#Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings

[lettersfromaphrodite]

[17.59]

― pairing : Jeongin x fem! reader ― content warnings : angst with a happy ending, royals au, reader is an assassin, Jeongin is the cutest Crown Prince, no but really he’s super precious, medieval settings ― word count : 3k

― notes : this fic looks familiar?it is! I’m reposting ALL my works on this brand new blog and therefore please, bear with me! as always, askbox is always open and feedbacks are always welcome 💌

👑 ROYALS! STRAY KIDS SERIES

Chris // Changbin // Jisung // Hyunjin // Seungmin // Minho // Felix part one | part two // Jeongin

Contrarily to the expectations you had when you first joined the assassins guild, you became quite good at climbing walls; actually, it was only because you learnt pretty quickly that it was a fundamental requirement, unless you wanted to be hanged as a direct consequence to your actions.

However, this time, you had the authorization to walk in and then walk out directly through the front door of the Crown Prince’s fancy summer estate. At the beginning, the singular request surprised you but Seonghwa – the town guild’s boss, quickly explained you that it was pretty common for nobles, especially the Royal family, to try and kill each other.

«You’re becoming the best assassin I have,» he explained back then, «So, get used to it: more money they have, more money we get.» you nodded, happy with the unexpected praise, and without questioning any further detail, you started studying the maps of the residence, even if it was a pure formality. 

You have been an assassin for at least ten years, thanks to the guild recruiting kids in order to think about smaller crimes without the fear of being caught; orphans were the most common recruits, and with the promise of gaining a good wealth and never starve yourself again, you accepted without thinking further, mostly blinded by your hunger.

Even in your childhood days, you have never been particularly emotional, a quality that definitely helped you the more years passed. During all your missions, you always killed men much older than you, all of them begging for sympathy or mercy but, needless to say, their pleads never shook your soul, since the money you were promised once you completed the mission was much more valuable. This time, your target was the Crown Prince – the illegal son of the King, and you thought out he would have been added to the list of ugly, semi bald men that begged you to spare their lives.

Even if you were authorized by the Queen herself, you thought that hiding your as soon as you were close enough to the mansion’s gates would have been a wiser thing to do; after carefully hiding him behind a large oak tree thanks to the natural shield the night provided, the guards let you in as soon as you showed them the letter you received, and with careful steps you walked in, your identity safely hidden under your hood.

The fact that literally everyone in the mansion was aware of your mission made you furrow your brows; was the Prince so evil for everyone to want him dead? For sure, there must have been a further reason beside him being an illegitimate son, right? You shook your head, adjusting your cape as you quickly walked through the corridors; you were an assassin, therefore, you weren’t paid to question people’s morality.

By now, you knew by heart the path you had to take in order to reach the Prince’s private chambers; your hold tightened around the knife’s helm as you unlocked the door right before closing it behind your back without making any noise. The moonlight was illuminating the bed, and by the silence and laboured breathing, you figured that Prince Jeongin must have been asleep, making your work even easier.

«You’re here, finally,» a young and sweet voice startled you as you were now standing at the feet of the bed; the Prince slowly uncovered himself, just to stand up next to it with a quick move.

“He’s still dressed formally,” you thought, quickly examination his figure, “did he know?”

«Where do you want to do it?» the innocence and resignation the boy’s voice held made your blood ran cold, and for the first time in your life, you hesitated. The boy was young, he was around his twenties - you could have been the same age, his hair was black and it reached his shoulders. You knew the people who hired you wanted him dead, but he was just a boy.

Unexpectedly, your heart picked up speed at the realization; you have never killed anyone so young.

«Please?» the Prince interrupted your train of thoughts, opening his arms wide and tilting his neck so that you could choose where to stab him and with a rapid and swift movement, you lowered your knife in horror, looking around in order to see if it was some sort of trap.

«What are you doing?» you asked, dumbfounded, not even bothering to force your voice to come out a little rougher so that it would have been less recognizable.

«Oh,» Jeongin looked at you once again with his brows furrowed, his arms falling on his sides, «you were doing so well!» with rapid steps, he inched towards you, grabbing your wrist, «It’s just a stab, I promise!»

To say that you were shocked was an understatement; your heart started to hammer in your chest and you threw your knife on the bed; with a quick movement of your arm, you reversed your positions, shifting behind Jeongin while keeping his arm behind his back.

It was paradoxical; you - an assassin, forcing Jeongin – the Crown Prince, to confess why he was yearning for his own death.

«I was waiting for it,» Jeongin explained with a small and resigned voice, «how can a bastard be the heir to the throne?» he said, and the way he spat those words made you quickly understood that probably, he had been hearing these words his whole life.

A wave of pure concern washed over you, and you kept hesitating on what to do; aware that the more you hesitated and talked with your target, the more you were screwed. Talking led to emotions, and emotions led to hesitation: a feeling which you clearly didn’t need. Assassins weren’t paid to have emotions, and even less, to have conversations.

«Okay, listen to me,» you set free Jeongin from your grasp, and he obediently sat on the bed hearing your harsh tone; his big eyes looked at you carefully, and you momentarily felt your heart clench at the sadness you saw in them. Truth was, you weren’t sure on what to do, but you were driven by the instinct of keeping him safe; you never felt like this, you never felt anything while doing your job but this time it was just… Different, in a way you could not understand.

The only thing you could make out from the whirlwind of thoughts in your head was that Jeongin had the same empty, dejected eyes you had when you met Seonghwa, before you both joined the guild. «I’m going to take you out of here, and you’re gonna be fucking silent until I say so,» you said, before reaching for your knife and sheathe it back.

Jeongin was puzzled with your actions – and you were too, but nonetheless obeyed as you instructed him to get up, only for trying to lift him over your shoulder. Thanks to your constant physical activity, you were more built than the girls around your age, but even so, you didn’t have super powers and Jeongin was definitely a bit too much light weighted for your taste. With another quick movement, you put him back on the floor, looking at him in the eyes with a serious and inquisitive gaze.

«Unbutton your jacket.» you ordered, aware that the sentence didn’t came out in the way you wanted because Jeongin blushed furiously and started stuttering on his words, before complying with trembling hands. Truth was, despite the fact that the Prince was so incredibly innocent and attractive, the first things your hands checked as he opened his expensive blue and silver jacket were his sides; with innocent and confident touches, your hands caressed his waist, his chest, and your eyes flew into his once again.

«Jeongin,» you said, not minding about formalities with the boy you were supposed to kill but most of all, worried about the fact that you could easily count his ribs under your gloved fingertips, «Do you even eat?»

«I-» Jeongin adverted his gaze, unsure what to answer, «Sometimes I… forget.»

“Lies,” you thought, and your instinct had the best of you; quickly, you buttoned his shirt once again, before mimicking him to stay silent. Jeongin nodded, and you lifted him over your shoulders, keeping him in place with one hand on the back of his thighs.

The walk back to your horse was quick – you mentally praised yourself for having hidden your horse and utterly felt disgusted with the people that complimented your job on your way out.

«Finally, the real Prince can claim the throne,» one of them said, and you had to refrain from throwing the poisoned blade – originally destined to Jeongin, to his throat.

The realization that you didn’t know what to do hit you full face as soon as Jeongin was standing next to your horse, looking at you with a lost expression; he was playing with his own fingers, looking around as if he had rarely seen the world outside his mansion’s walls.

Jeongin was alive, and therefore, you had failed your mission; in ten years this was definitely the first mission you’ve ever failed, but deep down, you knew you had done the right thing. With a quick movement, Jeongin covered his rumbling stomach, hoping that you didn’t hear the fact that he was still hungry at a such unholy hour of the night.

The moment your eyes locked with his and all you could see was sadness and utter innocence, you knew what you had to do.

«Come, I’ll take you to a safe place,» you said as soon as you climbed on your horse, offering him your hand so that he could climb up as well, sitting in front of you.

Jeongin was unsure whether to trust you, but after all, you just saved his life; he thought that it probably couldn’t get worse than one of his usual days, and so, he took your hand with all the strength he had before helping himself up on his horse.

That night, you took Jeongin back to your small apartment, cooked for him, and let him sleep on your bed, aware that as paradoxical as it sounded, Prince Jeongin was safer in the company of an assassin rather than his entire guardhouse.

The fact that you created a scandal among the assassins guild of your town was a euphemism.

«What did you mean you couldn’t do it?» Seonghwa almost shouted in disbelief, and that’s how you spent a solid hour of your day: in utter silence, with your eyes locked on the floor. You patiently listened to Seonghwa’s outburst, knowing that he was right; you weren’t paid to have emotions.

«I sent you on the job because I knew I could trust you, and what do you do?» Seonghwa ran a hand through his hair, somehow relieved that, at least, you decided to get rid of any evidence of him being alive.

«I’m sorry,» you tried, your voice weak and your heart full of sadness due to the fact that you disappointed him; Seonghwa was few years older than you, and he always saw you as a little sister, helping you out with your training when you were still a rookie on the job. As soon as Seonghwa was chosen to be the new leader of your city’s guild, you were happy, since you firmly believed that no one could be better than him. «He was so scared, I saw myself when I first joined.» you confessed at last, and Seonghwa’s eyes somehow softened.

Seonghwa sat on his chair, his head thrown back and his hands massaging his scalp, thinking about what he could do to resolve this mess; you couldn’t stay in town, and neither could the Prince.

«I’ll write a letter to Chris,» he said, few interminable minutes later, his words muffled by his hands still on his face, «He’ll hire you for sure.» he explained that Chris was the leader of another assassins guild in another realm.

«Pack your things, you have to leave tonight.» you nodded at his words, and for the first time in ten years, you received actual affection in the form of Seonghwa gently hugging you close to his body, whispering a soft, «I promise I’ll come and visit.» for a moment, you let yourself go, sighing against his chest and hugging him just as close, as you felt some tears at the corners of your eyes.

«I’m sorry.» you admitted, the fact that you had to definitely leave the city where you’ve always lived in finally started to sink in.

«It’s okay, little monkey.» Seonghwa caressed your hair, and you smiled at the nickname he gave you when you were still kids, learning how to climb on the city’s walls without getting hurt.

«Innie, where did my cape disappear?» you called from the bedroom, before hearing a quick shuffle of steps walking towards where you were. Immediately, you smiled at the sight of Jeongin – which now lived under the name of “Innie”, walking towards you with a cute pout.

«It’s still drying under the sun,» he mumbled, his arms snaking around your waist and his chin delicately resting on your shoulder.

«What am I supposed to wear now?» you sighed, faking annoyance and looking at the boy while tilting your head, watching as he giggled at your reaction.

Two long years has passed since the night you saved Jeongin, and he seemed a completely different person; his hair were now shorter and he wasn’t as thin anymore. Jeongin grew taller, his body looked way more toned and healthier, the innocence in his eyes was the same, but the sadness was now completely replaced by kindness and happiness.

Jeongin had so much love to give it was unbelievable, and he addressed all of it towards you- his best friend, and your group of friends – the élite members of Chris’ guild. For the first time in your life, you weren’t scared of having emotions, and it was all thanks to Jeongin’s natural talent of bringing people together.

«You could always use mine!» Jeongin smiled, and you shook your head.

«We’re meat to go together.» you reminded him, but he still insisted for you to wear his cape instead of him.

Despite the fact that both you and Jeongindefinitely felt more than simple and chaste affection towards each other was kinda obvious – especially to your friends, but you’d always find a way to avoid the topic. Both you and Jeongin had just started a brand new life together, the least thing you both wanted to do was to ruin an opportunity to be happy.

You were sure that eventually, one day you and him would become a couple, but you didn’t wanted to rush it. Things as delicate as love need time, after all.

The meeting was informal, you and the others were meant to meet at Chris’ house and eventually talk about business after you all had dinner; evenings like this were definitely not rare, and you realized that that night, sparing Jeongin’s life was the best decision you’ve ever made. You were most definitely happy; you had friends, you had someone who loved you and always waited for your return anytime you went on your missions.

Technically, Jeongin worked in the guild as well, but effectively, Chris accepted your plead to keep him in the shadows, leaving everything regarding the accountability to him.

At first, Chris was confused but accepted nonetheless, only to find why you were so worried about him going around and killing people. Jeongin was the most innocent, clumsiest boy you’ve ever met, and slowly, both you and your group of friends started not to trust him around anything which was too sharp or looked threatening.

«What do you mean there are blades that come out of your sleeve?!» Seungmin chimed in the conversation you were having with Jisung, Minho and Hyunjin, and you immediately referred him about a new creation that Seonghwa told you about in one of his letters. 

«Oh, cool,» you heard Jeongin say, noticing in the corner of your eyes that he was leaning towards Changbin in order to hold one of the knives he had placed on the table as he was talking to Chris and Felix.  

«Jeongin, no!» eight different voices echoed in perfect synchrony, startling the poor boy which petrified with his eyes wide and a knife hanging in mid-air. Jeongin put the knife back on the table with a pout, quickly going back to sit on his original place next to you. 

Jeongin spent half of the night cutely glaring at everyone with an adorable pout – his chin on your shoulder, until eventually your fingers interlocked on your lap.  

It was a mid-summer afternoon, the sun was burning bright in the sky and you were quietly humming to a song you’ve heard at the tavern few nights earlier as you were washing the dishes in the small house you were living in with Jeongin.

It happened naturally, one moment you were focused on cleaning a spoon, and the other you felt Jeongin’s fingertips tilting your head towards the left just to place a quiet and chaste kiss on your lips, mumbling a soft, «I like you a lot.»

At first, you stared at him as if you have been struck by lightning, wondering who turned your cute and innocent Innie into a smooth and sneaky boy – it was probably Hyunjin, but then, you acknowledged your constantly growing feelings for him.

«I like you, too.» you admitted, and immediately Jeongin walked behind you in order to hug you while you finished your chores.

«Wait,» you tensed up, moving just enough to side-eye him, «Wasn’t it your turn to wash the dishes today?»

«I… forgot… I have to talk to Chris about very important matter!» Jeongin chanted, and you watched with an incredulous amused expression your boyfriend running away from his own duties. 

all works © lettersfromaphrodite

Do not modify, repost, translate or plagiarize my stories. I only publish my works on tumblr & AO3.

↳ BACK TO NAVIGATION 💫 ↳ BACK TO MASTERLIST 🔮

[medieval-elephants]

Remember, an elephant is not just for Christmas!

If you are a medieval ruler like Henry III who received an elephant from his brother-in-law (St) Louis IX of France in early December 1254, be prepared to spend:

£6 17 shillings 5 pence (refund to the sheriff of Kent for transporting the elephant from France to England) £22 20 pence on a multi-purpose elephant house at the Tower of London £24 14 shillings 3½ pence on food for the elephant every nine months

By comparison, a laborer might earn just 1-and-a-half pence per day, while a well-to-do knight might live on £15 per year. (For more, see Cassidy's and Clasby's article from the Fine Rolls of Henry III Project.) And don't forget, you will have to pay for the elephant's keeper, too! The monk-chronicler Matthew Paris helpfully depicted Henry III's elephants alongside one of its keepers for scale. The man is labelled as Henry de Flor, "mag[iste]r bestie" ("caretaker of the beast").

