Act & Punishment: The Pussy Riot Trials

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Liberalia
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/8/18

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The Liberalia (17 March) is the festival of Liber Pater and his consort Libera.[1] The Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribald and gauche songs, and masks which were hung on trees.

This feast celebrates the maturation of young boys to manhood. Roman boys, usually at age 15 or 16, would remove the bulla praetexta, a hollow charm of gold or leather, which parents placed about the necks of children to ward off evil spirits. At the Liberalia ceremony the young men might place the bulla on an altar (with a lock of hair or the stubble of his first shave placed inside) and dedicate it to the Lares, who were gods of the household and family. Mothers often retrieved the discarded bulla praetexta and kept it out of superstition. If the son ever achieved a public triumph, the mother could display the bulla to ward off any evil that might be wished upon the son by envious people. The young men discarded the toga praetexta, which was probably derived from Etruscan dress and was decorated with a broad purple border and worn with the bulla, by boys and girls. The boys donned the clothing of adulthood, the pure white toga virilis, or "man's gown". The garment identified him as a citizen of Rome, making him an eligible voter.

The celebration on March 17 was meant to honor Liber Pater, an ancient god of fertility and wine (like Bacchus, the Roman version of the Greek god Dionysus). Liber Pater is also a vegetation god, responsible for protecting seed. Liber, again like Dionysus, had female priests although Liber's priests were older women. Wearing wreaths of ivy, the priestesses made special cakes, or libia, of oil and honey which passing devotees would have them sacrifice on their behalf. Over time this feast evolved and included the goddess Libera, Liber Pater's consort, and the feast divided so that Liber governed the male seed and Libera the female. Ovid in his almanac entry for the festival identifies Libera as the celestial manifestation of Ariadne.[2]

[Samutsevich Yekaterina Stanislavovna] Of course we’d heard about them.
All students of the Rodchenko school



would discuss their “Feast” action
in the subway dedicated to Prigov.



[Petr Verzilov, artist, “Voyna” group] Prigov was one of the most significant figures
for the “Voina,” for all of us.



[Samutsevich Yekaterina Stanislavovna] It was great that these people took the usual space
where people ride every day as a restaurant where you can
linger over drinks and food to commemorate
someone who’s just died.



I liked their style,
it was obvious that they came very prepared,
they’d looked for those tables, they’d taken the measurements,



They knew when it was best to enter,
what to do
if people wouldn’t do it …
I liked this thing about them. There was a lot of effort in it.

-- Act & Punishment: The Pussy Riot Trials, produced, written and directed by Evgeny Mitta

This ancient Italian ceremony was a "country" or rustic ceremony. The processional featured a large phallus which the devotees carried throughout the countryside to bring the blessing of fertility to the land and the people. The procession and the phallus were meant also to protect the crops from evil. At the end of the procession, a virtuous and respected matron placed a wreath upon the phallus.

In another recent stunt, the group hung a drawing of a huge phallus on a St. Petersburg drawbridge, the agency reports in the same article.[/size][/b]

-- Western media concealing facts about female rock band’s desecration of Russian cathedral, by Matthew Hoffman

Related to the celebration of the Liberalia is the Procession of the Argei, celebrated on March 16 and 17. The Argei were 27 sacred shrines created by the Numina (very powerful ancient gods who are divine beings without form or face) and found throughout the regions of Rome. However, modern scholars have not discovered their meaning or use.

[Anatoly Osmolovsky, Artist] Another thing one can say about Pussy Riot



is animation or objectification of Malevich’s paintings.









-- Act & Punishment: The Pussy Riot Trials, produced, written and directed by Evgeny Mitta

In the argei celebration, 30 figures also called Argei were fashioned from rushes into shapes resembling men; later in the year they were tossed into the river(s). The origin of this celebration is not certain, but many scholars feel that it may have been a ritualistic offering meant to appease and praise the Numa and that the 30 argei probably represented the thirty elder Roman curiae, or possibly represented the 30 Latin townships. Other ancient scholars wrote that the use of the bull-rush icons was meant to deter celebrants from human sacrifice, which was done to honor Saturn. Some historical documents indicate that the argei (the sacred places) took their names from the chieftains who came with Hercules, the Argive, to Rome and then occupied the Capitoline (Saturnian) Hill. There is no way at present to verify this information, but it does coincide with the belief that Rome was founded by the Pelasgians and the name Argos is linked to that group.

While Liberalia is a relatively unknown event in modern times, references to Liberalia and the Roman goddess Libera are still found today online and in astrology.

References

1. T.P. Wiseman, Remus: a Roman myth, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.133.
2. Fasti 3.459-516.

External links

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/G ... bulla.html The bulla praetexta]

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An Essay on Woman, in Three Epistles [Member of the Hellfire Club
by John Wilkes

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Epistle I.

AWAKE! my C …. have all things beside,
To low ambition, and to Scottish pride:
Let us (since life can little more supply,
Than, just to fight a duel … and to die)
Expatiate, freely, upon Woman-kind;
And trace, the mighty errors of her mind;
Mark where her thousand weeds, promiscuous, shoot;
And, fearless, cultivate forbidden fruit:
Together, let us trace this ample field;
Try, what the open, what the covert yield;
The artful tricks, and pretty flights explore,
Of ev’ry coy, and every willing whore:
Eye, all her walks; shoot folly, as it flies;
Notice her actions, as to fight they rise:
Blame, where we must; but laugh, where e’er we can;
And shew, that Woman is the Foe of Man.
Of God above, or Woman here low,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of her, what see we but her station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber’d though the God be known,
Woman’s acknowled’d only in our own.
Woman, presumptuous! would the reason find;
Why she is form’d so little, and so blind?
But let her first the harder reason guess,
Why she is form’d no blinder, and no less?
Ask of her mother, Earth, why oaks are made
Taller, or stronger, than the weeds they shade?
Woman respecting, what most wrong we call.
May, must be right, as relative to all.
That woman’s helpless, say not … heaven in fault;
Say rather … she’s as perfect as she aught:
Her knowledge, measured to her state and place,
Her time, a moment; and a point, her space.
Heav’n from us all conceals the book of fate,
Or who would wed the woman he must hate?
The girl thy passion dooms a lawful prey,
Had she thy reason, would she sing, and play?
Pleas’d to the last, she yields her virgin charms,
And hugs her dear destroyer in her arms.
Oh! blindness to the future, not to see
Her two worst enemies are, love and thee;
From whom to endless ruin she is sent,
Her fatal passion is her punishment,
Hope springs eternal in the female breast,
Women ne’er are, but always to be blest:
The girls uneasy and confin’d, will run
From dear mamma to us, to be undone.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor’d mind,
With European taste all unrefin’d.
Who never saw or masquerade or play,
Nor shone at court on George’s natal day;
Yet simple nature to her hope has given,
In her dear tawny Lord, an humbler heav’n:
To be, contents her natural desire,
She asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, she has all blessings in her eye,
Her dusky lover in her company.
Go! wiser thou, and in thy nervous lines,
Where all the strength of composition shines,
Call imperfections to the face of day,
And d…. the needy players who work for pay:
Say, here they rant, and there too much they whine,
Heed not their fears, thy business is … to dine.
Ask, for what end the sparkling brilliants shine?
The woman … ever modest … cries, for mine;
For me the artist tries his utmost power,
And forms, from gems, the artificial flower;
Annual, for me, returning winter comes;
For me prepares ridottos, masks, and drums;
For me, joy gushes from a thousand springs;
And forty-shilling actors soar to Kings;
Chairmen to waft me, boys to light me rise,
And all the pit is wounded by my eyes.
But errs not nature from her kind intent,
When female minds, on mischief ever bent,
Delight to torture where they ought to please.
And yield their own to blast another’s ease?
“No, (tis reply’d) the females have no flaws.
“And too woman, act by gen’ral laws;
“Without exception do what ills they can;
“Their only aim to hurt, to injure mann.”
If the great end be human happiness,
And woman deviates … shall man to less?
As much that end a constant course requires,
Of showers and sunshine, as of their desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As woman, ever temperate, calm, and wise.
If plagues and earthquakes heav’ns design fulfill,
Why should not man o’er woman have his will?
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were you a mitre’d priest, and I a peer;
But trust me, C …, those, who better know,
Have long determin’d it shall not be so.
Thus all subsists by politics and strife,
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen’ral order, since the whole began,
Is not in woman, but is kept in man.
What would these girls? now upwards will they soar,
And little less than angels, would be more;
Now look around, and just as griev’d appear,
They are not mothers in their fifteenth year:
Made for their use, all creatures will they call;
Say, what their use, had they the powers of all?
Kind to the sex, in rich profusion kind,
Shape, beauty, wit, dame Nature as assign’d;
Shall she then only, whom a wit we call,
Be pleas’d with nothing, if not bless’d with all?
A woman’s bliss, could pride that blessing find,
Is, not to think or act beyond her kind.
No powers of body or of soul to share,
But what her nature and her state can bear,
Why have no women microscopic eyes?
For this plain reason … women are not flies.
Say, what their use, were finer optics giv’n,
To inspect a mite, not comprehend a heav’n?
Cease then, nor rudely let us seem to blame;
Our proper bliss is centred in the dame:
Let us submit, in this our humble sphere,
Content to be as blest as we can bear:
Safe in the hands of one all-charming wife,
Calm let us tread the rugged path of life;
And, spite of truth, in fair conviction’s spite,
Still let us say, and swear, that WOMAN’S RIGHT.

Epistle II.

