Women and Beauty in Art

There can hardly be too much praise for a YouTubist EggMan913 who created a stunning short video history of a female portraiture in Western art. Not only is this video a praise to the image of a Woman, it is also a deftly organised observation of the angles, postures and expressions throughout 500 years of Western painting. In the first 10 seconds you see a Russian icon melting into three consecutive portraits by Leonardo (A Head of a Young Woman (read about this famous sketch at Thais - Leonardo Pittore, both in English and Italian), Madonna with the Carnation, and Mona Lisa (La Gioconda)), changed by Raphael's Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn, which in turn melts into Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.

Unfortunately, although the video is clearly subtitled '500 Years of Western Art', some viewers still missed the point and expressed concerns that only portraits of white women were used. Let me stress once again that in this video we should look beyond a mere portrayal of a female beauty. We need to pay attention to how the faces of women from different epochs and countries, painted by many an outstanding artist, melt, transfuse into one another. Not attempting to minimise EggMan's success, I would point out that this success was possible primarily because, as this video amply demonstrates, Western art throughout its entire history looked at a woman from more or less the same angles.

To illustrate the point, look at the first few images. On all of them a painter sits to the left of his model and looks up at her. All models have their heads turned, under a different angle, to their right. This striking similarity is enhanced if we bear in mind that these depictions come from the 12th, 15th and early 16th cc.

(The images, from left to right, clockwise: Archangel (Angel the Golden Locks) (Novgorod School, Russia, 2nd half of the 12th c.), Head of a Young Woman (Leonardo, 1506-1508 (?)), Madonna with the Carnation (Leonardo, c. 1475), and The Birth of Venus (Botticelli, c. 1485)).

Even only based on the portraits of European and predominantly white women, this video shows 500 years of a continuous evolution not only of the image of female beauty, but of the concept of Beauty, as well. With this video EggMan, consciously or not, plays a check on what we conceive of as beautiful. Although the majority of comments to this video are positive, some of them decry modern art for its deviation from what is perceived as a "classical" model of Beauty, evoked in the works of art prior to the 20th c. However, I dare say that the Russian icon that opens the video and Picasso's Portrait of Françoise at the end are a very deft choice. For their schematism builds a barrier between the image and its model, thus inviting a viewer to look beyond the model's physique. 'Beautiful' hence is not an external, but an inner quality of the model, and if there is anything that we should be indebted for to the 20th c. art is that it has gone every extra mile to make us see beautiful in something which doesn't look such at the first glance.

Finally, even if this video doesn't provoke you to any high-flown discourse on the subject of Beauty with your friends and colleagues, it can be treated as a short exam on your knowledge of the history of Western art. And, unless EggMann is already in the process of doing this, may we kindly ask him to make a film about men in Western art. This subject is no less beautiful, and the controversy that often surrounds it will only expand our perception of Beauty.



Links:

EggMan913 channel
University of Dayton (Madonna with the Carnation)
Thais - Arte & Natura (Leonardo's sketch) - in English and Italian
Христианство в искусстве/Christianity in Art (Archangel) - in Russian, English, and German
John W MacDonald's Blog (The Birth of Venus)

My Trips to Bolton -3 (Bolton's Hidden Gem, St Andrews Court)

As you probably know from my previous posts, I like visiting Bolton. In fact, I have been visiting it regularly since my first visit to Manchester in 2002. Back then I didn't go farther than Bolton Market Hall which dates back to 1855 (left, courtesy of Bolton Revisited). The inside of the building may remind you of a train station. Back in 1855 it was said to be 'the largest covered market in the kingdom'. Thanks to the townsfolk petition in the recent years, the Market Hall has been spared closure and is currently being renovated. I loved visiting Morelli's Cappuccino on the terrace, where they brew one of the best cappuccinos I've ever drunk, complete with a chocolate heart on top of the foam. Morelli's are still running, but these days they've moved to the ground floor, which admittedly has taken away some of the beauty of the pastime there.

Last time I went to Bolton was this Saturday, and, upon leaving the bus, I crossed the road and walked down the street, and then I turned right, into a quaint cobbled street. I knew exactly where I was going, but the route I took was not the usual one. I had some free time before my appointment, thus I wasn't afraid of getting lost in the unknown quarter of the town.

As I was walking down this cobbled street (which name I don't even know), I was looking here and there, and suddenly there was this little quite street on my left, and there I saw this building. I couldn't stop by, but I gave myself a word to return to this street on my way back.

The building houses St Andrews Court, adjacent to Crompton Shopping Centre. If you mentally project the view in this picture to the right, there will be Crompton car park, and the old building faces the entrance to the parking place. But it is so easy to never look into the street where St Andrews Court is located and so to pass it by that we can certainly call it Bolton's Hidden Gem, as a parallel to Manchester's St Mary The Hidden Gem.

The building boasts a very unusual tower, which was what attracted my attention to it in the first place. Although from the first glance St Andrews Court looks to be located in an old church's building, on second thoughts it is unlikely. The tower looks nothing like a bell tower, not only because it doesn't actually have a bell, but also because it is very small. And secondly, the back of the building has got this peculiar stained glass window. If you look at the picture, in the third from the bottom row of symbols you will see a horseshoe on the left, and the initial 'A' on the right. I'm struggling for the meaning of the middle image, but perhaps it is a fishing net? At any rate, my second guessing is that the building may be a guildhall.