Sadly, Henry did not have these expenses for long: although many medieval legends emphasized elephants' longevity, this elephant only lived until 1257 in the inhospitable northern climate. When it died, it was initially buried in the tower, but Henry later had its bones transferred to Westminster Abbey.

Despite these difficulties and costs, elephants had a notable history as diplomatic gifts in the Middle Ages, even in regions where elephants did not naturally live. Charlemagne's elephant Abul Abbas is a very early example of the phenomenon, and by the eleventh century Byzantine emperors were receiving elephants in Constantinople. In 1228, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II received an elephant from al-Kamil, the ruler of Egypt, and King Louis IX probably also received his elephant from an Egyptian ruler before regifting it to Henry III.

Side note: although the "white elephant" gift exchange claims to be based on a southeast Asian ruler's practice of punishing courtiers with a gift that would cost them a lot of money, there is not much historical evidence for this before the story was shared in the Anglo-American world in modern era. Some elephants fought back over being passed around as gifts, though. In the early 15th century an elephant and other rare animals arrived in Japan. (Martha Chaiklin has suggested that they were intended as a diplomatic gift for someone else, but were blown off course and ended up with the Ashikaga shogun.) The elephant was extremely grumpy and trampled some courtiers, so the shogun regifted it to Taejong, ruler of Korea. The elephant continued to trample courtiers in Korea and was expensive to feed, so Taejong exiled it to its own private island, where it continued to live.

Materials: parchment, ink, and pigments Contents: Matthew Paris's Chronica Maiora Origin: St Albans Abbey (made by the scribe-illuminator-chronicler-monk Matthew Paris) Now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16 I, f. ii r

[nathanieldorsky]

Max Goldberg on the slide lecture by Jerome Hiler for Film Comment Magazine

Heaven Can Wait was written in celebration of Jerome’s presentation of the slide lecture at MoMA to open the film series, The Illuminated Hours, a celebration of the films of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler at MoMA and the Anthology Film Archives. This “live" presentation at MoMA is on the evening of Thursday, May 9th, 2024 at 7 in the evening.

Cinema Before 1300

By Max Goldberg

Early in Cinema Before 1300, Jerome Hiler’s feature-length survey of medieval stained glass, the filmmaker explains that he first saw Chartres Cathedral in the pages of a book gifted to him in the mid-1960s by Charles Boultenhouse and Parker Tyler, elders of the era’s New York avant-garde. It took another 25 years or so for Hiler to travel to Europe to see the cathedral for himself. He brought a Nikon to photograph stained glass across France and England, sharing his 35mm slides with friends and, eventually, in a few public lectures. After one such presentation at the Harvard Film Archive in 2017, Hiler was persuaded by HFA Director Haden Guest to turn his slides into the discursive film that will show at the Museum of Modern Art next week, ahead of several programs of his and his partner Nathaniel Dorsky’s lush experimental films.

It feels odd to call Cinema Before 1300 an essay film, since the term has come to be associated with a riddling, theory-minded style. Hiler’s approach is closer to the classical ideal of the essay: lucid, companionable, amateur in the original sense (as in, “one who loves”). He is perfectly willing to concede the limits of his knowledge—“I don’t know what the significance of that is,” he says of the recurring figure of a king tugging at his collar like “an ancestor of Rodney Dangerfield”—but his exploration is nevertheless grounded in years of close looking and practical know-how. (In addition to making intensely lyrical films, Hiler has worked extensively, if privately, with glass.)

For those who might demur at the prospect of an old-school art-history lecture, it ought to be said that Hiler’s photographs are totally gorgeous. His framing shows the windows to great advantage, and the saturated color of his original 35mm slides is a perfect match for the brilliance of the stained glass. The narration approaches this visual index from a variety of angles: with a theological gloss on Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s idea of “light from divine darkness,” for instance, or a historical note on the cataclysmic fire that ripped through Chartres in 1194. Hiler muses on how the windows change with weather and time of day, making “many windows out of one”; offers a technical explanation of the perceptual effects of halation; argues for leaving the marks of age in any restoration; and marvels at all the pictorial detail that couldn’t have been seen by congregants—just as, we might note, the subtleties of his own richly detailed films invariably escape a first viewing.

It is rather amazing that a work so full of information should also feel so serene. Similar to the way in which large stained-glass windows are made from many smaller pieces of glass, Hiler divides Cinema Before 1300 into discrete sequences, each comprising a paragraph’s worth of narration and a few slides of the glories of Chartres, Saint-Denis, Canterbury, and other cathedrals. At the end of each stanza, Hiler finishes his talk and pauses for a few beats, allowing the glass to have the last word, and then repairs to darkness. He uses interleaving blackouts to the same rhythmic, almost respiratory effect in his lyrical films, but here the technique doubles back to the imagined space of the cathedral. “Darkness is the sacred setting that film and stained glass share,” Hiler reflects over an extended interval of black toward the beginning of the film. “Our overview begins in the early 12th century, a time when darkness was imbued with a powerful spiritual significance . . . It was not the darkness of negation; it was pregnant, life-giving, limitless, and timeless.”

The connection between the cathedral and the cinema goes well beyond the shared spiritual interplay of light and dark: there is also the sequential nature of early narrative art; the saints as movie stars, with “personalities . . . known, loved, and adopted by the populace”; the way the likeness of a window’s sponsor functioned like an executive-producer credit; and how certain tropes, like the devil perched on a person’s shoulder, have passed through time virtually unchanged. Leaving narrative aside, Hiler can’t resist mentioning how five densely patterned windows at York Minster resemble Stan Brakhage filmstrips, and we might just as easily see the mandala-minded Harry Smith in the alchemist’s rose at Notre-Dame or the 3D-obsessed Ken Jacobs in the frequently used blues and reds that produce a mesmerizing sense of “dimension without perspective.” Perhaps most salient is the medieval ideal of claritas, which, per Hiler, creates “an environment that [awakens] the mind through the senses”—very close indeed to the “devotional cinema” explored in Dorsky’s slim book of the same name.

In this telling, the first “death of cinema” can be dated back to 1241, when a Council of the Sorbonne ruling indirectly led to clear windows flooding cathedrals with daylight, banishing the necessary conditions for stained glass to work its magic. The fate of the cathedrals readily brings to mind the devolution of the great movie palaces, including, in just the past year, the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, Hiler and Dorsky’s longtime hometown. More particular to Hiler’s own craft, the historical subject also lends itself to thinking about what it means to stay true to an artistic lineage when the tide goes out. Hiler’s lament, late in Cinema Before 1300, that he watches his “world of culture and values disappear in daily installments” needs to be taken alongside the film’s testament to the remarkable persistence of material culture even through the most trying circumstances.

In a long interview included in the recent book Illuminated Hours: The Early Cinema of Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, Hiler recalls that his very first shot with a movie camera was of a rose-colored piece of glass. A friend advised that instead of actually filming stained glass, Hiler should make his films themselves “be like stained glass.” Viewers can judge his success in the upcoming programs celebrating the book at MoMA and Anthology Film Archives, but Cinema Before 1300, like Hiler’s earlier documentary work, stands on its own two feet. A few weeks after watching the film at home, I went up to the Cloisters on a rainy day and found the stained-glass figures in the Early Gothic Room waiting for me, perfectly assured yet surprisingly familiar. Which is to say that Cinema Before 1300 leaves a long-lived afterimage—and its own measure of sanctuary.

Max Goldberg is an archivist and writer based in the Boston area.

[phanlight]

Imagine Living Like a King Someday

prompt: Southview Boarding School isn’t a castle and Phil Lester isn’t royalty, but he has everything. His father owns the school, he’s popular, has the best room, gets all the best treatment – there are very few things that aren’t handed to him on a platter. Dan is a cleaner/Phil’s personal maid there, and he isn’t as lucky. Everyone seems to take an aversion to the outsider, including Phil (at first).

[CHAPTER MASTERPOST]

me thinkin i’d cleared this fic up w the last chapter til i re-read a bunch of it and HOOOOO BOI why was i so obsessed with plot twists without the fkin plot

I am determined to make this all add up and work together but it may take a few chapters also I still have no idea how this is going to end LOL

[ao3 link]

Southview owns a lot of land.

It spreads out in blanketed acres of green, field upon forest upon meadow; miles of emerald patchwork. The building itself, founded somewhere in the fourteenth century apparently, makes up only a fraction of the private greenery Phil has been calling home for the past decade.

Habitatually speaking, it’s impressive. To be able to call such rich halls, such polished corridors and winding mahogany stairs, ever spiraling further and further below his house, his own dwelling; is something he struggles to grasp. He supposes every other student currently residing here may find some relation to a certain degree – but to look at a winding cobbled path and every single brick completing every wall, to name the clock tower chiming every high-clouded noon into existence anything remotely of an heirloom – isn’t anything his soul will allow him to process. He doesn’t see it changing anytime soon.

He stares at the wall-to-wall bookshelves lining every corridor brimming with ancient knowledge, medieval tales and just about every participle of the literary canon. There are strict rules against removing any books from their respective shelves with dire consequences if unobliged (absolutely ridiculous, Phil thinks – who in their right mind would consider reading a punishable offence? They’re there to be read.) He and Dan had taken it upon themselves to create a discreet enough rule-breaking method; choosing the dead of night to tiptoe through long, hallowed corridors devoid of light and sound and people and life, all whispers and giggles and cold interlocked fingers, sleepy eyes scanning fraying ladders of spines, whispered-yet-echoey assessments over which would be least missed for however many hours.

The candles up above, though only illuminated during the seasonal months, drip hardened wax onto the stone walls covering every inch of interior; something he otherwise never would have seen anywhere else in this time, let alone place. The beams hang dark and gnarled, curving across every roof with chapel-like grace.

He’s lucky, and he knows it.

Why, then, does he feel like a bird in a cage? Why can he sense the wings, feathered promises of freedom, hit against iron bars whenever he outstretches? This place is becoming too small, he decides. Seven years walking the same grounds, with the same windows and the same views no matter how creative he gets with his detours. The same faces, same conversations with all the same values; with only sporadic weeks of the outside world in between.

He wonders what he would have done had Dan not entered the scene. Wherever the place in his mind, he knows madness would reside. He only feels a breath away from it now.

He blames it on his surroundings, pushing down the rise of unease that jumps through his stomach. It’s got to be that.

::

It doesn’t subside.

“Are you okay?” he hears a voice soften beside him. 

He can’t lie. Not to Dan.

He shuts his eyes and realizes he’s been staring at that Oscar Wilde painting for way too long. The afterimage burns his retina in every shade of negative. His hair deep black on canvas now chalk white behind the eyelids. His eyes look like caves.

“I don’t know,” is the closest to the truth he can get. “I feel weird.”

Dan’s entire stance changes. Concern floods his eyes and he’s suddenly upright

“Why? What’s up?”

“I don’t-…” he shakes his head in defeat.  “I really don’t know. That’s why I’m so-…” his racing mind interrupts him. So what? So comfortable, yet so ill at ease? It makes no sense. 

This should be bliss. Curled up on a beanbag with his favourite person somewhere on the third floor of the library behind a wooden disguise of bookshelves and tall tables. Their ‘spot’ lies in a convenient nook no other soul seems to have yet discovered – a definite perk of being the son of the owner is having premium, extensive knowledge of every single crack and avenue this place has to offer; surveillance included.

That’s how the undercroft became a meeting point in the first place, Phil suddenly remembers as his stomach falls through three stone library floors.

It was him.

He had come up with the idea. He had planned the safest night-time route, locating every surveillance camera and possible risky window. And he, funnily enough, was the one who had spent an hour talking the three of them into it to begin with – if he strains his mind far back enough he can recall even Liam having doubts. Many of them, actually.

“Come on,” a harsher, younger and definitely more obnoxious version of himself had urged.

“No way,” Liam was the first to say. Freddie and Violet hadn’t been overly keen, but it was Liam who was adamant.

He feels sicker.

“What’s bothering you?” Dan closes the book they were giggling at no longer than forty seconds ago and turns his attention completely to him.

His heart is thudding now. He hasn’t given any of that any thought whatsoever since it happened; all anxiety surrounding the situation having been newly dissipated by evenings of laughter and love and-

Had it been dissipated? Or merely masked? Ignorance by will or by proxy?

“Phil?”

Had he spent all these passing months pointing fingers, dodging the blame, deflecting everything like a house of mirrors when this whole thing, this entire time, had actually been his fault?

He snaps out of himself and realizes it’s Emily Dickinson now burning behind the eyelids.

It’s too much. Even the oil portraits, beautiful as they are (and original too, allegedly), are all the same faces. It’s all the fucking same.

“We need to get out of here.”

Dan frowns. “Huh?”

“We need to get out of here,” he repeats, and stands up immediately. The book that was on his lap catapults to the floor, landing outstretched in a papery mess.

“Wait-“ Dan scrabbles around behind him, rescuing the book and smoothing out the newly crumpled pages. His own expression creases a little with the paper.

Phil doesn’t. He can’t. His vision is a tunnel and it’s only blind panic propelling him forward, past shelves and students and voices he can only barely decipher. Every cell in his body, every single drop of blood and beat of his heart is drilling the same message into his mind.

Get out.

It’s only until he feels the slap of winter air against his damp forehead he realizes he’s outside. He stops sweating and starts shivering, clutching the corner of the stone wall as if gravity be seconds away from disappearing and flinging him into the night sky.

His chest feels like lead. Each breath comes heavy, deep; never quite enough despite each gasp filling up his lungs like he’s drowning on air alone. His stomach feels like someone has clawed it out with blunt, bare fingers.

The huge door flaps open and a tiny figure runs out.

He can barely see. His vision still exists in blobs and grains, like someone turned up the contrast too much but also turned it right down completely. What’s happening to him?

“I’m sorr-“ he gasps, but Dan hushes him.

“Focus on your breath,” his voice is calm but firm. He’s unaware of the soft grip on either shoulder until he sees two arms outstretched in front of him.

Phil tries to, but each gasp gets stuck in his throat.

“In through the nose, out through the mouth,” Dan guides him, demonstrating. Each breath seems so smooth, so calculated. Phil doesn’t want to think how often he’s had to do this.

His heart is still hammering, but he manages to comply.

“Imagine you’re blowing on a candle,” Dan continues. “But don’t blow it out.” 

It’s a challenge to focus when his mind is running one million mines a minute, but Phil shuts his eyes and eventually the swirling grain begins to subside. He’s still breathing way too hard and it’s probably enough to blow out a ninety-seventh birthday cake, but Dan’s encouragement doesn’t waver.

“You’re getting there,” he says, giving his shoulders a gentle squeeze before dropping his grip completely. “Are you okay with that, by the way?” he gestures toward his hands. “Fuck, sorry- I should have asked- but when I’m having a panic attack it usually helps to keep me like-… centred.”

“No, it’s-…” Phil releases a shaky breath. “It helps. Thank you,” his eyes flutter shut when he feels two warm hands on his shoulder. He’s already feeling a fraction calmer.

“No need to thank me,” Dan says, his voice like velvet.

