title: Puerto Ricans in Holyoke, Massachusetts

text:
# Puerto Ricans in Holyoke, Massachusetts

As of the 2010 census, Holyoke, Massachusetts had the largest Puerto Rican population, per capita, of any city in the United States outside Puerto Rico proper, with 47.7% or 44,826 residents being of Puerto Rican heritage, comprising 92.4% of all Latinos in the community. From a combination of farming programs instituted by the US Department of Labor after World War II, and the housing and mills that characterized Holyoke prior to deindustrialization, Puerto Ricans began settling in the city in the mid-1950s, with many arriving during the wave of Puerto Rican migration to the Northeastern United States in the 1980s. A combination of white flight as former generations of mill workers left the city, and a sustained influx of migrants in subsequent generations transformed the demographic from a minority of about 13% of the population in 1980, to the largest single demographic by ancestry in a span of three decades.

In time the city has become a center of Puerto Rican culture on the mainland, with at least one member of the Senate of Puerto Rico being an alumnus of Holyoke Community College, and the city being honored by both the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in the Chicago, and in New York City's National Puerto Rican Day Parade.

## History

### Colonialism and early cultural exchange

Following the passage of the Foraker Act, a United States designated colonial government was formed, as the island had been annexed by the Americans following the Spanish–American War. Soon after this government was instituted, several delegations were sent from Puerto Rico to various cities in the United States that were seen as potential trading partners on the mainland. Among the first of these delegations of legislature members and trade representatives, was one which would visit Springfield in 1901. In the following year the newly formed Puerto Rican government would offer to make the first assistant of that city's Mechanic Arts High School, Arthur D. Deane, the supervisor of the island's industrial training. Deane would ultimately decline this offer but accepted one as a temporary agent to the Puerto Rico Department of Education, observing and making a report back to the agency in January 1902 on steps needed to establish Puerto Rico's first industrial arts programs.

In 1901, former Holyoke mayor and congressman William Whiting invited the first civilian colonial governor Charles H. Allen to the city. Allen, an infamous figure in Puerto Rico's history as an American colony, was a former congressman from Lowell and Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Spanish–American War who was appointed to head the island's new government by President McKinley, whom he had accompanied to Mount Tom two years earlier. During his visit Allen touted the construction of roads which had been completed with no-bid contracts as a resounding success, while also praising the tariff situation around the island's sugar industry as ideal. He would also emphasize the sugar growing capacity of the island and lament that less than half of the island's arable land was in production. During his short tenure as governor and the years that followed, he wasted no time in changing this to suit his own interests. By 1907 Allen would position himself as the robber baron of sugarcane, controlling an estimated 98% of the United States' sugar capacity through his American Sugar Refining Company, which vastly reshaped the economy of the island. By 1930, an estimated 45% of all arable land on Puerto Rico was dedicated to sugar plantations under Allen's control. At the time of his visit to the city a writer for The Republican would close the description of Allen's reception optimistically, comparing Holyoke with San Juan, remarking that the two cities were roughly the same population at that time.

While the first Puerto Rican immigrants wouldn't arrive in Holyoke en masse until after the Second World War, its own history in Puerto Rican culture begins with Sixto Escobar's mainland debut at the Valley Arena. On May 7, 1934, Escobar defeated bantamweight contender and Canadian flyweight titleholder Bobby Leitham, in a fight that made headlines in local papers and was seen as a dramatic upset in the world of boxing. A few weeks later on May 22, Escobar faced his second opponent on the mainland, Joey Archibald, at the same venue, beating him handily before moving on to a rematch with Leitham in Montreal. These two matches marked an early chapter in a storied career; Escobar would go on to become Puerto Rico's first world champion.

In 1950, the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, other offices of the Puerto Rican government, in collaboration with the government of Argentina, assisted in a trial run of the first bagasse (sugar cane waste) based newsprint paper at the mills of the Chemical Paper Company. The demonstration production batch would be manufactured before more than 100 paper, sugar, and chemical magnates and representatives from more than a dozen other countries.

### Early settlement

Historical Puerto Rican
Population of Holyoke
| Year | Residents | Growth (%) | Percent Total Pop. (%) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1970 | ≈5,000 |  | ≈10% |
| 1980 | 5,764 |  | 13.5% |
| 1990 | 12,687 | 120.1% | 29.0% |
| 2000 | 14,341 | 13.0% | 35.9% |
| 2010 | 17,826 | 24.3% | 44.7% |

At the end of World War II, the government of Puerto Rico began the Puerto Rican Farm Labor Program, coordinating with the US Department of Labor to bring seasonal farm workers into the mainland, not unlike the Mexican Bracero program. Between 1947 and 1990 the program would bring in 421,238 Puerto Rican agricultural laborers to the United States. Many of these workers found work in Connecticut and the Pioneer Valley, particularly working for the Shade Tobacco Growers Agricultural Association.

Holyoke's history in Puerto Rican settlements first began around the mid 1950s, when a landlord named Domingo Perez, purportedly became the city's first Puerto Rican resident. By 1956 an article in The Republican reported on 1,000 Puerto Ricans in a self-described immigrant colony in the Greater Springfield area. The first to settle in the area were met with racial discrimination and open hostility, with one Boricua restaurateur describing their people being "treated like animals" at the time. This same family had followed a similar route many others would, having previously moved to the area from New York where they had previously settled in 1948. Another early report of the Puerto Rican community that same year appeared in a *Springfield Union* article of a wedding held at Holyoke City Hall on January 3, between a Carmen Hermandez and Jesus Mejias, both born in Porto Rico \[sic\] and residing on Main Street in South Holyoke, who would spend their honeymoon in New York City. At the time Hermandez reportedly worked for the Adams Plastics Co., a South Holyoke-based firm employing 175 workers which future-Mayor Samuel Resnic had cofounded. By this time the company, a maker of "pakkawood" composite handles, was sold to EKCO, however Resnic remained with the firm, and would travel to Puerto Rico himself as Mayor in 1963 while vacationing, representing one of Holyoke's earliest informal exchanges with the island.

By 1958, the *Union* had begun referring to a Puerto Rican community in The Flats neighborhood of Holyoke, also known as Ward 1. One of the biggest challenges with making inroads with existing communities was the language barrier of the first arrivals, with many only speaking Spanish. Some of the earliest programs working towards integration came from the Greater Springfield Council of Churches, which by 1961 had recruited a number of volunteers, many of whom were retired teachers, to help teach English to Puerto Rican women. Other early cultural exchange programs were held in churches such as Holyoke's St. Paul's Episcopal, which in 1956 hosted a lecture on Puerto Rican culture by a native of the island whose father had served as chancellor of the Episcopal diocese there.

In the 1960s, a large segment of the valley's Puerto Rican population was displaced when Springfield launched a massive urban renewal project in part to expand its highway system, razing many of the low-cost brick tenements between Metro Center and Memorial Square. During this time many would find low-cost housing in the blocks of Holyoke's lower wards, moving to former mill worker areas like South Holyoke and Springdale. Seeing the relative success of relatives and friends, in the 1970s a new wave of immigration began when a large number of families emigrated from New York City and Hartford, moving northward.

### Mass migration and exclusion

| "I thought I was the only Puerto Rican in town. Then sometime in 1971 I woke up one day and heard a lot of Spanish. By 1972 I became cognizant of what was a change in attitude. Some of the warmth was gone." |
| --- |
| Josephine Carabello, director, Mount Holyoke Office of Compliance |
| "Let's face it, we're here to stay...The first generation gets the brunt. Then it eases up. That's the way with every ethnic group, the Irish, the Polish and French-Canadians. Our tensions will ease." |
| Efrain Figueroa, sales representative for Nabisco |
| "I don't see any reason why Puerto Ricans...cannot follow the same phases of other migrant groups. But we will always be considered a defined race. If you have a drop of black blood, you are non-white. Race is the most undetermined and difficult to define in terms of sociology. It means different things to different cultures." |
| José Efrain Martinez, teacher, Holyoke Public Schools |
| Quotes from Moriarty, Jo-Ann (July 24, 1983). "Holyoke's Hispanics span economic spectrum". *The Republican*. Springfield, Mass. p. B-1. |

By the time many Puerto Rican families were being uprooted by Springfield's redevelopments, a large upsurge in new arrivals had occurred. In 1967 this new population was mainly low income and very young, with more than half of all Puerto Rican residents being school-aged children, while public agencies remained poorly equipped to provide for the community's needs. Reception to the community from those already in Holyoke and Springfield proved difficult not only due to social discrimination and racism but also as many businesses and government agencies lacked resources for Spanish speakers at a time when substantially fewer in the community spoke English. Far fewer translators were available at that time than today, and growing up in schools that did not speak their mother tongue, many in the younger demographic remained unable to read or write. This was exacerbated by a time when Holyoke saw a level of economic decline it had not witnessed before, or since, with 50% of all industrial jobs disappearing from 1955 to 1975; in this period, Puerto Ricans were witness to a changing colonial economy, leading many laborers to emigrate from the island. While more Puerto Ricans arrived in Holyoke in the 1970s, bringing the population to 5,764 or 13% of the total population by 1980, their numbers were fewer than the subsequent decade, and due to these economic circumstances the city as a whole would see a population decrease of nearly 11%, the most in its history.

The growth of Holyoke's own community, coupled with these aforementioned factors and substandard housing, led to an increasing gap between the Puerto Rican community and a police force that was described by a 1973 Police Foundation report as a group of "117 people, many of whom were related to each other" in the city of 50,000. The report goes on to say that representatives from the Model Cities Program and Governor Sargent's office urged greater outreach and would describe the relationship between the police and Puerto Rican community at that time as "the police \[being seen\] as brutal men with clubs, \[while\] the police saw the \[Puerto Rican\] community as tempestuous people with no respect for law and order".

