‘A tale of two cities’: the memory of Ferrol, between the Navy and the working class

Abstract

The city of Ferrol was designed ‘ex-novo’ by military engineers to serve the Spanish monarchy and to house its naval base and dockyards. The principles of stratification on which society was based, and the need to defend the city from enemy attacks and to discipline workers led to a spatial plan that segregated the Navy officers and the working classes. In the nineteenth century, the naval base and the enclave economy of Ferrol became obsolete. Furthermore, the new political culture of the nation state and liberal democracy complicated further the task of controlling the working class. The Spanish Civil War allowed for the updating of Ferrol's spatial plan thanks to the identification of a single enemy both inside and outside: the political repression of the working-class became a major issue in the victory against the II República. The Franco regime meant the return of a segregated and militarized Ferrol, whereas in the 1980s, European integration and the transition to democracy made this model obsolete.

It was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor. Augustinus, De Civitate Dei