Know then thyself, and make the Sex thy care,
The proper study of Mankind’s the FAIR;
Plac’d in that state – which all who know thee, know
A Politician, Poet, Parson, Beau;
Created half to rise, and half to fall,
Great son of Homer – doating on a doll;
Truth’s friend so fond of female falsehood grown,
The glory, jest, and riddle of the town
Go, wond’rous creature, as Apollo leads,
And mark the Path majestic Milton treads;
The little versifiers teach to write,
Than to thy bottle and thy w… at night.
The wond’ring actors, when of late they saw
A grave Divine explain theatric law,
Admir’d the wisdom of the rev’rend cowl,
And shew’d a C…., as we shew an owl.
Has he who wrote the Rosciad e’er inclin’d
Ten days together to one female mind?
Then might thy friend be constant to his W….,
And PRIVILEGE be pleaded then no more.
Woman to man still yields (and where’s the harm?)
Who keeps her close while she has power to charm;
Then yields her to his fellow-brutes a prey:
And where’s the fault, my friend, in us, or they?
Two principles in human nature reign,
Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain:
Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
And reason yields to its supreme control:
Great strength the moving principal requires,
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires;
Sedate and quiet sense and reason lie;
We yield to passion, and from reason fly.
We seize immediate good by present sense,
And leave to fate and change the consequence;
Thicker than arguments temptations throng,
More pow’rful these, though those are ne’er so strong.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain, our aversion, pleasure our desire;
But greedy still our object to devour,
We crop, without remorse, the fairest flow’r:
Pleasure, with us, is always understood,
Howe’er obtain’d, our best and greatest good.
Passions, like elements, though born to fight,
By female pow’r subdu’d, are alter’d quite;
These ‘tis enough to temper and employ,
While what affords most pleasure, can destroy.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On different senses different objects strike;
Hence different ladies, more or less inflame;
Or different pow’rs sometimes attend the same;
And calling up each passion of the breast,
Each lady, in her turn, subdues the rest.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Imbibes the flame which ends not but with death;
The flame, that must subdue the fair at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strengths
So cast and mingled too in Woman’s frame,
Her mind’s disease, her ruling passion came.
Imagination plies her dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part:
Nature it’s mother, habit is it’s nurse,
Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse.
We wretched subjects to the female sway,
The tyrant, Woman, one and all, obey;
Who, bent to govern by her own wife rules,
Will, if she finds not, aim to make us fools;
Teach us to mourn our fate, but not to mend;
A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend!
Proud of her easy conquest all along,
She still allays our passions, weak or strong.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be;
Women are neither in a small degree;
The rogue and fool, by fits, is fair and wife,
Women are always what they most despise:
‘Tis but by parts Man follows good or ill;
Woman’s sole sovereign is her own dear will,
While ev’ry man pursues a different goal,
Womans whole aim’s unlimited control,
The faults of men, and their defects of mind,
Afford the highest joy to womankind.
See some peculiar whim each man attend;
See every Woman lab’ring to one end:
See some fit passion ev’ry man employ;
Empire alone affords the Woman joy.
Behold the Girl, by Nature’s kindly law,
Pleas’d with a rattle, tickled with a straw;
Some other bauble gives her youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite.
Dress, dancing, balls, amuse her riper age,
And drams and opiates are the toys of age;
Pleas’d with this bauble still, as that before,
‘Till tir’d, she sleeps … and life’s poor play is o’er.

Epistle III.

Oh Happiness! to which we all spire,
Wing’d with strong hope, and borne by full desire,
Oh Ease! for which in want, in wealth we sigh,
That Ease for which we labour and we die.
Why should the Female ever have the power,
To tyrannize o’er Man, and to devour?
Why should the wife, the learned, and the fool,
The brave, the rich …. submit to Woman’s rule?
As of the learn’d the cause, the learn’d are blind,
This bids us seek, that shun all Womankind;
Some place the bliss in serving one alone,
Some by a single passion are undone.
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain.
Some, swell’d to Gods … confess all pleasure vain;
Some hold the maxim others wrong would call,
To try all Women … and to doubt them all.
Oh, Sons of Men! attempt no more to rise,
But own the wond’rous force of Woman’s eyes;
Who, big with laughter, your vain toil surveys,
And shews her power a thousand diff’rent ways.
Know all the happiness we hope to find,
Depends upon the will of Womankind.
Nothing so true as Pope, long since, let fall,
“Most Women have no characters at all”;
How many pictures of one nymph we view!
All bow unlike each other … all bow true!
See Sin in state majestically drunk;
Proud as a Peeress, prouder as a punk;
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside,
A teeming mistress, but a barren bride;
In whose mad brain the mix’d ideas roll,
Of Tallboy’s breeches, and of Caesar’s soul.
Who, spite of delicacy, stoops at once,
And makes her hearty meal upon a dunce.
In Men we various ruling passions find,
In Women … two alone divide the mind;
Those only fixed, they, first or last, obey,
The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.

FINIS.

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Liberalia: A Rite of Passage
by Shawn T. Norris
July 20, 2015

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The Liberalia is the festival of Liber Pater and his consort Libera. Held 3 days after the Ides of March (17 March), the Romans celebrated Liberalia with sacrifices, processions, ribaldry and gauche songs, and masks which were hung on trees.


Liberalia Feast

This feast celebrates the passage of young boys into Roman manhood. Roman boys, usually at age 14, would give up the bulla praetexta, a hollow charm of gold or leather, which parents placed about the necks of children to ward off evil spirits.


bulla praetexta

Priests and aged priestesses, adorned with garlands of ivy, carried through the city wine, honey, cakes (libia), and sweet-meats, together with an altar with a handle (ansata ara). In the middle of the ansata ara there was a small fire-pan (foculus), in which from time to time sacrifices were burnt.

The fathers of the young men took them to the city’s Forum and presented them as adults and Citizens. This was in the days when male rites of passage were encouraged.


To the Forum

An infans (infant) was incapable of doing any legal act. An impubes (under-age), who had passed the limits of infantia (childhood), could do any legal act with the Auctoritas (Authority) of his tutor.

Without such Auctoritas the boy could only do those acts which were for his benefit. With the attainment of pubertas, a person obtained the full power of his property, and the Tutela ceased. The now Roman Citizen could also dispose of his property by will, and he could contract marriage.

At the Liberalia ceremony the young men might place the bulla on an altar. Along with the bulla might be a lock of hair or the stubble from the boy’s first shave which would then be dedicated to the Lares, who were gods of the household and family.


Liberalia

Mothers often retrieved the discarded bulla praetexta and kept it out of superstition. If the son ever achieved a Triumphus, the mother could display the bulla to ward off any evil that might be wished upon the son by envious people.

The young men discarded the Etruscan-derived toga praetexta, which was decorated with a broad purple border and worn by boys and girls. The boys then donned the clothing of adulthood, the pure white toga virilis (Man’s Gown). The garment identified him as a citizen of Rome, making him an eligible voter.


toga virilis

Over time this feast evolved and included more the goddess Libera, and the feast divided so that Liber governed the male seed and Libera the female. Ovid in his almanac entry for the festival identifies Libera as the celestial manifestation of Ariadne.


bacchae team

This ancient ceremony was a country or rustic ceremony. The processional featured a large phallus which the devotees carried throughout the countryside to bring the blessing of fertility to the land and the people. The procession and the phallus were meant also to protect the crops from evil.

At the end of the procession, a virtuous and respected matron placed a wreath upon the phallus.

While Liberalia is a relatively unknown event in the modern time, references to Liberalia and the Roman goddess Libera are still found today online and in astrology.

It seems that Liberalia would be similar to the Jewish tradition of Bar and Bat Mitzvah, or the Latin American Quinceañera.

All across the world rites of passage, for young men or women, are quite important. It’s not really how it is celebrated simply that it is indeed celebrated.


dionysus pillar_hires

Liberalia may not have been the biggest of Roman parties, but it was definitely one that was to be enjoyed by Rome’s newest Citizens.

We hope you enjoyed this little party and look forward to having you back again soon. Till next time, Don’t Stop Rome-ing!

_______________

References:

T.P. Wiseman, Remus: a Roman myth, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

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Accusing your enemy of that which you are guilty – The CIA and the “fake news” conspiracy.
by Sean Stinson
The AIM Network: The Australian Independent Media Network
December 27, 2016

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“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” – William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

In 1933, Joseph Goebbels, following closely the recommendations of Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, created some of the most effective propaganda the world has ever seen. Bernays’ prescription demanded the complete domination of communications media to stamp out any opposing view, the participation of artisans, celebrities, academic authorities and community leaders to influence popular opinion at a group level, and a Freudian appeal to base instincts – the need for food and shelter, community and leadership, and the influence of entertainment and fashion – to promote conformity among the German populace.

By now we are all familiar with the idea of German propaganda. In the West it is known by a more polite euphemism, public relations. PR is a lucrative business, with scores of non-government organisations competing for their share of generous funding. Once the province of legacy media such as Voice Of America, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Iraq, Radio Free Afghanistan, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and Radio/TV Marti, today it comprises think tanks, print media, arts and entertainment, the humanitarian-industrial complex, as well as new technology platforms such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia, and a plethora of so-called independent media outlets and ‘fact checking’ sites and apps.

The emergence of strategic communications as a soft power option combines psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs under a single umbrella. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), working in cooperation with George Soros’ [False Flag Factories] Open Societies, currently has a budget of US$40m to provide aid to so called ‘independent media organisations’ in 30 countries, including trouble spots such as Syria and Ukraine. The National Endowment for Democracy, set up by former CIA director William Casey under the Reagan Administration to help finance “perception management”, also receives tens of millions in federal funding, as do various “humanitarian NGOs” such as Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and AVAAZ, who control Syria’s White Helmets.

Douglas Valentine, author of The Phoenix Program describes the CIA as “the organized crime branch of the US government, [which] functions like the Mafia through its old boy network of complicit media hacks.” “When it comes to the CIA and the press,” he writes, “one hand washes the other. To have access to informed officials, reporters frequently suppress or distort stories. In return, CIA officials leak stories to reporters to whom they owe favors.”

Less talked about is the agency’s relationship with Madison Avenue and Hollywood. From Animal Farm to Three Days of the Condor, from the thinly veiled torture advertisement Zero Dark Thirty to glamorised fictions like JJ Abrams abysmal Alias, it has often sought to influence popular opinion and whitewash its own reputation through popular media. Orwell’s Ministry of Truth is all around us, even if most of us fail to see it in a present day context. For a better understanding of how we have been bamboozled however, we need only look into the recent past.



The Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the CIA, was responsible for running psychological operations in the European theatre during WWII. Its network of journalists, editors, book publishers and stringers was carried over to the new agency under the oversight of Frank Wisner in 1948. The 1975 Church Committee congressional hearing revealed that the CIA maintained a network of several hundred individuals around the world who provided intelligence to the agency and sought to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda, while domestically it spent the equivalent of $1bn a year in today’s money in under-the-table bribes to major American news outlets to act as government gatekeepers. Chief among these were the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, Newsweek, the New York Herald Tribune, and Time Magazine. In his autobiography, convicted Watergate co-conspirator and former CIA officer E Howard Hunt also identifies ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, UPI, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, and Scripps-Howard as key players.

The close relationship between the CIA and the news media is examined in detail in former Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein’s 1977 Rolling Stone cover story entitled The CIA and the Media – How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up. Of particular interest is the close relationship between then NYT director Arthur Hays Sulzberger and CIA director Allen Dulles. While many of the CIA’s relationships with the press were informal, Sulzberger actually signed secrecy agreements with the agency. Given this history it is little wonder that there has never been an article in the Times questioning the Warren Report and clandestine operations such as Mockingbird, Gladio and Condor, or casting doubt on the official story of 9/11.

