Girona revisits the tenacious and persistent Francoist repression

GironaA sinister black Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five, escorted by motorcycle police, triumphantly travels along the Barcelona-Girona highway while a crowd of children in shorts enthusiastically wave small Spanish flags. The photograph, taken during the official visit of dictator Francisco Franco to Girona on May 17, 1960, has become the cover of the book. Francoism in GironaThe book, which the Girona City Council has deliberately delayed in publishing as the official book of the Sant Narcís Fairs to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the dictator's death, is authored by seven historians from Girona and includes a foreword by the mayor, Lluc Salellas. It avoids simplistic views, and some of its articles, particularly the one by Josep Clara, Girona's most renowned historian of the Franco regime, meticulously detail, with exceptional archival insights, the tenacious and persistent repression that was relentless against the vanquished.

Lluís Serrano Jiménez, professor of contemporary history at the University of Girona and coordinator of the volume, explains that one of the book's aims is to serve as an antidote to "the commercialization of the memory of the war and the Franco regime in various ways, and the notable, benevolent simplifications of the dictatorship, which spread like wildfire." among the new generationsSerrano believes that liberal democracy in the West is suffering a major crisis and "perhaps the roots of this disenchantment lie in the fact that democracy – directed by strong neoliberal logic – is incapable of providing a hopeful future for young people."

In the prologue, Lluc Salellas writes that the book aims "to look each other in the eye without fear" and to remember "dark, often gray years, of families who made fortunes while others were condemned to live outside our city to avoid torture or murder." He adds: "A situation of victors and vanquished that endured and, in some ways, still endures." The mayor also speaks of a transition guided by Francoism: "The head of state was handpicked by the dictator Francisco Franco. And we're still drinking from that well. By the jug."

The normality of trauma

Girona, as the provincial capital, was the nerve center of power for the new regime that emerged from the Civil War. It concentrated civil, military, and ecclesiastical power. According to Serrano, the participation of a segment of Catalan society in the Francoist and National Catholic dictatorship unfolded "with a normality that can be explained by the traumatic experience of the war and the repression in the Republican rearguard, the guarantee of continuity of the social order of property ownership, and certain cultural frameworks constructed through propaganda."

Josep Clara's article (incidentally, he was one of the children in shorts who were given the Spanish flag to cheer for Franco in 1960) contains previously unpublished quotes and information, such as the surprising revelation that Bishop Josep Cartanyà became a civil servant earning 0000 pesetas, while the civil governor, Josep Pagès, received 35,160 pesetas despite an additional 20,000 pesetas for representation expenses. Clara also includes a call for repression (or execution) published by the former combatant and future novelist Josep Maria Gironella in The Pyrenees"They fell, yes, the first ones on the lists, because they were criminals and they had to fall; but dozens of those registered on them strolled along the Rambla with their faces intact and bent their backs without feeling their chests pierced."

The verb 'to finish'

In his article, the historian from Girona details the complicity with Francoism of all kinds of second-rate figures who played a decisive role in the repression, personal vendettas, and the maintenance of the regime: "Francoism was not just one man: hundreds of minor figures, uniformed or not, whether they held jobs or not, whether they were civil servants or not, did the work betray, debug, stomach, condemn, censor, punish and finish the vanquished and the opponent, and also when it comes to confusing the interests of the nation with those of the dictatorship and private gain."

Historian Maximiliano Fuentes Codera, from the University of Guadalajara, in "The Ideological and Cultural Construction of the New State (and Dissent)," reviews his own Falange, the absolute control of the press, the symbolic occupation of public space, and the role of the Church as a pillar of the regime.

The perversion of the norms

Joan Vicente Rufí, a geographer at the University of Girona (UdG), addresses urban planning under Franco's regime in the section "The Rise and Fall of Greater Girona and its Consequences, 1940-1979." Vicente discusses the annexation of neighboring municipalities and "the absence, perversion, or impotence of the principles, norms, and technical procedures that the regime itself promoted." According to Vicente, the norm was "speculation, the subsidiarity of public and collective resources, segregation, illegality, and corruption," the "consequences of which are still being felt." The section on art in the book is written by art historian Narcís Selles Rigat. The author states that "Spain's coercive and repressive policies reached everywhere" and affected "all areas of life, even the most personal, such as sexuality and language, and also, of course, the field of art." Selles warns that "it is not always easy to precisely establish the boundaries between authors who consciously played the collaborationist card, whether out of conviction, opportunism, or a desire for recognition." The art of the Franco regime "was not limited to traditional manifestations," but rather made "a rather skillful use of modern art," says Selles, who concludes that "neither Francoism nor art under Francoism were static and monolithic realities."

Finally, Xavier Carmaniu Mainadé, from the Higher School of Archival Studies and Records Management at the UAB, reviews teaching during the Franco regime and the great repression suffered by the teaching staff under a very eloquent title:To form men for Spain, souls for God"

A book with tensions

The book's creation has not been without its tensions, some of which surfaced during the writing process. The mayor himself is self-critical in the prologue for the lack of female voices in the volume. The coordinator also admits, in his text, that he and other contributors had doubts about whether it might give the impression that they were "at the service of those in power," given that they were joining "a theme that could be interpreted as a passing fad." The selection of historian Maximiliano Fuentes, a Socialist councilor from Girona, as a contributor to the volume also generated friction within the City Council.