It’s now been a hundred years to the day since the creation of Czechoslovakia, a country which has been very much a part of my life. It was the fulfillment of the aspiration of Czechs and Slovaks to have a state of their own. The United States, as suggested by the Pittsburgh Agreement of May 1918, drafted by representatives of those two nationalities in exile as World War I was winding down, played a key role in its formation. But the fact that Czechoslovakia unraveled within two years of my arrival also shows how fragile the experiment was from the beginning.

I came to Czechoslovakia in October 1990, enthusiastic about the country’s emergence from four decades of Communist Party rule, its playwright-president Vaclav Havel, and prospects for democratic development. Education for Democracy, an organization that placed U.S., Canadian and other native-English speakers in schools and universities there, sent me to Martin, a Slovak provincial town of fifty thousand in the mountains. I was a little disappointed not to be assigned to Prague, now bustling with new ideas and new-found freedom. And where I might just run into Havel enjoying an intellectual discussion over Pilsner in one of the city’s many pubs.

While that hope was a bit unrealistic, imagine my excitement when I learned Havel would be visiting Martin barely two weeks after I’d settled in there. The occasion was the ratification of Czechoslovak statehood there on 30 October 1918, two days after its declaration in Prague. Which may be surprising unless you know that Martin had been Slovakia’s unofficial cultural capital in the mid-19th century, and continues to house institutions dedicated to preserving Slovak heritage.

As much as Havel was there to celebrate the country’s birth, he also wanted to warn against division. He cited a short story by Slovak author Martin Kukucin, about two poor brothers who worked hard and overcame difficulty but finally prospered. Then, others became envious and tried to divide them, knowing that then they would be weaker.

The reference to nationalist Slovak politicians, cynically exploiting old resentments about hegemony from Prague, and ready to gain power at the expense of national unity, was clear. But it also became clear to me over the next two years that the original founding of Czechoslovakia was fraught with problems.

The Czechs, in 1918, had had understandable grievances against the Austrians, and the Slovaks had suffered much under Hungarian rule. But the new state, carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy, inevitably contained sizeable German-speaking and Magyar minorities. Some observers held out hopes that the fledgling Central European republic would be a “new Switzerland.” But the treatment of these minorities was not necessarily the best. Once the Hungarian population of Bratislava fell below the 20-percent threshold necessary to guarantee certain rights, all the Magyar-language street names in the city were covered over in thick black paint.

But in many other ways, the democratic Czechoslovakia was an example to the rest of Central Europe. Unfortunately, ethnic tensions surround the German-speaking minority in Czech areas resulted in the Sudeten Crisis of 1938, the Munich Pact allowing Hitler to occupy those areas, and his takeover of all of Bohemia and Moravia the following March. Slovakia became a nominally independent Nazi puppet state.

The post-war years saw the expulsion of German populations and the communist takeover in the coup of February 1948. Then the experiment with “Socialism with a Human Face” in 1968, which ended in that August’s invasion of Warsaw Pact tanks. (Czech history has a habit of happening “on the 8’s.”) Finally, 1989’s Velvet Revolution ushered out the communists, and ushered in democracy.

Sort of. But then came the populist movements I’ve mentioned already. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they would become a harbinger of what we’re currently seeing now, even in the U.S., the UK, in Germany with it’s AfD, and elsewhere.

Czechoslovakia only had twenty years to blossom in the interwar period, and it never had a great chance due to the economic depression of those time. Then it had a breath of freedom after WWII, then the Prague Spring, then the Velvet Revolution.

So, over a period of roughly seventy years, with interruptions, the country enjoyed maybe twenty-five years of something reasonably approaching freedom and prosperity. Which is still more than the majority of the human race can say.
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At any rate, let’s learn from this history, and try to imitate the best of Czechoslovakia. And hope that the peoples of Central Europe will have a better future.

28 September, Feast of St. Wenceslas (Cz. Václav, Gm. Wenzel), Patron of Bohemia. Martyred A.D. 929 (or 935) in Stará Boleslav.

