El Fósforo
Transcripción
El Fósforo
This record of the proceedings of the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies’ annual PostGraduate Forum, 2011, is produced with thanks to Corin Faife (cover design) and to the academic staff of the department, without whose support, guidance and dedication neither the annual forum, nor this publication (nor, indeed, a great many of our academic endeavours) would be possible. 1 Contents Foreword – Professor Antoni Kapcia................................................3 Editorial – Stephen Fay, Sofia Mason and Rosi Smith ......................5 Texto, Contexto y Argumento en la Entrevista. Hacia una Reconstrucción de los Discursos Híbridos – Sergio Vidal……………...8 Silvia Galvis: Cronista de la Historia – Jeannette Uribe.………………19 ‘Ya no puedo más’: Commemoration and Catharsis in Olga Alonso González’s Testimonios (1973) – Sofia Mason…………………………….32 False Legacies: Narrating Madrid’s History in Early Modern Spain Camille Clymer................................................................................50 Cuban Citizenship Discourse: Where Love and Hate Collide – Rosi Smith ..............................................................................................64 Guerra y cotidianidad militar en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714. Reflexiones y posibilidades documentales – Adrià Cases ...........................................................................................83 2 Foreword – Prof. Kapcia Foreword Professor Antoni Kapcia ‘Giving ownership’ has so much become one of the clichés of ‘eduspeak’, that one easily forgets what it might actually mean in real cases. Yet the forum which created the context for this collection of articles (the annual Postgraduate Forum for the Nottingham Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies) does indeed demonstrate the truth of that principle: not only do the students themselves regularly organise and chair this event, but the quality of the papers and the discussions which characterise it make it the high-point of the Department’s year. For the students themselves, this is an opportunity to show their wares, test out ideas and have an encouraging intellectual exchange with their peers; the depth, breadth and rigour of research, the level of sophistication of ideas, the self-confidence which is shown, and the willingness to ‘go beyond’ which they all show are all heartening to see and experience. One of the many aspects of postgraduate life which the event demonstrates clearly is the advantage of the elusive ‘critical mass’ of such a student body, a vital component of any group of postgraduates, given the potential for solitude which all sustained research degrees offer. However, what this Forum and what these papers and articles remind us is that such a ‘mass’ has the potential not only to overcome this solitude but also to provide a rich context for individual development: not only do the students themselves evidently approach the experience in a spirit of genuine cooperation and solidarity, posing questions that enquire rather than trap, that support rather than undermine, but the staff 3 Foreword – Prof. Kapcia present also bring a supportive flavour to the proceedings, offering each of the students advice based on experience beyond the expertise of each student’s supervisors. As a result, the whole event and the written outcomes all demonstrate something else fundamental to a lively functioning academic environment: a spirit of collegiality. Indeed, this Forum and the quality of the articles published here all remind us that, in a wider context where academics are constantly being encouraged to be competitive (competing for grants, for funds to be gained through the old Research Assessment Exercise or the current Research Excellence Framework, or, in the case of expostgraduates, for a diminishing number of jobs), collegiality lies at the heart of good academic exchange, and thus also lies at the heart of good research. The articles here show clearly both the benefits of such an environment and the quality of the coming generation of scholars; both are to be celebrated. 4 Editorial – Fay, Mason, & Smith Issue 1: Lighting the Torch Editorial Stephen Fay, Sofia Mason and Rosi Smith This work was born of a forum, and provides a space in which to speak. Whether a classical marketplace or law-court, or a more contemporary Internet chat-room, a forum is characterised by a coming together of perspectives, a philosophy of engagement and exchange. Since its inception, the Annual Post-Graduate Forum of the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies has provided an opportunity all too rare for the nascent academic – a setting in which one may not only showcase one’s work but also develop it through open discussion and experimentation. It is this exchange of knowledges and approaches to research that makes the annual forum more than a practice ground for tomorrow’s dons or a stage for the rehearsal and performance of pre-packaged, already ossifying knowledge. The disciplinary breadth and geographical-cultural scope of the department renders it almost impossible to end the day without encountering a paper, a perspective or a methodology that stimulates a fresh view of one’s own, and every paper reproduced here bears the marks of those encounters. In deciding for the first time to publish a selection of the papers arising from the forum, it is our intention to retain the discursive mood of the original, drawing attention to the points 5 Editorial – Fay, Mason, & Smith of contact through which the six distinct contributions speak to one another. The first contributor, Sergio Vidal, is an academic edgeman who percipiently reads around and in-between what many of us take for granted. In this paper, Vidal obliges us to explore the limen between imagination and information in what he calls ‘textos híbridos’. From an irascible Ernest Hemingway excising sections of a 1950 Lillian Ross interview to the storm of scandal that raged around the Real Academia’s 2011 description of General Franco in its Diccionario Biográfico Español, Sergio illuminates the subtle omissions and heavy-handed inclusions that often place the text itself ‘en peligro de extinción’. While Vidal investigates artful and artistic elision on the part of journalists, Jeannette Uribe’s paper uncovers instances of coerced omission in Colombia, where the severe political repression faced by those who speak out against the status quo has left journalists compelled to omit or encode. In keeping with a Latin American history of blurred boundaries between journalism and literature, fact and fiction, Uribe uncovers the excluded and finds in the novels of Silvia Galvis a critical, satirical chronicle of Colombian social and political life. The succeeding paper also interrogates the relationship between personal narrative and the political establishment, in this case an establishment that seeks not to censor or censure, but rather to augment, extol and reify. Using the case of Cuban testimonialista, Olga Alonso, Sofia Mason here demonstrates how paratext can operate to simplify, universalise and even distort the voice of the author, in this instance by taking a life containing political ideology but pulsating with human desire and frustration, and re-presenting it to the reader as a life contained within political ideology. 6 Editorial – Fay, Mason, & Smith Camille Clymer’s paper sees this external re-inscription of history writ large in the stones and stories of Madrid, the identity of which is formed, it seems, from little but paratext. An insubstantial chimera of inflated classical origins, rumoured bears and dubious saints is revealed as the window-dressing for a much more prosaic reality of competitive ambition, racial tension and the centralisation of power. Just as the ostentatious physical and mythological construction of Madrid was understood as capable of resisting and repelling Rome, Islam and Judaism, so, argues Rosi Smith, every discourse of national belonging and citizenship is defined by that which it excludes and repulses as much as by that which it recognises and embraces. The institutionalisation of patriotic feelings of love and hate in Cuba is examined to argue that a collective sense of identity and shared struggle enables Cubans to resist and oppose US imperialism and, in so doing, formulate their own unique sense of citizenship. Adrià Cases’ paper roots the reader in the telluric details of the terrible strife of the War of Succession and yet enables our spirits to soar after this inspirational example of impassioned and assiduous primary research by an outstanding young academic. In this introduction to the historical context and methodological techniques of his doctoral investigation, Cases leads us into the hallowed silences of major European archives there to explore the minute daily details of ‘estos momentos tan convulsos e históricamente tan efervescentes’. It was these edifying glimpses into thought and practice that inspired the name of this new publication – El Fósforo. The intention is that these short papers (and those that follow in future years) illuminate the concepts and perspectives, each alight with energy, that will provide the basis of the intellectual futures into which our participants are striking out. 7 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista. Hacia una reconstrucción de los discursos híbridos. Sergio Vidal Resumen Tomando como punto de partida los problemas que presenta el hoax literario, esta ponencia es un intento de descripción del discurso periodístico de la entrevista. Para ello, se ha prestado especial atención a la relación entre texto y contexto, así como a toda la cadena discursiva. El principal cometido de esta descripción es la aplicación de los resultados obtenidos a la entrevista literaria y, por extensión, a otros considerados como híbridos. 8 géneros Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal E n el pasado Forum, me referí a la dificultad existente a la hora de describir el comportamiento de ciertos textos literario periodísticos. Entre otros, expuse el ejemplo de las entrevistas falsas de Tomasso Debenedetti. El resultado de dicho análisis puso de relieve la existencia de una aparente disyunción textual. Un divorcio que, por un lado, anulaba el valor periodístico de dichas entrevistas y que, por otro, atribuía al texto una única categoría, la literaria, por el simple hecho de proceder del mundo de la inventiva, de la ficción. ¿Se comportan todos los textos híbridos del mismo modo ante un caso de falsificación? ¿Es la referencia a la realidad una condición indispensable en este tipo de texto híbrido? Mis trabajos recientes se basan en la explicación del fenómeno de la disyunción textual como posible herramienta de definición de textos literario-periodísticos. Esta revisión al género de la entrevista considerada como formación del texto literario y del texto periodístico tiene como objeto el planteamiento de la problemática que su definición encierra y el establecimiento de una base desde la que comprender su comportamiento ante un caso de falsificación. Algunas nociones implicadas en este estudio son: texto, discurso, contexto, entrevista, entrevista literaria y hoax. Para constatar un caso de falsificación textual se debe recurrir al marco comunicativo del texto. Un texto no puede ser verdadero o falso si no es mediante una valoración externa a su naturaleza lingüística. Por ello, la descripción de los análisis tradicionales del texto no arrojaría demasiada luz a nuestros interrogantes. El establecimiento de unas coordenadas que vinculen constituyentes textuales con elementos fuera del texto permite un diálogo entre estructura interna del mismo y estructura global o social en la que el texto juega un papel 9 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal funcional. Es decir, un texto como una entrevista periodística tiene una función primordial: informar. Además, la función del texto tiene un marcado carácter social ya que se convierte en el objeto con el que se establece un diálogo entre diferentes niveles que no son únicamente los niveles textuales. Para analizar esas asociaciones debemos establecer que el texto periodístico se halla inmerso en otra noción que amplía su concepto: el discurso. Según recoge Gonzalo Abril, un discurso no está compuesto de frases, sino de enunciados. Estos enunciados están dotados de significado y sentido. Al ser capaz de ampliar el significado de la oración durante el acto comunicativo, un enunciado equivaldría a una ‘acción socialmente reconocible’.1 Un ejemplo reciente es la polémica suscitada tras la publicación del Diccionario Biográfico Español, de la Real Academia de la Historia de España. Una colosal obra con 43.000 entradas donde el famoso historiador Luis Suárez ha escrito sobre Franco cosas como: Una guerra larga de tres años le permitió derrotar a un enemigo que en principio contaba con fuerzas superiores. Para ello, faltando posibles mercados, y contando con la hostilidad de Francia y de Rusia, hubo de establecer estrechos compromisos con Italia y Alemania.2 El escándalo se produce porque parte de la sociedad española pudo interpretar dichos enunciados de un modo similar al que sigue: a. ‘derrotar a un enemigo’ significa ocultar que los franquistas iniciaron el levantamiento contra los republicanos; b. ‘estrechos compromisos con Italia y Alemania’ es evitar mencionar la simpatía de Franco con el movimiento fascista. 10 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal De ese modo, Franco no fue un dictador, sino que para Suárez, Franco fue un ‘Generalísimo’ o ‘Jefe de Estado’. El poder de un enunciado puede ser tan grande que incluso el mismo texto que lo soporta podría estar en peligro de extinción. El escritor Andrés Trapiello ha reclamado: ‘Pese a lo que digan en la Academia, cualquier editor sabe que hay medios técnicos para subsanar ese error: se retiran los ejemplares del tomo, se desencuaderna y se sustituye el pliego correspondiente’.3 No obstante, de especial interés en nuestro contexto son las palabras del escritor Javier Cercas: (La legitimación del franquismo) es lo preocupante. Es como si dentro de 50 años los diccionarios dijeran que ETA no era una organización terrorista sino un movimiento de liberación. Significaría que hemos perdido la batalla del discurso. (El País, ‘Contra el falseamiento, 02/06/2011) Si un tipo de discurso se caracteriza por estar formado por ciertos tipos de enunciados, ciertos tipos de enunciados serán característicos de ciertos discursos. En este sentido, la entrevista tendrá unos enunciados característicos que la diferencien de otros discursos periodísticos. Por ejemplo, mientras que, en la entrevista, las intervenciones aparecen asignadas a sus interlocutores, la noticia se sirve de una representación textual distinta: ‘ “De repente, el coche se salió de la carretera”, afirmó uno de los testigos’. Pongamos que si el modo de representación es distinto, la acción también podría serlo. Para la noticia debe entenderse: ‘yo, periodista, confirmo con esta cita lo que otra persona ha dicho en relación con este tema y no con otro’. En el caso de la entrevista, el periodista refleja cada palabra tal como ha sido enunciada. El periodista no necesita citar, sino reproducir. Por tanto, tiene lógica pensar que se ha ido creando un prototipo de entrevista, un modelo con posibilidad de 11 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal variantes, y que dicho modelo puede ser reproducido en condiciones similares, es decir, con enunciados que forman titulares, subtítulos, entradillas, cuerpos de entrevista, destacados, textos a pie de foto y que pueden funcionar de modo distinto según el tipo de género periodístico que formen. En su fundamento, la entrevista tiene un propósito primordial: constatar lo que alguien ha dicho en un marco concreto de tiempo y espacio anterior a ella. El objeto final es un texto. Ese texto tendrá un fin social y estará al servicio del periódico que la publica con la intención de atraer al lector para que compre un ejemplar. En el texto, se materializan las funciones de revelación y testimonio y los roles de fuente y testigo. La revelación y la fuente se asocian al plano del personaje entrevistado. Testimonio y testigo, al plano del periodista. De la interacción de fuente y testigo, surge el argumento de la entrevista. En esta interacción, el aspecto estructural está dominado por la función testimonial; el aspecto de contenido está dominado por la función de revelación. No obstante, ambas funciones se determinan mutuamente: el entrevistador orienta los contenidos y el entrevistado puede modificar la estructura al generar cierta secuencia para nuevos contenidos. Esta idea parece chocar con las palabras de Lynn Barber, para quien el periodista ‘has all the power when it comes to writing the piece: she chooses which quotes to use and which to omit, which to highlight and which to minimize’.4 Ese proceso de elegir u omitir citas, de destacar o minimizar otras partes, se lleva a cabo sobre el argumento, es decir, sobre el resultado de la interacción de los roles que han asumido ambos interlocutores. El argumento representa el resultado total del encuentro entre periodista y personaje y que no necesariamente 12 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal debe ser registrado en el texto. El texto solo muestra una parte sesgada del argumento. Para ilustrar esto con mayor claridad, veamos el ejemplo de Lillian Ross cuando entrevista al escritor Ernest Hemingway. El texto final, publicado en el New Yorker (13/03/1950), es el resultado de varios días junto al escritor y a su esposa en Nueva York. El propio Hemingway revisó la entrevista antes de ser publicada y solicitó que se realizara una omisión (Barber, Secrets of the Press, 197). Este dato –desconocido para nosotros- pudo haber sido incluido, pero no lo fue. ¿Significa que nunca existió porque no lo recoge el texto? Tiene sentido pensar que se quedaron fuera otros muchos elementos que estuvieron presentes y que fueron potencialmente partes constituyentes de la entrevista. Conviene señalar que los roles de fuente y testigo son dos nociones en línea con la condición básica de la comunicación humana que reside en la base del periodismo. Las funciones de revelación y testimonio están marcadas por el rol protagonista de la fuente y el rol periodista del testigo. Más tarde, el periodista cumplirá una función semejante a la de fuente para ofrecer un texto a sus futuros lectores. La noción de argumento podría ser válida para la reconstrucción del inmenso abismo en el que se debilitan muchas teorías que cruzan el terreno especulativo del contexto. Pensar que las huellas de coherencia entre texto y evento comunicativo pertenecen al contexto, significaría incluir en el mismo ámbito elementos que funcionan de manera diferente a nivel discursivo como pueden ser las exigencias editoriales del periódico (que determinan, pero no parecen construir el argumento) o las limitaciones o virtudes del periodista al redactar (relacionadas con su calidad y con la exigencia del 13 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal medio). El establecimiento del argumento como punto intermedio entre el acto comunicativo y el objeto o texto es un intento de reconstrucción de lo que venimos denominando contexto. A modo de imagen podríamos asociar la noción de argumento con la libreta del periodista que trata de recoger el mayor número de datos para crear el mejor texto posible, incluso tal vez fuera más exacto decir que el argumento sería esa libreta del periodista más todo el documental gráfico que pudiera extraerse del evento entre entrevistado y entrevistador a fin de que ningún detalle quedase fuera del texto en potencia. Pensemos en el registro mental que el periodista ha llevado a cabo de la situación (colores, olores, formas, etc.) que no han sido anotados en su libreta. Otro llamativo ejemplo que puede ilustrar la tesis del argumento es la siguiente entrevista, realizada por Nicole Berger al actor británico, Colin Firth, de la que se expone el siguiente extracto: Aunque hablo un poco de italiano, mi relación con los idiomas es una relación extraña. Una vez, conocí a un italiano, en un momento en el que yo no lo hablaba en absoluto y él no hablaba nada de inglés. Estábamos en Sudamérica y los dos sabíamos un poco de español, de hecho, nos comunicamos en esta mezcla rara de italiano, inglés y español. Y supimos distinguir lo que cada uno decía en cada momento. […] Un lugar que me gusta es Irlanda, donde rodé Circle of Friends en 1994, y volver allí para trabajar es algo que me gustaría hacer. Me di el lujo de hacerlo en vacaciones y me llevé a mi hijo conmigo y pasamos el tiempo allí. He estado varias veces de visita y tuve que enamorarme porque creo que es lo que todo el mundo hace.5 14 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal La política de la revista ha suprimido la enunciación del entrevistador en el turno pregunta-respuesta. Como puede verse, el texto no tiene preguntas, ni orientaciones temáticas, pero el lector puede hacerse una formulación hipotética de ellas. De lo contrario, ¿significaría que el testigo no existe, porque el texto solo refleja la intervención de la fuente? ¿Tal vez el encuentro previo no ha existido? ¿Por qué sabemos la pregunta leyendo tan solo la respuesta? Omitimos voluntariamente en este punto las consideraciones de Van Dijk,6 acerca de la producción de los textos periodísticos, la noticia más concretamente, porque básicamente nos interesa destacar que existe un conocimiento previo que permite al lector tomar conciencia de lo que está pasando y recuperar esa información perdida, pero que todos esos elementos que han formado parte de la primera interacción, se han quedado en el transcurso de la segunda, en el argumento. Esos elementos, aunque no han llegado a constituir parte del texto, siguen existiendo y su posible referencia sigue ejerciendo una función en una ausencia textual. Por razones de espacio, no puedo extenderme en mayor medida en un punto fundamental para la consideración del hoax en textos híbridos, pero trataré de presentarlo a modo de premisa acerca del discurso, que está siendo desarrollada en mayor grado en mi tesis doctoral. Parece que existen tres niveles de interacción. En primer lugar, fuente y testigo y un argumento como resultado. En segundo lugar, una interacción entre argumento, texto y medio que publica, con un texto como resultado. En tercer nivel, se reúne de consuno desde la primera voz hasta el lector que se hará eco de los resultados de aquel primer nivel, con una repercusión como resultado. 