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Chris Godsey Jan 09, 2016 12 Comments Share
"You should be very careful about who else you discuss this with, Chris," The Professor said. "You should let anyone you've told know they can expect to hear from my lawyer.
"You've made a very righteous decision that's putting my job at risk, and you're using a challenging time for my family as entertainment. I don't appreciate either of those things.
"How dare you."
That was early spring almost three years ago. I'm sure those aren't the exact words he used, but it's precisely what he said.
A few weeks earlier, The Professor had been arrested for obstructing his wife's airway. During a school-night discussion, a while after they'd put their four kids to bed, she wouldn't shut up when he wanted her to and he pinned her body — with his much bigger, stronger one — to their living-room couch and covered her mouth and nose with his hand until he felt like letting her go. Once free, she grabbed a phone while running to the basement, locked herself in a bathroom, and called 911.
Soon after spending two or three days in county jail, he visited me at my then-job, at the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP). "I put my hands on [her]," he said, eyes watery-red, voice quavering.
He used her name; later, affectation dropped, he wouldn't.
We found a private room. I asked him what he'd done. He told me his story. It's different from the one in the preceding paragraph. I won't tell you my sources, so I hope you'll feel skeptical when I tell you they're more credible on the incident than he is, but they are.
I'd considered him one of my closest friends for a decade. I'd let myself trust and be vulnerable to him while we seemed to bond over music and bicycles. Despite a lot of contradictory evidence, I chose to believe we shared convictions about teaching and living with authentic compassion. Resolving how much of an earnest rube I was toward him for so long might shake and embarrass me until I die.
I asked, "Have you done that or things like it before?"
"Yes," he said.
Turns out that until the night he got arrested, through more than 10 years of marriage and abuse, he'd been able to dictate that keeping his secret was best for the family. His ruse was and remains tight — perhaps more so since they've been divorced.
"Chris, what should I do?" he eventually asked, after 20 minutes of crying and declaring how much he'd screwed up.
I worked at DAIP full-time for just a few months in 2012 and 2013, but since June 2010 I've spent at least one night a week there co-facilitating a critical-dialogue group in a program for men who use emotional and physical violence against women. The program, part of Duluth's coordinated criminal-justice and social-service response to men's violence against women, is designed to help men who use violence to identify, confront, and ideally change beliefs that justify abusing wives and girlfriends (and usually, directly or by close extension, kids).
Many people mistake the groups for — or believe they should be — therapy, treatment, counseling, or anger management (whatever that is). Those approaches make sense to folks who believe individual men's pain and other "issues" cause them to use violence against women. According to that perspective, once a guy gets sober, resolves trauma, finds work, learns how to "communicate," goes back to church, figures out how to stop attracting and enabling difficult women, or solves some other real or supposed disorder, he'll stop using violence. It's a seductive idea. It makes "those guys" (a designation that seldom includes men who present as The Professor does) and "those women" the problems.
It means they, not we, are the only ones whose thinking and behavior have to change.
But some folks believe men's violence against women is a social problem enabled by dominant norms that teach boys and men they're entitled to expect and enforce deference from girls and women. Those same norms, according to this perspective, teach girls and women their human worth depends on how pleasing (including deferential) they are to boys and men, and that not creating a fuss is the best way for women to avoid men's violence. A lot of people disagree with this explanation. It suggests we're all culpable and (whether we know it or not) complicit. I believe in it quite strongly.
The Professor knew all this when he came to see me. I'd spent a lot of time telling him about how working on myself and with other men who have used violence has changed my life and teaching — it's transformed the way I notice and understand the effects of social, cultural, professional, and other hierarchies that privilege some people at the expense of many others.
Our conversations generally got deep on long bike rides. He's prominent among scholars who study processes of belief and behavior change, so I asked him a lot of questions about using critical dialogue to help facilitate real changes. His responses always seemed thoughtful. He's smarter than I am, so I took what he said seriously. I feel angry, foolish, and ill when I think about those exchanges. I think about them a lot.
Here's some other stuff he knew: Before I started working with men who have used violence, I was certain my presence would be a gift. I'd believed that since I'd never used violence against any woman, I probably had a lot of valuable insight that would help them see a better way. I could, I thought, be a formative example. Throughout the three-day co-facilitation training I felt quite noble and generous.
Fifteen minutes into my first time observing a group, while listening to men I'd entered the room feeling morally superior toward, I realized I'd abused my wife (the term she prefers over "partner" or "spouse") and every girl and woman I'd dated.
Throughout my first year of observing and co-facilitating groups, I learned a painful amount about how, since high school, I'd intentionally used my facility with words to belittle, scare, shame, mock, dismiss, instruct, and punish girls and women who trusted me. How I'd unintentionally used my size and strength to intimidate them. How I'd used my facial expressions, especially my eyes, as bludgeons and knives.
I'd used a lot of violence against girls and women.
The Professor knew all that when he came to see me. I'd been telling him about it for three years: sharing troubling blind spots I'd found through group dialogue and personal reflection; explaining why I'll spend the rest of my life figuring out how to live with the impossibility of taking back words and actions I've used to hurt my wife and other girls and women; trying to describe irreparable shifts in my perspectives toward popular culture, hetero relationships, and many other aspects of life most of us seldom question. In some settings I seldom shut up about any of it. Time with him was one of those settings.
I actually believed he wanted to change. I thought he wanted the kind of help I could give from being a few years into my own process of figuring out how to stop using violence. So I repeated some things I'd already told him. I told him some things I've never told anyone else. We were in a room where men's groups are held and he'd asked about them, so I told him what they'd been like for me as both a co-facilitator and a participant. I tried to be earnest and firm and sincere. Not judgmental, but not collusive. I tried to show him love and support and friendship.
Caught up in my own tale of contrition and woe, I didn't notice his eyes hardening, posture straightening, and arms folding. And then he was confronting me with a gaze — if you know him you know it, even if you have trouble believing you do — that sees nothing, only intimidates and coerces and demands.
"But Chris," he admonished, "what should I do?"
That's when I should have known what he really wanted, but I still (silly, adorable jackass) misunderstood. I apologized for talking so much about myself during a difficult time for him. I told him I couldn't speak from experience because I'd never been in his situation, but I'd do anything I could to help.
He gave up. We hugged. He left. When I got home I told my wife. She was less surprised than I'd been; we'd both had a growing number of unsettling experiences with The Professor for a year or two, but she'd had some I hadn't.
He and I had weird conversations a handful of times after that day at DAIP, over coffee and on chilly bike rides. I'd stopped believing he and I were buddies, but I had no idea, until it was way too late, how certain he seemed I'd be his ally — how ardently he felt entitled to using me as an ideally positioned advocate for his self-serving story: he's a good, liberal, Catholic man who shouldn't have done what he did but got pushed too far by the constant lack of respect his insufferable wife and ungrateful children showed for his sacrifice and leadership. He withstands all they put him through, then she abandons him after he makes one mistake? And then she and her advocates say he's dangerous to her and his kids — try to control when he can and can't see them? Of course he's going to fight back. What should he do: just keep taking it? He's got his job to think about.
The last time he and I talked was during a late-afternoon, mid-spring ride that started as a supposed opportunity to discuss why some women where he works feel uncomfortable around him. I'd naively raised the topic in an email, still believing he wanted my help in starting to see some things differently. He thanked me and suggested we discuss it while riding roads for a couple hours.
Maybe 20 minutes into the ride, after I'd told him what I see, and had shared a small bit of what I'd heard from women — when it started getting to a point where he could take some accountability — his face and tone hardened, he pulled over to the driver's-side shoulder of Howard-Gnesen Road just after we passed Homecroft Elementary heading north, and he berated me for the better part of an hour, maybe more, until I "admitted" nothing I'd said was true.
Then he berated me for taking so long to admit I'd been lying. Then for showing up at his court dates to support his wife, for a lack of loyalty, for being an incredible hypocrite — for having the nerve to judge him when I've told him about so much of my own bad behavior — and for whatever else he could think of.
