Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/429

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VORONEZH VORSTIUS 409 Swiss canton of St. Gall, and N. W. by the lake of Constance ; area, 1,005 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 102,264, almost all Germans and Catholics. It receives its name from a moun- tain ridge called the Arlberg, a branch of the Alps. It is watered by the Aach, 111, Fussach, and Lech ; produces potatoes, fruits, wine, grain, and much cheese ; and has mines of iron. Many of the people are employed in spring and summer as builders and masons in Switzerland and France, and as herdsmen in Swabia and Bavaria. The principal towns are Bregenz, the capital, Feldkirch, and Bludenz. Vorarlberg has a separate diet and constitu- tion, but is under the administration of the governor of Tyrol. VORONEZH. I. A S. government of Russia, bordering on Orel, Tambov, Saratov, the coun- try of the Don Cossacks, Kharkov, and Kursk ; area, 25,437 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 2,152,696. The surface is undulating, with a few ridges of slight elevation, and a general slope south- ward. It is drained by the Don and its tribu- taries, the Sosna, the Voronezh, and the Bit- yug, and the Khoper. The principal mineral productions are iron, saltpetre, limestone, and sandstone. The climate is good, but the win- ters are severe. The soil is extremely fertile, and the government is one of the most pro- ductive agricultural regions of the empire; wheat is the principal crop. The horses are generally of superior breed, and many of them are trained for hunting. The rearing of bees is extensively practised, and honey is an im- portant article of export. Coarse cloths, iron ware, soap, tallow, and beet sugar are manu- factured. The exports include timber, grain, horses, oxen, wool, hides, and fruits. II. A city, capital of the government, on the Vo- ronezh, near its confluence with the Don, 130 m. E. of Kursk; pop. in 1867, 41,592. It is built on a steep hill, and has a strong position. It consists of an upper and lower town, with extensive suburbs. There are over 20 churches, several convents and hospitals, a military and a naval orphan asylum, a gymnasium, and a school of cadets. The manufactures comprise cloth, soap, tallow, leather, and vitriol. The town has a large commerce by way of the Don, especially in the grain and tallow trade. Peter the Great founded a palace here, and erected extensive dockyards and arsenals for the con- struction of a navy on the sea of Azov ; but most of these establishments were re- moved to Tavrov, in the same government, and Rostov, and the palace has been burned. VORONTZOFF. I. Mikhail, count, a Russian statesman, born in 1710, died in Moscow in 1767. He was descended from Gabriel Vo- rontzoff, who fell in 1678 at the siege of Tchi- grin, Little Russia. He became a lover of the empress Elizabeth, who arranged a marriage for him with her cousin, a niece of Catharine I., and in 1744 she made him vice chancellor and minister of foreign affairs. The emperor Charles VII. made him and two of his broth- ers counts of the German empire. Ho nego- tiated important treaties, and finally became chancellor, but lost his influence under Catha- rine II. II. Mikhail, a Russian soldier, born in St. Petersburg in May, 1782, died in Odessa in November, 1856. He was a son of Count Si- mon Vorontzoff, ambassador in London, and his sister married in 1808 the earl of Pem- broke, father of Sidney Herbert. He early fought in the Caucasus and against the Turks, distinguished himself in the campaigns against Napoleon, and was wounded at Borodino. Subsequently he commanded the Russian con- tingent in France. In 1823 he became gover- nor general of New (South) Russia and Bessa- rabia, in 1826 cooperated with Ribeaupierre in the treaty of Akerman, and in 1828 replaced Menshikoff, who had been wounded at the siege of Varna. In 1844 he was appointed governor of. the Caucasus, and in 1845 pene- trated to Dargo, Shamyl's stronghold, and pushed operations against him, though Shamyl held out till 1859. While his command ob- tained several advantages in the eastern war of 1853, he was himself disabled by ill health, which in October, 1854, prompted his with- drawal. In 1856, at the coronation of Alexan- der II., he received the title of field marshal and the governorship of Odessa, where a monu- ment was erected to him as well as at Tiflis. VOROSMARTI, Miiiiih, a Hungarian poet, born at Nyek, in the county of Weissenburg, in 1800, died in Pesth, Nov. 9, 1856. He was a law- yer, but early gave up practice. In 1821 he published the drama "King Solomon" (of Hungary), which was followed by Kont and other dramas, numerous fine ballads and lyri- cal poems, and the epics Zaldn futdsa (" The Flight of Zalan"), Cserhalom, TunderTfilgy ("Fairy Valley' 1 ), and Eger ("Erlau"), es- teemed the finest in the Hungarian language. He was appointed secretary of the Hungarian academy soon after its foundation in 1830. His patriotic song 'entitled Szosat ("Appeal") became the great national song of Hungary. After the revolution of 1848-'9 he commenced a version of Shakespeare, but did not finish it. The edition of his works by Paul Gyulai (10 vols., 1865-'6) contains a biography. VORSTIUS, Conrad (KONRAD VORST), a Ger- man Protestant theologian, born in Cologne, July 19, 1569, died at Tonningen, Holstein, Sept. 29, 1622. He took his degree at Heidel- berg in 1594, and subsequently lectured on theology at Geneva, In 1596 he became pro- fesssor at Steinfurt, where a divinity school had been founded by Count Arnold of Bent- heim, at whose request he soon afterward went to Heidelberg to clear himself of a charge of Socinianism. Though acquitted, suspicion still clung to him. After the death of Armi- nius in 1609, he succeeded him as professor of theology at Leyden, but was bitterly attacked, especially for his treatise De Deo (Steinfurt, 1610), which in England was burned publicly by order of James I. The synod of Dort in