It was night out there

The valley of Riu Pardu in Ogliastra, the eastern mountainous region of Sardinia is, as the locals say, an island on the island. The river runs in a deep valley between the two huge mountain ranges of the Tricoli and the Tacchi, and the pastoral villages, Gàiru, Osini, Ulassai, Jerzu, climb up on the steep slopes from the eternally shaded depths of the canyon, toward the light. For thousands of years closed off the external world, and inspired by the bizarre forms of the butte rocks of Tacchi, they populated the region with strange creatures, the evil and good spirits of darkness and light, which still live in their tales and songs.


Here, in Ulassai, in a shepherd’s family blessed with great imaginative power and quite a few artists, was born one of Sardinia’s most important modern artists, Maria Lai. She was lucky: her Italian language teacher discovered her talent, and she was able to complete high school in Rome. Then, since World War II had cut off the island from the mainland, she became acquainted with modern art during her years in Venice. Only her artistic bequest returned to Ulassai, to the former railway station established as a memorial museum. However, her pictures, statues, textiles throughout show the amorphous cliffs and deep fissures of the Sardinian mountains, their animals and shepherds, the basic experience of the contrast of light and darkness, and the stars, which are as bright here only in a very few places of the world.

The Stazione dell’Arte dedicated to Maria Lai on the hilltop, about which we are going to write soon.

The Italian mountains inspired also the manger of Bethlehem, in which the medieval imagination displays the encounter of darkness and light through the medium of religious theater, and with the motifs of the shepherds, the animals, the stars. The first Nativity manger was set up at Christmas 1223 in Greccio, in the Central Italian mountains by St. Francis, who was especially susceptible to such games, and the presepe has since become a basic genre of Italian popular art. In 2006, Maria Lai organized an exhibition in Cagliari of her presepi, made mainly in the 1960s, with the title It was night out there. The scenes, rendered in sweeping contours or collages, are surrounded by a box frame, which makes them three-dimensional. The pebbles and found objects stepping out on the edge of the box, and the similarly lapidary figures, which recall the relics of prehistoric Sardinian art, open up the compositions, and link them with the vastness of the mountains of Ogliastro.



Peppino Marotto and Coro di Neoneli: Sa Ninnia (shepherd’s lullaby)

Mutaciones

Diosa con piernas como serpientes (quizá Mixoparthenos), oro. obra griega, mitad del s. IV a.C., procedente de Kul Oba kurgan, de aquí

Los escitas, jinetes nómadas de origen iraní (la lengua viva más próxima es la de Osetia, perteneciente al grupo oriental del nuevo persa) aparecieron alrededor del siglo séptimo antes de Cristo al norte del Mar Negro, y tras expulsar a los cimerios pronto ocuparon la región entre los Cárpatos y el Cáucaso. A finales de la Edad Media, su memoria –junto con la de los sármatas y hunos– sólo sobrevivía en oscuros mitos del origen de algunos pueblos de Europa Central. Para la Europa antigua y medieval, su nombre servía para aludir en general, y durante largo tiempo, a cualquier pueblo nómada procedente del Este (aunque al respecto tampoco la forma usada por Heródoto aclara mucho), y la versión acadia (askuza/iskuza) que llegó al hebreo bíblico como אשכנז Askenaz, significaría los judios de Europa Central en la diáspora.

Cuando aparecen, sin embargo, son «los primeros bárbaros» de la historia de Europa, los primeros pueblos nómadas de Asia descritos en detalle por fuentes occidentales, especialmente Heródoto. Las costumbres atribuidas a los escitas, también contadas por Herodoto en el cuarto libro de su Historia (como que hacían tazas con los cráneos de sus enemigos) se convirtieron con el tiempo en tópicos de la literatura antigua y medieval europea, y se encuentran por igual en las descripciones de otros pueblos nómadas del Este.

Mixoparthenos del lapidario de Kerch.
De la actual gran exposición crimea del LVR-Landesmuseum, Bonn.

Heródoto narra varios mitos del origen escita, entre ellos uno que le fue contado «por los griegos que vivían a lo largo del Ponto». La historia dice que Heracles, cuando conducía el ganado de Gerión por el territorio de la futura Escitia, perdió las yeguas de su carro al guarecerse de una tormenta de nieve. Buscándolas llegó hasta una tierra llamada Hylaia (o Tierra Boscosa), donde en una cueva se encontró con un ser conocido como Mixoparthenos, que reinaba sobre la región. En la parte superior de su cuerpo era mujer pero tenía forma de serpiente doble en la parte inferior. Aquel ser le confesó que los caballos estaban en su poder y que, a cambio de devolvérselos, el héroe tendría que dormir con ella. Heracles finalmente engendra tres hijos –Agatirso, Gelono y Escita– con Mixoparthenos y le dice que aquel que sea capaz de doblar el arco de su padre y ceñirse como él su tahalí, merecerá ser rey de la región. Lo logró el hijo menor, Escita, antepasado de los reyes de Escitia; y así los escitas «en memoria de la copa de oro que colgaba del tahalí de Heracles, todavía llevan allí pendientes sus copas».

