Plaça del Milicià Desconegut

On the side of Santa Maria del Pi, meticulously hand-painted letters read: Plaça del Milicià Desconegut (Square of the Unknown Militiamen). Prior to 2004, the sign containing the words was concealed underneath a wooden board, the faint mark of which can still be observed around the writing. It wasn’t until the restoration of the church that year that the piece of wood was removed, leading to this unexpected discovery.

The letters were painted in tar with the use of a dry brush sometime at the beginning of 1937, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. The author, unknown and possibly a member of the militia, renamed the square in honor of the men and women who fought at the frontline against Franco and his Nationalist-Fascist forces. For the majority of the war, Barcelona was an anti-fascist stronghold, even as many of its inhabitants left home to join the war as militiamen.

From 1937 to 1939, the square was registered on maps as Plaça del Milicià Desconegut, rather than its former title, Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol. However, the temporary name was covered up, most likely in 1939, as the Francoist troops began their descent on the city. Miraculously, both the wooden board and the sign beneath it managed to survive the entire dictatorship unnoticed and unscathed, either as a well-kept secret or a forgotten wartime relic.

During the civil war some 70 squares and streets in Barcelona were renamed. Where working class militias had control, the names tended to be those of anarchist figures and militants—for example, Via Laietana became Via Durruti after Buenaventura Durruti, a self-proclaimed anarchist whose feats of daring made him a hero of the Catalan proletariat. In the case of those areas controlled by the Republican government, the tendency was to name things after Republican figures—Passeig de Gràcia was re-baptized as Avinguda Pi i Margall after Francesc Pi i Margall, the Spanish politician, Catalan federalist and historian who was briefly president of the First Spanish Republic in 1873.

Following Franco’s victory in 1939, all the revolutionary and Republican names were erased and changed to those of prominent fascists and supporters of the regime, the most blatant being Avinguda Diagonal, which became Avenida del Generalísimo Francisco Franco. After Franco’s death and the return of democracy to Spain, a very gradual and discreet removal of fascist names and monuments led to the return of pre-civil war titles to public spaces within the city.

The accidental revealing of this remarkable piece—a visible reminder of a history swept under the rug—spurred the Ajuntament to erect a small silver plaque some meters away in Placeta del Pi, acknowledging :all of those who have lost their lives fighting for their ideals." The modestly painted marker is now a protected monument—one of the few that exist in regard to the memory of the Spanish Civil War along the streets of Barcelona today.

Originally published April 2017, updated June 12, 2021.