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The Ballad of Bourg-Madame: Memory, Exile, and the Spanish Republican Refugees of the Retirada of 1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2006

Sharif Gemie
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Abstract

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This paper analyses the experience of the Spanish Republican refugees who left Catalonia in the Retirada of January and February 1939. The first section – “the Road to Bourg-Madame” – considers issues of interpretation raised by the refugees' texts: it discusses historiography, the politics of memory, and political culture. In “Bourg-Madame”, the second section, the essay considers the refugees' experiences. It discusses previous patterns of Spanish migration, the decision-making process that preceded the refugees' journey, group identity formation during the Retirada, the gendered dimension of their experiences, the despair felt by many on arrival in France and the reception that the refugees met. The paper ends by discussing the surprising resilience of the refugees.

Type
ARTICLE
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , April 2006 , pp. 1 - 40
Copyright
2006 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis

Footnotes

The author would like to thank Stefan Berger, Patricia Clark, Chris Ealham, Scott Soo, and Chris Williams for their useful comments on draft versions of this paper