[D66] Augury of Ashes

[J.N.]

    http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/augury-of-ashes/

    <http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/augury-of-ashes/>


    Augury of Ashes

By Frank Garrett.

“Everything recompenses for fire, and fire for all things…”—Heraclitus

Augury of Ashes

On a cold Thursday afternoon in January 1969, twenty-year-old
Czechoslovakian student Jan Palach doused himself with gasoline and lit
himself on fire in front of Prague’s National Museum as a protest
against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and Warsaw Pact
forces. Three days later, he died in a hospital; among his effects was a
letter signed /Pochodeň č. 1/, or Torch #1.

A month later, eighteen-year-old student Jan Zajíc would become Torch
#2–the second person to self-immolate in Prague as a protest against the
occupation. Zajíc’s act, however, would have an even larger focus. He
would light himself on fire on the twenty-first anniversary of the
Communist take-over of Czechoslovakia in 1948.

...


*ABOUT THE AUTHOR*
*Frank Garrett* is an independent philosopher, writer, and
translator. Recent publications include “Forgotten Art” on Prague’s
late-communist public art (/Transitions Online/); “Saying Celan in
Silence,” an essay on and translation of Edmond Jabès’s poetry dealing
with the death of Paul Celan (/Black Sun Lit/); “Negative Hermeneutics
and Translation: The Unworkable Poetry of Wisława Szymborska” (in Zeta
Books’ /Translational Hermeneutics/); and a translation of Robert
Rient’s “No Blood” (/Bahamut/, forthcoming). He blogs at My Crash Course
<http://www.mycrashcourse.net> and lives in Dallas.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Tuesday, August 11th, 2015.

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