Frederico Garcia Lorca, Andalucian poet, dramatist, artist, hero of mine, and ardent socialist was most likely murdered by fascist militiamen on this day the nineteenth of August 1936. Born on 5 June 1898 in the village of Fuente Vaqeurtos in the province
of Granada, a man ahead of his time, avant gardist, homosexual and
restless traveller, the most gypsy of poets , a term he rejected,
friend of surrealists, developing his own ingenious style, full of
lyrical freshness and spontaneity.
His father, Federico García Rodriguez, was a prosperous farmer. Vicenta
Lorca Romero. His mother was a schoolteacher before becoming Federico's
second wife.
Throughout his all too short but trailblazing life, death had been his central artistic theme, it seems he had foretold his own violent death, when he wrote ' Then I realised I had been murdered. They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches - but they did not find me. They never found me. They never found me.'
Few artists, have represented and embodied their nations collective spirit more than Lorca - which makes the tragic account of his death all the more heartbreaking.
Lorca was deeply tied to his Andalusian roots, and they were a source of his lifelong fascination with cante jondo
(“deep song”), the hypnotic, wailing music of the Gypsies. It is the
unvarnished, primeval cousin of flamenco, which was festooned with more
rhythmic drive and cosmopolitan appeal—“cante jondo for tourists,” in Lorca’s words. Cante jondo embraces
many cultures: Jewish, Byzantine, Moorish, Indian. Some of the songs
are bitter reflections on hunger and poverty. But Lorca was more
fascinated by the natural imagery of cante jondo—wind, sea, earth, and moon, the locus classicus of his poetry. The groundbreaking 1922 cante jondo festival
Lorca organized under Manuel de Falla’s direction was only one of his
many artistic ventures based around Gypsy culture—his 1928 Gypsy Ballads attained instant popularity and launched him into the spotlight.
Federico García Lorca was part of what’s known as the Generation of ‘27,
a group of avant-garde artists and writers which include the painter
Salvador Dalí, with whom he had a close relationships who he had first met in 1923. A poet of the universal, Lorca used his voice to speak about love, death, passion, cruelty and injustice, and also the most international, saying - ' I sing to Spain, and I feel her to the core of my being, but above all Iam a man of the world and brother of everyone.'
Lorca received significant critical and popular attention, and in 1929 travelled to New York City, where he found a connection
between Spanish deep songs and the African American spirituals he heard
in Harlem. When he returned to Spain he co-founded La Barraca, a
traveling theater company that performed both Spanish classics and
Lorca’s original plays, including the well-known Blood Wedding (1933),
in small-town squares. Despite the threat of a growing fascist movement
in his country, Lorca refused to hide his leftist political views, or
his homosexuality, while continuing his ascent as a writer.
Shortly after the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1938, Lorca made the misguided decision to leave the safe enclave of Madrid, to be with his family, in the conservative hometown of Granada expecting to be
able to rely on the protection of friends if the city was taken by
Nationalist forces. Sure enough, Lorca – a known supporter of the
leftist Popular Front party – took cover with the Rosales family within
weeks of returning to Granada. Though the Rosales were connected to the
local Franco-backed Falaganists, their son Luis was good friends with
the poet so they took him in.
Because of his association with the Republic this made him a marked man. His plays also dealt with repression, and some anti-Catholic opinions in interviews made him a high profile target.
Despite going into hiding the Fallangists hunted him down. He was arrested and imprisoned, without trial and charge, and mercilessly tortured. On August 19th at around 3.00 a.m he was handcuffed to another prisoner ( a teacher). shortly before dawn he was taken out along with the teacher and two bullfighters ( members of the Anarchist Trade Union CNT), three guards struck Lorca's body with the butts of their rifles, then he was shot, his body riddle with bullets It is
often relayed that Antonio Benavides, a relation of Lorca’s father’s
first wife and one of the poet’s executioners, later bragged that he
“gave that fat-head a shot in the head”. Some say he was murdered because of his sexuality, as well as his politics.
He lived in Spain under Franco's dictatorship, and both his sexuality and his left-wing political views made him a target for the authoritarian government and their sympathisers. He was branded a socialist and a participant in " homosexual and abnormal practices" which , as you can guess, did not play in favour of his life expectancy under a fascist government. It is worth noting that homophobia existed on both sides in the Civil War and afterwards, it was a national problem. Now Spain permits same-sex marriage, That taboo must continue to be broken.
The body of Frederico Garcia, one of the greatest poets and playwrights of the twentieth century and one of Spain's most prodigious sons was unceremoniously dumped in a hastily dug hole, soon to be a mass grave. Despite years of efforts his body I believe has never been found.
Ever since that grim August morning ago, people have been
looking for Lorca’s remains in the rugged countryside outside Granada.
In 2009, a site near the village of Alfacar was excavated by a team of
archaeologists from Granada University. The patch of land had been
marked some three decades earlier by a local who said he was one of the
men who dug the ditch for Lorca and the anarchists in 1936. Not a single
bone was found and the team concluded that no graves had ever been
excavated in the area.
The most plausible case for Lorca being buried near Alfacar was made two
years after 2009’s fruitless dig, when a local historian named Miguel
Caballero Pérez released a book entitled “The Last Thirteen Hours of
Garcia Lorca”. As a result of his research, Pérez claimed he’d found the
spot where the writer was interred; less than half a mile from the site
of the 2009 excavation, it is believed to be the site where a trench
was dug in search of a possible underwater stream. Might this be the
watery grave into which Granada’s most famous son was thrown in 1936?
The fascist forces after his death tried to erase his memory, burning and banning his books. Lorca’s writing, considered deeply homoerotic, was banned until 1954 and censored until 1975.One thing is for certain his life would not be forgotten. Lorca's voice would still belong to humanity. An emblem who gave his life for Spain, a martyr of it's people. He once said ' I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.
In death Lorca became an anti-fascist martyr, and became a symbol
of political resistance for writers throughout the Americas and beyond. His
poems and plays took on heightened significance, a trend that continues to this
very day, after all he was killed in this political assassination, essentially a
state-sanctioned execution, and this made him a symbol of anti-fascist
struggle. Though Lorca died tragically, he lived a life filled with passion and zest.
He was a theatrical visionary and a poet of seemingly endless
invention. Charismatic and exuberant. As Spain moved to democracy, Lorca rose to the fore again, his writings finding a new generation of readers. Many years after his death his voice still rings out, where bullets were unable to silence him, his ecumenical and immortal poetry now known all over the world , making him Spain's most influential and recognized poets.
Frederico Garcia Lorca - Before the Dawn
But like love
the archers
are blind
Upon the green night,
the piercing saetas
leave traces of warm
lily
The Keel of the moon
breaks through purple clouds
and their quivers
still with dew
Aye, but like love
the archers
are blind!
Frederico Garcia Lorca - Farewell
If I die,
leave the balcony open.
The little boy is eating orange
(from my balcony I can see him.)
The reaper is harvesting the wheat
(from my balcony I can hear him,)
If I die
leave the balcony open!
Here's a post from a couple of years ago https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-continuing-legacy-of-poet-frederico.html?m=0
"I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and who are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace." - Frederico Garcia Lorca
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