The growing tension between the two groups reached a breaking point when on July 27, 1973, a 20 year old Boricua man was arrested for stealing a bicycle, struggling with officers before being handcuffed on the hood of a police cruiser. In the short time of this scuffle a crowd of some 400 people had amassed, with some shouting down officers and pelting the police squad with stones, bottles, and bricks. In response the police called in 60 additional backup officers in riot gear from more than a 21 agencies, including a state police unit, bringing between 125 and 200 officers to the area, with numbers differing across news reports. By the end of this disturbance one police officer had been injured and nine individuals were arrested for disturbing the peace. In response to the unrest Mayor William Taupier imposed a curfew during which he directed police himself. From the 27th until the 31st the entirety of ward 1, better known as The Flats was under lockdown from 6pm to 6am with no traffic entering or leaving for reasons other than to reach one's residence or for emergencies, with residents required to present identification to enter or exit the area.

While Taupier would state that no charges of police brutality were found substantive, the police response to the unrest was met with demonstrations and even rebuke by the ward's own Model Cities Program, which had managed the community outreach portion of the city's team policing program. In a report at the organization's policy board meeting, the chairman outlined narratives from both sides of the conflict, concluding that 90% of those reported in the crowd that had formed were spectators, and that the language barrier between police and the community had been one of the key causes of the incident. Following some discussion between a group of residents and representatives of the US Department of Justice, on August 1, 1973, a group of about 100 residents from Ward 1 organized a march through flyers passed around by the Springfield chapter of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, meeting with the mayor at the end of the demonstration. During the march, community members detailed a formal list of grievances such as alleged harassment of Puerto Ricans by police prior to the incident, as well as such demands as an end to the team police program and for the city's officials to provide greater community involvement in decisions such as the curfew. Following this discussion, an agreement was reached for further discussions with the mayor in the future, and the group marched from their neighborhood to City Hall, where they would demonstrate peacefully.

Ultimately many of the groups demands went unmet by Taupier, including greater consultation with community leadership. The Mayor would deny any allegations of police brutality, saying such complaints could have been officially lodged with the chief of police, and stating that he did not see the group of residents as representative of their community as they themselves were not officeholders. However the considerable political fallout from this incident and the team policing program led Holyoke's aldermen to refuse further funding for the program that same year. Taupier would charge that this was an abuse of power by the council, as according to the city charter he was tasked with directly appointing the police chief and managing the department; nevertheless by 1974 all police had resumed their regular patrols and practices from prior to the program.

Many additional challenges faced the Puerto Rican community at this time, including what the Model Cities director had cited as a lack of leadership and political means of representation in municipal government. In time Puerto Rican culture had seen some acceptance by the cultural institutions of the city, as early as 1975 a Christmas parranda was held at Wistariahurst featuring traditional music and dance. An effort was also made by city hall to establish a referral agency for Latino voters, the block grant-funded *Casa Latina* was set up in the early 70's but, regarded by community members as ineffective, would be dissolved before the end of the decade.

### Integration and early representation

In many ways the 1980s would redefine the Puerto Rican community socially and politically to this day, as new independent institutions were formed and the first Puerto Ricans would claim positions within city leadership. From 1980 to 1990 the community's population would more than double with nearly 7,000 new residents. It was also around this time in the city's history that Puerto Rican culture would see greater representation in day to day life in the city as well, with the first Western Massachusetts Puerto Rican Parade and Festival hosted at Springdale Park in 1984.

School integration became a high priority; following an unsuccessful municipal attempt at redistricting the public schools due to certain closures in 1981, a group of parents formed the Hispanic Parents Advisory Committee which brought suit against the city and the US Department of Education. The latter would rule that the city "was behind in its desegregation efforts and that there were abuses in the isolation of Hispanic students throughout the system." By July a consent decree was reached, with the schools applying for federal grants of $1 million to develop and implement a new integration program, and the police chief at the time reached out to Holyoke Public Schools, vowing full support and to provide any resources necessary to ensure "the success of the integration plan and to insure the safety of all school children." This consent decree however was met with opposition by then-Mayor Ernest Proulx who argued the binding order would put the city in a difficult financial situation if Federal funds went unguaranteed in the future, representing approximately 3% of the city's total budget. Following a multi-month standoff between the mayor's office and the Federal government, and threats of litigation by the latter for contempt, the desegregation plan was signed in US District Court on December 22, 1981, redistricting the city's schools.

Among of the concerns frequently cited among both the greater Holyoke Puerto Rican communities and formal surveys from the Valley's nonprofits was a profound lack of representation within the ranks of city government. By 1980 the community represented nearly 15% of the city's population, but total representation from all minority groups in Holyoke city government accounted for less than 4% of all municipal employees. In time a commitment was made by the city with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to raise this number to at least 10% by the end of 1982. However this voluntary compliance in affirmative action did not address the community's needs specifically, nor its lack of leadership.

In May 1982, Carlos Pineiro, a government official of Puerto Rico's Migration Division in Hartford, began publicly urging Mayor Proulx to put a moratorium on all Community Development Block Grants until such time that a Hispanic Affairs Office was established to address the city's poor housing conditions and provide greater youth programs for Hispanic youth. At the time, Proulx would reject this call, citing that current block grants had already received approval for that year, and went on to state that he saw no need for such a commission. By 1984 the political landscape led Proulx to change on this issue, and on February 27, 1984 he appointed a six member Commission on Hispanic Affairs, to act as liaisons for important issues facing the community.

Among new community coalitions was Nueva Esperanza. In the wake of a wave of arson, demolitions used with community development money, selectively enforced building codes, and a high infant mortality rate, a number of organizations including the Valley Opportunity Council, HAPHousing, and Brightwood Development Corporation set aside funds for purchase of one such neglected building and the hiring of a director, one Miguel Arce. Incorporated on July 28, 1982, the community development corporation made its official debut to the city government on April 1, 1983, with plans to purchase and rehabilitate two troubled properties in South Holyoke. By 1987 the organization had renovated and leased seven buildings or 59 units to tenants. Nueva Esperanza's mission, though initially dealing in improving housing conditions for the Puerto Rican community and South Holyoke's poor, gradually incorporated the work of developing neighborhood leadership.

Around this same time, a higher infant mortality rate, and the onset of the AIDS epidemic, both of which had a disparate effect on minorities, including the Puerto Rican population, led to the establishment of the Coalition of Spanish Speaking Providers. This organization, eventually renamed the Holyoke Latino Community Coalition, represented part of the maturation of institutions in the community, bringing health professionals like Sue Tenorio and Orlando Isaza, two of its key figures, to connect the disenfranchised community with a difficult to navigate healthcare establishment.

### Contemporary history and culture

While there would not be a prominent Puerto Rican presence in politics until the end of the 20th century, since the 1970s, a number of campaigns were launched by Puerto Ricans and Latino candidates, many of which were, in the words of the candidates themselves "more to assert a Latino political presence than an expectation of winning". Among these was Carlos Vega. An Ecuadorian community activist who managed Nueva Esperanza for many years, Vega would lose to another candidate for a school board seat in 1971. In 1973 Heriberto Flores would see the same outcome, though he would be the very first Puerto Rican to run for Holyoke City Council, then-known as the Board of Aldermen. It wasn't until 1985 that the first would be elected to city government, with Betty Medina gaining a seat on the school board. Medina, who was active instrumental in organizing the nonprofit Enlace de Familias, serving as its director in subsequent decades would be the first Puerto Rican woman to hold any public office in the Commonwealth. In city politics, Diosdado López, one of Nueva Esperanza's former interns, and key figure in La Familia Hispaña, was the first to be elected to the city council in 1992. By 2018, the representation of Puerto Rican and Latino councilors closely resembled that of the city's demographics, an outcome from gradual integration from the previous margins of municipal politics.

Gradually Puerto Rican culture in schools saw greater acceptance as well; in 1988 the city hall would host more than 100 exhibits talking about the history and art of the island made by students of Holyoke Public Schools. This same year, artist and retired factory worker Angel Sánchez Ortíz moved to Holyoke, and began to work with youths in the city and the Greater Springfield area to provide them with new outlets of creativity and combat a culture of gang activity. Working with local cultural centers Ortíz taught a generation how to make vejigante masks and the traditional dance and festivities which they were associated with on the island. Since that time his own work has been featured in a number of venues, including the Worcester Art Museum, Lowell Folk Festival, and the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Following a campaign by Diosdado Lopez, the first member of the community elected to the Board of Aldermen, the city renamed Park Street of South Holyoke to Roberto Clemente Street on August 20, 1993. Clemente, the first Latin American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, was also known for his philanthropy in the Caribbean and Central America, and died in a plane crash on a trip to provide relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua on New Year's Eve 1972. In attendance for the dedication ceremony was the right fielder's widow, Vera Clemente (née Zabala), who thanked city residents for honoring her late husband, and presided over the unveiling with the department of public works.

In recent years the Holyoke community has seen greater national coverage, including a feature in NPR's Code Switch, and in 2016 hosted a summit of New England Puerto Rican leaders sponsored by Hunter College's Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños. On June 23, 2017, the city's Mayor Alex Morse, and city councilors Gladys Lebron-Martinez, Nelson Roman, and Jossie Valentin, would honor national Puerto Rican figure Oscar López Rivera, controversial militant and former leader of the clandestine paramilitary independence group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña. A month earlier López Rivera had been released from prison from a commuted sentence by President Barack Obama, and while he had never been formally charged in the FALN bombings on offices of the US Defense Department, López Rivera, had faced other felony charges including seditious conspiracy. In response to his marching in the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York, a boycott campaign had been launched against the event by the Media Research Center, and several Democrat officials like Senator Chuck Schumer and Governor Andrew Cuomo had pulled out of appearances at the event; in contrast, the board of that event had unanimously declared Rivera a "hero of the nation." When confronted about this terrorist label by reporters during his ceremony in Holyoke, López Rivera responded "all my actions have been actions of love — love for my people, love for the future of my people, love for humanity...so I don’t have any problems with people and their labels."

The city would receive national coverage as Puerto Rico residents on the island became displaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, many turned to relatives in the city, and during the 2017-2018 school year, Holyoke Public Schools saw 235 new students enroll whose families were displaced. In some cases children were sent to live with relatives temporarily while the island rebuilt. In 2018, San Juan mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz spoke in Holyoke, describing the gradual recovery of the island as well as its severe lack of resources. Cruz was presented the key to the city on April 28, 2018 by Mayor Alex Morse to honor that "in such a time of despair \[she\] provided a beacon of hope and opportunity for Puerto Ricans."

