Today's subject - J M W Turner's "The Fighting Temeraire" I'm sort of thinking of posting the subject of the week here, well, weekly. I know many will be aware what Melvyn and his minions are discussing, and some can't get the downloads (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081r260 for today's) so if the rest of you don't want me to - I won't.
nordmann Nobiles Barbariæ
Posts : 7223 Join date : 2011-12-25
Subject: Re: In Our Time Fri 11 Nov 2016, 07:45
Good idea - there's always at least one well worth listening to each month at least, though I confess I rarely miss them anyway regardless of the subject.
At the moment BBC's radio i-Player is available internationally (it's only TV which is blocked), and as far as I know the full range of podcasts available for this programme (which is impressively large) is out there for everyone.
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Fri 11 Nov 2016, 20:22
Thank you so much Nordmann. And Gilgamesh thank you for the initiative.To start with I will listen to the Gilgamesh episode and comment afterwards. Perhaps we can do that for each new episode. Or if it is of some interest to someone also comment older ones...?
Kind regards and thanks again for the links.
Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
As my English understanding is perhaps not that perfect, I had to listen during 40 minutes very carefully and intentionally to catch what they all said. But I have done it. Not an easy exercise. I prefer reading . After the episode I skipped through the Gilgamesh epic: http://www.aina.org/books/eog/eog.pdf And as ever read the Wiki too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
What struck me in the radio talk: And I mentioned it already in my thread Kings and Gods from the author of a book that I referred to: the Sumerian gods as the unstable Sumerian nature are tormented and rather human as opposed to the Egyptians with their stable and every year returning nature, which had a more goddess-human relationship which didn't alter. They spoke also about live and dead of the individual, contrary to the community, which would survive continuously through its members. Not the same as the nowadays Western perception? I see parallels with the Eastern populations China, Japan, where the community prevails on the individuals? Third: As always they dragged the bible in it. And I understand why, because of the parallels. But what is the bible but another and later epic of Gilgamesh?
Kind regards, Paul.
Gilgamesh of Uruk Censura
Posts : 1560 Join date : 2011-12-27
Subject: Re: In Our Time Thu 17 Nov 2016, 18:33
This week's topic - Justinian's Legal Codes.
Paul - I am half-convinced that Noah is a direct copy of or mostly derived from Atrahasis/Siusudra/Utnapishtim, and was added during the captivity in Babylon, where the P and J texts were conflated to form the original bible stories we know today.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Thu 17 Nov 2016, 21:47
Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
This week's topic - Justinian's Legal Codes.
Paul - I am half-convinced that Noah is a direct copy of or mostly derived from Atrahasis/Siusudra/Utnapishtim, and was added during the captivity in Babylon, where the P and J texts were conflated to form the original bible stories we know today.
Gil,
Justinian's Legal Codes. Listened to it. Will comment after my visit to London.
This week - The Northern Crusades - set me thinking. It included a reference to animist practice in the area now the Baltic states, including "sacred" sites such as streams, large boulders, and lakes. I wonder how many of those lakes people thought could produce an arm "clothed in white Samite"? Added to the Gawaine story, does that suggest that echoes, at least, of the kind of hybrid religion being discussed elsewhere on this site were sufficiently current to get included in the earliest versions of Arthurian legend?
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Tue 29 Nov 2016, 22:24
Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
This week - The Northern Crusades - set me thinking. It included a reference to animist practice in the area now the Baltic states, including "sacred" sites such as streams, large boulders, and lakes. I wonder how many of those lakes people thought could produce an arm "clothed in white Samite"? Added to the Gawaine story, does that suggest that echoes, at least, of the kind of hybrid religion being discussed elsewhere on this site were sufficiently current to get included in the earliest versions of Arthurian legend?
Gil, to late to comment today, as it nears 12 o'clock overhere. See you tomorrow.
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Wed 30 Nov 2016, 21:24
Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
This week - The Northern Crusades - set me thinking. It included a reference to animist practice in the area now the Baltic states, including "sacred" sites such as streams, large boulders, and lakes. I wonder how many of those lakes people thought could produce an arm "clothed in white Samite"? Added to the Gawaine story, does that suggest that echoes, at least, of the kind of hybrid religion being discussed elsewhere on this site were sufficiently current to get included in the earliest versions of Arthurian legend?
