UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Recuperation of Historic Memory: Recognizing Suppressed Female Voices From the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Repression Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6zx298kf Author Saeger, J'Leen Manning Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Recuperation of Historic Memory: Recognizing Suppressed Female Voices From the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Repression A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish by J’Leen Manning Saeger December 2009 Dissertation Committee: Dr. David K. Herzberger, Chairperson Dr. James A. Parr Dr. Raymond L. Williams Copyright by J’Leen Manning Saeger 2009 The Dissertation of J’Leen Manning Saeger is approved: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements It is my distinct pleasure to thank those who made this dissertation possible. I owe my deepest gratitude to my advisor and mentor, Professor David K. Herzberger. His patience, guidance and constant support were invaluable. I sincerely thank him for never giving up on me, even when I was ready to give up on myself. My committee members also deserve recognition for their part in shaping not only my dissertation, but also my graduate experience. I thank Professor Raymond L. Williams for agreeing to be part of my committee last minute and for his insights into Latin American fiction. I am also grateful to Professor James A. Parr for his keen editorial skills and encouragement throughout my graduate studies both in Spain and in Riverside. I would also like to recognize his wife, Dr. Patricia Parr, for her support and being a stellar educator who I constantly strive to emulate. Finally, I would like to thank Teresa Moulin. UCR introduced us, but the dissertation process proved to be the mortar that will bond us forever. I am grateful to have had your friendship throughout this process. iv Dedication I would like to dedicate my dissertation to my family. I thank my parents, Jim and Kathleen Manning, for always believing in me. This dissertation is just as much theirs as it is mine. I am also grateful to my sister Lynette Lewis and her husband William for their encouragement and patience with me during the low times. I am indebted to my husband Mike Saeger, who for the past 10 years has loved me, supported me, and since I started this program, had dinner waiting for me every night at 7:30 pm. I also dedicate my dissertation to my beautiful daughter Ashlyn Michael Saeger who has made me smile every day since she was born. Though I started this program for me, I finished it for us. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Recuperation of Historic Memory: Recognizing Suppressed Female Voices From the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Repression by J’Leen Manning Saeger Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Spanish University of California, Riverside, December 2009 Dr. David K. Herzberger, Chairperson During the Spanish civil war and ensuing epoch of repression, female voices were suppressed and as a result, stripped of agency. Francoist historiographers legitimized this discrimination by excluding female perspectives of the past. Grounded in the sociology of memory and the theory of trauma, this dissertation investigates various plays, films and novels that attempt to revise Spain’s official history by engaging the past through the memory of others. In chapter one, this dissertation examines earlier attempts to fracture patriarchal thought in the play Las arrecogías del beaterio de Santa María Egipcíaca (1970) by José Martín Recuerda and the film Cría cuervos (1975) written and vi directed by Carlos Saura. Chapters two through four investigate more contemporary works. These are the novel La voz dormida (2002) by Dulce Chacón, the documentary Muerte en El Valle (2005) by C.M. Hardt, Josefina Aldecoa’s trilogy Historia de una maestra (1990), Mujeres de negro (1994), and La fuerza del destino (1997), Lidia Falcón’s 1994 play Las mujeres caminaron con el fuego del siglo and finally Guillermo Del Toro’s 2006 film El laberinto del fauno. I argue that these works exemplify intent to splinter Spanish cultural hegemony and accord historical voice to women by undermining the oppressive social, political and cultural ideologies that bind female agency. Consequently, these works produce a new space for women to occupy while at the same time create revolutionary female models. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction . .1 II. Chapter one . .21 III. Chapter two . .69 IV. Chapter three . 135 V. Chapter four . .201 VI. Conclusion . .253 VII. Endnotes . 261 VIII. Works Cited . 