al-Mumtaḥā: the Tested, first heaven
al-Mukhliṣ: the Devout, second heaven
al-Mukhtaṣṣ: the Elect, third heaven
al-Najīb: the Noble, fourth heaven
al-Naqīb: the Chief, fifth heaven
al-Yatīm: the Unique, sixth heaven
al-Bāb: the Gate, seventh heaven
At every degree the initiate receives the chance to gain a new level of 'hidden' or 'occult' (bāṭin) knowledge. If the initiate succeeds at internalizing this knowledge, they may ascend to the next degree. If, however, they lose interest or start to doubt the knowledge already acquired, they may lose their pure and luminous "shirt", receiving instead a heavier and darker one, and descend down the scale of being again. Those who reach the seventh degree (that of Bāb or "Gate") are granted wondrous powers such as making themselves invisible, or seeing and hearing all things –including a beatific vision of God– without having to look or listen. Most notably, they are able to manifest themselves to ordinary beings in the world of matter (tajallin), by taking on the form of a human and appearing to anyone at will. This ability is shared between the "Gates" in the seventh heaven and God, who also manifests himself to the world by taking on a human form.
The theme of a heavenly ascent through seven degrees of spiritual perfection is also explored in other ghulāt works, including the anonymous Kitāb al-Marātib wa-l-daraj (Book of Degrees and Stages), as well as various works attributed to Muhammad ibn Sinan (died 835), Ibn Nusayr (died after 868), and others. In the 9th/10th-century works attributed to the Shi'i alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, the seven degrees corresponding to the seven heavens (themselves related to the seven planets) are replaced with fifty-five degrees carrying similar names (including al-Muʾmin al-Mumtaḥā, al-Najīb, al-Naqīb, al-Yatīm, al-Bāb). These fifty-five degrees correspond to the fifty-five celestial spheres alluded to by Plato in his Timaeus and mentioned by Aristotle in his Metaphysics.


al-Risāla al-Mufaḍḍaliyya (Mufaddali Epistle) is a brief dialogue between al-Mufaddal and Ja'far al-Sadiq of unclear date and origin. It strongly resembles the Kitāb al-Haft wa-l-aẓilla and the Kitāb al-Ṣirāṭ in doctrine and terminology. Its main subject is the classical theological question of the relationship between the one transcendent God (al-maʿnā, lit. 'the meaning') on the one hand, and his many attributes (ṣiffāt) and names (asmāʾ) on the other.
Mā yakūn ʿinda ẓuhūr al-Mahdī (What Will Happen at the Appearance of the Mahdi) is a lengthy apocalyptic text about the state of the world during the end times, just before the return (rajʿa) of the Mahdi. Its earliest known version is preserved in a work by the Nusayri author al-Khasibi (died 969), but the text likely goes back to the 9th century and perhaps even to al-Mufaddal himself. Though mainly dealing with the actions that the Mahdi will undertake to render justice to the oppressed, the work also contains references to mainstream Shi'i ideas such as temporary marriage contracts (mutʿa), as well as to the ghulāt idea of world cycles. It has been argued that the conceptualization of rajʿa in this and similar 8th/9th-century ghulāt texts has influenced the 10th-century development of the Twelver Shi'i doctrine on the return of the twelfth and 'hidden' Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi.
Kitāb Mā iftaraḍa Allāh ʿalā al-jawāriḥ min al-īmān (Book on the Faith that God has Imposed on the Bodily Members), also known as the Kitāb al-Īmān wa-l-islām (Book of Faith and Submission) and perhaps identical to the Risālat al-Mayyāḥ (Epistle of the Swagger) mentioned by the Twelver Shi'i bibliographer al-Najashi (c. 982–1058), presents itself as a long letter from Ja'far al-Sadiq to al-Mufaddal. It was preserved by the Imami (i.e., proto-Twelver) scholar al-Saffar al-Qummi (died 903). Likely written as a reaction to the negative portrayals of the ghulāt by Imami heresiographers, it refutes the typical accusation of the ghulāt's purported licentiousness and sexual promiscuity. It also contains a reference to the obscure idea, likewise found in the Kitāb al-Haft wa-l-aẓilla but attributed here to Abu al-Khattab (died 755–6), that religious commandments and restrictions are 'men' (rijāl), and that to know these 'men' is to know religion.


Two of the treatises attributed to al-Mufaddal, the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal and the Kitāb al-Ihlīlaja, differ from other treatises attributed to al-Mufaddal by the absence of any content that is specifically Shi'i in nature. Though both were preserved by the 17th-century Shi'i scholar Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi (died 1699), the only element connecting them to Shi'ism is their ascription to Ja'far al-Sadiq and al-Mufaddal. Their content appears to be influenced by Mu'tazilism, a rationalistic school of Islamic speculative theology (kalām). Often transmitted together in the manuscript tradition, they may be regarded as part of an attempt to rehabilitate al-Mufaddal among Twelver Shi'is, to whom al-Mufaddal was important as a narrator of numerous hadiths from the Imams Ja'far al-Sadiq and his son Musa al-Kazim. Both works were also known to other Twelver scholars such as al-Najashi (c. 982–1058), Ibn Shahrashub (died 1192), and Ibn Tawus (1193–1266).


The Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal (lit. 'Declaration by al-Mufaddal of the Oneness of God') sets out to prove the existence of God based on the argument from design (also called the teleological argument). The work consists of a series of lectures about the existence and oneness (tawḥīd) of God presented to al-Mufaddal by Ja'far al-Sadiq, who is answering a challenge made to him by the self-declared atheist Ibn Abi al-Awja'. In four "sessions" (majālis), Ja'far argues that the cosmic order and harmony which can be detected throughout nature necessitates the existence of a wise and providential creator. The Twelver Shi'i bibliographer al-Najashi (c. 982–1058) also refers to the work as the Kitāb Fakkir (lit. 'Book of Think'), a reference to the fact that Ja'far often begins his exhortations with the word fakkir (think!).
The Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal is not an original work. Instead, it is a revised version of a work also attributed to the famous Mu'tazili litterateur al-Jahiz (died 868) under the title Kitāb al-Dalāʾil wa-l-iʿtibār ʿalā al-khalq wa-l-tadbīr (Book on the Proofs and Contemplation of Creation and Administration). The attribution of this work to al-Jahiz is probably spurious as well, although the original was likely written in the 9th century. Compared to pseudo-Jahiz's Kitāb al-Dalāʾil, the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal adds an introduction that sets up a frame story involving al-Mufaddal, Ibn Abi al-Awja', and Ja'far al-Sadiq, as well rhymed praises of God at the beginning of each chapter, and a brief concluding passage.
Scholars have espoused various views on the ultimate origins of this work. According to Melhem Chokr, the versions attributed to al-Mufaddal and to al-Jahiz are both based on an unknown earlier work, with the version attributed to al-Mufaddal being more faithful to the original. In Chokr's view, at some point the work must have been translated by a Syriac author into the Arabic from a Greek original, perhaps from an unknown Hermetic work. However, both Hans Daiber and Josef van Ess identify the original work on which pseudo-Jahiz's Kitāb al-Dalāʾil was based as the Kitāb al-Fikr wa-l-iʿtibār (Book of Thought and Contemplation), written by the 9th-century Nestorian Christian Jibril ibn Nuh ibn Abi Nuh al-Nasrani al-Anbari. However this may be, Jibril ibn Nuh's Kitāb al-Fikr wa-l-iʿtibār, the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal and pseudo-Jahiz's Kitāb al-Dalāʾil are only the three earliest among many extant versions of the work: adaptations were also made by the Nestorian Christian bishop Elijah of Nisibis (died 1056), by the Sunni mystic al-Ghazali (died 1111), and by the Andalusian Jewish philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda (died first half of 12th century).
The Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal/Kitāb al-Dalāʾil contains many parallels with Syriac Christian literature, especially with the commentaries on the Hexameron (the six days of creation as described in Genesis) written by Jacob of Edessa (c. 640–708) and Moses bar Kepha (c. 813–903), as well as with Job of Edessa's encyclopedic work on natural philosophy called the Book of Treasures (c. 817). Its teleological proof of the existence of God—based upon a discussion of the four elements, minerals, plants, animals, meteorology, and the human being—was likely inspired by pseudo-Aristotle's De mundo (On the Universe, 3rd/2nd century BCE), a work also used by the Syriac authors mentioned above. In particular, the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal/Kitāb al-Dalāʾil contains the same emphasis on the idea that God, who already in pseudo-Aristotle's De mundo is called "one", can only be known through the wisdom permeating his creative works, while his own essence (kunh) remains hidden for all.
The idea that contemplating the works of nature leads to a knowledge of God is also found in the Quran. However, in the case of the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal/Kitāb al-Dalāʾil, the idea is set in a philosophical framework that clearly goes back on Hellenistic models. Apart from pseudo-Aristotle's De mundo (3rd/2nd century BCE), there are also many parallels with Cicero's (106–43 BCE) De natura deorum, especially with the Stoic views on teleology and divine providence outlined in Cicero's work. Some of the enemies cited in the work are Diagoras (5th century BCE) and Epicurus (341–270 BCE), both reviled since late antiquity for their alleged atheism, as well as Mani (c. 216–274 or 277 CE, the founding prophet of Manichaeism), a certain Dūsī, and all those who would deny the providence and purposefulness (ʿamd) of God.

Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal (al-Mufaddal's Tawhid)


The Kitāb al-Ihlīlaja (Book of the Myrobalan Fruit) is another work in which al-Mufaddal asks Ja'far al-Sadiq to present a proof of the existence and oneness of God in response to those who openly profess atheism. In comparison with the Tawḥīd al-Mufaḍḍal, the frame story here is less well integrated into the main text, which despite being written in the form of an epistle does not directly address al-Mufaddal's concerns about the appearance of people who would publicly deny the existence of God. In the epistle itself, the author (presumed to be Ja'far al-Sadiq) recounts his meeting with an Indian physician, who contended that the world is eternal and therefore does not need a creator. Taking the myrobalan fruit (perhaps the black myrobalan or Terminalia reticulata, a plant used in Ayurveda) that the Indian physician was grinding as a starting point for contemplation, the author of the epistle succeeds in convincing the physician of the existence of God. The dialectical style of the debate is typical of early Muslim speculative theology (kalām). Sciences like astrology and medicine are presented as originating from divine revelation. Melhem Chokr has proposed the 8th-century scribe (kātib) and speculative theologian Muhammad ibn Layth as the original author of the Kitāb al-Ihlīlaja, based on similarities with other works attributed to Ibn Layth, and on the attribution to him in Ibn al-Nadim's (c. 932 – c. 995 or 998) Fihrist of a work called Kitāb al-Ihlīlaja fī al-iʿtibār (Book of the Myrobalan Fruit on Contemplation).


