Public Humanities and The Spanish Civil War Connected and Contested Histories 1St Ed Edition Alison Ribeiro de Menezes All Chapter

Public Humanities and the Spanish Civil
War: Connected and Contested

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De Menezes
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PA L G R AV E S T U D I E S I N C U LT U R A L H E R I TA G E A N D C O N F L I C T
PUBLIC HUMANITIES AND

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
C O N N E C T E D A N D C O N T E ST E D H I STO R I E S
E d i t e d b y A l i s o n R i b e i ro d e M e n e z e s ,
Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez and Adrian Shubert
Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict
Series Editors
Ihab Saloul
University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, The Netherlands
Rob van der Laarse

University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Britt Baillie
Centre for Urban Conflicts Research
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
This book series explores the relationship between cultural heritage and
conflict. The key themes of the series are the heritage and memory of
war and conflict, contested heritage, and competing memories. The
series editors seek books that analyze the dynamics of the past from the
perspective of tangible and intangible remnants, spaces, and traces as
well as heritage appropriations and restitutions, significations, museal-
izations, and mediatizations in the present. Books in the series should
address topics such as the politics of heritage and conflict, identity and
trauma, mourning and reconciliation, nationalism and ethnicity, diaspora
and intergenerational memories, painful heritage and terrorscapes, as
well as the mediated reenactments of conflicted pasts. Dr. Ihab Saloul is
associate professor of cultural studies, founder and research vice-director
of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture
(AHM) at University of Amsterdam. Saloul’s interests include cultural
memory and identity politics, narrative theory and visual analysis, conflict
and trauma, Diaspora and migration as well as contemporary cultural
thought in the Middle East. Professor Rob van der Laarse is research
director of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material
Culture (AHM), and Westerbork Professor of Heritage of Conflict and
War at VU University Amsterdam. Van der Laarse’s research focuses on
(early) modern European elite and intellectual cultures, cultural land-
scape, heritage and identity politics, and the cultural roots and postwar
memory of the Holocaust and other forms of mass violence. Dr. Britt
Baillie is a founding member of the Centre for Urban Conflict Studies at
the University of Cambridge, and a research fellow at the University of
Pretoria. Baillie’s interests include the politicization of cultural heritage,
heritage and the city, memory and identity, religion and conflict, t heories
of destruction, heritage as commons, contested heritage, and urban
resistance.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14638
Alison Ribeiro de Menezes
Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez
Adrian Shubert
Editors
Public Humanities and

the Spanish Civil War
Connected and Contested Histories
Editors
Alison Ribeiro de Menezes Adrian Shubert
University of Warwick York University
Coventry, UK Toronto, ON, Canada
Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez
Trent University
Peterborough, ON, Canada
Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict

ISBN 978-3-319-97273-2 ISBN 978-3-319-97274-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97274-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950732
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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Acknowledgments
The editors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada for funding the conference out of which
this book arises in Barcelona in June 2016. We are likewise grateful to
Memorial Democràtic for hosting our event and welcoming us warmly.
Joan Maria Thomàs provided constant support and advice, for which
we extend our thanks. Barbara Molas kindly helped with indexing this
volume. Finally, we thank all our authors for their contributions and
support for our wider ambition of establishing a virtual museum of the
Spanish Civil War.
v
Contents
1 Public Humanities and the Spanish Civil War 1

2 Sites Without Memory and Memory Without Sites:

On the Failure of the Public History of the Spanish
Civil War 19
3 The Spanish Civil War Archive and the Construction

of Memory 45
Jesús Espinosa Romero
4 The Historical Memory Records Center: A Museum

for Memory and the Recent History of Spain 69
Manuel Melgar Camarzana
5 Museums and Material Memories of the Spanish Civil

War: An Archaeological Critique 93
Alfredo González-Ruibal
6 The Necropolitics of Spain’s Civil War Dead 115

vii
viii Contents
7 Thinking Outside the Grave: The Material Traces of

Republican Lives Before the Spanish Civil War 139
Layla Renshaw
8 Visualizing Mass Grave Recovery: Ritual, Digital

Culture and Geographic Information Systems 163
Wendy Perla Kurtz
9 Digitally Mediated Memory and the Spanish Civil War 189

Paul Spence
10 The Spanish Civil War in the Classroom: From

Absence to Didactic Potential 217
Maria Feliu-Torruella
11 Veiling and Exhuming the Past: Conflict and

Post-conflict Challenges 239
Jordi Palou-Loverdos
Final Reflections: The Way Forward 267
Index 271
Notes on Contributors
Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez is Professor of History at Trent University,

Canada. He has specialized in the Franco dictatorship, mostly on Social
and Cultural History of the period. Lately, he has also worked on
Historical Memory and Digital Humanities. Among his most relevant
works are: (ed.) Las cartas a Franco de los españoles de a pié (Barcelona,
2014); Franco: The Biography of the Myth (Oxon/New York, 2013); Fear
and Progress: Ordinary Lives in Franco’s Spain (1936–1975) (Oxford,
2009); (ed.) Condenado a muerte (1939–1941) (Valencia, 2006); and
Las políticas de la Victoria: la consolidación del Nuevo Estado Franquista,
1938–1953 (Madrid, 2000).
Maria Feliu-Torruella holds a degree in Art History from the
Autonomous University of Barcelona, and a doctorate in Social Sciences
from the University of Barcelona, where she is currently a lecturer in
Education. Her research centres on the intersections between education,
heritage and patrimony, and she is a member of the DIDPATRI research
group. She is an adviser for the Museum of the History of Cataluña.
Alfredo González-Ruibal is an archaeologist with the Institute of
Heritage Studies of the Spanish National Research Council. His research
deals with the archaeology of the contemporary past, with a particular
focus on the materiality of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dic-
tatorship. He has conducted archaeological research in trenches, bat-
tlefields, prisons, concentration camps and monuments. He is the
author of Returning to the Trenches: An Archaeology of the Spanish Civil
ix
x Notes on Contributors
War (Madrid, 2016, in Spanish), an account of the war and the early
dictatorship based on their material remains.
Wendy Perla Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from the
University of California, Los Angeles. Her research explores the per-
formative aspects of mourning practices represented in textual and visual
media pertaining to the current disinterment and reburial of mass graves
from the Franco dictatorship. Wendy also earned a graduate certificate
in the Digital Humanities from UCLA, and her research, teaching and
project work demonstrate her commitment to using digital technolo-
gies to enrich scholarship. As a Research and Instructional Technology
Consultant at the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities, Wendy has
helped design and manage digital research and pedagogy projects for
faculty and students.
Manuel Melgar Camarzana holds a degree in Geography and History
from the University of Salamanca (1989). He is a civil servant of the
Facultative Body of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists (Archives
Section) since 1997. Having served at the Military Archive of Ávila as
Technical Director, since 2010 he has worked the Historical Memory
Records Center, first as Director of the General Archive of the Spanish
Civil War and later as Director of the Center. He has also given courses
and lectures related to military archives, sources for the study of repres-
sion and Francoism, access to contemporary records and, more recently,
on archives and memory, and archives and human rights. His publica-
tions have covered contemporary records of the Military Archive of
Ávila, archives and the memory of Francoism, and the Salamanca archive
as memory resource.
Jordi Palou-Loverdos is an Associate lawyer at Il•lustres Col•legis de
l’Advocacia de Barcelona (Barcelona Bar Association) and registered at
Consejo General de la Abogacía Española (General Council of Spanish
Law Attorneys). He is accredited before the International Criminal
Court (The Hague, Netherlands), and an attorney at the International
Criminal Bar (The Hague, Netherlands). He has been Visiting Professor
at Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Center for the Study of
Genocide and Human Rights. A member of the Human Rights Institute
of the International Bar Association, he is also a founding board mem-
ber of the International Criminal Justice Commission of ICAB. He has
been awarded the Valors Prize by the Il•lustres Col•legis d’Advocats de
Notes on Contributors xi
Catalunya 2015 (Catalonia Bar Association), for his contribution to uni-

versal justice, mediation and peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Layla Renshaw is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied
and Human Sciences at Kingston University. Her research inter-
ests include the role of archaeology in post-conflict investigations, the
relationship between human remains and traumatic memory, and public
and media perceptions of forensics. She trained with the United Nation’s
International Criminal Tribunal for former-Yugoslavia, working on the
exhumation and identification of war victims in postwar Kosovo. She has
also worked in a consultative capacity for a number of UK police con-
stabularies, working on human identification. She has conducted exten-
sive research on the impact of the recent exhumations of mass graves
from the Spanish Civil War, publishing her findings in the monograph,
Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass Graves of the Spanish Civil
War. Recent research concerns the recovery and commemoration of
Australian and British World War I soldiers from Fromelles, Northern
France, concentrating on the process of human identification, genetic
testing, and the engagement of relatives in this process.
Alison Ribeiro de Menezes is founding Professor of Hispanic Studies
at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on cultural memory
in Spain, Portugal and Southern Cone Latin America. Previous books
include Juan Goytisolo: The Author as Dissident (Tamesis, 2005), A
Companion to Carmen Martín Gatie (with Catherine O’Leary, Tamesis,
2008), and Embodying Memory in Contemporary Spain (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014). She has been awarded research funding by the Irish
Research Council, the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and
the European Union.
Jesús Espinosa Romero has a degree in Modern History (UAM)
and an M.B.A. in Cultural Management (USAL). An archivist, he has
worked in various Spanish state institutions as well as on digital projects
such as PARES and APE. He was Director of the Archivo de la Guerra
Civil Española from 2013 to 2017, and is now Deputy Director of the
Archivo General de la Administración. His research has focused on the
history of Madrid and recently the role of the archives during Francoism
and the beginning of democracy in Spain, as well as on archives as instru-
ments to create public memory.
xii Notes on Contributors
Adrian Shubert is University Professor of History at York University.

His books include A Social History of Modern Spain, Death and Money
in the Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight, and Espartero, el
Pacificador, a biography of the Spanish military and political figure
Baldomero Espartero (1793–1879). He is a recipient of a Guggenheim
Fellowship and a Killam Research Fellowship, and his work has been
recognized by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
and his decoration by King Juan Carlos of Spain with the Order of Civil
Merit.
Paul Spence is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Digital
Humanities, Kings College, London. His research has covered four
areas: digital textual scholarship, digital publishing, digital humanities
pedagogy and global perspectives on digitally mediated knowledge pro-
duction. He has led and managed digital humanities research on a num-
ber of major interdisciplinary projects, with funding from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, AHRC, JISC, Leverhulme Trust and various
European funding agencies. He is part of a multi-institutional team that
was awarded £3 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in
2016 for the four-year ‘Language Acts and Worldmaking’ project, which
examines ‘how learning a language affords greater cultural understanding
of the world through the multilingual and multicultural lens of Iberian
languages, empires and contact zones’.
Acronyms
ADIF Administración de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Railway

Infrastructure Administration)
AFARE Comisión Administradora de los Fondos para el Auxilio de los
Republicanos Españoles (Administrative Committee of the Spanish
Republican Relief Fund)
AGA Archivo General de la Administración or Central Administration
Archive
AGMA Archivo General Militar Avila (General Military Archive in Ávila)
AHN Archivo Histórico Nacional (National Historical Archive)
ARMH Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica
(Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory)
CDMH Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory
Records Center)
CIFE Centro de Investigación y Formación Feminista (The Centre for
Feminist Research and Training)
COMEBE Consorci Memorial dels Espais de la Batalla de l’Ebre (The
Memorial Consortium of the Spaces of the Battle of the Ebro)
DERD Delegación Del Estado Para La Recuperación de Documentos
(State Delegation for the Recovery of Records)
DGS Dirección General de Seguridad (Directorate-General of Security)
DNSD Delegación Nacional de Servicios Documentales Spanish (National
Delegation of Documentary Services)
EHRI European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
EPL Ejército Popular de Liberación (Popular Liberation Army)
EPR Eglise Presbytérienne au Rwanda (Presbyterian Church in
Rwanda)
ETA Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
xiii
xiv Acronyms
FARC Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary

Armed Forces of Colombia)
FEDIP Federación Española de Deportados e Internados Políticos (The
Spanish Federation of Deportees and Political Internees)
FET-JONS La Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva
Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS)
FPR/EPR Front Patriotique Rwandais (Rwandan Patriotic Front)
GIS Geographic Information Systems
ICC International Criminal Court Statute
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia
JARE Junta de Auxilio de los Republicanos Españoles (Spanish
Republican Aid Board)
LERU League of European Research Universities
MIT Ministerio de Información y Turismo (Ministry of Information and
Tourism)
NPR National Parks Service
OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights
OIPA Oficina de Información y Propaganda Anticomunista (Anti-
communist Information and Propaganda Office)
PARES Portal de Archivos Españoles (The Spanish Archives Portal)
PNV Partido Nacionalist Vasco (Basque Nationalist Party)
PSOE Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’
Party)
REF (UK) Research Excellence Framework
RPA Rwandan Patriotic Army
SIPM Servicio de Información y Policía Militar (Military Police and
Information Service)
TNA UK National Archives
UC-ELN Unión Camiliast—Ejército de Liberación Nacional (Camilista
Union—National Liberation Army)
UN United Nations
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Ruins of Belchite (photograph the author) 10

