Memoria Historica Research Articles

Tendencias de investigación en memoria histórica y sus desafíos pedagógicos en Latinoamérica

El presente artículo identifica las tendencias de las investigaciones en los procesos de construcción de memoria histórica desde el Estado, la sociedad civil y la escuela, y los desafíos que se advierten en el sector educativo frente a este estado del arte. Este trabajo se ocupa de un corpus de 38 textos derivados de investigaciones durante el período posterior a las dictaduras en Chile (1990) y Argentina (1983) y de posconflicto en Colombia (2012). A partir de allí identifica como tendencias la intención del Estado por fomentar la construcción de memorias y de conferir a la escuela esa tarea. En cuanto a la sociedad civil, advierte el afán de consolidar espacios para resguardar las memorias y de asegurar resistencia frente a los agentes victimarios del pasado. En cuanto a la escuela, reconoce avances y esfuerzos pioneros en los tres nodos del sistema didáctico: profesor, estudiante y saber.

Introduction: The Future of Memory in Spain

Memory as 'un proyecto de futuro'In La literatura en la constuccion de la ciudad democratica, Manuel Vazquez Montalban states of his theme (1998: 10), 'no aludimos estrictamente a un determinado sistema urbanistico materializado, sino a la organizacion misma de la vida y a una espectativa de historia, de proyecto de futuro'. This sense of the role of cultural production within the democratic construction of society is highly appropriate to the experience of memory in contemporary Spain, for the recent 'boom' in memory has become entangled with discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of Spanish democracy in recent years. Memory, in this sense, is closely linked to arguments over projects for the future, yet memory studies are frequently seen as focused on the past, as Ribeiro de Menezes argues in her article.Glancing backwards, this Special Issue marks not only ten years since the 2007 'Ley de Memoria Historica', as Spain's most recent memory legislation is commonly known,1 but almost two decades since the latest upsurge in memory debates. Then again, anniversaries in the recent past are easy to find. In 2017 we are 25 years from Spain's hosting of the Olympics in Barcelona, the World Exhibition in Seville, and the European Capital of Culture in Madrid. We are also 25 years from the controversial commemoration of the 'discovery' of America in 1992, an anniversary that, since it also marked the Catholic Monarchs' Edict of Expulsion against Jews, posed uncomfortable questions about exclusion within Spanish society that might be seen as the early seed of the current memory discussions. We are 35 years from the first Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE) victory in 1982; 39 years from the approval of the 1978 Constitution; and 40 years from the Moncloa Pacts that transformed the economy at a time of crisis. Looking further back, it is 60 years since Opus Dei technocrats joined the Francoist government in 1957, heralding an earlier economic turning point. Seventy years ago witnessed the Law of Succession, which named Franco Caudillo for life, and 80 years ago saw the Barcelona 'May Days'. Finally, it is exactly a century since the 1917 crisis, with its social and constitutional upheavals. Significant dates, in short, abound, and one could begin to weave a historical narrative linking several of these dates. The question is, though, to what purpose? What might certain dates mean at any particular point in time? What is the significance, and what are the consequences, of linking them in a coherent narrative? Such concerns for the discursive construction of the past and its implications for the present are characteristic of the emerging field of Memory Studies. What is less acknowledged at times is the extent to which such a narrative is not just a reading of the past, but also a projection of the future.When, in the opening chapter of La literatura, Vazquez Montalban speaks of 'memoria historica' he is referring to history in a fairly traditional sense as an objective glance backwards, 'desprendida de cualquier posibilidad de falsificacion' (1998: 48). However, in the second chapter he moves on to speak of memory - both personal and collective - as a form of desire, designating the process of memory's reconstruction a 'propuesta de futuro' (1998: 77).2 Vazquez Montalban is discussing the so-called mid-century generation of writers (such as Blas de Otero, Gil de Biedma, Juan Goytisolo) and their response to living under a regime that had effectively abolished memory, yet his words are prophetic for the role of literature, and particularly narrative fiction, in the emergence of new memory debates in Spain since the turn of the millennium. If that mid-century generation forged a critical voice that was essential in the construction - albeit somewhat indirectly, in that they were writing under a dictatorial regime - of an oppositional vision of reality, Spain's new authors of memory have, over the course of the past two decades, articulated a series of at times combative responses to the memory horizon of the Transition, setting their works the moral task of giving voice to perspectives that were either silenced or given little credence in civic discourse. …

‘Pacto de olvido’, ‘dolor diferido’: Javier Cercas's Affective Recuperation of the Transition in <em>Anatomía de un instante</em>

Javier Cercas’s 2009 re-imagination in Anatomia de un instante of the attempted 1981 coup de etat, ‘23-F’, and Spain’s democratic transition more broadly, though characteristically experimental with genre, goes further than in previous novels by purporting to forgo fiction for the authority of history. Yet Cercas’s empathetic retelling, which gives prominence to three of the transition’s key politicians as unlikely – and ambiguous – heroes who defended democracy, exploits the affective charge of a not unfamiliar narrative of consensus and national reconciliation. This article interrogates his recuperative and re-mythologizing stance in the discursive context of memoria historica and recent critical perspectives on the transition, specifically the oft-reiterated and powerfully emotive notion of a pacto de olvido that has almost come to encapsulate the process.

