...concluding my series of Shostakovich + anti-Soviet revolts videos:
Blow-by-blow:
0:12: Czech students commandeer a Soviet tank: an iconic photo.
0:21: Alexancer Dubcek is celebrated by the Czech people for his attempts to provide Scientific Socialism with a human mask.
0:30: Brezhnev is displeased. Kosygin is ashen-faced.
0:43: The Russian tanks move in.
0:55: The Russian tanks are spat upon. Followed by general mayhem.
2:04: The bloody flag of defiance!
2:12 & following: faces of the resistance.
* * * * *
Now, I dare you: just *try* not to be at least a *little* bit stirred by that!
Comments (4)
Thank you.
These have been beautifully poignant and instructive.
Posted by Michael Bauman | March 9, 2009 8:15 PM
Thanks for your thanks, Prof. Baumann.
For some reason, images of doomed struggle against the totalitarian left are much on my mind, these days.
Posted by steve burton | March 10, 2009 7:02 PM
I think the follow-up is an examination of the differences in the American and European spirits that are displayed in these pieces. As people, in places I don't recall at the moment, have observed, European patriotism is largely retrospective, driven by memories of past glories or (in many cases) past oppressions. American patriotism, by contrast, is prospective, looking forward to new improvements and innovations. So one might argue that the current implosion of Europe has come about through the defeat of cultural identity, whereas the American race towards the same fate is driven by an addled optimism (hope! change!) not entirely inconsistent with America's idea of itself. The Czechs produced Dvorak to show themselves to the world; we produced Elvis. How have we wound up both fighting the same tar baby?
Posted by Paul | March 11, 2009 2:04 PM
European patriotism is largely retrospective, driven by memories of past glories or (in many cases) past oppressions. American patriotism, by contrast, is prospective, looking forward to new improvements and innovations..
FYI, Christopher Dawson in his book The Making of Europe writes in the first paragraph: "even in culture the unity of Europe is not the foundation and starting-point of European history, but the ultimate and unattained goal, towards which it has striven for more than a thousand years."
One might argue the cultural defeat in Europe came in part from an
impatience for social hopes on top of an educated aversion to the nostalgia of the past.
The past, however, can be glorified in two ways: modern or classical.
Posted by KW | March 21, 2009 9:05 AM