In 2021 the city elected its first mayor of Puerto Rican descent, Joshua A. Garcia, who had previously served as the chair of Nueva Esperanza.

## Enclaves

While there is a Puerto Rican demographic throughout all of Holyoke today, as of 2018 the neighborhoods of South Holyoke, The Flats, and Churchill were among those areas with the largest Puerto Rican populations proportionally, all having more than 75% residents of Puerto Rican heritage, with 83.5% of all South Holyoke's residents being of Puerto Rican heritage. Despite efforts to create more equitable housing from a variety of nonprofit groups, as of 2018, South Holyoke had the highest percentage of renter-occupied housing in any neighborhood outside of Boston, with an average of 1.5% owner-occupied households across the neighborhood's two census block groups.

According to the Census's 2012-2016 American Community Survey, Spanish is spoken among a large segment of the population but, as a language spoken at home, comprised a fraction of households. The highest proportion of Spanish or Spanish Creole speaking households was about 54.2% in a block group in one section of Churchill. In South Holyoke about 45% of households speak Spanish at home, while no block group in The Flats neighborhood exceeded 25%.

As of 2018, ongoing efforts have been put forward to formally create a cultural district along the Main Street areas of South Holyoke and the Flats, in what would be a first for the city. Today many events are held by the community, including by its cultural centers at Nueva Esperanza and Nuestras Raices, with work going towards bringing an official state designation to support programs that encourage cultural exchange, tourism, and commerce. Not unlike in the Greater New York area, Holyoke and its surrounding cities of Springfield and Chicopee, are home to a number of self-identified *bodegas*, small independent convenience stores often having delis or produce. In one 2008 survey it was found South Holyoke alone was home to at least 18 such stores.

## Events

Among the city's annual events are the Western Massachusetts Puerto Rican Parade and Festival, a three-day festival, held every summer in Springdale Park since 1984. Additionally *El Sabor de South Holyoke* ("Taste of South Holyoke Festival"), which features local Puerto Rican cuisine, has been held annually in the fall since 2016.

## Institutions

From this legacy of more than fifty years of Puerto Rican culture in Holyoke, a number of institutions serving the Puerto Rican and broader Latino community have maintained a presence in the city including, but not limited to, the Massachusetts Latino Chamber of Commerce, the New England Farm Workers’ Council, Nuestras Raices, Nueva Esperanza which now managed the Puerto Rican Afro Caribbean Cultural Center (formerly known as El Mercado), and the Puerto Rican Cultural Project. The city is also home to a number of domino clubs, as the game holds particular popularity in island and mainland culture.

Over the years Wistariahurst, which provides historic and cultural exhibits and resources for Holyoke's many ethnic communities, has amassed a substantial collection on Holyoke's Puerto Rican history. The museum, working in tandem with the Holyoke Public Library, has also been in the process of collecting and curating firsthand accounts of this history through the "Nuestros Senderos" program, with the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2019, a portion of a large private book collection of Puerto Rican history and literature was donated to the Holyoke Public Library and its affiliate the Puerto Rican Cultural Project (PRCP) by Celia Vice Acosta, daughter of Celia Acosta Vice (1919–1993). Acosta Vice, a longtime community activist in New York City, was the first female grand marshall of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade, as well as the first Latina Puerto Rican real estate broker in Brooklyn, where she founded the first bookstore in the City devoted to the island's culture, the Puerto Rican Heritage Bookstore. The collection is planned to serve as a foundation for a broader Puerto Rican cultural archive in the Holyoke Public Library.

In 2018 the Massachusetts chapter of the Borinqueneers Motorcycle Club, so-named in honor of the 65th Infantry Regiment, was established in Holyoke, making the state the 6th to have its own chapter. The motorcycle club, whose membership comprises members of the unit, veterans, and their descendants, holds community events and raises awareness about veterans issues, taking part in national veterans rides like Rolling Thunder.

### Media

As a growing demographic, the Puerto Rican community began to see greater representation in media. In the 1970s, the *Holyoke Transcript-Telegram's* publisher, William Dwight Jr., attempted to cover some local news in Spanish. Though it had only been a decade since Holyoke's last major non-English publication, the French *La Justice*, had folded, the effort to introduce a non-English paper was not well-received at that time. The city's Latino population was a much smaller demographic then, and not enough additional papers were sold to warrant the change, while the decision was met with paranoia by many non-Hispanic whites who, Dwight would later speculate, "thought we were going to sneak stories over on them." In 1991, citing a lack of news coverage and negative portrayals, local resident Maria Figueroa reached out to Rev. Gus Peterson, a member of the board of Nueva Esperanza and owner of *The Reminder* in South Hadley; together they published *La Nueva Era* (*The New Era*) in March of 1991, a biweekly Spanish-language newspaper extant for some duration of the early 1990s. Not long after the Transcript folded in 1994, the *Holyoke Sun* would make a similar attempt with a single page dedicated to news in Spanish; however, this was received as too little by the Puerto Rican community and again faced the same backlash from non-Spanish speakers. Since that time, the paper has continued to cover the events and issues of the community; however, at the beginning of the 21st century, new outlets would publish material that catered to Spanish speakers in the Valley. In 2000, local journalist Anita Rivera worked with *The Republican* to launch *El Pueblo Latino* (*The Latin People*), a Spanish weekly which covers news in the Greater Holyoke area. Other independent media outlets would appear as well, including *El Sol Latino*, a bilingual monthly which was launched by former UMass professor Manuel Frau Ramos in 2004, as well as *La Prensa* (*The Press*) in 2007, a monthly bilingual news outlet which covered Latino culture in the Greater Springfield area until 2013.

In 1991, activist Carlos Vega and Holyoke Public School teachers Sylvia Galván and Gary O'Connor launched *Vecinos/Neighbors*, a weekly bilingual public-access television program talking about life in Holyoke's Puerto Rican community during that time, featuring performances by local artists and interviews with prominent community figures. Among those interviewed were nationally-known Latino figures, including writer Sandra Cisneros and labor activist Cesar Chavez. The program ceased following a reorganization of local cable public-access in 1996. In July 2018, Diosdado Lopez and La Familia Hispana, Inc. donated a collection of tapes containing *Vecinos/Neighbors* programs and other related local media to the Puerto Rican Cultural Project at the Holyoke Public Library. In June 2019, the Council on Library and Information Resources announced it had given a grant of $14,644 for the digitization of these more than 100 recordings for online publication as part of its "Recordings at Risk" program.

## Further reading

| External videos | |
| --- | --- |
| ¡Jurakán! - A Presentation on the Connection Between the City of Holyoke, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, 2019 presentation by Dr. Carlos Vargas-Ramos and Dr. Charles Venator-Santiago of UConn's El Instituto | |
| Vecinos/Neighbors ep. 32 (1992), via Holyoke Public Library | |
| \[Fabricación de papel en Holyoke\], American Writing Paper Company film in Spanish, (c. 1930), Northeast Historic Film | |

## InfoBox

Puerto Ricans in Holyoke
| *Los puertorriqueños de Holyoke* | |
| --- | --- |
| Members of the Puerto Rican community and other residents of The Flats march peacefully on City Hall on August 1, 1973 | |
| Total population | |
| 44,826 (2010) | |
| Languages | |
| Puerto Rican Spanish, American English, New York City English | |


title: Pulmonary artery sling

abstract: Pulmonary artery sling is a condition where the contralateral sided pulmonary artery serves as the source of one of the branch pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary artery sling was originally written about in 1897 by Glaevecke and Doehle.

text:
# Pulmonary artery sling

**Pulmonary artery sling** is a condition where the contralateral sided pulmonary artery serves as the source of one of the branch pulmonary arteries. Pulmonary artery sling was originally written about in 1897 by Glaevecke and Doehle.

## Cause

In pulmonary artery sling, the left pulmonary artery anomalously originates from a normally positioned right pulmonary artery. The left pulmonary artery arises anterior to the right main bronchus near its origin from the trachea, courses between the trachea and the esophagus and enters the left hilum.

## Treatment

It almost always requires surgical intervention. The surgery is usually open heart surgery with an incision through the sternum.

## History

The first known case of pulmonary artery sling was diagnosed and surgically repaired by Willis J. Potts at Lurie Children's Hospital in 1953.

1. K. Rahmath, Muhammed Riyas; Durward, Andrew (2023). "Pulmonary artery sling: An overview". *Pediatric Pulmonology*. **58** (5): 1299–1309. doi:10.1002/ppul.26345. ISSN 8755-6863.
2. Carlson, Laura; Haider, Mahwish; Liu, Hua; Baird, Christopher; Mayer, John E.; Nathan, Meena (2021). "Left Pulmonary Artery Sling: Postoperative Outcomes for Patients at a Single Center". *World Journal for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery*. **12** (6). SAGE Publications: 715–727. doi:10.1177/21501351211040741. ISSN 2150-1351.
3. Berger, Stuart (March 22, 2020). "Pulmonary Artery Sling: Background, Pathophysiology, Epidemiology". *Medscape Reference*. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
4. Backer, Carl L. (2020). "Vascular Rings and Pulmonary Artery Sling". In Raja, Shahzad G. (ed.). *Cardiac Surgery: A Complete Guide*. Springer. p. 981. ISBN 978-3-030-24174-2. OCLC 1142507832.

## InfoBox

| Pulmonary artery sling | |
| --- | --- |
| Specialty | Cardiology |


title: Pulacayo

abstract:
The historic industrial site of Pulacayo is located in the Potosí Department of Bolivia. The mining center developed around Huanchaca, the world's second largest silver mine, and was founded in 1833. Features of the mining center include:
  - Aniceto Arce’s house
  - The Maestranza
  - The refinery’s smelting works
  - A spinning mill
  - The first railroad to ever reach Bolivia Pulacayo also contains a train that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed.

text:
# Pulacayo

The historic industrial site of **Pulacayo** is located in the Potosí Department of Bolivia. The mining center developed around Huanchaca, the world's second largest silver mine, and was founded in 1833. Features of the mining center include:

> * Aniceto Arce’s house
> * The Maestranza
> * The refinery’s smelting works
> * A spinning mill
> * The first railroad to ever reach Bolivia

Pulacayo also contains a train that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed.

