from the Punjab seeking work in industries like foundries and textiles. These new arrivals mostly settled in London, Birmingham and West Yorkshire. Thousands of Sikhs from East Africa soon followed. This mass immigration was caused by Idi Amin's persecution of ethnic groups in Uganda, with thousands forced to flee the region in fear of losing their lives.


title: Religion in England

text: The earliest Buddhist influence on England came through the UK's imperial connections with South East Asia, and as a result the early connections were with the Theravada traditions of Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand. The tradition of study resulted in the foundation of the Pali Text Society, which undertook the task of translating the Pali Canon of Buddhist texts into English.


title: Religion in England

text: In 1924 London's Buddhist Society was founded, and in 1926 the Theravadin London Buddhist Vihara. The rate of growth was slow but steady through the century, and the 1950s saw the development of interest in Zen Buddhism.


title: Religion in England

text: In the 1970s, a Theravāda monastic order consists mainly of Westerners following the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah was established at Chithurst Buddhist Monastery in West Sussex, and also established branches monasteries elsewhere in the country.


title: Religion in England

text: At the 2011 census 75,281 people in England identified as Pagan, doubling compared to the figures of the 2001 census. Paganism in England is dominated by Wicca, founded in England itself, the modern movement of Druidry, and forms of Heathenry.


title: Religion in England

text: Wicca was developed in England in the first half of the 20th century. Although it had various terms in the past, from the 1960s onward the name of the religion was normalised to "Wicca".


title: Religion in England

text: Heathenry is a modern revival of Germanic paganism such as that practiced in the British Isles by the Anglo-Saxon and Norse peoples prior to Christianisation. In the 2011 Census, 1867 people identified specifically as 'Heathen' in addition to those who identified more broadly as 'Pagan'. The largest inclusive Heathen organisation that operates in England is Asatru UK, although lacking official membership statistics, as of February 2022 had 3177 members of its Facebook group.


title: Religion in England

text: During the Iron Age, Celtic polytheism was the predominant religion in the area now known as England. Neo-Druidism grew out of the Celtic revival in 18th-century Romanticism. The 2011 census states there are 4,189 Druids in England and Wales. A 2012 analysis by the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids estimates that there are between 6,000 and 11,000 Druids in Britain.


title: Religion in England

text: These faiths, all of which are considered to be pagan, have all been predominant in the regions that later made up England, though were all made extinct through Christianisation.


title: Religion in England

text: Gallo-Roman religion formed when the Roman Empire invaded and occupied the Brythonic peoples. Elements of the native Brythonic Celtic religion such as the druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). However, under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham. The founding of a temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica.


title: Religion in England

text: Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The Temple of Mithras is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the rich urban classes.


title: Religion in England

text: In the Early Middle Ages, immigrants from the European continent arrived, bringing Anglo-Saxon paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism, with them. Later, after most of the Anglo-Saxon peoples had converted to Christianity, Vikings from Scandinavia arrived, bringing with them Norse paganism.


title: Religion in England

text: The varied religious and ethnic history of England has left a wide range of religious buildings—churches, cathedrals, chapels, chapels of ease, synagogues, mosques and temples. Besides its spiritual importance, the religious architecture includes buildings of importance to the tourism industry and local pride. As a result of the Reformation, the ancient cathedrals remained in the possession of the then-established churches, while most Roman Catholic churches date from Victorian times or are of more recent construction (in Liverpool the ultra-modern Roman Catholic cathedral was actually completed before the more traditional Anglican cathedral, whose construction took most of the twentieth century). Notable places of worship include:


title: Religion in England

text: 36.7% of people in England declared no religion in 2021, compared with 24.7% in 2011 and 14.6% in 2001. These figures are slightly lower than the combined figures for England and Wales as Wales has a higher level of irreligion than England. Brighton and Hove had the highest such proportion at 55.2%, followed by Norwich at 53.5%, Bristol and Hastings at 51.4%


title: AGCO

text: AGCO Corporation is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer founded in 1990 and with its headquarters in Duluth, Georgia, United States. AGCO designs, produces and sells tractors, combines, foragers, hay tools, self-propelled sprayers, smart farming technologies, seeding and tillage equipment.


title: AGCO

text: AGCO was established on June 20, 1990 when executives at Deutz-Allis, Robert J. Ratliff, John M. Shumejda, Edward R. Swingle, and James M. Seaver, bought out Deutz-Allis North American operations from the parent corporation Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz AG (KHD), a German company that owned the Deutz-Fahr brand of agriculture equipment. KHD had purchased portions of the Allis-Chalmers agricultural equipment business five years earlier. Following the organization of the company, Robert Ratliff was selected to be the company's first chairman.


title: AGCO

text: The company was first called Gleaner-Allis Corporation, then rearranged to be Allis-Gleaner Corporation, or AGCO. The Deutz-Allis line of tractors were renamed AGCO-Allis, and Gleaner became a brand of its own for combines. The Deutz-Allis brand continued in South America until 2001, when they were renamed AGCO-Allis. In 2001, AGCO Allis was renamed AGCO in North America.


title: AGCO

text: In March 1991, AGCO purchased the Hesston Corporation located in Hesston, Kansas gaining hay and forage equipment as well as technologies such as the grain auger, invented in 1947 by Lyle Yost. Hesston had a 50 percent joint venture with Case International, now a part of CNH Global. AGCO purchased the White Tractor line from the Allied Corporation's White-New Idea company. In 1993, AGCO purchased the remainder of White-New Idea, gaining New Idea hay equipment, manure spreaders, White planters, from a large manufacturing plant in Coldwater, Ohio.


title: AGCO

text: Also in 1993, AGCO purchased the North American distribution rights to Massey Ferguson, a worldwide agricultural equipment company. In 1994, they purchased McConnell Tractors,<ref name="AGCO-Jul-1996-S-4/A"></ref> manufacturer of the large articulated Massey Ferguson tractors. AGCO developed the Agcostar line of articulated tractors. Later in 1994, the Black Machine line of planters was purchased.


title: AGCO

text: 1995 saw the purchase of the AgEquipment Group, which manufactured tillage equipment and loaders under the Glenco, Tye and Farmhand brands. In 1996, acquisitions went international with the purchase of Iochpe-Maxion in Brazil. This was the Brazilian company that had rights to the Massey Ferguson brand and manufacturing in the region, as well as the "Maxion" brand of industrial equipment. This was also the year that AGCO purchased Deutz Argentina, the number one leader of tractors in Argentina. Also in 1996, AGCO purchased Western Combine Corporation and Portage Manufacturing in Canada. Western Combine had previously purchased the assets of the Massey Combine Corporation's combine operation, which had been spun off by Massey Ferguson.


title: AGCO

text: 1997 was the year of the major purchase of Fendt in Germany, the German tractor company.<ref name="Agco-Feb-1997-S-3/A"></ref> Fendt is well known for its advanced technology and superior manufacturing quality. The acquisition of Fendt was contingent on three conditions; 1) The Fendt name would be retained, 2) The factory in Marktoberdorf would continue to operate, and 3) a fair price would be paid for the company. Also in 1997, AGCO acquired Dronningborg Industries in Denmark, the manufacturer of European Massey Ferguson combines, and former manufacturer of Dronningborg combines.


title: AGCO

text: In 1998, AGCO made a joint venture with Deutz AG to produce engines in Argentina, and purchased the Spra-Coupe and Willmar companies. Spra-Coupe and Willmar are sprayer companies in North America. SpraCoupe originated in Bismarck, ND. Upon purchase by AGCO, the manufacturing of SpraCoupes was moved to Willmar, Minnesota where the Willmar branded fertilizer tenders and "Wrangler" articulated loaders were being manufactured. SpraCoupe and Willmar products were manufactured in Willmar from 1998 to 2001.


title: AGCO

text: For the year 2000, AGCO bought out its partner CNH Global N.V. in the Hay and Forage Industries joint venture.


