5/24 Review - Dramatics and Righting Historical Wrongs

Friday means reflecting on our past week.  Tune in to get a gist of the big news, my opinions on the news, videos, art, and music.  My discoveries are yours to enjoy!

5/17 Reflections and Sharing Time

 This is the round up of the past 7 days. Short news blurbs/my opinions on them, and some cool stuff I tweeted about for those who don't follow me/scroll through the little box to the right.

Hungarian Ethnography & Folklore

I discovered this site a number of weeks ago, but never got around to featuring it.  I don't fully recollect how I got to it, but it has visual beauty and information that one needs to learn about rural Hungary.  I lived in Budapest and only ventured outside the city to go to Belgrade, Vienna, and Lake Balaton.  This meant I didn't get to experience the non-urban aspect of Hungarian culture, which was a real shame.  When I end up Hungary again, I'll be sure to visit smaller places and soak in more of the traditional culture.

Moving Forward: 4/19 Review

This past week hasn't been the flashiest in terms of news, but there has been some movement on the political scene.

Central Europe

Hungary got quite a bit of negative attention this week, and for more than solely-political reasons.  To add to the constitutional changes that Fidesz has put into action, they've decided to annoy Brussels with an ad hoc tax to pay EU fines.  Delightful.  It had one thing going in its favor: the ruling on the violent interrogation was upheld.

Romania made two big decisions this week: 1) they are abandoning their original EU target year and postponing until 2020 and 2) they are proposing a property restitution bill to settle disputes from collectivization during the Soviet era.  A Romanian daily paper is concerned that this will fuel the Romanian real estate bubble.

Germany has a new party emerging: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which has an outline of its political stances here (in German - sorry!).  Surprise, surprise, they are not pro-EU/United States of Europe and challenging the CDU/CSU coalition that's been in power since Merkel stepped up the podium.

Art, Music, Articles

Since I have not been following the news this week (which I am sure to regret since that's when EVERYTHING happens!), I can't do a summary.  I'm very sorry.  However, I do have a bunch of fun links and that's always a good time.  You're welcome.

Socialist Realism

Do not search for social realism - that's a completely different genre.  Socialist realism is a school of art that emphasizes the positive aspects of communism while blatantly ignoring the harsh reality.  If it wasn't propaganda, it would probably be called realism, but that's why it's called socialist realism.  Applebaum touches on the role of socialist realism (when will I stop referencing that book? idk) in the 1940s and 50s and how Stalin's preference for straightforward representations (i.e. not abstract) that glorified the struggle of peasants and the forward motion of socialism.  Similar to the "entartete Kunst" movement of Nazi past, socialist realism refused to recognize negativity of any kind.  Sad feelings do not a comrade make.  This applied across music, paintings/art of any kind, and writing.  The Soviet propaganda posters of WWII helped start the school of art and it progressed until it ossified during Stalin's reign of terror. (This is a great resource to search for posters and get a sense of the artistry.)

This website was the best example of socialist realism that I found (minus doing a general Google image search).  Take a gander and explore the wonder that is unrealistic socialist realism.  Smiling peasants, machinery, and agriculture.

Armenian Songs

I had mentioned on twitter that I'm currently obsessed with Isabel Bayrakdarian. She is from Armenian heritage, though born in Lebanon and having lived in Canada since her teenage years.  In 2005, she traveled to Armenia and did a series of performances for traditional Armenian songs, included "Dle Yaman" accompanied by a duduk quartet.  This was all recorded in the film, "A Long Journey Home" in 2005.  I have not seen the entire film, but the excerpts I have seen (embedded below) are stunning.  Incidentally, I discovered her because of her work on the Lord of the Rings score, but the Armenian hymns she sings are so much more haunting and beautiful.  I love sonorous music, so the Armenian hymns are probably my favorite, though Dvorak gives them a run for their money.  Enjoy!

Dive Dive Dive Magazine

Dive Dive Dive Magazine is Estonia based and affiliated with B.EAST Magazine, which I discovered this week.  The affiliation says everything because I already wish I was cool enough (and Estonian enough) to be a part of this magazine.  Dive Dive Dive is a subculture magazine not quite like B.EAST.  Dive Dive Dive feels like a less sexy version and I don't mean that in a derogatory way.  B.EAST is like sex and fashion with its sleek and polished look, but Dive is like the DIY movement that carries subculture.  The design of the website feels like a hip scrapbook and the icons remind me of images from Lanica's animation (featured on the B.EAST post), so I get why there is a connection. 

B.EAST Magazine

I have spent the last day looking through my newfound love: B.EAST Magazine.  I did a search for CEE magazines and this was the first one to come up. The one that really caught my eye was a post about Polish animation. 

