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Granite Remains: Francoist Monuments TodayOlivia Muñoz-Rojas Oscarsson

To cite this article: Olivia Muñoz-Rojas Oscarsson (2012): Granite Remains: Francoist Monuments Today,Public Art Dialogue, 2:2, 147-157

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GRANITE* REMAINS:FRANCOIST MONUMENTS TODAY

Olivia Munoz-Rojas Oscarsson

“There is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document ofbarbarism,” Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940.1 We might think of civilizationallandmarks such as the pyramids of Egypt or the cathedrals in Spanish America, andthe conditions of exploitation or repression in which these buildings were raised, toillustrate the paradox that Benjamin suggests. Whether we share Benjamin’sdialectical approach or not, the quote is useful and underlies the debate I wish toaddress: if all the documents of culture are documents of barbarism, what principledo we use to decide which ones we ought to preserve andwhich we ought to disposeof? Spain, with the approval of the so-calledHistoricalMemory Law (HML) offers acase study of special interest and relevance in this respect. Article 15 of the Lawspecifically establishes the removal of insignias andmonuments that referpositivelyto the military uprising of 1936—which led to the Spanish Civil War (1936–39)—and General Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975).2 What is the context of the Law?What are the implications of removing Francoist monuments? What role couldpublic art have in providing alternative ways of channelling the needs for ‘historicaljustice’ and moral restitution that underpin the Law and article 15?

MEMORY, LAW, AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

Until a fewyears ago talking about ‘memory’ as a substitute for ‘history’was almost asubversive act. It implied a vindication: to reveal those events, images, voices, etc.that had been ignored by conventional historiography over the centuries—thehistory of the vanquishers, paraphrasing Benjamin once more. Together withthe concept ofmemory arrived the concept of trauma. Formany critical thinkers the

*Granite was considered the Hispanic construction material par excellence by the Franco regime.Numerous Francoist monuments were built in granite, including the Valle de los Caıdos. (see below).

Public Art Dialogue, Vol. 2, Issue 2, September 2012, 147–157

Public Art DialogueISSN 2150-2552 print/ISSN 2150-2560 online q 2012 Taylor & Francis

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aim was to psychoanalyze society, reaching the bottom of the collective psyche inorder tobringout theunspeakable, the repressed, and themostpainful andhumanlyinconceivable experiences that somany societieswent throughduring the twentiethcentury.3 Politically, it was also about doing justice to the vanquished.

By the time academic circles began talking of the exhaustion of memory at thebeginning of the 2000s, governments and public institutions in a number ofcountries with recent pasts of war and dictatorship had appropriated the term.Among the most visible effects of this institutionalization of memory is thefoundation of a vast number of memorials and memory museums in differentparts of the world, from the Museum of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan to theMuseum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago de Chile.4

Hence the case of Spain and the Historical Memory Law, approved inDecember 2007, despite its individual features, far from being an exception, is arepresentative example of this process of memory institutionalization. The HMLreflects, on the one hand, the spirit of the truth and reconciliation commissions ofcountries like South Africa and, on the other, the ancient Roman principle ofdamnatiomemoriae, the condemnationof thememoryof the enemiesof state.5 TheLaw caused and continues causing strong and diverse reactions in Spanish society.

The HML includes several, fairly different, measures: victim indemnifications,exhumations, removal of insignias andmonuments that refer positively to the 18July1936 military uprising, recovery and conservation of historical documentation,granting of Spanish citizenship to former members of the International Brigades(who fought with the Spanish Republicans against General Franco) and descendantsofSpanishpolitical exiles.Eachmeasure contributes to aprocess of ‘recovery’ of thoseaspects of Spain’s recent past that were either ignored or silenced by the Francoregime, and subject subsequently to a pact of silence by the politicians responsible forSpain’s transition to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975.

Article 15 regulates “public symbols and monuments,” and establishes that“the Public administrations [ . . . ] will take appropriate measures to remove coatsof arms, insignias, plaques and other objects or commemorative mentions ofpersonal or collective exaltation of the military uprising, the Civil War and therepression of the Dictatorship.” These measures may include taking awaysubsidies or public grants from public institutions and private owners who do notact accordingly. The article also establishes that it “will not be applicable whenthe mentions are for private remembrance strictly, when they do not exalt therebels, or in the event of artistic, architectural or artistic-religious circumstancesprotected by law.”

