Franco gets a makeover in this feature edition which started life as part 3 of consequences of the Spanish Civil War and soon became a whole new thing on La Transición Española. It makes sense really as it’s edition 77 and Spain in 1977 was undergoing massive societal changes. The articles this week are about un boom cultural, los derechos civiles and la Ley de Amnistía.

For a long time I’ve had these images of Franco era stamps saved which I knew one day would look great as a header image but I never had any ideas how to use them. Teaching about el colectivo LGBT+ this week gave me some ideas…

A couple of the stamps underwent some changes. This week Procreate, Photoshop and Indesign were used to remove backgrounds, doodle and clone stamp out the word España and replace it with Boletín. Again this was a team effort between my wife and I.

Vocabulary and structures to look out for this week:

• Imperfect tense

• Adjectival agreement

• Preterite tense (regulars and irregulars)

• Past participles used as adjectives

• The present subjunctive with obligation triggers

• The passive voice

The exam style task this week is a translation and I have purposely thrown in some tricky phrases such as draw a line under, led to and paved the way for students to find a workaround way of translating.

Download edition 77 here and leave a review if you like!

Cheers,

Ollie

It is claimed that the memory of José Antonio Primo de Rivera was harnessed by the Francoist state to imbue the regime with poetic, intellectual and ideological attractiveness. This week we’ll demystify the relationship between Franco and Antonio Primo de Rivera.

👋Welcome to Boletín #98, an English-language newsletter covering historical, cultural and topical stories related to the A Level Spanish course. These newsletters accompany a student worksheet which can be downloaded here. This week:

1. Edition 98 (the three texts).

2. Grammar search.

3. Franco and Antonio Primo de Rivera.

4. The link between Francoism and Falangism.

5. Download link.

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📌Edition 98

This week students will learn of the moments leading up to Franco’s death, the main ideas of the Falange Española and 20N (this means 20th November). Hopefully a thread running from 1934 to 2022 via 1975 will become evident.

Source text 1 is about la muerte de Franco.

Source text 2 is about el falangismo.

Source text 3 is about 20N.

The exam style question this week is a translation into Spanish from English with a breakdown of how the translation is marked according to WJEC.

Franco and Antonio Primo de Rivera

As of Sunday 20th November 2023 Franco has been dead for 48 years but despite recently being exhumed and moved from his monumental mausoleum, The Valley of the Fallen, his presence is still felt as he lives on in the minds of a minority of Far Right activists and sympathisers.

Hundreds of fascists gathered in Madrid on the weekend of 20th November 2022 to pay homage to José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Franco. You may have heard of the latter but who was the former?

José Antonio Primo de Rivera was the chief ideologue behind the Falange Española which he started in 29th October 1933 after a short career as a lawyer. He was executed in Alicante on 20th November 1936 by firing squad. His remains were exhumed and re-interred in the The Valley of the Fallen in 1959.

39 years after the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, in 1975, the announcement of Franco’s death would, some say, be delayed by one day so that it coincided with the anniversary of the death of José Antonio. Franco would then be buried next to him.

So, what is the link between José Antonio Primo de Rivera and Franco?

How much of the dictatorship was built upon Falangist principals?

What on earth would lead somebody to do this?

What is the link between Francoism and falangism?

To answer the questions above I’ve done some reading on Falangism and José Antonio Primo de Rivera. I also had the opportunity in April 2023 to speak to Giles Tremlett who authored Ghosts of Spain.

For my own modest resarch a book called The Foundations of the Spanish Phalanx has been most interesting, but it is clearly a very flattering account of El Ausente (The Absent One) as José Antonio was referred to. For example, the author describes his physical courage, personal charm, vigor, eloquence, sense of family honour, modesty, seriousness, and his penchant for intellectual pursuits. (Greger, 2018).1

What is the link between Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco and how much of the dictatorship was built upon Falangist principals?

After the death of José Antonio, the founder of the Falange Española (FE) and a household name in Spain whose portrait was apparently exhibited everywhere in the country, the general confusion of the times combined with the weakness of José Antonio’s replacement as leader of the FE led to the weakening of Falange independence and identity. The year was 1936.

