Eastern Market festivities!

Eastern Market is reopening their North Hall today (in renovation since the 2007 fire), and festivities continue through tomorrow. If you're in DC, check the schedule and come check it out!

You know you're new to Washington when...

... you see someone wearing a "W" in script on a hat and immediately think it's the insignia for Wegman's, not understanding why someone would be sporting the supermarket's hat on the metro. At the next stop, when a flood of other people get on wearing various "W" gear--hats, shirts, bags--you realize that it's the insignia for the Washington Nationals who played today.

I contend that it was an honest (albeit amusing) mistake, from one who does not closely follow baseball and who misses having the Wegman's supermarket nearby. ^_^











Side-by-side the truth is more apparent: differences in script in the W for Wegmans and the W for the Nationals.

Go Remy Arlington Rap

Anyone who has lived in the DC area, especially in Arlington, will appreciate Remy's latest feat:



... at the Starbucks or the Starbucks or the Starbucks or the Starbucks...

June 16, 1989

First of all, as we can't be neglecting our literary dates, Happy Bloomsday!

Twenty years ago, June 16 proved to be the second step toward the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Just days before in Poland, Solidarity had emerged victorious in the first free, democratic election in all of Eastern Europe. June 16, 1989, was a day of symbolism for Hungary, but this symbolism proved most powerful. On this date, the Hungarians performed a reburial--a reinterment of a man who was once regarded as a traitor, an enemy of the state, and perhaps even Hungary's most potent criminal against communism.

In 1953, the Hungarian Communist Party selected reform-minded Imre Nagy as their new Prime Minister, but he only lasted two years before falling out of favor. In October 1956, the people called for a change and students discontent with communism, led to the Hungarian Uprising. Amidst tumult and revolt, the people of Hungary called on Nagy as their revolutionary leader. Indeed, it is hard to understate the significance of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution; not only is it regarded as one of the proudest moments in Hungarian history, but it also marks the first major revolt against communism and the USSR--indeed, a revolution against the revolution. But in November, Soviet tanks invaded Hungary. Nagy was arrested and, along with other leaders of the revolution, executed and dishonorably interred.

Decades later, the Soviet Union was beginning to weaken, and a more flexible and reform-minded Hungary was passing legislation toward democracy. In May they had removed barbed wire from the borders with Austria, the first step toward opening borders with the West (!), and thus slowly tearing a hole in the Iron Curtain. In this spirit, on June 16 the grave of Nagy and his revolutionary comrades was opened, and they were honorably buried with pomp and respect. 250,000 people are estimated to have attended his reburial.

The Reinterment of Nagy was just another step away from the USSR and toward democratization. However, historians today consider this symbolic act as the keystone in Hungary's strides toward democracy in 1989; the symbolism became the strongest mark in their break with communism. Like Solidarity's election in Poland, Nagy's reburial marked the rise of a New Europe, encouraging and accelerating revolutionaries in neighboring Czechoslovakia and East Germany.

Some time after Nagy's reinterment, a statue was built to commemorate the leader. He is posed on a bridge, staring wistfully toward the Hungarian Parliament building. Twenty years after the event of his reinterment, Hungarians celebrated their hero and the change he wrought--both in life and in death.


Imre Nagy's statue looking toward the Hungarian Parliament (my photo, May 2008)

Praise for Latin

In the age when foreign languages are frequently being cut from school budgets, the argument often arises: What is the value of Latin? What's the point in teaching students a dead language that they will never be able to use?

In high school, I remember many academically-ambitious students solely choosing to study Latin as a means to improve their SAT scores. According to their argument, the study of Latin would make them more aware of the etymology behind word roots, and thus they would have a distinct advantage in the vocabulary section--even if they did not know the word, they could recognize the Latin roots to guess its meaning.

Though this may be true, students of French, Spanish, or German might not be far behind thanks to all the cognates and crossovers between the languages. However, I firmly believe that Latin has a much more meaningful value beyond improving test scores.

Unfortunately, I have not yet had the opportunity to learn Latin myself, but I am familiar with some of the cases and I am very aware of the disciplined work required of any Classics major and the complex struggle to create a short translation. The Guardian recently reported the reinstation of Latin by many British schools and offered Charlotte Higgins' view to praise its value. Latin not only teaches word roots and etymology, but it teaches discipline, grammar, and structure. Thus, Latin is not only relevant when learning another foreign language (and may be especially useful when learning a language with cases, like German), but it improves our understanding of the prescriptive rules of "proper" grammar in our own native English. Harry Mount most eloquently puts it in his masterful "Vote for Latin" from 2007.

