The Fontaineovéjunism to come…

What unites us most, what makes us a people, for example our classical theater, in this case, Ovejuna Fountain, It can be written in four different ways: in the previous way and, in addition, Fuenteovejuna, Fuente Obejuna and Fuenteobejuna. We never agreed on anything.

Only the people save the people is a consensus expression, but no one knows for sure who said it. This is perhaps why such unanimity was possible. They attributed it to Antonio Machado, who was buried outside Spain without anyone being able to save him except after the fact, leaving on his French tombstone bouquets of flowers held in his fist and the remains of an old flag that no one could save either. In the letter, where many claim to have read this quote from Machado, the poet writes: “In Spain, the best is the people.” He didn’t say anything about running away. Skeptical at heart, like his Juan de Mairena (a character he kept alive throughout the war), Antonio Machado did not hope for much salvation.

The sentence is beautiful, only the people save the people; but Machado was a great poet and he didn’t write sentences, he wrote poetry. It’s another technique, another sensitivity. We, the pens, make the sentences. Only the people save the people is a redundancy, a tautology. Thus, Alejandro Lerroux or Gabriel Rufián, who have a similar speech, spoke. Antonio Machado’s love of the people is in the helix of his DNA. Demophilia (a word composed of people and love) comes to the poet from his father, the folklorist Antonio Machado Álvarez, who signed much of his work under the pseudonym Demoófilo, including a famous anthology of flamenco songs. Antonio Machado was a demophile, son of a demophile, not a savior.

At the time Antonio Machado wrote the aforementioned letter, others were the saviors. In fact, they are always the same. The scariest ones. Shortly after the start of the war, in October 1936, another great poet, Rafael Alberti, created his satirical farce in Madrid. The saviors of Spain. It was a painting for puppets, where he had sketched a mocking caricature of the rebels. The characters were represented by a peasant, a bishop, a general, a German, an Italian, a Portuguese and a Moor (sic.). And the scene took place in an Andalusian square flanked, on one side, by a cathedral with a machine-gun nest in the bell tower and, on the other side, by women in mantillas and shawls, and gentlemen in large hats, all leaning outwards. balconies. As the title suggests, the play was about the saviors of Spain.

There was a cultural war (then the cultural wars were led by educated people), which consisted of recovering, saving, appropriating, all these words have truth, classics of Spanish theater. The Phalangists built their imagination with the mythical gold of this golden century. From Lope de Vega, Calderón…, they took a rhetoric, a lexicon and a certain iconography. Honor, religion, weapons, the integrity of the young girl, the people who love a king who is not there, who live without worrying about what is happening, the rebellion of the leader of the people.. . It’s all in this theater, of course.

This is the case of “Fuente Ovejuna, everyone together!” » The phrase comes out of the drama of Lope de Vega and becomes forever the motto of the people, a heartbreaking cry; but, in reality, this masks a collective lynching. Here the people are understood as a shapeless mass, as a blind force of nature, rather than as a civilized people. They are a people who need to obey a just leader, to be governed, otherwise they lose control, even if with good reason. This is the message that Phalange finds in Lope de Vega, this is the reading that they defended in their cultural war. Later, and in another country, the popular novel will argue that collective democracy is not possible without the individual. This is seen when in The three musketeers, of Dumas, they cry in unison: “One for all and all for one!” It’s another way of sharing.

In this cultural war, against the ultranationalists and against national Catholicism, intellectuals loyal to the Republic also wanted to appropriate classical theater to return it to the people, because they considered that it belonged to them at the time of the creation of these works . . The Educational Missions, the Barraca de García Lorca, the representations of Knight of Olmedothey had this goal. The popular adjective of this so-called popular theater was that no town in Spain remained without seeing this theater, however poor its inhabitants, however isolated the villages in the most inaccessible mountains. Popular meant reaching everyone. Bringing culture to cities was hard work. The actors, the school teachers, traveled in trucks and cars along the goat trails until they reached the most remote villages, where they had never heard a symphony, nor seen a play, nor a film , nor a table.

Today, our access to culture does not pass through these tortuous paths, but through the mainstream media. It’s easier than ever to reach everyone, and yet the opposite is happening. Any attempt to bring culture, cared for with love, preserved, offered, is discredited by derogatory speech: no one is interested! Suddenly, the culture is despised and the people are despised. You only need to watch television programs again to get an idea of ​​the value placed on culture. And yet, on the screens, they keep repeating: Only the people save the people. It is easier to save the people than to respect them.

Also during the Civil War, in 1937, Rafael Alberti created his red version of the Numantia, of Cervantes. It was an act of political appropriation. From the culture war. In its adaptation, the Numantine people continued to save themselves until succumbing under the siege of the Romans. But from now on, it was Mussolini’s Rome which surrounded the republicans of Celtiberia. That was Alberti’s message. Today, she is remembered more because her football club won the Copa del Rey and even played in the first division; but, for centuries, Numancia has been a slogan, a brand, a nerve of the race, as Eugenio Noel would say. During the siege of the city of Zaragoza by Napoleonic troops, the famous siege of Zaragoza took place on improvised stages. Numancia of Cervantes. Theater is always at the forefront. Even in times of war, cinemas do not close. In no country in the world.

Only the people serve the people, such is our true tragedy and our only epic. Saving yourself is another concept. Being saved is very Christian. Christ, saving world, He is the great savior of humanity. Chosen, divine being, the saviors are always very suspicious, they have no other references than themselves, and that is why they invent quotes and create a bibliography at the expense of those who could not, neither left, nor consented to them, who They will be saved.

To finish, I dare to mention what existed. Here are these blows delivered by the peasant’s puppet, at the end of The saviors of Spain, Play by Rafael Alberti for the puppet theater:

Take, Bishop of Seville,

that you have already lost your chair.

Take it, Queipo de Llano,

for being a drunkard and a pig.

Adolfo, your end has come,

become a pot.

Son of the great Benita,

drink this holy water.

And take this tomato

by Oliveira Sarasate.

To you, deceived young man,

I’ll give you the other side.

They have already finished their feat

the “Saviors of Spain”.

NOTE: Of course, this is discriminatory and prejudiced humor, which today no longer has the right to complicity. We have learned something in 88 years. On the other hand, like all great poets, Rafael Alberti was prophetic. But we always see it later, when the prophecies are no longer needed. Thank God the poetry remains. In this case, the poet’s shocking prediction is found in the last two lines. Just remove the “h” from feat.