100 years since the first viral image of Sanfermines

When technology can be traded Thousands of videos and photos per secondIt’s so cool to think about it Black and white shot taken in Pamplona 100 years ago He was able to resist with dignity the passage of decades and calamities.

NG Article by journalist Ernest Hemingway, incorporating a photo of running bulls taken a year ago in the Mercades


The image was collected in The local press at the time as a reminder of the dangerous and original experience of these parties, But what no one could have imagined was that it would become the first image of Sanvermin to go beyond the confines of this city, the first widely circulated, just a century ago.

The shot is attributed to Juanito Michaelis. Captured during the running of the bulls on July 10, 1922 and shows A runner fell at the end of Mercades Street. notes that a look who led the group He focused his attention on the boy. Fortunately for him, Morlaco He was not scratched and unharmed by the rest of the herd, which passed a long distance from the Plaza de Toros, which in that year changed to its present location.

The boy in question has been called José María García Mina and his son, who has the same name, kept this photo in a frame It remains in his memory Some tales of those who run bulls at the beginning of the last century, When I cross the streets of Pamplona Only a few brave ones ran in front of the bullsmostly belongs to a guild for butcher

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The runner’s son is 93 years old and in good health. He goes to the Plaza del Castillo with his grandson, Daniel Ramirez García Mina, writer and journalist based in Madrid, Who investigated everything related to the image of that image of his defenseless grandfather in front of the herd at full speed.

“The bulls were run in six o’clock am. There was no runner and a few spectators on the balconies along the way. The writer commented.

“Bad day”

Remembering Jose Maria Garcia Mina From his father, his strong fondness for running bulls And that morning in front of a lookIt’s not at its best. “It appears to have happened. 15 or 20 days with gastritis, based on milk. He blamed it on being weak.”

To celebrate the centenary of that photo, Grandfather and grandson accepted the invitation of this newspaper to go to the exact place where it was taken. That day it was hot and there was a lot of noise. Pamplona has changed, but Mercaders Avenue has remained more or less the same, except for the businesses that existed then which gave way to other businesses.

José María García Mina and his grandson Daniel Ramírez, at the location where the photo was taken as Miura looks at the ex’s father. Javier Bergas


“He was 31 years old and he told me that he heard the snoring of the bull very soon, and that he almost touched him.. Although in the picture the danger seemed to come from the first bull, he told me that the second bull was closer to him. It’s hard to tell if he just fell or if he rose.”

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Jose Maria Garcia Mina saves In your home a large copy of the image He asserts with some pride that since its publication it has gained a bad public reputation. Years later, a popular bakery at the time, located in present-day Chapitela, made a marzipan cake that recreates the image with the fallen runner in front of the flock.

Your picture is in a bar in Germany

The real surprise for the hero came years later, during Trip to Germany to buy machines for Compañía Navarra de Abonos Químicos, who was its manager. Found in a pub, probably in Düsseldorf Reproduce the image with him as the protagonist. “There, in a bar where the pictures were exposed under the glass, they were seen. Imagine how it turned out,” his son recalls.

However, this wasn’t the first time that this picture had appeared It crossed borders and became international. The photo was included in an article signed by a young journalist from a Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star, who arrived in Pamplona in 1923 in search of good material for his reports.

It was about Ernest Hemingway, That he had moved a year earlier as a correspondent to Paris and that he did not know how and why he appeared in Pamplona. In the report he wrote in October 1923 Canada’s readers of Sanfermin decide to include a picture of the fallen young man on Mercaderis Street. Along with a photo of the Plaza de Toros filled with people and a couple of vignettes about running bulls.

Aileen Morales

"Beer nerd. Food fanatic. Alcohol scholar. Tv practitioner. Writer. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot."

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