## World Heritage Status

This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on July 1, 2003 in the Cultural category

Pulacayo, Industrial Heritage Site - UNESCO World Heritage Centre Retrieved 2009-03-18.

20°23′28″S 66°42′00″W / 20.39111°S 66.70000°W / -20.39111; -66.70000


title: Pyramids (Bathgate)

abstract: The Pyramids are a land sculpture alongside the M8 motorway at Bathgate. Originally named the "Sawtooth Ramps", it was sponsored by Motorola and formed part of the M8 Art Project. The sculpture was created by artist Patricia Leighton in 1993. It is 1,000 feet (300 m) long and consists of seven 36-foot (11 m) high ramps made of earth and seeded with grass. The artist based the design on local geographic features (drumlins) and the shape of the surrounding bings. Sheep are grazed on the structure which keeps the grass short. The pyramidal shape of the sculpture gave rise to the name of the nearby Pyramids Business Park.

text:
# Pyramids (Bathgate)

The **Pyramids** are a land sculpture alongside the M8 motorway at Bathgate.

Originally named the "Sawtooth Ramps", it was sponsored by Motorola and formed part of the M8 Art Project. The sculpture was created by artist Patricia Leighton in 1993. It is 1,000 feet (300 m) long and consists of seven 36-foot (11 m) high ramps made of earth and seeded with grass. The artist based the design on local geographic features (drumlins) and the shape of the surrounding bings. Sheep are grazed on the structure which keeps the grass short. The pyramidal shape of the sculpture gave rise to the name of the nearby Pyramids Business Park.

## Coloured sheep

In April 2007, a local farmer painted the sheep which graze on the grass mounds bright red with a harmless sheep spray. Over the years the sheep have been painted different colours to raise awareness of charities: pink for Breast Cancer Research, and purple for World Autism Awareness Month by Scottish Autism in April 2015.

## Giant poppies

Giant poppies have been painted on the grass ramps in November for a number of years. This is organised by Poppyscotland as part of the Remembrance Day commemorations and fund-raising.

In 2015, the extremist political group Siol nan Gaidheal painted their white poppy logo on one of the ramps, which was condemned as vandalism and a political stunt by Angela Constance, a local MSP.

55°53′28″N 3°36′17″W / 55.8911°N 3.6048°W / 55.8911; -3.6048


title: Pursuit–evasion

abstract: Pursuit–evasion is a family of problems in mathematics and computer science in which one group attempts to track down members of another group in an environment. Early work on problems of this type modeled the environment geometrically. In 1976, Torrence Parsons introduced a formulation whereby movement is constrained by a graph. The geometric formulation is sometimes called continuous pursuit–evasion, and the graph formulation discrete pursuit–evasion. Current research is typically limited to one of these two formulations.

text:
# Pursuit–evasion

**Pursuit–evasion** (variants of which are referred to as **cops and robbers** and **graph searching**) is a family of problems in mathematics and computer science in which one group attempts to track down members of another group in an environment. Early work on problems of this type modeled the environment geometrically. In 1976, Torrence Parsons introduced a formulation whereby movement is constrained by a graph. The geometric formulation is sometimes called **continuous pursuit–evasion**, and the graph formulation **discrete pursuit–evasion** (also called **graph searching**). Current research is typically limited to one of these two formulations.

## Discrete formulation

In the discrete formulation of the pursuit–evasion problem, the environment is modeled as a graph.

### Problem definition

There are innumerable possible variants of pursuit–evasion, though they tend to share many elements. A typical, basic example is as follows (cops and robber games): Pursuers and evaders occupy nodes of a graph. The two sides take alternate turns, which consist of each member either staying put or moving along an edge to an adjacent node. If a pursuer occupies the same node as an evader the evader is captured and removed from the graph. The question usually posed is how many pursuers are necessary to ensure the eventual capture of all the evaders. If one pursuer suffices, the graph is called a cop-win graph. In this case, a single evader can always be captured in time linear to the number of *n* nodes of the graph. Capturing *r* evaders with *k* pursuers can take in the order of *rn* time as well, but the exact bounds for more than one pursuer are still unknown.

Often the movement rules are altered by changing the velocity of the evaders. This velocity is the maximum number of edges that an evader can move along in a single turn. In the example above, the evaders have a velocity of one. At the other extreme is the concept of infinite velocity, which allows an evader to move to any node in the graph so long as there is a path between its original and final positions that contains no nodes occupied by a pursuer. Similarly some variants arm the pursuers with "helicopters" which allow them to move to any vertex on their turn.

Other variants ignore the restriction that pursuers and evaders must always occupy a node and allow for the possibility that they are positioned somewhere along an edge. These variants are often referred to as **sweeping problems**, whilst the previous variants would fall under the category of **searching problems**.

### Variants

Several variants are equivalent to important graph parameters. Specifically, finding the number of pursuers necessary to capture a single evader with infinite velocity in a graph *G* (when pursuers and evader are not constrained to move turn by turn, but move simultaneously) is equivalent to finding the treewidth of *G*, and a winning strategy for the evader may be described in terms of a haven in *G*. If this evader is invisible to the pursuers then the problem is equivalent to finding the pathwidth or vertex separation. Finding the number of pursuers necessary to capture a single invisible evader in a graph *G* in a single turn (that is, one movement by the pursuers from their initial deployment) is equivalent to finding the size of the minimum dominating set of *G*, assuming the pursuers can initially deploy wherever they like (this later assumption holds when pursuers and evader are assumed to move turn by turn).

The board game Scotland Yard is a variant of the pursuit–evasion problem.

### Complexity

The complexity of several pursuit–evasion variants, namely how many pursuers are needed to clear a given graph and how a given number of pursuers should move on the graph to clear it with either a minimum sum of their travel distances or minimum task-completion time, has been studied by Nimrod Megiddo, S. L. Hakimi, Michael R. Garey, David S. Johnson, and Christos H. Papadimitriou (J. ACM 1988), and R. Borie, C. Tovey and S. Koenig.

### Multi-player pursuit–evasion games

Solving multi-player pursuit–evasion games has also received increased attention; see R Vidal et al., Chung and Furukawa , Hespanha et al. and the references therein. Marcos A. M. Vieira and Ramesh Govindan and Gaurav S. Sukhatme provided an algorithm that computes the minimal completion time strategy for pursuers to capture all evaders when all players make optimal decisions based on complete knowledge. This algorithm can also be applied to when evader are significantly faster than pursuers. Unfortunately, these algorithms do not scale beyond a small number of robots. To overcome this problem, Marcos A. M. Vieira and Ramesh Govindan and Gaurav S. Sukhatme design and implement a partition algorithm where pursuers capture evaders by decomposing the game into multiple multi-pursuer single-evader games.

## Continuous formulation

In the continuous formulation of pursuit–evasion games, the environment is modeled geometrically, typically taking the form of the Euclidean plane or another manifold. Variants of the game may impose maneuverability constraints on the players, such as a limited range of speed or acceleration. Obstacles may also be used.

If a lion is chasing a man with equal speed, then it is clear that the man can escape on a plane or a sphere by always moving on the straight line away from the lion. When both are confined in a circular disk, it seemed likely for the lion to catch the man. Besicovitch proved in 1952 that the man has a strategy to evade capture indefinitely against any strategy.

## Applications

One of the initial applications of the pursuit–evasion problem was missile guidance systems formulated by Rufus Isaacs at the RAND Corporation.


title: Pursuit to Algiers

abstract: Pursuit to Algiers (1945) is the twelfth entry in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film series of fourteen. Elements in the story pay homage to an otherwise unrecorded affair mentioned by Dr. Watson at the beginning of the 1903 story "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", notably the steamship Friesland. Off-camera, Watson also recounts to his audience another unrecorded affair mentioned in the 1924 story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", that of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, "a story for which the world is not yet prepared".

text:
# Pursuit to Algiers

***Pursuit to Algiers*** (1945) is the twelfth entry in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film series of fourteen. Elements in the story pay homage to an otherwise unrecorded affair mentioned by Dr. Watson at the beginning of the 1903 story "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", notably the steamship *Friesland*. Off-camera, Watson also recounts to his audience another unrecorded affair mentioned in the 1924 story "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", that of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, "a story for which the world is not yet prepared".

## Plot

About to leave London for a much-needed holiday, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson receive a cryptic invitation. Intrigued, Holmes accepts and is met by the prime minister of Rovenia \[Rovinia\], who begs him to escort Prince Nikolas home. His father has been assassinated, and, as his heir, Nikolas is now king. Holmes agrees.

Arrangements have already been made for an airplane. When it develops engine problems, a smaller replacement has room only for the Prince and Holmes, leaving Watson behind. When Watson protests, Holmes suggests that he follow on a passenger ship bound for Algiers.

On the voyage, Watson reads that the airplane has crashed in the Pyrenees and that it is unlikely that there are any survivors. Holmes, however, has an aversion to plans made by others and is aboard the ship with Nikolas. He instructs Watson to introduce the prince to the other passengers as his nephew. Though Watson suspects everyone, from singer Sheila Woodbury to exercise fanatic Agatha Dunham to a secretive pair who later turn out to be archeologists, of being killers, it is not until the ship makes an unscheduled stop at Lisbon that the real Soviet agents come aboard: Gregor, circus knife-thrower Mirko, and a hulking mute named Gubec.

First, Mirko tries to kill Holmes by throwing a knife through a porthole, then Gregor substitutes an explosive party favor, but Holmes foils both attempts. Finally, the villains succeed in kidnapping the prince when they dock at Algiers, only for Holmes to reveal that the "prince" was a decoy; the real prince had been posing as a steward, hidden in plain sight the whole time. The decoy Nikolas is later recovered unharmed.

## Cast

## Reception

Universal Studios film director Roy Neill delivers a tongue-in-cheek version of the Sherlock Holmes film genre in *Pursuit to Algiers* in which even the actors "seem aware they are trapped within a genre picture."