What kind of constructions does article 15 aim at? To date, and despiteplans for both, there is neither an official catalogue of existing Francoist symbolsnor any regulations on how to classify them.6 Nevertheless, a look at the pressover the last years reveals the type of constructions that have been removed

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most frequently. These include statues of Franco, crosses to the fallen on theNationalist side,7 pre-democratic coats of arms on the facades of public buildings,and metal plaques of the Francoist Housing Institute on public housing facades.In quantitative terms, between 2006 and 2010, 642 projects related to the removalof monuments and insignias took place. More than one million euro was spent onthese initiatives.8

Military facilities are among themost ‘marked’ by the dictatorship. By January2010, 328 of the 427 Francoist symbols identified in military facilities—from

Figure 1. Cross to the fallen on the Nationalist side, Barajas de Melo (Ciudad Real) on which theinscription has been removed. Photo: Author.

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statues to coats of arms—had been removed. Of the 12 files submitted to theMinistry of Culture for assessing their preservation in situ for historical, artistic oftechnical reasons, three had been ruled, the symbols waiting to be removed, andnine were under study.9 The technical commission in charge of deciding on thepotential historical or artistic value of particular symbols was approved in March2009, and includes five permanent members and 14 scholarly advisors. Theprevalence of the historical criterion over the aesthetic is perhaps obvious whenlooking at the distribution of the fourteen assessors: there are 10 historians, twoart historians and two architects.10

Those autonomous communities with strong nationalist traditions such asCatalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, have generally been more active inapplying the Law. In Catalonia, for example, there were 7,700 Francoist symbolsleft in September 2010, according to the figures of Memorial Democratic, theofficial Catalan platform for the recovery of historical memory. At the same time,Barcelona stands out for being one of the cities that has applied itself the most inthe removal of Francoist symbols. The Victory statue, at a prominent intersectionin central Barcelona, was the last Francoist monument to disappear from theCatalan capital in January 2011. It has become part of Barcelona’s HistoryMuseum collection.11

The continued presence of the Valle de los Caıdos—Franco’s memorial and—burial compound, close to The Escorial, north-west of Madrid—is exceptionallypolemical. But it is not the only case. Other controversial monuments still in placeare the O Castro cross in Vigo, dominating the Galician town from a hill top; themonument to the Nationalists’ victory in the Ebro battle at Tortosa; the statue ofadmiral Carrero Blanco at Santona; and the statue of General Franco ascommander of the Legion, at the feet of the wall of Old Melilla. This is the onlystatue of the dictator left in public space.12 Judging from the press, the applicationof article 15 can turn into a veritable hot potato for many town councils.The decision to remove a cross or a headstone with the names of the fallen on theNationalist side is often a source of significant tension among local politicalgroups and the local citizenry. This is not necessarily a negative outcome: conflictaround the permanence or not of a monument or memorial forces citizens toconfront their past instead of repress it.13 We find an example of this kindof tension in the case of the Sagrado Corazon de Jesus basilica (known as LaIglesiona) in Gijon, northern Spain, where the local authorities, following theHML, proceeded to remove two large marble plaques framing the entrance ofthe basilica with the names of the more than 300 people that were imprisoned inthe church by the Republicans during the civil war (including priests, membersof religious orders, but also engineers, labourers, teachers and other civilians).14Many parishioners and local neighbours expressed their anger at the decision,especially those with relatives listed on the plaques, but the decision went

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ahead. In order “not to hurt the feelings” of the different groups, the plaqueswere detached discreetly; the works were hidden behind scaffolding and largecanvases.15 Initially the idea was to move the plaques inside the church, butseveral sections did not resist the move and broke. Instead, a copy of the two listson methacrylate plaques will be on display in an inconspicuous area of the church,behind the presbytery16—a place that is considered ‘private’ and thus not subjectto the HML.

THE PAST IN THE FUTURE AND THE ROLE OF ART

The “uncomfortableness” that certain constructions stir seemingly has a date ofexpiry. When decades, centuries, let us not say millennia, have passed the materiallegacies of an era do not hold the same political and social meaning. However, asociety may revise its heritage at any moment, deciding to eradicate thoseelements that it considers uncomfortable at that particular point in time, becausethey belong to a past which it wishes to erase from collective remembrance—wemay only think of the destruction of the giant Buddhas in Bayman, Afghanistan, bythe Taliban in 2001.

