Did Federico García Lorca foresee his own death when returning to Granada in July 1936, as the military uprising began?
Word count: 2064
Section A: Identification and Evaluation of Sources
This investigation will evaluate the question: ‘Did Federico García Lorca foresee his own death when returning to Granada in July 1936, as the military uprising began?’ Historian Ian Gibson’s and journalist Eduardo Fajardo’s interpretations of available primary evidence will provide two contrasting perspectives. Gibson argues that Lorca was fully aware of the significant risk, yet seemed to accept any consequences, including death. Fajardo, conversely, suggests he firmly believed he was safer in Granada than elsewhere.
Source A: El Asesinato De García Lorca (The Assassination of García Lorca) by Ian Gibson, 1971 (2018 Edition).
Gibson is an Irish historian, Hispanist, and Professor of Spanish Literature at Queen’s University Belfast and London University. Written during the 1960s, published in Paris in 1971, in Spain in 1979, and reviewed (most recently) in 2018, this book explores the circumstances of Lorca’s death by evaluating various first-hand sources and documents from the time. The fact that Gibson’s work was censored in Spain (even for four years following Franco’s death) demonstrates that its conclusions and revelations were seen as accusatory and controversial for a society under Franco’s regime. Furthermore, the 2018 edition provides information now available. Gibson, being a foreign historian and thus having no personal connection to the event, offers an alternative and potentially more objective view, compared to a Spanish historian. However, his external perspective could have limited his understanding of Granada or Spain’s culture, or how Lorca’s history was regarded by locals, as a native might understand. Moreover, Gibson was born three years after Lorca’s death, which prevents him from fully grasping society’s attitudes and the overall atmosphere at the time, causing his work to rely entirely on second-hand sources and multiple witnesses. His expertise in Spanish literature is highly beneficial, as it allows a consideration of Lorca’s personality and state of mind through the analysis of his writings—something other historians without knowledge in the field might easily overlook.
Source B: Los Últimos Días de García Lorca (The Last Days of García Lorca) by Eduardo Molina Fajardo, 1983. Molina Fajardo was a journalist and author from Granada, Spain.
Living in Granada during the Spanish Civil War, Fajardo provides a first-hand personal perspective of the events leading to Lorca’s death, as well as a deep understanding of the uprising and its effect on the city. Fajardo not only worked as a journalist for several newspapers during Franco’s regime, including Yugo, Odiel, and Patria (a local newspaper from Granada), but was also a member of the Falange himself. His position within the regime granted him access to official information on Lorca’s death, supporting his investigation. Consequently, his book refers to interviews with direct witnesses and official documents. Nonetheless, his involvement within the regime raises uncertainty about the actual purpose of his book and his true motivation for investigating, years later, an event that caused controversy within the government he once served. Fajardo died in 1979, leaving his book unfinished. His family completed his work with the available information he collected during his lifetime; however, undocumented material known only to Fajardo or any personal changes he might have made were omitted. Although Franco’s death in 1975 led to the end of the dictatorship and thus the disclosure of secret information (possibly including details about Lorca’s death), 1983 was still relatively early to publish a book that considers all available evidence and accuses the regime.
Section B: Investigation
“Did Federico García Lorca foresee his own death when returning to Granada in July 1936, as the military uprising began?”
On the afternoon of 16 August 1936, a month after the military uprising reached Granada, Falangists set out for Calle Angulo with a clear objective: to arrest poet Federico García Lorca and later shoot him 9 km outside the city. Just a month earlier, during a dinner at Pablo Neruda’s house in Madrid, Lorca’s ambitions to return to Granada were strongly opposed by his friends from the capital. Despite these warnings, Lorca made the fateful decision to return, embarking on what would be the final journey of his tragically short life. The incongruity of these events has led historians to investigate Lorca’s motives for travelling to Granada during such tumultuous times. This investigation will examine the proposed hypotheses regarding Lorca’s awareness—or lack thereof—of the dangers surrounding his stay in Granada and identify the most probable conclusion based on the limited evidence.
