MAURICIO ESCOBAR DERAS S A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH ÑOLE A TO THE SPANISH REPUBLICAN EXILE RETURN P ES S UNA APROXIMACIÓN METODOLÓGICA NO A AL RETORNO DE EXILIADOS REPUBLICANOS ESPAÑOLES EPUBLIC R S Resumen Abstract DO A Este artículo examina las estrategias que los This paper examines the strategies that first- XILI E E republicanos exiliados de la primera generación generation exiled republicans selected to D seleccionaron para repatriarse a España. repatriate to Spain after the end of the Spanish Reúne los tipos de retornos que tuvieron lugar Civil War. It assorts the types of returns that entre 1939 y 2010, analizando las estrategias took place between 1939 to 2010, analyzing ETORNO de repatriación. Los datos provienen de the repatriation strategies and noting the R dos base de datos compiladas a través de challenges they navigated. The data is from AL A trabajos académicos y una encuesta de redes two sets of databases compiled via scholarly sociales completada por los descendientes. work and a social media survey filled out by the Concluye con nueve tipos de retornos y sus descendants. It concludes with nine types of correspondientes estrategias. returns and their corresponding strategies. Palabras clave Key words 20 CIÓN METODOLÓGIC Exilio, Franquismo, Guerra Civil Española, Exile, Francoism, Repatriation, Spanish Civil MA Tipos de retorno. War, Types of return. APROXI A Mauricio Escobar Deras N U Universidad de Granada. Instituto de Migraciones. ETURN R Currently working on a Ph.D University of Gra- XILE nada, focusing on combining immigration stu- E N dies with history. Previously, MA Université de A Savoi in communications; MA California State Univerity in History, Northridge; BA University of California, Santa Cruz in History. EPUBLIC R H S NI A HE SP T O T CH A L APPRO ISSN 2254-7037 A Fecha de recepción: 20/VII/2018 Fecha de revisión: 13/VIII/2018 Fecha de aceptación: 14/IV/2019 Fecha de publicación: 30/VI/2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.30827/quiroga.v0i15.251 A METHODOLOGIC MAURICIO ESCOBAR DERAS A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE SPANISH REPUBLICAN EXILE RETURN 1. INTRODUCTION former combatant’s return strategy in the mid 1950s would differ from the strategy employed ith the fall of the Spanish Republic in by an adult “Niño de Guerra” (translated as a 1939, more than half a million peo- child exiled during the war). For this reason, Wple were exiled from their homeland. strategies of return must also incorporate the 21 As exiled refugees, the end of war signaled the desired objectives of the return. possibility of repatriation, prompting exiles to adopt various strategies to navigate the numer- The primary impediment to a safe return was ous challenges impeding the possibility of a safe the Nationalistic government of Francisco return1. Some opted to stay in exile, while others Franco. Following the end of the civil war and were immediately and forcefully deported back. during the Second World War, Spain was to be In between, the vast majority waited for the an exemplary nation of authoritarian rule like right window to repatriate, becoming return- Nazi Germany. According to Michael Richards, ees2. In this paper, we will address the various Franco wanted to purify his nation of unde- types of return and the corresponding strategies sirables3. To accomplish this, support of the as defined by the individuals collected in two Republic was turned into a crime, punishable datasets. by prison or death. For 30 years, the govern- ment treated and viewed anyone associated A strategy of return deals with the temporal with the republic as an enemy of the state, space before, during and after the arrival in while society at large referred to them as a Spain. They are the direct and indirect actions or “Rojo”. Furthermore, the state institutions encounters that ultimately lead to a successful used punitive policies to identify and root out return. This in turn becomes a permanent, tem- domestic enemies. This meant that for exiles porary or failed return strategy. Strategies were hoping to return, one of the fundamental strat- also dependent on the individual’s education, egy was simply not to be harm or imprisoned experience or mental state. This is to say that a by government agents. nº 15, enero-junio 2019, 20-30 · ISSN 2254-7037 Quiroga MAURICIO ESCOBAR DERAS 2 METHODOLOGY categorize individuals and their return strate- gies, and secondly, to become a sample base- 2.1. Returnee Data in Literary Studies (RD-LS) line to be compared with a second dataset, ETURN R one directed and filled in by the descendants Strategies of return for Spanish exiles were of returnees. XILE highly individualistic and varied. However, due E to the majority of them being dead, we first 2.2. Returnee Data in Social Networks (RD-SN) N A assembled