Canada Slim and the Author’s Apartment 3: The Diplomat

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 8 September 2020

It must be difficult for followers of this first of two blogs to remain faithful and patient with the Chronicles of Canada Slim as they are not as often written as those of Building Everest.

 

 

 

To those who are new to the Chronicles, these posts are accounts of travels prior to the calendar year and have followed an alphabetical sequence of:

• Alsace
• Italy
• Lanzarote
• London
• Porto
• Serbia
• Switzerland

 

 

 

This post in the sequence is focused on Serbia and is the continuation of my story of a remarkable man and the museum in Belgrade that commemorates his achievements and prolongs the memory of the only Serbian (to date) to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature:

Ivo Andric.

 

 

 

 

Ivo Andrić (1892 – 1975) was a Yugoslav novelist, poet and short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961.

His writings dealt mainly with life in his native Bosnia under Ottoman rule.

Born in Travnik in the Austrian Empire, modern-day Bosnia, Andrić attended high school in Sarajevo, where he became an active member of several South Slav national youth organizations.

 

 

Above: The house in which Andric was born

 

 

Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, Andrić was arrested and imprisoned by the Austro-Hungarian police, who suspected his involvement in the plot.

 

 

Above: The first page of the edition of the Domenica del Corriere, an Italian paper, with a drawing of Achille Beltrame depicting Gavrilo Princip killing Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo

 

 

As the authorities were unable to build a strong case against him, he spent much of the war under house arrest, only being released following a general amnesty for such cases in July 1917.

After the war, he studied South Slavic history and literature at universities in Zagreb and Graz, eventually attaining his Ph.D. in Graz in 1924.

 

 

 

 

He worked in the diplomatic service of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1920 to 1923 and again from 1924 to 1941.

In 1939, he became Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Germany, but his tenure ended in April 1941 with the German-led invasion of his country.

 

 

Above: Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

 

 

Shortly after the invasion, Andrić returned to German-occupied Belgrade.

He lived quietly in a friend’s apartment for the duration of World War II, in conditions likened by some biographers to house arrest, and wrote some of his most important works, including Na Drini ćuprija (The Bridge on the Drina).

 

 

Above: Ivo Andrić monument in Belgrade, Serbia

 

 

Following the war, Andrić was named to a number of ceremonial posts in Yugoslavia, which had since come under communist rule.

 

 

 

 

In 1961, the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature, selecting him over writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck and E. M. Forster.

The Committee cited “the epic force with which he traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from his country’s history“.

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, Andrić’s works found an international audience and were translated into a number of languages.

In subsequent years, he received a number of awards in his native country.

 

 

Above: Front cover art for The Bridge on the Drina written by Ivo Andrić

 

 

Andrić’s health declined substantially in late 1974.

He died in Belgrade the following March.

 

 

 

 

In the years following Andrić’s death, the Belgrade apartment where he spent much of World War II was converted into a museum and a nearby street corner was named in his honour.

It is this author’s apartment, this Ivo Andric Museum in Belgrade which I visited in the spring of 2018.

 

 

Above: Ivо Andric Museum Building, Belgrade, Serbia

 

 

A number of other cities in the former Yugoslavia also have streets bearing his name.

 

 

 

 

In 2012, filmmaker Emir Kusturica began construction of an ethno-town in eastern Bosnia that is named after Andrić.

 

 

Above: Main entrance of Andrićgrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

 

As Yugoslavia’s only Nobel Prize-winning writer, Andrić was well known and respected in his native country during his lifetime.

 

 

 

 

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, beginning in the 1950s and continuing past the breakup of Yugoslavia, his works have been disparaged by Bosniak literary critics for their supposed anti-Muslim bias.

 

Above: Flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

 

In Croatia, his works were long shunned for nationalist reasons, and even briefly blacklisted following Yugoslavia’s dissolution, but were rehabilitated by the literary community at the start of the 21st century.

 

Above: Flag of Croatia

 

 

He is highly regarded in Serbia for his contributions to Serbian literature.

 

 

Above: Flag of Serbia

 

 

I have aspirations of becoming a published writer and I have always been fascinated by the lives of other writers and how those lives led to the fine literature that these literary legends produced.

 

In parts one and two of the Author’s Apartment, I wrote of Andric’s life from his birth and childhood to his studies and suffering (1892 -1920).

 

 

 

 

In 1920, after a time as a civil servant with the Ministry of Religion in Belgrade, Andric was taken into diplomatic service and a new chapter of his life began.

 

 

Above: Church of St. Sava, Belgrade

 

 

On 20 February 1920, Andrić’s request was granted and he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry’s mission at the Vatican.

 

 

Above: Flag of Vatican City

 

 

The post of Ambassador was occupied by the famous linguist Lujo Bakotic.

 

 

Above: Lujo Bakotic

 

 

(Lujo Bakotić (1867 – 1941) was a Serbian writer, publicist, lawyer, lexicographer and diplomat.

Though he was Roman Catholic, Bakotić considered himself Serbian, as had his father.

He completed his high school (gymnasium) education in Split, and jurisprudence in Vienna and Graz.

He was a lawyer by profession who was also politically active, representing the Serbian Party in the Diet of Dalmatia.

 

 

Above: Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Dalmatia

 

 

Owing to his party’s ideals he had to flee to Serbia in 1913.

With the start of the Great War, he left Belgrade for Niš and then went to Paris and finally Rome, where he was made a secretary in the Vatican to work on a mission, preparing a Concordat between Serbia and the Vatican (which never materialized).

After the war, he was Yugoslavia’s envoy at the Vatican from 1920 until 1923.

 

 

Above: St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City

 

 

He represented the Kingdom of Yugoslavia at The Hague, and later he was sent by the Serbian government to Moscow.

 

Above: Kurhaus, The Hague, The Netherlands

 

 

He retired as a civil servant in 1935.

Classically educated, Bakotić spoke several languages fluently, including: French, Italian, German, English, Latin and a number of Slavic languages and dialects.)

 

 

Above: Lujo Bakotić

 

 

Andric enthusiastically read the works of Francesco Guicciardini.

 

 

 

 

(Francesco Guicciardini (1483 – 1540) was an Italian historian and statesman.

A friend and critic of Niccolò Machiavelli, he is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance.

 

 

Above: Niccolò Macchiavelli (1469 – 1527)

 

 

In his masterpiece, The History of Italy, Guicciardini paved the way for a new style in historiography with his use of government sources to support arguments and the realistic analysis of the people and events of his time.

 

 

 

 

The History of Italy stands apart from all his writings because it was the one work which he wrote not for himself, but for the public.

In his research, Guicciardini drew upon material that he gathered from government records as well as from his own extensive experience in politics.

 

His many personal encounters with powerful Italian rulers serves to explain his perspective as a historian:

“Francesco Guicciardini might be called a psychological historian—for him the motive power of the huge clockwork of events may be traced down the mainspring of individual behavior.

Not any individual, be it noted, but those in positions of command: emperors, princes and popes who may be counted on to act always in terms of their self-interest—the famous Guicciardinian particolare.”

 

 

Above: Villa Ravà, Arcetri, the former home of the Guicciardini family, where Francesco Guicciardini wrote The History of Italy

 

 

In the following excerpt, the historian records his observations on the character of Pope Clement VII:

“And although he had a most capable intelligence and marvelous knowledge of world affairs, yet he lacked the corresponding resolution and execution.

For he was impeded not only by his timidity of spirit, which was by no means small, and by a strong reluctance to spend, but also by a certain innate irresolution and perplexity, so that he remained almost always in suspension and ambiguous when he was faced with those deciding those thing which from afar he had many times foreseen, considered, and almost revealed.“

 

 

Above: Pope Clement VII (né Giulio di Guiliano de’ Medici)(1478 – 1534)

 

 

Moreover, what sets Guicciardini apart from other historians of his time is his understanding of historical context.

 

His approach was already evident in his early work The History of Florence (1509):

“The young historian was already doubtlessly aware of the meaning of historical perspective; the same facts acquiring different weight in different contexts, a sense of proportion was called for.”

 

 

Above: Guicciardini Family Crest

 

 

In the words of one of Guicciardini’s severest critics, Francesco de Sanctis:

“If we consider intellectual power, the Storia d’Italia is the most important work that has issued from an Italian mind.“)

 

 

Above: Francesco de Sanctis (1817 – 1883)

 

 

Andric travelled through Tuscany with Milos Crnjanski.

 

 

Above: Miloš Crnjanski, 1914

 

 

(Miloš Crnjanski (1893 – 1977) was a Serbian writer and poet of the expressionist wing of Serbian modernism, author, and a diplomat.

 

 

 

 

Crnjanski was born in Csongrád, Hungary, to an impoverished family which moved in 1896 to Temesvár (today Timișoara, Romania).

He completed elementary school in Pančevo and grammar school in Timișoara.

 

Above: Images of Timisoara, Romania

 

 

Then he started attending the Export Academy in Rijeka in 1912, and in the autumn of the following year he started studying in Vienna.

 

 

Above: Harbour, Rijeka, Croatia

 

 

At the beginning of World War I, Crnjanski was persecuted as part of the general anti-Serbian retribution of Austria to Princip’s assassination in Sarajevo.

Instead of being sent to jail, he was drafted to the Austro-Hungarian Army and sent to the Galician front to fight against the Russians – where he was wounded in 1915.

Crnjanski convalesced in a Vienna war hospital, although just before the end of the war he was sent to the Italian front.

 

 

 

 

After the war, he graduated in literary studies from the University of Belgrade.

After graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy in 1922, he taught at the Fourth Belgrade Grammar School and espoused “radical modernism” in articles for periodicals including Ideje, Politika and Vreme – sparking “fierce literary and political debates“.

 

 

Above: University of Belgrade logo

 

 

He entered the diplomatic corps for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and worked in Germany (1935 – 1938) and Italy (1939 – 1941) before being evacuated during WWII to England.

 

 

Above: Flag of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918 – 1941)

 

 

He took odd jobs and eventually became the London correspondent of the Argentinian periodical El economist.

During this period he wrote Druga knjiga Seoba (The Second Book on Migration) and Lament nad Beogradom (Lament over Belgrade).

 

 

Above. Tower Bridge, London, England

 

 

He returned to Belgrade after 20 years of exile in 1965 and shortly after published Sabrana dela u 10 tomova (“Collected works in 10 volumes”).

In 1971, he received the prestigious NIN award for Roman o Londonu.

 

 

Above: NIN Award logo

 

 

Crnjanski, aged 84, died in Belgrade on 30 November 1977.

He is interred in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens in the Belgrade New Cemetery.

He is considered a classic of Serbian literature by scholars as well as the public.

 

 

 

 

Crnjanski first books portrayed the futility of war.

He laid the foundations of the early avant-garde movement in Serbian literature, as exemplified by his 1920 Objašnjenje Sumatre (The Explanation of Sumatra):

“The world still hasn’t heard the terrible storm above our heads, while shakings come from beneath, not from political relations, not from literary dogmas, but from life.

Those are the dead reaching out!

They should be avenged.“

 

 

 

 

The Journal of Carnojevic is a lyrical novel by Miloš Crnjanski, which was first published in 1920.

 

 

 

The narrator of the novel is Petar Rajic, who tells his story in which there is no clearly established narrative flow, nor are events connected by cause and effect.

The protagonist of the book is a young Serbian soldier who lived in Vojvodina, now northern Serbia, which was, at the time, a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

When WW I began, he was, along with thousands of other young Serbs, recruited to the Austro-Hungarian army, and the war completely obliterated his image of the world.

Crnjanski himself had such a destiny, and he wrote the book right after coming back from the war – still as a young man.

The book is a combination of the present, the past and the future, strangely intertwined.

We can’t even say who he is – because of his alter ego, the sailor.

Just like the borders between the periods of life, the borders between persons are blurred and unclear.

 

“Autumn, and life without meaning.

I drag myself around taverns.

I sit by the window and stare at the mist and the yellow, wet, scarlet trees.

And where is life?”

 

“All they were doing, he said that somewhere, far away, on some island, was leaving a mark.

And when he would tell her that now, from her passionate smile, a red plant on Ceylon Island is drawing its strength to open, she would gaze at the distance.

She didn’t believe that all our actions could reach that far and that our power is so endless.

And that was the last thing he believed in.

Under the palm trees, in the hotel lobby, he told her that he didn’t believe someone could be killed, nor made unhappy.

He didn’t believe in the future.

He said his fleshly passions depended solely upon the color of the sky, and that life is being lived in vain – no, not in vain, but for the sake of a smile, with which he smiles to both plants and clouds.

He said that all his actions depended on some scarlet trees that he had seen on Ios Island.

She giggled.

Ah, he was funny and young.

So young.”

 

 

“I will go past borders and cities and villages and forests and waters and there will be nothing left on me but dust on my feet, silence in my heart and on my face a mild smile meaningless and burning.

So many are the places where something had been left, ripped out of my torn apart soul and my ragged life.“)

 

 

Above: Portrait of Milos Crnjanski

 

 

Andrić left Belgrade soon after, and reported for duty in late February.

At this time, he published his first short story, Put Alije Đerzeleza (The Journey of Alija Đerzelez).

 

 

 

 

(Gjergj Elez Alia or Đerzelez Alija is a popular legendary hero in epic poetry and literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gora and in northern Albania.

Muslims from Bosnian Krajina modeled the poetic image of Alija Đerzelez after the image of Serbian (Christian) Prince Marko, based on the historic person Ali Bey Mihaloğlu.

 

 

 

 

Marko Mrnjavčević  (1335 – 1395) was the de jure Serbian king from 1371 to 1395, while he was the de facto ruler of territory in western Macedonia centered on the town of Prilep.

He is known as Prince Marko and King Marko in South Slavic oral tradition, in which he has become a major character during the period of Ottoman rule over the Balkans.

 

 

Above: Portrait of Prince Marko

 

 

Marko’s father, King Vukašin, was co-ruler with Serbian Tsar Stefan Uroš V, whose reign was characterised by weakening central authority and the gradual disintegration of the Serbian Empire.

Vukašin’s holdings included lands in western Macedonia and Kosovo.

 

 

Above: King Vukasin

 

 

In 1370, he crowned Marko “young king“:

This title included the possibility that Marko would succeed the childless Uroš on the Serbian throne.

 

 

Above: Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Serbia

 

 

On 26 September 1371, Vukašin was killed and his forces defeated in the Battle of Maritsa.

About two months later, Tsar Uroš died.

This formally made Marko King of Serbia.

 

 

Above: Maritsa Valley

 

 

However, Serbian noblemen, who had become effectively independent from the central authority, did not even consider to recognise him as their supreme ruler.

Sometime after 1371, he became an Ottoman vassal.

 

 

Above: Ottoman Empire logo

 

 

By 1377, significant portions of the territory he inherited from Vukašin were seized by other noblemen.

King Marko, in reality, came to be a regional lord who ruled over a relatively small territory in western Macedonia.

 

 

 

He funded the construction of the Monastery of Saint Demetrius near Skopje (better known as Marko’s Monastery), which was completed in 1376.

 

Above: Marko’s Monastery

 

 

Marko died on 17 May 1395, fighting for the Ottomans against the Wallachians in the Battle of Rovine.

 

 

Above: Battle of Rovine

 

 

Although a ruler of modest historical significance, Marko became a major character in South Slavic oral tradition.

He is venerated as a national hero by the Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians, remembered in Balkan folklore as a fearless and powerful protector of the weak, who fought against injustice and confronted the Turks during the Ottoman occupation.

 

 

Above: A Herzegovinian sings with a gusle in an 1823 drawing.

Serbian epic poems were often sung, accompanied by this traditional instrument.

 

 

South Slavic legends about Kraljević Marko or Krali Marko are primarily based on myths much older than the historical Marko Mrnjavčević.

He differs in legend from the folk poems:

In some areas he was imagined as a giant who walked stepping on hilltops, his head touching the clouds.

 

He was said to have helped God shape the Earth, and created the river gorge in Demir Kapija (“Iron Gate“) with a stroke of his sabre.

This drained the sea covering the regions of Bitola, Mariovo and Tikveš in Macedonia, making them habitable.

 

 

Above: Demir Kapija

 

 

After the Earth was shaped, Marko arrogantly showed off his strength.

God took it away by leaving a bag as heavy as the Earth on a road.

When Marko tried to lift it, he lost his strength and became an ordinary man.

 

Legend also has it that Marko acquired his strength after he was suckled by a vila.

King Vukašin threw him into a river because he did not resemble him, but the boy was saved by a cowherd (who adopted him, and a vila suckled him).

 

 

Above: Serbian epic heroes Prince Marko and Miloš Obilić, and the vila Ravijojla

 

 

In other accounts, Marko was a shepherd (or cowherd) who found a vila‘s children lost in a mountain and shaded them against the sun (or gave them water).

As a reward the vila suckled him three times, and he could lift and throw a large boulder.

An Istrian version has Marko making a shade for two snakes, instead of the children.

In a Bulgarian version, each of the three draughts of milk he suckled from the vila‘s breast became a snake.

 

 

 

 

Marko was associated with large, solitary boulders and indentations in rocks:

The boulders were said to be thrown by him from a hill, and the indentations were his footprints (or the hoofprints of his horse).

He was also connected with geographic features such as hills, glens, cliffs, caves, rivers, brooks and groves, which he created or at which he did something memorable.

They were often named after him, and there are many toponyms (place names) — from Istria in the west to Bulgaria in the east — derived from his name.

In Bulgarian and Macedonian stories, Marko had an equally strong sister who competed with him in throwing boulders.

 

 

 

 

In some legends, Marko’s wonder horse was a gift from a vila (a mountain nymph).

A Serbian story says that he was looking for a horse who could bear him.

To test a steed, he would grab him by the tail and sling him over his shoulder.

Seeing a diseased piebald foal owned by some carters, Marko grabbed him by the tail but could not move him.

He bought (and cured) the foal, naming him Šarac.

He became an enormously powerful horse and Marko’s inseparable companion.

 

 

 

 

Macedonian legend has it that Marko, following a vila‘s advice, captured a sick horse on a mountain and cured him.

Crusted patches on the horse’s skin grew white hairs, and he became a piebald.

 

 

 

 

According to folk tradition Marko never died:

He lives on in a cave, in a moss-covered den or in an unknown land.

 

 

 

 

A Serbian legend recounts that Marko once fought a battle in which so many men were killed that the soldiers (and their horses) swam in blood.

He lifted his hands towards heaven and said:

“Oh God, what am I going to do now?”

God took pity on Marko, transporting him and Šarac to a cave (where Marko stuck his sabre into a rock and fell asleep).

 

 

 

 

There is moss in the cave.

Šarac eats it bit by bit, while the sabre slowly emerges from the rock.

When it falls on the ground and Šarac finishes the moss, Marko will awaken and reenter the world.

Some allegedly saw him after descending into a deep pit, where he lived in a large house in front of which Šarac was seen.

Others saw him in a faraway land, living in a cave.

 

 

 

 

According to Macedonian tradition Marko drank “eagle’s water“, which made him immortal.

He is with Elijah in heaven.

 

 

 

Mihaloğlu Ali Bey or Gazı Alauddin Mihaloğlu Ali Bey, (1425—1507) was an Ottoman military commander in the 15th century and the first sanjakbey (provincial governor) of the Sanjak of Smederevo (the territory of Belgrade).

He was one of the descendants of Köse Mihal, a Byzantine governor of Chirmenkia and battle companion of Osman Gazi.

 

 

 

 

I am not certain of why Ali Bey is so honoured, for it seems he was continuously defeated in almost every military campaign he was involved in.

 

 

 

Songs about Đerzelez Alija were transmitted by bilingual singers from South Slavic milieu to northern Albanian milieu, where he is known as Gjergj Elez Alia.)

 

 

The year 1920 was a year of great changes:

• the First Red Scare, a widespread fear of far left extremism in the United States, continues, as do the Palmer (after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer) Raids:  on one day alone (2 January) 4,025 people were arrested in several cities across the country – mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants were targeted.

 

• the Russian Civil War still raged

 

• the League of Nations began sessions in Paris before moving to Geneva

 

• the Netherlands refused to extradite exiled German Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859 – 1941)

 

• Prohibition in the United States began

 

• the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded and women’s suffragism realized in the US

 

 

• the victorious Allies carved up the former Ottoman Empire and Hungary lost 72% of its pre-WW1 territory

 

Above: The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, by Sir William Orpen

 

• the German Workers Party renamed itself the Nazi Party

 

• Estonia, Lithuania and Syria all gain their independence this year

Above: Flag of Estonia

 

• the world’s first peaceful establishment of a social democratic government took place in Sweden

 

• the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles claiming that it was too harsh on the defeated participants of WW1

 

• the Summer Olympics opened in Antwerp, Belgium

 

• the Mexican Revolution ended

 

• the Polish – Russian War ended in a Polish victory

Above: Five stages of the Polish-Soviet War

 

• Albanian PM Essad Pasha Toptani (1863 – 1920) was assassinated in Paris

 

• the US Postal Service ruled that children cannot be mailed

 

• three African American circus workers were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota

 

• Arthur Meighen (1874 – 1960) became the 9th Prime Minister of Canada

 

• the Irish War of Independence still raged, including “Bloody Sunday“

 

• the HIV / AIDS pandemic began in Léopoldville (today’s Kinshasa)

 

 

With the end of World War I and the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires the conditions were met for proclaiming the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in December 1918.

The Yugoslav ideal had long been cultivated by the intellectual circles of the three nations that gave the name to the country, but the international constellation of political forces and interests did not permit its implementation until then.

However, after the war, idealist intellectuals gave way to politicians, and the most influential Croatian politicians opposed the new state right from the start.

It was not certain through much of 1920 whether the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) would survive its own internal divisions.

 

 

Above: Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes

 

 

As for the Vatican, the Roman Question was still unresolved.

On 9 February 1849, the Roman Republic took over the government of the Papal States.

In the following July, an intervention by French troops restored Pope Pius IX to power, making the Roman Question a hotly debated one even in the internal politics of France.

 

 

 

 

In July 1859, after France and Austria made an agreement that ended the short Second Italian War of Independence, an article headed “The Roman Question” in the Westminster Review expressed the opinion that the Papal States should be deprived of the Adriatic provinces and be restricted to the territory around Rome.

This became a reality in the following year, when most of the Papal States were annexed by what became the Kingdom of Italy.

 

 

Above: the Italian peninsula, 1796

 

 

The Vatican is the religious centre of Catholicism, but the question raged as to whether it should also continue to have its own territory.

This question was not resolved until 1929.

 

 

Above: Coat of arms of the Bishop of Rome (aka the Pope)

 

 

In the midst of all this, Andric began his diplomatic career.

 

 

 

 

Andric complained that the consulate was understaffed and that he did not have enough time to write.

All evidence suggests he had a strong distaste for the ceremony and pomp that accompanied his work in the diplomatic service, but according to Hawkesworth, he endured it with “dignified good grace“.

Around this time, he began writing in the Ekavian dialect used in Serbia, and ceased writing in the Ijekavian dialect used in his native Bosnia.

 

 

 

Andrić soon requested another assignment.

 

In November, he was transferred to Bucharest.

Once again, his health deteriorated.

Nevertheless, Andrić found his consular duties there did not require much effort, so he focused on writing, contributed articles to a Romanian journal and even had time to visit his family in Bosnia.

 

 

Above: Flag of Romania

 

 

The Treaty of Bucharest was signed between Romania and the Entente Powers on 17 August 1916 in Bucharest.

The treaty stipulated the conditions under which Romania agreed to join the war on the side of the Entente, particularly territorial promises in Austria-Hungary.

The signatories bound themselves to keep secret the contents of the treaty until a general peace was concluded.

 

 

Above: Treaty of Bucharest

 

 

Romanians!

The war which for the last two years has been encircling our frontiers more and more closely has shaken the ancient foundations of Europe to their depths.

It has brought the day which has been awaited for centuries by the national conscience, by the founders of the Romanian State, by those who united the principalities in the war of independence, by those responsible for the national renaissance.

It is the day of the union of all branches of our nation.

