Kiev, last night

Photos by Mustafa Nayyem. Situation plan by Dmytro Vortman. Up-to-the-minute coverage by Ilya Varlamov in English.

Observed portraits

The Gutin Mountain rises as a column above the southen border pass of Maramureș. You have to come round it if you want to visit in turn the wooden churches of Dănești, Plopiș, Budești, Ocna Șugatag, Desești, included in the list of the heritage of the world. We have come around it three times last summer, and on the way to Ocna Șugatag we only always looked down in the valley upon Breb, its old Hungarian name Hódpatakfalva – Beavers’ Creek –, which also has an impressive 16th-century wooden church and a decaying Jewish cemetery, and about which Claude Karnoouh wrote his beautiful anthropological survey Vivre et survivre en Roumaine comuniste: rites et discours versifiés chez les paysans du Maramureș.

Southwestern part of the former county of Maramureș, the region of the wooden churches.
Click for a full map. Today the Tisza river, above Már(amaros)-Sziget is the border
between the Ukraine and Romania. The red dots mark the places  about which
we have already written, but we will also write about much more.

Someone else, however, not only looked down, but also went down, and spent a summer there; the Azerbaijani Rena Effendi, about whose beautiful and heartbreaking photo album The Line of Life we have already written. In that album she published her photos about the brave new world under development in the Caucasus along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. In this series, however, she wanted to show an archaic – albeit slowly eroding – world. Her photos have now won the third prize in the Observed Portraits, Series category of World Press Photo 2014.

Kőrösmező, Terminus

This postcard was sent on 16 June 1910 from the Kőrösmező railway station, which it also depicts, the former Hungarian-Galician border station at the pass of the Carpathians, to the Galician railway station of Sokoliki next to Lesko, from where the Lemberg-Ungvár train starts to climb up to the Hungarian-Galician border station of Uzsok at another pass in the Carpathians. It was addressed in German, the official language of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, as was right and proper – state office! – for a railway station. Thanks to this – from the gender of Wohlgeborenes – we know that the Polish addressee, Klimcia Hołowska was still Fräulein, and perhaps this is the reason why there is neither a sender nor a message on the postcard: the recipient obviously knew, and no one else needed to know, who had sent this sweet little sign. After that, Kőrösmező became Frasin, and then Jasiňa, and finally Ясиня, and it ceased to be a border station. Even its former name was forgotten: the pencil inscription by the modern Russian collector tries to identify the mountain village either with Кёрёш-Большой, Nagykőrös or with Кёрёш-Малый, Kiskőrös, both lying in the Great Hungarian Plain. Meanwhile, for a short time between 1939-44 it was Kőrösmező again, just until the stateless Hungarian Jews were handed over to the German authorities at precisely this station, and the son of Emanuel Rosenblüth, the publisher of the postcard in 1908, was taken to Mauthausen, just like the local small guide, Artúr Blutreich. In contrast, Sokoliki became a border station on the German-Soviet border drawn by the Ribbentropp-Molotov pact at the San river, and it has remained so to this day. Its 244 Jewish inhabitants were deported by the Germans, its 247 Polish inhabitants were killed or driven away by the Ukrainians, and its 926 Rusyn inhabitants were resettled by the Polish army to Silesia during the Vistula Action in 1946. Today it is a ghost village, only its church still stands, which is used as a vantage point by the border guards. This is how this postcard without a message summarizes the twentieth-century history of this multiethnic, beautiful and tragic region, which has been discussed so many times here at río Wang.

A postcard sent to a Hungarian prisoner of war from Sokolik to the Russian POW camp, after 1918

But this is not why we publish the photo of the station. It is an excuse to tell one more story from the Subcarpathian travelogue of Sándor Török. Having said goodbye to the little guide, Nyumi Blutreich, he goes to the Kőrösmező railway station, to travel further to Rahó. We are in the summer of 1939, several months after the Hungarian administration replaced the Czech one, but the Hungarian authorities have not yet been able to keep up with the changes. This inspires gloomy thoughts in the traveler. As history has proved, it is not without reason.

