Valentina

The “Nazi games� p.4 Issue no.1, 31 December 1936

Keynesian Revolution? p.5 Tornado Outbreak Kills Hundreds of U.S. Citizens p.6

The Highlights 1936

Clark Gable: Most Wanted p.13

Editor’s Note Dearest reader, First and foremost, thank you for joining The Highlights! Our journalists, editors, designers, and photographers have been working on this inaugural issue solely for Your pleasure. We sincerely appreciate that you make these first steps with us!

With this magazine, we aim to highlight the most important events that have happened around the world during the outgoing year. You will find that the issue is conveniently divided into 7 sections, and we are confident that every reader will find something he was particularly interested in.

We hope you enjoy this issue and stay with us for the next one!

Sincerely yours, Editor-in-chief, Valentina Vinokurova

Foreword

2

Contents: The “Nazi Games”

p.4

Spanish Civil War Outbreak

p.4

Keynesian Revolution?

P.5

Mathematicians’ Answer to the Nobel Prize

p.5

The Worst Flood in History

P.6

Tornado Outbreak Kills Hundreds of U.S. Citizens

p.6

Federico García Lorca

p.7

Making it New

p.8

A Postcard From the Volcano

p.8

Tasting Literature

p.9

International Surrealist Exhibition in London

p.11

El Obelisco de Buenos Aires

p.12

Florin Court: Living in the Art or the Art of Living?

P.12

Clark Gable: Most Wanted

p.13

Contents

3

Spanish Civil War Outbreak

The “Nazi Games�

Back in 1931, when Berlin was selected to host the XIth Olympic Games, no one could have predicted that only two years later Hitler would rise to power and establish the Nazi regime in Germany.

The debates on whether Berlin should still be allowed to conduct the Games began just then, in 1933, and continued throughout the years to come. Fearing propaganda of Nazism, many states considered abstaining from participation.

To avoid the potential boycott, Hitler guaranteed to the International Olympic Committee that the Games would not be used to promote Nazi ideology. Even though Spain and several individual sportsmen still boycotted the Berlin games, 49 states registered for participation.

The political polarization that has been going on in Spain for a number of years has finally ripened into a Civil War. On the two sides of the war are the Nationalists (rightists) and the Republicans (leftists). The former group is represented by military elements, businessmen and landowners, as well as most Roman Catholics; the latter includes middleclass population, urban and agricultural workers.

July 17 marked the start of the first military uprising of the Nationalists.

Carefully planned, it seems to be a response to the February elections which brought the Republicans to power. The actual cause of the uprising When the time came, winter games went is the murder of a prominent quite agreeably but it turned out that Hitler conservative Calvo Sotelo by the new had prepared a whole show for the government: it spurred unrests and summer part of the Olympics. justified the start of the coup.

The Nationalists seek to obtain power in order to defend the Church and confront liberal ideas of the Republicans.

The main stadium was covered with Nazi symbols, people distributed pamphlets about Arian supremacy and even speeches on the topic were delivered. Hitler seemed to believe that winning the games would prove the superiority of the Arian race.

With some 89 medals, Germany did earn the 1st place in this year’s Olympics. But should it prove anything at all?

What was probably planned as an immediate seizure of power is quickly turning into a civil war. The Republican government is fighting back and has no intention of giving the power up.

Other states also become involved in the conflict, an International Brigade is already fighting on the Republican side. The Nationalists are supported by Nazi regimes of Italy and Germany.

Politics

4

Mathematicians’ Answer to the Nobel Prize

Keynesian Revolution?

More than 6 years have passed since the publication of “Treatise on Money” by John Maynard Keynes. This February, the world witnessed his yet another attempt to revolutionize economic thought in the publication of “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. In general, critics agree that the attempt (again) was but feeble: the book has so far received mostly negative reviews.

In contrast to classical and neoclassical economists, Keynes believes that underemployment is a natural state of economy. He suggests that full employment is not the long-run equilibrium that will be established by competitive market forces.

In 1935, in a letter to George Bernard Shaw, Keynes proclaimed: “I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize not I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years - the way the world thinks about its economic problems. I can’t expect you, or anyone else, to believe this at the present stage. But for myself, I don't merely hope what I say, in my own mind, I'm quite sure.”

