Tag Archives: Ukraine

Music

Sunday Singing: With Grateful Heart My Thanks I Bring

4 Comments
“With Grateful Heart My Thanks I Bring” piano accompaniment by Andrew Remillard

This adaptation of Psalm 138 appears to have been written for a Presbyterian Psalter published in 1912. The tune is one of the two most commonly used for this hymn. Entitled “St. Petersburg,” it was written by influential Ukrainian composer Dimitri Stepanovitch Bortniansky (1751-1825).

1 With grateful heart my thanks I bring,
before the great thy praise I sing:
I worship in thy holy place
and praise thee for thy truth and grace;
for truth and grace together shine
in thy most holy word divine.

2 I cried to thee and thou didst save,
thy word of grace new courage gave;
the kings of earth shall thank thee, Lord,
for they have heard thy wondrous word;
yea, they shall come with songs of praise,
for great and glorious are thy ways.

3 O Lord, enthroned in glory bright,
thou reignest in the heav’nly height;
the proud in vain thy favor seek,
but thou hast mercy for the meek;
through trouble though my pathway be,
thou wilt revive and strengthen me.

4 Thou wilt stretch forth thy mighty arm
to save me when my foes alarm;
the work thou hast for me begun
shall by thy grace be fully done;
Forever mercy dwells with thee;
O Lord, my Maker, think on me.

Uncategorized

Ukrainians Increasingly Reject Russian Language

Leave a comment

Not that long ago, Ukrainians spoke and read mostly in the Russian language, even if they knew Ukrainian.

In the 60s, novelist Andrey Kurkov writes, “If someone on the street spoke Ukrainian, people thought they were from the village, or some strange intellectual, or maybe even a Ukrainian nationalist. . . . [H]aving Ukrainian as your first language was considered by many as a handicap.”

Today, after 100 days of war, “[o]nline and in casual conversations Ukrainian patriots increasingly refer to Russian as the ‘language of the enemy.’ Those who endorse this rhetoric would prefer to ignore the fact that up to 40 percent of Ukrainians speak Russian as their mother tongue. However, if some of them no longer want to speak Russian, many more no longer want to talk about it.”

Bookselling, Publishing

Russia Published War Novels Telegraphing Their Invasion

Leave a comment

Sergej Sumlenny, a political scientist focused on Eastern Europe and living in Berlin, posted a Twitter thread on the preparations Russian books made in advance of the Ukrainian war.

“One of the first indicators of Russia preparing for a full-scale turn to dictatorship and a global war,” Sumlenny says, “was the mass production of books about cool sides of Stalin and Stalinism and about upcoming war against the West.”

The secret police control the publishing industry, he says, so it wasn’t the free market bringing a surge of books with titles like “Be proud, not sorry! Truth about Stalin Age,” “Stalinist’s Handbook”, and “Stalin’s Repressions: A Great Lie” in 2010 and following. Bookstores followed the theme with vintage war paraphernalia.

Continue reading Russia Published War Novels Telegraphing Their Invasion →
Blogs, Socials, Music

Coming in Humility to Conquer and Blogroll Links

Leave a comment

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
    and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
    and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
    and from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
    today I declare that I will restore to you double. (Zachariah 9:9-12 ESV)

Our Lord comes in humility and cuts off the warcraft of his enemies. Should that apply directly to our public discourse, to our perception of the culture war?

Bach’s greater Passion has a lot of moving parts: two choirs, four soloists, a narrator, an orchestra, and an organist. And in last week’s performance [2019], there was also the audience, as Saint Thomas participated in the German Lutheran Good Friday tradition of singing congregational chorales surrounding the main musical event. Saint Thomas’s associate organist, Benjamin Sheen, played Bach’s prelude to Johann Böschenstein’s “Da Jesu an dem Kreuze stund” (“When on the cross the Savior hung”), and then the audience was encouraged to sing along in English.

Prayer: Can prayer make your anxiety worse? “My self-centered pity party lamented my situation always instead of rejoicing in the Lord always.”

Jesus: How is Jesus the Bread of Life?

Tapestries: Here is some beautiful tapestry work by Ukrainian artist Olga Pilyugina

Manhood: There’s a new book that claims it’s good to be a man, and it’s isn’t that the world still needs isolated rebels with personal agendas.

Photo: Rube & Sons Shell gas station, Kingston, New York. 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction

Unable to Define Our Terms, Good Podcasts, and the Nazis We Are

1 Comment

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast;
In doubt his mind and body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;

Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle II

I may have some entertaining posts for you soon. The links below have a couple bits of entertainment, but the rest are about matters to grave to laugh over.

Hunter Baker: “We cannot extol being a ‘wise Latina’ in one instance and then remain ambiguous on what a woman is in the next instance.”

Old Books: A collector talks about the books of William Strunk, Jr.

