Rasputin by Anthony Beevor

I saw this in bookshop and decided to get it on kindle. The current kindle system is very good iin that you can download a sample and when you have read that you have covered 10% of the book and so it is easy to download the rest and read. Typically, I am aware of Rasputin but could not have given you his dates or much else and there was no distinction in my mind between the rumours and the facts. Anthony Beevor makes a brave effort it give context and to distinguish fact and fiction but it is not easy. There seemed to be as much about everyone else as there was about Rasputin and with a large dramatis personae it was hard to keep upp at times. I think I've got a better hande on it now and there clealry is a connection between Rasputin's role and the fall of the house of Romanov. Beevor suggests it is the power of rumour. Certiny there is a lot of gullibility and suprstition going on here. Whether this will lead me on to other books by Beevor I am not sure.

10 Cities that have changed their names

1. Bratislava (after 1783) in Slovakia was once better known as Pressburg (German name) or Pozsony (Hungarian name)

2. Tokyo (ie Eastern Capital since 1868) in Japan was once Edo

3. Oslo (since 1925) in Norway was once Christiania (1838) and Kristiania (1877) though Oslo is the orginal name.

4. Istanbul (the most common name for the city after 1928) in Turkey having once been known as Byzantium then Constantinople (from 330 AD)

5. Ho Chi Minh City (since 1976) in Vietnam was once Prey Nokor  and Gia Định and Saigon

6. Harare (since 1982) in Zimbabwe was once Salisbury (and the country was called Rhodesia)

7. Volgograd (since 1961) was once Tsaritsyn (1589-1925) and Stalingrad (1925-1961)

8. Nuuk (ie Cape since 1979) in Greenland was once Godthaab and Godthåb

9. Chennai (since 1996) in India was once Madras

10. Polokwane (since 2005) in South Africa was once Pietersburg

One day in the life

I got round to reading Solzhenitsyn's One day in the life of the Life of Ivan Denisovich the other day. It followed on from the Orwell book as it is again about subsisting and is a reminder of our privileges and the need not to think too much but be more thankful. First published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World) it is well known and was one of the reason Solzhenitsyn was given the Nobel Prize in 1970 and no doubt one reason why he got kicked out in the end. The story is set in a Soviet labour camp in the Stalinist 1950s, (Solzhenitsyn was in a gulag 1945-1953 and began writing his book in 1957).

Wisely what he does is to describe just a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. That takes out the need for a long story and a lot of explanation and gives a sharp profile to the presentation. We meet other prisoners including Aloshya the Baptist who I felt inevitable drawn to.

The book's publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history as an account of Stalinist repression had never been openly distributed before. An English translation by Ralph Parker quickly followed. That as the one I read. Four others have followed. There is also a 1970 film, which I've not seen.

Cassette 04 Mussorgsky Stravinsky

I think I bought this for Pictures at an Exhibition (Emerson Lake and Palmer were inevitably there first in my case, of course). Pictures was originally written for piano I later learned but Ravel scored it for orchestra, which seems much more natural somehow. The bonus was Stravinsky's Rite of Spring which is okay. Indeed, Russian ballet music tends generally to be attractive in my experience.

Selling Christian Books in Belarus

I write from Minsk in Belarus, where I have been for the the last couple of days helping out with an Evangelical Press book promotion conference. A small conference was arranged at a very nice centre for about 40 pastors and others from Belarus and beyond. Myself and Roger Fay spoke as well as some of the Russian pastors. Roger spoke on David Brainerd whose biography by John Thornbury is now out in Russian and I spoke on the Solomonic books of Song of Songs, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. I have commentaries on two of these books. It would be nice to add a third and it would be good too to see the ones that exist translated.

It was a great privilege to be in a country I had never visited before and to get to meet some of the Russian brothers (as well as our EP friends). Speaking through a translator is not easy but Aleksander who helped both Roger and I was very good.  I also took part in the discussion session they had on ministerial training one night.

I tried to brush up on the Cyrillic alphabet before I came but I am rather poor at it. Singing the hymns was not really possible for this reason and the hymn sining was so good. At least it gave me a little insight into how it must be for dyslexics.

They have a fair number of books in Russian and sales were pretty good apparently. There are plans for more. They can be powerful tools. It's been a great trip.

CM 07 Rimsky-Korsakov

We go logically (I think) from Mussorgsky to annother Russian Rimsky-Korakov and his most famous piece. Written for an interlude in his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, it has often been copied by jazz and rock musicians. More here. This is the German philharmonic.

Reading in pyjamas

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died this week aged 89. The Times obituary is here. Solzhenitsyn was a complex and enigmatic man. He encouraged us Christians by criticising both east and west and having a place in his thinking for God. I like that bit in his Ivan Denisovich

The Baptist was reading his Bible, not altogether silently, but sort of sighing out the words. This was meant perhaps for Shukhov. (A bit like political agitators, these Baptists. Loved spreading the word.)
"But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God."
Alyoshka was a champion at one thing: wiggling that little book of his into a crack in the wall so neatly that it had never been found by searching warders.

It brings out the power of the Word in all ages. In another bit from the Times by D M Thomas here we read that

In 1961, the liberal-minded communist editor, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, lay in bed reading a manuscript that an assistant had foisted on him (Ivan Denisovic). After one page, Tvardovsky got out of bed, dressed and went to his study. He said later he knew at once that it was a great work, and would not dishonour the author by reading it in his pyjamas.

That reminded me of how Bunyan had a conscience once over finding himself eating an apple while reading the Word. The point can be overstated but the importance of reverence when we read the Word is worth pondering.

More on Ivan Denisovic here. It has twice been made into a film. They'll show them on TV soon I'm sure.

10 Russian words we know

1. Babushka (grandma)

2. Matryoshka (nest of dolls)

3. Balalaika (triangular mandolin)

4. Pogrom (slaughter of Jews)

5. Cosmonaut (astronaut)

6. Sputnik (spaceship)

7. Steppe

8. Molotov (as in cocktail - a petrol bomb)

9. Samovar (tea urn)

10. Vodka