It may be the most withering experience of my life. It wasn't an argument or a fight. Not a spirited debate. It was an onslaught. His obvious intention was to crush me. I'm not surprised that, among the folks I've talked to about it, the only ones who really get what I say about the surreality of the experience are his ex-wife, their adult daughter, and two women (close friends of his wife) he'd attacked after they challenged his authority. I know we're not the only ones.
I wasn't afraid he'd come at me physically; I'm not a tough guy, but I almost wanted him to.
I just had no idea what to do or say.
I wish I could describe it.
I think about those elongated, confounding moments many times every week, sometimes every day for multiple months, mostly feeling ashamed for how I did and didn't respond. Nothing would have mattered, but I still wish I'd have known how to do something different from what I did, which was mostly feel confused, exhausted, afraid, and hopeless. Eventually I gave up, shrank inward, and spent a long while almost silent. He didn't stop, but he got nothing new to work with.
I can't imagine how anyone has survived him as a husband or dad, or how colleagues and students sustain sanity against his demand for absolute deference and control. Even when he's less intense than what I experienced, he's brutal. He chooses to use brutality.
He can also be quite charming. He's very smart and well-spoken. He presents incredibly well. I'm sure some of his apparent kindness and patience toward other people is sincere, but when I reconsider a decade of interaction with him, I have no idea how to discern what was real and what was performance for self-interested purposes.
At some point during the Howard-Gnesen harangue, I said out loud that my wife knew he'd been arrested — I was certain he already knew — and he lost his shit on me until long after we'd started shivering in our light cycling clothes, lacerating me in cascades of rage for self-righteousness and hypocrisy, demanding that I explain every intricate nuance of the thought process I used to justify sharing his family's business with my wife, who at the time was a campus-level administrator where he teaches.
"Do you know that when you decided to share that information with her I was just days away from finding out whether or not I would get tenure, Chris?!" He slammed the front wheel of his carbon-fiber bike into the gravel. Again. Again. "God damnit! Do you know the risk you've put my family in, Chris?! This is not an abstract concept, Chris! This is my life and my family's life! You're messing with my kids! YOU BROUGHT THIS TO MY JOB! How dare you. How dare you make such a righteous decision. What made you think that was OK?"
On and on. Over and over.
And I kept stupidly believing in a resolution, and eventually we rode to where he'd been living since getting out of jail, and then we were standing, glaring at each other, backs against opposite brick walls of a heated entrance vestibule big enough to keep a few feet between us. Outside the glass doors, mid-spring darkness fell in frigid indigo gradients.
He emanated fury.
"You should be very careful about who else you discuss this with, Chris," he said. "You should let anyone you've told know they can expect to hear from my lawyer."
Again: "You've made a very self-righteous decision that's putting my job at risk, and you're using a challenging time for my family as entertainment. I don't appreciate either of those things."
Again: "How dare you."
Inexact and precise.
There's much more to tell but I'm afraid to say it.
I barrelled home in my own rage, and almost got into the house before breaking down bawling.
The next day he sent me an email that went something like this:
"Dear Chris: I admire the courage you showed trying to help me. Thank you."
I didn't believe him. I still don't.
Many people do.
Message to a White Boy Who in Some Ways Reminds Me of Me
Stage Stop food tastes just like shit
Robin Droppings
Bug Ear
Art Saturday Essay
vwilliam
So well written thanks for sharing it.
Powerful story, thank you for sharing.
Anna Tennis
Holy shit.  I want to divide my commentary into three groups: the way you experienced this,  the way you wrote this,  and the kind of person you are to do the first two things the way you did. In an homage to your own linguistic parsimony, I find I can use just three words to sum up: you are very good.
Jesus, he sounds like a real Svengoolie. Does his first name happen to be a synonym for his throbbing member? Nevermind, you said professor not personal trainer. Yah, testosterone is a silent killer. So is assbaggery.  Ironically, the only real known antidote to the former short of 'removal,' is pheromone.  But also unfortunately, women and men perform sex/have relationships for entirely different reasons.  Women often seem shocked to learn that dudes don't have sex for emotional or bonding purposes.  All sorts of problems, violence aside, begin because men and women have sex from entirely differing perspectives/agendas.  Sure there's nature v nurture. And I think we're improving our sensitivity training for young men.  I know that with sex ed in the 80's, it was all about anatomical drawings of the P&V, and about zero percent training on the ways in which men and women differ in their thinking. Yet I would've traded ten pounds of vag/penis drawings for an ounce of understanding the differences between men and women. The damage the lousy sex ed training of the 80's did to me and countless other dudes was irreversible. Now young guys can just google how to be a gentleman.  Fair's got nothing to do with it.
I'm sure if you talked to a lot of men though, the way they are at 40, versus the dumb shit they did in high school as far as how they responded to women would be worlds apart.  Sounds like this guy has/had issues that went beyond the average shlep. Unresolved anger, lack of anger management, generally dickery, whatever... Was it Chris Rock who said, 'its never okay to hit or choke a woman, but you sure would like to shake one from time to time?'  And yet, everybody gets a little excited when some lady finally slays her abusive husband or cuts off his bird while he's sleeping. It's funny.
I was biking home last summer and passed this guy who was wearing headphones, he slowed down at a stop and as I was passing through sort of yelled to him thanks that I was using his eyes for the traffic check so I didn't have to stop, well he thought I was criticizing him for stopping, caught up with me all ready to engage me in a fight over that, and when I told him I hadn't said anything of the sort, he went on his merry way, like oh, never mind.  But the real problem was simply that his testoterone levels ran so high, you could read it on his forehead that he wasn't getting enough action. I've seen more problems result from a dude's lack of sex, because I've been there, and I know the pain. But shoot, ladies don't want a guy like that because he doesn't care about their feelings, esp when he's chomping at the bit.  It's a vicious cycle.
So I guess if dudes were more emotional sensitive feeling, like Chris here, they'd be getting laid more and there'd be less overall violence, or it would be a wash because there'd be more disease and babies, and guys would feel weird because they opened up, in turn increasing the violence. Which brings us back to the only real solution here, is for mothers to leave their male children out in the woods all night long this evening, and the ones who make it, maybe they deserve a second chance? That and to keep sending our young men off to a foreign country to kill other ignorant underlaid young men. The solutions here are simple, and few.  Free tazers for the ladies.  Two strikes you're out castration for the men.  You'll notice the only thing ISIS isn't proposing is general castration for their troops.  I rest my case.
Grace and peace. And many thanks for the human being that you are.
Melody Morrell
This is an incredibly important article, Chris, and particularly important for this time. To my mind, it has very simple implications: These conversations need to begin long before people come to the DAIP. We need to be talking about these things in school, at church, in our living rooms, sharing the truth about how we have agreed to live together as men and women. I am very interested in hearing from you on next steps--or your interest in any next steps--not with The Professor, but in the world where there are many Professors.
Hello, I'm brand new to posting here.  I visit Perfect Duluth Day about 4 times a year and yesterday I happened to be looking for a blog I'd heard about, about local gifts, when BAM! this article is looking at me.  I feel really, really sad about the whole thing.  I was impressed and grateful for your sharing of your story, Chris.  As others have mentioned, it is so important that we open this dialogue.
I was a little alarmed to realize, however, that I know the person you are talking about.  If I do, then others do as well.  I want to exhort you to edit your story so you are sharing less personal details, less of the other person's story which really isn't yours to tell.  As you mentioned, there are children involved; children completely innocent of their father's crime and who stand to suffer, who have already suffered, immensely.  The man you speak of is in the middle of his own process.  It must unfold in its own time and way.  My prayers are with this family as they navigate something that must be a nightmare for all of them.  I can only hope, as you do and have tried to accomplish, that he comes to the place of empowerment that you have found.  Thanks again for bringing it up and, please, won't you consider revising to protect the innocents?
Erica Henkel
Juniper,
As someone who was previously in an abusive relationship and has had friends in abusive relationships where people "blamed the victims" and refused  to acknowledge their friends as abusers, I have to strongly protest your comment. The ONLY way abuse will be stopped is by bringing it clearly out into the light of day where everyone (including the kids) know about it and talk about it. Abuse feeds on secret corners and hidden conversations. By suggesting it should stay there, you are very much part of the problem that allows abuse to continue in our society. Sorry if that hurts, but it is true. What do you teach an abuser when you say they should not have to face the public for what they have done? What do you teach children by saying their victimized parent should be denied public support? What do you teach a victim by telling them that their abuser's reputation is more important than justice and bringing a halt to their abuser's habitual behavior? The instinctive discomfort which leads you to ask the writer to sweep this under the rug is the only thing that will teach the abuser that what he does is wrong and unacceptable. You need to stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution.
