Galicia²¹. Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies Issue F

Transcription

1 Galicia²¹ Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies Issue F Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl subsp. agustifolia Specimen no.: Herbario SANT / Determinavit: M. I. Romero / Legit: M. I. Romero & J. Cao / Date: Place of origin: Mina de As Pontes, A Coruña / Habitat: Braña s Path towards Sumeiro s Path, creating an edge between the fruit trees and the canal that borders the road design: desescribir / issn

2 Galicia 21 Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies Issue F. Year issn Index Editorial Unha nova xeira David Miranda-Barreiro Martín Veiga Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson To Be or Not: The Rural Village in Post-Rural Times Neil D. Anderson Paisaxe na néboa. Unha cartografía do cinema galego recente Marta Pérez Pereiro Guest Article A cultura do código. Retos para a identidade galega na época dos algoritmos Manuel Gago Mónica Amenedo Costa La población británica e irlandesa en el Ferrol de la Ilustración. Análisis de fuentes demográficas gallegas y documentación de estado británica Kirsty Hooper Áurea Fernández Rodríguez, Iolanda Galanes Santos, Ana Luna Alonso e Silvia Montero Küpper, eds. Literaturas extranjeras y desarrollo cultural. Hacia un cambio de paradigma en la traducción literaria gallega Laura Linares Isaac Lourido Livros que nom lê ninguém. Poesia, movimentos sociais e antagonismo político na Galiza Antía Marante Arias Helena Miguélez-Carballeira Galicia, A Sentimental Nation: Gender, Culture and Politics Phoebe Oliver John Rutherford The Power of the Smile: Humour in Spanish Culture Martín Veiga Page

3 03 Galicia 21 Editorial Unha nova xeira Galicia 21. Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies comezou a súa andaina en 2009 da man de Helena Miguélez- Carballeira e Craig Patterson. Foi desde os seus inicios unha aposta por un enfoque interdisciplinar nun contexto global (como revista bilingüe en galego e inglés) e de contidos abertos. Tratábase, polo tanto, dunha iniciativa para dar pulo á disciplina dos Estudos Galegos dentro dos xa omnipresentes medios tecnolóxicos do século que dá nome á publicación. Ao longo da súa traxectoria, Galicia 21 serviu de plataforma para a diseminación dunha variedade de temas (literatura, historia, sociolingüística, etc.) e perspectivas analíticas (Cultural Studies, Feminist Studies, Postcolonial Studies, etc.), tanto de investigadoras galegas como internacionais. Botando a vista atrás, sete anos despois, non cabe dúbida do éxito acadado pola revista grazas ao traballo das súas editoras fundacionais. En 2015, tras un breve silencio debido á restructuración do seu organigrama, Galicia 21 comeza unha nova xeira. A que fora a única editora nos últimos números da revista, Helena Miguélez-Carballeira, cédenos a dirección a David Miranda-Barreiro (Bangor University) e Martín Veiga (University College Cork). Porén, Helena non andará moi lonxe, xa que pasa ao comité editorial, ao que tamén se incorpora a que fora editora de recensións María Liñeira, posto agora ocupado por Elisa Serra Porteiro (University College Cork). Como non podía ser doutro xeito, as nosas primeiras verbas como editores van cargadas de agradecemento tanto a Helena como a María, polo seu monumental traballo e por todo o apoio que nos prestaron tras a nosa incorporación como novos editores. O F será a nosa primeira letra, o noso primeiro número. Un F para mirar ao futuro, mais mantendo os principios fundacionais da revista. Mantemos a vocación internacional, con colaboracións de tres investigadoras norteamericanas (Sharon R. Roseman, John Thompson e Neil D. Anderson) no que é unha mostra da forza que están a coller os Estudos Galegos nos Estados Unidos. Xunto con elas, dúas voces galegas (Marta Pérez Pereiro e Manuela Palacios), cuxos traballos de investigación salientan a versatilidade e vontade anovadora da disciplina no noso país. Pérez Pereiro aporta a primeira aproximación ao cinema galego que se fai na revista, e analiza os desafíos causados pola súa condición de pequeno cinema para a industria, mais tamén as posibilidades da súa posición periférica. Pola súa banda, Palacios compara as representacións das mulleres migrantes nas literaturas galega e irlandesa. Do outro lado do Atlántico, chégannos máis análises literarias, de novo desde perspectivas renovadoras, como o uso feito por Anderson dos termos perduranza e furor ontolóxico, acuñados por Rafael Dieste, na súa lectura de dúas representacións do rural na literatura galega recente e nas campañas publicitarias de Microsoft e da Xunta de Galicia. Roseman ofrece tamén unha comparativa, neste caso dos cronotopos que se poden atopar en dúas novelas que xiran en torno á guerra civil e o franquismo (No ventre do silencio de Méndez Ferrín e O lapis do carpinteiro de Rivas). Saíndo do enfoque literario mais sen apartarse moito da temática das novelas traballadas por Roseman, Thompson non só analiza as problemáticas que presenta a interpretación de moitos dos monumentos conmemorativos que funcionan como lugares da memoria da guerra e a ditatura en Galicia, senón que tamén ofrece

4 04 Galicia 21 alternativas que involucren activamente á cidadanía na súa creación. Non abandonamos tampouco o formato do Artigo Convidado e invitamos neste número a Manuel Gago, quen nos fala da presenza (e ausencia) do galego no mundo computacional de Internet, das redes sociais e das apps móbiles. Finalmente, mantemos tamén a sección de recensións, na que combinamos títulos recentes, tanto en galego como en inglés, que abranguen unha variedade de temas históricos e literarios. E como hai que mirar polas cousas bonitas, seguiremos regando as plantas que tan coidadosamente deseña desescribir para as nosas portadas e contando co seu elegante traballo de maquetación, xunto co tamén indispensábel soporte informático de estudiocaravana e a súa espléndida web. Benvidas, logo, a esta nova xeira de Galicia 21. Journal of Contemporary Galician Studies. Traballaremos para estar á altura das nosas predecesoras e para que sexa este un espazo no que dar cabida e visibilidade á vangarda dos Estudos Galegos desde un enfoque interdisciplinar e internacional. David Miranda-Barreiro Martín Veiga Editores

5 05 Galicia 21 Article Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas¹ Manuela Palacios ² Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Keywords Migration Woman Photography Galicia Ireland Trauma Palabras clave Migración Muller Fotografía Galicia Irlanda Trauma 1 Este artigo é resultado dos proxectos de investigación Exsistere e Eco-ficcións (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ffi , fem P). Igualmente, está enmarcado na investigación dos grupos Lingua e literatura inglesa e identidade ii (r 2014/403) e Discurso e Identidade (grc 2015/002 gi-1924) financiados pola Xunta de Galicia. 2 Departamento de Filoloxía Inglesa e Alemá Avda. Castelao, s/n Santiago de Compostela. Abstract This article discusses a number of descriptions, by Irish and Galician writers, of photographs of migrating women. Ireland and Galicia have experienced several periods of massive emigration in the last two centuries, but the role of women in these flows of migration remains under-examined, especially from a comparative perspective. A comparative analysis of the experience and representation of migration not only shows the mutual relevance of the events and their narratives for both communities but also allows us to identify those aspects which are exposed in one community and neglected in the other, thereby furnishing us with new criteria of analysis. This article is indebted to current debates on gender-oriented studies of migration and examines the emotional impact of migration by drawing on recent proposals in trauma studies. Apart from considering the sociological value of photographs as records of both personal and collective experience, this article delves into two of the most relevant questions which, according to Susan Sontag (1977), were introduced by photography and are of crucial importance for the study of these personal documents: what is worth observing and what are we entitled to observe? Resumo Este artigo analiza unha serie de descricións, feitas por escritores e escritoras de Irlanda e Galicia, de fotografías de mulleres migrantes. Estas dúas comunidades experimentaron varios episodios de emigración masiva nos dous últimos séculos, pero o papel das mulleres neses movementos migratorios non está aínda suficientemente estudado, especialmente desde unha

6 06 Galicia 21 perspectiva comparada. A análise comparada da experiencia da migración e da súa representación non só nos amosa a relevancia recíproca dos acontecementos e dos seus relatos para as dúas comunidades, senón que permite poñer o foco sobre aspectos salientados nunha pero inadvertidos na outra, achegando deste xeito novos criterios de análise. Este artigo está enmarcado nos debates actuais sobre a perspectiva de xénero nos estudos migratorios e examina o impacto emocional da migración facendo uso das recentes achegas dos estudos de trauma. Ademais de considerar o valor sociolóxico das fotografías como rexistro da experiencia persoal e colectiva, reflexiónase sobre as dúas preguntas máis relevantes que, segundo Susan Sontag (1977), introduciu a fotografía e resultan de crucial importancia para o estudo destes documentos persoais: que merece a pena observar e que temos dereito a observar?

7 07 Galicia 21 Introdución: Estudos da migración e interdisciplinariedade 3 Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios Aínda que o termo emigración é o máis común en Galicia nos estudos sobre os movementos migratorios que partiron dela, a crítica internacional adoita empregar o termo migración para evitar limitar a súa perspectiva ao fenómeno de marcha ou expulsión. Certamente, a persoa que emigra desde Galicia e Irlanda é á vez inmigrante no país de destino, polo que o termo migrante resulta máis flexíbel para acomodar os diferentes tipos e direccións da mobilidade. Aínda que en Europa o número de mulleres migrantes durante o século xx foi superior ao dos homes (Simon & Bretell 1986: 4), sorprende constatar a escasa atención que recibiu o fenómeno da migración feminina ata mediados dos anos oitenta (Morokvasic 1984).3 Mesmo na fin do século o vector de xénero na migración seguía interesando máis ás ciencias sociais que á investigación historiográfica, chegando a afirmar Donna Gabaccia (1996: 91) que os estudos históricos da migración feminina internacional case non existían. A investigación cuantitativa e os documentos oficiais tampouco daban suficiente información sobre as motivacións para a migración, o seu impacto emocional e físico e as consecuencias económicas dos ingresos xerados polas mulleres en actividades domésticas. Xa no século xxi se lamentaba de igual xeito en España, e concretamente en Galicia, o escaso interese polo papel das mulleres nos fluxos migratorios (Liñares Giraut 2009; Hernández Borge & González Lopo 2008) e investigadoras como María Xosé Rodríguez Galdo (2009: 19) reclamaban a necesidade de revisar categorías de análise como a de emigración familiar porque non visibilizaba suficientemente a participación das mulleres no eido laboral. Algo semellante ocorreu en Irlanda onde, en períodos concretos dos séculos xix e xx, emigraron máis mulleres ca homes, pero os estudos históricos só se preocuparon por analizar as reaccións políticas e eclesiásticas á emigración feminina no canto de estudar o fluxo en si (Delaney 2001: 209, 212; Muldowney 2012). Se a investigación histórica sobre a migración se beneficiou das achegas da antropoloxía, a socioloxía e a xeografía, o presente artigo, que se enmarca na disciplina dos estudos literarios, está atento tanto aos debates actuais das ciencias sociais arredor da migración como ás relacións interculturais, ao comparar a migración das mulleres galegas e irlandesas. Esta perspectiva comparada fúndase nunha serie de circunstancias mutuamente relevantes a Galicia e Irlanda tales como as crises agrarias, cos seus efectos sobre os movementos migratorios, e o impacto da moral católica na vida das mulleres. Aínda que non é o obxectivo deste artigo analizar as devanditas circunstancias históricas, económicas e relixiosas, estas constitúen o punto de partida para relacionar Galicia e Irlanda. Ademais da aproximación comparada de base rexional xeográfica e sociocultural, este artigo incorpora a perspectiva inter-artística ao dar conta de textos de valor literario e fotografias de aí o título do artigo: foto-grafías. A crítica de referencia na valoración das fotografías será Susan Sontag, autora da colección de ensaios On Photography ([1977], 1981), pero tamén se ten en conta a función social da fotografía exposta por Pierre Bourdieu en Un art moyen (1965). Por outra banda, Pamela Sharpe (2001: 8-10) identifica unha área de interese na investigación das migracións: o impacto emocional da migración e os efectos da ausencia da persoa migrante na súa contorna de orixe. Neste respecto, o presente artigo fornece unha achega orixinal ao aplicar os estudos do trauma á análise da emigración. Geoffrey Hartman, impulsor dos estudos do trauma no marco da crítica literaria a finais do século xx, alentaba a que a crítica identificase as feridas psíquicas na narración do trauma (2003: 257, 259), cuestión que se tratará aquí á hora de comparar os relatos e fotografías que compoñen o corpus deste traballo.

8 08 Galicia 21 A perspectiva relacional e interdisciplinar deste artigo correspóndese á chamada, desde a teoría de sistemas migratorios, a investigar as relacións Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios transnacionais na migración aproveitando a información fornecida, alén dos rexistros oficiais, polos documentos persoais (Harzig 2001: 16-17; Guibernau & Rex 2010: 7). A hipótese deste traballo comparativo é que os resultados obtidos en Galicia e Irlanda non soamente posúen relevancia mutua polas semellanzas sociais e culturais entre estas comunidades, así como polo forte impacto que a emigración tivo nas súas sociedades, senón que a perspectiva comparada permite poñer o foco sobre aspectos salientados nunha comunidade pero inadvertidos na outra, achegando deste xeito novos criterios de análise. Xénese do proxecto foto-grafías A continuación procederase a explicar o desenvolvemento do proxecto fotografías desde a súa concepción, así como as súas motivacións e obxectivos, para seguidamente expoñer os aspectos comparativos máis salientábeis no tocante aos principais eixos deste proxecto: a migración das mulleres galegas e irlandesas e o seu impacto socioeconómico e emocional, así como a mediación das artes literaria e fotográfica na representación e configuración do fenómeno migratorio. A análise de textos literarios e fotografías fíxose simultaneamente para Galicia e Irlanda, pero os seus resultados apareceron en publicacións que trataron a cuestión galega e a irlandesa por separado, razón pola que este artigo aborda por primeira vez a aproximación comparativa á migración das mulleres galegas e irlandesas. Así, as colaboracións galegas, cos seus relatos, fotografías e análises respectivas, foron publicadas como capítulo de libro en Letras nómades. Experiencias da mobilidade feminina na literatura galega, editado por Ana Acuña (Palacios 2014), e as colaboracións irlandesas foron recollidas noutro capítulo do libro Ex-sistere: Women s Mobility in Contemporary Irish, Welsh, and Galician Literatures, editado por María Jesús Lorenzo Modia (Palacios 2016). Nestas publicacións previas reprodúcense os relatos e fotografías que achegaron escritoras e escritores de Galicia e Irlanda, mentres que no presente artigo só se salientan os aspectos comparativos máis importantes resultantes da análise deses textos escritos e visuais. A idea do proxecto foto-grafías, no que unha serie de escritores e escritoras describen e comentan unha fotografía dunha muller emigrante, naceu dunha observación que fixo a escritora galega Lupe Gómez nunha enquisa sobre mulleres escritoras e viaxe que eu enviara a varias poetas e narradoras galegas en Interesábame daquela estudar, entre outros aspectos, a relación entre a experiencia galega da emigración e a actitude actual cara á viaxe por parte das escritoras galegas. Á pregunta de se a súa familia vivira a experiencia da emigración, Gómez respondeu coa historia do seu tío-avó Pedro. Porén, a súa era unha historia reconstruída a partir dunhas poucas fotos, escasas conversas familiares e moita fantasía: na miña casa sempre se mantivo un reino de silencio sobre esa persoa, nas pouquísimas fotos que teño visto de Pedro en Bos Aires hai como un aire de película e el parece un actor de cine (Palacios 2010: 154). Cartas e fotografías son os documentos persoais que máis abundan nos relatos sobre a emigración pero, ao non contar cunha historia de vida en primeira persoa, unha alternativa era restituír esas experiencias da emigración a través das narracións elaboradas por escritoras a partir das fontes orais no seo familiar.

