Thought For The Day No. 38 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste...

Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.

Viktor Frankl

NFL v 'Soccer' part two

This is part two of a post which began over a week ago and which we hadn't got round to completing, distracted as we were by the opening volumes of Churchill's volumes of Estonian history, but since then we've had a renewed interest, not least since Pittsburgh have gone three and oh (meaning they've won all of their first three games of the season, one of only two teams to do so), so let's pick up where we left off...

Scorelines
This relates somewhat to the variety aspect outlined last time, i.e. that American Football has a lot more of it. There is always a scoreline in the NFL. No doubt at more amateur levels, results might be either exceptionally low or exceptionally high-scoring, but in any event a draw/tie is so rare that it's worth commenting on (there has been a grand total of 17 in the NFL in the last 36 years and the last one came in November 2008 when the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinatti Bengals tied 13-13).
Compare that with some of the 0-0 thrillers that you get in soccer and have you losing yet another 90 minutes or so of your life...
Admittedly the scoring system makes a difference, there are several different ways to score in Amercian Football and most of them carry more than one point for a team's efforts, but that's just the point, don't make the method of scoring such a rare event that the world's population will have changed markedly in the time elapsing between each episode..

Supporters
I once went to a pre season game between the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers, drank copious amounts of beer, shouted 'Pittsburgh dogs' numerous times (this was before I liked them) and the worst thing that happened was that someone looked at me. Compare that to mass crushings, burning stadiums and police cavalry charges, all for the sake of a little game...the English football fans are animals, make no mistake. Even since the 90s when the premiership went all middle class with people like David Baddiel pretending to like it, it still brings out the worst in human tribal instincts, as anyone who has been anywhere near England during their biannual summer embarassements in international competitions.
OK, football is played elsewhere, better, and not necessarily accompanied by the same degree of aggro, but England is it's home turf surely, and sets the scene as a kind of style barometer even as it fails to produce the goods on the field.

Commentators
The American game tends to have more than one (usually two) commentators (or announcers) covering the game itself. Not only this but they're often real experts, and former players of the game. Contrast this with the monotonous drone of Jon Motson or some other non-former-playing non-entity as he proceeds to mis-pronounce every foreign-named player one by one and regale us with a succession of utterly meaningless 'interesting coincidences' and facts, that England haven't won on  the second Wednesday of any November, whenever the manager has an 'r' in his surname etc.

Glamour
Let's face it, Americans are better than the rest of us. They are, as a whole. Yes, I expect you can find pretty sorry instances of humanity, and not just in the much-maligned trailer parks, but even the crap cities like Detroit could manage to be a fairly convincing backdrop for a police series, movie etc (or just compare Birmingham, Alabama with Birmingham, West Mids). Compare the broad, expansive nature of the people there with the little, little folk of  the Thames estuary or wherever - they even pronounce our place names in a less farty way when they're transplanted to sunnier and/or leafier climes (so it's War - sester, not Wooster). And without being unkind, a brief look at the Cheerleader roster of any NFL team that has them (they don't all, I assume the 49ers don't anyway) and compare it with the Sky girls...the difference is just pitiful.


There are other areas we could mention - the absurd payscales in the upper reaches of the English premiership, compared with the lower leagues (a player for second division Wycombe Wanderers had to make do with my one bedroom flat in the crap end of town that even I wouldn't live in, compare and contrast with 'Beckingham Palace'), the educationally subnormal level of the majority of Association Football players and their inane pundits that prevent them for making the connection between subject, verb and object, the list goes on....

...but we'll cut it short there, because it's not that important really, just some ideas now that we have time to actually have them, away from the dreariness of the round ball game..

Don't Rush To Place A Youtube Comment..

The dangers of getting something out of context - or of getting the full story - brought home to me in these two clips:

the  first, an acerbic Australian comic who gets heckled for being a racist and makes mincemeat of the heckler(s) causing them in the full glare of the scorn in the audience..

the second, an acerbic Australian comic who plants a couple of people in the audience for a wind up.