Tim Lieder
I agree with Erica. Stating that an abuser's privacy should be protected - particularly an abuser who is willing to harangue and harass people into silence - is ludicrous. Claiming that the abuser's children will suffer from people knowing that their father is a manipulative creep is utterly ignorant. The children are suffering. They will suffer from being around this guy and from knowing him. Their only comfort is to know that it's NOT their fault or their problem to solve.
The more you keep this hushed up and under wraps, the more the guy's family can be shuffled into the dark corner where they see their dad being praised as a great humanitarian or wonderful friendly man even as he is beating them and punishing them for standing up for themselves. By publicizing this guy and his identity, his children know that HE is the problem. HE is the manipulator and HE is the one who is in the wrong, not them.
Hiding abuse - whether it's sexual abuse (Catholic Church, DragonCON, Marc Gafni) or physical abuse (O.J. Simpson) just shows the abuser that he can get away with it.
Arinn Dembo
Fantastic piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it.
Joyce Scrivner
Wow.   I, personally, would be very interested in knowing how you solve the issues of being bullied.  I haven't and am still stalled.  Thank you for writing.
imnotsoperfect2
This is some powerful and personal writing! Thank you for your efforts to bring to the forefront how destructive domestic abuse is and that it cuts across all socioeconomic levels (as well as levels of intelligence). That is a very important message for all of us to be reminded of - thank you again.
I do, however, agree with Juniper's comment about the level of detail about this man's identity. It appears to cloud the valuable message. It's understandable that you felt betrayed and hurt by him during your interactions, though I would encourage you to reflect a bit more about your motives to make him so easily identifiable in the Duluth community (almost 3 years later). It, unfortunately, creates a tone of vindictiveness, which detracts from the importance of your message. Let me make it clear that I am in no way defending this man's actions. Abusing one's partner (or others) is unacceptable, which is why he was arrested and referred to DAIP for treatment.
My concern about your making him so identifiable stems, more importantly, from a code of professional ethics that just about all mental health professions/organizations subscribe and adhere to (and you do as well when you work at such an organization). Even individuals who commit shameful acts are entitled to confidentiality with their treatment providers. Domestic abuse interventions/groups are indeed treatment, with the intention of helping people gain skills to change how they relate to women/men - this is true for the DAIP model as well. Because of your position at DAIP, being more careful about disclosing identifying information is essential.
Something else that would be useful for you to consider is your engaging in a dual relationship - both a friend and DAIP employee. Although you're no longer friends, engaging in these types of relationships are discouraged in mental health professions because they cloud thinking and create conflicting motivations. I applaud your reflecting on your actions and motives over your life and how you've become aware of your own history. I also applaud you for working on changing those ways of relating to others and bringing the pervasiveness of relationship aggression  to our attention. Please consider Juniper's comments and how you can continue to educate the public without unintentionally harming others.
Video Archive: Megadeth in the DECC Auditorium, June 21, 1998
This post originally contained an hour and a half of grainy video of Megadeth in Duluth, shot by Ronaldo Rodrigues...


Children's Choice Learning Centers, Inc., the nation's only company offering exclusively non-traditional child care services, opened the first round-the-clock child care center for a casino company in June of this year. Located next to Station Casinos' Texas Station Gambling Hall & Hotel, the center offers child-care programs for children six weeks to 12 years of age. New Children's Choice child care centers opening this fall at Palace Station, Boulder Station and Sunset Station will make Station Casinos the largest provider of employer child care services in the gaming industry. Children's Choice Learning Centers feature educational programs with a licensed capacity of 300 children per shift, and operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to accommodate casino workers' schedules. They also offer Sniffles & Snuggles® Centers for mildly ill children and a supervised sleeping room for children of parents who work evening shifts.
Park Place Entertainment has entered into an agreement to sell the Las Vegas Hilton to Ed Roski, Jr. for an estimated $365 million. The transaction is expected to be completed by year end and is subject to regulatory approval. No shutdown of the property is planned and employees can expect continuity of their positions at the casino, according to Park Place management. Arthur Goldberg, President and CEO of Park Place Entertainment, says the company plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt and repurchase common stock. Roski is president and CEO of Majestic Realty Co., one of the largest privately-held real estate companies in the country. He developed the STAPLES Center in downtown Los Angeles and is a co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and the L.A. Kings hockey team. Roski currently owns the Silverton Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and his companies have built more than three million square feet of property in Southern Nevada.
Homestake Mining Company recently purchased a 25% interest in the Round Mountain gold mine from Case Pomeroy & Company, Inc. for the sum of $42.9 million. The acquisition increases Homestake's ownership in the mine from 25% to 50%. The Round Mountain mine, located 60 miles north of Tonopah, will now be Homestake's largest U.S.-based contributor of gold. In 1999, Round Mountain produced a record 541,808 ounces of gold at an average cost of $198 per ounce, the lowest in the last five years. Since the mine commenced operations in 1977, it has produced over six million ounces of gold.
A new group backed by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is supporting the growing numbers of Nevadans involved in home-based businesses. The Home-Based Business Alliance of Southern Nevada will provide information, resources and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs working out of their homes. On September 8, the Alliance is sponsoring a half-day educational seminar covering two main topics: business licensing and regulations, and marketing/advertising. A $15 fee will be charged for each session, or $25 for both. For details, contact Jamie Murray at the Las Vegas Chamber at 702-641-5822.
Mikohn Gaming Corp. of Las Vegas has received contracts totaling more than $6.5 million to design, manufacture and install a series of interior and exterior displays in the new Aladdin Resort opening on the Las Vegas Strip in August. More than 300 interior visual displays will be featured in the Aladdin's casino and in other sections of the 2,567-room complex. At the same time, the Mikohn Lighting & Sign Division is developing and installing three screens of leading edge MikohnVision™ LED spectaculars for the resort's "1001 Arabian Nights" outside façade.
The fifth annual Links for Life Tournament, created by Colliers International, raised nearly $70,000 for Child Haven, which provides temporary housing and treatment for abused, neglected and abandoned children in Clark County.
Insight Holdings, LLC, a Las Vegas-based real estate operating company, recently donated $20,000 to the Las Vegas Art Museum. The donation will be used to develop the museum's Sculpture Garden and provide funding for future projects and expansion.
The City of Las Vegas was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from Albertson's Food Stores. The "Best Neighbor Policy Initiative Grant" will be used to create a nutrition center for local senior citizens.
Cashman Cadillac and Cadillac West of Las Vegas have donated $7,125 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Nevada to grant the wishes of children who suffer from life-threatening illnesses.
The Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society has received a $1.75 million contribution from the American Land Conservancy and Del Webb Corporation. Each entity contributed $875,000 to the not-for-profit society which manages the lodge and its grounds on the east shore of Lake Tahoe.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Police Athletic League Summer 2000 Program will be able to provide leadership training for at-risk youth thanks to a $15,000 grant from Station Casinos.
Laughlin Associates, Inc., a corporation services company operating in Carson City since 1972, recently opened Laughlin Financial Services at 2522 N. Carson Street. The new company offers financial strategies including retirement planning, business continuation, employee benefits and a full range of insurance products.
Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip recently opened a new entertainment attraction called Shark Reef, a "total sensory experience" designed to transport visitors to an undersea world featuring dangerous and unusual aquatic animals and fish from the world's tropical waters. Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay was developed in consultation with the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre of Vancouver, Canada, which will provide on-site management of the attraction's operations. Klai::Juba Architects of Las Vegas anchored an international team of experts involved in developing the project.
