Review: Four Princes by John Julius Norwich

The Four Princes of the title (in order of appearance) Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V and Suleiman the Magnificent were all born within a ten year span, born to be powerful rulers, collectively controlling a large chunk of Europe, as well as that portion of Asia once described as the center of the world. Together and separately, they made bold movements on the game-board that was their domain. But that's not to say they were necessarily in agreement. In fact, they were frequently split by seasons of warfare. Theirs was an era when Protestantism rose, when Islam was at the back door and on the porch of Western Europe and when art flowered as it had never before.

What makes this book so fascinating is the way Mr Norwich connects the dots to provide a detailed overview of a significant turning point in European history. Or perhaps we should say, a collection of turning points. With the specter of Brexit looming ever closer (at the time of writing), it's worth remembering that Britain had once before shocked Europe by breaking with it. Interesting details emerge, even about Henry VIII best known (to me) of the princes, through a comprehensive collection of anecdotes taken from contemporary observers. You will learn, for example, who had the largest cannons, why the Mona Lisa ended up in the Louvre and how a collection of plucky crusaders survived the ambitions of one of the largest armies of the 16th century.

Four Princes by John Julius Norwich is a huge recommend to anyone who loves history as much as I do.

Revisiting To Kill a Mockingbird (searching for the worlds of Scout, Jem and Atticus.....*SPOILER*)

I suppose I have to start by saying that this blog post is a bit of a departure from the usual weirdness I post at this location. It began, when I found a link on a forum to the video below.



The clip is an amateur film taken documenting smalltime life in Groveport & Canal Winchester, Ohio. About halfway through, I realized, this is probably what town life looked like in the time of Harper Lee's classic book, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', which was based on an incident in 1936. Given, it is another state, but would the internet allow me to take a closer look at this world of almost 80 years ago?

I did 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee in high school as a prescribed book. It was a bit of a mystery to me, even then, that the Apartheid era South Africa of the early 1980s would include a book examining racial prejudice in its curriculum. I read the book again, several times as an adult and even speculated with a friend about the author, Harper Lee. It is a well-known literary legend that 'To kill a Mockingbird' was produced when Harper Lee was given a year's wages to take time off to do some writing. The book won various awards, but its author has yet to produce a follow-up. Her silence remains an enigma to this day.

The above video prompted me to search for more windows into the world of Scout Finch and her family. Here's what I found...



This is the Alabama of 1937. You won't see Mobile, but the video does includes a glimpse of the Confederate White House in Montgomery, footage of Selma and Auburn. It even features the dog who, unlike Pavlov's, rings his own bell. The clip is on the youtube channel of buyout footage, a website that sells a large variety of archived historical footage - at a price, of course.

Then I found it.







Yep, this is the Mobile, Alabama of 1935. You could almost imagine Miss Maudie Atkinson, Miss Stephanie Crawford and Aunt Alexandra walking amongst those azalea gardens or shy Boo Radley lurking in the shadows of one of those porches. While a large section of the video focuses on the harbour and the national parks, there is also footage from a prison farm near Atmore - perhaps the sort of establishment where Tom Robinson was shot and killed for attempting to escape?

In closing, here's a short slide show of historical Mobile...







... and a look at the Mobile of today...

The Siblings (for Theo and Nannerl)

I've been wanting to write this blogpost for some time. We all admire artists, often a whole lot better once they are dead and gone. But we often forget the price paid by their family members... the ones who invisibly served as gatekeepers to a great spirit truly gaining the opportunity to express itself. Behind many creative people, you will find parents who financed music lessons, sisters and brothers who paid the groceries, or perhaps merely through their presence, became the bridges to excellence.

Theo Van Gogh idolized his older brother Vincent and financial supported him. It is known that the only Van Gogh that sold in the artist's lifetime was bought by his younger brother, but how many people realize that we owe Theo a great debt for each and every coveted Van Gogh that now sells for millions at auctions. Theo bought Vincent's art supplies and regularly sent him financial means to support himself, but Theo also encouraged the development of his artistic style through regular feedback on Vincent sketches and plans and also by introducing him to other prominent artists of the era such as Paul Gauguin, Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat. Vincent van Gogh's story seems so sad and lonely, until you see that one Theo is probably worth a million admirers. Theo van Gogh died about six months after his now famous brother, almost as if subconsciously he realized that his task here on earth was done.

Since his father was a music teacher, it is unlikely that the incredible music talent of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have gone untapped. However, it might not have been discovered at such an early age, if there had not been another, slightly older child in the household who was just beginning with piano lessons. Mozart worshipped his sister, Maria Anna, a.k.a Nannerl and spent much time watching her playing and practicing, which eventually led to his own very early improvisations on the same instrument, in an attempt to copy her. Wolfgang and Nannerl played together in public until she reached marrying age, and although none of her work survived, it is known that she also composed music and that her brother had a high regard for her efforts. It can be argued that it was Nannerl's talent and mischievous influence, as much as their father's lessons that helped shape Mozart's incredible career as a composer.

A tale from the Taiga...

First, a bit of personal history... When I was in my late teens, very early twenties, this was my going-out song....



Know what I mean by a going-out song? If that's it, the world is about to go KA-BOOM and you've got time to listen to just one more song.... this was mine.... a heartbreakingly sad tale about betrayal on grand grand scale... the song is about a group of Russian soldiers returning home victorious to a horrible, horrible 'reward....
To quote from the last verses (lyrics by Mike Scott of the Waterboys)

But I never got to kiev
We never came by home
Train went north to the taiga
We were stripped and marched in file
Up the great siberian road
For miles and miles and miles and miles
Dressed in stripes and tatters
In a gulag left to die
All because comrade stalin was scared that
Wed become too westernized!

