Culture Why doesn't Spain have a Pantheon of Illustrious Men like the French one?

In 2002, the French president, Jacques Chirac, ordered the transfer of the remains of the writer Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, from the Villers-Cotterêts cemetery (Picardie), where he was born and where he was buried, to the Pantheon of the Illustrious in Paris. It was done “to repair the injustice with one of the great writers” of France. So that he could be with the rest of the illustrious in this national mausoleum.

Years later, in 2015, two empty coffins entered, that of the ethnologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Germaine Tillion and that of the resistance figure Genevière de Gaulle-Anthonioz. His material remains were not there, it was a symbolic ceremony of “pantheonization”, as the manager of this national monument, Pascal Monnet, described it at the time. Rome beatifies its saints and Paris pantheonizes its illustrious ones.

«The 19th century, with romanticism, is a moment in which the feeling of a national identity was established, with the cult of great men. This feeling exists in other countries, but in France it is much stronger than in others,” explains Laetitia Levantis, art historian and researcher at the French research center (CNRS).

France dedicated the Pantheon to honor the great men who have marked the nation’s history: 75 men and six women. It is one of the most visited places in the capital and authors such as Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Emilie Zola are there. Only military figures, such as Napoleon, are in the pantheon of Les Invalides.

If France has always cared for the memory of its national glories, Spain has not managed to create a unique space in which to pay tribute to its own. In the 19th century, an attempt was made to make a monument to illustrious men in the church of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid, but without much success. Then the remains of Velázquez, Cervantes, El Cid or Murillo, among others, could not be located.

Those from Garcilaso de la Vega, Eduardo Dato and Quevedo, among others, were welcomed, and were deposited in a chapel and later returned to their places of origin.

Some remains could not be found or it was difficult to identify them and this has made the project difficult. Those of Cervantes were a mystery, although some sources place them in the Trinitarias convent in Madrid, and those of Federico García Lorca, shot during the Civil War, are in a common grave but have not been found.

In the French case, in many cases the remains are not there either or there are doubts, but, as Monnet clarified, “what is important in pantheonization is the symbol.”

Would it be a time to resume the project in our country? Levantis believes: «For a nation, for its identity and its history, it is very important to have a place where it can pay tribute to the personalities who have built the legacy of the country. In France, it is inseparable from the history of the country,” explains the expert.

«There are countries where we question our History a lot, and this is something that happens especially in France. Therefore, for the country’s memory, it was very important to include heroes of the resistance in the Pantheon,” he explains, in reference to France’s role in World War II, which collaborated with the Nazis.

In the Pantheon, the greats of literature coexist with political figures such as Jean Moulin, director of the National Council of the Resistance during the war, or Jean Jaurès, a pacifist who died before the start of the First World War. In 1924, the monument to “the unknown heroes, to the martyrs killed for France” was installed and, in addition to the remains, there are inscriptions with more than a thousand personalities.

“The Pantheon fulfills another higher function than simply paying tribute to the most illustrious authors, since what is decided is to dedicate their own space to them to praise the value of what they contributed to the country,” explains the expert.

There is a national consensus when it comes to determining who the incontestable personalities are and deserve to enter. For this reason, the remains of Dumas were moved in 2002 or those of the activist Simone Weil in 2018.

The process to enter “is very complex and changes from one personality to another.” The President of the Republic has the last word. “It is a political act, as well as symbolic,” explained Pascal Monnet, manager of the monument, to the newspaper Le Figaro.

Conceived as a church, the Pantheon was completed during the French Revolution and in 1791 the Assembly voted to dedicate this space to house the bodies of the country’s greats. On the façade, above, an inscription was placed that said: “To the great men, the grateful country.”

The monument lived through a chaotic period, it changed its uses and it was in 1885, following the burial of Victor Hugo, when it was returned to its function as a mausoleum. In 1920, it was registered within the network of national monuments. In the Pantheon there are only six women.

The United Kingdom is another of the countries that has the most significant monuments. In Westmister Abbey there are, among others, Charles Dickens, Kipling, Lord Byron and Jane Austen, as well as some members of the Monarchy. «This symbolic recognition has been maintained in France throughout history. Will new figures enter the Pantheon? “We will see in the future.”