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<a href="http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/augury-of-ashes/">http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/augury-of-ashes/<br>
</a><a href="http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/augury-of-ashes/"><br>
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<h2>Augury of Ashes</h2>
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<p>By Frank Garrett.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">“Everything recompenses for
fire, and fire for all things…”—Heraclitus</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-75133 size-full"
src="cid:part3.08010208.03010101@ziggo.nl" alt="Augury of
Ashes" height="525" width="350"></p>
<p>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 <em>Pochodeň č. 1</em>, or Torch #1.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<p><strong>ABOUT THE AUTHOR</strong><br>
<strong>Frank Garrett</strong> is an independent
philosopher, writer, and translator. Recent publications
include “Forgotten Art” on Prague’s late-communist public
art (<i>Transitions Online</i>); “Saying Celan in Silence,”
an essay on and translation of Edmond Jabès’s poetry dealing
with the death of Paul Celan (<i>Black Sun Lit</i>);
“Negative Hermeneutics and Translation: The Unworkable
Poetry of Wisława Szymborska” (in Zeta Books’ <i>Translational
Hermeneutics</i>); and a translation of Robert Rient’s “No
Blood” (<i>Bahamut</i>, forthcoming). He blogs at <a
href="http://www.mycrashcourse.net" target="_blank">My
Crash Course</a> and lives in Dallas.</p>
<p> <small> First published in 3:AM Magazine: Tuesday, August
11th, 2015. </small> </p>
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