9 09 Galicia 21 No caso da historia de Pedro, merecía análise o silencio que a familia gardara sobre a súa vida por mor do seu exilio tras participar no bando repu- blicano durante a Guerra Civil. Aínda que o silencio familiar sobre os seus Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas membros exiliados fose unha situación frecuente e comprensíbel debido Manuela Palacios ás represalias sufridas, interesaba indagar na relación entre trauma e testemuño ou, pola contra, silencio, así como a posta en práctica da prohibición, explícita ou implícita, de falar sobre o exiliado.4 Gómez suplía, logo, a falta de relatos familiares coa súa interpretación desinhibidamente fantasiosa das poucas fotografías de Pedro que gardaba a familia. Fronte a unha aproximación historiográfica que puidese desbotar este tipo de reconstrucións dos acontecementos porque están faltas de recordos e sobradas de fantasía, a perspectiva literaria deste estudo descubriu en descricións como a 4 de Gómez un interese suplementario: non só se podería coñecer a relación Relatos semellantes doutras escritoras galegas e irlandesas, como entre exilio e silencio, senón que se poderían observar os mecanismos psicolóxicos de defensa fronte ao esquecemento e as estratexias narrativas dis- Marilar Aleixandre e Lia Mills, sobre o silencio familiar arredor poñíbeis para reconstruír a historia do exiliado. Pero para que nacera esta da cuestión do exilio leváronme a reconstrución da historia de Pedro e dada a ausencia dos relatos familiares, escribir posteriormente o artigo era imprescindíbel un obxecto persoal e a foto era o único documento persoal co que contaba Gómez para elaborar esa historia. Exilio e tabú (Palacios 2013), no que analizo a relación entre trauma, silencio e o oficio de escritora, Paralelamente ás enquisas ás escritoras galegas, enviáranse outras así como as diversas estratexias narrativas empregadas polas autoras semellantes a unha serie de escritoras irlandesas, as cales forneceron interesantes historias familiares e, de xeito salientábel, relatos sobre mulleres para pronunciar o impronunciábel e restituír e re-construír a historia migrantes. En concreto, a escritora Rita Kelly comentaba como a emigración irlandesa chegou a ser tan elevada que foi percibida como un proceso do exiliado nun exercicio de responsabilidade moral. natural e un patrón de vida inevitábel.5 As escritoras irlandesas falaban 5 ademais de nais, tías, avoas e irmás emigrantes e Kelly mesmo salientaba Explica Kelly (2010) na súa resposta á enquisa que lle enviei: This xénero nos discursos sobre a migración, tan relevante a este proxecto que que moitas destas mulleres emigraran soas. Á importancia do vector de is a particular reality for the West daquela se centraba na relación de muller e estranxeiría, uniuse o interese of Ireland, where emigration was polo papel que desempeñaba a fotografía na produción de relatos sobre a always high still continues to emigración. be because of difficult economic circumstances, large families and A fotografía comentada por Kelly na enquisa a escritora irlandesa very little land. [ ] it becomes a reelaborou o texto posteriormente para a súa publicación (Palacios 2016: natural process for people to go ) era a da súa avoa Margaret Rabbitte, quen emigrara soa aos They/we grow into that pattern. We Estados Unidos arredor de As principais semellanzas entre os relatos de Gómez e Kelly son, por unha parte, a referencia á escaseza de fon- feel that if we do not go/leave, then our siblings will. Reproducido aquí co permiso da escritora. tes orais directas, aínda que no caso de Kelly non se alude a ningún tipo de tabú sobre a vida da persoa emigrante, e, por outra, ese suplemento imaxinativo polo que as poetas achegan suposicións que elas mesmas recoñecen como de pouca base real. Entre as principais diferenzas é de salientar, por unha banda, o feito de que a protagonista da experiencia migratoria no relato de Kelly sexa unha muller, o que leva a introducir numerosas consideracións sobre as circunstancias específicas da migración feminina no relato, e por outra banda a detallada información antropolóxica que a autora nos dá sobre hábitos e prácticas culturais tanto na terra de orixe como na de destino. Kelly comeza por expresar as súas dúbidas sobre a fiabilidade dunha fotografía para coñecer de veras a personalidade da muller retratada, o cal lle serve de escusa, ou mesmo lexitimación, para especular sobre aspectos varios da vida íntima da súa avoa: The photograph seems very sexy to me. I think this woman had great reserves of sexual energy (Palacios 2016: 158). Isto non quere dicir que Kelly deixe voar a imaxinación sen preocuparse polo contexto social e histórico porque, pola contra, o seu relato fornece información moi precisa sobre a dieta rural en Irlanda a

10 10 Galicia 21 finais do século xix, sobre a vestimenta e o impacto das modas que viñan de Londres e París, así como sobre os tipos de traballos dispoñíbeis en Estados Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios Unidos para as emigrantes irlandesas. Destes relatos de Lupe Gómez e Rita Kelly resultan de especial interese os seguintes aspectos: a complexa ancoraxe da historia nas fotografías e nos relatos, o reiterado recurso á fotografía para contar as historias da emigración, a relevancia destes documentos persoais e historias individuais para construír a historia colectiva, os diferentes graos de ficción que as autoras decidían incorporar nos seus textos e as posíbeis xustificacións para combinar o relato de base social e histórica coa especulación imaxinativa e, finalmente, os traballos da memoria que, como ben afirma Josefina Cuesta (2014: 34-38), non consisten só no recordo, senón tamén no silencio e o esquecemento. Foi entón cando naceu o proxecto foto-grafías co obxecto de rescatar as experiencias das mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas, así como para estimular a produción de discursos sobre elas, porque a nosa obriga desde o ámbito académico non é só estudar o que nos transmitiu a historia senón tamén facilitar os espazos e medios para que se poida restituír e reconstruír o pasado desde o maior número de puntos de vista posíbeis. As especialistas en literatura de viaxes e autobiografía (Siegel 2004; Lawrence 1994; Morris 1993) veñen salientando os efectos das discriminacións de xénero e clase na difusión da experiencia feminina de mobilidade. Moitos dos relatos de mulleres sobre as súas viaxes e desprazamentos víronse restrinxidos ao medio oral, o espazo doméstico e o contexto familiar, xa que as mulleres non contaban ou ben co nivel formativo ou ben co acceso aos medios de publicación e o prestixio intelectual que fixesen perdurar as súas narracións. Kristi Siegel (2004: 2) mesmo sinalou o paradoxo de que algunhas historias de mulleres viaxeiras perdurasen no tempo precisamente porque as escribiran homes intelectuais de prestixio e non as propias mulleres que viviran a experiencia da viaxe. Por esta razón, un dos obxectivos do proxecto foto-grafías foi reconstruír a experiencia das mulleres migrantes para difundila alén da oralidade e do seo familiar por outros medios a escrita e a fotografía e noutros espazos a esfera pública. Ademais das consideracións xa expostas, os obxectivos do proxecto foto-grafías eran os de indagar na intersección de xénero e mobilidade no que respecta ao corpo (idade, sexualidade e reprodución, enfermidade, alimentación, as fames), así como o grao de axencialidade da muller no deseño da viaxe e a percepción que ten dela como experiencia forzosa, ou ben de auto-afirmación, mesmo liberadora. Importantes son tamén as circunstancias que favorecen ou dificultan a viaxe como, por exemplo, os factores económicos, as obrigas familiares, as restricións fronteirizas para mulleres que viaxan soas, con ou sen fillos e, en xeral, o control social sobre a muller e as expectativas arredor do seu comportamento. No tocante á experiencia da migración, cumpría analizar cales eran os momentos seleccionados para o recordo, o estado anímico e afectivo provocado polo desprazamento, o sentimento de pertenza ou alienación na sociedade de destino, os vínculos transnacionais que a emigrante mantén entre a sociedade de orixe e de destino, as motivacións para o retorno, así como as circunstancias das mulleres que quedan agardando pola volta do ou da emigrante nais, esposas e fillas (análises dispoñíbeis en Palacios 2014 e Palacios 2016). No presente artigo, serán dous os aspectos de especial relevancia para a análise comparativa que se comentarán máis adiante: a representación e configuración do corpo feminino e o impacto emocional, mesmo traumático, da migración.

11 11 Galicia 21 Con todos eses obxectivos en mente comecei por solicitar a nove escritores e escritoras de Galicia que comentasen a fotografía dunha muller da súa contorna que emigrara e, posteriormente, fixen outro tanto con nove Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas escritoras de Irlanda. Se incluín a escritores galegos neste traballo foi para Manuela Palacios involucralos tamén neste proxecto feminista de restitución da experiencia das mulleres. Como algún escritor irlandés declinou o convite a participar, propúxenme comprobar se unha mostra exclusivamente feminina ofrecería resultados diferentes dos da mostra mixta galega. Para as dúas mostras escollín a profesionais dos distintos xéneros da escrita (poesía, narrativa, teatro e ensaio) e diferentes idades. O obxectivo do presente artigo é precisamente comparar e contrastar estas colaboracións de escritores e escritoras 6 de Galicia e Irlanda. Na discusión deste corpus, todas as citas dos relatos galegos proceden de Palacios 2014, mentres que as dos relatos irlandeses proveñen de Palacios De agora en diante, as citas galegas e irlandesas levarán só o número de páxina. Corpus galego e irlandés de relatos e fotografias: unha aproximación comparada Para a compilación de relatos galegos, acompañados as máis das veces das fotografías que describen, contouse coa xenerosa colaboración de Luz Pichel (1947), Helena Villar Janeiro (1940), Mario Regueira (1979), Ramón Nicolás (1966), Lorena Souto (1983), Arturo Casas (1958), Martín Veiga (1970), Mercedes Queixas (1968) e María Reimóndez (1975). Como na proposta feita a escritores e escritoras se suxería un enfoque amplo sobre a mobilidade feminina que abranguese non só a emigración senón tamén outras experiencias de desprazamento e viaxe, foron os cinco primeiros autores os que se centraron nas vivencias de mulleres emigrantes, mentres que os catro restantes se referiron a outras experiencias de mobilidade feminina por razóns de traballo, estudos e actos de guerra. Por se trataren de desprazamentos realizados ben en distancias curtas ben polo desexo de viaxar, as catro narracións derradeiras non serían consideradas propiamente historias da emigración. Para a compilación irlandesa, contei coa amábel colaboración das escritoras Paula Meehan (1955), Rita Kelly (1953), Celia de Fréine (1948), Evelyn Conlon (1952), Lorna Shaughnessy (1961), Máighréad Medbh (1959), Catherine Phil MacCarthy (1954), Mary O Donnell (1954) e Lia Mills (1957). Das nove escritoras irlandesas, seis optaron por se referir a historias de emigración provocadas pola falta de oportunidades laborais en Irlanda, outras dúas comentaron a experiencia de mulleres monxas nas misións católicas, e un derradeiro caso conta o abandono do país de orixe por complexas circunstancias persoais e identitarias. Comparando os tipos de mobilidade nestas colaboracións, pódese afirmar que a súa variedade é semellante nas compilacións galega e irlandesa, se ben o desprazamento das mulleres nas historias irlandesas comporta sempre a viaxe a outros países e mesmo a terras moi distantes. Ao se tratar de mostras reducidas de autores e autoras, as coincidencias nas ocupacións das mulleres migrantes chaman especialmente a atención. Tal é o caso nos relatos de Helena Villar Janeiro e Mario Regueira sobre mulleres que traballaron como amas de cría aleitando os fillos doutras mulleres da burguesía na sociedade de destino, pero debendo para iso deixar na terra de orixe os seus propios fillos (Palacios 2014: ).6 Un caso semellante, por se tratar tamén dunha nai que emigra soa e deixa os fillos no país de orixe ao coidado do home, é o relatado por Luz Pichel ( ). Pola contra, na compilación de relatos irlandeses non hai ningún caso con esta ocupación de ama de cría e o episodio que se relata de

12 Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios 12 Galicia 21 muller coidadora dunha anciá non comporta o aspecto traumático de ter que deixar os propios fillos na terra de orixe. Sábese, con todo, que as migrantes irlandesas dominaron o mercado de amas de cría nos Estados Unidos durante o século xix (Golden 2001: 72). A ausencia da figura da ama de cría neste corpus de relatos irlandeses pódese deber ao reducido da mostra, pero consultados en correspondencia privada tanto escritores e escritoras como especialistas en historia e ciencias sociais en Irlanda, evidenciouse a escaseza de estudos en Irlanda sobre esta ocupación, polo que podería haber unha certa amnesia colectiva ante un tema incómodo e silenciado. En calquera caso, a aproximación comparada permite identificar novas cuestións de análise do fenómeno migratorio ao debater nunha comunidade aspectos que semellan esquecidos na outra. Os relatos de Helena Villar Janeiro e Mario Regueira sobre as amas de cría, xa que logo, non só son de gran relevancia en Galicia polo que contan senón tamén en Irlanda polo que alí se cala. A migración galega de mulleres que viaxan soas, deixando home e fillos na terra de orixe, constitúe unha modalidade destacábel do protagonismo da muller nos fluxos migratorios e evidencia a necesidade de estudar a migración feminina alén de categorías máis frecuentes como a da emigración familiar. Tanto Pichel como Villar Janeiro e Regueira comentan de xeito explícito as remesas que estas mulleres enviaban aos seus fogares, salientando así a súa axencialidade económica e xustificando, ao paso, a necesidade de emigrar debido ás penurias sufridas en Galicia: O home dáballe mala vida e ela non podía ver as fillas pasando fame, di Regueira (123). Outro aspecto a salientar na ocupación de ama de cría é a da considerábel distancia social entre a clase da migrante e a da familia que a emprega. Porén, non se refiren nos relatos galegos situacións de confrontación entre as partes senón, todo o contrario, relacións de afecto, comprensión, apoio e recompensa. Fala Villar Janeiro da señora, que quixo premiar daquela a fidelidade da ama de cría (123) e Regueira dinos da súa tataravoa: Choraba polos recantos dunha grande mansión até que o rei de alén mar a escoitou e lle deixou cartos para volver (124). Sónia Ferreira (2012: 127) alude ao saudosismo ou mitificación da experiencia migratoria e, nestes relatos, parece como se se transmitise, dunha xeración á seguinte, unha certa idealización das relacións entre empregadores e migrantes. Pola contra, Janet Golden (2001: 97) refírese á elevada mortalidade infantil en Estados Unidos, mesmo a finais do século xix, entre os fillos biolóxicos das amas de cría e cualifica como criminal o mercado laboral estimulado polas clases podentes, que salvaban os seus fillos a costa dos das empregadas migrantes, na súa maioría irlandesas. Unha liña de traballo moi frutífera para a análise tanto dos relatos galegos como irlandeses é a dos estudos do trauma, liña especialmente relevante aos estudos da migración, pero que non adoita ser empregada nos mesmos dun xeito explícito. Á hora de identificar as feridas psíquicas na narración do trauma, tal e como suxire Hartman (2003: 257, 259), obsérvase que, no relato de Luz Pichel sobre unha nai que ten que abandonar os seus propios fillos para ir coidar dos alleos noutro continente, abundan as pegadas do trauma: manifestacións deliberadas de pathos ( Ela nunha caixa grande mercada por Santa Lucía, defunciones, 122), confesións de culpabilidade ( Nunca vos tive que tener dejado. Muero triste por iso, 122), heteroglosia e sinais de conflito lingüístico que o son á vez dun choque cultural, económico e de clase ( agora voy algo mejor, 122), confusións intencionadas dos acontecementos ( Métea no cadaleito, non a mete no cadaleito, 122) e, finalmente, descualificacións ( gorda, fea, 122). Con todo, outros relatos sobre nais separadas das súas crianzas, como o de Helena Villar Janeiro,

13 13 Galicia 21 temperan o dramatismo da situación cunha narración relativamente impersoal ( Nacera en 1872, casara con Secundino aos 20 anos e tiña agora 34, 122) e a descrición obxectiva e exhaustiva. Pola súa parte, Mario Regueira Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas contrarresta o pathos dos acontecementos con elementos metaficcionais do Manuela Palacios conto infantil e a tradición oral ( no medio das brétemas dos relatos, sempre penso que os presidentes de alén mar son para nós como os reis dos contos, 124), pero a subxectividade dos xuízos, a indeterminación de feitos e circunstancias que envolven o relato na néboa e a construción dunha heroína valente e protectora dos seus ( disposta a que ningún home de chapeu nos fixese pasar fame de novo, 124) favorecen unha lectura emotiva. Afirma R.W. Connell (2005), no seu estudo sobre a masculinidade, que nos países occidentais prósperos os homes están a recibir das mulleres moito apoio emocional sen sentiren a obriga social de corresponder a ese afecto e engade que no caso dos homes a taboo on free expression of emotions, especially vulnerability, continues (this is perhaps now changing) (2005: 247). Nos relatos galegos de autoría masculina non é infrecuente atopar a expresión de afectos e emocións. Se ben é certo que o contexto familiar e confesional dos relatos favorece a carga emotiva, atópanse en textos como o de Ramón Nicolás un grao de empatía coa muller desprazada da súa terra natal, unha capacidade tan extraordinaria para se poñer no lugar dela e unha expresión privilexiada dos afectos ( Quíxome moito e eu a ela tamén, 127) que revelan un contra-discurso con respecto á tradicional represión das emocións que o patriarcado impón aos homes. Na súa análise do discurso amoroso, Roland Barthes (2007) lamenta o descrédito da sentimentalidade na modernidade, e salienta o poder transgresor de quen se expón a expresar os seus sentimentos. Suzanne Clark (1991) coincide neste potencial transgresor da sentimentalidade e salienta a súa dimensión ética. Refírese Clark á represión do sentimental por parte de escritores e lectores que temen caer nunha especie de maternal indulgence (1991: 8). Nos relatos dos escritores galegos da mostra analizada exprésanse desinhibidos sentimentos de unión con figuras maternas, sexan estas avoas, bisavoas ou tataravoas, polo que se pode suxerir que a reconstrución das historias das mulleres migrantes favorece un discurso transgresor fronte ás estratexias patriarcais que pretenden tanto silenciar esas historias como reprimir a expresión dos afectos. Esta sentimentalidade non resulta da práctica colonial de feminización do colonizado tal e como a describe Helena Miguélez- Carballeira (2013) para o caso galego, máis ben todo o contrario porque se trata dun rexeitamento da lóxica colonial e patriarcal na liña da ética da proximidade e os afectos que a mesma Miguélez-Carballeira (2010), seguindo a Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2003), expón na introdución á tradución inglesa do poemario Non son de aquí [I Am Not from Here] de María do Cebreiro (2010). Se entre os relatos galegos se daba a coincidencia ocupacional de dúas amas de cría, na compilación irlandesa son dous os relatos sobre monxas enviadas polas súas ordes relixiosas a misións católicas en partes afastadas do mundo, ocupación da que non hai caso ningún na compilación galega. Curiosamente as dúas historias de misioneiras van escritas en verso, porque nalgún momento das súas vidas as autoras Máighréad Medbh e Catherine Phil MacCarthy quixeron homenaxear por medio dun poema a vida aventureira, a personalidade emprendedora e relativamente autónoma, así como o traballo cos grupos desfavorecidos das súas parentes misioneiras. Estas dúas historias permiten barallar a hipótese de que o traballo asistencial nas misións ofrecese a algunhas mulleres unha alternativa á

