Poemas del río Wang

Mao lives

2012-01-30T23:45:00.003+01:00

Since long we would have liked to write about the Opletal exhibition, the hitherto largest European exhibition on the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76) which ended in Vienna in last November, and this post is partly an introduction to it. The exhibition mainly focused on the relics of the Cultural Revolution, and pushed into the background the photos. So now we would like to present three series of photos connected with the Revolution, taken by three recognized Chinese artists. All three were exposed in the 百年印象 Băinián Yìnxiàng, “A Hundred Years of Impressions” photo gallery of Beijin in recent years.

翁乃强 Wēng Năiqiáng (1936) was born in Indonesia, and arrived at China after the Communist takeover at the age of 15. He graduated in painting and photography at the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, and during all the Cultural Revolution he worked as a photo journalist. Since 1993 he teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts. His color (!) photos taken for the central journals depicted on a high professional level the iconic scenes and gestures of the Cultural Revolution, from swinging the little red book through the marching of the Revolutionary Guards to the revolutionary theater performances.

晓庄 Xiăo Zhuāng (1933) went to guerilla fight against the Kuomintang at the age of 16. From 1950 she worked for the newspaper of the army, and from 1952 for the Xin Hua News Agency. She held several high posts at various newspapers, and from 1980 she was chief redactor of the journal of Chinese photographers. Her pictures show the same iconic scenes obviously through a female eye, very sensitively, focusing on the single persons and on the sight rather than on the political theme. These pictures are not the didactic propaganda illustrations we are accustomed to. These pictures are very good photos. And therefore very dangerous ones.

The recurrent inscription: 毛主席万岁 Măo Zhŭxí wànsuì “Long live (verbally: Ten thousand years) Chairman Mao!”

王彤 Wáng Tóng (1967) graduated at the Arts College of Henan. He started to take photos in 1989, and today he is the director of photography of the Chinese National Geographic. He took the following photos back in 1996 as a beginner, on one of the last visual memory of the Cultural Revolution living with us, the Mao representations surviving on the walls. Probably in the last minute. The images and inscriptions which did not disappear of themselves by the time, were destroyed together with the wall and with all old Beijing by the heirs of Mao and the Cultural Revolution.

Bienes familiares

2012-01-29T20:47:00.001+01:00

«Como todos los Fillyjonks, también ella estaba rodeada de un buen montón de baratijas. Pequeños espejos y fotos de familia sobre terciopelo en marcos de concha, gatitos de porcelana y Hemulens sobre manteles de encaje, dichos de oro bordados en preciosa seda o plata, pequeñas copas y encantadoras cubreteteras —cierto, todo este tipo de cosas que hacen la vida más fácil, menos peligrosa y menos deprimente».

Tove Jansson: “The Fillyjonk who believed in disasters” (en Det osynliga barnet och andra berättelser, 1962)

Los fotografos de Beijing 黄庆军 Huáng Qìngjūn (1971) y 马宏杰 Mă Hóngjié (1963) han estado recorriendo durante años casi toda China intentando convencer a una familia en cada provincia —cosa que, dicen, no ha sido tarea fácil— de que expusieran sus propiedades delante de la casa y se colocaran entre ellas, y de que les dejaran sacar luego una foto del conjunto.

No sabemos si también sugerían cómo organizar los objetos. De no ser así, es sorprendente cómo se repiten patrones similares en la presentación de las propiedades, desde la estepa de Mongolia Interior hasta las aldeas Miao y desde las montañas de Sichuán hasta el estuario del Yangtzé. Las disponen en una amplia línea frontal, para hacer bien visible el mayor número e intentando, y casi siempre consiguiendo, que quepan en una única hilera. Normalmente no las apilan, sino que las presentan una por una, del mismo modo como las adquirieron. La familia está casi siempre sentada o de pie en el medio. Es así incluso en las dos o tres excepciones en que se desplazan hacia la casa como centro. En los casos en que tienen reservas de alimentos, sacos de arroz, maíz, las ponen en primer plano como símbolo de abundancia. Así como a los animales.

Viendo las fotos, la primera impresión es «he aquí todo esto». Aquí tenemos todos los objetos que rodean a estas personas desde su nacimiento hasta su muerte, las cosas cuya presencia esperan y necesitan encontrar en su lugar correspondiente, repartidas dentro o fuera de la casa. Su peso como entidad conjunta, como si se tratara de un miembro más de la familia, solo ha de advertirse de manera clara en el momento de mudar de domicilio, o cuando se ven en la calle.

La segunda impresión es: «¿esto es todo?» ¿Se puede pasar la vida con estos pocos bienes? No hace mucho, en un hogar campesino se contaban unos quinientos objetos, la mayoría de uso cotidiano. En nuestro mundo industrializado nos sumimos en hasta cien veces más objetos por hogar. No importa lo mucho que deseemos una vida más simple ni que queramos eliminar todas las fruslerías innecesarias de nuestro entorno: un grupo de objetos de uso cotidiano reducido a tal extremo significaría para nosotros pobreza, y sin tener en cuenta la condición de las casas.

Sin embargo, los dos fotógrafos destacan en los textos con que acompañan su trabajo cómo nos encontramos ante un increíble avance en la riqueza de una inmensa mayoría de familias chinas, que ahora pueden poseer tantas cosas. Para ellos, dicen, esta exhibición es la prueba de las oportunidades y el progreso sin ataduras que les ha traído el Partido después de tantas décadas de promesas. A menudo olvidamos la distancia que separa nuestros puntos de vista.

Family stuff

2012-01-29T16:58:00.003+01:00

“Like all Fillyjonks, she was also surrounded by quite a lot of trinkets. Small mirrors and family photos in velvet and shell frame, china kittens and Hemulens on lace tablecloths, golden sayings embroidered with beautiful silk or silver, tiny goblets and charming teapot caps – yes, all kind of things that make life easier, less dangerous and less depressing.”

Tove Jansson: “The Fillyjonk who believed in disasters” (in Det osynliga barnet och andra berättelser, 1962)

Beijing photographers 黄庆军 Huáng Qìngjūn (1971) and 马宏杰 Mă Hóngjié (1963) have been roaming about all China for years by trying to persuade a family in each province – it’s not easy, they say – to put off all their stuff in front of the house, and to sit down between them, so the photographers could take a group image of them.

I do not know whether they also tell them how to arrange their objects. If not, then it is remarkable how similar patterns are followed in the display of things from the Inner Mongolian steppe to the Miao villages and from the mountains of Sichuan to the Yangtze estuary. They arrange them in one single broad line, to make visible the most possible items, provided that they fit into one line, but usually they do. Normally they do not pile them up, but exhibit them one by one, just like they acquired them. The family is almost always sitting or standing in the middle, and even in the two or three exceptions they are shifted towards the house as a center. Wherever they have food reserves, rice sacks, corn pipes, they put them in the forefront as the symbol of abundance. As well as the animals.

Looking at the pictures, our first impression is “this much, then”. Here we have together all the objects which are touched by a person from his birth to his death, which are always waiting for this touch on the usual place in the background, scattered in and around the house, so that the weight of their joint presence, like that of an additional family member, is perceived in such a compulsive way only at the time of moving to a new house, or when one is turned out to the street from the old one.

The second impression is: “this much only”? Is it possible to live a whole life with so few things? While not so long ago a peasant household had about five hundred objects, most of which were used in daily activities, in an industrialized culture we are surrounded by even a hundred times more things per household. No matter how much we want to live a simple life and try to eliminate the unnecessary frippery around ourselves, a set of everyday objects reduced to this extreme implies poverty to us even without considering the condition of the houses.

However, the two photographers stress in the accompanying text what an incredible step forward and wealth it is for the vast majority of Chinese families to possess so many objects. For them, they say, this exposition is a symbol of the boundless opportunities and progress brought to them by the Party after so many decades of promises. We often forget about how great differences can be between our perspectives.

Old Beijing

2012-01-28T16:29:00.004+01:00

We were looking for photos to the reconstruction of the old Beijing which has been systematically destroyed since the 1950s, and this is how we found this series of several hundreds of color photos, taken by by Dmitri Kessel for LIFE in 1946. These pictures are particularly valuable, because probably it was the last moment when the old Beijing could be seen more or less as it was seen for centuries, and the first one when someone documented it in detail in photographs.

Dmitri Kessel (1902-1995) was born in the Ukraine, in a Jewish landowner’s family. He received his first camera when he was 14 years old: according to his autobiography, this was broken over his head by a Bolshevik soldier when the property of the family was confiscated. In 1923 he fled to America where, after ten years spent with various casual jobs, in 1934 he enrolled on a course in the school of photography. It was a fortunate moment for a beginner: the coming of the new miniature 35mm Leica camera, which enabled photographers to work quickly and unobtrusively in the most difficult situations, contributed to the emergence of the great American picture magazines Life and Fortune, which provided a perfect platform for the first great generation of young photojournalists. Kessel photographed for sixty years all over the world almost exclusively for Life, of which he was also a war correspondent during WWII.

