The End of Dictatorships in Portugal and Spain: Historical Contexts and Public Memories

In the 1970s, the collapse of the Estado Novo (New State) and the Francoist state took place, two of the longest-lasting dictatorships in the contemporary history of Western Europe. This year marks half a century since the military coup carried out by officers of the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) that overthrew Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano, leading to the Carnation Revolution on 25 April 1974. Next year will mark 50 years since the death of the dictator Francisco Franco on 20 November 1975, who became head of state during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the beginning of the political shift towards the transition to democracy in Spain. 

Spanish migrant and exiled women in the French Resistance. The construction of a memory between experiences and expectations

The participation of Spanish women in the French Resistance remains one of the great unresolved issues in the historiography of Republican exile and the Second World War. For decades, researchers and activists on both sides of the Pyrenees have denounced their neglect by both academia and society, an assertion that is now largely untrue. In recent years, the growing concern for gender issues and women’s history has led to a greater public presence and their inclusion across the board in the most recent research. However, there are still no specific studies of this particular group of women, largely due to the problem of the limited availability and fragmentation of sources, as well as the way in which they have been constructed in memorials since 1944. 

The Mosaics of Flight by Angelo Canevari in Forlì

The architectural and artistic heritage of Forlì includes a work of great value, both from a cultural and historical point of view – the mosaics in the former Aeronautical College, now a school for 11–14-year-olds.  This is a truly impressive work of art dating back to the second half of the 1930s, based on drawings by Angelo Canevari and dedicated to the theme of flight. More precisely, they depict the myth of flight and the relationship between man and the conquest of the skies as interpreted by the Fascist regime.  The mosaics are perhaps the most striking example of the ‘dissonant’ heritage of the city of Forlì – the ‘città del Duce’ rebuilt as a showcase for Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, but a city awarded the ‘silver medal for its part in the Resistance (‘Medaglia d’argento al valor militare per attività partigiana’) and with a strong post-war tradition of antifascism. The mosaics have an undoubted artistic value alongside a cultural and historical value as an example of the propaganda of the Fascist regime. 

How do we tell what has happened to us?

In his work Voices from Chernobyl (2015), in the chapter ‘Monologue on Why People Remember’, the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich presents us with the testimony of the psychologist Piotr S., who asks, why do people remember? “Is it to restore truth? Justice? To free themselves and forget? Because they realise they have been part of a great event? Or because they seek some form of protection in the past?” This is the account of an ‘ordinary’ man, reflecting on one of the human tragedies that, beyond the intention to quantify it through the force of its death toll, impacts as profoundly as the Holocaust, the repression and disappearance of people during the civil-military dictatorship in Argentina, or the more than nine million people recognised as victims of the social and armed conflict in Colombia. 

Whose memory? New museums and (political) narratives in Slovenia

New museums and (political) narratives in Slovenia Kaja ŠirokHistorian. Assistant professor at the University of Nova Gorica Cover image: Part of the permanent exhibition “Slovenians in the 20th century”, which tells the story of the independence and democratisation of the country; Jože Suhadolnik/DELO In March 2021, on the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the …

The Rivesaltes Camp Memorial: the institutionalisation of a memoir

Céline Sala-PonsDirector of the Camp of Rivesaltes Memorial Nicolas LebourgHistorian, expert in the history of the Camp of Rivesaltes Cover picture: Rivesaltes Camp Memorial. ©HuguesArgence In 2015, the Rivesaltes Camp Memorial [MCR in French] was inaugurated in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France, several kilometres form the Franco-Spanish border. This inauguration marked the patient construction of …

Günther Domenig, architecture as mediation

The case of the Third Reich Congress Hall in Nuremberg Dominique TroucheAssistant Professor in Communication and Information Sciences at University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier. Author of Les Mises en scène de l’histoire, Approche communicationnelle des sites historiques des Guerres mondiales, L’Harmattan, 2010 Cover picture: View of the reception of the footbridge. Documentation Centre on …