What is most interesting is that I am also struggling to find information about St Andrews Court on the web. I know that if I bury my head into books on local history at Bolton Library or even Manchester City Library, I will find some information. But despite the fact that several local history portals are currently present online, hardly any of them mentions the original purpose of the building where St Andrews Court is now located.

Nevertheless, the place has got this magical aura, and I don't think it has to do anything with the fact that I have only just discovered it, that I know little about it, and that for these reasons it appears to be mysterious and unique. On the left you can see the picture of a walk between the court's building and the edifice next to it (it's made of red brick and these days has got a blue-and-white visor above the shop window). The walk is apparently called Bowker's Row (the image is a courtesy of Bolton.org.uk), and to me it looks like an entrance to a rabbit hole.

Needless to say, if you have any more information on St Andrews Court, feel free to share it with us via the comments.


Links:

My Trips to Bolton-1
My Trips to Bolton-2 (Ye Olde Man and Scythe)
Bolton Revisited
Our Treasures - 'a gateway to the hidden treasures of Bolton and Bury Art Galleries and Museums'
St Mary's The Hidden Gem - a website dedicated to Manchester's St Mary's Church, affectionately nicknamed The Hiddem Gem. 'St. Mary’s (The Hidden Gem) was founded in 1794 in the centre of what was then, the poorest quarter of Manchester . It is now thought to be the oldest post- Reformation Catholic church founded as a church in any major centre of population in England. The Relief act allowing Catholic churches to be built again as churches was passed in 1791. The building of St. Mary’s was begun in 1792. This makes St Mary’s the Catholic mother-church of the whole of Greater Manchester'

Massage Interview Anybody?

Normally, massages are used for relaxation; sometimes they are used for arousal; and sometimes, as Google Official Blog reports, they are used for interviews.

Upon throwing a quick glance at the title of the recent GOB's post, Massage Interviews?, I instantly remembered something I read on MSN a while ago about organising a business meeting in the park, to escape the routine of stiff indoor negotiations. So, I thought that Google has taken it all one step further (as always!): if you and your business partner can discuss serious stuff, while walking casually on your company's lawn, then why can't you meet them at your company's spa and enjoy Esalen massage?

Thankfully, I was wrong, although not entirely. At Google, they do use a massage room to the business end: to conduct interviews... with a prospective masseur (-euse). Indeed, is there any better way to check, if your employee is any good at what they practise, other than by trying it yourself?

'as Googlers, it is our duty to help with the hard task of receiving table or chair massages as part of the interviews. Though we do have to write detailed feedback about the massage, just like any other interview, in this interview, all I had to do was close my eyes and relax. Who knew interviewing could be so easy!' says Reza Behforooz.

You are undoubtedly familiar with table massage. If you find "chair massage" sound puzzling, then this picture might shed some light. The picture is taken from the interview with Connie Scholl, a chair massage expert at At Peace Media.

I think I shall suggest my company to hire an in-house massage practitioner... and I'll make sure I'm the one who interviews them!

How Short Is "Shortly"?

How long does it normally take to get a reply from somebody? I noticed that companies and institutions usually stipulate the time when they are likely to respond to your letter. They sometimes go even further. For instance, when you're applying for a job, your application guidelines occasionally state that if you don't receive a positive reply by a certain date, your application has been unsuccessful.

Obviously, even when an exact period of time is stipulated, it doesn't mean it will be observed. The situation can get more frustrating if you're trying to get hold of somebody by phone or email, and the person is taking time, as if on purpose. I mean strictly formal communication in this case, and I had my fair share of chasing contacts. I'm not complaining, though: have I not done this, I would never learn, how persevering I could be. At any event, "short" could in fact be quite long.

I must admit, though, that today my understanding of "shortness" has really expanded. On Sunday I found a video of Oh Early on Ivan's Day, which I subsequently wrote about. But - and this is a piece of news - I have created a YouTube account. I haven't uploaded any original videos yet, but have added a lot to 'My Favourites' section, just to have them all in one place. So, I decided to post this video by Pesnyary. A little form has opened, I wrote a short blog post, clicked on the button, and YouTube said:

'Your post will be published shortly'.

I went into my blog's interface because I wanted to add tags to the post. In fifteen minutes or so there was no post. I thought I did something wrong, so I returned to the video and posted it once again, this time without text. In the next half an hour there were no posts. Somewhat disheartened, I decided to upload an audiofile, which led me to creating an Odeo account. I was slightly concerned that those two posts could still appear on the blog, but Sunday saw none of them.

Neither did Monday.

And not even Tuesday.

Following some strange feeling today in the morning, I decided to check my email before I went to work. And there they were, two email updates from my blog. Predictably, on the blog there were not one, but three posts about Pesnyary's song. I deleted those that were no longer relevant.

So, let's see: it took YouTube nearly three days to publish a post. Given the fact that they didn't stipulate the time, in which they were going to do it, three days is nothing, really. But it questions the notion of "online real-time publishing" that the web offers to those who use it.

Oh Early on Ivan's Day (Pesnyary)

I have been exchanging a lot of videos recently with a friend of mine, who eventually said: 'You send me English and French musical videos, but what about Russian ones?'

I was somewhat lost for words, to be honest, not because sending something in Russian has never crossed my mind, but rather because I felt I would need to explain too much, which could kill the joy of liking something just because it is likeable. Another point is that Russian (or Soviet) music scene has never been completely cut off the "Western music". Indeed, it was difficult to get access to it, but surprisingly, those rare contacts seem to me to have been more beneficial for the musical progress, than Russia's current openness to the Western musical trends. Then, of course, one can say that until recently the Western music was better, so no wonder its influence was benigne.