A few pieces of this Beijing series were published in the 29 April 1946 edition of Life, but most of them first became available in the Google-Life photo database. In these images we still see the single-story hutong city, with few passers, almost without a vehicle; the Forbidden City is already a museum, but every since then demolished city walls and gates are still standing; on the facade of the imperial palace there is hanging Chiang Kai-shek’s portrait instead of Mao’s; and the most recent structure we see is the late 19th-century railway station and the train tracks at the foot of the old city walls. As if we were walking in the scenery of a wuxia movie: with the difference that here everything is still real. The photos were mainly taken on the Tian’anmen and in the Forbidden City, in the imperial park of the North Lake and at the Heavenly Temple, and whoever has been to Beijing will easily recognize most of them. Nevertheless, because the great changes the theme and location of many photos are difficult to define: on this are now working the readers of the Chinese tieku.org forum. We will also use their definitions to the reconstruction of old Beijing, where we will link these and several other vintage photos to the map of the old city.

The Republic Beyond the River

2012-01-27T23:07:00.002+01:00

No, not that of Transdnistria, but a much smaller and certainly much more cheerful one. This republic lays beyond the little river of Vilnius, in the former ghetto, populated after the deportation of the Jews first by the underworld and the city’s poorest residents, and then, from the 70’s onwards, an increasing number of penniless artists. They proclaimed in 1997 the Užupis – that is, Beyond the River – Republic, which has its own president and bishop, embassy in Moscow and no less than four flags.

According to the founding legend of the republic, after the removal of the Lenin statues, the empty pedestal piqued the sense of beauty of the artists, and they joined forces to carve on it, in Socialist Realist style, the statue of Frank Zappa. The movement filled the local community with such a consciousness that they decided: they become independent from Lithuania, which does not care about the desolate quarter, and take their destiny into their own hands. Whatever happened, the symbol of the independent state is now the angel statue erected on its main street in 2002. It is this symbol which gave the new official name of the new state: The Angel’s Republic, announces proudly the visa, stamped in the visitors’ passport in the pub standing at the Užupis bridgehead of the border river.

Photos by Alexandr Belenkiy

红色弗兰肯斯坦

2012-01-27T15:38:00.001+01:00

A dog after the cat. After a short pause, the Chinese language version of Río Wang is continued with a new post. Thank you, minus273!

La República del Otro Lado del Río

2012-01-27T10:19:00.007+01:00

No es la de Transnistria sino una mucho menor y ciertamente mucho más acogedora. Esta república se ha establecido más allá del pequeño río de Vilnius, en el antiguo gueto repoblado, tras la deportación de los judíos, primero por marginados y por los más pobres de la ciudad y luego, desde los setenta, por un creciente número de artistas bohemios y de pocos posibles. Son ellos los que proclamaron en 1997 la República de Užupis («del otro lado del río»), con su propio presidente, obispo y embajador en Moscú, y dotada nada menos que de cuatro banderas.

Según la leyenda acerca de la fundación de la República, una vez que hubieron retirado la estatua de Lenin, el pedestal vacío espoleó el sentido estético de los artistas, que unieron sus fuerzas para colocar allí, en el mejor estilo del realismo socialista, una estatua de Frank Zappa. Esta iniciativa despertó tan vivamente sus conciencias que tomaron una solemne decisión: independizarse de Lituania ya que se había desinteresado por completo de aquel barrio desolado, y forjar su propio destino con las manos. Sea como fuere, ahora el símbolo del estado independiente es la estatua del ángel que erigieron en la calle mayor en 2002. Es esta la imagen que ha dado finalmente el nombre oficial al nuevo estado: República del Ángel es el sello que estampan orgullosamente en el pasaporte de todos los visitantes que entran en la taberna al extremo del puente, sobre la misma orilla del río.

Fotos de Alexandr Belenkiy

Citizen Barrel Organ

2012-01-26T21:31:00.003+01:00

Niko Pirosmani: Arganshchik (organ grinder from Tbilisi), two versions, 1910

We have already met organ-grinders in pre-war Warsaw and Lwów, Bucharest and bombed-out Budapest, and even in America and the Caucasian Georgia, and a comprehensive illustrated post on the history of the barrel organ is already becoming ripe, indeed. This, however, would not be complete without the Russian organ grinder.

The scene with the organ grinder and the Gypsy girl from an 1910s performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushka

The barrel organ, that is шарманка – whose name is an assimilation of the French charmante with a Russian diminutive suffix – was popular in the towns and even villages of Russia at the turn of the century, together with its master, the шарманщик, whose detailed portrait is drawn in Lev Uspensky’s Записки старого петербуржца 1890-1910 (Records of an old citizen of St-Petersburg), of which we want to specifically write later. It was a special Russian feature that the organ grinder usually went from village to village in the company of a puppeteer, called Petrushka after one of his traditional puppets, who was elevated into high art together with the organ-grinder by Stravinsky in his ballet of 1910.

Alexei Ivanovich Korzuhin: “Petrushka has come!” (1888) Russian village idyll. In the background you can discover our old acquaintances, the early heralds of modernization: the paleocyclist to the right, and the children’s stroller to the left.

After the revolution, however, the barrel organ – unlike in other countries – quickly declined in the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it was separated from its Petrushka, monopolized by the young Soviet agitation and propaganda art for the purpose of workers’ performances. On the other hand, as Gilyarovsky’s Moscow shows it sensitively, the Soviet power tried to eliminate both such kinds of mobile elements, and the traditional population which was its audience. One of the last hommages to the sharmanshchik as a living trade is, we think, the book which we would like to present now, and which appeared in Leningrad without date, but sometime around 1925.

Sharmanochka – Little Barrel Organ. Its author is the same Nikolai Yakovlevich Agnivtsev who published the recently presented In defense of the chimney sweep as well as a number of other forgotten pearls of youth literature. You can read the translation of the poems in popup windows.

Песенка старого шарманщика (Song of the old organ grinder). Dedicated to Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Music and song by Bulat Okudzhava

Шарманка-шарлатанка, как сладко ты поешь!
Шарманка-шарлатанка, куда меня зовешь?
Шагаю еле-еле, вершок за пять минут.
Ну как дойти до цели, когда ботинки жмут?

Работа есть работа. Работа есть всегда.
Хватило б только пота на все мои года.
Расплата за ошибки – она ведь тоже труд.
Хватило бы улыбки, когда под ребра бьют.

Barrel organ, charlatan! how sweet you sing!
Barrel organ, charlatan! where do you call me?
I hardly advance, five minutes an inch:
How could I arrive, when the shoes are tight?

Work is just work, and work is all the time:
so much sweat would have been enough for a life.
Pay for the errors as well – it is also work
and when it beats under the string – give at least a smile.

Ali Baba, the last Russian organ grinder (Pyotr Yakovlevich Lyubaev, Petyka)
Вокруг Света, June 1970

The nostalgia for the barrel organ, as shown by the song of Okudzhava, was not forgotten after the craft went into oblivion. How could it have gone, once in one of the most popular Soviet children’s books – if not the most popular one indeed –, Alexei Tolstoy’s The little golden key (1936), a recast of Pinocchio (which in my humble opinion is better than the Italian original) Daddy Carlo is no carpenter, but an organ grinder! His statue is still standing in front of the Kiev Children’s Theater. Moreover, it seems that the instrument is living a new golden age, which is marked not only by the increasing presence of nostalgia organ grinders on various fairs, but its genial further developments such as the one presented by the Russian television in the following program:

An organ grinder leading a trained fox and a dog. Ivan Turgenev’s drawing in his sketchbook, 1834

After harvest

2012-01-25T19:57:00.010+01:00

Dense, green, hot, fragrant. The first bottle from Mallorca.

A thousand year old olive tree in Mallorca, one of the many

Antonio Machado (1875-1939): Apuntes (Sketches), detail, to be heard here

Sobre el olivar,
se vio la lechuza
volar y volar.
Campo, campo, campo.
Entre los olivos,
los cortijos blancos.
Y la encina negra,
a medio camino
de Úbeda a Baeza.

Por un ventanal
Entra la lechuza
En la catedral
San Cristobalón
La quiso espantar
Al ver que bebía
Del velón de aceite
De Santa María
La Virgen habló
Déjala que beba
San Cristobalón

Sobre el olivar,
se vio la lechuza
volar y volar.
A Santa María
un ramito verde
volando traía.
¡Campo de Baeza,
soñaré contigo
cuando no te vea!

Over the olive grove
the owl was
flying and flying
Fields, fields, fields
Among the olive trees,
white farmhouses
And the black oak
halfway between
Úbeda and Baeza

Through a window
the owl worked its way
into the cathedral
Giant Saint Christopher
tried to chase it away
seeing that it drank
oil from the lamp
of the Holy Mary.
But Our Lady said
Let him drink of it
Giant Saint Christopher

Over the olive grove
the owl was
flying and flying.
To the Holy Mary
a green sprig
it brought flying.
Fields of Baeza,
I’ll dream with you when I
no longer see you!

