After giving this much thought, I decided to give Natacha some space in Darkmum's Musings. This space will be specifically for her essay called '¡Arriba España!' ... in English it would translate to 'Up Spain'. This phrase is the battle cry of Generalissimo Franco's Nationalist Fascist forces and was adopted by the movement's leader ... José Antonio Primo de Rivera which brings to mind Italian and German fascism.
The first days of the Spanish Civil War were really more of each side insisting they were right, and the political issues were discussed heatedly (kind of like it is in America ... so far ..., but not with the type of violence that would eventually become a daily occurrence. We, in America, had a taste of it on January 6. Imagine it every day. It could happen.
When it all finally came to a point that involved Natacha, she was still relatively naive about exactly how it WOULD really affect her. She loudly voiced her opinions in a church at one point (When will you stop the slaughter?"), and was virtually squeezed out of Spain. She had friends who made sure she was able to get out of the country, even if it meant in a dirty coal barge. She took no belongings, only the clothes on her back and her little dog, Bimbo.
Natacha went to her place of eternal refuge, the chateau at Juan les Pins. As I've stated in earlier blog posts, all the stress of the war, the loss of Alvaro (because he put country before Natacha, and he always would) and her sudden expulsion from paradise, not to mention having to leave her belongings behind which she would never see again, caused a major heart attack. Natacha was very young when this heart attack happened.
Natacha spent her early recovery at the chateau at Juan les Pins, and use this time to write '¡Arriba España!' She tried to present the views of the traditionalist right. No matter now you frame her reasons for writing '¡Arriba España!' there are really two main reasons Natacha wrote this essay.
First, it was a relatively simple, yet complicated, way to 'get revenge' on Alvaro's family. They were of the upper-crust of Spanish society. They were elitist, and Alvaro had also been raised this way, (In fact, some employee's of Alvaro and Natacha's even reported Alvaro as being rude and cruel when the classes were separated as the civil war really got going, while Natacha was gentle and kind). There are some reports that Natacha was well-liked among Alvaro's family, I mean ... they gave her that 'mystic family ring,' you know, the one that Natacha left in Mallorca and Alvaro never gave back to her (I'm sure that went to Alvaro's next wife) but Natacha did not care for their 'class-hatred' as she referred to their attitude toward others.
Second on the short list of two, there is Natacha's fear and hatred of Communism. With all of Natacha's travels n the world, she was not a Communist. Alvaro's family were of the belief that whatever kept them safe and comfy, they would go along, and Alvaro was raised with the same morals and ethics. He was raised to have certain expectations of what his life would be. I think we know from Natacha's past that she had her own thoughts and feelings about the way things should be done and that she was quick to rebel against just about anything when she felt things were going awry.
Just as her rebellious nature had caused problems in her life with Kosloff ... Rudy ... and Sveti ... it was about to do so again with Alvaro, but this time, Natacha was used by a man even to a greater extent than she had experienced before. This time, Natacha would see things that she had never had to experience before.
There is an entire ugly, yet at time, beautiful, political history to Spain that I am not going to go into. While it is relevant, it is also something you can look up for yourselves. This blog is about Natacha and her life. Suffice it to say that Alvaro's family history went back to the point that because Alvaro's mother was a lady-in-waiting to a Spanish princess, this made Alvaro a Count, which now made Natacha included in the noble family as well. This particular branch of nobility oversaw the Army and Navy. Alvaro was raised to be in the Navy. The Navy was his life and always would be.
For the previous hundred years, Spaniards had been divided by vehement differences of attitude toward the Catholic Church and its role in society. The Church was seen as integral to the ancient ruling order that was presenting Spain from modernizing, as a branch of government, the psychological branch of authority, its 'thought police.'
Spaniards' opinions of the Church often marked their position as left, center, or right on the political spectrum. The term 'anti-clerical' applied to all those who wished to see a reduction or elimination of the Church's influence on national life, to make religion a personal matter with no place in social or political affairs. This view was shared among socialists and anarchists alike, the urban and rural working classes among middle class liberals, Republicans, and even many believing Catholics.
Natacha was naturally horrified by anti-clerical violence and ¡Arriba España! gives many examples of the shocking violence of attacks on priests, mums and church property in the period before and after the outbreak of the civil war. In addition to extreme cruelty to the victims, she understood the violence as an attack on art, culture and history, the very things that fascinated and inspired her throughout her life. These acts of violence were acts of political symbolism, perpetrated in spontaneous outbursts of a fury so overpowering that its protagonists no longer recognized the humanity of their victims.
We must ask ourselves what had driven people into this state of blind rage. It is the same today, in the Ukraine ... in the other places where war is raging ... the past is being destroyed before our eyes. And why? Those things can never be brought back ... just like the people who are being slaughtered can never be brought back.
After the posturing of both sides, the right and the left, the REAL civil war seemed to start in 1934. Natacha had followed her husband's beliefs, for the most part. Things began to get more and more dangerous where they lived going toward 1936 and Natacha realized that her husband's family had joined the Communist party of the Falange. The Falange was founded by José Antonio Primero de Rivera, who imitated Italian fascism.
While Natacha was consistent in her fight against fascism, the de Urzaiz family was strongly on the opposite side, and this included her husband Still, Natacha stuck by her husband's side, if not in the core belief, she made a show of solidarity ... that is until the true violence started. When she saw people mutilated, she could not long play false. She began to speak of her true beliefs. This is what was her undoing when it came to living in Spain. Natacha had not understood the danger and the ruthless regime she had been supporting all along, but once she did, she knew she had to leave the country if she wanted to live ... and that Alvaro would not come with her.
The blog posts that follow will be numerous At this point, I do not even know how many there will be which '¡Arriba España!' will take. The essay is 23 pages, single spaced, and it is wordy. Natacha typed it in ill health, and she typed it as if she was having a conversation. But I plan to present it to you exactly as it came to me.
The essay, '¡Arriba España!', has only been published one time before in America. It was never published in Natacha's lifetime ... I do not know the reason. I think it showed some hypocrisy on Natacha's part and she may have been reluctant for that reason. I also believe that her writing it may have been strictly for cathartic reasons and that she never intended that it be published. But, it has been 88 years since she wrote '¡Arriba España!' and those of us who are Natacha fans are interested. I believe it has been published a few times by now in Spain To be honest, there is not a lot of interest in Natacha's political leanings. People either want to hear and discuss her life with Rudy or they want to know more about her Egyptology.
Well, I've done Natacha's life with Rudy a LOT and am always willing to discuss more. I'm planning on getting into her Egyptology and future life in depth. I am lucky enough to own one of her original books on Egyptian studies. However, I feel this five-year experience she had in Spain is important. The more I researched this, the more I found that this period of time was extremely traumatizing for Natacha. It simply cannot be left out of her life story.
This five years that Natacha had essentially refused to even acknowledge after '¡Arriba España!' and when she had to correspond with The Bollingen Foundation regarding her passport to explain why she still used de Urzaiz as her last name seemed to be wiped from her life story, as far as Natacha was concerned. In all future letters she wrote to her half-sister or cousin, she never mentioned Spain. To the best of my knowledge, Natacha never had contact with any of her Hollywood friends, again.
I did ask in a previous blog post if anyone wanted to read '¡Arriba España!.' Since I got no answer, I made the decision myself. On the '¡Arriba España!' blog posts, I shall have the following Falange insignia propaganda ...
... so for those who are not interested in this part of Natacha's life, you will know what the blog post contains, but you may want to click on it just so you don't become inactive in the Wix system. For those who prefer to read this in Spanish, don't forget, the language translator is at the top in the blue header of each page.
Darkmum
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