CS encyclopedia topics | Reference.com

CS - 7 reference results

Pécs, Ger. Fünfkirchen, city (1991 est. pop. 170,000), SW Hungary, near the Croatian border. A county administrative seat and a railroad hub, Pécs is the industrial center of Hungary's chief coking coal-mining region. Uranium was also produced nearby during the Communist era. Both minerals were mined under very difficult conditions and by the mid-1990s all the mines were being closed. Leather goods, textiles, apparel, furniture, and industrial ceramics are produced in the city, and there are extensive vineyards in the surrounding area. One of Hungary's oldest cities, Pécs was the site of a Celtic settlement and became the capital of the Roman province of Lower Pannonia under Emperor Hadrian. It was first known as Sopianae and later as Quinque Ecclesiae [Lat.,=five churches], from which the German name Fünfkirchen derived. In 1009 the city was made an episcopal see by St. Stephen, and in 1367 Louis I established the first Hungarian university there. Pécs was under Turkish rule from 1543 to 1686. Many German miners and colonists settled there during the 18th cent., and in 1780 it became a free city. The 11th-century cathedral (rebuilt in the late 19th cent.) is the most notable historic building in Pécs; the city also has an episcopal palace, a Turkish minaret, and several churches that were formerly mosques. The crises in the coal industry adversely affected the economy of the city and its region in the early 1990s.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Mohács

Mohács, town (1991 est. pop. 20,325), S Hungary, on the Danube. It is an important river port and railroad terminus and has metallurgical and timber industries. Mohács is best known for the crushing defeat (Aug. 29, 1526) there of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia by Sulayman I of Turkey. Hungary was ill-prepared for the attack, and when Louis hastily tried to unite Hungary and Christendom behind him, only the pope sent help. With a poorly equipped and badly organized army of 28,000, Louis joined battle with a Turkish army of 200,000. The king and almost 25,000 of his army were killed in the battle; the rest were taken captive and massacred. The defeat brought with it more than 150 years of Ottoman domination in Hungary. At Mohács are monuments to the slain, regarded ever since as martyrs to Christianity and to Hungarian independence. Mohács was also the scene (1687) of a Turkish defeat by Charles V of Lorraine, which hastened the end of Turkish rule in Hungary.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Lukács, György

Lukács, György, 1885-1971, Hungarian writer, one of the foremost modern literary critics. Converted to Communism in 1918, Lukács served (1919) in the cabinet of Béla Kun. On Kun's fall he fled and lived in Berlin until the rise of Hitler, when he went to the Soviet Union. In 1945 he returned to Hungary, became professor of aesthetics at Budapest, and was important in the Communist party and in national intellectual life. He was attacked for his sympathy for Western literature as expressed in The Destruction of Reason (1954), and after the Hungarian revolution he was stripped of political importance. Lukács' powerful criticism combines Marxist social theory with aesthetic sensibility, flexibility, and humanism. His central theme, expounded in History and Class Consciousness (1923, tr. 1971), is the link between creative works and the social struggle. His works include studies on Goethe (1947, tr. 1969), Hegel (1948), Lenin (1970), and Solzhenitsyn (1970, tr. 1971) as well as on Marxism and literary values. His other writings include The Historical Novel (1955, tr. 1962) and his outstanding Studies in European Realism (1946, tr. 1950). His Political Writings, 1919-1929 was translated in 1972.

See studies by G. Lichtheim (1970) and E. Bahn and R. G. Kunzer (1972).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Cs, symbol for the element cesium.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

CS, chemical compound (orthochlorobenzalmalonitrile) used in riot control and, by the military, as a harassing agent. The compound is dispersed as an aerosol or as a finely divided powder. Exposure to CS causes intense pain in the eyes and upper respiratory tract; the pain spreads to the lungs and gives the sensation of suffocation. In humid weather CS may cause severe blistering of the skin. Heavy exposure to the compound may cause serious lung damage, resulting in death. Nonetheless, CS is less toxic than many other tear gases. CS was first synthesized in the 1920s by Ben Corson and Roger Stoughton; the compound's name is derived from their initials.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

cesium

Chemical element, one of the alkali metals, chemical symbol Cs, atomic number 55. The first element discovered by spectroscopy (1860), it is silvery white, liquid at warm room temperature (melting at 83 °F [28.4 °C]), and very soft when solid. About half as abundant as lead, it occurs in minute quantities as ores. It reacts explosively with cold water and is used to scavenge traces of oxygen and other gases in electron tubes. Other uses are as a catalyst and in photoelectric cells, ion propulsion systems, atomic clocks, and plasma for thermoelectric conversion. Cesium salts have various specialty applications, including in mineral waters.

Learn more about cesium with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.