Commscope, Inc., a leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance, broadband communications cables, will open a full-service cable distribution center this month in Sparks. The new 225,000 square foot distribution facility at 1135 Southern Way will initially employ approximately 50 people. The Sparks facility will eventually offer a full-service distribution center, sales, customer service and Cell Reach field engineering, as well as manufacturing facilities for Cable-in-Conduit. Brian Garrett, Commscope's President and CEO, said, "We selected the Sparks location because of its strategic location to serve all our customers in the Western United States." Commscope, based in North Carolina, is the world's largest manufacturer of broadband coaxial cable for Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) applications and a leading supplier of coaxial, fiber optic and twisted pair cables for wireless, network and other communications applications.


Bystanders in Wicklow town were left horrified yesterday after a man was denied medical treatment.
This is a mail which was sent to Wicklownews.net following the incident, at this time we don't know the condition of the man in question.
The incident has been verified as true.
"In shock. Walking across the street on my Lunch break and witnessed a man exiting the Doctors at the end of the road.
He collapsed against the wall and both myself and another woman ran to his aid.
He was breathless, very very pale, and told us that he had a stroke some time ago, and had no feeling in both arms.
He also said that the doctor turned him away as the surgery was closed.
I rang the Gardai who arrived straight away and called an ambulance.
The man was in a very distressed state and both a dentist and a solicitor came to help.
At this stage I noticed the doctor exiting the surgery and getting into the car.
I approached the doctor and asked why help could not be given to this man as he was evidently ill and basically on the doorstep.
The doctors reply left the witness shocked.
"I told him that the surgery was closed, besides, he is not a patient of mine and I also run a clinic on Thursday afternoons and I am on my way to that.
I stated to the doctor that you are a disgrace to your profession and maybe your not legally obliged to help this man but morally I think you are.
The doctor drove away without even looking in the direction of the incident.
Efforts to contact the surgery in question proved unsuccessful yesterday.


This body brush is a crucial tool for working with children or adults with sensory processing issues. Brushes are ideal for clinic or home use. For the specific deep pressure protocol, speak with an occupational therapist or therapist trained in the Wilbarger Protocol.


Écrivain de poème sur un amour inconnu à l'eau de rose, de roman en tout genre sur le net, il tente de vivre de son art car oui les gars c'est un artiste, même s'il semble être le seul à se voir ainsi.
What if, what if we run away?
What if, what if we left today?
What if we said goodbye to safe and sound?
And what if, what if we're hard to find?
What if, what if we lost our minds?
What if we let them fall behind and they're never found?
The face of an angel.
There ain't no time for games with me.


text:
Etusivu — Tutkimus — Tutkimuksessa tapahtuu — Menneet konferenssit — Conference: Networks, poetics and multilingual society in early modern Baltic Sea Region — Abstracts
Abstracts (by session)
Thursday, 30 August, 2018
Keynote 1
Jason Lavery (Oklahoma State University): Michael Agricola and the Finnish Vernacular Reformation
The best-known figure of Finland's Reformation is Mikael Agricola. Agricola created the literary basis of the Finnish language by translating the Word of God into Finnish. Agricola's achievements helped him to win promotion in 1554 to the post of bishop of Turku. After his death in 1557, he became known as the "Father of the Finnish language."
The extant literature concerning Agricola's writings largely focuses on linguistic and theological questions. This article will examine the favorable conditions that allowed Agricola to produce normative ecclesiastical literature in Finnish while others could not. Among these conditions were access to a printing press, his vision for Finnish as a comprehensive written language and not just an ecclesiastical language, the availability of qualified assistants, and the availability of sources from the Lutheran reformation for him to draw on.
Session 1a
1. Dalia Marija Stanciene (Klaipeda University): The Reformation and Cultural Modernization of Lithuania
The Reformation is much more than just renovation of Christianity. It is modernization of thinking, modification of traditions, intensive theological inquiry, and construction of new personality. In short, the Reformation means profound transformation of culture to which society has to be prepared.
At the beginning of 16th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was ready to the reception of Martin Luther's ideas. It was 'religiously multicultural'. Along with dominant Catholic Church there were Orthodox and Greek Rite churches as well as Jews' and Karaites' Synagogues. All of them enjoyed religious freedom.
This religious diversity and freedom made such an impact on the Lithuanian nobility that one of the most influential its representative — Voivode of Vilnius, Grand Lithuanian Chancellor, and Grand Hetman of Lithuania, Mikalojus Radvila The Black — converted to Calvinism and greatly contributed of the spread of Reformation supporting the printing of protestant books, financing a protestant church and college in Vilnius, supporting protestant intellectuals.
One of the most important event was the appearance of the first Lithuanian printed book – Catechism by Martynas Mažvydas, issued in 1547 in Königsberg, for at that time, there lived large Lithuanian population in the Eastern Prussia and Protestants encouraged and supported usage of local languages. This greatly facilitated the spread of their ideas among different nations. The mentioned book signifies the beginning of the Lithuanian literacy, the beginning of standardization of Lithuanian language, the beginning of national education.
Lithuanian Cultural elite was displeased with the Catholic Church's policy and sought to modernize the management of the State. It looked at the Prussian Principality as a model. Following the suit, the supporters of the Reformation made attempts to modify judicial system, started establishing the gymnasium-type schools and printing houses. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Reformation as the modernization drive influenced economic reforms and national mentality formation.
2. Miia Kuha (University of Jyväskylä): The Teachers and the Listeners? Sermon Reception in Post-Reformation Eastern Finland
The educational role of the sermon was strongly emphasized in 17th century Lutheran Sweden, where the clergy and the parishioners were often referred to as lärare och åhörare, the teachers and the listeners. However, the parishioners — mostly members of the peasant community — did not simply adopt the role of passive listeners. Sometimes they hardly listened at all, but it is also clear that they became familiar with holy texts and the course of the divine service of the Lutheran Church. There is also evidence that they were able to use the texts and rituals of the church in multiple ways in their own rituals and celebrations outside the church. The teachings of the Church were not understood as such, but instead they were intertwined with other ideas in local peasant culture.
In my paper, I analyse court records from the late 17th century, especially focusing on cases with rare examples of how peasants related to and used the sermon and holy texts that they heard from the pulpit. I will also discuss the cultural interaction between the peasantry and the clergy in early modern Eastern Finland in a broader perspective. My research area, the province of Savo, characterized by long distances, slash-and-burn farming as the main livelihood and a distinctive folk culture, was peripheral, but not isolated. The clergymen recruited in the local parishes often came from outside the parish, bringing with them new ideas from Vyborg and other important centres of Lutheranism in the Baltic Sea region. In local communities, the peasantry and the learned engaged in the same cultural practices, which in turn were constructed in interaction with each other.
3. Joonas Tammela (University of Jyväskylä): Local Sermons as a Source for Study of the Construction of Societal Ideas in Swedish Realm, 1790–1820
In the Age of Enlightenment the construction of the societal ideas took place not only in the debates of the political forums (parliaments, newspapers, pamphlets). The Swedish Lutheran local clergy had a very significant role in this process, as they acted in an intermediary role between the centre and peripheries of the state, and as political educators among the common people. Through their sermons clergymen participated in the process of framing the societal ideas at a local level. Even if there were strong parallels in the societal ideas expressed in the sermons in every part of the realm, the framing of the societal ideas still was not the same in every locality. The ways of constructing the societal ideas were based on the preconditions of the local societies.
My doctoral dissertation focuses on the rise of more modern patriotic discourses in the Swedish realm (both Finnish and Swedish areas) and especially on the role of the local clergymen in this process. The perspective and source material of my research is quite unique in international comparison, because the sermon manuscripts have survived to a unique extent in Finnish and Swedish public archives. Changes in the language of the sermons may not have been as explicit as in certain secular genres but their contribution to shifts (and continuities) in the ways of constructing the society in the Lutheran contexts can nevertheless be recognized by comprehensive contextualization and comparison. I shall demonstrate how local sermons can be used as a source for studying both the Finnish and Swedish political cultures in the late 18th century and early 19th century.
