Branching off from Ally's post about mass surveillance and Chloe's on the idea of living in truth, I was thinking about how these discussions are in some ways different in the context of the present day with the rise of the Internet and social media. With these new technologies, I think in some ways the public sphere is encroaching upon the private one now more than ever. We are all constantly connected to our social circles and even when you are alone on the internet, you are still being monitored, so we have less and less time that is truly private. I spend a considerable amount of time "alone" on my computer, but even at those times I am constantly interacting with people and being tracked by sites. Even if time on the internet can feel private, knowing that your actions are being monitored can influence your actions or even, on some level, how you think.
Similarly, with new social media and other technologies that allows us to remain connected to other people, we have less and less time to be truly alone and outside of our social circle. Constantly documenting our lives on social media exposes us to the gaze of everyone who has access to our accounts. I doubt that many would feel that they are "living in truth" on their Instagram accounts, where people post for audiences of hundreds of people they may hardly know. If we accept Sabina's view that we cannot "live in truth" while outside of our private sphere, I think it's important to consider how the rise of the Internet and social media potentially encroaches on this private sphere in a detrimental way.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Invasion 68: Prague – Josef Koudelka
In the midst of Soviet invasion that ended the Prague Spring, Tereza went out on the streets with a camera to "preserve the face of violence for the distant future" (67). She photographed Russian soldiers, tanks, corpses, and protestors. This post explores Tereza's perspective as a photographer through the photos of Josef Koudelka, a hero of photojournalism.
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| Exhibition in New York City |
Koudelka is a Czech-French photographer and former engineer who mostly photographed Gypsies until Russian tanks invaded his home country on the night of 20-21 August 1968. Like Tereza's shots, his pictures of the invasion were smuggled out of Prague and published abroad. The photographer fled Czechoslovakia in 1970 and did not publicly admit ownership of the shots for 15 years. They were credited to "Prague Photographer." Starting in 1984, he has opened exhibitions in numerous cities including Prague, London, Paris, New York, and Moscow.
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| Young Czech killed for having tried to drape his flag over a Russian tank. A total of 108 Czechs and Slovaks died. |
"While he has been lauded for the courage it took to photograph during the occupation, Mr. Koudelka finds the praise misdirected. 'The courageous here were the Russians who went to Red Square to demonstrate against the Prague invasion,' he said, adding, 'Prison was the only way out of Red Square.' (Eight protesters were jailed after unfurling protest banners in Moscow after the invasion.)"
“[The Russian soldiers] were more like me, the same age, maybe a little younger. I felt sorry for them because I knew they were not guilty. The Russian politicians were guilty.”
"Many of the soldiers did not even know what country they were in, he added. 'Some thought they were in Germany,' he said."
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| Man shows soldier a newspaper. Soldiers do seem they have no idea what they are doing. |
"[Russia] is the only country in Europe where my invasion pictures have never been published in a full story in a magazine; just odd images here and there. If, after this exhibition, they remain unpublished, I will know Russia is not a truly free country."
"[Koudelka's photographs] exposed the official lie that the invasion was 'fraternal help' to a fellow socialist state in the grip of counter-revolutionaries; and, as a puppet Soviet government took control, they became a testament to lost hope."
"If young Russians come to look at this exhibition, if they see their fathers and grandfathers in the faces of these soldiers, if they see their own faces, and they think, 'I never want to be manipulated like that, to invade a peaceful country', then these photographs will have served a purpose."
Extra photos (not by Koudelka):
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| "young girls in unbelievably short skirts provoking the miserable sexually famished Russian soldiers by kissing random passersby before their eyes" (67) |
Franz's Version of Living in Truth
Sabina and Franz’s views on privacy are, as we discussed this week, polar opposites; but I think that, more than these opposing views, the difference here that truly distinguishes their characters is that Franz, who believes that he cannot live honestly unless his actions are seen by the public eye, doesn’t seem to try to make a concerted effort to actually live his life “honestly,” at least not to the extent that Sabina does. Franz is preoccupied with the idea of the public eye constantly judging him often fails to be truthful. Even when he separates from Marie-Claude, his relationship with the student has so many levels of dishonesty. In fact, what exactly is “living in truth” to Franz? Does it only mean living life with a merged public and private life, and how much does that actually have to do with living honestly, if you can’t even be honest with yourself about who your wife is under your own idealized version of her?
Tomas'
Each main character of The Unbearable Lightness of Being is very distinct yet incredibly intertwined with all the others. I think one of the most interesting characters is Tomas. In some ways we are led to be sympathetic towards his character (i.e., by rationalizing that to be with many women is just "his nature"), but by taking a step back we might realize that he is rather despicable in many other ways. Tomas claims to love Tereza while constantly causing her pain and anxiety as he goes off with others for sexual pleasure. He says that he separates the concepts of love and sex in his mind, but in truth I think he is also afraid to accept responsibility by making a decision. His decisions are largely made out of "obligation," and while he stalls and continues to not make a decision between Tereza and his other lovers, he is causing a woman great pain, all the time promising to love her and take care of her. Tomas is selfish because he refuses to decide and take responsibility, and he doesn't even seem to try to relate to Tereza's obvious anguish. By accepting responsibility, Tomas would feel another weight added to his life, which he initially doesn't think he can handle; but just like the transition from "sweet" to "unbearable" lightness of being, Tomas seems to evolve, although how much his character really changes is ambiguous.
