Comments on "Odessa - Genius and Death in a City of Dreams" by Charles King
They say that history should not be forgotten; so, the city of Odessa in today's Ukraine was founded during the reign of Catherine the Great in 1794, about 3 years after Washington, D.C. However, there was already a Tartar village at that site, which was named Khadjibey, whose origins are obscure, but the village of Khadjibey first appears in written sources in the early 1400s. The Tartar and Cossack inhabitants of Khadjibey became Ottoman subjects in the early 1500s.
By the beginning of the First World War the population of Odessa was around 650 thousand people, who were classified as about 39% Russian, 36% Jewish, and 17% Ukrainian, in spite of viscious pogroms and considerable emmigration of Jews in the earlier years of the century.
During the Second World War the "Responsibility for the Holocaust in Odessa and Transnistria rested squarely with Romania, the only country ... besides Nazi Germany to administer a major Soviet city. By the end of the war the Romanians had largely emptied Odessa of what remained of its Jewish population. One of Europe's greatest centers of Jewish life and culture had become, in the language of the Nazis, almost wholly judenrein."
In writing about the high numbers of collaborators the author further says that, "An urban population practised in unmasking class traitors, exposing the wreckers of socialism, and rooting out enemies of the people easily transferred those techniques to uncovering secret Jews."
Nonetheless, "Odessa was one of the first four Soviet cities ... to be awarded the title Gorod-Geroi, or "hero city."
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Experimental Blog #60
Comments on 2 books
"The Last Speakers" - The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison
In spite of the author's tendency to harangue, especially in the last chapters of this National Geographic book, "The Last Speakers" is very interesting and informative.
The author says that there are about 7000 languages being used in the world today, but isn't it true that over 90% of all the people in the world speak less than 100 languages?
Many people sooner or later realize that it is very worthwhile for various reasons to know more than one language, maybe even 3 or 4, and even knowing 3 or 4 languages is not extremely rare. How many "literary languages" are there in the world? Two dozen? Two hundred? Five hundred? People will always study those languages.
For the remaining 6500 languages, the best way to preserve many of them, probably, is for someone to write an interesting book in that language, such as "The History and/or Culture of These People" or, perhaps an autobiography.
Why be so gloomy and talk about a language, or even 1000s of languages being "doomed" to extinction? Won't people continue to do what they have always done? That is, won't they continue to make of their human speech, or their language, whatever they need or want to do?
"Andrew Johnson" by Annette Gordon-Reed
Although this author, Annette Gordon-Reed, takes a very standard liberal political view, her book on Andrew Johnson is certainly one of the more interesting books in this somewhat controversial series of political histories of American presidents.
Political history is almost by definition abstract. All the actually living people become "players", as if on the "stage of history." They lose their "human sides" and tend to become "black and white" "stick" or "cardboard figures."
None the less, maybe something like the still popular "Civil War" reenactments for some people, reading about and seeming to observe or witness these political "players" can be both enjoyable and thought provoking.
Andrew Johnson himself may have been a very "spellbinding" extemporaneous speaker; which is not always such a good thing, but he left very little original writing, and the author, and other historians say, nothing of high quality. That seems to be the main reason why he is rated so low by most historians and almost overlooked altogether. He also seems to have inconsistently "talked out of both sides of his mouth", the author says, or changed sides too many times. Or is this a "too unkind evaluation"?
"The Last Speakers" - The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages by K. David Harrison
In spite of the author's tendency to harangue, especially in the last chapters of this National Geographic book, "The Last Speakers" is very interesting and informative.
The author says that there are about 7000 languages being used in the world today, but isn't it true that over 90% of all the people in the world speak less than 100 languages?
Many people sooner or later realize that it is very worthwhile for various reasons to know more than one language, maybe even 3 or 4, and even knowing 3 or 4 languages is not extremely rare. How many "literary languages" are there in the world? Two dozen? Two hundred? Five hundred? People will always study those languages.
For the remaining 6500 languages, the best way to preserve many of them, probably, is for someone to write an interesting book in that language, such as "The History and/or Culture of These People" or, perhaps an autobiography.
Why be so gloomy and talk about a language, or even 1000s of languages being "doomed" to extinction? Won't people continue to do what they have always done? That is, won't they continue to make of their human speech, or their language, whatever they need or want to do?
"Andrew Johnson" by Annette Gordon-Reed
Although this author, Annette Gordon-Reed, takes a very standard liberal political view, her book on Andrew Johnson is certainly one of the more interesting books in this somewhat controversial series of political histories of American presidents.
Political history is almost by definition abstract. All the actually living people become "players", as if on the "stage of history." They lose their "human sides" and tend to become "black and white" "stick" or "cardboard figures."
None the less, maybe something like the still popular "Civil War" reenactments for some people, reading about and seeming to observe or witness these political "players" can be both enjoyable and thought provoking.