A frequent perspective, especially prevalent in post-Francoist Spain, is to depict Lorca as a revolutionary martyr of his time—a leftist hero unjustly assassinated by the Falange due to his ideals. While some historians challenge this, criticising the use of Lorca as an ‘anti-Francoist symbol’, others employ his pre-1936 activities to support this romanticised view. A distinct supporter is foreign historian Ian Gibson, presenting the “revolutionary Lorca” as “conscious that they were after him”. Firstly, the belief that Lorca anticipated what occurred in August 1936 and ultimately opted to take the fatal risk implies that he had been an openly convinced republican, or at least an antagonist to the uprisers. Although he had never been officially affiliated with any political party, Lorca did partake in political activities, which, as Gibson argues, refute the simplistic assertion that he was ‘apolitical’ and present him as a ‘leftist intellectual’. Lorca’s friendship with Fernando de los Ríos, the republican minister for education, enabled the development of social projects targeted at the lower classes and despised by the rightist conservative press. This demonstrates the Republic’s influence on Lorca’s public reputation. Supporting evidence includes his decision to sign public manifestos demanding leniency for republican leaders, his involvement in politically driven organisations such as ‘Friends of the Soviet Union’ and ‘Alliance of Spanish Intellectuals’, and his critical comments on the “essentialist Spain”, revered by conservatives, during public interviews. These reinforce the claim that he was an open sympathiser of the Popular Front and therefore mindful of the threat a leftist uprising would pose to his life. He himself expressed this awareness through the statement “[Granada’s] fields will be filled with the dead”. Other indications that he could foresee his destiny were the events that took place at Huerta San Vicente, the family home in Granada. Although sources vary between 13 or 16 July as his arrival date, all agree that Lorca was already in Granada on the 20th. On this date, the Falangist coup took over the city, arresting leaders of the opposition—including Lorca’s brother-in-law and socialist city mayor, Francisco Montesinos. This event was followed by frequent and violent searches of the house between 6 and 9 August, as Lorca’s nephew recalls. The insurgents’ interest in the family must have certainly warned him of the danger. Despite this, and the chance to escape with his fugitive friend, Alfredo Rodríguez, whom Lorca himself eventually helped flee, he still decided to stay in Granada—a decision interpreted as a sign of martyrdom. Furthermore, those familiar with his literary work, including Gibson and Lorca’s friend Salvador Dalí, support this view by identifying death as a common motif in his work: “I understood they had assassinated me /…/ They did not find me”. This anticipated death would draw nearer on 16 August, when Lorca was arrested. As demonstrated by Gibson’s investigation, the poet’s political activism during the Second Republic, his hesitation to leave Granada despite the deteriorating situation, and the foreshadowing elements of his writings indicate an understanding and acceptance of his demise.
Conversely, considering Lorca as a “martyr” is arguably a simplistic view, aimed more at glorifying the poet than reflecting reality. Lorca’s personality, romanticised through exaggerated courage and social concern, was fearful, according to his inner circle. Therefore, an alternative perspective, offered by Fajardo, is that if Lorca went to Granada, he must have been certain he could survive. What many, including Gibson, fail to emphasise is Lorca’s plan to travel to Mexico after the summer. He had, as his brother recalls, bought tickets before travelling to Granada and announced his upcoming visit to the Mexican press. Therefore, making these preparations seems illogical if he anticipated his death. Regarding his political activities, it is essential to note that he refused to join any political party or have formal links to the Popular Front, despite his friends’ pressure to do so. This decision might indicate he sought to avoid complications with the rightists or, alternatively, that he was less aligned with the left than the anti-fascist myth suggests. Lorca claimed to support “the party of life” and “those suffering”. This ambiguous language, prevalent in his written accounts, presents a desire to end Spaniards’ torment, under whichever side. Assuming he was politically impartial, it seems reasonable that he felt blameless and thus safe in Granada, where he “[had] friends”, as he declared at Neruda’s dinner. The fact that Lorca had leftist but also rightist friends in Granada further supports the belief that he felt protected there. A clear example was his friendship with Luis Rosales and his brothers, all prominent members of the Falange. The family provided him residence after the searches at San Vicente by other uprisers. His stay, from 10 to 16 August, “was not hidden”, as recognised by the Rosales and other Falangists, with whom Lorca interacted openly. Under the safeguard of José Rosales, the leader of the Falange sector in the city, Lorca considered his persecution, let alone his murder, highly improbable. Even so, he was arrested on 16 August, with no official accusation or report to explain the arrest, leaving historians to speculate about the true reasons behind it. A certain fact, however, is that Commandant José Valdés, who oversaw the civil government in Granada after the uprising, authorised Lorca’s arrest and assigned it to his subordinate, the ex-CEDA deputy Ruiz Alonso. Both disliked the Rosales’ status within the local Falange and, therefore, their protection of Lorca. As Fajardo suggests, Lorca’s murder could have been a product of disputes between the Falange, CEDA, and Guardia Civil, forced to collaborate in the uprising. The antagonism within the insurgents and towards the Rosales was entirely indiscernible to Lorca, supporting the claim that he could not have anticipated his fate.
