Tuesday, August 29, 2006
The Two Spains (work in progress)
Las Dos Españas
I've been having the opportunity in these last few days of spending my early coffe break with a couple of respectable Andalusian elders. The topic of almost all our conversations spins around the days of the Spanish Civil War, in which they participated in their own flesh and blood. To be honest, it is me who, as often as I can, try to direct the conversation towards that theme, as I know there are just few eye witnesses left of such tragic events and I want to find out about the facts, not through the official versions, but through those who actually lived those days.
It's very sad to hear their experiences as Spaniards as well as youngsters, enlisted by force in armies whose ideals not even their members shared, but which they must defend on risk of losing their own lives if they dared to deny. The tales they tell make me remember the contrast between Francisco López de Gómora's "Hispania Victrix" (1553), in which the conquest of Mexico is narrated as a
I've been having the opportunity in these last few days of spending my early coffe break with a couple of respectable Andalusian elders. The topic of almost all our conversations spins around the days of the Spanish Civil War, in which they participated in their own flesh and blood. To be honest, it is me who, as often as I can, try to direct the conversation towards that theme, as I know there are just few eye witnesses left of such tragic events and I want to find out about the facts, not through the official versions, but through those who actually lived those days.
It's very sad to hear their experiences as Spaniards as well as youngsters, enlisted by force in armies whose ideals not even their members shared, but which they must defend on risk of losing their own lives if they dared to deny. The tales they tell make me remember the contrast between Francisco López de Gómora's "Hispania Victrix" (1553), in which the conquest of Mexico is narrated as a
