15 + 20 points
Celebrity by Jackie H
April 23rd, 2007 9:11 AM / Location: 37.881509,-122.2892
This task was pretty fun for me since I love to hear my parents pontificate about the glories of our family in "the old country," aka the Czech Republic or Slovakia, depending on which parent you ask. Last night at dinner, I managed to squeeze out of them the most famous members of each of their families: on my mom's side, there's her uncle Ladislav Kucera, a famous (though seemingly un-Googlable) soccer player who played for the Czechoslovak national team back in the day; on my dad's side, there's his cousin Pavel Hasa, who made a ton of movies, married some sort of "diva" actress, and is still alive, though I've never met him. Pavel is Googlable. On my dad's side there's also an uncle who was the "Minister of Light Industry" in Czechoslovakia during the period between WWII and the Communist takeover. This same guy was quite the Renaissance man--he also owned a large avant-garde theatre company in Prague.
In the course of (re-)learning those things, I also learned that "slav" means "slavic" or "a celebration," "lad" might be a bastardisation of "vlad," as in "Vladmir," and that "vlad" means "owner." "Mir" means "peace" in Czech/Slovak but "world" in Russian, leading to different interpretations of that name in each culture, though the internet suggests it can mean peace in Russian as well. Who knows, my mom may have been a bit confused. So like, "Vladmir" can mean "owner of peace" or "owner of the world," depending on who you ask. In a similar vein, "krasny" means "beautiful" in Czech/Slovak but "red" in Russian, leading to many irritating moments for the Czech/Slovak people while they were oppressed by the Russians, since no one wanted to compress "beautiful" and "red" into a single term.
Another nuts thing I (re-)learned was that my mother's father/uncle (?) was jailed by the Nazis during WWII for running a dissident newspaper; apparently what they did was keep you in jail for awhile, then when they went to release you, they would try to shoot you in the back. Apparently this particular relative managed to get away by running in a zig-zag pattern.
One pair of my great-great-grandparents had 19 children. One of my great-grandfathers was 7 feet tall, had huge hands, and bet/lost a sports car (ferrari-type) once.
In the course of (re-)learning those things, I also learned that "slav" means "slavic" or "a celebration," "lad" might be a bastardisation of "vlad," as in "Vladmir," and that "vlad" means "owner." "Mir" means "peace" in Czech/Slovak but "world" in Russian, leading to different interpretations of that name in each culture, though the internet suggests it can mean peace in Russian as well. Who knows, my mom may have been a bit confused. So like, "Vladmir" can mean "owner of peace" or "owner of the world," depending on who you ask. In a similar vein, "krasny" means "beautiful" in Czech/Slovak but "red" in Russian, leading to many irritating moments for the Czech/Slovak people while they were oppressed by the Russians, since no one wanted to compress "beautiful" and "red" into a single term.
Another nuts thing I (re-)learned was that my mother's father/uncle (?) was jailed by the Nazis during WWII for running a dissident newspaper; apparently what they did was keep you in jail for awhile, then when they went to release you, they would try to shoot you in the back. Apparently this particular relative managed to get away by running in a zig-zag pattern.
One pair of my great-great-grandparents had 19 children. One of my great-grandfathers was 7 feet tall, had huge hands, and bet/lost a sports car (ferrari-type) once.
and much of it! and for the many pieces of this task, but especially the zigzagging. i too come from some who got away from being jailed at that time (siberia), though i don't know by what method they made it...