Octavo trabajo de Heracles: capturar a los caballos comedores de hombres del rey tracio Diomedes. Moneda de Sauromates II, rey del Bósforo, s. II. Fuente.

La extraña especie de sirena de esta historia mixta, que involucra elementos griegos y orientales, se convertiría pronto, según señala Neal Ascherson, en símbolo del Reino del Bósforo, que incluye las colonias griegas de la costa norte del Mar Negro y que contiene una mezcla cultural griega-escita-tracia, y también de su capital, Pantikapaion (hoy Kerch) hasta su destrucción en el siglo cuarto. Sin embargo, Ascherson menciona una supervivencia posterior todavía más interesante de la figura de Mixoparthenos:

«Mixoparthenos sobrevivió de otra manera totalmente práctica. Se convirtió en manilla o asa. Su cuerpo delgado, curvado hacia el exterior, pero enganchado por la cabeza y las piernas de serpiente, se convirtió en un agarradero ornamental en las asas de las tazas de cerámica al horno, o remachada y soldada en los cuellos de bronce o vasijas de vidrio. Se quedó sin nombre pero siguió siendo útil mucho después de que su ciudad se hiciera cenizas y sus hijos salieran de la historia.

Ignorada, la madre de los escitas vive aún entre nosotros. El otro día, en una de las antiguas estaciones ferroviarias de los Habsburgo en Budapest, noté algo extraño al tirar de la pesada puerta doble del despacho de billetes. En mi mano, de latón desgastado y pulido por millones de viajeros había una mujer desnuda dividida por debajo del ombligo en dos serpientes enroscadas» (Neal Ascherson: El Mar Negro)

No es la de Budapest pero se le parece. Picaporte del Virginia Center for Architecture, de aquí

Hemos buscado en vano sus huellas en las estaciones de tren de Budapest, Mixoparthenos no se dejó ver. El picaporte hallado por Ascherson debe haber sido reemplazado. Pero ni siquiera así ha desaparecido sin dejar su huella. Aunque su figura se ha ido fundiendo poco a poco con la de las sirenas normales y corrientes (más precisamente, con su vieja versión de dos colas, la melusina, de la que podríamos encontrar tantos emblemas que la representan), la matriarca escita dividida en una serpiente de dos colas todavía puede ser contemplada hoy en día en lugares tan insólitos como el logo de la cadena Starbuck de cafeterías.

La sirena del logo de Starbucks se ha ido transformando poco a poco en algo más aséptico y estilizado, quizá «cursi». Ver acerca de ello el artículo del escritor natural de Odesa Michael Krakovskiy.

Mutations

Snake-legged goddess (perhaps the Mixoparthenos), gold plaque. Greek work, mid-4th c. BC, from the Kul Oba kurgan, from here

The Scythians, these nomadic horsemen of Iranian origin (their closest living language relative is the Ossetian, which belongs to the Eastern New Iranian group) appeared around the 7th century BC to the north of the Black Sea, and by ousting the Kimmerians they soon occupied the region between the Carpathians and the Caucasus. By the late Middle Ages their memory – together with that of the Sarmatians and Huns – only survived in obscure Central European origin myths. For the ancient and medieval Europe, their name usually meant for a long time all the nomadic peoples coming from the East (although in this respect even Herodotus’ wording is not very clear), and the Akkadian version (askuza/iskuza), which went over into biblical Hebrew in the form of אשכנז ashkenaz, would indicate the Central European Jews in the diaspora.

When they appear, however, they are the “first barbarians” in the history of Europe, the first Asian nomadic people described in detail by western sources, especially Herodotus. The customs attributed to the Scythians, also reported by Herodotus in the fourth book of his History (such as making a drinking cup from the enemy’s skull), later become topoi in the ancient and medieval European literature, and we will also find them in the descriptions of other nomadic peoples from the East.

The Mixoparthenos from the lapidary of Kerch.
From the current great Crimean exhibition of the LVR-Landesmuseum, Bonn.

