According to a children's book or textbook that has made the news:
Machado: "se fue a vivir a Francia con su familia" [he went to live with his family in France]
Actually, he died on the border trying to escape into France, accompanied by his mother, at the end of the civil war. [Here I was the one being inaccurate: he died shortly after having escaped into France with his mother.]
Lorca: "murió cerca de su pueblo durante la guerra de España" [died close to his village during the Spanish war]. Actually he died by getting shot after being arrested.
No mention that these poets were the victims of the war.
Actually, he died in Collioure, which is some little way from the border (Banyuls, Port-Vendres). The small group arrived by train. They lodged at the Hotel Bougnol-Quintana. He died a little over three weeks after they arrived in Collioure.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't change that he was killed by being chased into exile.
ReplyDeleteThis story is pretty amazing. Is it unusual? That is, is it common for Civil War stories like these to be so thickly whitewashed?
Just going for accuracy. The phrase "he died on the border trying to escape into France" suggests to me one of those cross-Pyrenees treks, with border guards literally shooting at them.
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely no doubt that the arduous trip north from Barcelona severely impacted his health, and certainly brought about his early demise.
Personally, I find it surprising that the version offered is so sanitized. Still, there was that story a few years back about the Real Academia de la Historia and its Diccionario biográfico español whose characterization of the Franco regime was very controversial.
It can be difficult even to state the circumstances of Lorca's death accurately. I've seen things like
ReplyDelete"Franco killed Lorca..."
Well no. Franco was not in charge of that particular part of the nationalist zone.
"The Fascists killed Lorca...."
Well, no. It wasn't literally a branch of the Falange that did it either.
"Lorca was killed in the war."
That raises some implicatures that aren't very accurate either. The "war" was not going on in Granada at the time.