The Center for Montañeses Studies adheres to the memory and revitalization of the great novelist of 19th century Spanish literature.
In the early morning of 4 January 1920 passed away, at his home on Hilarión Eslava Street, in Madrid, the great writer Benito Pérez Galdós. Chroniclers and writers of the time echoed the cold reaction of the authorities to the disappearance of the most important author of the time.. A coldness that contrasted with that of the Madrid people, what, in number of 30.000 personas, He accompanied the coffin to the La Almudena cemetery.
Pérez Galdós was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, but to the 19 years he moved to Madrid to study law at the Central University.. In the capital he came into contact with the Free Institution of Education and the Ateneo, He frequented café gatherings and began to publish in the local press.. He lived firsthand and as a journalist the main revolutionary events that would end up leading to "La Gloriosa", the september revolution 1868.
In the early years of the decade of 1870 began spending summer seasons in Santander, fleeing the heat of the capital. He then began a custom that led him to acquire land near the La Magdalena peninsula., where years later King Alfonso XIII and his family would spend their summer holidays. Over time, His presence in Santander will extend beyond the summer months and it would be at home, "Saint Quentin", where he wrote some of his works and received numerous cultural personalities, the press and politics.
He also forged close friendships with some of the city's inhabitants., as José María de Pereda, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo and the director of The Cantabrian, José Estrañi y Grau. Amistad, this last, that they kept until the end of their days, as José Montero Iglesias states in «Loyalty of two geniuses. Pérez Galdós and Estrañi», that published the day 9 in New World.
GALDÓS, A TRIBUTE AND A GRIEF
Francisco Gutierrez Diaz
MOUNTAIN STUDIES CENTER
He 23 January 1893, the sparkling journalist José Estrañi y Grau, editor at the time of The Mountain Voice, published an open letter in The Cantabria Post Office where he proposed paying tribute to Pérez Galdós on the occasion of the success that his dramatic production had achieved The madwoman of the house. There were already twenty-two dry seasons that the Canarian novelist had been spending in Santander, and the Cantabrians considered it their own glory.
He 17 In February, various representatives of local newspapers met in the City Hall meeting room to form an organizing committee., although no one from the newly created newspaper La Atalaya attended. The commissioners, among whom were Estrañi and Albino Alonso Madrazo, They thought of a double treat, of the press on the one hand and of the writers with Pereda at the head on the other, but the author of Solitaire preferred to unify both initiatives and was tasked with, for it, the "high"
direction" of the event, after remembering that this would be intimate and intellectual, with just a speech.
Chosen the date of 9 March, Galdós arrived in Santander a few days before, his health somewhat unwell. But it got better, and the morning of the cars they went to look for him at his house, in the carriage of the Polanco novelist, it is, Jose Estrañi and Antonio Gutierrez Cueto. At the Continental Hotel they waited for the 1 noon Enrique Menéndez Pelayo, Amos of Escalante, Victor Luna, Jose Ma and Sinforoso Quintanilla, Federico de Vial and other assistants (until 32), magnificent bouquet of people of very different political ideology and, however, identified in an exemplary friendship fruit of talent and love of letters.
The table was beautifully prepared., showing in it two monumental tails whose ends appeared adorned with yellow and red ribbons., each of which was inscribed with the title of a work by Galdós. He held the honorary presidency, having Amós de Escalante on his right and Enrique Gutiérrez Cueto on his left, director of The Atlantic. The other presidency, in front of the aforementioned, It was up to the mayor of Santander, Fernando Lavin Casalís, Pereda and Alonso Madrazo sitting on both sides of him, director of Trade Bulletin. In one head the poet Adolfo de la Fuente ate and in the other Estrañi. When the champagne is uncorked, the trash-talker stood up to say on behalf of the press that, It was agreed that only one speech would be given that expressed "the feelings of all those who had gathered to pay tribute of admiration" to the distinguished writer., no one was there more authorized than Pereda, "not only for its very high literary merits, but for also being, according to the sample, a great banquet organizer».
The Polanquino rose to a thunderous burst of applause and read the narrative of mountain customs that he titled It's like a story,
saying after: «You, perinclite diner, admired companion and soul friend: you are (and sorry for the way I point out) the wealthy and folksy gentleman; us, those gathered around you to celebrate you without attacking you, the linnets of the village, men of healthy and courageous nature, many somewhat given to the vice of Letters and all, on the whole, fervent admirers of the great masters, like you, in the art of cultivating them… ». The speech was interrupted several times by thunderous laughter and loud applause., that worsened at the end
Galdós answered, speaking of gratitude., affection and pride. And he added: «Great is my satisfaction, and everyone who knows me knows it well, for having made this country my second homeland, and every day I become more proud of a resolution that allows me to enjoy the beauty of this peaceful and smiling soil., as well as the loyal treatment of his noble children. Born in other climates, my destiny wants to make me a mountaineer at heart. They gave me a nature letter 20 years of accidental residence, and finally my definitive neighborhood, which I hope will continue in what remains of my life (…). I conclude by telling you that among the many reasons for gratitude that I owe you on this occasion, It is not the least to have chosen to interpret the sentiments of this noble contest an old and beloved companion of literary fatigues., teacher also, with whom I am united by an unalterable and deep friendship. He was to me the revealer of the Mountain; "Please also serve me now to express my deep affection for the mountaineers.".
