Burial of Genarin
The Entierro de Genarín is a secular procession that takes place every year in the Spanish city of León. It takes place on the night of Thursday to Good Friday and recalls, in a sarcastic tone, the life and death of Genaro Blanco Blanco, a common man whose life became a legend, while at the same time constituting an authentic parody of the most pious scenes. of the Last Supper and of the Passion of Christ.
Genaro Blanco
The son of unknown parents, Genaro Blanco Blanco was abandoned at the door of a neighbor in Izagre on September 19, 1861 and was baptized in the same town, receiving his name in honor of the Saint of that day.On September 20 September he was transferred to the Hospice of León, where he was under the care of the nurse Isidora. On November 1 of the same year he was taken to Palaciosmil, where he would be raised by Tomasa Arias and Pedro Mayo —given the institution's lack of resources, that he habitually moved the children to be raised abroad. Once he was sufficiently educated, in 1876 he returned to the Hospice to learn a trade in his workshops, although, due to trouble with his eyesight, he did serve as a gardener.
In 1879, when he turned 18, he was registered in the lists of the City Council for enlistment and in 1881 he was chosen in the lottery for which 30 men would be called to the service of arms. Due to his height —1.50 m, when the average for recruits in those years was 1.61 m—, he was assigned to the reserve. After a reform in the legislation, which lowered the minimum height to access the service, he was declared useful and entered the army, where he had to serve overseas. However, he was finally assigned to the First Battalion of the "Loyalty" Infantry Regiment No. 30, located in Tolosa, and on August 29, 1883, he left the Hospice to join the ranks.
The following news about his life date from July 12, 1896, when he took possession as an interim employee of Consumos, due to the increase in personnel for the position of Puente Castro. On October 28 of the same year, he took ownership of said square and months later, on January 18, 1897, he married María García Pérez, a native of Quintana de Fon, in the church of Nuestra Señora del Mercado. five children: Jacinto and Leonardo, born October 22, 1897, Antonio, born February 10, 1901, Ángel, born May 11, 1906, and Emilio, born April 21, 1908. On November 9, 1910, the León City Council voted in favor of leasing Consumos and the following year it was transferred to Mariano Rodríguez Penagos, a resident of Oviedo; With the new management, numerous jobs were lost, including that of Genaro.
After losing his job, Genaro made a living through all possible means; For example, they welcomed Casto Blanco as a guest in their home, worked as a day laborer, worked as a barber's apprentice, hunted birds to sell them later on Calle Ancha, worked as a baratero (in charge of arranging bets, throwing the caps and distribute the benefits among the winners) in the cap game that was organized in the Plaza del Espolón, he was a muñidoro for the aspiring deputy Bernardo Zapico, he worked as a rapier waiter in the Ramoniche sales plaza in Navatejera, He was an assistant to León Salvador (a street vendor of watches and other utensils), and a street vendor for the Diario de León.
On April 19, 1917, María García died at the San Antonio Abad Hospital due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Neither Genaro nor his sons Jacinto and Leonardo had any salary (the only income was wages from the sale of newspapers) for which, since she did not have the means, she abandoned her three small children so that they could be rescued and admitted to the Hospice, where they were admitted at the end of that year. One of them, Antonio, died of meningitis on January 11, 1918. Another of them, Ángel, left in 1921 and Genaro got him a job as a newspaper vendor; However, because he appropriated the money from the sale, his father Genaro lost his job, and since then he has dedicated himself to the trade of furrier.In 1922, his other son, Emilio, left the Hospice. In 1927 Ángel and Genaro were in a mansion in La Serna, and from that moment there is no news of the family until the year Genaro died.
On March 29, 1929 (Good Friday morning), at the age of 67, he was run over on the Cubos or Carreras road, next to the third cube of the wall going from Santa Marina. According to the news published by the newspaper La Democracia, a municipal cleaning truck —registered as LE-1508 and driven by José María Sáez del Canto— was circulating through the Espolón and around the curve in front of Puerta Castillo, and due to excessive speed, he lost the direction of the vehicle and after describing a zig-zag it crashed against the wall, running over Genaro, who was trapped between the truck and the wall. Due to the injuries he suffered, he had to die instantly. It is said that the first to come to his aid was "la Moncha", Ramona Mariño Ituriza, from a mistress's house in front of that place. Agents of the authority guarded the body until the Investigating Judge ordered its removal, and They arrested the driver, who was sent to prison by court order. Genaro was buried on March 30 in the civil cemetery of León —located on the Asturias highway, which has since disappeared—, in a grave identified with the number 26 of the second row of barracks F.