Probably best known to most English speakers from the Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas,” this Central European saint was actually a duke. To those who've been to Prague, he's best known for the large equestrian statue at the head of Wenceslas Square. Crowds gathered around him - and four other Czech saints surrounding the plinth - in 1968, as Soviet tanks rumbled over the cobblestones, and in the protests of 1989 which finally brought freedom. Although Czechs are widely reputed for lack of religion, they still widely look up to him as an essential symbol of their nation and state.

There is an 

The carol reflects largely on legend about his doing good works for the poor, which is accurate from the standpoint of the hagiographical material. In addition to his charity, he was known for promoting peace and Christianity, tearing down pagan idols, and growing grain and wine for communion.

Wenceslas (b. 907 [903?] near Prague) was the grandson of Bořivoj, a ruler of Bohemia who had converted to Christianity, but many of whose powerful relatives remained pagan. Bořivoj’s wife was St. Ludmila, who oversaw Wenceslas’ upbringing until he attended a Latin school in Budeč. Ludmila assisted in this Christian education by her chaplain Paul, who was a disciple of St. Methodius and had personally baptized Wenceslas.

Wenceslas’ parents were Vratislav, who ruled Bohemia from 915, and Drahomíra, who according to Butler’s was “daughter of the chief of the Veletians, a Slav tribe from the north.” Wenceslas’ younger Brother was Boleslav (Boleslaus). After Vratislav was killed in fighting with the Magyars (Hungarians), Drahomíra, who was nominally Christian, adopted a policy hostile to the new religion. From this time, around 922 or 923, Wenceslas reigned under his mother’s regency. Against this backdrop, St. Ludmila encouraged Wenceslas to assume full power. Two nobles went to Ludmila’s castle at Tetín and strangled her in order to end her influence over him and to hinder Wenceslas’ ascension, but Wenceslas managed to take over the reins of state in 924 or 925.

According to one source (Životy), Wenceslas had his mother banished for the crime; another (Butler’s) claims that he recalled her to court from Budeč after her banishment and that “there is no evidence that for the future she ever opposed Wenceslaus.” Životy also states that Wenceslas had his grandmother’s remains transferred to Prague.
Wenceslas acquired relics of St. Vitus, a saint of Saxony, from Henry I (the Fowler), with whom the young Bohemian ruler pursued peace, recognizing the Saxon as the legitimate successor of Charlemagne. According to legend, Henry saw on Wenceslas’ helmet a luminous cross and two angels and excused him for his late arrival at an imperial council. According to another legend, rival prince Radslav also saw this sign when about to fight with Wenceslas, who had sought a duel in order to avoid greater bloodshed, and acknowledged the sovereignty of the latter.

His conciliatory policies and his promotion of Christianity garnered for Wenceslaus many enemies among those nobles still practicing paganism. Boleslav apparently conspired with them after the birth of Wenceslas’ son, which effectively cut off the younger brother’s path to the throne. Boleslav invited Wenceslas to his home in Stará Boleslav for the feast of Cosmas and Damian. The next morning, as Wenceslas was going to mass, his brother and his co-conspirator’s killed him. The saint’s dying words were, “Brother, may God forgive you.”

Wenceslas was first buried in the Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Stará Boleslav, but his remains were removed three years later, at the behest of Boleslav, to the Cathedral of St. Vitus in Prague, which Wenceslas had been active in building.

Of interest:
The Crown of St. Wenceslas, probably first worn by Charles IV (b. 1316, d. 1378), has become an important symbol of Czech statehood. His feast day is an official holiday, Czech Statehood Day, in the Czech Republic.

There used to be a YouTube video with music composed (based on an ancient choral to the saint) in the autumn of 1989, and showing various stages of Communist oppression in the former Czechoslovakia, from the show trial of Milada Horáková, to the Warsaw Pact Invasion of 1968, to the downfall of Communism (it began with images of the infamous Pankrác Prison and ends with its destruction). The music is a very touching song invoking the saint’s aid: Saint Wenceslas, do not go away and remain with us, do not abandon us. Below is a video of my rendition of the song for the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, including my English rendition, starting (with some spoken intro) at around 10:00.

