Spain: Controversy around Historical Memory

Abstract

The article aims to study the acute controversy spreading in presentday Spain around the assessments of the tragic consequences of the civil war and Francoist dictatorship. The author set the following objectives: to reveal the attitude of the Francoist authorities to the victims and persons responsible for the committed crimes; to analyze “the Pact of Forgetting” in force during the period of the establishment and consolidation of democracy when the issues of the civil war and Francoism were withdrawn from the official discourse; to determine the role of the civil society in overcoming the taboo of the authorities on the attitudes to the historical past; to consider the main stances of the political parties to the problems of historical memory; to show the evaluation of Francoism in the international context. The article concludes that though the governments of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in 2007 and then in 2018 undertook attempts to restore the historical truth and justice, only first steps have been made along this route. Those guilty of Francoist crimes have not been punished, and the victims have not been compensated for the legal and moral damage. The attitude to these problems splits Spanish parties and the society. The abolition of the Amnesty law adopted in October 1977 could be the key to solving the problem. According to the Law amnesty was granted to all political crimes committed before 1977 including mass killings of anti­Francoists at the time of the dictatorship. Present legal situation allows many parties to use in their political struggle the interpretation of convenience of the tragic events of the past. It seems that in the near future Spain is doomed to live with this destabilizing factor, impeding the achievement of genuine national reconciliation.