The Uprising in Sularia document was written by Paul Shoemaker
(1937 - 8 June 2010), who was one of the earliest members of the
Chesley Donavan Foundation (c 1954). How this document entered the
Musica Donavania archives is unknown to me. Paul Shoemaker separated
from the Chesley Donavan Foundation with the first revolt in July 1965,
but continued to treat the group's name as his own property.
Some content in Section-I is based on Donavanian history that was formerly known to me only orally, so it is a valuable written resource. I had never heard Sularia mentioned in the early days, so the remaining three sections are much less relavent. The document claims in several places it was prepared for publication in The Image, but I have found no trace of that publication - if any exists it is buried under 1000 tons of fashion magazines.
While much of the material in Section-I dates from the 1950s, it's use of the name Philipp Yoiville indicates it was edited after the second revolt in 1966. Paul must still have had contact within the group or been on the mailing list (probably). Sections II and III bear copyright notices for Paul Shoemaker and the date 1992. The copy found in the Musica Donavania archives was printed from a computer stored copy and was printed on the blank side of scrap paper. It was clearly not printed from the originating system because there were a number of character mismatches between the document and printer.
This document was prepared for Web publication by Andrew Grygus (CD member since 1960) in March 2017. The entire document was prepared for the Web, but only Section-I has been placed on our site - because only that section is really relative to the early history of Musica Donavania. As Musica Donavania is directly descended from the original Chesley Donavan Foundation, and boasts several still living members registered in the Foundation on or before 1961, this seems to me fair use. The photo to the left shows a Sularian in native costume holding a Sularian flag, at a Science Fiction fan gathering of unknown date.
Andrew Grygus - music@clovegarden.com
by Paul Shoemaker - Librarian-Historian of the Chesley Donavan Foundation of North America.
======== Section I ============
[Editor's Note: As we reported in the last issue of The Image, this is the first in an occasional series of articles on the country of Sularia. The basic material for this series is excerpted from a somewhat longer manuscript originally prepared for publication in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britanica. Through some oversight the article was not published. We suggest that readers clip these articles and paste them into their encyclopedias at the proper place, so as to bring them completely up to date.
We are, unfortunately, unable to furnish a map of either the country of Sularia or its geographical relationship to its neighbors. The difficulties inherent in this are explained below.
The Republic of Sularia is bounded on the north by the Danube River and Germany; on the South by the Mediterranean Sea; on the west by France, England and the U.S.A; and on the east by China and Egypt. the precise means by which this occurs is not well understood. A figure for the dimensions of the country is understandably difficult to arrive at; the figure of 36,984 square miles is official although not necessarily accurate.
Because of this situation, geography and astronomy are more or less backward sciences in the country. Constellation maps drawn for other countries are of no value, because the night sky changes radically - not only hour by hour, but from point to point as one travels within the country.
For example, in Sularia, C.D. (Capital District, the capital city), the north star Polaris rises in the south at 10PM on summer evenings and sets at nearly the same place seven hours later, after having transited the meridian. As one drives south toward the city of Urbanopolis the constellation Orion is seen to race madly about the heavens, finally shrinking into the bowl of the Big Dipper, which sets in the southwest as one arrives at the seacoast.
In the city of Jelhw, the sun rises in the east, moves overhead, and executes twelve circuits of the sky in ever-tightening spirals, vanishing abruptly seventy two hours later. All of this is vividly unsettling to visiting astronomers.
Experiments show that a laser beam shot directly upward from the capital building is seen from a satellite to appear twenty miles off the coast of Crete. By this process the country is gradually being mapped, although many years will be required. Probably because of these anomalies, the Sularians employ a unique system for measuring time. Also, the chair of astronomy at the University of Sularia has remained vacant for 75 years.
The present governmental system Republic was achieved in 1868, at the extermination of the middle and peasant classes. The people are clever and robust, which is to say that all the sick and stupid ones were killed off long ago. The supreme power is vested in a Parliament of forty members elected popularly and in the Pope - also an elective office. The Pope and Parliament select the Emperor (or Empress), and the Pope and the Emperor appoint the remaining federal officials.
