scholarly journals The valley of the fallen: a new El Escorial for Spain

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Queralt Solé

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Spain has experienced a cycle of exhumations of the mass graves of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and has rediscovered that the largest mass grave of the state is the monument that glorifies the Franco regime: the Valley of the Fallen. Building work in the Sierra de Guadarrama, near Madrid, was begun in 1940 and was not completed until 1958. This article analyses for the first time the regimes wish, from the start of the works, for the construction of the Valley of the Fallen to outdo the monument of El Escorial. At the same time the regime sought to create a new location to sanctify the dictatorship through the vast transfer to its crypts of the remains of the dead of the opposing sides of the war.

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 428-446
Author(s):  
Layla Renshaw

The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was triggered by a military uprising against the democratically elected Popular Front government. Away from the battlefield, this war was characterized by the politically-motivated murder of thousands of civilians, many of whom were buried in clandestine graves throughout Spain. Following Franco’s victory and subsequent dictatorship, there were strong prohibitions on commemorating the Republican dead. A radical rupture in Spain’s memory politics occurred from 2000 onwards with the founding of the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory and other similar pressure groups that have organized the exhumation and reburial of the Republican dead. This article is based on fieldwork conducted in communities in Castile and León, and Extremadura as they underwent mass grave investigations. It examines the experience of theft and dispossession that occurred as part of the Francoist repression of Republicans. Accounts of these episodes focus on stolen and looted objects robbed from the dead during the killings, from the graves’ post-mortem, or from surviving relatives as part of the systematic dispossession of Republican households that occurred during the war and immediate post-war period. These narratives surface with frequency during the investigation and exhumation of mass graves. Despite the fact that many are lost forever, these stolen possessions can function as powerful mnemonic objects with a strong affective and imaginative hold. The narratives of dispossession explore themes of survival, the experiences of women and children, and the impact of slow violence. By invoking theft and stolen objects, these stories highlight forms of trauma and forms of memory that may not be represented fully by the dominant investigative paradigm of the mass grave exhumation with its inherent focus on death, cataclysmic violence and the tangible, physical traces of the past.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 237802311983213
Author(s):  
Nicole Iturriaga

Understanding the development and meaning of collective memory is a central interest for sociologists. One aspect of this literature focuses on the processes that social movement actors use to introduce long-silenced counter-memories of violence to supplant the “official” memory. To examine this, I draw on 15 months of ethnographic observations with the Spanish Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) and 200 informal and 30 formal interviews with locals and activists. This paper demonstrates that ARMH activists, during forensic classes given at mass grave exhumations, use multiple tactics (depoliticized science framing, action-oriented objects, and embodiment) to deliver a counter-memory of the Spanish Civil War and Franco regime and make moral and transitional justice claims. This research shows how victims’ remains and the personal objects found in the graves also provoke the desired meaning that emotionally connects those listening to the classes to the victims and the ARMH’s counter-memory.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (21) ◽  
pp. 2841-2847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesc Calafell ◽  
Roger Anglada ◽  
Núria Bonet ◽  
Mercedes González-Ruiz ◽  
Gemma Prats-Muñoz ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. e010
Author(s):  
Carlos Píriz

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, some thirty Diplomatic Missions opened their doors and create new sites for the reception of persecution victims under the protection of the right of asylum. However, beyond the humanitarian role, a tendentious collaboration of some of their delegates with the rebels could be seen from the beginning. Argentina and Chile, which held the Diplomatic Deanship in those years, were two prime examples of this. A good number of their representatives used various strategies to help the coup plotters of 1936, such as the refuge, care and irregular extraction of people or espionage. At the same time, they played a role that alternated between searching for consensus with other Diplomatic Missions (mainly the Latin American ones), which really meant demanding that those other legations follow their lead, and denouncing the excesses of the consolidated republican rearguard, especially on the international scene. A situation which tarnishes the image of the legitimate Spanish governments. Once the contest ended, many of those collaborators were praised and rewarded by the Franco regime, and other fascists regimes. This research focuses on demonstrating, based on original documentation and providing new and compelling data, that close (and proven) relationship.


Author(s):  
Eider de Dios Fernández

Resumen: Durante los años que van de 1920 a 1938 coexistieron modelos diferentes de mujer y, al mismo tiempo, se diversificaron las imágenes que se tenía sobre las sirvientas. Durante la dictadura de Primo de Rivera el servicio doméstico no fue considerado como un trabajo. Y ya durante la II República, aunque oficialmente el servicio doméstico obtuviera ese estatus, no se llevaron a cabo modificaciones que hicieran práctica esa incorporación. De todas maneras, durante esos años estas mujeres pudieron sindicarse y denunciar a sus patrones/as por primera vez, así como organizar movilizaciones, lo que cambiaría el imaginario de las sirvientas por mucho tiempo.Palabras clave: Servicio doméstico, II República, Dictadura de Primo de Rivera, género, Guerra Civil.Abstract: During the years between 1920 and 1938, different models of women coexisted and, at the same time, the images of the maids were diversified. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, domestic service was not considered a job. During the Second Republic, although officially the domestic service was considered as a job, no modifications were made to make this incorporation practice. Anyway, during these years for the first time these women could unionize and denounce their bosses, organize mobilizations which would change the image of the maids for a long time.Keywords: domestic service, II Spanish Republic, Primo de Rivera´s dictatorship, gender, Spanish Civil War.


Author(s):  
Vladimir B. Bezgin

We examine the state of communes and farms, the attitude of the rural population to their organization and activities, as well as the state of collective farms on the eve and during the Tambov rebellion of 1920–1921. The relevance of the topic is determined by the need for a scien-tific understanding of the problem of insurrection in the Civil War and its manifestation in the form of a peasant rebellion led by A.S. Antonov. The purpose of the study is to establish the fate of collective farms during the armed protest of the Tambov peasants. The work was carried out on the basis of a wide range of archival sources, some of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The analysis of the problem is carried out taking into account the achievements of modern historiography of the issue and the use of scientific tools of advanced methodological approaches. We apply the entire arsenal of methods of historical research based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency. It is established that the armed raids of rebel detachments on agricultural communes, Soviet farms were due to the need of the partisans for food, horses, forage, and the active participation of the local population in them stemmed from their view of the land and property of collective farms as rightfully belonging to them.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Pacheco

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.


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