Her stories are not scary at all. Why they are represented like this, I do not have a clue. The cover of her book is shown here.

Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya was born on May 26, 1938 in Moscow. Upon having graduated from the University, she worked at the magazine “Okoyom’, on television. In 1972 she worked at the theater, composed the plays, participated at the shows as an actress.

In 1976 the artist began to write the scenario for the film “Tale of Tales” of the most famous cartoon of Yury Norshteyn.

Watch: “Tale of Tales”

“This was the combination of incompatible. One character went through the whole film: a little Gray Wolf, a little creature, a child of war. Eternal soul that visits freely the golden age, the quiet harbor on the shore where a happy fisherman lives with his family, where a baby lies in the crib and his little sister clad in the ballroom dress jumps over the rope in thecompany of Picasso’s bull. The little Gray Wolf lives also in that place where a modern night city glimpses together with the roaring machines on the highway. Always where the people are departing for war. Where return from the war but not many. Where the wet lilac bushes around the table laid for funeral last meat are dropping their tears over a glass of vodka which to be left specially for the killed and covered by a piece of bread, bu the old Russian tradition. Good heavens! How I wept when I watched that movie!” (Petrushevskaya, 2002: 230).

Look at the portrait of L. Petrushevskaya now.

Her first published book was “The Songs of the 20th Century. Plays”, 1988, “Immortal love: Stories” (1988), “Three Girls in Blue. Plays.” (1989), “On the Road of Eros God” (1992), “The Secrets of the House”. Now the piopularity came: many books are published, the prestigious prizes are delivered.

“The Ninth Volume” is a collection of the articles dedicated to the creativity of the writer, her social life, going through the pages which tell about her personal life. In front of us appears the woman having raised up the three children at hard times, having lost her husband and trying to build up a new life.

Her level of the truth is so unusual that the works of Lyudmila Stefanovna started to be called as “the other prose”, “the other”, “cruel”, “black”.

Lyudmila Stefanovna objects to the statement that her prose is “black’. She says that a person in the book as in the mirror, sees himself. One sees the good and weeps, the other person sees the evil on the basis of the same words.

The artist once said about the purpose of the literature: “Messiaen is not necessary, enough, that’ll do. But as a ground for the instant meditation about life, maybe?” (Petrushevskaya, 2002: 306).

Watch video:“Russian Rock in Personalities: Lyudmila Petrushevskaya”

Watch: “Video Dance Memorial, dedicated to Janusz Korczak”

This composition was created by Kareen Balsam & Vita Berezina Blackburn.

“Even though many decades have elapsed since his death, Korczak remains ahead of his time.” Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.

Janusz Korczak was known throughout Europe as a Pied Piper of destitute children even before the onslaught of World War II. But on August 6, 1942, Korczak stepped into legend. Refusing offers for his own safety, and with defiant dignity, he led the orphans under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto to the trains that would take them to Treblinka where they perished together.

An educator and pediatrician, Korczak his pseudonym, real name Henryk Goldszmit {1878-1942}, introduced progressive orphanages for both the Jewish and Catholic children in Warsaw. Determined to shield his children from the injustices of the adult world, he built these orphanages into “just communities? with their parliaments and children’s courts. Korczak also founded the first national children’s newspaper, testified on behalf of children in juvenile courts, and trained teachers and parents in “moral education”, with his books “How to Love a Child” and “how to Respect a Child”.

Watch our photo expose from this book:

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This is his Declaration of Children’s Rights:

The child has the right to love.

(Korczak: “Love the child, not just your own.”

The child has the right to respect.

(Korczak: “Let us demand respect for shining eyes, smooth foreheads, youthful effort and confidence. Why should dulled eyes, a wrinkled brow, untidy gray hair, or tired resignation command greater respect?’

The child has the right to optimal conditions in which to grow and develop.

(Korczak: “We demand: do away eith hunger, cold, dampness, stench, overcrowding, overpopulation.”

The child has the right to live in the present.

(Korczak: “Children are not people of tomorrow, they are people today.”

The child has the right to be himself or herself.

(Korczak: “A child is not a lottery ticket, marked to win the main prize.”

The child has the right to make mistakes.

(Korczak: “There are no more fools among children than among adults.”                                                                  

The child has the right to fail.

(Korczak: “We renounce the deceptive longing for perfect children.”

The child has the right to be taken seriously.

(Korczak: ” Who asks the child for his opinion and concern?’

The child has the right to be appreciated for what he is or she is.