Session 1b
1. Tapio Salminen (University of Tampere): Daughters Lost and Found: Migration of Finnish Peasant Women to Livonian Cities, ca. 1400–1550
In my paper I will discuss the migration of Finnish peasants to Livonian cities, especially Reval (Tallinn) in the 15th and 16th centuries as evident from the source material. With more than 150 documented emigrants from the province of Nyland in the first half of the 16th century alone, the migration from Finnish areas to urban centres of the Baltic Sea region constituted a major sphere of sociocultural exchange for not only the Swedish speaking coastal regions but also Finnish speaking inland, and was never a marginal phenomenon. As evident from the surviving material, more than half of the emigrants were young women, who never returned home, but kept constant communication with their relatives back in Finland. Together with ongoing contacts in trade the migration contributed to a larger framework for cultural and social interaction characteristic for the late medieval and early modern Baltic Sea area and reformation era Finland. Because of the surviving written communication between various agents of power in the region, it gives interesting information on not only the emigrants themselves, but also on different processes of oral and written communication as well as management of information in the multilingual surroundings of the era.
2. Ilkka Leskelä (University of Helsinki): International Business, Education and Upward Social Mobility: Urban Family Strategies in the Baltic Sea Region, ca. 1400–1550
This paper presents a qualitative and generational analysis of North Baltic family strategies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It focuses on urban or urbanized individuals and families who operated internationally in business, religion and politics, often relocating into new towns and areas of activity. All of these individuals and their families were successful in their chosen trades, which resulted in upward social mobility within a generation or two.
A factor combining the activities of all the individuals and families is their role in international business and schooling, and even warfare. Success in each can be understood as gathering needed resources and learning the needed skills, both of which can be seen as investments that were believed to bring future profit. For families, a well-planned and executed generation change is also needed, and was seemingly pursued.
This paper discusses how the families (or fathers) sought to invest in the resources and learning, and how the elders sought to influence and guide the next generation. Here the intentional dispersion of the family fortunes, the generalist nature and benefits of the late medieval university schooling, and the transfer of ideas within and between familial networks are brought to the fore.
I suggest that in addition to inherited family fortunes and position, a broad individual skillset, including language skills, and international contacts enhanced the individual/family ability to recognize and seize opportunities when they arose. Moving between the centre and the periphery, and sending youths to study abroad appear as good general strategies even if their benefit and utility in individual cases could not be fully controlled.
3. Anu Lahtinen (University of Helsinki): Constructing Local Genealogies: Bailiff as a Chronicler
My paper deals with the archives of the Fleming family, especially the documents produced by the bailiff of the Sundholm Manor, owned by Lord Ivar Fleming and Lady Brita Tre rosor, approximately 1530–1570.
As the archives of the Manor had been burned during military action in the early 1520s, the landed property records of the Manor have been reconstructed in a personal way. As the original and copied documents had been destroyed, the bailiff spent time collecting information about the origins of the property, writing down hearsay reports and memorized information about the former owners and deceased relatives of the owners of landed property. As a result, the property records, instead of being a formal collection of copied transaction documents, are a mixture of genealogical records, chronicled local events, and descriptions of property disputes.
In this paper, I will analyze the way the local genealogies were constructed to justify the ownership of the Fleming family over the landed property. I will discuss the problems in defining both the role of the bailiff as an occasional chronicler, and the problems in defining the genre of the documents. I will also discuss the transition from the Catholic to the Reformation period as it is present in the narrative and recorded events of the property records.
4. Ulla Koskinen (University of Tampere): Religious Expressions in Laymen's Correspondence in Finland, 1570–1600
Learned debate and religious writing achieved special significance in the Reformation era. Although Finland was not at the core of the debates, Reformation and its' political consequences in the late sixteenth century meant profound changes to all the levels of society. How is this reflected in everyday letters people wrote in those decades? My presentation is based on close reading of letters of nobility, burghers, and servants of the state. It seems that even though writers avoid discussing the Reformation and religion as such, their letters contain a rich variety of Christian expressions.
I analyse these religious expressions focusing on three areas: 1) quantity: how common religious vocabulary is, who uses it and how prominent it is in the letter formulae, 2) context: in which circumstances religious vocabulary appears and what kind of a role it has in the communication, and 3) concepts: which religious concepts are used and which Christian and cultural ideals they reproduce.
1. Suvi-Päivi Koski (University of Helsinki): A Significant Book Discovery in Germany — Time to Rewrite the Early History of the Finnish language Hymnbook and Catechism?
D.Th. Suvi-Päivi Koski evaluates the discoveries publicised at the Finnish National Library on 7 December 2015. They have been characterised as a unique source of early Finnish literature. The two previously unknown works (bound together) bear the titles Yxi Vähä Suomenkielinen wirsikiria and Catechimus[sic] Se on Christilisen opin Pää cappaleet (A Small Finnish Hymnbook and Catechism i.e. Principal Tenets of Christian Doctrine). Both were printed in Rostock in 1607. This is a first more extended evaluation of the books and introductory by nature: its aim is to raise questions and open up new aspects for further research into the history of the early Finnish hymnbook and the catechism.
2. Sanna Raninen (Uppsala University): Size Matters: Making and Using Music Books in Folio in Post-Reformation Sweden
The sixteenth century witnessed the arrival of Reformation in Sweden (including Finland), imposing theological and material changes to the liturgy. Although the pace of change was not wholly dramatic compared to some areas elsewhere in Europe, the literary materials for liturgy and music had to move along with the times; the clergy would amend the books they owned and used by adding material to the existing books preceding Reformation, buying new printed books, or relying on the traditional manuscripts either by commissioning one or making it yourself. Although books and text in vernacular (Swedish and Finnish) began to appear more prominently in circulation along traditional written material in Latin, readership was still the privilege of few, and readership of music of even fewer. Music books in folio are particularly associated with liturgy –especially catholic liturgy– with the first half of the sixteenth century enjoying a certain 'golden age' for the folio choirbook in Europe. Despite the proposed changes in worship and its liturgical and linguistic contents and a definite shift towards music books in smaller formats towards the end of the sixteenth century, manuscripts and printed books of music in folio were still made and circulated in the kingdom of Sweden. My paper examines the production, contents and use of these books in Finland during the first hundred years of Reformation.
3. Tuija Laine (University of Helsinki): Missionary Work among the Saami, Orthodox Christians and Native Americans in the 17th Century Sweden
The seventeenth century was a period of absolutism also in the Swedish realm. From the monarchy point of view it was very important to keep the whole realm unanimous. To reach this target f. ex. all the ecclesiastical books were uniformed and besides the Lutheranism all other confessions were prohibited.
There were three types of non-Lutherans in the Swedish Realm that time. In the northern parts there were the Saami, who had their own natural religion, in Karelia there were people who confessed the Orthodoxy and in Delaware region in America there were Native Americans with their own natural worship.
During the absolutism, all the subjects of the Swedish King had to be baptised and they had to confess the Lutheran faith. Before baptism people had to learn Christianity — or the Lutheran faith, if they were already Christians, like the Orthodox Christians. For teaching and learning books, especially Catechisms, were needed. Knowing Christianity was one of the main points in Reformation and it came true through learning to read Catechism.
In my paper, I shall introduce the Catechisms written for these people in Lapland, Karelia and Delaware. In what circumstances they were written, what kind of Catechisms they were and how they were used in this missionary work. The last question is probably the most difficult to answer, because there is not very much information left about this kind of work, but some conclusions can be made from the texts of publications.
Andrew Pettegree (University of St. Andrews): Transforming the Early Modern Book Market: The Dutch in the Baltic
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic became the Bookshop of the World, importing vast numbers of books for sale and re-export, and publishing texts for the continental market. Thus far, exploration of this phenomenon has concentrated on the most flagrant examples: English-language Bibles to spoil the London market, French-language texts that became all the rage in Paris. But the core of the Dutch export trade lay elsewhere, in the Latin trade, and in their own backyard, east and north. The Dutch exploited their domination of the Baltic trade to create new markets in Denmark and Sweden, and to launch a daring assault on one the best established of the European book markets, in the Holy Roman Empire. This paper offers the first systematic investigation of the Dutch Baltic trade, based on a priceless rediscovered source: collections of the printed catalogues of auctions held in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Danzig and Hamburg. The Danish book-trade was a precocious adopter of the auction as a mechanism for trading books, generating thousands of pieces of high-grade data that has been analysed using the resources of the Universal Short Title Catalogue. As a collateral benefit, this analysis has also generated many records for books that can no longer be traced in a surviving copy: lost books. These lost books offer a new insight, not only into these Baltic markets, but into what seventeenth-century buyers of books were actually reading, rather than what our major libraries today have chosen to collect.