Sources:
Životy svätých: Ikonografia. Ivan Rusina, Marian Zervan. Bratislava: Pallas, 1994.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints: Concise Edition, Revised and Updated. Michael Walsh, ed. San Francisco: Harper, 1991. 

With all the anniversaries this year – end of WWI and birth of new states, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in ’68 – it’s easy to lose sight of some. Fortunately, I’ve not been able to lose sound of this one, as Public Radio has broadcast any number of flashbacks on his life and creativity.
 
As a teenager, I listened to West Side Story repeatedly enough to really get the social justice message of the lyrics – by Stephen Sondheim with Bernstein’s score, and of course the latter was totally on board with the themes on racism, addiction, poverty, and violence. I was a marching band kid with plenty of exposure to classical and other music through piano lessons, school, and my parents’ record collection. The latter also contained the red-jacketed West Side Story, whose content was racier than they probably realized. Anyway, I really went for the mix of jazz, Latino, and modern.
 
I finally saw WSS onscreen in college, but my next major “encounter” with Bernstein came when I, still delirious over the fall of East Bloc communism, saw clips of his conducting Beethoven’s 9th at the Berlin Wall on New Year’s 1990. I’d recently come to appreciate that work, thought this paean to humanity the perfect way to celebrate the reunion of East and West, and so was enthralled with Bernstein once again.
 
Then I departed for Europe for the first time, headed to Czechoslovakia by way of Vienna, to teach English in this newly free part of Europe. As the plane began descending, CNN came on the projection screen and announced Bernstein’s death. I couldn’t help but feel their was some significance to it all, that Bernstein’s “end” and my new beginning were interconnected.
 
So here’s to you, Leonard Bernstein: may you continue to inspire those seek to unite with music – and by countless other means!

​“Normalization”
The occupation was denounced by a Communist Party congress as the tanks were prowling. But within days, Dubcek was forced to sign “Moscow Protocols” reversing much of his reforms. While he was allowed to remain in power for several months more, he and Svoboda were eventually replaced with hard-liners.
 
Then followed a period of “normalization,” a return to a stricter, more old-fashioned socialism. A third of Party members were purged. Intellectuals were forced to renounce the declarations they’d signed, censorship was restored. Dubcek briefly worked a diplomatic stint in Turkey—where he would be out of the way—but soon after was expelled from the Communist Party and went to work for the Forestry Department.
 
Despair overwhelmed much of the populace. No one captured the sensation better than Czech folk singer Karel Kryl, who composed Bratricku, zavirej vratka (“Little Brother, Close the Gate”) the day after the invasion. Kryl soon put out an entire album in this despondent mood, which was banned shortly after appearing on store shelves in early 1969. (You can see my performance and translation, created especially for this anniversary, below.) Kryl soon emigrated to West Germany, where he began working for Radio Free Europe.
 
Other artists who left include film director Milos Forman, who came to the U.S. and went on to direct Hair, Amadeus, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, among other hits. Author Milan Kundera moved to Paris. And the list goes on.
 
Of course, others stayed behind. Playwright Vaclav Havel was kicked out of the writers’ union after ’68, meaning he could no longer publish. At one point he worked in a brewery, which inspired his play Audience. He agitated for human rights, especially as a founding member of Charter 77, which called on the government to observe its obligations under the Helsinki Accords. His activities landed him in prison – and made him the country’s leading dissident.
 
Just two days after the tanks came rolling in, singer-actor Marta Kubisova recorded a song written for a TV series which had begun the previous year. “Song for Marta,” It was aired on the radio in a playlist that had been previously determined – with the note that it had nothing to do with events of the time. Yet it brimmed with the sentiments of the population: “May peace remain with this country. May hatred, envy, fear, grudge, and strife cease.” The song’s near-quote from educator-clergyman-philosopher John Comenius had a strong enough note of self-determination that it quickly became a form of quiet resistance against the occupation: “When your lost rule over things returns to you, people, it returns to you.”
 
