Music of Our Childhood

María Elena Walsh has put music into the childhood of every Argentine since the late Sixties.

I think that hers was a true revolution regarding the way of talking to children, the way of singing to them and of telling them stories. Never did she use the silly, didactic manner of a narrow-minded school teacher. Her stories, songs and plays appealed to the child’s intelligence, played with platitudes and wiped the dust off the poetical outlook of people of every age.

“Manuelita, la tortuga” is perhaps her most famous song for children.


Manuelita, la tortuga (Manuelita, the turtle)
(The lyrics of the songs and the text of the whole post have been translated from Spanish to English by María Lía Macchi. Once again, thanks for the great job!)

Manuelita vivía en Pehuajó pero un día se marchó. Nadie supo bien por qué a París ella se fue un poquito caminando y otro poquitito a pie. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz. Manuelita una vez se enamoró de un tortugo que pasó. Dijo: –¿Qué podré yo hacer? Vieja no me va a querer. En Europa y con paciencia me podrán embellecer. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz. En la tintorería de París la pintaron con barniz. La plancharon en francés del derecho y del revés. Le pusieron peluquita y botines en los pies. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz. Tantos años tardó en cruzar el mar que allí se volvió a arrugar y por eso regresó vieja como se marchó a buscar a su tortugo que la espera en Pehuajó. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz.

Manuelita once lived in Pehuajó. But one day she had to go. No one knew the reason why Off to Paris she did fly Half the trip was made by walking And the rest just treading high. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita, where go you? With your malachite shell a-glitter And your pace so sure and bold. Manuelita just fell in love one day. With a tortoise, young and gay. She thought: what am I to do? He won’t love a wrinkled shrew”. But in Europe and with patience, They will make me young anew. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita, where you go? With your malachite shell a-glitter And your pace so sure and bold. In a dyer’s shop in “Paris” They soon glazed her with “vernis” And they ironed “en français” All the wrinkles from her face On her head they placed a chignon On her feet wee boots were laced. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita, where go you? With your malachite shell a-glitter And your pace so sure and bold. But the trip back home took time So her face once more was lined That’s the reason she got home Looking old as when she’d gone To rejoin her faithful tortoise Waiting there in Pehuajó Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita, where go you? With your malachite shell a-glitter And your pace so sure and bold.

If, among friends of different ages, we begin reminiscing, it is soon evident that we all share the same love towards her songs. Last year, an excellent play for children, María Elena, by the theatrical group La Galera Encantada (The Enchanted Top Hat) was based precisely on that proposal: to recall her songs, to discover the favorites and to try to imagine what the motives behind their creation were. Here is an article (with English translation) by Ruth Mehl, our best critic on theatre for children, concerning that show.

It’s very dificult to choose just a few songs as an example of which are the most characteristic of María Elena Walsh. It depends on our state of mind and the moment of our lives in which we recall them. At this moment, I think that a good example would be “Don, Dolón, Dolón,” which is put forward like a riddle and plays with the image of the Moon reflected on the water of a well.


Don dolón dolón*
*This title and refrain with no actual meaning, is usually employed as an onomatopoeia for the ringing of bells, very possibly an allusion to “Ding Dong Bell, Pussy’s in the Well”.

Duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón apolillado, don dolón dolón, duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón. No son las polillas, son diez mil estrellas que se asoman, don dolón dolón, por entre los pliegues de mi camisón. Cuando sale el sol tengo que meterme en el aljibe, don dolón dolón, duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón. Cuando yo aparezco, todos duermen y la araña teje, don dolón dolón, salgo del aljibe con mi camisón. A ver si adivinan, a ver si adivinan quién es esta, don dolón dolón que está en el aljibe con su camisón.

I sleep in a deep well With my nightgown full of little moth holes Don, dolón, dolón, I sleep in my nightgown so deep in the well But they’re really not moths, They’re ten thousand stars that are there peeking Don, dolón, dolón From the many creases of my blue nightgown. When the sun is shining. Deep inside the well I must stay hiding. Don, dolón, dolón I sleep in the well wearing my blue nightgown. When I show my beauty Everyone’s asleep, the spider’s weaving Don dolón dolón, When I leave the well wearing my blue nightgown. Let’s see if you guess it, Let’s see if you guess who’s here before you Don, dolón, dolón Who sleeps in the deep well in her blue nightgown.

We also have “The Sausage Dog Show” (in Spanish the dachshund is known as “the sausage dog”), which is perhaps an unsurpassable example of how M.E.W. dodged the conventionalisms of songs and stories for children, which, generally, if they can avoid being boring, will indefectibly be edifying. This absurd and hilarious story, chock full of surprising rhymes and unexpected turns of sentences, concludes with a false moral. Or, rather, with a true and acceptable moral but one which deviates from the traditionally trodden paths.


El show del perro salchicha (The Sausage Dog Show)

Perro Salchicha, gordo bachicha, toma solcito a la orilla del mar. Tiene sombrero de marinero y en vez de traje se puso collar. Una gaviota medio marmota, bizca y con cara de preocupación viene planeando, mira buscando el desayuno para su pichón. Pronto aterriza porque divisa un bicho gordo como un salchichón. Dice “qué rico” y abriendo el pico pesca al perrito como un camarón. Perro salchicha con calma chicha en helicóptero cree volar. La pajarraca, cómo lo hamaca entre las nubes y arriba del mar. Así lo lleva hasta la cueva donde el pichón se cansó de esperar. Pone en el plato liebre por gato, cosa que a todos nos puede pasar. El pichón pía con energía, dice: –Mamá, te ha fallado el radar; el desayuno es muy perruno, cuando lo pico se pone a ladrar. Doña Gaviota va y se alborota, Perro Salchicha un mordisco le da. En la pelea, qué cosa fea, vuelan las plumas de aquí para allá. Doña Gaviota: ojo en compota. Perro Salchicha con más de un chichón. Así termina la tremolina, espero que servirá de lección: El que se vaya para la playa que desconfíe de un viaje en avión, y sobre todo haga de modo que no lo tomen por un camarón.

A pudgy dachshund, fat, chubby, sausage Is taking a sunbath way down by the sea. He’s got a cap on, just like a sailor Except for his collar, no swimsuit has he. A passing seagull, sort of a numskull, Cross eyed and showing a frown on her face Dives quickly, lurching, seems to be searching For tasty morsels to take to her nest. Quickly she’s landing and looks demanding, Shaking her feathers at what she has seen: She says “how tasty” and making hasty, Carries the puppy away like a shrimp. The little puppy, fearless and happy, A helicopter hoping to fly. With the gull soaring, great heights exploring, Among the clouds and high up in the sky. Home they’re arriving, to the nest diving The baby seagull demanding his meal. His mother in rapture feeds him her capture, Never once doubting the shrimp was for real. Birdie’s complaining, loudly proclaiming: “Mother, you’ve once again made a mistake; My breakfast’s barking, my beak he is biting, This is no shrimp that you’ve brought to your babe”. So going thither, all in a dither, She looks at the dachshund and gives him a poke: Her beak is bitten, her feathers smitten. The fight is on and this time it’s no joke, A sore eye for Mistress Seagull. And the doggy black and blue. Thus the conclusion of the confusion, So this is my advice to you: When you are lying on the beach, tanning, Free trips on a ’copter you always must scorn, And, more important, take every precaution Not to let anyone think you’re a prawn.

Animals play an important part in María Elena Walsh’s poetry; they appear in very many of her songs. As well as those we have already mentioned, we all remember the Cat who goes fishing for hats, dresses up in them and ends up taking himself off to jail, because, wearing a policeman’s cap, he hears that a cat is accused of thieving….The studious cow who decides to go to school in the Quebrada de Humahuaca….and Osías the little bear dressed in a overall who goes to a bazaar and there finds marvelous things to buy … Mono Liso, the monkey who was teaching an orange to do the Twist…The list would be immense.

And we must not forget here the collection of poems Zoo Loco (Crazy Zoo) whose sole protagonists are animals. They are not songs but they are worthy of mention because they speak to us about María Elena’s happy dependence on English nonsense coming from her family roots. This book is a collection of short poems intended to imitate Limericks and recover in an infantile key the humour of the English (who are “very serious people but who love to talk nonsense”, as she explains in the prologue.) These little tales, as she calls them, are absolutely absurd and delicious in the rhythm of their long and short verses, with rhymes which combine the quotidian with the unexpected. Just two examples:

Un día, por la calle Carabobo se pasea una nena con un globo. De pronto da un traspié y todo el mundo ve que no es Caperucita, sino el lobo. Hace tiempo que tengo una gran duda hay una vaca que jamás saluda, le hablo y no contesta. Pues bien, la duda es esta: ¿será maleducada o será muda?

One day on Carabobo street A little girl was strolling with a balloon. She suddenly trips And everyone sees She’s not Red Riding Hood But the Wolf I’ve had a great doubt for so long There’s a cow who won’t say “hello” I speak, she won’t answer The doubt that I have is: Is she mute or just simply a snob?

In “The Kingdom of Upside Down” nonsense surfaces through this subversive outlook on reality that is so typical of María Elena Walsh’s world. An imaginary world, playful and mischievous, but one that is also very profound and real because it is constructed with verses that enclose multiple meanings and encourage various levels of interpretation.



El reino del revés (The Kingdom of Upside Down)

Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés nada el pájaro y vuela el pez, que los gatos no hacen miau y dicen yes porque estudian mucho inglés. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés nadie baila con los pies, que un ladrón es vigilante y otro es juez y que dos y dos son tres. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés cabe un oso en una nuez, que usan barbas y bigotes los bebés y que un año dura un mes. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés hay un perro pekinés que se cae para arriba y una vez no pudo bajar después. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés un señor llamado Andrés tiene 1.530 chimpancés que si miras no los ves. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés una araña y un ciempiés van montados al palacio del marqués en caballos de ajedrez. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés.

They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside down Birds swim and fish fly, That cats don’t meow, but they say yes Because they study so much English. Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is. They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside Down Nobody dances with their feet, That one thief is a policeman And another one is a judge And that two and two make three Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is. They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside Down A bear fits in a nutshell That babies wear beards and moustaches And that a year lasts a month. Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is. They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside Down There is a Pekinese dog That falls upwards And once couldn’t get down again. Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is. They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside Down A gentleman named Andrew Has a thousand five hundred and fifty chimpanzees But if you look, you can’t see them Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is. They told me that in the Kingdom of Upside Down A spider and a centipede Go riding to the marquise’s palace Mounting chess horses. Let’s go and see How the Kingdom of Upside Down is.

We could go on speaking about María Elena Walsh and her work indefinitely. Her short stories would undoubtedly take up quite a lot of space, but it is better not to bore our kind readers. Although more has been left out than included, in this review, we would not like to omit emphasizing the great influence she has had on several generations of children in Argentina . (It would be nice to find out if this can also be said regarding the children of our neighbouring countries.)

As a conclusion, I dedicate this song to all the devoted Hungarian gardeners.



Canción del jardinero (The gardener’s song)
(This song of María Elena Walsh is performed here by León Gieco)

Mírenme, soy feliz entre las hojas que cantan cuando atraviesa el jardín el viento en monopatín. Cuando voy a dormir cierro los ojos y sueño con el olor de un país florecido para mí. Yo no soy un bailarín porque me gusta quedarme quieto en la tierra y sentir que mis pies tienen raíz. Una vez estudié en un librito de yuyos cosas que yo sólo sé y que nunca olvidaré. Aprendí que una nuez es arrugada y viejita pero que puede ofrecer mucha, mucha, mucha miel. Del jardín soy duende fiel; cuando una flor está triste la pinto con un pincel y le toco el cascabel. Soy guardián y doctor de una pandilla de flores que juegan al dominó y después les da la tos. Por aquí anda Dios con regadera de lluvia o disfrazado de sol asomando a su balcón. Yo no soy un gran señor, pero en mi cielo de tierra cuido el tesoro mejor: mucho, mucho, mucho amor.

Look at me, I am happy Among the leaves that are singing While the wind goes reeling Through the garden with his skate. When I go to sleep I close my eyes and keep dreaming About the smells of a land That is blooming all for me. I will not be a dancer Because I enjoy standing still Upon the earth and feeling That roots spring from my feet . During days gone by I’ve studied In a book describing weeds Things that only I now know of And whose memories never cease. I have learned that in a nutshell Old and wrinkled though it be Is a treasure to be offered: Honey: lots and lots and lots of it. I’m the garden’s faithful elf; When a blossom feels unhappy With my brush I paint her petals And I cheer her up with bells I’m the doctor and the keeper Of a little band of flowers Who get quite a fit of coughing After playing dominoes. God is hovering above us With His sprinkler full of raindrops, From His balcony inspecting How His rays fall from the sun. I am not a grand gentleman, But on Earth I have my Heaven Caring for my greatest treasure: Lots and lots and lots of love.

La música de nuestra infancia

María Elena Walsh le puso música a la infancia de todos los argentinos desde fines de los años ’60.

Creo que la suya fue una verdadera revolución en la manera de hablarles, cantarles y contarles cuentos a los chicos (nunca un tonito didáctico y estúpido de maestra de escuela corta de miras). Sus cuentos, canciones y obras de teatro apelaron a la inteligencia de los chicos, jugaron con los lugares comunes y desempolvaron la mirada poética de todas las edades.

«Manuelita, la tortuga» es quizás su canción infantil más famosa.


Manuelita, la tortuga

Manuelita vivía en Pehuajó pero un día se marchó. Nadie supo bien por qué a París ella se fue un poquito caminando y otro poquitito a pie. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz. Manuelita una vez se enamoró de un tortugo que pasó. Dijo: –¿Qué podré yo hacer? Vieja no me va a querer. En Europa y con paciencia me podrán embellecer. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y paso tan audaz.

En la tintorería de París la pintaron con barniz. La plancharon en francés del derecho y del revés. Le pusieron peluquita y botines en los pies. Manuelita, Manuelita Manuelita, ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz Tantos años tardó en cruzar el mar que allí se volvió a arrugar y por eso regresó vieja como se marchó a buscar a su tortugo que la espera en Pehuajó. Manuelita, Manuelita, Manuelita ¿dónde vas? con tu traje de malaquita y tu paso tan audaz.

Si entre amigos de variadas edades nos ponemos a recordar su obra, pronto se nota que todos compartimos el mismo cariño por algunas o muchas de sus canciones. El año pasado una excelente obra de teatro infantil, María Elena, del grupo La Galera Encantada, se basó justamente en esta idea: recordar sus canciones, descubrir las preferidas e imaginar qué motivó su creación. Aquí hay una nota de Ruth Mehl, nuestra mejor crítica de teatro infantil, sobre ese espectáculo.

Es muy difícil elegir unas pocas canciones para mostrar lo más característico de María Elena Walsh. Depende del estado de ánimo y del momento en nuestras vidas en que las recordamos. Hoy me parece una buena idea «Don dolón dolón», que se presenta como una adivinanza jugando con una imagen. A ver si adivinan de quién…


Don dolón dolón

Duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón apolillado, don dolón dolón, duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón. No son las polillas, son diez mil estrellas que se asoman, don dolón dolón, por entre los pliegues de mi camisón. Cuando sale el sol tengo que meterme en el aljibe, don dolón dolón, duermo en el aljibe con mi camisón.