Andrew Johnson himself may have been a very "spellbinding" extemporaneous speaker; which is not always such a good thing, but he left very little original writing, and the author, and other historians say, nothing of high quality. That seems to be the main reason why he is rated so low by most historians and almost overlooked altogether. He also seems to have inconsistently "talked out of both sides of his mouth", the author says, or changed sides too many times. Or is this a "too unkind evaluation"?
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Experimental Blog #59
Comments on "Tearing the Silence" - On Being German in America by Ursula Hegi
These 16 stories of 9 German women and 7 men who were born from 1939 to 1949, and who immigrated to America from 2 to 35 years of age, from 1947 to 1984, are very revealing and thought provoking.
The author, Ursula Hegi, emphasizes what can happen when a people become so self-righteous that they feel completely different from other people.
Perhaps this particular period of history might begin when the uncompromising French and English presented the hypocritical, vengeful, and very stupid Treaty of Versailles to Germany in 1919 at the end of World War I. And the Germans, not being any smarter or more imaginative, absurdly accepted it.
The result was the discrediting of any and all moderation and the extreme destabilizing of German society, politics, and government. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power only 14 years later, it can be said that the French and English had created, or, at least stimulated, precisely what they had so dishonestly tried to prevent.
"And so the war came..."
Winston Churchill , a staunch promoter of the British Empire, is often considered to be the dominating allied world leader during that war, World War II, and he seemed to be equally concerned not only with defeating Germany, again, but, also, with keeping Russia out of Eastern Europe.
For that reason he stubbornly refused to allow an invasion of Nazi occupied Europe from the west, but kept promoting an invasion from the Balkan Peninsula, no matter the "mountainous" obstacles. Perhaps he hoped that the Germans would eventually stall and stop the advance of the Red Army, but that did not happen. He only agreed to the Normandy Invasion, which finally took place at least a whole year later, it is said, than when Franklin Roosevelt felt that America was ready and the invasion should occur, when it became clear that the Red Army would take Berlin, and even possibly threaten to go all the way to the Atlantic.
Of course, there is a case for such a view. After all, the communist Soviet Union was the declared uncompromising enemy of all "capitalists, kings, and landowners," and would likely have shot all of them if they could. But it turned out that by trying to force his will on the world around him, Winston Churchill helped accomplish what he was trying so hard to prevent, that is, Russian domination of all of Eastern Europe. And he might be considered one of the chief architects of Cold War Europe, that lasted for about 44 years, with its "Iron Curtain," Churchill's term, right across the continent.
Of course, all of the opinions expressed here have the advantage of what is sometimes called "20/20 hindsight."
Are Germans the only people who are "clean, orderly, obedient, thorough, conscientious, and punctual?" Ursula Hegi frequently mentions these stereotypes.
These 16 stories of 9 German women and 7 men who were born from 1939 to 1949, and who immigrated to America from 2 to 35 years of age, from 1947 to 1984, are very revealing and thought provoking.
The author, Ursula Hegi, emphasizes what can happen when a people become so self-righteous that they feel completely different from other people.
Perhaps this particular period of history might begin when the uncompromising French and English presented the hypocritical, vengeful, and very stupid Treaty of Versailles to Germany in 1919 at the end of World War I. And the Germans, not being any smarter or more imaginative, absurdly accepted it.
The result was the discrediting of any and all moderation and the extreme destabilizing of German society, politics, and government. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power only 14 years later, it can be said that the French and English had created, or, at least stimulated, precisely what they had so dishonestly tried to prevent.
"And so the war came..."
Winston Churchill , a staunch promoter of the British Empire, is often considered to be the dominating allied world leader during that war, World War II, and he seemed to be equally concerned not only with defeating Germany, again, but, also, with keeping Russia out of Eastern Europe.
For that reason he stubbornly refused to allow an invasion of Nazi occupied Europe from the west, but kept promoting an invasion from the Balkan Peninsula, no matter the "mountainous" obstacles. Perhaps he hoped that the Germans would eventually stall and stop the advance of the Red Army, but that did not happen. He only agreed to the Normandy Invasion, which finally took place at least a whole year later, it is said, than when Franklin Roosevelt felt that America was ready and the invasion should occur, when it became clear that the Red Army would take Berlin, and even possibly threaten to go all the way to the Atlantic.
Of course, there is a case for such a view. After all, the communist Soviet Union was the declared uncompromising enemy of all "capitalists, kings, and landowners," and would likely have shot all of them if they could. But it turned out that by trying to force his will on the world around him, Winston Churchill helped accomplish what he was trying so hard to prevent, that is, Russian domination of all of Eastern Europe. And he might be considered one of the chief architects of Cold War Europe, that lasted for about 44 years, with its "Iron Curtain," Churchill's term, right across the continent.
Of course, all of the opinions expressed here have the advantage of what is sometimes called "20/20 hindsight."
Are Germans the only people who are "clean, orderly, obedient, thorough, conscientious, and punctual?" Ursula Hegi frequently mentions these stereotypes.
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