Sixth International Congress of Entomology, Madrid (1935): politics and science

Using the Sixth International Congress of Entomology (Madrid, 1935) as an example, we present a representative case of science as a social construct and its importance to the history of the winning side of a war to construct a memory that supports its own version of events. The Congress was held prior to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939); however, the proceedings were not published until 1940. An examination of the proceedings and of archival documents show the exclusion of contributions initially intended for publication, particularly those by Spanish entomologists who were politically aligned with the Second Spanish Republic, the losing side, and who, as a result, suffered reprisals after the military conflict. These documents suggest that their contributions were rejected for reasons unrelated to their scientific investigations but due to the political inclinations of the editor.

Intellectuals and commitment to global anti-fascism: The Second Spanish Republic according to Aníbal Ponce and Carlo Rosselli, 1935-1937

Aníbal Ponce, the highest figure of Argentine Marxism in the 1930s, was in Paris participating in the Antifascist Intellectuals Vigilance Committee, and was sent to Spain as a member of an international evaluation commission of the repressive events in the Asturias Insurrection. When he returns to Argentina after presenting a report and making an initiatory visit to Moscow, he speaks on the Spanish situation, on the political limits of the Second Republic and on the recent triumph of the Popular Front and its challenges. There he posits the idea of the events in Asturias as victorious defeat, as a prelude to the coming revolution. Since his Parisian exile, Carlo Rosselli, the leader of the Italian anti-fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà, reflected critically on the Spanish experience, eventually leading an Italian legion on the Aragon war front. Ideologically closer to the anarchists than to the communists, Rosselli warns of the limits of revolutionary action in Spain, but anticipates a similar opinion to Ponce on the momentary defeat of the working class. In both cases, the Spanish experience leads them to consider the transition from speculation to action as the greatest possible destination for the intellectual class.

Festive literature in Catalan as a space of cultural resistance: The Valencian magazine Pensat i Fet (1912–72) during the Spanish post-war period

The magazine Pensat i Fet (1912–72), which was published every year before the Fallas festival and included a wide range of texts and pictures related to it, had been an important element in the dissemination of literature and culture in Catalan and the agenda of valencianism among wide sectors of Valencian society. Until 1936 – especially during the years of the Second Spanish Republic – the magazine explicitly opted for valencianism, for example, advocating for the agreement that would make the statute of autonomy possible. However, from 1940 onwards it became a true bastion of cultural resistance. So, the magazine maintained a literary use of Catalan language in diverse registers, strongly satirized the Castillianization of society, was able to express a valencianist spirit in a variety of ways, incorporated elements of social criticism through popular satire and accommodated very diverse authors from the Valencian literary field and from other Catalan-speaking regions. In this article, attention will be paid to the way in which the magazine manages to articulate these gestures, albeit not without trouble with censorship, throughout the first decade of Franco’s Regime, that is, between 1939 and 1950.

Constructing “Pure” and “Applied” Science in Early Francoism

The paper discusses several appropriations of the categories of “pure” and “applied” science (mainly in chemistry) in early Francoism. At the height of a crusade that criminalized “pure” science as inherently attached to the culture of the Second Spanish Republic, the category of “pure” assumed spiritual, religious and anti-materialist values in the early education policies of the new regime, in the context of the newly founded national research centre, the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). At the same time, relevant Francoist scientists stressed the high moral status of a new utilitarian, “applied” science, to efficiently serve the material needs of the country. As a result, the categories of “pure” and “applied” science, and their rhetorical use in public addresses and propaganda, became useful tools for building a strong alliance between science and power that cemented the dictatorship.

The Second Spanish Republic in soviet and russian studies: specificity, problems, interpretations

For many years, representatives of Soviet and then Russian historical science paid special attention to the period of the Second Spanish Republic and, especially, to the events of 1936-1939. The Spanish Civil War was and remains a topic that attracts the attention of specialists and influences the development of a multifaceted Russian-Spanish cultural dialogue. There are significantly fewer works on the peaceful years of the Republic, which is typical not only for domestic science, but also for the historiography of this period as a whole. Four key periods can be distinguished in the formation of the national historiography of the Spanish Republic. The first is associated with the existence of the Republic itself and is distinguished by significant political engagement. The second opens after 1956 and combines the continuity with respect to the period of the 1930s. and, at the same time, striving for objectivity, developing methodology and expanding the source base. The third stage is associated with the period of the 1970s-1980s, the time of the restoration of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Spain, as well as the active interaction of historians of the two countries. The fourth stage, which lasted thirty years, was the time of the formation of the Russian historiography of the Second Republic, which sought to get rid of the ideological attitudes that left a significant imprint on the research of the Soviet period. This time is associated with the active archival work of researchers and the publication of sources, the expansion of topics, interdisciplinary approaches. Among the studies of the history of the Second Republic outside Spain, Russian historiography has a special place due to the specifics of Soviet-Spanish relations during the Civil War, and the archival funds in our country, and the traditions of Russian historical Spanish studies, and the preservation of republican memory.