Yet Kubisova was banned from public performance and, much like Havel, went on to relatively menial work. Kryl’s songs were copied, passed around, and sung quietly by rebellious students – who didn’t dare rebel too openly in what was now one of the East Bloc’s most repressive regimes, by many assessments topped only by Romania and Albania.
 
Revolution
In November 1989, Havel was the center of attention at meetings held in theaters to discuss the positions dissidents were to take in ongoing negotiations with the government – until the Communist Party leadership resigned in December. Marta Kubisova sang her song from a balcony overlooking Prague’s Wenceslas Square. Dubcek returned from obscurity and joined Havel to the cheers of demonstrators, whose numbers had grown to hundreds of thousands.
 
By coincidence, while all this was going on, Karel Kryl returned to Czechoslovakia for his mother’s funeral. On December 3, just four days after the Party had agreed to renounce its “leading role,” he appeared onstage at the “Concert for All Decent People.” It was a surprise to the crowd, who hadn’t been aware of his arrival in country. With teary eyes they sang along, songs they’d played to themselves quietly at home for years, and swayed, many with sparklers in hand.
 
My experience
I saw the film version of Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being while in college, and that gave me a sense of the air of freedom, of open debate, that came with the Prague Spring. But I got a much deeper experience (obviously) when I went to Czechoslovakia in autumn 1990. One of my students gave me a home-copied cassette of the Little Brother album. And soon I was having late-night discussions people who’d kept mum about politics for two decades. One friend had nearly defected while traveling to Italy with a folk-dance ensemble – but balked when reminded of the likely repercussions for family members back home.
 
With Dubcek back on the political scene, I had a chance to see him in Slovakia in 1992 when he was campaigning with the Socialists. I didn’t care what party, just wanted to see the humble giant of a man. But I sang in a choir that had a performance elsewhere the day he came to town. The group had shown great friendship to me, a foreigner, and I felt duty-bound to keep the date. Besides, I thought, I’ll be back soon enough, and I can see Dubcek then. The following spring, while studying in the U.S., I got the news that he’d died in a car crash.
 
My first encounter with Russian misconceptions of ’68 came in St. Petersburg, when I was taking language courses in summer 1995. One Saturday afternoon, I visited the nearby Peterhof palace with Czech friends. Outside the gates we met a WWII veteran wearing a jacket loaded with medals and ribbons from his service. He heard us speaking Czech and wanted to express his solidarity with fellow Slavs. “We really wanted to help you.” My friends just looked on blankly, too polite to tell him that’s not how they saw it.
 
That encounter lends a lot of truth to one scene in the film version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. A Russian official tells Czech character Tereza the invasion was to protect her people. “Protect us from what?” is her incredulous response. This exchange, oddly, is not found in the novel; it was, rather, apparently inspired by Kundera’s introduction to his play Jacques and His Master (Kundera hated the movie version of Unbearable and has refused to allow any more cinematic renditions of his works), in which the author relays his experience of leaving the country. He was driving through Southern Bohemia, when his car was stopped by a Russian officer who explained to him that the Russians loved the Czechs—if only they could appreciate it!

​

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, the memory of which is marked by images of Soviet tanks lining the streets of Prague and angry but unarmed Czech protestors thronging to challenge them.

1968 was a turbulent year, with its student uprisings in Paris, the assassinations of Rev. King and Robert Kennedy, and anti-war demonstrations in the U.S., including those outside the Democratic convention in Chicago. But the story of Czechoslovakia in that year is unique in its blend of hope, a spirit of freedom, renewal and youth, as well as eventual tragedy, defeat and bitterness.

See the Moody Blues' performance in Prague on the eve of the invasion below.

The Prague Spring
Following years of disappointing economic performance, and increased national tensions between Slovaks and Czechs, Slovak politician Alexander Dubček replaced Antonín Novotný as Czechoslovak Communist Party first secretary in early January 1968. Dubček, a relative unknown, soon initiated a program of “Socialism with a Human Face.” Censorship was relaxed, a move welcomed by the Czech and Slovak public, especially intellectuals and artists. 25 June saw the release of all political prisoners and the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinism. On the following day, 26 June, the National Assembly passed a law abolishing censorship; this was followed the very next day by the publication of “The Two Thousand Words,” a manifesto of support for Dubček’s liberalizing efforts, penned by leading author Ludvík Vaculík and signed by 70 leading writers, artists, and other public figures. Numerous similar declarations were made by other academics and intellectuals.