14 14 Galicia 21 vida doméstica de sometemento a un esposo e total dedicación á crianza de fillos. As misións daban logo a oportunidade de viaxar e liderar iniciativas 7 Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios Para unha discusión polo miúdo do traballo de ama de cría, véxase o libro Amas de cría, da autoría do fotógrafo José Manuel Fraile Gil (2000). Nesta publicación fornécese información sobre as rexións de orixe das amas de cría, as cidades e grupos sociais con maior demanda deste servizo, os anuncios nos xornais tanto para ofrecer como para demandar emprego, as condicións laborais, a vestimenta das amas, etc. 8 O control da moral das mulleres por parte da Igrexa Católica non só se exercía no país de orixe senón que se tentaba practicar tamén sobre as migrantes no país de destino. Ademais da axuda que prestaba a parroquia aos e ás migrantes cos trámites administrativos da comunidade de acollida, os coidados sanitarios dos seus dispensarios e a acción caritativa, a Igrexa vixiaba para que as mulleres respectasen as súas normas morais e de pudor (Lillo 2004); Babiano & Fernández Asperilla (2009: 81, 96). 9 O Boletín Oficial del Estado do 22 de setembro de 2015 publicou a Ley Orgánica 11/2015, de 21 de septiembre, para reforzar la protección de las menores y mujeres con capacidad modificada judicialmente en la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo, na cal se estipula que as mulleres de 16 e 17 anos non poderán abortar sen o consentimento paterno (Jefatura del Estado, Gobierno de España 2015). Isto supón un retroceso lexislativo con respecto á lei de Porén, non prosperou a lei do aborto proposta polo Ministro de Xustiza Alberto Ruíz Gallardón e aprobada no Consejo de Ministros do 20 de de apoio á poboación de países empobrecidos. As coincidencias ocupacionais poderían facernos pensar en certos patróns na oferta de traballo dispoñíbel para as mulleres pola que en España se demandaba a ama de cría do norte (Sarasúa 2001: 34)7 e en Irlanda a Igrexa Católica penetraba eficazmente nas familias ata os anos 60 do século xx, contando moitas delas con algún membro no clero. Porén, como se dixo anteriormente, tamén houbo numerosas amas de cría irlandesas das que pouco se sabe, polo que cumpriría analizar en estudos futuros tanto as características desa migración feminina irlandesa como o papel das migrantes galegas nas misións católicas internacionais. As historias de misioneiras irlandesas desta mostra son un contrapunto oportuno ás numerosas historias de abusos sobre a infancia e as nais solteiras por parte das ordes relixiosas e o clero de Irlanda. Tal é o caso do relato de Mary O Donnell, quen nos fala das prácticas escurantistas da Igrexa Católica en materia de adopción de crianzas, así como dos acordos entre o clero e os laboratorios farmacéuticos para ensaiar vacinas nos nenos e nenas dos orfanatos. Outra visión crítica coa Igrexa Católica é a presentada por Kelly cando ironiza tanto na cuestión do control da Igrexa sobre os corpos e os espíritos dos seus fregueses e freguesas como na do financiamento, por parte das migrantes irlandesas en Estados Unidos, dos numerosos gastos das súas parroquias americanas. Na compilación galega non atopamos comentarios críticos sobre o papel da Igrexa nas sociedades de orixe e destino, malia sabermos que foi moi importante. Natacha Lillo (2004) fala, por exemplo, das españolas solteiras que emigraban a París nos anos 50 para escapar do control moral da Igrexa e da Falanxe.8 En xeral, a literatura irlandesa de autoría feminina vén amosando desde os anos setenta do século pasado unha crítica feroz dos abusos de poder por parte da Igrexa e vén denunciando a súa opresión das mulleres, mentres que na literatura galega esta crítica está moito máis diluída. É difícil explicar o porqué desta diverxencia, xa que o poder da institución eclesiástica foi significativo nas dúas comunidades, así como a súa estreita colaboración coas institucións políticas, de xeito que toda a sociedade viviu profundamente marcada polos ditados relixiosos, especialmente entre os anos trinta e setenta do século xx. Abunda a percepción de que o control moral e ideolóxico da Igrexa Católica sobre a poboación é máis férreo en Irlanda como se manifesta na resistencia a autorizar as prácticas de control da natalidade e cabe pensar que isto comporta unha oposición máis radical por parte das mulleres con conviccións feministas, pero os cambios lexislativos recentes no Estado español no tocante aos dereitos das mulleres para decidir sobre os seus corpos amosan que as distancias entre as dúas comunidades son agora máis reducidas.9 Ao igual que coa mostra galega, os estudos do trauma resultan de gran utilidade para analizar os relatos irlandeses deste estudo, pois neles abundan sinais de sufrimento traumático derivado da dislocación da emigrante e a división das familias. Os relatos de Celia de Fréine, Lorna Shaughnessy, Mary O Donnell e Lia Mills remiten á función terapéutica da escrita, a scriptoterapia (Henke 1998: xii), pola que o recordo traumático se transforma en recordo narrativo. Ao igual que nos relatos galegos, temos acceso a eses traumas cotiáns pero agochados e insidiosos que, como di Laura S. Brown (1995: 101-2), son a expresión das institucións dominantes. A emigración ten o seu custo emocional e persoal, polo que nestes relatos agroman experiencias de depresión, alcoholismo, resentimento, segredos,

15 15 Galicia 21 silencio e culpabilidade. De Fréine relata a profunda depresión na que cae a súa nai debido, en gran medida, á alienación sufrida na comunidade de destino. Interveñen neste caso factores históricos como o da división de Irlanda Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas entre o Norte e a República, motivos relixiosos por mor do predominio de Manuela Palacios protestantes no Norte e católicos no Sur, cuestións de clase debido á difícil situación económica da familia, e razóns de xénero polas restricións legais no acceso da muller casada ao emprego público, así como polas expectativas sociais arredor dos proxectos de vida das mulleres. O relato de De Fréine ilustra á perfección o concepto de scriptoterapia, pois a escritora remata aludindo á súa procura permanente da identidade a través da escrita: Most of all, I wanted to find out who I was and where I belonged. Each time I take decembro de 2013, que colocaría a pen in hand I continue my quest (162). Pola súa parte, Lorna Shaughnessy lexislación española entre as máis revela os efectos do trauma, neste caso o alcoholismo, á vez que os recobre con metáforas e alusións oblicuas: That shade of claret matched her restritivas de Europa. 10 nails and lips (163), [the voices] submerged in the bottle wrapped in brown Para esta discusión das ideas de paper in her shopping basket (166). Mary O Donnell, no seu relato, suscita Susan Sontag emprego a edición de a pregunta recorrente de por que marchou a súa medio-irmá pero, malia Edhasa de 1981 en castelán. A paxinación corresponde a esta edición. as explicacións tentativas, a pregunta retorna unha e outra vez: It is the knowing why that counts (173). Abundan as metáforas do campo semántico da enfermidade a emigración adoita expresarse con termos como hemorraxia, sangría, etc. e as preguntas sen resposta. Estes enigmas poden deberse a que a homenaxe á persoa querida que marchou non é facilmente compatíbel coa declaración de toda a verdade, pero ocorre tamén que non sempre se coñecen as motivacións máis íntimas para a partida da emigrante. Algunhas estratexias para se enfrontar aos recordos dolorosos pasan, aínda que semelle un paradoxo, polo sentido do humor, como é o caso do relato de Evelyn Conlon: My grandmother finally visited her daughter, thought it was not so far away at all, the flight was just a couple of rosaries long (163). Na maioría dos casos, obsérvase o que Maurice Halbwachs denominaba a urxencia de contar (cit. en Godinho 2012: 16) para rescatar do esquecemento as experiencias destas mulleres tan importantes no seo familiar e na historia persoal. Así, por exemplo, Lia Mills expresa no seu relato sentimentos de culpabilidade por perder o contacto coas súas sobriñas: I could see [my sister] in both of them, and she was none too pleased with me, for giving up so easily (175). Aproveita Mills a ocasión deste relato para render unha homenaxe pública á súa irmá: The shape we make when we re together has Lyn s absence at its core. We fill it with talking about her (175). Foto-grafías: alén das aparencias Retomo agora a cuestión da fotografía porque neste proxecto a foto non é unha mera ilustración nin é só un soporte do relato, senón que ten repercusións moi variadas na configuración da experiencia migratoria e na relación entre os que marchan e os que quedan. Dinos Susan Sontag (1981: 13)10 que, coa súa aparición, a fotografía introduciu unha nova gramática e ética da visión, alterando e ampliando as nocións sobre o que paga a pena mirar e o que temos dereito a observar. Esta afirmación é aínda agora relevante, especialmente no caso das fotografías de mulleres migrantes nestas compilacións galegas e irlandesas, porque se trata de suxeitos subalternos, en situacións económicas e sociais moi precarias e porque, ao se trataren de mulleres, sufriron unha dobre discriminación, económica e de xénero, polo que as súas experiencias apenas gozaron de visibilidade. A nova gramática da

16 16 Galicia 21 visión, seguindo a Sontag, consiste neste caso en lles dar valor a estas fotografías de mulleres migrantes e afirmar que paga a pena miralas. Por outra Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios parte, son documentos persoais e podemos sentir algún tipo de reserva ao contemplarmos imaxes destinadas a cumprir unha función na comunicación familiar e privada. Aínda que os seus parentes as cedan agora xenerosamente para a súa difusión pública, contribuíndo así á investigación sobre o papel das mulleres nos movementos migratorios e colaborando na reconstrución da memoria colectiva, o temor a caer nunha práctica voyeurista mantén vixente a cuestión sobre a ética da visión e o que temos dereito a observar de acordo con Sontag. Outra dimensión ética da fotografía tamén sinalada por Sontag é o feito de que esperte a conciencia sobre unha situación histórica (27), o cal coincide cun dos obxectivos do proxecto foto-grafías. Afirma igualmente Sontag que a fotografía promove a nostalxia (25) e, certamente, neste proxecto emprégase a fotografía para axudar a memoria no seu traballo, constituíndo unha fonte documental, apoiando a fiabilidade do testemuño e espertando a memoria, o cal, como advirte Bruna Peyrot, se fai segundo os desexos e necesidades do presente (cit. en Cuesta 2014: 32). Pero ademais do seu valor documental, a fotografía é unha representación da realidade segundo uns criterios técnicos e expresivos propios, polo que Sontag nos advirte de que prestemos atención ás mediacións estéticas e ideolóxicas desa representación (16). No extremo oposto á función documental, a fotografía pode converterse, segundo a intelectual estadounidense, nun convite constante á especulación e a fantasía (33), o cal, como vimos anteriormente, era o caso de Lupe Gómez cando fantasiaba coa foto do seu tío-avó Pedro e tamén é o caso de Lorena Souto na compilación galega ( ). Souto descríbenos unha foto do álbum familiar cunha muller de identidade pouco precisa: unha muller misteriosa que ninguén foi quen de asegurar con certeza quen é. A idea máis aproximada é que pode tratarse dunha tía da miña avoa que marchou para América (Souto 2013). Esta función especulativa é máis pronunciada cando faltan datos reais sobre a vida da muller retratada, pero por outra parte casa ben coa aguda conciencia na voz narradora de todos os elementos narrativos e ficcionais que constitúen un relato. Advírtenos Sontag dos aspectos enganosos da fotografía e afirma que a comprensión verdadeira dun acontecemento comeza cando non se acepta o mundo pola súa aparencia (34). Entre as mediacións estéticas e ideolóxicas na fotografía da emigración está a de transmitir a mensaxe de éxito e benestar, polo que Pierre Bourdieu (1965: 45) salienta a función social deste tipo de fotografía por enriba das particularidades individuais que poida revelar. O relato de Luz Pichel comenta a reacción da filla ao contemplar a foto enviada pola nai: e pareceulle guapa de máis para ser a súa nai. Pensou: cando volva, se volve, se cadra non se lle pode tocar (120). A fotografía, polo tanto, non é só unha pseudo-presenza senón que, debido ao proceso de idealización, acrecenta a distancia entre nai e filla. Son moitas as escritoras irlandesas que tamén se refiren ao enganosas que son as fotografías que comentan, xa que amosan mulleres felices e prósperas cando os relatos evidencian as dificultades das súas vidas. Hai casos, como o de Celia de Fréine, no que a foto da rapaza nova, cultivada e risoña representa todo o contrario do que foi a historia da muller á que os continuos desprazamentos, a división da familia pola fronteira entre Irlanda do Norte e do Sur, e as dificultades económicas afundiron nunha depresión severa. É como se a fotografía representase todo o que a vida prometía na xuventude e logo negou. Algo semellante ocorre coa foto comentada por Lorna Shaughnessy,

17 17 Galicia 21 na que o brillo dos ideais burgueses non deixa ver o custo emocional que a muller retratada paga pola dislocación e a alienación que comporta a emigración. Casos á parte son as fotografías comentadas tanto por Catherine Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Phil MacCarthy como por Mary O Donnell. A primeira presenta a misioneira irlandesa obxecto do seu relato rodeada das mulleres peruanas coas Manuela Palacios que traballaba. Xuntas expoñen, con dignidade pero sen triunfalismo, os xerseis que tecían en equipo, nun exercicio de trans-etnicidade ao compartiren saberes e artesanías. Mary O Donnell escolle a foto dunha muller pensativa e co rostro marcado polo paso da vida. Prima nesta escolla fotográfica e no relato que a acompaña o valor emocional da foto e da experiencia compartida, a percepción crítica do país de orixe cos seus escándalos e abusos sobre a infancia así como do país de destino, polos ideais de emprego, xuventude, saúde e progreso que difunde pero dificilmente pode cumprir. Xa que os relatos parten dunha fotografía, adoitan describir o corpo e aspecto físico da muller retratada, o cal introduce aspectos novos con respecto á literatura de viaxes de mulleres, xa que segundo Kristi Siegel (2004: 9) estes textos se caracterizaban pola escaseza de referencias ao propio corpo, presentando a viaxe máis coma unha aventura espiritual ou un reto psicolóxico que coma unha proba para coñecer as limitacións do propio corpo. Nesta supresión do corpo influíron as teorías patriarcais sobre o pudor feminino que criticaron, especialmente a partir dos anos setenta do século xx, autoras como Hélène Cixous (1975), Julia Kristeva (1985), Susan Rubin Suleiman (1986) e Margaret Miles (1986), entre outras moitas intelectuais feministas. Falábanos por entón Cixous dun patriarcado que confiscara o corpo das mulleres mediante unha censura que as afogaba sen deixar fluír a súa linguaxe e defendía a autora que as mulleres debían recuperar a escrita e, con ela, o seu corpo. Isto foi o que fixeron as escritoras galegas e irlandesas posteriores tanto ao denunciaren a represión do corpo por parte das institucións patriarcais como ao inscribilo sen tabús na súa obra. Así, por exemplo, a escritora Lupe Gómez denunciou no seu texto autobiográfico Fisteus era un mundo: A igrexa rompíache o corpo (2001: 32) e Eavan Boland criticou a retórica nacional da Irlanda Nai nun país que odiaba o corpo das mulleres (2007: 31-32). No tocante a este proxecto fotografías, observamos que nos relatos das autoras galegas e irlandesas non hai esa supresión do corpo que lamentaba Siegel (2004: 9). Certamente, non se trata neste caso das narracións en primeira persoa das propias viaxeiras, senón dun relato, adoito en terceira persoa, construído arredor dunha fotografía. Aquí radica parte do interese de acompañar fotos con relatos e estimular a produción de discursos sobre un documento visual, porque incita a introducir elementos como o da descrición do corpo que poderían pasar a un segundo plano noutro tipo de relato biográfico. Atopamos nesta

18 18 Galicia 21 mostra o exemplo de Helena Villar Janeiro, quen alude desinhibidamente ao humor popular sobre o corpo feminino sexuado e ao busto xeneroso da Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios avoa que exerceu como ama de cría, para contradicir o dito popular que describe as mulleres da Cancelada con seos grandes pero pouco leite: Vaca de Cancelada, moito ubre e pouca canada (122). Porén, a referencia ás funcións reprodutoras do corpo feminino non é exclusiva desta autora, porque no outro caso de ama de cría tratado por Mario Regueira, atopamos de novo a referencia aos peitos e o leite materno ( Co leite do último parto fresco nos peitos 123), xunto coas hipóteses á vez veladas e desveladas sobre a estratexia para manter o leite: Na familia cóntase a media voz que levou un canciño oculto entre as roupas e que o aleitou durante a longa viaxe en barco para poder traballar chegada a La Habana ( ). Carmen Sarasúa (2001: 35-36) documenta esta práctica, entre as amas de cría, de aleitar un cadeliño durante a viaxe para conservar o leite nos peitos. Regueira selecciona este momento coma o que mellor expresa o sufrimento destas mulleres migrantes: Se tivese que escoller unha imaxe dela das que non teño, querería esa, a da travesía, a dos laios disimulados, a dos cairos como alfinetes nos peitos, a da rotunda determinación de sobrevivir (124). A forza expresiva e retórica desta frase, coa enumeración das penalidades in crescendo, amosa o alto grao de empatía do narrador non só con esa muller da familia senón tamén co seu corpo. Un dos aspectos corporais relevantes á cuestión migratoria é a referencia á gordura na terra de destino. Luz Pichel presenta unha migrante quen, despois de vivir na escaseza en Galicia e tras as dificultades da travesía, gaña peso unha vez instalada en Venezuela: Engordara. Engordou. Engordou abondo (120). Esta insistencia na gordura é a manifestación visible do éxito do proxecto migratorio, pero a escritora tamén emprega o adxectivo gorda como descualificación no conflito de clase e na rivalidade pola atención e coidados da figura materna entre a filla da migrante e a nena da familia burguesa: Parécelle parva, parécelle gorda (120). Un uso distinto é o que Rita Kelly dá á cuestión da gordura, pois fala de como as migrantes irlandesas dos anos vinte do século pasado coñeceron o caramelo nos Estados Unidos e menciona o efecto do azucre nos corpos: In Ireland their youth and their hard work on the land certainly kept them fit and very trim. However, the abundance of food and sweet foods in the US would change that aspect of their lives (158). Cómpre lembrar, con todo, que estes relatos están escritos na actualidade, polo que é posíbel que se mesturen criterios estéticos e percepcións socio-económicas do corpo de tempos pasados e do presente. Conclusión Para recapitular, cómpre salientar que a participación dos escritores e escritoras de Galicia e Irlanda no proxecto foto-grafías revela que hai unha urxencia por contar, tanto como estratexia terapéutica como para loitar contra o esquecemento. Fotografías e relatos infórmannos do impacto da migración nas sociedades galegas e irlandesas os cambios sociais e económicos, pero tamén evidencian o custo persoal tanto para a muller migrante como para a súa contorna familiar. Estas lembranzas individuais dan forma á nosa identidade colectiva e fálannos de terras de migración que constitúen o que Marga do Val denomina paisaxes herdadas para se referir aos países aos que emigraron as persoas da súa contorna próxima (cit. en Nogueira 2014: 163).

