Salustiano Gutiérrez

By Julie Flowers

BENALÚP-CASAS VIEJAS-Salustiano Gutiérrez’ grandfather was a soldier for the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War. His political ideals were seen as leftist and closely related to communism. However, after the Nationalists won the war in 1939 was killed because of his liberal ideals. Salustiano Gutiérrez would later become interested in Spanish history, specifically the events surrounding the Civil War. However, Gutiérrez’s interest was not inspired from this family tragedy, he says, but by his pure interest in history. A major part of Gutiérrez’s life has been spent documenting the massacre of an Anarchist settlement during the Civil War in a town called Casas Viejas.

Salustiano Gutiérrez is the principal of the high school in Casas Viejas (Institúto de Enseñanza Secundaria Casas Viejas) where he also teaches history. Gutiérrez has lived here since 1992. But now, Casas Viejas is home.

“It is where my children are raised, where I own a house,” Gutiérrez said.

Gutiérrez has spent the last few years diligently working on an oral history project concerning the events at Casas Viejas.

In 1933, Casas Viejas was home to an anarchist community that supported land reform and labor unions. Politically, they leaned more towards the ideals of the leftist Republican government that had been democratically elected. The Republican state faced great opposition from landowners, the Roman Catholic church, and, increasingly, from many military leaders. During an unsuccessful revolutionary uprising in Casas Viejas, two law enforcement officers were killed by anarchists, which set off the massacre of 22 men.

The anarchists of Casas Viejas gathered in a small house for safety, however, the guards burned down the house and shot anyone who tried to escape. The events at Casas Viejas, amid other violence in other parts of Spain, was further seen, by more conservative factions as evidence that the Republican government could not maintain order. Casas Viejas is often considered one of the first sparks that resulted in the military coup of 1936, which, in turn, led to the three-year Civil War. To this day in Casas Viejas, this is a very sensitive subject, and many people do not like to talk about the events of 1933.

However, this has not shaken Salustiano Gutiérrez from trying to discover the past memories and feelings of the residents of Casas Viejas.

The project started by Salustiano Gutiérrez asking his students to bring in pictures from their families. Many brought in photos and stories of the civil war years. After that, the focus became bringing in photos and interviewing survivors of the war, and their families. From there, this opened up lines of communication to grandparents, parents, and children about the events concerning Casas Viejas in 1933. Gutiérrez was inspired by the stories of his students and began a school wide oral history project.

His students are assigned in groups of four or five to conduct interviews and collect pictures. As a whole though, the most important part of the project for Gutiérrez is for people to appreciate their history and to see it as something normal.

However, Gutiérrez said “It’s very complicated and people still don’t like to talk about it 75 years after the fact. So, we are working to that the people will embrace this as their own history. Our objective is that the history become incorporated into the regular culture, because it is not integrated yet, after 75 years.”

Gutiérrez explained that up until this point in history, outside historians have recorded and reported on the events at Casas Viejas, so it is very important to get a first hand account. Gutiérrez quoted San Juan de la Cruz, stating,

“There is a phrase by Sister Juana de la Cruz, a poet,” he said. “It says: ‘If we don’t know where we are, we don’t know where we are going. And if we don’t’ know where we come from, we also don’t’ know where we are.’ … the past influences the present and the present influence the future. To understand who we are today we must know what we were like in the past and to see the future, we must understand the past.”

Salustiano Gutiérrez first became interested in history during his childhood in Granada. He was born on July 19, 1962. Gutiérrez attended the University of Granada, one of the most prestigious universities in Spain, where he majored in History. This is also how he met his wife, who now teaches at another public school about three miles away from their home in Casas Viejas.

Gutiérrez and his wife have two children.

Gutiérrez has contributed to a number of books concerning the 1933 events at Casas Viejas is a regular presenter at symposia and conferences on the events of that periods.

After dedicating so much time and energy to restoring the memory of Casas Viejas, Salustiano Gutiérrez speaks stoically about the events that occurred in 1933.

In short, in 1933, anarchists in Spain had planned a revolution. But in the end, the uprising had been called off, but word had not reached Casas Viejas, according to published accounts. Instead, a small group of anarchists fired upon the headquarters of the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard, which provided law enforcement in rural areas). Two members of the Guardia Civil were fatally wounded. At the end of the interview, Gutiérrez gives visitors a tour of Casas Viejas: the building. Visitors were shown the graves of the people killed in 1933 and the location where the men were shot down.

The location where 22 men were shot has been turned into a hotel named Utopia, with each hotel room dedicated to an important theme from the 1930s. “Utopia” was an important anarchist ideal, Gutiérrez remarked that critics say naming the spot of the killings for the anarchism ideal cheapens what happened there.

The last site that Gutiérrez showed visitors was an monument dedicated to the men killed in Casas Viejas in 1933. The monument bore graffiti.

The monument honoring the people killed in
January of 1933

Had the vandals understood the significance of the monument – to commemorate the men killed that day in pursuit of their view of social justice -- they would give honor to the monument and the people killed in January of 1933.

The graffiti symbolizes why the Casas Viejas Project is so important to Gutiérrez: he simply wants his students to understand their history and where they came from.

(Salustiano Gutiérrez was interviewed in Casas Viejas-Benalup, Spain on June 11, 2008 by Julie Flowers and Amanda Roberson.)

