debtor and creditor Respectively, a person who owes a debt and a person to whom the debt is owed. Usually the debtor has received some¬ thing from the creditor, in return for which the debtor has promised to make repayment at a later time. If the debtor fails to repay by the dead¬ line, a formal collection process may commence. It is sometimes possible to attach the debtor’s property, wages, or bank account as a means of forcing payment. Imprisonment of the debtor is a practice no longer fol¬ lowed. See also garnishment, lien.
Debussy \,de-byu-'se\, (Achille-) Claude (b. Aug. 22, 1862, Saint- Germain-en-Laye, France—d.
March 25, 1918, Paris) French com¬ poser. Born into near poverty, he showed an early gift for the piano.
He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1873, and soon thereafter he was employed as pianist by Nadezhda von Meek, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s patroness. Influenced by the Symbol¬ ist poets and Impressionist painters, he was early inclined toward a com¬ positional style of great originality, shunning the strictures of traditional counterpoint and harmony to achieve new effects of great subtlety.
Regarded as the founder of musical Impressionism, he used unusual voice leading and timbral colours to evoke pictorial images and moods, espe¬ cially of languor and hedonism. His significance in weakening the hold of traditional tonal harmony equals that of Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner,
and Arnold Schoenberg. Given his effect on such composers as Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Pierre Boulez, he can be seen as the most influential French composer of the last three centuries. His works include the opera Pelleas et Melisande (1902), the orchestral works Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun (1894) and La Mer (1905), and the piano Preludes (1910, 1913).
Debye \d3-'bl\, Peter orig. Petrus Josephus Wilhelmus Debije
(b. March 24, 1884, Maastricht, Neth.—d. Nov. 2, 1966, Ithaca, N.Y., U.S.) Dutch-born U.S. physical chemist. His first important research, on electric dipole moments, advanced knowledge of the arrangement of atoms in molecules and of the distances between atoms. He showed that X-ray crystallography worked on powders, obviating the difficult first step of preparing good crystals. In 1923 he and Erich Huckel extended Svante Arrhenius’s theory of the dissociation of salts in solution, proving that ion¬ ization is complete. He also investigated light scattering in gases. He won the Nobel Prize in 1936.
Decadents Group of poets of the end of the 19th century, including some French Symbolists (see Symbolist movement), notably Stephane Mal- larme and Paul Verlaine, and the later generation of England’s Aesthetic movement (see Aestheticism), notably Arthur Symons and Oscar Wilde. Many nonpoets, including the novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans and the artist Aubrey Beardsley, are also often associated with the Decadents. The Deca¬ dents emphasized art for art’s sake (see Walter Pater), seeing it as autono¬ mous and opposed to nature and to the materialistic preoccupations of industrialized society, and therefore stressed the bizarre, incongruous, and artificial in both their work and their lives.
Decansky, Stefan See Stefan Decansky
decapod Any of more than 8,000 species (order Decapoda) of crusta¬ ceans having five pairs of legs attached to the thorax. The shrimps and shrimplike species, which can be as small as 0.5 in. (12 mm) long, have a slender body with a long abdomen, a well-developed fantail, and, often, long, slender legs. The crabs and crablike species, whose claw span can measure 13 ft (4 m), have a flattened body and, frequently, stout short legs and a reduced tail fan. Decapods are primarily marine and are most abundant in shallow tropical waters, but they are commercially valuable throughout the world. Some species (e.g., hermit and fiddler crabs) are adapted to terrestrial environments. See also crab; crayfish; lobster; shrimp.
Decapolis \di-'ka-p3-lis\ League of 10 ancient Greek cities, including Damascus, in eastern Palestine. It was formed after the Roman conquest in 63 bc for mutual protection against their Semitic neighbors. The name also denotes the roughly contiguous territory formed by these cities, all but one of which lay east of the Jordan River. Subject to the Roman gov¬ ernor of Syria, the league survived until the 2nd century ad.
DeCarava, Roy (b. Dec. 9, 1919, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. pho¬ tographer. He took up photography in the late 1940s. In 1952 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in support of his project to photograph the people of his native Harlem. Many of these photos were compiled in the book The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), with text written by the poet Langston Hughes. DeCarava’s interest in education led him to found A Photographer’s Gallery—which sought to educate the public about photography—in 1955 and an association of African American photogra¬ phers in 1963. He is perhaps best known for his portraits of jazz musi¬ cians.
decathlon Composite athletic contest that consists of 10 different track- and-field competitions: the 100-, 400-, and 1,500-m runs, the 110-m high hurdles, the javelin and discus throws, shot put, pole vault, high jump, and long jump. Introduced as a three-day event at the 1912 Olympic Games, it later became a two-day event. Competitors are scored according to a table established by the International Amateur Athletic Federation. Decathletes are often regarded as the finest all-around athletes in the world.
Decatur \di-'ka-tor\ City (pop., 2000: 81,860), central Illinois, U.S. Situ¬ ated on the Sangamon River east of Springfield, it was founded in 1829. In 1860 it was the site of Abraham Lincoln’s first endorsement by a party convention for the presidential nomination. It is a commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural region. Industries include the processing of com and soybeans and the manufacture of tractors and other vehicles.
Decatur Ndi-'ka-torX, Stephen (b. Jan. 5, 1779, Sinepuxent, Md., U.S.—d. March 22, 1820, Bladensburg, Md.) U.S. naval officer. He
Eugene V. Debs.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Claude Debussy, painting by Marcel Baschet, 1884; in the Versailles Museum.
GIRAUDON/ART RESOURCE, NEW YORK
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
524 I Deccan ► decolonization
entered the navy in 1798. In the Tripolitan War, he led a daring expedi¬ tion into the harbour of Tripoli to burn a captured U.S. ship. In the War of 181 2 he commanded the USS United States and captured the British ship Macedonian. In 1815 he commanded a squadron in the Mediterra¬ nean that forced a peace with the Barbary states on U.S. terms. At a ban¬ quet on his return he gave a toast that included the words “Our country, right or wrong.” In the same year he was made a navy commissioner, an office he held until he was killed in a duel.
Deccan Peninsula of India south of the Narmada River. It is marked by the tableland between the Western and Eastern Ghats ranges. Its average elevation is about 2,000 ft (600 m). Its principal rivers, the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri (Cauvery), flow from the Western Ghats eastward to the Bay of Bengal. Its early inhabitants were a Dravidian-speaking popu¬ lation not reached by the 2nd-millennium-BC Aryan invasion. Ruled by Mauryan (4th-2nd centuries bc) and Gupta (4th-6th centuries ad) dynas¬ ties, it became an independent Muslim kingdom in 1347. Later split up into five Muslim sultanates, the Deccan was largely conquered by the Mughal dynasty in the 17th century. In the 18th century it was the scene of rivalry between the British and French and subsequently of the British struggle against the Maratha confederacy. It remained under British con¬ trol until India gained independence in 1947.
Decembrist revolt (December 1825) Unsuccessful uprising by Rus¬ sian revolutionaries. Following the death of Alexander I, a group of lib¬ eral members of the upper classes and military officers staged a rebellion in an effort to prevent the accession of Nicholas I. The poorly organized revolt was easily suppressed. Afterwards 289 Decembrists were tried; five were executed, 31 imprisoned, and the rest banished to Siberia. Their martyrdom inspired later generations of Russian dissidents.