scholarly journals L’encaix de la narrativa sense ficció de Víctor Labrado en el paradigma de la novel·la històrica valenciana

Author(s):  
Dari Escandell

Resum: L’escriptor valencià Víctor Labrado (Sueca, 1956) s’ha erigit com un dels grans referents contemporanis en el camp de la novel·la de no-ficció en català, subgènere narratiu que conjumina la intenció metanovel·lesca amb fidedignes discursos testimonials. Ara bé, ¿les obres cabdals de Labrado –peculiars, idiosincràtiques i gens usuals– poden ser considerades també, sense subterfugis ni matisos, novel·la històrica? A grans trets: trames guerracivilistes empeltades d’entrevistes, dosis generoses de periodisme documental i absència gairebé absoluta de ficció. La tècnica i l’estil propi no suposen, però, cap impediment perquè molts llibres seus siguen alhora novel·la històrica, si fem cas dels topoi convinguts per la crítica especialitzada. No debades, aquests exemplars esdevenen, al capdavall, testimoni viu d’un temps passat; vivències i peripècies de gent anònima que rescaten de l’oblit, des de la particularitat més universal, la realitat valenciana d’un segle passat vilment estigmatitzat pel conflicte civil de l’any 1936 i la dictadura consegüent. ¿N’hi ha prou amb això, però, perquè aquesta etiqueta o clixé siga atribuïble també a la resta de la seua obra i trajectòria? El present article analitza a nivell tècnic, argumental i conceptual els llibres essencials de Labrado per tal de determinar quina part de la seua novel·lística sense ficció pot o no considerar-se al seu torn novel·la històrica.Paraules clau: Víctor Labrado, novel·la sense ficció, novel·la històrica, literatura catalana, valencià.Abstract: The Valencian writer Víctor Labrado (Sueca, 1956) has emerged as one of the great contemporary references in the field of the non-fiction novel in Catalan, a narrative subgenre that combines the fictional intention with real testimonial speeches. However, can Labrado’s capital books –peculiar, idiosyncratic and unusual– be considered also, without subterfuges or hints, historical novels? Broadly speaking: are his Spanish civil war plots grafted with interviews, generous doses of documentary journalism and almost absolute absence of fiction, historical novels? Its techniques and style are no impediment to say so, if we pay attention to the topoi agreed by the specialized critic. In fact, these novels become, in short, a living testimony of our past time: they rescue from oblivion the experiences and adventures of anonymous people, from the most universal particularity, and the Valencian reality of a past century stigmatized by the civil conflict of 1936 and the consequent dictatorship. Is that enough, however, to attribute this label to the rest of his literary works? This paper analyses the techniques, the plots and the concepts of Labrado’s essential books to determine what part of his nonfiction novels may or may not be considered historical.Keywords: Víctor Labrado, nonfiction novel, historical novel, Catalan literature, Valencian

Author(s):  
Durba Banerjee

RESUMEN España ha visto una nueva ola de literatura publicada en la primera década de este siglo que trata el tema de la Guerra Civil y que se nutre de las preocupaciones y debates que rodean al movimiento de la recuperación de la memoria de la guerra y la posguerra. Este trabajo pretende indagar en la representación de la Guerra Civil en la novela histórica en particular, centrándose en su estructura narrativa fragmentada. El artículo reconoce la yuxtaposición de diferentes elementos del discurso político, periodístico y historiográfico dentro de las narrativas histórico-ficcionales y la estudia según la idea posmoderna de fragmentación. A manera de ejemplo, toma el caso de dos escritores – Javier Cercas y Alberto Méndez – y sus obras Soldados de Salamina (2001) y El impostor (2014), y Los girasoles ciegos (2004) respectivamente. Se utilizan los ejemplos tomados de las tres novelas históricas contemporáneas para demostrar cómo los textos se convierten en sitios de recuperación de la memoria de la guerra y en herramientas de una reconstrucción novedosa pero crítica de la historia de España mediante la adopción de la fragmentación de manera textual, temática y discursiva. ABSTRACT Spain has witnessed a new wave of literature published in the first decade of this century that deals with the theme of the Civil War and that draws upon the concerns and debates surrounding the movement of recover the memory of the war and the postwar. This work attempts to analyze the representation of the Civil War in the historical novel in particular by focusing on its fragmented narrative structure. The article acknowledges the juxtaposition of different elements from political, journalistic and historiographic discourse within the historical-fictional narratives and studies it according to the postmodern idea of fragmentation. For the purpose of explanation, it takes the case of two writers – Javier Cercas and Alberto Méndez – and their works Soldados de Salamina (2001) y El impostor (2014), and Los girasoles ciegos (2004) respectively. The examples taken from the three contemporary historical novels are used to demonstrate how the texts become sites of recovery of the memory of the war and tools of a novel yet critical reconstruction of the history of Spain by adopting textual, thematic and argumentative fragmentation.