Yet storm clouds were gathering. Warsaw Pact maneuvers were held on Czechoslovak territory in June as an apparent warning by Brezhnev; when the exercises were concluded on 2 July, the Kremlin refused to withdraw all its troops. In late July, the Soviet leader called for a meeting with Dubček, and the two met in a small railway station in an East Slovak border town. This was followed a few days later, on 4 August by the Bratislava Declaration, in which Dubček seemed to have backed down to his “superior” on matters of press censorship. Brezhnev nevertheless berated Dubček one more time over criticism of the Party in the press, as revealed in a telephone transcript (finally released fifteen years ago). In that extended conversation, Brezhnev is both threatening and condescending to the president of his satellite state.

Invasion and resistance
During the night of 20-21 August, partly in response to an “invitation” from Czechoslovak Communist Party hard-liners, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev sent in approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops from Hungary, Poland, Rumania, and the Soviet Union, along with 2,000 tanks. Dubček was arrested and sent to Moscow. While the Soviet leader allowed Dubček to return and to remain in power for several months, the period of liberalization was over. In September, the “Brezhnev Doctrine” was declared, namely, that the Soviet Union had the right to invade other socialist countries if it felt threatened.

The world tends to remember the invasion most starkly for the images of the invasion, of Soviet tanks lining Wenceslaus Square while throngs of unarmed, flag-waving civilians attempted to stand them off. The focal point of the resistance was at the top of the square, at the equestrian statue of St. Wenceslaus, the patron saint of Bohemia to whom many Czechs, though not particularly religious, look for inspiration. To assert their national sovereignty, protestors marched through the streets chanting “Dubček – Svoboda,” the latter being the president of the country elected in March, whose name means “freedom” in Czech.

Another prominent scene is the defense of the radio station by the Czech civilians. Trucks, buses, and trolley cars were amassed at the approach to the building, and gasoline was set ablaze to thwart the troops’ advance. Still the tanks prevailed.

In the ensuing weeks, one of the Czechoslovaks’ most cunning tricks was to switch road signs to confuse invaders. They also used satirical messages such as “Last performance of Circus Brezhnev. Do not irritate his animals! Do not feed them, either!” Other messages were aimed at demoralizing the occupying soldiers: (in Russian) Natasha is sleeping with Kolya—signed, Your mother. The most common graffiti of the invasion period was РУССКИЕ ДОМОЙ! or “Russians Go Home!”
Often, the Czechs and Slovaks attempted to engage Russian soldiers in conversation, rather like Vietnam-era protestors confronting rifle barrels with daisies. Thanks to Slavic-language affinity and nearly 20 years of a Russian language requirement in education, communication wasn’t so difficult. But occupying soldiers were shocked at the objection they faced, having been sold on the notion they were engaging in a form of liberation, "brotherly assistance."
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TOMORROW: reflections on the aftermath of the invasion.
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This entry is really just a warm-up to the actual anniversary of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion which began during the night of Aug. 20-21 fifty years ago. I've translated the quintessential Czech protest song about the events, am performing it publicly tonight, and will post video on Tuesday, along with other remembrances of the tragedy.

For now, here are pics from that August.

Yesterday’s Google doodle commemorated the 120th anniversary of his birth. Since this movie pioneer’s works were always a huge component of Russian culture courses I taught at Ohio State, I’d like to use this opportunity to share some uncommon observations I’ve made over the years.

His Battleship Potemkin, depicting rebelling sailors and civilians following the disastrous Russo-Japanese War, is best known for its “Odessa Steps” scene, in which tsarist troops crush the uprising. The image of a baby carriage rolling down a multitiered outdoor staircase, the child’s caretaker having apparently been shot, has become thoroughly embossed on the world of cinematography. It is at once heartrending and an iconic textbook example of early, innovative technique.