Today we are able to complete the task of our forefathers and to establish forever that which Michael the Great was only able to establish for a moment, namely, a Romanian union on both slopes of the Carpathians.

For us the mountains and plains of Bukowina, where Stephen the Great has slept for centuries.

In our moral energy and our valour lie the means of giving him back his birthright of a great and free Rumania from the Tisza to the Black Sea, and to prosper in peace in accordance with our customs and our hopes and dreams. 

Part of the proclamation by King Ferdinand, 28 August 1916

 

Above: King Ferdinand I of Romania (1865 – 1927)

 

 

The concept of “Greater Romania“ materialized as a geopolitical reality after the First World War.

Romania gained control over Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transylvania.

As a result, most regions with clear Romanian majorities were merged into a single state.

It also led to the inclusion of sizable minorities, including Magyars (ethnic Hungarians), Germans, Jews, Ukrainians and Bulgarians — about 28% of the country’s population.

The borders established by the treaties concluding the war did not change until 1940.

The resulting state, often referred to as “România Mare” or România Întregită (roughly translated in English as “Romania Made Whole“), was seen as the ‘true’, whole Romanian state, or, as Tom Gallagher states, the “Holy Grail of Romanian nationalism“.

The Romanian ideology changed due to the demographic, cultural and social alterations, however the nationalist desire for a homogeneous Romanian state conflicted with the multiethnic, multicultural truth of Greater Romania.

From 1918 to 1938, Romania was a monarchy whose liberal Constitution was seldom respected in practice.

 

 

Above: Greater Romania (1920 – 1940)

 

 

In 1922, Andrić requested another reassignment.

He was transferred to the consulate in Trieste, where he arrived on 9 December 1922.

 

 

Above: Flag of Trieste

 

 

At the beginning of the 20th century, Trieste was a bustling cosmopolitan city frequented by artists and philosophers such as James Joyce, Italo Svevo, Sigmund Freud, Zofka Kveder, Dragotin Kette, Ivan Cankar, Scipio Slataper, and Umberto Saba.

The city was the major port on the Austrian Riviera, and perhaps the only real enclave of Mitteleuropa (i.e., Central Europe) on the Mediterranean.

Viennese architecture and coffeehouses dominate the streets of Trieste to this day.

 

 

Above: Images of Trieste

 

 

Italy, in return for entering World War I on the side of the Allied Powers, had been promised substantial territorial gains, which included the former Austrian Littoral and western Inner Carniola.

Italy therefore annexed the city of Trieste at the end of the war, in accordance with the provisions of the 1915 Treaty of London and the Italian-Yugoslav 1920 Treaty of Rapallo.

 

 

Above: Flag of the Kingdom of Italy (1861 – 1946)

 

 

The Treaty of Rapallo was a treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929), signed to solve the dispute over some territories in the former Austrian Littoral in the upper Adriatic and in Dalmatia.

The treaty was signed on 12 November 1920 in Rapallo, near Genoa, Italy.

 

Above: Rapallo

 

 

Tension between Italy and Yugoslavia arose at the end of World War I, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved and Italy claimed the territories assigned to it by the secret Treaty of London of 1915.

According to the treaty signed in London on 26 April 1915 by the Kingdom of Italy and the Triple Entente, in case of victory at the end of World War I, Italy was to obtain several territorial gains including former Austrian Littoral, northern Dalmatia and notably Zadar, Šibenik, and most of the Dalmatian islands (except Krk and Rab).

These territories had an ethnically mixed population, with Slovenes and Croats composing over the half of the population of the region.

The treaty was therefore nullified with the Treaty of Versailles under pressure of President Woodrow Wilson, making void Italian claims on northern Dalmatia.

The objective of the Treaty of Rapallo was to find a compromise following the void created by the non-application of the Treaty of London of 1915.

 

 

 

 

While only a few thousands Italians remained in the newly established South Slavic state, a population of half a million Slavs, including the annexed Slovenes, were cut off from the remaining three-quarters of total Slovene population at the time and were subjected to forced Italianization.

Trieste had a large Italian majority, but it had more ethnic Slovene inhabitants than even Slovenia’s capital of Ljubljana at the end of 19th century.

 

 

 

 

Andric’s Trieste assignment meant he was representing Slovenes in a predominantly Slovene-populated territory now under Italian control.

 

 

Above: Peter Kozler’s map of the Slovene Lands, designed during the Spring of Nations in 1848, became the symbol of the quest for a United Slovenia.

 

 

The Italian lower middle class—who felt most threatened by the city’s Slovene middle class—sought to make Trieste a città italianissima, committing a series of attacks led by the Black Shirts against Slovene-owned shops, libraries, and lawyers’ offices, even burning down the Trieste National Hall, a central building to the Slovene community.

On 13 July 1920, the building was burned by the Fascist Blackshirts, led by Francesco Giunta.

 

 

 

The act was praised by Benito Mussolini, who had not yet assumed power, as a “masterpiece of the Triestine Fascism“.

It was part of a wider pogrom against the Slovenes and other Slavs in the very centre of Trieste and the harbinger of the ensuing violence against  Slovenes and Croats.

 

 

Above: Fascist logo

 

 

By the mid-1930s several thousand Slovenes, especially members of the middle class and the intelligentsia from Trieste, emigrated to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or to South America.

Among the notable Slovene émigrés from Trieste were the author Vladimir Bartol, the legal theorist Boris Furlan and the Argentine architect Viktor Sulčič.

The political leadership of the around 70,000 émigrés from the Julian March in Yugoslavia was mostly composed of Trieste Slovenes: Lavo Čermelj, Josip Vilfan and Ivan Marija Čok.

 

 

Above: Flag of modern Slovenia

 

 

In 1926, claiming that it was restoring surnames to their original Italian form, the Italian government announced the Italianization of German, Slovene and Croatian surnames.

In the Province of Trieste alone, 3,000 surnames were modified and 60,000 people had their surnames amended to an Italian-sounding form.

The psychological trauma, experienced by more than 150,000 people, led to a massive emigration of German and Slavic families from Trieste.

Despite the exodus of the Slovene and German speakers, the city’s population increased because of the migration of Italians from other parts of Italy.

Several thousand ethnic Italians from Dalmatia also moved to Trieste from the newly created Yugoslavia.

 

 

 

 

The city’s damp climate only caused Andrić’s health to deteriorate further.

On his doctor’s advice, he transferred to Graz in January 1923.

 

 

Above: Hauptplatz, Graz, Austria

 

 

Graz is the capital city of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna.

 

 

Above: Graz

 

 

Emerging from the war, Austria had two main political parties on the right and one on the left.

 

 

Above: Flag of Austria

 

 

The right was split between clericalism and nationalism.

The Christian Social Party, (Christlichsoziale Partei, CS), had been founded in 1891 and achieved plurality from 1907–1911 before losing it to the socialists.

Their influence had been waning in the capital, even before 1914, but became the dominant party of the First Republic, and the party of government from 1920 onwards.

The CS had close ties to the Roman Catholic Church and was headed by a Catholic priest named Ignaz Seipel (1876–1932), who served twice as Chancellor (1922–1924 / 1926–1929).

While in power, Seipel was working for an alliance between wealthy industrialists and the Roman Catholic Church.

The CS drew its political support from conservative rural Catholics.

In 1920 the Greater German People’s Party (Großdeutsche Volkspartei, GDVP) was founded from the bulk of liberal and national groups and became the junior partner of the CS.

 

 

 

On the left the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ) founded in 1898, which pursued a fairly left-wing course known as Austromarxism at that time, could count on a secure majority in “Red Vienna” (as the capital was known from 1918 to 1934), while right-wing parties controlled all other states.

The SDAPÖ were the strongest voting bloc from 1911 to 1918.

 

 

Between 1918 and 1920, there was a grand coalition government including both left and right-wing parties, the CS and the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreichs, SDAPÖ).

This gave the Social Democrats their first opportunity to influence Austrian politics.

The coalition enacted progressive socio-economic and labour legislation, such as the vote for women on 27 November 1918, but collapsed on 22 October 1920.

 

In 1920, the modern Constitution of Austria was enacted, but from 1920 onwards Austrian politics were characterized by intense and sometimes violent conflict between left and right.

The bourgeois parties maintained their dominance but formed unstable governments while socialists remained the largest elected party numerically.

Both right-wing and left-wing paramilitary forces were created during the 20s.

The Heimwehr (Home Resistance) first appeared on 12 May 1920 and became progressively organised over the next three years and the Republikanischer Schutzbund was formed in response to this on 19 February 1923.

 

 

 

 

From 2 April 1923 to 30 September there were violent clashes between Socialists and Nazis in Vienna.

On 2 April, referred to as Schlacht auf dem Exelberg (Battle of Exelberg) involved 300 Nazis against 90 Socialists.

Further episodes occurred on 4 May and 30 September 1923.

A clash between those groups in Schattendorf, Burgenland, on 30 January 1927, led to the death of a man and a child.

 

Above: Schattendorf

 

 

Right-wing veterans were indicted at a court in Vienna, but acquitted in a jury trial.

This led to massive protests and a fire at the Justizpalast (Palace of Justice) in Vienna.

In the July Revolt of 1927, 89 protesters were killed by the Austrian police forces.

Political conflict escalated until the early 1930s.

 

 

Above: the Palace of Justice, Vienna, before the fire

 

 

Whether the violence that Vienna viewed was reflected in Graz was never recorded by Andric during his time there as both vice-consul and student.

 

Andric arrived in the city on 23 January 1923 and was appointed vice-consul.

Andrić soon enrolled at the University of Graz, resumed his schooling and began working on his doctoral dissertation in Slavic studies.

 

 

Above: University of Graz logo

 

 

In August 1923, Andrić experienced an unexpected career setback.

A law had been passed stipulating that all civil servants had to have a doctoral degree.

As Andrić had not completed his dissertation, he was informed that his employment would be terminated.

 

 

 

 

Andrić’s well-connected friends intervened on his behalf and appealed to Foreign Minister Momčilo Ninčić, citing Andrić’s diplomatic and linguistic abilities.

 

Above: Momčilo Ninčić (1876 – 1949), Serbian politician and economist, and president of the League of Nations (1926 – 1927)

 

 

In February 1924, the Foreign Ministry decided to retain Andrić as a day worker with the salary of a vice-consul.

This gave him the opportunity to complete his Ph.D.

 

 

 

 

Three months later, on 24 May, Andrić submitted his dissertation to a committee of examiners at the University of Graz, who gave it their approval.

This allowed Andrić to take the examinations necessary for his Ph.D to be confirmed.

He passed both his exams, and on 13 July, received his Ph.D.

 

The committee of examiners recommended that Andrić’s dissertation be published.

Andrić chose the title Die Entwicklung des geistigen Lebens in Bosnien unter der Einwirkung der türkischen Herrschaft (The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia Under the Influence of Turkish Rule).

In it, he characterized the Ottoman occupation as a yoke that still loomed over Bosnia.

“The effect of Turkish rule was absolutely negative,” he wrote.

“The Turks could bring no cultural content or sense of higher mission, even to those South Slavs who accepted Islam.“

 

 

 

 

Several days after receiving his Ph.D, Andrić wrote the Foreign Minister asking to be reinstated and submitted a copy of his dissertation, university documents and a medical certification that deemed him to be in good health.

In September, the Foreign Ministry granted his request.

 

Above: Bust of Ivo Andric, Graz

 

 

Andrić stayed in Graz until 31 October 1924, when he was assigned to the Foreign Ministry’s Belgrade headquarters.

 

 

 

 

During the two years he was in Belgrade, Andrić spent much of his time writing.

His first collection of short stories was published in 1924, and he received a prize from the Serbian Royal Academy (of which he became a full-fledged member in February 1926).

 

 

Above: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts plaque

 

 

The reader who takes the collected works of one writer, reads them as a connected whole, despite all the contradictions and breaks that the work of one writer carries within itself. 

He passes through that work as through a well-arranged street in which the facades of houses are interconnected, and everything comes to him as one more or less planned and well-connected whole. 

Because such a reader stands at the end point of the writer’s work, looks in the opposite direction from the one in which those works were created, observes them as a whole and continuity that they could not have when, one by one, they were slowly and difficultly created in long and restless periods of life.

Ivo Andrić
Signs by the Roadside

 

 

 

 

And what is, basically, a story?

How, in the shortest outline, could a story be described rather than precisely defined?

 

One of the most important features of the story is its size, ie the measure of its conciseness.

It depends on the extent of the compression of the form how the writer will arrange his material, how he will construct the plot and how to introduce his theme into it or network more motives, how he will explain his linguistic potential.

There is no doubt that the narrative is based on the categories of selection and summarization, on giving a restrictive, reduced form to the process of narration.

The concentration of attention, conciseness and interestingness of the narration must be in the foreground in order to achieve the impression of a unique whole.

That is why the story relies on a “limited world“, on a clearly emphasized detail, a motivated situation or an emphasized character.

 

 

 

 

But, the core, the essence, the justification of the existence of every story cannot be reduced only to its formal characteristics, because the most important thing is the story, the process of telling, the narration.

 

It gives meaning to human existence and its torment to reach the meaning and reason for the existence of the world.

 

From time immemorial, humanity has been telling stories, stories about heroism, love, suffering, betrayal, loyalty and friendship, the story is inherent in man, an integral part of his position in an interactive relationship with the world.

 

 

 

 

And it is no coincidence that Andrić put the words of his “uncle“, the late Fr. Rafa, into the mouth of his hero, Fr. Petar, who always joked:

“I could still do without bread, but without talking I can’t.“

 

 

 

 

In a thousand different languages, in various living conditions, from century to century, from ancient patriarchal stories in huts, by the fire, to modern narrators who are coming out of publishing houses in major world centers at the moment, the story of human destiny is being told, which people tell people without end and interruption.

The way and forms of that story change over time and circumstances, but the need for storytelling and storytelling remains, and the story flows on and the storytelling has no end.

So sometimes it seems to us that humanity, from the first flash of consciousness, through the centuries, tells itself, in a million variants, along with the breath of its lungs and the rhythm of its being, constantly the same story.

And that story seems to want, like the story of the legendary Scheherazade, to deceive the executioner, to postpone the inevitability of the tragic accident that threatens us, and to prolong the illusion of life and duration.

 

 

Above: Scheherazade, painted in the 19th century by Sophie Anderson

 

 

Perhaps the goal of that story is to light up, at least a little, the dark paths that life often throws us on, and to tell us something more about that life, which we live but which we do not always see and understand, than we, in our weakness, can know and understand.

Often only from the words of a good narrator do we learn what we have done and what we have missed, what we should do and what we should not.

Perhaps these stories, oral and written, also contain the true history of mankind, and perhaps one could at least sense, if not find out, the meaning of that history.

And that regardless of whether they are dealing with the past or the present.

Perhaps one could at least infer from them, if not find out, the meaning of that history.

 

 

Above: History by Frederick Dielman (1896)

 

 

Andrić in his imaginary “Conversation with Goya” in 1935, Andrić’s hero Goja, the narrator’s interlocutor, sees life and story as creatively intertwined.

Because without a story there is no real life.

And how to get to the story, that key to everything that “happened and is happening“, which is repeated in countless different forms?

Legends should be listened to:

“Those traces of collective human efforts through the centuries and the meaning of our destiny should be deciphered from them as much as possible”, says Andrićev Goja in one place, and further adds that the meaning should be sought “in those layers of humanity. ”

 

 

 

 

In 1924, the same year when he defended his doctoral dissertation in Graz, The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule, Andrić published his first collection of stories under the simple title Pripovetke (Tales) in the Belgrade Serbian Literary Association.

 

 

 

 

In his dissertation, Andrić himself points out that “in its content and in its basic idea, this discussion is related to other works” that he prepared “in another form and on other occasions.”

We cannot help but wonder what that connection is.

What works does Andrić’s statement refer to?

How much did the research of the history of Bosnia in connection with the dissertation help Andrić to see the nature of life in the Bosnian backwater during the Turkish occupation?

Apparently, the research undertaken by the young doctoral student, and the insights he gained, became an inexhaustible source and raw material for his short stories, and not only for those printed in 1924.

“These tales about the Turks and about ours are only a part of one work, which began with the tale ‘The Way of Alija Đerzelez’,” Andrić wrote in the introductory note for Tales.

 

 

 

 

From the moment he went to study in Zagreb and then Vienna and Krakow, Andrić traveled frequently. 

Working as a diplomatic official in the Yugoslav embassies in some European cities, the writer got to know the people and regions of the countries in which he resided well.

 

 

 

 

Andrić published his first travelogue in 1914 under the title “Letter from Krakow” in the Croatian Movement, during his studies at the Jagiellonian University.

 

Above: Jagiellonian University logo

 

 

Living and studying in Graz, in 1923, Andrić translated his impressions of life and the country in the form of “notes from the road” into the text Through Austria.

 

 

 

 

Living in many capitals of interwar Europe inspired Andrić to write down his impressions.

However, he did not rely only on his own senses and observations, but carefully prepared for each trip and wrote in notebooks data from books on the history, culture and traditions of the country.

In his travelogues, Andrić primarily states what makes a country and its way of life specific.

 

Above: Europe, 1923

 

 

This is how I seek to write my travelogues.

 

In October 1926, he was assigned to the consulate in Marseille and again appointed vice-consul.

 

 

Above: Vieux Port, Marseille, France

 

 

On 9 December 1926, he was transferred to the Yugoslav embassy in Paris.

 

 

 

France suffered heavily during World War I in terms of lives lost, disabled veterans and ruined agricultural and industrial areas occupied by Germany as well as heavy borrowing from the United States, Britain, and the French people.

However, postwar reconstruction was rapid, and the long history of political warfare along religious lines was finally ended.

Parisian culture was world-famous in the 1920s, with expatriate artists, musicians and writers from across the globe contributing their cosmopolitanism, such as jazz music, and the French empire was in flourishing condition, especially in North Africa, and in Subsaharan Africa.

 

 

Above: Josephine Baker dances the Charleston at the Folies Bergère (1926)

 

 

Although the official goal was complete assimilation, few colonial subjects were actually assimilated.

Major concerns were forcing Germany to pay for the war damage by reparations payments and guaranteeing that Germany, with its much larger population, would never be a military threat in the future.

Efforts to set up military alliances worked poorly.

Relations remained very tense with Germany until 1924, when they stabilized thanks to large American bank loans.

 

Above: Germany (1919 – 1937)

 

 

France was part of the Allied force that occupied the Rhineland following the armistice.

Ferdinand Foch supported Poland in the Greater Poland Uprising and in the Polish–Soviet War and France also joined Spain during the Rif War.

 

Above: Ferdinand Foch

 

 

From 1925 until his death in 1932, Aristide Briand, as prime minister during five short intervals, directed French foreign policy by using his diplomatic skills and sense of timing to forge friendly relations with Weimar Germany as the basis of a genuine peace within the framework of the League of Nations.

He realised France could not contain the much larger Germany by itself or secure effective support from Britain or the League.

 

 

Above: Aristide Briand (1862 – 1932)

 

 

In January 1923, after Germany refused to ship enough coal as part of its reparations, France and Belgium occupied the industrial region of the Ruhr.

Germany responded with passive resistance, which included printing vast amounts of marks to pay for the occupation, which caused runaway inflation.

That heavily damaged the German middle class, whose savings became worthless, but also damaged the French franc.

 

 

 

 

The intervention was a failure, and in the summer of 1924, France accepted the American solution to the reparations issues, as expressed in the Dawes Plan.

It had American banks make long-term loans to Germany, which used the money to pay reparations.

The United States demanded repayment of the war loans although the terms were slightly softened in 1926.

All loans, payments and reparations were suspended in 1931, and everything was finally resolved in 1951.

 

 

 

 

In the 1920s, France built the Maginot Line, an elaborate system of static border defences that was designed to stop any German invasion.

However, it did not extend into Belgium, and Germany attacked there in 1940 and went around the French defenses.

Military alliances were signed with weak powers in 1920–21, called the “Little Entente“.

 

 

 

 

Domestic politics in the 1920s were a product of unresolved problems left by the war and peace, especially the economics of reconstruction and how to make Germany pay for it all.

The great planners were Raymond Poincaré, Alexandre Millerand and Aristide Briand.

France had paid for the war with very heavy borrowing at home and from Britain and the United States.

 

 

 

Heavy inflation resulted, and in 1922, Poincaré became Prime Minister.

He justified his strong anti-German policies:

Germany’s population was increasing, her industries were intact, she had no factories to reconstruct, she had no flooded mines.

Her resources were intact, above and below ground.

In fifteen or twenty years Germany would be mistress of Europe.

In front of her would be France with a population scarcely increased.

Poincaré used German reparations to maintain the franc at a tenth of its prewar value and to pay for the reconstruction of the devastated areas.

 

 

Above: Raymond Poincaré (1860 – 1934)

 

 

Since Germany refused to pay nearly as much as Paris demanded, Poincaré reluctantly sent the French army to occupy the Ruhr industrial area (1922) to force a showdown.

The British strongly objected, arguing that it “would only impair German recovery, topple the German government, and lead to internal anarchy and Bolshevism, without achieving the financial goals of the French.“

 

 

 

 

The Germans practiced passive resistance by flooding the economy with paper money that damaged both the German and French economies.

The standoff was solved by American dollars in the Dawes Plan.

New York banks lent money to Germany for reparations to France, which then used the same dollars to repay the Americans.

 

 

Above: Wall Street, New York City

 

 

Throughout the early postwar period, Poincaré’s political base was the conservative nationalist parliament elected in 1920.

However, at the next election (1924), a coalition of Radical Socialists and Socialists called the “Cartel des gauches” (“Cartel of the Left“) won a majority, and Herriot of the Radical Socialist Party became prime minister.

He was disillusioned by the imperialist thrust of the Versailles Treaty, and sought a stable international peace in rapprochement with the Soviet Union to block the rising German revanchist movement.

 

 

Above: Édouard Herriot (1872 – 1957)

 

 

Andrić’s time in France was marked by increasing loneliness and isolation.

His uncle had died in 1924, his mother the following year, and upon arriving in France, he was informed that his aunt had died as well.

“Apart from official contacts,” he wrote Alaupović, “I have no company whatever.“

Andrić spent much of his time in the Paris archives poring over the reports of the French consulate in Travnik between 1809 and 1814, material he would use in Travnička hronika (The Travnik Chronicle), one of his future novels.

 

 

 

 

(The Travnik Chronicle (1945) is a historical novel written during the Second World War, based on the model of a European realistic novel. 

It covers the period from 1807 until 1814 and therefore represents a classic novel more than any other Andrić’s novel.

The novel is narrated in the 3rd person and consists of a prologue, epilogue and 28 chapters.

Chronicle of Travnik is a seven-year fiction chronicle that deals with the stay of foreign consuls in that vizier’s city.

It begins with the arrival of the French consul, and ends with the departure of the second-appointed Austrian consul.

The novel is turned to history.

In the process of creating the Travnik Chronicle, Andrić used rich documentary material from the field of the history of civilization, ethnology and authentic writings about historical figures that are presented in the novel.)

 

 

Above: Travnik Fort

 

 

In April 1928, Andrić was posted to Madrid as vice-consul.

 

 

Above: Gran Via, Madrid, Spain

 

 

Spain’s neutrality in World War I spared the country from carnage, yet the conflict caused massive economic disruption, with the country experiencing at the same time an economic boom (the increasing foreign demand of products and the drop of imports brought hefty profits) and widespread social distress (with mounting inflation, shortage of basic goods and extreme income inequality).

 

 

Above: Flag of Spain

 

 

A major revolutionary strike was called for August 1917, supported by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, the UGT and the CNT, seeking to overthrow the government by means of a general strike.

The Dato government deployed the army against the workers to brutally quell any threat to social order, sealing in turn the demise of the cabinet and undermining the constitutional order.

The strike was one of the three simultaneous developments of a wider three-headed crisis in 1917 that cracked the Restoration regime, that also included a military crisis induced by the cleavage in the Armed Forces between Mainland and Africa-based ranks vis-à-vis the military promotion (and ensuing formation of juntas of officers that refused to dissolve upon request from the government), and a political crisis brought by the challenge posed by Catalan nationalism, whose bourgeois was emboldened by the economic upswing caused by the profits from exports to Entente powers during World War I.

