| This dissertation examines a number of recent documentary films and documentary novels that deal with the memory of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship: Soldados de Salamina (2001), La voz dormida (2002), Los ninos de Rusia (2001), La guerrilla de la memoria (2002), La guerra cotidiana (2002), and Exilio (2002). They came out in the middle of a wide socio-political and cultural movement that demanded the end of the political "pact of forgetting," and public recognition of those who defended the Republic during the Civil War.;Following the theories of Barbara Foley in literature, and Bill Nichols in film, this study shows how the authors of these films and novels use narrative strategies associated to non-fiction to deconstruct the Francoist representation of Republicans as the "anti-Spain." Moreover, these documentary films and novels offer readers and viewers new epic narratives in which Republicans are presented as mythical heroes: not only did they fight for Spain as much as those who won the Civil War, but they also played an important role in the fight for democracy and against the Nazis in World War II, as part of the allied forces.;This dissertation also takes a cultural studies approach to go a step further and examine these works of film and literature from a larger perspective, i.e., as tools for an ongoing redefinition of the Spanish identity. It is my contention that they provide the Left with the symbolic materials necessary to do what was left undone in the transicion; that is, to create a modern myth of the Spanish nation as anti-fascist. Furthermore, the Republican memories retrieved in these novels and films forge a new Spanish identity that reflects the principles of constitutional patriotism, i.e., the central government's nation-building discourse; hence, it is a modern and European Spanish identity, accepting of regional identities and committed to interregional solidarity. |