There's a plenty of good Soviet pop and rock songs out there, which I could translate and put up here. But I opted to introduce you to one of my favourite musical groups, a Belarussian band called Pesnyary. Pesnyary (the final syllable is stressed) means bards, and the group's speciality was modern arrangements of Belarussian folk songs, as well as original songs inspired by the Belarussian folklore. Since their formation in 1969 by the now late Vladimir Mulyavin, the band has seen many changes in its membership, but their creative vision has remained unrivalled. They covered several Beatles's songs and put Shakespearean sonnets to music. They composed larger musical pieces, including an opera and a masterful interpretation of Robert Burns's cantata, The Jolly Beggars.

The song posted here is called Oh Early on Ivan's Day, and is an arrangement of a Belarussian folk song dedicated to the Midsummer Night holiday, which is celebrated on July 7 (St John the Baptist Day). It opens with a stupendous a capella, and the use of harmonies mesmerises you later on. It has got some medieval overtones, which yet again might remind us that medieval music has got a lot to offer to a musician. I intentionally left Belarussian/Russian equivalent to the name John, Ivan, in the title. The picture shows a performance of this song on Soviet TV in 1971.


Links:

Pesnyary

- official website (in Russian)
- Wikipedia entry (in Russian)
- a site about the band (in Russian mainly)
- about the band at PNP Records (in English) - a very good overview of Pesnyary's inventive musical outlook from a records collector from St Petersburg.


powered by ODEO

If you are experiencing problems with Odeo player, follow this link.

Feel free to post your comments and questions!

Running Manchester

Upon my word, when I just arrived in Manchester, I barely saw any runners in the street. These days, and especially this spring, the city is swarming with men and women of all ages and sportive apparel, counting miles and shedding sweat. You may say they're getting ready to a Tesco Run or a BUPA Great Manchester Run, but when there're no sporting competitions coming up they're still running. Shall we say that Manchester is rapidly coming to lead a healthy lifestyle? I believe so.

I usually stumble into runners or see them through my bus's window on my way back from work. The runners:

• are of different ages, nationalities, and genders;
  
• run alone or in pairs;
  
• sometimes run with dogs on the lead (normally they follow the dog, but sometimes it's vice versa);
  
• sometimes run with a rucksack (in Ancient Greece, during the Olympic Games, one of the racing competitions would see an athlete running in full army ammunition. I don't know if those who run with rucksacks are familiar with this fact, but their running manner dates back to quite awhile ago, as we see);
  
• sometimes wear sunglasses;
  
• sometimes wear baseball hats;
  
• sometimes wear long tracking bottoms;
  
• or knee-long leggings;
  
• or really short shorts (may I note that usually the men who wear (micro) shorts have got really nice long legs);
  

Do I run? I'm not a fan of running, I must admit. I love skiing, that's true, but running sounds anything but inspiring. I recently ran to the train station after work and was gasping for breath all the time while on the train. But ten years ago, when I just started my studies at the Moscow State University, I had had lessons in Physical Education. Our teacher was a fantastic woman: she'd just had a baby, so she was keen to get back into shape as soon as possible. We had no choice, but to follow her. Our lessons were in the morning, and on a couple of occasions we ran down the wet slippery slope from the Observation Deck opposite the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium. The lessons were at 10 am, and by then the Observation Deck would be crowded with tourists and souvenir vendors. To this day I'm wondering if any of them had taken photos of a group of Russian girls, jogging, sprinting and cautiously moving down the hill towards the Moskva river…

Explanation of an Antique Gem (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

A young fig-tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by,
As if he were its warden.

But oh, Quirites, how one errs!
The tree is guarded badly;
For round the other side there whirrs
And hums a beetle madly.

The hero with his well-mail'd coat
Nibbles the branches tall so;
A mighty longing feels the goat
Gently to climb up also.

And so, my friends, ere long ye see
The tree all leafless standing;
It looks a type of misery,
Help of the gods demanding.

Then listen, ye ingenuous youth,
Who hold wise saws respected:
From he-goat and from beetle's-tooth
A tree should be protected!

1815

Lydia Sokolik: My Life at War. Part 5

My Family

[This section enlists all of the Alekseev family by name, including some biographical information. - JD]

I was evacuated with my father, Efim Semyonovich Alekseev (1890-1964), and my mother, Marfa Efremovna (1891-1962).

The eldest of all my siblings, Vera (1910-1993), was a mother of two; her husband was a famous Soviet writer, Klavdy Derbenyov; one of their sons, Vadim Derbenyov, subsequently became a well-known Russian film director. Next after her, Peter (1912-1989), was cleared from going into war; instead he worked in the civilian forces and was a member of the MOONO.

The next in line, Dmitry (1914-1943), was a good actor. He took part in the operations at the Khasan Island against the Japanese in 1938. When the Great Patriotic war had started, he went to the army. Although being in the infantry, he often had to go for the intelligence, which occasionally resulted in taking the Nazi prisoners. He was severely wounded in May 1943. The bullet wounded his crotch, and the doctors had to amputate his both legs. He died on the operation table on May 27, 1943. We received a death confirmation on June 22, 1943.

My elder sister, Natalia (1916-1997), joined the secret service in Moscow, which would have become active, had Hitler’s operation against the capital been successful. Natalia was entrusted with several houses in the outskirts of Moscow, which would locate secret groups. She also held the keys to a secret typography, with two sets of fonts, Russian and German. She was in the secret service from October 1941 until February 1943.