> “His interminable success: could he not fail just once and prove himself a human being!" - Actor Basil Rathbone on the cinematic rendition of Sherlock Holmes

This "camp" portrayal of the famous detective exaggerates every virtue of Conan Doyle's literary creation, with Neill and Rathbone issuing a burlesque reveling in Holmes unerring expertise in everything” ranging from the "Moorish architecture of Lisbon" to "recognizing a knife-thrower glimpsed at an obscure Parisian circus" and perfectly identifying "suspicious foreigners" based on their "gravely flawed fashion sense."

## Footnotes

* Schwartzman, Theresa. 2004. *Pursuit to Algiers, 1945*. UCLA Film and Television Archive: 12th Festival of Preservation, July 22-August 21, 2004. Festival guest publication.

## InfoBox

| Pursuit to Algiers | |
| --- | --- |
| 1946 US theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Roy William Neill |
| Screenplay by | Leonard Lee |
| Based on | Characters
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Produced by | Howard Benedict |
| Starring | Basil Rathbone
Nigel Bruce |
| Cinematography | Paul Ivano |
| Edited by | Saul A. Goodkind |
| Music by | Edgar Fairchild |
| Production
company | Universal Pictures |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date | * October 26, 1945 (1945-10-26) |
| Running time | 65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |


title: Purna River (tributary of Godavari)

abstract: The Purna River is a major left-bank tributary of Godavari River originating in the Ajanta Range of hills in Aurangabad District, Maharashtra.The river lies in the rain shadow region of Maharashtra, on the Deccan Plateau, flowing through the districts of Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldana, Hingoli and Parbhani with a large catchment area measuring about 15,579 km⁲. This enormous catchment area is often tagged as a sub-basin of Godavari River and along with its tributaries forms a dendritic drainage pattern. It is a prime river in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra running for about 373 km before it converges with Godavari River south of Purna city in the Parbhani district.

text:
# Purna River (tributary of Godavari)

The **Purna River** is a major left-bank tributary of Godavari River originating in the Ajanta Range of hills in Aurangabad District, Maharashtra.The river lies in the rain shadow region of Maharashtra, on the Deccan Plateau, flowing through the districts of Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldana, Hingoli and Parbhani with a large catchment area measuring about 15,579 km2. This enormous catchment area is often tagged as a sub-basin of Godavari River and along with its tributaries forms a dendritic drainage pattern. It is a prime river in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra running for about 373 km before it converges with Godavari River south of Purna city in the Parbhani district.

## Origin

The river originates in the Ajanta Hill range within the Gautala Wildlife Sanctuary at an elevation of 838m. The sanctuary provides the much needed forest cover acting like a sponge to soak in the 711 mm to 889 mm of rain received per year, a crucial source of water, in this rain scarce region of Maharashtra.

## Course

The river has an extensive course measuring up to 373 km in length making it longer than the River Thames of Great Britain. Very close to its origin, it is dammed through the Nevpur Medium Irrigation Project within the Kannad Taluka, Aurangabad district. Collecting the tributary Anjana within the Sillod taluka, it ends its short course within Aurangabad and enters the Jalna where it is consecutively joined by two rivers, Girija at Walsakhalsa and Kelana at Jafrabad. Beyond this the river enters the Buldana district where it spreads out into the backwaters of the Khadakpurna dam and also receives another small tributary called Damna. Then on the river assumes the role of a natural boundary between the two districts of Hingoli and Parbhani. Along the course here its flow is interrupted by two dams; Yeldari Dam \- the second largest in Marathwada \- which forms a large reservoir with live capacity of 0.81 billion cubic meters and Siddheshwar Dam. The flow, now considerably reduced due to the presence of the two dams, trickles along down south, leaving the boundary between Hingoli and Parbhani and flowing down into Parbhani. Just before SH 222 crosses the river, it is joined by its largest tributary - Dudhana River, thereby augmenting its flow. In its last lap the river flows through Purna city where it is damned for the last time and ultimately flows into the Godavari River at an elevation of about 351m.

## Tributaries

The longest tributary of Purna is Dudhana river. The list of the most significant tributaries is provided below, from the river that form a confluence nearest to the origin to the one furthest away.

| Order | Left Bank | Taluka, District | Right Bank |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | ---- | Silod, Aurangabad | Anjana |
| 2 | ---- | Bhokardan, Jalna | Girija |
| 3 | Kelana | Jafrabad, Jalna | ---- |
| 4 | Damna | Jafrabad, Jalna | ---- |
| 5 | Lendi | Jafrabad, Jalna | ---- |
| 6 | Aamna | Purna, Buldhana | ---- |
| 7 | ---- | Purna, Parbhani | Dudhana |

## Dams

The river has a number of significant dams built along its course in order to harness the water in this drought prone region. The second largest dam in Marathwada is the Yeldari Dam, an earth fill type of structure nearly 51 m high with gross storage capacity of 0.934 billion cubic meters. Khadakpurna and Siddheshwar are other dams located on the river. The region relies heavily on these reservoirs to meet the water requirements with delay or poor monsoon dramatically affecting the region resulting in droughts and abysmal agricultural productivity.

## InfoBox

| Purna river | |
| --- | --- |
| Purna river at Kedarkheda | |
| Native name | पूर्णा नदी (Marathi) |
| Location | |
| Country | India |
| State | Maharashtra |
| Region | Marathwada |
| District | Aurangabad, Jalna, Buldana, Parbhani, Hingoli, Akola |
| City | Purna |
| Physical characteristics | |
|  | |
| Source | Ajanta Range |
| location | Gautala Wildlife Sanctuary, Aurangabad, Marathwada, Maharashtra, India |
| coordinates | 20°33′N 75°19′E / 20.550°N 75.317°E / 20.550; 75.317 |
| elevation | 838 m (2,749 ft) |
|  | |
| Mouth | Godavari River |
| location | Jambulbet, Parbhani district, Marathwada, Maharashtra |
| coordinates | 19°10′N 72°02′E / 19.167°N 72.033°E / 19.167; 72.033 |
| elevation | 351 m (1,152 ft) |
| Length | 373 km (232 mi) |
| Basin size | 15,579 km2 (6,015 sq mi) |
| Basin features | |
| Tributaries |  |
| left | Kelana River, Damna River, Lendi River |
| right | Anjana River, Girija River, Dudhana River |


title: Purnach

abstract: The Purnach is a right tributary to the river Ponoy on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. The Purnach runs to the south of and roughly parallel to the Ponoy. The confluence of the two rivers is 77 km upstream from where the Ponoy flows into the White Sea. It is 137 kilometres (85 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 1,600 square kilometres (620 sq mi).

text:
# Purnach

The **Purnach** is a right tributary to the river Ponoy on the Kola Peninsula, Russia. The Purnach runs to the south of and roughly parallel to the Ponoy. The confluence of the two rivers is 77 km upstream from where the Ponoy flows into the White Sea. It is 137 kilometres (85 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 1,600 square kilometres (620 sq mi).

## InfoBox

| Purnach | |
| --- | --- |
|  | |
| Location | |
| Country | Russia |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Mouth | Ponoy |
| coordinates | 67°01′45″N 40°13′20″E / 67.0292°N 40.2221°E / 67.0292; 40.2221 |
| Length | 137 km (85 mi) |
| Basin size | 1,600 km2 (620 sq mi) |
| Basin features | |
| Progression | PonoyWhite Sea |


title: Pyotr Tkachev

abstract: Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev was a Russian writer, critic and revolutionary theorist who formulated many of the revolutionary principles that were later developed and put into action by Vladimir Lenin. Although Tkachev is sometimes described as "the First Bolshevik", he did not figure prominently in the mythology of the Soviet Union.

text:
# Pyotr Tkachev

**Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev** (Russian: Пётр Ники́тич Ткачёв; 29 June 1844 – 4 January 1886) was a Russian writer, critic and revolutionary theorist who formulated many of the revolutionary principles that were later developed and put into action by Vladimir Lenin. Although Tkachev is sometimes described as "the First Bolshevik", he did not figure prominently in the mythology of the Soviet Union.

## Biography

### Early life

Tkachev was born in 1844 to a minor gentry family. He was born in the village of Sivistov, at the time located in the Pskov Governorate. His sister Alexandra Nikitichna Annenskaya was a writer for young adults.

Tkachev began attending St. Petersburg University in 1861 and took part in a series of violent student protests that year. Arrested by police during a riot on 11 October 1861, he likely came into contact with radical Russian political philosophy through other inmates during the months he was incarcerated at a Kronstadt prison. After his arrest due to participating in the student strikes of 1861, Tkachev later spent several years in Peter and Paul Fortress.

### Political career

Tkachev praised Nikolay Chernyshevsky's novel *What Is to Be Done?*, calling it the "gospel of the movement".

Populists like Tkachev argued against waiting indefinitely for the social revolution while also in the meantime condemned revolt and terrorism by the vanguard as he believed it risked allowing the tsarist government to stabilise itself by the advancement of capitalism. Only the establishment of a revolutionary dictatorship through seizure of power made it possible to ensure the correct political conditions for a transition to socialism. This would become the guiding principle of Vladimir Lenin's theory of revolution.

The populists returned to Jacobin methods of coups, conspiracy and terrorism in the name of the people in the 1870s after having exchanged it for social revolution. According to Figes, Tkachev's writings marked the "crucial watershed", establishing a bridge between Nechayev's Jacobinism, the populists' "classic tradition of Land and Liberty" and Lenin's Marxist tradition.

### Meeting with Sergey Nechayev and exile

By the mid-1870s, Tkachev had become mesmerised by the works of Sergey Nechayev which would lead to him spending another time in prison before going into exile in Switzerland. It was here in Switzerland that Tkachev crudely adopted Karl Marx's sociology which resulted in him parting ways with populism.

In the mid-1870s, Tkachev formulated a violent critique of the Going to the People movement which had consisted of thousands of students and populists travelling to peasant villages to live and preach among serfs. In it, he formulated his belief that propaganda could not initiate a revolution because "the laws of social progress" made it so that the regime always would have the support of wealthier peasants.