After Gettysburg: Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station

Maria Stepanova: The Russian novelist, poet, and publisher has written about the war and her country. “Dreams about catastrophe are common in what was once called the ‘post-Soviet world’; other names will surely appear soon. And in these recent days and nights, the dreams have become reality, a reality more fearful than we ever thought possible, made of aggression and violence, an evil that speaks in the Russian language. As someone wrote on a social media site: ‘I dreamt we were occupied by Nazis, and that those Nazis were us.'” (via Books, Inq)

Podcasts: I think I told you before how good World’s Effective Compassion podcast series is. The third season on prison ministry has just concluded–ten compelling episodes. Next week World will begin a true crime series on the horrible story of Terri Schiavo.

This episode of the Hillsdale Dialogues with Hugh Hewitt and Larry Arnn is provocative in clarity, especially if you’re inclined to believe the ill-considered conclusions Tucker Carlson has drawn lately (see the comments here). How closely will Zelensky follow the footsteps of Churchill?

Photo: Hanks Coffee Shop sign, Benson, Arizona. 1979. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Non-fiction

Zelensky as the ‘Servant of the People’

4 Comments

Anthony Sacramone reviews an episode of a recent TV series about a high school history teacher who became president that stars the lawyer-turn-comedian who is the current president of Ukraine.

“In short, no one believes what is in fact the truth: A common man without guile or political experience is now the most powerful person in the country, thanks to a popular assent collated by the internet, the same medium that brings you cats falling off pony walls and Russian disinformation. Can you blame them?”

He says it’s funny, endearing, and probably has more heart than many comedies.

In April 2019, when Zelensky won national election, the BBC summarized his victory.

With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.

“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.

…

Experts say his supporters, frustrated with establishment politicians and cronyism, have been energised by his charisma and anti-corruption message.

May the Lord give him many years to fulfill this promise.

Non-fiction

Mariupol, a Ukrainian Black Sea Port, is Battered and Despairing

Leave a comment

Yesterday, three AP reporters published this account of the war horrors suffered in Mariupol, Ukraine. On March 4, the city lost power. The only stations the radios could receive played Russian news People took everything they could from the grocery stores.

On March 6, in the way of desperate people everywhere, they turned on each other. On one street lined with darkened stores, people smashed windows, pried open metal shutters, grabbed what they could.

…

Nearby, a soldier emerged from another looted store, on the verge of tears.

“People, please be united. … This is your home. Why are you smashing windows, why are you stealing from your shops?” he pleaded, his voice breaking.

There are so many bodies and as yet no way out.

Music

Sunday Singing: Ukrainian Alleluia

Leave a comment
“Ukrainian Alleluia” by Craig Courtney, performed by the Wellington College Chorale

Composer Craig Courtney wrote this piece in 2007 as a testimony to the enduring faith of Ukrainian Christians and our eternal hope.

3Once more they cried out,

“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”

4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!” 5 And from the throne came a voice saying,

“Praise our God,
    all you his servants,
you who fear him,
    small and great.”

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
(Rev 19:3-8 ESV)

Blogs, Socials, Non-fiction

Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori

Leave a comment

War has a glory to it. We marvel at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to fear Russian invaders. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has shown similar valor. They have inspired thousands of people from other countries to join their fight, including a man known as the deadliest sniper in the world. This is the fight that’s been handed to them, and they are brave or cocky enough to not shirk it.

For many Russians, the opposite is true. Their leaders are cruel bullies who tell them it is sweet and fitting to die for the fatherland, which is the meaning of the Latin words above. Wilfred Owen’s poem on this idea has stuck with me since my college days. War is an ugly thing many are called to do; the elites who will direct other people in other places so that they will not suffer call it sweet and fitting.

Peace: I was unable to find a published announcement of an event I heard about on the radio, that radio stations around the world were playing Beethoven’s Symphony 9 or at least the last movement, “Ode to Joy,” as a bid for peace in Ukraine. On Wednesday, twenty members of the Kyiv’s orchestra played it in the city square.

Russia: Peter Hitchens says he has been fond of Russia, of the heart he believed he saw in Russian people. “What if this could now be put right, if once again the sweet, low houses of Moscow could be populated by gentle, literate, moral people,” he once thought. He sees no chance for that now. (via Books, Inq)

Russian Orthodoxy: Americans argue and accuse others of Christian Nationalism while the Russian Orthodox Church practices it. Imagine “Onward Christian Soldiers” being sung by Russians about Putin’s leadership.

Freedom Convoy: Why socialists betrayed the working class

Book blogs: Here’s a list of 10 book blogs that spend a bit more time in front of the mirror than we do.

Travel blog: My sister writes a travel blog using her photos from mountain tops and rollercoasters.

Photo: John H. Garth Memorial Library, Hannibal, Missouri. 2003. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Music

Sunday Singing: ‘The Sorrowful Mother,’ a Hymn for Lent

Leave a comment

Here’s a 13th century hymn from well outside my church circles. It’s a traditional Catholic and Orthodox hymn for Lent, which began last Wednesday. I believe it’s attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi, which he wrote in Latin. The performance above is in Ukrainian with English and Ukrainian subtitles.