15 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal No obstante, conviene señalar que el carácter periódico de los discursos periodísticos ha provocado que, hoy por hoy, el discurso exista con anterioridad al texto. Estos tres niveles de interacción se han convertido en un discurso tipo, de modo que los creadores del mismo, entrevistador y entrevistado, se dan cita sabiendo de antemano cuál será en gran parte el resultado del evento comunicativo. Como consecuencia, el periodista sabe que tiene que aplicar la pauta general del periodismo, el entrevistado sabe que va a ser sometido a ciertas cuestiones que dotarán de dominio público a cualquier declaración que realice. Por su parte, el lector ya sabe a lo que se enfrenta y espera encontrar en la entrevista el resultado de aquella primera interacción y el de la segunda. El marco (otro concepto que requiere mayor tiempo y detalle) en el que se desarrolla el evento y que se refleja en el argumento viene determinado por la premisa: ‘Estamos aquí reunidos y lo que aquí se diga será objeto público’ y la estructura tipo del futuro texto también estará presente con anterioridad: ‘El resultado de este encuentro será reproducido bajo los cánones establecidos y conocidos de la entrevista’. De igual modo, se sabe que el discurso de la entrevista adquiere un nuevo valor cuando se incluye en el mecanismo complejo de un discurso mayor: el de la suma de todos los discursos del periódico. Esta preexistencia del discurso al texto ha facilitado la creación de las entrevistas falsas de Debenedetti. El periodista italiano se sirvió de una estructura tipo así como de los enunciados propios de la misma. El uso del estilo directo constituyó la prueba del acuerdo del rigor en el ejercicio periodístico. 16 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal En cambio, al publicarse como verdadera, se aceptó un texto creado a partir de unas pautas que no eran las pautas discursivas del mismo. Es decir, faltaba una coherencia entre los elementos de la cadena: la fuente del texto, se correspondía con la fuente del argumento, pero no con la fuente del evento. Esto nos lleva a preguntarnos si la consideración de argumento es extensible a otros discursos periodísticos y, en último término, a esos discursos híbridos que son los que verdaderamente nos preocupan. Parece ser que la entrevista literaria respeta la noción de argumento. Hemos citado el caso de la entrevista ‘How do you like it, gentlemen?’, de Lillian Ross, al escritor Ernest Hemingway. Sin duda, la precisión de todos esos detalles de escenas, movimientos, descripciones, que le confieren –como suele considerarse a grandes rasgos- valor literario, es una muestra del contenido que puede llegar a almacenarse en el argumento de una entrevista. Time did not seem to be pressing Hemingway the day he flew in from Havana. He was to arrive at Idlewild late in the afternoon, and I went out to meet him. His plane had landed by the time I got there, and I found him standing at a gate waiting for his luggage and for his wife, who had gone to attend to it. He had one arm around a scuffed, dilapidated briefcase pasted up with travel stickers.7 1 Teoría general de la información. Datos, relatos y ritos, (Madrid: Cátedra, 2000), 239. 2 Citado por Terexa Constenla en ‘Franco, ese (no tan mal) hombre’ El País (Edición Digital), 30/05/2011. 3 ‘Contra el falseamiento de la Historia’, El País (Edición Digital), 02/06/2011. 4 The Penguin Book of Journalism. Secrets of the Press, Stephen Glover, ed. (London, 1999), 202. 17 Texto, Contexto y Argumento de la Entrevista - Vidal 5 Ryanairmagazine, enero-febrero 2001, 39. Van Dijk, T. A., La noticia como discurso. Comprensión, estructura y producción de la información, (Barcelona: Paidós Comunicación, 1990). 7 The New Yorker, (13/03/1950), 36. 6 18 Silvia Galvis - Uribe Silvia Galvis: Cronista de la Historia Jeannette Uribe Resumen El vínculo entre el periodismo y la literatura es un fenómeno reiterativo y fundamental en la tradición novelística Hispanoamericana. Silvia Galvis es una continuadora de esta tradición. Sus novelas dejan entrever la imbricación entre la investigación histórico-política y cultural de Colombia y la labor periodística de su columna de opinión en el diario El Espectador. Tanto en sus columnas como en su novelística la historia de momentos cruciales de la vida política colombiana está siempre presente. A través de la ficción Galvis narra asimismo, desde nuevas perspectivas, episodios sobre la censura periodística en Colombia. Sus novelas se valen de géneros y personajes que toman el rol de cronistas para narrar la historia desde el período de la Regeneración hasta los episodios más recientes de la política colombiana. Así, Galvis en un estilo satírico, típico de su profesión periodística, se convierte en cronista crítica de la historia socio-política y cultural colombiana. 19 Silvia Galvis - Uribe H istoria, periodismo y literatura han estado estrechamente ligados en los diversos procesos histórico-culturales de Hispanoamérica y Colombia. Esta interrelación ha sido una larga tradición y ha sentado unas bases muy fuertes y exclusivas en el desarrollo literario hispanoamericano que la ha diferenciado de la de otros campos culturales como la de algunos países de Europa y Norteamérica. A diferencia de lo que sucede en países del norte, los escritores y periodistas hispanoamericanos para denunciar y criticar las instituciones gubernamentales han tenido que recurrir al exilio como forma de protección de sus vidas, casos de Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), ‘El Alacrán Posada’ (1825-1881), García Márquez (1928), Alfredo Molano (1944) entre muchos. Otros, han sido asesinados como el caso de la periodista colombiana Sylvia Duzán (1958-1990) y otros más. Ante este dilema, la literatura en Hispanoamérica ha tomado un papel predominantemente político para narrar los eventos políticoculturales, valiéndose de formas literarias que, aunque tradicionales, se vuelven innovadoras al tomar nuevos matices para lograr fines críticos y sociales. Este es el caso de escritores y periodistas que han ejercido esta doble función como Gabriel García Márquez y narradoras contemporáneas colombianas como los casos de Silvia Galvis y María Teresa Herrán. Nos centraremos en el caso de Silvia Galvis (1945-2009) y miraremos cómo la historia, el periodismo e incluso la historia del periodismo están vinculados a través de toda su narrativa de ficción. Observaremos cómo su columna de opinión y su investigación histórica son fundamentales para la comprensión de su producción literaria. Galvis, como periodista, historiadora y narradora de ficción, buscó bajo estas tres modalidades narrativas dar a conocer a sus lectores su perspectiva sobre la 20 Silvia Galvis - Uribe historia política del país, recurriendo a géneros y narradores diversos para el caso de su novelística. Desde sus primeras columnas de opinión publicadas en El Espectador entre 1991 y 1997, se vislumbra su tendencia didáctica, crítica y denunciatoria de diversos episodios políticos en la historia del país. Su producción historiográfica, realizada junto con el también periodista investigativo Alberto Donadío, señala igualmente este deseo de dar a conocer episodios poco conocidos de la historia de personajes y acontecimientos vitales en el desarrollo político y cultural colombiano. Estos dos hechos se interrelacionan en su producción literaria. Así, tanto el contenido y el estilo de sus columnas de opinión y los temas de los libros de historia Colombia Nazi 1939-1945 (1986), y El Jefe Supremo (1988), escritos con Donadío, forman parte primordial de la producción novelística histórica y documental de Galvis.1 Pero ¿cómo logra Galvis integrar el contenido periodístico e histórico a su narrativa? Para ello, Galvis se vale de varios mecanismos. Uno es el uso de varios géneros literarios narrativos para comunicar dichos contenidos histórico-culturales de forma menos academicista y oficial que el discurso historiográfico, y en este sentido muestra más conexión con el estilo satírico de sus columnas de opinión. Otro es un excelente manejo de narradores que por medio de discursos serios, pero también coloquiales y humorísticos permiten al lector adentrarse en los ámbitos secretos políticos, judiciales y periodísticos de Colombia. Para tal efecto, busca además de narradores varios, personajes marginales: damas pacatas y sorprendentes de la sociedad, niñas curiosas, empleadas domésticas y mujeres envidiosas y descontentas que cuestionan o charlan acerca de los eventos políticos y sociales del día a día. Forman parte de su narrativa de ficción además, diálogos y cartas privados entre políticos, documentos oficiales y 21 Silvia Galvis - Uribe grabaciones de interrogatorios detectivescos sobre episodios de corrupción política que son verdaderamente sorprendentes e informativos al lector. De esta manera, su narrativa de ficción forma un repertorio histórico-político y periodístico de los eventos más importantes de la historia colombiana narrados a veces de forma seria y otras de forma humorística. Por medio de estos mecanismos, Galvis convierte su ficción en documentos ricos en historia y vivencias generacionales de acontecimientos histórico-políticos y culturales olvidados, ignorados o acallados en la historia oficial colombiana. Este compromiso crítico social de informar y enseñar sobre la historia, según lo implica la narrativa de Galvis, debe ser obligación del historiadorperiodista y escritor en países donde la censura acalla. Elena Poniatowska, periodista y escritora mexicana, señala que el trabajo de las escritoras en América Latina, a diferencia de las europeas o norteamericanas, es un trabajo más políticamente comprometido contra las dictaduras y la censura. Esta perspectiva coincide con la producción y finalidad literaria, histórica y periodística de Galvis.2 Aníbal González arguye que la narrativa actual hispanoamericana facilita a quienes trabajan en la doble función de periodistas y literatos una mayor libertad para ejercer la crítica que no les es permitida en la escritura periodística debido a la censura. Observa que esta interrelación entre lo periodístico y lo literario en Hispanoamérica viene desde comienzos de la independencia y pone como ejemplo El Periquillo Sarniento (1816) de José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776-1827). Según González, Lizardi emplea el personaje del periquillo como una forma disfrazada para hablar sobre sus propias experiencias como periodista.3 Algo similar sucede con la narrativa de ficción de Galvis cuyos personajes están de alguna forma involucrados en la función del periodismo o en la tarea de volverse cronistas 22 Silvia Galvis - Uribe de sus comunidades, cuestionando la situación de su entorno y registrando los hechos como cronistas-periodistas. Si se observan las dos primeras novelas de Galvis, ¡Viva Cristo Rey! (1991) y Sabor a Mí (1994)4 y comparamos la temática de de sus columnas de El Espectador con su producción historiográfica, se advierte inmediatamente que su temática pasa del discurso historiográfico encontrado en textos escritos con Donadío al discurso periodístico de sus columnas, para luego desarrollar esa misma temática en su narrativa de ficción, utilizando narradores y mecanismos diversos. La producción literaria de Galvis así subsume las otras dos y deja en evidencia el acertado manejo literario de Galvis y la intención didáctica de su narrativa que busca, por medio de formas simples, enseñar los complejos procesos histórico-culturales de Colombia. Sus columnas ‘Cholombia’ (02/02/92), ‘Modernización y Barbarie’ (03/11/92), ‘Del Baculazo al Divorcio’ (23/08/92), ‘Cien Años de Terquedad’ (20/09/92) y ‘Diez Balas por Diez Orejas’ (18/06/96), publicadas en El Espectador, y algunas de sus últimas columnas publicadas en las revistas Alternativa (1997) y Cambio 16, Colombia (1998), tratan de forma seria y humorística sobre el protagonismo de la iglesia católica en Colombia, su influencia en los programas educativos y su relación con la violencia bipartidista del país, junto con otros fenómenos sociales y culturales como los de la cultura popular, la pobreza, la impunidad, la corrupción política y la compleja situación de la mujer en un país como Colombia. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!, primera novela de Galvis, narra la violencia bipartidista desde la perspectiva de mujeres afectadas por las creencias religiosas y políticas de su entorno. Sus dos disímiles protagonistas, Rosalía Plata y Visitación Jinete ejercen la crítica de formas inesperadas. Rosalía, de clase media, modela sus acciones en el ejemplo de María Cano (1887-1967), una de 23 Silvia Galvis - Uribe las líderes sindicalistas más importantes de los años veinte y treinta en Colombia. Visitación, campesina amiga de Rosalía, es violada por el terrateniente de la finca donde trabaja su familia y, recurriendo a la escritura como única forma de conservar la memoria de su familia y su comunidad, escribe un diario. Este diario, escrito en un estilo oral campesino, registra las anécdotas e historias político-sociales de un pueblo con características políticas y sociales muy parecidas a las de Barrancabermeja, ciudad petrolera y sindicalista colombiana por excelencia.5 A través de estos dos personajes y de narradores de tercera y primera persona, Galvis incorpora historias y testimonios rurales de Colombia durante los primeros años de la violencia en el país, también registrados en El Jefe Supremo. Galvis, al igual que Visitación, busca registrar fenómenos políticos que han dejado una profunda huella en el imaginario colombiano, pero que la censura ha intentado acallar, caso de la violencia en Colombia.6 Pero para narrar estos episodios, Galvis mezcla lo privado de las dos protagonistas con el entorno político patriarcal. Tanto la sindicalista Rosalía como Visitación subvierten, en diversos grados y formas, los patrones femeninos tradicionales de la época en cuanto se hacen sujetos activos y partícipes del devenir histórico-cultural de sus comunidades. Rosalía, desobedeciendo las órdenes del padre y esposo, participa en los movimientos sindicalistas mientras Visitación ocultamente escribe la historia de su pueblo y de su familia en el diario. Sin embargo, los resultados de las acciones de estas dos mujeres no son siempre exitosos, comparados con los resultados políticos de algunos de los hombres de la comunidad. Rosalía por su parte, decide suspender su actividad política una vez asesinado su hijo y rechaza la oferta de escribir en una revista radical. Visitación al contrario, registra la historia en un diario esporádico y sin rigurosidad cronológica. Visitación de esta forma se hace un 24 Silvia Galvis - Uribe personaje doblemente subversivo porque además de registrar las atrocidades de la violencia, lo hace en un estilo familiar, campesino más comunicativo y cercano a las experiencias de su comunidad, disímil del oficial. La novela de esta forma presenta un contraste entre el discurso patriarcal repetitivo y vacío de los políticos y religiosos de ese entonces, que conlleva al enfrentamiento político y a la violencia irracional por un lado, y por otro lado, señala cómo el discurso familiar y campesino muestra de forma más efectiva las nefastas consecuencias del discurso político oficial. El uso de personajes que hacen uso de la escritura como único mecanismo de sobrevivencia y resistencia al olvido, dadas las dramáticas circunstancias socio-políticas del país, es una característica recurrente en la narrativa ficticia de Galvis. En su segunda novela, Sabor a Mí, hay dos niñas protagonistas cuyas familias pertenecen a partidos políticos contrarios, pero este hecho no afecta la amistad entre las dos familias de las niñas pertenecientes a la clase media alta. La novela es contada bajo las perspectivas de dos niñas preadolescentes y se centra en el período del golpe militar en Colombia bajo el mando del General Rojas Pinilla (1953-1957). La temática de esta novela está igualmente contemplada en el trabajo historiográfico El Jefe Supremo, realizado con Donadío y en las columnas de El Espectador como ‘¿Legítima Nostalgia?’ 08/12/91, ‘Hablando de Democracias’ (9/02/91), ‘Eva y el Discurso de la Tutela’ (19/7/92) ‘Querido Tony’ (13/3/94), ‘Un Purgatorio de Disparates’ (17/04/94), ‘Años de Candela’ (31/10/94) y otras más. En estas columnas se muestran no sólo los temas relacionados con este período político, sino también el estilo de habla de algunos personajes inventados que Galvis desarrollará más en profundidad en esta novela.7 Una vez más esta novela devela la estrecha relación entre su producción 25 Silvia Galvis - Uribe histórico-periodística y su producción literaria. Aparte del estilo y temática de sus columnas, Sabor a Mí guarda también gran relación con otro de sus trabajos periodísticos, el de la entrevista en Vida Mía (1993). En este texto periodístico se encuentran nueve entrevistas a personajes femeninos colombianos de diverso orígenes y formación profesional que cuentan vivencias similares a las de sus dos personajes ficticios en Sabor a Mí. Esta novela guarda igualmente similitud con la única producción teatral de Galvis, De la Caída de un Ángel por Culpa de un Beso Apasionado (1997), especialmente en las secciones compuestas por Anita, una de las niñas que escribe en su diario lo que escucha de los adultos en estilo de diálogos directos. Su amiga Elenita, por otro lado, registra también lo que oye y ve en el mundo de los adultos, pero en un estilo más indirecto y por ello menos escénico. Las secciones escritas por Anita bien podrían ser puestas en escena, como ha sucedido con novelas de características más teatrales, caso de la producción literaria de Manuel Puig, por ejemplo. El estilo conversacional y familiar en Sabor a Mí guarda semejanza con el estilo de su texto teatral aunque la historia de su novela es mucho menos predecible que la del texto teatral. Otro aspecto fundamental en la novelística de Galvis, evidente en esta y otras novelas es el de la denuncia a la censura periodística, tratada también en varios capítulos de El Jefe Supremo.8 Aunque las dos protagonistas en Sabor a Mí enfocan su narración en los acontecimientos de la vida privada familiar, ésta siempre está marcada por los fenómenos político-sociales que afectan especialmente a la familia de Anita por estar comprometida con la profesión del periodismo de denuncia durante el gobierno militar. Las dos niñas, desde sus perspectivas aparentemente inocentes, dejan entrever la compleja situación social, cultural y política del momento. Mientras las instituciones 26 Silvia Galvis - Uribe educativas religiosas ven la influencia diabólica de los procesos modernizadores por doquier (en el cine, la radionovela, los periódicos liberales y la música bailable pecaminosa), las niñas se preguntan por qué a pesar de ello la gente sigue consumiendo estos productos que el mismo gobierno utiliza como formas de entretenimiento para ocultar la corrupción y las masacres ocurridas durante el período militar. Las dos niñas deciden escribir un diario por separado que supuestamente confrontarán un día que nunca llega, pues las circunstancias familiares y sociales lo impiden. De esta forma, los diarios ocultos de las dos niñas se convierten en verdaderas crónicas sociales que delatan los acontecimientos políticos y culturales de Colombia bajo el régimen militar. Por medio de la lectura de los dos diarios, el lector logra tener un amplio conocimiento de las circunstancias políticosociales y culturales de Colombia durante el proceso modernizador bajo la dictadura militar. Soledad, Conspiraciones y Suspiros (2002) es la novela histórica por excelencia de Galvis y por ende su novela más extensa y compleja. Revisando una vez más la conexión entre su producción periodística en El Espectador durante el año noventa y cuatro, es evidente su interés historiográfico en el período de la Regeneración (1884-1898). Columnas como ‘La Polilla de la Púrpura’ (19/04/94), ‘La Muerte de la Presidenta’ (13/10/94) y ‘La Triste Historia de Una Virgen Calva’ (07/?