Origins of The Bismark Cup
In the early 1980s the Diplomacy scene in Australia was built around several PBM Diplomacy magazines, of which the most significant titles were Rumplestiltskin, The Go Between, Beowulf, Victoriana, The Journal of Australian Diplomacy, and The Envoy. Most of the tournament players were subscribers, players and editors of these magazines. The Envoy, which was published between 1986 and 1991, ran a series of articles which were both popular and influential. Purportedly written by Arthur von Bismark and styled as lecture transcripts, the character of Arthur von Bismark became celebrated among the contemporary Diplomacy subculture in Australia.
The articles were popular at a time when tournament play in Australia had become more organized, with well-attended tournaments in Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney. Rating systems at the time were being hotly debated and many players desired a way to assess the best player in the tournament scene for a calendar year, as a way of overcoming the perceived inconsistencies of rating systems within one event. The annual trophy concept was accepted among the then-principle organizers of these tournaments and the title Arthur Bismark Cup was suggested by The Envoy's then-editor Mathew Gibson.
The real author of these Arthur von Bismark articles was never announced publicly, but was suspected as being either Harry Kolotas, Marion Ashworth, Neil Ashworth or Luke Clutterbuck.
Read more about this topic: International Prize List Of Diplomacy, Australia and New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words origins of, origins and/or cup:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“I write mainly for the kindly race of women. I am their sister, and in no way exempt from their sorrowful lot. I have drank [sic] the cup of their limitations to the dregs, and if my experience can help any sad or doubtful woman to outleap her own shadow, and to stand bravely out in the sunshine to meet her destiny, whatever it may be, I shall have done well; I have not written this book in vain.”
—Amelia E. Barr (1831–1919)