Cuando yo aparezco, todos duermen y la araña teje, don dolón dolón, salgo del aljibe con mi camisón. A ver si adivinan, a ver si adivinan quién es esta, don dolón dolón que está en el aljibe con su camisón.

También «El show del perro salchicha» que es quizás una muestra insuperable de cómo María Elena Walsh esquivó los convencionalismos de los relatos y canciones infantiles que, en general, si se salvan de ser aburridos serán indefectiblemente edificantes. La absurda e hilarante historia, repleta de rimas sorprendentes y de giros inesperados, termina con una falsa moraleja. O no, mejor dicho, con una moraleja verdadera y atendible, pero que se desvía de los cauces tradicionales.


El show del perro salchicha

Perro Salchicha, gordo bachicha, toma solcito a la orilla del mar. Tiene sombrero de marinero y en vez de traje se puso collar. Una gaviota medio marmota, bizca y con cara de preocupación viene planeando, mira buscando el desayuno para su pichón. Pronto aterriza porque divisa un bicho gordo como un salchichón. Dice “qué rico” y abriendo el pico pesca al perrito como un camarón. Perro salchicha con calma chicha en helicóptero cree volar. La pajarraca, cómo lo hamaca entre las nubes y arriba del mar. Así lo lleva hasta la cueva donde el pichón se cansó de esperar. Pone en el plato liebre por gato, cosa que a todos nos puede pasar.

El pichón pía con energía, dice: –Mamá, te ha fallado el radar; el desayuno es muy perruno, cuando lo pico se pone a ladrar. Doña Gaviota va y se alborota, Perro Salchicha un mordisco le da. En la pelea, qué cosa fea, vuelan las plumas de aquí para allá. Doña Gaviota: ojo en compota. Perro Salchicha con más de un chichón. Así termina la tremolina, espero que servirá de lección: El que se vaya para la playa que desconfíe de un viaje en avión, y sobre todo haga de modo que no lo tomen por un camarón.

Los animales siempre ocupan un lugar importante en la poesía de María Elena Walsh; aparecen en muchísimas de sus canciones. Además de las mencionadas, todos recordamos al Gato que pesca sombreros, se disfraza y termina llevándose preso a sí mismo, porque disfrazado con gorra de la policía oyó la denuncia contra un gato ladrón… La Vaca estudiosa que decide ir a la escuela en la Quebrada de Humahuaca… A Osías, el osito en mameluco que va a un bazar y encuentra cosas maravillosas para comprar… Al Mono Liso que amaestraba una naranja para bailar el twist… en fin, la lista sería inmensa.

Y aquí no podemos olvidar la colección de poemas Zoo loco que tiene a los animales como únicos protagonistas. No son canciones, pero es digno mencionarlas porque nos hablan de la feliz dependencia de María Elena Walsh con el nonsense inglés de sus raíces familiares. Este libro es una colección de coplas que intentan remedar los limericks y recuperar en clave infantil el humor de los ingleses (que son "personas muy serias pero muy aficionadas a decir disparates" como explica en el prólogo). Estas historietas, como ella las llama, son absolutamente absurdas y deliciosas en el ritmo de sus versos largos y cortos con rimas que conjugan lo cotidiano con lo inesperado. Sólo dos ejemplos

Un día, por la calle Carabobo se pasea una nena con un globo. De pronto da un traspié y todo el mundo ve que no es Caperucita, sino el lobo.

Hace tiempo que tengo una gran duda hay una vaca que jamás saluda, le hablo y no contesta. Pues bien, la duda es esta: ¿será maleducada o será muda?

En El Reino del Revés el nonsense se hace explicito en esa mirada subversiva de la realidad que es tan típica del mundo de María Elena Walsh. Un mundo imaginario, travieso y juguetón, pero muy profundo y verdadero también porque está hecho de versos que acarrean múltiples sentidos y promueven varios niveles de interpretación.



El reino del revés

Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés nada el pájaro y vuela el pez, que los gatos no hacen miau y dicen yes porque estudian mucho inglés. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés nadie baila con los pies, que un ladrón es vigilante y otro es juez y que dos y dos son tres. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés cabe un oso en una nuez, que usan barbas y bigotes los bebés y que un año dura un mes. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés.

Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés hay un perro pekinés que se cae para arriba y una vez no pudo bajar después. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés un señor llamado Andrés tiene 1.530 chimpancés que si miras no los ves. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés. Me dijeron que en el Reino del Revés una araña y un ciempiés van montados al palacio del marqués en caballos de ajedrez. Vamos a ver como es el Reino del Revés.

Podríamos seguir hasta el cansancio hablando de María Elena Walsh y sus obras. Sus cuentos, sin duda nos ocuparían bastante espacio, pero es mejor no aburrir a los gentiles lectores. Si bien es más lo que ha quedado fuera que lo que ha entrado en esta reseña, no quisiéramos dejar de enfatizar la gran influencia que ella tuvo para varias generaciones de chicos argentinos (sería bueno saber si esto alcanza también a nuestros países vecinos)

Para terminar, les dedico esta canción a los esmerados jardineros húngaros.



Canción del jardinero
(cantado aquí por León Gieco)

Mírenme, soy feliz entre las hojas que cantan cuando atraviesa el jardín el viento en monopatín. Cuando voy a dormir cierro los ojos y sueño con el olor de un país florecido para mí. Yo no soy un bailarín porque me gusta quedarme quieto en la tierra y sentir que mis pies tienen raíz. Una vez estudié en un librito de yuyos cosas que yo sólo sé y que nunca olvidaré. Aprendí que una nuez es arrugada y viejita pero que puede ofrecer mucha, mucha, mucha miel.

Del jardín soy duende fiel; cuando una flor está triste la pinto con un pincel y le toco el cascabel. Soy guardián y doctor de una pandilla de flores que juegan al dominó y después les da la tos. Por aquí anda Dios con regadera de lluvia o disfrazado de sol asomando a su balcón. Yo no soy un gran señor, pero en mi cielo de tierra cuido el tesoro mejor: mucho, mucho, mucho amor.

Beard science

Introverted Persians use the word shenâsi, ‘knowledge’ for what is called -logia, ‘discourse’ by extroverted Greeks. The Persian equivalent for Iranology, discourse on Iran is for example Irân-shenâsi, Iran science, as that of psychology is ravân-shenâsi, or that of the closely related science of chiromancy is dast-shenâsi.

One can speak about everything, thus also about beard, and the Greek name for this discourse is pogonology from πώγωνος, beard which has also inspired Plutarch to the proverb πωγωνοτροφία φιλόσοφων οὐ ποιεῖ, beard-growing does not make the philosopher, very fitting to our present subject, and exposed in chapter 2.8.95 “Tragical monkey” of Erasmus’ Adagia. However surprising it may seem, this discourse does exist, and its small but glorious bibliography extends from Giovanni Pierio Valeriano’s Pro sacerdotum barbis written in 1531 on priestly beards to Jacques Antoine Dulaure’s Pogonologia, or a Philosophical and Historical Essay on Beards of 1786. Its Persian equivalent is ریش شناسی rish-shenâsi, beard science, which equally exists in Iran. At least this is what we learn below from politologist Amir Taheri who, after some sporadic mentions now exhibits it in detail in his recently published The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution. To the Persians who are so fond of the unexpected consonances of words, a special source of delight is the similarity of shenâsi to shenâ, ‘swimming, floating’, which evokes the image of the revolutionary birds streaming on the multi-storied bulkheads and giant posters.


“Over the years, deciding who is who by stile of beard has become a popular sport with Iranians. Called “beard spotting” (rish shenasi), the technique enables the observer to place a man by the beard he grows. The mullahs with the greatest pretensions to learning and piety grow the longest beards. Many dye their beards jet black or various shades of red with the help of henna. Those who wish to give an impression of detachment from the transient do not dye their beards. Most others opt for a salt-and-pepper look to make them appear old enough to impress the populace but young enough to avail themselves of teenage “temporary wives” or sigheh.


Nonclerics who wish to emphasize their piety without being mistaken for mullahs grow bushy round beards that are carefully trimmed and dyed, and often perfumed with rosewater. Mullahs who wish to portray themselves as “moderate” or open to a “dialogue of civilizations” choose beards that do not dominate their faces. A goatee is kept in deference to the Prophet, but it is extended by long sideburns to distinguish the wearer from the Saudis. A trim moustache is also added to show that one does not sympathize with Salafis like bin Laden.


Those who wish to hedge their bets – that is to say, advertise their Islamism while appearing “modern” – have opted for what is known in the West as designer stubble, achieved with an electric shaver that does not cut the facial hair from the root. This “modern” type of beard was authorized by Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleqani, one of the “useful idiots” that Marxists and fellow travelers promoted as a religious facade in the early days of the revolution. He ruled that Islam banned the use of razors that cut facial hair completely, but an electric shaver was acceptable because it allowed some of the hair to remain.


The Stalinists who collaborated with the mullahs in the first phases of the revolution distinguished themselves by maintaining two-day stubble dominated by a thick bushy moustache in memory of the Soviet despot. The Mujahedin Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors), Marxist-Islamist who helped Khomeini come to power but later broke with him, mark themselves out by shaving off their beards and growing signature moustaches in imitation of their Supreme Guide, Massoud Rajavi.

Khomeini, ignorant of history, did not realize that – except for clerics who sported Vandykes – the growing of beards had not been a Shiite tradition until the seventeenth century, when it was imposed by the Safavid Shah Tahmasp with a royal edict. Tahmasp had a dream in which the Hiden Imam apparently demanded that “men of True Faith” not discard what Allah had made to grow on their faces as a sign of his blessing. After Tahmasp’s reign, however, most men reverted to the custom of shaving their beards but growing ferocious moustaches.

Because the regime attaches such importance to facial hair, its opponents use shaving as a sign of protest. Television news footage and photos of public gatherings published by newspapers are censored to make sure they do not show too many clean-shaven men. To further emphasize their individuality, young men grow their hair long or spiked, and wear T-shirts with Western inscriptions. A Western visitor would be surprised how many young Iranians wear T-shirts and caps that advertise various American baseball teams.”

(Amir Taheri: The Persian Night. Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution, Encounter Books, NY-London, 2009, 94-95.)

El cementerio armenio de Julfa

Mientras el estado iraní remoza las iglesias armenias del norte de Irán y las propone para engrosar la lista del Patrimonio Mundial de la UNESCO, unos cien metros más allá, al otro lado del río que marca la frontera, se hace todo lo posible para que desaparezcan sin dejar ni rastro.


El río Aras es frontera desde 1828, cuando la expansión del imperio ruso conquistó el norte de Azerbaiyán, y luego Armenia, a Persia, donde había estado integrada durante dos milenios y medio. La nueva frontera partió en dos la ciudad de Julfa, que se extendia por ambas riberas del río, unidas por el puente de piedra al que cantó Virgilio —pontem indignatus Araxes—. Por entonces, con todo, la ciudad ya ni recordaba su edad de oro, cuando fue el principal enlace comercial entre Persia y Europa.

El mapa de Wikipedia marca en negro la frontera de 1813. La frontera oficial desde 1828 es prolongación de la anterior, siguiendo el Aras a lo largo del borde sur de Armenia.

En el siglo XVI los comerciantes armenios de Julfa eran compradores de seda cruda, el producto más preciado de Persia, y desde allí lo repartían a toda Europa. Mantenían casas comerciales de Alepo a Amsterdam, pasando por Venecia. Los viajeros europeos describían Julfa como una ciudad asombrosamente rica, con siete iglesias y tres mil casas de piedra. La opulencia de la ciudad la atestiguaba sobre todo su cementerio, donde se llegaron a contar hasta diez mil khachkars, tumbas del tamaño de un hombre diestramente talladas en piedra.



La edad de oro de Julfa terminó de golpe. Durante las guerras turco-persas de fines del siglo XVI, el Sha Abbas el Grande advirtió rápidamente que en aquella zona de frontera abierta al imperio otomano no iba a ser capaz de defender la ciudad, auténtica gallina de los huevos de oro. Y así, en 1604 toda la población de la provincia armenia de Nakhichevan fue trasladada a marchas forzadas —unas cien mil personas murieron por el camino— hasta varios cientos de kilómetros al sur, a Isfahan y sus alrededores. En Isfahan los comerciantes armenios hicieron florecer Nueva Julfa, que hoy pervive todavía como barrio armenio, y fueron también las manos de los artesanos armenios las que hicieron de la plaza principal de Isfahan una de las maravillas del mundo. La vieja Julfa de Nakhichevan jamás se recobró. Sus ruinas aún pueden observarse al oeste de la pequeña ciudad que hoy lleva su nombre. Solo el cementerio permaneció intacto en el extremo occidental de la ciudad devastada, sobre el banco del río, con diez mil tumbas de piedra labrada primorosamente.

El cementerio de Julfa hacia 1910 visto desde el oeste. La ciudad estuvo antaño en la margen izquierda del Aras, en la falda de las montañas. En la margen derecha del río, la ribera iraní, sobre una peña todavía permanece la pequeña iglesia armenia conocida como «Iglesia del Pastor» (Kelisâ-ye Chupân) erigida en 1518. Abajo puede verse la foto probablemente más antigua del del cementerio, tomada por B. Chantre: A travers l'Arménie russe (París, 1983), procedente de aquí.

El nombre de Nakhichevan significa en armenio «Lugar del descenso»: Noé, sus hijos y todos los animales de la tierra se apearon aquí del Arca recién atracada en la cima del cercano monte Ararat. Fue provincia puramente armenia hasta 1604, cuando la gran emigración. El lugar de los armenios deportados fue ocupado por tribus de pastores turcos y, más tarde, el Sha enviaría allá también tribus turcas para defender las fronteras. Desde entonces, los armenios que consiguieron permanecer, más aquellos que volvieron furtivamente, sumaron una insignificante minoría respecto a los azerís turcos, quienes —convenientemente inspirados por el genocidio armenio de Turquía de 1915— a su vez cometieron masacres contra ellos. Luego, en 1920, el nuevo poder soviético se anexionó el territorio, desde Armenia hasta Azerbaiyán, como provincia autónoma. En 1979 solo quedaba allá un 1,4% de armenios, donde un siglo antes llegaron al 40% de la población. Tras la guerra de Karabaj desapareció incluso este último resto. Solo quedó el cementerio.


Las primeras fotos del lugar —treinta y ocho— fueron tomadas en 1928 por Jurgis Baltrušaitis, el famoso historiador del arte (La Edad Media fantástica), poeta y embajador de Lituania en la Unión Soviética: es el testimonio gráfico más completo del cementerio en un territorio de frontera estrictamente controlado por el ejército soviético. Sus fotos se publicaron en Lisboa (gracias a la fundación Calouste Gulbenkian), acompañadas de un texto de Dickran Kouymjian, en 1986. Todo ello puede descargarse en pdf de la web djulfa.com, dedicada al lugar.

Una de las fotos de Baltrušaitis

El último en ver el cementerio fue el arquitecto escocés Steven Sim, en agosto de 2005. Mientras visitaba los monumentos armenios de Nakhichevan se encontró con que todas las iglesias medievales armenias de la provincia habían sido arrasadas, y solo debían haber pasado dos o tres años, pues sobre las ruinas apenas había crecido vegetación. Sin embargo, todavía pudo ver el cementerio de Julfa intacto desde el tren que corre a lo largo del cauce del río. Los guardias del tren le prohibieron sacar fotos, y más tarde acabarían arrestándole y expulsándole del país.


