The sea in Zahesi

I bought the camera in the summer of 2014 in a shop in Tbilisi. I intended it as a work tool. I bought a reflex camera. Thus far I had only taken photos with small compact cameras.

In a short time, the work tool became part of my identity. Its use radically changed my relationship to research. The camera forces you to re-interpret through the lens the meaning of places and people. The flat field and the consequent picture are not the result of a random click. On the contrary, I want to give a conscious visual report on the subject matter of my research. This picture is not merely the view of the space and people existing independently of me, but rather the imprint of an intimate and constant dialogue between us, in which aesthetics and practice merges in an unrepeatable moment.

“What the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once. The photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially. The photograph is the absolute particular, the sovereign contingency, the This (this photograph, and not Photography), in short, the Good Luck, the Occasion, the Encounter, the Real.” (R. Barthes, Camera Lucida 1)

The flexibility and practicality of the work tool allows me to constantly reinterpret the environment and society around me. Quickly I discovered that even if I take photos of the same space, my pictures are adjusted not only to research needs of the moment and the intended descriptions, but, as taking photos has already become a part of me, also to my momentary moods and visions. It is also very interesting to put the camera in the hands of my informants, so they shoot with it. These images are “seen-from-inside” views of reality, even more personal representations.


I ran down the stairs of the high-rise building. I wanted to go along the main street that cuts the Zahesi quarter in half, and leading to the Jvari monastery. I was filled with enthusiasm by the device in my hand, the idea that finally I can recount – even to myself – the reality around me.

I got to a hitherto unknown part of the quarter. Some women were engrossed in conversation, the black contours of their clothes sharply outlined in the foreground of the gray blocks of flats. I asked them the way. They stared at the camera, one of them absent-mindedly pointed somewhere. I went that way. Soon I found a small building, half-overgrown by vegetation. On its smooth wall, vigorous figures of dancers and musicians, stiffened only by the immobility of the gray material, not fit for dreams. After the block houses, finally something to test my device appears. It was not easy. I felt I was not yet sensitive enough. After a few clicks, with waning confidence I left the stage.

But the bright sun promised everything good. I cared less about the new toy, and more about finding a suitable object, as if Robert Capa had returned to Tbilisi. Lush vegetation all around, a few dilapidated concrete buildings, nothing else. A couple of little boys came toward me on the street, laughing, either of each other or of me. I did not ask. I had to find my subject myself. After a long walk, the sight of a blue spot pierced through the branches. Perhaps an old fountain, or a playground. I never found out. Fish, waves, seaweed. The tiny tiles of the mosaic were carefully arranged by the worker or artist, commissioned personally by Brezhnev, or maybe only by a local functionary, to bring some liveliness in the housing estate. The sea in Zahesi. Kitano in Zahesi.


Kelaptari: Sacekvao. From the album Georgian Dancing Melodies (2012).

The Hebrew sailor

Pula is a charming little town in the Istrian Peninsula, in a deep bay of the Adriatic Sea. It has a Roman amphitheater and a triumphal gate, a medieval main square and a Renaissance town hall, a Venetian fortress, a Monarchy-era market hall, and a permanently closed archaeological museum. And a hundred years ago it also had a military port.

The map of Pula from the Baedeker Österreich-Ungarn of 1910. In high resolution here. By clicking on any dot, you can browse the old postcards

In 1859, the Habsburg navy chose the port of Pula as its main base and center of shipbuilding. So it remained until 31 October 1918, the last day of the war, when a handful of Italian military officers, inspired by D’Annunzio, carried out the most spectacular achievement of the Italian navy, and secretly blew up in the port of Pula the battleship Viribus Unitis, the flagship of the Monarchy. The fly in the ointment was that the heroes did not know that the war was over, and the ship had been handed over to the newly formed South Slav state, whose four hundred sailors thus perished in the explosion.