His eyes fly open. “Panic attack?”

Dan’s own are soft. “I think that’s what you’re having.”

His heart is still thudding, but at a marginally dropped pace. He’s never experienced anything like that before. Shit, is that what it’s like?

His vision has almost completely cleared; certainly enough to make out Dan’s silhouetted form in the amber glow of the lamp post.

“Is this really what you go through?” his voice is reedy, hoarse. All he can focus on is the boy inches away from his face.

Dan nods quietly. “Can be up to five times a day. Once it was twenty.”

He feels like crying. However much adrenaline there had been ripping through his veins had melted away; albeit only slightly, but the thought alone of this being a daily endeavor makes him want to physically remove his central nervous system himself. The thought of enduring such pain not only on a daily basis but multiple, only to emerge with a smile and with enough capacity to help others with the same issue-

Dan is an angel. 

He doesn’t deserve him, his mind cries. He really doesn’t. He doesn’t.

“Deep breaths,” he reminds him, and it’s only then he realizes he’s hyperventilating again.

“Fuck,” he curses, slowing his chest down. He remembers the candle and closes his eyes again.

“You’re doing great,” Dan whispers when his breathing softens. “You’ve only blown out about seven this time. You’re on your eighth.”

He huffs out a shaky laugh, his heart melting into a puddle. As if he’d been counting.

“Ah,” Dan grins. “Maybe ninth, now.”

“Thank you,” he sighs, still trembling. He can’t tell if it’s temperature or panic-related anymore, but he doesn’t think he cares. He doesn’t have the capacity to right now.

“Come on,” Dan pulls him into a hug, arms wound tight around the waist as if there be no intention, no need to let go. “You’re okay.”

“How can you deal with that?” he says, not bothering to mask the crack in his voice.

“I have my ways,” he says as smoothly as his voice can allow, but Phil feels him gulp. Feels the quick jump of his throat against his shoulder.

The nausea returns.

::

“Ow, fuck-“ Dan snaps his fingers up from the drawer. “Bastard thing.”

“It wants your fingers more than I do,” Phil mumbles, then coughs on a mouthful of Mountain Dew.

Droplets fly everywhere.

"Phil!” Dan’s jaw drops when a few darken his trousers. He’s more than used to the other boy’s frequent laughter at his own jokes, but that one wasn’t even funny. “For fuck’s sake. So not only am I in pain, I’m wet too?”

“In pain and wet?” A voice pops up from around the corner, sending a jolt through the pair of them. “Phil, you naughty bastard, what have you been doing to the poor guy?”

“Oh, you f-“ Phil clutches his chest, his heart hammering. “Are you ever going to stop doing that? I had my first panic attack today. I don’t want another.”

“You’re saying that like it isn’t my plan,” Noah raises an eyebrow and slides past.

“Come in,” Phil gestures sarcastically.

“Leave your door open,’ he retaliates with equal sarcasm, blowing him a kiss. He plops himself down on the revolving chair and takes a token spin. He’s frowning on the other end of the 360 degrees, the other half of the sentence only just registering. “Shit, are you okay? What brought it on?”

“I am now,” Phil’s eyes flicker to the other company, mopping his trousers with a clump of tissue. “Dan got me through.”

He doesn’t deliberately avoid the latter question, but it’s certainly no accident.

“Candle trick works wonders, I’m telling you,” Dan says without turning around, still dabbing at the stain.

“It does,” Noah agrees, picking up Phil’s empty pen holder. He usually lasts a record of ten whole seconds in his room before finding something nearby to fiddle with. “It got me through the Death of a Salesman production, that’s for sure. Christ, I was a mess,” he shudders. “The four-seven-eight trick is good, too,” he adds.

“Four seconds in, hold for seven, exhale for eight,” the other boy echoes. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. You press your tongue on the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth, too.”

“Really?” Phil’s eyes dart between the pair of them. Is this something he’s going to have to get used to?

“It’s meant to recalibrate the nervous system. Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio uses it,” Noah adds.

“Wonder if it would have helped on the Titanic,” Phil raises an eyebrow.

“The fucking boat would have sank anyway,” Noah cackles. “The four-seven-eight is good, but it can’t demolish icebergs, babe.”

“It has its limits,” Dan adds, plopping the tissue in the bin and heading for the bed. A quick "you okay now?" is mouthed as soon as Noah takes another spin on the chair.

Phil nods and gives his hand a little squeeze, praying he hasn’t noticed the sweat.

“So,” Noah spins again, eyes to the ceiling, before muttering a “fuck that” and leaping up off the chair. He stumbles around for a handful of seconds, clutching the desk.  “What have you boys been up to, then?”

“What, since this afternoon?” Phil says. He’d only seen him about five hours ago.

“Yeah. Anything could have happened,” Noah replies, dizzily plonking himself down on the bed next to Dan with such force the shorter boy bobs upward. Phil splutters.

“That was- oh my god, that was adorable,” he gasps delightedly. “Do it again.”

Dan glares at him, fighting a smirk. “Shut up. No, don’t do it again.”

“Do what again?” Noah glances between them. “I don’t even know what I did.”

“Did you not see that?” Phil widens his eyes. “Oh my god. When you bounce down like that,“ he giggles, ignoring Dan’s “no, shall we not” – “Dan’s like a feather, so he literally defies gravity.”

“Hah,” Noah springs upward and launches himself down with about three times the force as before. Dan catapults up, starfished in the air for about a second before hurtling down on the mattress.

Noah and Phil hoot with laughter. Dan’s doubled over in stitches, clutching his abdomen. He can feel tears of laughter brimming at his eyelashes and he probably looks in pain right now but really he’s anything but.

He’s so happy it hurts.

“Shit, he really does!” Noah shrieks. “Oh my god, that’s quality. You okay?”

Dan manages to breathe out an ‘I’m fine’, still clutching his stomach. “Holy shit,” he sighs when he gathers enough composure to speak. “’Memory foam’ my arse. The springs under that thing are giant.”

“Or you’re just tiny,” Phil gushes affectionately, combing a hand through Dan’s hair. The feeling of silky waves between every finger are enough to chase away any remaining claws of anxiety, any pegs to his stomach, if just for a moment.

Maybe it is okay. Maybe it is just a product of an overactive mind. He’s been so wound up recently, what with looming examinations and deadlines and just about everything he could really do without so close to Christmas, that maybe it’s manifesting itself oddly.

Maybe.

He doesn’t want to think about it right now. He swallows the feeling down with another mouthful of beer, the bubbles foaming up like lather in his mouth.

“Shut up,” Dan glares at him, rearranging his fringe. “I’m not that short.”

“He’s mini,” Phil jumps back into conversation, as if Noah he can’t see for himself

“Short people deserve compensation for the amount of shit they go through,” Dan mutters, feigning grumpiness, but the shine in his eyes tell Phil it’s difficult to feel anything other than utter bliss.

“Ah, so you admit it!” Phil’s eyes match the light. “You are short.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dan blushes, realizing what he’d insinuated.

“Don’t worry, Dan,” Noah chips in. “Phil’s been the same height since he was about twelve. I remember him in year seven,” he glances at the other boy. “You were terrifyingly tall. But then everyone else caught up.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “Yeah, there I was thinking I was some sort of superhuman. Twelve years of age and almost as tall as my dad. They used to call me Slenderman.”

“He looked like Mike TeeVee at the end of the film,” a giggle ripples through Noah.

“I can’t even imagine what he-” Dan frowns. “Mike who?”

Two jaws drop. Silence.

“You’ve never seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?!” Noah spits as if it be as outrageous an exclamation as never visiting Sainsbury’s.

Dan’s eyes dart to Phil, blue eyes wide.

“Not even the original?”

“No, I-…” his eyes flick between the two mirroring expressions. He huffs out a chuckle. “Is this really a big thing? Okay, well I’ve never seen Shrek, while we’re at it.”

A collective groan echoes through the walls.

“You’ve got to be fucking-“

“But it’s a-“

“Please tell me you’ve seen Star-“

“Not Wars, or Trek,” Dan cuts him off. “I don’t even know the difference between the two.”

“Dan, I-…” Noah cuts himself off with a sigh, staring at Phil. “What are we gonna do with him?”

“This is a crime,” Phil shakes his head. “This is actually outrageous.”

“If the most offensive thing I’ve done since arriving here has been not sitting through three hours of an ogre’s life, I’ll definitely take that.”

“Oh don’t you worry,” Noah leaps up off the mattress, grabbing his laptop from the revolving chair. “It’s about six hour’s worth in total.”

“Seven-and-a-half if we count the spin-off,” Phil chips in.

“Do we have to?” Dan whines. “I’m sure I’ll love it, but with all due respect I can’t even sit through films I like sometimes.”

“Are you implying you’ll dislike this?” Phil puts a hand on his chest in mock-offence.

“I said I’m sure I’ll lov-“

“Could watch Star Trek,” a voice pipes up from under the bed. Noah’s folded over to one side, the rustling of a carrier bag apparent. He adds, “not Wars, I can’t stand- Phil stop giving me evils you shit, it’s just not as good.”

Phil’s glare toward his turned back turns into a grin. He knows him too well.

He re-emerges clutching a six-pack of bottled beer, tearing one out of the cardboard and dropping it into Phil’s lap.

“He’s talking shit,” Phil mutters.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Dan smirks. “Star Trek is just Shrek with extra letters.”

“We’re gonna have to culture you up, Dan,” Noah shakes his head, thrusting a bag of popcorn almost the size of his torso in his general direction.

“God, you came prepared,” Phil notes. “It’s almost as if you knew we were both here.”

“I could hear you both from down the corridor,” Noah fires back, before adding “Plus you two are inseparable anyway. If I needed to find you, I’ll find you,” he points at Dan, then at Phil. “And vice-versa.”

Phil and Dan exchange glances. Do they really spend that much time together?

It’s difficult to calculate. They spend time apart, obviously. It’s not as if he’s sat in Maths with Dan pirouetting all over the place with a feather duster, but once are done and the final document has been closed; once the day’s duties are behind him, he can’t say he wouldn’t be found tearing from East wing to West; desperate to drop his workload and swap computer chairs for soft mattresses and lamplight.

They’re melting into each-other, and he can feel it.

 Noah smirks, and only says, “We’re performing Alice in Wonderland next week,” his eyes flicker to Dan. “Have you seen that?”

-

Feedback is always appreciated literally HOW IS THIS pls let me know i haven't posted anything in years i love u all for reading thank u so much  

i spent a good 15 minutes attempting to calculate the total running time of the shrek franchise im crying the things i DO i hope its accurate

[propertiesforsaleincyprus]

FLATS FOR SALE CITY CENTRE PAPHOS

Flats for sale in the city centre of Paphos on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus are now available through our office, for those seeking to enjoy and live personally the hospitality and the incomparable beauty of Cyprus and in which they will surely be an investment with diachronic value in time for the ones who want to buy or invest in real estate in Cyprus for permanent residence or holiday home.

In a modern architectural design real estate complex in Cyprus, built in 2018 with communal swimming pool, the apartments for sale in Paphos are located in the centre of the town just 3 kilometres from the turquoise clean waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the golden sandy beaches of the area. These great Paphos city flats for sale entail 2 large bedrooms, 1 main bathroom, un-suite in the master bedroom, a spacious kitchen in an open plan area with the living room and dining room which is illuminated by the large and through-door balconies that let the sun penetrate into every corner giving more warmth and light. In addition, the remote-controlled entrance to the premises, the thermal insulation, the satellite antenna and the private parking space are only just some of the extra characteristics best describing the flats for sale in Paphos centre. Moreover, the views of the sea and mountains bind together in harmony with the surrounding environment of the apartments for sale in Paphos.

The city of Paphos has a lot to offer and is able to cater for all ages and serve all tastes. The apartments in the seaside town of Paphos are in the middle of some of Cyprus greatest historical and archaeological sites, as well as some of the most authentic culture and hospitality of the island. Visit the Medieval Castle, the amazing Tombs of the Kings, the House of Dionysus, the Agora and the Odeon and many more. The diversity in which meets the ancient past blends in harmoniously and offers all modern trends and contemporary living of the 21st century, with ample cafeterias, bars, and restaurants catering not only Cyprus traditional dishes, but also international cuisine.

Individual buyers or investors who will buy one of the beautiful flats for sale in city centre Paphos will have the opportunity and will become eligible to apply for the Cyprus Permanent Permit Visa, a reason which without a doubt makes anyone consider this seriously. The seaside apartments in Paphos are definitely worth contemplating on and our office is ready to guide you through the whole process step by step for a smooth transaction.

These properties in Paphos, Flats for sale city centre Paphos, are under real estate category: Flats for sale in Cyprus. For more similar properties in Paphos please visit our result page flats for sale in Paphos.

These flats for sale in the city centre of Paphos are under real estate category: Flats for sale in Cyprus. For more similar properties for sale in Paphos please visit our result page apartments for sale in Paphos.

[itmocca]

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 3

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 3: The story of the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the courts of the Tudors. #history #book

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 3: The story of the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the courts of the Tudors.     Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings, and explores the medieval world they reveal. In this episode, the story of the British…

[sundanceheli-blog]

Top Ten Things to do in Las Vegas for the Holidays

1. Cactus Garden Lighting at Ethel M. Chocolates

If the idea of over half a million twinkling Christmas lights draped over three acres of cactus sounds exciting, then you must a visit the Chocolate Wonderland at Ethel M Chocolates Factory and Cactus Garden in Henderson, NV.  Inspired by the kitchen of Ethel Mars (which date back to 1910), Forrest Mars Sr. created Ethel M Chocolates in his mother’s honor. 

The huge Ethel M's cactus garden out front features a spectacular display of more than half a million holiday lights, chocolate houses and sculptures, and demonstrations of Ethel M Chocolate creations. The display will be open from Tuesday, November 7th - Jan 1, 2018. Admission to Chocolate Wonderland is free and includes a factory tour. Special seasonal chocolate collections are also available for purchase.

2. Vegas! The Show Holiday Spectacular Edition 

Join our show partner this holiday season as Vegas! The Show presents a holiday rendition of the performance at the Saxe Theater located inside the Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile Shops. From November 20th – December 31st 2017, the show will include additional fun filled dance numbers and festive costumes, while celebrating the timeless Holiday music made famous by your favorite Las Vegas stars! Ticket prices start at $99.99 for general admission.

3. Modern Day Sleigh Rides with Sundance Helicopters

Bring your kids for their very first helicopter ride aboard our modern day sleigh rides with special child rates from $59 for kids up to 12 years of age for tour dates of Dec. 22 - Jan 7, 2018. Saint Nick will also be available Dec. 22-24, 2017 from 6pm to 9pm at the terminal for photo opportunities, hand out holiday goodies, and for story times.

4. Magical Forest at Opportunity Village Christmas is a time for giving. What better way to give this time of year than a visit to the Magical Forest which is celebrating another year of providing holiday joy to the Las Vegas community. Join the more than 150,000 people that visit the Forest every year. Feast your eyes at the more than three million lights on hundreds of decorated trees. Ride the Forest Express passenger train, take a spin on the Carousel or visit Santa. There is fun for the whole family and plenty of special events and offers throughout the Forest season. Children general admission ticket prices start at $10.00 and adult general admission ticket prices start at $12.00.