Mientras paseaba por Irán y me acercaba a los monumentos armenios desde el sur, pensé que en mi próximo viaje yo también iría allá, cruzaría el puente y fotografiaría aquellas tumbas. Demasiado tarde. El cementerio de Julfa fue destruido justo el día de mi 40 aniversario. Es inquietante pensar que mientras un grupo internacional de amigos me sorprendían con vinos italianos y españoles, el ejército azerí en la ribera del río Aras estaba reduciendo a polvo uno de los monumentos más ricos de la cultura armenia y cargando los escombros en camiones, aquellos días 15 a 17 de diciembre de 2005. La destrucción fue grabada desde el lado iraní del río por los armenios locales. El vídeo de abajo lo montó Sarah Pickman a partir de aquellas imágenes, y también ella fue la primera en notificar los hechos a Archaeology.

El Parlamento Europeo condenó la destrucción en una resolución de 16 de febrero de 2006 y propuso enviar una delegación a la zona, iniciativa hasta ahora obstaculizada por el gobierno azerí. «Mentira y provocación», declaró el presidente azerí, Ilham Aliev. «Ningún monumento armenio ha sido destruido, pues nunca ha habido armenios en Nakhichevan».


Los miembros azerís y de Nakhichevan del Institute for War and Peace Reporting publicaron el primer reportaje rápido en abril de 2006, donde daban cuenta de la absoluta destrucción del cementerio. Un campo de tiro militar ha sido instalado en aquel lugar.




La memoria de los khachkars ha sido preservada por el Djulfa Virtual Memorial Museum.


Hasmik Harutyunyan: Canción de cuna de Tigranakert (5'53"). Del álbum Armenian Lullabies (2004)

The Armenian cemetery of Julfa

While the Iranian state renovates the Armenian churches in Northern Iran and submits them to the World Heritage List of UNESCO, some hundred meters further on, on the other side of the boundary river they do everything so that theirs disappear without a trace.


The Araxes became a boundary river in 1828, when the expanding Russian Empire conquered Northern Azerbaijan, and then Armenia from Persia, to where they had belong for two and half millenaries. The new frontier cut in two the town of Julfa laying on the two banks of the river, at the stone bridge which had been sung of – pontem indignatus Araxes – also by Virgil. At this time, however, the town did not even remember its golden years when it had been the main hub of commerce between Persia and Europe.

The map of Wikipedia traces in black the boundary of 1813. The official boundary since 1828 is the prolongation of the former one, following the Araxes along the southern border of Armenia.

In the 16th century the Armenian merchants of Julfa were the buyers of row silk, the most precious product of Persia, and it was delivered by them to all Europe. They had commercial houses from Aleppo through Venice to Amsterdam. European travelers described Julfa as an astonishingly rich town with seven churches and three thousand stone houses. The richness of the town has been attested most of all by its cemetery where ten thousand beautifully carved, man-high tomb stones, khachkars have been counted.



The golden years ended abruptly. During the late 16th-century Turkish-Persian wars Shah Great Abbas has soberly gauged that in the frontier zone open to the Ottoman Empire he would not be able to defend the town, this goose laying golden eggs, and therefore in 1604 had the complete population of the Armenian province of Nakhichevan moved in a forced march – a hundred thousand people died on the way – several hundred kilometers southward, to Isfahan and its confines. There Armenian merchants have made flourish the still today Armenian suburb of New Julfa, and the hands of Armenian masters converted the main square of Isfahan into one of the wonders of the world. Julfa in Nakhichevan has never recovered. Its ruins still can be observed to the west of the little town bearing its name today. Only the cemetery has remained intact at the western end of the ruined town, on the river bank, with ten thousand beautifully carved tomb stones.

The cemetery of Julfa around 1910 seen from the west. The town once stood on the left bank of the Araxes, at the feet of the mountains. On the right, Iranian bank, on the top of the rock at the riverside still there is standing the small Armenian church called “Shepherd Church” (Kelisâ-ye Chupân), built in 1518. – Below you see the probably oldest photo of the cemetery from B. Chantre: A travers l’Arménie russe (Paris, 1893), from here.

The name of Nakhichevan means in Armenian “the place of the descent”, for it was here that Noah, his sons and all the animals of the earth descended from the Arch which had stranded on the top of the nearby Ararat. It was a pure Armenian province until 1604, the great migration. The place of the deportated Armenians was occupied by Turkish shepherd tribes, and later also the shah sent some more Turkish tribes here for the defence of the frontiers. Since then the Armenians who remained there and those gradually sneaking home have remained in minority in respect to the Azeri Turks who, inspired by the 1915 Armenian genocide in Turkey, also launched pogroms against them. Then in 1920 the new Soviet power annexed the territory from Armenia to Azerbaijan as an autonomous province. In 1979 only 1.4% Armenians lived there, where a century earlier they were 40% of the population. After the Karabagh war even they disappeared. Only the cemetery has remained.


The first photos – thirty-eight – were made in 1928 by Jurgis Baltrušaitis, the great art historian (“Le Moyen-Âge fantastique”), poet and Ambassador of Lithuania in the Soviet Union. It has remained the most detailed photo documentation of the cemetery laying in this severely controlled frontier zone of the former Soviet empire. His photos were published with accompanying text by Dickran Kouymjian in 1986 in Lisbon. Its PDF version can be downloaded from the djulfa.com site dedicated to the cemetery.

Photo by Baltrušaitis

The last one who saw the cemetery was the Scottish architect Steven Sim in August of 2005. While visiting the Armenian monuments in Nakhichevan, he founded that all the medieval Armenian churches of the province had been completely destroyed, and only one or two years earlier, because their fresh ruins were not yet covered by the vegetation. However, he still found the cemetery of Julfa intact as the train passed by it on the river bank. The train guards prohibited him to take photos of it, and later he was even arrested and expelled from the country.


While wandering in Iran and approaching the Armenian monuments from south, I thought that on my next journey I would also cross the bridge and take photos of the tombs. I came too late. The cemetery of Julfa was destroyed precisely on my 40th birthday. It is strange to consider that while an international company of friends was celebrating in our house and my friends surprised me with a show of Italian and Spanish wines, the Azeri army on the bank of the Araxes was just smashing to pieces one of the richest monuments of Armenian culture, carrying away the fragments by lorries from 15 to 17 December in 2005. The destruction was videotaped from the Iranian side of the river by local Armenians. The video below was made on the basis of their recordings by Sarah Pickman, who was also the first to report on the events in the Archaeology.

The European Parlament condemned the destruction in a resolution on February 16, 2006, and wanted to send a delegation to the place, which has been hitherto prevented by the Azeri government. “Lie and provocation”, declared Azeri president Ilham Aliev. “No Armenian monuments were destroyed, for never any Armenians lived in Nakhichevan.”


The Nakhichevan and Azeri members of Institute for War and Peace Reporting published the first spot report in April 2006, in which they rendered account of the complete destruction of the cemetery. A military shooting range was established on its place.




The memory of the khachkars has been preserved by the Djulfa Virtual Memorial Museum.


Hasmik Harutyunyan: Lullaby of Tigranakert (5'53"). From the album Armenian Lullabies (2004)

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon we had the horses harnessed, the carriage drawn up, and drove to the downtown to inspect the illustrious flood of Budapest


so that we could boast of our big water (klein aber mein) to Wang Wei


even if it is not as big as three years ago, which still has not fallen on the painting of Miklós Szüts in the conference room of the Europe Publisher


and to put the proofs of the new translation in the mailbox of the publisher


and to give a ride to little Vidra who, since in the last year we carried her to the veterinarian almost every day for a month, is extremely fond of riding the car


and to check the hummus bar we found some weeks ago as we were looking for a good vegetarian restaurant for our Indian friend visiting us.


István Széchenyi, “the greatest Hungarian” is watching the flood together with us. “Erected to the memory of the great reformer, the first Minister of Transport, by the Hungarian State Railways, 1988”. On the best place, at the Danube, where he surely cannot see what has been done since then to the Hungarian state railways.


The hummus bar is at the beginning of Alkotmány street, near to the corner of Bajcsy, where in the Irish pub some ten years ago an American sergeant from Bosnia wanted to buy my old-fashioned rabbit-fur hat. He did not believe that just one block from there he still could get more like this. Now he could not find the shop any more.


But the old-fashioned houses are still there.


The Pension Fund of Hungarian Journalists (1880), the first building of Zsigmond Quittner who later built the Gresham Palace *, the great Viennese Liberty-style Gesamtkunstwerk of the turn of the century.


Next to it, over the late-night xerox shop, there is the hummus bar.


Recurrent guests enthusiastically write:

I was in Budapest for 5 days, and I probably ate here 10 times. It was incredible. It’s run by a hilarious Israeli guy who brings the best of Israeli cuisine to Budapest: fantastic hummus, falafel, sabir, shakshuka, mint tea, etc. So, so unbelievably cheap and so fantastically delicious.


They also have a page with a nice “show me how you eat hummus and I tell who you are” psychological test, and they deliver to house, too. But it is different to sit out there on a Sunday afternoon.


Vidra is a great success among the guests and the waitresses, she is given food and water, stories are told about their own dogs. Even the shop owner comes out to caress her, although he seems to have some fear, but he cannot disgrace himself in face of the waitresses. Next time we will take Burkus with us, he will be even greater success with his eighty kilos!


And food is just majestic. Shakshuka, Yemeni bean soup, baklava. Light and sophisticatedly spiced. Menta tea for free. Two Shengs has been breaking our hearts for years with his legends on his Israeli falafel shops. Finally we’ve got one, too. How delighted he will be the next time he comes to visit us.

To Wang Wei and Two Shengs, with love.

How I became the Spanish translator of Eco

“The last time the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote about Río Wang”, I would begin so, with eyes modestly lowered watching for the effect.

But the problem is that the FAZ has not written about Río Wang. At least not with the name and URL.

Thus I begin by saying that in the FAZ literary supplement I came across the review on Umberto Eco’s new German book by Andreas Platthaus entitled “Wissen stinkt nicht” – “Knowledge does not stink.” I began to read it with excitement, as the review started with the title of a book – and dedicated half of the article to it – which caused me several hours of research two years ago when I was translating Eco’s The history of ugliness. It was La polychrésie de la race allemande, “The exaggerated need of defecation of the German race”. In fact, Eco quoted this title with polychesie which means nothing. At that time I came to the result that he had not seen the book, and he erroneously quoted its title from a catalog. The review of the FAZ now reported that the Spanish translator of Eco had encountered this problem, too, and he also went into the matter. I got extremely curious of his results.

Dieser Titel wiederum trieb den spanischen Übersetzer Ecos zu einer aufwendigen Internetrecherche an, weil er seinen Lesern im Gegensatz zu Eco eine Übersetzung des französischen Titels bieten wollte, diesen aber unverständlich fand. Schließlich bekam er Auskunft von einem russischen Kollegen über die richtige Schreibweise, und tatsächlich stieß er sogar noch auf einen weiteren Antiquariatskatalog, in dem die bislang einzige bekannte ausführliche Wiedergabe des Bérillon-Aufsatzes zu finden war: „La polychrésie de la race allemande. Das übertriebene Darmleerungsbedürfnis der deutschen Rasse. Superlienteria germanica. – Extrait des Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société de Médecine de Paris, séance du 25 juin 1915. P., Maloine & fils, 1915. 24 × 16 cm, 20 p. Broché.“ Seitdem, so beklagt der spanische Übersetzer, sei dieser Eintrag aber wieder aus dem Netz verschwunden. Die Geschichte der Suche nach dem in mehrfacher Hinsicht verderbten Titel hätte Umberto Eco gefallen – und mutmaßlich kennt er ihr Ergebnis auch, denn in der gerade erschienenen Übersetzung seiner 2006 auf Italienisch publizierten Textsammlung „La memoria vegetale e altri scritti di bibliofilia“, die im Original noch von „La polychesie“ sprach, steht nun korrekt „La polychrésie“.

This title led also the Spanish translator of Eco to an exhaustive internet search, because he, in contrast to Eco, wanted to offer to his readers a translation of the French title which was incomprehensible to him. Finally he got information from a Russian colleague about the correct spelling, and then he even found another antique catalog including the hitherto only known detailed description of the title of Bérillon’s essay: “La polychrésie de la race allemande. Das übertriebene Darmleerungsbedürfnis der deutschen Rasse. Superlienteria germanica. – Extrait des Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société de Médecine de Paris, séance du 25 juin 1915. P., Maloine & fils, 1915. 24 × 16 cm, 20 p. Broché.” Since then, the Spanish translator complains, even this entry has disappeared from the net. The story of the search for the in many ways corrupt title would have delighted Umberto Eco – and presumably he even knows its result, as the recently published translation of his Italian anthology La memoria vegetale e altri scritti di bibliofilia of 2006 has now the correct “La polychrésie” instead of the original “La polychesie”.

To my greatest surprise I had to realize that this Spanish translator was – me. Platthaus must have been misled by the Spanish title of the blog – Poemas del río Wang – that led him to consider me a Spaniard. So far, so good. However, all the rest of his information is mistaken, too. The “Russian colleague” I found by chance did not know the correct spelling either, he only coined a genial false etymology in support of the wrong one. The catalog entry with the correct polychrésie was suggested to me first by a French linguistic quiz, and then a search for the words “Berillon+race allemande”. All this was written down in my post schwarz auf weiss, citations and live links included.

Platthaus gives the subtitle “Lohnende Internetrecherchen” – “Internet research pays off” to the short summary of my research. However, his article illustrates the fact that superficiality, transmission of half-understood information and hints to his sources without name and reference also pay off. Unwissen stinkt nicht?

Game

Umberto Eco in his new book on lists – Vertigine della lista, to be published in November 2009 – dedicates a special place to Rabelais whose Gargantua and Pantagruel, published from 1532 in five books created the genre of absurd lists:

However, the author who seems to have produced his never ending lists only to kick the bottom of all the well ordered systems of the Sorbonne’s scholars was Rabelais. Obviously nothing can explain why he had to enumerate so many and so unprecedented ways of cleaning one’s own bottom, so many adjectives of the membrum virile, so many ways of massacring the enemy, so many and so useless books of the Saint Victor Abbey, so many races of snakes or so many kinds of games Gargantua was able to play (and God knows how he found time to play them all).

Accordingly, Eco has selected for his anthology several texts from Gargantua and Pantagruel, thus imposing a painful task on the translator, at least on the Hungarian translator.

In fact, Rabelais’ work has no complete Hungarian translation. Although the great juggler of Hungarian language György Faludy started to translate it and he even finished the first three books before slipping away from Hungary after the failed revolution of 1956, but the manuscripts remained here and got lost. In the 80’s some miracle brought to light the manuscripts of the second and third book narrating the adventures of the giant prince Pantagruel, and they were published at the University of Szeged in 1989, but it seems that that of the first book, recounting the very wonderful life of his father, king Gargantua, has been lost for ever. The texts borrowed by Eco from this first book have to be translated again for the Hungarian version of the Vertigine della lista, while the translator must bear in mind the high standard set by Faludy in his Pantagruel.

