Fifty Years since Francoism: Professor Jordi Larios on the importance of remembrance

On 20 November, 1975, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco passed away. His death closed the door on an era of torture and censorship that lasted 36 years. According to Modern Languages professor Jordi Larios, however, reparations have yet to be made.

Larios, born in 1959, grew up under Franco’s regime, with the year of his birth marking twenty years since the end of the Spanish Civil War. Several of his family members were victims of Franco’s oppressive rule.

“My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather, they spent quite a long time in Franco’s prisons,” Larios said. “My paternal grandfather was a militiaman who fought for the Republic, and my maternal grandmother was an anarchist.”

“It was inevitable to realise that you were living under some kind of regime, but we didn't have many terms of comparison,” he added.

Extreme censorship made understanding the history of Spain difficult. “Everything that had to do with the Republic was edited out of the history we were taught as children,” Larios explained. “Publications had to be authorised by the censors. You did have access to books, of course, but only to those which were deemed harmless by the censors.”

Larios’s awareness was further inhibited as family members who had lived through the transition from Republic to Francoism were hesitant to pass on their stories for fear of inciting political action in their children. “Our parents, who were little children in the late 1930s during the Spanish Civil War, and had seen how their families were treated by the so-called Nacionales, they didn't tell us anything about: silence was a form of protection,” Larios said. “If we didn't know anything, we wouldn't do anything, we would not be politically committed, hence we would not be in danger.”

The fear of passing on history to the next generation, Larios said, was natural given the severity of Franco’s rule.“There was a blanket of silence, as if people did not want to remember,” he said. “They thought that talking about the Republic and the war was dangerous, which is typical of dictatorships.”

When asked if there was anything he wanted to share about his thoughts on Franco’s regime, Larios made clear his “absolute contempt for Francoism, for the assassins, those who tortured, those who made the lives of so many people such a terrible experience, those who exacerbated poverty and deprivation and so on and so forth.”

The frustration and hurt caused by the regime are impossible to move on from with Spanish history failing to adequately address the atrocities. “In many places, there are mass graves of Republican prisoners executed after the war. There are many families who do not know where the remains of their loved ones are buried. This is a very sad thing about Spanish history: There has been no reckoning with Francoism,” Larios explained.

As well as prohibiting victims and their families from moving on, Larios said the lack of remembrance has hurt Spain’s current political climate. “Post 1975, the so-called transition to democracy provides a very shaky foundation for the current democracy precisely because there was no reckoning whatsoever with the previous regime,” Larios said. “I think that the residues of Francoism are still there. You find them in Spanish society, in the Constitution, in the judiciary.”

Though Franco’s reign has been over for 50 years now, Larios said the far-reaching nature of his rule is still felt today. “When a war or a dictatorship comes to an end, the slate is not wiped clean,” Larios said. “The effects of a civil war will be felt for generations. I once said to a friend, ‘We are a post-Civil War generation,’ and he replied, ‘No, no, we are still a civil war generation.’”

Franco’s outlawing of difference in opinion is particularly felt in the conflict between Catalan and Galician Spain.“There is something that Spanish nationalism cannot understand, which is the necessary respect for difference,” Larios said. “The unity of the Spanish State is sacrosanct. The independence of Catalonia, Euskadi, or Galicia is unacceptable. It's simply inconceivable. In that sense, Franco's legacy lives on.”

For Larios, ensuring historical education across the globe is an essential part of protecting peace and preventing past issues from repeating themselves. “We are living through a period in which the Humanities are constantly under attack,” Larios said. “It is fundamental for the population to be well educated. Education helps individuals to be critical. It makes them freer. It helps them fight against prejudice and to position themselves against all kinds of toxic ideologies. It's not the panacea, but it is very important.”

Teaching the Spanish Civil War and Francoism at St Andrews has proved satisfying for Larios, as he is able to contribute to the remembrance of the era. “One of the many good things about working at St Andrews is that we teach students who are interested in the subject,” Larios said. “They are driven by their curiosity, which is very stimulating.”

Knowledge of the past, Larios said, ensures a better future for politics. “It is important to remember what happened in the past, so that we can be critical of all the political options,” Larios said. “History does not repeat itself, but there are some similarities between what's going on now in the world and what happened in the 1930s.”

Though each year moves Spain further away from its troubled past, Larios emphasised that the passage of time is no excuse for ignorance: “Forgetting is very dangerous.”

Illustration by Isabelle Holloway