''NETOTSJKAS BARNDOM' & THE WOUNDED CHILDHOOD

Claire Fontaine and The Grandma share many interests -among them, a love of literature- and if there is one author they both consider pivotal, it is Fjodor Dostojevskij.

Claire is a linguistic prodigy and an accomplished polyglot; today, she has decided to reread Netotsjkas Barndom, the Danish version of Netochka Nezvanova.

Long before Fyodor Dostoevsky created the tormented characters of Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov, he had already begun exploring one of the most complex territories of human existence: the psychological consequences of suffering.

Published in 1849, Netochka Nezvanova is an unfinished novel that reveals Dostoevsky's extraordinary ability to penetrate the contradictions of the human mind. Although his arrest and subsequent exile prevented him from completing the work, the surviving chapters offer a remarkable psychological portrait of childhood, emotional dependence, loneliness, and the desperate human need to be loved.

At the centre of the story stands Netochka, a young girl whose earliest experiences are shaped by poverty, emotional instability, and the destructive behaviour of the adults surrounding her. Yet the novel is much more than the story of an unhappy childhood. It is an exploration of how human beings learn to love, fear, suffer, and survive.

One of the most psychologically fascinating characters is Yefimov, Netochka's stepfather, a musician whose ambition is far greater than his achievements. Yefimov believes himself to be an extraordinary artist, a misunderstood genius whose failures are always the consequence of external circumstances. Rather than confronting his limitations, he constructs a psychological refuge based on resentment, self-deception, and the conviction that the world has treated him unjustly. His tragedy is not simply that he fails to achieve greatness, but that he cannot accept the possibility of being ordinary. This inability to reconcile ambition with reality gradually transforms him into a destructive presence within his family.

From a modern psychological perspective, his behaviour suggests mechanisms of denial, projection, and emotional manipulation. His wounded pride becomes an excuse for cruelty, while his artistic aspirations provide a justification for avoiding responsibility.

Dostoevsky presents a disturbing paradox: a man who suffers deeply but remains incapable of recognising the suffering he inflicts upon others. Yefimov is both a victim of his illusions and the architect of his own destruction.

Netochka's childhood unfolds in an atmosphere of insecurity, deprivation, and emotional confusion. Instead of finding protection in the adults around her, she encounters instability and conflicting loyalties. Her relationship with Yefimov is particularly revealing. Despite his destructive behaviour, she develops an intense attachment to him, idealising a figure who contributes significantly to her unhappiness.

This contradiction illustrates one of the novel's most powerful psychological insights: children do not necessarily love those who protect them best. They may become deeply attached to those whose approval they most desperately seek.

Netochka's feelings are shaped by fear, admiration, guilt, and a longing for affection that she cannot fully understand. Her emotional development demonstrates how a child's perception of reality can be distorted by the need to preserve an attachment, even when that attachment is harmful.

Dostoevsky does not judge her contradictory emotions. Instead, he allows readers to experience the world through her vulnerability. And perhaps this is where his psychological genius becomes most evident: he understands that childhood suffering is not always remembered as a sequence of events, but as a complicated landscape of emotions.

Netochka's relationship with Katya introduces another essential dimension of the novel: the discovery of affection beyond the family. Their friendship develops through a mixture of fascination, jealousy, tenderness, pride, and emotional intensity. For Netochka, Katya represents something profoundly different from the insecurity of her childhood: the possibility of being loved without having to endure humiliation or fear. Yet even this relationship is complicated.

Dostoevsky refuses to present affection as a simple or entirely harmonious experience. Love can inspire generosity, but it can also awaken possessiveness, insecurity, and the fear of abandonment. The emotional intensity between the two girls reveals how deeply Netochka's earlier experiences influence her capacity to establish relationships. Her need for affection is inseparable from her fear of losing it. Through Katya, Dostoevsky explores the delicate boundary between friendship, idealisation, emotional dependence, and the awakening of personal identity.

Another significant figure is Alexandra Mikhailovna, whose kindness provides Netochka with a different model of adult behaviour. Unlike Yefimov, she is capable of tenderness and compassion. However, her own emotional life is marked by secrets, vulnerability, and suffering. Her character introduces a recurring Dostoevskian theme: the contrast between outward appearances and inner psychological reality. A seemingly peaceful household may conceal profound emotional conflicts, just as a gentle personality may carry invisible wounds.

Through Alexandra Mikhailovna, Netochka begins to discover that adults are not simply powerful figures who control children's lives. They, too, can be frightened, dependent, unhappy, and trapped by circumstances. This recognition marks an important stage in her psychological development. Understanding other people's suffering becomes part of understanding herself.

Although Netochka Nezvanova remained unfinished, it already contains many of the themes that would define Dostoevsky's mature literary universe. His characters are never merely good or evil, strong or weak, innocent or guilty. They are contradictory individuals whose actions emerge from a complex interaction of desire, fear, pride, suffering, and emotional need.

The novel also anticipates a central concern of modern psychology: the lasting influence of early relationships on the development of identity. 

Netochka's experiences suggest that childhood is not simply a period we leave behind. It becomes part of the emotional structure through which we interpret the world.

Yefimov demonstrates how self-deception can destroy a human being from within. Katya reveals the intensity and uncertainty of emotional discovery. Alexandra Mikhailovna illustrates the suffering hidden beneath social respectability.

