Love and power, the driving forces of history
In addition to the great historians and researchers of the many facts, aspects and facets of the past of different peoples, we must always be grateful for the work of the popularisers.
They have always satisfied the legitimate desire of all kinds of people to know details of the lives of those who governed and determined their destiny, with special emphasis on what could be called their ‘weaknesses’ or, simply, those personal vicissitudes that could influence more or less decisively the future of the whole nation.
Literature is replete with poetry, ballads and novels about the many and varied details of the lives of the most powerful characters. In the more recent past, one of the great radio ‘monsters’, Luis del Olmo from Leon, elevated Carlos Fisas, a pioneer in the renovation of popular science, to the status of a legend. His slot on that mythical programme called ‘Protagonistas’, ‘Historias de la Historia’, became a long series of books.
Now joining this saga of popularisers is Santiago Ogando from Galicia, author of ‘Royal Romances and Affairs’ (Harper Collins, 253 pages). Although his professional field is medicine, he has already accumulated three years of his popular Instagram account @historiasporlahistoria, from which he is managing to awaken the curiosity, the interest and even the addiction of younger generations to acquiring knowledge of the history of their country through the characters who led it.
The book is made up of six stories, which cover, in very broad terms, fifteen centuries of Spanish history, starting with Gala Placidia, sister of the Roman emperor Honorius, and Ataulf, the first Visigothic king, who kidnapped and married her. Gothic Spain would also be shaken by the tensions between Leovigildo, Gosvinta, Hermenegildo and Ingunda, a merciless struggle for power between grandmother and granddaughter.
The book ignores the almost eight centuries of Muslim presence and domination on the Peninsula, a vein that the author will surely exploit in future stories, and focuses on the forbidden marriage between Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, a relationship that would shape the destinies of Spain and the world, at least for the next three centuries.
The imperial love of their grandchildren, Charles I and Isabella of Portugal, would take the power and influence of the Spanish Crown to the ends of the Earth. The fifth story is dedicated to Ferdinand VII and the four unfortunate wives of the man who was called ‘The Desired One’ by the generous Spanish people. ‘The bloodstained indifference’ of Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia, great-grandparents of the current king Felipe VI, makes up the sixth and final chapter which, as in novels, series or serialised stories, leaves the reader longing for the next instalment.
Santiago Ogando, a doctor specialising in neurology, discovered the story when his curiosity about his own family history, the past and the customs of the area around his native Vigo was piqued. And he confesses to having come to understand, through this research, the importance of the historical drift of the whole of Spain, and, therefore, that of its monarchy and the kingdoms that preceded it. ‘And so I discovered increasingly captivating aspects of the life and work of the kings and queens of our country.’ They are stories of love and power, after all, the two forces that drive and define the history of peoples.