Category: Culture

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A Tale of a Vanished Poet

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I remember watching TV news on the day he died, and out of a sudden an unbelievable, almost a novel-like story caught my attention. A life-story which nearly came to an end in oblivion, were it not for the most surreal coincidence.

Ivan Blatný was born in 1919 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. In his twenties, he was alrady one of the central figures in the cultural avant-garde. He published four books of poetry and two books of poetry for children before he turned thirty. He left Czechoslovakia shortly after the communist coup d’etat in 1948, for a cultural exchange organised by the British Council. On his first night in England, he announced on the BBC that he would not return home, because of the new regime. First came a fury and a hateful campaign against him.

And then, silence.

His name became taboo, his poetry was blacklisted, he was stripped of his citizenship and for the official culture, he was as much as dead. One of the most celebrated young poets of the generation became a non-person. His name was erased from the Czech literature and was meant to be forgotten forever.

The silence lasted for 28 years.

Only his family and closest circle of friends knew his whereabouts, and even those ties gradually faded because of lack of contact.

It was only months after he settled in England that he was hospitalised for mental illness for the first time, although he briefly worked as a journalist for the BBC and Radio Free Europe.

He then spent most of the time until his death in various institutions, although it is not even clear whether he needed therapy for specific diagnoses, or whether he was primarily seeking refuge from life ‚out there‘ that became unbearable.

His cousin Dr. Jan Šmarda secretly visited Blatný in 1969, in the brief period of Czechoslovakia‘s reopening. In the same year, a secondary-school teacher from Brno Vladimír Bařina visited him too. He was an admirer of Blatný’s work. 

Most of Ivan Blatný’s life in England remains a mystery though, and many questions unanswered.

The personnel knew him as a quiet, lonely  man, who hardly ever spoke to anyone, and who spent whole days staring at the wall, or tirelessly scribbling on loose sheets of paper provided to him – it was thought therapeutic. Nobody could ever decipher his scribbles, thought to be in some made up language; not that they cared to, he was a psychiatric patient after all, and quantities of those papers were discarded for hygienic reasons.

Until one person cared.

At this point, we should perhaps rename our story to ‚A Tale of the Nurse and the Poet‘.

Miss Frances Meacham was a nurse at St. Clement’s Hospital in Ipswich, where Ivan Blatný was transferred to in January 1977.

Since school years, Frances Meacham did not care much for poetry. She did not speak any foreign languages either. But she had a connection to Czechoslovakia since WWII, when she served in the Royal Air Force medical corps as part of the Czechoslovak brigade.

After the war, she kept contacts with many friends, ex-patients and, in her own words, ‘marvellous people she got to know in this wonderful country’. And once she even visited Czechoslovakia, Brno more specifically, to see a friend who had served with her in WWII.

By pure chance, she met Vladimír Bařina who told her about his friend, a patient in the very hospital where she worked as a nurse. Frances Beacham was moved by the story and when she returned home, she went to see the man she learnt about.

Despite her colleagues’ discouragement, she gradually managed to bring him out of his silent monotony. He confided in her that he used to do a bit of writing, and still does at times, but that the nurses always throw everything away. Whatever was left of his work, was in a folder of sheets full of his scribblings, hidden in a drawer, that somehow escaped the nurses’ attention. He trusted Frances and let her look at them.

She took everything home with her and the next day, she brought fresh supply of paper. She told the management that the man used to be a famous Czech poet. She made them promise that they will not throw away any more of his scribbles and asked them to give him a typewriter. She photocopied the manuscripts and sent them to Canada, to another Czechoslovak émigré, a great novelist Josef Škvorecký.

Ivan Blatný and Frances Meacham, 1980s

Škvorecký replied immediately: ‘Please send me everything he has written.’

He knew immediately, whose work he was looking at, and realized that the poet, long thought deceased, was still writing beautiful, melodical poems.

A first collection of selected poems was published. The book (several copies were sent to the hospital) finally had persuaded the physicians at St. Clement’s that their patient indeed was a real poet, and he was allocated a private room and a typewriter.

And so, the man, who at a terrible personal cost became a total poet, a walking and breathing organ of poetry, has finally had his name returned to him: Ivan Blatný, poet.

