Excursion

To Paris.
“Excursion to Paris. See you on the Boulevard!”
(David Welch: Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914-1918, 2000)

To Saint-Petersburg.
“Excursion to Petrograd. The train is leaving to Serbia / to the Russians…”
(Ignác Romsics, ed.: Magyarország az első világháborúban [Hungary in WWI], 2010)

Before the leaves fall, they will be back home.

A summary

If we wanted to paint an animal signboard for the recently opened Paper Museum to give a hint on what is waiting for the visitors inside, we could not find a better model than the Chinese New Year’s postcard on which dezhurny represented in the form of a lubok the tiger coming from around the Ussuri river along the Russian-Chinese border, that is, the land of the Nanais.

“Look, the tiger of Ussuri came this year to pull us out of every evil plague, to devour the American crisis, to distribute happiness and love to all, to bring all kinds of riches in this Happy New Year!”

The Ussuri is thus a real paper tiger, since it „seems threatening, but is really harmless,” what is more, a very useful animal. What a pity we did not encounter it last year, when welcoming the Year of the Tiger.

Paper museum

I liked simple-minded paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored folk prints; old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children’s books, old operas, silly old songs, country rhymes and naive rhythms.

Rimbaud, Alchemy of the word

Such huge

Москва’s commentary to the previous post:

“…and I guess you know what happened after they tied the angler’s wrists together, so that he couldn’t exaggerate anymore?”

Studiolum: “I guess he kept showing: «this long was just the smallest fin of it»

Москва: “Close enough… hands are shaped as if they are hugging a ball – «with the eyes THAT big». It’s a fairly popular Russian idiom about wild exaggeration, «с вооот такими глазами!»

A cursory image search didn’t turn up any good illustrations, but I spotted one curious addition to your visual series here:”

That the expression has become a meme indeed is shown, besides several thousand search hits, also by images such as this one:

“Such a HUUUGE fish! With such HUUUGE eyes!”

The big fish

While we are cycling upstream along the Danube, we do not want to leave our readers out of the pleasures of wild waters either. Fedor Telkov somewhere in Russia asks the fishermen about how big was the biggest catch of their lives.

On a sea of words

In the preface of the first European Atlas by Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594), whose author did not live to see the complete publication of his great work, a warning is borrowed from Saint Isidore of Seville: “As the Earth is one, but its various parts are called by various names, so the sea is indicated by different names according to the various regions”. (Isidore, Etymologiae, 13.15.5: “Sicut autem terra dum una sit, pro diversis locis variis appellatur vocabulis, ita et pro regionibus hoc mare magnum diversis nominibus nuncupatur”). In fact, the Sumerians and Egyptians called it the Upper Sea, since it laid towards the region where they saw the sun on the highest point in the summer. This is why Herodotus, after his visit to Egypt, also talked about it as the North Sea, boreia thalassa (4.42). In the Bible it is yam hagadol, the Great Sea, but also the Western or Philistine Sea. Homer does not use any specific name for it in the Odyssey, only “the sea”, while the shores of the Ilias are washed by two seas, the Thracian and the Icarian ones. The Phoenicians, who sailed it from one end to the other, called it the Greater Sea. For Thucydides it was the Greek Sea, while for Plato “the sea next to us” or “neighboring us”. Saint Isidore of Seville also called it Mare Magnum because of its size, but it was also him who introduced the philologically strange concept of mediterraneum, a name which would have never been approved by Cicero, because this adjective, strictly speaking, could be applied only to something that is in the middle of a land. Ibn Khaldun calls it al-Bahr-al-Abyad, the White Sea, just like the Turks, because white is the distinctive color of the West, just as red for the East, hence the name Red Sea for the sea of Eritrea. The sea, reminds Predrag Matvejević, “changes its gender from one shore to another: it is neutral in Latin and in the Slavic languages, masculine in Italian, feminine in French, sometimes male and sometimes female in Spanish. It has two masculine names in Arabic and Coptic, while Greek, in its many denominations, attributes all genders to it…” (El Mediterráneo y Europa, Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2006, 29).


Here we only want to show a specific example of this human hesitation concerning naming things. The greatest Spanish author is generally known as “the one-armed man of Lepanto”. If you go to Madrid and dare to ask, say, the taxi driver who the one-armed of Lepanto was, then, however maddening the traffic of Madrid is, he will answer without hesitation that the one-armed of Lepanto was of course Cervantes. But let us stop talking to the driver, as it might cause problems. Because many college students, when you ask them, are incapable to locate on the map the above mentioned Lepanto, the theater of the great naval battle of the Holy League against the Turkish fleet, which they have so often heard of. Spanish people in general do not know, even approximately (of course there are always some exceptions…), where is the place where the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand. So you’d better not irritate the taxi driver with impertinent questions.