On April 19th 1937, the Falange and Carlist parties were merged by Franco and Ramón Serrano Suñer (his brother-in-law) in what is known as the Unification Decree. Upon doing this all other parties were dissolved and the new, and only legal, political party in Spain was the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. Franco was now Jefe Nacional of the country and National Chief of that party. More principled and authentic falangists resisted this but the newly formed Francoist party would be the one official political organisation of Spain.

The Falange didn’t always have this much of a say in things though, as Ian Gibson recounts in The Assassination of Federico García Lorca:

The Falange has been numerically unimportant up to the 1936 elections, and its violent tactics has alienated Catholic support. But the Popular Front victory in February terrified the Catholic middle class which, disillusioned by the CEDA’s ineffectiveness, increasingly threw in its lot with the extremists. Accordingly, there was a considerable swelling of the Falangist ranks in these months and the party rapidly became the most efficient and ruthless right-wing organisation operating in Spain.

Back to Franco, who the author of The Foundations of the Spanish Phalanx claims, betrayed the ideas, goals and legacy of José Antonio. Falangism as a political force or movement was now dead despite forming the backbone of the new Spain. Franco, it is further claimed, established the cult of José Antonio by declaring the 20th November as a day of national mourning and re-interring José Antonio’s remains in the mausoleum built for Franco himself named The Valley of the Fallen. The author claims that the memory of José Antonio Primo de Rivera was harnessed by the Francoist state to imbue the regime with poetic, intellectual and ideological attractiveness.

Here is the Falange’s 1934 manifesto helpfully colour-coded with their nationalist/catholic proposals in blue, socialist elements in red and fascist in green.

For Boletín #111 I asked Giles Tremlett to demystify the Franco/Primo de Rivera/Falange relationship. His answer was:

Okay, so there was basically a right-wing military uprising which was led by the military and one of those leaders was Franco and they needed to bring in everybody else on the far-right. They also needed some kind of ideology because they didn't have one. They were just reactionaries in the sense that they were reacting against a left-wing democratic government that they didn't like and which they thought would bring Marxism to Spain. So, looking for a sort of ideological underpinning of their new regime they turned to the Catholic church largely, to nationalism and to the Falange which was the Spanish version of fascism.

🔍Grammar to look out for:

1. The present perfect regulars and irregulars

2. The imperfect tense

3. Adjectives

4. Subjunctive trigger para que

5. The passive voice

6. The preterite tense

7. The conditional tense

8. Para where para can mean in order to

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📁Download edition 98 here.

I wrote this post during the first half of the Wales vs USA game so apologies for any errors. As ever with Spanish historical politics I’m always learning so if you think I have got something grossly wrong or want to share your thoughts then get in touch.

Thanks,

Ollie

Student feedback

Students, I need your help. Please, if you have some time, can you provide me some feedback on Boletín so that I can make it better. Teachers, if you could pass this link on to your students I’d be eternally grateful! It should take about 4 minutes to complete.

👉Student voice Microsoft form.

👋Welcome to Boletín #93, an English-language newsletter covering historical, cultural and topical stories related to the A Level Spanish course. These newsletters accompany a student worksheet which can be downloaded here. This week:

1. The Spanish Civil War (SCW) on the WJEC specification.

2. Addressing a gap in my subject knowledge.

3. Hooked.

4. I discovered an unbelievable family connection to the SCW.

5. Pre-war societal changes.

6. Francoist concentration camps.

7. Deep roots.

8. Francoism and Falangism - is there a link?

9. Final thoughts and resources.

In his published letters working as Economic Attaché at the British Embassy in Spain David Eccles describes the time, in 1940, when he witnessed the arrest of a woman in Madrid for offending public morals. But, what had she done that was so indecent? Her dress, caught by a sudden gust of wind, had blown over her head. The civiles, furious and outraged, called her a whore. Her mother watched them lead her away.