While maintaining the appearance of objectivity, news outlets such as Washington Post and the New York Times have been crucial in establishing consensus where military intervention has been desired. The Post was the first to report that Iraq was hiding WMD in 2002-2003, a claim which has since been revealed as a complete fabrication. The previous Iraq war as it happens was also based on a lie, specifically the testimony of a young woman who went only by the name Nayira, who claimed she had been a volunteer at Kuwait’s al-Adan hospital and had seen Iraqi troops pull babies from incubators, leaving them to die on the floor. It was later revealed that Nayira was the daughter of a Kuwaiti official who had been coached in her lines by New York PR firm Hill & Knowlton. Sadly, the story was swallowed hook line and sinker by the corporate press, resulting in the massacre of 130,000 retreating Iraqi soldiers by US and British forces on the infamous Highway of Death.

Recent history is full of examples of such official conspiracies, from the Gulf of Tonkin to the USS Liberty, from CIA black sites to mass surveillance. Indeed the very term “conspiracy theory” was first adopted by the CIA to discredit public skepticism around the obvious cover up of the Kennedy assassination by the Warren Commission. Today, as “official versions” lose traction with an increasingly cynical public, the intelligence community are becoming more desperate in their attempts to discredit truth seekers. Most recently, and quite ironically, any dissent from official US government positions as reported by its corporate media gatekeepers has been labelled as “fake news” or “weaponised information”.

Just as they did with the Warren Commission, the intelligence community are now using a pejorative label to discredit anyone who dares challenge their crimes and cover-ups. As part of a broader psychological operation aimed at silencing dissident voices, US Congress and the European Parliament are introducing bills to combat, among other things, “Russian propaganda”. At the same time newly formed anonymous group PropOrNot has recently published a McCarthyist black list of 200 ‘fake news’ websites including many well established and reputable journals such as WikiLeaks, CounterPunch, Truth-Out, Truth-dig, Consortium News, South Front, Black Agenda Report, Films For Action, New Eastern Outlook, Global Research and others. At a time when doublethink, cognitive dissonance, conformity, and groupthink have replaced healthy skepticism, this move toward internet censorship sets a dangerous and sinister precedent.

Despite almost complete control of mainstream media, evidence which disproves and discredits official conspiracies is plentiful. Anyone who has seen the Zapruda film knows that Kennedy was not shot from behind, disproving the lone gunman theory. And yet the crime was covered up in plain view, and those responsible never prosecuted. Similarly the collapse of WTC 7 into a pile of fine dust puts the lie to the argument that 9/11 was anything but a planned demolition using explosives. Despite the refusal of many to accept proven facts surrounding the events of 9/11, it is inarguable that these attacks were used as a pretext to launch a war which has upturned the Muslim world and justifiably set entire populations against the West; which has created more acts of terror than it ever purported to avenge; and from which nobody has benefited except arms manufacturers and oil companies.

And now the same intelligence community have the unmitigated gall to tell us that Vladimir Putin sought to influence the outcome of the US presidential election through a network of dissident news sites and that this has the potential to undermine faith in democracy in the West. If this claim is not ridiculous enough, we’re also invited to believe that Putin is actively promoting white supremacist neo-nazis in Hungary and France. Need we be reminded how well things worked out for Russia the last time white supremacists came to power in Europe?

So the agency which has a proven record of lying about just about everything now wants to censor our newsfeeds to keep us safe from false and misleading information. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. As best as one can make out, the authority to label as “fake news” anything which doesn’t fit the approved mainstream narrative seems to derive from the moral right to be obeyed – the “because I said so” argument, or the “argument from authority”. The whole thing would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous. The argument from authority can be easily countered with sound reasoning based on agreed facts, but what happens in a post-fact internet space where truth is defined as anything which suits the purposes of US government, NATO and other Western interests, and everything else is picked up by our spam filters?

Obviously any determination as to what is fake or real must be based in methodology rather than ideology. The “because I said so” argument may work on small children, but it rather begs the question – official news channels are eminently qualified to report the news, in virtue of being official news channels! Fortunately it is possible to assess factual claims based on a number of criteria other than questioning the authority of the source (attacking the messenger.) Does it match with our own observations? Is it consistent with other known facts? Can it be independently verified? Is it simply an opinion or editorial piece masquerading as news? Arguments of the form “small government is good for the economy” are obviously not based in observable fact and therefore cannot be proven or disproven. Arguments such as “Regime barrel bombs kill dozens in Aleppo hospital strike”, on the other hand, are ‘factual’ claims which require serious interrogation and critical thinking, faculties which have fallen conspicuously out of fashion among modern consumers of mass media.

[admin]

‘In the Politburo, they were ready to betray, besmirch, and defile’ Now you can watch a previously never-before-seen interview with Boris Yeltsin from June 1990
by Medusa Project
February 6, 2018

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Alexander Cheparukhin, a music promoter and the founder of Greenwave Music (which has organized performances in Russia by Michael Nyman, Kraftwerk, Kronos Quartet, and others), recently shared a previously unreleased video interview from June 1990 with Boris Yeltsin in honor of what would have been the late president’s 87th birthday. An environmental activist at the time, Cheparukhin spoke to Yeltsin aboard a train car headed from Moscow to Riga. Austrian journalist Werner Kreutler was along for the ride. Just days earlier, Yeltsin had been elected to serve as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Meduza summarizes this new footage of Boris Yeltsin.

On Facebook, Alexander Cheparukhin described the interview in detail, writing about his ecological projects from the Perestroika period, which allowed him to start traveling abroad. During that time, he was also involved with a group that assisted sick children, and part of his work included bringing children with leukemia from Minsk to Europe for treatment. This is how he met the Austrian journalist Werner Kreutler. They began reporting on politics together and both became Boris Yeltsin “fanatics.”

[Petr Verzilov, artist, “Voyna” group] [Alyokhina Maria Vladimorivna] worked in different volunteer organizations, she worked with child patients, she’d go to orphanages, hospitals. Masha is a real big-time humanitarian.

-- Act & Punishment: The Pussy Riot Trials, produced, written and directed by Evgeny Mitta

Pussy Riot Theatre

In December 2016, Maria Alyokhina and music producer Alexander Cheparukhin started a new project – Pussy Riot Theatre with Riot Days - a play based on Alyokhina's book Riot Days (published in UK in Summer 2017). There are 4 people on stage: 2 women and 2 men. Maria Alyokhina herself, Kyril Masheka - her main stage partner plus Nastya and Max of the music duo AWOTT (Asian Women On The Telephone). The project is produced by Alexander Cheparukhin and directed by Yury Muravitsky - one of the leading Russian theatre directors.

-- by Kulturfabrik

[Alyokhina Maria Vladimorivna] has been involved in environmental activism with Greenpeace Russia, opposing development projects in the Khimki Forest, and was a volunteer at the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Moscow.

-- Maria Alyokhina, by Wikipedia

As Cheparukhin puts it, he was shocked by the “persecution of Yeltsin” in the late 1980s, when he was removed from his position as the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, following harsh criticism from the party leadership. “This was a personal tragedy for me. Before this, the country’s movement towards freedom seemed irreversible,” remembers Cheparukhin. He and Kreutler dreamed of interviewing Yeltsin in order to tell his story to the West, but Yeltsin refused to speak with journalists.

After Yeltsin was elected chairman of Soviet Russia’s Supreme Council in late May of 1990, Cheparukhin tried once again. Through a friend named Valentin Yumashev, the journalist who co-authored Yeltsin’s autobiography, “Confessions on a Given Topic” (translated into English as “Boris Yeltsin: Against the Grain”), Cheparukhin learned that Yeltsin would soon take a train from Moscow to Riga. He also found out that Alexander Korzhakov, Yeltsin’s bodyguard, could help arrange an interview. Cheparukhin and Kreutler managed to board the train illegally — literally jumping onto a railcar step as the train departed. They explained the situation to Korzhakov and just “five minutes later” they were sitting with Yeltsin and filming an interview.

“The Austrian newspaper Kurier did an entire spread on the interview and our reporting. Nearly every publication around the world reprinted the story. This was Yeltsin’s first interview in years,” Cheparukhin recalls. In the interview, Yeltsin talked about upcoming reforms, the rejection of an “all-union bureaucracy” (which he called a “dismantling” of the whole administrative command system), and the creation of a committee for public safety to replace the KGB. “Not ‘national’ but public. And it won’t have the functions currently performed by the KGB that scare most of our people,” Yeltsin explained.

Cheparukhin also asked Yeltsin an emotional, “personal” question about his experience at the Communist Party Central Committee’s October 1987 plenum, where he spoke out publicly against the party’s leadership and was promptly condemned for doing so.

“For me, those two and half years were the hardest of my life. The hardest. I spent a lot of that time feeling sick and enormously anxious,” Yeltsin said. “It was so hard because, when I joined the party, I too believed in its ideals. I joined with the complete certainty that I was really going to participate in our country’s spiritual and humanistic rebirth. After working in the Politburo for two years, however, I realized that many of these people aren’t the brains, the honor, or the conscience of the party or our people. And they aren’t our country’s great intellectuals, either. The people there were ready to betray, besmirch, and defile for the sake of their jobs and for the sake of their career prospects.”

The journalists also asked Yeltsin why it would be another year before Russia would elect its first president. He answered: “We need to draft a new constitution, and all Russia’s peoples need to prepare for free, direct elections by secret ballots. That’s the whole point.”

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Appeal of the Initiators of "The Green Wave" of Voluntary Ecological Action*
by Alexander Cheparukhin, Chairman
Cambridge University Press
March 12, 1988
© Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1988

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To live in harmony with Nature and with each other has always been, and remains, the eternal aspiration of Mankind. Today this aspiration is clouded by the threat of nuclear war and global ecological catastrophe, while the destruction of Nature and of cultural values is evoking ever-greater protest. Now the time has come for concrete, constructive action.

We, representatives of the Association of Soviet Esperanto-speakers, of the Union of Soviet Societies of Friendship and Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries, of the Association "Ecology & Peace,", of the Soviet Peace Committee, of the Soviet YCL, of the Geographical and Philosophical Societies of the USSR, of the All-Russian Society for Protecting Nature, of the Youth Environmental Council of Moscow State University, and of the Moscow Society of Explorers of Nature, propose to hold annually henceforth an International Green Wave of Voluntary Ecological Action -- beginning in April in honour of the first flight of Man into Space when, through the eyes of Yuri Gagarin, people saw for the first time our Planet as their common and only home, and ending on World Environment Day (5 June).

