Coordinates

The Spanish Society of Emblematics has announced its Tenth International Congress, which we will organize in Palma de Mallorca, exactly a year from now. After thinking a lot about the title, distilling it almost to the point of the esoteric, we have opted for one which is something self-evident for this kind of meeting: Encrucijada de la Palabra y la Imagen Simbólicas, “On the crossroads of symbolic words and images”. In a way, this is the basic definition of the emblem. But this crossroads also highlights the peculiar focus of our analysis of cultural history as a whole.


Then we had to design the poster of the event. The fact that this is the tenth congress allowed us to link the Roman X with the very concept of crossroads heralded in the title. Digging into our memory, we recalled the magnificent manuscript Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, in which the master calligrapher of the Hungarian chancellery in Vienna, Georg/György Bocskay, designed a complex work page by page, displaying all his skills in the art of drawing letters. He finished it in 1562, but then his notebook fell into the hands of Rudolf II of Prague, who, admiring the Bocskay’s precision, decided to make it into a truly unique work, worthy of his imperial collections.


For this purpose, he instructed the best manuscript illuminator he could find, Joris Hoefnagel, to decorate it with the best of his arts, and to spare no effort. Hoefnagel not only amply executed his task, but he also complemented it with a typographic game, whose elements, whether copied, or invented on the basis of natural elements, joined with mathematical rigor the tracery and composition of the letters. Here is the “X” we wanted: the devise of Emperor Augustus, the crab clutching in its pincers a butterfly – an image usually accompanied with the Latin motto Matura –, converted in a graphic sign. Crossroads of word and image, but also a sign that we have come – maturando – to the tenth congress of the Society. Already twenty years – X-X – always having the motto in sight.

Coordenadas

La Sociedad Española de Emblemática ha convocado su X Congreso Internacional, que organizaremos en Palma dentro de un año redondo. Después de darle muchas vueltas al título, cosa que iba alambicándolo hasta hacerlo casi esotérico, hemos optado por uno que quizá sea algo obvio para este tipo de encuentros: Encrucijada de la Palabra y la Imagen Simbólicas. En cierto modo, esto define básicamente al emblema. Pero esta encrucijada también marca el peculiar núcleo desde donde nosotros analizamos la historia cultural en su conjunto.


Luego tuvimos que idear el cartel. El hecho de que sea ya el X Congreso, nos permitía enlazar la «X» de la numeración romana con el concepto mismo de encrucijada que presenta el título. Rebuscando en la memoria se nos apareció el magnífico manuscrito Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta donde el maestro calígrafo Georg Bocskay diseñó página tras página una obra compleja en la que exhibía todas sus dotes en el arte de dibujar las letras. Lo dejó acabado en 1562 pero luego el cuaderno cayó en manos de Rodolfo II, en Praga, quien, admirado de la precisión de Bocskay, decidió convertirlo en una obra verdaderamente única y digna de sus colecciones.


Para ello, encargó al mejor iluminador de manuscritos que pudo encontrar, Joris Hoefnagel, que lo decorara a su gusto y sin ahorrar esfuerzos. Hoefnagel no solo cumpliría sobradamente el encargo sino que añadió de su mano todo un juego tipográfico donde las ilustraciones copiadas o fantaseadas a partir de elementos naturales se unían al rigor matemático de la tracería y la composición de las letras. Ahí está la «X» que queríamos: la divisa del emperador Augusto, el cangrejo que atrapa entre sus pinzas a una mariposa —imagen habitualmente unida al mote latino Matura— se metamorfosea en signo gráfico. Encrucijada de palabra e imagen, sí, pero también indicio de haber llegado —madurando— hasta el décimo congreso de la Sociedad. Veinte años ya —X-X— sin faltar a la cita.

Inner islands

Ex libris

Omnia mea mecum porto, I carry with me all what is mine – an ideal motto for him who usually goes around the world with a single backpack. Although I prefer the version of the emblem illustrated with, rather than Rollenhagen’s turtle, the snail, who carries his entire house with him everywhere. But the most perfect symbolic animal, I think, would be a kangaroo, with a one-terabyte external hard drive in its pouch.

Because, in fact, the most burdensome task is to carry even your library with you, or at least those few dozen books, which you need in those far away lands. To this end, it is best to photograph / scan the books purchased, and then to give them away. The more precious, rare or useful ones to libraries, so that more people have access to them. And once you follow the example of the library-enriching maecenases, like them, you will also want to leave some sign of your gesture in the book. For example, by a simple, but nice seal. “Gift of riowang.com”, if you give it to an international library, “A wangfolyo.com ajándéka”, if you want to bestow it upon a collection of your native Hungarian land.

For the design of these two stamps I hereby announce a competition for the readers of río Wang. The deadline is exactly one week, when I would like to bring home the first consignment to the Budapest Public Library. I’ll post the best designs for a voting here on the blog. And the award is that this stamp and the name/link of its designer will be at the top of the page on which I will list the books donated to the various libraries, to ease the access to them. And, of course, that this seal will be seen by everyone picking up the book in the libraries. By many, I hope.