Thank you Miss Meacham!

 

A book of selected Blatný’s poems ‘The Drug of Art’ – with both Czech and English versions: 

ISBN 987-1-933254-16-6

For further reading, listening and reference:

https://english.radio.cz/ivan-blatny-strange-story-a-czech-poet-english-exile-8083530

https://www.mujrozhlas.cz/auditorium/1990-zemrel-ivan-blatny

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064228608534059

http://thelondondead.blogspot.com/2017/05/quite-decent-mr-kozderka-astonishing.html

 

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The Codebreakers

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Earlier this year, we visited Bletchley Park. A trip long overdue, considering that we live some 30 Minutes away!

I was not quite sure what to expect – apart from ‘the battle against the machines’ of course – and I had no idea at all how powerfully this place would resonate with me. And it still does.

It was in the opening exhibition dedicated to codes and ciphers in wartime communication, when I realised that this place is, first and foremost, about people. The ‘work tools’ on display – the decoding stencils, handwritten notes and transcripts, files, and logbooks – they all spoke of meticulous, exhaustive work. Yes, it was the time when ‘cut and paste’ meant scissors and glue!

Further on, personal items such as hand-knitted mitts, scarves, cardigans and hats, pipes, ashtrays, pencils and notepads, telling reminders of the conditions the codebreakers worked in – in the dim, confined and spartan huts – producing ultra-intelligence that it said to have shortened the WWII by several years.

And afterwards, there was silence.

When the operation at Bletchley Park closed in 1946, the codebreakers packed their belongings and left and returned to their lives, not being allowed to share even within their closest families what it was they were doing there; all information about the operation in Bletchley Park was classified until mid-1970s.

It was such a humbling and emotional experience! These days – and I am certain this applies to both pre- and after the lockdown – we take so much for granted; we feel entitled. Our experiences seem non-existent until shared and acknowledged (read liked) on social media.

It certainly helped me to put things into perspective.

Back home, I decided to find out more about the people of Bletchley Park. As a linguist and practising translator, I felt professional pride and connection to the linguists at Bletchley Park, who were of such importance for the success of the operation.

That is hardly surprising though. I was intrigued what other professionals were there.

At the beginning, the recruitment aimed at ‘Cambridge and Oxford professor types’, and the list of academics indeed contains a historian, a mathematician, an Egyptologist, a logician, and an astronomer. As the operation grew, Bletchley Park welcomed a fascinating mix of professions from different walks of life. As one would expect, there were cryptologists, cryptanalysts, as well as military, naval and intelligence officers. And of course, technical talent such as engineers and topologists.

Interestingly, there were also many creatives – artists, writers, designers, biographers, a poet, a garden and landscaping historian, a journalist, an actress, a composer, a radio dramatist. Also, a solicitor, a schoolteacher, and a philatelist. Not to forget several chess players and chess champions.

What a fascinating mix of skill and talent!

It was only a natural next step that I wanted to find out whether there were any Czechs (or Slovaks) at Bletchley Park at all.

And this is how I found her!

Dorothea Karoline Fuhrmann was born in 1917 in Brno, Czechia, into a wealthy Jewish family of textile manufacturers. 

When her parents divorced in mid-1920s, Dorothea and her brother Robert relocated with their mother to Vienna, where she began training as a theatre designer at Kunstgewerbeschule. Their father was the only member of the family to remain in Brno, and later died in Auschwitz.

Dorothea and Robert in 1933

In 1938, Germany annexed Austria. At that time, Dorothea designed stage decorations for the production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, but when she arrived in the theatre for the opening night, the notice on the entrance door said: No Jews.

She never saw her work on the stage.

Dorothea fled to London, which was only possible because she had a Czech passport thus did not need the permission from the Nazi regime to travel.

She continued her studies at the Reimann School in London, but then the WWII intervened.

Dorothea joined the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the WRENS) and because she spoke foreign languages, she became a radio intelligence officer (‘the listener’). She intercepted coded messages from the German naval forces, thus becoming key part of the broader Bletchley Park Operation. 

Dorothea during WWII

 

In 1940 she married Leonard Klatzow, a South African physicist, who tragically died in 1942 in a plane crash.