The question is to what extent do future generations have the right to knowtheir past, including the darkest, and not merely through books, films, or otherfiction? It is a complex query. Regardless of howmuch we want to think in terms oflongue duree and be responsible towards future generations, we cannot ignore theneeds and concerns of the present ones. The case of Germany shows thecomplexity of the question. The inexistence of Nazi symbols in Germany is oftenused as an example for denouncing the presence of Francoist motives in Spain.Nevertheless, a closer examination of the different phases through which Germancities have been in their dealing with the Nazi legacy shows that this was, and stillis, a changing, often contradictory process. Almost 70 years after the fall of theThird Reich, most experts argue, there are no single or definite cultural andpolitical responses to the presence of Nazi heritage in German cities. With regardto Munich, for example, Rosenfeld claims that although there was a “prevailingamnesiac drive” in the post-war years, “it did not stand unopposed [ . . . ] in a citycomposed of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.”17 Yet, somehow, the cityended associating Nazism with “more abstract, modern, and allegedly un-Germanfactors,” and re-embraced “the pre-war tradition of architectural conservatism andcommitment to historic preservation.”18 As a result, “today Munich presents animage of historic architectural harmony,” largely stripped of modern architecture,wartime ruins, and Nazi architecture and monuments.19 In Nuremberg, on theother hand, the former Nazi Party Rally grounds, “ha[ve] been variously used,debated and neglected, and partly blown up, grassed-over, restored and

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exhibited,” asMacdonald explains.20 Today, the area is not only listed, but is one ofNuremberg’s largest green spaces and an important leisure area.21 Based on recentobservations, Rosenfeld contends nonetheless, memory is better preservedthrough contestation than through consensus, and thus “the continuingdivisiveness surrounding the Third Reich’s legacy provides its best hope of beingpreserved in memory.”22 In this sense, the divisiveness that the HML has causedand causes in Spain should be interpreted at least as a sign that the experience ofthe civil war and the dictatorship is far from falling into oblivion.

Still, it is legitimate to ask if the law, as such, is the best instrument to addressissues that affect the symbolic order of a society, changing collective sensitivities,and contradictory experiences of the present and the past in the present. Perhapsother socio-cultural forms are more adequate to address and resolve the materialpresence of a traumatic past? I suspect that someone like Walter Benjamin,although fully convinced of the urgency of recovering the memory of thevanquished, would have disagreed with the idea of erasing every material trace ofthe vanquishers. Given to the techniques of collage and montage and urbanpalimpsests, it is likely that he would have appealed to artists’ creativity to dealwith our uncomfortable legacies.

Germany is once more a good example of the role that art can play in therecovery andmaintenance of historical memory. Over the last decades a number ofartists have been commissioned works that address the Nazi period by Germaninstitutions, including Hans Haacke, Werner Fenz, Jochen Gerz and HeinrichLessing. It is not that artists should be attributed a higher interpretative capacitythan ordinary citizens, and assigned full responsibility for the interpretation andcontextualization of an uncomfortable space or construction. The idea is to involveartists in collaborative projects in which political representatives, historians,urbanists, other experts, and ordinary citizens participate. These projects, orprocesses, are not expected to be straightforward, but the process itself ofdebating, deciding and generating responses has a democratic and sociallycathartic value.23

There are some initiatives under the Spanish Historical Memory Law whicharguably show greater sensitivity towards the plural, changing and conflictingnature of collective or public memory. The memory route that was inaugurated inthe cemetery of Zaragoza in 2010 is an attempt to conciliate opposed memoriesand interpretations of the past24: along with the spiral of metal plaques with the3,543 names of Republicans shot in this place during the civil war and itsaftermath, the decision was made to preserve the cross to the fallen on theNationalist side, erected in the cemetery in 1941. According to the HML, it shouldhave been removed. All the political groups represented in the city council—governed by the Spanish Socialist Party and the regional party Partido Aragonesbetween 2007 and 2011—unanimously agreed to preserve it as part of the route,

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the description of which was entrusted critical historian Julian Casanova.25The city council’s decision was consistent with its initial approach in fall 2007when the HML was about to be passed in parliament. The Zaragoza city councilthenmanifested that it would remove Francoist symbols as soon as it was bound todo so by the new law, but “always seeking the greatest possible neighbourhood-and political consensus.”26 In spring 2011, Marıa Gamez, the socialist candidatefor the Malaga mayoralty, proposed a similar project, in this case, a memory parkin the city’s San Rafael cemetery.27