Used to love my country
Used to be so young
Used to believe that life was
The best song ever sung
I would have died for my country
In 1945
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
But now only one thing remains
The brute will to survive!

I am posting this today, because the song has an odd echo in a piece added to the Smithsonion's website yesterday.... a tale of survival from the Taiga...

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html


Please visit the link and read the absolutely awe-inspiring tale of what it's like, not to die, but to live in the Taiga... as the Lykov family did for more than forty years...

And the band played on...Remembering one of the true heroes of the Titanic...

He left Southampton on 10 April 1912 as the owner of second classed ticket No 250654, courtesy of his employment for the music agency C.W. & F.N. Black, an organization that specialized in supplying entertainers for ocean liners. The return journey was of an entirely different nature, identified as Body no 224, described as a brown-haired male wearing a green-facing uniform, brown overcoat, black boots and green socks. Recovered by the Mackay-Bennett, Body no 224 travelled from Halifax to Boston, crossing the Atlantic, this time aboard the 'Arabic' to reach a final resting place in Colne, Lancashire. In between, he had been the Head Bandmaster aboard the Titanic. A veteran of some 80 Atlantic crossings, Wallace Henry Hartley's most prestigious assignment before the Titanic had been aboard the Mauretania, a vessel that returned to Liverpool mere days before the Titanic's maiden voyage. There were two separate musical units aboard the luxury ship, a trio comprising cello, violin and piano, and a larger quintet with which Hartley performed. Under normal circumstances, the two groupings had different duties, but on the night the Titanic hit the iceberg, bandmaster Wallace Henry Hartley assembled them to play, first in the First Class Lounge and later on the Boat Deck close to the Grand Staircase. It was the first and only occasion of the trip where the eight of them played together. Many agreed that their selfless act played a huge role in maintaining calm and order as the emergency evacuation of the Titanic took place and at least some of the passengers who did make it, owed their lives to the band who just kept playing. According to witnesses, Hartley's last words were "Gentlemen, I bid you farewell!" None of the musicians aboard the Titanic survived the voyage... In Hartley's home town of Colne, a plaque marks the house he grew up in and there is a 10 foot high monument featuring a carved violin - his instrument of choice. Over one thousand mourners attended his memorial service, and 40,000 more lined the route of the funeral procession, which featured seven bands. Today there are streets named after him and proud Colne residents continue to maintain his gravesite.

Do also visit this webpage dedicated to his memory for more info http://www.titanic-titanic.com/wallace_hartley.shtml

(for anyone sharp enough to notice, i AM plagiarizing myself with this blogpost. I originally posted it almost a year ago on my Xomba profile)

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Women who did time at Robben Island - the Dutch Years

While volumes had already been written on the subject of Robben Island's most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela, not much is known about the women who had spent time on the island, whether as inmates, as workers or for other reasons.

Incidentally, one early name of Robben Island was Isla de Cornelia, to honor the mother of a Dutch ship captain Joris van Spilbergen who stopped there during the early 1600s.

The first known group of Robben Islanders that might have included women, was that of Autshumato's people. Autshumato, better known to history books as Harry, was a Khoi man who had been taken by the British to England, where he learned their language. Upon his return, he began to act as an interpreter. During the 1630s, Autshumato's small group of followers lived from time to time on Robben Island, scavenging penguins for food.

From 1657, relatively soon after the 1652 founding of the Cape Colony, a Dutch postholder was stationed on the island, and several of the wives of such officials are known to have accompanied their husbands. Jan Wouterssin, the first postholder went in disgrace, disciplined for insulting behaviour and it was noted that his punishment was mitigated only in consideration of his (unnamed) slave wife, who was pregnant at the time.

Another woman sent to Robben Island was the slave Eva, who was to help with lime gathering operations. About her, Wouterssin had many complaints. Allegedly, she would not obey any directions and spent most of her time chasing sheep around. At the time, there was still relatively few slaves in the Cape and Eva came from Madagascar, which had been under French rule since 1642. What language barriers this poor woman had to overcome in a Dutch-speaking community, can only be imagined. Eva returned to the mainland around the same time Wouterssin did.

Jan Sacharias, fourth postholder on Robben Island, had married an ex-slave named Maria of Bengal who also lived there.

By far the most famous woman to live on Robben Island during this period, was Krotoa, also known as Eva, the young Khoi interpreter who could easily be described as the Pocahontas of the Cape. The niece of Autshumato, she had a gift for languages, being fluent in Dutch, English, French and Portuguese. Embracing colonial life, she married Danish explorer and doctor Pieter van Meerhoff and accompanied him to the Robben Island in 1665 when he became its administrator. When he was killed, she returned to Dutch society on the mainland in September
1668, but grief and alienation led to problems with alcoholism. When she became too much of a scandal for the colony, she was returned to the desolate island, in March 1669 this time as inmate. She died there on the 29th of July, 1674.

The majority of those imprisoned on Robben Island during Dutch Rule were male, but in 1677, a Dutch widow, Mayke van der Berg, is named as having spent a month there for theft, before being deported. According to some reports, no women stayed on the island after this time, but one story contradicts this. In 1728, one of the inhabitants of Robben Island, was a royal exile, the Prince of Ternaten in the Moluccas, whose gambling and womanizing with female slaves became so notorious, he was actually removed from the island. None of his female companions were named, though.