(Korczak: ” The child, being small, has little market value.”

The child has the right to desire, to claim, to ask.

(Korczak: ” As the years pass, the gap between adult demands and children’s desires becomes progressively wider.”)

The child has the right to have secrets.

(Korczak: ” Respect their secrets.”

The child has the right to “a lie, a deception, a theft”.

(Korczak: “He does not have the right to lie, deceive, steal.”)

If a person didn’t have a single chance as a child to pick out the raisins in a cake and pinch them a bit in secret, then he isn’t honest; he won’t be honest when his character has been formed.

The child has the right to respect for his possessions and budget.

(Korczak: ” Everyone has the right to his property, no matter how insignificant or valueless.”)

The child has the right to education.

The child has the right to resist educational influence that conflicts with his or her beliefs.

(Korczak: ” It is fortunate for mankind that we are unable to force children to yield to assaults upon their common sense and humanity.”

The child has the right to protest an injustice.

(Korczak: ” We must end despotism.”

The child has the right to a Children’s Court where he can judge and be judged by his peers.

(Korczak: ” We are the sole judges of the child’s actions, movements, thoughts, and plans… I know that a Children’s Court is essential, that in fifty years there will not be a single school, not a single institution without one.”)

The child has the right to be defended in the juvenile-justice court system.

(Korczak: “The delinquent child is still a child…Unfortunately, suffering bred of poverty spreads like lice: sadism, crime, uncouth, and brutality are nurtured on it.”)

The child has the right to respect for his grief.

(Korczak: ” Even though it be for the loss of a pebble.”)

The child has the right to commune with God.

The child has the right to die prematurely.

(Korczak: ” The mother’s profound love for her child must give him the right to premature death, to ending his life cycle in only one or two springs…Not every bush grows into a tree.”)

Reading this book about the great man on page 63, we see his personality:

“The eldest of the Eliasbergs’ four daughters, Helena, remembered how she and her sisters looked forward to the nights the funny doctor came to work with the architects:” We had never seen a grownup like him. He kissed our handes when he arrived as if we were ladies, and came over to us from time to time to laugh and joke. He even let us draw on his bald head with colored pencils he was using on his blueprints.”

And further down:

“Suddenly perceiving his life as “disordered, lonely, and cold”, hr saw himself as a shabby stranger, alienated and alone. And it came to him with sudden clarity that the son of a madman. ” a slave who is a Polish Jew under Russian occupation”, had no right to bring a child into the world.

The realization “cut through him like a knife”, he would write, and immediately he felt as if he had “committed suicide”. The child he might have fathered died with him at that moment, but there emerged a “revitalized”  man who took for a son “the idea of serving the child and his rights”.

And Janusz Korczak served this idea devotedly and up to the end, having died in gaz chambers in Treblinka together with his children.

Weep, the Mankind, for a great soul of such a rare person and glory to him.

Watch movie:“Janusz Korczak” (Part 1/3) “Janusz Korczak” (Part 2/3)

“Janusz Korczak” (Part 3/3)

Nat Shilkret, “Glad Rag Doll” (1929)

“They call you Glad Rag Doll,

Admired, desired, by lovers

Who soon grow tired.

Poor little Glad Rag Doll,

You are just a pretty toy,

They like to play with…”

When we have been in the charms of wonderful music, it’s high time to indulge into the conversation with Lyudmila Shulgina-Klacz who is a creator of her own popiki dolls, great skills and humor design.

Look at them in our gallery: “Lyudmila’s popiki dolls:

Lyudmila's Popiki Dolls

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Lyudmila's Popiki Dolls

We are sitting in the cozy living room of Lyudmila’s house: from each corner of her sofas are popping out the funnyfaces of her popiki dolls as if they are playing with us, one moment they are winking, the other moment they are dulling their eyes.

“What’s happening with them?” I am asking lyudmila, the hospitable and kind hostess. “Do they always behave like this?”

Smiling Lyudmila answered: “Oh, yes. They like to socialize with everybody.”

1. How did you create them, Lyuda?

2. Very simple. The technology is textile-sculptural. The dolls are made of nylon, wire and stuffing. They personify the toast “Let the luck always turn to you her face rather than her bum!”

1. Now I understand why your dolls are called “popiki’, in translation from Russian it means “bums”.

2. Sure. Each doll has her own personality and interacts with you. If you, Janko, getting up in the morning see the doll’s bum that means only one thing: this day won’t be very successful foryou, but if the next day the doll’s face meets you, it means that Lady Luck smiles at you.

