Varna Seaport city (pop., 2001: 314,539), Bulgaria, on the Black Sea coast. Founded as Odessus by Milesian Greeks in the 6th century bc, it later was Thracian, Macedonian, and Roman. In ad 681 it became part of the first Bulgarian empire (c. 679-1018) and was named Varna. It came under Ottoman domination in 1391. In 1444 it was the scene of a battle between Turkish and Hungarian armies in which Wladyslaw III, king of Poland and Hungary, was killed. Varna was ceded to Bulgaria by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin (see Congress of Berlin). It is an important administra¬ tive, economic, cultural, and resort centre. Shipbuilding and manufactur¬ ing are important industries.
varna Vvor-noV Any of the four traditional social classes of Hindu India. One of the hymns of the Rigveda declares that the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaishya, and the Shudra issued forth at creation from the mouth, arms, thighs, and feet of Prajapati. Traditional lawmakers specified a set of obli¬ gations, observed mainly in theory only, to each vama: the Brahman, to study and advise; the Kshatriya, to protect; the Vaishya, to cultivate; and the Shudra, to serve. An unofficial fifth class, the pancama, was created to include certain untouchables and tribal groups falling outside this sys¬ tem. The relationship of the caste system to the class system is complex; individual castes, of which there are dozens, have sought to raise their social rank by identifying with a particular varna, demanding the associ¬ ated privileges of rank and honour.
Varna, Battle of (November 10, 1444) Turkish victory over the Hun¬ garians that marked the end of the European effort to protect Constanti¬ nople. The Hungarians under Janos Hunyadi broke a truce and marched to Vama (in present-day Bulgaria), where they fought the Turks under
Sultan Murad II and were defeated; the Hungarian king Ulaszlo I (also ruler of Poland) was killed in the battle. The victory enabled the Ottoman Empire to gain control of the Greek Peloponnese, conquer Constantino¬ ple (1453), and reabsorb Serbia (by 1459).
Varro \'var-o\, Marcus Terentius (b. 116, probably Reate [Italy]—d. 27 bc) Roman scholar and satirist. Varro was active in public life, rising to the office of praetor. He sided with Pompey the Great but later reconciled with Julius Caesar. A prolific writer, he sought in his writings to inculcate moral virtues and to link Rome’s future with its glorious past. He is best known for his Saturae Menippeae (“Menippean Satires”), medleys in mixed prose and verse that mock the absurdities of modern times. He wrote some 75 works in more than 600 books on a wide range of subjects— jurisprudence, astronomy, geography, education, and literary history—as well as in a variety of genres—satires, poems, orations, and letters.
Varus \'var-3s\, Publius Quintilius (d. ad 9) Roman general. He was bom a patrician; his father was one of the murderers of Julius Caesar. Varus crushed the rebellion in Judaea (4 bc) and reestablished Roman control. Assigned to the frontiers east of the Rhine, he tried to assert Roman jurisdiction, but he was overwhelmed by a German attack in the Teutoburg Forest and lost three legions. Disgraced, he killed himself by falling on his sword. His defeat led to the loss of all Roman possessions east of the Rhine.
varved deposit \'varvd\ Any form of repetitive sedimentary rock stratification that was deposited within a year. This annual deposit usu¬ ally consists of paired contrasting layers (varves) of alternately finer (darker) and coarser (lighter) silt or clay, reflecting seasonal variations in sedimentation (winter and summer) within the year. Varved deposits are most commonly found in glacial lakes, but they can also be found in non¬ glacial lakes and marine settings.
varying hare See snowshoe hare
Vasa dynasty Swedish (and Polish) royal dynasty. Its founder was Gustav Eriksson Vasa, regent of Sweden (1521) and king (1523) as Gustav I Vasa. His descendants reigned in Sweden until 1818, the last being Charles XIII. A grandson of Gustav became king of Poland (1587-1632) as Sigismund III Vasa, also ruling Sweden in the years 1592-99. He was suc¬ ceeded as king of Poland by his sons, Wladyslaw IV Vasa (r. 1632-48) and John II Casimir Vasa (r. 1648-68), after which the dynasty ended in Poland.
Vasarely \,va-z3-'re-le\, Victor orig. Viktor Vasarhelyi (b. April 9,1908, Pecs, Hung.—d. March 15,1997, Paris, France) Hungarian French painter. Trained in Budapest in the Bauhaus tradition, he moved to Paris in 1930 and supported himself as a commercial artist. In the 1930s he was influenced by Constructivism, but by the 1940s he was painting animated surfaces of geometric forms and interacting colours. His style reached maturity in the mid 1950s and 1960s, with the use of more vibrant colours to increase the sense of movement through optical illusion, as in Sirius II (1954), and he became one of the leading figures of the Op art movement.
Vasari \va-'za-re\, Giorgio (b. July 30, 1511, Arezzo—d. June 27, 1574, Florence) Italian painter, architect, and writer. Though he was a prolific painter in the Mannerist style, he is more highly regarded as an architect (he designed the Uffizi Palace, now the Uffizi Gallery), but even his architecture is overshad¬ owed by his writings. His Lives of the Most Eminent Architects, Paint¬ ers, and Sculptors (1550) offers biographies of early to late Renais¬ sance artists. His style is eminently readable and his material is well researched, though when facts were scarce he did not hesitate to fill in the gaps. In his view, Giotto had revived the art of true representation after its decline in the early Middle Ages, and succeeding artists had brought that art progressively closer to the per¬ fection achieved by Michelangelo.
The work’s second edition (1568) has proved an invaluable resource for art historians.
Vasari, self-portrait, oil painting; in the Uffizi, Florence
SCALA/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK
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Vasconcelos ► Vatican Palace I 1989
Vasconcelos \,bas-kon-'sa-los\, Jose (b. Feb. 28, 1882, Oaxaca, Mex.—d. June 30, 1959, Mexico City) Mexican educator, politician, essayist, and philosopher. He campaigned for the revolutionary candidates Francisco Madero and Pancho Villa. As minister of education (1920-24) he initiated major reforms in Mexico’s school system, especially expan¬ sion of the rural school program. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1929. Vasconcelos’s political activism forced him into exile several times. He regarded the indigenous Indian culture as transcending Western cul¬ ture. His autobiography (5 vol., 1935-59), abridged as A Mexican Ulysses (1962), is one of the finest sociocultural studies of 20th-century Mexico.
vascular plant or tracheophyte Vtra-ke-s-.fnA Any plant that has a specialized conducting system consisting mostly of phloem (food¬ conducting tissue) and xylem (water-conducting tissue), collectively called vascular tissue. Ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants are all vascular plants. In contrast to the non vascular bryophytes, the more conspicuous generation among vascular plants is the sporophyte (see alternation of gen¬ erations). Because they have vascular tissues, these plants have true stems, leaves, and roots, modifications of which enable species of vascular plants to survive in a variety of habitats under diverse, even extreme, environ¬ mental conditions. This ability to flourish in so many different habitats is the primary reason that vascular plants have become dominant among ter¬ restrial plants.
vasectomy \v9-'sek-t3-me\ Severing of the vas deferens, which carries sperm from the testes to the prostate gland, to cause sterility or prevent infection. This relatively simple procedure, which can be performed in a doctor’s office with local anesthetics, removes the ability to father chil¬ dren without affecting ability to achieve erection or orgasm. The vas is cut near its beginning, in the scrotum. The cut ends may be sealed off or left open. Reversal is more likely to succeed in the latter case; microsur¬ gery has improved the success rate.