Herodotus narrates several Scythian origin myths, including one told to him “by the Hellenes living along the Pontus”. This story says that Heracles, while driving the cattle of Geryon in the territory of the future Scythia, lost his horses in a snowstorm. In search of them, he arrived at a land called Hylaia, where in a cave he met the Mixoparthenos, the queen of the region. The being with a female upper body and a snake-like lower body let him know that the horses are at her, but in exchange for their return, the hero had to sleep with her. Heracles finally begets three sons – Agathyrsus, Gelonus and Scythes – to the Mixoparthenos, and tells her, that whichever of the three would be able to bend his father’s bow and could put on his belt, would deserve to be the king of the region. This will be the youngest son, Scythes, ancestor of the kings of Scythia, while the Scythians, “to commemorate the drinking bowl hanging from Heracles’ belt, still wear drinking bowl on their belts.”

The eighth mission of Heracles: to seize the man-eating horses of the Thracian king Diomedes. Coin of Sauromates II, King of Bosporus, 2nd c. AD. Source.

The siren-like creature of this mixed story, including both Greek and eastern elements, as Neal Ascherson points out, soon would become a symbol, that of the Bosporan Kingdom embracing the Greek colonies along the northern Black Sea coast and having a mixed, Greek-Scythian-Thracian culture, as well as of its capital, Pantikapaion (today Kerch), until its destruction in the 4th century AD. However, Ascherson also mentions an even more interesting survival of the Mixoparthenos:

“But the Mixoparthenos lived on in another, entirely practical way. She became a handle. Her slender body, curving outwards but held in again at head and serpent-legs, became an ornamental lug baked onto the rims of pottery cups, riveted or welded to the necks of bronze and glass vessels. She remained nameless but useful long after her city had burned down and her children had left history.

No longer recognised, the Mother of the Scythians still lives among us. The other day, in one of the old Habsburg railway stations in Budapest, I felt something unusual as I pulled open the heavy double-door of the ticket-office. There in my hand, in worn-away brass polished by millions of travellers, was a naked woman divided below her navel into two coiled serpents.” (Neal Ascherson: The Black Sea)

Not Budapest, but looks like. The door handle of the Virginia Center for Architecture, from here

But I looked in vain for its traces in the railway stations in Budapest, the Mixoparthenos could not be found. The door-handle seen by Ascherson probably has been replaced. But even so it has not disappeared without a trace. Although its figure has merged with the common sirens (more closely, their two-tailed version, the melusina), the Scythian matriarch ending in a two-tailed snake still can be seen today, namely in a highly unusual place, the logo of the Starbuck coffee houses.

The siren of the Starbucks logo gradually became more and more “shy”. See about this the article by the Odessa-born Michael Krakovskiy.

The cemetery of Ieud

Dan Dinescu: The upper church in Ieud (click for the full image)
From the album The Wooden Architecture of Maramureș, 1997

The upper church of Ieud is considered the oldest wooden church in Maramureș, with the year of construction of 1364. The present building, however, is only as original as the ax, whose head was replaced twice and its handle three times. Due to the recurring Tatar invasions, it burnt down several times, and each time it was rebuilt, for the last time in the late 17th century. Nevertheless, it still retains the Gothic shape characteristic of the wooden churches of Maramureș, which markedly differ from the Rusyn wooden churches with squat towers and central domes, to the north of the upper reaches of the Tisza. Inside it is adorned by naive folk murals with the fanciful depiction of the Last Judgement, and outside it is embraced with the no less fanciful old cemetery of the village.

Every cemetery has its own unique motifs, copied from generation to generation and from tomb to tomb by the members of the local community; motifs, which distinguish the graveyard even from that of the next village. In Ieud these are the photographs in folk costume inserted in the legs of the crucifixes, and the multitude of tin Christs, the aesthetics of redundancy, which is characteristic also for the inside of the wooden churches, nevertheless the sight of a million little Christs puzzle the unsuspecting visitor.

The cemetery also has a separate geniza corner, where the crucifixes left without a tomb – as they bear the image of Christ, so cannot be destroyed – wait in silence for the end of times.

In another corner of the cemetery a new grave is being digged. “Hello, hello!” calls the gravedigger’s sister the tourist roaming among the crucifixes, like a naively painted siren, but fortunately she does not offer us the grave, but rather țuică, plum brandy for twenty-five lei, and necklines made of glass beads. Although a peasant woman, she easily switches from Romanian to French and Italian. “Where did you learn it so well?” “Well, I took my language book in the evening, and I crammed it.” She carefully re-ties her scarf for the photo, then she gives me the address where we can bring it the next time, and at the same time buy some more țuică. When I ask her about the Jewish cemetery, she pops up: “Sure, I’ll take you there.” But this will be already the next story.