I will refer to what's written there because it's not only better than what I would come up with, but I'm also against plagiarism.  (The link sends you to an article that beautifully articulates the issues surrounding plagiarism.)  I also want this blog to create a CEE-obsessed network.  There probably is one that I'm not privy to, but I'm making one nonetheless!  I want to connect to these people.  Maybe you do too.  I certainly want to hitch my wagon to B.EAST Magazine.  After browsing their issues on the Fbook page, I was likely drooling.  I might have also struggled with my desire to subscribe versus save money.  Still working on that one.

Finishing Music Week: German Rap

Guys, I never did my East German rap post, which is a MUST.  How can I not do it?  I must.

So, you'll have to rewind to Polish Rap to get a sense of where I'm going with this.  You really do.  (Not a ploy to increase page views)

So why do I find rap to be so compelling in the East vs West dialectic?  While rap has its roots in the racial segregation in America, it has worldwide ramifications.  I will certainly not argue that the aesthetic (baggy t-shirts, chains, certain labels, baseball hats, even gestures) changes throughout the rap scene because it's obviously present.  Besides the surface look, rap is an attitude and a message.  While rap has branched out beyond its political message of subversion, it's still a very strong theme today.  I would say especially abroad, but I don't know the international world of rap well enough to make such a bold assertion.  Certainly, the theme carries weight in the ECE region.  East Germany especially clings to this theme in popular rap and it all carries back to the early years of reunification.

Czesław Niemen

Czesław Nieman (muzyka.gery.pl)

Poland is getting some extra attention this week, thanks to my friend Paweł.  I guess when I posted an OSTR song ("Po drodze do nieba") on my Fbook wall, it inspired him to introduce me to some older Polish musicians. He introduced me Czesław Niemen, whose proper Christian name is Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki.  This musician couldn't be cooler if he tried.  He broke onto the scene in Communist 1960s Poland and upset good comrades by introducing rock and soul music to the repertoire.  He grew his hair long, wore super funky clothes, and embodied the general psychedelia Americans were very fond of at the time. 

Ukrainian Avant Garde

I'm sorry there wasn't a post yesterday.  I was at a friend's during the famous "Blizzard 2011", which plays up the significance of the weather a little too much.  It was cool and a bit intense, but nothing to tell the grandkids about in front of a fire.  To make up for the loss of a music post, I'm extending Music Week to Saturday.

Next week's theme is Design Week!  It's going to be about CEE design.  I need to get better about announcing these at the beginning of the week.

Mariana Sadovska (borderlandmusic.de)

Today's post is about Ukrainian avant garde music.  Naturally, I know nothing about it but the wonders of search engines has pulled up some cool results.  The first ones to come up were Mariana Sadovska and Roman Turvosky. 

Polish Rap

I have a feeling Music Week will predominantly be Rap Week because I find it endlessly fascinating.  I couldn't tell you why, but I like finding it.  Today I will be posting a few Polish rappers I liked when I was browsing around.  All but one have English subs, though you can enjoy rap without knowing what it is they're talking about.  Part of the reason I've always liked rap in CEE is because it is absolutely unlike the top 40 hits in America, which are concerned with nouveau riche things like diamonds, scads of women, and showing everyone who's boss (the trend seems to be reversing a little bit with artists like BOB, however).  I have yet to come across a rapper that vapid in CEE, not to say they don't exist.  All the rap I've come across is slightly more thoughtful and concerned with political, economic, or existential issues. The Polish rappers I found today run along this vein.  The first I found was Fisz (pronounced feesh), who is rather prominent according to Wikipedia.

Hungarian Pop

I have been shamed by Hungarians for listening to their pop. I was told the lyrics were stupid (which applies to all pop music, really) and completely lacking the depth and imagery of their folk songs. They said it was "too American" and ridiculous. Did this stop me from watching VIVA? Absolutely not. Mostly because watching TV in Hungarian hurts your head after a while.

Barbee (ezalegjobb.jay.hu)

SP (neon.hu)

The funny thing is, I unabashedly like their pop. A lot of the music on VIVA was imported, but they have a pretty lively music scene considering the size of their country and the number of Hungarian speakers in the world. The first song I heard was "Kapj el!" by Barbee and despite the vapidness of the song, it was catchy. The next was "Ne add fel" by SP and I mostly loved it for being ridiculous, but then my love turned pretty serious. I began to listen to Hungarian pop more because it's simplicity made it possible for me to hear the words and figure out the meaning through my tenuous grasp of Hungarian. It's the equivalent of basic language instruction without a teacher or a textbook (but I was taking lessons).  So I kept watching it but I stopped telling people about it.