Ficción y documentación en "Hombre sin nombre" (2006), de Suso de ToroFicción y documentación en Hombre sin nombre (2006), de Suso de Toro

Hombre sin nombre pertenece a la modalidad de novela histórica que ambienta su relato en la Guerra Civil española, integrada en el proceso de recuperación de la “Memoria Histórica” impulsado precisamente en 2006; el trabajo se basa en la consulta y manejo de la rica documentación (bibliográfica, hemerográfica, testimonial, policial, judicial...) utilizada por el autor para construir su ficción narrativa.

Memórias de docentes leigas que atuaram no ensino rural da Região Colonial Italiana, Rio Grande do Sul (1930 - 1950)

O presente texto tem por objetivo compreender o cotidiano escolar rural, entre as décadas de 1930 e 1950, por meio das memórias de professores que atuaram na Região Colonial Italiana do Rio Grande do Sul (RCI), Brasil. Compreendemos a RCI como aquela formada pelas antigas colônias Conde d’Eu, Dona Isabel e Caxias, atualmente municípios de Caxias do Sul, Garibaldi, Carlos Barbosa e Bento Gonçalves. Trata-se da região que foi ocupada, a partir de 1875, por imigrantes, predominantemente italianos. No recorte temporal, 1930 a 1950, destacamos a expansão da rede escolar pública e as práticas de nacionalização empreendidas pelo governo varguista. Utilizamos como referencial teórico as contribuições da história cultural e como metodologia a análise documental histórica e a história oral. Os documentos produzidos a partir das narrativas docentes pertencem a dois acervos: banco de memórias do Arquivo Histórico Municipal João Spadari Adami (AHMJSA) e Instituto Memória Histórica e Cultural, mantido pela Universidade de Caxias do Sul. Acrescemos aos acervos orais diversos documentos das intendências e órgãos administrativos da educação. Narramos histórias de vida dos docentes, mulheres em sua maioria, que se tornaram professoras por terem os conhecimentos mínimos exigidos para a função e pela absoluta falta de profissionais com titulação. Suas experiências vividas em escolas isoladas, rurais, permitem-nos (re)construir cotidianos, aspectos da vida comunitária e, especialmente, escolar. Essas professoras leigas contaram como organizavam suas aulas, o que ensinavam, o modo como procediam em turmas heterogêneas, a relação delas com alunos e familiares, que são, portanto, aspectos da cultura escolar dessas aulas isoladas rurais, que marcam a história da educação brasileira.

Manila existe: Filipinas y la recuperación de la memoria histórica en la novela española

In the interval between 2001 and 2014, at least 20 novels set in the Philippines were written and published in Spain. They come after a period of time with barely no cultural production on this topic, which lasted for almost a century. The first part of this article approaches the reasons leading Spanish literature to forget the Philippines after 1898. To explain this phenomenon, it will establish a parallelism between the process of oblivion of contemporary Spanish history carried out during the Spanish Democratic Transition according to Maria Teresa Vilaros, and the forgetting of the Philippines after 1898. The second part of the article proposes two possible reasons for the small boom of novels set in the Philippines lately: on the one hand, the recent visibility of the country thanks to institutional efforts to rescue Spanish-Philippine cultural links, and on the other hand, the editorial success of novels dealing with forgotten episodes of Spanish history (Memoria historica). To draw the connection with Spanish novels dealing with historical memory, the paper will also attempt a general characterization of them.

From novel to film: Soldados de Salamina and the paradox of the faithful betrayal

The Historical Memory (‘memoria historica’) of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), one of the main topic of the post-Franquism literature, is often related to the internalization of the conflict through intimism and a consequent investigation based on remembrance. ‘Nueva novela historica’ and ‘metaficcion’ are the two literary genres adopted by the Spanish generation of writers following the Civil War to offer a new perspective of the conflict, suggesting it again not only as the subject of their works, but also as the pretext needed to activate the plot. Soldados de Salamina (2001) by Javier Cercas, bestseller in Spain, is a metafictional novel where the Spanish Civil War drifts through the air and where the heavy past is connected to the present by the thin thread of memory. Spanish director David Trueba worked on its screenplay adaptation (2003), betraying the original narration in order to confirm his fidelity to Cercas, in a superb analysis of analogies and differences that makes – in a paradoxical way – Soldados de Salamina the movie the perfect copy of the novel. This research offers a comparative analysis of both works and conclusions are based on the historical conjuncture of their production and reception.

El Liberal, de Sevilla (1901-1936): un diario independiente en la Andalucía anterior a la Guerra Civil

Founded in 1901 by the celebrated press trust headed by Miguel Moya, El Liberal of Seville became the main independent newspaper published in Andalusia prior to the Civil War. Managed by Jose Laguillo from 1909, and belonging to the publishing company owned by the Busquets brothers from the 1920s, El Liberal reached a daily circulation of approximately 50,000 copies. This article examines the history of this publication during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and during the Second Republic, the composition of its editorial staff and the vicissitudes of this great newspaper, part of whose archives are currently stored at the Centro Documental de la Memoria Historica in Salamanca.

THE POLITICS OF MEMORY IN CONTEMPORARY SPAIN

This issue was compiled to coincide with the debates in Spain surrounding the Ley de Memoria Historica (as it has come to be known in the media) proposed by the PSOE government initially in 2004; f...