Advancements in the area of mathematics, largely ignored by Nobel, will finally be rewarded. In 1924, a Canadian mathematician, professor J.C. Fields, proposed to establish a special award at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Toronto. Later, he donated funds to start the production of medals which were therefore named in his honor. Their official name is: “International medals for outstanding discoveries in mathematics.”

This year, the Fields Medal (and some 15,000 Canadian dollars) was presented for the first time at the World Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo. The winners are: Lars Valerian Ahlfors (Harvard University) and Jesse Douglas (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

At this point, the Congress plans to present two medals every four years.

Such a self-confident remark is either a sign of unforgivable folly or a true genius: it is too early to judge. Whether Keynesian revolution is to occur or not still remains to be seen.

Science

Su Lin - the first panda in the U.S. brought from China by Ruth Harkess.

5

The “Worst Flood” in the History “It all started with an awful rain and at first we didn’t think much of it” – says one of the victims of the terrible Pittsburgh flood that occurred on March 17-18. “What happened is that snow started melting and the rain became heavier… soon we were trapped on the second floor and had to watch this disaster until a boat came to get us” – explains she.

Streets of Pittsburgh have come to resemble those of Venice

This is the worst flood Pittsburgh (the second-largest city in the U.S. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) has ever seen: flood levels peaked at 14 meters. It took 62 lives, injured more than 500 people and brought destruction to the homes and businesses of many others.

State administration is currently considering the construction of multiple dams so as to prevent similar future disasters.

Tornado Outbreak Kills Hundreds of U.S. Citizens April 5-6: Tupelo-Gainesville, a tornado outbreak in the small towns of Mississippi and Georgia, kills 466 people and injures approximately 3500.

The initial tornado in Tupelo was classified as F5, the most destructive type. Indeed, eyewitnesses say they saw buildings collapse in a matter of seconds with people still inside.

Wind velocity was above 261 miles per hour, so that in the aftermath of the disaster, pine needles were found embedded into treetrunks. According to the preliminary reports, the damage in Tupelo is estimated at $3 million, in Gainesville – $12,5 million.

Environment

6

Federico García Lorca: “The theater is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human” The famous Spanish dramatist, Federico García Lorca has been murdered in the course of the Spanish Civil War (see p.1) on the 19 of August. The reasons for his murder are still unclear. His last play, “The House of Bernarda Alba”, was completed only two months before his death and is a yet another reminder of how great a writer the world has lost.

The play itself is a full immersion into the mind of a woman. All of the characters are female and even though there is talk about men in the play and the sounds of their voices are heard in the background, not one single man ever appears on stage. Nevertheless, we are still able to see the profound effect of men upon women through their dialogue.

The action revolves around Bernarda Alba, a mother to five daughters, who is viewed as a tyrant by both, her children and her servants.

The main feature of the play is not so much its plot as the atmosphere created in it.

Thus, the first act starts with the servants’ discussing their master’s tyrannical character and even as they speak, we hear the voice of Bernarda’s old mother locked up in her room by her daughter. At this time, Bernarda herself is returning from her husband’s funeral. The woman will be mourning her husband for the rest of the play and it is in this context that Lorca chooses to investigate the relationships between the five daughters and also between them and their mother. The last act ends in the same way the first began: Bernarda has to bury one of her daughters and is yet again oppressing her children: “And I don’t want any tears. You have to look death in the face. Silence! (To another daughter) Be quiet, I said! (To another daughter) You can shed tears when you’re alone… Do you hear me? Silence. Silence, I said. Silence!”

“The House of Bernarda Alba” still has to be tested by stage but it is impossible to imagine a production fail with such a brilliant script. Lorca’s previous works, including “Mariana Pineda” and several books of poetry have been received well.

The great poet, playwright, and theatre director, Lorca, has been and always will be associated with innovation in the sphere of theatre. Of his love of the theater, he said: “El teatro es poesía que se levanta del libro y se hace humana” or “The theater is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human.”

Literature | Drama

7

Making It New Modernist literary movement continues to baffle its readers with new poetry.

