Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas

• Born: 1962
• Birthplace: Ibahernando, Spain

First published: Soldados de Salamina, 2001 (English translation, 2003)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Historical

Time of plot: 1930s–90s

Locale: Spain

Principal Characters

Javier Cercas, a journalist, novelist, and historical researcher

Conchi, his girlfriend

Rafael Sánchez Mazas, a prominent Falangist writer and politician, the subject of his book

Jaume Figueras, a source whom he interviews

Joaquim Figueras, Jaume’s uncle

Miralles, a former Republican soldier

Miguel Aguirre, a historian

Daniel Angelats, a source of historical information

Roberto Bolaño, a Chilean writer

Maria Ferré, a source of historical information

The Story

Javier Cercas, a journalist and one-time novelist, is intrigued by the story of Rafael Sánchez Mazas, a prominent Falangist (fascist) intellectual and politician. In 1939, near the end of the Spanish Civil War, Sánchez Mazas barely escaped execution, and then, discovered while hiding in nearby woods, he was spared by the young Republican soldier who found him. Sánchez Mazas was forever grateful to the soldier and to others who assisted him as he hid from Republican troops; he was mystified by the unidentified young soldier’s motives. When the Falangists returned to dictatorial power, Sánchez Mazas became a high-ranking official and did his best to assist those who had helped him during his time of desperate need. However, he never discovered the identity of the merciful young soldier.

Cercas becomes fascinated by this story and decides to write a book about it. He receives assistance from a historian named Miguel Aguirre, who puts him in touch with Jaume Figueras, who describes how his father and uncle, both Republican soldiers, helped Sánchez Mazas during his hour of need. Figueras gives Cercas a diary that once belonged to Sánchez Mazas. It is full of helpful information, especially about his period of hiding in the forest. The more investigation Cercas does, the more the details of the episode begin to fall into place. Cercas’s clever, often sarcastic girlfriend, Conchi, humorously encourages his work.

Cercas recounts the biography of Sánchez Mazas, from his birth to his death. Sánchez Mazas was born in 1894, when Spain was still a monarchy. He became an intellectual and writer and earned a law degree. He married, had five children, and became increasingly involved in right-wing Falangist politics, becoming the chief theoretician of the movement. His ideals were old-fashioned, but the methods of his party were radical. He sought a civil war in Spain and helped produce one.

When the Falangists were suppressed by the Republicans in 1936, Sánchez Mazas was imprisoned. He managed to escape and take refuge in the Chilean embassy, where he stayed for nearly a year and a half. When he tried to escape to Chile, he was rearrested and jailed on a prison ship. Eventually, he realized that he and other Falangists were about to be executed by the Republicans, who, by this time, were losing the civil war. As Republican soldiers fired at the congregated Falangist prisoners, Sánchez Mazas ran into nearby woods and hid. A young Republican soldier found him but neither killed him nor turned him in.

Sánchez Mazas then spent nine more days in the forest, receiving help from various local peasants, including young Maria Ferré and her family. Later, as he walked through the forest, he fell and broke his glasses and could barely see. Yet when he was discovered by three Republican soldiers—Pere Figueras, Joaquim Figueras, and Daniel Angelats—they decided to keep him safe until the Falangist forces arrived. In turn, Sánchez Mazas promised to protect them when he came back into power. Calling all his helpers his "forest friends," Sánchez Mazas vowed someday to write a book about his experiences and call it Soldiers of Salamis.

In the new Nationalist government, Sánchez Mazas held a high office. Although his political power eventually diminished, he remained a prominent writer and a relatively wealthy and powerful man. Despicable in many ways politically and intellectually, he nonetheless remained grateful and helpful to his "forest friends." He died in 1966.

Having finished writing the story of Sánchez Mazas, Cercas feels dissatisfied. He becomes determined to find and interview the unknown Republican soldier who spared Sánchez Mazas’s life. A Chilean writer, Roberto Bolaño, suggests that he talk to an old man named Miralles. A former Republican soldier who had fought heroically against the Nazis in World War II, Miralles had been in the same area of Spain as Sánchez Mazas at the time of the latter’s escape from detection and death. Cercas and Bolaño engage in long discussions about heroism and about recent events in Chile.

Eventually Cercas tracks down Miralles, who is now a very old man living in a nursing home. As the two men talk, Cercas begins to suspect that Miralles is the man who spared the life of Sánchez Mazas. Miralles weeps as he recalls all his dead comrades, whom he considers the true heroes of the time. The young journalist and the old soldier become increasingly friendly, but when Cercas asks Miralles directly if he was the soldier who spared Sánchez Mazas, Miralles breaks into a smile and says, simply, "no." The two agree to meet again, and Cercas imagines their future relationship, Miralles’s eventual death, and the book Cercas plans to write about his recent experiences.

Bibliography

Amago, Samuel. "Speaking for the Dead: History, Narrative, and the Ghostly in Javier Cercas’s War Novels." Unearthing Franco’s Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain. Ed. Carlos Jerez Farrán and Samuel Amago. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 2010. Print.

Camino, Mercedes M. "War, Wounds and Women: The Spanish Civil War in Victor Erice’s El Espíritu de la Colmena and David Trueba’s Soldados de Salamina." International Journal of Iberian Studies 20.2 (2007): 91–104. Academic Search Alumni Edition. Web. 17 July 2014.

Linville, Rachel Ann. "The Idealization of Memory in Soldiers of Salamis." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 89.4 (2012): 363–79. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 17 July 2014.

Persky, Stan. "Heroes: Javier Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis." Reading the Twenty-First Century: Books of the Decade, 2000–2009. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2011. Print.