Sularia has a small armed force, under the direction of the Pope through the Ministry of the Dance, but the country has not been at war since 1944, when the Nazi forces made a fruitless attempt to invade the country.
The economic system of the country is a mixture of government and privately-owned enterprises, For instance, the Nonspecific Telephone Company (a member of the International Dingaling System) is a privately owned, government regulated company, whereas the Ministry of Public Entertainment [see organizational chart] operates bordellos under civil service and produces pornographic films for children which adults are forbidden to view. The Boy and Girl Scouts of Sularia have never been accredited with their International Organization, it is said, because they offer merit badges in such skills as Cunnilingus and Fellatio.
The history of this remarkable country begins in the period of the Roman Empire, when one Cheslavvs Donavanvs (known in Rome as Danubianus) received a grant from the Emperor Calcarius (570-572 AD) for a small plot of land on the Danube River just opposite the present Germany. He founded the city of Donavania, on a small plain surrounded by high cliffs. Many ancient records in the until-recently undeciphered Donavanian language attest to a remarkable early society, and many early scientific and cultural advances.
In the year 1415, following the disclosure of the Donavanian Clan's involvement in the Hussite heresy, the nation was suppressed and most of its ruling class forced to flee to England. In England, the Donavanians established a colony; Cheslavvs Donavanvs became Chesley Donavan, and English became the language of the aristocracy.
The Donavanian Colony fled England in 1696 in grief over the death of Henry Purcell and settled in the town of Dunkelwasser, a town in a small German principality. At this time the total population of the country must have numbered no more than a few hundred, since the total extent of the Donavanian nation was about six square blocks in the downtown section of the city of Dunkelwasser.
Due to the small extent of the country at the time, national festivals were generally celebrated with chamber music ensembles, since they could be easily heard from border to border. It is said in a colorful legend that Franz Schubert was visiting across the street from Donavania one day. In the middle of eating a fish dinner, he heard the Donavanian National Anthem wafting through an open window. "That's wonderful! What is it?" he asked. "Trout", replied his host. Whether this story is true cannot be proved, although the Donavanian National Anthem's theme is the same as Shubert's Trout Quintet, which he wrote many years later.
Up to this point, each ruler had adopted the name Chesley Donavan and made no record of a changeover; hence the impression is given of an immortal leader. (The family claimed descent from Akhenaten, who was driven from the throne of Egypt in 1375 BCE; indeed, the Donavanian language contains many ancient Egyptian words and names, although it is basically a Slavic tongue.)
In 1820, the city of Dunkelwasser was to be engaged in warfare against Bavaria. Chesley Donavan intrigued with the Bavarians and offered them the territory of Donavaina for military operations, in return for a larger plot of ground in the country. Unfortunately, this plan did not come to fruition. The day of the war, the Donavanians ran up the Bavarian flag - only to find that the war had been settled by treaty the night before. Their treachery discovered, the Donavanians were expelled at once.
There was obtained from the King of Spain a land grant in New Spain, and Chesley Donavan and his most adventurous followers set sail for the New World. Most of the rest of the Donavanians returned to the ancient site of their nation and founded the modern nation of Sularia.
Chesley Donavan and his people arrived at Los Angeles in 1821 to find that Mexico had revolted from Spain, rendering their land grant worthless. Donavan, his heirs, and his followers, vanished into history, leaving many evidences: bronze plaques, graffiti, and so forth in the Burbank / Glendale / Pasadena area, and some rock cairns in the Mojave Desert.
Chesley Donavan's last known words - recorded on a rolled copper scroll unearthed in Burbank in 1953 were: "Effort expended in the creative arts is destined for consummate success, because it is action parallel to the most fundamental law of Human Endeavour [sic]" Even in extreme deprivation and poverty, he never lost the ideal which, according to family legend, had cost Egypt her wealth and Empire more than three thousand years before.