SECOND SPANISH REPUBLIC OF THE PRE-WAR PERIOD (1931-1936) AND HER MEMORY IN CINEMA IN SPAIN

This article analyzes the memory and representation of the Second Spanish Republic, particularly its years in peace (1931-1936), in Span-ish fiction cinema and made in this country, from 1939 to the present day. The most common ideas and images in this vision of the Second Republic present in cinematography are studied, and the continuity / evolution or change in them throughout the Franco dictatorship, the Democratic Transition and to this day, taking as an example some films. Finally, some general conclusions are addressed that highlight a lower visibility of this period in Spanish cinematography in general compared to the period of the Civil War (1936-1939), as well as the persistence of certain stereotypes around the Second Republic.

FRANCISCO FRANCO AND THE FORMATION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RIGHT ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE MAGAZINE ACCIÓN ESPAÑOLA

The article examines the role of the magazine Acción Española in the formation of the ideology of the right-wing forces during the Second Spanish Republic. Its proclamation found the right-wing groups in Spain in a weakened state. The reason for this was their fragmentation, as well as the banning of all parties during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. The establishment of a republic with its leftist charac-ter caused a tendency towards reorganization of both the right-wing forces themselves and their ideology. It is for this purpose that the magazine Acción Española was created. It became a place where repre-sentatives of different ideological currents of the right spectrum pub-lished their doctrines. Subsequently, their elements will form the basis of the ideology of Francoism. This will be greatly facilitated by the fact that many of the magazine's authors will at first enter the party and state apparatus of the new regime.

Unite, Proletarian Brothers! Radicalism and Revolution in the Second Spanish Republic, Matthew Kerry (2020)

Review of: Unite, Proletarian Brothers! Radicalism and Revolution in the Second Spanish Republic, Matthew Kerry (2020) London: University of London Press and Royal Historical Society, 252 pp., ISBN 978-1-91270-250-3, p/bk, £25.00

Los edificios escolares de primera enseñanza de Almudévar (Huesca, España) (1923-1936)

The aim of this work was to study state-funded primary schools in Almudévar (Huesca, Spain) that were planned or built during Miguel Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship and the Second Spanish Republic. Based on the documents consulted in the municipal archive and visits to the buildings themselves, it provides analysis of the commitment of the municipal corporation to addressing the needs of children regarding appropriate buildings for their schooling. This study has been carried out considering the regulations on primary education that were in force at that time, as well as the school models developed to construct school buildings with the best conditions for health and hygiene.

Renovación pedagógica e identidad: un estudio comparativo de los expedientes de oposición y de depuración de las direcciones escolares de la Segunda República

This paper evaluates the possibilities offered by a comparative study between two sources unrelated until now: the personal files from professional selection processes produced during the Second Spanish Republic and the files produced in the Francoist purge process which started at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. We take a privileged segment of the teaching staff as a sample: the teachers who achieved headteacher positions for the new graded schools in the public exams held in 1932 during the Second Spanish Republic. In order to contextualize the relevance of this contingent of teachers, we first offer a quantitative analysis, showing the impact of the purging process on them. Next, we present the approach from which we perform the qualitative analysis, which is based on the interpretation of the files as “institutional life-archives” and we try to characterise this life-archive practice in both processes, keeping in mind that, although different in modality and purpose, both are valuable sources for studying the professional identities of those who elaborated the files. Finally, we propose three models —confirmation, re-adaptation and dissolution— for performinga qualitative analysis, which make it possible to assess the production and fluctuation of teacher’s identities among these files. These models demonstrate the utility of a comparative analysis of these sources, which can serve to study the configuration of teachers’ professional and pedagogical identities as well as their relationship with the new pedagogical theories and pedagogical tradition in a key time of Spanish history of education. It is our hope that this study will lead to new lines of research in order to analyse the continuities and ruptures of pedagogical discourses and practices between different periods.