There is for example the list mentioned last by Eco: the games known by Gargantua, two hundred and fifteen in number. There are more than one possibilities how to translate them. A philologist would probably give an exact translation of each name, adding in footnotes all the information he managed to collect about them. This “all”, however, is not too much. Just some years ago Yves Rifaux, researcher of the Musée de l’Art de l’Enfance in Annecy thought that most of them had been invented by Rabelais, until he managed to identify 190 of the 215 games. On the other hand, a verbatim translation of the French names (see their list in the above quoted article, with the modern French spelling in brackets) would resonate so few with the Hungarian reader that the list would completely lose the magic which this abundance of games produces for the French reader.

Rifaux was greatly supported in the identification of the games by the painting Children at play (1560) of Pieter Brueghel which represents more than two hundred children playing some eighty contemporary games. The games represented have been recently analyzed by Edward Snow, and the description of twenty of them can be also read on the site of the Avedon Museum and Archive of Games. The Hungarian avantgarde Colibri Theatre has recently created a ballett version of the painting, of which two videos have ben published.


The Italian translation quoted by Eco – Mario Bonfantini, Einaudi, 2005 – adopts a more eclectic approach. It takes over a number of names in an Italian form similar to the French ones even if there exists no Italian game of that name, and it replaces most of the rest with the names of existing Italian ones. This list is so beautiful, especially because of the many archaic and long names, and besides it is so hard to find elsewhere, that I quote it in full length. You will enjoy at least its melody.

a goffo, a chi fa l’uno fa l’altro, a primiera, alla sequenza, a vola, a domino, a piglia piglia, al tarocco, al trionfo, a cocchinverde, chi vince perde, alla Piccarda, al belinato, al cento, alla penitenza, alla sfilata, alla riffa, a disgrazia, a glic, alla furba, agli onori, a passadieci, alla morra, al trentuno, agli scacchi, a pari e sequenza, alla volpe, ai trecento, a campana, alla sfortunata, alla bianca, alla condannata, alla buona ventura, a carta voltata, a tre dadi, al malcontento, alle tavole, al lanzichenecco, a nic noc, a cucú, alla lurca, a chi ce l’ha lo dica, alla rana, a piglia, nada, gioca, fori, al birignao, all’accoppiata al trictrac, al nano, a tutte tavole, a dichiarare, a tavole voltate, a rinnegabío, al forzato, alla dama, alla babbuina, a primus, secundus, a piè di coltello, alla mosca, a franco il quadri, a pari o caffo, a testa o croce, a marmotta, agli aliossi, alla biglia, a ciabatta, al gufo, a caccialepre, alla tirintintana, a scappa scappa porcellino, alle gazze, al corno, a bue cacciato, a civetta, a pizzicato, a beccasú, all’asino vola, a toni-mini, a trotta trotta somarello, a dàgli arrí, a buricchetto, a son seduto, alla barba d’oribus, alla boschina, a tira spiedo, a botte in fiera, a compare dammi il sacco, a coglionmontone, a buttafuori, alle fiche di Marsiglia, alle chiavi, alle guardie, a scuoiaconiglio, a ramazza, a uncino-madama, a vender l’avena, al tizzone, alle risposte, a giudice vivo e giudice morto, al fabbroferraio, a scappa villano, ai sassolini, al gobbo in corte, a San Trovato, a pizzica orecchio, al pero, a pimpompetto, al trallalà, al circolo, alla troia, a pancia-a-pancia, alle vallette, a verghetta, a spannina, a ci sto anch’io, a spegnimoccolo, ai birilli, al volano, a piastrelle, a far centro, a prendi Roma, a toccamerda, al Siam, a boccia corta, alla greca, a rimbalzino, alla pentolaccia, a cosí mi piace, al mulinello, alle giuncate, a baston corto, alla prillavola, a mosca cieca, a picchetto, a gallina bianca, al lupo, al truccino, al castelletto, all’ínfilata, a fossette, alla ronfa, alla tromba, al monaco, a capinascondere, all’incantato, alla palla, alla spola, a sculaccioni, al manico di scopa, a San Tommaso ficcanaso, alle lumachine, a sei senza verde! a Quaresima, alla forcola, a saltacavallina, a tutti in fila, a peto in gola, a dammi la lancia Guglielmino, a brindello, ai tre covoni, alla betulla, a mosca pazza, a pesciolino mio diletto vieni, alle domande, a nove mani, a testa in giú, alla seggiolina, al cavallino, alla grulla, al gallo canta, a mosca cieca, a guardagli il muso, allo spione, al rospo, a pallamaglio, al pistone, al diabolo, alle regine, ai mestieri, a testa-a-testa o testa-a-piè, alla Pinotta, a mano morta, ai buffetti, a scuffia madama, a staccia buratta, al seminato, al ghiottone, al molinetto, a non si passa, alla giravolta, all’acculattata, al contadino, al gufo, a schioppetto matto, alla bestia morta, a monta monta la scaletta, al porcello morto, a cul per terra, a piccioncino, alla caccia al terzo, a scappellotto, a saltasiepe, a tagliar la strada, a scornabue, a maglia maglia batticulo, a è scappato l’uccellino, al passavanti, a far le fiche, alle pernacchie, a pestamostarda, allo zoppo, a chi ci casca, a salincerchio, a pigliatesta, alla gru, a taglia taglia, alla tecca, alle sberle, a buffettoni.

Encouraged by this approach, I have also adopted a similar way in the Hungarian translation. As the version of Faludy often actualizes the text for the sake of a better impression, often in an intentionally anachronistic way, I have also decided to substitute the two hundred and fifteen French games with the same number of existing Hungarian games, including some that Rabelais could have not known but are more familiar to the modern Hungarian reader. My sources were the most authentic: apart from my childhood memories, the practising mother Kinga, the practising children Eszter, Sára, Dodó and Ábel, and their practising teacher Ildikó who are completely up to date in this topic, and to whom I say thanks for their expert advice. You can see the list in the Hungarian version of this post. Here I include the English list from the 1894 translation by Sir Thomas Urquhart and Cromarty and Peter Anthony Motteux, which is also interesting to compare with the French and the Italian ones.

… at flush, at primero, at the beast, at the rifle, at trump, at the prick and spare not, at the hundred, at the peeny, at the unfortunate woman, at the fib, at the pass ten, at one-and-thirty, at post and pair, or even and sequence, at three hundred, at the unlucky man, at the last couple in hell, at the hock, at the surly, at the lansquenet, at the cuckoo, at puff, or let him speak that hath it, at take nothing and throw out, at the marriage, at the frolic or jackdaw, at the opinion, at who doth the one, doth the other, at the sequences, at the ivory bundles, at the tarots, at losing load him, at he’s gulled and esto, at the torture, at the handruff, at the click, at honours, at pinch without laughing, at prickle me tickle me, at the unshoeing of the ass, at the cocksess, at hari hohi, at I set me down, at earl beardy, at the old mode, at draw the spit, at put out, at gossip lend me your sack, at the ramcod ball, at thrust out the harlot, at Marseilles figs, at nicknamry, at stick and hole, at boke or him, or flaying the fox, at the branching it, at trill madam, or grapple my lady, at the cat selling, at blow the coal, at the re-wedding, at the quick and dead judge, at unoven the iron, at the false clown, at the flints, or at the nine stones, at to the crutch hulch back, at the Sanct is found, at hinch, pinch and laugh not, at the leek, at bumdockdousse, at the loose gig, at the hoop, at the sow, at belly to belly, at the dales or straths, at the twigs, at the quoits, at I’m for that, at I take you napping, at fair and softly passeth Lent, at the forked oak, at truss, at the wolf’s tail, at bum to buss, or nose in breech, at Geordie, give me my lance, at swaggy, waggy or shoggyshou, at stook and rook, shear and threave, at the birch, at the muss, at the dilly dilly darling, at ox moudy, at purpose in purpose, at nine less, at blind-man-buff, at the fallen bridges, at bridled nick, at the white at butts, at thwack swinge him, at apple, pear, plum, at mumgi, at the toad, at cricket, at the pounding stick, at jack and the box, at the queens, at the trades, at heads and points, at the vine-tree hug, at black be thy fall, at ho the distaff, at Joan Thomson, at the bolting cloth, at the oat’s seed, at love, at the chess, at Reynard the fox, at the squares, at the cows, at the lottery, at the chance or mumchance, at three dice or maniest bleaks, at the tables, at nivinivinack, at the lurch, at doublets or queen’s game, at the faily, at the French trictrac, at the long tables or ferkeering, at feldown, at tod’s body, at needs must, at the dames or draughts, at bob and mow, at primus secundus, at mark-knife, at the keys, at span-counter, at even or odd, at cross or pile, at ball and huckle-bones, at ivory balls, at the billiards, at bob and hit, at the owl, at the charming of the hare, at pull yet a little, at trudgepig, at the magatapies, at the horn, at the flowered or Shrovetide ox, at the madge-owlet, at tilt at weeky, at ninepins, at the cock quintin, at tip and hurl, at the flat bowls, at the veer and turn, at rogue and ruffian, at bumbatch touch, at the mysterious trough, at the short bowls, at the dapple-grey, at cock and crank it, at break-pot, at my desire, at twirly whirlytrill, at the rush bundles, at the short staff, at the whirling gig, at hide and seek, or are you all hid? at the picket, at the blank, at the pilferers, at the caveson, at prison bars, at have at the nuts, at cherry-pit, at rub and rice, at whiptop, at the casting top, at the hobgoblins, at the O wonderful, at the soily smutchy, at fast and loose, at scutchbreech, at the broom-besom, at St. Cosme, I come to adore thee, at the lusty brown boy, at greedy glutton, at the morris dance, at feeby, at the whole frisk and gambol, at battabum, or riding of the wild mare, at Hind the ploughman, at the good mawkin, at the dead beast, at climb the ladder, Billy, at the dying hog, at the salt doup, at the pretty pigeon, at barley break, at the bavine, at the bush leap, at crossing, at bo-peep, at the hardit arsepursy, at the harrower’s nest, at forward hey, at the fig, at gunshot crack, at mustard peel, at the gome, at the relapse, at jog breech, or prick him forward, at knockpate, at the Cornish c(h)ough, at the crane-dance, at slash and cut, at bobbing, or flirt on the nose, at the larks, at fillipping.

It is so great that still today we are able to collect so many games. For the site of Bruce van Patter illustrates in a striking way how few of Brueghel’s games are played today: move the mouse on the image, and watch not only the street, but also the windows; and then also click on the central figure in red coat.

The child Christ riding a hobby horse (and in the meantime treading the aspis snake
under the foot, according to Psalm 91). Drawing on the margin of a MS,
first half of the 16th century. Stuttgart, Württembergische
Landesbibliothek, Cod. theol. quart. 136

Dawn bird

“Bismillah bird” composed of the letters of the Quranic verse Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim, “In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. Calligraphy by Khaleelullah Chemnad.

Para significar la divinidad, un persa habla de un pájaro que de algún modo es todos los pájaros.

To signify the godhead, a Persian speaks of a bird that somehow is all birds.

Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph, 1949

So distinguished is the place occupied by the bird in Persian art and poetry, like for example in the As strangers by the modern Sufi poet Hushang Ebtehaj, set to music by the Kamkars and illustrated by us with another Bismillah bird, or in the closing picture of the Budapest photo series by Omid H. Hassam, which immediately reminded me the cover of the beautiful album Saz-e khamush, “Silent lute” by Mohammad Reza Shajarian, the greatest singer of Persian classical music.


On this album Shajarian is accompanied by Kayhan Kalhor on kamanche, and by Hossein Alizadeh on tar, the typical 8-shaped Iranian lute. Both are the most excellent Iranian masters of their instruments, and their music has been included more than one time in our blog. Tombak, the Iranian drum is played by Homayun, son of Shajarian.

The same four artists recite in the video below the poem Morgh-e sahâr, “Dawn bird” by the greatest 20th-century Persian poet Malek o-Sho’arâ Bahâr. The performance was registered at the famous Bam concert of 2003, organized by Shajarian in the aid of the survivors of the Bam earthquake which had produced 30,000 casualties. The audience cries in ecstasy just like we cried together with the whole audience when in 2007 the master sung this song in Isfahan.

Several versions of this song can be found on the net and on Persian albums: by the same group three years later, where the artists can be observed better, by the duo of Shajarian and the Azeri kamanche player Habil Aliov, transposed in an authentic Azeri style, or in the solo of the talented young tar player Sahba Motalebi. It is worth to read their comments as well, because they reveal a little bit what this song means for Iranians.

Since the 1960’s this poem has become one of the most popular Persian songs with the melody of Morteza Neydavud and in the performance of Shajarian. Perhaps also because 20th-century Iranian history was not in short of dawn-waitings, as it is attested by the earlier quoted Comets and nights.

Morgh-e sahâr nâle sar kon dagh-e ma-râ tâzeh tar kon z âh-e sharar bâr in ghafash-râ bar shekan o zir o zebar kon. Bolbol-e par baste-ze konj-e ghafash dar â naghme-ye âzâdi-ye no'e bashar sar â v’az nafasi arse-ye in khâk-e tude-râ. Zolm-e zâlem yor-e sayyâd âshiyânem dâde bar bâd. Ey Khodâ ey falak ey tabi'at shâm-e târik mâ-râ sahar kon.

مرغ سحر ناله سر کن داغ مرا تازه تر کن ز آه شرر بار ، این قفس را بر شکن و زیر زبر کن بلبل پر بسته ز کنج قفس درا نغمه آزادی نوع بشر سرا وزنفسی عرصه این خاک توده را پر شرر کن ظلم ظالم ، جور صیّاد آشیانم ، داده بر باد ای خدا ، ای فلک ، ای طبیعت شام تاریک ما را سحر کن

Dawn bird, sing with sorrow,

remind me of my fresh pain,
with your burning breath
break and open this cage.
Captive nightingale, fly out of your cage,
start to sing the song of freedom,
and with one breath
set to fire the sluggish earth.
The cruelty of tyrants, the injustice of hunters
has broken my nest put to winds.
Oh God, oh world, oh nature
turn our dark night into dawn.

Nightingale – as we would like to expose it in a later post – is a topos of Persian poetry for the human soul, or more precisely for the human soul longing for God. (It is not just a coincidence that Eastern Sephardic poetry also took it over in this meaning, just like the topos of the bird representing God.) And in Persian thought the longing for God is very closely connected with the longing for the liberation from the limitations of this world, for absolute freedom. Where a Hungarian, with the famous verse of Petőfi, says “Liberty, love”, a Persian says “Liberty, God” in a thousand sophisticated ways. This is why they can sing – and they indeed do sing – this song as a psalm, a hymn and a movement song in one.

A leaflet advertising the name of presidential candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi
on the eve of the Iranian elections of June 12, a 2009.

Azeri socks

We bought them in the late autumn of 2007 in the bazaar of Tabriz, Western Iran. They had been made for an engagement present. The jewels come from the nomadic tribes around Mashad to the east. The carpet – which is in fact a camel bag opened – was woven by Bakhtiari nomads in the mountains above Isfahan to the south. I usually read by leaning against it in the evenings.


In the last week there were elections in Iran. Many call in doubt the authenticity of the official results. There are manifestations all around the country. As I’m writing this, a crowd of several thousand people gathered in Tehran. According to recent news, the militiamen have been authorized to use live ammunition. Yesterday in Isfahan a young boy was already shot dead.