“A Polish train has just arrived at the station. It only came this far, and will go back soon. It has the table on its side: Stanislau – Voronienka. An old watchman is looking at it, and reading it: It has come from Veronica – he says.
The traveler goes into the traffic office, and showing his ticket, he professionally says: please, give me a date-stamp. The clerk looks around on his table, and then says to the others: – Where’s the stamp?
The question runs through three or four people: where is the stamp? – Who has the stamp? – Have you not seen the stamp? – Finally the stamp is found, the clerk takes it in hand, and presents it to the traveler, apologetically:
– We are not quite equipped yet – he explains –, in fact, this is not the proper stamp. This, you know, is a cash-stamp. Twenty years ago, at the change of state the cashier took it with her. And now, after twenty years she has brought it back, and so there you are, I have kept the stamp. And now we use it.
The railway clerk is a young man, around twenty-two or twenty-three. The stamp is obviously older than he, since just the time it spent out of service was twenty years. And where and how? At a former cashier, as a souvenir. It was more or less a knick-knack in her glass cupboard… Or more: a Legion of Honor, a symbol of loyalty to the office, of an oath upheld. Something like the gun or the flag salvaged at the capitulation at the end the war of independence in 1849. This might have been a central fact in the life of the cashier, and it must have been a great experience, when after twenty years she reported to the new stationmaster, and handed over the stamp: here you are. She certainly put on her Sunday clothes… – thinks the traveler, and the stamp is now promoted from a souvenir to an official object again.

How beautiful is this!… the traveler thinks, while sitting in the restaurant of Rahó’s Tourist Hotel in this evening. However – the traveler needs to say – he feels that the old stamp should have been used for one stamping only, in a solemn way, and then it should have been sent back to its master, the former cashier, who had kept it; yes, sent back to her with a beautiful letter from the President Director of the Hungarian Railways, such as: please keep this precious souvenir in the future, since we have as many new stamps as we need. – The traveler would have written this letter like that, or perhaps in a less formal tone. He would have been much happier if the story of the stamp had been only told to him, but his ticket had been stamped already with a brand new stamp of Kőrösmező.”

The railway station after 1920. The new state power of that time was also not really prepared: the Czech Ž and one of the Russian Я’s were written mirrored, and a н has been omitted from Станція.

A letter to a sweethart in Vienna. Military field post, 5 August 1915. The road to the eastern front went through this station just like in 1917 or 1941.

Not that stamp, but from the same time. From here

The Moravians who said no to Czechoslovakia

Our new co-author, Dániel Szávoszt-Vass, author of two of the best Hungarian geographical blogs, the Danubian Islands and Pangea, now launches a new series on the territories detached from Germany at the end of WWI. These small regions with their once multi-ethnic population and with their particular histories meandering away from the mainstream fit well to the similar stories at río Wang. (Studiolum)

*

The territorial losses of Germany after WWI were by no means as great as those of Hungary or Turkey, but they had a much greater influence on world history. True, it was deprived of its colonies amounting to about four million square kilometers, but the country itself lost only 13% of its core territory. Nevertheless, these losses almost all took place in the most humiliating way. A propos of a German irredentist stamp series found in a family album, we will visit one by one these territories: Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig, Posen, Upper Silesia, Southern Schleswig, the Memel region, Eupen-Malmedy, and a small, almost unknown piece of land: the Hlučín area (Hultschiner Ländchen). This last one is where we begin.


It is not widely known that the newly formed Czechoslovakia – whose mere name was misleading, for on the basis of the proportion of its ethnic groups it should rather have been called Czechogermanoslovakohungaroruthenia, given that it had at least twice as many Germans as Slovaks – also took part in the post-WWI retailoring of Germany. The territory annexed by them, the Hultschiner Ländchen, is quite peripheral in the various sources; it usually does not deserve more than a mere mention. Images and texts on it are also available in very small numbers.

The new Czech and Moravian borders run almost without interruption through German-speaking areas. There was only one small area outside the historical borders which could not escape the attention of the new government. In Upper Silesia (before WWI an integral part of the German Empire) around the town of Hultschin/Hlučín, there lived a Slavic group speaking an Old Moravian dialect mixed with German. In this rustic landscape nestled in the hills of the Eastern Sudetes, between Ostrava and Opava, the population did not reach 5000 even in the largest town. Before 1918, the Hultschiner Ländchen/Hlučín Territory did not exist as either a geographical or as an administrative unit: it was only the southern part of the Ratibor Kreis.

According to article 83 of the Versailles Treaty, the Hlučín Territory – with an uncertain area, the data varies between 286 and 316 square kilometers – was to be annexed by Czechoslovakia. The territory was probably secured by the Czechs for themselves at the end of the war, because the Upper Silesian referendum held in 1920 did not affect this small area. So the local population had no chance to officially decide whether they wanted to belong to Germany, Czechoslovakia or (no mistake) to Poland.

