"In fiction, the principles are given, to find the facts: in history, the facts are given, to find the principles; and the writer who does not explain the phenomena as well as state them performs only one half of his office."
Thomas Babington Macaulay, "History," Edinburgh Review, 1828
This is a sentimental old favorite from my collection: nothing special
in itself, just an old greeting card from Czechoslovakia that I
inherited from my father. The winter scene depicts Prague Castle and St.
Vitus' Cathedral viewed from the hill of Strahov Monastery, circa 1930.
For a variety of reasons, a lot of us have been saying that, even though we face 2017 with certain anxieties, we won't be sad to see 2016 use the exit.
Several publications, noting the national mood, decided to consider some other years, for comparison, and perhaps consolation:
• Smithsonian helpfully offered "Why 2016 Is Only the Most Recent Worst Year Ever:
This year has been miserable for many, but it has plenty of competition from its predecessors in the 20th century."
• Not to be outdone, Charles Nevin in the New York Times made a foray as far back as 75,000 years about but drew most of his examples from the last two millennia (give or take): "2016: Worst. Year. Ever?"
Still, I won't miss 2016.
Not nearly as bad as 1916 or 1816 or many another year I could think of: You think you had it rough? what about 1941? 1348? But it's the lousy year we've had to deal with, so: good riddance. You can't be gone too soon for me.
The Nazis were nothing if not culturally acquisitive. Although harshly critical of modernist art and literature, they portrayed themselves as the heirs and custodians of the great European and German national cultural traditions (the mirror image of the German Marxist claim). In some cases, the appropriation was easy. In others, a certain amount of manipulation or disingenuous treatment was required.
In the literary realm, the great Weimar Classicist writers and friends Goethe (1749-1832) and Schiller (1759-1805) stood at the center of the effort, though not all the works of these humanistic authors readily lent themselves to the messaging of a racist and dictatorial regime. Although Goethe's "Faust" could, with some gymnastics, be held up as the portrait of the archetypal "Germanic" soul, Schiller's drama Don Carlos proved awkward when audiences applauded the line, "Sire, give us freedom of thought!" And in 1941, Hitler requested that Schiller's anti-tyrannical drama Wilhelm Tell no longer be performed. Be that as it may, a general emphasis on the Nationalliteratur, reinforced by selective quotation, remained an effective overall policy.
The glorification of the national cultural tradition extended to Kitsch and collectibles. These small glass Schiller Christmas ornaments (c. 30 x 35 mm) were given to donors at street collections for the Winter Relief Work effort in March 1941.
Some recipients may actually have used them as tree decorations, but the Winterhilfswerk also offered an album for collectors.
The series,"Heads of Famous German Men," included Hitler (featured on the album cover above), historical
military leaders, and artists and composers from Dürer to Wagner. Goethe
and Schiller were, along with philosopher Immanuel Kant, the only literary figures.
It was a travesty of the German intellectual tradition. On the other hand: if only other countries took their literary heritage so seriously that they felt the need to co-opt and distort it.
This is a document that my father acquired during his service with the US Occupation Government in Germany after World War II: confiscated, or just found in his office or quarters—I don’t know. It is described as a “war diary” for a young girl. Normally speaking, a war diary (Kriegstagebuch) is an official German record of a military unit or department, or occasionally, a private record kept by a combatant. The extension of this term—rather than, say, scrapbook—to a gift made for a child is indicative of the culture of militarism and indoctrination under the Third Reich. (more background at the bottom of the page)
* * *
The Christmas entries are particularly instructive.
Weihnachten with the Wehrmacht
24 December 1940
"Our soldiers, too, decorate the Christmas tree, for it connects them
with the homeland and recalls many a pleasant hour."
In one of the most famous military broadcasts of the War, German radio shared transmissions from the Arctic Circle and Stalingrad to Africa as soldiers sang "Silent Night."
Of course the tendency to seize upon Christmas as a respite from combat was not unique to Germany. 101st Airborne veteran Art Schmitz recalled being surrounded by the Germans at Bastogne in 1944. Hearing "Radio Berlin doing a request broadcast: German civilians asking for Christmas carols to be played for their soldiers serving in Narvik, Norway; Italy; or Novosibirsk, Russia," the Americans decided to sing their own Christmas carols. "There was 'The First Noel,' 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' and others before we began 'Angels We Have Heard on High.' What we heard was the sound of angels of death overhead." A Nazi air raid began and the singing ceased, but the memory remained.