The inhabitants of Tehran for the last days have been praying by thousands “Allahu akbar” – “God is the greatest” – on the rooftops, just like they did during the revolution of 1979. We have also been intensively praying for them. We ask you to pray for Iran.

Listening to the bells

Late nineteenth century, a quarter to twelve, Rome. It’s hot.

A bar in the Trastevere, in front of Santa Maria. A late February Sunday, a quarter to ten in the morning. In the bar there is only a Roman family with two little children, having a breakfast. Orange juice, smell of coffee. Two pictures on the entrance wall, not particularly drawing attention.

Marco, te recordamos. Eras el viejo amigo, la plaza, los rumores de la fuente, el pacífico sonido de las horas, el lento, el pensativo Marco de mirar triste, tierno y casi perdido, gruñidor y orgulloso, a veces, pero digno. Las noches de verano eran bellas contigo. Escuchabas la música o dormías tranquilo. Marco, estás con nosotros, sigues aquí, estas vivo. Con las campanas de Santa María, los que no te olvidamos y quisimos te llamaremos y veremos siempre en el aire y la luz trasteverinos.

Marco, we’ll remember you. You were our old friend, the square itself, the gurgle of the fountain, the peaceful sound of the hours, the slow, the thoughtful Marco of the sad and tender and almost lost look, the grumbling and proud sometimes, but always decent. Summer nights were beautiful with you. You were listening to music or tranquilly sleeping. Marco, you’re with us still here, alive. With the bells of the Santa Maria we, who love you and do not forget you will always call you and will always see you in the air and light of the Trastevere.

The image of that morning in Rome and the poem to Marco, also included by Alberti in his Roma, peligro para caminantes (1968) came to my mind as I was reading Ahmatova, translated into Spanish precisely by Alberti and María Teresa León:

Но я предупреждаю вас, Что живу в последний раз. Ни ласточкой, ни кленом, Ни тростником и ни звездой, Ни родниковою водой, Ни колокольным звоном - Не стану я людей смущать И сны чужие навещать Неутоленным стоном.

But I warn you that I live for the last time. Neither as a swallow, nor as an acer, neither as a reed nor as a star, the gurgling water of a fountain or the sound of the bells – I will not perturb people nor confuse others’ dreams with my unsatisfied moaning.

And each time when I hear the bells around my house, and the sound of the quarters of the town house’s clock, I think that the bells are the last survivors of something that barely exists, or rather the echos of an Atlantis which is all over long ago. And I think that on the day – which will come – when the bells will not ring any more, I will have few interest in staying alive any more.

Oír campanas

Un día de fines del siglo diecinueve, a las doce menos cuarto, en Roma. Hace calor.

En Santa María in Trastevere, al otro lado de la iglesia, hay un bar. Es un domingo del pasado febrero, a las diez menos cuarto, y en el bar solo hay una familia romana con dos niños pequeños que han bajado a desayunar. Zumo de naranja, olor a café. En la pared de la entrada cuelgan dos cuadros que no llaman la atención.

Marco, te recordamos.
Eras el viejo amigo,
la plaza, los rumores
de la fuente, el pacífico
sonido de las horas,
el lento, el pensativo
Marco de mirar triste,
tierno y casi perdido,
gruñidor y orgulloso,
a veces, pero digno.
Las noches de verano
eran bellas contigo.
Escuchabas la música
o dormías tranquilo.
Marco, estás con nosotros,
sigues aquí, estas vivo.

Con las campanas de Santa María,
los que no te olvidamos y quisimos
te llamaremos y veremos siempre
en el aire y la luz trasteverinos.

La imagen de aquella mañana en Roma y el poema al perro Marco que Alberti incluyó en su Roma, peligro para caminantes me han venido a la memoria al leer hoy estos versos de Ana Ajmátova, una poeta que Alberti y María Teresa León tradujeron.

Но я предупреждаю вас, Что живу в последний раз. Ни ласточкой, ни кленом, Ни тростником и ни звездой, Ни родниковою водой, Ни колокольным звоном - Не стану я людей смущать И сны чужие навещать Неутоленным стоном.

Pero yo os advierto que vivo por última vez. Ni como golondrina, ni como acero, ni como junco, ni como estrella, ni como agua que brota, ni como sonido de campanas turbaré a la gente, y no visitaré los sueños de los otros con un gemido insatisfecho.

Y cada vez que oigo sonar las campanas de las iglesias alrededor de mi casa, y dar los cuartos a la campana del reloj del ayuntamiento, pienso que en sí mismas las campanas son una pervivencia de algo que apenas existe, el eco de un mundo que se acaba o que ya acabó hace tiempo. Pienso también que el día (que llegará) en que no suenen las campanas, a mí me interesará muy poco seguir vivo.

Iran goes to polls

As I am writing this, the streets of Tehran are in full swing until eight in the morning, the beginning of the elections. Crowds of people are surging along the longest street of the world, the 30 kms long Vali Asr Avenue from the rich northern quarters to the bazaar in the south, mostly young people – 70% of Iran’s population is under 30 –, traffic has stopped, music is resounding, the asphalt is covered by election posters and leaflets that already have not been distributed: “Where has the price of the oil gone?” “Bye-bye, Ahmadinejad!” It is still uncertain what the presidential elections of tomorrow will bring, the two main candidates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi being both at 50% within statistical failure rate. The people of Tehran, to be on the safe side, feasts in advance, for at the much bigger feasts of tomorrow evening half of the people will have no more reason to do so.

The photos of Iran’s real leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, head of the Guardian Council also figure on pro-Moussavi posters, as if emphasizing that the candidate is not against the official political line. Moussavi was for years Khamenei’s advisor in questions of culture and foreign policy.

In spite of the fact that in recent years Iran has risen to the rang of a regional power – thanks to the generous efforts of America which with enormous financial and human sacrifices has eliminated its two main rivals Iraq and Afghanistan, and through the support of Northern Iraqi Kurds brought the country on a common platform with its third man rival, Turkey – Western press has dedicated surprisingly few attention to the Iranian presidential elections. Some popular articles have been published here and there in every couple of weeks, on the unsatisfaction of the “Iranian people” – that is, people interviewed in the downtown of Tehran where the reporter got done with the obligatory fifteen lines report – on the assumption that all candidates are all the same, for all of them support the Iranian atom (the contrary would be a political suicide), that the Guardian Council has carefully filtered the candidates and thus only those politically absolutely reliable could enter the ring, and that the Council also sets very narrow limits to the power of the elected president. Therefore, Western journalists assert, the elections have no real stake. It seems as if none of them heard about Communism and as if they did not know what a difference can be between an Andropov and a Chernenko, a Gierek and a Jaruzelski, a Grósz and a Pozsgay.

The complete broadcasting of the harsh TV debate of last Wednesday between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi (1.5 hour)

Whoever has experienced in his or her life how much political importance a somewhat bolder art exhibition, some centimeters longer hair or shorter skirt can have, will know how much it means which position the candidates occupy within the limited official playfield. Ahmadinejad, who is boasting with his plebeian origins – he is son of a blacksmith – and making a show of his plebeian manners by disregarding every protocol, since having appeared from nowhere six years ago has consciously made division and polarization the basis of his policy: internationally, between Iran and America, and within the country between Islam and its enemies. “There are no conservatives and reformers” writes his advisor Fatemeh Rajabi in the pro-government daily Ansar, “only the way of God and the way of Satan”. Moussavi, a recognized painter and architect, founder of the Tehran Academy of Art, who has won himself a lasting popularity as the highly responsible prime minister of the country between 1981 and 1989, in the terrible period of the war with Iraq, formulates his opinion more subtly. In the detailed interview given to the Spiegel he qualifies himself as a “conservative reformer” or rather a “centrist”, emphasizing the easing of tensions, the unity of the country, negotiations with America and the suspension of the catastrophic populist economic policy of the Ahmadinejad government (official inflation is 25%, but much higher in the reality). All this enters into the president’s officially permitted scope for action.

Election officials at a polling station inside a synagogue of Tehran at the parliamentary elections of 2008.

A special mention has to be made about ethnic question which in Iran – where hardly more than 50% of the population is ethnic Persian – is an especially delicate problem. In contrast to the centralizing policy of the Islamic republic, Moussavi, who himself is of Azeri origin, promises opening. It is worth to put on each other the map of Iran’s ethnic distribution (from today’s edition of Courrier International) and that of the late April election polls from the daily Jomhoriyat, where the majority of the green pro-Moussavi provinces are densely populated, developed and urbanized ethnic regions, while that of the red pro-Ahmadinejad provinces are rarely populated, semi-desert rural lands.



The subtle signs of change also include that, for the first time since 1979, the wife of a politician appears before the public. Mrs. Moussavi, Sahra Rahnavard – president of the women’s university Al-Zahra, and between 1997 and 2005 advisor of the reformer president Khatami – travels all over the country with her husband, and stands together with him on the stage – what is more, hand in hand, an unheard-of thing in Iran. This equality is an unsaid campaign promise which attracts large masses of female electors to Moussavi, as it is attested by this video of CNN below.



Another subtle sign of change is the use of internet. In Iran, where internet is extremely widespread, the government tries to keep it under control by any means. Ahmadinejad has set up a special internet commando, allegedly against “internet criminality”, whose target number one are bloggers. (The fourth most widespread language of blogs worldwide is Persian.) A special program is broadcasted on the national channel Gerdab to backbite bloggers and to present them as immoral and pro-Western. Moussavi, on the contrary, has his own site, web news, electorial YouTube page and twitter, as well as thousands of supporting pages and forums.


Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring (which is in any case only the first round). However, one thing is already sure: that these past months have brought an unsuspected and since 1979 unprecedented political fever to Iran.

Chuk and Mac

Andrei Kuznecov: Chukch rapper

A propos of the Polish reception of medieval bicycle we had a talk with Julia – over the Equator, from our early summer to their late autumn – about which people are regarded as the etalon of stupidity in the jokes of various people. For the Americans reputedly the Poles are that. For the Spanish, the Gallegos, that is the inhabitants of the traditionally rather poor Galicia at the Atlantic coast. For the Argentinians also the Gallegos, but they comprehend in this name all the inhabitants of the Spanish peninsula. A search for “chiste gallego” will result in thousands of hits on the net.

– Hey, Manolo – the Gallego says – pass me some shampoo.
– Why, there is a completely new one in the bathroom.
– Yes, but it says “for dry hair,” and I have already made mine wet.

And at us? It sounds strange, but it seems that Hungarians do not have a people for this purpose. We find our fools in the policemen, like Italians do. In my childhood there were some anecdotes about the people of “Rátót”, an imaginary village where everyone is dull, but these have disappeared by now. There are quite a number of popular jokes about the Székely, the archaic Hungarian inhabitants of the Transylvanian Carpathians, but in these a Svejkian slyness and resigned self-irony is always hidden behind the virtual stupidity.

But the country where there are plenty of nationalities for every type of joke is Russia. The rich men in the jokes have been traditionally Georgians – although their role has been recently taken over by the novye russkie, the nouveau riches of Russia –, the cunning ones are Jews, the even more cunning ones Armenians, those pedantic down to stupidity Estonians, while the simply dull ones, the protagonists of most Russian aniekdoty and the most welcome virtual guests of Russian dinner tables – the Chukch from Northern Siberia. God knows why.

This Chuckch receives a flat on the tenth floor of the skyscraper. “How is it?” they ask of him. “Well, my feet have pain of constantly going up and down the scales.” “Why, is there no lift?” “Yes, but the inscription says: for four persons, and it always takes an extremely long time to wait for three more people.”

Among the many stories, cartoons and animated films dedicated to the Chukch I like the most the series Chuk and Mac of the talented young graphic artist Andrei Kuznecov. The title is a deliberate pun on Gajdar’s famous pioneer novel Chuk and Gek from the 40s, and the series reveals how the Chukch copes with the challenges of the digital age. Of course the pictures parody rather the world of informatics than the Chukch themselves, and they do it with a characteristically mordant Russian irony. The series, launched in 2005, can be found in various points of the Russian web, but its most authentic source is probably the community site Ieroglif where the pictures are uploaded by the artist himself and where he also replies to the questions of his fans.

Custom Air

“More, more, elge! Tyungy MacBook Air berelcha!”

The inscriptions in the images are quite embarrassing at first sight. They sound as if they had been written in the Paleosiberan language of the Chukch, although to some users they sound rather like Tatar. In any case it is not understandable to the readers. And probably this is the purpose. “Could we please get to know what the figures say?” someone has asked in a comment to the first images. “I think it is completely clear”, the master replies. “I always spread some few key words in them.” These few Russian key words, often in a distorted form, and the caption of the picture are to provide us the key to the story.

Webdesign

“Hehe! Chukch himself pylge webdesign!” The inscriptions of the verbally monumental “webpage” are: Site; Who I am; Where I am; Photos. The frequent Russian figure of Chuckh jokes, the geologist who is often “overshadowed” by the simple tools of the Chukch, is substituted here with a professional web designer.

Hacker

However, the satisfaction of the Chukch is short-lived. The hacker has verbally broken the webpage. To the question “Who I am” he replied: “a dupe”.

Linukh

The pseudo-Chukch mumbo jumbo of Kuznecov has already spread all over the Russian net and has become an integral part of Russian net jargon. And on the basis of their present use even the original inscriptions can be interpreted unambigously: “Vindy yokkhere! Chokcha kulge tyr Linukh!” “Windows is over! Cool Chukch uses Linux!” More pedant readers, however, have criticized the occurrence of the penguin in the Arctic zone, and they have pointed out that if the Chukch installs the program in the monitor itself then this is an iMac on which no Linux can be installed. But let this also put down to the account of Chukchness.

Internet provider

“Do magic! Do magic strong! Okhne internet elge syktym!” Someone has even noted: “how does such a completely meaningless word like internet come into such a clearly understandable phrase like okhne elge syktym?” Since then the idiom “elge syktym” has also become a standard phrase in Russian net jargon, meaning something like “it is ready at once”.

Nigerian mail

The African phrase is also a mumbo jumbo, of course. In the Chukch’s phrase one can distinguish the word “spam” and “syktym” that we already know from the previous picture.

Bluetooth

Soundcard IIII-Pro

“Undoubtedly with the most realistic sound”, commentators write.

Virtual reality

“Has it eaten him?” several people ask in a shock. “No”, geeks answer. “He has just changed skin.”

Agitator

As a cuckoo’s egg, the series also has some pictures illustrating the adaptation of the Chukch to the old world instead of the new. “And the factories! The factories are also yours!” The readers have raised objection that this picture, as a unique exception, has no Chukch word, but many have approved it by saying that a revolution can be done only in Russian.

And the statue is standing

The figures created by Kuznecov have been taken over by others as well. Here below we see one on the label of the Ukrainian fish conserve “Chukch fisherman”.


Also the animated cartoon of the series “Lullabies of the world” dedicated to the Chukch has adopted similar figures:

But Kuznecov himself has also made several popular animated films in recent years, among others on the Chukch. In this one, “The cheating crow”, the story is told in Russian, but you can perfectly understood it without the knowledge of the language.

Even more beautiful is this other film of him, put in an African setting, “How the snake was cheated”, in which not a single word is said. Watch out the music as well!

