K.A. Kittelsen explores the controversy surrounding
the grave of civil war victim, Garcia Lorca

Speaking from the grave

In the small village of Barranco de Viznar, near Granada, ghosts from the Spanish Civil War have pushed past the ever present silence that has dominated Spain since the outbreak of the war almost seventy years ago. Spaniards can still be hesitant, at best, to expose the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers.

This deafening silence has been firmly integrated into the Spanish government with what is known as the “Pacto del Silencio,” or the Pact of Silence. This term is familiar to those accustomed to the Spanish talking about not talking about their history. While the “Pacto del Silencio” was created in order to avoid trials and official inquiries, the nation seems to have taken the concept literally.

Despite Amnesty International revealing that, during the Civil War, an “extremely significant percentage of the civilian population were victims of abuse, executions and torture,” it was not until the 2004 socialist PSOE victory that the Spanish government even attempted to address the unresolved issues from the Franco years. Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has a personal interest in addressing the past as his own grandfather, a Republican shot during the Civil War, left behind a note before his death: “I die innocent, and I forgive.”

The actions of the new socialist government have encountered strong opposition and outright rage as members of the conservative Partido Popular, which hold the vestigial remnants of the Franco dictatorship, continue to suppress the excavations of any Civil War graves. In contrast, the former government of José María Aznar was willing to exhume the unmarked graves of Franco-era soldiers of the “Blue Division” that fought alongside the Nazis in Russia. Ironically, the PP preferred to honour Spaniards who died fighting alongside Adolf Hitler rather than those that died defending the democratically elected Spanish government. With the anniversary of the death of the poet, and martyr of the Civil War, Federico García Lorca, these topics have been unexpectedly thrust into the lime-light.

Federico García Lorca’s controversial fame was born out of his phenomenally successful tragedies “Blood Weddings” and “Yerma.” Lorca has been proclaimed “the nearest thing to a pure genius,” not only by noted historians but also other internationally famous figures such as H.G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling. Throughout García Lorca’s abbreviated life, he was obsessed with death, often his own. His close friend, Salvador Dalí, would recall how he would spend five days enacting his burial, describing every detail often pretending to be dead. Death became a recurring theme in his works; an example of this can be seen in his poem “Suicidio” from his famous “Canciones;”

“Cuando yo me muera, enterradme con mi guitarra bajo la arena”

“When I die, bury me with my guitar under the sand”

The exact circumstances of his death are still uncertain, including the reasons for his flight from the relative safety of Madrid to Granada. Granada was far from safe for a leftist and promptly fell to the nationalist side. In the months before the Civil War, his recently acquired fame had given him the confidence to voice his controversial opinions. His beliefs about the Catholic Church – while no doubt shared by many– were very provocative at the time, especially in such a Catholic dominated place as Granada.

The reasons for García Lorca’s assassination have often been simplified in order to sustain his status as a martyr of the Republican side. There are a number of theories that surround his death. Was he killed for his homosexual lifestyle? For his leftist ideology? Or was his murderer driven by a personal desire for vengeance? Or perhaps García Lorca sought a similar martyrdom as the two figures he had been so taken with in his youth: Socrates and Jesus.

García Lorca’s arrest on August 18th 1936 raises its own questions. The precautions taken by the military authorities were extreme and completely uncharacteristic. There were so many men involved in the operation that the house was surrounded; in no other arrest in the area had such measures been taken. The operation was led by Ramón Ruiz Alonso, the brother of García Lorca’s former fiancée. The official charges in the denuncio that led to his arrest were mostly political but included homosexuality as a charge. However, when Ruiz Alonso was asked shortly after the arrest on whose authority he was acting, he repeated numerous times that he was acting on his own.

So, was García Lorca’s subsequent assassination carried out for political expediency? Was the fascist government carrying out the eradication of intellectualism? Or was the brother of García Lorca’s former fiancée defending his family’s honour? We can only speculate as we still don’t know for certain. The folder with “official” information about the arrest and death of García Lorca is empty. The documents inside are believed to be in Franco’s personal papers - papers that have yet to be made public.

As García Lorca noted himself, “in Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.” García Lorca continues to stir up controversy from beyond the grave as pressure builds for the communal grave in which he lies to be dug up. After an unofficial investigation, researchers have tentatively marked his resting place. So many unanswered questions could be solved with the recovery of his body. How was he killed? Where exactly did they kill him? Was he tortured?

The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory have attempted, with no avail, to gain the support of García Lorca’s remaining family. The family insists that the dig is “an affront to a hallowed place” and that the grave should remain undisturbed. The Association, however, insists that the phenomenon that García Lorca has become belongs, not only to his family, but to humanity as a whole.

García Lorca’s surviving relatives may have no influence on the proceedings, as the families of the three other men buried alongside García Lorca are pushing the government to permit the exhumation. Decisions are still pending, but if the dig does go through as planned, it will no doubt lead to more questions. If one grave is uncovered, shouldn’t the families of other victims have the same opportunity to exhume their loved ones? With over 30,000 bodies scattered throughout Spain in mass graves the thought seems daunting.

“When the pure shapes sank,
under the chirping of daisies,
I knew they had murdered me.”

- Federico García Lorca