History Repeating (Mass Surveillance)
In our discussions of governmental surveillance in Czechoslovakia pertaining to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I found it striking how familiar the concept is. It's a theme that repeats throughout history; the same situation occurred with McCarthyism, when writers and directors were on "blacklists," had their homes bugged and cars followed, and were encouraged to give up names of other writers/producers in order to be "cleansed" from the blacklists. It was enough to be "guilty by suspicion" (the name of a film we watched in Civics last year). The Salem Witch trials of 1692-1693 are equally infamous for the hysteria they caused, as people who were "plagued by the devil" claimed that their fellow townsmen were witches in order to escape persecution themselves. Nor was the concept of mass surveillance completely unfamiliar even in the medieval ages, especially with the Fourth Lateran Council. According to the Council, people suspected of heresy had to prove that they were innocent, or else they were excommunicated. In effect, one was guilty until proven innocent, and people were encouraged to spy on and report their own neighbors. This recurring theme in history is not an alien concept but rather an eerily familiar one.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Compulsion vs. Choice
We talked quite a bit in class this week about the scene when Tomas decides to follow Tereza and return to Prague. He is haunted by Beethoven's est muss sein (it must be), feeling that he has no real choice in the matter. I feel that this is connected to the opening scenes of Tomas and Tereza's relationship because, just as Tomas feels he must follow Tereza back to Czechoslovakia (a country now ravished by tragedy and despair), Tomas also feels compelled to care for Tereza while she is sick with the flu. Both times he feels he has "no choice," despite having refused to allow many a woman to spend the night with him in the past. In each scene, there is additionally a sense of pain—Tereza falling sick, and Tereza returning to a country that has in a sense become "sick" itself. Perhaps due to Tomas' nature as a surgeon, he feels that he must protect Tereza, whom he partly views as someone to take pity upon.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Czech Music as Part of National Identity
Music, specifically related to a few Czech composers, was briefly mentioned during our discussions of Czech history today as well as in The Unbearable Lightness of Being during Sabina's thoughts on Czech identity on page 97. As someone who is interested in classical music, I thought I would make a brief post on the famous Czech composers mentioned, specifically Dvorak, Smetana, and Janacek, all of whom made music closely tied to Czech national identity.
Antonin Dvorak (Confusingly pronounced more like da-vor-jak) is probably the most well known Czech composer and lived from 1841 to 1904, a period during which the Czech people lived in the Kingdom of Bohemia as a state of the Austrian Empire. During this time when Czech identity was somewhat suppressed, Dvorak became the leading Czech figure in a movement of nationalist Romantic composers. He incorporated traditional Bohemian folk music into his works, such as his Slavonic Dances. He also spent a considerable amount of time in the United States, resulting in his American Quartet and what is probably his most famous work, his Symphony no. 9 "From the New World," both of which also adopted some American folk music characteristics.
Berdrich Smetana was another leading figure in Czech Romantic music who lived from 1824 to 1884, so a few years before Dvorak. He also incorporated many traditional parts of Czech folk music into his works, which include many polkas, a traditional Bohemian style of music, for example. He became famous for several operas, including The Bartered Bride, a comic opera that incorporated lots of Czech music and the plot of which takes place in a typical Czech country village. Another opera he wrote was Libuse, which celebrated the story of a Prague hero and was meant to commemorate the planned coronation of Francis Joseph as king of Bohemia. In 1874, he went completely deaf, but impressively continued to compose music, including in 1879 a suite of symphonic poems called Ma Vlast, or My Country, consisting of movements inspired by important Czech places such as The Moldau (a river) and Vysehrad (a fortress in Prague). One more interesting work is his autobiographical string quartet From My Life, which interestingly depicts his tinnitus and deafness by having one violin sustain a high note throughout one movement.
Lastly, Leos Janacek was a later Czech composer who lived from 1854 to 1928 and was influenced by the previous two composers greatly. He also incorporated folk music into his works, specifically Moravian music, which he analyzed using modes. Unlike Smetana and Dvorak, his incorporation of folk melodies was less idealized in order to fit a typical Romantic style and more faithfully kept some aspects of the folk music, such as complex rhythms. He wrote several important realist operas like Jenufa.
From this brief discussion of these composers, it's evident that music plays an important role in Czech national identity with the importance both of traditional folk music as well as the cultural figures of distinctly Czech classical composers who incorporated this music into their works. These composers, particularly Dvorak, remain important Czech cultural icons as shown in their being mentioned while Sabina thinks of Czech identity in the novel.
Some Links:
Dvorak's New World Symphony, so probably the most famous piece of Czech music. This is the intense start of the 4th movement, which sounds similar the Jaws theme at the beginning.
This is one of Dvorak's Slavonic dances and you can really hear the sort of Polka sounding folk melodies.
This is Die Moldau from Smetana's Ma Vlast, another very well known work which is supposed to depict the course of the Vlatva river.
Here's the 4th movement of the From my Life quartet, around the 4 minute mark you can hear the high E representing Smetana's tinnitus.
Lastly, here's a Janacek piano piece with his characteristically interesting and intricate rhythms.
Not expecting people to spend an hour listening to the classical music, but I thought it would be good to say a little about Czech music as it relates to national identity especially as it is referenced in the book, so I hope you check out a few of the pieces. (Warning: will probably do more classical music posts throughout the year)
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