Category Archives: historical interpretation

July 8, 2025 · 8:23 pm

Prussian Lutheran Migration to Australia in the 19th Century

Keith Conlon in Linked In

A momentous exodus of ‘0ld Lutheran’ religious refugees to South Australia began OTD 8 July 1838. Families from Klemzig in Prussia (now Poland) sailed down the Oder River to Hamburg, their departure point for the new reformist colony of South Australia. The ‘Paradise of Dissent’ offered freedom of religion.

A 1938 memorial for their leader Pastor August Kavel at Langmeil Church in the Barossa Valley credits him as‘The founder of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia’.

Kavel Memorial Monument Australia

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July 4, 2025 · 7:26 pm

Biographical Paths to Lankan History via ‘Hits’ on TPS

A MEMO From Michael Roberts as Editor, Thuppahi,  July 2025

The Word Press system keeps me informed about the HITs on TPS items everyday and also assembles figures for each week. Reviewing these details provides one with a glimpse of internet viewers and their interests. As an exercise with this objective I provide figures of HITS on items carrying biographical tales.

HEREWITh, then, are the figures of such hits — HITS on bio-tales –– during the past week.

 

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June 29, 2025 · 12:34 pm

Amidst the LTTE’s Many Killings THAT of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama

Rajan Hoole …. being chap 3 in PALMYRAH FALLEN …. the chapter that details the killing of Rajani Thiranagama in September 1989 …. just one among a long list of the LTTE atrocities in their pursuit of powr via a Tamil state.

Chapter 3:  Some Crucial Pieces of the Jigsaw

 To everything there is a season…A time to be born and a time to die…A time to weep and a time to laugh: a time to mourn and a time to dance…I know that whatsoever God doeth it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.– The Book of Ecclesiastes.


 

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June 22, 2025 · 7:02 am

Territorial Claims: First Settlers & Their Primacy

Michael Roberts, presenting an article published in 2005 as a pamphlet by the ICES, Colombo with this title “The First Settlers and Their Claim to Ownership of Terrain/State. A Comparative Excursion” … an essay originally presented in Abdul Rahman Embong, Rethinking Ethnicity and Nation Building: Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Fiji in Comparative Perspective, Panbrit UKM, Bangi, Malaysia, (c. 2003) which was then reprinted as a booklet by ICES, Colombo in 2005 – see ISBN 955-580-099-5 I.

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June 20, 2025 · 7:37 pm

Hill-Country Cosmopolis – A Review Of Obeyesekere’s Booklet

Richard Simon … reviewing The Many Faces of the Kandyan Kingdom by Gananath Obeyesekere

 In this slender but fact-filled volume, the author presents an alternative and, to my mind, more truthful view of the Kingdom of Kandy in its heyday than the perspective afforded by modern Lankan historians and scholars. The latter must, of course, hew closely to Sinhalese-Buddhist ‘nationalist’ orthodoxy if they hope to obtain academic publication or preferment in our country. The effect of this censorious regime on national life has been stifling, not only in the study of history but in every intellectual and cultural field from fine art to marine archaeology. Music, perhaps, has suffered most grievously of all.

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June 20, 2025 · 7:12 pm

Friends, Colleagues & Countrymen … Meandering Memories

Gamini Seneviratne, whose chosen title is different: viz, being “Vignettes of the Public Service –The Foreign Beat”

My acquaintance with officers in the foreign service was, for the most part, casual, that is to say, not related to our work, and, despite a hiccup or two, cordial as well.

I knew of my namesake while I was busy through each interval seeking, as we all were, championship honours at French Cricket. Actually there were four of us Gamini Seneviratnes at the time in school, including one who took to medicine and Aetaya who opened batting, the senior-most who is wrapped around or within these lines was better known as Gadaya, a nickname he had inherited from his brother who retired as the IGP, G A D E A Seneviratne, (better known as Ana). I do not know whether the same nom de guerre had been conferred on brother Nalin, who retired as the Army Commander.

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June 19, 2025 · 6:43 pm

The World Today: On the Brink of Armageddon

That Observer at World’s End

The St Petersburg Economic Forum is being held from 18-21 June 2025. On Friday, Vladimir Putin will deliver a speech which will be followed by Q &A. People from all over the world will be in the audience and can ask the President questions.  The forum is one of the world’s largest platforms for discussing global challenges and new models of cooperation in a rapidly changing world.  Today, Putin held a Q &A session with foreign journalists. Questions from West Europeans were, as expected, revealing- they displayed the Western mindset which seems fixed in 200 years of stone.

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June 19, 2025 · 5:37 pm

Ranil Wickremasinghe at an International Forum in Moscow …. NOW

An Observer at World’s End**

Interesting to see former President and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in St Petersburg yesterday (18/6), attending the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
I am not sure what the true purpose of his visit to Russia is but he said it was his first time there ….. in orderto attend the St Petersburg forum, that he was very impressed by the range of people and countries at the forum,  the issues of global significance being discussed, and that it was very important for countries outside of the West to meet at such a forum for cooperation and to discuss how best to deal with the great challenges, and to make progress for a better future.

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June 17, 2025 · 9:03 pm

The Bambalapitiya Mile in Colombo in the 1950s

Arlen van der Wall

In the city of Colombo in the 1940s and 1950s the Bambalapitiya strip between Lion House and Saraswathi Lodge was Colombo’s walk of fame. You did not have to be rich or famous to enter the mythologies that accompanied the virtual sidewalk stars.

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June 17, 2025 · 7:31 pm

Ancient Painters: Sri Lanka’s Artistic Heritage

Courtesy of THE NATIONAL TRUST

Dr. Janani Seneviratne and Mr. Tuvins Amarasingha presented an illustrated lecture on the “Artistic heritage and painting techniques of ancient Painters”

The Monthly Lecture Series No: 170 of the National Trust Thursday 29th May 2025 at 6.00 pm at the Auditorium of the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka, No. 6, Independence Avenue, Colombo 7.

For those who join online: see  https://youtube.com/live/)

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