The exhumation of José Antonio Primo de Rivera from the interior of the Basilica of the Valley of the Fallen by the Government has once again brought this architectural ensemble to the present day. And many have been surprised by the name change that has occurred. Why is the Valley of the Fallen called Cuelgamuros Valley?
The truth is that the Valley of the Fallen has been legally called Cuelgamuros since October 2022, when the Democratic Memory Law was definitively approved.
A year earlier, PSOE and Podemos agreed to a series of changes to the bill; improve the protocols for the exhumation of graves; the creation of an Office for Victims of Francoism; the reinforcement of the Prosecutor of the Human Rights and Democratic Memory Chamber in charge of investigating the acts committed during the coup d’état of 1936, the Civil War and the dictatorship and the change of name of the Valley of the Fallen, recovering its original name of Valle de wall hanger
Until now known as the Valley of the Fallen, it is located in the municipality of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 58 kilometers from Madrid, on a 1,377-hectare estate known as Cuelgamuros. The set is considered the great Francoist symbol.
On April 1, 1940, Franco signed a decree to start the construction of a monumental complex made up of a basilica, monastery and youth barracks. The objective of the work was to perpetuate the memory of those who fell “in our glorious crusade.”
Those responsible for raising the project were the architects Pedro Muguruza and, later, Diego Méndez; while the sculptor Juan de Ávalos was in charge of the decoration.
Its construction lasted 18 years, until 1958. To build it, thousands of political prisoners participated (some 20,000 according to some historians) subjected to the rules of the Central Board of Redemption of Penalties for Work.
According to the census of the Ministry of Justice, in the Cuelgamuros Valley lie the remains of 33,833 people (21,423 identified and 12,410 unidentified) from both sides of the Civil War, who were taken there between 1959 and 1983.
The temple is 262 meters long and its dome is 45 meters high by 40 meters in diameter; the interior is made up of a double atrium and six side chapels. The most outstanding element is the large stone cross 150 meters high and arms 24 meters each. The great cross, which some ask to demolish, stands on a basilica excavated 250 meters into the rock.
Last March, the Supreme Court ratified the green light for the exhumations in the Cuelgamuros Valley, inadmissible the appeals of the Francisco Franco Foundation and the Association for Reconciliation and Historical Truth that demanded the precautionary stay.
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