 

 

 

 

During the Rif War, the crushing defeat of the Spanish Army in the so-called “Disaster of Annual” in the summer of 1921 brought in a matter of days the catastrophic loss of the lives of about 9,000 Spanish soldiers and the loss of all occupied territory in Morocco that had been gained since 1912.

 

 

 

 

This entailed the greatest defeat suffered by an European power in an African colonial war in the 20th century.

 

 

Above: Images of the Rif War

 

 

Spanish King Alfonso XIII tacitly endorsed the September 1923 coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera that installed a dictatorship led by the latter.

 

 

Above: Spanish Alfonso XIII (1886 – 1941)

 

 

The regime enforced the State of War all over the country from September 1923 to May 1925 and, in permanent violation of the 1876 Constitution, wrecked with the legal-rational component of the constitutional compromise.

Attempts to institutionalise the regime (initially a Military Directory) were taken, in the form of a single official party (the Patriotic Union) and a consultative chamber (the National Assembly).

Preceded by a partial retreat from vulnerable posts in the interior of the protectorate in Morocco, Spain (in joint action with France) turned the tides in Morocco in 1925, and the Abd el-Krim-led Republic of the Rif started to see the beginning of its end after the Alhucemas landing and ensuing seizure of Ajdir, the heart of the Riffian rebellion.

The war had dragged on since 1917 and cost Spain $800 million.

The late 1920s were prosperous until the worldwide Great Depression hit in 1929.

 

 

Above: Miguel Primo de Riviera (1870 – 1930)

 

 

While in Madrid, Andric wrote (though did not then publish) essays on Simón Bolívar and Francisco Goya.

 

Above: Simón Bolívar (1783 – 1830)

 

 

Above: Francisco Goya (1746 – 1828)

 

 

That year he published the stories “Olujaci”, “Ispovijed” (Confession) and Most na Žepi (Bridge on the Žepa).

 

 

Bridge on the Zepa describes the construction of the bridge on Žepa, a river that often swells, and which the inhabitants have not yet managed to tame with the bridge.

So far, the river has taken away several wooden bridges (a similar theme, 20 years later, is dealt with in the Nobel Prize-winning novel On the Drina Bridge, so the story on the Bridge on the Žepa is considered an overture to the novel.

The narrator tells us the whole story in clear sentences.

The different segments of the story are firmly connected, although the vizier, as a narrator, often returns to the past and recalls his childhood in retrospect.

 

 

 

 

In Most na Žepi, Ivo Andrić describes many values, but also universal truths. 

He emphasizes the efforts of man to adapt the world to himself and to fight against the forces of nature that sometimes destroy everything in front of him.

In a story such as The Bridge on Zepa, the symbolism of the bridge is reflected in the emphasized human urge to subdue the world and nature around it, but also to bring order to oneself – which the Grand Vizier Yusuf failed to do.

In the story, we can also see how art outlives the man who creates it, so it seems to overcome death itself.

On the other side of the story, we have a builder who does not seek friendship, praise or help from anyone.

He does not even crave material things, but lives for his work.

He did not ask for much, but with his work he provided a lot and made life easier for many people.

 

 

 

The story describes a number of difficulties encountered by the builder in the construction of the bridge, but in the end the successful outcome is successful. 

The bridge was built, but the two characters end tragically.

Neymar dies of the plague, and the vizier suffers from the traumas experienced during his captivity, which lead him on a path of self-destruction.

In a figurative sense, the narrative is about man’s search for meaning.

Even after the goal was achieved (the construction of the bridge was completed), the characters did not achieve a sense of life satisfaction.

The story is written in the 3rd person.

 

 

 

 

Andric began work on the novel Prokleta avlija (The Cursed Court).

In Andrić’s novel, The Cursed Court is the name of the famous Constantinople dungeon, which Fr. Petar from Bosnia came to for unjustified reasons, when they sent him to Istanbul to do some monastic work.

It happened that the Turkish authorities caught a letter addressed to the Austrian internment in Constantinople, in which the persecution of the faithful by the Turkish authorities was described and the suspicion fell on Fr. Peter.

He was arrested and imprisoned in the pre-trial prison – “the Cursed Court“, where he remained for two months until he was sent on.

In The Cursed Court, Fra-Petar meets several people, who in this novel turn into a gallery of interesting characters.

There is the warden of the “Cursed Court” of Latifaga called Karadjoz , a prisoner of Chaim, a Jew from Smyrna, and then the central character from this novel is the prisoner Ćamil-effendi, a rich young Turk from Smyrna.

Fra-Petar learns from Haim, a young man’s fellow citizen, that he was imprisoned on suspicion that his study of consciousness was aimed at a rebellious plot against the sultan’s court, which was completely untrue.

Young Camil, the son of a rich Turk and a Greek woman, devoted himself to science and the solitary and ascetic way of life from an early age, which was especially emphasized by an unhappy and unhealthy love.

Namely, Camil fell in love with the daughter of a young Greek merchant, but for nationalistic and religious reasons, he did not want to give her to a Turk for a wife, but forcibly married her to a Greek outside Smyrna.

After that event, Ćamil completely closed himself in and became a kind of individual.

He surrounds himself with books and throws himself into science, showing a special interest in the consciousness of the Turkish Empire, of which he is particularly interested in one particular period – the time of Bayezid II and Jam-Sultan, his brother, whom Bayezid defeated twice in battle for the throne.

Then Jam sought refuge on the island of Rhodes, where Christian knights ruled.

From then on, the odyssey of Cem begins, who as a prisoner passes from the hands of various European rulers, and even the Pope himself, and they all use him as a trump card against the Turkish Empire, that is they threaten Bayazit that he will release him if he does not satisfy their various demands.

Ćamil is suspected of studying precisely that historical period, because it has similarities with the current situation at the court, where the sultan also has a rival brother, whom he declared insane and holds him captive. Jamil was sent to the Cursed Court, where he met Fr. Peter and told him about the life of Jam-Sultan, claiming that his life was identical with Jamil’s and that their destinies were the same.

After a while, they took him to a special prison, and one night during the interrogation, a fight broke out between him and the police.

It is not known whether the camels are taken out – alive or dead.

Fra-Peter never saw him again.

 

 

 

 

In June 1929, Andric was named secretary of the Yugoslav legation to Belgium and Luxembourg in Brussels.

 

 

Above: Images of Brussels, Belgium

 

 

Belgian King Albert returned from exile as a war hero, leading the victorious army and acclaimed by the population.

 

 

Above: King Albert I of Belgium (1875 – 1934)

 

 

In contrast, the government and other exiles came back discreetly.

Belgium had been devastated—not so much by combat, but rather by German seizure of valuable machinery.

Only 81 operable locomotives remained, out of the 3,470 available in 1914.

46 of 51 steel mills were damaged, with 26 destroyed totally.

More than 100,000 houses had been destroyed, as well as more than 120,000 hectares (300,000 acres) of farmland.

 

 

Above: Flag of Belgium

 

 

Waves of popular violence accompanied liberation in November and December 1918 and the government responded through the judicial punishment of collaboration with the enemy conducted between 1919 and 1921.

Shop windows were broken and houses sacked, men were harassed, and women’s heads were shaved.

Manufacturers who had closed their businesses sought the severe repression of those who had pursued their activities.

Journalists who had boycotted and stopped writing called for harsh treatment of the newspapers that submitted to German censorship.

Many people stigmatized profiteers and demanded justice.

Thus in 1918, Belgium was already confronted with the problems associated with occupation that most European countries only discovered at the end of World War II.

 

 

 

 

However, despite the status quo, Belgium recovered surprisingly quickly.

The first postwar Olympic Games were held in Antwerp in 1920.

In 1921, Luxembourg formed a customs union with Belgium.

 

 

 

 

German reparations to Belgium for damage incurred during the First World War was set at £12.5 billion pounds sterling.

 

In 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles the area of Eupen-Malmedy, along with Moresnet was transferred to Belgium.

“Neutral Moresnet” was transferred to Belgium, as well as the Vennbahn railway.

 

 

Above: Map of the route of the Vennbahn

 

 

An opportunity was given to the population to “oppose” against the transfer by signing a petition, which gathered few signatures, in large part thanks to intimidation by local authorities, and all regions remain part of Belgium today.

Belgian requests to annex territory considered as historically theirs, from the Dutch, who were perceived as collaborators, was denied.

 

 

 

 

Between 1923 and 1926, Belgian and French soldiers were sent to the Ruhr in Germany to force the German government to agree to continue reparation payments.

The Occupation of the Ruhr led the Dawes Plan which allowed the German government more leniency in paying reparations.

 

 

 

 

The League of Nations in 1925 made Belgium the trustee for the former German East Africa which bordered the Belgian Congo to the east.

It became Rwanda-Urundi (or “Ruanda-Urundi“) (modern day Rwanda and Burundi).

 

 

Above: Coat of arms of Ruanda-Urundi

 

 

Although promising the League it would promote education, Belgium left the task to subsidised Catholic missions and unsubsidised Protestant missions.

As late as 1962, when independence arrived, fewer than 100 natives had gone beyond secondary school.

 

 

Above: The Cathedral of Our Lady of Wisdom at Butare (formally Astrida) in Ruanda

 

 

The policy was one of low-cost paternalism, as explained by Belgium’s special representative to the Trusteeship Council:

“The real work is to change the African in his essence, to transform his soul, and to do that one must love him and enjoy having daily contact with him.

He must be cured of his thoughtlessness, he must accustom himself to living in society, he must overcome his inertia.”

 

 

 

 

On 1 January 1930, Andric was sent to Switzerland as part of Yugoslavia’s permanent delegation to the League of Nations in Geneva, and was named deputy delegate the following year.

 

 

Above: Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

The League of Nations, abbreviated as LON (French: Société des Nations, abbreviated as SDN or SdN), was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.

It was founded on 10 January 1920 following the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War.

In 1919 US President Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League.

The organisation’s primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.

Other issues in this and related treaties included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe.

The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective together with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920.

The first meeting of the Council of the League took place on 16 January 1920, and the first meeting of Assembly of the League took place on 15 November 1920.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years.

The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the victorious First World War Allies (France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan were the permanent members of the Executive Council) to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, or provide an army when needed.

The Great Powers were often reluctant to do so.

Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them.

 

 

 

 

Following accusations of forced labour on the large American-owned Firestone rubber plantation and American accusations of slave trading, the Liberian government asked the League to launch an investigation.

The resulting commission was jointly appointed by the League, the United States, and Liberia.

In 1930, a League report confirmed the presence of slavery and forced labour.

The report implicated many government officials in the selling of contract labour and recommended that they be replaced by Europeans or Americans, which generated anger within Liberia and led to the resignation of President Charles D. B. King and his vice-president.

The Liberian government outlawed forced labour and slavery and asked for American help in social reforms.

 

 

Above: Flag of Liberia

 

 

The Mukden Incident, also known as the “Manchurian Incident“, was a decisive setback that weakened the League because its major members refused to tackle Japanese aggression.

Japan itself withdrew.

Under the agreed terms of the Twenty-One Demands with China, the Japanese government had the right to station its troops in the area around the South Manchurian Railway, a major trade route between the two countries, in the Chinese region of Manchuria.

In September 1931, a section of the railway was lightly damaged by the Japanese Kwantung Army as a pretext for an invasion of Manchuria.

The Japanese army claimed that Chinese soldiers had sabotaged the railway and in apparent retaliation (acting contrary to orders from Tokyo) occupied all of Manchuria.

They renamed the area Manchukuo, and on 9 March 1932 Japan set up a puppet government, with Pu Yi, the former emperor of China, as its executive head.

 

 

 

This new entity was recognised only by the governments of Italy, Spain and Nazi Germany.

The rest of the world still considered Manchuria legally part of China.

The League of Nations sent observers.

The Lytton Report appeared a year later (October 1932).

It declared Japan to be the aggressor and demanded Manchuria be returned to China.

 

 

Above: Chinese delegate addresses the League of Nations after the Mukden Incident in 1932

 

 

The report passed 42–1 in the Assembly in 1933 (only Japan voting against), but instead of removing its troops from China, Japan withdrew from the League.

In the end, as British historian Charles Mowat argued, collective security was dead:

The League and the ideas of collective security and the rule of law were defeated; partly because of indifference and of sympathy with the aggressor, but partly because the League powers were unprepared, preoccupied with other matters, and too slow to perceive the scale of Japanese ambitions.

 

 

Above: The Mukden Incident Museum (literally, “September 18th History Museum“) in Shenyang, China

 

 

The League failed to prevent the 1932 war between Bolivia and Paraguay over the arid Gran Chaco region.

Although the region was sparsely populated, it contained the Paraguay River, which would have given either landlocked country access to the Atlantic Ocean, and there was also speculation, later proved incorrect, that the Chaco would be a rich source of petroleum.

Border skirmishes throughout the late 1920s culminated in an all-out war in 1932 when the Bolivian army attacked the Paraguayans at Fort Carlos Antonio López at Lake Pitiantuta.

Paraguay appealed to the League of Nations, but the League did not take action when the Pan-American Conference offered to mediate instead.

The war was a disaster for both sides, causing 57,000 casualties for Bolivia, whose population was around three million, and 36,000 dead for Paraguay, whose population was approximately one million.

It also brought both countries to the brink of economic disaster.

By the time a ceasefire was negotiated on 12 June 1935, Paraguay had seized control of most of the region, as was later recognised by the 1938 truce.

 

 

Above: Paraguayan soldiers at Alihuatá, 1932

 

 

In 1933, Andrić returned to Belgrade.

Two years later, he was named head of the political department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On 5 November 1937, Andrić became assistant to Milan Stojadinović, Yugoslavia’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

 

 

Above: National Assembly, Belgrade

 

 

Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe and Central Europe for most of the 20th century.

It came into existence after World War I in 1918 under the name of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (it was formed from territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) with the Kingdom of Serbia, and constituted the first union of the South Slavic people as a sovereign state, following centuries in which the region had been part of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary.

Peter I of Serbia was its first sovereign.

The kingdom gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris.

The official name of the state was changed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929.

 

 

 

 

On 20 June 1928, Serb deputy Puniša Račić shot at five members of the opposition Croatian Peasant Party in the National Assembly, resulting in the death of two deputies on the spot and that of leader Stjepan Radić a few weeks later.

 

Above: Punisa Racic (1886 – 1944)

 

 

On 6 January 1929, King Alexander I got rid of the constitution, banned national political parties and assumed executive power and renamed the country Yugoslavia.

He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions.

He imposed a new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931.

However, Alexander’s policies later encountered opposition from other European powers stemming from developments in Italy and Germany, where Fascists and Nazis rose to power, and the Soviet Union, where Joseph Stalin became absolute ruler.

None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I.

In fact, Italy and Germany wanted to revise the international treaties signed after World War I, and the Soviets were determined to regain their positions in Europe and pursue a more active international policy.

Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia.

He decided to abolish Yugoslavia’s historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas.

The banovinas were named after rivers.

Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance.

The effect of Alexander’s dictatorship was to further alienate the non-Serbs from the idea of unity.

During his reign the flags of Yugoslav nations were banned.

Communist ideas were banned also.

 

Above: King Alexander I (1888 – 1934)

 

 

The king was assassinated in Marseille during an official visit to France in 1934 by Vlado Chernozemski, an experienced marksman from Ivan Mihailov’s Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization with the cooperation of the Ustaše, a Croatian fascist revolutionary organisation.

Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul.

 

 

Above: The funeral of King Alexander at Belgrade

 

 

The international political scene in the late 1930s was marked by growing intolerance between the principal figures, by the aggressive attitude of the totalitarian regimes and by the certainty that the order set up after World War I was losing its strongholds and its sponsors were losing their strength.

Supported and pressured by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Croatian leader Vladko Maček and his party managed the creation of the Banovina of Croatia (Autonomous Region with significant internal self-government) in 1939.

The agreement specified that Croatia was to remain part of Yugoslavia, but it was hurriedly building an independent political identity in international relations.

The entire kingdom was to be federalised, but World War II stopped the fulfillment of those plans.

 

 

Above: Vladko Macek (1879 – 1964)

 

 

On 1 April 1939, Andrić was appointed Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Germany, presenting his credentials of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 19 April. 

This appointment, Hawkesworth writes, shows that he was highly regarded by his country’s leadership.

 

 

Above: Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945)

 

 

As previously mentioned, Yugoslavia’s King Alexander had been assassinated in Marseille in 1934.

He was succeeded by his ten-year-old son Peter, and a regency council led by Peter’s uncle Paul was established to rule in his place until he turned 18.

Paul’s government established closer economic and political ties with Germany.

 

 

Above: Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (1893 – 1976)

 

 

In March 1941, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact, pledging support for Germany and Italy.

Though the negotiations had occurred behind Andrić’s back, in his capacity as ambassador he was obliged to attend the document’s signing in Berlin.

Andrić had previously been instructed to delay agreeing to the Axis powers’ demands for as long as possible.

He was highly critical of the move, and on 17 March, wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking to be relieved of his duties.

 

 

Above: Signing ceremony for the Axis Powers Tripartite Pact

Seated at front left (left to right) are Japan’s Ambassador Saburō Kurusu, Italy’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Galeazzo Ciano and Germany’s Führer Adolf Hitler.

 

 

Ten days later, a group of pro-Western Royal Yugoslav Air Force officers overthrew the regency and proclaimed Peter of age.

This led to a breakdown in relations with Germany and prompted Adolf Hitler to order Yugoslavia’s invasion.

 

 

Above: King Peter II of Yugoslavia (1923 – 1970)

 

 

Given these circumstances, Andrić’s position was an extremely difficult one.

Nevertheless, he used the little influence he had and attempted unsuccessfully to assist Polish prisoners following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

 

 

Above: Images of the German invasion of Poland

 

 

Prior to their invasion of his country, the Germans had offered Andrić the opportunity to evacuate to neutral Switzerland.

He declined on the basis that his staff would not be allowed to go with him.

 

Above: Ivo Andric

 

 

On 6 April 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded Yugoslavia.

The country capitulated on 17 April and was subsequently partitioned between the Axis powers.

 

 

Above: The invasion of Yugoslavia

 

 

In early June, Andrić and his staff were taken back to German-occupied Belgrade, where some were jailed.

Andrić was retired from the diplomatic service, but refused to receive his pension or cooperate in any way with the puppet government that the Germans had installed in Serbia…..

 

 

 

 

The greatest part of the interwar period, Andric had spent abroad.

Living in Europe’s capital cities broadened his views and offered him the opportunity to improve his language skills, to meet men of letters and have an immediate access to literature of the countries in which he served as a diplomat, as well as to gather materials for his future novels and stories.

 

 

 

 

Inside the Ivo Andric Museum, the years of the writer’s diplomatic service are documented by original archival material – appointment and government decrees, certificates, acts of the Ministries of Religion and Foreign Affairs, issued to Andric as a civil servant and a chargé d’affaires.

The exhibited archival materials are arranged so as to illustrate, year by year, his advancement in the civil service, transfers and appointments, vacation and sick leaves.

Photos taken of him in Bucharest in 1922, Marseilles in 1927, Geneva in 1931, and Belgrade in 1937, capture visitors’ attention because they show not only an officer in the diplomatic service of the Kingdom, but also a rising writer and a newly elected member of the Serbian Royal Academy.

Andric’s diplomatic passport, issued for 1939 to 1941, is particularly interesting both as an exhibition item and a historic document.

The same applies to the photos of Andric taken in Berlin in 1939, because they remind us of times and events in the eve of World War II fateful for the Kingdom – the Tripartite Pact and demonstrations in Belgrade on 27 March 1941.

Andric’s career as a diplomat ended prematurely in the Third Reich Germany and was accompanied with his unsuccessful attempts to help prominent Polish intellectuals exiled from Krakow after the occupation of Poland in 1939 using his position as an ambassador and diplomatic channels.

Ivo Andric’s diplomatic uniform with gold embroidery, a feathered hat and a sword in an elaborately decorated scabbard, as well as his travel case with leather and wooden reinforcements – a witness to the diplomat’s journeys to Europe’s capitals and back to Belgrade – occupy the central, open area of the Museum’s exhibition room.

 

 

 

 

It is very important to point out that throughout this period of life and diplomatic service Andric was involved in literary work, gathering historical evidence in foreign archives, intensive cooperation with Yugoslav literary reviews and publishers, and correspondence with writers and friends from Zagreb, Sarajevo and Belgrade, including Zdenko Markovic, Julije Benesic, Tugomir Alaupovic, Borivoje Jevtic, Isak Samokovlija, Isidora Sekulic, Jovan Ducic, Milos Crnjanski and Dr. Miodrag Iborvac.

 

 

Above: Bust of Ivo Andric, Ivo Andric Museum, Belgrade

 

 

(Tugomir Marko Alaupović (1870 – 1958) was a Yugoslav professor at First Grammar School ,Sarajevo, as well as a poet, storyteller and politician.

In addition to his rich political biography, he was also Minister of Religion in the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

He has written several literary works that have been translated into French, German, Czech and Italian.

He was one of the initiators of the Croatian Society for the “Setting up of Children in Crafts and Trade” in Sarajevo and later initiated the change of the society name to Napredak.

He was a member of the Main Board of the Serbian St. Sava Society in Belgrade.

On 16 January 1934, after a serious operation, in a letter to Tihomir Djordjevic, a prominent Serbian ethnologist, he said:

“Unfortunately, my hopes have not been fulfilled and I will have to stay long or maybe even definitely in Zagreb.

It hurts and I’m sorry that for these reasons, I have to resign as a member of the Main Board of the St. Sava Society.

But rest assured that for the rest of my life, I will remain faithful to that beautiful and noble saying:

‘Everyone is my dear brother, be he any religion’“.)

 

 

Above: Tugomir Alaupovic

 

 

(Isak Samokovlija (1889 – 1955) was a prominent Bosnian Jewish writer.

By profession he was a physician.

His stories describe the life of the Bosnian Sephardic Jews.

 

 

Above: Isak Samokovlija

 

 

Samokovlija was born into a Sephardi Jewish family in Goražde, Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time of the Austro-Hungarian occupation.

While one side of his family came from Spain after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, “his great-grandfather moved to Bosnia from the town of Samokov in Bulgaria“, which led to the surname Los Samokovlis in Ladino or Samokovlija in Bosnian.

 

 

Above: Samokov Historical Museum with the statue of Zahari Zograf

 

 

After completing primary school Samokovlija went to Sarajevo.

He attended high school with Ivo Andric, the first Yugoslav to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

Above: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina

 

 

After graduating high school in 1910, he receive a scholarship from local Jewish charity La Benevolencija to study medicine in Vienna.

Later he worked as a doctor in the towns Goražde and Fojnica (1921–1925) before beginning a regular job at Sarajevo’s Koševo hospital in 1925.

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of the Second World War, he was a department head at the Koševo hospital.

In April 1941 he was discharged from service as well as other Jews, but soon he was mobilized as a medical doctor fights against a typhus epidemic.

It was not until 1945, he managed to escape Yugoslavia and hide until the country was liberated.

 

 

 

 

After the end of World War II, he held various positions in the Bosnian and Yugoslav literary circles.

From 1948 to 1951 he edited the magazine Brazda, and then, until his death he was an editor at the publishing company Svjetlost.

His first short story Rafina avlija was published in 1927 and two years later his first collection of stories, Od proljeća do proljeća, came out.

 

Several of his stories were made into television films and his book Hanka was made into a film of the same name directed by Slavko Vorkapić in 1955.

He did not live to see the film, dying at age 65 in January 1955.

 

 

 

He was buried in the old Jewish cemetery on the slopes of Trebević mountain, near Sarajevo.)

 

 

 

 

(Isidora Sekulić (1877 – 1958) was a Serbian writer, novelist, essayist, polyglot and art critic.

She was “the first woman academic in the history of Serbia“.

 

 

 

 

Sekulić was born in Mošorin, a village of Bács-Bodrog County, which is now in the Vojvodina.