Therefore, he instead advocated performing a coup, a seizure of power by a revolutionary vanguard by which would then proceed with establishing a revolutionary dictatorship and initiate the transition to socialism. Tkachev believed that the time was perfect for the seizure of power and that it should be done as soon as possible while there was no social force that was prepared to side with the government, something that would come with the development of the bourgeoisie and capitalism.

A rallying cry in one of the critique's passages, which were later to be copied by Lenin in October 1917, read: "This is why we cannot wait. This is why we claim that a revolution is indispensable, and indispensable now, at this very moment, We cannot allow the postponement. It is now or—perhaps very soon—never". He further wrote that a conspiratorial and elitist party, disciplined and centralised akin to an army, was essential for that to succeed, which was also later echoed by Lenin.

### Later life and death

In 1882 Tkachev fell seriously ill and spent his last few years in a psychiatric hospital. He died on 4 January 1886 in Paris at the age of 41.

## Political ideas

Historian Andrzej Walicki argued that the form of economic determinism espoused by Tkachev differed significantly with the historical materialism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, stating: "This specific 'economic materialism' of Tkachev did not amount to Marxism; it constituted rather in a peculiar mixture of some elements of Marxism with a rather primitive utilitarianism, grossly exaggerating the role of direct economic motivation in individual behavior".

### Impact and following

A radical terrorist group called the People's Will (*Narodnaya Volya*) formed in 1879, influenced by Tkachev's teaching, would assassinate Tsar Alexander II on 1 March 1881.

### Vladimir Lenin and Tkachevism

Orlando Figes has claimed that Lenin owed more to Tkachev than any other Russian theorist. Chief among the ideas that Tkachev espoused that were influential in the development of Lenin's political philosophy was the idea of a revolutionary vanguard. While not explicitly using this Leninist term, Tkachev argued that in the absence of a popular, peasant-based revolution, revolutionaries should rise up and defeat a tyrannical government. The Leninist approach to Marxism was rooted in his origins in the Russian revolutionary movement, with the writings and ideas of Tkachev, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Pyotr Zaichnevsky, Sergey Nechayev and the People's Will injected into the passive Marxism to give it a "Russian dose of conspiratorial politics". This enabled the precipitation of a revolution by political action.

Tkachev was a proponent of a closely organised revolutionary party: his vision of the revolutionary process was very close to that of the French Blanquist movement, although perhaps not directly influenced by it. Yet, in his commemoration of Blanqui, which could not be delivered on the occasion of his death but was published in *Ni Dieu, ni maître* on 9 January 1881, Tkachev himself acknowledged with deep-felt words the Russian revolutionaries' debt to him: "Yes, he was our inspirer and our role model in the great art of conspiracy." In Tkachev's eyes, the principal duty of revolutionary parties was not to engage in propaganda efforts, but to overthrow the government, to seize power in the name of the proletariat and to establish a harsh revolutionary dictatorship.

Hal Draper had argued against this view, pointing out that Tkachev is only mentioned a handful of times in Lenin's writings and the only significant reference to him in *What Is to Be Done?* is a negative one.

Friedrich Engels also took issue with Tkachev and his ideas about Russian development.

## Bibliography

* Figes, Orlando (2014). *A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924*. London: The Bodley Head. ISBN 9781847922915.
* Hardy, Deborah (1977). *Petr Tkachev: The Critic as Jacobin*. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-95547-3
* Riasanovsky, Nicholas (2000). *A History of Russia* (sixth ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 383. ISBN 0-19-512179-1.
* Venturi, Franco (1972). "Pëtr Nikitič Tkačëv". *Il populismo russo* (in Italian). Vol. II: *Dalla liberazione dei servi al nihilismo* (2 ed.). Turin: Einaudi. pp. 326–393. (English language edition of the whole work, introduced by Isaiah Berlin: *Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in 19th Century Russia*. Translated by Haskell, Francis (2 ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1983.)

## Further reading

* Pipes, Richard (1969). "Russian Marxism and its Populist Background". *Russian Review* (19:4). pp. 316–337.

## InfoBox

| Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev | |
| --- | --- |
|  | |
| Born | Pyotr Nikitich Tkachev
(1844-06-29)29 June 1844
Sivtsovo, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 4 January 1886(1886-01-04) (aged 41)
Paris, France |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, critic, revolutionary theoretician |


title: Pyotr Telezhnikov

abstract: Pyotr Dmitryvich Telezhnikov was an Imperial Russian division, corps and army commander. He was made a Poruchik in 1886, a Stabskapitän in 1890, a captain in 1892, a Podpolkovnik in 1896, a Polkovnik (colonel) in 1900 and a major general in 1909. He fought in the war against the Empire of Japan. He retained his original German surname until the war against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, when changed it to a Russian one. In October 1917, he left Minsk for Petrograd. After the October Revolution, he offered his services to the Soviet Red Army, where he was stationed at Yaroslavsky District, Yaroslavl Oblast from January to December 1919. He retired on August 7, 1920.

text:
# Pyotr Telezhnikov

**Pyotr Dmitryvich Telezhnikov** (birth surname Schreider; born 31 March 1863) was an Imperial Russian division, corps and army commander. He was made a Poruchik in 1886, a Stabskapitän in 1890, a captain in 1892, a Podpolkovnik (lieutenant colonel) in 1896, a Polkovnik (colonel) in 1900 and a major general in 1909. He fought in the war against the Empire of Japan. He retained his original German surname until the war against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, when changed it to a Russian one. In October 1917, he left Minsk for Petrograd. After the October Revolution, he offered his services to the Soviet Red Army, where he was stationed at Yaroslavsky District, Yaroslavl Oblast from January to December 1919. He retired on August 7, 1920.

## Awards

## Sources

* "Pyotr Telezhnikov". «Russian army in a Great war» project.

## InfoBox

| Pyotr Dmitryvich Telezhnikov | |
| --- | --- |
| Born | March 31, 1863 |
| Allegiance | Russian Empire |
| Service/branch | Imperial Russian Army |
| Rank | lieutenant general |
| Commands | 17th Infantry Division
9th Army Corps
2nd Army |
| Battles/wars | Russo-Japanese War
World War I |


title: Pyrofomes castanopsidis

abstract: Pyrofomes castanopsidis is a species of polypore fungus in the family Polyporaceae. It was described as new to science in 2011 by Chinese mycologists Bao-Kai Cui and Yu-Cheng Dai. The type collections of the fungus were made in Luofushan Forest Park in Huizhou, where the fungus was discovered growing on a live plant of Castanopsis. The specific epithet castanopsidis refers to the genus of the host plant.

text:
# Pyrofomes castanopsidis

***Pyrofomes castanopsidis*** is a species of polypore fungus in the family Polyporaceae. It was described as new to science in 2011 by Chinese mycologists Bao-Kai Cui and Yu-Cheng Dai. The type collections of the fungus were made in Luofushan Forest Park in Huizhou (Guangdong Province, China), where the fungus was discovered growing on a live plant of *Castanopsis*. The specific epithet *castanopsidis* refers to the genus of the host plant.

## InfoBox

| *Pyrofomes castanopsidis* | |
| --- | --- |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Fungi |
| Division: | Basidiomycota |
| Class: | Agaricomycetes |
| Order: | Polyporales |
| Family: | Polyporaceae |
| Genus: | *Pyrofomes* |
| Species: | ***P. castanopsidis*** |
| Binomial name | |
| ***Pyrofomes castanopsidis***<br>B.K.Cui & Y.C.Dai (2011) | |
|


title: Pyrodictium abyssi

abstract: Pyrodictium abyssi is a species of heterotrophic marine archaeal hyperthermophile that can grow at 110 °C (230 °F). Its type strain is AV2.

text:
# Pyrodictium abyssi

***Pyrodictium abyssi*** is a species of heterotrophic marine archaeal hyperthermophile that can grow at 110 °C (230 °F). Its type strain is AV2 (DSM 6158).

## Further reading

Kennelly, Peter J. (April 4, 2014). "Protein Ser/Thr/Tyr Phosphorylation in the Archaea". *The Journal of Biological Chemistry*. **289** (14): 9480–9487. doi:10.1074/jbc.R113.529412. PMC 3974998. PMID 24554702.

## InfoBox

| *Pyrodictium abyssi* | |
| --- | --- |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Archaea |
| Phylum: | Thermoproteota |
| Class: | Thermoprotei |
| Order: | Desulfurococcales |
| Family: | Pyrodictiaceae |
| Genus: | *Pyrodictium* |
| Species: | ***P. abyssi***
Pley and Stetter 1991 |
| Binomial name | |
| ***Pyrodictium abyssi***
 | |
|


title: Pyrausta moupinalis

abstract: Pyrausta moupinalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by South in 1901. It is found in China (Sichuan).

text:
# Pyrausta moupinalis

***Pyrausta moupinalis*** is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by South in 1901. It is found in China (Sichuan).

## InfoBox

| *Pyrausta moupinalis* | |
| --- | --- |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Crambidae |
| Genus: | *Pyrausta* |
| Species: | ***P. moupinalis*** |
| Binomial name | |
| ***Pyrausta moupinalis***<br>South in Leech & South, 1901 | |
|


title: Pyrausta nugalis

abstract: Pyrausta nugalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Snellen in 1899. It is found on Java and in India (Assam).

text:
# Pyrausta nugalis

***Pyrausta nugalis*** is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Snellen in 1899. It is found on Java and in India (Assam).

## InfoBox

| *Pyrausta nugalis* | |
| --- | --- |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Crambidae |
| Genus: | *Pyrausta* |
| Species: | ***P. nugalis*** |
| Binomial name | |
| ***Pyrausta nugalis***<br>(Snellen, 1899) | |
|
| Synonyms | |
| * *Botys nugalis* Snellen, 1899 | |


title: Qalamoun offensive (May–June 2015)

abstract: The Qalamoun offensive was an offensive led by the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, supported by the Syrian Army, during the Syrian Civil War, against the al-Nusra Front and other Syrian opposition forces entrenched in the mountains of the Qalamoun region.

text:
# Qalamoun offensive (May–June 2015)

The **Qalamoun offensive (May–June 2015)** was an offensive led by the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, supported by the Syrian Army, during the Syrian Civil War, against the al-Nusra Front and other Syrian opposition forces entrenched in the mountains of the Qalamoun region.

