Martin's Almanack

Merry Christmas   from   snowy   Montreal!   May   Santa   get you all the presents your heart desires,   whether he finds you   packed   with others   or alone in the   wilderness .   Here is how I spent Christmas Eve morning: - shoveled snow - while drinking coffee got kicked in the head by a vagrant Muse - composed a Christmas poem in Czech - translated it to English  (the Czech variant is better, but so be it...) Here it is, starting with a verse from a famous mid-19th century Czech poet   Erben , followed by my own thoughts:   Hoj, ty Štědrý večere, ty tajemný svátku, cože komu dobrého neseš na památku? Oh Christmas Eve, oh holiday - so mysterious is your ring. What memorable goods and things for people will you bring? Kotníkové ponožky pro skutečného muže, či kosmetický balíček - to dárek jeho družce? Ankle socks for a   real man , cosmetics for his girl/fan?   Vtipný dárek ostatním jež humor v kr...

This weekend was a long weekend in Canada, because Monday was the Victoria Day , a federal public holiday, which falls on the Monday preceding May 25, or the penultimate Monday in May, if you want to talk fancy. It marks the unofficial beginning of the summer season. Yay! Originally set up to honour Queen Victoria 's birthday, Victoria Day has been since celebrated as the official birthday of Canada's sovereign (no matter what their actual birthday is). To avoid mentioning the English monarch, Quebec created the National Patriot's Day instead, to be celebrated at exactly the same. It is to commemorate the Rebellions of 1837-1838 , which happened in both Upper and Lower Canada . They are not wrong: the rebellions actually contributed more to the formation of Canada than Queen Victoria ever did, even though I doubt that this was the motivation for the separatist Parti Quebecois when they introduced the holiday in ...

May 8 is the VE Day , when we commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany in Europe in 1945. But since in 2022 it is the 2nd Sunday in May , it is also the Mother's Day (in Canada, US, and many other countries). To all mothers, Happy Mother's Day! Different cultures have different traditions of celebrating mothers, but this specific type of Mother's Day is an American tradition, which was established in 1907 and passed into the US law by 1914. That celebration quickly spread to some other countries, while yet others retained their original way of marking such a day or found new ones. However, many/most countries celebrate Mother's Day around this time of the year. Note: UK and Ireland use for this occasion the date of the old tradition of Mothering Sunday , 4th week of Lent , when people visited their Mother Church (the nearest cathedral). Note: Czechs were switching the date according to politics of the day. In 1920's, they used the Am...

When I am dead, bury me In my beloved Ukraine, My tomb upon a grave mound high Amid the spreading plain, So that the fields, the boundless steppes, The Dnieper's plunging shore My eyes could see, my ears could hear The mighty river roar. ... -- Taras Schevchenko, The Testament, 1845 A formerly powerful Europen nation felt humiliated by its treatment at the hands of others. It lost territory, its economy was in shambles. And then a new type of a charismatic leader came to power. He was admired by some and feared by others. He rewarded friends and persecuted and killed his enemies. Eventually, he rebuilt his economy and modernized his armies. Then he got into the habit of breaking all kinds of international norms and treaties and started talking and behaving in more and more aggresive ways. But "the West" was worried about confronting him. There was political turmoil in their lands. People with radical thoughts on al...

Today, Russians invaded Ukraine (again) and are poised to subjugate her people (again). This has happened before. Invading and oppressing their neighbors is an integral part of Russian history and culture and has been so for centuries. Many parts of Russia were first invaded, then annexed and then ethnically cleansed (by murder or resettlement) while large numbers of ethnic Russians were brought in. Stalin, himself a Russified Georgian , deported from their native land and russified (or killed) scores of peoples: Volga Germans , Crimean Tatars , Chechens , Ingush , Balkars , Kamyks , (some) Ukrainians , Balts and Estonians . But that pattern of behaviour and Russification has been the modus operandi of the Russian state for centuries, not just in the 20th. For example, the Circassian genocide in the 19th century killed over a million people in the area of the Black Sea, not far from the where today's invasion is taking place. My own birth country, Czechoslovakia...

Today, February 14, is St.Valentine Day. It is a day to celebrate love. Happy St.Valentine's! “The rose is red, the violet’s blue, The honey’s sweet, and so are you. Thou art my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine: The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou’d be you.” -- English nursery rhyme ( Gammer Gurton's Garland , 1784) The day was set up (in the 5th century) as a feast to commemorate the (violent) death of a 3rd century clergyman who ministered to persecuted Christians and also married young couples, which saved the men from being drafted as soldiers. That was not viewed favourably by authorities. He was arrested and jailed, but then he tried to persuade the Roman emperor Claudius II to convert to Christianity. The emperor was not persuaded and instead ordered Valentine to be clubbed, stoned and beheaded. However, before that, Valentine wrote a good-bye note to Julia, the daughter of his ...