A homage to Christian de Paepe on international archives day

On International Archives Day 2020, in addition to celebrating the archive of the Federico García Lorca Foundation in the Federico García Lorca Center in Granada and bringing it closer to the general public, the Foundation and Center offer a celebration of Christian de Paepe as archivist and philologist of Lorca, paying homage to scholarly work that has helped lay the foundations for today’s use of the archive.

Christian de Paepe, in conversation with Melissa Dinverno

The program is centered around a conversation between Melissa Dinverno and Christian de Paepe (streamed live) regarding Professor de Paepe’s work in the Foundation’s archive, his role in creating a cartography of the archive, his favorite pieces, and his ideas about the archive and its future. It will include interventions by specialists who will speak about Professor de Paepe’s archival work, its impact then and now, and, more generally, the importance of this archive, which now resides in the Center in Granada. In addition, images of manuscripts, objects, photographs, and other materials from the Foundation holdings will also be projected, bringing the public closer to the archive in all its diversity.

With interventionsby: Francisco Javier Álvarez García, Andrew A. Anderson, Mario Hernández, Christopher Maurer, Luis Muñoz, Elide Pittarello, and Andrés Soria Olmedo

—

Professor Christian de Paepe, Full Professor at the Catholic University of Lovaina (KU Lauven), is one of the most internationally recognized researchers for his editorial and philological scholarship on Federico García Lorca. On the one hand, his meticulous critical editions – such as Poem of the Deep Song (Espasa Calpe, 1986) or First Gypsy Ballads(Espasa Calpe, 1991), both in the Clásicos Castellanos collection – have been fundamental for both Lorca studies and the larger public in and beyond Spain. On the other hand, his many studies on Lorca have contributed significantly to our understanding of the poet’s work.

One of his most enduring accomplishments has been his direction and edition of the catalogues of the archive belonging to the Fundación Federico García Lorca. This effort has produced eight volumes of the General Catalogue of the Documentary Archive of the Fundación Federico García Lorca, with the collaboration of Rosa María Illán de Haro and Sonia González García. These catalogues detail document by document (and, at times, object by object) almost all materials held by the Fundación, including, for example, exact document measurements, utensils used, other material details, and publication information. For researchers, archivists and librarians, students, and the general public, these catalogues are tools that help us understand Lorca’s work more deeply and initiate new readings of his figure and corpus. They have also made this archival material, which has survived the vicissitudes of history, more transparent and accessible. Since the publication of the first volume in 1992, the catalogueshave provided an opportunity to approach the Fundación’s holdings in a more open and rigorous way, and they continue to frame the way in which we understand the archive of the Fundación Federico García Lorca.