After the WWII, Dorothea pursued her career as a designer and worked at the design studio of the Central Office for Information, producing government campaign posters, amongst other the famous ‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases’:

        

This is when she created her professional name: once asked to sign her artwork, she realised that both her maiden and married names were too difficult to recognise in the UK, decided to use her initials D.K.K. instead and created herself a professional name – Dorrit Dekk.  Her mother, a Dickens enthusiast, has always called her Dorrit.

After a brief interlude in Cape Town, she returned to London in 1950 and established herself as a freelance designer, printmaker, and painter.

 

The milestone commission was a design for the Travelling Section of the Festival of Britain in 1951, a national exhibition and fair that attracted millions of visitors across the UK. Dorrit created a mural representing popular British sports, games and pastimes called People at Play.

Drawing for the People at Play mural; a stage designer at work…

With this piece of work, Dorrit entered the British design world. She has always been proud to be part of the 1951 festival.

She gradually built her own successful design practice and in 1956, she became a fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists (today Chartered Society of Designers).

Dorrit became known as the ‘travel queen’ through her work for Air France and P&O. However her work spanned from book covers and illustrations (Penguin and The Tatler were her clients) to advertising for London Transport, British Rail and Post Office savings bank. She considered herself art designer rather than fine artist.

 

Dorrit Dekk became one of the most influential and successful commercial graphic designers in the post-war UK. Her main medium was collage which she used in her posters as well as paintings. For her quirky landscapes and urban scenes she used gouache.

She continued to create pieces of abstract and figurative art as well as her favourite collages even after a stroke she suffered in 2001. Housebound and on a wheelchair, she enjoyed receiving young students of art in her studio, for whom she was an admired role model. Famous for her eccentric stripy socks, and loved for her infectious spirit, her passion for all things art and architecture, and for her sharp wit, Dorrit Dekk was one of a kind. She died in London in 2014 at the age of 97.

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What a journey, what an unexpected discovery! Little did I know that a day’s trip to Bletchley Park will lead me to discover this connection to my hometown Brno, and that I will get the opportunity to ‘meet’ Dorrit Dekk, a brilliant artist and a beautiful person, in and out. I look forward to continuing learning about Dorrit’s career and art, and about her full, eventful life. She was a true fighter; in her own words, she seemed to be completely indestructible!

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Good King Wenceslas

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Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;

Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel…

 

Good King Wenceslas is one of my favourite carols, for its Anglo-Bohemian links.

It is quite unusual, I mean for a Christmas carol, for there is no reference to the nativity. It was written in 1853 by English hymn writer John Mason Neale. I love the fact that, surprisingly, Neale wrote the lyrics to the melody of a 13th century spring hymn, which celebrates the time when everything is in bloom.

And here’s another paradox for you: the Czechs hardly know this carol!

An Anglican church priest and scholar, Neale might have come across the legend of Wenceslas during his studies of the unification of Eastern Orthodox Christians with the Anglican church.

And perhaps this fragment by the Bohemian chronicler Cosmas from 1119 inspired him:

‘…but his deed I think you know better that I could tell you… no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered not a prince, but the father of all the wretched.’

The story is widely known: on a frosty winter night, a warm-hearted king Wenceslas looks out of his castle window and spots a peasant gathering wood.

He summons his page and together they set out to bring him alms – not just wine and meat, both beyond reach of the poor, but also logs – forests belonged to landlords and peasants were not allowed to harvest wood; all they could do was to pick fallen twigs and branches.

Halfway through, the young page is about to give up, shivering with cold and struggling to wade through the masses of snow. The king offers him his own cloak and encourages him to continue, following his footprints, step by step. Such was the power of the king’s goodness that the snow melted in his footprints and the ground warmed up.

But who was he, the real good king Wenceslas?

To be honest, there are more legends about his life than there are reliable historical accounts.

What we know is that Wenceslas was a 10th century sovereign from the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty. He was the son of Vratislav, the Duke of Bohemia. His mother was Drahomira, the daughter of the pagan tribal chief.

He was raised by his paternal grandmother Ludmila, as was his younger brother Boleslav. Ludmila was known for her religious devotion and kindness and under her tutoring, Wenceslas embraced Christianity, altruism and piety.