The ecological actions entitled "The Waves of Peace" provided the model for "The Green Wave." Social organizations of the USSR and other countries, and the inhabitants of many towns and villages, took part in them. On that day of 10 October 1986, in a park in Moscow, the First International Ecological Subbotnik took place. Several thousand volunteers came to help in the park, tidying the area, planting trees, taking part in ecological discussions, and unanimously adopting an appeal to save the Losiny Ostrov area.

We call upon all, to whom the fates of peace and Nature are dear, to restart "The Green Wave" as early as possible in April of each year. Look for like-minded people and a situation that requires your remedial efforts. It may be a major feature such as a national park, a limited one such as a grove of trees or a stream, or no more than a bush in a courtyard -- any part of living Nature that needs your care.

We hope to hear soon of the good deeds of The Green Wave. Let us do all we possibly can, so that in the coming years our movement may become a truly global one, actively backing-up our slogan of "acting locally but thinking globally." For the smallest unit of Nature is still a part of our life-supporting Biosphere, and consequently may be important.

ALEXANDER CHEPARUKHIN, Chairman
Moscow State University Youth Council on Nature Protection and of the Greenwave Youth Ecology Club
Moscow State University
Leninsky Gori
119899 Moscow, USSR.

_______________

Note:

* Edited version of a handwritten petition handed to us by a courageous young man who mounted the platform at the end of the Vernadsky Commemoration "Round Table" in the Culture-Hall of Moscow State University on the evening of 12 March 1988, which was the 125th Annivarsary of V.I. Vernadsky Foundation -- see also the account on page 177 of our Summer issue and the illustrated report on pp. 187-9 of the same, preceding issue. -- Ed.

Alexander Cheparukhin is a music producer and promoter. Founder and director of GreenWave Music - Moscow based company, which is a combination of a record label, artist management and show/festival production. Manager and record producer of internationally acclaimed quartet Huun-Huur-Tu from the Republic of Tuva. Founder and artistic director of the number of musical festivals including “Creation of Peace” (Kazan, Tatarstan, since 2008, about 200 000 – 250 000 visitors every year), “Movement Fest” (Perm region), “Music of Freedom” (Perm), “Gogolfest” (Perm), Sayan Ring (South Siberia), Viva Cuba! (Moscow). Mr. Cheparukhin produced many shows and festival programs in more than 40 countries, including United Kingdom (where he co-produced East Winds Series of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and X-Bloc Reunion in London (festival of new music of ex-USSR and Eastern Europe). Organiser of the Russian and ex-USSR tours of many international artists, including John Fogerty, Brian Wilson, Patti Smith, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Kraftwerk, Kronos Quartet, John McLaughlin, Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, John Zorn, Manu Chao, Gogol Bordello, Buena Vista Social Club, Public Image Ltd etc.

-- by Greenwavemusic.ru

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History of Esperanto
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/9/18

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L. L. Zamenhof developed Esperanto in the 1870s and 80s and published the first publication about it, Unua Libro, in 1887. The number of Esperanto speakers has grown gradually since then, although it has not had much support from governments and international organizations and has sometimes been outlawed or otherwise suppressed.

Standardized Yiddish

Around 1880, while in Moscow and approximately simultaneously with working on Esperanto, Zamenhof made an aborted attempt to standardize Yiddish, based on his native Bialystok (Northeastern) dialect, as a unifying language for the Jews of the Russian Empire. He even used a Latin alphabet, with the letters ć, h́, ś, ź (the same as in early drafts of Esperanto, later ĉ, ĥ, ŝ, ĵ) and ě for schwa. However, he concluded there was no future for such a project, and abandoned it, dedicating himself to Esperanto as a unifying language for all humankind.[1] Paul Wexler proposed that Esperanto was not an arbitrary pastiche of major European languages but a Latinate relexification of Yiddish, a native language of its founder.[2] This model is generally unsupported by mainstream linguists.[3]

Development of the language before publication

Zamenhof would later say that he had dreamed of a world language since he was a child. At first he considered a revival of Latin, but after learning it in school he decided it was too complicated to be a common means of international communication. When he learned English, he realised that verb conjugations were unnecessary, and that grammatical systems could be much simpler than he had expected. He still had the problem of memorising a large vocabulary, until he noticed two Russian signs labelled Швейцарская (švejtsarskaja, a porter's lodge – from швейцар švejtsar, a porter) and Кондитерская (konditerskaja, a confectioner's shop – from кондитер konditer, a confectioner). He then realised that a judicious use of affixes could greatly decrease the number of root words needed for communication. He chose to take his vocabulary from Romance and Germanic, the languages that were most widely taught in schools around the world and would therefore be recognisable to the largest number of people.

Zamenhof taught an early version of the language to his high-school classmates. Then, for several years, he worked on translations and poetry to refine his creation. In 1895 he wrote, "I worked for six years perfecting and testing the language, even though it had seemed to me in 1878 that it was already completely ready." When he was ready to publish, the Czarist censors would not allow it. Stymied, he spent his time in translating works such as the Bible and Shakespeare. This enforced delay led to continued improvement. In July 1887 he published his Unua Libro (First Book), a basic introduction to the language. This was essentially the language spoken today.

Unua Libro to Declaration of Boulogne (1887–1905)

Unua Libro was published in 1887. At first the movement grew most in the Russian empire and eastern Europe, but soon spread to western Europe and beyond: to Argentina in 1889; to Canada in 1901; to Algeria, Chile, Japan, Mexico, and Peru in 1903; to Tunisia in 1904; and to Australia, the United States, Guinea, Indochina, New Zealand, Tonkin, and Uruguay in 1905.

In its first years Esperanto was used mainly in publications by Zamenhof and early adopters like Antoni Grabowski, in extensive correspondence (mostly now lost), in the magazine La Esperantisto, published from 1889 to 1895 and only occasionally in personal encounters.

In 1894, under pressure from Wilhelm Trompeter, the publisher of the magazine La Esperantisto, and some other leading users, Zamenhof reluctantly put forward a radical reform to be voted on by readers. He proposed the reduction of the alphabet to 22 letters (by eliminating the accented letters and most of their sounds), the change of the plural to -i, the use of a positional accusative instead of the ending -n, the removal of the distinction between adjectives and adverbs, the reduction of the number of participles from six to two, and the replacement of the table of correlatives with more Latinate words or phrases. These reforms were overwhelmingly rejected, but some were picked up in subsequent reforms (such as Ido) and criticisms of the language. In the following decade Esperanto spread into western Europe, especially France. By 1905 there were already 27 magazines being published (Auld 1988).

A small international conference was held in 1904, leading to the first world congress in August 1905 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. There were 688 Esperanto speakers present from 20 nationalities. At this congress, Zamenhof officially resigned his leadership of the Esperanto movement, as he did not want personal prejudice against himself (or anti-Semitism) to hinder the progress of the language. He proposed a declaration on founding principles of the Esperanto movement, which the attendees of the congress endorsed.

Declaration of Boulogne to present (1905–present)

World congresses have been held every year since 1905, except during the two World Wars.

The autonomous territory of Neutral Moresnet, between Belgium and Germany, had a sizable proportion of Esperanto-speakers among its small and multiethnic population. There was a proposal to make Esperanto its official language.

In the early 1920s, a great opportunity seemed to arise for Esperanto when the Iranian delegation to the League of Nations proposed that it be adopted for use in international relations, following a report by Nitobe Inazō, an official delegate of League of Nations during the 13th World Congress of Esperanto in Prague.[4] Ten delegates accepted the proposal with only one voice against, the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux. Hanotaux did not like how the French language was losing its position as the international language and saw Esperanto as a threat. However, two years later the League recommended that its member states include Esperanto in their educational curricula. Many people see the 1920s as the heyday of the Esperanto movement.

In 1941, the Soviet Union started performing mass arrests, deportations, and killings of many Esperantists and their relatives for fear of an anti-nationalistic movement, but it was interrupted by the Nazi invasion.[5]

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf[6] that it was created as a universal language to unite the Jewish diaspora. The creation of a Jew-free National German Esperanto League was not enough to placate the Nazis. The teaching of Esperanto was not allowed in German prisoner-of-war camps during World War II. Esperantists sometimes were able to get around the ban by convincing guards that they were teaching Italian, the language of Germany's closest ally.

In the early years of the Soviet Union, Esperanto was given a measure of government support, and an officially recognized Soviet Esperanto Association came into being.[7] However, in 1937, Stalin reversed this policy. He denounced Esperanto as "the language of spies" and had Esperantists exiled or executed. The use of Esperanto was effectively banned until 1956.[7] While Esperanto itself was not enough cause for execution, its use was extended among Jews or trade unionists and encouraged contacts with foreigners.

Fascist Italy, on the other hand, made some efforts of promoting tourism in Italy through Esperanto leaflets and appreciated the similarities of Italian and Esperanto.

Portugal's right-wing governments cracked down on the language from 1936 until the Carnation Revolution of 1974. After the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Spain cracked down on the Anarchists and Catalan nationalists among whom the speaking of Esperanto had been quite widespread; but in the 1950s, the Esperanto movement was tolerated again,[8] with Francisco Franco accepting the honorary patronage of the Madrid World Esperanto Congress.

The Cold War, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, put a damper on the Esperanto movement as well, as there were fears on both sides that Esperanto could be used for enemy propaganda. However, the language experienced something of a renaissance in the 1970s and spread to new parts of the world, such as its veritable explosion in popularity in Iran in 1975. By 1991 there were enough African Esperantists to warrant a pan-African congress. The language continues to spread, although it is not officially recognised by any country, and is part of the state educational curriculum of only a few.

Evolution of the language

The Declaration of Boulogne [1] (1905) limited changes to Esperanto. That declaration stated, among other things, that the basis of the language should remain the Fundamento de Esperanto ("Foundation of Esperanto", a group of early works by Zamenhof), which is to be binding forever: nobody has the right to make changes to it. The declaration also permits new concepts to be expressed as the speaker sees fit, but it recommends doing so in accordance with the original style.

Many Esperantists believe this declaration stabilising the language is a major reason why the Esperanto speaker community grew beyond the levels attained by other constructed languages and has developed a flourishing culture. Other constructed languages have been hindered from developing a stable speaking community by continual tinkering. Also, many developers of constructed languages have been possessive of their creation and have worked to prevent others from contributing to the language. One such ultimately disastrous case was Schleyer's Volapük. In contrast, Zamenhof declared that "Esperanto belongs to the Esperantists", and moved to the background once the language was published, allowing others to share in the early development of the language.

