The Corpus Christi festivals as a space of debate and confrontation during the dictatorship with king in Granada (1924-1930)

Abstract

The local Corpus Christi festivities from 1924 to 1929 were organized by the de facto City Council imposed by the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera. From 1924 to 1928, when the Marquis of Casablanca was Mayor, the composer and guitarist Ángel Barrios Fernández was the Deputy Mayor of Festivities; whereas, in 1929, when the lawyer Mariano Fernández Sánchez-Puerta was Mayor, the lawyer and manager of the Genil sugar factory, Santiago Valenzuela Suárez, was in charge of them. The lack of understanding of the Marquis of Casablanca with the city merchants made it difficult to organize the Festivities in a cooperative manner with the most dynamic sectors of society, as Ángel Barrios intended. Furthermore, although the festivals were defined as popular, the conflict between popular and cultured was always present in the Festival program. On the other hand, the state of war in force for three years changed the spaces of sociability of the popular classes and limited their mass gatherings to local festivals such as carnival, neighborhood festivals and above all to the celebration of Corpus Christi. In this period, the meaning of the festival as a social practice and as an expression of latent social unrest in the popular and middle classes of Granada society was accentuated. The management of Santiago Valenzuela was more in tune with the demands of those who asked for a Corpus with more and better activities. Once again, the local oligarchy was late.