Spanish Civil War Research Articles

International Political Sociology through the Colonial Mirror: A Contrapuntal Reading of the Spanish Civil War

Abstract This paper invokes Edward Said’s notion of counterpoint to present a transnational sociological account of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. This contrapuntal reading raises questions of sovereignty, violence, and identity, which—filtered through a political sociological lens—offer novel perspectives on the power of empire and colonialism in relation to these key IR categories. Specifically, I argue that the Spanish colonial frontier in Morocco served as a laboratory for distinctive expressions of transnational state-building, violence, and identity-formation, which were reproduced in the metropolitan heartlands of the Iberian Peninsula during the interwar years. The complex interaction between core and periphery in this period had momentous implications for both Spanish and Moroccan history, many of which continue to play out in contemporary politics across the Gibraltar Strait.

Hermeneutics of Memory for Tourist Promotion: An Upcycling Process of Spanish Civil War Air Raid Shelters

This study delves into the transformative role of air-raid shelters from the Spanish Civil War in Alicante, Spain, highlighting their significance in the recovery and preservation of intangible heritage. Through a detailed hermeneutic analysis based on interviews and existing research, the investigation explores the shelters’ contribution to cultural identity, memory, and sustainable urban development. It reveals how the hermeneutics of memory, applied via a rigorous scientific approach, serves as a vital tool for justifying, rehabilitating, and planning these historical sites for tourism aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals. The rehabilitation of these shelters not only acts as a conservation effort but also as a means to promote cultural tourism enhancing Alicante’s cultural and tourist offerings. The study underscores the shelters’ dual role as educational resources and tourist attractions, facilitating a deeper understanding and connection with the past, and fostering community development and sustainability.

Juan Vegue Martín (1884-ca. 1949). Del Guijuelo salmantino a la Guinea española

Using as main source the documentation kept in the Official Colleges of Pharmacists of Madrid and Toledo, the University of Santiago de Compostela, the section of Africa in the General Archive of the Administration and the local periodical press, particularly the one printed in Salamanca and Santa Isabel (Guinea), we reconstruct the biography of the pharmacist Juan Vegue Martín, from his homeland in the Guijuelo region of Salamanca to the latest known data, in the colonial territories of Spanish Guinea. A biography that can serve as a case study for other rural pharmacists, with a nomadic life, who lived through -and suffered- the years of the Spanish Civil War. Keywords: Juan Vegue Martín (1884-ca. 1949); Biography; Pharmacy; Twentieth century; Spain

Victor Erice’s Film The Spirit of the Beehive: A Coded Warning Against Submission in the Aftermath of the Spanish Civil War

ABSTRACT This essay discusses Victor Erice’s film The Spirit of the Beehive in terms of issues relevant to psychoanalysis today: the impact of socio-political trauma on the psyche. Through his cinematic artform, Erice captures the isolation and emotional deadness of village life in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War which we discuss in terms of the contemporary interest in intergenerational transmission of trauma as well as the expansion of the psychoanalytic paradigm to include socio-historic events impacting unconscious processes. Through a personal narrative of a young girl’s plight, the film captures her mind-numbing surrender to fantasy elaborations – which serves as an allegory for the people of Spain’s mind-numbed surrender to fascist dogma. Throughout the film, a witness is needed, so Erice turns to us, his viewers to take on this role. Beyond being a coded exposé of Franco’s regime, the film serves as a warning with disturbing relevance today.

Ins and Outs: Immigration Policies in Early 20th Century Mexico and the Arrival of Spanish Immigrants and Exiles

Abstract: In the early decades of the 20th century, Mexican immigration laws and government circulars dictated populations believed to be economically, racially, and intellectually favorable. Determined to be a population able to easily assimilate into Mexican society based on their ability to maintain Mexico's mestizo demographic identity, the government gave preferential treatment to Spaniards seeking the opportunity to migrate. The Mexican government sought to protect the nation's mixed-identity through the promulgation of restrictive immigration policies, establishing limitations for populations believed to be too "other" to seamlessly integrate and bring wide-spread benefit to the nation. To understand Mexico's provision of aid to Spanish exiles and refugees unable or unwilling to return to their homeland during and after the Spanish Civil War, this article examines the Ley de Migración, the Ley de General Población, and other immigration laws promulgated between 1926 and 1936 and their efforts to control who was able to enter the country.