19 19 Galicia 21 Malia o valor documental das fotografías, obsérvase a reticencia das narradoras e narradores a se fiaren das aparencias e, paralelamente, os escritores e escritoras fan gala da súa conciencia narradora e mediadora entre realidade e ficción ao empregaren un amplo abano de estratexias narrativas Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios para re-construír a historia da migración. Ás mediacións estéticas e ideolóxicas, cómpre engadir as emocionais na medida na que textos e fotografías falan da identidade individual e do grupo. Constátase a utilidade dos estudos do trauma para a análise dos relatos da migración á hora de identificar as pegadas do trauma no discurso. Compróbase tamén que se van diluíndo algunhas distincións patriarcais de xénero no relativo ao tratamento do corpo e as emocións por parte de escritores e escritoras, o cal fai que non se observen diferenzas notábeis entre a mostra exclusiva de escritoras irlandesas e a mixta de escritores e escritoras de Galicia. Entre as diferenzas máis salientábeis nos relatos galegos e irlandeses aquí analizados, merece mención a abondosa presenza da Igrexa Católica nas historias da emigración irlandesa, así como a crítica explícita ás súas prácticas corruptas e manipuladoras. Obsérvase tamén como o mercado laboral das mulleres vai en certa medida diferenciado por rexións e como Galicia enviou un bo número de amas de cría a outras partes da península e do estranxeiro, o cal vén confirmado tanto polas fontes historiográficas como polo corpus de relatos galegos aquí comentado. No tocante a Irlanda, chama a atención a participación das súas monxas nas misións católicas dos países en desenvolvemento e o grao de axencialidade e participación na esfera pública que lles permitiu esta experiencia. Non se debe menosprezar, ademais, o papel destas misións nos futuros movementos migratorios en sentido contrario: a migración do suxeito poscolonial desde a colonia á metrópole, cuestión merecedora dun estudo á parte. Estas diferenzas, tanto ideolóxicas e relixiosas como ocupacionais, na migración das mulleres de Galicia e Irlanda suxiren aspectos de relevancia mutua para as dúas comunidades e fornecen novos obxectivos e criterios de análise para seguir explorándoas pois, como se suxeriu na discusión dos casos de amas de cría en Irlanda, poden revelar tabús, censuras, temores e, en xeral, silencios na memoria individual e colectiva da migración.

20 20 Galicia 21 Obras citadas Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios ACUÑA, Ana, ed., Letras nómades. Experiencias da mobilidade feminina na literatura galega (Berlin: Frank & Timme). ALIAGA SÁEZ, Felipe Andrés, ed., Cultura y migraciones. Enfoques multidisciplinarios (Santiago: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela). BABIANO, José & Ana FERNÁNDEZ ASPERILLA, Mujeres y trabajo en la emigración española a Europa de los años sesenta, en Liñares Giraut 2009: BALTRUSCH, Burghard, ed., Lupe Gómez: libre e estranxeira. Estudos e traducións (Berlin: Frank & Timme). BARTHES, Roland, Le discours amoureux (Paris : Éditions du Seuil). BOLAND, Eavan, Domestic Violence (Manchester: Carcanet). BOURDIEU, Pierre et al., Un art moyen. Essai sur les usages sociaux de la photographie (Paris: Éditions de Minuit). BROWN, Laura S., Not Outside the Range: One Feminist Perspective on Psychic Trauma, en Caruth 1995: CARUTH, Cathy, ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press). CIXOUS, Hélène & Catherine CLÉMENT, La jeune née (Paris: Union Générale d Editions). CLARK, Suzanne, Sentimental Modernism. Women Writers and the Revolution of the Word (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). CONNELL, R.W., Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press). CUESTA, Josefina, Una aproximación a las memorias, en Acuña 2014: DELANEY, Enda, Gender and Twentieth-Century Irish Migration, , en Sharpe 2001: FERREIRA, Sónia, Memória, identidade e género no seio de uma comunidade operária, en Godinho 2012: FRAILE GIL, José Manuel, Amas de cría (Urueña: Fundación Joaquín Díaz). GABACCIA, Donna, Women of the Mass Migrations: From Minority to Majority, , en Hoerder & Moch 1996:

21 21 Galicia 21 GODINHO, Paula, coord., Usos da memória e prácticas do património (Lisboa: Edições Colibri). Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios GOLDEN, Janet, [1996] A Social History of Wet Nursing in America. From Breast to Bottle (Columbus: Ohio State University Press). GÓMEZ, Lupe, Fisteus era un mundo (Vigo: Promocións Culturais Galegas). GUIBERNAU, Montserrat & John REX, eds., The Ethnicity Reader. Nationalism, Multiculturalism & Migration (Cambridge: Polity Press). HARTMAN, Geoffrey H., Trauma within the Limits of Literature, European Journal of English Studies 7(3): HARZIG, Christiane, Women Migrants as Global and Local Agents. New Research Strategies on Gender and Migration, en Sharpe 2001: HENKE, Suzette A., Shattered Subjects: Trauma and Testimony in Women s Life-Writing (London: Macmillan). HERNÁNDEZ BORGE, Julio & Domingo L. GONZÁLEZ LOPO, eds., Mujer y emigración: una perspectiva plural (Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela). HOERDER, Dirk & Leslie P. MOCH, eds., European Migrants: Global and Local Perspectives (Boston: Northeastern University Press). JEFATURA DEL ESTADO (Gobierno de España), Ley Orgánica 11/2015, de 21 de septiembre, para reforzar la protección de las menores y mujeres con capacidad modificada judicialmente en la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo, Boletín Oficial del Estado, Nº 227, Sección I: KELLY, Rita, Resposta á enquisa sobre migración e viaxe enviada por Manuela Palacios. 16 de maio. Sen publicar. KOSOFSKY SEDGWICK, Eve, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham & London: Duke University Press). KRISTEVA, Julia, Stabat Mater, trad. Arthur Goldhanner, Poetics Today 6 (1/2): LAWRENCE, Karen R., Penelope Voyages. Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press). LILLO, Natacha, Espagnoles en banlieu rouge. L intégration à travers le parcours des femmes ( ), Les Cahiers du CEDREF 12: Eds. Zaidman & Bachelet. Consulta LIÑARES GIRAUT, Amancio, coord., El protagonismo de la mujer en las corrientes migratorias españolas (Vigo: Grupo España Exterior).

22 22 Galicia 21 LORENZO MODIA, María Jesús, ed., (2016). Ex-sistere: Women s Mobility in Contemporary Irish, Welsh, and Galician Literatures (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing). Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios MARÍA DO CEBREIRO, I Am Not from Here, trad. Helena Miguélez- Carballeira (Exeter: Shearsman). MIGUÉLEZ-CARBALLEIRA, Helena, I am not from here : A Translation for María do Cebreiro, en María do Cebreiro 2010: 7-14., Galicia, a Sentimental Nation. Gender, Culture and Politics (Cardiff: University of Wales Press). MILES, Margaret, The Virgin s One Bare Breast: Female Nudity and Religious Meaning in Tuscan Early Renaissance Culture, en Suleiman 1986: MOROKVASIC, Mirjana, Birds of Passage Are Also Women, International Migration Review 18 (4): MORRIS, Mary, ed., Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers (New York: Vintage Books). MULDOWNEY, Mary, Very Humiliating for the Country : Differing Perspectives on the Emigration of Irish Women to Britain during the Second World War, en Ó haodha & O Callaghan 2012: NOGUEIRA, María Xesús, Apuntamentos Nómades. Viaxe e literatura nas escritoras galegas, en Acuña 2014: Ó HAODHA, Mícheál & John O CALLAGHAN, eds., Narratives of the Occluded Irish Diaspora. Subversive Voices (Oxford: Peter Lang). PALACIOS GONZÁLEZ, Manuela, Con Lupe Gómez en Santiago de Compostela. A escritora e a viaxe, Boletín Galego de Literatura 44: Entrevista. Reproducida en Baltrusch 2013: , Exilio e tabú, en Aliaga 2013: , Cuestión de enfoque: fotografía, muller e viaxe, en Acuña 2014: , (2016). Stand Still: Photographs of Irish Migrating Women, en Lorenzo Modia 2016: RODRÍGUEZ GALDO, María Xosé, Lugar y presencia de las mujeres españolas en la emigración exterior, en Liñares Giraut 2009: SARASÚA, Carmen, Leaving Home to Help the Family? Male and Female Temporary Migrants in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spain, en Sharpe 2001:

23 23 Galicia 21 SHARPE, Pamela, ed., Women, Gender and Labour Migration. Historical and Global Perspectives (London & New York: Routledge). Foto-grafías: mulleres migrantes galegas e irlandesas Manuela Palacios SIEGEL, Kristi, ed., Gender, Genre, & Identity in Women s Travel Writing (New York: Peter Lang). SIMON, Rita J. & Caroline BRETELL, eds., International Migration: the Female Experience (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld). SONTAG, Susan, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Sobre la fotografía, trad. Carlos Gardini (Barcelona: Edhasa). SOUTO, Lorena, Mensaxe electrónica á autora. 26 de marzo. SULEIMAN, Susan Rubin, ed., The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary Perspectives (Cambridge & London: Harvard University Press).

24 24 Galicia 21 Article As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Memorial University of Newfoundland Keywords Novels Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín Manuel Rivas Chronotopes Ghosts Spirituality Cosmopolitanism Palabras clave Novelas Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín Manuel Rivas Cronotopos Pantasmas Espiritualidade Cosmopolitismo Abstract This article undertakes a chronotopic reading of two Galician novels about the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship published in the 1990s: Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín s No ventre do silencio and Manuel Rivas s O lapis do carpinteiro. Mikhail Bakhtin developed the concept of the chronotope or time-space to think through how narrative could render time palpable and events in space concrete. These two novels are examined comparatively in terms of two chronotopes. The first comprises ghosts, portents of death, and other spiritual signs. This motif collapses and re-erects boundaries between moments in time, challenging readers to imagine the variety of visual images, soundscapes, and other sensory cues for the spectral that inscribed the geographical locations being described. The second chronotope, that is a strong thread in the novels, reminds readers of the cosmopolitan mixture of ideas, sounds, tastes, smells, sights, and textures that interrupted the cultural and political insulation employed as part of Francoist repression. The article concludes that a chronotopic approach to the analysis of fictional texts can enrich understandings of material found in other genres, including testimonial accounts. Resumo Neste artigo realízase unha lectura cronotópica de dúas novelas sobre a Guerra Civil española e a ditatura de Franco publicadas nos anos 90: No ventre do silencio, de Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín, e O lapis do carpinteiro, de

25 25 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Manuel Rivas. Mikhail Bakhtin desenvolveu o concepto do cronotopo ou tempo-espazo para explorar a maneira en que as narrativas poden facer o tempo palpable e os eventos no espazo concretos. Estas dúas novelas son analizadas comparativamente a través de dous cronotopos. O primeiro comprende as pantasmas, os presaxios da morte, e outros sinais espirituais. Este motivo fai colapsar e reconstruír as fronteiras entre os momentos no tempo, pedindo aos lectores que imaxinen a variedade de imaxes visuais, de paisaxes sonoras e doutras pistas sensoriais para o espectral que gravan as localizacións xeográficas descritas. O segundo cronotopo, que constitúe un fío forte nas novelas, recorda aos lectores a mestura cosmopolita das ideas, sons, gustos, cheiros e texturas que interrompían o illamento cultural e político empregado como parte da represión franquista. Este artigo conclúe que unha visión analítica que examina os cronotopos nos textos ficcionais pode enriquecer a comprensión de materiais atopados noutros xéneros, incluíndo os testemuños.

26 26 1 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman In a 2003 interview, Rivas argues that more such work continues to be needed. He notes, for example, that ni la generación de mis mayores ni yo ni mis menores han podido ver nunca en una televisión en España imágenes de cárceles del franquismo, de campos de concentración o de campos de trabajo de la dictadura (Rivas cited in Tejeda 2003). 2 To make the text less dense and thus more readable, all specific references in the paper are to these versions of the books with No ventre do silencio written VS followed by page numbers when relevant (e.g. VS: 36). Similarly, O lapis do carpinteiro is written with LC. The Castilian and English versions are Méndez Ferrín (2002) and Rivas (1998b, 2001). 3 It won eight María Casares Awards and three Mestre Mateo Awards, for best feature-length film as well as best actor and actress. This follows the featurelength film adaptation of another of his novels, the prize-winning La lengua de las mariposas (Cuerda 1999). 4 The Premio Eixo Atlántico de Novela (1998), Premio Asociación de Escritores en Lingua Galega (2000), and Premio da Crítica Española (2000). 5 On literary motifs, I am following Freedman (1971). Introduction Alongside historical prose, testimonial literature, drama and other genres, late 20th century fiction has played an important role in inscriptions of the contested memory of the Spanish Civil War and Francoism (Colmeiro 2011; González García 2009: ; Labanyi 2006: 90). The participation of Galician novelists such as Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín and Manuel Rivas in this process has fulfilled the mandate that Bourdieu and others have outlined as part of the obligation of public intellectuals in this case, to challenge both selective silencings and articulations about Galician experiences of these painful periods (Bourdieu 1998; Boyer and Lomnitz 2005; González García 2009: ; Martínez-Risco Daviña 2004; Nichols 2006; Rodríguez Suárez 2015: 317; Tasende 2001, 2004; Vilaverde Fernández 2011).1 This article employs Mikhail Bakhtin s (1981) concept of the chronotope to examine two novels: Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín s No ventre do silencio (1999) and O lapis do carpinteiro by Manuel Rivas (1998a).2 Both of these novels have had a major impact on public understandings of the Galician experience of the Civil War of and the Franco Dictatorship (Vilavedra Fernández 2011). O lapis do carpinteiro was adapted into a prize-winning play by the group Sarabela and a prize-winning film directed by Antón Reixa (2003).3 No ventre do silencio won three prizes and has been printed in numerous editions.4 These novels communicate the consciousness of previously suppressed experiences and memories to the members of a public who might or might not have lived in the times of broad uneasiness, intense fear, imprisonment, censorship, and violence depicted (Colmeiro 2011: 29). They keep alive a 19th century tradition of the realist-nationalist novel (Hooper 2011: 277), while drawing in elements of naturalism, the allegorical and the fantastic, and Bakhtinian dialogic fiction (Rodríguez García 2013: 22-23; Steen 2006). The literal meaning of chronotope is borrowed from the time-space of mathematics and Einstein s Theory of Relativity (Bakhtin 1981: 84). As Holquist explains, Bakhtin develops the idea of a chronotope as an optic for reading texts as x-rays of the forces at work in the culture system from which they spring (Holquist 1981: ). Bakhtin notes that: Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope (Bakhtin 1981: 84). He is interested in how novelists use details from spatial locations to move events along, and thereby represent historical time. Chronotopes make time palpable and visible and events concrete (Bakhtin 1981: 250). There are strong similarities in the two novels examined here in terms of the chronotopes that the authors use to frame and push forward their central story lines. I discuss two major chronotopic motifs in this essay.5 These novels both portray and represent counter-points to the erasures and silencings imposed during the war and the regime that followed. By outlining these processes of domination and simultaneously depicting some of the countervailing voices that supported as well as contended with them, these works respond to what Rivas emphasizes about the period: the intimidación, el miedo para todo, [ ] robarte las

27 27 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman palabras; que te amargaban la vida (Rivas cited in Tejeda 2003). His own response is personified in part with characters such as Herbal in O lapis do carpinteiro who, as Folkart (2006: 310) notes, while defined by his silence when the novel begins, increasingly speaks about, and acts on, his desire to express himself and be understood. The first of the chronotopic motifs discussed below comprises the sounds and other sensory indicators of death and danger coming from the spiritual world that accompanied people living in Galicia during the war and the dictatorship. This forms a powerful link between the novels, providing an existential challenge to the limitations of the spatialities and temporalities defined by empirical realism (Jackson 2005). The second chronotopic motif is an equally strong element in O lapis do carpinteiro and No ventre do silencio. It encompasses the cosmopolitan mixture fed from both the left and the right of ideas, sounds, tastes, smells, sights, and textures people were exposed to alongside a litany of sometimes pompous strivings for an insular and insulating Spain. As a chronotope, cosmopolitanism collapses the physical and other borders encasing Spain under the war and dictatorship. Like the first chronotope, it also reinforces links among the past, present, and future. The use of these two motifs creates a shared imaginary universe for a wide range of readers: those who have and have not experienced the time periods and the type of events that are described. They do so by juxtaposing what is known and unknown, what is remembered and forgotten, what has been experienced directly and heard about by the characters in the novels, the authors, and the readers alike. In the remainder of this essay, I illustrate how these two chronotopic motifs operate in the novels and conclude by considering how such readings of fiction can inform analyses of other cultural materials about the same period, including ethnographic interviews, testimonial literature, and biography. The Spiritual Chronotope: Spectral Signs of Death and Disaster In both novels, the silence, sounds, and other sensory projections of Francoist forces are interrupted by ghosts or restless spirits of the dead, portents of impending death, and other spiritual signs. This is a very effective chronotopic motif as it collapses, erases and then re-erects boundaries between moments in time, challenging readers to imagine the variety of countervailing voices, cries, images, and other perceptual elements that, for many Galicians, inscribed their experiences of the war and dictatorship as much as more worldly sensations (Feld 1996). This chronotope thus serves to question the way in which lucid memories can be confused with dreams and nightmares, spiritual visions, and halfremembered experiences. The Santa Compaña is a well-known classic topic in examinations of popular religion or vernacular spirituality in works of Galician folklore and ethnography. In Etnografía galega: cultura espiritual, for example, Xesús Taboada Chivite describes the tradition of leaving out meals for the souls of the dead and the famous nocturnal procession of souls in pain (Taboada Chivite 1972: 153). The classic configuration of this Santa Compaña is of a figure holding the cross and a dog announcing its arrival. Departing from a stone cross, they create a sacred space or magical circle (Taboada Chivite 1972: 154). María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar notes that the spectral and

