Claudio Hernandez Burgos – författare

Despite over 20,000 published books on the Spanish civil war, it remains the case that the social and cultural dimensions of the conflict have been relatively under-researched. Ruptura focuses on how nationalism, and extremist conceptions and projects, defined daily life experiences in both the battlefield and civilian cities and towns. A principal objective is to demonstrate that the civil war was not a struggle waged between ideologies disconnected from the preoccupations and daily lives of the Spanish people. A tripartite division of the chapter contributions -- Construction of the war; Wartime experiences; Memory and legacies -- brings to light the climate of violence, the social and symbolic transformations resulting from political divergence, and the widespread uncertainty that shaped the behavior, attitudes, lifestyles, practices and experiences of both combatants and civilians. New theoretical approaches on so-called war studies are addressed and engaged with. Several contributions frame their analyses within the international context of radicalization and political violence of interwar Europe. However, attention to the European frame does not diminish the importance accorded throughout the volume to the events that occurred in Spain. Without an understanding of the development of extremist projects, ideologies and attitudes in their particular and international dimensions it is impossible to explain the atmosphere of severe social radicalization and the unprecedented levels of violence reached during and after the civil war. In present times, when the relationship of extremism and nationalism to civil war is once again at the heart of public discourse and a preoccupation of media and governments, an historical perspective on these questions could not be more timely or necessary. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.

Religion and politics have historically clashed in modern Spain but the complexity of the controversial and sometimes violent relationships between Catholic values and modern political regimes continue to ride a precarious line of spiritual accommodation versus public policy. Leading experts on religious Spanish tradition and recent historiographic findings set out to define and interrogate grey areas in the last two centuries beyond the reductive conventional notion of an ever-warring "Two Spains." The Soul of the Nation unravels the role of religion in the country's public life following the imperial crisis of 1808 when the Catholic Monarchy put the role of the Church at heart of political and cultural debates.

La dictadura franquista, además de consolidarse mediante un régimen de terror, lo hizo apoyándose en múltiples ritos festivos creados ''ex novo'' o imaginados como tradicionales por parte de unas comunidades que renovaban con ellos sus vínculos y memorias sociales. Este libro aborda, desde una amplia perspectiva cronológica y geográfica y con un enfoque histórico y cultural, la poliédrica relación de la dictadura franquista con las fiestas populares, como referentes políticos, sociales y culturales fundamentales para comprender el siglo XX. De esta forma, se abarca un amplio abanico de formas y expresiones que van desde las estrategias del régimen para convertir los entornos festivos en espacios de afirmación nacionalcatólica o fascistización a los comportamientos heterodoxos o contestatarios tolerados en el marco del ritual. Se analizan en profundidad fenómenos festivos como Las Fallas, los Sanfermines, la Semana Santa en Andalucía, las fiestas mayores de Cataluña, la romería de El Rocío, el folklore de la Sección Femenina, el Día de Asturias, las fiestas rurales en Mallorca o los Carnavales de Cádiz. El análisis de estas festividades y de su evolución, mediante enfoques que priorizan una mirada «desde abajo», permitirá replantear cuestiones esenciales en torno a la legitimación, el espacio público y las expresiones culturales de la dictadura franquista.