Jack Slade was a gunfighter and murderer of the American West. Born in Illinois, Slade ran away while still a boy and became a cowboy in the Southwest, serving in the army in the Mexican War (1848). He gained a reputation as a vicious gunman when, in 1859 in Cold Springs, Colo., during a drunken

Jack Slade was a gunfighter and murderer of the American West. Born in Illinois, Slade ran away while still a boy and became a cowboy in the Southwest, serving in the army in the Mexican War (1848). He gained a reputation as a vicious gunman when, in 1859 in Cold Springs, Colo., during a drunken

Mirabehn was a British-born follower of Mahatma Gandhi who participated in the movement for India’s independence. Madeleine Slade was the daughter of an English aristocratic family. Because her father, Sir Edmond Slade, was a rear admiral in the British Royal Navy and was often away, Madeleine and

Ericales: Sladeniaceae: Sladeniaceae are trees that grow in semitropical conditions. The family includes two genera: Sladenia (two species) grows from southern China to Myanmar (Burma), and Ficalhoa (one species) grows on the mountains of East Africa. The family has toothed leaves and distinctive cymose inflorescences in…

Slovak literature: Among them was Andrej Sládkovič (Andrej Braxatoris), who wrote the national epic Marína (1846), and Janko Král’, a poet and revolutionary whose ballads, epics, and lyrics were among the most original products of Slavonic Romanticism.

Faroe Islands: Land: …with perpendicular cliffs—the highest at Mount Slaettara (Slaettaratindur; 2,894 feet [882 metres]) on Eystur Island—and flat summits separated by narrow ravines. The coasts are deeply indented with fjords, and the narrow passages between islands are agitated by strong tidal currents.

Faroe Islands: Land: …with perpendicular cliffs—the highest at Mount Slaettara (Slaettaratindur; 2,894 feet [882 metres]) on Eystur Island—and flat summits separated by narrow ravines. The coasts are deeply indented with fjords, and the narrow passages between islands are agitated by strong tidal currents.

slag, by-product formed in smelting, welding, and other metallurgical and combustion processes from impurities in the metals or ores being treated. Slag consists mostly of mixed oxides of elements such as silicon, sulfur, phosphorus, and aluminum; ash; and products formed in their reactions with

cement: Slag cements: The granulated slag made by the rapid chilling of suitable molten slags from blast furnaces forms the basis of another group of constructional cements. A mixture of portland cement and granulated slag, containing up to 65 percent slag, is known in the English-speaking…

silver processing: From zinc concentrates: This is processed by slag fuming, a process whereby the residue is melted to form a slag through which powdered coal or coke is blown along with air. The zinc is reduced to the metallic form and is vaporized from the slag, while the lead is converted to the…

Slagelse, city, Sjælland (Zealand), Denmark. One of the oldest towns in Denmark (chartered 1288) and a prosperous trade centre in the Middle Ages, it retains few signs of antiquity, due to repeated fires. The commercial centre of western Sjælland, its industry includes vegetable and meat canning.

Eleanor Clarke Slagle was a U.S. social-welfare worker and early advocate of occupational therapy for the mentally ill. While a social worker, Slagle became interested in the new field of occupational therapy, and in 1917 she conducted occupational therapy training courses at Hull House in Chicago.

calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2), a soft white powder that is widely used as a raw material in the chemical industry. It forms when calcium oxide is mixed with water. The compound has two hydroxide ions (OH−) for each ion of calcium (Ca2+). The chemical is ionic, with aqueous and electrolytic

canoeing: Recreation and sport: …Canadian canoes and kayaks; and slalom racing, derived from slalom in skiing, in which racing is over a winding course through a series of gates. Current speed for such races must be at least 2 metres (6.5 feet) per second. Slalom racing was also held as an Olympic event at…

snowboarding: Slalom racing: …common with ski racing, snowboard slalom races involve weaving down courses made up of offset poles, or “gates,” protruding from the snow, which the athletes must navigate around as fast as they can. These are considered technical contests because of the required tightness of the turns.