Legendization
Genaro's death would not have been more than just another piece of news if it were not for an event that saved his memory from oblivion; a group of bohemians decided to celebrate his anniversary in a sly and playful way and began to tour, on the night of Holy Thursday 1930, the streets of the city commemorating Genaro's life through poetry; They were Francisco Pérez Herrero, dentist mechanic and poet, Luis Rico, aristocrat and dandy, Nicolás Pérez el Porreto, soccer referee, and Eulogio el Gafas, taxi driver. Thus was born the Burial of Genarín and around him his legend, through which the ordinary events that happened to a common man were transformed into a story full of modifications, exaggerations and inventions; which was also reinvented-mythologised after the publication of Julio Llamazares's book in 1981.
In this, Genarín presents himself with traits of the traditional rogue, lover of all vices, and an anti-hero with a thousand trades with which he survived as best he could. Of ignoble origin for being a hospice, he mixes with people of his ilk, prostitutes, whoremongers, pimps and gamblers, and has León Salvador, the "father of all Spanish charlatans", as his teacher. He is used to breaking the rules established, such as playing to rob the fairgrounds of Mansilla, trying to swindle an English tourist with the sale of the cathedral and playing mus cheating, or due to its independence of moral customs and its unpatriotism. In the field of culture, he claims to have read only one book, the novel Los amores de un ministro, and is a lover of zarzuela.
The story is conceived as a partial and exemplary biography, but in this case in reverse. Genarín is a martyr, who suffers his particular passion, and at the same time a saint, with powers that manifest after his death through miracles. His childhood and youth are narrated, the prophecies that were to be fulfilled, his example of life and virtues, his death, the actions of his evangelists and disciples to maintain his memory and the miracles he performs afterwards. Of death. These, a total of four, refer to the redemption of the prostitute who helped him after being run over, to a goal by Cultural Leonesa after a bad spell, to the cure of a kidney patient after relieving himself in the place where Genarín died, and the slip and fall of a thief who scaled the wall and stole Genarín's offerings. The suffering of an extraordinary person is not exalted but the physical enjoyment of an ordinary man.
The Burial
Held on the night of Good Thursday through Good Friday, and organized by the Brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Genarín, the Burial of Genarín constitutes an authentic parody, with an imitation of the sacred and of the most pious scenes of the Last Supper and the Passion and Death of Christ. Thus, Genarín is the alter ego of Christ, the Mocha of María Magdalena or Verónica, etc.
It begins with a mocking remembrance of the Last Supper, which is celebrated in a restaurant at ten at night and in which satirical poems are recited about the most striking events of the year —Encyclical of the year— and is baptized with pomace to the new brothers. Later they go to the Plaza del Grano, from where the procession begins in which its participants walk the streets of the old town accompanied by four bigheads, who represent the four "evangelists", and carrying four steps: Genarín —dressed in a humble suit, carrying a bottle and holding on to a lamppost—, La Moncha —representing the moment in which this prostitute covers Genaro's corpse with the pages of a newspaper—, Death and Cuba, in the what are the offerings?
The tour, which includes Plaza del Grano, Plaza de San Martín, Calle de la Sal, the Cathedral, Calle Cardenal Landázuri and Carretera de los Cubos, is divided into "stations" where they sing poetic compositions, in the form of prayers, with social and political criticism, and among which are inserted joker verses such as:
And, following their customs,that were never a luxury,
a pee coke.
We drink in his memory
Once they arrive at the place where the accident took place, Brother Colgador deposits a series of offerings at the top of the wall: pomace, cheese, bread, oranges and a laurel wreath. The Abbot dedicates more verses to the saint, blesses those present and says goodbye until the following year. Those who prepare the burial are called "evangelists" and "apostles", according to their functions, and the people who come to participate in the procession they are described as brothers and sisters.
The celebration was prohibited by the civil authorities from 1957 until it was recovered in 1978; In the 1950s, from the newspaper Proa, the local journalist Carmelo Hernández Moros, Lamparilla, favored the prohibition of Burial, precisely shortly after new brotherhoods were founded and when Genarian parody was highly visible. Over the years it has become in a massive celebration, not without controversy, which is tolerated by civil authorities and lay brotherhoods of Holy Week. For their part, the religious authorities do not recognize it.
In popular culture
In 1981 the book The Burial of Genarín was published. Apocryphal Gospel of the Last Spanish Heterodox, the work of Julio Llamazares, in which he narrates the story of Genarín, the first processions and the poems read in them. It is associated with the literary genres of picaresque and mysticism and its narration is full of grotesque episodes to portray black Spain.
In April 2009, the film Blessed Scoundrel, the true story of Genarín, a free adaptation of the novel by Julio Llamazares, was presented in León. Conceived as a docu-fiction, it was shot in León and Japan and narrates several parallel stories: on the one hand, the adventures of Genaro Blanco and, on the other hand, the commemorations that, after his death, his party companions began to carry out. The film was selected at the 46th edition of the Gijón Film Festival held in November 2008.
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