The Spanish Civil War on the WJEC specification

The Spanish Civil War is my favourite topic on the WJEC curriculum. It’s broken down into the following sub-topics:

• El franquismo – origins, development and consequences.

• Post-Civil War Spain – historical and political repercussions.

• Spain – coming to terms with the past Recuperación de la memoria histórica.

• The Spanish Civil War and the transition to democracy.

Fascinating (so much to learn) and daunting (where to begin).

Edition 93 of Boletín is an introduction to the Spanish Civil War (SCW) and this post is a Spanish Civil War brain/resource dump and for my own sake an account of what I have learnt so far. For my own students, all of the books mentioned below italicised in bold are available for you to read. A massive thank you to @thais_mfl who translated the texts for this edition! 😁

A gap in my subject knowledge

During my PGCE we were set an assignment to develop an unexplored area of subject knowledge and create a scheme of learning (SoL) based on a piece of authentic literature. I picked the SCW and wrote a SoL for Las bicicletas son para el verano.

I was ashamed that I knew nothing about the SCW and was a prospective Spanish teacher. Although, this shame has since dwindled having worked closely with numerous native Spanish teachers over the years whose faces betrayed the internal panic as they too ralised they knew not much about the SCW and indeed post-war Spain.

Previously, I imagined that what happened in Spain was common knowledge, like World War I or World War 2. Little did I know that I wasn’t the only one in the dark and that many Spaniards my age were just as ill-informed.

Early in his book Los campos de concentración de Franco Carlos Hernández writes:

La guerra. Nunca dos palabras supusieron tanto para una generación y tan poco para las que vinieron después. (Hernández de Miguel, 2019)

Surprisingly, today (August 2022) the events of 1936 - 1975 are only taught in some regions within Spain with others showing little or no interest. There appears to be little government support and a desire to avoid complicating life by reopening old wounds.

An Amnesty Law in 1977 swept history under the carpet and as a result Spain didn’t process the war and dictatorship instead opting for collective amnesia before adopting their Constitution and moving into a democracy.

In the aptly named El Silencio de Otros one quote da en el clavo (hits the nail on the head):

Es simplemente un olvido, una amnistía de todos para todos. Un olvido de todos para todos.

Article 45 of the draft bill for the Democratic Memory Law in 2020 titled: Medidas en materia educativa y de formación del profesorado stated that:

El sistema educativo español incluirá entre sus fines el conocimiento de la historia y de la memoria democrática española y la lucha por los valores y libertades democráticas.

A tal efecto, se procederá a la actualización de los contenidos curriculares para Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y Bachillerato

In July 2022 however an amendment to article 45 from 2020 sought to take this further by adding that the repression suffered throughout the war and subsequent dictatorship should also be included in school textbooks!

El sistema educativo español incluirá entre sus fines el conocimiento de la historia y de la memoria democrática española y la lucha por los valores y libertades democráticas desarrollando en los libros de texto y materiales curriculares la represión que se produjo durante la Guerra y la Dictadura.

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Hooked

It was a steep learning curve. My exploration of the SCW began with the fantastic Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett. I was hooked and learning as much about the SCW became a mild obsession.

Years later I would get the chance to interview Giles for a Boletín issue!

After Ghosts of Spain I moved on to popular fiction/non-fiction by Laurie Lee, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and Gerald Brenan. The more I read the more I realised I didn’t know and the more questions I had:

1. Why would Italy, Russia and Germany get involved in the Spanish Civil War?

2. Why would France and England sign a non-intervention pact?

3. What were the differences between communism, fascism and anarchism, socialism?

4. What is Carlism?!?! 😕(this one took a while to clear up)

5. How did Franco come to power and why did he remain there so long?

6. Were there really concentration camps in Spain?

7. How can the church and army have so much power?

8. What were the massacres perpetrated by both sides?

9. What are the repercussions on Spain today?

10. Why is the war a taboo subject?

There was a long journey ahead of me. I needed to dig deeper, get more specific and find some answers.

A family link

Then a revelation…

I find out that if it weren’t for the SCW then I wouldn’t be here writing this today!