The diary pages for the two days of Christmas (celebrated for two days in Germany) epitomize the blending of the military-propagandistic and bourgeois-sentimental.
25 December
The Führer on Christmas with his personal Guard Regiment
The Commander of the Guard Regiment
SS Lieutenant General Sepp Dietrich, greets the Führer
26 December
Santa Claus with the Führer's escort team
Nazism was ideologically anti-Christian, but it readily availed itself of Christian imagery and symbols not only because they were familiar, but also because they were particularly well suited to convey the fascist message of "palingenetic" ultranationalism, or the urgent need for national regeneration: the propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" begins, after all, by speaking of Germany's "crucifixion" by the Versailles Treaty and "rebirth" after the advent of Hitler.
Christmas was in many ways the ideal holiday for the Nazis: a
convenient means to affirm their connection with mainstream society (for
even their most barbarous acts were committed in the name of
decency and middle class values) as well as to impart their own
inflection to it. Christmas was of course common to both Catholic and Protestant Germans, but the latter connection was most fruitful, for Lutheranism was associated with the national identity and heritage: the revolt against Rome; the translation of the Bible, which laid the foundations for the modern German language; and (at least according to popular tradition) even the introduction of the Christmas tree. Further, the natural-seasonal aspects of the holiday, which coincided with the winter solstice, were multivalent, allowing for easy identification with either a Christian or a Nordic-pagan message (or some combination of both), as the need dictated.
Finally, the holiday, with its themes of both domesticity and light versus darkness, could incorporate varying ideological messages about the relation between battle front and home front, depending on the course of the war: from the early expectations of peace and national renewal, to later, increasingly bitter denunciations of the barbarous enemy--whether the advance of the Red Army or the allied air campaigns against German cities--as a motivation to fight for the preservation of the innocents at home.
Thus, the page facing the photo of the soldier trimming the Christmas tree was devoted to a an address by Hitler.
The Nazis as the Peace Party?
24 December
Prepared for the Final Call!
When this war will have ended, then there will begin in Germany a great process of creation, then a great "Awaken!" will resound throughout the land. Then the German people will cease the manufacture of cannons and begin with the work of peace and task of reconstruction for the masses in their millions!
And then from this labor will arise that great German empire of which a great poet once dreamt. It will be a Germany to which every son is attached with fanatical love, because it will be a home even for the poorest.
Adolf Hitler!
If this strikes us as preposterous as well as utopian, it is because we are so detached from the perceived reality in that time and place. Today we associate Hitler and Nazism primarily with war, but we need to recall that this was not always the case, at least domestically. Another book that my father acquired was a propaganda album of cigarette cards issued to commemorate the first year of the new regime (1934), which it praised as "The State of Labor and Peace."
Indeed, as Ian Kershaw so clearly demonstrated in his modern classic, The Hitler Myth, Hitler succeeded for so long precisely because he was credited not only with achieving domestic recovery but also securing--without war--the consensus international goals of the military and geographic revision of the Versailles Treaty. This presumed evidence of his genius as a leader reinforced his standing among the loyal and cut the ground out from under the would-be critics. When war finally broke out in 1939, the German people, fully aware of what had happened in 1914, were more sober and anxious than enthusiastic, but the relatively easy victories in Poland and then in the west following the end of the "Phony War" in 1940 merely reinforced Hitler's reputation for wisdom and infallibility.
What the mother writing this diary--and the rest of the public--did not know was that peace was in fact further away than ever: on 18 December 1940, Hitler had ordered the military to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union, even if the war against Britain was not brought to a conclusion.
From Peace Party to Pagan Turn
Thus, when Himmler greeted the SS and their families in the 1943-44 volume of the holiday annual Weihe Nacht (a deliberately archaic spelling of Christmas, connoting pagan origins), it was in a very different tone:
Women and mothers! Men of the SS and Police!
Implacably harsh is the enemy power, against which we have to defend and augment the Reich as the legacy of our ancestors and obligation for our children. Once again the season of the solstice and Christmas summons us to the gathering of clans [a term with a pagan-racial tinge] and families. Once again the task in the longest night of the year is to yearn for the victory of the sun with the faithful trust of our ancestors. May this deep faith in the victory of the light characterize us more deeply than ever today, when we in the privacy of the family or comrades kindle our lights. The lights on the green boughs will, spanning the distances that separate comrades in the front lines and the women and children at home, form bridges between hearts.
