Art : Literature

Many people frequently says why they need to read Classical Literature?
For every individual, either technical, scientific or cultural thinker, I would like to share a short (quoted) analysis by Einstein. Einstein says of classical literature [From his collection "Ideas and Opinions", Written in 1952]

"Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous.

There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly extricate themselves from the superstitions and ignorance that had darkened life for more than half a millennium.

Nothing is more needed to overcome the modernist's snobbishness."

We cannot doubt on it, because he was, at all not a "near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses.", he was a great observer, not only in science, but also in Social Political and Economical conditions.
Einstein wrote about Dostoevsky, "Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss."

___________________________________

On the name of modernization a lot of cheap literature and art, mostly full of regressive undemocratic  self-centralized values,  is presented before public, with the help of magazines, newspapers, movies, novels, TV programs and other means of communication.

The reality is that, the natural dynamics of the capitalist system, (Where capital is the dominating and factor and work is secondary) which had grown on the capitalist economic foundation -means of production and social production relations-; these inhuman-values of selfish culture are not a surprising thing. But, with the development of the social knowledge, it is reaching to its saturation; now public is able to understand the truth of most of these nonsense cheap things presented before them on the name of art and literature.

It is not true that public don't want to watch, read or hear progressive and sensible things, but it is never provide to them; most of the sensible art and literature is hidden from public.

So, anyone who have any knowledge of progressive books and articles related to novels, stories, play, history etc. he should share with all of us.

Here is the introduction of some progressive artistic material, books and songs.

# जो आज-कल चुप हैं, और जो मूकदर्शक बनकर इन्तजार में समय काट रहे हैं, 
उनके लिये हिटलर के दौर में जर्मनी के पास्टर निमोलर की कुछ महत्वपूर्ण पंक्तियाँ:
पहले वे यहूदियों के लिए आये
और मैं कुछ नहीं बोला क्योंकि मैं यहूदी नहीं था…
फिर वे कम्युनिस्टों के लिए आये
और मैं कुछ नहीं बोला क्योंकि मैं कम्युनिस्ट नहीं था…..
फिर वे ट्रेडयूनियन वालों के लिए आये
और मैं कुछ नहीं बोला क्योंकि मैं ट्रेडयूनियन में नहीं था….
फिर वे मेरे लिए आये और तब कोई नहीं था जो मेरे लिए बोलता.

# Novel: Shesh Prashan by Sarat Chandra

“My literary debt is not limited to my predecessors only. I am forever indebted to the deprived, ordinary people who give this world everything they have and yet receive nothing in return, to the weak and oppressed people whose tears nobody bothers to notice. They inspired me to take up their cause and plead for them. I have witnessed endless injustices to these people, unfair, intolerable injustices. It is true that springs do come to this world for some — full of beauty and wealth — with its sweet smelling breeze perfumed with newly bloomed flowers and spiced with cuckoo's songs, but such good things remained well outside the sphere where my sight remained imprisoned.” - Sarat Chandra

# Historical Story Book "वोल्गा से गंगा" by राहुल सांकृत्यायन (1893-1963)
A great book with historical analysis fro Europe to India and merging of Arya and Asur in India and development of culture from 6000 BC to 1942, with a proletariat world view of the society.

# Few words from an Article by Karl Marx written in 1835:

 
[Read Full Text Here]

#Chekhov Short Stories and Writings:

[To Get the books Visit Here]

# Lines from the Devine Comedy Dante Alighieri (May/June c.1265 – September 14, 1321),

"Here must all distrust be left;

All cowardice must here be dead.

यहां सभी अविश्वास छोड़ देने चाहिए;

सारी कायरता यहां मर जानी चाहिए |"

# Novel "What is to be Done?" by Nikolai Chernyshevsky (July 12, 1828 – October 17, 1889) (Written in 1863)

• Get it Here: What is to be Done?

In the words of Nikolai Chernyshevsky: "Not to waste any time on secondary matters and with secondary people, but to occupy only with things of essential importance, from which the secondary things and secondary people are influenced, without your interference."

To explore some more read the complete novel......

# An article "An Appeal to the Young" written by Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) in 1880 addressing the youth students and doctors, engineers and poets and writers, all intellectuals, labors and peasants of the bourgeoisie society at that time, regarding their work and their role with relation to the public and rulers.

But, till today, it is as applicable same as it was before 130 years. Because the division of society and people in the capitalist system is still all same. To read the full text click Here.

He has written at a point, "..if abstract science is a luxury and practice of medicine mere chicane; if law spells injustice, and mechanical invention is but the means of robbery; if the school, at variance with the wisdom of the `practical man,' is sure to be overcome; and art without the revolutionary idea can only degenerate, what remains for me to do?"...

"And in this endless struggle how often has not the toiler vainly asked, as he stumbled under the weight of his burden:

"Where, then, are these young people who have been taught at our expense? These youths whom we fed and clothed while they studied? Where are those for Whom, our backs bent double beneath our burdens and our bellies empty, we have built these houses, these colleges, these lecture-rooms, these museums? Where are the men for whose benefit we, with our pale, worn faces, have printed these fine books, most of which we cannot even read? Where are they, these professors who claim to possess the science of mankind, and for whom humanity itself is not worth a rare caterpillar? Where are the men who are ever speaking in praise of liberty, and never think to champion our freedom, trampled as it is each day beneath their feet? Where are they, these writers and poets, these painters and sculptors? Where, in a word, is the whole gang of hypocrites who speak of the people with tears in their eyes, but who never, by any chance, find themselves among us, helping us in our laborious work?"

 

# Novel "How the steel was Tempered" by Nikolai Ostrovsky (29 September 1904 – 22 December 1936)

• Get it Here: How the steel was Tempered File 1

• Get it Here: How the steel was Tempered File 2

 In the words of Nikolai : "जब आदमी के पास कोई ऐसा विचार होता है जिसके लिए वाहे लड़े तो उसे सब कुछ सहने की ताकत आ जाती है |"

# Song "Ganga Behti Ko Kyun" by Bhupen Hazarika

 

#Song "Zamane ke andaaz badlay gaye" by Junoon

-->

# DURING FASCISM UP-RISE AND SUPPRESSION of Masses IN GERMANY:

- By Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)


________________________________________