267 viii Introduction In Spain today, though many are reluctant to talk about the past, new generations have made a concerted effort not only to remember, but to speak out in opposition to the silence that has helped shape contemporary Spanish culture. This has come to be called the recuperation of historic memory where, according to Cristina Dupláa, “historic memory” refers to the union between a re-reading of historical facts and events from the nation’s past fifty years and the collective memory experience of those who lived them (29). According to Dupláa, there are three important movements that occurred before the year 2000 which indicate a desire to evoke and revise the history of the “vencidos” in Spain. These are the commemoration of the collaboration of the Brigadas Internacionales in 1995, the official apology made by the Catholic Church in 1998 for its silence and inaction during the Holocaust, and the Congreso de los Diputados’s condemnation of the civil war in 1999 (Memoria 69-70). Shortly after these events, in the year 2000, sociologist Emilio Silva and historian Santiago Macías created the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (ARMH) as part of the Ministerio del Interior. In their book Las fosas de Franco (2003), 1 Silva and Santiago trace Silva’s journey to find the grave of Silva’s Republican grandfather who was executed and buried in the region of El Bierzo. Silva discovered the location of the mass grave in which his grandfather was buried with twelve other militia men. Finding his grandfather prompted many others to solicit his help in locating their loved ones. The ARMH’s main objective is not only to locate the different graves of the “desaparecidos,” but also to exhume and identify their remains. According to the ARMH website, as of today over five hundred victims have been recovered (www.memoriahistórica.org). Though the ARMH is indeed a helpful resource in the recuperation of historic memory, this process is taking place in a number of other ways as well. For example, various nongovernmental agencies have been established to facilitate the process of remembering and rewriting the past. Some of the more notable include Desaparecidos de la Guerra Civil y el Exilio Republicano (DESPAGE), Archivo Guerra Civil y Exilio (AGE), La Gavilla Verde, and Asociación de Jóvenes Comarca de Jerte. One of the main tasks of these agencies is to aid families in locating the cadavers of their loved ones killed by Nationalist soldiers 2 during the war. In addition, they help to raise money for the excavations, as it is a costly process that the government has been unwilling to incur. Technology has also contributed to the effort to recover the past. As a basic internet search indicates, numerous websites have been established which assist those interested in learning more about historic memory. Most present information on upcoming events offered by the various memorialist associations as well as materials such as books and DVDs that create awareness of the past from a Republican perspective.1 Others designate a specific section of their page to help those looking for their family members who are “desaparecidos.” Many of these websites even work in conjunction with others, such as www.nodo50.org/foroporlamemoria, which includes links to yet other sites of similar interest. Television and film also have played a role in the effort to recuperate historic memory. Producers, directors, and writers of various television programs and films, such as “Cuéntame cómo pasó,” and “El espinazo del diablo” (2001), have created works that focus on efforts to explore the past while at the same time utilizing a method of communication that can reach a larger audience than 3 most. Indeed, when Iñaki Gabilondo, former host of the Spanish program “Hoy por Hoy,” requested opinions from his listeners about the recuperation of historic memory specifically by Spaniards, the response was so overwhelming that it resulted in the publication of the book Los años difíciles. El testimonio de los protagonistas anónimos de la guerra civil y la posguerra (2002). The success of the book as a bestseller suggests that much of the Spanish populace feels the need to talk about their silenced past. In literature, the novel remains the dominant form in which the exploration of the past has taken place. Juan Goytisolo and Antonio Muñoz Molina, masters at the craft of penning novels of memory, are only two of the many artists that call attention to the need to remember. Goytisolo’s Señas de identidad (1966) and Muñoz Molina’s El jinete polaco (1991) investigate Spain’s recent past in order to understand the present. The protagonists of these novels attempt to construct an identity by forcing themselves to remember the painful past which they have suppressed and thus focus on their individual histories and Spain’s collective history. Ultimately, the process of remembering in Señas de identidad is exclusionary; in other words, the protagonist only discovers where he cannot find his 4 identity, which results in his decision to abandon Spain.