A replica of the Galera Real of Don Juan de Austria, decorated with a rich iconographic program of emblematic origin. Museu Marítim de Barcelona

And the truth is that the students have a reason to ignore where Lepanto is. because in a certain sense Lepanto does not exist. Let us make a first search on Google Maps, and in the column to the left you will find these options: a supermarket in the Mallorcan Sóller, a tea house in Málaga and a restaurant in Bilbao; or, somewhat below, a metro station in Rome. Directly on the map, the first option leads to the town of Sancti Spiritus, in the middle of the island of Cuba. If we turn to Wikipedia for help, we will not find any entry classified under the name of “Lepanto”. We are redirected to the “Battle of Lepanto”, where the first thing we read is a sullen rebuke. We are told: “The Battle of Lepanto was a crucial naval battle that took place on 7 October 1571 in the Gulf of Lepanto, off the town of Naupaktos (erroneously called Lepanto)”. Interestingly, when clicking on the link of the name of “Gulf of Lepanto” in the hope of finally seeing the light, we are redirected, in an absurd way, to the entry of the “Gulf of Corinth”. So we have always said wrong, and the one-handed of Lepanto should be in fact the one-handed of Naupaktos. And it is clear that if Lepanto does not exist in Wikipedia, then it simply does not exist for a Spanish student.


The matter is more complicated than it seems. If we turn to our philological hobby-horse in hope of getting to the truth on its back, we find that the name of Lepanto comes from the ancient Greek Epaktos – Nepaktos – Nepanto – Lepanto, which literally means “on the beach”. A quite different thing is Naupaktos (or Nafpaktos in modern Greek), that is, the name of the tiny coastal town with its important port. Naupaktos undoubtedly derives from naupegio (shipyard), a composite of naos (ship) + pegnymi (building). * Therefore, the Battle of Lepanto cannot be the Battle of Naupaktos, simply because Naupaktos is not Lepanto. Thus, by scraping a little bit the the roots of the word we find that practically it is only Italy who calls Lepanto the small Greek town which is known to the rest of Europe as Naupaktos. It is therefore clear as the sun that the name is a manipulation of the treacherous Venetians who from the very beginning wanted to appropriate all the merits for what Cervantes called “the greatest occasion ever seen by the past and present centuries and never to be seen by the future ones.”

Res et verba. In the end, who rules the world is the definite winner.

Another day we will also talk about the real importance of this battle in European history, a subject on which there is not much unanimity. And we will narrate how we carried from Barcelona to Naupaktos (or Lepanto?) a life-size statue of Miguel de Cervantes to be erected at the mouth of the port.

En un mar de palabras

En el prefacio del primer Atlas europeo, el de Gerardo Mercator (1512-1594), cuyo autor nunca llegó a ver completamente impreso, se lee una advertencia tomada —sin mencionarlo— de San Isidoro: «El Mediterráneo tiene varios nombres según los países cuyas costas bordea» (Isidoro, Etimologiae, XIII, xv, 5: «Sicut autem terra dum una sit, pro diversis locis variis appellatur vocabulis, ita et pro regionibus hoc mare magnum diversis nominibus nuncupatur»). En efecto, sumerios y egipcios lo llamaban el Mar Superior pues lo veían hacia la parte donde el sol más se eleva en el verano. Por eso, cuando Herodoto visita Egipto se contagia y habla del Mediterráneo como Mar del Norte, boreia thalassa (IV, 42). Para la Biblia es el Mar Grande pero también el Mar Occidental y el Mar de Palestina. Homero lo nombra sin ningún especificativo en la Odisea, solo es «el mar», pero en cambio en la Ilíada hay dos mares, el de Tracia y el de Icaria. Los fenicios, que lo surcaron de lado a lado, lo llamaban el Mar Mayor. Tucídides lo denomina Mar Helénico; para Platón es «el mar que tenemos cerca», «el mar que está junto a nosotros». San Isidoro de Sevilla le llama también por su tamaño, el Mare Magnum, pero fue él quien acabó de consolidar esa opción, filológicamente extraña, de mar mediterráneo, que Cicerón nunca habría aceptado pues para él, en puridad, el adjetivo mediterraneum solo podía aplicarse a lo que está en medio de la tierra, sí, pero tierra adentro. El Mar Blanco, lo llama Ibn Khaldun, al-bahr-al-abyad, y el mismo nombre utilizaron los turcos… El mar blanco, porque este es el color que define el oeste, mientras que el color rojo, el del Mar Rojo, el del Mar Eritreo, pasó a quedar fijado como el color distintivo de Oriente. El mar, como recuerda Predrag Matvejević «cambia de género de un litoral a otro: neutro en latín o en las lenguas eslavas, es masculino en italiano, femenino en francés, a veces masculino y a veces femenino en español. Posee dos nombres masculinos en árabe y en copto. El griego, en sus múltiples denominaciones, compuestas o superpuestas, le presta todos los géneros…» (El Mediterráneo y Europa, Valencia: Pre-Textos, 2006, p. 29).