Contrary to what you picked up I was rather focused on the geopolitical consequences. Even more than the Holy Land crusades it was as I heard it an attempt to enlarge the by then Christian territories. In fact these struggles seems to be already going on quite a time before the pope's blessing. But yes that blessing seems to have been a handsome justification for their expansion. And when the Teutonic Knights were later campaigning against the by then Christianised Lithuanians, they lost a bit of their credibility in the eyes of Catholic Europe. And up to then, before Protestantism, the pope had still a lot of moral weight.
It was also interesting to hear that the film of Eisenstein about the Frozen Lake was also as so many a bit of myth forming for national Russian consumption.
A last remark. The older people here in Belgium who had the Germans two times over here with no nice intentions, the French even three times, referred to them as Teutons (the French speaking ones as "Boches", but also Teutones). Especially Teutones, while the Northern Germans were linked to these Teutones as Prussians. My grandmother, who was born not that long after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, was never speaking about the Germans, but always about the Prussians and Napoleon (meaning Napoleon III). But during WWI she continued to speak about the Prussians and later in my time after WWII she spoke still of the "Pruisen" instead of the Germans. How a custom, once adhered, to survives time and time again.
Kind regards, Paul.
Gilgamesh of Uruk Censura
Posts : 1560 Join date : 2011-12-27
Subject: Re: In Our Time Thu 01 Dec 2016, 09:58
Today's subject - Guiseppe Garibaldi. This was suggested by a listener. it seems.
I wished that they had been able to go into more detail about just how all the nationalist revolutionaries and liberal activists etc in the 19th Century funded themselves. The sheer amount of global travelling which any one of them undertook during those years was just phenomenal.
Melvyn Bragg was unnecessarily short with Lucy Riall on a couple of occasions though. At one point he fussily insisted that she refer to 'Piedmont' rather than 'Cavour' despite the fact that the name of the prime minister had been clearly introduced to the listeners earlier on.
Gilgamesh of Uruk Censura
Posts : 1560 Join date : 2011-12-27
Subject: Re: In Our Time Thu 01 Dec 2016, 23:43
Vizzer - Yes, it often seems that the programme really needs an hour not 45 mins (and the evening "repeat" at 30 mins isn't worth the effort). Melvyn does tend to get bees in his bonnet and come the Lord of the Airwaves at times.
Paul - yes, I think it's fairly clear from other sources that Eisenstein was producing an anti-Geman propaganda piece, hence the baby scene in the early part of the film, and that meant turning Alexander Nevsky into the all-Slavic hero he probably was not. I suspect the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact may have given Sergei Mikhailovitch the odd sleepless night lest he be purged for his film's stance on things Teutonic.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Fri 02 Dec 2016, 19:17
Gil,
"Paul - yes, I think it's fairly clear from other sources that Eisenstein was producing an anti-Geman propaganda piece, hence the baby scene in the early part of the film, and that meant turning Alexander Nevsky into the all-Slavic hero he probably was not. I suspect the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact may have given Sergei Mikhailovitch the odd sleepless night lest he be purged for his film's stance on things Teutonic."
Yes those were the times. With Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the French Communist party was also in disarray, but at least there wasn't a treath of immediate arrest in the environment of the French Third Republic.
As for purges I remember an interview with Dmitri Shostakovich where he said that he was always anxious a certain period when the telephone ringed, while that could, because of the disgrace of Stalin at that moment, be his last moments as free man to not say worser... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich
Second waltz
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Fri 02 Dec 2016, 19:19
"ringed": "rang" of course
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Sat 03 Dec 2016, 22:00
Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
Today's subject - Guiseppe Garibaldi. This was suggested by a listener. it seems.
Hmm, Gil, spent all my time on a French forum . Among others in a discussion about "des vins coupés" Meles meles. See you again tomorrow.
