Howzzat!

In the odd pages of Pavić’s magnum opus, the various trials undergone by the ‘great walking parchment’ is described in much detail. An envoy is sent to the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus with his entire body tattooed with Khazars’ history and topography. He lets his hand get chopped off in Constantinople when a man pays in solid gold for the second Khazar year chronicled on his left palm. He is forced to return to the Khazar capital from time to time so that the inscriptions can undergo multiple corrections and new additions. His daily bread comes from hours of standing still so that the Greek and other scribes could copy the Khazar history from his back and thighs into their books. He ultimately passes away, unable to bear the incessant itching brought about by the prized inscriptions and “…and it was with relief that he died, glad to be finally cleansed of history.” I found The Dictionary of Khazars to be an ode to the life of this great walking parchment who is belie...

The year was 1938. Under the guise of rescuing the Sudeten Germans, Hitler assumed control over the frontiers of Czechoslovakia. The Munich pact signed between UK, France, Italy and Germany readily paved the way for him. The rest of Czechoslovakia was wrested a year later from a meek leadership and was brought under the realm of the Nazis, driven endlessly by their desire of establishing the Aryan Supremacy in Europe. This annexation was met with almost no military resistance and made millions of Slovaks who constituted “the others” vulnerable to mindless persecution and inexplicable wrath. Anti-Semitism was not the only threat. “The others” also constituted Slovaks who tried to flee their Nazi-held Czechoslovakian homelands, homosexuals, artists who dared to decry the Nazi authority and the Communists. Members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) were already ostracised by the incumbent democratic Government in Prague prior to the arrival of the Nazis. Julius Fučík joi...