Crocodiles

German daily papers issued by the German army in occupied Russian territory have already been quoted here in the blog, just as German publications translated to Russian and distributed by the Nazi propaganda for those who, “closed from the rest of the world by the Bolshevik hangmen for so many years, had no occasion to get know the truth.” But we have not yet mentioned that a Russian version of the very newspaper of the National Socialist Party, the Völkischer Beobachter was distributed in a large number of copies in Moscow several years before the invasion of the Soviet Union. Why, you would have not believed it anyway.


The newspaper was published as a supplement to the 5/1935 issue of the satirical journal Крокодил which has since become a collector’s piece. Its editorial Let’s move expounds that any nation which does not move becomes extinct, and by indicating the direction of the motion as being east, it dedicates all the supplement to the topic of Drang nach Osten. Wehrmacht Brigadier Pfulz von Pfulz explains as a historical foundation that Kiev is an ancient Japanese settlement (Ki-ov, Ki-o-to) and the Ukrainians are of Japanese origin, thus the Ukraine belongs rightfully to Japan; but they pass it to Germany in exchange for Siberia so that they could change it with Poland for the Corridor of Danzig. Note how well-informed the authors are, as we are more than a year before the German-Japanese Pact, although they were not bold enough to imagine that concerning the Corridor, Germany would not have to negotiate with Poland.

Having settled the fate of the Ukraine, the paper raises the gaze to the more far away living spaces, and presents in two articles the terrible life of the Russian people languishing under the yoke of Bolshevism. In the left two-column photo, according to its caption, a Soviet police woman kisses her son, and the article, pointing out that “such weird scenes are common in that poor country,” it demands for the German occupation of the Crimea, the Caucasus and the Ukraine. The other, whole-column article by K. Meyer von Speyer entitled In the terrible Moscow reports on Arkadiya Yelizavetova, of Russian aristocratic origin, who having spent the years since the revolution practically naked and without food or water, is ordained an anti-Bolshevik insurgent by her dying mother, and she asks a few machine guns and armored cars of the clear-eyed Aryan casually visiting Moscow, and finally breathes out her soul by whispering Deutschland über alles.

Among the German news is at the top the new wonder weapon of the Wehrmacht (remember, we are still at the time of the military limitations: the German army cannot exceed one hundred thousand people, and can have no tanks and aircraft): the mechanized Aryan chicken for the purpose of military parade. The short news include that within two days the body of an unknown dead person will be found on the corner of Schwulstrasse and Saufenstrasse (the street names suggest the author’s having not only an excellent command of German, but even some humor which is quite remarkable from a satirical journal) which, according to the SS, will be probably identical with a certain O. Pitke arrested by them. Finally, an advertisement is looking for a коридорный, that is a callboy for the Polish Corridor with the duties of petty political stir up and anti-Bolshevik propaganda, possibly of aristocratic or pre-revolutionary gendarme past.

The satirical journal appeared every ten days, and it had to support the Soviet reader in shaping his opinion in other issues of world politics too, so it could not dedicate the whole edition to the German question. It also reports on the training of Polish children as future unemployed, as well as on the rare eating habits of unemployed British workers. On this we will return in another post.


The authors certainly had no idea about how soon some of the supplement’s content would be realized. Probably Goebbels was also not aware that whatever he wrote in the 6 July 1941 issue of Völkischer Beobachter on the Bolshevik horror discovered in the invaded Soviet Union, was but a lengthy epigon of the scenario described by K. Meyer von Speyer in the Russian edition of the same newspaper in 1935.

However, the German thread was not interrupted in Крокодил. Its editions between 1935 and 1946 can be found on the Russian net, and they regularly published updated reports from the Reich. There is only one long hiatus: between August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and June 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union no issue of the Крокодил is on the net. As to their content on Germany, the new brother-in-arms, we can only infer from the poster designed by the Kukriniksy, the illustrators of the journal.

The brother nations fixed the appointment
above the enemy city.
On each of their handshakes
the imperial Britain trembles.

Deva River

The river Deva from Potes up to its source in Fuente Dé. Click to enlarge

The discovery of Cantabria 1. The Hungarian and his bear 2. In the valley of Liébana 3. “…but I’m not happy” 4. Deva River 5. Quiviesa River

According to some authors, it was not in Africa, in the Near East or in any other place of the world, but here in Cantabria where humanity originated. This is asserted, for example, with abundant and vehement arguments, by Jorge María Rivero San José in his Cantabria, cuna de la Humanidad. The region of Cantabria, from modern Asturias to the Pyrenean borders of the Basque Country, with its isolated and archaic valleys, the islands of cleanly preserved Basque tongue, as well as the legends about the iron nature of the inhabitants, often nurtured such speculations, and were just as often exploited politically or manipulated by nationalism. But these myths were not always associated with such intentions. For example, nothing of this kind is found in the short treatise by Lubicz Milosz who in 1933, as if by a revelation, came out in support of the Iberian origins of the Jewish people.