You mothers and women truly stand, as in all the great hours of destiny of our Teutonic-German past, truly also personally in battle. The enemy's dishonorable conduct of the war has reduced to rubble the homes of many, and yet you have lost neither courage nor faith. The harsher the struggle, the more cordially the clans must close ranks . . . .
* * *
Background
The culture
About a generation ago, there was a rather sterile but revealing debate among scholars of women’s history. One view, which passed for a radical political and feminist stance of a sort, maintained that, because Nazism was a masculinist racial system, women could not have been complicit in the crimes of a regime that also oppressed them. A countervailing and more plausible view called attention to their neglected role as “accomplices,” providing the stable private sphere supportive of the tasks of the politically and militarily active males. As others pointed out, one does not have to choose between victim and accomplice: it was entirely possible for Aryan women, individually and collectively, to be both.
In 1935, Hitler declared, “I would be ashamed to be a German man if only one woman had to go to the front. The woman has her own battlefield. With every child that she brings into the world, she fights her battle for the nation. The man stands up for the Volk, exactly as the woman stands up for the family.” The continuation of that battle meant raising girls to understand the culture and course of warfare.
The bibliographic object
The document takes the form of a notebook of blank pages (c. 16 x 25 cm, with lines ruled in with pencil), bound in faded purplish boards with a black cloth spine. A handwritten label (in an indeterminate hand) on the cover calls it “Kriegstagebuch For [name],” whereas the title page, in the large printing of a child’s hand reads, “Mein Kriegstage Buch [sic].” By contrast, the text entries are all in an immaculate version—thus evidently an adult hand—of the Sütterlin German script taught from 1915 through 1941: under the Nazi regime, the only one from 1935 on.
The contents consist of dated entries—generally excerpts from or summaries of press reports, speeches, and the like—accompanied by photographs clipped from newspapers and magazines. Unfortunately, the book covers only the period November 1940 to early February 1941; the reason for that choice is unclear.
It's a French eighteenth-century pencil sketch with sepia wash, on laid paper (c. 40 x 25 cm, with no apparent watermark).
The geometry suggests to me that it was a sketch for a wall painting, but that's just my best guess.
Oddly enough, the depiction of the central figures of the Virgin Mary and Christ child seems somewhat awkward in comparison with that of the flanking shepherds, who observe the miracle in quiet dignity.
In any case, the piece just radiates the spirit of the period.
What to do on that long Thanksgiving weekend after you've eaten your fill and watched too much TV? Turn to your books (or collections).
In this case, it's the ex libris, or bookplate: an interesting testimonial to evolving habits of book ownership, and since the late nineteenth century, a profitable and collectible small graphic genre (1, 2) in its own right.
This one was created by the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants (not my ancestors, God knows--though I do know more than one student who can claim membership in that elite club). Founded in 1896, the organization soon decided that it needed an ex libris to accompany donations it made.
An "American Letter" by Charles Dexter Allen of Hartford (Nov. 9, 1897) in the British Journal of the Ex Libris Society announced a competition:
The Society of Mayflower Descendants offers two prizes, one of fifty dollars and the other of twenty dollars, for a book-plate design. The plate is to be 4 1/2 by 3 inches, and the design in the centre should be 2 1/4 by 1 3/8 inches. Above this should be the title, "Society of Mayflower Descendants in Massachusetts," and at the bottom, "Presented by," with space for date and name of donor. The office of the Society is in the Tremont Building, Boston.
The following year, Allen reported on the winners. He began with an apology for his long silence:
So many months have gone by without a communication from the American correspondent, that I feel assured these present lines will be read as a decided novelty, and I am not certain that an introduction is not in order ! But really during the hot and hottest months there seemed little doing in matters of interest to book-plate collectors, though, in fact, discoveries were being made, new plates were being designed and engraved, and the ongo of matters was not wholly interrupted. But with the return of weather that makes one think of the fireside and indoor delights, correspondence is resumed and matters of general interest are passed about from one to another.