/ 95) dejan entrever el interés histórico de Galvis en las intrigas, conspiraciones políticas, guerras civiles, corrupción y censura periodística durante el período regenerador en Colombia. Elena Araújo acierta en su crítica cuando compara la obra historiográfica de Aída Martínez Carreño (1940-2009) con la ficción histórica de Galvis. Araújo escribe que Martínez es: ‘una historiadora que podría haber sido novelista’ y sobre Galvis, ‘una novelista que podría haber sido historiadora’.9 En realidad, esta novela de Galvis es un documento 27 Silvia Galvis - Uribe histórico valioso que muestra, desde su perspectiva y la perspectiva del periodismo radical de la Regeneración, diversos momentos históricos importantes que influyeron notoriamente en la cultura colombiana. A través de distintos narradores picarescos, políticos serios, periodistas críticos y narradores marginales, el lector se entera de la historia pública y privada de doña Soledad Román y Rafael Núñez, sus protagonistas principales. Galvis se vale para ello de cartas de políticos y diplomáticos nacionales y extranjeros adversos a las políticas de Núñez, de pasquines confiscados y de varios otros narradores. Éstos últimos se encuentran insatisfechos con su función de narradores y acuden a otros narradores con los cuales negocian y debaten entre sí sus capacidades y deficiencias narrativas para poder cumplir la difícil misión de contar esta larga historia marcada más por las conveniencias personales y políticas de la pareja Núñez que por intereses y necesidades públicas. La novela es rica en mostrar diversos documentos haciendo de la misma novela un documento histórico del proceso de la Regeneración y de la lucha ideológica de periódicos como El Espectador durante la difícil censura bajo este régimen. En esta novela, quienes escriben en periódicos son los mismos personajes históricos reales que utilizan sus medios informativos para propagar su ideología política. La novela señala la importancia de la palabra escrita por parte de los políticos quienes son cuidadosos en escoger el vocabulario, el tema y la forma para provocar y atacar a sus adversarios políticos, caso de Salvador Camacho (1827-1900), por ejemplo.10 La otra escritura con la que se hace historia en esta novela, es la correspondencia privada entre los diversos personajes históricos donde se comentan severas críticas a políticos, temores, secretos, odios y venganzas políticas de doña Soledad Román, primera dama de la nación. 28 Silvia Galvis - Uribe Finalmente, sus dos últimas novelas La Mujer que Sabía Demasiado (2006) y Un Mal Asunto (2009) son más novelas de corte documental que histórico, entendido por documental una narración ficticia que narra acontecimientos políticos contemporáneos a la autora. Si se prefiere, podemos valernos también del término de novela ‘catártica’ dado por Noé Jitrik, cuando define este tipo de narraciones como novelas que responden a necesidades de solucionar problemas inmediatos al autor y por ello se dirigen hacia ‘necesidades analíticas propias de una situación de cercanía’.11 Esta nueva postura narrativa de Galvis se distancia de la narrativa de tendencia más histórica como la de sus novelas mencionadas, aunque todas ellas contienen grados diversos de historicidad.12 Si existe o no algún valor en este último tipo de ficción, ha sido tema polémico entre académicos como Habermas para quien, como indica en Opinión Pública, la remoción de la realidad al plano de lo ficción da como ‘resultado un cómodo y acomodaticio material de entretenimiento’.13 Dicho argumento indudablemente tiene su validez; sin embargo, si observamos la situación política en Hispanoamérica, este tipo de novelas puede más bien indicarnos que aún existe la necesidad de realizar narraciones ficticias críticas de denuncia sobre hechos no abiertamente discutidos ni claramente solucionados a nivel público, como el caso de corrupción política. La intensidad de la denuncia dependerá obviamente del grado de conocimiento que el lector tenga sobre el hecho real referido. Pero, incluso si el lector desconoce los hechos reales, estas narraciones dejan sembrada la inquietud en el lector sobre los mecanismos y grados de corrupción extremos a los que puede llegarse en países como Colombia. Por medio de este tipo de narraciones ficticio-reales, la crítica y la denuncia son evidentes como sugiere González cuando arguye que dada la represión a periodistas hispanoamericanos, éstos tienden a echar mano a 29 Silvia Galvis - Uribe formas literarias como única forma de denuncia. (González, Journalism, 13). Observando sus columnas ‘Una Extraña Extradición’ (02/07/95), ‘El Profesor Blackaman Responde’ (06/08/95), ‘Los Pechos de Carlina Martínez Guerraaaa, y Yo’ (20/08/95) y ‘Una Cirugía Revolucionaria’ (19/09/96) entre muchas otras, es obvio que el tema de corrupción durante el gobierno de Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) fue reiterativo. En las columnas se ve plasmada claramente la denuncia a la corrupción política colombiana que Galvis hábilmente transforma luego en novelas detectivescas en las que el lector se vuelve el periodista investigativo de esos eventos. Se develan allí documentos de interrogatorios detallados donde el lector no logra saber si son formas camufladas de la autora para develar lo ‘real’, o si más bien son diálogos inventados entre detectives y testigos. También, en La Mujer que Sabía Demasiado, el fiscal Nolano toma el rol de cronista de la historia que investiga en cuanto decide crear una novela paralela a su investigación, haciendo de esta meta-ficción un mecanismo de apoyo a su propia investigación, cumpliendo a su vez su sueño frustrado de escribir una novela detectivesca. De esta manera los personajes de la narrativa Galvis son una proyección de su misma labor en cuanto todos, de alguna manera y por medio de distintos mecanismos, registran y cuentan la historia de Colombia y la historia del periodismo en el país. En las novelas de Galvis confluyen la investigación historiográfica, su columna de opinión y la sátira de su estilo periodístico, camufladas de ficción. En un país de ‘memoria lacustre’, la ficción se vuelve una necesidad social fundamental y una nueva forma didáctica de enseñar y preservar la memoria histórica del país.14 Por esta razón podemos afirmar que Galvis fue una verdadera cronista de la historia político-cultural colombiana y de ahí la importancia de su trabajo histórico, periodístico y literario. 30 Silvia Galvis - Uribe 1 Colombia Nazi 1939-1945 (Bogotá: Planeta Colombiana Editorial, 1986); El Jefe Supremo (Bogotá: Planeta Colombiana Editorial, 1988). 2 Elena Poniatowska, ‘Women Writing and Living in Latin America’ en Contemporary Women Writing in the other Americas, ed. Georgiana M. M. Colvile, (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), 156. 3 Aníbal González, Journalism and the Development of Spanish American Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 37. 4 !Viva Cristo Rey! (Bogotá: Planeta Colombiana Editorial, 1991); Sabor a Mí, (Bogotá: Arango Editores , 1994). 5 Mauricio Archila, Cultura e Identidad Obrera. Colombia 1910-1945 (Bogotá: CINEP, 1991), 66-70. 6 Salomón Kalmanovitz, ‘El Desarrollo Histórico del Campo’ en Colombia Hoy (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores, 1978), 287-8. 7 Véanse los personajes Don Sotomayor Silva y la tía Horte en El Espectador, 24/11/91 y 08/12/91. 8 Alberto Donadío y Silvia Galvis, El Jefe Supremo (Bogotá: Planeta Colombiana, 1988), 276-349. 9 Helena Araújo, ‘Aída Martínez y Silvia Galvis: Del Documento al Relato y de la Ficción a la Historia’, Literatura: Teoría, Historia y Crítica. Revista de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Santafé de Bogotá, No. 8, 2006), 144. 10 Soledad Conspiraciones y Suspiros (Bogotá: Arango Editores, 2002), 35. 11 María Cristina Pons, Memorias del Olvido. Del Paso, García Márquez, Saer y la Novela Histórica de Fines del Siglo XX. (México: Siglo XXI, 1996), 53-4. 12 Jeannette Uribe, Historia y Periodismo en las Novelas de Silvia Galvis (Nottingham: Tesis doctoral, 2011). Caps. 4 y 5 en particular. 13 Jürgen Habermas, Historia y Crítica de la Opinión Pública. (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2004), 198. 14 Galvis escribe: ‘Este país no tiene historia, sufre de memoria lacustre, es decir, llena de lagunas. Aquí todo se olvida, y lo que no se olvida, de todas maneras, lo cubre el polvo de la impunidad [...]’ en El Espectador, 24/11/1991. 31 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason ‘Ya no puedo más’ Commemoration and Catharsis in Olga Alonso González’s Testimonios (1973) Sofia Mason Abstract Published in Cuba to commemorate Olga Alonso’s accidental death in 1964, at the age of nineteen, and to promulgate her image as a Revolutionary heroine, this multifaceted text combines poetry, epistolary writing and diary entries to communicate Olga’s arguably traumatic experience of volunteering in rural Cuba during the first five years of the Revolution of 1959. Olga’s writing explores themes such as coming-of-age sexuality, unrequited love, depression, political frustration and an insecure, fragmented sense of self. The text is a particularly paradoxical example of women’s testimonio as it presents a sharp tension between the occasional but zealous expression of Olga’s political convictions, highlighted by the official revolutionary editor, and her more critical, intimate thoughts and feelings, revealed in her erotic, morbid poetry and brutally honest letters to her mother. 32 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason B orn on 18th February 1945, Olga Alonso joined the Escuela para Instructores de Arte in 1961, the same year as the Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) invasion. She graduated in 1963, and from October to November of that year she volunteered in the province of Camagüey, which had been badly hit by Hurricane Flora.1 Olga also volunteered during the coffee harvest, and as the Orientadora de Teatro Regional she organised theatre productions and classes for the rural population.2 On the 4th of March 1964, on her way to teach a class, she was killed in an accident involving a tractor. She was nineteen years old.3 Written during her time in rural Cuba, Testimonios critically explores the Revolution’s cultural policy as expressed in Fidel Castro’s ‘Palabras a los Intelectuales’ (1961).4 The speech put forward the notion of sacrificing individual artistic objectives for those of the revolutionary collective, as Olga’s own theatrical interests were put aside to work with campesinos. The most quoted line from the speech, ‘Dentro de la Revolución todo; contra la Revolución, nada’, is also applicable, because, as a volunteer, Olga was inside the Revolution and it is for this reason that it was possible for her testimonio to be published. However, the candid honesty with which rural voluntary work is described threatens to undermine the Revolution’s idealisation of volunteering and rural Cuba. While her work as an ‘Instructora de Arte’ upheld revolutionary cultural policy, many of Olga’s poems ignore the call to make art for the masses that promotes the Revolution. Instead, her poetry explores personal themes such as love, sexuality and depression; Testimonios contains more personal reflection than political analysis. The Revolution has published an account that superficially seems uncritically to transmit revolutionary ideology and, while the paratext encourages this reading, the first-person account of the testimonialista problematises it.5 Ambivalent emotions are cathartically explored and thus carefully authorised 33 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason in keeping with Aristotle’s observations regarding tragedy in Poetics.6 A close reading of Testimonios reveals that Olga struggled to adjust to the unusual and unsettling new environment of rural Cuba and that writing became a cathartic expression of this difficult period in her adolescent life. Olga was not suffering from conventional trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of a war or natural disaster, although she was affected by the Revolutionary war, the Bay of Pigs invasion at Playa Girón and Hurricane Flora. It is, rather, the potentially traumatic psychological response to volunteering in rural Cuba, leaving her family for an extensive period of time and adapting to a radically different way of life that is examined. While normal for many Cubans, for a middle-class student the conditions of rural working life were extremely challenging. Throughout Testimonios Alonso repeatedly complains of homesickness and the fatigue she experienced due to the arduous physical labour of working the land. Gente Nueva may, therefore, have published this account not only to celebrate her sacrifice but also to legitimise similar concerns or experiences for Cuban readers. The first page of Testimonios features one sentence in italics ‘los jóvenes pensamos que somos historia porque sabemos que somos historia.’7 The quote, from a poem that appears later in the text, is emphasised as it celebrates the political activism of young people, an important aspect of Cuba’s early programme of mass mobilisation. The political framework of the text is clear: ‘Reproducción de la edición hecha por el Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, La Habana, 1973, Año del XX aniversario' (Alonso, Testimonios, inside sleeve).’ Although published to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Moncada, the text is also, as we shall see, multifaceted in that it explores revolutionary 34 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason cultural guidelines and challenges the glorification of volunteering and rural Cuba while revealing adolescent concerns regarding identity and typical teenage emotions of love, depression and angst.8 A thorough analysis of the themes of identity and adolescence falls beyond the remit of this paper, but the reading presented here concurs with Par Kumaraswami’s analysis that Testimonios constitutes: ‘the early attempts of a young Cuban woman to represent, and therefore define, a new identity-in-themaking, a subject/object definition which might reconcile the conflicting worlds of self-interest and self-sacrifice, of personal love and ‘amor revolucionario’ of private thoughts and public actions’.9 The conflicting worlds of commemoration and catharsis, childhood and adulthood might also be added to this list. With attention to Olga’s more depressive and suicidal poetry, the argument that she was ultimately incapable of developing this new identity and reconciling these conflicting interests emerges as themes of morbidity and mental instability continually recur. Testimonios is comprised of eleven letters, thirty-seven poems, three of which have the structure of a letter, and twentyseven diary entries, all of which are written in the first-person by Olga.10 The first seven diary entries are at the beginning of the text, while the last twenty are at the end. Most of the letters, and the poems in letter format, are addressed to Olga’s mother, and the dedication is also written by her, foregrounding the mother/ daughter relationship. The ‘dedicatoria’ quotes one of her daughter’s letters: ‘no quiero que mi escritura se quede sin voz, no quiero que dejen de oírla con los ojos, es mi voceo. Es mi palabra…’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 7). Motivated by these words, Olga’s mother collected her daughter’s writing: 35 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason Al pueblo que recibió su sangre humilde, su sangre joven, llena de ardores, deseos, esperanzas. A este pueblo que alimentó sus letras, haciéndolas fuertes y generosas: entrego (Alonso, Testimonios, 7). Throughout the dedication there is a sense that Olga’s mother is coping with her daughter’s death by conceptualising it as a revolutionary sacrifice. No reference is made to the fact that Olga died in an accident. The relationship between mother and daughter is highlighted to create the sense of a personal account and to humanise the testimonialista while stressing her connection to the family and the domestic sphere; unaccompanied female voluntary labour is sanitised of potential controversy; while Olga may have been far from home she was still a dutiful daughter, while somewhat independent, she did not forget the patriarchal norms to which she was obliged to abide.11 The prologue, written by Anilcie Arévalo Ocaña, also fails to mention Olga’s death. Instead it praises Olga’s writing and encourages the reader to adopt a particular interpretation of the text: ‘en sus testimonios nada está presumido ni coloreado, ninguna frase fue internada en los laboratorios de la imaginación, resultan así, explosivas, maternales, respondiendo a su personalidad; escribir para ella era juntar corceles y flores destinadas a pelear hasta el último pétalo’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 10). The use of the adjective ‘maternal’ supports the argument that connections to the sphere of the family are foregrounded by the paratext of Testimonios. The paratext also largely conflicts with the content; in both cases the editors contain the first-person narrative of the testimonialista. Obscuring the fact that most of the letters and poems are not overtly political, Arévalo Ocaña continues to suggest otherwise to the reader: 36 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason Se admira en Olga Alonso la autocrítica continua, la seriedad ante las responsabilidades, su madurez súbita, la preocupación constante por entregar mayores y mejores frutos de creación; irrumpiendo violenta y analíticamente contra las falsas erudiciones, las posturas extravagantes y las divagaciones, nóminas de un Arte pasado contra el cual lucha por rescatar en grado absoluto de pureza las nuevas aspiraciones artísticas y culturales que exige la Revolución (Alonso, Testimonios, 11 – 12). There is no attempt to account for the numerous love poems, letters and diary entries that seem critically to explore the Revolution’s cultural and artistic aspirations rather than unambiguously to enforce them. The reader is encouraged not to pay attention to the significance of these sections of Testimonios, or at least not to interpret them as beyond the limits of what is pro-revolutionary and acceptable. Rather the paratext suggests that Olga’s writing is a spontaneous, direct and honest expression of a young, dedicated revolutionary which contrasts with the contrived, elite, bourgeois art of pre-revolutionary Cuba.12 Testimonios has no contents page and is not structured chronologically. Chapters are introduced with a quote from a poem or letter that follows, located in the middle of the page in italics. An unnamed editor appears at the beginning of the book only to underline their own absence: ‘En esta edición se ha respetado la gratía y el estilo de la autora.’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 14). Although she or he is not named, the editor provides contextual information throughout. The first example of epistolary writing is introduced under the heading ‘REMEMBER PLAYA GIRON. [Sic.] Esta carta fue escrita en el año 1962, como respuesta a los insultos de una exilada.’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 17). Throughout the zealous and explicitly political letter Olga argues against US intervention in Latin America: 37 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason ¿Cree a Cuba inocente? Ahora es cuando ha dejado de serlo. Ahora. Independiente ya de ese ‘maravilloso’ país donde Ud. vive. A costa del sudor de bananeros de Panamá y Colombia, a costa de consumir sus vidas los petróleos de Venezuela y México, a costa de destrozar sus manos los mineros de Bolivia, a costa de todos los pueblos subdesarrollados, que mantienen en la más ignominiosa ignorancia, en la miseria. Nunca ha pensado en eso ¿Verdad? No. Nunca (Alonso, Testimonios, 19). The belligerent tone of the letter to the anonymous exile and the use of angry rhetorical questions persuasively convey the political convictions held by the author. In contrast to the letter, however, most of the text is not overtly political; a deliberate editorial decision has placed the pro-revolutionary texts at the beginning and end of the testimonio with the result that a prorevolutionary account is simulated. The tone of the following letter differs considerably from the first. Written to an unnamed ‘compañero latinoamericano’, it is clearly a love letter.13 In an unusual combination of the literary, personal and political, Olga interrupts the passionate articulation of her feelings to briefly discuss the restructuring of the Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas before describing nightfall with complex poetic imagery: ‘[E]s de noche: la luna soñolienta despertó al sol mojado de mar, y su bosteza gordo y amarillo ha prendido una flor de arcoíris que ha llegada a mi cara pegada a la tierra verde y carmelita’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 26). She describes the sun as ‘rojo, colérico porque tiene que marcharse.’ Olga Alonso’s natural imagery is without political symbolism; poetic language, the personification of the sun, and the description of natural phenomena is employed to communicate personal feelings. Throughout the text, Olga’s use of such imagery 38 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason is not, as we shall see, explicitly produced in the interests of the revolutionary collective. While the mother/daughter relationship is highlighted by the paratext to connect Olga’s account to the patriarchal family unit, it is while writing to her mother that Olga most explicitly challenges the glorification of voluntary work and the rural population. One letter begins by providing precise information, such as the times at which they work, and what and when they eat. She explains that it is due to the hot sun that their work day is divided between a morning and an afternoon shift and she frequently reiterates the physical difficulties of such manual labour. Unlike the way in which the literacy crusades were presented by other Cuban writers, Olga’s complaints demonstrate that she found working in the countryside with el pueblo extremely challenging. Despite the sense of conciencia revolucionaria expressed in her letter to an exile above, Olga complains about almost every aspect of rural life and work. She begins with a general complaint about the climate: ‘hay un calor sofocante y mucho polvo’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 95), which does not suit her: ‘Tengo la cara ardiendo de colorada, dicen que parezco manzanita’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 96). The rural poverty and lack of basic infrastructure and amenities irritate her: ‘no hay luz eléctrica y en la tienda del pueblo no hay casi nada’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 95) She also laments that ‘El agua tiene un sabor malísimo, porque no hay cañería, es de pozo, y la tomamos siempre con limón’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 96). The source of the irritation is not indignation for the impoverished conditions of the local population but rather personal inconvenience. She also complains about the standard of her accommodation to which she was evidently unaccustomed: ‘dormimos en una barraca, que está sucísima, llena de telarañas y comején, con pinturas horribles de santos en las paredes… las hamacas de los compañeros son de saco pica-pica…’ (Alonso, Testimonio, 96). 39 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason In a statement that harbours classist sentiments, as opposed to the traditional Marxist idealisation of the worker, she complains: ‘Tenemos peste a trabajador de campo, olor a manigua’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 96). This statement solidifies the notion that her middle-class, urban upbringing left her ill-prepared for the harsh realities of working life in the Cuban countryside. Perhaps the most subversive complaint points to the political apathy and laziness of the rural people, undermining Dora Alonso’s presentation of them as generous, welcoming and humble: ‘Las gentes aquí son un poco apáticas y todo es hastio; pero resistimos’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 98) and she continues: Aquí se cree imposible dar ningún acto cultural porque la gente ni canta ni come fruta. Los hombres aquí son muy vagos y son pocos a los que le gusta trabajar la tierra (Alonso, Testimonios, 97). In stark contrast to the ideal of the hardworking, historically exploited, passionately pro-revolutionary campesino, Olga Alonso describes an apathetic people who resist progress, education and work. The letter ends ‘Mami, con el cansancio de cinco días de arduo trabajo dejo de escribirte para continuar mi tarea. Escríbeme bastante’ and signed ‘mami, mami tengo que irme ya.Chao, Olguita’ (Alonso, Testimonio, 99). In light of the rest of the letter, the repetition of ‘mami’ sounds almost desperate. By foregrounding her five days of hard work, Olga again draws attention to her middle-class background, as peasant girls would be accustomed to such regular manual labour. Olga’s potentially subversive complaints may have been included in the testimonio in order to highlight the sacrifices made by middle-class young women such as Olga with a view to encouraging readers to volunteer and participate in mass organisations. As above, this apparent authorisation of ambivalence might also function as a 40 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason form of catharsis for Cuban readers, validating and legitimising such experiences and emotions and containing them within a prorevolutionary framework. Nevertheless, her account does not paint an appealing picture of rural Cuba, her letters, poetry and diary entries seem to function more to criticise the Revolution’s insistence on the importance of volunteering than to promote it. The notion that Testimonios articulates problematic emotions as a form of catharsis is further developed with a poem that explores the recurring theme of death. Olga continues to combine poetry and epistolary writing as the poem repeatedly addresses her mother, ‘madre camarada’: En esta vida morir es cosa fácil Hacer vida es mucho más difícil –dijo Maiakovski y se pegó un tiro ¡Seamos el ejemplo de su verso sin pistola! Los jóvenes, madre camarada pensamos que somos historia porque sabemos que somos historia (Alonso, Testimonios, 183) It is ironic that the quote about revolutionary youth we saw placed at the very beginning of the book, is taken from such a poem. The reference to Vladimir Mayakovsky may have political significance; born in 1893, he committed suicide in 1930 and was a poet, playwright and member of the Futurist movement: ‘Romantics suggest that he killed himself over a woman, while realists maintain that he succumbed to a grave mental illness.’14 His poetry was concerned with themes such as ‘a man’s longing for love and his suffering at the hands of the loveless’, a theme to which Olga may have been able to relate as she also wrote on the topic of unrequited love (Alonso, Testimonios, 13).15 If Futurists disregarded syntax, formal writing and punctuation, then Olga may 41 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason well have been imitating their style in her poetry. Mayakovsky was a socialist activist who, ironically considering Cuba’s relationship with the Soviet Union, became disillusioned with Stalinism. The cathartic function of the poem becomes apparent as Olga confesses to feelings of fear while simultaneously encouraging herself by asserting her bravery: ‘a veces, madre, tengo miedo... los ruidos en la noche son más grandes y sé que no soy cobarde.’ The poem ends by exploring Olga’s own death in more detail: ¡Yo moriré tremendamente llena! Resplandeciente de blanco marfil en el comienzo del Mundo donde todos me vean morir donde todos me sientan donde todos me huelan. ¡Seré un cadáver sin cuerpo! ¡eternamente humana! ¡Madre camarada vivirás orgullosa de tu hija camarada! (Alonso, Testimonios,185) The recurring themes of death, fear, depression and identity crisis support the argument that Olga was both traumatised by the harsh experiences of rural volunteering and exploring themes common during adolescence.16 These death fantasies and the direct reference to a famous suicide contrast with the treatment of martyrdom in the paratext of the Cuban testimonios examined above. The cautiously defiant tone, and the way in which it attempts to assert a sense of agency in the face of death, reinforces the reading of the poem as a cathartic attempt to remain strong in the face of difficult experiences and negative emotions. 42 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason A particularly dramatic and literary poem, which provides further cathartic expression for feelings of frustration and distress, begins by addressing a lover before revealing an existential crisis: Amor mío. Sola con soledad. No puedo más. Ni aún conmigo misma. Me busco. Me hallo. Me destruyo. Sales tú renovado. Te yergues ante mí. Te haces gigante. Te desvaneces. Mis cenizas se dispersan en tu busca. Vuelven a unirse en una lágrima. Yo ya no soy yo. Tú ya no estás Hago silencio.muerdo Ruido para no oír el silencio. Estoy loca...loca...loca...loca! Quiero cambiar de mundo quiero….quiero….quiero Y nadie quiere ¡Ya! ¡Ya! ¡Ya!! ¡¡Ya!! Recuerdo del olvido. Siempre todos olvidan recordando. Ya no puedo más Repetida frase. Tan rebuscada. Tan dicha. Basta. Basta. Basta (Alonso, Testimonios 157 – 8). The poet looks for herself, finds herself and then destroys herself, a clear reference to an adolescent identity crisis. The repetition of ‘quiero’ underlines the rejection of the collective 43 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason identity at the heart of revolutionary politics, as her personal desire takes precedence. The internal rhyme and euphony of the line, borrowed from Federico García Lorca, ‘Yo ya no soy yo’ emphasise her identity crisis and the repetition of ‘yo’ underscores her self-prioritisation. The poem is a palimpsest, as echoes of contemporaries of Lorca may also be found.17 The irritating repeated sentence referred to may be a revolutionary slogan, strengthening the notion she is experiencing some political disillusionment. Alternatively, ‘no puedo más’ might be the offending sentence, as Olga attempts to summon the strength and courage to continue her volunteer work. The line following the repetition of ‘loca’ provides some clarity if read in keeping with the interpretation of Testimonios that sees it as a politically unorthodox work; Olga does not want to change the world, improve it in keeping with revolutionary objectives, rather she wants to change worlds, and wishes that she was not volunteering in 1960s rural Cuba. The anonymous editor of Testimonios employs paratextual strategies, such as chapter titles, to underline the political and downplay the challenging material, so that the chapter that is, in fact, comprised of erotic love poems is entitled ‘¡Seremos ejemplo de amor comunista!’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 135). One poem with strong sexual connotations repeats the word ‘ven’ at the beginning of several lines: ‘ven hasta mi playa’ and ‘ven hasta mi grandeza’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 137). Sexual imagery recurs as the same poem uses images from nature such as ‘caracoles’, flowers and gardens: ‘multiplica la flor/en mí súmate.../aquí... todo un jardín te espera’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 137). Olga makes effective use of the natural imagery of a thunderstorm to explore her sexuality in a poem from the same section, which begins ‘está lloviendo ... /y.../ [...] en cada gotica de agua/ estás tú.’ Olga paints a vivid image of the sea reflecting the tempestuous sky: ‘el mar.../es una 44 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason prolongación de cielo lluvioso’ before returning to this image to express erotic longing later in the poem ‘quisiera ser una prolongación tuya.’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 145). Natural imagery recurs throughout Olga’s love poetry; she repeatedly employs imagery of precipitation and other weather conditions, flora and fauna to explore her own sexuality and feelings of desire. Towards the end of Testimonios, poems about sexuality and depression are followed by more pro-revolutionary and political poems, arguably a deliberate editing technique adopted to contain the piece within acceptable pro-revolutionary parameters.18 Passionate, personal poems concerned with unrequited love are framed by the pledge of the ‘Instructores de Arte’ and the final two poems are unequivocally pro-revolutionary and political: Sois un ejército del arte -nos dijo nuestro félix pita… como diploma de graduación ¡Bravo camarada Félix no se equivocaba, una vez más, ha acertado! Confiaba usted en nosotros desde las primeras letras escritas en las paredes de nuestras aulas y más aún cuando fuimos intelectuales del café el maíz del frijol… de la caña somos un ejército del arte [..] tú me enseñas que se siembra en el tiempo de la seca manejar un arma yo te enseño la conjugación de los verbos que te traigo actuar 45 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason cantar bailar pintar [...] nuestro manifesto es consigna de la práctica: ¡y nos pertenece a los instructores, a ustedes también, si quisieran! ¡por un arte revolucionario socialista para las masas obreras y campesinas! Patria o Muerte ¡Venceremos! (Alonso, Testimonios, 209 – 214) This final poem is addressed to the Cuban writer Félix Pita Rodríguez and the first-person plural, used intermittently throughout the poem, incorporates the other students at the school for ‘Instructores de Arte’ and contrasts with the predominance of the first-person singular in the rest of Olga’s poetry. A nature versus culture dichotomy is set up through the structure of the poem, which has the effect of underlining the difference between the rural Cuba of the campesinos and the urban Cuba of the volunteers. The way in which the words coffee, corn, beans and sugar, all representative of rural Cuba, are separated from the rest of the text draws attention to them in contrast to the verbs act, sing, dance and paint, also separated, which represent the cultural activities that Olga and her fellow students were to take to the Cuban countryside. Despite this, apparently deliberately selected, pro-revolutionary ending and the sparse other examples of Olga’s strong political convictions, Testimonios is an exceptionally complex, dense and literary example of Cuban women’s testimonial literature. It challenges revolutionary idealisation of voluntary work, rural Cuba and campesinos. In addition, through sexual and morbid poetry and 46 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason personal letters it critically explores the limitations of the guidelines for revolutionary art put forward by Castro in ‘Palabras a los Intelectuales.’ Ultimately however, as Olga was a dedicated revolutionary volunteer, her writing is ‘dentro’ and not ‘contra la Revolución.’ 1 Olga Alonso, Testimonios. (La Habana: Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba. 1973), cover. 2 The Comisión de Alfabetización was founded to confront the high level of illiteracy in rural areas and 1961 was declared the Year of Education. The campaign was the Revolution’s first major, nationwide operation and despite its militaristic tone it was both a humanitarian mission and ‘a profoundly political effort, one tied intimately to the revolutionary transformation of society and the economy.’ See Richard Fagen, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba. (California: Stanford University Press. 1969), 35. 3 Catherine Davies, A Place in the Sun? Women Writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba. (London and New Jersey: Zed Books. 1997), 130. 4 Fidel Castro. Speech on 30th June 1961 available at www.min.cult.cu/historia/palabras.doc 5 The paratext is defined as that which “enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such to its readers, and more generally, to the public” and includes prefactorial texts, chapter titles and all other editorial decisions. Gérard Gennette (translated by Jane E. Lewin). Paratexts. Thresholds of Interpretation. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1997), 1. 6 In his Poetics Aristotle states that tragedy ‘effects through pity and fear the proper catharsis of these emotions.’ Here catharsis might mean purging (as it does in a related passage of Aristotle’s Politics, in which music is said to get rid of, ‘katharein’, disruptive emotions). But catharsis can also mean a purification; and, in addition, a demonstration or display. Beyond the issue of tragedy, catharsis involves the use of traumatic experience in any genre. See David Mikics, New Handbook of Literary Terms. (New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, 2007), 52. This chapter also finds relevant the more recent definition: ‘The term catharsis has also been adopted by modern psychotherapy, particularly Freudian psychoanalysis, to describe the act of expressing deep emotions often associated with events in the individual’s past which have never before been adequately expressed. Catharsis is also an emotional release associated with talking about underlying causes of the problem.’ From Ambreen Safder Kharbe, English Language and Literary Criticism. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House: 2009), 193. 7 Olga Alonso, Testimonios (La Habana: Editorial Gente Nueva, 1973). All subsequent references are also from this edition and pages numbers will be provided parenthetically in the text. 47 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason 8 An understanding of adolescence is crucial for a successful reading of Testimonios. Olga’s distance from her family can be understood as of one of several ‘main status transitions’ that form part of adolescent growth and development, as outlined in John C. Coleman, The nature of adolescence. (London: Routledge, 1999), 9. The identity crisis that Olga seems to be working through must also be placed in this context as ‘intrapsychic restructuring during adolescence brings identity questions to the surface; while socio-cultural factors undoubtedly may accelerate, delay or even arrest this developmental process, sequential stages in the transformation of the self and its way of understanding remain unaltered, according to this developmental perspective. Transformations in cognitive and affective processes or qualitative change in some self (ego) structure which subtends both these facets of identity have all been held accountable for alterations to the subjective sense of ‘I’ frequently experienced during life’s second decade.’ Jane Koger, Identity in Adolescence: The Balance Between Self and Other (New York, London: Routledge, 1996), 6. The observation that during adolescence ‘Creativity, love and hope battle with hatred, aggression, violence, depression and suicidal despair’ is also relevant, as Testimonios grapples with all of these emotions. Inge Wise, Adolescence: Psychoanalytic Ideas [should this not all be in italics? Is there a colon between Adolescence and Psychoanalytic?] (London: Karnac Books, 2000), 2. Olga’s recurring concern with death is also explained with reference to this literature which explains that thoughts of suicide ‘are not unusual in adolescence. They are not in themselves a sign of serious disturbance, although attempted suicide is. [...] The loss of childhood, the growing awareness of time passing, of their own and parental mortality, and overwhelming anxieties in relation to these collide with feelings of omnipotence and youthful exuberance.’ (Wise, Adolescence, 4). ‘Conscious thoughts about death are not infrequent in adolescence. Most adolescents entertain, at some point or other, the wish to kill themselves, to disappear, to see their parents dead.’ (Wise, Adolescence, 23). 9 Par Kumaraswami, ‘‘Pensamos que somos historia porque sabemos que somos historia’: Context, Self and Self-construction in Women’s Testimonial Writing from Revolutionary Cuba.’ Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (Vol. 83. No. 6. 2006), 523 – 539. 10 Of Testimonio’s eleven letters, the first is written to the aforementioned exile, the second to the anonymous ‘compañero latinoamericano’, a further six to Olga’s mother, one to her grandmother, one to her grandparents and another to her mother, father, grandmother and other relatives. 11 “For the first time the Cuban government sent adolescent girls out on their own, far from home and the protection of their parents. Such a policy would have been astonishing, unthinkable perhaps, only a few years before. This wholly new experience for Cuban girls caused a great deal of anxiety for parents. To assuage their fears, Fidel Castro insisted that the girls working in the countryside with the literacy campaign would remain “virtuous.” They would not be living with the peasants. The girls would be more closely supervised than their male counterparts and would be housed in huts with females only. The sexual revolution had not reached Cuba, and the leadership tacitly assured parents that the familiar sexual double standard still prevailed.” According to Julie Marie Bunke. Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 95. 48 ‘Ya no puedo más’ - Mason 12 It is worth noting the difference between the treatment of Olga’s subversive poetry and that of Heberto Padilla who was imprisoned in 1971, two years before Testimonios was published. 13 She states: ‘te siento a mi lado y traes el aire fresco de primavera recién estrenada. Miro tus ojos. ¿cómo son tus ojos? … con la alegría con que la madre recibe al niño recién nacido he recibido tu carta.’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 25) 14 ‘Introduction. The Two Deaths of Vladmir Mayakovsky.’ Vladmir Mayakovsky, The bedbug and selected poetry (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1975), 11. 15 The ending of a particularly passionate poem ‘te amo intensamente/pero.../no debes saberlo no/no te gustaría’ suggests that Olga’s love is unrequited. She provides more details in another poem: ‘¡Mi amante es instructor de Arte/y fue electo obrero de vanguardia!’ (Alonso, Testimonios, 162). Rather than being proud of her lover’s contribution to revolutionary voluntary work, Olga laments his decision and implies that she blames the Revolution for separating them. 16 As we saw above with reference to Wise. 17 Lines 5 – 10 seem to echo ‘La Injusticia’ by Damas Alonso. ‘Yo ya no soy yo’ is a direct quote from Lorca’s ‘Romance Sonámbulo’ as stated. The lines ‘Recuerdo del olvido/ Siempre todos olvidan’ might be a reference to Miguel de Unamuno’s ‘Domirse en el olvido’, the first two lines of which read ‘Dormirse en el olvido del recuerdo,/ en el recuerdo del olvido.’ 18 The lengthy poem that begins the last section of the book is largely about the Segundo Congreso Latinoamericano de Jóvenes, (Alonso, Testimonios, 193). This is followed by a series of diary entries concerned with her lover: ‘¿cuándo podré tener el derecho como otras muchachas, de amarte en nuestro hogar? sí: ya sé, la lucha, la revolución... pero... ¿no puedo tenerlo dentro de ella?¡dí amor! ¿es culpa mía amarte tanto?’ (204 – 205). Here Olga again explicitly dismisses the Revolution in favour of personal concerns. The ‘Instructores de Arte’ poem follows as these diary entries are sandwiched between pro-Revolutionary writing. 