The cathedral of Mallorca seen from the sea in 1877, at the inauguration of the horse train line.
From the Mallorca Photoblog

“I Even Met Happy Gypsies”

2012-01-24T19:49:00.006+01:00

Aleksandar Petrović will perhaps forgive that we borrowed the first verse of a song from his world famous film, but now we enter a world in which this statement is entirely true. Nowadays many words – mainly aiming at getting more votes – but much less heart and even less sense is working to improve the fate of the Gypsies, although there are a number of success stories to be imitated, including an obvious field: music.

We have already written about the multi-ethnic singing in the pubs of Lwów (and we hope that we would be able to illustrate this later), but the music which at the same time, in the 1920s was written on gramophone records in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, is simply breathtaking. The following gramophone recordings witness such a wonderful virtuosity and such a high level of instrumental and vocal music, which is in a perfect contrast to our modern stereotypes about Balkan music. These melodies carry us to the smoky pubs of Belgrade, to the noise of the Sarajevo bazaar, into a beautiful, sunny world in mid-winter. Let us listen, then, to Mijat Mijatović and the Gypsy band of Dušan Popaz. If your heart starts to beat more intensely, it is no accident.

Our photos commemorate some well known and less known old Hungarian Gypsy bands.

Mijat Mijatović 1887-1937

Mijat Mijatović in Belgrade

Jedren grade

Dušan Popaz and his band

Šorom ide mlad momak

Imre Magyari (1899-1940) and his band

Vino piju, nane, age Sarajlije

Pali Pertis (1906-47) and his band, 1937. His grandson was the world famous Hungarian violin virtuoso Barnabás Kelemen.

The great actor Pál Jávor in the pub

Zorule

Pista Dombi (1895-1944) and his band, 1935

Sto si Leno na golemo

Kálmán Oláh Jr. (1910-?) and his band, 1940

Imam Jednu Želju

Unknown Gypsy band around 1910. Source: fortepan.hu

Kupi mi majko top

Unknown Gypsy band playing at 5 o’clock, on 15 July 1934. in Pócsmegyer, at the double wedding
of my grandparents’ cousins. Notice their proud and self-confident look. The negatives
suffered various injuries during the vicissitudes of the 20th century

Eto tako živim ja

Hasta encontré gitanos felices

2012-01-24T09:01:00.000+01:00

Seguramente Aleksandar Petrović perdonará que le robemos el primer verso de una canción de su famosa película, pero estamos entrando en un mundo en el que su contenido es cierto del todo. Palabrería hay mucha —sobre todo con el objetivo de conseguir votos— pero lo cierto es que se pretende mejorar el destino de los gitanos con poco corazón y todavía menos sentido. Por supuesto, si hay un campo donde encontrar buenos ejemplos de éxito que podrían imitarse este es, sin duda, la música.

Ya hemos hablado de los cantos multiétnicos en las tabernas de Lwów (y esperamos poder ilustrarlos más adelante) pero la música que en la misma época, la década de 1920, se grababa en aquellos gruesos discos para gramófono en el reino de los serbios, croatas y eslovenos es sencillamente impresionante. Las siguientes grabaciones atestiguan el extraordinario virtuosismo y el altísmo nivel de la música instrumental y vocal, marcando un crudo contraste con los estereotipos actuales de la música balcánica. Estas melodías nos llevan a las tabernas llenas de humo de Belgrado, al ruidoso bazar de Sarajevo, a un mundo hermoso y soleado en mitad del invierno. Escuchemos, pues, a Mijat Mijatovic y la banda gitana de Dušan Popaz. Si vuestro pulso de pronto se acelera, no será por azar.

Nuestras fotos rinden homenaje a algunas viejas bandas gitanas húngaras; unas son bien conocidas, otras menos.

Mijat Mijatović 1887-1937

Mijat Mijatović en Belgrado

Jedren grade

Dušan Popaz y su banda

Šorom ide mlad momak

Imre Magyari (1899-1940) y su banda

Vino piju, nane, age Sarajlije

Pali Pertis (1906-47) y su banda, 1937. Su nieto fue el virtuoso violinista húngaro de fama mundial Barnabás Kelemen.

El gran actor Pál Jávor en el bar

Zorule

Pista Dombi (1895-1944) y su banda, 1935

Sto si Leno na golemo

Kálmán Oláh Jr. (1910-?) y su banda, 1940

Imam Jednu Želju

Banda gitana desconocida, hacia 1910. Fuente: fortepan.hu

Kupi mi majko top

Banda gitana desconocida tocando a las 5 en punto, el 15 de julio de 1934 en Pócsmegyer, en la boda doble
de los primos de mis abuelos. Nótese su orgullosa y confiada mirada. Los negativos han sufrido serios desperfectos a lo largo de las vicisitudes del s. XX

Eto tako živim ja

Circular Time

2012-01-24T07:30:00.005+01:00

Dragon

“My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity and value, and how value relates to current political social understandings and misunderstandings.”
Ai Weiwei

Bear/Tiger

From the “Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads” exhibition by Ai Weiwei, in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain courtyard of Somerset House, London, 12th May to 26th June 2011.

“Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads … re-creations of the traditional Chinese zodiac sculptures which once adorned the fountain-clock of Yuanmingyuan … Designed in the 18th Century by two European Jesuits at the behest of the Manchu emperor Qianlong, the fountain-clock featured the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, each spouting water at two-hour intervals. In 1860, the Yuanmingyuan was ransacked by French and British troops and the heads were pillaged. Today, seven heads – the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, horse, monkey and bear [!] – have been located, the whereabouts of the other five are unknown.” (Exhibition description).

Two original statues from the Yuanmingyuan’s fountain

Just as the two Jesuits reworked European motifs into the Chinese culture of Emperor Qianlong, Ai Weiwei creates anew rather than reproduces, reworking in time and place the heads pillaged in the Yuanmingyuan. He „focuses attention on questions of looting and repatriation while extending his ongoing exploration of the ʻfake’ and the copy in relation to the original.”

“Our whole condition was very sad, but we still feel warmth, and the life in our bodies can still tell us that there is excitement in there, even though death is waiting. We had better not enjoy the moment, but create the moment.”
(Ai Weiwei, Exhibition description).

Another photo set of the same statues, exhibited in New York’s Grand Army Plaza

For comparison, a different yet complementary reworking of the twelve zodiac animals may be found in the work of Shanghai-born Li Huayi:

The Great Circle of Time

2012-01-23T08:41:00.001+01:00

Ripples appeared on the smooth surface of the sea, and the Dragon rose from the depths of waters, to visit, like all twelve years, his children. He took off to the sky, and by pulling a fiery frisk behind, he began to fly towards the capital of the empire. On the screen it was well seen how rapidly were left behind the characteristic landscapes of China down there, the coastal fishing villages, the tile roofs of medieval towns, the eroded hills accompanying the Pearl River. It was eight then, at least in China, because at us one past noon, as we were sitting with Zhen at the Lunar New Year’s table covered with twenty-eight plates, and watching that in the four hours, until the Dragon arrives to the capital, which program is announced by the government to the people of China over the next year.

The Lunar New Year TV show always presents in an easy-to-follow way what is in store for the country in that year, what the government expects from the country’s people, with particular emphasis on the most important values in that particular year. This year, the most important value is the extended family, announced the show: let us compensate for the declining European and American export with solidarity within the family and by supporting each other, thus preserving ourselves for better times. The performers were families of artists, and the audience were also families invited from all over the country, each sitting around a small New Year’s table, for the very first time in the history of the New Year’s shows, as far as I remember. The largest family is of course the whole people of China living all over the world, and consequently the show – again for the first time – had the title The Chinese World. Most of the scenes took place in family apartments, in the projected backgrounds of which you could see, as if through the windows, the modern housing estates in construction. And the show – also for the first time – was determined by a retro feeling, by the nostalgy for the reform period and first prosperity in the late 80s, by the songs of those times, which are also the best way now to forge solidarity between the generations.

We, on our part, greet the Lunar New Year with Igor Olejnikov’s picture book of 2010: Легенда о Восточном календаре, “Legend of the Eastern calendar”. The book’s success is indicated by its many Far Eastern translations and by the fact that it is used even in China to teach to the children the figures of the Chinese zodiac and their properties.

One of the world’s oldest calendars, the Chinese calendar, called the Great Circle of Time, was composed five thousand years ago. The circle, just like a cake, is divided into twelve equal articles, which were distributed among eleven animals and the Dragon.