In Vienna, I taught at a Gymnasium (high school equivalent) and worked with students who were learning English. For most students, English was just one of many languages that they were studying. Early in their studies (I believe around age 10), the students would select to study either English or Russian as their specialty and continue this study intensely at least until graduation (and the Matura exams) at age 18. Around age 12, all students started learning another language: Latin. From there students could continue by starting French, picking up the other specialty language (English/Russian), and taking electives in Spanish or Italian. Competency in multiple languages was crucial for an Austrian student, given the country's central position in Europe bordering so many different language groups. Thus, instruction with Latin is essential and provides the disciplined foundation for all future language learning and made learning the Romance languages much easier. (Indeed, older students would ask for Latin, rather than German, translations of English words in order to more fully understand the meaning).

In America, we're not surrounded by so many different languages, and thus our education's focus is not on foreign languages and certainly not on Latin. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are other important things to study and the mastery of any foreign language is very difficult. But I think we suffer because of our lack of respect for languages in education. We even blindly declare the dead language to be "useless". But Latin is not just a language for monuments, but a tongue for intellectualism and deeper thought, for instruction and comprehension, for developing discipline and devotion.

June 4, 1989

June 4 was a tumultuous date in 1989. The Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who led the Iranian Revolution ten years before to overthrow the Shah, died the day before; the funeral of this controversial figure was held on this date. Millions attended. Wikipedia informs me that June 4 was also the date that of an Ufa train disaster in Russia. In passing, two trains threw sparks at each other near a leaky natural gas pipeline; 645 people were killed in the resulting explosion.

In addition, two big events really mark this date as unique and significant--a date of celebration or infamy. First, if you have been following the news today, you will have seen on the front page, beside the news of Obama's speech in Cairo, the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. (Missed it? Try this one, this one, Hong Kong's vigil, Beijing's silence, this collection of photos and commentary, and the photographer's perspective on returning 20 years later). In late May 1989, students began gathering in Beijing to protest corruption; however, these protests turned into a call for democracy, including a raising of the Goddess of Democracy. However, protests turned ugly when tanks rolled into the square. The army opened fire on June 4, and countless numbers of unarmed students were killed and injured in the massacre. Today, these anonymous protesters are remembered around the world as heroes for democracy, though controversy continues in China.


One of the most famous images of 1989 Tiananmen Square


Buried behind the headlines, you might have seen word of another remarkable anniversary: the 20th anniversary of Solidarity's victory in Poland in the polls. At first, this may not seem so remarkable, but consider that the pre-1989 world was divided into spheres--the Soviet spheres of influence and communist countries and the American spheres of influence and democratic countries. The Iron Curtain was not merely a metaphor, but a reality of life--there was no passage between East and West.

Yet on June 4 in Poland, a pro-Western and pro-democracy party (originally a labor union in Gdansk) achieved an incredible victory in one of the first legitimate elections held in the Eastern Bloc, thus marking a turning point in the entire course of European history. The success of Solidarity--which had struggled to exist for ten years, had been banned many times in Communist Poland, and was only legitimized again a few months prior to the election--was the first of many cracks in the rigid Iron Curtain. European leaders commemorated this turning-point today; in retrospect we can see that through this election, the Poles led the way in the anti-communist revolutions across Eastern Europe and the transition to democracy. And in Poland's case, this was all accomplished both legally through elections and peacefully without any loss of life.

Across the globe, June 4, 1989 was a date of cries for democracy and the beginning of change.


Solidarity founder (and later Polish president) Lech Wałęsa and Solidarity

Twenty years ago

History is fickle and tends to repeat herself, but every now and again, a year comes along that really stands apart from the rest. Maybe that year was a time of momentous beginnings, of unheard of discoveries and great advances in human thought that marked a change in mankind's progression. Or maybe it was a year of endings, of collapsing empires, slaughter and destruction, and of mankind reformed as the phoenix rising from the rubble. Either way, during these remarkable years, when momentous unrelated world events happened simultaneously or one set off a ripple to cause many others, these years changed the course of history.

The twentieth century was a remarkable time. One could argue that we had a number of such years. 1968. 1945. 1918.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable years: 1989, the year of the sudden collapse of communism, the opening of the Berlin Wall, and the massacred cry for democracy in Tiananmen Square. Artists are reflecting on the meaning of this year, Writers are submitting their anecdotes, and everyday people are offering their stories.

Here at Waltzing Matelda, I will do my part by offering a summation and reflection on the majors events of 1989 (culminating in the collapse of the Iron Curtain) on the date of their anniversary. Stay tuned for regular updates on this feature, and check the new label 1989 for a chronological list as they occur.

Next Up

I was tempted to write this like a bad movie trailer, but chickened out.

It's summer 2009, and this year Waltzing Matelda is taking on a new city--Washington, DC. Prepare for reviews, pictures, travel suggestions, and crazy observations in the US capital. And more likely than not, prepare for lots of comparisons to New York City and Vienna.

Catch you on the flip side.