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Culture and the Spanish Civil War - A Fascist View: 1936-1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Kessel Schwartz*
Affiliation:
Department of Foreign Languages, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida

Extract

Almost from the inception of the Spanish Inquisition which sought to stifle scientific investigation and philosophical speculation while rejecting foreign ideologies, contrary currents existed in Spain. The liberal humanistic movement headed by Erasmus preached intellectual freedom and a defense of interior religión. This ideology never disappeared in Spain in spite of the formation of the Company of Jesus by Ignacio de Loyola and the efforts of Spanish theologians who promoted the Counter Reformation at the Council of Trent. Under Felipe II foreign ideas were forbidden as heretical and interpretations independent of the Church were stifled. Nevertheless, criticism of the status quo continued. Reginaldo González Montano wrote the first attack on the Inquisition, Sanctae Inquisitioms Hispanicae in 1567.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1965

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References

1 The Institución was founded in 1876 by Francisco Giner de los Ríos (1839-1915). He helped spread the liberal doctrine of Krausismo, based on the theories of the German philosopher, Karl C. F. Krause (1781-1832), a disciple of Kant. Giner hoped to, build a school, free from partisan politics, which would be based on love, beauty, tolerance, and the scientific method. The Krausists were an important factor in the formation of the first Spanish Republic (1873-1874).

2 The terms Nationalist, Fascist and Falangist are used interchangeably in this paper. The original Falangists belonged almost exclusively to the wealthy upper middle class or to the aristocracy. Their first public meeting, held in October, 1933, was presided over by José Antonio Primo de Rivera. His encamisados saluted in the Fascist manner and accepted the totalitarian philosophy of Germany and Italy. They were not typical Fascists because of their inability to group various classes into a national whole, but they believed they could reach a Fascist state in spite of a lack of broad based support. Although the Falangists joined other rightist elements, they disagreed with the latter on almost all issues, but they remained as a single party, under the firm control of Franco, dedicated to a permanent censorship and to the extermination of the left.

3 By 1951 the A.B.C. had become the largest daily in Spain. Ironically, the intellectual censorship for which the Seville version had so consistently fought between 1936 and 1939 was imposed on the A.B.C. itself in 1951. The owner, the Marqués de Luca de Tena, was forced to accept a new director named by the general press office because the government was dissatisfied with the publisher's attitude.

4 A.B.C, Seville, June 26, 1937. All citations in my text are to the Seville A.B.C.