49 False Legacies - Clymer False Legacies: Narrating Madrid’s History in Early Modern Spain Camille Clymer Abstract This paper examines the proliferation of pseudo-historical narratives of Madrid’s supposed glorious history, penned after the settlement of the Spanish court there in 1561. The court’s presence in Madrid and desire to establish Madrid as a world power required the previously small town to be socially and architecturally reformed, to create retrospectively a city befitting its royal court. Concurrent with the rebuilding of the city, came the desire to justify the court’s otherwise ordinary location through chronicles and histories. Chroniclers of the courts of Kings Philip II and III began to create a historical narrative of Madrid’s beginnings, of Greek and Roman origins, and legends built upon wishful thinking. This paper will examine the content and truth of these histories in their historical and political context. At a time when Spain was in a precarious position, these romanticised historical narratives created the image of the Empire’s power. 50 False Legacies - Clymer T he year 1561 was one of fundamental importance for the Spanish Empire and for Madrid in particular. Madrid, which until 1561 had existed primarily as a small town serving a population of about 14,000 people, had suddenly been proclaimed the court of Spanish Empire and became part of a new consciousness and historical narrative. 1 Philip II’s questionable choice of a settled court in the rural pueblo of Madrid, landlocked and surrounded by hinterlands, for the imperial capital, has been the subject of much conjecture from contemporary to modern historians. It is universally accepted that one reason for the court’s placement there was the centrality of its location, a perfect place from which the king might rule from the centre of his empire. Jerónimo de Quintana, a Madrilenian priest and writer, and Gil González Dávila, a chronicler writing in 1623, mention its centrality, and Alonso Núñez de Castro, writing in 1658, adds a comment about its proximity to a town named Pinto, named after the Latin punctum, meaning centre.2 Modern historians, such as Alvar Ezquerra, link this to a characteristic of the Renaissance period, where it was recommended to situate one’s court in the centre of one’s empire, citing, for example, Franciscus Titelman’s assertion that: ‘Rex et princeps debe esse in medio Regni non lateri in angulo’.3 Using a similar rationale, another reason can be extrapolated in the quest for elucidation of the king’s questionable choice: the reason why Madrid was selected above other previous sites of the court, such as Valladolid and Toledo. Toledo itself, despite having housed the court in the immediate years before the court’s move, was missing key components necessary for both the king and his retinue. One possible reason as to why Toledo was not chosen, proposed by Alvar Ezquerra, is due to its problematically steep 51 False Legacies - Clymer terrain and ready-established architectural and civic infrastructure, which would consequently complicate the municipal reforms required for the court to stay there (Alvar Ezquerra, Felipe II, 4). Valladolid, the king’s native town, had benefited from a similarly active civic and municipal life until its fire of 1561, despite being a landlocked town in the same fashion as Madrid. It was home to the Cortes, was where laws were made and it had previously been residence to the Crown.4 It seems that the reason for the monarch’s choice of Madrid was a self-conscious one. Despite the fact that Valladolid and Toledo had previously seen the glory of the court and possessed ready-established infrastructures, the king’s choice of Madrid, with its landlocked nature, inhospitable hinterlands and lack of viable trade routes, short of long treks across land, cannot have been due to anything other than its fortunate geographical location and undeveloped nature. In this sense, the king’s questionable choice was self-conscious: Madrid had nothing to offer besides being in the very centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and possessing the potential and sufficient unimportance to be moulded into a city in line with the king’s vision, in a way that Alvar Ezquerra notes as being ‘de modo artificial’.5 Despite the assertions of modern historians, such as Deleito y Piñuela, who described the court’s move to Madrid as ‘una improvisación’,6 and Alvar Ezquerra, who described it in similar terms as ‘experimental’ (Alvar Ezquerra, Felipe II, 33), it seemed that Madrid as a place was incidental, but that the move itself was fundamental. Norbert Elias, a twentieth-century sociologist described this idea more coherently: ‘it was not the ‘city’ but the ‘court’, and court society, that was the centre with by far the most widespread influence’.7 52 False Legacies - Clymer If the town of Madrid as a physical entity was secondary to its fortunate geographical location and, consequently, that of the court that moved there, then attention must turn to the reason that King Philip II chose to settle the court at all. By the year of 1561, Spain had been dogged by financial problems and was teetering continually on the brink of bankruptcy, with high taxation forcing the public into abject poverty. Despite a ‘mutually dependent’ trade with the Netherlands in the mid-sixteenth century, the rumblings of Protestantism sweeping Europe began to strain Spain’s relationships with not only the Netherlands, but also with France and England. 8 The relationship with the English had been fraught with problems since the failure of the marriage between Mary Tudor and Philip II, however, it was the extreme attempts of the Spanish monarchy to retain Catholic orthodoxy by way of the Spanish Inquisition that caused friction between Spain and the other rival powers of Europe.9 The need to settle a court, then, was a calculated decision, and one that was fundamental in terms of politics and establishing ideologies. It was, therefore, no accident that Philip II ordered work to start on the construction of the Escorial, monument to Catholicism, before the court’s move to Madrid. Despite the impending bankruptcies and money being poured into the enterprise of the New World, Spain made a decisive move in European politics by settling its court and constructing a palace as an affront to spreading Protestantism. This approach towards the Protestantism spreading through Europe could possibly also have been targeted toward the New Christians, or conversos - former Jews who were forced to convert for fear of expulsion. Differentiation and stigmatisation of New Christians from the cristianos viejos, pious believers of Spanish origin, were still rife into the seventeenth century.10 53 False Legacies - Clymer The reason for the settling of the court was, therefore, a political one, which was influenced by the development of state bureaucracy after the peninsula had been reclaimed from the Moorish by the Spanish.11 As a result of this reunion and reconquista, it seemed that the final motive for settling the court was to unite the king with his country, and so that he might be seen as the king of Spain, rather than only of Castile. The reiteration of Spain’s Catholic doctrine in the building of the austere and expensive Escorial Palace in the very centre of the Iberian Peninsula was possibly an attempt by the monarch to force a sense of nationhood and remind insincere Christian converts of the true divine influence, particularly after the annexation of Portugal in 1580 signified an influx of Portuguese New Christians into Spain’s Catholic frontiers. In conjunction with this monarchical display of power in the face of spreading Protestantism, it seemed that the settling of the court offered more practical advantages. The displays and celebrations of the court, which had previously been temporary due to the court’s itinerant nature, could then be exhibited on a more permanent basis, allowing the monarch better to display the power of his empire. At the point of the court’s move in 1561, then, the small town was subject to an explosive population growth and the beginnings of a transformation in terms of not only cultural and architectural development, but also of convivial affairs and social behaviour. The town’s population grew to 25,000 by 1562 (Alvar Ezquerra, Nacimiento, 33), despite the fact that, if Jerónimo de Quintana’s account holds true, the monarch and his court did not physically appear in Madrid until 1563 (Quintana, Villa de Madrid, Lib. III, Cap. XXV). In keeping with the burgeoning population, Philip II began to rebuild Madrid in line with his own vision. Even before the court had moved to Madrid, the king had ordered an initiative to clean up Madrid’s streets and rid them of 54 False Legacies - Clymer the filth festering there, at the exorbitant cost of 2,463,954 maravedís (Alvar Ezquerra, Nacimiento, 217). Ugly or unsanitary pieces of architecture were demolished,12 façades of buildings were improved and adorned, and there was an introduction of green urban spaces with the planting of trees and orchards (Alvar Ezquerra, Nacimiento, 208). With a dual imperative to improve the city for his subjects and the rapidly growing population, and also to reshape Madrid in line with the example of Renaissance Italy,13 it seemed that the monarch’s expensive reformations of Madrid were simultaneously an expression of confidence and one of crisis. At a time when the Spanish monarchy was suffering from a decline in silver from the New World and imposed heavy taxation on its public, and one in which the growing civil unrest in the Netherlands required the intervention of an army to keep the peace, the Spanish monarch had embarked on the ambitious project of Madrid, the like of which had never been seen before. Despite low funds and a desperately poor public, Philip II began to build both a city and its culture in retrospect. He created a city befitting the court, and created the beginnings of a grand Madrilenian history, as it began to be told after the king moved the previously ambulatory court to the heart of Castile. It was this point in Madrid’s story that the nascent city began to metamorphose into a narrative space, and chroniclers began to tell its history. The key to an approximation of the early Madrilenian history is encapsulated in the word ‘after’, the concept of posteriority, and therefore the narration of a rich history as a calculated afterthought. From the moment of King Philip II’s decision to settle the court in the town of Madrid, it seems that writers of the royal court turned their attention to creating a suitably majestic, and 55 False Legacies - Clymer perhaps pseudo-historical, narrative, befitting the glory of the court. The physical act of recording history, or chronicling, as it is called, was not a custom that arrived newly with the rule of Philip II. The idea, or definition, of the chronicle is a recording of historical events, but when the way they are recorded is altered to better represent a certain desire or requirement of the monarch the history becomes less of a catalogue of events and more of an ‘official’ or ‘authorised’ history, a text designed to disseminate certain events in a certain way. In the court of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the practice of chronicling changed direction and diverged from the usual purpose: it became a way of protecting the monarchy and its reputation.14 The historiographical concerns of Charles V were different to those of his son. Charles V had chosen the approach that Richard Kagan describes as the historia pro persona, a chronicle based on the exploits and derring-do of a single monarch’s reign.15 Conversely, the concern of his son, Philip II, was the patria, the Empire, in a time when the Spanish monarchy was under threat from religious dilution, strained and sometimes acrimonious relationships with other European powers, and continually empty coffers with which to rule the country. Charles V, in his quest for self-reflexive historiographical narratives and a proclivity for absenteeism throughout his monarchy, had left his son with an unpleasant legacy: an Empire near bankruptcy, which is perhaps a reason why Philip II’s approach to chronicling the history of his Empire was focused on Hispania rather than himself. Rather than focus on the glory of the monarch, it seemed that Philip II was conscious of creating a sense of nationhood and union within the Iberian Peninsula, as Spain’s prior religious dominion over the Netherlands began to wane and heretical Protestantism to gather force. 56 False Legacies - Clymer In the light of the narration of history, its myriad biases and preoccupations, a quotation by Tomás Tamayo de Vargas, a royally appointed chronicler of Philip IV, interestingly refers to the task of chronicling Madrid as ‘decir verdades’ (Kagan, El rey recatado, 37). On the fine line between telling the truth, for example, the act of recording a history, and being truthful, such as the manipulation of that history, Holocaust survivor Charlotte Delbo has this to say in her epigraph: Aujourd’hui, je ne suis pas sûre que ce que j’ai écrit soit vrai. Je suis sûre que c’est véridique. [Today, I am not sure that what I have written is true. I am sure that it is truthful.]16 It is with this notion of truth and truthfulness that we come to consider the nature of Madrid’s official, monarch-authorised history and the way in which it was narrated. The Madrid that existed prior to 1561 is not well documented, despite the creation of histories to narrate the contrary. Histories and historians, in fact, point to a set of rather grandiose circumstances for the much-maligned Madrid, apparently inhabited by the Greeks as one Mantua Carpetania and, later, appropriated by the Romans as the province of Maiorito. Madrid, as described by Dutch traveller Enrique Cock in 1582, began as a near-utopia: a forest filled with wild creatures and a specific noted abundance of bears,17 perhaps giving rise to a later sobriquet: Ursaria.18 Discrepancy exists in separate chronicles over the name of the apparently ancient and glorious city, almost as though those tasked with writing Madrid’s history could not agree on a version to narrate. According to both Ambrosio de Morales, and Gil González Dávila, writing fifty years later in 1623, the secondary part of the name, Carpetania, was one appended by the Romans and named after their chariots so prevalent in the streets of Madrid (González Dávila, Teatro de las grandezas, 4).19 Jerónimo 57 False Legacies - Clymer de Quintana, on the other hand, added a stronger neo-Latin dimension to the hypothesizing by arguing, in his 1629 publication, that the Romans had translated Mantua Carpetania into their own Maiorito (Quintana, Villa de Madrid, Lib. I, Cap. XVI). It remains unarguable, however, that one of the earliest recorded names was of Arabic origin, Majrīt, a fact which chroniclers such as Quintana and Ambrosio de Morales, a chronicler writing in 1572, attempted to circumvent with their assertion that this particular name was an evolution of its Latin form Maiorito, perhaps a mindful endeavour to avoid condemning Madrid to its true history of the very group of people the king sought to expel from Spain. When placing these texts in their historical context, a pattern of specific socio-cultural circumstances occurs, which may indicate why the king’s chroniclers were reluctant to accept the Arabic Majrīt as the first recorded name for the royal capital. It seems unsurprising that the building of the Escorial was timed, as it was, amidst a severe economic decline: the religious instability and financial downturn made it more imperative than ever for the king to assert his power in the guise of a costly palace. The surge of Protestantism signified the Escorial to be a double-edged sword: a demonstration of regent power amid crisis and a bastion of Catholicism against the religious insurgence. In the decades of 1560 and 1570, when Ambrosio de Morales published his text Las antigüedades de las ciudades de España, the rumblings of Protestant cells among the Spanish public in Valladolid and Seville created religious unease among the Catholic populace, and the obsession of pureza de sangre (purity of blood) began to surge (Elliott, Imperial Spain, 212). The decisive victory of the Spanish over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 marked the height of anti-Muslim feeling in Spain, and the need to defend the Catholic roots of the empire. Until the 1609 58 False Legacies - Clymer expulsion of the moriscos (or Muslims who had converted to Christianity) expunged the final lingering link to Islam in Spain, the long catalogue of economic and social disasters in this period was thought to be the result of the abundance of non-believers in a Catholic country. The disasters were a divine punishment, rather than poor monarchical ruling, and the topic of Madrid’s Moorish origins was one the chroniclers seemed keen to occlude (Elliott, Imperial Spain, chap. 8). The most prominent point of difference between these two specific points in Spanish history, and the effect this had on the historiographies produced in these times, lies in one incident: the court’s abandonment of Madrid and subsequent return after a five year sojourn in Valladolid from 1601-1606. Whereas the chronicles of Quintana and González Dávila were published during the reign of Philip IV, a monarch known for a reign of austerity and patronage of the arts, the chronicle of Ambrosio de Morales firmly reflects the concerns of monarch Philip II. This aspect of the historiography of Madrid is never better reflected than in its apparently legendary Roman beginnings. To reaffirm Madrid as a Catholic power in the light of the threat of heresy, then, there was one specific city against which to ‘measure up’: Rome, the home of Catholicism. It was Jerónimo de Quintana who provided the flourish of proof that Madrid was older than Rome itself, thus insinuating that Madrid was more holy than the papal city and seat of Catholicism. This link with the divine not only established Madrid as a royal power at a time when reiteration of this fact was needed, but additionally represents a decisive retaliation in the light of the Protestantism that had swept Europe, blighted the Spanish Empire for years in warfare and was threatening the religious dominion established by the Reyes Católicos. Conversely, archaeologist Ambrosio de Morales noted 59 False Legacies - Clymer earlier in 1572, when seeking to link Madrid’s apparent Roman origins with architectural phenomena, that there was no evidence of Roman presence and the name of Carpetania in Madrid: ‘no hay con que averiguar cosa cierta, por no hallarse este nombre escrito en piedra ni en moneda antigua que pudiera quitar la duda’, (Morales, Antigüedades, 274). This demonstrates a marked departure from the grand claims of later chronicles and uncovers the foundations of a history built, in those later chronicles, on a surfeit of conjecture and a lack of tangible proof. The chronicle of Morales, however, did not seek to create a common history or sense of nationhood in the same way as did the texts of the early seventeenth century. Ambrosio de Morales wrote the continuation of an earlier work by royal chronicler Florián de Ocampo, entitled Crónica general de España, and his text focused more on the Roman aspects of Spain and the ‘Spanishness’ of Spain, to cite Richard Kagan, such as the founding myths which informed the way in which Catholic Spain lived (Kagan, Clio and the Crown, 112). There is some small irony, perhaps, in the fact that Ambrosio de Morales made reference to a particularly intriguing piece of information regarding Toledo’s Roman origins: the existence of stones and coins thought to be hailing from the Roman era (Morales, Antigüedades, 327). Madrid, as an architectural legacy, however, was furnished with city walls dating from its Arab occupation. With the documented tangible proof of Roman ancestry in Toledo, formerly Toletum, rather than Madrid, as historians later claimed, it seemed that Toledo was already historically more grand and glorious than Madrid, the city the monarch was so intent on creating. There is a little humour at least when considering the alternative name for Madrid: Mantua Ursaria, a place so-called due to the abundance of bears in the surrounding lands. The town of Madrid later adopted this image as the crest, almost as though suggesting a subtle jibe at the Roman 60 False Legacies - Clymer myth of Romulus and Remus, and the iconic wolf. Not content with laying claim to religious superiority, the chroniclers of Madrid had fabricated a past that was bigger and better than the seat of Catholicism, right down to the crest. However, from as early as 1592, historian Juan de Mariana had sought to integrate local histories into a larger collective one, bringing a new consciousness to the historiographies of the court of a growing empire that had come to include Portugal. This consciousness of creating the history of a nation was reflected in the almost self-reflexive writings of Quintana and González Dávila in the decade of 1620 (Kagan, Clio and the Crown, 119). This almost self-reflexive turn in historiography, where the histories come close to betraying their own fictitious narrative, is never better demonstrated than in Madrid’s patron saint, San Isidro. The hasty canonisation of the lowly labourer and philanthropist-turned-spearhead for a new and glorious capital began in 1619 and was completed in 1622, and represented the illusion of Madrid joining the ranks of other created cities. Just as with its created history, the canonisation of a seemingly arbitrary peasant represented the monarch’s consciousness of what an early modern city should have, and indeed, what other contemporary counterparts did have. The narration of this aspect of Madrid’s history shows self-consciousness, a recreation of all the elements a Renaissance city should have, and would have formed over long passages of time, and it affirmed and safeguarded the sacredness of the Spanish monarchy and its chosen capital. The canonisation of Isidro revealed the tacit acceptance of these cultural inventions by the Spanish public to an extreme degree: the histories and cultural aspects of a city which should have developed organically were created artificially and knowingly accepted. The situation of the court in Madrid had not only given rise to a new city, but also a 61 False Legacies - Clymer culture, and the strength of Madrid’s allure had become such that the desire to believe in and to create a sense of identity and nationhood within the urban space of the court superseded the truth behind Madrid’s history. However, having formed a piecemeal city from both borrowed styles of architecture and borrowed histories, it seemed that the Habsburg monarchs were uninterested in the real and tangible. Just as in the fine line between truth and truthfulness, we see how the identity of an empire was created on a narrated history, and how power and religious dominance were created out of the careful narration of dire economic circumstances and the relentless march of heresy and Protestantism through Europe. The differentiation between historical narratives written before and after the court’s brief sojourn in Valladolid illuminate how the imperative for chronicling history turned from the patria to the creation of a new form of collective memory and nationhood to complement the new city, with the full knowledge of the falseness of these gestures superseded by the desire to be part of the ambitious and ‘never before seen’ project of Madrid. The Spanish empire was under threat in these times, and these historiographical texts serve as one part of a calculated defence mechanism. While reforms of Madrid saw the façades of particular buildings of the court subjected to ornate embellishment and reconstruction better to befit an imperial capital, the inside and overall structure remained the same, the Spanish monarchy mirrored this by recreating its own identity and projecting it outwardly to the other rival European powers. It was never the power or riches of the Empire that were important: it was all in the illusion, and a game of smoke and mirrors. 