Spain: defiance and desolation

Spain: Desolation and Defiance

The Spanish Civil War gave rise to a canon of poetry and song which reflects a very special defiance, both during the struggle and in the aftermath of defeat (I write of the Republican perspective). There was a sense at the time and later that “Spain” was a battle to defend “progressive” values – a heady mixture of the Enlightenment, feminism, anarchism and communism. The battle was lost. That was a shock. Albert Camus summarised the widespread reaction:

“ It was in Spain that [my generation] learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many, the world over, feel the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy.”

One response for survivors and supporters is to take consolation from memories of heroism and sacrifice, to find something indomitable. For example: the battle of Jarama, near Madrid, in February 1937 was essentially a bloody stalemate, but in which the Nationalists’ objective to seize a strategically vital road was thwarted. It was also the first major engagement of the International Brigade, which suffered very heavy casualties, especially the “Lincoln” battalion of the US contingent. That experience inspired Pete Seeger’s “Jarama Valley”, which is indeed a song of  pride and defiance :

“There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama

It’s a place that we all know so well

It was there that we gave of our manhood

Where so many of our brave comrades fell

We are proud of the Lincoln battalion

And the fight for Madrid that it made

There we fought like true sons of the people

As part of the Fifteenth Brigade

But, as Camus indicates, as well as the indomitable spirit there is also an abiding bleakness. A story I heard captures it. An acquaintance, a frequent and enquiring visitor to modern Spain, went into an unobtrusive bar on the Costa del Sol. He realized at once that he had trespassed. The place was a haunt of old Francoists and their successors. Not made welcome, he left very quickly, but not before he had noticed a certain poster. This was a Republican poster, bearing the  slogan of the iconic communist “La Pasionara” – “No Pasaran!” – “They [the Fascists] Shall not Pass!”.

Scrawled on the poster were the Spanish words: “We Passed”. That is the brute historical fact.

The “passing” of the Nationalists was not only brutal but merciless, and the source of memories far darker and despairing than those of “Jarama Valley”.  There are verses in Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” which, though not written with Spain specifically in mind ( by the time of the poem’s publication in 1952 Europe had endured other horrors), will resonate with anyone who has studied the story of Franco’s murderous repression, unleashed during the war and for many years after the Nationalist victory:

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot

Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)

And sentries sweated for the day was hot:

A crowd of ordinary decent folk

Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke

As three pale figures were led forth and bound

To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all

That carries weight and always weighs the same

Lay in the hands of others; they were small

And could not hope for help and no help came:

What their foes liked to do was done, their shame

Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride

And died as men before their bodies died.

The uneasy mixture of defiance and utter bleakness continues to this day. We can be proud of those who stood by the Republic; but we also stand among the helpless “ordinary decent folk”, witnessing the pitiless triumph of the Worst.

February 2015