Solo queremos dejar apuntado ahora un ejemplo concreto de estas vacilaciones humanas a la hora de nombrar las cosas. Al más grande escritor de las letras españolas todos le conocen como «El manco de Lepanto». Si uno va por Madrid y se atreve a preguntarle, pongamos, a un taxista quién fue el manco de Lepanto, por muy enloquecedor que sea el tráfico de Madrid, el taxista no dudará que el manco de Lepanto fue, por supuesto, Cervantes. Pero no interroguemos más al taxista porque podríamos tener problemas. A muchos estudiantes universitarios, cuando se les pregunta si son capaces de ubicar el mencionado Lepanto en el mapa —el lugar de la gran batalla naval de la Liga Santa contra la flota turca, que tantas veces han oído nombrar—, son por completo incapaces de hacerlo. Los españoles en general no saben, ni aproximadamente (siempre hay alguna excepción...), dónde queda el lugar en que perdió el uso de la mano izquierda el autor del Quijote. Así que no habría que irritar al taxista con preguntas impertinentes.

Réplica de la Galera Real de don Juan de Austria, ornada con un rico programa iconografico de origen emblemático. Museu Marítim de Barcelona.

Y es que los estudiantes tienen algún motivo para desconocer dónde está Lepanto. Porque, en cierto modo, Lepanto no existe. Hacemos una primera búsqueda en Google Maps (desde Mallorca) y sale una columna con estas opciones en primer lugar: un supermercado en el pueblo mallorquín de Sóller, un salón de té en Málaga y un restaurante en Bilbao. En Roma, un poco más abajo, vemos que así se llama una estación de metro. Directamente dentro de Google Maps, la primera opción nos lleva al pueblo de Sancti Spiritus, en el centro de la isla de Cuba. Si pedimos auxilio a la Wikipedia tampoco encontraremos ninguna entrada clasificada bajo el nombre «Lepanto», y redirigidos automáticamente a la «Batalla de Lepanto» lo primero que recibimos es una malhumorada reprimenda. Se nos dice: «La batalla de Lepanto fue un combate naval de capital importancia que tuvo lugar el 7 de octubre de 1571 en el golfo de Lepanto, frente a la ciudad de Naupacto (mal llamada Lepanto)». Curiosamente, cuando pulsamos, con toda nuestra esperanza de ver la luz, sobre el enlace que hay en el nombre «Golfo de Lepanto», somos limpiamente dirigidos a la entrada «Golfo de Corinto». Así que siempre lo hemos dicho mal y el manco de Lepanto debería ser, en realidad el manco de Naupacto. Por descontado, si Lepanto no existe en la Wikipedia, entonces para un estudiante español sencillamente no existe.


El asunto es más serio de lo que parece. Volvamos a nuestras manías filológicas a ver si con ellas conseguimos poner las cosas en su sitio. Lepanto deriva del nombre antiguo griego Epactos -- Népactos -- Nepanto -- Lepanto, que significa literalmente «sobre la playa». Otra cosa bastante distinta es Naupacto (o Naupactos, o Náfpactos en la pronunciación griega), es decir, el nombre real del pueblecito costero con su pequeñísimo pero relevante puerto contiguo a una hermosa playa. Naupacto, sin duda, deriva de Naupeghio (astillero), compuesto de naus [nave] + pégnymi [construir]. * Por tanto, la Batalla de Lepanto no pudo ser la Batalla de Naupacto porque Naupacto no es Lepanto. Así, rascando en las raíces del idioma descubrimos que prácticamente solo Italia, llama Lepanto también al pueblo griego que el resto de Europa llama Naupacto. O sea, que todo se trataba de una manipulación de los pérfidos venecianos que, desde el primer momento, quisieron apropiarse todos los méritos de aquella, como la llamó Cervantes, «la más alta ocasión que vieron los siglos pasados, los presentes, ni esperan ver los venideros».

