#Six Lithuanian Poets

[kwilooo]

About me!

hi! I’m kira/aleksi! I am an artist, poet, history lover, and theatre lover.

(i’m trying out the name aleksi so bear with me :3)

(And your local amrev fanatic✨✨)

i use they/them pronouns mainly, but i honestly don't mind she/her or he/him :)

I’m always open to questions, suggestions, or requests for art, so don’t be afraid to stop by.

(minor / 16 april)

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE 🇵🇸

Joined 29 June 2023 :)

Interests:

- art digitally and traditionally, though I’m better traditionally :3

- writing both my own stories and fanfics

- writing poems!!! (see @kira-cant-write-poetry)

- reading

-theatre

- history!!

- the relationship between Hamilton and Laurens

- Washington’s aide-de-camps

- life during the American Revolution

- Marquis de Lafayette

- American Revolution

- a bit of the French Revolution (I’m just getting into it ;) )

- please someone teach my about Francis Kinloch and more about the aides

- fashion during the revolutionary and world wars, but specifically 1940s/50s

- Hamilton

- Helluva Boss

- The Owl House

- SIX the musical

- Beetlejuice the musical

Other info :)

ENFP-T

I love theatre (if that wasn’t obvious)

My first language is English, but I’m learning German, Spanish, and Lithuanian (I understand basic things), and I’m no longer learning French but I do understand the basics :)

I’m Lithuanian 🇱🇹🇱🇹😄

non-binary/genderfluid 💛🤍💜🖤

Bisexual 🩷💜💙 [or pan, but under that umbrella]

Feel free to message or ask me anything (as long as you’re not being creepy, please)

Have a nice day/night!! Love you all <33

(Love all my 80 moot besties :))

DNI: TRANSPHOBES, HOMOPHOBES, RACISTS, TERFS, SEXISTS, AND ANYONE OF THAT KIND.

A note both for myself and anyone else who wants to see it: Hamilton + laurens actual letters

As well as a list of events with Hamilton/Laurens

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-Gil8CGRiY

Having visited Vilna once for a month during the summer, having seen the area where the ghetto was, and having visited Ponar, this song really hits home.  For a bit of background, Vilna (Yiddish for Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania) was once home to a large, varied, and remarkably scholarly Jewish population.  It was sometimes called “the Jerusalem of Lithuania,” and the art and literature and science and scholarship produced by the Jews of Vilna, all in Yiddish, is quite remarkable.  It’s also the original home of YIVO, which moved to New York when things started getting dicey.

Ponar (Ponary in Polish, or Paneriai in Lithuanian) is one of the outer neighborhoods of Vilnius.  There’s a train station there, and a nice wooded area.  In 1940 and 1941, the Soviet Army dug about seven giant pits in the forest to store munitions.  When the Nazis took over in 1941, they were looking for places to dump the bodies of the Jews they intended to murder, and hey, free pits!  The Jews killed and dumped in the pits in Ponar were killed by special squads of Lithuanian volunteers.  In 1943, the Nazis decided to start digging up the pits so that they could burn the bodies buried there to disguise the evidence of the mass murder they’d committed.

As far as I know, we’ve located six of these pits (likely the ones that the Nazis had Jewish prisoners dig up -- what, you think the Nazis would do the actual digging themselves?), and we know that there’s at least one more.  Furthermore, there are bodies scattered in the area around the pits.  Best guess is that there are about 100,000 bodies at the Ponar site, and the whole forest is a mass grave.

This song is a fairly typical ghetto song.  It’s a contrafact -- the original melody is for a Yiddish song called “Papirosn,” about an orphan boy who sells cigarettes on the street.  It would have been a popular song in the day, and a teenage poet named Rikle Glezer wrote new words to an old tune.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.7 (before 1930)

70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem. 878 – Louis the Stammerer is crowned as king of West Francia by Pope John VIII. 1159 – Pope Alexander III is chosen. 1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf: Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf. 1228 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II lands in Acre, Israel, and starts the Sixth Crusade, which results in a peaceful restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1303 – Guillaume de Nogaret takes Pope Boniface VIII prisoner on behalf of Philip IV of France. 1571 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, is arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. 1620 – The town of Kokkola (Swedish: Karleby) is founded by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. 1630 – The city of Boston, Massachusetts, is founded in North America. 1652 – Around 15,000 Han farmers and militia rebel against Dutch rule on Taiwan. 1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India. 1706 – War of the Spanish Succession: Siege of Turin ends, leading to the withdrawal of French forces from North Italy. 1764 – Election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the last ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1776 – According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world's first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor (no British records of this attack exist). 1812 – French invasion of Russia: The Battle of Borodino, the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, is fought near Moscow and results in a French victory. 1818 – Carl III of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim. 1822 – Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga Brook in São Paulo. 1856 – The Saimaa Canal is inaugurated. 1857 – Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers slaughter most members of peaceful, emigrant wagon train. 1860 – Unification of Italy: Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Naples. 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops under Quincy A. Gillmore capture Fort Wagner in Morris Island after a seven-week siege. 1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. 1901 – The Boxer Rebellion in Qing dynasty (modern-day China) officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. 1903 – The Ottoman Empire launches a counter-offensive against the Strandzha Commune, which dissolves. 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France successfully for the first time. 1907 – Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City. 1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life piloting a powered heavier-than-air craft. 1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum. 1916 – US federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751) 1920 – Two newly purchased Savoia flying boats crash in the Swiss Alps en route to Finland where they were to serve with the Finnish Air Force, killing both crews. 1921 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held. 1921 – The Legion of Mary, the largest apostolic organization of lay people in the Catholic Church, is founded in Dublin, Ireland. 1923 – The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is formed. 1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth. 1929 – Steamer Kuru capsizes and sinks on Lake Näsijärvi near Tampere in Finland. One hundred thirty-six lives are lost.

[tamsoj]

I liked cemeteries — the fear of death encourages one to get to know it all the more intimately and not to run away

Sigitas Parulskis, from Six Lithuanian Poets, “The Wall”, tr. by Medeine Tribinevicius

original:

aš mėgau kapines — mirties baimė skatina ją pažinti kuo intymiau, o ne bėgti tolyn

[willowstar204]

[girlactionfigure]

Heroic Polish Poet

Won the Nobel Prize

Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz protected Jews during the Holocaust, wrote poems that inspired millions, and advocated passionately for freedom of thought and human rights.

Czeslaw was born in 1911 to an illustrious family descended from Polish nobility. At the time of his birth, Poland was not an independent country and the Milosz clan lived in an area that was Russian Empire. He spent his early childhood on his grandfather’s estate, but when World War I broke out in 1914, the family was thrown into turmoil. Czeslaw’s father was drafted into the Russian army, and Czeslaw and his mother spent the next four years fleeing the Germans in (modern-day) Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. When the war ended, the family settled in Vilna, a city with a significant Jewish population, known as a hub of exceptional Jewish scholars and yeshivas.

