JOHN McCRAE & LEONARD COHEN: IN FLANDERS FIELDS

World War I in Montenegro

The day before yesterday, we could commemorate the anniversary of the end of the World War I.

World War I also known as the First World War, or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. Over nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a result of the war, including the victims of a number of genocides, a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling trench warfare. 

It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.

More information: History.com

John McCrae

Claire Fontaine wants to talk about an unforgettable fellow citizen, a great Canadian poet, John McCrae, who created one of the most beautfil poems ever writter: In Flanders Fields. McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war. 

Though various legends have developed as to the inspiration for the poem, the most commonly held belief is that McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields on May 3, 1915, the day after presiding over the funeral and burial of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who had been killed during the Second Battle of Ypres. 

The poem was written as he sat upon the back of a medical field ambulance near an advance dressing post at Essex Farm, just north of Ypres. The poppy, which was a central feature of the poem, grew in great numbers in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders.

More information:  In Flanders Fields Museum

In 1855, British historian Lord Macaulay, writing about the site of the Battle of Landen in modern Belgium, 100 miles from Ypres in 1693, wrote The next summer the soil, fertilised by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood and refusing to cover the slain

Leonard Cohen

The Canadian government has placed a memorial to John McCrae that features In Flanders Fields at the site of the dressing station which sits beside the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Essex Farm Cemetery. The Belgian government has named this site the John McCrae Memorial Site.

Some days ago, another Claire's fellow citizen died: Leonard Cohen. He was one of the best singers and writers who composed incredible songs like Bird on a wire, Hallelujah, Suzanne, The Partizan or So Long Marianne. In 2015, Leonard Cohen paid a tribute to John McCrae's poem in its 100th anniversary.

More information: The Official Leonard Cohen

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

 
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

 
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, 

poetry is just the ash. 

Leonard Cohen