{"id":70,"date":"2008-05-11T15:18:46","date_gmt":"2008-05-11T22:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/?p=70"},"modified":"2008-10-24T07:53:38","modified_gmt":"2008-10-24T07:53:38","slug":"homeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/05\/11\/homeland\/","title":{"rendered":"HOMELAND"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Today I was photographing at the Cotswold Water Park<\/a>, a\u00c2\u00a040 square mile wetland area south of Cirencester.\u00c2\u00a0The Water Park is the catchment area of the Upper Thames.\u00c2\u00a0Back in 1967, it was designated the Cotswold Water Park by a Joint Committee formed from the four local authorities – Gloucestershire & Wiltshire County Councils, and Cotswold & North Wilts District Councils. Many of the lakes are flooded gravel excavation pits.\u00c2\u00a0Gravel extraction began in the area over 50 years ago. Because the water table is so high, the first quarries were dug wet; today, however, quarries are de-watered. When extraction is complete, all pumps are switched off and the holes fill naturally with water. There are 140 lakes in the park, controlled by\u00c2\u00a040 different owners, many of whom use their lakes almost entirely as private property, private clubs or for private developments.<\/p>\n

I spent most of the day photographing at the\u00c2\u00a0Keynes Country Park with its large beach area and lush green wooded backdrop. The lake was packed with\u00c2\u00a0families and groups of friends enjoying the May sunshine. The scene reminded me of a photograph I’d taken in Yekaterinburg for my book on Russia, Motherland<\/a> (also taken in May).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Victory Day Picnic, Yekaterinburg, May 2005<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, having photographed a family barbequeing on the edge of the woodland, I discovered they were actually from Slovakia. Dusen and his wife have lived in Stroud for the past three years where they work as vets. When I asked them about their future plans they told me they’d be returning to Slovakia because they wanted to bring up their children in their ‘homeland’. This sense of belonging echoed the relationship that many Russian’s feel for their ‘motherland’ or rodina<\/em> in Russian.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dusen and his family,\u00c2\u00a0Keynes Country Park<\/p>\n

Rosamund Bartlett, who wrote the introduction to my book, described the idea of the rodina as such-<\/p>\n

“Rodina<\/em><\/span> might just about be the most emotive word in the Russian language. The fact that it is also impossible to translate adequately says something about its close relationship to questions of national destiny, the Russian sense of self and the enduring belief in the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s messianic future. The Russian motherland is something apart. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcEvery nation has a motherland,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 wrote the religious philosopher Georgy Fedotov in 1915, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbut only we have Russia.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 The deepest source of patriotism in Russia accordingly lies not in pride in national achievements or military glory, but in love for the motherland, whose most visible expression is the extraordinary, almost physical attachment which Russians have for their native landscape \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an attachment which they are often at a loss to fathom.”<\/span><\/p>\n

This sense of belonging and attachment to a physical place is one of the motivations for my England journey. I suppose in some ways I’m on a quest to discover what my own homeland means to me.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I was photographing at the Cotswold Water Park, a\u00c2\u00a040 square mile wetland area south of Cirencester.\u00c2\u00a0The Water Park is the catchment area of the Upper Thames.\u00c2\u00a0Back in 1967, it was designated the Cotswold Water Park by a Joint Committee formed from the four local authorities – Gloucestershire & Wiltshire County Councils, and Cotswold & […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/we-english.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}