Exceptionally intelligent and curious, Czeslaw learned six languages (Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew.) He entered law school at the prestigious Stefan Batory University when he was only 18 years old, but found his true calling and talent in poetry. He published his first poems in the university magazine in 1930, and formed a student poetry group and an “Intellectuals Club.”

Czeslaw had many Jewish friends at the university, and was shocked when an antisemitic mob attacked Jew on campus. Czeslaw bravely stood up to the mob and protected the Jewish students. Sadly one student was killed when a large rock was thrown at his head.

The incident influenced Czeslaw’s writing, and he described his work as “Poetry of Protest.” While still a student, Czeslaw published his first volume of poetry After graduating from university, Czeslaw worked at a radio station in Vilna. He produced a wide range of programming for the station, including performances by Jewish musicians and writers. As Hitler rose to power, his hateful ideology took hold among many Lithuanian nationalists. Czeslaw’s showcasing Jewish voices on the radio led to an anonymous complaint falsely accusing him of fomenting communism, and he was fired.

Czeslaw moved back to Poland, now an independent republic, and worked at Polish Radio in Warsaw. He published another volume of poetry, which quickly gained acclaim among poetry-lovers and critics. He was compared to legendary 19th century Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Czeslaw became an active member of the Polish underground resistance. The Nazis persecuted Polish intellectuals and artists, and Czeslaw published his next book of poetry under a pseudonym, which he also used for his translations of Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot.

Horrified at the violent and vicious persecution of Jews in Warsaw, Czeslaw, along with his brother Andrzej, began helping Jews hide or escape from the Nazis. He defied the Nazis to help at least five Polish Jews and maybe more, providing them a place to hide as well as financial support. Czeslaw knew that the penalty for this transgression was death, but his moral compass did not allow him to stand idly by. In late 1944 Czeslaw was captured by the Germans and held in a prisoner transit camp. Miraculously, he was helped by a Catholic nun (and total stranger) who somehow convinced the Germans to let him go.

After the war, Czeslaw published his powerful fourth collection of poetry, focusing on the loss of three million Polish Jews, and the willful blindness of much of the Polish population. Came po dei Fiori, written in 1943, became one of his best-known works. It described the suffering and carnage inside the Warsaw ghetto, and the cluelessness of those outside its gates. The poem includes searing imagery: “The salvoes behind the ghetto walls/were drowned in lively tunes/and vapors freely rose/into the tranquil sky./Sometimes the wind from burning houses would bring the kites along/and people on the merry-go-round/caught the flying charred bits./This wind from burning houses/blew open the girls’s skirts/and the happy throngs laughed/on a beautiful Warsaw Sunday.”

Czeslaw received increasing recognition for his work, which ultimately inspired long-overdue public reckoning and introspection on Poles’ failure to protect the three million Jews in their midst. In 1949 he was appointed a cultural attache for the communist People’s Republic of Poland, although he opposed Soviet ideology. During this time he moved from New York to Washington DC and then Paris, creating event highlighting Polish culture, publishing articles, and translating important literary works into Polish, his mother tongue. He returned to Poland for a visit in 1949, and was shocked at what had happened to the country. Stalinist oppression had created a culture of fear and lies, and Czeslaw spoke out against it, leading to his firing and escape from Poland to Paris in 1951. During the tumult he was separated from his wife Janina and their children. They were in the United States, but because of the old smear against Czeslaw of being a communist, McCarthyism led to Czeslaw being refused entry. He received political asylum in France, and spoke out against Stalinism, which led to all of works being banned in his native land. He published two poetry collections, two novels, and a memoir, written in Polish and published by fellow Polish ex-pats. He finally reunited with his family in 1953.

In 1960, Czeslaw became a visiting lecturer at Berkeley, and American audiences discovered his work for the first time. He published scholarly works on Dostoevsky, among other important writers. Czeslaw retired from teaching in 1978 to focus on writing full-time. During the Stalinist years, Czeslaw’s work was a source of inspiration to the the Polish anti-communist Solidarity movement.

Czeslaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, leading to global recognition and the publication of his work in Poland. After 30 years in exile, Czeslaw returned to Poland for a visit and was greeted by adoring crowds proud of the attention and respect he brought to Polish literature. He met with Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II and used his newfound fame to advocate for writers who were persecuted for their beliefs.

Czeslaw became a poetry professor at Harvard in 1981, and continued to publish poetry in Polish. His wife Janina died in 1986, and after the fall of communism in 1989 he began to spend more time in Poland, finally moving back in 2000. Czeslaw Milosz died in Krakow in 2004, at age 93. He received a state funeral and thousands of people lined the streets to watch his coffin travel by a military escort to the cemetery. At the funeral, noted poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Czeslaw’s poetry in all the languages he knew: Polish, French, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew.

During his lifetime and posthumously, Czeslaw received many honors and awards, including Righteous Among the Nations at Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem. His work was enormously influential among the greatest poets of the age, including Robert Pinsky, Ted Hughes, Robert Strand and Derek Walcott. Raised Catholic, Czeslaw became an atheist as a young man, but later returned to the faith of his youth and was buried at Skalka Roman Catholic Church.

For saving lives and writing poetry for the ages, we honor Czeslaw Milosz as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[pochiperpe90]

[L’Officiel Hommes] Luca Marinelli, rising star of Italian cinema

To win his first film role, Luca Marinelli agreed to put on sixteen kilos. For the second, he had to shave his whole body and learn to walk in heels more than eight inches high.

"If I believe in the part, there is nothing I'm not willing to do," says the twenty-six-year-old protagonist of ‘The Solitude of Prime Numbers’, the film by Saverio Costanzo presented at last year's edition of the Venice Film Festival.

To play the role of a boy devoured by guilt due to an accident that happened to his sister, Marinelli did not hesitate to ruin his athletic physique by gorging himself on fats and carbohydrates, and giving up any activity for three months. As soon as he could, he started running again to lose the extra pounds. Between football and swimming he has always been used to playing sports. But the forced immobility had atrophied his muscles, and at the end of the first runs he ended up vomiting his soul from the effort. After a month of intense exercise, however, he had already lost the extra pounds.

"Changing your body makes you feel more vulnerable and you become prey to irrational fears: when I was fat I was afraid of dying every time I took the stairs, when I was hairless I was afraid that my eyebrows would never grow back," says the actor while he eats a salad sitting at the bar of the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. "But it's always a very interesting experience", he continues, absently stroking the hairs on his forearm, still growing since the end of the shooting of “L’ultimo terrestre”, a film that will be released next year by Gipi, an Italian illustrator making his debut behind the movie camera. It’s a love story set against the backdrop of an invasion of extraterrestrials, in which Marinelli plays the role of a transvestite friend of the protagonist. To prepare for the part, the actor watched dozens of crossdresser and transgender footage and had to practice for hours walking with extravagant stilts instead of shoes.