Oscar Wladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877-1939, a distant relative of Nobel-winner Czesław Milosz, 1911-2004) came by way of phonetics, comparative religion and esotericism to the consequence that the Paradise of the Genesis with its four rivers was in Iberia, and that its vestige, the Basque language has influenced even so far away languages as the Peruvian Quechua.

However, the valley of Liébana has only three rivers. It the photos that follow we will reach its source, stopping by some villages along the river, which can be also identified on the map above. This westernmost river of Liébana was also named after its largest settlement, Camaleño, boasting with thirty-three houses. Formerly it was also called Valdebaró.


Lon. It has a small church with a Baroque altarpiece, a polychrome facade from the 18th century, while the sanctuary is from the 16th. Similarly to most churches in the vally, we found it closed. Human voices were heard only from the pension, on whose balcony, despite the drizzle, they have tended the sheets to dry..


Tanarrio. We arrived at the church, standing isolated outside the village, after the mass had begun. This was indicated by the sticks left outside, by the lights in the windows and, walking closer, by the voice of the priest who usually comes up here from Santo Toribio. This was one of the few churches where we cound get in, and the five locals participating at the Mass proudly saw us around. The altarpiece was recently restored, and the church is maintained the best as they can. Its Romanesque origin is obvious through the traces of the several changes it has experienced, with a characteristic pointed vault of the entrance resting on much older capitals. On the left lateral wall a popular San Roque shows the symptoms of bubonic plague on the left thigh, accompanied by his dog carrying him the daily bread in the mouth. The hillsides surrounding Tanarrio are still covered by thick oak forests, but bears do not descend any more in the hope of an easy prey.



Brez. This village on the southern flank of the solid of Ándara seems to spring from the ground with difficulty. The church of St. Cyprian takes an escarpment as a side wall, and several patches of its wall reveal its Romanesque origins. An old woman sees us around the building, and after she learns us having come from Mallorca, she tells for long about the only travel of her life, to Mallorca with a group of pensioners. In Liébana, she says, they eat better, more abundantly and much cheaper. She will not leave the valley any more. If anything, perhaps for Santander (some 100 kms from there).



From Besoy, built down on the right bank of Deva, one can well see the church and cemetery of Llaves on the other side, and the path which a little farther ends in the village of Vallejo.


Mogrovejo is distinguished by its crenellated tower, high and in ruins, sustained and destroyed by ivy. As we approach, at the base we find a stable with a horse, apparently the only living being in the village apart from a number of sleeping dogs. The tower was built in the 13th century by Count Pedro Ruiz de Mogrovejo. In his family was born Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo, who became saint as the bishop of Lima in the 16th century. The tower is attached to a great manor house, which was not really taken care in the past centuries, but which apparently preserves several important paintings as well as a chapel with an altarpiece in folk Baroque style. The 17th-century church of the village houses perhaps Cantabria’s most beautiful altarpiece, a 15th-century Madonna from Flanders.

Mogrovejo, ca. 1945

Treviño. The great 18th-century mansion of the Counts of Cortina, who made their fortune overseas, is a pension today. Apart from the castle and its towering trees a good number of other houses are waiting for being taken care.


Espinama. Almost arriving at Fuente Dé – where the road ends and the cable car starts, flying at the height of 753 meters above the rocks and the beech forest –, Espinama extends on both sides of the creek which will soon became the Deva river. The rumbling noise of the water fills the village. The first thing you see is this poster announcing in an eloquent Spanish that whoever wishes to buy the building acquired in 1956 by the municipality but fraudulently registered by the bishopric of Cantabria in 2009, and is aware that he or she is acting illegally, will have no direct way to heaven.


If you are in doubt about the brave and indomitable character of Cantabrians, it is enough to have a look at how the inhabitants of Espinama walked to the next village in 1964, when the cable car was built. A picture is worth ten thousand words.

Río Deva

Cauce del río Deva desde Potes hasta su nacimiento en Fuente Dé. Clic para ampliar.

Descubrir Cantabria 1. The Hungarian and his bear 2. En el valle de Liébana 3. «…pero no estoy contenta» 4. Río Deva 5. Río Quiviesa

Según más de uno, cae por aquí y no en África, Oriente Próximo, ni en ningún otro sitio del mundo, el lugar donde tuvo origen la Humanidad. Lo afirma, por ejemplo, con abundante y vehemente argumentación Jorge María Rivero San José en su libro Cantabria, cuna de la Humanidad. Esta zona cantábrica —desde parte de lo que hoy es Asturias hasta el extremo pirenaico del País Vasco, con sus rincones de relativo aislamiento histórico, la resistencia única de la lengua vasca a dejarse absorber ni contaminar y las leyendas sobre el carácter de sus gentes— ha alimentado con frecuencia tal tipo de especulaciones, a menudo explotadas políticamente o manipuladas por el nacionalismo de manera torcida. Pero no siempre aparecen tales intenciones. Por ejemplo, no es sospechoso de nada de esto el breve tratado que hemos leído estos días sobre un tema afín: en 1933 Lubicz Milosz defendía, como si hubiera recibido una revelación, los orígenes ibéricos del pueblo judío.