Fig. 1.2 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author) 12
Fig. 1.3 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author) 13
Fig. 1.4 Ruins of Rodén with viaduct, seen from the site
of the Bronze-Age settlement (photograph the author) 14
Fig. 1.5 Fuendetodos with unfinished modern construction
of the Museum of Contemporary Engraving
to the right (photograph the author) 15
Fig. 5.1 Abandoned monument in Franco’s headquarters
in Coll del Moro. These unprepossessing monuments built
during the dictatorship are typical of Spanish battlefields 98
Fig. 5.2 Objects without provenance from the Museum of Gandesa 101
Fig. 5.3 The professionally-designed museum of Elgeta 103
Fig. 5.4 Museum of Abánades 104
Fig. 5.5 Everyday objects from the trenches, with no indication of
provenance or side to which they belonged at the private
collection “La Trinxera” in Corbera d’Ebre 107
Fig. 5.6 One of the pillboxes recently restored by the autonomous
government of Madrid in the so-called “Water Front”
(because it surrounded the reservoirs that supplied the capital) 111
Fig. 8.1 “Mapa de fosas,” Gobierno de España, Ministerio de Justicia 178
Fig. 8.2 “Fosses i Repressió,” Generalitat de Catalunya 180
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 8.3 “Visor de fosas de Navarra,” Gobierno de Navarra 181

Fig. 8.4 “Las víctimas en fosas del franquismo,” El Diario.es 181
Fig. 8.5 Virtual Cartographies, Wendy Perla Kurtz: www.virtualcartog-
raphies.com 183
Fig. 11.1 Transitional Justice Processes 242
CHAPTER 1
Public Humanities and the

Spanish Civil War
Reaching Out
For some years now, researchers in the United Kingdom have had to
consider ways of bringing their scholarship to a wider audience than the
narrow world of academia.1 A concern for what is termed public engage-
ment (or impact in the idiosyncratic, distorted and distorting formu-
lation of the Research Excellence Framework) is not, however, unique
to the UK. Elsewhere, an interest in public humanities and public his-
tory represents a similar shift toward a belief that the academy can and
should contribute to the cultural and intellectual life of the communities
in which it is located and/or about which it writes. This is often allied
to economic justifications of value or arguments around transparency in
1 Much ink has been spilled on this topic, but see, for example, Helen Small, The Value of
the Humanities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Jonathan Bate, The Public Value
of the Humanities (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011).
A. Ribeiro de Menezes (*)

University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
© The Author(s) 2018 1

A. Ribeiro de Menezes et al. (eds.), Public Humanities and the
Spanish Civil War, Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97274-9_1
2 A. RIBEIRO de MENEZES
public spending.2 If there is, at times, a certain defensiveness in argu-

ments that stress the public value of the humanities, there is also a con-
structive dimension to those that seek to expose the consequences of
devaluing the contribution of the humanities, particularly in contexts
where complex social and ethical issues are not easily resolved. As Peter
Brooks argues in his exploration of the perceived crisis of the humanities
in Anglo-American higher education, the crisis may truly lie elsewhere,
in the marginalization of humanistic thought and analysis.3 Nevertheless,
Judith Butler has pointed out that it is difficult not to respond to cri-
tiques of the irrelevance of the humanities with arguments that rely upon
the same instrumentalist approach that is used to denigrate their contri-
bution. She asks pointedly if instrumentality is the only way we have of
thinking about what it means to make a difference.4
A further problem lies in the fact that defenses of the humanities may
appeal to their supposed ethical contribution, which is not always easy
to identify or demonstrate. Characterizing humanities approaches as eth-
ical practices—that is, practices of reading, interpretation, and engage-
ment with the other—is Brooks’ answer.5 And yet this raises further
concerns. If the act of teaching and discussing is taken to be a ventril-
oquizing of the other’s voice and position, as he suggests, then this act
may involve not only the potential usurping of the voice of the other,
but at the very least its refraction through the voice and vision of the
teacher-as-ventriloquist. The researcher and teacher are both interpreters,
and as such cannot be entirely neutral; here, ventriloquism is not mere
transfer as if through a loudspeaker, but involves the reshaping of mate-
rial via its communication to another in a particular context, and per-
haps influenced by a particular academic hierarchy or power relationship.
This is not to say that intellectual endeavor is inherently and only ide-
ological; but it is to note that the positionality of the researcher affects
the engagement with his or her material, and hence its presentation to
students or readers. Indeed, if one were to follow the logic of impact
2 Martha Nussbaum, Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (New Haven,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 17.

3 Peter Brooks, “Introduction,” in his edited volume, The Humanities and Public Life
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 2.

4 Judith Butler, “Ordinary, Incredulous” in Brooks, The Humanities and Public Life,
15–38 (29).
5 Brooks, “Introduction,” 11.
1 PUBLIC HUMANITIES AND THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR 3
as outlined in the UK REF context, researcher positionality and perhaps

even potential bias is one problematic dimension. The extent to which
research impact, according to this agenda, truly engages with the sub-
jects that it aims to have an impact upon (not to mention those—the
likely the subjects of the original study—about whom impact outcomes
are gathered and conveyed), rather than using them as instruments in
Butler’s sense, ought to be a focus of ethical discussion and not just
measurement strategies.6
In my experience, researchers engaged in impact as part of the UK
REF exercise do not generally resort to strategies to engineer results,
and genuinely believe in the value of establishing a dialogue with a wider
audience than a purely academic one. One might prefer to call this pub-
lic engagement, understood as an unquantified, softer version of impact.
Furthermore, researchers’ intellectual contribution may well challenge
current practice, in which case the policy impact of their research is not
only hard to quantify but harder to achieve in the first place. Something
of the same muddiness that occurs when intellectual endeavor encoun-
ters various readerships and publics lies behind Ralph J. Hexter’s dis-
cussion, from the perspective of the university administrator, of the
difficulties of what he calls corporate reading, in which a collaborative
and consultative approach to the formulation of institutional or cor-
porate policy may lead, unwittingly, to the distortion and concealment
of partisan or ethical positions.7 There is no more space in UK impact
case study narratives for ethical self-reflection than there is in institu-
tional policy statements. But what ought to be at stake, I would argue,
is not so much the value of the humanities as their contribution—both
as disciplines and as ways of engaging in intellectual endeavor—to cur-
rent and future societal and cultural scenarios. This at least has the merit
of evading consequentialist forms of justification.8 A focus on the process
6 Elenore Belfiore notes this in “‘Impact’, ‘Value’ and ‘Bad Economics’: Making Sense
of the Problem of Value in the Arts and Humanities,” Arts & Humanities in Higher
Education 14, no. 1 (2015), 95–110 (99).
7 Ralph J. Hexter, “Conquering the Obstacles to Kingdom and Fate: The Ethics of
Reading and the University Administrator” in Brooks, The Humanities and Public Life,
83–91 (87).
8 Small, The Value of the Humanities, 6. As Gabriel Moshenska points out with regard
to “public archeology,” the public dimension rarely in fact originates with the public; see
“Contested Pasts and Community Archeologies: Public Engagement in the Archeology of
Modern Conflict,” in Europe’s Deadly Century: Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Conflict
of contributing highlights a relationship of engagement and exchange

rather than the fabrication of an instrumentally measurable end product.
Without wishing to promote mysticism as a means of evading solid anal-
ysis, my position is perhaps akin to Paul W. Kahn’s when he outlines the
contribution of the humanities as follows:
The making of an interpretation—which can only be answered by another

interpretation, in a potentially endless conversation—needs to be judged
not only on its product but on how it is carried out. A belief in human
dignity must be based not in sympathy for the suffering of others but in
the shared mystery of human creativity.9
By bringing issues of dignity and of a shared creativity into the discus-

sion, Kahn removes the one-way framing of impact (which measures
effects upon certain individuals or groups), as well as the economic dis-
course underpinning value, while retaining a sense that both researcher
and subject may be transformed by an exchange that should be con-
ducted respectfully and reciprocally, with self-awareness of what is at
stake in the encounter.
The pressure to engage wider publics with academic research and
intellectual debate is not, of course, necessarily detrimental to the
humanities. David Cooper notes that the effect of the heavily introverted
theorizing of the late twentieth century within cultural studies was to
seal off the discipline from outside engagement:
New culture critics can brilliantly deconstruct politics and power out
of just about every text and every “artifact” of “cultural production.”
Meanwhile they have very little to communicate to the larger public.10
This marooning of academic insight and critical intellect in a doldrums,

worlds apart from the agitations of democratic culture and the felt public
Heritage, ed. Robin Page, Neil Forbes, and Guillermo Pérez (Swindon: English Heritage,
2009), 73–79 (73).
9 Paul W. Kahn, “On Humanities and Human Rights” in Brooks, The Humanities and
Public Life, 116–22 (116).

10 David Cooper, Learning in the Plural: Essays on the Humanities and Public Life (East
Lancing, MI: Michigan State University, 2014), 159.

sphere, is productive neither for the humanities nor for civil society.11
I say this in full acknowledgment that how we might define and shape
such terms as humanities, public sphere and civil society, as well as pos-
sible contributions to a public good, is far from universally agreed.
Nevertheless, that does not disqualify humanities scholars from address-
ing particular problems, especially if self-reflexiveness around researcher
positionality is brought to bear on the discussion. Standardly, academic
research appeals to objectivity, though not always in full recognition that
this is, as Thomas Nagel puts it, a method of understanding and thus
a means by which the researcher positions him or herself in relation to
the subject or field examined.12 This would seem to fly in the face of the
decades of postmodern skepticism in which I and my generation of cul-
tural studies scholars were trained; and yet, Nagel is right to argue that
radical skepticism does not vitiate the pursuit of objectivity when this is
understood as a method with advantages and limitations.13 Indeed, both
González-Ruibal and Spence argue, in their chapters in this book, for
the need for contextualized understandings of the past in the physical
display and digital dissemination of Civil War artifacts, documents, and
materials.
Engaging Constructively
How, then, might one begin to think through the contribution of the
Humanities with regard to contentious and contested issues about which
there is little agreement, and which are therefore approached in subjec-
tive ways? The Spanish Civil War is an excellent example with which to
consider the contribution of the humanities, and particularly his-
tory, to civic debate, as Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez and Adrian Shubert
argue in Chapter 2 below. The role of historians in uncovering silenced
aspects of Spain’s past has been complemented recently by a plethora of
cultural interventions, and perhaps most movingly of all, a heightened
11 Cooper, Learning in the Plural, 156.

12 Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 4.
One might also include here the work of Karan Barad, although she somewhat overesti-
mates the longevity of the linguistic turn, which had already been left behind in cultural
studies by the turn of the millennium. See her “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an
Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter,” Signs, 28, no. 3 (2003), 802–31.
13 Nagel, The View from Nowhere, 7.
focus on archeological work, particularly forensic archaeology. In Spain

at present, the materiality of the country’s contentious past is very much
to the fore with mass grave excavations and exhumations that have
brought society into direct contact with the physical legacies of historical
violence, as Layla Renshaw notes in her chapter. At the same time, para-
doxically, these physical traces have served to signal enormous lacunae in
Spain’s historical memory rather than to provide definitive knowledge of
that past. In a sense, the void of the missing body has come to represent
also a void in knowledge and understanding. We rightly hold enormous
reverence for the material traces of the past, not least when they involve
human remains. We also revere documents, objects, and other material
traces of the past to an extent that we perhaps less readily acknowledge.
Nevertheless, in Spain, even archives are contentious, as two contribu-
tions to this volume make clear: Jesús Espinosa Romero’s history of the
Civil War Archive in Salamanca, and Manuel Melgar Camarzana’s analy-
sis of its current structure and displays.
There is, as Emily Robinson has noted, a deeply affective side to
historical work,14 and yet historians are sometimes reluctant to turn
attention to their own relationship to the past in the way that cultural
scholars have begun to do.15 Historical research is emotive and tactile;
the researcher experiences not simply the Benjaminian aura of the doc-
ument as rescued and preserved object, but the tactile nature of engage-
ment with that object as a talisman in the present. Hence Robinson
rightly asks, what is the role of touching and feeling in the pursuit of
knowing?16 This is particularly important not simply for the more tra-
ditional figure of the historian rummaging in the archive that Robinson
discusses, but in light of the cultural turn to affect in the context of the
increased commodification of history as heritage. History is, as Jerome
de Groot argues, a socially constructed and consumed entity.17 And
museums are perhaps a bellwether of shifting perceptions of the role of
history in society, making their focus on visitor experience, interactivity,
14 Emily Robinson, “Touching the Void: Affective History and the Impossible,”
Rethinking History 14, no. 4 (2010), 503–20 (504).

15 An excellent example is Rebecca Schneider’s, Performing Remains: Art and War in
Times of Theatrical Reenactment (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).

16 Robinson, “Touching the Void,” 508.
17 Jerome de Groot, Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary
Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 5.
and edutainment all the more significant in the present context.18 Not
all aspects of this shift can be equated with an increased focus on con-
sumerism. Some of the late twentieth-century shift in museology derives
from museums’ increased awareness of the ideological underpinnings of
older models, allied to a reflexive interest in the processes of curating and
displaying, and a generalized objective of greater enfranchisement of the
visitor.19
It is perhaps too easy to fall back on the observation that this risks
sentimentalizing the visitor.20 As Laurajane Smith and Gary Campbell
note, the idea of a “duped” public, consuming a sanitized and consen-
sual national narrative via heritage and museum visiting, underwrote
and continues to frame approaches to emotion in heritage and museum
studies.21 And yet, in the context of the Spanish Civil War, the intersec-
tion between affective responses and contested claims cannot be eas-
ily dismissed. Appeals to empathy as a means to trigger a response that
engages the imagination in such a way that visitors start to question
what they know and understand is as open to misunderstandings and
manipulations as an unreflective impact project or Hexter’s corporate
document.22 It is perhaps the difficulty of sentiment allied to a lack of
objectivity—in Nagel’s sense of a discipline-based, justified method—that
leads to the uneasy relationship between heritage and potentially partisan
readings of the past in Spain, a concern that Alfredo González-Ruibal
raises in Chapter 4 of this book. The question is all the more pertinent
if we consider that heritage, monuments and museums often reveal what
González-Ruibal calls the bright side of history: monuments, works of
art and places of heroic deeds.23 These can be recalibrated if located in
the wider landscapes of conflict and topographies of terror to which they
18 De Groot, Consuming History, 290.