Memories of the Spanish Civil War, exile and political repression under Franco: Basque children’s personal testimonies (1936–40)

The following interviews were conducted during the field work of my doctoral thesis, funded by the University of Reading. Interviews were conducted face to face in the summer of 2019 in Bizkaia. Both interviewees were over 90 years old when interviewed and lived through the state repression suffered under Franco’s regime following their childhood exile. The fear that they endured remained latent. These excerpts are parts of interviews relating to their personal experience of childhood exile in the context of the Spanish Civil War. When the war intensified on the northern front with the bombing of the civilian population (specifically the bombings of Otxandio in July 1936 and Gernika in April 1937), the Basque Government of the Second Spanish Republic organized the so-called ‘expediciones infantiles’ (‘childhood expeditions’) for the evacuation of children. These first-person testimonies show how these children lived their experience of exile as refugees and their subsequent integration into Franco’s Spain, a hostile space for them, as the evacuated children were considered traitors, ‘los hijos de los rojos’ (‘the children of Reds’).

Typology of reasons why a person kills in a war context: The case of rebel/nationalist army combatants in the Spanish Civil War.

European historiography on wars has embarked on a study of a matter of crucial significance: the involvement of ordinary individuals as perpetrators of mass casualties. This article aims to provide insights and hypotheses concerning the underlying motives behind such actions, focusing on the unique context of the Spanish Civil War. The data utilized for this study are drawn from a sample of 112 oral interviews conducted with former combatants of the Spanish Civil War, all born between 1905 and 1920. During these interviews, 112 men participated a semi structured discussion. Individual perceptions and variables of interest relevant to acts of violence were subjected to qualitative analysis. Our analysis suggests that instances of aggression often arise because of emotional triggers, alignment with fascist ideological convictions, societal pressures and a sense of duty-driven obedience. Our results refute the notion that ideological factors alone suffice as explanations.

A narrativa de Hemingway na Espanha da Guerra Civil e suas implicações históricas e políticas a partir da teoria de Edward Said

This article consists in an historical analysis of three works by Ernest Hemingway that are set in the Spanish Civil War. The analysis is complemented by Edward Said’s theory called Orientalism to extract the narrative that the author proposes to be contrasted with the historical events to see how it is that the narrative that sought to unite the United States with the USSR to go together against fascism contributed to the illusion in which republican and democratic Spain of has being seen as a satellite state of the Soviet Union and, therefore, an enemy of the United States in the framework of the recently begun Cold War.

What If I Were the Exile? Linking Past and Present for Democratic History Teaching with Pre-Service Educators

The academic literature has fostered a debate in recent decades regarding the concept of historical empathy and the typology of activities that can help to treat and develop it, although there is no consensus as to the real effectiveness of narrative activities of a descriptive type that involve the projection of the person into the past. The aim of this research was to check whether the implementation of a programme that uses historical contextualisation, contact with primary testimonies, the use of sources and historical empathy, linking the situation of the exiles of the Spanish Civil War with the current refugees, can contribute to the development of tolerant attitudes towards the figure of the displaced in pre-service teachers and the degree to which these attitudes are modified after the application of the programme. The research design is quantitative and corresponds to a quasi-experimental design with a control and experimental group. A questionnaire was used to measure the attitudes of 101 pre-service teachers at a Spanish university towards refugees. The questionnaire was completed at two different times, before and after a historical empathy exercise on the exiles of the Spanish Civil War. The results indicate that programmes using historical contextualisation, testimonies close to refugees and historical empathy relating the situation of refugees to that of the exiles of the Spanish Civil War can contribute to increasing and/or reinforcing positive attitudes towards refugees in pre-service teachers.