Territorial losses of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles (from here)

The territory affected by the Upper Silesian referedum (reedited, from here)

Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Hultschin/Hlučín did not acquiesce in the decision of the great powers. In November 1919 a large-scale counter-Czech demonstration was held in the area. And as for a referendum, they also held their own on the basis of Wilsonian principles, but it was never recognized as officially binding by the Czech government. The vast majority of the local population, 93.7% of 48,466 people, voted in favor of Germany, despite the fact that only 15%, or 6,500 persons (in Czech sources, 10%, or 4,500 persons), were German-speaking. In spite of the referendum, on 4 February 1920 the Czech army entered the territory. They must have been quite surprised when, instead of the shower of flowers due to liberators, the masses marching in front of the soldiers sang “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”.

Czech soldiers on the main square of Hultschin, 1920. From the family archive of Pavel Strádal, from here

“The injustice against the Hultschin Territory”. The proportion of the votes for the German parties (black) and the Czech ones (white); the German schools (black triangles), and the manipulation of the electorial districts in the interest of a Czech majority. “Without plebiscite and despite the protest of the population on 4 February 1920, Czechoslovakia seized: one town and 37 communities with 50,000 inhabitants and 333 square kilometers of fruitful (productive) land and two coal mines. With the exception of those in Zauditz and Thröm, all German language schools have been closed. German instruction is only available through 30 private teaching centers!” (from here)

Due to the uncertain border demarcation, the accurate determination of the German-Czech border dragged on until 1924. The affiliation of the German-inhabited settlements of Sandau, Haatsch and Owschütz, as well as the farms of Rakowiec and Lichtenhof falling to “no man’s land”, was finally decided by the Council of Ambassadors in 1923. In terms of the memorandum, which was favorable to the Czechs, Sandau and Haatsch went to Czechoslovakia, while the Lichtenhof and Rakowiec farms returned to Prussia. In the two German villages occupied by the Czech army, the locals tore out the border stones and destroyed the sentry box at the new border. The Czechoslovak army was able to restore order only later, with the help of five infantry, one artillery and one scout battalion.

Hultschin. The postcard series of the Deutsches Ostbund on the alienated territories

The inclusion of the Hlučín Territory in the new state did not go smoothly. The Czech power shut down the German schools and laid off the teachers. In the census, only people with German names were counted as Germans, the rest were automatically registered as Czech. Whoever protested against this, such as Alois Bitta, the parish priest of Ludgerstal, was fined by 2000 crowns. The parents protesting against the school closures, who did not allow their children to go to the new Czech schools, were also fined. Prison sentences were quite common, due to the ongoing protests, so that the jail of Hlučín was simply called by the locals “the German House”. About 4-5000 people fled to Germany because of persecution and unemployment.

In the first elections under Czechoslovak sovereignty, the German parties obtained 76.4% among the population, which was “Moravian in language, but German in feeling”* And in 1935 – by which time everyone would have thought the troubled waters were calmed – the Sudeten German Party led by Heinlein won 65% (according to other sources, 75%). In light of this, it is easy to understand why in 1938 the Moravians of Hlučín received the German soldiers with a shower of flowers for the liberators.

Hultschin, the Ring. With a festive stamp: “After 20 years of servitude, the liberated Hultschin greets its Führer, 8 October 1938.” The postcard was sent a week later.

One day earlier at the border of Machendorf/Machnín, waiting for the German army.

The German army marching into Asch/Aš

The synagogue of Hultschin/Hlučín. Built in 1840-43, destroyed on 9 November 1938, during Kristallnacht, one month after the marching in of the German army.

The annexation of the Hultschin Territory was humiliating to Germany not because of its size, but rather because of its principle. While Czechoslovakia, supported by the great powers, and with reference to the self-determination of peoples, was able to negotiate a new border for the 40 thousand Moravians in Germany (who had absolutely no intention of joining Czechoslovakia), the 3.5 million Germans on the other side of the border waited in vain for the same on the principle of reciprocity and self-determination.

Marvels of the night

Bach, Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, Aria & Variation 1 – Fretwork

30 000 kilometrů

Newyorský přístav, třicátá léta.

Ve třicátých letech podnikl český kněz Josef Baťka (Plzeň 1901 - 1979 Sušice) cestu zaoceánským parníkem Normandie z Čech do Ameriky - země, kterou jen o něco více než generaci předtím mohl ještě jeho krajan Antonín Dvořák nazývat „Novým světem“. Baťka studoval ve Vatikánu a pocestoval většinu Evropy a Blízkého východu jako papežský nuncius. Byl také vášnivým a schopným fotografem. Používal fotoaparát pro střední formát, do kterého se vkládaly negativy o velikosti 60 milimetrů čtverečních. Zůstal po něm poklad čtvercových obrazů, pečlivě uložený v malých krabičkách z fotolaboratoře.