And Netochka herself embodies the extraordinary resilience of a child struggling to find meaning and affection in a world she cannot control.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this novel is that Dostoevsky never completed her journey. Yet its unfinished nature also leaves readers with a powerful question: can someone whose earliest experiences have been shaped by suffering eventually learn to love without fear? Dostoevsky offers no final answer. But he reminds us that the deepest wounds of childhood are often invisible, and that understanding the human soul requires looking beyond behaviour to discover the suffering beneath it.

In Dostoevsky's universe, the human heart is never simple. And that is precisely what makes it human.

More information: EBSCO

Der er øjeblikke, hvor sindet oplever 
langt mere end gennem hele år.

There are moments in which the mind 
experiences far more than in entire years.

Fjodor Dostojevskij

'FORBRYDELSEN', DI SARAH LUND IN SEARCH OF JUSTICE

Today, The Grandma has watched Forbrydelsen, an extraordinary Danish series starring Sofie Gråbøl. The Grandma is a huge fan of Nordic Noir, and Forbrydelsen is one of the masterpieces of the genre.

Some television series entertain us. Others challenge us, disturb us, and remain in our minds long after the final credits have disappeared. Forbrydelsen (The Killing), the extraordinary Danish crime drama created by Søren Sveistrup, undoubtedly belongs to the second category.

Across three seasons, the series explores far more than murder investigations. It examines the fragility of human relationships, the corruption of political institutions, the devastating consequences of grief, and the uncomfortable distance between legality and justice.

At the centre of this profoundly unsettling universe stands one of the most fascinating characters in contemporary television: Detective Inspector Sarah Lund, magnificently portrayed by Sofie Gråbøl.

Sarah Lund is not a conventional heroine. She is emotionally reserved, socially awkward, stubborn, obsessive, and frequently incapable of maintaining healthy personal relationships. Her dedication to her work consumes almost every aspect of her existence. Yet these apparent weaknesses are inseparable from her extraordinary moral strength.

Lund possesses an almost pathological determination to discover the truth. She refuses to accept convenient explanations, challenges authority, and continues investigating long after everyone else has decided that the case should be closed.

Psychologically, her behaviour suggests an intense need for moral coherence. She cannot tolerate the contradiction between what she knows to be true and what others expect her to accept. Her obsession is not simply professional ambition. It is an existential necessity.

For Sarah Lund, abandoning an investigation would mean betraying something fundamental within herself. And this is precisely what makes her such a compelling character. Her greatest virtue is also her greatest weakness. She can understand the smallest inconsistency in a murder investigation, yet she frequently fails to recognise the emotional needs of the people who love her. She can reconstruct the darkest corners of the human mind, yet struggles to understand her own. Her relationships suffer, her family life deteriorates, and professional success rarely brings her happiness. Nevertheless, she continues. Not because she enjoys suffering, but because she seems incapable of living comfortably with an unanswered injustice.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Forbrydelsen is its portrayal of political power. Each season introduces a political figure who, at least initially, appears to believe in integrity and public responsibility.

In the first season, Troels Hartmann, a candidate for mayor of Copenhagen, attempts to preserve his political ideals while navigating an increasingly ruthless electoral campaign.

In the second, Justice Minister Thomas Buch finds himself confronting a political and institutional machinery in which the truth has become dangerously inconvenient.

In the third, Prime Minister Kristian Kamper struggles to reconcile political responsibility, personal tragedy, and the pressures of a system determined to protect itself.

These characters are not identical, nor are they morally flawless. Their importance lies in the conflict between their principles and the compromises demanded by political survival. Their stories expose a disturbing paradox: institutions supposedly created to defend society can become more concerned with preserving their own power than fulfilling their original purpose. Honesty becomes a liability. Integrity becomes an obstacle. And loyalty is increasingly measured not by devotion to the truth, but by obedience to those who control the system.

Forbrydelsen does not simply suggest that individual politicians can be corrupt. It raises a much more uncomfortable possibility: that the political system itself can gradually corrupt even those who enter it with honourable intentions.

Perhaps the darkest and most disturbing theme running through all three seasons is the collapse of faith in institutional justice. Again and again, grieving families discover that the legal system cannot necessarily provide the answers, protection, or accountability they desperately need.

In the first season, Theis Birk Larsen, devastated by the murder of his daughter Nanna, is driven towards personal vengeance.

In the second, the consequences of military secrecy, institutional betrayal, and the death of a soldier expose another tragic collision between grief and revenge.

In the third, the father of a murdered young woman embarks on a desperate campaign to force the truth into the open.

These characters are not simply seeking punishment. They are searching for meaning in a world that has suddenly become incomprehensible. From a psychological perspective, revenge offers an illusion of control. When someone loses a loved one through violence, the sense of helplessness can become unbearable. Punishing the person believed responsible may appear to restore a moral balance that has been destroyed. But revenge and justice are not the same thing. Justice requires evidence, proportionality, and accountability. Revenge is driven by suffering, anger, and the desperate desire to make someone else experience the pain one has endured. 

What makes Forbrydelsen so powerful is that it refuses to offer easy moral answers. We understand the suffering of those who seek revenge, even when we cannot justify their actions. And gradually, we begin to question the legitimacy of institutions that repeatedly fail the people they are supposed to protect.

The conclusion of the third season brings these themes together in one devastating moment. Sarah Lund, the woman who has dedicated her life to investigating crimes and defending the principles of justice, finally confronts a situation in which the legal system appears incapable of punishing a guilty man. Niels Reinhardt's protection by powerful interests represents everything she has fought against. And Lund makes an irreversible decision. She kills him. This is not merely a shocking narrative twist. It is the psychological culmination of her entire journey.

