Stone by stone, kilometer by kilometer and always alone, the ethnographer Manuel Muñoz Zielinski (Madrid, 1949) has photographed the ruins that still stand in the remote corners of the Region of Murcia for the last five years, “except for the parenthesis forced by the pandemic, “he points out. Abandoned farmhouses in beautiful places, uninhabited farmhouses because no one lives in the harsh and distant drylands anymore, hermitages, dovecotes, wells, laundry rooms and Moorish ovens: the camera and somewhat European gaze of this always-moving researcher have documented dozens of traditional constructions that crumble in ‘The forgotten life’, a book that is consulted with curiosity, concern and nostalgia.
«I have spent my whole life traveling through the Region from end to end, a bit on an adventure, wherever the road takes me. And the truth is that in emptied Murcia I always find some surprise, “explains to LA VERDAD this doctor in French Philology, popularizer of traditional culture and scholar of local rites and customs. A passion left to him by his father, the distinguished linguist, philologist and academic Manuel Muñoz Cortés, a disciple of Menéndez Pidal, Dámaso Alonso and Rafael Lapesa, and a friend of Azorín, Laín Entralgo, Luis Rosales and Manuel Machado.
«I am interested in everything about these places: the people and the houses, how people lived… I really like to listen and pay attention to what is being said. A recurring problem is the drought, that there is no water, and that the children leave to never return because they do not want life in the countryside. They open up easily with me, maybe because of the foreign look I have. German ancestry is what he has”, he slides in reference to his mother, Margarita Zielinski Picqouin, daughter of a Prussian German, who died in 2022 at the age of 101 after a film existence, the first tenured professor at the University of Murcia and creator of his Language Laboratory.
The book compiles photos of Moorish ovens, hermitages, dovecotes, laundry rooms and other constructions
The ruins are “very profitable photographically,” confides Muñoz Zielinski, who has worked with archaeologists to “learn to read the stones” in an increasingly depopulated rural territory. «Almost all the houses in the countryside have the same format, three meters wide by four meters deep, because the tails were not enough, with the home at one end. And rooms were added as needed,’ he explains.
‘The forgotten life’ has an introduction by the anthropologist Gabriel López Martínez, professor in the Department of Contemporary Humanities of the University of Alicante. This expert details both the construction techniques and the materials and typology of the houses, their elements and other details, such as that the works were directed by the master builders, people from the community who mastered the basic building techniques.
shingles robbery
What remains of these scattered villages and dwellings erected more than a century ago is the faded imprint of a way of life that no longer exists, except in cultural and festive recreations. And looting accelerates the disappearance of rural areas, says Muñoz Zielinski: «As they steal the tiles to sell them to foreigners, the houses immediately collapse. There is no solution for this, because in the event that the Administration intervenes and, for example, declares a construction as an Asset of Cultural Interest, that would be of no use because it does not imply financial aid for its rehabilitation. They are private properties where their owners did not even live, but the sharecroppers, who took care of keeping the houses in good condition.
This landscape book is a journey through time through the fields of Moratalla and Caravaca de la Cruz, Cartagena, Lorca, the countryside of Murcia and other remote corners of the Region. Zielinski feels a predilection for the coastal mountains between Águilas and Mazarrón, where he likes to go along tracks and secondary roads that take him to Ramonete, Morata, Ugéjar, Cuesta de Gos and Garrobillo.
‘The forgotten life’
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Authors
Manuel Muñoz Zielinski and Gabriel López Martínez -
where to buy it
Atenea Bookstore (Primo de Rivera Avenue, Murcia) -
Price
€20 (150 pages)
Also to Viquejos, a ghost town hidden in the Sierra de Almenara where a water mill once worked. That fountain dried up and the people had to leave. The same is happening with almost all births, also in the Northwest region.
In the dedication, Zielinski pays homage to ‘Gregorio’, his old Nissan Almera, with which he has traveled more than 5,000 kilometers to compose ‘La vida olvidada’.
–Any recommendable place to eat in those fields?
–The Social Center of Los Royos, a remote district of Caravaca. They prepare a Segureño lamb with terrific peppers.
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