I am back from my spanish trip! We basically spent 5 days eating and drinking and visiting medieval castilian villages! We went to a village were the castillian go to eat lamb, to a town where they eat only little piglets, to a city which specialises in the small bites late at night with a glass of sangria, and so on, and so on! seafoods, fishes, jamones, chorizos, eggs, potatoes and desserts - each very special and exquisite! and wine, wine, wine with sprite, sidra and melted chocolate!
Comparing my two holidays and people I met there was interesting though! To me it seems that Western Europe is altogether too material for my taste. In Britain people think only about getting a good job, have not much idea about enjoyment other than buying or consuming in quantity, or releasing their energy in a friday night drunken revelry (again because alcohol has to be acquired in increasing quantity to bring satisfaction!). [Forgive my intentional reductionism here, it is necessary to achieve punch of the prose!] In the south - Belgium, France, Spain is all very sophisticated about food and wines and enjoying life, about fine regional traditions to amuse you and chat about, but again to me it feels that every conversation is too materially oriented, no spirituality (not in the religious sense but "duhovnost"), no romanticism, nobody ponders on the human condition or the make of the surround, noone has crazy emotions and difficult passions. they did in the novels from the XIX century but not anymore.
Somehow the feeling of inferiority to the white man (the westerner) has become integral part of us. We are intimidated by their self-confidence that we cannot match. We contemplate our underachievements in prosperity, our history of being held back by "barbarians" (tartars or ottomans or communist russians, ...), our present situation of trying to be in everything like them hoping that thus we will finally earn their (and thus - our own) respect.
Yet...
I have some feeling that the spiritual energy is all concentrated in Eastern Europe! Most of us dont see it and appreciate it, fixating on the material and political problems (at least in Bulgaria, in Poland you are supposed to be better off?) but I think the cultural future, the evolution of duhovnost, should belong to those young people that graduate our universities. My week in Poland further confirmed that, with all these "kultur-managers" from various slavic countries communicating together in german, with your dreams and endeavours in film-making, the romantic stories about missed loves, the news about polish marxists, your housemate's fascination with romanian culture, etc, etc.
Its exactly because of the pervasive feeling that ours is not enough, that what we have is not satisfactory. So we are eager to look further, to appreciate cultures or to our history or to philosophy or to...
For west-europeans theirs is enough, they are satisfied to find their little place in the system without too many revolutions, and to be not too happy or too unhappy for ever after.
...an email from my previous scotish housemate, a chemist, about a 'job opportunity' at the company he works in now, GlaxoSmithKline: "you would need to shave, its good to apply before your finished, apply anyway and let them persuade you you need a job, you'll be rich
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a world leading research-based pharmaceutical company with a mission to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. GSK has over 100,000 employees worldwide and over 16,000 in R&D. GSK R&D is based at 24 sites in seven countries. The company has a leading position in genomics/genetics and new drug discovery technologies.
We are looking for those rare individuals who can successfully integrate sophisticated mathematics with complex biology and drive the resulting models to utility..."
He is worried about my good future in a typically british circumstances but I have already decided.
Next year I will be getting no job. I will be going back to Eastern Europe. I already have more money than I have ever thought possible - in return for 3 years of my youth.
I am going back home in the East, I remember that I too had passions when I was still there. I dont remember what they were anymore, my only dream now is to be with creative people, people that will challenge my senses. I am sure that passions will return then.
I didnt know what I want to do with my life, since up to a few months ago my lifelong desire to be part of Science gradually suffocated in the mundane of practical scientific life. Now, after my visit to you, I finally have some new, still vague, desire - I want to be feeling with my skin the warmth of this unrecognised east-european cultural spring. I dont know yet how I could intertwine my own living and spirit with it, but I will be thinking on that!
I know it is naive, but isnt it the lack of naive dreams exactly what I complain against here?
In Eastern Europe we all share the dream of that Paris, ах, Париж, but it is no more there in the french Paris. Instead, because of our imagination it is preserved in our east-european hearts. It will bring our very own Parisian spring!
The Germans are quite smart, they seem to finance so many art projects to the east, they are tapping into the source. Now these kultur-managers too. That night was so surprising for me, to see sixteen people in that bar Crvena Zvezda (serbian)/Czerwiena Gwiazda (polish) - polish, czech, slovak, ukrainian, russian, bulgarian, serbian, slovenian - all chatting most naturally in Deutch, the language of their mortal enemies for the past 1500 years (Drang nach Osten, Teutonic order, untermensch and all that). At first looked a bit like assimilation. But it is good, that night with my polylinguistic help we reached understanding in slavic, for "radostne, zadovol'ne, to est shtastlivje...! Bratiya slavyani...! - Niema bratiya tut - sestre! Sestre slavyanke!" (they were all girls) "Nazdrowie, sestre, Nazdravije, za slovensko razumewanie!" :) The romanian and albanian guys felt a bit isolated though. :)
One just has to look at the prominent role that the theatres and the bookshops, even those café-bookshop-librarettes, take in the polish or czech city life! (In Bulgaria somewhat less so because of the shorter cultural tradition under the Turks and the worse economic situation today.) We take these things for granted however, and believe they exist like that in all european countries. We cannot believe that we might be better in something.
However I have not forgotten my Oriental wishes yet. I still want to learn arabic properly and go to the Levant, because I feel that all this might be even stronger in the Levantine countries. Despite or because of their so heavy political, social and religious problems.
Hey, I loved the music you copied for me! (the cat in a bag!) I already downloaded the other two albums of Kapela ze wsi Warszawa (apparently translated in english as Warsaw Village Band)! It really relates in my mind with some image of the forest slavs of the north, living in green expanses of nature (your village of Bielsko-Biala? derelict jewish cemeteries are very appropriate ;)), all the devoiki with flower-ventzi on their heads... :) (heh, I am sure it is quite wrong!)
The fact that the singing is in semi-uncomprehendable polish voices makes for even greater impact! I am attaching one song called "Noon at Ural" that will hopefully portray the effect to you! (the author is actually from Vojvodina, beyond the Danube)
uff, you are probably quite tired by now reading all this. the reason i got so spacious is i will also publish it as essay on my donkey letters page.
Bye, Kiss, and Hug,
Kolio
PS: Could you write a comment for me on HC? I got my passport and soon I will be contacting people in US to stay with.
PPS: pass warmest feelings to Marta, Kasja and Dagna!