This also shows that the fleet’s crew had always been multi-ethnic, like the Monarchy itself. Today, the Czechs in particular feel great nostalgia for the first and last sea of their history – if we do not count the one that Shakespeare gave them –, and last year they commemorated this with a large exhibition and volumes of memoirs of the Czech and Moravian marines of the Monarchy, about which we will report soon. According to statistics, they and the Germans provided mostly technical and organizational tasks, the majority of the gunners were Hungarian, while the sailors were mostly Italian and Croatian. But we also know of Rusyn, Polish and Romanian marines, and around the turn of the century, four Jewish naval officers also served in Pola. However, there was only one Hebrew sailor in the Monarchy: Aurél Göndör, the popular comic actor of Budapest.



Aurél Göndör: Héber tengerész (Hebrew sailor), c. 1909

Tudja rólam mindenki, hogy nem vagyok merész Leider mégis vagyok én egy héber tengerész. Tauli * lettem, be is hívtak engemet Pólába S ott tartottak tengerésznek ebbe a gúnyába Refr: Hej, mondd Lipi, hitted-e, hogy tengerész leszel Hogy életedben a hajón szolgálatot teszel No de sebaj, nem busulok, sorsom bár nehéz: Én vagyok az egyedűli Jordán-tengerész. Hogyha már a kegyetlen sors engem idetett, Ó, Jehova, hallgasd meg az én kérésemet: Zsidó vagyok, vitorlázom sima Adrián, Add meg nékem, Jordán vizén legyek kapitány. Refr, azzal az utolsó sorral: …én vagyok az egyedűli zsidó tengerész. Hogyha járnak dühös szelek, s minden háborog A hajó kész ringlispíl, amely forog-forog. Én áthajlok a korláton, s mérgem kiadom Fájó lelkem ott kóvályog zsidó piacon (?) Refr: …én vagyok az egyedűli Jordán-tengerész. Én Istenem, hogy hiányzik a hajón a nő. Éjjel csupa tűz a testem, és a fejem fő. A tengertől ovakodjék Izráel szent népe: Csak álmában áll előtte Vénusz asszonyképe. Refr: Lipi, Lipi, ne busulj, ha letelik időm Hazamegyek, szabad leszek, lesz is szeretőm Szőke-barna, mindenfajta, zsidó-keresztény, Minden leány így kiált: Lipi derék legény!

Everyone knows I’m not adventurous, Leider, I have become a Hebrew sailor. I was tauli, * so I was taken to Pula, I was kept there as a sailor in this uniform. Chorus: Have you, Lipi, ever thought of becoming a sailor? or that you would ever serve on a ship? Never mind, although your fate is heavy: I am the only Jordan sailor. Once cruel fate put me here, oh, Jehova, hear my plea: I’m a Jew, I’m sailing on the smooth Adriatic, but let me once be a captain on the river Jordan. Chorus, with the last verse: …I am the only Jewish sailor. When angry winds come, and all is stirred up, the ship is a carousel that is turning around. I bend over the railing, I pour out my anger, and my soul is walking on a Jewish market. Chorus: …I am the only Jordan sailor. Oh my God, how much I miss women on the ship At night my body is all on fire, and my head burning. Let the holy people of Israel beware of the sea where they see beautiful Venus only in dreams. Chorus: Lipi, Lipi, do not mind, once my time is over I go home, I’ll be free, I will have plenty of lovers. Blondes, brunettes, any kind, Jews and Christians, all the girls will cry: Lipi is a brave lad.

I’m not quite sure how I should render the “Jordan sailor”. It cannot be a people name like “Hebrew” and “Jewish” are. The author obviously could not have in mind the Jordanian kingdom which became independent in 1946, and with which he would have not identified himself anyway. Perhaps he rather imagines himself as a sailor on the Jordan, as he also asks this in his prayer. This reference shows the song’s post quem, the turn of the century, when both Zionism and the singer achieved their first major success. And the fact that he can openly give voice to his craving for Christian women, refers to a sad ante quem, which he fortunately did not live to see. He died in 1917, even before the dissolution of Austro-Hungarian Pula.