On other works of Kuznecov, his Cheburashka parodies, modern lubok’s and mosquito series I will write later.

Divagaciones sobre unas reflexiones intempestivas

A raíz de las reflexiones de Wang Wei y de los comentarios que suscitaron, me acordé de estos párrafos del Guzmán de Alfarache (1599) de Mateo Alemán que había leído unas semanas antes y que tanto me habían llamado la atención.

Eso pasa hoy al pie de la letra [buscamos ser creadores a imagen y semejanza de Dios]. Queremos hacer o contrahacer. ¡Cuán bien me parece el ave que en mi casa crío, el cordero que nace en mi cortijo, el árbol que planto en mi huerto, la flor que en mi jardín sale! Cómo me huelgo de verla en tal manera, que aquello que no crié, hice o planté, aunque sea muy bueno, lo arrancaré, destruiré y desharé, sin que me dé pesadumbre, y lo que es obra de mis manos, hijo de mi industria, fruto de mi trabajo, aunque no sea tal, como hechura mía, me parece y la quiero bien.

Del árbol de mi vecino y del conocido, no sólo quitaré la flor y fruto, mas no le dejaré hoja ni rama y, si se me antojare, cortaréle el tronco. Del mío me llega al alma si hallo una hormiga que le dañe o pájaro que le pique, porque es mío. Y en resolución todos aman sus obras. Así, en quererlas bien me parezco al que me crío y dél lo heredé yo. (Guzmán de Alfarache Parte I, Libro iii, capítulo 4)

Alemán parece siempre buscar la ambigüedad y no dejar claro al lector cuál es la intención de las afirmaciones de su texto, enunciado por su pícaro protagonista (pecador y arrepentido, engañoso y clarividente). Nótese, por ejemplo, la argucia de asimilar el amor de Dios hacia sus criaturas al egoísmo vanaglorioso de querer lo propio al punto de destruir lo ajeno.

Pero sus palabras despiertan varios interrogantes ¿existe este amor propio, o amor a lo propio, tan ciego y poderoso? Y si existe, ¿son aquellos que lo experimentan el tipo de personas que andan por el mundo buscando sólo lo que les es similar y despreciando lo diferente? Es decir ¿son éstos los que si están fuera de su país se alegran de encontrar compatriotas ruidosos para participar de quién sabe qué prepotente sentimiento nacional que parece sólo poder explayarse cuando pisotea lo extranjero, a diferencia de algunos de nosotros que en la misma situación más bien queremos alejarnos y negar la pertenencia a un grupo que nos avergüenza?

Lo curioso es que no creo que odiemos a nuestro país, en circunstancias normales no negaríamos nuestra nacionalidad, pero sí seguramente despreciemos a aquellos que se regodean en el amor que odia, el que parece no poder alcanzan una identidad sin menospreciar lo que es ajeno (como he visto muchas veces en turistas argentinos). Si bien, por los relatos que hasta aquí se han hecho, pienso que tal vez esto lo percibamos más que nada en nuestros compatriotas, aunque en realidad esté en los petulantes, maleducados y chauvinistas de todas las naciones.

Por eso, en el extranjero, si en algún momento pensamos que se nos puede asimilar a un grupo semejante, si creemos que vamos a quedar definidos por un ejemplo de ese tipo, huimos, nos escondemos y negamos tres veces antes de que cante el gallo... Somos distintos, como distintos son tantos otros compatriotas que no nos avergonzarían. Es un problema de identidad, tal vez. Una identidad que no rechaza de dónde viene pero que no espera definirse restando sino sumando y aceptando la multiplicidad.

La cita del Alemán a su vez me hizo recordar dos emblemas españoles que hablaban del amor propio. Quizás esta excesiva mirada crítica a lo propio, que –en contra de las palabras de Guzmán– para mí es tan (patológicamente) natural se deban a la temible vergüenza de caer en la vanagloria sobre la que ambos emblemas advierten. Falta simbolizada por monas, es decir, remedos defectuosos de los humanos.


Uno de Sebastián de Covarrubias (Emblemas morales, 1610) que tiene por mote Nulli non sua forma placet [Ninguno está disconforme con su aspecto] con la imagen de una mona mirándose al espejo

Siendo la mona abominable y fea,
Si acaso ve su rostro en un espejo
Queda de sí pagada, y no desea
Otra gracia, beldad, gala o despejo.
La mal carada se tendrá por dea,
Del rostro acicalando el vil pellejo,
Y cada qual, de gloria desseoso,
Lo feo le parece ser hermoso.


Otro de Villava (Empresas espirituales y morales, 1613) con el mote Sic sua quique placent [A cada uno le placen sus cosas] con una mona que abraza a su monito.

No ay quien de ver a la fruncida mona,
Qual anda enamorada,
De sus negros hijuelos, no se ría,
Qual se ufana y entona,
Porque entiende que cosa más salada,
Más luzida y hermosa no se cría
Y alguno que riendo
Se está, no advierte en propio amor ardiendo,
También él se enamora de sus cosas.

Covarrubias en la glosa reflexiona sobre la importancia de conocerse a sí mismo, que en definitiva roza también la cuestión de la propia identidad que mencionábamos antes.

Villava, más duro en su moralización, condena el amor propio como una pasión que enceguece y que, por no mediar distancia entre el ser amado y el amante, nunca permite juzgarse correctamente.

¿Estaremos condenados o al desprecio de nosotros mismos o a la ciega vanagloria? ¡Quién tuviera una fórmula para el escurridizo equilibrio!

Ad astra

Very deep is the well of the past, it is no small effort to pick out all the garbage that has been thrown into it. Our recent post on medieval and Renaissance bicycles has been honored first of all by the original Russian “translator”, Boris Indrikov, who also provided us with the reproduction of Van Gogh’s posthumous painting Self-portrait with bicycle, without the artist’s left ear and all the rest.


Then our estimated Greek friend Poly Hatzimanolaki congratulated through us to Boris, at the same time reminding us Paco Ignacio Taibo II.’s absurd thriller, The bicycle of Leonardo. The idea that the great Renaissance master was also the inventor of the bike among so many other things, has stirred the fantasy of others as well and inspired a novel by Guy Davenport.


And it is no mere chance. Do you see the conspicuous similarity of the vehicles on the covers? All of them are based on the drawing discovered by Augusto Marinoni in the Codex Atlanticus of Milan which has preserved the sketches of Leonardo. He published his discovery in 1974 in a paper delivered precisely in Vinci, the birthplace of Leonardo. Subsequently the bicycle of Leonardo run a brilliant career, it has been also modeled in life size for the Florentine exhibition in honor of the millennium traveling all over the world. Its only fault was the impossibility of being steered. Apparently this minor problem did not excite the master.


It was only in 1997 that Dr. Hans-Erhard Lessing pointed out in a detailed study that the design was a forgery, and a quite recent one at that, drawn into the codex (!) after its restoration in the 60s, more precisely between 1967 and 1974. No trace of it can be seen on the photos made before and during the restoration, only some circles and lines appear through from the other side of the page, and these were complemented into a bike by the forger. It is noteworthy, writes Lessing, that in all the literature on bicycle history none else has accepted the attribution except for Marinoni and his Italian followers.

No, this design of Leonardo is surely not authentic: it has been made for the Photoshop competition of Worth1000.

For the stake, writes Lessing, was not small. The Italians had to demonstrate that the first paleo-bicycle before the patent of the modern bike in 1817 was not the célérifère of 1791 of Comte de Sivrac as it has been asserted by the French for a century. Bicycle, in fact, must be an Italian invention. For Malaparte made it clear already in 1949:

In Italy, the bicycle belongs to the national art heritage in the same way as Mona Lisa by Leonardo, the dome of St. Peter or the Divine Comedy. It is surprising that it has not been invented by Botticelli, Michelangelo, or Raffael. Should it happen to you, that you voice in Italy that the bicycle was not invented by an Italian you will see: All miens turn sullen, a veil of grief lies down onto the faces. Oh, when you say in Italy, when you say loudly and distinctly in a café or on the street that the bicycle—like the horse, the dog, the eagle, the flowers, the trees, the clouds—has not been invented by an Italian (for it were the Italians that invented the horse, the dog, the eagle, the flowers, the trees, the clouds) then a long shudder will run down the peninsula’s spine, from the Alps to the Etna.

Reconstruction of the célérifère.

But in the reality all the noble efforts of the Italians were just shots in the air. For Comte de Sivrac never existed, and consequently neither the célérifère. Both were invented in 1891 by the journalist Louis Baudry de Saunier who in his national pride wanted to dispute the primacy of the German Baron Karl Drais, the actual inventor of the bicycle.

However, the series of surprising discoveries has not yet come to an end. The document sent to us in a comment by Syr Wullam cuts every petty cause among modern European nations already at the roots. Already ancient Greeks knew the bike! What is more, writes our blue-blooded expert,

the Greek did not need to strain themselves with pedals as the poor chaps in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. No, they just gave it the gun as the peasant to his Berva (© my granny).


We have also checked some other works of the artist Robert Weigand. Most of his drawings are in the style of the illustrations of Reader’s Digest which, interestingly, reintegrate the allegoric and emblematic pictorial language of the Early Modern period to 20^th-century applied graphics – but this problem deserves a post of its own and will also receive it. However, what we have discovered with surprise – why should always other make the surprising discoveries? – was the fact that even the topics of Weigand’s other pictures are in line with the article by Indrikov. In several illustrations we find the bicycle, the Sun and the Moon, and even their modern knight balancing between them as if he did it on two wheels. Is it not possible that the master is a secret member of the Order of the Sun and the Moon which has survived until today?




However, the greatest and most breathtaking coming out was yet to come. The person exposed was no less than Wang Wei himself, co-author of our blog, founding father of Studiolum, whom after several years of bosom-friendship we have thought to know like our palm. Indeed, after reading the previous post he wrote to us:

Te mando un documento único. Que en realidad es una confesión secreta: yo pertenezco a la venerable «Order of the Sun and of the Moon». Una de las pruebas que tenemos que pasar es subir al Tourmalet intentando pasar completamente desapercibidos entre la masa de absurdos deportistas plebeyos que, ataviados con ropajes ridículos, exhiben su vanidad y se pavonean ante las damas. La hazaña no es pequeña, pues los aspirantes a caballeros de la Orden pueden ser requeridos por el Gran Maestre para pasar la prueba en cualquier momento del día o de la noche, en cualquier época del año, llueva o truene, con luna o bajo un sol de justicia. Cuando esa llamada ocurre, tenemos que dejar nuestra casa inmediatamente, coger la primera bicicleta que encontremos en la calle y, vestidos tal como estábamos en nuestros aposentos, lanzarnos a la carretera y subir la mítica montaña. Ello exige un permanente estado de vigilia física y espiritual que muchos no pueden soportar. Otros fracasan repetidas veces en sus intentos de escalada de las durísimas rampas y van repitiendo la prueba cada vez que son requeridos hasta que, convencidos de su inferioridad, deben abandonar sus pretensiones de entrar en la Orden. En fin, esta es una de las pruebas que mandó mi escudero al Gran Consejo de la Orden y que ahora te revelo en primicia.

Hereby I send you a unique document which is actually a secret confession: I belong to the venerable “Order of the Sun and of the Moon.” One of the tests we must pass is to climb the Tourmalet completely unnoticed among the mass of plebeian mock-athletes dressed in ridiculous clothes showing off their vanity to the ladies. The feat is not small, as the aspiring knights of the Order may be required by the Grand Master to pass the test at any time of the day or night all year round, in rain or frost, in moonlight or under the sun of justice. As soon as we hear this call, we must immediately leave our home, take the first bike that we find in the street and, dressed just as we were in our homes, take the road and climb the mystical mountain. This requires a constant state of physical and spiritual vigilance that many can not endure. Many fail repeatedly in their attempts to climb the hard ramps and try to repeat the test several times until, convinced of their inferiority, they abandon their claim to enter the Order. This is thus one of the tests that my squire recorded for the Grand Council of the Order with the following document which is now revealed to you as the first person outside the Order.


This unique document which can be dated to several years before, almost to the Middle Ages, attests not only for how long Wang Wei has been a knight of the Order of the Sun and of the Moon. But it also sheds light on something he has not unrevealed in one of his previous posts: the reason why his Mallorcan Catalan compatriots are so enthusiastic fighters for the freedom of Transylvania.

Coat of arms of Transylvania

In velox libertas!

Time is relative. Especially historical time and especially at our parts, in Eastern Europe, where it can happen without further ado that three hundred years between 600 and 900 are stolen from Hungarians, while at Russians world history starts right in the stolen 800 and in its framework Christ is crucified in 1200 A.D. – just some years after the Troian war – in Istanbul.

It is therefore no accident that it was precisely a Russian graphic artist sensitive of such relativity, Boris Indrikov to discover and translate into Russian from the only available copy of the May 2009 issue of the Scientific Archevelogy the article of Sandy Collins, in which she has reported about their sensational discovery made during the excavations around the Lower Normandian Château-Gaillard. The Russian translation was published just two days ago. Here we publish its short English summary which – we are sure – will reach those interested much sooner than the original English publication.


Château-Gaillard was the favorite castle of Richard the Lionheart (1188-1199) in Lower Normandy. It also received its present name when the king, beholding for the first time the castle built on his order with its shining white stone walls, double ramparts, pont-levis and thirteen strong towers, exclaimed: “Quel château gaillard” – “What a merry castle!” At least this is how Maurice Druon describes it in The prison of Château-Gaillard.

In May 2008, while excavating around the castle, the archaeologists of Bristol University made a surprising discovery. They have unearthed two graves side by side. In both of them they have found the rests of the body of an armored knight, and above it in one grave the well preserved skeleton of a horse, while in the other the fragments of iron objects which, seen from above, resembled… a bicycle.


The British scholars carefully cleaned the fragments,


they removed them,


and made inventory of them,


and they were shocked to see that it was in fact a bicycle, whose iron parts have remained in so good conditions because they had been covered with wax before being buried.


“When they called me from the excavations saying that they had found a 12^th-century bicycle,” said Steve Berkeley, the engineer-constructor of Cambridge University’s Scientific and Technical Center of Cardiff who, together with his colleague Andrew Hopkins assembled the excavated parts, “I would have suspected that it was an All Fool’s Day hoax, were it not the excavation’s leader Professor John Williams himself to tell it. And as we were gradually assembling the surviving fragments, our admiration grew higher and higher for the unknown medieval constructor.”


But is this construction really medieval? The opinion of experts vary in this question.

“As an expert of medieval knights’ armor,” declared archaeologist professor Justin Pierre, the representative of the French Academy of Sciences at the excavations of Château-Gaillard, “I have to say that the alloy adopted, the methods of elaboration and the X-ray examination rather point to the 15^th century, and more precisely to the working methods of the armorer’s workshops of Milan and Venice, primarily to those of the renowned Missaglia dynasty.”

Does this mean that the Middle Ages already knew bicycle?

“Bicycle is a much older invention in human civilization than one would think,” says Peter Godward, professor of the Department of History and Archaeology of Cardiff University. “The sensational discovery of Château-Gaillard only reinforces the earlier results of our university’s researchers. Already in 1962 the news spread all over the world that in the course of an archaeological excavation in Versailles a closed cellar was found, among other things with a bicycle from the reign of the Sun King inside.”