For three seasons, Sarah has watched institutions conceal information, manipulate investigations, sacrifice innocent people, and protect those whose social or political influence  places them beyond ordinary accountability. She has repeatedly refused to compromise. Yet, in the end, she commits the ultimate transgression against the principles she has spent her career defending. The investigator becomes the executioner. The defender of the law becomes a fugitive. The woman who has always pursued criminals is now forced to escape from the very system she once served. But is her final action a betrayal of her principles, or their most extreme expression? This is the moral question that makes the ending so extraordinary.

Lund does not become corrupt in the conventional sense. She does not act for money, professional advancement, or political convenience. Instead, she crosses the line because she can no longer tolerate the possibility that a murderer will escape punishment. And this is the tragedy. Her conscience survives, but her moral certainty collapses. By taking justice into her own hands, she becomes part of the same cycle of extrajudicial violence that she has spent three seasons witnessing.

There is something profoundly melancholic about Sarah Lund. She is surrounded by people, yet fundamentally alone. Her intelligence isolates her. Her professional dedication distances her from her family. Her inability to compromise makes her indispensable as an investigator but almost impossible to accommodate within an institution. She is not a perfect person. Indeed, much of her humanity comes from her imperfections. She makes mistakes, hurts those who love her, and sometimes allows her obsession to overwhelm her judgement. But she never treats the truth as something negotiable. Perhaps that is why her character inspires such admiration.

In a world where so many people are willing to sacrifice their principles for comfort, power, or acceptance, Sarah Lund represents the uncomfortable possibility of remaining faithful to one's conscience, whatever the personal cost. And yet Forbrydelsen offers one final warning: integrity without limits can become destructive, even when its intentions are honourable.

The final image of Sarah Lund leaves us with more questions than answers. She disappears into an uncertain future, abandoning her career, her family, and the possibility of the ordinary happiness that had finally seemed within reach. Where does she go? Does she find peace? Can someone who has devoted her entire existence to pursuing the truth ever learn to live without that purpose? Perhaps Sarah Lund is somewhere in Iceland, watching the rain fall over Reykjavík. Perhaps she has travelled much farther, to a place where nobody knows her name. Or perhaps she is still investigating something, because it is impossible to imagine Sarah Lund simply turning away from an unanswered question. Her disappearance is not necessarily the end of her story. It is the beginning of a mystery that belongs entirely to her. 

Ultimately, Forbrydelsen is not simply a series about crime. It is a profound reflection on the human need for truth, the vulnerability of ethical principles, and the terrible consequences of living in a society where justice and power no longer walk hand in hand. And Sarah Lund, with her unforgettable sweaters, her silences, her determination, and her extraordinary contradictions, remains one of television's most compelling representations of the struggle between conscience and the law. 

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Sarah Lund is that she spends her life searching for justice in a world that has forgotten what justice means.

More information: The Guardian

At vove er at tabe fodfæstet en kort stund. 

Ikke at vove er at tabe sig selv.

To dare is to lose your footing for a moment. 

Not to dare is to lose yourself.

Søren Kierkegaard

NORDIC NOIR, DARKNESS WITHIN THE WELFARE STATE

The Grandma loves literature, and one of her favourite genres is Nordic noir, the crime genre set in the Nordic countries. It could be defined as an exploration of the darkness of the human soul within societies that have apparently succeeded in building a model of well-being, equality, and social justice.

Nordic noir, also known as Scandinavian noir, is a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or the Nordic countries. Nordic noir often employs plain language, avoiding metaphor, and is typically set in bleak landscapes. This results in a dark and morally complex mood, in which a tension is depicted between the apparently still and bland social surface and the patterns of murder, misogyny, rape, and racism the genre depicts as lying underneath.

Some of the best known Nordic noir authors are Jo Nesbø from Norway; Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson and Camilla Läckberg from Sweden; Jussi Adler-Olsen from Denmark; and Arnaldur Indriðason from Iceland. 

The popularity of Nordic noir has extended to the screen, with TV-series such as The Killing, The Bridge, Trapped, and Bordertown. The styling of these series is also cited in several other non-Scandinavian TV shows, such as Wasteland and the Fargo TV series.

There are differing views on the origins but most commentators agree that the genre had become well established as a literary genre by the 1990s; Swedish writer Henning Mankell, who has sometimes been referred to as the father of Nordic noir, notes that the Martin Beck series of novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö broke with the previous trends in crime fiction and pioneered a new style: They were influenced and inspired by the American writer Ed McBain. They realized that there was a huge unexplored territory in which crime novels could form the framework for stories containing social criticism." 

Henning Mankell's books on Kurt Wallander made the genre a mass phenomenon in the 1990s. Norwegian author Karin Fossum's books on Inspector Sejer were also highly influential and widely translated. 

Until the 2010s, the genre had no particular name, but was sometimes referred to descriptively as Nordic crime fiction or Scandinavian crime fiction. Within the Nordic countries themselves, this is still the case. The terms Nordic noir and Scandinavian noir are used largely interchangeably in English. In the English-speaking world, the term Nordic noir was coined by the Scandinavian Department at the University College of London and gained further usage in the British media in the 2010s beginning with the airing of the BBC documentary called the Nordic Noir: The Story of Scandinavian Crime Fiction. It is said that Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy contributed to the popularity of Nordic noir among readers outside Scandinavian countries. 

The Guardian also referred to The Killing as Nordic noir. These factors underscore that the term is considered typical of a phenomenon seen as uniting the viewpoint of foreign eye towards recognizable Nordic context. 

