“L’estaca:” Transnational Trajectories of a Catalan Antifascist Song

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the song “L’estaca,” which was composed in 1968 by Catalan songwriter Lluís Llach and became emblematic of the struggle against the Francoist dictatorship. I trace the ways in which the song has been reused and assigned new valence in a variety of cultural and political contexts, including the 1980s Solidarność movement in Poland and the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia. I interrogate how this anti-Francoist song has been recently recaptured by leftist social movements and political parties in Spain, as well as by the Catalan separatist movement.

KEYWORDS:

• “L’estaca”
• Catalonia
• Francoism
• Lluís Llach
• Nova Canço
• Spain

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The political and ideological nature of Francoism (Spanish franquismo) is the object of extensive debate in both Spanish and international historiography. Rather than simply ascribing Francoism to a broad category of conservative authoritarian dictatorship (as is sometimes done also for Salazar’s Portugal), this article considers Franco’s regime as fascist, fascistic, or at least heavily influenced by fascist cultural and political referents, in this way reflecting both widespread understandings on the part of Spanish antifascists and an established lineage of scholarly exegesis (Saz; Casali; Gallego; Kallis).

2. Núria Borrull’s article examines the trajectory of “L’estaca” in the context of the development of a specifically Catalan song movement since the 1960s until today. Although her and my contributions share a number of basic data and considerations, they also differ in important ways. Besides eschewing any positioning toward the Catalan independence movement, my article examines at greater length the transnational trajectories of “L’estaca” and, further, explicitly sets the discussion of the song within a wider culture of antifascism in Spain.

3. The best-known representatives of the Anglo-American protest song are Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Donovan, and Phil Ochs (see Lynskey 14–69; Ladrero 356–84).

4. On the political, social, and cultural changes in Spain during Francoism, see Carr 155–73; Vincent 117–98; Casanova and Gil Andrés 217–88; Radcliff 209–49.

5. All translations from foreign languages are by the author.

6. American folk musician and singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) was the singer of the Great Depression and, particularly, of the so-called hobos, the migrant workers who crossed the United States in those years. Author of famed songs such as “This Land Is Your Land,” Guthrie became a point of reference for a new generation of singer-songwriters, including Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, for his reinterpretation of traditional music, his ability to depict real life, and his antifascist political commitment (Kaufman).

7. On protest songs, see Lynskey; Dillane et al. It should be remarked that Spain too experienced, not only musically, the momentous mobilization of 1968. Although set in a dictatorial context, social and cultural changes were in many cases comparable to those occurred in other European and North American countries. In this regard, see Horn.

8. Among these young singer-songwriters, the Barcelona-born Joan Manuel Serrat (1943) was the most successful in the following decades, singing mostly in Spanish and setting to music some of the greatest Spanish poets (Miguel Hernández, Mario Benedetti, Antonio Machado). Since the release of his 1971 LP Mediterráneo, he became a famous singer also in Latin America. Also from Barcelona, Francesc Pi de la Serra (1942), nicknamed Quico, and the Mallorca-born Maria del Mar Bonet (1947) sang only in Catalan. The former, influenced by blues and rock, went on to sharpen the ironic and markedly political slant of his song writing, while the latter devoted herself to extensive research into Mediterranean traditional musics (see González Lucini, Y la palabra, vol. 1, 213–43).

9. For literature on the Nova Cancó, see Ayats and Salicrú-Maltas 28–41; Porter-Moix; García-Soler; Pujadó; 2009, 50 anys de la Cançó; Castro.

10. Founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera and inspired by Italian fascism, the political party Falange Española merged in 1934 with the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS) and, in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, with the monarchic Carlist traditionalists. Resulting from this unification, the FET y de las JONS, known during the dictatorship simply as the National Movement, was the sole legal party of the Franco regime. Journalist and writer Rafael Sánchez Mazas (1894–1966) was one of the founders of Falange Española and Minister of Franco’s cabinet in 1939–1940.

