TRANSATLANTIC MEMORIES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: CULTURAL IMPERIALISM, POLITICS OF SOLIDARITY, AND RESISTANCE IN SPAIN AND LATIN AMERICA (1936-1978)

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the different discourses produced by leftist, anti-Franco authors who, as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), reformulate the relationships between Spain and its former colonies in a Transatlantic framework. It employs the notion of “Transatlantic” as a relational category conceived as a field of battle analogous to Bourdieu’s “social space”. Considering the Spanish Civil War as a conflict that triggers political mobilization beyond its timeframe and whose memory can be found throughout history in multiple crystallizations, this dissertation examines the processes by which this memory mutates, as well as the consequences of such mutations in a contextualized, political moment.

To this end, I investigate different narratives that contributed to the elaboration of a politics of solidarity in order to defend the Spanish II Republic based on a shared colonial past between Spain and Latin America. I argue that certain political formulations of the war rely on hispanismo, a type of cultural imperialism implying the existence of a Hispanic community under Spain’s leadership, a right that Spain claims due to its former role as the Empire’s metropolis. In this context, many writers supported the war’s Republican side because they considered it representative of a real Spain judged as Latin American countries’ “motherland”. In the process of building support for the II Republic, these writers often re-signify the notion of Spain. Moreover, this dissertation explores the interactions of exiles with their host countries as processes by which the memory of the war is transformed. Finally, I demonstrate the productivity of the Spanish Civil War’s memory in strengthening a Latin American political deed, the Cuban Revolution, and conversely, the capacity of Latin American politics to influence anti-Franco movements. If some writers saw the Civil War as a legitimate precedent of the Cuban Revolution, others expected this Revolution to revitalize the opposition to Francoism and act as a political, democratic model for Spain. In sum, my dissertation shows a series of Hispanic correspondences that shape both national and international outcomes and trace a set of political and cultural connections without which the Spanish Civil War cannot be properly understood.