Nordic noir remains a foreign term, as it is not normally used in the Nordic countries and has no equally established equivalent in the Scandinavian or other languages of the Nordic countries.

A description of Nordic noir cited that it is typified by a dimly lit aesthetic, matched by a slow and melancholic pace, as well as multi-layered storylines. It often features a mix of bleak naturalism and disconsolate locations, with a focus on the sense of place where bad things can happen. These were the distinguishing emotions of the series Bordertown, which were further combined with an atmosphere arising from the fear of Russia.

The works also owe something to Scandinavia's political system where the apparent equality, social justice, and liberalism of the Nordic model is seen to cover up dark secrets and hidden hatreds. 

The term Nordic noir is also applied to films and television series in this genre, both adaptations of novels and original screenplays. Notable examples are The Killing, The Bridge, Trapped, Bordertown, Deadwind and Lakeside Murders.

More information: The Paris Review

Att undersöka ett brott har alltid varit ett effektivt 
sätt att hålla upp en spegel mot samhällets 

motsättningar och spänningar.

Examining a crime has always been an efficient 
way to hold a mirror up to the contradictions 

and stresses in a society.

Henning Mankell

SITGES FILM FESTIVAL, BEYOND REALITY AND PREJUDICE

October is synonymous with autumn, localized storms, and the flu or common cold, but also with horror and science fiction.

The Grandma wouldn't miss her date with the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalunya. She is a huge fan of science fiction; although it is often -and erroneously- dismissed as a lesser cinematic genre, it is actually one that has produced some of the greatest masterpieces in film history.

So, The Grandma boarded the boat she keeps anchored in the Port of Barcelona and sailed a few miles to the harbour of one of the most beautiful cities you could ever visit -a city she loves deeply and enjoys visiting as often as she can. And doing so to enjoy the film festival makes the visit even better.

Every year, the Mediterranean town of Sitges becomes a meeting point for filmmakers, actors, critics and cinema lovers who share a passion for fantasy, horror and science fiction. 

The Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalunya, founded in 1968, is one of the world's most prestigious festivals dedicated to fantastic cinema.

However, beyond its screenings, awards and international reputation, Sitges represents something much more important: the recognition of a kind of cinema that has too often been dismissed as minor entertainment.

For decades, fantasy and science-fiction films have frequently been associated with B-movies, cheap special effects, monsters, spaceships and impossible adventures. Some critics have regarded them as inferior to supposedly more serious genres, as though imagination and artistic quality were incompatible.

But who decides what makes a film great? And why should a story set in a distant galaxy be considered less meaningful than one set in an ordinary city?

Cinema is an art form, and imagination has never been the enemy of intelligence.

Science fiction is not simply about predicting the future. Very often, it is about understanding the present. Consider Star Trek, a universe in which humanity explores space while confronting questions of diversity, cooperation, prejudice and peaceful coexistence. Behind its futuristic technology lies an optimistic vision of a society capable of overcoming some of its deepest divisions. Or Star Wars, whose spectacular battles between good and evil also explore political oppression, authoritarianism, resistance and the struggle for freedom. Its imaginary galaxy reflects conflicts that have shaped human history for centuries. Ridley Scott's Alien offers another fascinating example. Beneath its terrifying creature and claustrophobic atmosphere, the film questions corporate power, the exploitation of workers and the frightening possibility that human life might become less valuable than commercial interests. Meanwhile, James Cameron's Avatar explores colonialism, environmental destruction and the relationship between human beings and nature. Its extraordinary visual universe invites audiences to reconsider the consequences of greed and the exploitation of other cultures. These films do not merely entertain. They challenge, question and provoke. And that is precisely what great cinema should do.

Science fiction also allows humanity to explore one of its oldest fascinations: the future. 

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar takes audiences on an extraordinary journey through space and time, combining scientific ideas with deeply human emotions. Beyond black holes and distant planets, it asks fundamental questions about survival, sacrifice, love and our responsibility towards future generations. What will become of humanity? How far can science take us? Are there limits to our knowledge? And what happens when technological progress develops faster than our ethical understanding? These questions belong not only to cinema but also to philosophy, science and literature. Long before modern science-fiction films, Jules Verne was already inviting readers to imagine extraordinary possibilities.

In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon, Verne combined scientific curiosity, adventure and an extraordinary ability to imagine worlds beyond the limits of his own time. Today, his novels are recognised as literary classics. His imagination is celebrated rather than dismissed. Why should cinema be treated differently? A spaceship can be as powerful a literary symbol as a sailing ship. An alien civilisation can reveal as much about human nature as a historical society. And an imaginary future can sometimes explain our present more clearly than a realistic drama.

The value of a story does not depend on whether its world exists, but on what that world allows us to discover. There is another aspect of fantastic cinema that deserves recognition: its ability to entertain. Not every film needs to deliver a philosophical message or a political warning. Sometimes we simply want to experience fear, excitement, wonder or adventure. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Cinema was never intended exclusively for intellectual reflection. It is also a celebration of storytelling, emotion and spectacle. A modest horror film can become unforgettable. A low-budget science-fiction production can introduce an original idea that changes the genre forever. A so-called B-movie can inspire generations of filmmakers.

The history of cinema demonstrates that artistic creativity does not always depend on financial resources, critical prestige or sophisticated technology. Sometimes, all it takes is a brilliant idea. The distinction between serious cinema and popular entertainment is often more artificial than meaningful. A film can be enjoyable without being superficial, just as an ambitious production can be visually impressive without having anything particularly interesting to say. Entertainment is not the opposite of art. It is one of the many ways in which art reaches people.

