Category: Uncategorized

By Marco Santopadre

The parliamentary elections in Hungary Sunday confirmed a trend already evident in recent years – a right wing government that maintains its position of dominance and a growing neo-Nazi opposition. The election also saw an increase in voter turnout, by four percentage points, reaching 61% participation.

The former Liberal party Fidesz, led by outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orban and positioning itself as openly reactionary, populist, xenophobic, won 44.5% of the vote, a percentage that gave it an ample majority in the parliament in Budapest.

It led the Social Democrats by as many as 20 points; they garnered only 25.9% against the Nazi Jobbik which soared to 20.7% of the vote (it was 16.7 in 2010 ). The ecologist LMP gained 5.2%, however, this is enough to allow him entry into parliament, as the minimum threshold is set at 5%. Based on these almost definitive results Fidesz would…

The slideshow below features a selection of gallery views of the newly-installed Sven Berlin exhibition, which opened with a Private View on Saturday 12 February.  Images from the Private View van be also seen. The exhibition of  paintings,  drawings and sculpture celebrates the centenary of Sven’s birth in 1911. Many of the works in the show have only recently been released from The Artist’s Studio. To view the exhibition in full, please visit the gallery website.

A postcard for the Trans-Australian Railway, with everyone enjoying tea time.

Dénoué, l’âpre hiver : printemps, brise, à nouveau,
Bateaux à sec affloués au palan,
Hors l’étable, bétail ! croquant, loin du fourneau !
Les prés ne sont plus niellés de blanc.

Déjà Vénus mène ses chœurs ; lune au zénith,
Unies aux Nymphes, les Grâces jocondes
Alternent leurs brisés ; Vulcain – ce feu ! – visite
Le Cyclope en ses fonderies profondes.

C’est le temps, crâne pur, de te sacrer de feuilles
Ou des fleurs semées parmi le dégel.
C’est le temps d’immoler au Faune dans les breuils –
Suivant ses penchants – chevrette ou agnelle.

La pâle mort d’un même pied détruit manoirs
Et taudis ; bienheureux Sextius, va :
La vie si brève nous dénie tout long espoir.
Déjà la nuit te presse, et l’au-delà ;

Voici où gîte la Faucheuse : à l’arrivée,
Finis banquets, vins bus à l’aveuglette,
Le tendre Lycidan : fini, pour l’heure aimé
Des jouvenceaux – et bientôt des grisettes.

***

Cette traduction…

“Farbe für die Republik” is the title of an eagerly awaited exhibition set to take place at one of Germany’s most prestigious museums.

The exhibit – which will be presented at the Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin between March and August 2014 – features hundreds of colour photographs taken during four decades in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The concept is extraordinary since most images from the country and are black and white photographs of mediocre quality.

Martin Schmidt and Kurt Schwarzer searched the archive of the museum for the best of their pictures. The photographers, who worked in the GDR, selected images showing women working in factories, youth football teams on the pitch, elderly hikers during an outing on a sunny day, people at the hairdresser’s and many more subjects and themes. The brilliant quality of their photographs – of which all seem to sparkle in the brightest colours –…

IN MEMORY OF ERNST TOLLER
(d. May 1939)
The shining neutral summer has no voice
To judge America, or ask how a man dies;
And the friends who are sad and the enemies who rejoice

Are chased by their shadows lightly away from the grave
Of one who was egotistical and brave,
Lest they should learn without suffering how to forgive.

What was it, Ernst, that your shadow unwittingly said?
O did the child see something horrid in the woodshed
Long ago? Or had the Europe which took refuge in your head

Already been too injured to get well?
O for how long,like the swallows in that other cell,
Had the bright little longings been flying in to tell

About the big friendly death outside,
Where people do not occupy or hide;
No towns like Munich; no need to write?

Dear Ernst, lie shadowless at last among
The other…

ハガレンズ
コロンビア国立大学
英文献学

‘A Concise History of Britain’ by F. E. Halliday is a useful, summarizing overview of the British Isles history. By using comprehensible and deeply argued explanations, the study of Halliday encompasses interesting topics such as ‘Early Invaders,’‘Three Centuries of Peace –43 to 410–,’ ‘The Rise and Fall of Wessex –410 to 1066–,’ ‘From Despotism to Anarchy –1066 to 1154–,’ and ‘The Making of the Nation –1154 to 1307.’ Additionally, charts, photographs, maps, and paintings make the reader feel he or she is closer to the subject matter. The book is indeed an astonishing touch on British history for civilisation investigators.

The first chapter, ‘Early Invaders,’ describes how England is, how it is gradually peopled by humans, and how the then invasions take place. After general features of the English territory –flat land, lower ground with uplands and valleys–, the story begins with Stone Age hunters arriving…