1. Understandable. How long does it take you to make one doll?

2. About two to three days.

1. Do you want to sell them?

2. Why not? 20 dollars per each. My telephone is (403) 271-72-76.

1. Great job! Have you ever heard about cabbage patch dolls which were very popular in 80s in North America?

2. No. Who was the creator?                                                                                                                                                                                      

1. Xavier Roberts, an American art student, in 1978.

Rpberts was created as a ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch kids by following a Bunny Bee behind a waterfall into a magical valley where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born. To keep them from falling into clutches of the evil Lavendar Mc Dale (and being enslaved in her gold mine), he sought to get them adopted into the homes of loving families outside of Mount Yonah.

2. It’s interesting.

Such a wonderful story is behind it.

Thank you very much, Lyudmila, for a nice interview.

Let Lady Luck attend you in all your endeavors.

Look at our photo expose:

“Modern Cabbage Patch Dolls”

[Show as slideshow]

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The author met and fell in love with Milena Jesenska, the Wild Cild of Prague, who helped to try and help as many of other inmates of the Ravensbruck concentration camp (near Vienna) to survive as possible, two truly remarkable women.

The cover of this book is shown here as well as two videos dedicated to their relationship above and at the end of the article.

So Greta as Milena called her friend, tells the story in partial flashback from how Milena told her things in the camp and what she has meticulously researched, from her youth as the daughter of a prominent Dentist, going off the rails and taking Cocaine and all sorts of other drugs, while have the ability to bewitch and seduce all kinds of poets, writers and artists, including Kafka whose letters to Milena the book heavily quotes from.

She spent a lot of time Partying with Franz, and it gives a very different insight in his work as well.

Milena (1896-1944) was also a very good journalist, and it was through the honesty of her articles in saying the truth of which was happening that got her arrested after the Germans invaded Prague. She died in Ravensbruck 10 days before D-Day landings.

Watch video:Franz Kafka (1992)-Piotr Dumala

Are you King of the tyrant lizards?

I read about you. This is why I came here with my Mom, Papa and Babichka to visit with Dinosaurs’ Museum in Drumheller”, said little Klinton to his new toy from the Gift Shop of the Royal Tyrrell Museum which was opened in 1985.

The photos of the welcoming plaque, the founder of this wonderful Paleonthological Workshop-Laboratory.

When it is overcast, the best day to spent is at the museum.

The road to Drumheller led us through open prairies which are scenic in their own way. Four small deers were crossing the dirt road near Lyalta as if peacefully greeting and wishing us a safe, enjoyable day.

Here we are at the magic land of Dinosaurs where learning fun begins. Just look around! Million years’ history becomes alive.

The whimsical, interactive exhibition includes tour around Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the amazing dinosaurs to ever live. The largest meat eater, it was more than 12 meters (37 ft) long and stood almost as tall as a giraffe. Unlike a giraffe, however, Tyrannosaurus rex was massive and powerful. His 60 teeth in the jaw, some of them are longer than a human hand, its eyes faced forward, providing better depth perception. At the other end, a heavy tail counterbalanced the skull. A complete tail has never been found, so no one knows exactly how long it might have grown.

Watch our photo expose: “Around the Dinosaurs in Drumheller”

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Watch video: “A Dinosaur’s Story (Part 1)”

“…she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it.

The poor child paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a :thing” like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought,”how happy that doll must be!” She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall.

The more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being the Eternal Father.

In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she was charged.

All at once the Thenardier’s coarse voice recalled to reality:

“What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Get lost, you little monster!”

Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which she was capable.”

What is the meaning of the doll for a girl?

The instinct of motherhood, care for the family, a caring attitude to the people around her.

To decorate a doll, to make fit to your life style-isn’t it one of the signs of creativity?

This is why the artists of many countries in the world are creating miracles with the dolls. Recent two years there take place International Exhibitions of Dolls in Manez, Moscow.

Look at the photos of my dolls in the article and below photo expose from Moscow (2011):

“The Moscow Exhibition of the Dolls”

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Watch video”“The Dance of the Dolls”

This is an important examination of immigrant life in America made by Franz Kafaka although he himself never visited America in his life.

The story he put in writing was about the young Karl Rossman who, after an incident involving a housemaid, is banished by his parents to America. Expected to redeemhimself in this magical land of opportunities, young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzying reversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures.

Kafka began writing this book under the title “Der Verscholbene” (”The Missing Person”) in 1912 and completed in 1914. But it wasn’t until 1927, three years after his death that Max Brod edited unfinished manuscript and published it as “Amerika”.