Tireless strife for innovation, breaking away from old poetic traditions, has led modernist poets to previously unexplored grounds. The “newness” of modernist poetry lies not only in its form, but also, quite importantly, in its content. These poems are more philosophical (often dark) and they present reflections upon human nature, life and death, and human belief systems.

This year’s modernist publications (in English) to read: •

W.H. Auden, “Look, Stranger!”

•

T. S. Eliot, ”Collected Poems 1909–35”

•

James Joyce, ”Collected Poems”

•

W. B. Yeats, editor, “The Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935” (anthology)

• Wallace Stevens: “Ideas of Order”, “Owl's Clover”

A Postcard From The Volcano

Children picking up our bones Will never know that these were once As quick as foxes on the hill; And that in autumn, when the grapes Made sharp air sharper by their smell These had a being, breathing frost; And least will guess that with our bones We left much more, left what still is The look of things, left what we felt At what we saw. The spring clouds blow Above the shuttered mansion house, Beyond our gate and the windy sky Cries out a literate despair.

We knew for long the mansion's look And what we said of it became A part of what it is ... Children, Still weaving budded aureoles, Will speak our speech and never know, Will say of the mansion that it seems As if he that lived there left behind A spirit storming in blank walls, A dirty house in a gutted world, A tatter of shadows peaked to white, Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

Wallace Stevens, From “Ideas of Order,” 1936

Literature | Poetry

8

Tasting Literature Among the major fiction publications of the year are: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque (unfortunately, for now only in Dutch), and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.

We strongly recommend you to have a taste of the excerpts from the novels.

“As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen such a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look as was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, and high forehead and the wide-set eyes.�

---- Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind

Literature | Prose

9

Tasting Literature

“You get born and you try this and you don't know why only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings only the same strings are hitched to all the other arms and legs and the others all trying and they don't know why either except that the strings are all in one another's way like five or six people all trying to make a rug on the same loom only each one wants to weave his own pattern into the rug; and it can't matter, you know that, or the Ones that set up the loom would have arranged things a little better, and yet it must matter because you keep on trying or having to keep on trying and then all of a sudden it's all over.” ― William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

“The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.” ― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades (translated by the editor)

Literature | Prose

10

International Surrealist Exhibition in London Between June 11 and July 4, the New Burlington Galleries in London hosted the International Surrealist Exhibition organized by André Breton and Paul Eluard (France) together with Roland Penrose and David Gascoyne (England).

The exhibition featured paintings of Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Max Ernst as well as surrealistic objects.

Several participants delivered lectures on various topics, including “Limites non-frontières du Surréalisme” (“Limits Not Frontiers of Surrealism”), “Art and the Unconscious”, “La Poésie surréaliste” (“The Surrealist Poetry”), “Biology and Surrealism”, and “Fantômes paranoïaques authentiques” (“Paranoid Authentic Ghosts”).

The last lecture was presented by Salvador Dalí, who arrived in a diving costume to demonstrate the need to “plunge deeper into the subconscious.”

The amusement of it quickly dissipated when, during his lecture, the artist nearly suffocated.

Nevertheless, the exhibition was largely successful and in tree weeks it attracted about thirty thousand visitors.

Miró’s “Head of a Catalan Peasant” (1925)

Art

11

Buenos Aires Commemorates the Fourth Centenary of its First Foundation Few people know that Buenos Aires was founded twice. The first foundation took place in 1536, exactly 4 centuries ago.

However, 5 years later the city was depopulated. The second, more definitive foundation followed in 1580.

Built in only two months and opened on the 23 of March, the obelisk of Buenos Aires is a tribute to four most significant events in the history of the city: its first and second foundations, the first time that the national flag was raised in the city in 1812 (in the church of San Nicholas which stood precisely El Obelisco de Buenos Aires, 67.5 m high where the Obelisk stands today), and Buenos Aires becoming the capital of Argentina in 1880. These events are recorded on the four sides of the obelisk.

The monument was requested by the city mayor, Mariano de Vedia y Mitre, and designed by Alberto Prebisch, an architect of the Argentine modernism.

Florin Court: Living in the Art or the Art of Living?

What would you think this unusual-looking building was if you saw it walking around the streets of Smithfield, London? Political headquarters? A museum?