Next in line, Leonid (1922-1985), joined the forces after the War had been declared. He went to the Western front in the infantry, and was also severely wounded, but survived. The wound, however, contributed to his death in his early 60s.

My younger brother and the youngest of all of us, Vitaly (born 1928), was evacuated with me. He was in various jobs, but had always loved singing, and was collecting Russian folk songs. He last visited me in Moscow in 2001, and the last we heard of him was that he was living with his children’s relatives in Kazan.

Lydia Sokolik: My Life at War. Part 4

The End of Evacuation, and the Victory (Autumn 1942 — May 9, 1945).

My elder brother Leonid helped us to get a permission to return from evacuation in summer 1942. During a waiting period at one of the railway stations we met the liberators of our home town. A Latvian soldier came up to my Dad and said: ‘Why are your children lying under the bench? The floor is concrete, and it’s so cold’. My father replied: ‘Where else can they lie? All benches are occupied, and they haven’t slept for so many nights’. Then I and my brother crawled from underneath the bench, our mother was left lying on this very typical railway bench. We began to talk, my father went away, and this soldier started paying me compliments. Then he asked me where we were from. I told him that we were evacuees, now returning by permission. ‘Where did you live before evacuation?’ he asked. ‘In Borovsk’, I said. As soon as he heard this, he shouted an officer over to us, a Latvian, too. Together, they explained that their division liberated Borovsk. I later read about this in the press.

In autumn of 1942 we arrived to Yaroslavl. My sister Vera lived in a room in a communal flat and could hardly fit us all, so we had to stay in my aunt’s flat. She was the Head Financier of the Armed Forces Supply Committee (Voentorg-Военторг). She arranged for my father to do carpentry work in several canteens in the city. The rest of us did not work.

In the winter of 1942 Hitler's troops were attacking Stalingrad, which caused panic in the city. Had Stalingrad been taken, in spring as soon as the ice would melt on the River Volga the Nazis would have entered Yaroslavl. These were extremely tense, difficult days. The checks were carried out every night, with military patrols visiting each and every flat in the city. Nobody would even think of not opening the door to the patrol — vigilance was the prime objective.

We left Yaroslavl in autumn 1943. Our house in Borovsk was burnt by the Nazis. There was no point going back because there was a lack of living spaces in the town, so there was no chance anyone would put us up or rent us a house. We went to stay with my elder brother Pyotr, who lived at Mamontovka Station, not far from Moscow. When we were going from Yaroslavl to Mamontovka, at the Yaroslavsky Railway Station in Moscow we put our basket with bread under the bench, and someone stole it from the other side.

We came to Mamontovka in autumn 1943; the first snow had already fallen. Peter worked in the Moscow Regional Office of the People’s Education (MOONO-МООНО), and he lived on the territory of the Nadezhda Krupskaya Foster Care. We lived there for some time, and then we were given a small derelict house at Klyazma Station, which was a railway station just before Mamontovka. The house had neither doors, nor window frames, but we did not care much. My father was a carpenter, and he very quickly made windows and doors, I even guess they have not ever been changed.

[Note: Lydia and her daughter Olga left the house in 1970. In 2003, the house was still standing].

We met the Victory in Klyazma. The radio had never been turned off, and at three o’clock in the night we heard the signal. We rushed to turn on the black radio plate, and next minute we were hearing the voice of Levitan, who announced a special declaration from the Soviet government. He said that Hitler’s Germany signed the Pact of Capitulation. We ran outside, and the village streets were all full of people, and they were all cheering, and crying, and everyone was very happy.

Lydia Sokolik: My Life at War. Part 3

Evacuation, November 1941 — August 1942.

When we arrived to the village called Murashi, many evacuee families went to the kolkhoz. We could not go because of our disabled mother, so we stayed in the village. Our mother was put into a war hospital, where she spent around two months. At first we did not have any place to live, so we slept in the school’s building, on the floor. Local authorities were very kind to us. But the villagers were extremely hostile. The majority of them were Old Orthodox. I could not say whether they were the suppressed families, or not. My father later explained to me that they must have been people who believed they were treated unjustly. At any rate, they were very well-off. The roofs of all houses were covered with iron, all floors were dyed, which in those times was very expensive to afford. Every house had a hand washer outside. The local people told us later that these were indeed the suppressed families.

From school we were relocated into one such house. But we did not spend much time there. We were not allowed to use water from the home well, so we had to walk half a kilometre to the railway, to collect it. We actually had to cross the railway, which with all climbing up and coming down was a tough journey. But when the winter began, we were melting snow and boiling it to use as drinking water.

Another incident contributed to us leaving that house swiftly. One morning my father went to work. As soon as he went outside, I heard him screaming. I ran out, and saw him with the housekeeper, standing next to a hung cat. The cat was white, with reddish spots. My father was inquiring as to why the housekeeper would be so cruel to the animal. She said: ‘Don’t worry. The cat knows what she did. She stole meat, she was guilty, so she was punished’. The very next day we moved out.

My father found a job as a carpenter at the railways, and we moved in to a small antechamber of a local bath. Despite having no heating, it had electricity. There we lived until we left the Murashi village in August 1942.