The movie based on this novel, is  called “Class Relationship”. Why? To understand this, let’s go to page 58 and read:

“Whereas Mr. Pollunder kept a friendly eye on karl as he headed toward the door, Green did not even turn to look at Karl-even though one does instinctively tend to to meet the eyes of the person opposite-and Karl thought that his behavor reflected Green’s belief that each of them should try to get by on the strength of his own abilities-Karl for himself, Green for himself-and that it would the victory or annihilation of one or the other before the inevitable s o c i a l relationship could be established.”

That’s how Kafka attracts readers’ attention.

We probably don’t need to be told that purposefully ignoring someone requires fighting off natural visual impulses in order to recognize rude behavior-that’s just Kafka twisting the knife in the worldview of his protagonist and narrator. This display of disrespect allows Karl to extrapolate, or exaggerate, an understanding of the world in which social relationships require victory or annihilation. How a relationship that presupposes annihilation is even possible, to say nothing of inevitable, is less a question than a feature of the world that Kafka’s figures inhabit. One of the features of the world we inhabit when we read Kafka is an encounter with contradictions that, rather than impeding the flow of the story, sometimes, surprisingly, propel it forward.

I feel this Kafka’s Amerika is closer to the truth of Kafka’s writing.

The photos of the front cover of the book and other interesting photos  are shown here and there.

As a whole, the impressions of his diaries are not bad: he lived a very good life, full of energy, travels, love for beauty and arts, including ladies.

His “tormented soul” was not the only one I know, so was leo Tolstoy’s, Fedor Dostoevsky’s and many other outstanding artists.

The imagery does not live in still waters and sleeps. Even at the cemetery and around and in the graves. By the way, that was Kafka’s favorite topic. In July 5, 1922 he wrote: “My writing has not bought off my death. I’ve been dying all my life, and now I’ll really die.”

Let us do some readings from Kafka’s diaries, here is page 28:                      

“15 December, 1919. I simply do not believe the conclusions I have drawn from my present condition, which has been already lasted almost a year, my condition is too serious for that. Indeed, I do not even know whether I can say that it is not a new condition. My real opinion, however, is that  this condition is new – I have had similar ones, but never one like this. It is as if I were made of stone, as if I were my own tombstone, there is no loophole for doubt or for faith, for love or repugnance, for courage or anxiety, in particular or in general, only a vague hope lives on, but no better than the inscription on tombstones. Almost every word I write jars against the next, I hear the consonants rub leadenly against each other and the vowels sing an accompaniment like Negroes in a ministrel show. My doubts stand in a circle around every word, I see them before I see the word, but what then! I do not see the word at all, I invent it. Of course, that wouldn’t be the greatest misfortune, only I ought to be able to invent words capable of blowing the odor of corpses in a direction other than straight into mine and the reader’s face. When I sit down at the desk I feel no better than someone who falls and breaks both legs in the middle of the traffic of the Place de l’Opera. All the carriages, despite their noise, press silently from all directions in all directions, but that man’s pain keeps better order than the police, it closes his eyes and empties the Place and the streets without carriages having to turn about. The great commotion hurts him, for he is really an obstruction to traffic, but the emptiness is no less sad, for it unshackles his real pain”.

This was translated from the native Kafka’s language German into the English by Joseph Kresh, and it was not an easy task, believe me, as I did the same : trying to translate it into the Russian which can be seen on the Russian page.

Here and there are scattered the photos of Kafka’s “Diaries” (front cover of the book), Franz’s portrait drawn by the painter, his hand writing, the Kafkas (his and his father-mother’s) tombstone and the bronze monument to Kafka in Prague.

Kafka, a citizen of the new Czech Republic and culturally an Austrian, wrote mainly for a small German audience. He died in 1924 before German intellectuals divided into right and left, one of the deep spiritual crisis. Kafka’s fiction belongs to this era. His novels and other unpublished works became to appear shortly after his death under the editorship of M. Brod, who diligently promoted the reputation of his late friend but also worked hard to establish as true his own image of Kafka as a saintly writer principally concerned with religious matters.

But Kafka was apolitical, everybody knows that.