Apart from her studies in literature, Sekulić was also well versed in natural sciences as well as philosophy.

She graduated from the pedagogical school in Budapest in 1892, and obtained her doctorate in 1922 in Germany.

 

Above: View of Baudapest, Hungary

 

 

Her travels included extended stays in England, France and Norway.

Her travels from Oslo through Bergen to Finnmark resulted in Pisma iz Norveške (Letters from Norway) meditative travelogue in 1914.

 

 

Above: Flag of Norway

 

 

Her collection of short stories, Saputnici, are unusually detailed and penetrating accomplishment in self-analysis and a brave stylistic experiment.

She also spoke several classical as well as nine modern languages.

Sekulić’s lyrical, meditative, introspective and analytical writings come at the dawn of Serbian prose writing.

Sekulić is concerned with the human condition of man in his new, thoroughly modern sensibility.

 

Above: Isidora Sekulić

 

 

In her main novel, The Chronicle of a Small Town Cemetery (Кроника паланачког гробља), she writes in opposition to the usual chronological development of events.

Instead, each part of the book begins in the cemetery, eventually returning to the time of bustling life, with all its joys and tragedies.

Characters such as Gospa Nola, are the first strong female characters in Serbian literature, painted in detail in all their courage, pride and determination.

Isidora Sekulić also wrote critical writings in the areas of music, theatre, art, architecture and literature and philosophy.

She wrote major studies of Yugoslav, Russian, English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian and other literature.)

 

 

Above: The Chronicles of a Small Town Cemetery (Serbian original)

 

 

(Jovan Dučić (1871 – 1943) was a Herzegovinian Serb poet-diplomat.

He is one of the most influential Serbian lyricists and modernist poets.

Dučić published his first collection of poetry in Mostar in 1901 and his second in Belgrade in 1908.

He also wrote often in prose, writing a number of literary essays, studies on writers, letters by poets from Switzerland, Greece and Spain and the book Blago cara Radovana for which he is most remembered when it comes to his writing.

Dučić was also one of the founders of the Narodna Odbrana, a nationalist non-governmental organization in the Kingdom of Serbia and he was a member of the Serbian Royal Academy.

 

 

Above: Jovan Ducic

 

 

Jovan Dučić was born in Trebinje, at the time part of Bosnia Vilayet within the Ottoman Empire.

In Trebinje he attended primary school.

 

Above: Jovan Ducic Monument, Trebinje, Bosnia and Hercegovina

 

 

He moved on to a high school in Mostar and trained to become a teacher in Sombor.

He worked as a teacher in several towns before returning to Mostar, where he founded (with writer Svetozar Ćorović and poet Aleksa Šantić) a literary magazine called Zora (Dawn).

 

 

Above: Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina

 

 

Dučić’s openly expressed Serbian patriotism caused difficulties with the authorities – at that time Bosnia and Herzegovina was de facto incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian Empire – and he moved abroad to pursue higher studies, mostly in Geneva and Paris.

 

 

 

He was awarded a law degree by the University of Geneva and, following his return from abroad, entered Serbian diplomatic service in 1907.

 

 

 

 

Although he had previously expressed opposition to the idea of creating a Yugoslavia, he became the new country’s first ambassador to Romania (in 1937).

 

 

 

 

He had a distinguished diplomatic career in this capacity, serving in Istanbul, Sofia, Rome, Athens, Cairo, Madrid and Lisbon.

Dučić spoke several foreign languages and is remembered as a distinguished diplomat.

 

 

Above: Images of Lisbon, Portugal

 

 

It was as a poet that Dučić gained his greatest distinctions.

He published his first book of poetry in Mostar in 1901 and his second in Belgrade, 1908.

He wrote prose as well: several essays and studies about writers, Blago cara Radovana (Tsar Radovan’s treasure) and poetry letters from Switzerland, Greece, Spain and other countries.

 

 

Above: Tsar Radovan’s Treasure by Jovan Ducic (Serbian original)

 

 

Dučić’s work was initially heavily influenced by that of Vojislav Ilić, the leading Serbian poet of the late 19th century.

 

 

Above: Vojislav Ilic (1860 – 1894)

 

 

Ducic’s travels abroad helped him to develop his own individual style, in which the Symbolist movement was perhaps the greatest single influence.

In his poetry he explored quite new territory that was previously unknown in Serbian poetry.

He restricted himself to only two verse styles, the symmetrical dodecasyllable (the Alexandrine) and hendecasyllable—both French in origin—in order to focus on the symbolic meaning of his work.

He expressed a double fear, of vulgarity of thought and vulgarity of expression.

 

 

Above: Death and the Grave Digger (La Mort et le Fossoyeur) (c. 1895) by Carlos Schwabe is a visual compendium of symbolist motifs.

The angel of Death, pristine snow, and the dramatic poses of the characters all express symbolist longings for transfiguration “anywhere, out of the world“.

 

 

In the autumn of 1893, during the party in the newly built Hotel Drina in Bijeljina, a young and ambitious teacher Dučić met recent School of Commerce graduate Magdalena Živanović.

 

 

Above: Assembly Building, Bijeljina, Bosnia and Hercegovina

 

 

They got engaged with on 5 November 1893, and their correspondence continued even Dučić’s departure from Bijeljina to Mostar to teach from 1895 to 1899.

A part of the correspondence is kept safe up to this day, as well as the letter which Dučić’s friend and poet Aleksa Šantić redirected to Magdalena on 6 April 1901, asking for help in collecting a subscription for his songs.

 

 

Above: Aleksa Santic (1868 – 1924)

 

 

Ljiljana Lukić, a retired professor, keeps a personal copy of the correspondence between Dučić and Magdalena.

Professor Ljiljana Lukić states that Dučić lived for a short time in the house of Magdalena Nikolić who lived with her sister.

After her break up with Dučić, Magdalena shouted that she would never leave home again.

 

Above: Zivanovic and Ducic

 

 

“Like a novel heroine, she lived by her memories and the only happy moments she had was in reading the letters and songs of the man she loved“, as Professor Lukić concludes.

Dučić’s secret fiancé left the following words to be written after her death on her monument, which can still be read today on the Bijeljina graveyard:

Maga Nikolić-Živanović, 1874–1957,

the poet herself and first inspiration of poet Jovan Dučić.

 

 

 

Twenty years before Magdalena’s death, while Dučić was the authorized minister of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a request was received that testifies of the deep trace which Dučić left in Bijeljina.

Singing society Srbadija asked the minister to help in building a home for the needs of the society.

 

 

Above: Museum of Semberija, Bijeljina

 

 

The Embassy of Serbia in Hungary is in the house which Jovan Dučić received from a Hungarian woman, and then donated it to the state.

 

 

Above: Embassy of Serbia in Hungary, Budapest

 

 

Dučić went into exile in the United States in 1941 following the German invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia, where he joined his relative Mihajlo (Michael) in Gary, Indiana.

 

 

 

From then until his death two years later, he led a Chicago-based organization, the Serbian National Defense Council (founded by Mihailo Pupin in 1914) which represented the Serbian diaspora in the US.

 

 

 

 

During these two years, he wrote many poems, historical books and newspaper articles espousing Serbian nationalist causes and protesting the mass murder of Serbs by the pro-Nazi Ustaše regime of Croatia.

In Yugoslav school anthologies immediately after WWII he had been declared persona non grata and widely viewed as a Serbian chauvinist.

He died on 7 April 1943.

His funeral took place at the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Gary, Indiana and he was buried in the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery cemetery in Libertyville, Illinois.

He expressed a wish in his will to be buried in his home town of Trebinje, a goal which was finally realized when he was reburied there on 22 October 2000 in the newly built Hercegovačka Gračanica monastery.

His Acta Diplomatica (Diplomatic Letters) was published posthumously in the United States and in the former Yugoslavia. )

 

 

Above: Dučić’s grave site in the Hercegovačka Gračanica monastery in Trebinje

 

 

(Miodrag Ibrovac (1885 – 1973) was a Serbian and Yugoslav literary historian, novelist, academic and professor at the University of Belgrade.

He graduated from college in 1907, and from 1911 he taught at the Belgrade Lyceum.

From 1924 to 1958, Ibrovac was a full professor at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade in the Department of French Language and Literature where he succeeded Bogdan Popović.

He was a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1968 and a full professor in 1970.

He was a member of the Serbian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference that brought an end to the Great War with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

The delegation from Serbia consisted of Nikola Pašić, Slobodan Jovanović, Milenko Radomar Vesnić, Miodrag Ibrovac and others.

He is one of the founders of the Serbian PEN Center.

He was president of the Society for Cultural Co-operation Yugoslavia-France.)

 

 

Above: Miodrag Ibrovac

 

 

Andric’s years-long correspondence with Svetislav B. Cvijanovic, a Belgrade publisher, bookseller, writers’ great patron and Andric’s first publisher in Belgrade, is of particular significance.

 

There is much I learned from my visit to the Ivo Andric Museum, especially from his years as a diplomat:

• the importance of travel
• the importance of networking
• the importance of lifelong learning
• the importance of maintaining writing ambitions despite the demands of gainful employment
• the significance of the individual, especially in positions of persuasion

 

 

Above: Ivo Andric in his study in Belgrade

 

 

Andric, from penniless origins to highly educated academic, from obscure contributor to vice-consul to Nobel prize winner, is an inspiration.

 

Truly the record of a man is worthy of note.

 

 

Above: Ivo Andric

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Belgrade Memorial Museum of Ivo Andric / Ivo Andric, Signs by the Roadside

 

Canada Slim and the Humanitarian Adventure

Landschlacht, Switzerland, Tuesday 10 December 2019

There are things in Switzerland (and in our existence) that we simply take for granted:

And the thing about Swiss stereotypes is that some of them are true.

Diplomatic?

Yes.

Efficient?

Absolutely.

Boring?

Only at first glance.

Despite being one of the most visited countries in Europe, Switzerland remains one of the least understood.

It is more than simply the well-ordered land of cheese, chocolate, banks and watches.

It is more than a warm summer mountain holiday upon a cobalt blue lake, more than skiing down the slopes of some vertiginous Alp, more than postcard pristine beauty.

It is easy for the tourist to remain blissfully unaware of Swiss community spirit, that it speaks four official languages, that it possesses stark regional differences from canton to canton, that it has exubrant carnivals, culinary traditions and sophisticated urban centres.

 

 

With its beautiful lakeside setting, Geneva (Genève) is a cosmopolitan city whose modest size belies its wealth and importance on the world stage.

French-speaking and Calvinistic it is a dynamic centre of business with an outward-looking character tempered by a certain reserve.

Geneva’s major sights are split by the Rhône River that flows into Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) and through the city’s several distinct neighbourhoods.

On the south bank (rive gauche), mainstream shopping districts Rive and Eaux-Vives climb from the water’s edge to Plainpalais and Vieille Ville, while the north bank (rive droite) holds grungy bars and hot clubbing Pâquis, the train station area and some world organizations.

 

 

A little over 1 km north of the train station is the international area, home to dozens of international organizations that are based in Geneva –  everything from the World Council of Churches to Eurovision.

Trains and buses roll up to the Place des Nations.

Gates on the Place des Nations open to the Palais des Nations, now occupied by UNOG, the United Nations Office at Geneva, the European headquarters of the United Nations, accessible only to visitors who sign up for a tour.

The huge monolith just off the square to the west, that looks like a bent playing card on its edge, is WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), the highrise to the south is ITU (the International Telecommunications Union), just to the east is UNHCR (the United Nations High Commission for Refugees), and so on, and so on, and so on, an infinite combination of letters of the alphabet in an infinite variety of abbreviations and acronyms.

The giant Broken Chair which looms over the square was installed in 1997 for the international conference in Ottawa (Canada’s capital) banning the use of land mines, a graphic symbol of the victims of such weapons.

 

 

Geneva is also the birthplace of the International Red Cross / Crescent / Crystal Movement.

And it was the latter, along with the International Museum of the Reformation, that compelled me to visit Geneva.

 

 

(For details about the Musée Internationale de la Réforme, please see Canada Slim and the Third Man in my other blog, The Chronicles of Canada Slim.)

 

Genevè, Suisse, mardi le 23 janvier 2018

Housed within the HQ of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Musée International de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant Rouge chronicles the history of modern conflict and the role the Red Cross has played in providing aid to combatants and civilians caught up in war and natural disasters.

Enter through a trench in the hillside opposite the public entrance of UNOG and emerge into an enclosed glass courtyard beside a group of bound and blindfolded stone figures.

The stone gathering represents the continual worldwide violation of human rights.

 

 

Inside, above the ticket desk, is a quotation in French from Dostoevsky:

“Everyone is responsible to everyone else for everything.”

 

Above: Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881)

 

A free audioguide takes you through the Museum.

 

Twenty-five years ago, Laurent Marti, a former ICRC delegate, had the idea of creating the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

 

Above: Laurent Marti

 

Marti won the wives of US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev over to his cause in a bid to obtain the support of their respective countries, together with that of local and international societies and personages and of various multinational companies representing a full range of human activities.

 

Above: Nancy Reagan (née Davis) (1921 – 2016)

 

Above: Raisa Gorbacheva (née Titarenko) (1932 – 1999)

 

The goal of the Museum is to emanate a very powerful atmosphere where no one leaves without having been shaken and deeply moved by what they had seen.

Suffering, death, wounds and mutiliations can be followed by a time of healing, restoration, reunification and an opportunity to be happy again, a right that seemed to have been withdrawn.

Of course, the scars remain deep within the human soul, but the hope of restoration and of a return to normalcy is the message of the Museum.

 

 

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is dedicated to preventing and alleviating human suffering in warfare and in emergencies, such as earthquakes, epidemics and floods.

The Movement is composed of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the 188 individual national societies.

Each has its own legal identity and role, but they are all united by seven fundamental principles:

•  humanity
•  impartiality
•  neutrality
•  independence
•  voluntary service
•  unity
•  universality

The interactive chronology covers one and a half centuries of history, starting with the creation of the Red Cross.

For each year, the events listed include:

•  armed conflicts which caused the death of more than 10,000 people and/or affected more than one million people
•  epidemics and disasters that caused the deaths of more than 1,000 people and/or affected more than one million people
•  significant events in the history of the Movement
•  cultural and scientific milestones

 

 

In 1859 Henri Dunant was travelling on business through northern Italy.

 

Above: Henri Dunant (1828 – 1910)

 

He found himself close to the Solferino battlefield just after the fighting.

The battle of Solferino was a key episode in the Italian Wars.

 

 

With the support of France under Napoleon III, Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy, King of Piedmont, endeavoured to unite the different Italian states.

In spring 1859 the Piedmont forces clashed with the Austrian Empire, which had control over Lombardy and Venetia.

On 24 June 1859, the Franco-Piedmontese troops defeated the Austrians at Solferino, in a battle that left more than 40,000 dead and wounded.

Overwhelmed by the sight of thousands of wounded soldiers left without medical care, Dunant organized basic relief with the assistance of the local people.

 

 

“On that memorable 24th of June 1859, more than 300,000 men stood facing each other.

The fighting continued for more than 15 hours.

No quarter is given.

It is a sheer butchery, a struggle between savage beasts.

The poor wounded men that were picked up all day long were ghastly pale and exhausted.

Some, who had been the most badly hurt, had a stupified look.

How many brave soldiers, undettered by their first wounds, kept pressing on until a fresh shot brought them to earth.

Men of all nations lay side by side on the flagstone floors of the churches of Castiglione.

The shortage of assistants, orderlies and helpers was cruelly felt.

I sought to organize as best I could relief.

The women of Castiglione, seeing that I made no distinction between nationalities, followed my example.

“Siamo tutti fratelli” (we are all brothers), they repeated feelingly.

 

Above: Ossuary of Solferino

 

But why have I told of all these scenes of pain and distress?

Is it not a matter of urgency to press forward to prevent or at least alleviate the horrors of war?

Would it not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies given to the wounded in wartime?

Societies of this kind, once formed and their permanent existence assured, would be always organized and ready for the possibility of war.

Would it not be desirable to formulate some international principle, sanctioned by a Convention inviolate in character, which, once agreed upon and ratified, might constitute the basis for societies for the relief of the wounded?”

 

Above: Ossuary of Solferino

 

Back home in Geneva, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino.

The book was published in 1862 and was an immediate success.

 

 

In it, Dunant made two proposals:

• the formation of relief societies which would care for wounded soldiers
• the establishment of an international convention to guarantee their safety

Those ideas led, the following year, to the foundation of the Red Cross, and ten months later to the first Geneva Convention.

 

 

In 1863, in response to Dunant’s appeal, Gustave Moynier persuaded the Geneva Public Welfare Society to consider the possibility of training groups of volunteer nurses to provide relief for the wounded.

A committee was set up, the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, the future ICRC, was born.

 

Above: Gustave Moynier (1826 – 1910)

 

The need to defend human dignity has been a constant concern throughout history.

From the Code of Hammurabi (1750 BC) to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), texts from all periods and cultures exist to testify to that.

Those texts were frequently written in response to incidents in which human dignity was shown no consideration – slavery, chemical weapons, civilian bombing, concentration camps, atomic bombing, sexual violence, landmines, child soldiers, prisoners with no legal status.

Throughout time mankind has determined:

• that the strong should not suppress the weak (Code of Hammurabi – Mwaopotamia 1750 BC)

Above: Stele of the Code of Hammurabi

 

• that peace is possible between warring nations (Treaty of Kadesh, the oldest peace treaty known to man and the first written international treaty –  Egypt 1279 BC)

Above: Treaty of Kadesh

 

• that we should be free to practice our own religions (Cyrus Cylinder – Persia 539 BC)

Above: Cyrus Cylinder

 

• that we should not do unto others what we don’t wish done to ourselves (The Analects of Confucius – China 480 BC)

Above: The Analects

• that we should live lives of non-violence with respect towards all (The Edicts of Ashoka – India 260 BC)

Above: The Edicts of Ashoka

 

• that power should not be used arbitrarily nor imprisonment without just cause (The Magna Carta – England 1215)

Above: Magna Carta

 

• that all persons are free and that no one is a slave to another (The Manden Charter – Mali 1222)

Above: The Manden Charter

 

• that women and children and the insane have dignity and rights that must be respected (The Viqayet – Muslim Spain 1280)

 

• that mankind has natural and inalienable rights (freedom, equality, justice, community) (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen – France 1789)

 

• that the wounded need to be treated regardless of nationality, that all human beings are free and equal in dignity and in rights (Universal Declaration of Human Rights – United Nations 1948)

 

The original title of the initial Geneva Convention was the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field.

It had only ten articles and one sole objective:

To limit the suffering caused by war.

Article 7 provided for the creation of the protective emblem of the red cross.

This document laid the foundations of international humanitarian law, marks the start of the humanitarian adventure.

By 2013, 194 nations are party to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.

(See http://www.icrc.org for the complete list.)

 

The Museum explains how the Geneva Conventions developed from one man’s battlefield encounter.

After Dunant’s publication of A Memory of Solferino in November 1862, Gustave Moynier (1826 – 1910), chairman of the Geneva Public Welfare Society, in response to Dunant’s appeal, persuaded Society members the following February to consider the possibility of training groups of volunteer nurses to provide relief for the war wounded.

An ad hoc committee was set up – the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded.

The future ICRC was born.

 

Above: ICRC Headquarters, Geneva

 

“Ambulances and military hospitals shall be recognized as neutral and as such protected and respected by the belligerants as long as they accommodate wounded and sick.” (Article 1)

“Inhabitants of the country who bring help to the wounded shall be respected and shall remain free.” (Article 5)

“Wounded or sick combatants, to whatever nation they may belong, shall be collected and cared for.” (Article 6)

“A distinctive and uniform flag shall be adopted for hospitals, ambulances and evacuation parties.” (Article 7)

A red cross on a white background was adopted in 1863, followed by a red crescent, a red lion and red sun (1929) and a red crystal (2005).

 

To protect the victims of conflict, the ICRC has at its disposal several instruments defined by international humanitarian law.

“At all times, parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick.”

“The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.”

“The parties to the conflict shall endeavour to conclude local agreements for the passage of medical personnel and medical equipment.”

“Civilian hospitals may in no circumstances be the object of attack.”

“It is prohibited to commit any acts of hostility directed against historic monuments, works of art or places of worship.”

“Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear stations shall not be made the object of attack.”

“It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensible to the survival of the civilian population.”

 

Above: The Red Cross in action, 1864

 

The Second World War (1939 – 1945) involved 61 countries in war and caused the death of around 60 million people, more than half of whom were civilians.

In 1945 more than 20 million people had been displaced.

In 1995 the ICRC publicly described its attitude to the Second World War Holocaust as a “moral failure“.

 

Above: Images of World War II (1939 – 1945)

 

The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis began shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933 and subsequently continued to intensify, culminating in systematic extermination from 1942 onwards.

 

Above: Auschwitz, Poland, May 1944

 

At the time, the ICRC had no legal instrument to protect civilians.

The 1929 Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War applied only to members of the armed forces.

The organization thus considered itself powerless in the face of the anti-Semitic fury of the Nazi dictatorship.

 

 

Thus in October 1942 the Committee refused, in particular, to launch a public appeal on behalf of civilians affected by the conflict.

Although the International Red Cross endeavoured to provide aid for Jewish civilians, it erred on the side of caution.

 

Above: Jewish women, occupied Paris, June 1942

 

It was not until the spring of 1944 that a change of strategy took shape.

As Germany’s war efforts collapsed, ICRC delegates belatedly managed to enter some concentration camps, becoming voluntary hostages in order to prevent the further massacre or forced evacution of the prisoners.

 

Above: Auschwitz, May 1944

 

The harsh lesson of the Second World War had been learned.

In 1949 the Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted:

It provides protection for civilians during armed conflict.

It was complemented in 1977 by additional protocols which reinforce the protection given to victims of armed conflicts, international or domestic.

In particular, the additional protocols established the distinction between civilians and combatants.

 

In an armed conflict, the ICRC’s mandate is to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions.

When the ICRC observes serious violations of the Conventions, it points them out to the countries concerned in confidential reports.

However, on occasion, that information has been published in the press:

• Le Monde during the Algerian War

Above: Images of the Algerian War (1954 – 1962)

 

• The Wall Street Journal about Abu Ghraib Prison

Above: Lynndie England with “Gus“, Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq

 

• The New York Review of Books / Wikileaks about Guantanamo Prison

Above: Guantanamo “Gitmo” Prison, Cuba

 

Such leaks put the ICRC in a difficult position as discretion is a necessary part of its work and its discussions with the authorities.

Its confidentialiy policy actually facilitates access to detainees, wounded people and groups of civilians.

When humanitarian diplomacy fails, the ICRC then resorts to a more open form of communication.

It then issues press releases publicly condemning serious violations of the Conventions.

In the 1980s the United Nations Security Council set up ad hoc tribunals to judge the crimes committed in former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

In 1998 the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established.

It was a permanent institution with the power to open investigations, to prosecute and to try people accused of committing war crimes, genocide or crimes against humanity.

The ICC began its work in 2005 by opening three investigations into crimes:

• in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• in Uganda
• in the Sudan

The existence of a permanent international court gives the world the means of determining facts and of punishing those responsible for the crimes.

It gives victims an opportunity to have their voice heard.

 

Above: Logo of the International Criminal Court

 

Poverty, migration, urban violence….

All of them are present-day threats to human dignity.

All over the world, large sections of the population are living in extremely precarious hygenic conditions.

 

Economic changes are forcing more and more people to emigrate.

Those migrants, who frequently have no identity documents, are exploited and ostracized.

In some megacities, whole districts are at the mercy of armed groups which terrorize the inhabitants.

Each of those situations presents a challenge to which a response must be found.

 

Above: Syrian refugees, Ramtha, Jordan, August 2013

 

Since the First World War, the ICRC has had the right to visit prisoners of war and civilian detainees during an international armed conflict.

In other situations, the right to meet prisoners must be negotiated with the authorities.

Visiting prisons, talking to the detainees and making lists of their names are ways of preventing disappearances and ill treatment.