I saw the first some time before the second. Always get the full story..

Thought For The Day No. 37 - With The Rabbi Anders Weiss

...psychologist, spiritual guru and arbiter of good taste...

One should never strike a woman, not even with a flower.

Hindu saying

Estonia v. Lithuania

Having lived in both countries, people sometimes ask me what the difference between Estonia and Lithuania is.
I tell them "Latvia"...

History Of Estonia 101: Part Four

Since the PMC has been going for some 60 years here in Estonia, during which time we've seen such comings and goings as the regaining of independence, the imminent introduction of the Euro, and the Beatles concerts at the Lauluväljak, we feel fully qualified to present this, a multi part set of posts on the history of Estonia which will appear, now and again as we're given time.
There's unlikely to be anything new for Estonians, who therefore don't need to read on unless they want to check we're not peddling complete mistruths. The sources are likely to be the usual internet sites such as wikipedia and any links that arise therefrom, but this should save the reader some time in finding all this stuff themselves, the one or two books we have on the subject, and maybe the occasional word of mouth stuff.
You might also want to check out our posts about a year ago now, on the Estonian language.
At the very least we hope to dispel any misconceptions of Estonia being a slavic speaking country, being located in the Balkans or being a place with a lot of stones (although this last is in fact true)...

Part four: Of Bishops, Knights, Castles and Kings

After those pesky christians started arriving in large numbers and spoiling everyone's fun,  from the early thirteenth centrury, things started to get particularly hard, not least for the hapless blogger who simply wanted a nice resume of Estonian history and now regrets this series of posts which seem to have taken on a life of their own and which noone's going to read anyway.

The country lay divided loosely between the Danish north and the German south, via the crusades of the Livonian, or Sword Brothers, order for most of the thirteenth, and the first half of the fourteenth, centuries. It would be misleading at this point to think in terms of the modern day Estonian state or that the nation's occupiers were trying to construct the modern day country of Estonia (and exactly the same would apply to contemporaneous France, Germany and most of the rest of Europe). This is medieval Europe. Lands were held as fiefdoms which could cut across linguistic and other boundaries. People didn't even have maps in the modern sense and the whole of the Baltic region was an area which had been up for grabs in effect since Pope Celestine III declared a free for all in 1193. You can read any motives into it that you like, and draw your own conclusions from the fact that the Third Crusade to the Holy Land which had ended only the previous year had failed in its objective to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims. Lands covering all of the modern day Baltics, the Kaliningrad exclave and parts of Northeastern Poland were all affected.

The 'Duchy of Estonia' comprised the Danish, northern half, which was comparatively short lived so we'll deal with that first. Despite a series of Danish raids on the islands off the west of Estonia going back to the twelfth century, these were not a component of the Duchy.

Lyndanisse (modern day Tallinn) came to be known as 'Reval' and a bishopric was established here by the Danish King, Valdemar II in 1240. Most of the lands were in fact held by German vassals, with Danes and even a few Estonians making up a small minority. The Danes did have some ambitions in expanding eastward against the Votians, once a regional power and closely related to the Estonians, after going to war with the Novgorod state but this came to naught.

As is so often the case with foreign occupations, it was turmoil at home which led to the ulitmate downfall. The death of Christain II of Denmark led to divisions in the Duchy between the pro-Danish and pro-German factions (the latter held much of south Estonia, remember). The Estonians were not slow on the uptake, and in July 1343 the St George's Night Uprising saw wholesale massacre of German settlers, churchmen and the like, and an equally brutal suppression by the German Teutonic order, a far more professional unit than the Livonian order, who effectively took on the Danes' bad debt in the form of the Duchy of Estonia. Actually the Teutonic order were confusingly renamed the Livonian order after absorbing the remnants of the Livonian 'Sword Brothers' following their annihilation far to the south at the battle of Saule, in modern day Lithuania, but we'll stick with the Teutonic appellation for simplicity's sake. One of the last battles on mainland Estonia happened in a location in present day Lasnamäe, which will raise a wry smile to the face of anyone who knows Tallinn.