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Mon 05 Dec 2016, 22:03
Gil,
when I was on the BBC boards someone asked about Mazzini. I have to say that I never had heard about that person. Well about the "mythical" Garibaldi. By my research I learned that Mazzini was as important as Garibaldi. And in my opinion was Cavour even more important for the Italian unification. And that was I think not enough emphasized in the episode. But, yes, the subject of the thread was indeed Garibaldi. What I have retained also from this radio discussion is that Garibaldi when he had to choose, he chose not for the democracy, but as a true nationalist for the pragmatic unification under Piemont-Sardinia.
As an aside, but also about the subject. When I attended the Roman-Catholic College in the Fifties there was many times a mentioning of those brave Zouaves, who saved the pope from these heathen Italian perpetrators. There was even a novel from a seemingly Catholic writer, who hailed these Zouaves too. In that time it was not otherwise, as nowadays with the Syrian crisis, where by the Western press the rebels are pictured as the good guys, certainly not having to do with Al Qaeda, Isis and even not a Quatar, and in opposition to the horrible government troops from Assad.
But about those Zouaves I am a bit in the dark. Was that an international volunteer corps, where also Belgian, French and Spanish would-be soldiers were incorporated or am I mixing with the French Zouaves and aid by the French government of Napoleon III?
The Zuavi Pontifici were mainly young men, unmarried and Roman Catholic, who volunteered to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle against the Italian unificationist Risorgimento. They wore a similar style of uniform to that of the French Zouaves but in grey with red trim. A grey and red kepi was substituted for the North African fez. All orders were given in French and the unit was commanded by a Swiss Colonel, M. Allet. Nonetheless, the regiment was truly international, and by May 1868 numbered 4,592 men. At that time the unit was composed of 1,910 Dutch, 1,301 French, 686 Belgians, 157 Romans and Pontifical subjects, 135 Canadians, 101 Irish, 87 Prussians, 50 English, 32 Spaniards, 22 Germans from beyond Prussia, 19 Swiss, 14 Americans, 14 Neapolitans, 12 Modenese, 12 Poles, 10 Scots, 7 Austrians, 6 Portuguese, 6 Tuscans, three Maltese, two Russians and one volunteer each from the South Sea Islands, India, Africa, Mexico, Peru and Circassia. A British volunteer, Joseph Powell, noted in his account of his service with the Papal Zouaves, Two Years in the Pontifical Zouaves that at least three "blacks" and one person from China served in the Zouaves. Between February 1868 and September 1870 the number of Canadian volunteers, mainly from the francophone and predominantly Catholic province of Quebec, rose to seven contingents numbering some 500 men in total - with a contingent of 114 turning back to Canada because news had reached them of the surrender of the Papal States in September 1870.
The four de Charette brothers, three of whom were in the Papal Zouaves and the other in the Papal Dragoons:
Priscilla Censura
Posts : 2772 Join date : 2012-01-16
Subject: Re: In Our Time Tue 06 Dec 2016, 13:46
I 'did' the Unification of Italy as a special subject for A level - and got a high mark so it must have been an even more confusing period of History than I realised at the time... my answer sheet must have been a gem. Had I also known that the Zouaves wore curtain bloomers just imagine what I could have made of that for extra colour to my already confusing narrative. I knew my Mazzini's from my Cavours but made them a bit more interesting.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Wed 07 Dec 2016, 22:22
Triceratops wrote:
Papal Zouaves, as per wiki;
The Zuavi Pontifici were mainly young men, unmarried and Roman Catholic, who volunteered to assist Pope Pius IX in his struggle against the Italian unificationist Risorgimento. They wore a similar style of uniform to that of the French Zouaves but in grey with red trim. A grey and red kepi was substituted for the North African fez. All orders were given in French and the unit was commanded by a Swiss Colonel, M. Allet. Nonetheless, the regiment was truly international, and by May 1868 numbered 4,592 men. At that time the unit was composed of 1,910 Dutch, 1,301 French, 686 Belgians, 157 Romans and Pontifical subjects, 135 Canadians, 101 Irish, 87 Prussians, 50 English, 32 Spaniards, 22 Germans from beyond Prussia, 19 Swiss, 14 Americans, 14 Neapolitans, 12 Modenese, 12 Poles, 10 Scots, 7 Austrians, 6 Portuguese, 6 Tuscans, three Maltese, two Russians and one volunteer each from the South Sea Islands, India, Africa, Mexico, Peru and Circassia. A British volunteer, Joseph Powell, noted in his account of his service with the Papal Zouaves, Two Years in the Pontifical Zouaves that at least three "blacks" and one person from China served in the Zouaves. Between February 1868 and September 1870 the number of Canadian volunteers, mainly from the francophone and predominantly Catholic province of Quebec, rose to seven contingents numbering some 500 men in total - with a contingent of 114 turning back to Canada because news had reached them of the surrender of the Papal States in September 1870.
