Memory Surrounding a Mausoleum: Transforming Spain’s Valley of the Fallen Into a Site of Conscience

2021 ◽  
pp. 120633122110655
Author(s):  
Tyler J. Goldberger
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Place And Space ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Recent Memory ◽  
A Site ◽  
Memory Practices

Francisco Franco announced the construction of the Valley of the Fallen in 1940, a year following the end of the Spanish Civil War, and incorporated overt iconography that honored the struggle of Nationalists without memorializing the Republican victims during this war. This memorial distinguished the names of two fascist leaders, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera and Franco, buried in the center of the basilica in 1959 and 1975, respectively. However, this site, as of June 2021, has failed to acknowledge the over 33,000 victims, both Nationalists and Republicans, interred in this site, many of whom remain unidentified. The signification of the Valley of the Fallen has transformed since the turn of the 21st century due to recent memory practices that increasingly commemorate Republican victims of the Spanish Civil War. This article illustrates how the persistence of memory and counter-memory practices have shifted the meaning of the Valley of the Fallen, creating a site of conscience through changes affecting place and space, particularly in light of Franco’s legacy.

Argentine Neutrality, Mediation, and Asylum During the Spanish Civil War

1963 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-403
Author(s):  
Joe Robert Juárez
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

Civil War broke out in Spain in 1936. Following eight years of dictatorship by General Primo de Rivera, who had acted with the approval of King Alfonso XIII, elections were held in June, 1931, for a constituent assembly. The election returns brought in a republican-socialist majority, which forbade the king’s return, confiscated his property, and proclaimed Spain a republic. The republic had enemies on both the right and the left. The large landholders, the army, and the Church had vested interests which the republic proceeded to attack. On the left, the anarchists and socialists became more /radical, competing for the loyalty of the Spanish workers. The republic’s problems were compounded by the traditional separatist movements of Catalans, Basques, and Gallegans. Power shifted from the left in 1931 to the right in 1933, and, finally, in February, 1936, to a “popular front “government. The Popular Front, however, proved to be a coalition for election purposes only. Largo Caballero, the leader of the left wing of the socialists, declined to serve in the moderate Azaña cabinet. In July, 1936, army, monarchist, clerical, and Carlist groups joined with the Falange to bring about a counter-revolutionary coup under the leadership of General Francisco Franco. The Civil War had started. It was to last for three brutality-filled years.

‘The Franco Way’: The American Right and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942110630
Author(s):  
Austin J. Clements
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
American Nationalism ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Pamphlets

The following article is an intellectual and cultural history of the American supporters of Francisco Franco (hereafter referred to as American Francoites) and the Nationalist Movement during the Spanish Civil War. This article examines political pamphlets, magazines, radio broadcasts, journal articles, and books to reconstruct the American Francoite worldview. Like pro-Franco Catholics across the globe, American Francoites insisted the war was not between democracy and fascism but communism and Christianity; as Americans, they believed that supporting Franco was critical in fulfilling a patriotic and providential duty to protect Western Christendom from godless communism. Investigating the American Francoite worldview contributes to a recent body of scholarship detailing the rise of transnational anticommunism and nationalism as a constellation of culturally contingent reactions to the growth and spread of international communism. American Francoites emerged as one peculiar form of anticommunist American nationalism. In conclusion, this article argues that the political myths perpetuated by the pro-Franco argument – that the war was a battle between godless communism and Western Christendom – survived both the Spanish Civil War and Franco himself, merging easily into the ‘new conservatism’ of the postwar period and continuing to inform the beliefs and attitudes of the present right.

