History

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