Actually, it is just a residential building, even though it is a masterpiece of one. It was completed only recently this year by Guy Morgan and Partners and has already been submitted into exploitation.

Notice the new, fashionable art-deco design style in the bold geometric curves of the faรงade.

It seems that a new trend is emerging: people are no longer content with their old, boring, square houses. Instead, they prefer to live in the art.

Achitecture

12

Clark Gable: Most Wanted Clark Gable’s acting career has been more than impressive in the last five years. In 1931 alone, he appeared in 12 films – his own record – and has been keeping up the good work starring in no less than four motion pictures in each of the years to follow.

This year is no exception: Clark appeared in romantic comedies Cain and Mabel and Love on the Run, musical-drama San Francisco, and a comedy Wife versus Secretary.

While Love on the Run and Wife versus Secretary have been a huge success, earning 3-4 times their budget, the other two pictures have been described as “a complete flop.” Most critics call the casting decisions of the directors into question and we need only look at the films’ box office collections to see that the public agrees: Cain and Mabel and San Francisco did not even pay off their budgets.

Every actor, though, has his ups and downs. There is no doubt that these minor inconveniences will have no consequence on Clark’s reputation as a brilliant actor and a handsome man. Jean Harlow, who worked with him in Wife versus Secretary, has confessed to us: “He razzes me every minute in hopes of getting my goat…and sometimes he does. In a big, hot love scene the other day he whispered, ‘Jean, you’ve got your eyebrows on upside down.’”

Also this year:

It has been recently revealed that after some hesitation, Hollywood executive David O. Selznick has decided to buy the film rights for the newly published novel Gone with the Wind (see p.9). In a private interview, he confided that he is determined to cast Clark Gable as the main male character, Rhett Butler, and for that he is ready to wait the two years until Clark’s contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer expires (it is no secret the company refuses to loan Clark to others).

Meanwhile, we wish Clark the best of luck in his future endeavors and hold our breath for the next year’s motion pictures he stars in.

Film

13

For more information, see…

• “1936 in Poetry”. Wikipedia. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_in_poetry> • “Berlin 1936”. Olympic.Org. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://www.olympic.org/berlin-1936-summerolympics> • “Berlin 1936 Olympic Games.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 1 Feb, 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/972375/Berlin-1936-Olympic-Games> • “El Obelisco”. Buenos Aires, Travel. 2 Mar. 2014. <http://www.buenosaires.travel/ElObelisco.aspx> • “Exhibiting Surrealism | The International Surrealist Exhibition, London 1936.” National Galleries Scotland. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. <http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitions/exhibitingsurrealism/> • “Federico García Lorca”. Poets.org. Web. 15 Feb. 2014 <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/163> • “Spanish Civil War.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 1 Feb, 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/558032/Spanish-Civil-War> • “Tornadoes devastate Tupelo and Gainesville.” This Day in History. History. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. <http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tornadoes-devastate-tupelo-and-gainesville> • Barran, Michel and Weisstein, Eric W. "Fields Medal." MathWorld. Wolfram. Web. 1 Mar. 2014. <http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html> • Cassidy, John. “The Demand Doctor”. The New Yorker, 10 Oct. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. <http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_cassidy> • Clark Gable. Wikipedia. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Gable> • Dear Mr. Gable. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://dearmrgable.com> • Fundación Federico García Lorca. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. <http://www.garcialorca.org/Home/Home.aspx> • Gale, Matthew. “Miró at the International Surrealist Exhibition, London.” TATE, 3 Jun. 2011. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. <http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/blogs/miro-international-surrealistexhibition-london> • Goss, Jennifer L. “1936 Olympic Games.” 20th Century History. About.com. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/1936-Olympics.htm> • Hernández, Pablo. "Buenos Aires." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 2 Feb. 2014 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03035a.htm> • Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. New York: Macmillan, 1961. Print.

• Remarque, Erich M. Three Comrades. London: Hutschinson, 1937. Print.

• Stevens, Wallace. “A Postcard From the Volcano.” Wallace Stevens, 5 Apr. 2010. PoemHunter.

Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-postcard-from-the-volcano/> • William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage International, 1990. Print.

Bibliography

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