COURAGE

gyűjtemények hálózata

The series of actions Walk to Bolderāja was performed by Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko from 1980 to 1987 every year in a different month. The distance was seven kilometres, from Lediņš' home in Imanta to Bolderāja (both are suburbs of Riga) along a railway line. Each walk had specific rituals or rules, and was documented in photographs, drawings, and sound and video recordings. The walks were personal events, without the participation of a broader audience: the participants were Hardijs Lediņš, Juris Boiko, and sometimes other friends: Imants Žodžiks and Inguna Černova. ‘These actions revealed interests that were important in other works by the NSRD, the processes of time and nature, the periphery, and the importance of personal feelings’ (Ieva Astahovska, Māra Žeikare, 2016, 'The Workshop for the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings: Juris Boiko and Hardijs Lediņš'. Rīga: Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, p. 137). In 1987, a wider circle of people took part in the walk. The walks were popularized internationally at the 1988 exhibition ‘Riga-Latvian Avant-Garde’ in Berlin, where photographic and video material from all seven walks were presented. The art curator Barbara Straka from Germany praised the walks as a phenomenon of Latvian art, but Lediņš said: ‘They were not intended either as art or phenomena’ (Māra Žeikare [29.06.2015]. Bolderājas stils mākslā. Satori - www.satori.lv/article/bolderajas-stils-maksla). In 2002, to mark the 20th anniversary of the NSRD, Hardijs Lediņš and his friends organized a walk again. Since 2007, some of his friends have resumed the walks, paying tribute to Lediņš and Boiko.

The German journalist and writer Jürgen Serke (b. 1938) dealt with persecuted and silenced artists. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was researching a book about life and work of Polish, Russian, East German, and Czechoslovak poets and writers living in exile. Thus, Jürgen Serke, accompanied by photographer Wilfried Bauer and Czech poet in exile, Jiří Gruša, visited Blatný in Ipswich in October 1981. Then, Serke wrote a report about Blatný and his life in exile entitled “Escape to the Madhouse” (Flucht ins Irrenhaus), which was published in the West German magazine Stern in December 1981. The following year, Serke’s book “Expelled Poets” (Die verbannten Dichter), which also included the report about Ivan Blatný, was issued. Serke’s article about Ivan Blatný in Stern found an echo. After its publication, Ivan Blatný received many letters and gifts, mainly from Czechoslovak emigrants. Some people also came to Ipswich to visit Blatný personally. Then, in 1982, British and Norwegian televisions made a documentary film about Ivan Blatný. Hence, Jürgen Serke, or specifically his article, “Escape to the Madhouse”, significantly contributed to the rediscovery of this almost forgotten exiled poet.

Already during the Velvet Revolution, students of the archives at the Faculty of Arts, UJEP in Brno started to create an archive of documents, photographs, posters, banners and other items of this important time. The collection grew, not only through their efforts but also spontaneously grew as the collection began to be organised by many students, and in the end, during 1990 it was also completely finished and prepared. The basement of its organisation has become an inventory, which are summarising the individual parts of the collection. There is, for example, an inventory of documents, photographs, newspapers, etc. They are hand written in exercise books, and they are still key in locating the huge amount of documents and charters.

This ceramic piece was created by Halyna Sevruk. She titled it "Ivan Svitlychny" in order to show her deep love and respect for this leader of the Ukrainian sixtiers movement. Her portrayal meant to underscore his importance in forming the Ukrainian national consciousness and civic bravery of the sixtiers, who were persecuted for their words and their pursuit of truth. The martyred figure is winged and crucified. Quite importantly, at the very center of the piece is a book, as Svitlychny was a soul who thrived on knowledge. The curator of the Sixtiers Museum, Olena Lodzynska, noted during our interview that the date of creation (1969) is also significant, as it was well before the mass arrests that happened in the winter of 1972, when Svitlychny and many other sixtiers were taken by the Soviet authorities. This gives the piece an unsettling and prescient quality. 

It was established in 1983 in a small town Pulawy near Lublin, and performed until 1988. The composer and lyrics author was Tomasz Adamski, who was also a guitar player, and later a lead singer as well.

Adamski shouted the text with his hoarse voice, accompanied by dirty guitar riffs. With this aggressive vocal, high pace and its sudden changes, an early Siekiera resembles the seed-punk The Exploited or the thrash-metal Motörhead, rather than better-known Western punk stars.

The lyrics of songs such as Atak Już Nadchodzi, Nadchodzi Zwykłe Świństwo, Krwawy Front, Rana Kłuta, Zabij ty!, Oddział ślepych  compose of just a few words expressing aggression, cruelty and nihilism of war. Songs may be interpreted as a fascination with violence and chaos of war, but also as an anti-war expression, targeted at the youth which underwent an obligatory army recruitment – in an authoritarian state which has just directed an army against its own civils.

Na wszystkich frontach świata is a compilation of 30 studio demos and concerts’ recordings in Jarocin and Wroclaw in 1984, so the beginnings of the band. Those recordings have never been published before in any form. They were released in 2008 thanks to the activities of Robert Jarosz and his Trasa W-Z Archive. He managed to persuade to cooperate Sławomir Pakos, an owner of a small record company in Katowice, W Moich Oczach, which specialized in punk and reggae. The record was released in a series “Legends’ manufacture” and was accompanied by a modern cover designed by Wilhelm Sasnal, famous Polish painter, as well as 40-pages long booklet with lyrics in Polish and English, photographs and commentaries.

The news on  „Jarocin’s music” comeback was noticed in media and the edition was quickly sold out. It inspired the band to get back to making music and releasing a new album in 2011.

This is an existential novel by the Slovene émigré writer, poet and essayist Zorko Simčič, who wrote it in Buenos Aires in 1957. This novel is considered the first existentialist literary work in the Slovenian language and the greatest achievement of Slovene émigré literature in general. Later it was translated into English, Polish and Hungarian. The Slovene edition was only published after the democratic changes of 1991, which demonstrates that Simčič was a forbidden and undesirable author in socialist Slovenia.

The novel's story is devoted to a Slovenian intellectual who, after the war, goes away to Argentina in exile. Through his character and fate, Simčič describes the ideological divisions among the Slovene people during and after the Second World War. However, the novel does not deal with external events, but rather the intimate drama of a Slovenian intellectual who struggles with his wartime memories in the post-war period. Simcič depicts the restlessness of a fugitive who has lost his homeland and the inner mental division between the fidelity of his wife and his in love for another woman, who paradoxically belongs to the opposing ideological side.