A detailed and fascinating article. It makes me wonder if the photography by various guerrilla and clandestine groups got as much attention as that of these “regular” forces.
During WWII, Athens remained under Axis occupation from April 1941 to October 1944. The international conference “The Occupier’s Gaze: Athens in the Photographs of the German Soldiers, 1941-1944” held by the Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, on 12 April 2019, shed light on rare historical evidence, illustrating an aspect of that time we do not often think about: the way the occupied Greece, with its reach history and symbolisms for European culture, was viewed by the conquering forces.
Greek News Agenda spoke* with Hilary Roberts of the Imperial War Museums (IWM), regarding her paper presented at the conference, titled “A Foreign Perspective: German and British Photography in Greece 1940-1945”; drawing on the photographic collections of the German…
Vicountess Runciman of Doxford (28 September 1869 – 28 October 1956) was a British Liberal Party politician and is of interest here in West Penwith because she became M.P. for St Ives, the first and so far only woman M.P. in 1928 elected at a by-election and joined her husband Walter Runciman as the first married couple in the House. She was simply keeping the seat warm for him so to speak for just a year. Such arrangements became common for a time before the Second World War. Upon entering the House, however she spoke not at all.
Hilda Runciman was however, an ardent closet feminist. She did not want to put off male voters. She had been president of the Women’s National Liberal Federation, 1919–21, continuing to sit on its executive committee for many years. In 1929 it is worthy of note that Mrs Runciman fought the Tavistock seat which she lost by just 156 votes. It must be remembered that there was at this period a lethal split in the Liberal Party. Hilda and Walter, if one might be so familiar, were both committed to Asquith and not at ease with the leadership of Llyod George. Her portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery, two of which may be seen at https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp52745/hilda-runciman-nee-stevenson-viscountess-runciman
Her immediate family
Her father was a prominent Liberal M.P. -he had just been elected as Member for South Shields and was a Tyneside Industrialist and significantly harsh on his employees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cochran_Stevenson
Her Stevenson aunts were particularly interesting in the promotion of Education in Scotland.
Flora Clift Stevenson LLD (30 October 1839 – 28 September 1905) was a British social reformer with a special interest in education for poor or neglected children, and in education for girls. She was one of the first women in the United Kingdom to be elected to a school board.[1] (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_Stevenson) She appears to have worked closely with her sister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Stevenson, she too was was a Scottish campaigner for women’s university education, women’s suffrage and effective, well-organised nursing. Louisa She and Flora paid for their niece Alice Stewart Ker (Hilda Runciman’s Cousin) to study medicine in Bern for a year. Alice was to become the 13th female British doctor. So it clearly appears that these socially committed Liberal and educated families developed a thoroughly magnificent endowment particularly for women’s emancipation and in which Hilda Runciman played her part.
Other Events in 1869
Six days before Hilda’s Birth Richard Wagner’s opera Das Rheingeld premiered in Munich
3 Weeks before the first westbound train arrived in San Francisco
22 November – clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched in Dumbarton, Scotland; she is one of the last clippers built, and the only one to survive in the UK.
Finally two books of some importance were published in
Staggering over the running combers The long-ship heaves her dripping flanks, Singing together, the sea-roamers Drive the oars grunting in the banks. A long pull, And a long long pull to Mydath.
"Where are ye bound, ye swart sea-farers, Vexing the grey wind-angered brine, Bearers of home-spun cloth, and bearers Of goat-skins filled with country wine?"
"We are bound sunset-wards, not knowing, Over the whale's way miles and miles, going to Vine-Land, haply going To the Bright Beach of the Blessed Isles.
"In the wind's teeth and the spray's stinging Westward and outward forth we go, Knowing not whither nor why, but singing An old old oar-song as we row. A long pull, And a long long pull to Mydath."
John Masefield (1878 – 1967)
John Masefield is known for the opening line … I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
– Viktor E. FRANKL
As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I wanted my 2021 to be a year about self-care and me-time. I looked for books people say that greatly changed their lives, and even their perspectives on life and I stumbled on Man’s Search For Meaning. It’s a memoir of Mr E.Franklin, a psychiatrist, who writes about his experience in the concentration camps from 1933 to 1945. However, unlike the books I read about that period, Mr E.Franklin’s version is more of what I consider a psychological textbook.