Some other works attributed to, or transmitted by, al-Mufaddal are still extant:


The Waṣiyyat al-Mufaḍḍal (Testament of al-Mufaddal) is a short text purporting to be al-Mufaddal's testament to the Shi'is of Kufa. The testament itself only contains a rather generic exhortation to piety and proper religious conduct, but it is followed by a paragraph in which Ja'far al-Sadiq reproaches the Kufan Shi'is for their hostility towards al-Mufaddal, exonerating his disciple from all blame. The text may very well be authentic, though it may also have been attributed to al-Mufaddal by later authors seeking to rehabilitate him.
The Duʿāʾ samāt, also called the Duʿāʾ Shabbūr, is a prayer (duʿāʾ) attributed to Ja'far al-Sadiq, supposedly transmitted from Ja'far by al-Mufaddal and later by Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Amri (died 917 or 918), the second deputy of the Hidden Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi during the Minor Occultation (874–941). It is a revised version of an originally Talmudic invocation that was used by Jews to cast off robbers and thieves. It was apparently in use among Muslims during the time of Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Amri, who approved of this practice but said that he had a "fuller" version handed down from the Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. This version is nearly identical to the version preserved in the Talmud, only adding the names of the prophet Muhammad and some of his family members.
The Riwāyat al-ruzz wa-mā fīhi min al-faḍl is treatise attributed to al-Mufaddal on the virtue of rice.
al-Ḥikam al-Jaʿfariyya (Ja'farian Aphorisms) is a collection of moral aphorisms (ḥikam) attributed to Ja'far al-Sadiq and transmitted by al-Mufaddal.
There are also some works attributed to, or transmitted by, al-Mufaddal that are mentioned in other sources but are now lost:


Kitāb ʿIlal al-Sharāʾiʿ (Book of the Causes of Religious Laws)
Kitāb Yawm wa-layla (Book of Day and Night)
Kitāb (Book), a notebook containing hadiths purportedly recorded by al-Mufaddal


Albania was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 with the song "Duje" performed by Albina and Familja Kelmendi. Its entry was selected through a dedicated televoting process during the national selection competition Festivali i Këngës organised by Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH) in December 2022. Up until point, the nation had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 18 times since its debut in 2004.
Assigned to the second semi-final on 11 May 2023, Albania placed 9th with a total of 83 points and qualified for the final. At the conclusion of the final on 13 May, the nation placed 22nd with a total of 76 points. This was the 11th occasion that Albania qualified for the final out of the 19 times it had participated in Eurovision.

Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023


The Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast in Albania by the national broadcaster, Radio Televizioni Shqiptar (RTSH), which also organises Festivali i Këngës as the national selection contest for Eurovision. Prior to the 2023 contest, the nation had participated in the contest 18 times since its first entry in 2004. It achieved its highest placement in the in 2012, securing the fifth place with the song "Suus" performed by Rona Nishliu. The second-highest finish was seventh place in 2004, with the song "The Image of You" by Anjeza Shahini. Albania had previously failed to qualify for the final on nine occasions, most recently in 2022. On 3 June 2022, RTSH announced the nation's participation in the 2023 contest and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) confirmed its intent to participate on 20 October. Once again, the nation announced the use of Festivali i Këngës to help select its entry.


The representative for Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was chosen during the 61st edition of Festivali i Këngës. The festival was organised by the national broadcaster RTSH in December 2022 and was hosted by Albanian presenter Arbana Osmani. The event was held at the Palace of Congresses in Tirana, Albania and consisted of three semi-finals on the respective dates of 19, 20 and 21 December and a final round on 22 December 2022. Following an application process, 26 participants were selected by RTSH to compete.
The selection process underwent a significant transformation, shifting from an exclusive jury voting to a system involving both public and jury voting. While the jury retained the authority to choose the top three, the overall winner no longer received an automatic Eurovision invitation. Instead, the Albanian representative was selected through a dedicated televoting process.


The final of Festivali i Këngës was held on 22 December 2022. Despite Elsa Lila's win in the jury vote with "Evita", Albina and Familja Kelmendi with the song "Duje" won the public vote and were chosen as Albanian representatives for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.
Key:
 Winner
 Second place
 Third place


On 10 March 2023, a revamped version of "Duje" was released alongside the premiere of a music video on the official YouTube channel of the Eurovision Song Contest. Changes to the song pertained to its orchestration, while the bulk of the song remained the same as had been previously performed. Ahead of the contest, Albina and Familja Kelmendi conducted promotional activities in April 2023. This included appearing as one of 14 contest participants on 1 April at the Polish Eurovision Party in Warsaw, followed on 8 April by an appearance as one of 18 contest participants at the fifth annual Israel Calling event in Tel Aviv. The next weekend saw the group at the Eurovision in Concert series in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 15 April.


The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was hosted at the Liverpool Arena in Liverpool, United Kingdom; it comprised two semi-finals held on 9 and 11 May, respectively, and a final on 13 May 2023. According to the Eurovision regulations, all participating countries, except for the host nation and the "Big Five" of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, were required to qualify from one of the two semi-finals to participate in the final. The top 10 countries from each semi-final proceeded to the final.
Prior to the allocation draw, the EBU categorised the participating countries into six pots based on previous voting patterns to minimise the chance of neighborly voting. On 31 January 2023, the allocation draw at St George's Hall in Liverpool determined each nation's semi-final and which half of the semi-final they would compete in. Therein, Albania was scheduled for the second half of the second semi-final. Following the release of all entries, the producers of the contest on 22 March arranged the semi-final running order to avoid grouping similar songs; Albania was given 14th in the running order, following Austria and preceding Lithuania.


Albania's participation in the 2023 contest encompassed a series of rehearsals, beginning with the first rehearsal on 2 May and following by the second rehearsal on 5 May. Furthermore, the dress rehearsals for the second semi-final occurred on 8 and 9 May that provided a comprehensive preview of their stage performance in preparation for the live broadcast. The Albanian performance was directed by Swedish artistic director Sacha Jean-Baptiste, who had previously directed the staging for Albania in the 2021 contest. The stage presentation showcased a dark color scheme, integrating black and red reminiscent of the Albanian flag on LED screens. Dynamic elements, including flames and pyrotechnics, were also incorporated into the staging. The introductory postcards for the contest comprised three distinct international locations selected to convey a connecting theme. Filmed at the Arboretum Sofiyivka in Uman, Ukraine, Sefton Park in Liverpool, UK, and Grand Park of Tirana, Albania, the postcard with Albina and Familja Kelmendi showed a family sharing a traditional Albanian meal in the Grand Park.
Soon after securing a place in the final following its ninth-place finish in the semi-final, a winners' press conference convened for the 10 qualifying nations. During this event, the qualifying artists participated in a draw to determine their placement in the final. The draw followed the order of appearance in the semi-final running order, with Albania being drawn to perform in the first half. Subsequently, the show's producers established the running order for the final, assigning Albania the 10th position, succeeding Sweden and preceding Italy. In the final, Albania placed 22nd of the 26 finalists.


The voting system during the shows of the contest encompassed the allocation of points by countries on a scale of 1–8, 10 and 12, with one set of points determined by their professional jury and another from televoting. However, in the semi-final, the results relied exclusively on the televoting, aligning with the format between 2004 and 2007. The jury of each nation comprised five music industry professionals, all of whom held citizenship in the respective country they represented. These jurors assessed each entry based on criteria such as vocal capacity, stage performance, and song composition and originality, as well as the overall impression left by the act. For the voting portion of the final, Andri Xhahu served as the Albanian spokesperson announcing the country's jury voting results.
In the 2023 contest, Albania participated in the second semi-final and finished in 9th position with a total of 83 points. This was the 11th time that Albania had qualified for the final, out of the 19 times it had participated in Eurovision. Slovenia and the Rest of the World each awarded 12 points to the nation, followed by Greece with 10 points and Belgium and Romania with 8 points each. In the final, Albania finished in the 22nd position with a total of 76 points. Switzerland's televoting granted 12 points to the nation, while Azerbaijan's jury and Germany's televoting both awarded 8 points. Albania's televoting granted 12 points to Australia in the second semi-final; in the final, the nation's jury awarded 12 points to Sweden and its televoting 12 points to Italy. Below is a breakdown that provides a detailed overview of the points awarded to Albania in both the second semi-final and final of the 2023 contest, along with the corresponding allocations by Albania on both occasions. Furthermore, it includes a breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two live shows.


The following members comprised the Albanian jury:


Sonila Djepaxhia
Josif Gjipali
Sokol Marsi
Eneda Tarifa
Haig Zacharian


The Albatross class of steam gunboats comprised two ships: SMS Albatross and Nautilus. They were ordered by the North German Federal Navy, but by the time they had entered service in the early 1870s, the German lands had unified into the German Empire, and so they commissioned into Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1870s. The ships were ordered as part of a construction program intended to begin replacing the old Jäger-class gunboats that had been built a decade earlier. Unlike the older ships, Albatross and Nautilus were intended to serve abroad to protect German economic interests overseas. The ships were armed with a battery of four guns, and had a top speed of 10 to 10.5 knots (18.5 to 19.4 km/h; 11.5 to 12.1 mph).
The two ships spent the majority of their careers overseas, including a cruise to South America in the early 1870s for Albatross. Both ships patrolled the coast of Spain during the Third Carlist War in 1874–1875 to protect German nationals in the country. The two ships were sent to the Pacific Ocean in the latter half of the decade to defend German economic interests in China and the South Pacific. They each made another lengthy cruise in the Pacific for much of the 1880s, and were involved in German colonial activities in the South Pacific. After returning home in 1888, both vessels were converted into survey ships and used in home waters. Nautilus was eventually sold for scrap in 1905, and Albatross became a coal barge that year, before being wrecked in a storm in 1906.


In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the Prussian Navy had embarked on a construction program that included the fifteen Jäger-class gunboats and eight Camäleon-class gunboats. By 1869, the navy realized that the earliest vessels, starting with the badly rotted Crocodill, would need to be replaced. Design work started for the new class, which were intended for overseas cruising, instead of coastal defense as the earlier vessels had been. One of the primary missions for the new ships was as pirate hunters in Chinese waters. Piracy was a major problem in the region, particularly as Prussian commercial interests expanded in the market in China in the 1860s.