19 De Groot, Consuming History, 293.
20 Tony Bennett, “Museums and the People,” in The Museum Time-Machine: Putting
Cultures on Display, ed. Robert Lumley (London: Routledge, 1988), 63–86 (63).
21 Laurajane Smith, and Gary Campbell, “The Elephant in the Room: Heritage, Affect,
and Emotion,” in A Companion to Heritage Studies, ed. William Logan, Máiréad Nic
Craith, and Ullrich Kocktel (Chichester: Wiley, 2016), 443–60 (447).
22 Smith, and Campbell, “The Elephant in the Room,” 450.
23 Alfredo González-Ruibal, “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage? The
Monuments of Franco’s Spain,” in Page, Forbes and Pérez, Europe’s Deadly Century,
65–72 (66).
relate. González-Ruibal proposes exactly this for the Valle de los Caídos,
by analyzing it in juxtaposition with nearby civil war trenches and forced
labor camps. He had proposed a similar plan for the now demolished
Carabanchel Prison, through its connection to local battlefields and sites
of Francoist repression, in both cases with the aim of producing a criti-
cal democratic memory of Spain’s recent past.24 Layla Renshaw extends
these insights in the present volume with a call for an extended archae-
ology that will account for Republican lives before the Civil War rather
than remaining fixated on mass graves and their exhumation. Renshaw’s
wider perspective reminds us that historical memories are narratives, and
that the construction of new memory horizons can lead to unexpected
and inadvertent silences. This is a point that I also stress in my own
chapter on the shifting necropolitics that have framed collective memo-
ries of Spain’s Civil War dead.
A vigilant and contextualized reading of historical sites has much to
teach us not only about biased versions of the past and dominant his-
torical narratives, but also about our relationship to the past and our
approach to memory in the present. Martin Brown refers to this as
strange meetings in his study of archaeology of the Western Front in
World War I. The landscape that Brown studies represents, variously: a
former battlefield, with its craters and trenches; a site of victory, with its
monuments and memorials; a source of livelihood for farmers who work
the soil; and potential development land, as the controversy of a motor-
way extension in Belgium has shown.25 Gabriel Moshenska labels sites of
this nature “memory arenas,”26 and there are, of course, a multitude in
Spain. Belchite, in Aragón, is one such resonant landscape in which the
24 González-Ruibal, “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage?” 70–71. The use of
forced labor to construct the Valle de los Caídos is discussed in Isaías Lafuente Esclavos
por la patria: La explotación de los presos en el franquismo (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2002);
Daniel Sueiro, El Valle de los Caídos: Los secretos de la cripta franquista (Madrid: La Esfera
de los Libros, 2006), but the camps themselves remain unexcavated.
25 Martin Brown, “Strange Meetings: Archeology on the Western Front,” in Page,
Forbes and Pérez, Europe’s Deadly Century, 59–64 (60).

26 Moshenska, “Contested Pasts and Community Archeologies,” 77. See also Laura
MacAtackney, “The Contemporary Politics of Landscape at the Long Kesh/Maze Prison

Site, Northern Ireland,” in Envisioning Landscape: Situations and Standpoints in Archeology
and Heritage, ed. Dan Hicks, Laura MacAtackney, and Graham Fairclough (Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press, 2007), 30–54.
entanglements of various historical epochs, political upheavals, and the

warp and weave of changing daily life and historical memory are evident.
Changing Narratives and Technological Interventions

Belchite is a small town to the south of Zaragoza, Aragon, with arche-
ological remains dating from the Roman period and what were once
splendid mudéjar constructions. These include the church of San Martín
de Tours, which dates from the fifteenth century and saw later modifi-
cations in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Torre del
Reloj, constructed in the sixteenth century. Nearby is the Santuario de
Nuestra Señora del Pueyo, with a mudéjar tower built on the remains
of a thirteenth-century church.27 Nevertheless, Belchite—or rather, old
Belchite—is best known as a ruin from the Civil War era, standing beside
a new town constructed in the postwar period. Belchite, along with its
wider environs, the Campo de Belchite, is thus a significant arena of
memory, and one that was interpreted as such both during and after the
Civil War.
Belchite was conquered twice during the War, falling to Republicans
in 1937 and being retaken by Nationalists in 1938. That first conquest
was part of an offensive by the Popular Army in August 1937 to distract
Nationalist forces in the north of Spain by pushing toward Zaragoza.
The Popular Army failed to take the provincial capital, but it did seize
Belchite after a ferocious fourteen-day battle that included house-to-
house and hand-to-hand fighting.28 In March 1938, the Nationalists
would regain control of the town, with a promise from Franco that on
these ruins of Belchite a beautiful new town would be built in homage to
her unequaled heroism.29 Belchite was raised to the status of myth, and
the ruins came to symbolize Republican destruction and Nationalist her-
oism. This narrative, of course, disguised the reality of the war and post-
war in the region: the waves of repression that Belchite suffered at the
27 The old town has been recognized as a Bien de Interés Cultural; for a lengthy discus-
sion of the fate of Belchite after the war, see Stéphane Michonneau, Fue ayer: Belchite, un
pueblo frente a la cuestión del pasado (Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza,
2017).
28 Harry Fisher, Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War (Lincoln and
London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 78.

29 Quoted in Michonneau, Fue ayer, 89.
Fig. 1.1 Ruins of Belchite (photograph the author)
hands of both sides during the conflict, the effects of migration and exile,
forced labor by Republican prisoners, and rural depopulation and the
impact of economic autarky.30
One of a small number of instances of glorious war ruins, along with
the Alcázar of Toldedo, the Cerro de los Ángeles and Corbera d’Ebre,
which Alfredo González-Ruibal mentions in his chapter, old Belchite
(Fig. 1.1) stood metonymically for the Regime’s heroic, vengeful mem-
ory of the war. The resistance of 1937 was compared by Nationalist
propaganda to the siege of the Alcázar of Toledo,31 and the town
acquired the name, Belchite de Franco, in 1939.32 Yet Belchite was not
30 Michonneau, Fue ayer, Chapter 2; Hugh Smith, “Seventy Years of Waiting: A Turning
Point for Interpreting the Spanish Civil War?” in Battlefield Tourism: History, Place and
Interpretation, ed. Chris Ryan (Oxford: Elsevier, 2007), 99–110 (102); Alfredo González-
Ruibal, Volver a las trincheras: Una arqueología de la guerra civil española (Madrid: Alianza,
2016), 118–37.
31 Michonneau, Fue ayer, 42.

reconstructed, as Toldeo was, nor were its ruins properly preserved. It

was left to crumble while a new town, which illustrated the Regime’s
supposedly modernizing social vision, was built and inaugurated to great
fanfare in 1954. The tension between the old and new in Belchite exem-
plifies what Stéphane Michonneau aptly calls the discordant historici-
ties of this arena of memory.33 The two Belchites together stood for a
before and an after, tradition and its destruction; the implicit comparison
between them also suggested the promise of a New Spain rising from the
nearby ruins of war. Or so the Regime had it.
The heroic Nationalist resistance of 1937 was compared in Nationalist
propaganda not only to the epic siege of the Alcázar of Toldeo, but to
the pre-Christian legend of Numancia as well as to Iberian popular resist-
ance to Napoleon during the War of Independence. The town was thus
placed within a tradition of heroic defense against a foreign invader.34
Belchite was indeed the scene of a fierce battle in June 1809, and the
name of the town is inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The
town’s association with the War of Independence chimed well with
Nationalist interpretations of the Civil War as a battle against an alien
Spain, a line reinforced by the presence of International Brigades among
the Republican forces who laid siege to Belchite in 1937. However, a
second historical parallel was established by the nature of the ruins them-
selves. Comprising a significant mudéjar heritage, they conveyed a sense
of the layers of history, with the glorious victory of the Civil War pro-
jected against a ghostly, skeletal reminder of the Reconquest, an earlier
moment of national salvation according to Nationalist ideology. But if
the mudéjar heritage suggests the incorporation of Moorish cultural
influence, the Franco Regime did not intend any such sociopolitical or
cultural bridge-building, and the parallel only runs so far. Indeed, it is
perhaps the tragic limitations of cultural inclusiveness and of a sense of
a cumulative heritage that old Belchite most evokes today. If I tell the
story of Belchite, then, it is because the uses to which its history have
been put are a reminder of the seminal role of perspective in the con-
struction of historical narratives, and the strategic use that is made of
memory discourses in different contexts.

Fig. 1.2 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author)
New Belchite is perhaps more striking in this regard. While the ruins
of the old town are a current focus of archeological work and tenta-
tive heritage preservation,35 the physical fabric of the new town reflects
recent shifts in Spain’s memory of the Civil War. Visiting Belchite in
September 2015, I accidentally became lost in the small streets of the
new town during a local festival. Resorting to my hire car’s naviga-
tion system, I discovered that it still used Franco-era street names.
Technology confronted me unexpectedly with the layers of history:
not Calle Portal de la Villa but Calle de la Victoria; not Calle
Constitución Española de 1978 but, according to my SatNav, Calle 18
de julio (Figs. 1.2 and 1.3). As I looked more closely, I could see that
some of the traditional azulejo tiles used to indicate street names were
more recent than others, testifying to recent memory campaigns and
efforts to remove remnants of the Francoist memorialization of Spanish
history from the architectural fabric of Spain.
35 Michonneau discusses this in detail in Fue ayer, Chapter 7.

Fig. 1.3 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author)
Technology’s intersection with memory leads in other unexpected

directions. Not far from Belchite lies another ruined settlement, the tiny
hamlet of Rodén. With traces of habitation dating back to the Bronze
Age, Rodén was also destroyed during the Civil War. The majority of
its inhabitants fled to surrounding villages or to Zaragoza, with some
returning later to inhabit the remains of the village. And as with Belchite,
a new town was eventually built nearby, though without fanfare. Only
in April 2017 was Rodén accorded listed status in an effort to preserve
what remains of its mudéjar tower, and also to develop tourism. Rodén
thus reminds us of our role as visitors in creating heritage against the rav-
ages of time. And gazing across the Ebro Valley from the promontory on
which the old town of Rodén perches, one cannot but be struck by the
impressive viaduct carrying the high-speed train line between Madrid and
Barcelona, a reminder to the visitor of a very different type of moderniza-
tion to that of the Francoist new towns of the postwar era (Fig. 1.4).
To the north-west lies the village of Fuendetodos, birthplace of the
painter Goya and home to a contemporary structural ruin, the unfinished
Fig. 1.4 Ruins of Rodén with viaduct, seen from the site of the Bronze-Age
settlement (photograph the author)
Museum of Contemporary Engraving (Fig. 1.5).36 Begun in 2009, work

on the museum was halted in 2014 due to a lack of funds. It stands as
a reminder not only of the long-term effects of the 2008 economic cri-
sis, but of the overambitious cultural heritage plans that many regions
of Spain indulged in before the credit crunch halted this tourist invest-
ment. We thus come full circle, adding another layer to the questions of
memory, memorialization and heritage in the Campo de Belchite area,
namely the dangers of the commercialization of memory.37 Spanish anx-
iety about the extent to which memory “sells,” and can be used merely
36 P. Zapater, “Las obras del nuevo Museo del Grabado de Fuendetodos siguen paral-
izadas desde 2014,” Heraldo, 27 May 2016; Álvaro Sierra, “El museo de Goya, donde las
grietas dibujan un cuadro de despilfarro,” El Español, 22 January 2017.
37 I am grateful to the University of Warwick Humanities Research Fund for supporting
my field research in the Belchite area and to Alfredo González-Ruibal for allowing me to
observe his team excavating in the area.
Fig. 1.5 Fuendetodos with unfinished modern construction of the Museum of

Contemporary Engraving to the right (photograph the author)
for profit motives, is an issue that I have addressed elsewhere.38 So while

certain approaches to the past require caution, relevant here is also the
potential of technology to open up new vistas for the development of
public humanities.
Toward the Future?