This is why the Sitges Film Festival is so important. Since its beginnings in 1968, the festival has helped provide fantastic cinema with a space where creativity, experimentation and unconventional storytelling are celebrated rather than marginalised. Its importance goes beyond promoting horror, fantasy or science fiction. It reminds audiences that cinema cannot be confined to rigid categories of cultural prestige.

Fantastic cinema can be disturbing, humorous, political, philosophical, experimental or simply entertaining. It can transport us to imaginary worlds while forcing us to confront very real fears and contradictions. Above all, it gives filmmakers and audiences the freedom to imagine the impossible. And perhaps this is the greatest achievement of Sitges: defending a cinema that refuses to accept reality as the only possible setting for meaningful stories.

Human progress has always begun with imagination. Before humanity travelled beneath the oceans, someone imagined exploring their depths. Before human beings reached the Moon, writers had already sent fictional travellers into space. And before we can build a different future, we must first be capable of imagining one. Fantastic cinema reminds us that reality is not the limit of human creativity. It invites us to dream, to question established ideas and to look beyond what we already know. Perhaps a film about distant planets, mysterious creatures or impossible journeys will not provide all the answers. But it may inspire us to ask better questions. 

And that alone makes it worthy of being called great cinema. Because imagination is not an escape from intelligence. It is one of its most extraordinary expressions.

Science fiction does not simply imagine worlds that do not exist. It helps us understand the world we inhabit and inspires us to create the world we would like to live in.

More info: Sitges-Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya

Tout ce qui est dans la limite du possible 
doit être et sera accompli.

All that is within the limits of possibility 
may and shall be accomplished.

Jules Verne

JOAN PETIT WAS MURDERED BUT HIS MEMORY IS ALIVE

Today, The Grandma wishes to pay tribute to Joan Petit. She first encountered him when she was very young and began singing his song. Today, decades later, she continues to remember, sing about, and honour him, especially on a day like this, the anniversary of his murder.

History is full of Joan Petits, and it is our duty to remember each one of them and keep their memory alive; for the very act of preserving that memory keeps alive their struggle and the ideals for which they were murdered.

There is one thing the powerful cannot always control: what a people decides to remember.

On 8 October 1643, a man named Joan Petit was brutally executed in the town of Vilafranca de Roergue, in Occitania.

He had participated in a popular uprising against injustice, excessive taxation and the abuses of royal authority. His execution was intended to punish rebellion and frighten anyone who might dare to challenge the established order.

Yesterday marked the 383rd anniversary of his death. Almost four centuries later, his name has not disappeared.

In Catalunya and Occitania, generations of children have sung and danced to a traditional song known as Joan Petit quan balla in Catalan and Joan Petit que dança in Occitan. Most of us learned it at school, at traditional dance gatherings or during popular celebrations. We moved our fingers, hands, feet and arms, laughing and dancing without ever imagining the terrible story traditionally associated with its origins.

Behind the apparent innocence of a children's song lies the memory of a man who dared to resist injustice. And perhaps the most extraordinary part of his story is not how he died, but how his name survived.

Seventeenth-century France was a country marked by war, inequality and poverty. The Thirty Years' War had placed an enormous financial burden on the population. Heavy taxation, poor harvests and the privileges enjoyed by powerful institutions made life increasingly difficult for ordinary people.

In the Roergue region of Occitania, discontent grew into open rebellion. In 1643, the inhabitants of Vilafranca de Roergue rose against the fiscal demands and abuses of royal officials. Among the leaders of this movement was Joan Petit, a local surgeon who became one of the most memorable figures of the Revolt of the Croquants.

The Croquants were ordinary people, particularly from rural communities, who refused to accept a system in which the poorest were expected to bear an intolerable burden while the powerful protected their privileges. They demanded relief from excessive taxation and challenged the authorities who imposed it. Their struggle was not simply a dispute over money. It was also a demand for dignity and justice. The monarchy could not tolerate such defiance. Royal troops eventually suppressed the uprising, and its leaders faced severe punishment.

On 8 October 1643, Joan Petit and another rebel leader, known as Brasc, were publicly executed in the Place Notre-Dame in Vilafranca de Roergue. They were condemned to the breaking wheel, one of the cruellest forms of execution used in early modern Europe. Their bodies were broken, and their remains were displayed as a warning to the population.

The message of royal authority was unmistakable: those who challenged the established order would pay a terrible price. But history does not always remember what those in power want it to remember.

According to a deeply rooted Occitan tradition, the familiar song about Joan Petit preserves the memory of his execution. The different parts of the body mentioned in its verses have been interpreted as references to the terrible injuries inflicted during the breaking-wheel punishment. What children now perform as a joyful dance may therefore have originated in a deeply tragic historical experience.

Although the precise relationship between the song and the events of 1643 remains a subject of historical debate, this interpretation has become an important part of Occitan and Catalan cultural memory. And that is what makes the story so remarkable.

A song can change its meaning over time. Its original context may disappear, its words may be adapted, and its melody may travel from one community to another. Yet something remains. A name. A memory. A trace of the past. For centuries, children have continued singing about Joan Petit without necessarily knowing who he was. His executioners have long since disappeared, but his name continues to be spoken. The authorities could destroy his body. They could not prevent future generations from remembering him. 