title: AGCO

text: In 2001, AGCO purchased Ag-Chem Equipment, expanding its application equipment business. Ag-Chem Equipment was based in Jackson, Minnesota and developed the TerraGator flotation-type and RoGator rowcrop-type applicators. Also that year, the SpraCoupe and Willmar brands moved their manufacturing from Willmar, MN to the Jackson, Minnesota facility and the "Agco-Allis" and "White" tractor lines were merged in North America under the "AGCO" brand, continuing in the orange color.


title: AGCO

text: 2002 was the year that AGCO purchased rights to the Challenger name and the tracked tractors from the Caterpillar Corporation, giving the firm a well-known brand name and high-power tracked tractors. The firm further developed the Challenger line into: wheeled tractors, using tractors manufactured by Iseki, Agritalia, the Massey Ferguson factory and the Brazilian Valtra factory; combines, rebranding some Massey Ferguson/Gleaner -built combines; and hay equipment, using Hesston-built hay equipment. AGCO also purchased the Sunflower Manufacturing Company in Beloit, Kansas, which manufactures tillage, seeding and specialty harvesting equipment.


title: AGCO

text: 2004 brought about the purchase of the Valtra tractor company from the Kone Group, in Finland. Valtra had licensing agreements with the Eicher company in India for tractor production, and also with the HEMA group in Turkey. The purchase of Valtra also included SISU Diesel engines. Since 2012 this Finland based diesel engine manufacturer with production for example in Brazil has operated with name AGCO Power.


title: AGCO

text: 2006 saw a re-focusing of the various brands and subsidiaries, and the reduction of individual brands. AGCO announced plans to combine some, and make some only part of a larger brand, or co-branding. Examples include the Massey Ferguson 9635 Hesston self-propelled swather, and the AGCO 9365 Hesston self-propelled swather. Challenger has seen further expansion with the further consolidation of the AgChem brand into Challenger, and the introduction of Agritalia built tractors and an articulated Challenger tractor. In August of this year, AGCO saw its first change in the position of chairman since its founding with the selection of Martin Richenhagen to succeed Robert Ratliff.


title: AGCO

text: In 2007, AGCO bought 50% of Laverda S.p.A. from ARGO SpA, which included the Gallagnani and Fella-Werke hay equipment brands.


title: AGCO

text: In 2008/2009 AGCO, the Challenger, Valtra, and Massey Ferguson large row crop tractors were launched in Europe and North America respectively with AGCO's e3 Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) emission reduction technology.


title: AGCO

text: In late 2010, the firm announced the plan to acquire the remaining 50% of Laverda, which included Fella-Werke as well. The acquisition was finalized in March 2011.


title: AGCO

text: In 2011, the firm plans to transfer its assembly of high-horsepower wheeled tractors sold in North America from Beauvais, France to Jackson, Minnesota, where it will expand the plant by . This expansion was completed in 2012.


title: AGCO

text: In 2011, the firm said that it will invest $40 million in its Hesston, Kansas plant with a new painting and finishing building. Construction began June 2011 and was completed in 2013.


title: AGCO

text: In October 2011, AGCO purchased GSI, based in Assumption, Illinois, a manufacturer of grain storage and handling equipment.


title: AGCO

text: In 2012. AGCO acquired 60% of Santal Equipamentos, a sugar cane planting and harvesting equipment. It also purchased 80% of Shandong Dafeng Machinery Co, a combine harvester manufacturer in China. AGCO formed the Algerian Tractors Company joint venture with the Algerian brand Etrag with 49% ownership.


title: AGCO

text: In 2013, GSI acquired Johnson System, based in Marshall, Michigan, a manufacturer of catwalks and towers. In 2013, AGCO started Fuse Technologies, a smart farming technology division.


title: AGCO

text: In 2017, AGCO acquired Precision Planting, based in Tremont, Illinois, a planting equipment and technology business.


title: AGCO

text: In 2017, AGCO acquired the forage machinery line from Lely, including balers, loading wagons, mowers, tedders, rakes and the rights to the entire portfolio of the defunct Mengele Agrartechnik. This included factories in Wolfenbuettel (D) and Waldstetten (D). The factory in Maassluis (NL) will be closed in 2018.


title: AGCO

text: On January 1, 2021, AGCO transitioned to its third chairman in its history with the selection of Eric Hansotia to succeed the retiring Martin Richenhagen after a near 15-year tenure as head of the company.


title: AGCO

text: In September 2021, AGCO acquired Faromatics (Farm Robotics and Automation), a precision livestock farming business.


title: AGCO

text: In December 2021, Precision Planting announced an agreement to acquire Creative Sites Media, a software and app development company.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Hariprasad Chaurasia (born 1 July 1938) is an Indian music director and classical flautist, who plays the bansuri, in the Hindustani classical tradition.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Chaurasia was born in Allahabad (1938) (officially called Prayagraj) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. His mother died when he was six years old. He had to learn music without his father's knowledge, as his father wanted him to become a wrestler. Chaurasia did go to the Akhada and trained with his father for some time, although he also started learning music and practising at his friend's house.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Chaurasia started learning vocal music from his neighbour, Rajaram, at the age of 15. Later, he switched to playing the flute under the tutelage of Bholanath Prasanna of Varanasi for eight years. He joined the All India Radio, Cuttack, Odisha in 1957 and worked as a composer and performer. Much later, while working for All India Radio, he received guidance from the reclusive Annapurna Devi, daughter of Baba Allaudin Khan. She only agreed to teach him if he was willing to unlearn all that he had learnt until then. Another version is that she only agreed to teach him after he took the decision to switch from right-handed to left-handed playing to show her his commitment. In any case Chaurasia plays left-handed to this day.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Apart from classical music, Hariprasad has collaborated with Shivkumar Sharma, forming a group called Shiv-Hari. The pair composed music for many popular movies, including Silsila and Chandni, and created some highly popular songs. Chaurasia also collaborated with Bhubaneswar Mishra, forming the pair "Bhuban-Hari" (in line with Shiv-Hari), and the pair composed music for many Odia movies, creating numerous songs that were hugely popular in the state. These include Muje janena kaha baata (sung by Suman Kalyanpur; movie: Gapa helebi Sata); and all songs from Maa o Mamata, and many more.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Chaurasia's nephew and pupil Rakesh Chaurasia is a highly accomplished flautist now, and has been performing globally with such eminent maestros as Ustad Zakir Hussain.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: He serves as the artistic director of the World Music Department at the Rotterdam Music Conservatory in the Netherlands. He was also the founder of the Vrindavan Gurukul in Mumbai (opened 2006) and Vrindavan Gurukul in Bhubaneshwar (opened 2010). Both of these institutes are schools dedicated to training students in bansuri in the Guru-shishya tradition.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: He has collaborated with several western musicians, including John McLaughlin, Jan Garbarek, and Ken Lauber, and has composed music for Indian films. Chaurasia also played on The Beatles' 1968 B-side "The Inner Light", which was written by George Harrison. He also played with George Harrison on his first solo release, "Wonderwall Music", and with Harrison, Ravi Shankar and others on the Dark Horse Records release Shankar Family & Friends.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: Chaurasia has married twice, first to Kamala Devi and then Anuradha Roy. He has three sons. With first wife Kamala Devi he has two sons, Vinay and Ajay. With Anuradha, Chaurasia has a son named Rajeev. Chaurasia has five granddaughters and a grandson. His nephew Rakesh Chaurasia is also a flautist and carrying forward the family legacy.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: The 2013 documentary film "Bansuri Guru" features the life and legacy of Chaurasia and was directed by the musician's son Rajeev Chaurasia and produced by the Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.


title: Hariprasad Chaurasia

text: The music for the film "Sirivennela" was composed by K. V. Mahadevan which revolves around the role of Hari Prasad, a blind flautist played by Sarvadaman Banerjee and flute renditions by Chaurasia.


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: Masti (English translation: "Fun") is a 2004 Indian Hindi language sex comedy film directed by Indra Kumar, and starring Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh and Aftab Shivdasani, Lara Dutta, Amrita Rao, Tara Sharma, Genelia D'Souza and Ajay Devgn. The film released in 2004, and received positive response from critics, and also managed to do well at the box office. It is the first installment of "Masti film series". Film also had its sequels released as "Grand Masti" (2013) and "Great Grand Masti" (2016).