His mother Drahomira became jealous of Ludmila’s influence over the young prince, and perhaps also due to the religious discord, Drahomira had her killed.  

Wenceslas became the 4th Duke of Bohemia after his father’s death, probably in 921. Although legends unreservedly portray him as a pious man, ‘a monk on the throne’ even, his successful domestic and foreign policies suggest he was an able sovereign.

To avoid disputes between his younger brother and himself, Wenceslas divided the country, assigning Boleslav a considerable territory.

Those were turbulent times though, politically and religiously; part of the nobility united behind Boleslav and they plotted to kill the Duke. 

Wenceslas was assassinated by his own brother Boleslav ‘The Cruel’ who then took over the reign of the entire Duchy. The year of the assassination is not clear, it was 929 or 935, but what we know is that it happened on 28th September.

Following his death, Wenceslas was revered as a saint and a martyr and a cult of Wenceslas grew in Bohemia as well as in England. Although he died as a Duke, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I promoted him posthumously and gave him the title King of Bohemia a few years later.

The day of his assassination – 28th September – was made his Saint’s Day after Wenceslas was spontaneously canonised in 973 and became the patron saint of Bohemia.

After the formation of Czechoslovakia in 1928, the St. Wenceslas’ cult was revived to a new strength, and 28th September also became the Czech Statehood Day. For the Czechs, it is an important national holiday, and St. Wenceslas is by far their favourite saint. The modern form of the King’s name – Václav – is a popular Czech name.

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The Glass House

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Tucked away in a quiet street in a well-off residential area up the hill just off the Brno town centre, you might easily pass by her minimalist front facade without noticing.

Villa Tugendhat. The glass house.

UNESCO protected masterpiece of modernist and functionalist architecture, built by Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe in the years 1929-1930 for the newly married couple Grete and Fritz Tugendhat.

Both Grete and Fritz came from affluent families of the so called textile barons, who prospered from then thriving textile manufacturing (in the 19th century, Brno used to be dubbed the Moravian Manchester). When they decided to build a family residence on the vast yet slopy plot Grete’s father gave them as a wedding gift, they commissioned the design to an architect whose work they were impressed with – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. They granted him a limitless budget!

Our first visit to Villa Tugendhat was in 2010, and at that time, our focus was on its breakthrough architecture and design we’d read so much about. Despite dilapidation and damage caused by decades of neglect, and with missing inventory, we were captured by her timelessness, splendour and genius loci.

Villa Tugendhat is the model representation of Mies van der Rohe‘s ‚Less Is More‘ design principle, with its light and airy open plan, sparse use of furniture, specifically designed for the house, and no decorative objects whatsoever. Yet the space does not feel austere, due to the use of luxurious natural materials, such as yellow oxyx and exotic woods. The only piece of art chosen for the house was the ‚Torso‘ by Wilhelm Lehmbruck.

Perhaps the most iconic architectonic feature though, that also gave Villa Tugendhat its moniker – the glass house – is a glass wall on the facade overlooking the garden and offering panoramic views of the Brno skyline. Its massive glass panels slide into the basement, thus connecting the interior with the garden which was designed as an integral part of the living space.

To truly appreciate how radical and bold this architectonic concept must have been at that time, it’s worth visiting Villa Löw-Beer, within the walking distance, situated at the lower end of the very same plot and garden; it’s the house where Grete’s parents lived.

Quite unexpectedly, our first visit turned to be quite an emotional experience, too. We left moved and saddened. By the state this building was in. By the cataclysmic events that changed the lives of her commissioners forever.

The young Tugendhat family had mere eight years to enjoy their house. Being Jewish, they were forced to flee from Czechoslovakia in 1938, shortly before the country was torn apart as a result of the Munich Agreement, and occupied by the Nazis a year later. They never came back.

Villa Tugendhat has never been lived in again.