The grammatical description in the earliest books was somewhat vague, so a consensus on usage (influenced by Zamenhof's answers to some questions) developed over time within boundaries set by the initial outline (Auld 1988). Even before the Declaration of Boulogne, the language was remarkably stable; only one set of lexical changes were made in the first year after publication, namely changing "when", "then", "never", "sometimes", "always" from kian, tian, nenian, ian, ĉian to kiam, tiam, neniam etc., to avoid confusion with the accusative forms of kia "what sort of", tia "that sort of", etc. Thus Esperanto achieved a stability of structure and grammar similar to that which natural languages enjoy by virtue of their native speakers and established bodies of literature. One could learn Esperanto without having it move from underfoot. Changes could and did occur in the language, but only by acquiring widespread popular support; there was no central authority making arbitrary changes, as happened with Volapük and some other languages.

Modern Esperanto usage may in fact depart from that originally described in the Fundamento, though the differences are largely semantic (involving changed meaning of words) rather than grammatical or phonological. The translation given for "I like this one", in the sample phrases in the main Esperanto article, offers a significant example. According to the Fundamento, Mi ŝatas ĉi tiun would in fact have meant "I esteem this one". The traditional usage is Tiu ĉi plaĉas al mi (literally, "this one is pleasing to me"), which reflects the phrasing of most European languages (French celui-ci me plaît, Spanish éste me gusta, Russian это мне нравится [eto mnye nravitsya], German Das gefällt mir, Italian mi piace). However, the original Ĉi tiu plaĉas al mi continues to be commonly used.

For later changes to the language, see Modern evolution of Esperanto.

Dialects, reform projects and derived languages

Esperanto has not fragmented into regional dialects through natural language use. This may be because it is the language of daily communication for only a small minority of its speakers. However at least three other factors work against dialects, namely the centripetal force of the Fundamento, the unifying influence of the Plena Vortaro and its successors, which exemplified usage from the works of Zamenhof and leading writers, and the transnational ambitions of the speech community itself. Slang and jargon have developed to some extent, but such features interfere with universal communication – the whole point of Esperanto – and so have generally been avoided.

However, in the early twentieth century numerous reform projects were proposed. Almost all of these Esperantidos were stillborn, but the very first, Ido ("Offspring"), had significant success for several years. Ido was proposed by the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language in Paris in October 1907. Its main reforms were in bringing the alphabet, semantics, and some grammatical features into closer alignment with the Romance languages, as well as removal of adjectival agreement and the accusative case except when necessary. At first, a number of leading Esperantists put their support behind the Ido project, but the movement stagnated and declined, first with the accidental death of one of its main proponents and later as people proposed further changes, and the number of current speakers is estimated at between 250 and 5000. However, Ido has proven to be a rich source of Esperanto vocabulary.

Some more focused reform projects, affecting only a particular feature of the language, have gained a few adherents. One of these is riism, which modifies the language to incorporate non-sexist language and gender-neutral pronouns. However, most of these projects are specific to individual nationalities (riism from English speakers, for example), and the only changes that have gained acceptance in the Esperanto community have been the minor and gradual bottom-up reforms discussed in the last section.

Esperanto is credited with influencing or inspiring several later competing language projects, such as Occidental (1922) and Novial (1928). These always lagged far behind Esperanto in their popularity. By contrast, Interlingua (1951) has greatly surpassed Ido in terms of popularity. It shows little or no Esperanto influence, however.[9]

Timeline of Esperanto

• 1859: L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, is born in Białystok, Russia (now Poland).
• 1873: The Zamenhof family moves to Warsaw.
• 1878: Zamenhof celebrates the completion of his universal language project, Lingwe Uniwersala, with high school friends.
• 1879: Zamenhof attends medical school in Moscow. His father burns his language project while he's away. Meanwhile Schleyer publishes a sketch of Volapük, the first constructed international auxiliary language to acquire a number of speakers. Many Volapük clubs will later switch to Esperanto.
• 1881: Zamenhof returns to Warsaw to continue medical school, and starts to recreate his project.
• 1887: Zamenhof marries. In July, with his wife's financial help, he publishes Unua Libro, the first publication introducing Esperanto, in Russian. Polish, German, and French translations are published later that year.
• 1888: Leo Tolstoy becomes an early supporter. Zamenhof publishes Dua Libro, as well as the first English-language edition of Unua Libro, which proved to be filled with errors.
• 1889: The second English-language edition of Unua Libro is published in January, translated by Richard H. Geoghegan, and becomes the standard English translation. Henry Phillips, Jr., of the American Philosophical Society, also translates Unua Libro into English. The first volume of La Esperantisto is published in September. The language begins to be called Esperanto.
• 1894: Zamenhof, reacting to pressure, puts a radical reform to a vote, but it is overwhelmingly rejected. That version of Esperanto is often referred to as Esperanto 1894.
• 1895: La Esperantisto ceases publication. Lingvo Internacia begins publication in December.
• 1901: Zamenhof publishes his ideas on a universal religion, based on the philosophy of Hillel the Elder.
• 1905: Fundamento de Esperanto is published in the spring. The first World Esperanto Congress is held in Boulogne-sur-Mer, with 688 participants and conducted entirely in Esperanto. The Declaration of Boulogne is drafted and ratified at the congress.
• 1906: The second World Esperanto Congress is held in Geneva, Switzerland, drawing 1200 participants. La Revuo begins publication.
• 1907: Twelve members of the British parliament nominate Zamenhof for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Ĉekbanko Esperantista (Esperantist Checking Bank) is founded in London, using the spesmilo, an auxiliary Esperanto currency based on the gold standard. A committee organised by Louis Couturat in Paris proposes the Ido reform project, which provides significant competition for Esperanto until the First World War.
• 1908: The Universal Esperanto Association is founded by Hector Hodler, a 19-year-old Swiss Esperantist.
• 1909: The International Association of Esperantist Railway Workers is founded in Barcelona.
• 1910s: Esperanto is taught in state schools in the Republic of China, Samos, and Macedonia.
• 1910: 42 members of the French parliament nominate Zamenhof for the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 1914: Lingvo Internacia and La Revuo cease publication.
• 1917: Zamenhof dies during World War I.
• 1920: The first Esperanto magazine for the blind, Aŭroro, begins publishing in then-Czechoslovakia. It's still in print today.
• 1921: The French Academy of the Sciences recommends using Esperanto for international scientific communication.
• 1922: Esperanto is banned from French schools. The French delegate to the League of Nations vetoes the use of Esperanto as its working language, leaving English and French.
• 1924: The League of Nations recommends that member states implement Esperanto as an auxiliary language.
• 1920s: Offices of the Brazilian Ministry of Education use Esperanto for their international correspondence. Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature, becomes a supporter of Esperanto. Montagu C. Butler is the first to raise Esperanto-speaking children.
• 1933/34: Reorganisation of the international (neutral) Esperanto movement, under the name UEA.
• 1934: Encyclopedia of Esperanto first published in Budapest.
• 1935: Kalocsay and Waringhien publish the influential Plena Gramatiko de Esperanto (Complete Grammar of Esperanto).
• 1936: All Esperanto organisations in Nazi Germany prohibited.
• 1937: Leaders of the Esperanto organisation in the Soviet Union arrested; Esperanto activities made impossible.
• 1938: The World Esperanto Youth Organisation TEJO is founded.
• 1939–1945: In World War II many countries are occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union, where Esperanto organisations often were prohibited or Esperanto activities were limited in other ways.
• 1948: The railway workers' association is refounded as IFEF, the Internacia Fervojista Esperanto-Federacio (International Railway Workers' Esperanto Federation) to foster the use of Esperanto in the administration of the railroads of the world (so far, of Eurasia).
• 1954: UNESCO establishes consultative relations with the Universal Esperanto Association.
• 1966: The precursor to Pasporta Servo is launched in Argentina. Pasporta Servois a global network of Esperanto speakers who host Esperantists traveling through their countries.
• 1967: István Nemere founds the Renkontiĝo de Esperanto-Familioj, the first organisation for Esperanto-speaking families.
• 1975: The Esperanto movement spreads to Iran, with three thousand learning the language in Tehran.
• 1980: The Internacia Junulara Kongreso (International Youth Congress) in Rauma, Finland ratify the Manifesto of Rauma, articulating the view of many in the Esperanto movement that Esperanto is a goal in itself.
• 1985: UNESCO encourages UN member states to add Esperanto to their school curricula.
• 1987: 6000 Esperantists attend the 72nd World Esperanto Congress in Warsaw, marking Esperanto's centennial.
• 1991: The first pan-African Esperanto Conference is held in Lomé, Togo.
• 1992: PEN International accepts an Esperanto section.
• 1999: The Esperanto poet William Auld is nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 2001: The Vikipedio project (Esperanto Wikipedia) is launched, resulting in the first general encyclopedia written in a constructed language. It is now one of the most popular websites in Esperanto.
• 2004: The Europe–Democracy–Esperanto party (E°D°E°) contests the European Parliament elections in France, on a platform of making Esperanto the second language of all EU member states, taking 0.15% of the vote.
• 2007: Israel issues a stamp to commemorate 120 years of Esperanto (1887–2007). An image of Zamenhof is designed in a text describing his life, reproduced from the Wikipedia article on Esperanto. The corner of the tab shows the flag of the Esperanto movement.
• 2009: The Senate of Brazil passed a bill which would make Esperanto an optional part of the curriculum in its state schools. As of 2010 the bill has not yet been passed by the Chamber of Deputies.[10][11][12]
• 2015: The 100th World Esperanto Congress is held in Lille, France. Duolingolaunches its Esperanto program.
• 2017: Amikumu is officially launched, connecting Esperantists with other local Esperantists everywhere.