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: "Masti" revolves around three bachelors, Meet, Prem and Amar. Their lives are carefree until they each get married and turn into bitter, unsatisfied husbands. Meet marries Anchal who is obsessively possessive about her husband. Prem marries Geeta who is overly religious and thus their sex life suffers. Amar marries Bindiya who is dominating and they live with her equally aggressive mother. Fed up, the men get together one day and make plans to reintroduce the fun and excitement back into their lives. They set their sights on other women but eventually realize they have all been seeing the same girl, Monica. She blackmails the trio, threatening to expose the affairs to their wives unless they give her Rs. 10 lakhs.


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: Having gathered the money, the terrified men arrive at the drop off location, only to find Monica dead in her car. They panic and try to hide her body, in order to avoid blame, but are interrupted by police officer Sikander, who is suspicious of them. The trio goes to Monica's house for further investigation, and they hide in Monica's veranda after they realise that Sikander had followed them there. The next morning, a mysterious man finds them and reveals that he killed Monica, demanding a ransom to cover the crime. The guilt-ridden men go to their respective wives to apologise, since they feel like the truth is bound to be revealed. The very next day, the killer pursues the men, resulting in a shoot out in which they unintentionally kill the mysterious man. Afterwards, they are arrested and imprisoned. Their wives arrive at the jail and the men emotionally reveal the truth. After some time, the women reveal that the entire situation was set up by them – Monica is alive and the 'killer' is Sikander himself, who is actually Bindiya's cousin. The women wanted to teach their husband's a lesson and remind them to be appreciative. The men then apologize to their wives and promise to never do ""masti"" again.


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: The soundtrack of the movie was composed by Anand Raj Anand and the lyrics were penned by Sameer. According to the Indian trade website Box Office India, with around 10,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack album was the year's fifteenth highest-selling. The song 'Dil de diya hai' is still popular among the youth.


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: It did very well at the box office, earning around worldwide and was declared a Hit by Box Office India.


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: Taran Adarsh of IndiaFM gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5, writing ″On the whole, MASTI has all it takes to appeal to the cinegoers - an impressive star cast, popular music, dollops of comedy and most importantly, sex - not in visuals, but in dialogues and gestures. All these factors combined together will prove advantageous for the film and should take it to the winning post.″ Priya Ganapati of Rediff.com wrote ″If you like a little spice in your jokes, don't mind gags on homosexuality and are in the mood for some 'non-vegetarian' stuff, then go for it. Masti is guaranteed to give you a few laughs and good 'timepass'.″ Manish Gajjar of BBC.com wrote ″On the whole, Masti has all the right ingredients to click at the box office. With a great star cast, excellent music and lots of comedy, Masti is a great film to watch this Easter holidays at a cinema near you.″


title: Masti (2004 film)

text: A sequel named "Grand Masti" was released 9 years later on 13 September 2013. Another sequel "Great Grand Masti" was released on 15 July 2016.


title: Dojo

text: A is a hall or place for immersive learning or meditation. This is traditionally in the field of martial arts, but has been seen increasingly in other fields, such as meditation and software development. The term literally means "place of the Way" in Japanese.


title: Dojo

text: The word "dōjō" originates from Buddhism. Initially, "dōjō" were adjunct to temples and were formal training places for any of the Japanese arts ending in ""-dō"", from the Chinese "Tao" (or "Dao"), meaning "way" or "path". Sometimes meditation halls where Zen Buddhists practice "zazen" meditation were called "dōjō". The alternative term "zen-do" is more specific, and more widely used. European "Sōtō Zen" groups affiliated with the International Zen Association prefer to use "dōjō" instead of "zendo" to describe their meditation halls as did their founding master, Taisen Deshimaru.


title: Dojo

text: In Japan, any facility for physical training, including professional wrestling, may be called a "dōjō". In the Western world, the term "dōjō" (when related to physical activity) is used exclusively for Japanese martial arts such as "aikidō", "jūdō", "karate-dō", etc.


title: Dojo

text: A proper Japanese martial arts "dōjō" is considered special and is well cared for by its users. Shoes are not worn in a "dōjō". In many styles it is traditional to conduct a ritual cleaning ("sōji"; 掃除) of the "dōjō" at the beginning and/or end of each training session. Besides the obvious hygienic benefits of regular cleaning it also serves to reinforce the fact that "dōjō" are supposed to be supported and managed by the student body (or by special students, e.g., uchi-deshi), not the school's instructional staff. This attitude has become lost in many modern "dōjō" that are founded and run by a small group of people or instructors. In fact, it is not uncommon that in traditional schools (koryu), "dōjō" are rarely used for training at all, instead being reserved for more symbolic or formal occasions. The actual training is conducted typically outdoors or in a less formal area.


title: Dojo

text: Many traditional "dōjō" follow a prescribed pattern with "shomen" (正面; "front") and various entrances that are used based on student and instructor rank laid out precisely. Typically students will enter in the lower-left corner of the "dōjō" (in reference to the shomen) with instructors in the upper right corner. Shomen typically contains a Shintō shrine with a sculpture, flower arrangement, or other artifacts. The term "kamiza" means "place of honor" and a related term, "kamidana" refers to the shrine itself. Other artifacts may be displayed throughout the "dōjō", such as "kanban" (看板; signboard) that authorize the school in a style or strategy, and items such as "taiko" drums or armor ("Ō-yoroi"). It is not uncommon to find the name of the "dōjō" and the "dōjō kun" (roughly ""dōjō" rules") displayed prominently at shomen as well. Visitors may have a special place reserved, depending on their rank and station. Weapons and other training gear will normally be found on the back wall.


title: Dojo

text: A "honbu dōjō" (本部道場) is the central training facility and administrative headquarters of a particular martial arts style.


title: Dojo

text: The term "dōjō" is sometimes used to describe the meditation halls where Zen Buddhists practice "zazen" seated meditation. The alternative term "zen-do" is more specific, and more widely used. European "Sōtō Zen" groups affiliated with the International Zen Association prefer to use "dōjō" instead of "zendo" to describe their meditation halls as did their founding master, Taisen Deshimaru.


title: 1996–97 FA Premier League

text: The 1996–97 FA Premier League (known as the FA Carling Premiership for sponsorship reasons) was the fifth season of the FA Premier League since its formation in 1992. The majority of the season was contested by the reigning champions, Manchester United, along with Newcastle United, Arsenal and Liverpool. The title was eventually won by Manchester United, after Liverpool and Newcastle's failure to win in their penultimate games of the season; at 75 points it is the lowest points total for a Premier League champion and lowest since the 3-1-0 points system was introduced in the 1981–82 season.


title: 1996–97 FA Premier League

text: Middlesbrough – despite spending millions of pounds on high-profile foreign players like Emerson, Fabrizio Ravanelli (who scored 31 goals in all competitions), Branco and Gianluca Festa – were relegated on the final day of the season and were on the losing side in both the FA Cup and League Cup finals. Middlesbrough finished in 19th place, but they would have been placed outside the relegation zone without a three-point deduction imposed for unilaterally postponing a December 1996 fixture at Blackburn Rovers, with the Middlesbrough board blaming the decision on the absence of 23 players ill or injured. The club consulted the Premier League prior to calling off the fixture and were told to do 'what they thought best'. To protect the integrity of the game, and avoid fielding a team of untried teenagers including three goalkeepers, Middlesbrough called off the match. The Premier League subsequently absolved themselves of all responsibility and deducted the three points. This sanction meant Coventry City, who had been in the top division since 1967, finished in 17th place and avoided relegation. The decision was controversial and later resurfaced in 2006–07 when West Ham escaped a points deduction and subsequently avoided relegation.


title: 1996–97 FA Premier League

text: Another relegation place went to Nottingham Forest, who sacked manager Frank Clark in December. Stuart Pearce took over as temporary player-manager, spending three months in charge and winning the January 1997 Manager of the Month award. In March, Pearce quit as manager to be replaced by Dave Bassett, formerly of Crystal Palace. Also relegated, due to a 1–0 defeat to Wimbledon in their last game of the season, were Sunderland, who were leaving Roker Park after 99 years and relocating to the 42,000-seat Stadium of Light on the banks of the River Wear for the start of the 1997–98 season in Division One.