62 False Legacies - Clymer 1 Jerónimo de Quintana, A la muy antigua, noble y coronada Villa de Madrid: historia de su antiguedad, nobleza y grandeza (Madrid: Imprento del Reyno, 1629), Lib. III, Cap. XXV. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 2 Alonso Núñez de Castro, Libro historico politico: Solo Madrid es corte, y el cortesano en Madrid, 3rd edn (Madrid: Roque Rico de Miranda, 1675), 6. 3 Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, Felipe II, la Corte y Madrid en 1561 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Centro de Estudios Históricos, 1985), 40. Further page references will be given parenthetically in the text. 4 Alejandro Rebollo Matías, La plaza y mercado mayor de Valladolid, 1561-1595 (Valladolid: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad, 1988), 18. 5 Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, El nacimiento de una capital Europea: Madrid entre 1561 y 1606 (Madrid: Turner, 1989), 191. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 6 José Deleito y Piñuela, Sólo Madrid es Corte (la capital de dos mundos bajo Felipe IV) (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1942), 15. 7 Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, rev. ed. by Stephen Mennell (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2006), 40. 8 John Huxtable Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469-1716, rev. edn. (London: Arnold, 2002), chap. 6. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 9 John Huxtable Elliott, Spain, Europe and the Wider World: 1500-1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), chap. 10 Matthew Warshawsky, ‘A Spanish Converso’s Quest for Justice: The Life and Dream Fiction of Antonio Enríquez Gómez’, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 23, no. 3 (2005): 1-24 (2). See also: Miriam Bodian, ‘“Men of the Nation”: The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe’, Past & Present, 143 (1994): 48-76. 11 Jesús Escobar, The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 19. 12 Alicia Cámara Muñoz, ‘Modelo urbano y obras en Madrid en el reinado de Felipe II’, in Actas del Congreso Nacional: Madrid en el contexto de lo hispánico desde la época de los descubrimientos (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1994), 31-48 (35). 13 Richard L. Kagan, ‘Cities of the Golden Age’ in Spanish Cities of the Golden Age: The Views of Anton van den Wyngaerde, ed. by Richard L. Kagan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 68-83 (68). 14 Richard L. Kagan, El rey recatado: Felipe II, la historia y los cronistas del rey (Valladolid: Secretariado de Publicaciones e Intercambio Editorial, Universidad de Valladolid, 2004), 46. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 15 Richard L. Kagan, Clio and the Crown: The Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 27. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 16 Charlotte Delbo, Aucun de nous ne reviendra (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1970), 7. 17 Enrique Cock, El Madrid de Felipe II visto por el humanista holandés Enrique Cock, ed. and trans. by V. Eugenio Hernández Vista (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Madrileños, 1960), 25. 18 Gil González Dávila, Teatro de las grandezas de la Villa de Madrid (Madrid: Por Thomas Iunti, 1623), 4. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 19 Ambrosio de Morales, Las antigüedades de las ciudades de España: que van nombradas en la Corónica, con la aueriguacion de sus sitios, y nōbres antiguos (Madrid: En la oficina de Don Benito Cano, 1792), 274. Further references will be given parenthetically in the text. 63 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith Cuban Citizenship Discourse: Where Love and Hate Collide Rosi Smith Abstract Citizenship codes are the primary link between the exclusionary legal boundaries of states and the moral, cultural and behavioural factors that are used to justify them. Such discourses, especially when as ideologically codified as is the case in Cuba, create great feelings of unity and love among those included within them, and an equal and opposite resistant force against those who are seen to threaten them. This paper argues that resistance and opposition, particularly to the USA, has historically been formative of the ideology, character and prescribed citizenship behaviours of Cubans and may well be one of the most valuable assets of the Revolution. 64 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith W hile the value of the nation-state for those who rule, own and control the people and capital within a territory is evident, the loyalty and affinity to nations felt by the majority of their citizens is less immediately explicable. The boundaries, formed largely through violent conflicts or political contracts between those with power and wealth (though of course largely fought by those without), that have come to define us and divide us from those who may live closer to us and resemble us more closely in experience and values than do our compatriots, can appear arbitrary and irrational. Nationalism has, nevertheless, come to be described as ‘the most universally legitimate value in the political life of our time’.1 Most of us, it seems, accept as reasonable and legitimate the differentiation made between the people on one or another side of an imaginary line made concrete with a checkpoint or a barbed wire fence. This paper contends that we have come to accept the irrationality of divisions between people in great part because the basis upon which they are sold to us is not primarily rational but primarily emotional. The construct of citizenship is central to effecting the often seamless internal conflation of the nation-state with one’s emotional relationship to one’s community. It is able to do this because it is unique in bestriding at once the practical, legal distinctions made between peoples and the historical, cultural and emotional factors on which they are, at least ostensibly, based. According to communitarian thought, this is, of course, the great virtue of citizenship – the way in which it provides a discourse of unity that creates bonds within nations and communities not just of mutual interest but of friendship, of fellow-feeling, of love.2 This has certainly been an abiding and defining theme in the Cuban Revolutionary discourse of 65 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith citizenship, with Che Guevara, when formulating the New Cuban Man to be created through education and conscientisation, asserting that the central quality of any revolutionary must be love.3 Civic education in Cuba follows this ethos; the Ministry of Education’s stated aims principally highlight not knowledge but feeling. At primary level, one is to ‘express feelings of love for one’s country’, ‘feel self-respect’ and ‘feel happy to be a school student and a good pionero’ but these are not the only feelings required. One must equally ‘show feelings of repudiation to all those who offend [one's] country’ and more specifically at secondary level ‘show patriotism in rejecting American imperialism’.4 It seems, then, that feelings of love alone are insufficient, and that the buen revolucionario – the key signifier of a good Cuban citizen – must also hate, oppose and resist. Citizenship as resistance is not exclusive to Cuba. The duality of love and hate has always been integral to the notion of citizenship, which (whether encapsulated in Aristotle’s envisioning of a citizen as a privileged white male whose wealth and leisure bought him sufficient time and objectivity to attend to the business of ruling and being ruled,5 or in the racist discourses of contemporary Britain that lead to many students resisting Citizenship Education because they think it will be ‘about whether my mates [are] goin’ to be allowed to stay in the country or not’)6 has perennially been a way to draw lines around a group, a model that creates affinity among one set of people by excluding another. This exclusion is more than simply an unfortunate side effect of the cohesiveness of a specific group; it is a necessary condition when states are attempting to elicit active citizenship behaviours. Presenting one’s nation and its characteristics as under threat and in need of defence is a well-known and practiced method of eliciting popular support and conformist behaviours, as evidenced 66 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith by the political truism that one of the most certain ways of ensuring re-election and reasserting the popularity of a regime is to declare war (as in the cases of Thatcher's electoral resurrection by means of the Falklands conflict and George W Bush's restoration of popularity after the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001). A cyclical relation occurs here whereby real crises stimulate increases in citizen loyalty and conformity, at the same time as crises are manufactured or ‘ramped up’ to promote an artificially stimulated willingness to put aside personal preferences and allegiances to service a, often re-imagined or redefined, greater good. Discourses of this kind are of current significance in the UK where a thoroughgoing, potentially irrevocable programme to diminish social welfare provision and shrink the state is being instigated under the premise that it is a response to the provisional and exceptional circumstances of a financial crisis. Such crises not only decrease dissent and encourage citizens to fight against the external threat but also encourage more intense and manipulable performances of the values associated with the nation in question. This was particularly evident in the period directly after September 2001, when the attacks were presented as aimed not simply on the political and military might of the USA but on its values, which, in turn, enabled the populace to demonstrate their resistance through a heightened performance of ‘Americanness’, enacted through its traditional codes. Citizens uncertain of how to fight the threat of terrorism were advised by their President to ‘live [their] lives, hug [their] children and… live out the values of America’.7 Such values of course are not solely moral, but have come to comprise social and economic behaviours, enabling the mayor of Miami Dade County to exhort that it had ‘never been more patriotic to go shopping’.8 This position was then sanctified in the post-tragedy orgy of consumerism that officials in Florida named, seemingly without irony, ‘Freedom Weekend’. 67 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith Where Cuba is exceptional, however, is in the extent to which those traditional codes are not only protected by resistance but are formed with the notion of resistance at their core. This resistance is, moreover, highly specific and directed. The secondary school student is not asked simply to show their patriotism by rejecting capitalism or even imperialism, but their American incarnation.9 The oft-repeated slogan of ‘Cuba sí, yanqui no’ does not simply state that one is both Cuban and antiAmerican, but that one's Cubanness is to a great extent defined by one’s anti-Americanness, that support for one entails resistance of the other. Contemporary Cuban resistance to American values is in many ways only to be expected. A socialist nation is bound to reject the apotheosis of capitalism, especially when embodied in a superpower that stands just 90 miles from its shores and has been its most recent occupier and most determined political opponent. The resistance, however, goes deeper, challenging what the USA stands for as much as what it does. Analysis of the ideologies of nationhood in the USA and Cuba, as codified in cubanía revolucionaria and the American Dream reveals striking parallels, a correlation much closer than is evident between Cuba and other nations in the Caribbean or Latin America. 10 Each of the constructs is moralistic, mission-oriented and focussed on the same contested ground, with many common central ideas applied to similar content with often diametrically opposed conclusions, to the extent that their central propositions can be said to be in direct, reflective tension. This is not to make the reductive argument that the Cuban ideological code is no more than a contrarily drawn inverse of the American, a contention palpably belied by the powerful, selfdefined, positive code of citizenship in Cuba. Concepts such as the New Cuban Man and cubanía revolucionaria are testament to a 68 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith revolutionary spirit that has put huge creative energies into building new models of citizenship and involving the people in their development.11 It could, indeed, be argued that the critical consideration required for the nineteenth-century formation and twentieth century re-formation of Cuban citizenship ideals, that in each case rejected much of what had gone before, led to a far more refined and codified interpretation of citizenship than was able to be realised in countries where citizenship norms emerged out of more organic and evolutionary processes. Cuba and the USA argue in a common ideological language, derived from a history in which American identities have been naturalised and then uprooted, and to understand their conflicted kinship it is necessary to delve into that history – to the birth of the Cuban nation as such – wherein can be found the source both of Cuba’s attachment to resistance in general and its complicated relationship to the USA in particular. Cuba was born out of resistance, not to the USA, but to Spain, and the nineteenth century foment of rebellion and progress towards independence necessitated the development of an ideological and moral framework and a narrative of nationhood that would unite the nascent country. The USA was materially involved in this development, so much so that the post-colonial nation of Cuba can be said to have been arisen in and with, before it was ever against, the USA. The half century that preceded the overthrowing of Spanish colonial rule saw the USA home to ever greater numbers of Cubans (largely economic migrants employed in the tobacco industry), who found in its comforts, technology and progress the antithesis of what was fast being seen as a backward European influence at home.12 This contrast interacted with the formation of the Cuban nation and its ideology that was being undertaken by the independentista movement, especially since heightened repression and vigilance at home meant that the USA 69 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith at that time was a site of resistance, a safe haven in which many of those involved in the PRC (Partido Revolucionario Cubano) and other independence groups could plot, debate, and travel to other parts of Cuba (Perez Jr., On Becoming Cuban, 44-6). Activists not only lived there for long periods of time, and so inevitably internalised aspects of the American character and ideology, but also frequently took on formal US citizenship as a statement of independence because it rendered them other than Spanish (Perez Jr., On Becoming Cuban, 39). Much that is recognisably American in Cuban value-systems was developed in this period, when the minds behind the imagining of a new nation were in close and constant interaction with American thought at a time when many believed the USA to be ideal of freedom and independence made manifest. As authoritatively set out in On Becoming Cuban, the USA’s intervention in the Cuban war of independence changed its status in Cuba from that of a welcome neighbourly exemplar of freedom and plenty to a powerful defining force in Cuba’s future. The period of US occupation then pseudo-annexation that followed led to two trends that operated in tension with one another. One was an inculcation and consequent further assimilation of US ideals, occurring naturally as result of the constant presence of US structures, people and material and cultural products, but also by design. This was particularly evident in the field of education, the structures and curriculum of which were directly copied from those of Cleveland, Ohio and the education therefore replicated US ideals to the extent that ‘education operated at the cultural arm of the wider annexationist design’.13 Cubans were treated in this trend almost as if they were part of the USA, with the use of a Civic Education programme originally developed in New York to facilitate the assimilation of new immigrants into US ways and ideals (a tactic that proved almost too successful, as the 70 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith succeeding decades saw Cuban anger and resentment, as the USA reacted negatively to Cuban attempts to demand the wealth and lifestyle that they had been taught marked civilisation – the result of a values-system that had become an intrinsic element of their national identity) (Perez Jr., On Becoming Cuban, 160). This cultural imperialism was bolstered by the actual material improvements experienced by Cubans as a result of US intervention, in which a country ravaged by an economically, materially and personally destructive war of independence, saw the arrival of previously unheard of levels of comfort and infrastructure. Cubans bought US products, lived under US structures, spoke English as a sure-fire route to wealth and were didactically presented with US values. The contrary trend was a growing rejection of US values in response to the feelings of betrayal that were created as the independence for which many Cubans had sacrificed their health, wealth and lives failed to materialise, and as the exploitation of Spanish colonialism was replaced by that of US imperialism. The insult of economic disadvantage and lack of national sovereignty inherent to the Platt Amendment was then further inflamed by the USA’s use of Cuba as a home from its more prudish home for the exercise of its vices and crime (Perez Jr., On Becoming Cuban, 183-6),14 and by the economic inequalities that saw Cuba become a ‘rich land inhabited by impoverished people’ (Fagen, The Transformation of Political Culture, 24). For those building and then implementing the 1959 Revolution, therefore, the redefinition of Cuban citizen identity had moved from being a project of discovering how to be other than Spanish to one of discovering how to be other than norteamericano. This task involved a reinterpretation of codes formed through the incorporation and naturalisation of US values. 