It has also been widely imitated. Director David Lean tips his hat to Eisenstein in Dr. Zhivago, in a scene in which protestors are shot in the (failed) 1905 Russian Revolution. Their beat of their march is banged out of a parade-style bass drum, but after soldiers on horseback fire into the crowd, the instrument rolls, bereft of its player, down the street. Madonna seems to have taken a cue from The Odessa Steps in her 2013 short, Secret Project Revolution, co-created with Ste. In one shot, bare-chested males dance in front of a burning pram. With its large, old-fashioned wheels, it looks a century old, it just had to allude to the old Soviet director.

Probably Eisenstein’s most enduring influence was on George Lucas. As a student at UCLA’s film school in the late 1960’s, the budding director would have had plenty of exposure to Potemkin. As well as Alexander Nevsky, about a 13th-century saint/warrior who repelled an incursion by the Teutonic Knights into the Republic of Novgorod, an autonomous Russian city some two hundred miles inland from the Baltic Sea. The German monastic order was much reputed for pillaging and raping rather than for any Christian charity, yet Eisenstein ramps up the imagery to epitome-of-evil proportions. The military leaders of the Knights wear helmets topped by twisted talons and ram’s horns—perhaps only a slight exaggeration. The foot-soldiers’ headgear completely obscures their faces, dehumanizing these Crusaders. And they throw Russian babies on a fire!

Swastikas adorn the miter of the bishop who accompanies them—certainly an unhistorical smear. He holds Mass while a cowled monk plays a droning organ—doubtless brought by sleigh across the snow as part of the entourage, in spite of all the logistical problems it entails. This unrealistic detail, I suspect, is meant to heighten the contrast between Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, whose traditional liturgies have only a cappella music. They’re a dark Other from the West. The dirge-like music is part of the score by Sergei Prokofiev, whose sinister half-tones serve as boos and hisses every time the evildoers appear onscreen. As the 1938 film was shelved under Stalin’s orders after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and not released until the 1950s, the soundtrack became damaged. But the scratchiness actually improves the effect—though a remastered version has come out in recent years.

The German and Russian camps finally duke it out on the frozen Lake Peipus, and the Crusaders plunge ingloriously into the water, weighed down, of course, by all that chainmail. The wintry battleground is widely regarded as the inspiration behind the battle on Hoth, the ice planet, in Star Wars 5. If you need further evidence of the Eisenstein-Lucas connection, consider that Skywalker Ranch, George’s hundred-million-dollar pad in Marin County, has an Eisenstein suite.

Finally, consider the side-by-side stills of Alexander Nevsky and Star Wars characters and scenes in this blog entry’s slideshow. I submit that both Darth Vader and the Emperor owe their costuming to the Eisenstein film. In any event, Eisenstein’s legacy in indisputable.

​2017 was a very, very good to me, I might say in the role of immigrant Pasquale. Here are some of the things that delighted me most.

​January
Did a major translation of 120 pages, a private contract of a book of days for a Czech serving in the Austro-Hungarian army from 1906-09.
 
February
​​Played the role of Pasquale in The Most Happy Fella, my first time in a musical.
 
July
​Appeared in Young Frankenstein: The Musical as Inspector Kemp. This summer production by North Street Playhouse was fun and hard work. The professional actors/singers/dancers hired for the program also served as mentors to the young people interning. While I was “local adult talent,” their presence really raised the bar for me. I was flattered to have the opening lines – well, the first of any length, that is, and the ones the get the opening laughs and set the tone. I also had the vocal solo in the opening number to Act II, which challenged me with holding a high F for six measures.
 
August
​In another translation job, I had to decipher hand-writing in a letter from the 1960s, written by an elderly lady in Rusyn, in an old, Hungarian-style script (nowadays it’s written in Cyrillic). I’ve had zero instruction in Rusyn and it was in a thick dialect, but I was able to interpolate from my knowledge of neighboring languages. For the most part—some phrases were too difficult to figure out reliably. But it was enough to give the client a picture of life in the Old World—and to make contact with previously unknown relatives here in the States.
 