slalom, ski race that follows a winding course between gates (pairs of poles topped with flags), devised by British sportsman Arnold Lunn (later Sir Arnold Lunn) in the early 1920s. (Although in 1905 Austrian Matthias Zdarsky had developed a “testing run,” an 85-gate slalom, this had little effect

waterskiing: Slalom waterskiing competition is held on a course consisting of a specified number of buoys, between which the skier must negotiate a sinuous path at increasingly higher speeds, up to 55 km/hr. For this event many skiers use a single ski tapered in the rear…

slam poetry: …is performed at events called poetry slams, or simply slams. The name slam came from how the audience has the power to praise or, sometimes, destroy a poem and from the high-energy performance style of the poets.

bridge: Slam bidding: When a partnership has been able to ascertain that it has at least 33 points in the combined hands plus an adequate trump suit, the only thing that remains is to make certain that the opponents are unable to cash two quick tricks.…

Western dance: Social dance: …also were found, such as slam dancing, in which the dancers hurled their bodies against each other’s, and dances such as the pogo, in which dancers jumped in place to the music’s rhythm. Partner dancing never disappeared completely, however, and was especially prominent in the “western-swing” dancing of American country…

slam poetry, a form of performance poetry that combines the elements of performance, writing, competition, and audience participation. It is performed at events called poetry slams, or simply slams. The name slam came from how the audience has the power to praise or, sometimes, destroy a poem and

Central Java: …feet (3,000 metres), including Mounts Slamet, Sindoro, Sumbing, and Merbabu. A discontinuous series of plateaus flanks the widely spaced volcanic peaks and merges with the foothills and coastal lowlands (the latter as much as 20 miles [30 km] wide) to the north and south. The major streams include the Bodri…

Central Java: …feet (3,000 metres), including Mounts Slamet, Sindoro, Sumbing, and Merbabu. A discontinuous series of plateaus flanks the widely spaced volcanic peaks and merges with the foothills and coastal lowlands (the latter as much as 20 miles [30 km] wide) to the north and south. The major streams include the Bodri…

Colleen Hoover: …began writing the romance novel Slammed in 2011. It was originally intended as a Christmas gift to her mother, and Hoover self-published the work in 2012. Although initially rejected by publishers, it began climbing best-seller lists, aided by word of mouth and enthusiastic reviews on social media platforms. The novel…

naval architecture: Hydrostatic and hydrodynamic loads in service: …heavy shocklike impact known as slamming. This can occur if the bow of a ship emerges from the water on a violent up-pitch and drops down upon a rising wave surface. It can also occur if a large wave strikes an overhanging part of the ship, such as the flaring…

slam poetry: An artistic movement: The documentary film SlamNation, released in 1998, follows the team of Saul Williams, Beau Sia, muMs da Schemer, and Jessica Care Moore at the 1996 National Poetry Slam finals. Other slam competitions continue to exist.

Croatian literature: …work, as did the poet Ivan Slamnig of the same generation. In the latter part of the 20th century, Croatian literature included experimental autobiographies by Irena Vrkljan (Marina ili o biografiji [1985; Marina; or, About Biography]), playing with the boundaries between autobiography and biography; spirited stories and novels by Dubravka…

C. Louis Leipoldt: …he coined the untranslatable name Slampamperliedjie. Leipoldt’s best poetry is to be found in Oom Gert vertel en ander gedigte (1911; “Uncle Gert’s Story and Other Poems”), Uit drie wêrelddele (1923; “From Three Continents”), and Skoonheidstroos (1932; “The Consolation of Beauty”). In Die heks (1923; “The Witch”) and Die laaste…

A.E. Van Vogt: Van Vogt’s first novel, Slan (1946), which was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction from September to December 1940, told the story of mutants with superhuman powers. It was followed by one of Van Vogt’s classics, The Weapon Makers (1947), first serialized in 1943. Other works first serialized in the…

defamation: Libel and slander are the legal subcategories of defamation. Generally speaking, libel is defamation in written words, pictures, or any other visual symbols in a print or electronic medium. Slander is spoken defamation. The advent of early broadcast communications (radio and television) in the 20th century complicated…

River Slaney, river, rising on Lugnaquillia Mountain (3,038 feet [926 m]), County Wicklow, Ireland. It turns westward in a steep torrential course to the Glen of Imail, a granite basin 500–700 feet (150–215 m) above sea level and runs south through the farmed lowlands of County Carlow to Bunclody,

slang, unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way. It is flippant, irreverent, indecorous; it may be indecent or obscene. Its colourful metaphors are generally directed at respectability, and it is this succinct, sometimes witty, frequently

dictionary: Specialized dictionaries: Henley in their Slang and Its Analogues, in seven volumes, 1890–1904, with a revised first volume in 1909. For the 20th century the dictionaries of Eric Partridge are valuable. Slang in the United States is so rich and varied that collectors have as yet only scratched the surface,…

Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Paşa: …under Louis of Baden at Slankamen; Fazıl Mustafa Paşa was mortally shot while rushing to support his right wing. It fell to Mehmed Paşa’s nephew Amca-zâde Hüseyin Paşa, grand vizier between Sept. 13, 1697, and Sept. 29, 1702, to conclude the peace treaty with the allies at Carlowitz (Jan. 26,…

Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist leader who was the central victim in the November 1952 “Slánský trial.” Of Jewish descent, Slánský joined the Communist Party in 1921 and became editor of the party organ, Rudé Právo, in 1924. He became regional party secretary in Ostrava in 1927 and a member of

half rhyme, in prosody, two words that have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common (such as stopped and wept, or parable and shell). The device was common in Welsh, Irish, and Icelandic verse years before it was first used in English by Henry Vaughan.

short-horned grasshopper: The slant-faced grasshoppers, subfamily Acridinae, are characterized by a slanted face and clear hind wings. They are usually found around marshes and wet meadows in small numbers and do little damage to vegetation.

Pavement: But Slanted and Enchanted (1992) revealed a new grandeur, with enigmatic anthems of subcultural devotion such as “Summer Babe” and “In the Mouth a Desert” treating the slacker life as a birthright. Malkmus’s forever puzzled, laid-back persona (he prided himself on coasting) recast punk: instead of…

Slaný, town, north-central Czech Republic. Located northwest of Prague, the national capital, Slaný lies in the slightly hilly country west of the Vltava (Moldau) River valley, in an area that grows barley, wheat, hops, sugar beets, and corn (maize) and raises chickens and pigs. During the 1970s

Milt Hinton: A master of slap bass (an exaggerated technique in which the strings are pulled far out and then let go so that they snap back), Hinton had a fluid and technical style that was unmatched. He was notably featured on Calloway’s song “Pluckin’ the Bass” (1939). He subsequently…

David Davidovich Burlyuk: …Futurism, Poshchochina obshchestvennomu vkusu (A Slap in the Face of Public Taste). In 1913–14 he took part in a “Futurist tour” of lectures and poetry readings throughout Russia with the poets Mayakovsky and Vasily Kamensky. It was because of his activity in all these fields that he was soon…

slap jack, children’s action card game for up to eight players. A 52-card deck is dealt in facedown stacks (which need not be equal), one for each player. Beginning at the dealer’s left, each player turns up his stack’s top card and places it in the middle of the playing surface; when a jack is

ice hockey: Rules and principles of play: …of shots in hockey: the slap shot, the wrist shot, and the backhander. The slap shot has been timed at more than 100 miles an hour (160 km an hour). The slap shot differs from the wrist shot in that the player brings his stick back until it is nearly…

George Roy Hill: Later work: …then reunited with Newman for Slap Shot (1977), a profane but rousing profile of a lowly minor-league hockey team that starts winning after adopting a dirty style of play. Although backed by a riotous screenplay by Nancy Dowd and a fine performance by Newman, the comedy failed commercially. In the…

Michel Thomas: …of California’s so-called anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, which required the plaintiff in a civil suit that arises from the defendant’s exercise of the right of freedom of speech to establish by “reasonable probability” that the plaintiff would prevail should the case go to trial.

slapstick: A slapstick was originally a harmless paddle composed of two pieces of wood that slapped together to produce a resounding whack when the paddle struck someone. The slapstick seems to have first come into use in the 16th century, when Harlequin, one of the principal characters…

slapstick, a type of physical comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, usually violent action. The slapstick comic, more than a mere funnyman or buffoon, must often be an acrobat, a stunt performer, and something of a magician—a master of uninhibited action and perfect

Kurt Vonnegut: Slapstick; or, Lonesome No More! (1976; film 1982) focuses on a pair of grotesque siblings who devise a program to end loneliness, and Jailbird (1979) is a postmodern pastiche rooted in 20th-century American social history.

warning system: Radar: Side-looking radars are used to obtain higher resolution than conventional radar, improving the ability to recognize surface targets.

dress: Europe, 1500–1800: …addition of padded puffs, decoratively slashed. This idea is thought to have been derived from the dress of Swiss and Bavarian mercenaries. Each garment was slashed to show the contrasting colour of the material of the one beneath.

