Válor is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality ...
located in the
province of Granada
Granada is a province of southern Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by the provinces of Albacete, Murcia, Almería, Jaén, Córdoba, Málaga, and the Mediterranean Sea (along the Costa Tropical) ...
, Spain. According to the 2005
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
(
INE
INE, Ine or ine may refer to:
Institutions
* Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center
* Instituto Nacional de Estadística (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional de Estatística (disambiguation)
* Instituto Nacional Ele ...
), the town (pueblo) has a population of 736 inhabitants.
It is famous for its yearly
Moors and Christians performance held on 15 September as part of the festival to the patron saint, the Holy Christ of the Ivy (Santo Cristo de la Yedra) an impressive statue of Christ on His Cross brought out in procession through the pueblo on 14 September. The Moors and Christians performance, which is said to re-enact the Moriscos revolt is staged on the main square next to the Church building and includes dialogues between the main protagonists leading both armies (King, general and ambassador on horseback and the spy/jester on foot), and episodes of fighting between the foot soldiers who fire blanks with their shotguns and flintlock rifles. The existing script of the play was written in the 1860s by the woman poet from Granada Enriqueta Lozano.
The traditional way of life of the local society was very vividly described by
Gerald Brenan
Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan, CBE, MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain.
Brenan is best known for ''The Spanish Labyrinth'', a historical work on the background t ...
.
[Gerald Brenan, ''South From Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village'' , London, 1957] Brenan lived through the 1920s in the village of Yegen, close to Válor. Like in other pueblos of the region, local society was divided by social and political conflicts after 1931—opposing groups of rural socialist workers to the local political bosses (caciques) and their henchmen. During the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
, it was briefly controlled by the rebels then taken by a column of militiamen coming from the coast. It remained in the Republican zone until the end of the war. Like in most places through the region repression was severe after
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 19 ...
's victory and most people associated with the Left were eliminated (some were executed) or forced to leave the region.
Until the 1970s, the local economy was based on the traditional Andalusian cultures (cereals, olive trees, vineyards) on small plots of land difficult to exploit because of the mountainous terrain. Traditionally most agricultural laborers were forced to do seasonal work in the plains of Andalusia at harvest time.
References
Municipalities in the Province of Granada
{{Granada-geo-stub