Traditional songs are much more than entertainment. They are repositories of collective memory, carrying stories, beliefs, fears, hopes and experiences from one generation to the next. Before widespread literacy, oral traditions were essential for preserving the history of ordinary people. Songs travelled where official documents could not. They passed from parents to children, from villages to towns, and from one generation to another. And sometimes they preserved stories that those in power would rather have forgotten.

Catalan and Occitan popular culture is particularly rich in songs whose apparently simple words conceal complex meanings. A children's song may contain references to death, poverty, injustice or social conflict. A traditional dance may preserve the memory of a historical event. A lullaby may express anxieties that are almost invisible to modern listeners.

The same phenomenon can be found in English-speaking cultures, where traditional nursery rhymes and lullabies have sometimes carried political satire, social criticism or memories of hardship. However, not every popular explanation of a nursery rhyme's historical origins can be verified. Oral traditions are constantly transformed, and their meanings are often more complex than a single interpretation. This does not diminish their cultural importance. On the contrary, it demonstrates that popular culture is alive. It changes, adapts and survives. And while official histories have often concentrated on monarchs, generals and powerful institutions, traditional songs have helped preserve the voices of people who rarely appeared in the chronicles. The anonymous, the forgotten and the defeated have also left their mark on history. Sometimes, that mark is a song.

Joan Petit's story is a powerful example of this struggle between authority and remembrance. The royal authorities wanted his execution to become a lesson in obedience. Popular memory transformed his name into something that could be passed down through the centuries. The man was killed. The memory survived. 

Almost four hundred years separate Joan Petit's rebellion from our own time. Our societies, institutions and political systems have changed enormously since 1643. Yet the questions raised by the Revolt of the Croquants remain painfully familiar. Who should bear the economic burdens of society? What happens when political authority ignores the suffering of ordinary people? How far can power go in defending its own privileges? And what responsibility do citizens have when they witness injustice? These questions have accompanied humanity throughout history.

The struggle for dignity, equality and social justice has taken many forms, from peasant uprisings to labour movements, from demands for democratic rights to contemporary campaigns against discrimination and inequality. We should not pretend that every historical conflict is identical or that the past can be transferred unchanged into the present. But we can recognise the human aspirations that connect different generations.

Joan Petit belonged to a world very different from ours. His demand for a more just society, however, remains understandable today. Remembering him is not simply an exercise in nostalgia. It is a reminder that rights and freedoms have often been defended by people whose names history nearly forgot.

There is something profoundly moving about imagining generations of children singing the name of Joan Petit. They may not know the story of the Croquants. They may never have heard of Vilafranca de Roergue. They may not understand the violence of seventeenth-century royal repression. Yet the name survives. From Occitania to Catalonia, through countless voices and generations, popular culture has carried it into the present. This is one of the greatest achievements of oral tradition. It does not require grand monuments or official ceremonies. Sometimes, a simple melody is enough.

The story of Joan Petit reminds us that historical memory belongs not only to historians and institutions, but also to ordinary people. To those who sing. To those who tell stories. To those who listen. And to those who pass them on. Perhaps this is the final irony of Joan Petit's execution. The authorities wanted to make an example of a rebel and silence resistance. Instead, the memory of that rebel became part of a cultural tradition that has lasted for centuries.

On the 383rd anniversary of his death, Joan Petit deserves to be remembered not merely as the name of a children's song, but as a man who resisted injustice and paid for that resistance with his life. 

They could end his life, but they could not erase his name. And as long as someone continues to sing, the memory will remain alive.

More information: Life on La Lune

Quan la història pertany als poderosos, 

les cançons es converteixen en la memòria 

d'aquells que van ser silenciats.

When history belongs to the powerful, 

songs become the memory 

of those who were silenced.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon

ROBERT GRAVES & MALLORCA, A FOREIGNER FINDS HOME

Today, The Grandma has been practicing another of her favourite hobbies: reading. She has chosen the amazing Breus històries mallorquines by Robert Graves, a literary gem that is a must-read, especially for those who, like The Grandma, have Mallorcan roots.

Some places are visited. Others are inhabited. And a very few become part of the person who arrives there. For Robert Graves, Mallorca was one of those places.

When the English poet and writer arrived on the island in 1929, he was not simply looking for beautiful Mediterranean scenery. He was leaving something behind. Graves belonged to a generation profoundly wounded by the First World War. He had fought on the Western Front, had been seriously injured and had witnessed the destruction of friends and an entire generation. The experience remained with him long after the war had ended.

By 1929, he had also reached a moment of personal and intellectual rupture with England. His autobiography, Good-bye to All That, published that same year, was exactly what its title suggested: a farewell. Then came Mallorca.

Graves and the poet Laura Riding left England in October 1929. During their journey they visited Gertrude Stein in France, and it was Stein who suggested Mallorca as a place where they might live. They travelled to Palma and from there discovered Deià. The village was very different from the internationally known place it would later become. Stone houses climbed between the mountains and the Mediterranean; terraces of olive trees covered the slopes; the sea appeared below the cliffs. Something in that landscape spoke to Graves. He stayed. Eventually, among the olive terraces outside Deià, he built Ca n'Alluny -the Far House. Mallorca had ceased to be a destination. It was becoming home. 

The importance of Mallorca in Graves's life cannot be measured simply by counting the years he spent there. The island gave him something more valuable: distance. Distance from England. Distance from convention. Distance, perhaps, from some of the ghosts he had carried since the trenches. And in that relative isolation, Graves wrote. It was in Mallorca that he produced I, Claudius, published in 1934, the historical novel that would eventually become his most internationally famous work.

