predicted a cold weekend in the interior, but despite the threat, or perhaps because of it (sure that's harsh Mágina would deter more than one visit and could walk clear of its historic tourists), I decided it would be a good time to visit Ubeda. So there we planted on Saturday morning to find, as expected, its streets nearly deserted. Besides my interest because the children visiting the buildings that turned the city into a jewel of the Renaissance, I thought it would not hurt to stop by the renamed Plaza de Andalucía, Plaza Vieja once (or General Orduña in the imagination of Muñoz Molina) to, in line with the fashion dictated by the tedium of some politicians or the desire for stardom of some scholars, to show my children one of the exemplary citizen's civic duties: to claim historical memory. Although I imagine that the memory of such right mind does not stop bosses in the rehabilitation of military thought disaffected to his cause, because his is a selective memory. Whatever the case, the honorable Saro, eminent benefactor Úbeda, climbs again, displaying their heroic holes on the back of the martial soldiers, protected - the glory of the nation - under the wings of a cherub envelopes.
The general, who had been a member of Military Directorate was created in 1923 under the presidency of Miguel Primo de Rivera, was convicted and sentenced in 1932, after the advent of the Second Republic, for the crime of high treason. Amnesty two years later, ceases to active service and passed to the reserve status. Although no known involvement in the military rebellion, or in favor of the rebels, was shot in August 1936, in Madrid by Republican militiamen. However, in the mountains of La Loma some brainy chieftain of the anarchist militias considered insufficient warning and proceeded to stage a provincial bronze what others had accomplished before in the capital, and ordered the statue shot ... Who says that in the absence of the defendant, can not be shot by proxy?
- are dead, my son - said his father, solemn and educational - . Since they could not shoot the general Orduña, because he was dead, shot the statue, very stupid.
disorderly training came in blue overalls and sandals, with unbuttoned warriors on white shirts, military pants with a rope tied around his waist and militia hats and helmets askew and fallen on her neck. Carabiners old brought the war in Cuba and Mausers stolen in the assault on the Civil Guard barracks, and some, especially women, not other weapons waved their fists raised and their voices repeating a libertarian anthem. Someone shouted silence and better armed men lined up in front of the statue, breaking down in the face carabiners. Had fallen over the entire plaza and the crowd waited in silence as the arcades of execution. The first shot hit the general Orduña on the forehead, and boom drove away all the pigeons, who flew in terror to the eaves and strayed into the air every time it sounded a shock received by the crowd with a vast and only cry. When the guns fell silent, a man wearing a long hemp rope broke through the pack and threw a noose accurate to nine times pierced the head of the statue, claiming the support of others who are raw rifles and joined in his efforts to topple the statue of General. Tightens the noose, the noose closed around the torso rough opening, which had rumbled on receiving the bullet wound and a large bell, General Orduña rocked slowly, still not quite vertical and humiliated, and then swung and rolled at last sound of brass dragging its slow drop the marble pedestal collapsed in splinters on the flagstones of the square. Tightened the noose around the neck of the statue and dragged it bouncing over the cobblestones of the city to cast him down headlong into the precipice of the dunghill.
Antonio Muñoz Molina's Beatus Ille
Seix Barral. Barcelona.
1994 p. 56 and 57
crossed the square looking faces of survivors and dead ahead, avoiding the statue of General shot Orduña, who was on his military allegories canopy, air fresh from cadaver from the grave several days after the funeral, with an eye of empty bronze, pierced by a bullet, chest and neck pecked at by bullets and invincible gesture, head up towards the south, the embankments of the Cava and the distant blue mountains.
Antonio Muñoz Molina
The Polish Rider
Seix Barral. Barcelona. 2002 p. 130