It turns out my bisbuelo (Pere Mitjà i Figueres Granollers, 1915 – Londres, 1988) was very involved with Catalan politics, was awarded the Order of Loyalty to the Republic and even worked with Luis Companys! After leaving Barcelona via the Pyrenees the Cruz Roja picked him up and he then settled in England.

Coincidentally, he too published a weekly newsletter but in Catalan. He also founded Catalans UK. A really fascinating man.

Digging deeper

The reading continued. Gerald Brenan’s tome The Spanish Labyrinth awaited me and I put off reading it for a while as it’s heavy. It’s certainly a book which deserves its reputation as one of the best on the topic.

The Spanish Labyrinth includes an in-depth description of the factions involved within the SCW, including Carlists (phew) and gives a great account of the socio-historical context of pre-war Spain. Brenan’s other books South From Granada and The Face of Spain contain yet more of his astute observations of Spanish society in the early 20th century. All three are essential reading.

Later, books like Franco and Condor Legion and Help Spain! would help me get my head around the organisation and aims of the International Brigades and the scope of German/Italian/Russian help during the war. Tanks, planes, armaments, advisers, spies etc.

During the 6 weeks holidays, whilst getting to grips with being a parent, Winter in Madrid by C.J Sansom transported me back to 1940’s Spain and synthesized everything learnt so far. It’s an engrossing, historically accurate wartime espionage novel set in the post-war capital. What could be better? A mix of John Le Carré and Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Much of it rings true with accounts from Así fue la dictadura: diez historias de represión franquista. I won’t ruin the former but part of the story takes place in a concentration camp.

Now then, whilst I remember, here is a list of some societal changes in Spain in the lead up to the war. Some of these include legislation bought in by the Spanish Republic in 1931.

A list of pre-war societal changes

Some changes below were only proposed and not fulfilled. This list is taken directly from one of my note pads.

But first a quote…

To every worker the necessary conditions for a dignified existence (The Constitution of 1931)

1. Divorce law abrogated.

2. The arts of pottery, painting and music flourish.

3. Novios could go to the cinema together, a break from tradition.

4. Women wear short sleeves, low dresses, modern bathing suits. Bishops say this is immoral.

5. New ideas about the independence of women seeped in from abroad.

6. Secular (non-religious) schooling is free and compulsory.

7. An 8-hour day for agricultural workers and the banning of outsourcing cheaper labour from further away.

8. Women available in elections as deputies for the first time.

9. 40% decrease in Army Officers.

10. Religious liberty declared and Catholic images removed from schools.

11. Female suffrage.

12. Equal rights for all citizens.

13. Civil marriage and divorce.

14. Provision for regional autonomy.

15. Permission for state to expropriate private property for reasons of broader social utility.

16. Priests and nuns are banned from teaching in private schools.

17. Women work in industry, can be soldiers and are involved with politics + wear worker clothes.

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Francoist concentration camps.

Carlos Hernández (war journalist, author and once parliamentary columnist) describes Spain as una gran casa de Bernarda Alba as he quotes her opening/last line of the play in his most recent book Los campos de concentración de Franco.

Carlos had a stark realisation one day whilst running through Casa de Campo in Madrid. The undulating ground under his feet bought back memories of a blissfully innocent childhood spent playing there. He remembered the improvised goal posts between pine trees and how he would go up and down the bumps on his bike pretending to be a motocross rider. At forty years of age he had a stark realisation. These undulations were bunkers, shell craters and trenches. The prologue of Las bicicletas son para el verano springs to mind.

Luis: ¿Te imaginas que aquí hubiera una guerra de verdad?

Pablo: Pero - ¿Dónde te crees que estás? ¿En Abisinia? ¡Aquí qué va a haber una guerra!

Luis: Bueno, pero se puede pensar.

Pablo: Aquí no puede haber guerra por muchas razones.

Luis: ¿Por cuáles?

Pablo: Pues porque para una guerra hace falta mucho campo o el desierto, como en Abisinia, para hacer trincheras. Y aquí no se puede porque estamos en Madrid, en una ciudad. En las ciudades no puede haber batallas.

