A Divided Legacy
January 26, 2018
Dr. José María Mantero, Professor of Spanish in the Classics and Modern Languages Department, was awarded a College of Arts & Sciences Summer 2017 International Research Grant to support the development of a new course based on the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), titled Popular Culture and the Spanish Civil War.
This past summer, Mantero spent nine weeks in Madrid, Spain where he logged approximately 100 hours of research in the resource-rich repositories of the Archivo Histórico Nacional (The National Historic Archives), the Biblioteca Nacional (The National Library), and the Archivo de la Villa de Madrid (The Archives of the City of Madrid). He was able to view authentic materials from the time period to include original documents related to the siege of Madrid, monographs, films, journals, prisoner lists, children’s drawings, police records, photographs and private declarations, letters and memoirs.
It's a challenging history to research, as even today Spaniards struggle to come to terms with the complex and difficult struggle. Many of the men and women on all sides of the conflict had divided motives for their participation, and their actions haunt the generations that followed. Commemorative monuments tend to mention only those who fought on the side of Francisco Franco's Nationalists, who ushered in forty years of authoritarian rule and aided the Nazis during World War II. A commemorative plaque on a church in Miraflores de la Sierra, a small town outside of Madrid, lists the men who died for the Nationalists. An anonymous graffiti artist has recently sprayed "No," suggesting disagreement with the Nationalists and with their one-sided representation of Spain's historical memory. If you look carefully, you can see where the original "No" has been erased, only to be sprayed again.
Carlistas were monarchists who advocated a return of the king to the throne and a conservative ideology. Many were allied with or swept along with Franco and the Nationalists by the end of the Civil War, although they often disagreed vehemently with Franco.
Mantero, at times, experienced frustrating roadblocks in his research claiming, “Spanish bureaucracy and Spanish universities are, in general, not well-suited to the expectations of the digital classroom. There were days when the best I could do was take notes on what I found, as I knew I would not be able to obtain a digital copy before the beginning of classes in August.” By this fall, however, the Spanish professor was able to unveil a new course that not only examines the historical and cultural elements of the Spanish Civil War but also provides the means through which original short stories, essays, films, music and personal accounts can be experienced and reviewed by his students. Mantero offered this final insight: “In these days when the idea of a liberal arts education and the purpose of scholarly activity are being regularly questioned, it is comforting to know that our institution continues to value international summer research.”