The French writer Georges Bernanos described the years of the Civil War in Palma in the book Diary of My Times.
Down there, in Majorca, on the Rambla I've seen lorries loaded with men pass by. They trundled along with a deafening sound, near the multicolour terraces, all clean, dripping wet, with the happy buzz of festivities. The lorries were grey from the road dust, just as the men were grey, sitting in rows of four, with their grey hats on sideways and their long hands on top of their cotton trousers, very sensibly. They would pick them up every evening in backwater villages, just as they were back from the land; they would embark on their final journey, with their shirt stuck to their shoulders with sweat, their arms full of the day's work, leaving their soup on the table and a wife who got to the garden gate too late, out of breath, with a few belongings wrapped up in a new handkerchief: Adiós! Recuerdos!
Les grands cimetières sous la lune, (Diary of My Times), 1938
Translated by Richard Mansell. Performed by Arnau Aguiló.
(París, 1888 – Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1948). Born in Paris, Georges Bernanos was raised in the north of France, where he received a Catholic and deeply monarchist upbringing. He was part of Action Française, the nationalist and right-wing movement. His first literary success came with the publication of Sous le soleil de Satan where he expressed his obsessions: a lack of humanity, the power of evil and the search for a state of grace. Married and with six children, his life was fall of difficulties and worries. At the end of 1934 he moved to Majorca, looking for a better and cheaper place to live. On the island we established a relationship with writers such as the Villalonga brothers, and the cafés on the Born in Palma were his favourite places to write. When war broke out, Bernanos – a right-wing Catholic monarchist – sided with the military uprising; however, after witnessing the brutality suffered by innocent victims he decided to move back to France.
In 1938 he published Les grands cimetières sous la lune, (Diary of My Times) which he had begun to write on Majorca. The novel describes his experiences during the first years of the war, from his initial enthusiasm to the disappointment and dejection he felt with the brutality of the murder of so many innocent people. In the book he is also critical of Franco’s regime.
The Passeig de la Rambla was built on the old bed of sa Riera, once this storm channel was diverted outside of the city walls in 1613. It is one of the most used streets in Palma, with La Misericòrdia at one end and the Teatre Principal at the other. This avenue is surrounded by convents, giving it its unique physiognomy.