According to the legend, in ancient times people did not know how to keep track of the years. This was taught to them by the Jade Emperor. One day he ordered his servants to bring to him the twelve most worthy creatures in the earth. The servants went about the world, and collected eleven animals plus the Dragon. On the appointed day they all appeared before the Jade Emperor: the Dragon, the Ox, the Horse, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Goat, the Pig, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Dog, the Cat and the Rat. The latter two were inseparable friends at that time, they went everywhere together, so they also appeared together in the court of the Emperor.

The Heavenly Emperor wanted to designate twelve princes for the Time. After all, there was only so much space on the Great Circle of Time. But when greeting the appeared, he saw with surprise that they are one more. After a short thinking he announced that the next morning all of them have to cross the River of Time. He would be waiting for them in his palace across the river with magical gifts: twelve sacks, each of them containing one-twelfth of the world’s remaining years. The first who comes would receive the first year of the Great Circle, and the last one would be left without a gift.

At night the animals and the Dragon gathered together around the fire before the competition of the next day. All of them were thinking about how to be the first to cross the River. Five of them were crouched sad, like a black cloud: the Goat, the Rooster, the Monkey, and the two inseparable friends, the Cat and the Rat. They were unable to swim.
When everyone was asleep, the Cat and the Rat pulled over whispering. In fact, they knew that among all animals the Ox is the simplest and most benevolent, so they tried to trick him.

The two cunning creatures found the Ox in his garden, as he was so diligent that he could not go to sleep before having a last visit of his rice beds. The Cat and the Rat began like this:
– Dear Ox, you swim the best, and you are so strong! The only problem is that you have such a bad sight and it is difficult for you to find the right direction…
– You’re right, kids, but what can I do?
– We can help you. Swim with us. The Cat, whose eyes are so sharp, will show you the way. We will make you the winner, Ox!
– You are true friends, I thank you gratefully. I will make a little wooden raft, binding it on my back, so you can swim easier with me. How wonderfully you have planned everything!
So they came to an agreement.

The Rat did not sleep a wink in the night. So much he wanted to win! So much he wanted to be the first! He, the smallest and most insignificant of all the animals! At last the moment came to show: he is also worth something. The rats are very clever animals, and he already knows the solution, lest he forgets to take the most important thing: a long, flexible pole!

The morning came, they had to go. The raft was ready, fabricated by the Ox for the two friends. He even made a small armchair for the Rat.

The Cat was standing between the two horns of the Ox, from there he directed him which way to swim.

(The same picture from the Korean edition of the book, with the sail translated into Korean).

And when they almost reached the far bank, the Rat grabbed the pole, with a run-up he pushed it against the nape of the Ox, jumped high into the air, and hop! he flew over the Ox’s head and ended up on the shore.

The only problem was that while jumping, he pushed the Cat who fell into the water. He almost drowned, and a strong current took him to the depths.

Fortunately, he could hold onto the fishes’ pagoda, so he did not get far away from the coast.

The Ox, as soon as he felt the ground under the hooves, struggled out of the water. His glasses fell off in the meantime, so he did not even realize what happened.

The Rat was running before him, pointing somewhere with his arm, and the Ox followed him. But the deceitful Rat was so thirsty for victory that by leaving him behind he first burst into the Heavenly Palace. There he stopped in front of the Jade Emperor, and the tired Ox soon followed him.

– I can see now who will be the first two animals of the Great Circle of Time. Rat, you have surprised me. As I promised, yours is the first year… But you will pay dearly for your victory, you and all your descendants to the end of time. And you, Ox, receive the next year for your kindness and endurance.
At this moment appeared the Tiger, the noblest of all animals. He saw how hard the Ox was swimming, and he had not the heart to precede him. He was happy with the third place, received for his generosity. He tenderly took the magic bag in his paws, and by pulling aside, he started exploring its content.

The fourth year of the Great Circle of Time was given to the Rabbit who jumped over the cliffs overhanging the river, holding his umbrella over himself against the heat.

Everyone knows that the most important task of the Dragon is the protection of lands, treasures, family values and traditions. The most valuable ones he always carries with himself in well-sealed clay jars tied on his back. Every dragon is a very fast and fearsome creature, so it would have been no great effort to the Dragon to arrive the first at the Heavenly Palace. But the dragons never forget about their tasks. In the morning he first had to go about all his possessions and collect the valuables assigned to him. Only after this he could go to the palace, where he arrived the fifth. The Jade Emperor gave him the fifth year for his sense of duty.

The Horse rapidly swam across the river, but on the shore he noticed the Ant-Hill and the Ants bustling around it. He could not go on the shore without injuring one of these workaholics. While looking the way out, the Snake quickly slithered ashore between the ants, and he was awarded with the sixth year for his mundane wisdom.

When the Horse finally struggled ashore, carefully avoiding any building and their inhabitants, he arrived the seventh at the Heavenly Palace. The Jade Emperor gave him the seventh year for his compassion and carefulness.
Remember that at the beginning of the story there were five animals who could not swim? We already know how the Cat and the Rat helped themselves, but what happened to the Goat, the Monkey and the Rooster? Well, they built a raft! The intelligent and attentive Monkey saw how the Ox did it, and he imitated him. The Rooster supervised the building, and the Goat, who is always an obedient and friendly companion, helped them. All night along they collected wood, and in the morning they tied them up. With what, you ask? Well, with friendship and of course with ropes. They started the last, with long poles pushing themselves off the shore.

The glorious Jade Emperor gave them the eighth, ninth and tenth year of the Great Circle. As it was difficult to determine their order, the Jade Emperor gave them the awards by size: to the Goat for his collaboration, the Monkey for his intelligence and the Rooster for the good distribution and supervision of the work. The call of the Jade Emperor made eternal friends the three animals. They did not care that the others preceded them: the most important thing was that they found each other.

There was one more good swimmer: the Pig. He quickly swam across the River, and could have received one of the first gifts of the Jade Emperor, were he not so crazy about wallowing. He would have not omitted any lukewarm puddle, and he dipped in all of them along the shore.

Right next o him it was the drenched and tired Dog to struggle out of the water, loudly chattering from the cold: “bow-bow-bow”. Now, dogs have a very strong sense of responsibility, and the most important thing to them is that everyone and everything be in order around the house. So he ran to and fro between the Palace and the animals landing on the shore, chattering all the way, and so do his offspring, whose barking imitates the cough of the first Dog. He also reminded the Pig about why he swam across the River at all, and accompanied him to the Palace. For his responsibility he received the eleventh year.
Behind him trotted the Pig, after with great difficulty he dragged himself out of the warm mud. The Jade Emperor gave him the twelfth year for his being so able to enjoy life.

But I am sure that our dear and attentive readers are already concerned: what happened finally to the Cat? He turned up from the river only after the Jade Emperor distributed his twelve gifts. The Emperor has long disappeared behind the clouds, and the twelve princes of the year were standing at the gate, rejoicing over their victory. But the Rabbit hearkened to the arrival of the Cat, and his heart was filled with compassion. The Rabbit, who is a great friend of peace, happily offered to the Cat to reign together over the years allotted to him. This is why the various Eastern calendars differ in who owns the fourth year: the Rabbit or the Cat? But we know well how it happened.
The Cat looked up in a fury to the treacherous Rat on the hilltop. While they were friends before, from now on he did not leave a peaceful minute to the Rat. As the Jade Emperor predicted, all the nation of the rats pays for the slyness of the Rat. There is not a rat or mouse in the world who are not scared of the cat. And these clever animals are forced to live all their lives in burrows and holes from the sharp claws of the descents of the Cat.

SOPA negra, or the black soup

2012-01-22T19:20:00.005+01:00

Representation of medieval Buda in Schedel’s Chronicle. The city looked more or less like this around 1500: unlike many other prints of Schedel, this is a rather true view of the castle and its surroundings.

We are living days of justified global turmoil because of the bill proposed some months ago in the House of Representatives of the United States, the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). This is a law which perhaps has some laudable purpose at first sight, but which in the truth deeply threatens the existence of the web as an open place, arbitrarily criminalizing the flow of knowledge and ideas, making insecure its use, and destroying one of the few revolutionary socio-cultural developments realized on a global scale in the last century.

Una SOPA muy negra, a very black soup served on our table by the U.S. lawmakers, we commented it the other day in Studiolum, in whose working language, the noble castellano, this pun offers itself spontaneously. Something like that μέλας ζωμός, (melas zomós, black soup) mentioned by Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 12) and prepared by the Spartans, which was so downright bad that once he tasted it, he immediately understood why they were always ready to die.

Turkish miniature on the occupation of Buda by Suleiman in 1541. From the chronicle of Seyyid Lokman

But permit us to also describe how the term “black soup” has for us one further, more precise and sinister meaning and threat. Since the early 15th century, the Turkish occupation of the Balkans, Hungary was in direct contact with the Ottoman Empire. It happened this way that the country got to know and began to consume the coffee, which at that time was called in Hungarian fekete leves, that is, “black soup”.