a database drawing on the data of individuals already mentioned in scholarly The Returnee Data in Social Networks (RD-SN) works. The mined data created the Returnee dataset is a second database compiled on first Data in Literary Studies (RD-LS) database. Other generation individuals who returned to Spain, EPUBLIC R individuals from the Exiliad@s Project were also based on information collected via a Google Web- H 4 S added . The data fields entered were: year and form questionnaire and filled out by descendants. NI place of birth, education, marital status, profes- The data was derived through questions focusing A sion and destination of exile, as well as the year on identifying exiled individuals, their personal, and city of their return. In total, 200 individu- qualitative and chronological data, much like in HE SP als were recorded with as much quantifiable the RD-LS dataset. Following Lidia Bocanegra Bar- T information as was available. Of these, 187 were becho’s approach, the questions were organized O T first-generation exiles, 12 were second-genera- in such a way so as to trigger a linear recollection tion and one was a third-generation. Of the first and ease the post-data analysis5. Once completed, CH A generation group, there were 104 males and 83 the questionnaire was emailed in bulk to various females. Of the total, the average first genera- organization connected to “exiles” or descend- tion individual was born in 1912 and was exiled ants of Republican refugees. After a period of two 22 in 1939 at the age of 27. They would have spent months, 42 individuals were recorded, 36 first L APPRO A an average of 26 years in exile, gotten married generation and five second generation and one with children and returned in 1965 at the age of third generation. Of the first generation exiles, 54. Typically, exiles returned to Spain as a family 22 were males and 14 were females. Combined, rather than as individuals. the average first-generation returnee was exiled in 1940 at the age of 25, spent 28 years in exile A limitation to the RD-LS dataset is the fact that and returned married with kids in 1968 at the many of the individual’s data was incomplete. It age of 52. also does not include their formal educational A METHODOLOGIC level, but this is inferred by looking at their pro- The RD-SN also included questions relating to fessions or ways of earning a living. For exam- the educational level and chosen profession of ple, if an individual held a skilled profession, returnees. These represented key data points to like teacher or engineer, they were classified discern the relationship between their educa- as “advanced”. Oppositely, an unskilled job like tion level and the job opportunities they had, “day laborer” was classified as “elementary”. both in the receiving countries and upon return- If the job was unknown, the classification was ing to Spain. Moreover, we wanted to see how left empty. Likewise, politicians and artists were these categories may have influenced an indi- also not given an educational classification due vidual’s strategy and type of return. to their respective uncertainties. Generally, however, there is enough quantifiable data A limitation to this dataset is that it is entirely to address the various strategies and types of dependent on the data provided by those fill- return. The purpose of the dataset is, firstly, to ing out the questionnaire. As relatives of the nº 15, enero-junio 2019, 20-30 · ISSN 2254-7037 Quiroga MAURICIO ESCOBAR DERAS first generation, their recollections of events are RD-SN dataset. After the latter questionnaire often oral stories that have been passed down. was completed, a sample introductory letter These narratives form part of a collective fam- and request messages were written in Eng- ETURN R ily memory that was originally constructed by lish, Spanish and French. The email was sent an individual who later transmitted it to the to several Republican exile networks via their XILE descendants. “contact” section. The majority of these mes- E sages were sent to Spanish associations and N A 2.3. Online Data their corresponding social networks on Twitter and Facebook. The first email had no images Online historical data collection can be chal- attached and only included two links: the first lenging: Information is often dispersed across to the survey questionnaire and the second to EPUBLIC 7 R various obscure sites, is blocked behind pay- the larger Republican exile project, Exiliad@s . H S walls, or simply does not exist in the digital In the closing lines, there was a call to actions 6 NI domain . The creation of both the RD-LS and requesting that the message be shared with as A RD-SN datasets are ways of proving the viability many people as possible. After one month, all of learning untold historical narratives and as a responses arrived via Facebook.