The Verges Procession was interrupted between 1936 and 1939 and returned under difficult circumstances in 1940. Explaining this period requires distinguishing the cancellation before the war, the years of conflict and the reconstruction afterwards: returning to the streets did not immediately solve the shortage of participants and resources.
1936: a cancellation before the outbreak of war
In the revised 1997 edition of La Processó de Verges, Jordi Roca explains that the decision not to hold the Procession in 1936 was taken before the Spanish Civil War began. Maundy Thursday that year came before the outbreak of the conflict in July. The cancellation therefore cannot be presented as the consequence of a war already underway.
Roca connects the decision with the atmosphere of fear and mentions, as a possible cause, a message from the governor disclaiming responsibility if an incident occurred. His wording is tentative. We retain this explanation as an account attributed to the book, without claiming to have consulted the original message or treating it as a verified prohibition order.
According to the same account, the Procession did not take place during the war years either. The absence of many men sent to the front compounded the difficulties of the period.
1940: returning with fewer participants
Roca dates the revival to 1940 and attributes the insistence on restoring the celebration to the mayor, whom he identifies as Mr Auquer. He describes conversations, plans and efforts to encourage participation, but also a smaller Procession than before.
On pages 28–29, he explains that exile and military service had reduced the number of participants. Younger people had to take on roles beyond their experience. This was not a Procession without men, but a revival struggling to find enough people to sustain the different roles.
Equipment preserved and reused
The book states that costumes and equipment had been preserved, specifically noting the continued use of Dance of Death costumes. This helps explain how the celebration could resume, but is not an item-by-item inventory or proof that the entire heritage remained intact.
Maria Ruart Ribas remembers the Procession being restored with what could be kept and old clothing being reused. For example, she recalls playing the Virgin in an old dress dyed pink. Her account illustrates the reuse and adaptation of available resources; it does not identify every surviving item or date every instance of reuse to 1940.
Valentí Fargnoli’s photographs from 1922 show a period before the conflict. They are valuable visual evidence, but cannot by themselves prove that every costume, helmet or spear pictured survived the war.
Reconstruction continued in the 1950s
The revival in 1940, the creation of the Patronat and the reorganisation of the performance are distinct moments. Roca describes the Confraria de la Sang returning to organisational work. Màriam Serrà dates the establishment of the Patronat to 1954 and the approval of concentrating scenes in the Plaça to 1955.
Serrà also dates Carles Perpinyà’s appointment as director to 1950. These milestones reveal reconstruction as a process involving participants’ work, recovered equipment and organisational and theatrical reforms. It was not a single decision taken and completed in 1940.
The work of people involved in costumes and equipment, such as Siset Mir, also forms part of this continuity. The transformation of the performance in the Plaça explains a later stage of the same history, without confusing the post-war revival with the reforms of the 1950s.
Sources
Jordi Roca i Rovira, La Processó de Verges, second revised and expanded edition, Diputació de Girona, 1997, pp. 28–29. This is a retrospective narrative, rather than a substitute for the original documents mentioned.
Màriam Serrà, Verges i la processó que no es veu (1998), p. 46 and pp. 65–69, for the milestones in direction and organisation.
Interview with Maria Ruart Ribas within the Memòria Viva La Processó project, analysed as part of this research, for memories of preserving and reusing costumes.