La Soledad y la Alienación Psicológica en la novela "Nada" de Carmen Laforet …La tentativa de la interpretación (Un estudio analítico)

في هذا البحث نناقش الآثار السلبية من العزلة والاغتراب في المجتمع الإسباني، في مرحلة ما بعد الحرب الأهلية الإسبانية مباشرة، وهذا الوضع له تأثير سيء في الفرد والمجتمع، من خلال رواية (لا شيء) الكاتب الإسباني (كارمن لافوريت) إنها دعوة إلى الكتّاب والمفكرين إلى نجدة ودعم مجتمعهم من خلال تلك الكتابات الإبداعية، وأثر سيء من الحروب والكوارث والأزمات دمر كل جوانب الحياة (الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والسياسية والثقافية)، والتي تؤدي إلى العزلة والاغتراب والحاضر يترك على الأثر النفسي البشري. ان غاية البحث هي التعريف باثر العزلة والاغتراب في تفكك الاواصر الاجتماعية والمكانية والاسرية وضررها على المجتمع والانسان بنفس القوة , ولعل المجتمع العراقي في هذه المرحلة احوج ما يكون لمعرفة نتائج الظروف الصعبة التي بلا شك ستقود للعزلة والاغتراب , ولا سيما الطبقة المثقفة لكي تقوم بعمل جدار صد ثقافي عله ينقذ بلدنا .

To the Barricades! The Social Revolution of 1936 in Catalonia

AbstractThis paper aims to illustrate how several emotional mechanisms very probably played some causal and presumably significant role during the revolution that took place in Catalonia between July 1936 and May 1937 within the framework of the Spanish Civil War. Beyond this specific case study, the article contributes to the discussion on the role of emotions in large‐scale collective action and the concept of enthusiasm. In this regard, it is argued that the analyzed case suggests hatred could be an emotional antecedent of enthusiasm.

From Oblivion to Life: The Recovery of Intangible Cultural Heritage through the Anti-Aircraft Shelters of the Spanish Civil War

This article examines the rehabilitation of anti-aircraft shelters from the Spanish Civil War in Alicante, Spain. Funded by European resources and managed by local public administration, these shelters have been restored as cultural and tourist attractions. This study aims to analyze their role in preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage, with a focus on their significance as tangible remnants of a historical period and their reflection on survival practices during the war. This research investigates the impact of public management in rehabilitating these shelters and in disseminating their history and culture. It explores decision-making processes, community engagement, and strategies for promoting cultural tourism. Employing a mixed methodology, this study gathers primary data through interviews with individuals who witnessed the war and secondary data from documentary and bibliographic sources. Findings suggest that the rehabilitation of these shelters has been pivotal in preserving Alicante’s historical memory and cultural heritage. Making the shelters accessible to the public facilitates knowledge transmission about the Spanish Civil War, promotes cultural tourism, and engages the local community in the dissemination of history and culture. This study’s results and conclusions are relevant for academics, professionals, and cultural heritage managers at both national and international levels, offering insights into the effective preservation and promotion of historical sites.

Transnational memories of war and conflict in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This article analyses the ways in which the memory of transnational traumatic events of war and conflict of the past have been represented at Wellington's waterfront and whether the site, with its multitude of memorial plaques, can be read as a lieu de mémoire. The study focuses on three commemorative plaques: the memorial plaque to those New Zealanders who took part in the Spanish Civil War (2011); the commemorative plaque to the Polish children of Pahīatua (2004); and the memorial plaque commemorating the arrival of the United States Marine Corps to New Zealand (1951/2000). It, first, examines the memory entrepreneurs behind the commemoration of the events the plaques depict and analyse whether these agents engaged in bottom-up or top-down mnemonic practices and activities (or a mixture of these). Second, it analyses the significance of these memorials in the collective memory of contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Recuerdos LIJ-ados: memoria de la guerra civil española en la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil del siglo XXI / CYAL-worn memories: memory of the Spanish Civil War in 21st century children's and young adult literaturesiglo XXI

In this paper we propose a dual research: on the one hand, to offer a panoramic view of how the memory of the Spanish Civil War is transmitted in children's and young people's literature of our times, paying special attention to the technical narrative structure and the chronotope. On the other hand, the aim is to investigate the position of the children's/youth characters in these texts and the position of the authors with respect to the events of the war.
 As a methodological procedure, we will outline a brief note on what we academically understand by 'memory' as far as literature is concerned, and we will carry out a critical analysis of fifteen Spanish publications aimed at young audiences, all of them of narrative genre and marketed from the year 2000 onwards. In conclusion, we will synthesise the data and generate a bi-member vector that will show us both the technical way in which history is being told and its 'memory' transmitted in 21st century of children and young people literature (CYPL), as well as the tendency and majority position of current authors.

