Saint Rock And The Plague

There are saints with whom those not generally conversant with Mallorca's Catholicism will nevertheless have heard of. Sant Pere (Saint Peter) or Sant Joan (John the Baptist) are just two fairly obvious examples. But there are other saints who are far more obscure. How many local Catholics might be fully up to speed with, for example, Santa Praxedis, let alone non-Catholic visitors? For the record, she's the patron of Petra, and as far I'm aware nowhere else celebrates her. Likewise we have the twin brother saints Abdon and Senen, for whom Inca held its summer fiestas last month.

While these saints mysteriously found their way into very local devotion and attained patronage status, there are certain others who, while barely known in non-Catholic circles, are widely honoured on the island. And one of these is Sant Roc, whose day is 16 August, which means, in fiesta terms, that there can be two days on the trot, as 15 August is the day of the Assumption.

In English he's known variously as Roch, Rocco or even Rock, while there is a Saint Rollox in Glasgow (the same saint). Be these names as they are, it is not untypical for there to be some doubt as to the authenticity of some saints, and in Roc's case he is almost certainly fictitious. Common tradition claims that he was born in Montpellier either in 1295 or 1350. Whichever it was, it doesn't really matter as the birth itself is mere legend.

It is, though, a useful one where Mallorca is concerned. Montpellier was the birthplace of the conqueror, Jaume I. Coming from the same city - allegedly - would not have done Roc's claims on Mallorcan devotion any harm whatsoever. As it is, a recent scholarly study of the saint concludes that he was historically implausible. A generally accepted view, if not by all Mallorcans, is that he was a derivation from a Sant Racus, who died more than six hundred years before the first year given for Roc's birth in Montpellier.

Whatever his origins, Roc was to acquire another very useful attribute for his saintly CV, and that was being a patron against the plague, of which there were once upon a time goodly amounts in Mallorca. The Sant Racus angle is significant here. He was a patron for protection against storms, and in the Occitan language (close to Catalan) this was "tempesta". The word for plague was and is "pesta". Roc was not only derived from Racus, his patronage was as well by a trick of language.

Given all this, it is perhaps understandable how he came to have the kind of reputation he now does, meaning fiestas in his honour in, for example, Alaro, Cala Ratjada and Porreres.

This does, nevertheless, invite a question as to why Sant Roc (or indeed some other saints) come to actually be honoured by having fiestas in their name. In Porreres, there are two patrons - John the Baptist and another Saint John, the Evangelist. Roc isn't as such a patron, yet there he is with the principal fiestas of the summer; John the Baptist gets a mass, and that's more or less it.

Might this all just be because August is a good or better time to hold a fiesta celebration? Possibly, but where Roc and Porreres are concerned, you do have to go back to his patronage of fighting the plague.

Sixty-four years ago, Porreres staged an exhibition. It was to celebrate a three hundredth anniversary. In 1652, the town had celebrated its first ever Sant Roc fiestas. And what was the reason for having done this? Yep, it was the plague.

Among the various documents, paintings, sculptures and what have you that were placed on exhibition in 1952 was a text that referred to the Reverend Rafael Barceló who three hundred years earlier had seemingly seen to it that the parish of Porreres would have a benefactor in the form of Sant Roc. This was because in that year "the intervention of the saint" freed Porreres from the plague. And there was no better way to celebrate the fact than have a fiesta.

Of course, not every saint who intervened in similar fashion to Roc ended up with grand fiestas. Even Sant Crist, Christ the Saint, can only stretch to an hour or so of procession every three years for having rid Alcudia of drought and famine. But Roc with his plague-healing ways was to secure for himself 364 years (and counting) of Porreres summer fiestas.

Republican Sympathies

On Saturday, commemorations were held that marked the 81st anniversary of the establishment of the Second Republic. Mallorca was not excluded from these celebrations. Porreres staged one of the best attended events. In Pollensa, as has become traditional on the anniversary of the birth of the Republic, the PSM (Mallorcan socialists) offered a floral tribute.

That it is the socialists who arrange the event says much about the political colour of the memories of the Republic and also about hopes of a revival of Republicanism. Like its Nationalist counterpoint, it has lurked in the undergrowth away from the main glare of monarchical democracy since 1975. Republicanism wasn't destroyed in 1939 at the end of the Civil War; it remained, in exile and latterly through the titles or sympathies of minority political parties.

The Second Republic ended in total disaster. Its liberalism was overtaken by violence and extremism. Against a background of depression, it couldn't combat unemployment. Economically and politically it was a failure, but Republicanism has remained an ideological force because of what happened after the Republic fell. It is the "good guy" of the Civil War, despite its own atrocities.

It has remained a force also because of what created the Second Republic. The government of the first dictator, Primo de Rivera, had become untenable as had the position of the Bourbon king, Alfonso XIII, who, on 14 April 1931, was forced into exile. Alfonso was considered a traitor as, in 1923, he had not blocked the coup which led to the establishment of the first dictatorship. An understanding of the Civil War and the Franco era is not complete without an appreciation of the monarch's support for Rivera. In 1923, the king assisted in breaking a system of monarchical democracy that was not to be restored for over 50 years.

Lessons of history and all that, but the past has a habit of turning itself into tradition. And with tradition comes a desire for re-enactment or an expectation that history will repeat itself or a perception that history is repeating itself. The tradition of the Civil War, despite the best attempts of many Spaniards to indulge in mass amnesia and the best attempts of the legal and political system to airbrush it out of existence, remains well rooted.

If not of course actual re-enactment, there is the narrative that nuances the current day in terms of this tradition. Republicanism 2012 in Mallorca, and elsewhere no doubt, rejects, as you would expect it to, the rights of another Bourbon king, Juan Carlos. Anti-monarchy sentiment is not unreasonable, but what is unreasonable is to somehow compare the current king with the treacherous Alfonso. It is not only unreasonable, it fails completely in recalling that it was the current king who turned his back on Francoism. For today's Republicans, however, a Bourbon monarch is a Bourbon monarch, regardless of very different circumstances.

Republicanism 2012 manages also to make some quite extraordinary allusions to Nationalism. The Partido Popular government in the Balearics, in agreeing to the development of a hotel near Es Trenc beach, is somehow engaged in Francoism. Well yes, there was destruction of the coastlines in the Franco era. No one would deny this, but it had nothing to do with Francoism or Nationalism; it had everything to do with turning the dross of a basket-case economy into something approximating gold.

The compulsion to style the current day with the narrative of the past extends to the lobbing of insults. When the head of the UGT union in the Balearics called President Bauzá a fascist, rather than requesting the attorney-general to start proceedings, Bauzá would have been far better off returning his own insult and moving on. Resorting to legal redress institutionalises the narrative and therefore the tradition, proving that Balearics politicians are as trapped in the past as are union leaders.

Right-wing governments both nationally and regionally that are pursuing policies of austerity do not, as is being implied by Republicanism 2012, amount to Nationalism. It is an absurdity to suggest that they do, especially as these policies are a furtherance of those initiated by socialist governments. But this is how the narrative insists that it should be.

In Porreres in 1938, a dreadful Nationalist atrocity was committed. The past should not be forgotten, and it is understandable that the town should be the location for a commemoration of Republicanism, but the narrative is of the past, of a time when, unlike today, the army were the ultimate enforcers and the monarchy the arbiters. The narrative is obsolete, a perverse romance of tradition. It is of the past, and that, God willing, is where it remains.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.