20 November 2011. St Maksim Sandovich was NOT Alone! Pan-Slavism Lived… Pan-Slavism Lives… Pan-Slavism Shall Live!

Petr Chelčický: Do Not Repay Evil with Evil

from the cycle, “The Slavonic Epic”, nr 12

Alfons Maria Mucha

1918

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Many of you are aware of St Maksim Sandovich of Gorlice, the Protomartyr of the Lemkovshchyna. A smaller number, but still large, knows of the Austro-Hungarian concentration camps at Talerhof and Terezín. However, most Orthodox people in the USA aren’t aware that the Russophiles and Pan-Slavs scared the bejesus out of the Habsburgs (and their Uniate lickspittle running-dogs). They weren’t scared of the Poles or Croats… the Croats and Poles were loyal to the Dual Monarchy. They weren’t scared of the Uniate leadership (both lay and ecclesiastical)… they were in their pockets. They WERE scared absolutely shitless of the Pan-Slav Movement. Look at what happened in America… thousands of Uniates “came home” to the Mother Church. The Lemkos, Slovaks, Czechs, and Carpatho-Russians scared them… the spectre of the po-nashemu people rising up against their Habsburg oppressors haunted their sleep. Ergo, when war broke out, they started shooting Russophile activists such as St Maksim.

However, how many of you are aware of the Pan-Slav ferment in the musical and art worlds of the Dual Monarchy? Fearful Habsburg secret police agents tailed musicians like Leoš Janáček and artists like Alfons Maria Mucha. Yet… Pan-Slavism lived! Mucha produced his seminal The Slavonic Epic… a series of 20 historical paintings documenting the historical path of the Slavs. Janáček wrote In the Mists and On an Overgrown Path… we shouldn’t talk about music and art… we should LOOK at art and LISTEN to music…

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In the Mists…

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On an Overgrown Path…

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As for the art, I just finished posting the entire Slavonic Epic on Art and Faith, Too… click here to go to the first painting. Before you do anything else, look at the “tags” and click “The Slavonic Epic”… that’ll bring up all the works in order. Everything has links to most obscure points, so, you’ll learn a lot about the Western Slavs, in particular.

Any time that you hear some Uniate claim, “I’m Orthodox in Union with Rome”… remember St Maksym… remember St Aleksei Kabalyuk, remember Blessed Gavriil Kostelnik… remember Fr Mikhail Shuvar. Ask your Uniate interlocutor if his church honours St Maksim… do note the silence that’ll greet that question. Yes, Virginia, Pan-Slavism not only lived, it lives now… and we’ll pass on the flame to the next generation, too…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Sunday 20 November 2011

Albany NY

This Just In Department:

A friend of mine wrote me:

You might like to know that Mucha’s niece became Orthodox and a matushka in the Czech Republic (she died quite recently) and Janáček’s grand-daughter also became Orthodox. She’s in the USA in a ROCOR parish.

Who woulda thunk it? SMALL WORLD…

BMD

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