“I was told that, as a woman, I move well and I'm quite beautiful. In short, the experience gave me a certain satisfaction”, he jokes, winking with gray-blue eyes.

Compared to the film debut of ‘Solitude of Prime Numbers’, this new film offers him a smaller role and visibility. But Marinelli is not concerned about this. He knows he was very lucky to end on the red carpet of one of the most important festivals in the world with the first film. And he would almost feel calmer if his career were to continue more gradually.

"It was so lightning fast that I was not prepared. Venice was a wonderful experience but I was in panic. In the evening I came home with a terrible headache, I felt like I had two tight screws in my skull. I almost felt at fault to start out so great. And now I'm happy to start again slowly”.

Marinelli finished high school in 2006 and three years later graduated from the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. Before being chosen by Costanzo for the feature film that gave him notoriety with the public, he had already played several roles in the theater with directors such as Carlo Cecchi and Michele Monetta. His father, actor and film voice actor, tried to introduce him to the world of entertainment as a child, without achieving great results. He had made him voice the voices of Tip and Tap, the grandchildren of Mickey Mouse from the cartoons, and had offered him some amateur roles. Despite being fascinated by the profession, however, the son didn’t feel cut out to be an actor.

“As a child I was shy. I liked being the center of attention, but only with people I had a lot of confidence with. More than being observed, I was interested in observing the lives of others. Not the present ones, but the past ones”.

After high school, Marinelli enrolled in the faculty of archeology in Rome. But after two months in which he attended only lessons that had nothing to do with his course, he realized that the university wasn’t for him and threw himself into acting, overcoming the fears he carried within him since he was a child. Even today, however, it retains some of that shyness. To the point that, whenever he is about to go on stage, he has to resort to small exorcising rites to reduce tension and cancel thoughts. And when we ask him how it feels to tell a complete stranger about himself, he confesses to being a little nervous.

"This is my second interview. From the first, I came out as some kind of psycho. I hope this time it goes better”, he jokes.

He has pain in his neck from a fall that occurred a few days earlier and moves his torso in a slightly stiffly way. He jumped on the ball and crashed to the ground during a game of "calciotto", the eight-a-side football that is popular in Rome, the city where he was born and raised. Every time he turns his head he makes a grimace of pain. Apart from that, Marinelli seems to be quite at ease, and does not resort to clichés. Nor does he try to hide behind sophisticated characters: he wears a blue shirt, military green trousers and brown jacket, in a style that he simply defines "for men", made up of garments unearthed among vintage shops and thrift stalls rather than in the boutiques of the big names. He loves to run around with his bike, although he admits that the longest trip he has done was from Rome to Fregene with a friend. And as soon as he has a free moment he takes his dog Nonò, a foundling dachshund who also follows him on tour, and takes him around the capital for long walks in the company of Sandy, the dog who lives in his parents' house.

Even though he’s aware of the difficulties and uncertainties he risks facing in his profession, he speaks of his dreams with passion and without anguish. He would like to pursue a project as a director and is enthusiastic about the collaboration with Cecchi in “Sogno di una notte di mezza estate”, a piece with which he will tour Italy between November and February.

"I know that being an actor is a job with a very high risk of failure and depression, but for the moment I try to live this lucky moment to the fullest."

Marinelli is not religious, but he’s particularly fascinated by the figure of Christ. He loves reading books and watching films that tell the Nazarene in his human dimension (from the Gospel according to Matthew by Pasolini to Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ), because when he sees a miracle he feels the "smell of burning" and is immediately distracted.

"The story of Jesus, understood as a simple person, is a proof of the wonderful things that man is capable of. And studying it helps to understand how far we live from the example that has been given to us".

Among the dreams in the drawer, remains to work with Eimuntas Nekrošius, the Lithuanian theater director who recently staged Albert Camus' Caligula in Rome. And with Pedro Almodovar, the master of Spanish cinema whose language he knows well. In fact, Marinelli's father spent his childhood in Argentina and passed on to his son his love for Spanish, which Luca speaks with a slight South American inflection.

Of course, the situation in Italy for novice actors is not reassuring. Most of his fellow academics are still looking for work. The lucky ones earn a few euros by acting in the theater or making fiction which is exhausting for the body and demoralizing for the spirit. The others are making a living with alternative uses waiting to be discovered.

“I'm working, but not because I'm the best of those who came out of my class. Luck matters a lot. In Italy the environment is closed and there is little money. Abroad, however, it seems that this art is much more accessible".

His response is interrupted by a strange sigh that sounds like a whale song. It’s the ringtone of his cell phone, a reconstruction of the original music used in the Greek tragedy. Marinelli doesn’t respond, but begins to show signs of unease. He noted that the Palazzo della Triennale hosts an exhibition of Pasolini's portraits that he would like to see. He has little time left, but he adores the poet and insists on entering.

Inside the exhibition, observe the black and white photos taken by Dino Pedriali in 1975 which show the artist reading in his villa in Chia, writing on an Olivetti 22 and walking on a bridge in Sabaudia with his hair down from the wind. Then he stops in front of a photo of Pasolini naked, portrayed in his bedroom.

"What a fascinating man, in this image he reminds me of the bad lieutenant in Abel Ferrara's film," he says as he heads towards the exit. Then, unexpectedly, he turns to his interviewer and asks him with the relieved tone of someone who knows he has completed a business: "Prof, how did the exam go?".

“I'd give you a nice twenty-eight”, we reply according to the game.

"Okay, I accept it".

L’Officiel Hommes

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)  

[vitapictor]

Akiane Kramarik is an incredibly talented and beautiful girl who serves as an inspiration for many people. Akiane said that her life goal is "to bring people closer together through art." She started drawing at age four and painting at age six, and hasn't stopped since. Her work is critically acclaimed all over the globe and her paintings sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's hard to believe that she's only in her late teens.

She was born July 9, 1994 in Mount Morris Illinois, since then she's lived in Missouri, Colorado, and Idaho. She grew up in poverty but at age four everything changed when she started experiencing "visions. Over time, her visions which she would promptly sketch, paint, or write poems about would lead her family to become Christians and would thrust Akiane into the limelight. Oprah first noticed Akiane's work and after appearing on her show, Akiane's popularity skyrocketed.

 Akiane has completed approximately 250 works of art and counting and even has two best-selling books published. She wakes at four in the morning most days to paint; she paints one picture at a time and can spend one hundred to two hundred hours per painting. Akiane is an incredibly accomplished young lady in many areas of life, not just art. She speaks four languages: English, Lithuanian, Russian, and Sign Language. Her poetry is world-renowned just like her art.

All of Akiane's artwork and poetry is way beyond her years, showing that you can achieve greatness no matter your age. Her work touches you in a way not many things can. Her compassion, understanding, and love for people show what a genuine person she is. Akiane has touched thousands of people and has even inspired me to paint. Her story is inspiring too, from very humble conditions to being a world-renowned art prodigy and celebrated poet. She is a very talented girl and is a great role model for anybody.

