Mirjam - Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf

Alright, hi again

Now, it finally seems I'm gonna be more active around here soon again...

Until then - best wishes to all friends and neighbours

2 comments

A letter from times

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 9:33:27 AM

If there is anyone who was checking my blog regulary, he surely noticed that I disappeared for a very long time.
It was caused by very unpleasant personal problems and all that ended with the fact that my spouse left me for no reason in a way of stopping communication totally. So I still don't understand and don't know what happend.
I have to say, that there's nothing harder than try to forget about something when it's unsolved : )

For now I would like to start posting to my.opera again. Because simply I have to do something. I cannot just stair in the wall that makes me more and more depressed. But it is also a question of strength.

So hopefully see You here again soon!

"Do not give in too much to feelings. And overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth." - J. W. von Goethe

2 comments

5 days in Budapest

Saturday, August 30, 2008 11:55:30 AM

All started on Friday 22nd

First time I was travelling by train to Budapest. Both ways were quite "enjoyable". On the way from Prague to Budapest - the ticket checker could not control my return ticket cause the mashine was broken and on the way back my vagon was cancelled so I had to find some free place. Everytime when I travel there has to be some problem cause otherwise it would not be such fun

During the five days we (my wonderful girlfriend and me) visited lot of nice places. I would like to mention some of those. Unfortunatelly I didn't have any camera so the photo-documentation is only from one of these places. (Other pics stolen from internet).

On Saturday evening we went again to spas - this time over favourite Rudas. Great place to take a rest and smooth Your skin.
On the other days we visited for example Szechenyi hegy. Very nice place full of old trees, fresh air and such. We came there by cog-wheel train and then travelled on the ridge by Children's railway.

We also went to the Margaret Island...

another great place to take a rest. The cars aren't allowed to enter so there's just bus going. You can find some artificial lakes there, nice big fountain and soem ruins... "The most significant ancient monument on the island is the ruin of a thirteenth-century convent of Dominican nuns near the open-air theatre. The convent was founded by King Béla IV, who built up the country again after the Mongol invasion (1241-42) and is therefore sometimes called the second founder of the State. His daughter Margaret came to live in the convent in 1251 at the age of eleven. She was later canonised and the island now bears her name. A marble plaque in the nave of the church ruins indicates the spot where she was buried. A few steps to the north of the convent ruins we see the chapel of the medieval Premonstratensian monastery. In its tower hangs the oldest bell in Hungary. It was made in the fifteenth century and discovered intact not many years ago among the roots of a tree torn out by a storm. Around the chapel, along the promenade, we find statues of the most eminent a representatives of Hungarian literature and arts."

On Tuesday we went to near city called Szentendre. I can only recommend to visit this city to everyone who goes to Budapest... it is not that complicated to get in there and the experience is worth it.
We visited few museums there f.e.: Margit Kovacs museum of ceramics and some Jewish monuments as well as nice orthodox churches which are all around the city. There are orthodox churches because of Serbian families living there since centuries - nowadays there are about 100 Serbian families.
City is also full of nice small merchant houses. There's also a possibility to walk around the river Danube and buy a ticket for the ferry which carries You to the Island.

And somewhere here in my albums are pics from Szentendre

Oh, and I would almost forgot - we visited Mediaeval Jewish Prayer House on the Buda castle area. Great place too! The kabbalistic paintings on the ceiling are nice and there are also some wich are not obviously revealed yet...

1 comment

Sápmi I.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008 8:54:03 PM

A hare is sitting in winter in the hole in snow and he’s terribly cold. He tells to himself: „If I survive until summer, I’ll build a house for myself for next winter.“ When the summer comes the hare does not do anything and just pricks up his mouth to the sun, basks next hot stone and says:“ One winter won’t be worse than other one.“ So the house is not ever built.

Sápmi and Sámi

Sápmi or (mostly all around the world) Lapland. It is cultural region in Northern Europe streched in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
The land of Sámi is one of the things I would love to study.

The little story above is from anthology of Sámi fairytales and stories. And it comes from Isak Persen Saba, 1918 (he heard this story from his mother).

For the beginning I would like to write a bit about the language of Sámi. It does not have dialects but there are different kinds of Sámi languages. They belong to Uralic language family and they are also connected to Baltic-Finnic languages.
Down on the map You can see the regions of the different kinds of Sámi language.
Sámi has eleven kinds – conscription in Roman characters or Russian alphabet.
1. South (Åarjil) Sámi,
2. Ume (Upme) Sámi,
3. Pite (Bitthun)Sámi, 4. Lule (Julev) Sámi,
5. North (Davvi) Sámi,
6. Skolt Sámi,
7. Inari (Ánár) Sámi,
8. Kildin Sámi,
9. Ter Sámi.