But Graves never regarded himself primarily as a novelist. He considered himself a poet. Poetry was at the centre of his understanding of life, mythology, love and creativity. Deià offered him a place in which that private intellectual universe could exist. And slowly, the foreign writer began observing the people around him.

There are many ways for a foreigner to write about another culture. One is to remain outside it. Another is to exoticise it. But there is a third possibility: to stay long enough to begin understanding the silences. Graves stayed. He listened to stories, observed customs, learnt about local rivalries, friendships, prejudices, honour, humour and the complicated mechanisms through which small communities function. He even became remarkably knowledgeable about village gossip.

Mallorca gradually entered his literature not as an exotic Mediterranean postcard but as an inhabited world. Academic research into Graves's Mallorcan stories has identified precisely this process: their characters, social relationships, language, cultural practices and settings grew from his observation of Palma and Deià and from his own experiences on the island. And that brings us to a Robert Graves rather different from the author of I, Claudius.

Breus històries mallorquines brings together eighteen stories connected with Graves's Mallorcan world. Written and published between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, they belong to a completely different literary scale from the Roman palaces and imperial intrigues for which Graves became famous. Here there are no emperors. There are neighbours. A bicycle can become the centre of a story. So can a theatrical performance, a question of education, an infidelity, a misunderstanding or one of those apparently insignificant incidents that can occupy an entire village.

Some of the stories originally appeared in publications such as The New Yorker. The eighteen pieces now gathered in Catalan include the eleven stories Graves himself grouped as Mallorcan Short Stories, together with seven other Mallorcan tales later collected by his daughter Lucia Graves. And perhaps their apparent smallness is precisely their charm. They are little windows.

Reading these stories today, it is tempting to think of them as a kind of literary costumbrisme written by an outsider. Graves watches. He notices gestures. He listens to the peculiar logic behind everyday behaviour. His Mallorcans can be cautious, stubborn, suspicious of novelty, proud, extraordinarily practical and wonderfully ironic. But Graves's gaze is interesting because he occupies an unusual position. He is neither entirely inside nor entirely outside. He retains the foreigner's ability to notice things that locals may consider completely ordinary, while possessing the familiarity of someone who has lived among them long enough to understand that what appears strange from outside often makes perfect sense from within. That tension gives these stories much of their humour. He sees Mallorca with foreign eyes, but no longer with the eyes of a tourist.

The recent Catalan edition, Breus històries mallorquines, translated and contextualised by Nofre Moyà, makes this lesser-known Graves accessible through precisely this everyday world. 

History, however, interrupted Graves's Mallorcan life. The Spanish Civil War forced him to leave the island in 1936. For years, Mallorca became something he could remember but not inhabit. And absence revealed something important. He missed it. His first substantial writing about Mallorca and its people, The Place for a Holiday, published in 1948, was permeated by the longing he had felt for his Mallorcan home during those years of exile. The text would later evolve into Why I Live in Mallorca and become central to Mallorca Observed.

In 1946, Graves finally returned to Deià, this time with Beryl and their family. The foreigner came home.

There is something particularly moving about belonging to a place in which one was not born. Birth gives us an origin. Belonging is something different. It can be built slowly through years of ordinary life: knowing the roads, recognising voices, understanding jokes, watching children grow older, sharing celebrations, remembering people who have died. Perhaps Graves never ceased to be el foraster entirely. But after decades in Deià, the distinction had become almost irrelevant.

The village had entered his writing. Its people had become his neighbours. Its landscape had become the geography of his imagination. And its stories had become some of his stories.

Robert Graves died in 1985. He could have been commemorated in many places. His literary career had been international; his books belonged to readers throughout the world. But Graves was buried in the cemetery at Deià. His grave is remarkably simple. There is no monumental tomb celebrating the internationally famous author of I, Claudius, The White Goddess and more than a thousand poems. His grave was made using humble Mallorcan lime mortar. And upon it were scratched simply his name, his dates and one word: Robert Graves, Poeta. Nothing more was necessary. 

Perhaps that modest grave above the Mediterranean explains his relationship with Mallorca better than any literary biography could. He arrived as a foreigner searching for distance. He found a village. He built a house. He wrote books. He listened to stories. He left and longed to return. He returned and stayed. And eventually he asked that the island should keep him. The author of Roman emperors, Greek gods, ancient myths and great historical narratives also understood that literature can be found in much smaller things: a stolen bicycle, a piece of village gossip, a neighbour's eccentricity, a conversation overheard, a story told over a table. 

That is the Robert Graves we discover in Breus històries mallorquines. Not Graves the classical scholar. Not Graves the celebrated novelist. Not even Graves the English poet. But simply Robert of Deià: a foraster who stayed long enough to discover that sometimes the place where we were born and the place where we belong are not necessarily the same.

And perhaps that is what Mallorca ultimately gave him. Not an escape from home, but another meaning of the word home.

More information: La Casa de Robert Graves

I found everything I wanted as a writer: 
sun, sea, mountains, spring-water, 

shady trees, no politics...

Robert Graves

FBI SA DANA SCULLY, BRINGING SCIENCE TO PRIME TIME

Today, The Grandma has been enjoying one of her favorite hobbies: LEGOs. She has received the latest LEGO set she had been eagerly awaiting, the one featuring the laboratory of Dana Scully, the protagonist of The X-Files. She didn't build it alone, though; she had the help of Claire Fontaine. After all, when you share your hobbies with friends, you enjoy both the hobbies and the friendships even more.

When The X-Files first appeared on television in 1993, Special Agent Dana Scully walked into a basement office at the FBI and changed television. Perhaps nobody knew it yet.