The four de Charette brothers, three of whom were in the Papal Zouaves and the other in the Papal Dragoons:
Triceratops, thank you very much for this survey. It have to be indeed the Papal Zouaves that I mentioned. And 686 Belgians, it has to be that Dutch language part of a novel that I have seen, now nearly sixty years ago, but I still remember it by the "heavy" bias woven through it. Yes that were still in the Fifties the Roman-Catholic highdays in Belgium...
Kind regards and thanks again, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
I let it rather to others to comment here. I don't know why, but I find her socialist "leanings" a bit utopian as proven by her interest for Auguste Comte: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte Give me more our Belgian Emile Vandervelde: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Vandervelde with his manifest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Quaregnon and all to realize within the framework of the national nation-state... As Kerensky tried to do in Russia in 1916... And by the way: I made already a thread overhere about Socialism and Liberalism and there was hardly interest... As some aside http://blog.peerform.com/top-ten-most-socialist-countries-in-the-world/ Belgium comes on the 10th position ... and China as the first? But perhaps is the list not made that conscientious, as the photo accompagning Belgium is from The Hague: The Netherlands
But as I have seen already one episode of the past that I know something about and that interests me, it would rather be the episode about the 12th century that I want to comment tomorrow... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z6vzq
Kind regards, Paul.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Sat 10 Dec 2016, 22:23
"But as I have seen already one episode of the past that I know something about and that interests me, it would rather be the episode about the 12th century that I want to comment tomorrow... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07z6vzq"
What I remarked: that they spoke a lot about religion and although speaking about Abelard they didn't enough to highlight the tension between the dogmatic Roman-Catholic religion, which was dominant in those days, and the enquiring human mind focused on logic and rational thinking. All that what came in conflict with the established church. And people became more focused on theirselves and interested in all kind of things including scientific things, especially with the rise of the universities, where the critical mind was pampered.
In my opinion in that century, although the church was a supreme might togetner with there "executive" branch the nobelity, there came already some cracks in the "building" And that contrary to the Islam which became more dogmatic and replying on their religion and closing the door of "wisdom". Although in each Abrahamic religion there was tension between the dogmatic revelation and the critical and scientific logical approach, that tension ended in the Catholic Western Europe in favour of the critical logical approach while it in the Arabic culture ended in dogmatism. I started to learn that in a discussion on a French forum, about the book of Goughenheim http://historum.com/general-history/123336-moorish-african-muslim-contribution-european-advancement-4.html See my messages from 7 November 11h44 and 11h49 PM... And I reiterated today again that theme first by Speros Vryonis and secondly an islamic source, which says exactly what I already mentioned for years in the different fora... http://archaeology.kiev.ua/pub/vryonis.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speros_Vryonis
About the tension:
"Whatever the causes, the influx of Aristotle and other philosophical writings created a serious problem and constituted a grave threat to a civilization based on a revelational religion which gave priority to the truth of revelation over human logic. The unchecked introduction of Greek philosophy and philosophers threatened to undermine the bases and overthrow the nature of the Islamic faith. Here the revelational demands of Islam prevailed, and the roles of philosophy and logic were limited, at best, to the obligational support of the veracity of the faith. In short, Islamic civilization relegated philosophy and logic to the role of the handmaiden of theology, as occurred also in the Latin West and in Byzantium."
