The Burden of Spain’s 20th Century History

Abstract

As in much of Europe, the history of Spain in the 20th century was scarred by violence, war and dictatorial regimes. It was also marked by the struggle to construct a democratic system capable of responding to the needs and aspirations of all its citizens under equality of conditions and within the framework of the rule of law. The majority of Western Europe definitively embarked upon this journey in 1945, whereas in the south, in the states of the Iberian Peninsula and Greece, this process had to wait until the 1970s. On the other hand, the majority of the countries that had become socialist republics after the Second World War did not start their transition towards democracy until the last decade of the century. These transition processes involved states reconstructing their political systems and restructuring their social relations, which they achieved with varying degrees of difficulty. In some cases, these challenges also had to be combined with a change of economic model. Some countries decided to subject past acts of violence to the scrutiny of justice. In all cases, it was necessary to manage the burden of history. Managing a more or less peaceful coexistence between the victors and the vanquished, between oppressors and their victims, and between the heirs of one group and those of the other (whether these relationships are based on family ties, political affiliations, ethnic origins or ideology) has never been easy. Within this context, the case of Spain is not unique, but it is particularly complex, given the fact that a long and bloody civil war was followed by a brutal, merciless, and even longer, period of dictatorship imposed by the victors. Although everything may seem very distant now, as the war ended in 1939 and the dictator died in 1975, in some respects it still remains all too present. Although the symbolic frontier of the year 2000 has now passed, there are still many who, with good reason, believe that the political powers have not done enough to compensate the victims of the violence of the past or to recognise those who opposed the dictatorship. But there are also many who interpret any policy of historical memory aimed at achieving these objectives as a revenge attack on the stability that had been achieved and as an attempt to reopen old wounds.