title: 1996–97 FA Premier League

text: Twenty teams competed in the league – the top seventeen teams from the previous season and the three teams promoted from the First Division. The promoted teams were Sunderland, Derby County (both teams returning to the top flight after a five-year absence) and Leicester City (immediately returning to the top flight after a season's absence). This was also both Sunderland and Derby County's first season in the Premier League. They replaced Manchester City, Queens Park Rangers and Bolton Wanderers, ending their top flight spells of seven, thirteen and one year respectively.


title: Nextcloud

text: Nextcloud is a suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. Nextcloud provides functionally similar to Dropbox, Office 365 or Google Drive when used with integrated office suite solutions Collabora Online or OnlyOffice. It can be hosted in the cloud or on-premises. It is scalable from home office solutions based on the low cost Raspberry Pi all the way through to full sized data center solutions that support millions of users. Translations in 60 languages exist for web interface and client applications.


title: Nextcloud

text: Nextcloud files are stored in conventional directory structures, accessible via WebDAV if necessary. A SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL database is required to provide additional functionality like permissions, shares, and comments.


title: Nextcloud

text: Nextcloud can synchronize with local clients running Windows (Windows 7, 8, and 10), macOS (10.6 or later), or various Linux distributions. Nextcloud permits user and group administration locally or via different Backends like OpenID or LDAP. Content can be shared inside the system by defining granular read/write permissions between users and groups. Nextcloud users can create public URLs when sharing files.


title: Nextcloud

text: Logging of file-related actions, as well as disallowing access based on file access rules is also available.


title: Nextcloud

text: Security options like Multi-factor authentication using TOTP, WebAuthn, Oauth2, OpenID Connect, Brute-force protectionexist.


title: Nextcloud

text: Nextcloud has planned new features such as monitoring capabilities, full-text search and Kerberos authentication, as well as audio/video conferencing, expanded federation and smaller user interface improvements.


title: Nextcloud

text: In September 2016, Nextcloud, in cooperation with Western Digital Labs and Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu), released the Nextcloud Box. The Nextcloud box was based on a Raspberry Pi, running Ubuntu Core with Snappy; it was intended to serve as a reference device for other vendors. In June 2017, Western Digital shut down Western Digital Labs, which caused the production of the box to end.


title: Nextcloud

text: In April 2016 Frank Karlitschek and most core contributors left ownCloud Inc. These included some of ownCloud's staff according to sources near to the ownCloud community.


title: Nextcloud

text: The fork was preceded by a blog post of Karlitschek, asking questions such as "Who owns the community? Who owns ownCloud itself? And what matters more, short term money or long term responsibility and growth?" There have been no official statements about the reason for the fork. However, Karlitschek mentioned the fork several times in a talk at the 2018 FOSDEM conference, emphasizing cultural mismatch between open source developers and business oriented people not used to the open source community.


title: Nextcloud

text: On June 2, within 12 hours of the announcement of the fork, the American entity "ownCloud Inc." announced that it is shutting down with immediate effect, stating that "[…] main lenders in the US have cancelled our credit. Following American law, we are forced to close the doors of ownCloud, Inc. with immediate effect and terminate the contracts of 8 employees.". ownCloud Inc. accused Karlitschek of poaching developers, while Nextcloud developers such as Arthur Schiwon stated that he "decided to quit because not everything in the ownCloud Inc. company world evolved as I imagined". ownCloud GmbH continued operations, secured financing from new investors and took over the business of ownCloud Inc.


title: Nextcloud

text: In April 2018 "Informationstechnikzentrum Bund" () reported Nextcloud wins the tender for "" (Germany government cloud) project.


title: Nextcloud

text: In August 2019 was released to the public government of France, Sweden and Netherlands will use Nextcloud for file transfer.


title: Nextcloud

text: In January 2020 Nextcloud 18 ""Nextcloud Hub"" was released. The major change was direct integration of an Office suite (OnlyOffice) and Nextcloud claimed the goal to compete with Office 365 and Google Docs. Partnership with Ionos was made revealed - it's hosting location in Germany and compliance with GDPR should support the goal of data sovereignty.


title: Nextcloud

text: In spring 2020 remote work and web conferencing usage raised due to COVID-19 pandemic and Nextcloud released version 19 with chat and videoconferencing "Talk app" integrated into the application core. Talk with an optional "high performance back-end" allows self-hosting of web conferences with more than 10 participants. Collabora Online was introduced as another integrated office suite.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic philosophy. Rorty had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative literature at Stanford University. Among his most influential books are "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979), "Consequences of Pragmatism" (1982), and "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989).


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty rejected the long held idea that correct internal representations of objects in the outside world is a necessary prerequisite for knowledge. Rorty argued instead that knowledge is an "internal" and "linguistic" affair; knowledge only relates to our own language. Rorty argues that language is made up of vocabularies that are temporary and historical, and concludes that "[...] since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths." The acceptance of the preceding arguments leads to what Rorty calls "ironism"; a state of mind where people are completely aware that their knowledge is dependent on their time and place in history, and are therefore somewhat detached from their own beliefs. However, Rorty also argues that "[...] a belief can still regulate action, can still be thought worth dying for, among people who are quite aware that this belief is caused by nothing deeper than contingent historical circumstance."


title: Richard Rorty

text: Richard Rorty was born on October 4, 1931, in New York City. His parents, James and Winifred Rorty, were activists, writers and social democrats. His maternal grandfather, Walter Rauschenbusch, was a central figure in the Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century.


title: Richard Rorty

text: His father experienced two nervous breakdowns in his later life. The second breakdown, which he had in the early 1960s, was more serious and "included claims to divine prescience." Consequently, Richard Rorty fell into depression as a teenager and in 1962 began a six-year psychiatric analysis for obsessional neurosis. Rorty wrote about the beauty of rural New Jersey orchids in his short autobiography, "Trotsky and the Wild Orchids," and his desire to combine aesthetic beauty and social justice. His colleague Jürgen Habermas's obituary for Rorty points out that Rorty's childhood experiences led him to a vision of philosophy as the reconciliation of "the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth." Habermas describes Rorty as an ironist:


title: Richard Rorty

text: Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the 'holy', the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.'


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago shortly before turning 15, where he received a bachelor's and a master's degree in philosophy (studying under Richard McKeon), continuing at Yale University for a PhD in philosophy (1952–1956). He married another academic, Amélie Oksenberg (Harvard University professor), with whom he had a son, Jay Rorty, in 1954. After two years in the United States Army, he taught at Wellesley College for three years until 1961. Rorty divorced his wife and then married Stanford University bioethicist Mary Varney in 1972. They had two children, Kevin and Patricia, now Max. While Richard Rorty was a "strict atheist" (Habermas), Mary Varney Rorty was a practicing Mormon.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty was a professor of philosophy at Princeton University for 21 years. In 1981, he was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the "Genius Award", in its first year of awarding, and in 1982 he became Kenan Professor of the Humanities at the University of Virginia, working closely with colleagues and students in multiple departments, especially in English. In 1998 Rorty became professor of comparative literature (and philosophy, by courtesy), at Stanford University, where he spent the remainder of his academic career. During this period he was especially popular, and once quipped that he had been assigned to the position of "transitory professor of trendy studies."