In 1526 the Ottoman army in the Battle of Mohács killed the young Hungarian king Louis II, whose wife, Margaret (later Spanish governor in Flanders) was of the house of Hapsburg. Ferdinand I of Hapsburg, brother of Emperor Charles V and husband of a sister of the late Louis II, immediately claimed his right to the Hungarian throne and was crowned. However, at the same time they also crowned as John I of Hungary the voivode of Transylvania John Zápolya who, after the devastating battle of Mohács, was virtually the only Hungarian baron with a powerful army.

In 1528 John I signed a treaty with Suleiman the Magnificent who in 1529 occupied Buda, sweeping away the remnants of the Hapsburg army, and pushing back Ferdinand I to Vienna. He then handed the city over to John I. In consequence, Hungary remained in a state of semi-independence until the death of John I.

17th-century woodcut representing the then separate cities of Buda and Pest, both under Turkish rule

The Hungarian king died in 1540, leaving a single newborn son, John Sigismund, who would later become the first Prince of Transylvania. Upon learning of his death, Ferdinand of Hapsburg marched again to Buda to claim his ancient rights. At the same time Suleiman, a fierce enemy of the House of Austria, also started to march to Buda. The Hungarian barons observed with obvious nervousness the proximity of two large armies with which they could not compete, and were not even able to negotiate about the continuity of the newborn king on the throne, but as former allies of Suleiman, they decided to remain faithful to the Ottomans.

Aerial view of the castle of Buda. Marked in red, the destroyed village of Logod,
where Suleiman set up his tent. In blue, the cathedral of the Virgin,
converted into a mosque. View in Google Maps.

Suleiman set up his rich tent right under the walls of the castle of Buda, in the little, destroyed village of Logod, and he invited there the widow queen (daughter of the Polish king Sigismund I) as well as the most influential barons to a solemn banquet. While they were eating and drinking, the Turkish soldiers – faithful allies of the Hungarians – as merely curious visitors surreptitiously and apparently in a peaceful way infiltrated in the streets of the fortress. When their number was enough, they simply had to dispatch the Hungarian guard, pulling down the cross of the cathedral of the Virgin Mary, and planting the crescent moon in its place. Immediately, a muezzin began to sing the first prayer (the mihrab is still today visible in the wall of the sanctuary). The barons, when hearing it (they were at less than four hundred meters from the church) attempted to run up to the castle. But the sultan, as if nothing happened, said to them smiling: “But where do you go, where so fast…? The black soup is yet to come!” and they slowly took the coffee. After having taken it, the sultan sent the queen and the infant heir, with a handful of courtiers, to Transylvania which in the following years became a semi-independent principality, reserving for himself the central part of Hungary as a new vilayat with its seat in Budin. And the barons were arrested and taken to Istanbul where they ended their days in the prisons of Yedikule (“the Seven Towers”), where a commemorative plaque was placed in the last century. Since then, the term “black soup” means in Hungarian: “expect the worst”.

Division of Hungary after 1541, the founding of the wedge-shaped vilayat of Budin.
The western part remained forever in the hands of the Hapsburgs, while
the east, by an agreement with Ferdinand, in the hands of John
Sigismund, first King of Oriental Hungary and from
1570/71, in terms of the Treaty of Speyer,
Principality of Transylvania.

And now, thanks to the free Internet, you have also got to know how the term SOPA negra is loaded with all kinds of sinister meanings throughout the history of many nations. We do not like this soup cooked by some American politicians. It is – to use another term whose intercultural sinister meanings should be discovered in another post – black as pitch.

Turkish woman taking coffee. Anonymous painter, Pera Museum, Istanbul

SOPA negra

2012-01-22T19:19:00.001+01:00

Representación de la Buda medieval en la Crónica de Schedel. Así era más o menos hacia 1500: a diferencia de otros grabados de Schedel, esta es una imagen fiel de la ciudadela y sus alrededores.

Vivimos días de justificada agitación mundial sobre el proyecto de ley que se presentó hace unos meses en la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos, la SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, o Acta de Cese de la Piratería en Línea). Es una ley que quizá albergue algún propósito loable en la superficie, pero lo cierto es que amenaza profundamente la existencia de la web como lugar abierto, criminalizando de manera arbitraria el flujo de conocimiento e ideas, volviendo inseguro su uso y destruyendo uno de los pocos avances socioculturales revolucionarios a escala planetaria que nos dejó el siglo pasado. Una SOPA muy negra, en suma, la que nos ponen sobre la mesa los legisladores estadounidenses. Algo como aquella μέλας ζωμός, (melas zomós, sopa negra) que cuenta Plutarco (Vida de Licurgo, 12) que preparaban los espartanos y que era tan redomadamente mala que tras haberla probado entendía por qué siempre estaban dispuestos a morir.

Miniatura turca de la ocupación de Buda por Solimán en 1541. De la crónica de Seyyid Lokman

Pero permitidnos referir cómo para nosotros la expresión «sopa negra» tiene un sentido de amenaza muy preciso y ominoso. Hungría estuvo desde los años 20 del siglo XV, tras la ocupación turca de los Balcanes, en contacto con el imperio otomano. Fue a través de este trato cuando entró y empezó a consumirse en el país el café. Se le llamaba en húngaro «fekete leves», es decir, «sopa negra».

En 1526 los turcos mataron en la Batalla de Mohács al joven rey húngaro Luis II, cuya mujer, Margarita (que luego sería gobernadora española en Flandes), era de la casa de Habsburgo. Inmediatamente, Fernando I de Habsburgo, hermano del emperador Carlos V y casado con una hermana del fallecido Luis II, reclamó su derecho al trono y fue coronado. Pero lo cierto es que también había sido coronado como Juan I de Hungría, a la vez, el voivoda de Transilvania Juan Szapolyai, que era prácticamente el único noble húngaro que mantenía un ejército poderoso.

En 1528 Juan I firmó un tratado con Solimán el Magnífico. Solimán tomó Buda en 1529, barriendo los restos del ejército imperial habsbúrgico y retirando a Fernando I hacia Viena. Acto seguido, se la entregó a Juan I. De este modo, Hungría se mantuvo en un estado de semiindependencia hasta la muerte de Juan I.

Grabado del s. XVII de Buda, donde ya se ve también la primitiva Pest. Ambas bajo dominación turca

El rey húngaro murió en 1540 dejando un único hijo recién nacido, Juan Segismundo —que luego sería el primer príncipe de Transilvania—. Al enterarse de la muerte de Juan I, Fernando de Habsburgo armó de nuevo el ejército y marchó a reclamar sus antiguos derechos. También partió hacia Buda Solimán, feroz enemigo de la Casa de Austria. Los nobles y señores húngaros, nerviosos frente a la proximidad de dos grandes ejércitos con los que no podían terciar, sin posibilidades de negociar tampoco la continuidad en el trono del rey recién nacido pero, de hecho, comprometidos con Solimán, decidieron mantenerse fieles al turco.

Vista aérea de Buda con el lugar preciso en que plantó la tienda Solimán, en el cruce
de las calles de Logod y Bugat, al pie de las murallas y donde estaba la destruida
aldea de Logod. En el punto rojo están los restos de la iglesia medieval.
En el azul la iglesia de la Virgen, convertida en mezquita.
Ver en Google Maps.

A los pies de la fortaleza de Buda, en la pequeña aldea de Logod, plantó Solimán su rica tienda e invitó enseguida a la reina viuda (hija del rey Segismundo I de Polonia) y a los más altos personajes de la corte a un solemne banquete. Mientras comían y bebían, los soldados turcos se iban infiltrando subrepticiamente y de manera al parecer pacífica en las calles de la ciudadela, como meros visitantes curiosos. Cuando el número de soldados fue suficiente, les bastó con despachar a la guardia húngara y, tirando abajo la cruz de la iglesia de Santa María, colocaron en su lugar la media luna que llevaban oculta. De inmediato, un muecín empezó a cantar el primer rezo (el mihrab aún se ve hoy en día en la pared del santuario de la iglesia). Los nobles y barones al oírlo —estaban a menos de cuatrocientos metros de la iglesia: hay una marca del s. XVII que indica el lugar exacto— intentaron salir corriendo hacia Buda. El sultán, como si nada ocurriera, les dijo sonriendo: «Pero a dónde van, a dónde van tan rápido... Si aún tenemos que tomar la sopa negra...». Y tomaron pausadamente el café. Y tras haberlo tomado, Solimán envió a la reina y al infante heredero, con un grupito de cortesanos, a Transilvania, entregándosela como principado independiente —pero vasallo—, y reservó para sí el centro de Hungría como un nuevo vilayato con centro en Budin. Casi toda la aristocracia fue presa y trasladada a Estambul, donde acabó sus días en la Yedikule («las siete torres»), y allí se ve ahora una placa conmemorativa. Desde entonces, la «sopa negra» (fekete leves) significa en húngaro: «espera lo peor».