The tribute to Galdós at the Continental Hotel concluded at 4,30 of the afternoon of that 9 March 1893, after dedicating a loving memory to Menéndez Pelayo, who had not been able to attend because he was absent, and laugh at the waste of ingenuity due to the cheapskate. Fourteen diners, with Pereda at the head, They accompanied D in three cars. Benito home, admiring there the beauties and curiosities that the mansion contained and, singularly, the novelist's office.
Estrañi ordered that the flower tails that had adorned the banquet tables be sent to the homes of the authors of National Episodes and Sotileza.. He even wrote nonsense about it. One said:
I ask here in my singsong,
after being in trouble
for a consonant in 'os',
send a bouquet
to Galdós' house.
And you will all say amen,
If I still have inspiration,
to ask without being who
send another one too
to Pereda's house.
Both the local and national press widely echoed the tribute.. In The Atlantic, José Mª Quintanilla Martínez (who signed Pedro Sánchez) inserted a chronicle in which, without ulterior motives, mentioned the existence of a mask by Voltaire and the book Contemporary Socialism by Lavelay in the residence of D. Benito. And from this he took an anonymous feathered foot to include in the then reactionary newspaper The Watchtower the article «The House of Galdós» (11/03/1893), where he attacked the writer with malevolence and irony, calling him a mason, and against those who had honored him, adding that the canary's works could not be read "because they are impious.", "skeptical and contrary to Religion".
The Atlantic, independent newspaper, but nothing suspicious of anticlericalism, he replied through the loose "The intolerable" (12/03),
protesting that visceral and intemperate attack. The Watchtower He unleashed another volley under the title "Los de Orbajosa" (13/03) in which he reproduced the severe judgments that Menéndez Pelayo had dedicated to the author of Gloria en los Heterodoxos, without stopping to explain that the Santander polygraph, even with everything, He declared himself a faithful friend and admirer of that, whom he considered a "sweet and honest man". It will be another local newspaper, The Notice, the one who vindicates Galdós in "And it's a story" (14/03). But the fundamentalist newspaper will also reply to this with «Tila. "The same are" (15/03), where, while continuing to target the illustrious Canarian writer, attacks those who visited his mansion, people, many of them of conservative or even Carlist political ideology, as was the case of Pereda, and fervent Catholics almost all.
The Atlantic He defended himself again with the article "The Cold Iron" (16/03), in which he said that Menéndez Pelayo, if I could have, would have attended the tribute to D. Benito, and?, despite his religious convictions, maintained sincere friendships with personalities of different beliefs. responded The Watchtower (17/3) with "To finish", which included fragments of the letter addressed by Pope Leo XIII to the Italians on 8 December 1892, in which the pontiff spoke out against friendly dealings with people suspected of belonging to Freemasonry and with those who tried to reconcile evangelical and revolutionary maxims.. There were still four more loose, two from one side and two from the other. The ultramontane newspaper even requested the intervention of the ecclesiastical authority in order to resolve the controversy, which his opponent closed with "We desist" (23/03), where he recognized himself as helpless, in the face of his colleague's irreducible closure, to convince him through arguments based on respect and tolerance.
Pereda himself, In a letter sent to Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo on 20 March, I told him: «I'm not talking to you about the armed Cisco here for reasons
of our banquet to Galdós because I assume you know about it, and mainly because it already stinks". The Canarian's friendship with his Santander admirers remained intact, and a few days later he invited many to a party at his house to officially present it to them.. The previous summer had already dwelt in her, but he furnished and decorated it slowly, so it took a while to open it to everyone. At first it was called Mpouapouah Palace or Mpouapouah Naturalist Ranchería., but soon it would replace such picturesque name with the definitive one of San Quentin.
Benito Madariaga de la Campa, our remembered companion and Official Chronicler of the city of Santander, He dedicated many years to studying the life and work of Pérez Galdós, The result of which are several publications that have been available for some time on the CEM website., as a consequence of his desire to make his work available to all who wanted to consult it, for which the following link has been enabled: https://centrodeestudiosmontaneses.com/2274-2/
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