The ships of the Albatross class were 51.21 meters (168 ft) long at the waterline and 56.95 m (186 ft 10 in) long overall. They had a beam of 8.32 m (27 ft 4 in) and a draft of 3.62 m (11 ft 11 in) forward, which increased slightly to 3.75 m (12.3 ft) aft. They displaced 713 metric tons (702 long tons) normally and 786 t (774 long tons) at full load. Their hulls were wood-built using carvel construction, and they had a transom stern. They were copper sheathed to protect the wood from marine biofouling on extended cruises abroad.
The ships' crew consisted of 5 officers and 98 enlisted men. They carried four small boats of unrecorded type. The ships lost significant speed in a head sea, but were otherwise quite seaworthy. Steering was controlled via a single rudder; they steered well, but their maneuverability was moderate. They also operated well under sail.
They were powered by a pair of horizontal, single-cylinder marine steam engines that drove one 2-bladed screw propeller, which could be retracted while the ships cruised under sail. Steam was provided by two coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which were vented through a single funnel located amidships. The machinery was divided between a single engine room and a boiler room. The propulsion system was rated to give them a top speed of 10.9 knots (20.2 km/h; 12.5 mph) at 601 metric horsepower (593 ihp), but neither vessel reached those figures in service. Albatross was slightly faster of the pair, making 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph) from 491 PS (484 ihp), compared to Nautilus, which only managed 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) from 496 PS (489 ihp). As built, they were equipped with a three-masted barque rig with a total sail area of 710 m2 (7,600 sq ft). Later in their careers, this was reduced to a schooner rig with a total area of 415 to 471 m2 (4,470 to 5,070 sq ft).
The ships were armed with a battery of two 15 cm (5.9 in) K L/22 built-up guns and two 12 cm (4.7 in) K L/23 built-up guns. The 15 cm guns were supplied with a total of 140 shells, and they had a maximum range of 4,600 m (15,100 ft). The 12 cm guns could engage targets out to 5,500 m (18,000 ft), and they were supplied with 180 shells. Both vessels later had three 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon added before eventually being disarmed.


Albatross and Nautilus spent the majority of their careers overseas, beginning with a deployment for Albatross to South America from 1872 to 1874. After a brief period of time in home waters in 1874, Albatross sailed to join Nautilus off the coast of Spain to protect German nationals there during the Third Carlist War, patrolling the coast there into 1875. Nautilus's captain was involved in settling a dispute between the Carlists and a German merchant ship captain whose vessel was attacked by Carlist forces. During their time off Spain, the ships occasionally traded fire with Carlist forces, but otherwise were not heavily engaged. Nautilus thereafter sailed to the Pacific for a tour from 1876 to 1878 that saw the ship operate primarily off the coast of China. From 1877 to 1880, Albatross was sent to cruise in the Pacific Ocean, but on the way, she was temporarily diverted to protect Germans in the Ottoman Empire. After she arrived in the Pacific, she patrolled Chinese waters as well as the South Pacific.
A second deployment to the Pacific for Nautilus followed from 1879 to 1881, and during this cruise the ship patrolled the South Pacific. After an overhaul in Germany in the early 1880s, Albatross spent the years from 1882 to 1888 overseas, beginning with a tour of South America that included an observation of the 1882 transit of Venus. She then moved back to the South Pacific; in 1886, she was involved in a dispute with Spain over control of the Caroline Islands and in 1887, she took the exiled Samoan king Malietoa Laupepa to the German colony of Kamerun in Central Africa. Nautilus's third and final tour in the Pacific began in 1883 and concluded in 1888; in 1885, she was involved in establishing a protectorate in the Marshall Islands. Nautilus was transferred to African waters in 1887 before returning home late the following year.
After returning to Germany in 1888, both vessels were used as a survey ship in home waters, Albatross in the North Sea and Nautilus in the Baltic Sea. Nautilus was struck from the naval register on 14 December 1896 and thereafter reduced to a coal storage hulk based in Kiel. Albatross was similarly struck on 9 January 1899 and after the navy blocked a potential sale to a South American navy, the ship eventually became a coal barge. Nautilus was sold to ship breakers in 1905 and dismantled in Swinemünde. Albatross was grounded and destroyed by a storm in March 1906.


"The Alchemy" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her eleventh studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (2024). Swift wrote and produced the track with Jack Antonoff. A pop rock and electropop track with R&B influences, "The Alchemy" is a love song about a burgeoning romance where two people cannot resist their chemistry. The lyrics use extensive football imagery to depict a sense of triumph.
In reviews of The Tortured Poets Department, critics considered "The Alchemy" the only song with a happy ending on the standard album. Some reviews deemed the football imagery and metaphors in the lyrics weak, but some others praised the production elements. "The Alchemy" peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Global 200 and reached the top 25 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. It received a gold certification in Australia. Swift performed the track live twice on the Eras Tour in 2024.


Swift started working on The Tortured Poets Department immediately after she submitted her tenth studio album, Midnights, to Republic Records for release in 2022. She continued working on it in secrecy throughout the US leg of the Eras Tour in 2023. The album's conception took place when Swift's personal life continued to be a widely covered topic in the press. She described The Tortured Poets Department as her "lifeline" album which she "really needed" to make. Republic Records released it on April 19, 2024; "The Alchemy" is 15th on the track list.
Swift performed "The Alchemy" live twice on the Eras Tour in 2024. On May 12, Swift performed an acoustic guitar version of "The Alchemy", in a mashup with her track "Treacherous" (2012), at the fourth Paris show. On August 15, she sang a piano version, this time in a mashup with her track "King of My Heart" (2017), at the fourth London show. Swift released the Paris performance as part of a limited-time digital variant of The Tortured Poets Department on May 23, 2024.


"The Alchemy" is an electropop and pop rock song with R&B influences in its instrumentation, composed of echoing drums and layered vocals. Will Hodgkinson of The Times wrote that it has a dreamy and romantic production that evokes the styles of the American singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, while Annie Zaleski described the sound as hazy.
The lyrics use extensive football imagery to describe the burgeoning days of a new romantic relationship. Swift's character tells her new lover that she is willing to be all in ("So when I touch down/ Call the amateurs and cut 'em from the team") and admits that she does not have another choice ("Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?"). She also makes sarcastic remark as how her ex-lovers are removed from the team lineup. In the bridge, Swift's character describes a scene of triumph: her love interest, despite being in an underdog team, wins the football championship ("Shirts off, and your friends lift you up, over their heads"). At the end, he runs towards his "trophy", a metaphor for herself; "Where's the trophy? He just comes, running over to me."
Critics consider "The Alchemy" the only happy love song on an album primarily dealing with heartbreak. The literary critic Stephanie Burt identified "The Alchemy" as the only three tracks on The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology that are not about failed romance; the other two are "So High School" (about a happy kind of love) and "Robin" (about co-producer Aaron Dessner's son). Time's Shannon Carlin wrote that the track's placement near the end of the standard album shows that Swift's character is willing to "fight again with this new one-of-a-kind guy" after detailing ex-lovers on the preceding tracks ("These blokes warm the benches/ We've been on a winning streak"). Lauren Huff of Entertainment Weekly agreed, saying that "The Alchemy", placed after "songs about heartache so bad that Swift compares it to 'cardiac arrest' in her epilogue", signaled a "good kind" of "madness". Vogue Australia's Nina Miyashita thought that the lyrics appear to draw a parallel between the chemicals released by the brain when playing a sport and those released when one is in love.


Criticisms of the song mostly took issue with its lyrics. Some critics, such as The Atlantic's Spencer Kornharber, Slate's Carl Wilson, and Beats Per Minute's John Wohlmacher, considered the football imagery in the lyrics weak, "terrible", and "tossed-off". The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick said the track contains "cheesy sports puns". Writing for the Financial Times, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney said that the song was one of the "repetitive" tracks and opined that the title was used incorrectly. Lindsay Zoladz of The New York Times described the song as "weightless". Burt was somewhat more positive, deeming the football metaphors "flirtatious" and the overall message to contain "fun, hope, and patience".
Reviews that were somewhat more positive focused on the production. Sputnikmusic's Hugh G. Paddles argued that "The Alchemy" is an "otherwise effervescent and personally charged" track but criticized the "faux-narcotic slurred delivery" mentioning a drug reference near the ending lines. Wohlmacher praised the sound as "[laid] back and elegant" and said that the "mood of the composition" makes up for the lyrics. Hodgkinson gave the song a five-star rating, praising how it is "epic but intimate, like the final scene in a blockbuster". Ranking all 31 tracks on The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, Jason Lipshutz of Billboard placed "The Alchemy" at 21, calling it a "glittering love song". Alex Hopper of American Songwriter described the track as "sauntering, sexy".
Following its release, "The Alchemy" debuted and peaked at number 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, where the song and tracks from the album made Swift the first artist to occupy the top 14 of the chart. In Australia, it opened at its peak of number 18 on the ARIA Singles Chart and made her the artist with the most top-50 entries in a single week with 29. Elsewhere, "The Alchemy" reached number 19 on the Billboard Global 200 and charted within the countries of New Zealand (19), Canada (21), Portugal (41), Switzerland (46), Sweden (65), and France (157). It also peaked at number 23 on the United Kingdom's Audio Streaming Chart and number 39 on Greece's International Top 100 Digital Singles.


Adapted from the liner notes of The Tortured Poets Department


Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer
Jack Antonoff – producer, songwriter, drums, programming, percussion, synthesizer, electric guitar, background vocals, cello
Serban Ghenea – mixing
Bryce Bordone – mix engineer
Laura Sisk – recording, vocal engineer
Oli Jacobs – recording
Jon Sher – assistant recording engineer
Jack Manning – assistant recording engineer
Christopher Rowe – vocal engineer
Sean Hutchinson – recording, drums
Randy Merrill – mastering


Rear-Admiral Alexander Wilson (12 January 1760 – June 1834) was a Royal Navy officer most notable for his rise to flag rank from his position as a common seaman. Wilson joined the navy in 1777 and soon after became coxswain to Alexander Hood. By 1778 Wilson had been made a midshipman, fighting at the Battle of Ushant and Battle of Cape Henry. Wilson was promoted to lieutenant in 1787 and, continuing to serve with Hood, fought at the Glorious First of June and Battle of Groix before being promoted to commander.
After a brief command of HMS Kingfisher Wilson was promoted to post-captain on 2 September 1795. He temporarily commanded HMS Flora in 1798, and in 1801 joined the troopship HMS Trusty. Trusty then participated in the Battle of Abukir. Returning home from the Egypt Campaign in 1802 in command of HMS Alexandria, Wilson's ship was laid up. He went on to command the Wexford Sea Fencibles through the Napoleonic Wars, but never again went to sea. He was made a superannuated rear-admiral in 1814.