“The news made much noise and led to heated debates. Following the Versailles excavations, our university decided to establish an international research center for the thorough examination of the question. For several years we have been collecting data, consulted with archaeologists and collectors, and examined the collections and manuscripts of the greatest museums of the world.


Finally in 1986 we managed to get in contact with art collector Andrea Castilles, co-founder of the Sotbyes auction house, who in his younger years had been an enthusiastic cyclist himself. In 1951 he participated on the Giro d’Italia, and in 1955 on the Tour de France. In his world famous collection he has dedicated a special section to the objects of art connected with cyclism. He readily offered us to observe them. And what we have seen has exceeded our most daring imaginations.

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) carried out between 1492 and 1500 his series of illustrations to Dante’s Divine comedy. One of his sketches to Canto XXXI of the Purgatory, preserved in the collection of Mr. Castilles represents the marvellous celestial pageant carrying Beatrice to Dante on a coach drawn by a griffin:

Thus they began their song and then
they took me to the griffin’s breast,
where Beatrice stood and faced us.

«Have a closer look to the figure greeting the pageant in the forefront,» Mr. Castilles said. «Can you see what is standing on his side?»


Then on his signal a massive, hermetically closed glass cage was carried in the room. The cage was constructed to protect a small panel painting. At a closer examination, the panel represented the same construction as the previous sketch.


«This is one of the least known images by Botticelli,» Mr. Castilles said. «The composition and the details are fully identical to his Portrait of Saint Augustine of 1495, thus he most probably painted the two pictures at the same time. The fact that this painting represents a female version of the bicycle, also links it to the chef d’oeuvre of the master, the Birth of Venus. Art historical research has pointed out that this Portrait of a Bicycle has not achieved much success in the life of the master. As far as it can be established, the contemporaries did not understand what it represented. It is also a mystery to me why Botticelli undertook this unusual task. Why did he represented the bicycle as a female version? And how is the Divine comedy connected with all that? Perhaps the bicycle is a symbol for Beatrice? You, scholars, you should find the answers for these questions.

The image was soon forgotten after the master’s death. It was preserved in the Berlin State Museum, from where it disappeared during WWII. Then through an interesting chance it got to me… but this is already a totally different story.»

Then Mr. Castilles asked us to accompany him to the exhibition room of his castle which was established on the second floor of the medieval tower with all the achievements of modern technology.


«Here you can see a minor image of Hans Holbein the Younger, the great Renaissance portraitist and court painter of Henry VIII,» he led us to a niche. «He painted it in 1540, in the same year as the famous portrait of Henry VIII preserved in the National Museum of Rome. They share a number of common details.…»

«And the same construction can be seen on an earlier sketch of Holbein. It is possible that on this the master represented the inventor himself. But this latter, judging from the gestures and looks of those standing around, was doomed to be not understood. New and unusual things were feared in every age and every period…»


Then a new miracle followed.


«This picture was painted by Jan van Eyck (1385-1441), the great master of early Flemish Renaissance,» pointed Mr. Castilles to another niche. «His Arnolfini Couple is known by everyone, but almost nobody knows about this masterpiece, painted in the same year.»

Mr. Castilles also told us that on the reverse of the Botticelli painting, during the X-ray examination of the Holbein picture and carved in the panel of that of Van Eyck the same design was found: a crowned lion on two wheels, looking at the sun and the moon. «What can it refer to? Perhaps to an Order of the Knights of the Bicycle?» We were amused by the idea, not knowing how close we were to truth.

«Bicycle is not only a vehicle of transport,» Mr. Castilles said to us at leaving, «but a form of artistic self-expression, a way of life and a Weltanschauung. Why did all these great masters dedicate a picture to the bicycle? As in the course of creation they all lived through the experience of unlimited freedom, this two-wheeled “freedom generator,” so wonderful in its simpleness, obviously deeply touched them. The bicycle as the way leading to the knowledge of the world and to freedom. You should also follow this way in your research.»”

But did the Order of the Knights of the Bicycle really exist?

“Our research center has collected a large amount of data since 1962, and on the basis of this today we can already assert with certainty that between the 12^th and 15^th centuries «the Order of the Sun and of the Moon» in fact existed in Europe. According to the sources, the knights of this order rode on «iron horses» and took part in the battles together with the traditional cavallery. Their swiftness, quick manoeuvring and the invulnerability of their «horses» posed a serious threat, while their unusual appearance, reminding of the horsemen of the Apocalpyse, had a paralysing effect on the enemy. They were able to cover very long roads, as they needed no food for their «horses.» Their late followers, for example the English Brighton Rifles set up in 1885 were a remarkable force in the Boer War of 1899-1902, and in the 20^th century they were brought into service at every army of the world.


The first written record on the Knights of the Sun and of the Moon is found in a manuscript of the popular historical compilation The Deeds of the Romans from around 1230-40. The illumination of the manuscript represents a knight riding before the army on a construction very similar to a bicycle, and his shield shows the crowned lion standing on two wheels. This is also the first known representation of the coat of arms of the order.


We also find this pattern in the 14^th-century Bellenville Manuscript which collects the coat of arms of the English king and of his vassalls..



And also in a 15^th-century French book of coat of arms.


However, the full form of the coat of arms also includes the united figure of the sun and the moon, and two obligatory accessory figures holding the shield: a silver griffin and a silver lion, both standing on a wheel. The motto of the coat of arms, «IN VELOX LIBERTAS» can be translated in various ways: «Freedom in velocity,» «Velocity makes you free» or «Swiftly into freedom.»

(Note of the English translator to the inventions of the Latin motto author and of the Russian translator: Oh scholars of Latin, have mercy on us!)


The lion is a symbol of the Sun, of force and fire. The winged lion represents both force and swiftness. The griffin is also a solar and royal animal, the lord of the air.

The Sun and the Moon, these two wheels always turning on the sky, always following and never reaching each other, obviously refer to the members of the order who advance on their always turning wheels towards always greater freedom.

The winged lion can be found since the Renaissance in the coat of arms of Venice, while the united representation of the Sun and the Moon in that of Milan.”


But why just Venice and Milan?

“It is not by chance that the symbols of Venice and Milan figure in the coat of arms of the Knights of the Sun and of the Moon,” asserts Pierre Justin. “These two cities were the centers of armorership in 14^th and 15^th-century Europe, and the construction and details of the unearthed bicycle also reflects the technological methods of their masters.”

But the discovery of Château-Gaillard also had a further surprise in store.

Steve Berkeley and Andrew Hopkins, the engineer-constructors of Cambridge University’s Scientific and Technical Center assembling the excavated fragments have decided to build a working copy of the paleo-bicycle. In the structure of the vehicle they could follow the model of the findings. However, they had no model to its detailed elaboration. In the summer of 2008 they have visited the great armor collections of Northern Italy, hoping to find inspiration in the products of the ancient masters of Milan and Venice, primarily of the Missaglia dynasty, but without any result.

At this time Peter Godward turned again to his old acquaintance, the eighty-two years old Andrea Castilles. And not in vain. Castilles had been since decades on good terms with a Northern Italian armorer whose ancestors already had been master blacksmiths in 9^th-century Milan. He also purchased of him 14^th and 15^th-century drawings, and he could always rely on him in technical questions.

“As soon as I showed the photos to Giovanni Ferrelli,” recalled later Castilles, “he exclaimed with his eyes turned to the sky: «Santa Madonna! Impossibile!» And, struggling with tears, he started to take out various drawings from his secret family archive.”




The carefully kept drawings of the Missaglia dynasty displayed with full particulars all technical detail, surface finish, dimensions, ways of assembling, all provided with explanations, descriptions, even on the secrets of how to temper the metal… And every drawing had, besides the monogram of the Missaglia family, the crowned lion standing on two wheels.

Furthermore, Giovanni Ferrelli declared that it would be his honor to participate in the reconstruction of the vehicle. The team composed under his direction completed the work in six months. The dream of Steve Berkeley and Andrew Hopkins has come true. The result can be seen in the picture below. The work received the name “Richard the Lionheart” after the one time lord of Château-Gaillard, whose land has preserved to us for centuries the secret of the order.

Boris Indrikov, the original Russian translator of the article
www.indrikov.com

Reflexiones muy intempestivas a la caída de la tarde

Bueno. Después de estas dos entradas anteriores sobre un mundo sin fronteras, donde los catalanes piden la libertad de Transilvania, los partidos radicales húngaros conspiran en viejos caserones abandonados de Mallorca, los chinos dejan marcas esgrafiadas en los pórticos de las pocas iglesias que les dejan libres los ucranianos de la diáspora y todo junto revela una conspiración judía originada en Praga, voy a hacer unas consideraciones intempestivas, personales e intransferibles sobre mis experiencias al andar por el mundo.

La primera, intrascendente, es que no me gusta Francia. En España, Italia y Portugal me encuentro como en mi casa. Pero no en Francia, y esto me extraña a mí mismo pues parece que al provenir del ámbito catalán, lo francés me debería ser más próximo. Lo cierto es que no me encuentro a gusto en Francia, qué le vamos a hacer. Michel de Montaigne escribe en su Diario del viaje a Italia al llegar a Roma (por boca de esa curiosa tercera persona que refiere a veces sus palabras): «M. de Montaigne se faschoit d'y trouver si grand nombre de François qu'il ne trouvoit en la rue quasi personne qui ne saluast en sa langue» (el Sr. de Montaigne se enfadaba al encontrar tantos franceses, que no se cruzaba con nadie en la calle que no le saludase en su lengua).

Hace unos meses estuve en Roma y sentí la misma molestia: oía hablar español por todos lados. Y esta es mi segunda consideración intempestiva de hoy, igual de intrascendente: de repente, en plena contemplación de aquellos lugares romanos que venero, en el instante de mayor recogimiento y meditación devotas, me taladraba el oído una frase en español crudo y rudo, generalmente un chiste o una gracieta tosca proferida a voz en cuello, aniquilando cualquier tentación de arrobamiento. En estos casos me venía a la mente de golpe el Saco de Roma, en aquel infausto mayo de 1527, con la ingente pérdida de obras de arte, con la violencia y la rapiña desatadas por las calles que supuso prácticamente el acta de defunción del gran Renacimiento romano. Imaginaba Roma llena de las voces, los aullidos y las tropelías de los soldados españoles (aunque los españoles eran menos de la mitad de aquella horda mercenaria, ya lo sé). Aquellos días, paseando por el Giannicolo y viendo ondear en la cima de la colina, desde la que se domina la urbe, la bandera roja y gualda en la fachada de la Academia Española, volví a sentir con fuerza este malestar. Quizá porque conozco el aire de superioridad que suelen adoptar los españoles enseguida que creen que hay el más mínimo motivo, o aunque no lo haya. Y esas bromas sin gracia que nos distinguen a la legua...

Y la pregunta es: ¿no será que esta manera un poco compulsiva de buscar huellas del mundo exterior en nuestra propia casa y, al contrario, la incomodidad que nos produce encontrar restos de nuestra procedencia en lugares extraños revelan un profundo malestar con nosotros mismos, aunque lo camuflemos de búsqueda de conocimiento, de sana curiosidad o de vaya usted a saber?

Pensaré un poco a ver si doy con una respuesta (...ahora mismo iré a ver qué dice al respecto Zhuang-zi).

Vista dominadora de Roma desde la Academia Española, arriba del Giannicolo.
La flamante bandera española señoreando el panorama, a la derecha, casi
no se ve en la foto. Hay otra en la fachada principal.

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A note by Pei Di:

I don’t know how others are with this, but I, as a Hungarian often feel in a similar way when encountering Hungarians in abroad. I don’t know whether it is my fault, that of mass tourism, or simply it is to be attributed to what Julia wrote in comment, complaining about the same at the sight of Argentine groups: “It is obvious that the faults known from home grow to a gigantic measure in our eyes, while we prefer to hide the faults of other people behind the veil of tolerance, sympathy or pictoresque.”

It is a fact that precisely on the way home from Mallorca and waiting for the change at the Barcelona airport, four loud-talking Hungarian managers sat to the next table, and after two weeks spent with work and reception the cold wind of Eastern European reality touched me again. After a melancholic acknowledging of it I returned to the Lapidary of Kapuściński where I happened to read this:

My flight goes to Brussels at 8:30 in the morning. It’s a warm, sunny day, no cloud in sight. Warsaw, Okęcie airport. Four of our compatriots fly to the great world. They are young, but already corpulent, pot-gutted, with sloppy appearance, windcheater, crumpled checked shirt, incredibly dirty tennis shoe, worn jeans – one has the impression that an average Polishman only has one dress in 1989. As soon as they enter the waiting-hall, they go to the bar – each of them takes a deciliter of vodka. They are drinking, sitting, from time to time mumbling one or two words, but they mostly keep silent. They have nothing to tell to each other, perhaps they have nothing to tell at all – for anyone. The community created by vodka soon fades away. All the four are sitting dumbly, without moving, paralyzed. What should they do, what can anyone do here? Finally one of them (with some traces of intelligence reflecting on his face) winks to the others. The winking is immediately understood. The empty, dull tension which was covering them while waiting for the next vodka, disappears, and – finally! – some sparkling, some little light, some glitter appears in their eyes, some human warmth begins to spread on their faces. Na! Naaa!! They jump from the low, hollow armchairs, they run, their bellies are trembling, they are shouting, shrieking: the fucked… – they apparently feel better, they are happy to feel soon the fiery relief running down on their throats.

And then I thought: how strange that Kapuściński, who describes his observations always precisely and always with love, this time, writing about his own compatriots, was only precise.

Unite!

In the back-street alleys of the old city of Palma, in the vaulted gateways and in the secret inner courtyards, in the jeweller’s shops of the Jewish quartier and in the vapour of the Arabic baths, in the obscurity of the Ukrainian church and in the chapels of the confraternities, in the Basque hash-houses and in the sailor’s inns some strange, dim conspiration is weaving its strings, invisibly to the outsider, just like in Ajvaz’s Prague. Only some casual signs here and there hint to this grandiose conspiracy whose threads, as Wang Wei has just discovered it, run from Catalonia to Transylvania. And his discovery also interprets and reinforces the one we have recently done just some corners farther on.


You certainly remember the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party. They participated in the parlamentary elections of 2006 with that simple and unbeatable program: “Eternal life. Free beer. Tax abatements.” Of course they have won the elections in the proportion of 98%, but the lobby of pathological anatomists, funeral directors, beer producers and tax consultants have canceled the results through an electorial fraud.

So sweet, he certainly will not want to steal. – Two-Tailed Dog for President!
Leaning back. Looking deep in my eyes. Vote for us.
Eternal life. Free beer. Tax abatements.

However, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party does not give it up. They are preparing for the next elections in a wide international collaboration. It is attested by this secret sign for the initiates that we have discovered in Palma de Mallorca, while walking up on the Carrer Pietat. It can be seen on the sign-board of the Perfil Bar which appears to be closed, but the sign itself demonstrates that appearances are deceptive: the uninhabited building is obviously the lodge of the party’s local cell.

Comrade.

However, the threads of the conspiracy reach far not only in space, but also in time. We do not want to give the show away prematurely, but let me just say this: when we will publish it, Dan Brown will get sick with envy.

