ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SENDER'S "RÉQUIEM POR UN CAMPESINO ESPAÑOL"

Author(s): Raymond Skyrme

Source: Romance Notes , Winter, 1983, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Winter, 1983), pp. 116-122
Published by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for its Department of
Romance Studies

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43801936

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 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SENDER'S
RÉQUIEM POR UN CAMPESINO ESPAÑOL

Raymond Skyrme

Réquiem por un campesino español, described by Sender as "simple-

mente el esquema de toda la guerra civil nuestra," 1 contains only two
strictly chronological links with the historical period it represents,
neither of which is a specific date. The first of these is an allusion to
the fall and exile of Alfonso XIII following the municipal elections
of April 12, 1931, the village equivalent of which (actually a rerun
thereof) give Paco a seat on the village council, almost one month after
his wedding (pp. 44-45). The second cites "un día del mes de julio"
(p. 54), on which the Guardia Civil is withdrawn from the village
under orders to join up with the other forces in the district. The Repub-
lican village councilmen's sense of "alguna amenaza en el aire" (p. 54)
makes it difficult to interpret this allusion as anything other than a
reference to the imminent outbreak of the Civil War. The apparently
immediate arrival of the señoritos (p. 54), with which Paco's disap-
pearance ostensibly coincides, would then place his escape, capture, and
execution (some two weeks later) 2 in late July or early August of the
same year.
When other internal references to the passage of time in the nar-
rative are related to this fixed point in 1936, it is possible to establish
a fairly precise chronology of the principal events in the novel and of
the historical background to which they correspond:

1 Marcelino C. Peñuelas, Conversaciones con R. J. Sender (Madrid: Magisterio,

1970), p. 131. The edition used is that published under the original title, Mosen
Millán (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1964), page references to which
appear within parentheses in the text.
2 When captured, Paco is described as wearing a "barba de quince días"
(p. 66).

116

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 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SENDER 117

1911-1931. Paco's birth, childhood, adolescence, and courtship. R

fonso XIII.
1911. Baptism, in early spring (p. 10), recalled by Mosen Millan at the time
of the requiem mass, celebrated "veintiséis años después" (p. 7), in 1937.
1918. Confirmation and First Communion, at seven years of age (p. 14); visit
to the cuevas.
1931-1936. Paco's marriage, in March, 1931; election to the village council
and political activities. Fall of the Monarchy and proclamation of the Second
Republic.
1936. Departure of Guardia Civil in July; arrival of señoritos ; attacks on and
assassination of councilmen and villagers; Don Valeriano installed as mayor; Paco's
execution in July or August. Outbreak of the Civil War.
1937. Requiem mass in commemoration of Paco's death "un año antes"
(p. 65); apparent peace and normalcy in the village.3

Among the several indications of the lapse of time between focal

episodes in Paco's life and the point at which Mosén Millan recalls
them are two references which, if taken literally, would be incongruous
with the sequence and overall span of this chronology. The first of these
concerns Paco's visit to the cuevas (pp. 20-25), a key episode in the
narrative in that the profound impression it leaves on his young mind
clearly motivates his political involvement after 1931. The account of
this visit immediately follows that portion of the narrative describing
Paco's preparation for First Communion, celebrated just after his Con-
firmation, when he is seven years of age (p. 14). There is nothing in
this segment of the story to suggest that the cuevas episode could have
preceded these two events. Yet, immediately following an account of
how Paco's family, la Jerónima, and the other gossips at the carasol
react to the visit, the text clearly states that Mosén Millan recalled
this experience "veintitrés años después" (p. 25). This would mean, in

3 See Peter A. Bly, "A Confused Reality and Its Presentation: Ramón Sender's
Réquiem por un campesino español The International Miction Review, 5, No. 2
(1978), 96; Marcelino C. Peñuelas, La obra narrativa de Ramón J. Sender (Madrid:
Gredos, 1971), pp. 144-45, whose summary of the sequence of events in the nar-
rative on these pages is contradicted by an earlier analysis of their chronology
(see below, note 5); and Dario Villanueva, Estructura y tiempo reducido en la
novela (Valencia: Editorial Bello, 1977), p. 264. Eduardo Godoy Gallardo, "Pro-
blemática y sentido de Réquiem por un campesino español , de Ramón Sender,"
Letras de Deusto , 1, No. 1 (enero-junio 1971), 70, concludes only that "la acción
de la novela debe concentrarse, incuestionablemente, antes del estallido de la guerra
civil, entre los años 1931-1936. No hay fijación precisa en el cuerpo narrativo."

