Culture

The culture of Spain has roots in Iberian and Latin influences, Catholicism, Moorish Islam, tension between the centralized Castilian state and its regions, and its minority peoples. In addition, the history of the nation and its Mediterranean climate and geography have played strong roles in shaping its culture.

Italy’s Population has grown up to 58,751,711 people according to the latest census. It is the fourth largest populated country of Europe and ranks twenty-second in the world. The great majority of the population speaks Italian (including several dialects). There are small German, French, and Slavic speaking minorities. Italy’s Population growth has been mainly affected by the high birth rate of 8.72 births per 1,000 people and relatively high life expectancy and low death rate of 10.4 deaths/1,000 people. The most populous cities are Rome, Milan, Naples, Turin, Palermo and Genoa.

Famous composers

• Dr. Stylianos Atteshlis - Στυλιανός Αττεσλής, known as Daskalos) (1912-1995) was born on December 12, 1912 in Cyprus where he spent most of his life. Kyriacos Markides wrote three books about him: The Magus of Strovolos, Homage to the Sun, and Fire in the Heart. In these books, Stylianos Atteshlis was given the alias Spyros Sathi.
• Nicolas Economou (August 11, 1953 - December 29, 1993) was a Cypriot composer born in Nicosia.

Arts such as architecture, sculpture, pottery, weaving, music, jewellery making, and painting have a long-standing tradition in Greece, where civilisations were already established in pre-historic times.

A country often described as lying at the crossroads linking the East and West, Bulgaria functioned as the hub of Slavic Europe during much of the Middle Ages

Romania is a secular state, thus having no national religion.

Most famous Hungarians

Franz Liszt – composer

Drew Barrymore – actress

Rachel Weizs - actress, model

Abraham Ganz – scientist

Religion

Roman Catholic 68.9%, Protestant 10.8%, Greek Catholic 4.1%, other or unspecified 3.2%, none 13%

Famous Slovaks:

Andy Warhol

Born in Pittsburgh, USA, in 1928, Andy Warhol was one of the most famous artists of the C20th. He introduced Pop Art to the world, and was the first artist to use a photographic silk-screen technique in his work.

Famous Slovaks - Andy Warhol

Austrians are a homogeneous people; 91 % are native German speakers. However, there has been a significant amount of immigrants, particularly from former Yugoslavia and Turkey, over the last two decades. Only two numerically significant autonomous minority groups exist - 18,000 Slovenes in Carinthia (south central Austria) and about 19,400 Croats in Burgenland (on the Hungarian border). The Slovenes form a closely-knit community. Their rights as well as those of the Croats are protected by law and generally respected in practice.

French, the official language, is the first language of 88% of the population. Most of those who speak minority languages also speak French, as the minority languages are given no legal recognition. 3% of the population speak German dialects. Flemish is spoken by around 90,000 people in the northeast, which is 0.2% of the French population. Near the Italian border, roughly 1.7% of the population, speaks Italian.
Basque is spoken by 0.1% and mainly along the French-Spanish border.