She was there, after all, for a very specific reason. Her superiors had assigned her to work with Fox Mulder because she was everything he was not supposed to be: rational, methodical, scientifically trained and sceptical. Mulder wanted to believe. Scully wanted evidence.

But Dana Scully soon became much more than Mulder's scientific counterweight. She became one of the most powerful female characters in television history.

Dana Katherine Scully was a medical doctor, a scientist and an FBI Special Agent. That combination mattered. Television had certainly shown intelligent women before her, but Scully occupied a space that women were still rarely allowed to inhabit in mainstream popular culture. She was not the assistant to the scientist. She was the scientist. She examined bodies. She performed autopsies. She studied tissue samples. She interpreted toxicology reports. She challenged hypotheses. She demanded evidence.

And when Fox Mulder presented an extraordinary explanation, Scully's response was rarely to ridicule him. She simply asked: Can we prove it? That distinction is essential to understanding the character. Scully's scepticism was not closed-mindedness. It was methodology.

Science does not say that something is impossible merely because it appears extraordinary. Science asks for evidence before accepting it as true. And that made Scully much more interesting than a simple sceptic.

One of the great achievements of The X-Files was that it never truly asked us to choose between its two protagonists. Mulder had intuition. Scully had method. Mulder looked at the impossible and asked, Why not? Scully looked at it and asked, How do we know? And somewhere between those two questions lay the truth. Their relationship worked because neither ultimately destroyed the other's worldview. Instead, over the years, they influenced one another. Scully learned that not everything could easily be explained. Mulder learned that believing something did not make it true. Faith needed reason. Reason sometimes needed imagination. The truth, perhaps, required both.

There was another quiet revolution taking place. Again and again, Scully entered an autopsy room. She put on her gloves, switched on her recorder and began examining the dead. The scene became one of the visual languages of The X-Files. 

Today this hardly seems unusual. Television crime drama has made forensic laboratories, autopsy rooms, medical examiners and pathologists completely familiar to us. Think of CSI and its many descendants and spin-offs, Body of Proof, Forever, Bones, NCIS, Major Crimes and countless other procedural dramas. The forensic expert eventually became almost indispensable. But Scully had been there years earlier.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, for example, did not premiere until 2000, seven years after The X-Files. It would subsequently make forensic science the very centre of one of television's most successful franchises. It would be too much to claim that Dana Scully single-handedly created the television forensic boom. She did not. But she unquestionably helped prepare audiences for it. She made scientific investigation dramatic. She showed that an autopsy could move a story forward. And, perhaps most importantly, she demonstrated that the person holding the scalpel could be a woman.

This may be one of Scully's greatest achievements as a character. Her strength was never based on becoming masculine. She could carry a gun and perform an autopsy. She could confront killers and challenge FBI superiors. But she could also be vulnerable, frightened, compassionate and deeply emotional. She could be a scientist and a Catholic. She could question faith and still possess it. She could love. She could grieve. She could doubt herself. None of these things diminished her intelligence. None made her less capable. And this was enormously important. Scully did not demonstrate that women could succeed by behaving like men. She demonstrated that competence has no gender.

Her influence eventually escaped fiction altogether. It became known as the Scully Effect. Researchers studying the phenomenon found that women who had watched The X-Files regularly were significantly more likely to regard STEM positively, to consider working in a STEM field and to identify Scully as an inspiration.

A major study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media described Scully as one of the first multidimensional female STEM characters on popular television -and the first to occupy such a prominent leading role. 

Gillian Anderson herself later discovered that women had become doctors, scientists and FBI agents partly because they had grown up watching Scully. Chris Carter has recalled hearing the same thing from viewers years later. 

That is an extraordinary legacy for a fictional character. Because representation does something very simple and very powerful. Before someone can think, I can become that, sometimes they first need to see someone like themselves doing it.

Dana Scully was never designed as a superhero. She had no extraordinary powers. Quite the opposite.  Her power was her mind. She observed. She studied. She questioned. She reasoned. And when the evidence contradicted her hypothesis, eventually she changed the hypothesis. There is something profoundly powerful about that.

Popular culture often celebrates certainty. Heroes know what they are doing. They know who the enemy is. They know what is right. Scientists cannot work that way. Science requires the courage to say: I don't know. And then to start looking. Scully made that search heroic.

More than three decades after Dana Scully first entered that basement office, television is full of female doctors, forensic scientists, detectives, pathologists and investigators. They are no longer unusual. And perhaps that is one of Scully's greatest victories. Characters such as her eventually made themselves less exceptional because they helped change what audiences considered normal. Dana Scully opened a door. Others walked through it. And behind the FBI badge, the red hair, the autopsy table and the wonderfully sceptical raised eyebrow, there remains something even more important.

A generation of girls watched a woman enter rooms traditionally occupied by men and behave as though she had every right to be there. Because she did. 

Before she was a doctor, Scully was a physicist. Her senior thesis, Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation, already tells us something essential about her character. Scully was never simply a woman who refused to believe. She was a woman trained to question, test and reinterpret. Long before she entered an autopsy room or joined the FBI, she had already been taught to look at the universe and ask whether the accepted explanation was enough.

Dana Scully taught us that scepticism is not the absence of imagination. That science is not the enemy of wonder. That asking questions is not a weakness. And that perhaps the most courageous response to the unknown is neither I believe nor I don't believe. It is: Show me the evidence.

More information: Geena Davis Institute

Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, 
only in contradiction to what we know of it.

Dana Scully