11. The original Catalan lyrics can be found in Gàmez 132.

12. In that same year, a shortened version of the concert recording, entitled Lluís Llach a l’Olympia, was released in Spain. In the Spanish edition, however, “L’estaca” and other songs were not included to avoid censorship (Valiño 513).

13. See Molinero and Ysàs; Radcliff 250–65; Casanova and Gil Andrés 289–328.

14. Solidarność (Solidarity) is a trade union founded in Gdańsk, Poland, in August 1980. It was the first independent union to be officially recognized in a country of the Soviet bloc. In September 1981, the union’s membership peaked at around 10 million. With the imposition of martial law in December 1981 activities were suspended. During the 1980s, not least thanks to significant financial support from the Vatican and the United States, Solidarność played a central role in the end of communism in Poland.

15. On music in the Arab Spring, see Sprengel.

16. In Catalonia as well as in the Basque Country and Galicia during the 20^th century and especially the Franco dictatorship, nationalist and separatist stances have traditionally been linked to the political left, in contrast to a predominantly centralist political right. Since 2012, however, this situation has partially changed in Catalonia, given that, within the Catalan separatist movement, there is now also a significant right-wing faction. On the Catalan independence movement, see Forti et al.; Dowling Rise of Catalan Independence.

17. The referendum held on 9 November 2014 was a non-binding popular consultation promoted by the government of the Generalitat de Catalunya. By contrast, the referendum held on 1 October 2017 was deemed binding by the Catalan government, although it was declared illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court and was not recognized by any foreign country (Rodríguez-Teruel and Barrio).

18. For the (re)utilization of “Grândola, vila morena” in Portugal during the socio-economic crisis of 2011–2013, see Gray 60–73.

19. “Canto a la libertad” is the best-known song by Aragonese singer-songwriter and writer José Antonio Labordeta. Composed in 1975, the year of Franco’s death, and included in his second LP Tiempo de espera, the song represents a dream of solidarity, humanity, social justice, hope, and freedom. “A cántaros” is a song by Extremadura singer-songwriter Pablo Guerrero, included in his debut LP A cántaros, published in 1972. It became one of the libertarian anthems of that epoch. Both Labordeta and Guerrero were committed anti-Francoists (see González Lucini, Y la palabra, vol. 2, 263–69, and vol. 1, 657–63).

20. “El pueblo unido” is a Chilean protest song. Its music was composed by Sergio Ortega Alvarado to the text written by Alvarado and the band Quilapayún. It was recorded in 1973, a few months before the coup d’etat led by Augusto Pinochet; it eloquently represents the ideals of social equality and the progressive spirit of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. “Todo cambia,” released in 1982 during his exile in Sweden by the Chilean Julio Numhauser, one of the founders of Quilapayún, is a song popularized by the Argentine Mercedes Sosa, key exponent of the Nueva Canción Latinoamericana.

21. For Podemos’s discourse about the so-called “regime crisis,” see Iglesias 143–69.

Additional information

Funding

This work is funded by national funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the Norma Transitória –DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0030.

Notes on contributors

Steven Forti

Steven Forti is a lecturer in contemporary history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) of the Universidade Nova of Lisbon. He is a member of the Grup de Recerca sobre l’Epoca Franquista (GREF), the Centre d’Estudis sobre Dictadures i Democràcies (CEDID) and the Rede de Estudo dos Fascismos, Autoritarismos, Totalitarismos e Transições para Democracia (REFAT). Among his latest publications are El peso de la nación. Nicola Bombacci, Paul Marion y Óscar Pérez Solís en la Europa de entreguerras (2014); El proceso separatista en Cataluña. Análisis de un pasado reciente (2006–2017) (with Arnau Gonzàlez i Vilalta and Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, 2017); Vent’anni di Sessantotto. Gli avvenimenti e le canzoni che raccontano un’epoca (with Sergio S. Sacchi e Sergio Staino, 2018); and Patriotas indignados. Sobre la nueva ultraderecha en la Posguerra Fría (with Francisco Veiga, Carlos González-Villa and Alfredo Sasso, 2019).