Prague, Old Jewish cemetery. Tomb of Handel Bassevi

Internationalism

It’s very interesting to observe the process of mixing, internationalization, globalization or, to use a word which is more appropriate in the majority of cases, cultural hodgepodge transforming our cities.

Yesterday, giving a tour of the old quarter of Palma, I arrived at one of the most hidden squares of the city, Santa Fe, in front of the church of the same name, also the oldest one in the city.

The opposite corner is the Convent of the Jeronimes. At the end of the street,
to the right is the square and to the left the church of Santa Fe.

Ecumenism or God knows what has recently converted this church into an Ukrainian Greek Catholic church.

On the side of the Porta d’es Camp rises the last remnant of the Arabic city wall that is now the wall of the Convent of the the Jeronimites. Here was also the Jewish cemetery until well after the Conquest of Mallorca by Jaime I.

So far everything was more or less normal and predictable. Instead, the graffiti on the building which is being reconstructed at the end of the Arabic wall, is amazing: Visca Transilvania Lliure! – “Free Transylvania Forever!” – in Catalan! “Visca Catalunya Lliure” (Free Catalonia Forever) was a common inscription all over the city some years ago, it is much less now. In contrast, the Catalan independence movement seems to have expanded its borders and inflamed with altruism in its fight for the independence of all peoples… And it has reached as far as the Carpathians. Visca la Terra Lliure!

Independencia y dependencia

Es muy interesante observar el proceso de mezcla, internacionalización, globalización o, por decirlo con palabra más adecuada a la mayoría de casos, batiburrillo cultural en que se convierten nuestras ciudades.

Ayer dando una vuelta por el barrio antiguo de Palma, me dirigí hacia una de las placitas más recoletas, la de Santa Fe, ante la iglesia del mismo nombre, también de las más antiguas de la ciudad.

La esquina de enfrente es el Convento de las Jerónimas. Al fondo, a la derecha está la plaza
y a la izquierda la iglesia de Santa Fe.

Hace tiempo que el ecumenismo o no sé qué razón la ha convertido en una iglesia grecocatólica ucraniana.

Por el lado de la Porta del Camp casi linda con el último resto de la muralla árabe que, a su vez, es la tapia del Convento de las Jerónimas. Aquí al lado estuvo el cementerio judío hasta bastante más tarde de la Conquista de Mallorca por Jaime I.

Hasta aquí todo era más o menos normal y previsible. En cambio, el graffitti en el edificio que están reformando es sorprendente. El «Visca Catalunya Lliure» (Viva Cataluña libre) era común hace años en todas partes, ahora lo es mucho menos. En cambio, el independentismo catalanista parece que ha expandido sus fronteras y se ha inflamado de altruismo en su lucha por la independencia de los pueblos... Y ha llegado hasta los Cárpatos. Visca la Terra Lliure!

Crisis? What Crisis?

If NiKola draws from the Soviet posters of the 30-40’s, then the satyrical magazin Krasnaja Burda from the agitation graphics of the early 20’s. If NiKola publishes its calendar for a year, then Burda right for two years. True, perhaps also for the reason that in the next year those interested in this topic might not be able to afford themselves to buy a calendar.

Window on the crisis. Calendar for the years 2009-2010.

The calendar takes efforts to manage the situation in an optimistic way, at least as much as our government does, and it gives at least that useful advices to the various social classes touched by the crisis. The epigrammatic chastushki which also follow the best traditions of Soviet agitprop have been also given by us in a Romanized form, so that you can enjoy their optimistic melody.

Ej, broker! Postoj s nieboskrjoba sigatj! Idji obuchajsja pilitj i strogatj!

Hey, broker, don’t leap off the skyscraper! Rather go and learn how to saw and chisel.

Chto, drug, doigralsja na Foreks-rynki? Idji na ulicu chistjitj botjinki!

What, my friend, you lose on the Forex shares? Go to the street and clean shoes!

Milicionjer! Prekratji gorevatj! Milicionjeram na krizis plevatj!

Policeman! Stop being depressed! Policemen can spit on crisis.

Ej menedzher! Khvatjit revetj i rasstraivatjsja Ajda na birzhu – trudoustraivatjsja.

Hey manager! Don’t cry, don’t be down-hearted! Go on the market and look for a proper job.

Konchilis djengi, burzhuj? Nje parsja! Idji na pomojku, vmestje s nami pasharsja!

Money is over, bourgeois? Don’t loiter! Up to the dustbins, rake them with us.

Ej, pop-zvezda! Priglushi motjivchik! Opjatj otmenjilsja korporatjivchik!

Hey, popstar! The song is over! The composition of the band has changed again.

Predprinjimatjel! Predprimi shagi! V blizhajshij magazin za solju begi!

Manager! Take the necessary steps: Run for salt to the nearest shop!

Chto, njeftjermagnat, tjazhelo targovatj? Sadjis v limuzin i ajda taksovatj!

What, oil magnate, it is hard to sell? Sit in the limousine and go drive taxi!

Dnji njeprostyje, tavarish, nastali! Zuby vstavljaj iz rzhavejushchej stali!

Hard days have come, comrade! Have your teeth made out of steel!

Nje znajesh, khranitj v rubljakh ili v jevro? Propej luchshe vsjo – sberegi svoi nyevry.

You don’t know whether to spare in ruble or euro? Better drink away all – calm your nerves.

Sokratjili, vajennyj? Khadjish nje v nogu? Grabitj idji na balshuju darogu!

You’ve been fired, warrior? Don’t stand on your feet? Go and plunder along the main street!

Ljubish glamur, priglashjon na tusovku? Svistnji jedy, ukradji pollitrovku!

You love glamor, you’re invited to party? Pack from the food, hit a bottle of half liter!

May 9

– the Day of Victory, the anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War. But since some years also the anniversary of the start of another patriotic war: this time not against the Fascist beast breaking in upon the Soviet Union, but against the American capitalism aspiring to the colanization of Russia. Yes, you remember well, it’s about NiKola.

The Deka brewery of Novgorod in 2005 announced intentionally on the Day of Victory their new product, the kvass NiKola. As the name shows – ni-Kola, that is, non-Kola – it has been represented and advertised up to the present as a patriotic counterblow against the invasion of Coca-Cola in Russia. We have described in detail how they, er, drew upon the novel Generation П by Boris Pelevin, how they have built a whole brand on his idea, and how all this verifies in an implicit way the intuition of Pelevin at the beginning of the 90’s about a dictatorship of pseudo-Slavic style and of a profound patriotic spirit to set in soon.

Shortly before the fourth anniversary we confronted the most recent offensive of NiKola, the NiKola Calendar for the year of 2009, which also exploits the glory of the Great Patriotic War as well as the vivid nostalgia to the retrospectively ennobled good old times with the paraphrases of the Soviet posters of the 30’s and 40’s. Here follow all the pages of the calendar. Wherever we have found the original poster we have included them side by side.


“Beat!” (on the original poster: “Beat the enemy of the cultural revolution!”) Perhaps it is no chance that the series starts with this ukaz, easy to remember and to realize in any circumstances. It has been a favorite slogan of Soviet agitprop since as early as the Civil Wars, as it is attested by the Constructivist poster by El Lisitsky from 1919: “With a red wedge BEAT the white ones!” or by this leaflet in verse from 1941: “For the Soviet home land / Beat the German beast / Beat with bayonet, beat with grenade / Beat with what you want, but kill him!” The slogan on this poster of a temperance campaign can be also easily interpreted as diametrically opposed to the demand “Пей!” (Drink!). NiKola has only modified this archetype by somewhat transforming the shape of the bottle to the resemblance of… can you see what I see?



They did the same on the February page, on whose original the proletarian with a severe look stroke with his hammer bearing the inscription “Cultural Revolution” on a bottle of alcohol. His successor apparently finds it much more delightful to destroy his bottle of an indefinite content but with a characteristic shape. If it is about destroying at all… because the slogan долбанем signifies both “We strike on it!” and “We drink it out!”


As a little help, on every page of the calendar there appears a running footer with the slogan of NiKola: Квас – не Кола, пей НиКолу! “Kvass is no Cola. Drink NiKola!”


“Not even a drop!” – intensifies the new version the sheer “No!” of the original poster, and while vodka is refused by an adult, the content of the red bottle is already kept off even from children by the protecting hand.


For this page of the calendar I have found no prototype, although I have some ideas what it could have been. The slogan, however, is an authentic Soviet phrase: “The way of degradation!”


“Speculant is the worst enemy!”


“Still not too late – stop it!”


“The sad end.” I have found no original, I only recall a fashionable movement song from those times: “Sun never shines into the window of the prison…”


“Allé hopp!”


“On this unstable basis / however firmly you stand, / you will surely ruin your life!” I have found no visual parallel, but I guess that the text must be a quotation. If you know where from, tell it!


“Alcohol is the enemy of mind”, announced the original poster. The new one omitted “alcohol”, for everyone can see with his own eyes what the true enemy of mind is.


“To the trash with the vices!” The old version also added: “We decidedly break with the remnants of the past.” This second slogan has been obviously omitted from the new image which receives its legitimacy from the past.


“We will oppress it!” What? The old one tells it: “drinking!” On the new one the head of the snake already speaks for itself.


We have left for the end the cover of the calendar. On this, in fact, unexpectedly the enemy himself appears by directing to us the decisive question: “Chemicals or life?”

What’s that? What on earth is doing on a calendar of such a profound patriotic spirit the source of slough himself, Uncle Sam?

The answer to this question is given by the calendar itself. As during the Great Patriotic War the Soviet army had learned step by step German war technology and turned it against the Fascist beast, so is here the challenging motif, created on WWI Anglo-American recruiting posters and spreading in a great number of versions, turned against the invader by NiKola standing up for life against chemistry. In war and in love there is no law.









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Commentary of Wang Wei:

The last poster – from Catalonia – has immediately brought to my mind the great tradition of Republican posters during the Spanish Civil War. One of the most innovative authors was Josep Renau, who made a characteristic series of photomontages. Of course he also fired his weapons against the two great American icons Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Here are two samples (from The American Way of Life, 1977):

Volksgeist

In the past days we have participated at a conference of the Università degli Studi of Turin on the linguistic and literary relations between Spain and Portugal. Organized by the Scuola di Dottorato in Lingue e Letterature Moderne and coordinated by professor Giancarlo Depretis, the papers of the conference were read by Jorge Urrutia, Francisco José Martín, Francisco Escobar, Orietta Abbati, Piero Ceccucci, Mª Caterina Ruta, Gianna Carla Marras, Veronica Orazi, Fernando J. B. Martinho, Elisabetta Paltrinieri and ourselves.

Regardless of the topic of the papers – but particularly when the word iberismo was mentioned – the discussion and dialogue gravitated around the characteristics defining both peoples, demonstrating again how difficult it is to escape from all those topoi accumulated and reinforced by history and used in a self-interested way by both sides. And the fact is that, basically, these topoi tend to have some verifiable origin.

A few weeks ago in Palma, at the XIII Festival Mundial de Danses Folklòriques I could visually experience an extreme contrast between two people. First the Nganzo Ngali group of Rwanda came on the stage in the Plaza Mayor: a burst of rhythms, extreme fun, roaring of drums, jumpings and round dances, loud laughing and a complex and generous joie de vivre. The public inevitably took over their rhythm and laughing. And right after them, almost without transition, the Rancho Folclórico da Casa do Povo Aveiras de Cima from Ribatejo, Portugal appeared on the scene. Melancholy fell over us like an endless cold rain, and after the roaring of the African drums the grieved sound of the accordion, dotted only by the gentle tapping of a drummer on a jar had the effect of a sudden eclipse of the sun. Surely this was an unfair impression, caused by the excessive contrast and offuscating the history of an entire people, not mentioning the fact that this group won the prestigious third prize of the contest. Nevertheless, after this experience who among the Catalan and Spanish public could deny the topos of the Portuguese who is melancholic, sad and pessimistic even when dancing and feasting?

Have a look at the photos, because they are worth a thousand words. They also display how different human beings can be, beyond the color or the particular place where they live. Even music is not missing: you can hear it from their gestures, faces and eyes.

Nganzo Ngali, Rwanda.

Ribatejo, Portugal

Commentary of Pei Di:

Palya Bea and the Folkestra: Portugál (of the album Mamikám, 2001)
Refrain: “…sweet sorrow / I’ll go there some day / how to explain it, it’s a Portuguese thing / they look at the sun / and their heart is aching / I’ll go there some day and will think of you…”

A vueltas con el 'Volksgeist'

Estos días pasados hemos estado en la Università degli Studi de Turín, en un congreso en que se debatieron las Relaciones Lingüístico-literarias entre España y Portugal. Convocados por la Scuola di Dottorato in Lingue e Letterature Moderne y bajo la coordinación del profesor Giancarlo Depretis, participaron con nosotros Jorge Urrutia, Francisco José Martín, Francisco Escobar, Orietta Abbati, Piero Ceccucci, Mª Caterina Ruta, Gianna Carla Marras, Veronica Orazi, Fernando J. B. Martinho y Elisabetta Paltrinieri (ved el cartel con los títulos de los trabajos).

Independientemente del tema concreto que se tratara —pero especialmente cuando se mencionaba la palabra iberismo— la discusión y el diálogo resbalaban hacia las características que definen a ambos pueblos, probándose de nuevo lo difícil que es sustraerse a tantos tópicos que la historia ha ido acumulando, reforzando y ultilizando de manera interesada desde cualquiera de los dos lados. Y el caso es que, en el fondo, los tópicos suelen tener algún origen real y comprobable.

Hace ya unas semanas pude asistir en Palma a una visualización extrema del contraste entre dos pueblos. Fue en el marco del XIII Festival Mundial de Danses Folklòriques. Coincidieron en el tablado de la Plaza Mayor, primero el grupo Nganzo Ngali, de Ruanda: un estallido de ritmo, alegría y estruendo de tambores, saltos y giros, sonrisas y compleja y generosa joie de vivre. El público llevaba el ritmo y sonreía sin poderlo evitar. Y acto seguido, sin apenas transición, subió al escenario el Rancho Folclórico da Casa do Povo Aveiras de Cima, en Ribatejo, Portugal. La melancolía nos cayó encima como una infinita ducha fría, y el contraste entre los tambores africanos y el apagado aire del acordeón, punteado solo por el suave golpeo sobre un búcaro, una tinaja de lata o el leve raspado de una tabla produjo el efecto de un eclipse súbito de sol. Seguramente ésta fue una sensación injusta porque desenfocaba, por contraste excesivo, la historia de todo un pueblo (y además esta agrupación se alzó con el tercer premio del certamen). Pero ¿quén podría negar el tópico del portugués saudoso, triste, pesimista hasta cuando festeja y baila, viéndoles encima de aquellas tablas?

Invito a contemplar las fotos, porque creo que sobran las palabras. En ellas se comprueba también una profunda distancia entre los seres humanos, más allá del color o del lugar concreto en que habiten. Bastan los gestos, los ojos, las marcas del rostro, sin necesidad de que se oiga la música.

Nganzo Ngali, Ruanda.

Ribatejo, Portugal

Comentario de Pei Di:

Palya Bea y el Folkestra: Portugál (del álbum Mamikám, 2001)
Estribillo: «…dulce tristeza / iré allí alguna vez / cómo explicarlo, es una cosa portuguesa / miran el sol / y el corazón les duele / iré allí alguna vez y pensaré en ti…»