{"id":10349,"date":"2019-12-24T12:20:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T12:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/personaje\/sanchez-mejias-ignacio\/"},"modified":"2021-11-02T12:25:33","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T12:25:33","slug":"sanchez-mejias-ignacio","status":"publish","type":"personaje","link":"https:\/\/www.universolorca.com\/en\/personaje\/sanchez-mejias-ignacio\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas, Ignacio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bullfighter and multifaceted man: president of Betis (football club), actor, polo player, writer, friend of the members of the Generation of ’27 and sponsor of the founding meeting of this literary group together with the cattle rancher Fernando Villal\u00f3n. He was born in Seville on June 6, 1891, and died in Madrid on August 13, 1934, from gangrene after being gored in the Manzanares bullring, two days earlier, by the bull called\u00a0Granadino<\/em>, a docile animal that surprised him at the beginning of the bullfight. His death was a great shock among fans and friends. Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca composed in his memory one of the summits of Spanish elegiac poetry of all time, the Lament for a Bullfighter<\/em><\/a>, edited a year later by Jos\u00e9 Bergam\u00edn<\/a> in Cruz y raya<\/em> and illustrated by Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The young S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas, after an adventurous escape to Mexico as a stowaway, joined Joselito’s team as a banderillero in 1910. Five years later Joselito married one of Ignacio\u2019s sisters and became the main one responsible for his bullfighting career. In 1919, he debuted in Barcelona with Joselito himself and Juan Belmonte as witnesses. Death always hovered around his career. In 1920, he was a witness of his brother-in-law’s death in Talavera de la Reina.<\/p>\n

Ignacio paid for a lunch for sixty guests at the Real Venta de Antequera (Flamenco eggs, fried fish and oxtail) and then invited them to a party “in style” at his farmhouse, which is part of the literary memory of the Generation of ’27.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ignacio won over the public less for his technique than for his daredevil displays. Despite his success, in the mid-twenties he retired to devote himself to other pursuits and, in particular, to resume his academic training, which he had interrupted at a very young age, and to cultivate the friendship of intellectuals linked to the Generation of ’27. In fact, in the 1928-29 academic year he resumed his high school studies at the La R\u00e1bida Institute in Huelva.<\/p>\n

His estate of Pino Montano was the place where the poets of \u201827 who participated in the act of the third centenary of the death of Luis de G\u00f3ngora gathered. Several of them, including Pedro Salinas<\/a>, Gerardo Diego<\/a> and Rafael Alberti<\/a>, proposed the idea of the meeting at the estate. The proposal was immediately supported by Garc\u00eda Lorca, Jos\u00e9 Bergam\u00edn, Jos\u00e9 Moreno Villa<\/a> and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Coss\u00edo. On the occasion of the tribute, D\u00e1maso Alonso<\/a> prepared an edition of Solitude<\/em>; Salinas of the Sonnets<\/em>, and Gerardo Diego undertook to finalize an anthology in tribute to G\u00f3ngora. S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas, for his part, offered to be a patron. The previous commemorative event was held on December 11 in the assembly hall of the La Econ\u00f3mica society, located a few steps from the Seville Athenaeum. According to Alberti, the large audience chanted the verses of Jorge Guill\u00e9n<\/a> and “asked for Garc\u00eda Lorca’s ear” after reciting some of his gypsy ballads.<\/p>\n

\"Celebration<\/a>
Celebration of G\u00f3ngora’s tercentenary at the Ateneo de Sevilla in December 1927. From left to right: Rafael Alberti, Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, Juan Chab\u00e1s, Mauricio Bacarisse, Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Romero Mart\u00ednez (president of the literature section of the Athenaeum), Manuel Blasco Garz\u00f3n (president of the Ateneo de Sevilla), Jorge Guill\u00e9n, Jos\u00e9 Bergam\u00edn, D\u00e1maso Alonso and Gerardo Diego.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ignacio paid for a lunch for sixty guests at the Real Venta de Antequera (Flamenco eggs, fried fish and oxtail) and then invited them to a party “in style” at his farmhouse, which is part of the literary memory of the Generation of ’27. The guests appeared in Arab costumes and then a celebration started in which D\u00e1maso Alonso recited from memory the 1,091 verses of The First Solitude<\/em>, Villal\u00f3n<\/a> tried to hypnotize Alberti and Garc\u00eda Lorca improvised theatrical fragments. The party ended with Manuel Torre, Ni\u00f1o de Jerez<\/em><\/a>, to whom Federico dedicated in 1931 one of the flamenco vignettes of the Poem of the Deep Song<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ignacio, a person of great attraction among women, began a half-secret sentimental relationship with La Argentinita<\/a>. The bullfighter Alfredo Corrochano, friend and member of the bullfighting team that fought in Manzanares on the tragic afternoon of August 11, 1934, remembers the relationship between the two: “I knew La Argentinita very little. Ignacio never showed her. I had dinner with them only one night. She was his great love. But at the same time he felt a great love for his wife, a great lady in spite of all the sorrows”. La Argentinita and Ignacio traveled to the United States in 1929, gave a lecture and sang at the same time as Garc\u00eda Lorca\u2019s stay at Columbia University. In 1931, Lorca and La Argentinita recorded the album Collection of Spanish Popular Songs<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The theatrical premieres of S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas Sinraz\u00f3n occurred in that period. Toy in Three Acts and in Prose<\/em>, premiered in 1928; Zaya, Comedy in Three Acts and in Prose<\/em>, staged the same year, and two other pieces never performed during the author’s lifetime: No More, No Less, a Comedy in Three Acts and in Prose<\/em> and Solitude<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Ignacio<\/a>
Ignacio S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas keeps vigil over the corpse of his brother-in-law, Joselito also a bullfighter, \/ Photo: ABC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although he had lost his quickness and was out of training, S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas decided to return to the bullfighting ring in 1934. At that time he was having an affair with the Hispanist and biographer of Lorca Marcelle Auclair<\/a>. On August 11, he agreed to replace Domingo Ortega in the Manzanares bullring. Alfredo Corrochano describes the catch as follows: “When he took the sword and the muleta he went to give a pass in the stirrup. The bull was coming a little inside. The banderillero warned him: ‘Be careful, maestro, the bull is pressing inside’. He caught him between the boards and pierced his thigh. I enticed the bull away. When they got to him, he was dead.<\/p>\n

“I went to see him in the infirmary between bulls,” Corrochano continued. “They say that the bullrings infirmaries are bad now. Manzanares’ had a bottle of cotton, a pot of iodine and another of water. And a very nice doctor. ‘How’s it going,’ I asked him, ‘Don’t worry,’ Ignacio replied.”<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Mej\u00edas died from gangrene two days later in a Madrid hospital and soon after Garc\u00eda Lorca began the composition of the Lament for a Bullfighter:\u00a0<\/em>“Tardar\u00e1 mucho tiempo en nacer, si es que nace [“It will take a long time to be born, if he is born,] \/ un andaluz tan claro, tan rico de aventura. [an Andalusian so clear, so rich in adventure.] \/ Yo canto su elegancia con palabras que gimen [I sing his elegance with words that moan] \/ y recuerdo una brisa triste por los olivos [and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees”.]<\/p>\n

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