Departing

1) Rural Alberta Advantage: Departing. From the opening lines, “Two lovers stuck in a sweet embrace” to the very last lines “maybe we might get back together, goodnight” I was mesmerized. Just the type of album I’ve been waiting for all year and I only found it last week. Actually, I did hear one track a month ago, but that was a mistake. This is an album you need to listen to in one sitting from beginning to end – preferably in a cold setting. The album has four key components: Tom Waitsian outlook sprinkled with Arcade Fire emotional integrity sung with a Jeff Mangum-like voice backed by some serious drumming. A chilly, touching album about embraces and what’s left in their wake. Key track: “Two Lovers.”
2) Antlers: Burst Apart. Dark, baroque, and hauntingly beautiful. Shades of Amnesiac. Quite a sophomore effort. Key track: “No Widows.”
3) Caitlin Rose: Own Side Now. Country’s new darling. Following her since her EP a few years back. Golden voice with plenty of attitude and song-writing skills to go along. Add Linda Ronstadt reference here. Key Track: “Own Side.”
4) Typhoon: A New Kind of House (EP). Did this guy just pick an EP as one of the best albums of the year? You’re damn right I did. Deal with it. Like with RAA’s Departing the EP works as one continuous thought — this one being a meditation on space and the idea of home. Bad-ass harmony to boot. Key Track: “The Honest Truth.” Also, watch this.
5) Bon Iver: Bon Iver. Guy who made awesome neo-folk album in cabin in the woods reinvents himself with his second album. Dreamy landscapes and plenty of lush vocals with a whole new sonic dimension and instrumentation you didn’t hear on the first effort.
6) Udo Lindenberg: MTV Unplugged: Live Aus Dem Hotel Atlantic. Yes, I just added a German album to my top 10. What can I say? I’ve got range. I admittedly knew nothing about Hamburg’s version of Bob Dylan until this year. The Unplugged set is a great introduction to the music with plenty of great guest appearances. And yes, it’s in German. Key track: “Cello feat. Clueso.”
7) Decemberists: The King is Dead. Erudite folk-rockers put out a solid sixth album. No epic Welsh poems or rock operas here — just good ‘ole country-folk tunes. Americana at its finest. Key track: “Don’t Carry it All.”
8) Beirut: The Rip Tide. Everybody’s favorite gypsy troubadour, who’s really just a white American middle-class guy, gets back to basics on his third album. Key track: “East Harlem”
9) Black Keys: El Camino.  You might as well just pencil the Black Keys into every top ten list I do from now until the end of eternity. Perfunctory at this point. Key track: “Nova Baby.”
10) Dan Mangan: Oh, Fortune. Canadian singer-songwriter’s third effort. Folksy ballads that are good for the soul with plenty of sweet orchestration to wash it down. Key track: “Jeopardy”

Honorable mentions:
Radiohead: King of Limbs. Just cause its Radiohead. Key tracks: “Codex.”
Middle Brother: Middle Brother. Alt-country superband – uneven, but enjoyable. Key Track: “Blue Eyes.”
Blind Pilot: We Are the Tide. Loved the first effort – this one is a little slick for my taste, but some strong tracks. Key track: “Get it Out.”
Papa: A Good Woman Is Hard To Find. Another great EP – what can I say. Key track: “Ain’t it So.”
Low: C’mon. Another good album from lo-fi royalty. Key track: “Nightingale.”
Alabama Shakes: Alabama Shakes. One last EP for good measure. A whole lot of soul going on here – can’t wait for the LP. Key track: “Hold On.”

Albums I honestly didn’t listen to yet that might end up on this list:
Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean
Bright Eyes: The People’s Key
Barton Hollow: The Civil Wars
William Tyler: Behold the Spirit
The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient
Other Lives: Tamer Animals

And it goes without saying that my favorite music every year is produced somewhere deep down in the lungs of my girlfriend. Listen to her sing here (and please pass on to all of your Opera house-owning friends)!

See Best of 2010 here.

A Rovno report using the phrase: "peaceful Soviet citizens."

What the article does not elucidate is that this phraseology has very specific historical roots. The Extraordinary State Commission (known as ChGK) was created in 1942 to document the Nazi crimes in the Soviet Union. The commission produced millions of pages of evidence of what happened during the occupation over a two-three year period. Much of the material was used in various publications about the war for the next fifty years and parts were even utilized during the Nuremberg trial.

Another report from Rovno, but this one mentions that the Jews were singled out first and foremost by the Nazis.

