Concha Espina is one of the great writers of the Generation of '98. And common to all the novelists, poets, playwrights and essayists of this generation are the ethnographic visions of Spain and even of Spanish America, as we see in Valle Inclán's Tirano Banderas. Castilla is the region most studied with love by all. There are Azorín's Segovia, Unamuno's Salamanca or Antonio Machado's Soria. Baroja explored as well as the customs and culture of Las Vascongadas and Navarra. Good looking, the great writer from Santander –the best Spanish writer of the XNUMXth century from our sens– explores in her magnificent novel, 'La esfinge maragata', all the ethnic elements of this mysterious region that is Maragatería, a crossroads of Asturian-Leonese, Castilian cultures and even Galician if we analyze in depth the lexicon of this great literary work. The ethnographic wisdom with which the author equips herself to elaborate this romantic novel, due to its pure lyricism, but also of a harsh social realism, due to the descriptions of poverty, is impressive, and it can only be the Maragatas words, like a shell of orange, those that keep the pulp of the maragata culture. Centenary his the maragatos terms with which the great writer from Mazcuerras leaves us indelibly retained the Maragata culture in this masterpiece, without a doubt one of the great novels of the XNUMXth century, which is a love story, with a very dramatic background, but in which there is also social realism, political criticism and a bitter fight against self-righteousness and social injustice. A whole literary universe that, in turn, is a chronicle of an ethnic group, a literary geography that hides real toponyms. You can only write about a people or human group knowing the language or jargon of that people or human group. Basic principle for an honest writer. That is why realistic novels are no longer written, like the men of the Generation of '98, because you have to find out about reality beforehand. Words like hombrusco, linjavera, sentajo, búis, sonce, femias, tiva, gabia, priadica, secaño, rancear, zarabeto, dambos, vedijuela, alantre, comalecero, haberoso, ramayo, amorenar, acerbar, calomón, acerandar, a modín, fortacán , cachapanda, flatness, aconchegar, diañe, fagoril, ferrancho, fuyaco, trousa, bog down, filandón, arrufadía, esgamiao, tastín, abused, fuelga, adurente, cabañuca, escupina, incessant, feije, rongayo, chabarco, darkness, brokenness, llocida , estradín, tribulante, pan dondio, ringuilinera, escurificar, ceganitas, falaje, trufaldines, sofridero, tarnish, azomar, or Moorish oxen, are a minimal part of the terroir bricks, “regional words” calls the circumspect Concha, maragaterismos, with which raises this great ethnic novel with a dramatic and social theme. The subject with which the drama of this novel is built is the family obligation of a young woman to marry someone she does not want to avoid the complete ruin of her family. This theme that affects anthropocentric morality –that of anthropocentric today must be said when all ethics are already biocentric or environmental– and that has been treated many times in universal literature, even in places as far away as Kalidasa's India, being of great narrative interest, it is actually a pretext for the ethnic description of the Maragata culture, presided over by the great Teleno, and in second place the Fuencebadón peak, idols of the tribe. Even the father of the protagonist, Mariflor, a symbol of feminine dignity, has to beg his daughter to marry someone she doesn't want to in order to escape the family from misery. While the maragatos spend their lives outside the Maragatería, negotiating fabrics and seeking wealth in green lands, the maragatas give birth without their husbands and till the land, which looks like the flesh of an old woman, barely watered by the Duerna, which in summer Sometimes it even disappears in a flustered mood. When the husbands return, he enters the home if they bring money. “The maragatas pile up when the husbands come back without money. It is the use of the country”, says a character in the novel. It is an irrefutable logic. If Concha Espina had not carried the most pure Christianity in her soul and if she had been a 'red' patent, 'La esfinge maragata' would have been the pioneering book of the social novel in Spain, and the first example of a splendid combative feminism. The entire novel is in itself a passionate tribute to the Maragata woman who, giving her beauty and youth to incessant and ungrateful work, managed to convert pieces of the moor lands, where the warrior helmets of the terrible battle in which the Goth Teodoric still resound. destroyed the troops of the Swabian king Rechiario, in small Edens of rye and flowers, like this one in Valdecruces, a literary toponym under which the current coronym of Castrillo de los Polvazares may be hidden, although the geography of a place cannot always be automatically identified. literary universe with reality is what we walk. It is thus foolish to look for, for example, La Mancha universal from Don Quixote in that of Emiliano García-Page. 'La esfinge maragata' is the novel of triumphant dignity in the midst of devastating poverty and collateral misfortunes. The parish priest of Valdecruces, Don Miguel, is the holy verse of the diabolical Don Fermín de Pas, from Vetusta, being a true and humble apostle of Jesus and older brother of the village. On the other hand, his friendship with Rogelio Terán, a nobleman from the mountains, Mariflor's love, makes him a fundamental and essential element in the love plot, the same as the Franciscan friar Lorenzo in 'Romeo and Juliet'. Don Miguel is an example of the priest who goes bankrupt trying not to ruin his parishioners. Concha Espina, unlike Emilio Zola, is capable of presenting misery with lyrical humanity, without however being a strong knock on the social conscience of Spain. The poorest here never lose their essential humanity, invested with much more moral relevance than the opulent. The deepest misery in all its unfortunate splendor fails to “comalish” the soul of the five unfortunates who star in this masterpiece of Spanish narrative. The arrival of a Garnacha to the miserable village representing "The Wandering Muse" patiently discovers the key that explains the pain of the villagers. maragato psychodrama. The construction of the greedy nonagenarian, Uncle Cristóbal, with his diabolical greed to seize the patrimony of some poor women, and who on top of that dies rescued in his good and maternal arms, is perfect. The dialogue between don Miguel and the lover Rogelio is a dialogue that would deserve the censorship of government hysteria for not being politically correct, but perhaps the good woman's happiness lay more in the sacrifice for her own than in the satisfaction of her own. place.