After each prison visit, ICRC delegates write a report.

They must have access to all places of detention and be allowed to repeat their visits as often as necessary.

The visits always follow the same procedure.

Following a meeting with those in charge of the prison, the delegates inspect the premises: cells, dormitories, toilets, the exercise yard, the kitchen and any workshops.

They draw up a list of prisoners and interview them in private without witnesses.

At the end of the visit, the delegates inform those in charge of the prison of their observations.

They then prepare a confidential report for the authorities.

 

 

The visitor sees many photographs of prison visits, including those to a German POW camp in Morocco, to French POWs in a German Stalag, political detainees in Chile, detainees in Djibouti….

But it is items from these visits given by prisoners to the ICRC delegates that tell far more emotional stories.

Some examples:

• a model village showing ICRC activities in Rwanda
• a doll figure of a female delegate made in an Argentinian prison
• a pearl snake made by Ottoman prisoners
• a necklace with a Red Cross pendant made by a lady prisoner in Lebanon
• a ciborium (a container for Catholic mass hosts – symbols of the body of Christ) made of bread by Polish prisoners of conscience
• a bar of soap carved into the shape of a detainee in a cell made by a Burmese artist imprisoned for suspected ties to the opposition party

 

An installation in the Museum that followed seemed somewhat incongruous….

Therein the visitor can change and produce large flows of different colours by touching a wall.

The idea is that the larger the number of visitors, the richer the flow of colours, so as to provide an interactive experience that appeals to people’s senses, emotions and feelings, thus all visitors become part of a colourful celebration of human dignity.

Honestly….

This felt more like a gimmick to capture children’s hyperactive attention than an exhibit that strengthens human unity, designed more to entertain than educate.

 

 

Human beings are social beings who are defined by their links with others.

When those links are broken, we lose part of our identity and our bearings.

Of the many activities the ICRC performs, the giving and receiving of news and finding one’s loved ones again are understood to be elements of stability that are critical during crisis situations.

 

 

This Museum has, like the Reformation Museum in this city, as other museums in other cities and countries I have visited, its own Chamber of Witnesses – video testimonials whose lifelike likenesses are meant to invoke within the voyeur a sense of how we are not unlike those speaking with us electronically.

We see Toshihiko Suzuki, a dentist and specialist in craniofacial anatomy, tell us how he identified victims of the 2011 tsunami.

We learn of the experience of Sami El Haj, an Al Jazeera journalist held in Guantanamo from 2002 to 2008.

We consider the life of Liliose Iraguha, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

We marvel at the resilience of human beings by listening to Boris Cyrulnik, a French neuropsychiatrist and ethologist.

 

 

During a conflict or a natural disaster, many people are cut off from their families – by capitivity, separation or disappearance.

Tracing one’s loved ones and passing on one’s news become basic needs.

 

 

Originally intended for victims of war, the ICRC tracing services subsequently expanded to include persecuted civilians.

More recently, tracing activities have been extended to families who have become separated as a result of natural disasters or migration.

The International Prisoners of War Agency (1914 – 1923) was established by the ICRC, shortly after the start of the First World War – which involved 44 states and their colonies and caused the death of more than 8 million people, 20 million wounded and in the immediate post-war period of epidemics, famine and destitution another 30 million deaths.

Organised in national sections, its archives contain six million index cards that document what happened to two million people: prisoners of war, civilian internees and missing civilians from occupied areas.

The cards contain information about individual detainees. when they were taken captive, where they were held and, if relevant, when they died.

People who were without news of a loved one could present a request to the Agency, which would then send them what information it had.

Today the Agency’s documents are still used to reply to requests from families as well as to enquiries from historians.

And, as far as I could tell, the Agency is now in the Museum.

It contains:

• 5,119 boxes with 6 million index cards
• 2,413 files containing information provided by the belligerents
• 600,000 pages filling 20 linear metres of general files

This location is fitting for it was in the Rath Museum in Geneva where the Agency once was.

In all, more than 3,000 volunteers, most of them women, worked there during the conflict.

During the War, the Agency dispatched 20 million messages between detainees and their families and forwarded nearly 2 million individual parcels as well as several tonnes of collective relief.

The Agency’s role was also to obtain the repatriation of prisoners who had been taken captive in breach of the Geneva Conventions: doctors, nurses, stretcher bearers and military chaplains.

It helped to ensure that the wounded were returned home or interned in neutral countries.

 

 

The pacifist writer Romain Rolland was one of the Agency’s first volunteers:

“Its peaceful work, its impartial knowledge of the actual facts in the belligerent countries, contribute to modify the hatred which wild stories have exasperated and to reveal what remains of humanity in the most envenomed enemy.”

 

Above: Romain Rolland (1866 – 1944)

 

It was not until the end of the Second World War that Europe realized the extent of the tragedy affecting civilians.

The International Tracing Service (ITS) was then established.

The ITS has files on more than 17 million people: civilians persecuted by the Nazis, displaced persons, children under the age of 18 who had become separated from their families, forced labourers and people held in concentration camps or labour camps.

The ITS was set up in Bad Arolsen, Germany, and has helped millions of people to trace their loved ones.

 

Above: International Tracing Services, Bad Arolsen, Germany

 

Nowadays, the need to trace missing people also extends to the victims of natural disasters and to migrants, using not only index cards, but photo tracing (used to find nearly 20,000 children missing during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda), distributions of name lists (for example, the Angola Gazette – a list of people who went missing during the Angolan Civil War from 1975 to 2002) and the Internet (for example, http://www.familylinks.icrc.org).

 

Despite all tracing efforts, sometimes missing people do not get found, do not go home.

In that case, receiving confirmation of death puts an end to uncertainty and enables families to begin the process of mourning and to start to rebuild their lives.

The erection of memorials is one way of honouring the dead and of giving them a place of dignity in the collective memory.

 

 

For example, in 1995 the city of Srebrenica was attacked by forces under the command of General Radko Mladic.

 

 

Mladic had the women and children of this refuge of hounded Muslim civilians separated from the men and forced to leave Srebrenica.

The men were hunted down and killed.

More than 8,000 people went missing.

By 2010 only 4,500 victims had been identified and buried.

 

 

When faced with a collective tragedy and without a dead body, families are completely at a loss.

A memorial is sometimes their only means of paying tribute to the dead, of giving them a place in the collective consciousness and of recalling the events that led to those disappearances.

Examples include victims from:

• the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Above: Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbuko Dome)

 

• the deportation of Jews from France

 

• the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia

 

• the Soviet gulags

 

• the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine

 

• the civil war in Peru

 

• the earthquake in Sichuan, China

 

• the 9/11 attack in New York City

 

Communication is often disrupted during a conflict or a natural disaster.

In circumstances like that, receiving news from one’s family is a source of joy and relief.

There are different ways of sending news:

• Red Cross messages (in use for more than a century)
• Radio messages
• Videoconferencing
• Satellite telephones

 

A Red Cross message is a short personal missive that was first used in the Franco-Prussian War (1870 – 1871).

It is still in use today.

Each year, thousands of messages are distributed in more than 65 countries with the help of the ICRC.

To make sure that they reach the addressees, messengers sometimes travel long distances to extremely remote areas.

The messages themselves are generally very simple.

The main thing is to enable people to pass brief news on to their loved ones – their state of health, their place of shelter or detention.

 

 

For example, the Museum shows messages:

• sent by a French POW to his godmother in Switzerland
• exchanged by a French POW in Morocco and Algeria and his family in France
• written by aircraft passengers taken hostage in Jordan in 1970
• illustrated by children during the Yugoslav conflict in 1994
• by a Sudanese detainee in Guantanamo
• from a Greek child refugee following the Cyprus conflict of 1974
• from a mother to her son in Liberia
• from a little girl writing to her parents in the Congo
• written by a woman to her brother in prison in Kirghizstan

 

In Columbia, the radio programme Las voces del secuestro broadcasts family messages to people held hostage in the jungle, enabling more than 18,000 people to send news to their loved ones.

 

 

In Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, no family visits are allowed, so in 2008 the ICRC and the American authorities developed a videoconferencing system to enable the detainees to communicate with their loved ones.

In the space of just a few months, 70% of the detainees were able to contact their families.

 

Above: Parwan Detention Facility, Bagram, Afghanistan

 

And finally the Restoring Family Links exhibition concludes with works by Congolese artist Chuck Ledy and Benin artist Romuald Hazouma.

 

 

Humanity has progressed by refusing to accept the inevitability of the phenomena that endanger it.

In the face of natural disasters and epidemics, communities take action to prevent the worst, to save lives and to preserve resources.

Another Chamber of Witnesses:

• Benter Aoko Odhiambo, the head of a Kenyan orphanage and the initiator of a market gardening programme
• Abul Hasnat, a Bangladeshi school teacher and a Red Crescent volunteer
• Madeleen Helmer, the Dutch head of the ICRC Climate Centre
• Jiaqi Kang, a Chinese student in Switzerland

 

After all, prevention concerns us all.

Blast Theory, a group of British artists, designed the game Hurricane to test the effectiveness of natural disaster preparedness activities.

Planting mangroves, constructing high-level shelters, building up reserve stocks of food and organizing evacuation exercises are all part of the game and involve actors such as ICRC delegates, village leaders, experts and volunteers.

As the hurricane strikes, the players have to evacuate the villagers.

At the end of the game tells us how many lives were saved.

 

 

Posters are key communication instruments in prevention initiatives.

The link between pictures and text makes the messages easy for everyone to understand.

The Museum’s collection of some 12,000 posters from more than 120 countries tells of the many different activities developed by the ICRC.

Nowadays, as the impact of global warming becomes clearer, the ICRC is increasingly involved in natural disaster preparedness.

 

 

The ICRC was very quick to perceive the role that the cinema could play in promoting its activities.

Some films focused on prevention – hygiene, epidemics and accidents.

Others on training volunteers in first aid or life saving.

While preventing illnesses and accidents is ancient history, the management of risks associated with natural disasters is a more recent development.

A workshop at the Haute école d’art et de design (Gèneve) was given a free hand to create new montages using more than 1,000 films from the Museum’s collection.

 

Above: Haute école d’art et de design, Genève

 

Prevention is first and foremost about saving lives.

A number of different measures can be taken to provide protection: building shelters, installing early warning systems, carrying out evacuation exercises and providing hygiene education.

All these activities mobilize the local communities and the humanitarian organizations.

They sometimes call for substantial investment.

It is easy to raise funds during disasters when emotions are running high.

It is more difficult to raise funds for longer-term work.

Nonetheless, one dollar invested in prevention is two to ten dollars saved in emergency relief and reconstruction work.

 

 

All of this is brought into sharp focus by the three “théâtres optiques” (Cyclone, Tsunami and Latrines), created for the Museum by the French artist Pierrick Sorin.

 

Above: Pierrick Sorin

 

Let’s take, for example, Bangladesh.

 

Above: Flag of Bangladesh

 

In 1970, Cyclone Bhola caused one of the worst natural disasters in history.

A 10-metre high wave and winds of 220 km/hour caused the death of 500,000 people here.

A cyclone preparedness programme was then launched, which included an early warning system, the construction of shelters and the training of evacuation volunteers.

 

 

In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr, one of the most powerful ever recorded, hit parts of Bengal and Bangladesh, affecting nearly 9 million people and causing vast economic damage.

1.5 million people were evacuated before the Cyclone struck.

Although 3,500 people died, this number of deaths was far below the 1970 disaster.

 

 

Or let’s consider Brazil.

 

Above: Flag of Brazil

 

Infectious diarrhoea can affect people throughout the world.

It is most frequently caused by water that has been contaminated by faeces.

Around 2 million people die from diarrhoea every year, most of them children in developing countries.

In 2008 more than 2 billion individuals were without suitable latrines.

Almost half of them defecated in the open air.

In 1997, the authorities in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil launched a water purification programme in the city.

A university team monitored 2,000 children under the age of 3, most of whome were living in impoverished urban districts.

The results showed that water purification had a direct impact on health:

The overall number of cases of diarrhoea fell by 22% in the city and by 43% in the poorest areas.

 

Above: Images of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil

 

The Museum was never designed with the intention of casting blame or lavishing praise upon particular countries or particular individuals, but rather it shows the situations, both general and particular, in which the ICRC functions and to further a better understanding of what they do.

The ICRC aids victims, not on account of their particular nationality or their particular cause, but purely and simply because they are human beings who are suffering and are in need of help.

It strives to assuage all human distress which has no hope of effective aid from other sources.

The ICRC desires to relieve above all that suffering which is brought about by man, brought about by man’s inhumanity to man, and is more painful on that account and more difficult to relieve.

 

The most terrible form of man’s inhumanity to man is war and that is why the idea of the Red Cross was born in the field of battle.

The Red Cross is a third front above and across two belligerent fronts, a third front directed against neither of them but for the benefit of both.

The combatants in this third front are interested only in the suffering of the defenceless human being, irrespective of his nationality, his convictions or his past.

The ICRC fights wherever they can against all inhumanity, against every degradation of the human personality, against all injustice directed against the defenceless.

These neutrals on this humanitarian front are free of the prejudice and hostility which is so natural to men engaged in warfare.

The dominant idea and the essence of the Geneva Convention is equality of treatment for all sick and wounded persons whether they are friends or enemies.

 

It is the fulfilment of the cry of Solferine:

Siamo tutti fratelli.

We are all brothers.

 

 

The Museum is a living embodiment of that humanitarian adventure.

It is an edifice of humanity working for humanity.

And it is good.

 

 

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / Lonely Planet Switzerland / Rough Guide to Switzerland / Red Cross Museum, The Humanitarian Adventure / The International Committee of the Red Cross, Basic Rules of the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols / Dr. Marcel Junod, Warrior without Weapons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Slim and the Right Man

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 6 December 2017

Is there such a thing as an indispensable man?

This is a question I have often asked myself when considering both my life and the lives of the famous.

I ask myself this question recently as I am, once again, forced to remain at home in bed with, yet another cold that has made both barista work and teaching impractical as I have been reduced to a coughing, sneezing, aching, quivering jellyfish of a man unfit and undesirable for public encounters.

My voice sounds tortured and hoarse as if it is painfully emerging from a long tunnel.

My appearance is akin to a homeless street person and our apartment reflects this.

The wife mocks the man cold, but hers is a gender that endures menstruation on a monthly basis and usually survives the incredible ordeal of child birth with little hesitation to repeat or memory of the event.

Hers is a mind of multiplicity handling every moment and memory simultaneously, while my mind is a series of boxes which are opened only one at a time, so when illness strikes all my focus is upon how truly horrid I feel.

A woman with a cold is simply a woman with yet another complication in her life, for she will incorporate the cold as part of life´s burdens she must bear and will further complicate her life with tortured emotions about the selfishness of her having a cold keeping her from doing her other duties.

A man, though he is aware of the selfishness of having others assume his duties, will moan and groan impatiently focused on his recovery, even so his conscience is little disturbed about staying at home until he deems himself fit to tackle the world again.

I think about work, of course, and consider what my absence will mean to my students and colleagues.

I know that there are other teachers who could teach in my place and that a barista can be replaced.

But does that mean my presence then is insignificant?

I don´t believe so.

For though I am far from being the most competent or qualified barista or teacher, I possess an entertaining and compassionate personality that I believe my students and colleagues value.

But short of historical accident thrusting me into greatness, I am self aware enough to realise that my eventual absence from existence will not impact history or much of humanity that significantly.

Though the life of my wife might have been greatly different without me in it, would she have been happier or sadder had we never met?

If I had not survived an accident with an axe during my teenage years, or if I had perished on the side of the mountain when I was stranded overnight three years ago, would the world have noticed my absence?

My social circle was and remains small.

I would have been missed by a few people, but I believe they would have found the strength to carry on without me.

I don´t believe I need an angel Clarence to show this George Bailey how It´s a Wonderful Life and how vastly different reality would be had I never existed.

Above: Henry Travis as angel Clarence Oddbody (left) and James Stewart as George Bailey (right), from It´s A Wonderful Life (1946)

Certainly each man leaves his mark on the world by how his actions have affected others.

A man´s greatness could even be said to be measured by how many others his actions affected.

My mind often wonders how reality might be had certain great men never existed or didn´t exist at the time when they were most influential.

The recent resurgence of interest in Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) – with this year´s movies Darkest Hour (starring Gary Oldman) and Churchill (starring Brian Cox) and last year´s Churchill´s Secret (starring Michael Gambon) – have led me to wonder would the world of today be different had Churchill not been present at those moments of yesterday when he made the most impact?

This hypothetical “What If?” exercise is not so far fetched….

On a holiday in Bournemouth in January 1893, Churchill fell and was knocked unconscious for three days.

Churchill saw action as a soldier and war correspondent and risked his life in India, the Sudan and South Africa.

Above: Battle of Omdurman, Sudan (2 September 1898), where Churchill took part in a cavalry charge

It remains uncertain whether Churchill´s life was in any danger when he was present at the January 1911 Siege of Sidney Street when Latvian anarchists wanted for murder holed up in a house and resisted arrest.

Above: Winston Churchill (highlighted) at Sidney Street, 3 January 1911

And it is also unclear whether Home Secretary Churchill gave the police any operational orders during the Siege, though it has been suggested that when the house caught fire Churchill prevented the fire brigade from dousing the flames so that the anarchists burnt to death.

“I thought it better to let the house burn down rather than spend good British lives in rescuing those ferocious rascals.”

On 12 December 1931, during a lecture tour for his writing, Churchill, while crossing New York City´s Fifth Avenue, was knocked down by a car.

Above: The Empire State Building, completed 1931

Had Churchill not survived these events to become Prime Minister (1940 – 1945 / 1951 – 1955), would Britain have remained resolute against Germany during the Second World War?

How indispensable was Churchill to the world?

This question was certainly paramount in my mind when my wife and I visited the Churchill War Rooms six weeks ago….

Above: An external view of the New Public Offices building, the basements of which were chosen to house the Cabinet War Rooms

London, England, 24 October 2017

In 1938, in anticipation of Nazi air raids, the basement of the Treasury building on London´s King Charles Street was converted into “war rooms”, protected by a three-foot-thick concrete slab, reinforced with steel rails and tramlines.

It was here that Prime Minister Winston Churchill directed operations and held cabinet meetings for the duration of World War II.

By the end of the War, the six-acre site included a hospital, canteen and shooting range, as well as sleeping quarters.

Tunnels fan out from the complex to outlying government ministeries.

It is rumoured there are also tunnels to Buckingham Palace itself, allowing the Royal Family a quick getaway to exile in Canada (via Charing Cross Station) in the event of a Nazi invasion.

Above: Buckingham Palace

Walking the corridors of the Churchill War Rooms and exploring its adjacent Churchill Museum are experiences that live long in the memory.

Every corner tells a story.

Today we take for granted the idea of an underground command centre.

How else can political and military leaders run a country and control armed forces, safe from enemy bombardment?

But the Second World War was the first time that Britain faced such a concentrated aerial threat.

Should there be some sort of central war room?

Where should it be?

How should it be protected?

Who should work there?

What space and equipment would they need?

What exactly would they be doing?

Most of these questions began to be answered only in the final fraught months before Britain went to war.

Many of them were still being answered during the War itself, even as bombs rained down over London and the threat of invasion loomed.

The story of the Churchill War Rooms is therefore one of improvisation in the face of deadly necessity.

After the First World War (1914 – 1918), the British government adopted a “ten-year rule”.

Until instructed otherwise, all departments should assume that the country would not go to war again for at least a decade.

Even so, some thought was given to how a future war might be fought.

In 1924, government experts predicted that London would be bombarded by up to 200 tons of bombs in the first 24 hours of a world conflict.

Casualities would be high and the country´s political and military command structure could be severely disabled.

Partly due to the ten-year rule, little was done to heed this warning until 1933 when a belligerent Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.

Above: Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945)

It came as a complete shock when Hitler declared his intention to have Germany leave the League of Nations, the forerunner of today´s United Nations.

War within the next decade suddenly seemed much more possible and the question of national defence became a priority.

In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria, adding to international tension.

General Hastings Ismay, Deputy Secretary of Britain´s Committee of Imperial Defence, immediately organised a search for an emergency working refuge to house the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff in case of a sudden attack.

Above: Hastings Ismay (1887 – 1965)

Plans were still in a confused state in late May 1938, when the alarming news was received that German troops were massing on the Czechoslovakian border.

There might be war any day, but still no war room.

On 31 May 1938, the site was confirmed, a site conveniently close to both Downing Street (the Prime Minister´s residence) and Parliament.

It was thought that the steel structure of the Treasury building above the War Rooms would provide extra protection against bombs, but a direct hit on the site would have been catastrophic.

From June to August 1938, work on the War Rooms involved clearing rooms, sandbagging alcoves, replacing glass doors with teak, building brick partitions, installing telephone lines and estabishing a connection with the BBC.

As the site was situated below the level of the Thames River, flood doors had to be fitted and pumps installed.

By the end of August, the Map Room was manned and tested and plans were underway for airlocks and steel doors to defend against gas attack.

Above: The Map Room, Cabinet War Rooms

There could be no hesitation or pause in these preparations.

Hitler had sparked a new crisis on the Continent by threatening to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attempted to defuse the situation by diplomatic means.

Above: Neville Chamberlain (1869 – 1940), British PM (1937 – 1940)

On 30 September, Hitler signed the Munich Agreement – heralded by Chamberlain as a guarantee of “peace for our time”, but the Central War Room was theoretically ready for use.

Above: Neville Chamberlain showing the Anglo-German Declaration, aka The Munich Agreement. guaranteeing “peace for our time”, Heston Air Force Base, England, 30 September 1938

It would have been desperately uncomfortable for anyone working there, as the ventilation system was poor, there were no overnight accommodations, no bedding, no kitchen, no food, no toilets or washing facilities.

Work continued on the War Rooms.

On 23 August, Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Russia, leaving the way free for him to attack Poland.

Above: Soviet Premier Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, after the signature of the (Vyacheslav) Molotov – Ribbentrop German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, 23 August 1939

On 27 August the Central War Room was officially opened.

On 1 September, Hitler attacked Poland.

Above: Adolf Hitler reviewing the troops on the march during the Polish campaign, September 1939

Two days later, Britain was at war.

The immediate bombardment of London that had been expected for so long failed to materialise in the first nine months of the War, though the War Rooms were operational.

A botched land campaign in Norway in April 1940 and Germany´s sudden attack on the Netherlands on 10 May caused Chamberlain to resign and Churchill to take his place.

A few days later, as British Forces were driven back towards the French coast, the new Prime Minister visited the Cabinet War Room and declared:

“This is the room from which I will direct the war.”

Above: Cabinet War Room

In the summer of 1940, as the fall of France was followed by the Battle of Britain for aerial supremacy over southern England, Britain stood at risk of imminent invasion.

Above: German Heinkel HE 111 bombers over the English Channel, 1940

On 7 September 1940, Germany launched the Blitz – a sustained bombing campaign against British towns and cities, with London the chief target.

Britain weathered the Blitz for nine long months.

When the Blitz failed to secure victory over Britain, Hitler turned his attention to the east, launching an invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

Britain was no longer fighting the Nazis alone.

When, on 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, the United States entered the War, changing the fortunes of Britain.

Above: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, USA

The War Rooms began deception plans intended to divert enemy resources away from genuine Allied operations.

This would play a crucial role in the success of Operation Overlord – the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944.

The success of the D-Day landings helped to turn the tide of war against the Nazis, but they were not finished in attacking Britain.

On 13 June 1944, the first V1 flying bomb hit London, bringing a new threat to the capital.

Above: A V1 guided missile

Over the winter of 1944 – 1945, the V1 flying bomb attacks were gradually superseded by the more destructive V2 flying bombs.

Above: A V2 rocket

By the end of March 1945, most of the V2 production factories had been overrun by the unstoppable Allied advance towards Berlin.

Adolf Hitler spent the final weeks of the War sheltering in his bunker as  Berlin came under attack from Stalin´s armies.

After the fall of Berlin, the Allies declared victory in Europe on 8 May 1945.

