Looking Through the Lens of History

This colorful picture of a boy and a girl is a souvenir postcard. The duo are dressed in simple country clothes and the boy or young man is playing a flute-like instrument as the girl clings to his arm. The caption reads Russen Typen ~ Russian Types. 

 

It's not unlike many postcards of quaint rural folk life produced for tourists to send home. But it was not posted by someone on holiday in Russia. They were actually on more of a business trip to a place not listed in any vacation travel guide.

 

 

The back shows that it was sent by a German soldier using the military Feldpost on 13 December 1916. The soldier's penciled handwriting is too challenging for me to decipher other than to recognize that his language is German. His location is not marked but the postmark comes from the 31st Infantry Division. When war broke out this division was part of the XXI Army Corps then headquartered in Saarbrücken, the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany, which is in western Germany near Luxembourg. It is also very close to the contentious Alsace–Lorraine region of France which had been annexed by Germany after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. 

 

Initially in August 1914 the 31st Infantry Division took part in the German invasion of France, but in January 1915 it was sent to the Eastern Front to join the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive against the Russian army.  This action in May-July 1915 was a joint effort by Germany and its weaker partner the Austrian-Hungarian Empire against the Imperial Russia forces that were advancing into the Carpathian region of central Europe. The two Central Powers prevailed but at a terrible cost to both sides in casualties and captured soldiers. It is considered the turning point in Germany's eastern campaign which forced the defeated Russians to retreat, allowing Germany to move units like the 31st Division back to the Western Front in December 1917. The battle was also Russia's worst failure which ultimately led to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 which overturned Tsar Nicolai II and put Vladimir Lenin in power.

 

Map of Central Europe during WW1,
showing operations on the Eastern Front in 1917
Source: Wikipedia

But my interest in this postcard is not for its esoteric military history.
It's because I have another version
of this same boy and girl.
Only this one is not colorized
and it conveys a very different sentiment.

 

 

 

Back in November 2015, I featured a postcard in my story entitled Music Without Borders. This grainy sepia-tone image is captioned: 

543.  Russische Typen – Hirten (shepherds)

I paired the postcard with a small carte de visite of two children, circa 1898, that was taken by a photographer in the city of Czernowitz which was then part of the vast Austrian Empire. Today it is called Chernivtsi and is in Ukraine. Both images have a pitiful poignancy that I used to draw a parallel to the refugee crisis of 2015 which at the time included Syrians fleeing their war-torn country.

This postcard was also sent by a soldier using the German military postal service. The writer gives a date of 12/6.16, i.e. 12 June 1916.

 

 

The uncolorized photo reveals the boy and girl are younger than on the "improved" artistic version. Their clothing seems more utilitarian for real folk rather than a stylish costume worn for tourists. But what really caught my attention was the jarring difference in their expressions, particularly the young girl who appears fearful, maybe threatened, in the sepia photo, but charming and even welcoming in the colorized painting. Though I believe the original photo was taken in the Ukraine region, the two young people may just as easily be Polish or Belorussian. But it doesn't really matter as in any case this is still a picture of people from an oppressed national community.

 

I find it an unsettling comparison. The artist did not just colorize a monochrome photo, but made subtle changes that alter its character to make it more appealing, more like a holiday picture postcard. Was this revision made because of an order by the German army's propaganda office? I don't know, but I feel certain these cards and many others like it were marketed especially for the troops serving on the Eastern Front. I have several examples of humorous cartoon cards that were sent by German soldiers from the Western Front, so I believe that early on in the war, German military authorities used the popularity of postcards to promote the war effort. After the sepia-tone card was published, did some official grumble, "This one is too grim, a bit too distressing. Go back and make it look gentle and friendly. We are the liberators. There should be bright colors. Add more flowers!"  

 

The irony of these two postcards in that they could have been reprinted again during 1939-1945 or even 2022 as they illustrate the tragic history of this region. Historically for hundreds of years the people of central Europe, have suffered countless invasions and repressions from arrogant foreign monarchs like Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicolai and brutal despots like Hitler and Stalin. And Ukrainians have endured the worst abuse. In 2015 when I wrote my story Music Without Borders, the world had already seen a portent of what was to come in 2022, when in February 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion and subsequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Now eight years later, Ukraine resists another Russian invasion and demonstrates its resolve to defend their country. It has changed my reaction to this simple image of rural peasants.

 

The devastation brought on by this war in Ukraine is heartbreaking. The death and suffering is more tragic than words can describe. But just as appalling is the destruction of Ukrainian culture. Putin's insane effort to "restore" Ukraine to Russia is nothing less than a kind of genocide that attempts to obliterate Ukrainian history, art, literature, language and people. The free people of the world must give every assistance to Ukraine to repel these Russian invaders. Otherwise we imperil the future of our own freedom and culture.

 

 * * *

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by these postcards I conclude 
with examples of Ukraine's traditional folk music.
Here are some that I found particularly beautiful.

 

The instrument that the boy plays is a type of notched whistle, similar to a wooden penny whistle. It's a folk instrument played by natives of the Carpathian mountain range which covers parts of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, and Ukraine. In western Ukraine the instrument is called a Sopilka or Floyara. Here is short video of one played by Roman Kumlyk, a multi-instrumentalist from Ukraine's Carpathians region.

 

 

This next one is a duo, a husband and wife I think. The man, Ivan Vasylʹovych Rakivnenko, plays a dance tune called Кабардинка / Kabardinka on a button accordion. The old woman does not sing but toward the end you can hear her humming along with the tune. There's a dog too.

The video comes from Polyphonyproject.com, an organization dedicated to recording and preserving Ukrainian folk music. Their YouTube channel has hundreds of videos of Ukrainian people performing music that has been handed down through the generations. Most of the short films are of small groups of women singing in a traditional Ukrainian style of harmony. Here is one recorded in May 2018 entitled "Ой крикну я, гукну із строку додому" / "Oh, I will shout, I will call home from time to time". Its call and response form and minor mode are typical of many of the folk songs on the channel, but I found this one especially moving.

 

 

 

 

I'll finish with a very funny outtake recorded by Polyphonyproject.com of another women's group as they talk about the changes introduced by the internet. It's entitled "Носбук? Ноутбук! / Nosebook? Notebook!"

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the new year looks much the same as the old years.