Cantos Cautivos
Anthem of Puchuncaví (Himno de Puchuncaví)
- Music piece by:Sergio Vesely
- Testimony by:Sergio Vesely
- Experience in:
A few weeks before being transferred to Valparaíso Jail - where I would face a war council on account of alleged violations of the State Interior Security Law and other military regulations that existed during the state of siege - I wrote a song that I called anthem, because I wanted it to be sung as a group at the end of our cultural events on Fridays.
The song was written so that every prisoner, regardless of political affiliation, could sing it. The only way to strengthen prisoners’ unity was to realise that all of us lived in the same conditions.
From what other prisoners have said, we know that the 'Himno de Puchuncaví' continued to be sung in the detention camp, both at the Friday cultural events as well as in everyday prison life – even after I was transferred to Valparaíso Jail.
The version I recorded for the album Documento (1986) includes an instrumental introduction, inspired by the tune of an anthem sung in a concentration camp in the first years of Nazism in Germany.
That song was called 'Die Moorsoldaten' ('Soldiers of the mud'), which prisoners of the Burgermoor concentration camp sang during their backbreaking working days.
Tags:
Published on: 22 June 2015
crossing central valleys
pampas, wetlands
they come from everywhere.
They are like the shine of golden copper
braided legs, hands that plough the field
dreamers, carved bodies
they come from everywhere.
They search for lost streets
their barefoot voices, songs of life
they have loves, they don’t forget them
they come from everywhere.
They speak of history but have no past
rock upon rock they were forged
they want to be wind, they want to be water
they come from everywhere.
Related testimonies:
- The Black King (El rey negro) Sergio Vesely, Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, 1975
One cold winter night of 1975, the small clinic of Melinka, in the Puchuncaví Detention Camp, became the setting for a touching story.
- National Anthem of Chile Boris Chornik Aberbuch, Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, March 1975
The Puchuncaví detention camp’s daily routine included mandatory participation in the ceremonies of raising and taking down the Chilean flag on the flagpole at the entrance to the camp.
- Dreams of my Imprisonment (Sueños de mi encierro) Mario Patricio Cordero Cedraschi, Cárcel de Valparaíso, Winter of 1975
I’d spent two years in prison and there was no end in sight for my time in jail. I observed during visiting hours that many prisoners had children, a wife, family.
- Ode to Joy (Himno a la alegría) Luis Madariaga, Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1974 - 1976
In prison, we would sing the 'Ode to Joy' when a comrade was released or sent to exile.
- To Sing by Improvising (Pa’ cantar de un improviso) Claudio Enrique Durán Pardo (Kila Chico), Campamento de Prisioneros Melinka, Puchuncaví, June 1975
We made a Venezuelan cuatro from a large plank of wood attached to one of the walls of the "ranch" where we ate.
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