Friday, 31 August, 2018
1. Taarna Valtonen (University of Oulu), Kati Kallio (University of Helsinki) & Marko Jouste (University of Oulu): Olaus Sirma: a Saami Poet or a Mediator of the 17th Century Kemi Saami Oral Tradition?
In 1673, the university professor and assessor of the Swedish Antikvitetskollegium Johannes Schefferus published a Latin book Lapponia describing the Saami people and the northern parts of Scandinavia. The book includes two poems recited by Olaus Sirma, a Saami born in Sodankylä (c. 1655), student at the University of Uppsala in 1672–1675, and later a clergyman in Enontekiö. Schefferus published these poems both in Kemi Saami language and in Latin translations. The Latin versions were soon translated further to German, French, English and Dutch. Later, Sirma himself translated the Finnish Catechism into Kemi Saami language, but did not manage to get it published. No other writings from him, and only very little other materials in Kemi Saami language remain.
The character of the poems by Sirma has been disputed: were these poems individual artistic creations or examples of an indigenous folklore genre of this later assimilated Saami group? Was Sirma documenting his own oral tradition, using and modifying it for literary purposes or creating something new? By setting these poems in relation with 1) the 17th century learned poetics in Swedish and Finnish, 2) the coeval ideology of collecting antiquities, 3) the few folklore items left in Kemi Saami language and with 4) what is known of the oral poetics in nearby cultures during later centuries (Saami, Finnish, Karelian, Swedish, Russian), we aim to approach these questions from a comparative perspective.
2. Eeva-Liisa Bastman (University of Helsinki): The Kalevalaic Life of Christ: Epic Form and Devotional Features in Matthias Salamnius' Ilo-Laulu Jesuxesta
Matthias Salamnius' Ilo-Laulu Jesuxesta (1690) is an epic poem about the life of Christ, written in the oral metre of Finnish folk poetry, the so called Kalevala-metre. This is the earliest example of a long written epic in Kalevala-metre. In literary criticism, it was quickly canonized and has generally been considered to be a rare example of early modern Finnish literature of the highest standard.
Salamnius' flawless Kalevala-metre suggests first-hand knowledge of the tradition of oral poetry, while the subject matter and the epic form were highly topical in the written literature of the time all around Europe. Moreover, the poem has didactic qualities, and makes use of the rhetoric of meditative devotional texts.
This paper addresses the question of genre in Salamnius' poem and examines how the amalgamation of the epic and the devotional is carried out.
3. Janika Oras & Mari Sarv (Estonian Folklore Archives of Estonian Literary Museum): Serfdom and Suppression in Estonian Runo-Songs
Among the corpus of Estonian runo-song, there is a distinct thematic group – songs about serfdom. These songs reflect the historical social situation from the position of suppressed and express singers' attitudes towards the suppressors. Previous studies estimate the share of serfdom songs to be one fifth of the whole corpus of lyric folksongs. The historical background of these songs lies in the socio-political situation that developed in Estonia since the 13th century when German invaders under the aegis of crusades acquired the lands and gradually also the people who inhabited the lands. This brought along the situation where a person's social class was determined by his or her ethnicity. According to historians the situation became harshest for the lower class, formed mostly by Estonians, in the 18th century.
Although some song types or motifs of serfdom may have roots already in the pre-crusades society, the main body of serfdom songs is considered to be evolved in the 17th-18th century, and to represent newer layer of runo-song tradition, compared to mythological, calendary or custom related songs. In our study we intend to compare the meter of serfdom songs to the average of the region in order to detect in as how much the difference reflects the changes in the prosodic structure of language, and thus find a proof to the estimated dating of the songs.
Secondly, we are using the means of corpus analysis, to find out how the sociocultural processes and relations of the early modern period are reflected in the song texts. Keywords and poetic figures reflect the life realities and opposing social roles, creating at the same time a good picture of the singers' worldview, where the humility, sarcastic humour, Christian elements, magical acts, hatred and utopias of revenge are intertwined. A coherent picture of the social and ethnic Other reflects long-term social injustice calling for outlet and (often utopic) solutions to the situation and sheds us light also to the roots of 'romantic' nationalism of Estonians as well as other colonized and suppressed peoples.
1. Gustavs Strenga (Tallinn University): From Undeutsch to Latvians? Ethnicity in Riga Before and During the Reformation
Were the Latvians in Riga as an ethnic group 'born' during the Reformation? The Reformation seems to bring a change in understanding of ethnicity in Riga. Before the Reformation there was no ethnic segregation in the city, yet Undeutsche (Non-Germans, i.e. the locals) were prevented from entering elite merchant guilds and artisan brotherhoods. Around 1525 the city's parishes were divided according to the language preached. After the Reformation St Peter's was a church of German congregation, but St Jacob's became the church of Latvian congregation. The brotherhoods of the transport workers (Bierträger and Losträger), which hosted most of locals, from confraternities of no ethnic distinction became Latvian craft guilds. This paper will attempt to answer the question who were Undeutsche in Riga before the Reformation and how the locals became Latvians during the Reformation.
2. Linda Kaljundi (Tallinn University): So Great is Their Hatred against the Germans… Explaining the Rise of Ethnic Antagonism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Eastern Baltic
Most historians tend to agree that the late medieval and early modern Eastern Baltic witnessed the increase of ethnic antagonisms and othering of non-German segments of the local societies. However, different explanations have been offered for explaining the spread of negative literary representations, as well as discriminating social practices. This paper will reflect on various socio-political, as well as religious and cultural explanations, paying special attention to the growing circulation of discursive images and stereotypes, and their potential impact on the literary culture, but also on the social hierarchies of Eastern Baltic and Livonia in particular. It will mainly draw on history and travel writing, but also on some pamphlets and religious texts, analysing these from a comparative perspective and discussing the potential entanglements between the Livonian images of the local non-German peasantry as the internal 'other', the increasingly global imagery of otherness, and the peasantry-related tropes circulating in the Reformation literature. While exploring these imageries, the main focus of the analysis will nevertheless remain on the representations of the radical differences and conflicts between the non-German peasantry and the German-speaking parts of the Livonian society. Last but not least the paper will also point out the afterlife of these antagonistic images and narratives, and their extensive appropriation during the later centuries, which has not ceased even today.
3. Stefan Donecker (Austrian Academy of Sciences): "Germans have a Hell of Their Own": The Multilingual Society of the Damned, according to Baltic Witchcraft Trials
Scholarly interpretations of the Witches' Sabbath have observed two conflicting notions of this perplexing phenomenon in early modern sources: On the one hand, the Sabbath was described by accused witches as a world "turned upside down" where all social conventions were inverted. In other cases, however, mundane society was said to permeate into the otherworldly Sabbath and its norms were supposedly observed by witches and even Satan himself.
The proposed paper intends to revisit Livonian witchcraft trials from the sixteenth and seventeenth century and examine the inversion resp. observance of societal norms among witches and werewolves, as recorded in the trial protocols. Early modern Livonia was characterised by a strict social and juridical stratification intertwined with an ethnic and linguistic division, contrasting German-speaking elites to the Latvian and Estonian serfs (commonly subsumed into the somewhat derogatory term Undeutsche, 'Non-Germans', in contemporary accounts). This multilingual society clearly influenced the images of witchcraft prevalent in trials from the eastern Baltic littoral. The witch and the werewolf were the quintessential embodiments of Otherness in the early modern imagination. Thus, an inquiry into the usage of language and the relevance of ethnic affiliation in trial records promises substantial insights into the worldview of peasants who usually lack a voice of their own in early modern sources.