In its various final products, ChGK is well-known for subsuming Jewish victims, who certainly had been singled out by the Nazis for unique extermination, into the ambiguous phrase: “peaceful Soviet citizens.” You will find this phrase ad nauseam in official ChGK documentation. You might ask: well weren’t they peaceful and also citizens of the Soviet Union; what’s the big deal? I’m sure many victims fit into both of those categories, but the phrase was consciously used by Soviet authorities to downplay, if not, outright ignore the Holocaust in Soviet publications. Some in the Kremlin felt it was dangerous to allot a special status of victimhood to the Jews, despite the fact everyone knew this was in fact true. The argument has been made they wanted to downplay Jewish victim status so as to not aggravate other ethnic groups and their sacrifices during the war, who might see the Soviets as being too sympathetic to the Jews.

In noting this tendency, some historians of Soviet and Jewish history, have therefore questioned the validity of ChGK as a research source and even some of my colleagues (the more hysterical among us) called it such things as a “tool of Stalinist falsification.”

Izvestia (Soviet newspaper) displaying a ChGK report in 1947.

While Jews and other victims were white-washed in final reports, publications (ChGK had a set of books), and newspaper articles, the commission’s holdings do discuss explicitly the Holocaust at great length for many places in Soviet Union. Local officials who were in charge of canvassing their own communities did not get instructions to ignore the Holocaust, therefore the picture presented in these local reports greatly differs from the later versions. Therefore, I believe, regardless of the final reports, the ChGK collection remains the single greatest resource we have on the Holocaust in the East. The collection of testimonies taken immediately after the war allow the historian to get incredibly close to ground zero of the occupation. It’s hard to imagine what our knowledge of the war in the East would look like without these documents.

It would not be until the 1970s and 1980s, and of course, after the fall of the Soviet Union, that the special status Jews held as victims of the Nazis was articulated in this part of the world. Once this official silence was broken, many monuments were built that did recognize the reason they were murdered and their identity.

One such monument to Holocaust victims that was constructed in the 1970s. Interesting how it uses the phrase "peaceful citizens" but also has a Jewish star on it. (Olevsk, Ukraine)

When the Rostov local government utilized the phrase “peaceful citizens” (careful to drop the “Soviet” part of it), they were evoking a well-known terminology that has a history in Russia. This background makes it even more ironic that the Communist MP on the Nationalities committee in the Russian parliament (Duma), Tamara Pletneva, dutifully as a Communist replied: “The memorial should commemorate all the war victims… the Soviet Union saved Jews, Russians saved Jews… so why single out Jews? We shouldn’t single out any ethnic group.” But of course, Tamara, it was all just one big, happy family (druzhba naradov) of victims, wasn’t it?

Here you can see a post-91 monument that cites ChGK on its plaque (Dubno, Ukraine)

For further reading see the excellent article by Karel Berkhoff: “‘Total Annihilation of the Jewish Population’: The Holocaust in the Soviet Media, 1941-45” in Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 10, no. 1 (Winter 2009) (also translated into Russian, in the journal Holokost i suchastnist).

(All photos belong to the author (c))

(Photo Source)

One, Liudmila Valenta, age 23, resident of the village Banasivka in Luts’k raion, wrote to the Gebietskommissar on July 6, 1942. The matter: her bicycle. As we know from my other entry on the diary of a young boy in Kremenets’, the Nazi administration forced the residents to register and turn over their bicycles to the authorities much to the consternation of Ukraine’s inhabitants.

Ms. Valenta was forced to turn over her “Indian” brand bicycle (nr. 99283) to the police on June 29, 1942. The problem was she taught at a “volkschule” (letter is in German) located 2km from her home. She also needed to travel to Luts’k  to the head Schulabteilung (School Dept.) once a week as well.

Given her predicament, writing a letter was all she could do and then hope for the best. She wrote something I think most cyclists can agree with — even those of us not living through the Nazi occupation: “I cannot attend to these matters as well, nor as quickly as I can with my bicycle.” She ended with, “Please allow me an exception [and to keep my bike].” Whether or not that happened, is unknown, but I’d like to picture her taking many safe travels to and from school on her Indian bicycle along the bumpy Volhynian roads.

So in short, the sender thinks the character (watch for yourself) Taurus Bulba,  from the Disney cartoon, Darkwing Duck, defames the Ukrainian nation, because he somehow resembles a Ukrainian and is a negative character on the show. As per background, Taras Bul’ba is a mythical Cossack hero from the Zaporizhian Sich, who was immortalized in Nikolai Gogol’s short story by the same name. The name Taurus Bulba (think “bull”) is obviously a play on words, since the character is a bull.