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 118 ROMANCE NOTES

view of the twenty-six-year time span of t

only three years old when he accompanied t
age which is inconsistent with the sequen
phase of the narrative and incompatible wit
science which his reactions to this experienc
of twenty-three years does not appear to b
can only conclude that it is a lapsus calami
the period of time which elapsed between th
recollection of it was nineteen years.
The second, and potentially more signific
internal chronology of the narrative involves t
elapse between Paco's wedding in March of 1
celebrated one year after his death. On the b
día del mes de julio," it has been generall
executed in the late summer of 1936 and, co
took place - "un año después" (p. 62) - in
wedding. However, immediately following th
ceremony and reception the text clearly stat
Mosen Millán recordaba la boda sentado en e
tía" (p. 41; my italics). This would mean tha
hence Paco's death, occurred one year later
- in the late summer of 1938 and 1937 resp

4 The same figure occurs in the editions publis

York, I960), p. 42, and Proyección (Buenos Aires, 1
note 82, appears to be the only critic to have notic
lógica," although Charles L. King, Ramón Sender
p. 77, refers to unidentified "minor breaks in chro
free association of ideas."
5 Only Peñuelas, La obra narrativa, p. 138, note 1, seems to have noted, or
rather quoted, the reference to "siete años después": "La muerte de Paco ocurre
al comienzo de la guerra civil. Las alusiones son bastante concretas: 'Siete años
después, Mosén Millán recordaba la boda...' (pág. 49). La boda de Paco se había
celebrado aproximadamente un año antes de su muerte y los recuerdos de Mosén
Millán tienen lugar un año después de dicha muerte; es decir que mataron a Paco
cinco años después de la llegada de la república, o sea en 1936, cuando comenzó
la guerra." But this chronological argument is confused and patendy contradictory:
while Paco's death in 1936 would place the requiem mass in 1937 (the accepted
view), Peñuelas* mistaken assertion that Paco was married "un año antes de su
muerte" (i.e., in 1935) would mean, given the quoted seven-year lapse, that the
mass was celebrated in 1942.

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 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SENDER 119

follow, given the roughly two weeks that Paco was in hid
the señoritos could not have arrived in the village unti
summer, one full year after the departure of the Guardia C
1936. It is the one-year interval between these two inciden
difficult to accept, since the tragic sequence of events in
after the Guardia Civil have left appears to unfold with gre
If the reference to "siete años después " is not a printin
(both the Las Americas, p. 70, and Proyección, p. 49, ed
the same figure), can it be dismissed as a second authorial
The fact that this incongruity, unlike the earlier one, does
the chronological order of events but merely prolongs th
time in which they occur, would suggest that it can not. O
trary, it can be argued, on the basis of historical data, th
of one year between the withdrawal of the Civil Gua
apparently immediate intrusion of the forasteros is perfec
able: "Un día del mes de julio la guardia civil de la aldea se m
Los concejales sentían alguna amenaza en el aire, pero no pod
tarla. . . . Llegó a la aldea un grupo de señoritos con ve
pistolas" (p. 54). The sequence of events here almost exactl
a similar implicit time-lag between Paco's earlier election
lican municipal council and his subsequent efforts to bring
agrarian reforms. These efforts appear to begin immediatel
elections of April, 1931: "En la segunda elección el pad
cedió el puesto a su hijo. El muchacho fue elegido. ... E
suprimieron los bienes de señorío , de origen medioeval y lo
ron a los municipios " (p. 46). But the historical justificatio
reforms alluded to here and later ("hay una ley," p. 49), th
Law, was not in fact passed until September, 1932. 7
Such a lapse in the Civil War phase of the novel could f
justified by the ideology and actions of the señoritos } whi

6 Neither incongruity can be ascribed to a faulty memory on Mos

part, or, as King, p. 77, seems to suggest, "help preserve the freshnes
of the priest's memories." Of the novel's four narrative voices, it i
omniscient story-teller which indicates the lapse of time between pas
7 On this, and a proposed law to benefit small arrendatarios (su
father), see Gabriel Jackson, The Spanish Republic and the Civil W
University Press, 1965), pp. 84-85.

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120 ROMANCE NOTES

them more closely with their historical count

those of 1936. Although the term obviously
their founder, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, t
attributed to the intruders (p. 56) properly b
were not fused with the Falange until April
authorized political party in Nationalist Spa
Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Na
burning of the tricolor (p. 58) seems equally
tory of the first weeks of the Civil War, wh
Spain had rebelled with the cry 4 ¡Viva la R
all insurgent units fought under the republic
But a selective appeal to the criterion of h
leading. If the same criterion were applied t
almost all the events subsequent to Paco's el
factually implausible, for the simple reaso
chronology are inconsistent with the history of
The Agrarian Law which Paco invokes in sup
the Duke (p. 49) applied only in "Andalusia,
inces of Castile . . . and Albacete in Murcia,"
province, "cerca de la raya de Lérida" (p. 5
set did not support the insurgency, and rem
Nationalist push to the Mediterranean in th
1938. 11 More importantly, the test of total h
Sender's admission that his novel depicts
schematic form. Such an admission inevitably
to historical truth be sacrificed, to a greate
demands of artistic integrity. It is from precise
imaginative, focus, with only that degree o