He reported on the creation of the smallest bookplate in the world (for a miniature book), and then, not bothering with a transition, launched into an update on the Mayflower contest:
Within a few months a competition for a bookplate was advertised by the Society of Mayflower Descendants in Massachusetts, and at a meeting held last March the first prize, fifty dollars, was awarded to Mr. Charles E. Heil, of Jamaica Plain, and the second, twenty dollars, to Mr. Theodore Brown Hapgood, jun., of Boston. At this meeting the sixty-eight designs submitted in competition were exhibited. The successful design has been printed in black with red capitals, and makes a very showy appearance. The lettering is good, and the pictorial design represents two Puritans, one in the layman's dress and one in the soldier's, standing by the sea-shore. At a little distance rides the Mayflower. Mr. Hapgood's design, printed wholly in black, represents the Puritan and his wife en route to church along the bleak shore, gun on shoulder, and clad in the sombre habiliments of the day. The old-style lettering and ornamentation are very pleasing, and one is impressed with the spirit of the design, which is in complete harmony with the picture and with the traditions the Mayflower Society endeavours to keep alive.
Heil (1870-1950), a member of the newly founded Boston Society of Arts and Crafts (1897; today, the oldest such organization in the nation) came to be best known for his ornithological painting and has been called a second Audubon. Hapgood (1871-1938), by contrast, devoted more time to the world of book art, from binding design, title pages, and illustrations, to the ex libris (along the way finding time for ecclesiastical vestments and other artistic pursuits).
Below is Heil's winning design, from my small collection. The reddish ink has a metallic cast, which, viewed from some angles, causes it to reflect light. The back is gummed.
Reviewing a bookplate exhibition by the Boston Arts and Crafts Society at Copley Hall in 1899, the journal of the Berlin Ex-libris association called this piece "a very beautiful plate!"
I might quibble with that. Even aside from the generally retrograde aesthetic (the minimal nod to modish art nouveau taste in the left marginal column notwithstanding) and corresponding social-political doctrines, the highlighting of the key initial letters on the left is bizarrely violated by the awkward breaking of the word, "Descendants." It is jarring, conflicts with the supreme principle of legibility.
Still, I am very glad to have this historically significant piece in my collection. I don't have a copy of the second-place design, but one day ... who knows?
I tend to post something about Thanksgiving every year, so, rather than writing up a long new piece, I'll just share some items in this week's news, along with links to older posts.
In the news:
• From the Library of Congress: Thanksgiving at the end of World War I, ranging from President Wilson's proclamation ("This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice. God has in His good pleasure given us peace.") to posters.
• From New England Historical Society: "New England’s First Thanksgiving – Maine Style:
New England’s first Thanksgiving celebrated by European colonists (the American Indians had harvest celebrations of their own long before) came in 1607 in Popham, Maine."
• From Smithsonian (2011): Lisa Bramen, "Thanksgiving in Literature: Holiday readings from Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Philip Roth and contemporary novels that use Thanksgiving as the backdrop for family dysfunction"
• From Scientific American: Dana Hunter, "The Real Story of Plymouth Rock. Learn about the erratic past of one of America's most famous rocks" [history, mythology, geology]
• And finally, since half of the seasonal articles about Thanksgiving present manifest untruths and distortions of history, while the other half take as their task the correction of these errors (in the process committing more of their own), former Chief Curator of Plimoth Plantation Jeremy Bangs offers, via History News Network (from 2005):
• 2008 The Inevitable Thanksgiving Piece
: focusing on food and fable as well as historiography: how the holiday
came to assume its familiar form. Among my minor favorites are the
mystery of the cranberry (pregnant insects?! wtf?) and Pilgrim drinking
habits (a shot and a brew).
• 2009 Thanksgiving Day (Thanksgiving Again):
brief piece with focus on historiography--contrasting historical
approaches of the focus on material culture and the larger narrative
(including the long-term consequences), exemplified by James and
Patricia Deetz on the one hand and Nathaniel Philbrick, on the other
(with links to a variety of topics, from the date of the holiday to
presidential turkey pardons and the relation between poultry and
dinosaurs).
• 2010 (a) The Annual Thanksgiving History Buffet:
a smorgasbord of topics, starting with foodways (eels and sweet potato)
and moving on to the conservative canards about Pilgrims, socialism,
and capitalism.
• 2010 (b) Thanksgiving Miscellany: e.g. never rocked to the Turkey Gobbler's Ball? Here's your chance.