 Source: https://myhero.com/A_Kramarik_chinook_CA_2012_ul

             https://akiane.com/about-akiane/

[tintind]

TW: violence, politics, Belarus

We have been under occupation for three months now. It is difficult to call it anything else, although some people may find the comparison too exaggerated.

What is going on?

This art shows two poets and political activists of the last century. Aloisa Pashkevich (aka Tsetka) from Belarus and Lesya Ukrainka from Ukraine. It is not known whether they met in life, but they are contemporaries and both fought for the freedom of their peoples.

Fourteen years ago, protests raged in the capital, my mother participated in them. I was only five years old at the time, and I don't remember anything except the day when a policeman came to our house to find out where my mother was. I didn't know what was going on. Our opposition wanted to call the events of 2006 “the denim revolution”, but then Lukashenka remained in power. In twenty-six years, our President has changed the Constitution three times, and thanks to the falsification of the results of referendums, he has almost absolute power, like a monarch de l'Ancien Régime. In fact, according to psychiatrists, Lukashenka has a mosaic psychopathy. He is a pathological liar and an adherent of the ideas of communism. But not that communism, which is for a bright future, but one that eliminates and intimidates all dissenters.

Everyone in the government lies. The Ministry of health is lying about the covid-19 situation (they even lied about the flu for years). The Central election Committee is lying about the election results. The Ministry of internal Affairs is lying about the number of protesters. There are no independent institutes of sociology in our country.

The Constitution proclaims freedom of Assembly. At the same time, there is an article in administrative law "on violation of the procedure for holding mass events". It does not provide for punishment for mass riots, according to it you will be convicted for standing silently with a placard or flag. You will be arrested for 15 days for wearing "political color" clothing or for having a photo of you eating white-red-white marshmallows. This is not a joke. These are real stories. You will be arrested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A friend of mine is under arrest right now. I was very afraid that I would harm him by writing a letter. All correspondence is read. Yes, it's illegal, but they don't even hide it.

Over the past three months, about 30,000 people have been convicted under article 23.34. This is like one small Belarusian city, for example, Dzerzhinsk. In the first days of the protest in August, forty people were held in cells for six.

From the ninth to the twelfth of August were the worst nights of my life.

We have passed the point of no return. Special forces shot an unarmed man.

During these three months, seven people were killed by the security forces. The last of them — a young man of 31 years old, saw unknown people in civilian clothes removing ribbons of national colors from the fence, and he came out to ask why they do it. He was beaten and taken in an unmarked car to the police station, where he was admitted to the hospital. He died without regaining consciousness. His last words in the chat were "I’m going out." He was sober, he didn't get into a fight first. He went out into the courtyard of his house.

Authorities call the criminals "concerned citizens" and claim that Roman--that was guy's name--was drunk and provoked them.

According to the authorities, a little more than a hundred police officers were injured by the actions of the protesters. What injuries do they have? They say someone's spine was broken. But doctors only know about a couple of wrist sprains from working too hard with a baton. While the protesters took off their shoes to stand on the bench and collected garbage behind them, the police smashed the glass doors of the cafe.

State TV channels talk about some protest coordinators who pay people 30 euros for each march, but the police arrest not these coordinators, but journalists who are just doing their job, telling about what is happening. It is illegal to be an independent journalist in Belarus. Even if you wear a vest that says "Press", you will be arrested. This happened to a friend of mine last weekend. She doesn't have a camera anymore.

Equipment is rarely returned, but there are a lot of broken smartphones in the stores of confiscated goods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After three terrible August nights, people are also being beaten again.

Verbal humiliation. Menaces. Beatings. Rapes.

Tortures.

Women are beaten on their stomachs to they "do not give birth to zmagar(protesters) scum". In August, a girl lost a child to torture in a pre-trial detention center. Recently, a pregnant woman was sentenced to 20 days in prison. 

Beatings. Rapes.

Policemen break men’s arms, legs, break their heads, rape them.

People are forced to stand on the street for hours without moving. They are denied medical care, saying that they are malingerers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If they hear that you speak Belarusian (in Belarus!), they will mark you with a cross, which means that you can be beaten more than others. In August, marks were placed also on people without documents and those with "non-white" appearance. Our authorities decided to commit genocide. They don't fully understand it themselves, but violence against people who speak a certain language is a genocide.

Almost 500 cases of documented tortures were brought by the internal authorities in zero criminal cases.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mass repressions can be less violent there. Students are expelled from Belarusian universities for participating in protest actions. One of my close friends left for Lithuania because he was expelled despite his good academic performance. Private businesses are being shut down under the yoke of sanctions. They force representatives of the IT-sector to leave. Doctors are being fired.

Yes, that's right. In the midst of the pandemic, they fire doctors.

The country's borders are closed to entry. For some time, even Belarusian citizens were not allowed to go home (and authorities still threaten them to not let them in). The gouvernment demanded to reduce the number of employees of Polish and Lithuanian embassies in order to make it more difficult for Belarusians to obtain a Schengen visa.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a concentration camp. Especially when the city is blocked on weekends, the metro is closed and the Internet is turned off. You can’t walk where you want. You are in danger to be beaten for no reason. You can’t be safe in your own home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

But we continue to protest. We continue to demand our voice be heard. We're going out.

And we will definitely win.

[quietepics]

                                        ♡ · 　INTRO.　 * .  I / ?.

       hello everyone !  i’m bloom ,  and i’m very excited to introduce the first of my two babies to you all !  this here is genevieve gautier ,  but you can  (  and  should  )  call her  gigi .  she is a  daughter of aphrodite ,  yet also a  huntress of artemis !  i’ll be giving you guys some basic stats / important info ,  as well as possible connections !  yeehaw !

THE BASICS

name:  genevieve gautier nickname(s):  gigi birthday:  sept. 2nd, 1998 ethnicity:  caucasian ( french, lithuanian, italian ) birthplace:  paris ,  france gender identity:  cis female sexuality:  pansexual / panromantic powers: charm speak  ( aphrodite )  /  tracking  ( artemis ) mixtape:  xs / rina sawayama ,  gashina / sunmi ,  that bitch / bea miller ,  villain / k/da ,  fee des lilas / tchaikovsky character inspiration:  betty rizzo ( grease ) ,  cherry valance ( the outsiders ) ,  katherine howard ( six ),  serena van der woodsen ( gossip girl ) ,  beverly marsh ( it ) .