The Kemi Sámi is already extinct and the Akkala Sámi too (the last speaker od Akkala died in December 2003).The North Sámi is most spoken (about 20.000 people).
The Kemi Sámi is preserved in several poems by Olof Sirma (was told these by vicars) in anthology by Johannes Schafferus „Lapponia“; 1673

The first mention about Sámi language we can found in „Orosius“ (the history of the world) written by Alfred the Great. He got information from Norwegian peasan/merchant Ottar from Helgoland who tells stories about Lapps – language similar like „Beorms“ (Perm? … maybe from Karelia)

Then in 16th century appears a dictionary for seafarers where are found first Sámi words.

In half of the 18th century came to Sápmi János Sajnovics to find some similarities between Hugnarian and Sámi language. – „Demonstratio Idioma Ungarorum et Laponum Idem Esse“; 1770.

1799 – Gyarmathi Sámuel writes another comparative philology of Ugro-Finnic languages – searching for similarities in Sámi, Finnish and Hungarian.

Would you like to hear how does it sound?

Then I can recommend one of my favourite artists – Mari Boine.

19 comments

Angles Sleeping by Gottfried Helnwein

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 10:22:38 AM

This Saturday my friend invited me to Rudolfinum to see an exhibition of Austrian(-Irish) artist Gottfried Helnwein. The name of the exhibition was Angels Sleeping...

Gottfried Helnwein was born 8 October, 1948 in Vienna. In the same city he studied University of Visual Art and now he works as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation- and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media. His works are mainly hyper-realistic.

The exhibition consists of five sections which present the fundamental circuits of Helnwein's work. The biggest space is given to theme of "das malträtierte Kind - the child exposed suffering.
In many paintings he shows clearly the opinion about Nazism - these works are considered as controversial and in the end the artist had to move out from Austria. Now he lives in Ireland.

One of these most "controversial" paintings is "Epiphany I"

Helnwein's freind is Marilyn Manson and he also made several photographs of him which are all around the world quite well know, for example these:

Although I am not a big fan of hyper-realism I could not believe my eyes - especially the last section was rising in you an impression which makes you wanting to believe these can't be photographs. After all the paintings which were so hyper-realistic one wasn't sure if the "photograph" of Manson is really a photograph or another great painting. I came out from the exhibition spaces slightly depressed tough...
Anyway, I was glad I didn't miss the chance to see "Angels Sleeping".

1 comment

Waltari, Peter Høeg & Borderliners

Monday, July 21, 2008 12:58:21 PM

Mika Waltari - The Secret of the Kindom

Two weeks passed since I started to read another book by Mika Waltari "The Secret of the Kingdom".
It wasn't easy reading but it was great. I finished that one yesterday morning. For me it was very interesting reading as I am interested in problems of religions. The Waltari's book was some kind of short field trip into Israel back in time. Story tells us about a Roman citizen Marcus M. M. who leaves Rome cause of his love for Tullia. The story itself beginns when he lives in Alexandria and decides to make a trip to Jerusalem.
And there appears the real line of the book - Jesus of Nazareth and his teaching.
I'd say that this book might be very good for someone who does not want to bother itself with reading a Bible but would like to know why the character of Jesus is such complicated topic in Jewish-Christian dialogue. This book explains many things around the death (and life) of Jesus, political and religious estate of that era.
Of course, as well as with other fiction literature one should be conscious and not believe everything - search for the realia.

Borderliners by Peter Høeg

This book I started to read right after I finished the previous one. I read this book in one afternoon

From the beginning I felt strange about the book cause the first chapter was written in similar style like some movie made with home camera by amateur, who lost an idea about sequence of time. Result unclear and picture blurred.
This did not seem to me like a style of Mr. Høeg although most of his books beginns like if he simply broke into the middle of someone's thoughts or converstaion, or in the middle of someone's life.
With second chapter it started to be clear... I felt like it's the purpose that he wants the reader to lose the idea of consecution of time. Even the title of the book in my own language sounds: "When the time comes".

The novel tells story of 3 students at one nonprovided school in Copenhagen in the beginning of 70's.
These children find out that beyond the authoritative regime and heartless oppression is hidden some plan. They decide to find out what plan and then to destroy it. One of the main thing which they have to cope is time.
This makes the author wonder about the phenomenon of time and its position in the life of human society.
At the same time I feel one thing similar to one of his previous books "The History of Danish Dreams". The title already says a lot even for those who haven't got a chance to read that.
In his work he reflects idealistic character of Danes what does not see what is not wanted to be seen.