Luis: Sí, es verdad.

Looking out from Casa de Campo was the Western Front from which Franco’s troops attempted to enter Madrid, close to Parque del Oeste and Ciudad Universitaria (the setting of the exchange between Pablo and Luis) which became battlegrounds. Civil War tours, many organised by British tour guides, will show you all of this. I paid for one in 2016 and saw bullet hole ridden walls and a monument paying homage to the International Brigades which had recently been defaced.

Frontline Madrid by David Mathieson (organiser of the tour I went on) does an excellent job in describing the seige of Madrid and has an entire chapter on Madrid’s Western Front (Casa de Campo, Parque del Oeste and University Campus).

In another of his books Los últimos españoles de Mauthausen Carlos sheds light on the Spaniards deported to German concentration camps by Hitler on Franco’s orders. A challenge closer to home would be researching the Francoist concentration camps in his own country. In Los campos de concentración de Franco Carlos identifies 296 concentration camps in Spain in which he believes between 700,000 to 1,000,000 prisoners passed through. Here is an interactive map of the camps. Carlos states that:

Además de ser el escenario de esta selección ideológica, los campos sirvieron también como lugar de exterminio, de reclusión, de castigo, de trabajos forzados y de reeducación. Exterminio porque los asesinatos de prisioneros fueron parte de la rutina diaria. (Hernández, page 77)

Deep roots

The class struggle and political unrest pre-1936 in Spain had some deep roots. Spain: A Brief History by Giles Tremlett helped me to understand the Spanish Civil War in the context of The First Carlist War of 1833, the Peninsular  War and the French Revolution. The clash between liberals and reactionaries (as the ultra-catholic traditionalists are referred to in his book) goes back over 100-years. Did you know there were at least 50 attempted coups in the period between 1814 to 1891 in Spain?

Giles Tremlett also helped me learn more about Carlism. He dedicates a whole chapter to Ferdinand VII aka el deseado. Ferdinand scrapped the constitution of 1812 which included some pretty radical reforms and sent the clock further back in Spain by re-instating the inquisition amongst other things. After a coup in 1820 he would then go back on his word and declare that the liberals were right and swear allegiance to the same constitution he had abolished eight years earlier (Tremlett, 2022).

Tremlett introduces Ferdinand’s wife Cristina María (a corrupt slave trader) and their infant daughter Isabella II. Shortly before his death Ferdinand pushed through a law change which would allow his daughter to become heiress to the throne in a break with Bourbon tradition. However, it was his wife María Cristina who would be regent which stoked the fires of the reactionaries who supported his brother Carlos’ claim to the throne and a return to more conservative, absolutist ways. The First Carlist War shortly followed, and a divide emerged in Spain.

Francoism and Falangism - is there a link?

The simple answer is yes! Click below to view the newsletter for edition 98 which is all about Franco and Primo de Rivera (the founder of the Falange).

Boletín

Boletín 98 - The death of Franco, José Antonio Primo de Rivera and 20N.

It is claimed that the memory of José Antonio Primo de Rivera was harnessed by the Francoist state to imbue the regime with poetic, intellectual and ideological attractiveness. This week we’ll demystify the relationship between Franco and Antonio Primo de Rivera…

Read more

3 years ago · olliemfl

Final thoughts

It’s clear that radical new policies threatened a seismic shift in everyday life for traditional, conservative Spaniards who hated the idea of communism and Marxism.

Ian Gibson in The Assassination of Federico García Lorca describes this group:

Spanish traditionalists identify Spain with the Catholic church: Spain has been chosen by god as the torchbearer of the Faith and the guardian of Chistian values in a hostile world, and virtue lies in remaining faithful to the spirit of Ferdinand and Isabella, the ‘Catholic Monarchs’ who unified Castile and Aragon, defeated the Moors of Granada, expelled the jews, promoted the discovery, colonisation and conversion of the New World and imposed state Catholicism.

Franco too hated them. Here’s a snippet from an interview between him and Jay Allen.

