Miguel Hernández Tour

Miguel Hernández Tour

"Andaluces de Jaén, /aceituneros altivos, /decideme en el alma: ¿quién, /quién levantó los olivos?" These verses by Miguel Hernández, which are now part of the provincial anthem of Jaén, were written in 1937. The poet from Alicante, shortly after marrying his love Josefina Manresa, had to leave for the Jaén front lines during the Spanish Civil War. In this guided tour, which will begin in the central Plaza de San Ildefonso, we'll remember the legacy of the writer during his stay in this Andalusian city.

During this tour of the historic center of Jaén, we'll also learn about Miguel Hernández's ties with the city. There he held the position of Commissioner of Culture, directing a newspaper called Altavoz del Frente Sur ('Loudspeaker of the Southern Front'). It's also at this stage that he wrote the poem Aceituneros, whose first lines are quoted at the beginning of this description. On the tour, we'll delve into the importance of these verses and many others that the poet composed in Jaén, compiled in his famous book Vientos del pueblo.

We'll end the tour by visiting one of the places in Jaén that most impressed Miguel Hernández during the Civil War: the air raid shelter in Plaza de Santiago. In this underground bunker, where the local population took refuge during the bombings of 1937, we'll see several portraits, poems, and journalistic chronicles of the writer: "Jaén is bombed: the trilite shakes and shatters even the city's most foundational stones [...] and in the cemetery, children, women, and elders, who had committed no other crime than being born and living, need revenge for their inhumane death."