To start, if you don’t like ethnic stereotypes you probably shouldn’t watch any cartoons or read any comics (the list is endless). That said, how a child is going to connect a bull with a funny accent to the nation of Ukraine is beyond me. Most American adults don’t where or what Ukraine is – how he/she is going to grow up and hate Ukrainians is pretty confusing. Not to mention, the accent is generic and in no way specifically Ukrainian (sounds Hungarian to me). As for Taras Bul’ba – he was a “Cossack” (in make-believe land) and is not designated in the short-story as a “Ukrainian”, since that was a later national construct.

Ironically, the writer thinks that if children watch a bull with a funny accent it is going to incite “ethnic hatred” later in life, when the short-story “Taras Bul’ba” is likely to do more in that direction, as it contains negative, stereotypical depictions of Jews and Poles (though I’m doubtful this story will cause young people to start pogroms). Perhaps someone will include this cartoon into the very long and comical (pun intended) entry for Ukrainophobia on Wikipedia (note Daniel Mendelsohn and Everything is Illuminated are even included).

The letters were written by local Ukrainians who were seeking help of some sort from the man in charge, Heinrich Lindner. One such letter was written by Kristina Pavlovska, originally from Stepan’ (a mid-sized town in neighbouring Rivne oblast’) and resident of Luts’k. In her first letter to Lindner on March 5, 1942, Pavlovska wrote that she was a Karaite-Jew during her childhood, but in her teenage years she was baptized with the help of some local peasants. At the present moment, she was a devout Orthodox Christian and had married an “Aryan” before the war. They both routinely went to church and are followers of Archbishop of Luts’k and Kovel’, Polikarp (Sikorsky). She writes the GK can check these facts with Polikarp himself. At the end of letter we learn the reason for its existence: at present, authorities are trying to take her from her husband, put her in the ghetto and force her to wear the Jewish star.

There is a lot going in this first letter. First, who are Karaites? The Karaites are a sect of Judaism that reject the Rabbinic tradition of interpreting scripture and instead believe in a strict following of Tanakh alone. What is important about Karaite identity in relation to the Holocaust is that the Nazis did not consider Karaites to be Jews and thus did not kill them. The Reich Agency for the Investigation of Families made the final decision on the Karaites  and a letter from the Reichsstelle fur Sippenforschung provided the key ruling on the matter:

The Karaite sect should not be considered a Jewish religious community within the meaning of paragraph 2, point 2 of the First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law. However, it cannot be established that Karaites in their entirety are of blood-related stock, for the racial categorization of an individual cannot be determined without … his personal ancestry and racial biological characteristics. (Source: YIVO archives, Berlin Collection, Occ E, 3, Box 100, letter dated January 5, 1939.)

The majority of Karaite Jews in Ukraine were Crimean Karaites, known as Karaim by locals. While they lived in Crimea for centuries, no one is entirely sure from where this Turkic speaking Jewish group originated. Some have argued they are Khazar by origin (of Koestler fame) who converted to Karaite Judaism when they arrived in Crimea, while others claim they are Jews in origin who left Levant before the canonization of the Talmud. The level to which members of this community self-identified as “Jews” and “Judaism” (sometimes they deemed their belief system the “Mosaic Religion”) fluctuated over the last two centuries, varied from town to town, and certainly was something  influenced by external events.

Due to their unique status, many non-Karaite Jews in Eastern Europe tried to claim they were Karaite to save themselves during the war. Even if one succeeded in this identity change, the results were not always as desired. Despite the official Nazi ruling on Karaites, some Karaites were killed in the Holocaust since military units did not always know the rules. At least 200 were killed at Babi Yar. Whether Pavlovska was claiming to be of (or was of) Crimean Karaite origin is unclear.

Karaite Temple in Kyiv. I lived one street over from it.

The second intriguing aspect of the letter is the appearance of Archbishop Polikarp. Polikarp was well-known for pro-German attitude during the war and also his rabid anti-Semitism. He often wrote fawning letters to his German masters, in which he would write about the dangers of the “Muscovite-Kikes.” (A solid supporter of Jesus, I suppose.) So in this letter, we have a woman of alleged Jewish origin, who becomes a follower of an anti-Semitic Orthodox priest, asking a Nazi leader to talk to the priest to determine her ethnicity and right to live.

The third notable aspect of the letter is her appropriation of the occupiers’ language. Her letter, which was written in German (did she get help?), notes that she married an “Arier” or Aryan before the war. During the short period of occupation to this point, Pavlovska already learned some of the key phrases needed to speak the occupiers — a talent many had in this borderland region during the first half of the 20th century. Needless to say, the Germans would not have considered her Slavic husband an “Aryan.”