‘El mío no es un asilo’: Aging Masculinity, Disability, and Animalization in Mario Camus’s Los santos inocentes

As an attempt to reflect 1960s rural Spain under Franco’s dictatorship, Mario Camus’s 1984 film adaptation of Miguel Delibes’s Los santos inocentes [The Holy Innocents], published three years before, depicts the daily coexistence of human and non-human animals in an Extremaduran cortijo. Within the highly hierarchized social structure of the Francoist regime, the elderly male characters that are physically or mentally disabled are consistently exploited and humiliated by the caste of señoritos as a metaphorical reproduction of the type of class-based hierarchy established after the Spanish Civil War between the victors and the defeated. The aim of this paper is to examine how the aging, disabled male body of the dispossessed contributes to deepening the class divide through their animalization. By aesthetically emphasizing the blurring of species boundaries in the lower social strata, Camus recreates the type of rural Spain that, under the auspices of the dictatorship, endorses an understanding of the normative, young masculine body as one that distinguishes itself through biological, class-based and androcentric determinism. This triply reinforced canon of the male subject, so irreparably bound to tautologies between class and species, places the aging, masculine body at the heart of an oppressive social system that seeks to justify its hierarchy, mythologizing it as the only viable option through which to erect an empowered, reputable nation.

Analyzing the effects of the Spanish Civil War on biological well-being through new anthropometric indicators

ABSTRACT Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of severe economic shocks (such as those associated with wars) on the growth of children and adolescents. Individuals exposed to these shocks during their developmental years exhibited shorter average heights compared to both previous and subsequent generations. Anthropometric research has highlighted the sensitivity of the height variable in understanding the biological well-being of children and adolescents. However, little attention has been paid to the evolution of other anthropometric variables. This study investigates the impact of the famine following the Spanish Civil War on biological well-being in nine municipalities of the Region of Valencia (with over 120,000 observations of individuals born between 1890 and 1955) using two indicators: chest circumference, and the percentage of individuals of short stature. Our findings confirm that both of these anthropometric indicators were responsive to the economic shock of the Civil War. The well-being levels prior to the war took 20 years to recover.

The lost gardens of the Palace of Meirás (Pazo de Meirás), a journey through time

The Pazo de Meirás (Meirás Palace) is a vast historical and artistic heritage complex with a great cultural and political importance in the recent history of Spain, being one of the most recognizable buildings for the Spanish people nowadays. Therefore, the current conservation status of the gardens has been assessed through the reconstruction of its historical evolution. Originally, the Pazo de Meirás and its gardens were built linked to the artistic and romantic style imprint of the outstanding writer Countess Emilia Pardo Bazán (1856­–1921). The gardens experienced their greatest splendor during this period. In fact, the historical floral diversity of the gardens, with a total of 154 recorded taxa, is among the highest in Galician manor houses. However, the context of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) involved a drastic change: the palace became the summer residence of the head of the Spanish state, General Francisco Franco (1938–1975). Despite subsequent neglect and a fire in 1978, the estate’s intrinsic value led to its return to the Spanish State in 2020. Currently, the gardens could constitute a significant cultural asset linked to the Countess of Pardo Bazán and to the socio-political changes that took place in Spain during the 20th century.