Excavating Europe’s last fascist monument: The Valley of the Fallen (Spain)

2021 ◽  
pp. 146960532110614
Author(s):  
Alfredo González-Ruibal
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Ambitious Program

Since 1945, most fascist monuments have disappeared or been deactivated in Western Europe. There is one in Spain, however, that remains fully operative: the Valley of the Fallen. The complex, devised by the dictator Francisco Franco, celebrates the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), keeps the bodies of thousands of victims of the conflict, as well as the leading fascist ideologue and the dictator himself, and provides a material narrative that exalts the dictatorship. With the advent of democracy in 1978, the Valley remained unchanged, untouchable, and an important focus for fascist and extreme right celebrations, both national and international. However, with the new progressive government that came to power in 2018, it has become the object of an ambitious program of resignification in which archaeology has an important role to play. In this article, I describe how archaeological work undertaken at the Valley of the Fallen is contributing toward destabilizing the dictatorial narrative by opposing the monumental assemblage of fascism to the subaltern assemblage of those who built it.

scholarly journals Fear and Silence Meet Ignorance

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Gresilda A. Tilley-Lubbs
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Spanish Literature ◽  
Graduate Studies ◽  
Spanish History ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Critical Autoethnography ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Impact ◽  
History Books

When I studied in Spain in 1969 and 1970, I knew about the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), briefly mentioned in my Spanish history books; General.simo Francisco Franco declared victory. I knew Spain through my graduate studies in Spanish literature and through Michener’s book Iberia (1968). In 2000, I met Jordi Calvera, a Catal.n whose post-war stories conflicted with that idyllic Spain. I returned to Spain in 2013, still with no idea of the impact of the totalitarian dictatorship based on fear and silence through which Franco ruled until his death in 1975, leaving a legacy of fear and silence. In Barcelona, I met a group of adults in their eighties who shared Jordi’s experience. My intrigue with these stories led me to learn more about the war, the dictatorship and the aftermath by interviewing people whose lives had been touched by those years. Through a layered account, I present some of the stories and examine my oblivion. Keywords: Critical autoethnography, autoethnography, ethnography, Spanish Civil War, Franco’s totalitarian dictatorship

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Jones
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
War Of Attrition ◽  
Republican Government ◽  
The Government

The Spanish Civil War was a major military conflict between right-wing Nationalists and left-wing Republicans that erupted after a coup d’état was staged by rebel generals against the democratically elected Republican government. Following the ‘defense of Madrid’, during which Republicans held off a Nationalist siege on the Spanish capital, the conflict settled into a war of attrition, with Spain divided into two radically opposed territories. On the Nationalist side, an authoritarian dictatorship bolstered by the fascistic Carlist and Falange militias under General Francisco Franco (1892–1975) emerged, representing the interests of Spain’s conservative and Catholic élites. On the Republican side, defenders of the government of President Manuel Azaña (1880–1940) organized around radical anarchist and socialist trade unions (CNT, UGT, POUM) and volunteer militias.

The English Catholic Press and the Second Spanish Republic, 1931–1936

1976 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Greene
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Francisco Franco ◽  
Second Spanish Republic ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military

The sympathy of most English Catholics during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 lay with General Francisco Franco and the other generals who had rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. If there was any doubt of this, the spate of literature which then appeared, much of it polemical, and the journalistic views presented could leave little doubt on the matter. The adoption of an anti-Republican stance in English Catholic circles, while not complete, nevertheless implied an adverse judgment upon the viability and legitimacy of the Republic, if not its legality, from 1936 onward. The Republic had failed in its primary obligation—to rule justly—and the military revolt had been necessary to forestall anarchy or communism. The judgment that the Republic had failed, however, was not an a priori one, nor was it enthusiastically reached so much as accepted.

Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

The Spanish Reception of Le Sacre du Printemps (1913–1936)

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-66
Author(s):  
Idoia Murga Castro
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Original Work ◽  
Silver Age ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Ballets Russes ◽  
Rite Of Spring ◽  
Le Sacre Du Printemps ◽  
Cultural Expansion

Centenary celebrations are being held between 2016 and 2018 to mark the first consecutive tours of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Spain. This study analyses the Spanish reception of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913), one of its most avant-garde pieces. Although the original work was never performed in Spain as a complete ballet, its influence was felt deeply in the work of certain Spanish choreographers, composers, painters and intellectuals during the so-called Silver Age, the period of modernisation and cultural expansion which extended from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

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