Èric Lluent: "The perpetrator of the Liceu attack wanted to throw bombs at the victims' funeral."

BarcelonaOn November 7, 1893, Barcelona's high society flocked to the Liceu, because the opera season was beginning with William Tell by Rossini. Santiago Salvador, who was in his late twenties, accessed the upper floors of the theater from Sant Pau Street and saw the first act. After a short intermission, when the music began Oui, vous la arrachez à mon âme, He pulled out the two Orsini bombs he had hidden and dropped them into the audience. That day, as Èric Lluent (Barcelona, ​​1986) explains, in The bomb at the high school (NOW Books), Salvador inaugurated a new historical era. He was the perpetrator of the first attack of modern, indiscriminate terrorism. Who was Salvador? Who helped him and why? Why do we speak of modern terrorism? The Barcelona-born journalist residing in Reykjavik answers all these questions.

You argue that historiography has not given sufficient importance to the Liceu bombing and that your book is the first to delve deeply into this historical episode.

— The Liceu bombing has been downplayed. This is scandalous and incomprehensible, because 132 years have passed. It has been understood as an expression of local tensions between workers and the bourgeoisie, which is an absolutely valid and necessary interpretation, but it must be framed within the history of international violence.

Why do you think it hasn't received enough attention?

— We're talking about a terrorist attack, so it's not something to be proud of, but we do need to understand why this phenomenon reached its peak in Barcelona. If this attack had taken place in Paris, there would be dozens of books about the attack and the perpetrator. Why haven't we? The Catalan publishing industry publishes many books on the history of Catalonia and Barcelona, ​​and the events at the Liceu are very well documented. But the only reference book is... The Montjuïc trial Antoni Dalmau's book, which includes a very long chapter on the Liceu bombing, is not intended to be a mere recounting of the specific events that occurred on the night of November 7, 1893. It explores their historical significance and represents the first indiscriminate attack of modern terrorism.

What leads you to claim that this is the first indiscriminate attack of modern terrorism?

— I'm conducting an analysis of all the terrorist movements of the period, especially those stemming from the invention of dynamite. There are several criteria to consider: the number of deaths, whether the attack was targeted or indiscriminate, whether there was a confessed perpetrator, and so on. When the press reported on the Liceu bombing, journalists wrote that it was something new. The paradigm had shifted. Until then, the major terrorist attacks of the time had been targeted, the most significant being the 1881 suicide attack against Tsar Alexander II. An indiscriminate attack appealed to a society or a community in a much more direct, effective, and devastating way from a terrorist perspective.

Why do you think it happened specifically in Barcelona?

— There was a great deal of violence in the air. The Carlist Wars, though not in Barcelona itself, the riots, the conscription revolts, the repression, and Espartero's infamous bombing, along with a highly organized and constantly clashing labor movement and employers' association, all contributed to the atmosphere. Barcelona ended up being known as the city of bombs because all reformist proposals had been brutally suppressed. Many anarchists advocated revolution in the face of the reformists' failures, and within this group were the dynamiter anarchists.

Unpublished documentation contributed. One of the most interesting documents is an anarchist pamphlet found in England that, a year and a half before the Liceu attack, gave instructions on how to attack an opera on opening night.

— Yeah, An anarchist party at the opera, from the anarchist club in Walsall. It's an ideological justification for this type of attack before any had even taken place. It gives instructions for making homemade bombs and explains how to create a gas leak in the theater to facilitate a deflagration and set the building on fire. We don't know if that document reached Barcelona. When I read it, my first thought was that Salvador had read it, because there are many similarities, but I have no proof. The English press, from the very beginning, linked the attack on the Liceu to that pamphlet.

Did Santiago Salvador act alone?

— The perpetrator of the Liceu bombing did not act alone, and he explained this to journalist Pedro Bernet, who extracted a great deal from all the conversations he had with Salvador in the hospital after the latter's suicide attempt. He loved to talk. He clearly stated that the two attacks carried out that year were decided at the same meeting. The first took place on September 24, 1893, and was against General Martínez Campos, who survived. When Paulí Pallàs (the perpetrator of the attack) was arrested, he said he wanted to avoid being remembered as a murderer, and made it clear that for him it was essential to carry out the attack during a military parade, not a civilian event, getting as close as possible to the general. This contrasts sharply with the satisfaction Salvador said he felt after killing twenty people. Furthermore, Salvador did not have sufficient knowledge to manufacture a bomb; consequently, the materials had to be supplied by someone. And, to obtain the materials, funding was sought.

One of the things that is surprising, if viewed through today's eyes, is the communication with the press. Salvador spoke extensively with journalists after being convicted.

— Salvador came from a Carlist family, very conservative and ultra-Catholic. The trial Pallàs recounts was military, while Salvador's was civilian, and therefore he received more humane treatment. The judges and prison guards considered him somewhat like one of their own who had gone mad. They saw him as a poor boy, which is ironic considering he killed more than twenty people. At that time, there was no prior censorship, and it was the beginning of professional journalism and the mass press. Stories and exclusives, like the interviews with Salvador, had to be sold. Journalists were even allowed into the chapel hours before his execution.

In one of these conversations, the journalist asked her why she got married and had a daughter if she intended to commit an attack.

— He was a very unstable person who had grown up in an extremely violent family environment. When he was 14, he was caught with a revolver. He wanted to kill his father because he brutally beat his mother, and he loved him very much. There are two documented suicides in his family. When he was 10 or 11, he wanted to defend the Carlist cause, and a few years later he defended anarchism. He was convinced that, if there wasn't social change, his daughter would end up serving the bourgeoisie or, as he said, would be bourgeois fodder, meaning she would become a prostitute. I don't think he regretted it. In fact, Salvador left the Liceu opera house without anyone stopping him. Since he wasn't arrested until days later, he climbed the Columbus statue because he wanted to carry out another attack during the funerals of the Liceu victims. This time, no one gave him dynamite for it.

What was Salvador like?

— He was a devout Catholic, although in the end he said he didn't want to go to confession. He was violent, even with his wife. He was a chameleon, with a great capacity for adaptation, inconsistent, and a charlatan. I like to think about how my research might evolve. The thesis is somewhat provocative, because I argue that it was the first attack, and I think it could spark a debate. And it could have further developments. It would be interesting to study Salvador psychologically.

Do we know what happened to his wife and daughter?

— No, but it would be interesting to investigate.