Sánchez Mazas, Oedipus and the Falange

There are figures who, regardless of their ideology, attract the attention of the general public. The journalist and writer Rafael Sánchez Mazas (1894-1966), a founding member of the Spanish Falange, could be one of them. There were four prominent ideologues of the party during the Republican years. Three of them, Ernesto Giménez Caballero, Ramiro Ledesma Ramos, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, have been studied in numerous biographies, essential for understanding the origins and development of Franco's regime. "Sánchez Mazas, creator of the cry ¡Arriba España! (Long Live Spain!) and co-author of Cara al sol (Face to the Sun), 'was the only one who didn't have a professional biography as such and as significant as the previous ones,'" Maximiliano Fuentes Codera (Buenos Aires, 1976) told La Vanguardia . He has remedied this with the publication of Sánchez Mazas: The Falangist Who Was Born Three Times (Taurus), which is in bookstores today.

“I say Sánchez Mazas was born three times because one was when his mother gave birth to him. Another was when he managed to escape his execution alive, and the third was in Soldiers of Salamis , the novel Javier Cercas published in 2001, which allowed the resurgence of his figure, not only for historians and followers of the Falange, but also for the general public. The writer based his narrative precisely on his failed execution in 1939 and his subsequent escape through a forest near the sanctuary of Santa Maria del Collell, in Girona. He took refuge in a farmhouse with three Republican soldiers.

Javier Cercas brought this figure closer to the general public with the publication of 'Soldiers of Salamis'.

“Cercas popularized these events. But there were many gaps in his life that were known only in a very schematic way, such as the years leading up to the founding of the Falange,” notes the doctor in Contemporary History and professor at the University of Girona. One example is his early years in Bilbao. As Fuentes Codera points out in his introduction, the appropriation of the Spanish nation from Basque lands in his early youth and the construction of an imperial discourse from the local level are one of the pillars around which the volume is structured.

Nor was the relationship between the protagonist and his mother, Rosario, with whom he developed a "complex and Oedipal" relationship, in the words of the biographer, who recounts Sánchez Mazas's confession to his uncles about his mother, claiming that he feared and adored her in equal measure. Liliana Ferlosio, Rafael's wife, went so far as to say that his entire childhood was "a symbiosis with his mother."

If this aspect hadn't been revealed until now, it was due to "the impossibility of accessing, until very recently, personal letters and other material other than articles, novels, or political texts." This explanation also explains why a volume of this magnitude had not been published to date. "In my case, I began to consider it when the National Library purchased the collection of one of his sons, Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, author of El Jarama . There is valuable information about his father, including unpublished letters, which now allow me to reveal his more personal side, about which little was known." Until then, no archive existed on this figure, and this may have been due to a possible family reluctance to share his privacy, especially considering that his children did not share their father's ideology.

Liliana Ferlosio, Rafael's wife, once said that her entire childhood was "a symbiosis with her mother."

After José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Ramiro Ledesma, and Julio Ruiz de Alda were executed, and with a new regime still to be established, Rafael Sánchez Mazas became the oldest living Falangist. “He represented the authentic Falange and the connecting link. Hence, he, along with Serrano Suñer, who did not come from historical Falangism, was the first to carry the body of José Antonio Primo de Rivera in his funeral procession.” His role was more that of an intellectual than a politician, despite Fuentes Codera's study stating that “he was far from having an apolitical role, as was widely believed. Once the regime was established, he was a clear defender and participated in important positions,” such as president of the Board of Trustees of the Prado Museum and as a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (RAE), although he never held his seat.

"It was during his correspondent's post in Morocco, in 1921, that he saw himself as an intellectual and as someone who could have a political impact." Not much is known about this period either, neither about his experiences nor many of his chronicles, nor about his later correspondence in Rome, beyond a few chronicles that highlight the influence Mussolini's fascism had on him, which was responsible for bringing him to Spain with a more Catholic component. "For him, fascism is nothing more than a consistent Catholicism, and that is a legacy he bequeaths to Francoism."

It was during his correspondence in Morocco in 1921 that he saw himself as an intellectual and someone who could have a political impact.

The biography also reveals the relationship and deep admiration that Sánchez Mazas professed for Eugeni d'Ors. Reading his Glossary proved to be an essential part of his education. "He says he longed to meet me and will come to visit me in El Escorial," he told his mother in a letter. Fuentes Codera had already established a connection between the two figures when he wrote a biographical approach to the author of La ben plantada , but it is only now that he has confirmed its strength. "The Catalan prepared a speech in response to Sánchez Mazas's admission to the RAE." Yet another example of a mutual admiration that had been forgotten.

The famous black-covered notebook

Does the black-covered notebook exist? That was one of the questions Maximiliano Fuentes Codera asked himself when he began to conceive his biography of Rafael Sánchez Mazas. In that notebook, which Javier Cercas had mentioned in Soldiers of Salamis , the founder of the Spanish Falange supposedly wrote down what happened to him in the Girona forests in the winter of 1939, after escaping a failed execution. The biographer asked Cercas if this iconic notebook existed, and indeed, he assured him that he had held it in his hands. “His suggestions led me to ask Jaume Figueras, a descendant of one of the friends he made in the forest after his escape, if the notebook was still preserved. Weeks later, during dinner at my house, he took it out of a backpack and gave it to me. I was able to see that it is more of a fetish than information.”