(c) Trang for Bookidote
The first part of the book is a recount of his time as a prisoner in Auschwitz and his observations and hypothesis about the…
I don’t understand why I like this painting so much on first glance. The most disturbing element, I suppose is the strip where the horse has simply disappeared giving it the appearance of being a light transparent trunk itself. This, I think adds a joking quality to the overall work which I find a kind of magical forest. The sort that you might well find in a fairy tale or an adventure. The rider does not seem discombobulated by this wooded environment. Indeed she seems to have a sense of purpose and direction quite at variance to the seeming dissolution of her means of transport beneath her. The colours or palette seem to add to a jolly effect and the canopy of branches seems protective.
Verse of the Wu Garden by Wen T’ing-yun Brocade pheasants fly in pairs, the plums bear fruit. Green spreading out to the distant in vast spring rises within the window frame. Water of Wu river, a light ink painting, stretches to the end of the sky, While a three-foot-wide screen divides a thousand miles. There are red doors opening to the tiny garden, Catkins and dancing butterflies hover around above. Should the ornamented window and decorated railings long be here as they may. Year after year, the spring light returns so.
This week’s theme was “Jane’s Walks“, which celebrates the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs by promoting walkable neighbourhoods, urban literacy and cities planned for and by people. This is a festival that takes place annually around the globe. Due to the pandemic, the Edmonton walks, as with many around the world, were self-guided and virtual this year. Urban Sketchers Edmonton could choose a walk and go there in person whenever we liked to choose one point or more along the walk to sketch.
Here are our sketches from the website walks, and some that we created ourselves. All wonderful walkable city sketches!
By Diane Smarsh
“Heritage Tree Avenue in the Highlands. The canopy is created by American Elms planted in 1957. This street is particularly beautiful in the fall and in December when all the neighbours string lights across!”
Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 to 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings.
He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis.
His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist.
Despite lacking a bachelor’s degree, Erikson served as a professor at prominent institutions, including Harvard, University of California, Berkeley, and Yale. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Erikson as the 12th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Psychoanalytic Experience and Training
When Erikson was twenty-five, his friend Peter Blos invited him to Vienna to tutor art at the small Burlingham-Rosenfeld School for children whose affluent parents were undergoing psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud. Anna noticed Erikson’s sensitivity to…
Next to my laptop propped against the now never used printer is a postcard which I bought at the remarkable Musée Jacquemart–André. This lovely gallery is grandly situated in the Boulevard Haussman in the 8th Arrondissment (huitieme). The postcard shows what a Scotsman might have called a fair bonny lassie.
This Italian Baroque painter was born in Verona and died in St Petersburg. His paintings are remarkable for both their astonishing beauty but also for their realism as can be judged from the following clip.
Looking at these lovely paintings gives me the same feeling as reading this-
I very much like the poetry of MacNeice and return to it often. I like poems about the rain as well notably the stunning “A Description of a London Shower” by Jonathan Swift.
This year many of the the poets visited in our U3A (University of Third Age) sessions have had some connection with religious ministry. When you come to think about it it is not surprising. Ministers are thought-full people – don’t you think!
Louis MacNeice was no exception. His father was a Protestant minister who later became a bishop of the Anglican Church of Ireland. Below is Louis MacNeice’s poem ‘London Rain’, written at a time of conflict in Europe. He wrestles with thoughts on God as he looks out late at night on the rain. Sharing my comments which are shown in italics after each stanza.
London Rain
The rain of London pimples
The ebony street with white
And the neon lamps of London
Stain the canals of night
And the park becomes a jungle
In the alchemy of night.
London night-time rain … I love that word pimples…
During WWII, Athens remained under Axis occupation from April 1941 to October 1944. The international conference “The Occupier’s Gaze: Athens in the Photographs of the German Soldiers, 1941-1944” held by the Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, on 12 April 2019, shed light on rare historical evidence, illustrating an aspect of that time we do not often think about: the way the occupied Greece, with its reach history and symbolisms for European culture, was viewed by the conquering forces.
penwithlit 