Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/871

 beginning of winter; the sacred banquet called epulum Jovis took place on the 13th. It is said that the senate desired to rename the month in honour of Tiberius—his birthday occurring on the 16th, but the emperor declined, saying, “What will you do, Conscript Fathers, if you have thirteen Caesars?” The Anglo-Saxon names for November were Windmonath, “windmonth” and Blodmonath “blood month.” In the calendar of the first French republic November reappeared partly as Brumaire and partly as Frimaire. The principal November festivals in the calendar of the Roman Church are: All Saints Day on the 1st, All Souls’ on the 2nd, St Martin’s on the 11th, the Presentation of the Virgin on the 21st, St Cecilia’s on the 22nd, St Catherine’s on the 25th and St Andrew’s on the 30th. St Hubert commemorated on the 3rd. In the English calendar All Saints’ and St Andrew’s are the only feasts retained.

NOVERRE, JEAN GEORGES (1727–1810), French dancer and ballet master, was born in Paris on the 29th of March 1727. He first performed at Fontainebleau in 1743, and in 1747 composed his first ballet for the Opéra Comique. In 1748 he was invited by Prince Henry of Prussia to Berlin, but a year later he returned to Paris, where he mounted the ballets of Glück and Piccini. In 1755 he was invited by Garrick to London, where he remained two years. Between 1758 and 1760 he produced several ballets at Lyons, and published his Lettres sur la danse et les ballets. From this period may be dated the revolution in the art of the ballet for which Noverre was responsible. (See and .) He was next engaged by the duke of Württemburg, and afterwards by the empress Maria Theresa, until, in 1775, he was appointed, at the request of Queen Marie Antoinette, maître des ballets of the Paris Opera. This post he retained until the Revolution reduced him to poverty. He died at St Germain on the 19th of November 1810.

Noverre’s friends included Voltaire, Frederick the Great and David Garrick (who called him “the Shakespeare of the dance”). The ballets of which he was most proud were his La Toilette de Vénus, Les Jalousies du sérail, L’Amour corsaire and Le Jaloux sans rival. Besides the letters, Noverre wrote Observations sur la construction d’une nouvelle salle de l’Opéra (1781); Lettres sur Garrick écrites à Voltaire (1801); and Lettre à un artiste sur les fêtes publiques (1801).

NOVGOROD, a government of N.W. Russia, bounded W. and N. by the governments of St Petersburg and Olonets, S.E. by Vologda, Yaroslav and Tver, and S.W. by Pskov, stretching from S.W. to N.E. 450 m. Area, 47,223 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 1,555,700. The S. is occupied by the Valdai plateau, in which are the highest elevations of middle Russia (600 to over 1000 ft.), as well as the sources of nearly all the great rivers of the country. The plateau is deeply furrowed by valleys with abrupt slopes, and descends rapidly towards the basin of Lake Ilmen in the W. (only 60 ft. above the sea-level). The N.E. of the government belongs to the lacustrine region of N.W. Russia. This tract is dotted over with innumerable sheets of water, of which Byelo-ozero (White Lake) and Vozhe are the largest of more than 3000. Immense marshes, overgrown with thin forests of birch and elm, occupy more than one-seventh of the entire area of the government; several of them have an area of 300 to 450 sq. m. each. They admit. of being crossed only when frozen. Six centuries ago they were even less accessible, but the slow upheaval of N.W. Russia, going on at the rate of 3 or more feet per century, has exercised a powerful influence upon the drainage of the country. Of recent years artificial drainage has been carried out on a large scale. The forests still occupy 55% of the total area of the government.

The yearly average temperature at Novgorod is only 40° Fahr. (14·5° in January, 62·5° in July). The severe climate, the marshy or stony soil, and the want of grazing grounds render agriculture unprofitable, though it is carried on everywhere. The yield of rye and other cereals is insufficient for the wants of the inhabitants. Fireclay, coal and turf are extracted in commercial quantities. Building, smith-work, fishing, shipbuilding, distilleries, glass and match factories, sawmills and a variety of domestic industries give occupation to about 40,000 families. Hunting is still profitable. But most of the inhabitants are dependent on the river-boat traffic; and nearly one-fourth of the able-bodied males are annually driven to other parts of Russia in search of work. The Novgorod carpenters and masons have long been renowned. Trade is chiefly in grain and timber, and in manufactures and grocery wares from St Petersburg. The fairs are numerous, and several of them (Kirilovsk monastery, Staraya Russa and Cherepovets) show considerable returns.

The inhabitants are almost exclusively Great-Russians, but they are discriminated by some historians from the Great-Russians of the basin of the Oka, as showing remote affinities with the Little-Russians. They belong mostly (96%) to the Orthodox Greek Church, but there are many Nonconformists. There are 10,000 Karelians and 9000 Chudes, with some Jews and some Germans. Novgorod is well provided with educational institutions, and primary education is widely diffused in the villages.

NOVGOROD (formerly known as Velikiy-Novgorod, Great Novgorod), a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, and the seat of an archbishop of the Orthodox Greek Church, situated 119 m. by rail S. of St. Petersburg, on the low flat banks of the Volkhov, 2 m. below the point where it issues from Lake Ilmen. Pop. (1900) 26,972. The present town is but a poor survival of the wealthy city of medieval times. It consists of a kremlin (old fortress), and of the city, which stands on both banks of the river, connected by a handsome stone bridge. The kremlin was much enlarged in 1044, and again in 1116. Its stone walls, originally palisades, were begun in 1302, and much extended in 1490. Formerly a great number of churches and shops, with wide squares, stood within the enclosure. Its historical monuments include the cathedral of St Sophia, built in 1045–1052 by architects from Constantinople to take the place of the original wooden structure (989), destroyed by fire in that year. Some minor changes were made in 1688 and 1692, but otherwise (notwithstanding several fires) the building remained unaltered until its restoration in 1893–1900. It contains many highly-prized relics, including bronze doors of the 12th century, one brought reputedly from Sigtuna, the ancient capital of Sweden. Another ancient building in the kremlin is the Yaroslav Tower, in the square where the Novgorod vyeche (common council) used to meet; it still bears the name of “the court of Yaroslav”; and was the chancellery of the secretaries of the vyeche. Other remarkable monuments of ancient Russian architecture are the church of St. Nicholas erected in 1135, the Snamenski cathedral of the 14th century, and churches of the 14th and 15th centuries. Within the town itself there are four monasteries and convents, two of them dating from the 11th century and two from the 12th century; and the large number in the immediate neighbourhood shows the great extent which the city formerly had. A monument to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of Russia (the calling in of the Varangians by Novgorod in 862) was erected in 1862. Another monument commemorates the repulse of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812.

The date at which the Slavs first erected forts on the Volkhov (where it leaves Lake Ilmen and where it flows into Lake Ladoga) is unknown. That situated on a low terrace close by Lake Ilmen was soon abandoned, and Novgorod or “New-town”