Culture of Repression
-How/why does location matter, if it matters at all?
-Resources for map are pretty limited to Catalan. Should this influence the exhibit overall?
-Images for some monument locations aren't from the best of sources. Might be lacking accurate metadata.
Nationwide, monuments throughout Spain were marketed as a tool of rememberence while also being used as a means of repressing Loyalists sentiment and promoting the state's newly desired narrative for the war. This map largely focuses on monuments from the Catalan region, and helps to both ask and answer the question of why this region in particular might have been subject to a high number of memorials.
The political climate in Catalan prior to the war was far from that Franco would find agreeable. It was a home to some communist organizations, anarchists, socialists, and those who felt the Catalan ethnic group had a right to their own state. Ideas of this nature conflicted with the more socially rigid and politically conservative nature of the regime. Catalan had also fought fiercely against the fascists during the war, and the dictatorship was all too aware that those passions and tensions waited below the surface.
By reminding those loyal to the Republic of the Nationalists victory without giving acknowledgement to the loyalist losses themselves, spirits already damaged by war could in theory be broken. The people of Catalonia had been defeated militarily. Monuments at the places of their defeat would make sure they did not forget. More importantly, monuments dedicated to the victors would ensure they did not forget who they had lost the war to.
Monuments were often devoted specifically to the dead of the Nationalist side of the war, disregarding the lives lost in defense of the Republic. By choosing to remember the events and tragedies of the war in this manner, the new fascist regime was able to exact control over the public discourse surrounding a shared piece of history. And through their actions both during and after the war, dissent proved to be dangerous. And statues of Franco himself in were meant to venerate him to a status of near-sainthood following his victory.[1]
The Nationalists were presented as a force which had "purified" Spain from a tale of corruption and degradation heaped on the shoulders of the Republic. Leftist political ideologies were vilified and calls for self-determination, such as those from the Catalans, were made a symbol of a disunity that could only do harm. Naturally, dissent from this narrative still existed. But the political climate was hostile toward it now. A person could privately disagree, but to do so publicly posed a risk to their safety.
Contrasted with this was the narrative surrounding the Nationalist forces themselves. They were presented as a having "purified" Spain of corruption and degradation, both of which were heaped on the shoulders of the Republic and those ideologies now deemed dangerous. Like everyone else in Spain, the Nationalist forces had endured sacrifices during the fighting. Monuments were meant to pay homage to these by commemorating those who were lost to the conflict. It is, however, important to note that the monuments were dedicated almost(?) strictly to the Nationalists, excluding the same sacrifices endured by the Republic. The reasoning behind this decision is probably varied. First could a desire to send a message to Republic sympathizers that their losses were not the ones that mattered now- they had lost. At the same time, they served to make the sacrifice of the fascists into something noble, fitting firmly with the "purification" myth. Finally, monuments are a public fixture. They're easily viewed by everyone who passes by them, their messages always conveyed whether a person agrees with them or not. In this sense, they serve to legitimize the power of the regime that put them up. Not only did monuments evoke the ever-present nature of the regime, but the regime's narrative as well.