Alexander Wilson was born on 12 January 1760. As a child he aspired to become a sailor, and in an attempt to halt this his family sent him to serve on a West Indiaman commanded by his uncle. Wilson was not swayed by this experience, and joined the Royal Navy in 1777. Wilson was sent to serve on the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Robust, which was one of the ships activated to serve in the Channel Fleet at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. The commander of Robust, Captain Alexander Hood, was impressed by Wilson's seamanship and appointed him to serve as his coxswain.
Wilson was rewarded for his good conduct as coxswain, and by the middle of 1778 had been promoted to midshipman. He fought in Robust at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July of that year, in which the ship had five men killed and seventeen wounded. Hood afterwards left the ship, but Wilson stayed on under the new captain, Captain Phillips Cosby. On 1 May 1779 Robust sailed in a squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot to join the North American Station.


Arbuthnot's squadron served off Chesapeake Bay, and on 16 March 1781 fought the Battle of Cape Henry there. Robust led the British line into the opposing French fleet, with Wilson serving as the signals midshipman during the battle. The ship received the most damage among the British fleet because of her prominent position, but the descent of some fog made the battle an indecisive encounter. Wilson received a severe wound to the right arm during the fighting, being one of twenty-three men wounded alongside a further fifteen killed.
Robust was heavily damaged structurally at Cape Henry, and had to go into New York for repairs, with her crew thus missing the Battle of the Chesapeake on 5 September. The ship returned to sea, still in a poor state, in October, forming part of the fleet that made an aborted attempt to save Lieutenant-General Lord Cornwallis' army at the Siege of Yorktown. Robust was afterwards ordered to sail to England for further repairs, but was judged unfit to survive the crossing in her current state. The ship instead went to Antigua where repairs were completed, and Wilson finally returned home in the ship in the summer of 1782. Robust was then paid off.


After the American Revolutionary War came to a close, Wilson continued in the Royal Navy. He served in this period on board the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Triumph followed by the 98-gun ship of the line HMS Barfleur, the latter of which was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth. Wilson was promoted to lieutenant on 24 September 1787, at which point he went on half pay. After around eighteen months of this Wilson was appointed to the 16-gun sloop HMS Nautilus. He served as Nautilus's first lieutenant for three years on the Newfoundland Station.
Wilson had a successful term in post on Nautlius, and was noticed by Captain Edward Pellew. When Pellew was given command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Nymphe, he requested that Wilson become his first lieutenant. Wilson declined the appointment because he wanted to instead wait until his old captain Hood, now a vice-admiral, received a command which he could join.


At the start of the French Revolutionary War in 1793, Hood was given the 100-gun ship of the line HMS Royal George as his flagship in the English Channel, and Wilson was appointed to the ship. Royal George subsequently fought at the Glorious First of June in 1794, at which battle Wilson was wounded. The British fleet afterwards returned to their base at Spithead, where Wilson was appointed as Royal George's first lieutenant. In this position he fought at the Battle of Groix on 23 June 1795. In the aftermath of the battle Wilson was selected to take command of one of the French ships captured, the 74-gun ship of the line Alexandre, for her return to port. He was promoted to commander on 29 June, and for a period continued in temporary command of the newly recommissioned HMS Alexander.
In August Wilson was given his first true command, the 16-gun sloop HMS Kingfisher, tasked with taking dispatches to Vice-Admiral Thomas Pringle in the North Sea. Wilson returned from this voyage and was promoted to post-captain on 2 September. He was given command of the 28-gun frigate HMS Boreas, which was in ordinary at Sheerness Dockyard, before going on a period of half pay. In around May 1798 he was appointed temporary captain of the 36-gun frigate HMS Flora, which was serving in the Mediterranean Sea. Captain Robert Gambier Middleton returned to take command of Flora again soon afterwards. In early 1800 Wilson was sent to join the 50-gun fourth-rate HMS Trusty, which was armed en flute as a troopship. In Trusty Wilson joined a squadron of three ships of the line, two frigates, and a bomb vessel, which sailed to Cork to join Admiral Lord Keith's fleet.


The fleet subsequently sailed to the Mediterranean, arriving off Cadiz in October. Sent to support the British response to the French campaign in Egypt and Syria, they reached Alexandria on 1 March 1801. Having embarked a portion of Major-General George Ludlow's Guards Brigade, Trusty participated in the landings at the Battle of Abukir on 8 March. Subsequent to this, Keith began to sail off the Egyptian coast with his ships of the line. Wilson was left in Aboukir Bay with upwards of fifty vessels under his command. He also had control over the transport ships working to supply and assist the army ashore, and was in command of the port as a whole. As the campaign found success Wilson was one of many officers awarded the Turkish gold medal. Keith wrote that Wilson was "indefatigable in his duties of the port".
Some time after this Wilson was translated from Trusty into the command of the 38-gun frigate HMS Alexandria, which had been the French frigate Régénérée until captured on 2 September. Wilson returned to England in Alexandria, arriving at Sheerness in early 1802. The ship was then officially commissioned into the Royal Navy, but was never fitted for service and was instead laid up at Chatham Dockyard. Alexandria was broken up in April 1804 and Wilson was left on half pay. This was his last active sea service in the Royal Navy.


Wilson stayed on half pay until 1805 when he was chosen to replace Captain Josias Rowley as commander of the Wexford Sea Fencibles. He continued to apply for the command of another ship throughout this period, but was unsuccessful. As such Wilson spent the entirety of the rest of the Napoleonic Wars with the Sea Fencibles, only relinquishing his position when the unit was paid off towards the end of the conflict. On 18 July 1814 he was promoted to become a superannuated rear-admiral, in effect being promoted into retirement. This also meant he could not receive further promotion through the flag ranks.
Wilson was highly disappointed to be put in this position; embittered, he believed that it had occurred because he did not have enough powerful support behind his career. His unusual rise from common seaman to commissioned officer has been compared by naval historian N. A. M. Rodger to the careers of Captain John Quilliam, Rear-Admiral John Pasco, and Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge, all of whom had similarly humble beginnings. In retirement Wilson lived at Birchgrove, Wexford; he died there in June 1834. While little is recorded of Wilson's personal life, his son James Henry Richard Wilson also joined the Royal Navy. He became a lieutenant in 1825, and commanded the Putney Heath semaphore station.


The Algemeyne Entsiklopedye (Yiddish: אלגעמיינע ענציקלאפעדיע, lit. 'General Encyclopedia') is a Yiddish-language encyclopedia published in twelve volumes from 1934 to 1966. It is divided into two subseries: five volumes of the Normale series, covering general knowledge, and six volumes of the Yidn series (initially planned as a single supplementary volume) covering Jewish history and culture through a series of essays. Additionally, a small sample volume was released in 1932. The encyclopedia's early volumes emphasize leftist history and politics, although the project shifted in tone in response to Nazi persecution, and became increasingly focused on covering Jewish culture and history. After the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe – the encyclopedia's main audience – in the Holocaust, it transformed from a general-purpose resource into an effort to commemorate what was lost.
After decades of proposals and failed attempts to compile a Yiddish general encyclopedia, the Vilna-based Jewish cultural organization YIVO formed the Dubnov Fund in 1930, which organized and fundraised for the encyclopedia. A large group of Jewish scholars contributed to the project, often part-time alongside other jobs. Raphael Abramovitch, a socialist politician, served as the project's chief editor for most of its history. Its editors fled to Paris after the rise of the Nazi Regime in 1933, delaying the release of the first volume until 1934. There, they published four volumes of the Normale series and two of Yidn. The outbreak of World War II again forced the editors to flee, and the project regrouped in New York City. Financed by the Claims Conference, work on the encyclopedia continued into the 1960s; the final volume, Yidn Zayen, was released three years after Abramovitch's death. Two additional volumes (one of each series) were planned, but never finished. In the years following the war, a four-volume English-language encyclopedia titled Jewish People: Past and Present was compiled, largely based on the early volumes of the Yidn series.


The probeheft, a 36-page soft-cover sample volume of the encyclopedia first released in 1932, contains 56 entries and around a dozen images. Ten of the entries were related to Jewish culture, including articles on Hirsh Lekert, Cantonists, and the Khazars. An entry on Jews simply directs readers to the forthcoming Yidn volume. Some articles are quite short – an entry on Easter Island is only two sentences long – while others span multiple pages, such as historian Simon Dubnow's two-page entry on Hasidism. A single color plate is included in the sample volume to illustrate the article on ceramics. Of its ten biographies, one brief article covers a woman, the Italian educator Maria Montessori. Its second edition cut three short entries and added some additional images and two longer articles. The new entries included an article on Hebrew writer Yosef Haim Brenner, likely made in response to criticism over the lack of material on Hebrew authors in the initial edition.


Volume One, published in Paris in late December 1934, contains around 1,100 entries, covering topics alphabetically from alef to Atlantic City. Its contents are similar to other general-purpose encyclopedias of the period, including coverage of technological innovations, the natural world, geography, and a large number of biographies. Topics related to the political left are often written by socialist authors; one of the longest entries in the volume is an article on agrarian socialism by Menshevik Petr Garvi. The preface to the volume includes a statement of purpose for the encyclopedia as a whole. Noting that many Yiddish speakers lacked formal education, the editors declared that the encyclopedia needed to serve as an educational tool in its own right.
Relative to the first volume, the 1935 Volume Two (covering from Atlantic Ocean to interference alphabetically in Yiddish) contains relatively few entries on Jewish topics, while those that do exist (such as an entry on the Wandering Jew by poet David Einhorn) are quite short. The last quarter of the volume contains almost a hundred international labor movements and socialist internationals, together presenting a very detailed picture of labor history. Many of these articles were written by head editor Raphael Abramovitch, a former Menshevik leader. The first two volumes are strongly influenced by diaspora nationalism, rebuking both Zionism and the rising antisemitic movements across Europe. The following editions, released in environment where European Jews were in extreme danger, abandon diaspora nationalism as an ideology.
Volume Three (covering "intra" to antisemitism) was released in December 1936. It largely follows the previous two volumes in content, featuring a heavy emphasis on leftist history and politics (including lengthy entries on anarchism and anarchist movements). The final article, "Antisemitism", is larger than any previous entry in the encyclopedia, stretching fifty columns and five subsections covering the origins, ideology, evolution, and organization of antisemitism, as well as its opposition movement. Unlike other articles, it was written collaboratively. Abramovitch wrote its majority with support from writers Ben-Adir (Avrom Rozin) and Tcherikower. Volume Four (beginning with antiseptic) was released the following year. Like its predecessor, it ended with a lengthy essay, "Erets-yisroel" ("Land of Israel"), in collaboration between four authors. Although not overtly Zionist, the essay prioritizes information of Jewish activity in the region; the opening subsection on the demographics and economics of the region almost entirely excludes Arabs.
The fifth volume of the Normale series, released in 1944, finishes the last of the topics beginning with Aleph, and moves on to cover most topics under the second letter of the Yiddish alphabet, bet. It begins with an entry on the Roman Emperor Arcadius and ends with an entry on animals and living things. The last edition of the series in-between volumes of Yidn, it still features extensive coverage of Jewish topics, including many biographies of Jewish figures such as Ber Borochov and David Ben-Gurion. In comparison, the entries on general knowledge topics (such as Belgium and baseball) are relatively short. Although further volumes of the series were planned, they were never completed.
Many articles within the encyclopedia have bibliographies, although this is inconsistent; some have none, drawing criticism from reviewers. The inclusion threshold for biographical articles is inconsistent throughout the work. While many obscure men are given biographies, only a small portion of the most notable women are featured in the encyclopedia.