Is it perhaps him, Aurél Göndör, on leave in Pula? (Fortepan)

…and in service?

The gramophone disc, published around 1909, was digitized by Gramofon Online, together with several other discs by Aurél Göndör. And now the Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives of Budapest have hailed it with their centenary exhibition to be opened tomorrow, Saturday evening at 20:15. A visit to which we recommend to all our readers. Mazel tov!

Dissolving: Crossing the river

Anton Graff: The Elbe under Dresden, ca. 1800. Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister, Dresden

Crossing the Elbe at sunrise, the day before yesterday

Walter writes:

Dániel’s new post touched me but not with words. So I reply in kind, but blogger comment does not accept images.

We live in the Old Town part of Kingston upon Hull five minutes walk from the Humber Estuary with all its moods (much flooding in the rivers feeding the Humber). That day there was no sound other than the mournful foghorn and muffled voices from the boat leaving on the tide: I felt the same stepping out of time that Dániel alludes to.

Over 2.2 million Jewish immigrants passed through Hull in the century before 1914. Hilary’s family stayed here possibly because they had no money for onward passage. The Jewish community here is now in decline, a few hundred remain, but the history is still to be found in the detail in which you specialise.

From Mallorca to Alguer

Alguer/Alghero, Mallorca Street

Truly Mallorca! see: Electri city

“The language school of Alguer. In the service of the identity of Alguer. He who does not appreciate his language, does not love his homeland!”

There are countries which are separated by the sea. And there are some other which are connected by the sea. The infinite water surface, which for us, land-based people, means the limit of the inhabited world, for them is the inhabited world itself, with a dense network of ways. Their cities turn their back to the hostile mountains, they are open to the sea, they look at each other from the opposite shores of the sea. Like the former Greece, the former Carthage, the former Venetian-Dalmatian community. And the former Catalonia.


On the map, the former Catalan maritime empire has shrunk considerably. It no longer includes neither Sicily, nor Provence, Naples nor Malta, much less the Duchy of Athens. But there is still a small yellow spot somewhere in the east, in the corner of Sardinia, which still makes this world round, and demonstrates its maritime character. This is Alghero, in Sardinian Alighèra, in local Sardinian dialect Liéra. In Catalan, Alguer.

Alguer, from here

In the Middle Ages, the two great maritime powers, Catalonia, and its successor, the kingdom of Aragon, fought with Genoa for centuries for the supremacy over the eastern Mediterranean basin. The port of Alguerium, this magnificent checkpoint, was conquered in 1353 by the Catalans from the Genoese Dorias, and made a Catalan foothold. As is written in the first description of Sardinia, about the languages spoken on the island in 1759, two generations after Sardinia left Spain and came under Piedmontese rule:

“The languages used in Sardinia are Sard, the natural language of the country, Spanish and Catalan. The first one is the common language of every kind of people, and the first one they learn. It is very difficult to write, and therefore currently it is only spoken. Every educated person speaks Spanish, and they also teach it to their children. In this language they write every letter, document, writing, contract; in short, everything that must be written. The Catalan language is not common, but it is used only by the inhabitants of Alghero, and it is also spoken in most female convents.”

The local dialect of Catalan is still an official language in the city, in addition to Italian. It is the mother tongue of a quarter of the population, but virtually everyone speaks it. On the maps of the Catalan language area hung out in the schools and universities in Catalonia, Valencia and Mallorca, there proudly and nostalgically blooms the little red dot on the tip of Sardinia, the memory of the former greatness and the sign of belonging together. As the great Majorcan singer, Maria Del Mar Bonet – from whom we have often quoted – sings it in her song Desde Mallorca a L’Alguer, From Mallorca to Alguer:


Maria Del Mar Bonet: Desde Mallorca a l’Alguer (2003, video here)