History

Captain Ostapenko's statue

Statue of Captain Ostapenko (1951) at the junction of Balatoni and Budaörsi roads, at the southwestern gate of Budapest, 1958. From szoborlap.hu

Dear readers of Río Wang: this post heralds a new series within the blog, on the best of those former statues of Budapest which were created between 1947 and 1988 by the socialist cultural policy and ideology, and which can be now seen together in an outdoor exhibition area, the Memento Park – or Park of Communist Statues –, designed by the architect Ákos Eleőd. The statues will be presented in the consecutive posts by the guide of the Memento Park, Dóra Szkuklik.

The statues of Captains Ostapenko and Steinmetz today in the Memento Park

“But where is Ostapenko?”

Most of the Hungarian visitors of the museum already in the first few minutes of our encounter would like to know something sure about the statue which once stood at the southwestern entrance of Budapest. Well, Ostapenko, if you please, is the last figure in the museum, together with Captain Steinmetz, to say good-bye to the visitors.

As it was the landmark in the outskirts of the city at which the traveler leaving Budapest cast a last glance, and the arrival at the capital was also marked by the figure with the flag, so the name of Ostapenko became more and more known and merged with its immediate environment, already marking the place itself. The statue became a dominating figure of the cityscape, and a reference in everyday language, for example as a starting point of hitchhiking to Lake Balaton: “Let us meet at the Ostapenko!” And a common response for an unrealistic proposal was: “When Ostapenko will change step!”

“Ostapenko has changed step” (on the transfer of the statue to the freshly established Memento Park)

Thus, the original political meaning of the statue was weakened over the years. Not surprisingly, after the change of regime, when the process of the removal of the public sculptures with political content began in 1992, the most heated debates emerged around the statues of the two captains. Finally, as the attitude prevailed that these sculptures recall for many people the beginnings of Soviet oppression, they must also be removed from their original location.


After the removal of the Ostapenko statue, a first proposal of the reorganization of the space at the junction of Balatoni and Budaörsi roads was to erect on the empty pedestal a statue representing Saint Cristopher, the patron saint of motorists. The renowned sculptor Imre Varga even prepared the plans for the statue, but its realization ultimately did not happen.

This was not the only idea. The operators of the nearby gas station dreamed the inflatable replica of the Ostapenko statue on the top of the roof of the building. The bizarre idea has also not been realized.


Who was Ostapenko?

29 December 1944. The Wehrmacht and the Red Army are in fight for Budapest for exactly two months.

29 December 1944, 10 a.m. Captain Ilya Afanasevich Ostapenko from Budaörs and Captain Miklós Steinmetz from Vecsés, at the southwestern and southeastern borders of Budapest, respectively, depart to the besieged city with the ultimatum of Marshalls Malinovski and Tolbuchin to the German generals. Here the two stories will be separated. On the mission and statue of Captain Steinmetz we will write in a later post.

Photo of Captain Ostapenko from the end of 1944, from the RIA Novosti portal

The members of the Soviet group of negotiators departing from the Buda side were Ostapenko, Lieutenant Colonel Georgi Chebotarev, Lieutenant Orlov and Sergeant-Major Gorbatyuk. They went by car until the Soviet front; from there Chebotarev and his crew followed with binoculars the path of Ostapenko and the other two officers on foot through the no man’s land.

From this point on we can rely on very different stories, but at least now we have this option, as until the change of regime the voice of the Soviet side proved to be stronger, and in fact the only one: according to this, negotiators Ostapenko and Steinmetz were intentionally killed by the German fascists. Even photographs were included in contemporary reports and history books, which allegedly represented the unfortunate officers, and which were produced during the Communist propaganda already during the siege.

Jenő Kim, producer of the Budapest film studio, dressed as the killed Captain Miklós Steinmetz, but wearing an infantry uniform by mistake. Propaganda photo, December 1944. From the Open Society Archive, Budapest. This photo is still used by the Russian literature as an authentic illustration.

Even today there are people who know only this version. During my guided tours I have even met Hungarian visitors who left the country well before the change of regime, and who were just as astonished at discovering the “secret” of the photo as the foreign tourists who had just been initiated to the story.