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_201_250/rise_and_fall_of_muslims.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_B._Syed From Ibrahim Syed: "His writings did not please religious zealots and he was removed from his post as judge and physician to the ruler in Cordoba. It was Europe, not Islam, which benefited from the writings of Ibn Rushd - Averroes - and his circle of Islamic philosophers under the Almohade caliphs of El Andalus. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the foundation of the European Renaissance was laid on the thinking of Muslims like these. A debt is acknowledged. But Muslim rulers ignored new thinking to their detriment, and they do so still." "DECLINE OF MUSLIMS Muslim scholars argue that Qur'an advocates quest for knowledge of nature by observation, and this inspired the development of scientific method by Muslims. However in the 12th century when Muslim philosophers began to suggest that truth itself may be revealed by empirical observation as well as from the Qur'an, there was a religious crackdown, the gate of ijtihad was closed and scientific research largely ceased in the Muslim world. It was eventually pursued in Europe, but not without resistance from religious authorities there. The start or the 13th century saw the beginning of the relative decline of Islamic civilization. This decline was not caused by outside forces. It was not caused by a lack of dedication to Islam. It was caused by Muslim Rulers and the Ulema. It was caused by obscurantism in Islam. This is because rejection of science and scientific method was rejection of what was to later become the main driving force in industrial wealth and prosperity." And as I already heard and read from islamic sources: "However in the 12th century when Muslim philosophers began to suggest that truth itself may be revealed by empirical observation as well as from the Qur'an, there was a religious crackdown, the gate of ijtihad was closed and scientific research largely ceased in the Muslim world."
Coincidentally I went yesterday with someone from Ostend to the container park with the trailer to deliver a garbage full left by a bad renter from ours into the appartement. The "someone" from Ostend is working in a chips factory and on the workfloor there are a lot of Muslim workers with whom he is working together. He told me that the phenomena of "Salafism", (of course he didn't call it Salafism, but from his description, I heard that they are), is wide spread and that they with their little knowledge nevertheless are citing from the Koran and introducing all kind of unknown (for the autochtones) rules. He said that it was much worser than I thought on the first sight. If you put that against the reasonable text of the above Ibrahim Syed...? And if you compare this with the old autochtone Roman-Catholic belief, which is nearly old fashioned in our country and is replaced by more lay mentalities, it is perhaps no surprise that there are tensions...perhaps the same tensions as in the 12th century...
Kind regards, Paul.
Gilgamesh of Uruk Censura
Posts : 1560 Join date : 2011-12-27
Subject: Re: In Our Time Thu 15 Dec 2016, 14:06
Today the subject was a real tonic - the gin craze.
PaulRyckier Censura
Posts : 4902 Join date : 2012-01-01 Location : Belgium
Subject: Re: In Our Time Fri 16 Dec 2016, 22:02
Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:
Today the subject was a real tonic - the gin craze.
And of course it all started in Bruges "There is a tradition that attributes jenever as an invention by the Dutch chemist and alchemistFranciscus Sylvius de Bouve,[4] and it was first sold as a medicine in the late 16th century. The problem with this theory is that Dr. Sylvius was born in the 17th century and that during his fourteen-year tenure as a professor at the University of Leiden, his research included distilling medicines with juniper berry oil, but none of his research papers contains any reference to jenever. The dates also do not add up: Dr. Sylvius certainly was not the first to distil with juniper or call a concoction jenever, as proven by written references to jenever in 13th century Bruges, Flanders (Der Naturen Bloeme) and 16th century Antwerp, Flanders (Een Constelijck Distileerboec). The latter contains the first printed jenever recipe.[5]" http://www.gintime.com/features/the-first-record-of-the-word-gin/
And you don't believe it Gil...
When I was young, we went with fish to a customer from Bachte-Maria-Leerne, a certain Filliers. It was then a small jenever distillerie. And look now an international group... https://www.filliersdrygin28.com/en One of the Filliers that I knew, of my age, is some years ago on holidays sadly killed in a buscrash on a road to Cairo in Egypt.
Melvyn does tend to get bees in his bonnet and come the Lord of the Airwaves at times.
He was at it again today - this time failing to listen to his guests properly. Dr Mina Gorji mentioned that poet John Clare found it mortifyingly embarrassing to hear the clatter of his hobnail boots on the marble floor in Burghley House when invited there by Brownlow Cecil, Marquess of Exeter. Burghley is close to Clare's home village of Helpston and Mina mentioned that Clare worked on the estate as a gardener. Melvyn Bragg, however, decided that the marble floor was in 'London'. That said - it's a very good program:
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