División de Hungría después de 1541, y fundación del vilayato de Budin con aspecto de cuña
que se adentra en el país. La parte occidental quedó para siempre en manos de los
Habsburgo; y la parte oriental, por acuerdo con Fernando, en manos de Juan
Segismundo, príncipe desde entonces del Principado de Transilvania
(1571), heredado al poco tiempo por István Báthory.

Y ahora, gracias a que Internet es libre, también tú, si has leído hasta aquí, acabas de descubrir cómo la historia carga de sentido todas las expresiones. No nos gusta nada esta SOPA negra de los políticos americanos. Es negra como boca de lobo.

Mujer turca tomando café. Pintor anónimo, Museo de Pera, Estambul

Hammam cemetery

2012-01-21T21:25:00.004+01:00

one of many in Iran.

Hafez – Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat: گل لاله Gol-e lâle (Tulip flower) From the album آوازهای از باغ ایرانی Âvazhâ-ye az bâgh-e irâni (Songs from a Persian garden) (2010)

Shadow play / Juego de sombras

2012-01-20T15:36:00.006+01:00

“I’m sitting in the courtyard, looking forward to my friend, to congratulate him on the birth of his newborn son.
Old house, dark courtyard, a couch on the yard. My friend appears in the opening of the gate, with a cradle in the hand.
The cradle is covered with burgundy velvet, embroidered with gold.
I set the light, press the camera button. At this moment, a Chinese tourist runs away on the street in front of the open gate. The photo will be complete with him.
In photography it is important not to seek for a topic, but to be able to see it. At least this is how I think. I do not like invented photos.
I do not like when local photographers base the photo on ethnography, when they seek to include at least one minaret, a donkey, a camel, a female in folk costume and with a child on her arm, and the rest.”

Anzor Bukharsky, from Samarkand.

«Estoy sentado en el patio, esperando a mi amigo para felicitarle por su hijo recién nacido.
La casa antigua, el patio oscuro, un sofá en el patio. Mi amigo aparece en el vano de la puerta, con una cuna en la mano.
La cuna está cubierta de terciopelo granate, bordado en oro.
Ajusto la luz, presiono el botón de la cámara. En este momento, un turista chino pasa corriendo por la calle ante la puerta abierta. La foto se completa con él.
En fotografía es importante no buscar el tema, sino ser capaz de verlo. Por lo menos así lo pienso yo. No me gustan las fotos inventadas.
No me gusta cuando los fotógrafos locales basan sus fotos en la etnografía, cuando tratan de incluir al menos un minarete, un burro, un camello, una mujer en traje típico y con un niño en brazos, y todo eso.»

Anzor Bukharsky desde Samarkanda.

This is how the houses see

2012-01-20T13:02:00.001+01:00

themselves in the mirror of the canals of St. Petersburg. This is how Vladimir Kolbasov sees them in his fable book on the city.

Krivoy pereulok

Karpovka

Night. Catherine church on Vassily Island

Prague Quiz

2012-01-19T23:32:00.008+01:00

“In vain we had experienced guides who have been many times to Prague”, writes antenario in her photo blog, “once I was lost. I do not know where I was, neither the name of most of the places. But it was beautiful everywhere. Prague is enchanting.”

An overview of these photos recalled special memories in me. I regularly went to Prague from the mid-eighties, and in the early 90s I worked for months in the Czech National Gallery. It was then that I really got to know this city which was just awaking from its Sleeping Beauty dream. In the past ten years I often went to Bohemia, but rarely to Prague. Therefore at the sight of these photos I have the same feeling as if looking at the photo montages of modern Petersburg and Leningrad of the Blockade. Every building stands there, but nothing is the same any more.

So we invite to a game our readers, who, we know well, are lovers of Prague. Please help antenario, a fragile woman, you as strong men/women and experts of the place. Tell us which image where was exactly taken. And also which gallery, shop and never-heard-of beer pub what was earlier and which memories you have of them. Our ex-Czechoslovakian and Prague readers can participate as well. Although they have a comparative advantage, but at the same time they are also depositories of the most authentic memories. We will mark every correctly defined place on the following 1910 map of Prague. And as an incentive, once you have successfully localized all sixteen places, we will also post the complete map in full size and high resolution

Lanzado al viento

2012-01-19T01:54:00.003+01:00

Что бежал заюшка по белу свету,
По белу свету да по белу снегу.
Он бежал, косой, мимо рябины дерева,
Он бежал, косой, рябине плакался.

Huía un gazapo por el blanco mundo,
por el blanco mundo, por la blanca nieve.
Huía el gazapo debajo del serbal,
huía, y debajo del serbal lloraba:

У меня ль, у зайца, сердце робкое,
Сердце робкое, захолончивое.
Я робею, заяц, следу зверьего,
Следу зверьего, несыта волчья черева.

¡Ay, que tengo, tengo el corazón cuitado,
corazón cuitado que se asusta mucho!
Soy gazapo y tengo miedo de las fieras,
de las fieras crueles y del vientre del lobo.

Пожалей меня, рябинов куст,
Что рябинов куст, краса рябина-дерево.
Ты не дай красы своей злому ворогу,
Злому ворогу, злому ворону.

Ten, hermoso serbal, piedad del gazapo,
ampárame, serbal, con tus bellas ramas.
No des tu belleza al mal enemigo,
al mal enemigo, al malvado cuervo.

Ты рассыпь красны ягоды горстью по ветру,
Горстью по ветру, по белу свету, по белу снегу,
Закати, закинь их на родиму сторону,
В тот ли крайний дом с околицы,

Esparce a puñados tus bayas al viento,
en el blanco mundo y en la nieve blanca,
haz que rueden lejos, a mi amada tierra,
a la última casa que está junto al bosque

В то ли крайнее окно да в ту ли горницу,
Там затворница укрывается,
Милая моя, желанная.
Ты скажи на ушко моей жалёнушке
Слово жаркое, горячее.

La última ventana y la alcoba aquélla
una prisionera allí está escondida,
es el amor mío, la que yo más quiero.
Y di tú al oído de la pobrecilla
cálidas palabras, palabras ardientes.

Я томлюсь во плену, солдат-ратничек,
Скучно мне, солдату, на чужбинушке.
А и вырвусь я из плена горького,
Вырвусь к ягодке моей, красавице.

Soldado de guerra, en prisiones vivo.
Soldado, estoy triste en tierras lejanas.
Pero huiré muy pronto de mi amarga cárcel,
huiré hasta ese serbal que es la amada mía.

Boris Pasternak: El Doctor Zhivago, 12.6. traducción de Fernando Gutiérrez
fotos: Irina Makushina

Scatter to the wind

2012-01-18T21:42:00.010+01:00

As a hare was running about the wide world,
About the wide world, over the white snow,
He ran, the lop-eared hare, past a rowan tree,
Past a rowan tree, and complained to it:

Have I not, he said, a timorous heart,
A timorous heart, so faint and weak?
I am frightened, he said, of the wild beast’s tracks,
Wild beast’s tracks, the wolf’s hungry belly.

Pity me, O rowan bush!
O rowan bush, O fair rowan tree!
Do not give thy beauty to the wicked enemy,
The wicked enemy, the wicked raven.

Scatter thy red berries to the wind,
To the wind, over the wide world, over the white snow.
Fling them, roll them to my native town,
To the far end of the street, the last house,

The last house in the street, the last window, the room
Where she has shut herself in,
My beloved, my longed-for love.
Whisper to my grieving love, my bride,
A warm, an ardent word!

I, a soldier, languish in captivity,
Homesick, I am, poor soldier, kept in foreign parts.
I’ll break from durance bitter,
I’ll go to my red berry, to my lovely bride

Boris Pasternak: Doktor Zhivago, 12.6. translated by Max Hayward
photos: Irina Makushina

Letters go slowly on Russian land

2012-01-18T09:39:00.007+01:00

We have already written about the WW2 illustrated front postcards, whose Italian section was just recently complemented with the in the meantime accumulated forty more pieces – you should look back on them. The illustrated postcard, however, like so many other items, was usually a shortage at the front, and if the soldier wanted to cheer up his beloved ones at home, he himself had to draw one, or to ask a comrade with good manual skills – such people enjoyed a large esteem in the army – to draw it for him.

The following camp postcard transformed in a similar way was found by us when going from house to house in the village and scanning old photographs. The high esteem in which such works were held is shown by the fact that it was the only letter preserved by the owner together with her family photos.

The phrase “Letters go slowly on Russian land”, illustrated and surely painfully experienced by the drawer is a quotation from one of the most popular contemporary hits, the “Hungarian Lili Marleen”, Valahol Oroszországban (Somewhere in Russia), sung by the greatest diva of the age, Katalin Karády. The date of the postcard is 3 August 1943. Not long before was presented in the Hungarian movies the film of the same title by Frigyes Bán, in which Jenő Pataky, acting a lieutenant going back from leave to the front, asks the famous singer to sing to his comrades in the radio, and she performs this song. The soldiers at the front sit around the radio in an awe.

