The Lack of Knowledge of Local History! It Burns!

There are days when I don't know why I read the "Venting" column in the Journal. Generally, it serves as a forum for the city's knuckle-draggers to display their ignorance, passive-aggressive tendencies, and horror at the existence of people with interests different from theirs. And every so often the dumbassery gets taken to new and impressive lows.

Last weekend saw the annual dragon boat races on the river here in town. In the wake (hah!) of that, one Venter revealed its displeasure at the entire concept:

Instead of dragon boat races, why don't Edmontonians celebrate our own history and culture and use voyageur canoes?*

To be fair, the Venter has, like the proverbial blind pig, found a truffle; a voyageur canoe race on the river is an awesome idea. That said...



For those of you who do not know this, in the late 19th century something like 17,000 Chinese labourers came to Canada to work on the Western expansion of the railway. Sir John A. MacDonald is reported to have said that without them there would have been no railway, and as the writer of that link notes, without the railway there might not have been a country. Early Chinese Canadians were not treated well (just google "head tax"), especially in economically tough times.

The first Chinese Edmontonian seems to have been a fellow named Chung Gee, who arrived in 1892, the very year that Edmonton officially became a town. His reasons for coming here are not known for certain, but there had been anti-Chinese rioting in Calgary, and it is possibly that he was fleeing from that. Whatever, the case, the Chinese population of Edmonton increased steadily from that beginning. The city's Chinatown, in roughly its current location, was firmly established by 1911, when the Chinese population of the city numbered in the hundreds.

So, just in case anyone is still missing the point, the dragon boat races in Edmonton do in fact have a very strong historical and cultural basis. And some people need to do a little bit of research before beaking off to the newspaper.

*The link will probably die in a couple of days, since the Journal does not seem to archive the Vents. Here is the hard-copy citation:

Anonymous. "Venting." Edmonton Journal. August 25, 2009, p. A14.

And, Making A Cameo Appearance...

The above picture is a scene from the Battle of Varna, fought on November 10th, 1444. It ended in a decisive if costly victory for the Ottoman Turks over a combined force of Hungarians, Poles, and others. I believe that the painting (a 19th-century work by Jan Matejko) depicts the heroically stupid charge of Wladislaw III of Poland against the janissaries of Sultan Murad, a military action that resulted in Wladislaw's death and the defeat of the Europeans (it really was a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The brilliant Hungarian general John Hunyadi had managed to rout the Ottomans and overrun their camp, and Wladislaw's charge, which Hunyadi begged him not to undertake, turned the entire course of the battle).

I've been helping a friend translate some Latin sources on the Battle of Varna, including some letters written by a certain Andreas de Palatio, a papal envoy who witnessed the battle. In describing the prelude to the battle, he describes the arrival of a potential ally to the Europeans:

"In stacione autem nostra sub urbe Nicopolii illustris Wlad waywoda Transalpine Walachie, qui et Dracula dicitur, Danubium traiecit in Bulgariam..."

"Moreover, during our vigil below the city of Nicopolis, the famous Vlad, Prince of Transalpine Wallachia, who is also called 'Dracula', crossed the Danube into Bulgaria..."

Of course, this immediately led to the mental image of...



...taking part in the Battle of Varna. Unfortunately, however, the battle was likely relatively vampire-free. The Vlad referred to here is not Vlad III Tepes, a.k.a. "Vlad the Impaler," who would later inspire Bram Stoker. It is, in fact, his father Vlad II Dracul (Stoker seems to have been ever-so-slightly confused over the names). Still rather fun to see the name in a contemporary document, though!

First note: This isn't the only fun Latin project I've embarked upon recently (leaving aside the teaching of the Latin summer course). One of the local High Schools (the covert canine's alma mater, to be precise), is set to offer Latin in the fall, and the Latin-teacher-to-be and I are frantically working to get her up to speed.

Second note: The internet is a charming place, sometimes. I found the Battle of Varna painting at a site, which I will neither name nor link to, that claims to present the history of the conflict between Islam and the West "from a neutral and factual viewpoint" (their words). It then goes on to enthusiastically endorse the forcible lobotomizing of all Muslims. Uh, that's just swell, guys...