## Background

In mid-November 2013, the Syrian military, backed by Hezbollah, launched an offensive against the rebel-held Qalamoun Mountains in an attempt to cut rebel supply lines to Damascus from Lebanon. The strategic region had been used by rebel forces as a rear base for its operations around the capital Damascus. The battle was primarily led on the rebel side by the al-Nusra Front. By late April 2014, the last major rebel stronghold in the region fell to the Syrian Army, as it secured all of the towns in the region. However, 3,000 rebels retreated into the mountains to conduct guerrilla hit-and-run attacks.

From June through August 2014, a new Syrian government offensive against remnant rebel forces led to the rebels coming under siege. Over the following months, the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant maintained a foothold in the region's rugged terrain. Over 20 FSA factions merged into the Gathering of Western Qalamoun group, while by the end of the year, six eastern Qalamoun FSA brigades formed the Mujahideen Shura Council. At the same time, the arrival of an ISIL expeditionary force lead to a wave of FSA defections into ISIL numbering in the hundreds, further boosting the Islamic State's presence in the region, which reached approximately 1,000 fighters. Al-Nusra maintained 600 militants in Qalamoun's eastern areas, forging an alliance with ISIL in the region.

## The offensive

### Prelude

Between 25 and 28 March 2015, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah captured two hills near the town of Flitah and several others in the Zabadani region. The fighting left 30 rebels dead. The Lebanese Army seized some positions on the outskirts of Arsal from jihadist fighters. By 3 April, the Syrian military had advanced on three axes towards Zabadani, securing the western and eastern approaches to the city, and relatively paralyzing the defending rebels. Fifteen al-Nusra fighters attempting to reinforce the rebels in Zabadani were killed trying to breach the cordon.

In mid-April, opposition forces captured a strategic hill overlooking Flita that had been held by Hezbollah fighters. At this time, Hezbollah was preparing for a new offensive, considered to be a decisive battle for Qalamoun, while the rebels were making efforts to unite different warring opposition groups in an effort to take control of the Qalamoun region. However, ISIL and al-Nusra were still competing to win over communities in the Arsal area and the rebels in both Zabadani's mountains range and in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains switched from offense to defense. They were preparing trenches, tunnels, bunkers, and barricades, in anticipation of a possible battle in the spring.

On the morning on 25 April 2015, explosions targeted the Brigade 155 (main Syrian Scud missile-base) and Brigade 65 bases in Qalamoun. Two weapons convoys were also targeted, reportedly killing one person. According to an opposition source, the targets were Hezbollah camps and ammo storages within the two bases. Several explosions were heard in the areas of Kteife, Yabrud and a village in Qalamoun. Plumes of smoke were seen above the Brigade 65 base, shortly after the strikes.

According to conflicting sources, the attack was attributed to a ground attack by Al-Nusra Front, or an air operation of the Israeli Air Force. Unprecedently, unlike previous cases of no comment, Israeli official sources denied any involvement of Israeli forces in the incident.

### Operations begin

Early on 4 May, the al-Nusra Front and allied Islamists launched a preemptive attack against SAA and Hezbollah forces, and by the next day captured several positions. The aim of the assault was to capture the border-crossing into Lebanon near Assal al-Ward. At the same time, Hezbollah ambushed an al-Nusra convoy near Tfail, killing 15 and wounding 30 militants.

On the morning of 6 May, heavy fighting erupted along the border near Assal al-Ward. On 7 May, Hezbollah launched a series of limited and quick operations from the Lebanese side of the border, while Syrian Army operations commenced from the Syrian side. Two days after the fighting at Assad al-Ward started, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah seized control of a number of hilltops overlooking Assal al-Ward, reportedly killing dozens of rebels and securing the town. Hezbollah fighters advancing from Assal al-Ward linked up with fighters coming from the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Brital. In addition, government forces separated rebels at Zabadani from those in the mountains, severing their logistical lines, and putting both under separate blockades.

On 9 May, a military source claimed government forces captured three villages in the Jour Al-'Anib area.

Rebels abandoned their camps in a hurry in the face of the Hezbollah advance and left groceries, medicines and other supplies which littered their camps. Thousands of retreating rebels were expected to flee towards the Lebanese town of Arsal, after pulling back first to the outskirts of Ras al-Maara. The withdrawing militants also reportedly left behind 150 heavy machine guns (from 12.7 to 23 mm caliber) and anti-tank rockets (firing range from 3.5 to 5 kilometers). The quick collapse and retreat of some 2,000 al-Nusra Front fighters was attributed to a "lack of sufficient experience in direct fighting", according to a Salafist sheikh who maintained contacts with al-Nusra and ISIL.

On 11 May, the Army and Hezbollah captured the Al-Barouh hill outside Al-Juba, taking total control of the outskirts of the village, and seized the border-crossing at Ma'br Al-Kharbah. In addition, military sources reported government troops captured five small villages in the region. Hezbollah advances were also confirmed by the pro-opposition SOHR group.

Despite the fighting taking place over the previous week, an all-out battle had reportedly not yet started, with some predictions of it happening in the second half of the month. ISIL forces, entrenched six kilometers away near Arsal, had also not yet joined the fighting. However, ISIL commanders from Iraq were reportedly brought in for the upcoming battle with Hezbollah.

On 12 May, al-Nusra and its allies vowed to "eradicate" ISIL in the Qalamoun region, after ISIL reportedly "betrayed" their rebel allies and attacked several of their bases in the border area, as well as blocking rebel transport routes. According to Mario Abou Zeid from Beirut's Carnegie Middle East Center, Syrian Intelligence directed its operatives within ISIL in Qalamoun to launch probing skirmishes against FSA forces to test their defenses, and in an attempt to distract them from the main battle.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah reportedly seized more areas between Ras al-Maara and the Lebanese village of Nahleh. During their operations, Hezbollah used unmanned drones. According to the SOHR, eight Hezbollah militants were killed in the Qalamoun mountains between 11 and 12 May. The retreating rebels were reportedly concentrated on the mountain's highest hilltop, Tallat Mussa. Still, the day's fighting was lighter due to intermittent rainfall and fog.

### Capture of Tallat Mussa

On 13 May, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah took full control of Tallat Mussa after capturing at least nine rebel positions during heavy exchanges of artillery and rocket fire along the ridge between Al-Juba, Ras al-Maara and Assal al-Ward. Earlier in the day, Army troops, backed up by Hezbollah, seized half of the outskirts of Ras al-Maara and advanced toward the highlands of Jabal al-Barouh which is linked to Tallat Mussa. Surviving rebel fighters were pushed towards the outskirts of Arsal. The night of the assault on Tallat Mussa, temperatures reached zero degrees Celsius as it rained and hailed. Before taking the mountain top, Syrian Army soldiers had to climb up the slopes under heavy mortar and sniper fire. According to the SOHR, 36 rebels, 18 Hezbollah and 13 NDF fighters were killed during the fighting, while Lebanese security sources put the death toll at 53 rebels and four Hezbollah fighters. The capture of the hilltop was described by Elijah J. Magnier, the AL RAI Chief International Correspondent, as the beginning of the long-announced battle. The Syrian Army also claimed to have captured the hills of al-Jerafah, Sin al-Sakhrey, al-Reya, Ouqbet al-Faseh, and all of the barrens of Ras al-Maara.

### Fighting for the Jubbah Heights and Tal Thaljah

On the next day, Hezbollah swept areas around Tallat Mussa for any remaining pockets of rebels, as it entered the final stage of the offensive. Hezbollah clashed with militants at Jabal al-Barouh, while it took control of the Ras al-Marra-Arsal border-crossing, which was the last border entry into Qalamoun from Lebanon, as well as Dahr al-Hawa Hill, which overlooks Arsal and Younin. In addition, the SAA and NDF launched an attack on al-Nusra reinforcements coming from the Jubbah Heights. On the same day, ISIL and the al-Nusra Front engaged in fierce clashes along the Lebanese side of the border, after ISIL attempted to infiltrate al-Nusra positions in al-Zamarani and Wadi Ajram. ISIL's first attack wave around 5 P.M. was repelled by heavy artillery fire, but in the evening, ISIL launched a second attack that led to fierce fighting. The second attack was also eventually repelled, with ISIL fighters retreating to the north.

On 15 May, Hezbollah captured Jabal al-Barouh. In the evening, al-Nusra's frontline at Ras Al-Marra reportedly collapsed, after Hezbollah, in coordination with the SAA and NDF, captured the Ras Al-Marra barrens. In addition, Jabal Al-'Arteez was also seized. A victory speech by the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was announced for the following day to mark the end of the offensive.

On 16 May, Nasrallah said that Hezbollah had managed to expel rebel forces from Qalamoun, but that the battle for the region continued, since opposition fighters continued to be entrenched in certain areas. During the day, after reaching a "point of desperation", al-Nusra attacked and recaptured the Ras al-Marra border-crossing, after which it assaulted Tallat Mussa but was repelled.

On the next day, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah reportedly reached the area of al-Fakhte, on the eastern outskirts of Arsal, while rebel fighters were fortifying their positions at the Jubbah Heights, in preparation for an attack in the coming days. The Lebanese Army also shelled rebel positions near Arsal to prevent any possible attacks, after fears that retreating rebel fighters would regroup near Arsal grew, after they had withdrawn towards the outskirts of Flita and Ras al-Maara.

On 19 May, the SAA and Hezbollah captured the Flita barrens and the Flita-Arsal border-crossing, which al-Nusra captured the previous week. Following this advance, government troops started to prepare for the final assault on the heavily fortified Jubbah Heights. According to the Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV, the offensive had destroyed or dismantled 40 rebel bases and four operations rooms, with only one operations room remaining near Flita. On 20 May, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah captured a number of hilltops on the southern outskirts of Flita. Some rebels retreated toward Arsal, while others fled toward Jarajeer.

On 21 May, the Army and Hezbollah advanced further, capturing additional peaks and fully besieging the al-Nusra Front in a small portion of the mountains, as they were in full control of all of the border crossings in the Qalamoun region by this point and had regained 310 out of 780 square kilometers of Lebanese and Syrian territory seized by rebels. Two days later, Al-Manar reported the Army and Hezbollah had captured the Sadr al-Bustan hilltop.