Franco: Salvaré España del marxismo, cueste lo que cueste.

Jay Allen: ¿Eso significa que tendrá que matar a la mitad de España?

Franco: Repito, cueste lo que cueste. (Hernándes de Miguel, 2019)

Equally despised were socialists, anarchists, unionists and all were often conflated so that if one had left-leaning tendencies one might find themselves in the half of Spain Franco was alluding to. Either that or locked up, tortured, publicly humiliated, re-educated, sent to a concentration camp, brain washed, shaved and paraded through town naked or paseado. Brutally, if your relatives were known to sympathise with the left the above could also apply to you.

Unsurprisingly, with his cleansing of Spain, Franco was in contact with Hitler’s Nazi Party. Records of Hitler shaping Spain’s internal workings (policing for one) exist.

The UN put on record in 1946 that:

de acuerdo con su origen, naturaleza, estructura y conducta general, el régimen de Franco es un régimen fascista basado en el model de la Alemania de Hitler y la Italia fascista de Mussolini (Hernándes de Miguel, 2019)

Franco harnassed the poetic, intellectual and ideological attractiveness of José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s Falange, merged it with Carlism and created a hybrid of the two which formed the building blocks of Francoism. Franco’s problem however was that José Antonio, the popular figure and leader of the Falange, had been executed. The Falange had lost it’s leader and identity. Franco presided over an ideological genocide under the facade of falangism which purist falangists resisted (more on that in edition 98). Spaniards had to adapt to the new regime for fear of being caught or denounced by neighbours.

Nevertheless, resistance to the regime continued up until Franco’s death, albeit predominantly clandestinely with flash protests, anti-francoist literature and leaflets although organised guerrilla units or maquis disturbed the status quo.

The cogs moved slowly after Franco’s death in 1975. In El Silencio de Otros multiple plaintiffs resorted to bringing their post-war torturer Antonio González Pacheco AKA Billy el Niño to justice in Argentina due to the Spanish government blocking a trial in Spain (there was an amnesty🙄).

Spoiler (don’t read the next sentence if you’re planning on watching): Billy el Niño died of COVID-19 before his victims could see justice.

The new Democratic Memory Law is a leap forward and builds on the Historic Memory Law of 2007. Among other things human rights violations, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and enforced disappearances can now be investigated internationally under Universal Jurisdiction. On the amnesty.org page you can learn more but below summarises it quite well.

There are many reasons why victims of these crimes are denied justice. They include a lack of political will to investigate crimes and prosecute those responsible, weak criminal justice systems, and the marginalization of victims in society.

As a result, perpetrators may not be held to account and may even continue to hold positions in which they can commit violations or prevent accountability; victims are left to suffer.

Universal jurisdiction refers to the principle that a national court may, and in some circumstances must, prosecute individuals for crimes under international law – such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide or torture – wherever they happened, based on the principle that such crimes harm the international community or international order itself, which individual states may act to protect.

The Spanish Civil War is a very complex topic to teach especially when time is limited and you want to do the topic justice.

It would be easy to teach some aspects well and skip over the more difficult ones. What’s clear is there’s no end to the number of books covering it and just when I think everything I’ve read I’ve understood holistically I forget or realise I have misunderstood something. Most of the books above I’ll read again to make it stick.

I’ve seen some feisty exchanges on teaching Facebook groups about the SCW and as a non-native feel slightly perturbed sharing my own thoughts on the topic. There’s lots more to add to this post (I have barely touched on the whole post-war period) and I will try to update it annually. If I’ve misinterpreted anything above or you think I’ve unfairly represented something then I am wanting to learn more so get in touch.

A little something extra

This year I’m looking forward to incorporating newspapers from 1975 (pic below) into the classroom to see how much students can glean about Franco from his obituaries in the press. It’s worth pointing that ABC was a conservative, catholic and monarchist paper so opinions about Franco are rose-tinted. In the future I’d like to get a copy of a periódico de izquierdas for an alternative view. Here’s what Wikipedia say about ABC.