Kristiina Ross (Institute of the Estonian Language): 'Our Songs' vs. 'Your Songs' in the 17th and 18th Century Estonia
In modern times Estonian culture underwent an abrupt transition from traditional oral form to the European cultural sphere. The shift was essentially manifested in the replacement of the old runo songs by syllabic-accented end-rhyme poetry, imported by Lutheran hymns. In Estonia, the whole process is characterized by its distinct colonial flavour. The borderline between the old and new traditions was emphasised, apart from the social and educational inequality of their carriers, by an ethnic difference, as the Lutheran hymns were introduced in Estonian by (mostly) native German pastors. The paper addresses the manifestations of a colonialist background in the Estonian hymn translations of the 17th and 18th centuries and in the translators´ metatexts. The most important feature of the forced cultural transfer is the distinct opposition between the two traditions. This is revealed both in the metatexts and the poetics of the translations, whose authors have not been capable or willing to avail of the prosodic options of local poetics. The strict alternation of the iambic or trochaic accents, based on Martin Opitz' doctrine, was adhered to by each and every translator since the first versified Hymnal (1656). The principles of translation changed with time, but on the whole all Estonian translations of those centuries remained wooden and German-like. Nevertheless, some translations of different periods display single examples of fluent alliterative doublets and phrases seemingly inspired by the vernacular. This seems indicative of a different tradition of translation, possibly carried by some native Estonians in the 16th century. However, part of the sound repetitions may well be interpreted as an attempt of the translators to imitate the literary devices used in German poetry.
1. Kristi Viiding (Under and Tuglas Literature Centre, Estonian Academy of Sciences): Arranging the Early Modern Literary and Book Culture around the Baltic Sea in the Beginning of the 17th Century: the Case of David Hilchen
The writing, reading and collecting of books in the Early modern period comprise a phenomenon that has been researched from different points of view. The private and public book collections, probate inventories of the libraries and diaries give evidence of the intimate and sometimes unsocial attitude to the books. Yet the literary and book culture includes such aspects like preparation, production, ordering or distribution of books, which belonged to the most social activities of the Early modern literati, helping to establish and arrange the social networks and get feedback on their works across regions and confessions. However, the research of this part of the literary and book culture implies the analysis of very different sources, and the pieces of information are often quite fragmentary.
In my paper I will analyse the unpublished Latin correspondence, ca 800 letters, of the most famous Livonian humanist David Hilchen (Heliconius, 1561–1610). The letters were sent to and by him within the period from 1577 to 1610. His correspondents consisted of almost 200 people from Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Livonia, Denmark, England, the Netherlands, etc., including such leading humanists as Justus Lipsius, Johannes Caselius, Isaac Casaubon, Joseph Justus Scaliger, etc. Hilchen who was a humanist from the periphery of Europe referred to very various literary practices in his correspondence: to the reading and reception of the published books, ordering of dedications and gratulatory poems for books of others, sending of factual materials about famous persons and contemporary events to humanists in other regions for invention, mediation of opinions and remuneration between patrons and authors, consultations about the appropriate literary genres, etc. Hilchen's remarks and discussions about the topics demonstrate that, in addition to his local fame as a politician and the author of the Terrestrial Law for Livonia (1599), he must have been considered an important actor in arranging literary and book culture at an international level.
2. Aivar Põldvee (Tallinn University): The Letters of Käsu Hans and the History of Estonian as a Written Language:
All national histories of literature have authors who deserve the title 'the first' or 'the father'. For example, Mikael Agricola is often called 'the father of literary Finnish' or Georg Stiernhielm 'the father of Swedish poetry'. One of these great men of national literatures is 'the first Estonian poet' Käsu Hans (Kässo Hantz), who has composed a 32-stanza lament about the destruction of Tartu by the Russians in 1708. One more text by Käsu Hans has previously been known – a letter written in Estonian to pastor Könik Könikson from 1706; in 1893, it was published under the headline 'The first known letter by an Estonian man'. Recently, two more letters by Käsu Hans have been found, dating from the years 1702 and 1703 and addressed to professor Gabriel Skragge. The finding of these letters has made the legacy of Käsu Hans topical again and also calls to review the previously known material.
The letters of Käsu Hans, as well as his poem, are milestones in the development of Estonian language and literature. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Estonian as a written language was first and foremost a tool in the hands of the authorities and the church. It had mostly been designed by clergy who was of German origin. The first Estonian piece of occasional poetry was published by gymnasium professor Reiner Brocmann in 1637. The same year saw the publication of the first German-language Estonian grammar book, authored by pastor Heinrich Stahl. At the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, written Estonian finally came into use as a means of horizontal communication. This was also the time when the Estonian poetry was born — poetry, which was created in writing, not orally (such as folk songs). This presentation discusses the cultural preconditions of Käsu Hans's letters and their historical as well as sociolinguistic context.
3. Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen (Finnish Literature Society): Catholic Inheritance and Lutheran Networks: The Case of Piae Cantiones collection (1582–1625)
This paper will analyse the communities and networks of learned clergymen and aristocrats who reworked the Catholic legacy and introduced new Lutheran forms and practices. While doing so, they took various stances towards cultural resources at hand, both Latin literary heritage and oral vernacular traditions. The focal point of are the editions of Piae Cantiones (1582, 1625) and its Finnish (1616) and Swedish (1595, c. 1610) translations. The elite network of learned Lutheran clergymen and their aristocratic patrons did not attach itself only to the multilingual literary great tradition; it was also in touch with the local vernacular little tradition.
Here, the focus is on the relationships of the learned and their patrons and their stances toward the appropriation of different elements of their cultural legacy either Latin or vernacular. The emphasis of the study lies on the prints and manuscripts related to Finland. Related networks, however, spread all over the Swedish realm and across the Baltic Sea; their analysis will make visible the routes of cultural change. In addition to literary networks the families and relatives of all of the actors are relevant whether they were noble, clergymen and learned or coastal burghers and wealthy peasants.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Ch. XVI.]
INDIAN NAMES.
The rocks were trachytes, and the soil seemed fertile, but there was very little of it cultivated. Many of the men we met wore long swords instead of the usual machetes. There is a school for learning fencing at Concordia, and the people of the district are celebrated for being expert swordsmen. They have often fencing matches. The best man is called the champion, and he is bound to try conclusions with every one that challenges him.
After leaving Concordia we had only one more range to cross, then began to descend towards the plains below Jinotega, and about dusk reached that town and were kindly received by our former entertainers. Doubtless much European blood runs in the veins of the inhabitants of Jinotega, but in their whole manner of living they follow the Indian ways, and it is the same throughout Nicaragua, excepting amongst the higher classes in the large towns. All their cooking vessels are Indian. Just as in the Indian huts, every pot or pan is of coarse pottery, and each dish is cooked on a separate little fire. The drinks in common use are Indian, and have Indian names; tiste, pinul, pinullo, and chicha, all made from maize, sugar, and chocolate. As before observed, whatever was new to the Spaniards when they invaded the country retained its Indian name. It is so with every stage of growth of the maize plant, chilote, elote, and maizorca. The stone for grinding the maize is exactly the same as those found in the old Indian graves, and it is still called the metlate. All the towns we passed through in Segovia retained their Indian names, though their present inhabitants know nothing of their meaning. The old names of many of the towns are probably remnants of a language earlier than that of the inhabitants at the time of the conquest, and their study might throw some light on the distribution of the ancient peoples. Unfortunately the names of places are very incorrectly given in the best maps of Central America, every traveller having spelt them phonetically according to the orthography of his own language. Throughout this book I have spelt proper names in accordance with the pronunciation of the Spanish letters.
Many of the names of towns in Nicaragua and Honduras end in "galpa," as Muyogalpa, Juigalpa, Totagalpa, and Matagalpa. Places apparently of less consequence in Segovia often end in the termination " lee" strongly accented, as Jamailý, Esterlý, Darailý, &c., and in "guina" pronounced "weena," as in Palacaguina and Yalaguina. In Chontales many end in "apa," or "apo," as Cuapo, Comoapa, Comelapa, Acoyapo, and others.
The Spaniards, whenever they gave a name to a town, either named it after some city in Spain or after their Saints. There are dozens of Santo Rosas, San Juans, and San Tomases. Even some of the towns, which have well-known Indian names, are called officially after some Spanish saint, but the common people stick to the old names, and they are not to be thrust aside.