Desertion ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
Théodore McLauchlin

This chapter develops the account of desertion primarily in the context of the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, which clarifies the role of several variables through Spain. It looks at many different organizations on both the rebel side and the Republican side in order to examine the impact of different armed group characteristics on desertion. It uses the Spain case study to understand desertion dynamics in a particularly fascinating civil conflict. The chapter focuses on the Republican side, analyzing the dynamics of its relatively high rate of desertion at various points in the conflict. It demonstrates norms of cooperation and coercion at the micro level to statistically assess individual soldiers' decisions to fight or to flee.


1970 ◽  
Vol 42 (117) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Anna Karlskov Skyggebjerg

SECOND WORLD WAR NARRATED FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNGSTERS. INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY IN NEW DANISH LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN | Children’s books about the Second World War have been written and published ever since it ended. One would perhaps imagine that the ever-increasing distance from it would mean a waning interest, but that does not seem to be the case. Over the last few years, a whole range of remarkable children’s books have appeared in Denmark. New things can still be written about this period, and the time gap can be said to have had the effect of freeing up material. This should not be taken as meaning that newer books are less reliable, historically speaking, but rather that they present the period in a new light. In this article a number of recent Danish novels will be discussed with respect to how they deal with history. It is not the intention to try to make non-fiction out of historical novels for children, which would mean reading the books in a manner which was at variance with the genre they belong to, but one of the premises of the article is that the historical novel is to be understood as a form of discourse lying somewhere between history and pure fiction. The historical novel is seen as a piece of fiction presenting one or several interpretations of a given period of history by setting its story in a particular context.


Author(s):  
Joaquim Espinós Felipe

Resum: La Transició (1975-1982) constitueix un període històric controvertit. En els darrers anys, arran del moviment 15-M, s’han revifat a l’Estat espanyol les veus critiques amb el relat oficial. En l’àmbit valencià existeix un corpus de novel·les considerable que aporta informació rellevant sobre la manera com s’ha construït la memòria de la Transició valenciana. La distància existent entre l’actualitat i els anys en què se situen els fets, així com el desconeixement de les noves generacions sobre el tema, permet que aquestes novel·les puguen ser considerades, en un sentit amplei com a novel·les històriques, al mateix nivell que les ambientades en la Guerra Civil i la postguerra. Paraules clau: novel·la històrica, literatura catalana, País Valencià, Transició. .Abstract: The Spanish Transition (1975-1982) is a controversial historical period. In recent years, following the 15-M movement, we have witnessed in Spain a revival of voices critical of the official narrative. In the Valencian area there is a considerable corpus of novels that provide relevant information on the way how the memory of the Valencian Transition has been built. The distance existing between the present and the years in which the facts took place, as well as the ignorance of the new generations on the subject, allows us to consider these novels, in a broad sense, as historical novels, at the same level as those set in the Civil War and the post-war period.Keywords: historical novel, catalan literature, Spanish Transition, Valencia.


2020 ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Gaetano Antonio Vigna

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4(54)) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Tryuk

And Then the Commander of Our Brigade, Comrade Spanish, talked in German and Comrade Captain Interpreted. Interpretation in the International Brigades during the Civil War in Spain 1936-1939 The aim of the present article is to describe multilingual interactions at the XIII Jarosław Dąbrowski International Brigade between volunteers of different nationalities, mainly Poles, and the Spanish population as narrated by Boruch Nysembaum, a communist from Warsaw and a participant of the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, it is the first presentation of onthe- spot memoirs written by a volunteer who did not return from this war. On the basis of his narrative, the article tries to answer the questions concerning the way volunteers, who lacked adequate foreign language skills, communicated with the Spanish population and with other volunteers, the forms of their communications, and finally, the specific characteristics of this multilingual communication.