Res et verba. Al final, quien se adueña de las palabras es el ganador definitivo.

Otro día hablaremos de la importancia real de esta batalla en la historia europea, un asunto sobre el que tampoco hay mucha unanimidad. Y contaremos cómo fuimos en coche desde Barcelona hasta Naupacto (¿o Lepanto?) para colocar en la bocana del puerto una estatua de tamaño natural de Miguel de Cervantes.

Juego

En la estación, una pareja de gitanos con tres niños espera a mi lado. Tienen unos veinticinco o treinta años. Los rasgos del hombre, delgado, menudo, son tensos con un aspecto, incluso en pantalones cortos, como de mafioso de película neorrealista italiana. La mujer tiene un punto descuidado y algo de peso, pero también un aire juvenil. Están callados, serios. Llega el bus. El hombre acerca los niños a la mujer y van a despedirse. Los niños aprietan en sus manos los pequeños juguetes que les acaban de regalar. La mujer, todavía aferrada a la presencia del hombre, les advierte que si no se portan bien se los quitará y no podrán jugar. Los niños se juntan un poco y uno de ellos pregunta —¿Cuánto tiempo tenemos que portarnos bien? —Mucho— responde la mujer sin dudarlo. El más pequeño la mira fijamente, como queriendo saber cuánto tiempo exactamente. La mujer piensa un momento. —Toda la vida.

Game

At the terminus a Gypsy man and woman with three children stood next to me. They were around twenty-five or thirty year old. The features of the thin, small man were so tense and he was so painfully organized even in shorts as a mafioso in an Italian Neorealist movie. The woman was somewhat sloven, already a bit plump, but still girlish. They stood silent, embarrassed. The bus came. The man handed over the boys to the woman and was about to leave. The boys were clasping in their hands the little games they obviously got for the occasion. The woman, still clinging to the presence of the man, threatened them that if they will not be good, she would take their games away. The boys pulled themselves together a bit. – How long must be good? – asked one of them. – For a long time! – the woman replied without hesitation. The little boy looked at her, expecting to know for how long exactly. The woman thought for a moment. – All your life.

The German Kharkov

On the seventieth anniversary of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the beginning of the Great Patriotic War – the date is not identical with that of the intervention of the Soviet Union in the Second World War which took place two years earlier, on 17 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland – I am browsing with curiosity the Russian sites, whether the round anniversary has brought to light some hitherto hidden or lesser-known material. And it has. Flackelf has published a color (!) photo series of surprisingly high quality, made by a professional photographer on the everyday life of the city of Kharkov occupied by the German army.

Kharkov on the map of the modern Ukraine, from the Wikipedia

Kharkov, then Ukraine’s largest city and the third largest industrial city in the Soviet Union – the center of tank industry, which was evacuated in time to the Urals – was occupied by the German army in very heavy fighting on 24 October 1941. The Red Army tried to take it back in May 1942, but they succeeded only in February 1943. However, in March the Germans reoccupied the city, which was definitely liberated only in August. In the five great battles of Kharkov more people – military and civilian – died than in any other theater of the war, including Stalingrad. Kharkov supposedly did not get the title of “hero city” only because Stalin considered it a disgrace that the Red Army was able to occupy it only for the third attempt. About half of the sixty thousand Jews of Kharkov managed to escape still in time; those who remained were shot into a mass grave on 15 December 1941. After the liberation only two hundred thousand persons were left alive in the city, which has still not reached again its pre-war population number of one and half million.


The major part of the photos were taken the day after the Germans’ entry into the city, on 25 October, and they show the new German inscriptions, the burnt-out buildings, the shot tanks already taken in possession by the children, the everyday life of the city center and of the market place, those waiting for a ferry next to the blown up Lopan Bridge – with an attentive eye and rich in details so that it is worth to click on each. But three pictures show a strange ceremony: German soldiers carry a black coffin through the city, accompanied by the music of accordion, and they set it smiling on fire with pseudo-Lutheran pseudo-ceremony on the military airport. If you know what this might be, please tell it.

The thirteen black and white pictures following the color ones are not part of the series, but belong to the military photos of the Bundesarchiv. Nevertheless, according to their dates – which for some reason were cut off in this publication – they were mostly taken in the same days, at the time of the siege of Kharkov and of the entry of the German army.