Devuélveme la Voz

In the recording appears part of the homage paid from the exile to the poet and Spanish dramatist Rafael Alberti, one of the maximum and main exponents of the Generation of the 27 and key figure of the Spanish poetry of all times. The homage, held in Paris, in the Théatre de la Mutualitè, on 8th June 1966, was organised by the Cultural Franco-Spanish Association. Madeleine Braun, director of 'Editeurs Français Réunis', read the list of French intellectuals who took part in the act. In the presence of Alberti and María Teresa León and under the presidency of Jean Cassou, one intervention went after another:  professor Bataillon, the Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias, the dramatist Alfonso Sastre, the Spanish poet García Cervera, the French poets Jean Marcenac, Max-Pol Fouchet (it preserves a script with his speech and messages), Pierre Gascar and Pierre Seghers, amongst others... They all showed the guest of honour in all his sides. On the other hand, the writer Francisco Olmos read an impressive list of Spanish adhesions to the homage, in which appeared a significant number of artists and Spanish intellectuals, so much from the exile or resident in the country. He also read a personal message of Dolores Ibárruri devoted to Rafael Alberti himself:

"(...) Nobody will be able to separate your name of the Spanish resistance opposite to the aggression of those who were no longer  Spain, and today more than ever are not, although they appear in the peak of which they are already slipping. It is not a coincidence that the youth of today, that did not live the war and that struggles for something different, sing your verses with the same enthusiasm with what yesterday our combatants recited them in the trenches of the freedom of Spain. Your poetry of war and exile perpetuates the heroic deeds of our village; it is too the hopeful audible echo of the homeland that struggles and trusts on tomorrow. Our village knows you, loves you and is proud of you. For what you did yesterday and today you continue, thank you, Rafael Alberti! (...)" ('España Republicana', 15-VII-1966).

And after the speeches and the reading of the adhesions, a show inspired on Alberti's work was presented. Some Spanish artists related with Paris took part on it. Besides, Alberti received as a present a collection of drawings elaborated by almost one hundred authors. And as it can be appreciated , "Radio París" registered the ceremony in a very detailed way, using several tapes for this purpose. On the other hand, it is necessary to highlight that Alberti was one of the pioneering members of "Radio París" in his first stage, (before the German occupation), reason why his links with the radio station were numerous.

The homage was a symbolic event of great importance, that could be interpreted as an act of dissidence opposite to  Franco's regime. We must reiterate that the exiled stated from the beginning their cultural references and their values opposite to the Dictatorship (references that would be adopted by the rest of the dissidence), turning a series of artists and intellectuals into almost mythical figures, among which you could find not only dead artists such as Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado and Miguel de Unamuno, for example, but also alive authors as Picasso and Rafael Alberti, living references of the so-called cultural superiority of the exiled and the dissidence opposite to the Spain of Franco.

On the other hand, the Spanish press could echo the news, although in a veiled way, thanks to the Law of Press and Printing of 1966 that had been approved a month before. This law had been conceived as a manoeuvre of propaganda with which the francoist regime wanted to offer an "opening" image, much more apparent than real.

University of Alicante. University Library. Fonoteca