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty's doctoral dissertation, "The Concept of Potentiality" was a historical study of the concept, completed under the supervision of Paul Weiss, but his first book (as editor), "The Linguistic Turn" (1967), was firmly in the prevailing analytic mode, collecting classic essays on the linguistic turn in analytic philosophy. However, he gradually became acquainted with the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism, particularly the writings of John Dewey. The noteworthy work being done by analytic philosophers such as Willard Van Orman Quine and Wilfrid Sellars caused significant shifts in his thinking, which were reflected in his next book, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979).


title: Richard Rorty

text: Pragmatists generally hold that the meaning of a proposition is determined by its use in linguistic practice. Rorty combined pragmatism about truth and other matters with a later Wittgensteinian philosophy of language which declares that meaning is a social-linguistic product, and sentences do not 'link up' with the world in a correspondence relation. Rorty wrote in his "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989):


title: Richard Rorty

text: Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own unaided by the describing activities of humans cannot."(5)


title: Richard Rorty

text: Views like this led Rorty to question many of philosophy's most basic assumptions—and have also led to him being apprehended as a postmodern/deconstructionist philosopher. Indeed, from the late 1980s through the 1990s, Rorty focused on the continental philosophical tradition, examining the works of Friederich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida. His work from this period included: "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989); "Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers" "II" (1991); and "Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers III" (1998). The latter two works attempt to bridge the dichotomy between analytic and continental philosophy by claiming that the two traditions complement rather than oppose each other.


title: Richard Rorty

text: According to Rorty, analytic philosophy may not have lived up to its pretensions and may not have solved the puzzles it thought it had. Yet such philosophy, in the process of finding reasons for putting those pretensions and puzzles aside, helped earn itself an important place in the history of ideas. By giving up on the quest for apodicticity and finality that Edmund Husserl shared with Rudolf Carnap and Bertrand Russell, and by finding new reasons for thinking that such quest will never succeed, analytic philosophy cleared a path that leads past scientism, just as the German idealists cleared a path that led around empiricism.


title: Richard Rorty

text: In the last fifteen years of his life, Rorty continued to publish his writings, including "Philosophy as Cultural Politics (Philosophical Papers IV), and" "Achieving Our Country" (1998), a political manifesto partly based on readings of Dewey and Walt Whitman in which he defended the idea of a progressive, pragmatic left against what he feels are defeatist, anti-liberal, anti-humanist positions espoused by the critical left and continental school. Rorty felt these anti-humanist positions were personified by figures like Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault. Such theorists were also guilty of an "inverted Platonism" in which they attempted to craft overarching, metaphysical, "sublime" philosophies—which in fact contradicted their core claims to be ironist and contingent. Rorty's last works, after his move to Stanford University concerned the place of religion in contemporary life, liberal communities, comparative literature and philosophy as "cultural politics".


title: Richard Rorty

text: Shortly before his death, he wrote a piece called "The Fire of Life", (published in the November 2007 issue of "Poetry" magazine), in which he meditates on his diagnosis and the comfort of poetry. He concludes, "I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts—just as I would have if I had made more close friends. Cultures with richer vocabularies are more fully human—farther removed from the beasts—than those with poorer ones; individual men and women are more fully human when their memories are amply stocked with verses."


title: Richard Rorty

text: In "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979) Rorty argues that the central problems of modern epistemology depend upon a picture of the mind as trying to faithfully represent (or "mirror") a mind-independent, external reality. When we give up this metaphor, the entire enterprise of foundationalist epistemology simply dissolves.


title: Richard Rorty

text: An epistemological foundationalist believes that in order to avoid the regress inherent in claiming that all beliefs are justified by other beliefs, some beliefs must be self-justifying and form the foundations to all knowledge. Rorty however criticized both the idea that arguments can be based upon self-evident premises (within language) and the idea that arguments can be based upon noninferential sensations (outside language).


title: Richard Rorty

text: The first critique draws on Quine's work on sentences thought to be analytically true – that is, sentences thought to be true solely by virtue of what they mean and independently of fact. Quine argues that the problem with analytically true sentences is the attempt to "convert" identity-based but empty analytical truths like "no unmarried man is married" to synonymity-based analytical truths like "no bachelor is married". When trying to do so, one must first prove that "unmarried man" and "bachelor" means exactly the same, and that is not possible without considering facts – that is, looking towards the domain of synthetic truths. When doing so, one will notice that the two concepts actually differ; "bachelor" sometimes mean "bachelor of arts" for instance. Quine therefore argues that "a boundary between analytic and synthetic statements simply has not been drawn", and concludes that this boundary or distinction "[...] is an unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith."


title: Richard Rorty

text: The second critique draws on Sellars's work on the empiricist idea that there is a non-linguistic but epistemologically relevant "given" available in sensory perception. Sellars argue that only language can work as a foundation for arguments; non-linguistic sensory perceptions are incompatible with language and are therefore irrelevant. In Sellars' view, the claim that there is an epistemologically relevant "given" in sensory perception is a myth; a fact is not something that is "given" to us, it is something that we as language-users actively "take". Only after we have learned a language is it possible for us to construe as "empirical data" the particulars and arrays of particulars we have come to be able to observe.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Each critique, taken alone, provides a problem for a conception of how philosophy ought to proceed, yet leaves enough of the tradition intact to proceed with its former aspirations. Combined, Rorty claimed, the two critiques are devastating. With no privileged realm of truth or meaning that can work as a self-evident foundation for our arguments, we have, instead, only truth defined as beliefs that pay their way, in other words beliefs that are useful to us somehow. The only worthwhile description of the actual process of inquiry, Rorty claimed, was a Kuhnian account of the standard phases of the progress of disciplines, oscillating through normal and abnormal periods, between routine problem-solving and intellectual crises.


title: Richard Rorty

text: After rejecting foundationalism, Rorty argues that one of the few roles left for a philosopher is to act as an intellectual gadfly, attempting to induce a revolutionary break with previous practice, a role that Rorty was happy to take on himself. Rorty suggests that each generation tries to subject all disciplines to the model that the most successful discipline of the day employs. In Rorty's view, the success of modern science has led academics in philosophy and the humanities to mistakenly imitate scientific methods.


title: Richard Rorty

text: In "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989), Rorty argues that there is no worthwhile theory of truth, aside from the non-epistemic semantic theory Donald Davidson developed (based on the work of Alfred Tarski). Rorty also suggests that there are two kinds of philosophers; philosophers occupied with "private" or "public" matters. Private philosophers, who provide one with greater abilities to (re)create oneself (a view adapted from Nietzsche and which Rorty also identifies with the novels of Marcel Proust and Vladimir Nabokov) should not be expected to help with public problems. For a public philosophy, one might instead turn to philosophers like Rawls or Habermas.


title: Richard Rorty

text: This book also marks his first attempt to specifically articulate a political vision consistent with his philosophy, the vision of a diverse community bound together by opposition to cruelty, and not by abstract ideas such as 'justice' or 'common humanity.' Consistent with his anti-foundationalism, Rorty states that there is "[...] no noncircular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible."


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty also introduces the terminology of ironism, which he uses to describe his mindset and his philosophy. Rorty describes the ironist as a person who "[...] worries that the process of socialization which turned her into a human being by giving her a language may have given her the wrong language, and so turned her into the wrong kind of human being. But she cannot give a criterion of wrongness."


title: Richard Rorty

text: Amongst the essays in "Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1" (1990), is "The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy," in which Rorty defends Rawls against communitarian critics. Rorty argues that liberalism can "get along without philosophical presuppositions," while at the same time conceding to communitarians that "a conception of the self that makes the community constitutive of the self does comport well with liberal democracy." For Rorty, social institutions ought to be thought of as "experiments in cooperation rather than as attempts to embody a universal and ahistorical order."


title: Richard Rorty

text: In this text, Rorty focuses primarily on the continental philosophers Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. He argues that these European "post-Nietzscheans" share much with American pragmatists, in that they critique metaphysics and reject the correspondence theory of truth. When discussing Derrida, Rorty claims that Derrida is most useful when viewed as a funny writer who attempted to circumvent the Western philosophical tradition, rather than the inventor of a philosophical (or literary) "method". In this vein, Rorty criticizes Derrida's followers like Paul de Man for taking deconstructive literary theory too seriously.