The last stand was in fact made on Ösel (Saaremaa) which after much to-ing and fro-ing, fell to the Germans in the winter of 1345. The Danes were in fact recompensed by the Germans, some 19 000 Köln marks for the mainland territories, however much that was, it sounds like a lot, although they had to apologise to the Pope for giving up so easily on a territory which had effectively been gifted them by one of his predecessors and which they'd promised never to relinquish.

In fact that wasn't the last of it; Ösel/Saaremaa came back into Danish possession over two hundred years later, in 1572, having been purchased from a German Prince, until 1645 when it was ceded to Sweden. More on that in a later post...

Meanwhile, South Estonia came to be a part of the state of 'Livonia', named after the order of knights (see above) after the papal legate William of Modena said so. This state incorporated most of modern day Latvia as well, and coexisted with several bishoprics, including that of Dorpat (modern day Tartu) and the sprawling Archbishopric of Riga, though not always peaceably, with civil wars blighting most of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, along with the troubles arising from the vacuum left by the departing Danes. As noted, with the obtaining of the Danish lands to the north, two important Hanseatic towns (Riga and Tallinn) came into German possession.

Ultimately, the Teutonic Order went the same way as the Livonian Sword brothers, again at the hands of the Lithuanians, at least in part, following their crushing defeat at the battle of Grünewald by the armies of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth in 1410. The Livonian Landtag was formed in 1419 to resolve the continued bickering and sat at the modern day town of Valga/Valka, then as now on the boundary between Latvian and Estonian ethnic lands. This remained the status quo for the next few decades, until the next chapter in our story and the arrival of a new regional power or two..

Part three is here...

History Of Estonia 101: Part Three

Since the PMC has been going for some 60 years here in Estonia, during which time we've seen such comings and goings as the regaining of independence, the imminent introduction of the Euro, and the Beatles concerts at the Lauluväljak, we feel fully qualified to present this, a multi part set of posts on the history of Estonia which will appear, now and again as we're given time.
There's unlikely to be anything new for Estonians, who therefore don't need to read on unless they want to check we're not peddling complete mistruths. The sources are likely to be the usual internet sites such as wikipedia and any links that arise therefrom, but this should save the reader some time in finding all this stuff themselves, the one or two books we have on the subject, and maybe the occasional word of mouth stuff.
You might also want to check out our posts about a year ago now, on the Estonian language.
At the very least we hope to dispel any misconceptions of Estonia being a slavic speaking country, being located in the Balkans or being a place with a lot of stones (although this last is in fact true)...

Part Three: Of Germans, Danes and Swedes

The word 'crusade' has almost become a swear word in modern times; the rallying cry of muslim and athiest alike, it's come to be synonymous with hordes of land-hungry medieval knights, committing rape and pillage throughout the near east, absolved and abetted by equally dastardly men of the cloth. Whilst there's no doubt some truth in that image, it is, it need hardly be told, something of an oversimplification. The crusades spanned a vast period of time, from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, and, it could be said, found a natural successor in the voyages and conquests in the new world from the sixteenth century onwards. There was much that was corrupt no doubt, but there was much idealism and honour too. And the holy land was not the only recipient; southern France experienced the Albigensian crusade of the thirteenth century, and concurrent with that was the northern crusade, announced by Pope Celestine III in 1193.

The first focus was on the Livs and Latgalians of modern day Latvia, indeed the crusade came to be known initially as the 'Livonian crusade', and a (somewhat iffy, in comparison with the outstandingly excellent Teutonic Knights) order of Knights was named after this. Important settlements along the Daugava river in Latvia were established, and the hub of operations, Riga, became an Archbishopric. From 1208 raids began into Estonian territory, and a long period of foreign occupations and invasions commenced, with little sign of abatement for the next eight centuries.