71 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith The theory of the New Cuban Man encouraged the uprooting from one’s consciousness of the vestiges of capitalism (Guevara, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’, 394), a process which meant the excavation, decodification and sacrifice of deeply embedded American values from the collective Cuban consciousness. To a great extent, this involved the selection and emphasis of values that could be seen as at once authentically Cuban and contrary to Americanism. Two pertinent examples here are ruralism and moralism, both existing codes of cubanía that were stressed heavily by the new regime. Ruralism represented a radical departure from the pre-revolutionary system in which, largely due to disproportionate US investment in the tourist trade and related industries, had been heavily urban-centric (and Havana-centric in particular) and which had led to a dramatic gulf between rich and poor that was starkly predicated on urban wealth and rural poverty.15 Rural areas and people were, therefore, presented as those most ill-served by the existing regime and hence most in need of the benefits of the Revolution, but also as those least sullied by the American association. Similarly, the renewed emphasis on moralism, an aspect that lay at the heart of the teachings of Jose Martí, represented a defiant reaction against the US portrayal of Cuba as a site for licentiousness and vice. The central emphasis of the young revolutionaries, however, was and has remained the banishment of US influence. This is a struggle waged not in order to bring about any particular element of social justice, but rather on the basis of the simple moral principle of authentic sovereignty. It was, too, the linchpin that simultaneously justified the new regime’s repudiation of the level of influence that US Americans had wielded over their country and provided a narrative and tradition into which the young rebels were able to insert their contemporary struggle. The contention 72 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith that the current resistance and search for independence was part of the incomplete attempt to throw off the yoke of colonialism, and that this would represent the culmination of cien años de lucha, resounded with the people and allowed for the association of the guerrilleros with the heroes of the past, such as Maceo or Martí.16 Notwithstanding the fact that the Americanised content of Cuban citizenship has been drawn out as if poisonous, the story of its development means that structurally, particularly as regards the foregrounding and mythologising of sovereignty, it retains much in common with its norteamericano counterpart. Far from undermining Cuba’s self-identification as a nation defined by virtuous struggle, these structural resemblances help formulate and sustain the mythologised narrative of two nations locked in irreconcilable ideological conflict. In common with Cuba, the USA has, from its inception, regarded itself as a nation with a mission and one whose independence is an end in itself. Clearly, however, this struggle operates very differently in the case of a global superpower than it does for a small, relatively impoverished and often politically isolated, island state. Given its dominance, America may realistically be conceived of as an original against which alternative projects are to be judged and by which they are to be resisted and repelled. Might and power are viewed as legitimating the idolising of the American model and the ‘otherising’ of that which differs from it, assuming such difference to be destructive, as in this subtle and nuanced reading of the reasons for the 2001 attacks by one New York Observer columnist: ‘They hate the fact that America is mighty and good… the incarnation of a dominant world system – an empire of capitalism and democracy… because we are powerful and good (or at least better than they are)’.17 73 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith The polar opposite approach is pursued in Cuba, which can be said to revel in its status as ‘other’, a status that is the result, at least in part, of self-definition. Building upon the David and Goliath victory at Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs), Cuba has frequently been portrayed as a plucky underdog whose struggle and resistance is mythic because out of proportion to its size and wealth. 18 As represented in Figure 1 (below), its strength comes not from might, but from what is portrayed as a courageous reflecting of the greater might of the superpower. This image as a tiny rebel was cultivated not only in reaction to the USA but also in early attempts to remain distinct from the ideological character of the USSR, despite its clear economic dependence. Figure 119 74 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith Figures 2 and 3 are two further OSPAAAL posters depicting coded enactments of Cuba ‘punching above its weight’. In each image the island of Cuba is dwarfed and entrapped by the chosen symbol of America, but in each the entrapment is only partial, with most of the country escaping the talons of the eagle and protruding cheekily outside the imprisoning bars of the stripes of the US flag. Figure 2 Figure 3 The Cuban re-appropriation of its ‘other’ status is also evident in the choices the government has made as to how to represent itself on the international stage. A pivotal moment in this regard was the early decision made by the revolutionary government to declare Cuba not, as its economic position might reasonably have allowed them to, a second world, aspirant country, but as a third world nation – actively choosing an association with the oppressed and a position in which it could be seen as an exemplar, transforming the nation itself into a revolutionary foco. From this position, intense Cuban patriotism and sense of ‘exceptionalism’ 75 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith are complicated by a wish to promote its model of resistance to others, as in the case of Guevara’s evangelism for a foquista model of guerrilla warfare in Latin America, and as in the message to Panama delivered in Figure 4, in which the ostensibly meagre strength of the oppressed nation, applied with guile, is able to disable the stronger enemy. Figure 4 A further example of this hopeful audacity within Cuban discourse is the reiteration of the idea that otro mundo es posible, which has been a focal point for international solidarity movements, who frequently see the existence of a surviving alternative to global hegemony as of equal or greater significance than the nature of that alternative. 76 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith A state’s positioning within the national imagining on the continuum of ‘original’ to ‘other’ intersects with the extent to which its ideology may be said to be mission-oriented. This intersection then affects the reasonableness and efficacy of using different techniques to elicit loyal citizenship. Here a cautious line is negotiated between the wish to naturalise and de-problematise existing ideologies – creating a pacified, apathetic citizenry – and to create sufficient fear and insecurity to persuade citizens to make material sacrifices in defence of their nation. The first of these tends to be the favoured approach of modern capitalist countries, which have largely ceased to take the risk of presenting their systems as intrinsically righteous, thereby opening them up to ideological attack, and have instead espoused the ‘End of History’ doctrine. Popularised by Fukuyama, this position holds that the historical debate over the best way to run human affairs that characterised the twentieth-century is over, and, influenced by that contention, ‘modern’ states largely choose to portray capitalism and representative democracy as the imperfect but logical result of a pseudo-evolutionary process – as inevitable rather than laudable. 20 This approach is effective when the citizen behaviours sought are passive – the continued paying of taxes, attendance at work and conformity to law – and, as described by Tapper and Salter, leads to a grudging acceptance of extant conditions that is a de facto legitimation. 21 This is a far safer and more predictable model for the purposes of stable state than a heroic, resistant notion of nationhood, as the minimalist citizenship produced – one of relative obedience and apathy – is far less susceptible to radicalism and dissent than a maximalist citizenship discourse that engages with, and thereby legitimates, alternative world views.22 It is insufficient, however, when the behaviours sought are active or 77 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith involve some cost to the individual, such as sending their sons to war or tolerating a certain level of oppression. In reality, of course, no state pursues one of these approaches in isolation, but rather each blends the two in varying and changeable ratios.23 Cuba, constrained by its historical and political situation, can make only limited use of the first, passivitypromoting, path. Hegemony relies upon ideology assuming a seamless appearance that, post-globalisation, must have international purchase, and it is all too evident (to its citizens as well as the rest of the world) that Cuba’s system does not embody a truth universally acknowledged. Cuban ideology, as expressed in the codes of cubanía, is in an ambiguous position in that it displays many hegemonic features, such as widespread acceptance and the embedding of political content into extant folklore and common sense, while operating in a global context that makes any pretension to universality unsustainable. Standing against the global norms its ideology is at once official and counterhegemonic, problematising resistance to that ideology and necessitating continual restatement of its import and legitimacy, a position that sustains and is sustained by the discourse of lucha and a revolution that is always and forever en marcha. The designation of revolutionary Cubanness as at once official ideology and counter hegemony is of palpable value in sustaining popular support, in that it unites the regime with the people as joint rebels against an external monolith. What Sartre understood when he claimed that ‘if the United States did not exist Cuba might perhaps find it necessary to invent it’ is that a revolutionary people, schooled in continual struggle, require something against which to revolt.24 The combination of the real victimisation of Cuba by the USA with the heightened portrayal of 78 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith that oppression by the Cuban government and cultural sources ensures that revolt faces firmly outwards. The most significant modern enactment of the stimulation of internal unity by means of external vitriol and resistance was the reaction to refusals of US based Cubans to return ‘wet foot’ child Elián Gonzalez to his paternal home in Cuba.25 In a renewal of revolutionary vigour that Kapcia has written of as Cubans ‘learning to march again’,26 a post-Special Period Cuba,27 short on resources and reputedly shorter on popular will to sustain the Revolution (Kapcia, ‘Lessons of the Special Period’, 30), was able to mount historically significant manifestations that, while clearly orchestrated, caught and united the popular imagination in a struggle that at once defied the USA, defended national sovereignty and protected the right to family and nation of an innocent child. As time and reforms go inexorably forward, such shows of resolute unity are likely to become more and more necessary to the defence of the Revolution but also represent a danger to it. As the economic and social realities of the re-emergence of wealth inequalities and the imminent potential end of full employment become embedded, it may be deemed necessary to counterbalance these potential sources of internal dissatisfaction with a renewed emphasis on the resistance of external domination to ensure continued loyalty. Resistance (and indeed hatred) is a logical reaction to a history of disempowerment and domination, but it has maintained a greater legitimacy in Cuba because the defence of the Revolution has been the defence of something tangible and well understood, in material as well as ideological terms. Belief in equality and pride in the logros sociales has combined with an awareness of their exceptional nature to ensure that demonstrations and acts of national conformity have been 79 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith both resistant and celebratory. The risk is that if erosions in the Cuban social contract continue to be effected, its discourse of resistance may become hollowed out, symbolic and purely negative. Awareness of the two faces of national belonging is demonstrated by the Cuban eschewal of the term ‘nationalism’, widely regarded as posturing, aggressive and a province of the Right, in favour of ‘patriotism’, which is understood rather as love and fealty to the nation and its revolutionary ideals. It is to be hoped, then, that consciousness of this distinction will continue to be felt by a rebel people united by a great deal of love, and only a proportionate measure of hate. 1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. (London and New York: Verso, 1983), 3. 2 For a variety of arguments that utilise the notion of friendship and emotional loyalty as essential to citizenship see for example: Will Kymlicka, ‘Multicultural Citizenship’ in The Citizenship Debates: A Reader, Gershon Shafir, ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998) 167-88; David Miller, Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2000); Adrian Oldfield, Citizenship and Community: Civic Republicanism and the Modern World (London: Routledge, 1990) and Eamonn Callan, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997). 3 Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, ‘Socialism and Man in Cuba’ in Venceremos! The speeches and writings of Ernesto Che Guevara, John Gerassi, ed. (London: Wiedenfield and Nicholson, 1968) 387-400, 398. Further references are given parenthetically in the text. 4 Chiela Valera Acosta, 'Education for Citizenship in the Caribbean: A Study on Education Policy and Curricula Training in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic' (online publication: International Bureau of Education, 2003), 14-15. Accessed at http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/curriculum/Caribbean/C aribbeanPdf/Study_Valera_%20trans_eng.pdf on 30.06.11. 5 Aristotle, Politics and the Constitution of Athens, trans. Steven Everson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 6 Tony Breslin, 'From citizenship-rich schools to citizenship-rich communities: lessons from the classroom and beyond' in Taking Part? Active Learning for Active Citizenship, and beyond, Marjorie Mayo, and John Annette eds. (Leicester: NIACE, 2010), 70. 80 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith 7 George W. Bush., address delivered to the Joint Houses of Congress on 20.09.2011, accessed at http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/20rhet/bush.html on 30.06.2011. 8 John Maudlin in ‘John Maudlin’s Outside the Box’, (investorsinsight.com, 28.03.2011) accessed at http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2 011/03/28/the-confidence-game.aspx on 30.06.2011 9 The adjective 'American' is used throughout this paper to describe behaviours and characteristics of the USA. It is important, however, to note that the term would not be used in this way in Cuba, where the terms yanqui or norteamericano distinguish the USA from what Martí called 'Nuestra America', a pan-Latin American family of nations defined, in many ways, in response to their shared experience of Spanish colonialism and US imperialism. 10 As set out by Antoni Kapcia in Cuba: Island of Dreams (Oxford: Berg, 2000, 6), cubanía is the ‘teleological belief in cubanidad’ (Oxford: Berg, 2000, 6) and its revolutionary cast, developed since the 1950s, has evolved from powerful existing codes of radical and rebellious patriotism, with which the new incarnation shares many values and codes. 11 Fagen describes how the revolutionary government attempted to politically socialise the populace with the express intention of creating a ‘participatory subject’ (Richard Fagen, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969) 7, further references will be given parenthetically in the text), and LeoGrande draws out the mutual responsiveness of citizen and state, making reference to the formation of ‘a direct non-institutional relationship between the people and their leaders’ (William, M. LeoGrande, 'Theory and Practice of Socialist Democracy in Cuba' in Studies in Comparative Communism, vol., no. 10 (Spring 1979) 39-62,( 40)). 12 Louis A. Pérez Jr., On Becoming Cuban: Nationality, Identity and Culture (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 78. Further references are given parenthetically in the text. 13 Sheryl L. Lutjens, The State, Bureaucracy, and the Cuban Schools: Power and Participation (Westview: Boulder, Colorado, 1996) 72. 14 In what amounted to a condition for the end of the USA’s occupation of the island, Cuba’s Constitution incorporated the Platt Amendment, then ratified as a treaty between the two nations, which allowed the USA to intervene militarily in Cuba in a broad range of circumstances and to maintain political, military and economic privileges within the newly independent nation. (James H. Hitchman, ‘The Platt Amendment Revisited: A Bibliographical Survey’ in The Americas vol. 23, no. 4 (Apr., 1967) 343-69. Accessed at http://www.jstor.org/stable/980494 on 30.07.2011). 15 Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy, ‘The Background of the Revolution’ in The Cuba Reader, Brenner et al, eds. (New York: Grove, 1989), 7. 16 Use of the discourse of guerrilla warfare to describe Cuban heroes of the past, as far back as indigenous peoples defending their land against the Spanish, can be seen regularly, for example, in the fourth grade history textbook Relatos de la Historia de Cuba (Soy del Pozo et al., Havana: Pueblo y Educación, undated). 17 Ziauddin Sader and Merryl Wyn Davies. Why Do People Hate America? (Cambridge: Icon, 2002) 19. 81 Cuban Citizenship Discourse - Smith 18 The analogy of David and Goliath was used well before that date, as in José Martí’s 1895 ‘Letter to Manuel Macedo’ (Our America: Writings on Latin America and the Struggle for Cuban Independence (New York: Monthly Review, 1977) 440). 19 The OSPAAAL (Organisation for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America) posters shown in each of the four figures can be found, along with many others, at http://www.ospaaal.com/ 20 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin, 1992), xi. 21 Ted Tapper and Brian Salter, Education and the Political Order: Changing Patterns of Class Control (London: Macmillan, 1978), 13. 22 David Kerr describes minimalist citizenship models as ‘narrow… exclusive… content led-and knowledge-based’ and maximalist as ‘thick…activist… values-based’ (Citizenship Education: an International Comparison, online publication: International Review of Curriculum and Assessment Frameworks, 1999, accessed at http://www.inca.org.uk/pdf/citizenship_no_intro.pdf on 30.07.2011. 23 In established liberal democracies the tendency is for notions of resistance and heightened citizenship behaviour, formed by and recalled for moments of real or perceived crisis, to be used only minimally at other times. The much-vaunted 'Blitz Spirit', for example, that is widely held to have pertained throughout the Second World War (and which Tapper and Salter (Education and the Political Order, 78) argue did more for promoting conformity than any amount of citizenship education) added to the stock of national citizenship characteristics ideas of stoicism and collective sacrifice. Although these codes were allowed to lie dormant, they were sustained in popular mythology until such time as it became politically useful for the public to be called upon to accept erosions of their welfare state and make sacrifices because of a recycling of the codes in the notion of being 'all in it together'. 24 Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (London: Pall Mall, 1965), 123. 25 So called with reference to the ‘1995 agreement under which Cuban migrants seeking passage to the United States who are intercepted at sea ("wet feet") are sent back to Cuba or to a third country, while those who make it to U.S. soil ("dry feet") are allowed to remain in the United States. The policy, formally known as the U.S.-Cuba Immigration Accord, has been written into law as an amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.’ (Jefferson Morley, ‘U.S. – ‘Cuban Migration Policy’ in Washington Post Online (27.07.2007), accessed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/07/27/AR2007072701493.html on 30.06.2011. 26 Antoni Kapcia ‘Lessons of the Special Period: Learning to March Again’ in Latin American Perspectives vol. 36, no. 1 (January 2009) 30-41, title. 27 The ‘Special Period in Time of Peace’ was declared in the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall; in recognition of the desperate economic situation caused by the loss of Soviet trade and economic protection, it introduced a variety of emergency economic measures, many of which, while largely effective, have been seen as dilutions or betrayals of the socialist project of the Revolution. 