In conclusion, the lack of definitive information raises questions about whether Federico García Lorca foresaw his fate. While the mainstream post-Francoist perspective views Lorca as a martyr who awaited death, another interpretation suggests he misjudged the situation, believing himself safe among his personal connections in Granada. Available evidence of his reluctance to formally join a political party, his friendships across ideological divides, and the role of internal conflicts among the insurgents as a catalyst for his death demonstrates that Lorca’s tragic end was unforeseen.
Section C: Reflection
While conducting this investigation, I have encountered many challenges faced by historians studying Lorca and the true circumstances of his death, or indeed any event surrounding the Spanish Civil War. The lack of official written evidence has hindered substantial support for accurate claims. The minimal archive material remaining after the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975, including the Falange’s report of Lorca’s death (Figure 1), presents itself as deeply euphemistic and therefore ineffective in reaching conclusive, unbiased answers. Unfortunately, alternative primary sources, such as Lorca’s indefinite, often metaphorical writing, various newspaper articles, and, most predominantly, eyewitness accounts, have further impeded a reliable reconstruction of the events leading to August 1936. As Gibson would complain, during the collection of evidence: “some have died and others do not want to talk”. Even over 40 years after Lorca’s death, oral testimony was difficult to obtain by Gibson and Fajardo, given the “raw emotions” still present that kept the poet’s assassination an unspoken and sensitive topic within Granada and Spanish society as a whole. For this reason, Spaniards had to rely on foreign historians to investigate and draw conclusions about the tragic death of one of the most celebrated poets of Spanish literature. Another challenge, specific to this topic, was to look beyond the examined “revolutionary” image of Lorca. Even today, the contemplation of the poet’s tragedy as a political instrument to vilify the right seems to narrow the “morally acceptable” interpretations of his death. As a Spaniard myself, this investigation has made me realise the complexity of my own country, and potentially any other country, when dealing with the history of a civil war. Furthermore, through researching a well-known case, not dissimilar to the thousands of casualties resulting from the national confrontation, I have challenged the mainstream retrospective view of the republicans and nationalists as a ‘good versus evil’ dichotomy, by considering Lorca as an innocent victim not of a specific side, but of the war itself.
Bibliography
Alonso, Dámaso. 1952. Poetas españoles contemporáneos. 3rd ed. N.p.: Gredos.
Auclair, Marcelle. 1972. Vida y muerte de García Lorca. México: ERA S.A.
Couffon, Claude. 1967. Granada y García Lorca. Buenos Aires: Losada.
Dalí, Salvador. 1954. “Les morts et moi.” La Parisienne, May 1954, 529–538.
García Lorca, Federico. 1987. Poeta en Nueva York. Edited by María C. Millán. 4th ed. N.p.: Cátedra.
Gibson, Ian. 1971. The Assassination of Federico García Lorca. 2018 ed. Barcelona: Penguin.
Gibson, Ian. 1989. Federico García Lorca: A Life. 2016 ed. Barcelona: Penguin.
Joseph, Allen. 1989. “Blood of a Genius (Review of Federico García Lorca: A Life by Ian Gibson).” New York Times Archives, 8 October 1989. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/gibson-lorca.html.
López y Guerra, Humberto, dir. 1977. Federico García Lorca: Asesinato en Granada [Murder in Granada]. Vega Film.
Martínez Nadal, Rafael. 1974. El público: Amor y muerte en la obra de Federico García Lorca. Mexico: Editorial Mortiz.
Molina Fajardo, Eduardo. 1983. Los últimos días de García Lorca. N.p.: Plaza & Janés.
Schneider, Luis Mario. 1998. García Lorca y México. Mexico: UNAM.
TVE, dir. 1980. La Clave. Episode 160, “Muerte de García Lorca.” TVE. Aired 21 June 1980.
Vila-San-Juan, José L. 1975. García Lorca, ASESINADO: toda la verdad. Barcelona, Spain: Planeta.
Appendix