The Yidn subseries of the encyclopedia focused on Jewish life, culture, history, and religion. Yidn Alef, the first of these volumes, consists mainly of essays introducing various Jewish topics written by experts in the respective field. Essays within the volume include entries on Jewish anthropology, archaeology, colonization, cooperatives, demography, history (divided into separate ancient, medieval and modern entries), historiography, and statistics. Yidn Beys follows a similar format, but focuses mainly on Jewish religious and cultural matters, with articles such as a four-part essay on the history of Jewish art by art historian Rachel Wischnitzer. Compared to Alef and earlier volumes of the Normale series, Yidn Beys featured more contributors from outside of Europe, as well as from a greater ideological range.
Yidn Giml, initially thought as the last volume of the Yidn series, features essays on Jewish literature and publications, as well as Jewish ideological, labor, and political movements. The largest essay in the volume is a 100-column article by Shmuel Charney entitled "Yiddish Literature from the Mid-eighteenth Century until 1942". The volume also includes one of the last writings from Ben-Adir, "Modern Social and National Currents among Jews", who died shortly after the volume's publication.
Yidn Daled, the first volume composed after the war, follows the format of previous volumes of Yidn. Historian Barry Trachtenberg likened the volume to a Yizkor book—a memorial book on communities destroyed in the Holocaust—as many of the essays in the book focus on Jewish communities and life in Europe prior to the Holocaust. Essays detail Jewish communities in different European countries. The largest essay in the volume, Avrom Menes's 150-column "The Eastern European Age in Jewish History", is a broad overview of Jewish history in Eastern Europe since the medieval period, while the shortest, a history of the Jews in Luxembourg, is only four columns. Yidn Hey expands Daled's scope to Jewish communities in the Americas. Over three-quarters of the entries in the volume are focused on the United States, most of which were translated from Jewish People: Past and Present, likely including essays that were previously translated into English from Yiddish. Beside the United States coverage, Hey features three essays on Jews in Argentina, two essays on Jews in Canada, and three short essays on Jewish history and culture in Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba.
Yidn Vov and Yidn Zayen, the final two volumes of Yidn series (and of the encyclopedia as a whole), consist of a combined twenty-eight essays on topics related to the Holocaust. These essays, written by a variety of influential scholars (many of whom had not previously contributed to the encyclopedia), are generally organized by country, and give a history of the persecution of Jews before and during the war, life under occupation, and details on how Jews survived or engaged in armed resistance. While Vov is well-illustrated with photos and maps, Zayen lacks photos entirely, likely due to the financial difficulties of the project during the 1960s.


With the rise of national encyclopedias such as the Encyclopædia Britannica in the 18th and 19th centuries, some Jewish intellectuals and scholars proposed the creation of encyclopedias to cover the history and culture of the Jewish people. After several failed projects in the preceding decades, Isidore Singer's English-language Jewish Encyclopedia was the first Jewish encyclopedia, published in 1901–1906. The Russian Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia followed in 1908–1913 and the Hebrew Otzar Yisrael in 1906–1913. Ten volumes of an incomplete German-language Encyclopedia Judaica were published in 1928 to 1934 under the direction of philosopher Jakob Klatzkin, roughly concurrent to another German encyclopedia, the four-volume Jüdisches Lexikon (1927–1930).
Unlike general or universal encyclopedias such as the Britannica, these encyclopedias were specialized on Jewish topics, and did not seek to cover general knowledge. Attempts to compile a Yiddish general encyclopedia had been made since 1904. That year, a group of scholars (previously associated with the Russian Yiddish daily newspaper Der Fraynd) attempted to compile a compact encyclopedia entitled Di Algemeyne Yidishe Entsiklopedye ('The General Jewish Encyclopedia'), which would contain both general knowledge and coverage of Jewish topics. Only one volume of this work was made, as it was discontinued after negative responses from critics. Four volumes of a Yiddish encyclopedia were compiled by editors Hillel Zeitlin and Shoyl Stupnitski beginning in 1917; this brought the encyclopedia about halfway through topics under aleph, the first letter of the Yiddish alphabet, before the project was discontinued. A similar attempt in the early 1920s by the South African Yiddish publisher David Goldblatt resulted in only one volume.


In March 1930, the editor Nakhmen Meisel published a call for a "great Yiddish encyclopedia" in the literary weekly Literarishe Bleter, arguing that the success of the YIVO, a major Yiddish academic institute, could lay the groundwork for a general encyclopedia for Jewish audiences where previous attempts had failed. This resulted in the YIVO central committee launching the Dubnov Fund (Dubnov-fond) in Berlin later that year, seeking to organize and raise funds for the encyclopedia; they named the fund for Simon Dubnow, a historian who had served as an editor for both the Jewish Encyclopedia and the Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia. YIVO co-founder Elias Tcherikower was named the head of the encyclopedia working group, while Moshe Shalit outlined a detailed proposal for the encyclopedia. Politician Leon Bramson served as the chairman of the fund.
A February 1931 meeting of various prominent Jewish intellectuals in Berlin (including Meisel, Dubnow, Tcherikower, and Shalit) convened to evaluate the plans for the encyclopedia. This group agreed that the encyclopedia would include ten volumes on general knowledge, with one additional volume reserved for Jewish topics. They predicted that the work would take six or seven years to finish, estimating a rate of two volumes per year. At the behest of Shalit, it was agreed that only Jewish writers would be allowed to contribute. While the YIVO would administrate the project in Vilna, the Dunbow Fund would manage day-to-day operations in the center of the Hebrew and Yiddish publishing industries, Berlin.
The former Menshevik and Bund organizer Raphael Abramovitch was named the chief organizer of the project. Political and organizational rifts emerged over its development. Editors, contributors, and critics debated the proportion of the encyclopedia to be focused on Jewish topics. Some suggested that 30% of the encyclopedia focus on these topics, while others (including YIVO co-founder Max Weinreich) supported only a single volume on Jewish topics out of eleven total. This dispute led YIVO to withdraw from the Dubnov Fund, although many YIVO staff continued to work on the encyclopedia.


The probeheft was released and distributed to supporters of the project in 1932. It predicted the final project would consist of 5000 double-sided pages and 25 million characters, with 40,000 entries ranging from lengthy articles to short descriptions and translations. This was less than most general encyclopedias in other languages, which typically ranged from 160,000 to 200,000 entries. A slightly larger second edition of the probeheft, published in January 1933, contained edits to existing articles. Poet and encyclopedia contributor Daniel Charney celebrated the probeheft, writing in a New York literary magazine, "If the forthcoming Yiddish encyclopedia will indeed have this elegant an appearance [...] we will really not have anything to be ashamed of in comparison to the other nations of the world."
In 1933, the rise of Adolf Hitler's regime in Germany forced the editors of the encyclopedia to flee the country. A core group of editors (including Abramovitch and Tcherikower) regrouped the Dubnov Fund in Paris, although some contributors had fled to other European countries. Although the organizers had enough material written for the first two volumes, financial difficulties delayed the release of the first volume to December 1934. To reduce the cost of printing runs, encyclopedia was reorganized into twenty smaller volumes — the Normale series — and a supplementary volume on Jewish topics entitled Yidn. The last volume of Normale was predicted to release in 1941.
Although the fund predicted four volumes per year, only one was released every year from 1934 to 1937. Volume Two was released in 1935, Volume Three in 1936, and Volume Four in 1937. The Dubnov Fund experienced severe funding issues in 1936, impairing work. They were denied bank loans, and attempted to solicit donations from their contacts in United States. The fund considered printing Volume Three in Belgium, where printing costs were lower, but ultimately decided against this. In 1939, the Yidn alef supplementary volume was released, stated as an "enlightening of the sum of Jewish problems that matter to the day-to-day Jewish man and which he can find in no other place". The volume featured material covering Jewish organizations, statistics, and history. A second volume of the supplement was announced, which would cover cultural and religious topics. Trachtenberg described the encyclopedia as functioning as a "make-work project" for its editors and contributors. The poet Sholem Schwarzbard was employed for the encyclopedia, lending it greater prestige and credence among the Jewish left.


The outbreak of World War II again forced editors to flee in 1940, immediately after the second volume of the Yidn was published. Most copies, roughly a thousand, of the original run of this volume were lost — possibly due to a German U-boat attack on the ship carrying them — but a small number arrived in the United States and Canada and were reprinted. They bore a preface noting their publication amidst a "fury of global war". Many editors and contributors settled in New York City, with organizational and publishing work carried on by the Central Yiddish Culture Organization. The refugee editors had brought with them the manuscript for Yidn Giml, along with a small portion of the fund's administrative documents. However, most administrative and financial records were lost, as was the stockpile of around 12,000 books from previously published volumes of the encyclopedia. These were republished in New York.
Yidn Giml was published in 1942, followed by another installment of the Normale series in 1944. This would be the fifth and final such volume, released nine years after the previous Normale volume. The dwindling editorial corps (multiple editors, including Tcherikower, had died in New York) and the mass killing of the encyclopedia's readership forced an increasing turn away from general knowledge towards fully capturing Jewish culture, religion, and history for future generations. Many contributors still in Europe were killed during the Holocaust, including Dubnow and linguist Noach Pryłucki. The encyclopedia's intended audience, Yiddish communities in Eastern Europe, were destroyed. Surviving Yiddish speakers were distributed into diaspora communities around the world, and use of the language declined as these communities adopted the dominant language of their resident countries, reducing the demand for the encyclopedia in the decades after the war.
During the late 1940s, focus shifted towards a four-volume English version of the encyclopedia entitled Jewish People: Past and Present, which had been initially conceived before the war. This version, although heavily based on the first three Yidn volumes, was not a direct translation. Its main editors included historian Salo W. Baron and Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan. The first postwar volume of the Yiddish edition was released in 1950. Financed by the Claims Conference, three more followed, released in 1957, 1964, and 1966. Abramowitz died in 1963, and administration of the project passed to Iser Goldberg. Two additional volumes — a sixth volume of the Normale series and a Yidn volume on Israel — were planned but never finished.