One day my father came home and told me and my mum that next day would be the first when conscription will arrive to our town. Next morning we went out. Many women were following their men with cries and prayers, shouting: ‘Our beloved sons, do not fight against the Germans! Shoot the commissars in their backs! Surrender yourself!’ This was in late November — early December 1941. In spring 1942 devastated letters began to arrive, as well as the disabled, armless, legless soldiers.

Then one morning, when we were still sleeping, a woman from the nearby house knocked on our window. My father and I went out to see what she wanted. She stood on the lowest step of the stairs. Immediately, when she saw us, she fell down to her knees and began to beg us to forgive her. Her son had just returned from the front without legs and told her horrendous stories. She nearly forced me to go to get water from the well in her house yard.

In 1942, we worked at the construction site of the Kirov-Kotlas Railway Road. It was a part of the North-Pechora Road, but was later adjoined to the Northern Road. I only had light shoes to wear, and the winter was very severe. The underage were not allowed to work at the railroad, but the brigadiers would let us help them, ‘illegally’. One day we were told a very high official was coming to visit our road, and all underage people (including myself) were hidden away. Later it turned out that this man was the Minister of Railways during the war. I did not work there for long, and in March I became the head of the Community office, where I was responsible for blankets and other household supplies.

Meanwhile, my brother looked after a bread stall, which was owned by two Jewish sisters. He did not tell us, so when my father found out about it, he first was against it because Vitaliy was only young. One of the sisters later came to visit my father to persuade him to allow Vitaliy to work for them. They would sometimes pay him with bread.

Lydia Sokolik: My Life at War. Part 2

The Road to Evacuation.

I had joined the medical brigade, and I was given the overalls, a hat and an anti-gas mask. On 11 October 1941 we heard that Medyn [a town to the north off Borovsk] was already taken by German troops. Three days before that we had the retreating Soviet troops stationed in our town, some soldiers were even staying in our house. One of them was a police officer, his surname was Bystritskiy, who told us about the Nazis’ carnage. He said to my father: ‘Please, let your children go. You may be unable to leave, but at least let them go because the Nazis are extremely cruel to young people’.

Later that afternoon those who worked in the local radio station said farewell to the villagers, and told everyone to go to Balabanovo Station where buses stood ready to evacuate people. My father did not believe it when I told him about this, and he went back to work after his lunch.

Then the air raid siren went off, and I rushed to the meeting of my medical brigade. We were lined up in front of the vice-head of the War Committee of Borovsk, who called several people out from the line. I was one of them. He told me to move forward ten paces, then he came up to me and said: ‘The War Committee orders you to give your up munitions and go home to help your father to evacuate your mother and brother’. I was determined to refuse, but he repeated the order. He then said to me discreetly: ‘You should understand, you must help your parents because your brothers are fighting in the front, and your sister already joined the secret service in Moscow’. I marvelled at how well they knew everything. I gave my munitions to Nina Rostova, who was the head of our brigade.

I came home in the dark. A horse and cart was standing at the porch. I heard my brother Vitaliy crying; I rushed in and saw him sitting on the Russian oven, clinging on to a pillow, and sobbing: ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay home, it’s warm here’. Outside, the land was covered with the first snow…

Some people decided to stay. When we were preparing to evacuation, our neighbour did not approve. She said: ‘Look, you have a samovar, and so do I. When the Germans enter the village, we shall invite and entertain them. So, why are you so keen on leaving?’ When the troops came in the village, some went to live next door to her, and parked their Studebaker in between the two houses. The Studebaker was all stocked with various goods. Local boys, typically curious, saw a box of cigarettes inside, and decided to get it. One of the boys was our neighbour’s son, a 12-year-old. They went in the truck for the cigarettes. She was unaware, but rushed out of the house upon hearing deafening rifle shots. She saw a Nazi officer standing at the porch of the neighbouring house with a rifle, from which he had just shot all five boys, including her son. To save her other two children, she dug a hole in the house’s cellar and kept them there until early January 1942, when the Nazis were driven out from the village.

We had to drive about 1.5 km to get to the centre of Borovsk. We reached it by about 9-10pm. My mother was disabled so it was difficult getting her on the bus. But some men helped us. The bus that took us from Borovsk to the train station was the very last one. We left on 12 October, at about 1am; at 4am, the Nazis entered the town.

Most of my family were Communists, so the Nazis ruthlessly rampaged on our house. We only took a couple of pillows with us and some meat and poultry; the rest was left behind, including hens. They were "executed" by hanging; our red pioneer ties were used as ropes.

The Nazis locked the majority of population in the main church, in the centre of the town, and were going to burn them upon the arrival of their chief SS commanders. The commanders were expected to arrive on 10 January 1942; the Latvian troops liberated the town on January 5.

But we were already the evacuees. Later on 12 October we got on a train, which only started moving in the early morning. At Narofominsk we were bombed… We spent about a month on the train. We left on October 12 and only arrived to the Murashi Station (in Kirov region) on November 5.

Panic was following us all the way. When we left from Borovsk to Kirov by train, people were telling us we would not make it, that we would be bombed. Indeed, we were bombed, although nothing too serious. We were in the last wagon, so during one of the raids our wagon was pushed off the rails. Thankfully, it did not take the entire train with it, but all people had to be moved to other wagons. Of course, we couldn’t just run, with our mother being paraplegic; so other people had to help us to move. The last time our train was caught up in the air raid was near Gorky (Nizhniy Novgorod).