"The Minarets at the Bab Zuweyleh, and entrance to the Mosque of the Metwalis, Cairo," by David Roberts (1856), from my collection. (details: from a previous post).
An advertisement from The Press, 29 July 1863. Founded by John Weiss Forney in 1857, the paper was published in Philadelphia until 1920. In 1894, it serialized Stephen Crane's Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage.
Flags, pennants, bunting, streamers. Hats, too. What more could one want?
Oh, burgees? Although the term dates to 1750, it did not appear in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary, but as his successors at today's Merriam-Webster firm in Springfield explain, this is "a swallow-tailed flag used especially by ships for signals or identification."
Constitution Day (Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja or Święto Narodowe Trzeciego Maja) marks the promulgation of the Polish Constitution in 1791, the first in modern Europe (that of the French Revolutionaries came into being only in September of that year). Banned by the communist regime, the holiday was once again officially recognized in 1990.
The Constitution remained in force only until a new Partition of Poland in 1793, but its influence was profound. Professor Marek Zebrowski summarizes:
The Enlightenment Era in Poland brought an economic
revival as well flourishing of arts and literature. Writers such as Hugo
Kołłątaj and Stanisław Staszic postulated far-reaching political and
social reforms and laid the groundwork for the Polish Constitution. The
process was officially launched in 1787, when Ignacy Potocki was
selected to coordinate the project. A lively constitutional debate
ensued and lasted almost four years. It pitted two camps against each
other—the reformists who wanted to strengthen the government and extend
voting rights beyond the landed gentry, and the powerful landowning
class that was loath to relinquish their cherished privileges.
The
successful vote for the 1791 Constitution was a result of a carefully
planned surprise, practically tantamount to a constitutional coup
d’état. Most of the Sejm’s deputies were on holiday and procedural calls
for a quorum were ignored. Supporters of the Constitution occupied the
chambers and the public gallery, and their overwhelming presence secured
a passing vote. Since saving Poland’s uncertain future was paramount in
the minds of its drafters, the new Constitution was a pragmatic mixture
of progressive and conservative ideas. It called for a return of the
hereditary monarchy and it restricted some privileges previously granted
to religious minorities. On the other hand it abolished the liberum
veto law, extended legal protection to a wider sector of Poland’s
citizens, and restored the right of the monarch to nominate ministers
that would be responsible to the Sejm. The progressive features of the
1791 Constitution, such as the habeas corpus provision that covered all
property owners and a clear statement that all power emanates from the
will of the people, were clearly rooted in sixteenth-century legislation
and political theories of such reformists as Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski
(1503-1572) and Wawrzyniec Goślicki. . . .
The May 1791 Constitution was translated into French, German, and
English and many prominent figures, including Thomas Paine and Edmund
Burke, praised Poland’s progressive thinking and democratic spirit.
These objects and documents associated with the promulgation of the
Constitution and the subsequent revolutionary upheavals are from the
great Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. (Closed for extensive renovations for several years, it may reopen in 2018).
Early Polish nationalists and the interwar republic celebrated May 3 as a national holiday, recalling the promulgation of the Constitution of 1791. The communist regime instead celebrated May 1, the international labor holiday, emphasizing class over nation. Although the former was restored to the calendar after the fall of communism, May 2 arose as a new holiday, mid-way between the two, in 2004.
Polish national colours are one of the few in the world of heraldic origin. They derive from the colours of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland and the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the Polish flag, the white symbolises the white of the Eagle, which features on the coat of arms of Poland, and the white of the Pursuer – a knight galloping on horseback, which features on the coat of arms of Lithuania. Both charges are on a red shield. On the flag, white is placed in the upper part and red in the lower because in Polish heraldry, the tincture of the charge has priority over the tincture of the field.
The red and white colours were first recognised as national colours on 3 May 1792, on the first anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of 3 May. They were officially adopted as the colours of the Polish State by the Sejm of the Kingdom of Poland in 1831 during the November Uprising. After Poland regained independence, the appearance of the Polish flag was confirmed by the Legislative Sejm on 1 August 1919.
Here, the British and Polish flags fly over a tent of the forces of the Polish Government-in-Exile in Scotland during World War II.
As any Amherst resident or commuter knows, the intersection of East Pleasant and Triangle Streets is one of the worst in town. It is a vital link between downtown, North Amherst, Main Street, and UMass, but at rush hours, cars attempting to make turns across oncoming traffic lead to long delays as frustrated drivers bide their time in line. Solving the problem has been made more difficult by the unusual geometry of the intersection, whose streets do not meet at neat right angles.