Des de Mallorca a l’Alguer els mocadors dels vaixells van saludant-se a ponent, les oliveres al vent, antiga boira del cel, fent papallones de verds. Des de Mallorca a l’Alguer la lluna diu cada nit: «es mor la mar lentament». El sol respon als matins: «el foc avança roent, per les muntanyes que veig». Des de Mallorca a l’Alguer, des de l’Alcúdia a l’Albuixer, des de Maó a Cadaqués, des de Montgó a es Vedrà, des de Talltendre a Queixans, de Porqueroles a Calp, des de Mallorca a l’Alguer, des de Dalt Vila a San Joan, des de Tabarca a Forcall, de Ciutadella a Llançà, d'Espalmador a Alcanar, de Torreblanca a Malgrat, des de Mallorca a l’Alguer. Vella remor de la mar: les illes s’hi van gronxant, i avui s'agafen les mans des de Mallorca a l’Alguer. Els mots que canta la gent: vives paraules que entenc, que tots parlam es mateix.

From Mallorca to Alguer the handkerchiefs of the boats greet each other at sunset olive trees in the wind green butterflies in the ancient mist of the sky. From Mallorca to Alguer the moon says every night: “the sea is slowly dying”, the sun replies in the morning: “the red fire bursts forward as long as one can see the mountains”. From Mallorca to Alguer from Alcúdia to Albuixer from Maó to Cadaqués from Montgó to Vedrà from Talltendre to Queixans from Porqueroles to Calp from Mallorca to Alguer from Dalt Vila to San Joan from Tabarca to Forcall from Ciutadella to Llançà from Espalmador to Alcanar from Torreblanca to Malgrat from Mallorca to Alguer the ancient murmur of the sea, the islands are swaying on it, they give hand to each other from Mallorca to Alguer. The words sung by the people are living words that I understand because we all talk the same way.

The Gulf of Alghero seen from the Sardinian mountains

“The city of Alguer, get away, my friend…” Detail from Salvador Espriu’s poem Per a una suite algueresa, engraved on an obelisk in the old port

Deshielo • Thaw

Ayer al despertar oí el grito de la primera golondrina. Abrí corriendo la ventana y ya no estaba. No he vuelto a oírla pero esto quiere decir que en cualquier momento el cielo se llenará de sus gritos y carreras. En Islandia, muy cerca de este lago, nos adentramos en una playa donde anidan miles de charranes árticos. Son unos pájaros que van y vienen de un círculo polar al otro. Es el animal más viajero de la tierra. Cada año suele volar unos 80.000 kilómetros. Las golondrinas y los charranes forman un griterío imparable, parlotean como si tuvieran muchísimo que contar, urgentemente. Los viajeros siempre tienen mucho que contar. Si no, es que no han viajado. El embajador holandés ante el rey de Siam pasó varias tardes contándole al monarca las maravillas de su lejano país, adornando vistosamente su relato acerca de cómo era aquel territorio tan llano y acosado por el mar, cómo construían sus casas, cómo tramaban los tejidos y teñían de colores sus ropas, las ceremonias sociales y los ritos religiosos. También le dijo que «algunas veces en su país el agua se endurecía tanto durante la estación fría del año, que los hombres caminaban encima, y que soportaría hasta el peso de un elefante, si estuviera allí. A eso replicó el rey: “Hasta este momento he creído las cosas extrañas que me has relatado, porque vi en ti un hombre sensato y de honor; pero ahora estoy seguro de que mientes.”» * Los viajeros tienen que ir con mucho cuidado para no mentir cuando cuentan lo que han visto.

