The Wounded Heart of Civilization

5/26/2018 The Wounded Heart of Civilization

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The Wounded Heart of Civilization MUSIC

A journey of a thousand miles begins under your feetLAO TZU

Greater Eastern Europe on the ee of the !ongol inasions "#a$ 1%&'( ) *ungarian territory in#ludes

+roatia, -osnia and .almatia/ Georgia #ontrols Trebi0ond and Armenia southards as far as a line

beteen La2es 3an and 4ean "dran in(

Eastern Europe, hi#h may be said to e5tend from -erlin

to Tbilisi, sometimes obtains oer people a hold hi#h is

as poignant as it is oerhelming$ *istorian 6orman

4tone, reisiting a +0e#h prison here he as 2ept

"learning *ungarian7( as a young man for a 8uite triial, if

irresponsible, a#t of youthful folly, 8uotes the lines from

-a#hs St Matthew Passionhi#h 2ept him going during

his time of in#ar#eration, and #omments9 : as ery near

tears$ : still do not 2no hat it is about9 #entral Europe$

4in#e ;rofessor 4tone demonstrably 2nos more about

#entral Europe than most people, : guess that here he is

saying either that he still #annot understand the regions

8uintessential 8uality or else "and this is my

interpretation( that hateer it is that #auses the area to
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6aqkVf-mn2nWjN6Mi1pS3Zpelk/view?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6aqkVf-mn2nWjN6Mi1pS3Zpelk/view?usp=sharing


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#ast deep shados on our psy#he has a sunt lacrimae

rerum 8uality hi#h dereipe, being mar#hed oer !ount :da and on the

mountainDtop re#iting *ora#es Ode, vides ut alta stet

nive candidum Soracte Obsere ho !ount 4ora#te

stands aboe, hite ith snoF and ;atri#2 Leigh

Cermor, his #aptor, #ontinuing the poem to the end$

!y on moments of youthful folly o##urred in apan ) :

had gone out there, really, to see ho Europe loo2ed

hen ieed through the lens of the Orient$ @hile, in one

sense, the s#rapes : got into there ere part of myCurriculum vitaeas an English Language Tea#her,

perhaps more important as the #on#lusion : dre from

to de#isie en#ounters ith est European #ulture9 the

+sar Cran#2 Violin Sonataon a radio of a stallholder in a


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6agoya mar2et/ and photos of -elgian =omanes8ue

ar#hite#ture spotted in a handsome olume of art history

in To2yos international boo2shop, !aru0en9 : felt that all :

had studied for and, to some e5tent suHered for "and#ertainly #aused myself and others endless

in#onenien#e for/ along ith torpedoing any sense that :

had a per#eptible #areer path for(#ould be hypostati0ed

in the opening phrases of that 4onata "hi#h later :

analy0ed hile or2ing as a +atering 4teard ith ;IO

in a 4partan #abin on a donDtime return leg a#ross the

+hannel and found that it deried e5a#tly from the

harmonies of Tristan( and in the toers of Tournai

#athedral "hi#h : en#ountered hile ma2ing an entirely

at random isit to that #ity in 1BB% after, in true Leigh

Cermor fashion, haing spent the night on a station

ben#h($

All that is most glorious in -a#h, too, has as its magneti#

pole the eastern half of Germany ) the former ..= )Erfurt, Leip0ig, @eimar$ !o0art, of #ourse, strayed to

;rague in his last mira#ulous summer of 1J, and Lis0t,

from *ungary, although for many years #entered on

@eimar, had in him mu#h of the same mi5/ and it #ould

be said that the entire .6A of European #ulture is there in

the last three #hords of Lis0ts 4onata, from 1K& )

espe#ially in the penultimate one, ith all its suspendedambiguities$

:t as orth being the guinea pig in my on e5periment

in de


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entirely in se#ret "and deeply in debt too/ but that is

another matterN(

!ore than thirty years, later these seeds are beginning to

sho green shoots9 re#ently : hae been able to read6orman 4tones The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Histor of

the Cold !ar in its entirety, in almost a single sitting$ The

pain and anguish hi#h go into the ma2ing of +entral and

Eastern Europe are plain to see$ And the ba#2drop of the

ama0ing #ruelty and thoughtlessness of the last #entury

hi#h #reated them are indeed heartDrending to read

about$ Let all true tea#hers aspiring to heal een a smallmole#ule of the ounded heart of our #iili0ation ) as

e5pressed, in its highest forms "from our perspe#tie( in

this region or regions ) in >a0ant0a2iss ords, use

themseles as bridges oer hi#h they inite their

students to #ross/ then, haing fa#ilitated their #rossing,

joyfully #ollapse, en#ouraging them to #reate their on$

The -uddhist ring is not, : thin2, an a##ident "a photo#opyof >a0ant0a2iss Travels in China and "apan a##ompanied

me on my eastern journey in 1BK'( and it is sensibly

balan#ed out by that e#umeni#al and yet Orthodo5 note

hi#h the Georgian heart and the *ungarian too ": hope(

may


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Aboe9 >ing -la ::: of *ungary$ -elo9 ueen Tamar of Georgia and her

father >ing George :::

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The Wounded Heart of Civilization