The Town considered all possibilities, from least to most intrusive. Resignalization would not solve the problem, and adding new turn lanes was ruled out because that would take green space from beloved Kendrick Park on Pleasant Street and would now become more difficult on Triangle Street due to the presence of the much-maligned Kendrick Place by Archipelago Investments. That left the roundabout as the most practical option: the smallest footprint, the smoothest traffic flow, and the greatest safety for automobiles, cyclists, and pedestrians. Both the Public Works Committee and Select Board endorsed the proposal last month.
Doubts remain
However, the public harbors strong doubts and reservations, even above and beyond general objections to any change. Despite reams of studies proving the greater safety of roundabouts, residents, in emails and personal appearances before the Public Works Committee and Select Board, expressed fears about the fate of pedestrians--particularly the elderly--trying to negotiate the intersection. Other residents worried that intoxicated UMass students stumbling home to their dormitories would be injured or killed. Concerns only grew when Town officials said the raised crosswalks that some requested were not practicable. Indeed, the system of crossings and islands does look intimidating and confusing.
A bold solution
As a result, Town engineers and planners made an accelerated push to revise the design in a way that maintained the integrity of the basic plan while taking these public concerns into account. This week, they finally revealed the conceptual design (so-called 50% stage), shown here in computer-assisted renderings:
The head of the Department of Public Works explained, "We think this really kills, well, not just two, but a whole bunch of
birds, with one stone."
The bold plan reserves the streets for automobiles, while giving bicyclists and pedestrians a separate, elevated roundabout. And because the elevated level is not bound by the awkward geometry of the existing streets, access angles for pedestrians and cyclists will be uniform. Another benefit is that the raised roundabout and access ramps eliminate the need to take any more green space for asphalt paving.
A final bonus would be the illumination of the roundabout at night.
Beauty aside, the raised surface and extensive lighting would help UMass
students to wend their way home safe and sound, alcoholic haze or not.
"It's a win-win situation, he said." "The people spoke, we listened. That's why we call it 'Open government To the MAX.'"
Asked, "Don't you think this is out of scale with the surroundings?" "Will it work?" "Is it safe?" and "Isn't it too expensive?" he replied, "No. Yes. Yes. No."
Vox populi
Opinions heard from the public of course varied in the town "Where only the 'h' is silent."
The Public Art Commission was thrilled, calling it "a big kinetic sculpture."
A local developer, speaking off the record, called it "a major step forward." In fact, she said, it could be a model for the almost equally problematic North Amherst Center intersection, adding, however, that "it would be even better if we could let market forces rather than big government drive the project. These things are always better done with private funds (not mine, of course)."
A Hampshire College student said that he would now be inspired to design an intersection for his "Division III project" (senior thesis) next year.
A representative for the Chamber of Commerce said the roundabout would be like a beacon, showing that Amherst was no longer afraid of change. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Business Improvement District was already musing on ways to take advantage of the landmark: "West Springfield has "The Big E" [Eastern States Exposition]. Amherst could become the 'Big O.' Kids could decorate it for holidays. We could light it up in different colors like the Empire State Building whenever there's a holiday (or a terrorist bombing)."
However, negative comments were more common. One nearby resident called it "ghastly, like something out of 'The Jetsons.'" Another feared that all the UMass undergraduates residing at the nearby five-story Kendrick Place would attempt to throw or fire projectiles into the round target-like configuration. Another worried that the physical forces acting upon people traveling the circular route would cause cancer.
Meanwhile a representative of residents who live in neighborhoods declared: "This is what happens when you let the camel get his nose under the
tent: first "The Refrigerator" and then 'The Cheese Wedge' [disparaging
names for Boltwood Place and Kendrick Place, by Archipelago Investments], and now, this . . . this 'Cider Donut.' Yes, that's it." She continued, "I'm sure this is happening now because the anti-Town Meeting people won the referendum on creating a Charter Commission. This is why we need Town Meeting all the more."
Another member of the group added, "I live in a different part of town, but this is an affront to us all, completely out of keeping with the neighborhood character."
