Benito Pérez Galdós remembered on the 104th anniversary of his death

 

 

 

On January 4, 1920, Benito Pérez Galdós died at his home in Hilarión Eslava, in Madrid. More than 30.000 people attended a massive funeral procession. The freezing temperatures recorded in the capital of Spain that day were not an impediment for this massive procession to accompany his mortal remains through the main avenues of a city whose census at that time did not exceed 751.000 inhabitants. In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the city where he was born on May 10, 1843, this January 4, 2024, once again, tribute to his work and legacy was paid in front of the sculpture of the writer. who majestically presides over the walk in front of the theater that finally bears his name. 

 

On this occasion, like almost every year, the sun was shining and the thermometer was close to 30 degrees, so the thirty attendees, many Galdosistas, and even relatives of the writer, joined the spontaneous people who carried small floral arrangements and took shelter the shadow of the imposing temple that houses the Galdosian effigy. The sculpture is a replica of the original work that the artist Victorio Macho conceived to install in Madrid's Retiro Park in limestone, with the idea that Galdós would blend into the landscape and look like a lasting rock. The original work is currently preserved inside the House-Museum where the writer was born on Cano de Triana Street. 

 

The Canarian Association of Friends of Galdós (ACAG), chaired by the writer's great-niece, Elisa Hurtado de Mendoza, successfully organizes an intimate tribute every year in which citizens are invited to symbolically remember the date of the death of the most illustrious of national writers, after Cervantes. The simple act consists of a floral offering and subsequent reading of passages from representative works of the author by those attending who wish to do so.

 

 

 

On the day of Benito Pérez Galdós' death, the great poet Marcos Rafael Blanco Belmonte wrote in ABC that “it was a marvel to contemplate the naturalness with which the maestro, already in old age, resolutely avoided accepting the grandiose tribute that many admirers tried to pay him.” .
Considered one of the great Spanish novelists of all time, the greatest genius of realist literature of the 19th century, he died almost penniless in his Madrid home, but laden with laurels. “The more books I sell,” he once said, “the less money I make.” “I am going to be the only publisher who has gone bankrupt by selling many editions.”

 

 

 

The affection that the Spanish showed him was enormous. His coffin was accompanied, from the Town Hall to the Almudena cemetery, by more than 20.000 citizens. “Madrileños, Galdós has died, the genius who filled the literature of his time with glory with the amazing creations of his pen,” said the mayor of Madrid, Don Luis Garrido Juaristi, on the day of his burial.

 

The Quintero brothers, Jacinto Benavente, Maestro Bretón and Miguel Echegaray, ministers, councilors, mayors and presidents of the country's main literary associations passed through there, aware of what the deceased represented... while King Alfonso XIII, as soon as he had Upon learning of the tragic news, he signed a decree by which the State would bear all expenses and he would be granted the same honors as the poet Campoamor.