Over the course of the next month it seems the Germans went to some effort to confirm her identity. They first ask the Luts’k Judenrat about her status and the Judenrat responds that she is registered as a Jew. Following this correspondence, they then check with Stepan’ – her place of birth. The raion chief replies that her name shows up in the Orthodox population list, though other residents of Stepan’ attest to her Karaite identity. Odd.

In her next letter on April 2, 1942, she tells the German authorities that even though she’s registered as a “Jew”, she should only be registered as a Karaite. Following her letter, there is more paperwork from various agencies trying to find more info on her origins — none of which seem to turn up anything new or useful.

Finally, without knowing if there was any deliberation or how much or by whom, the last document from the Gebeitskommissar’s office reads: “To the Luts’k Judenrat: It could not be properly confirmed that Kristina Pavlovska has Jewish heritage. Her name should therefore be deleted from the list of inhabitants of the ghetto.”

Pavlovska was fortunate. Four months later, the Luts’k ghetto was liquidated and its 14,000 residents killed. The Jewish women of Luts’k were taken to Hirka Polanka outside of Luts’k, where they knelt in front a mass grave and German military and Ukrainian police shot them into the pits.

Was Pavlovska really a Karaite? Was she Orthodox? Did she survive the remainder of the war? We’ll probably never know.

One site I took in was the massive wall that demarcates Jerusalem and the West bank. I took a tour of East Jerusalem with an Israeli group and also saw some of the wall myself when in Bethlehem. While I certainly knew about the wall beforehand, there is really nothing that can prepare you for the experience. In order help understand why the wall went up (yes, I’m well aware of the immediate reasons given by Israeli government), I decided to get some historical background to understand what I was looking at. I started reading Tom Segev‘s book 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East while I was still in Israel and finished it upon return to Ukraine. I’ll simply let voices from the book and the images speak for themselves, since as you’ll see they’re very much capable of doing so.

“’Restricted areas of residence’ evoked limitations on domicile and movement imposed on Russian Jews under the czars.” Israeli General, Elad Peled, in his 1966 report on the possibility of occupying the West Bank (Segev p. 222-3). He further stated that if Arabs resisted, Israel would take steps toward a “police state.”
After 1967 victory, there were one million Arabs in the West Bank. Former President David Ben-Gurion commented, “We don’t need them on top of the Israeli Arabs.” On Gaza Arabs, “It won’t be easy to get rid of them.” (Segev p. 455)Teddy Kollek, the founder of Jewish Foundation and a politician, on cleansing Muslims from old city in Jerusalem: “They must be expelled. There’s no need for any law. Occupation is the most effective law.”Amos Kenan, a Israeli  journalist and Zionist, wrote in his Latrun report about the bulldozing of Palestinian homes after 1967 and the deportations of Arabs: “None of us could understand how Jews could do this.” In the final part of his report: “The chickens and the doves were buried under the ruins. The fields turned desolate before our very eyes, and children walked down the road sobbing.” He ended by saying that these kids would become terrorists. (Segev p. 492-3)

Bulldozed Palestinian home in East Jerusalem.

Zalman Aran, Zionist and politician: “I’m telling you plainly that we don’t need the West Bank. It will do us more harm than good.” (Segev, p. 605)“Every progressive person will say, ‘Look, this is why we called these people the torch-bearers of imperialism and colonialism. They want to turn the West Bank, which is populated by Arabs, into a colony of the State of Israel.’” Israeli Minister of Justice Shimshon Shapira (Segev p. 605)Israeli military commander (hero of the 1967 war btw) and politician, Moshe Dayan on occupying the Palestinian territories: “The situation between us is like the complex relationship between a Bedouin man and the young girl he has taken against our wishes. But when their children are born, they will see the man as their father and the woman as their mother. The initial act will mean nothing to them. You, the Palestinians, as a nation, do not want us today, but we will change your attitude by imposing our presence upon you.” (Segev p. 575)

I’ll finish with a little Zizek and Banksy graffiti from Bethlehem:

The conclusion is obvious: While paying lip-service to the two-state solution, Israel is busy creating a situation on the ground that renders a two-state solution de facto impossible. The dream that underlies this politics is best rendered by the wall that separates a settler’s town from the Palestinian town on a nearby hill somewhere in the West Bank. The Israeli side of the wall is painted with the image of the countryside beyond the wall–but without the Palestinian town, depicting just nature, with grass and trees. Is this not ethnic cleansing at its purest, imagining the outside beyond the wall as it should be –empty, virginal, waiting to be settled?