By the time Japan surrendered on 15 August, Churchill was no longer Prime Minister having lost the General Election on 26 July.

On 16 August, after six years of continuous use, the War Rooms were simply and suddenly abandoned.

Their historic value was recognised and were mostly left undisturbed.

The preserved rooms were declared a national monument in 1948, with free guided tours given to people who had written to the Cabinet Office.

This practice continued until 1984 when the Imperial War Museum was asked to turn the site into a formal Museum.

Millions of visitors have since walked its corridors, tracing the steps of Churchill and the many men and women – both military and civilian – who helped run this underground complex.

The Churchill Museum was added to the Cabinet War Rooms in 2005 and this expanded Museum was later renamed the Churchill War Rooms.

It has to be said that the Churchill War Rooms is a fascinating place for it is filled with intimate details that bring home the immediacy of those times…

• The sugar cubes hoarded by a Map Room officer
• The noiseless typewriters that Churchill insisted be used by his staff
• Accounts of what it was really like to eat, sleep and work below the streets of London as German bombs fell all around.
• The coloured lights in the Cabinet War Room that signalled an air raid and the ashtrays positioned within easy reach around the table and the scratch marks on the arms of Churchill´s chair that show how strained the Cabinet Room could become
• The multi-coloured phones where the men of the Map Room could follow every thrust and counterthrust of the War
• The actual door that Churchill walked through at 10 Downing Street
• The tiny Transatlantic Telephone Room where Churchill used to speak in secret to the US President
• Churchill´s famous “siren suit”, a zip-up coverall that Churchill began wearing for comfort from the 1930s onwards
• The Union Flag which was draped over Churchill´s coffin during his State Funeral which was broadcast around the world

Above: Grave of Winston Churchill, St. Martin´s Church, Bladon, England

(“I am ready to meet my Maker – but whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”)

• The weather indicator in the main corridor that would read “Windy” when a heavy bombing raid was in progress
• The story of how one of the women who worked at the War Rooms had a short relationship with James Bond author Ian Fleming and would be the inspiration for the character Miss Moneypenny
• One of the Royal Marines guarding the entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms took up embroidery to pass the time.
• To alleviate the health problems of working underground, staff were made to strip to their underwear and stand in front of portable sun lamps
• Wartime graffiti on a map in the Cabinet Room showing Hitler fallen on his ass
• A cat named Smoky that used to curl up on Churchill´s bed
• A typist who learned that the ship carrying her boyfriend had perished with all lives lost

So, so much to see and learn and discover….

But what of the Great Man himself?

This man of contradictions, this man who took over as Prime Minister when Britain stood alone against the Axis powers, who is remembered for his trademark bowler hat and half-chewed Havana cigars, who is famous for his morale-inspiring speeches and clever wit….

“It is better to be making the news than taking it, to be an actor rather than an critic.”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, tears, toil and sweat.”

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

“….We shall fight in France.  We shall fight on the seas and oceans.  We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.  We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be.  We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds.  We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.  We shall fight in the hills.  We shall never surrender.”

“This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

An American visitor reported in late 1940 that:

“Everywhere I went in London, people admired Churchill´s energy, his courage, his singleness of purpose.  People said they didn´t know what Britain would do without him.  He was obviously respected, but no one felt he would be Prime Minister after the War.  He was simply the right man in the right job at the right time, the time being a desperate war with Britain´s enemies.”

Without this man´s uplifting spirit, would Britain have surrendered against the overwhelming odds of Hitler´s mighty war machine?

I am convinced that Churchill´s uniqueness of character means that its absence would have lead to Britain´s surrender.

Whether Britain´s surrender would mean Hitler wouldn´t ultimately still turn against Russia, or whether America wouldn´t come to Britain´s aid with or without the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour remains a point of conjecture and the province of alternate history / science fiction writers.

But I think a visit to the Churchill War Rooms is well worth the while, because there are several lessons to be learned here under the streets of London.

We are where and who we are because of what came before.

We need to recall the wars that lead us to where we are today, not to glorify in our victories but rather to somberly recall our losses and learn from them so to avoid future war or at least prepare ourselves for another dark future of bloodshed and destruction.

We are a product of our time and place.

It is doubtful whether Churchill could have accomplished what he did had time and circumstances been different.

In examining Churchill´s past carefully, one can see that he was quite an imperfect man, at times rash, impulsive, egocentric and foolish, sometimes to the cost and risk of others.

Nancy Astor: If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee.

Winston Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I would drink it.

But at a moment when Britain needed a man of courage and conviction, Churchill was indeed in the right place at the right time.

Let us not worship this man, but do offer him our thanks and respect.

Above: Statue of Churchill, Parliament Square, London

As legacies go, this museum and how he is remembered by so many even after so long a time has passed and so many have sacrificed so much blood, tears, toil and sweat then and now, this monument to the dark days of a vicious conflict and a man who steered a nation through them is truly fitting.

This is a living museum, commemorating the lives of those who make our lives possible.

Come to the Churchill War Rooms.

Live the experience.

Sources: Wikipedia / Google / The Rough Guide to London / Alan Axelrod, Winston Churchill, CEO / Dominique Enright, editor, The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill / Martin Gilbert, editor, Churchill: The Power of Words / Roy Jenkins, Churchill / Imperial War Museums, Churchill War Museum Guidebook

Above: The Roaring Lion, Yousuf Karsh photo of Winston Churchill, Canadian Parliament, Ottawa, Canada, 30 December 1941

 

 

Canada Slim and the Bimetallic Question

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 18 May 2017

In my last blogpost, Canada Slim and the Final Problem, I told of my visit to the Reichenbach Falls where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) ended the life of his detective hero.

Sherlock Holmes is dead.

So suggests the plaque marking the spot where Holmes and Professor Moriarty wrestled before plunging into the Reichenbach Falls.

The plaque was erected in 1992 by The Bimetallic Question of Montréal and The Reichenbach Irregulars of Switzerland.

(More about those responsible for this plaque follows…)

In the last story, The Adventure of the Final Problem, of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes short story collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893), Doyle consigned his hero to the watery depths of the Reichenbach Falls near Meiringen, Switzerland.

Despite the success of the collections, Doyle had grown bored with his creation and wanted to spend more time writing historical fiction.

As well his wife Louise had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and his father Charles had just died in an asylum, so Doyle defended himself by saying that the demise of Sherlock Holmes…

“It was not murder, but justifiable homicide in self-defence, since if I had not killed him, he would certainly have killed me.”

Doyle had long felt that Holmes was taking up too much of his life and churning out story after story to a deadline was a demanding task that took precious time away from more serious literary work.

The public response was instant and powerful.

Holmes was very much a product of his age, as Victorians had an intense and morbid fascination with crime, particularly murder, and the idea that a man of genius, through the relentless application of logic and science, could bring light and clarity to the darkest and most terrifying human secrets was intensely appealing.

Though the two novels in which Holmes first appeared – A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four – had been moderately popular, the short stories in the Strand propelled the detective to the giddy heights of fame.

The 24 stories with illustrations on every page and quick bursts of adventure and satisfying resolutions proved perfect for the monthly magazine.

Readers went crazy for Holmes and the Strand became Britain’s best-selling magazine.

When The Final Problem was published in the Strand Magazine, the public’s reaction was consternation, shock and outrage.

Fans reacted as if Doyle had killed a real person.

Letter after letter of protest arrived on the desks of the Strand and Doyle.

One woman famously began her note to Doyle with the words: “You, brute!”

In London, black armbands were worn and the circulation of the Strand dropped so substantially that it almost closed down.

Readers were so outraged that more than 20,000 of them cancelled their subscriptions and Doyle was frequently accosted in the street.

Holmes’ death was referred to as “the dreadful event”.

Ignoring the public howls of complaint about his murder of Holmes, Doyle concentrated on a wide range of other writing projects.

But without Holmes, Doyle found himself in need of further income, as he was planning to build a new home called “Undershaw”, so he decided to take Holmes to the stage and wrote a play.

Bringing Holmes to the stage was not an original idea of Doyle’s, for already other authors had produced Holmesian plays, Under the Clock (1893) and Sherlock Holmes (1894).

But Doyle was no playwright.

Doyle’s literary agent A. P. Watt noted that Doyle’s play needed a lot of work and sent the script to Charles Frohman.

Frohman suggested that the American William Gillette (1853 – 1937), actor, manager and playwright, would be best suited to create a successful adaptation of Doyle’s stories to the stage.

Gillette was already well-known as being amongst the premier matinee idols of his day, for his patenting of a mechanical reproduction of the sound effects of horses and his introduction of realism into sets and props.

Prior to Gillette, the British had a very low opinion of American art in any form.

Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes consisted of four acts combining elements of Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia and The Final Problem, but with the exception of Holmes, Watson and Moriarity, all the characters in Gillette’s play were Gillette’s own creations.

(Doyle would later use Gillette’s Billy Buttons as Holmes’ pageboy in The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone in 1921.)

Gillette’s portrayl of Holmes helped create the modern image of the detective, with his use of the deerstalker cap and curved pipe which became enduring symbols of the character.

Gillette assumed the role of Holmes more than 1,300 times over 30 years, on stage, in the 1916 silent motion picture based on his Holmes play and as the voice of Holmes on the radio.

It is sometimes said the Doyle was forced to bring Holmes back to life by public pressure.

If that was the case, then why did it take him a whole decade to do so?

Sherlock’s return after Reichenbach Falls in The Adventure of the Empty House (1903) came not as a result of public pressure, but rather Doyle was swayed by a substantial financial deal being offered by the US periodical Collier’s Weekly.

Doyle would go on to write another 32 Holmes stories and two other Holmes novels and the Great Detective soon became famous all over the world and has remained an international phenomenon ever since.

Doyle accepted that Holmes had his own “life” out in the world, so he never attempted to stop other people trying their hands writing about Holmes.

And other writers quickly did.

The first authors to adopt Holmes parodied him, often with amusing adaptations of his name.

In 1892, the Idler magazine published The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs.

In 1893 Punch magazine featured The Adventure of Picklock Holes.

In 1903 P. G. Wodehouse wrote Dudley Jones, Bore Hunter, while Mark Twain produced A Double-Barrelled Detective Story, in which Holmes goes to California.

Above: P. G. Wodehouse (1881 – 1975)

Above. Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)(1835 – 1910)

Many writers have attempted to imitate Doyle’s efforts at creating reasoning detectives in the Holmesian mold.

Among them, Stephen King, famed American mystery writer John Dickson Carr in collaboration with Adrian Conan Doyle (Arthur’s son)(The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, 1954) and Anthony Horowitz who continues to publish Sherlock Holmes novels with the approval of the Doyle estate. (The House of Silk, 2011 / Moriarty, 2014)

Above: Stephen King (b. 1947)

Some authors have written about characters from the Sherlockian tales other than Holmes himself: Inspector Lestrade, Irene Adler (“The Woman” from A Scandal in Bohemia), Mrs. Hudson (Baker Street housekeeper), Mycroft Holmes and Professor Moriarty.

(Even former NBA basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar tried his hand by writing 2015’s Mycroft Holmes.)

Holmes mania spread to the Continent.

A German magazine of 1908 described the Holmes craze as “a literary disease similiar to Werther-mania and romantic Byronism.”

(“Werther-mania” refers to the excitement generated by Goethe’s publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther, considered to be literature’s first romantic novel.)

When two sensational murders occurred in Paris, French newspapers ran imaginary interviews with Holmes to try to get to the bottom of the cases.

Though not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is the most well-known, with the Guinness Book of World Records listing him as the “most-portrayed movie character” in history, with more than 70 actors playing the part in over 200 films.

(There have also been more than 750 radio adaptations in English alone.)

His first screen appearance was in the 1900 film Sherlock Holmes Baffled.

In the early 1900s, H. A. Saintsbury took over the role of Holmes in Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes play and in Doyle’s stage adaptation of The Adventure of the Speckled Band, portraying Holmes over 1,000 times.

Above: Harry Arthur Saintsbury (1869 – 1939)

Basil Rathbone played Holmes in 14 US films and in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on the radio from 1939 to 1946.

Above: Basil Rathbone (1892 – 1967)

Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet TV produced a series of five TV films, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, with Vasily Livanov as the Great Detective.

Above: Vasily Livanov (b. 1935)

The 1984 – 1985 Japanese anime series Sherlock Hound adapted the Holmes stories for children, with its characters being dogs.

Jeremy Brett, considered by many to be the definitive Holmes, played the detective in four series of Sherlock Holmes for Britain’s Granada Television from 1984 to 1994.

Above: Jeremy Brett (1933 – 1995)

In the 21st century, the world’s fascination with Holmes is as strong as ever.

Robert Downey Jr. played Holmes in the Guy Ritchie directed films Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).

Meanwhile, on the small screen, Holmes has been throughly and modernly reimagined.

In Elementary, begun in 2012, Sherlock Holmes is a recovering drug addict who helps the New York City Police Department solve crimes, assisted by a female Dr. Watson.

The even more popular BBC TV series Sherlock, begun in 2010 and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, has created a new generation of Holmes fans.

Holmes is so popular and famous that many people have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual.

Widely considered a British cultural icon, the character and stories of Sherlock Holmes continue to have a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and pop culture, with both Doyle’s original tales as well as thousands written by other authors being adapted into stage and radio plays, TV, films, video games and other media for over one hundred years.

In 1911 Ronald Knox, a young Oxford academic theologian, wrote an analysis of the Holmes stories, Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes.

Intended as a spoof of detailed, scholarly textual analyses of the Bible, Studies used Biblical terms – such as the “Canon”, or the “Sacred Writings” – to refer to the stories of Holmes.

Thereafter, Doyle’s Sherlock tales are known as “the Canon” and the countless stories written by others as “non-canonical works” by Holmes fans.

Numerous literary and fan societies have been founded that pretend that Holmes had indeed been real.

Above: The logo of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London

Two Holmes scholars, Ronald Knox and Christopher Morley founded the first societies devoted to the Holmes Canon – the Sherlock Holmes Society in London and the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI) in New York – in 1934.

(The BSI is named after Holmes’ helpful band of little street children.

In a number of his investigations Holmes was aided by this invisible army of helpers, whom Watson described in A Study in Scarlet as “half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged…that ever I clapped eyes on”, but Holmes knew their value, calling them “the Baker Street division of the detective police force”, for they could “go everywhere and hear everything”, because no one but Holmes paid any attention to dirty little street children.)

BSI members have included such important figures as Isaac Asimov and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Above: Isaac Asimov (1919 – 1992)

Above: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945), 32nd US President (1933 – 1945)

The BSI is an invitation-only group that oversees a host of “scion societies” across North America – ranging from the Red Circle of Washington (named after Doyle’s 1911 tale The Adventure of the Red Circle) to the Dancing Men of Providence (named after Doyle’s 1903 short story The Adventure of the Dancing Men).

Each of these societies have their own obscure rituals, but in general members meet up to chat about the Great Detective, watch films, dress up and exchange views about details of the adventures.)

The Sherlock Holmes Society has published, since 1952, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, featuring Holmesian news, reviews, essays and criticism.

Today there are at least 400 groups devoted to Holmes worldwide.

Japan is home to more than 30 Holmes societies, among them the Japan Sherlock Holmes Club, which boasts 1,200 members.

Portugal has the Norah Creina Castaways of Lisbon, named after the ship that went down off the Portuguese coast in Doyle’s 1893 tale The Resident Patient in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes short story collection.

There are also numerous Holmes societies in India, Russia, Germany and around the world.

In my homeland of Canada the equivalent to America’s BSI is The Bootmakers of Toronto, who, like the BSI, have their own scion societies in five other Canadian cities: the Spence Munros of Halifax, the Bimetallic Question of Montreal, the Stratford Sherlock Holmes Society, the Singular Society of the Baker Street Dozen of Calgary and the Stormy Petrels of British Columbia based in Vancouver.

That Canada would have Holmesian societies should come as no surprise, for not only are the Anglo roots to England quite strong in Canada – our head of state is still the Queen of England Elizabeth II – but Doyle refers to Canada a number of times in his Sherlock Holmes stories.

The overseer of Canada’s Holmesian groups, The Bootmakers of Toronto acquired the idea for their name from Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.

(A boot is stolen from Sir Henry Baskerville, for its scent was intended to let a fierce hound to track and kill Sir Henry.

The boot was fashioned in Toronto by a bootmaker named Meyers.

Each year the leader of the Toronto Holmes society is called “Meyers”.)

The Spence Munros of Halifax acquired their society name from Doyle’s The Adventure of the Copper Breeches, wherein Violet Hunter, a young governess, tells Holmes that she had been employed for five years in the family of Colonel Spence Munro, but she lost that position two months previously when the Colonel received a new posting in Halifax and took his family with him.

The Stormy Petrels of Vancouver have a name that requires more explanation than simply a reference to Holmesian literature…

In the Holmes story The Last Bow, the detective warns the world about the menace of Germany:

“There’s an east wind coming…such a wind as never blew on England yet.

It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither…

But it’s God’s own wind nonetheless, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

Vancouver is a coastal city.

There is a small seabird, generally with dark plumage, that is found in most of the world’s oceans, that takes shelter on the leeside of ships away from the direction from which the wind blows during a storm.

The bird is called a storm petrel.

In naval parliance, a person who brings or predicts trouble is called a “stormy petrel”.

Montréal’s Holmesian society name, The Bimetallic Question, is in reference to an explanation made by Sherlock to Watson as to the importance of the detective’s brother Mycroft in the affairs of the British government:

“We will suppose that a Minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question…” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans)

Sherlock’s elder brother Mycroft is a vibrant element in the Holmes Canon – although, like Moriarty, Mycroft only appears directly in two stories.

The reader learns that Mycroft is seven years older than Sherlock and, if it is possible, even cleverer than the Great Detective.

Mycroft is described in various places in the Canon as having “the tidiest and most orderly brain with the greatest capacity for storing facts of any man living”.

Mycroft’s brilliance has given him a place at the heart of the secret government machinery of Britain and he is a crucial source of intelligence.

In this scope of intelligence, it is hinted that economic expertise is also included with the mention of “the bimetallic question.”

Since 1971, most of the world’s currencies are unconnected to the value of silver or gold but operate by a free floating standard that fluctates in active trading in stock markets around the world.

Money represents value.

Before 1971 the value of a monetary unit was defined by how much of a quantity of metal, typically gold and silver, it could purchase.

A country’s wealth was determined by exactly how much gold and/or silver it possessed.

In Doyle’s day, there was a great deal of scholarly debate and political controversy regarding monometallism and bimetallism, whether a country should only use gold as a standard by which money is valued or if silver should also be included along with gold.

Before the Klondike and the South African Gold Rushes, the supply of gold was minimal, so it was questionable how accurate gold was as a determination of value, thus putting pressure for greater use of silver.

The fact that Mycroft understood the bimetallic question was an indication of just how intelligent he was.

Why Montréal chose The Bimetallic Question for its name might be connected with the society’s postal address in Montréal’s Stock Exchange Tower.

That is the bimetallic question, isn’t it?

(Christopher Plummer, famed for his role as Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 film The Sound of Music, is also called “the Canadian Holmes”.

Plummer played the role of Sherlock Holmes in the Canadian/British 1978 film production, Murder by Decree, wherein Holmes tackles Jack the Ripper.)

The Reichenbach Irregulars is the Holmesian society of Switzerland, keeping the memories of Holmes and Doyle alive over here.

 

 

 

The Reichenbach Irregulars were founded in Meiringen (near the Reichenbach Falls) in 1989 by a group of young Holmesians (or Sherlockians) lead by Marcus Geisser.

Together with The Bimetallic Question of Montréal, the Reichenbach Irregulars erected the commemorative plaque that marks the fateful encounter between Holmes and Moriarty.

More than 300 of these groups are devoted to piecing together the “true” events of the “lives” of Holmes and Watson.

Calling this pursuit “the Grand Game” (after Holmes’ famous exclamation “The game is afoot.”), the Game assumes that Holmes and Watson were real historical figures and the Canon a record of true events.

Doyle is explained as being their literary agent.

Any inevitable mistakes on the part of a fast-working, under pressure of a deadline, author (Doyle) are explained away as deliberate attempts to mislead or simply forgetfulness on the part of the stories’ narrator (usually Watson).

(Gamers are particularly intrigued by the period – named “The Great Hiatus” –  between Holmes’ “death” at Reichenbach Falls and his reappearance in The Adventure of the Empty House.

Doyle left off writing about Holmes from 1893 to 1901, though this first new story The Hound of the Baskervilles was said to occur two years prior to The Adventure of the Final Problem.

Doyle returned to the chronology of Holmes in The Adventure of the Empty House in 1903, Holmes’ reappearance after Reichenbach Falls.

But Doyle’s dating of the Holmes’ adventures has Holmes disappear at Reichenbach Falls on 4 May 1891 and reappear in London in 1894 to investigate the Park Lane mystery, the strange murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair.

In The Adventure of the Empty House, Doyle drops hints about what Holmes was up to in these three years – travels to Florence and Tibet, role-playing as a Norwegian explorer, visiting Persia (modern day Iran), Mecca (Saudi Arabia) and Khartoum (Sudan), research work in Montpelier – but these are only hints.)

For the 1951 Festival of Britain, Holmes’ living room was reconstructed as part of a Sherlock Holmes exhibition with a collection of original material.

After the Festival, items were transferred to The Sherlock Holmes (a London pub) and the Conan Doyle collection housed in the Chateau Lucens, near Lausanne, by the author’s son Adrian.

Both exhibitions, each with a Baker Street sitting room reconstruction, are open to the public.

In 1990, the Sherlock Holmes Museum opened on Baker Street in London, followed the next year by a Sherlock Holmes Museum in the English Church in Meiringen at Doyle Place.

(Meiringen also has a reconstruction of Holmes’ Baker Street sitting room.)

A private Conan Doyle collection is on permanent exhibit at the Portsmouth City Museum, as Doyle once lived and worked there as a physician.

The London Metropolitan Railway named one of its 20 electric locomotives deployed in the 1920s for Sherlock Holmes – the only fictional character so honoured.

In London one can find streets named Sherlock Mews and Watson’s Mews.

Five statues of the Great Detective have been erected across the globe in Edinburgh (the birthplace of Doyle), Meiringen, London (on Baker Street), Moscow and Karuizawa, Japan.

Above: Sherlock Holmes Statue, Edinburgh

Above: Sherlock Holmes Statue, London

Above: Holmes/Watson Statues, Moscow

Above: Sherlock Holmes Statue, Karuizawa

In 2014, 113 Sherlock devotees, dressed in deerstalkers and capes, gathered near University College in London in an attempt to create a world record for the largest group of people dressed as Sherlock Holmes.

So, where does your humble blogger fit into all of this Holmes mania?

I confess that it was Sherlock that drew me into Holmes lore.

I had, of course, known of Holmes, but he had struck me as unapproachable because he was a product of the Victorian age, while Elementary felt more like an Americanisation of the Canon than I imagined.

But it was my best friend Iain of Liverpool who introduced me to the BBC TV series Sherlock and it was this series that has encouraged me to explore and discover Doyle’s works for myself.

It has been my desire to explore the possibilities of Swizerland, my country of residence since 2010, that led me to Reichenbach Falls and Meiringen.

I am now left with my own bimetallic question:

Do I prefer the Holmes from the golden age of Doyle’s writing or the Holmes from the silver screen (TV and movies)?

Either way I don’t need Mycroft Holmes to show me just how valuable his brother has been to the shaping of our modern society.

As Irene Adler said in the Sherlock episode A Scandal in Belgravia:

“Intelligent is the new sexy.”

And I wholeheartedly agree with “Canada’s Sherlock Holmes” Christopher Plummer:

“I don’t think anybody will ever get tired of Sherlock Holmes.

I don’t think the public will ever let him die just as they wouldn’t let Doyle kill him.”

While we remember him, Sherlock Holmes can never die.

Sources:

Dorling Kindersley, The Sherlock Holmes Book

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes Canon

Wikipedia

http://www.bakerstreetdozen.com

http://www.221b.ch (The Reichenbach Irregulars)

http://www.bimetallicquestion.org

http://www.torontobootmakers.com

 

 

The rise of Recep

Landschlacht, Switzerland, St. Patrick’s Day 2017

I am a Turkey watcher.

