In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

History & Memory 14.1/2 (2002) 5-12



[Access article in PDF]

Introduction
A Political Funeral


Before daybreak on 14 November 1946, in the Argentine province of Córdoba, Manuel de Falla passed away suddenly in his sleep, a few days before his seventieth birthday. The death of Spain’s greatest twentieth-century composer marked the beginning of a battle for the appropriation of his memory and his work, as both Francoists and Republican exiles sought to enlist the great artist for their cause, even after his death. 1

De Falla’s death came during one of the most difficult times that Francisco Franco’s government was ever to experience during the forty-odd years of its existence. The regime was under heavy international pressure from both Western and Eastern countries; the Republican government-in-exile and its SUPporters around the world were pursuing a propaganda campaign against it; and a severe drought was ravaging the economy and creating pockets of famine in various parts of the country. In light of these circumstances, Franco’s opponents were hopeful that, before long, the Spanish dictatorship would go the way of its former allies, the defeated regimes of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Thus, the conflict between the Spanish regime and its foreign and domestic opponents was at its peak. In this conflict symbols and prestige were of great significance, since they enhanced the legitimacy of the camp that could claim them.

Manuel de Falla was famed as the composer of the ballets El amor brujo (Love, the Magician) and El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), and of the symphonic poem for piano and orchestra Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain). 2 His [End Page 5] political views were not completely clear; he was a man of sounds rather than words. Although a devout Catholic, he never came out publicly in favor of the Nationalists’ crusade. After the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, he chose to leave the country of his birth, later turning down a tempting offer from the Francoist dictatorship to return from his self-imposed exile. From that time on, he never again took a public stand on political issues, leaving the way open for aggressive attempts by both competing camps to align him and his prestige with their own cause.

The tug-of-war between the Francoist regime and the Republican exiles in Argentina over the revered composer’s body and memory was only one of twentieth-century Spain’s unending battles over collective memory and historical consciousness—battles that are the focus of this monographic issue of History and Memory. While the Republican exiles wanted de Falla’s body to remain buried in the Argentine Republic, the Nationalists wanted to take him back to Spain and hold a state funeral for him there. Their purpose, of course, was to identify the Andalusian composer with the Franco regime, the “exclusive representative of the authentic Spain.” In this battle, as in the Civil War itself, the Nationalists prevailed. De Falla’s remains were transferred to Spain, where the regime made good propagandistic use of them to enhance its prestige at home and abroad.

The news of de Falla’s death reached Buenos Aires on the same day that the Argentine president, Juan Perón, was meeting with a Spanish trade delegation. The Spanish ambassador, José Muñoz Vargas, Conde de Bulnes, feared that the Republican exiles in Argentina and their SUPporters would turn de Falla’s funeral into an anti-Francoist demonstration just when relations between the Spanish and Argentine governments were at a high point. Two weeks earlier, after brief negotiations, the two countries had signed an important economic agreement in Buenos Aires that guaranteed Spain, teetering on the brink of famine, hundreds of thousands of tons of grain on easy credit terms. 3

Accordingly, the ambassador wasted no time in urging his friends in the upper ranks of the Peronist regime to persuade President Perón to act—once again—to thwart the Republican exiles’ plans, which were to turn the deceased composer into...

pdf

Share