Yesterday, waking up, I heard the cry of the first swallow. I hurried to open the window, but it was gone. I did not hear it again, but this means that now at any moment the sky will be filled with their cries and zigzag. In Iceland, quite near this lake, we came across a beach where thousands of arctic terns nest. These birds come and go from one polar circle to the other. It is the most traveling animal of the Earth. It usually flies 80,000 kilometers a year. The swallows and terns are engaged in an unstoppable crying, they chatter as if they had much to tell each other, urgently. Travelers always have much to tell. If not, they have not traveled. The Dutch ambassador to the King of Siam spent several evenings telling the king about the wonders of his distant country, plentifully adorning his story about how that land is, so flat and so much harassed by the sea, how they build their houses, how they weave their tissues, how they dye with colors their clothes, about the social ceremonies and the religious rites. He also told him that “that the water in his country would sometimes, in cold weather, be so hard that men walked upon it, and that it would bear an elephant, if he were there. To which the king replied, »Hitherto I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober fair man, but now I am sure you lie.«” * Travelers have to be very careful not to lie when they speak about what they have seen.

Tomamos todas estas fotos en la desembocadura del glaciar de Breiðamerkurjökull, en el lago de Jökulsárlón, Islandia • The photos were taken at the mouth of Glacier Breiðamerkurjökull, at lake Jökulsárlón, Iceland

Agua estancada • Tired water

Palma, a orillas del Parque del Mar, bajo las ventanas del palacio del obispo,
donde el agua se acerca más a la muralla.

Palma, along the Parque del Mar, under the windows of the Bishop’s Palace,
where the water is the closest to the wall.

The Moravian sea

The boat with the two noble young men is tossed about on a stormy sea. They are chased by the galley of the pagan Indians, with a bloodthirsty vulture head on its prow, and all around so many other beasts that look out for the pious traveler: in the ship’s wake a whale with terrible teeth in its open mouth, on the shore a male and a female lion, on the other shore an indeterminable black beast, a bear or a panther, which is struck dumb from seeing the beast which is more evil than any other, the human being, of which two particularly vicious specimens are just beating to death a poor wanderer in the foreground. The two noble young men, however, do not have to be concerned about all this, because their boat is guided by an angel to a safe haven, where a magnificent castle is waiting for them on the top of the rock, with the moral lesson beneath: Vor allem Orth beglückter Porth! – “Of all places is happier the harbor”, that is, “good to travel, but best to arrive”, or, “everywhere is good, but no place like home”.


But, then, where is this happy harbor? We will immediately see how much it must be understood in a moral sense, as we begin to compare it with contemporary engravings. Because the magnificent castle exists indeed, this is how it has been standing since 1719, when the Dietrichstein princes rebuilt it after a fire. However, not on the shore, but in the Moravian hills, on today’s Czech-Austrian border. In Nikolsburg, that is, Mikulov.

The castle of Nikolsburg in an early 19th-c. colored lithography, seen from the Goat Hill (in the foreground, the roofs of the famous Jewish quarter of Nikolsburg)

According to the date of 1725 in the foreground of the seascape, this view must have been quite a novelty at that time, and perhaps this is why it was included in the painting. Which was perhaps ordered precisely for the inauguration festivities by the Nikolsburg Rifle Club, which used it as a festive target.

The rifle club was spontaneously formed in April 1645 by ninety burghers in arms, who joined the Dietrichstein Guard to protect the castle from the siege of the Swedish army. They were unable to resist the siege, but in 1656 they received for their courage a flag, and in 1709 their own shooting range from the Prince. In 1828 their wooden range was replaced by a stone building, whose attractiveness was also increased by its own pub.

Nikolsburg on an 1826 map. In the middle, in red, the castle, to the east the Heiliger Berg (the Calvary hill), to the north the Goat Hill. No traces of any sea.

We have already seen, and we will also see later, how emphatically the idea of the “a sea of their own” is present in the thought of landlocked Bohemia. A nice early example of it is this target. Even its inscription seems to echo the expression of Shakespeare, the creator of the “Bohemian sea” in his Winter’s Tale, where the Sicilian sailors driven by the storm can finally moor on the Bohemian beach: “Blessed shores…”

View from the Calvary Hill to the south, where the sea should be. Below: The castle and the town square on postcards from the first half of the 20th century.

And this montage postcard from 1910 has the sea again!