On field trip in Nowy Wiśnicz

Encounters

The Jews of Kolomea (Galicia) welcome Charles, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary visiting the Eastern Front on 4 August 1917

More than a year ago Andrea Deák asked us to help to interpret a postcard from a Hungarian collector of WWI Jewish relics, Gábor Izsák, on which Galician Jews greet with their Torah scroll the commander in chief of the Austro-Hungarian army. The date – 9 November 1915 – was found out by Deák Tamás on the basis of contemporary press; the historical background was provided in part by the KehilaLinks, who then also quoted us back; and the Hebraist Két Sheng, an expert of the role played by the Jews in WWI, sent us some similar photos from Erwin A. Schmiedl’s Juden in der K. (u.) K. Armee, 1788-1918 (Eisenstadt: Österreisches Jüdisches Museum, 1989). And today Kálmán Dániel drew our attention to the above photo published by Yvette Métral – another of our long-time readers – on the Yiddish Florilège, one more, hitherto unknown Galician example of the welcoming of a commander in chief with a Torah scroll. Just on this day, when – on the request of Héjoká – we have written about Kolomea concerning a very different matter. We also commented on the Florilège, which was then looked at by many of our readers. Then we asked Deák Tamás, who within a few minutes, figured out that the festive event took place on 4 August 1917. Well, río Wang is fed by such sources. Thank you all.

Update: Paweł, as if he just wanted to illustrate our closing sentence, has sent an extremely interesting addition to this photo: “I have found on the web the memoirs of some Polish families from the Kresy, among others that of the Chanias from Kolomea. Pages 23-24 have the following passage:

“In the summer of 1917 the Russian front collapsed again, and the Austrians returned to Kolomea. Before the war, in 1911-1912 Archduke Charles of Austria lived with his wife in Kolomea, serving there in the same regiment of dragoons as dr. Chania, he as a lieutenant, and Dr. Chania as a lieutenant-doctor. The two lieutenants were friends. With the return of the Austrians, Charles also came to Kolomea, this time already as an emperor. In the summer of 1917, Emperor Charles on entering Kolomea was welcomed by a delegation of the inhabitants in front of the town hall. When Krysia Chania [a daughter of the mentioned dr. Józef Chania; my comment] greeted the emperor in beautiful German, handing him over a bouquet of roses, the emperor kept this bouquet, while he put the other bouquets aside. He thanked her, and endowed her with the imperial brooch with the letter “K”. Dr. Józef gave Charles welcome in his home. The emperor spent there the evening and one night”.

Illustration of the Polish memoir: Archduke Charles as a captain of dragoons in front of his house in Kolomea, 1911-1912.

Viewer

As people dealing with images, we have always wanted to illustrate the posts of río Wang with plenty of images. However, it was not easy to figure out how we could do this the best. Our old readers may recall how the initial modest number of two or three illustrations slowly increased into galleries of forty or fifty pictures. These, however, slowed down the display and made difficult the overview of the post.

We have gradually developed that characteristic solution of río Wang, where dozens of images were composed into one mosaic, and the pictures appeared in pop-up windows when moving the mouse over the mosaic tiles. There are many reasons why we have loved this solution. We could illustrate the post with a large number of pictures – the record holder, I think, was the Jewish cemetery of Lesko with its nearly three hundred photos – without significantly slowing the download. The images held together in one mosaic did not push apart the paragraphs to a great extent, making it more pleasant to follow along. You could browse at your discretion among the images, and discover the connections. But we loved it most because in the mosaic tiles we could emphasize such meaningful details, which were often overshadowed in the original images. Thus we could create interesting connections between the expectations formed on the basis of the details and the full image displayed in the pop-up window, which have also affected the interpretation of the images. And last but not least, the richness and context of the mosaic composition often made excusable even the weaker images.

It was due to the technical problems of the pop-up windows – occasional flickering, poor positioning – and to the requests of our readers that we began to experiment with new solutions. This was doubly the merit of Lloyd who, first as a linguist reads also the commentaries of the Hungarian version of the blog, and thus found Gábor’s request to convert the mosaic into a scrollable gallery, and second as an informatician undertook to realize it. And also the merit of our readers, who with their commentaries helped the development of the final version.