Technology, particularly in the digital area, has much to offer historical
research and memory work. Wendy Perla Kurtz explores intersections
between the digital and the performative in the context of exhuma-
tions, as well as the creation of virtual communities and the creation
and dissemination of new historical memories through social and other
38 Alison Ribeiro de Menezes, and Stewart King, “Introduction: The Future of Memory
in Spain,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 94, no. 8 (2017), 793–99; also my article, “Memory
as Disruption: Entanglements of Memory and Crisis in Contemporary Spain,” in the same
issue, 883–901.
digital media. Such channels pose perhaps the greatest challenge to tra-
ditional forms of history and heritage curation, since the management
of data and its presentation can become new forms of the dangers of
decontextualization or miscontextualization that González-Ruibal has
stressed in his work. But they can also enhance knowledge creation and
dissemination, as Kurtz’s own initiatives demonstrate. Paul Spence, in
his contribution to this volume, likewise tackles the digital as a means
of mediating. Again, layerings emerge, as each new wave of digital and
technological possibilities changes both the virtual and the physical
memory arenas, and thus fundamentally alters the architecture of his-
torical knowledge production. What is important is less the fact of this
alteration than our awareness of it as an ongoing process that affects
both academic work and public engagement, with this latter conceived
as a dialogue and not a one-way transmission of information. A further
dilemma derives from the fact that memory intersects not only with the
past and the present, but also the future. Hence, the preservation and
sustainability of digital data is fundamental if the digital is indeed to offer
new ways of conceptualizing historical controversies through pluralist
platforms that permit a productive dissensus.
Education is, of course, also vital in this context. If Spain has, as Maria
Feliu-Torruella argues, a historical void in the classroom, she also con-
fronts a civic and legal void that Jordi Palou-Loverdos addresses com-
paratively through the lens of transitional justice. Spain, ironically, is too
often seen as exceptional or different; twentieth-century European his-
tory has tended to focus on the stories of two hot wars and a cold war,
and European memory studies have concentrated on the Holocaust. But
the lessons of Spanish history, and the shifting configurations of Spanish
historical memories over the past eight decades, contain important les-
sons not only about scholarly approaches to constructing the past, but
also about the curation and transmission of that knowledge, and its role
in the collective conceptualization of new futures. Public humanities are
a vital point of intersection between scholarly research and a wider civic
engagement that aims to promote critical reflection on the processes of
coming to know, to do, and to live together, as Feliu-Torruella puts it.
And a reflexive approach to public humanities demonstrates a scholarly
commitment to exploring disciplinary norms and to pushing beyond
established boundaries. This volume aims to chart some of the new
directions that such work might take with regard to the Spanish Civil
War.
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CHAPTER 2
Sites Without Memory and Memory

Without Sites: On the Failure of the Public
History of the Spanish Civil War
After Memory
The debate over remembering and forgetting the Spanish Civil War
began in the academic realm with the publication of Paloma Aguilar
Fernández’s magnificent book, Memoria y olvido de la Guerra Civil
española, in 1996.1 At the time nobody had any real idea of its signif-
icance and it would be a number of years before Historical Memory
became a fashionable topic. Two decades later, her conclusion that the
democracy created after the death of Francisco Franco was based on a
1 Paloma Aguilar Fernández, Memoria y olvido de la Guerra Civil española (Madrid:

Alianza, 1996); English-language edition, Memory and Amnesia: The Role of the Spanish
Civil War in the Transition to Democracy, trans. Mark Oakley (New York: Berghan, 2002).
A. Cazorla-Sánchez (*)
Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada
A. Shubert
York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
© The Author(s) 2018 19

A. Ribeiro de Menezes et al. (eds.), Public Humanities and the
Spanish Civil War, Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97274-9_2
20 A. CAZORLA-SÁNCHEZ AND A. SHUBERT
“pact of forgetting” about the Civil War continues to be a contested

idea, to the point that—to Aguilar’s regret—for some scholars and
politicians it has become more an opportunity to insult the transition
to democracy—and to attack fellow academics who do not share their
views—than to engage in the serious intellectual debate that she invited.
For her own part, Aguilar has recently qualified some of the opinions set
out in the book.2
The early years of the twenty-first century have been a golden age
for Historical Memory in many parts of the world, and certainly in the
West. This trend seemed to apply to Spain up to 2011.3 However, for
Spanish historiography, in the debate over memory, the term itself was
too often used without clear definition and was confused with others
such as collective memory, or even with more straightforward traditional
genres such as personal testimony and historical narrative.4 As a result,
2 Paloma Aguilar, and Francisco Ferrándiz, “Memoria, Media and Spectacle: Interviú’s
Portrayal of Civil War Exhumations in the Early Years of Spanish Democracy,” Journal of
Spanish Cultural Studies 17, no. 1 (2016), 1–25.
3 Santos Juliá, Víctimas de la guerra civil (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1999); Memoria
de la guerra y del franquismo (Madrid: Taurus, 2006); Michael Richards, “From War
Culture to Civil Society: Francoism, Social Change and Memories of the Spanish Civil
War,” History and Memory 14 (2002), 93–120; Paloma Aguilar, and Carsten Humlebæk,
“Collective Memory and National Identity in the Spanish Democracy: The Legacies of
Francoism and the Civil War,” History and Memory 14 (2002), 121–64; Angela Cenarro,
“Memory beyond the Public Sphere: The Francoist Repression Remembered in Aragon,”
History and Memory 14 (2002), 166–88; Sebastiaan Faber, “Entre el respeto y la crítica:
Reflexiones sobre la memoria histórica en España,” Migraciones y Exilios 5 (2004), 37–50;
Francisco Ferrandiz, “The Return of Civil War Ghosts: The Ethnography of Exhumations
in Contemporary Spain,” Anthropology Today (June 2006), 7–12; “Exhumaciones y políti-
cas de la memoria en la España contemporánea,” Hispania Nova (2007), http://hispani-
anova.rediris.es/7/dossier/07d003.pdf; Pedro Ruiz Torres, “Los discursos de la memoria
histórica en España,” Hispania Nova (2007), http://hispanianova.rediris.es/7/dossi-
er/07d001.pdf; Jo Labanyi, “The Politics of Memory in Contemporary Spain,” Journal of
Spanish Cultural Studies 9, no. 2 (2008), 157–75; José M. González, “Spanish Literature
and the Recovery of Historical Memory,” European Review 17, no. 1 (2009), 177–85; Jo
Labanyi, “The Languages of Silence: Historical Memory, Generational Transmission and
Witnessing in Contemporary Spain,” Journal of Romance Studies 3 (2009), 23–35; Ricard
Vinyes, ed. El Estado y la memoria: Gobiernos y ciudadanos frente a los traumas de la historia
(Barcelona: RBA Libros, 2009); Carlos Jerez-Farran, and Samuel Amago, eds., Unearthing
Franco’s Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain (Notre Dame:
Notre Dame University Press, 2010).
4 For a critique of the confusion around the term memory, see Noa Gedi, and Yigal
Elam, “Collective Memory—What Is It?” History and Memory 8, no. 1 (1996), 30–50.
2 SITES WITHOUT MEMORY AND MEMORY WITHOUT SITES … 21
everything from serious historical studies to the most uninformed opin-

ion, and everything in between, could suddenly become not only mem-
ory but rather Historical Memory, with capital letters. In any case, one
topic stood at the center of the controversy: the repression and mass
graves in which the remains of Republicans murdered by the Francoists
lie. Bodies as the focus also generated a debate over, first, who should
pay to recover this memory and, second, who should administer it (see
Chapter 6 by Ribeiro de Menezes). We are not going to rehearse here
what was said in those years, much of which was deplorable.5 On the
one hand, there were the insults hurled at the families of the victims,
and even at the victims themselves, and on the other, the baseless accu-
sations that historians, corrupted by the so-called Regime of 1978, had
neglected to study the repression until the self-proclaimed prophets of
memory arrived to bring it to our attention. And if in the past barbarians
burned books, those years also saw them use the media, books included,
to broadcast outrageous comments using demagogic language.
As if the situation were not confusing enough, the electoral victory
of the conservative Popular Party in 2011 brought an official amnesia
that affected memory in a premeditated and measurable way. Mariano
Rajoy, the new President of the Government, or Prime Minister, did not
abolish the existing laws on the subject, not even the “Law on Historical
Memory” passed by the previous Socialist government in 2007.6 Instead,
he simply defunded it and ignored the topic as if it did not exist, leav-
ing his subordinates in the party, in parliament, and even in the gov-
ernment with the job of explaining this policy. Worse still, instead of
explanations, some of those speakers engaged in verbal abuse against
the Government’s critics and even victims’ relatives.7 The effect of the
severe economic crisis that wracked Spain starting in 2008 did the rest.
Today few people talk about memory. At one time the press published
5 For a fine summary, see Paloma Aguilar, and Clara Ramírez-Barat, “Reparations
without Truth or Justice in the Spanish Case,” in Transitional Justice after War and
Dictatorship: Learning from European Experiences (1945–2013), ed. Nico Wouters
(Antwerp and Oxford: Intersentia, 2014, 199–252).
6 The full name is the “Ley por la que se reconocen y amplían derechos y se establecen
medidas en favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia durante la guerra civil y la

dictadura.”
7 For example, in December 2014, Rafael Hernando, the Popular Party’s main spokes-
person in the Congress and party whip, said on television that the victims’ relatives “only
remember [victims] when there are subsidies to be had.” El Mundo, 23 December 2014.
numerous news and articles and carried on extensive and bitter debates
on the matter. Now there are only occasional items on an individual mass
grave or the damage done to one monument or another. While there is
still some news, public debate has all but disappeared. The movement
to recover memory has not died, but it has fallen well down the list of
things that concern most Spaniards. At the time, one of us argued that
memory in Spain—and elsewhere—was, in part at least, something of a
consumer good nourished by good economic times. It appears as if sub-
sequent developments have borne out that opinion.8
Fortunately, the wave of memory has not swept the beach clean in
the way some conservative sectors would have liked. It is very difficult to
gauge what and how much has remained in the minds—should we say
Historical Memory?—of Spaniards, but it is clear, to give the outstanding
example, that one cannot ignore that the remains of tens of thousands of
the disappeared from the Civil War are still unrecovered, that we know
where many of them are located, and that there is a strong social con-
sensus that they should be given a dignified burial. It is also obvious that
the absurdity touted by the dictatorship that the Valley of the Fallen,
which was built between 1940 and 1959, represents the collective pain
of all Spaniards, is entirely false. Franco built this monument for himself
and for the dead from his side. Only a few Republicans were interred
there at the last moment and almost all of them without their families’
permission. Spanish society, now democratic and free of the lies of the
Franco Regime, has assumed the revelation of the bodies of the victims
as a moral imperative.
Spain is not unique in this. Over the last few decades the suffer-
ing of victims has become a central theme in many countries, and not
solely due to the emergence of the Holocaust as the central historical
fact of the twentieth century or the affirmation of what we have called
the humanist paradigm.9 Put another way, the relation between Spanish
society and the violence of the past, and especially the victimization of
one part of the population during the Civil War and the dictatorship, is
8 Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez, “Revisiting the Legacy of the Spanish Civil War,”
International Journal of Iberian Studies 21, no. 3 (2008), 231–46.

9 For an introduction to what it meant to be a victim of the Holocaust before and after
this became a widely acceptable narrative, see Peter Lagrou, “Victims of Genocide and
National Memory: Belgium, France and the Netherlands, 1945–1965,” Past and Present
54 (1997), 181–222.
now defined similarly to that relationship in other countries and forms

part of a transnational phenomenon in which respect for human rights
is the centerpiece (see Chapter 11 by Jordi Palou-Loverdos).10 This is
bad news for those who, from a conservative perspective, want to anaes-
thetize the past, but also for those who, from very different ideological
positions, still believe that Spanish democracy is nothing short of a sham.
What had been gained in terms of memory might have become
blurred since 2011 but, fortunately, it has not disappeared entirely. Now
the problem is what Spaniards should do with the knowledge and the
awareness they have acquired. The situation is complex, and there are
three reasons for this. First, Spain continues to have too many sites with-
out memory of its recent violent past. Second, there are also too many
memories which have no place in which to be firmly grounded and use-
fully transmitted to society. These lead to the third factor: the weakness
of Public History in Spain.
Sites Without Memory and Memory Without Sites

Let us start with an example, one of the many described so powerfully
by Alfredo González-Ruibal in his book Volver a las trincheras. It is
about a place and a horrifying set of events that he calls “the murder
of the innocents.”11 The place has the beautiful name of Valdediós—the
Valley of God—and is famous for its Romanesque church, but some-
thing horrible happened there in the autumn of 1937. Shortly after the
Mountain Batallion of Arapiles, a unit of the Francoist army composed
of troops from Navarre, occupied the area, some of the soldiers forced
the nurses from the local psychiatric hospital to take part in what was
supposedly a party. They were raped and then, after having being made
to dig their own graves in the nearby woods, they were killed. The unit’s
chaplain did nothing more than to give the victims absolution. In 2003,
10 Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez, “From Anti-Fascism to Humanism: The Spanish Civil War
as a Crisis of Memory,” in Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War: Realm
of Oblivion, ed. Aurora G. Morcillo (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), 21–50; Francisco
Ferrándiz, and Antonius C.G.M. Robben, eds., Necropolitics: Mass Graves and Exhumations
in the Age of Human Rights (Phildelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015);
Francisco Ferrándiz, El pasado bajo tierra: Exhumaciones contemporáneas de la guerra civil
(Madrid: Anthropos, 2014).
11 Alfredo González-Ruibal, Volver a las trincheras: Una arqueología de la Guerra Civil
española (Madrid: Alianza, 2016), 142–44.

an archaeological dig found a ditch containing seventeen skeletons.

