Moving memories, 1970–2009

Abstract

The title ‘Moving Memories’ refers to the affective, changing and spatially mobile characteristics of Spanish republicans’ memory activities. The chapter reflects on the place of refugees’ memories within and beyond the memory framework of the French nation state. It demonstrates both the possibilities and limits of Nora's work for understanding refugees’ memories through a discussion of the relationship between lieux and milieux de mémoire. The emphasis then turns to Spanish republican remembrance practices in both public and private spaces in France. The chapter explains how and why a commemorative culture of the Spanish republican exile slowly started to appear during the 1970s. It then charts the development of memory associations in France from the 1980s to the seventieth anniversary of the Retirada in 2009. The last section of the chapter reveals how Spanish republicans have constructed a sense of home through material culture and everyday rituals. Their narratives evoke the long-lasting effects of exile, but also underline how any understanding of exile necessarily involves a consideration of the attitudes and reactions of the host country.