New book coming soon.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve dusted off this blog and put my fingers to the keyboard to make an entry. Not sure anyone even reads blogs anymore. We’re bombarded with information every day, aren’t we? So much news from every direction. Opinions flying at us like darts, leaving us full of holes. The last time I blogged, I don’t think there even was such a thing as Tic Tok, but it has arrived: little clips of people being strange for all the world to see. It all adds up to a waste of time when I could have been doing something more important like putting the dregs of one bottle into a newer bottle of ketchup.
Speaking of media more current than blogs, my daughter has a Podcast called, Horrible History. I’m very proud of her. She’s on the road to becoming famous, of this I’m sure. She has a vibrant personality and a sharp mind. I’m thrilled for her as the podcast has hundreds of thousands of downloads. They have listeners in other countries and get lots of fan comments. The hosts are my daughter, Emily Barlean and a friend of hers from college, Rachel Everett, two thirty-something gals who have too much education to be using the word “like” as often as they do, yet there you have it. They are competent human beings to say the very least, and doing a bang up job with this production. I say, “You go girl!” I also suspect I’m too old to say that phrase. Anyway, do listen to their podcast if you enjoy the dark side of history. I’ll forewarn you that they curse quite a bit and are wholly irreverent. If you’ve ever listened to My Favorite Murder, then you’d more than likely enjoy Horrible History. The gals recently read a little story I wrote about France on their Patron’s quick podcast. You have to pay to hear it, but it was lovely to hear them read it. I teared up. Thought I’d gone completely dry by this age, but apparently I still have a tear or two left in me.
Mostly, I’m here to talk about my next book which is a complete departure from the fiction I normally write. Lately I can’t seem to read enough nonfiction, and my choice is generally European history, and particularly medieval history.
My personal ancestral history to the degree we know of it, is found in the country which is now called the Czech Republic, or Czechia. The Czech lands now known as Czechia were once Austria-Hungary. Before that, The Bohemian Crown. Before that? The list of names is long and ever-changing, and the people have included Germanic tribes, Celtic tribes called Boii, and the Unitice culture. The country called Czechoslovakia didn’t even exist until after World War I. To be Czech only means to be an inhabitant of the country of Czechoslovakia. It’s a description of Nationality, not ethnicity.
My ethnicity is Slavic. The photo above is of my maternal grandmother, Aloisia Dostal Pokorny.
Therefore, I set about to learn what my ethnicity was all about. Who were these Slavic people. From where did they originally come? This landed me in the middle of human migration patterns, the Indo-Eurpoean language, the Balkans, and many, many battles with other tribes, invaders, countries, and most importantly, with the Catholic Church.
Slavs have a rich history.
But Gina, people have already written about the history of Slavic people.
I know. But I haven’t. I have my own unique take on it. Why? Because I am telling it from a layperson’s perspective. My book isn’t a textbook or scholarly white paper. It’s how I learned about my ethnicity through paintings made by the Moravian artist, Alphonse Mucha. See… that’s the twist. I view Slavic history as Mucha intended: through his twenty paintings titled The Slav Epic. My book, which will hopefully be out this fall, will be titled, Epic Slavic Education. The picture below is of the artist, Alphonse Mucha.
So, please look for my book. It is a small book and has many unique bits of information. You’ll learn about a famous artist from Czechoslovakia. You’ll learn about the area of Europe now called Czechoslovakia. You’ll learn about the Slavic people. You’ll learn some Czech words and their meaning. And you’ll see some beautiful photos of paintings, too.
I’ll make another blog post when it comes out to show you the cover of the book and give you links of where to buy it online, and tell you what bookstores are willing to carry it for me.
G. M. Barlean 