Lydia Sokolik: My Life at War. Part 1

Disclaimer:

This memoire of a life during the Great Patriotic War in Russia was dictated by my grandmother, Lydia Sokolik, in 2006. I submitted this story to the BBC's WW2 People's War archive in January 2006. The copyright rests with me, and the BBC has a non-exclusive right to sublicense and use the story. If you wish to use this story, please read the Terms of Use and contact me for a permission.

Location of story:

Russia: Borovsk (near Smolensk), Murashi village (near Kirov), Yaroslavl, Klyazma village (near Moscow)

Article ID: A8998933


Notes on the text: the story is told by the narrator (Lydia Sokolik)

Life in Borovsk.

I was born in a small village near Dorogobuzh, in Smolensk region, on 1 October 1924. I was the sixth child in a family of seven. My father and uncle were both devoted horticulturists; the entire family were avid readers, and the house’s terrace was used in summer as a stage for home theatre. In 1936, we moved to a small town of Borovsk, ever closer to Smolensk, where we lived until October 1941.

How the War Was Declared.

The spring of 1941 was very warm, in early June the Russian town of Borovsk was blossoming beautifully. Its streets knew the moans of Napoleon’s army when it was leaving Russia. In 1941 people were preparing for their summer holidays and school children were finishing with their studies. I was in the final class at school, and like many other boys and girls across the country I had my farewell party at school in late June. We were all going to go to work or to enter higher education institutions.

We had a factory near our house, and every year it would close for the summer holidays. Our house stood on a small hill, behind us there was a magnificent pine forest. The factory workers would normally set up a holiday camp, and nearby there was a parachute tower, with a radio attached to it. In the morning of Sunday, June 22, 1941, we heard a special radio signal, and tuned in to our radio. The broadcaster said that the Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, had an announcement to make. Next we heard Molotov telling us that Hitler’s troops invaded our country at 4am by taking certain cities along the Western border. It was devastating and scary news. Everyone was shocked, as we fully relied on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Victory Day

Although I don't normally use this blog to write anything too personal, this is the day when I would like to do so. It is 9th May, and in Russia this is the state holiday - the Victory Day.

I grew up listening to my grandmother's story of her life during the war. Between June 2005 and January 2006 I was taking part, as a story-gatherer, in the BBC's campaign, People's War. The aim of the campaign was to create the living archive of wartime memories. And since stories from all countries were accepted (as long as they were in English), I contributed my grandma's account of her life during the war.

I have always adored my grandma, Lydia, despite the fact that we belong to the two quite different generations, which results in occasional "culture clashes". She was a working pensioner when I arrived, and when I was two, she left her job altogether, to stay with me. (Another reason was that I adhorred a nursery, and after three attempts my family realised that I wouldn't be staying there, so someone would have to stay at home with me).

My grandmother held a BA in Law and has always been telling me to use my logic, as well as recalling various stories that had taken place at the Central Forensic Laboratory in Moscow where she used to work. She left when she met her husband, Alexei Sokolik, a Ukranian sportsman of Czech origin, and went to live to Lviv (Western Ukraine) with him. She eventually had to return to look after her parents. My mother was already born in Moscow, and my grandfather died of cancer in 1970. Since her return to Moscow until her retirement, my grandmother had worked for the Soviet Railways as a cinema instructor. Being a member of the Cultural Office at the Committee of the Railways Trade Union (Dorprofsozh - ДОРПРОФСОЖ), she supervised cinema clubs, cinema releases and box offices across all 15 regional railway committees.

So, what I decided to do is to republish the story from the BBC archive. Being a copyright holder, I nonetheless would like to acknowledge the fact that this story has originally been posted on WW2 People's War website (Article ID: A8998933). It is one of the recommended stories in the archive, and I would like to say that I cannot praise my grandmother enough for collecting her strength to talk on the phone while I was recording. I subsequently translated her account directly from the tape.

This is what you're about to read (quoted from my own entry on the website):

The story of evacuation of the Alekseev family spans from 1941, when they left their village with the last bus, until 1943, when they were given a derelict house to live in just outside Moscow. In these years there were many moments of joy, as well as of desperation. The evacuation camp set up in the Old Orthodox community was anything but friendly. Upon leaving it, the family was then caught up in Yaroslavl in the winter 1942/43, during the Stalingrad battle, when the prospect of Hitler's victory created panic in the city. Throughout these years there was a constant fear for two brothers and a sister who joined the forces, which culminated in grief when the eldest brother was killed in 1943.

There are several reasons for republishing this story. It is dramatic, and many years after I heard it for the first time its dramatism has finally caught up with me, and I wondered how I would be able to survive in the similar conditions. I am sure some experiences will echo other people's, and at best this memoire illustrates exactly where our grandparents got their will of steel. Then, of course, I am an historian, so I can also read my grandma's story as a historical source. This is also a testimonial of a formidable personal memory, but also makes one wonder how a person goes on living with this experience. Ultimately, such stories should remind us of the devastating effect wars have on the civilian population. The Victory Day, which is celebrated as a state holiday in France (8th May) and Russia (9th May), is the good time to think about it.

The story is quite long, so I will break it up in chapters, which will all be collected under 'My Life at War' label. I also won't do this in one go, so the chapters will appear in the course of this week.

Some VERY IMPORTANT notes on COPYRIGHT:
I understand that, as I am publishing this and subsequent posts, they will be read and possibly shared and/or commented by my readers. However, I hold the image and text copyright, and also the BBC holds a non-exclusive right to sublicense and use the content. May I therefore ask, please, that you 1) read carefully the BBC's Terms of Use, and 2) link to 'My Life at War' label and a specific post whenever you're planning to quote from them. Otherwise, please feel free to leave a comment.