Contributors to the encyclopedia worked part-time on the project and struggled to support themselves financially. In order to support themselves while they worked on the encyclopedia, many had additional jobs as teachers, journalists, or writers. Contributors spanned the political spectrum – generally communists or Zionists – although political participation was even wider for the Yidn volumes. Anarchist Alexander Berkman drafted an article on anarchism for the first volume of the encyclopedia; this was rejected by the editors as overly political.


Critical reception to the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye in the Yiddish press began after the publication of its probeheft in 1932. Journalist Yeshayahu Klinov, reviewing the probeheft, noted the great potential for the project, writing that if completed, the encyclopedia would "justify our entire Eastern European Jewish Diaspora in Berlin" but questioned whether ten volumes would be enough to provide a proper overview of general knowledge. Klinov, a committed Zionist, criticized the encyclopedia's ideological direction, disapproving that the article on Zionist leader Max Nordau was written by the anti-Zionist socialist Ben-Adir. Press coverage of the first full volume was extremely positive and supportive, with many hailing the project as a landmark in the history of Yiddish literary culture.
The editorial staff of the encyclopedia had grown increasingly sympathetic towards Zionism over the course of its production; however, they still faced criticism from Zionist academics. Historian Bernard Dov Weinryb criticized the Yidn editions' focus on the culture of the diaspora over the growing Jewish community in Palestine, calling on the editors to recognize that most readers would be "more or less sympathetic toward Hebrew and Zionism or, in any case, not opposed to the movement".
Historian Koppel Pinson praised the Yidn volumes while critiquing the last volume of the Normale series for what he described as poor editorial policy, writing that the encyclopedia's selection of historical figures for biographical articles appeared arbitrary and inconsistent. Pinson noted that biographies of historical figures such as Henry Ward Beecher and Dieterich Buxtehude was absent, as well as coverage of Jewish figures such as Marcus Elieser Bloch. Historian Nachman Blumental criticized a variety of historical inaccuracies and errors regarding Jewish ghettos in the final Yidn volume, as well as hedging and other informalities.
The encyclopedia has received limited academic attention. In 2022, Barry Trachtenberg published a history of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye entitled The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish.


Ali-Qoli Khan Qajar (c. 1756–1824; Persian: علی‌قلی‌خان قاجار) was a son of Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar (d. 1759) and half-brother of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar (r. 1789–1797), the founder of the Qajar dynasty of Iran. Unlike Agha Mohammad Khan's full brothers, Ali-Qoli Khan served loyally from the outset and supported, for around twenty years (with brief intervals), Agha Mohammad Khan's conquest for control over all of Iran. Following Agha Mohammad Khan's assassination in 1797, he unsuccessfully tried to claim himself as his brother's rightful successor. Ali-Qoli Khan was eventually blinded and exiled by his nephew Baba Khan, who would ascend the Iranian throne as Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (r. 1797–1834).


Ali-Qoli Khan Qajar was born c. 1756 in Astarabad (present-day Gorgan). According to the later court historian Mohammad-Taqi "Lesan ol-Molk" Sepehr, he was Mohammad Hasan Khan's ninth and last son, a rank possibly inherited because his mother was of non-Qajar origin, rather than being connected to his actual age. After the defeat and death of his father in 1759, Ali-Qoli Khan was brought to Qazvin as a captive of Karim Khan of the Zand dynasty. Ali-Qoli Khan was then moved to the Zand capital of Shiraz where he was raised, together with his brothers, under the surveillance of the Zand rulers. Following Karim Khan's death in 1779, confusion erupted which enabled Ali-Qoli Khan to accompany his eldest brother Agha Mohammad Khan to Astarabad. This event marked the beginning for Ali-Qoli Khan of what would become roughly twenty years of service (with brief intervals) under his eldest brother, taking part in Agha Mohammad Khan's endeavours to establish control over all of Iran. In contrast to Agha Mohammad Khan's full brothers, Ali-Qoli Khan was his steadfast associate from the start.


Ali-Qoli Khan rarely matched the military prowess of his older brothers and was never able to obtain an independent position in the Qajar tribe. He was reportedly nicknamed Agha Baji by Agha Mohammad Khan, a derogatory term meaning "effeminate master", which, as the modern historian Abbas Amanat explains, may refer to certain feminine traits in his behavior or his lack of cruelty. Nevertheless, Ali-Qoli Khan's support of Agha Mohammad Khan did help the latter in 1779–1782 during early conflicts with his brothers over power.


In 1781, Ali-Qoli Khan and Agha Mohammad Khan were successful in ousting the Kurdish and Arab tribal chiefs of northern Khorasan out of the town of Semnan, in the historical region of Qumis. For his assistance in the conquest of this area, Ali-Qoli Khan was subsequently given Semnan as a fiefdom (soyurgal). Subsequently, Ali-Qoli Khan would play a pivotal role in subduing Khvar and Varamin, near Tehran, putting them under Agha Mohammad Khan's control. This region was the seat of the rival Develu clan of the Qajar tribe, whose loyalty and support were deemed essential for tribal unity. This factor may have added to Agha Mohammad Khan's decision to designate nearby Tehran as his capital several years later, in 1795.
In 1783, as a result of the continued struggle between the Zands and the Qajars, Ali-Qoli Khan decided to make a bid for power. Having abandoned Agha Mohammad Khan, he made peace with the Zand chiefs, which, as the modern historian Abbas Amanat explains, was perhaps intended to gain authority over central Iran. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar was forced to retreat to Astarabad. However, this retreat was short lived, for the reduction of Zand power allowed him to regain his former position. Ali-Qoli Khan repented before Agha Mohammad Khan, now engaging in the cycle of betrayal and reconciliation that characterized Agha Mohammad Khan's relationships with his other brothers. As Agha Mohammad Khan was able to tighten his position in the north of the country, Ali-Qoli Khan, carrying the banner of Agha Mohammad Khan yet again, was ordered to fight in a series of six campaigns which resulted in the elimination of the Zands and other minor states in southern Iran. Ali-Qoli Khan conquered the remainder of the Fayli Lors in the southwestern-most part of the country. Two years later, in 1787–1788, he partnered again with Agha Mohammad Khan during an unsuccessful campaign against Fars.
Returning from Fars, Ali-Qoli Khan was appointed governor of Isfahan by Agha Mohammad Khan, replacing their brother Jafar-Qoli Khan Qajar, and was assigned 2,000 troops stationed in the city to command. With Agha Mohammad Khan on his way to Tehran, however, Jafar Khan Zand (r. 1785–1789) began preparing yet another invasion of Isfahan. Ali-Qoli Khan, learning of this plan, sent a force of Qaraguzlu tribesmen to hold Qumishah, but the advancing Zand army led by Jafar Khan Zand were superior in number and overwhelmed them. Ali-Qoli Khan then retreated to Kashan, leaving Isfahan open to Jafar Khan Zand. Not long after, however, together with his older brother, Ali-Qoli Khan returned and retook the city. In 1789–1790, Ali-Qoli Khan, during Agha Mohammad Khan's second Fars campaign, commanded a contingent of 7,000 soldiers and bested the Lor tribes that roamed in Kohgiluyeh. Much of his success in Kohgiluyeh was not necessarily due to his military tactics or prowess, but because the tribes were willing to repudiate their allegiance to the unstable Zands and submit themselves to the Qajars.


Ali-Qoli Khan took part in Agha Mohammad Khan's attack on Kerman in 1794 and was responsible for taking Shahr-e Babak and Sirjan. He was later ordered to assert control over Lar. Ali-Qoli Khan also took part in the campaigns in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus in 1795. During the latter campaign, he was first sent to Shirvan followed by Erivan (Erevan). Ali-Qoli Khan intended to replace Mostafa Khan-e Davalu with Mostafa Khan-e Talesh following the former's death as a result of a local uprising by the population of Shirvan. However, after taking tribute (kharaj), Ali-Qoli Khan left Mostafa Khan-e Talesh in his post and moved back to Tehran.


In 1797, during Agha Mohammad Khan's final campaign in the Caucasus, Ali-Qoli Khan was ordered to hold Erivan. At this point, Ali-Qoli Khan had become the only surviving brother of Agha Mohammad Khan who had not been exiled or physically disabled. Following Agha Mohammad Khan's assassination in June 1797 in Shusha and the ensuing turmoil, Ali-Qoli Khan would proclaim himself the rightful successor to his older brother. According to the French naturalist Guillaume Antoine Olivier, who was travelling through Iran at the time, Ali-Qoli Khan had first proclaimed himself Shah in Mazandaran. Other sources, however, suggest that Ali-Qoli Khan left Erivan and marched down via Khoy, Tabriz and Maragheh towards Tehran, with the intention of seizing the newly established capital. The gates of the city had been closed by its governor (beglarbeg) Mirza Mohammad Khan Develu since 1795, however, and thus Ali-Qoli Khan was forced to encamp at a village some fifty kilometres west of Tehran, known as Alishah Avaz (now the city of Shahriar). His stay at the village was probably intended to recruit more troops in order to storm Tehran by force.
Simultaneously, however, his young nephew, Baba Khan, soon to be Fath-Ali Shah (r. 1797–1834), the second shah of the Qajar dynasty, entered Tehran through the acquiescence of Mirza Mohammad Khan. On the advice of Hajji Ebrahim Shirazi, Baba Khan sent his brother Hosayn-Qoli Khan II to invite Ali-Qoli Khan to the palace in Tehran, under the feigned pretext of discussing succession. When Ali-Qoli Khan arrived, he was not allowed to enter the palace accompanied by his armed attendants. Ali-Qoli Khan was physically obliged to bow to Baba Khan and, cursing him all the while, was led to a room where he was blinded. Ali-Qoli Khan was then sent to Barforush (now Babol) in Mazandaran, where he remained until his death in 1824.
Ali-Qoli Khan based his claim to succession on his loyalty to Agha Mohammad Khan, having accompanied him throughout the conquest of Iran, and as the sole surviving son of Mohammad Hasan Khan. Based on these arguments, he considered it his right to ascend the throne. The claim, however, was void from the start because, in the contemporaneous Qajar system of power, concepts of kinship and "purity" of blood were major focal points in the transmission of right and dignity. As Ali-Qoli Khan had been born to a non-Qajar mother, he was ineligible for such right. In addition, under the earlier Qajars, a "legitimate" claim to the Iranian throne had to be imposed by military and political power—qualities that Ali-Qoli Khan did not possess. Furthermore, Baba Khan had long been prepared by Agha Mohammad Khan for succession.


