Last week (02/16/2011), a unique series of events -- current events (Egyptian uprising & revolution) + fever-induced delirium + recuperating on the couch while watching oldies but goodies like Crow: City of Angels & the 2002 remake of Solaris -- all got me thinking about history, particularly the parallels and repeats in the last 100 years.
It's not a new concept; historians have been referring to the phenomena of history as a helix forever. Many a poet and political leaders have tried to study history to avoid repeating again, which is so easy to do. Because many of them have tried and tried to no avail, I propose it is part of the human experience/condition/curse to repeat the same mistakes over and over again every few decades and every few generations.
In my own life and family history, I have pulled the following parallel: about 100 years ago to the year, my great-grandparents (born in mid-late 1860s) saw the 'writing on the wall' in the zeitgeist of East Europe around 1911.
WWI did not just break out of nowhere in 1914, there were things a-brewing several years beforehand. My great-grandfather, John Youtatus, got the hell outta dodge when the Russians started drafting Lithuanians into their army. My great-grandparents got the hella outta Slovakia because of the political unrest and signs of coming oppression as that region changed hands many times within a few short decades before, during and post Austro-Hungarian empire (1867-1918).
"In 1867 the Austrian Empire split into the dual monarchy, Austria-Hungary. The Magyars made Hungarian the only language in Slovak schools; only 6% of the citizens were permitted to vote while most Slovaks remained peasants. "Poverty and malnutrition were commonplace throughout Upper Hungary [name for present day Slovakia] and, by 1914, 20% of the Slovak population had emigrated, mostly to the USA" (Humphreys 426).
By 1890 the radical "Young Czechs" led by Tomás Masaryk, were advocating non-cooperation with Vienna. During WWI, 100,000 Czechs + Slovaks fought against the Austrians in a Czechoslovak Legion in Russia... On June 30, 1918, American Czechs + Slovaks passed a resolution in Pittsburgh, PA, approving an independent union of Czechs + Slovaks... on October 28, 1918, the new Czechoslovak Republic was declared in Prague."
Note: Many thanks to Anne Dayton for the overview history of Ukraine, Slovakia + The Movarian Church (Jan Hus) for our upcoming trek to Ukraine:)
The signs of the time seems to be repeating themselves yet again today -- something big is coming as demonstrated in the current spirit of revolution that is breaking out around the world against dictators and extreme forms of oppression as well as within our own political system as people take to the streets in protest against deconstructive legislation by the newly elected officials.
That is where this blog, re:Hashing History, and its subsequent Fb page's posts + Twitter Tweets (#reHashingHistory) come into play. As I am seeing the parallels unfold, I'll be posting more and more articles with both current events and their correlating repeats from historically parallel events, both nationally and internationally.
Again, and as always, I'll need help with this blog and body of research. If you are a historian, ex-pat, activist, an internationally-minded person or just someone who's as concerned as I am, please email me at srexroth@hotmail.com to discuss how we may collaborate here online and in person in Pgh.
