The bull, by the horns: Carlos Ilián, miniature recollections of 40 years of dedicated bullfighting journalism | The bull, by the horns | Culture | EUROtoday

“The bullfighter with the most worldliness, Luis Miguel Dominguín; the bullfighter with the most poise, Antonio Ordóñez; the most serious bullfighter in the bullring, El Viti; the most skilled in front of the bull, Francisco Ruiz Miguel; the bullfighters with the most harmony when composing the figure, José María Manzanares, father and son; the one who has best represented the rites of bullfighting, Antonio Bienvenida; the most complete bullfighter, Enrique Ponce; and the bullfighter who fights the best, of all those I have seen, José Tomás.”

These sentences could well be the indelible memories – the miniature memories – of 40 years of journalism, a lifetime dedicated to the integrity of the bullfight from the newspaper. Mark. Its author is the bullfighting critic Carlos Ilián (Pereira, Colombia, 83 years old), who in October 2024 put away his pen and blog, and put an end to his professional work and the tireless trips by car to the most important fairs in Spain.

“I have known and admired many more bullfighters,” he comments by way of justification of his pedestal as one of the most outstanding. And he cites, among others, Paco Camino: “I professed huge respect and indelible affection for him; Antoñete, “the bullfighter with the glass hands”; Curro Romero, “who starred in one of the afternoons of his life in San Sebastián in 1973”; El Cid, “impressive before six victorians in Bilbao in August 2007″; Morante, “who bullfights very well, but with a certain type of bull.” “And there are others who have been references for different generations,” he provides.

“I honestly believe that any time in the past was better; today we suffer from an aging ranks of bullfighters”

Ilián was born in Colombia, and his household roots are, on the one hand, Syrian-Lebanese, and Spanish on his mom’s facet, born in Santander. He says that he quickly traveled to Spain as a consequence of his ties with the nation and his love of bullfighting since he was a baby. Here he studied Journalism on the Official School, right here he received married and has developed most of his skilled exercise. He by no means misplaced his relationship together with his native nation: he was president of the Cali plaza for eight years, in two totally different intervals beginning in 1988, and till his retirement he has been a common correspondent for the RCN radio community, one of the vital in Colombia.

In 1969 he started working on the newspaper New Journal; There he met the critic Vicente Zabala, who invited him to collaborate within the bullfighting part. After the closure of the so-called Movement Press in 1977, he labored for the newspaper Above and the Community of Madrid till it ended up in 1984 in Mark, sports activities newspaper with a protracted bullfighting custom since its founding in 1938, the place he was appointed bullfighting critic.

And from that rostrum he has been a direct and dedicated witness of the evolution of bullfighting for 40 years, whose knowledge, names, dates, greatness and failures he now recounts as if he had skilled them yesterday because of a prodigious reminiscence that turns the journalist into an encyclopedia.

He wrote his first bullfighting chronicle on the event of the debut with Curro Vázquez’s picadors within the Plaza de Vistalegre, on April 20, 1969, and he made his debut as an interviewer that very same yr with the bullfighter and businessman Domingo Dominguín, the eldest of the brothers, who supplied him a interval headline, “The party is in crisis,” which appeared on the entrance web page.

He boasts of getting seen every thing – bullfighting in its entirety from the second half of the twentieth century till at present – and of being inheritor, and in addition a member, of the group of bullfighting critics who, in his opinion, modified bullfighting; Perhaps, because of this, his expression twists when he analyzes fashionable bullfighting and expresses his disenchantment when he thinks in regards to the future.

“Yes, I honestly believe that any past time was better, and it is not the opinion of a veteran with nostalgia. Today we suffer from an aging ranks of bullfighters, and the necessary regeneration is torpedoed. Today, the reference figures are bullfighters seen a thousand times. On the other hand, the public knows very little about the world of bullfighting and suffers from excessive triumphalism. There is a lack of fans, an essential element for a show to prevail. And the critics…”

“Today’s bullfighting festival is not the one I knew nor the one I have defended; honestly, I do not identify with it”

Ask. What occurs with bullfighting criticism?

Answer. Current criticism is mediated and really hooked up to bullfighting. But if there are bullfighter press managers who ship you already written chronicles…!, one thing unacceptable.

P. Maybe you say this as a result of you’ve got lived by way of the golden age of bullfighting journalism.

R. Look: Vicente Zabala, Alfonso Navalón, Joaquín Vidal, Carlos de Rojas… They modified bullfighting and the idea of what bullfighting criticism had been till the sixties. Until then, many media shops bought the bullfighting part to critics in order that they may flip them into promoting pages on the service of bullfighting, and a few of them spent the winters with what they obtained every afternoon from the bullfighters, what was known as the on.

P. Seriousness then prevailed.

R. That’s how it’s. For instance, my trainer, Vicente Zabala, managed to have bulls fought at 4 years previous beginning in 1973. All of them achieved a related function with harsh criticism, very harsh at instances, which generated nice controversy and an unknown demand on the a part of the followers, particularly in Madrid, which is the reference place. And I can affirm {that a} technology of critics with that spirit has not been repeated.”

P. Despite every thing, the bullfighting pageant stays.

R. Yes, and I do not assume it should disappear, however it isn’t the one I knew nor the one I’ve defended. Honestly, I do not relate to her.

P. By the best way, what did retirement on the finish of 2024, on the age of 81, style like?

R. Honestly, I had misplaced the style as a result of there have been so a few years devoted to journalism that it provides me the impression that retirement is a really quick stretch till the tip of life.