Historical Memory on the Spanish Civil War published in Russian translation

On the eve of the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, interest in the events of 1936–1939 has noticeably intensified in Russia, which has been reflected in the publication of several translated works devoted to this subject. These books primarily focus lies on issues of historical memory and attitudes toward the past. The work of Paul Preston «Spain in Flames» enables readers not only to become acquainted with the basic chronology of those events, but also to engage with historiographical debates concerning the causes of the conflict, foreign intervention, and the scale of repression. Fiction literature, in turn, allows Russian readers to engage more deeply with the emotional experiences that the memory of the Civil War evokes in Spanish society. In the novels of Javier Cercas, Paloma Sánchez-Garnica, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and María Zaragoza, the conflict is portrayed through the lives of ordinary people who endured violence, exile, fear, and the destruction of their familiar world. A common feature of these works is their effort to preserve the memory of the defeated, the exiles, and the victims of repression, whose experiences remained marginalized within the official historical narrative for decades. Contemporary literature on the Spanish Civil War performs not only an artistic but also an important social function, serving as a means of reflecting on historical trauma and resisting oblivion.

1. Thomas H. (2003) Grazhdanskaya voina v Ispanii, 1931–1939 gg. [The Spanish Civil War, 1931-1939], Moscow, Tsentrpoligraf, 571 p. (In Russian)

2. Shubin A.V. Velikaya ispanskaya revolyutsiya [The Great Spanish Revolution], Moscow, LIBROKOM. (In Russian)

3. Águila Tejerina R. (1982) La transición a la democracia en España: reforma, ruptura y consenso [The transition to democracy in Spain: reform, rupture and consensus], Revista de estudios políticos, no. 25, pp. 101–128. (In Spanish)

4. Álvaro Dueñas M. (1990) Los militares en la represión política de la posguerra. La jurisdicción especial de responsabilidades políticas hasta la reforma de 1942 [The military in the political repression of the postwar period. The special jurisdiction of political responsibilities until the reform of 1942], Revista de estudios políticos, no. 69, pp. 141–162. (In Spanish)

5. Bolloten B. (1991) The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1148 p.

6. Cierva R. (2006) Historia de la guerra civil española [History of the Spanish Civil War], Madrid, Editorial Fénix, 822 p. (In Spanish)

7. Martínez Rus A. (2021) Libros al fuego y lecturas prohibidas. El bibliocausto franquista

8. (1936-1948) [Books to the Fire and Forbidden Readings. The Francoist Bibliocaust (1936-

9. 1948)], Madrid, CSIC, 144 p. (In Spanish)

10. Moa P. (2004) Los mitos de la guerra civil [The Myths of the Civil War], Madrid, La Esfera de los Libros, 599 p. (In Spanish)

11. Moradiellos E. (2015) El exilio republicano español de 1939: una ponderación historiográfica [The Spanish Republican exile of 1939: a historiographical assessment], Revista de estudios extremeños, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 1991–2005. (In Spanish)

12. Payne S. G. (2012) The Spanish Civil War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 286 p.