We had a long talk with our courteous host of the estanco at Jinotega. He had a small library of books, nearly all being missals and prayer-books. He had a little knowledge of geography and was wishful to learn about Europe, and at the same time most desirous that we should not think that he, one of the chief men of
DARING ROBBERIES UNKNOWN.
the town, did not know all about it. That England was a small island he admitted was new to him, as he thought it was part of the United States or at least joined to them. He asked if it was true that Rome was one of the four quarters of the globe. We explained that it was only a large city, to which he replied gravely that he knew it was so, but wished to have our opinion to confirm his own.
No newspapers come to Jinotega, excepting occasionally a Government gazette, and only a few of the grown-up people are able to read. News travel quickly from one town to another, but every incident is greatly exaggerated; and many extravagant stories are set afloat with no other foundation than the inventive faculties of some idle brain. To appreciate what an immense aid a newspaper press is to the dissemination of truth one must travel in some such country as Nicaragua where newspapers do not circulate. It is impossible to get trustworthy intelligence about any event that has happened a hundred miles away, and stories of murders and robberies that were never committed are widely circulated amongst the credulous people. As far as my experience goes highway robbery is unknown in Nicaragua. Foreigners entrusted with money have stated they have been robbed, but there has always been suspicions that they themselves embezzled the money that they said they lost. Personally I never carried arms for defence in the country, and was never molested nor even insulted, though I often travelled alone. The only dangerous characters in the country are the lower class of foreigners, and these are not numerous. Petty thefts are common enough, and at the mines we found that none of the labouring class were to be trusted; but robberies of a daring character or accompanied by violence were never committed by the natives to my knowledge.
In their drinking bouts they often quarrel among themselves, and slash about with their long heavy knives, inflicting ugly gashes and often maiming each other for life. One-armed men are not uncommon; and I knew of two cases where an arm was chopped off in these encounters. Nearly every pay-week our medical officer was sent for to sew up the wounds that had been received. Fortunately even at these times they do not interfere with foreigners, their quarrels being amongst themselves, and either faction fights or about their women, or gambling losses. Many of the worst cases of cutting with knives were by the Honduraneans employed at the mines, who generally got off through the mountains to their own country. One who was taken managed to escape by inducing the soldiers who had him in charge to take him up to the mines to bring out his tools. He went in at the level whilst they guarded the entrance. Hour after hour passed without his returning, and at last they learnt that he had got through some old workings to another opening into the mine and had started for Honduras. Once in the bush pursuit is hopeless, as the undergrowth is so dense that it is impossible to follow by sight.
We left Jinotega at seven in the morning, passed over the pine-clad ranges again, and at one o'clock came in sight of the town of Matagalpa. At the river a mill was at work grinding wheat. I went into the shed
UNCOMFORTABLE LODGING.
that covered it and found it to be simple and ingenious. Below the floor was a small horizontal water-wheel driven by the stream striking against the inclined floats. The shaft of the wheel passed up through the floor and the lower stone, and was fixed to the upper one, which turned round with it without any gearing. The flour made is dark and full of impurities, as no care is taken to keep it clean.
We found the mules and horses we had left at Matagalpa in good condition, and after getting some dinner started again, taking the road towards Teustepe instead of that by which we had come, as we were told we should avoid the swamps by so doing, for more to the westward they had had no rain. We rode down the valley below the town and found it very dry and barren, the only industry worth naming being a small indigo plantation. Indigo seems to have been more cultivated formerly than now. In many parts I saw the deserted vats in which the plants were steeped to extract the dye. We ascended a high range to the left of the valley, on the top of which were a few pine trees. These we were told were the last we should see on the road to Chontales. On the other side of the range the descent was very steep, and the road was carried down the precipitous and rocky slope in a series of zigzags, so that we saw the mules a few score yards in advance directly under our feet.
From the hill we had seen a house in the valley, and as night was setting in we sought for it, but the whole district was so covered with low scrubby trees with many paths running in various directions that it was long before we found it. When at last we discovered it,


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Catholic group accused of plots against Pope Francis deny coup claims
POPE FRANCIS is allegedly facing a multi-layered threat to his papacy from the conservative wing of the Catholic Church, with multiple figures and organisations attempting to thwart his progressive and unconventional policy – but he has received a message of support from enigmatic faction Opus Dei.
PUBLISHED: 12:15, Wed, Oct 23, 2019 | UPDATED: 12:36, Wed, Oct 23, 2019
Opus Dei had a friendly relationship with Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, But Francis' methods represent a contrast to previous conventions in the Catholic Church. The Vatican has seen a more progressive tenure with cardinals being appointed from less recognised churches to represent all corners of Catholicism across the globe. This led to speculation over a rift between Opus Dei and the new pope, with Wayne Madsen writing in his article for Strategic Culture Foundation that the organisation conspired with other conservatives in the Vatican to undermine Francis.
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However, the organisation has told Express.co.uk that this is not true, stating that any suggestion that Opus Dei is anti-Francis is a "fabrication".
They said: "Opus Dei always follows and supports the Pope, whoever he is. It's part of our constitution.
"If you look at our website you will see that the news articles always include news of what the Pope has said or done among other activities we have done.
"The allegation that we are part of an anti-Francis resistance is total fabrication."
Pope Francis: (Image: getty)
Pope Francis: Escriva founded Opus Dei in 1928 (Image: getty)
Despite Opus Dei's denial, there is still resistance to Francis coming from Rome as Italian populist Matteo Salvini is said to have set his sights on the divisive pope.
Mr Salvini, leader of Lega Nord, which is known for its anti-immigration stance, contrasts to Francis' more cosmopolitan approach.
Francis has made caring for migrants a hallmark of his papacy, traveling to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in 2013 in his first trip as Pope to comfort would-be refugees who survived shipwrecks and smugglers to reach Europe.
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Pope Francis: the whip and cilice used for mortification (Image: getty)
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In stark contrast, Salvini used his powers as Interior Minister to ban boats carrying refugees from docking on Italian ports.
The right-wing politician has also enlisted the help of former White House strategist Steve Bannon, whose Brussels-based international group, 'The Movement', was denied access to the Vatican for political training.
During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon – who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump's presidential campaign – suggested Salvini should start openly targeting Pope Francis.
In both popular culture and Vatican politics, the group has been depicted as representing the fringe of the Catholic Church, partly due to its ritual of corporal mortification.
Corporal mortification involves 'self denial' or voluntary pain inflicted upon oneself, a spiritual discipline that has been long practiced by the group.
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Pope Francis: Salvini has challenged Francis over immigration (Image: getty)
Pope Francis: The Vatican is divided over Francis' progressive approach (Image: getty)
However the ritual has been practiced by non-members of Opus Dei, as well as famous figures such as Mother Teresa.
Opus Dei enjoyed a rise in prominence during the tenure under Pope John Paul II who made the organisation a personal prelature, handing pastoral duties to the group.
The phrase 'opus dei' translates from Latin to 'Work of God', and the group was founded in Spain in 1928 by Catholic saint and priest Josemaria Escriva.
Opus Dei may have a cordial relationship with Pope Francis, but the progressive pope is still cutting a divisive figure in the Catholic Church as he continues to defy the norms of papacy.
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text:
FIFA World Cup Draw
Friday, December 6, 2013 - 11:26
2014 FIFA World Cup Draw
Today, the 2014 FIFA World Cup Draw will be held in Brazil. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"26716","attributes":{"class":"media-image size-medium wp-image-10737","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"240","height":"300","alt":"2014 FIFA World Cup"}}]] 2014 FIFA World Cup / Flickr The draw for the group stage takes place in Costa do Sauipe, Bahia, and players and fans of the 32 qualifying nations will learn who they will face in Brazil next summer, NBC Sports said. The football world cup takes place in Brazil from June 12 through July 13. Brazilian actors Fernanda Lima and Rodrigo Hilbert host the draw, which will start at 16:00 GMT. The 32 qualifying nations have been divided into four pre-draw pots, with the eight seeded teams - Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Belgium, Uruguay and Switzerland - are in Pot 1. Brazil has already been allocated Group A, while other seven will be then placed in Groups B-H as they are drawn out, according to BBC Sports. The Netherlands is in Pot Four along with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, England, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Russia.