Without official documents or records, the murder of the poet and playwright Federico García Lorca remains a matter shrouded in mystery. The most accepted version is that he was killed in the early hours of August 18, 1936, somewhere along the road connecting the towns of Víznar and Alfacar, in the province of Granada, the writer’s hometown.
The author of Bodas de sangre lived in Madrid, but once the Melilla uprising (in Spanish Morocco) and the failed coup d’état of July 17, 1936, which sparked the Spanish Civil War, broke out, he decided to return to his native Granada. Around July 19, he finished his last play, La casa de Bernarda Alba.
Why did he decide to leave the capital of Spain? Researcher Ian Gibson provides an explanation in his book El asesinato de Federico García Lorca: “At the beginning of June 1936, in a letter addressed to Adolfo Salazar following the interview granted to Bagaría, García Lorca mentioned a quick visit he was about to make to his hometown: ‘I’m going to Granada for two days to say goodbye to my family. Since I’m going by car, it was a sudden thing and I didn’t tell you anything.’ Since the poet’s parents were then in Madrid, it was his sister Concha, married to Dr. Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, and her three children.”
“But why the need to say goodbye to them? The answer is that he planned to soon embark for Mexico, where Margarita Xirgu had arrived in mid-April, after her triumphant season in Cuba, and was performing Yerma with great success and would soon stage Bodas de sangre. The Mexican press enthusiastically announced the poet’s imminent arrival.”
Upon arriving in Granada, García Lorca found the city taken by nationalist forces. The southern region of Spain was one of those that fell under rebel occupation after the Melilla uprising. In Granada, a socialist mayor, Manuel Fernández-Montesinos, governed, who was also the writer’s brother-in-law, being married to his sister, Concha.
Events soon unfolded rapidly. Mayor Manuel Fernández-Montesinos was arrested and executed by the national forces, who unleashed repression against supporters of the Second Spanish Republic, first through War Councils but later summarily. Ian Gibson recounts: “According to numerous testimonies, the Granada war councils only operated in the first weeks of the conflict. Afterwards, they were exceptional, and prisoners were executed without even the pretense of a trial. It was much easier.”
The nationalists soon came looking for Federico García Lorca, who had hidden in the house of his friend, the poet Luis Rosales, whose brothers were prominent Falangists in Granada. But the armed men raided his family home, La Huerta, again, and this time asked directly for the author of the Romancero gitano. It was his sister, Concha, according to Ian Gibson, who revealed Federico’s whereabouts. “Concha, terrified, answered that her brother had not fled but was at the house of a Falangist friend, a poet like him. She probably even identified him as Luis Rosales.” The atmosphere thickened.
“By this time, hundreds of ‘reds’ from Granada had been executed, not counting the countless ‘walks’ carried out day and night in the surrounding villages – says Ian Gibson in his cited book -. Hatred, terror, and revenge had taken over the city. No one who had any connection to the Popular Front, however tenuous, was safe. And we can be sure that, from this moment on, Lorca would lose any semblance of peace he had regained by staying with the Rosales.”
Federico García Lorca was arrested on August 16, 1936, at the Rosales’ house. An armed group led by the Civil Guard arrived there to arrest him, led by Ramón Ruiz Alonso, a former deputy who had denounced Lorca to the civil governor of Granada José Valdés Guzmán. Ian Gibson explores Ruiz Alonso’s motives for carrying out his action: “Regarding Lorca, Ruiz Alonso liked to refer to him as ‘the poet with the big head,’ and hated his teacher and protector, the socialist Fernando de los Ríos… It is inferred that he was aware that the poet belonged to the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union. And of what he had said in El Sol about the ‘worst bourgeoisie of Spain,’ the one from Granada.”
“It is also possible that he envied his fame, given his own literary ambitions while composing his book on corporatism. As an almost fanatical Catholic and a staunch macho, he surely would not have liked the fact that the author of the Romancero gitano was homosexual.”
Since his arrest, – notes Gibson -, his friend Luis Rosales went to the government headquarters to speak with Governor Valdés to demand García Lorca’s release. As he was not there, he asked to see Ruiz Alonso. Upon seeing him, Ruiz Alonso only acknowledged the poet’s arrest “Under my sole responsibility.” The die was cast.
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As Ian Gibson points out, around 9 a.m. on August 18, 1936, the chilling news of the poet’s death, which occurred that early morning, began to circulate in Granada. The author even dares to name one of those involved in the crime. “Ángel Saldaña, one of the few Republican councilors not executed, went early in the morning to the popular Bar Pasaje, better known as La Pajarera, in Zacatín. Suddenly, Juan Luis Trescastro entered and loudly announced, defiantly: ‘We just killed Federico García Lorca and I shot him twice in the ass for being a faggot.’”
“In light of these testimonies, Juan Luis Trescastro’s physical involvement in the poet’s murder seems undeniable. It is also inferred that the bullets he boasted about were fired before the firing squad finished their dirty work, to make him suffer more. It even seems that Trescastro liked to show the pistol with which he allegedly tortured his victim.”
But one detail is missing: why has Federico García Lorca’s body not been found? According to Spanish government data, there are about 6,000 mass graves throughout the territory containing remains of unidentified executed persons during the civil war, which according to official figures number around 11,000 people, but unofficial estimates speak of 25,000.
García Lorca would be among them, but to date it has not been possible to determine exactly in which mass grave he would be; there was no record of the location. It is believed that he was possibly killed between 4 and 5 a.m. from August 17 to 18 in a place in the Sierra of Granada, between the towns of Víznar and Alfacar.
The peninsular justice system has unsuccessfully tried to locate the poet’s remains. In 2008, Judge Baltasar Garzón ordered the opening of several graves, including some believed to contain Lorca’s remains. There were no results. Then there were two more procedures, in 2013 and 2016, without success.
Spanish journalist Santi Donaire, who has followed the search processes, told the BBC: “Unlike Paterna (in Valencia), which is post-war repression, where systematic killing occurs, there are records and one can trace the person’s path until they are killed, when they kill Lorca it is at the start of the conflict and there is no system, no documentary records.”
Added to this is that the place is a mountainous and irregular region that has undergone changes over the years. “There have been alterations. First agricultural, as olive trees have been planted and removed. Also, in the 1980s there was a major alteration to build a motocross track, which I find very significant,” Santi Donaire explained to the BBC.
However, the poet’s descendants have not shown much interest in finding the remains of the author of Bodas de sangre. In a recent interview with the Spanish media El Salto, Laura García-Lorca de los Ríos, who is president of the foundation bearing the poet’s name, said: “Symbolically, it is much stronger for Lorca’s remains to be mixed with all the other victims (…) that distinction between victims’ remains does not seem right to us.”
She added that “all families who want to search for their relatives have the right and the help to do so. That is why we have not wanted to prevent any of the excavations.”
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