FinermanWorks

On this day in 1796, fading socialite beauty–and somewhat circulated mistress–Josephine de Beauharnais married a mumbling, young immigrant.  (No, Napoleon didn’t need a green card, just the status of having a celebrity wife.)  Within the year, however, Napoleon would have status of his own.  Smashing four Austrian armies and conquering Italy does get you noticed!

The couple had no children.  Josephine, however, does have descendants.  Napoleon was only her second husband.  Her first was Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais.  As a Vicomte during the French Revolution, Monsieur Beauharnais obviously had a bad sense of timing.  He left his widow with a daughter and a son.  Hortense de Beauharnais–with the emphasis on the first syllable–would marry Napoleon’s brother Louis, but didn’t even pretend that all the children were his.  At least Napoleon III was certain that Josephine was his grandmother.

Josephine’s son was Eugene, a name that indicated his charm and ability.  He really was a capable, admirable individual.  Yes, he was appointed Viceroy of Italy through nepotism, but he governed so well–and how often do you hear efficient Italian government in the same sentence–that the Allies seriously discussed letting him stay on after Napoleon fell.  Of course, competence would have made the other rulers look bad, so Eugene had to be fired.  He had married a Bavarian princess, so he was in no danger of starvation.

Eugene de Beauharnais and his frau had a daughter named Josephine, a sentimental if tactless choice.  Young Josephine in turn married a nice French boy who happened to be the Crown Prince of Sweden.  (In an early example of a guest worker program, Sweden had offered its throne to a French general named Bernadotte.)  Her grandchild became the Queen of Denmark and her great-grandson became the King of Norway.

So the royal houses of Scandinavia are all descended from the first Mrs. Bonaparte.  Even after a messy divorce, that is not a bad compensation.

August 10. 1897:  New and Improved, with All Unnatural Ingredients.

Somehow ancient medicine knew that eating willow bark could relieve pain.  Perhaps the subsequent splinters in your tongue were like acupuncture.  And you have to wonder how the discovery happened.  Did some shaman tell his patient to nibble on a forest until the pain went away?  Apparently willow bark was worth the exertion and embarrassment.  By the time of Hippocrates (4 centuries before the Jewish Overachiever), the bark was long part of the medical canon and now available in convenient pills.   Hippocrates was quite enthusiastic about the many applications of the bark, particularly during childbirth.  (True, you could always douse the gestating woman with wine but you didn’t want the midwife getting into the retsina.)  The Founding Physician also ignored any possible side effects of a  painfree state of Hubris such as starting wars with Sparta, corrupting Athens’ youth or marrying a woman old enough to be your mother.

Willow bark did have its limitations.  In treating the Black Death, it wasn’t as effective as blaming the Jews.  Nonetheless, over the centuries it remained a popular remedy for aches and agues.  The demand eventually surpassed the supply of willows.  In the 18th century, Botanists were in the first throes of their classification craze and they found that certain shrubs were related to willows and offered similar pain-relieving benefits.  By the 19th century, chemists had sifted out the specific ingredient that offered such merciful qualities: salicin.

Now if salicin could be chemically duplicated–without the tedious, intermediate stages of planting, waiting and  stripping bark–the pain-relieving compound could be quickly produced.  Why let an Industrial Revolution go to waste?!  The idea certainly occurred to the German manufacturer Friedrich Bayer; his factory already made paint.  Any empty vats could be used for medicine.  If the name Bayer sounds familiar, you probably guessed that his staff of chemists did succeed in creating artificial salicin.  It took a few decades before the Bayer drug had achieved the right balance:  curing your headache without hemorrhaging your stomach.  By 1897, however, Bayer had developed a product with minimal side effects.  The marketing department called it Aspirin.  In Italian, that could translate to “without hope”;  and in Greek, “without syphilis.”  However, aspirin was intended to mean that it had no ingredients from the Spirae shrub.  In other words, “our product has no natural ingredients!”

And you wondered why no major advertising agencies are German!

Beset by bankruptcy, my local Borders bookstore is closing.  However, the corporation can still afford email and it has been barraging me with notices of the great sales at the soon-to-be shuttered locale.    “Everything Must GO!”  Today I had some free time and Karen trusted me with the car, so I decided to bargain-hunt.  You know, I didn’t have a comprehensive history of the Netherlands.  Well, I still don’t.  Everyone else apparently got it first.

Of course, I was open to any bargains.  Somehow the Twilight calendars didn’t appeal to me, however.  But the history shelves were not completely barren.  I was tempted by a history of Sicily, at least until I started perusing it.  The introduction certainly made a vivid first impression.  “When you say Sicily, you probably think of the Mafia.  But there is more to Sicily than that.”  Judging from the author’s tone, I would probably learn that Sicily is a big island in the Mediterranean Sea–which is filled with water.  Yes, I could see why the book was still for sale.

