scholarly journals Re-framing the Spanish Civil War as ‘Cultural Trauma’: When Responsibilities Get Blurred After Violence

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Rafael Pérez Baquero
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Cultural Trauma ◽  
Traumatic Memory ◽  
Collective Trauma ◽  
Spanish History ◽  
Spanish Society ◽  
The Social

The aim of this article is to address to what extent some institutional form of remembering the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) as a collective trauma could be considered an instance of Jeffrey Alexander and Neil Smelzer´s notion of ’cultural trauma‘. Or to put it in other words, in which sense the notion of cultural trauma may cast a new light on one of the different ways in which the Spanish Civil War was remembered and retold during the transition to democracy (1977-83). Spanish society remembered the war as a collective trauma, so painful that it encouraged society to promote a ‘pact of oblivion’ toward victims of Francoist repression. According to this traumatic memory, the Spanish Civil War was a ‘fratricidal struggle’, whose outbreak was a consequence of the tensions that underlie Spanish history. It led to the blurring of distinctions between victims and culprits because both sides were considered equally responsible. Therefore, everyone could claim the ownership of suffering. However, this representation did not fit in with the historical records; it was a consequence of the social influence of some ‘memory makers’ that developed new narratives and re-defined the ownership of suffering. Because of this divergence between the historical record of the war and society’s traumatic memory of it during the transition to democracy, I would like to analyse the possibility of studying the nature of the latter by means of the concept of cultural trauma. After all, Alexander´s critique of psychoanalytical insight into collective trauma could be useful when analysing traumatic historical experiences where it is not clear whether the traumatic nature of those memories come from the events themselves or from the cultural frames that attributed significance to those events.

Thyra Edwards’s Spanish Civil War Scrapbook

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-122
Author(s):  
Anne Donlon
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Black History ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Feminist History ◽  
History Of

This essay examines the life of African American social worker Thyra Edwards, who traveled to Spain during its civil war, and returned home to fund-raise and organize. She created a scrapbook, a public-facing record of African American women’s efforts on behalf of Republican Spain, made up of photographs prepared for publication and articles about her efforts circulated in newspapers. This feminist perspective of the “folks at home” is a crucial addendum to black history of the war in Spain. Edwards’s scrapbook is a multifaceted document: a kind of autobiography that is self-conscious in its historical record-keeping, an account of a very broad black Popular Front, and a black feminist history of the Spanish Civil War.

Mobility and Migration of Spanish Mathematicians during the Years around the Spanish Civil War and World War II

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Pacheco
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Franco Regime ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mathematical Sciences ◽  
And Migration

ArgumentThis paper considers some aspects of the reception and development of contemporary mathematics in Spain during the first half of the twentieth century, more specifically between 1910 and 1950. It analyzes the possible influence of scientists’ mobility in the adoption of newer views or theories. A short overview of key points of the social and scientific background in nineteenth-century Spain locates the expounded facts in an appropriate context. Three leading threads are followed. First is the consideration of the mobility of some Spanish mathematicians during a period including World War I and World War II – when Spain was a theoretically neutral country – and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Second, the emergence and socio-political behavior of a dominant mathematical group gathered around Julio Rey Pastor between 1915 and 1936 is also accounted for, as well as its continuity after the Civil War into the 1940s. Third, attention is paid to the migration or interior exile of a number of mathematicians as a consequence of the Civil War. The paper is organized around nine Tables containing information on mobility of mathematicians, doctorates awarded in the mathematical sciences, and mathematical production in Spain during this period, accompanied by statistical résumés and comments on interesting entries. The main conclusions drawn are: 1) a number of integrants of the Rey group, himself included, officially traveled to Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland – usually after having obtained doctorates and fixed positions – imported mathematical knowledge into Spain; 2) the group also managed to dominate the mathematical panorama from both the scientific and the sociological viewpoint; 3) social usages in Spanish mathematical affairs established in Spain in the years prior to the Civil War present a clear continuity under the Franco regime once the war was over.

Memory and Amnesia. The Role of the Spanish Civil War in Transition to Democracy

Hispania ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 502
Author(s):  
Antonio Sobejano-Morán ◽  
Paloma Aguilar
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Transition To Democracy

scholarly journals The Nurses No-One Remembers: Looking for Spanish Nurses in Accounts of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Sioban Nelson ◽  
Paola Galbany-Estragués ◽  
Gloria Gallego-Caminero
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Skilled Nursing ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Franco Dictatorship ◽  
International Volunteer

