This seminar has brought up a lot of big questions for me over the past week or so that we’ve been in Spain, and in particular, it has caused me to reflect on how a nation remembers and commemorates its past. Obviously this has been a major topic of discussion in the United States for some time, but has come into sharper relief more recently, with the events in Charlottesville and the debates over Confederate symbolism. Spain has given me some interesting perspectives on this subject, but also a lot more questions.
A few summers ago, on another seminar, I had a chance to read the book Empires of the Dead by David Crane, which deals with the British plan to build WWI cemeteries in continental Europe. Crane said that one of the main questions that arose was how the nation could create a universality of understanding that would give their commemoration meaning for the whole nation. Creating that universality of understanding is more difficult in the 20th and 21st centuries, but so is defining the nation. That is the question that also resonated with me, as the curriculum for our history classes at Shady Side asks students to grapple with big questions about identity. Who is included in the Spanish nation? And what questions might that also raise in my “Patterns of Western Identity” class about “who is Western?” Our visits to Barcelona and Madrid have drawn this question of national identity and commemoration into even sharper relief, especially through our visits to two very different Catholic basilicas.
Outside Madrid, we visited the Basilica of the Holy Cross in the Valley of the Fallen, a monumental complex commissioned in the 1950s by Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco. The basilica is impressive and unsettling to visit, especially once I realized, as Avi pointed out, that if you removed the Christian symbolism, it was a perfect fascist monument. Franco claimed the church and monument were to remember all the dead of the Civil War, but his used of forced labor from Republican prisoners undermined that sentiment. The site is extremely controversial today, due to the design, the nature of the construction, and the fact that the tombs of both Franco and Falange founder Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera are located on either side of the high altar. As we toured the site and saw the altar boys and worshippers preparing for mass, all I could think was “who would make the effort to attend church here? What kind of parish community would you build?” It was a stark reminder of how much Spain’s identity was tied to Catholicism, and how the Church has been therefore tied to some of the darkest periods in Spain’s history. So how can Spain build universal commemoration on the symbols of this controversial past? And what DO you do with a site like the Valley?
Perhaps Barcelona can offer some suggestions. When we arrived in the city, the differences were immediately obvious, as all the signs in the train station were no longer solely in Spanish, but also in Catalan. Driving around the city, I saw one or two Spain flags celebrating the World Cup, as we had seen in Madrid and Seville. But mostly what I noticed was Catalan flags and signs and banners relating to the independence referendum. Our guide even told us that many people wouldn’t be watching Spain in the World Cup because they didn’t feel Spanish. Barcelona does feel a bit disconnected from what we have learned so far after this first day. This area was “reconquered” by the Christian kingdoms so early, there isn’t a long Muslim tradition or the traces of Moorish architecture that I have become accustomed to looking for. It is clearly a very distinct identity and it doesn’t seem like everyone here wants it to be a Spanish one. Does all this mean we should abandon our search for national identity and a universal meaning? I’m honestly not sure. In the churches and former mosques and former synagogues that we have seen so far (sometimes all in the same building), I have seen a variety of reactions from our group.
But I did see a more universal reaction of awe and wonder when we visited the Sagrada Familia basilica today. Although also modern, it could not be more different from the Valley of the Fallen. Instead of being carved into the rock to create a dark, imposing atmosphere, Gaudi’s basilica is all soaring columns and incredible light from the rainbow of windows. Up until now, we have also seen a variety of architectural styles – Jewish, Moorish, Gothic and Baroque – combining and contrasting and often clashing. But the Gaudi designs that we saw today were unlike any of those styles. The Sagrada Familia is far from finished, and so the new artisans also have their chances to embed themselves into the fabric of the church while still maintaining Gaudi’s overall vision and traditions. Similarly, our group had a universal reaction of awe, but different reasons as to why. Sagrada Familia shows us that it is possible to maintain connections with the past, incorporate new people and new elements of identity, and create at least some level of universal meaning. I hope this is a lesson we can take forward into the future and I’m looking forward to the conversations my experiences will spark with my colleagues and students in the fall!