Began work as Chess Coach at the Eastern Shore Community College.
 
September – finally figured out all the words and chords of the Russian Gypsy song “Poy, zveni, moya gitara.” I couldn’t find guitar tabs, and even the lyrics I located online didn’t quite correspond to the version I’d seen on YouTube that I liked so much. Anyway, after three years of off-and-on attempts, I finally got it and premiered it at the (Cape Charles, VA) Lemon Tree Gallery’s open mike night on the 15th.
 
November
​Played three (small) roles in “The Man Who Came to Dinner”

Gave a talk at the Science and Philosophy Seminar at Eastern Shore Community College: “Travels with Franz Ferdinand: Or How WWI Kicked Off.” It was a mix of slide show, video, and history on my trip around the former Austria-Hungary in summer 2014.
 
Finished a first draft of my book on that trip, “Travels with Ferdinand and Friends.”
 
December
​Added several songs to my Christmas repertoire and played a really nice Christmas Eve gig in Bizzotto’s restaurant in Onancock, VA, in addition to three open mike appearances.

Cecilia, Patron Saint of Music
 
November 22 is the feast of St. Cecilia, and as a musician, I just have to celebrate. All the more as I once sang in a choir named for her. That was for one year in the East Slovak city of Košice.
 
As I was about to move there after a three-year stint in Central Slovakia, a Roma violinist friend of mine put me in touch with the organist/conductor from the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth in Košice. 

When I arrived in September, the group was at a choral competition in France, from which they returned with second prize. Once I started rehearsing with them, I realized I was somewhere in the bottom quarter of the talent pool. About half were conservatory students or grads; a good number sang—a couple as principals—in the opera.
 
At the center of the story is the remarkable conductor Viliam Gurbal. Born into a musical family he grew up playing several instruments, but studied electronics – a skill he still employs in recording. He met my friend Alexander Dasko of www.GypsyMusic.sk during their mandatory military service and they played in a group – Alex on violin and Vilo in cimbal, an East-Central European hammer dulcimer with a three-and-a-half-octave range. They’ve kept in touch all these years, though they live about four hours apart.

In addition to church organ duties, umpteen Masses per week, Vilo still plays cimbal in an ensemble, often at weddings. A few years ago I saw him play with young Gypsies, helping them gain experience. The interesting thing was that, during breaks, Vilo would use every spare minute to transcribe musical manuscripts on his laptop. His head would twist from yellowed old sheets on the table to the computer screen.

For years, he’d been borrowing works from the city archives, then transcribing and recording. Then I began to understand why everything we sang in the chorus had a St. Cecilia copyright mark on it. I further unraveled the mystery of Vilo when a friend suggested that he did the transcribing in part because it familiarized him with every single not.
 
Vilo also played a significant role in the selection of Košice as European Capital of Culture for 2013, as a number of his projects were part of the competition entry. You can read more about Vilo and Kosice in an article I wrote six years ago. (Of course, there’s more on the life and traditions of St. Cecilia on Wikipedia.) 

I've been delighted and honored to sing with the St. Cecilia choir on various occasions on visits to Europe in the years since I lived there full-time.

I'll leave you now with this interview with Vilo (in Slovak), followed by clips from a performance. The first song (starts about 3:30) is "O beata et gloriosa/O blessed and glorious," a Marian hymn I've sung with them many times.

I'm not waxing romantic today. I’m tired of false history. Nicholas II had abdicated in March of 1917. What the Bolsheviks overthrew was the (second) provisional government following that resignation.

I'm delighted to see that the Google doodle for today celebrates pad thai. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with any anniversary of the invention of the Thai national dish. Maybe the choice has more to do with avoidance of the October "Revolution."
 
Please see my posts from March on this topic:
 
Russia’s Real Revolution at 100

Fall of the House of Romanov: 100 Years

See also this PBS article on the controversy and ambivalence surrounding the anniversary.