8 See Stanley G. Payne, "Falange (Stanford Univer

and 168-69.
9 See Payne, Falange , p. 120, and "The Army, the Republic and the Outbreak
of the Civil War," in The Republic and the Civil War in Spain, ed., Raymond Carr
(London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 103.
10 See Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (Penguin Books, 1961), pp. 78-79;
and Jackson, pp. 83-85.
11 See Jackson, pp. 233-34, and especially Thomas, pp. 202, 600-04, and 651 -55.

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 ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF SENDER 121

locate the narrative in an identifiable place and time, that

broader national and universally human dimensions derive.
To reduce the diffuse complexity of the Civil War (its
course, and projected aftermath) to the compact simplicity of
and coherent fictional whole necessarily implies a strict se
subject matter and a rigorous compression of time. In ter
substance of the narrative, this leads to the creation of
entities, inevitably simplified, or symbolic, representations
plex realities which they reflect. Without prejudice to the r
which Sender depicts the psychology of Mosen Millan
portrays a variety of types in a convincing rural milieu,
admitted that the character of the Second Republic is
essence, to its efforts to institute long-overdue socio-economic
Those who rose against it are similarly homogenized into
ruthlessly determined to reimpose the traditional order at any
Such a concentration of focus also presupposes a proces
densation in both the overall structure of the narrative and
position of its constituent chronological phases. Mosén
construction of Paco's life through a series of sequential
compresses twenty-five years into as many minutes of sele
spection. The span of twenty years between Paco's birth a
the Second Republic is rapidly traversed, in what seems a
that time, by means of the temporal (and spiritual) stepp
which mark Paco's progress from infancy to manhood
Confirmation and First Communion, courtship, and marri
greater telescoping of time and acceleration of narrative rh
acterize the final two phases of Paco's life as it rushes to it
The five years between the 1931 elections and the July d
are squeezed into what are perceived as only months almost
devoted to the political dispute over the pasture lands. The
of actual military conflict to which the final phase correspond
densed into the roughly three weeks of terrorism which c
Paco's execution. The perhaps twenty-odd minutes of the n

12 As Sender puts it (Peñuelas, Conversaciones , p. 132), "No pe

dimensión, sino la expresión literaria directa de un problema en
aldea. El problema tiene derivaciones sociales, que se desprenden
desprende la neblina de un paisaje húmedo, esta vez húmedo de sa

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 122 ROMANCE NOTES

sent time," during which Mosen Millan waits to

event, give the distinct impression that the war is o
In a novel whose brevity and compactness besp
lexical economy and meticulous orchestration of t
seven-year lapse which conflicts with one of the t
points around which the narrative is constructed
a second, even more puzzling, example of authori
wise necessary extension of the Civil War phase w
the structure of the novel by slackening the tem
at the very moment of greatest dramatic intensity.
a lapse could not be justified by any consistent ap
criteria. Ultimately, it would violate the acknowle
the novel, the achievement of which Sender has iden
creative concern: "Sólo el arte fija, establece en qu
común a todos y la hace verosímil. íntegramente
los niveles. Y el deseo de escribir en algunos de n
Hay que hacer verosímil la realidad. " 15

Scarborough College
University of Toronto

13 The sense of a post-war return to peace and normalcy is initially suggested

in the atmosphere of routine village life ("rumores humildes ... la escoba seca
contra las piedras . . . ,w p. 1) and the subsequent arrival of the reinstalled
poderosos. But this impression of a projected future, which contributes so effec-
tively to the novel's sense of artistic and historical completeness, is skillfully,
though ambiguously, reinforced in two ways. The contrapuntal snatches of the
altar-boy's romance clearly transcend the novel's temporal limits by transforming
Paco into a figure of popular myth. Yet, while the spirit of hope and freedom
which he embodied may thus (as well as in the symbol of his wandering potro
and through the villagers' boycott of the ceremony) appear to live on, it seems
destined also to remain repressed, caught like the saltamontes , which "atrapado
entre las ramitas de un arbusto trataba de escapar, y se agitaba desesperadamente "
(P. 1).
14 If this lapse is one of the "minor breaks in chronological order" to which
King, p. 77, refers, I must disagree with his view that it does not "detract from
the superb compactness and economy of the narration."
15 Peñuelas, Conversaciones, p. 220.

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