La ley de prensa de 22 de abril de 1938 suprimirá la prensa republicana, convirtiendo al conjunto de la prensa restante en una institución al servicio del Estado, transmisor de valores oficiales e instrumento de adoctrinamiento político. En este contexto, el ABC se convertirá en uno de los periódicos más importantes para el sostenimiento de la dictadura

Whilst I’m on the topic of newspapers you might like to visit the Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica. Use the search tab to find your own historical news to use in class!

If you’re a Twitter user you can follow @19391936 who tweets SCW events chronologically, day by day or @guroseba who shares images of Spanish newspapers along with newsworthy stories from both sides of the war.

Book suggestions from fellow MFL teachers

As well as the books mentioned above, the following are also worth looking into. This is essentially my SCW reading list:

• Las Trece Rosas by Jesús Ferrero

• The Real Band of Brothers by Max Arthur

• A World Between Us by Lydia Syson

• The Fountains of Silence by Rupta Septys

• El Lápiz del Carpintero by Manuel Rivas

• The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston

• A People Betrayed by Paul Preston

• Franco by Paul Preston

• The Masquerade in Spain by Charles Foltz Jr

• The Spanish Civil War: A very short introduction by Helen Graham

• Luna de Lobos by Julio Llamazares

Podcast episodes/videos relating to the SCW

All the following are links to the The Sobremesa Podcast on Spotify; an English speaking podcast about modern-day Spanish society, politics and history. It makes me wish I started podcasting myself with Boletín!

On the Democratic Memory Law 1 and 2.

On exhuming Spain’s mass graves.

On Barcelona and the Civil War.

On exhuming Franco from el Valle de los Caídos.

On the relationship between Nazi Germany and Spain.

An interview with Giles Tremlett about the International Brigades.

On Spain’s Memory Wars.

Spain: A Country Divided (German audio/English captions)

Resources to teach the Spanish Civil War

La Guerra Civil Española and La exhumación de Franco by Neil Jones

The Two Spains 1936 -1975 6-week booklet by @MrFrancisMFL

BBC radio broadcasts related to Spanish history by @lewizrs

Planning the coup on WhatsApp, censorsip after the war, torture and exploitation post-war and rationing post-war by OllieMFL

Boletín 98 - Falangism, Franco/Primo de Rivera and 20N.

Boletín 88 - The disappeared, Historic Memory Law and Maria Martín

Boletín 77 - La transición hacía la democracia

Boletín 71 - The post-war period in Spain

Boletín 49 - Consecuencias de la guerra civil

Boletín 32 - Dictators (Hitler, Stalin and Franco)

Pre-cursor to the Spanish Civil War. A group activity with a reading and card-sort based on the policies/wants/ideologies of the nationalists/socialists/anarchists/communists and International Brigades. I use this every year! I’ve lowered the price to £1 until end of September. Buy here.

An interactive Spanish Civil War museum here.

The download link

Well done if you got this far. Thanks for reading!

Download edition 93 here, leave a review if you like it or buy me a beer here.

Lo injusta es la vida. No la vida…los humanos…somos injustos

Hi all,

As ever thank you so much for subscribing to this newsletter. I’m excited to release edition 88 which is part 3 in the series of consequences of the Spanish Civil War. The three texts focus on los desaparecidos, la Ley de Memoria Democrática and María Martín.

The idea for this edition has been on my to-do list for about 3 months and came about after having watched El silenco de otros for the third time. For those, like me, who have an interest in the SCW or teach the WJEC spec watching it is a must.

https://www.youtube.com/watch&ab_channel=TrailersyEstrenos

The exam style question in edition 88 is one which hasn’t featured in a while and that is simple question and answer in Spanish.

Grammar/language to be on the look out for:

• Irregular past tense

• Higher numbers

• Passive voice

• Direct Object Pronouns

• Imperfect tense

• Future simple tense

• Past participles acting as adjective

• Subjunctive with para que trigger

Download edition 88 here, buy us a coffee here if you liked this edition.

Hasta luego,

Ollie