82 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases Guerra y cotidianidad militar en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 17051714. Reflexiones y posibilidades documentales Adrià Cases Abstracto El conflicto sucesorio español de inicios del siglo XVIII fue uno de los momentos más importantes de la Historia Moderna de España. Los resultados de la contienda transformaron el Estado tanto en su vertiente interna como externa. Interna porqué se impuso un modelo político de carácter unitario, donde la ley emanaba exclusivamente de la potestad real y era igual para todos los territorios de la Península Ibérica. Externa porqué se confirmo el declive del antiguo imperio español ya que se perdieron las posesiones europeas del Reino de las Dos Sicilias, de Cerdeña, de Flandes y el Milanesado. En paralelo a este proceso político tan interesante existe un drama humanitario. La guerra que enfrentó a los partidarios de la dinastía Borbón y Habsburgo dejaron tras de sí más de un millón de muertes así como incontables desplazados. Nosotros tratamos de definir esta realidad en el frente catalanoaragonés, una de las geografías más castigadas por la disputa bélica. 83 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases E l conflicto internacional que enfrentó a las principales potencias durante la primera quincena del siglo XVIII es un momento crucial para el devenir de Europa; y especialmente para España. Los combates superaron las fronteras continentales, dando lugar a enfrentamientos en América y Asia. Los autores cifran en 1.200.000 muertos y tan sólo desde el frente hispánico se contabiliza un exilio de entre 25.000 y 30.000 personas.1 La disputa se originó a causa de la muerte del monarca Carlos II (1665-1700), que no dejó descendencia directa al trono. Esta situación postuló a dos pretendientes, Felipe de Anjou y/o el archiduque Carlos de Austria. Finalmente, la Corte española se decantó a favor del aspirante francés, lo que provocó que el candidato derrotado y el conjunto de facciones e intereses que le apoyaban consideraran que la nueva situación ponía en riesgo el equilibrio internacional. Con el apoyo del emperador Leopoldo I y de las potencias marítimas – Gran Bretaña y Holanda - se planteó una guerra contra el monarca recién coronado. Esta alianza cristalizó en 1701 y consideraba que la ascensión de un candidato francés al trono español concentraba demasiado poder en manos de la dinastía Borbón. En mayo de 1702 iniciaba oficialmente la guerra, que se dispersó en múltiples frentes a lo largo del continente europeo. Uno de los más importantes fue la península Ibérica, especialmente, la Corona de Aragón. A continuación exponemos las líneas maestras de la tesis doctoral que lleva por título Guerra y cotidianidad militar en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714,2 inmersa en este proceso que acabamos de referir. Para abordarlo hemos organizado la exposición en tres bloques. En un primer apartado situaremos la dinámica exterior e interior de la Monarquía española, intentando comprender lo que significa el conflicto para la Historia Moderna del país (1492-1789). En un segundo punto trataremos propiamente el cuerpo de nuestras pesquisas, 84 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases expendiendo ya algunas primeras conclusiones acerca de los trabajos realizados durante estos últimos meses. Para acabar, relataremos brevemente los fondos documentales que nos son de mayor utilidad así como algunas recomendaciones para los científicos interesados en conocer la dinámica social de estos momentos tan convulsos e históricamente tan efervescentes. 1. La bisagra de la modernidad española: la Guerra de Sucesión (1702-1715) ¿Por qué el conflicto sucesorio es uno de los períodos más importantes entre 1492 y 1789? Analizando el conjunto de tres siglos de Historia Moderna de España (XVI-XVIII) encontraríamos pocos episodios que tuvieran una repercusión tan importante al acabar dicho proceso. La España de 1700 no tenía mucho que ver con la España de 1715. Durante esta quincena, una guerra a nivel internacional derivó en contienda civil en las Coronas Castellana y Aragonesa, con especial complejidad en este último territorio. Los resultados de la disputa cambiaron la Monarquía que hasta entonces se había concebido. Un primer elemento en el que podemos percibir este proceso lo encontramos en la vertiente exterior y la pérdida de los territorios europeos heredados desde los siglos medievales por el monarca hispánico. Los tratados de Utrecht (1713) y Rastaadt (1714) consolidaron el declive que ya había iniciado, como mínimo, desde mediados del siglo XVII. Con la Paz de los Pirineos (1659), la Monarquía hispánica cedió los territorios del condado del Rosellón y la Cerdaña, así como algunas plazas fuertes de Flandes (Artois).3 Posteriormente, los Tratados de Nimega (1679) ponían fin a la dominación del Franco Condado, enclave importantísimo para la comunicación entre Flandes y el Sacro Imperio. En realidad, la 85 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases segunda mitad del siglo XVII no hace más que demostrar el frágil equilibrio continental entre las potencias europeas. En los últimos cuarenta años de este siglo, se promulgaron cinco tratados que de una manera u otra modificaron las fronteras europeas hispánicas.4 De todas formas, Utrecht marca el fin de este proceso ya que a partir de 1713-14, la Monarquía pierde todos los dominios seculares de Italia (Reino de Cerdeña, Reino de Nápoles, Reino de Sicilia, el Milanesado), así como la totalidad de los prósperos territorios de Flandes. Podríamos decir que el camino que se había iniciado en 1492 – y el consiguiente impulso hacia la hegemonía europea -, termina definitivamente en Utrecht, relegando la superioridad territorial a los otros grandes estados de Europa occidental (Francia y Gran Bretaña). Desde Gran Bretaña, la opinión no podía ser otra: ‘Spain was made to pay the bill for all the rest and an era of French expansionism was closed’.5 Ante esta situación, era lógico que durante los años posteriores a la guerra (1715-1725), Felipe V desarrolló una intensa campaña para “recuperar” las antiguas posesiones perdidas en los tratados de paz, sobre todo, en relación a la península Itálica y las islas mediterráneas. La vertiente interna del período no fue menos importante ya que con el advenimiento del pretendiente Borbón se inició una monarquía de tinte absolutista con tendencia a centralizar el Estado. Este nuevo modelo impregnó toda la centuria ilustrada e incluso penetró en la contemporaneidad española hasta fechas bastante tardías. Si hasta ese momento (1707) las Coronas Castellana y Aragonesa se regían según su propia legislación, de manera independiente y compartiendo el monarca como elemento indispensable de unión, la victoria del pretendiente francés al trono hispánico impuso este modelo unitario de matriz castellana, aboliendo la tradición pactista de los territorios del este 86 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases peninsular. De hecho, Felipe V anuló el corpus legislativo aragonés bajo la justificación de lesa majestad, ya que los territorios de Aragón, Valencia, Cataluña e Islas Baleares se habían sublevado contra él, ofreciendo una resistencia muy severa; especialmente en los territorios de Valencia y Cataluña.6 Estas dos áreas tenían intereses políticos y económicos relevantes para apoyar al pretendiente Habsburgo; sobre todo en términos de mercado, cuyo tejido estaba estrechamente vinculado a la dinámica de las potencias atlánticas (Gran Bretaña y Holanda).7 2. La contienda en el frente catalanoaragonés En paralelo a estos procesos políticos tan importantes y con tanta repercusión en el devenir de la configuración estatal, existió una guerra durísima que fustigó vehementemente algunas zonas peninsulares. A grandes rasgos, la frontera portuguesa-extremeñacastellana y el conjunto territorial de la Corona aragonesa vivieron la violencia en primera persona, especialmente en este último frente, ya que quizá es el escenario donde la presencia de combates es más larga, dura y constante. Esta zona se presenta como un laboratorio idóneo para investigar la dinámica social del conflicto y su interacción con el territorio. Así pues, bajo el paraguas de la ‘New Military History’ que tan buenos resultados ha dado en el conjunto de Europa – y está dando en España - nosotros pretendemos reconstruir el perfil sociológico de los soldados, los mecanismos de reclutamiento, la promoción dentro del cuerpo, la “cobertura” sanitaria, los aprovisionamientos, el vestuario y las consecuencias de ejercer el oficio de soldado (en este sentido nos referimos a la enfermedad, procesos de encarcelamiento y la deserción). Y, quizás, un elemento interesante y nuevo desde nuestro punto de vista es 87 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases tratar de abordar estas cuestiones desde una óptica transversal, sin centrarnos en ningún ejército concreto ni en ninguna nación en particular. El objetivo, pues, es radiografiar el frente catalanoaragonés contemplando la totalidad de aspectos que jugaron un papel relevante en los procesos anteriormente mencionados. Consecuentemente, este enfoque nos ha hecho contemplar un elemento añadido que es absolutamente fundamental si el investigador pretende realizar un trabajo serio y contrastado. Nos referimos al análisis de las fuerzas irregulares (y auxiliares), muy presentes durante todo el período que referimos. A pesar de que no contempláramos este propósito en nuestros planteamientos iniciales, trabajar las fuentes primarias con detenimiento nos ha impulsado a redefinir estos cuerpos seudomilitares ya que este tipo de milicias tuvieron un protagonismo fundamental en la evolución de la contienda y en su repercusión con la sociedad civil. Los somatenes (milicias urbanas), pero especialmente, los migueletes y los voluntarios de Aragón fueron unas “guerrillas” que desgastaron mucho los ejércitos regulares y en buena medida, explican la prolongación de los combates en momentos en que la superioridad del ejército franco-español era muy evidente. Sería interesante trabajar más profundamente estos cuerpos “militares” pero cabe preguntarse cómo pudo alargarse la guerra siete años más en Cataluña que en Aragón y Valencia. Hay muchos factores que responden a esa pregunta, pero probablemente las acciones de estas partidas y su arraigo en el territorio son elementos a tener en cuenta. Acotar esta investigación, a día de hoy, nos ha permitido sacar unas primeras conclusiones. Aunque sabemos que la reflexión pide de un cierto sosiego para poder validarla, a continuación pasamos 88 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases a referir unas primeras ideas con la intención de motivar el debate y sugerir posibles variantes interpretativas: - El factor de la pobreza es un elemento absolutamente indispensable para entender el proceso de enrolamiento al ejército. En este sentido, y tal como aseveró F. Andújar,8 los segmentos más bajos de la sociedad eran los que formaban los estamentos más bajos del ejército (la tropa), siendo éste un reflejo del orden jerárquico establecido en las sociedades europeas del Antiguo Régimen. - El éxito de un ejército no estaba tanto en la cantidad de hombres que podía poner en el campo de batalla - que también -, sino en la capacidad de responder a las carencias crónicas del sistema de abastos militar. Cuando no respondía –hecho bastante frecuente en el frente que estudiamos-, la sociedad civil tenía que satisfacer estas necesidades, sufriendo al mismo tiempo un proceso de pauperización demoledor. - El sistema sanitario estaba mejor preparado de lo que a priori se podría considerar. De todas formas este hecho va absolutamente ligado a la profesionalización y organización de cada ejército. Por ejemplo, el británico viajaba con su propio hospital y cuerpo médico. Incluso periódicamente enviaba medicinas para proveer sus hospitales en España y Portugal.9 El ejército franco-español montaba un dispositivo en la retaguardia del frente capaz de tratar diariamente a más de 3.000 hombres.10 El austro-catalán se apoyaba únicamente de la red existencial en el territorio, como el portugués, que según nuestras pesquisas, no contaba con ningún tipo de instalación sanitaria de campaña. - La importancia de las milicias irregulares – teniendo en cuenta su efectividad - nos hacen plantear hasta qué punto el concepto historiográfico de la Revolución Militar está bien acotado. 89 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases Obviamente no nos atrevemos a debatir la naturaleza de esta teoría, ya que la compartimos absolutamente. De todas formas sería aconsejable debatir alrededor de la cronología e incluso plantearnos hasta qué punto el fenómeno no debería considerarse hasta bien entrado el siglo XIX. 3. Las fuentes documentales y sus posibilidades Básicamente, los archivos que albergan documentación sustancial y que nos permiten trabajar los aspectos que conformaban la cotidianidad militar durante el conflicto sucesorio de inicios del siglo XVIII son los grandes centros estatales. En España, en primer lugar, cabe mencionar el Archivo Histórico Nacional de Madrid, con unos fondos de Estado realmente amplios. Los principales investigadores que han trabajado sobre el período han tratado estas fuentes con detenimiento. Además, el archivo cuenta con la aportación de fondos trasladados desde Viena, que pertenecieron al conjunto de exiliados que buscaron la protección del Imperio austriaco una vez concluido el conflicto.11 En Barcelona, el Archivo de la Corona de Aragón es la principal institución para estudiar los organismos aragoneses durante la contienda. De todas formas, cabe precisar que no cuenta con una sección demasiado amplia si lo comparamos con otros períodos anteriores. Los años 1702-1715 están en los límites de su cronología de abasto. A parte, muchos autores catalanes, aragoneses y valencianos han trabajado y releído estos materiales, lo que a nuestro entender hace disminuir la prioridad en el estudio. El Archivo General de Simancas abarca los primeros siglos modernos de la historia de España (los Austria), así que la Guerra de Sucesión queda al margen de este período. De todas formas es 90 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases interesante mencionar la sección suplementaria de la Secretaría de Guerra, con algunos fondos de utilidad relativos al funcionamiento hospitalario. En el Reino Unido, los Archivos Nacionales (The Nacional Archives, TNA12) se presentan como un buen reclamo para el investigador que pretenda conocer la interrelación entre ejército británico y los reinos portugués y aragonés. La intensa red de embajadores y la actividad marítima de Gran Bretaña posibilitaron la creación de unos fondos estatales muy copiosos, aunque desde nuestra óptica de estudio no son tan útiles debido a la dificultad de percibir las problemáticas surgidas en un frente bélico tan alejado como el hispánico. Así pues, las informaciones que hemos rescatado se adentran más en el mundo de la diplomacia y la evolución general de la contienda. Las secciones más relevantes y que consideramos de mayor utilidad son la Secretaria de Estado (State Papers, SP) y la Oficina de Guerra (War Office, WO). De todas formas, siendo conscientes de la situación historiográfica en España, el hecho de poder trabajar estos materiales nos posibilita dar un salto cualitativo en nuestra investigación ya que son escasos los investigadores del estado que han contemplado este gran archivo para llevar a cabo sus respectivos proyectos intelectuales. En un segundo nivel archivístico encontramos las instituciones de carácter comarcal o municipal. En Cataluña, la política del gobierno autonómico ha dado un salto cualitativo en estos últimos años y ha promovido la presencia de profesionales en el sector, lo que ha facilitado una homogeneización de los contenidos (inventarios) e incluso una flexibilidad para trabajar los materiales. Nosotros hemos consultado atentamente aquellos municipios que nos parecían de mayor interés y aunque a menudo las informaciones extraídas son de carácter absolutamente local, es posible advertir el impacto derivado de la guerra sobre la sociedad 91 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases civil. Asimismo, estos entes locales eran fundamentales para poder suministrar todo tipo de pertrechos y combatientes a la monarquía de turno. A modo de conclusión, nos gustaría poner sobre la mesa las opciones que pueden ofrecernos las instituciones de carácter asistencial. Obviamente, en nuestro caso contemplar este tipo de organismos tiene mucho sentido, ya que los militares que participaron en este tipo de guerras a menudo necesitaban de su atención (el modus operandi castigaba severamente a los combatientes: largas marchas, comida de mala calidad, mal acuartelamiento – o ninguno -, higiene escasa, etc.). Nuestras investigaciones en el Hospital de la Santa Creu de Barcelona han sido muy provechosas. En particular, los registros de entrada que contempla esta institución centenaria son abundantes y nos ha facilitado la elaboración de una base de datos que supera los 18.500 registros donde documentamos los nombres de los militares, el origen, la compañía, el regimiento, el período de estancia y los índices de mortandad. En el caso inglés no conocemos la existencia de trabajos de esta índole pero si es evidente el recurso de contemplar este tipo de organismos y su relación con el mundo castrense (Chelsea Hospital).13 En el ámbito de la Corona aragonesa, estudios sobre los hospitales de Zaragoza y Valencia ya se han llevado a cabo con buenos resultados.14 Otra línea documental que a nuestro parecer podría ser de utilidad para acercarnos al mundo cotidiano, ya fuere militar o civil, podría porvenir de la literatura y la documentación privada. Nos referimos a los dietarios ya sean personales como institucionales (con bastante posibilidades entre el mundo religioso). En la Corona de Aragón existen algunos ejemplos de esta índole así como la obra de Defoe sobre el capitán George Carleton, que viajó con el conde de Peterborough a Barcelona y 92 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases participó en la guerra que nos ocupa.15 Desgraciadamente, a inicios del siglo XVIII, este tipo de fuentes son escasas, sobre todo si lo comparamos con otros momentos posteriores insertados ya en la contemporaneidad (Peninsular War). 1 Joaquim Albareda, La Guerra de Sucesión de España, 1700-1714 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2010), 17; Agustí Alcoberro, L'Exili austriacista (Barcelona: Fundació Noguera, 2002), 56. 2 Este proyecto se realiza bajo la supervisión del Dr. Antonio Espino, catedrático de Historia Moderna de la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. Asimismo, realizamos la investigación gracias a una beca del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación del Gobierno de España. Referencia de la ayuda BES-2008-001955. 3 En este sentido, véanse las Actas del Congreso publicadas recientemente. Oscar Jané, ed., Del Tractat dels Pirineus a l'Europa del segle XXI, un model en construcció?: actes del congrés: col·loqui Barcelona-Perpinyà, 17-20 de juny de 2009. (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura i Mitjans de Comunicació, Museu d'Història de Catalunya, 2010). 4 Tratado de los Pirineos (1659), Paz de Aquisgrán (1668), Paz de Nimega (1678), Tregua de Ratisbona (1684) y Tratado de Ryswich (1697). 5 Julian Hoppit, A land of Liberty? England 1689-1727 (Oxford University Press, 2000), 123. 6 Antoni Simon, Construccions polítiques i identitats nacionals: Catalunya i els orígens de l’estat modern espanyol (Barcelona: Abadia de Montserrat, 2005); Carme Pérez, Canvi dinàstic i Guerra de Successió. La fi del Regne de València (València: Tres i Quatre, 2008); Maria Berta Pérez, Aragón durante la Guerra de Sucesión (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2010). 7 Véase la brillante esquematización del proyecto austriacista en Oscar González, ‘El partit austriacista: coherència, divergència i supervivència d’una facció de poder’, Pedralbes. Revista d’Història Moderna, 23, vol. II (2003): 297-09. 8 Francisco Andujar, Ejércitos y militares en la Europa moderna (Madrid: Síntesis, 1999), 16-7. 9 The National Archives (TNA), WO 4/4, fols. 44, 63, 141. 10 Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Secretaría de Guerra. Suplemento, leg. 269. 11 Maria Pilar Castro, ‘La Guerra de Sucesión (1701-1714): fuentes para su estudio en la Sección de Estado del Archivo Histórico Nacional’, La Guerra de Sucesión en España y América: actas X Jornadas Nacionales de Historia Militar, Sevilla, 13-17 de noviembre de 2000 (Madrid: Deimos, 2001), 1077-84. 12 En este sentido, agradecemos al Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies (University of Nottingham) y muy especialmente a los Doctores Jeremy Lawrance y Jean Andrews su acogida, absolutamente imprescindible para poder estudiar los fondos del TNA con detenimiento. 13 Eric Gruber, Hospital Care and the British Standing Army, 1660-1714 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). 14 Asunción Fernández, El Hospital Real y General de Nuestra Señora de Gracia de Zaragoza en el siglo XVIII (Zaragoza: Instituto Fernando el Católico, 1987); Ampar 93 Guerra y cotidianidad en la Cataluña del cambio dinástico, 1705-1714 - Cases Nogales, La Sanidad municipal en la Valencia foral moderna: 1479-1707 (València: Ajuntament de València, 1993). 15 Vicent Escartí, ed., El Diario (1700-1715) de Josep Vicent Ortí i Major (València: Fundació Bancaixa, 2007); Antoni Bach, ‘Crònica de la Guerra de Successió a les terres de Lleida, escrita per un pagès del Palau d’Anglesola’, Ilerda, vol. XLIV (1983): 171-87; Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of an English officer (London: Gollancz, 1970); Marquis de Hautefort, Memoirs of the war of succession in Spain, from 1702 to 1707 (London, 1763). 94