References

1. Christer Kiselman, "Esperanto: Its origins and early history", in Andrzej Pelczar, ed., 2008, Prace Komisji Spraw Europejskich PAU, vol. II, pp. 39–56, Krakaw.
2. Wexler, Paul (2002). Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect. De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 9783110898736.
3. Bernard Spolsky,The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History, Cambridge University Press, 2014 pp.157,180ff. p.183
4. http://www.esperanto.ie/en/zaft/zaft_2.html
5. Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto, 1887-2007. Mondial. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-59569-090-6.
6. Adolf Hitler (1941). "Mein Kampf (Reynal And Hitchcock English edition)". Volume 1, Chapter XI, page 423. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
7. Donald J. Harlow, The Esperanto Book, chapter 7 Archived 1 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
8. La utilización del esperanto durante la Guerra Civil Española, Toño del Barrio and Ulrich Lins. Paper for the International Congress on the Spanish Civil War, (Madrid, 27–29 November 2006).
9. Malmkjaer, Kirsten (2004-01-08). Linguistics Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 113. ISBN 9781134596997.
10. PLS 27/08 (Senate).
11. PL-6162/2009 (Chamber of Deputies).
12. Entidades manifestam apoio à proposta de incluir ensino de Esperanto na grade de disciplinas da rede pública (Portuguese) Agência Senado

Bibliography

• Gobbo, Federico, Is It Possible for All People to Speak the Same Language? The Story of Ludwik Zamenhof and Esperanto (PDF).
• Auld, William. La Fenomeno Esperanto. Rotterdam: UEA, 1988.
• Lins, Ulrich. La Danĝera Lingvo. Gerlingen, Germany: Bleicher Eldonejo, 1988. (Also available in Polish [2])
• Privat, Edmond. The Life of Zamenhof. Bailieboro, Ontario: Esperanto Press, 1980.
• Zamenhof, L. L. Letero al N. Borovko. 1895.[3]

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VOKS: All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries/Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/9/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Logo of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, prominently featuring the acronym VOKS in both Cyrillic and Latin characters.

VOKS (an acronym for the Russian "Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s zagranitsei" — Всесоюзное общество культурной связи с заграницей, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries) was an entity created by the government of the Soviet Union in 1925 to promote international cultural contact between writers, composers, musicians, cinematographers, artists, scientists, educators, and athletes of the USSR with those of other countries. The organization conducted tours and conferences of such cultural workers.

Although of Soviet origin, VOKS was in fact an international organization, with parallel national branches around the world, such as the "American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia" (established 1926) and the "Society for Polish-Soviet Friendship" (established 1944). VOKS was frequently criticized by Western government officials, public intellectuals, and the press for functioning as a de facto communist propaganda organization. VOKS was restructured and renamed in 1958, replaced by a new so-called "friendship organization" known as the "Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries," which continued to exist until 1992.

Yuri Georgy Aleksandrovich Zhukov (Russian: Юрий Александрович Жуков; also Георгий Александрович Жуков; 1908-1991) was a prominent journalist and political figure in the Soviet Union.

Member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Around 1938-1945 he toured Dalkrai and wrote books on Soviet Far East and Japan.

Later, he sat on the editorial board of Soviet daily Pravda (1946-1987); he was also a columnist of the paper. Zhukov served as the newspaper's Paris correspondent in 1948-1952. From 1952 to 1957 he was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper.

In 1957 he became the first Chairman of the powerful State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (GKKS), an organ that took sizable portion of responsibilities from the Soviet Foreign Ministry from 1957 to 1967. Zhukov would oversee preparations and signing of the first agreement on cultural exchanges with the United States (Lacy-Zarubin act, signed in January 1958) and the Soviet national exhibition in New York in summer 1959. He also hosted Vice President Richard M. Nixon on an unofficial visit to the Soviet Union July 23 - August 2, 1959 to open the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park in Moscow.

-- Yuri Zhukov (journalist), by Wikipedia

Organizational history

Establishment and structure


Olga Davidovna Kameneva, sister of Leon Trotsky, was the first chief of VOKS, holding the post of chair (predsedatel) from 1925 until 1930.

VOKS, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, was established in Moscow in 1925 as a mechanism to coordinate cultural contact between Soviet cultural workers and intellectuals and their peers in the capitalist countries of the West. Planning for the organization seems to have begun in May 1925, with a formal constitution for the society approved by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars dated August 8 of that same year.[1] According to this formal public document, VOKS was intended "to cooperate in the establishment and development of scientific and cultural relations between institutions, public organizations and individual scientific and cultural workers in the USSR and those of other countries."[1]

VOKS was subdivided by field of interest into a number of sections, including a Literary Section concentrating upon publishers and authors; a Musical and Theatrical Section for composers, musicians, actors, and playwrights; a Cinema Section for cinematographers and those concerned with film production; a Juridical Section dealing with matters of interest to jurists; and an Exhibition Section to deal with the presentation of international expositions relating to art and literature.[2] VOKS also maintained a Press Department, which published an organ called the Weekly News Bulletin in Russian, English, French, and German.[3]

Official function

The organization had both international and domestic functions, managing the activities of a growing number of "societies of friends of the Soviet Union" around the world as well as gathering information about cultural trends in the West and sponsoring direct contract between Soviet and non-Soviet cultural workers and intellectuals.[4]

From its earliest days VOKS coordinated cultural, scientific, and literary exchanges and was the organization which frequently received prominent visitors to the Soviet Union from the West and arranged their contacts with Soviet peers.[4] Inside the USSR, the organization facilitated the importation and translation of foreign scientific and literary texts and organized public presentations by artists and scholars returning from trips to the West.[3] The society also helped with currency transfers to enable Soviet scholars to join foreign academic societies, expedited the acquisition of travel visas, and assisted with the difficult process of receiving foreign books and journals through the USSR's tight net of internal censorship.[5]

Although officially launched by the Council of People's Commissars and maintaining close connections with both the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the secret police, VOKS consistently maintained the pretext of being an independent "society" rather than an official appendage of the Soviet state apparatus.[6] This semi-independent status was accentuated by the inclusion of significant numbers of non-Party intellectuals within its membership ranks.[6]

Propaganda function


As part of its propaganda efforts, VOKS published a Weekly News Bulletin in Russian, English, German, and French which featured stories about the positive achievements of Soviet medicine, literature, art, and science.

A key aspect of VOKS was its ability to put forward articulate intellectuals to defend the Russian revolution and the Soviet system in an international setting. VOKS-sponsored scientists, artists, and educators reached the general public through lectures, exhibitions, and other forms of public interaction, and were also instrumental in maintaining Moscow's influence over the network of so-called "friendship societies" across Europe and around the world, putting a learned and cultured face on a sometimes brutal revolutionary reality.

VOKS sponsored artistic exhibitions, cultural exchanges, concerts, tours, lectures, and sporting events which helped to cast the USSR in a positive and humane light. The society also published travel guides in English, German, and French and made efforts to solve problems and expedite contacts for foreigners traveling in the Soviet Union.[5] The successes and prestige of VOKS abroad seem to have additionally had a positive impact on shaping the attitudes of the Soviet intelligentsia during the 1920s, building support among the sometimes feisty artistic community for the new regime.[5]

The organization also served as an effective front for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence operations, as historian Svetlana Chervonnaya notes:

However, VOKS also often served as a convenient 'roof' for operations of both branches of Soviet intelligence, whose residents and operatives used opportunities provided by VOKS to establish and maintain contacts in intellectual, scientific and government circles. These contacts were, for the most part, unaware that they were dealing not with 'cultural representatives' and diplomats, but with intelligence officers.[7]

Leadership

The leading figure in VOKS from the time of its establishment until 1930 was Olga Kameneva, the sister of prominent Bolshevik Leon Trotsky and wife of Soviet leader Lev Kamenev.[4]

WOODROW WILSON AND A PASSPORT FOR TROTSKY

President Woodrow Wilson was the fairy godmother who provided Trotsky with a passport to return to Russia to "carry forward" the revolution. This American passport was accompanied by a Russian entry permit and a British transit visa. Jennings C. Wise, in Woodrow Wilson: Disciple of Revolution, makes the pertinent comment, "Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport."

President Wilson facilitated Trotsky's passage to Russia at the same time careful State Department bureaucrats, concerned about such revolutionaries entering Russia, were unilaterally attempting to tighten up passport procedures. The Stockholm legation cabled the State Department on June 13, 1917, just after Trotsky crossed the Finnish-Russian border, "Legation confidentially informed Russian, English and French passport offices at Russian frontier, Tornea, considerably worried by passage of suspicious persons bearing American passports."9

To this cable the State Department replied, on the same day, "Department is exercising special care in issuance of passports for Russia"; the department also authorized expenditures by the legation to establish a passport-control office in Stockholm and to hire an "absolutely dependable American citizen" for employment on control work.10 But the bird had flown the coop. Menshevik Trotsky with Lenin's Bolsheviks were already in Russia preparing to "carry forward" the revolution. The passport net erected caught only more legitimate birds. For example, on June 26, 1917, Herman Bernstein, a reputable New York newspaperman on his way to Petrograd to represent the New York Herald, was held at the border and refused entry to Russia. Somewhat tardily, in mid-August 1917 the Russian embassy in Washington requested the State Department (and State agreed) to "prevent the entry into Russia of criminals and anarchists... numbers of whom have already gone to Russia."11

Consequently, by virtue of preferential treatment for Trotsky, when the S.S. Kristianiafjord left New York on March 26, 1917, Trotsky was aboard and holding a U.S. passport — and in company with other Trotskyite revolutionaries, Wall Street financiers, American Communists, and other interesting persons, few of whom had embarked for legitimate business. This mixed bag of passengers has been described by Lincoln Steffens, the American Communist:

The passenger list was long and mysterious. Trotsky was in the steerage with a group of revolutionaries; there was a Japanese revolutionist in my cabin. There were a lot of Dutch hurrying home from Java, the only innocent people aboard. The rest were war messengers, two from Wall Street to Germany....12

Notably, Lincoln Steffens was on board en route to Russia at the specific invitation of Charles Richard Crane, a backer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party's finance committee. Charles Crane, vice president of the Crane Company, had organized the Westinghouse Company in Russia, was a member of the Root mission to Russia, and had made no fewer than twenty-three visits to Russia between 1890 and 1930. Richard Crane, his son, was confidential assistant to then Secretary of State Robert Lansing. According to the former ambassador to Germany William Dodd, Crane "did much to bring on the Kerensky revolution which gave way to Communism."13 And so Steffens' comments in his diary about conversations aboard the S.S. Kristianiafjord are highly pertinent: " . . . all agree that the revolution is in its first phase only, that it must grow. Crane and Russian radicals on the ship think we shall be in Petrograd for the re-revolution.14

Crane returned to the United States when the Bolshevik Revolution (that is, "the re-revolution") had been completed and, although a private citizen, was given firsthand reports of the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution as cables were received at the State Department. For example, one memorandum, dated December 11, 1917, is entitled "Copy of report on Maximalist uprising for Mr. Crane." It originated with Maddin Summers, U.S. consul general in Moscow, and the covering letter from Summers reads in part:

I have the honor to enclose herewith a copy of same [above report] with the request that it be sent for the confidential information of Mr. Charles R. Crane. It is assumed that the Department will have no objection to Mr. Crane seeing the report ....15

In brief, the unlikely and puzzling picture that emerges is that Charles Crane, a friend and backer of Woodrow Wilson and a prominent financier and politician, had a known role in the "first" revolution and traveled to Russia in mid-1917 in company with the American Communist Lincoln Steffens, who was in touch with both Woodrow Wilson and Trotsky. The latter in turn was carrying a passport issued at the orders of Wilson and $10,000 from supposed German sources. On his return to the U.S. after the "re-revolution," Crane was granted access to official documents concerning consolidation of the Bolshevik regime: This is a pattern of interlocking — if puzzling — events that warrants further investigation and suggests, though without at this point providing evidence, some link between the financier Crane and the revolutionary Trotsky.

-- Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony C. Sutton

Kameneva was followed in 1930 by Fedor Nikolaevich Petrov, a college educated Old Bolshevik who had worked previously in the Soviet bureaucracy in the Main Directorate for Scientific, Artistic, Museum, Theatrical, and Literary Institutions and Organizations (Glavnauka), part of the People's Commissariat for Education.[4]

In 1934 Petrov was replaced as head of VOKS by Alexander Arosev, a writer and former Ambassador to Czechoslovakia who was a longtime acquaintance of Joseph Stalin's right-hand man, V.M. Molotov.[4] Arosev would run afoul of the secret police in 1937 during the Terror of 1937-38. He was replaced by Viktor Fedorovich Smirnov, who remained as head of VOKS until 1940.

Viktor Smirnov would be followed by just three other chairs of VOKS and its successor organization during the entire decades of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and the first half of the 1970s — Vladimir Kemenov (1940 to 1948), Andrei Denisov (1948 to 1957), and Nina Popova (1957 to 1975).

VOKS in the 1950s

By 1957 so-called "friendship societies" had been established in 47 countries, all of which were coordinated by VOKS.[7]

In America, VOKS gained new notoriety in the 1950s when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy accused journalist Edward R. Murrow of colluding with the organization on the CBS television program See It Now.[8]

From VOKS to SSOD

In 1958, VOKS was reorganized as a new entity called the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Contacts (SSOD).[7] The new SSOD continued to fulfill the role previously played by VOKS until it was disbanded in 1992, in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of the previous year.[7]

An official government agency for international cultural affairs followed in the post-communist period, called since 1994 the "Russian Center for International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation of the Government of the Russian Federation."[7]

Overseas counterparts

American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia

The American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia was established 1926 and organized in 1927, with offices at 49 East 25th Street, New York, NY.[9]

In the exchange of books on cultural and technical subjects with learned societies, universities and Government departments in foreign countries has reached considerable proportions, the USA sent more than 48,000 volumes, representing some 60 percent of the exchange.[9]

As of 1928, members included:

Officers:

• President: William Allan Neilson
• Vice Presidents: John Dewey, Stephen P. Duggan, Floyd Dell, Leopold Stokowski, Lillian D. Wald
• Treasurer: Allen [Alan] Wardwell
• Secretary: Lucy Branham

In New York the socialist "X" club was founded in 1903. It counted among its members not only the Communist Lincoln Steffens, the socialist William English Walling, and the Communist banker Morris Hillquit, but also John Dewey,

-- Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony C. Sutton

The 1917 American Red Cross Mission to Russia

Alan [Allen] Wardwell, also a deputy commissioner and secretary to the chairman, was a lawyer with the law firm of Stetson, Jennings & Russell of 15 Broad Street, New York City, and H. B. Redfield was law secretary to Wardwell. Major Wardwell was the son of William Thomas Wardwell, long-time treasurer of Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York. The elder Wardwell was one of the signers of the famous Standard Oil trust agreement, a member of the committee to organize Red Cross activities in the Spanish American War, and a director of the Greenwich Savings Bank. His son Alan [Allen] was a director not only of Greenwich Savings, but also of Bank of New York and Trust Co. and the Georgian Manganese Company (along with W. Averell Harriman, a director of Guaranty Trust). In 1917 Alan [Allen] Wardwell was affiliated with Stetson, Jennings & Russell and later joined Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardner & Read (Frank L. Polk was acting secretary of state during the Bolshevik Revolution period). The Senate Overman Committee noted that Wardwell was favorable to the Soviet regime although Poole, the State Department official on the spot, noted that "Major Wardwell has of all Americans the widest personal knowledge of the terror" (316-23-1449). In the 1920s Wardwell became active with the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in promoting Soviet trade objectives.

The treasurer of the mission was James W. Andrews, auditor of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company of St. Louis. Robert I. Barr, another member, was listed as a deputy commissioner; he was a vice president of Chase Securities Company (120 Broadway) and of the Chase National Bank. Listed as being in charge of advertising was William Cochran of 61 Broadway, New York City. Raymond Robins, a mining promoter, was included as a deputy commissioner and described as "a social economist." Finally, the mission included two members of Swift & Company of Union Stockyards, Chicago. The Swifts have been previously mentioned as being connected with German espionage in the United States during World War I. Harold H. Swift, deputy commissioner, was assistant to the vice president of Swift & Company; William G. Nicholson was also with Swift & Company, Union Stockyards.

Two persons were unofficially added to the mission after it arrived in Petrograd: Frederick M. Corse, representative of the National City Bank in Petrograd; and Herbert A. Magnuson, who was "very highly recommended by John W. Finch, the confidential agent in China of Colonel William B. Thompson."4

-- Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony C. Sutton

Board:

• Chairman of the Executive Committee: Graham R. Taylor
• Members: Thomas L. Cotton, Jerome Davis, Ernestine Evans, Mrs. Norman Hapgood, Arthur Garfield Hays, Horace Liveright, Underhill Moore, Ernest M. Patterson, James N. Rosenbeg, Lee Simonson, Edgard Varese, above-mentioned officers

• Executive Committee: Thomas L. Cotton, Stephen P. Duggan, Ernestine Evans, Mrs. Norman Hapgood, Lee Simonson, Graham R. Taylor, Lillian D. Wald, Allen Wardwell
• Advisory Council: Jane Addams, Carl Alsberg, Franz Boas, Phillips Bradley, Stuart Chase, Haven Emerson, Zona Gale, Frank Goler, Mrs. J. Borden Harrison, David Starr Jordan, Alexander Kaun, Susan Kingsbury, Julia Lathrop, William Allen White, Eva Le Gallienne, Howard Scott Liddell, E. C. Lindeman, Robert Littell, H. Adolphus Miller, Boardman Robinson, Clarence C. Stein, Lucy Textor, Wilbur K. Thomas, Harry Ward, Lucy Wilson[9]

Polish–Soviet Friendship Society

The Society for Polish-Soviet Friendship (in Polish, Towarzystwo Przyjaźni Polsko-Radzieckiej or TPPR) was established 1944.[10]

Legacy

The papers of VOKS are housed in Moscow at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF).[7]

See also

• Intourist

Footnotes

1. O.D. Kameneva, "Cultural Rapprochement: The U.S.S.R. Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries," Pacific Affairs, vol. 1, no. 5 (Oct. 1928), pg. 6.
2. Kameneva, "Cultural Rapprochement," pg. 7.
3. Kameneva, "Cultural Rapprochement," pg. 8.
4. Michael David-Fox, "From Illusory 'Society' to Intellectual 'Public': VOKS, International Travel and Party-Intelligentsia Relations in the Interwar Period," Contemporary European History, vol. 11, no. 1 (Feb. 2002), pg. 10.
5. David-Fox, "From Illusory 'Society' to Intellectual 'Public,'" pg. 13.
6. David-Fox, "From Illusory 'Society' to Intellectual 'Public,'" pg. 11.
7. Svetlana Chervonnaya, "VOKS," Documents Talk: A Non-definitive History, 2008, http://www.documentstalk.com/
8. "Senator Joseph R. McCarthy: Reply to Edward R. Murrow (See it Now)". CBS-TV. 6 April 1954.
9. "Society for Cultural Relations". Marxists.org. 1928. Retrieved 27 December2013.
10. Mevius, Martin (2013). The Communist Quest for National Legitimacy in Europe, 1918-1989. Routledge. p. 73.

Further reading

• Frederick C. Barghoorn, "Soviet Cultural Diplomacy since Stalin," Russian Review, vol. 17, no. 1 (Jan. 1958), pp. 41–55. In JSTOR
• Frederick C. Barghoorn, "Soviet Cultural Effort," Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, vol. 29, no. 3 (March 1969), pp. 156–169. in JSTOR
• Michael David-Fox, "From Illusory 'Society' to Intellectual 'Public': VOKS, International Travel and Party-Intelligentsia Relations in the Interwar Period," Contemporary European History, vol. 11, no. 1 (Feb. 2002), pp. 7–32. In JSTOR
• O. D. Kameneva, "Cultural Rapprochement: The U.S.S.R. Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries," Pacific Affairs, vol. 1, no. 5 (Oct. 1928), pp. 6–8. In JSTOR
• Susan Gross Solomon and Nikolai Krementsov, "Giving and Taking Across Borders: The Rockefeller Foundation and Russia, 1919-1928," Minerva, vol. 39, no. 3 (2001), pp. 265–298. In JSTOR
• Ludmila Stern, Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920-40: From Red Square to the Left Bank. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007.

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Allen Wardwell
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/9/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Allen Wardwell (1873–1953), was a banking law expert, vice president of the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce in 1929, and a name partner of the law firm today known as Davis Polk & Wardwell.[1]

Wardwell graduated from Yale University in 1895 and was a member of Scroll and Key Society. He also graduated from Harvard Law School.[2] He served as a Major in the American Red Cross in Russia.

The 1917 American Red Cross Mission to Russia

Alan [Allen] Wardwell, also a deputy commissioner and secretary to the chairman, was a lawyer with the law firm of Stetson, Jennings & Russell of 15 Broad Street, New York City, and H. B. Redfield was law secretary to Wardwell. Major Wardwell was the son of William Thomas Wardwell, long-time treasurer of Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York. The elder Wardwell was one of the signers of the famous Standard Oil trust agreement, a member of the committee to organize Red Cross activities in the Spanish American War, and a director of the Greenwich Savings Bank. His son Alan [Allen] was a director not only of Greenwich Savings, but also of Bank of New York and Trust Co. and the Georgian Manganese Company (along with W. Averell Harriman, a director of Guaranty Trust). In 1917 Alan [Allen] Wardwell was affiliated with Stetson, Jennings & Russell and later joined Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Gardner & Read (Frank L. Polk was acting secretary of state during the Bolshevik Revolution period). The Senate Overman Committee noted that Wardwell was favorable to the Soviet regime although Poole, the State Department official on the spot, noted that "Major Wardwell has of all Americans the widest personal knowledge of the terror" (316-23-1449). In the 1920s Wardwell became active with the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in promoting Soviet trade objectives.