punctuation: Punctuation in Greek and Latin to 1600: …elevatus are joined by the virgule (/) as an alternative form of light stop. Vernacular literature followed the less formal types of Latin literature; and the printers, as usual, followed the scribes. The first printed texts of the Bible and the liturgy are, as a rule, carefully punctuated on the…

Guns N’ Roses: ), Slash (original name Saul Hudson; b. July 23, 1965, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England), Duff McKagan (original name Michael McKagan; b. February 5, 1964, Seattle, Washington, U.S.), Izzy Stradlin (original name Jeff Isbell; b. April 8, 1962, Lafayette, Indiana), Steve Adler (b. January 22, 1965, Cleveland, Ohio,…

tree: Tree height growth: …example, a selected strain of Caribbean pine that was certified not to foxtail in Australia reportedly exhibited 80 percent foxtailing when grown in Puerto Rico. Foxtailing decreases with altitude, stand density, and soil quality. The cause is thought to be due to hormone imbalances induced by exotic environments. Some species…

Black Flag: ” Along with Slash Records, SST became the avatar of the West Coast punk scene, and its early roster included seminal hardcore acts the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, and Hüsker Dü. After settling on Rollins as its vocalist, Black Flag released Damaged (1981), its first full-length album. Later…

slash-and-burn agriculture, method of cultivation in which forests are burned and cleared for planting. Slash-and-burn agriculture is often used by tropical-forest root-crop farmers in various parts of the world, for animal grazing in South and Central America, and by dry-rice cultivators in the

Slashdot, Web site created by Rob Malda, an American college student, in September 1997 in order to provide technology news and information. Editorials, stories, articles, and reviews are submitted by users and then either accepted or rejected by administrators. Owned by SourceForge, Inc., Slashdot

David Cronenberg: Other work: …the anthology horror TV series Slasher, cast as a wealthy patriarch who makes his children compete in brutal tests in order to win his inheritance. During this time Cronenberg also had a recurring role on Star Trek: Discovery. His other notable work included the novel Consumed (2014), about a salacious…

Silesia, historical region that is now in southwestern Poland. Silesia was originally a Polish province, which became a possession of the Bohemian crown in 1335, passed with that crown to the Austrian Habsburgs in 1526, and was taken by Prussia in 1742. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Silesia

Poland: The lake region and central lowlands: …divide the area into the Silesian (Śląska) Lowland, which lies in the upper Oder; the southern Great Poland Lowland, which lies in the middle Warta River basin; and the Mazovian (Mazowiecka) and Podlasian (Podlaska) lowlands, which lie in the middle Vistula basin. Lower Silesia and Great Poland are important agricultural…

Poland: The Little Poland Uplands: …region, and the landscape of Upper Silesia is highly urbanized. Katowice is the largest centre, and the region is closely linked with that around Kraków (Cracow). The Little Poland Uplands protect the Little Poland Lowlands, in which Kraków lies, from the colder air of the north. To the north the…

Śląskie, województwo (province), southern Poland. It is bordered by the provinces of Łódzkie to the north, Świętokrzyskie to the northeast, Małopolskie to the east, and Opolskie to the west; Slovakia and the Czech Republic are to the south. Created in 1999 as part of Poland’s provincial

conveyor: Slat conveyors consist of endless chains, driven by electric motors operating through reduction gears and sprockets, with attached spaced slats to carry objects that would damage a belt because of sharp edges or heavy weights.

slate, fine-grained, clayey metamorphic rock that cleaves, or splits, readily into thin slabs having great tensile strength and durability; some other rocks that occur in thin beds are improperly called slate because they can be used for roofing and similar purposes. True slates do not, as a rule,

Robert Pinsky: …1986 and from 1997 of Slate, an online magazine. Pinsky cotranslated poems by Czesław Miłosz that were published in The Separate Notebooks (1984). His verse translation of Dante’s Inferno (1994) is notable for its gracefulness and its faithfulness to the original terza rima form. In addition to editing several poetry…

John Crome: 1818–20), Slate Quarries (c. 1805), and Moonlight on the Yare (1817). Among his many etchings is the representative series entitled Norfolk Picturesque Scenery (1834).

