Spanish Fascist Writing

"Spanish Fascist Writing presents the first collection of Spanish fascist texts in English translation, and offers an intellectual and political history of fascist writing in Spain that resituates the country within the larger unfolding of right-wing extremism worldwide from the early twentieth century to the present. The manifestos, newspaper articles, essays, letters, and pieces of prose fiction gathered in this volume demonstrate why the Spanish case proves essential for a comprehensive understanding of fascism in general. These Spanish fascist texts also highlight the need for comparative analysis in order to better grasp the transnational character of fascism, fascism's profound roots in colonialism, its multiple temporalities, and the rise in recent years of right-wing extremism throughout the world. In short, Spanish Fascist Writing takes Spain from the margins to the forefront of fascist studies."--

Topographies of Fascism offers the first comprehensive exploration of how Spanish fascist writing – essays, speeches, articles, propaganda materials, poems, novels, and memoirs – represented and created space from the early 1920s until the late 1950s. Nil Santiáñez contends that fascism expressed its views on the state, the nation, and the society in spatial terms (for example, the state as a “building,” the nation as an “organic unity,” and society as the “people's community”), just as its adherents celebrated fascism in its architecture, public spectacles, and military rituals. While Topographies of Fascism centres on Spain, a nation that produced a large number of fascist texts focused on space, it also draws on works written by key German, Italian, and French fascist politicians and intellectuals. Ultimately, it provides an innovative model for analyzing the comparable yet often overlooked strategies of symbolic representation and production of space in fascist political and cultural discourse.

Topographies of Fascism offers the first comprehensive exploration of how Spanish fascist writing - essays, speeches, articles, propaganda materials, poems, novels, and memoirs - represented and created space from the early 1920s until the late 1950s.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) pitted conservative forces including the army, the Church, the Falange (fascist party), landowners, and industrial capitalists against the Republic, installed in 1931 and supported by intellectuals, the petite bourgeoisie, many campesinos (farm laborers), and the urban proletariat. Provoking heated passions on both sides, the Civil War soon became an international phenomenon that inspired a number of literary works reflecting the impact of the war on foreign and national writers. While the literature of the period has been the subject of scholarship, women's literary production has not been studied as a body of work in the same way that literature by men has been, and its unique features have not been examined. Addressing this lacuna in literary studies, this volume provides fresh perspectives on well-known women writers, as well as less studied ones, whose works take the Spanish Civil War as a theme. The authors represented in this collection reflect a wide range of political positions. Writers such as Maria Zambrano, Mercè Rodoreda, and Josefina Aldecoa were clearly aligned with the Republic, whereas others, including Mercedes Salisachs and Liberata Masoliver, sympathized with the Nationalists. Most, however, are situated in a more ambiguous political space, although the ethics and character portraits that emerge in their works might suggest Republican sympathies. Taken together, the essays are an important contribution to scholarship on literature inspired by this pivotal point in Spanish history.

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Literature - Basics, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: The Spanish Civil War has left deep traces on the cultural memory of the anti-fascist movement. One of the reasons is the wealth and breadth of the artistic works produced by supporters of the Spanish Republic during and after the war years. Besides contemporary photographs and films, there are thousands of journalistic and literary documents that keep alive the collective history of the violent attack launched by Franco's Nationalist Army and of the courageous defence organized by the left-wing parties and labour unions in the Republican Government. A considerable amount of these writings came from the pen of foreign authors including George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, André Malraux, and Ernest Hemingway.

In the 1930s, anarchists and socialists among Spanish immigrants living in the United States created España Libre (Free Spain) as a response to the Nationalist takeover in their homeland. Worker-oriented and avowedly antifascist, the grassroots periodical raised money for refugees and political prisoners while advancing left-wing culture and politics. España Libre proved both visionary and durable, charting an alternate path toward a modern Spain and enduring until democracy's return to the country in 1977. Montse Feu merges España Libre's story with the drama of the Spanish immigrant community's fight against fascism. The periodical emerged as part of a transnational effort to link migrants and new exiles living in the United States to antifascist networks abroad. In addition to showing how workers' culture and politics shaped their antifascism, Feu brings to light creative works that ranged from literature to satire to cartoons to theater. As España Libre opened up radical practices, it encouraged allies to reject violence in favor of social revolution's potential for joy and inclusion.

This important collection of Spanish fascist writing makes it possible for the first time to fully incorporate Spain into the global history of fascism.