All Dogs Go to Heaven is the second extended play (EP) by the American musician Glaive. It was released on August 6, 2021, via Interscope Records. After recording his debut EP Cypress Grove (2020) in his North Carolina bedroom, Glaive garnered critical acclaim and travelled to Los Angeles to record All Dogs Go to Heaven in a studio during a two week period. The EP pulls from many genres, as Glaive was focused on making music that he liked and wanted to move away from his previous hyperpop sound.
The title of All Dogs Go to Heaven was taken from a book of the same name, which Glaive's mother gave him after the death of his family's dog. Production was handled by a variety of record producers, including Travis Barker, Jasper Harris, Nick Mira, and Whethan. It was promoted with three singles and a deluxe edition titled Old Dog, New Tricks; the deluxe was promoted with a North American tour. The EP received mixed reviews from critics; NME ranked it among the best EPs and mixtapes to release in 2021 and multiple publications included its lead single, "I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall", on their year-end lists.


Glaive released his debut extended play (EP), Cypress Grove, in November 2020. It gained him a global fanbase and received widespread critical acclaim; The Fader's Alex Robert Ross said it positioned Glaive as "the most promising kid in pop music" and called him "a naturally gifted songwriter". Though Glaive is categorized as a hyperpop artist, Cypress Grove pulls from multiple other genres. In August 2021, Glaive performed his first live show at Cole Bennett's Summer Smash festival.
While Cypress Grove was recorded in his bedroom, Glaive travelled to Los Angeles to record his next EP, All Dogs Go to Heaven, in a studio across a two week period with Travis Barker and Nick Mira. After making around 20 songs during the recording period, he had to narrow it down to seven "perfect" ones. During recording sessions, Glaive was assertive in moving away from the hyperpop sound of his previous EP. The EP's title was taken from a book of the same name, which Glaive's mother gave him after the death of his family's dog. When Glaive had ideas, he would write them in the Notes app to turn them into songs later. He wanted to make music that he liked instead of trying to sound like another artist. Before traveling to Los Angeles, he made a few songs for the EP in his bedroom that did not make the final track list.


Though Glaive is a leading force in the hyperpop genre, NME's Ben Jolley wrote that All Dogs Go to Heaven "extend[s] far beyond the hyperpop umbrella". Maxamillion Polo of Ones to Watch said the EP contains "fragments of Midwest emo, emo rap, alternative, Jersey bounce, PC Music, and pop-punk". Ross called the EP "hooky, but deft" and said that it pulls from genres such as "Midwest emo, arena pop, and SoundCloud rap". Glaive described the production as a middle ground between trap and EDM and called the EP energetic. Unlike his earlier music, All Dogs Go to Heaven does not feature pitched-up vocals.


The opening track of All Dogs Go to Heaven is "1984", a hyperpop song that also draws from rock, trap, and EDM. The track meanders and then moves to an intensified pace. It tells a bittersweet story with heartbroken lyrics over a trap-heavy chorus. Gray said that Glaive puts on a "Post Malonian tremble-moan", while Curtis Sun of Consequence described Glaive's delivery as "quavering". "Detest Me" is an upbeat pop song that consists of "blown-out drums, snares and a dolphin-like flute" that come together chaotically. The angst-ridden "Poison" contains a drawn-out enunciation of the word "escape" during its hook, and Jolley described it as "a fusion of trap-meets-pop-punk". The production of "Stephany" and "Synopsis" consist of "sticky riffs and thrashing drums" according to Jolley. Gray called the latter "bumping" and "screeching" and wrote that Glaive is at his most "compelling and genuine" on the track.
"I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall", a song about declining serotonin levels and Glaive's crush that loves alcohol, contains frenetic and maximalist hyperpop production. Gray wrote that it is "deceptively chipper", while Sophie Leigh Walker of The Line of Best Fit said it is "all sunshine and rainbows on the surface" and conceals "universal angst". The New York Times's Jon Caramanica wrote that the track "tilts between breathability and gasping," contains "squirrelly production", and called its lyrics "sweetly sung agony". Glaive said the inspiration behind the track was online school and quarantine. The penultimate track, "Bastard", begins with a guitar progression and transitions to a beat drop as xylophone notes support Glaive's "raging post-breakup emotions". The closing track, "All Dogs Go to Heaven", was described as "a relatively slow-burning ballad" by Derrick Rossignol of Uproxx. The deluxe edition of All Dogs Go to Heaven, titled Old Dog, New Tricks, also contains the tracks "Lap #1", "Icarus", "JustLikeU4TheImage", "Walking Around with No Hands", and "Prick".


Glaive announced All Dogs Go to Heaven alongside the release of its lead single "I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall" and its music video on March 17. The second single, "Detest Me", was released on June 2, 2021, alongside a music video. On July 29, 2021, he released the third and final single, "Bastard". The EP was released on August 6, 2021, via Interscope Records. During August 2021, "1984" received a music video directed by Cole Bennett.
A deluxe edition of All Dogs Go to Heaven, titled Old Dog, New Tricks, was released on January 27, 2022. It added five new songs to the EP, including the single "Prick". During February 2022, Glaive embarked on a North American tour with Aldn and Midwxst to support Old Dog, New Tricks. It was his first tour as a headliner.
On July 19, 2022, Glaive shared a GoFundMe for the dog featured on the EP's cover named Binkus. Binkus had the condition pulmonic stenosis and required $7,500 to treat the condition.


According to Raphael Helfand of The Fader, All Dogs Go to Heaven received mixed reviews. In a perfect review for NME, Ben Jolley wrote that the EP "is a huge step up" for Glaive, showcases "genuine depth to his songwriting", and "proves that his appeal will soon transcend the relatively niche hyperpop scene". In a lukewarm review for Pitchfork, Julia Gray wrote that Glaive's natural talent is hidden under "amorphous" production and said the EP is "polished, near spotless, and that's the problem". NME included All Dogs Go to Heaven in their list of the best EPs and mixtapes of 2021 and named "I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall" as a key track.
Several publications included "I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall" in their best songs of 2021 lists. The New York Times's Jon Caramanica considered it the best song of the year; he applauded it for being an "evolutionary leap" for Glaive and said it is "more tense than a tug of war and more fun than a loop-the-loop". The Los Angeles Times ranked it the year's 27th best song, while Slate included it in their unranked list. Similarly, The Fader considered "Bastard" the 47th best song of the year.


Glaive – recording (2, 4, 6, 8), engineering (3, 5, 7)
Prash Mistry – mixing, mastering, engineering (1, 4, 5, 8)
Whethan – recording (1), engineering (2, 3, 5, 6)
Kimj – recording (8), engineering (5, 6)
Jeff Hazin – recording (4, 8), engineering (3)
Cashheart – engineering (6)
Zac Greer – guitar, recording (8)
Kidicarus – engineering (6)
D-Work – engineering (5)
Nick Mira – recording (1)
Glasear – engineering (6)
Travis Barker – drums, engineering (5)
Haan – engineering (2)
Eric J Dubowsky – engineering (7)
Matt Curtin – additional engineering (7)


"All of the Girls You Loved Before" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and an outtake from her seventh studio album, Lover (2019). After its demo version was leaked online and went viral on TikTok, "All of the Girls You Loved Before" was surprise-released on March 17, 2023, ahead of Swift's sixth concert tour, the Eras Tour. Swift wrote and produced the song with Frank Dukes and Louis Bell.
A synth-pop love song, "All of the Girls You Loved Before" has lyrics about a narrator's gratitude to the women in her boyfriend's life, including his former girlfriends, for shaping his experiences which led him to her. Music critics complimented the song for its affectionate lyrics and dreamy production. The track charted within the top 25 in several countries and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard Global 200. It received certifications in Australia and the United Kingdom.


Taylor Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019. The album received positive critical reviews and was the global best-selling album by a solo artist of 2019. Swift planned to embark on a concert tour to support Lover in summer 2020 but canceled the plan due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdowns in 2020, she released the indie folk albums Folklore and Evermore. After that, she released two re-recorded albums, Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version), in 2021, and another studio album, Midnights, in 2022.
To support Midnights and all of her discography up until that point, Swift embarked on her sixth headlining concert tour and her first in five years, the Eras Tour, on March 17, 2023. The day The Eras Tour kicked off in Glendale, AZ she released four songs: three re-recordings of previously-released songs ("Eyes Open (Taylor's Version)", "Safe & Sound (Taylor's Version)", and "If This Was a Movie (Taylor's Version)") and a previously-unreleased track ("All of the Girls You Loved Before"). "All of the Girls You Loved Before" is a song Swift had written and intended to include on Lover but did not make the final tracklist. Prior to the song's release, a demo titled "All of the Girls" was leaked online and went viral on TikTok in February 2023. "All of the Girls You Loved Before" was also included on The More Lover Chapter, a streaming-exclusive compilation that also includes select Lover tracks. On July 29, Swift performed the track as a "surprise song" at the Eras Tour show in Santa Clara, California. She sang it again in 2024 as part of a mashup with her song "Crazier" (2009) at the tour's Edinburgh stop on June 8.


"All of the Girls You Loved Before" was written and produced by Swift, Frank Dukes, and Louis Bell. Dukes is credited under his birthname, Adam King Feeney, as writer. Musicians who played instruments on the track include Dukes (keyboard and guitar) and Matthew Tavares (guitar). Bell and Dukes programmed the song, which was mixed by Serban Ghenea and mastered by Randy Merrill.
"All of the Girls You Loved Before" is a synth-pop song that incorporates a doo-wop progression and soft synths, which bring forth a soundscape that critics described as "dreamy" and "ethereal". The track is a love song and media publications interpreted it as a message to her then-boyfriend, English actor Joe Alwyn, although Swift did not confirm the inspiration. In the lyrics, a female narrator reflects on her past loves before meeting her current lover ("Crying in the bathroom for some dude whose name I cannot remember now"); some critics interpreted this lyric as a reference to the events described in Swift's song "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)". She discusses her romantic partner's past love life and expresses gratitude to his ex-girlfriends for making him the righteous man he is now. In the bridge, she appreciates his mother ("Your mother brought you up loyal and kind") and all the women in his life and promises to love him forever.


