The Valencian Sainet   

Since mid-nineteenth century up to the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, the extraordinary popularity of the Valencian sainet was due to the vibrant and inexhaustible production of new dramatic works capable of depicting the world of the Valencians as no genre did before. The stories they told, transferred from the street on to paper and to the stage by Valencian playwrights, gave voice to characters addressing complex contemporary socio-political issues that were happening in Valencian time and space settings. Undervalued since the beginning of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1939, this extraordinary dramatic genre has been and still is criticized as ‘literature of little value’ and subjected to acts of cultural violence due to politized narratives of exclusion. In this website dedicated to the Valencian sainet, the fruitful production of authors who articulated the importance of everyday life in their theatrical plots is analyzed and reassessed. In these dramatic works written by Valencian authors for Valencian audiences and staged in Valencian theatres, the influence of the sainet and its contribution to Valencian cultural capital is present in the definition of Valencian identity across borders.