5. New Year’s Eve Spectacular with Sundance Helicopters Ring in the new year in the skies or atop a scenic overlook! We will be the only helicopter company flying on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. Let’s welcome 2018 in style by viewing the fireworks extravaganza by air or at our private Red Rock overlook for an exclusive party with amazing fireworks across the Las Vegas skyline! Hurry! Book now from $499! Limited seating. Tour almost sold out!

6. Ice Rink at The Cosmopolitan

This holiday season, The Cosmopolitan transforms the Boulevard Pool into The Ice Rink. Located high above the Strip, guests will enjoy skating on over 4,200 square feet of real ice, roasting s'mores by the fire pits, and warm cocktails. The Ice Rink also features light snow showers which occurs every 30 minutes. Tickets from $10.00.

7. Scuba Santa at the Silverton Aquarium

Visitors can see Santa Claus dressed up in scuba gear and submerged in the Silverton's 117,000-gallon aquarium. Santa Claus will be swimming among the 4,000 sharks, stingrays and tropical fish this holiday season.

8. Mystic Falls Winter Wonderland

Considered one of the great Las Vegas attractions, the Mystic Falls indoor park at Sam's Town goes through a transformation at Christmas time. Marking the kick off of the holiday season this time-honored tradition goes back to 1994, with decorations beginning in Sam's Town's porte-cochere and decorative snowflakes leading guests through the property to Mystic Falls Park. Garland streams, wreath-adorned lampposts and snow-covered trees fill the atrium, and decor offers guests a glimpse inside Santa's workshop, from elves making toys to loading up Santa's sleigh with goodies for children. Bring your camera and enjoy this Winter Wonderland Décor.

Mystic Falls indoor park is a holiday haven this time of the year. A nine-minute laser light show is the centerpiece of the display featuring a variety of classic holiday songs, like "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," "Let It Snow," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and "Frosty the Snowman."

9. Tournament of Kings Holiday Dinner Show

Make 'tis the season for holiday cheer at the Tournament of Kings Holiday Dinner Show inside the Excalibur Hotel and Casino. Guests of all ages will take part in the festivities as The Tournament of Kings Arena is transformed into a medieval winter wonderland with décor, music, costumes, cheer and "snow." The show will feature magnificently designed holiday costumes, majestic banners, flags and new castle lights, which will be illuminated as Merlin conjures snowfall on the kingdoms.

Kings, queens, knights and maidens of all ages are invited to eat, drink and have a holly jolly time, while watching the legend of Prince Christopher's journey toward knighthood unfold. Tickets from $65.00.

10. A December to Remember at the Neon Museum

You don’t have to wait for the holidays to appreciate the Neon Museum’s amazing collection of vintage Vegas signage, but everything’s brighter with some extra holiday cheer (and live caroling by the Las Vegas Academy choir). Start with ornament-making and Santa snapshots, then at 5pm head into the Boneyard for hot cocoa and an after-dark stroll past the city’s illuminated history. This event is free and open to the public; reservations are not required.

Las Vegas is the place to be during the holidays as it offers a giant list of “to-dos” for the family. ‘Tis the season to create memories and experiences. 

[wxxatson-blog]

the Gothic arts

Gothic art was a medieval art movement that arose in France in the early 1100's/1200’s through a particular architectural style and came to a gradual yet influential end around the 1600’s. Buildings such as the abbey of Saint-Denis and notre-dame de paris are both early examples of gothic architecture. gothic architecture was characterised by Grand, tall designs which escalated upward with hight and intricate grace. Although the word ‘gothic’ tends to be associated with dark, lifeless subjects the architecture itself aimed to create light, pleasant and spacious buildings. Before the gothic, architecture was at most functional. Gothic made it beautiful. Some of the finest examples of the style include the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims and Amiens. The term was also used to describe sculpture and painting that demonstrated a greater degree of naturalism.

      With the rise of gothic architecture came the birth of stain glass. During the Gothic period and the Renaissance stained glass was one of the foremost techniques of painting practiced in Europe. It may seem wrong to call stained glass a form of painting, but in fact it is. The surfaces of each piece of glass are painted in a wide range of dark tones. One of the most widespread forms of painting, stained glass inspired the lives of the faithful through religious narratives in churches and cloisters, celebrated family and political ties in city halls, and even decorated the windows of private houses some of the most powerful art produced in the High Middle Ages were stained-glass

     Gothic sculpture first came about along side its architecture through detailed carvings and figures created to decorate and characterize the buildings. The earliest forms of gothic sculpture were stone figures of saints and people that were considered ‘holy’. The figures depicted at  chartres cathedral are some of the earliest known Forms of gothic sculpture. Strasbourg cathedral houses a sculpture called ‘the adoration of maggie’. A much later made sculpture, It gives a short snap of the birth of jesus christ and the three kings. this not only is a form of sculpture and architecture, but it too tells a story. This same tale has been told through other sculpture and painting too. Much alike to most gothic sculpture, it is extremely biblical.

Early, Widely recognised gothic sculptures are gargoyles. Gargoyles are carved animal like figures with a spout (usually being the mouth) designed to convey water from the sides and roof of a building to avoid erosion. Gargoyles were often designed in a rather frightening aggressive way to ward off any evil spirits around the cathedrals.

After looking at gothic sculptural work it is clear that the main recurring subject is religion, more specifically bible orientated. This mainly being down to the fact that the architecture itself  was born through buildings that housed bible lead religions. In alot of ways i personally would consider gothic art to be a form of propaganda.

          Many artists and architects helped shape the gothic movement and leave too us the great chapels and churches of these times. Giotto Di Bondone was perhaps one of the most influential of these artists. Giotto was an italian painter and architect from the middle ages whos work resinates with the gothic style and movement. Giottos most famous artwork is the decoration of the Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua. Giotto and his team covered all the internal surfaces of chapel with frescos, including the walls and the ceiling. The largest element is detailed cycles showing the Life of Christ and the Life of the Virgin. The wall at the rear of the church, through which the chapel is entered, has a large Last Judgement. Not only does Giotto stay true to the grand uplifting colors and elements of the gothic style, but he shaped the way we view the art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, wich was considerd wrong until this time.

                  Gothic painting. Much alike to its sculpture, grew through religious ideology and only became large scale around the 14th  century when it began getting used for decorating the ornamental panel behind the alter of a church. most Gothic painters worked on wooden panels. Nevertheless, some churches have mural paintings in chapels. These panels known as ‘retables’ were painted in tempera or in oils on a wooden panel. The color scale is richer and more varied than that of the Romanesque period beforehand. A fantastic example of this is the ‘westminster retable’. It is thought to have been donated by Henry III of England as part of his Gothic redesign of the westminster Abbey

The Gothic era produced many  small paintings on wood and canvas, and furniture with paintings on the inside. Miniaturists were also active, particularly during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the fifteenth century, however, the discovery, first of the woodcut, and then of printing led to a gradual decline in their production. The calendar illustrations in the ‘Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry’ by the Limbourg brothers, are perhaps the most eloquent statements of the Gothic style as well as the best known of all manuscript illuminations.

       I began studying the gothic movement with a completely misinterpreted mind set. The movement itself bares absolutely no link with today's use of the word ‘goth’ or ‘gothic’ and should be considered as a movement, to be completely different.

Without the movement and the artists that influenced it today would be very different. gothic works of the early medieval ages paved the way for forms of literature and at after the movement was considered to come to an end. Bram stoker's ‘dracula’ is a fine example of gothic literature. The book itself was based on and inspired by the ‘whitby abbey’ a gothic 7th century christian monastery. Other book writers also drew much of their inspiration from gothic architecture such as mary shelley for ‘frankenstein’.

       What i find to be interesting, is how something designed and created to represent such mightiness and grace. Has influenced people in such a dark horrible way to produce works that would completely change the way we view gothic art but how we would create it from this point on.

[apartmentsforsaleinpaphos]

FLATS FOR SALE CITY CENTRE PAPHOS

Flats for sale in the city centre of Paphos on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus are now available through our office, for those seeking to enjoy and live personally the hospitality and the incomparable beauty of Cyprus and in which they will surely be an investment with diachronic value in time for the ones who want to buy or invest in real estate in Cyprus for permanent residence or holiday home.

In a modern architectural design real estate complex in Cyprus, built in 2018 with communal swimming pool, the apartments for sale in Paphos are located in the centre of the town just 3 kilometres from the turquoise clean waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the golden sandy beaches of the area. These great Paphos city flats for sale entail 2 large bedrooms, 1 main bathroom, un-suite in the master bedroom, a spacious kitchen in an open plan area with the living room and dining room which is illuminated by the large and through-door balconies that let the sun penetrate into every corner giving more warmth and light. In addition, the remote-controlled entrance to the premises, the thermal insulation, the satellite antenna and the private parking space are only just some of the extra characteristics best describing the flats for sale in Paphos centre. Moreover, the views of the sea and mountains bind together in harmony with the surrounding environment of the apartments for sale in Paphos.

The city of Paphos has a lot to offer and is able to cater for all ages and serve all tastes. The apartments in the seaside town of Paphos are in the middle of some of Cyprus greatest historical and archaeological sites, as well as some of the most authentic culture and hospitality of the island. Visit the Medieval Castle, the amazing Tombs of the Kings, the House of Dionysus, the Agora and the Odeon and many more. The diversity in which meets the ancient past blends in harmoniously and offers all modern trends and contemporary living of the 21st century, with ample cafeterias, bars, and restaurants catering not only Cyprus traditional dishes, but also international cuisine.

Individual buyers or investors who will buy one of the beautiful flats for sale in city centre Paphos will have the opportunity and will become eligible to apply for the Cyprus Permanent Permit Visa, a reason which without a doubt makes anyone consider this seriously. The seaside apartments in Paphos are definitely worth contemplating on and our office is ready to guide you through the whole process step by step for a smooth transaction.

These properties in Paphos, Flats for sale city centre Paphos, are under real estate category: Flats for sale in Cyprus. For more similar properties in Paphosplease visit our result page flats for sale in Paphos.

These flats for sale in the city centre of Paphos are under real estate category: Flats for sale in Cyprus. For more similar properties for sale in Paphos please visit our result page apartments for sale in Paphos.

[mastcomm]

36 Hours in Basel – The New York Times

Basel is, perhaps, the only city in the world that’s best experienced at 4 a.m. on a Monday. On a particular Monday, that is: the one after Ash Wednesday, when nearly every local with a pulse turns up in the Old Town for a parade known as the Morgenstreich. Then, on the fourth chime of the bells at Basel’s oldest church, all the lights of the city are turned off, and costumed marching bands called “cliques” fire up a tune to signal the start of Basel’s Fasnacht. This uniquely exhilarating, 72-hour Lenten Carnival illustrates an essential truth about this cosmopolitan riverside city of 170,000 that hugs Alsace and the Black Forest. Basel may be best known for Art Basel, the world’s biggest art fair (June 18 to 21 this year), for its museums and pharmaceutical companies, and as the birthplace of the tennis legend Roger Federer. But it is, above all, a city of traditions, none more cherished than Fasnacht (March 1 to 4), which locals call the three best days of the year. Travelers on quick grand tours of the Continent might overlook Basel, which is a shame because it boasts an Old Town as lovely as any in Europe, a collection of 40 museums, and hospitable locals who are proud to show off their hometown. In an era in which the world’s most popular destinations are often under siege with too many tourists, underrated but equally alluring places like Basel deserve a second look.

Friday

1) 3 p.m. Rhine time

Start your weekend adventure in Kleinbasel along the banks of the Rhine, the lifeblood of this city since a Celtic tribe first settled along this bend in the river during the Bronze Age. The Kleinbasel (Lesser Basel) side is a great place for a riverfront ride on an ebike, available at the main train station for 20 Swiss francs per day, or about $20.50 with a BaselCard (free with any hotel stay, also includes 50 percent off museum admissions and other perks). But if you want to become an honorary Basler, you’ve got to also feel the current of the river. In the summer, swimming in the cool, clean Rhine and then repairing to a riverside buvette (stall) for a drink or snack is the quintessential Basel tradition. Another tradition, which can be done year around (weather permitting), is crossing over to Grossbasel (Greater Basel) on one of the city’s four wooden ferry boats (1.60 francs), which use only the natural power of the river’s currents.

2) 4 p.m. Basel’s medieval power couple

Basel’s cathedral was consecrated 1,000 years ago on Oct. 11, 1019, on the site of an earlier church and in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry II (who became the patron saint of Basel) and his wife, Cunigunde. The two were a medieval power couple who took vows of virginity and inspired a cultlike following. It’s an awe-inspiring place best seen with a knowledgeable guide like Dr. Helen Liebendörfer (liebendoerfer@bluewin.ch), a charming, English-speaking guide who will show you fascinating sites here and elsewhere in the city you’d otherwise walk by without a second look. Inside, don’t miss the grave of Erasmus of Rotterdam, who settled in Basel and lived for a time in a home that’s now an interesting pharmacy museum.

3) 6 p.m. How the other half lives

You might not have the francs to splash out on a room at the opulent, five-star Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois, but you should absolutely change into your least wrinkled outfit and head over to the hotel bar for a drink. This chandelier-filled grande dame, founded in 1681, is one of the oldest and finest city hotels in Europe. In fine weather, try to score a seat outside with a sweeping view of the Rhine, otherwise, cozy up by the fireplace and soak up the elegant atmosphere. A glass of the house rosé costs 9 francs; a cheeseburger and fries, about 48.

4) 8 p.m. Steeped in atmosphere

Schlüsselzunft is an Old World charmer of a restaurant in a guildhall building that dates to 1306 on a pedestrian street in Basel’s delightful Old Town. The upstairs has a pleasing Knights of the Roundtable ambience and the ground level has a ceramic stone oven that dates to 1850 in the center of the dining room. The menu changes frequently, but recent standout menu items here included Kalbsleberstreifen, sliced veal liver with madeira sauce (36 francs), and Rehgeschnetzeltes, venison strips with forest mushrooms in a cream sauce (38 francs).

Saturday

5) 9 a.m. Big Basel versus Little Basel

Start your Saturday with a slow walk across Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge), just as Baslers have since it opened in 1226. Take note of the small chapel (Käppelijoch), a reproduction of an old bridge chapel where suspected witches, adulterers and condemned criminals were tossed into the Rhine. Walk toward Grossbasel and right after you leave the bridge, look up at the statue of the king with his tongue sticking out at Kleinbasel. Make your way on foot to Andreasplatz, a charming square that comes alive during Fasnacht. There’s a collection of interesting shops, a statue of a monkey eating grapes, and tucked in the back corner, Holzofenbäckei Bio Andreas, a terrific and rather quirky organic bakery that has a love letter to its wood oven on its website. (“Dear oven, you are so hot and smoky … you turn me on.”) They have good, strong coffee and delicious croissants, pastries and great bread.