title: Richard Rorty

text: In "Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America" (1997), Rorty differentiates between what he sees as the two sides of the Left, a cultural Left and a progressive Left. He criticizes the cultural Left, which is exemplified by post-structuralists such as Foucault and postmodernists such as Lyotard, for offering critiques of society, but no alternatives (or alternatives that are so vague and general as to be abdications). Although these intellectuals make insightful claims about the ills of society, Rorty suggests that they provide no alternatives and even occasionally deny the possibility of progress. On the other hand, the progressive Left, exemplified for Rorty by the pragmatist Dewey, Whitman and James Baldwin, makes hope for a better future its priority. Without hope, Rorty argues, change is spiritually inconceivable and the cultural Left has begun to breed cynicism. Rorty sees the progressive Left as acting in the philosophical spirit of pragmatism.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty's notion of human rights is grounded on the notion of sentimentality. He contended that throughout history humans have devised various means of construing certain groups of individuals as inhuman or subhuman. Thinking in rationalist (foundationalist) terms will not solve this problem, he claimed. Rorty advocated the creation of a culture of global human rights in order to stop violations from happening through a sentimental education. He argued that we should create a sense of empathy or teach empathy to others so as to understand others' suffering.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty is among the most widely discussed and controversial contemporary philosophers, and his works have provoked thoughtful responses from many other well-respected figures in the field. In Robert Brandom's anthology "Rorty and His Critics", for example, Rorty's philosophy is discussed by Donald Davidson, Jürgen Habermas, Hilary Putnam, John McDowell, Jacques Bouveresse, and Daniel Dennett, among others. In 2007, Roger Scruton wrote, "Rorty was paramount among those thinkers who advance their own opinion as immune to criticism, by pretending that it is not truth but consensus that counts, while defining the consensus in terms of people like themselves." Ralph Marvin Tumaob concludes that Rorty was really influenced by Jean-François Lyotard's metanarratives, and added that "postmodernism was influenced further by the works of Rorty".


title: Richard Rorty

text: McDowell is strongly influenced by Rorty, particularly "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979). In continental philosophy, authors such as Jürgen Habermas, Gianni Vattimo, Jacques Derrida, Albrecht Wellmer, Hans Joas, Chantal Mouffe, Simon Critchley, Esa Saarinen, and Mike Sandbothe are influenced in different ways by Rorty's thinking. American novelist David Foster Wallace titled a short story in his collection "" "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature", and critics have identified Rorty's influence in some of Wallace's writings on irony.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Susan Haack has been a fierce critic of Rorty's neopragmatism. Haack criticises Rorty's claim to be a pragmatist at all and wrote a short play called "We Pragmatists", where Rorty and Charles Sanders Peirce have a fictional conversation using only accurate quotes from their own writing. For Haack, the only link between Rorty's neopragmatism and Peirce's pragmatism is the name. Haack believes Rorty's neopragmatism is anti-philosophical and anti-intellectual, and exposes people further to rhetorical manipulation.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Although Rorty was an avowed liberal, his political and moral philosophies have been attacked by commentators from the Left, some of whom believe them to be insufficient frameworks for social justice. Rorty was also criticized for his rejection of the idea that science can depict the world. One criticism, especially of "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity", is that Rorty's philosophical hero, the ironist, is an elitist figure. Rorty argues that most people would be "commonsensically nominalist and historicist" but not ironist. They would combine an ongoing attention to the particular as opposed to the transcendent (nominalism) with an awareness of their place in a continuum of contingent lived experience alongside other individuals (historicist), without necessarily having continual doubts about the resulting worldview as the ironist does. An ironist is someone who "has radical and continuing doubts about their final vocabulary" “a set of words which they [humans] employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives” (Rorty 1989: 73); "realizes that argument phrased in their vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts"; and "does not think their vocabulary is closer to reality than others" (all 73, "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity"). On the other hand, the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo and the Spanish philosopher Santiago Zabala in their 2011 book "Hermeneutic Communism: from Heidegger to Marx" affirm that together with Richard Rorty we also consider it a flaw that "the main thing contemporary academic Marxists inherit from Marx and Engels is the conviction that the quest for the cooperative commonwealth should be scientific rather than utopian, knowing rather than romantic." As we will show hermeneutics contains all the utopian and romantic features that Rorty refers to because, contrary to the knowledge of science, it does not claim modern universality but rather postmodern particularism.


title: Richard Rorty

text: Rorty often draws on a broad range of other philosophers to support his views, and his interpretation of their work has been contested. Since he is working from a tradition of reinterpretation, he is not interested in "accurately" portraying other thinkers, but rather in using it in the same way a literary critic might use a novel. His essay "The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres" is a thorough description of how he treats the greats in the history of philosophy. In "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity", Rorty attempts to disarm those who criticize his writings by arguing that their philosophical criticisms are made using axioms that are explicitly rejected within Rorty's own philosophy. For instance, he defines allegations of irrationality as affirmations of vernacular "otherness", and so—Rorty argues—accusations of irrationality can be expected during "any" argument and must simply be brushed aside.


title: Confit byaldi

text: Confit byaldi is a variation on the traditional French dish ratatouille by French chef Michel Guérard.


title: Confit byaldi

text: The original ratatouille recipe had the vegetables fried before baking. Since at least 1976, some French chefs have prepared the ratatouille vegetables in thin slices instead of the traditional rough-cut. Michel Guérard, in his book founding "cuisine minceur" (1976), recreated lighter versions of the traditional dishes of nouvelle cuisine. His recipe, "confit bayaldi", differed from ratatouille by not frying the vegetables, removing peppers and adding mushrooms.


title: Confit byaldi

text: American celebrity chef Thomas Keller first wrote about a dish he called "byaldi" in his 1999 cookbook, "The French Laundry Cookbook". Keller's variation of Guérard's added two sauces: a tomato and peppers sauce at the bottom ("pipérade"), and a vinaigrette at the top. He served as food consultant to the Pixar film "Ratatouille", allowing its producer, Brad Lewis, to shadow for two days in the kitchen of his restaurant, The French Laundry. Lewis asked Keller how he would cook ratatouille if the most famous food critic in the world were to visit his restaurant. Keller decided he would make the ratatouille in "confit byaldi" form, and fan the vegetable rounds accordion-style with a palette knife.


title: Confit byaldi

text: Per Thomas Keller's recipe, a pipérade is made of peeled, finely chopped, and reduced peppers, yellow onions, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. The piperade is spread thinly in a baking tray or casserole dish, then layered on top with evenly sized, thinly sliced rounds of zucchini, yellow squash, Japanese eggplant, and roma tomatoes, covered in parchment paper, then baked slowly for several hours to steam the vegetables. The parchment is removed so that the vegetables may then roast, acquiring additional flavor through caramelization. To serve, the piperade is formed into a small mound, and the rounds arranged in a fanned-out pattern to cover the piperade base. A balsamic vinaigrette is drizzled on the plate, which may be garnished.


title: Confit byaldi

text: Despite the delicate preparation and presentation, confit byaldi, like most ratatouilles, improves with age overnight in the refrigerator.


title: Tom McGrath (animator)

text: Thomas McGrath (born August 7, 1964) is an American voice actor, animator, screenwriter, and film director. He is known for the DreamWorks animated film "Madagascar", which he co-directed with Eric Darnell while voicing the character of Skipper the Penguin. The film spawned two direct sequels, along with a spin-off animated series and film based on the penguins in which McGrath reprised his role as Skipper. McGrath has also directed other DreamWorks animated films such as "Megamind", "The Boss Baby" and .


title: Tom McGrath (animator)

text: McGrath was born and raised in Lynnwood, Washington. He studied Industrial Design at the University of Washington and graduated from the Character Animation program at Cal Arts. McGrath's experience in both television and feature animation includes work as an animator on "Cool World" and "Space Jam", storyboard artist and director for "The Ren and Stimpy Show", and storyboard artist on the live action film "Cats & Dogs". He also worked as a storyboard artist, concept artist and prop and set designer for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". McGrath also stepped in on "Flushed Away" by Aardman, the creators of "", to help make improvements prior to its release.