junco: The dark-eyed, or slate-coloured, junco (J. hyemalis) breeds across Canada and in the Appalachian Mountains; northern migrants are the “snowbirds” of the eastern United States. In western North America there are several forms of junco with brown or pinkish markings; among them is the yellow-eyed Mexican…

sea urchin: The slate-pencil urchin (Heterocentrotus mammillatus) of the Indo-Pacific has 12-cm spines that may be 1 cm thick—stout enough to be used for writing. Lytechinus variegatus, a pale-greenish urchin of the southeastern coast of the United States and the Caribbean, and the large, short-spined Psammechinus (sometimes Echinus)…

Kevin Bacon: Breakthrough in Footloose and later film career: …in which he starred with Christian Slater and Gary Oldman. In 1995 he also played real-life astronaut Jack Swigert, appearing alongside Tom Hanks, in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13.

South African literature: In English: F.C. Slater often evoked by image and rhythm a uniquely South African experience, as in “Lament for a Dead Cow” (Collected Poems [1957]). Sydney Clouts was another important poet who came to prominence after World War II, but it was Douglas Livingstone who became the…

physical science: Chemistry: …bonds was rapidly developed by John C. Slater and Linus C. Pauling in the United States. Slater proposed a simple general method for constructing multiple-electron wave functions that would automatically satisfy the Pauli exclusion principle. Pauling introduced a valence-bond method, picking out one electron in each of the two combining…

Kelly Slater is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He earned the title of world champion an unprecedented 11 times, including a record five times consecutively (1994–98), and he was also the all-time leader in event wins. The son of a bait-store proprietor, Slater grew up near the

Kelly Slater is widely considered the greatest surfer of all time. He earned the title of world champion an unprecedented 11 times, including a record five times consecutively (1994–98), and he was also the all-time leader in event wins. The son of a bait-store proprietor, Slater grew up near the

Samuel Slater was an English American businessman and founder of the American cotton-textile industry. As an apprentice in England to Jedediah Strutt (partner of Richard Arkwright), Slater gained a thorough knowledge of cotton manufacturing. He immigrated to the United States in 1789, attracted by

Samuel Slater: …and founded the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island.

Rudolf Karl, baron von Slatin was an Austrian soldier in the service of England in the Sudan, famous for his imprisonment by the Mahdists (religious and nationalist revolutionaries in the Sudan) and his subsequent escape. His nearly 40 years in the Sudan indelibly influenced its development. Slatin

Slatina, town, capital, Olt județ (county), southern Romania. It lies along the Olt River, where there once was a fort. The local museum has prehistoric (Lower Paleolithic) chipped-stone tools that were found in a valley south of the town. Roman artifacts, money, and arms and ancient books and

National Symphony Orchestra: cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (1977–94), Leonard Slatkin (music director-designate, 1994–96; music director, 1996–2008), and Christoph Eschenbach (2010–17). Gianandrea Noseda assumed the music directorship in 2017.

Dorothy Lamour was an American actress who was best remembered by filmgoers as the sarong-clad object of Bob Hope’s and Bing Crosby’s attention in a series of "Road" pictures. She was a favorite pinup of troops in World War II, frequently visited the Hollywood Canteen to dance and talk with

André De Toth: Slattery’s Hurricane (1949) put Richard Widmark to good use as an airplane pilot who fears he might crash during a storm.

Mad Men: …devilishly affable Roger Sterling (John Slattery), a partner at the firm; the ambitious young account executive Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser); and the effortlessly savvy head secretary, Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks). While the show generated many of its story lines from the lively dynamics of the office, it also focused…

metamorphic rock: Major features: …s-surface, bedding, or crystal orientation; slaty cleavage, a planar structure leading to facile cleavage that is normally caused by the preferred orientation of mica crystals; schistosity, a term used to describe repetitive and pronounced foliation of the type that is present in schists; and lineation, which is any linear structure,…

metamorphic rock: Major features: …s-surface, bedding, or crystal orientation; slaty cleavage, a planar structure leading to facile cleavage that is normally caused by the preferred orientation of mica crystals; schistosity, a term used to describe repetitive and pronounced foliation of the type that is present in schists; and lineation, which is any linear structure,…

nightingale thrush: …unspotted; an example is the slaty-backed nightingale thrush (C. fuscater), 16 cm (6.5 inches) long, of mountain forests from Costa Rica to Bolivia. In more northerly species, sometimes placed in the genus Hylocichla, the eye rims are whitish, the bill is dark, and the underparts are spotted. An example is…

shrike-vireo: The slaty-capped shrike-vireo (Vireolanius leucotis) of northern South America is a heavily built forest bird with an olive green back and a slaty gray head punctuated with yellow. Much more subdued in colouring, the chestnut-sided shrike-vireo (V. melitophrys) is greenish brown above and white below, with…