THE MUSE 

ah ,  paris !  the city of love !  and what is love if not food for the soul ?  to louis gautier ,  moving to paris was the no short of a perfect start for his writing career .  he was a poet ,  and the world was his muse  ---  until he met  her .

aphrodite was no stranger to paris ,  it might as well be one of her favorite locations in the whole world .  louis ,  however ,  was a breath of fresh air ;  he was a sensitive man ,  one filled with creativity ,  emotion ,  love ,  not to mention his looks weren’t half bad either .  he was perfect ,  and of course ,  she wouldn’t dare to miss the opportunity .

it wasn’t long after the first date that the goddess became pregnant ,  much to the man’s surprise .  to say louis was ready to raise a daughter would be wishful thinking ,  but he couldn’t go back now .  in fact ,  he looked forward to it ;  his next great adventure ,  raising his own child with the perfect woman by his side !  things couldn’t be any better ...  until they weren’t .

short after giving birth ,  aphrodite disappeared from the man’s life ,  leaving him alone with the baby .  needless to say louis felt at a loss  ---  how was he supposed to raise a child on his own ?  he could barely support himself ,  let alone provide for a newborn !  it was then that he realized his dreams were no longer to come true ,  the life of freedom ,  of bohemia ,  simply wouldn’t do .  he was a father now .  although it left the bitterest of tastes in his mouth ,  he was a father .

as the years passed ,  louis grew resentful ,  while genevieve grew more and more beautiful like her mother .  the mere sight of the girl was enough to cause him distaste .  he missed her ,  missed the woman he’d fallen in love oh so quickly all those years ago ,  yet she was never coming back .  he tried to find pieces of her in other women ,  so many so that young gigi barely had the time to memorize their faces before he went onto the next one ,  but nothing ever sufficed .  it was agonizing ,  to say the least .

in 2008 ,  when she was only ten years old ,  gigi ran away from home .  it was during her endless wandering around the streets of paris that she discovered a particular ability in herself: charm speak .  somehow ,  she was able to make people do as told ,  which saved her from a lot of trouble when roaming around the city .  a week later ,  she was spotted by an nl agent and after that ,  taken under nl’s wing .

a few years after coming to nl ,  the girl joined the hunters of artemis .  it seemed only fair .  gigi despised her title as daughter of the goddess of beauty and love ;  what did love ever do for her except drive her father mad ?  what about the people who’d made her believe in love and then left her to cry in bed late at night ?  love wasn’t real ,  and she didn’t want any part in her mother’s web of lies .  to her ,  love was nothing but a lie .  it was the only way she found to cope with a world that had been so cruel .

MISC.

gigi may come across as a b*tch at times ,  but she’s a genuinely good person .  i promise !  she’s just trying to find affection / attention in any way she can ,  which isn’t usually a good thing .

she’s an ambassador ,  and has quite a huge following .  it isn’t uncommon to see her trending for some reason ,  find fancams of her ,  fanaccounts ,  etc.

can usually be seen wearing light shades of pink ,  blue ,  or white .  dresses are also a big part of her wardrobe ,  as well as heels ,  pearls and sparkly jewelry / makeup .

possible connections:  confidant ;  fellow ambassador she is constantly hanging out with / is the center of gossip with ;  one or two friends ;  someone who broke her heart years back ;  someone who’s constantly losing things and needs her to use her tracking powers to find them;  someone who always needs her to use charm speak for some reason; anything you may have in mind !

[historical-babes]

Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855).

Polish national poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, and political activist.

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He is regarded as national poet in Poland and Lithuania. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is counted as one of Poland's "Three Bards" ("Trzej Wieszcze") and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.

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He is known chiefly for the poetic drama Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) and the national epic poem Pan Tadeusz. His other influential works include Konrad Wallenrod and Grażyna. All these served as inspiration for uprisings against the three imperial powers that had partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth out of existence.

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Mickiewicz was born in the Russian-partitioned territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and was active in the struggle to win independence for his home region. After, as a consequence, spending five years exiled to central Russia, in 1829 he succeeded in leaving the Russian Empire and, like many of his compatriots, lived out the rest of his life abroad. He settled first in Rome, then in Paris, where for a little over three years he lectured on Slavic literature at the Collège de France. He died, probably of cholera, at Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, where he had gone to help organize Polish and Jewish forces to fight Russia in the Crimean War.

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About the summer of 1820, Mickiewicz met the love of his life, Maryla Wereszczakówna. They were unable to marry due to his family's poverty and relatively low social status; in addition, she was already engaged to Count Wawrzyniec Puttkamer.

He had a brief romance with Henrietta Ewa Ankwiczówna, but class differences again prevented his marrying his new love.

He married Celina Szymanowska in 1834. They had six children. In December 1838, marital problems caused Mickiewicz to attempt suicide. Mickiewicz and his family lived in relative poverty, their major source of income being occasional publication of his work.

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Famous works :

Dziady

Pan Tadeusz

Konrad Wallenrod

Grażyna

[Submission]

[cruger2984]

D4DJ (Dig Delight Direct Drive DJ) and its Saints - Lyrical Lily

They are a unit that 'blossomed' from a elite private school. Here's the last installment of this series and let's meet the girls from Lyrical Lily!

December 14 - Miyu Sakurada

St. John of the Cross: 16th century Spanish Carmelite priest, friar and mystic who is a major figure of the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and he is one of the thirty-six Doctors of the Church. He is known especially for his writings, and he was mentored by and corresponded with the older Carmelite, Teresa of Ávila, in which they formed the Discalced (barefoot) Carmelites. Both his poetry and his studies on the development of the soul are considered the summit of mystical Spanish literature and among the greatest works of all Spanish literature, and is regarded as the 'Mystical Doctor' by the Church. Canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726, his major shrine can be found in Segovia, and is the patron saint of mystics, contemplatives, and Spanish poets.

May 25 - Haruna Kasuga

St. Bede the Venerable: English Benedictine monk and historian who is best known for his 'Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum' (Ecclesiastical History of the English People), a source vital to the history of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. During his lifetime and throughout the Middle Ages, Bede's reputation was based mainly on his scriptural commentaries, copies of which found their way to many of the monastic libraries of western Europe, and his influence was perpetuated at home through the school founded at York by his pupil Archbishop Egbert of York and was transmitted to the rest of Europe by Alcuin, who studied there before becoming master of Charlemagne’s palace school at Aachen. Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1899, and is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation. His major shrine can be found at the Durham Cathedral.

November 12 - Kurumi Shiratori

St. Josaphat Kuntsevych: Archeparch of Polotsk who martyred by an angry mob in Vitebsk Voivodeship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (now in Belarus). Beatified by Pope Urban VIII and canonized as a saint by Pope Pius IX. He is known as the patron saint of Ukraine.

February 22 - Miiko Takeshita

Chair of St. Peter: Known as the Throne of Saint Peter, it is a relic conserved in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the sovereign enclave of the Pope inside Rome, Italy. The relic is a wooden throne that tradition claims the Apostle Saint Peter, the leader of the Early Christians in Rome and first Pope, used as Bishop of Rome. It is enclosed in a sculpted gilt bronze casing designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and executed between 1647 and 1653, and Pope Benedict XVI described the chair as 'a symbol of the special mission of Peter and his Successors to tend Christ’s flock, keeping it united in faith and in charity' in 2012. The wooden throne was a gift from Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII in 875.