6) 10 a.m. Just like old times

Basel’s Old Town is a paradise for aimless wandering. Three of the city’s original seven gates are intact and many homes have their year of construction painted above their doorways. Venture down the steps to No. 31 Ginger Street, and you’ll find the irresistible Hoosesagg Museum, a tiny museum that features a different themed collection of miniatures each month, courtesy of community members who loan the museum everything from Eiffel towers to ceramic turtles. There are more hidden stories on every block — for example, English speakers might pass a fascinating alley called Elftausendjungfern Gässlein (11,000 Virgins Lane) without a second glance. The name speaks to a cherished legend about 11,000 virgins, followers of St. Ursula, who arrived in town by boat in medieval times and were eventually martyred in Cologne.

7) 12:30 p.m. Roger’s neighborhood

With apologies to Erasmus, Roger Federer is probably Basel’s most famous native son. He grew up in the Basel suburb of Munchenstein in a townhouse in the Wasserhaus housing estate and honed his game first at the long bulldozed Ciba-Geigy club and later at the still-thriving Tennis Club Old Boys, where Court 1 is named after him. Get on the No. 8 tram to the Bernerring stop to visit the club, where you can take a tennis lesson (call in advance) and then enjoy one of the best kept secrets in town: a 20-franc, three-course lunch at La Vongola, the club restaurant. The pastas are all great; if you don’t fancy the daily menu, try the strozzapreti (Italian for priest strangler) with fresh seafood (29.50 francs).

8) 3 p.m. Erotic chocolate

Now it’s time to buy all the Swiss chocolate you can afford at Läderach, one of the country’s leading chocolatiers. Basel has a small red light district in Kleinbasel, but the most erotic experience in town is simply walking into this shop and inhaling the smell of fine chocolate. The blocks of frischschoggi — silky Swiss milk chocolate with giant Piedmont hazelnuts could have won the Cold War (if only Switzerland hadn’t been neutral). If you’d like to bring something home that won’t melt, pick up a box of Basler läckerli — a gingerbread biscuit that has inspired cultlike devotion in these parts since the Middle Ages — at Läckerli Huus (three locations). Walk it all off on Spalenberg, one of the city’s nicest shopping streets, home to shops like Hejkoh, which has stylish women’s clothing, home décor, gifts and a cozy cafe where the avocado-toast-loving set likes to gather for treats and conversation.

9) 7 p.m. Cordon bleu paradise

At Zum Gifthüttli Bier & Weinstube in Old Town, you’ll find a convivial atmosphere of good times, spilled beer and undo-a-notch-on-your-belt gluttony. The specialties of the house are cordon bleus of various meaty assortments. Menu items include venison steaks, boar pepper steak, deer cordon bleu and the like. Try the veal cordon bleu schwinger filled with farmer’s bacon and nöldis cheese (34 francs). If you passed on Läderach, you’re entitled to the chocolate lava cake with housemade vanilla ice cream, which is absolutely worth the nine-mile walk you’ll need to take to work off the calories. Keep the good times rolling with a craft beer or two at Volta Bräu, a fun brewpub that frequently has free live music or at Matt & Elly Brewery & Kitchen, a newly opened hot spot in Kleinbasel with seasonal beer and food menus.

Sunday

10) 10 a.m. Paperboys’ brunch

Basel became a center for humanism and publishing following the establishment of the University of Basel in 1460, attracting a host of noteworthy writers and scholars, most notably Erasmus, who published the New Testament in Greek in 1516. Basel’s tourism office operates an excellent Sunday brunch tour (50 francs) that includes a tour of the Basel Paper Mill and a delicious brunch at the museum’s restaurant. Set in a lovely canalside paper mill that was operational for more than 500 years in Basel’s charming St. Alban-Tor neighborhood, the child-friendly museum offers fun hands on exhibits that illuminate the history of printing, paper and writing.

11) Noon. Picasso time

Basel is a museum city par excellence, with 40 to choose from, including two powerhouse art museums: the sprawling Kunstmuseum Basel (25 francs, half price with BaselCard; children free), which is free the first Sunday of each month, and the small, but worthwhile, Fondation Beyeler (25 francs, half price with BaselCard; free for 25 and under) in a light-filled Renzo Piano-designed building in a pretty area of Riehen, north of the city. The Kunstmuseum started as a private art cabinet in the 16th century and is now a world-class museum that’s known for its collection of six works by Pablo Picasso, including one of his “Seated Harlequin” works. In 1967, after the museum was about to lose two Picassos — the private collector who owned them was in debt and needed to sell — local art lovers mobilized, spearheading the passage of a referendum allowing the city to buy them for 8.4 million francs. Picasso was so moved that he gave the museum three more paintings and a drawing. The museum will commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the gift with a special Picasso exhibition that opens March 2 (free).

12) 2 p.m. Garden walk

Just a few minutes south of Fondation Beyeler, you’ll find a lovely, relaxing place to cap your weekend: the underrated Villa Wenkenhof, a stately English-style villa built in 1735 with beautiful gardens that are free and open to the public every day but Saturday. Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec were married here; you can roam the grounds and take photos in the same spot they did in front of the grand former horse stable to the left of the main villa.

Lodging

Vacation rentals are popular in Basel (although if you stay in a hotel, you’ll get a BaselCard, which gives you free public transportation and half price at all museums). Prices on Airbnb start at around $100 a night for a small apartment and go up, depending on size, quality, location and season.

Krafft Basel is a trendy hotel with lots of character, river-view rooms, and a great location in Kleinbasel, close to the Middle Bridge. Herman Hesse wrote part of his novel “Steppenwolf” while living here, and there’s an excellent restaurant with a patio that’s a people-watching paradise on a sunny day. Rooms from 144 francs.

Established in 1681 on the Rhine, overlooking the Middle Bridge, the Grand Hotel Les Trois Rois feels like one of Europe’s grand palaces with chandeliers that appear to be worth more than the G.D.P. of some countries, and furnishings that wouldn’t look out of place at Versailles. Room rates start at 545 francs.

52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Discover the best places to go in 2020, and find more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you’ll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/36-hours-in-basel-the-new-york-times/

[katebushwick]