28 28 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman the hauntological have, therefore, perhaps, been a privileged object of analysis for some mystical-essentialist readings of the Galician imaginary (Rábade Villar 2009: 237). But she goes on to discuss the spectral s equally subversive potential, including as a way to comment on the condition of the community that those very figures metonymically represent (Rábade Villar 2009: ; also see Labanyi 2000, 2002b). Ethnographers who are contemporaries of the novelists have reported on the same phenomena as Taboada Chivite and his forebears, on people having told them of seeing souls wandering around alone as opposed to being in processions with others, of making themselves known to humans through the sounds of chains, odd lights, and bitter cries or lamentations: laios amargurados (Taboada Chivite 1972: 155). These materials in ethnographic accounts are an indication of Galicians having been willing to share the many forms of palpability that make up their historical consciousness (Gondar Portasany 1989; Mariño Ferro 1984; Roseman 2002; also see Badone 1989 on Brittany). As Labanyi (2002b: 10-12) argues, it is helpful to think about the cultural worlds of both rural and urban Spain as hybrid, as being formed by ongoing recycling processes: the clear or implied presence of unsettled spirits of the dead as well as the active presence of animals, lights, smells, or sounds indicating spiritual foreknowledge of death. The smell (cheiro) of death is another enduring sign, sometimes called o aire de morto (Taboada Chivite 1972: 143). An array of animals signifies impending death or other trouble. The serpent is one of the ways in which the Devil is incarnated, with other animals including the donkey also being diabolical and sometimes the guise used by witches to visit the Devil (Mariño Ferro 1984: 93-94). Crows, like flies and wolves, feed on dead bodies and are classic creatures that announce the arrival of impending death (Mariño Ferro 1984: , ; Taboada Chivite 1972: 141). The hints of possible signs of death and other intimations of the other world in No ventre do silencio are woven throughout the narrative. Alluding to the novel La casa de la Troya, published in 1915 by Alejandro Pérez Lugín (2008 [1915]), which describes student life at the end of the 19th century, No ventre do silencio provides a rendition of the city of Santiago de Compostela in the late 1950s, peopled by university students, their professors, priests, the political elite of the Franco machine as well as landladies, prostitutes, seamstresses, maids, waiters, and disabled veterans of the war. This novel followed two earlier works in a trilogy: Antón e os inocentes (Méndez Ferrín 1976) and Bretaña, Esmeraldina (Méndez Ferrín 1987). Together with other earlier works Arrabaldo do norte (Méndez Ferrín 1964) and Retorno a Tagen Ata (Méndez Ferrín 1971), these form part of a series of political novels that gradually eschewed the conventions of realism (Rodríguez García 2013: 22; also, González Gómez 1995). In addition to attending lectures, the students spend many more hours walking the streets of Santiago de Compostela, drinking and talking in bars, and frequenting brothels. The locations are as much protagonists as the individuals are. Portents of death arrive in Santiago de Compostela s cobble-stoned streets and smoky bars. In his detailed accounts of the physicality and interior experiential perspective of the various characters who people this world in the 1950s, Méndez Ferrín also refers to the mysterious, elusive, and spiritual qualities associated with certain places such Unha rúa pantasma (vs: 143). A description of a tuna [group of student musicians] refers to the pandeiretas chicheando coma serpes no medio da

29 29 6 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Acuña (2002: 276) notes that Narda is the main character from Antón e os inocentes (Méndez Ferrín 1976). xungla (vs: 163). This parallels another scene describing a passing funeral cortège an occasion when the character Brétemas calls out O morto e o músico (vs: 176), alluding to the Galician image of the procession of the souls of the dead or Santa Compaña. The students Comesaña and Narda6 see a disabled veteran one rainy night singing marchas republicanas to unha multitude fantasmal that turns out to be dous da Policía Armada e un de paisano, con chapeu e gabardina (vs: 35). In another passage, the student Príncipe sees unha aparición, a young woman wearing a scarf in a long past fashion (vs: 127). As with the other novel, O lapis do carpinteiro includes extraordinary depictions of the sensory experiences of those who lived and died in Galician localities during the war and Franco dictatorship. Various authors have written about the centrality of ghosts (or phantoms) and the spectral in this novel and other works of Rivas s (e.g. Folkart 2006: 304, 307, 311; Rábade Villar 2009). The main spectre is the ghost of a prisoner that the guard killed early on in order to protect him from the torture and sadistic games that the other guards would impose (Folkart 2006: 307). This ghost is the painter who speaks to the character Herbal through the carpenter s pencil of the book s title. The repeated appearance of the dead painter through the pencil connects the stories that people tell each other about the past with the work of visual artists and novelists such as Rivas himself: O pintor quería retratar as feridas invisibles da existencia (lc: 35). There are animals, lights, and smells similar to those discussed in other accounts of spiritual signs. In jail, Herbal listened to the prisoners talking. The painter, amusing himself, addresses the physician Da Barca: O que non comprendo, [ ] é como ti, sendo tan materialista, podes crer na Santa Compaña (lc: 27). Pushed to do so by another prisoner, Dombodán, he explains further: Creo na Santa Compaña porque a vin. Non é un tipismo. De estudiante, unha noite, fun rebuscar na oseira qu hai na beira do cemiterio de Boisaca [ ] Escoitei algo que non era ruído, coma se o silencio cantase un gregoriano. E velaí ante os meus ollos a fileira de lucernas. Alí estaban [ ] as frangullas ecplasmadas dos defuntos. (lc: 28) The others asked what happened next: Nada. Tiña a man o tabaco, por se mo pedían. Pero pasaron de largo como motoristas silenciosos [ ] / creo que ían para Santo Andrés de Teixido, onde vai de morto quen non foi de vivo (lc: 28). Another prisoner, Maroño, tells about two sisters called Life and Death (lc: 29-30). When Life ends up fleeing home with an accordionist who had almost drowned in the ocean, her sister Death never forgives her: Por iso vai e vén polos camiños, sobre todo as noites de treboada, [ ] asking if people know dun mozo acordeonista e da puta da Vida? E a quen pregunta, por non saber, lévao por diante (lc: 30). Daniel Da Barca becomes one of those who would survive a firing squad. When the doctor is not killed like the others who were placed in the sight of the rifles, Herbal is instructed by the ghost of the painter to lift him [Da Barca] up (lc: 55). Throughout the novel, Rivas develops the theme of the relationship between the guard Herbal and the dead painter who accompanies him, speaking in his ear seemingly from the thick red carpenter s pencil, but also at times leaving his side: Ás veces o defunto descabalgaba da montura da orella, marchaba da cabeza e tardaba en volver

30 30 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman [ ] o pintor dáballe conversa nas horas de vixía [ ] E aprendíalle cousas (lc: 73). The pencil had been passed down among various men, having been owned by three carpenters before the painter (Tasende 2001: 214). When, at the end of his story, a prostitute named Maria da Visitação asks the now old man Herbal if the dead painter is still with him, he lies (lc: ). He steps out of the brothel for air, looks out and viuna vir por fin. A Morte cos seus zapatos brancos. Por instinto, palpou na procura do lapis de carpinteiro. Ven, cabrona, xa non teño nada! (lc: 147). We are told that this is not the first experience that Herbal has had with spiritual danger and Death. When he was a young boy, colléralle un aire (lc: 41). After visiting his uncle Nan, a carpenter, he left on his bicycle and De fronte vén unha figura estraña. Leva túnica e vai tan maqueada que semella unha máscara. Faille un sinal para que se deteña. Herbal tenta pedalear con forza pero a cadea sae do piñón / Ola, Herbal querido. Eu son a Morte. Sabes onde van o sorrinte mozo acordeonista e a puta Vida? / Pero entón Herbal, que busca unha arma, algo con que defenderse, bota man ao lapis da orella. Alóngase coma unha lanza vermella. O grafito da punta escintila coma un metal brunido. A Morte abre os ollos con espanto. Esváese. Só fica unha mancha de gasóleo na pucharca do camiño. (lc: 78) When they see a wolf looking at the phantom Special Transport Train (Tren de Transporte Especial) (lc: 114) that carried the prisoners with tuberculosis to the sanatorium, the painter stops Herbal from shooting it: Outro, señor, dille un garda ao tenente. No vagón nove (lc: 113). This passage employs the figure of the wolf as foretelling the death of one of the prisoners on the train who has died of complications from tuberculosis. Ghostly and other sensory projections of the fantastic play a key role in both novels. The use of this first chronotope by Rivas and Méndez Ferrín powerfully places individual victims and others experiences of their victimhood at the centre of Galician social memory of these horrifying years of the 20th century. As Louzao notes about O lapis do carpinteiro, this novel not only procura a redención das moitas víctimas but fai unha homenaxe á dignidade (Louzao 2001: ). By providing powerful examples that evoke the pervasiveness and depth of people s experiences of spiritual signs of supernatural power, the novels simultaneously remind readers of the visceral and lasting impacts of dread and violence and their unspeakability. This unspeakability derives from the extent of people s wounds and the political repression that pushed for an explicit later silencing of memories (Colmeiro 2011: 24, 26). This first chronotope communicates the layers of trauma that people experienced; this trauma included foretellings of impending disaster that, in some cases, were perhaps easier to remember and share than what followed them. The emphasis on the phantasmal is an effective way to reinforce the difficulties as well as the importance of recuperating memories of the period. Spirituality and the fantastic have played prominent if distinctive roles during other difficult historical periods. For example, Carmelo Lisón Tolosana refers to how the proyección mítica was one of the only ways people knew of to try to equilibrar la balanza against the megamáquina inquisitorial temible, absoluta of the tribunals during the Inquisition

31 31 7 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman See Badone 1990 on the distinction between popular and orthodox religiosity. 8 Its early usages were frequently applied to mobile populations such as sailors, seaports with international traffic such as Antwerp, and were both positive and negative. In the 19th century revival of the word, a cosmopolite citizen of the world ; one who regards or treats the whole world as his country was often reviled, associated with refugees and other marginalized people, and contrasted with a positive definition of loyal patriots (Oxford English Dictionary 2008). in Galicia (Lisón Tolosana 1987 [1979]: 31). Essentialist conceptions of rural, working class social worlds in Galicia and other parts of rural Europe associate popular spirituality with traditional, folk culture. The appearance in these novels of the phantasmal and other spiritual signs in cities and the countryside and to people of diverse social, economic, and educational backgrounds undoes such essentialism. The subsequent section turns to the second chronotope, which extends further the first chronotope s challenge to assumptions of bounded experiences during the 1930s civil war and Franco dictatorship. While the first chronotope refers to mystical elements that attended traumatic experiences, the second chronotope used in these novels involves the introduction of detailed descriptions of the cosmopolitan material culture, people, ideas, and cultural practices that also formed an important part of Galician experience from the 1930s to the 1970s. Together, they challenge an idea of bounded worldliness rather than spiritually rich and complex ethnoscapes (Appadurai 1991). Therefore, while each of these chronotopes is important in itself, they are made even more effective through their conjunction in each of the two novels. They function in an effective combination by undermining in more than one way essentialist ideas of Galicia as having been characterized by a rural universe dominated by specific cultural beliefs and practices, including those relating to popular religiosity as well as orthodox Roman Catholic institutions.7 The two chronotopes are therefore more effective in tandem than they would be individually, by juxtaposing a complex portrayal of unorthodox spirituality with the cultural boundary crossing as a major aspect of life in Galicia even in the face of repressive pressures for insularity. The Cosmopolitan Chronotope: Cultural Contact Zones in Galician Society The two novels remind readers of the contradiction between the censoring and somewhat isolationist Franco régime and the various sources of cosmopolitanism that continued to form Galicians and other Spaniards experience of the mid-20th century. Since the 17th century the adjective cosmopolitan and the noun cosmopolite have referred to people, things or ideas belonging to all parts of the world; not restricted to any one country or its inhabitants (Oxford English Dictionary 2008).8 Homi Bhabha s (2001) idea of vernacular cosmopolitanism, that results from convergences of migrant populations including subaltern laborers carrying a myriad of personal and national histories and sets of ideas with them when they arrive at points of confluence, is important here. So too is Kwame Anthony Appiah s idea of rooted cosmopolitanism, that includes a strong connection with one s homeland as well as an embracing of global influences (Appiah 1996; Pi-Sunyer 2008). A relevant recent ethnographic account of sophisticated urban cosmopolitanism in Spain is Urla s discussion of Basque language activists in Bilbao (Urla 2008). These ideas about the cosmopolitan concept are counterpoints to more restrictive ideas that situate cosmopolitanism with cultural and political élites who can be worldly by participating in many worlds without becoming part of any of them, embrace hybridity, be betwixt and between without being liminal (Friedman 1997 [1995]: 78; Werbner 2008).

32 32 9 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Mary Louise Pratt (1991: 33) defines these as social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power. 10 Such contact zones were also linked to international networks set up before and during the war, and maintained afterward. There is a large literature about this aspect of the war, from classic works such as Orwell (1952) to more recent treatments (e.g. Carroll and Fernandez 2007; Mates 2007). 11 The term vixilias is effective here in drawing an implicit parallel between Herbal s guard duties and Dr. Da Barca attending to patients with tuberculosis who, like him, are prisoners in the sanatorium. This section incorporates Mica Nava s idea of a visceral, vernacular cosmopolitanism which accounts for emotional, inclusive features of cosmopolitanism, on feelings of attraction for and identification with otherness (Nava 2007: 8) as well as pointing to a cosmopolitanism that takes place at home, in the family, in the neighborhood, in the interior territories of the mind and body (Nava 2007: 12). Despite the folklorization of Galician language, culture, and historiography that marked an aspect of official élite political culture during Francoism and into the post-franco period when these novels were written, these two works are among numerous examples recounting a portrait of a diverse, cosmopolitan Galicia (Figueroa 1988 cited in Louzao 2001: ; Labanyi 2002b: 4-5). The history of this Other Galicia is marked by people coming and going to its shores and mountains; by artistic and literary creation linked to similar work being done elsewhere in the world; by labour migrants returning or newly arriving with novel merchandise, ideas, religious beliefs, languages, and companions. The history of Galicia is one of global interconnections. As Xerardo Pereiro and Manuel Vilar (2008) have argued, this is something that those who run institutions such as ethnographic museums do not reflect when they make the choice to focus instead on an essentialist idea of a Galician folk culture that is encased by delimited cultural influences. In telling their stories, the novels by Rivas and Méndez Ferrín contrast the fundamentalist discourse and repressive actions of state agents with repeated references to a picture of a Spain that is ideologically, culturally, and linguistically multifaceted, both as part of and in the face of fear. Detailed descriptions of cosmopolitanism allow the two novelists to demonstrate the embodiment of differences and constitution of contact zones (Pratt 1991)9 in rural and urban Galician spaces as well as in prisons, during the war and throughout the Franco dictatorship.10 In this way, these works parallel Gramsci s recognition of the remarkable cosmopolitanism of popular literature found throughout Spain (Gramsci 1991: cited in Labanyi 2002b: 4). In O lapis do carpinteiro, there are multiple indications of cosmopolitanism. In the descriptions of both the past and the novelistic present, the characters are from various places in Galicia or from outside Galicia. Others are Galicians who have spent time in other countries. The novel begins with the young journalist Carlos Sousa visiting Daniel Da Barca, an aging and ailing physician, un vello roxo irreductible (lc: 11) who, we are told, had been forced to leave Galicia for Mexico. Dr. Da Barca himself is said to have dobre nacionalidade, Cuban and Spanish, and this circumstance, along with the miraculous story of his having survived the firing squad, apparently resulted in unha campaña internacional para acadar o seu indulto (lc: 60). Another story-telling encounter occurs between Herbal and the prostitute Maria da Visitação, who has recently arrived dunha illa do Atlántico africano (lc: 18). The character Herbal refers to Da Barca s broad knowledge of medical and world history, observing that: Ninguén sabía moi ben cando durmía o doutor Da Barca. As súas vixilias eran sempre de libro na man (lc: 12).15 The prisoners often talked about all manner of things they had read, thought about, and experienced. As a leader of the resistance, Daniel Da Barca was feared by the régime and sought out for punishment by death because his words could traverse borders: era un arquivo vivente. Tiña todo na cabeza. Os seus textos, con testemuños da represión, publicábanse na prensa inglesa e mais na americana (lc: 133).

