Tiny Medieval Books of Huge Importance
Hilton Kramer reviews Illuminated Manuscripts and the Dawn of Printing, a new exhibition at the New York Public Library.

South Australia declares end of Second World War
After 57 years, the premier of one Australian state yesterday officially proclaimed peace. He took this amusingly anachronistic step because his government had recently discovered that no one had ever formally done so and that, consequently, wartime legislation was still technically in effect.

Who's buried in Napoleon's tomb?
Well, perhaps his butler. A French author has argued that the British, in collusion with the French, switched the bodies to cover up evidence of neglect or foul play. (The body of the real Napoleon, in this account, was then hidden in the crypt of Westminster Abbey.) The French Ministry of Defense, however, has refused permission for DNA tests, claiming the theory lacks sufficient evidence.

Officials blocked Wodehouse knighthood
According to newly released documents, the British Foreign Office opposed knighting P.G. Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves and Wooster, for years on account of some controversial radio broadcasts the author made while a German prisoner during the Second World War. Wodehouse ultimately did receive the honor in 1975.

The Benes decress: a spectre over Central Europe
In 1945, Czech President Edvard Benes issued these eponymous decrees, which legalized the expulsion of nearly all ethnic Germans from his country and stripped them of their property and citizenship. The Czechs blamed the Sudeten Germans, as they were called, for supporting the Nazis. (Recall that Hitler had claimed for the Sudeten Germans the right of self-determination in the events leading up to the Munich Pact of 1938.) Nearly 60 years on, the Benes decrees continue to influence European politics. In the linked article, The Economist details their history and manifold implications for the present day.

Rebuild the Towers
Delroy Murdock over at NRO says it's the American thing to do.


P.S. If you haven't seen my most recent entry on this topic, which got buried in a late flurry of posts yesterday, you can read it here.

Art saved from European floods
"We had to move at the last minute when the water started coming in . . . Everyone was running through knee-high water with torches, passing works of art to each other. The vaults are ruined. They will take a long time to restore."
-- Martin Roth, Dresden art director


According to the BBC, however, "Most of the historic works of art and cultural landmarks in Prague and Dresden appear to have been saved from the floodwaters that have devastated the cities."

The fatal truce
The Spectator reviews Geoffrey Moorhouse's book on the Pilgrimage of Grace, the unfortunate defeat of which helped to spell "the destruction of an ancient religion and society" in England.

Playing Antigone . . . and her fiancé
Inspired by Stoppard's Coast of Utopia, which deploys 30 actors for 70 parts, Peter Jones this week takes us on an illuminating tour behind the curtain of ancient Athenian drama, which also required actors to play multiple parts in a single performance.

Eakins's glimpses of 19C medicine
The New York Times ran a good article earlier this week about the two magnificent centerpiece canvases of the Met's Thomas Eakins exhibit: "The Gross Clinic" (1876) and "The Agnew Clinic" (1889). Although esteemed today as the great works they are, when they were first shown, their realistic -- and, therefore, graphic -- depictions of the surgical process ran afoul of Victorian standards of propriety. For just as they offer us a wonderful and revealing view onto the state of 19C medicine -- as well as onto how it developed in the decade between the two paintings -- they were for many contemporaries, also, their first windows into the operating room.


The two paintings are not only valuable for their documentary quality. Aesthetically, they display on a monumental scale Eakins's famous ability to imbue figures with a thoughtful interiority. Also in evidence are his almost Caravaggesque gifts for freezing time and contrasting light and dark. The supporting elements add an extra layer of delight, particularly in "The Agnew Clinic". Although this Times piece briefly mentions in this regard "snoozing medical students," what is most interesting is the subtle range of reactions the students exhibit to the spectacle before their eyes. Some are engrossed (no pun intended), others bored, and still others, yes, asleep, although even among these there is variety. Some are rather discreet about it, simply letting their heads drop to the side or propping them on their neighbors' shoulders, while one fellow in the back (we know the type) lies flat on his side, as if on a dorm room couch.


As for the Gross painting, the presence of the blood is part of what makes the piece so vivid and compelling, and it is essential to any faithful true-to-life rendering of surgical conditions in the 1870s. Eakins's belief in the ancient artistic mission to depict things as they are, and his talent in fulfilling it, are essential elements of his greatness. He lived the archetypal artist's life: misunderstood and unappreciated in his own lifetime but acclaimed by posterity. Even so, he is still perhaps not as well known as he should be, and the present retrospective affords an excellent opportunity to correct that. The show continues in New York until 15 September, after which it will close, having already been to Philadelphia and Paris. I commend it enthusiastically to all can make it to the city, but for those out of town there is also the beautifully produced catalogue published by Yale University Press.

Ground Zero design process extended
After underwhelming the public with its first six proposals for rebuilding the WTC site, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is now soliciting additional ideas from architects around the world.


I have expressed my opinion on this subject here and here. I also very much like this idea for a Memorial Arch, even if the author's conception of Christian charity is somewhat problematic.