González-Ruibal ends his account this way:
the Arapiles battalion is still a part of the Army of Spain. There was an
exhibition about the unit in Pamplona in 2014 in which the atrocities it
committed during the war were not mentioned. The Delegate of the gov-
ernment said only that “in 250 years of history all the world goes through
different phases, some better than others.”12
There are many Valdedioses in Spain, places where what happened is for-
gotten, or even denied (see Chapter 8 by Perla Kurtz). In these places,
memory and knowledge—now that almost all the witnesses are dead,
mostly of old age—fail to meet. In such cases, educators, and historians
in particular, as citizens of a democratic society, have the moral obliga-
tion to discover the truth and publicize it. And they have this obligation
despite, or even because of, those who advocate forgetting for the sake of
a false pardon, which is nothing other than the one Franco already gave
us. Those who lived under the Franco dictatorship could not be expected
to do this, but for those who live in a free society, this is an imperative
born from both traditional religious values, such as honoring the dead
and telling the truth, and from modern, humanist-based values of treat-
ing the lives, and therefore the deaths, of everyone as equal.
In recent years—or should we say until a few years ago?—there
were numerous efforts to bridge this gap between sites and memory.
The overall result, however, has been disappointing (as Layla Renshaw
argues in Chapter 7, the lack of official memory is even more glaring
for Republican, non-Civil War-related sites). Commemorative plaques
have been installed; dozens of mass graves and thousands of corpses
have been identified; and small museums and interpretative centers have
been created. But what ought to be the mission of the state—central,
autonomous or both—and of civil society which was first reduced and
then almost eliminated by the reversal of 2011? Those who should be
promoting knowledge have favored silence, or at most the occasional
jibe, but it must be made absolutely clear that this approach is not in
line with the values of the immense majority of Spanish society. A study
of public opinion carried out 2008 showed that 83 percent of Spaniards
12 González-Ruibal, Volver a las trincheras, 144.

agreed that all victims of the Civil War should be recognized equally.13 In
a democracy this level of consensus constitutes near unanimity and makes
it hard to believe the sincerity of those who say that memory will tear the
scabs off wounds that have healed. This pathetic argument contradicts
what Spanish society is more than ready to accept, because Spanish soci-
ety now looks at the horrors of the past in much the same way and with
very similar expectations as the rest of the Western world. The difference
lies not in what society is prepared to demand and accept but rather in
what one of the two traditional governing parties, the Popular Party, is
prepared to ignore.
One can easily create a long list of examples of this divorce between
places of memory and social values, but the clearest example of this
divorce, be it active or passive, is the Valley of the Fallen. Unlike the
mute and hidden horror of Valdediós, this place calls attention to itself
and speaks loudly. The problem is that it tells an incomplete, twisted,
falsified, and tendentious story. In other words, the Valley of the Fallen
is what Primo Levi would call a fossilized lie. Located just a few kilo-
metres from Phillip II’s monastery-palace of El Escorial, by means of the
smallest details of its location and architecture, it uses the language of
Christian charity to proclaim a cynical vision of the meaning of the Civil
War intended to hold the collective pain of the Spanish people hostage
to the goals of the Franco dictatorship. In the almost forty years since
the restoration of democracy in Spain much could have been done to
refute this pervasive lie, but successive governments have not acted. As
late as February 2017, Spain’s Supreme Court refused a request by the
renowned former judge, Baltasar Garzón, to order both the exhumation
of Franco’s body and the conversion of the Valley into a place of “demo-
cratic memory.”14 The government has also ignored a similar resolution
by the Spanish parliament regarding Franco’s body in May 2017. This
inaction by the government led to a new round of public debate about
what to do with the Valley.15 In sum, the state, the supposed guarantor
13 Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, Estudio 2760 (Abril 2008), Memoria de la
Guerra Civil y el franquismo (Madrid: CIS, 2008).

14 Reyes Rincón, El Supremo rechaza la petición de Garzón sobre el Valle de los Caídos,”
El País, 1 March 2017, http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2017/02/28/actualidad/

1488272286_301542.html.
15 “El Congreso aprueba sacar los restos de Franco del Valle de los Caídos,” Huffington
Post, 11 May 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2017/05/11/el-congreso-insta-al-

gobierno-a-exhumar-el-cuerpo-de-franco-del_a_22081257/.
of the Constitution of 1978 and therefore of the principles of human

rights which inform it, has done nothing beyond softening the monu-
ment’s bloody lie. Here is what the website of Patrimonio Nacional, the
public organization which has responsibility for the Valley of the Fallen,
says of its history:
This monumental complex was designed by Pedro Muguruza and Diego

Méndez and built in the years following the Civil War. The granite cross in
the middle of the great pine forest on the rocks of Cuelgamuros near San
Lorenzo de El Escorial is its most visible feature. The cross is adorned with
sculptures by Juan de Ávalos.
The Basilica is carved out of the rock. The mosaic on the dome that
covers the transept of the Basilica is the work of Santiago Padrós. The
Benedictine abbey is located behind the Basilica, in a wide esplanade.
The Basilica is the resting place of 33,847 people killed during the Civil
War. General Franco, Head of State between 1939 and 1975, is also bur-
ied there.
The Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen was cre-
ated by the Decree Law of 23 August 1957 and is overseen by the Board
of Directors of the Patrimonio Nacional. This will change when the meas-
ures set out in Law 23/1982, which regulates the Patrimonio Nacional,
come into force.
Both measures anticipate that the Government will revise the legal sta-
tus of this Foundation.
As the administrator of this Foundation, the Board of Directors of the
Patrimonio Nacional is responsible for the maintenance, preservation and
management of public visits to the site.16
Even the data in this statement is factually wrong and implicitly pro-
Franco: nobody really knows exactly how many people are buried in
the Valley’s crypt because the process of collecting human remains was
chaotic and heavy-handed. In any case, what would we say about a Nazi
concentration camp, maintained with public money, if the only infor-
mation we were given was about the architecture or the engineers who
designed it? What if the information displayed accepted without com-
ment explanations given by the Nazis at the time of construction and
described Adolf Hitler as “Head of State between 1934 and 1945”?
How would we describe this supposed detachment? Would it be unjust
16 “Benedictine Abbey of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen,” Patrimonio
Nacional, http://www.patrimonionacional.es/real-sitio/monasterios/6258.
to call it a whitewash, a justification clearly complicit with the Nazi dic-

tatorship and its crimes? This is why we believe that while the Valley of
the Fallen, the most emblematic site of the Civil War and of Francoism,
remains unconnected with knowledge, memory, and the contemporary
values of Spanish society, the black hole at the center of Spaniards’ rela-
tionship to the horrors of the past will persist. Scholars can continue to
produce mountains of studies about the Civil War and the dictatorship,
but the evident lie of the Valley of the Fallen will, from its highly visible
perch, continue to undermine Spain’s humanist society and its educators,
and erode the realization of what almost all citizens desire.
Smaller versions of the shadow of the Valley of the Fallen fall on many,
perhaps hundreds, of places across the country that the Francoists con-
demned to a false forgetting. This shadow obscures the past and pre-
vents these places from being connected to memory, and in doing so it
trivializes the former and helps dissolve the latter. It would be a sinis-
ter paradox if the memory that, held silently in the minds of the wit-
nesses, resisting the official lies of Francoist propaganda for forty years,
but recently recovered and given voice by the work of historians, ended
up reduced to a narrative that is once more buried—this time in libraries.
The joke is even more macabre since we live in times when the image
prevails over the word, and especially the written one. In other words,
we are still fighting the battle for the recovery of Historical Memory
when we should be creating a history that can be communicated to the
public and can also attract them to memory and an understanding of the
past. The time lost since 2011 is piling up.
One might say that all this amnesia, ridicule, cynicism, guilty com-
plicity, and so on is nothing new and that the unpaid bill dates back
to 1978, when Spain should have come to terms with its past in a very
different way. After all, is this not how other European societies settled
accounts with their own fascist pasts? Actually it is not, and there is an
abundant literature on the torturous and far from glorious history of
European memory.17 Moreover, people who say this are also overlooking
the immediate challenges Spaniards faced during the transition, includ-
ing the awareness of the past which was dominant in the national and
17 Since France has always been the reference point and goal of our Iberian Jacobins, the
interested reader will find no better place to start than Henri Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome:
History and Memory in France since 1944 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1991).
international contexts until the 1990s. To explain briefly: at that time,

the violence of the Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship were ana-
lyzed through the lens of social needs and social demands, which were
very different from those of today. It was barely two decades ago that
Spaniards regarded as dangerous such issues as building a democratic
and federal state, with the accompanying threat of a military coup and
the daily violence of terrorism, especially from ETA. Finally, there was
a seemingly eternal economic crisis accompanied by massive unemploy-
ment. And it is no coincidence that when economic crisis returned in
2008 it had devastating consequences for the question of memory.
These were real and present problems, unlike the Civil War, which
was equally real but in the past. In addition, there was the very differ-
ent dominant worldview that was set by the parameters of the Cold War.
This view often produced an analysis of history that valued ideological
affinities more than human rights, certainly much more than is the case
today. This ideological vision of the world produced many cases of dou-
ble standards. For example, the Spanish Left cried over the crimes com-
mitted by General Pinochet after 1973, and rightly so, but why did it
take so long for it to begin to criticize the dictatorship of Fidel Castro?
And who today remembers the widespread, albeit at times justified, cyn-
icism when President Jimmy Carter elaborated his doctrine of human
rights as the guide to US foreign policy? Finally, as we mentioned ear-
lier, it was only about twenty-five years ago that the humanist paradigm,
with its emphasis on remembering victims and providing legal and/or
symbolic reparations, became dominant in Western societies. To demand
that the Spain of 1978 have acted as we would have liked, in accord with
the values and needs of the twenty-first century, is a historical anachro-
nism. But it is also more than that: it is to judge the Spaniards of that
time, starting with politicians and historians, unfairly.
Whether historians, the state, and civil society have served the needs
of Spaniards as well as they might have is a completely different question.
We are not referring here to a transcendent or existential need but much
more prosaically to the task of promoting and looking after the desires
of Spaniards to learn and to consume history. Here the question is less
about the message which, since the restoration of democracy, has never
strayed far from the rest of Western society but rather to the format, its
execution, and, finally, the imagination and ambitions of we who pro-
duce the discipline of History. Our question is whether historians and
other public actors have served the public as well and as extensively as in
some other Western countries. The answer is no, but not a categorical
no. However, the question itself implies that what has been done else-
where is uniformly and by definition better and more imaginative than
what has been done in Spain, and while this is sometimes the case, it is
often not.
The History Which is Read, Taught, and Seen—or Not

Before returning to the Valley of the Fallen, which is the most flagrant
example of what has not been done (by the state), let us consider what
we historians have done. The answer is simple: quite a lot. In addition
to teaching what we know in classes and lectures, we have written much
on the political violence of the 1930s. This is the historian’s traditional
job, but the stark absence of any extra-academic dimension is problem-
atic. Spanish historians are like their German colleagues, and to a cer-
tain extent their French and Italian ones, in their inability to write for a
broader public. In this, they are very different from their colleagues in
the United States and the United Kingdom. Their work is, in the best
cases, directed at other academics, or simply at building up their curric-
ulum vitae. As a result, historians of the Civil War and Francoism find it
difficult to understand and meet the needs of what the British call the
educated reading public. The field they have left open has been filled by
a few foreign “hispanists,” and, more significantly—and more danger-
ously—by a number of pseudohistorians who have devoted themselves
to countering the work of serious historians by producing, in the worst
cases, neo-Francoist narratives which recycle crude arguments used by
the dictatorship in simplistic language. However, their books do have at
least one redeeming characteristic: they know what their potential read-
ers want and they deliver it.18
By limiting themselves and their work to the purely academic realm,
serious historians have helped create a vacuum of knowledge in Spanish
society which other forms of transmitting historical knowledge have not
filled. We are referring here to two above all: the teaching of History
18 Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez, “Las Historias que no escribimos: Una reflexión,” in El
Franquismo desde los márgenes, ed. Oscar Rodríguez Barreira (Lleida: Universitat de Lleida
and Universidad de Almería, 2013), 45–56.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
sinun kanssasi. Hän on viekastelija, hänellä ei ole hävyn tunnetta, ei,
sinä et saa mennä hänen luokseen, et saa!
— Eikä se ole hyväkään, isä, se ei ole ollenkaan hyvä.
— Minne hän sinut lähetti äsken, kun huusi: »Mene», silloin kun
hän juoksi pois?
— Hän lähetti Katerina Ivanovnan luo.
— Rahoja hakemaan? Pyytääkö hän rahoja?
— Ei, ei rahoja hakemaan.
— Hänellä ei ole rahaa, ei hituistakaan. Kuule, Aljoša, minä

makaan yön ja mietin, mutta mene sinä pois. Kenties tapaat
Grušenjkankin… Mutta tule aivan varmasti luokseni huomisaamuna,
aivan varmasti. Minulla on sinulle huomenna sana sanottavana.
Tuletko?
— Tulen.
— Jos tulet, niin ole tulevinasi omia aikojasi, tervehtimään vain.

Älä sano kenellekään, että minä kutsuin. Ivanille älä puhu
sanaakaan.
— Hyvä.
— Hyvästi, enkeli, äsken sinä puolustit minua, en unhota sitä

ikänäni.
Huomenna sanon sinulle sanasen… mutta täytyy vielä vähän
tuumia…
— Entä kuinka te nyt voitte?

— Huomenna, huomenna jo nousen ja lähden, aivan terveenä,
aivan terveenä, aivan terveenä!…
Kulkiessaan pihalla Aljoša tapasi veljensä Ivanin istumassa

penkillä portin luona. Ivan kirjoitteli jotakin muistikirjaansa
lyijykynällä. Aljoša ilmoitti Ivanille, että ukko oli hereillä ja tajuissaan
ja oli päästänyt hänet yöksi luostariin.
— Aljoša, minä tahtoisin hyvin mielelläni tavata sinua

huomisaamuna, — sanoi Ivan ystävällisesti ja nousi seisomaan. —
Tämä kohteliaisuus oli Aljošalle aivan odottamatonta.
— Huomenna minä olen Hohlakovien luona, — vastasi Aljoša. —

Kenties käyn huomenna myös Katerina Ivanovnan luona, jos en
tapaa häntä nyt…
— Nyt siis kuitenkin menet Katerina Ivanovnan luo? »Sanomaan

jäähyväisiä?» — hymähti Ivan. Aljoša joutui hämilleen.
— Luulen ymmärtäneeni kaikki äskeisistä huudahduksista ja yhtä

ja toista aikaisemmin sattuneista. Dmitri varmaankin pyysi sinua
käymään hänen luonaan ja ilmoittamaan, että hän… no… no,
sanalla sanoen »sanomaan jäähyväiset»?
— Veli! Miten kaikki tämä kauheus päättyy isän ja Dmitrin kesken?

— huudahti Aljoša.
— Vaikeata arvata varmasti. Kenties ei mitenkään: asia raukeaa.