33 33 12 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman La Pasionaria (Dolores Ibárruri Gómez) was a communist and feminist Basque activist ( ). At this historical moment referred to in the novel, she would have likely been broadcasting from Moscow. We learn that Dr. Da Barca engaged in lengthy debates with Mother Superior Izarne during his time in the prison sanatorium. They talked about the existence of God, the stars, the planets, and life on other planets (in which they both believed), and St. Teresa s poetry: No Libro da vida ela [Santa Teresa] di: Doíame o corazón. E era certo, doíalle o corazón [ ] Tiña anxiña de peito e sufriu un infarto [ ] / Iso é unha grosería, doutor. Estamos a falar de poesía, duns versos sublimes, e vostede, vostede fálame de vísceras [ ] / Escoite, Izarne. Madre Izarne. Eses versos son excepcionais. Ningún patólogo podería describir así unha doenza. Ela transforma esa febleza, a morte transitoria [ ] nunha expresión de cultura ou, se o prefire, do espírito. Un suspiro feito poema. (lc: ) These discussions that the Mother Superior and prisoner/prison doctor both loved are parallel to those that Herbal has with the dead artist who comes to talk with him, although the relationship between this man and the ghost is not in the same sort of egalitarian spirit as the relationship between Da Barca and the nun. The ghost teaches the guard, cajoles him, and sometimes gives him orders. In these teachings, Herbal learns about all sorts of things, the same sort of diverse themes to which he is exposed when he chats with prisoners such as Da Barca, or listens in on their conversations: Pouco antes de morrer, dixo o pintor [ ] pintei esta mesma estampa, o que estamos a ver. Foi para a escenografía do Canto Mariñán da Coral da Ruada no Teatro Rosalía de Castro. / Gustaríame telo visto, dixo o garda con sentida cortesía. / Non era nada do outro mundo [ ] O mar era a penumbra [ ] Pintalo é imposible [ ] Houbo un pintor, un inglés, Turner se chamaba, que o fixo moi ben [ ]. (lc: 74) In No ventre do silencio, we are given the most frequent and detailed examples of cosmopolitanism. Those living in Santiago de Compostela smoke Lucky Strikes, Pall Malls and Chesterfields (vs: 51, 105), dance to the sounds of the American swing jazz musician Glenn Miller and the Cuban King of Mambo Dámaso Pérez Prado (vs: 134), and drink imported whiskey and vermouth. The characters read literature by the Hungarian Lajos Zilahy, the French Pierre de Ronsard, the Romanian Mircea Eliade, and Rainer Maria Rilke the German-language writer born in Prague (vs: 116, 69). As well, they read the philosophers Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Teilhard de Chardin, and Søren Kierkegaard (vs: 119, 123, 61, 101, 103). They write in other languages, such as the secret poems that the student Narda Miguez (with the pen name Violenza Goterres) writes in French for the professor Maître Obscur (vs: 35, 133). They recite Shakesperean sonnets (vs: 145) and sing songs in other languages, whether these are Brazilian songs a tuna performs from door to door (vs: 155) or a Portuguese verse of farewell to the school year that the student Sarandeses sings, a song that his father trouxera dunha das clásicas viaxes que outrora as tunas xiraban a Coimbra (vs: 116). The family of the student Leira Pazó, whose father was shot by the Falangists, would listen quietly to the radio: para coller Londres, o Padre Olaso e Madariaga, a Radiodifusión Francesa, de novo Jorge Marín na BBC, Moscú, falando Pasionaria (vs: 47-48).12 The intertextual references

34 34 13 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman The mention of this event helps place the novel in time, as this celebration was reinitiated in The English is used in the novel. 15 From the city of Coimbra, Portugal. 16 The Italian is used in the original text. 17 See Labanyi (2002b: 2-8) on the popularity of foreign film and other examples of popular culture in mid-20th century Spain. include those to popular film: cun ombro ao ar, como Charles Laughton a facer de senador romano (vs: 148); or standing in the manner of Ingrid Bergman: ponse en pé sobre as súas pernas á Ingrid Bergman (vs: 136; Acuña 2002: ). As described in other novels set in Santiago de Compostela including No ano do cometa by Xoán Bernárdez Vilar (1987), Suso de Toro s 2002 Trece badaladas, Crime en Compostela by Carlos Reigosa (1984), and Unha noite con Carla by Aníbal Malvar (1995), we learn of people from all over the world living in the city, along with those born and raised in Galicia (Acuña 2010: 70). People are almost always identified by where they are from. The student Santiago (or Santi) Amezaga is from Bilbao. There are Puerto Ricans playing a game of poker with others in a bar (vs: 171), a Polish architect named Pacewicz designing houses in Vigo (vs: 38). The novel demonstrates the senses of alterity as well as the companionship and conflict that occurred among these students, their professors, and others with whom they had regular contact. These conflicts include those between Galician nationalists and some anti-cosmopolitan estudantes forasteiros que non toleraban de modo ningún que se falase galego (vs: 144). We are also told about a form of fascist cosmopolitanism closely aligned with the dictatorship, the intelectuais falanxistas of the university (vs: 151). We learn as well about the presence in Santiago of recently arrived refuxiados políticos que a Universidade, o Cabido ou os Colexios Maiores protexían, such as the German Carl Schmitt and o matrimonio Bousquet, que se facía perdoar a súa amizade con Drieu La Rochelle e a súa activa participación nas depuracións de intelectuais xudeus na Francia de Pétain facendo intervencións nas revistas orais do seu sobre Paul Valéry, Andrei S. Popescu (vs: 151). Similarly, on the night of the literary competition Festas Minervais,13 one student assures another that he looks fine in his rented smoking : 14 Mesmamente consegues un aspecto bohemio, estudantil, coimbricense,15 troiano, gratamente controconvenzionale (vs: 105).16 However, alongside these students and writers, are others in attendance: A sociedade político-escolar estaba alí, disfrazada de grande mundo, as xerarquías do Movemento Nacional reconvertidas en figuróns de super-producción musical de Hollywood,17 que os militares de alta graduación afectando nos seus traxes de etiqueta civís [ ] poses leves de Fred Astaire (vs: 105, 106). Méndez Ferrín describes how the university classrooms spill over into the students free time in the city, both criss-crossed with cosmopolitan references. Groups of students converged with artisans in a tavern where they enjoyed having contacto coa lingua cotiá, entering into vigorous debates transferred over from their lectures. On one day, it was about whether Heidegger está actuando en tanto que líder e referencia da intelectualidade galeguista de hoxe (vs: 122) and the topic of the censors stopping publication of texts of his that were translated into Castilian. Comesaña says that it is important to know whether debemos cualificar a filosofía de Heidegger como nazi ou non (vs: 123). He goes on to state that Galician thinkers such as Ramón Piñeiro, who embraced aspects of this German philosophy, equivócanse: a dirección política e intelectual correcta sería a de J. P. Sartre, o existencialismo marxista. Comunismo práctico, digo, e con sitio nel para a subxectividade (vs: 123). We are also given a sense of the diversity in the ranks of society that supported the régime. In one vivid scene, the same priest and professor who had lectured on Heidegger holds forth in a bar on the

35 35 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman novela do futuro. O modelo é Faulkner. As voces interfírense, [ ] os seres humanos son tan incompletos como na realidade [ ] Os monólogos deben [ ] [lanzar] o lector a un baleiro de liberdade, para que el constrúa a historia por si mesmo. Dicía Crego Frías. (vs: ) On one occasion, the cosmopolitan chronotope provides a way to communicate how such moments could lead to the collapsing of time and space in a dissociative way, as when the student Príncipe 18 The line c o ademán políglota d as bandeiras is found in Manoel Antonio s poem Navy Bar published in the collection De catro a catro (Manoel Antonio 1979: 50). Perdera as palabras, os nexos [ ] Axiña o Café vai desaparecendo, desaparece. As falas, as luces [ ] Daquela o tempo, de modo absolutamente impensado, volta funcionar [ ] unha viaxe. A figura de Wells socialista. Un pub en Vigo Street, esquina con Regent Street [ ] co ademán políglota das bandeiras. (vs: )18 This last example is a powerful instance that juxtaposes well with the first chronotope. Similar to people s experiences of spiritual signs, the play with temporal-spatial boundaries in this urbane café uses the fantastic to challenge ideas of boundedness. However, unlike the symbols that appear as spiritual portents of death which take the form of imagery that has been a long-standing part of Galician vernacular culture, here we find symbols of Galicians connection with multilingualism, with locations such as London, with international socialism, and a reference to the avant-garde poetry of Manoel Antonio. The second chronotope therefore also counters essentialist ideas of Galicia as a place that was mainly rural and somehow insulated from other parts of the world. Galician cities and villages alike have long been very much interconnected with the rest of the world as a result of, among other things, rich histories of pilgrimage, the intellectual world of literature and higher education, migration, trade, tourism, and the arts (Hooper & Puga Moruxa 2011; Oca González 2013; Pereiro & Vilar 2008; Romero 2011; Roseman 2013, 2014). Conclusion Oriol Pi-Sunyer s pioneering work on the ethnography of authoritarian states reminded us that: It is very difficult today to evoke the atmosphere of those years because they have passed very rapidly into history (Pi-Sunyer 1977: 180). This has a broad significance, and particularly in reference to people s retrospective and shifting consciousness of their own and their ancestors life courses during periods of intense conflict and repression. Novelists face a similar dilemma. I follow others in arguing that their work should be a key resource informing our interpretations of material about the past gathered through the evoking and recording of oral testimonials, the study of biographical works, and of archival documentation (Alonso 1942; Bertrand de Muñoz 1987, 1996; Freixanes 1993; and Velasco Souto 1987 cited in Martínez-Risco Daviña 2004: 577). This essay aims to demonstrate how a chronotopic approach to the analysis of fiction can further assist such research. In the novels discussed here, we see at play Pi-Sunyer s more recent prescription for memory research to pursue, a concern for agency and the politics of place (Pi-Sunyer 2006: 24; Roseman 1996). The chronotopes woven into these novels through representations of portents of death and cosmopolitanism

36 36 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman do just that. By introducing spiritual elements into their novels, the writers whose work is analyzed here insist on an important way, alongside social realism, of approaching many Galicians historical consciousness of the Civil War of and the Franco dictatorship, a consciousness that included human and nonhuman protagonists. Their work disrupts dichotomous ways of categorizing experience, promoting an openness to all of the senses, to dreams, memories and the fantastic (Stoller 1992: ). Relevant as well is Jo Labanyi s persuasive argument to approach the inventiveness of popular and mass culture in Spain (Labanyi 2002b: 10, 12-13; also see Labanyi 2006). The emphasis in these novels on the details of the visceral multi-sensory traces of difficult experiences are a significant contribution to the ongoing genres-in-the-making (Bakhtin 1981: 11) of contemporary Galician fiction and other communicative practices that shape the Galician public memory of the 20th century. Fulfilling what I have termed cidadanía patrimonial (Roseman 2014: 21), Manuel Rivas employs folkloric elements in his novel while not descending into folklorism (Mouré 2002: 64; translation mine). So, too, does Méndez Ferrín. Their evocation of signs of death and the spirits of the dead place those who were killed during the war and afterward at the centre of memory. It adds to other important memory acts that inscribe the victims of the period by publishing the lists of the names of those who were imprisoned and killed, explaining when possible where they were from and what they did in life, thereby recording who they were and are connected to. In the chronotope constituted by the world of the dead and the spirits, those who were killed are transformed from members of categories into unsettled, unresigned, uneasy characters alongside those who in the novels plot lines are still living. Talking about ghosts and the spiritual world of the Santa Compaña is a way of talking about the people who came before, not solely as victims of war and sometimes of state-authorized terror but also as individuals with agency, the key example being the artist who gave Herbal the carpenter s pencil. Thurston-Griswold argues that this character serves as una metáfora para la empatía humana in Rivas s effective melding of lo real y lo fantástico (Thurston-Griswold 2004: 9, 10; also see Labanyi 2000, 2002b). Equally problematic is the use of dichotomous frameworks that would essentialize Galicia s folk as having been comprised of populations that were somehow bounded in space and time, easy to dominate because they were not in contact with the myriad of influences that crossed the paths of other populations (Pereiro & Vilar 2008; also see Lass 1989). By introducing a chronotope of cosmopolitanism, these novels communicate the heteroglossia of a Galicia under Franco, one that included Nazis from Germany as well as Puerto Rican workers and students from the Basque Country. Through the use of fictional or fictionalized accounts, both of these prominent Galician authors are able to communicate a shared political message to their readers: we should not ignore the unsettled spirits of the dead. Nor should we ignore the social, cultural, linguistic, and political diversity that existed in the midst as well as in the face of repression. The two chronotopes that this essay identifies in these novels remind us, above all, that people s agency and the places which they continued to inhabit and transform through years of conflict are accessible not just through verbal language but also through the visual imagery and other sensory clues that make up people s memories.

37 37 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman Works Cited ACUÑA, Ana, Compostela y la resistencia universitaria: de No ventre do silencio a Memoria do diaño, Revista de Filología Románica Anejo III: , Santiago de Compostela: encuentro de transeúntes, Ángulo Recto. Revista de estudios sobre la ciudad como espacio plural 2(2): ALONSO, Amado, Ensayo sobre la novela histórica: El modernismo en La gloria de don Ramiro (Buenos Aires: Casa Editora Coni). ANTONIO, Manoel [1928]. De catro a catro/de cuatro a cuatro. Edición bilingüe (Madrid: Rialp). APPADURAI, Arjun, Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology, in Fox 1991: APPIAH, Kwame Anthony, Cosmopolitan Patriots, in Nussbaum and Cohen 1996: BADONE, Ellen, The Appointed Hour: Death, Worldview, and Social Change in Brittany (Berkeley: University of California Press)., ed., Religious Orthodoxy and Popular Faith in European Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press). BAKHTIN, Mikhail M., The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Michael Holquist & Caryl Emerson (Austin: University of Texas Press). BERNÁRDEZ VILAR, Xoán, No ano do cometa (Vigo: Xerais). BERTRAND DE MUÑOZ, Maryse, La guerra civil española en la novela. Los años de la democracia (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas)., Las novelas de la Guerra Civil: textos iluminadores de la historia, ÍBER. Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales, Geografía e Historia 10: BHABHA, Homi, Unsatisfied: Notes on Vernacular Cosmopolitanism, in Castle 2001: BOURDIEU, Pierre, The Negative Intellectual, in Acts of Resistance: Against the Tyranny of the Market, trans. Richard Nice, (New York: The New Press). BOYER, Dominic & Claudio LOMNITZ, Intellectuals and Nationalism: Anthropological Engagements, Annual Review of Anthropology 34: CARROLL, Peter N. & James D. FERNANDEZ, eds., Facing Fascism: New York & The Spanish Civil War (New York: Museum of the City of New York and New York University Press).

38 38 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman CASTLE, Gregory, ed., Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell). COLMEIRO, José, Nation of Ghosts?: Haunting, Historical Memory and Forgetting in Post-Franco Spain, 452 F. Electronic journal of theory of literature and comparative literature 4: en/jose-colmeiro.html. CUERDA, José Luis, dir., La lengua de las mariposas (Film). Produced by F. Bovaira & J. L. Cuerda. FEATHERSTONE, Mike, Scott LASH & Roland ROBERTSON, eds., 1997 [1995]. Global Modernities (London: Sage). FELD, Steven, Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea, in Feld & Basso 1996: & Keith H. BASSO, eds., Senses of Place (Santa Fe: School of American Research). FIGUEROA, Antón, Diglosia e texto (Vigo: Xerais). FOLKART, Jessica A., On Pencils, Places, and the Pursuit of Desire: Manuel Rivas s El lápiz del carpintero, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 40: FOX, Richard, ed., Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press). FREEDMAN, William, The Literary Motif: A Definition and Evaluation, NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 4(2): FREIXANES, Víctor, Estratégias de colaboração na raia durante a guerra e pós-guerra espanhola: , public talk delivered in Chaves and organized by the Universidade de Vigo and the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. articulo/ pdf FRIEDMAN, Jonathan, 1997 [1995]. Global System, Globalization and the Parameters of Modernity, in Featherstone, Lash & Robertson, 1997 [1995]: GONDAR PORTASANY, Marcial, Romeiros do alén: antropoloxía da morte en Galicia (Vigo: Xerais). GONZÁLEZ GARCÍA, José M., Spanish Literature and the Recovery of Historical Memory, European Review 17(1): GONZÁLEZ GÓMEZ, Xesús, A última narrativa de X. L. Méndez Ferrín: da utopía á historia, Grial Vol. 33, No. 127: GRAMSCI, Antonio, Selections from Cultural Writings, eds. D. Forgacs and G. Nowell-Smith (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).

39 39 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman HOLQUIST, Michael, Glossary, in Bakhtin 1981: HOOPER, Kirsty, Remapping Galician Narrative for the Twenty- First Century, in Hooper & Puga Moruxa 2011: & Manuel PUGA MORUXA, eds., Contemporary Galician Cultural Studies: Between the Local and the Global (New York: The Modern Language Association). JACKSON, Michael, Existential Anthropology: Events, Exigencies, and Effects. (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books). LABANYI, Jo, History and Hauntology; or, What Does One Do with the Ghosts of the Past?, in Resina 2000: , ed., 2002a. Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press)., 2002b. Introduction: Engaging with Ghosts; or, Theorizing Culture in Modern Spain, in Labanyi 2002a: 1-14., Historias de víctimas: la memoria histórica y el testimonio en la España contemporánea, Iberoamericana 24: LASS, Andrew, What Keeps the Czech Folk Alive, Dialectical Anthropology 14: LISÓN TOLOSANA, Carmelo, 1987 [1979]. Brujería, estructura social y simbolismo en Galicia (Madrid: Akal). LOUZAO, Miguel, Unha ollada á narrativa dos noventa, Revista de Lenguas y Literaturas Catalana, Gallega y Vasca Vol. 7: MACCIUCI, Raquel, ed Volumen II: Representaciones del pasado reciente (ed. Federico Gerhardt). Diálogos transatlánticos. Memoria del II Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Españolas Contemporáneas. (Rosario, Argentina: Centro de Estudios de Teoría y Crítica Literaria, Universidad Nacional de Rosario). MALVAR, Aníbal, Unha noite con Carla (Vigo: Xerais). MARIÑO FERRO, Xosé Ramón, Satán, sus siervas, las brujas y la religión del mal (Vigo: Xerais). MARTÍNEZ-RISCO DAVIÑA, Luis, La realidad en la ficción: una aproximación a la realidad de la frontera Luso-Ourensá en el primer franquismo, in Navajas Zubeldía 2004: MATES, Lewis H The Spanish Civil War and the British Left: Political Activism and the Popular Front (London & New York: I. B. Tauris & Co.). MÉNDEZ FERRÍN, Xosé Luís, Arrabaldo do norte (Vigo: Galaxia).