The same inclination towards creating a place of encounter and reflection canbe found in the Sartaguda Memory Park dedicated to the Navarran victims of thecivil war and Francoism.28 The park contains several sculptures, some of great size,made by renowned Basque artists (including Joxe Ulibarrena, Jose Ramon Andaand Nestor Basterretxea). The sculptures evoke forms, feelings and specific eventsassociated with the war and the dictatorship such as Ulibarrena’s abstract work Losacribillados en la Santa Cruzada (literally, “Those who were riddled with bullets inthe Holy Crusade,” i.e. Franco’s crusade), which depicts a group of people huddlingtogether, a lorry—associated with the transportation of victims to exterminationcamps—and a hooded confessor, customary during Nationalist executions.29

Figure 2. Monument in memory of the 3,543 Republicans shot in the Torrero cemetery (Zaragoza) in1936 and subsequent years. Photo: Alvaro Rubio.

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More such initiatives—which are not limited to eliminating the “uncomfor-table” presence of crosses and inscriptions, but actually seek stressing thesepresences, contrasting them with other presences and absences associated withthis difficult period—would arguably contribute to overcoming the persistent

Figure 3. Joxe Ulibarrena. Los acribillados en la Santa Cruzada. Sartaguda Memory Park, Navarra.Fresco polychromed reinforced concrete. Photo: Txo.

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trauma of the civil war and Franco’s dictatorship. Ideally, it should be possible togenerate a superposition of legacies which despite their dissonance reflect and donot avoid the complexity of Spain’s recent past. Public institutions should activelyseek involving Spanish and foreign artists and creators in projects that contendwith the presence of the civil war and Francoism in the built environment. In thecurrent situation of profound economic recession and with a government in powerthat voted against the HML, it might be increasingly difficult to push forwardinitiatives of this kind.30 However, the HML is still in place, and once started, theprocess of revisiting the country’s past goes beyond a government’s term of office.

NOTES1 Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the philosophy of history” [1940], in Illuminations, ed. HannahArendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969).2 On 18 July 1936 a military coup led by several generals, including General Franco, and supportedby rightist and fascist groups attempted to topple the democratic government of the SecondRepublic. The country quickly divided into two contending sides, and a three-year war broke out,involving foreign powers such as Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union.3 See, among others, Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) and Shoshana Felman, The Juridical Unconscious:Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).4 See Paul Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities (Oxford,UK: Berg, 2007).5 For the Roman principle, see Charles W Hedrick Jr., History and Silence. Purge andRehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).6 Francesc Bracero, “Al acecho del monumento franquista,” La Vanguardia, 26 Mar. 2005.7 The Nationalists or rebels are the terms used to refer to the side supporting the military coup of18 July 1936.8 Natalia Junquera, “1.821 de las 2.052 fosas comunes del franquismo estan todavıa por abrir,”El Paıs, 23 Oct. 2010.9 Mariela Rubio, “El Gobierno estudia conservar la estatua de Franco en la Legion de Melilla,”Cadena Ser, 10 Jan. 2010.10 “Memoria. Dos catedraticos de Arte, dos arquitectos y 10 historiadores asesoraran al Gobiernosobre retirada de sımbolos,” elconomista.es, 3 Mar. 2009.11 “Barcelona retira de sus calles el ultimo monumento franquista,” ABC, 30 Jan. 2011.12 “Defensa retira la estatua ecuestre de Franco del Tercio de la Legion en Melilla,” La Vanguardia,4 Aug. 2010.13 Gabi Dolff-Bonekamper, “Le Forum de la Culture a Berlin, Monument d’histoire contemporaine,”in Maria Gravari-Barbas and Sylvie Guichard-Anguis (eds.), Regards croises sur le patrimoine dansle monde a l’aube du XXIe siecle (Paris: Presses Universitaires Paris-Sorbonne, 2003).14 I. Villar, “Esto tambien es memoria historica,” El Comercio, 20 Oct. 2008.15 Eva Montes, “La Iglesiona retirara las placas de la Guerra Civil,” El Comercio, 1 Sept. 2009.16 Marcos Moro, “La Iglesiona retira las placas de la guerra”, El Comercio, 23 Oct. 2009.17 Gavriel Rosenfeld, Munich and memory: architecture, monuments, and the legacy of the ThirdReich (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 6.18 Rosenfeld, 8.19 Rosenfeld, 9.