[goftor-blog]

XE3F8753 – Mijaíl Glinka (Михаил Иванович Глинка), Tikhvin Cemetery (Saint Petersburg)

Mijaíl Ivánovich Glinka (en ruso: Михаил Иванович Глинка; Novospásskoie, provincia de Smolensk, 1 de junio de 1804-Berlín, 15 de febrero de 1857) fue un compositor ruso, considerado el padre del nacionalismo musical ruso. Durante sus viajes visitó España, donde conoció y admiró la música popular española, de la cual utilizó el estilo de la jota en su obra La jota aragonesa. Recuerdos de Castilla, basado en su prolífica estancia en Fresdelval, «Recuerdo de una noche de verano en Madrid», sobre la base de la obertura La noche en Madrid, son parte de su música orquestal. El método utilizado por Glinka para arreglar la forma y orquestación son influencia del folclore español. Las nuevas ideas de Glinka fueron plasmadas en “Las oberturas españolas”. Glinka fue el primer compositor ruso en ser reconocido fuera de su país y, generalmente, se lo considera el ‘padre’ de la música rusa. Su trabajo ejerció una gran influencia en las generaciones siguientes de compositores de su país. Sus obras más conocidas son las óperas Una vida por el Zar (1836), la primera ópera nacionalista rusa, y Ruslán y Liudmila (1842), cuyo libreto fue escrito por Aleksandr Pushkin y su obertura se suele interpretar en las salas de concierto. En Una vida por el Zar alternan arias de tipo italiano con melodías populares rusas. No obstante, la alta sociedad occidentalizada no admitió fácilmente esa intrusión de "lo vulgar" en un género tradicional como la ópera. Sus obras orquestales son menos conocidas. Inspiró a un grupo de compositores a reunirse (más tarde, serían conocidos como "los cinco": Modest Músorgski, Nikolái Rimski-Kórsakov, Aleksandr Borodín, Cesar Cui, Mili Balákirev) para crear música basada en la cultura rusa. Este grupo, más tarde, fundaría la Escuela Nacionalista Rusa. Es innegable la influencia de Glinka en otros compositores como Vasili Kalínnikov, Mijaíl Ippolítov-Ivánov, y aún en Piotr Chaikovski. es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mijaíl_Glinka es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Cinco_(compositores)

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (Russian: Михаил Иванович Глинка; 1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1804 – 15 February [O.S. 3 February] 1857) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the fountainhead of Russian classical music. Glinka’s compositions were an important influence on future Russian composers, notably the members of The Five, who took Glinka’s lead and produced a distinctive Russian style of music. Glinka was born in the village of Novospasskoye, not far from the Desna River in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in the Yelninsky District of the Smolensk Oblast). His wealthy father had retired as an army captain, and the family had a strong tradition of loyalty and service to the tsars, while several members of his extended family had also developed a lively interest in culture. His great-great-grandfather was a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth nobleman, Wiktoryn Władysław Glinka of the Trzaska coat of arms. As a small child, Mikhail was raised by his over-protective and pampering paternal grandmother, who fed him sweets, wrapped him in furs, and confined him to her room, which was always to be kept at 25 °C (77 °F); accordingly, he developed a sickly disposition, later in his life retaining the services of numerous physicians, and often falling victim to a number of quacks. The only music he heard in his youthful confinement was the sounds of the village church bells and the folk songs of passing peasant choirs. The church bells were tuned to a dissonant chord and so his ears became used to strident harmony. While his nurse would sometimes sing folksongs, the peasant choirs who sang using the podgolosochnaya technique (an improvised style – literally under the voice – which uses improvised dissonant harmonies below the melody) influenced the way he later felt free to emancipate himself from the smooth progressions of Western harmony. After his grandmother’s death, Glinka moved to his maternal uncle’s estate some 10 kilometres (6 mi) away, and was able to hear his uncle’s orchestra, whose repertoire included pieces by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. At the age of about ten he heard them play a clarinet quartet by the Finnish composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell. It had a profound effect upon him. "Music is my soul", he wrote many years later, recalling this experience. While his governess taught him Russian, German, French, and geography, he also received instruction on the piano and the violin. At the age of 13, Glinka went to the capital, Saint Petersburg, to study at a school for children of the nobility. Here he learned Latin, English, and Persian, studied mathematics and zoology, and considerably widened his musical experience. He had three piano lessons from John Field, the Irish composer of nocturnes, who spent some time in Saint Petersburg. He then continued his piano lessons with Charles Mayer and began composing. When he left school his father wanted him to join the Foreign Office, and he was appointed assistant secretary of the Department of Public Highways. The work was light, which allowed Glinka to settle into the life of a musical dilettante, frequenting the drawing rooms and social gatherings of the city. He was already composing a large amount of music, such as melancholy romances which amused the rich amateurs. His songs are among the most interesting part of his output from this period. In 1830, at the recommendation of a physician, Glinka decided to travel to Italy with the tenor Nikolai Kuzmich Ivanov. The journey took a leisurely pace, ambling uneventfully through Germany and Switzerland, before they settled in Milan. There, Glinka took lessons at the conservatory with Francesco Basili, although he struggled with counterpoint, which he found irksome. Although he spent his three years in Italy listening to singers of the day, romancing women with his music, and meeting many famous people including Mendelssohn and Berlioz, he became disenchanted with Italy. He realized that his mission in life was to return to Russia, write in a Russian manner, and do for Russian music what Donizetti and Bellini had done for Italian music. His return route took him through the Alps, and he stopped for a while in Vienna, where he heard the music of Franz Liszt. He stayed for another five months in Berlin, during which time he studied composition under the distinguished teacher Siegfried Dehn. A Capriccio on Russian themes for piano duet and an unfinished Symphony on two Russian themes were important products of this period. When word reached Glinka of his father’s death in 1834, he left Berlin and returned to Novospasskoye. While in Berlin, Glinka had become enamored with a beautiful and talented singer, for whom he composed Six Studies for Contralto. He contrived a plan to return to her, but when his sister’s German maid turned up without the necessary paperwork to cross to the border with him, he abandoned his plan as well as his love and turned north for Saint Petersburg. There he reunited with his mother, and made the acquaintance of Maria Petrovna Ivanova. After he courted her for a brief period, the two married. The marriage was short-lived, as Maria was tactless and uninterested in his music. Although his initial fondness for her was said to have inspired the trio in the first act of opera A Life for the Tsar (1836), his naturally sweet disposition coarsened under the constant nagging of his wife and her mother. After separating, she remarried. Glinka moved in with his mother, and later with his sister, Lyudmila Shestakova. A Life for the Tsar was the first of Glinka’s two great operas. It was originally entitled Ivan Susanin. Set in 1612, it tells the story of the Russian peasant and patriotic hero Ivan Susanin who sacrifices his life for the Tsar by leading astray a group of marauding Poles who were hunting him. The Tsar himself followed the work’s progress with interest and suggested the change in the title. It was a great success at its premiere on 9 December 1836, under the direction of Catterino Cavos, who had written an opera on the same subject in Italy. Although the music is still more Italianate than Russian, Glinka shows superb handling of the recitative which binds the whole work, and the orchestration is masterly, foreshadowing the orchestral writing of later Russian composers. The Tsar rewarded Glinka for his work with a ring valued at 4,000 rubles. (During the Soviet era, the opera was staged under its original title Ivan Susanin). In 1837, Glinka was installed as the instructor of the Imperial Chapel Choir, with a yearly salary of 25,000 rubles, and lodging at the court. In 1838, at the suggestion of the Tsar, he went off to Ukraine to gather new voices for the choir; the 19 new boys he found earned him another 1,500 rubles from the Tsar. He soon embarked on his second opera: Ruslan and Lyudmila. The plot, based on the tale by Alexander Pushkin, was concocted in 15 minutes by Konstantin Bakhturin, a poet who was drunk at the time. Consequently, the opera is a dramatic muddle, yet the quality of Glinka’s music is higher than in A Life for the Tsar. He uses a descending whole tone scale in the famous overture. This is associated with the villainous dwarf Chernomor who has abducted Lyudmila, daughter of the Prince of Kiev. There is much Italianate coloratura, and Act 3 contains several routine ballet numbers, but his great achievement in this opera lies in his use of folk melody which becomes thoroughly infused into the musical argument. Much of the borrowed folk material is oriental in origin. When it was first performed on 9 December 1842, it met with a cool reception, although it subsequently gained popularity. Glinka went through a dejected year after the poor reception of Ruslan and Lyudmila. His spirits rose when he travelled to Paris and Spain. In Spain, Glinka met Don Pedro Fernández, who remained his secretary and companion for the last nine years of his life. In Paris, Hector Berlioz conducted some excerpts from Glinka’s operas and wrote an appreciative article about him. Glinka in turn admired Berlioz’s music and resolved to compose some fantasies pittoresques for orchestra. Another visit to Paris followed in 1852 where he spent two years, living quietly and making frequent visits to the botanical and zoological gardens. From there he moved to Berlin where, after five months, he died suddenly on 15 February 1857, following a cold. He was buried in Berlin but a few months later his body was taken to Saint Petersburg and re-interred in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Glinka was the beginning of a new direction in the development of music in Russia Musical culture arrived in Russia from Europe, and for the first time specifically Russian music began to appear, based on the European music culture, in the operas of the composer Mikhail Glinka. Different historical events were often used in the music, but for the first time they were presented in a realistic manner. The first to note this new musical direction was Alexander Serov. He was then supported by his friend Vladimir Stasov, who became the theorist of this musical direction. This direction was developed later by composers of "The Five". The modern Russian music critic Viktor Korshikov thus summed up: "There is not the development of Russian musical culture without…three operas – Ivan Soussanine, Ruslan and Ludmila and the Stone Guest have created Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. Soussanine is an opera where the main character is the people, Ruslan is the mythical, deeply Russian intrigue, and in Guest, the drama dominates over the softness of the beauty of sound." Two of these operas – Ivan Soussanine and Ruslan and Ludmila – were composed by Glinka. Since this time, the Russian culture began to occupy an increasingly prominent place in world culture. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Glinka en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_(composers)

