Synopsis of Graphology
(from the poetry collection ‘Madrid, Madrid, Madrid’ by Isabel del Rio)
This poem comments on the official statement signed by General Franco on 1st April 1939 proclaiming the end of the Spanish Civil War. I have interpreted both the handwriting style (hence graphology) and the vindictiveness of the brief text declaring that the three-year long war came to a close with the victory of the nationalist forces.
The nationalist uprising led by Franco against the legally constituted second Spanish Republic took place in 1936 and resulted in three years of civil war. After the end of hostilities, Franco established a dictatorship that lasted four decades.
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The war comes to an end with a unilateral declaration on the ending of hostilities.
A few selected words have been used for maximum effect.
What the other side may think or feel is left out of the equation, since the other side will be not be acknowledged or allowed to exist. Thus, the victors plan to erase the memory of the losing side, both their people and their beliefs. They do not realise the futility of such an undertaking in the same way they did not understand the cruelty and inanity of their mutiny
three years earlier.
The single paragraph is more a war pronouncement than a peace declaration, for the words describe the end but not the beginning, nor what happened in between: the atrocities, the senselessness, the terror. If the war finished on the battlefield, the warring against those citizens who were not killed or who fled has only just begun.
If you are into this sort of thing and proceed
to analyse the language used in that single paragraph,
you will observe
that the words are certainly
not the most
fortunate or accurate.
Today: this is how most things start, so we shall leave it at that.
Then, under the guise of cultured language, imbued with various rogue literary aspirations, an ablative absolute is included to give the sentence class and gravity, in the style of ancient rhymes: captive and disarmed the Red Army.
The word captive reaches the margin, as if the signatory had wanted to add something else but had run out of paper. Or
as if the truth is overflowing the page.
The declaration goes on to announce the military success by the insurgents: the nationalist troops have reached their last military objectives. Yes, this is sadly accurate enough.
They aspired to conquer Madrid at all costs, and after two and a half years of siege, the city fell on 28 March 1939. Three days later, this declaration was produced. It probably took them this long to come up with the wording, for they wanted to get it absolutely right for posterity as a symbol of what it is to win a conflict that is not against an alien enemy but painfully between those in the same family or street or city.
The war has ended: this is the final affirmation, without specifying for whom it has ended, nor what has just started in its place.
And then the signature: Generalissimo (a double ‘s’ added here to facilitate the reading of the word by non-Spanish speakers). The dictator-to-be signed with the hyperbolic, the superlative, the extravagant. How do you translate that into English: the general to end all generals? Interestingly, many of his generals did opportunely come to a tragic end.
And the place: Burgos
And the date: 1st of April 1939
The handwriting is obsessive and irregular. The word nationalist is divided in two; the crossing of the “T” recalls a frightening whip. There is an element of imbalance in the writing, moving first to one side and then to the other, as a boat in the roughest seas.
The signature includes a surname, underlined, with a couple of bubbles to hold everything in place.
In short, the style is careless, as if improvised; uprising against legally constituted writing; rebelling against what is upheld as right and honourable script; the product of someone who badly needs validation and is ready to fight a war against his brothers and sisters, so that the way he crosses his t’s and dots his i’s is recognised as having a distinguished and authoritative destiny, for he feels it is his mission to revert to a past that is not as glorious as he would have us believe, and to make sure that any divergence from the norm is ruthlessly punished.
One man’s insanity has become a nation’s destiny. And there are unhappily more to come, in other cities, in other lands. Check out their signatures and you will know.
….