I don't read poetry. There are only a dozen or so poems and some loose verses that make me feel something. But, sometimes, I grope, and one day I did it with some sonnets by Dionisio Ridruejo: the result was devastating. If I tried it, it was because two of his books had interested me (Written in Spain and Almost some memoirs) and another seduced me (Russian Notebooks). The Russian Notebooks are the diary of his stay on the Russian front as a volunteer in the Blue Division during World War II. They are an exceptional text as a testimony, for their lucid sensitivity and for their good craftsmanship. In the words of Jordi Gracia, author of a suggestive biography of Ridruejo, "beyond the testimony (...) these notebooks distill a vividness of observation and an indisputable literary quality."
I took the book from the library of an uncle of my wife who was also a soldier in Russia with the Blue Division –the diplomat Pedro Salvador de Vicente–, with the solemn commitment to return it to him, which I never did. I have it in front of me. And I use it now to extract the quotes from something that surprised me then and that has remained vivid in my memory: the difficult harmony of the Spanish soldiers with the Germans, unlike their closeness to the Russian population.
Ridruejo writes that “it is particularly admirable to see these Spaniards (…) cordial and familiar with the people of the country. (…) And the people, poor people hammered by the war, show them affection. Naturally ours continue –we continue– refractory to the local language. (...) The indigenous people, and especially the children, our best friends, are taking our language with increasing generality”. He tells an anecdote: “A soldier leading twenty prisoners (…) falls into a trap hidden by snow (and) thinks he's lost. But when he regains consciousness he sees that the Russians have taken him out of the well, they give him back his weapons and continue to let themselves be led calmly ”. Another: “An officer, Mora, meets a group of prisoners led by a soldier. He is Andalusian. He does not carry the weapons, which he has ceded, for convenience, to two Russians (...). The officer calls him insane: "Don't you see that they can kill you?" The soldier looks disdainfully at the prisoner who is carrying his rifle and says: “That one? If he moves I'm going to c… on his father”. And, concludes Ridruejo, after reviewing some successful missions of the Division, “all these things have filled the soldiers with pride to the point of despising all their colleagues of other nationalities. (...) The Germans of common units are already treated as inexperienced ".
But what was my surprise when, years later, I found some situations reflected in another book that confirm –in my opinion– what Ridruejo stated. It is about Ideals and disappointment. Cartes des Rússia a un germà (1941-1942), in which Montserrat Torra Puigdellívol – from Manresa of soca i arrel, philologist and teacher–, has collected some of the letters that her uncle –Daniel Torra–, officer of the Blue Division , he wrote to his father –Albert– from Russia. In one of the first ones she tells him: “I'm already bald. I feel optimistic. But I haven't done the German military haircut because I don't want to look like a fag. (…) I am thinking that among the officers (…) there are few, very few Germanophiles. And quite a few cheeky Anglophiles and Francophiles. They discredit and belittle everything that Germany stands for. (…) The second lieutenant who is in Berlin (…) they say that he has gone so far as to comment that Germany would of course lose the war”. And, in February 1942, Daniel Torra writes: "A few nights ago, an officer of my battalion, Russian by birth, an officer (...) of the Tsar, as if remembering an irretrievably past time, sang, accompanied by the guitar, a recital of Russian songs in the purest traditional and timeless style. (...) Some poor lights from small candles profaned the total darkness (...) his blue eyes, transparent like all Russians, looked without seeing (...). I enjoyed it tremendously."
I don't know why –or I do know– it comes to my mind that Margaret MacMillan recalls –in 1914– that the Mughals (Tatars for the Russians) ruled a large part of Russia for centuries, the same as the Moors in Spain, with the The only difference –pointed out by Pushkin– is that the Tatars “did not bring algebra or Aristotle to Russia”. I said: so far, but so close.