The Political Lives of Dead Bodies

To ask this question exposes one to a flourishing literature on “the body,” much of it inspired by feminist theory and philosophy,11 as well as potentially to poststructuralist theories about language and “floating signifiers.” I will not take up the challenge of this literature here but will limit myself instead to some observations about bodies as symbolic vehicles that I think illuminate their presence in postsocialist politics.12 Bones and corpses, coffins and cremation urns, are material objects. Most of the time, they are indisputably there, as our senses of sight, touch, and smell can confirm. As such, a body’s materiality can be critical to its symbolic efficacy: unlike notions such as “patriotism” or “civil society,” for instance, a corpse can be moved around, displayed, and strategically located in specific places. Bodies have the advantage of concreteness that nonetheless transcends time, making past immediately present. Their “thereness” undergirded the founding and continuity of medieval monasteries, providing tangible evidence of a monastery’s property right to donated lands.13 That is, their corporeality makes them important means of localizing a claim (something they still do today, as I suggest in chapter 3). They state unequivocally, as Peter Brown notes, “Hic locus est.”14 This quality also grounded their value as relics. The example of relics, however, immediately complicates arguments based on the body’s materiality: if one added together all the relics of St. Francis of Assisi, for instance, one would get rather more than the material remains of one dead man. So it is not a relic’s actual derivation from a specific body that makes it effective but people’s belief in that derivation. In short, the significance of corpses has less to do with their concreteness than with how people think about them. A dead body is meaningful not in itself but through culturally established relations to death and through the way a specific dead person’s importance is (variously) construed.15 Therefore, I turn to the properties of corpses that make them, in LéviStrauss’s words, “good to think” as symbols. Bodies—especially those of political leaders—have served in many times and places worldwide as symbols of political order. Literature in both historiography and anthropology is rife with instances of a king’s death calling into question the survival of the polity. More generally, political transformation is often symbolized through manipulating bodies (cutting off the head of the king, removing communist leaders from mausoleums). We, too, exhibit this conception, in idioms such as “the body politic.” A body’s symbolic effectiveness does not depend on its standing for one particular thing, however, for among the most important properties of bodies, especially dead ones, is their ambiguity, multivocality, or polysemy. Remains are concrete, yet protean; they do not have a single meaning but are open to many different readings. Because corpses suggest the lived lives of complex human beings, they can be evaluated from many angles and assigned perhaps contradictory virtues, vices, and intentions. While alive, these bodies produced complex behaviors subject to much debate that produces further ambiguity. As with all human beings, one’s assessment of them depends on one’s disposition, the context one places them in (brave or cowardly compared with whom, for instance), the selection one makes from their behaviors in order to outline their “story,” and so on. Dead people come with a curriculum vitae or résumé—several possible résumés, depending on which aspect of their life is being considered. They lend themselves to analogy with other people’s résumés. That is, they encourage identification with their life story, from several possible vantage points. Their complexity makes it fairly easy to discern different sets of emphasis, extract different stories, and thus rewrite history. Dead bodies have another great advantage as symbols: they don’t talk much on their own (though they did once). Words can be put into their mouths—often quite ambiguous words—or their own actual words can be ambiguated by quoting them out of context. It is thus easier to rewrite history with dead people than with other kinds of symbols that are speechless. Yet because they have a single name and a single body, they present the illusion of having only one significance. Fortifying that illusion is their materiality, which implies their having a single meaning that is solidly “grounded,” even though in fact they have no such single meaning. Different people can invoke corpses as symbols, thinking those corpses mean the same thing to all present, whereas in fact they may mean different things to each. All that is shared is everyone’s recognition of this dead person as somehow important. In other words, what gives a dead body symbolic effectiveness in politics is precisely its ambiguity, its capacity to evoke a variety of understandings.16 Let me give an example. On June ,, a quarter of a million Hungarians assembled in downtown Budapest for the reburial of Imre Nagy, Hungary’s communist prime minister at the time of the  revolution.17 For his attempts to reform socialism he had been hanged in , along with four members of his government, and buried with them in unmarked graves, without coffins, facedown. From the Hungarian point of view, this is a pretty ignominious end.18 Yet now he and those executed with him were reburied, faceup in coffins, with full honors and with tens of thousands in attendance. Anyone watching Hungarian television on that June  would have seen a huge, solemn festivity, carefully orchestrated, with many foreign dignitaries as well as three Communist Party leaders standing near the coffins (the Communist Party of Hungary had not yet itself become a corpse). The occasion definitely looked official (in fact it was organized privately), and it rewrote the history—given only one official meaning for forty years— of Nagy’s relation to the Hungarian people. Although the media presented a unified image of him, there was no consensus on what Nagy’s reburied corpse in fact meant. Susan Gal, analyzing the political rhetoric around the event, finds five distinct clusters of imagery, some of it associated with specific political parties or groups:20 () nationalist images emphasizing national unity around a hero of the nation (nationalist parties soon found these very handy); () religious images (which could be combined with the nationalist ones) emphasizing rebirth, reconciliation, and forgiveness, and presenting Nagy as a martyr rather than a hero; (3) various images of him as a communist, as the first reform communist, and as a true man of the people, his reburial symbolizing the triumph of a humane socialist option and the death of a cruel Stalinist one; () generational images, presenting him as the symbol of the younger generation whose life chances had been lost with his execution (this group would soon become the Party of Young Democrats); and () images associated with the ideas of truth, conscience, and rehabilitation, so that his reburial signified clearing one’s name and telling the story of one ’s persecution—an opportunity to rewrite one ’s personal history. (That some people presented communist Prime Minister Nagy as an anticommunist hero shows just how complex his significances could be.) Perhaps attendance at Nagy’s funeral was so large, then, because he brought together diverse segments of the population, all resonating differently to various aspects of his life. And perhaps so many political formations were able to participate because all could legitimate a claim of some kind through him, even though the claims themselves varied greatly.21 This, it seems to me, is the mark of a good political symbol: it has legitimating effects not because everyone agrees on its meaning but because it compels interest despite (because of?) divergent views of what it means. Aside from their evident materiality and their surfeit of ambiguity, dead bodies have an additional advantage as symbols: they evoke the awe, uncertainty, and fear associated with “cosmic” concerns, such as the meaning of life and death.22 For human beings, death is the quintessential cosmic issue, one that brings us all face to face with ultimate questions about what it means to be—and to stop being—human, about where we have come from and where we are going. For this reason, corpses lend themselves particularly well to politics in times of major upheaval, such as the postsocialist period. The revised status of religious institutions in postsocialist Eastern Europe reinforces that connection, for religions have long specialized in dealing with ultimate questions. Moreover, religions monopolize the practices associated with death, including both formal notions of burial and the “folk superstitions” that all the major faiths so skillfully integrated into their rituals. Except in the socialist period, East Europeans over two millennia have associated death with religious practices. A religious reburial nourishes the dead person both with these religious associations and with the rejection of “atheist” communism. Politics around a reburied corpse thus benefits from the aura of sanctity the corpse is presumed to bear, and from the implicit suggestion that a reburial (re)sacralizes the political order represented by those who carry it out. Their sacred associations contribute to another quality of dead bodies as symbols: their connection with affect, a significant problem for social analysis. Anthropologists have long asked, Wherein lies the efficacy of symbols? How do they engage emotions?23 The same question troubles other social sciences as well: Why do some things and not others work emotionally in the political realm? It is asked particularly about symbols used to evoke national identifications; Benedict Anderson, for instance, inquires why national meanings command such deep emotional responses and why people are “ready to die for these inventions.”24 The link of dead bodies to the sacred and the cosmic—to the feelings of awe aroused by contact with death—seems clearly part of their symbolic efficacy. One might imagine that another affective dimension to corpses is their being not just any old symbol: unlike a tomato can or a dead bird, they were once human beings with lives that are to be valued. They are heavy symbols because people cared about them when they were alive, and identify with them. This explanation works best for contemporary deaths, such as the Yugoslav ones I discuss in chapter 3. Many political corpses, however, were known and loved in life by only a small circle of people; or— like Serbia’s Prince Lazar or Romania’s bishop Inochentie Micu (whose case I examine in the next chapter)—they lived so long ago that any feelings they arouse can have nothing to do with them as loved individuals. Therefore I find it insufficient to explain their emotional efficacy merely by their having been human beings. Perhaps more to the point is their ineluctable self-referentiality as symbols: because all people have bodies, any manipulation of a corpse directly enables one’s identification with it through one’s own body, thereby tapping into one’s reservoirs of feeling. In addition (or as a result), such manipulations may mobilize preexisting affect by evoking one’s own personal losses or one’s identification with specific aspects of the dead person’s biography. This possibility increases wherever national ideologies emphasize ideas about suffering and victimhood, as do nearly all in Eastern Europe.25 These kinds of emotional effects are likely enhanced when death’s “ultimate questions,” fear, awe, and personal identifications are experienced in public settings—for example, mass reburials like those of Imre Nagy or the Yugoslav skeletons from World War II. Finally, I believe the strong affective dimension of dead-body politics also stems from ideas about kinship and proper burial. Kinship notions are powerful organizers of feeling in all human societies; other social forms (such as national ideologies) that harness kinship idioms profit from their power. Ideas about proper burial often tie kinship to cosmic questions concerning order in the universe, as well. I will further elaborate on this suggestion later in this chapter and in chapter 3. Dead bodies, I have argued, have properties that make them particularly effective political symbols. They are thus excellent means for accumulating something essential to political transformation: symbolic capital.26 (Given the shortage of investment capital in postsocialist countries and the difficulties of economic reform, perhaps the symbolic variety takes on special significance!) The fall of communist parties devalued much of what had served as political or symbolic capital, opening a wide field for competition in which success depends on finding and accumulating new capital resources. Dead bodies, in short, can be a site of political profit. In saying this, I am partly talking about the process of establishing political legitimacy, but by emphasizing symbolic capital I mean to keep at the forefront of my discussion the symbolic elements of that process. R E O R D E R I N G WO R L D S O F M E A N I N G In considering the symbolic properties of corpses, I have returned repeatedly to their “cosmic” dimension.27 I do so because I believe this emphasis suits what I observed earlier about the significance of the events of 1989: they mark an epochal shift in the international system, one whose effects pose fundamental challenges to people ’s hitherto meaningful existence. This is true worldwide, but especially in the former socialist bloc. All human beings act within certain culturally shaped background expectations and understandings, often not conscious, about what “reality” is.28 One might call these their sense of cosmic order, or their general understanding of their place in the universe.29 By this I mean, for instance, ideas about where people in general and our people in particular came from; who are the most important kinds of people, and how one should behave with them; what makes conduct moral or immoral; what are the essential attributes of a “person”; what is time, and how does it flow (or not); and so on. Following current anthropological wisdom, however, I do not see these cosmic conceptions strictly as “ideas,” in the cognitive realm alone. Rather, they are inseparable from action in the world—they are beliefs and ideas materialized in action. This is one way (the way I prefer) of defining culture. Unfortunately, nearly all nonanthropologists understand “culture” as cognition, ideas—a meaning I want to avoid.30 Hence, instead of using “culture,” I speak of “worlds of meaning” or simply “worlds” (though not in the sense of “lifeworld” that is specific to phenomenology and the recent work of Jürgen Habermas). “World,” as I intend it, seeks to capture a combination of “worldview” and associated action-in-the-world, people’s sense of a meaningful universe in which they also act. Their ideas and their action constantly influence one another in a dynamic way. In moments of major transformation, people may find that new forms of action are more productive than the ones they are used to, or that older forms make sense in a different way, or that ideals they could only aspire to before are now realizable. Such moments lead to reconfiguring one’s world; the process can be individual and collective, and it is often driven by the activities of would-be elites (in competition with one another). Students of the demise of Soviet-style party-states have tended to pose the problems of postsocialist transformation as creating markets, making private property, and constructing democracy. This frame permits two things: one can absorb the postsocialist examples into a worldwide “transition to democracy,” and one can emphasize technical solutions to the difficulties encountered (“shock therapy,” writing constitutions, electionmanagement consulting, training people in new ways of bookkeeping, etc.). I believe the postsocialist change is much bigger. It is a problem of reorganization on a cosmic scale, and it involves the redefinition of virtually everything, including morality, social relations, and basic meanings. It means a reordering of people’s entire meaningful worlds.31 Although my phrasing may seem exaggerated, without this perspective I doubt that we can grasp the magnitude of what 1989 has meant for those living through it: a rupture in their worlds of meaning, their sense of cosmic order. The end of Party rule was a great shock to people living in the former socialist countries. This was not because everyone had internalized the Communist Party’s own cosmology and organization of things: far from it. The history of Party rule throughout the region was a long struggle between what Party leaders wanted and what everyone else was prepared to live with. Practices, expectations, and beliefs quite antithetical to the Party’s dictates jostled with those the Party promoted. Nevertheless, daily life proceeded within or against certain constraints, opportunities, and rules of the game that the political system had established, and these formed a set of background expectations framing people’s lives. The events of 1989 disrupted these background expectations in ways that many people in the region found disorienting (even if some of them also found therein new opportunities). They could no longer be sure what to say in what contexts, how to conduct politics with more than one political party, how to make a living in the absence of socialist subsidies and against spiraling inflation, and so on. They found their leisurely sense of time’s passage wholly unsuited to the sudden crunch of tasks they had to do. Moreover, their accustomed relations with other people became suddenly tense. Quarrels over property, for example, severed long-amicable bonds between siblings and neighbors; new possibilities for enrichment altered friendships; and increasing numbers of parents saw their plans for security and retirement evaporate as more of their children headed abroad. In these circumstances, people of all kinds could no longer count on their previous grasp of how the world works. Whether consciously or not, they became open to reconsidering (either on their own or with the help of political, cultural, and religious elites) their social relations and their worlds of meaning. This is what I mean when I speak of reordering meaningful worlds. I believe deadbody politics plays a part in that process, and that to examine it will clarify my project of animating the study of politics. My conceptualization here resonates with Durkheim’s, particularly the Durkheim of the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, which is among other things a treatise on the possibilities for moral regeneration in human societies.32 The resemblance is not fortuitous. First, Durkheim wrote during a time of great moral ferment in France; his work aimed expressly to comment upon that ferment and contribute to quieting it. His situation then reminds one of the s postsocialist situation. Second (and for that very reason), some scholars consider Durkheim the only major theorist apt for thinking about political and moral renewal.33 Although I gladly second him in that endeavor, and although some of my proposals in this book (such as the theme of proper burial) hint at a Durkheimian reflex, I part company with him in regard to the conscience collective; I look not for shared mentalities but for conflict among groups over social meanings. Reordering worlds can consist of almost anything—that’s what a “world” means. To reorder worlds of meaning implicates all realms of activity: social relations, political ideas and behavior, worldviews, economic action. Far more domains of life might be included under this rubric than I have time to explore, and dead bodies can serve as loci for struggling over new meanings in any of them. For my purposes in this book, I will emphasize their role in the following areas: struggles to endow authority and politics with sacrality or a “sacred” dimension; contests over what might make the postsocialist order a moral one; competing politicizations of space and time; and reassessments of identities (especially national ones) and social relations. I discuss a fifth possible domain central to postsocialist transformation—property relations—together with the others, for it enters into all of them. Yet another domain that figures centrally in Eastern Europe’s transformation but cannot be treated here is the obverse of death, namely [re]birth. The politics of abortion, for instance, has agitated nearly all postsocialist countries, as pro-natalist nationalists strive for demographic renewal of their nations following what they see to be socialism’s “murderous” abortion policies.34 In each of these domains, dead bodies serve as sites of political conflict related to the process of reordering the meaningful universe. The conflicts involve elites of many kinds and the populations they seek to influence, in the altered balance of power that characterizes the period since 1989. I will explain what I intend by these rubrics, briefly for the first three and at greater length for the fourth. Authority, Politics, and the Sacred The meaningful worlds of human beings generally include sets of values concerning authority—values like the monarch’s divinity, orderly bureaucratic procedure, a leader’s charisma, full democratic participation, the scientific laws of progress, and so on. Like Weber, we can speak of different ways of acknowledging authority as modes of legitimation, and in considering social change we can ask how one group of legitimating values gives way to another. Unlike Weber, who tended to see the sacred as part of only some modes of authority, I (and many other anthropologists) would hold that authority always has a “sacred” component, even if it is reduced merely to holding “as sacred” certain secular values. This was certainly true of socialist regimes, which sought assiduously to sacralize themselves as guardians of secular values, especially the scientific laws of historical progress. Because their language omitted notions of the sacred, however, both outsiders and their own populations tended to view them as lacking a sacred dimension.35 Part of reordering meaningful worlds since 1989, then, is to sacralize authority and politics in new ways. A ready means of presenting the postsocialist order as something different from before has been to reinsert expressly sacred values into political discourse. In many cases, this has meant a new relation between religion and the state, along with a renewal of religious faith.36 Reestablishing faith or relations with a church enables both political parties and individuals to symbolize their anticommunism and their return to precommunist values. This replaces the kind of sacredness that undergirded the authority of communist parties and serves to sacralize politics in new ways. In chapter  I describe a conflict that has arisen around the connection of church with politics in Romania (and other Orthodox countries). Among the conflict’s many facets are struggles over the sacralization of politics, and reburying a dead body is part of them. Moral Order Use of religious idioms may also be part of remaking the world as a moral place. Because communist parties proclaimed themselves custodians of a particular moral order, the supersession of communism reopens concepts of political morality, both for politicians and others who want to claim it, and for ordinary citizens concerned with the behavior of those they live among. In the first few years following , the route to new moral orders passed chiefly through stigmatizing the communist one: all who presented themselves either as opposed to communism or as its victims were ipso facto making a moral claim. Many of these claims led to attempts at assessing blame or accountability and at achieving revenge, compensation, or restitution. Depending on who organizes and executes the process, the moral order implied in pursuing accountability can strengthen a new government, garner international support for a party to a dispute, or restore dignity to individual victims and their families. Society’s members may see enforcing accountability as part of moral “purification”: the guilty are no longer shielded, the victims can tell of their suffering, and the punishment purifies a public space that the guilty had made impure. Alternatively, the moral outcome may be seen as lying not in purification but in compensation for wrongs acknowledged. Foremost among the means for this was the question of restoring private property ownership, as something morally essential to a new anticommunist order. Efforts to establish accountability thus served to draw up a moral balance sheet, to settle accounts, as a condition of making the postsocialist order a moral one. Assessing blame and demanding accountability can occur at many sites, one of them being dead bodies. (In chapter 3, I discuss a particularly stark instance of this, former Yugoslavia, where rival exhumations produced reciprocal charges of genocide and acts of revenge that fueled the breakup of the Yugoslav state.) Another form of ���accounting” that implicates dead bodies involves efforts to determine “historical truth,” which many accuse socialism of having suppressed. An example is the reburial of Imre Nagy, mentioned above, which sought to reestablish historical truth about Nagy’s place in Hungarian history, as part of creating a new moral universe. His example leads us to an additional means of reordering worlds, namely, giving new values to space and time. Reconfiguring Space and Time As scholars ranging from Durkheim to Elias to Leach have argued, what we call space and time are social constructs.37 All human societies show characteristic ways of conceptualizing and organizing them; any one society may contain multiple ways, perhaps differentiated by activity or social group.38 When I speak of how space and time can be resignified, I have in mind two distinct possibilities: the more modest one of changing how space and time are marked or punctuated, and the more momentous one of transforming spatiality and temporality themselves. Socialism attempted both, the latter by imposing entirely new rules on the uses of space and creating temporalities that were arrhythmic and apocalyptic instead of the cyclical and linear rhythms they displaced.39 I will leave that subject to chapter 3 and will briefly discuss changes in temporal and spatial punctuation now. We might think of both space and time using the metaphor of a geological landscape. Any landscape contains more potential landmarks than are noted by those who pass through it. When I speak of “punctuating” or “marking” space and time, I mean highlighting a specific set of landmarks—using this rock or that hill (or date, or event) as a point of reference, instead of some other rock or hill (or date or event), or some other feature altogether, such as a railway crossing. Influencing the kinds of features selected are such things as one’s position relative to them (a rock is a useful landmark only from a certain angle or distance), cultural factors (some groups find trees more meaningful than rocks), local economies (hunter-gatherers will notice items a traveling salesman will miss), and so on. If we put our landscape on “fast forward,” the landscape itself transforms, hills and mountains rising up or subsiding while valleys are etched and floras change type. The constantly changing relief presents still other possibilities for establishing landmarks. I think of such spatiotemporal landmarks as aspects of people’s meaningful worlds; modifying the landmarks is part of reordering those worlds. For example, as I observed in the introduction, among the most common ways in which political regimes mark space are by placing particular statues in particular places and by renaming landmarks such as streets, public squares, and buildings. These provide contour to landscapes, socializing them and saturating them with specific political values: they signify space in specific ways. Raising and tearing down statues gives new values to space (resignifies it), just as does renaming streets and buildings. Another form of resignifying space comes from changes in property ownership, which may require adding border stones and other markers to differentiate landscapes that socialism had homogenized. Where the political change includes creating entire nation-states, as in ex-Yugoslavia and parts of the Soviet Union, resignifying space extends further: to marking territories as “ours” and setting firm international borders to distinguish “ours” from “theirs.” The location of those borders is part of the politics of space, and dead bodies have been active in it. As for time, among the usual ways of altering its political values are by creating wholly new calendars, as in the French Revolution (whose first casualties included clocks themselves40); by establishing holidays to punctuate time differently; by promoting activities that have new work rhythms or time discipline; and by giving new contours to the “past” through revising genealogies and rewriting history.41 Since 1989, the last of these has been very prominent in “overcoming” the socialist past and (as some people see it) returning to a “normal” history. I view this historical revision, too, as an aspect of reordering worlds, and one important means of doing it has been to reposition dead bodies. National Identities and Social Relations The worlds of meaning that human beings inhabit include characteristic organizations of what we call “identities.”42 In the contemporary United States, people are thought to hold several identities, the most commonly mentioned being class, occupation, race, gender, and ethnic identity; in other times and places, these would have been less salient than kin-based identifications, or rank in a system of feudal estates. Especially prominent in the East European region have been national identifications. Contrary to popular opinion, I and others have argued that socialism did not suppress these identifications but reinforced them in specific ways.43 They remain prominent in the postsocialist period, as groups seek to reorganize their interrelations following the demise of their putative identities as “socialist men,” now superseded by “anticommunist” as a basic political identification. Sharp conflict around national identities has arisen above all from the dissolution of the Yugoslav and Soviet federations, as new nation-states take their place. Conflicts to (re)define national identities implicate contests over time and space, for statues and revised histories often celebrate specific sites and dates as national. I find it helpful to assimilate national identities into the larger category of social relations within which I think they belong: kinship. In my view, the identities produced in nation-building processes do not displace those based in kinship but—as any inspection of national rhetorics will confirm—reinforce and are parasitic upon them. National ideologies are saturated with kinship metaphors: fatherland and motherland, sons of the nation and their brothers, mothers of these worthy sons, and occasionally daughters. Many national ideologies present their nations as large, mostly patrilineal kinship (descent) groups that celebrate founders, great politicians, and cultural figures as not just heroes but veritable “progenitors,” forefathers—that is, as ancestors. Think of George Washington, “Father of His Country,” and Atatürk, “Father Turk.” (I say “patrilineal” because, as numerous scholars have observed, nearly all the “ancestors” recognized in national ideologies are male.44) Nationalism is thus a kind of ancestor worship, a system of patrilineal kinship, in which national heroes occupy the place of clan elders in defining a nation as a noble lineage. This view is not original with me. It appears in the work of anthropologists Edmund Leach, David Schneider, and Meyer Fortes,45 and in Benedict Anderson’s suggestion that we treat nationalism “as if it belonged with ‘kinship’ and ‘religion,’ rather than with ‘liberalism’ or ‘fascism.’ ”46 Given this view, the work of contesting national histories and repositioning temporal landmarks implies far more than merely “restoring truth”: it challenges the entire national genealogy. This happens quite visibly in reburying a dead body, an act that inserts the dead person differently as an ancestor (more central or more peripheral) within the lineage of honored forebears. My focus on corpses enables me to push this argument even further and to speak of the proper burials of ancestors, which include revering them as cultural treasures.  Any human community consists not only of those now living in it but also, potentially, of both ancestors and anticipated descendants. In a wry statement by a Montenegrin poet we see part of this nicely: “We Montenegrins are a small population even if you count our dead.” Different human groupings place different emphases on these three segments of possible community—dead, living, and yetunborn. Imperial China, for example, is renowned for having made ancestors into real actors in the world of the living, while in other societies ancestors are crucial points of reference for the living but inhabit their own world (though they may enter ours on occasion). Pro-natalist nationalist ideologies, by contrast, are preoccupied with descendants, connected to ancestors in an endless chain through time. In many human communities, to set up right relations between living human communities and their ancestors depends critically on proper burial.47 Because the living not only mourn their dead but also fear them as sources of possible harm, special efforts are made to propitiate them by burying them properly. The literature of anthropology contains many examples of burial practices designed to set relations with dead ancestors on the right path, so that the human community—which includes both dead and living—will be in harmony. Gillian Feeley-Harnik writes of such ancestor practices in Madagascar: “Ancestors are made from remembering them. Remembering creates a difference between the deadliness of corpses and the fruitfulness of ancestors. The ancestors respond by blessing their descendants with fertility and prosperity.”48 Their harmonious coexistence is about more than just getting along: it is part of an entire cosmology, part of maintaining order in the universe. All human groups have ideas and practices concerning what constitutes a “good death,” how dead people should be treated, and what will happen if they are not properly cared for. In what direction should the feet of the corpse be pointed? Who should wash it, and how should it be dressed? Can one say the name of the deceased person or not? How much time should elapse before burial? Is alcohol allowed at the wake? May the body be cremated without killing the person’s chances for resurrection? What things must be said at the funeral? What kinds of gifts should be exchanged, and with whom? If one of these things is not done correctly, what will happen? Proper burials have myriad rules and requirements, and these are of great moment, for they affect the relations of both living and dead to the universe that all inhabit. Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe offer many examples of such conceptual worlds.49 Although specific beliefs and practices vary DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  widely across the region, for illustrative purposes they display sufficient commonalities to be treated together. What goes into a proper burial? Kligman, Lampland, and Rév report50 from contemporary Transylvanian and Hungarian ethnography that villagers there believe the soul of the deceased person watches the funeral, and if it is dissatisfied, it will return and punish the living by creating havoc, often in the form of illness. Was enough money thrown into the coffin? Were the burial clothes fine and comfortable? Was the deceased’s favorite pipe put into the casket? If the person died unmarried, was a wedding also performed at his funeral? Various parts of the funeral ritual (the orientation of the body as it leaves the house, the reciprocal asking of forgiveness between living and dead, etc.) aim specifically to prevent a disgruntled soul from coming back. The possibilities for mayhem are much graver if the deceased had no burial at all. In addition, for months and years after the funeral these villagers offer regular prayers and ritual meals to propitiate the dead and keep them quiet, believing that a well-fed, contented soul will protect its earthly kin.51 One still finds ritual practices of this kind, for instance, in Transylvania and the former Yugoslavia. Every year a week after Easter, villagers go to the graves of kin in the cemetery, bearing special food cooked for the occasion; they sit on the graves and eat, offering the food to their dead.52 For these people it is not enough that the dead be properly buried: the living must keep feeding their dead kin so as to ensure the ancestors’ blessing and continued goodwill, which are essential to a well-ordered universe.53 From research in the Polish/Ukrainian borderland, Oltenia (Romania), and elsewhere we learn that a dead person who does not receive a proper burial has a number of options.54 He may become a “walking dead man,” annoy his family members, try to sleep with his wife, and seek to inflict retribution on those who wronged him. Or he may become a vampire. (These job choices are the preserve chiefly of males; unhappy dead females take on other forms.) One way or another, he makes the lives of his earthly relatives and neighbors unpleasant; they must either give him a proper burial (if he had none) or (if already buried) dig him up and cut off his head or drive a stake through his heart. Concern for the well-being of ancestors and other dead is thus crucial to peaceful living and to an orderly universe; proper burial helps to ensure these. DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  The idea that properly treated ancestors become protective spirits (or even saints) is found from Russia westward into Hungary, as is fear that a vengeful spirit will torment the living unless suitably placated. Such notions easily acquire deeper religious significance. Tumarkin describes, for instance, the link between the souls of ancestors and saints: in a Russian peasant house, icons often hang opposite the hearth, where the ancestors’ souls are thought to reside. Russian Christianity absorbed forms of ancestor worship, which became an important part of cults of the saints; indeed, Russian peasants have long understood saints to be their adored forefathers who sacrificed themselves for future generations. “To light a candle for the saints,” Tumarkin observes, “was to enter into spiritual discourse with the protective spirits of the past.”55 Ideas about proper burial figure even in present-day dead-body politics. An example is the debates around whether to remove Lenin’s mummy from its mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square. Like the corpse of Imre Nagy, Lenin’s has been the object of much politicking. Although the idea of removing him and burying him somewhere else56 is not new, starting in  it was proposed and debated with increasing vigor. (The debate was briefly sidetracked by a report in Forbes magazine, also carried on U.S. TV programs such as ABC’s Evening News, that Lenin was to be sold for hard currency at international auction.57) Having initially opposed the idea, Yeltsin later changed his mind, suggesting in 3 and again that Lenin be removed from Red Square for burial.58 Then came the attacks on the statues of Tsar Nicholas and Peter the Great, fatal in the former instance; both were motivated, as I said, by opposition to Lenin’s burial. The Russian Orthodox Church came out on the side of burying Lenin but refrained from stating whether the church would bury him as a “Christian.” Meanwhile, the Duma voted to denounce the project for his removal, and the question of who (Yeltsin by presidential decree, the Federal Assembly, or the people by referendum) should make the final decision was tossed around like a hot potato. A poll taken in June showed clearly who favored burial and who did not:  percent supported the idea, and 3 percent opposed it; the latter were concentrated among supporters of Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov and some nationalists.59 One could say a great deal more on the politics behind Lenin’s mummy (as does Vladislav Todorov, in a lengthy and often hilarious discussion60). DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  Market forces also have their effect. The embalmers who own the secret formula for Lenin reportedly took on after-hours work, catering to the fashions of newly wealthy Russians wanting to be embalmed; this moonlighting gives them another source of income, now that state funds for tending Lenin’s mummy have dried up, and subsidizes their continuing to work on him.61 But also important to determining Lenin’s fate are ideas about what makes for a proper burial. Their relevance comes from the decidedly religious underpinnings of the Lenin cult, and from notions about the divine origin of the authority of the tsars (to whom Lenin was often compared).62 An embalmed and not-buried Lenin offends Russian Orthodox sensibility, according to which every dead person should be interred, with very specific rites.63 For Russians, as for others discussed above, if someone is not buried or is buried improperly (or if abnormal people are given a “normal” burial), then bad things will happen.64 Because an unburied body is a source of things not being quite right in the cosmos, this is in itself sufficient reason to place Lenin firmly in the soil. But the debate is complicated by another set of beliefs, one having to do with saints. In Russian Orthodox doctrine, a dead person is revealed to be a saint not only through miracles but also because the corpse does not putrefy. As is true in many parts of the world,65 it used to be common Orthodox practice to exhume the dead after a certain time (three, five, or seven years was customary), wash the bones, and rebury them with a special liturgy. This ritual is still performed in some areas, including rural Greece.66 If upon digging up a Russian corpse one found that it had not decayed, its preservation was a clear sign of sainthood.67 Even though the incorruptibility of Lenin’s corpse is a human achievement, he is still touched by these associations: dead people whose bodies have not decayed are holy.68 From the religious point of view, then, one can see that Lenin’s mummy should be buried, lest bad things happen, and at the same time that it should not be buried but be exposed under glass, as befits a saint. In either case, the rationale has not just religious backing but roots in ideas about ongoing relations between the living and their dead. The only group excluded from arguments of this kind is the Communist Party, but it has ingeniously exploited other aspects of popular belief. In the parliamentary debate over what to do with Lenin, one of the communist participants reminded his DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  audience that in  Russian archaeologists had dug up the body of Tamerlane, about whom it was said that anyone who disturbed his grave would be cursed. Shortly thereafter, the Nazis overran the Soviet Union. The deputy concluded by asking what might happen if they now disturbed Lenin’s casket to bury him!69 All these different and contradictory views about reburial are available for use in a political contest that I believe is enriched by including them, to enchant the kind of political analysis we might do on Lenin’s corpse.70 I should clarify my aims in making these points about “proper burial”: I both am and am not making an argument about the continuity of older beliefs and practices. Given that years of official atheism and relentless modernization have eroded many beliefs recorded in earlier ethnographic work, I would be foolish to presume continuity. Nonetheless, as Gail Kligman’s wonderful book The Wedding of the Dead shows clearly for northern Romania in the s, popular ideas such as those I have described were not erased during the socialist period.71 Even Moscow intellectuals who think themselves beyond such “superstitions” can feel that there is something uncomfortably out of order about Lenin’s unburied corpse.72 But we should think about these seeming continuities carefully. Some practices that appear to be constant may actually have changed: for example, Andreesco and Bacou describe the modifications that distinguish burial practices in Oltenia (southern Romania) today from those of decades ago.73 Assuming the trappings of modernity may mean that people no longer feed their ancestors, but they may still think it important to recognize them. More important, however, is that some “traditional” practices are in fact reinforced (if not, indeed, invented, in Hobsbawm and Ranger’s famous formulation74) by their present setting. Andreesco and Bacou indicate that far from suppressing older burial practices, Romanian socialism amplified some of them.75 One reason might be that because religious burial violated official atheism, to bury one ’s dead properly was a form of resistance to official religious policy. A similar point emerges from a  article in the New York Times, which reported that in Serbia as of the s, practices involving hospitality and feasting in connection with the dead increased, as villagers began building entire houses on the graves of their relatives. These often lavish structures, with a coffin in the basement and DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  regular feasting above, “so the spirit of the deceased has something to eat and drink,” had less to do with tradition than with competitive displays among neighbors and against the Party elite.76 Thus, by invoking older beliefs and practices, I am not affirming unbroken continuity; the practices may be rejuvenated, attenuated, or simply invoked in discourse. What is most important about them is that those changes or invocations refer to practices that have a history (or histories). That history makes available numerous associations derived from earlier, precommunist times, forming a broader cultural system that shapes the possibilities for present political action. Political transformation may give “traditional” ideas new urgency—for example, proper burial and harmonious relations among kin may be especially powerful politically for those living through postsocialist times that have wrought such havoc on social relations among kinsmen, owing to conflicts over property restitution (which implicates kin above all others77). Ideas about proper burial, then, even if no longer held in a form identical to ideas from the past, enter into the penumbra of meanings that politicians and others can draw upon, alter, and intensify. These ideas and practices thereby inflect what can be done with dead-body symbolism.78 The great stability of mortuary practices, mentioned earlier, lends further credence to this claim. I have one final point to make about proper burial. The point is specific to the cases of famous dead, such as Bartók, the heart of Bulgaria’s Tsar Boris, and Romanian bishop Inochentie Micu (see chapter ), who have returned from abroad. And I believe it applies to such cases not just in Eastern Europe but elsewhere as well. Even when ideas about vampires and the undead have gone out of style, one common rule about proper burial still in force is that our “sons” must be buried on “our” soil, lest we be plagued by misfortune arising from the soul’s continued distress. The notion of repossessing “our” dead is common worldwide, as is evident from customs of warfare that return dead soldiers to their home countries. (Think of the ongoing preoccupation, in U.S. politics, with MIAs from the Korean and Vietnamese wars.) In such cases reburial at home may be presented simply as a matter DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  of proper rest for the deceased, the idea that it prevents misfortune remaining at best implicit. We see this with a home-bound skeleton of a very different sort, that of the Sioux chief Long Wolf, brought back in September  from London (where he had been “stranded” for  years) to his ancestral burial grounds in South Dakota. One of the Sioux who traveled to London to retrieve him observed after the funeral, “It means he’s set free. He’ll be among his own people. His bones will remain with us. The spirit remains with the bones, and the bones will finally be at rest among his own.”79 What interests me in cases like this one and similar postsocialist examples is their perhaps unexpected link with national identities, the subject with which I began this section. That link is through the contemporary vogue, worldwide, for the return of cultural property or “heritage,” an increasingly important part of building modern national identities. Over recent decades we have grown accustomed to peoples and countries, especially former colonies, petitioning to retrieve items of their cultural heritage or patrimony, often held by former colonial powers. Even Winniethe-Pooh, Piglet, et al. have entered into the corpus of contested objects.80 Efforts to define or redefine national identities seem increasingly to involve the notion that the “health” of a people is greatest when it has all its valued things at hand, rather than lying in museums or improper graves elsewhere. Perhaps the cases best known to residents of the United States involve the repatriation of Native American heritage—meaning both sacred objects and ancestral bones. The very word “repatriation” is eloquent: valued objects and remains are returning to the father- or homeland, where they should be. In her fascinating book The Return of Cultural Treasures, Jeanette Greenfield observes that in the nineteenth century, cultural property of many kinds was “centralized,” brought from its places of origin into museums in the major colonial centers.81 We are now witnessing the opposite movement, as more and more museums are forced or volunteer to return their treasures to the places whence these were taken. Not every relic or object that moves is part of this aspect of postcolonialism, and not all bodies and objects are equally worth retrieving. The ones that are, however, are usually the bodies of persons thought to have contributed something DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  special to their national history or culture. Adapting Greenfield, I would call them “cultural treasures.” In many parts of the world it seems to have become very important to bring “our” treasures—whether they are valued objects or physical remains—back home where they “belong.” The imagery of possession so often used inclines me to assimilate them to a worldwide concern with property rights—in this case, rights to cultural property. This argument suggests that repatriating dead bodies in the postsocialist period is part of refurbishing (and fighting over) national identities by bringing “our cultural treasures” home for a proper burial—a burial that binds people to their national territories in an orderly universe.82 These repatriations refurbish national identities by “nationalizing” symbolic capital that had entered global circuits, thus affirming the individuality of East European nation-states too long seen from without as barely distinguishable clones of international Soviet-style communism. Where the repatriates are world-famous, they may bring world respect, countering the arrogance of foreigners inclined to say, for instance, “Who would have thought that Romania, of all places, could produce cultural geniuses like Ionesco, Enescu, Eliade, and Brâncus¸i!” This outcome is especially likely where the dead person himself has requested the homecoming (usually in a will), as is true of a number of the repatriated corpses. Perhaps the more respectable image they bring thereby will help their countries to be judged “European” and, thus, worthy of EU membership. No matter whence the impetus for repatriations—from families of the deceased wanting royalties (as with Bartók; see introduction, note ), from wills, or from governing parties hoping to consolidate a reputation as guardians of the national heritage—they draw wider notice and enhance the nation’s global image. It is as if repatriating these cultural treasures and giving them proper burial localizes part of the symbolic capital they contain, just as postsocialist economies seek to attach themselves to international circuits in ways that will enable them to hold onto some of the profits for themselves. As I suggested at the beginning of this chapter, the corporeality of dead bodies facilitates such localizing claims. Their reburial participates in reordering meaningful worlds that are simultaneously conceptual, political, and economic. …the ordering principles of daily life and the basic rules of the game in Soviet-bloc politics ceased to hold. The result was a high level of political conflict and disagreement as newly forming groups with vulnerable constituencies jockeyed for advantage in new political fields. An always fragile balance of political forces now underwent a profound shift, a shift so momentous that it warranted truly cosmic imagery and raised all manner of culturally deep concerns. What is the order of our world now that the Communist Party has fallen? Whom do we wish to recognize as our ancestors, now that Marx, Lenin, and local communists are out, and what genealogies do we wish to rewrite? How should we position ourselves relative to other people—who, that is, are our kin and trusted associates? How can we reset our moral compass? Who is to blame for what has happened, and how should they be punished? Trying to resolve questions of this kind is what it means to reorder meaningful worlds. I have emphasized here the following aspects of that process: endowing postsocialist politics with a sense of the sacred, working toward a new moral order, assessing blame and seeking compensation, resignifying spatial and temporal landmarks and international borders, seeking modes of national self-affirmation and of connection with ancestors. Given all this, I think it is not too much to speak of reordering worlds of meaning as what is at stake in reburying the dead. CONCLUSION Let me recapitulate the arguments I have been making. My aims in the book as a whole are the descriptive one of presenting some material about the political “lives” of dead bodies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and the analytical one of showing how we might think about that material within an enchanted, enlivened sense of politics. I see dead bodies as one of many vehicles through which people in postsocialist societies reconfigure their worlds of meaning in the wake of what I (and, I believe, they) regard as a profoundly disorienting change in their surroundings. The widespread disorientation offered tremendous opportunity to people seeking power, as well; the challenge for them was to form new political arenas, invent new rules of the game, and build new political identifications, all in fierce competition with other would-be elites. None DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  of these outcomes, however, could simply be imposed. Only an alchemy mixing new political strategies with meanings already available would produce alternative political arrangements. I have suggested that the meanings already available included ideas about kinship, history, proper burial, and national identity; about authority, morality, space, and time. All these are important sites of new meaning-creation, by means of which political opportunists and disoriented citizens alike strive to reorder their meaningful worlds; moreover, dead bodies connect with all of them. Not every theme I have raised is relevant to every politicized corpse: different themes illuminate different cases, as I try to show in my handling of the cases I discuss in chapters  and . There is no uniform interpretation of the political lives of dead bodies. My aim in this chapter has been to suggest a variety of ways for thinking about dead-body politics, to offer a loose framework for approaching examples whose details vary. Only sometimes will we clarify the meaning of one or another case through ideas about proper burial, for example, or through looking at the multiple résumés of their lives, as in the case of Nagy. Many things make Nagy’s case unique in comparison with other reburials.83To understand any given case, one might find it helpful to ask what in present and past contexts gives what multiplicity of meanings to the résumé of that particular corpse: How does his complex biography make him a good instrument for revising history? What in his manifold activities encourages identification from a variety of people? Answering such questions will often, but not always, elucidate why some dead bodies rather than others become useful political symbols in transitional moments. Why, you might inquire, do I go to such lengths to interpret dead bodies? Why isn’t it sufficient to see them simply as part of legitimating postsocialist polities?84 What is the payoff of all my talk about “meaningful worlds” and ancestor worship and burial practices, especially given my reluctance to see such practices as having continuity throughout communist rule? I believe I am in part discussing processes of legitimation, attempting to state more precisely what goes into them. But many of the reburials I discuss were initiated not by political leaders eager to establish new legitimacies but by humbler people hoping to rectify their worlds. Moreover, to label an event “legitimating” does not end the inquiry; it invites us to ask how that event legitimates what, and at whose initiative. In DEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  trying to explain why and how dead bodies work in postsocialist politics, I have presented legitimation as a process that employs symbols; in speaking of dead bodies as unusually ambiguous, protean symbols, I have pointed to the multiple possibilities lodged in a given corpse-qua-symbol that make it unusually effective in politics; and in discussing ancestors and burial rites, I have stressed that these symbols have histories, often deep ones, that further multiply the associations they provide as resources for creating meaning and legitimacy in moments of political contention. Thus my argument throughout this book concerns how we might think of legitimation in less rationalistic and more suitably “cosmic” terms, showing it as rich, complex, and disputatious processes of political meaning-creation—that is, as politics animated. Is anything in these processes specific to the postsocialist context, distinguishing its many instances from uses of dead bodies elsewhere? I see three ways of answering this question in the affirmative. First, although corpses can be effective political symbols anywhere, they are pressed into the service of political issues specific to a given polity. For postsocialism, this means issues such as property restitution, political pluralization, religious renewal, and national conflicts tied to building nation-states. Such issues are found in other contexts, too, but in most postsocialist ones they occur simultaneously. This is an obvious argument for the specificity of postsocialist dead bodies, but not a strong one. Second, dead bodies— inherently yoking past with present—are especially useful and effective symbols for revising the past. To be sure, political transformation often involves such revision: indeed, communist parties revised pasts extensively. In Eastern Europe, however, rewriting history has been perhaps unusually necessary because of powerful pressures to create political identities based expressly on rejecting the immediate past. The pressures came not just from popular revulsion with communism but also from desires to persuade Western audiences to contribute the aid and investment essential to reconstruction. The revisionist histories that corpses and bones embodied were therefore central to dramatizing the end of Communist Party rule. Finally, I believe dead bodies are uncommonly lively in the former socialist bloc because of the vastness of the transformations there that make bodies worth fighting over, annexing, and resignifying. The speciDEAD BODIES ANIMATE THE STUDY OF POLITICS  ficity of postsocialist corpses lies in the magnitude of the change that has animated them. The axis mundi has shifted; whole fields of the past await the plowshare of revisionist pens, as well as the tears of those whose dead lie there insufficiently mourned. A change so momentous and far-reaching requires especially heavy, effective symbols, symbols such as dead bodies. I am suggesting, then, that the specificity of postsocialist deadbody politics, compared with examples from elsewhere, is a matter not of kind but of degree. The remaining two chapters treat specific cases with the tools I think best suited to them from those I have mentioned. The two chapters are organized very differently: one in the manner of a chronological narrative and the other more like a network of ideas that double back on themselves; the differences in organization are part of the message I hope to convey by the end of the book. In both chapters I strive to bring in the delights of anthropology, too often ignored in the literature on postsocialism: a respect for wide variability on a small scale; close attention to how these particulars intersect with contemporary global processes—how everyday and large-scale forces intersect in particular skeletons in the wake of communism’s collapse; and ideas about ancestors, about “proper burial,” about the cosmos, morality, and blame, about time and space, and about death and rebirth. I hope the result will demonstrate how we might enchant our sense of the political and enliven our understanding of politics in the postsocialist world.