title: Tom McGrath (animator)

text: McGrath made his film directing debut as the co-director and co-writer of "Madagascar" along with Eric Darnell, where he also voiced the leader of the squad of penguin characters, Skipper. He reprised his role as Skipper and co-directed and co-wrote the sequel, "". He also worked on "The Penguins of Madagascar", a spin-off TV series, as a creative consultant and as the voice of Skipper. He directed "Megamind", released in November 2010.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Legislative elections were held in the Czech Republic on 8 and 9 October 2021. All 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected, with the leader of the resulting government to become the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Following the 2017 Czech legislative election, the country has been ruled by a minority government consisting of ANO 2011 (ANO), led by prime minister Andrej Babiš, and the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), led by interior minister Jan Hamáček, with confidence and supply support from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) until April 2021. The largest opposition party was the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), followed by the Czech Pirate Party. Other parties in the Chamber of Deputies included SPD, TOP 09, STAN, and KDU-ČSL.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Babiš ran again as leader of ANO, and the main opposition parliamentary parties formed two electoral alliances, SPOLU and Pirates and Mayors (abbreviated to PirStan or PaS). ANO was front runner of the election, as it was polling first ahead of SPOLU and PirStan prior election. The result was a surprise victory for the liberal conservative alliance SPOLU, which received the highest number of votes, while the populist ANO received the highest number of seats. No opinion poll placed SPOLU in the first place prior to the vote. It was the closest legislative election in the history of Czech Republic.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The opposition parties won a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and agreed to form a coalition government with SPOLU leader Petr Fiala as the new prime minister. Traditional left-wing parties ČSSD and KSČM failed to reach the 5% threshold to win any seats in the Chamber of Deputies for the first time since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The Pirates, which were one of the leading opposition parties, were heavily defeated due to preferential votes and won just 4 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Petr Fiala was appointed as the new Prime Minister on 28 November 2021 while rest of the new cabinet was appointed on 17 December 2021.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: According to the Constitution of the Czech Republic, an election to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament, must be held every four years. The government is answerable to the Chamber of Deputies and remains in power only with the confidence of the majority of members of parliament. Article 19(1) of the constitution states that any citizen of the Czech Republic who has right to vote and is 21 years old is eligible to serve as an MP.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: ANO 2011 (ANO) emerged as the largest party in the 2017 legislative election and formed a minority government, which then lost a vote of confidence on 16 January 2018. The party formed a coalition government with the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), supported by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), which lasted until April 2021. Andrej Babiš became the new prime minister. The Civic Democratic Party (ODS) emerged as the second largest party and main opposition party, narrowly ahead of the Czech Pirate Party.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In 2018, voters elected 27 of 81 members of the Senate and approximately 61,900 members of local councils. ODS won the Senate election with 10 senators elected. ANO won the municipal elections in most regional cities, with ODS finishing first in Prague and STAN in Liberec. ČSSD and KSČM lost over half of their votes and seats in municipal councils.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In May 2019, voters elected 21 members of the European Parliament. ANO came first, with ODS and the Pirates close behind in number of seats. As ČSSD failed to achieve more than 5 percent of votes in national elections for the first time since the mid-1990s, it did not get any seat.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In October 2020, voters elected 675 members of regional assemblies in 13 regions of the nation, except Prague, which then formed regional governments. ANO won the election with 21.8% of votes but opposition parties, especially the Pirates, made gains, while allies of ANO were heavily defeated. The governing parties were also heavily defeated in the Senate elections, which were won by Mayors and Independents ahead of ODS.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Following these elections, opposition parties began negotiations about potential electoral alliances. It was speculated that two electoral blocs would be formed: a conservative bloc led by ODS, which would also include KDU-ČSL and TOP 09, with Petr Fiala as leader, and a liberal bloc composed of the Pirates and Mayors and Independents, with Ivan Bartoš as the leader.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The ODS leadership agreed to form an alliance on 25 October 2020, with a memorandum to be signed two days later. On 27 October 2020, Fiala, Marian Jurečka, and Markéta Adamová announced that ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09 would form an electoral alliance for the next legislative election, with ODS leader Fiala as the alliance's candidate for prime minister. On 11 November 2020, the parties agreed that ODS would nominate the leaders of the election lists in nine regions, KDU-ČSL in three regions, and TOP 09 in two regions. The name of the alliance was announced as SPOLU, meaning "Together" in English. Fiala was confirmed as the alliance's candidate for prime minister on 16 December 2020.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The leadership of Mayors and Independents agreed to start negotiations on 8 October 2020. The Pirates are required to ratify any alliance in a members' referendum. In a poll on 20 October 2020, 51% of Pirate members were opposed to the alliance while 43% supported it. The referendum to starting negotiations for an alliance was originally scheduled for 13 to 16 November 2020 but was rescheduled for 20 to 23 November 2020. Among Pirate members, 695 out of 858 voted in favour of negotiations, with a turnout of 80%. Ivan Bartoš was nominated to be the Pirate's election leader on 25 November 2020, and was confirmed on 2 December 2020. The Pirates also offered the Green Party the possibility to join its electoral list. Bartoš was confirmed as the alliance's electoral leader on 14 December 2020. Pirate members voted to approve the alliance on 13 January 2021.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: ČSSD started to negotiate the formation of a third electoral bloc in January 2021, negotiating with the Green Party and some regional parties about the formation of a left-wing electoral alliance. The Green Party stated as a condition for joining an alliance that the parties would not form a government coalition with ANO after the election.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In early 2021, the Tricolour Citizens' Movement, Svobodní, the Freeholder Party of the Czech Republic, and other minor parties began negotiations about a potential alliance. On 5 March 2021, these three parties confirmed the formation of a coalition, stating that they would run either in a formal electoral alliance or as a single party, depending on the new electoral law. The Independence Party of the Czech Republic declared support for this coalition soon after. On 23 March 2021, Tricolour leader Václav Klaus Jr. resigned from all political functions for personal reasons. Zuzana Majerová Zahradníková became acting leader of the party.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: On 23 March 2021, a group of minor parties including the Alliance for the Future, Agrarian Democratic Party, Order of the Nation, and Democratic Green Party formed an electoral alliance, the Alliance for the Future, with Pavel Sehnal as leader. The Party of Common Sense also subsequently joined the alliance.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Some commentators have described the election as a "hidden referendum" on membership of the European Union (EU).


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: During the 2017 legislative election, the 200 members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected from 14 multi-member constituencies by open list proportional representation with an electoral threshold of 5%. It was raised to 10% for two-party political alliances, 15% for three-party alliances, and 20% for alliances of four or more parties. Seats were allocated using the D'Hondt method. Voters can give preference votes to up to four candidates on a list. Candidates who receive preferential votes from more than 5% of voters are moved to the top of their list; in cases where more than one candidate receives over 5% of the preferential votes, they are ranked in order of votes received.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Although it was expected that the 2021 legislative election would take place using the same electoral system, the Constitutional Court ruled on a complaint submitted by a group of senators from Mayors and Independents, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09 that the electoral system was unproportional and favoured larger parties. It focused on the D'Hondt method, the division of the country into 14 constituencies, and the increased electoral threshold for alliances. The Constitutional Court's decision, published on 3 February 2021, set the threshold for alliances at 5% and removed some provisions relating to seat allocation. New provisions were put into law before the election, establishing a threshold of 5% for single parties, 8% for coalitions of two parties, and 11% for coalitions of three or more parties.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The deadline to submit candidate lists for election was 4 August 2021. As of 2 August 2021, 29 subjects had made an application to the registration bureau. All of them were approved by the bureau and permitted to run.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Czech Republic invited experts from Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to observe election. OSCE provided four observers.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: As with the regional elections in 2020, the pandemic emergency, covered by the pandemic law, allowed for the establishment of special polling stations for people in isolation or quarantine, as well as drive-in voting locations. Disinfection and respiratory protection were provided to ensure hygienic conditions in traditional polling stations. Special election dates were announced on 6 and 7 October 2021.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The table below lists political parties represented in the Chamber of Deputies after the 2017 legislative election.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The campaign was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with opposition parties criticizing the government for its handling of the pandemic and emphasising the country's high death rate. Some parties also focused their campaigns around opposition to the COVID-19 restrictions. Meanwhile, the government parties defended their handling of the crisis, and some government ministers argued that the situation would have been worse if the opposition had been in government. This issue later lost prominence, with economic issues receiving more attention. Several political scientists, including Daniel Prokop, characterised the election as a referendum on Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. During the final phase of the campaign, inflation and the increasing prices of groceries became the main issue, reflected in Spolu's campaign slogan: "The cost of Babiš."


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: ANO 2011 and the far-right parties also focused on immigration during their campaigns, criticising multiculturalism and pledging to prevent "Muslim Europe."