Posted by Enrique R G on 2019-09-12 09:20:20

Tagged: , Mijaíl Ivanovich Glinka , Михаил Иванович Глинка , Mijaíl Glinka , Михаил Глинка , Glinka , Глинка , Tikhvin Cemetery , Cementerio Tijvin , Тихвинское кладбище , New Lazarevsky , Ново-Лазаревским , Tijvin , Tikhvin , Тихвинское , San Petersburgo , Saint Petersburg , Санкт-Петербург , Peterburg , Piter , Питер , Петрогра́д , Petrogrado , Петроград , Leningrado , Ленинград , Rusia , Russia , Россия , Venecia del Norte , Window to the West , Window to Europe , Venice of the North , Russian Venice , Fujifilm XE3 , Fuji XE3 , Fujinon 18-135

The post XE3F8753 – Mijaíl Glinka (Михаил Иванович Глинка), Tikhvin Cemetery (Saint Petersburg) appeared first on Good Info.

[jewish-privilege]

You don’t have to be born in Lithuania to call yourself a Litvak. There were many years in which Lithuania’s borders kept changing, so that many Jews born in any of Lithuania’s neighboring countries or in any of the countries that had ruled or occupied Lithuania, consider themselves to be Litvaks – especially if they can also speak Yiddish. At meetings in Vilnius this past November, the first question put to the journalist from The Jerusalem Post by both Faina Kukliansky, the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish community, and Fania Brancovskaja, Vilna’s last Holocaust survivor, was “Do you speak Yiddish?” The interview with Brancovskaja, 96, was entirely in Yiddish, even though she is fluent in a half-dozen languages, including English. Kukliansky is also multilingual and even though the interview with her was conducted in English, every now and again, when she wanted to emphasize a point, she reverted to Yiddish.

In addition to the school, Krinsky runs summer camps on the premises, paying special attention to children from dysfunctional families, though all children in the camp get quality time from the organizers. The summer camps were launched in 1994. The following year, 18 boys attending the camp opted to be circumcised. They were all from non-observant families. In the interim, 60 adult males have also asked to be circumcised...

When asked about the availability of kosher meat, Krinsky’s eyes lit up. After Poland outlawed kosher slaughter, thus ending a €500 million a year industry, Lithuania legalized shechita. Kosher slaughterers come from Israel every few months to ensure the access to kosher meat...

The rekindled Jewish life provides great satisfaction to Kukliansky and Brancovskaja. I meet the merry-eyed but petite Brancovskaja at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University. Founded in 1579, it is the oldest university in the Baltic states.

The VYI was founded in 2001 by American and Israeli scholars, together with Lithuanian academics who had studied Yiddish language and literature in the US and Israel. Oxford University’s Yiddish summer program was transferred to Vilnius in 1998 after 16 years. Its funders include George Soros’s Open Society Foundation...

