Spain prepares to open mass grave in search of Lorca's bones (Feature)

Madrid - Seventy-three years after the death of Spain's most acclaimed modern poet Federico Garcia Lorca, controversy is brewing in Spain over his lost remains. Do his bones lie in a mass grave near Granada, where he is believed to have been shot dead by supporters of dictator-to-be Francisco Franco at the start of Spain's 1936-39 civil war? The Andalusian regional government is preparing to open the mass grave, but Lorca's descendants oppose the measure, and it is unclear whether the thruth about his death will be known and what will be done with his remains. While readers all over the world continue savouring Lorca's immortal verses on love and death, none of his admirers can visit his tomb, as uncertainty continues surrounding the circumstances of his death. The author of Gypsy Ballads and Poet in New York is believed to have fallen to the bullets of a Francoist firing squad at age 38 in August 1936, shortly after Franco's uprising had sparked the civil war. He was shot dead with three other men. The executioners reportedly vented their fury especially on the leftist and homosexual poet, spitting on his body and calling him a 'red queer' as he lay in the mass grave. However, there are also other theories on Lorca's death, with one of them even claiming that he was not killed and died of natural causes in 1954. A park now marks the site where the mass grave is believed to be located, between Alfacar and Viznar near Granada, but there is still no certainty about the identities of the people buried there. Most experts believe that the mass grave contains the remains of Lorca, of teacher Dioscoro Galindo and of anarchist bullfighting assistants Francisco Galadi and Joaquin Arcollas, who were executed with the poet. New investigations indicate that at least one other person, tax inspector Fermin Roldan, could also be buried at the site. Associations representing Franco's victims have already dug up the bones of some 4,000 people, while an estimated 120,000 others lie in mass graves all over Spain. They were killed during and after the war which led to Franco's 1939-75 dictatorship. Many people find it a scandal that the remains of Lorca, who is regarded as Spain's most universal writer after Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes, have allegedly been left in an unmarked grave. The poet 'deserves a state funeral,' said Emilio Silva of the Association for the Recovery of Historic Memory (ARMH) which is helping to organize the opening of the mass grave. 'Does anyone find it normal that we do not know where the biggest symbol of the madness of the (civil) war is (buried)?' historian and Lorca expert Ian Gibson asked. Retrieving Lorca's bones, experts like Gibson argue, would not only make it possible to give the poet a new burial, but would make it possible to establish the definitive thruth about his death. The Lorca family, however, sees it all differently, arguing that reburying Lorca would set the 'people's poet' apart from anonymous war victims. The Spanish judiciary began considering reopening the grave and identifying the remains inside it at the request of the Galadi family and part of the Galindo family. While courts continued squabbling over which one was responsible for the case, the Andalusian regional government finally decided to proceed with opening the grave. Experts have been examining the soil at the site, and a carefully selected small team is preparing to start digging there. Lorca's relatives have maintained their opposition to the measure, proposing instead that the site of mass grave be 'recognized historically and morally' by legalizing it as a burial ground. The site would be 'protected as a cemetery, treating all the victims in the same way,' Lorca's niece Laura Garcia Lorca said. One of Galindo's nieces has joined forces with the Lorca family, saying she feared the exhumation would become a 'media circus,' while the Roldan family has come out in favour of opening the mass grave. The regional authorities say they will only make public findings that the families allow them to release. The burial site will be sealed off and placed under guard during the exhumation, but many observers doubt whether it will be possible to keep the findings secret. Many experts also feel it is not possible to identify only a part of the bones in the grave. It is not clear whether the Lorcas will provide samples for DNA tests and what would be done with the poet's remains if they were identified. 'My body is already broke / like a slender stalk of maize,' wrote Lorca, whose work was haunted by the premonition of violent death. 'If Federico is buried (in the mass grave), he could not rest in a more beautiful place,' the late Lorca expert Agustin Penon wrote. There, the poet is 'looking towards Granada and enjoying the incredible sunsets that make the old city roofs shine in the distance,' he wrote.