Her companion added,
I am just heartbroken and concerned for our future. It used to be so nice here, you know. We had that empty Chrysler dealership before they turned it into that noisy Bertucci's pizza restaurant. And where that awful Kendrick Place--that dormitory--now stands was a used furniture store in an old house, and then it became a vacant lot with bare soil and that rusty wire fence. We had historic rural charm and open space. You can never get that back.
However, yet another resident, while questioning the need to change the familiar intersection at all, did concede that it might have something to offer:
It offers a welcome relief from all the masculinist new architecture here in town, with those harsh angles and horrid tall walls, thrusting upward. Isn't it about time for something more nurturing, something we can embrace? And I like the idea of a circle because there's no front or back: it's democratic, egalitarian. Though there is that pole in the middle. I'm not too crazy about that. I find it threatening. They should fix that.
No matter which side people are on, the project isn't going to happen anytime soon, given that the funding is not available yet and the town has ruled out taking funding from other road projects. And so, the residents of Amherst will have plenty to ponder as they sit in their cars, stuck in traffic.
Wishing all my friends who celebrate Easter a joyous holiday and weekend.
When we think of holiday music, most of us probably think first of Christmas rather than Easter, in part because the former was and still is deeply associated with other folk traditions of celebration, for which reason the Puritan settlers of New England--and their descendants for many generations--did not have much use for the holiday.
Still, Easter produced its share of great works, above and beyond Bach's great Passions and Easter Oratorio.
Here, a few selections from what I have been listening to this week.
Lutheran choral music from the transition of the Renaissance to the Baroque can, like even Bach's music, be an acquired taste--to the uninitiated, it may seem too understated and repetitive--but once one comes to understand it, it is a taste well worth acquiring. Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), the greatest 17th-century German composer, born exactly a century before Bach, composed the Christmas and Easter Historias late (1660) and early (1623) in his career. Together, they constitute a drama in music, a miniature pendant to Händel's "Messiah," which likewise spans both holidays.
The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, drawn from the Gospels, were a natural subject of musical composition for Holy Week. Schütz set the German texts to music in 1645. Here, and especially in the other works on this recording, such as the Magnificat, one clearly discerns the influence of his years in Venice.
Franz Josef Haydn's Seven Last Words, by contrast, was originally composed as a purely instrumental piece in 1786, though he later added a choral version, as well as settings for string quartet and piano.
Haydn, who created the work for a church in Cadíz, recounted the story of the commission to his biographer A. C. Dies (1, 2), but also published a brief explanation himself in the preface to a new edition of the work (1801):
Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the seven last words of Our Savior on the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn darkness. At midday, the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and fell to his knees before the altar. The interval was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits.
* * *
Finally, a leap into the modern symphonic literature. (I have my father to thank for introducing me to this one.) Unlike Schütz and Haydn, Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951) is little known beyond the circles of specialists, but he became a leading figure in the Czech musical generation that followed his mentors Smetana and Dvořák. Unlike their music, his did not make extensive use of Bohemian national idioms and was closer to that of his friend Gustav Mahler. Conductor Lance Friedel calls the Fourth Symphony, entitled, "Easter," Foerster's "masterpiece."
Foerster himself recounted the circumstances of its composition in his autobiography:
In Hamburg in the year 1904, seized by the spirit of Holy Week, I began writing my Fourth Symphony on Good Friday. I had no precise concept of the overall plan and was at first undecided whether to carry it through as a meditation on Good Friday.
As the first bars already indicate, I wanted to compose the work in a rich polyphonic vein. The first movement too shape very quickly, and I found that its tragic character and relatively slow tempo urgently demanded a strong contrast. My childhood years then came to my mind, especially my Easter vacations, which I was permitted to spend with my grandfather at Osenice.
The desired mood was thus produced. In the first movement, the Easter season as experienced by an adult; in the second, the same seen through the eyes of a child. There, the grief-laden path of the Saviour bearing his cross; here, the first verdure, the anemones and primroses, the spring breezes and shepherd's song. Then the slow movement, in praise of solitude and its magic; a prayer with two themes which ultimately flow together. The last movement, a fugue with three themes (of which the second is derived from a Gregorian chant), developing into a celebration of the Saviour's resurrection, the movement culminating in an exultant hymn, interrupted three times by our native chorale, On the Third Day was the Lord Arisen.
