红色弗兰肯斯坦

A dog after the cat. After a short pause, the Chinese language version of Río Wang is continued with a new post. Thank you, minus273!

La República del Otro Lado del Río

No es la de Transnistria sino una mucho menor y ciertamente mucho más acogedora. Esta república se ha establecido más allá del pequeño río de Vilnius, en el antiguo gueto repoblado, tras la deportación de los judíos, primero por marginados y por los más pobres de la ciudad y luego, desde los setenta, por un creciente número de artistas bohemios y de pocos posibles. Son ellos los que proclamaron en 1997 la República de Užupis («del otro lado del río»), con su propio presidente, obispo y embajador en Moscú, y dotada nada menos que de cuatro banderas.


Según la leyenda acerca de la fundación de la República, una vez que hubieron retirado la estatua de Lenin, el pedestal vacío espoleó el sentido estético de los artistas, que unieron sus fuerzas para colocar allí, en el mejor estilo del realismo socialista, una estatua de Frank Zappa. Esta iniciativa despertó tan vivamente sus conciencias que tomaron una solemne decisión: independizarse de Lituania ya que se había desinteresado por completo de aquel barrio desolado, y forjar su propio destino con las manos. Sea como fuere, ahora el símbolo del estado independiente es la estatua del ángel que erigieron en la calle mayor en 2002. Es esta la imagen que ha dado finalmente el nombre oficial al nuevo estado: República del Ángel es el sello que estampan orgullosamente en el pasaporte de todos los visitantes que entran en la taberna al extremo del puente, sobre la misma orilla del río.

Fotos de Alexandr Belenkiy

Citizen Barrel Organ

Niko Pirosmani: Arganshchik (organ grinder from Tbilisi), two versions, 1910

We have already met organ-grinders in pre-war Warsaw and Lwów, Bucharest and bombed-out Budapest, and even in America and the Caucasian Georgia, and a comprehensive illustrated post on the history of the barrel organ is already becoming ripe, indeed. This, however, would not be complete without the Russian organ grinder.

The scene with the organ grinder and the Gypsy girl from an 1910s performance of Stravinsky’s Petrushka

The barrel organ, that is шарманка – whose name is an assimilation of the French charmante with a Russian diminutive suffix – was popular in the towns and even villages of Russia at the turn of the century, together with its master, the шарманщик, whose detailed portrait is drawn in Lev Uspensky’s Записки старого петербуржца 1890-1910 (Records of an old citizen of St-Petersburg), of which we want to specifically write later. It was a special Russian feature that the organ grinder usually went from village to village in the company of a puppeteer, called Petrushka after one of his traditional puppets, who was elevated into high art together with the organ-grinder by Stravinsky in his ballet of 1910.

Alexei Ivanovich Korzuhin: “Petrushka has come!” (1888) Russian village idyll. In the background you can discover our old acquaintances, the early heralds of modernization: the paleocyclist to the right, and the children’s stroller to the left.

After the revolution, however, the barrel organ – unlike in other countries – quickly declined in the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it was separated from its Petrushka, monopolized by the young Soviet agitation and propaganda art for the purpose of workers’ performances. On the other hand, as Gilyarovsky’s Moscow shows it sensitively, the Soviet power tried to eliminate both such kinds of mobile elements, and the traditional population which was its audience. One of the last hommages to the sharmanshchik as a living trade is, we think, the book which we would like to present now, and which appeared in Leningrad without date, but sometime around 1925.


Sharmanochka – Little Barrel Organ. Its author is the same Nikolai Yakovlevich Agnivtsev who published the recently presented In defense of the chimney sweep as well as a number of other forgotten pearls of youth literature. You can read the translation of the poems in popup windows.













Песенка старого шарманщика (Song of the old organ grinder). Dedicated to Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Music and song by Bulat Okudzhava

Шарманка-шарлатанка, как сладко ты поешь! Шарманка-шарлатанка, куда меня зовешь? Шагаю еле-еле, вершок за пять минут. Ну как дойти до цели, когда ботинки жмут? Работа есть работа. Работа есть всегда. Хватило б только пота на все мои года. Расплата за ошибки – она ведь тоже труд. Хватило бы улыбки, когда под ребра бьют.

Barrel organ, charlatan! how sweet you sing! Barrel organ, charlatan! where do you call me? I hardly advance, five minutes an inch: How could I arrive, when the shoes are tight? Work is just work, and work is all the time: so much sweat would have been enough for a life. Pay for the errors as well – it is also work and when it beats under the string – give at least a smile.

Ali Baba, the last Russian organ grinder (Pyotr Yakovlevich Lyubaev, Petyka)
Вокруг Света, June 1970

The nostalgia for the barrel organ, as shown by the song of Okudzhava, was not forgotten after the craft went into oblivion. How could it have gone, once in one of the most popular Soviet children’s books – if not the most popular one indeed –, Alexei Tolstoy’s The little golden key (1936), a recast of Pinocchio (which in my humble opinion is better than the Italian original) Daddy Carlo is no carpenter, but an organ grinder! His statue is still standing in front of the Kiev Children’s Theater. Moreover, it seems that the instrument is living a new golden age, which is marked not only by the increasing presence of nostalgia organ grinders on various fairs, but its genial further developments such as the one presented by the Russian television in the following program:

An organ grinder leading a trained fox and a dog. Ivan Turgenev’s drawing in his sketchbook, 1834

After harvest

Dense, green, hot, fragrant. The first bottle from Mallorca.

