“What is it about Sholem Aleichem’s stories of a poor milkman in the shtetl that has audiences bewitched for nearly 50 years after the smash musical debuted on Broadway? The new cultural history of Fiddler.” >text (c) The Daily Beast 2013
The Strange Power of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Ashkenasim, Eastern Europe, Fiddler in the roof, Jews, Russia, Sholem Aleichem, Yiddish on 2 November 2013 by delclemDiscrimination against Roma traced back
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Central Europe, discrimination, Eastern Europe, gypsies, history, Košice, marginalization, Roma, Slovakia on 1 November 2013 by delclem
“Discrimination against Sinti & Roma is an inextricable part of their millennium-old history in Europe. The discrimination could be seen as an understandable reaction of the settled population to nomadic strangers. However the Roma and their advocates argue that the nomadic lifestyle is a consequence, rather than cause, of the discrimination.” >full text (c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2013
More: How Racist Assumptions fuelled the ‘Maria’ Disaster >text (c) SPIEGEL,2013
Another article: the Slovak city of Košice as ‘slumdog millionaire’?
>text & disturbing photos (c) THE DAILY MAIL, 2013
A Curious Creation of Conflict
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 1916, Belgium, First Wolrd war, France, Germany, shell cases, trench art, Verdun on 31 October 2013 by delclem
“During the hellish Battle of Verdun that raged from February to December of 1916, approx. 60 million shells were blasted between the French and the Germans, leaving the people and the ground around them mutilated. This was a new and grisly type of war, yet there was an unexpected by-product of these mounds of used shell cases: trench art.” >text (c) hyperallergic.com 2013
How Europe Went To War
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Christopher Clark, Europe, First World War, historiography, review on 30 October 2013 by delclem
How the lamps went out
“Strategy, bellicosity, blunder?
(…) A fresh look at the Great War’s deadly genesis.”
>Review of C. Clarks
bestselling book
The Sleepwalkers (2012)
(c) THE, 2012
“Tête à tête with Sisi”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria-Hungary, biography, Emperess Elisabeth, mythology, poetry, Sisi on 29 October 2013 by delclem
“As a person Sisi, the Austrian Empress Elisabeth, is world famous but the
individual behind the myth is largely unknown. Two new ‘manifestations’ of
her poetic diary are now giving the reader a chance to spend intimate hours
with this famous unknown woman.” >text (c) wieninternational.at 2013
First Lady of Yugoslavia dies
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Communism, Croatia, Jovanka Broz. obituary, Serbia, Tito, yugoslavia on 28 October 2013 by delclem
“Jovanka Broz (1924-2013) was the first wife of a Communist leader in Eastern
Europe to become a celebrity in her own right.” >text & photo (c) NYT, 2013
Alternative read (c) balkaninsight.com 2013
“Stories of the Danube”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Central Europe, Danube, interview, jazz, Joe Zavinual, Music, symphony on 27 October 2013 by delclemJoe Zawinul (1932-2007) recording his symphony “Stories of the Danube”: excerpts from the music & interview (c) earospace / youtube 2008
Iconoclasm in Vienna
Posted in Uncategorized with tags art, Austria, cultural memory, Joef Weinheber, Literature, monuments, National Socialism, poetry, Vienna on 25 October 2013 by delclem
This work deals with a memorial to Austrian poet and Nazi Josef Weinheber (1892-1945) which stands at the Schillerpark in Vienna’s city centre. A temporary intervention aimed at exposing its conflicted history and leading to a permanent artistic reconfiguration and contextualization of the monument.
>more (c) Eduard Freudmann, 2013
An Irishman’s Diary in Hungary
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Budapest, Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Hungary, Imre Nagy, János Kádár, Soviet Union on 23 October 2013 by delclem
“Today in Budapest, flowers will be laid on the grave of Imre Nagy, prime minister, leader of the Hungarian revolution of 1956, and its most notable victim. The revolution against Soviet rule began on October 23rd and lasted 13 days until it was crushed on November 4th, when 2,000 Soviet tanks invaded Hungary.”
Text on the Hungarian uprising and its aftermath with János Kádár
(c) THE IRISH TIMES, 2012
delirium clemens 
What Putin, Lukashenko and Yanukovych Share
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Alexander Lukashenko, authoritarianism, Belarus, Eastern Europe, leadership, political commentary, Russia, Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, Vladmir Putin on 3 November 2013 by delclem“Last Friday marked the 10th anniversary of the imprisonment of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Nikolai Statkevich, leader of the Belarussian Social Democratic Party, will start the third year of a six-year sentence in a medium security penal colony. In Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko will have completed two years of her seven-year sentence for “abuse of power” and “embezzlement” unless released under the pressure of the European Union. All three are widely considered to be political prisoners. But while focus has often been on the wrongfulness of their detentions, less has been written about the motives of those behind them: Presidents Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko and Viktor Yanukovych.” >full text (c) THE MOSCOW TIMES, 2013
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