Se nainen on peto. Joka tapauksessa on ukkoa pidätettävä kotona ja
Dmitri estettävä pääsemästä taloon.
— Veli, salli vielä kysyä: onko todellakin jokaisella ihmisellä oikeus

päättää toisiin ihmisiin nähden, kuka heistä on sen arvoinen, että saa
elää, ja kuka ei enää ole sen arvoinen?
— Miksi tähän pitää sekoittaa ratkaiseminen sen mukaan, onko

arvoinen? Tämä kysymys useimmiten ratkaistaan ihmisten
sydämissä ei sen mukaan, minkä arvoinen on, vaan aivan toisten,
paljon luonnollisempien syiden mukaan. Mitä taas oikeuteen tulee,
niin kenellä ei olisi oikeutta toivoa?
— Eihän kuitenkaan toisen kuolemaa?
— Vaikkapa kuolemaakin! Miksi pitäisi valehdella itselleen, kun

kaikki ihmiset elävät sillä tavoin eivätkä kenties voikaan muuten elää.
Sinä puhut tätä äskeisten sanojeni johdosta, että »toinen iljettävä
olento syö toisen»? Salli minunkin näin ollen kysyä sinulta: luuletko
minunkin samoinkuin Dmitrin voivan vuodattaa Aisopoksen verta,
toisin sanoen tappaa hänet, mitä?
— Mitä puhutkaan, Ivan! Ei koskaan ole tuommoista tullut

mieleenikään!
Enkä luule Dmitrinkään voivan…
— Kiitos edes siitä, — naurahti Ivan. — Tiedä, että minä aina

puolustan häntä väkivallalta. Mutta toivomuksilleni tässä
tapauksessa minä jätän vapaan vallan. Näkemiin huomiseen asti.
Älä tuomitse, äläkä pidä minua konnana, — lisäsi hän hymyillen.
He puristivat toistensa kättä paljon voimakkaammin kuin koskaan

ennen. Aljoša tunsi, että veli itse oli astunut ensimmäisen askelen
lähemmäksi häntä ja että hän oli tehnyt sen jotakin varten,
ehdottomasti jossakin tarkoituksessa.
10.
Molemmat yhdessä
Aljoša lähti isän kodista mieleltään vielä paljon lannistuneempana

ja järkytetympänä kuin oli äsken sinne tullut. Myöskin hänen
ajatuksensa olivat aivan kuin katkelmina ja sekaisin, samalla kuin
hän tunsi, että häntä peloitti yhdistää hajalleen menneitä ajatuksiaan
ja muodostaa kokonaiskuva kaikista piinallisista ristiriidoista, jotka
hän tänä päivänä oli kokenut. Tämä lähenteli melkein epätoivoa, jota
ei koskaan ennen ollut Aljošan sydämessä ollut. Kaiken yli kohosi
kuin vuori tuo kohtalokas ja ratkaisematon pääkysymys: miten
päättyy isän ja veli Dmitrin suhde tuon kauhean naisen edessä? Nyt
hän oli saanut omin silmin nähdä. Hän oli ollut läsnä ja nähnyt heidät
vastatusten. Muuten onnettomaksi, täydelleen ja hirveästi
onnettomaksi saattoi osoittautua ainoastaan veli Dmitri: häntä odotti
ehdottomasti turmio. Oli muitakin ihmisiä, joita tämä kaikki koski
kenties paljon enemmän kuin Aljoša ennen oli saattanut luullakaan.
Tässä oli jotakin arvoituksellista. Veli Ivan oli lähestynyt häntä, mitä
Aljoša niin kauan jo olikin toivonut, mutta nyt hänellä itsellään
jostakin syystä oli se tunne, että tuo lähestyminen oli häntä
pelästyttänyt. Entä nuo naiset? Omituista: äsken hän oli ollut
menossa Katerina Ivanovnan luo tuntien tavatonta mielenahdistusta,
mutta nyt hän ei tuntenut sitä ollenkaan. Päinvastoin hän kiiruhti
hänen luokseen aivan kuin odottaisi saavansa häneltä neuvoja.
Mutta toimitettavaksi annetun asian suorittaminen näytti kuitenkin nyt
vaikeammalta kuin äsken: kolmeatuhatta koskeva asia oli lopullisesti
ratkaistu, ja veli Dmitri tunsi nyt olevansa kunniaton mies ja vailla
kaikkea toivoa sekä oli nyt valmis millaiseen lankeemukseen
tahansa. Lisäksi vielä hän oli käskenyt kertoa Katerina Ivanovnalle
myös äsken isän luona sattuneen kohtauksen.
Kello oli jo seitsemän, ja hämärä oli alkanut, kun Aljoša astui

sisälle Katerina Ivanovnan luo, joka asui hyvin tilavassa ja
mukavassa talossa Ison kadun varrella. Aljoša tiesi hänen asuvan
yhdessä kahden tätinsä kanssa. Toinen näistä oli muuten vain hänen
sisarensa Agafja Ivanovnan täti. Tämä oli hänen isänsä kodissa se
harvasanainen henkilö, joka oli hoidellut häntä siellä samoinkuin
hänen sisarensakin, kun hän oli saapunut heidän luokseen sinne
instituutista. Toinen täti taasen oli arvokas ja hienokäytöksinen
moskovalainen rouva, vaikka köyhä. Kerrottiin näiden kummankin
noudattavan kaikessa Katerina Ivanovnan tahtoa ja asuvan hänen
luonaan ainoastaan etiketin vuoksi. Katerina Ivanovna taas alistui
ainoastaan hyväntekijättärensä tahtoon, kenraalinrouvan, joka
sairauden vuoksi oli jäänyt Moskovaan ja jolle hänen
velvollisuutensa oli lähettää joka viikko kaksi kirjettä ja kertoa
seikkaperäisesti itsestään.
Kun Aljoša astui eteiseen ja pyysi palvelustyttöä, joka oli avannut

hänelle oven, ilmoittamaan hänen tulonsa, niin salissa nähtävästi jo
tiedettiin hänen saapumisensa (kenties hänet oli nähty ikkunasta),
sillä Aljoša kuuli äkkiä jotakin kopinaa, kuului pois juoksevien naisten
askelia ja hameitten kahinaa, kenties kaksi tai kolme naista juoksi
pois huoneesta. Aljošasta oli kummallista, että hänen tulonsa oli
voinut synnyttää sellaisen touhun. Hänet vietiin kuitenkin heti saliin.
Se oli iso huone, joka oli kalustettu hienosti ja upeasti, ei ollenkaan
maaseutulaistapaan. Siinä oli monta sohvaa ja leposohvaa,
divaaneja, isoja ja pieniä pöytiä, oli tauluja seinillä, maljakoita ja
lamppuja pöydillä, oli paljon kukkia, olipa ikkunan luona myös
akvariumi. Hämärän tulo oli tehnyt huoneen pimeänpuoleiseksi.
Aljoša huomasi sohvalla, jolla ilmeisesti äsken oli istuttu, siihen
heitetyn silkkivaipan ja sohvan edessä olevalla pöydällä kaksi
kesken jäänyttä kuppia suklaata, leivoksia, kristallilautasen, jolla oli
rusinoita, ja toisen, jolla oli makeisia. Jotakuta oli kestitty. Aljoša
arvasi tulleensa vieraitten siellä ollessa ja rypisti kulmiaan. Mutta
samassa nostettiin oviverhoa ja sisälle astui nopein askelin Katerina
Ivanovna hymyillen iloisesti ja ihastuneena sekä ojentaen molemmat
kätensä Aljošalle. Palvelustyttö toi samalla hetkellä huoneeseen
kaksi sytytettyä kynttilää ja asetti ne pöydälle.
— Jumalan kiitos, siinä te vihdoin olette! Olen koko päivän rukoillut

Jumalalta vain teidän tuloanne! Istukaa.
Katerina Ivanovnan kauneus oli hämmästyttänyt Aljošaa jo

aikaisemmin, kun veli Dmitri kolmisen viikkoa sitten oli tuonut hänet
ensimmäisen kerran tähän taloon esitelläkseen ja tutustuttaakseen
hänet Katerina Ivanovnan omasta erikoisesta toivomuksesta. Sillä
käynnillä ei muuten ollut syntynyt keskustelua heidän välillään.
Otaksuen Aljošan kovin ujostelevan oli Katerina Ivanovna ikäänkuin
säästänyt häntä ja puhellut sillä kertaa kaiken aikaa Dmitri
Fjodorovitšin kanssa. Aljoša oli ollut vaiti, mutta tehnyt paljon sangen
tarkkoja havaintoja. Häntä oli hämmästyttänyt kopean tytön varma
käytös ja ylpeä luontevuus. Eikä Aljoša ollut erehtynyt, vaan hän oli
tuntenut, ettei hän ollut noita ominaisuuksia liioitellut. Aljoša
huomasi, että tytön suuret, mustat, palavat silmät olivat kauniit ja
sopivat erittäin hyvin hänen kalpeihin, melkeinpä hieman kellertäviin,
soikeihin kasvoihinsa. Mutta näissä silmissä samoinkuin ihanien
huulten piirteissä oli jotakin sellaista, johon hänen veljensä tietysti
saattoi olla kauhean rakastunut, mutta jota kenties ei voinut kauan
rakastaa. Hän oli melkein suoraan lausunut ajatuksensa veljelleen
Dmitrille, kun tämä käynnin jälkeen oli ahdistanut häntä hartaalla
pyynnöllä, että hän ei salaisi, millaisen vaikutelman hän oli saanut
tämän morsiamesta.
— Sinä tulet hänen kanssaan onnelliseksi, mutta kenties… et

rauhallisesti onnelliseksi.
— Niinpä niin, veljeni, tuollaiset pysyvätkin tuommoisina, he eivät

nöyrry kohtalon edessä. Sinä luulet siis, että minä en rakasta häntä
ikuisesti?
— Ei, kenties sinä rakastat häntä ikäsi, mutta saattaa olla, että
sinä et aina ole hänen kanssaan onnellinen…
Aljoša oli silloin lausunut mielipiteensä punastuen ja

harmistuneena itseensä siitä, että oli taipunut veljensä pyyntöihin ja
lausunut julki moisia »tyhmiä» ajatuksia. Hänestä oli näet oma
mielipiteensä tuntunut hirveän tyhmältä, heti kun hän sen oli
lausunut. Häntä oli myös alkanut hävettää, että hän oli niin
mahtipontisesti lausunut mielipiteensä naisesta. Sitä suurempi oli
hänen hämmästyksensä nyt, kun hän heti katsahdettuaan häntä
vastaan juosseeseen Katerina Ivanovnaan tunsi, että hän silloin
kenties oli suuresti erehtynyt. Tällä kertaa Katerina Ivanovnan
kasvoista loisti teeskentelemätön ja avomielinen hyvyys, suora ja
innokas vilpittömyys. Kaikesta entisestä »ylpeydestä ja kopeudesta»,
joka silloin oli niin suuressa määrin hämmästyttänyt Aljošaa, oli nyt
havaittavissa vain rohkea, jalo tarmokkuus ja jonkinmoinen selvä,
voimakas itseluottamus. Aljoša ymmärsi heti häneen katsahdettuaan
ja hänen ensimmäisistä sanoistaan, että koko hänen asemansa
traagillisuus hänelle niin rakkaaseen henkilöön nähden ei ollut
hänelle mikään salaisuus ja että hän kenties jo tiesi kaikki, aivan
kaikki. Ja siitä huolimatta oli hänen kasvoissaan kuitenkin niin paljon
kirkkautta, niin paljon luottamusta tulevaisuuteen. Aljoša tunsi äkkiä
olevansa hänen edessään vakavasti ja ehdottomasti syyllinen. Hän
oli samalla kertaa voitettu ja ihastunut. Sitäpaitsi hän huomasi
Katerina Ivanovnan ensimmäisistä sanoista, että tämä oli
voimakkaan liikutuksen vallassa, joka kenties oli perin harvinaista
hänessä, — liikutuksen, joka melkein muistutti jonkinmoista
riemastusta.
— Olen sentähden niin odottanut teitä, että vain teiltä voin nyt
saada tietää koko totuuden, — en keneltäkään muulta!
— Minä tulin… — mutisi Aljoša sekaantuen, — minä… hän lähetti

minut…
— Vai niin, hän on lähettänyt teidät, no, minä aavistin sen. Nyt
tiedän kaikki, kaikki! — huudahti Katerina Ivanovna ja hänen
silmänsä välähtivät. — Odottakaa, Aleksei Fjodorovitš, sanon teille
ensin, miksi minä teitä niin odotin. Näettekö, minä tiedän kenties
paljon enemmän kuin te itse. Minä en tarvitse teiltä tietoja. Tätä minä
teiltä tarvitsen: minun pitää tietää teidän oma, persoonallinen
viimeinen vaikutelmanne hänestä, minä tarvitsen, että te kertoisitte
aivan suoraan, kaunistelematta, vaikkapa epähienosti (oi, miten
karkeassa muodossa tahansa!) — mitä te itse nyt ajattelette hänestä
ja hänen asemastaan kohdattuanne hänet tänään. Se on kenties
parempi kuin että minä itse, jonka luo hän ei enää tahdo tulla,
selvitän hänen kanssaan asioita persoonallisesti. Ymmärrättekö mitä
teiltä tahdon? Mitä asiaa varten hän nyt lähetti teidät luokseni (minä
tiesin, että hän lähettää teidät!) — puhukaa suoraan, sanokaa
viimeinen sana!…
— Hän käski teille… sanoa terveisiä ja että hän ei koskaan enää

tule… ja sanoa teille terveisiä.
— Sanoa terveisiä? Näinkö hän sanoi, näitäkö sanoja käytti?
— Niin.
— Kenties hän epähuomiossa hiukan erehtyi sanassa, käytti

muuta sanaa kuin olisi käytettävä?
— Ei, hän käski nimenomaan minun käyttää tätä sanaa: »sanoa

terveisiä».
Pyysi kolmisen kertaa, että en sitä unohtaisi.
Katerina Ivanovna kuohahti.
— Auttakaa minua nyt, Aleksei Fjodorovitš, nytpä tarvitsen teidän

apuanne. Minä sanon teille ajatukseni, ja sanokaa te minulle sen
johdosta vain, ajattelenko oikein vai enkö. Kuulkaa, jos hän olisi
sivumennen käskenyt sanoa minulle terveisiä, pitämättä tärkeänä
tuon sanan käyttämistä, alleviivaamatta sanaa, niin se olisi kaikki…
Se olisi loppu! Mutta jos hän erityisesti piti tärkeänä tätä sanaa, jos
hän erityisesti painoi mieleenne, että te ette unohtaisi tuoda minulle
noita terveisiä, — niin hän siis oli kiihdyksissä, kenties ei voinut hillitä
itseään? Hän oli tehnyt päätöksen ja pelästynyt omaa päätöstään!
Hän ei poistunut luotani varmoin askelin, vaan lensi päistikkaa.
Tämän sanan painostaminen saattaa merkitä vain uhmaa…
— Niin, niin! — vahvisti Aljoša kiihkeästi. — Minusta itsestänikin

tuntuu nyt siltä.
— Mutta jos niin on, niin hän ei vielä ole hukassa! Hän on vain
epätoivoissaan, mutta minä voin vielä pelastaa hänet.
Odottakaahan: eikö hän maininnut teille mitään rahoista,
kolmestatuhannesta?
— Hän ei vain puhunut niistä, vaan tämä asia kenties enimmän
masensi häntä. Hän sanoi olevansa nyt kunniaton mies ja että
hänestä nyt kaikki oli samantekevää, — vastasi Aljoša innokkaasti
tuntien elävästi, kuinka toivo valahti hänen sydämeensä ja että
todellakin hänen veljellään saattoi olla pääsy pulasta ja pelastumisen
mahdollisuus. — Mutta tiedättekö te… noista rahoista? — lisäsi hän
ja tunsi äkkiä nolostuvansa.
— Olen jo kauan tietänyt ja tiedän varmasti. Olen tiedustanut