[klnofziger]

Dublin is a lively city with different cuisine and activity options. If you like traditional Irish foods, there are many choices for that. Likewise, if you are a history buff, you will find a wealth of options to fulfill this obsession as well! In our next installment for this series, we have outlined several of our favorite sites in Dublin!

Where to Eat:

J. W. Sweetman – 1-2 Burgh Quay, D2 –

We arrived too early to check into our hostel so we headed out for some exploring and food. We happened to come upon JW Sweetman and it was exactly what we needed! We all had their traditional Irish stew and Irish brown bread. Their prices are good, especially for the portion sizes. As this was where we had our first meal in Dublin, on our last light in Dublin we chose to eat here for our final dinner in town too! Highly recommend this place!

Art Cafe – 1 Frenchman’s Lane – This adorable and cozy cafe totally hit the spot for a traditional Irish breakfast on a drizzly morning! A little out of the main city center but an easy walk! The service is friendly, the food is delicious and the atmosphere feels like sitting in your own breakfast nook at home!

Pa Pa Pizzeria – 104 Talbot St, North City, Dublin, Ireland – You can’t beat 5 Euro for a big slice of pizza and a drink. We actually happened  upon this little take out shop with just a row of bar stools on the one wall and a wide selection of authentic pizza reminiscent of the NYC style slice. They are open late and near a Tesco Express for snacks after hours!

Supermac’s – All over Dublin! – Like a McD’s but somehow better. Affordable and open late in some locations! Affordable, open late, good quality food and some big burger option.

The Cobblestone Pub – 77 King St N, Smithfield, Dublin 7, D07 TP22, Ireland – Traditional Irish Pub with free traditional music and great atmosphere! This is a do not miss pub!

Peader Kearney’s Pub – 64 Dame Street Dublin 2 – This traditional pub is named or a local musician who lived in the building that now houses the pub, it was Peadar Kearney who wrote Abhrán na BhFiann, the Irish National Anthem. Traditional music can be caught here, along with a perfectly pulled pint!

Bruxelle’s – 7 Harry Street Co. Dublin, Ireland – An extensive menu, any time of the day. Three bars in one building make up Bruxelle’s! Service is great, the food is amazing and the atmosphere is eclectic, you can’t beat all that is happening here!

  What to do:

The Long Room – The Book of Kells – Trinity College – College Green- Dublin 2, Ireland –

Trinity College – Dublin, Ireland (c) Emylee-Noel Gussler

The experience of a lifetime to not only get to see this Illuminated Manuscript, learn the history and be inches from it (you can’t take photos), but to then stand amid the truly awe inspiring arched alcoves of rare books as well as other artifacts. As writers, history buffs and artists this was one of our favorite experiences of our trip to Dublin. Discounts available for students, so bring your ID!

        Kilmainham Gaol – Inchicore Rd, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, D08 RK28, Ireland

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A truly moving experience. One of the largest unoccupied jails (gaol) in Europe, this facility served from the 1780s to the 1920s. Housing the infamous leaders of the Easter uprising of 1916 as well as many other well known Irish Revolutionaries, the stories that these walls could tell are numerous. Discounts available for students!

    Blarney Castle – Monacnapa, Blarney, Co. Cork, Ireland

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We chose to take a day tour (there are many companies to choose from) and we were very glad that we did. You can of course head to Blarney Castle on your own, figuring out the public transit or renting a car. We found that a day tour took a lot of the guess work and stress out of it. You will need several hours to explore the castle, hike up the winding stairs to hang over the edge (backwards) and kiss the stone, walk the grounds and gardens and head over to the gift shops across the street! While you are there, grab a cappuccino! (It was my first Latte Art!)

Rock of Cashel – Moor, Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland – This was also on our tour to Blarney Castle.  Once the seat of the kings of Munster, this site was donated to the church in 1101. The round tower is the oldest and tallest section of the building and dates to around 1100. The cemetery that surrounds the cathedral is peaceful and many of the markers are so old that the weather has worn off all markings. Certainly a stop you shouldn’t miss!

Cork City – Day Tour!

We only had a little over an hour in this wonderful city on our tour, but that hour was a bit of an adventure to find a place to eat, stamps and a quick souvenir. One of the cities that my Irish family is from, I know I’ll be back. A quick stop with a walk down the main road will certainly leave you wanting more! Take a quick train trip from Dublin to Cork and check out all this city has to offer! (Check out The Hatch for a Cork Boi)

Dublin Castle -Dublin Castle, Dame St, Dublin 2 –  The seat of English, then British, rule in Ireland from 1204 until 1922, the site is steeped in history. Some sections are free to view and others can be toured for a fee. Below the castle, excavations have uncovered Viking Era artifacts!

Chester Beatty Library – Located on the grounds of Dublin Castle – Free admission and one of the best private collections of manuscripts, photography, furniture, paintings, prints and decorative arts. Take a break for some lunch in the cozy cafe, stop in the small gift shop and walk the garden walkway!

Christ’s Church – Christchurch Pl, Wood Quay, Dublin 8, Ireland – Founded in 1030 by the Norse King, Sitriuc Silkenbeard, the site has seen not only history happen around it, but has welcomed many key figures like King James in 1689, and King William III in 1690 (he gave thanks for his victory in the Battle of the Boyne) as well. A stunning piece of architecture inside and out.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral – St Patrick’s Close, Wood Quay, Dublin 8, DZ08 H6X3 – For over 800 years, St. Patrick’s has served the people of the city. Johnathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) is buried on the site as well as several other key historical figures. Saint Patrick’s Well was found on the site in 1901 as well as Celtic burial slabs. A Stunning cathedral with beautiful grounds to walk, spend some time soaking in the beauty, history and the peace that surrounds this beautiful cathedral. Light a candle, say a prayer and consider staying for mass. Entry is 6 Euro.

National Museum of Archaeology – Kildare St, Dublin 2, Ireland                                  Another free thing to do in Dublin, you likely will need all day to see the entire museum. We had several hours and still didn’t see everything. From Bog Bodies, to incredible insect displays, ancient tools and religious artifacts, there are so many different pieces of Ireland’s rich history found here. Give yourself at least half the day, better yet head there early and take a break for some lunch, only to return to see the rest in the afternoon!

Dublinia – Dublinia is located at Christ Church, the crossroads of St. Michael’s Hill, Patrick Street, and High Street, in Dublin City Centre. Dublinia is connected to Christ Church Cathedral by a Neo-Gothic archway. – Immerse yourself in Dublin’s Viking and Medieval history! Hands-on experiences mixed with recreations and real artifacts, this museum meets interactive exhibit is educational and fun! Well worth the 9.50 (8.50 for students) entry fee!

Dublin Writer’s Museum – 18 Parnell Square – Housed in an 18th century mansion, here you can find a collection honoring the works of Swift, Sheridan, Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett through books, letters, portraits and personal items.

This is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to things to see and do in Dublin (and the vicinity). Remember to double check opening hours as some places may be closed during your visit!

“Keep your heart open, a suitcase packed and wander often, for the world is wide and adventure awaits.” ~ Emylee

  Dublin: What to do, Where to eat? Dublin is a lively city with different cuisine and activity options. If you like traditional Irish foods, there are many choices for that.

[docudocu-blog]

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal.

De casibus virorum illustrium

Giovanni Boccaccio, De casibus virorum illustrium, c.1480, Bruges.

[itmocca]

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 2

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 2: Dr Janina Ramirez shows how medieval illuminated manuscripts gave power to the king and united the kingdom in an age of plague, warfare and rebellion. #history #books

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 2: Dr Janina Ramirez shows how medieval illuminated manuscripts gave power to the king and united the kingdom in an age of plague, warfare and rebellion.     Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of medieval illuminated manuscripts and shows how they gave power to the king and united the kingdom in an age of plague, warfare and rebellion. She discovers…

[itmocca]

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 1

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. #history

The Private Lives of Medieval Kings episode 1 : Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal. She begins her journey with the first Anglo-Saxon rulers to create a united England, encountering books in the British Library’s Royal manuscripts collection which are over a thousand years old and a royal…

[docudocu-blog]

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings and explores the medieval world they reveal.

Omne Bonum

Omne Bonum (translated as All Good things) is a fourteenth-century encyclopedia, composed and written circa 1360-1375 for Edward III by James le Palmer, a clerk of the Exchequer.