Blogs from Prague, Czech Republic, Europe - page 7

Geo: 50.0878, 14.4205... read more

I will bet you would never come up with Antonin Dvorak as the real Father of American Music. You might guess George Gershwin, or Stephen Foster, who died at the age of 37 with 38 cents to his name. My guess would have been Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly. Antonin Leopold Dvorak (dvorr-zhak) was a Czech composer of romantic music. His most famous works are his New World Symphony, the Slavonic Dances, "American" String Quartet, and Cello Concerto in B Minor. And for your edification, I thought there was a "z" in his name for the longest time! Antonin Dvorak in 1868 Fast forward to his arrival in the United States where he became director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City in 1892-1895. He ... read more

Franz Kafka was born in Prague, now Czech Republic on July 3, 1883. He died on June 3, 1924 near Vienna, Austria. He was born into a prosperous Jewish middle class family. He was drawn to his maternal ancestors because of their spirituality, intellectual distinction, piety, and delicate physical and mental disposition. He became the oldest child after the death of his two older brothers. Ottla, the youngest of his three sisters, became closest to him. Kafka was overshadowed by a tyrannical, successful, but overbearing father, who worshipped financial success and social advancement as a shopkeeper. He attempts an autobiography (Letter to Father) in 1919 in a letter that never reaches the addressee. He blames his father for his failure to marry and enter fatherhood, as well as his escape into literature. He felt his will ... read more

This morning we walked ten minutes to Wenceslas Square, and continued on to the Powder Tower, where we were to meet our guide for the World War II in Prague Tour. I was particularly interested to hear the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the only successful killing of a senior Nazi leader during WWII. Our guide for the tour was Marketa, and she led us around the inner city of Prague, providing interesting information, showing us historical photos of key events, and taking us to the location of where those key events took place. Marketa also provided a brief history of how Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, and how the country became a Nazi German Protectorate in 1938, thanks to the appeasement policies ... read more

Where did the term, Iron Curtain get coined first? From the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: The term iron curtain was coined by the British author and suffragette Ethel Snowden in her book Through Bolshevik Russia (1920). In her very early and negative critique of the Bolshevik form of communism, this British feminist referred to the iron curtain simply as the contemporary geographical border of Bolshevik Russia in 1919 (‘We were behind the ‘iron curtain’ at last’). At the end of the Nazi regime in url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/places/germany-scandinavia-and-central-europe/german-political-geography/germanyGermany the minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, used the term in a journal article and several times in his private diary in February 1945,... read more