Children Must Not Know or Remember
By © Anton
Vendamencsh, 2017
Chapter 10/ In The Wake Of Overt Violence 3
The deliberately illiterate character of the ‘rich’,
‘famous’, and ‘ruling class’ is a phenomenon not commented on or noticed by
book publishers or literary critics. This is not to say that the rich, famous,
and ruling class do not keep diaries or give interviews, or speak ‘bullshit’,
but it does say that most of those who fall within said categories hide their
subjective selves from the public and themselves. In effectm they ”don’t wash
their dirty laundry in public’’. Sometimes these ‘elect’ even change their
personality. The reason
for the phenomenon is summed up in one word: image.
In order to
retain the privileges that come with being well known, the ‘image’ or icon of
one’s self must be maintained at all costs, even when theft and murder is writ
large all over the other side of the page. An exception issometimes found among
saints and artists, but even among these, one hides one’s true subjective
thoughts and pretends that one’s true character is amply present in what the
public is let see. Those who break the rule and act as iconoclasts (as, for
example, the American writer Truman Capote’s 1975 story in Esquire magazine, re: "La Cote Basque 1965" did) will result in an
immediate expulsion from the circle of the privileged.
As the
article points out, the reaction of the rich and famous to Capote’s story was
to order him to commit ‘social’ suicide. It was a long and torturous public
event that lasted from 1975 until 1984—nine years. It took Capote from the age
of 51 until nearly 60 to die. “He died for our sins,” (Romans
4:25) is a saying the
New York elite can be quoted as thinking (subjectively, silently, and, of
course, only ‘perhaps’). Another example of preserving an image is that of the wife
of a former president of the United States, who likely seconded the murder of one
Seth Rich, a DNC (Democratic National
Committee) election campaign worker turned thief for money’s sake. The effort
to protect a once upon a time First Lady--for consenting to the murder of a
thief—from a citizen’s arrest—the most sure way of moving forward
a deliberately stalled investigation has taken on epic proportions of
do-nothing.
In the case
of this author’s family, the ‘dirty launry’ of its aduts was not only hid from
the public and itself, but—to discredit memory—was left for a child to
remember. As fate would have it, I was only 4-5-6 years old, an age when memory
is not yet sure what it is that it actually remembers, yet which memory rises
to the surface in later years, wonders just what is it that it tells, and hears
the old saw: “Never speak ill of the dead”.*
*For
the last 50 years or so this has been augmented by the sickly near death experience
(nde) movement, which speaks of ‘unconditional love ’ and forgive the deceased torture
and murder. This does not necessarily mean that nde lies, but that it speaks to
a mind raised in a natural, not virtual environment,
About five
years ago, I had an unannounced visit from two elderly women. They brought a
photograph which they said they had found in the attick of the residence of a
deceased Lutheran minister in a nearby town. The women said they believed that the
photo showed my grandfather and Emilia, and wondered if I recognized them.
Indeed, I did recognize them, but not as I had ever seen them in life or any
photographs. My remaining living cousin refused to agree with me that the people
in the photo were who they seemed to be.* The photograph was from the year 1922, eleven
years before my birth. It was a group photo, one likely taken on grandfather’s
and Emilia’s wedding day. Other than grandfather, there was no one else from my
side of the family in the photo. The recorded were Emilia’s best man (E. Smilghis,
actor and theatre director), her two sisters, the husband of one of the sisters
(all stage perfotmers), and their son, the mother of Emilia, and an unidentified
young woman, who may have been the paramour of Smilghis.
*When
the photo appeared on internet, I began to wonder if the story the women told
me was to be believed. Because I offered no money, but kept the photo, the
women likely left disappointed and approached others interested. The reason why
Emilia looked so different from other photos, and why my cousin, nearly ten
years older than myself did not recognize her, was that soon after her wedding,
Emilia had plastic surgery, which remade her image from a handsome young woman, into one who
looked like a ‘business woman’.
Though
grandfather lived with Emilia from from 1909 on, they did not marry, because
marriage laws of the day were strict. Grandmother would not give grandfather a
divorce, until Emilia agreed to rewrite their Last Testament in a language
clear enough to include grandfather’s first family among the heirs. In effect,
grandmother was the only one to recognize the monumental scam being perpetrated
against her former husband and children. The scam was granfather’s desert for
scamming the faith that founded a nation; a fact that has escaped history; and
which scams Latvian historians assiduously ignore and build on the fiction of
Latvija’s history on to this day.