Moskovasta sähkösanomalla ja tiedän, että sinne ei ole tullut rahoja.
Hän ei lähettänyt rahoja, mutta minä en puhunut mitään. Viimeisen
viikon aikana sain tietää, kuinka hän tarvitsi ja vielä tarvitsee
rahoja… Olen tässä kaikessa asettanut itselleni vain yhden
päämäärän: että hän tietäisi, kenen puoleen hän voi kääntyä ja kuka
on hänen uskollisin ystävänsä. Ei, hän ei tahdo uskoa, että minä
olen hänen uskollisin ystävänsä, ei ole tahtonut oppia tuntemaan
minua, hän pitää minua vain naisena. Koko viikon on minua
kiusannut kauhea huoli: kuinka olisi tehtävä, että hän ei häpeäisi
minun edessäni noiden kolmentuhannen menettämisestä? Se on:
hävetköön vain kaikkia ja itseäänkin, mutta älköön hävetkö minua.
Miksi hän ei vieläkään tiedä, miten paljon minä voin kestää hänen
tähtensä? Miksi, miksi hän ei tunne minua, kuinka hän uskaltaa olla
tuntematta minua kaiken sen jälkeen, mitä on tapahtunut? Minä
tahdon pelastaa hänet ainaiseksi. Unohtakoon hän minut
morsiamenaan! Ja nyt hän on arka kunniastaan minun edessäni!
Eihän häntä peloittanut avata sydäntään teille, Aleksei Fjodorovitš?
Miksi minä en vielä koskaan ole ansainnut sitä?
Viimeiset sanat hän lausui kyynelsilmin. Kyynelet tulvahtivat hänen

silmistään.
— Minun täytyy ilmoittaa teille, — lausui Aljoša niinikään
vapisevalla äänellä, — mitä äsken tapahtui hänen ja isän kesken.
— Ja hän kertoi koko kohtauksen, kertoi, että hänet oli lähetetty

pyytämään rahoja, että Dmitri oli syöksynyt sisään, lyönyt isää ja sen
jälkeen erityisesti ja hartaasti vielä kerran vaatinut häntä.
Aljošaa, menemään viemään »terveisiä»… — Hän meni tuon

naisen luo… — lisäsi Aljoša hiljaa.
— Ja luuletteko te, että minä en jaksa kestää tuota naista? Hän

luulee, että minä en jaksa kestää? Mutta hän ei mene naimisiin tuon
naisen kanssa, — sanoi hän naurahtaen äkkiä hermostuneesti, —
voiko Karamazov palaa ikänsä tuommoisen intohimon vallassa? Se
on intohimoa eikä rakkautta. Hän ei ota häntä vaimokseen, sillä tuo
nainenkaan ei mene naimisiin hänen kanssaan… — naurahti
Katerina Ivanovna äkkiä taas omituisesti.
— Kenties hän ottaa hänet vaimokseen, — lausui Aljoša
surullisesti luoden silmänsä alas.
— Hän ei ota häntä vaimokseen, sanon sen teille! Tämä tyttö on

enkeli, tiedättekö sen? Tiedättekö sen! — huudahti Katerina
Ivanovna äkkiä tavattoman kiihkeästi. — Hän on kummallisin kaikista
kummallisista olennoista! Minä tiedän, miten lumoava hän on, mutta
tiedän myös, miten hyvä, luja ja jalo hän on. Miksi katselette minua
noin, Aleksei Fjodorovitš? Kenties ihmettelette sanojani, kenties ette
usko minua? Agrafena Aleksandrovna, enkelini! — huudahti hän
äkkiä jollekulle katsoen toiseen huoneeseen. — Tulkaa luoksemme,
tämä on hyvä mies, tämä on Aljoša, hän tuntee kaikki asiaamme
koskevat seikat, näyttäytykää hänelle!
— Sitä minä täällä verhon takana juuri odotinkin, että kutsuisitte

minua, — lausui vieno, hiukan mairea naisen ääni.
Oviverho kohosi, ja… itse Grušenjka astui pöydän luo nauraen ja

iloiten. Aljoša tunsi sisimmässään vavahduksen. Hänen katseensa
imeytyi Grušenjkaan, eikä hän voinut kääntää silmiään pois. Siinä
hän oli, tuo kauhea nainen, — »peto», niinkuin puoli tuntia sitten veli
Ivan oli hänestä lausunut. Ja kuitenkin hänen edessään näytti
seisovan mitä tavallisimman ja yksinkertaisimman näköinen olento,
— hyvä, herttainen nainen, kaunis tosin, mutta niin kovin kaikkien
muiden, »tavallisten», kauniiden naisten kaltainen! Totta oli, että hän
oli sangen kaunis, — venäläinen kaunotar, jommoinen niin monessa
herättää intohimoisen rakkauden. Hän oli jokseenkin kookas nainen,
jonkin verran lyhyempi kuitenkin Katerina Ivanovnaa (tämä olikin
suurikokoinen), — muodot pyöreät, ruumiin liikkeet pehmoiset ja
aivan kuin kuulumattomat sekä tavallaan kuin kehitetyt velton
mairitteleviksi, jommoinen hänen äänensäkin oli. Hän ei lähestynyt
Katerina Ivanovnan tavoin — voimakkain ja reippain askelin, vaan
päinvastoin kuulumattomasti. Pehmeästi hän vaipui nojatuoliin,
pehmeästi kahisutti komeata mustaa silkkipukuaan ja kietoi veltosti
kallisarvoisen mustan villasaalin vaahdonvalkean, täyteläisen
kaulansa ja leveitten hartioittensa ympärille. Hän oli kahdenkolmatta
vuoden ikäinen, ja hänen kasvoistaan saattoi sen täsmälleen nähdä.
Kasvot olivat hyvin valkeat, ja niissä oli heikon punan kajastus.
Ääripiirteiltään hänen kasvonsa näyttivät vähän liian leveiltä, ja
alaleuka työntyi hieman eteenpäin. Ylähuuli oli ohut, mutta alahuuli,
joka oli jonkin verran ulkoneva, oli kahta vertaa paksumpi ja melkein
kuin hiukan turvonnut. Mutta ihmeen ihanat, runsaat, tummanruskeat
hiukset, tummat, soopelin karvaa muistuttavat kulmakarvat ja
ihastuttavat harmaansiniset silmät, joissa oli pitkät ripset, olisivat
ehdottomasti saaneet kaikkein välinpitämättömimmänkin ja
hajamielisimmänkin miehen väkijoukossakin ja kävelypaikalla tai
puodissa äkkiä pysähtymään näitä kasvoja katselemaan ja
muistamaan niitä kauan aikaa. Aljošaa hämmästytti näissä
kasvoissa kaikkein enimmän niiden lapsellinen ja avomielinen ilme.
Grušenjka katseli kuin lapsi, iloitsi jostakin kuin lapsi, hän lähestyi
pöytää todellakin »iloiten» ja aivan kuin juuri nyt odottaisi jotakin
lapsellisen kärsimättömästi ja luottavan uteliaasti. Hänen katseensa
sai sydämen ilostumaan, — Aljoša tunsi sen. Hänessä oli vielä
jotakin muutakin, mitä Aljoša ei voinut tai ei osannut selvittää
itselleen, mutta mikä kenties tiedottomasti vaikutti häneenkin,
nimenomaan taaskin tuo pehmeys, ruumiinliikkeitten vienous, tuo
ruumiinliikkeitten kissamainen kuulumattomuus. Ja kuitenkin tämä
ruumis oli valtava ja rehevä. Saalin alta pullottivat leveät, täyteläiset
hartiat ja korkea, vielä aivan nuori rinta. Tämä ruumis lupasi kenties
paljastaa näkyviin milolaisen Venuksen muodot, vaikka niiden
mittasuhteet jo nyt olivat ehdottomasti hieman paisutetut, — sen
saattoi aavistaa. Venäläisen naisen kauneuden tuntijat olisivat
voineet Grušenjkaa katsellessaan erehtymättä ennustaa, että tämä
raikas, vielä nuori sulo kolmenkymmenen vuoden ikään mennessä
menettää sopusointuisuutensa, kauniit muodot tursistuvat, kasvotkin
pöhöttyvät, silmien ympärille ja otsalle ilmestyy sangen pian ryppyjä,
kasvojen väri tulee karkeammaksi, kenties täplikkääksi, — sanalla
sanoen, se oli hetken kestävää kauneutta, lentävää kauneutta,
jommoista niin usein tavataan juuri venäläisessä naisessa. Aljoša ei
tietenkään ajatellut tätä, mutta vaikka hän oli lumouksen vallassa,
niin hän kysyi itseltään tuntien jotakin epämiellyttävää tunnetta ja
jotakin säälin tapaista: miksi hän noin venyttää sanoja eikä voi puhua
luonnollisesti? Grušenjka teki näin, koska hänestä ilmeisesti tämä
tavujen ja äänteitten venyttäminen ja teeskennellyn imelästi
lausuminen oli kaunista. Se oli tietysti vain huonoa tottumusta ja
huonoa käytöstapaa, mikä todisti alhaison parissa saatua kasvatusta
ja lapsena omaksuttua väärää sopivaisuussääntöjen käsittämistä. Ja
tuo sanojen ääntäminen ja korostamistapa tuntuivat Aljošasta olevan
melkein mahdottomassa ristiriidassa kasvojen lapsellisen
avomielisen ja iloisen ilmeen sekä tuon silmien hiljaisen ja onnellisen
loisteen kanssa, joka muistutti pientä lasta. Katerina Ivanovna oli
silmänräpäyksessä pannut Grušenjkan istumaan nojatuoliin
vastapäätä Aljošaa ja suudellut ihastuneena muutamia kertoja hänen
nauravia huuliaan. Hän oli aivan kuin rakastunut Grušenjkaan.
— Me olemme tavanneet toisemme ensimmäisen kerran, Aleksei

Fjodorovitš, — alkoi hän puhua innostuneena. — Minä tahdoin tulla
tuntemaan hänet, nähdä hänet, tahdoin mennä hänen luokseen,
mutta hän tuli itse tänne heti kuultuaan minun sitä toivovan.
Tiesinhän minä, että me yhdessä saamme kaikki ratkaistuksi, kaikki!
Sydän aavisti sen… Minua kehoitettiin olemaan ottamatta tätä
askelta, mutta minä aavistin tuloksen enkä erehtynyt. Grušenjka on
selittänyt kaikki minulle, kaikki aikeensa. Hän lensi tänne kuin hyvä
enkeli tuoden rauhaa ja iloa…
— Ette halveksinut minua, armas, arvoisa neiti, — sanoi

Grušenjka venyttäen sanojaan ja hymyillen yhä herttaista, iloista
hymyä.
— Älkää puhukokaan minulle tuollaisia sanoja, te lumooja, te

tenhotar! Teitäkö voisi halveksia? Minäpä suutelen vielä kerran
alahuultanne. Se on aivan kuin turvonnut, siksipä suutelen, että se
turpoaisi vielä lisää, lisää, lisää… Katsokaa, Aleksei Fjodorovitš,
miten hän nauraa, ihan sydän riemastuu tätä enkeliä katsellessa…
— Aljoša punastui, ja huomaamaton väristys kulki läpi hänen
ruumiinsa.
— Te hemmoittelette minua, rakas neiti, enkä minä kenties

ensinkään ole teidän hyvittelynne arvoinen.
— Ette ole sen arvoinen! Hänkö ei olisi sen arvoinen! — huudahti