In The New York Times, critic Jon Pareles described the track's lyrics as "Swift at her most forgiving". Jake Viswanath of Bustle opined that "All of the Girls You Loved Before" would have "fit perfectly" on Lover and lauded it as a "spellbound yet self-assured" love song. The Straits Times described it as a catchy tune that has all of the characteristics of a "Swift bop": a memorable, catchy melody and lyrical storytelling. The Independent's Annabel Nugent complimented the production as "dreamy and ethereal pop gold" and the lyrics as "breezy", and The Times' Will Hodgkinson picked the track as an example of "what Taylor Swift does best: to feel things deeply, then present those feelings in a way that anyone, whatever their situation, can relate to". Writing for the Philippine newspaper The Freeman, Januar Junior Aguja lauded the song as both refreshing and familiar, and he wrote that it could have been included as a bonus track on Lover.


"All of the Girls You Loved Before" debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Global 200 and was Swift's 14th top-10 entry on the chart, a record among women. In the United States, the song opened at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It extended three of Swift's all-time records: the song marked the 189th Hot 100 entry of her career (the most among women), her 80th top-10 entry on the Digital Songs chart (the most for any act), and her first new Hot 100 entry in 2023 (Swift holds the longest streak on the Hot 100 as the first artist with an uninterrupted 18-year run on the chart, having charted a song every year since her debut with "Tim McGraw" in 2006). Despite not being released as a single, the song also entered Billboard's Pop Airplay chart, where it peaked at number 35 and charted for four weeks.
Elsewhere, "All of the Girls You Loved Before" debuted on the charts of several countries: it peaked within the top 25 in the Philippines (6), Ireland (9), the United Kingdom (11), Canada (12), New Zealand (13), Singapore (13), Australia (15), Malaysia (17), and Hungary (22). The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) gave the song a platinum certification, which denotes 70,000 units based on sales and streaming figures.


Taylor Swift – vocals, songwriter, producer
Louis Bell – producer, songwriter, recording engineer, programming
Frank Dukes – producer, songwriter, programming, keyboards, guitar
Matthew Tavares – guitar
Serban Ghenea – mixer
Bryce Bordone – mix engineer
Randy Merrill – mastering


Charel Allen (born July 23, 1986) is an American former professional basketball guard and current assistant coach for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. She played high school basketball at Monessen High School, where she was a two-time Pennsylvania Class A Player of the Year and finished her high school career as the fifth-leading scorer in state history. She played college basketball for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 2004 to 2008 and was a two-time first-team All-Big East Conference honoree. She was the first player in team history to record college career totals of 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, 200 assists and 200 steals.
Allen was selected by the Sacramento Monarchs of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in the third round of the 2008 WNBA draft. She played in six regular season games and two playoff games for the Monarchs during the 2008 season. She later played professionally overseas in Turkey, Israel, and Bulgaria from 2008 to 2017. She was a five-time Bulgarian Cup champion. After her playing career, Allen has spent time as an assistant women's basketball coach for the Cal State Fullerton Titans and Notre Dame.


Charel Allen was born on July 23, 1986, in Monessen, Pennsylvania. She played high school basketball at Monessen High School in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Her freshman year, she scored a Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) playoff record 39 points in the Class A title game. She recorded 26.1 points, 8.1 rebounds, 5.1 steals and 5.4 assists per game her senior year, helping the team to a 29–2 record and a Class A state championship. Allen also averaged 29.3 points per game in eight postseason games that season. Overall, she recorded 26.1 points, 10.5 rebounds, 6.4 steals and 5.0 assists per game in high school, being named Associated Press (AP) Pennsylvania Class A Player of the Year in 2003 and 2004, AP first-team all-state in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and Street & Smith's honorable mention All-American in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. She finished her high school career as the fifth-leading scorer in state history with 3,110 points. The team had a 100–19 record during her four years at Monessen High. She was also an AAU 16-and-under All-American in 2003. In the class of 2004, she was rated the No. 27 overall prospect in the country by the Blue Star Index, a national recruiting service. The "Charel Allen Character Scholarship" was later created, which is given to a Monessen High senior of Allen's choosing.


Allen played college basketball for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish from 2004 to 2008. She played in 33 games during her freshman season in 2004–05, averaging 7.7 points, 4.2	rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 1.2 steals per game, garnering Big East Conference All-Freshman recognition. She suffered a torn ACL in the 2005 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament second-round loss to Arizona State. Allen appeared in 30 games in 2005–06, averaging 8.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. She played in 32 games during the 2006–07 season, averaging 17.0 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 2.0 steals per game, earning first-team All-Big East and Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) honorable mention All-American honors. She led the team in points and rebounds that season. She appeared in 34 games her senior year in 2007–08, averaging 15.1 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.9 steals per game, garnering first-team All-Big East, AP honorable mention All-American, and WBCA honorable mention All-American recognition. She led the team in points per game for the second consecutive season. In the 2008 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament, Allen scored a career-high 35 points in a second-round overtime victory against the Oklahoma Sooners before losing in the Sweet Sixteen to the Tennessee Lady Volunteers.
Allen was the first player in team history to record career totals of 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, 200 assists and 200 steals. She was also a team captain during her final two seasons at Notre Dame. She was a sociology and computer applications double major, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2008.


Allen was selected by the Sacramento Monarchs in the third round, with the 43rd overall pick, of the 2008 WNBA draft. She played in six games for the Monarchs in 2008, averaging 2.7 points and 1.0 rebounds per game. She also played three minutes total during two playoff games, committing one turnover and one foul. During the WNBA offseason, Allen played overseas for Ceyhan Belediye in Turkey during their 2008–09 season, averaging 8.8 points, 4.4 rebounds, 1.1 assists, and 1.0 steals per game. She was waived by the Monarchs on June 4, 2009, before the start of the 2009 WNBA season.
Allen signed a training camp contract with the San Antonio Silver Stars of the WNBA on April 14, 2010. She was waived on May 13, 2010.
Allen played overseas in the Bulgarian Women's Basketball Championship league from 2009 to 2017. She played for Dunav 8806 from the 2009–10 season to the 2011–12 season, winning the Bulgarian Cup in 2010, 2011, and 2012 while also winning the Bulgarian Women's Basketball Championship title in 2012. In 2010–11, she played in 33 games, averaging 15.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game and was noted by BGbasket.com as the team's "undisputed best player". She also earned first-team all-league honors in 2011 and 2012, and all-import team honors in 2010 and 2011. Allen also helped the team win regular season titles in 2010 and 2012.
She then played for Elitzur Netanya in Israel in 2012–13 but left the team midseason, returning to Bulgaria to play for BC Levski from 2012–13 to 2013–14. In 2013–14, she averaged 18.1 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.2 steals per game, finishing second in the league in scoring while earning first-team all-league and league Player of the Year honors. She was also an all-import team selection in 2013 and 2014, the Import Player of the Year in 2014, and the Guard of the Year in 2014.
She played for Neftokhimik Burgas in 2014–15 and won the Bulgarian Cup for the fourth time. The team also won the regular season title that year.
She played for Montana 2003 from 2015–16 to 2016–17. In 2016, Montana 2003 won both the league title and the Bulgarian Cup while Allen garnered first-team all-league and league Guard of the Year recognition. In 2017, she helped the team win the regular season title and earned first-team all-league honors for the second consecutive season.
Allen encountered a significant language barrier during her time in Bulgaria. In 2011, she noted that she knew "a few words" and in 2014 she said that "halftime speeches are usually all in Bulgarian. Coach (Stefan Mihaylov) trusts me, though. With my knowledge of the game, I know what he's saying and what we need to do. If not, he'll translate for me later and let me know what I needed to do."


Allen started working as a skill development trainer in 2009. In 2011, she founded The Charel Allen Basketball Camp and Highlight Game in Pennsylvania. She was an assistant coach at Monessen Middle School during the 2013–14 season. While in Bulgaria, she was a player-coach in 2016 and 2017.
Allen was an assistant coach for the Cal State Fullerton Titans women's basketball team from the 2017–18 season to the 2021–22 season. She was also the team's associate head coach during the final season. She assisted with recruiting during her time at Cal State Fullerton as well.
In July 2022, Allen returned to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's basketball team as an assistant coach.


The occupation of the eastern Adriatic by the Allies of World War I was a military mission that followed the First World War and lasted from November 1918 to September 1921. Naval assets and troops of the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Italy, France, and the United States were deployed to parts of the territory of former Austria-Hungary, especially the region of Dalmatia, the city of Rijeka, and coastal areas of the Kingdom of Montenegro. The occupation was intended to resolve the disposal of assets of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the settlement of Italian territorial claims on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Those claims, largely corresponding to the award made under the Treaty of London used to entice Italy to enter the war on the side of the Allies, conflicted with the territorial claims of the nascent Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) and its predecessor states, as well as the principle of self-determination outlined in the Fourteen Points of the US President Woodrow Wilson.
The Allies divided the eastern Adriatic coast into four zones of occupation. The Italian zone was determined to correspond to the Treaty of London award and centred on Zadar and Šibenik in northern Dalmatia. Central Dalmatia and the city of Split were assigned to the United States. Southern Dalmatia, between Dubrovnik and Kotor, and the coast of Montenegro, became a French zone of occupation. The British were assigned to the Kvarner Gulf in the northern Adriatic, centred on Rijeka. Italy claimed the city based on the Treaty of London and on the principle of self-determination. Littoral areas outside the four zones of occupation were controlled either by Italian forces in Istria or by the Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (or the Royal Serbian Army before December 1918). All major ports had a military presence from all four allied nations.
The occupation was marked by Italian efforts to pursue territorial claims and conflicts with civilian populations and local authorities in some areas. Otherwise, the local population in Dalmatia generally welcomed the Allies. In ethnically mixed Rijeka, the reception reflected the ethnic composition. The British occupation of Rijeka was affected by the takeover of the city by Gabriele D'Annunzio in September 1919, shortly after Francesco Saverio Nitti replaced Vittorio Emanuele Orlando as the Italy's prime minister and the new government agreed with the British and French that Rijeka should be a city-state. To prevent the implementation of the agreement, D'Annunzio proclaimed the Italian Regency of Carnaro and the Allies retreated from the city. In the French zone, Italy and France came into conflict over Montenegro's future, as well as over support for opposing factions in the January 1919 Christmas Uprising in Montenegro.
The occupation was concluded following the transfer of the remaining Austro-Hungarian naval assets to Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and by the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo, which determined the border between the two countries. The treaty also established the Free State of Fiume in the Rijeka area, prompting D'Annunzio's removal from the city by the Regia Marina.

Allied occupation of the eastern Adriatic