South Estonia naturally endured the brunt of these intial attacks, from the aforementioned Livonian order, or 'sword brethren', and Sakala leader Lembitu (still a popular male name) was slaughtered at the Battle of St. Matthew's day on 21 September 1217, near modern day Viljandi.

However the north of the country was not to escape these predations.Weighing in on the action, regional power Denmark became an increasingly apparent presence, with maritime raids on the country in 1170, 1194 and 1197 culminating in seizure of Oesel (Saaremaa) in 1206 and Lyndanisse (later Reval and ultimately Tallinn, a name which simply means 'Danish town') in 1219, when the Danish flag, the 'Dannebrog' reputedly fell from the sky on to a delighted King Valdemar II. Northern Estonia (roughly corresponding to the present counties of Harjumaa and East and West Virumaa) remained in Danish hands until the uprising of 1343.

Finally a third national group, perhaps the least offensive of all of Estonia's foreign lodgers, came in the form of the coastal Swedes, or 'Rannarootslased' (Rootsi/Ruotsi being the Estonian and Finnish name for Sweden) who apparently first started appearing in 1294 in the western town of Haapsalu and settled most notably many of the islands, in particular Vormsi, Hiiumaa, Ruhnu and others. This culture survived right down until the Soviet occupations of the mid-twentieth century when the bulk of the populace (though one or two stayed behind) fled, mostly to Sweden itself. Saaremaa apparently continued to give its Danish occupiers a headache, and it was finally surpressed by the sword brethren in 1227.

Thus distinctions which had already emerged between north, south and west (see the last post) were further heightened by the differing pattern of foreign occupation in each region, and the process of christianization, something which, it could be argued was never really fully carried through (no doubt because it came at the point of a sword) began...

To be continued...

Part two is here..

History Of Estonia 101: Part Two

Since the PMC has been going for some 60 years here in Estonia, during which time we've seen such comings and goings as the regaining of independence, the imminent introduction of the Euro, and the Beatles concerts at the Lauluväljak, we feel fully qualified to present this, a multi part set of posts on the history of Estonia which will appear, now and again as we're given time.
There's unlikely to be anything new for Estonians, who therefore don't need to read on unless they want to check we're not peddling complete mistruths. The sources are likely to be the usual internet sites such as wikipedia and any links that arise therefrom, but this should save the reader some time in finding all this stuff themselves, the one or two books we have on the subject, and maybe the occasional word of mouth stuff.
You might also want to check out our posts about a year ago now, on the Estonian language.
At the very least we hope to dispel any misconceptions of Estonia being a slavic speaking country, being located in the Balkans or being a place with a lot of stones (although this last is in fact true)...

Part Two: Of Iron, mythology and the first documented mention of Estonia

One particularly cataclysmic event in Estonian history took place towards the end of the Bronze Age (see previous post) in around 660 BC (give or take 85 years on way or the other) and for once it wasn't caused by human beings. A meteorite struck the island of Saaremaa (literally 'island land') with an impact comparable with the Hiroshima atom bomb and quite probably a comparable amount of destruction. There are various theories as to the impact's influencing the folklore and mythology of the area (e.g. the making of a new sun, ordered by the god Ukko, in the Finnish Kalevala, a spark from which was in fact the meteor(ite) and even a theory that Saaremaa was the location of the Thule of Greek legend, the name deriving from the Finno-Ugric word for fire ('tuli')).

Whatever else happened, the meteorite left a big crater (in fact 9 craters of varying size) which no doubt held mystical and religious significance. During the Iron Age (see below) the largest crater, the 'Kaali crater' was apparently enclosed by a 2 metre high, 2.5 metre thick stone wall. In fact it was only in the twentieth century that the origins of the crater were found to be meteroritic; it had previously been thought to have been of volcanic origin.