UPDATE: Germany, Slovakia Flood as Waters Ebb Elsewhere
The latest victim of the great European flood is Dresden, where the surging Elbe has inundated historic districts, deluging the lower levels of the Zwinger Palace and Semper's Opera House. Next to the palace is an art museum that houses a fine collection of Old Master paintings, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna. It appears, however, that gallery workers succesfully transferred all of the artwork to higher floors before the waters came.


The Slovakian military has erected defenses around the central medieval district of Bratislava, which confronts a threat from the swelling Danube. (At a time like this, the Viennese surely must be happy they diverted the main course of that river to the east of town in the 19C.)

Now, the good news: Prague, whose situation I have been following closely, seems to have emerged relatively unscathed. The ad hoc defenses protecting the Old Town held up, and I have read no reports that the Charles Bridge sustained any serious damage. Indications are that the Vltava River overflow has begun to subside, although it will still be days before many residents can return to their homes.

The Saint Gregory Society
Over at Ad Orientem today, Mark Sullivan writes in justified praise of New Haven's Saint Gregory Society. I have been blessed to be a part of this organization since 1998, first as a congregant and later as an acolyte, and it has been an incalcuable aid to my spiritual development. The Society is run by some of the most faithful, learned, and talented men, both clerical and lay, I have ever had the privilege to meet. I recommend a visit to all who find themselves in Southern Connecticut on a Sunday afternoon (Mass is at 2pm). The anniversary votive Mass to Saint Gregory each February is an occasion of particular liturgical splendor.


And while you are over at Mr. Sullivan's site, see his post on the book In Defense of Elitism. Although I have not (yet) read it, it has come highly recommended to me by trusted friends, and its thesis sounds most congenial.

The Coast of Utopia
The Economist reviews Sir Tom Stoppard's latest work, a complex trilogy about a circle of Russian radicals (the best known of whom is the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin) in Europe during the tumultuous mid-19C.

Charles Bridge teeters under flood pressures
The London Times correspondent calls the Prague landmark, which is lined with statues of saints, "the 14th-century epicentre of Central European culture," and suggests that "The collapse of the Charles Bridge would be akin to the ground opening up under Westminster Abbey and erasing a millennium of collective memory from the city’s history." She asks with deep concern,"Surely this could not be about to be washed away?" We passionately hope not.

Prague battles to save treasures

China holds dissidents in Soviet-style asylums
It seems that the Chinese Communists have equaled their Soviet predecessors in the practice of one of totalitarianism's more frightening tactics: sending political dissidents to psychiatric wards.

"Symbols of love and of worship"
This paragraph toward the end of Reagan's Brandenburg Gate speech is especially beautiful, but too infrequently quoted:


Perhaps this gets to the root of the matter, to the most fundamental distinction of all between East and West. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront. Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexander Platz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw, treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere - that sphere that towers over all Berlin - the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed.


The following paragraph, the penultimate one, concludes with this related line: "Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom."


In the bowels of the Communist East, the American President gave voice to the greatness of the West.

Berlin Wall stirs emotions
Today is the 41st anniversary of the construction of the Wall, which John Lewis Gaddis has rightly called a "moral obscenity" (although, in his view, perhaps a necessary one). To mark the occasion, the city held a memorial service for the victims who died trying to cross into West Berlin (1000 in total, 230 of whom were shot by East German border guards) at a chapel built on the site of a church the East German Communists demolished.


According to this article, some Berliners are angry that the Party of Democratic Socialism (the successor to the East German Communist Party), which has taken responsibility for building the Wall, has entered into a governing coalition with the Social Democrats. Their anger is justified, and refreshing.


On this dark anniversary, it is well to read again this great speech by a great President, who, two years before it would fall at the hands of the people it divided, expressed his moral opposition to it with this famous exhortation to his Soviet counterpart: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Blairite propaganda in The Washington Post
I have been going back and forth about whether to blog this article from yesterday's Post but have decided that it deserves a comment. The title of the piece is "Britannia Waives Old Social Rules," and it describes in a satisfied tone how celebrities and big businessmen, rather than titled aristocrats, occupy the commanding heights of social status in 21C Cool Britannia.


Alas, this is truly a demotic age. How anyone can think that the exaltation of the mediocre and vulgar is progess escapes me. Is it really more virtuous to respect someone because of the heft of his checkbook (or because he can kick a ball or perform rock music) than because his family helped to shape and defend the nation over centuries?


Coming away from this article, one could be forgiven for thinking that Britain was at last crawling out from under some sort of 18C-Prussian-style feudalism, but such is far from the case. Among the many things not mentioned are how remarkably flexible and unoppressive, by European standards, the English class system has historically been and how English aristocrats have traditionally been the least legally privileged and, on the whole, most socially responsible of any in Europe. Also omitted is how the aristocracy suffered a disproportionate large number of deaths in the Great War. Besides, sanctimonious statements about rewarding achievement notwithstanding, there is evidence that real meritocracy and social mobility in Britain, after increasing in the post-war era, have actually diminished in the last 30 years (at least in part because Labour wrecked the education system).


The article's only redeeming quality is that it at least concedes that the foxhunting Tories are no longer The Establishment. Despite Labour's class-warfare rhetoric, they haven't been for the better part of half a century.