“СЛІПІ СОНЯХИ” АЛЬБЕРТО МЕНДЕСА: ГОЛОСИ ПОРАЗКИ, ЩО ПЕРЕМАГАЮТЬ ЗАБУТТЯ

Background. The article is devoted to the problem of reconstruction of collective memory in Alberto Méndez's novel "The blind sunflowers" (2004). Méndez's book is a part of contemporary Spanish narratives that, since the 1990s, have witnessed the emergence of the so-called "memory boom", a trend in literature and cinema aimed at preserving, restoring and transmitting the memory of the tragic events of Spanish Civil War and Franco repression. The purpose of the research is to reveal the ways and mechanisms of reproduction and elaboration of traumatic collective memory in "The blind sunflowers" by Méndez. Methods. The study is based on the following methods: a historical-cultural approach and "memory studies", which made it possible to determine the place of the Alberto Mendez's novel in the context of the Spanish "literature of memory" beginning 21st century; the narratological and intertextual approaches were used to investigate various techniques of the author's creation of a polyphonic narrative in four stories that make up the book, and which represent different voices of the same past, functioning as symbols of restoring the memory of defeat. Results. The artistic recreation in "The Blind Sunflowers" of the traumatic experience of the events and consequences of the Civil War in Spain was investigated in dichotomies typical of the depicted historical moment: winners-losers, victim-executioner, death-life, memory-oblivion and voice-silence. The analysis of this traumatic context in the novel proved that writing (the voice of memory) functions as one of the main ways of preserving the experience of erased generations, restoring life after physical death, and as a guarantee of resistance to oblivion. Conclusion. The reconstruction of the memory of the Civil War in Spain and its consequences during the period of Francoism as one of the leading trends in modern Spanish literature demonstrates the still openness of collective trauma and, accordingly, the need to find ways to overcome it. In view of this, the approach proposed by Méndez in "The Blind Sunflowers" to restore and transmit memory through a collective discourse of defeat becomes a significant step towards healing the unhealed wounds of a society traumatized by war and a dictatorial regime, as it emphasizes not only the importance of the grieving process in overcoming tragedies, but also attests to the creation of literature as a space of memory, in which the past is reproduced as a voice that breaks the silence and overcomes oblivion, not allowing to turn the page and close the past.

At the crossroads of race and gender during the Spanish Civil War

Salaria Kea, the only African American nurse to serve during the Spanish Civil War, fought against racism and fascism her entire life. Her contributions during the war in Spain, as well as her legacy, have become complicated matters, as the veracity of her testimony found in archival materials is routinely questioned and at times blatantly negated. Kea's experience as an African American woman positions her at the crossroads of racial and gender hierarchies that mark her identity in complex ways. Through the lens of various theories of intersectionality, this article will grapple with the precarious modes of historical discourse found in the archive, and vindicate Kea's testimony, recognising it as making a crucial contribution – from a unique perspective – to the understanding of a more nuanced historical picture.

ОПЫТ ДЕЙСТВИЙ БРОНЕТАНКОВЫХ ВОЙСК КРАСНОЙ АРМИИ НА ХАСАНЕ И ХАЛХИН-ГОЛЕ: РЕФЛЕКСИИ ВОЕННОЙ ЭЛИТЫ

In the article, based on documents from the collections of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), an attempt is made to analyze the process of understanding by representatives of the Red Army command the experience of the actions of Armored forces during local military conflicts at lake Khasan and Khalkhin Gol river in 1938–1939. The conclusions made by commanders at various levels, in general, accurately recorded the main shortcomings and errors in the use of tank units and formations, which completely repeated those during the Civil War in Spain. It is concluded that by the time the conflicts began, that experience was unknown to tank and combined arms commanders. In addition, based on content analysis, the inability of specialists to assess the weak armoring of tanks is revealed as the main reason for heavy losses. Attention is drawn to the fact that while correctly recording the extremely low level of training of commanders and personnel of the tank forces, the final conclusions of the reports to the higher command contained exceptionally high assessments of combat effectiveness and assurances of readiness to carry out any order. At the same time, the country’s top military-political leadership received a sufficient amount of truthful information from its representatives from the conflict zone, but preferred to broadcast to the public a picture of the highest combat readiness of the armored forces, which was clearly and convincingly reflected in mass Soviet culture.