Katerina Ivanovna taas yhtä kiihkeästi. — Tietäkää, Aleksei
Fjodorovitš, että me olemme haavemieli, että meillä on
omavaltainen, mutta ylpeä, ylen ylpeä pikku sydän! Me olemme
ylevä, niin, Aleksei Fjodorovitš, me olemme jalomielinen, tiedättekö
sen? Me olemme vain ollut onneton. Me olimme liian pian valmis
uhraamaan mitä tahansa kenties ansiottoman tai kevytmielisen
miehen hyväksi. Oli eräs, hänkin oli upseeri, me rakastimme häntä,
me annoimme hänelle kaikki, siitä on kauan, se tapahtui viisi vuotta
sitten, mutta hän unohti meidät, hän meni naimisiin. Nyt hän on
jäänyt leskeksi, hän on kirjoittanut tulevansa tänne — ja tietäkää,
että me yhä edelleen rakastamme häntä, vain häntä ja olemme
rakastaneet koko elämämme ajan! Hän saapuu, ja Grušenjka tulee
taas onnelliseksi oltuaan jo viisi vuotta onneton. Mutta kuka saattoi
moittia häntä, kuka voi kehua nauttineensa hänen suosiotaan!
Ainoastaan tuo kipeäjalkainen ukko, kauppias, — mutta hän oli
pikemminkin isämme, ystävämme, suojelijamme. Hän tapasi meidät
silloin epätoivoisena, tuskan vallassa, sen hylkäämänä, jota me niin
rakastimme… hänhän aikoi silloin hukuttautua, ukkohan pelasti
hänet, pelasti hänet!
— Kovin te minua puolustatte, rakas neiti, kovin te kaikessa

pidätte puoltani, — lausui Grušenjka taas venytellen.
— Puolustan? Meidänkö sopii puolustaa ja uskallammeko me

tässä puolustaa? Grušenjka, enkeli, antakaa minulle kätösenne,
katsokaa tätä pulleata, pientä, ihanaa kätöstä, Aleksei Fjodorovitš.
Näettekö sen, se on tuonut minulle onnen ja herättänyt minut
kuolleista, ja nyt minä sitä heti suutelen, sen selkäpuolta ja sen
kämmentä, näin, näin ja näin. — Ja hän suuteli kolme kertaa aivan
kuin hurmiossa Grušenjkan todellakin kaunista, vaikka kenties liian
pulleata kättä. Tämä ojensi tuon kätösensä nauraen hermostunutta,
heleätä, ihastuttavaa naurua ja seuraten »rakkaan neidin» liikkeitä,
ja hänestä näytti olevan mieluisaa, että hänen kättään niin suudeltiin.
»Kenties tässä on jo liikaa innostusta», välähti Aljošan päässä. Hän
punastui. Hänen sydämensä oli kaiken aikaa omituisen levoton.
— Älkää saattako minua häpeämään, rakas neiti, kun suutelette

noin minun kättäni Aleksei Fjodorovitšin nähden.
— Olenko minä sillä tahtonut saattaa teidät häpeämään? — lausui

Katerina Ivanovna hiukan hämmästyen. — Ah, rakas, kuinka
huonosti te minua ymmärrätte!
— Kenties tekään ette ymmärrä minua niin aivan täydellisesti,

rakas neiti, minä kenties olen paljon huonompi kuin mitä te näette.
Minulla on paha sydän, olen omavaltainen. Dmitri Fjodorovitš raukan
minä kiehdoin silloin vain piloillani.
— Mutta nythän te hänet sen sijaan pelastatte. Olette luvannut. Te

saatatte hänet järkiinsä, tunnustatte hänelle, että rakastatte toista ja
olette jo kauan rakastanut ja että tämä toinen nyt kosii teitä…
— Eihän, en minä ole teille sitä luvannut. Te itse puhuitte minulle

semmoista, mutta minä en luvannut.
— Ymmärsin kaiketi sitten väärin teidät, — lausui Katerina

Ivanovna hiljaa ja näytti hieman kalpenevan. — Te lupasitte…
— Oi ei, neiti enkelini, minä en ole luvannut teille mitään —

keskeytti Grušenjka hiljaa ja tyynesti yhä edelleen iloisen ja
viattoman näköisenä. — Nythän jo heti näettekin, arvoisa neiti, miten
huono teidän edessänne ja miten omavaltainen olen. Kun minun
mieleni alkaa tehdä jotakin, niin minä menettelen juuri sillä tavalla.
Äsken kenties lupasinkin jotakin teille, mutta nyt taas ajattelen:
kenties hän taas alkaa miellyttää minua, Mitja nimittäin, —
miellyttihän hän minua kerran sangen paljon, miellytti melkein
kokonaisen tunnin. Ehkäpä minä menen ja sanon hänelle heti, että
hän jäisi tästä päivästä alkaen luokseni… Niin huikentelevainen minä
olen…
— Äsken te puhuitte… aivan toista… — sai Katerina Ivanovna

vaivoin kuiskatuksi.
— Ah, äsken! Minähän olen sydämeltäni hellä, tyhmä. Ajatella

vain, mitä hän on kärsinyt minun tähteni! Saatan tulla äkkiä kotiin ja
ruveta tuntemaan sääliä häntä kohtaan, — mitä silloin?
— Minä en odottanut…
— Ah, neiti, miten hyvä ja jalo te olette minun silmissäni. Nyt te

mahdollisesti lakkaatte rakastamasta minua, tämmöistä hupsua,
luonteeni tähden. Antakaa minulle armas kätösenne, neiti enkeli, —
pyysi hän hellästi ja tarttui Katerina Ivanovnan käteen aivan kuin
hartauden vallassa. — Nyt minä otan kätösenne, rakas neiti, ja
suutelen niinkuin te suutelitte minun kättäni. Te suutelitte kättäni
kolme kertaa, mutta minun pitäisi senvuoksi suudella teidän kättänne
kolmesataa kertaa ollaksemme kuitit. Olkoon sitten niin ja käyköön
sen jälkeen niinkuin Jumala tahtoo, kenties minusta tulee täydelleen
teidän orjanne ja tahdon kaikessa orjan tavoin tehdä mieliksenne.
Käyköön sillä tavoin kuin Jumala määrää, ilman mitään sopimuksia
ja lupauksia meidän kesken. Kätösenne, kätösenne on niin kaunis!
Rakas neiti, te olette yliluonnollisen ihana!
Hän nosti hiljaa tuon käden huulilleen, kylläkin omituisessa

tarkoituksessa päästä »kuitiksi» suudelmilla. Katerina Ivanovna ei
vetänyt pois kättään: aran toivon vallassa hän kuunteli viimeistä,
myöskin hyvin omituisessa muodossa lausuttua Grušenjkan lupausta
tehdä »orjan tavoin» mieliksi hänelle. Hän katseli jännityksessä
Grušenjkaa silmiin: näissä silmissä hän näki edelleen saman
avomielisen, luottavan ilmeen, saman kirkkaan iloisuuden…
»Kenties hän on kovin naiivi!» välähti toivo Katerina Ivanovnan
sydämessä. Grušenjka sillä välin aivan kuin ihastuneena
»armaaseen kätöseen» nosti sen hitaasti huulilleen. Mutta kun käsi
oli aivan huulien luona, niin hän yht'äkkiä pysähtyi pariksi kolmeksi
silmänräpäykseksi aivan kuin miettien jotakin.
— Tiedättekö mitä, neiti enkelini, — sanoa venytti hän kaikkein

hellimmällä ja imelimmällä äänellään, — tiedättekö mitä? Otan enkä
suutelekaan kättänne. — Ja hän alkoi nauraa pientä iloista naurua.
— Miten tahdotte… Mikä teidän on? — vavahti äkkiä Katerina

Ivanovna.
— Jääköönkin se muistoonne, että te suutelitte minun kättäni,

mutta minä en suudellut teidän kättänne. — Jotakin välähti äkkiä
hänen silmissään. Hän katseli peloittavan kiinteästi Katerina
Ivanovnaa.
— Hävytön! — lausui äkkiä Katerina Ivanovna aivan kuin yht'äkkiä

jotakin ymmärtäen, kuohahti ja hyppäsi paikaltaan. Myös Grušenjka
nousi seisomaan pitämättä kiirettä.
— Minäpä kerron heti Mitjalle, kuinka te suutelitte kättäni, mutta

minä en ollenkaan suudellut teidän kättänne. Kylläpä hän nauraa!
— Iljetys, mene tiehesi!
— Hyi häpeä, neiti, hyi häpeä, ei ole ensinkään sopivaa, että

käytätte tuommoisia sanoja, rakas neiti.
— Ulos, itseäsi kauppaava elukka! — parkaisi Katerina Ivanovna.

Jokainen piirre hänen aivan vääristyneissä kasvoissaan vapisi.
— Ahaa, vai itseäni kauppaava. Itse te nuorena neitona kävitte

hämärissä kavaljeerien luona rahaa hakemassa, toitte kauneutenne
kaupaksi, kyllä minä tiedän.
Katerina Ivanovna kirkaisi ja syöksyi hänen kimppuunsa, mutta

Aljoša sai ponnistaen kaikki voimansa hänet pidätetyksi.
— Ei askeltakaan, ei sanaakaan! Älkää puhuko, älkää vastatko
mitään, hän menee pois, hän menee heti pois!
Tällä hetkellä juoksivat huoneeseen Katerina Ivanovnan kirkaisun

johdosta hänen molemmat sukulaisensa ja myös palvelustyttö.
Kaikki syöksyivät hänen luokseen.
— Kyllä minä menen, — lausui Grušenjka ottaen sohvalta

vaippansa. —
Aljoša rakas, saata minua.
— Menkää, menkää pian! — sanoi Aljoša rukoilevasti pannen

hänen edessään kätensä ristiin.
— Rakas pikku Aljoša, saata minua! Minä sanon sinulle matkalla

hyvin, hyvin suloisen pikku sanan! Tämän kohtauksen minä olen
järjestänyt sinun tähtesi, Aljošenjka. Saata minua, ystäväiseni,
myöhemmin olet siitä mielissäsi.
Aljoša kääntyi pois väännellen käsiään. Grušenjka juoksi ulos

talosta nauraen heleästi.
Katerina Ivanovna sai hysteerisen kohtauksen. Hän itki ääneensä,

hän oli tukahtua väristyksiin. Kaikki hänen ympärillään hätääntyivät.
— Minä varoitin teitä, — puhui hänelle vanhempi täti, — minä

koetin teitä estää tuosta askelesta… te olette liian kiihkeä… voiko
ryhtyä sellaiseen tekoon! Te ette tunne noita lunttuja, ja tästä
kerrotaan, että hän on pahin kaikista… Ei, te olette liian omapäinen!
— Hän on tiikeri! — vaikeroi Katerina Ivanovna. — Miksi te

pidätitte minua, Aleksei Fjodorovitš, minä olisin lyönyt hänet
kuoliaaksi, lyönyt kuoliaaksi!

Public Humanities and The Spanish Civil War Connected and Contested Histories 1St Ed Edition Alison Ribeiro de Menezes All Chapter

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Public Humanities and The Spanish Civil War Connected and Contested Histories 1St Ed Edition Alison Ribeiro de Menezes All Chapter

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Public Humanities and the Spanish Civil

War: Connected and Contested

PUBLIC HUMANITIES AND

Rob van der Laarse

More information about this series at

Public Humanities and

Palgrave Studies in Cultural Heritage and Conflict

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950732

Cover credit: B&M Noskowski/Getty

1 Public Humanities and the Spanish Civil War 1

2 Sites Without Memory and Memory Without Sites:

3 The Spanish Civil War Archive and the Construction

4 The Historical Memory Records Center: A Museum

5 Museums and Material Memories of the Spanish Civil

6 The Necropolitics of Spain’s Civil War Dead 115

7 Thinking Outside the Grave: The Material Traces of

8 Visualizing Mass Grave Recovery: Ritual, Digital

9 Digitally Mediated Memory and the Spanish Civil War 189

10 The Spanish Civil War in the Classroom: From

11 Veiling and Exhuming the Past: Conflict and

Final Reflections: The Way Forward 267

Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez is Professor of History at Trent University,

Catalunya 2015 (Catalonia Bar Association), for his contribution to uni-

Adrian Shubert is University Professor of History at York University.

ADIF Administración de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Railway

FARC Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary

Fig. 1.1 Ruins of Belchite (photograph the author) 10

Fig. 8.3 “Visor de fosas de Navarra,” Gobierno de Navarra 181

Public Humanities and the

Alison Ribeiro de Menezes

A. Ribeiro de Menezes (*)

© The Author(s) 2018 1

public spending.2 If there is, at times, a certain defensiveness in argu-

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 17.

(New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 2.

as outlined in the UK REF context, researcher positionality and perhaps

of contributing highlights a relationship of engagement and exchange

The making of an interpretation—which can only be answered by another

By bringing issues of dignity and of a shared creativity into the discus-

This marooning of academic insight and critical intellect in a doldrums,

Public Life, 116–22 (116).

Lancing, MI: Michigan State University, 2014), 159.

11 Cooper, Learning in the Plural, 156.

focus on archeological work, particularly forensic archaeology. In Spain

Rethinking History 14, no. 4 (2010), 503–20 (504).

Times of Theatrical Reenactment (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).

17 Jerome de Groot, Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary

18 De Groot, Consuming History, 290.

23 Alfredo González-Ruibal, “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage? The

24 González-Ruibal, “Topography of Terror or Cultural Heritage?” 70–71. The use of

Forbes and Pérez, Europe’s Deadly Century, 59–64 (60).

MacAtackney, “The Contemporary Politics of Landscape at the Long Kesh/Maze Prison

entanglements of various historical epochs, political upheavals, and the

Changing Narratives and Technological Interventions

London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 78.

Fig. 1.1 Ruins of Belchite (photograph the author)

32 Michonneau, Fue ayer, 60.

reconstructed, as Toldeo was, nor were its ruins properly preserved. It

33 Michonneau, Fue ayer, 16.

Fig. 1.2 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author)

35 Michonneau discusses this in detail in Fue ayer, Chapter 7.

Fig. 1.3 Street signs in new Belchite (photograph the author)

Technology’s intersection with memory leads in other unexpected

ADIF Administración de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Railway

FARC Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary

Changing Narratives and Technological Interventions

Sites Without Memory and Memory Without Sites

The History Which is Read, Taught, and Seen—or Not