Grandfather’s
Ahiles heel (the finger in the dyke that he had to pull out) proved to be the
bankruptcy of his two hardware stores (mentioned in EC 649). Bankrupcy laws of
the day were unforgiving. It was the reason why only Emilia could sign up as
the publisher; grandfather could only be the newspaper’s editor-in-chief* and
indeed followed his motto:”Work, work, work”—until he ‘worked’ himself into
oblivion.
*Contrary to information placed on at least one internet link, Emilia was never known as the “Queen of the Press”. The title (King of the Latvijan Press/ Latvijas preses karalis, 1962) was commonly applied to grandfather and was passed on to the future by Janis Karklins, managing editor (1921-1928) of the The Latest News/ Jaunākās Ziņas. Neither did Emilia originate the idea of the newspaper [it is said to have been Karlis, grandfather’s oldest son (d. 1911)], nor were its editors recruited by her. Most editors came from grandfather’s circle of acquaintances of teachers, and editors with whom he had worked with at several Latvian newspapers [Mājas Viesis 1907-08) anf Rīta Vēstnesis (1910)]. Many of the editors had Herrnhuter backgrounds, such as Karlis Skalbe (JZ literary editor from 1920-1940; Skalbe was also a well known and popular Latvijan author). It was on Skalbe’s suggestion to grandfather that the newspaper began to publish free of charge ads by way of which refugees returning home after the war sought to find their dispersed relatives. This gesture gained the newspaper enormous popularity and endeared it to the public. Emilia’s first husband is said to have been an alcoholic, wherefore his career as an actor was on dubious grounds, and there was no settlement money for Emilia to be had from him. Morover, due to the 1905 Revolution and general poverty at the time, theatres were closed and actors’ salaries were at or below subsistence level. The Rīga Latvian theatre (founded 1902, closed 1905) resumes activity only in 1908 (-1915). As for the fortune teller’s prognosis of Emilia’s future, there is another story, one notably different. I will tell it shortly. As for Emilia’s death, the link projects pure fiction. According to my maternal grandmother’s memoirs, it was she who invited a confused Emilia (running about on the platform of a railroad station) into her deportation wagon and provided Emilia (who had arrived at the station with only a purse) with a sheet and blanket. Grandmother writes—the final irony—that Emilia, the destroyer of her grandchildren’s lives, was comforted by her and died in her arms.
As neither
grandfather or Emilia had money to spare, no one knows for sure how they got
their newspaper off the ground. It was a period of social turmoil, even chaos.
There is a rumor that before they left the employ of the German newspaper, they
took with them a list of the paper’s subscribers. One would not be surprised to
hear that there were other irregularities, such as sending out introductory
editions inserted in the German newspaper in the mail room. This would have
been advantageous as the population of Riga was rapidly increasing in number of
native Latvijans, who had little or no knowledge of the German language. Moreover,
Emilia’s mother worked as a distributor of newspapers to newspaper stands. The
new enterprise hit the right keys, and the publication was received by the
public favorably The content of the newspaper was directed toward the realities
of life rather than politics.*
*The
New Riga Theatre was founded (1902) in opposition to the in-house theatre at
the Riga Latvian House. We see here a repeat of the split between the Moravian
and Lutheran churches. After claiming the achievements of the Moravians as its
own, the Lutheran Church hitched its wagon to the rising Latvian nationalist
movement, whereas a notable segment of the defeated Moravians leaned in the
direction of the Russian state and Russian Orthodox Church. This is noted by the
founding (1906) of the Latvian Orthodox
Church
by David Balodis (see EC648) at Liograd/ Ļaudona. The New Riga Theatre started
with performances of internationally known operas such as Carmen and Faust. It
is likely that grandfather and Emilia met in 1908 when the New Riga Theatre was
reopened. The year 1908 is also the year Emilia divorces her first husband,
wherefore it is the year that brings the relationship of Emilia and grandfather
more or less into public space.
La
Cote Basque 1965 https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/12/truman-capote-answered-prayers
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