Brancovskaja, described as a living legend, has been with VYI since its inception. We meet in the institute’s well-stocked library. Brancovskaja helped to acquire and catalogue many of the books, working in the library three days a week. Books and periodicals were sent from different parts of the globe continue to arrive. Brancovskaja completed high school before the outbreak of WWII. After the Nazis established the Vilna Ghetto in 1941, she joined the partisans, serving under poet and partisan Abba Kovner. She said that the real hero in the family was his wife, Vika Kempner, who was born in Kalisz, Poland. After the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, she fled with many of her relatives to Vilna, which was occupied by the Red Army. Later, as a member of the partisans, she was instrumental in transferring Jews to different hiding places. She was also active in blowing up a Nazi munitions train. Moving through the sewers, she led some 60 Jews to the safety of the Rodnicki Forest when the ghetto was liquidated in September 1943. After the war, the Kovners were members of Nakam, a vigilante group that killed Germans to avenge the Holocaust. They also helped evacuate Jews to Palestine, where in 1946, they themselves settled on kibbutz Ein Hahoresh. Abba Kovner, who was awarded the Israel Prize for literature and was the initiator of the Diaspora Museum, died in 1987. His wife, a clinical psychologist, died in 2012.

Brancovskaja fought alongside Vika. She met her husband, who died in 1985, while they were both partisans. She has one daughter living in Lithuania, and another in Israel. They have provided her with six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Like most Holocaust survivors, she sees her progeny as the greatest revenge against the Nazis...

[Read Greer Fay Cashman’s full piece at The Jerusalem Post.]

[tamsoj]

every morning I used to run to the adjacent cemetery in order to scatter the fragments of dreams and unpleasant smells that collected overnight,

Sigitas Parulskis, from Six Lithuanian Poets, “The Wall”, tr. by Medeine Tribinevicius

original:

kiekvieną rytą bėgdavau �� šalia esančias kapines, idant išblaškyčiau pernakt susikaupusias sapnų nuolaužas ir nemalonų kvapą, [...]

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.7

70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies and plunders Jerusalem. 878 – Louis the Stammerer is crowned as king of West Francia by Pope John VIII. 1159 – Pope Alexander III is chosen. 1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf: Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf. 1228 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II lands in Acre, Israel, and starts the Sixth Crusade, which results in a peaceful restoration of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 1303 – Guillaume de Nogaret takes Pope Boniface VIII prisoner on behalf of Philip IV of France. 1571 – Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, is arrested for his role in the Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. 1620 – The town of Kokkola (Swedish: Karleby) was founded by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. 1652 – Around 15,000 Han farmers and militia rebel against Dutch rule on Taiwan. 1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India. 1706 – War of the Spanish Succession: Siege of Turin ends, leading to the withdrawal of French forces from North Italy. 1764 – Election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the last ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1776 – According to American colonial reports, Ezra Lee makes the world's first submarine attack in the Turtle, attempting to attach a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle in New York Harbor (no British records of this attack exist). 1778 – American Revolutionary War: France invades Dominica in the British West Indies, before Britain is even aware of France's involvement in the war. 1812 – French invasion of Russia: The Battle of Borodino, the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, is fought near Moscow and results in a French victory. 1818 – Carl III of Sweden–Norway is crowned king of Norway, in Trondheim. 1822 – Dom Pedro I declares Brazil independent from Portugal on the shores of the Ipiranga Brook in São Paulo. 1856 – The Saimaa Canal was inaugurated. 1857 – Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers slaughter most members of peaceful, emigrant wagon train. 1860 – Italian unification: Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Naples. 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops under Quincy A. Gillmore capture Fort Wagner in Morris Island after a 7-week siege. 1864 – American Civil War: Atlanta is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. 1876 – In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens. 1901 – The Boxer Rebellion in Qing dynasty (modern-day China) officially ends with the signing of the Boxer Protocol. 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France successfully for the first time. 1907 – Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City. 1909 – Eugène Lefebvre crashes a new French-built Wright biplane during a test flight at Juvisy, south of Paris, becoming the first aviator in the world to lose his life in a powered heavier-than-air craft. 1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum. 1916 – US federal employees win the right to Workers' compensation by Federal Employers Liability Act (39 Stat. 742; 5 U.S.C. 751) 1920 – Two newly purchased Savoia flying boats crash in the Swiss Alps en route to Finland where they were to serve with the Finnish Air Force, killing both crews. 1921 – In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held. 1921 – The Legion of Mary, the largest apostolic organization of lay people in the Catholic Church, is founded in Dublin, Ireland. 1923 – The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) is formed. 1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth. 1929 – Steamer Kuru capsizes and sinks on Lake Näsijärvi near Tampere in Finland. One hundred thirty-six lives are lost. 1932 – The Battle of Boquerón, the first major battle of the Chaco War, commences. 1936 – The last thylacine, a carnivorous marsupial named Benjamin, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania. 1940 – Romania returns Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova. 1940 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights. 1942 – World War II: Japanese marines are forced to withdraw during the Battle of Milne Bay. 1943 – A fire at the Gulf Hotel in Houston kills 55 people. 1943 – World War II: The German 17th Army begins its evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moves across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea. 1945 – World War II: Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines. 1945 – The Berlin Victory Parade of 1945 is held. 1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1963 – The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members. 1965 – During an Indo-Pakistani War, China announces that it will reinforce its troops on the Indian border. 1965 – Vietnam War: In a follow-up to August's Operation Starlite, United States Marines and South Vietnamese forces initiate Operation Piranha on the Batangan Peninsula. 1970 – Fighting begins between Arab guerrillas and government forces in Jordan. 1970 – Vietnam Television was established. 1977 – The Torrijos–Carter Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The United States agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century. 1977 – The 300-metre-tall CKVR-DT transmission tower in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, is hit by a light aircraft in a fog, causing it to collapse. All aboard the aircraft are killed. 1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Gullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from a specially-designed umbrella. 1979 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for US$1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy. 1981 – British plantation company, Guthrie was taken over by the Malaysian government after successfully purchasing shares to become the major shareholder. This is famously called the 'Dawn Raid attack'. 1984 – An explosion on board a Maltese patrol boat disposing of illegal fireworks at sea off Gozo kills seven soldiers and policemen. 1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town. 1988 – Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns to Earth after nine days on the Mir space station. 1996 – Rapper and hip hop artist Tupac Shakur is fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. He succumbs to his injuries six days later. 1997 – Maiden flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. 1999 – The 6.0 Mw  Athens earthquake affected the area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 143, injuring 800–1,600, and leaving 50,000 homeless. 2005 – Egypt holds its first-ever multi-party presidential election. 2008 – The United States government takes control of the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 2010 – A Chinese fishing trawler collided with two Japanese Coast Guard patrol boats in disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands. 2011 – A plane crash in Russia kills 43 people, including nearly the entire roster of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Kontinental Hockey League team. 2012 – Canada officially cuts diplomatic ties with Iran by closing its embassy in Tehran and orders the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa, over nuclear plans and purported human rights abuses. 2017 – The 8.2 Mw  2017 Chiapas earthquake strikes southern Mexico, killing at least 60 people. 2017 – Equifax announce a cyber-crime identity theft event potentially impacting approximately 1451⁄2 million U.S. consumers. 2019 – Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and 66 others are released in a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.