Accounts of Spanish nursing and nurses during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) that appear in the memoirs and correspondence of International Brigade volunteers, and are subsequently repeated in the secondary literature on the war, give little indication of existence of trained nurses in country. We set out to examine this apparent erasure of the long tradition of skilled nursing in Spain and the invisibility of thousands of Spanish nurses engaged in the war effort. We ask two questions: How can we understand the narrative thrust of the international volunteer accounts and subsequent historiography? And what was the state of nursing in Spain on the Republican side during the war as presented by Spanish participants and historians? We put the case that the narrative erasure of Spanish professional nursing prior to the Civil War was the result of the politicization of nursing under the Second Republic, its repression and reengineering under the Franco dictatorship, and the subsequent national policy of “oblivion” or forgetting that dominated the country during the transition to democracy. This policy silenced the stories of veteran nurses and prevented an examination of the impact of the Civil War on the Spanish nursing profession.

scholarly journals The Scenes of Memory during the Era of the Democratic Transition in Spain: Politics and Culture / Los escenarios de la memoria durante la transición democrática en España: política y cultura

2017 ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Pasamar
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Political Strategies ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Generational Changes ◽  
The Way

In this article we shall examine the scenes of memory of the Civil War and the Franco era during the years of the transition to democracy in Spain, especially 1976 and 1977. After discussing the usefulness for research of the narratives describing the role played by such remembrances, we study the different interplays between memories and oblivions of those historical events. Instead of using memory and oblivion as static and predetermined ideas as is normally the case with such narratives, we highlight the dynamic elements that help organize them (generational changes, culture, political strategies, etc.). While culture became a fertile ground for the remembrance of the Civil War and the Franco era, politics was clearly obliged to limit its use because of the way the transition evolved.Key Words:Memory, Spanish Civil War, Transition, generation gap.ResumenEn el presente artículo examinamos los escenarios de la memoria de la Guerra Civil y del franquismo durante los años de la transición a la democracia en España, especialmente 1976 y 1977. Tras discutir la utilidad de las narrativas que han dado cuenta del papel que tales recuerdos han jugado durante de la Transición, estudiamos la interrelación entre los recuerdos y los olvidos de dichos acontecimientos históricos. En lugar de utilizar la memoria y el olvido como ideas predeterminadas y estáticas, subrayamos los elementos dinámicos de ambos (cambios generacionales, cultura, estrategias políticas, etc.). Defendemos que mientras la cultura llegó a convertirse en un terreno destacado para la evocación de la Guerra y el franquismo, la política se trazó a sí misma una serie de límites en el uso de dicha evocación debido al modo en que se desarrolló la propia Transición.Palabras clave:memoria, guerra civil española, Transición, brecha generacional

scholarly journals Spopad »dveh Španij« z vidikov socialne strukture španske družbe in razrednih nasprotij v njej

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
Avgust Lešnik
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Second Republic ◽  
Spanish Society ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Social ◽  
Second Spanish Republic

CONFLICT BETWEEN "THE TWO SPAINS" FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE SPANISH SOCIETY AND CLASS OPPOSITIONS WITHIN ITThe following discussion focuses on the analysis of the Spanish society in the period between the First and the Second Republic (1875–1931), especially on the social structure and class oppositions within it as well as on identifying the causes leading to the irreconcilable political polarisation of the Spanish society during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1936). The polarisation culminated in the parliamentary elections on 16 February 1936 and consequently led to the Civil War (1936–1939). The heterogeneity of the republican camp of the Popular Front was the reason for the multi-party Spanish socialism as well as the multi-party nature of the social revolution of 1936.

scholarly journals Lectura y aprendizaje lector en tiempos de guerra

2020 ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Gaetano Antonio Vigna
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Spanish Society ◽  
El Sistema ◽  
The One ◽  
Self Learning

Resumen: En esta contribución se estudia la escena del aprendizaje lector y el encuentro con el libro que seis escritores contemporáneos cristalizan en sus libros de memorias. A través del análisis de tres tópicos estrechamente relacionados con dicha vivencia de la etapa infantil —la influencia de mentor; la rebelión al mundo escolar; el listado de obras influyentes—, se apreciará el poder consolador y correctivo del libro en el trasfondo histórico de la Guerra Civil española y de los primeros años del franquismo. A partir de esta aproximación, el artículo mostrará, por un lado, cómo los niños protagonistas de los libros escogidos contestarán el canon literario impuesto y el sistema educativo oficial, rechazado a favor del autodidactismo. Por el otro, será posible apreciar el retrato que estos memorialistas ofrecen de aquellos años de represión.Abstract: In this paper we study the scene of the learning of reading and the encounter with the Book as six contemporary writers narrate in their memoirs. Through the analysis of three autobiographemes related to this experience of the childhood —the mentor’s influence; the school rebellion; the list of influential literary works—, we will appreciate the consoling and corrective power of the book during the Spanish Civil War and the earlier years of the Francoist regime. From this approach, this paper will show, on the one hand, how the main characters of the selected memoirs reject the imposed literary canon, as well as the formal educational system in favor of self-learning. On the other, it will give us a portrait of Spanish society in those repressive years.

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