Pygmalion

There is a legend of Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor who abhorred all women for their lasciviousness, but fell in love with an ivory female statue that he carved. Eventually he pleaded to Aphrodite to animate his Galatea, - and gods did not refuse him his bit of happiness.

The Wikipedia article draws quite a full picture of various interpretations of this legend in the centuries that followed since Ovid had narrated the story in his Metamorphoses. An extract from Ovid is also published online. The legend was an inspiration for many painters and sculptors, as we can see from the images displayed.

For my part, I particularly like Paul Delvaux’s interpretation. Delvaux revisits the legend and broadens the context in which one can think of Pygmalion’s story. Sculpture has long stopped being a “masculine” type of art, hence it can be a woman who creates the statue of a man and falls for it.

The context can be broadened further: Galatea is Pygmalion’s ideal woman, but I often like to disregard any restrictions or conventions implied by gender. Therefore, I accept any gender combination, when rereading this legend, and, as a consequence, I allow for a possibility that love which Pygmalion expects his statue to share can never emanate from his creation.

In the poem below I wanted to entwine the theme of unrequited feeling with the legend of Pygmalion. Furthermore, since Galatea embodied a certain ideal, I suggest that a statue needs not to be seen as a piece of sculpture. “Statue” can be understood as something “static”, that which is immovable, either physically or emotionally; hence “stone” is not exactly the marble, but anything cold or distant which is unlikely to liven up. Like Pygmalion is not necessarily male, so Galatea can be drawn on canvas, or described in words, or exist merely as a dream. Whichever interpretation we may prefer, Galatea is the symbol of Beauty which Pygmalion doesn’t want to give up, but whose cold demeanor drives him to despair.

ПИГМАЛИОН

Когда владеешь тем, что бы отдал,
Впредь никогда об этом не жалея;
Или скорбишь о том, что потерял,
Едва ль по-настоящему имея, -
Все блекнет, если ты, Пигмалион,
Дни проводя перед твореньем милым,
Любви ответ найти желаешь в нем, -
Но жизнь вдохнуть и богу не по силам.

© Жюли Дельво 2007

(PYGMALION

When you possess that which you would refuse
And never have the outcome bemoaned;
Or when you mourn the loss of what you used
To think was yours but hardly ever owned, -
All this is vain, if, like Pygmalion,
Your spending days with the adored creation,
You wait to see how love ignites the stone, -
But no god can liven your possession.

© Julie Delvaux 2007)

Links and references:

Wikipedia entry on Pygmalion

An extract from Ovid's Metamorphoses from The Internet Classics Archive

Images used (from top, from left to right):

Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, Pygmalion et Galatée (1819) - courtesy of La Tribune de l'Art

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea (1890) - courtesy of Wikipedia

Etienne Maurice Falconet, Pygmalion et Galatée (1763) - as above

Paul Delvaux, Pygmalion (1939) - courtesy of CGFA

Jean-Michel Moreau, Pygmalion (1806) - courtesy of Pygmalion Design

Edward Byrne-Jones, Soul Attains from Pygmalion and the Image series (1878) - courtesy of Mark Harden's Artchive

Visiting London-8 (London Book Fair)

Yet another seminar at the LBF was just as important, interesting and thought-provoking, not least because I could relate to its subject as an author, translator/interpreter, and historian. The seminar 'Globalisation, Translation, and English' had two questions to answer: how to make publishers commission translations from other languages into English, and how to make them, as well as the public, to acknowledge the role of a translator?

To begin with, where is a problem here? Foreign literature is not being translated into English, so what? Surely, there's enough English-language books around – in fact, there're so many of them that the authors of guides like 'How To Write a Novel' start with discouraging a budding author from ever dreaming of making it big (they do so by reminding you that to get 'ad astra' you need to drag yourself 'per aspera' many times).

To use Prof Eco's powerful thesis, a translation is a negotiation between the cultural milieu of the source text and that of the destination text. Elsewhere in Mouse or Rat: Translation as Negotiation Eco says that "translation is a process that takes place between two texts produced at a given historical moment in a given cultural milieu". There are many gains and losses to be accepted, but ultimately every good translation serves to enrich the language of the destination text by exploring its ability to communicate all the aspects of the original text. Translation is also important in keeping us connected to the past. It is especially vital today, when fewer and fewer people learn classical languages.

The enrichment of the language, however, is mostly important in hindsight. At present, if we care to learn our language better, we can simply scour The Oxford English Dictionary and the like. This would be much like striving to improve oneself by living on one's own and never interacting with other people. Such belief in one's uniqueness often leads to alienation and decline.

Translation therefore is the way to enrich the culture of the country of the destination text. It is the acquisition of knowledge about a country and a period where we do not live (and often never will). It can also be a source of inspiration: not necessarily an impetus to write, but rather to learn more about the author, his country, or the country and the period in which the novel was set, etc. In the end, literature exists everywhere, but our knowledge of foreign languages is always limited, so we constantly need to negotiate the development of our literature and culture by producing literary translations.

For instance, the development of English language and literature in the 16^th c. was much fostered by the boom in translations from the classical and European languages. (I include the translation of the Bible in this list, since it was written in vulgata). Arguably, where this process was concerned with translating the antique historical texts, it was sometimes instigated by the acquaintance with the works of Machiavelli. Together with translations from Petrarch by Thomas Wyatt, followed by many other renderings of purely literary works of both antique and contemporary authors, this boom in translations was as much a means to enrich the English language, as a very important part of the English Renaissance.