I have twice visited this beautiful country and I have rarely met a Turk I haven`t liked.

I began to talk about Turkey in this blog, because of the event that began 2017: the ISIS attack on a nightclub in Istanbul.

Above: The Reina restaurant/nightclub, Istanbul

(See this blog’s No Longer My Country 1: Take Me Back to Constantinople and No Longer My Country 2: The fashionable dead.)

Four days later, a PKK car bombing in Izmir made me curious about exactly why the Kurdish people and the Turkish people have been at each other’s throats for decades and I have tried to be objective in writing about what my research has turned up.

I wrote of Turkey`s history from its ancient beginnings until the election of Turgat Özal in 1989.

I promised that I would explain why Turkish politics of today, especially the actions of its President, are affected by events of the past.

The events that followed the election of President Özal and all that has taken place in Turkey since 1989 I believe are instructive, for a number of reasons:

The location of Turkey as the crossroads of Asia and Europe, the meeting point of a predominantly Christian West with a predominantly Muslim Middle East, the crucible of secularism vs fundamentalism, makes Turkey one of the major countries I think the world cannot afford to ignore.

The political evolution of Turkey, especially since Recep Erdogan first assumed office as Turkey’s 25th Prime Minister (2003 – 2014) and then its 12th President (2014 – Present), runs very similarly to other nations’ histories and possible destinies.

(See this blog’s The sick man of Europe 1: The sons of Karbala and The sick man of Europe 2: The sorrow of Batman.)

To understand Turkish politics of today, we need to look at how His Excellency became ruler of Turkey and how his mind might work.

Recep Erdogan was born in the Kasimpasa neighbourhood of Istanbul, to which his family had moved from Rize Province.

Erdogan spent his early childhood in Rize, where his father was a member of the Turkish Coast Guard.

His summer holidays were mostly spent in Güneysu, Rize, where his family originates from.

Throughout his life Erdogan has often returned to his spiritual home and in 2015 he opened a vast mosque on a mountaintop near his village.

His family returned to Istanbul when Erdogan was 13 years old.

As a teenager he sold lemonade and sesame buns (simit) on the streets of the city’s rougher districts to earn extra money.

Brought up in an observant Muslim family, Erdogan graduated from Kasimpasa Piyale primary school in 1973, received his high school diploma from Eyüp High School, studied business administration at the Marmara University’s Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences – though several sources dispute the claim that he graduated.

(To be President of Turkey, one must have graduated from a university.)

In his youth Erdogan played semi-professional football for the Kasimpasa football club, but when Fenerbahce Football Club wanted him to join their team his father prevented this.

While studying business administration and playing football, Erdogan engaged in politics by joining the National Turkish Student Union, an anti-communist action group.

In 1974, Erdogan wrote, directed and played the lead role in the play Maskomya, which presented Freemasonry, Communism and Judaism as evil.

In 1975 Süleyman Demirel, president of the conservative Justice Party succeeded Bülent Ecevit, president of the social-democratic Republican People’s Party as Prime Minister of Turkey.

Demirel formed a coalition government with the Nationalist Front, the Islamist Salvation Party led by Necmettin Erbakan, and the far right Nationalist Movement Party.

The 1970s were troubled times for Turkey: many economic and social problems, strike actions and political paralysis.

Turkey’s proportional representation system made it difficult to form any parliamentary majority and an ability to combat the growing violence in the country.

In 1976, Erdogan became the head of the Beyoglu youth branch of the Islamist Salvation Party and was later promoted to the chair of the Istanbul youth branch of the party.

In 1978, Erdogan married Emine Gülbaran of Siirt (a city in southeastern Turkey and capital of Siirt Province) and they have two sons (Ahmet and Necmettin) and two daughters (Esra and Sümeyye).

After the 1980 military coup, Erdogan followed most of Necmettin Erbakan’s followers into the Islamist Welfare Party.

Between 1984 and 1999, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish military engaged in open war.

Above: Flag of the PKK

The Republic forced inscription, evacuation, destruction of villages, extreme harassment, tortue, illegal arrests, murder and disappearance of Kurdish journalists and executions of Kurds.

Since the 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the thousands of human rights abuses.

Erdogan became the party’s Beyoglu district chair in 1984 and a year later became the chair of the Istanbul city branch.

Meanwhile, the military coup leaders under Kenan Evren appointed Turgut Özal state minister and deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs.

Özal formed the Motherland Party (ANAP) in 1983 after the ban on political parties was lifted by the military government.

The ANAP won the elections and he formed the government to become Turkey’s 19th Prime Minister at the end of the year.

When Özal became Prime Minister, the issue of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 was one of topics on his aganda.

Above: Remains of Armenians massacred at Erzinjan

In 1991, after a meeting with representatives of the Armenian community, Özal said in front of journalists and diplomats:

“What happens if we compromise with the Armenians and end this issue?

What if we officially recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide and face up to our past?

Let’s take the initiative and find the truth.

Let’s pay the political and economic price, if necessary.”

Özal was reelected Prime Minister in 1987.

On 18 June 1988 Özal survived an assassination attempt during the ANAP party congress.

One bullet wounded his finger while another bullet missed his head.

The shooter, Kartal Demirag, was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment but was pardoned by Özal in 1992.

On 9 November 1989, Özal became Turkey’s 8th President elected by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the first president to be born in the Republic of Turkey rather than the Ottoman Empire.

(Demirag was later retried in 2008 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.)

Özal was born in Malatya to a Turkish family with partial Kurdish roots on his mother’s side.

Above: Scenes of the city of Malatya

In 1991 Özal supported the coalition of nations (France, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States) against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War.

Above: Scenes from the 1991 Gulf War

In the early 1990s Özal agreed to negotiations with the PKK, the events of the Gulf War having changed the political dynamics in the region.

(Kurds make up 17% of Iraq’s population.

In 1974 the Iraqi government began a new offensive against the Kurds.

Between 1975 and 1978, 200,000 Kurds were deported out of oil rich Kurdistan.

During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi government implemented anti-Kurdish policies: the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the wholesale destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages, the deportation of thousands of Kurds.

The Anfal (spoils of war) genocidal campaign destroyed over 2,000 villages and killed 182,000 Kurdish civilians, using ground offensives, aerial bombing, firing squads and chemical attacks, including the most infamous attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 civilians instantly.

Above: First Lieutenant of the US 25th Infantry on patrol in fron of Halabja Cemetery

After the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in March 1991, Iraqi troops recaptured most of the Kurdish areas and 1.5 million Kurds abandoned their homes and fled to the Turkish and Iranian borders.

It is estimated that close to 20,000 Kurds succumbed to death due to exhaustion, lack of food, exposure to cold and disease.

On 5 April 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 688, which condemned the repression of Iraqi Kurdish civilians and demanded that Iraq end its repressive measures and allow immediate access to international humanitarian organisations.

In mid-April, the Coalition established safe havens inside Iraqi borders and prohibited Iraqi planes from flying north of the 36th parallel.

Kurds held parliamentary elections in May 1992 and established the Kurdistan Regional Government.)

Apart from Özal, few Turkish politicians were interested in a peace process with the Kurds, nor was more than a part of the PKK itself.

In 1993 Özal worked on peace plans with former finance minister Adnan Kahveci and General Commander of the Turkish Gendarmerie Esref Bitlis.

Negotiations led to a ceasefire declaration by the PKK on 20 March 1993.

With the PKK’s ceasefire declaration achieved, Özal planned to propose a major pro-Kurdish reform package at the next meeting of the National Security Council.

On 17 April 1993 Özal died of a suspicious heart attack, leading some to suspect an assassination.

Özal died just before he had the chance to negotiate with the PKK.

A month later a PKK ambush on 24 May 1993 ensured the end of the peace process.

After Özal’s death, his policies of compromising with the Armenians in order to solve the conflict concerning the Armenian Genocide were abandoned.

Özal’s wife Semra claimed he had been poisoned by lemonade and she questioned the lack of an autopsy.

Blood samples taken to determine his cause of death were lost or disposed of.

Tens of thousands of people attended the state burial ceremony in Istanbul.

(On the 14th anniversary of his death, thousands gathered in Ankara in commemoration.

Investigators wanted to exhume the body to examine it for poisoning.

On 3 October 2012 Özal’s body was exhumed.

It contained the banned insecticide DDT at ten times the normal level.)

Under the new President Süleyman Demirel and Prime Minister Tansu Siller, the Castle Plan – to use any and all means to solve the Kurdish question using violence – which Özal had opposed, was enacted.

In the local elections of 27 March 1994, Erdogan was elected Mayor of Istanbul (1994 – 1998).

Many feared that he would impose Islamic law.

However he was pragmatic in office, tackling chronic problems in Istanbul, including water shortage, pollution and traffic chaos.

The water shortage problem was solved with the laying of hundreds of kilometres of new pipeline.

The garbage problem was solved with the establishment of state-of-the-art recycling facilities.

Air pollution was reduced by making public buses more environmentally friendly.

Istanbul’s traffic and transportation jams were reduced with more than 50 bridges, viaducts and highways built.

Erdogan took precautions to prevent corruption, using measures to ensure that municipal funds were used prudently.

He paid back a major portion of Istanbul’s two billion dollar debt and invested four billion dollars in the city.

Erdogan initiated the first roundtable of mayors during the Istanbul Conference, which led to an organised global movement of mayors.

In December 1997, while in his wife’s hometown of Siirt, defending his party from being declared unconstitutional by the Turkish government, Erdogan recited a poem from a work written by Ziya Gökalp, a Turkish activist of the early 20th century.

Above: The Ebul Vefa Mosque, Siirt

(To understand Turkey, one must never forget that this is a country that subscribes to the “great man” view of history and politics.

Travellers in Turkey find portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 – 1938) everywhere.

Atatürk created modern Turkey, not only by reclaiming from the Ottoman Empire virtually all the territory that we call Turkey today but as well by lending his name to a series of reforms to demonstrate the uniqueness of living in Turkey – the elimination of the fez, the alteration of the calendar to make Saturday and Sunday the weekend, women encouraged to enter more fully into public life by no longer making veiling compulsory, the adoption of the Latin alphabet, to name just a few changes that led to genuine transformation of the most intimate moments of the Turkish people’s lives.

Mehmed Ziya Gökalp (1876 – 1924) was a Turkish sociologist, writer, poet and political activist whose work was particularly influential in shaping the reforms of Atatürk.

Above: Ziya Gökalp

Influenced by contemporary European thought, particularly the views of Émile Durkheim, Gökalp rejected the unity of the Ottoman Empire or unity through Islam, in favour of Turkish nationalism through the promotion of the Turkish language and culture.

Above: Émile Durkheim (1858 – 1917)

Gökalp believed that a nation must have a “shared consciousness” in order to survive, that “the individual becomes a genuine personality only as he becomes a genuine representative of his culture”.

He believed that a modern state must become homogeneous in terms of culture, religion and national identity.

In an 1911 article, Gökalp suggested that “Turks are the ‘supermen’ imagined by the German philosopher Nietzsche”.

Above: Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)

Gökalp differentiated between Avrupalilik (Europeanism – the mimicking of Western socieities) and Modernlik (taking initiative).

He was interested in Japan as a model for this, for he perceived Japan as having modernised itself without abandoning its innate cultural identity.

Above: Flag of Japan

Gökalp suggested that to subordinate “culture” (non-utilitarian, altruist public-spiritedness) to “civilisation” (utilitarian. egotistical individualism) was to doom a state to decline.

“Civilisation destroyed societal solidarity and morality.”

(Many historians and sociologists have suggested that his brand of nationalism contributed to the Armenian Genocide.)

Gökalp’s poetry served to complement and popularise his sociological and nationalist views.)

Erdogan’s recitation of Gökalp’s work included verses which are not in the original version of the poem:

“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”

Aboe: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, or Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Under Article 312/2 of the Turkish Penal Code, Erdogan’s recitation was regarded as an incitement to violence and religious/racial hatred.

In 1998, his fundamentalist Welfare Party was declared unconstitutional on the grounds of threatening the secularism of Turkey and was shut down by the Turkish Constitutional Court.

Erdogan was given a ten-month prison sentence of which he served four. (24 March – 27 July 1999)

Due to his conviction, Erdogan was banned from participating in parliamentary elections.

As 9th President of Turkey, His Excellency Süleyman Demirel had four Prime Ministers rise and fall during his time in office:

Tansu Ciller

(Turkey’s 22nd and first and only female Prime Minister (1993 – 1996), Ciller was responsible for the aforementioned Castle Plan, the persuasion of the United States to label the PKK as a terrorist organisation, the creation of a budget plan that led to a lack of confidence in her government and an almost total collapse of the Turkish lira, was alleged to have supported the failed 1995 Azerbaijan coup d’état, claimed Turkish sovereignty over the islands of Imia and Kardak almost leading to war with joint claimant Greece and was implicated in the Susurluk Scandal involving the close relationship between her government, the armed forces and organised crime.)

Necmettin Erbakan (1926 – 2011)

(Turkey’s 23rd Prime Minister (1996 – 1997), Erbakan formed a coalition government with Ciller acting as Deputy Prime Minister and strongly promoted close cooperation and unity among Muslim countries.

He was the founder of the still-existent D8 (Developing Eight) Organization for Economic Cooperation, whose goal is increased economic and political unity between its members (Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey).

Erbakan found his popularity wane when he made fun of the nightly repetition of demonstrations against his Deputy Prime Minister.

He was strongly encouraged by the military to resign over his perceived violation of the separation of religion and state as mandated by the Turkish Constitution.)

Mesut Yilmaz

(Turkey’s 21st Prime Minister (June – November 1991, March- June 1996, 1997 – 1999), Yilmaz quickly began to fade for his 3rd and final time as Prime Minister.

In October 1998, he threatened “to poke out the eyes of Syria” over Syrian President Hafez  al-Assad’s (1930 – 2000)(18th President of Syria: 1971 – 2000) alleged support of the FKK.

Above: The flag of Syria

(During Assad’s presidency, Syria’s relations with Turkey were tense.

An important issue between the countries was water supply and Syria’s support to the PKK.

Assad offered help to the PKK enabled it to receive training in the Beka’a’ Valley in Lebanon.

Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founders of the PKK, openly used Assad’s villa in Damascus as a base for operations.

Turkey threatened to cut off all water supplies to Syria.

However, when the Turkish Prime Minister or President sent a formal letter to the Syrian leadership requesting it to stop supporting the PKK, Assad ignored them.

At that time, Turkey could not attack Syria due to its low military capacity near the Syrian border, and advised the European NATO members to avoid becoming involved in Middle East conflicts in order to avoid escalating the West’s conflict with the Warsaw Pact states, since Syria had good relations with the Soviet Union.

Above: Logo of the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance

However, after the end of the Cold War, Turkish military concentration on the Syrian border increased.

In mid-1998, Turkey threatened Syria with military action because of Syrian aid to Öcalan, and in October it gave Syria an ultimatum.

Assad was aware of the possible consequences of Syria’s continuing support to the PKK.

Turkey was militarily powerful while Syria had lost the support of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Federation was not willing to help; neither was it capable of taking strong measures against Turkey.

Facing a real threat of military confrontation with Turkey, Syria signed the Adana Memorandum in October 1998, which designated the PKK as a terrorist organization and required Syria to evict it from its territory.

After the PKK was dissolved in Syria, Turkish-Syrian political relations improved considerably, but issues such as water supplies from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers remained unsolved.)

In December 1998, in an attempt to privatise the Turkish Trade Bank, allegations of cooperation with Mafia boss Alaattin Cakici began to arise.

Mustafa Bülent Ecevit

(Turkey’s 16th Prime Minister (January – November 1974, June – July 1977, 1978 – 1979, 1999 – 2002), Ecevit would try to bring economic reforms, aimed at stabilizing the Turkish economy, in order to gain full membership into the European Union.)

(Despite lasting only ten months, Ecevit’s first government was responsible for the successful Turkish invasion of Cyprus, for which he is nicknamed the ‘conqueror of Cyprus’. (Turkish: Kıbrıs Fatihi) )

In 2000, Ahmet Necdet Sezer was elected as Turkey’s 10th President (2000 – 2007) after Süleyman Demirel’s seven-year term expired.

The Prime Ministers during Demiril’s term with their unstable coalitions, rampant corruption and lack of durability caused the Turkish people to become highly disillusioned with their government.

Their lack of faith would cause foreign nations to carefully examine any investment in Turkey.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey relied heavily on foreign investment for economic growth.

The government was already running enormous budget deficits, which it managed to sustain by selling huge quantities of high-interest bonds to Turkish banks.

Continuing inflation and the enormous flow of foreign capital had meant that the government could avoid defaulting on the bonds in the short term.

As a consequence, Turkish banks came to rely on these high yield bonds as a primary investment.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1996 warned the Turkish government of an impending financial crisis because of the deficit.

Turkey’s unstable political landscape led many foreign investors to divest from the country.

As foreign investors observed the political turmoil and the government’s attempts to eleiminate the budget deficit, they withdrew $70 billion worth of capital in a matter of months.

This left a vacuum of capital that Turkish banks were unable to alleviate because the government was no longer able to pay off its bonds.

With no capital to speak of, the Turkish economy declined dramatically.

By 2000 there was massive unemployment, a lack of medicine, tight credit, slow production and increasing taxes.

In November 2001, the IMF provided Turkey with $11.4 billion in loans and Turkey sold many of its state-owned industries in a effort to balance the budget.

But these stabilisation efforts were not producing meaningful effects and the IMF loan was widely seen as insufficient.

On 19 February 2001, Prime Minister Ecevit emerged from an angry meeting with President Sezer saying:

“This is a serious crisis.”

This statement underscored the financial and political instability and led to further panic in the markets.

Stocks plummeted, interest rates reached 3,000%, large quantities of Turkish lira were exchanged for US dollars or euros, causing the Turkish Central Bank to lose $5 billion of its reserves.

Above: Symbol for the Turkish lira

The crash triggered even more economic turmoil.

In the first eight months of 2001, nearly 15,000 jobs were lost, the US dollar was equal to 1,500,000 lira, and income inequality was greater than ever.

Despite this, the government made swift progress in bringing about an economic recovery.

Nevertheless, almost half of his party in the parliament left to form the New Turkey Party(YTP).

Added to this economic crisis, allegations of corruption, as well as Ecevit’s poor health, made early elections unavoidable and the DSP faced an electoral wipeout in the 2002 general elections losing all of its MPs.

In 2001, Erdogan established the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The AKP won a landslide victory and Erdogan assumed office as Turkey’s 25th Prime Minister on 14 March 2003.

Erdogan inherited a Turkish economy just beginning to recover, unresolved issues with the Kurds and the Armenians, the need to improve democratic standards and the rights of minorities, the need to reform labour laws, the need to invest in education, the need to increase Turkey’s infrastructure, as well as the need to reform the Turkish healthcare system and social security.

Recep Tayip Erdogan, born 1954, had come a long way from selling simit in rough districts, or kicking a football, or sitting in a prison cell for speaking ill-chosen words.

He had shown he could rise above coups and his party being declared unconstitutional and dissolved and could improve the lives and the prospects of one of Turkey’s oldest and populous cities.

Erdogan would go on to be known by two, completely contrary to each other, titles:

• the most successful politician in the Republic of Turkey’s history
• the world’s most insulted president

Erdogan was Prime Minister for 11 years and has been President for almost three years with four more years to go in his mandate.

And he seemed to start off so well…

(To be continued…)

Sources: Wikipedia / Andrew Finkel, Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to build a railroad

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 22 August 2016

As the few but faithful regular readers of this blog may recall, I am in a marriage wherein my wife is away four days out of seven working in Zürich bringing sick children there the love and professionalism by which she is already known in her particular circles.

So, while she is away with the car I am forced to rely on public transportation when necessity demands I leave this tiny hamlet for purposes other than sleeping.

Today, suffering from extreme toothache, I must once again calculate in my mind the travel time required to reach my destination, in this case a dentist’s chair in Konstanz.

Happily there are moments when taking a train is not connected with work or other necessities, but instead is an adventure and genuine pleasure to do so.

In moments of my recent past I recall the joy I have felt when riding the rails to some undiscovered place as part of another spontaneous exploration.

And there are “before I kick the bucket” travel destinations I would like to visit, which involve boarding a train and seeking out stations that beckon with promise and excitement.

I have even already mapped out in my mind a round-the-world trip that would have me take the train from Paris to Istanbul, then on to Moscow, the Trans-Siberian to Vladivostock, a flight to Alaska, then buses and trains south to British Columbia and down to South America, fly to South Africa then buses and trains back to Europe.

It is an imperfect and imprecise plan, but then most grand adventures are.

Here in Switzerland, Swiss chests are swollen with pride not only because Swiss athletes have won medals in the Rio Olympics, but because two months ago, on 1 June 2016, the Gotthard Base Tunnel (Gotthard Basistunnel / Tunnel de base du Saint-Gotthard / Galleria di base del San Gottardo / Tunnel da basa dal Son Gottard in the four official Swiss languages of German, French, Italian and Romansh) was officially opened with dignitaries from across Europe extolling its virtues.

And I might visit this tunnel one day, for as much as it pains me to give the Swiss praise – they praise themselves already too jingoistically as it is – I have to acknowledge that Swiss engineers have truly accomplished something noteworthy here.

With a route length of 57 km (35 miles) and a total of 151 km (94 miles) of tunnels, shafts and passages, it is the world’s longest and deepest traffic tunnel and the first, flat, low level route through the Alps.

The GBT’s depth is approximately 2,300 metres (7,500 feet), which is compareable to that of the deepest mines on Earth.

Without ventilation, the temperature inside the mountain reaches 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).

The main purpose of the GBT is to increase local transport capacity through the Alpine barrier, especially for freight, notably on the Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa corridor, and more particularly to shift frieght volumes from trucks to freight trains.

Now this is significant, because not only does the GBT reduce the danger of fatal road crashes involving trucks, but it also reduces the environmental damage caused by these trucks.

The GBT bypasses the Gotthardbahn, a winding mountain route opened in 1882 across the Saint Gotthard Massif, which has been operating at full capacity, and establishes a direct route which can be used by both high speed rail and heavy freight trains.

The GBT consists of two single track tunnels, connecting Erstfeld in Canton Uri with Bodio in Canton Ticino, and passing underneath Sedrun in Canton Graubünden.

Passenger trains are now able to travel up to 250 km/h (155 mph) through the GBT, reducing travel times for transalpine train journeys by almost an hour.

And this saving of time and the environment cost the Swiss only 14 billion Swiss francs and nine people´s lives (only one of whom were Swiss).

But these costs in taxpayers´ hard-earned incomes and human life have all been forgiven and forgotten, for a commemoration ceremony – led by a Catholic vicar general, an Evangelical vicar, a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam – absolves all guilt… and the massive inauguration – with hundreds of Swiss citizens chosen by lot and dozens of dignitaries, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, and the resulting publicity –  absolves all remorse.

Throw in dancers and acrobats, singers and musicians, print and media, all united in harmonious orgasm in a celebration of Alpine culture and history…and you have yourselves the making of one hell of a party.

Now I recognize the merit of building a 57-km long tunnel but I find myself unmoved by this hullabaloo, for though the GBT might get me from Zürich to Milano a wee bit earlier, I am robbed of seeing much along the way if I am travelling through an underground passage.

For in reaching the destination quicker, we lose the quality of the journey.

I feel the same way about the Channel Tunnel, having crossed the Channel by boat and through the “Chunnel”, I gained time on the train and felt enchantment on the boat.

The trainspotter in me, the rail enthusiast within, does not celebrate the GBT.

Now, as suggested above and in previous blog posts, I have travelled by train in Britain.

I have ridden the rails to Cornwall with my wife and have visited friends in Southampton and Oxford and London by train and thoroughly loved riding old steam trains with a former girlfriend when we vacationed in Wales.

For even though rail travel in Britain is expensive, trains are still generally more comfortable than coaches.