Katalin Karády: Valahol Oroszországban (Somewhere in Russia, 1942)

Üzenet jött messze-messze földről,
Halványzöldszín tábori levél.
Aki írta, a szívével írta,
Minden sora őszintén beszél.

Refr.: Sokkal jobban szeretlek, mint máskor,
Minden percben Rád gondolok százszor,
Valahol Oroszországban,
Valahol Oroszországban.
S arra gondolok, mikor a csillag rám ragyog,
Azt a csillagot Te otthon
Épp úgy láthatod…
Mindig a Te leveledet várom,
S csak terólad álmodom az álmom,
Valahol Oroszországban,
Valahol Oroszországban.

Muszka földre lassan jár a posta,
S alig várják már a válaszom.
Megkérem a rádiótól szépen,
Közvetítsék kívánság-dalom!

Refr.: Sokkal jobban szeretlek, mint máskor,
Minden percben Rád gondolok százszor,
Valahol Magyarországon,
Valahol Magyarországon.
S arra gondolok, mikor a csillag rám ragyog,
Azt a csillagot Te ott künn,
Épp úgy láthatod…
Sokkal jobban szeretlek, mint máskor,
Minden percben Rád gondolok százszor,
Valahol Magyarországon,
Valahol Magyarországon….

A message came from a land far away,
A pale green camp postcard
He ho wrote, wrote it with his heart
Each line speaks sincerely

Refr.: I love you so much more than usual
Thinking of you a hundred times every minute
Somewhere in Russia,
Somewhere in Russia.
And when a star shines, I think that
You see the same star at home
In the same way…
I always look forward to your letter,
And I dream only about you
Somewhere in Russia,
Somewhere in Russia.

Letters go slowly to Russian land
And my answer is eagerly waited.
So I ask the radio very much
To broadcast my song of desire:

Refr.: I love you much more than usual
Thinking of you a hundred times every minute
Somewhere in Hungary,
Somewhere in Hungary.
And when a star shines, I think that
You see the same star at the front
In the same way…
I love you much more than usual,
Thinking of you a hundred times every minute
Somewhere in Hungary,
Somewhere in Hungary…

Letters went slowly from and to Russian land already during WW1, and already back then there were not enough illustrated postcards at every brigade. Maybe it is better so, because to this we owe those hand-drawn camp postcards which occasionally pop up on philatelic sites, and which recorded such geographic, historical and ethnographic observations on the Galician front, which would have been far beyond the capacities of the postcard designers in the hinterland. At least as long as the letters came from Russian land.

The bytes have not yet dried on this post, and Krisztina Babos from A nagy háború (The Great War) blog, who already some weeks ago helped us with a copy of the only available Hungarian postcard on the language of stamps, has sent us seven additional hand-drawn postcards from her collection. Three of them illustrate various verses from the above Karády song, and one of them even takes over the snail motif from the first postcard. Since many years ago – although in peacetime – I was the one who made these kind of drawings for comrades in the army, I vividly remember how the commissions were given, how they ordered the precise content and collected the visual models from which to compile their postcards, and how in this way the motives migrated further and further, like the letter-carrying snail on Russian land.

Wishing you a happy new year from the banks of the Don – Sanyi!

Doctor

2012-01-17T17:19:00.005+01:00

It is always a great honor, when Language Hat, the host of the world’s finest linguistics forum refers to the Poemas del Río Wang. Like yesterday, when he quoted from the translation of Hafez’s love letter. A cardinal point of the letter is where Hafez turns to the doctor with his complaints of love. In the commentaries Grumbly Stu has collected some further occurrences of the topos in modern pop music from Bob Dylan to the Young Rascals. We would also like to contribute to his collection with the most beautiful example known to us. The Trabzon singer Sefa Topsakal, the new star of Turkish pop published in the last year her first album entitled Doktor, whose title song, drawing on Turkish folk songs, is still a huge success in Turkey.

Sefa Topsakal: Doktor. Title song of the album Doktor (2011) (here’s the video of a rehearsal)

çaresiz derdimin sebebi belli
dermanı yaramda arama doktor
şifa bulmaz gönlüm senin elinden
boşuna benimle uğraşma doktor

aşk yarasıdır bu ilaç kapatmaz
verdiğin teselli beni avutmaz
dermanı yardadır sende bulunmaz
boşuna benimle uğraşma doktor

dokunma, dokunma
benim gönül yarama
dokunma doktor

bedenimde değil kalbimde derdim
tek alışkanlığım bir zalim sevdim
sen çekil yanımdan sevdiğim gelsin
boşuna zamanı tüketme doktor

the reason of my incurable disease is obvious
don’t look for remedy to my wound, doctor
my heart cannot be healed by your hands
do not struggle with me in vain, doctor

no drug is useful for the wound of love
the solace you offer does not console me
you have no power to help, only he
do not struggle with me in vain, doctor

do not touch, do not touch
the wound of my heart
do not touch, doctor

in the heart, not in the body is my disease
my addiction is to love a cruel one
just leave me alone, let my beloved come
do not waste your time in vain, doctor

This disease is common in Hungary, too. Dr. Marguerite has just proposed the following illuminative case study from her practice. The duet of Félix Lajkó and Magdi Rúzsa, both Hungarians from Serbia’s northern Vojvodina region, play incredibly well together. Already in their previous video, They even say… it was obvious how well Félix’s autistic obsession and Magdi’s passion, restrained but always ready to explode, complement each other.

lassan, kocsis, hogy a kocsi ne rázzon
hogy a babám gyönge szíve ne fájjon
nincs az úton se patika, se gyógyszer, se orvos
babám gyógyít, nem a katonaorvos

beteg vagyok, a szerelem betege
két fekete szemmel vagyok megverve
két fekete szemmel vagyok megverve, megverve
nem gyógyít meg, csak a babám szerelme

slowly, coachman, let the wagon not shake
let the weak heart of my sweetheart not hurt
there is no pharmacy, no medicine, no doctor on the way
my sweetheart heals me, not the military doctor

I am sick, I’m sick of love
I am afflicted by a pair of black eyes
I am afflicted, afflicted by a pair of black eyes
nobody heals me but the love of my sweetheart

Deià

2012-01-16T21:57:00.004+01:00

Deià and the Serra de la Tramuntana. For a more detailed map of the island go here.

Deià is wrapped around by the Serra de la Tramuntana which separates it from the rest of Mallorca. The valley overlooks the sea, with its back kept by the rocks of Es Teix (1064 m). This isolation has always forced Deià, just like Banyalbufar, Estellencs or Sóller, to be self-sufficient. On its terraces carefully built and maintained since the Arab times, they produce oil, fruits and grain. But the valley, open to the sea, has also attracted all kinds of invaders: Arab, Turkish various Christian pirates. And tourists.

Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria (1847-1915) in his Die Balearen in Wort und Bild geschildert gives a detailed description of the landscape of Deià: “Recently, very beautiful houses were built here. In Deià you can experience general welfare, there are no poor people, as everyone has his own house and piece of land. […] At the bottom of the mountains there grow olive and carob trees, higher up oak and pine forests, and the peaks reveal their nude rocks, so that you can say with right that nowhere on earth can be find such a beautiful harmony of the opposites as in the landscape which opens here in front of our eyes. Farmhouses hidden in the forests live their peaceful lives, secluded from the world.”

One of the three water mills of Deià already mentioned by the Arabic sources,
at the time of Archduke Luis Salvador (Die Balearen)

As you arrive from the south, the Ermita of Valldemossa to the Castell del Moro, the ruins of the former Moorish watchtower, the valley opens unexpectedly before you with a hill towering in the middle, called only “Puig”, “The Mountain”. On this was built the once fortified Arabic settlement الديا al-Daiā, “The Village” (this Arabic word is also the root of Spanish aldea, ʻtown’). In this microcosm, where of everything there was only one, they had no need to distinguish them with a name of their own (just as Palma is simply called “The City” all over the island). The hill, with a medieval church on its top and the mountains in the background appears like a Transylvanian fortress church when seen from the pass.

As we descend to the town, in the unusually warm January the almond trees are in bloom, and the first oranges are already ripen.

From St. John’s Fountain a winding road starts to the hilltop, accompanied by the Viacrucis del Puig. Each station of the Cross was donated and maintained by a local family since the 18th century.

Still there are the advertisements of the Cant de la Sibiŀla, performed on every Christmas night
since more than seven hundred years in the Cathedral of Palma. In this year, when it
was declared part of the Cultural Patrimony of the World, a conference was
also organized in Deià. Here you can listen to the performance of
the Cant by Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras

The church is surrounded by a cemetery. Several generations lay here, including not a few descendants of the pirates. Their graves overlook the sea.

In the church still there stands the Christmas crib, which in several churches of Mallorca they do not disassemble after Epiphany, but they maintain it all year long, or at least until the big January celebrations, the night of St. Anthony tomorrow, or the parade of St. Sebastian’s day on the 21st.