On 25 May, Hezbollah and the 20th and 128th Brigades of the 1st Armored Division captured the western hills of Tal Thaljah, after al-Nusra made an attempt to counterattack the advancing Syria government forces on the hilltop, but was repelled. The battle for Tal Thaljah was the bloodiest for Hezbollah with six of their fighters dead as they fought uphill with no air cover due to bad weather. With this advance, government forces were in nearly total control of the Qalamoun Mountains on the Syrian side of the Syria-Lebanon border, and thus concluded their offensive. Afterwards, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah began redeploying their forces to the city of Al-Zabdani, to the southwest of the region. On 29 May, pro-government Al-Masdar News reported that the Syrian Army and Hezbollah had captured 90% of the Qalamoun Mountains, with the remaining 10% located on the Lebanese side of the Syria-Lebanon border and under ISIL control.

### Hezbollah advances at Arsal, Flita and Jarajeer

On 30 May, clashes renewed between Hezbollah, backed by Syrian troops and NDF, against rebel fighters in the mountains.

On 3 June, Hezbollah reportedly captured three hilltops east of Arsal and were advancing towards a strategic peak. Four days later, Syrian Army and Hezbollah forces made advances in the Flita countryside and the western barrens of Qalamoun, taking control of several strategic areas and pushing the rebels out of the Flita area. Pro-government troops captured the Al-Hamra-Qusair crossing, which links Flita and Arsal. Retreating rebels were forced to flee to an ISIL-controlled area. Meanwhile, Hezbollah fighters reportedly captured several peaks in the outskirts of Arsal, with Al-Nusra fighters withdrawing to a Syrian refugee camp and an amusement park in Wadi al-Hosn. Syrian Army and Hezbollah advances in the western rocky barrens continued the next day, as they captured the strategic hill that overlooks Jaroud Jarajeer at Qurnah Shab'ah. They then overpowered the retreating rebels at Wadi Al-Khashiyah, forcing them to withdraw from the Jaroud Jarajeer valley.

On 9 June, Hezbollah came into conflict, for the first time since the start of the offensive, with ISIL militants. The fighting started early in the morning when ISIL launched a surprise attack on four Hezbollah posts on the outskirts of Ras Baalbek. 48 militants and eight Hezbollah fighters were killed. The next day, Nasrallah stated the Syrian Army and Hezbollah were in control of the major parts of the mountain range, after defeating the Al-Nusra Front, and had begun a battle against ISIL. The same day, Hezbollah made more advances in the Qalamoun wastelands against the Al-Nusra Front, specifically towards the outskirts of Jarajeer, as nine of their fighters were killed.

As of 13 June, al-Nusra Front fighters were surrounded in the outskirts of Arsal. Fighting also continued near Jarajeer, where Hezbollah captured the Shmeis al-Hsan Heights. On 16 June, Hezbollah secured the areas of Tallet Ras Al-Kosh and Qornat Ras Al-Shabah on the outskirts of Jarajeer, which were the last remaining rebel-held hills in that area.

As of 21 June, the battle for the Qalamoun mountains had concluded, with only a small area remaining under rebel control. ISIL and al-Nusra Front fighters continued to hold the Jaroud Qarah area on the Syrian side of the border and the Arsal barrens on the Lebanese side. With the majority of operations ending, Syrian Army and Hezbollah units started to redeploy to the Zabadani front.

## Aftermath

On 23 June, the 20th and 128th Brigades of the Syrian Army's 1st Armored Division, in coordination with Hezbollah and the NDF, advanced to the Jaroud Qarah area and launched an assault on ISIL defensive positions, which was the last ISIL-controlled part of the Qalamoun mountains in Syria.

On 4 July, Hezbollah and the Syrian Army launched an offensive against Zabadani and by 15 July, they were advancing towards the town's center and had effectively encircled rebel forces in Zabadani.

On 24 September, a ceasefire was signed between the warring parties upon which the rebels would withdraw from Al-Zabadani within a six-month period, while surrendering all heavy weaponry. The agreement would be overseen by the United Nations office in Damascus.

After the implementation of the ceasefire, the besieging Hezbollah and the SAA troops redirected their attention towards the remaining parts of the Qalamoun Mountains still under rebel control, namely a smaller area in the Jaroud Rankous, located in southern Qalamoun, and larger area located in Jaroud Qarah, in northern Qalamoun. The Hezbollah also set itself out to recapture the Lebanese border-district of Arsal, from where the Jabhat Al-Nusra and ISIL have been receiving much of its reinforcement into the Qalamoun Mountains.

## Strategic analysis

Sami Nader, a professor in politics at the University of Saint Joseph in Lebanon stated regarding Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in the offensive; "they are in desperate need for an achievement to counter balance their losses; they need to sell it to their constituents in order to justify the continuing battle and involvement in Syria" adding that "Qalamoun is more of a media campaign than a real battle on the ground". Hezbollah media relations chief Mohammed Afif stated regarding the Qalamoun fighting "this was a media battle in the first regard", and for the first time Western Media outlets were invited to report on a Hezbollah offensive, including; CNN, BBC News, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal among others.

Hezbollah analyst and author Nick Blanford stated that Hezbollah needed to show that "this is not our Vietnam, we are winning this war, we are defending the borders of Lebanon", concluding that Hezbollah alone was not enough to prop up the government any longer. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy agreed with this assessment by stating that "even his \[Assad's\] most reliable Shiite allies may not be able to sustain him as the war's attrition increasingly highlights his demographic disadvantage". In the opinion of Jeffrey White from WINEP, the Syrian Arab Army played a strictly supportive role in the fighting.

## Reactions

### Foreign reactions

* Iran – Iranian foreign affairs adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, stated that "We are filled with pride and appreciation when we see that in recent days, the valiant Lebanese resistance (Hezbollah) has achieved great progress and excellent victories alongside the brave Syrian army," adding "We believe this will strengthen the axis of resistance, not just in Syria and Lebanon, but in the whole region".

33°57′36″N 36°21′43″E / 33.9600°N 36.3620°E / 33.9600; 36.3620

## InfoBox

| Qalamoun offensive (May–June 2015) | |
| --- | --- |
| Part of the Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War and
the Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon | |
|
Battle of Western Qalamoun (2013–2017)   Syrian Government & Hezbollah control   Lebanese Government & Hezbollah control   Syrian Opposition control For a war map of the current situation in Rif Dimashq, see here. | |
| Date 4 May – 21 June 2015
(1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days)  Location Qalamoun Mountains, Syria and Lebanon  Result Hezbollah-led victory
* Pro-Syrian government troops capture most of the mountainous border region and push the rebels to the outskirts of Arsal | |
| Belligerents | |
| **Syrian Arab Republic**
Hezbollah

Amal Movement | **Army of Conquest Qalamoun**
Islamic Front
Free Syrian Army
---  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (limited cooperation with al-Nusra Front until 12 May; in conflict since 12 May) |
| Commanders and leaders | |
| Gen. Ghassan
Col. Median
Ali Khalil Alian
Marwan Mughniyeh | Abu Malek al-Tali (al-Nusra Emir of Qalamoun)
Abu Massab
Abu Sahib
Abu Maria Al-Qahtani
---  Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi (ISIL Emir of Qalamoun)
Abu Balqis al-Baghdadi
Abdullah al-Iraqi (POW)
Abu al-Baraa (POW) |
| Units involved | |
| 1st Armoured Division
3rd Armoured Division
Republican Guard
National Defence Forces | Unknown |
| Strength | |
| 6,500
2,250 | 1,500–4,000
---  1,500 |
| Casualties and losses | |
| 75 killed | 244–300 killed (pro-Syrian gov. claim)
42+ killed (SOHR claim)
---  48 killed, 47 captured |


title: Put It All on Me

abstract: "Put It All on Me" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran featuring fellow English singer-songwriter Ella Mai written alongside producer Fred as a track from the former's fourth studio album, No.6 Collaborations Project, released through Asylum Records and Atlantic Records on 12 July 2019.

text:
# Put It All on Me

"**Put It All on Me**" is a song by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran featuring fellow English singer-songwriter Ella Mai written alongside producer Fred as a track from the former's fourth studio album, *No.6 Collaborations Project*, released through Asylum Records and Atlantic Records on 12 July 2019.

## Lyrics

The lyrics of the song is about someone they love and how they can always rely on each other. It describes the affection between Sheeran and Mai then the former sings about how he needs the touch and warmth of his woman following a hard day of interaction with the world. Also, his girl is his escape into bliss. The chorus of the song deals with Sheeran offering the girl the same patronage while inviting his girl to put all her troubles and worries on him hoping that he will absorb them away from her. Mai had a hard time putting words about how she feels for Sheeran. In this relationship, the couple created a perfect balance as they rely and depend on each other which is quite beautiful.

## Lyric video

A lyric video for the song was uploaded on Sheeran's YouTube account on 12 July 2019.

## Music video

A music video for the song was released on 22 December 2019, which was directed by Jason Koenig.

## Chart performance

"Put It All on Me" charted at number 48, 71, 3 and 22 in Australia, Canada, Swedish Heatseeker Chart and Bubbling Under Hot 100, respectively.

## Charts

| Chart (2019) | Peak
position |
| --- | --- |
| Australia (ARIA) | 48 |
| Canada (Canadian Hot 100) | 20 |
| Swedish Heatseeker Chart | 3 |
| US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles (*Billboard*) | 22 |

## Certifications

| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Canada (Music Canada) | Gold | 40,000 |
| United Kingdom (BPI) | Silver | 200,000 |
| Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
 | | |

## InfoBox

| "Put It All on Me" | |
| --- | --- |
|  | |
| Song by Ed Sheeran featuring Ella Mai | |
| from the album  *No.6 Collaborations Project* | |
| Released | 12 July 2019
 |
| Genre | Pop |
| Length | 3:17 |
| Label |  |
| Songwriter(s) |  |
| Producer(s) | Fred |
|  | |
| Music video | |
| "Put It All on Me" on YouTube | |
|  | |