Meanwhile, back on the Continent, the Donavanians were being territorially incontinent. They had built roads up the formidable cliffs that protected Donavania from the terrifying inland and were exploring the georthogonally displungent region they called Sularia, Donavanian for "South Land" which was, as ever, only approximately applicable.
Excited expeditions returned to report yet another marvel of the land: an arm of the discontinuity had extended into the Sinai trade routes in 1375 BCE and swallowed up the court of Akhenaten, which was at that time fleeing the vengeance of General Haremhab.
In later years, other unpopular Egyptian courts had managed to escape their prosecutors into the time space warp. There they had formed a secure cell of untrammeled, unspoiled Egyptian civilization. Since their last contact with the outside had been in 1000 BCE, they were unaware of all history since then and still spoke Egyptian and write with hieroglyphics. They immediately accepted their discovery as a miracle from Amen (the orthodox cult had eventually triumphed over the Aten heresy) and hailed Chesley Donavan as their ruler.
The nation of Sularia was founded in 1844, triculturual and trilingual: Donavanian, English and Egyptian.
The first Papal election in 1848 resulted in a split vote, where the Holy Donavanian Rationalist Orthodox Church was opposed by the cult of Amen at No-Donavanhtep. As a result of the deadlock, Gniknits Knurod, a Communist, was elected Pope. He was assassinated four years later by middle-of-the-road extremists. A coalition church was formed within the Rationalist Orthodox see. Since then there has been only a token vote for Amen, and the continuously winning Rationalist Orthodox popes have appointed Priests Of Amen as vice-popes and Bishops Of Egyptian Parishes.
The Great Civil War of 1865 occurred in 1865. The Empress Elena I was besieged at the ancient capital city of Donavania by armies led by the treacherous Lord Key. She and her court fled secretly north to the Wood of Holly. The fortifications at Fox Pass were apparently abandoned, allowing the besieging army to march through in apparent victory, only to find the gates slammed shut behind them and the fortifications now manned from the other side. Donavania was ceded to the Prussians, and a new capital city named Sularia was founded in a Capitol District (C.D.) in the center of the country, (Elena was noted as a bringer of justice, and her motto, "Behold, peasant, I shall take away thy ass", is inscribed on the Sularian Hall of Justice.)
Donavania languished under Prussian rule for some time. The speaking of Donavanian was forbidden in Sularia, and thus Egyptian moved up to the number two spot among Sulurain languages. The Prussians called Donavania Schmuckburg. Many fled the harsh rule; this era was called the Age of Effluence.
Eventually Elena took pity on her former subjects, and an army of liberation was sent to Donavania. The collaborationists of the country executed Lord Key as a sop to public sentiment and expelled the Prussians, who were only too glad to leave, but it was too late. Their president, one Philipp Yoiville, delivered a final stirring plea to his people, and it seemed that for a time the tide of battle would go against Sularia. However, Yoiville was assassinated by loyalist extremists, the gates at Fox Pass were opened, and the country was once again united. This occurred in 1868. Since most of the peasants and upper middle class had perished in the war, Elena felt safe in declaring a Republic, which she did.
[The next installment of the History of Sularia will furnish details of the country's present conditions, including its somewhat unique measuring system and its even more unique economic system. It will appear in a forthcoming issue of The Image.]
======== Section II ============
This section describes the re-formation of Donavania as Sularia, a rather fantastic country with impossible geography and a population consisting of English speaking Donavania nobility, Donavanian speaking Donavanians and Egyptian speaking Egyptians who had lived in isolation from the world in a time-space anomaly. I do not considered it very relative to the early history of Musica Donavania, as I never heard Sularia mentioned back in those days. Parts were clearly noted © 1992 Paul Shoemaker, which gives us a time period.
======== Section III ============
This section included more fantastic stuff on the formation of Sularia and the Donavanians of that time. Some of it is great fun, but again, not relative to the early history of Musica Donavania. It also contains a rewrite of a much earlier document which we do have on our Donavania page. Again, there are clear © 1992 Paul Shoemaker notices defining the time period.
======== Section IV ============
This short section is about the Sularian currency system, which is totally absurd and not even entertaining.
Sularia 170302