That excerpt comes from the liner notes to an old LP recording by Václav Smetáček with the Prague Symphony Orchestra (Nonesuch Records, 1972), but you can hear it here:
I suddenly realized that, immersed in work, I had let Palm Sunday pass without again sharing a picture of one of my favorite types of religious folk art: the Palm Sunday donkey.
Understandably enough, we tend to think of December 25 primarily as
Christmas, thereby ignoring or forgetting other events that occurred on
that date. Among the latter is the birthday of Isaac Newton (1642).
I always honor the birthday of the scientific revolutionary Newton,
but also the occasion of a major address by the political revolutionary
Robespierre.
Etching with hand coloring.
Image dimensions: c. 214 x 267 mm (approx. 8.4 x 10.5 inches)
Signed in the plate, “G Cruishank fect” (left) and “Pubd. Augt 1st 1835, by Thos McLean, 26, Haymarket.” (right)
This is the second issue. The print first appeared in the 1826 collection, Holiday Scenes, published by Samuel Knight (active 1805-41). Thomas McLean (1788-1875) reissued it 9 years later in Cruikshankiana, an assemblage of the most celebrated works of George Cruikshank. He largely effaced the original Knight signature, but it survives as a ghost imprint above his own, at lower right:
“London Pubd Jany 3d 1826 by S Knight, 3 Sweetings Alley [{Roy[a] X'Change’}]
Not yet "Victorian” in the strict (or any other) sense, the etching
nonetheless lacks the ribaldry or bite of Cruikshank’s other early
(especially political) work: it manages to be satirical and sentimental
at once. We can already recognize in it our received image of Christmas
as domestic idyll, familiar from Dickens to “The Nutcracker” (though the evolution of the latter is a tale in itself).
The fourteen (count 'em!) children–this, at a time when the average British family size peaked at around 6 children (1, 2)–play
with a mixture of sedate enjoyment and abandon as a stout serving-woman
brings in a tray of treats. The image is rich in period detail, from
the toys and the copy of the Eaton [sic] Latin Grammar
abandoned on the floor, to the delicate jelly-glasses (whatever
possessed the parents of that day to put them in the hands of
youngsters?) and the faux-bamboo “fancy chairs” on which the children
sit or climb.
The etching also also suggests why the Calvinists and their American
descendants held no truck with Christmas. Theologically, it was a
problem for them because its celebration was not biblically mandated,
and the date of Jesus’ birth was in any case unknown. The holiday was
moreover associated with revelry–whether heavy drinking by adults or
just boisterous behavior, as shown in our print–that seemed
incommensurate with the spirit of a holy festival.
Such was certainly the attitude here in Massachusetts, where Christmas celebrations were banned in 1659,as the legislature put it:
“For preventing disorders … by reason of some still observing such
ffestivalls as were superstitiously kept in other countrys, to the great
dishonnor of God & offence of others.” The state lifted the ban in
1681, but it took more than a century and a half before things really
began to change. Under the influence of shifting national tastes,
Christmas began to assume its familiar lineaments of wholesome domesticity and consumption. (In Massachusetts, Irish immigration also contributed to the shift.) The 1855 Christmas celebration at the Worcester Free Church under minister and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a symbolic turning point. The following year,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow observed, “We are in a transition state
about Christmas here in New England. The old Puritan feeling prevents it
from being a cheerful hearty holiday; though every year makes it more
so,” and the legislature officially recognized the holiday.
The
successful vote for the 1791 Constitution was a result of a carefully
planned surprise, practically tantamount to a constitutional coup
d’état. Most of the Sejm’s deputies were on holiday and procedural calls
for a quorum were ignored. Supporters of the Constitution occupied the
chambers and the public gallery, and their overwhelming presence secured
a passing vote. Since saving Poland’s uncertain future was paramount in
the minds of its drafters, the new Constitution was a pragmatic mixture
of progressive and conservative ideas. It called for a return of the
hereditary monarchy and it restricted some privileges previously granted
to religious minorities. On the other hand it abolished the liberum
veto law, extended legal protection to a wider sector of Poland’s
citizens, and restored the right of the monarch to nominate ministers
that would be responsible to the Sejm. The progressive features of the
1791 Constitution, such as the habeas corpus provision that covered all
property owners and a clear statement that all power emanates from the
will of the people, were clearly rooted in sixteenth-century legislation
and political theories of such reformists as Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski
(1503-1572) and Wawrzyniec Goślicki. . . . 
