It is 150 km long, and flows through the cities of the central forest (Miedzylesie): Habelschwerdt (Bystrzyca Kłodzka) and Glatz (Kłodzko). It then runs eastward. Other cities on the river are Patschkau (Paczków), Ottmachau (Otmuchów), Lausitzer Neiße (Lewin Brzeski) and Schurgast (Skorogoszcz). Finally, it flows at the village of Riebnig (Rybna) southeast from Brieg (Brzeg) into the Oder.
The Glatzer Neiße has often left its banks and flooded nearby cities, at times destroying them completely. City chronicles from Kłodzko mention floods in the following years:
Oder River
The Oder River (; Czech/) is a river in Central Europe. It starts in the Czech Republic and flows through Poland and Germany. It forms 187 kilometers of the border between Poland and Germany. The river is 854 kilometres long and ends in the Szczecin Lagoon in the Baltic Sea.
Some bigger towns the Oder passes are Wrocław, Eisenhüttenstadt, Frankfurt on the Oder, Szczecin and Police. The biggest city on the Oder River is Wrocław, in Lower Silesia, Poland.
The Oder River has different names in different languages. Most of these names are very similar, or almost the same:
These names come from the Latin language names. In Medieval Latin the river was called "Od(d)era". In Renaissance Latin, which was invented in 1534, the river was called "Viadrus".
In the Old Church Slavonic language, the name of the river was Vjodr.
The Oder is 854 km long. 112 km pass through the Czech Republic. 742 km pass through Poland. 187 km make up part of the border between Germany and Poland.
The Oder is the second-longest river in Poland. (The Vistula is the longest river.)
It begins in a watershed in the Oder Mountains that is 118,861 km². This basin is mostly in Poland, but a little bit is in the Czech Republic and Germany. The river runs through five voivodeships in Poland, and two states in Germany.
The river ends in the Szczecin Lagoon near Police, Poland. Here the Oder splits into three other rivers: the Dziwna River, the Świna River, and the Peene River. These three rivers start in Szczecin Lagoon and end Bay of Pomerania in the Baltic Sea.
The biggest city on the Oder River is Wrocław in Lower Silesia, Poland.
The Oder passes through 28 major cities and towns. These are:
After the river splits, the Dziwna River branch passes through 3 towns:
The Świna River branch passes through:
The Peene River branch passes through:
These towns sit on the Szczecin Lagoon:
Odra
Odra can be any of the following:
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau in Saxony, June 8, 1810; died July 29, 1856) was a famous German composer. He lived in the time called the Romantic period. He had to give up his plans for being a concert pianist because he injured his hand. He published a music magazine and wrote a lot of articles about music that had just been composed. His music is full of things that are typical of Romantic music: it is full of emotion, the pieces often have titles that describe things, and they are often inspired by literature. He wrote a great deal of piano music. Some of this music is hard to play, but other pieces are quite easy. Many children learn to play some of the pieces in his "Album for the Young". His songs (Lieder) are among the best ever written. He also wrote larger works like symphonies and concertos and chamber music. Sometimes he felt very happy but at other times he was very depressed. These changes of mood can be heard in a lot of his music.
Robert Schumann was the fifth and youngest child of a bookseller and publisher. As a boy he liked reading the books in his father’s shop. He began to compose when he was seven. At school he was extremely good at music and literature. He passed his school-leaving examination with very high marks. His family wanted him to be a lawyer, so he went to Leipzig to study law but he hardly ever went to any lectures. He was much more interested in music and literature, but also in women and drinking. He took piano lessons from a teacher called Friedrich Wieck. Wieck had a 9-year-old daughter Clara. Many years later she was to become his wife. Clara was a brilliant pianist. Her father took her on concert tours because she was a prodigy.
Schumann started to compose short piano pieces and songs. He loved the music of Schubert and when he heard that Schubert had died he cried all night. He often practised the piano for seven hours a day. However, he started to have problems with his fingers. It has often been said that he hurt his hands because he made something to stretch his fingers, but people now think it was more likely due to mercury poisoning because doctors had used mercury to try to cure his syphilis. Whatever the reason, he could not continue to be a pianist and he spent the rest of his life composing and writing about music. Many of his articles appeared in a journal called "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" ("New Journal for Music") which he started.
In 1834 he became engaged to a girl of sixteen called Ernestine, but then Schumann broke off the engagement because he loved Clara Wieck. Clara’s parents did not want her to marry him. Her father did everything he could to stop the marriage. Maybe he guessed that Schumann had syphilis, maybe he knew that he was often drunk. In the end, after many arguments, court cases and secret meetings between Robert and Clara, they were married in 1840.
Schumann suffered from manic depression. When he was depressed he hardly wrote anything, but 1840 was a happy year for him and he wrote lots of songs as well as orchestral music. In 1841 he wrote four symphonies. In 1842 they went on a concert tour together, but Schumann found it difficult because Clara was more famous than he was. He returned alone to Leipzig to work at his publishing. He felt depressed again at this time and drank a lot of beer and champagne. He was happy again when Clara returned, and composed some chamber music. In 1844 they toured Russia and played to the Tsar. By August he had a complete nervous breakdown and could not bear to listen to his own music. It took him some time to recover.
By now he was good at writing all kinds of music. He wrote music for the famous play "Faust" by Goethe. He wrote one opera, "Genoveva", in 1849. His fame spread slowly. For many years Dresden and Leipzig were the only towns where he was famous. In 1850 he became musical director at Düsseldorf. In 1853 he met Brahms. Brahms became a great friend of the Schumann family. Schumann published an article in the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" with the heading “Neue Bahnen” (“New Paths”) in which he said that Brahms (who was 20 at the time) was going to be a very great composer. He was right.
Schumann had often thought of trying to kill himself. On 27 February 1854 he threw himself into the river Rhine. He was rescued by some boatmen, but when they brought him to land he seemed to have gone quite mad. He was taken to an asylum where he spent the last two years of his life. He died on 29 July 1856.