Though British trains are still prone to the occasional delay or cancellation, at least most still run close to their scheduled times.

Though about 20 different companies operate train services in Britain and tracks and stations are operated by yet another company, causing confusion for many passengers, information and ticket services are increasingly centralised.

But the days of the best British trains – the slow, sweet branch lines – endangered in the days when train travel writer Paul Theroux in the early 80s wrote The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey around the Coast of Great Britain, may be drawing to a close.

“Twelve groups of companies have made applications to run rail franchises until 2020.

Among them is the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) who has made a bid to run the West Midlands franchise, operated at present by London Midland.

JR East is the operator of Japan’s high-speed bullet trains and manages the 742-mile high-speed network north of Tokyo.” (Times, 8 April 2016)

The Shinkansen, falsely translated by Westerners to mean “bullet train” from the Japanese dangan ressha, the nickname given to the high-speed project in the 1930s, actually refers to the earthquake-and-typhoon-proof track.

There are several types of Shinkasen train, including the 0 series – the front of which actually does resemble a bullet – and the 700 series – the front cab resembling a duck-billed platypus.

These trains reach speeds of up to 300 km per hour, and on average arrive within 6 seconds of their scheduled time.

The Swiss are the most frequent train users in Europe and there is no denying that its network is high quality, comfortable, efficient and scenic.

Swiss Federal Railways – or Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB), Chemins de fer fédéraux suisses (CFF), Ferrovie federal svizzere (FFS) – retains a monopoly on most of the network, but there are some routes, especially alpine lines, which are operated by the companies whch constructed them often a century or more ago.

Still in comparison with other nations, arrival of the railway in Switzerland was relatively late, because each of the country´s Cantons had a say over the routes chosen and they didn´t always agree.

Only after the enactment of the Federal Railways Act of 1852 did the possibility of a nation drawn together by a cohesive rail network become possible.

Zürich´s Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) is the largest railway station in Switzerland.

3,000 trains, carrying over 350,000 passengers, arrive and depart daily on 30 tracks.

The Hauptbahnhof is one of Switzerland´s oldest.

Outside the neo-Renaissance station is a fountain to the memory of Swiss politician and railway entrepreneur Alfred Escher (1819 – 1882) who initiated the construction of the Gotthard Railway and was the founder of Credit Suisse.

(See The Haa Bay and Needle Park of this blog.)

The GBT doesn´t recall the name of Alfred Escher but a Catholic shrine to Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners, stands inside the tunnel as a memorial to those who built the GBT.

I use the train almost every day, travelling to Konstanz and Zürich for shopping, travelling to St. Gallen, Amriswil, Herisau, Neuhaus and Winterthur for work.

And as much as I enjoy travelling by train, these routes are not my favourite, for I love more intensely the slow, sweet trains, trams and cable cars that climb and descend the hills and mountains of this alpine land.

In a former post, Along the Comedy Circuit, I described how one could travel from the Lake of Constance and the harbour of Rorschach, ride a boat along the lakeshore and up the Rhine River to Rheineck, take a gauge train up the hills to Walzenhausen, walk the Witzweg (Joke Trail) to Heiden, then take another gauge train from Heiden down the hills to Rorschach.

I mentioned how I had made this excursion with my wife.

But as much as I adore and respect my wife, I am very much like Paul Theroux in that I find travel more satisfying, more educational, when I am on my own.

When you travel with someone else your world and your perspective of it is reduced to seeing only one another rather than your isolation compelling you to interact with the world.

I mentioned in A to Z: Adam to Zelg how I taught a family in the village of Zelg in Canton Appenzell.

Zelg is a tiny town in the municipality of Wolfhalden and is reachable by bus from either Heiden or Rheineck and is midpoint by car between Walzenhausen and Rheineck.

On two occasions during my contract with the family Frei I had the opportunity to take these two mountain railways of Rheineck-Walzenhausen (the RhW) and Rorschach-Heiden (the RHB) on my own.

The RhW (Bergbahn Rheineck-Walzenhausen) is a 1.9 km (1.2 mile) long rack railway, that links Rheineck, Canton St. Gallen (SG), with Walzenhausen, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden (AR), in operation since 1896.

Rheineck (Rhine corner) is a Swiss municipality on the Austrian border, where the Rhine River meets and flows into the Bodensee (Lake of Constance).

Rheineck is an old place – by white Canadian, written historical, standards – as it has been around since 1163 when it was known as Castellum Rinegge (Rheineck Castle) – and it is filled with many old structures in its Altstadt.

Rheineck was home to Swiss writer William Wolfensberger (1889 – 1918) and painter Heinrich Herzig (1887 – 1964).

Walzenhausen is a village and a health resort and a starting point of the 8-km long Witzweg walking trail to Heiden.

The RhW starts from platform 1 of Rheineck`s railway station, parallels the SBB’s St. Margrethen – Rorschach railway line for 600 metres (2,000 feet), then makes a sharp right and crosses the highway to reach the Ruderbach stop.

Here the line joins the funicular rack operation and begins to climb at a steep gradient (25%)(272 m / 892 ft) in a straight line to Walzenhausen, passing first through a 315 metre (1,033 foot) long tunnel and then across a 153 metre (502 foot) long iron bridge over the Hexenkirchlitobel (little witches´ church ravine), to finally enter a 70 metre (230 foot) long tunnel under Walzenhausen’s spa house.

The entire journey on the RhW’s single four-wheeled railcar takes only 9 minutes, but despite the discomfort of the car´s wooden benches, one wants to ride the RhW again and again.

The RHB (Rorschach Heiden Bahn) is a standard gauge mountain rack railway, a 7 km (4.3 mile) route that links Rorschach, Canton St. Gallen, with Heiden, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden, in operation since 1871, and is a 19-minute journey.

Personally I don´t find the RHB as exciting as the RhW, but the places it connects are far more interesting than Rheineck and Walzenhausen for the visiting tourist.

Rorschach, on the south side of the Bodensee, is a very interesting place to visit and not just for its amazing location on the Lake.

One can reach Rorschach by train from either St. Gallen to the south or Romanshorn to the west as well as the RHB up to Heiden.

Highway A1 to the south leads to St. Gallen and St. Margrethen.

Rorschach has a harbour served by passenger ferries that travel to towns on the Swiss, Austrian and German sides of the Lake as well as upstream along the Rhine.

A number of trails begin in Rorschach: the Via Jacobi (one of the routes of the Way of St. James (Jakobsweg) that one can follow to Einsiedeln, Geneva and Santiago de la Compostela in faroff Spain), the Alpenpanoramaweg to Geneva and the Rheintaler Höhenweg (Rhine valley elevated trail) to Sargans.

For the tourist, one can visit the old granary and the Benedictine abbey of Mariaberg, the promenade along the Lake, the St. James Fountain (the starting point of the road to Spain), the bathing hut directly on the Lake, the aviation museum and Hundertwasser House in nearby Altenrhein, as well as the castles of St. Anna, Wartensee, Sulzberg and Wartegg.

Rorschach was the birthplace of Barock fresco painter Johann Melchior Eggmann (1711 – 1756), film actor and 1st Oscar winner Emil Jannings (1884 – 1950), photographer/painter/publisher Ernst Scheidegger (1923 – 2016), Bruno Stanek, space expert and TV moderator (born 1943), and professional racing car driver Neel Jani (born 1983).

(The famous Rorschach inkblot test is named after Hermann Rorschach (1884 – 1922), its Zürich inventor, not the town of Rorschach itself.)

Heiden is also noteworthy as a spa resort, as the birthplace of renowned scientist Hugo Thiemann (1917 – 20112) and footballer Davide Chiumiento (born 1984), and the final residence and resting place of Red Cross founder/Nobel Peace Prize winner Henri Dunant (1828 – 1910).

The Henri Dunant Museum is very interesting and well worth a visit.

The RHB is a very comfortable train that ascends 400 metres from Rorschach Main Station (not to be confused with the stations Rorschach Stadt and Rorschach Hafen) and stops upon request at Seebleiche (Pale Lake), Sandbüchel (sandy beeches), Wartensee (waiting lake), Wienacht-Tobel (like night ravine) and Schwendi bei Heiden.

The RHB is a very popular line with both local and international tourists and often the RHB will employ classic train wagons and old steam engines to attract more visitors.

I find myself drawn more towards the RhW and the RHB than the GBT because the old mountain railways embrace the mountains they climb rather than burrow through them.

The RhW and the RHB are symbols of harmony with heritage and nature rather than an avoidance of the environment in the pursuit of speed, in the name of progress.

As I am forced to concede that I do take the fastest trains to work to save time and reach my destination, my heart will always belong to the slow romance of the mountain railways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wormwood forever

Landschlacht, Switzerland, 6 August 2016

Perhaps it is a result of lying on a beach under the hot Italian sun for three days that have caused my thoughts to think about radiation…

I have just returned yesterday from a two-week holiday in Tuscany and have looked at some of the books I read, or wanted to read, whilst I was away.

I find myself most moved by a book I purchased before I went away: Svetlana Alexievich´s Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster.

On 26 April 1986, at 1:23:58, Reactor #4 at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, 100 km north of Kyiv, in the Ukraine, exploded.

The nuclear reactor after the disaster:

Reactor 4 (centre). Turbine building (lower left). Reactor 3 (centre right)

It was the largest technological disaster of the 20th century.

Nearly 9 tonnes of radioactive material (90 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb) spewed into the sky.

An estimated 4.9 million people living in northern Ukraine, southern Belarus and southwestern Russia were affected.

Contamination spread to cover 3/4 of Europe.

On 29 April 1986, instruments recorded high levels of radiation in Poland, Germany, Austria and Romania.

A day later, the radiation spread to Switzerland and northern Italy.

On 1 and 2 May, it reached France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and northern Greece.

On 3 May, radiation is detected in Israel, Kuwait and Turkey.

Gaseous airborne particles travelled the globe.

On 2 May they were registered in Japan, 5 May in India, 6 May in Canada and the States.

A local problem on the Belarussian border was suddenly a global problem.

On 11 September 2001, after the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center, emergency triage stations were set up throughout New York City.

Doctors and nurses rushed to their hospitals for extra shifts and many individuals came to donate blood.

These were touching acts of generosity and solidarity.

The blood and triage stations turned out to be unnecessary.

There were few survivors.

The effects of the explosion and nuclear fire at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986 were the exact opposite.

The initial blast killed just one plant worker, Valeriy Khodomchuk.

In the next few weeks no fewer than 30 workers and firemen died from acute radiation poisoning.

But tens of thousands received extremely high doses of radiation.

It was an accident that produced more survivors than casualities.

Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of a fireman whose brigade was the first to arrive at the reactor, witnessed the total degeneration of her husband’s skin in the week before his death.

Any little wrinkle in his bedding would wound him.

The Zone of Exclusion, as the Soviets termed the land within 30 km of the Chernboyl explosion, though evacuated of humans, was still filled with household pets.

As they had absorbed heavy doses of radiation in their fur and were liable to wander out of the Zone, hunters had to go in and shoot them all.

The Soviets had designed a poorly constructed reactor and then staffed it with a group of incompetents, then lied about the disaster while trying to cover it up.

Today the land is still too dangerous for agricultural use and children are still getting sick from the effects of radiation poisoning passed onto them genetically, those that manage to survive pregnancy and do not die pre-term.

The rivers remain polluted by much of the silt carried downstream from Chernobyl.

“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water.  The name of the star is Wormwood.  A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.” (The Holy Bible, Revelations 8: 10-11)

Thirty years after the 1986 disaster, many babies born in Chernobyl’s neighbouring regions have birth defects and develop rare forms of cancer.

For neighbouring tiny Belarus, population 10 million, one out of every five Belarussians live on contaminated land.

That is 2.1 million people, of whom 700,000 are children.

Mortality rates exceed birth rates by 20%.

The 4th reactor, known as “the Cover”, still holds about 20 tons of nuclear fuel in its lead-and-metal core…and there are fissures.

There are now over 200 square metres of spaces and cracks.

Radioactive particles continue to escape…

The operation to dismantle Chernobyl’s radioactive core is one of the world´s largest engineering projects and could take another 30 years.

Some say that present radioactive levels at Chernobyl are negligible, so organised tours of the site and the surrounding ghost villages are possible.

Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown and their stories reveal fear, anger and uncertainty with which they still live.

These survivors are fatalistic, stoically brave people who won´t abandon their homes even if they are poisoned with radiation.

Meanwhile in Fukushima, Japan, the only other nuclear accident almost comparable to Chernobyl, full clean-up of the site is expected to take at least 40 years.

Five years (11 March 2011) after a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck, causing three reactors at Fukushima to melt down, a veneer of stability masks a grueling daily battle to contain hazardous radiation.

A smooth clean-up is top priority for the Japanese government which wants to rebuild Japan’s tattered nuclear power industry, as only one atomic power station remains operating in the country and more than 40 reactors sit idle.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the world’s worst nuclear accident since 1986, displaced 50,000 households after radiation leaked into the air, soil and sea.

Radiation checks led to bans of some shipments of vegetables and fish.

The Japan Times estimated 1,600 deaths were the result of evacuation, due to physical and mental stress stemming from long stays at shelters, a lack of initial care as a result of hospitals disabled by the disaster and suicides.

The Fukushima accident sparked worldwide controversy.

Eight of the seventeen operating nuclear plants in Germany were shut down after the 2011 Fukushima accident and it plans to close all its reactors by 2022.

“At Fukushima, four reactors have been out of control for weeks, casting doubt on whether even an advanced economy can master nuclear safety.” (Swiss bank USB, Bloomberg, 4 March 2011)

Countries such as Australia, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand and Norway have no nuclear power reactors and remain opposed to nuclear power.

At present there are over 441 reactors worldwide in 31 countries, with 67 more under construction in 15 countries.

In Switzerland, for example, the Leibstadt reactor produces an annual average of 25 million kilowatt hours per day, enough to power a city the size of Boston.

The United States produces the most nuclear energy, with much of its military, and some civilian, using nuclear marine propulsion.

Nuclear power provides more than 11% of the world’s electricity.

There are five nuclear weapons states: the US, Russia, The UK, France and China.

This means there are 4,000 active nuclear weapons in the world and 10,000 nuclear weapons in total.

A full-scale nuclear war could bring about the extinction of the entire human race.

“We knew the world would not be the same.

A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.

I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita. 

Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says,

“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

I suppose we all thought that one way or another.”

— J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Decision To Drop The Bomb^[

Proponents of nuclear energy contend that that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions and increase energy security by decreasing dependence on imported energy sources.

Nuclear energy produces virtually no conventional air pollution, such as greenhouse gases and smog.

Oil is running out amd nuclear energy could be a replacement energy source.

Opponents believe that nuclear power poses many threats.

There are the problems of processing, transporting and storing nuclear waste, the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and terrorist targets, as well as health risks and environmental damage from uranium mining.

Reactors are enormously complex machines where many things can and do go wrong.

And as Chernobyl and Fukushima will attest, there have been serious nuclear accidents.

When considering all the energy-intensive stages of the nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining to nuclear decommissioning, nuclear power is neither a low carbon or economical energy source.

“I don´t know what I should talk about – about death or about love?

Or are they the same?

Which one should I talk about?

We were newlyweds. 

We still walked around holding hands, even if we were just going to the store.  

I would say to him, “I love you.”

But I didn’t know how much. 

I had no idea…

One night I heard a noise. 

I looked out the window. 

He saw me.

“Close the window and go back to sleep.  There’s a fire at the reactor.  I’ll be back soon.”

I didn´t see the explosion itself.

Just the flames.

Everything was radiant. 

The whole sky.

A tall flame.

And smoke. 

The heat was awful.

And he’s still not back….

Seven o’clock. 

At seven I was told he was in the hospital. 

I ran there, but the police had already encircled it, and they weren’t letting anyone through. 

Only ambulances….

I started looking for a friend, she was a doctor at that hospital. 

I grabbed her white coat when she came out of an ambulance.

“Get me inside.”

“I can’t.  He’s bad. They all are.”

I held onto her. 

“Just to see him!”

“All right.  Come with me. Just for fifteen or twenty minutes.”

I saw him. 

He was all swollen and puffed up. 

You could barely see his eyes….

He started to change – every day I met a brand-new person. 

The burns started to come to the surface. 

In his mouth, on his tongue, his cheeks…

It came off in layers – as white film…the colour of his face…his body…blue…red…gray-brown…

It happened so fast. 

There wasn´t any time to think. 

There wasn’t any time to cry.

I loved him! 

I had no idea how much! 

We had just gotten married. 

When we walked down the street – he would grab my hands and whirl me around. 

And kiss me, kiss me….

It was a hospital for people with acute radiation poisoning. 

Fourteen days. 

In fourteen days a person dies….

I tell the nurse on duty: “He’s dying.” 

And she says to me: “What did you expect?  He got 1,600 roentgen.  400 is a lethal dose.  You’re sitting next to a nuclear reactor.”….

Fourteen nights. 

That´s how long it takes a person to die….

There are many of us here…

They have bad diseases, they’re invalids, but they don’t leave…

Often they die. 

In an instant. 

They just drop…

No one has really asked us. 

No one has asked us what we have been through. 

What we saw. 

No one wants to hear about death. 

About what scares them.

But I was telling you about love. 

About my love…”

(Lyudmilla Ignatenko, wife of deceased fireman Vasily Ignatneko)

(Sources: Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster; New York Times, 10 March 2016; Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silence Between

Landschlacht, Switzerland: 9 May 2016

An email from an old friend, Sumit, asks: “Not writing blogs anymore?…I have not seen any new blogs in the last few weeks.”

A daily journal, bought at a local grocery chain, has a leather cover that intimidates: “You don´t write because you want to say something.  You write because you have something to say.” (Anonymous)

Facebook: Someone posts a photo of a shelf of books.  Upon the book held up to the foreground of the picture, a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

A private student, upon reading my blog for the first time, commented that she thought that she didn´t need to read about places she already knew, but she thought that underneath all the verbiage was a feeling of sadness.

“So, what´s been happening?”, you might be asking.

“Where have you gone?

Why no more blogging?”

Not an easy or a comfortable question to answer…

Perhaps one might consider what silence actually means…

Many years ago, I spent a very little time in Japan, and at first glance it is a country where everything seems to be happening all at once:

People congregating at Akachochin devouring, like greedy beggars at a banquet, skewered chicken yakitori and grilled squid washed down with beer or sake.

Children scared by their parents into cleaning the bath or the Akaname – a human frog with wild hair, an incredibly long tongue and a single clawed toe will enter the dirty bathroom in the dead of night and will lick the children giving them serious sickness.

Baseball – more popular in Japan than football is in England – is not just a sport, it is a way of life so ingrained in the character of the Land of the Rising Sun that, like bowing or breathing, it consumes them with a passion that haunts even their dreams.

Scandal has never been far away from Japanese shores…

Sada Abe (1905 – 1987), a failed geisha and former prostitute turned waitress, had an affair with the owner of the restaurant where she worked.

To prevent him from leaving her, she strangled him to death and hacked off his privates, knowing that if she killed him, no woman would ever touch him again.

On 8 January 1992, US President George Bush at a state dinner given in his honour during a visit to Japan throws up in the lap of the Japanese Prime Minister Kichi Miyazawa, creating the word “Bushusuru” (doing a Bush) meaning to vomit without warning.

Morning, 20 March 1995, 7:30 am, five men board trains at various stations along the Tokyo subway system and release the deadly nerve agent sarin.

Twelve people dead, a thousand injured.

Alcoholism is rampant in Japan as is drunk driving.

The attitude?

Dakari nani?

So what?

Over 1,000 earthquakes a year in Japan, though most are minor tremors barely noticed.

But what is minor and really noticed is Kata – the rituals attached to all activities, and what truly separates us Gaijin from being truly Japanese.

Electric talking toilets; enko ballad singing; the remote possibility of death by eating fugu (blowfish); navigating the rubbish as you wind your way up Mount Fuji; the xenophobic attitudes of the Japanese to those who can never be Japanese; gambatte do-or-die bravery of all who will sacrifice all for the challenge of a greater good; the insanity of Japanese TV game shows; the constant, not at all subtle, gawping of young and old at the obvious foreigners amongst them; the burdensome duties of giri (obligation) one has towards others; golf consuming up precious land and precious time in a country lacking both; drunken hordes of businessmen visiting hosutesu (hostess bars); the never-ending repetition of irashaimase (“welcome”) in any place that deals with the public; the unimaginable disgrace of jaywalking done only by ignorant gaijin or by yakuza gangsters; kapuseru hoteru (capsule hotels) though very cheap are too reminiscient of being buried alive in a fully functional coffin; the labyrinth complexity of keigo (honourific language) that detemines how you speak by with whom you must speak; the waving cats (maneki neko) that greet customers through shop and restaurant windows; overcrowded subways of manga-reading businessmen, the kata of one´s meishi (the ritual of giving your business card); pretending to enjoy Noh (Japanese theatre which, much like Japanese literature, seems to be about nothing happening); playing the omikuji to determine your fortune and destiny; pachinko parlors – a sort of Japanese gambling casino in a country where gambling for cash is illegal – where hordes stare at machines bombarding them with loud noise and bright light; pornography where all is suggested yet nothing is seen, including the presence of joy or pleasure; rabu hoteru (love hotels) where the itch can be scratched; the utter delight of ryokan (traditional Japanese hotels); sake – that drink of the gods – where memory and giri can be divinely drenched; those poor bastards sarariman – the common man – the 12-hour day labourers – unloved and unappreciated yet crucial to the entire structure of the Japanese economy…

So much to bewilder the mind and astonish the senses…

A timeless land that is both bounded by tradition and yet a land beyond tomorrow.

Yet, with all the sound and fury that erupts around the visitor, the faces and the attitudes of the Japanese themselves seem to the uninformed gaijin to be that of non-reactive – “nothing to see here”, “nothing is happening”.

Try reading Japanese literature and the Western mind finds itself desperately craving action.

But therein lies the secret of Japan…

5 / 6 of Japan is uninhabitable, 7,000 islands of mostly mountains suitable only for pine trees, incapable of supporting roads, homes or factories.

127 million people live on top of one another on the crammed coasts in unbelievably cramped and crowded conditions, so they must achieve harmony or the resulting anarchy will tear them apart.

Individuality and selfishness are dangerous.

Society can only work if all work together.

The aim is to remain as level, as neutral, as possible, keeping your private concerns and feelings to yourself and present a gregarious surface that gives little away.

Maintain the larger harmony, so that whatever happens, happens within.

The truth lies not in what is expressed, but rather what is unstated.

To really understand requires rigourous attention to the small print of life, what is suggested rather than said, what is under the surface and between the lines.

To inhabit this world is to live in a realm of constant inner explosions, tremors underground but barely felt by others.

Everything happens between the spaces and in the silences.

Nothing is ordinary.

Nothing is without effect.

A cherry blossom petal falls to the ground and the earth trembles.

Change is constant and emotions revolve around change, but expressing these emotions selfishly disturbs the harmony of the group.

The same can be said for relationships, even here in the expressive emotional West.

What a couple don´t say to one another is just as significant as what they do say.

My wife frequently complains that I don´t express myself enough and perhaps she feels that the unexpressed emotion means an absence of emotion, but this is where she is wrong.

For within my mind is a torrent of emotion and the inner conflict and struggle is to comprehend these emotions and somehow discern which should be communicated and how they should be communicated.

For the more that is spoken, the more that can be misunderstood.

So, in my periods of silence, it is not that nothing is happening but rather the reverse – so much is happening I need time and silence to assimilate it all.

And then I am ready to attempt to speak my mind or write something worth reading.

And though like the soto (invisibility) of the falling cherry blossom petal, events and places may seem commonplace and undramatic, the resulting impact upon myself is worth expression, for both the significance of my own unique perspective brings contribution to the world, as well as the similarity of my human reactions to others creates harmony of shared experience.

So, be patient with me, gentle readers, gentle friends and family, for never imagine that I care too little, but rather realise that I care too much that mere words and emotional expression are only the tip of the iceberg.

Much lies under the surface in the silence between.