A thousand year old olive tree in Mallorca, one of the many

Antonio Machado (1875-1939): Apuntes (Sketches), detail, to be heard here

Sobre el olivar, se vio la lechuza volar y volar. Campo, campo, campo. Entre los olivos, los cortijos blancos. Y la encina negra, a medio camino de Úbeda a Baeza. Por un ventanal Entra la lechuza En la catedral San Cristobalón La quiso espantar Al ver que bebía Del velón de aceite De Santa María La Virgen habló Déjala que beba San Cristobalón Sobre el olivar, se vio la lechuza volar y volar. A Santa María un ramito verde volando traía. ¡Campo de Baeza, soñaré contigo cuando no te vea!

Over the olive grove the owl was flying and flying Fields, fields, fields Among the olive trees, white farmhouses And the black oak halfway between Úbeda and Baeza Through a window the owl worked its way into the cathedral Giant Saint Christopher tried to chase it away seeing that it drank oil from the lamp of the Holy Mary. But Our Lady said Let him drink of it Giant Saint Christopher Over the olive grove the owl was flying and flying. To the Holy Mary a green sprig it brought flying. Fields of Baeza, I’ll dream with you when I no longer see you!

The cathedral of Mallorca seen from the sea in 1877, at the inauguration of the horse train line.
From the Mallorca Photoblog

“I Even Met Happy Gypsies”

Aleksandar Petrović will perhaps forgive that we borrowed the first verse of a song from his world famous film, but now we enter a world in which this statement is entirely true. Nowadays many words – mainly aiming at getting more votes – but much less heart and even less sense is working to improve the fate of the Gypsies, although there are a number of success stories to be imitated, including an obvious field: music.

We have already written about the multi-ethnic singing in the pubs of Lwów (and we hope that we would be able to illustrate this later), but the music which at the same time, in the 1920s was written on gramophone records in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, is simply breathtaking. The following gramophone recordings witness such a wonderful virtuosity and such a high level of instrumental and vocal music, which is in a perfect contrast to our modern stereotypes about Balkan music. These melodies carry us to the smoky pubs of Belgrade, to the noise of the Sarajevo bazaar, into a beautiful, sunny world in mid-winter. Let us listen, then, to Mijat Mijatović and the Gypsy band of Dušan Popaz. If your heart starts to beat more intensely, it is no accident.

Our photos commemorate some well known and less known old Hungarian Gypsy bands.

Mijat Mijatović 1887-1937

Mijat Mijatović in Belgrade

Jedren grade

Dušan Popaz and his band

Šorom ide mlad momak

Imre Magyari (1899-1940) and his band

Vino piju, nane, age Sarajlije

Pali Pertis (1906-47) and his band, 1937. His grandson was the world famous Hungarian violin virtuoso Barnabás Kelemen.

The great actor Pál Jávor in the pub

Zorule

Pista Dombi (1895-1944) and his band, 1935

Sto si Leno na golemo

Kálmán Oláh Jr. (1910-?) and his band, 1940

Imam Jednu Želju

Unknown Gypsy band around 1910. Source: fortepan.hu

Kupi mi majko top

Unknown Gypsy band playing at 5 o’clock, on 15 July 1934. in Pócsmegyer, at the double wedding
of my grandparents’ cousins. Notice their proud and self-confident look. The negatives
suffered various injuries during the vicissitudes of the 20th century

Eto tako živim ja

Hasta encontré gitanos felices

Seguramente Aleksandar Petrović perdonará que le robemos el primer verso de una canción de su famosa película, pero estamos entrando en un mundo en el que su contenido es cierto del todo. Palabrería hay mucha —sobre todo con el objetivo de conseguir votos— pero lo cierto es que se pretende mejorar el destino de los gitanos con poco corazón y todavía menos sentido. Por supuesto, si hay un campo donde encontrar buenos ejemplos de éxito que podrían imitarse este es, sin duda, la música.

Ya hemos hablado de los cantos multiétnicos en las tabernas de Lwów (y esperamos poder ilustrarlos más adelante) pero la música que en la misma época, la década de 1920, se grababa en aquellos gruesos discos para gramófono en el reino de los serbios, croatas y eslovenos es sencillamente impresionante. Las siguientes grabaciones atestiguan el extraordinario virtuosismo y el altísmo nivel de la música instrumental y vocal, marcando un crudo contraste con los estereotipos actuales de la música balcánica. Estas melodías nos llevan a las tabernas llenas de humo de Belgrado, al ruidoso bazar de Sarajevo, a un mundo hermoso y soleado en mitad del invierno. Escuchemos, pues, a Mijat Mijatovic y la banda gitana de Dušan Popaz. Si vuestro pulso de pronto se acelera, no será por azar.

Nuestras fotos rinden homenaje a algunas viejas bandas gitanas húngaras; unas son bien conocidas, otras menos.

Mijat Mijatović 1887-1937

Mijat Mijatović en Belgrado

Jedren grade

Dušan Popaz y su banda

Šorom ide mlad momak

Imre Magyari (1899-1940) y su banda

Vino piju, nane, age Sarajlije

Pali Pertis (1906-47) y su banda, 1937. Su nieto fue el virtuoso violinista húngaro de fama mundial Barnabás Kelemen.

El gran actor Pál Jávor en el bar

Zorule

Pista Dombi (1895-1944) y su banda, 1935

Sto si Leno na golemo

Kálmán Oláh Jr. (1910-?) y su banda, 1940

Imam Jednu Želju

Banda gitana desconocida, hacia 1910. Fuente: fortepan.hu

Kupi mi majko top

Banda gitana desconocida tocando a las 5 en punto, el 15 de julio de 1934 en Pócsmegyer, en la boda doble
de los primos de mis abuelos. Nótese su orgullosa y confiada mirada. Los negativos han sufrido serios desperfectos a lo largo de las vicisitudes del s. XX

Eto tako živim ja