Tag: George Dunea
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The violent death of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s tragic poet
Alexander Pushkin, the “Sun of Russian Poetry,” is credited with transforming old-fashioned Russian into a rich, modern, and vibrant language. According to Dostoevsky, “Pushkin came to Russia as a new guiding light, a brilliant illumination of our dark ways.” Nikolai Gogol wrote that “To move from Pushkin to anything else is like moving from a…
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Ernest Hemingway: A medical portrait
From a medical point of view, the life of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was shaped by repeated physical trauma, chronic disease, hereditary factors, and profound psychological influences. In the world of literature, he is remembered for his minimalist prose—spare, direct, “bare-bones”, and stripped of ornamentation. But behind the muscular sentences and the mythology of masculine bravado…
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The medical life of Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Raised in New England, she was an abolitionist and feminist, remained unmarried, and became active in reform movements such as temperance and women’s suffrage. As her family always lived on the poverty line, she took on various jobs at an early age and…
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The legend of Prester John
In 1187, the army of Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslim world by defeating the Christian Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin in Galilee. Under the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, the Crusaders briefly retook Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), but the trend was irreversible, and by 1244…
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Viking medicine and health
The Vikings raided Europe for more than 300 years, beginning with their attack on the Northumbrian monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 which caused horror across the continent. They came from Scandinavia, where local communities had lived by farming, fishing, and local trade, but where scarce arable land, political rivalries, and a tradition of seafaring all…
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Amerigo Vespucci and the Columbian exchange
Amerigo Vespucci, the man who gave Americans their name, was born in Florence in 1454. Educated in a cultured family that exposed him to classical literature, astronomy, mathematics, and geography, he eventually entered the service of Lorenzo de’ Medici, working in banking and commerce. In the early 1490s, Medici sent him to Seville as a…
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Slovakia: History, healthcare, and politics
The present-day territory of Slovakia has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Celtic tribes settled it first, most notably the Boii, who left behind artifacts such as the famous “Biatec” coins. Germanic tribes later moved through the area; then, the Romans incorporated the southern part of Slovakia into their empire, particularly along the Danube frontier. Early…
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Medical quackery in L’elisir d’amore
Donizetti’s comic opera L’elisir d’amore (1832) is more than a charming love story set in the Italian countryside. At its core is one of opera’s most memorable charlatans: Doctor Dulcamara. He is a traveling medicine vendor whose snake-oil salesmanship reveals the human desire for magical solutions. Through Dulcamara, Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani offer…
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Albania: Tradition and resilience in the Western Balkans
Albania is a small country of 2.5 million people, well worth visiting, known for its striking natural landscapes, rugged mountains dominating much of the interior, and coast offering some of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean. In the north, the Albanian Alps attract hikers and travelers seeking dramatic scenery, while traditional village life in…
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Albanian lovers and magnetism in Così fan tutte
In Così fan tutte, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte have the two male protagonists, Ferrando and Guglielmo, return in disguise to test, by wager, the fidelity of their fiancées. The choice of the disguise as Albanians, at first sight exotic and comic, resonates deeply with late 18th-century memories of the 1683 Siege of Vienna, in which the Albanians served…