Instead, it became a poignant reflexion of the country’s historic turmoils: seized by the Gestapo in 1939, it served as a Messerschmidt office during the WWII, only to be looted by the Soviet Red Army after the liberation of Brno in 1945 (can you believe the Russians used its mahogany library as a horse stable?!). In the 1950s the villa became property of the national administration and served as a dance school and later as a rehabilitation and physio exercise centre. In the 1960s, the plans finally began for her restoration and use for cultural events. Yet another occupation, that of 1968 by the Soviet army, interrupted these plans and it was not until 1980s, after Villa Tugendhat became property of the Brno Municipality Council when plans for its restoration began anew. A major restoration and reconstruction project took place between 2010-2012.

Our second visit in August 2017 was much more light-hearted. At that time Villa Tugendhat was already brought back to her nearly original glory. It opened to the public, and became a distinct cultural and social venue. On a hot summer’s day, with the huge glass wall hid in the floor, the refreshingly breezy view from under the marquee felt almost like we were on a captains bridge.

Only the statuette was missing. Returned to the Tugendhat family as a compensation to the victims of holocaust, only to be sold in an auction in London few months later. We will never see her again (although this is not entirely true; the original artwork has been replaced by rather a dissappointing copy).

Over the years and our multiple stays to Brno, our connection to the Villa Tugendhat became very personal.

So much so that for the third time around, we treated ourselves to a very special and private time in this iconic house. Our wedding day. It felt like for one single day in January 2018, Villa Tugendhat belonged to us (we even got the key!). Perhaps we experienced what it must have felt back then, when private social gatherings of family and friends frequently took place there.

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Churchill’s Moravia

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Built on the river Svratka in the late 1930s, Brno Dam served as a water reserve, a source of electric power and prevention from flooding. But mainly, it has always been a place of  recreation, with its sandy and grassy beaches with easy access to water, sports, play and picnic areas, numerous walking trails alongside the lake and in the surrounding woods, hotels, restaurants, pensions and picturesque beer pubs, marina, yacht club as well as boat and water sports rental services. In cold winters the water surface freezes and the lake becomes one huge skating ring.

Various events take place throughout the year. Perhaps the most popular is Ignis Brunensis (Latin for Fire of Brno), an international festival and competition of fireworks shows. The effects of competing fireworks are intensified by reflections on the water. A local radio station broadcasts synchronized music. The festival takes place each year between mid-May and mid-June, attracting hundreds of thousands.

During the sailing season, the best way how to explore the area is by boat. And this is what we did – and it turned out to be the best way of spending a hot summer’s day. Starting at the Marina, twin-deck passenger boats depart every 45 minutes or so, zigzagging against the flow between the two sides of the lake and connecting all its major resorts. Sat on the top deck, we enjoyed the ever-changing scenery while soaking up the sun – beeches and resorts with typical summer buzz gradually gave place to much calmer forests and rocky reefs. It takes about an hour and half to get to the farther end of the lake.

Without any doubt, the pinnacle of our trip was an ‘interlude’ visit to the Castle Veveří, perched just above the lake. It takes only a short walk from the boat stop up the hill, through the forest, and here we were. The royal Castle Veveří is one of the largest in Czechia. Legend has it that its foundations have been laid no later than 1059, although its existence has been evidenced in writing ‘only’ from 1213.

There are two possible origins of its name – it may be derived from the Czech word ‘veverka’ meaning squirrel as a reference to the abundance of wild game in the surrounding forests, or it may stem from an old-Bohemian word for faith ‘vera’.

The list of the castle’s past owners is a parade of European aristocratic houses. Its last noble owner was Baron Maurice de Forest, an early motor racing driver, aviator and liberal UK politician. And a close friend of Winston Churchill.

Baron de Forest and his family resided there until 1925, when he sold the castle and the surrounding estate to the newly established Czechoslovak state.

Winston Churchill and his fiancée Clementine Hozier shortly before their marriage in 1908. Source: Public Domain (Wikipedia).

 

Churchill visited his friend Baron de Forest at Castle Veveří three times.

He must really have enjoyed his first two stays (most of which, it is reported, were spent hunting hares and pheasants), because for the third time, in 1908, he came together with his wife Clementine during their honeymoon tour around Europe, and they spent several days here.

The memory of Churchill’s visits is honoured by a plaque by a renowned Czech sculptor Otmar Oliva. It is placed in the entrance area just behind the gate to the inner castle.

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