There was also a history of ancient Alexandria, and its author did have a style appropriate for an intelligent adult.  Borders almost had a sale, at least until I read the author’s biographical sketch.  He cited among his achievements being the historical consultant on “Elizabeth”, the film featuring Cate Blanchett as Miss Tudor.  That film did correctly depict Elizabeth’s hair color, and that the extent of its historical accuracy.  In other words, the consultant was bragging about being either a liar or a studio stooge.  I no longer could trust anything he had to say.   

I did finally find a book with an interesting topic and a reputable author.  It is a history of Germany’s Jews.  Now, don’t tell me how it ends.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/03/04/remembering-john-garfield/

March 3rd

If you go into a Bulgarian restaurant tonight, you would notice the festive atmosphere. It is not merely the thrill of finally having a customer. No, you are in the midst of the celebration of Bulgaria’s Liberation Day.

For lack of evidence, most people don’t believe that Bulgaria exists. Unfortunately, for 500 years the Bulgarians were under the same impression. They were just another subjugated people of the Ottoman Empire. Worse, unlike the Greeks, Serbs or Romanians, the Bulgarians couldn’t even cling to nurturing legends and songs of their heroic resistance. Even in the 14th century, Bulgaria wasn’t much of a country. In the Turkish catalog of conquests, Bulgaria was simply swept up. So, when the rest of the Ottoman Empire succumbed to indolence and stagnation, Bulgaria was a trend-setter.

The Ottoman decline began in the late 17th century when the sultans limited their ambitions to the Harem. Over the next two centuries, the Turkish Empire began losing one province after another. Austria “liberated” Hungary and Croatia. France annexed Algeria. Quoting Homer and Byron, Britain helped free Greece. But Russia was the most aggressive and determined enemy of the Ottoman Empire.

As the self-anointed heir of Byzantium and the champion of the Slavic Peoples, Russia vowed to free the Balkans from the Ottoman Empire. Holy Mother Russia even intended to reclaim Constantinople for Christendom. (Of course, there were also some secular advantages to having naval access to the Mediterranean.) Russia had already driven the Turks out of Crimea and Rumania. In 1877, it was ready to complete the crusade. Bulgaria’s independence was at hand.

The Russo-Turkish War was between the two most inept powers in Europe. If Turkey was “the sick man of Europe”, Russia was the stupid lummox of the continent. But a lummox is usually quite strong; and even when it trips over its own feet, it will crush anyone beneath it. Turkey couldn’t move out of the way. After a short but bloody war, Russia nearly achieved her goal. Constantinople had yet to be taken, and the sudden presence of the British navy in the Black Sea was intended to discourage any further Russian ambition. However, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia were liberated, or at least had changed from Turkish rule to Russian domination.

Acknowledging the obvious, Turkey ceded these territories in the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878. Bulgaria was once again an independent country (although a presumably Pro-Russian one) and a very large country at that. In addition to its ancestral lands, Bulgaria now encompassed Macedonia and Thrace.

The other Great Powers of Europe-Britain, Austria-Hungary and Germany-were alarmed by the prospect of Russian control of the Balkans. Forming a united front in 1878, they met in Berlin and forced Russia to surrender most of her gains. You almost have to feel sorry for Russia. The Lummox was pitted against the combined wiles of Bismarck and Disraeli. (That does seem an invincible, irresistible combination; in fact, the two brilliant rogues actually liked each other. What a joint press-conference that would have been!)

Bulgaria’s independence was acknowledged but on more humble dimensions. Macedonia and Thrace actually were returned to the Ottoman Empire. (Bosnia’s final status was undecided but would be administered by Austria-Hungary. That certainly would prove eventful.)

Nonetheless, half a Bulgaria is better than none, and Bulgarians still celebrate March 3rd as National Liberation Day. Of course, Bulgaria still coveted that lost territory. In 1912, in alliance with Greece and Serbia, Bulgaria fought and defeated Turkey. The following year, Greece, Serbia and Turkey allied to fight Bulgaria. And in 1914, Turkey and Bulgaria were allied against Serbia AND Russia.

Hey, that’s the Balkans.

March 1st:  Happy St. David’s Day.

In honor of the Patron Saint of Wales, it is customary to wear and eat a leek. This would also make David the patron saint of halitosis.

Living in the sixth century, David should have had a few legends in which he fought dragons and evil wizards. He was a contemporary of King Arthur, but David was apparently immune to excitement. His life reads like a human resource manual. The drab, charisma-free man would have been a disaster as a missionary, but he was ideal for doing a pew inventory. And that is exactly what Wales needed.

The impoverished, mountainous region had been inundated with refugees, the survivors of Roman Britain. Fleeing the Angles-Saxons, these Britons had lost their classical culture, their knowledge of Latin, even an awareness of vowels. They had regressed to a more primitive Celtic society. The Church feared that they would lose their Christianity too.

The methodical David prevented that by making the Church unavoidable. He founded churches and monasteries throughout Wales. These ecclesiastical franchises were the foundations on which society could stabilize and begin to rebuild. David’s bureaucratic nature may well have saved Wales. Without him, the dispossessed, despairing Britons might well have skipped off the nearest cliff. (Lemming does sound like a Welsh name.)

So remember St. David. He is the closest that a saint will ever get to a MBA.