Let’s read again from his “Diaries”:

“4 October, 1911. Towards evening, in the dark of my room on the sofa. Why does one take a rather long time to recognize a color, but then, after the understanding has reached the decisive turning-point, quickly become all the more convinced of the color. If the light from the ante-room and the kitchen shines on the glass door simultaneously from the outside, then greenish – or rather, not to detract from the definiteness of the impression – green light pours down almost the length of the panes. If the light in the ante-room is turned off and only the kitchen light remains, then the pane nearer the kitchen becomes deep blue, the other whitish blue, so whitish that all the drawings on the frosted glass (stylized poppies, tendrils, various rectangles, and leaves) dissolve.

Watch our photo expose “Kafka’s Dreams”:

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The lights are shadows thrown on the walls and the ceiling by the electric lights in the street and the bridge down below are distorted, partly spoiled, overlapping, and hard to follow. When they installed the electric arc-lamps down below and when they furnished this room, there was simply no housewifely consideration given to how my room would look from the sofa at this hour without any lights of its own.

The glare thrown on the ceiling by the tram passing down below moves whitely, wraith-like and with mechanical pauses along the one wall and ceiling, broken in the corner. The globe stands on the linen chest in the first, fresh, full reflection of the street lights, a greenishly  clean light on top, has a highlight on its roundness and gives the impression that the glare is really too strong for it, although, the light passes over its smoothness and goes off leaving it brownish like a leather apple. The light from the ante-room throws a large patch of glare on the wall over the bed. This patch is bounded by a curved line beginning at the head of the bed, gives the illusion that the bed is pressed down, widens the dark bedposts, raises the ceiling over the bed.”

Kafka’s intellect was too corrosively skeptical, his natural cast of mind too ironic, his sense of belatedness too laming for him to invest any realistic hope in religious salvation.

Really, how Kafka could contribute to the world salvation if he could not rescue himself from himself at crucial time?

Watch the other photo show “Kafka’s Sketches”:

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In my view, Kafka belongs to no one but himself. A writer is not the property of the state, and his true connoisseurs are his readers. Kafka flies past those nets of nationalism that would seek to bring down his flight. He belongs to the imagination of the world.

Watch video:Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1913.

We also got togetther  this evening on Friday, the 6th of April for the Passover Seder.

On the table plate are the special foods: Matzah (”unleavened bread” in Hebrew), marror (”bitter herbs” in Hebrew), Karpas (”bitter vegetables” in Hebrew), Chazeret (” a second bitter vegetable” in Hebrew), Zeroah (” a shank bone of chicken” in Hebrew), Beitzah (”hard-boiled egg” in Hebrew), Mei Melach (”salt water for eggs” in hebrew), Charoset (”clay”-symbolic food-mixture of nuts, fruit, wine, honey and cinnamon” and “Yayin” meaning “wine”. Besides that, there was Gefelta fish, fish under shuba, soup with kletzki, a chocolate cake and many other delicatessen.

We read passages from Haggaddah, sand along, danced and enjoyed each other’s company.

What a lovely time we”ve spent!

This is our photo expose of that evening: “Happy Passover and Happy Easter to All Our Friends!”

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Listen to: “Three Cantors “A Faith in Song”, performing  in Amsterdam Synagogue”

In Kafka’s famed story, bank clerk Joseph K. is arrested for a crime that did not take place and put on a trial that never occurs. This faithful graphic novel depicts not just the comical, nightmarish and absurdest themes explored by kafka but also his gravitation to and mistrust of women.

The surreal feeling of the story, and Kafka’s absurdest view of reality make this story a dense read, full of strange imagery and, overall, a bit overwhelming.

The main character was about to be 31. That is the same age as Kafka was in 1914 when he started writing “The Trial” and completed in 1915.

His personal life was always complicated. He traveled a lot on the cheap. In such words Max Brod put in his biography about Kafka:

“Franz took special delight and displayed a high degree of virtuosity in balanc ing in this way on the line between seriousness and the comic. It was always impossible to tell whether he meant what he said seriously or as a joke: he himself didn’t always know, I am sure, but simply surrendered himself to the creative imagination od a great teller of fairy stories.”

Such a fun guy to be with!

Watch our photo show: “The Trial”, Kafka’s Inspirations”

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I think, that was the reason why the women were attracted to him. So he was to them. Such a mutual gravity. And in self-trial, his “The Trial” he is making self-analysis putting as the background- the juridical bureaucratic system which he knew very well working as a lawyer.

Women were also on the background whom he enjoyed very much and was fearful of them.

That is absolutely normal. As they were highly intelligent, beautiful and good-hearted.

They say, he had even a son from one of them, so0called: Frau M.M. Good for him. The more I am reading Kafka, the more I fall in love with him.