 

Interview Excerpts from Salustiano Gutiérrez

Transcript of Interview in Spanish, Quote 1

Es una poquito complejo, porque es un tema que no esta del todo resuelto.  Y que la gente no le gusta, o toda la gente no le gusta, que se hable.  Entonces nosotros a través del trabajo de los algunos estamos intentando que a la gente lo asuma como una cosa propia de su historia como una cosa propia suya.  Es el verdadero objetivo que se integre dentro  de la historia, dentro de la cultura, dentro de lo que nosotros denominamos en la acervo cultural porque no está plenamente integrado todavía.  Despues de setenta y cinco anos.

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English Translation of Quote 1

It is a complicated thing, because it is a theme that is not solved.  And the people do not like, or all of the people do not like to talk about it. We, through the work, are understanding that the people take on their own history.  What is their history?  It is truly objective what they make of the history, of the culture, of what we call cultural heritage, because it is still not totally integrated…still after seventy-five years.

Transcript of Interview in Spanish, Quote 2

Las cosas que no se conocen normalmente se rechazan. Entonces, lo que nosotros queriamos, el objetivo fundamental, era que no rechazan su historia, que hicieran su historia, que la normalizaran.  La mejor manera es que investigaran sobre eso.  Entonces para mucho significo encontrarse con una historia que no conocían, que la habían protagonizado sus abuelos y bisabuelos.  Eso fui más interesante.

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English Translation of Quote 2

The things that [the students] do not normally know are rejected, so the fundamental objective is to not reject their history, that we make their history normal.  The best way to do this is to investigate.  Then, for much of this [the students] find out a history they do not know, that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers were protagonists.  This is very interesting.

Transcript of Interview in Spanish, Quote 3

Hay una frase de San Juan de la Cruz-- San Juan de la Cruz era una poeta que era monje--   que decía, “Que si no sabemos donde estamos, no podemos saber donde vamos.  Y si no sabemos de donde venimos tan poco podemos saber donde estamos.” 

Es decir que el tiempo no es pasado, presente, futuro divido.  Si no el tiempo son tres cosas de una misma variable.  El pasado influíe del presente y el presente influíe el futuro.  Para entender como somos ahora tenemos que saber como fuimos antes y para prever que va hacer con nosotros tenemos entender el pasado. 

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English Translation of Quote 3

There is a phrase by Saint John of the Cross.  Saint John of the cross was a poet and was a monk.  He said, “If we don’t know where we are, we can’t know where we’re going.  And if we don’t know where we are from, little can we know where we are.”

It is said that time is not the past, present, and future divided.  If there was no time they are the same three variables.  The past influences the present, and the present influences the future.  So to understand what we are now, we have to know what we were before.  And to anticipate what we Hill make with ourselves, we have to understand the past.

Transcript of Interview in Spanish, Quote 4

Yo tengo un abuelo que lo mataron en la guerra civil.  Pertenecía al partido de la republicano.  España en ese momento se dividio en dos, básicamente: la derecho y la izquierda.  Mi abuelo pertenecía a la izquierda y allí triunfó a la derecha. Y entonces llegaron en la noche, se lo llevaron, y lo mataron. 

Y mi abuelo como el resto, como casi todos los que mataron de los dos bandos, cuando …no supimos nunca nada.  Yo no se donde esta enterrado mi abuelo, por ejemplo.  En mi familia nunca se ha hablado de esto.  Ni se sigue hablando. Allí esta la historia. Y tenemos una trauma, un problema.  Tenemos que solucionar.  Lo que pasa es que hay gente interesada en que no se solucione, o gente que es partidaria, que no se solucione.  No es fácil; es muy difícil.

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English Translation of Quote 4

I have a grandfather that was killed in the Civil War.  He participated with the Republican Party.  Spain in this moment was divided in two: the right and the left.  My grandfather participated with the left and then the right triumphed.  And then, he arrived in the night, they took him, and they killed him.

And my grandfather, like the rest that were killed on the two sides, didn’t know anything.  I do not know where my grandfather is buried, for example.  In my family we have never talked about this.  Nor is it talked about in the history here.  And we have a trauma, a problem.  We have to solve this.  It happens that interested people do not know a solution.  People that are partisans do not know a solution.  It is not easy, it is very difficult.

Transcript of Interview in Spanish, Quote 5

Pero a mi, me interesaba no tanto como de mi abuelo, si no a nivel general.  Yo creo que --por eso es que me dediquo esto y me gusta esto-- .  Que tenemos que conocernos de donde venimos que lo paso para saber como somos. Y es una cuestión intelectual, la cultura y eso me parece muy importante.

Y yo creo que la mejor manera para que los alumnos les gusta la historia, darles un objetivo.  Porque datos por tener datos.  Eso no le gusta a nadie.  Sin embargo si tiene un objetivo, si tiene una polémica, si tiene detrás una función, es mucho mas fácil. 

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English Translation of Quote 5

But for me, I am interested not because of my grandfather, just at a general level.  I think that – that is why I have dedicated myself to this and I like this-- we have to know where we are from to know where we are.  And it is an intellectual question.  The culture and this appears very important to me. 

And I think this is best way for the students to like history.  Give them an objective.  Because information just to have information, they do not like it at all.  If they have an objective, if they have a controversy, if they have a purpose, it is easier.