Vale la pena leer las lucubraciones lingüísticas de Oscar Wladislas de Lubicz Milosz (1877-1939, pariente, por cierto del futuro Nobel Czesław Milosz, 1911-2004). A partir de una serie de analogías fonéticas —pero también de religión comparada y esotéricas— llega a la conclusión de que el Paraíso del Génesis, con sus cuatro ríos, estaba en Iberia y la lengua vasca, vestigio de la ibérica, llegó, por lo visto, a fecundar en su expansión hasta la variante peruana del quechua.

El valle de Liébana solo tiene tres ríos. En las imágenes que ahora siguen subimos por el Deva deteniéndonos en algunos de los pueblos de sus márgenes, cuya ubicación puede verse en el mapa de arriba. El valle de este río, el más occidental de Liébana, también se conoce por el nombre de su municipio central, Camaleño, que agrupa treinta y tres núcleos habitados. Antiguamente se le llamaba asimismo Valdebaró.


Lon. Tiene una iglesia pequeña con un retablo barroco, con un frontón policromado sobre tabla, del s. XVIII, pero el sagrario es del s. XVI. Solemos encontrar las iglesias cerradas. Esta mañana, las únicas voces humanas que oímos salían de la posada, en cuyo balcón, a pesar de la llovizna, habían tendido a secar las sábanas.


Tanarrio. Al llegar a la iglesia de Tanarrio, silenciosa y un poco lejos del pueblo, había empezado la misa. Lo delataban los bastones dejados fuera, las luces encendidas y, acercándonos un poco más, la voz del cura que sube a oficiar desde Santo Toribio y que se oía claramente a través de la puerta abierta. Es una de las pocas iglesias a las que pudimos entrar y los cinco vecinos que había dentro nos la enseñaron con orgullo. Han restaurado el retablo y la conservan lo mejor que pueden. Su origen debe ser románico y saltan a la vista las múltiples modificaciones que ha sufrido, con una peculiar bóveda apuntada que descansa en un arco apoyado en gruesos capiteles, más antiguos. El muro lateral izquierdo lo preside un popular san Roque que nos muestra su bubón de peste en el muslo y va acompañado por el perro que le lleva un trozo de pan. Las laderas de los montes que rodean Tanarrio tienen espesos bosques de encinas y alcornoques, pero los osos ya hace tiempo que no se acercan.



Brez. En la ladera sur del macizo de Ándara, Brez parece brotar de la tierra con dificultad. La iglesia de san Cipriano aprovecha una escarpadura como muro lateral y se mantiene en pie con remiendos que aún revelan su origen románico. Una anciana nos ve rodear el edificio y nos cuenta enseguida su viaje a Mallorca con un grupo de pensionistas. En Liébana —dice— se come mejor, más abundante y muchísimo más barato. No volverá a salir de aquí. Si acaso, a Santander.



Desde Besoy, abajo en la margen derecha del Deva, se ve arriba, al otro lado del río, la iglesia y el cementerio de Llaves. Un poco más adentro aún, el sendero de Llaves acaba en el pueblo de Vallejo.


Mogrovejo. Se distingue por su torre almenada, alta y en ruinas, con una hiedra que la sostiene y la destruye por igual. Al acercarnos, encontramos en su base una cuadra para un caballo, el único ser vivo que hemos visto aparte de varios perros adormilados. Edificó la torre en el s. XIII Pedro Ruiz de Mogrovejo, de cuya familia fue santo Toribio de Mogrovejo, arzobispo de Lima en el s. XVI. La torre tiene adosada una gran casa solariega, tampoco muy cuidada, pero que por lo visto conserva varios cuadros importantes y una capilla con un retablo barroco de carácter popular. La iglesia, del s. XVII, guarda una de las mejores imágenes de la Virgen en toda Cantabria, quizá procedente de Flandes, datable a fines del s. XV.

Mogrovejo, c. 1945

Treviño. La gran casona dieciochesca de los Condes de la Cortina, que hicieron fortuna en ultramar, es hoy posada. Más allá de este edificio, con su jardín, sus escudos y sus árboles imponentes, otras casas languidecen y esperan con gesto resignado, como la que se ve a la izquierda, a que alguien se ocupe de ellas.


Espinama. Casi llegando a Fuente Dé —donde acaba la carretera y funciona un teleférico que salva un desnivel de 753 metros colgado sobre un hayedo—, Espinama se extiende a los lados del arroyo donde nace el Deva. Aquí corre el agua y su ruido llena el pueblo. Lo primero que vemos es este cartelón donde un particular expresa su desacuerdo con el obispado. Por lo que oímos, no es el único caso, últimamente, en que la Iglesia busca hacer negocios con bienes cuya propiedad es dudosa.


Si aún cupieran dudas acerca del bravo e indomable carácter cántabro, bastaría ver lo que se les ocurrió hacer a estos dos vecinos de Espinama hacia 1964, cuando aún estaban instalando los cables del teleférico de Fuente Dé. Esto lo explica todo.