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In March 2021, the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) formed an electoral alliance with other minor parties called Alliance for the Future (APB), led by Pavel Sehnal. Parties in the alliance included the Agrarian Democratic Party, Order of the Nation and the Democratic Party of Greens. In July 2021 the Party of Common Sense joined the alliance. ODA formally changed its name to Alliance for the Future to avoid the higher electoral threshold.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The alliance's campaign was launched at a press conference on 16 June 2021, where Sehnal introduced APB's priorities, including support for Czech businesses and lower taxes. He also declared support for transatlantic cooperation and EU membership.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: After opinion polls in early 2021 showed ANO 2011 (ANO) falling behind the Czech Pirate Party, prime minister Andrej Babiš reacted by attacking the Pirates for their progressive stances, such as their supposed support for immigration and legalisation of drug use. The party's campaign thus focused on criticism of the Pirates in early 2021. On 27 June 2021 President Miloš Zeman endorsed ANO 2011, stating that he would vote for the party.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: In July 2021, ANO 2011 published a book, "Share it, before they ban it", allegedly written by Babiš, who began promoting the book during the campaign with book signings. The book primarily boasted about Babiš record in government. Ice cream was also given out at these sessions, in response to the campaign of Pirates and Mayors.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The party officially launched its campaign on 2 September 2021. Babiš promised higher pensions and measures against illegal immigration. He also attacked the opposition alliances, stating that they wanted to destroy the Visegrád Group. Babiš also talked about the defence of Czech national interests. In September 2021, ANO released an election advert for Czech television which attacked the Pirates over alleged support for immigration and links to "antifa". His campaign used the slogan "I will fight for you until my body falls apart!" The launch of the campaign was impacted by the arrival of Babiš' son Andrej Babiš Jr., who was allegedly kidnapped on his father orders leading to the 2018 Czech political crisis. Babiš Jr. confronted his father during the meeting and accused him of deceiving the nation. Babiš later stated that he would not wish any parent to go through such an experience.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: On 29 September 2021 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited the Czech Republic and formally endorsed ANO 2011 at a rally in Ústí nad Labem. Orbán praised Babiš, saying that Hungarians would be glad for a Prime Minister like Babiš. He also warned about immigration and the European Union during the rally, which was compared to a talkshow of two Prime Ministers.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Babiš was named in the Pandora Papers leak around a month later. According to the leak, Babiš used offshore companies to buy French Mansion in 2009.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) launched its campaign on 4 June 2021. Leader Vojtěch Filip said that a vote for KSČM meant certainty for the future. KSČM named its five priorities as help for children in need, better conditions for life and safety, the right to a dignified life and better environment, a higher minimum wage, and shorter working periods. Filip also stated his party's wish to leave NATO and establish better relationships with China and Russia.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The monarchist party Koruna Česká launched its campaign on 9 August 2021. The party supported TOP 09 in the 2017 elections. Chairman Radim Špaček described the program goals, to reform the Czech state from a republic to a parliamentary monarchy, to restore the historical lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and revise the legal order. Deputy Chairman Petr Krátký cited a public opinion polling indicating that almost 10% of Czech citizens, especially younger voters, are in favor of a monarchy. The party's list also includes members of other small parties, such as the Conservative Party and Morava 1918.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The Czech Pirate Party and Mayors and Independents (STAN) formed the liberal electoral alliance Pirates and Mayors led by Ivan Bartoš, presenting their cooperation agreement in December 2020. Priorities in the agreement included lower taxes, better availability of health care in the regions, protection of the climate, and transparent governance. The parties also agreed to support adoption of the euro. Bartoš said on 11 January that the alliance's priorities during the campaign would include reform of the debt collection system, digitalisation, environmental issues, and education.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Pirates and STAN launched their campaign on 18 May 2021, with the slogan "Let's give the country back its future" (). Bartoš and Rakušan promised to regulate debt collection, raise taxes on commercial buildings, and begin preparations to adopt the euro. A major focus of the alliance's platform is digitalisation of the country. In response to the 2021 South Moravia tornado, Pirates and STAN interrupted their campaign.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: At a press conference on 24 June 2021, Pirates and STAN launched an anti-corruption campaign, publishing a list of the 10 biggest corruption cases since 1989, primarily involving ODS. The campaign also listed the 10 biggest corruption cases involving the ruling ANO. In July 2021, the alliance released a poster featuring Jakub Michálek, its candidate for Minister of Justice, trying to catch a man in a suit with a lasso, accompanied with anti-corruption slogans. The campaign attracted significant media attention but was also criticised as amateurish and populist.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The alliance relaunched its campaign in August 2021 as a reaction to declining opinion polls. The campaign began to focus more on STAN and its leader Vít Rakušan, though Bartoš remained the alliance's electoral leader and candidate for prime minister. The campaign also focused more on budgetary spending and education.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The final phase of the campaign was launched on 9 September 2021. The alliance introduced an electoral bus in an attempt to replicate the success of the 2017 elections. Pirates and Mayors focused on criticism of the government for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and budget spending. Messages written on the bus also recalled various controversies of the government.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) launched its campaign on 29 March 2021 with the slogan "We know what to do after Covid." The campaign focused on the solution of the COVID-19 crisis, opposition to privatization of hospitals, support for "Kurzarbeit", and shorter working hours. The party also promised to increase taxes for banks and large companies.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The final phase of campaign was launched on 22 August 2021. Party leader Jan Hamáček said that ČSSD was not dead, despite low opinion polling. Major topics of the party's campaign were higher salaries, pension reform, and just redistribution of COVID-19 expenditures. Slogans included "For a just Czech Republic" and "So that no one endangers your life security." ČSSD also expressed their intention to implement progressive taxation and a lower tax on groceries, rejected privatisation of health care, and promised more achievable housing.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: ČSSD used Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Jana Maláčová prominently in its campaign. In September, Maláčová and Matěj Stropnický, a candidate for the party in Prague, made a video called "Cool pair", in which they attacked opposition parties, accusing them of corruption and intending to privatize public companies. Maláčová also campaigned at Metro stations giving out leaflets for the party.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The Free Bloc launched it campaign on 28 August 2021 with a meeting on Letná. Led by MP Lubomír Volný, it focused mainly on opposition to COVID-19 restrictions. Other prominent figures in their campaign were Jana Bobošíková and Hana Lipovská. The Free Bloc held electoral meetings at markets, with Volný travelling around the Czech Republic in a bus called "Volňásek". The campaign concluded with a meeting in Krupka on 6 October 2021.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) launched its campaign on 15 July 2021 with a meeting on Letná. SPD stated that the price for their participation in post-election coalition discussions would be a referendum law, and to hold a referendum on membership of the EU and NATO. Other issues in the party's campaign included opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and mandatory vaccination. SPD used an election truck called "espéďák" to travel around the country, and attempted to attract potential voters to meetings by holding fairs with cheap food.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The Green Party launched its campaign on 29 June 2021, with the slogan "Lets Give Green to Women", focused on feminist issues and environmentalism. Besides green, the party used pink in its campaign. Magdalena Davis was announced as the party's electoral leader, and a large number of their candidates were women. Davis described the predominance of men in politics as a medieval custom.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The final phase of the party's campaign was launched on 31 August 2021 in Brno, at the Brno astronomical clock. The Greens described it as a phallic, masculine symbol, and covered it with various images of female potential. Participants in the meeting held signs with slogans such as "We love modern schools" and "We love fathers on parental leave". Another key issue was the climate crisis, with the party proposing higher penalties for environmental crimes.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: The People FOR political movement, led by political activist Mikuláš Minář, was launched on 3 December 2020, and started gathering the 500,000 signatures required for participation in the elections. Minář said that the movement does not want to be another 5% party. On 24 March 2021, Minář announced the end of the movement due to low interest from voters, having collected only 39,251 signatures.


title: 2021 Czech legislative election

text: Robert Šlachta, the former Director of the police unit against organized crime, formed the anti-corruption party Přísaha before the election. He launched the campaign at a meeting on 28 January 2021. Šlachta stated that he did not believe it was the right time to adopt the euro and was opposed to migrant quotas.