In result the book is WONDERFUL. Great description of characters! When have You been last time thinking about the pauses in speech than about the words? About the things which people do not do instead of what they do? Never? This book will teach you.

Because sometimes things we do not say or we not do tell about us much more than the opposite.
It caught my attention and did not let it be until the end.

2 comments

Miluju severní nebe

Friday, July 18, 2008 7:14:57 PM

Something Czech for today...

Miluju severní nebe
František Gellner

Miluju severní nebe
bílé a bez citu,
kterým se marně prodírá slunce
chladné a bez svitu.

Miluju severní pláně
se smutkem zavátých cest.
Miluju večerní mlhy
severních velkoměst.

Miluju severní muže
těl těžkopádných a mdlých
s bezradnou, truchlivou touhou
v srdcích tesklivých.

Miluju severní ženy
bázlivě stulené v tmách,
které prožívají své lásky
v snech a vzpomínkách.

1 comment

Who's afraid of Elizabeth Bathory

Thursday, July 17, 2008 1:10:12 PM

Lately I had finally (after so many problems with the premiere of the movie) chance to see a movie I was waiting for very unpatiently - Bathory.

Elizabeth
Elizabeth Bathory, Hungarian countess(or Erzsébet Báthory) was born August 7, 1560 in Nyírbátor. At the age of 11, Báthory was engaged to Ferenc Nádasdy and moved to Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár, Hungary. In 1575, she married Nádasdy in Varannó. Nádasdy gave to Elizabeth as wedding gift the Čachtice castle where she was later imprisoned for the rest of her life.
In 1578, her became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war, Elizabeth Báthory managed business affairs and the estates. That role usually included providing for the Hungarian and Slovak peasants, even medical care.

During the height of the Long War (1593-1606), she was charged with the defense of her husband's estates. The threat was significant, for the village of Čachtice had previously been plundered by the Ottomans while Sárvár, located near the border that divided Royal Hungary and Ottoman occupied Hungary, was in even greater danger.
She was an educated woman who could read and write in four languages. We know of several instances where she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated. She was interested in science and astronomy.

Her husband died in 1604 at the age of 47. His death is commonly reported as resulting from an injury sustained in battle.

Between 1602 and 1604, Lutheran parish priest István Magyari complained about atrocities both publicly and with the court in Vienna, after rumors had spread. In 1610, King Matthias assigned György Thurzó, the Palatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzó ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March 1610. Thurzó went to Čachtice Castle on December 30, 1610 and arrested Báthory and four of her servants, who were accused of being her accomplices. During the trial of her primary servants, Elizabeth had been placed under house arrest in a single room. She remained there for four years, until her death.

King Matthias had urged Thurzó to bring her to court and two notaries were sent to collect further evidence, but in the end no court proceedings against her were ever commenced.

On August 21, 1614, Elizabeth Báthory was found dead in her castle. Since there were several plates of food untouched, her actual date of death is unknown. She was buried in the church of Čachtice.

The movie
Because of some problems with the premier of the movie I had enough time to discuss this topic with my friends.... there was already a trailer out for long time before the movie itself was out. There is little problem about the several "trailers" - most of them do not show the key scenes (which is quite understandable) but that makes the movie looking like one amongst the "bloody lady of Čachtice" movies, which is not truth. I guess that many people who were attracted by the trailer were slightly disappointed by the movie later.

I saw many reviews on Youtube and other websites but even tough many people keep on complaining I liked the movie. It was first movie which showed Elizabeth Bathory in different light. As a woman and as a mother who had to protect herself in hard times. I haven't seen any other Jakubisko movie yet but I liked the fact that he showed all the political circumstances around the Bloody Countess of Čachtice. There were some things which seemed to me not so well done but it wasn't that bad.
For example You can hear there Hungarian, Slovakian and Czech language too next the main dialogues in English. Not always it seems to be a purpose but from historical view it seems possible. I would appreciate if the movie was whole in Slovakian or Hungarian but the English speaking parts has some kind of accent at least. (And it would not be anything easy to teach Anna Friel and other people to speak Hungarian or Slovakian).

I should mention the performance of Anna Friel as Elizabeth Bathory and Karel Roden as palatin György Thurzo. Another nice thing was that the movie was split into 3 parts: Ferenc, Darvulia and Thurzo. Named after people who influenced her life a lot.
Sometimes it almost turns into "Love story Bathory" in the parts with Merisi (Caravaggio) or to fairytale - 2 monks... but as whole it surely deserves some attention.

5 comments