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20 Sharon Macdonald, Difficult heritage: negotiating the Nazi past in Nuremberg and beyond(Oxford & New York: Routledge, 2009), 7.21 Macdonald, 16.22 Rosenfeld, 10.23 For a critical appraisal of the role of art in memorialization processes, see, Andreas HuyssenTwilight Memories. Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York & London: Routledge, 1995),and Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Palo Alto: Stanford UniversityPress, 2003). See also, Barbie Zelizer (ed.), Visual culture and the Holocaust (New York: Rutgers,2001), and James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust in ContemporaryArt and Archicture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).24 Antonio Elorza, “Memorias historicas,” El Paıs, 20 Oct. 2007.25 Natalia Junquera, “Una ruta de la memoria une en Zaragoza a vencidos y vencedores,” El Paıs,22 Oct. 2010; “Zaragoza inaugura el miercoles el primer memorial a los fusilados de guerra,” ABC,22 Oct. 2010.26 Carlos E. Cue & Anabel Dıez, “La ley de Memoria Historica obligara a los ayuntamientos a retirarlos sımbolos franquistas,” El Paıs, 10 Oct. 2007.27 “Marıa Gamez propone un parque de la memoria en el cementerio de San Rafael,” El Mundo,13 Apr. 2011.28 See http://www.parquedelamemoria.org/29 Vıctor Goni, “A los acribillados en la Santa Cruzada - Sartaguda (Navarra)”, Diario Noticias deNavarra, 26 Dec. 2003.30 To start with, the new conservative government led by the Popular Party has cut down the budgetassigned to initiatives under the umbrella of the HML by 60 per cent, and will only spend on theexhumation of mass graves. See, Natalia Junquera, “Hachazo del 60% a las ayudas a la memoriahistorica,” El Paıs, 3 Apr. 2012.

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retirada de sımbolos.” elconomista.es, 3 Mar. 2009.“Zaragoza inaugura el miercoles el primer memorial a los fusilados de guerra.” ABC, 22 Oct. 2010.Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on the philosophy of history” [1940]. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York:

Schocken Books, 1940 1969.Bracero, Francesc. “Al acecho del monumento franquista.” La Vanguardia, 26 Mar. 2005.Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1996.Cue, Carlos E. and Anabel Dıez. “La ley de Memoria Historica obligara a los ayuntamientos a retirar

los sımbolos franquistas.” El Paıs, 10 Oct. 2007.Dolff-Bonekamper, Gabi. “Le Forum de la Culture a Berlin, Monument d’histoire contemporaine.”

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Elorza, Antonio. “Memorias historicas.” El Paıs, 20 Oct. 2007.Felman, Shoshana. The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century.

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Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories. Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York &London: Routledge, 1995.

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———. “Una ruta de la memoria une en Zaragoza a vencidos y vencedores.” El Paıs, 22 Oct. 2010.———. “Hachazo del 60% a las ayudas a la memoria historica.” El Paıs, 3 Apr. 2012.Macdonald, Sharon.Difficult heritage: negotiating the Nazi past in Nuremberg and beyond. Oxford

& New York: Routledge, 2009.Montes, Eva. “La Iglesiona retirara las placas de la Guerra Civil.” El Comercio, 1 Sept. 2009.Moro, Marcos. “La Iglesiona retira las placas de la guerra.” El Comercio, 23 Oct. 2009.Perlman, Michael. Imaginal Memory and the Place of Hiroshima. New York: SUNY Press, 1988.Rosenfeld, Gavriel. Munich and memory: architecture, monuments, and the legacy of the Third

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Olivia Munoz-Rojas Oscarsson researches on cities, culture and society from an interdisci-plinary perspective, and is particularly interested in the visual and aesthetic dimensions of social andpolitical processes. She is the author of Ashes and Granite: Destruction and Reconstruction in theSpanish Civil War and Its Aftermath (Sussex Academic Press, 2011), and has published, amongothers, in the Journal of War and Culture Studies, the International Journal of Iberian Studies andthe Journal of Urban History as well as in non-academic media such as the Spanish daily El Paıs.She holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, having studied at and researched forinstitutions in Spain (Universidad Complutense, CSIC, UOC, ETSAM), Sweden (Uppsala, Lund), theUnited Kingdom (LSE, BURA, Urban Age) and the United States (New York University, HarvardUniversity). She is currently a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Production of theBuilt Environment (ProBE) at the University of Westminster. She lives in Paris, where she conductsindependent, art-related work in parallel to her academic activity.

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