The trouble is, and this has been highlighted at the seminar, a translation is often being treated as not. This means that all its educational and artistic merits are being treated on the same scale as those of an originally written text, which can lead to costly misconceptions. Once I came across an article, in which a scholar was comparing a 16^th c. translation to a 20^th c. translation from Latin, almost disregarding the original Latin text. Several times in his short study he concluded that the 20^th c. translator was rendering the text into English better that his 16^th c. colleague, - whereas his first purpose should've been to determine why it was exactly this text that had been translated. In addition, the scholar did treat the translation as an originally composed text. Given the blossoming of such discipline as Translation Studies in the past 15-20 years, you (myself at least) would have expected its findings to influence the academic community. Alas, this isn't always the case. One of the first things to do when a translation is being chosen for an academic study is to undertake its textual analysis by comparing it against the original text. This is a painstaking and time-consuming procedure, which requires a lot of knowledge and research. If it is done, however, then we're likely to obtain a very fine example of an academic study which will shed tons of light on the cultural and intellectual process in the given country at the given time.

As follows from the above, translation is a critical act, which again was mentioned at the seminar. Yet it is evident that no translation can be purely theoretical. A text is a rhetorical act which appeals not only to our understanding, but also to our feelings. I firmly believe that it is a mistake to disregard or to avoid translating this emotional message. This means, in turn, that a translator is always a writer or a poet (depending on exactly what is being translated), which further stresses the importance of his role.

Translation is a difficult subject to discuss, a tricky business to run, and a Titanic labour to undertake. But when one considers how many people across the globe have been influenced by the works of William Shakespeare, it is obvious that all the efforts of his translators have not been in vain.

Visiting London-7 (London Book Fair)

In Visiting London-6 I mentioned and already wrote about a few seminars that I attended at the LBF. One of these was on the subject of marketing a bookshop.

Marketing Your Bookshop was presented by Peter Fisk, a respected marketer who spent years of working with and gained an invaluable experience at British Airways, Microsoft, American Express, and Coca Cola. He is also one of the most inspirational and engaging speakers I've seen (and heard) in my life. His style of presentation is of the kind I like to listen to and to deliver myself.

Although focused on marketing a terrestrial bookshop, the presentation has had a far wider scope, and an attentive listener would take away from a one hour talk probably as much as they would after days of intensive training and reading. Needless to say, the advice given is equally applicable to online marketing as well.

Two very basic ideas are genuinely simple: to run a successful business in the modern-day world, you need 1) to combine your logic with your creativity and 2) to cater for the needs and desires of your customer. Legion is the name to those needs, but tuning in to your customers' voices can ultimately help you enhance and even expand your business. The necessity to expand may be inevitable even for funeral businesses (after all, you may be not the only undertaker in town). Apparently, in the States they began to recognise the fact that the funeral should be a celebration of the life of the deceased, rather than an endless mourning of their death. As a consequence, some American undertakers began to expand their business into the area of fireworks trade and to offer a choice of a firework display to perform at the scattering of the ashes.

Yet the cleverest point of the presentation is Peter's continuous referring to the two distinct, genuine individuals who in a very powerful way challenged and shaped the 20th c. - Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. The idea of a successful marketing is in bringing together one's creativity and one's logical thinking. Picasso and Einstein are referred to as those who embodied creativity (Picasso) and logic (Einstein). As being shown, however, Picasso had received an in-depth academic training in painting, whereby he was eventually able to overthrow the canons of his art and to pave the road to a new artistic vision. Likewise, Einstein, as brainy as he was, had been a dreamer who dreamt up some of his groundbreaking theories while walking in the mountains. Both Picasso and Einstein were capable of such complete success at their "trade" because, in the end of the day, both used logic and knowledge AS WELL as their creative potential.

This point is not only valid, but very powerful indeed, as it shows that a successful business is not just about figures, money, and the GP. Furthermore, Fisk potently demonstrates that art and business are not completely polar, as many of us tend to believe. He doesn't recommend to turn your business into "show business", but he urges to try and find this elusive equilibrium of creative thinking and knowledge. Quite simply, if you're knowledgeable, look to make a new creative use of it. If you're an artist, don't lose your mind to the untempered creative impulse.

I suppose the latter point must sound strange coming from somebody creative (myself on this occasion). But, even if we look no further than at the works of literature, we'll notice that all of them that survived their time and continue to impact and inspire us to this day are not just "lovely stories" or "serious stuff". Beautiful in form, these works often hide many powerful intellectual challenges. For example, I have noticed long ago that people tend to think that poetry, as art in general, is all about emotion. In fact, it is about concealing the emotion, distancing from it, in order to capture its essence. One of my favourite Russian poets, Konstantin Balmont, when still young, was told by one of the older writers: 'Let your inspiration crystallise first, then write'. "To crystallise the inspiration" means exactly what Peter Fisk is talking about in his presentation: to apply strict logical thinking to a creative impulse.


Links:

Marketing Genius at Amazon.com.

Marketing Genius Live - information about the book, seminars, launches, as well as a few free videos and extracts.

The Genius Works - more about Marketing Genius and Peter Fisk, plus more downloads. (Take a note of the website's name.)

Peter Fisk's presentation Business Strategy by Einstein and Picasso (video) from The Genius Works.