MARCH 8 has a certain resonance in Spain’s past, serving, as it does, as the anniversary for a massive art fraud, a brutal political assassination and a theatrical triumph overshadowed by tragedy.
The irreverent British street artist known as ‘Banksy’ is big in Spain, and that means serious money.
On March 8, 2024, the Mossos de Esquadra busted a ring of forgers who were selling fake Banksy graphic art online.
For those who do not know the local forces, one of the concessions that Madrid has made to Catalunya to try to keep the region from declaring independence has been to grant it its own police force.
On the streets of Barcelona, the police officers pounding the beat are known as the ‘Mossos de Esquadra’.
The fraudsters were described by investigators as “Banksy fans who had fallen on hard times”.
It was all about faking preparatory sketches, purportedly drawn by Banksy himself, and selling them to unsuspecting buyers outside Spain.
Using their intimate knowledge of the artist, they invented ‘practice’ pieces of famous Banksy works, such as ‘Girl With A Balloon’.
They knew exactly how to give their fakes a few authentic touches.
Because Banksy is a native of Bristol, they added stickers and logos which they acquired in the south-west of England.
Their company was named ‘Dismaland’, taking the title of Banksy’s own temporary dystopian art installation from 2015 to give the forged certificates a veneer of legitimacy.
A total of 25 false artworks had already been sold when the Mossos raided a warehouse in Zaragoza, changing hands at prices ranging from €80 to €1,500.
Three men were charged with obtaining by deception.
Now we rewind back to the first quarter of the 20th century – more than one hundred years ago, and Barcelona is in complete uproar.
Many Catalans wanted to break away from Spain, claiming that their culture and history were distinct from those of Madrid, and that the ‘Castilians’ were an occupying foreign power.
Much of Spain’s heavy industry was located in and around Barcelona, making the trade unions incredibly strong in the region.
The biggest and wealthiest was the CNT, or National Confederation of Labour, adding a volatile left-versus-right element to the already dangerous situation.
The civil unrest was so intense that the prime minister, Eduardo Dato, appointed a special civil governor with orders to pacify the region.
However, the man who took the new job, Severiano Martinez Anido, felt that brute force was the only way, and allowed the hated Guardia Civil to interpret the arrest laws as loosely as they wished.
This heavy-handed approach predictably made the situation far worse.
Some extremists, who were all CNT members, decided to kill the civil governor, but their plans were thwarted by his elaborate security precautions.
It was well known that back in Madrid, Prime Minister Eduardo Dato frequently travelled around the city openly and unprotected.
The assassins ruthlessly changed their targets.
At 8.14pm on the evening of March 8, 1921, Dato was travelling in a car.
He had just left the Spanish parliament and was returning home.
As his car reached the Puerta de Alcala, a motorbike and sidecar drew up alongside him in a terrifying drive-by execution.
The three occupants fired their machine pistols into the car, killing the prime minister instantly.
While Dato’s murder marked a very real and bloody day in Spanish political history, March 8 is also tied to a completely different tragedy on the stage.
Twelve years later, the focus shifts from the violent streets of Madrid to the vibrant theatres of the capital.
Federico Garcia Lorca of Granada is widely revered as a poet, playwright and fearless champion of Andaluz culture.
He was born and raised on Granada’s ‘Vega’, a huge fertile plain which is prominent in local life.
As a toddler, he learned many of the colourful expressions and folk songs of the Vega residents.
In mature adulthood, he used his incredible writing talent to popularise the language, customs and music of his hometown by incorporating them into his theatre plays.
Tragically, right-wing death squads deeply resented his progressive views and sympathy for working people, leading to his brutal assassination at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in the summer of 1936.
But three years before his death, he had the immense satisfaction of seeing his best-known drama, ‘Blood Wedding’, produced in Madrid.
It opened on March 8, 1933, and was an instant, roaring triumph.
It is the dark flamenco story of a naive man who does not realise that his bride-to-be has a secret lover.
The groom’s mother has a superstitious fear of knives, and as readers can probably guess, it does not have a happy ending.
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