And the crib is nothing else but a miniature Deià with the Puig and the church on it, and with the Moorish kings descending from the pass of the Castell del Moro. The transcendent Deià is illuminated by the stars (neules) cut out by the families of the real Deià.

The stars are glasses on a tablecloth. Someone
pulls down the tablecloth and the glasses remain on the sky

breathe now
inhale deep the scent of the stars

Deià

2012-01-16T21:56:00.004+01:00

Deià y la Serra de la Tramuntana. Para un mapa más detallado id aquí

En invierno Deià se arrebuja en un hueco de la Serra de Tramuntana, que la separa del interior de la isla, y mira al mar con las espaldas guardadas por las escarpaduras frías del Teix (1.064 mt). Como Estellencs, Banyalbufar o Sóller, Deià se cierra en un valle con la necesidad de ser autosuficiente: la tierra cultivable se sostiene en trabajosos bancales, hay manantiales, y olivos y frutales y buen clima. Pero su apertura al mar es una invitación permanente a las invasiones. Así ha sido siempre: piratas árabes, piratas cristianos, naves turcas, corsarios de toda laya. Y turistas.

Cuando el Archiduque Luis Salvador de Austria (1847-1915) en su Die Balearen in Wort und Bild geschildert llega hasta Deià, se entrega rendido al paisaje: «Ultimamente se están construyendo casas muy hermosas; En Deià hay un tono de bienestar general, no hay pobres, sino que cada uno posee su propia casa y su pedazo de terreno. […] En la parte baja estos montes están poblados por olivos y algarrobos, más arriba por encinas y pinos y en la cumbre son, sin embargo, rocosos y pelados, de forma que con razón puede decirse que nada en la tierra muestra tan bien y de forma tan armoniosa los contrastes como el paisaje que aquí se presenta ante los ojos. En medio del bosque hay viviendas medio escondidas, tranquilas y apartadas del mundo».

Uno de los tres molinos de agua que había funcionando en Deià en tiempos
del Archiduque Luis Salvador (Die Balearen)

Llegando desde Valldemossa, tras dejar atrás la Ermita y los restos de la atalaya del Castell del Moro, en un recodo de la carretera se abre de repente el valle mostrando en su centro la silueta de Deià retrepada sobre «Es Puig». Aquí estaba el núcleo fortificado de la población árabe original, الديا al-Daiā (es decir, el pueblo; con la misma raíz que aldea): como no había otra alrededor bastaba con nombrarla así... Razones similares hacen que Palma sea aún llamada «Ciutat» por los habitantes de los pueblos de la isla. En lo más alto del Puig, la torre de la pequeña iglesia de origen medieval, recortada contra los riscos del fondo, nos recuerda el paisaje de algún pueblo fortificado en los Cárpatos transilvanos.

Entramos en las calles del pueblo en un enero cálido. Los almendros empiezan a florecer y aún hay naranjas colgadas de las ramas.

La calle sube serpenteando hasta la iglesia desde la Font de Sant Joan. La flanquea el viacrucis del Puig, con cada estación donada y mantenida por una familia local desde el siglo XVIII.

Aún no han quitado los carteles navideños del Cant de la Sibiŀla. Este año, cuando la Sibil·la ha sido
designada patrimonio de la humanidad por la Unesco, hubo una conferencia en el pueblo.
Aquí se puede escuchar la grabación de Jordi Savall y Montserrat Figueras

El cementerio está al lado de la iglesia, separado por una puerta de madera entreabierta que invita a visitarlo. Muchas generaciones descansan aquí mirando al mar. Quizá más de un linaje con sangre corsaria.

Todavía tienen el Belén montado en la iglesia. Algunas iglesias de Mallorca lo dejan expuesto, más allá de Epifanía, todo el año; otras lo mantienen hasta San Antonio (17 de enero) o, en Palma, hasta que acaben las fiestas de San Sebastián (21 de enero).

Pero este Belén de la iglesia de Deià es una miniatura del propio pueblo, con el Puig y la iglesia, y con los Reyes de Oriente descendiendo desde el Castell des Moro. El pueblo trascendido se ilumina bajo las estrellas (neules) recortadas por las manos del pueblo terrenal.

Las estrellas son cristales sobre el mantel de fiesta. Recogieron
el mantel y las estrellas quedaron en el cielo

respira ahora
aspira hondo el aire de las estrellas

Letter

2012-01-14T15:11:00.007+01:00

Hafez, through dead six hundred years now, is so alive to every Persian as perhaps no other classical poet of any other nation. On the spring solstice his volume is placed on the New Year’s table instead of the Quran, his poems are recited by heart and live on as folk songs, and as the great Hungarian Islam scholar Ármin Vámbéry noticed it in the late 19th century, even the muleteers sang them crossing the passes of the Taurus.

Hafez’s poems are often sung even by today’s Persian bands, on a wide range from classical Persian music to heavy metal. I often thought about how good it would be to translate Hafez in parallel with its modern musical performances, thus illustrating how much he is considered a living poet rather than an obscure medieval literary fossil, and how his poems still inspire sometimes completely unexpected musical forms.

And here’s the chance to begin. For the New Year – for our New Year – appeared a new album entitled الکی Alaki “Spurious” by Mohsen Namjoo, referred to as “the Persian Bob Dylan” by the press of Tehrangeles, the nearly million strong Persian quarter of Los Angeles. Later I would like to write on Namjoo and on the Persian “sung poetry” in general, which offers various, more or less successful experiments to combine classical Persian music with modern pop music on the one hand, and, peculiarly, with the music of the European Mediterranean on the other hand, from Renaissance lute to Flamenco (an example has been already quoted here). Now I only publish the third song of the new album which, entitled نامه Nâme, “Letter”, performs Hafez’s poem beginning as از خون دل Az khun-e del, “From the blood of my heart”.

A peculiarity of this poem is that it follows the medieval Persian poetic structure known as mulammaʿ, that is “mixed”, its odd lines being in Persian, and its even lines in Arabic. Beyond the philological curiosity, this duality offers the possibility of a play to the poet – also exploited by the singer – in which, in contrast to the relative self-restraint and sobriety of the Persian verses, paved with consonants and alliterations, in the Arabic verses he gives free way to his emotions and despair. It is also interesting to observe that the Arabic verses are usually a proverb-like wisdom, which might have been known also to the non-Arabic speaking Persian audience from the Quran and the religious tradition. In the Romanized transcription of the Persian text I sometimes mark the intentionally archaic pronunciation, not indicated by the script (e.g. nâma instead of nâme), and in that of the Arabic text (with cursive) the characteristic “Iranian Arabic” pronunciation, as the Persians pronounce the Arabic text, for example, when praying in Arabic. The term talib in the last verse means both “student” and “seeker”: him who seeks the truth as well as him who seeks love.

Hafez – Mohsen Namjoo: Nâme – Letter

انی رایت دهرا من هجرک القیامه
لیست دموع عینی هذا لنا العلامه
من جرب المجرب حلت به الندامه
و الله ما راینا حبا بلا ملامه
فی بعدها عذاب فی قربها السلامه
حتی یذوق منه کاسا من الکرامه

از خون دل نوشتم نزدیک دوست نامه
دارم من از فراقش در دیده صد علامت
هر چند کازمودم از وی نبود سودم
گفتم ملامت آید گر گرد دوست گردم
پرسیدم از طبیبی احوال دوست گفتا
حافظ چو طالب آمد جامی به جان شیرین

Az khun-e del neveshtam nazdik-e dust nâma
enni raayt o dahra men hejrek al-qiyâma
dâram man az farâghasht dar dide sad alâmat
laysat dumuʿ o ʿayni hâzâ lanal al-ʿalâma

har chand-o kazmudam az vey nabud sudam
man jarrab al-mujarrab hallat beh en-nadâma
goftam malâmat âyad gar gerde dust gardam
vallâh-o mâ raynâ hobba belâ malâma

porsidam az tabibi ahvâl-e dust goftâ
porsidam az tabibi ahvâl-e dust goftâ

fi boʿdehâ azâb-o fi qorbeha as-salâma
fi boʿdehâ azâb-o fi qorbeha as-salâma

khâfez sho talleb âmad jâmi be jân-e shirin
hattâ yezuq-o menho kasa men al-kerâma

with the blood of my heart I wrote a letter to my sweetheart:
when you are away, I experience the Day of the Judgement
a hundred signs of your absence are in my eyes:
how is it that my tears can never blur them?

whatever I tried, I had no reward from you
whoever tries a trial repents of having tried
I said: I’ll be rebuked if I go after you
but for Allah! who has ever seen love without rebuking?

I asked the doctor’s advice because of my love, and he said:
“to be around her, disease, being away from her, health”

once Hafez became your talib, at least
give him a cup in change for his sweet life
for his life give him the cup of your love