From now on, if you move the mouse over the mosaic, the usual small images are displayed in pop-up windows, and if you click on it, you can scroll through a gallery of large images. This version retains the advantages of the previous solution, but corrects its technical problems. At the same time it enables you to view the images enlarged to full screen when leafing through the gallery. In this case, the pictures download a bit slowly, the reason for which is that we always upload them in their original size (at least our own photos), so that everyone can freely use them according to the Creative Commons (BY-NC) rules. A serious drawback of this solution is that in this large size the imperfections of our photos are more conspicuous as well. On this problem we are still working :)

Un orientalista vestido de derviche

Ármin Vámbéry ataviado como derviche, después de su regreso del viaje por Asia Central,
fotografiado en un estudio de Londres

Cuatro años atrás sólo dimos con esta foto para ilustrar la entrada dedicada al mulá Ishak, el joven teólogo de Jiva que se convirtió en discípulo de Ármin Vámbéry cuando éste viajó luego por Asia Central ataviado como un derviche. Tan cercanos estaban que cuando Vámbéry se descubrió en Constantinopla, Ishak también lo seguiría hasta el infiel Frengistán, y acabó convirtiéndose en bibliotecario de la Academia Húngara de Ciencias. Murió en Hungría, y su tumba en el cementerio rural de Velence es una especie de centro secreto de peregrinación para los orientalistas húngaros.


Hace poco encontramos en el número 1864/3 de la revista Az Orszag Tükre (El espejo del país) esta litografía realizada poco después de su llegada a Pest, donde se representa al mulá de pie junto a Vámbéry sentado con ropa derviche. Sus ojos vivaces y brillantes ponen el contrapunto al gesto grave de Vámbéry, reflejan su espíritu emprendedor y explican por qué Vámbéry se dirigió a él en la carta que le escribió como «ese bribón mulá tártaro».




No es casualidad que encontráramos la revista justo unos días atrás. Hace tres años, cuando presentamos nuestra web sobre el mayor iranólogo húngaro, Sándor Kégl –recuerden: aquel hombre del gato–, compuesta para dar a conocer el material que guarda sobre él la Colección Oriental de la Biblioteca de la Academia Húngara de Ciencias, después de la presentación pública nos preguntaron: y ahora que hemos expuesto sistemáticamente el legado de los grandes viajeros orientalistas húngaros, Ibrahim Müteferrika, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, Aurel Stein, Sándor Kégl, David Kaufmann –véase la lista completa aquí–, ¿cuándo nos dedicaremos al investigador quizá mejor conocido internacionalmente de entre todos ellos por su increíble talento para los idiomas y, en especial, por sus mil caras. El momento ha llegado.


Mañana se cumple el centenario de la muerte de Ármin Vámbéry, el pobre preceptor particular judío y el reconocido profesor universitario, derviche y diplomático, amigo personal del sultán turco, del sha de Persia y del primer ministro británico, fundador de la investigación oriental en Hungría. Mañana a las cinco de la tarde, en el congreso internacional celebrado en la Biblioteca de la Academia Húngara de Ciencias vamos a presentar la web preparada a partir de su legado conservado en la Colección Oriental, que ilustra, si no todas, al menos una docena de sus muchas caras. Después de la presentación publicaremos también el enlace aquí, y aún dedicaremos algunas entradas especiales en Poemas del Río Wang sobre los materiales incluidos y no incluidos en la web oficial. Vengan, escuchen y vuelvan luego por este sitio.

Orientalist in dervish clothes

Ármin Vámbéry in dervish clothes, after his return from his Central Asian journey,
photographed in a London studio

Four years ago we were only able to illustrate with this photo the post devoted to Mullah Ishak, the young theologian of Khiva, who became a disciple of Ármin Vámbéry when this latter traveled about Central Asia in dervish guise. So much that when Vámbéry exposed himself in Constantinople, Ishak also followed him to the infidel Frengistan, and became librarian of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He died in Hungary, and his tomb in the rural cemetery of Velence became a kind of a secret pilgrimage site for Hungarian orientalists.


Just recently we found in the 1864/3 issue of the magazine Az Ország Tükre (The Mirror of the Country) the lithography made shortly after their arrival at Pest, which also represents the Mullah next to Vámbéry sitting in dervish clothes. His lively bright eyes cheerfully counterpoint Vámbéry’s grave pose, reflecting his enterprising spirit, and explaining why Vámbéry addressed the letter written to him to that rascal Tatar Mullah.




It is not by accident that the magazine was found just now. Three years ago, when I presented our webpage on the greatest Hungarian Iranologist, Sándor Kégl – you remember, the man with the cat –, composed from the material of the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, after the presentation I was asked: once we systematically presented the legacies of the greatest Hungarian travelers in the East, Ibrahim Müteferrika, Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, Aurél Stein, Sándor Kégl, Dávid Kaufmann – see the full list here –, when are we going to turn to the scholar, who is perhaps the internationally best known among them, due to his amazing gift for languages and especially to his many faces. Now is the time for this.


Tomorrow will be the centenary of the death of Ármin Vámbéry, the poor Jewish private tutor and renowned university professor, dervish and diplomat, a personal friend of the Turkish Sultan, the Persian Shah and the British Prime Minister, the founder of Hungarian Oriental research. Tomorrow at five o’clock, at the international conference held in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences we will present the website prepared from his legacy preserved in the Oriental Collection, which illustrates if not all, at least a dozen of his many faces. After the presentation we will also publish the link here, and then I will also devote some special posts to the material included and not included in the site. Come, listen, and look back.