Urtasun vetoes Ignacio Sánchez Mejías character from the 27th generation centenary for being a bullfighter

It is this “journey” to the south that Guillén will write in the poem “some friends” To summarize what happened on December 16 and 17, 1927, it was promoted by Sánchez Mejías, a shepherd and host in his house. Pino Montano farma house on the outskirts of the city and separated by Tamargüillo. This was the place where the famous Moors’ costume party and flamenco evening were held. Since then, this space has become a refuge for many of these poets who would frequently visit the home of their friend and his wife in Seville. Lola Gomez Ortegasister Joselito the roosterand their children, José Ignacio and Maria Teresa. In the same rooms where Lorca met Manuel Torres and the hypnosis session pioneered by the poet and rancher took place. Fernando VillalonDolores Sánchez Mejías, granddaughter of the bullfighter, welcomes us. To say the least, his descendants were surprised by the position of the Sanchez government, and although they insist that they are not seeking confrontation, but rather reconciliation, they condemn the treatment this figure received. “My grandfather had a need to help, and he brought them together, made them a group, and he knew they were very good. My grandfather also saw this as an opportunity for his children to surround themselves in this environment,” says the daughter of José Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, who ended up devoting himself to bullfighting (first wearing the spotlight, then as a manager) despite her father’s efforts to distance him from that world.

In addition to being a bullfighter, playwright, pilot, car driver, and president of the Red Cross and Real Betis Balompie, Dolores Sánchez Mejías did not know her grandfather. Everything he knew about that time was told to him by his grandmother, whom the young poets called Mammy, and who also “enjoyed” the presence of this gang. “We lived in a very good environment, everything was very nice, even for her despite what she was going through” (her husband’s love story with the dancer, choreographer, canzontista and flamenco dancer) Argentinian).

For Dolores, the Urtasun Cabinet’s decision simply responds to her opposition to the Bulls, without even getting into issues of a stronger ideological nature. When the Minister this summer announced the creation of this commission, he highlighted Generation 27 composers “for their creative power, their connection with the most important international movements, such as the avant-garde, and their mutual relations and influences with other arts,” but he also introduced a political bias by outlining it. “His commitment to the republic”. Polarization has not existed for almost a century. “My grandmother took good care of them, but sometimes they would trick her. He was very royal and very Catholic. He remembers waking up one day and seeing all the radiators painted with the Republican flag.

“Only the totalitarian sectarianism of our minister can expect to dispense with his important personality.”

“Having become a true legend and an essential reference in the aesthetics of the 27th century, only the totalitarian sectarianism of our Minister could expect to dispense with his important figure in the centenary of so many poets who gave Spanish literature a touch of modernity that still lives in the poetry of our country today,” says Emeritus Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Seville, and full member of the Royal Seville Academy of Fine Letters. Rogelio Reyes.

It is a point on which anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the right-hander’s contribution to the development of those foundational works would agree with his economic contribution, but as a source of inspiration for young writers. “He was a prominent figure in the lyrical career of twenty-seventh century poets. He knows them through Jose Maria de CosioThe author of the great work on bulls, poets saw in Ignacio the living embodiment of bullfighting values: his heroic state, his defiance of death in every bullfight, his clear intelligence in the face of the dangers of life always on the brink of risk before the bull’s horns. His strong personality reaffirmed their passion for the festival, which – after the reluctance of the 98 authors – was elevated to an authentic artistic status.

“They all became friends and talked a lot at the Ateneo and at Pino Montano about bulls and literature. Never before has there been such brotherhood

Between these two worlds

Another professor and academic emeritus, poet and essayist from Seville Jacob Cortines Bullfighting also stands out as a topic among intellectuals of the time. “He was the one who presented the collection to another poet, who was then almost unknown: Fernando Villalon, the best new poet in all of Andalusia, according to the well-known submission formula. They all became friends and talked a lot at the Ateneo and at Pino Montano about bulls and literature. It was never there until then Similar brotherhood Between these two worlds: a bullfighter who was at the same time a playwright, an educator who was a poet, and poets who were more than amateurs but professional bullfighters. In this exceptional environment, bullfighting literature had to necessarily flourish as an expression of a new sensitivity to the phenomenon of bulls, as new experiences in the panorama of Spanish life, recalling that the bullfighter presented a conference on bulls in Columbia University in New York in 1929.

And finally, once Ignacio died After the capture of Manzanares in 1934“His personality has achieved truly legendary accents among his poet friends,” reflects Rogelio Reyes. “It will take a long time to be born a clear, adventurous Andalusian.”Lorca concludes the most important elegy in Spanish literature since Jorge Manrique’s “Coplas por la muerte de su Padre.”

Theatrical work

Sánchez Mejías’ influence as a bullfighting or flamenco broadcaster among the group of writers was “radical” in the García Lorca case, as he recalls in his book Spilled Blood. Echoes of the Bullfight Sanchez Mejías in García Lorca (Athens), Doctor of Spanish Literature and Professor at the University of Granada José Javier León. For the expert, it was fundamental to the “punish awakening” of the Granada native and the vision of flamenco that he summarized in his conference “The Game and Theory of the Duende”. In the case of flamenco art, the granddaughter highlighted on several occasions during the conversation, and the music and dance show he wrote and produced alongside Argentina’s “Streets of Cádiz” was also capital.

Ignacio Sánchez Mejías also wrote four original theater pieces: “There is no reason” -Where he put Freudian theses about dreams on the table-; “Zaya” and “No more, no less” In addition, Soledad, a comedy in more than one act, was not published until well into the 1980s. “Perhaps from a purely literary point of view, no, but his character is essential to the Silver Age. It was the glue that allowed everything to come together. also Pepin Bello“But Sánchez Mejías also had this special character and economic ability.” Antonio Fernandez Torresdesigned by Estudio Puerta de Tannhauser, director of the exhibition organized in 2009 at the Palace of Seville to commemorate the 75th anniversary of his death and in which the biographer Sánchez Mejías also participated, Andres Amoros. Together they wrote a book with the same title as the exhibition: “Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, Man of the Silver Age.” “His contrasting edges make the character very large and interesting. Through Ignacio many things about that time are understood. Politically, he was very careful not to take any position. “Later, the Franco regime did not consider him one of its followers,” the historian continues. Fernandez Torres believes that this persecution of bulls actually occurred more intensely three decades ago. “We were penalized for doing a project on the ground, and that was an obstacle to doing things.”

Literary experts go further: “The exclusion of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías from the commemoration of the 27th is, apart from a sign of lack of culture, an insult. Deplorable injustice», concludes Cortines.