The statue of Captain Ostapenko and its place from the Russian database ОБД Мемориал

The German side offers a different story. Here we can rely on the interviews made by the renowned Hungarian historian Péter Gosztonyi. In the account of the former German officer Joseph Bader he was appointed by his commander to accompany the refused negotiators back to the front line. They approached on foot the front line of the Germans, while the Soviet shellfire became more and more violent. Bader then suggested to Captain Ostapenko to withdraw to cover until the shellfire subsides, but the captain refused this by saying that they must return to theirs in the shortest time possible. The German officer then decided to let the Russians go:

“…I commanded stop to the group, I took off the bond from the eyes of the Russians, and I told them that I am no suicide candidate. I will not go further, but if they want, they can do it alone. I wished them good luck and let them go on to theirs, through the no man’s land. I must stress that on our part it was cease-fire. One could hear just the hits of the grenades of the enemy.”

After that, Bader followed their way with attention. After some 50 meters a new shell hit was heard, and then he saw only the standard-bearer sergeant officer going on, the third person was laying motionless on the ground. A short while later, when the area became quiet, the Germans began to search for the wounded. Bader rushed to the Soviet officer laying on the ground, and discovered him to be the captain. His forehead was hit by a shell splinter which immediately caused his death.


The credibility of this version is supported by the fact that although the Soviets made responsible for Ostapenko’s death Captain Erich Klein, commander of the anti-tank grenadier division defending Budapest who, although denying the charge even under physical force, was sentenced to 25 years of prison in 1949, four years later, after Stalin’s death was suddenly released and the Russian military prosecutor rehabilitated him in 1993.

fortepan.hu

Although the contemporary Russian historiography, if ever mentions the case, recalls the former Soviet version, a signal of a change is that Andrei Vasilchenko’s book on the siege of Budapest (2008) already quotes Gosztonyi’s story in full detail.

We must also mention that this counter-story as an urban legend was also widespread well before the change of regime. In this version, the Soviets deliberately shot down their own negotiators, in order to invoke the barbarism of the Germans. It would be difficult to find out whether this version was merely based on the consideration of “cui prodest” and on the knowledge of the Soviet propaganda methods, or any real piece of information played a role in it.


Ostapenko and Steinmetz, in principle, would have deserved a promotion after their death, but this did not happen, and instead of the title “the Hero of the Soviet Union” they only received the honors of the Red Flag.


A statue is born

After the end of the war – or even in its final days – the preparations began to erect memorial sculptures for the Soviet soldiers who fell in the battles.

Captain Ostapenko’s statue in 1961. fortepan.hu

After the inauguration of a whole series of monuments to anonymous soldiers, in September 1948 the capital announced a competition for the creation of the statue of Captain Miklós Steinmetz. In the decision of the jury it was won by Jenő Kerényi, but the assignment was finally given to Sándor Mikus – the creator of the monumental statue of Stalin on the former Ceremonial Square –, who was supported by the Soviet experts. The inauguration of the statue took place on the anniversary of the negotiators’ death on 29 December 1948. Three years later, however, the statue of Captain Ostapenko, inaugurated at the junction of the Balatoni and Budaörsi roads, was already the work of Kerényi.


The two works were always mentioned together, so their comparison was obvious. After the statue of Steinmetz, finished in a rush, the work by Kerényi won high honors from the professionals and the official criticism as well.


And what does the visitor see today?

The visitors of the museum often remark at the sight of the two statues that Ostapenko’s figure seems more natural, as if it were on the move with force and dynamism. Interestingly, some even considered on the basis of the facial features of the two figures – before I told anything about Steinmetz’s Hungarian origins – that Ostapenko has typically Slavic features, while Steinmetz seems to be rather Hungarian.

61 years ago, at its creation, this statue served purely propaganda purposes, it was one of so many monuments to Soviet heroes. However, we often encountered it when leaving the capital to Lake Balaton or to a shopping tour in Vienna. The often seen figure seemed less and less alien and unknown. Finally, after being transferred to the Park of the Statues of Communism, today’s Memento Park, it gained a new meaning, and now it recalls, together with the other 41 sculptures, one of the most significant turns of Hungarian history, the years of the peaceful change of regime and transition to democracy.

“Ostapenko Exhibition Bakery”. The memory of Captain Ostapenko today in the bus stop facing the former place of the statue

• Is there something, apart from the tiny bakery on the picture above, which refers to the removed Ostapenko statue near to its former place?
• Why was the statue placed exactly behind the three thematic walkways in the museum?
• How were the monumental statues moved to the museum?

The reader will get answer to these questions as well if he or she visits the Memento Park.

Sources:

Boros Géza: Emlékmű-metamorfózisok, 1989-2000, 2001
Gosztonyi Péter: Budapest lángokban 1944-1945, 1998
Prohászka László: Szoborhistóriák, 2004
Rózsa Gyula: Kerényi Jenő, 2010
In the shadow of Stalin’s boots, Memento Park visitors’ guide. Conception, edition, layout: Réthly Ákos, 2010