On March 28, 1942, the great Republican poet Miguel Hernández died in the prison of Alicante, Spain, at the age of 31, from tuberculosis contracted during his incarceration. Hernández, one of the most powerful voices of the Generation of '36, had been arrested for his Republican activism and had spent his final years in brutal prison conditions. His death was a profound loss to Spanish poetry and became a symbol of the Francoist regime's cultural destruction.

Hernández's death transformed him into a martyr for Republican poetry, and his prison poems, written in the final years of his life, became some of the most moving verses in the Spanish language. His work, which combined traditional forms with social commitment, inspired a new generation of Spanish poets who wrote in opposition to Francoism. Hernández's life and death were later celebrated by poets like Pablo Neruda, who saw him as a symbol of the struggle for freedom.