Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

50

1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

On 17thJuly 1936 a Spanish army garrison in Melilla, Spain’s Moroccan enclave,

revolted against the government on the command of five generals, Franco among them.

Garrisons on the mainland followed suit the next day, abetted by Falangists, before

Germany helped airlift Franco and his troops into Spain from Africa in August.

Spanish cities with a strong army quota quickly fell to Franco’s Nationalists but others,

notably Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, remained loyal to the Republican government.

The Nationalists won a crucial battle at Toledo, moved north and by November 1936

besieged Madrid.

By summer 1937 northern Spain had fallen to the Nationalists. Franco used the Nazis to

bomb Guernica with moral-sapping savagery. The British, French and Americans looked

on immobile, fearful of winding up Hitler, while International Brigades, comprising

foreign intellectuals, anti-fascists and socialists numbering about 60,000, were armed

by Soviet Russia to aid the Republicans now governing from Valencia.

The diversity of the Republicans’ brethren didn’t help their cause. Barcelona, in

particular, suffered from infighting: anarchists and Trotskyites ran it for a while before

being booted out by communists. By summer 1938 the divisive left were hemmed back

to Madrid and two pockets in the east.

The Soviet Union withdrew its spasmodic support for the Republicans in September

1938 and Catalonia fell soon after. Madrid, still besieged, realised the fight was up

and surrendered. The victorious Franco marched into the capital on April 1st1939.

The Spanish Civil War in five moves

Who was the
Civil War between?
Essentially, the war was
fought between left and
right, each harbouring
dozens of political and
social groups within
their ranks. Franco’s
Nationalists called on
the Falange and Carlists
(monarchists) and
also the landowners,
conservatives and much of
the clergy – basically the
old guard. The anarchists,
socialists, communists
and liberals fell in with
the Republicans, as did
regions like Galicia, the
Basque Country and
Catalonia, lured by a
more sympathetic stance
on autonomy. Often
the allegiances split
communities, friends and
even families. Atrocities
were committed on both
sides and many more died
off the battlefield than on
it. Estimates on the Civil
War’s total death toll
range from 300,000 to
over a million.

Spanish communist
Dolores Ibárruri became
a famously impassioned
mouthpiece for the
Republicans in the
Civil War, earning the
nicknameLa Pasionaria.
“It is better to be the
widow of a hero than the
wife of a coward,” she told
Spanish women.

Don’t mention the war

Thepacto de olvidohas

shadowed Spanish life

for decades. It refers

to an unspoken ‘pact of

forgetting’ about the Civil

War and its atrocities –

since Franco died, Spain

has looked steadfastly

forward. Only since

Prime Minister José Luis

Rodriguez Zapatero

(whose grandfather was

shot by Nationalists)

came to power in 2004

has the collective

amnesia been addressed

by the state. In 2006

he proposed a Law of

Historical Memory to

encourage dialogue and

research. Despite strong

criticism from the

Partido Popular (PP), in

opposition, the law was

passed in October 2007.

So, the Franco regime

has finally been officially

denounced and its

summary military trials

and executions declared

illegitimate.

Local authorities could

now be forced to dig up

mass graves. The vigour

with which the right wing

(even its moderate parts)

objected to the law

highlighted what different

perspectives the left and

right in Spain still hold on

the war. A recent survey

concluded that 35 per

cent of Spaniards weren’t

taught about the Civil War

at school.