History
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Excellence in Scholarship and Learning
Women Political Prisoners after the Spanish Civil War
Narratives of Resistance and Survival
Ruth Fisher was awarded a PhD in Hispanic Studies from University of Sheffield in 2018. Ruth is interested in modern European history and literature, with a particular focus on post-conflict society in 20th century Germany and Spain. She now works in academic publishing.
At the end of the Spanish Civil War the Nationalist government instigated mass repression against anyone suspected of loyalty to the defeated Republican side. Around 200,000 people were imprisoned for political crimes, including thousands of women who were charged with offences ranging from directing the home front to supporting their loved ones engaged in combat. Many women wrote and published texts about their experiences, seeking to make their voices heard and to counteract the dehumanising master narrative of the right-wing victors that had criminalised their existence. The memoirs of Communist women, such as Tomasa Cuevas and Juana Doña, have heavily influenced our understanding of life in prison for women under franquismo, while texts by non-Communist women have largely been ignored.
Narratives of Resistance and Survival offers a comparative study of the life writing of female political prisoners in Spain, focusing on six texts in particular: the two volumes of Cárcel de mujeres by Tomasa Cuevas; Desde la noche y la niebla by Juana Doña; Réquiem por la libertad by Ángeles García Madrid; Abajo las dictaduras by Josefa García Segret; and Aquello sucedió así by Ángeles Malonda. All the texts share common themes, such as the hunger and repression that political prisoners suffered. However, the ideologically-driven narratives of Communist women often foreground representations of resistance at the expense of exploring the emotional and intellectual struggle for survival that many women political prisoners faced in the aftermath of the war. This study nuances our understanding of imprisoned women as individuals and as a collective, analysing how they sought recognition and justice in the face of a vindictive dictatorship. It also explores their response to the spirit of convivencia during the transition to democracy, which once again threatened to silence them.
Published in association with the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies
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| Hardback ISBN: | 978-1-78976-055-2 |
| Hardback Price: | £75.00 / $89.95 |
| Release Date: | March 2021 |
| Page Extent / Format: | 280 pp. 229 x 152 mm |
| Illustrated: | No |
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: Mass Imprisonment and its Legacy during the Transition
The pacto de olvido and its origins
Creating the Transition
The Transition in the writing of political prisoners
Mass imprisonment in the immediate post-war period
Studying Spanish women political prisoners and their life writing
Chapter Two: The Resistance Narrative: The Communist Construction of Prison in the Life Writing of Tomasa Cuevas and Juana Doña
Communist life writing
Tomasa Cuevas' Cárcel de mujeres (1985)
A case study of Soviet-model Communist autobiography
Juana Doña's Desde la noche y la niebla: Mujeres en las cárceles franquistas (1978)
Political life in prison
Educational programmes
Hunger strikes and protests
A network of resistance across Spain
Constructing community
Political women
Prostitutes and chivatas
Bearing witness
Heroic death
The heroic death of the Trece Rosas
Emotional bonds between Communist women
Chapter Three: Exploring the Individual and the Feminist in Communist Writing: Juana Doña's Ideological Development
Breaking with the PCE, feminism, and the Transition
La mujer (1977) and its relationship with Desde la noche y la niebla
Framing Desde la noche y la niebla as a feminist text
Domestic violence and rape
Motherhood
Doña and Mesón's revolutionary love
Grief
The isolation of imprisonment
Questioning dogmatism
Chapter Four: Surviving Francoist Repression: The Prison Memoirs of Ángeles García Madrid, Josefa García Segret, and Ángeles Malonda
Réquiem por la libertad by Ángeles García Madrid
Abajo las dictaduras by Josefa García Segret
Aquello sucedió así by Ángeles Malonda
The spectacle of justice
Arrest
Trial
Challenging the legal system
Cohabitation and survival in prison
Food politics
Negotiating relationships
Persecution, harassment, and exploitation: the vulnerability of non-Communists and their families
Coping strategies
Chapter Five: Influencing the Narrative during the Transition and Beyond
Appendix A – Editions of Primary Texts
Bibliography
Index
Review Quotes to Follow
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