Skeletons in the Closet, Skeletons in the Ground: Repression, Victimization and Humiliation in a Small Andalusian Town : the Human Consequences of the Spanish Civil War

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Apollo Books, 2012 - History - 283 pages
This book examines the human consequences (individual, social, cultural, and economic) of civil war and political repression in Castilleja del Campo, a town in southern Spain with barely more than 600 inhabitants today. The narrow geographical focus allows for a coherent chronological narrative with relevance to current public issues such as the unequal distribution of wealth, political polarisation, the violation of human rights, government surveillance of civilian populations, and extra-legal detentions, torture and executions. The declarations of eyewitnesses are complemented by personal documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, and documents from the town's municipal archive and other archives in the province of Seville. The work presents the events from the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931 onward from multiple points of view and analyses the interactions among a gallery of characters: Republican and pro-Franco mayors and councilmen; union leaders and affiliates; members of the fascist-inspired Spanish Falange; the schoolteacher; the priest; widows and orphans of the men who were shot; administrators and managers of the estates of the nobles; shaved women paraded through the streets; combatants; day labourers; civil guards; black marketeers; prisoners. Placing these characters and events in their provincial, regional, and national context, the town becomes a microcosm that reflects the experience of Spain during those traumatic years. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.
 

Contents

Two The Black Biennium
19
THREE The Popular Front
27
FOUR July 19 to July 24 1936
45
FIVE July 25 to August 27 1936
57
SIX August 28 to September 14 1936
68
SEVEN Other Castilleja del Campo Victims of
103
EIGHT Men of Castilleja del Campo Go to War
113
NINE Men of Castilleja del Campo in the War
126
TWELVE Years of Hunger and Decades of Poverty
177
THIRTEEN Repression in the Postwar
193
FOURTEEN The Endless Postwar
212
Epilogue
223
Appendixes
233
Sources of Information on the Victims
240
The Excombatants Who Were Interviewed
254
Photographs and Documents
269

TEN In the Town during the War
146
ELEVEN From Civil War to Uncivil Peace
159

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About the author (2012)

Richard Barker is Spanish Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

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