After 1000 years or so the Bronze Age in Estonia gave way to the 'Pre-Roman' Iron Age, around 500 BC as it did in much of Northern Europe. Actually this was of course the only Iron Age that occured here, the Romans never venturing anywhere near this part of the world, but the period after c 50AD is termed the Roman Iron Age for convenience sake - Roman expansion into parts of Northwestern Europe around this time, reaching a peak under Trajan in the early 2nd Century, meant that Roman influence, if nothing else, arrived in the form of trade; small quantities of Roman coins and other artefacts have been found. Smelting techniques were developed from iron ore found locally from around the first century BC.

We can speak of regional differences emerging during this period too; South Estonia had more contact with areas to the south via land, whereas seafaring tended to predominate in northern and western areas. Correspondingly it has been hypothesized that three broad dialects of 'Estonian', namely northern, southern and western (including the islands) existed by this time, distinctions which continue down to the present.

This Iron Age lasted for an incredibly long time; convention holds the end date to be around the year 1200 AD, shortly after which the Baltic Crusades began, and Estonian indepedence began to be eroded, not to be recovered again until the twentieth century. The first tantalizing possibility of documented recording of the existence of Estonia came from the Roman writer Tacitus in the 1st Century AD, who referred to a tribe known as 'Aestii'. Howver, it seems likely that these Aestii were in fact Baltic tribes living somewhat to the south, in modern day Žemaitija, Lithuania, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. In the following century Ptolemy, the Greek speaking Roman citizen from Egypt, mentions the 'Osilians' as dwelling in the Baltic. These were most likely the inhabitants of Saaremaa (the Germanic name for the island was 'Oesel'). The Osilians became quite notorious sea warriors, and a battle between them and Icelandic vikings off the coast of Saaremaa in 972 AD is recounted in the Icelandic Njal's Saga. They were nevertheless apparently defeated on the land, by a Norwegian invading force led by Olaf the Holy in 1008. The first proper reference to Estonia came in the writings of the Roman Cassiodorus, who was in the service of the Ostrogoths since the Western Roman Empire had already capitulated, in the sixth century AD.


Estonia did not remain a quiet corner of Europe, however, and even seems to have become quite wealthy. Various hoards of coins including Dirham coins from the Islamic world have been found over northern Estonia, including those at Maidla, Kumna and Kose, and a large proportion of the coins found were of Anglo-Saxon origin. Estonia of course remained a pagan land throughout this period (one wonders that, with the Dirham hoard, it didn't become Islamic after the 7th century AD) and were reputedly experts in wind magic. The national epic the Kalevipoeg presumably looks back to this period, though it wasn't compiled until the 19th Century. The folk were polytheistic, and then some, with gods including the aforementioned Ukko (also known as the 'Vanaisa', or grandfather) and a sky god called 'Jumal', the modern Estonian word for 'God'. Mythical motifs often appearing in runic songs included a girl finding a fish and asking her brother to kill it; on doing so a woman was found inside the fish, and a lake travelling to another location after desecration by an incestuous couple...Former president the late Lennart Meri spent a great part of his life researching the shamanistic religious cults of Finno-Ugric groups in what is now northern Russia in an attempt to shed more light on the religious practices of his own forebears.


As the Estonians were coming more and more into contact with their western neighbours, the same can also be said of the neighbours to the east, who were in the process of becoming Christianized. The monk Nestor wrote that in 1030 Yaroslav the Wise invaded the country of the 'Chudes' (which derives either from a Russian word meaning 'strange', or an entirely different term meaning 'wonderful' or 'attractive' - take your pick!) founding the town of Yuriev, modern-day Tartu. These developments however weren't necessarily all one way; it is plausible that the 'Chudes' were one of the founding tribes of Kievan Rus', the first Russian state as such.


Political and administrative developments continued apace during this time as well. The county (Maakond) and parish (Kihelkond) developed during these centuries, and a notable circular rampart fortress was built at Varbola. By the end of our period, on the eve of the Baltic crusades, the counties (in their modern terminology) included Saaremaa, Revala, Sakala, Virumaa and Ugandi. Incidentally the Finnish and Lativan names for Estonia, Viro and Igaunija respectively, seem to derive from these last two places.


But none of this was going to last forever...

Part one is here..