In the land of empty provinces

When the accuracy of an analysis proves its effectiveness - then Sergio del Molino has created a masterpiece. In 2016 he published a book, the title of which became a household name. "España vacía" (Empty Spain) not only became a bestseller, it achieved the utmost: This book changed thinking – or at least the political landscape. The issue of rural exodus is no longer ignored by any Spanish party, and the threat of depopulation in entire regions is one of the government's major challenges today.

“Empty Spain” has now been published in German, and those who embark on “a journey to a country that never existed” with del Molino will be in for a few surprises. One marvels at the sharpness of the discrepancy between urban and rural Spain. And about what the author gets out of this supposedly easy-to-understand contrast. To do this, he sometimes reaches far back into history, sometimes he describes his own experiences, he quotes films, rock concerts, travel descriptions.

What often begins as an anecdote takes a high arc through Spanish and European cultural history, it takes a lot of composure to follow the meandering paths. But as far as del Molino goes, he never loses his equally amazing ability to get the curve, everything told reliably leads to a new perspective on the relationship between town and country. You learn and understand a lot on this "journey", not only about Spain.

In fact, Spain is a special case, in hardly any other country in Europe is the population so unequally distributed: 80 percent of the 48 million Spaniards live in cities, most of them on the coast. Until well into the 20th century, Spain was an agricultural country, but between 1950 and 1970, in the course of industrialization and growing tourism, the exodus from the provinces accelerated, ghost villages arose in the countryside, while the population of some cities tripled. “Empty Spain” encompasses a vast area stretching from Extremadura to Aragón, with only 16 percent of the total population living in this 53 percent of Spanish territory. Some speak of "Spanish Siberia".

Tensions between town and country are normal, but in Spain, according to del Molino, due to the extreme rural exodus, they have developed into a trauma that is suffered “in a strange, even bizarre form of drama”. And of course the country's writers had a lot of material to offer. The parade of poets and thinkers with whom del Molino wanders through the deserts of the hinterland is remarkable, including not only greats like Unamuno, Machado, Lorca or film director Buñuel, but also authors who are probably little familiar to German readers like the romantic Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer , Benito Peréz Galdós, Spain's Balzac, or the post-war author Camilo José Cela, after all a Nobel Prize winner.

"Castile, your cities that are decaying", Antonio Machado laments the decline of the "barren, hard country" that fascinates him so much. Others elevated the unsettlingly deserted plains to a mythological landscape, or discovered in them the essence of the Iberian, or even a promise of national salvation. But the most common attitude with which writers, politicians, historians, financiers, in short, city dwellers, met the provinces is quite straightforward: open contempt. Even the "Don Quixote" sets standards. The mere fact that Cervantes nicknamed the knight of the sad figure "de la Mancha" is a wicked joke.

The shadowless, dusty Mancha, writes del Molino, not only promises the lowest nobility, “it also stands for one of the most desolate areas of the country. On their perilous paths, Don Quixote and Sancho meet all sorts of bad characters - dirty and fraudulent innkeepers, prostitutes, bandits, galley criminals, goatherds who beat them half to death with their clubs, ruffians who abuse children... Here in La Mancha, so to speak at the end of the world, only terrible or ridiculous things can happen.”

There have always been half-hearted programs to upgrade the province and stop emigration. But nothing helped, and certainly not under Franco. According to del Molino, no dictator treated rural Spain as badly as the caudillo, whose unrestrained attempts at industrialization favored the exodus.

Even if urban and empty Spain still seem like two foreign countries, one cannot be understood without the other. "The spirits of the latter also reside in the homes of the former," writes the author. A large part of the inhabitants of the urban centers can look back on a history of immigration. The village that you, your parents, your grandparents left is still present. As an imaginary home that can consist of a "meaningful silence, throat clearing and pictures from family albums". More than a fatherland, this homeland is "a vibration, something that resonates in the air," writes del Molino, and as such it comes "closer to sensible patriotism than anything Spain has known up to now."

Because of such sentences, del Molino's book, which became a bestseller, was also celebrated by national populists. An appropriation against which the author defends himself. Last year he presented a sequel to clarify his theses.

Sergio del Molino: Empty Spain. Translated from the Spanish by Peter Kultzen. Wagenbach, 304 pages, 30 euros