40 40 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman, Retorno a Tagen Ata (Vigo: Xerais)., Antón e os inocentes (Monforte de Lemos: Xistral)., Bretaña, Esmeraldina (Vigo: Xerais)., No ventre do silencio (Vigo: Xerais)., En el vientre del silencio, trans. M. Fuentes (Navarra: Txalaparta). MOURÉ, Erin, The Year the Animals Were Speaking, Brick Vol. 70: NAVA, Mica, Visceral Cosmopolitanism: Gender, Culture and the Normalisation of Difference (Oxford and New York: Berg). NAVAJAS ZUBELDÍA, Carlos, ed., Actas del IV Simposio de Historia Actual, Logroño, de octubre de 2002, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. NICHOLS, William J., La narración oral, la escritura y los lieux de mémoire en El lápiz del carpintero de Manuel Rivas, in Winter 2006: NUSSBAUM, Martha C., & Joshua COHEN, eds., For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism (Boston: Beacon Press). OCA GONZÁLEZ, Luzia, Caboverdianas en Burela (1978/2008): migración, relacións de xénero e intervención social. PhD dissertation, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. ORWELL, George, Homage to Catalonia (London: Harcourt, Brace & World). OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, Cosmopolitan, OED Online. Oxford University Press. PEREIRO, Xerardo & Manuel VILAR, Ethnographic Museums and Essentialist Representations of Galician Identity, International Journal of Iberian Studies 21: PÉREZ LUGÍN, Alejandro, 2008 [1915]. La casa de la Troya (A Coruña: Camiño do Faro). PI-SUNYER, Oriol, Political Humor in a Dictatorial State: The Case of Spain, Ethnohistory 24: , Ghosts and Memories, Anthropology Today 22(6): , Crossing Borders, Reconfiguring Lives: A Catalan Exile Family in Wartime London, in Roseman & Parkhurst 2008: PRATT, Mary L., Arts of the Contact Zone, Profession 9:

41 41 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman RÁBADE VILLAR, María do Cebreiro, Spectres of the Nation: Forms of Resistance to Literary Nationalism, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 86(2): REIGOSA, Carlos G., Crime en Compostela (Vigo: Xerais). REIXA, Antón, dir., O lapis do carpinteiro. (Film) Portozás Visión. RESINA, Joan Ramón, ed., Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy (Amsterdam: Rodopi). RIVAS, Manuel, 1998a. O lapis do carpinteiro (Vigo: Xerais)., 1998b. El lápiz del carpintero, trans. D. Vilavedra (Madrid: Alfaguara)., The Carpenter s Pencil, trans. J. Dunne (Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press). RODRÍGUEZ GARCÍA, José María, Xosé Luis Méndez Ferrín and the Novel of Revolution, Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 24(1): RODRÍGUEZ SUÁREZ, María, Na súa propia pel: contribucións autobiográficas á Guerra Civil. Conformación dunha narrativa singular, Madrygal 18, Núm. Especial: ROMERO, Eugenia R., Contemporary Galician Culture in a Global Context: Movable Identities (Lanham: Lexington Books). ROSEMAN, Sharon R., How We Built the Road : The Politics of Memory in Rural Galicia, American Ethnologist 23(4): , Going Over to the Other Side : The Sociality of Remembrance in Galician Death Narratives, Ethos 30(4): , Unemployment and Labor Migration in Rural Galicia (Spain), Dialectical Anthropology 37(3-4): , Un patrimonio para o futuro, Adra: Revista dos socios e socias do Museo do Pobo Galego 9: & Shawn S. PARKHURST, eds., Recasting Culture and Space in Iberian Contexts (Albany: State University of New York Press). STEEN, Maria Sergia GUIRAL, Manuel Rivas Un galego con estilo: sus cuentos y su contar, Confluencia 22(1): STOLLER, Paul, The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press). TABOADA CHIVITE, Xesús, Etnografía galega: cultura espiritual (Vigo: Galaxia).

42 42 Galicia 21 As voces interfírense : A Chronotopic Reading of Two Novels Sharon R. Roseman TASENDE, Mercedes, El proceso de mitificación en El lápiz del carpintero, de Manuel Rivas, Monographic Review/Revista Monográfica 17: , La Guerra Civil española como apocalipsis: la función del pórtico de la gloria en El lápiz del carpintero, Alba de América: Revista Literaria Tomo 23 (No 43-44): TEJEDA, Armando G., Manuel Rivas: mi primer libro fue la memoria de mi madre, Babab THURSTON-GRISWOLD, Henry, Intratextualidad e intertextualidad en El lápiz del carpintero, de Manuel Rivas, in Selected Proceedings of the Pennsylvania Foreign Language Conference (2003) (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University), TORO, Suso de, Trece badaladas (Vigo: Xerais). URLA, Jacqueline, Kafe Antzokia: The Global meets the Local in Basque Cultural Politics, in Roseman & Parkhurst 2008: VELASCO SOUTO, Carlos F., A sociedade galega da restauración na obra literaria de Pardo Bazán ( ) (Pontevedra: Artes Gráficas Portela). VILAVEDRA FERNÁNDEZ, Dolores, Memoria y postmemoria: la elaboración literaria de la Guerra Civil en la narrativa gallega, in Macciuci 2011: WERBNER, Pnina, ed., Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism (Oxford & New York: Berg). WINTER, Ulrich, ed., Lugares de memoria de la Guerra Civil y el franquismo (Frankfurt: Vervuert).

43 43 Galicia 21 Article Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson Montana State University-Bozeman Keywords Francoism Second Republic Heritage Memory Site Memorial Monument New Genre Public Art Palabras clave Franquismo Segunda República Patrimonio Lugar de memoria Memorial Monumento conmemorativo Novo xénero de arte pública Abstract Memorials in Galicia have helped spark civic activism in favor of commemorating the Second Republic and denouncing the fascist uprising and ensuing Franco regime. However, even when used as vehicles of progressive thought and values, all memorials inevitably participate in a conservative discourse because of the hierarchy they establish between the artist and spectator. It is not a process of collaboration. The main drawback of memorials is that they produce the illusion of materializing history and acting as permanent reminders of historical events and figures. As they are attributed properties and functions they do not possess, they become fetishes. A different form of art is required to bring the general public into the commemorative process. Resumo Os monumentos conmemorativos en Galiza axudaron a impulsar un activismo cívico a prol de recordar a Segunda República e denunciar o levantamento fascista e conseguinte réxime. Porén, aínda cando se empregan como vehículos de valores progresistas, todos os monumentos participan inevitabelmente dun discurso conservador debido á xerarquía que estabelecen entre o artista e o espectador. Non é un proceso de colaboración. A meirande desvantaxe dos monumentos é que producen a ilusion de materializar a historia e actuar como recordos permanentes de eventos e figuras históricas. Ao aporlles propiedades e funcións que non posúen, deveñen en fetiches. Unha nova forma de arte é precisa para involucrar a cidadanía no proceso conmemorativo.

44 44 Galicia 21 1 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson I am aware that some scholars do not consider Franco s regime fascist. Among those who do, I find particularly convincing Navarro (2004) and Amin (2014). 2 The first (scientifically conducted) excavation in 2000 of the Trece de Priaranza (León) did not have the social repercussion and media coverage as did that of See the Youtube Palacio de Congresos de Badajoz (2014), which posted by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports excludes any mention of the mass executions. 4 For the story of this episode, see Ortiz (2013). Hers is the first study in Spain to chronicle the events surrounding the destruction of a Republican memorial and the civic resistance to preserve it. Introduction In Galicia, research on the Second Republic and Franco dictatorship is carried out almost always within the field of history. Despite that these events affect a myriad of phenomena in current day society, there is a tacit rule in the humanities according to which only historians are capacitated to produce scholarly work on history. The result is an incomplete rendering of the consequences of the traumatic past in the present. In order to examine the weight of the havoc wrought by forty years of fascism1 on current day attitudes, identity, political affiliation, the power structure, and much more, collaboration from all the humanities is necessary. Understanding the intricate presence of the past is indispensable for harnessing it for progressive purposes. The concept of historical memory gained force in Spain especially after the 2002 exhumation of the common grave in Piedrafita de Babia (León). Brought forth by the memory boom that took off in the late 1970 s via memoirists many of whom were witnesses and/or victims of atrocities historical memory refers almost always to the traumatic individual stories and experiences caused by political injustices that are left out of traditional and typically hegemonic historical accounts. Oral historians also played a central role in the memory boom by recording individual narratives. As the prime material of history from below, the movement to recuperar la memoria has led to the creation of more objective narrations of the past. The voices of those who were excluded are now chronicled subjects in their own right. Historical memory is transmitted by dint of diverse vehicles. In Spain, novels and movies have been two central cultural outlets. The abovementioned exhumation was a watershed event because images of real bodies reached everyone.2 No previous memory site had been so effective in encouraging collective memory work of the Franco regime s atrocities. Memory sites can be immaterial like literature and film or they can physically exist in public space like the common graves, memorials, and other landmarks. The latter have received some attention by Republican sympathizers who see in them a reflection of their heritage and the means for preserving it. Notwithstanding, Republican places of memory are steadily disappearing; for example, the bullring of Badajoz where approximately 2,000 Republicans were executed over two days was leveled in 2002 by order of the governing Partido Socialista Obrero Español (psoe) of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura. The building placed in its stead is the Palacio de Congresos Manuel Rojas a conference center that has expurgated all traces of the atrocities.3 In Galicia, the edifice used for the Rianxo concentration camp was razed in 2003 to enable a construction project that did not materialize due to the economic crisis. Architect César Portela, under the aegis of the Partido Popular de Galicia (ppdeg), turned the Island of San Simón a core Republican symbol into a kind of spa resort. In Valencia, part of the terrain of the Los Almendros concentration camp was recently developed into a shopping mall. The psoe administration, in cahoots with the Partido Popular (pp) municipal government of Madrid, demolished the Carabanchel prison in 2008 in the face of strong civil resistance.4

45 45 Galicia 21 5 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson I employ the term memorial (in Galician and Spanish monumento conmemorativo) instead of monument (monumento) because memorials usually commemorate tragic events while monuments celebrate heroic episodes of victory. See Marita Sturken (1991: ). Furthermore, there is a broad range of complexity in memorials; they can be as simple as a plaque on the ground, on a wall, or on a mound (monolito); or they can be elaborately aesthetic works of art. Memorials erected in the post-franco period are significantly different memory sites from those mentioned in the previous paragraph. The surviving material of concentration camps, prisons, and other places where trauma was inflicted is usually given more symbolic power by communities because of having witnessed the events. The preservation of these places is of fundamental importance because, among other reasons, they allow us to see a tiny part of what the victims and executioners saw. Though heritage in itself cannot remember only people can do this, material evidence of the past wields a powerful influence in the West s psyche. The razing of the bullring in Badajoz and the reconstruction of San Simón dealt a blow to Republican historical memory, as did the removal of the Vel d Hiv in Paris (in 1959) to the memory of the Holocaust. Authentic material traces help make the events more visible and lasting in individual and collective memory. Memorials⁵ are erected to fill in gaps of oblivion left by the march onward of time and policies of homogenization and erasure. Memory sites come into existence, as Pierre Nora famously stated, because modern societies have uprooted people from their history, customs, and traditional remembrance: There are lieux de mémoire, sites of memory, because there are no longer milieux de mémoire, real environments of memory (1989: 7). The past events and figures societies choose to remember are the bedrock of their identity, hence marking that memory is an attempt to preserve it and perpetuate it. Memorials, Nicholas Capasso explains, provide fixed places in a chaotic, shifting landscape onto which groups can project shared symbols to consolidate notions of pride, heritage, power and self (1990: 57). The first Galician memorial was placed in the old part of Pontevedra city in It is the bust of Alexandre Bóveda, one of the founding members of the Partido Galeguista (the Galicianist Party which merged with the Frente Popular) and the motor behind the Galician Statute of Autonomy. More memorials were erected across Galicia in the 1990s and their number doubled in the 2000s, especially during the period of the bipartite government ( ). Moreover, the Historical Memory Law, decreed in 2007 by the psoe administration, aided monument making via subsidies. The Historical Memory Law was significant insofar as it was the first time a post-transition governing party openly favored Republicanism over Francoism. But it fell short by not changing the status of commemoration as a private affair. It delegated to private entities the work of exhumations and commemorative activities in general. It did not require all fascist symbolism to be removed from the public sphere and it did not create public spaces of dialogue. The government instituted a victim politics because, while acknowledging and providing reparations to the victims of the Franco regime, it ignored the murderers and the reasons that fueled their acts (Vinyes 2012: 28). Upon its return to power in November 2011, the pp disabled the Historical Memory Law. The few exhumations that have taken place are funded by private entities such as a Norwegian electricians union that donated 6,000 euros in 2014 to the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (armh) (see Campelo 2015). In the meantime, Spain is the second country in the world after Cambodia with the most bodies in common graves (see Gordillo 2013 and Junquera 2013). Its denial to provide subventions for excavations has given the international human

46 46 Galicia 21 6 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson For a succinct journalistic account in English, see Badcock (2015). 7 Even more alarming is the passive attitude vis-à-vis dictatorships. Vicent Navarro quotes a survey conducted by El País in 2002 in which forty percent of young people (between fourteen and eighteen) expressed that dictatorships were necessary or that it did not matter whether a country had a dictatorship or not siempre y cuando hubiera orden y progreso (2002: xiii). rights community a stronger leverage point for demanding justice. The un has criticized the pp government for refusing the victims basic right to recover the bodies of their predecessors and to know the truth of what occurred. In November 2012, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ordered that the 1977 Amnesty Law, which exonerated the Franco regime of its crimes, be repealed. In October 2014, the Argentine judge María Servini de Cubría requested the extradition of seventeen ex-members of Franco s regime involved in crimes against humanity. Not long after the rejection of this request, the United Nations urged the Spanish government to allow the extradition.6 The strength of right wing ideology in Spain is correlated to the oblivion of this country s fascist past. The de-authorization of the Second Republic and its defenders is a mainstream phenomenon. Most of the youth does not identify with the Second Republic; they do not view it as a legitimate system or see the struggles of today as similar to those of the previous democracy.7 Under these circumstances, it is difficult if not impossible for the youth and future generations to embrace a progressive culture. Vicent Navarro insists that a culture of anti-francoism is prerequisite for progressive thought and action: No puede haber en España una cultura auténticamente democrática mientras no haya una cultura antifranquista, para la cual se requiere una viva memoria histórica (2002: 213). If Republicanism continues to be a minority experience and perspective, an anti-fascist culture cannot become hegemonic. The Struggle to Acquire Public Visibility Exhumations and memorials act as icebreakers of fear-induced silence. The former are a particularly potent tool for deconstructing the Francoist fallacies that make up the 1978 Spanish constitution s backbone and continue to be acknowledged by mainstream society. The core fallacy is expressed as todos tuvimos la culpa ; i.e., both Nationalists and Republicans were guilty of the Civil War. The Amnesty Law, passed in 1977, is the corollary of this falsity. While the criminals of the dictatorship were not held accountable, the Republican system, its figures, and ideals were delegitimized. Officially, Republican heritage is still an embarrassment for the Spanish state. The silence imposed by the regime did not end in 1977 when the first democratic elections were held. Much of the first generation that suffered or witnessed crimes is still afraid to talk publicly about the trauma. The inequitable transition to democracy, engendered and enacted by high officials of the dictatorship, led many to view the democratic system as an extension of the regime, which in their minds could return at any moment. Much of the second generation inherited the trauma via silence and dysfunctional, often violent, behaviors. Very common symptoms this generation manifests are submission to authority, passivity, and indifference vis-à-vis politics, as demonstrated by studies on the trans-generational transmission of trauma (see Miñarro & Morandi (2012); and Valverde (2014)). Third generation adults often evince similar symptoms as their parents, but others have broken the curse, as it were, and sought to know the truth and seek justice. Emilio Silva the founder of the armh is arguably the most famous grandchild of the war who turned his search for knowledge into a grass roots activist movement.