And now, if you will excuse me, my Earl Grey tea is getting cold.

Josh Kleinfeld, a friend and college classmate, has a thoughtful essay on NRO today that argues that the Middle East Peace Process failed because it was predicated on flawed first principles.

Floods threaten Prague's "symphony in stone"
The worst flooding in a century, which has already killed dozens across Central and Eastern Europe, now endangers Prague's many historic landmarks and cultural institutions, which date from the Middle Ages to the 20C. The high waters threaten other historic European cities, including Salzburg, as well.

Recovering Kaliningrad's German history
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad has been much in the news this summer as the focus of a row between Russia and the European Union. Within the next few years, the region will be surrounded on all sides either by EU members or aspirants, and the Russians of Kaliningrad, as things now stand, will require visas to travel back and forth to "mainland" Russia. The political and diplomatic ramifications of this coming isolation aside, Kaliningraders have in recent times begun to wonder whether their identity lies more with Western Europe than with Russia. Given the history of the place, this is not surprising.


Before the Potsdam Conference of 1945, Kaliningrad was for centuries the German territory of Konigsberg, East Prussia. Its favorite son was Immanuel Kant, who was born there (and never left) and, so it is said, kept to such a regular schedule that his fellow Konigsbergers could set their clocks by his afternoon walk. When the Soviets took over, they tried their best to eliminate all remnants of the region's German past. They expelled the Germans and replaced them with Russians, renamed the area after a late Soviet higher-up, and demolished monuments like the 13C castle. (The New York Times article relates an old joke on this point about Kaliningrad having no history "between Adam and Potsdam".) Now, however, as the same article describes, a concerted effort is underway to recover and preserve what is left of the region's pre-war culture (including excavations on the site of the ruined castle), with some even suggesting the return of its original German name.


The project is a testament to the remarkable survivability of culture -- that even after such a determined attempt to destory it, it can still so powerfully influence even those with no organic connection to its roots. We should wish them well.

The 'Bounty Island' murder
Another famous 18C British ship makes the news today. It seems that Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, which is populated by descendants of the Bounty mutineers, has reported its first murder in 150 years. Australia, Norfolk's mother country since 1914, has sent over detectives to supplement the island's regular three-man police force, and it is hoped that finger-printing every adult resident will unmask the killer.


The Bounty descendants, who speak an interesting amalgam of 18C English and Tahitian, moved in 1856 from tiny Pitcairn Island, where their ancestors had settled, to Norfolk Island, a gift from Queen Victoria.

Carving furniture from Nelson's ship
Craftsmen across Britain are making furniture from wood and copper removed from HMS Victory in the course of her ongoing restoration. The world's oldest commissioned warship, the Victory was Lord Nelson's flagship in the fleet that decisively defeated the Napoleonic navy in the Battle of Trafalgar. Proceeds from the sale of the furniture, which will first go on display, will help finance the 200th anniversary commemoration of Trafalgar in 2005.

Church of England gets first floating chapel in 450 years
A Dutch barge -- to be re-christened St Peter's, after a local parish destroyed in the Second World War -- will offer church services and classes to London businessmen at lunch-hour.

"When the King Enjoys His Own Again"
A friend has called to my attention this beautiful Cavalier (and later, Jacobite) folk song.

Gulag humor
Over in The Corner, John Derbyshire and Andrew Stuttaford have been trading old Soviet-era jokes. Here are two examples:


1. Stuttaford (quoting a London Observer article): "Three prisoners are discussing their cases. The first explains that he has been jailed for criticizing Radek (one of Stalin's colleagues). The second says that he was arrested for praising Radek. They then ask the third prisoner what he had done.


'I am Radek', he replies."


2. Derbyshire (quoting Solzhenitsyn): "Two zeks [political prisoners] strike up a conversation in the cattle wagon going to Siberia. First zek: 'How long are you down for?' Second zek: '25 years.' First zek: 'What did you do?' Second zek: 'Nothing!' First zek: 'Liar! Everybody knows that for nothing, the sentence is only 10 years!'"


Other entries in this exchange, amusing in a very dark way, can be found here, here, and here.

London goes Venetian
An authentic gondola, complete with a traditionally dressed gondolier, is now available for charter on an English lake.

Literary Scandal
Two authors have confessed to writing rave reviews of their own books on Amazon.

Dresden, Still and Again
A New York Times travel writer visits the once great German city, formerly the seat of the Elector of Saxony, to see what remains, and what has been rebuilt, after the savage Allied firebombing of 1945.

"Britain is losing Britain"
The Times of London last week ran a powerful essay -- written by a man who is both an immigrant's son and a Labour Party member -- about the profound cultural consequences of sustained mass immigration to Britain. Peter Hitchens, too, addresses this matter in his column this week. Here is a news article on the report that prompted both pieces.

Through Europe's Fractures
In a new memoir, literary critic Victor Brombert tells of his youth in 1930s Paris, his escape to America after the fall of France, and his return to Europe as an American soldier in 1944.

Re-evaluating Lewis Carroll's photographs
Did the Victorian author's pictures reflect an unhealthy interest in children? A new exhibition and some recent scholarship aim to challenge that assumption.