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff was a Dutch poet whose romanticism led him to go to sea as a ship’s doctor and whose pessimistic poetry reflects his subsequent disillusionment. Slauerhoff’s restlessness and contemptuous hatred of Holland are prominent themes throughout his work, from the first volume,

Slaughterhouse Cases, in American history, legal dispute that resulted in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1873 limiting the protection of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1869 the Louisiana state legislature granted a monopoly

Esteban Echeverría: …powerful story “El matadero” (“The Slaughterhouse”), a landmark in the history of Latin American literature. “The Slaughterhouse,” probably written in 1838, was not published until 30 years later. It is mostly significant because it displays the clash between “civilization and barbarism,” between European mores and more primitive and violent…

Slaughterhouse-Five, antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. The absurdist, nonlinear work blends science fiction with historical facts, notably Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of that city in early 1945. It is considered

George Roy Hill: Film directing: …project for the studio was Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). With its time-traveling hero and bitterly ironic tone, Kurt Vonnegut’s best seller was not a book that easily translated to film, but Hill’s adaptation was largely praised—though it was a financial failure. With the help of Redford and Newman, Hill rebounded in impressive…

Slaughterhouse-Five, antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. The absurdist, nonlinear work blends science fiction with historical facts, notably Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of that city in early 1945. It is considered

Temple Grandin: …pain and fear from the slaughtering process. Her designs enabled workers to move animals without frightening them. She also maintained that her acute visualization could be harnessed in making design decisions regarding other matters. For example, she said that she never would have located backup emergency generators in the nonwaterproof…

Slav, member of the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs

Austria: Revolution and counterrevolution, 1848–59: In June 1848 a Pan-Slav congress met in Prague to hammer out a set of principles that all Slavic peoples could endorse (see Pan-Slavism). The organizer of the conference was the great Czech historian František Palacký (most of the delegates were Czech), who not only had called for the…

Slov’yansk, city, eastern Ukraine. It lies at the confluence of the Kazenny Torets and Sukhyy Torets rivers. Founded in 1676 as Tor and renamed Slov’yansk in 1794, it is today the main centre of the northwestern part of the Donets Basin industrial area. The presence of saline and mud springs, rock

Slavyansk-na-Kubani, city and centre of Slavyansk rayon (sector), Krasnodar kray (territory), southwestern Russia. It is situated on the left bank of the Protoka River, an arm of the Kuban. Until 1958 it was known as stanitsa (Cossack village) Slavyanskaya; thereafter it was a city. Industries in

Aleksandr Afanasev: …vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu (The Slav’s Poetical Views of Nature) in three volumes, which provided the first synthesis of the theories of the Mythological school, a 19th-century Romantic literary movement that drew its inspiration from folklore. The Mythological school was grounded in the aesthetic philosophy of F.W. von Schelling…

Slavic religion: Communal banquets and related practices: …religious service); in the Serbian slava (“glorification”); and in the sobor (“assembly”) and kurban (“victim” or “prey”) of Bulgaria. Formerly, communal banquets were also held by the Poles and the Polabs (Elbe Slavs) of Hannover. In Russia the love feasts are dedicated to the memory of a deceased person or…

Defenestration of Prague: …Prague, where the imperial regents, William Slavata and Jaroslav Martinic, were tried and found guilty of violating the Letter of Majesty and, with their secretary, Fabricius, were thrown from the windows of the council room of Hradčany (Prague Castle) on May 23, 1618. Although inflicting no serious injury on the…

Slave, group of Athabaskan-speaking Indians of Canada, originally inhabiting the western shores of the Great Slave Lake, the basins of the Mackenzie and Liard rivers, and other neighbouring riverine and forest areas. Their name, Awokanak, or Slave, was given them by the Cree, who plundered and

sweetgrass basket, type of basket made of sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes), so called because it smells like freshly mowed hay. The art of the sweetgrass coiled basket, born in West Africa centuries ago, is still practiced in the United States in the 21st century, chiefly in the Low Country of