Tyto snímky dokládají, že Baťka měl nejen kněžské schopnosti, ale i výrazný cit pro vyváženou obrazovou kompozici a vytříbenou formu, poněkud neobvyklý v kontextu amatérské fotografie. Jeho snímky často svou přesvědčivou kompoziční jistotou obracejí naši pozornost úplně mimo význam zobrazených objektů.


Baťkovy snímky zobrazují krajinu, lidské charaktery, moderní společnost a její technologie; ve své jasnosti a zdánlivé objektivitě odkrývají charakter překotně se měnící doby téměř před sto lety, sledované pozorným divákem s relativním odstupem cizince. Baťka nezachytil rychle mizející dobu jen na fotografiích – doprovodil své snímky také bezprostředními zápisky z americké cesty.

Na jedné z fotografií vidíme Baťku samotného – trochu zavalitého, pracovitě vyhlížejícího muže středního věku s odstávajícíma ušima a sovími brýlemi. Jeho rukopis je psán úhledným pravidelným písmem včetně oprav a různých barevných značek, podle kterých se můžeme dohadovat, že ho možná připravoval k publikaci. V každém případě se postavil k dokumentaci své cesty velmi zodpovědně.

Mnohé z jeho fotografií zachycují prostě to, co pro něj muselo být novinkou : velké lesklé automobily, letadla, newyorský Luna Park, parník Queen Mary, nebo dokonce skutečného Indiána.

Mnohé se vyznačují promyšlenou geometrií a značnou kompoziční vyvážeností: hory amerického západu, strom joshua, moderní křivky velké Boulder (nyní Hoover) Dam, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Yellowstone. Přestože některá ze zachycených míst jsou turistickými atrakcemi, Baťkovy snímky vynikají pečlivou kompozicí a citem pro fotografické řemeslo, které jim dávají formální čistotu a nadčasovost.

Mezi Baťkovými obrazy najdeme některé, které zachycují - buď záměrně nebo náhodou – řadu běžných situací, které v nás silně zarezonují svou opravdovostí. Navždy zmrazují nenávratně ztracené okamžiky. Vstupujeme do světa Středozápadu Spojených států třicátých let pohledem cizince z neznámé země, kterou by si většina lidí zachycených na jeho snímcích těžko dokázala představit.

Učený Baťka je také laickým antropologem - zobrazuje rodinné a profesní vztahy, zaklíčované v držení těla a ve vzájemných konstelacích, režírovaných na jevišti skutečného života. Stejně jako pozdější američtí pouliční fotografové šedesátých let dobře věděl, jak naaranžovat scénu a světlo z dobrého úhlu a kdy stisknout spoušť.

Většina lidí na fotografii jsou členové českých přistěhovaleckých komunit ve východní Nebrasce

Některé snímky jsou spíše prozaické: můžeme přijmout jejich „objektivní“ pravdu - problematickou pravdu dokumentární reportáže. Ale v jiných můžeme najít vizuální citlivost, která příbližuje tyto amatérské obrazy umění.

Po návratu do Čech učil Mons. Baťka teologii na gymnáziu v Nymburku. Během německé okupace se mu podařilo vyhnout se vězení. Později, po komunistickém puči a následných persekucích náboženské obce, odešel do důchodu do rodného kraje, kde působil jako kněz ve vzdálené farnosti blízko Klatov na Šumavě.

El Paso, Texas nebo Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, třicátá léta

Druhou polovinu svého života prožil Baťka spolu s mladší sestrou Marií v malé vesnici Kolinci v jihozápadních Čechách. Zemřel v roce 1979, a sestra, která o něho na sklonku života pečovala, ho následovala v roce 2004. Rodinný dům a veškerý majetek odkázala církvi. Během vyklízení se našly krabičky s diapozitivy, negativy a zvětšeninami, a také rukopis deníku z cesty do Ameriky s názvem „30 000 kilometrů vlakem, lodí a automobilem“.


V roce 2008 se staly základem multimediální výstavy s názvem „A z tohoto důvodu…“ v Galerii Školská 28 v Praze.

Klikněte zde pro stáhnutí katalogu (pdf)

Autor tohoto článku děkuje Miloši Vojtěchovskému a Daně Recmanové za jejich primární výzkum prací Josefa Baťky a Janu Bartošovi za fotografie Baťkových krabic.  Katalog navrhl autor.