My last post chronicled the bumps I weathered along the road to learning history – including a pretty noticeable bump in graduate school.  During a semester at Charles University in Prague, I took course on contemporary Czech political history.  In that class, I realized I’d forgotten a major piece of World War II history, despite being a good student in a high school honors history class.

Although this slip of memory did not send me off the road, it shook loose an important question: why did I so easily forget the events of history, even after studying them at length?  And, how could I make history stick?  The arts eventually led me to an answer.

During my semester at Charles University, I encountered Jaroslav Jezek, a Czech composer who might be called a cross between George Gershwin and Kurt Weill.  A Czech musician friend mentioned him to me one night at her apartment, emphasizing how important he was culturally and describing the theater for which he wrote.  Although I was intrigued that I had never heard of him, I didn’t really become interested until I heard his music the very next day. It was jazzy, fun, and engaging.  I was drawn to it immediately.

Now I became truly interested in his story, which was actually rather tragic.  Active in musical theatre and politically edgy, Jezek was talented, witty and critical of the ever-constricting cultural climate.  He wrote for the Liberated Theater, which specialized in political satire and was extremely popular – so satirical and popular, it was eventually closed by the Nazis.

Fortunately, Jezek and his collaborators eventually made it out of the country.  Unfortunately, their specific brand of theater was so inextricably tied to Czech language and culture that they could not reestablish themselves elsewhere.  Adding injury to insult, Jezek eventually went blind due to a childhood ailment, and he died at just 35.

Suddenly Munich and many other events of WWII made much more sense.  I didn’t have to try to remember them; I just did.  In the lives of Jezek and his contemporaries, the dates, places and events of the period acquired faces and personalities.  I could see how the events of history defined and shaped their lives, and therefore also the music that I so enjoyed.

Jezek’s music creates a peg of cultural history during WWII, making it easy for me to recall events of WWII when I need them.  I came through the political history course and returned to Southern Methodist University, eventually choosing to write my Master’s thesis on Jaroslav Jezek and the Liberated Theater.

Studying the history of the arts in Western culture isn’t the only way to learn general history.  But it can definitely smooth over a few potholes.