47 47 Galicia 21 8 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson The bipartite government the coalition between the Partido Socialista de Galicia (affiliate of the psoe) and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego (bng) promoted an array of commemorative activities designed to obtain witness accounts of crimes against humanity. For example, the university-run Proxecto Interuniversitario Nomes e Voces and the Barco da memoria (a boat exhibit that visited eighteen coastal towns in the summer of 2006) were effective in gathering hundreds of recorded testimonies. The exhumations and memorials have persuaded thousands of first and second hand witnesses to tell their stories. Revitalized by public recognition and homage, many have come forward to share their private memories of trauma.8 In the absence of a state sponsored politics of memory, it is only these grassroots initiatives that can provide some sense of public recognition and closure to first and second generation witnesses of the war and dictatorship. Furthermore, the flow and exchange of stories create a community in which direct personal memory becomes cultural memory (Ashplant, Dawson & Roper 2000: 18-19). The Republican memory community has grown and become influential, but as a marginalized entity it cannot take the reigns of cultural production. The Galician memorials were placed mostly by private groups that usually had to bend over backwards to obtain permission. The struggles to secure space are remarkably similar. The source of rejection has come primarily from municipal governments, which play a crucial role in the process. The hegemonic Partido Popular de Galicia (pp de g) has been very much opposed except on rare occasions to memorialization, while the main party of the opposition, the Partido Socialista de Galicia (ps de g), has also objected in several instances to commemorating Republicanism. The leftist Bloque Nacionalista Galego (bng), the third biggest party until 2013, has a much more progressive record in this regard. The most successful memorial projects the most effective in drawing attention to the traumatic past were initially turned down by the municipal administrations. The case I examine in this article took place in A Coruña city and is representative of several other instances in which rejection on behalf of municipal authorities to place a memory marker stoked a popular reaction that led to debates in local and regional newspapers. Pro-Republican journalists, who have also played a core part in Galicia s commemorative processes, defended the victims right to publically honor their dead while their articles pressed political leaders to explain their positions. The debates and quarrels that ensued exposed what post-franco society has so successfully suppressed: denunciations against Francoism in the political realm and mainstream media. These ideological conflicts bring to the fore the resiliency of the Francoist fallacies, upheld by supporters of oblivion, and provide the left opportunities to discredit them. The seed of the A Coruña memorial erected on 19th December 2010 was Dolores Ares who sought to honor her anarchist grandfather, José Torres Regueiro, murdered by the Francoists shortly after the uprising. Dolores mother Laura Torres, who was seven when the events occurred, told her daughter the story of José. Laura was seven-years-old when her father was arrested: Cuando llegué a Coruña mi madre estaba llorando y no entendía nada; y mi hermana la mayor me dijo que habían cogido a papá (Interview conducted by the author). Laura s pregnant mother, Consuelo Meitín, was arrested the next day and spent two years in jail. Like most Spaniards who survived their loved ones, Consuelo was not allowed to publicly mourn her husband: Mi madre se murió a los 93 sin saber dónde estaba (Interview conducted by the author). Laura never knew why the fascists came for her mother, though she suspects Consuelo worked as liaison for the resistance: Ella no me explicó eso [ ] No hablaba por temor, pero no era muy tímida y tampoco le preguntaba (Interview conducted by the author). Once she was released from prison, Consuelo tried to investigate the whereabouts of her husband, but the Civil Guard le dijo que no siguiera

48 48 Galicia 21 9 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson See, for example, La aplicación de la memoria histórica, lúdica y cultural (2015). mirando si no quería que le hicieran a sus hijos lo mismo que a su marido y hermano (Interview of Dolores Ares conducted by the author). Dolores underlined the support she received from Santiago Macías, the vicepresident of the armh, who first advised her to obtain her grandfather s death certificate from the civil registry office. Dolores then went to the municipal government in order to request permission to place a plaque in the city cemetery honoring her grandfather (Interview conducted by the author). This request took place in January 2008 when the ps de g governed the municipality in coalition with the bng. The mayor Javier Losada was cherrypicked by the previous ps de g mayor Francisco Vázquez, who is famous throughout Spain for his reactionary politics. A Coruña is one of the cities in Spain with the most Francoist street names, although the election of Xulio Ferreiro and his party Marea Atlántica in June 2015 has begun to change this.9 Vázquez and his ps de g confederates refused to remove fascist names and other insignia by alleging that they are historical symbols that should be preserved (Monge 2010: 50). An official from the municipality answered Dolores request by offering her a wall in the basement next to the ossuary. Feeling thoroughly ridiculed by this proposition, Dolores consulted Macías, who advised her to find a group to back her project. Dolores asked the Comisión pola Recuperación da Memoria Histórica (crmh) da Coruña to sponsor the building of a memorial in honor of all the victims of fascism in A Coruña city. The crmh enthusiastically supported the cause and requested funds from the Ministry of the Presidency headed by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, which in January 2010 granted the entity almost 30,000 euros to carry out the memorial project. The Zapatero government was much more friendly to pro-republican (private) initiatives than was the ps de g municipal government of A Coruña, which adamantly rejected the project. Two issues of the proposed memorial particularly concerned Losada and the ps de g: its location in the Santo Amaro cemetery, which is highly visited, and the etchings of the names of 567 victims. Indeed, Losada wrote to the president of the crmh da Coruña, Manuel Monge, contending that A Coruña already had two memorials, that of Isaac Díaz Pardo on O Campo da Rata and Pepe Galán s in the Portiño. Both these memorials, especially Galán s, are on the periphery of the city. Losada further suggested that quizais o máis oportuno sexa buscar un lugar axeitado fóra da Coruña, nalgunha das localidades do entorno (Losada 2010). The mayor announced a month later in La Voz de Galicia: El monumento que representa a todos los ciudadanos [Díaz Pardo s] ya está ubicado y lamento que algunos quieran desvirtuar el acuerdo y la unidad de lo que ha sido una gran pérdida para todos ( Vítimas 2010). This is a typical rationalization wielded by pp politicians, but it is by no means uncommon in psoe or ps de g circles. Meanwhile, the crmh invited historians of the Proxecto Interuniversitario de Nomes e Voces to investigate the fascist crimes in A Coruña and ten surrounding municipalities. The crmh s intention was to acquire an objective rendering of the total number of victims and their names beginning with the uprising and ending in 1977, to be etched on the memorial. The crmh also organized an array of activities (workshops, lectures, handing out fliers, discussions with passersby) designed to divulge the facts of Francoism and invite the public to participate in the recovery of memory. First and secondhand witnesses came forward and told their stories. The crmh s interaction with the city helped increase popular support for the memorial.

49 49 Galicia Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson For a discussion of this memorial in the context of another argument, see Thompson Tres monumentos (2014b). The inauguration was filmed and can be seen online ( Inauguración do memorial na Coruña (2010)). Losada finally caved in thanks to pressure from the bng, the other governing party in the coalition one month before the subvention expired. But he refused to grant the Santo Amaro cemetery (where hundreds of murdered Republicans lie in a common grave), which was ideal for maximizing the memorial s symbolic effect. A grassy area along the Avenida de Navarra was offered and accepted. The inauguration was impressive; firsthand witnesses were able to have their loved ones publicly honored, Republicanism was celebrated as a necessary path for contemporary society, and famous left wing and nationalist figures attended.10 Drawbacks Even when used as vehicles of progressive thought and values, all memorials inevitably participate in a conservative discourse because of the hierarchy they establish between the artist and the spectator. It is not a process of collaboration. Under the auspices of the civic group spearheading the initiative, the artist conceives and executes while the public receives the message. The discourse is similar to that of authorized heritage, which according to Laurajane Smith constructs heritage as something that is engaged with passively [ ] the audience will uncritically consume the message of heritage constructed by heritage experts (2006: 32). There are few, if any, heritage experts involved in memorialization in Galicia, but the one-way communication and passivity to which Smith alludes are certainly salient characteristics in this context. The main drawback of memorials is that they produce the illusion of materializing history and acting as permanent reminders of historical events and figures. As they are attributed properties and functions they do not possess, they become fetishes. The civic movements in Galicia that were founded specifically to erect a memorial disappeared once the objective was achieved. Vilagarcía is a case in point. The pilot behind the memorial in this town, Margarita Teijeiro Suárez, founded and led the Coordinadora pro-monumento a las Víctimas del Franquismo, which dynamized the Republican community, infuriated the conservatives (especially the ps de g mayor Javier Gago), and united the bickering parties on the left. But once the memorial was erected in 2004, the association disappeared and the left regressed to its divisions. In the meantime, the sixty-six names on the bronze memorial are so rusted they are barely legible. Contrary to fetishistic and wishful thinking, memory markers are not eternal and they do not remember. It is the practice, the intangible heritage, and not the material what maintains meanings and cultural knowledge (Smith 2006: 54). Some Galician memorials are used ritually; civic groups or political parties hold gatherings every 14 April (the day the Second Republic was declared) or 18 July (the beginning of the fascist uprising). However, in spite of the fact that ritual is a form of intangible heritage, it is very limited due to its rigidity and mechanic nature. It can work for those who embrace the commemorative cause, but not for those who are disconnected from it. Generally speaking, only those involved directly in monument making the civic groups, asociaciones de memoria, family members of the victims, and (on occasions) political leaders have an emotional investment in the memorial. For the rest of society, especially the younger generation, symbolic markers go unnoticed; there is nothing

50 50 Galicia Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson There are exceptions, but they are few and far between. In Galicia where I have thus far carried out most of my research on memorials, the only incidence I know in which the pp de g supported commemoration was in Ponte Aranga. The mayor Alberto Platas accepted in April 2011 the crmh da Coruña s initiative to erect a memorial in the town square. in this world as invisible as a monument, Robert Musil famously declared (1987: 61). Interface between the past and the present is quite complex and memorials do not appeal to the majority. Andreas Huyssen s reflections on postwar and contemporary Germany are useful for elucidating the deceitful facet of monuments. He suggests that the abundance of them signals a kind of overcompensation: The more monuments there are, the more the past becomes invisible, the easier it is to forget: redemption, thus, through forgetting (1999: 193). According to this scholar, monuments do not foster constructive memory work, but act as burden-lifters. In Spain, this guilt syndrome does not exist. Many descendants of the Franco regime are members of the pp and feel proud of their fascist heritage. Indeed, it could be argued that this is the part of society most affected by Republican memorialization, as is manifested in its unanimous rejection of it.11 However, the idea that memorials remember for us and thus lead us to divest ourselves of the responsibility of remembering is very much alive within the Republican community. Many Republican memory sites in Galicia have become useless because they are not used for educational purposes or commemorations. Liz Sevcenko contrasts the static nature of lieux de mémoire with sites of conscience whose memorializing practices (2011: 114) are produced from critical analysis of the relationships between memory and action (2011: 115). The key is to identify specific strategies for sites in different political contexts to play a more intentional role in addressing current social issues (2011: 115). A site of conscience entails a group of stewards (or experts) in heritage studies and human rights who organize interactive activities for the general public. The ultimate objective of these commemorative practices is to foster a culture of human rights that questions and understands its purpose through heritage and historical memory. Existing and future memorials in Galicia would be more effective if several recurring deficiencies were remedied. One of the core failures of these markers is that they do not succeed in transmitting their purported message. To be able to effectively conjure an episode, a figure, an experience, etc., the message must be presented clearly. An aesthetic expression of abstraction can work well, but if it is not emplotted, let alone explained, it will fail. Explicative plaques are indispensable for an effective monument s discourse. An illustrative antimodel of transmission is José Loureiro s iron rod and boxes of ashes in the municipality of Fene. The artist explained that the box shapes at the base symbolize the murdered missing in common graves scattered across Spain. The rod that comes out of the boxes connects the memory of the dead with present-day collective consciousness (Personal interview conducted by the author). Notwithstanding that this is an interesting explanation that makes the memorial come alive, as it were, no one except the artist seemed to know this interpretation when I researched the memorial in the summers of 2011 and The only information provided is an inscription that reads 2006 Ano da Memoria. Memorials become less invisible when they invite the public to interpret their aesthetic. A similar defect characterizes the memorial in Tui erected in The artist Silverio Rivas explained that the human-like figure conveys on the one hand solitude; the solitude and horror the victims felt at the end of their lives (also the horror felt by the victims family and friends). It also can signify the reappearance of the murdered. Alfonso

51 51 Galicia 21 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson Memorial by José Loureiro (Fene) Daniel Castelao s famous etching entitled Non enterran mortos, enterran semente has made its way into many contemporary discourses on Franco s atrocities. The shingles on the wall also perform a symbolic function; when it rains the water tumbling down resembles tears. The memorial is therefore eternally crying. The hole in the wall can be interpreted as a window or door facing Portugal on the other side of the river. Thousands of Republicans escaped death by fleeing to Portugal (Personal interview conducted by the author). But as in the case of Loureiro s work in Fene, the public in general does not know this interpretation. A model example in both aesthetic and clarity is Pepe Galán s iron walkway, which lies four kilometers to the south west of A Coruña city. Inaugurated in 2008, it looks out to a cove known as O Portiño and pays homage to nineteen victims of a failed escape in Until very recently, this event was forgotten by most. Antón Patiño Regueira, who acted as link that terrible night for the escapees, was the promoter behind the commemoration of this event. The crmh da Coruña took Patiño s advice and organized a contest for the best sculpture. Galán provides interpretative cues for his walkway. Knowing these indications enables the spectator to imagine the concrete traumatic event. On a plaque, it is explained that the stairs going down on one side of the walkway can symbolize the escape and the stairs going up the return of memory. It is a space of movement, of leaving and returning. There are two six-meter-high lamps on either side and underneath the names of the nineteen victims. The lamps are bright blue and come on at night. One of the lamps blinks as if imitating a heartbeat and hinting at the continued presence of the victims. The names inscribed on the plaque are filled with lead, the material with which the escapees were murdered. The names of the men illuminated by the light are present; their ghosts are there at the crossroads, the escape and the return. The emplacement of a memorial is also a fundamental factor too often overlooked. A case in point is the traffic circle at the east entrance of the town Boiro. The bng mayor I interviewed, Pepe Deira, had laudable ideas about recovering and asserting the town s Republican heritage, but aside from this lieu de mémoire s prominent ugliness, a traffic circle is probably the worst place for commemorative art. Likewise, the sculpture of Juana de Capdevielle was placed next to the highway close to the town Rábade. Capdevielle, a left wing librarian from A Coruña, was murdered and dumped on the side of this road, but not at the site of the memorial. It is difficult to see the sculpture not only because it is along a road, but also because of the trashy-looking storehouse behind it. The artist, Luciano

52 52 Galicia 21 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson Memorial in Boiro Couselo, said he wanted his work to be placed at a more visible location, such as the town plaza (Personal interview conducted by the author). Another example is Marcos Escudero s reading woman on the highway of Mos, which is located very close to where the victims were murdered. After the memorial was erected, it was decided to humanize the area by building an asphalt parking lot, which seems to asphyxiate the woman and what she represents. Memorial by Luciano Couselo near Rábade Memorial making is done all too often without taking surrounding texts into consideration. Apart from the aforementioned absence of heritage experts, the influence of feísmo (see Martínez Suárez 2006) the acceptance of it certainly plays a role in these mistakes of emplacement. The first erected memorial, the bust of Alexandre Bóveda, is located in one of the classic plazas in the old district of Pontevedra the city where Memorial by Marcos Escudero (Mos)

53 53 Galicia 21 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson Bóveda lived at the time of the insurgence. It is an effective memory site to the extent that every August seventh the date of his execution there is a large commemorative event. But the conspicuous presence of Burger King inevitably affects the meaning of the memorial. The concept of symbolic accretion explained by Owen Dwyer (2004) is useful for elucidating this question. A memorial is a text whose meaning is ineluctably influenced by surrounding texts. Symbolic accretion can be allied in the event that the surrounding text (or texts) augment the intended meaning of the memorial. Or it can be antithetical if the text or texts diminish the intended meaning. This is obviously a case of antithetical symbolic accretion. 12 For a more complete rendering of this question, see Thompson No Monte Furriolo (2014). Bust of Alexandre Bóveda (Pontevedra) Abandonment of a memorial can lead to extreme degradations, such as that of the mural on O Monte Furriolo in the province of Ourense. Hundreds were slaughtered here. The initiative to make the wall was impressive as were the testimonies and historiographic studies published at the time of the inauguration (see Álvarez 2008). The memorial provided relief to survivors and descendants of the killed. However, I visited it in the summer of 2013 and encountered the mural colorless and vandalized. Franco and Rojo Muerto Rojo Bueno were spray-painted in big letters. And crosshairs were painted over the head of the victim depicted. I returned in the summer of 2014 and found the mural in identical condition.12 Memorial at O Monte Furriolo One of the main errors in erecting this mural was its location. It is very out of the way and the road that leads to it is used by few. But abandonment can lead to similar degradations regardless of the location. Acisclo Manzano s tall metal spirals located on the university of Santiago de Compostela campus and commissioned by the university has an interesting symbolic

54 54 Galicia 21 Galician Memorials: Civic Activism and Shortcomings John Thompson reading, which the artist explained to me. In the summer of 2014, I interviewed fifty passersby and not one knew what the memorial was supposed to represent. One man I interviewed had children who entered inside; he yelled at them to get out. This seemed strange to me, but later I understood why. A group of three young women told me that the youth who partake in ritual botellones on the weekend use the memorial as a urinal. In a similar way, the A Coruña memorial I discussed in the previous section has also been degraded. When I interviewed the artist at the memorial in 2012, both of us remarked the copious amount of feces that covered the ground. During the interview, a young man came down with a dog that defecated. The artist (Valdi) asked him to take the animal elsewhere and the man answered defensively that it was the municipality s responsibility to keep the site clean. Memorial by Acisclo Manzano (Santiago de Compostela) A New Approach for Engaging the Public Beyond the shortcomings I have pointed out lack of interpretive cues, inappropriate emplacement, abandonment the primary reason behind the memorials ineffectiveness once they are erected resides in the lack of engagement with the public. For a commemorative project to have a lasting effect, the public has to be involved and have a stake in it. In the last analysis, the memorials do not go far enough. They lack strategies for engaging the rest of society and future generations. A different form of art is required to bring the general public into the commemorative process. In new genre public art, as practiced and theorized by the likes of Suzanne Lacy and Judith Baca, the relationship between the artist and the community becomes the central part of the artwork. The countermonument tradition upholds this tenet to a certain extent insofar as monuments are designed to invite spectators to become more active. An interesting example is Jochen and Esther Gerz aluminum pillar (in Harburg, Germany), which was gradually lowered into the ground until disappearing. The plaque encouraged passersby to write or etch their thoughts and feelings on the pillar. The erroneous idea that a monument can embody eternal remembrance was mocked (Young 1993: 28-37). Another example is the Monument to Che Guevara in Rosario, Argentina, made of melted keys donated by the public (Morrison 2011). But countermonuments are limited to offering only metaphorical engagement. They are not created by the public. They are a product of the artists imagination. Judith Baca s mural paintings can serve as a template