The treasurer of the mission was James W. Andrews, auditor of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company of St. Louis. Robert I. Barr, another member, was listed as a deputy commissioner; he was a vice president of Chase Securities Company (120 Broadway) and of the Chase National Bank. Listed as being in charge of advertising was William Cochran of 61 Broadway, New York City. Raymond Robins, a mining promoter, was included as a deputy commissioner and described as "a social economist." Finally, the mission included two members of Swift & Company of Union Stockyards, Chicago. The Swifts have been previously mentioned as being connected with German espionage in the United States during World War I. Harold H. Swift, deputy commissioner, was assistant to the vice president of Swift & Company; William G. Nicholson was also with Swift & Company, Union Stockyards.

Two persons were unofficially added to the mission after it arrived in Petrograd: Frederick M. Corse, representative of the National City Bank in Petrograd; and Herbert A. Magnuson, who was "very highly recommended by John W. Finch, the confidential agent in China of Colonel William B. Thompson."4

-- Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, by Antony C. Sutton

He was a member of the Active Campaign Committee of the American Society for the Control of Cancer when it received an unconditional gift of $100,000 from John D. Rockefeller Jr. for its congress at Lake Mohonk in 1926. Wardwell accompanied W. Averell Harriman in his mission to Moscow in 1941, then headed Russian War Relief Inc. in 1942. From 1943 to 1945, he served as president of the New York City Bar Association.

References

1. Allen Wardwell, Scroll & Key 1895
2. https://books.google.com/books?id=8dNBA ... 73&f=false

External links

RUSSIAN WAR RELIEF SHIFT; Allen Wardwell Replaces Miss H.L. Moore as Secretary [New York Times, January 18, 1942]

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Maria Alyokhina
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/9/18

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Maria Alyokhina in 2014
Native name Мари́я Влади́мировна Алёхина
Born Maria Vladimirovna Alyokhina
June 6, 1988 (age 30)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality Russian
Education Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing
Occupation Political activist, student, musician
Organization Pussy Riot
Criminal charge Hooliganism motivated by religious hatred
Criminal penalty 2 years imprisonment
Criminal status Released under amnesty on December 23, 2013

Born: June 6, 1988 (age 27) (1988-06-06) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

-- Maria Alyokhina, by Alchetron.com

... parents were mathematicians (her father was an academic) ...

-- Pussy Riot's Masha Alyokhina on Putin, Trump and Brexit: 'It's useless to be afraid', by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

... her father a professor at a Moscow university, her mother a programmer of “big machines, not personal ...

-- Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina Takes on Vladimir Putin

Alyokhina’s mother Natalya ...

-- Russia's Pussy Riot: Unmasked and on trial, by Alissa de Carbonnel, Maria Tsvetkova

her husband is Nikita, son is Philip, mother Natalya Alyokhina --

-- Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot, by Masha Gessen

Maria Vladimirovna "Masha" Alyokhina (Russian: Мари́я Влади́мировна Алёхина, IPA: [ɐˈlʲɵxʲɪnə]; born June 6, 1988)[1] is a Russian political activist. She is a member of the anti-Putinist[2] punk rock group Pussy Riot.

Biography

On August 17, 2012, she was convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for a performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. She has been recognized as a political prisoner by the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners.[3] Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience due to "the severity of the response of the Russian authorities."[2]

At the time of her arrest, Alyokhina was a fourth-year student at the Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing in Moscow, where she participated in a sequence of literature workshops given by the poets Dmitry Vedenyapin and Alexey Kubrik. She too is a published poet.[4] She has been involved in environmental activism with Greenpeace Russia, opposing development projects in the Khimki Forest, and was a volunteer at the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Moscow. Her son Filip was born in 2008. She is a vegan and reportedly collapsed from hunger during the trial, as no vegan meals were provided in detention.[5]

Improved Environmental Management

Citizen organizations were among the first to call attention to environmental issues in the region. By joining forces with independent media these groups became a strong voice for change. Citizen advocacy combined with USAID technical assistance has helped the development and adoption of new laws and policies in resource management. Sound environmental frameworks are now in place in many countries, including Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Groundbreaking forestry codes have been adopted in Russia. The Czech Republic and Poland have produced unprecedented levels of investments in environmental improvements....

The Power of the Eco-Press

In 1994, a group of independent journalists in Moldova had an idea that would have landed them in jail during Soviet times: start an independent magazine about the environment and raise the alarm about threats to the air, land and water. The magazine, Gazeta Natura, won small grants from USAID to buy printing equipment and expand the magazine’s reach to Romania and Ukraine. Natura quickly proved that it was a new breed of magazine. In 1995, its reporters uncovered an explosive story: Moldova’s government had secretly drafted a contract to sell 7,000 hectares of the Silva forest to a foreign firm. Natura’s editors rushed the story into print. The government threatened to shut Natura down, but it was too late. Citizen groups bombarded the government with demands for public hearings and a parliamentary investigation. The public pressure worked. The sale was canceled, and the old growth forest was preserved.

-- A Decade of Change: Profiles of USAID Assistance to Europe and Eurasia, by USAID

The largest environmental NGOs survived the 1990s, in many cases by relying on funding from foreign governments and foundations to continue their work; small grass-roots groups also persisted, working on local issues...

Within the broader environmental movement, environmental organizations tend to fall into three broad categories (Henry 2010). First, there are a limited number of “professional” environmental organizations, such as WWF and Greenpeace, which are based in Moscow or regional capitals. In the second category are grassroots environmental organizations... Finally, in the third category are a number of government-sponsored environmental NGOS that receive funding from state programs and that work closely with state agencies to help them achieve their goals....

Many environmental NGOs in Russia were able to operate in the post-Soviet period due to foreign funding for their work from governmental donors such as USAID, the UK’s DIFD, and private foundations. Larin and his co-authors describe environmentalists’ struggle to continue their work in the 1990s as state funding for nature protection declined and few domestic alternatives emerged (Larin et al. 2003). Foreign support influenced the development of the environmental movement. To survive, NGO representatives proposed projects on issues that interested foreign funders and environmentalists who had facility in foreign languages were more likely to successfully obtain grants. Contact with foreign partners offered the opportunity to exchange ideas as well as develop organizational capacity and new kinds of expertise. Globalization, Russia’s integration into global consumer society, and the country’s emerging role as a natural resource provider also changed the “master frames” of environmentalists (Yanitsky 2010, 191–194). This international orientation also may have increased the distance between environmentalists and average Russians, however.

-- The state of environmental protection in the Russian Federation: a review of the post-Soviet era, by Joshua P. Newell & Laura A. Henry

She played an active role in the Pussy Riot trial, cross-examining witnesses, and aggressively questioning the charges and proceedings.[6] She said in her closing statement:[7]

For me, this trial only has the status of a "so-called" trial. And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of lies and fiction, of the thinly disguised fraud in the sentence of this so-called court. Because you can only take away my so-called freedom. And that is the exact kind that exists now in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom.

Alyokhina was released from prison on December 23, 2013[8] under an amnesty bill passed by the Russian Duma, allowing the release of several inmates. Following her release, Alyokhina and fellow Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova announced their intention to campaign for prisoner's rights in Russia. On March 6, 2014, she was assaulted and injured at a fast food outlet by local youths in Nizhny Novgorod along with Tolokonnikova.[9]

Sochi detention


Alyokhina in 2012

In February 2014, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were detained in Sochi by the Adler Police in connection with an alleged hotel theft. They were released without charge.[10] On 19 February footage surfaced showing Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina being attacked with horsewhips by Cossacks who were patrolling Sochi during the 2014 Winter Olympics.[11]

Awards and honors

She was co-winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought (2014).[12]

In popular culture

A documentary following the Pussy Riot court cases, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, debuted at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.[13]

In 2015, Alyokhina and her Pussy Riot bandmate Nadezhda Tolokonnikova appeared as themselves in Chapter 29 of House of Cards, a popular American television drama series that airs on Netflix. In the show, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova heavily criticized a fictionalized version of Vladimir Putin for corruption, while dining in the White House.[14]

References

1. "Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yuri Andrukhovych receive the Hannah-Arendt-Prize 2014". Heinrich Boell Foundation. July 24, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
2. b "Russia: Release punk singers held after performance in church". Amnesty International. April 3, 2012. Archived from the original on July 23, 2012.
3. "Троих предполагаемых участниц Pussy Riot признали политзаключенными" [Three of the alleged participants of Pussy Riot recognized as political prisoners]. Росбалт (in Russian). March 25, 2012. Archived from the original on September 12, 2012. Google translation.
4. "Литературная карта России: Студия: Мария Алехина". Litkarta.ru. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
5. Robert Mackey (August 15, 2012). "Actress Writes to Putin to Demand Vegan Meals for Jailed Punk Protesters". The Lede. The New York Times. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
6. Miriam Elder (August 8, 2012). "Pussy Riot profile: Maria Alyokhina: Unofficial spokeswoman for Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina has challenged witnesses and remains defiant over the charges". The Guardian. Moscow. Retrieved August 9, 2012.
7. "'Так называемый процесс'". Novaya Gazeta. 8 August 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
8. "Pussy riot member released". Npr.org. December 23, 2013. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
9. "2 Pussy Riots Band Members assaulted in Moscow". IANS. News.biharprabha.com. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
10. "Pussy Riot Members Nadezhda 'Nadya' Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina Detained in Sochi Ahead of Protest Performance". Newsweek. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
11. "Pussy Riot whipped at Sochi Games by Cossacks". Bbc.co.uk. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
12. "Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yuri Andrukhovych receive the Hannah-Arendt-Prize 2014". Heinrich Böll Foundation. 24 July 2014. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
13. Stern, Marlow (2013-01-26). "Sundance's Best Documentary: 'Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer'". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
14. "Chapter 29". House of Cards. Season 3. Episode 3. Netflix.

External links

• Media related to Maria Alyokhina at Wikimedia Commons
• Maria Alyokhina’s blog (Russian)