Author(s):  
Mercedes Peñalba-Sotorrío

Abstract For decades after its conclusion, the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was officially described by the newly imposed dictatorship as a Crusade. However, the appropriation of a mythologised medieval past was not just the product of post-war legitimisation. This article explores how, using “crusade” as a placeholder for Reconquista, the rebel army and its supporters responded to three distinct developments: a reaction to Republican anticlericalism; the imposition of a national identity in which Catholicism was understood as an essential element of Spanishness and the basis for its greatness; and a very practical need for popular mobilisation both at home and abroad. However, as this study demonstrates, the adoption of a crusading rhetoric and medieval mythology was a transnational development, in which distinct anti-Bolshevik campaigns, with origins in Rome and Spain, fed off each other and intersected, sometimes in intricate and hidden ways, within the increasingly polarised international context of the 1930s.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-113
Author(s):  
Frano Vrančić

This paper analyses the political‑religious reflection developed by the great French novelist Georges Bernanos (1888-1948) during his Majorcan stay in the course of the Spanish Civil War. Indeed, it was in Palma de Mallorca, where this writer stayed from 1934 to 1937 to escape the anger of his Parisian creditors, that he wrote most of his masterpiece The Diary of a Country Priest as well as A New History of Mouchette. Fundamentally Catholic and monarchist, at the very beginning of the Francoist military uprising against the Popular Front in the summer of 1936, Bernanos became enthusiastic about the “glorioso Movimiento”. This is due not only to his son Yves, who actively participated in the rebellion, but also and above all to his virulent anticommunism and his youth’s fascination for the ideas of Hello and Maurras. However, after seeing the atrocities committed against the civilian population by the partisans of Franco, as a good Catholic, Bernanos raises his voice and denounces the blessing of Francoist war crimes by part of the Spanish clergy in his famous non‑fiction book The Great Cemeteries Under the Moon (1938). Contrary to what one might believe, this explosive essay is not a leftist manifesto, since Bernanos does not justify the crimes committed by the socialists and communists who came to Spain so as to fight against Franco and his Italian and German allies, but a warning addressed to the French political elites, especially to his old friends of the conservative Action Française, against the fascist temptation. Finally, this striking work is still relevant in a Europe whose political classes sometimes tend to minimize the destructive effects of the three deadly ideologies of the past century for electoral purposes, which exacerbates memory wars and thus damages the living‑together.


2019 ◽  
pp. 100-128
Author(s):  
Pablo Aguirre Herráinz

Resumen  El presente artículo realiza una revisión bibliográfica sobre la cuestión del retorno en el contexto de los estudios acerca del exilio republicano de la Guerra Civil española. Este repaso, ofrecido en clave cronológica, aborda también reflexiones metodológicas y observaciones archivísticas en torno a dicha investigación. Asimismo, se tratan cuestiones relativas a la especificidad propia de este campo de trabajo y sus principales subtemas. La conclusión que se extrae es que si bien el estudio del retorno ha conocido un tempo y una trayectoria coherente dentro del contexto general de los estudios sobre el exilio republicano, todavía subsisten vertientes del regreso poco estudiadas, lo que a la postre genera un campo de estudio desigualmente conocido. Palabras clave  Exilio republicano español, repaso bibliográfico, repatriación y retorno.  Abstract The present article provides a bibliographical review on the question of return among the general studies of the Spanish Civil War republican exile. This review, organized in a chronological format, tackles too methodological reflections and primary sources remarks. Likewise, issues relating to the distinctive nature of return from exile and its principal subthemes are also addressed. The general conclusion is that whereas the study of return processes is consistently integrated into the main pace and tempo of the studies on the Spanish Civil War republican exile, there are still several missing aspects, which ultimately generates an area of study unevenly known.  Key Words  Spanish republican exile, bibliographic summary, repatriation and return migration.  


Author(s):  
Kristin Bluemel

If you type the name Greville Texidor into a Wikipedia search bar, you may be asked if you mean instead ‘grevillea teodor’. Alternatively, you’ll be redirected to biographical websites for Maurice Duggan, one of postwar New Zealand’s most famous short story writers, or Kendrick Smithyman, editor of Greville Texidor’s volume of selected fiction, In Fifteen Minutes You Can Say a Lot. To learn anything about Greville Texidor herself, you need to read All the Juicy Pastures: Greville Texidor and New Zealand, by Wellington-based writer Margot Schwass. Beautifully written, deeply researched, richly illustrated, this critical biography addresses the question of why we should care about the career of a woman writer born in England in 1902, who died by her own hand in Australia in 1964, and who in her lifetime published only seven short stories, a post- Spanish Civil War novella called These Dark Glasses, a few translations of Lorca poems, and a smattering of other non-fiction pieces. Schwass also tackles the question of why we should care about Greville Texidor as a New Zealand writer.


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